For months, people have been anticipating a terrible midseason market for starting pitchers. With the deadline right around the corner, some are offering that this is one of the worst markets in memory, in terms of how little is available. As the theory goes, when markets are this bad, teams selling get to over-charge, taking advantage of the limited supply and excess demand. What happens in reality is that an equilibrium is reached. Teams that might not have been inclined to sell find themselves intrigued by the market, so additional players become available. One such player at present could be Chris Archer.

The Rays have been thinking about selling for a while — they’ve lost way too many games, so rumors have surrounded arms like Drew Smyly, Jake Odorizzi, and Matt Moore. Archer is better than those guys, and he’s affordable for the next five years. Because of his contract, the Rays should feel no urgency to move him. But then, every pitcher is kind of a short-term acquisition, in a sense, and the market is what it is. Archer would make for a high-profile splash, and I don’t think he’d fit anywhere better than he’d fit with the Dodgers.

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Evan Longoria is the Tampa Bay Rays’ best player in franchise history. That’s not a particularly controversial suggestion: the franchise has only been around for 19 seasons and Longoria has been a mainstay on the team for nearly a decade. His 47 WAR bests Carl Crawford’s sum with club by 10 wins and, with 25 more games, he will secure the record for games played in a Rays uniform. Longoria is still going strong this season, and he has a reasonable contract. There are a lot of reasons not to trade Evan Longoria, but if the Rays were to consider trading him, now might be the best time.

Deciding to trade a franchise player isn’t an easy decision, and for a team that has a solid fan base — by television ratings, if not by attendance — moving a player like Longoria isn’t an easy choice. If Longoria were a pending free agent, the decision might be simpler. The Rays are 37-57 with no shot at the playoffs, and they’re likely to trade a starting pitcher before the deadline — and could sell more if they the deal were right. The team hasn’t played as bad as their record indicates — and, talent-wise, this is a roughly .500 team in need of a few tweaks for contention. In that light, it makes sense to keep Longoria and make a run next season. After all, he’s still producing.

Longoria has averaged over four wins above replacement over the previous three seasons. This season, at age 30, he’s putting together an excellent season, having recorded a 135 wRC+ and 3.8 WAR. That latter figure, plus his rest-of-season projection, places him in range of a six-win season. Given the year he’s having, he seems like a decent candidate to be projected for at least a four-win season next year. On top of that, Longoria has a team-friendly contract that will pay him just $99 million over the next six years, with $11 million deferred, reducing the cost further.

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Ten days from the trade deadline, we usually spend most of our time talking about whatever star player is eligible for free agency at years end, and is on a non-contending team looking to upgrade for the future. David Price, Johnny Cueto, and Yoenis Cespedes last year, for instance. This year, though, that guy doesn’t exist; the big pending free agents on rebuilding teams are guys like Rich Hill and Jay Bruce. And because of the dearth of quality players likely to change teams over the next week and a half, the guy who is generating the most conversation leading up to the deadline is… Kyle Schwarber?

Yes, at this point, the hot name that everyone wants to talk about is an injured 23-year-old catcher/outfielder who won’t be healthy enough to play again until next year. Despite the Cubs best efforts to tamp down rumors, leaks out of New York keep suggesting that Schwarber is the guy the Yankees covet, and given the Cubs well-known interest in Andrew Miller, there appears to be mutual interest in players from both sides, with a stand-off emerging over whether the Cubs should surrender Schwarber in a deal for the game’s best left-handed reliever.

The Cubs continue to insist they aren’t going to do it, seeing the move as shortsighted, giving up too much long-term value for a short-term boost. Their Wednesday night acquisition of Mike Montgomery gives them a quality lefty to stick in their bullpen, and relieves some of the pressure to pay the going price for Miller, though, of course, I’m sure they’d still love to have him. But it seems they’d like to acquire him while retaining Schwarber, preferring to have both on next year’s roster as they make perhaps their final run with Jake Arrieta at the front of their rotation.

But if the Yankees hold fast, and say it’s Schwarber-or-nothing, are the Cubs wisely protecting their future, or passing up an opportunity to increase the odds of bringing Cubs fans their first World Series title since 1908? Well, it all depends on what you think Kyle Schwarber is going to turn into.

