Nine thoughts on the post-trade deadline before the home stretch

Red Sox

Boston deserves a hat trick for being able to play meaningful games at the end of September in a season where most saw them as mediocre to ugly.

Playing nine innings while realizing that Chris Sale is a great teammate all around, but most importantly…

1. I don’t know if the Red Sox won the deadline for exchanges. But they sure haven’t lost it, despite the over-reaction and overreaction from, oh, 4:01 p.m. on July 31st. (Think of it as a guilty plea, but some deserve much longer sentences than I do.) Since finally doing his injury- delayed start with the Sox, Kyle Schwarber has been a machine based (0.406 OBP, 0.863 OPS) and he’s someone you want to plate late in the game (he has a .975 OPS late in the game and clutch during peak season). If the Red Sox make it through the playoffs and somehow stick around, I bet it’ll deliver a memorable moment or two. Chaim Bloom should have taken on another reliever other than Austin Davis (who was adequate) and Hansel Robles (who was primarily combustible), but the Red Sox clearly received more help than appeared at the ‘era.

2. Which team got the most by the deadline? Easy. The Dodgers, who added all-time great Max Scherzer (7-0 with a 0.78 ERA for LA) and Trea Turner (the National League hitting leader at 0.316 on Tuesday) for a talented set of four prospects. , including wide receiver Keibert Ruiz. The Jays have probably helped each other the most amid the current Red Sox completion, adding right-hander Jose Berrios (the AL leader in starts and innings) for 2020 No.5 pick Austin Martin and another prospect. . Joey Gallo remains the ultimate player with three real results (rounds, goals and strikeouts). For the Yankees, he’s beating .166 with 12 home runs, 32 walks and 71 strikeouts in 184 home plate appearances; the worst of these results is much more likely than the others. Complaints that the Red Sox did not acquire Anthony Rizzo (two homers, five RBIs in September) have subsided.

3. In a sense, the Red Sox also got Bobby Dalbec back on the trade deadline – or at least he got up and started crushing as an individual tribute to the Bash Brothers. In 39 games since August 1 or the day after the deadline, Dalbec has reduced .316 / .409 / .737 (for a 1,146 OPS), with 12 homers, 22 extra-base hits and 36 RBIs in 132 appearances in the marble. He’s still hitting at a high pace (34 Ks in 112 batters), but it’s not as high as it used to be, and he has walked 15 times in this stretch after walking just 13 times in his 280 first hitters. Obviously he’s not going to stay that hot, but I don’t think it’s a stretch to say that this streak has changed the shape of his career either. It might have been another 0 for 4 couple to get a one-way ticket to Worcester for the rest of the summer.

4. The easy and logical comparison for Blue Jays superstar Vladimir Guerrero Jr. is of course his Hall of Fame dad, Vlad Sr. But doesn’t he somehow remind you of a certain contemporary of his dad at the end? 90s and early 2000s American League rankings? Don’t you see a lot of Manny Ramirez in his vicious, compact right-handed swing? Vlad Jr. displays numbers that look awfully similar to the ones on the back of Manny’s baseball card. The 22-year-old currently leads the league in batting (0.321), percentage on base (0.411), strokes (0.617) and homers (46), and with 105 RBIs he is eight behind Salvador. Perez. and Jose Abreu for the head of the league. Vlad Jr. has an adjusted OPS of 174. Manny got 174 OPS in 1999 when he hit 0.333 with 44 home runs and 165 RBIs.

5. Curious to see how the American League Cy Young race is going. Toronto’s Robbie Ray must be the favorite at this point, even though he probably didn’t make it into your fantasy baseball league. Ray, the all-time MLB leader (no kidding) in strikeouts per nine innings (11.25), has a 2.63 ERA and 233 strikeouts in 177.1 innings. He leads in Wins Above Replacement for pitchers by a comfortable margin over Yankees’ Gerrit Cole (6.9 to 5.7). Cole (15 wins, 3.03 ERA, 231 Ks) could win the thing, but he came small in a few big starts in the second half. Hopefully Red Sox rock-of-the-rotation Nathan Eovaldi gets some votes. He is fourth in the AL to start WAR, behind Ray, Cole and Lance Lynn of the White Sox.

6. Venn’s diagram of people who like to point out that Alex Verdugo has a higher batting average than Mookie Betts this season and claim Mookie would never have signed here is a closed circle of closed minds. Betts have missed 40 games, and it remains to be seen whether he will endure deep within his contract, but let’s stop at the hugely selective statistical comparisons in a transparent attempt to justify the exchange of a generational player. Betts was second in the MVP race, first in the NL in WAR, and won a World Series last year, and has an OPS of .887 this year while excelling defensively and on basic paths as usual. . You want to compare Verdugo to a former Red Sox outfielder, make him Andrew Benintendi, who has the exact same WAR (2.6) this season.

7. Here’s something that came to my mind and blew my mind after reading Peter Abraham’s Sunday Baseball Notes article this week on Tony La Russa. The White Sox have the same person running them now as they did on Open Day 1981, when Carlton Fisk hit a three-run Bob Stanley homerun (was he involved in all lousy moment of 1978-86, or does that seem fair?) in the eighth inning to defeat the Red Sox in their first game with the White Sox. Fisk was 33 at the time and La Russa 36. Fisk is 73 now and La Russa will be 77 on October 4th.

8. Even if Guerrero wins the Triple Crown, the MVP must be Shohei Ohtani of the Angels. He has 44 homers, 23 stolen goals, a .952 OPS, nine wins, a 3.28 ERA and 146 strikeouts in 123.1 innings. My favorite statistic of his extraordinary season at two years old? He did many more walks (77) than he allowed (44). As baseball fans, we deserve to see Ohtani and Mike Trout play at least a full season together at the height of their power.

9. The Red Sox have had their frustrating stretches, and some of their issues are self-inflicted, but they deserve a hat trick for being able to play meaningful games in late September in a season where most viewed them as mediocre. ugly. There aren’t any real pennant races anymore these days, but the Red Sox, Jays, and Yankees being within 2.5 games of each other chasing two wildcard slots are roughly as close as we get. This is going to be fun. It’s already the case.