If we had to describe the 2019 trade deadline with the title of a Jimi Hendrix song, it would be "Manic Depression." Of course, the words are reversed because at first deadline day was depressing, and then it was manic.
For the most part, the teams that were active up to the 4 p.m. ET final bell on Wednesday were active late, at least in terms of pulling the trigger. It was like a leaky pipe that had been trickling for days before suddenly bursting. The baseball branches of the social media echo chamber blew up like the old scoreboard at Comiskey Park. But the frenzy didn't extend to every locale -- or even very many of them -- and some notable teams were left to defend the status quo.
My prediction is that the trade deadline will never unfold in quite the same fashion again. There was precious little in terms of deadline-jumping moves in the weeks leading up to the final day. Teams were waiting to see some separation in the standings so that the markets for both the buyers and the sellers could be clarified. But the characteristics of those markets have changed.
For years, I've sorted teams into buying, selling and holding categories based on postseason odds. For the most part, teams behaved within each of those buckets in a fairly predictable manner. Teams out of contention were willing to sell off free agents for whatever they could get and move salary whenever they could. Teams in contention would deal future value for present value, though the quantification of those items varied year to year and team to team. The teams in the middle would blend these approaches, adding perhaps at the margins but not parting with any prospects of likely importance or doing too much to inhibit payroll flexibility.
This year didn't play out like that. The best starting pitcher to move -- Zack Greinke -- moved to the powerhouse Astros in a fairly stunning last-second development. Houston needed a midrotation starter behind Justin Verlander and Gerrit Cole. To address that need with Greinke was like hiring Martin Scorsese to direct a high school production of "Oklahoma!"
What made it such a tasty maneuver is that it's not like Astros GM Jeff Luhnow was trying to pluck Greinke from a competitor. From all available evidence, if he and Mike Hazen hadn't hatched the Greinke trade, the future Hall of Famer would have remained in Arizona. In the end, though, this was essentially a classic deadline deal, like Randy Johnson to the Astros or CC Sabathia to the Brewers.
But the two next-best starters to move -- Trevor Bauer and Marcus Stroman -- went to teams that ended Wednesday a combined nine games under .500. The Cardinals, Yankees, Brewers, Dodgers and Red Sox are all prime contenders, and all of them need pitching in whatever form it takes. All of them exited the deadline with that need very much intact. Meanwhile, fans of the Reds and Mets can suddenly talk themselves into the idea that their club can make a long-shot dash to a playoff game. Even if that quest comes up empty, the rest of the season became a lot more fun in Cincinnati and Queens.
None of this addresses the residual question: What forces fueled this unusual deadline?
Earlier this week, I participated in a deadline-related roundtable with some of my colleagues in which I stated my fear that the theme of the deadline would be "risk aversion." Then, as I watched deadline coverage in the press box at Guaranteed Rate Field and 4 p.m. was approaching fast, I heard former Rockies GM Dan O'Dowd on MLB Network using precisely those words to describe his reaction to the proceedings -- just before the fire hose of transactions was unleashed.
The thing is, despite the final count of some two dozen trades, I think risk aversion very much was the major theme of the deadline. That's why the Yankees still have a thin starting rotation and the Dodgers a leaky bullpen, and why Cardinals fans are trying to figure out how their good-but-not-great Redbirds could end up holding the bag for a fourth straight season.
With baseball's move to a single trade deadline and the elimination of August waiver deals, teams should have taken more care to build up big-league-ready depth over the winter. The Yankees did this, which is why they might survive their stand-pat deadline day. But the Cardinals and, especially, the tax-sensitive Dodgers and Red Sox fell short in that task, perhaps thinking there would be plenty of back-half-of-the-roster talent to fill in gaps during the season. But there hasn't been because too many teams are hovering around contention, and there is a sudden industry-wide shortage of quality relief pitching.
Nevertheless, these teams, despite the important weaknesses they needed to address, stuck to their tried-and-true organizational processes. Trades in these processes have to work from a value standpoint -- years of control, performance-to-salary and assessments of organizational surplus all have to meet some sort of rigid criteria.
Keith Law gives perspective on what Dodgers president of baseball operations Andrew Friedman might have been thinking when he elected not to trade the team's top prospects for relief help.
