Which Teams Improved the Most at the Trade Deadline?
Another trade deadline has come and gone, and I must say, this one was more exciting than I expected. I didn’t see the Yankees, Astros, or Dodgers making huge splashes, given that all three are in a daunting position both for first place in their divisions and a first-round playoff bye. There were also relatively few short-term rental options available; Juan Soto, Frankie Montas, and Luis Castillo, among others, could always be traded, but with none of them free agents after this season, teams could also pull them back if they didn’t like the offers. Meanwhile, players like Willson Contreras, Ian Happ and Carlos Rodón stayed put, also to my surprise. By and large, though, we had a whirlwind of a 48-hour period leading up to the deadline.
So, who won and who lost? That’s a bit of a loaded question, because the definition of winning and losing varies depending on each franchise’s goals. A contending team improving, a rebuilding team getting worse but acquiring a stable of prospects, or an indolent team only re-signing its 37-year-old closer are all things that can be considered a win in one way or the other. But we’re here to do some hardcore ranking, so let’s look only at who improved themselves the most in 2022.
To keep this all science-y rather than a somewhat arbitrary exercise, I first projected the entire league’s rest of season in ZiPS and then repeated the exercise with all trades since July 19 unwound. Since some teams primarily got overall playoff boosts and some teams saw improvement mainly in terms of World Series gains, I took each team’s rank in both categories and then ranked everyone by the harmonic mean of those two ranks.
Winners
1. San Diego Padres (+6.8% playoffs, +3.5% World Series)
If you’re surprised by this one, then you clearly hadn’t followed any of the news over the last week. And were out of internet range. With a box on your head and your fingers in your ears. And a brass band was marching around you 24 hours a day, playing all your least favorite Sousa tunes.
Adding Soto to the roster would have been enough to put the Padres here single-tradedly, but they also made a significant upgrade at first base by bringing in Josh Bell, and even Brandon Drury is a useful role player. ZiPS actually thinks that head-to-head, the Padres are a stronger team than the Dodgers! Actually catching Los Angeles remains a nearly insurmountable challenge of math, but the Friars have strong odds of avoiding last season’s disappointing denouement.
2. Minnesota Twins (+7.4% playoffs, +0.2% World Series)
Jorge López, Michael Fulmer, and Tyler Mahle are certainly less earth-shattering acquisitions than many of the names here. What benefits the Twins is that these additions were all targeted to exactly the places on the roster where they needed a boost, and with the White Sox and Guardians doing a whole lot of nothing in a very tight race, the competition didn’t do anything to minimize Minnesota’s benefit. ZiPS still thinks that the Twins are overmatched if they get into the playoffs, but their chances of reaching the postseason look quite a bit stronger. And in the worst-case scenario, aka the Yankees once again trouncing the Twins and sending them packing, the silver lining is that the latter will have won a series first to get there!
3. Seattle Mariners (+4.2% playoffs, +0.9% World Series)
As with the Padres, the division is still out of reach without a miracle, but Seattle has the talent to lock up a wild card spot fairly quickly. Castillo is a huge boost to the rotation, and Matthew Boyd and Jake Lamb at least provide additional depth. But yes, this ranking is mostly about Castillo. That boost may be even bigger when we look at 2023, but that’s a little beyond the purview of this particular exercise.
4. New York Yankees (+0.0% playoffs, +0.8% World Series)
Adding Montas, Andrew Benintendi, and Lou Trivino and sending out Jordan Montgomery in exchange for Harrison Bader doesn’t move the Yankees’ needle really at all for the next two months, but it would take a stunning fall off a cliff to lose the division. The upgrades do manifest themselves come playoff time, when Bader is expected to be healthy and the direct benefit of upgrading from Montgomery to Montas can show itself. These were “tidying up” transactions, but good ones that accomplished that goal.
