July 31st: MLB Trade Deadline Review

The Major League Baseball trade deadline is by far my favorite couple of days of the year. Leading up to July 31st at 4 pm, the internet is abuzz with insight, speculation, and rumors. Every team seems to be involved at some level.

My favorite part is watching what actually happens, as compared the the wild rumors that lead up to the event. With that being said, ZP:Left Fielder is reviewing the deals that happened, and commenting on some of the deals that should have.

Best Move:

• David Price to the TIgers: Of course, as it should be. The Tigers now have the past three AL Cy Young Award winners. They made this move to compete with the Oakland As. The difference between the As and the Tigers? The Tigers have four starters with World Series experience. The As have two. Price makes the Tigers the favorite in the AL.

Move That Should Have Been:

• Marlon Byrd to...ANYWHERE: WIth the second Wild Card spot, more teams are looking to get ready for playoff runs. That being said, there aren’t that many bats available. Byrd would have been a good addition for the Reds, Mariners, Yankees, or, frankly, anyone else. This was a waste by the Phillies, and a missed opportunity for the rest of the middle-range contenders.

Deal I’m Glad Didn’t Happen:

• Matt Kemp leaving Los Angeles: I’ve been a Kemp fan since the beginning, and hoped he would turn things around. While there is a full outfield in Los Angeles, no team has ever complained from having too many stars in preparation for the playoffs. Kemp has the ability to explode offensively at any time. The Dodgers may be very happy they didn’t do something drastic come October.

Best Move, Worst Location:

• Emilio Bonifacio to the Braves: Plenty of teams could have used a speedy middle-infielder with experience. Well, frankly, all teams could have used him. To give him and a top notch lefty reliever go for just a single-A catcher was a bummer for the Cubs, who started off the deadline so boldly.

Move They’ll Wish They Could Take Back:

• 
  John Lackey to the Cardinals: The Cardinals seem to forget that Lackey has been the worst pitcher in baseball in the not-so-distant past. Giving up last year’s best hitter and a big-future pitcher for an aging veteran may be a short-sighted answer that will come back to bite them. Despite Craig and Kelly’s struggles this year, they will have better long-term success than Lackey will provide short-term.

Biggest Winners:

• The 2015 Red Sox: While this year may be a lost cause, the Red Sox traded this year like a team that knew they were going to be back in contention soon. Two big-hitting outfielders, and a pitching prospect that has a high ceiling, the Sox look like they are getting ready for a rebound. Lester has even talked about coming back in a few months. This team won’t go away for long.
• The Chicago Cubs: Yes, you read that right. The Cubs were able to do what every team hopes to do in April: sign a whole bunch of older talent for dirt cheap and flip them in July. They’ve now done it three years in a row, acquiring their current ace, their future superstar, and their top set-up man that way over the past three years. To give away Hammel and Bonifacio for top level minor league talent is something of a 2016 coup d'etat.
• The 2015 Twins rotation: See a pattern here? While teams are going crazy trying to put winners together for this year, a few teams are quietly getting ready for the future. A new deal with catcher Kurt Suzuki and acquiring Tommy Milone are just that for the Twins. Has anyone noticed the Twins have a nice little rotation going with Milone, Correia, Hughes, and Nolasco? Not Oakland or Detroit, but it’s a start.

Biggest Losers:

• Yoenis Cespedes: How must it feel to go from the cleanup hitter on a World Series favorite to a last-place team? Cespedes is an incredible hitter who has gone from the top to the bottom. Next year may be a fun time (MAYBE), but for the remainder of the 2014 season, this is going to be a miserable team. It will be hard to watch his old team make a long postseason run while he’s watching from home.
• The Pirates and Brewers: If any year were the year to beat out the Cardinals, it was this one. The pieces were available to improve their teams, and both sat relatively quietly at the deadline. The Cardinals moves weren’t great, but they will probably be enough to beat the their two divisional foes.
• The National League: Sorry guys. Whether the biggest winners were the Tigers or the As, the biggest loser was whichever National League team has to try to win the World Series against either of the best rotations in baseball. Can Clayton Kershaw pitch seven games in a row. Cygh...

The Fan Maker

Dear Mr. Prior,

It was with sadness that I learned of your retirement from Major League Baseball. For a player who showed so much potential, a flash of brilliance, it is always disappointing to know that we must close the book with no hope for a comeback.

I was 10 in 2002 when you made your debut with my hometown Chicago Cubs. It didn’t take long for you to become a household name, which most certainly included my home.

Until that year, I had only been to one Cubs game. I was a mild fan. As the 2002 season began, though, I couldn’t avoid the excitement swirling around. I began to follow the team with you in the middle of it. You were relatable, a young star bringing baseball to a city. I would check the newspaper every day, just to see what you’d done. When I went to a Cubs game that season, I bought a collector baseball with your name and jersey number on the back. Today, that collection has swelled to over 40 from more than 20 ball clubs, and yours still holds the top spot on the shelf.

By 2003, “Prior Fever” in Chicago had reached critical mass. You didn’t let us down, with an All-Star selection and a third-place finish in the Cy Young Award voting. We would have elected you mayor of the city if given the chance. Your numbers could have spoken for themselves. Instead, the Cubs won the National League Central and brought playoff baseball to the North Side for the first time in 6 seasons. Between you and Kerry Wood, it didn’t matter what happened on offense, you would shut things down on the mound.

The Marlins series was epic. The Cubs seemed in the driver’s seat. Maybe it was just my bias, or the skew of Monday Morning Quarterbacking, but it just felt like our year. In game 6, you threw 7 innings of a masterpiece. In the eighth inning, everything changed. Maybe it was the Bartman play. Maybe it was Alex Gonzalez’s booted ground ball. Maybe it was a curse placed on us by an angry goat owner. Whatever it was, the momentum swung and that was the end of things. We fought, clawed and begged. But the loss from that game gave all of the positive momentum to Florida, who overcame another Cubs lead and took the World Series by storm.

Watching the ending of that series, I cried. I had never cried because of baseball before. I was old enough to know that there was no crying in baseball, yet loved the game enough to know that there absolutely is.

As we would come to learn, though, the ending of that playoff series was also the end of your dominance. Flashes of brilliance from then on were permeated by periods of injury and struggles. Your tenure with the Cubs ended, and you bounced around the league, looking for different places to restart your career. All the while, your fans hoped. I hoped. I followed each team, wishing that a roster spot would open up and that number 22 would come out of that bullpen.

In reality, it seems, it wasn’t meant to be. Now, though, you have the opportunity to move on to the next part of your journey. Front office management, where you can make careers for the next generation of baseball stars, broadcasting, where you can give life to the best sport in the world, or coaching, where you can craft a new arm, a better swing. All of these opportunities come together to allow you to do what you’ve been doing since May 22, 2002: making baseball a magical experience for those who get to watch you play.

So this retirement is a party, not a funeral. We celebrate the brilliance of a couple of seasons of unhittable dominance. We remember the incredible emotions that came with being a Mark Prior fan. And we thank you, I thank you, for giving me the best thing any ten year old could ever ask for: a baseball hero.

Your fan,

Austin Zoot