The Yankees began July with the best record in baseball. No, they told everyone who asked, they didn't need to do much before the non-waiver trading deadline.
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| Newly acquired Lance Berkman has a rough debut, going 0 for 4 with a strikeout. (AP) |
Lee was a special case, the Yankees said. And then the Yankees traded for Lance Berkman ... and Austin Kearns ... and Kerry Wood.
At the end of July, the Yankees still have the best record in baseball. They don't have Lee, but they have taught us a few lessons -- or at least given us a few reminders -- about what to expect from them.
They were perhaps baseball's most enthusiastic buyer on this year's market. They didn't improve enough to seem a lock for another title (for that, the Lee deal had to go through), but each of their three deals improved the team in at least a subtle way.
Berkman fills in where Nick Johnson would have, had he not gotten hurt (yes, he always gets hurt). Kearns fills in when the Yankees face a tough left-handed pitcher and can't stand the idea of having left-handed hitting Curtis Granderson and Brett Gardner both in the starting outfield. Wood fills in where Joba Chamberlain has failed, giving the Yankees a late-inning option in front of Mariano Rivera.
All three were acquired for a low cost, at least in terms of prospects. All three became Yankees because their former team (the Indians, in the case of Kearns and Wood, and the Astros, in the case of Berkman) was a non-contender seeking to dump a contract. The Yankees were able to step in, and they were able to fill three needs.
And we were able to learn a few lessons from a month of following deals and non-deals.
Lesson 1. The Yankees are never satisfied. Not every contender made a move. Few contenders made as many moves as the Yankees did.
They have the resources to do it, no question, and you can begrudge them that, if you will. But they also have the desire and drive to keep doing it, and you may as well respect them for that.
You can bet that the Yankees aren't satisfied today, either, because they wanted to add a utility man better than Ramiro Pena to fill in for Alex Rodriguez and even Derek Jeter, if needed. You can bet the Yankees will spend the next month looking for that -- and looking at everything else.
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Lesson 2. The Yankees do not always get what they want. They didn't get Lee, and the discussion may go on forever as to what actually happened to make that almost-deal fall through. The Yankees didn't get Adam Dunn, even though it's clear that they looked at him before trading for Berkman.
The Yankees didn't get Joakim Soria, either. But they did try.
Lesson 3. Don't believe everything you hear. Remember, Roy Oswalt was never going to agree to a trade to a team that didn't pick up his 2012 option. Remember, Drayton McLane wasn't going to give a significant amount of money to a team trading for Oswalt. Remember, the Rangers and Dodgers didn't have any money to spend. Remember, if the Diamondbacks traded Dan Haren, then they weren't going to trade Edwin Jackson, too.
Oswalt said Friday night that "some of those reports were just made up."
Actually, most of those reports came from things actually said by supposedly credible sources. Many of them were just said for posturing purposes. Some of them were no doubt said by people who absolutely believed them to be true at the time.
None of them turned out to be true, and that's worth remembering around this time next year. In the days leading up to the deadline, baseball officials are basically playing poker.
And poker players win by lying.
Lesson 4. Don't discount everything you hear. Nationals general manager Mike Rizzo said he was never going to drop his price for Adam Dunn, and said he was perfectly prepared to keep him if no suitor stepped up to that price. Plenty of people in baseball scoffed. Dunn will be a free agent at the end of the year, and by the deadline, they reminded us, and the Nationals are going nowhere this year. By the deadline, they said, Rizzo would take the best deal he could get.
He didn't. As it turns out, he wasn't just posturing.
Same goes for young Alex Anthopoulos, the first-year Jays general manager who told teams that he was perfectly willing to keep Scott Downs and his other sought-after relievers (and home run hitter Jose Bautista, too). You can argue about the wisdom of standing pat, but you can't argue that Anthopoulos misled anybody.
Lesson 5. You can trade for pitching, after all. Lee was traded. Haren was traded. Oswalt was traded. Jackson and Jake Westbrook and Ted Lilly were traded, too.
The common wisdom was that you'd better develop your own pitching, because it's too hard to trade for it, and that you really couldn't trade for top pitching.
Apparently, you can.
Lesson 6. It's not, however, easy to trade for a hitter. The Yankees got Berkman. The Padres got Ryan Ludwick. Somebody could have stepped up and paid the price for Dunn. But there wasn't one truly great hitter dealt the entire month. There was no hitting equivalent of Lee, no equivalent of Haren, no equivalent of Oswalt.
Lesson 7. Closers have more value than you think. The sabermetric crowd tells you that saves don't matter. One team told its scouts to value Hall of Fame closers as equal to a No. 3 starter. Perhaps so, but the Twins wanted closer Matt Capps enough to give up top catching prospect Wilson Ramos in order to get him. The Royals valued Soria enough to tell the Yankees thanks, but no thanks. The Dodgers gave up a prospect to get Octavio Dotel, who was a closer in Pittsburgh but isn't even a closer in Los Angeles.
Lesson 8. You've got to stay healthy. Has there ever been a trade deadline so affected by injuries? David DeJesus was supposed to get traded, but he got hurt. Corey Hart may have gotten traded, but he got hurt. Ben Sheets could have been traded, but he got hurt, too. And when Magglio Ordonez and Carlos Guillen both got hurt, the Tigers' deadline strategy had to change. There were so many injuries that one scout joked that he was going to watch his team's division rivals, since everyone he was sent to see seemed to get hurt.
Lesson 9. Anyone will pay to move a contract. McLane sent $11 million to the Phillies along with Oswalt, and also sent $4 million to the Yankees along with Berkman. The Marlins (yes, the Marlins) sent money to the Rangers along with Jorge Cantu. The Diamondbacks sent money to the Pirates (Chris Snyder), the Nationals sent money to the Rangers (Cristian Guzman), the Mariners sent money to the Rangers (Lee) and the Cubs sent money to the Dodgers (Ted Lilly). If you want to move a big contract, you'd better be prepared to pay.
