Baseball Trade Deadline Winners and Losers.

Mets GM Omar Minaya has done an excellent job positioning his team to reach the World Series. They have a phenomenal lineup, with a subtle blend of speed (J. Reyes), power (C. Delgado) and the two together (C. Beltran). In the offseason the Mets’ GM fortified their relief corps, which had been a source of frequent floods in the past, and he added veteran bats Delgado and Paul lo Duca. As a result of those moves, the emergence of youngsters Reyes and David Wright, and the appearance of the Carlos Beltran New York thought they were acquiring last year, the Mets lead their division by a stout 13.5 games. However their one glaring weakness is starting pitching. It wont hinder them making the playoffs and it probably wont hinder them winning the NL, but when they meet Boston, Detroit, the White Sox, or their cross town rivals in the World Series it will be a major hindrance. This isn’t as though the Mets’ starters aren’t good, but Pedro Martinez, Tom Glavine, Steve Trachsel, and Orlando Hernandez are shading closer to 40 than you’d like. Worse, with the exception of Pedro, they are all soft tossers who try to beat you with location. The Mets were 6-9 in interleague play and that’s in the regular season, where the strike zone is usually a little more generous than the World Series. What the Mets need is a hard throwing young arm. Right now, this year and if he’s signed to a longer contract (i.e. not Barry Zito) then all the better. I don’t know if it was really on the table, but if the Astros were offering the Mets Roy Oswalt for some combination of Lastings Milledge and Brian Bannister and the Mets didn’t instantly jump, then they lost out on a fabulous opportunity to enhance their championship hopes. On the other hand, they did do well in fleecing Pittsburgh for relief pitcher Roberto Hernandez and reclamation leftie Oliver Perez for fourth outfielder Xavier Nady. So, it’s hard to know where to place the Mets. Are they better today than yesterday? Yes, but could they have gotten better for October? Maybe, who knows. Here’s some of what we do know from an eventfully, uneventful trade deadline.

Winners:

New York Yankees
Chalking the Yankees up as deadline winners is kind of like paying taxes; they’re both inevitable and they both make normal people want to pull their hair out (honest, it’s how my Dad lost his hair… the Yankees that is, not taxes). First they took Bobby Abreu and his .427 OBP from the Phillies, then they also got a reasonable fifth starter, Cory Lidle, to replace their fifth starter. Which is good, because they latter fleeced the Pirates in getting Craig Wilson for Shawn Chacon, that former fifth starter. What’s with New York practically stealing from Pennsylvania? Isn’t this what the U.S. has senators for? Shouldn’t the senator from Massachusetts be filling some sort of grievance to the senator of Pennsylvania for letting New York pillage Pennsylvania resources?

Los Angelos Dodgers
They are in last place in their division, but the Dodgers are only five out and they’re better today than they were yesterday. Julio Lugo significantly improves them at second (and possibly at short should they decide to move Rafael Furcal) and while giving up Joel Guzman stings, the Dodgers have baseball’s deepest system and thus cannot be worried about hoarding every prospect. Further, having Lugo made Cesar Izturis completely expendable, which meant that the Dodgers could take a flyer on 482 year old Greg Maddux. I’m not sure that Maddux has much left, but if you’re going to take a flyer on a player, taking one on a guy with 330 plus wins isn’t a bad idea.

Minnesota Twins
It was a minor move, but when the Twins moved Kyle Lohse to the Reds, they saved a little money and picked up a talented young pitching prospect for the future (Zach Ward) without affecting their roster for this year.

Cincinnati Reds
Cincinnati continued to supplement their pitching, acquiring reliever Rheal Cormier from the Phillies and Lohse from the Twins. The Reds gave up Ward and 23 year old Justin Germano. Neither will turn out to be Francisco Liriano, nor would they have helped the Reds this year, so this was a great move for the NL Wild Card leader. Despite being 39, Cormier remains an extremely effective reliever (2-2, 12 holds, 1.59 ERA) and Lohse, despite a terrible year thus far, could have a resurgence pitching in the National League (see: Arroyo, Bronson).

