Dog-day dealing

Yes, trades do get made this month -- some doozies, too

It's a long month, August is. Thirty-one days, in fact. Plenty of time to get something done.

Baseball executives, of course, always want to get something done. They live for the deal. They can't exist without it. Many GMs and other front-office people wore out their cell phones last month trying to get something done before the July 31 non-waiver trade deadline. Some actually accomplished a thing or two.

The aging San Francisco Giants and GM Brian Sabean, for example, made a now-or-never move by trading away a couple of major league pitchers and a promising minor league one to get the game's most coveted free agent to-be, Sidney Ponson, formerly of the Baltimore Orioles. The Boston Red Sox, with young Theo Epstein calling the shots, bulked up their bullpen for a run at the New York Yankees and added Jeff Suppan to their rotation.

The Yankees bought whatever they could. The Cincinnati Reds sold their soul.

And now they're at it again.

Wednesday, the Yankees and Seattle Mariners swapped set-up men in a kind of curious deal, Jeff Nelson returning to New York in exchange for volatile Armando Benitez, the Mets castoff. That trade touched off an August that could be -- really, it should be -- a doozy.

Will Rafael Palmeiro finally leave Texas to return to the Chicago Cubs? Will the Rangers' Juan Gonzalez give the Royals a hand in Kansas City? Will Pittsburgh continue to unload players (and loosen up its payroll for next season) by trading Jason Kendall and/or Brian Giles? (Both San Diego GM Kevin Towers and Pirates GM Dave Littlefield say a deal to bring Kendall and Giles to Southern California isn't likely anytime soon, probably not this season.)

Adrian Beltre? Anyone? Anyone?

And you thought we were all finished with this nonsense.

The fact is, July 31 gets all the pub, but some of the best deals in baseball history have been made in August. It's a little different than July, true. Teams have to put a player through waivers in August, which means any team can put a claim in on a player, and then the two clubs have to work together on a deal, if a deal is to be done.

But deals do get done this month. All the time.

There was the win-a-little-win-a-lot deal in 1987, maybe the most famed of all August trades. Pitcher Doyle Alexander was dealt to Detroit -- a team that actually contended once in a while back then -- for a young right-hander named John Smoltz. Alexander went 9-0 for the Tigers that year to help them win the American League East title. Smoltz has helped the Braves to going-on 12 straight divisional titles.

There was a similar trade in '90, when Boston general manager Lou Gorman OK'd a deal that brought pitcher Larry Anderson from Houston. Anderson pitched well and the Red Sox won the division, granted, but they lost in the AL Championship Series to Oakland. And all Boston gave to the Astros was a future Hall of Famer, Jeff Bagwell.

There was a well-known win-loser deal in 1992, when the Blue Jays got David Cone from the Mets for infielder Jeff Kent. Cone did the job as the Jays won the first of back-to-back World Series that year.

Kent later showed his backside to reporters after scrapping with Barry Bonds in San Francisco.

And, of course, there have been hundreds of lose-lose and "Who cares?" deals throughout the years.

For some guys, careers are made this time of year. Left-hander Terry Mulholland, now with the Cleveland Indians, has been traded five times in July. Former hired bat Harold Baines also switched teams in-season five times, many of those in August.

These days, the August trade market is especially active, though for many it's for a more practical reason than this simply "trying to get better" thing. Teams like the Reds and Pirates, for instance, are out of the postseason running and are trying to get rid of their bigger contracts.

Others have players who will become free agents that they won't be able to re-sign. Those teams are just trying to unload the players and get something back in a trade. That was the case for the Orioles and Ponson.

But there are plenty of teams still looking to improve. Right now, there are 11 teams within 6 ½ games of a wild-card berth. They won't all make a trade this August. But they'll all talk about it.

As happened in July, some trades may come early in the month (the Benitez-Nelson swap, for instance). But many teams will wait until late in the month to make their moves.

Luckily for all those guys that live for this sort of thing, August is a long month.

John Donovan is a senior writer for SI.com.

Comments? To e-mail Donovan, click here.

 

Related information

Stories

Yankees send Benitez to Mariners for Nelson Previous John Donovan columns

Multimedia

Visit Video Plus for the latest audio and video