Dealing Deadline Day

On a day that saw Manny Ramirez relocate to the National League and Ken Griffey, Jr. move out of Cincinnati, we received some good news on a completely different front: "Cooperstown Confidential" ranked 10th in popularity among MLB fan blogs over the past week. It's good to hear that some additional readers tuned in just in time to learn more about last week's activities during Hall of Fame Weekend. This has been a busy month from another perspective. We've now posted 31 times in 31 days, by far the most frequent posting schedule since launching this blog three years ago...

A few thoughts on today's trades. I thought the Red Sox should have held their breath and stuck with Ramirez through the end of the season, simply because he gave them the best chance of returning to and winning another World Series. For all of his many faults, he remains one of the game's great clutch hitters, absolutely torments the Yankees in head-to-head play, and handles October at-bats with a calmness that most players display only in spring training...

With the acquisition of third baseman Andy LaRoche, the Pirates have now reunited him with brother Adam LaRoche, who happens to play the other infield corner for Pittsburgh. What's next? Will the Pirates bring in the boys' father, Dave LaRoche,into the fold to serve as pitching coach? Dave is best remembered for throwing the blooper pitch during his Yankee days, but he was actually a hard-throwing southpaw who was one of the more dominant relievers in the game during his mid-1970s stints with the Indians and Angels...

Like the rest of the free world, I'm unclear on what role the ChiSox have in store for Griffey. They already have three good outfielders in Carlos Quentin, Nick Swisher, and Jermaine Dye, and two vested veterans at DH and first base in Jim Thome and Paul Konerko. I do know the Sox wanted to balance their lineup with additional left-handed hitting, so at the very least we can expect Griffey to play either center or right anytime a right-hander is on the mound for the other team. Or perhaps Griffey will just DH. After all, he's now a below-average center fielder and doesn't have the throwing arm or tracking ability that Dye has in right...

Finally, I'm a bit surprised that Adam Dunn didn't get traded. There's no way the "Big Donkey" is going to re-sign with the Reds, who apparently were so underwhelmed by trade offers that they'd prefer the two draft picks they might receive as free agent compensation. Blue Jays GM JP Ricciardi took some major heat for issuing publicly critical comments about Dunn, but it seems that many of the other game's general managers share his opinion about The Donkey. I guess that 40-plus home runs and 100-plus walks don't mean as much as they used to--even in a Sabermetric world.