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The New York Mets have been one of the more active teams leading up to the trade deadline, trading for Juan Uribe, Kelly Johnson, and Tyler Clippard, but the Troy Tulowitzki–Jose Reyes/Jeff Hoffman trade between the Toronto Blue Jays and Colorado Rockies has raised questions about the moves New York hasn’t made. The Mets are in contention and are making moves in attempt to better their team. That’s true. But when a player (in Tulowitzki) after whom the Mets, or at least their fans, have been pining for is moved for a decent, but not colossal package, and the other big-name player in the trade (in Reyes) was once a fan favorite and requires only a two-year commitment after 2015 — and would immediately be one of the best position players on the Mets if added to the team — a question is asked.

The question: where were the Mets?

The snarky answer: counting their money.

The more technically accurate answer: paying down owners’ debts.

The Tulowitzki trade might not be the best example of lost opportunities for the Mets, as the Rockies were at least paying lip-service to Tulowitzki’s request not to be traded to New York. Unfortunately for Mets fans, however, their other transactions indicate that the snark-filled answer is not that far from the truth. In both Mets trades, the club negotiated for a portion of the remaining salaries to be paid by the Atlanta Braves and even the perpetually cash-strapped Oakland Athletics.

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There’s no such thing as ideal circumstances under which to trade Troy Tulowitzki. The best-case scenario is that Tulowitzki is both healthy and performing well, and then, you’re still a front office trading one of the most talented players in baseball. And in Colorado, of course, Tulowitzki has been more than just a good player, having been the beloved face of the franchise. Do something like this, and it’s going to hurt, regardless. But it’s been increasingly clear that a separation would be necessary. That both parties needed to move on. The Rockies just couldn’t get Tulowitzki to stay at peak level. So they did what they did, doing about the best they could do at the time, and with Carlos Gonzalez probably following Tulowitzki out the door, this is a watershed. No longer will the Rockies be caught trying to build future success around present-day veterans.

Tulowitzki was no stranger to trade rumors. There was thought he could go a year ago, but after lighting the league on fire, he got injured. The injury questions hung over him during the offseason, making it tricky to find a match, and now that he’s been mostly healthy in 2015, his performance has been uncharacteristically mortal. So the injury questions morphed into performance questions, and the Rockies had to accept that. Your opinion of the trade is dependent on your level of Tulowitzki optimism. Given what he’s capable of being, you could argue the Rockies sold low. Alternatively, you could consider it meaningful that the Rockies had trouble getting the 30-year-old Tulowitzki both healthy and great.

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Lead Prospect Analyst Kiley McDaniel is currently scouting the East Coast Pro prep showcase in Tampa, Florida. What follows is a collection of scouting reports written by McDaniel concerning the three players traded by Toronto to Colorado in exchange for Troy Tulowitzki — compiled and updated to account both for recent developments and/or likely role with the Rockies.

Jeff Hoffman, RHP, Colorado Rockies, FV: 55

In Hoffman’s offseason scouting report, I noted that he was in contention to go #1 overall until his elbow surgery just before the 2014 draft, in which he went ninth overall. He made his first pro appearance this year and started making buzz right away, showing big velocity in a late big-league spring-training appearance, then in extended spring training and in his regular season debut at High-A Dunedin (he was just promoted to Double-A in the last few days). In the video, the first game shown is when I saw Hoffman about a month ago and the second game is when our own Chris King saw his first start for Dunedin about a month before that.

I like to keep all the clips we have of a player in the official video on the FanGraphs YouTube page (now over 1 million views and 1,000 videos in less than a year) for reasons just like this, so we can see the changes over time. Notice from the third game in the video (the summer before he was drafted, in the Cape Cod League) how aggressive Hoffman’s delivery is (and the knockout curve at 3:00) and note that much of that is still there in the second game, his pro debut in Dunedin. Now look at the first game, the most recent one, and notice how much more upright, stiff and generally tall-and-fall his delivery is, rather than attacking the plate.

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Here is the story of the 2015 Toronto Blue Jays, presented in two easy graphs.

