As we bear down on Saturday’s trading deadline, I have a few more items over at SI.com. First, I look at the Phillies acquisition of Roy Oswalt and how the team would have been better off had they simply kept Cliff Lee. Second, I look at the top-performing deadline acquisitions of the Wild Card era.
No Yankees make my top five in the latter piece, but a few pop up in honorable mention. David Cone, surprisingly, doesn’t appear at all. Looking back, Cone went 9-2 for the Yankees down the stretch that year, but he posted an underwhelming 3.82 ERA and had fewer than twice as many strikeouts as walks. The Yankees scored an average of 7.1 runs Cone’s nine wins and, over a six-start stretch from August 19 to September 13, Cone failed to make a single quality start and posted a 6.28 ERA.
Some notable additions that didn’t make my list include Cliff Lee to the Phillies last year, Jason Bay to the Red Sox in 2008, Ugueth Urbina to the Marlins in 2003, Scott Rolen to the Cardinals in 2002, Aramis Ramirez to the Cubs in 2003 (Ramirez didn’t hit all that well that year, but the Cubs did win their first postseason series since 1945 that year, and Ramirez did emerge as a star on the northside in the years that followed; Jamie Moyer going from the Red Sox to the Mariners in 1996 was another deadline deal that paid off for years to follow, ditto Jason Schmidt to the Giants in 2001). Two notable performances that didn’t result in playoff berths were Cliff Floyd’s .316/.374/.561 line for the Red Sox in 2002, and Bobby Bonilla’s .333/.392/.544 line for the Orioles in 1995.
The Twins pick-up of Matt Capps is a head-scratcher, considering their more glaring needs at 3b.
[1] Plus they gave up a huge trade chip to get him. Capps is good, but the Twins didn't need him they way they needed, say Tejada, who just went to the Padres.
If you include postseason performance Justice has to be one of, if not the top-performing summer acquistion of the Wild Card era.
I would argue that the Yanks probably wouldnt have even gotten into the 2000 postseason without him.
Then he earns the ALCS MVP, then he has two HUGE RBI in that epic WS Game 1. Justice was tremendous.
Justice was the catalyst for the 2000 Yankees, no doubt. He was an absolute beast right up through the ALCS.
But I was happy to see Glenallen Hill's contribution mentioned by Cliff. Dude just went buck in August and was hitting moonshots left and right. If I remember correctly he actually won AL Player of the Month. Hell even Canseco had a few (ok very few) moments with the bat. He still hit one the longest homers I've ever seen at the old stadium that year, LF upper deck.
I know, I know...in hindsight "special vitamins" probably played a bigger role than we allowed ourselves to realize at the time. But it doesn't change the fact that those two guys were key for a deeply flawed team.
[3] Indeed, I was limiting my list to regular season contributions. Justice was the only guy of the ten I mentioned to make the World Series. I was at Game 6 vs. the Mariners when he hit that decisive homer of Arthur Rhodes.
[5] huge moment to have witnessed.
Good piece, too, by the way. Interesting stuff.
[6] First postseason game I ever attended. I have some pics of the last-out celebration from my seat in fair territory in the left-field upper deck
Richard Justice tweeting that Berkman might get moved this afternoon, possibly to the Yanks.
I'm fine with that as long as the price is right. He'd basically be taking the place of Miranda you'd imagine. DH him days Posada catches, days Posada DH's Berkman becomes the latter day Straw/Chili Davis. It could work.
and if that sounds like I'm trying to talk myself into Berkman (who I was a total fanboy for from 2001-2005)...then you would be correct.
[8, 9]
RiverAveBlues does a nice job arguing for him. His away numbers are somewhat worrisome, and (I think) he has struggled some v. LHP...but that's what Thames is for, right?
So, depending on the price, he's not the worst thing.
I'm still holding out hope that my bold Dunn-to-the-Yankees prediction of a couple weeks ago comes true.
[10] Dunn is no doubt my first choice, but by all indications the price on him is just laughable.
he's hitting about .200 vs LHP, so thats a problem. But as a complimentary piece he can't hurt. Like Nick Johnson but with an actual pulse.
Sherman has a piece up spelling out some of the concerns regarding him, among them that he's never been a DH and never been in the AL East. Those are things I think will actually work in his favor, he's clearly a primarily DH type at this point in his career and would be hitting in a lineup where no one would exactly expect him to be a .315/25/110 type of hitter.
Like you said, I wouldn't give up Romine or anything for him. But to eat the $$ and give up some fringe guy, yeah I'd do it.
from the "Shows What The Hell I Know" file:
The Rays are convinced that the Yankees will acquire Dunn, Peter Gammons told WEEI.com. Gammons suspects that if the Nationals trade Dunn, the Yankees will acquire him.
Mlbtraderumors is reporting that berkman to the Yankees is imminent...but we've been down that path before this season.
[13] Robo reports the deal has been done and Berkman has agreed to it but that it can't be announced yet.
[10] Sounds like the price is going to be 7.5 million dollars ... and a “non-prospect minor leaguer”.
I'll take that deal.
[15] So, the Yankees are spending $7.5 million for two months of a player that probably is a notch below the overall quality of Johnny Damon, whom the Yankees could have had for the entire year at that price (not to mention the $5 million they could have saved by not signing NJ to heel up).
[16] as my piece on Oswalt linked in the post above suggests, the deadline is when GMs fix their mistakes
eh, like I said if all it costs is money then go for it...it can't hurt.
[17] Yep...that was the gist of what I wrote about that deal too. Having said that, fixing a mistake doesn't always atone for making it in the first place. I am not sure if Berkman does that.