From a fan's perspective, the end of every July is a time of fun augured by a frenzy of speculation, forecasting, wishcasting, and plain old tub-thumping. This year, that entertaining part of the season ended up not living up to the billing. That's not to say nothing happened, but most of this year's flurry of trades and deals to revamp rosters, trim turkeys or cut salary will have a less-than-dramatic impact on pennant races around the leagues than they reflect several important trends in the game.
Perhaps first and foremost is the effect the wild card has in killing those summer blockbusters that used to leave you buzzing for days. While beating the dead horse of Bud Selig's ill-considered 'faith and hope(lessness)' mantra has probably ground the bones to dust by now, how many teams are in the running for a playoff slot with less than two months to go?
In the American League, we've got six out of 14 teams realistically in the running for four slots. But it isn't like the Angels' wild-card chances or the White Sox's shot at the division or the wild card are mathematically unlikely, so maybe we have eight out of 14 contending.
In the National League, you've got at least seven and possibly 10 teams with shots at their respective division titles as well as the wild card. Rather than create a seller's market in the flesh trade, we've got a large number of teams ready to deal with a smaller number of teams with an even smaller number still with players worth asking for. From among the dozen or so non-contenders, once you weed out teams trying to foist high-salaried lemons, teams with unrealistic expectations about the value of their players, teams out of it but trying to keep superstars happy, and teams that don't really have anything to peddle, you wind up with some pretty slim pickings.
The few deals that involved the big names ended up being relatively muted. Fred McGriff for extra money to make McGriff happy (and Manny Aybar!) isn't exactly Rick Sutcliffe and stuff for Joe Carter and stuff. The Jermaine Dye deal might be fodder for believers in the Curse of ex-Kansas City A's owner Arnold Johnson, but it didn't even give the Royals the fig leaf of a young player for their fans to believe in. At this rate, we're left with hoping that the Astros' player to be named going to the Rockies in the Pedro Astacio deal is somebody so tantalizingly good that it grows into this year's version of the Randy Johnson trade of '98. The closest we got to a "take from tomorrow what you can get for today" move was the Cubs' pickup of David Weathers for Ruben Quevedo, and even then the Brewers had to give up an extra young pitcher to make it work.
|  | | The Indians may well have made a costly mistake in trading for John Rocker. |
With so many teams in the mix for a playoff slot, in the absence of blockbusters that might alter the balance of power, plenty of teams settled for symbolic or pro forma gestures towards contention. The signature move was the token pickup of a veteran reliever or two to prove that a team is doggedly committed to winning and winning now. For me, more interesting than these moves are the differing rates of exchange involved.
Fans or analysts might wig out over why some GMs get deals not available to other GMs, but at the end of the day, you have to accept that human relationships are sticky. Not every GM is buzzing every other GM, or even likes to deal with the some of the other guys. The logistics of keeping in touch with everybody, even with today's larger front office staffs armed with all of the bells and whistles of modern communication and information technologies have a hard time keeping tabs on everybody.
That said, this year's trade deadline reminds us that there is perhaps nothing more volatile than the value of relief pitching. While we didn't see any Larry Andersen/Jeff Bagwell turkeys, this latest round of deals and dealing demonstrated that not every GM can go shopping with every other team, and not everybody can get roughly equivalent relievers for roughly the same price. The Dodgers were probably the most interesting team on this score. Getting Mike Trombley looked thoughtful and relatively cheap in terms of the prospects given up, but Terry Mulholland of all people cost a young pitcher worth having (Adrian Burnside), and not even getting Dave Littlefield's Pirates to take Mike Fetters off of their hands makes it look any better. The Expos had to pay the Red Sox a million dollars to take Ugueth Urbina for Tomo Ohka and minor leaguer Rich Rundles. The chummy relationship between the Expos and Red Sox draws less fire than that between the Royals and the Athletics, but moves like this have to make you wonder why.
It's also worth noting how some deals made earlier than the deadline ended up limiting some teams' subsequent range of action at the deadline, even within the limited menu of worthwhile relievers on the menu. The Yankees' acquisitions of Mark Wohlers and Jay Witasick committed them very early in the trading season to a pair of risks in their bullpen, let alone limiting their menu of non-Nick Johnsons to dangle in deals interesting enough to bring in a good reliever. To my mind, the Indians' decision to trade Steve Karsay and Steve Reed for John Rocker was the most influential trade for this year made this summer, as the Indians ended up costing themselves doubly or triply. Not only are they stuck with Rocker, and not only did they lose a better pitcher in the free agent-to-be Karsay (not to mention another handy reliever in Reed), the Tribe also lost its chance to convert Karsay into something that would actually help their pitching staff in a significant (read: good) way.
In general, all of this relief-swapping served as another reminder that a smart organization can invest a little bit of time in somebody else's failed pitching prospect and convert him into something they can use. Whether it was the relative time the Padres spent on Witasick or the Brewers' multi-year salvage operation with Weathers or Pirates' recovery of Mike Williams, these organizations managed to convert journeymen into prospects through a patient investment of playing time.
Another big feature of this year's deadline was how some teams got caught standing while playing musical chairs with their rosters, particularly the Twins and Royals. Both made deals that depended an awful lot on the subsequent goodwill of other GMs. The Twins' Terry Ryan got burned, as can happen when you start a series of interlocking deals designed to improve your rotation with Rick Reed, your bullpen with Todd Jones, and offense -- except that Ryan did not acquire the outfielder from the Blue Jays or Reds that he needed. A quick comparison of the Twins' schedule compared to the Indians' should make us a little more confident that the Twins can pull off the AL Central title. However, all that Ryan achieved was bringing in a fourth starter (potentially good for as many as one start per playoff series) and a backup closer of recently bad vintage, and all it cost him was another fourth starter (Mark Redman) and his starting right fielder and leadoff man.
After not landing anybody who will have a long-term impact on the Royals in the Dye deal, Royals GM Allard Baird wound up in the uncomfortable position of having both Neifi Perez and Rey Sanchez. Although this hardly placed him in a good negotiating position with Braves GM John Schuerholz, to Baird's credit, he got a young second baseman with decent on-base skills, as well as the obligatory relief pitcher. Compared to the hammer Blue Jays GM Gord Ash appears to have dropped on Ryan, Baird managed to avoid losing his shirt in a situation where he had to deal.
Beyond the no-brainer wins like McGriff and Dye and possibly Astacio, and beyond the random reliever reshufflings, there were really only a couple of moves which will make a major impact in 2002. Steve Phillips' acquisitions of Matt Lawton and Bruce Chen are outstanding moves for next year, because neither the Braves nor Phillies look like powerhouses, and we are still talking about a Mets team that will have Mike Piazza, Edgardo Alfonzo, and an awful lot of cash freed up. Also lost among so many other deals was the Indians' pickup of Milton Bradley from the Expos for Zach Day. If you've forgotten, Day was part of the package Cleveland received for David Justice last year, and getting Bradley to potentially replace a suddenly very old-looking Kenny Lofton in 2002 was an outstanding bit of adaptive re-use by GM John Hart and assistant GM Mark Shapiro.
I could go on about the many interesting non-moves -- the Reds' failure to peddle Pokey Reese and Dmitri Young, for example -- but I suspect that when I finished filling up virtual space and your actual time, we'd just be ready to start gabbing about the deals being made at the end of August to cement playoff rosters.
The team of writers from the Baseball Prospectus (tm) will be writing twice a week for ESPN.com during the baseball season. You can check out more of their work at their web site at baseballprospectus.com. Chris Kahrl can be reached at ckahrl@baseballprospectus.com
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