The problem is that those factors might have evolved faster than most of us have realized. In reaction, and it might not be a sea change, at least a couple of teams -- the Astros and Reds spring to mind -- are trying to figure out how to swim against the current of groupthink that has overtaken too much of the executive pool. The wave of extensions signed before the season sapped the allure out of the coming free-agent class, meaning teams that typically would have been sellers, such as the Reds, Mets, Padres and Giants, were trying to tick items off their shopping lists early. Houston was trading for a Hall of Fame ace because, well, no one else was bothering to do so.
In the end, there seemed to be fewer viable trade acquisitions available than there were contender holes to fill -- unless, that is, a team was willing to stretch the definitions embedded in its valuation model.
The teams that did just that are being lauded today. There were of course the Astros, who not only expanded their payroll by taking on most of Greinke's contract but also were willing to part ways with several fine prospects in doing so. But it was more than Greinke. Houston might end up getting as great an impact in the long run if it can unlock the potential of the enigmatic Aaron Sanchez. And if the Astros do that, it's all gravy.
There were also the Braves and Nationals aggressively bolstering their bullpens, but that was typical deadline fodder. Perhaps no deal better demonstrated the current status of the reliever market than the one that sent Chris Martin from the Rangers to the Braves for a quality lefty starting prospect in Kolby Allard. There were the Rays, who addressed their need for a righty DH-type in Jesus Aguilar and bolstered the depth of their pitching staff. There were the Phillies adding to their rotation and outfield depth despite a season that has been trending in the wrong direction but doing so in a low-key way.
When you step back and look at the deadline, you see a lot of teams that operated in a business-as-usual fashion, from the standpoint of the 2019, metrics-fueled front-office mindset. You saw others who succeeded in the face of this sort of gridlock of methodology. How did they do this? Did they simply throw their own models to the side?
No. By being aggressive and injecting at least some life into the lackluster trade deadline, teams such as the Mets, Reds, Braves, Nationals, Athletics and Astros didn't ignore their models. They evolved them by giving more weight to a factor that hasn't carried enough sway in the transaction markets of the past couple of years: the short term.
What these teams have shown us is that while some of the smartest and best-resourced organizations in baseball are fumbling over themselves in calculating surplus values, there are increasing benefits to putting more focus on the present. These more aggressive teams aren't content with continually punting the contention ball into some indeterminate future in hopes that some magical season comes along in which the stars align. Instead, they see every season as an opportunity, even if that opportunity takes the form of only a wild-card berth.
In an industry still plagued by too much lockstep, the winners from Wednesday might have shown us that the present has become the new market inefficiency. Let's hope that's a lesson that spreads throughout the game by the time we enter the next transaction cycle after the end of the World Series.
Extra innings
A bit more deadline reaction:
1. I was fairly surprised that the general reaction to the Indians' decision to deal away Bauer was so positive. Forget the controllable years aspect of it -- I grant that as a plus for Cleveland. Second-year slugger Franmil Reyes, a couple of months of Yasiel Puig and rookie hurler Logan Allen make up a solid haul from a value standpoint. For me, it's all about Cleveland's inability to maximize its chances to win in 2019, an issue that extends to last winter.
Attendance has been an issue, to be sure. Television ratings are down as well. Even in optimal circumstances, the Indians aren't a high-revenue franchise.
Yet with a foundation worthy of any championship club, the Indians chose to scale back and ostensibly go into soft rebuild mode -- not giving up on the present, exactly, but giving equal weight to sustainability. After a rough start to the season, Cleveland kept evolving its roster on the margins and ended up catching fire. Great! It's a smart team, and perhaps those (like me) who were annoyed with the Indians should have given them a little more benefit of the doubt. But once you've pruned an 11-game deficit to one and the deadline is sneaking up, isn't that the time to go all-in? Why in the name of Francisco Lindor wouldn't you do that?
Now, you can protest this wail and say the Indians did just that in adding needed power to the lineup. You might be right -- as mentioned, the Indians are smartly run, and maybe their evaluation models see an uptick for the rest of this season with the new hitters more than making up for the loss of Bauer. I don't see it. Reyes is mono-skilled. He's strong as a bear and a constant home run threat. At 24, his development might not be complete. I like him as a controlled young veteran with a lot of untapped upside.