5. St. Louis Cardinals (+6.7% playoffs, +0.0% World Series)
The bump in playoff probability, combined with little change in World Series winning odds, may seem counterintuitive here, but ZiPS sees the gains made here in terms of depth — more about making the Cardinals’ talent base wider rather than necessarily taller. In other words, the rotation with the addition of Montgomery and José Quintana is much improved, but when you look at playoff starters, where ZiPS still sees a return for Steven Matz and Jack Flaherty, the changes are relatively minor. Also, in a short series, ZiPS sees the consequence of the outfield switcheroo, with the loss of Bader being a bigger deal. And for what it’s worth, the computer does like the Cards’ deadline better than Milwaukee’s.
Losers
1. Chicago White Sox (-4.9% playoffs, -0.8% World Series)
The White Sox have definite holes and did nothing to fill them, while the Twins took the opposite approach. Improvements made by the Mariners, Rays, and Blue Jays are also a downward drag on the AL Central teams in scenarios in which they don’t take the division. It’s no less likely than before that zero wild card spots will go to AL Central teams, so the two teams watching the Twins do something are the big losers here. Chicago outranks Cleveland in this case because ZiPS thought the former was the better bet to make the playoffs of the two.
2. San Francisco Giants (-9.6% playoffs, -0.5% World Series)
The Giants had a very weird deadline, hanging onto Rodón and Joc Pederson but trading away Boyd and Darin Ruf. San Francisco isn’t really that much worse than it was last week, but the NL East teams, the Cardinals, and the Padres all improved their positions relative to the Giants. There’s still technically a slim hope of them surprising; ZiPS sees it as more likely than last year’s 107-win total! And while it won’t make them better this year, I hope the Giants use these months to try to convince Rodón on the value of agreeing to stay in return for a hefty extension.
3. Cleveland Guardians (-9.1% playoffs, -0.5% World Series)
Cleveland tumbles for the same reasons that the White Sox do, so there’s no reason to belabor this particular point. I did like the small pickup of Ian Hamilton, who I think deserves an extended look in a major league bullpen — something that he may get with the Guardians. But that’s a 2023 thing, so no credit here!
4. Philadelphia Phillies (-2.5% playoffs, -0.2% World Series)
ZiPS would have liked to see the Phillies more aggressive at the deadline than they were. David Robertson and Noah Syndergaard help, but it’s hard to move the needle with the former simply because the team’s bullpen is far less dreadful than in recent years, and the Syndergaard of 2022 is less the God of Thunder and more the God of Moderately Humid Weather.
5. Baltimore Orioles (-3.6% playoffs, -0.1% World Series)
The truth of the matter is that ZiPS would project the Orioles to have worse playoff odds even if they had hung onto López and Trey Mancini. The O’s always needed an awful lot to go right for them and a disaster for the top wild-card contenders, but the Mariners, Rays, and Blue Jays all improved their rosters. To my friends in Baltimore, don’t fret; bigger years are coming, and September is the peak of crab season!
And for those who just want to see the big ol’ chart with everyone, here you go!
