2004 MLB Trade Deadline Summary

BB: Bill Barnwell

ED: Ed Agner

PR: Phil Rippa

BB: The Padres got Brad Fullmer from the Rangers for a PTBNL. Sure – he's hitting .233/.310/.442. But who's he opening up time for? Does Little Sarge really need an everyday job?

PR: Well, I am sure that Kevin Towers felt that he needed to shore up the DH slot in the Padres lineup. Wait a sec… there is no DH in the National League??? Hmmm… well at least Fullmer is healthy. Err…. umm….

BB: Our bad. Apparently the Padres decided that getting Brad Fullmer isn't a good idea. They did decide, though, that getting Dave Hansen was – acquiring him for an A-ball pitcher. Mmm…OBP off the bench.

ED: Umm...OK. Now that I'm all confused, let's see...Hmm. Hansen is a nice little pick up - if you think you're really desperate for a LH pinch hitter with VETERAN PRESENCE~!. Why you would think that, I don't know. An upgrade on Hansen would have been, say, stealing John Vander Wal from the Reds. The worst possible scenario would have been trying to get Lenny Harris from the Marlins - or actually getting the crippled corpse of Brad Fullmer from Texas. This is a middlin deal for a middlin sort of role. Odds are good the Pads gave up nothing in that A-ball pitcher so...ehh.

BB: Is Vander Wal still crippled? Does it matter?

BB: DePo struck with the Dodgers getting Brad Penny, Hee Seop Choi, and minor league pitcher Bill Murphy (113/59 K/BB ratio in 108 IP at age 23 in a AA hitter's park ) for what essentially resorts to the Dodgers' scrap: Paul LoDuca, Juan Encarnacion, and Guillermo Mota. Sure, Mota's a good reliever and all (and if anyone needs one, it's the Marlins), but how often do you see a trade with a bunch of big players in it where one team gets the two best players in the deal?

PR: I love Choi and he is a FAR better first baseman than LoDuca or Shawn Green or Robin Ventura or Eric Karros or Steve Garvey or Franklin Stubbs or Danny Heep or Pedro Guerrero or Mike Marshall or Mickey Hatcher or Greg Brock, you get the idea. The Marlins reaquiring Encarnacion is… interesting. Maybe this means that Jeff Conine really will end up getting shipped back to Baltimore. I am some what giddy over the state of the Dodgers bullpen now that Mota is gone. Has Darren Dreifort reupped his deal with Satan? Did they scoop up another bespectacled Canadian while I wasn't looking? Of course, what do I know because all the early stuff I have been reading is what a great trade this is for the Marlins and how the Dodgers really didn't make out that well. Eventually, I will put on that extra 200lbs and get my sports reporter street cred.

BB: How many World Series rings do you have? Right.

ED: I bought a couple of rings dirt cheap in a Pete Rose garage sale, actually. Want some betting slips? The deal? I dunno what all the ESPN idiots are on to get all wet about the Marlins part of the deal, but then I don't get sexually aroused by SCRAP~!, GRIT~! or whatever it is that Paul LoDuca is supposed to possess (but GLOVE~! Ohhhhhhhhhh, GLOVE~! Mmmmmmmmmmm. I need to be alone for a moment, OK? Ohhhhhhhhh yeah! Oh yeah! There, all better, now. Too fast for GLOVE~!). OK, uh...where was I? Oh yeah, LoDuca is a nice player, he's not Johnny Bench or anything (that might make Gammons cry), but he's nice and he fills a major hole the Marlins had in their line-up. That won't make up for the hole they'll now have in their rotation, but, whatever. Encarnacion is...extraneous but he's better than Conine even if he has only 1/4 the VETERANNESS~! Choi won't have great numbers in Dodger Stadium, but he takes walks so he'll be better than Encarnacion - the man he's essentially replacing. How Jim Bowden and Peter Meltingface could get all excited about the Marlins getting Mota when The Fish gave up one of the keys to their rotation is beyond me. Sure, the Dodgers will have a hole in their pen for the rest of this year (though conceivably you try your luck with Dreifort and hope for the best the way some smoke in an ammo dump and pray to walk back out; or they could make Gagne throw more 2 inning saves to help, thereby risking exposing the flukiness of that saves streak), but they're getting a top tier starting pitcher just starting to reach his prime so they win and win BIG (and as a Penny fantasy owner, I am jazzed about him going to big ol' Dodger Stadium. Oh yeah.). Oh yeah, I now see why Bowden didn't like the deal, being that, you know, he wouldn't know a good starting pitcher if one came up and punched him in his smug little face.

