Trade Wins

Dave Paisley

Well, the trading deadline has come and gone. Milton Bradley hits the jackpot and moves on up in the Game of life from the lowly Montreal Expos to the division leading Cleveland Indians and Armando Rios takes a huge step backwards on his way to Pittsburgh.

No trades for Gord Ash, who will no doubt try to unload his excess outfielders in the off-season, provided they promise not to go to Seattle, apparently. And Scott Elarton, once the untouchable in the Astros trade three years ago for Randy Johnson, limps off to Colorado in exchange for the much less exciting Pedro Astacio. It's been a year of sub-par deadline trades. No real superstars changing hands, just a rearrangement of a bunch of shop-worn goods. And is it just me, or has trading injured players become a lot more popular of late?

The real test, of course, will be whether any of these trades actually help teams. With that in mind, here's a look at how the teams stack up, with an eye on who's been lucky (and hence due to fall a bit) and who's been unlucky (and maybe ready to put on a spurt.)

First, the NL. Here's the East so far.

TEAM	G	W	L	RS/G	RA/G	Projection	Diff
Atlanta	105	60	45	4.7	4.0	61	-1
Philadelphia	105	57	48	4.8	4.6	54	3
Florida	104	52	52	4.9	4.3	59	-7
NY Mets	106	49	57	3.8	4.6	43	6
Montreal	106	45	61	4.4	5.2	44	1

RS/G is runs scored per game, while RA/G is runs allowed per game. The column second from right (labeled Projection) shows the wins the team would have if they lived up to their projected Pythagorean win percentage. The far right column shows how many games better or worse their real record is than the projection (labeled Diff). Philly's plus 3 indicates some good luck, while Florida's minus 7 is about as unfortunate as it gets.

From that it's easy to see that the Marlins are a better team than the Phillies - except for wins. They score more and concede less, but have managed to fritter away their advantage and are stuck at .500. Based on that performance, though, I'd expect them to do better over the last third of the season than the Phils. Note that their predicted wins from the Pythagorean method are 7 more than they actually have. That's some awfully bad luck to be that far off. Philly meanwhile has won three more than predicted, for a combined ten game swing with the Marlins. It doesn't really matter because both will finish behind Atlanta and the wild card. Note that while the Expos may have the worst record in the division, the Mets may actually be the worst team. Don’t expect trading Rick Reed for Matt Lawton to change that.

In the Central it looks like this:

TEAM	G	W	L	RS/G	RA/G	Projection	Diff
Chicago Cubs	104	61	43	4.5	4.0	58	3
Houston	105	57	48	5.5	5.2	56	1
St. Louis	103	52	51	4.7	4.5	53	-1
Milwaukee	103	45	58	4.6	4.6	52	-7
Cincinnati	104	41	63	4.5	5.2	45	-4
Pittsburgh	104	41	63	4.1	5.3	39	2

The Astros and Cubs are actually pretty close. The Cubs have the best pitching in the league, but with a weak offense. As expected at Enron, the Astros are up in scoring on both sides of the ledger. The Cubs are three games ahead of their predicted wins, which helps in padding the lead a bit. Adding Astacio should help the Astros a bit and turn this into a horse race down the stretch. The Cardinals aren’t that far out of it, but seem to have given up. In the lower reaches, the Brewers aren't actually a bad team, they just can't stay afloat, and like the Marlins are underperforming their prediction based on scoring by about seven wins. The Reds are better than the Pirates, but at that level who really cares?

Here's the story in the West:

TEAM	G	W	L	RS/G	RA/G	Projection	Diff
Los Angeles	106	61	45	4.9	4.6	56	5
Arizona	105	59	46	5.1	4.3	61	-2
San Francisco	106	57	49	4.9	4.8	53	4
San Diego	105	51	54	5.2	5.0	54	-3
Colorado	105	44	61	5.7	5.8	51	-7

Clearly, the Dodgers aren’t fundamentally a better team than Arizona - just a bit luckier or more efficient at using their runs. And once again, as has been the case for the last several years, the Giants are noticeably better than their scoring would indicate. Could it be that Dusty Baker's tactics are really worth an extra handful of wins every year? And if you check out Colorado, their runs scored and allowed are very close, but like Florida and Milwaukee, they manage to make the least of what they've got. Of all the teams in the division the Giants are the only team to make a significant push at the trade deadline and overall they should improve, making this a tight three-way race down the stretch. And let's not kid ourselves that James Baldwin and Albie Lopez are the missing pieces to anyone's puzzles...

