Major League Baseball's Trade Deadline Day can be the best day of the year, or the worst day of the year for fans. You hope your favorite players don't get traded away, but you also hope your team can snag that power hitter or great starting ace. This year's Deadline Day wasn't as exciting as it has been in the past, but there were a few good trades that happened before the 4 p.m. cut-off.
Winners:
Texas Rangers
The American League West-leading Rangers snagged a DH, catcher, and a reliever today from the New York Yankees and Milwaukee Brewers. The Rangers received Carlos Beltran from the Yankees for a pitching prospect, in hopes that he can take over for Prince Fielder, who is having season-ending neck surgery. From the Brew-Crew, the Rangers got Jonathan Lucroy and Jeremy Jeffress. Lucroy has an .841 OPS, second among catchers, and Jeffress has 16 straight saves.
The Rangers seem to have their sights set on making the play-offs again this season, and if they keep it up, they just might have a chance.
New York Yankees
The Yankees have been flirting with the bottom of the AL East for a while now, so it only makes sense that they're trying to clean house at the deadline. Last week the Yanks traded closer Aroldis Chapman to the Chicago Cubs for four young Cubbies. Chapman didn't even play a full season in pin stripes as he came off a suspension for domestic violence stemming from last October. They also dished Beltran to the Rangers, and after saying they weren't going to get rid of Andrew Miller, they got rid of Andrew Miller to the Cleveland Indians for four prospects.
Maybe the Yankees are looking to rebuild with the close dozen of prospects they now have. I mean, when the team is looking like they should be in a retirement home than a bar, you might want to think about changing it up a bit.
San Francisco Giants
It's an even year, so you know what that means*. The Giants picked up two pitchers, Matt Moore from the Tampa Bay Rays and Will Smith from the Brewers. Two of the team's best starters, Madison Bumgarner (who likes to hit for himself) and Johnny Cueto (who once cleated someone in a fight), have a combined 2.36 ERA while the rest of the rotation has a 4.90. Hopefully Moore and Smith can balance out the rotation and lead the Giants to the post-season.
*If you don't know what that means: there is a running joke that the Giants only win World Series in even years, and it's actually true. They won in 2010, 2012, and 2014. And we all know what year it is now...
Losers:
Cleveland Indians (sort of)
For those of you who don't know, Jonathan Lucroy, who was mentioned above and was traded to the Rangers, vetoed a trade to the Indians when the Brewers tried to trade him there a few days ago. Both teams have a good chance at making the play-offs this season, especially if the Tribe keeps up what they've been doing. Maybe Lucroy enjoys sweltering in 100-degree heat and doesn't want to hang out with Tito Francona.
(According to SBNation, the Rangers aren't in the list of teams where he could use his no-trade clause; the Indians were a team he could reject).
Boston Red Sox
After the shake-up last season bringing in Dave Dombrowski* as president of Baseball Operations, Red Sox Nation swore he was going to be as ruthless as he was with the Detroit Tigers. Sure the team has made a few minor trades within the last month or so (Drew Pomeranz from the San Diego Padres and Fernando Abad today from the Minnesota Twins), but not enough to make a splash. Rumors were going around that the team had "late night talks" with the Chicago White Sox about ace and amateur knife wielder Chris Sale, but trade talks fell through after the White Sox posed high demands.
Hopefully by September before the 40-man roster is enacted, Dombrowski can make some moves to improve the Red Sox's slowly crumbling starting rotation and land the team in the play-offs for the first time since 2013.
*At least he's good at picking up players from jail when they get arrested for DUIs during spring training.
