late-season 2018 trades and rumors

fernando rodney is headed to his 10th team

it's impressive -- rodney got a late-ish start, but he's been around a long time. he is, for another few days, the active saves leader. he's been mostly average, couple bad seasons, with a few stretches of utter dominance mixed in. no aroldis, but definitely an above-average reliever for like 15 years.

and his entire career has been as valuable as four months or so of trout or betts

Why does Oakland need 15 closers?!

for that game against the Yankees

Justin Bour to Phillies

Why does Oakland need 15 closers?!

― Mad Piratical (The Cursed Return of the Dastardly Thermo Thinwall), Friday, August 10, 2018 11:30 AM (one hour ago)

Closers are the new CF

I suppose it might not be too expensive a bet for a team to go for it, in trying to bring in a couple of more relievers to try to shorten games.

pirates send RHP shane baz (12th overall pick in 2017) to tampa as the ptbnl in the chris archer deal

that is quite a lot for a guy who isn't really an ace, but maybe the pirates just realized that they're incapable of developing pitching prospects and might as well get rid of them

all the while Glasnow's been killing it so far for the Rays.

i'm not sure i would've traded glasnow for archer, let alone add two more players to the mix.

small sample for glasnow, but there seems to be a trend (gerrit cole, charlie morton . . . ) of pitchers improving when they leave pittsburgh

for a while it was the opposite – Happ, Liriano come to mind.

Melancon^^^

playoff pinch-running specialist terrance gore to the cubs

missed this, but the rockies signed matt holliday to a minor league deal a few weeks ago -- went 4-for-4 for albuquerque last night

Holliday could be a nice pinch hitter to have for a stretch run, if he has his batting eye. Be cool for him, if this is the last shot, to finish his career in the bigs for the team he came up with. He still had some power when he left.

Giambi and Thome had a couple big hits a the end of their career doing that thing.

nationals are giving up

matt adams back to st louis
daniel murphy possibly to the cubs

dodgers made a waiver claim on harper (no deal yet)

ugh fuck daniel murphy https://deadspin.com/daniel-murphy-disagrees-with-the-gay-lifestyle-1689309224

whoa

sources: waivers have expired on Bryce harper. he is staying with nats.

— Jon Heyman (@JonHeyman) August 21, 2018

boo

#Mets have traded Jose Bautista to the #Phillies

— Joel Sherman (@Joelsherman1) August 28, 2018

Batsy we hardly knew ye

lucas duda to the braves

Yankees have traded for McCutchen (giving up their #23 prospect, who's also 23). McCutchen's a free agent, so I guess he's just filling in for Judge.

https://www.mlb.com/news/andrew-mccutchen-trade-talks-with-yankees/c-292684000

donaldson 'likely to be traded'

cardinals 'involved'

I am ‘likely to be grumpy’

ehh, it's just a month's worth of salary, they won't be dealing away anyone useful

Ryan Madson to Dodgers

donaldson to the indians

it's impressive how all the relievers have been crammed into half the teams

the grandyman to milwaukee

Adeiny Hechavarria to NYY -- polish up that trophy

david freese to the dodgers

Milwaukee going full in, seems like they didn't give up all that much for their rentals.

Baseball does look setup to have a potentially interesting stretch run with a 1/3 of the teams pretty much tanking, there are a lot of clubs with good records this year.

Yeah, I had a feeling there was something shady about the sequence of events surrounding this trade:

http://www.espn.com/mlb/story/_/id/24633842/circumstances-cleveland-indians-acquisition-josh-donaldson-draws-ire-multiple-teams

"I guess he got reinjured on the plane," an unnamed executive told The Athletic.