BB: There were rumors that the followup to this trade would be the Dodgers acquiring Charles Johnson, but Johnson used his no-trade to kibosh it. It's really amusing, to me at least, that Charles Johnson did the whole prodigal son returns to Florida thing…and then Ivan Rodriguez pipped him in every way the next year. Whoops. Love those Colorado schools.

ED: The fact that ANYONE wanted Charles Johnson at this point, let alone a contender, should have made him jump all over that deal like Curt Schilling jumps all over the gutless and the weak. His kids better not bring home a bad report card this year.

PR: I would just like to point out that Johnson’s OPS = .827, Lo Duca’s OPS = .805. But Lo Duca is white and HEARTY~! And Johnson is black on a crappy team.

BB: Charles Johnson plays in Colorado and Paul LoDuca played in Los Angeles. Man, I feel like Ruppert now.

BB: Larry Walker turned down a trade to the Rangers, meanwhile, denying Rusty Greer a rehab buddy.

ED: Laynce Niyx wiyll be Greer's reyhab payrtner soyon, me thyinks.

PR: Oh yeah – that line made my head hurt.

BB: DePo got at least a part of his Diamondbacks trade consummated, grabbing Steve Finley and…Brent Mayne for the AA pitcher he got in the Marlins deal and a couple of tools goofs.

ED: And yet, most people are STILL crapping all over the Dodgers deals! Did we miss the memo on how everyone must be in on the Marlins love or something? Was that the same memo that told us that we're supposed to forget about how Loria killed Montreal off deader than dead and Bud Selig gave him the Marlins as a gift for his extermination? Whatever. Anyway, Mayne and David Ross will now platoon at catcher in LoDuca's wake and that's...nothing special. LoDuca will be better than that but the Dodgers get Brad Penny. You can deal with a suck hole behind the plate to get Penny. Finley is an interesting move since that the Dodgers will now have an OF of Bradley, Finley and Shawn Green - or a completely different and whole lot better OF than what they were projected to have at the beginning of spring training. DePo really did some fine work this weekend and now I regret writing the Dodgers off in the midseason piece.

BB: The Braves acquired Tom Martin – yes, $2.5 million dollar man Tom Martin- from the Dodgers for a minor leaguer. You know DePo wanted nothing to do with that contract.

ED: DePo wins again.

PR: Oh yeah. I didn’t realize how much ESPN loved LOOGYs until yesterday. You would think Tom Martin once saved a busload of school children.

ED: And DePo then moves Dave Roberts to the Red Sox for Henri Stanley. Apparently, Otis Nixon would not return Theo's phone calls.

PR: I don’t think Otis is allowed to leave the state. That whole crazy nekkid thing from earlier this year.

BB: And then…the Mets went batty. First, they finally pulled the trigger on the Kris Benson deal, getting the Royals involved. The Pirates get Ty Wigginton and Matt Peterson from the Mets, and Jose Bautista (that experiment didn't last too long) from the Royals. The Royals got C Justin Huber, probably the Mets best hitting prospect after David Wright, while the Mets got Mr. Anna and a mediocre Pirates IF prospect. Again, somehow, the Royals gave up Jose Bautista and got the best player in the deal.

PR: The Jose Bautista part is my favorite thing. A Rule 5 acquisition, he kept getting shuttled from team to team as he had to be kept on the 25 roster. No one really seemed all that interested in keeping him or playing him. But instead, the Pirates suddenly decided that they really needed to reacquire his services (instead of waiting for someone to eventually grow weary of Bautista eating a slot that could be used for a 4th catcher or something) and that he was the deal breaker in dealing Benson. Nope, not going to get swindled this time. I love that the Mets delusional think they are in the pennant race AND that Kris Benson is the man to shore up the rotation. I am saddened in the fact that maybe we can't make as much fun of Allard Baird as we used to. Well, at least for the immediate moment.

ED: OK, I will never get all the Batista/Bautista's straight in my head now. I give up. It's probably for the best anyway. Why the Royals got another stud catching prospect after already getting John Buck in the Beltran deal, I dunno. But if the Mets are just handing you prospects for no apparent reason, why quibble? St. Ty's WHITE SCRAPPINESS~! will be missed in Queens but that just means St. Joe McEwing can remind the three Mets faithful of what they had all along. I assume the Pirates think St. Ty will be their 3rd baseman of the immediate future since that seems like something the Pirates would think. That will go about as well as all things go in Pittsburgh. And Benson...? Yeah. Well. Yeah. At least Anna will be a Howard Stern favorite. Ehh. Things could be - and did get - worse for the Mets. Of course, you realize that if the Marlins had given up their second best hitting prospect for nothing we'd hear about what a great deal this is for Florida, but I digress.

