Disappointment at the Trade Deadline

By Iron Chef Leftovers

The trade deadline is always interesting in baseball, but this year just seemed plain boring. Sure there were a couple of bigger trades and I am happy with the move the Red Sox made in getting Jake Peavy for Jose Iglesias, but beyond that, it was the moves that didn’t get made (and one that did but I can’t figure out why) that were odd.

The Diamondbacks, just 2 ½ games out of first place, traded Ian Kennedy to San Diego. Granted, Kennedy’s 5+ ERA has not looked great this year, but there are things to consider – his stats suggest that his ERA should be about a run lower than it is and he is probably better than whoever the D’Backs are going to plug into their rotation to replace him. It is possible that the D’backs see something in Kennedy that scared them into making a deal with one of their division rivals, but they effectively dealt a decent starting pitcher for a LOOGY (Joe Thatcher), a mid-level prospect and a 2nd round draft pick. Not a great haul. What am I missing here?

The Mariners decided to stand pat despite having a few moderately tradable commodities. It seems that management is trying to keep fans by winning a few more games than they would if they dumped Morales/Ibanez/Perez. Well, I am not sure that winning 80 games will keep the fan exodus from happening any more than winning 70 games will. I suspect the reason is that they are trying to win at least 76 games – so they can make the bullshit argument that they improved over last season and that the 3…er 5…er 7 year plan is still working. The M’s are effectively out of it – 12.5 games back of the A’s for the division lead and 9.5 back of Cleveland for the 2nd wild card spot. Even if they get close to .500, they are still going to be playing to a mostly empty stadium come September, so why not deal Ibanez and Morales (they are both free agents at the end of the season) for something more than a bucket of balls and just play the kids and see what happens.