2012 MLB Season

[BigEd76]

Gaby Sanchez to the Pirates for Gorkys Hernandez and the Bucs' competitive balance draft pick in 2013

Edward Mujica to the Cardinals for Zack Cox

Craig Breslow to the Red Sox for Scott Podsednik and Matt Albers

[rams80]

Baltimore, I really don't know what their problem is.

Peter Angelos is a miser and a fiend. Also possibly an idiot.

[pmoehrin]

So AA has one hour to either decide if he's content with the Jays skimming along at a .500 pace, or to go for it.

It's been 19 years, when is it okay to say that failure isn't an option anymore? Sure we could be great next year, or the year after. But it seems like that's what we've been hearing for the last 5 years.

I'm also quite positive we'd be in a wild card spot, had Morrow, Drabek, and Hutchinson not all go down.

What gets me with the Blue Jays is that even though they haven't been to the playoffs since '93, they've had some pretty good teams in that time span. They've only had two years since where their winning percentage was under .450, multiple Cy Young award winners and multiple players who have finished in the top ten in MVP voting. A team with that history should have multiple playoff appearances. They just have the bad luck of playing in the same division as the most successful baseball team in the last 20 years and argubly the second most successful team in the American League over the last 20 years.

It's funny. The Jays could spend if they wanted to they just never do. AA hasn't signed any crazy free agents like the clown before him, which is totally fine, but when a team like the Yankees have a pretty sub par farm system, can just keep spending and making waves because they're the Yankees. It really sucks, once the Jays missed the playoffs for the first time after 93' You can say that's when the Yanks decided to go all in again, after a less than great 80's and early 90's, same goes for the Sawks after 1997 I'd say.

Yes we can point to the Rays model, but once all their guys hit open market, no way they can bring them back. Baltimore, I really don't know what their problem is. Most likely the all mighty dollar. This division blows, and I hate it. But no point in complaining, it'll just make making the playoffs even more sweet, but until that day comes. I guess we're the best 85-77 ballclub money can buy.

Well no team can out Yankees the Yankees. I'd argue the notion they haven't had a good farm system, but they can certainly buy they're way out of any problems they may encounter.

There's not much I can really criticize the Jays for doing. Its rare they give out a bad contract, they're farm system is decent and its rare they make a really dumb trade.

They only thing you could really knock them for is they seem to be unwilling to add or hold onto that one extra piece that could make them serious contenders. They win 88 games one year and then they trade Shawn Green for essentially nothing. (Two and a half years of Raul Mondesi. Big whoop.) They're an 85 win team in 2010, but they traded away Roy Halladay that offseason. You put him on that team it may have been enough to overtake both the Yankees and Red Sox. They just seem to be a team that's always one sandwich short of a picnic.

Also there will be no Cliff Lee deal this year. He has been taken off the trade block by the Phillies.

[Gary]

Dempster to Rangers details to follow

[pmoehrin]

Jonathan Broxton has also been traded to the Reds for ??? at this point.

[floydnimrod]

Jonathan Broxton has also been traded to the Reds for ??? at this point.

minor league starter JC Sulbaran and minor league reliever Donnie Joseph

[BigEd76]

Dempster to Rangers details to follow

Cubs got Christian Villanueva and Kyle Hendricks

Also the Yankees traded Chad Qualls to the Pirates for Casey McGehee

[Lights Out]

Dempster is a solid pickup for the Rangers. His WHIP, xFIP, and SIERA are easily better than Feldman's and Holland's numbers. Dempster isn't an eye-poppingly dominant pitcher, but he is a rock solid starter who will improve the Rangers' rotation.

[BigBubba]

So AA has one hour to either decide if he's content with the Jays skimming along at a .500 pace, or to go for it.

It's been 19 years, when is it okay to say that failure isn't an option anymore? Sure we could be great next year, or the year after. But it seems like that's what we've been hearing for the last 5 years.

I'm also quite positive we'd be in a wild card spot, had Morrow, Drabek, and Hutchinson not all go down.

