MLB Trade Deadline Ends, Mercifully

Hunter is a weird name - Howard Smith-US PRESSWIRE

Yesterday sure was fun, wasn’t it? Well, “fun” might not be the appropriate word, at least not for this baseball enthusiast. I might go with “something.” Yesterday sure was something, wasn’t it? Rumors were whispered, trades made, players moved, analysis provided. If you like constantly refreshing website pages and/or having your Twitter feed flooded with wild speculation and emotional reactions, then yesterday was the day for you!

Maybe I’m an awful contratian that sucks the fun out of everything in order to bring the rest of the world down to my own singular, miserable level—or maybe I’m just getting old—but I found yesterday kind of overwhelming. And exhausting! I’ve been there, I’ve done the MLB Trade Rumors thing, constantly refreshing homepages, internet searching for updates and confirmation of sources—the whole song and dance. And I enjoyed myself, for the first few seasons at least. Perhaps it was because this was my first season with an active Twitter account, but holy shit, the information and rumors and gossip and speculation was relentless. It literally never ended. It’s still going on right now, this very instant as I type these words with my hands and fingers. Who won the trade? Who lost the trade? Why did that team do that? Is that prospect any good? I hate my home team they’re so stupid! I love my home team they’re so smart! Twitter won’t shut up. Well, Twitter will never shut up, baseball or no, but you know what I mean. The information is coming faster than I can process, and it’s colored and interrupted by countless “sources” and “reports” and all other such hogwash that is invariably false or misleading or unimportant. It’s a lot to take in and it hurts my brain and soul. Here’s a hot idea, let’s allow trades to happen as they will, at their own pace, and once they are completed and finalized, then may we yell and scream and crunch the data and emotions. That’s asking too much, isn’t it? I sound like I’m ninety-seven years old, don’t I?

OK then, so let’s take a look at all the hot trade action! For your reference and outrage and happiness and confusion, here are the notable trades that went down yesterday before the non-waiver deadline:

•  The Philadelphia Phillies traded Hunter Pence (OF) to the San Francisco Giants for Nate Schierholtz (OF), Tommy Joseph (C) and Seth Rosin (RP).
•  The Chicago Cubs (finally) traded Ryan Dempster (Guess) to the Texas Rangers for Christian Villanueva (3B) and Kyle Hendricks (SP).
•  The Miami Marlins traded Edward Mujica (RP) to the St. Louis Cardinals for Zack Cox (3B).
•  The Philadelphia Phillies send their entire team I mean Shane Victorino (OF) to the Los Angeles Dodgers for Ethan Martin (SP) and Josh Lindblom (RP).
•  The Kansas City Royals traded Jonathan Broxton (XL RP) to the Cincinnati Reds for J.C. Sulbaran (SP) and Donnie Joseph (RP) and the whole thing was hilarious.
•  The New York Yankees traded Chad Qualls (RP) to the Pittsburgh Pirates for Casey McGehee (3B) and no one can figure out how.
•  The Miami Marlins traded Gaby Sanchez (1B) and some reliever we’ve never heard of to the Pittsburgh Pirates for Gorkys Hernandez (OF) who has one of the best first names ever. There was also a 2013 competitive balance pick sent to the Marlins but who cares.
•  The Arizona Diamondbacks traded Craig Breslow (RP) to the Boston Red Sox for Matt Albers (RP), a ham sandwich and the mortal remains of Scott Podsednik (OF).
•  The Boston Red Sox traded Lars Anderson (1B) to the Cleveland Indians for Steven Wright (Comedian).

So there’s that. Some teams got veterans while others got prospects. Some teams got both and that’s very interesting. Some teams got better and other teams got worse but we really won’t know which ones definitively until a year or two or three from now. Real objective trade analysis takes so much patience that none of us have! One thing I can say with confidence is that all the teams tried their best and now it’s over. Here’s to the end of the chaos. Here’s to beautiful and familiar routine. Here’s to the entire internet getting off my lawn. Here’s to baseball getting back to normal.

Kyle writes baseball nonsense at The Trance of Waiting. You can follow him on Twitter @AgainstKyle.