Willingness to eat contract key for MLB deadline returns: Sherman



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The Yankees have checked Starling Marte a few times, but the Marlins haven’t seen a game. Marte was therefore traded for the A’s, the team the Yankees are trying to catch for the second wild card.

Marte was traded for the second consecutive trade deadline – Arizona in Miami last year and the Marlins in As this season. Oakland returned Jesus Luzardo, who entered last season as a top-12 consensus prospect in the sport. The southpaw hadn’t pitched well for the As this year, posting a 6.87 ERA in 13 games (six starts).

To gain access to such a reputable arm and face the financially tight A’s, the Marlins agreed to pay almost all of the $ 4.7 million Marte owed Marte for the remainder of the season.

At the time of the trade, the A’s were six games behind the Astros in AL West and led for the second wild card with one game against the Mariners and 2 ¹ / ₂ against the Yankees. Without another move, Marte (0.859 OPS, 22 steals) would likely replace Stephen Piscotty on the right and provide the As with a solid outfield alongside Ramon Laureano and Mark Canha.

The Marlins add Luzardo to one of the best teams of young starting pitchers (majors and minors combined) in the game. They want to use pitch depth to try and improve the quality of their positional group. Executives who inquired were told that major league starters such as Sandy Alcantara and Trevor Rogers are essentially banned and Miami would prefer to use minor league weapons in this area.

Miami Marlins Starling Marte # 6 batting
The Marlins’ ability to pay off part of Starling Marte’s contract helped improve their return from athletics.
Getty Images

The little Marlins market was ready to absorb the rest of the contract to facilitate the deal they wanted. Big returns to maturity are particularly difficult for players in the walking year position, so paying off a portion of the entire remaining contract is often an incentive to improve a package. Marte, Kris Bryant and Trevor Story were considered the best positional players of the year in-game to trade. And it will be intriguing how much current clubs would eat to improve the comeback.

The enclosures become more powerful

The relievers are still the most traded commodity on the deadline and two teams jumped early to try and address weaknesses in the relievers’ pen.

Is Cincinnati Too Late? The Reds have the majors’ worst reliever ERA (5.36) and got Luis Cessa and Justin Wilson from the Yankees on Tuesday night, then landed Mychal Givens of the Rockies on Wednesday. Cincy started Wednesday seven back in the NL Central and six in the wild card.

Earlier this week, an AL GM rival said he believes the Astros are the best team in the AL and could galvanize that by tackling an inadequate reliever box. On Tuesday night, Houston got the Mariners ‘closest, Kendall Graveman, and Wednesday, the Marlins’ closest, Yimi Garcia.

Difficult to deal with

Completing a trade is difficult. But those who are trying to do so have told me about some obstacles unique to this year:

1. If you are acquiring a major or minor league pitcher, do you think there has been enough time to assess their performance since the sport began a major crackdown on illegal sticky stuff?

2. If you are acquiring a player, but especially a pitcher, do you have to worry more than ever that they’ll hit a wall after seeing their workload last year limited by a 60-game season or no season? minor league?

3. With the Delta variant of COVID-19 leading to an increase in cases, could you acquire a player who then contracts the virus and will be lost for an extended period of time? Available Nationals shortstop Trea Turner had to be removed from a game on Tuesday when it was learned he was COVID positive, and then on Wednesday the Nats were found to have more cases.

4. If you are paying extra for a veteran’s outlook because you can also control it in 2022, should you be concerned that a work-related work stoppage (the collective agreement expires in January) that results in the loss of matches the next season, lower the value of having this player?

Center of attention in the Bronx

The Yankees have carefully searched for a center fielder – they’ve even heard from the Rays to ask questions about Kevin Kiermaier, Manny Margot and Brett Phillips. …. The worst ERA in Mets history for a pitcher cleared to appear in at least 125 games is the 5.50 Paul Sewald accumulated from 2017 to 20 (Robert Gsellman is next at 4.59). We’re noting this because, with Graveman traded to the Astros, the Mariners’ new closest match is Sewald. Well Named. He has a 2.30 ERA in 31 appearances and struck out 42.5% of batters at bat – among relievers, only Craig Kimbrel (46.7) and Josh Hader (45.4) were higher. … Another reason the Mets are almost entirely focused on pitching: After so much legitimate concern about offense, the Mets’ .800 OPS in July leads the majors.

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