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The Angels find themselves in what you might term a familiar situation. They’re right in the thick of the race, like they’ve often been, and they’re run by the guys that used to run them, by which I mean Bill Stoneman and Mike Scioscia. Stoneman and Scioscia see eye-to-eye on a number of things, and there’s a certain type of player Scioscia used to love. Prime Shane Victorino would’ve been a phenomenal Angel. Alas, there is no more prime Shane Victorino; alas, even if there were, the Angels wouldn’t have had the players to trade for him. So what we have instead is a match, exchanging little for a post-prime Victorino who might have just enough left in the tank. The Red Sox save a little money, and they can dream on a utility player. The Angels get to see how much turbo remains in Victorino’s well-worn legs.

I was reading an article the other week, when I stumbled upon the following excerpt:

Stoneman was nowhere near as active on the trade front as Dipoto. His most significant July acquisition was reserve outfielder Alex Ochoa in 2002.

Stoneman says it only makes sense to swing a midseason trade if it’s worth it, which is one of those statements you don’t realize is empty until you think about it for a few seconds and the speaker walks away. The general point is that Stoneman isn’t one to panic in the face of midseason trends. Yet in the case of this Angels team, the need for outfield help has been such that no one could dismiss it. Something almost had to be done. Stoneman did it, at the cost of Josh Rutledge.

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Trade season is now in full swing. The biggest trade of the summer (so far) came down the pike on Sunday, as the Royals acquired Johnny Cueto from the Reds in exchange for young, lefty hurlers Brandon Finnegan, John Lamb and Cody Reed.

As he often does, Jeff Sullivan produced a prompt and excellent write up of the deal and what it means for both sides. This morning, Kiley McDaniel provided the scouting breakdowns of the guys going back to Cincinnati, and now, I’m here with a data driven analysis of the players the Reds acquired for their ace.

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If you’re reading this, you already know that the Reds dealt ace Johnny Cueto to the Royals yesterday for three lefties: Brandon Finnegan, Cody Reed and John Lamb. For an idea of where these Future Value (FV) grades would fall, check out the top-200 prospect list and the Royals prospect list from just before the season. For the big-league perspective on the deal, see Jeff Sullivan’s take, and for a more statistical look at these three prospects, Chris Mitchell has also published a piece at the site.

Brandon Finnegan, LHP, Cincinnati Reds, FV: 55

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Here’s all the proof you need that the Royals didn’t need Johnny Cueto: up until this point, the Royals didn’t have Johnny Cueto. The Royals didn’t really have much of anyone in the rotation, and yet they have the best record in the American League, by a surprisingly comfortable margin. If Cueto were necessary, maybe the Royals would’ve had more problems. Just last year, the Royals came a swing away from winning the World Series, and though they got there in part by leaning on supposed ace James Shields, Shields allowed 17 runs in 25 postseason innings. The Royals haven’t done what they’ve done because of an ace. Moving forward, they’ll be more than their ace.

That’s looking at it from just one perspective, though. You have to consider the other perspective, the one where the Royals’ most valuable starting pitcher so far has been literally Edinson Volquez. Not long ago, Yordano Ventura was officially optioned to Triple-A. Jason Vargas sustained a bad elbow injury, and the state of the Royals’ rotation has been such that that was major news. And, well, just last year, the Royals came a swing away from winning the World Series. James Shields finished 0-and-2. What difference might a real ace have made? An ace like Madison Bumgarner, or Johnny Cueto?

Of course there’s no such thing as a guaranteed championship. Of course most moves are just about moving the needle the smallest little bit. Yet, when you’re talking about adding one single player, it doesn’t get much more significant than going from whatever the other option would’ve been to Cueto. This is a big upgrade, and though the Royals had to pay for it, they feel like they know what they’re paying for. And they feel like they know what this season could be.

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With five days left until the trade deadline, things seem to be picking up, with one big move nearly happening last night, and some others potentially getting done today. So while I was originally planning on running these speculative guesses as my Monday piece, I figure I might as well publish it now before teams make a good chunk of this irrelevant.

