Torre's Problem, Now

Trade Deadline Recap

So I watched about 6 hours of ESPNews coming up to the 4PM Eastern trade deadline. 4:00 came and went, and I figured nothing was happening, and either way, Kira and Gretchen were coming over to watch the new episode of Weeds. So we watch the show, and as the credits roll, Kira looks over at me and goes, "So, Manny got traded?"

Funny how these things work out sometimes.

I scrambled over to my desk and sure enough, Manny's a Dodger. Ned Colletti was finally able to ditch Andy LaRoche (why Ned hated him, we'll never know) to Pittsburgh along with a couple other prospects from Boston, and Pittsburgh send the good-but-not-Manny-good Jason Bay to the Red Sox.

My overal impression of this is that Pittsburgh got a nice haul, the Dodgers had the best day, and Boston is somewhere between neutral and good. Pittsburgh gets lost of prospects, including Brandon Moss, who's prety good but buried under organizational depth in the Boston system, and Craig Hansen, a hard throwing righty who spent some time in the Fenway bullpen this year. And Andy LaRoche, who will be very good in the future.

The Red Sox underestimate Manny's importance to their lineup. This is a risky move.

The Dodgers have finally made a good decision. Sorta. The NL West is the worst division in baseball and all you really need to push your team over the top in a crappy division is one big bat. I'd say Ramirez qualifies as one of those. I think this is what LA needs to win the division before getting wrecked in the playoffs.

Here's me most recent feelings about the Mark Teixeira trade, cross-posted from a comment at HH:

Between games of beer pong last night, I was thinking about what losing Casey really means to the organization. And I decided “something, but not as much as we think.”

Casey was not a sufficient hitter for first base. He was leaps and bounds better than Erstad, but that’s only because our expectations from first base production are probably lower than any other team. We’ve needed power at the corners for years, and Teixeira brings us power at first for the first time in a long time.

Kendry will provide roughly the same production as Casey. His defense will be worse, to be sure, but this Tex deal isn’t mortgaging the future. It’s mortgaging a modicum of defense for a couple months of the best available big bat. And while I know that I already miss #35, the fact remains that the organization has the depth to maintain a high level of play even with one of our former top prospects now with Atlanta.

And should we win it all this year, does any of that even matter?

Casey is 0-9 as a Brave thus far.