BB: But no – the Mets weren't done. Not content to only acquire one slightly-above-average starter, the Mets picked up a second one when they decided they absolutely needed Victor Zambrano from the Devil Rays. The price? Only, maybe, the best pitching prospect in baseball – LHP Scott Kazmir. Now, you might know very little about Scott Kazmir, which is perfectly fine. You might even not know anything about baseball. But there's a very easy way to explain what I think about this trade. When I read about it on ESPN.com, I reread the screen three or four times to make sure I wasn't missing something, or that it wasn't like some sort of Jayson Stark goofy rumor cooked up inbetween phone calls to the Elias Sports Bureau or something. Then, I went to a couple of other places to verify that ESPN just didn't forget to report part of the trade. No sir. The Mets traded the best pitching prospect in baseball for a guy with a 109/96 K/BB ratio.

PR: I had walked in the door from getting some dinner, flipped on the TV to watch the Yankee game and the TV was on ESPN. And right as the picture tube finished warming up, I catch the tail end of the crawl saying the Mets traded Scott Kazmir. At first, I was like "They gave up Kazmir for Benson?!?!?!?!?!" I then recalled that Ty Wigginton was part of that deal so it had to be for someone new. After a couple of minutes of searching, I discovered it was Victor Zambrano and I laughed and laughed and laughed the hideous laugh of a Yankees fan who hates the crosstown rival. Carlos Zambrano for Scott Kazmir – that would make a little more sense. But nope – it was Victor. Lou Pinella must be wondering what he did in a former life to be blessed with that bit of good fortune.

ED: I saw that deal and realized that a Duquette is a Duquette is a Duquette - and the Mets are ALWAYS the Mets. Mostly, I felt sorry for the poor li'l Orioles. Now the D-Rays are ALWAYS gonna kick sand in their faces. Of course, you realize that if the Marlins had given up the best pitching prospect in the minors for nothing special we'd hear about what a great deal this is for Florida, but I digress.

BB: The justification of that trade has been beautiful so far. "I can get him straightened out in fifteen minutes!" Rick Peterson says. "He's still the poor man's Sid Fernandez, then!" Bill Barnwell says.

ED: Let it go, Bill. Your Mets love is dead. Just let it go. I mean, it's not like the team you root for now gives too many AB's to Pokey Reese or any...Oh. Right. Sorry.

BB: The Phillies acquired – yes, went out of their way to give up players for – Todd Jones and A-ball OF Brad Correll, giving up AAA pitcher Josh Hancock and a halfway-decent SS prospect in Anderson Machado.

ED: And Todd's Ohio time coincided with the state's ban on gay marriage. Pennsylvania, are you ready to legislate?

PR: I am the only one who thinks Todd Jones is the type of player that Larry Bowa dreams of at night? Old, white, pudgy, stupid, racist with questionable health.

BB: The Giants acquired Ricky Ledee from the Phillies for Felix Rodriguez. Mmm…a FVC (future veteran closer) for a FYP (failed Yankees prospect)? That's a tough one.

PR: I remember when Felix Rodriguez and Octavio Dotel where the two best setup men in baseball. Rodriguez isn’t quite that good anymore but for Ricky Ledee??? Did Sabean get Randy Moffitt and Greg Minton to unretire? Who else is supporting that bullpen? I guess they are going to force Jason Schmidt to throw until he Dravecky’s himself.

ED: I don't get this deal at all from the Giants perspective. They needed pen help - and they moved a reliever for a spare part OFer. Not that it seems to matter with the Dodgers now primed to run away with the West. It pretty much looks like Sabean's giving up on the division now.

BB: The Mets traded Scott Erickson to the Rangers for scrap. Really – does anything make as much sense as Scott Erickson being a Ranger? No sir.

ED: Well, I expected Erickson to be an O again. A Ranger was my second guess.

BB: The Marlins acquired Ismael Valdes…er…Valdez from the Padres for a minor-league pitcher, and got Rudy Seanez – who, apparently, is not fungible – for Abraham Nunez. No, not the Pirates SS – the one who was a huge prospect in the Brad Penny trade until he was 24 instead of 21.

ED: The fact that Seanez was still kicking around surprised me. The fact that anyone traded for him at this point was beyond stunning. Valdez is a guy I always end up liking too much and have on a fantasy roster at some point - like Pedro Astacio. When GM's make moves like I would make in fantasy baseball, that's not a good thing for your team. Of course, you realize that if the Marlins had given up a bag of balls for this crap we'd hear about what a great deal this is for Florida, but I..Oh. Right.

BB: And then stuff went nuts. The biggest trade on the deadline…well, you know. To summate:

The Cubs got Nomar Garciaparra and OF Matt Murton – probably the Red Sox second best hitting prospect.

