The Better Part of Valor

As of this morning, the Boston Red Sox are in third place, 6 1/2 games out of first place, with an estimated 18 percent chance of making the playoffs. The Los Angeles Dodgers are in fourth place, 8 games out of first place, with an estimated 4 percent chance of making the playoffs.

In the lead up to the trade deadline, the Red Sox laid fairly low, acquiring Jarrod Saltalamacchia and shipping out Ramon Ramirez, both minor transactions that will have little effect on how the team plays the rest of the year. The Dodgers did the opposite, engineering a trio of trades that saw them ship out Blake DeWitt and six minor league players in exchange for Ted Lilly, Octavio Dotel, Ryan Theriot, and Scott Podsednik.

The contrast in approaches couldn’t be any more striking. While Boston may not be resigned to finishing as an also-ran, they also refused to throw good money after bad, making a trade that would have, at best, pushed them from longshot to unlikely. The Dodgers, however, pushed their chips in to the middle and bet on the the team justifying the investment over the final two months of the season.

While inaction is usually looked at with scorn during deadline time, I would imagine the Dodgers will look back on their moves and wish they had exercised a little less aggressiveness.

No, they didn’t give up any sure things. Both James McDonald and Andrew Lambo have lost some sheen from their prospect status of a few years ago, and those are the two most talented players they surrendered. But the general rule with prospects is “the more, the merrier”, as a sheer quantity approach will usually result in a positive outcome or two. By giving up this much young talent, it’s likely that the Dodgers will eventually wish they had one or two of these guys back.

For a team with a one in 30 chance of playing in October, that just doesn’t seem like a wise use of resources. You could probably make a case for these deals if LA was a couple of games back and just trying to overcome one team, but they’ve got three clubs in front of them in their own division, two of whom have significant leads.

There is a time for bold action, and there’s a time to accept that it probably isn’t your year. The passive approach that the Red Sox took to the trade deadline was probably the better course. Barring a miracle, neither team will make the playoffs, but at least the Red Sox will still have their farm system mostly intact.