Over in the AL, the picture looks like this in the East:

TEAM	G	W	L	RS/G	RA/G	Projection	Diff
NY Yankees	105	64	41	5.3	4.4	61	3
Boston	104	60	44	5.0	4.2	61	-1
Toronto	106	48	58	4.7	4.9	51	-3
Baltimore	105	44	61	4.3	5.0	45	-1
Tampa Bay	105	34	71	3.9	5.9	32	2

Take out the luck factor, and the Yanks and Bo Sox are pretty much even up. The Yanks have been hot lately, but it remains to be seen how their pitching stands up in the stretch run. Is Sterling Hitchcock the answer? I doubt it. One factor to watch is Mariano Rivera's workload. He's on a pace to appear in 75 games and pitch close to 90 innings. That may take its toll. The Yankee pen is definitely missing Jeff Nelson. As for the Red Sox, who knows what the real deal is with Pedro, but getting Everett and Nomar back should help keep things rolling for a while. Toronto? Done. Baltimore. Really done. Tampa Bay? Done before they got out of spring training.

Here's the AL Central:

TEAM	G	W	L	RS/G	RA/G	Projection	Diff
Cleveland	104	60	44	5.8	5.0	60	0
Minnesota	105	60	45	5.0	4.6	56	4
White Sox	103	51	52	4.5	4.9	47	4
Detroit	103	45	58	4.9	5.6	45	0
Kansas City	105	41	64	4.4	5.3	42	-1

Interesting to note that based on runs scored and allowed, Cleveland is much stronger than the Twins. The Twins have better pitching, but the offense has been adequate at best. In the last couple of weeks it's been awful. While losing Matt Lawton doesn't seem like a bright move on the surface, it may shake things up for the Twins and get some life into the team. Getting Christian Guzman back and David Ortiz up to full strength won't hurt either. Adding Reed takes away a bunch of starts from rookie scrub starters, always a good thing in a pennant race. As for the Indians, acquiring Milton Bradley isn't quite the same as acquiring say, Randy Johnson. In fact it's nothing at all like a real stroke of pennant genius, more of a minor tactical ploy. As for the rest of the division... White Sox? Buh-bye. Detroit? See ya. KC? Don’t let the door hit your butts on the way out...

And finally, the AL West:

TEAM	G	W	L	RS/G	RA/G	Projection	Diff
Seattle	105	76	29	5.8	4.1	70	6
Oakland	105	56	49	4.9	4.4	59	-3
Anaheim	105	53	52	4.3	4.2	54	-1
Texas	104	46	58	5.5	5.8	49	-3

Note there isn't a team in the majors with the run differential close to Seattle's. Even at that, the Mariners are currently running 6 games over prediction. Is it just luck, or is it the ability of a stellar bullpen to nail down tight games? Or is it the ability of the team to score runs consistently? Whatever it is, it's working. Meanwhile, Oakland is sneaking up on the wild card spot, and they're doing it down three games worth relative to prediction. While the Twins may well be within reach, it'll be tough for the A's to overhaul two other teams to take the wild card. (I'm assuming here that they aren't going to reel in Seattle given a 20 game lead and 56 games to play.) Anaheim is hanging in there with surprisingly good pitching but the second worst offense in the league. Texas, meanwhile, has recovered from abysmal to merely atrocious. They have the second most prolific offense (partly aided by their home stadium) and now only the second worst pitching, thanks to Tampa Bay taking the lead, and injuries to some key Texas pitchers that were dragging the team ERA upwards.

Bottom line on trades?

Winners: Twins, Giants

Losers: Nobody, really. Most trades were pretty ho-hum, and nobody got really screwed on the wrong end of a deal.

about the author

What did you net in trades before the deadline? If you got better than a lump of used chewing gum in exchange for your fifth outfielder you did better than Dave Paisley. Why not crow about it at drdjp@strikethree.com?