I thought with July 31st being the one and only trade deadline in Major League Baseball that we’d see a team or two go out and make some moves early in the month. That hasn’t been the case as just three deals involving major league players changing teams have happened.
Oddly out of the three trades that have been completed the Kansas City Royals have been involved in two of them.
Kansas City’s first deal sent starting pitcher Homer Bailey to the Oakland A’s for minor leaguer Kevin Merrell. Then in a deal of major league players the Royals sent catcher Martin Maldonado to the Chicago Cubs for pitcher Mike Montgomery.
The first trade that was completed this month had the Boston Red Sox picking up starting pitcher Andrew Cashner in exchange for two minor leaguers. Baltimore received 17 year old outfielder Elio Prado and 17 year old infielder Noleberth Romero in the deal.
Humorously there have been a lot of reports that teams are “interested” in certain players, but that’s such a wide open blanket type of statement that no one can really know what is meant. It’s more or less a move by guys who get paid to do this kind of thing for a living to cover themselves when a trade happens. This way a reporter can say something like, well I didn’t have all of the details in this, but there was talk all along that this team was “interested” in this player. I’m sure we’ve all heard something like that said before.
So why haven’t there been more trades made?
I think that there was a good possibility that either the Red Sox or the New York Yankees may have acquired Zack Wheeler from the New York Mets by now had he not have been placed on the Injured List due to shoulder fatigue. It appeared as though he was Boston’s first choice to add to their starting rotation, but they seem to have pivoted when Wheeler was injured and picked up Cashner instead. I’m not sure how much interest the Yankees actually had in Wheeler, but the one thing I’ve learned is that whenever a players name is thrown around in trade talks there is always someone out there reporting that player will go to the Yankees. There’s a chance that the Yankees could add some type of pitching, so why not Wheeler.
Other than that deal there hasn’t been anything that seems like it’s going to happen. Now I’m sure the fact that there are six teams involved in the American League wild card race and legitimately 11 teams still hanging around in the National League wild card race. I’m not sure if the teams that are under .500 will be able to get back to the top of the wild card race in the National League, but if you eliminate them there are still five teams looking for one of those spots. When a team is sitting in this type of position they have to decide if they’re in or they’re out of the playoff hunt and they may wait until closer to the trade deadline to do that.
It was kind of a forgone conclusion that the San Francisco Ginats would be big players in the trade market as they rebuild their team and they still might be, but a four game winning streak coming out of the All-Star Break has them sittting just three games out of the second National League wild card spot.
I’m still under the belief that San Francisco will make some deals and get the rebuild of their franchise under way, but what f they went the other way and became buyers instead of sellers at the trade deadline. That would take a pitcher of talented pitching off of the trade market and that seems to be the one thing that every team contending for a playoff spot needs.
It’s also possible that the trade market has been slowed down by teams unwillingness to deal their top prospects. The key to any top tier player being moved is how many prospects the team he is currently on can get for him. With the prowess some of these rookies have shown it’s possible that a team might want to hang on and continue to develop their own players rather than trading them off for a high priced veteran or a one year rental type of player.
Teams have to somehow weigh their odds of winning a World Series against the career of a guy who’s coming through their minor league system. A team also has to figure out if it’s worth it to deal for a guy who’s in the final year of his contract and might walk away from them after the season. Now in the NBA this worked for the Toronto Raptors as they dealt for Kawhi Leonard and ended up winning the title, but that doesn’t happen to often. There are no guarantees, but a team has to give up a career of a young player for that type of rent a player and that can be a difficult decision.
This is also the first year that there has been one the one trade deadline and there’s a chance that teams are still trying to figure out how to deal with it. Remember after July 31st there used to be waiver trades, but those are gone this season; so once July 31st is past the team you have is well the team you have.
We’re just two weeks away from the trade deadline. How long do you think it will be before we see our first big name player dealt?
I do think once we get that first trade out of the way and it kind of breaks the dam, so we could see multiple trades follow very quickly. Of course the question then becomes; when will we see that trade happen.
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