Tricks of the trading
Going all in on a late-season deal has its risks. So does building for the future. Plus, could Babe Ruth hit major-league pitching today?
TOP OF THE FIRST
Could Babe Ruth play in today’s MLB?
The short answer is yes.
I’ve come across a couple of YouTube shorts recently that argue that Babe Ruth would be a terrible player in MLB, that with a full season’s worth of plate appearances, he would compile a batting average below .100, and that he couldn’t possibly catch up to fastballs coming in at 100 mph. And beyond that, look at him. He was fat, you know.
This isn’t the first time I’ve seen this point raised. But for some reason, these just got under my skin.
Yes, I think Ruth could play today.
Is MLB pitching tougher than it was 100 years ago? Yes.
Ruth hit .342 with 714 homers. Would he post the same kind of numbers? Doubtful.
Could he play for 22 seasons? Maybe not.
Let’s start with the speed of the pitches. Pitchers today throw faster than they ever have. And the speed has gone way up over the past 40 years.
Walter Johnson was believed to be the fastest pitcher who played during Ruth’s time. We don’t know how much of an outlier Johnson was because until the radar gun became widely used in baseball, the only time a pitcher’s fastball was tested was when he was considered the fastest of his era.
In 1917, Johnson’s fastball was clocked at 122 feet per second, which converts to 83.2 mph, at a munitions laboratory in Connecticut. But Johnson’s speed was recorded after the ball crossed home plate.
Today’s flame throwers are measured when the ball leaves their hands. A ball slows down the farther it gets from the release point.
So accounting for that, it has been estimated that his pitches were faster than 93 mph. Johnson also was throwing off a flat surface.
Babe Ruth had 107 at-bats and hit .280 with seven homers. Ruth walked 19 times and had a .389 on-base percentage against the Big Train.
All that indicates Ruth could handle a modern fastball.
Then there was the testing that Ruth underwent at Columbia University in 1921 and the similar tests Albert Pujols underwent at Washington University in St. Louis in 2006.
Pujols swung a 31.5-ounce bat at a speed of 86.99 miles per hour. Ruth swung at an estimated speed of 75 miles an hour. But he was swinging a 54-ounce bat.
Ruth might hit fewer home runs. Because in order to create more bat speed, he would need a lighter bat. But with a 35-ounce bat (like Bryce Harper sometimes has used), I believe Ruth could create bat speed comparable to that of Pujols.
Ruth had keen eyesight. He could read license plates at a distance others where couldn’t see what color they were, Giants announcer Russ Hodges wrote in a book called “Baseball Complete” that I read as a kid.
There is one aspect about today’s game that Ruth might not be able to overcome if he were breaking in today.
As for Ruth’s physique, let me make two points.
Most of the photos and almost all the videos we see of him are from when he was an older, heavier player.
Secondly, while being in great shape has its advantages, there have been more than a few baseball players who were not exactly doubles for Adonis: John Kruk, Pablo Sandoval, Tony Gwynn, and David Ortiz come to mind. Have you seen Joc Pederson lately?
There is one aspect about today’s game that Ruth might not be able to overcome if he were breaking in today.
Ruth was signed as a pitcher. He showed enough prowess at the plate that the Red Sox decided to use his bat more.
Pitchers no longer bat in professional baseball. His talent might go undiscovered.
HEART OF THE ORDER
Avoiding the insanity
The Padres would have been nuts to throw in the towel on the 2023 season.
The 2023 Padres were built to win. They entered the season with an estimated payroll of $251.1 million — the third highest in MLB — and the Padres were expected to challenge the Dodgers in the NL West.
By the time of the trade deadline on Aug. 1, their big expectations had been met with little success.
San Diego entered the month in fourth place, 8.5 games back of the Dodgers. The Padres are under .500.
There was a lot of speculation the Padres would be sellers at the deadline. Although the Padres considered that option, they ultimately declined, and I think it will prove to be a good idea.
The expectation was the Padres would deal pitchers Blake Snell or Josh Hader, who will be free agents at the end of the season.
There was also speculation that superstar Juan Soto would be traded — even though he has another season to go before he becomes a free agent.
Instead of selling, the Padres acquired Rich Hill, Ji-Man Choi, Garrett Cooper, and Scott Barlow.
Of course, the Padres had to give up prospects — from a “farm system that has been depleted in recent years,” ESPN bemoaned.
But what is the purpose of a minor league system? To help the big league team win games and championships.
The obsession with having a strong development program at the expense of current success strikes me as a little like an IT help desk that believes a company's main purpose is to have a smooth-running computer system rather than how it conducts its core business.
Why would they sell?
Here is the thing. Unlike the Mets, who decided to rid themselves of Justin Verlander and Max Scherzer, the Padres haven’t played that badly.
They began play on Aug. 5 with a plus-70 run margin and just two games under .500, and four games out of the last wildcard spot.
The real problem has been an 0–10 record in extra-inning games and 6-18 record in one-run games.
Any postseason spot is a golden ticket under the current format.
"We have a team that we feel like can win," General Manager A.J. Preller said after the trade deadline. "And if we were able to add to the club and give us a good chance here in the next two months, it's gonna be a good pennant race."
The Padres are 10 games behind the Dodgers and are unlikely to catch them.
Some people are saying going all isn’t worth it for a wild-card spot.
My response: Did you watch last year’s NL postseason? The wildcard Padres wound up losing to the wildcard Phillies in the NLCS.
Any postseason spot is a golden ticket under the current format.
The ultimate late-season deal
Let’s take a look at one of the best-remembered deadlines — actually, post-deadline because at the time MLB let teams work around the deadline via the waiver wire — deals.