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We’re soon to see the Yankees trade away at least one dominant left-handed reliever in Aroldis Chapman, and it’s very possible they deal away a second dominant left-handed reliever in Andrew Miller, as long as someone is willing to pony up for those extra years of control. Plenty of teams will try to get Miller — the Indians, Rangers, Cubs, and Nationals have all been linked — but a maximum of one can actually obtain him. It might be none. And even then, there’s only one Chapman. Point being, a couple teams are going to be left out of the dominant-lefty-reliever sweepstakes, and forced to drop down a tier.

The Cubs got out ahead of the curve and acquired Mike Montgomery from the Mariners yesterday. This doesn’t mean they won’t still pursue Chapman or Miller, but they’ve at least covered one base. Montgomery’s an interesting case, because he’s still relatively unproven, but he’s lately been fantastic, and he comes with multiple years of cheap control. If you buy Montgomery’s recent performance, he’s essentially a really poor man’s Miller, in that he’s an effective lefty who’s also not a rental. Montgomery netted Seattle an interesting prospect in Dan Vogelbach, sort of helping set the market for this next tier of Chapman/Miller backup plans. Other clubs with similar assets to Montgomery ought to have had their ears perk up. Which brings us to the San Diego Padres, and Ryan Buchter.

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The Cubs had no room for Dan Vogelbach. Hit though he may, the absence of the designated hitter in the National League was always an inhibitor for his future there, to say nothing of the wealth of young bats the Cubs have amassed at or near the major-league level. For several months, Vogelbach was an obvious potential trade candidate simply because the Cubs had nowhere to put him. Yesterday, that trade occurred: Chicago sent Vogelbach and Paul Blackburn to Seattle in exchange for Mike Montgomery and Jordan Pries.

Then a third baseman, Vogelbach won a 3-A state baseball championship in high school at Bishop Verot High School in Fort Myers. He tipped the scales at close to 280 pounds at the time and was asked to shed weight early in his pro career with the Cubs. He’s now listed at 6-foot, 250 pounds. There are certainly baseball players built like Vogelbach who are still able to effectively execute all aspects of their given position. Stories about Bartolo Colon‘s athleticism or Livan Hernandez’s flexibility are common in scouting circles and it’s not impossible that someone built like Pablo Sandoval or John Kruk can maintain enough lateral agility to effectively play a corner infield spot. Vogelbach doesn’t appear to be one of those players. He’s not a good athlete and has issues with range, footwork, flexibility and throwing accuracy. He’ll make the occasional, spectacular-looking, effort-based play but hasn’t shown enough technical refinement in his five pro seasons to convince scouts he can play a position.

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Everybody wants Andrew Miller and Aroldis Chapman. If the Yankees elect to sell off, everybody will want Andrew Miller and Aroldis Chapman. I don’t need to explain to you why — they are two very obviously dominant left-handed, late-inning relievers. If the Yankees sell, they’ll ask for a high price. Teams, in turn, will pay high prices. You know how the trade deadline works.

People have linked the Cubs and the Yankees. The Cubs don’t need to improve much, but they’d like a steadier bullpen, and they could use a steady lefty. The Yankees present options. On a different tier, I figured the Cubs might have interest in Will Smith. I never once thought about Mike Montgomery. The Cubs just traded for Mike Montgomery. It might not be all they do, but it’s what they did today.

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One year ago today, the Texas Rangers were 43-48, in third place in the American League West Division. The first-half bullpen looked terrible. Neftali Feliz started the year as the club’s closer and pitched himself right onto the disabled list and right out of town. Tanner Scheppers imploded. Anthony Bass threw more first-half relief innings than anyone, is maybe all you need to know. As a unit, the Rangers relief corps had a 4.38 ERA, a 4.48 FIP, and were in serious need of a shot in the arm if the club wanted to make a second-half run.

So, general manager Jon Daniels and the Texas front office identified a weakness and acquired right-hander Sam Dyson from Miami and left-hander Jake Diekman from Philadelphia, alongside Cole Hamels. Dyson and Diekman, paired with then-closer Shawn Tolleson and the emerging Keone Kela, formed a quartet that led a remarkable turnaround for the Texas bullpen. In the second half, Rangers relievers went from a 4.38 ERA to a 3.79. From a 4.48 FIP to a 3.98. From a bottom-five unit to a top-five unit. The team went 45-26 the rest of the way to launch themselves into the playoffs, and while the bullpen improvement wasn’t the entire reason why, it was certainly a large component.

