Five biggest winners of the MLB trade deadline
It would be fair to say that the 2016 Major League Baseball trade deadline was a seller’s market. The advent of the second wild card spot has made it so that more teams believe themselves to be contenders at the end of July, which means there are more suitors for fewer options. That was unprecedented this year, with teams trading top prospects for good, but not great additions.
In addition, teams are coming to understand the value of cost-controlled players who are signed long term. A player who is signed through 2018 is worth more than a player who is signed through 2016, and while teams have always understood this, the difference has only become more pronounced in recent years.
With the 4 p.m. ET deadline passed and the dust settling, now we can look at who did well in the last week. Who came out ahead in a market like this? Several teams, in fact, and not all of them were buyers. Obviously, only time will tell how these deals actually shake out, but at first glance, several teams made themselves better without getting really ripped off.
5) Milwaukee Brewers
Now wait a second, you tell me. How can you start with a team that sold? Well, the answer is that the team that sold did fantastically to maximize their assets.
The Brewers will come in for some criticism because they traded both Jonathan Lucroy and Jeremy Jeffress without getting Texas’s top prospect, Joey Gallo, in return. It’s a fair criticism, but that minimizes the fact that they managed to land Texas’s No. 2 and No. 3 prospects instead. Lewis Brinson, a young center field prospect, is highly regarded and came in at No. 30 on Baseball America’s preseason Top 100 Prospects list, while Luis Ortiz was No. 74 and is also very highly rated.
Even more impressive was the haul they got from the San Francisco Giants in a deal for reliever Will Smith. Smith is good, but he’s been dealing with some injuries and his numbers have been worse across the board in 2016 than they were in 2015 (3.68 ERA, 1.227 WHIP). In return, they received catcher Andrew Susac, who can step in and start immediately now that Lucroy is gone, and another top 100 prospect in pitcher Phil Bickford, who was San Francisco’s first round pick in 2015. Of course prospects are never guaranteed to turn into anything, but the Brewers got three within the top 100 in the span of a few hours. That’s a win for general manager David Stearns and company.
4) Cleveland Indians
Cleveland would have come in higher on this list had they been able to close the deal for Jonathan Lucroy or pulled off a Carlos Beltran trade. They could have done better, but they already did fantastically by acquiring Andrew Miller, who you could argue was the best reliever on the market.
Miller does not walk many, strikes out 15.3 batters per nine, obliterates both lefties and righties, can be used flexibly for more than three outs at a time, and will be Cleveland property through 2018. He immediately solidifies a bullpen that had question marks.
They gave up a lot to make this happen — more on that later — but this is a statement of intent from Cleveland, who may be the best team in the American League when you combine the shutdown ability of Miller with the elite starting rotation and good enough offense. Trotting Miller out of the bullpen takes Cleveland from a very good team to a legitimate World Series contender.
3) New York Yankees
One week ago, the New York Yankees were a mediocre, aging team that couldn’t figure out which direction they wanted to go in and didn’t appear to have much of a plan for the future. They probably weren’t on track to reach the postseason in 2016, and to make matters worse, their farm system wasn’t exactly flourishing.
In the span of less than a week, general manager Brian Cashman changed that with a series of spectacular moves. He turned Aroldis Chapman into top catching prospect Glyber Torres, got one of the game’s elite prospects in Clint Frazier for Andrew Miller along with another good prospect in Justus Sheffield, and received 2015 top five selection Dillon Tate from Texas for Carlos Beltran. According to ESPN prospect guru Keith Law, the Yankees now have one of the three best farm systems in baseball. That was unthinkable even a week ago. Now, with money coming off the books at season’s end and a stronger young core in place, the Yankees can truly begin looking forward, not backward.
2) Chicago Cubs
The Cubs simply had to go for it in 2016. They have such a big division lead that they could afford to think ahead and focus on targets that would make them better in the playoffs, not just the regular season. The Cubs were going to the postseason even if they stood pat, so let’s make no mistake: the addition of Aroldis Chapman was made with the playoffs in mind. It’s no secret what he can do on the mound. Chapman will lock down the back end of Chicago’s bullpen and push Hector Rondon back an inning, which makes the team’s entire bullpen deeper. The Cubs were also able to get Chapman without giving up any major contributor to their big league roster, and none of the elite prospects they have that are close to being contributors.
On Monday, though, the Cubs made a nice under-the-radar move by picking up another reliever, Joe Smith, from the Angels. Smith hasn’t quite been as solid this year as he has in years past, but he has a long track record of being a quality relief pitcher, which will only serve to make the bullpen deeper. They already had a fantastic, versatile lineup and a starting rotation that has been very good. Now, they have patched up the bullpen and made it a lockdown relief corps. They are now firmly established as the heavy favorites to make it to the World Series out of the National League and quite possibly win the whole thing.
1) Texas Rangers
The Rangers’ biggest need was probably to get a starting pitcher, and they failed to do so. The fact that they still top this list in spite of that indicates just how high quality their other moves were. With the cost of starting pitching apparently proving prohibitive, the Rangers went the next best route: make the moves that give them the best lineup in the American League.
Carlos Beltran was the first move. He did not come cheap, especially since he’s a rental, but the .300-hitting outfielder is going to make the Rangers a better team and add even more pop. What’s more, he has a long history of postseason success and can serve as a steadying influence on a team that has gotten a significant makeover from the 2010-2011 World Series teams.
Beltran was immediately overshadowed, however, by the move that brings Jonathan Lucroy and Jeremy Jeffress to Texas. Lucroy is one of the game’s best catchers, arguably second only to Buster Posey if you ranked them all. He is a quality defender, a strong hitting catcher with an .841 OPS, and well regarded in terms of managing a pitching staff. The statistics show that Texas’s lineup, top to bottom, will be brutal for opposing pitchers to navigate.
A #Rangers lineup of…
Lucroy
Profar
Odor
Andrus
Beltre
Choo
Desmond
Mazara
Beltran…is batting .290/.340/.475 this season.
— Ryan M. Spaeder (@theaceofspaeder) August 1, 2016
Jeffress gives the Rangers badly-needed bullpen help. His 2.22 ERA stands out, as do his 27 saves with Milwaukee. It’s not clear if he’ll displace Sam Dyson as closer immediately, but either way, Texas can now throw a few good relievers at opposing teams. The back of their rotation is still filled with question marks, but as long as Yu Darvish stays healthy, they will be able to throw him and Cole Hamels at opposing teams in the playoffs. With the expectation of plenty of run support, they’re definitely the favorites in the AL West and, along with Cleveland, one of the two teams most likely to represent the league in the World Series.