If this were any other year, I'd go for it. However, when you know that several of your key players (Morrow, Bautista, Lind, Arencibia, Hutchison) will be on the DL for the next few weeks at the very least (and with Ricky Romero not playing like his true self), I'd find that hard to justify. You know you won't be playing nearly at your best for some time, so I wouldn't be in favour of making a significant acquisition at this point in time when they might not even get you into a WC spot. Had the team not been killed by injuries and were likely to take a WC spot as you mentioned, then I could understand (and would be all for) making a splash. But with the playoffs unlikely, doing so just wouldn't make much sense to me. At the very least, the recent Snider/Thames/Cordero trades have helped beef up the 'pen (as opposed to relying on other teams' free-agent leftovers, à la Jon Rauch, Frank Francisco, Octavio Dotel, and Mr. Cordero himself) as a sign of going for it in 2013 (Not in a "Oh well, better luck next year!" sort of way. In a "2013 will be the year" sort of way.). Think what the Blue Jays would do with their lineup, a healthy rotation, and a bullpen doesn't blow. I'm confident that will happen in 2013, and that, barring some unbelievable stroke of hard-luck like the one that hit them this year, they can be a WC team. That's not even wishful thinking - they already have a great lineup, a when-healthy stable rotation, and a decent bullpen.

[NJTank]

The trades have come at a dizzying rate this year.

[pmoehrin]

The trades have come at a dizzying rate this year.

You never know what can happen, but this deadline really surprised me in terms of who was active and who wasn't.

I didn't think the Angels, Dodgers or Rangers would be active at all. Instead they wound up being the three most active teams.

Alot of the teams that I thought would be making moves. Athletics, Braves, Diamondbacks, Indians, Mets, Padres, Tigers, White Sox just sat on their hands. And I would say at least one of those teams did so because they were holding out for a better deal that never came. Why a team like the Mets would not move a middle infielder (Daniel Murphy comes to mind immediately) given how much depth they have there and the needs they have at other positions just makes no sense to me.

And for a team like the Indians who could have been either buyers or sellers to do nothing again makes no sense to me at all. They can't possibly think the team they have now is good enough to make a run in October. So if you have no intentions of adding to the roster you might as well be sellers and build for the next year. To do nothing I thought was the worst possible move they could have made.

I'll give alot of credit to the Rangers. Smart enough to know now is the time to go all in, because this is as good as this team will ever get. The Dodgers as well now all a sudden have a serious case to make that they may in fact be the best team in the National League. Didn't get a first baseman, but they filled their biggest need in third base and they don't have to keep filling in guys out in left field anymore. They're no longer a one dimensional team anymore because that will at the very least be an average offense from here on out. And with Ted Lilly set to come back soon and a bolstered bullpen, maybe the best pitching in the NL as well. That's going to be a very dangerous team if they can stay healthy.

[mania]

I'll give alot of credit to the Rangers. Smart enough to know now is the time to go all in, because this is as good as this team will ever get.

I could not disagree more with this statement

I don't think the Rangers went all in at ALL, because had they decided to do so, they could have done a :censored:ton more. They have, unarguably, one of the top farm systems in baseball (I don't see any national writers who had them below 3 before the season started, and since, they haven't graduated anyone significant, Robbie Ross being the MOST significant, while at the same time acquiring Jairo Beras and having a great draft). The best piece they gave up was Villanueva, and he was MAYBE 15-20 on their prospect rankings. Maybe.

If they were truly going all in, they would have moved Perez or Alfaro to get Greinke, they would have been in on one of the Phillies bats, they would have made a move for another bullpen arm. But the prices weren't right.

The second wild card is a lie, and teams are believing the lie.

I think, within a few years, they will move the trading deadline back. They have to, because right now, 2/3 of baseball believes they're "in it".

[pmoehrin]

I'll give alot of credit to the Rangers. Smart enough to know now is the time to go all in, because this is as good as this team will ever get.

