Arizona Diamondbacks: The early season deals of Mark Trumbo to Seattle for Wellington Castillo and the sale of pitching prospect Touki Toussaint to the Braves was all D-Backs fans got. They were supposedly in on some big targets like Aroldis Chapman and Cole Hamels, but came away empty handed. Despite claims of competitiveness from Dave Stewart and Tony Larussa- and, to be fair, the team's record- D-Backs fans are probably less than thrilled about 2015. But with A.J. Pollock and Paul Goldschmidt as legit stars in the lineup, and with some young pitching on the way, they're not a disaster. The team's medium and long-term future is entirely at the mercy of the aforementioned baseball bosses. I'd be hopeful for 2016 if I was a D-Backs fan, and encouraged that there was no short-term buying this month, but I'd still be very nervous about LaRussa and Stewart's talent evaluation skills.
Colorado Rockies: I asked Jeff Bridich not to make the playoffs or trade Tulo this year, because that would make them not the most boring team in baseball. Sadly, Tulo went to Toronto for Jose Reyes and a pretty good trio of pitching prospects a couple days ago. While the deal itself was interesting and decent for both sides, now we don't have the idea of the Tulo trade to speculate on anymore. Just the reality of Jose Reyes falling further from being worth his contract, and another hyped young arm in Jeff Hoffman getting introduced to the majors via Coors Field, like Butler, Matzek, and countless others before. Hmm. Maybe the Rockies are still the most boring team. I think I prefer the trade that happened to no trade at all, but I'm still wondering if Bridich has his own vision for building a winner at Coors. "Pitching prospects" looks a lot like Dan O'Dowd's vision.
Los Angeles Dodgers: While fans of instant gratification were clamoring for Andrew Friedman to acquire David Price or Cole Hamels, he decided his best prospects were too valuable to trade- so LA became a buyer in the most literal sense, adding talent at the cost of little more than money. The blockbuster 13-player deal with the Marlins and the Braves amounted to Los Angeles taking on the other teams' bad contracts while adding two solid mid-rotation starting pitchers, a late-inning reliever, and a top infield prospect. With a pair of aces now followed by a respectable supporting cast of arms, and with the team's minor league system even better than it was a week ago, there's nothing for Dodgers fans to complain about. This is what the Steinbrenner Yankees would have looked like under modern baseball rules.
San Diego Padres: With minutes to go until the deadline, Padres GM A.J. Preller made his choice. Rather than gut the major league roster he assembled so frenetically last winter, he chose to hang on to his many valuable players while adding lefty reliever Mark "Scrabble" Rzepczynski from the Indians. That Preller didn't act drastically might have been disappointing, but the blunders he made in the winter cannot be fixed by simply trading away the players he acquired. For better or worse, this mediocre team with a decent pitching staff, horrid infield, historically bad outfield defense, and a strip-mined farm system is what the Padres are going to be for now. That Preller still thinks the team has a run in them, capable of closing the 7 1/2 game deficit in the Wild Card race, is kind of ridiculous. I'm glad I'm not a Padres fan, because you never want one season's Opening Day to be the peak of your excitement for several years. But I'm hard pressed to find real reasons for optimism here.
San Francisco Giants: With a two-game lead in the Wild Card race, the Giants merely have to stay ahead of the Cubs and the Mets for two months to give themselves a shot at back-to-back World Series titles. To that end, they traded their top prospect- A-ball pitcher Keury Mella- along with another minor leaguer to the Reds for starting pitcher Mike Leake. It's a footnote to a chaotic trade season, but by some kind of wacky happenstance the teams that go far in the postseason are almost always the teams that make these useful mid-level deals in July. The Giants needed a reliable mid-to-upper rotation starter and they hit the low end of that target. Their supply of prospects appears damn near dried up, but somehow they keep finding Chris Hestons and Matt Duffys who come up and excel. I don't understand Giants Magic, I don't particularly enjoy it, but were I a Giants fan I would surely enjoy the complacency that comes from rooting for a team that wins a lot for no reason. I would be unreasonably confident for 2015, and I would have faith for the future that prospect rankings and offseason projections have nothing on Sabean/Bochy Jedi powers.
No comments:
Post a Comment