For all of the superlatives lavished on the 2021 MLB trade deadline -- amazing, nonstop, best ever! -- the reality is that it happened almost by accident. Had the Chicago Cubs not spoiled their season by losing 11 games in a row, they are not shipping off the entire core of their 2016 championship. Were the Washington Nationals not a disappointment for a second consecutive season, they would not have spent Thursday acting like they were conducting a going-out-of-business sale.
And yet there both were, wheeling and dealing, driving the market to places it hasn't been in years, fomenting a wild final 48 hours that saw 31 deals with major league players consummated. No sport knows how to do a trade deadline like baseball, and with some time to decompress and take in the breadth of what happened, it's much easier to see themes emerge from deadline madness.
1. Much of the action stemmed from there being no obvious favorite.
Look at the list of teams that added during deadline week: Atlanta, Boston, Chicago White Sox, Cincinnati, Houston, Los Angeles Dodgers, Milwaukee, both New York teams, Oakland, Philadelphia, San Diego, Seattle, St. Louis, Tampa Bay and Toronto. That's 16 teams -- more than half of baseball -- and while some of the additions were halfhearted, most of those teams willingly included prospects in deals.
And not just high-upside fliers, either. Teams' inclination to give up what seemed above market price started with Tampa Bay's acquisition of Nelson Cruz and continued through the Dodgers' deal for Max Scherzer and Trea Turner, Toronto's for Jose Berrios, the White Sox's for Craig Kimbrel and the Mets' for Javier Baez.
Prospects -- real prospects -- exchanged hands, and they did so because the market dictated as much. The market dictated as much because teams look at the landscape of the game right now, of the weaknesses of even the best team, and see opportunity. Winning a championship won't be easy -- it's never easy -- but those walking that path may have a less-arduous road to it.
Perhaps this sentiment stems from the best record belonging to the not-as-good-on-paper-as-they-are-in-real-life San Francisco Giants. Or maybe it's a recognition that the wild cards of this season -- the coming injuries to overtaxed pitchers, the prospect that potential COVID-19 shutdowns around the country somehow force baseball to consider another postseason bubble -- throw into flux any semblance of normalcy and place a premium on having the most talented team, which the Dodgers did last year going into the playoffs.
Whatever the cause, it was welcome. For years, the players have stewed at what they believe is an anticompetitive undercurrent driving decisions that make the game worse. This deadline was competition personified, and the excitement it caused illustrated that encouraging teams to go head-to-head for players is actually a good thing for the game.
2. The Dodgers are the favorite.
This is certain to annoy fans in the Bay Area, who have seen the Giants spend the first four months of the season as the best team in baseball and have every right to be chapped at anyone who sees a team they've played dead even -- 8-8 with 68 runs scored and 68 allowed -- as superior. Not just because of the record itself but the fact that the Giants' run differential says it's in no way a fluke. The Giants have outscored their opponents like a 65-40 team. They're actually a 66-39 team.
That said, the debate over Giants vs. Dodgers is a debate of production vs. projection. The Giants' archetype is an overachiever, someone whose numbers match a player with a more famous name. They've got eight players with double-digit home runs: Brandon Crawford, Mike Yastrzemski, Buster Posey, Wilmer Flores, LaMonte Wade Jr., Brandon Belt, Darin Ruf and Alex Dickerson. Four among them have an OPS over .900. Their starters have the lowest walk rate and second-lowest home run rate in the National League. Their bullpen walks the fewest hitters in all of baseball and has allowed a .253 batting average on balls in play, the game's lowest. The Giants are good. They could win a championship.
It's just that the Dodgers are better -- and not simply because of the names, which was the impetus behind their early- (and, to be honest, mid-) season coronation. They are better because they have more talent. Better does not mean they will win. Talent guarantees nothing. But if Giants fans were being honest with themselves, they would rather have a playoff rotation with Scherzer, Walker Buehler, Clayton Kershaw and Julio Urias than Kevin Gausman, Anthony DeSclafani and some combination of Logan Webb, Johnny Cueto or Alex Wood. They would rather have a lineup with Trea Turner, Mookie Betts, Max Muncy, Corey Seager, Chris Taylor, Will Smith, Justin Turner, Cody Bellinger and AJ Pollock -- that's nine guys in a league that bats only eight -- over their band of misfits.
It's not insulting to the Giants to suggest the Dodgers may be better than them -- not when you acknowledge that the Giants have been better than the Dodgers to this point. Adding Kris Bryant certainly helps the Giants' cause, and Kershaw's forearm and Betts' hip and Tony Gonsolin's shoulder and Bellinger's slump and the Dodgers' solid-but-unspectacular bullpen offer potential weaknesses. But guy for guy, 26-man roster for 26-man roster, talent for talent, the Dodgers are better -- not just than the Giants but everyone.
3. The offenses in the American League are absurd.
Of the six highest-run-scoring offenses in baseball, five reside in the AL, with the Dodgers the lone exception. All five -- Houston (580 runs), Boston (528), Tampa Bay (528), Toronto (528) and Chicago (523) -- are in playoff contention, and three of them lead their divisions. While the New York Yankees are on the outside looking in right now, the transformation of their lineup during deadline week turned a feckless offense (second-fewest runs in the AL) into a far more interesting one. And don't forget about the Oakland A's, either, not after they added Starling Marte.