I could not disagree more with this statement

I don't think the Rangers went all in at ALL, because had they decided to do so, they could have done a :censored:ton more. They have, unarguably, one of the top farm systems in baseball (I don't see any national writers who had them below 3 before the season started, and since, they haven't graduated anyone significant, Robbie Ross being the MOST significant, while at the same time acquiring Jairo Beras and having a great draft). The best piece they gave up was Villanueva, and he was MAYBE 15-20 on their prospect rankings. Maybe.

If they were truly going all in, they would have moved Perez or Alfaro to get Greinke, they would have been in on one of the Phillies bats, they would have made a move for another bullpen arm. But the prices weren't right.

The second wild card is a lie, and teams are believing the lie.

I think, within a few years, they will move the trading deadline back. They have to, because right now, 2/3 of baseball believes they're "in it".

I think Rangers fans are more upset with the fact that the Angels got Greinke then the fact that they missed out on him. Personally I don't agree with the philsophy that you should go out and get a player just so the other team doesn't get him. Some moves ever made were done under that rational.

Texas has the best of both worlds going for them right now. If they don't have to kill their minor league system to be in the playoffs then they shouldn't. Offensively I don't know what they could have done. They don't have any real holes. Maybe you could do a little better then Mitch Moreland at first, or add some more bench depth, but you they would just be looking at a pure upgrade. I don't think there was a team out there that could offer them that.

Pitching yeah they probably could have some more. With Greinke who knows. Again I don't know what the Brewers were asking for with Texas so I can't criticize the move much. They still have a decent rotation in place and they added a solid pitcher in Ryan Dempster. I think they will be good come October. It may come back to bit them but we'll see. If he does well for the Angles then yeah there's a good argument to have that it was probably a mistake. Bullpen wise I think they're fine. Starting pitching was the only thing they could have added. I will backtrack a little off the statement going "all in" but I don't think did all that bad with the trade deadline because I don't think a team like that should be making alot of moves, just enough to maintain the position they're in.

In terms of the second wild card spot I'm not against that so much as I am the idea of a one game playoff for those two teams. I would have personally would have adopted the NFL playoff format and just go best of three for the first two rounds, best of five in the ALCS and best of seven in the series but I digress on that. I wouldn't be against moving the deadline back another two weeks or so. Maybe even up to September 1st. Its talked about even before this year. I think more deals would get done and teams would be in better positions both short and long term. To go back to a team like Mets they would probably be a perfect example of that. A few weeks ago you could have justified them as buyers, but now they have to be sellers and the fact that they weren't I think is more because they ran out of time to make deals then anything else.

[The_Admiral]

Dempster is a solid pickup for the Rangers. His WHIP, xFIP, and SIERA are easily better than Feldman's and Holland's numbers. Dempster isn't an eye-poppingly dominant pitcher, but he is a rock solid starter who will improve the Rangers' rotation.

Not in the playoffs he won't.

[BigEd76]

Hey, the Jays made a deal! They got IronPigs catcher Tuffy Gosewisch for cash

[The_Admiral]

Tuffy Gosewisch? Where'd they acquire him? 1906?

[pmoehrin]

Tuffy Gosewisch? Where'd they acquire him? 1906?

BR-reference turned up with four guys named Tuffy including Gosewisch. Actually thought there would be more myself.

I've always been impartial myself to Heinie. I think that's the ultimate old time baseball player's first name that you would never hear in today's game, nor can you find anybody with that name that's played in the post WWII era. But if go back to the 1910's it seemed like pretty much every team in baseball had at least one guy named Heinie on the roster.

[TrueYankee26]

When was the last time a pitcher gives up more runs in the next inning than the total pitches from the previous inning? Ivan Nova threw 6 pitches in the 1st inning and gives up 7 RUNS the 2nd inning.

[Kramerica Industries]

Yankees are playing like massive dung right now.

All seven of those runs were scored with two outs, too. After being given a 5-0 lead to work with the previous inning.

Everything that can go wrong, is going wrong for the Yankees right now. And if they don't turn it around soon, they'll find themselves looking up in the standings after leading by double digits just a short week ago.

[BigEd76]

After trading away Pence and Victorino, the Phils beat Strasburg 8-0 in DC. Baseball is a funny game