Trade Reactions - Hunter Pence & Ryan Dempster

"I'm going to make Giants fans forget about Barry Bonds. Stop laughing!"

Should I change my stance on the Dodgers winning the NL West?

No.

With the trades for Ramirez and Victorino, the Dodgers have done enough to win the division regardless of this move by their in-division rivals. I've already run the numbers in the post regarding Hanley on Monday, so there's no reason to go through it all again.

"Seriously?"

So this move means nothing to the Yankees?


Nope.

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Well, since that was a short discussion, I decided to move up my stance on the Ryan Dempster to Texas deal that went down at the last minute on Tuesday. I was originally going to write the Dempster thing for Saturday, but no point in holding that back now.

Are the Rangers still headed for the Wild Card?

In my trade reaction to Zack Greinke going to the LA of A Angels I said the Rangers were looking at the Wild Card. It came down to the Angels having a killer rotation after adding Zack, to go along with an offense that has been hitting pretty well over the last month.

Is it illegal to kidnap baseball players?

The thing I didn't really get into was the Ranger rotation, as I felt it wasn't worth getting into as the Angels now have one of the best rotations in baseball. The Rangers best starter has been Matt Harrison, who sports an ERA of 3.19 and WAR of 3.8. Don't get me wrong... Matt's a really good pitcher. He put up an ERA+ of 129 last season. But a strikeout rate of 5.4 per 9 innings is not the making of a #1 starter to me.

Then there's Yu Darvish, who is a fine pitcher that has an ERA of 4.05 so far in 2012. But seeing that he's had issues with Seattle, who's hit .294/.424/.426 against him in three games this season, it's hard to take him that seriously. I mean, the Mariners have the worst wOBA in the American League (.288). Futher more, the Blue Jays, who are ranked 5th in the AL in team wOBA, were only able to plate 1 run off of 4 hits in 7 innings against Yu back in April. But when they faced Darvish again about a month later, they were able to score 3 runs off of 7 hits in only 5 innings. I'm sure Yu is looking forward to getting out of July too, as he had an ERA of 5.74 and WHIP of 1.425 in it.

The Rangers' probable #4 in the postseason is Derek Holland. Now Derek is a good pitcher, and at 25 years old he will probably get better, but when I see an ERA of 4.74 I can't help but to think "we can hit him". I'm sure I'm not alone in that thought either. Perhaps it's the Bandbox in Arlington that's the issue, where his ERA jumps from 3.40 on the road to 5.94 there. Of course, he won't find Yankee Stadium much more accomodating anyway.

"Derp!"

Which finally brings us to Ryan Dempster. I really don't feel the need to get too deep with him. Sure, he currently has a very nice 2.25 ERA and 1.038 WHIP. But in looking closer at this stats when the Yankees were in talks regarding him, I saw that he also has a BABIP against of .244, which is 61 points lower than his career average of .305. There's just no way he maintains that number. Add to that a Line Drive percentage of 22%, which is in line with his career mark of 21%, and I think he and the Rangers are in for a disappointing rest of the season.

So the Angels are still going to win the AL West?

Yep.

How does this affect the Yankees?

I believe the Yankees will have the best record in the American League, meaning they will face the winner of the Wild Card game. That Wild Card game will be played by the Texas Rangers and the Chicago White Sox, as I see the Tigers winning the AL Central (more on that tomorrow). Now I'd say that the Rangers are better than the White Sox, but in what will be 1 game to decide who goes to the 2nd round, I'm giving the nod to Chicago. Jake Peavy will be the starter for the White Sox in that game, and I think he has what it takes to shut down the potent Texas lineup. He has an ERA of 3.15 so far this year, thanks to a WHIP of 1.06 and batting average against of .229. Even if Jake isn't able to make the start due to injury, or whatever, Chris Sale and his 2.61 ERA, 1.02 WHIP, and .214 BAA is right there.

So with the White Sox moving on, I think it ends up that this trade does nothing to affect our beloved Yankees.