There are only 24-ish hours remaining until baseball’s trade deadline and, truth is, I’m a bit impatient. Until free agency opens up in about a hundred days or thereabouts, this is truly our last great opportunity to let our imaginations run wild. Sure, we can conjure up some fun trades in August, but our whimsical mind-meanderings just aren’t as exciting when all of the players we trade have to go through imaginary revocable waivers.

Against my worse judgment, to which I typically cater, I endeavored to make my last-minute deadline trades to retain at least a whiff of plausibility. So, no blockbuster Mike Trout deal, no winning Noah Syndergaard in a game of canasta, and no Rockies realizing that they have significant other needs other than the bullpen.

Bryce Harper to the Yankees

Washington’s playoff hopes have sunk to the extent that, even if you’re as optimistic as the FanGraphs depth charts are and believe the Phillies and Braves are truly sub-.500 teams as presently constructed, the Nats still only are a one-in-three shot to win the division. If you’re sunnier on Philadelphia or Atlanta, those Nats probabilities lose decimal places surprisingly quickly.

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Just last week, Kiley McDaniel finished up this year’s Trade Value series. The Trade Value series represents an attempt to rank all the best assets in baseball while accounting for player skill, age, and contract status all simultaneously. One player who didn’t appear in the series was Cardinals infielder Matt Carpenter, not even in the Honorable Mention section.

At that time, Carpenter was having a fine season, having recorded a 142 wRC+ and 3.2 WAR in 378 plate appearances. However, at 32 years old and with two-and-a-half seasons of control remaining on salaries of $14.5 million in 2019 and $18.5 million ($2 million buyout) in 2020, McDaniel reasonably left Carpenter off the list.

In his first eight games after the All-Star Break, however, Carpenter added 1.1 WAR to his season total, hitting .400/.500/1.100 with a 307 wRC+ during that stretch. His WAR was 21st in baseball at the end of the first half, but now it ranks seventh in the sport and first in the National League. His .275/.384/.579 batting line is good for a 155 wRC+, which is second in the NL and eighth in baseball, just ahead of Jesus Aguilar and Manny Machado. His season totals are even more amazing when you consider that on May 15, Carpenter was hitting .140/.286/.272 with a 59 wRC+. Jay Jaffe already detailed Carpenter’s turnaround at the end of June when he was just doing really well.

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The Blue Jays’ made their first move of the deadline last night, sending late-inning reliever Seung Hwan Oh to Colorado for two minor leaguers, CF Forrest Wall and 1B Chad Spanberger. They made their second one this afternoon, exchanging LHP J.A. Happ for IF Brandon Drury and Triple-A left fielder Billy McKinney of the Yankees.

Wall was a comp-round pick out of high school and played second base because of a 40 arm on which he underwent shoulder surgery as an amateur. He’s since moved to center field and is still the advanced hitter he was as a prep, but the game power hasn’t showed up yet and he’s had some minor injuries along with some streakiness. Given the complications along the way, Wall probably ends up as a hit-first, multi-positional fourth outfielder, with some chance of less (an up/down guy) or more (low-end everyday center fielder for a few years). He’s maintained his 45 FV preseason grade.

Spanberger had a hot finish to his draft year last spring at Arkansas, showing off his 70-grade lefty raw power. He’s a late-count power guy who will always strike out some and occasionally gets overeager to launch one, chasing at times. He’s below average in terms of speed, defense, and positional value — and he also has some contact questions — so the power needs to show up in games and he needs to be patient enough to allow it to happen. He’s 22 in Low-A, so he’ll also need to move quicker to avoid becoming a Quad-A slugger or pinch-hitter, the latter of which is a luxury for which most teams don’t have a roster spot. He’s a soft 40 FV, but that will likely change given how he performs next year against more advanced pitching.

McKinney was a first-rounder in 2013 by Oakland and was traded for Addison Russell in an exchange with the Cubs, then again in 2016 to the Yankees in the Aroldis Chapman deal. He’s been a similar player the whole time, a medium-framed left-field-only defender with fringe to average speed, a 40 arm, and an average glove in left. What’s changed is that, in the past few seasons, he’s gone from a line-drive, hit-over-power type (which would probably make him a platoon/bench player) to a power-over-hit type with lift (which fits more in today’s game). With this shift, the outcome looks something like a soft 50 hit grade with 55 game power and a 50 glove, the lefty-hitting side of a solid platoon — and with no service time, to boot. He’s still a 40+ FV for us, as some stuff still needs to go well in the big leagues to turn into a 45+ or 50 FV type player, and there’s no margin for error given his profile.

A day after Boston added starting-pitch depth from the Rays in the form Nate Eovaldi, the Yankees have followed suit this afternoon with another AL East team, acquiring left-hander J.A. Happ from Toronto in exchange for infielder Brandon Drury and outfielder Billy McKinney.

