Our series of recaps of this week’s action continues with the AL East, which featured plenty of activity, particularly from the Yankees, Rays and Blue Jays.
- The Orioles acquired infielder Steve Pearce from the Rays in return for catching prospect Jonah Heim. They also picked up lefty Wade Miley from Seattle, giving up minor-league lefty Ariel Miranda. Finally, they signed righty Logan Ondrusek to a big-league deal.
- The Red Sox did most of their deadline shopping early and were relatively quiet this week. They did, however, acquire lefty reliever Fernando Abad from Minnesota for relief prospect Pat Light.
- The Yankees were one of the busiest teams this week. They shipped reliever Andrew Miller to Cleveland for a very impressive prospect package: outfielder Clint Frazier and pitchers Justus Sheffield, Ben Heller and J.P. Feyereisen. They also announced their trade of Aroldis Chapman to the Cubs, in which they received reliever Adam Warren and prospects Gleyber Torres, Billy McKinney and Rashad Crawford. They sent Carlos Beltran to Texas for righties Dillon Tate (the fourth overall pick in last year’s draft), Erik Swanson and Nick Green. They also made a trade for a veteran, getting reliever Tyler Clippard from Arizona for righty Vicente Campos. Finally, they shipped righty Ivan Nova to Pittsburgh, receiving two players to be named in return.
- The Rays traded starter Matt Moore to San Francisco for infielder Matt Duffy and prospects Lucius Fox and Michael Santos. The Rays also shipped outfielder Brandon Guyer to Cleveland for minor league outfielder Nathan Lukes and pitcher Jhonleider Salinas. Finally, as mentioned above, they acquired Jonah Heim from the Orioles in return for Steve Pearce.
- The Blue Jays acquired Francisco Liriano plus prospects Harold Ramirez and Reese McGuire from Pittsburgh in exchange for righty Drew Hutchison. They also acquired Scott Feldman from Houston for minor league pitcher Lupe Chavez, then sent Jesse Chavez to the Dodgers in return for fellow righty Mike Bolsinger. They also made somewhat of a challenge trade with Seattle, sending Drew Storen (who had previously been designated for assignment) west in exchange for Joaquin Benoit, and they acquired Melvin Upton from San Diego for pitcher Hansel Rodriguez and cash.
The Yankees had a terrific deadline. A bit envious of the talent they acquired. The Jays pulled off a heist, like what they did too.
The thing I hated about Jays trades, they traded Chavez and then traded for Feldman. But I guess Chavez was a RP and they’re gonna use Feldman as a starter.
Yeah but the Jays absolutely fleeced the Pirates in the Liriano + Prospects for Hutchinson trade. Hutchinson is vastly overrated. I suppose it’s fair to say Liriano is overrated if you want to, but he has a much better track record. Liriano’s ERA+ this year is a low 75, but Hutchinson has a career ERA+ of just 80.
Fleeced is putting it way too nicely.
It’s hard to believe that any team would want to take on Hutchinson and Nova at the same time. Gutsy move.
I may sound like a homer but Nova had had some success, both for entire seasons and in some stretches this year too. Ray Searage is probably the best pitching coach so I’m sure he can fix both of them.
Feldman will be in the bullpen. Liriano will start and Sanchez will transition to the pen. If Liriano does ok, the Jays are loking good..
Chavez was also terrible and Feldman will be a reliever. Even if feldmans peripherals catch up with him, he’ll be better than Chavez
Not off to a great start unfortunately. Obviously 1 game is the smallest of samples lol
He was supposed to be unavailable yesterday, but ya bad star
Agreed
As a Sox fan, I agree 100%. The Yankees did a great job of moving pieces to cement their farm system as one of the very best. Cant wait until their infield has Byrd, Torres, Mateo and Gregorius all in their prime. Plus Frazier and Judge will be a mean duo in the middle of that order.
The simple truth is the Red Sox are a high octane team that just doesn’t have the starting pitching to survive the playoffs. The fact that they are over .500 is a a testament to how good the offense has been. I have to give Dombrowski props for not overpaying for Sale. Pomeranz was a good addition for the short and long run. Getting Abad was a nice way of cheaply rolling the dice.
Don’t you think trading for Sale would be a huge upgrade for them? I’m surprised Dombrowski didn’t bite the bullet and make a trade. There’s always the offseason though, but the Red Sox are in the playoff hunt now. They have one of the strongest farms so they certainly can afford to give up top talent and Not take a significant loss. Whether it be Moncada, Benintendi, possibly even both.
Of course Sale would be a huge upgrade, but we don’t know what the asking price was. The prospects mentioned are just as highly rated as Betts, Bogaerts and JBJ and thankfully, they were never traded.
The Sox have potential to be a dynasty with the prospects coming up. The lineup will be stacked 1-8 next season.
I think the White Sox would have demanded far more than Sale is worth. I believe sometimes not making a trade is just as important as making a trade.
Yeah that’s fair. If the Red Sox season doesn’t end well, it will likely because of pitching , so I wouldn’t be surprised to see Dombrowski go hard after Sale again.
Possibly. But the offseason will also bring up more possibilities, some of which none of us have considered yet. The market is always changing and I trust Dombrowski to make the right deal at the right time.
In the Upton trade, the cash actually came to Toronto, like about $17M.
Feeling like the sox did the right thing in keeping moncada and benintendi. They have a young offensive core, real difference makers. Benintendi could play this year for the team, and moncada is arguably the best prospect in baseball.. They ended up getting one of the best pitchers available in pomeranz (controllable at minimal money plays a huge factor).. And also got Ziegler and hill for virtually nothing. Michael Martinez is fairly useless but overall sox did very well in beating the deadline looking at the moves in the east.
The Yankees absolutely crushed this deadline though as sellers. Rare for them to sell but absolute success. And that’s from a sox fan.
The cash in the Melvin Upton trade went from San Diego to Toronto.
All this talk about the Yankees heist is nonsense. They gave up major league ball players for a few really good prospects. The rest are a crapshoot. Who knows? The returns look great but who knows. I’m beginning to think that there should be a league just for prospects. All the dorks can drool over what might be. The rest of us will stick with the what is.
Congratulations, you described most trades of major league talent for prospects. Trading known talent for potentially better talent. That’s the risk and reward of many trades.
There’s multiple leagues for “just prospects”, from short season to AAA.. But I’m sure you already knew that.
It is a great deal for the Yankees whether it pans out or not. Beltran was gone after this season so they got 4 players for a 2 month rental and the Same for Chapman. Who’s the say Chapman won’t resign with them next year anyway. If he does they got all that young talent for free..and Miller that stings a little but if they get Chapman back it doesn’t hurt as much and Clint Frazier is very promising
Yankees got a few first rounders in addition to their own selections from the past 3 years.
2013 – Frazier (5), McKinney (24), Torres (int)
2014 – Sheffield (31)
2015 – Tate (4)