Baseball trading deadline and evaluations of all teams

July 31st marked the Major League Baseball trading deadline and the point in which teams gear up for a run at a playoff berth or retool and plan for the future. Here are my grades for all 30 teams.

AL East: Baltimore traded most of the veterans that were worth something. Machado, Britton, Brach, Gausman and Schoop. Next step is get rid of Showalter and Duquette, dinosaurs from the 90’s.

Boston. Like their football brothers I don’t like the, but they made small and smart moves. Eovaldi and Kinsler will help them in their attempt to hold off the Yankees.

New York. Got help in the bullpen and starting rotation in Happ, Britton and Lynn.

Tampa. Unloaded Archer onto Pittsburgh but got Pham from St. Louis. interesting

Toronto, traded Happ but not Donaldson. They should have dealt Donaldson and or Tulowitzki in the winter. Too bad. John Gibbons will not be managing this team in February.

Al Central

Chicago, a hapless franchise owned by a guy who isn’t interested in putting money in the team.

Cleveland, got Brad Hand from San Diego and Leonys Martin from Detroit

Detroit not much

Kansas City traded Moustakas to Milwaukee

Minnesota sent Lynn to New York. Hopefully Mauer will leave the Twins after this year. His contract was an albatross.

AL West

Houston got Osuna and Maldonado. I will deal with Osuna separately
Los Angeles traded some people

Oakland made a move

Seattle got Cameron Maybin
Texas traded a reliever to Pittsburgh

Trading Number one overall picks? The National thing to do

The Washington Nationals has two number one picks in the baseball draft in the last decade or so. In 2009, they drafted Stephen Strasburg, and in 2010 they drafted Bryce Harper. Strasburg came as a polished pitcher from San Diego State University and Bruce Harper was a 17 year old kid who played one year at the College of Southern Nevada. Strasburg made his professional debut in 2010, had a good start then had Tommy John surgery and was back in the majors in 2012. Harper came to the majors in 2012. While they have performed decently for the Nationals, their performance hasn’t led to championships or even a trip to the World Series and I don’t see either as the face or leader of an eventual champion. Harper is too brash, cocky and hot-headed to be a leader. Strasburg is the new Mark Prior, talented but injury prone pitcher.

It’s about time that they take a long hard look at these players and say, what can we get for them rather than hope and pray that they will develop into Buster Posey type players.

Move the Oakland A’s and Tampa Bay Rays ALREADY

Look I love baseball as much as the next guy and would like to see it succeed. However, I can’t imagine that fans of rival teams of the A’s and Rays circle the dates when their team plays there as a must visit.

Pretend that you similar to my nephews who are Yankee fans. Do you really look forward to the Yankees going down to Tampa and watch them play in front of 9,000 a night unless there’s a promotion or retirement of a special player’s number. Same with Seattle Mariners fans or Anaheim Angels fans. Who looks forward to going to that “ballpark” out in Oakland? I don’t, the Oakland Raiders don’t, which is why they’re moving to Las Vegas by 2020. Even the NBA powerhouse Warriors are leaving Oracle arena soon for the Chase Center in San Francisco in a year or two.

So, Josh, where do you propose the A’s and Rays move to? Well, the A’s should move to Vancouver, BC and play in BC Place, home of the Vancouver Whitecaps and BC Lions. The capacity is 50000 for baseball. I think that the A’s could draw very well there, certainly more than what they’re doing now in Oakland. As for Tampa, let’s right a historical wrong and move the team to Montreal. For the time being, they would play in either Olympic Stadium, which I doubt MLB would approve of, or in Saputo Stadium, where the Montreal Impact of the MLS plays. Montreal and Vancouver are much better tourist destinations than Tampa-St. Petersburg and Oakland are.

Texas values

tecas is one of the most traditionally American or conservative states in the union. However, the coach of the San Antonio Spurs has publicly criticized the president of the United States in a way that is indemnity and in Texan like. Therefore, I call upon the governor of Texas to have the Spurs fire the coach for his in Texan like values. Let Popovich coach in Boston or Los Angeles or Portland where “dissing” Trump is more acceptable.

P.J. Not Elite

It never ceases to amaze me how certain coaches get these plum gigs calling games on Television or radio, Take P.J. Carlesimo, former coach at Seton Hall and in the NBA.

He used a ton of cliches today while calling the eastern regional final with Gary Cohen. He had one great run at Seton Hall and then coaches a few teams in the NBA and was known for the choking incident while coaching Latrell Spreewell at Golden State. In those days the warriors weren’t a good or sexy team. Anyway I’ve had it with Carlesimo and people should bring up his coaching record in the NBA and the Spreewell incident.

Why the Seattle Mariners are a lolcow

I have become a fan of a guy on YouTube who goes by the screen name of Urinating Tree. He regularly posts videos of why certain teams are laughingstocks and train wrecks. Most of his work centers around football and hockey but some come to baseball.

By announcing the signing of Ichiro Suzuki to a major league deal, the Mariners have proclaimed themselves to be lolcows. They signed a player because he was a star for them years ago and two of their top outfielders are hurt now and will miss some of the first month of the season.

Here are some of the choices besides Ichiro who could have made a difference.

Carlos Gonzalez, formerly of Colorado
Joey Bautista
Jon Jay
Melky Cabrera
Seth Smith

Ichiro Suzuki’s 2017 WAR -0.3
Carlos Gonzalez 2017 WAR -0.2
Jose Bautista 2017 WAR -1.7
Jon Jay 2017 WAR 1.1
Melky Cabrera 2017 WAR -0.1 (White Sox and Royals)
Seth Smith 2017 WAR 0.3

As you can see, there were other options available to Seattle besides Ichiro. They took the easy way out to “appease the fan base” or “sell tickets”.

Unfortunately a team that has never been to the World Series can’t pull this kind of move and have it work out for them.

Urinating Tree, I apologize for trashing you on Monday about your critical comments about the Edmonton Oilers. You were right, especially after this nostalgic move by Seattle which is a Boys club move if there ever were one.

Why do sports writers have virtual tenure

Recently in New York City the president of the basketball team got fired for doing a lousy job as president and with a large salary. Then after the Yankees lost to Houston in the ALCS, the manager wasn’t retained so he essentially was fired. Now the football coach got fired for going 2-10and benching the quarterback who is beloved by most of the fans.

However despite pedestrian writing by many of the sportswriters here they hold on to their jobs. My question is why? Don’t these sportswriters have performance evaluations? Steve Serby and Kevin Kernan should have been fired three years ago. The two hockey writers are a joke, as is hockey in New York City, which deserves its own topic.

It’s a job, not a college professorship or a Supreme Court appointment.