Team-by-Team Trade Possibilities: AL West

Previous entries in the series:
AL East
AL Central

Seattle Mariners – The Mariners are in really bad shape, to put it mildly.  They’re going through a front office change, they’re currently terrible, their franchise player (Ichiro) is aging, and their farm system is not among the best in the game.  However, they do have several movable parts for the deadline:  Adrian Beltre, who is coveted by the Twins, as I detailed yesterday; Jarrod Washburn, who they’ve discussed with the Yankees (however, it seems the teams are at an impasse – the Yanks only want to take the contract for a bit player, but the Mariners want a “real” prospect); and Raul Ibanez, who seems destined to become a Met once the two teams can agree on a price.  I’m surprised they’ve waited this long on trading Ibanez, Wladimir Balentien looks like a nice, major league-ready power hitting corner outfield prospect (and has for awhile now).  Other than that, Richie Sexson has already been released and signed by the Yankees – apparently he had NO trade value whatsoever, whether or not the M’s picked up the remainder of his contract.  Jose Vidro is probably not going to excite anyone, neither is Willie Bloomquist, neither is Kenji Johjima and his new extension, and so on.  Ichiro is going nowhere.
Arthur Rhodes might get moved – he’s another of those veteran lefties who is the backup plan for a lot of teams, so while he might not command a lot, he most likely will find a new home.

Oakland A’s – They’ve already been busy, moving Rich Harden, Chad Gaudin, and Joe Blanton this month, as we’ve covered already.  It has been a bit of a hard luck season for the A’s; the runs scored/runs allowed numbers indicate that the A’s should be at least one game better than the Angels.  That’s a better indicator of team performance going forward, but two caveats come into play here:

1. The team the A’s will be trotting out there the rest of the year is different from the one they’ve been using all year, and
2.  Great bullpens often help teams overcome mediocre expected (or Pythagenport) W-L records, and the Angels certainly have one of those.

Anyway, it’s possible the A’s still have some wheeling and dealing left.  Guys who might get moved: Justin Duchscherer – the AL ERA leader is probably experiencing a career year, and has several suitors, from the White Sox to the Rockies.  Closer Huston Street is one of the best relievers on the market, and has been rumored to be piquing interest in many places:  Tampa Bay, Chicago’s south side (Sox), and the LA Dodgers, among others.  Lefty Alan Embree is in that Rhodes/Eyre class of veterans who might end up elsewhere.  There have not been many Mark Ellis rumors, but with Eric Patterson on board and the A’s all but conceding this year, he might go for the right price – he’s a free agent after the season, though the A’s would love to keep him.  There had been some Jason Bay to the A’s rumors, but those seem to have died down.  Not much that Billy Beane could do would surprise me.

Texas Rangers – The Rangers won the prize at last year’s deadline, sending Mark Teixeira to the Braves for a gaggle of prospects and youngsters.  This year, they don’t have that one big name to move, but they do have some tasty side dishes.  For starters, they have 4 – yes, FOUR – catchers drawing interest who are big league ready, roughly.

1.  Gerald Laird has the most experience and performance certainty but the least upside among the four.  The catching-starved Marlins seem to be the front runner for Laird, but both AL East behemoths (Sawx, Yanks) have been linked to Laird.
2.  Jarrod Saltalamacchia came over in last year’s Tex deal, he was a big time prospect in the Braves system, but it’s yet to be seen whether or not he can really stick at catcher.  The rumors for Salty are more vague than those for Laird, which makes me think he’s staying put, which makes sense – if I was in charge, I’d move Laird and hang onto the other three, figuring out who could cut it behind the plate, then keeping the others as backups/DHs/backup first basemen, at least until I figured out which ones were really keepers.
3.  Taylor Teagarden is a really nice defensive catcher, and his bat is less Brad Ausmus/Mike Matheny and more someone who can actually help out a team with the bat.  The Red Sox are reportedly interested, as they should be.  Last Saturday, Wyatt and I discussed their options for replacing Varitek this offseason, and decided a trade was more likely than a free agent signing, figuring the Rangers were a good match.  I’m not sure if that will happen by the deadline, but they’ll definitely revisit it in the offseason if it doesn’t.
4.  Max Ramirez is probably the best hitter of the 4, but also has some questions about his defense.  He came over for Kenny Lofton at the deadline last year from Cleveland.