But again, I'm talking about right now -- 2019 -- and this very winnable division race in the AL Central. Here the rough edge in Reyes' game won't help as much as his power numbers suggest. He has a career .188 average with runners in scoring position. Thirty-two of his 38 career homers have come with the bases empty. That's the kind of hitter he is right now, and I fail to see how a guy such as that is going to help against the Astros' rotation or the Yankees' bullpen come October.
Puig is a solid all-around player, often a joy to watch. He's capable of getting as hot as any player in baseball for short stretches, and if he gets on one of those runs at the right time, then the trade justifies itself even from a 2019 perspective.
There is just as much of a chance that Puig doesn't upgrade the lineup's production from what Cleveland has been getting lately from the likes of Greg Allen, Tyler Naquin and Jordan Luplow. There is an even better chance that Puig loses his mind in just such a way that Terry Francona will long for the types of distractions that came with Bauer. If the Indians get better -- now -- from here, I will admit I'm wrong. But at the moment, I don't see how this trade furthered the cause of ending baseball's longest championship drought during a season in which, I might add, Cleveland is very much in the mix.
2. It was a little disappointing that the Twins didn't swing harder at the deadline, though the additions of Sam Dyson and Sergio Romo are the kind of moves you might forget about between now and October, then see move to the forefront in key spots of the biggest games of the season. Dyson, especially, gives the Minnesota bullpen a second dynamic arm to go with lefty closer Taylor Rogers. The Twins remind me of the Dodgers in that, right now, they look like a regular-season club without any kind of glaring weakness.
The concern I have is about the postseason rotation, especially since the Twins have a relief staff that I think is workable in a series from a matchup standpoint. But it isn't really the type that can pick up the slack for a starting staff unable to work at least into the middle innings against the powerful lineups of the Astros and Yankees. As it is, we've completed July, and the Twins have still largely gotten through the entire season with five bedrock hurlers who have started 102 of Minnesota's 107 games.
In addition to holding off Cleveland, the key task for the Twins between now and October is finding some sort of comfort level with their Nos. 2 and 3 starters behind ace Jose Berrios. For much of the season, that guy has been Jake Odorizzi, but he struggled in July, going 2-2 with a 7.43 ERA. Getting him right is imperative for the Twins' postseason outlook now that they have failed to add to the mix via the trade market.
After that, the picture might be brightening because of the continued reemergence of Michael Pineda as a dominant starter. Pineda went 2-1 with a 2.59 ERA in July. His ERA at the end of April was 6.21, but in 14 starts since then, he has been at 3.62 with 78 strikeouts in 82 innings against just 16 walks. It's just the kind of trajectory you want to see from a pitcher still working his way back from a major injury.
If Pineda and Odorizzi can solidify themselves as postseason-level options at the 2 and 3 spots of the rotation, backed up by solid No. 4 starter Kyle Gibson, the Twins' deadline might look a whole lot better come the fall.
But getting Noah Syndergaard would have been nice.
3. You can't fault the Tigers for continuing to exact whatever value they can from their current big leaguers, at least the ones who are nearing the end of controllable windows. I always roll my eyes about fans who get mad at their teams for not cashing in chips, even if the motivation was that the team wants to win sooner than later.
Just as an example, I paraphrase one web commenter regarding the White Sox, who didn't deal away closer Alex Colome: "Sorry, but this team isn't going to be anywhere near contention next year or the year after." The crystal balls these commenters possess! If only I could get one. I read stuff like this all the time. That said: The Tigers aren't winning anytime soon. They keep finding new false bottoms in their proverbial barrel.
Detroit traded away Shane Greene and Nicholas Castellanos, who at the time ranked third and sixth on the Tigers in bWAR. Which begs the question: Just how bad can these Tigers get? Detroit closed May with three straight wins, which put them at a bad-but-not-horrible 22-32 for the season. Since then, the Tigers have gone 10-40 and have been outscored by 115 runs. That win-loss record translates to a 32-130 mark over a full season. Now the Tigers have shed one of their top hitters and a closer who, despite all the wretchedness around him, managed to save 22 games with a 1.18 ERA.
Detroit authored one of the worst single seasons in baseball history in 2003 by going 43-119. This year's club needs to win 12 of its final 58 games to avoid matching that. Their winning percentage over the past two months has been .200; a 12-46 mark is .207. This could get really bad.