I've been doing full-on geek stuff for the past week, so it was a nice change of pace when I woke up today to discover John Lester had been traded. The next few hours were chaos and for at least one day, Magic: the Gathering lore and Black Box hate took a back seat to pure trade deadline bliss. Let's get right to it.
-Oakland emerged as the best and ballsiest team in all of baseball. They traded their top two prospects to the Cubs for Jeff Samardzija and Jason Hammel, then when Hammel failed to impress, they traded Yoenis freaking Cespedes to Boston for John Lester and Johnny Gomes. The basic A's narrative has two things wrong. One is that they wanted a Proven Winner for the playoffs. Really it's all about holding off the Angels, winning the division, and dodging the entertaining but ultimately random Wild Card Game. Samardzija and Lester give them a better chance of doing that than Tom Milone, Jesse Chavez, and Fifth Starter Bingo. Now Chavez or Hammel is their number five and the Angels still have many of the same pitching issues they had two months ago. The second thing the narrative has wrong is that this puts the A's in the World Series. 2013 was the first time in several years that the best teams made it to the end. I think Oakland's activity this month subdues any argument for Detroit, Los Angeles, or any other team as the best in the AL. I also think that barely matters in October. The A's will make the playoffs and then something will happen. Meanwhile, Cespedes is a big get for the Red Sox' 2015 chances, and Addison Russell may or may not become a superstar in Chicago. It's been a July to remember for Billy Beane. Like everyone with a soul, I'm rooting for him.
-The Rays traded David Price, but not to any team anybody thought was involved. We heard the Dodgers, for Joc Pederson and Julio Urias. We heard St. Louis, for Oscar Taveras and Carlos Martinez. We heard Seattle, for Taijuan Walker and Nick Franklin. But in the end it was Detroit, a team with practically nothing in the farm system, that landed the big fish. It cost them Austin Jackson and Drew Smyly, the former going to Seattle for Franklin, who was then sent on to Tampa. My immediate reaction was I couldn't believe how little Tampa Bay got. Five hours later, I'm still pretty much there. Maybe Smyly will get a little bit better and be a 2 instead of a 3 or 4. Maybe Franklin will blossom into an impact middle infielder. Maybe 18-year-old shortstop Willy Adames will prove to be the key to the deal five years down the road. More likely, I think the Rays just never had the chance to cash in Price for what we all thought he was worth, and figured this offer was better than anything they would see over the winter. The Tigers will miss Austin Jackson on both sides of the ball, but when you have a chance to go Price-Scherzer-Sanchez in the playoffs, you have to do it. Seattle may have quietly gotten the best of the trade. They've needed a plus center fielder for years, and now they have one through 2015. If Kendrys Morales starts to hit and Jackson does his thing, maybe we can't write the M's off just yet.
-We've got our second Boston Blowup in less than two years. In sum, they swapped Peavy, Lester, Lackey, Stephen Drew, Felix Doubront, and Andrew Miller for Cespedes, Allen Craig, Joe Kelly, Kelly Johnson, Baltimore's third-best pitching prospect, and the #2 and #11 prospects from San Francisco's fairly weak farm system. The plan of trusting Jackie Bradley, Jr. and Will Middlebrooks this year didn't work out, so they doubled down on youth without getting anything really close to an elite prospect (Edwin Escobar from San Francisco and Eduardo Rodriguez from Baltimore both ranked in the bottom half of preseason top 100 lists.) Boston is sure to go big in free agency or trades this winter, but nothing short of signing Lester back along with Max Scherzer is going to make this pitching staff look workable. And given Boston's analytical nature, I don't see them making the kind of offer those pitchers will end up accepting.
-The Yankees are back. Taking on Brandon McCarthy, Chase Headley, Stephen Drew, and Martin Prado over the course of the month, mercifully ending the Vidal Nuno/Kelly Johnson/Brian Roberts experiment, was a quiet but definitive statement. Of course, if Tanaka ends up needing the Tommy John, it's probably all for naught. But Brian Cashman did the best he could with what he had, and now I won't be surprised at all if they overtake Toronto and Baltimore, neither of whom really moved the needle this month. On the other side of two of those trades was Arizona GM Kevin Towers, whose body of work with the Diamondbacks suggests he's a sleeper agent working for another NL West team.
-Cleveland cashed in two impending free agents in Justin Masterson and Asdrubal Cabrera for two potentially useful young players. Not earth-shattering news, but I just wanted to say I'm mildly in favor of something that happened in Cleveland.
-To me, the most fascinating deal was the Marlins-Astros trade. Miami sent three prospects- OF Jake Marisnick, 3B Colin Moran, and P Francis Martes- along with a 2015 draft pick to Houston for SP Jarred Cosart, SS Enrique Hernandez, and minor league OF Austin Wates. Marisnick and Moran entered 2014 as two of Miami's top three prospects. Marisnick has failed in a few auditions with the Marlins so his departure was somewhat expected, but I was flabbergasted to see Moran moved in anything short of a Price/Zobrist deal. That said, Cosart is a 24-year-old major league starting pitcher who will be under team control through 2019, and Hernandez made the majors this year at age 22 and hit quite well for a shortstop. Wates is old for a prospect at 25, but his AAA numbers are at least mildly intriguing. For Miami, it's an acknowledgement that their own young pitching isn't quite ready yet, and that Adeiny Hechavarria is not the answer at short. Houston's end of the deal is more about picking up value and upside than winning Major League Baseball games right now. Moran was the sixth pick in the 2013 draft, Marisnick hasn't yet shown he can hit major league pitching but has been a regular on prospect lists for years, Martes is a lottery ticket, and everybody loves draft picks. This trade excites me- hell, every trade made today excites me- because instead of seeing prospect-for-veteran, we saw veteran-for-veteran and prospect-for-prospect deals. I don't know who won this trade, and I won't know for five or six years, but it significantly altered the future for both of these teams.
Now, a lightning round on teams that did nothing or close to it.
Dodgers: I would tell Dodger fans who wanted Price or Hamels not to get greedy, but the thing is, any amount of greed I can imagine has already been satisfied by the Guggenheim Partners and Ned Coletti. The Dodgers are fine and will probably win the NL West going away, and they're still lucky enough to have three very good to elite prospects. Kudos to Coletti for not screwing that up.
Rockies: Would have loved to see a Tulo or CarGo blockbuster. Today didn't really need it to be a joy to behold, but how great would it be if Tulo was heading to Seattle right now?
Pirates: This one I can't justify. Without a starting pitcher acquisition, I see them falling off the pace in the near future. At least 2015 and beyond still looks pretty good.
Reds: I think the window just closed. I also think they know that.
Phillies: As I said at the start of the season, they're further away from contention than any other team. Nothing that's happened since then has brought them any closer. I'm not sure if it's Ruben Amaro or the owners' fault, but the job isn't getting done.
Rangers: They let a crisis go to waste here. Usually unloading veterans would turn off the fickle Dallas fans, but they're already at Cowboys Stadium so there's nothing to worry about.
White Sox: Just keep doin' your thing, Rick. We'll be fine.
Royals: Doing nothing was the best option here. I'm sure Dayton Moore tried to go nuclear and get Price or someone.
Orioles: They might be good enough to win the division anyway, but man, this would be one uninspiring playoff team.
Blue Jays: Maybe they just aren't as good as they looked for the first two months. Whether it's lack of money or lack of prospects, we're still waiting for that Marlins trade to turn them into a World Series team by itself. I'd like to see them get to an ALDS, but it's hard to envision at this point.
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