Trade Deadline Watch

[billroper]

The Cardinals have picked up starting pitcher Jose Quintana from the Pirates for not too much in the way of prospects, which I find encouraging. The Cards really need at least one more arm in the rotation this season and I would hate to sell off the entire farm system to get it.

Honestly, I'm not that thrilled with selling off the entire farm system to get Juan Soto either, so let's see what develops by tomorrow afternoon.

Comments

[gorgeousgary]

As it turns out, your beloved Cards are safe as it's the Padres who emptied their cupboard for Soto. Meanwhile, hopefully the Nationals will get a couple of All-Stars out of the next few years of high first-round picks.

Switching to my other favorite team, I see the Curse of the Angelos Family has struck again and the O's have traded two of the reasons they are surprisingly in contention for an AL wild-card spot. I guess they believe they have other decent hitters who will pick up the slack. They may be right about that. We'll find out if their bullpen has another good closer in it.

[billroper]

I will keep my fingers crossed that the players the Nats got do not bear any resemblance to iron pyrite. :)

I am keeping an open mind about the Orioles trades right now. I think that they may be a sign of good discipline that the Cubs front office lacked. If your team "accidentally" winds up on the fringe of contention sooner than you planned, you don't want to blow up the whole plan and find out that you weren't quite as good as you thought you were. *Next year* could be looking pretty good.

Mind you, the Cubs did win a World Series in 2016 (barely), but the club is in pretty brutal shape now, largely as a result of bad signings and bad trades around it.

[gorgeousgary]

Well, the O's did spend the first three games after the trade beating up on the Rangers, so you may be right. (Granting that beating up on the Rangers is not a difficult thing for any half-decent team to do.)

I would have a better opinion if the Mancini trade had netted something better than one single-A prospect and one AAA prospect who's likely to be out next season recovering from Tommy John surgery. That comes from a feeling that the O's have had recent batting lineups capable of putting up 7 or 8 runs a game but a pitching staff capable of giving up 9 or 10.