Looking Back at The Trades
I don’t want to spend too much time on this because it has been talked about to death in the media, but I do want to touch on a few of the trades that were made recently in baseball. Two historic franchises made out like bandits.
The Dodgers – There are two separate ways that this needs to be looked at. From a team perspective they had a truly brilliant trading deadline. The addition of Manny Ramirez is fantastic. He’s now heading into free agency, and finally out of Boston, so he should be motivated to perform. He’s a brilliant hitter, which is something that the Dodgers lack. He should also provide both motivation and protection for some of the other underperforming power in the lineup. The team doesn’t have to pay him this year, and they gave up nothing of real value to get him, so it was a brilliant move. Lost in that move was the addition of Casey Blake from Cleveland. He’s the real deal, too, and will be a very positive addition. This team is much better than they were.
The other thing that needs to be considered, though, is the public reaction. Ramirez is a popular player, and so the public is going to jump all over this team now that he is on board. At least in the short term, then, the public will likely bet the value out of the team. They are improved, and stand a good chance of taking their pathetic division, but they still lack power outside of Ramirez, they still underperform at the plate, and their pitching is still inconsistent and particularly concerning at the bottom of the rotation. Ramirez doesn’t completely solve any of their problems, and he’s still a gamble, so I think that the best course of action might be to lay off the Dodgers until the public’s excitement over the move dies down a bit.
The Yankees – As much as I hate to admit it, the Yankees did an amazing job at this break. Pudge Rodriguez is a seasoned warrior and he’s pretty much the perfect fill-in for Jorge Posada down the stretch. He’s shown time and again that he can elevate his game when put into a new, exciting situation. Xavier Nady is a great addition to the outfield, Damaso Marte is an improvement in the bullpen, and getting rid of Kyle Farnsworth was brilliant. Most impressively, they didn’t overpay for any of it. With the Rays doing nothing, and the Red Sox in worse shape than they were before the deadline, the Yankees have positioned themselves well to continue climbing into this race. I would feel better if they had managed to get the pitcher they really needed, though I wasn’t crazy about some of the options they were chasing so I don’t know if it really matters. The Yankees deserve credit, and I hate that.
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Tags: Dodgers, Manny Ramirez, New York Yankees
