You can’t win your division, or secure your wild card berth, at the trade deadline. But you might lose it.
So let’s put it this way: As the final innings are again a concern to Dodger fans, 13 relief pitchers were traded by the 3 p.m. PT deadline on Thursday.
The Dodgers got one, old friend Brock Stewart, who has become a solid middle innings reliever/setup guy with Minnesota, and probably will be higher up on Manager Dave Roberts’ trust tree than he was in his first term in L.A., from 2016 through the early stages of 2019 before being traded to Toronto. James Outman, who had fallen back on the Dodgers’ prospect list, will try and restore his luster in Minnesota.
Meanwhile, A.J. Preller, whose San Diego Padres are pursuing the Dodgers in the NL West, got the one, or at least one of the ones, acquiring closer Mason Miller along with starter J.P. Sears from the West Sacramento A’s. (Or whatever identity the A’s go by these days, stranded as they are between Oakland and Las Vegas.)
But that wasn’t all in San Diego. Preller also acquired a catcher, Freddy Fermin from Kansas City, as well a starting pitcher in Nestor Cortes from Milwaukee; first baseman Ryan O’Hearn and outfielder Ramon Laureano from Baltimore, and infielder Will Wagner from Toronto.
So, two questions:
• Will they hoist a “Trade Deadline Champions” pennant at Petco Park?
• Should we check the Lake Elsinore Storm roster to see who’s left? The Padres let go of 13 prospects in Thursday’s five deals, four of whom were in the Low-A California League. The only one of the surrendered prospects in MLB’s top 100 ranking is shortstop Leo de Vries, the No. 3 prospect overall, who was playing at high-A Fort Wayne.
For the most part, the Dodgers were acquiring prospects. They were part of a three-team deal with Tampa Bay and Cincinnati on Wednesday night in which they added three minor leaguers and sent catcher Hunter Feduccia to Tampa Bay. The one big leaguer in that deal? Starting pitcher Zack Littell went from Tampa Bay to Cincy.
The Dodgers also added outfielder Alex Call in a deal with Washington for Class A pitchers Eriq Swan and Sean Paul Linan, and Call likely will replace Outman on the L.A.-to-Oklahoma City shuttle.
They also sent Dustin May to the Red Sox for two outfield prospects currently in Double-A, James Tibbs and Zach Ehrhard, and this should not have been a surprise given (a) May’s recent performances and (b) the number of starters ahead of him in the pecking order once Blake Snell returns to the rotation. Tibbs was Boston’s No. 5 prospect after coming from the San Francisco Giants in the Rafael Devers deal in June.
The Padres most certainly are not acting like little brother. They have the look of a team committed to taking down the defending champs, prospects be damned, and you can’t be blamed for thinking that the Dodgers’ actions on deadline day hardly discouraged the Padres or their fans.
Meanwhile, let’s look at the list of late-inning specialists that were moved. Besides Miller, whose allure besides his All-Star stuff came from four years of team control beyond this year, Jhoan Duran, David Bednar, Ryan Helsley, Jake Bird, Tyler Rogers, Camilo Doval, Griffin Jax, Danny Coulombe and Phil Maton all were traded in the past two days. Were the Dodgers in on any of those?
They had been reported as a potential suitor for Tampa Bay closer Pete Fairbanks, who in the end remained a Ray. They were also mentioned in connection with Cleveland outfielder Steven Kwan and with Miami pitcher Sandy Alcántara, and both of them stayed put as well.
Footnote: deVries was the only Padres farmhand who was on that MLB Top 100 list before Thursday. The Dodgers have six, one of whom (No. 35 Alex Freeland) is in the big leagues as an emergency callup because of injuries. Four others are in high A, and maybe that Andrew Friedman quote from 2019 is in play, when he mused that there was “a very good chance that our future selves are really happy that some of the bids we made were not accepted.”
Was it just as much a roll of the dice for Friedman and Brandon Gomes to resist including outfielders Josue De Paula, Zyhir Hope, Eduardo Quintero and Mike Sirota in any deals? We’ll see.
Then again, every time there’s a blown save – or, more accurately, every time Kirby Yates and, eventually, Tanner Scott walk through that bullpen gate for a good long while – Dodger fans will be thinking about all of those other relievers who changed hands this week.
The Padres are the closest threat. The New York Mets also had a successful deadline, adding relievers Helsley and Rogers on Wednesday and center fielder Cedric Mullins. Philadelphia added outfielder Harrison Bader, whom the Dodgers had been linked to, a day after trading for former Minnesota closer Duran.
And if you’re looking way ahead to late October, and thinking about who improved themselves most in the American League … nah, you might not want to worry about that for a while. The Yankees (who added Giants closer Camilo Doval), Detroit Tigers and Blue Jays improved themselves. Meanwhile, Carlos Correa has returned to Houston, and no further comment should be necessary there.
As for the Angels? They added veteran relievers Andrew Chafin and Luis Garcia – yes, the same Luis Garcia who started the year with the Dodgers – on Wednesday, and acquired 25-year-old utility infielder Oswald Peraza on Thursday. Otherwise, they were neither buyers or sellers, and maybe that’s for the best.
You might criticize their relative inaction when everyone ahead of them in the AL West was making significant moves. (Correa! Eugenio Suarez! Merrill Kelly!)
But the Angels are 53-56, nine games back in the division and four out of a wild card spot with five teams to pass to get within the top three. Baseball Reference lists their chances of making the postseason at 1.9% and of winning the World Series at 0.1%.
And the memories remain of 2023 and Perry Minasian’s decision to go all-in, after the Angels had won 10 of 13 to pull within 4½ games of the division lead and three games of a wild-card spot. After that flurry of deals, the Angels went 7-19, fell 12½ games back in both the divisional and wild-card races, and forced Minasian to put several of the players he’d just acquired on waivers, trying to shed salary for luxury tax purposes.
In other words, if you’re not certain that it’s worth the effort, it probably isn’t. Better to stay the course with the guys you have.
jalexander@scng.com