| Team | Div. After | Playoff After | WS After | Div. Before | Playoff Before | WS Before |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Arizona Diamondbacks | 0.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% |
| Atlanta Braves | 20.3% | 98.2% | 7.5% | 18.2% | 98.0% | 7.0% |
| Baltimore Orioles | 0.0% | 3.9% | 0.0% | 0.0% | 7.5% | 0.1% |
| Boston Red Sox | 0.0% | 34.9% | 1.3% | 0.0% | 31.4% | 1.2% |
| Chicago Cubs | 0.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% |
| Chicago White Sox | 49.3% | 59.5% | 2.5% | 52.2% | 64.5% | 3.3% |
| Cincinnati Reds | 0.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% |
| Cleveland Guardians | 21.3% | 30.7% | 0.6% | 26.5% | 39.8% | 1.1% |
| Colorado Rockies | 0.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% |
| Detroit Tigers | 0.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% |
| Houston Astros | 98.2% | 100.0% | 16.4% | 98.7% | 100.0% | 16.9% |
| Kansas City Royals | 0.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% |
| Los Angeles Angels | 0.0% | 0.1% | 0.0% | 0.0% | 0.3% | 0.0% |
| Los Angeles Dodgers | 93.8% | 100.0% | 9.3% | 98.5% | 100.0% | 12.4% |
| Miami Marlins | 0.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% | 0.2% | 0.0% |
| Milwaukee Brewers | 39.5% | 77.3% | 3.2% | 48.3% | 78.6% | 3.2% |
| Minnesota Twins | 29.4% | 40.4% | 0.9% | 21.3% | 33.0% | 0.7% |
| New York Mets | 79.4% | 99.9% | 14.9% | 81.6% | 100.0% | 15.6% |
| New York Yankees | 96.8% | 100.0% | 14.2% | 96.8% | 100.0% | 13.4% |
| Oakland Athletics | 0.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% |
| Philadelphia Phillies | 0.2% | 38.3% | 1.2% | 0.2% | 40.8% | 1.4% |
| Pittsburgh Pirates | 0.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% |
| San Diego Padres | 6.2% | 92.9% | 7.5% | 1.5% | 86.1% | 4.0% |
| Seattle Mariners | 1.8% | 90.9% | 7.2% | 1.3% | 86.7% | 6.3% |
| San Francisco Giants | 0.0% | 6.3% | 0.2% | 0.0% | 15.9% | 0.7% |
| St. Louis Cardinals | 60.5% | 87.1% | 5.3% | 51.7% | 80.4% | 5.3% |
| Tampa Bay Rays | 0.0% | 43.6% | 1.7% | 0.0% | 41.8% | 1.7% |
| Texas Rangers | 0.0% | 0.1% | 0.0% | 0.0% | 0.2% | 0.0% |
| Toronto Blue Jays | 3.2% | 95.9% | 6.1% | 3.1% | 94.9% | 5.9% |
| Washington Nationals | 0.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% |
Dan Szymborski is a senior writer for FanGraphs and the developer of the ZiPS projection system. He was a writer for ESPN.com from 2010-2018, a regular guest on a number of radio shows and podcasts, and a voting BBWAA member. He also maintains a terrible Twitter account at @DSzymborski.
“The White Sox have definite holes and did nothing to fill them, while the Twins took the opposite approach.”
This has been largely true since the end of the 2021 season. The manager doesn’t do anything to cover up those holes either.
Hard to see a hole when you’re nodding off in the dugout
Better in the dugout than behind the wheel!
I think that the Braves’ +2.1% chance of winning the division (and respective fall for the Mets) is fairly large, and those get reflected in 0.5% changes in each team’s chance of winning the World Series.
Both teams look very solid for the playoffs, but with the Padres’ moves there’s an even bigger difference between winning the NL East and having to play the Wild Card game.
ZiPS loves itself some Raisel Iglesias!
Series*
It’s still reasonable possible for the NL Central winner to overtake the NL East winner and send both the Braves and Mets to the Wild Card Series.
That is…unlikely
But mathematically possible.
And anything is possible in baseball. Especially with the Mets, Braves, and Phillies in a three way dog fight. All it take is for either the Brewers or Cards to fall flat against the other.
To be sure, I’d have to check strength of schedule and number of games against LA and SD.
Besides, wouldn’t it be boring if everything were already set withtwo months to go?
Even Cleveland has a 25-30% chance of making the playoffs with 7 rookies and doing next to nothing at the deadline.
It’s not even obvious there will be a wild card from the NL Central. I mean, probably there will be but the idea of one of them putting it in overdrive to pass both the Mets and Braves would be something unexpected. Possible but…unlikely.
The same is true of tbe ALC: win or go home.
As things stand, the Bewers are 9 game back of a bye, with 8 weeks to go. Bigger leads have been overcome in that time.
