The MLB deal deadline is over, and for the most part, it’s a normal story. It’s not really Haves and Have-nots anymore, because any team can and should be a Have considering the immense wealth that every MLB team had even before opening. It’s more than Wants and Don’ts. So The Wants, like the Padres, the Yankees, the Astros, and a few others choose Want-nots stuff for the pieces that Want-not will sell to their fans as a mainstay of them whenever. they feel like coming back.
Except, when is that? Is it even a sure date? A fool? Less and less these days, it looks like any team is settling in.
Take the Orioles, who brought one of their identifiable players over the past few years at Trey Mancini to the Astros ahead of time. The arc of this was, and still is, supposedly, that a team ate shit for years but then started moving towards the light. It is not necessarily always linear, but it is said to be progressive. The romantic side of it is that players like Mancini, who had to eat all that trash but fit in with the fans and the city because he enjoyed the fruits of it all, perhaps more than anyone else on the team because of what he got through.
Fans have come to accept the fact, or more likely already subdued, that any player close to 30, even within two years of that number and/or free agency, will be chase for something manageable, young, and cheap that promises a better day. But that must have a peak.
Mike Elias’ comment after dealing with Mancini really skeptical. Sure, the wild probably doesn’t mean much, and the O certainly doesn’t need to go all out in the form of trading to get the pieces just to stand a chance in the three extra games down the road. But not trading anyone certainly won’t hurt them. And there are some benefits to playing the fun games in August and September. The team won’t cost anything, and might even make them a little more with increased attendance. . At some point, you get off the floor. A season like this is when the real endpoint is supposed to come into view and the path to it.
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The calculation should be that if we move Mancini, it should be for something more valuable in the immediate future, because this is where Orioles, is said to be curving up. Mancini costs almost nothing next year, with a general option of $10 million. Instead, group O has two prospects no higher than A and at least two more years, and possibly three more years from making a serious contribution to a candidate. Same with Pablo Lopez’s return closer. How can next year be more valuable than Mancini, in a season where the O is supposed to build on this?
When exactly will things stop in the future by teams like Orioles? When do they step on the gas? What if the O just hangs around in the wild again next year (certainly a possibility considering where the Jays and Yankees are and could be)? Well, considering where Baltimore is right now, there’s really nothing left to uncover. Is that the standard?
The Orioles have had at least interesting opportunities in the final two months of the season. They have traded that for not having a better chance next season. When does the promise of a distant future go empty?
If you want an example of a team that can’t even do that calculation, we bring you the Chicago Cubs. Cubs end up with perhaps the second largest chip available in the Willson Contreras, after Juan Soto shocked the market. They have nothing for him. They will get nothing for him. They sit in their arms as the deadline passes and the Contreras is still a Cub (so does Ian Happ, another sure thing that will move us, or so we think).
Again, the calculation should be what is more valuable to the Cubs in the years to come, what they can get from holding Contreras, or what they can get him in a trade. But by not even thinking about the former and then far from the latter, they will not come to a conclusion. They will let Contreras in as a free agent for a draft at the end of the first round, which will not benefit them for four or five seasons. And nothing else.
There is a value to bid a player in the transaction that must be met and if it is not metyou don’t trade players because otherwise the teams will short sell you in any trade you want to make from then on. But that calculation only works if you are then willing to keep the player and withdraw the product from him in subsequent years. Otherwise, you are only trading nixing for the sake of trading and reputation, not trying to make your team better. The Cubs have had two of the biggest players available over the past two seasons, Contreras and Craig Kimbrel, and ended up with a quarterback who is essentially Mighty Mac in Punch-Out without the need for a star punch ( Nick Madrigal) and an armless reliever (Codi Heuer) and a full hand.
So when is the Cubs tomorrow? If it was a rebuild, they wouldn’t have moved it forward. If they are trying to win, they will ruin that by not signing a long-term contract with Contreras. This is just nothing. Cubs are nothing. And they seem quite content in their land of nothingness.
