Trades and tirades after the deadline hit 4pm yesterday

There were many commentors here and on Twitter and other sites that were upset after the clock struck 4pm yesterday.

In Steve’s Tuesday column on the MASN Sports site, you can read here that Mike Rizzo could still make moves during the month of August and showed in 2012 and 2014 that he will use waiver claims to make deals after the non-waiver trade deadline passes.

Fans of teams all around the country got to take a step back and assess where their team’s stood after the trade deadline passed yesterday.

Here is a list of trades done in the last week (Tuesday, July 26 thru Monday August 1) would you have done?

08/01/16

07/31/16

07/28/16

07/26/16

Which one of these trades would you have wanted? The one mentioned most is the Steve Pearce trade, and Tampa received a AAAA player in return. It is a head-scratcher, but several other teams passed on him also.

From @Jerry Crasnick: “#SFGiants out of Steve Pearce market now that they’ve acquired Eduardo Nunez. #Indians still talking to #Rays. But there are others.”

Why did so many teams that clearly needed a right-handed inexpensive option for OF/1B not make the Pearce deal? The Orioles biggest need was pitching, and their only pitching move was acquiring Wade Miley who has a 4.98 ERA and was a failure when he pitched for the Red Sox last year as he had a 4.46 ERA.

The market was not great for adding an ace pitcher and teams that needed one like the Texas Rangers worked other areas to improve in.

MLB.com rated teams after the non-waiver trade deadline, their power rankings in the National League had the top five teams in this order:

  1. Cubs
  2. Nationals
  3. Giants
  4. Dodgers
  5. Cardinals

Yes, they ranked the Nationals ahead of the Giants, and yes, they know it’s an even year. The games will be played and when the baseball season ends, and a champion is crowned, there will only be one team invited to the White House. Twenty-nine teams will have not done enough. The teams that people say did the best at the trade deadline between the Rangers, Indians, Cubs, Giants, Nationals, Dodgers etc will have major disappointment as only one team will hoist the trophy.

It seems our time to really assess this will be best served after the season is over in hindsight, but it is certainly fair to try look at who is the best team and how can the Nationals continue to improve going forward.

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