Players try to tune out trade noise
Experience teaches them many lessons
A couple years ago, when Felipe Vazquez ( then Rivero) pitched for the Washington Nationals, he swore he wasn’t getting traded. Sure, some of his teammates attempted to change his mind. Family, too. But Vazquez never thought Washington would move him.
The Pirates closer obviously was wrong. And now, as he faces a similar scenario with the MLB trade deadline fast approaching, Vazquez has tweaked how he thinks about such things. Essentially, he doesn’t. “Whatever they’re saying, I just don’t pay attention,” Vazquez said. “If it’s going to happen, it’s going to happen. I did pay attention before, but I’m at a point where everybody wants me. If somebody wants to get me, they’re going to get me.”
Vazquez has a common outlook on the trade deadline among those queried on the topic. While they’re absolutely aware these next few days might be weird, they don’t spend that time fixated on what might happen.
“For me, it’s the same game no matter where I am,” Corey Dickerson said. “Other teams know what I’m capable of. The Pirates know what I’m capable of, so I try to not worry about those things. They’re out of my control. My job is to play the game.”
That sort of tunnel vision isn’t exclusive, either.
Dickerson said his family has become aware enough around this time of year to know if they see something on MLB Network, he doesn’t want to hear about it.
“They’ve evolved to see that a lot of the things out there aren’t right,” Dickerson said. “People could say somebody wants you, but somebody random could have made that up.
“I always get on my dad for looking at articles that crush me or talk about me. You never know who could be saying those things. I never take any of those things personally or put any value into them.”
Although Chris Archer isn’t as likely to move as Vazquez, Melky Cabrera, Francisco Liriano or even Dickerson, who’s currently out with a groin injury, he does have experience being traded. Drafted by the Cleveland Indians, Archer was traded twice before the Pirates acquired him last summer.
When he was younger, Archer
paid attention to the noise. He worried he might be on the move and generally gave trade- related fodder more credence than it was worth. Like with Vazquez, that has changed.
“After the first time your name is thrown out there and nothing happens, you realize how small the chances are that you’re going to get traded; everything has to align,” Archer said. “I would see stuff and be like, ‘ That’s just noise.’ No reporter really knows anything.”
True, but reports generally emanate from somewhere, whether that’s directly from the trading team’s front office or word spreading around the industry.
Sometimes it’s legitimate, too. Like if a cellar- dweller has a key piece on an expiring contract and wants to get something for him. Or maybe there’s an up- and- coming prospect who deserves a shot.
There are also times when a player’s name might pop up because someone in the organization wants to see what sort of value he has. If so- andso is on the market, what sort of fictitious trades can anyone make?
Archer is fine with that. He understands the business. But as a player, that’s nothing he takes seriously. Especially when it involves deadlinerelated articles that play matchmaker.
“Around this time, on the baseball channel, they just need something to talk about,” Archer said. “It’s not the playoffs yet. It’s not early in the season. The stories have kind of died down.
“So they ask, ‘ What does this team need? There’s this outfielder or position player who could fill the void.’ But it’s just speculation. At first, you feel like, ‘ This might be real.’ But 99 percent of the time, nothing’s going to happen.”
Which is why Dickerson and others prefer to think about baseball as work and nothing more.
If they do that, and realize they could do that anywhere, then the trade deadline noise ( theoretically) whizzes right over their heads.
“You never give up on your guys,” Dickerson said. “That’s why we show up together and compete together. You never know when you can run off a hot streak. … I care more about winning than I do about something that may happen in the future that I can’t control.”
Manager Clint Hurdle said handling the trade talk — and not being consumed by it — is a lesson players have to learn over time.
Such things usually don’t make good team- meeting fodder, either, although Hurdle will address those affected individually.
The key, Hurdle said, is realizing that very little of the process is controllable for a player.
“You don’t learn it overnight,” Hurdle said. “You don’t learn it when you’re young. You have a tendency to learn it as you get older. Anxiety or worry, it’s like a rocking chair. It gives you something to do, but it doesn’t get you anywhere.”