What a weekend it was for the DBL. Seven trades around the league, some small, some large. Rather than digesting every single trade, let’s look at some themes.
Are the Toronto Blue Jays Buying or Selling?
The Toronto franchise continues to look at the “most trades made in a single season” record and think, I can easily break that.
Trading Jay Bell for Bill Mueller is a good trade for a rebuilding team. Mueller is younger and, although limited defensively, is a nice piece to bring in with team control. He also adds to an infield that will presumably have Derek Jeter long term as well.
Then he traded a useless reliever in Mike Fyhrie for 36-year-old Bob Sebra, who’s a free agent at the end of the season. Flippable piece? Maybe. Lottery ticket? Sure. Why not.
But for every smart trade he’s made, he’s also brought in Lance Blankenship, Bernard Gilkey, Scott Cooper, and Bob Hamelin.
Ownership says there is a plan, and we’ll believe them. It’s just getting increasingly difficult to determine whether the plan involves winning baseball games or simply completing every possible trade before someone takes away the fax machine.
Washington Doesn’t Miss a Beat
Jason Kendall goes down Friday with a tough, season-ending injury. Washington played it cool, pretending they’d be happy with Bengie Molina.
Saturday, they bring in Todd Hundley, who has the second-highest WAR of all catchers this season.
The price? Two second-round picks and Einar Diaz.
Hard to believe Cleveland couldn’t get a first-round pick for Hundley, but apparently Washington decided that the best way to respond to losing their starting catcher was to immediately acquire one of the best available catchers in the league. How unreasonable.
The pressure mounts on Washington. This is their second big move of the season, after Caminiti. They’re not just the presumptive World Series favorite—they’re also rapidly becoming the team everyone will enjoy making fun of if they don’t win it.
No pressure. Except for all of it.
Colorado Remains All In
And this writer approves.
Bringing in Bell tells the league, like all of Colorado’s other moves, that they’re not ready to give up yet. And why not?
The NL West, like it has the last couple of years, doesn’t look particularly strong. With the pieces Colorado has, they have a shot.
They still have a big hole in center field, the back end of the rotation, and the bullpen. But those are fillable. Particularly in a league where people aren’t buying.
At some point you have to admire the commitment. Colorado’s approach to roster construction appears to be: We have problems. We will simply acquire more players until we no longer have problems.
Honestly, it’s a better strategy than doing nothing and pretending Aaron Sele is going to fix himself.
Florida Makes a Move
Florida has been unusually quiet in its trading, and with Juan Encarnacion going down for a couple of months, they needed to turn to the market to fill the void.
Brian Jordan is a surprising move, both as an intra-division move and as a player who hasn’t exactly been advertised lately.
The 20 defense will take over for Encarnacion right now, but there are some interesting options down the line. Given Jordan’s and Kotsay’s flexibility, Florida could create some interesting alignments for the remainder of the season.
Which is a fancy way of saying Florida now has enough positional flexibility to spend the next three months moving the same three players around and insisting there is a reason for it.
Still, they needed an outfielder. They got one. Sometimes the analysis really is that easy.
Cleveland Is Tearing Down
Bob Sebra, who hasn’t been good this season, and Todd Hundley are gone.
They somehow have a worse record than the Boston Red Sox, but are running low on pieces that are appealing.
Howard Johnson? Meh.
They’ve got some veteran relievers who should net a late-round pick, but one has to think they’re pretty much done at this point in terms of big moves.
Cleveland has officially entered the stage of the rebuild where every player on the roster gets asked, “Do you think someone would trade a draft pick for this guy?”
The answer is increasingly “probably not,” but credit to them for continuing to ask.
What Are the Biggest Needs of All Contenders?
Washington — Left Field
Shane Mack shat the bed, and Ernie Young isn’t the long-term choice. They need one more bat.
Montreal — Left Field
Sensing a theme? Montreal is currently playing Daryle Ward and Sean Casey there. They need one more bat.
New York — Catcher
Matt Walbeck and B.J. Surhoff have combined for -1.4 WAR.
That’s not a typo. That’s a cry for help.
San Diego — Shortstop
Like this writer predicted, Tim Nehring hasn’t worked out. Not to mention he has a weakened oblique.
So San Diego has a shortstop who isn’t working out and is now hurt. Fantastic. Exactly the sort of thing you draw up when planning your roster six months ago.
Arizona — Starting Pitcher
Shockingly struggling where they’re normally good. Aaron Sele needs to go.
The Diamondbacks’ pitching staff has apparently decided that being the thing Arizona is good at was getting boring.
Florida — Relief Pitching
Trading Cory Lidle weakens what was already a weaker-than-usual bullpen for the Marlins.
It’s difficult to improve a bullpen by trading away pitchers from the bullpen, but perhaps Florida is pursuing some sort of avant-garde strategy where the fewer relievers you have, the better the remaining ones become.
Science may prove them right.
Cincinnati — Designated Hitter
A revolving door until Bernie Williams comes back from injury, but it feels like they need another “big” bat.
And by “big bat,” I mean someone who can hit. Not necessarily someone who is physically large, although that would certainly make the scouting report more fun.
Orlando — Relief Pitching
They need one shutdown guy.
Paging Randy Myers.
Seriously, at this point someone should check whether Randy Myers is available, because Orlando seems determined to solve this problem by simply wishing really hard.
Charlotte — Health
This is a complete team, who would benefit greatly from everyone being healthy.
That’s basically the whole analysis.
Charlotte doesn’t need a trade. Charlotte needs everyone to stop breaking.
Unfortunately, “Please remain medically functional for four months” is not something you can acquire for a second-round pick.
Kansas City — Catcher
He’d argue it’s CF, and I don’t necessarily disagree, but catcher feels like a tough position as well.
This offense is first in runs scored. If they got a defensive CF, they’d be fine. Catcher may actually be easier to fill.
Which is an absolutely incredible sentence to write about a team whose biggest problem is apparently having a catcher.
But that’s Kansas City. They’re scoring runs at an absurd rate, so naturally we’re sitting here discussing which defensive position needs fixing.
Get a glove in center. Find a catcher who can catch. Congratulations, you’ve solved the problem.