Kris Medlen and the Braves can clinch a playoff berth with a win over the Marlins tonight. The Braves, who missed the postseason in excruciating fashion last year, now have a magic number of one. Here are today’s links…
- This year’s midseason trades haven’t accounted for much of a change in the standings, Bob Nightengale of USA Today writes. The Dodgers remain in second place after making a number of noteworthy additions, while the Reds have extended their division lead despite a relatively quiet July.
- Jon Heyman of CBSSports.com lists the top 15 moves of this year's trading season, citing names such as Kevin Youkilis, Marco Scutaro and Zack Greinke.
- Being the high bidder on top free agents could turn out even worse than it has in the past, now that fewer elite players are hitting the open market and team revenues are increasing, Dave Cameron of FanGraphs writes. Cameron focuses on the Red Sox, who will attempt to find value in a potentially inflationary environment this coming offseason.
Oh yeah, that Greinke trade really helped the Angels turn it around! please…
it hasn’t been his fault…
didn’t say it was… I just don’t really agree with giving up your #1 and #2 prospect for a 2 month rental…I’m okay with them doing it, because I hate them :)
It may be hard to grasp, but it baseball now a days. You want the top guys, it will cost you. And sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t. And on the flip side, sometimes it works for the club that got the prospects, and sometimes it doesn’t. For the Angels, they could afford losing Segura because their MIF is locked up for years
Remember when so many posters on here were talking about Scutaro’s .588 OPS away from Coors as a Rockies player and stating categorically that he wouldn’t be an upgrade for SF over say Burris? Maybe now they should look a little longer at H/R splits of people who play at altitude.
Scutaro has been amazing. But Alex Palovic posted this interesting stat.
Since Aug. 1, #SFGiants have 4 of top 7 batting averages in NL: Posey (1st, .361); Scutaro (3rd, .355); Pagan (6th, .328); Belt (7th, .326)
Amazing. Once Melky got suspended its like they decided, “All right forget about turning it up to 10…let’s turn it up to ELEVEtYBILLION!?”
The trade dodgers made should make a impact in 2013 the trade was made too late in the season and there was many injuries to deal with this year.
wat?
What?
Besides Kemp, who may or may not be injured, the offense should’ve been fine with Ramirez, Victorino, Either, and Gonzalez. The very fact they have scored a little under 3 runs a game is very questionable. You would’ve thought their pitching would’ve suffered not their offense.
It’s simple. Kemp is hurt, Gonzalez is pressing, Andre was hot and has cooled off over the last week, and Hanley can’t do it alone. Victorino has been horrible. It’s easy to understand when you go person by person
Yeah, but I mean c’mon that’s how many superstars though? I think it may be chemistry who knows? But if one guy fails another should be able to pick up the slack especially with those established hitters. Isn’t that why the trade was made?
Sometimes it all goes wrong at the same time. That’s baseball.
It’s a cruel sport, yes. It should be an interesting season next year but I’m still not counting out the Dodgers since they are not mathematically out of the Wild Card.
I’ve got tickets to the last game, not because I’m holding out any real hope but because I picked them in our season ticket club drawing back in February. It seemed like such a good idea at the time. Now I am half terrified that they will get close enough for that game to matter.
Knowing Bochy the Giants will play their main guys the last game if he believes the Dodgers are playing for the Wild Card.
A lot of the Giants players viewed that trade as a slap in the face to the whole team because of how the media was picking against them. That and the whole Melky situation has set that team off. At least that was the sentiment when the players were being interviewed the last couple of weeks.
I too hope they are in it because the rivalry is much better when both the Giants and Dodgers are doing well.
well the idea was that Kemp wouldn’t run into a wall in Coors. Kemp is still the most talented on the team. Andre is streaky, always has been(and thats not a rip on him, I love him, but its true). Hanley was amazing right after the trade but he ended up being Kemp at the start of the year… doing it alone. Gonzo will come around, maybe in time, maybe not for this year
Time for a bit of baseball reality: a lot of baseball is luck, good and bad. You can put together a great team on paper, then have everything go wrong and have nothing to show for it. Conversely you can put together a mediocre team and have it all go right, and walk away with the big prize. There’s no way of explaining it, except to admit that the difference between winning and losing is a near thing in baseball. It can drive a fan crazy, but then it probably drives the players and managers even more nuts. Ballplayers are superstitious for a reason.
Agree 100%. I think that’s kinda the whole kemp injuries thing
It’s amazing that people are so ready to rip the big Dodger trades without noting that the year has been filled with injuries. A dodger blog noted that there were only 5 guys who started the year who haven’t hit the DL, been DFA’d, traded for/dealt, or scratched from a start: AJ Ellis, Matt Treanor, Jamey Wright, Chris Capuano, and Aaron Harang. Everyone else has hit the DL or were not helping the team this year, including our top 3 starters and literally our whole offense. A trade made on Aug 25 can be expected to yield so much when as soon as it was made, our top 2 starters went down and our best offensive player got hurt
Last time this subject came up here, I only counted three uninjured players, but that list looks to be more accurate (overlooked Treanor and Wright). Technically Kershaw hasn’t been on the DL, but he’s all but done despite his heroics over the weekend. Although Kemp went down early for the first time, the slide into injury oblivion really began in very late May, when Lilly went on the DL. That’s when we started the trip from +17 to where we are now.
Kershaw is under “scratched from a start” group. The team started fairly healthy, but once Kemp went down, it was a never ending group of guys hitting the DL, being hurt, etc. We’ll learn a lot more from this trade next year when everyone is healthy(except possibly Billingsley)