Prospects & Suspects

Now that we’ve had a few days to think about it, let’s look at what the trade deadline really told us about Major League Baseball.

Once again, the trade deadline proved to be the most over-hyped day in pro sports. Not a ton really happened even though all you heard for months from the MLB Trade Deadline Industrial Complex was that it will be a day hot and heavy with big trades.

That is what the TD industrial complex always does.

Sure, some interesting trades were made that will help teams, but it was not the game-changing, blockbuster day it was made out to be by so many pundits and talking heads.

There were prospects traded, but mostly suspects.

The deadline was such a dud this year that the two starting pitchers of significance that we heard over and over again were going to be traded, Detroit’s Tarik Skubal and the White Sox’ Garrett Crochet, remained with their teams. Then there was talk of a Blake Snell deal as well, but teams, including the Yankees – backed away. All Snell did in his next outing with the Giants was pitch a no-hitter.

As for the Giants, they are so poorly run that they could not finish off the deal to bring Aaron Judge home to Northern California back in December of 2022 when they had a golden opportunity. That will go down as one of the greatest misses in baseball history. Once Judge showed an interest in the Giants with the Yankees dragging their feet until owner Hal Steinbrenner worked it out with Judge, the Giants should have done everything in their power to sign Judge. All Judge did was hit his 41st home run Saturday against the pitiful Blue Jays,

If you are counting that is 78 home runs the last two years. As a team, the Giants are 24th in home runs this season going into Sunday with 111.

Skubal was supposed to be traded. He wasn’t. The man in charge of the Tigers, Scott Harris, thought it was best for the AL Central’s fourth-place 52-59 Tigers to hold onto Skubal. Geez

The CC approach is the kind of approach GMs want to hear from star pitchers they trade for in trying to make that playoff run.

Crochet made his own non-trade bed and got exactly what he deserved. He has to stay in Chicago with a team that owns 27 wins. Crochet’s agent indicated the lefty would not pitch in the postseason without an extension and that completely torpedoed his trade value.

It is bad enough that the inmates are running the asylum on many teams, but when it comes to October baseball, to trade for someone giving away quality young players, for someone who does not want to play in the most precious time of the season unless he gets an extension, that’s pathetic.

All you have to do is go back and see what CC Sabathia did for the Brewers back in 2008. Acquired from the Indians, back when they were the Indians, in early July, the free agent to be, pitched his heart out, recording an 11-2 record and a 1.65 ERA as he led the Brewers to October for the first time in 26 years. He wanted the ball. Sabathia was inducted into the Guardians Hall of Fame on Saturday.

The CC approach is the kind of approach GMs want to hear from star pitchers they trade for in trying to make that playoff run.

So, to me, that selfish act by Crochet, set the tone for this trade deadline. Enjoy your time in Chicago, GC. You earned it. Here is a great number to consider, White Sox fans. Your team has 27 wins and 28 blown saves. Pretty incredible.

Things sure have changed since 2008.

Today’s baseball bosses, except for a few, are all risk averse. And they sell the owner and the fans on the hope of the future not putting it on the line for today.

One top talent evaluator told BallNine, “I did not see one trade where I said, ‘Wow, that’s going to put them over the hump,’ there is a reluctancy to give up their highly rated Baseball America prospects,” the talent evaluator told BallNine.

“To move any mid-level prospect who might actually be better than their so-called premier prospect, they will move for a piece that probably should help them. For example, Philadelphia gave up pretty good prospects to the Angels for Carlos Estevez, but Estevez made a lot of sense. Now they have Estevez, (Jeff) Hoffman, (Matt) Strahm and (Jose) Alvarado, who hopefully between the four of them can get six outs at the end of the game.’’

Estevez owned 20 saves with the Angels.

The Phillies have hit the downside of the roller coaster run and need as much help as possible. Dave Dombrowski said of the trade, “We wanted the best guy who we felt gave us a chance to win this year.’’

Yep, Dombrowski went and said it, the “W’’ word – Win.

A lot of these baseball bosses want to win “the process,’’ not the games.

The Padres A.J. Preller, a modern-day P.T. Barnum, and I mean that in a good way – hit the closer market hard, landing Tanner Scott from the Marlins for prospects. The Padres also added Jason Adam and Bryan Hoeing. Preller has been down this road before, actually, pretty much every season (look at what he gave up to the Nationals for Juan Soto!) but even if the team does not get into the playoffs, Preller’s risky moves payoff in attendance. Good for him and the devoted Padres fans. I spent 10 years in San Diego, so I know how much Padres fans care. In their comeback win over the Dodgers on Tuesday night, the Padres set a Petco Park record with 47,599 fans, breaking the previous record that was set earlier in July against the Diamondbacks.

Padres’ fans believe in Preller even if it doesn’t work out or should I say, he keeps them interested by changing the chess pieces. You have to credit him for finding all those prospects he sells off in trades.

“Look, I don’t like A.J. Preller personally,’’ the talent evaluator said, offering a dose of honesty, “but I think he has a big set of balls. He works his ass off. He holds people accountable who are there and have failed him and he is not afraid to make moves. And he traded four incredible prospects for Soto, but you know he ended up unloading Soto this year, getting some pieces back from the Yankees that has helped them and put one of them in the deal to get Dylan Cease.’’

