By Yours Truly
https://throneberryfields.blogspot.com/2018/08/how-non-waiver-trade-winds-blew.html
Jose Reyes hangs his head as ex-Met Daniel
Murphy rounds the bases on one of his two
Tuesday night homers amidst a Nats massacre.
Reyes ended up pitching the eighth . . . and
surrendering six more Nats runs . . .Well, now. The Nationals decided to stand pat for the non-waiver trade deadline, especially when it came to last-day-night-and-morning speculation that Bryce Harper would be cashed in for some stretch drive and even beyond blue chips while the cashing was still warm enough. The juiciest rumour mill grindings had the Indians looking to work a deal for the right fielder who's been the Nats' franchise face since his original advent.
General manager Mike Rizzo tried to quash that speculation almost a full twenty-four hours before the 4:00 p.m. EDT deadline Tuesday. Harper himself let it slip that Rizzo assured him personally, around the same time, that he wasn't going anywhere just yet. While he was at it, Rizzo resisted the temptation to flip recently-acquired reliever Kelvim Herrera despite the bullpen-needy Red Sox's interest.
And maybe it put a shot of rocket fuel into the confidence of a team entering Tuesday night play a game under .500 and dealing with reams of chatter describing their clubhouse as something of . . . well, if not a full blown mess, at least a place comparable to the Mad Hatter's tea party for secured clubhouse leadership. Even against the basket-case Mets, teams that dysfunctional don't go out and have a 25-4 romp in which they scored nineteen runs in the first five innings.
The game set a Nats franchise record for single-game scoring and a Mets franchise record for taking the worst single-game beating in their history. The worst beatings the Original Mets took were a pair by the Dodgers, 17-8 in May 1962 and 17-3 in July 1962; the worst taken by the Worst Team That Money Could Buy in 1993 was a 13-4 burial by the Giants near the end of that April.
Harper himself started the party Tuesday night with an RBI double to kick off the seven-run first. He helped himself to another RBI double in the fourth. The Nats sent seven runs home in the first and three home each from the second through the fifth. And Daniel Murphy, a Mets' discard after his porous defense helped cost them the 2015 World Series despite his record-setting bombing earlier that postseason, homered in the second and the third.
After being kept scoreless in the sixth and the seventh, the Nats got an unlikely present from the Mets in veteran shortstop Jose Reyes taking the mound and one for the team for the bottom of the eighth, the better not to force the Mets to waste either Robert Gsellman or Sean Lugo, their usual back-of-the-pen men.
Take one for the team? What Reyes took may secure a case against the Nats before the Hague. Matt Adams, a mid-game insertion for Harper in right field, hit a two-run homer; and, pinch hitter Mark Reynolds hit a three run homer. It got so bad that, when soft-tossing Reyes bumped Ryan Zimmerman in his second plate appearance of the inning, Zimmerman went into a mock
ooooh-you-hurt-my-little-knee bit and faked a charge to the mound, cracking himself and Reyes up at the same time.
Whether or not the massacre proves the turnaround for the Nats---it put them back to .500 and 5.5 games behind the first place Phillies in the National League East---they made Rizzo look like a genius for standing mostly pat for the non-waiver deadline. So who looked smart and who looked not so smart for the deadline?
Smart:
* The Nats. Obviously. Even though they could, in theory, have gotten a nice haul back for Harper and then sought to re-romance him during the offseason. Rizzo thinks this team as it is can still win. Tuesday night may yet prove an exaggerated affirmation, but don't underestimate the morale boost that kind of destruction can give the destroyers. Especially if Harper begins to rebuild himself on his 2-for-4/two-RBI/three runs scored Tuesday night.
* The Pirates. They bagged Tampa Bay's Chris Archer, who may not be quite as good as the guy they traded in the offseason (Gerrit Cole), but who's under team control through 2021 and is good enough to augment their staff for a stretch run toward the wild card. And all they had to surrender was a minor league outfielder (Austin Meadows) whose promise seems to have hit a wall for now and a minor league pitcher (Tyler Glasnow) with live stuff but strike zone issues.
