Hey, it seemed kind of fun while it lasted. But “fun” wasn’t the word some of my favorite front-office minds used to describe the 2023 trade deadline over the last few days.
“Unique.” That was one semi-upbeat little adjective.
“Weird.” Now that summed it up!
So what was so unique and weird about the 2023 deadline? Here are five reasons those words apply — not to mention a few other words you won’t be reading on a family site like this one.
The Mets — The Fall of Cy-Gon
Speaking for my entire profession, we’d like to thank the Mets for filling up our deadline-tracker rumor mill and our bursting transactions column over the past week. But long after most of that fodder fades into the ozone, we’ll always remember these two stunners:
JULY 29: Mets traded Max Scherzer and $36.6 million to Rangers for SS Luisangel Acuña
AUG. 1: Mets traded RHP Justin Verlander and $35 million to Astros for OF Drew Gilbert and OF Ryan Clifford
Before we move on here, let me make clear that I understand all the reasons Mets fans are cool with those two deals. Acuña, Gilbert and Clifford are three exciting young players to dream on, so dream away. Nevertheless …
Take two steps back and think about this. The Mets just traded a tag team of three-time Cy Young Award winners in four days. And if your mind works anything like my mind, you’d be asking: Could any other team ever have done that?
So I ran that question past my friends at STATS Perform because of course I did. Here’s what they found (with the proviso that these pitchers actually had to pitch in a game for both teams to qualify):
The Mets are actually the third team in history to trade two Cy Young winners “in midseason” in the same year. But A) it’s been a while, B) they’re the first that wasn’t looking to unload any Perry brothers and C) the Mets are still in a class by themselves, but I’ll get to that. First, here are those other two teams:
1980 Rangers: Traded Gaylord Perry (two Cys) to the Yankees on Aug. 14 and Sparky Lyle (one Cy) to the Phillies on Sept. 13.
1975 Indians: Traded both Perry brothers – Jim Perry (one Cy) to the A’s on May 20 and Gaylord (one Cy) to the Rangers on June 13.
Now here’s more context on those two teams. Both of the Texas deals in 1980 came after the deadline, during the late, not-so-great waiver-deal periods. Back in 1975, on the other hand, the deadline used to be on June 15, believe it or not. So both Cleveland deals sort of qualify here.
But has any other team in history ever traded two pitchers with multiple Cy Youngs at the deadline? Has any other team ever traded two future Hall of Fame multi-time Cy Youngs at the deadline? Has any other team ever done that in the same week (or even month)? That would be a big no.
We could have guessed four months ago that this Mets team had a chance to do things that’ve never been done, right? But this? Nope. Baseball is full of surprises, but also … my Mets-fan friends have an expression. It comes to mind. The Mets are gonna Met!
The stars didn’t come out
Jean Segura was one of the few position players traded who had made an All-Star team. (Rich Storry / USA Today)
I know this sounds impossible. But would you believe that Justin Verlander has made more All-Star teams than all the position players traded at this deadline combined?
Yeah, really.
Verlander — 9 All-Star teams
Deadline hitters — 8 All-Star teams
Does that seem hard to comprehend? It’s an actual fact. Here’s the list of 2023 bats traded who have ever made any All-Star team:
Jean Segura — 2
Josh Bell — 1
Garrett Cooper — 1
Paul DeJong — 1
AJ Pollock — 1
Carlos Santana — 1
C.J. Cron — 1
Not pictured: Anybody who even made this year’s All-Star team. So … remember when trade deadlines were an opportunity for a contender to shock the world and reimagine their lineup? It’s not as if we have to look back 20 years for the last time that happened.
2022 — Juan Soto got traded!
2021 — Kris Bryant, Anthony Rizzo, Kyle Schwarber and Javy Báez got traded by the Cubs alone! … Not to mention all those outfielders who were about to win the World Series for the Braves. … Plus, Trea Turner was practically an add-on, kind of like that cool sunroof you splurged on, in the previous Max Scherzer deadline blockbuster (to the Dodgers).
But 2023? Hoo boy. Not so much. And I’m not even sure Segura should count, considering that the team that traded for him was so stoked, it has already said it’s releasing him.
So once again, I asked my friends from STATS: How rare is that — for only one multi-time All-Star hitter (or none) to be traded before the deadline? They looked back at all the deadlines in the wild-card era (1995-2023). And while it’s not unprecedented, it’s definitely a rarity.
| NUMBER | YEAR | PLAYER DEALT |
|---|---|---|
|
0 |
2019 |
N/A |
|
1 |
1999 |
Shawon Dunston to Mets |
|
1 |
2013 |
Alfonso Soriano to Yankees |
|
1 |
2014 |
Asdrúbal Cabrera to Nationals |
|
1 |
2020 |
Todd Frazier to Mets |
|
1 |
2023 |
Jean Segura* to Guardians |
(*will never play for team that traded for him)
So does this mean that all those teams looking to add a big bat — the Giants, Phillies, Twins, Yankees, Marlins, etc. — get a pass, or at least an asterisk? Maybe they should … because That Guy never did get traded.
