The non-waiver trade deadline has come and gone for the 2018 season. Trades were made all the way up to the deadline and buyers and sellers both made some organization improving moves. Despite the high volume of trades a few teams sat on their assets and blew a great opportunity to take advantage of the market.
Winner: New York Yankees
The Yankees made the right moves improving their pitching staff both in the rotation and the bullpen. The additions of left handed pitchers J.A. Happ and Zach Britton were the big moves for the Yankees. Happ is a solid #4 starter that will allow the Yankees to have 2 lefties and 2 righties lined up for a post season series (Luis Severino, Masahiro Tanaka, CC Sabathia, Happ). In a soft starting pitcher market Happ was one of the best available, and has a history of success against the Red Sox and has some postseason experience both with the Phillies and Blue Jays. Britton bolsters an already powerful bullpen which allows manager Aaron Boone to go to the pen after the starters get through the order twice.
The Yankees could have made one more move in my opinion, and that would have been to go get Wilson Ramos. Ramos is in the final year of his contract which still leaves room for Gary Sanchez next year. Ramos is an All-Star and is having a great season slashing; .296/.346/.488 with 14 HR's. Sanchez not only is having a down year, but has been battling injuries and has shown lack of effort. Ramos would have given them an improvement for this year at that position for the playoff run.
Loser: New York Mets
The Mets absolutely fumbled this years trade deadline. On top of the fact that they blew an opportunity for themselves, the Mets by limiting the starting pitching market may have kept other teams from making the moves they needed to play in October. In a year where the starting pitcher market was extremely weak comparatively speaking they have three guys that would have been in the top 6 of the pitchers available, including the best pitcher in the league right now, Jacob deGrom. deGrom, Noah Syndergaard, and Zack Wheeler could have brought back a massive number of prospects in this years market and would set the Mets up for a quick rebuild. Despite being in the World Series just 3 years ago, the Mets have fallen fast missing the playoffs in 2017 and are currently 13.5 back in the east and 13 back in the wild card. They did make a few moves sending closer Jeurys Familia to Oakland and Shortstop Asdrubal Cabrera to Philadelphia. These moves indicate that the Mets know they're sellers, but for some reason didn't want to hit the reset button. With Yoenis Cespedes barely taking the field this season and having surgery that has an expected 10 month recovery, the Mets don't look like they are going to be competitive in 2019 either.
All three of the starters have team friendly contracts and aren't eligible for free agency until 2020 or later. The Mets aren't going to be competitive before then, so why didn't they make moves when they could have brought back a massive return for those three starters. There have been rumors of disorganization in the Mets organization between ownership, front office/GM, and the players/coaches. This lack of foresight to sell when the value is at it's height shows that those rumors may be true.
Winner: Boston Red Sox
Most people look at the Red Sox moves at the deadline and probably wouldn't be impressed by the moves they made. What those people aren't seeing is that the Red Sox weren't in need of much. The Sox are 75-34! They have the best record in baseball by 6.5 games and have been playing extremely well, pulling away from the Yankees of late. They have a dominant Ace in Chris Sale and have the best offense in baseball. JD Martinez and Mookie Betts are both having a MVP caliber seasons and manager Alex Cora seems to have the ball club clicking on all cylinders. The weakness if there really is one has been 2nd base with the absence of Dustin Pedroia. The Red Sox traded for a veteran in Ian Kinsler who has had a down year at the plate for the Angels, but will fit in nicely in the clubhouse as a postseason veteran who has played in 2 World Series in 2010 and 2011 with Texas. He has the grinder type mentality who's bat could likely heat up being in the middle of a pennant race and in a more hitter friendly ballpark.
The Red Sox also added another veteran in RHP Nathan Eovaldi who will be a nice addition at the back end of their rotation. GM Dave Dombrowski was smart at the deadline not messing up the team chemistry that has been built this season. The Red Sox are winners because they didn't make too many moves.
Losers: Oakland Athletics
The A's may have surprised some by being in the race this late, but we all knew they were young and talented. The A's and Mariners are likely fighting for the 2nd wild card spot based on the way things have shaken out so far. With the Astros holding a semi-comfortable lead of 4 games in the west and the Yankees 6 games up for the 1st wild card spot the A's and Mariners are separated by just one game for the last spot in the AL Playoff picture. The A's did make a move for a closer, getting Jeurys Familia from the Mets who will help solidify the back of that bullpen. To me it seems like they missed where they really could have been a winner at the deadline, the rotation. Oakland is in the middle of the pack for pitching with a team ERA of 3.97. They have a few good starters in Sean Manaea and Trevor Cahill, but Billy Bean could have shown both his ball club and his fan base that they are trying to win now by going out to get a front of the line starter.
Now even if they do get an ace I don't necessarily think they win the World Series, with the way Boston, New York, and Houston have been playing this year getting out of the AL is not going to be an easy task. On the flip side, if you go get a big time arm that has a team friendly contract (Chris Archer or one of the Met's starters) that may push you into the playoffs over Seattle and give you momentum into the one game playoff with the Yankees and set a precedence for 2019. Maybe the asking price was too high for Archer and we've already discussed the issues with the Mets, but if I'm in Billy Bean's seat I would have been pushing hard for something to bolster that rotation.
Winner: Pittsburgh Pirates
Pittsburgh is a winner for the exact reason Oakland is in the losers column, the Pirates made the move. Neal Huntington went and got Chris Archer from Tampa in a deadline deal Tuesday. The Pirates despite offloading two franchise type players in Gerrit Cole and Andrew McCutchen in the offseason have shown their fans that they haven't hit the reset button. The pirates have been on fire as of late winning 15 of their last 18 games bringing them within 6 games of the central, but the more likely 3 games out in the wild card. Archer is also under a team friendly contract that doesn't expire until after 2019. Pittsburgh will be in the race and for Archer joining a contender and getting out of the gauntlet that is the AL east will be good for him and could lead to more success on the mound.
I wouldn't be surprised to see Pittsburgh make another move before September to get another bullpen piece or another bat if they are still within 4-5 games of a playoff spot. The national league is wide open with only 4 of the 15 teams more than 5 games out of a playoff spot with 2 months to go.
Loser: Seattle Mariners
Seattle I don't believe had a bad trade deadline, and I don't necessarily blame them for not getting what they truly needed, but they didn't get what they truly needed. Yes they improved the bullpen some, the additions of Adam Warren and Zach Duke will help as they are both veteran pitchers who know how to get outs, which hopefully will take some pressure off of Edwin Diaz. Their real need was help in the rotation, James Paxton has had a great season thus far and at 6-4, 235lb he is durable, and of course Felix Hernandez is who he is despite they slightly underachieving season he's having at 8-9 with a 5.58 ERA he is still a guy I'd feel comfortable handing the ball in the playoffs. I still would have loved to have seen them get another starter because of that reason, Mike Leake is throwing ok and Marco Gonzales is doing quite well at 12-5 with a 3.37 ERA, but if they could have landed a starter to truly solidify that rotation I'd feel better about their playoff chances.
Again this may not have been their fault, maybe they threw offers to the Mets and the Mets didn't budge, I don't know if Archer or Happ make a huge impact. A Cole Hamels would have been nice bringing that post season experience, but I think they needed another big time arm to compete with the Red Sox, Indians, or Astros in an ALDS series. The big issue with Seattle is they've been making this push for a few years now and you have to wonder how much longer is their window going to be open? Felix is aging, Nelson Cruz is on the tail end of his career, and with Robinson Cano coming off a long suspension for PED's how much longer are they going to be truly competitive?
**Statistics provided by https://www.baseball-reference.com/ and mlb.com team sites**
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