Manager Ron Washington has a wishlist, but GM Jon Daniels is too smart to mortgage the future for a futile run at 2 month rentals.
There have been some rumblings about Michael Young to the Dodgers, but I doubt they need him badly enough to pay the price.  Milton Bradley’s name has been tossed around, but I think he’ll stay put – Daniels would have to be bowled over to move him.  Same with pitcher Vicente Padilla.  Third basemen Hank Blalock is the Twins’ backup plan, and might go somewhere else before it’s all said and done.

Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim (CA, USA) – As Wyatt covered this afternoon, the Angels already made a big deal today, bringing in Teixeira for Casey Kotchman and minor league pitcher Stephen Marek.  From their standpoint, it’s a deal you had to make – the price of the upgrade from Kotchman to Tex is significantly outweighed by the benefit.  The Angels have been rumored to be in pursuit of some of the lefties on the market, like George Sherrill or Jon Grabow.  Minor league slugger Brandon Wood has struggled in brief major league trials, but seems to crush minor league pitching.  He’s young enough to pan out, given the opportunity, and some team might bite.

Up Next:  NL East

Cubs/A’s Swap

Well, I’m not exactly breaking the news, but the Cubs and A’s made a deal yesterday in which the Cubs added Rich Harden and Chad Gaudin for Sean Gallagher, Matt Murton, Eric Patterson, and Josh Donaldson.  It seemed to come as a surprise to some media types who SHOULD be in the know, but anyone who’s been checking the right spots would not have needed an inside scoop to see the Cubs making a deal for a good-to-great starting pitcher this month.

As a Cubs fan, I’m immensely pleased with this deal.  Earlier this season, I told Wyatt that I was not exceptionally worried about the Cubs making a trade this deadline that mortgaged their future – they just do not have much in the way of minor league prospect depth, so it’s not like they had some superprospect (see LaPorta, Matt; Price, David; Beckham, Tim; etc.) who it would have been foolish to deal.  Still, to bring back Harden (not to mention Gaudin) without touching Geovany Soto, Carlos Marmol, Jose Ceda, Tyler Colvin, OR Donald Veal seems too good to be true.  Gallagher is a nice, major league ready back of the rotation starter who could become something more.  I suppose there is some small chance that he turns into a nice Number 2 starter, and a minuscule chance he becomes something more, but in all likelihood, he’s just a nice pitcher, not a star.  Gaudin is only three years older and has a similar ceiling, without those small chances that he becomes a star, I suppose.

Murton and Patterson are both useful in their own right, but neither really had much future in Chicago, so it’s really difficult to feel like they lost much here.  They’ll both be useful pieces for Oakland, but Murton is limited to an outfield corner, and he’s a nice little red headed doubles and walks machine with no defense to speak of.  He knocks lefties around (career rates of .316/.389/494 agains them), not so much righties, although he’s serviceable against them.  He fits alright with this A’s team, which has had trouble to score some runs, as does Patterson, who can be an insurance policy for any situation in which Mark Ellis leaves via free agency after the year, although his second base defense is slightly below average.  As an outfielder, his bat is nothing to write home about, but again, he can probably help out this year’s A’s as a part-time outfielder, whether it’s platooning with Murton in left, or spelling Ellis at second without much dropoff at the plate.  Still, he’s 25 without much development left, and what he is right now is…useful, but not outstanding.  The last player in the deal, Josh Donaldson, is a catcher who owned the Northwest league last year for awhile, but in the Midwest league this year, in more at bats, he’s really struggled.  He’s got a long way to go to get to the majors at all, let alone start.

Lastly, on to Harden, the star in this deal.  There’s a lot that can be said here, but I’ll boil it down to this:  when healthy, Rich Harden is one of the 10 best pitchers in the league.  That “when healthy” bit is pretty serious, though, as he really does have some trouble staying off the disabled list.

So the A’s get some minor lineup upgrades for the near term and a young, cheap starter to plug into the rotation, but that seems a little low for Harden and Gaudin.  For the Cubs, it’s a relatively low risk proposition – if Harden breaks down, well, Gaudin is going to give you roughly what Gallagher would have, and as long as they were going to keep pretending Reed Johnson can play center, I can understand why they could afford to pass on Murton.  Patterson is no better than the 4th best second base option they have behind Mark DeRosa, Mike Fontenot, and Ronny Cedeno, and Donaldson is blocked by Geovany Soto now and for the foreseeable future in Chicago.

All that to say, I’m a little confused on what Billy Beane and the Oakland front office saw here – it’s a useful enough group of players, but for an ace and another useful pitcher, it just doesn’t seem like enough.

Hats of to Jim Hendry, who gave up significantly less than Doug Melvin did, and Melvin only got one pitcher, albeit one who is healthier than Harden in CC Sabathia.  It’s absolutely a worthwhile gamble.