Kansas City
Chalking up KC in the winners column is kind of like chalking up, ahhh… uhmmm, hhmmm… actually, this might be the first time since 1985, so lets get excited for the Royals big victory… Ok, ok, so it wasn’t a big victory, but in trading away Matt Stairs, Jeremy Affledt, and Danny Bautista for three prospects new Royals GM made the first of many, many, many, many (well, you get the point) steps in rebuilding the Royals (just writing “rebuilding” and “Royals” in the same sentence feels like an oxymoron).

Losers:

Baltimore Orioles
When the Orioles continue to flounder next year and the season after and the blame starts being tossed around like potato salad at a Bishop family reunion, then look on whom it lands. Invariably, it will land first on manager Sam Perlozzo, then finally it will find itself square on the face of GM Jim Fergusson. Of course it should really fall squarely onto the face of owner Peter Angelos, whose dubious judgment nixed a proposed trade of Miguel Tejada to the Anaheim Angels for Ervin Santana and Erick Aybar. Santana would instantly have been Baltimore’s best pitcher since Mike Mussina left and Aybar is a slick fielding shortstop prospect who would have solidified their infield defense for next year. If I were Angelos, I might have pushed hard for super prospect Brandon Wood to be included over Aybar, since acquiring Tejada would mean that Wood’s path to the majors in Anaheim would have been blocked at both short and third, but even with Aybar this was a great trade for the Orioles. Santana is exactly the type of pitcher that Baltimore needs to be adding to their roster; combined with Canadian Erik Bedard, he would have given the Orioles the best rightie-lefty starting combo in the AL East. Angelos, who has always been too star struck for his own team’s good (see: 2005 – Sosa, Sammy) once again showed why his team has finished 4th in seven of the last eight seasons.

Pittsburgh Pirates
Xavier Nady and Shawn Chacon? A year ago I wrote that I liked the direction in which the Pirates were headed, but this move shows that I was wrong; they’re directionless. I feel sorry for local boy Jason Bay who will flounder away his best years in baseball’s Siberia.

Chicago Cubs
It’s almost as though GM Jim Hendry was worried that Dusty Baker wasn’t playing enough incompetent offensive infielders. Neifi Perez and your .678 career OPS, meet Cesar Izturis and his .634 OPS. Lets hope that Dusty can find a place for both of you and Ronny Cedeno (.640 OPS in his first whole season) in the same infield. That’d be swell.

St. Louis Cardinals
It’s been twenty odd years, so I get that Tony LaRussa doesn’t think much of young players, but really, why do they insist on trading Hector Luna (26, .772 OPS) for an older version of virtually the same player, Ronny Belliard (31, .757 OPS). Especially when you factor in that Belliard earns 4 million to Luna’s 345 thousand. Yes St. Louis also acquired Braves retread Jorge Sosa, but they did nothing to upgrade a pathetic outfield, nor an offence unhealthily dependant on studs Albert Pujols and Scott Rolen.

Toronto Blue Jays
Some might put the Red Sox here, because they failed to keep pace with the Yankees, but I have faith in the Sox’s front office assertion that nothing out there was worth surrendering their young pitchers (whose current pre-arbitration value makes them worth more than a Summer hat to a bald man), but the Sox still lead their division and they still have David Otriz (who seemingly spent most of the 2004 offseason smoking on Derek Jeter’s magic “clutch” pipe). The Jays? Well, the Jays don’t have a second starter, nor fresh arms for the bullpen. On the other hand, they do have a 6.5 game deficit in the East, a tired closer, an offence which is sputtering with runners in scoring position, and a first look at the Yankees lineup with the Abreu addition. I doubt Julio Lugo was the answer, but somebody (heck, given their troubles at short this year I might have even smiled about Iztruis), anybody would have been nice.