This is one of those situations where you don’t know WHO is going to win 87-88 games, but the odds are someone will, be it the Orioles or the Twins or who the hell knows. Nobody in the league is totally out of it. You have to assume someone will play well and win the wild cards, besides Houston and Anaheim, so the team definitely needs to be improved. You’re right, the Jays COULD be the one of the various contenders who goes nuts and wins it all, but nothing about this deal really makes that all that more likely. They still have no ace starter and, as the Travis injury shows, have no depth and no ability to make up for injuries.
My trepidation about the deal is that Tulowitski, while he is much better than Reyes now, is, again, not Honus Wagner. They’re committing a pile of money now to a 30-year-old shortstop. They did that two years ago, guy named Jose Reyes, who, as 30-year-olds with injury histories tend to do, kept getting injured. One bitten and all that.
As long as Price didn’t go to the Yankees, Dodgers, or Cardinals, I’m okay with the move. I really have no American League allegiance like I do in the National (go Cubs!). I just can’t stand the Yankees, Mariners, White Sox, and I’d like to have the Houston Assholes and Milwaukee Brewers switch leagues again.
And if they’re going to keep interleague play, they need to switch it up: Have the pitchers bat when they play in an AL park, use the DH in the NL ones; let fans of one league see how the other side plays.
Obviously a hugely risky trade for Toronto, but I’d have taken the risk.
Price starts 11, 12 games for Toronto (12 for sure if they use off days to skip the 5 spot, but they stupidly usually do not.) The difference between having Price start those 12 games versus the grab bag of Felix Dubront, Matt Boyd and other spare parts could be 4 wins; Price is a tremendous pitcher replacing sub-replacement-level pitchers. Given that the team has the potential to be better even without improvement, given that they will not be better than this next year, given how close the race is and given that the team really needs a playoff appearance, it’s worth taking a shot.
Great line on the radio today from a guy from Detroit asked if he thought Toronto made a good deal; “Prospects are great. Parades are better.” What the hell, why not go all in?
Further to that point, if you DO make the playoffs, Price becomes even more valuable, since you significantly shorten your pitching staff. In the regular season you’ll be happy if he starts 20% of the remaining games; in the playoffs he could start a third of the games. Star pitchers are more valuable in the playoffs than in the regular season. Top-loaded teams are at an advantage.
Damn straight they are. It’s remarkable how many people think just getting to the playoffs more often than not is reward enough, or that what happens in them is sheer luck. Teams trying that approach don’t get parades.
Just getting to the ALDS would be plenty to Toronto fans right now, thanks. If they can do that we can get frustrated at a lack of playoff wins later.
I am fascinated to note David Price, in seven attempts, has never won a playoff start. He and Clayton Kershaw have basically the same playoff history and statistics, and yet while you always hear about Kershaw’s playoff failures I’d never noticed that about Price.
As a Cardinals fan that enjoyed a wonderful parade in 2006 and again in 2011, I fully believe that getting to the playoffs more often than not is the only way to significantly improve your odds of a parade.
The big pickups in 2006 were Jeff Weaver and Ronnie Belliard. In 2011 it was Edwin Jackson, Rafael Furcal, and a bunch of relievers.
In fact, I’m hard-pressed to think of the last team that really went “all-in” at the trade deadline to improve their post-season odds and actually had it work. Maybe the 2012 Giants trading for Hunter Pence? Certainly didn’t work for the A’s last year, to cite one recent example.
A seven game series between two really good baseball teams is largely luck, and giving up significant future assets for the smallest of improvements is not something I want my team doing. Heck, I’m kinda pissed that they traded Rob Kaminsky (a pitcher still in High A-Ball) for Brandon Moss, even though it’s pretty obvious they need a 1B/OF bat and Kaminsky is at least 2-3 years from the bigs.
The trade deadline has been overrated since they went to 3 divisions, and especially now that there are 2 wild cards. There just isn’t much available during the season to make a difference anymore, not with so few teams out of it. The time to go all-in via trades and FA’s is in the offseason before - all you can hope to do now is add some depth.
So is anything. But it largely isn’t luck, too.
You shouldn’t be. You can’t be confident at all that somebody’s a major leaguer until he’s been one for a couple of years. Any fan of any team can name players in their own organization who looked like they were going to be real hotshots, but could never learn to hit major league sliders or something like that. An A-ball prospect, you say? That’s an oxymoron. This Kaminsky guy is at least as likely to be driving a truck in five years as starting for the Cards.
That reminds me of Luis Sojo’s “Grand Slam Double” in the 1995 one-game playoff between the Mariners and Angels for the AL West pennant. This video doesn’t do it justice:
I was watching that game, and it was hilarious watching everything that went wrong for the Angels on the play. And I can remember that it took very little lip-reading skill to notice that Mark Langston was shouting "FUCK!" after the play :D
Finalized this afternoon, according to the Dodgers MLB website. Dodgers get 3 starting pitchers, 2 relievers and change. I’m still betting they flip Morse before tomorrows deadline.
Astros end up picking up Carlos Gomez and Mike Fiers from the Brewers for four prospects; Domingo Santana is the only one I’m super familiar with and he seems pretty much ready to play at the major league level already but was in the middle of a huge log-jam of high strikeout low-ish OBP power-hitting corner guys for the Astros. Not sure what Fiers really does for the Astros - maybe pushes Scott Feldman to the bullpen? Gomez looks like a nice upgrade over what they’ve been running out at CF. Today was also Jed Lowrie’s first game back from his annual four-month injury and George Springer should be back from injury in not too long so they’re looking pretty good for the stretch run/playoffs.
Going further into the future, having two very good young middle infielders is a great place to be - I hope they can sign Correa long-term but he might decide to hold out for the 300 million dollar contract he might be able to get as a free agent.
the Blue Jays have now added Ben Revere and Mark Lowe.
I like the Revere acquisition. Revere does several things the Blue Jays lack; he can play the outfield, which is great on a team that sometimes finds itself with only two real outfielders, and he can run like the wind, which is always useful on a team with a number of slow players. Revere is a nice player to have around.
The Lowe acquisition is puzzling. Lowe’s pitching amazing but the team has lots of right handed relief pitchers and all of them are good. They still rely for LEFTHANDED relief on Brett Cecil, who’s okay, and Aaron Loup, who is terrible. Lowe simply takes innings from someone who was doing alright anyway - he’s the third right handed relief pitcher the team’s added to the bullpen in the last week.
It looks like Tim Hudson may have pitched his last game, as he goes on the DL to make room for new Giant Mike Leake (though he may get a farewell appearance at some point in September).
I still get thrown off by the deadline being at 4 PM now. Woo hoo, the Yankees got Dustin Ackley. That should just about lock up the division.
In other Yankee news, Luis Severino will make his next start with the big league club. I love seeing young talent coming up.
Speaking of Tim Hudson, he’s the number 2 active pitcher at the moment in career WAR (according to Baseball Reference). Anyone want to take a guess at #1? Here’s the top 5:
#1 ??? #2 Tim Hudson #3 CC Sabathia #4 Felix Hernandez #5 Zack Greinke