And everybody but the Cards got worse while tbe two got marginally better.
But i n the NLE Atlanta is neck and neck with the Mets. And they got a lot better whie the Mets got DeGrom back. And phillies want in and aren’t going to win but they’re not rolling over and playing dead. Miami didn’t get much worse so neither team can just hold their best for head to head.
The bye changes things: Being the third seed is not much better than the top wildcard so its no longer a matter of winning your division. Now you have to win more than the other division winners and win every last game posible and being in a competitive division is doubly bad: you may have a better team but a much harder schedule while a lesser team might coast on a weaker schedule and resting your best down the stretch may cost you.
It’s a whole new game.
Terra incognita.
“Reasonably possible” and “unlikely” aren’t mutually exclusive. In fact, they’re actually pretty similar terms, just from opposite perspectives.
I’d say there’s still at least a 10% chance for it to happen.
Absolutely love analysis like this. Thanks!
Surely for the Minnesota Twins the worst-case scenario isn’t losing to the Yankees again, it’s continuing the MLB record playoff losing streak. The scenario without the silver lining is worse. Advancing farther in 2020 only to lose to the Yankees would have been better than what happened.
Report this abusive comment!
I’ve always found the inexplicable sweeps by worse teams (the As in 2006, for example) to have their own particular flavor of sadness—I just hope the Twins get swept by the Mariners this year and not, say, the Red Sox
If it’s any consolation I think it will be hard for the Red Sox to enact a sweep from their living room couches. HEYYYYYYYOOOOOOOOOO
There are worse things than first round losses.
Like, not making it to the playoffs.
Or worse yet, blowing the lead in the last week…
My dreams are still haunted by Torii Hunter letting the ball go past him in 2006. That team was primed for a title run. I am in pain just thinking about it.
The Phillies and White Sox have terrible farm systems so I understand why they didn’t do much. Baltimore isn’t ready yet. And the Giants didn’t have great odds to begin with.
But Cleveland? They’re one game out of first place and have the second best farm system via Fangraphs. Yet they sat on their hands while Minnesota stockpiled valuable assets for the stretch run. SMH…
I agree with you in the abstract, but I’m not sure which specific deal I would have advocated for.
And perhaps the Cleveland brass feels like it’s a year too early to buy – if you look at THE BOARD, FG has Cleveland with 6 top 100 prospects, and 5(!) of those 6 are scheduled to arrive by 2023. Perhaps they’re keeping their powder dry until next year when the situation with the farm crystalizes a bit and they can more accurately assess needs.
Willson Contreras would’ve looked pretty good for Cleveland in particular, although midseason catching changes are pretty uncommon.
That’s fair, although I think their focus is 2023 and beyond.
Maybe we get lucky and Dan weighs in with Zips, but I doubt he moves the needle too much for 2022 away from the three team tossup for the playoffs.
Cleveland is all about the defensive first catchers.
(Helps their pitchers look better and then they sell the pitchers high)
Ditto CF.
Kwan is an adequate CF and playing him there would let them play Benson at RF, Gonzalez at LF. And we may yet see Bo Naylor in Sept.
Deadline is a time for gambling. Not every deal is a Alexander for Smoltz sure thing. Or Sutcliffe for Carter et al.
Cleveland seems to be betting on the so-called “Guardiac Kids”.
Smart money is on the Twins and on Cleveland fading the way overachieving young teams usually fade.But every once in a while young teams go on 20 game streaks…
I agree that this isn’t their year. Yes, they could make the playoffs but they’re unlikely to make a deep playoff run.
But part of the problem is that they have a backlog of prospects. They just promoted Tyler Freeman (50 grade) and Will Benson (40 grade but should probably be higher) to the majors but they have nowhere to play them. So they’ll end up being role players: Meanwhile, they have former 50 grade prospect Gabriel Arias repeating AAA because they have nowhere to play him either. And it’s creating a backlog at the lower levels as well with guys who deserve to be promoted staying put because there are no openings at the higher levels.
Seems like they would have been better off turning some of these prospects into one or two MLB players who are under team control for several years.
For sure. But that’s the trick, right?
Literally everyone is looking for that. It’s the gold standard for what both buyers and sellers are trying to acquire.
And there really weren’t enough sellers for all contenders and pretenders. It turned into a game of musical chairs and, as pointed out above, lots of teams fell short.
the phillies system isn’t nearly as bad as the white sox. theres upside, even with ohoope gone. and did the phillies not do much? I disagree. Marsh is a good, longterm upgrade (with possible upside – he could be a league average hitter), thor makes their rotation that much more solid, and roberston is a solid addition. nothing earthshattering, but i disagree with zips – this certainly will help the team. i do not count it as nothing.
The problem for the Phillies is context. They’re so unlikely to end up w a better record than the Mets or Braves that short of adding half a team they can’t really move the needle.
The difference between the Phillies and White Sox farm systems is that Philly gave up their maybe 4th best pitching prospect to get Robertson, who imagine the White Sox would’ve liked given how they always try to bring back guys who they’ve had before (maybe because they don’t really know the rest of MLB that well). Ben Brown is better than any pitching prospect that the White Sox have, so if that’s who the Cubs wanted, there was no way to acquire Robertson.
I find Cleveland’s stance on this to be increasingly surprising. Not because this is “their year”, but because they’ve only got 2 pending free agents and they’ve got a huge number of fringe prospects they need to add to the 40-man. You would think there would be some incentive to swap some of them for MLB-ready help.
Eric has 6 must-add prospects. Presumably, they can get there by DFA’ing 5 or 6 of their current 40 man fringe. But are they really going to protect the other 5 or 6 guys on the fringe? I just don’t see it.
My guess is that it goes back to something one of the Fangraphs writers said last year (probably Eric but I don’t remember): Cleveland is notoriously difficult to trade with. They have their values and they stick to them and won’t budge. That’s good to a certain point but eventually, you have to take action, particularly when you have an abundance of prospects.
Worse, when the prospects are on track to delivering.
Last year Gimenez looked like a flop. So did Morgan, Hentges, and Stephan.
All are contributors.
Cleveland just sent down Reyes and Clement to free up PAs for Gonzalez and Freeman and the way Francona moves guys around they’ll get a good look on enough of them to figure out who’s real (Kwan, Gimenez), who is more of a role player (Miller, Clement) and who needs seasoning. And we may yet see Bo Naylor in Sept.
The crunch comes in November not in August.
Cleveland has been on a three year stealth rebuild while being respectable, even (somewhat) competitive. Staying the course seems to be paying off…
…for ’23 and beyond.
The trades will come but not for rentals. That’s just not in the team DNA anymore…
Kevin said that. He said they were arguably the most difficult team in the league to deal with. And it’s certainly useful context for why they don’t seem to be doing a lot of these deals.
Thanks, couldn’t remember exactly who said it.
Is Dipoto on the other end of the bell curve?
I seem to recall the Brewers were his favorite team to deal with but given that Stearns was part of the Astros team originally it’s possible it was just familiarity.
I also recall that Cleveland stuck out because he complimented every other team and then when it got to Cleveland he said some negative stuff.
If anyone can find the article I’d love to look at it again. I couldn’t find it.
Are you sure it was an article and not the Chin Music podcast? Because I vaguely remember hearing him say that, probably in response to an emailer’s question.
Cleveland has a roster full of solid players, but few black holes and a very limited budget, which makes it hard for them to upgrade short of a star. They’re also pretty clearly the third-most talented team in the division right now.
While they’re in it still, the chances of Minnesota and/or Chicago exploding through the finish line and putting the division out of Cleveland’s realistic reach for now are pretty high, I think, maybe 65%. I think it makes more sense for them to bide their time for now, and work on trading some of their surplus of good-not-great prospects for a real star or two in the offseason.
