The Major League Baseball trade deadline has come and gone and the best way to describe it would be uneventful. There was no big blockbuster type of deal as the two biggest names moved were Justn Verlander who went back to the Houston Astros and Max Scherzer who was traded days before the deadline.
Even though the Los Angeles Angels came out and announced that they wouldn’t be trading Shohei Ohtani there was still quite a bit of talk about him being dealt. I think that was just a pray by the mainstream media, so they’d have something big to talk about.
The Angels instead decided to add players at the trade deadline to make a run at the playoffs. The other American League West teams also added to try and hold onto their playoff spots. The Texas Rangers added multiple arms to their pitching staff including Scherzer while the Astros bought back Verlander to try and shore up their starting rotation.
Oddly the biggest news at the trade deadline may have been the deal that didn’t happen. The Los Angeles Dodgers were looking to add starting pitching and thought they had a deal in place with the Detroit Tigers to acquire Eduardo Rodriguez, but Rodriguez used the no-trade clause in his contract to block the deal and remain with the Tigers.
Rodriguez’s contract has 10 teams listed that he can block a trade to, and the Dodgers were obviously one of them. Rodriguez said that he blocked the trade because of a “a desire to remain closer to family on the east coast.”
As always there will be a lot of talk about which teams won and which teams lost at the trade deadline, but in reality, we won’t know until the season plays out. There wasn’t really a team out there that can walk away and say they acquired everything they wanted at the deadline. It’s just a matter now about who performs for their new team and who doesn’t.
With Scherzer and Verlander being traded it will be interesting to see how the New York Mets fill out their starting rotation for the remainder of the season.
As of now the Mets have Kodai Senga, Jose Quintana and Carlos Carrasco in the starting rotation, but they’ll need at least two more or maybe three, but the Mets don’t have any high-profile pitching prospects that they might be able to call up.
The Mets do have Joey Lucchesi and Tyler Megill in Triple-A. so you’d think that they would be the two players who’d get called up to take those spots. Lucchesi has been solid at Triple-A, but Megill has struggled in his 6 starts as his ERA is 8.67.
The Mets two best starting pitching prospects in Triple-A are Joey Butto and Mike Vasil, but they both have ERAs over 6 for Syracuse, so it’s doubtful that either of them would be brought up to fill out the starting rotation.
Senga is scheduled to start for the Mets tonight against the Kansas City Royals, but the Mets haven’t listed a starter for tomorrow’s game. It’s possible that the Mets will make multiple roster moves before tonight or tomorrow night’s game.
So let me know what you thought about the MLB trade deadline. Did your favorite team make the moves you hoped they’d make? Did they acquire the players they needed to contend for a playoff spot? Or did they sell off players for prospects to try and rebuild towards next season?
Don’t forget to look for me on Twitter, I’m @Burketime.
I thought it was quite interesting that Rodriguez used his no trade option and decided to remain in Detroit instead of moving to Los Angeles.
I guess the lure of big city Detroit was too much for him!
But what really could have prompted him to make that decision?
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