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 Hooray! Rejoice! The July 31st Trade Deadline past and for the first in memory the Deadline lived up to expectations!
Always I hear whispers from blogs and self-proclaimed experts claiming a blockbuster trade. Never does it transpire. Even the Almighty Peter Gammons and Ken Rosenthal claim trades which never come to be. For once, July 31st struck midnight and I was excited for what had occurred.Three future Hall of Famers were traded in the same season for the first time in history, Ken Griffey, Manny Ramirez, and Pudge Rodriguez. Two other perennial All-Stars were also dealt, Mark Teixeira, Jason Bay, and CC Sabathia. This was a historical Deadline with several winners and poor losers. Winners: • Dodgers: The Dodgers offense, to be frank, sucks. They rank in the bottom ten in runs, HRs, batting average, and any other significant offensive category one can think of. In fact, no one on the team has more than 15 home-runs. They now have Manny Ramirez who has over 500 HRs and a career .300 batting average. Future Hall of Famer. Enough said. They got Casey Blake to play third too. He’s not bad either. • Brewers: The Brewers have a very talented young offense and pitching staff. However, the pitching staff lacked a great 1-2 punch. Ben Sheets is great but he needed a compliment. Last year’s Cy Young winner CC Sabathia provides that 1-2 and more. The Brewers went from Bubble Team to serious play-off contender. • Angels: For the past three years, every baseball analyst said the Angels needed another big bat to get over the hump, and they were all sure it would come each of those three years. This year, analyst all agreed the Angels were not going to make a trade and stick with their team. The LA Angels went and got Mark Teixeira. Go figure. Already with the best record in baseball, adding Mark Teixeira has to make them the favorites in the powerful AL. Tex averages over 30 HRs and 100 RBIs over the past 4 seasons. Losers: • Red Sox: The Sox lost Manny Ramirez, one of the most feared hitters in baseball. The addition of Jason Bay weakens the blow but there is no comparison between the two. I just don’t see Big Papi and Bay striking fear into teams like Papi and Manny did. What makes it even worse is they lost Brandon Moss, a prospect with good talent and upside and Craig Hansen, a future closer with nasty stuff. • Rays: I’ve been on the Rays bandwagon for a real long time. I’ve picked them to win the AL East, and I’m sticking to it. However, I would have felt a whole lot better if they had acquired some kind of bat and/or reliever. The fact that they have the deepest farm system in baseball could be the cause of no deal as other teams were probably asking for so much. I still like them but the AL East will most definitely come down to the wire. • The Dodgers’ Travel Agent: He better watch out Manny be coming! He already took out the Boston agent, could he be next? |