This is a post for true Mets fans.
Have you ever given serious thought to why every major sport includes a trade deadline at just about this juncture during the season?
I have, and this is what I've come up with as the primary (not the only) explanation -- though I suspect many will disagree vehemently.
Professional sports leagues establish a trading deadline during the season to spike interest at just that point in the season when the fans of most teams are poised to abandon all hope that their team's season will end well.
The deadline is NOT designed to offer genuine hope for the near hopeless nor is it designed to provide preemptive rewards for the likely victors, though most trade deadlines do both -- and quite well, if disinegenously.
No, the trade deadline is designed to create energy in a flagging season in order to create revenue to offset falling attendance and cover team carrying costs until the real season -- the post season -- arrives.
To be sure, for those diehard fans willing to believe with a capital B the trade deadline remains the last flicker of hope that a spark will ignite the team and carry it all the way to the post season.
But not just the diehards, as the trade deadline draws the attention of even the realists among a team's fanbase. It provides the realists who have already written off the season -- which in many cases should have occurred much earlier than it in fact does -- reason to believe that their team is taking steps to retool themselves sufficiently to keep hope alive -- if not for this year, then for the next or one of the many years thereafter.
Trade deadlines stimulate debate, fuel speculation, hope, fear and loathing, disappointment and anger -- all genuine emotions that display signs of life -- that generate conversation, publicity and advertising revenue for a few weeks.
If you think I am overstating the 'revenue generating' appetite that is fed by the yearly trade deadline, I beg to differ as the last month's worth of baseball publications has picked up steam accelerating story after story of possible trade scenarios. The preferred form of transmission being one or another kind of list.
For your perusal, as Rod Sterling might have said
* The six teams that must sell at the deadline
* The ten teams that will be buyers
* The thirty teams who may or may not be buyers or sellers.
* The top 75 potential players who will change uniforms at the deadline
* The one player on every team that will change uniforms
* The General Managers who are on the hot seat at the deadline.
* The Yankees interest in Francisco Lindor that won't go away
* The Orioles are at an inflection point
* Does San Diego go big again?
* Can the Blue Jays be buyers now for next year
And it goes 'On and On.'
This is nothing compared to the outpouring from baseball insiders:
* 'Five trades I would like to see at the deadline'
followed in a day or so by articles entitled,
* 'Why the five trades I wanted to see happen at the deadline won't happen at the deadline (or ever)'.
The most interesting hours of the actual trade deadline occur immediately after it ends as fans and radio hosts alike wait for news that rarely comes of last minute trades that have been made but not yet been sent to the Commissioner's office as part of the official notification process.
It's a lot like waiting for the mail in ballots to arrive and be counted, potentially shifting the results on the Original Big Board.
We now know what the Deadline is FOR, but what actually occurs up to and including the deadline?
From the point of view of the sellers, almost nothing good happens, beyond off loading expensive talent (which is not to be taken lightly). The inconvenient truth for sellers, however, is that:
- Over 70% of all prospects traded at the deadline either never make the majors or fail to accumulate a positive career WAR.
- Fewer than 7% of all minor leaguers moved in these summer deals go on to produce a major-league career value of 5 or more bWAR.
If we assume that buyers at the deadline are purchasing major league players in return for which they send out minor league prospects (a reasonable general hypothesis that does not apply in all cases), it is fair to say that the trade deadline is basically an institutional arrangement that shifts net value from sellers (those teams that already suck) to buyers (teams that are already performing comparably better).
That my friends is what the statistics quoted above tell us.
And so we should conclude that two things happen leading up to and including the trade deadline.
1. Revenue that would otherwise not be created fills the coffers of those within the baseball ecosystem (i.e. the pie gets larger), and
2. Baseball value is shifted from the have nots to the haves.
Given that this is essentially what happens at every trade deadline, it should come as no surprise that Baseball is universally recognized as America's pastime. It is an institutional mechanism for increasing wealth while redistributing it from the least well off to the most well off.
(Though even I have difficulty referring to any baseball owner as anything other than very well off :-)).
So if you are a Mets fan hoping for an infusion of potential major league talent into the farm system by offloading the likes of genuinely good major leaguers like Weaver, Taylor, Holmes or Torrens, as Graham Parker puts it,
'Don't Get Excited!'
What comes next
After the tradeline and its aftermath have come to a halt, the lull in the season returns for the fans of most teams, while many journalists try, usually in vain, to keep the excitement going by speculating about the impact the trades that have been made will have on the pennant races.
Other journalists, especially those with insider information, will explain to a waiting audience why various trades did not materialize.
After a week or so, maybe less, the writing, fantasizing and speculation will come to a close and we journalists will return to normalcy, which in the case of most of us covering particular teams consists largely in our going back and forth between lamenting the absence of action at the deadline and optimism borne out of the fact that the team's failing to do anything is a signal of just how good their minor league prospect pool is.
So what's it all about Alfie?
Eyes and entertainment dollars. It generates conversation, some of it interesting. It generates hope, little of it warranted. It generates revenue, all of it welcomed. And if anything, it widens the gaps between the haves and the have nots.
Ironically, the 'small market team that has benefitted most by activity at the trade deadline' is the one that has most often done the least at the deadline: namely, the Brewers.
Every trade deadline the same lyric runs through my mind: "Oh Momma, can this really be the end, to be stuck inside a mobile with the Memphis Blues Again?'
And on an optimistic note
I would never leave you in a state of anticipatory dismay. Here we are on Saturday, just a few days from the end of the trade period, and there remains so much to be optimistic about.
And so, as the house optimist, I am here to tell you that by Monday, the Mets will make several trades by the deadline, most involving their excellent reliever corp, for minor leaguers we scamper to learn more about over the coming weeks.
Ever the futurist as well (like the guy who keeps showing up on my email feeds who 'called' NVDIA at $1.10 a dozen or so years ago -- and is now probably living somewhere on the streets of San Francisco - I am certain that Mets will also pull off the most remarkable trade at the deadline.
Please see the link below for a short video in which I provide the names of the players involved so that you may have actionable information to employ on your Kalshi prediction market account. The video is free; no credit card information requested. (Unnecessary of course, since once you click on to see the video I will have all the information I need to hound you mercilessly for the next year or so!) .
There is no end to many ways a sport can become a source of revenue -- directly and otherwise.
Every good story is compatible with a number of different outcomes, some of which flatly contradict one another.
In that spirit,
I also predict that the Mets will be unable to trade Baty, Vientos, Semien, Polanco, Senga, Manaea, or Robert Jr, though they continue to entertain offers for both Mr. and Mrs. Met -- individually and as a team. I have it on good authority that the FO is engaged in conversations with the Phillies who are looking to part ways with the now tiresome Philly Fanatic, and the Brewers, who are prepared to part ways with either a galloping bratwurst or an aging Polish sausage -- but not both.
And so dear reader, I leave you with two expressions of wisdom that have carried me through many baseball trade deadlines.
The first is owed to my onetime now sometime doppleganger, Nick Lowe, who in his first album, originally released in the UK under the title, Jesus of Cool " and in the U.S. under an equally catchy but potentially less offensive title, "Pure Pop for Now People" perfectly described a baseball season (not by reference howeever)
"And so it goes, and so it goes, but where it's going no one knows.'
Which I quite like, but nowhere near as much as I like the even better lyric, "If you don't know where you're going any road will take you there."
Sounds a lot like most baseball front offices.
But literally nothing can top (for me) the wisdom of the bard of bebop comedy, Lord Buckley, who reminded us in his telling of the Biblical story of Jonah and the Whale, that "When you get to it and you cannot do it, there you jolly well are, aren't you."
Enjoy the Deadline
Ambiguously speaking, Ain't Nothing Like the Real Thing
10 comments:
I started doing this as a newspaper reporter. Now THEY were deadlines. The only deadline here is when teams must stop trying to trade poop players.
The deadline cannot pass quickly enough. I am tired of hearing the speculation about trades, I am tired of waiting for the Mets to rid themselves of some of the baby Mets albatrosses, and I am dismayed at the way they gave up the game last night by pitching a AAAA player in a high leverage spot in a close game just so they can avoid injury to all the relievers they are about to trade.
Carlos Beltran for Zack Wheeler, PCA for some Cub infielder whose name now escapes me. These are the rare deadline deals that did exchange prospects who became stars. But I agree. For every Wheeler or PCA there are dozens of Edwin Almontes, Royce Rings, and Victor Diaz's. This is the great "clickbait" time of year. And guess what...I am hooked!
Dan, I don't blame anyone for getting hooked. If people didn't get hooked, they'd do away with the whole thing, and look for another way to prop up revenue at a low point in the season. I'm semi hooked myself, which will likely continue since I can no longer afford therapy. Being hooked is the lower cost alternative.
Being hooked on the deadline is a lot like watching a movie that you know is emotionally manipulating you -- but you can't stop watching. It's Lassie for adults
Wow
A Royce Ring reference
He was a great guy.
Greater than his success level playing the game
So true, it’s always about the eyeballs & $$$ — false hope & the occasional unexpected trade “win” by some desperate buying team.
It’s all part of the rhythm of the 6 month, 162 game season.
For extra credit, this year, Mets fans get to evaluate David Stearns’ performance against another dimension & assess/critique his PoBO capabilities.
Currently a baseball instructor at the Mariners Training Center
Don't expect much back today and tomorrow
I think the Mets' trade deadline can be evaluated along three separate dimensions: The deals they make in trading players they are prepared to trade provided they get back an adequate return. The players who are about to become free agents at the end of the year. The players they have to move to reduce their drag on the team.
players like Weaver, Holmes, Brazoban, Alvarez, Bichette, Williams, Torrens, and Lindor fall into the first category as apparently do lots of others in the light of Stearns' earlier remark that only a few players are untouchable.
Those falling into the second category include Peralta, Robert, Minter, Raley, Peterson, Taylor., two of whom have already been moved.
Those falling into the third category include Baty, Vientos, Polanco, Semien, Senga
The problem they face is straightforward. The most urgent need is to eliminate the drag IMHO, but they have almost no chance of ridding themselves of any of these players in the third category. If we put Manaea in that category, they could trade him but only if they were to pay down at least half of his next year salary. They might be able to get almost nothing for Senga but then only if they pay down most of his salary as well. So some of the drag remaining is inevitable.
As for players in the second category, you are selling pieces that the new team has limited control over and you have to anticipate appropriate return. To be honest the Mets did credibly well on both Peterson and Minter. They will do comparably well or a bit better for Taylor and about as well for Raley. They would do less well for Robert unless they pay down a good deal of what he is owed.this year.
The rest is where the interest lay, and the greatest variance and risk arises, though it is also where the most creativity is called for.
So, take Peralta. As a one off he won't get what the Mets want, but if he is paired with Weaver, it can be a great deal for some team like the Brewers or Cubs, or... Pair him with Raley or Brazoban and its a potential + trade or at least a potentially interesting one. Pair him with an additional minor league asset like Morabito or a catcher as well as a reliever or two and you can imagine a trade with the Brewers that brings back the sort of talent that Adam and I discussed separately in earlier posts.
Can Stearns pull something like that off.
If not, then Peralta on his own gets less than either Jett or Sproat.
But you need to trade both Holmes and Peralta with someone else who a team has more control over than with either to get anything really worth thinking about. And you should want to do that because you don't want to keep both of them at this point and yet individually you won't get anything to write home about.
If I were cohen or Stearns I would use traded payroll relief to cover costs of write offs for dead weight assets (eg, Senga) that will need to be cleared this year to open up spots or over the winter. Apply salvage value received to dead weight spent (months) or to be spent (senga).
That at least provides something to help manage the value destruction resulting from Sterns’ moves
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