Did the Astros stay the same or fall slightly because of their trades, or because the Mariners/Yankees improved? If the latter, then they needed to do what they did to hold serve?
Mostly because other teams improved a bit more.
They could have used Harrison Bader
They traded risk in one position for risk at another.
If the CF combo works they win the bet.
If it doesn’t they spent prospects and just rearranged the furniture.
Its a judgment call.
We’ll see how it, ahem, plays out by october.
Any chance of seeing the chances of playoff top seed (particularly for the Yankees) before and after?
Actually went *down* slightly, from 51.1% to 50.2%. Playoffs are the primary gain for the Yanks!
Makes sense – that’s what I would have expected with the Montgomery deal. Thanks!
Clearly the Cubs improved the most
User name checks out
With the weapons provided to them by Washington, we are all hoping the Padres will be able to launch deep strikes into Dodger Territory, disrupting their bullpen logistics and demoralizing enemy hurlers. Its a long shot, be we are all still pulling for San Diego to drive LA out of the division lead forcing the Dodger’s to return to their pre-2022 standings in the West.
Loses: #1 White Sox.
#2 Giants – for keeping two guys who should be on the White Sox.
Cubs too, for not selling guys they should have.
I was just quoting the article. Dan didn’t mention the Cubs on the list of top losers. But honestly they should be #1. Total failure.
Mariners 90.9% playoff odds?!??!?!?!
…the 7% WS suprised me too. I wonder what their ROS W% is projected to be?
(the depth charts say .519, and just 2% WS, just 77% playoff odds)
I’m aware that the point of putting it in terms of playoff odds is that these teams ARE competing with one another, but i think it glosses over which teams simply got better at a lower rate than their competitors. Like, what is the change in expected win total for each team? Take for example the Phillies; their odds surely dropped just because they are competing with the Padres and Cardinals for a playoff spot, and the Padres got SO MUCH BETTER.
I feel like the Phillies’ odds are off a bit.
The Nationals were already baseball’s worst team by most if not all measures. Then they traded their two best players, leaving the worst 25-man roster in the sport by far. And the Phils play them ELEVEN more times this year. I’d be surprised if the Fightins don’t go at least 9-2 against them. Big scheduling advantage for Philly.
But they were supposed to win that much anyway. The Nats got worse but were already terrible.
The chart for the Brewers is interesting, as I thought of their moves as more likely to hurt the WS chances than division chances.
ZiPS Brewers Division Odds above (39.5%)
Depth Charts Brewers Division Odds (74.8%)
If Depth Charts is 50/50 ZiPS/Stemer, does that mean Steamer gives the Brewers 110.1% Division Odds?
110.1 + 39.5 = 149.6 / 2 = 74.8%
Or is Depth Charts using different ZiPS from those shown in the table above?
ZiPS uses a very different methodology as well. I talk about it in the big ZiPS standings pieces!
Thanks for the response, Dan.
That seems like a pretty big difference between ZiPS (60/40 Cardinals) and the other systems out there (538 has it 64/36 Brewers, PECOTA has it 72/28 Brewers).
Any idea what ZiPS might be seeing differently to drive those differences?
IIRC Zips uses its own playing time estimates. The 50-50 is for quality of the individual players, but the playing time estimates come from the depth charts.
So the most likely source of a big difference would seem to be that ZIPS and Fangraphs have different opinions on how much playing time some players will see.
For whatever it’s worth, Baseball-Reference has it 59-41 in favor of St. Louis, largely driven by the strength-of-remaining-opponents, I think. (Milwaukee’s schedule difficulty is average, St. Louis’ is mighty soft — notwithstanding the sweep they will likely suffer versus the Yankees this weekend.)
Cleveland’s chances were clearly hurt, but it is also hard to see what they should have done.
