Baseball's Trade Deadline Winners
Braves and Red Sox Pick Up the Best Players Before MLB Cutoff Date
Atlanta Braves: The Braves got one of baseball's best hitters in Mark Teixeira, a slugging switch hitter who has always put up his best number in August and September. They also picked up left-handed reliever in Ron Mahay, and the second-best relief pitcher on the market, Octavio Dotel.
They gave up a lot – Jarrod Saltalamacchia, Elvis Andrus and Matt Harrison, all of whom went to Texas, were their top three minor league prospects – but general manager John Schuerholz trusts his scouts to restock the minor leagues. With the National League up for grabs, the Braves jumped in to the trade market headfirst. Will it pay off?
Boston Red Sox: GM Theo Epstein refused to give the Texas Rangers either Clay Buchholz or Jacoby Ellsbury, and the Red Sox still ended up with Eric Gagne. The three prospects they traded away (Kason Gabbard, David Murphy and 17-year-old outfielder Engel Beltre) all have bright futures, but won't be ready for big league work for a couple years. Because the Sox are poised to make another World Series run, the three youngsters were not a high price for Gagne - even if it is only for two months work.
Remember, this is the team that had Joel Pineiro slated to close when the season began. Now they've got Hideki Okajima, Gagne and Jonathan Papelbon for the seventh, eighth and ninth innings. Yankee fans can't be very happy.
Texas Rangers: General Manager Jon Daniels may not be around next year, but his legacy will be around for a while. Daniels turned around a bereft farm system over a whirlwind 24 hours, and while that might not be enough to save his job over the next year or two, it could leave his incumbent sitting pretty.
New York Yankees: Yankees fans weren't thrilled about Boston acquiring Gagne when their own set-up men -- Kyle Farnsworth and Luis Vizcaino -- have been less than stellar this season. But GM Brian Cashman has better sense than to deal any of the Yankees' young starters when their rotation is full of pitchers who will be collecting Social Security in a year or two.
The refusal to give up youth for experience represents a big philosophical shift from the days when George Steinbrenner was really making the decisions. If this were 1982, 1992 or even 2002, Phil Hughes, Ian Kennedy and Joba Chamberlain would have been shipped out to Arlington in a heartbeat for a talented but potentially fragile reliever like Gagne.
While Gagne would have given the Yankees a boost this year, the team will benefit greatly over the next ten years by hanging on to their three best pitching prospects.
San Diego Padres: Over the last month, GM Kevin Towers has remade a team that was already rather good. In getting Rob Mackowiak (who, since June 29, has the major leagues' fifth-best batting average at .403) and Morgan Ensberg on Tuesday, the Padres added depth to complement the earlier acquisitions of Milton Bradley and Michael Barrett for pennies on dollar. To boost the presence while balancing the future (by trading Scott Linebrink for three pitching prospects), Towers toed the gentle line between overindulgence and passivity.
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