Fast-forward to the present. The Rangers are in better standing than they were a year ago! Much better. They’re 55-40, and, according to our playoff odds, they’re looking at a better-than 50% chance to win their division with roughly a 70% chance to make the playoffs, one way or another. But lately, things haven’t been going well, and regarding the root of the struggles, the Rangers are experiencing déjà vu.

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In his latest trade rumblings column, Ken Rosenthal has a pretty fun story.

Here is an example of a trade that recently was discussed but never got close, and would have amounted to a bombshell if it had come to fruition.

The scenario, according to major-league sources, unfolded like this:

The Cubs tried to acquire left-hander Drew Pomeranz before the Padres sent him to the Red Sox for Class-A right-hander Anderson Espinoza. Simple enough.

The Cubs’ plan, though, wasn’t to keep Pomeranz, who is under club control through 2018. No, the Cubs wanted to spin Pomeranz for a starter who is under even longer team control.

I could not determine the identity of that starter — it was a pitcher whose “name is not out there (publicly), and probably is not going anywhere now,” one source said.

In any case, the Cubs balked at the Padres’ request of infielder Javier Baez for Pomeranz, believing it too high a price. The second part of the deal — the spinning of Pomeranz for the unidentified starter — would not necessarily have worked, either.

This is an intriguing idea for all kinds of reasons. For one, what do the Cubs need with another starting pitcher? Their rotation is already pretty excellent, so making a complicated three-way trade to either acquire a #6 starter or bump Jason Hammel from the rotation while he’s running a 3.34 ERA would be a bit weird. They could use some rotation depth in case of injury, but if you’re acquiring Pomeranz — potentially the most valuable starting pitcher to be moved this month — because you want to flip him for someone even more valuable, that guy has to be pretty good, right? You’re probably not going to pay the price for Pomeranz, only to ship him off for some guy you’d stash in Triple-A, if you’re a win-now contender like the Cubs. At least, I wouldn’t think so.

Of course, it’s not entirely unheard of. The win-now Dodgers inserted themselves into the Todd Frazier trade, getting a package of prospects they liked from Chicago more than the ones they sent to Cincinnati, rather than just keeping Frazier for themselves. Maybe the Cubs knew that some other team hunting for Pomeranz was willing to part with a guy they liked for the future, and they thought this was their best chance to get a young controllable starter from a team that they don’t match up well with in trade. And perhaps they’d think about using that starter as a reliever down the stretch, strengthening a bullpen that could use an upgrade, with the idea of moving him back to the rotation next year.

So, just for the fun of it, let’s try to figure out who this mystery pitcher might be.

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Last week, when the Red Sox jumped the starting pitching market — surrendering Anderson Espinoza, their best pitching prospect in the deal — to acquire Drew Pomeranz from San Diego, the general consensus was that the team overpaid, like they did in acquiring Craig Kimbrel some months earlier, as the team tries to take advantage of David Ortiz’s last year in baseball. After all, Pomeranz was traded for Yonder Alonso a few months earlier, and despite a great start to the year with the Padres, no one really knows how well he’ll hold up down the stretch, given that this size of workload isn’t something he’s handled before. And just days before the trade, Baseball America had rated Espinoza as the #15 prospect in baseball, 24 spots ahead of Manuel Margot, the primary chip the Padres acquired from the Red Sox in exchange for their closer over the winter.

Giving up a top-15 prospect for a guy with as many question marks as Pomeranz comes with is certainly a gamble, as the deal will look disastrous if Pomeranz can’t hold up through October and Espinoza reaches his upside. But I can’t help but wonder if this deal is perhaps an example of how public prospect ratings and a player’s current market value can diverge pretty significantly.

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Let’s be clear about the reality of baseball trades. Despite all of the rumors and all of the posturing, every team has the same stance on just about every player: The player is available for trade, given a good-enough offer. That second part is where it gets complicated, because “good enough” can mean very different things. Not all teams value all players in the same way, so when you’re trading, you’re looking for guys who might be undervalued, or you’re looking to move guys who might be overvalued. Ultimately, though, all you need is a match. When you have a match, you have a trade, no matter what’s been said to the public.

What the Braves have said to the public is that they’re not real interested in trading Julio Teheran. They’ve said this on multiple occasions, in response to rumors that would have Teheran joining any number of current contenders. The point the Braves are effectively getting across is that they’re not motivated to move Teheran. They want other teams to know they value him highly. And, you know, they should! Good pitcher. Good contract. He shouldn’t be cheap to acquire, but at the same time, I don’t think the Braves should be that interested in holding steady. The present market circumstances might never repeat.

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