The AL postseason is going to be a fascinating dynamic: lineups that wield bats with all the ferocity of Bamm-Bamm Rubble against parades of high-velocity relief pitchers with heavy breaking balls. The winner of the AL is almost certain not to finesse its way there. The pennant will be claimed by might.
So mirror, mirror on the wall, who's got the best lineup of them all?
Well, the numbers say the Astros, not just by runs scored but weighted runs created as well. The Blue Jays carry the OPS title and are tied with Houston in weighted on base average. The Red Sox are a top-heavy team that, should Kyle Schwarber transition seamlessly to first base, doesn't have any holes. The Rays are the Giants of the AL, a team of players whose production and reputation are incongruous, which may be more of an indictment on the value of reputation than anything. And the White Sox have spent most of the season missing Eloy Jimenez and Luis Robert, so to have the former back and expect the latter to soon return while still having put up the numbers they have -- well, that bodes well.
One other way to look at it, while acknowledging the size of the sample doesn't make this at all predictive: Since June 21, the day MLB started enforcing its foreign-substance rule, the seven AL contenders -- let's see Seattle keep this up into September and it'll surely warrant inclusion then -- rank in this order according to wOBA: Toronto, Chicago, Tampa Bay, New York, Boston, Houston, Oakland.
4. There may be a race for the NL wild card after all.
This is a seminal time for the San Diego Padres. At this point next week, the Padres should know whether Fernando Tatis Jr., their all-world shortstop, can return from the third dislocation of his left shoulder this season. If he does not heal quickly, he's expected to undergo surgery to stabilize the joint and would miss the remainder of the season.
The Padres without Tatis are a drastically different team -- still good, potentially excellent, but wounded. They've got enough depth to weather his absence while still running out better-than-average major league players, but the loss of a superstar is rough for any team to overcome. Which is what has the Cincinnati Reds at least squinting at the possibility of turning what forever has looked like a fait accompli into a race.
Now, the Reds are certainly a flawed team, with a bullpen that for the majority of the season was made up of a few righties, a few lefties, a can of gas and a Zippo. But at the deadline they upgraded there, their rotation is excellent and their offense has been among the best in baseball this season.
Are the Padres in imminent danger? No. Particularly if Tatis heals miraculously like he did the last time his shoulder popped out. But are they primed to run away with the second wild-card spot? Considering the sad state of the NL East and the remainder of the NL Central, the answer may be Cincinnati is the only threat to all three NL West powerhouses nabbing playoff spots.
5. The Kumar Rocker mess, explained.
Notice what I did up top, talking about "deadline madness." Well, that applied to Sunday's signing deadline for players in the amateur draft as well. And the entirety of the debacle surrounding Rocker, the 21-year-old out of Vanderbilt who wasn't offered a contract by the New York Mets after they drafted him with the 10th overall pick, makes me mad.
Here's a general overview of what happened.
Rocker is the most famous college player since Stephen Strasburg. The No. 1 overall pick in 2021 was supposed to be the Kumar Rocker slot. Only scouts this spring noticed the quality of his stuff vacillating between starts. His fastball velocity would drop, then rise. Some teams believed he had an arm injury. Multiple teams took him off their draft boards because of such concerns -- and because Rocker did not seem inclined to allay them.
He was under no obligation to do so by participating in MLB's pre-draft MRI program. Jack Leiter, his teammate and the No. 2 overall pick, didn't. Top prospects, like Rocker, often don't. That left teams guessing about the state of affairs with his arm. And the Mets, sitting at No. 10, were elated to see Rocker available and agreed to pick him and sign him for a $6 million bonus -- more than $1.25 million higher than the amount allotted to the Mets in their fixed pool for the 10th pick.
All was well until Rocker took a physical prior to signing the deal. The Mets, team sources said, were spooked by Rocker's MRI. Rocker's camp, led by agent Scott Boras, insisted nothing was wrong with his arm.
They were at a standstill -- the Mets not wanting Rocker because they fear he's hurt, Rocker insistent that his performance is far more indicative of his health than whatever they may see in imaging. The days ticked by. The Mets never even offered Rocker a signing bonus. They wanted their draft pick.
So the draft pick: If a team offers a player at least 40% of his bonus slot and he doesn't sign, it receives a compensation pick the next year. There's one exception: Players who don't take the pre-draft MRI need not be offered any kind of a deal for the team that drafted them to still reap their compensatory pick.
The inevitable went down Sunday afternoon. The Mets didn't sign Rocker. Boras released a statement deeming him healthy and saying he would go pro -- to train this winter and showcase himself in independent ball next year before entering the 2022 draft. The Mets released a statement lamenting the outcome and wishing Rocker well.
All of it stunk and led to manifold second-guessing. Of the Mets' decision not to take a player in Rounds 11-20 to whom they could have given pool money that was supposed to be used on Rocker but went unspent. Of the strategy to push Rocker down the draft board in hopes of getting him to the Mets only for them to not even negotiate. Of baseball's draft system, which sees something like this crop up every few years -- whether it's Houston with Brady Aiken or Atlanta with Carter Stewart -- and chalks it up to the cost of doing business.
And maybe it is. Maybe this sort of thing is simply bound to happen now and again. Which is hard to swallow. Because in the case of Kumar Rocker and the New York Mets, everybody lost.