Arms race ahead of MLB trade window shutting Wednesday
NEW YORK — If Madison Bumgarner, Noah Syndergaard, Trevor Bauer, Mike Minor or Robbie Ray are going to get dealt to contenders desperate for arms, it will happen this week or not at all.
Baseball’s trade window shuts Wednesday afternoon — completely, not like in years past.
Marcus Stroman, Jason Vargas, Andrew Cashner, Jordan Lyles, Drew Smyly, Homer Bailey, Jake Diekman and Derek Holland are among the pitchers dealt as the deadline approached. Most of the big names fans envisioned changing jerseys have stayed put in this new era of baseball economics, where prospects and youth are more prized than ever.
“Teams are doing a better and better job of understanding younger and younger players, and that’s why you see the value in teams trying to keep prospects,” Toronto general manager Ross Atkins said Monday after dealing Stroman, a first-time all-star, to the New York Mets for a pair of pitching prospects. “The younger players seem to be really increasing in value.”
Major League Baseball’s deadline for trades without waivers was June 15 from 1923 through ’85, and has been July 31 or Aug. 1 each year since. Players who cleared waivers could be dealt after the deadline, but they had to be in an organization by Aug. 31 to be eligible for the post-season.
That changed in March, when MLB and the players’ association agreed to a rules change that prohibits trades from Aug. 1 through the World Series. The only way a player can change clubs during that period is to be claimed on waivers or get released and sign with a new team.
“I think one of the things we’re going to find in the next couple of days as a result of there being no August trades anymore, there’s going to be a lot of teams looking to make moves to fortify their depth,” Philadelphia general manager Matt Klentak said Monday, when he acquired left-hander Jason Vargas from the Mets.
In a season of record home runs, most contenders think they’ll need more pitching to survive the pennant races and the post-season. With the season about two-thirds over, there had been just 31 complete games entering Monday — only slightly ahead of the pace that led to a record-low 42 last year. That’s down from 104 in 2015, 209 in ’03 and 302 in 1998, a sign of just how much the sport has transformed in two decades. Managers want plenty of power arms available inning after inning, leading rebuilding teams to sell off their veterans to clubs hoping to win now.