So, what follows are my guesses as to who goes where before July 31st, based on what teams are rumored to be looking for and who we know is available. The tricky part of an exercise like this is that there are also guys who are available that we don’t know about, and if a team penciled in for one of the available guys goes for the mystery box instead, it will have a domino effect, driving that available player somewhere else, and messing up multiple guesses in the process. So, by Friday, I’d be surprised if I got more than a few of these right. This is really more just for fun than any kind of serious attempt at handicapping exactly where everyone is going. But let’s see how I do.

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Yesterday, we had our first notable trade as we head towards the deadline, with the A’s officially throwing in the towel by shipping Scott Kazmir to the Astros for a couple of A-ball prospects, one of whom looks pretty interesting. But given that Kazmir is a pretty high quality starter without any kind of significant financial commitment beyond this year, the return for his services seems a bit light on the surface, especially given that it looked like we might have an extreme seller’s market a few weeks ago.

In that piece, I stated that I saw “20 to 22” teams looking to add talent, with a few more just riding out their rosters for the remainder of the season, leaving only “5 to 8 teams” serving as the supply source of talent at the deadline. Those assumptions now look pretty poor, especially when it comes to starting pitching. Many of the bubble teams who looked like they could have swung towards buying have instead fallen off by the wayside and are now looking to the future, and they all happen to have starting pitching to trade.

As a result, supply and demand for starting pitching seem to have evened out, and we might even be in a situation where there are more starting pitchers available than open spots that contenders are looking to fill.

Realistically, the Dodgers need two starters, and the Royals probably do too, with the Blue Jays desperately looking for one, and the Cubs and Yankees also looking to upgrade their rotations if the price is right. That’s a gross demand for seven pitchers, though we could get that up to nine if we include the Rangers and Red Sox on the demand side of things; even though neither is a 2015 contender, both are reportedly still shopping for controllable arms to help them for next year. Someone else — maybe Pittsburgh, St. Louis, or Minnesota — might jump into the market for pitching as well, but right now, it looks like there’s aggregate demand for 7-9 starting pitchers.

And there are at least that many available arms. The Reds are selling Johnny Cueto and Mike Leake, the Marlins are shopping Mat Latos and Dan Haren, the Phillies have Cole Hamels perpetually available, the White Sox will move Jeff Samardzija, the Rangers are reportedly looking to deal Yovani Gallardo, and the Padres have apparently made their entire rotation available, with Ian Kennedy the most likely to go. If we assume the Padres will only deal Kennedy and keep their three guys under control for next year, then that group provides an aggregate supply of eight available starters, right in line with our estimate of demand.

But by the end of the weekend, the supply could continue to increase, and potentially in significant ways. If the Tigers put David Price on the block, that would have a cascading effect on everyone else’s value, as he’d probably go to the top of the list in terms of desirable starting pitchers. The Mariners could put Hisashi Iwakuma in play as well, and if both the Tigers and Mariners decide to move their free-agent-arms-to-be, we’d be looking at nine rental pitchers available, plus Hamels, meaning that there would be enough short-term assets available to meet the demand even without dipping into the reserve of controllable assets who could be had if a team put together an aggressive package.

And if the Rangers don’t land Cole Hamels, demand will probably decline rather than increase, as they seem to only really be in the market for him, and not any of the rest of the guys floating around the rumor mill. Right now, I’ve got them in both the supply and demand category, but if Hamels goes elsewhere — or doesn’t go anywhere at all — they’re likely to pivot out of buying and solely act as a seller. The Yankees are also making noises about having a quiet deadline, and with Masahiro Tanaka and Michael Pineda pitching well, they don’t necessarily have to trade for a starter; if they bow out of the bidding as well, we could be looking at only four teams buying starting pitching over the next week.

That’s probably an unlikely scenario, as even if the Rangers and Yankees decide not to buy, that will probably drive prices down low enough to bring in one of the on-the-bubble buyers, and maybe the Twins or Pirates would swoop in at that point and pick up one of the lower-tier arms. I’d be surprised if fewer than seven starting pitchers changed teams over the next week, and it’s probably going to be more like eight or nine.

