Heath Bell and Carlos Pena were each claimed on waivers earlier this week, though it appears that neither player will be moving.

The Giants claimed Bell, most likely to bolster their bullpen given the injuries to Brian Wilson and Sergio Romo. The waiver claim could have also been submitted to block the Diamondbacks from acquiring Bell. The Yankees claimed Pena, even though Mark Teixeira plays virtually every inning at first base and Jorge Posada has performed well against righties this season with a .359 wOBA.

But given the Yankees place in the standings and the lack of need for the Red Sox, the claim on Pena probably wasn’t used as a blocking mechanism.

Both players should have been dealt back at the trade deadline, when teams could unilaterally work with one another. Both Bell and Pena might not represent massive improvements to anyone with only a month remaining in the season, but they could have impacted the playoff picture if traded in mid-July, when more teams were seemingly in the race. Let’s take a look at both situations.

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The Diamondbacks traded Kelly Johnson to the Blue Jays on Tuesday, getting Aaron Hill and John McDonald in return. Arizona’s motives for the trade are questionable, as the deal could actually hurt their playoff odds.

Eno Sarris covered the deal from the Jays point of view, noting that free-agent-to-be Johnson will likely be used to extract compensatory draft picks this offseason. Johnson is mere percentage points from attaining Type A status — and prior to the trade, he was the highest-ranked non-Type A middle infielder. The Jays employed this tactic last season when it traded for Miguel Olivo on the day before free agency started and allowed him to walk. The Jays again are shrewdly exploiting the compensation system.

Add to that the idea that Johnson is a better player than Hill and the deal makes plenty of sense for Toronto. But does it make any sense for the Diamondbacks, who are in the thick of a divisional race?

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Rich Harden is effective when healthy, but that caveat is more relevant for him than it is for most others. Over nine major-league seasons, he has never thrown 200 innings in a single year. Since logging 189.2 frames in 2004, he hasn’t even thrown for more than 148 innings in a season — and he’s working on his second consecutive year with fewer than 100 innings to his stats line.  He can’t seem to stay healthy long enough to have an impact commensurate with his talent.

Regardless, Harden’s possibilities are tough to ignore. He misses bats at an elite rate for a starter and induces feeble contact when batters connect. He has a career .274 batting average on balls in play, significantly lower than the league average. He also ranks third among starters with at least 200 total innings since 2008 with a 10.1 K/9: only Brandon Morrow and Tim Lincecum have a higher rate. Over the same span, batters have whiffed at 13 percent of Harden’s offerings, by far the highest rate for a starting pitcher. Cole Hamels ranks second at 11.7 percent. He’s a starter with elite reliever numbers.

It’s easy to see why teams are always interested in him despite the checkered injury history, and why that interest persists even with a small sample of starts this year.

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The Diamondbacks have capitalized on the Giants’ offensive ineptitude and slew of injuries, winning eight of their last 11 games and taking a two-and-a-half game lead in the National League West. A year after losing 97 games, the team is primed for a playoff push. Arizona hasn’t missed a beat, despite issues that might have taken down a lesser team. Losing Stephen Drew and lacking an everyday first baseman might push other teams out of the race, but the Diamondbacks are playing some of their best baseball right now.

Their success is a testament to an improved bullpen, potent offense and a young, effective starting rotation. But the rotation would be even more potent these days had the team not made a questionable trade last season — a trade that seems even stranger by the month and is still without reasonable justification. It’s a trade that — if avoided and all else were held constant — would likely have the D-backs with a firm handle on a playoff berth. It’s a trade that sent one of the best starters in baseball, Dan Haren, to the Angels for Joe Saunders, Tyler Skaggs, Rafael Rodriguez and Pat Corbin.

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The San Francisco Giants have been in a a funk lately, turning a half-game lead in the division on August 9 to a three and a half game deficit in a mere seven days. Their pitching hasn’t been bad, but at some point the sheer lack of offense was bound to catch up with them. On Monday, Scott Miller of CBS Sports tweeted that no team had made the playoffs averaging fewer than four runs scored per game since the 1988 Dodgers.

At the time, the Giants were averaging 3.43 runs per contest. While they were looking up at the Diamondbacks in the standings and not technically in the playoffs, Miller’s point remained valid. If they climb back atop the division, the Giants could conceivably become one of the lowest scoring teams in history to make the playoffs if their offensive struggles persist. But would they be the lowest scoring team to make the playoffs?

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The Pirates were playing above their true talent level as the trade deadline approached, sporting a record that Pittsburgh’s paltry run differential wasn’t bound to support in the long-term. But at the time an outside shot still existed that the team could stave off regression for another two months and improbably win the National League Central. Moves needed to be made to bolster the Pirates’ chance for success. The roster had some holes — ones where even marginal players would represent significant upgrades.

Winning the division would have been icing on the cake, but finishing above .500 was a more feasible goal. After 18 straight losing seasons, an 82-80 record was an alluring-enough outcome given what it would mean to the struggling organization.

