**St. Louis Cardinals send 1997 St. Louis Cardinals 5th round pick and CF Alex Diaz to the Seattle Pilots for RP Derek Lilliquist. Ah, the pre-deadline madness. St. Louis has once again gone dumpster diving for cheap pitching, and this week’s haul is Derek Lilliquist. Signed through next season, Lilliquist’s career reads like a rollercoaster: several solid years as a starter, followed by the slow erosion of his stuff. This season hasn’t...
Florida Marlins trade SP Roger Clemens to the Los Angeles Dodgers for SP Aaron Sele, SP Ugueth Urbina, and 3B David Bell. Holy hell. Let’s unpack this. Los Angeles: All-In on the Arms Race The Dodgers, already controlling the UL West, decided that offense is overrated and pitching wins series. Enter Roger Clemens. Ranked as the 8th best pitcher in the league, he goes from being the #2 behind Mark Appier in Florida to #2 behind Greg Maddux in...
St. Louis sends: 1998 STL 3rd round pick and SP Marty Bystrom to the San Diego Padres for RP Gil Heredia At first glance, the Cards are hoping Heredia is more “rotation depth” than “rotational nightmare.” San Diego: Smart, Savvy, and Smiling Let’s start with the obvious: San Diego just turned a goner into gold. Gil Heredia. 8.68 ERA. Finger injury that keeps him out 2–3 months. And yet somehow, the Padres walk away with a 3rd round...
The Florida Marlins trade LF Alex Cole and $35,000 to the San Diego Padres for SS Hanley Frias. This is one of those trades that looks minor on the surface but gets a lot more interesting once you look at why it happened. And the answer, most likely, is money. Specifically, the kind of money that tends to get shuffled around right after you acquire someone like Travis Fryman. Florida: Accounting Disguised as a Trade Coming immediately after the...
The Florida Marlins send a 1999 3rd-round pick, a 1998 4th-round pick (via Orlando), RP Brad Cornett, 2B Carter Haney, and 3B Dave Hansen to the New York Yankees for RP Doug Simons and 3B Travis Fryman. At this point, the Yankees’ rebuilding strategy has become so consistent you could practically set your watch to it. Step one: sign a veteran to a large contract.Step two: let him play well enough to attract contenders.Step three: eat some...
The Arizona Diamondbacks trade OF Mike Greenwell to the Washington Senators for INF Freddy Garcia. The Diamondbacks took one look at the approaching trade deadline and decided the appropriate response was total veteran liquidation. Channeling their inner Chicago Cubs, Arizona essentially walked into the deadline room, flipped the table over, and announced: “Not today, Satan.” The latest veteran casualty? Mike Greenwell — who,...
Graham Wexler Post-Deadline Rumors Column What a trade deadline that was. For most of the day it looked like we were headed for the baseball equivalent of a wet firecracker. A few sparks, a lot of waiting around, and plenty of front offices insisting they were “working the phones.” Then the final 80 minutes happened and suddenly the whole league remembered how trades work. Some moves were expected, others came completely out of left field,...
The New York Yankees trade 1B Kazuhiro Kiyohara and RP Chris Brock to the Kansas City Royals for a 1997 3rd-round pick (via San Diego), a 1997 5th-round pick (via San Diego), SP Mark Leiter, and LF Ricardo Ingram. Here’s a fun one. The Yankees, who spent the offseason proudly unveiling Kazuhiro Kiyohara as one of their headline international acquisitions, have now flipped him to...
The St. Louis Cardinals trade P Jason Jacome and OF Eric Owens to the Arizona Diamondbacks for P Miguel Batista. Not every deadline trade needs to involve six prospects, three draft picks, and a franchise identity crisis. Sometimes it’s just a team that needs money moved and a team that needs someone—anyone—who can start a baseball game competently. That’s essentially what we...
Orlando Devil Rays trade RP Toby Borland to the Oakland Athletics for OF Chris Latham and RP Anthony Chavez With no offense meant to Orlando and Oakland, Orlando needed to move salary to be cap compliant. Oakland used his cap to buy a slightly better player. Everybody wins. Trade Grades: Oakland Athletics: A Orlando Devil Rays: A