Trade Deadline has Come and Gone

Another trade deadline has come and gone, and a lot of deals were made, just not a whole lot in Chicago. If you go back to the Samardzija and Hammels deal, the Cubs have made 4 trades that involved them trading away 6 guys, and saw them receive 7 guys. There's a player to be named later involved in each of those totals. As for the White Sox, unfortunately they did nothing, which I call unfortunate because it really would have been in their best interest to have traded away some guys, but I guess they somehow feel like they have a chance at going all the way this year. However, the worst thing they could have done was stand pat, because Garcia and Lindstrom won't put a sub .500 team over the top. Anyway, I'll go further into that and go over the trades that were made.

The first trades I'll mention are the ones that I've already talked about. The Jeff Samardzija and Jason Hammels trade that has brought the Cubs Addison Russell, Billy McKinney, Dan Straily, and a player to be named later. So far that trade is looking like a steal for the Cubs. Addison Russell got off to a slow start with the Smokies, but has since been absolutely insane. Billy McKinney has been very solid throughout in Daytona. Going by numbers alone, he makes me think that his ceiling is a rich man's Matt Murton (2006 version), basically a guy who walks a lot, doesn't strike out a ton, hits in the low .300's, and hits around 15-20 home runs per season. Of course his floor is that he doesn't even see the big leagues, so don't get too excited too quickly. Dan Straily has had a rough time so far, but is starting to look like a guy who just needs to figure out how to avoid the big inning. Those guys are about 50/50 as far as figuring it out goes, and even if he does he's not guaranteed to be anything better than a #4 type of guy. Of course we won't know for sure until those guys come up to the bigs, and if they do, but if things keep going as they have, especially with that PTBNL in there, this winds up being a great trade for the Cubs. As for the Darwin Barney trade, the Cubs got back Jonathan Martinez. Martinez was more than I expected. He's a low A guy who is 20 years old. His velocity is around upper 80's and low 90's on his fastball, so he doesn't have the most electric arm, but he was fairly high in the Dodgers organization a couple of years ago, but had a rough year in 2013. His 2014 has been better, but I guess there's still things that scared the scouts away.

The Cubs made a trade yesterday with the Red Sox. The Red Sox sent over Felix Doubront, and the Cubs will send a PTBNL over to the Red Sox at some point. Much of that could depend on how Doubront does for the Cubs. Doubront has been decent in the past, but was never especially good. This just reeks of them going for another Jake Arrieta here, which we won't even have a clue about until probably next season. Doubront doesn't have any options left though, so he'll have to find his way at the big league level. Hopefully a change of scenery does his well, but I really don't have much faith. Either way, the return is likely to be very light on the part of the Cubs.

The last trade was one that sent Emilio Bonifacio and James Russell to the Braves for minor league catcher Victor Caratini. It's tough to say how good the return was, but many sites I found scouting reports on said good things about him. He was a third baseman who was converted to catcher. His catching defense seems to be pretty average. However, he seems to have a very solid bat for a catcher, although probably a bit light for a third baseman. He's 20 years old and playing at the low A level. He's been pretty solid as far as his slash line goes, .279/.352/.406. He's got 5 home runs, 4 triples, and 18 doubles in 323 at bats. At age 20 that's pretty encouraging as far as his bat goes, especially being a bit young for his league. Mlb.com already has him as the #13 prospect in the Cubs system, so with a loaded system like the one the Cubs have, that's a pretty solid prospect to get back in exchange for a guy that nobody wanted this past offseason and a decent left handed bullpen specialist. Also, with the track record the Braves have with catchers (younger McCann, Javier Lopez, and Evan Gattis in recent history), I'm not going to take any catcher coming through their system lightly. Still, I'm not setting anything in stone yet on this one, but I'll say that at least the Cubs aren't giving a ton up.

Now for the White Sox. Why the harsh words above? Well, I don't really intend to be harsh on them, but I just can't understand why they didn't go ahead and trade away Alexei Ramirez at very least. I know the fans love him, but the bottom line is that he's going to be 33 before the season ends. While that's not ancient, most players at that age don't tend to get better. In fact, since his quick start, he's gradually slowed down. His average in April and March was .351, May .305, June .230, July .227. However, if the White Sox had traded him, there's no doubt that they would have been able to make out with either a very good low level prospect, or a good upper level prospect (along with possibly another either very low level prospect, or a flawed upper level prospect). If Ramirez puts up numbers like he did the last couple of years next season, the White Sox might be able to get half that much. John Danks was talked about a lot, but no deal was ever made. I don't know why it wasn't made, but Danks is at least fairly young, although he's never been an especially good pitcher, as his career ERA is 4.22. However, for a team that's not winning anything this year, if they could pull anything good for him, I don't see why they don't do it. Remember, the White Sox are about the same distance from the Cubs are they are from the playoffs, even after the collapse the Cubs went through (that may be ending) after the Samardzija trade.

Of course the White Sox could have gone all in too, and I still think that would have been a better idea. At least in that case they put some butts in those seats. However, the big problem with that would be selling players from their system. Their system is better than it was a couple of years ago, but it's not as good as we thought it was before the season started either. I don't know what they could have given to get a John Lester or David Price, or even a Mat Latos (who was on the market supposedly, teased by the Reds). However, if they had gone out there and given up everything left in their system and pulled a few stars, then put those on top of Garcia and Lindstrom, and maybe they can at least challenge for a wildcard spot, and like I said before, at least it would bring in some money from getting fans to show up. However, they're content with mediocrity, or so it seems, maybe they didn't get any good offers, but doing nothing was the worst thing the White Sox could have done. Anyway, I won't harp on it much, but this was a great chance for the White Sox to really put a rebuild into place and have a chance to contend in the future, but it looks like that won't be happening.