They could definitely use help behind the plate (well at least at the plate from behind the plate), and everybody can use arms, but they are really a year or more ahead of schedule. Remember, Jose Ramirez was likely to be traded before the season so this team was supposed to be considerably worse.
They have a glut of MIF prospects, and also have gotten excellent production put of Rosario and Gimenez. Their move may be to trade Rosario after the year.
Almost certainly. They have MIFs to spare and it’s not CLE’s habit to keep arb3 guys coming off career years who rate to make $10m when there are always teams who need a decent, one-year SS for that price, especially if Amed continues keeping on and ends up with a 4-5 WAR season.
It’s… interesting to see Lindor having his best season since 2018, and still not being quite as valuable as the 23 year old Giminez. Or being only a little more valuable than Rosario. Never change, Mets.
And not as valuable in NY as in his younger years.
Still valuable for a team with money to burn but Cleveland is cheap and they seem to be making it work…
…for now.
The Lindor trade may be part of the explanation for Cleveland’s approach; betting on their scouts and player development process.
Either that, or they’re idiots.
Given their owner and track record I don’t think the latter flies.
We’ll see soon enough.
Hey, give the Mets front office credit for this: they went out and hired a real manager over the winter.
And here they are in first place — amazingly even with nothing from DeGrom and only a dozen starts from Scherzer. If the season ended today Showalter would get my vote for N.L. Manager of the Year. Dave Roberts is the 21st century Joe McCarthy, but Showalter has done a helluva job this year.
The question isn’t about trading surplus players, but *who* to trade? Who is a true regular, who is a utility or supersub, and who needs more seasoning to bloom?
Come trade time they’re more likely to move Rosario than Freeman or Arias.
Everybody keeps focusing on catcher performance while all Cleveland’s moves say they believe in Naylor and Lavastida as a long term solution. It pays to remember: Dolan is cheap. Given two n comparabld players, they’ll go with the younger one.
Question for the floor: why did Cleveland’s attendance crater so completely over the past 8-10 years? Even when they were terrific 5-6 years ago, people weren’t showing up in anything like the numbers they drew in the ’90’s.
Greetings, old friend from the Indians Ink/Scout message board!
Where do you do your baseball chatting these days?
I am not nearly as into it as I used to be. As a lifelong Cleveland fan, I am used to heartbreak but 2016 really *really* stung.
I still love the team, but I do not spend nearly as much time following them. Or arguing with people on the internet lol. What was your screen name if you do not mind me asking?
Ocramruf
Same here really. Life has crowded out a lot of sports fandom time. Re: 2016, yep. Ouch city. I actually attended game 7 and it was a loooong ride home.
MARCOOOOOOOO good to see you my friend.
The Twins’ front office is very good at their jobs. Same with the Yankees and the Cards. I don’t know what planet the White Sox and Guardian’s FO is on and maybe the deals weren’t there but it’s disappointing nonetheless.
I think the Brewers and Phillies had interesting deadlines. It’s just that others had better ones.
As a St. Louis fan I can say without reservation that Milwaukee’s front office has passed them by. And I’m not sure it’s close. Better cumulative record than St. Louis over the past 6 seasons, despite fewer resources.
It’s weird to think of it this way but the Padres basically just said, we’ll mortgage our future for a 3.5% better chance of winning the world series. Not even saying it’s the wrong move but seems like giving up so much for a relatively modest improvement to their odds.
when 12 teams are fighting over that 100%, 3.5% is… substantial
It really isn’t. If the Padres make the WS once every eight years, then every 200 years their deadline moves will get them another title.
If it were more than 1 in 12, yes. But it is a 1 in 30 improvement.
That 3.5% already accounts for the other teams…
They improved their odds in 23-24 also probably
And probably trashed them in 2025-2028.
Again: they don’t have to pay Soto $500M in ’26.
Get two years out of him, get three prospects after that.
I think he/she means they won’t have a very good young core nor Soto at that point.
