Baseball Trade Deadline

The Yankees got nothing for their rotation except shuffling a pair of deck chairs (Contreras for Loaiza) on the Titanic, right? Who knows. Let's look at some key facts:

(1) Randy Johnson has been in the playoffs in 1995, 1997, 1998, 1999, 2001 and 2002. In FOUR of those seasons he did not even win one playoff game. Andy Pettitte was in the playoffs from 1996-2003 and failed to win a playoff game twice: 1997 and 2002 and Andy Pettitte is no Randy Johnson. The point is that one impact pitcher was not going to be the difference between the Yankees' success and failure this postseason because they have too many other questions in their starting pitching right now to guarantee anything.

(2) This season is looking like 2002 all over again -- no dominant pitching team. Out of the Yankees, Red Sax, A's, Rangers, Angels, White Sox and Twins there are exactly FOUR starters with ERAs under 3.50: Mark Mulder, the injured Tim Hudson, Curt Schilling and Johan Santana. Thus, the team that wins the AL will be more like the 1996 Yankees, 1997 Indians and 2002 Angels -- relying on solid starting and great bullpen work backed up by good timely hitting. Because the NL champion will have a weaker lineup (except the Cardinals) than any AL playoff team, the AL champion will be a viable World Series team -- just like the '96 Yankees (won), '97 Indians (lost in 7) and '02 Angels (won). Simply stated, the Yankees' success depends upon Kevin Brown's velocity, Mike Moooooooooooosina's health, Javy Vazquez's control and not killing QuanGoMo before October.

As for the other trades: The Cubs seem to have gotten the best of the RedSawx-Twins-Expos-Cubs 4-team deal by adding Nomaaaaah. The RedSawx upgraded their defense at the expense of their offense today by adding Mientkewicz and Cabrera and subtracting Garciaparra and the Twins just cut loose a guy who was insulted about potentially being traded (Mientkewicz had been on the block in a possible Kris Benson deal). Personally, The Monk thinks the RedSawx dissed and jerked around a
Fenway icon -- instant karma would be pretty cool.

For other analysis, see Jayson Stark's column linked to in the title to this post. The Mets tried too hard for this year and need to hope that Zambrano and Benson will be good in the FUTURE. The Marlins traded spare parts for a good bat and some solid arms, and the Dodgers blew up the bridge that got them from their iffy starters to Gagne but did get a nice player in Steve Finley.