The View From the Cheap Seats-Baseball Trades and Their Impact

Sports column alert: Skip if you're not into sports, as usual this is also being posted on The Sports Nut.

August marks the official dog days of summer, and nowhere is that more apparent than from where I sit, in the scorching Sonoran desert, a place where you can get serious degree burns from the cheap seats if you keep them out in the sun for too long uncovered. August means the start of the annual NFL journey through the preseason, and training camp fisticuffs and holdouts among a slate of completely meaningless games that teams nonetheless charge full price for and networks cover as if they mattered. August signifies young collegians heading off to the hinterlands to live and train their bodies and minds in Spartan conditions for the upcoming football season, my own alma mater and team of choice heads to the high country of Northern Arizona to a place known as Camp Tontazona, which sounds like a cross between a summer camp and an archaeological dig site. Every four years, August brings us the Summer Olympic Games, this year’s version coming from the smog choked and Internet censoring Bejing, China. But most importantly, August brings the start of baseball’s pennant races, and an unofficial end to baseball’s trading season. I say unofficial because players can still be traded but they have to pass waivers, where any other team can claim them and thus prevent the trade from being executed. Most big name players will not be offered during this time, but moves can still be made and the true deadline is in September when teams must set their 40 man rosters of players eligible for the post-season tournament. The term pennant race is also a bit archaic, as it refers to a bygone era where the winner of each league won the pennant and went straight to the Fall Classic. The current set-up requires those who qualify for the postseason to go through two more rounds of playoff baseball to get to the promised land, so the battle to qualify is really only the first stage in a three month run to glory.

Semantics aside, what always precedes the great chase is the setting of the table in July, when teams declare themselves as being part of one of three camps. There are the sellers, the perennial also-rans in what used to be known as the second division, before there actually were divisions. These teams, such as the Kansas City Royals and Pittsburgh Pirates in the current era, are generally well out of contention by July, and are almost always out of contention when it comes to keeping their promising young talent by signing them to big dollar long-term contracts. So instead of letting valuable commodities go without much in the way of compensation, they trade them to contending teams for prospects. In baseball’s perverse economic system, these prospects that do turn out to be quality players eventually end up being traded a few years down the road when they are again on the verge of achieving stardom and the big payout that goes with it, and the cycle continues. The frustration of being a fan of the Pirates or Royals must be nearly unbearable, as these once proud franchises who could boast contending teams in small markets have now become nothing more than farm systems for the wealthy big city boys.

Which brings us to the second group of teams, the buyers, who are the teams that have the money to burn, often the prospects stockpiled in their farm systems to let go, all in the pursuit of the holy grail of sports, winning now. These are the big bucks, big market franchises, the New York Yankees, Boston Red Sox, LA Dodgers, and New York Mets to name the biggest spenders, and most years they are ready to deal away prospects for the best and brightest available. Recently the Chicago Cubs have joined the list of buyers, thanks in no small part to their ownership by a major media chain, the Tribune Company. As any baseball fan knows, money doesn’t always guarantee success, nor does it buy you happiness, but it sure doesn’t hurt your chances either.

The final group is the ones that sit on the sideline, baseball’s middle class if you will. They are neither flush with cash to go after every pretty blonde with a flirtatious smile and flip of her hair, nor are they walking around with nothing but lint in their pockets. They generally try to hold onto what they’ve got, to build from within and go after the middle-market free agents to bolster their rosters. Teams such as my hometown Arizona Diamondbacks fit this mold, as do successful and storied franchises like the St. Louis Cardinals, Detroit Tigers, and Chicago White Sox, who while they share a city with the Cubbies, do not have the same fan base or revenue stream as do their neighbors to the north side of town.

This year we saw three major trades, and many other minor ones whose results often go unnoticed outside of the affected cities but can play a big role nonetheless. However, the three biggies to focus on will be the topic at hand; the first was the first one executed, and arguably the one that will have the biggest impact. The Milwaukee Brewers, heretofore one of baseball’s underclass since their last playoff appearance and pennant a quarter century ago, went out and got one of the games top shelf starting pitchers, one of its best and biggest aces in CC Sabathia. Sabathia gives a team already loaded with promising young talent the anchor that may very well allow it to beat out the more noted Cubs and Cardinals in the NL Central, and if they make the postseason, CC gives them a fighting chance in any seven game series. It is said that momentum in baseball is your next day’s starting pitcher, and in a short series, the big fella gives the Brew Crew tons of momentum.

The next trade was the one made by the South Siders of Chicago, the Chi Sox, who went out and got themselves one of the game’s all-time greats in Ken Griffey Jr. Before injuries got the best of him, Griffey was the dominant all-around player in baseball, along with Barry Bonds and Frank Thomas back in the mid to late 90’s. While Griffey is no longer the player he once was, and while his once seemingly certain quest for Hank Aaron’s home run crown is now all but over, he is still a dangerous hitter and a center-fielder who can track down and kill more than his share of extra base hits in the gap. His clubhouse presence alone may be enough to put the White Sox over the top in a close AL Central race and get them into the postseason, where as recently as a few years ago they were able to go all the way.

The most recent trade and the one that made the biggest splash is the three-way deal between two buyers, the Boston Red Sox and LA Dodgers, and perennial seller Pittsburgh. The Pirates, as usual, got the prospects; see above for the likely scenario with them and their newfound talent. The main deal however was between the defending champion Bo Sox, who got rid of their run producing and headache inducing machine, Manny Ramirez, and the Los Angeles Dodgers, who get Manny being Manny in Chavez Ravine. The Red Sox got in return, Jason Bay, a very good young player who while lacking the Hall of Fame credentials of Manny, is much younger and figures to help Boston get back to the tournament to defend their crown. The effect of Manny in LA is tougher to gauge, mainly because it makes a mediocre team a little less so, but doesn’t seem to be enough to put the Dodgers ahead of the young, talented, and pitching rich Diamondbacks in the NL West. The Dodgers have a mixture of young players and veterans, who will likely welcome Ramirez into the fold, and he won’t be there long enough to cause too much trouble, but the effect of one player in the lineup, even as prolific a run producer as Manny is usually less than the effect of a starting pitcher. I wouldn’t want to be a clubhouse attendant in LA on one of Manny’s bad days, but that’s another story.

Again, it is often the lesser noted deals that have a bigger impact, I am reminded of the early 90’s when my boyhood team, the LA Dodgers made a huge splash by acquiring Darryl Strawberry from the New York Mets, sort of a Manny of his time, but it was actually their acquisition of Brett Butler, a premier leadoff hitter and defender, that had the biggest effect on the team. But of the three big trades, I would rank the Griffey deal third, as his new team was likely headed into October even without him, but he will only help matters. The Manny trade comes in second, for while he is still productive, his presence may not be enough to put his new mates over the hump. The Sabathia trade gets the highest marks, as starting pitching tends to have the biggest impact. It still may not be enough to get the Brewers into the postseason, but if they do make it, in all likelihood this will be the move that allowed it to happen. The beautiful thing about it all is that we get to watch the action unfold over the next two months and then into October where the champion will be decided. Next time on the View, we’ll look at the teams most likely to still be getting after it come early fall.