Archive for trade

If you’ve been able to keep pace with our trade deadline articles, you’ve probably noticed a lot of articles about the Braves. They’ve brought in an entirely new outfield just today: Jorge Soler from the Royals and Eddie Rosario and Adam Duvall from Cleveland and Miami, respectively. That’s after acquiring Joc Pederson a few weeks ago when they lost Ronald Acuña Jr. to injury. It’s a flurry of moves for a team in a precarious playoff position: below .500 and with playoff odds under 10%. At the same time, Atlanta is only four games back of the Mets in the NL East.

With both the stretch run and a potential postseason stay in mind, the Braves decided to keep churning, acquiring reliever Richard Rodríguez from the Pirates for a pair of prospects: right-handers Bryse Wilson and Ricky DeVito. Rodríguez is no playoffs-or-bust rental, though; he has the most team control left of any of the players Atlanta added at the deadline, as he won’t reach free agency until after the 2023 season.

Rodríguez, 31, will go from being the Pirates’ closer to a high-leverage role with the Braves, perhaps even getting some save opportunities if manager Brian Snitker wants to platoon the righty with primary closer Will Smith, a lefty. Rodríguez’s 2.82 ERA and 2.58 FIP are excellent, but there are some red flags in his profile. His strikeout rate has dropped precipitously, going from 36.6% in 2020 to 22.8 this year — from the 96th percentile to the 40th. He’s also sporting an unsustainably low HR/FB rate of 3.3%.
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Over the next month, rumors will shape baseball coverage, and a small portion of those rumors will actually develop into real trades. Every team with a shot at the playoffs wants to get better, and adding a starting pitcher is often the mode for many organizations. Even teams that have pitching could probably use a little more. To be willing to part with organizational resources, teams need to have an appropriate nexus between the impact of the new pitcher and a spot on the marginal win curve that makes the upgrade worthwhile.

Eliminating buyers is harder than finding them at present. Every team in the American League except for the Chicago White Sox, Texas Rangers, and Oakland Athletics have at least a 15% chance of making the playoffs and even those three teams might not have thrown in the towel yet this season. Only the Kansas City Royals, New York Yankees, and Los Angeles Angels have greater than a 55% chance of making the playoffs and even those teams do not have commanding leads in their respective divisions. The National League looks slightly more clear with seven teams likely fighting for five playoff spots. In a tight race, a pitching addition can have a considerable impact, but how much difference a trade makes depends on the hole the new player is filling.

A quick look at the rest-of-season depth-chart projections reveals how rotations are expected to perform in the second half. The graph below shows the projected WAR for all Major League Baseball rotations. Read the rest of this entry »

The Angels entered the offseason with money to spend and designs on nabbing a primo free agent position player, like Carl Crawford or Adrian Beltre, to invigorate a team that ranked 13th in the American League in wOBA and toward the middle of the pack in UZR. After Crawford inked with the Red Sox and Beltre joined the division rival Rangers, it looked as though L.A.’s most prominent winter move would be adding lefty relief pitching.

That changed Friday, as the Angels acquired Vernon Wells from the Toronto Blue Jays for Mike Napoli and Juan Rivera. In picking up Wells, the Angels added name value and spent the cash that was sitting in the club’s coffers. Unfortunately, they didn’t get any better in the process. The team is now saddled with a cumbersome contract for a player who is almost assuredly going to regress next season, and who is entering the typical decline phase of a player’s career. The Jays, meanwhile, get out from under the baseball equivalent of a subprime mortgage and pick up the trade’s best player to boot.

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Well, the trade deadline has passed which means that teams can no longer exchange players and that players cannot change teams from here on out. Or wait, nevermind, they still can, just not through conventional methods. Players can still switch sides for the next month through the magical waiver wire. Everyone has heard the term “waiver” tossed around with cavalier delivery but its actual meaning and implications are not necessarily known by most fans. If you have ever been confused with regards to its exactitudes, do not worry because you are not alone.

For starters, what is the waiver wire? Essentially, the waiver wire is used to gauge interest in certain players of a team as well as make moves when the trading deadline has passed. If a team puts a player of theirs on waivers it does not mean they are steadfastly interesting in moving him; instead, it could mean they are curious as to what could be obtained for his services or perhaps how many teams show interest.

This leads into a bit of “waiver theory.” Teams will put many of their players on waivers, even if they have no intention whatsoever of even listening to offers or taking notice of piqued interest. This occurs because the team in question wants to disguise the players they are actually offering. As a pure hypothetical, a player placed on waivers with an OPS of, say, .760, might look more enticing when surrounded on the waiver wire by teammates with much higher or much lower marks. This same player might not catalyze much discussion if placed by his lonesome.

A player is placed on waivers at 2 PM on day one and has until 1 pm, two business days later, to be claimed. If nobody made a claim for him, and the team doesn’t want his services anymore, they can either send him to the minors, release him, or even work out a trade. If a player is claimed prior to this deadline, the owning team can either pull their man off of waivers, work out a trade, or do nothing and let the claiming team receive the player. Once a player is pulled off of waivers he cannot be traded for another month. Additionally, you can only be pulled off once; if pulled off and placed back on, the player is fair game.

What happens if there are multiple claims? The team with the worst record in the same league gets precedent. If nobody in the same league makes a claim this same rule reverts to the opposite league; the team with the worst record has first dibs, so to speak. For the first month of the season, the previous year’s W-L records are used to gauge these dibs. After that, current season records come into play. This again leads into some waiver theory or strategy, in that some teams will put in a claim simply to block another team from getting a certain player. If the Red Sox want a relief pitcher on waivers, and make a claim for him, the Yankees, who have a worse record, may also make a claim in the hopes that their rivals cannot improve their team.

Then again, if the team owning the relief pitcher doesn’t pull him off of waivers, the Yankees would then be stuck with him whether they like him or not. I hope this cleared up some confusion relative to the inner workings of the waiver wire because, over the next month, it is safe to say we are not going to be at any type of drought of waiver-talk.

The information in this article was derived from an old Jayson Stark article, an older Steve Phillips article, and Tim Dierkes’ post from 2006. Thanks also to Keith Law for further clarifications.