While this trade doesn’t preclude the Yankees from making a splashier acquisition for a starting pitcher, it wouldn’t surprise me if Happ is the only significant addition to the New York rotation. The team’s been linked to Cole Hamels in recent weeks, but that seems a curiously unsatisfying acquisition from New York’s perspective. At this point, Hamels’ reputation is still mostly derived from what he did in Philadelphia and, after a so-so 2017, he’s been hit hard and often in 2018. It’s tempting to disregard the inflated HR/FB rate as a fluke, but his 44.9% hard-hit rate this year is the second-highest among qualifiers — this after he set a career high in 2017. Now, that’s not enough to doom a pitcher by itself — Zack Greinke and Patrick Corbin are up there too and having fine seasons — but it does lend support to the notion that his homers allowed aren’t flukes.

Getting hit hard is a risk in Yankee Stadium, and the point of these types of deadline trades isn’t to maximize upside but rather to find some certainty. No, Happ wasn’t really the sixth-best starter in his 20-4, 3.18 ERA Cy Young-contending year in 2015, but he’s also a fairly safe pitcher at this point, one who has already been playing in the AL East and experienced plenty of success. The Yankees aren’t trying to make a David Price or a Johnny Cueto trade here; rather, they’re looking for someone more dependable than Sonny Gray to slot after Luis Severino, Masahiro Tanaka, and CC Sabathia down the stretch. Fourth starters do tend to make an appearance in the playoffs and, should the Yankees reach the ALDS — which our odds says isn’t about 70% likely to occure — it’s difficult to imagine they’d be comfortable turning to Gray, who has failed to complete the fifth inning in seven of his 19 starters in 2018. And with it looking more and more likely the Yankees are the first Wild Card rather than the AL East winner, that extra Wild Card game means they’re even more likely to require the services of that fourth starter.

In the ZiPS playoff odds, the addition of Happ to the rotation boosts the team by about a win over the course the rest of the season, moving their divisional odds from 23% to 28% in the projections. ZiPS believe the Yankees are a slightly better team than the Red Sox, but the 5.5 games baked into the cake, so to speak, are telling here. This is more a depth move for the Yankees than something intended to upend any playoff scenarios.

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There’s a reason some have connected starting pitchers to the Yankees.

According to ERA- and WAR, the Yankees’ rotation ranks behind that of the other AL elites like the Astros, Indians, and Red Sox, which rank 1-2-3 in ERA-. The Yankees rank sixth (95), just better than league average.

Only Luis Severino, Masahiro Tanaka, and Fringe Five alumnus Jonathan Loaisiga project to produce ERA and FIP marks below four the rest of the way, according to FanGraphs Depth Charts. While Severino is an ace, playoff contenders typically always want more starting pitching. Even Yu Darvish wasn’t seen as a luxury item to the pitching-rich Dodgers last season.

But on Tuesday, the Yankees continued to do what they’ve done since last deadline season by adding to the game’s best bullpen — according to ERA, WAR and ERA- — with the addition of Zach Britton.

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Baltimore’s deadline purge of big-league mainstays continued Tuesday night as they sent LHP Zach Britton to the division rival Yankees for a trio of pitching prospects: RHPs Dillon Tate and Cody Carroll, as well as LHP Josh Rogers.

Barring something unforeseen, all three of the new Orioles have a probability of contributing at some level in the majors, as all three are upper-level arms with at least playable big-league stuff. As seemed to also be the case in the Manny Machado deal, Baltimore has (consciously or not) prioritized quantity and probability over potential impact as they begin their rebuild in earnest. Other than a fully realized Tate, none of the pitchers acquired for Britton is likely to be more than a role-playing big leaguer.

So let’s tart with Tate, as he’s not only the player with the best draft pedigree but also the deal’s most volatile piece. He entered his junior year at UC Santa Barbara having thrown just 46 collegiate total innings as an underclassman — this due to having worked out of the bullpen as a sophomore and having barely worked at all as a freshman. But he had the best stuff on a staff that also included Cleveland rookie Shane Bieber and enough strike-throwing ability to start, so he was moved into UCSB’s rotation and asked to throw more than twice as many innings in one season than he had in his entire career to that point.

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The New York Yankees have the best bullpen in the game. Aroldis Chapman is great. David Robertson is having a typical year for David Robertson. Dellin Betances seems to have recovered his form and is, once again, pitching like a relief ace. Chad Green and Jonathan Holder — even A.J. Cole and Adam Warren — have pitched well.

The Yankees don’t need bullpen help. Yet, if rumors are true, they are about to get it anyway. Jon Heyman reports tonight that New York and Baltimore are close to finalizing a trade that would send Zach Britton to the Bronx.

