The July 31st Trade Deadline

  The MLB Trade Deadline. July 31st of every season. The last time teams can deal directly with each other without having a player pass through waivers where any team can pick off a player being traded after July 31 with a claim. The trading team has the right to pull back the player before the claim becomes final. It’s an interesting phenomenon. 

Teams get see how their squad has performed in the first 100+ games then try to tweak the personnel with needed upgrades. In the short term, the idea is to make a playoff contending team better. But long term, the teams which receive prospects could turn out to be better than the team it joined in trade. For even longer periods than just one year. And some of the players traded on July 31 could find new homes in the future, as long-term attachments to a particular franchise seem to be waning greatly with free agency. 

Being aggressive on the trade market will signal to the remaining players that the expectation to win, already high, has become even greater with the new additions. For those coming to a different team, the fact that they are there means that management of their old franchise felt that their value had grown sufficiently to acquire future devolving players. Meanwhile, the team to which they were traded is making a bold statement that we expect you to perform at your peak and contribute to great success the remainder of the season. 

A lot of the trading involves financial considerations. Some teams, feeling they cannot reach the post-season, unload bigger salaries or trade away a player whose contract is expiring and they either anticipate they cannot re-sign than player long-term or simply care not to. 

Of course, in these transactions, it takes two commodities to make it work. If a team is seeking major league talent, the return must be something which the sellers want that they believe will be worth the sale. So the teams which are in the market for ready talent need to have significant minor league assets available to make a trade. Rarely, it seems, is there a trade of players at the major league level, and if there is, it usually does not involve high-level players. 

While developing good talent through the minor league systems is a desirable goal, in the heat of pennant races where so many teams now are in the hunt for division titles and wild card spots, far more teams now have reasons to ponder if they are going to become buyers. Just because your team may be three or four games below .500 does not necessarily mean that, with one hot streak, you couldn’t be holding down a playoff slot in September. In the American League, only the Athletics and White Sox trail Seattle by double digits for the final Wild Card playoff spot; in the National League, Pittsburgh, Atlanta, Washington and Colorado are way behind San Diego. 

Some teams want hitters. Others want pitching. And a few want both. These decisions are reached as the season progresses to July. How close are you to a playoff spot? Did your team suffer significant injuries which warrant replacing? How much extra salary will be added, especially if you are in or headed towards the luxury tax bracket? Plus an eye must be kept to what the roster will look like next season and beyond if a particular player is sought. 

Teams scout other teams at all levels. There is familiarity with players from even before they are drafted—each team scouts college, high school and foreign talent to fill their minor league systems and to find that diamond in the rough who might shine after some polishing. 

Thus, when the teams reach the end of July, they are acutely aware of their needs, which players at what levels might be beneficial to procure for the aforementioned reasons or just to replenish losses in the farm system. While trade talks may heat up in earnest in July, it issn’t mean that discussions haven’t begun before the looming deadline or that particular teams haven’t coveted a certain player for a long time and now finally have a chance to grab him. 

Once the dust settles, there is no guarantee that the new players a contending team obtained will work out in the ways the franchise hopes. Just because the player thrived in one locale does not mean he will in a more pressurized place. Nor does it mean that if the new player has been injured that he will heal to the extent needed, or that new asset won’t get injured, thereby making it a hard loss at a critical time. To quote sage philosophers: this is why they play the games. 

Whatever trades are consummated may not be enough. A team can obtain hitters, yet that still may leave a hole or two in the lineup, or the new player may become mired in a slump. Meanwhile, the franchise struck out on improving a weak pitching staff by not getting quality starters or relievers. 

Grading the trades right after they are completed is a fool’s errand. The only time that should occur is at the end of the season when the entire body of work over the last 60-62 games will determine the team was able to make the playoffs, let alone successfully make it to the World Series. 

So I am not going to rate what the New York Yankees haul was. General Manager Brian Cashman was busy down in Tampa where the Yankees have offices. Yet he admitted that he had discussions which didn’t pan out for starting pitching, as the team has a few young starters currently in place along with the imminent return of Luis Gil, the 2024 AL Rookie of the Year. 

The team still has to get shortstop Anthony Volpe straightened out. The New Jersey kid out of Delbarton has the potential—he was a Gold Glove winner his rookie season. But Volpe is in a horrible fielding slump with repeated bad throws, and while his bat is beginning to show signs of life, his batting average remains unacceptable at a current .215 number. 

Moreover, a review of the averages shows that outside of Paul Goldschmidt, Cody Bellinger, Giancarlo Stanton, Jason Dominguez and the injured Aaron Judge, nobody is hitting over .250. No matter the power numbers, this isn’t going to get it done. During its losing throughout June and July, which led the team to fall out of first place in the AL East, New York suffered from a lack of production with runners in scoring position. 

Plus the catching is subpar. Ben Rice is a nice player with some pop in his bat who can also DH or man first base. Unfortunately, Rice has great difficulty throwing out runners attempting to steal. 

Primary catcher Austin Wells is mired in a slump. When he was on base in the ninth inning on Wednesday, Wells totally lost count of how many outs there were, and mistakenly wandered off second base after  a successful sacrifice bunt by Trent Grisham. He was tagged out to end the inning, thereby quashing a potential winning rally. Fortunately, NYY rallied in the 10th inning to win the game to overcome Wells’ blunder.

New York is going to make significant roster moves in the next two weeks to accommodate the new players, Gil and two or more relievers currently working their way back from injuries. Then there is the need to reinstate the potent bat of Judge into the lineup. 

Judge is recovering from a right flexor strain. He received a PRP injection. The plan is to start him as a designated hitter until his anticipated healing will allow him to go back in the field. However, that isn’t expected to be soon, and Judge’s return as soon as Tuesday as a DH will necessarily take away at bats from Rice, a slugging Stanton, Goldschmidt, newly acquired Amed Rosario and Austin Slater or Wells among others, as well as create a position log jam whereby somebody has to go either to the minors or be designated for assignment. 

Making the right decisions could significantly impact the team’s fortunes. NYY trails division leader Toronto by 3.5 games as the Yankees have begun to win again while the 50-59 Baltimore Orioles took three of four games to momentarily cool down the torrid Blue Jays. 

The schedule is hardly a cakewalk, as the Jays, arch rivals Boston and Houston loom ahead. Tonight the Yankees are in Miami; although the Marlins sit at 52-55 and seven gamers out of a NL Wild Card berth, the team has been playing well as of late. Next up is a trip to Arlington to play the Texas Rangers, a team which is over .500, improved its solid pitching and is only one game behind Seattle in the AL Wild Card hunt. Then AL West-leading Houston comes into Yankee Stadium next weekend followed by non-contending Minnesota. 

With all that has gone on, it is the stretch of the next nine games for NYY and all the other teams in the playoff chase which will possibly start to show which ones have gotten stronger as a result of the transactions made up to the trading deadline coupled with injury reinforcements. 

Time’s up for this week. So much for my review of Happy Gilmore 2, which we watched last night on Netflix. Nor will I be able to give my thoughts now on Rutgers’ new athletic director, Keli Zinn. 

Such is the pervasive MLB enigma popularly known as the July 31st trade deadline. It sure enhances the race to the finish line.