smg58

Judging it by itself and not on the fact that we knew we needed to sell by mid-June, I'd go with a B. The deal with the Cubs brought in our new #1 prospect, which is a big win, but the rest of the deals fall under "OK, I guess."

His definition of excitement differs from mine.

I think we're still judging the Peralta return by what we dealt. I'm all for blaming Stearns for overpaying in the first place for a pretty good pitcher on paper, but Peralta isn't pretty good right now.

I was intrigued by the the Red Sox dealing Marcello Mayer. Personally I don't think there is anything wrong with Mayer or Kristian Campbell that's not a direct result of their injuries. Mayer was a good buy-low for the Giants, and Campbell will be the same for somebody as well. I think that other than the Cubs and the Dodgers, nobody really went for it. That's frustrating as fuck when you are rooting for a seller, but it is what it is. Most teams overvalue their prospects. The Brewers and Rays were probably thinking that not outbidding the Dodgers for a playoff run with Skubal will give them more opportunities down the road to be buyers and then not go for it. To accommodate the Arraez acquisition, the Phillies are moving Byson Stott to third, Alec Bohm to first, and Bryce Harper back to the outfield. It will be interesting to see what kind of hellfire rains down on their GM over this.

Picking up Robert's $20M option would make giving Alex Cora an extension with a vesting option look shrewd.

It was as good as could be reasonably expected. It looks a lot better with Rojas.

He was #1 on the Cubs and top 50 overall, according to Fangraphs. I kept saying that if they wanted a high-end prospect, they had to make a package deal. He's also played some second base, which is probably where he winds up here (unless they think it's time for Lindor to move to second, which we may need to start considering).

A five-game losing streak at the wrong time turned the Nats into at least partial sellers. I guess the Nats felt they needed to trade offense for pitching, but I still don't make this deal if I'm them.

It looks like they got more for Minter, which is actually kind of surprising/disappointing.

I acknowledge that his age makes him a risk, but it's a very cheap and controllable risk. I don't think I would have bothered if that was the best we could do.

(sniff) I've given this forum everything I've had for over twenty years...

In all seriousness, Taylor is quietly having a great year despite a clearly unlucky BABIP. Robert has had an unlucky BABIP too, but the power has been absent and that might be contributing to it. I said over the winter that Robert is a short-side platoon player on a good team, and with a little luck and a clean bill of health he has an OK chance of getting back to that level. Talylor should get the better return. That doesn't mean he will.

That's not fair. I can think of a lot of ways that a third nostril could be useful.

I for my part certainly wasn't specifying anybody here. My main point was that there are several contending teams that have the farm system to beat the Dodgers' offer, and chose not to. Anybody who is angry over that should not blame the Dodgers. Also, the fact the the Dodgers have that deep of a farm system despite always being buyers this time of year suggests that they are doing more things right than throwing money at the problem. And, as every Mets fan can agree at this point, it takes more than money to build a steady contender.

The package (the #8, #15, and #21 players in a pretty deep system) is very generous for two months of a pitcher who is quite frankly pitching poorly. I'm all for criticizing the initial deal -- Peralta was a 3.60 pitcher who got lucky last season and shouldn't have been treated like an ace -- but we shouldn't judge this deal by that deal.