As for whom the Orioles will receive, Ken Rosenthal reports that right-handed pitching prospect Dillon Tate is expected to headline the deal. Sources tell both Joel Sherman and Heyman that the deal will look like this:

Yankees receive:

• Zach Britton

Orioles receive:

• Dillon Tate
• Josh Rogers
• Cody Carroll

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CLEVELAND — In early March, Neil Walker was confronted by the most bizarre of sights. At the grounds of the quiet IMG Academy baseball complex in south Bradenton, Fla., he found himself surrounded by acres of farm land, a sprawl of housing developments, and some 25 fellow free-agent ballplayers. They had all authored long, successful careers. None had a contract for the coming season.

Last winter was an unusual one, historically unusual, as readers of this Web site well know.

At the end of February, still unemployed and with little if any clear interest from major-league teams, Walker left his offseason home in the north hills of Pittsburgh and reported to the free-agent camp. The camp at IMG had enough players for three- and four-inning intrasquad games. The free agents there also competed against a Japanese minor-league team, Walker said.

“I was thinking something isn’t right,” Walker told FanGraphs. “Typically, you think about about the consistency of the player [in free agency]. Maybe there’s factors that go into the middle tier of free agents not getting years or something along those lines, but to not get either the years or the figures… that was somewhat alarming. I’ve had a few injury things over the last couple of years, but it’s nothing that they could say… is going to cause me to keel over as a 32-year-old. It was alarming, not just for myself but for a lot of people.”

Walker represented the middle-class tier of player that has been squeezed in recent offseasons. Because of his experience, and with the beginning of the next offseason just four-plus months away, FanGraphs recently approached Walker when the Yankees visited Cleveland. Walker’s fear is that the trend for the middle tier of player like himself will only continue.

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Last week, I took up the mantle from Dave Cameron and published this site’s 11th annual Trade Value series. If you’re new to the concept, the Trade Value series represents an attempt to rank the most valuable assets in baseball, accounting for each player’s current skill level, age, and health while factoring in controllable years or contract status (with lots of advice from scouts and execs). Few, if any, of the players are likely to be traded in reality; however, the rankings represent an opportunity to see how the industry is and isn’t valuing players.

An unusual thing happened in this year’s series — namely, the top two spots in the rankings went to a pair teammates, Francisco Lindor and Jose Ramirez. By my reckoning, the combined eight years for which their contracts are controlled by Cleveland are worth around $385 million*. They’re incredibly valuable.

*To arrive at this figure, I used ZiPS projected WAR, projected dollar-per-WAR inflation, discounted values for years further into the future, and a linear concept of dollar-per-WAR. This is more of a ballpark number since clubs on either extreme of the payroll spectrum may value each win much more or less than the average team that’s assumed in this sort of calculation.

In the wake of this year’s edition, I began thinking: would any clubs have sufficient ammunition for Cleveland even to consider a possible trade of Lindor and Ramirez? As with the Trade Value series itself, this is mostly a hypothetical question. The Indians, as a contending club, have little incentive to deal two of the majors’ best players. Still, I was curious if any club could put together enough assets even to make it possible.

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I know what you’re thinking even before you complete the first paragraph of this post: Sheryl’s trade proposal probably sucks.

I don’t blame you. Most trade proposals suck. As we pass the All-Star week contemplating trade value, though, I thought I’d take an opportunity to indulge myself by imagining a deal that makes too much sense (in my head, at least) not to happen. I contend that, before this year’s July 31 trade deadline, the Chicago Cubs should trade Tyler Chatwood to the New York Yankees for Sonny Gray.

One flaw is immediately apparent: contending clubs rarely make trades with other contenders. Why would they? Teams bound for the postseason are typically looking to add present talent while surrendering players with future value. Both the Cubs and Yankees are contenders. Both Chatwood and Gray are major leaguers. So already this is improbable. Because of their struggles, though, Chatwood and Gray actually possess unlocked future value, though — future value that another club, in my opinion, is more likely to unlock.

I’ve written about both pitchers this year. Both have struggled. Let’s start with Chatwood. When I examined his season back on May 22, he had a 3.14 ERA despite an 18.3% walk rate and 102 FIP-, the latter figure mostly on the back of an unsustainable 3% HR/FB. Since then, his walk rate has actually increased; since May 22, he’s recorded an 18.8% walk rate. That’s bad. Not only has Chatwood produced the highest walk rate among pitchers with 30 or more innings this season, but his 18.6% mark would actually represent the second highest among qualifiers* since the integration of baseball.

*The highest mark since integration is 20.3%, produced by Tommy Byrne in 1949. Improbably, Byrne still managed to record a 92 ERA- that year — that is, he prevented runs 8% better than a league-average pitcher. Overall, Byrne made 170 starts in the majors and logged 1362.0 innings, posting a career walk rate of 16.8% but still managing a 103 ERA-.

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