DEADLINE DEALS MAKE BIG IMPACT
Mets, Jays, Pirates, Rangers surge with additions
Yoenis Cespedes’ best month as a Detroit Tiger was July, when he homered eight times in his final 21 games before being traded to the New York Mets. In 43 games for New York, he has homered 17 times, helping the Mets go from trailing the Washington Nationals by two games to leading them by as many as 91⁄2 games.
“I pretty much tapped him on the butt and said, ‘Good job,’ ” Mets hitting coach Kevin Long said of his instructions to Cespedes. “When a guy is as talented as him, when they catch fire — and I’ve seen it happen — they can carry a ballclub and carry an offense. What he’s done has meant the difference between us being an offense that’s just OK to one that’s very good.”
Long underestimated the transformation. At the conclusion of play on the July 31 deadline, the Mets had the majors’ fewest runs; since then, they’ve scored the majors’ most runs, thanks to trades for Cespedes, Kelly Johnson and Juan Uribe, the return of injured David Wright and the arrival of top hitting prospect Michael Conforto.
At the deadline, the Toronto Blue Jays and Texas Rangers were languishing in their respective divisions. That’s the day Toronto acquired ace David Price — after trading for shortstop Troy Tulowitzki days earlier — and Texas consummated its blockbuster deal for Cole Hamels. The same day, the Pittsburgh Pirates made a smaller trade for starter J.A. Happ, who has a 1.96 ERA in eight starts for his new team.
This has been the greatest trade deadline in baseball history. Since those deals, those four clubs have the majors’ four best records: the Jays are 31-11, the Mets 30-13, the Rangers 29-15 and the Pirates 27-17. All but Pittsburgh has leapfrogged one or two clubs into first place, and the Pirates moved within striking distance of the St. Louis Cardinals.
“In my years of managing at the major leagues, I never had these kinds of changes on my teams, and I was in pennant races for five straight years up until the last week,” Mets manager Terry Collins said, referring to the 1994-98 seasons he led the Houston Astros and Los Angeles Angels. “Now I see what the difference can make, and I certainly wish I’d have known that at those times, because I would have pushed a lot harder to make those moves.”
While there have been other superlative stretch runs by traded players — David Cone for the Blue Jays in 1992 and the New York Yankees in 1995, Randy Johnson for the Astros in 1998, Carlos Beltran for the Astros in 2004, to name a few — those benefits were relegated to one team and not the multiteam boost seen this season.
The only comparable deadline was in 2008, when Manny Ramirez led the Los Angeles Dodgers to the National League West title; Mark Teixeira helped the Angels run away with the American League West crown; CC Sabathia pitched the Milwaukee Brewers into the NL wild card; and Jason Bay aided the Boston Red Sox in snagging the AL wild card. Those were four great individual performances, but their clubs’ postdeadline records weren’t nearly as sparkling, and only the Brewers and Dodgers passed an opponent in the standings.
Not every deadline deal has worked out this year, of course. The Kansas City Royals swapped three pitching prospects for Cincinnati Reds ace Johnny Cueto, who is 2-6 with a 5.43 ERA in nine starts, but Kansas City did make a great addition in Ben Zobrist, who has plugged holes at second base and in left field while batting .315 with six home runs.
Manager Ned Yost called Zobrist a great addition and thinks Cueto will turn things around.
“It’s bit of a learning curve, I think, getting used to a new team, getting used to a new league, hitters he’s never faced, getting used to a new catcher, getting used to a whole new set of expectations,” Yost said. “I know there’s a lot of concern around the baseball world about Johnny, but there’s none in our locker room.”
A consideration for the Jays’ wholesale changes was their remaining schedule, which at the deadline included 13 games against the then-AL East-leading Yankees and four against the Minnesota Twins, who were sitting in the No. 2 wild-card spot; Toronto is 11-3 in those games, with three more at home against New York next week.
“That was a big part of the conversation,” Jays general manager Alex Anthopoulos said.
Twice in pitcher R.A. Dickey’s tenure has Las Vegas named the Blue Jays World Series favorites. The first came in 2013, after Toronto traded for Jose Reyes, Mark Buehrle, Josh Johnson and Dickey. “It just wasn’t a great team,” Dickey said. “It didn’t fuse well, you know what I mean?”
This summer’s acquisitions, however, came together for the Jays, who were playing .500 ball before acquiring Tulowitzki and have a roughly .750 winning percentage since, leading to another installation as Vegas favorites.
“I think it’s pretty phenomenal, really, that we were able to put the right pieces in the right places,” Dickey said.
Price and Tulowitzki — who recently suffered a crack in his left shoulder but might return for the playoffs — are the new stars, but left fielder Ben Revere has acquitted himself nicely as the new leadoff hitter, and relievers LaTroy Hawkins and Mark Lowe have added needed depth as 20% of Toronto’s projected postseason roster turned over in a week.
“I just want to stay the same and help these guys win,” Price said. “It’s been a complete group effort.”
Sabathia, trying to help the Yankees challenge the Jays in the AL East, lavished praise on Price.
“It enhanced their team significantly — Tulo would have been one thing, but getting David Price was different,” Sabathia said. “It sets your rotation. You know you’re probably going to win every fifth day. That makes a huge difference. (Aces) stop losing streaks.”
Price is 7-1 with a 2.17 ERA in his nine starts for the Jays; Hamels has a 4.04 ERA with his new team, but the Rangers have won his last six starts.
When Sabathia was in Milwaukee, the Brewers got great pitching every fourth day as the lefty had a 0.83 ERA in three seasonending starts on short rest. Sabathia said the change of scenery helped after contract extension negotiations broke down with the last-place Cleveland Indians.
“When I got to Milwaukee, they welcomed me with open arms, and I felt like part of the team right away,” he said. “It’s somebody that wants you. It was just a lot of fun to be in that environment. Obviously going from worst to first didn’t hurt.”
The focus on trades is typically what the player can do for his new team, but sometimes it’s about what the new team can do for the player.
Such deadline fervor could continue to increase. Anthopoulos reasons that changes to the collective bargaining agreement in 2011 have affected the deadline. Though stars traded in the final seasons of their contracts no longer net draft-pick compensation for the acquiring club, the opportunity cost of losing those picks is lower. Under the old system, the draft pick could be as high as No. 16, but now the compensatory picks are after the first round, often in the low 30s.
“The pick is so late relative to what it was before,” Anthopoulos said. “I think it encourages more trades.”
Additionally, the price tag on qualifying offers — $15.3 million last offseason — is growing high enough that some free agents might accept them, the GM added, also making trades appealing.
This year’s track record can only help, as three clubs have passed rivals for first place and a fourth has closed the gap.