Trade deadline losers
Now that the Major League Baseball trade deadline has passed, it is time to see which teams failed to do well during the signing period. Here are the losers of the 2010 trading deadline:
Chicago White Sox: The White Sox had a simple goal when it came to making trades: they needed to sign a serious hitter. Instead, the White Sox emerged from the trade deadline with pitcher Edwin Jackson. Jackson has a staggering earned run average of 7.24 since his no-hitter and does not really add much to Chicago’s roster.
To make matters worse, it’s not as if the White Sox forgot about their goals of adding a big bat. Berkman rejected the Sox. Their deal with the Nationals’ Adam Dunn fell through due to poor communication with Washington. Lastly, their attempt at Manny Ramirez also fell short.
Chicago still remains atop the AL Central standings, but failed miserably in its trade goals.
Toronto Blue Jays: Although the Blue Jays didn’t mislead anyone with their intentions, General Manager Alex Anthopoulos’s attempts at getting the most value for his players backfired in the end. The Blue Jays did manage to swap Alex Gonzalez for Yunel Escobar, but for the most part just sat back and frustrated other teams with the massive price tags on all of their assets.
The Jays overpriced Jose Bautista and squandered chances of getting some good money by asking for exorbitant fees for the bullpen pitchers they had available (Scott Downs, Kevin Gregg, and Jason Frasor). It’s not the smartest of moves, because it is likely the Blue Jays will get nothing other than compensatory draft picks when the these guys walk away into free agency soon.
Baltimore Orioles: The Orioles did get a good deal in the Will Ohman for Rick VandenHurk deal. However a team that is on pace to finish 30 games behind second-to-last place should be making far more moves in order to revamp.
The Orioles did not have many assets to move after Kevin Millwood’s implosion and Jeremy Guthrie’s lowered value, but the pitching market was extremely weak and they still should have made some moves with their remaining few talented players. Ty Wigginton and Luke Scott both could have been moved easily and quite frankly are just too good to be on a roster like the Orioles’.
As one club official noted: “Everyone wanted Ty Wigginton. I know they could have moved Luke Scott. And I think they could have moved Guthrie in a bad pitching market. They might be the biggest losers of all."
San Francisco Giants: The Giants did a little work on their bullpen by getting Ramon Ramirez and Javy Lopez. However, that’s not what the Giants needed to work on. San Francisco already had extremely strong pitching but lacked the hitting to be a truly competitive team.
They were initially linked with just about every big bat available, from Berkman to Bautista to Dunn, but in the end failed to make anything happen. The lack of a strong hitter may be the difference between a deep post-season run and an early departure for the San Francisco Giants.
Minnesota Twins: The Twins have generally made good decisions, which makes their trading hiccup all the worse. Minnesota had the opportunity to get Cliff Lee for Wilson Ramos, a trade that would have been almost unbelievably favourable in the Twins direction.
Instead, the Twins ended up trading Ramos and Joe Testa for reliever Matt Camps. Camps is not the worst addition and it is understandable why the Twins would go for him, but the balking on such a simple opportunity to obtain an ace like Lee makes Minnesota a loser for now.
Tags: