Written by Jonah Keri at CBSSports.com
With two and a half weeks to go until the trade deadline, teams are already frantically making deals. Well, two teams are anyway. For the other 28, the time between now and Aug. 1 could offer plenty of insight on the rest of this season, and beyond.
So let’s take a look at how every major league team is positioned, and what they might do in the days and weeks ahead. We start with the American League. Early next week, check back for some hot National League action.
AL EAST
Baltimore Orioles
No contender has a more glaring need than the Orioles do in their rotation.Chris Tillman has defied some so-so peripherals to post some flashy bubble-gum card stats. Kevin Gausman has struck out nearly a batter an inning, though he’s also surrendering a home run every five innings, and has yet to fulfill his considerable potential. After that, the rotation is a disaster, withYovani Gallardo and Ubaldo Jimenez ranking among the worst acquisitions by any team in years and no clear plan for a fifth starter.
You could play devil’s advocate and argue that no dramatic move is needed. After all, the Royals won the last two AL pennants with thin rotations, and the O’s lead their division at the All-Star break with an even worse starting five than KC had, thriving on a blizzard of home runs, improved on-base skills and a terrific bullpen. But the Blue Jays are red hot and starting to look like the world beaters of 2015, while the Red Sox aggressively upgraded their roster in the past week. Rich Hill, Jake Odorizzi, Matt Moore and others are out there; if general manager Dan Duquette doesn’t find a quality starter soon, third place might be Baltimore’s fate by season’s end.
Boston Red Sox
When the Red Sox hired Dave Dombrowski to be their new team president, they signaled to the baseball world that they were all in to win now. Trader Dave has built a reputation as someone who makes specific roster-building plans, then goes out and executes them. We saw that over the winter with the big-ticket acquisitions of David Price and Craig Kimbrel.
And we’ve seen it again more recently, with Dombrowski and GM Mike Hazen pulling off four trades in eight days. When the Sox needed organizational depth, they picked up infielder Michael Martinez from theIndians. When Kimbrel hit the disabled list, they nabbed Brad Ziegler mere hours later to fill the temporary closer role and to give Boston an augmented bullpen when Kimbrel returns. Needing infield help and a right-handed bat, they scooped up Aaron Hill from the Brewers. Then came the coup de grace: Desperately needing starting pitching help, the Sox snagged talented leftyDrew Pomeranz from the Padres.
Some questions remain. Pomeranz moving from the National League and pitcher-friendly Petco Park to the American League and hitter-friendly Fenway Park could chip away at his effectiveness. The fifth starter spot remains a question mark. And Boston traded 18-year-old right-hander Anderson Espinoza to get Pomeranz, in the process surrendering one of the top pitching prospects in the game. Ask Dombrowski, and he’ll have answers for all of the above: Clay Buchholz was a walking apocalypse on the mound so pretty much anyone’s an improvement. The Sox think Eduardo Rodriguezwas tipping his pitches and that he could improve now that they’ve recognized the problem … plus they can either trade for another starter or roll with what they have, knowing you only need four in the playoffs. Finally, Espinoza becoming a theoretical All-Star in 2022 doesn’t matter when you have the best offense in the league, one of the top defenses in the league and a mandate to win now. While most other teams ponder, the Red Sox have already checked every item off their wish list, giving them a head start on the rest of the league and a leg up in an AL East battle that could become baseball’s most compelling playoff race.
New York Yankees
When was the last time so many Yankees fans rooted so ardently for their team to lose? A decent first-half finish hoisted the Yanks to .500, raising fears that the Tampa-based arm of the organization might not adequately cash in on their opportunity to sell veteran contributors for much needed young talent, due to delusions that they might actually contend for the pennant.
The guess here is that barring something like a 10-game winning streak to start the second half, free-agents-to-be Carlos Beltran and Aroldis Chapmanget dealt to contenders in exchange for quality prospects. But this still an old ballclub on the position player side, with every lineup regular other than the double-play combo 32 years or older, little elite talent on the roster, and a World Series run in 2017 an extreme long shot. CC Sabathia, Andrew Miller,Brian McCann, Starlin Castro, and others could be attractive to other teams, and not prime candidates to be top players by the time the Yankees get really good again. A big losing streak out of the gate in the next week could prompt a more pronounced effort to sell, which could prove to be a great move in the long run.
Tampa Bay Rays
This is the worst team since the abysmal Devil Rays days, with injuries, uncharacteristically sketchy defense, Chris Archer’s mysterious implosion, and multiple other factors torpedoing what figured to be at least a respectable season. The Rays have always sought to load up on younger talent, understanding both baseball’s age curve and their impossibly long odds of signing premium free agents. Pitchers like Odorizzi and Moore do offer multiple years of inexpensive team control. But with the Rays not only looking beyond 2016 but also 2017 and maybe even 2018, that pair of arms, along with any reliever not bolted to the floor, could be wearing different uniforms very soon.
Toronto Blue Jays
On May 18, the Jays sat at 19-23, in fourth place, seven games out of first place and at their lowest point of the season. They’ve gone 31-17 since then, looking a lot like the world-beating team that grew red-hot after a slow start, rolling to a division title. Thing is, the Jays might actually have more talent on the roster now than they did at this time a year ago. Troy Tulowitzki is already there and he’s back to raking after a rough first couple of months. Moreover, the starting rotation has fared better than many expected after Price’s departure, with J.A. Happ looking a lot more like the stone-cold killer he was in Pittsburgh than the bum he was his last time in Toronto, and Aaron Sanchez quietly emerging as one of the best young pitchers in the game.
They’re still at least one pitcher short though, with the Drew Storenexperiment and the Jays seemingly eager to limit Sanchez’s innings. Acquiring a starter and sliding Sanchez to the pen would make a bigger impact, while finding a quality reliever would likely be considerably cheaper. One intriguing rumor that recently made the rounds: Acquiring Jay Bruce a few months after an attempt to trade Saunders for him failed, slotting Bruce into right field, moving aging, low-range outfielder Jose Bautista to DH, sliding Edwin Encarnacion to first base, and pushing weak-hitting Justin Smoak to the bench.