The Red Sox got Orlando Cabrera and Doug Mientkiewicz.

The Expos got Alex Gonzalez, Brendan Harris (forever the Cubs future 3B), and P Francis Beltran.

The Twins got A-ball pitcher Justin Jones.

ED: So I take it Bill James got abducted by his #1 fan at the SABR convention a week ago or something? If not, where the hell was the Magnificent Beard to keep his little boy from this deal? Yeah-yeah, I've already heard the Baseball Tonight goobers telling me how this new infield, when Pokey returns, will save the Red Sox 17 million-billion-gazillion runs a game. Newwwws Flash: Harold Reynolds and John Kruk are idiots. Now Nomar gets to hear a DIFFERENT group of fans with funny accents talk about a curse. I get to hear how Cabrera's defense makes up for his lack of offense in Nomar's stead. And Bill gets to aim his high powered rifle in the way of Doug Misspelling's WHITE SCRAPPINESS~! instead of at Kevin Millar's VETERAN LEADERSHIP/HOKEYNESS~!

PR: Hey – they already tried to run the “Pokey will save runs” angle earlier this year and that obviously was a red herring. I doubt the results are going to be any different this time. I still don’t know how they didn’t move Derek Lowe to like the Mets or Astros or Reds or one of those other teams that thinks they are in the pennant race. Of course, this didn’t stop the gobber in the Washington Post from writing that the Yankees would fear Lowe in a playoff series. Seriously, how are we not on someone’s payroll? Grr....

BB: I don't think I'm able to talk about this trade coherently yet, so I'm just going to focus on some random tangents. I think that if Trot Nixon doesn't get hurt, this trade might not get done – without a hole in RF, the Red Sox don't need Millar in RF (not like it's a good idea anyhow), opening up the gap for Misspelling at 1B. If the rumblings about Nomar complaining about needing another DL stint in August are true, then MAYBE it's slightly more serviceable. It doesn't explain why the Cubs don't care, though. And – as Joe Sheehan said – Theo's "We need to improve our defense!!!!" press conference was totally his homage to the Billy Beane-trades-Jeremy Giambi-for-John Mabry press conference. Did he suddenly decide that, after 100 games of horrible defense, he had to make a change NOW? Like did he wake up on Saturday and realize that the defense was terrible?

BB: The Yankees kept pretty quiet, jettisoning Jose Contreras out of New York with his family, contract, no-trade clause, hype, freakishly large fingers, and $3 million for Esteban Loaiza. Obviously, Brian Cashman did not read our mid-season wrapup.

ED: The Yankees play to win right now. Kenny Williams and Contreras play for...who knows. The Yanks gave up Contreras' general shakiness, his inability to beat a good hitting team, and the potential upside of a guy who does have really great stuff for the certainty of a league-average pitcher. It ain't the way most would run a ball team, but these are the Yankees. Loaiza figures to lower that ERA some now that he's out of the sudden hitters park of US Cellular - if he has much left in the tank. Contreras...who really knows? You give the edge to Kenny based on the potential for Contreras to have some upside - if that park doesn't drive him back into Castro's arms - but the Yanks probably got their consistency for now. *shrug*

PR: I figure at the absolute worst – Loaiza will be exactly the same pitcher as Contreras. Unable to beat the Red Sox, able to rack up several wins and strikeouts against the Devil Rays. If everyone is healthy – he might get one playoff start max so anything positives he provides is just gravy. I think Torre and Stottlemyre’s one hope is that he can pitch into the 8^th inning every game.

BB: And sadly, after all this, the Rangers are still going to win the World Series. Ugh.

ED: The fact that the Rangers DIDN'T make a deal must make Rangers fans really happy. Sure it will probably cost them a playoff spot, but would YOU want John Hart handling YOUR team's prospects to help the big league team? I didn't think so.

PR: What are you talking about? Scott Erickson! I am giddy about Jeff Nelson making a pass at Lisa Guerrero.

PR: Obviously, the other big story is that the Arizona Diamondbacks didn’t deal Randy Johnson. A potential deal with the Dodgers fell threw when Depo realized that Arizona thought he was Bill Bavasi or something.

ED: And the Handsomest didn't do any swindling for the A's.

PR: There is still time for plenty of guys to clear waivers.

ED: And the Pirates didn't move Mesa. The O's didn't move any of their VETERAN~! crud. The Reds are still stuck with their crippled masses. And the M's kept all their deck chairs as the ship continues to sink.

PR: Don’t forget that the Cardinals didn’t do anything. THE PERFECT TEAM!!! I wonder if Joe Buck will kill himself on air this year.

BB: Oh, come on. I don't think Tim McCarver's that big.