Analyzing Baseball’s Trade Deadline Winners and Losers

What started off as a boring trade season, ended with a plethora of huge trades in the last two hours, including the biggest blockbuster of the year. With no waiver deadline for teams to use this year, general managers had to make their moves by July 31. Here are this year’s winners and losers from the 2019 trade deadline.

Winners

Houston Astros – The biggest winners of them all, give them the only A+. The last-minute trade for Zack Greinke made them the team to beat this year. They have it all – hitting, fielding, bullpen and the scariest starting rotation in the big leagues with Greinke to go along with Justin Verlander and Gerrit Cole. To make matters worse for the rest of the league, the Astros will have all three until the end of the 2020 season when Cole is up for free agency.

Image courtesy of the Associated Press

National League East – No division was more active than the National League East. The Braves and Nationals addressed issues with their bullpen, with the Braves adding Shane Greene, Chris Martin and Mark Melancon while the Nationals countered with Hunter Strickland, Daniel Hudson, and Roenis Elias. The Mets added Marcus Stroman while keeping starters Noah Syndergaard and Zack Wheeler, and the Phillies added Corey Dickerson, Jason Vargas and Dan Strally. The Wild Card race in the National League just got more exciting

Rebuilding Teams – The Tigers, Padres, D-Backs and the Marlins all made moves to aid their rebuilds. The Padres received Taylor Trammel, one of the highest regarded prospects in baseball. The Tigers were able to hold on to Matt Boyd and received four prospects for Greene and Nick Castellanos. The Marlins added top prospects in Jesus Sanchez and Jazz Chisholm. It will be interesting to see these teams in the next couple of seasons.

Cleveland Indians – They needed some offensive help in the outfield and addressed that need in trading for Yasiel Puig and Franmil Reyes, who will bring a combined 49 home runs to the lineup.

Bruce Bochy – The soon-to-be-retired manager was able to keep Madison Bumgarner and Will Smith. The Giants have been one of the hottest teams in the last month, and are in striking distance of a Wild Card spot. Keeping Mad Bum and Smith will allow Bochy one last crack at a playoff spot.

Losers

Image courtesy of Getty Images

New York Yankees – The Yankees got Edwin Encarnacion in June, and nothing else. They didn’t address their needs in the rotation and the bullpen. The offense will only take them so far, but they needed to address their woes on the mound. Watching the Astros load up and the Rays make some decent moves makes this feel even worse.

Los Angeles Dodgers – The Dodgers traded for third baseman Jedd Gyorko, but didn’t address their glowing weakness in the bullpen. While they will coast to the National League West title, their bullpen will come back to haunt them later in October.

Minnesota Twins – They did get some decent relievers in Sergio Romo and Sam Dyson, but did they do enough to stay ahead of the Indians?

Boston Red Sox – Dave Dombrowski says he trusts his pitchers to get better. They need to or that bullpen will come back to haunt them down the road. We’ll see if Nathan Eovaldi can return to his normal form.

Colorado Rockies – For a team that was supposed to compete this year, they continue to drop and did nothing to help stop the bleeding. They needed to address issues with their starting rotation and bullpen, but did nothing.

Kansas City Royals and Chicago White Sox – Two teams who should have been sellers at the deadline did little to nothing. The Royals should have traded Ian Kennedy, while the White Sox should have received something for Ivan Nova or Kelvin Herrera. It was a big dud for two teams who are in a rebuild.

Featured image courtesy of The AP

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