Agreed. Giving up 30 controllable years in order to pay the 5-6 win DH (among other things) 70% of his FA salary in 2023-2024 is odd, particularly when the needle moves so slightly.
“He’s Ted Williams!” is the cry. Well, no. That ignores context, including how much better the league is today, never mind that Soto’s best season thus far is an average Williams season from 1941-1949. The better way to think about Soto is to take a ballplayer who hits like him except for the walks, and decide you want to pay record prices and trade near-record talent for a very good ballplayer plus 20 walks, as in the case of Bryce Harper (who’s the better defender, fwiw) since the start of 2015.
20 walks is nice, but is it really worth the extraordinary premium?
I think a 3.5 percentage point increase in World Series odds is a very large increase – it is very hard to move the needle that much, because an individual player can only do so much in baseball. I would be intrigued what the largest projected increase in WS odds in an in season trade has been – I can’t imagine there are many that come close to this.
The walks are nice – because you’re not making outs. If you had a team of identical hitters, who all walked 42.7% of the time (Soto’s career mark), and struck out the rest of the time, that team would score 4.39 runs per 9 innings (the Padres so far this year have scored 4.42 runs per game).
This is so incredibly off it is funny
They are getting three runs at the brass ring.
So it’s not just 3% better chance in 2022.
Besides, how much would a 25 year old Soto bring back in November ’24?
On top of that, SD isn’t a small market.
It’s big risk but it’s not crazy.
They very much didn’t say or do anything like that, and if you can’t see that that is on you
Don’t see how anyone can actually watch Tatis swing out of his shoes on each and every swing and say ‘gee, what bad luck that he’s always been hurt’.
Dudes. The guy will never be healthy. He’s the baseball equivalent of Bill Walton.
Like with Walton, if one of his healthy stretches lines up just right, he could bring a championship to some lucky team. But he will never be athletically healthy. Never.
I would find this more concerning if Bill Walton had not actually led the Trail Blazers to a championship.
well he certainly won’t be if he keeps riding dirt bikes or whatever bonehead move led to missing most of this season. smh.
Yes Tatis has been out this year cause he swings out of his shoes
So you’re saying we get to look forward to Tatis commentating on Pac-10 games and giving off general stoner vibes in like 2060?
Boston….don’t underestimate Cora’s ability to get his players to commit. Hosmer will help solidify the clubhouse…Pham, Hosmer lengthen a line-up that was weak.
It’s now a long weak lineup
Hosmer “lengthens” a weak lineup?
This comment is a lot funnier if you imagine the Prophet means Cora gets guys to commit to mediocrity, and that Hosmer and Pham will solidify that in the Sox clubhouse and lengthen that aspect of the line-up.
Typical prophet-shaming, story as old as Elijah….
The zips system has Dodgers with a much lower probability (9%) of winning the world series than the Astros, Mets, and Yanks. Las Vegas has the Dodgers as co-favorites to win the World Series with the Yankees at 3.5:1.
While the Padres moves definitely strengthened their team, they still trail Dodgers by 11.5 games in the division. And the Mets will have great playoff pitching if healthy, but they are still in a dogfight for the division with the Braves.
Zips seems to overrate the chances of the Mets and White Sox in my opinion.
“…direct benefit of upgrading from Montgomery to Montas can show itself…”
Are we sure Montgomery to Montas is a large upgrade?
“instead of Taylor Rogers, “basically Josh Hader” only if you
were a Padresare a David Stearns apologist”Yankees WS odds went down even after they made what everyone seems to be assuming is a trade for the playoffs? Huh.
How could the Astros get Mancini and Vazquez and lessen their odds?
Maybe minor weirdness like that is explained by the improvements of other teams being substantial enough to outweigh the ‘Stros additions, i.e., the odds don’t occur in a vacuum. Something like that.
Mancini and Vazquez more or less replace the production of Brantley and Castro, so until Brantley comes back (if he ever does) their composition hasn’t really changed, while other AL teams got better.