Thoughts on the Trade Deadline and All-Star Teams

For a second year in a row, Carlie Manuel blundered his All-Star team selections. I understand he had even less room to wiggle, but there were some huge mistakes on his part. I'm not going to rant on the snubs, because there are too many. But for god sakes, he probably selected the first part-time position player to the All-Star team ever. Omar Infante? REALLY? And then he went and selected two setup men. I understand when mangers select one in the rare occasion, or reward their own as a lifetime achievement award type of thing (the Mike Stanton award as I like to call it), but Arthur Rhodes and Evan Meek? Wow. Just wow.

The trade deadline is fast, fast approaching, and Cliff Lee still dominates the trade rumors. Let's get this straight, he's getting traded, and he's going for at least one top 50 prospect, but not much more. The C.C. Sabathia price if you will. I'm betting on the Twins trading Wilson Ramos for him, he's the definition of a blocked prospect after the Twins locked up Mauer this offseason. Mets have a shot if the Twins don't like the price and think Wilmer Flores is a legit future star. The Tigers, Reds, and Angels could also be potential suitors.

Thoughts on Starlin Castro

In what's probably the biggest callup since Justin Smoak, the Cubs called up Starlin Castro to play short. I don't want to sound overdramatic, but the Cubs' next 5-10 ride on this guy. The Cubs haven't really had a great SS in over a decade, trying everything from Ronny Cedeno to trading for Nomar from the Sox to Ryan "The Riot" Theriot. While Theriot is seemingly fit to pay the position, Starlin Castro could be the star they've been searching for.

For the Cubs, it's important for Castro to be their next star, but if he ends up just being borderline All-Star, that'd be acceptable. All of the Cubs' starpower is old or aging fast, and they need some youth or they will be forced to invest in more expensive free agents, that are probably older, because most prime free agents aren't reaching free agency until later in their careers, and thus it'll become increasingly difficult to sustain this run of relative success they've had most of the decade.

But Aramis Ramirez, Derrek Lee, Carlos Zambrano, and Alfonso Soriano aren't trending up, and a changing of the guard is in order. With his impressive debut today, Castro looks like he could be the first step in rejuvenating all the old guys.

Thoughts on Recapping the Off-season

First, I must say this is one of the more disappointing off-seasons in recent memory. There was absolutely nothing extremely surprising that happened. Normally at least one team makes a big splash that shakes up how everyone approaches the coming year. Hasn't happened. No one really has made dramatic improvements, most teams did nothing much or just enough to stay at the same level they were last year.

As signings start to dwindle down and the trade market slows as well, and the arbitration period coming to a close, it's time to recap a little of how this postseason has went. All these rankings are tentative to chagne based on what happens in the rest of the off-season.

Offseason Winners:
1.) Yankees
2.) Red Sox
3.) Mariners

The Yankees stayed on the same talent level, and got younger. No super risky changes, kept the core of the team intact. Now, if they were only smart enough to trade Joba in a deal for Halladay...The Red Sox made little improvements all over the field, but they might be winners if only because they didn't lose as much as they could've. Lackey definitely boosts the rotation, giving them at least one reliable arm behind Lester and Beckett, but the only hitter in that lineup that scares any team is Victor Martinez....Seattle takes the third spot for locking up Felix, acquiring Cliff Lee for Phillipe Aumonte, and adequately replacing Adrian Beltre with Chone Figgins.

Offseason Losers:
1.) Phillies
2.) Cubs
3.) Dodgers

The Phillies are the big losers for A.) replacing Pedro Feliz with Polanco, B.) replacing Lee with Halladay at the cost of the rest of their farm, and C.) using money they could've used on Cliff Lee to pay Joe Blanton. The Cubs for failing to improve, paying too much for a LOOGY who isn't much of a LOOGY and everything involved with Milton Bradley. The Dodgers are big losers as they did nothing, and their payroll has dropped $40 million in the last 2 years.

Wildcard: Mets

The Mets missed on on Piniero and Molina, which some would say is a good thing, and still have money to spend. If they can grab John Smoltz for the back of the rotation, and could also sign Ben Sheets, and pick up Rod Barajas or Yorvit Torrealba for half the cost of Molina, who's at best slightly better than those two. Basically, the Mets have options, and some money to spend, and if they find a taker for Luis Castillo, who has some value,they could also grab Orlando Hudson. If everything else falls into place for them, they could easily vault to number one on the winners list with additions of at least one of those two catchers, one of those two catchers (or Erik Bedard?) and another arm, preferably for the bullpen to replace Brian Stokes. Highly possible and feasable situation

Best off-season acquisition: Curtis Granderson. Now Yankee fans can finally stop pretending Melky Cabrera is good.

