A Quick Look at Midsummer Intradivisional Trades: NL Edition

Monday’s trade of Jason Vargas to the Phillies wasn’t exactly a blockbuster, but it was noteworthy as the rare intradivisional pre-deadline swap. Some might view in-season deals with direct rivals to be taboo, but they do occur, and as today’s one-size-fits-all deadline approaches, I thought it might be fun to take a quick look at the recent history of such trades.

To keep this from becoming unruly, I’m confining my focus to the 2012-19 period, the era of two Wild Cards in each league — a cutoff chosen because it expands not only the number of teams who make the playoffs, but also the group who can at least envision themselves as contenders. For this, I’m using the Baseball-Reference Trade Partners tool and counting only trades that occurred in June, July, or August, which we might more accurately call midsummer deals rather than deadline ones — though some of them were definitely of that variety. I’m omitting straight purchases, which generally involve waiver bait, though I have counted deals in which cash changed hands instead of a player to be named later.

The NL West is the most reserved of the Senior Circuit’s divisions when it comes to midsummer deals, conducting just three in the past eight seasons. The shortage may have its roots in the Dodgers’ dominance of the West, as they’ve finished first every year but 2012. They haven’t pulled off a single midsummer trade within the division in that span, but really, who wants to help the team that’s bullying and outspending them? Apart from an August 2007 waiver deal that brought them Mark Sweeney, the Dodgers haven’t made a single trade with the Giants since 1985, so don’t get your hopes up for that Will Smith–Will Smith battery.

Despite the minimal number of deals within this division, the first of them has a strong case as the most impactful of the entire class. On July 27, 2012, the going-nowhere Rockies dealt infielder Marco Scutaro to the Giants in exchange for infielder Charlie Culberson. Scutaro filled in at third base for the injured Pablo Sandoval, then took over the starting second base job from Ryan Theriot. After hitting a sizzling .362/.385/.473 (139 wRC+) with 2.1 WAR in 61 games, he batted .328/.377/.391 in the postseason while helping the Giants win their second of three World Series in a five-season span; mosts notably, he went 14-for-28 against the Cardinals while earning NLCS MVP honors.

Of the other two deals, the first was on July 27, 2013, when the Diamondbacks, who were five games over .500 (54-49) traded struggling starter Ian Kennedy to the going-nowhere Padres for relievers Matt Stites and Joe Thatcher. The second happened on June 10 of this year, when the Padres dipped into surplus of outfielders to trade Alex Dickerson to the Giants in exchange for the wonderfully named pitching prospect Franklin Van Gurp. Dickerson has not only been a key contributor to the Giants’ NL-best 28-14 record since the surge, he’s been the league’s hottest hitter, batting .391/.454/.782 (215 wRC+) with six homers and 1.5 WAR in 97 PA; his slugging percentage and wRC+ are tops in the majors since then.

Likely owing to the fact that this division has produced seven of the 14 Wild Card participants over this span, midsummer deals within the NL Central have been pretty scarce, if not as scarce as in the NL West, with a total of just five. In fact, the Brewers have had a hand in each one of them. On August 30, 2013, they sent reliever John Axford to the Cardinals in exchange for Michael Blazek, and then on July 31, 2015, they sent reliever Jonathan Broxton to St. Louis in exchange for Malik Collymore. Broxton had actually come to the Brewers from the Reds, on August 31, 2014 in exchange for two players to be named later (Barrett Astin and Kevin Shackelford).

The other two deals involved the Brewers and Pirates. One of them was Monday’s Jordan Lyles/Cody Ponce barnburner. The other came on July 23, 2015, when they dealt third baseman Aramis Ramirez to Pittsburgh in exchange for Yhonathan Barrios. The trade brought Ramirez full circle, as he finished his career with the team that signed him out of the Dominican Republic 21 years earlier — and on a Wild Card team to boot.

As for the other teams, we’ve seen the occasional purchase. Most notably, the Cubs purchased lefty Clayton Richard from the Pirates on July 3, 2015; he wound up serving as a useful reliever down the stretch. Less impressively, the Reds purchased Collin Balester from the Pirates in June 2015, only to have him deliver a 7.47 ERA in 15.2 innings. Yeesh.

While I didn’t include them in the grid, it’s worth noting that the Astros’ final season in the NL Central was in 2012. On July 24 of that year, they traded lefty Wandy Rodriguez to the Pirates for outfielder Robbie Grossman and pitchers Colton Cain and Rudy Owens.

As it turns out, the NL East has been the division most open to midsummer deals, and it’s not just because of the Marlins’ tendency to dump players. In fact, the Mets have actually been the NL team most willing to make midsummer deals within their division, a situation that reflects both their 2015 and ’16 postseason berths as well as their ever-present desire to shed salary when possible. As noted in my writeup of the Vargas trade, they hooked up with the Phillies twice last summer, sending them Asdrúbal Cabrera on July 27 in exchange for pitching prospect Franklyn Kilomé and then selling them José Bautista on August 28. For as heated as their rivalry with the Braves has historically been, they’ve pulled off a pair of midsummer deals in this period; both involved acquiring Kelly Johnson, a feat worthy of some kind of award. On July 24, 2015, Johnson and Juan Uribe were exchanged for John Gant and Rob Whalen; though Johnson hit for just a 97 wRC+, he did get to play in the only World Series of his career. Less than a year later, after Johnson had re-signed with the Braves as a free agent, he was dealt back to the Mets on June 8 in exchange for Akeel Morris. Meanwhile, the Mets haven’t hooked up on a midsummer deal with the Nationals since 2009 (an August blockbuster involving Anderson Hernandez and somebody even more obscure), though the two teams have made a pair of spring swaps, and last July 28 they acquired A.J. Ramos from the Marlins in exchange for two prospects.

Veterans of the Baseball Think Factory days can chuckle at the fact that the Phillies haven’t made a deal with the Braves since the infamous Kevin Millwood–Johnny Estrada trade that nearly burned down the entire Internet in December 2002. Deadline-wise, in addition to their pair of deals with the Mets, the Phils acquired Justin Bour from the Marlins last August 10 in exchange for pitching prospect McKenzie Mills. As it turns out, Mills himself was acquired from the Nationals in exchange for Howie Kendrick on July 28, 2017 — which was two years to the day after the Phillies jettisoned Jonathan Papelbon and a Bryce Harper chokehold to be named later to Washington in exchange for Nick Pivetta. Perhaps that explains why the Nationals have so scarcely dealt with teams within the division in such a context.

The Braves and Marlins have hooked up three times in this context, two of which were three-team deals. On July 30, 2015, the two teams joined the Dodgers in a 14-player blockbuster, though their direct involvement was limited to Miami sending a competitive balance A pick to Atlanta. On August 24, 2016, the two teams joined the Rangers for a three-player deal that also involved international slot money; in that one, Jeff Francouer went from Atlanta to Miami, while prospect Matt Foley went to the Braves. In their only direct midsummer swap in this span, the Braves sent Hunter Cervenka to the Marlins for Michael Mader and Anfernee Seymour. We’re all still pondering that one.

So what have we learned, Charlie Brown? At least when it comes to the NL, most of these deals are low impact ones from the start, involving middle relievers and bench bats. It’s rare to see a lineup regular or starting pitcher dealt in this context, as Vargas was. But as Scutaro’s experience shows, once in awhile, such intradivision deals can leave a big mark on a season.