Instead, the Pirates have experienced their worst-case scenario. Consider:

July 15: 4-0 win vs Houston, 48-43 record, t-1st in NL Central
July 20: 3-1 loss vs Cincinnati, 51-45, 1/2 game back in NL Central
July 22-24: Drop 2 of 3 to St. Louis, 52-47, t-1st in NL Central
July 25-28: Split four-game series with Atlanta, 54-49, 1 1/2 games back
July 29-31: Swept by Philadelphia, 54-52, 4 1/2 games back
July 30: Acquire Derrek Lee from Orioles
July 31: Acquire Ryan Ludwick from Padres
Aug 1-7: Swept by Cubs and Padres, 54-59, 10 games back
Aug 12-14: Swept by Milwaukee, 56-63, 13 games back

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The Royals officially released Kyle Davies earlier this week following poor performances in parts of five seasons. Acquired from the Braves in exchange for half of Octavio Dotel’s 2007 season, Davies seemed like a solid return. He threw hard, complemented the heater with a decent yet underwhelming curve, and was not yet eligible for arbitration. In other words, he was exactly the type of project the Royals were looking for. While the trade itself was good for the team at the time, Davies has arguably been the worst regular starter in baseball over the last five seasons. His presence on the Royals roster this season, as well as his career numbers, invites discussion regarding tendering contracts, building rosters and large gaps between ERA and estimators.

Since debuting in 2005, Davies has thrown 768 innings with below average peripherals, poor controllable skill marks and abysmal run prevention rates. He has a career 6.4 K/9 and 4.3 BB/9, and a 39 percent groundball rate. He doesn’t miss many bats, exhibits poor control and struggles to keep the ball on the ground. The anti-Halladay, if you will. He stranded runners at a meager 67 percent clip, which hurt mightily given his 1.62 WHIP and .318 batting average on balls in play. Plenty got on and plenty came around to score, translating to a 5.59 ERA. Though his xFIP and SIERA were a bit kinder — they are identical at 4.91 — they didn’t exactly vouch for his performance.

Since 2007, the year he was traded to the Royals, there are 83 pitchers to throw 600+ innings. Davies has the sixth lowest WAR (5.6), the worst ERA (5.40), third worst SIERA (4.87), fifth highest BABIP (.313), second worst WHIP (1.58) and second worst strand rate (66.8 percent). No matter how one slices it, Davies has been the, or one of the, worst starting pitchers in baseball.  Read the rest of this entry »

News broke late last week that Johan Santana was experiencing fatigue in his surgically repaired left shoulder. Though there isn’t any new damage to the area, the news was unsettling, especially since he had just began throwing rehab assignments in the minor leagues. On July 28, his first taste of live action since September 2 of last season, Santana pitched three scoreless innings for St. Lucie, allowing two hits while striking out three. Nothing could be gleaned from the outing other than the fact that he had progressed in his rehab enough to actually pitch in a game.

Not much is known about what will happen to him from here on out. Few athletes have ever had the same surgery — Mark Prior, Chien-Ming Wang and NFL quarterback Chad Pennington round out the list of those with surgeries to fix torn anterior capsules — and the fatigue may or may not lead to further treatment. Right now, Santana will rest for a week before being reevaluated. If the fatigue subsides, he will probably continue his rehab, unless the team decides to shut him down. That decision would only hold water if the Mets felt the risk of further aggravation was high.

Though the Mets aren’t going to make the playoffs this season, meaning the return of Santana isn’t the difference between winning or losing the division or wild card, getting him back on a major league mound would have been a big boon for the organization. As the highest-paid player and best pitcher on the team, even making two or three starts in September would have re-acclimated him to higher leverage situations, when the arm tends to undertake more stress. In addition to getting him back on the mound for their own evaluations, Santana’s performance this season may have had trade ramifications.

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Last week, I ranked the thirty major league teams based on their level of need to make moves prior to Sunday’s trade deadline. Some teams had a pressing need to acquire players in order to enhance their odds of making the playoffs. Other teams needed to capitalize on the high value of their assets and move them for the best possible returns of prospects. In reviewing the list now that the deadline has passed, most of the teams fell right in line with their rankings.

But the activity of certain teams over the weekend proved quite interesting. A couple of teams with a number of trade chips and a need to move them stood pat, while others made moves that clashed with their biggest needs. Another team primed for a playoff push made lateral moves, which is almost as bad as not doing anything at all. Obviously, each front office has its own way of operating and generating a game plan, but I can’t help but wonder what some of these teams were thinking this week.

Here are the teams whose activity approaching the deadline was questionable, and their rankings on the Trade Deadline Necessities list:

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After weeks of rumors about the Padres and Rangers being engaged in talks for closer Heath Bell, the teams pulled off a deal… involving setup man Mike Adams.

The Rangers, fresh off of acquiring Koji Uehara on Saturday, sent pitching prospects Robert Erlin and Joseph Wieland to San Diego to bring aboard arguably the best non-closing relief pitcher in the game. Since joining the Padres in 2008, Adams has thrown 217 innings with the following pertinent numbers: 137 (!) hits, 10.0 K/9, 2.4 BB/9, 0.90 WHIP, 1.66 ERA and 2.48 SIERA. He ranks towards the top in each of those categories, and his 5.2 WAR in the span is the highest among setup men and middle relievers in the National League, and second to Matt Thornton across both leagues.

Simply put, Mike Adams is one of the very best relievers in baseball, regardless of whether or not he closes out the ninth inning, and was the top reliever on the market. Right behind him was Uehara, who has been equally filthy over the last two seasons. In acquiring both pitchers, the Rangers fixed a significant deficiency: the bullpen.

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