Worst off-season acquisition: Joel Piniero. He was bad in the AL West before, what makes this time any different? Except that the Angels' park isn't as good for pitchers as Safeco.

Most puzzling off-season acquisition: Bengie Molina. This is actually a retention, but he was a type B free agent, and they have both Pablo Sandoval and Buster Posey, the best catching prospect remaining after Wieters was called up last summer.

Biggest catastrophe avoided: Atlanta Braves potentially having the most expensive bullpen in history.

Best Free agent still available: John Smoltz. He should land somewhere and give someone some solid innings. Sheets is a little less dependable in that area.

Smartest move: The Yankees making Johnny Damon wait. It's clear everyone thinks his power resurgence is all from Yankee Stadium. He came into the off-season looking for 3 years/$30 million even though he's in his mid-thirties. Scott Boras dropped the ball on this one. Looks like he'll head back to the Yankees next year for Bobby Abreu money last year.

Thoughts on Lackey and Halladay

John Lackey is headed to Boston Red Sox for a deal slightly larger than A.J. Burnett's last season. When Jason Bay started to look like he wasn't coming back, they had money to spend. After missing out on Teixeira last year, and now Bay, they have some free cash. This signing may or may not prohibit them from pursuing Matt Holliday.

Roy Halladay was traded to the Phillies, and the trade also pushes Cliff Lee to the Mariners. The Phillies also trade away two of their top three prospects (Kyle Drabek and Michael Taylor), as well as one of their other better ones, to the Phillies, and receive the hard throwing Phillipe Aumont from Seattle.

Does this make the Phillies a better team? Slightly. Halladay is a slightly better pitcher than Lee, and they are going to sign him to a smaller extension than Lee will demand. Halladay is a year older, so that's a slight loss, but the guarantee that they will have Halladay beyond this season is a huge gain for them.

But Michael Taylor and Kyke Drabek are a pretty steep cost. And while Halladay won't want a contract comparable to what he'd get as a free agent after this season, his discounted contract will probably end up around the contract that Cliff Lee would have demanded. So this relative money savings comes at the cost of Michael Taylor, which isn't that great of a price for the Phillies.

And Phillipe Aumont plus some unknown strong, but note elite prospects is a pretty good price for Cliff Lee, or at least comparable to what the Phillies paid for him last July. So the Mariners get a win for him, and they probably have money to sign him for an extension if they so choose. Did the Blue Jays get a fair return for Halladay? Yeah. The Phillies made a bold move here, and have successfully traded 6 of their top 7 prospects since July.

Now this leaves one to wonder, why didn't the Phillies make a similar deal to this back in July? Wouldn't a rotation led by Halladay virtually guarantee them a World Series?

To me, Aumont is the best prospect moved in this deal. I remember seeing him pitch at the World Baseball Classic, and was wowed by how good he was. I like him more than Drabek (although I'm probably in the minority here).

However, a once overrated top-heavy farm system is in danger of being near barren. They have two blue-chippers, and no depth. And the worry about Aumont is that he might be a reliever and not a starter, in which case, his value is a lot lower. On the other hand, he can close instead of Lidge if Lidge falters again.

Thoughts on What We Learned This Year

Now that the Yankees have won the World Series, let's take a look back at what we've learned looking back at the entire year.

1.) Money is a huge advantage in the game right now. In a year where dozens of teams expressed concern over the economy, the Yankees spent, spent, spent. They acquired the best starting pitcher, the best hitter, and the 2nd best starting pitcher in last year's free agent market (although A.J. Burnett isn't exactly a stellar pitcher. He's good, but he was closer to the rest of the pack of free agent hurlers then he was to CC Sabathia).

2.) Logic and reason have very little place in predicting how the baseball season plays out. Logic said the Rockies were the best team entering the NL playoffs. Huston Street turns into Luis Ayala, and all of a sudden the Rockies lose to the Phillies. Logic said the Cubs were virtually the same team as last year, and then everyone except Derrek Lee essentially forgot how to hit. The Mets fix the one reason they fell short the year before, by adding not one, but two closers, and then end up with almost the entire payroll on the disabled list. The Tampa Bay Rays change almost nothing from the year before, where they were clearly the most talented team in the league, but their pitching is surprisingly inconsistent all year and they fail to get back to the playoffs.

3.) Jeffrey Loria's an idiot. Joe Girardi is a terriffic manager, and Loria should be kicking himself for firing him. All of his teams overachieve. This Yankees team did not have the best starting pitchers, it didn't have the best bullpen (Rivera's only one guy), and their offensive dominance was clearly a result of the field they played on. He got the Yankees to play loose (Nick Swisher might be team MVP there, and A.J. Burnett also helped in that department). Hell he even got A-Rod playing like Alex Rodriguez in the postseason.

