Sunday, August 2, 2015

2015 MLB Trade Deadline Winners & Losers: AL East Edition


The 2015 MLB trade deadline has come and passed and there was a ton of action in the week leading up to the deadline. Some we saw coming, Cole Hamels was traded to the Texas Rangers, other trades were somewhat predictable, the Cincinnati Reds sent Johnny Cueto to Kansas City for three prospects, and a couple trades simply came out of left field, that Dodgers/Braves/Marlins trade that saw 13 players swapped including the Braves top prospect Jose Peraza, Hector Oliveria and others. While I could spend all day looking at the winners and losers from around the league I thought it would be more pertinent to discuss the winners and losers in the American League East Division.

The Toronto Blue Jays far and away hands down won the trading deadline this season. The future is not so bright in Toronto after trading away a plethora of prospects from Triple-A down but the team was successful in adding David Price, Troy Tulowitzki, LaTroy Hawkins, Ben Revere and others to a club making the pitching much improved and the offense borderline unfair. Whether it’s enough to make up six games or so in the division between now and the end of September remains to be seen but as it stands today Toronto is a winner, easily. WINNERS.

 The Baltimore Orioles added Gerardo Parra to their outfield, last I checked though Parra could not pitch. Also the last time I checked, now granted I’ve been a bit busy with the blog and the trade deadline, the Orioles biggest issue this season was their pitching holding them back. Mix that with the fact that Tommy Hunter was traded and Bud Norris was designated for assignment and Baltimore may be the same, if not worse than they were before the deadline. LOSERS.

 Tampa pretty much stood pat and did nothing, standing pat means getting worse in this division. LOSERS.

The Red Sox shipped off Shane Victorino in a relatively minor deal, standing pat means getting worse in this division. LOSERS.

 The New York Yankees added Dustin Ackley while also calling up Nick Goody and Bryan Mitchell to try and replace the injured Michael Pineda. The team is better without Garrett Jones, who was designated for assignment, Chris Capuano, who was also DFA’d, and Esmil Rogers who was released to pursue a pitching opportunity in Japan but the team was relatively quiet before the deadline. Marginal improvements are improvements nonetheless but they did more standing pat than they did improving, so they marginally got worse in my book. LOSERS.

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Sorry for the Capatcha... Blame the Russians :)