The Tigers had started the season poorly and trailed by many as 11 games in the American League East.
By early August of 1987, the Tigers were within a game or two of the Toronto Blue Jays.
The Tigers had added four-time batting champion Bill Madlock to help the offense. They wanted some veteran pitching help.
This trade has long been the prime example of the pitfalls of a team trading its future in order to win now. In fact, it illustrates the opposite.
The Tigers thought Doyle Alexander of the Braves might get them over the hump.
Braves scout John Hagemann told GM Bobby Cox that the Braves should ask for John Smoltz, a Double-A pitcher. Cox had no idea who that was. “I (told Cox) Smoltz had the best arm I ever saw on a right-handed pitcher,” Hagemann said.
The teams made a deal on Aug. 12.
Smoltz went on to a Hall of Fame career. Alexander was out of baseball after the 1989 season.
This trade has long been used to illustrate the pitfalls of a team trading its future in order to win now.
In fact, it illustrates just the opposite.
What a finish
Alexander was a veteran who was going to turn 37 in September. For most of his 17 seasons in the majors and he’d been a dependable performer with a 163-145 record, an ERA in the mid-3.00, and an ERA plus of 106 (basically, he was 6 percent better than the average pitcher).
He had two great seasons with Toronto (1984 and 1985) but was struggling in Atlanta. He had gone 5-14 with a 4.13 ERA.
But once he was with the Tigers, he had the best six weeks of his career. Alexander went 9-0 down the stretch with a 1.53 ERA. He finished his season by beating Blue Jays to open the final weekend series and move the Tigers into a tie for the lead. The Tigers swept the series and won the AL East crown by two games.
With results like that, the deal naturally was hailed as a brilliant move. At the time.
Of course, the Tigers missed out on a great career by Smoltz.
But the Tigers, who had Kirk Gibson, Alan Trammell, and Lou Whitaker — three greats who somehow aren't in Cooperstown — Chet Lemon and Jack Morris from their 1984 World Series-winning team, knew their window opportunity was closing.
The Tiger lost the ALCS to the Twins 4-1, so the payoff was not as great as hoped.
If the Tiger shad Smoltz in their rotation would that have made them contenders in later years?
Highly unlikely.
The Tigers finished one game behind the Red Sox in 1988 and were a non-factor in the playoff races until 2006 when they went to the World Series. From 1989 through 2005, the Tigers had two winning seasons.
It worked out well for the Braves. Smoltz was one of the building blocks for a team that would dominate its division as no team had. From 1991 through 2005 the Braves won the title in their division each season — except in 1994 when the season was suspended by a strike on Aug. 11.
Building is fashionable
There are a couple of things worth emphasizing. First, we no longer live in a world where a GM would be unaware of another organization’s promising Double-A prospect.
Secondly, the Smoltz-Alexander trade is a true outlier — it worked as well as each party could hope.
These days, a team that sacrifices its present for the hope of a better tomorrow is bound to draw praise from the talking heads and keyboard warriors. But contrary to what seems to be popular belief, many of these deals don’t yield a fistful of great prospects.
For example, in 2019 the D-backs sent Zack Greinke to the Astro and received Seth Beer, J.B. Bukauskas, Corbin Martin, and Josh Rojas. Beer and Bukauskas have been released. Martin has appeared in 12 games for the D-backs, but he is out for the season after lat injury.
Rojas hit .269 with a .730 OPS in 125 games last season but was in a season-long slump in 2023. He was traded with Ryan Bliss and Dominic Canzone to the Mariners for closer Paul Sewald on July 31.
Sometimes a team can overvalue its prospects.
Also in 2019, the Yankees were interested in D-backs lefty Robbie Ray, who had another year left on his deal with Arizona. The Yankees were on their way to winning 103 games despite a starting rotation that had largely underperformed.
The D-backs wanted Clint Frazier. The Yankees either didn’t want to part with Fraizer or didn’t part with any more prospects beyond Fraizer.
Ray, who went on to win the Cy Young with Toronto in 2021, wasn’t having a great season in 2019. But he had the potential to pitch a gem every time he took the mound.
Frazier has never turned into the player he was expected to be. He has split time between the White Sox and Triple-A Charlotte this season.
The Yankees wound up losing to the Astros in ALCS in 2019. Would Ray have made the difference? We will never know.
Sometimes a team tears down too early. The D-backs decided they were not going to contend in 2010 and probably wouldn’t for a while. So they shipped out pitcher Dan Haren, whose deal had two more seasons left.
But the D-backs surprised themselves in 2011 and won the NL West title. Haren went 16-10 with a 3.17 ERA for the Angels in 2011.
With Haren in the rotation, the D-backs might have gained home-field advantage in the first round and certainly could have used him in the postseason. Instead, the Brewers had the home-field advantage and won 3-2.
The trade has been spun as a good one for the D-backs because among the players they received in return was lefty Patrick Corbin. Corbin helped the D-backs to earn a wildcard spot in 2017 and was an All-Star in 2018.
But the deal may have cost the D-backs a real shot at the World Series in 2011.
And finally, there is the Angels’ deal with the Braves in 2008, acquiring Mark Teixeira for Casey Kotchman and minor leaguer Stephen Marek.
Kotchman was considered a prime prospect, but he never really panned out. Teixeira played 54 games for the Angels and had an OPS over 1.000. He left after the season to sign with the Yankees.
That’s where the real payoff came for the Angels. They used the compensation pick to draft Mike Trout.
So the Angels made a move that helped them win immediately — and build for the future.