4.) Cliff Lee might be the best pitcher in baseball. Or at least top 5.

5.) Mark Teixeira is an incredible player. Bobby Cox didn't like him. Mike Scioscia didn't like him. Thought he was more a stat machine than an impact player. Good thing the Steinbrenners didn't listen.

6.) The Phillies aren't built to beat AL teams. They wouldn't win any of AL divisions. They don't play NL ball, evident from everything from their inability to steal beyond two guys, their lack of depth, their poor bullpen, their starting pitchers not having great raw stuff (Cliff Lee being the exception, and Hamels is ordinary with out the curve), and their necessity to play on raw emotion. They play AL ball in a league which they can easily beat up on weaker clubs. But in the end, they don't match up well with the great NL teams. The should have lost to the Rockies, and they would have lost to the Cardinals, they luckily got to face a Dodgers team that wasn't that good, and when they ran out of luck against the Yankees, well we all saw what happened.

7.) The Pirates have no idea how to win. They just don't know what they're doing. They've successfully gathered many of the best prospects from 2006, ones that haven't exactly made a big splash in the bigs thus far.

8.) Mets fans are destined to suffer.

9.) Say what you want about Jeter's fielding, but he doesn't let that carry over to his hitting.

Thoughts on Charlie Manuel

Watching Game 2 of the Phillies vs. Rockies I was shock. The Phillies don't have a bad bullpen other than the closer mess. But after Cole Hamels predictably didn't pitch very well at all, he decided to use the predicted Game 3 and Game 4 starters J.A. Happ and Joe Blanton out of the bullpen. Needless to say, I, among others watching, were befuddled.

Now Pedro Martinez will be starting Game 3, a game they're now very likely to lose, as a pitcher really needs a solid fastball to be a decent pitcher in Colorado, and Pedro just doesn't have that anymore. Jason Hammel's a much worse pitcher in Colorado than he is anywhere else, so at least the Phillies have that going for them. This now means Cliff Lee has to pitch Game 4, leaving any of Happ, Blanton, or Hamels open for Game 5. Even though Happ only pitched 4 pitches, the way Manuel used him leaves one to think he's going to be used as a LOOGY out of the bullpen, and not the rotation.

And congrats to the Dodgers for proving me dead wrong by beating the Cardinals in both games started by Adam Wainwright and Chris Carpenter (a little help by Matt Holliday didn't hurt).

Thoughts on the Trade Deadline

The trade deadline's past, and now it's time to examine the impact.

First off, all that hubub of a slow deadline because of the economy proved for naught, it might have actually forced a few deals that might have otherwise not happened (Jake Peavy? Word is that the Padres had to move some salary, and Peavy was the only significant money with value).

Second, it felt as if everyone undersold their biggest assets. The biggest crimes were that Victor Martinez and Cliff Lee were both stolen from the Indians for not much at all. Unless you're one of those people who think that the 4th through 7th ranked prospects of the Phillies are all going to be All Stars. (If you believe the hype of some of these analysts, the Phillies have 7 guys who would be the best, or at worst, 2nd best, prospects in any teams minor league systems). Boston has similar hype, as Bucholz, Masteron, Bowden, and Hagadone are all called future aces by various analysts. Really? Victor Martinez is consistently one of the best catchers in baseball, and he got sold for $.75 on the dollar.

Thirdly, all the bad contracts that had any value (Washburn, Rolen, etc) also moved, so those type of guys aren't moving in August (although some bad contract will undoubtedly move). So this idea that Brian Cashman and a few others mentioned of the month as not actually a trade deadline may prove false also.

Thoughts on Phillies getting Lee for almost nothing

No, Cliff Lee is not Roy Halladay. One couldn't expect for the Indians to get both Drabek and Brown from the Phillies for them. As a Mets fan, I can't be too upset, considering the Mets got Johan Santana for a comparable package. But Johan at least forced a trade to them, while Cliff Lee did no such thing.

The Phillies didn't have to give up any of J.A. Happ, Dominic Brown, Michael Taylor, or Kyle Drabek, their 4 best young players. They gave up absolutely everything they had but those 4 players., but the Indians were downright stupid not to demand at least one in a deal. Jason Donald is a nice prospect, but probably is nothing more than a David Eckstein with a stronger arm. Carrasco could be a mid-rotation starter, and Marson a lower level starting catcher.

Maybe this is a biased viewpoint of mine, but I just don't like many of the prospects in the Phillies system, I just don't see the raw tools out of them to be superstars. (Maybe Dominic Brown, but otherwise I'm very skeptical).