But the Padres are a problem for teams selling pitching, because if they decide to blow up their rotation and move one of James Shields, Tyson Ross, or Andrew Cashner in addition to Ian Kennedy, then we’re definitely going to be in a situation where there are more available arms than the contenders are demanding. And if Toronto ends up with a guy like Mike Fiers or Carlos Carrasco — they’ve been rumored to be looking into both — instead of Hamels or one of the rentals, then those teams selling pending free agents could see their options dry up quickly.

Particularly, I think the Marlins are the most vulnerable here, with two mid-level rent-a-pitchers who don’t seem to be at the top of anyone’s wish list. Mat Latos offers enough upside to be interesting but has reportedly burned a lot of bridges in his time with three different organizations, and a few months of a good-not-great starter who might be a pain in the rear to have around is easy to pass up when there are so many alternatives. And while Dan Haren has a shiny 3.46 ERA, he is mostly a strike-throwing fifth starter at this point, with declining peripherals that suggest you probably don’t want to hand him the ball in a playoff game. If an oversupply leaves anyone without a spot on a contender down the stretch, I’d guess it would be one of those two, and it could end up being both.

But there is a counter-balance to this that I think may make this rush to call this a buyer’s market a bit premature; the Qualifying Offer. The potential addition of a fairly valuable draft pick gives most of the potential sellers a fallback plan that they can use as a price floor. If we do end up in a situation with 10 or 11 available starting pitchers and only six or seven spots for them to land, the White Sox could just decide to keep Samardzija for the next few months, especially if the offers aren’t much different than what the A’s got for Kazmir.

Nottingham, after all, looks like a back-end Top 100 guy; Kiley wrote yesterday that he’ll get a grade of 50 FV, which would put him in the same range as players who ranked from 80 to 142 on his pre-season Top 200. Based on the recent studies of prospect valuations, that kind of prospect has an estimated value of about $10-$15 million, not that different from the value of a draft pick in the 25-35 range.

There are benefits to trading for a prospect instead of taking a draft pick; you don’t have to pay the signing bonus of the prospect — and maybe not the salary of the guy you’re trading either — plus you also get a guy who is likely in closer proximity to the Major Leagues. So a trade is preferable to the pick, but then again, having Samardzija for the rest of the season is likely preferable to throwing out some Triple-A call-up for the last two months, and the value of putting a better product on the field for the stretch run has to be factored in as well.

But the Qualifying Offer does provide a price floor for the better rental pitchers on the block. If teams start trying to low-ball on Samardzija, Leake, or Iwakuma (who is eligible for a a Qualifying Offer), the sellers can tell them to go pound sand, and removing those guys from the supply side of things could restore some balance to the market.

But the QO is probably not in play for guys like Latos, Haren, or Kennedy, and Gallardo is a guy who would be a tough call on making the offer, so the Marlins, Padres, and Rangers are probably the ones most likely to get squeezed if this market does end up swinging to the buyer’s side of things. And that alone may be reason enough for the Padres to take Shields, Ross, and Cashner off the market until after they find a new home for Kennedy; they could be undermining the value of a piece they need to move by trading a piece they don’t.

Of course, if there isn’t much demand for Kennedy in the first place — he’s having a pretty crappy year, after all — then the Padres shouldn’t be too concerned with nuking the value of a bunch of other available starting pitchers. And along with the Tigers, they’re probably the key to this whole thing. If, over the next week, David Price and James Shields do get traded, that’s some seriously bad news for everyone else selling pitching, and at that point, it probably will be a full-fledged buyer’s market for starting pitching, with a few contenders reaping the rewards of drastically diminished prices.

In the end, though, I’m guessing the Tigers keep their team together and the Padres keep their controlled guys, and we end up with a mostly balanced market that helps find new homes for most every pitcher available. Perhaps a guy like Haren will get left without a chair, but I still don’t quite see this as a scenario where supply dramatically outstrips demand. We could get there if Detroit and San Diego decide to dump their pitchers, but I’m not sure we’re there just yet.