Another part of the story is that Preller has a manager in Mike Shildt and a pitching coach in Ruben Niebla who actually manage and coach, and Cease made a terrific adjustment recently, holding the baseball closer to his body and that helped him pitch a no-hitter.

“Preller is always moving forward, and he got Tanner Scott,’’ the evaluator said. “That is a gain for that bullpen and the Padres are really dangerous right now. If Yu Darvish comes back, they become a dangerous team. They have a deep lineup, if he has five guys who can get them through six innings, they are in a pretty good place.’’

The

The Padres have the best team batting average in the game at .263. At the bottom are White Sox at .217. The Padres keep it interesting, and they also have shown to be a thorn in the side of the super rich Dodgers who can afford to go out and get Shohei Ohtani, and work through the Ohtani-translator $17 million mess.

The Padres now have four lefties in their bullpen, Ohtani busters, I call them.

So yes, prospects can come and go. And sometimes they are blocked by talent in front of them so deal them away and get what you need.

It’s not rocket science. It’s baseball.

“There are only a couple GMs who know what it takes to win, and one is in Philadelphia so he will trade prospects,’’ the evaluator added. “He knows that his third-ranked prospect may not be that good and may not ever be a good player in the big leagues, but most of the GMs want to always run to the press and go: ‘We have seven guys in the Top 100.’ What does that do for you?’’

That causes P.E. – Prospect Envy.

Other owners say, “Hey, we only have two prospects in the Top 100. What gives?’’

You also need to be aware when to shed prospects when you are close to being in the hunt for the World Series. The Orioles made some okay moves at the deadline, but I feel they could have done more, especially since they have so much talent that was gifted to them from the draft and the previous manager and GM.

Teams overvalue their prospects and here is proof.

Evidently, and it depends on what prospect list you ascribe to, not one member of the 100 top prospects was traded this year at the deadline.

Not one.

So why is everyone getting so worked up about trading these prospects.

“Too many GMs want to have their cake and eat it too,’’ the evaluator said, simply a great point.

They want to be in the race, but they don’t want to make the deals and give up top prospects to make sure they have the best shot they can possibly have to win.

I called the Yankees trading for Jazz Chisholm Jr. more than a week ago because it made too much sense. New Miami boss Peter Bendix, in his quest for the never-ending rebuild in Miami, was going to dump Jazz and deals totally in prospect currency not baseball reality. The Yankees and Brian Cashman were desperate, and the Yankees had the opening to play Jazz in the outfield and the infield and they needed more team speed plus a little Jazz pizzazz, after all this is New York, home to Broadway.

And by the way, Jazz needed to get away from the shapeless Marlins. Their bad habits brought out his bad habits. Surround yourself with good people like Aaron Judge and all of a sudden you look at the game in a more team-like fashion.

Again, it’s not rocket science, it’s baseball.

It is working out great so far for the Yankees as Jazz lashed four home runs in the sweep of the Phillies, where their offense has stalled because Bryce Harper is one for his last 34. Harper got so many cookies from Yankees pitchers earlier this week but could not connect. His timing is so far off and so is his mental game.

Here is another big takeaway I have from this trade deadline and people aren’t going to like this one.

Major League Baseball is not working in Florida.

At least the way it is constituted now. Maybe with a new ballpark for the Rays, things may change but this is a tough market.

MLB is great for spring training in Florida and Arizon;  it is an annual right of passage but as far as the regular season is concerned, MLB is a dud even with the Rays showing some playoff success. Yes, the TV ratings for the Rays are decent. It’s hot in Florida in the summer so you watch a lot of TV, and I am speaking from personal experience. But there is not that dedicated, devoted fan base that is going to show up at the ballpark and spend money on a regular basis.

The Rays had the biggest sell off of all and word has filtered out that the Rays ownership group is looking to sell the team – but that big deal fell through. That tells me Rays fans are in for a rough patch no matter how much young talent they acquired through trades.

As I pointed out awhile back at BallNine, this is a Roller Coaster Season. One week a team is up, the next week they are down.

“It’s going to be an interesting ride the rest of the way,’’ the evaluator said. “The Phillies are in a real bad funk right now that they have not had at all this year. The last two years they had them early in the season.’’

The evaluator then got specific.

“Mark Leiter Jr. is pitching against Alec Bohm in a tie game (in the 10th) when the Phillies hold the Yankees down in extra innings and there is a man on second and Leiter is throwing 80 mph flat sweepers (one was actually 77 mph) and Bohm is trying to pull. All you have to do is hit the ball the other way and you win the game right there.’’

Again,I reiterate. it’s not rocket science, it’s baseball.

The Mets did not make big moves, but they upgraded their bullpen shuttle and added a lefty bat in Jesse Winker and a starter in Paul Blackburn. All that helps.

As for the Yankees, they have weathered the storm for now and that extra juice of Jazz was perfect timing but there is still the issue of Clay Holmes being the closer and Gleyber Torres finally being benched in a game for lack of hustle. The Yankees are in a stretch where 21 of the next 24 games are against suspect teams. This is the time they need to separate themselves from the Orioles. If they don’t, it could get ugly for the Yankees in September. The Yankees did not make the move to trade for starter Jack Flaherty because they were suffering from Frankie Montas Syndrome and Flaherty wound up a Dodger.

Most teams could have done more to get better. Everybody has issues. A few more new faces, a big trade splash could have helped a lot.

Maybe next year … when the MLB Trade Deadline Industrial Complex gets cranking again.