Morris to the Pirates!? Who saw that one coming?

I admit that I was a little dissappointed with this year's trade activity at the deadline. I was hoping to see more big names on the move. Nonetheless, there were some suprises and coups that emerged as the 4pm EST deadline was reached, let's run through a few of those…

The Braves came out the big winner this year, landing big bopper Mark Teixiera, and relievers Octavio Dotel and Royce Ring. They gave up a good chunk of young talent, but you've got to pay to play! TalkingChop reflected on the aftermath.

The Red Sox didn't get Jermaine Dye or Teixiera, but they landed Eric Gagne, who will reportedly become Papelbon's new setup man. If Gagne stays healthy, this is perhaps the most solid late inning one-two punch in the Majors. Check out Boston.com's pictorial assessment of the acquisition.

The Padres picked up the recently DFA'd Morgan Ensberg, OF Rob Mackowiak from the White Sox, LHP Wilfredo Ledezma and LHP Will Startup from the Braves. (Side note: Jose Cruz Jr. was DFA'd to make room on the roster.) Where is all the Padres blog analysis of these moves? Not even Ducksnorts has anything posted yet (but Geoff's got a good excuse: he drove from San Diego to Cooperstown to see Gwynn inducted. Now there's a good Friar Boy!) Trevor Hoffman expressed his doubts about the front office decisions.

The Dodgers picked up reliver Scott Proctor from the Yankees in exchange for Wilson Betemit. This was a good move for the Dodgers, but they really needed to accomplish quite a bit more. A starting pitcher and reliable bat would have been nice! Dodger Thoughts dissects the the trade here.

The Pirates probably raised the most eyebrows with their acquisition of RHP Matt Morris from the Giants in exchange for OF Rajai Davis and a PTBN. Shockingly, the Pirates are picking up all of Morris' salary! GM Dave Littlefield feels the veteran could have a positive impact on his pitching staff. Cory Humes weights the reactions on the trade over at Pittsburgh Lumber Co.

I think the other big surprise was that Mets GM Omar Minaya was relatively inactive at the deadline. He did make a swap for the Twins 2B Luis Castillo, but Omar is generally a little splashier this time of year. Check out how some Mets fans responded when asked what trades they would've made in Omar's shoes.

Bill Stoneman's Angels were also surprisingly quiet. Like the other LA team, the Angels needed a starter and a bat, but acquired neither. Other than some rumors that were a few days old, all was silent from the Angels camp. As MLB's Jim Moloney put it, at least they're already in first place.

It was no surprise that Jim Bowden wasn't able to move anything. Chad Cordero, Jon Rauch and Ryan Church were on the radar for several teams, but no one could get Jim to back down from his characteristically ridiculous demands for prospects. Apparently Jim didn't take a look at Keith Law's assessment of the "sorry state of the Nationals" over the weekend. Federal Baseball has a good analysis of the Nats' lack of deadline trades. The Nationals Enquirer thinks Jim really blew it this time.

So there we have it, another trade deadline come and gone! Now we enter the waiver period! ESPN Insiders will want to check out Steve Phillips' old article, Explaining the waiver process. Those who don't subscribe can check out the waiver definitions on Wikipedia and ESPN's Transaction Primer.

This post was added on Wednesday, August 1st, 2007 at 12:18 pm and is filed under Player Acquisitions . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.