* The Braves. They helped themselves to Baltimore's Kevin Gausman for a package of prospects below their top-ten ratings. Gausman, too, is under team control for another couple of years, and he's a solid enough starter to help line the Braves up for a wild card run at minimum.
* The Dodgers. They landed Minnesota's Brian Dozier almost a week after they bagged Manny Machado. Their infield depth got deeper and what they can run out to start games is dangerous enough, even if part of the impetus behind both deals might have been Justin Turner's health and the hope that Dozier heats up in the second half the way he's done the past two seasons. If that holds and the Dodgers go all the way, they may not look so foolish for not landing the setup reliever they really need.
* The Brewers. They were only too happy to deal for Mike Moustakas and Jonathan Schoop while killing the Travis Shaw experiment at second base in its crib. Moustakas may yet prove a rental since he's on a single-season deal, but now that they have a couple of extra lineup options and a lot more flexibility defensively---which might make up for a staggering shortage of range among the parts---the Brewers may give the Cubs a push down the stretch in the NL Central.
* The Yankees. Knowing that the Mets weren't really opening the door to Jacob deGrom or Noah Syndergaard, the Yankees didn't let that stop them, even if it looked at first like they fortified their already lights-out bullpen along the line of further, earlier game reinforcement if and when their starters falter down the stretch. Zach Britton alone graduates the Yankee bullpen from dangerous to imperialist.
But they also landed J.A. Happ. And Happ looked terrific in his first Yankee start. Then he came down with the same ailment that put Syndergaard on the temporary shelf---hand, foot, and mouth disease. His absence won't be long. And he does give the Yankees solid rotation help for the stretch drive.
Not so Smart:
* The Astros. Just about everyone in baseball pushed the outrage button when they unloaded disgraced former closer Ken Giles, relegated to the minors last month, in a deal to bring aboard a guy the Blue Jays couldn't wait to get rid of thanks to the domestic violence charges hanging over his head. Nobody knows which looked worse, pursuing and getting Roberto Osuna in the first place, or general manager Jeff Luhnow's mealymouthed defense of the acquisition forcing Justin Verlander---maybe the most outspoken Astro against domestic violence---to take a wait-and-see public position.
* The Red Sox. The beasts of the American League East needed bullpen help . . . and got another starting pitcher, Nathan Eovaldi, possibly right after the Nats made clear they weren't willing to part with Herrera. He's good. He's better than serviceable. He might even be a pen option in the postseason. Maybe the Red Sox think they can still out-hit the league down the stretch, but at least a setup man or a sixth-to-seventh-inning arm would have made life a little simpler.
* The Rockies. They needed bullpen help even more. Though you can't necessarily blame general manager Jeff Bridich for fearing a move would blow up in his face considering what his $106 million offseason bullpen investment turned into in the first half.
* The Indians. Their once-insurmountable bullpen is still something of a mess. So they went out and landed a center fielder. Leonys Martin is the name. He plays center field, he can hit a little, but his production this year isn't exactly the kind that would have made him the star of the non-waiver trade period.
Let's Not Go There:
* The Rays. What does it tell you that the team's own depth chart has no starting pitchers on it anymore?
Don't Even Think About:
* The Mess (er, Mets). They could (should?) have hit the hardest re-set button of all if they'd been willing to part ways with . . . well, forget Jacob deGrom, whose departure probably would incite a Citi Field insurrection. But they could have gotten some yummy returns for Noah Syndergaard and/or Zach Wheeler.
They got a couple of nice prospects from the Phillies for Asdrubal Cabrera; they got a so-so pitching prospect from the A's for their now-former closer Jeurys Familia; but not being willing to sound the charge with Syndergaard and/or Wheeler when there were contenders out there in need of a starter or two and willing to part with prime prospects or even solid major league-ready youth is just another black eye on the current Mess.
Maybe they're waiting until the offseason to think about such moves. And maybe we can learn about love from Queen Athaliah.
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