One rule change that baseball has improved is the July 31 trade deadline. It has made the month of July an exciting month pennant races finally coming into focus for players on the field, fans in the stands, the media in the press box and bloggers on the internet. Baseball is the one sport that is arguably more defined by the trade than the draft. Baseball deals involve players in the lineup today and prospects on the farms being groomed for the big league club tomorrow.
In the NFL, teams rarely trade players, relying more on the draft to improve their lot. In fact, clubs will change their draft spots with another team hopes for more picks in the draft hoping that corralling a whole bunch of new players will improve immediately. The NBA’s whirlwind round of deals usually involve’cap space” moving players for financial reasons, freeing money for future free-agent signing.. The NHL seems to meld the two philosophies build through the draft and trade to make “cap space”. True, fans may be familiar with the Heisman Trophy or the Wooden Award winners but those players performed on the college level for other teams.
Baseball fans seem to be connected to each player on their team and thus come trade time, have a keen sense of what the club has and what they need in a trade to improve their club now or next year. Many of the players dealt involve “prospects”, players sight unseen, but their report card can easily be viewed and graded by fans especially in the age of the internet.
What really has made baseball trades so attractive is not the deals themselves, which can be blockbusters , but the rumors of potential deals.
That’s why everyone involved in baseball, from the family of four enjoying a day in the bleachers, to the vendor barking out ” Hey hotdogs!”, to the over worked sales manager hawking ticket packages, to the radio announcers spinning baseball yarns, in the press box and the “knights of the keyboard”- the media, pounding away on their laptops, love providing their own takes on who will be dealt and whom will be acquired.
You know when you stumble upon a conversation that’s about the trade deadline be it with work friends downing a brew at the bar , buddies sipping coffee in the diner, or your softball teammates shooting the breeze sitting on the bench awaiting their turn at bat. Pay strict attention to certain words or phrases like “pieces” “shore up the pen”, ”nother starter” , ” a righty stick.”
And they’re not just talking trade, but a deal they would like to see or make for their team or what an opponent might do. Unfortunately, most deals that fans fantasize for their favorite club are too often tilted for their own team that they would never be arranged, let alone conceived and commenced by general managers.
“HEY, Listen- the Yanks need an outfielder with some pop and defense and the Angels need some young pitching. How ’bout sending Dooley Womack, he’s still young, to the Halos for Mike Trout?” And if they want someone to shore up the defense we can give ’em Horace Clarke and they give us a crafty vet to put in the middle of our rotation like, uh, Nolan Ryan to even the deal.
Frankly they’d be committed to Bellevue before they’d be fired. But some fans really do their homework- they honestly investigate each team’s strengths and weakness and match teams making for some interesting possibilities.
What about Todd Frazier,.. I know despite his low average and on base percentage he could still be for a team looking for some extra pop from the corner positions like the Rangers since they’ve lost Prince Fielder for the year and really getting Frazier may be an upgrade at first base. The Giants offense has been hurt but their injuries specifically Hunter Pence being on the DL, maybe they could use the OF help of Jay Bruce who just clubbed their pitching in a recent series. Maybe the Royals will be willing to deal a couple of their free agents to be since they won it all last year and could be on the precipice of the “four years to win rebuilding “plan. Could Chris Sale be had by the Dodgers since they still need to fill the voids left by Zack Greinke’s departure and Clayton Kershaw’s injury?”
None will probably never materialize but they do provide continuous, substantive dissertations, analytical discussions, rancorous debates, articulate dialogues and lotsa laughs., SO ENJOY the last few days, few hours of ‘ til the “Trade Deadline” officially ends.
Then you can begin figuring out whom your team can obtain off the waiver wires before the September 1st roster cutoff.