King of the Hill
Rich Hill has joined the 13-Team Club. (Ray Acevedo / USA Today)
No deadline would be complete without some team trading for Rich Hill. So here’s a standing ovation for the Padres, for finding a way to make that happen Tuesday.
This was one of the biggest deals of the day, if only because … it allowed the ageless left-hander (now 43 years, 144 days young) to join the nearly exclusive 13-Team Club. Plus, it leaves Hill one team away from tying Edwin Jackson’s all-time record for most teams pitched (or played) for.
So here, because you know you need to know, are the men who have played for the most teams in the expansion era (1961-2023).
| TEAMS | PLAYER |
|---|---|
|
14 |
Edwin Jackson |
|
13 |
Rich Hill |
|
13 |
Octavio Dotel |
|
12 |
Matt Stairs* |
|
12 |
Mike Morgan |
|
12 |
Ron Villone |
(*position player leader)
(Source: Baseball Reference)
On one hand, Hill has been zooming up this leaderboard. The Padres will be his seventh team just since 2019. On the other hand, that part about him getting traded at every deadline wasn’t really true. This was actually only his third midseason change of address:
2016 — Traded from A’s to Dodgers
2021 — Traded from Rays to Mets
2023 — Traded from Pirates to Padres
But … Jackson was traded only twice at the deadline. So Hill at least caught him in that department.
And here’s another developing Rich Hill story to watch: He has worn eight different numbers. Jackson wore nine. And Hill’s favorite number, 44, is taken on the Padres — by Joe Musgrove. So Hill can pull even with Jackson on that list, too.
Rich Hill. He just makes everything more fun — even the trade deadline!
You again!
When you run a baseball team for a living and you find yourself in the middle of a “unique” or possibly “weird” trade-deadline adventure, what’s the best thing you can do? The Astros had an idea:
Trade for guys they’d already traded for!
Last week, it was Kendall Graveman. Tuesday, it was that Verlander guy. And boy, did they look familiar.
Graveman
7/27/21 — Traded to Astros by Mariners
7/28/23 — Traded to Astros by White Sox
Verlander
8/31/17 — Traded to Astros by Tigers
8/1/23 — Traded to Astros by Mets
Back where he belongs. pic.twitter.com/XYYTC92t93
— Houston Astros (@astros) August 1, 2023
Now it wouldn’t quite be accurate to say this is the second time the Astros have traded for both of them at the deadline, since Verlander’s 2017 deal came minutes/moments/seconds/milliseconds before the old August waiver-deal deadline. So there’s that.
It also wouldn’t quite be accurate to say they’ll be “reunited” on the Astros, because in Graveman’s previous tenure in Houston, in 2021, Verlander was immersed in Tommy John surgery rehab and essentially missed that whole season (other than a start on Opening Day).
Plus, it wasn’t even the same general manager/president of baseball ops making those déjà vu deals — since Jeff Luhnow traded for Verlander the first time, James Click acquired Graveman the first time and Dana Brown was the guy with that job this year.
But in a related development, the same owner (Jim Crane) was in charge. And is Verlander an Astro today if that weren’t true? It’s safe to vote no on that.
Oh, and incidentally, before we move on … Déjà Vu Deal bonus points go to the Dodgers, too. They also were collecting familiar faces, in Joe Kelly and Kiké Hernández. But since this was only the first time they’d “traded” for Kelly (signed by the Dodgers as a free agent the last time around), they belong in a different category than the Astros. Just pointing that out for you nitpickers!
Finally … we’re not done with the Mets!
“Pay that man his money.” (Brad Penner / USA Today)
You have to love Steve Cohen. He’s that owner that every fan base prays for. He doesn’t just spend money. He burns money. He eats money. I’m pretty sure he even uses money in his garden when he’s short on mulch.
So at this deadline, when his $355.4 million team wasn’t looking as if it was going to win him a World Series, the owner took the most innovative approach ever witnessed to “including” money in his sell-a-thon in deadline annals. And the result is something that will go down not just in deadline history but also baseball-economics history.
Eric Fisher of Front Office Sports did the math, using figures obtained from Spotrac’s payroll analysis. And here are the up-to-the-minute calculations, for the world to behold:
Salaries to players on Mets 2023 active roster — $150.1 million
Salaries to players no longer on that roster — $156.5 million!
Let’s keep going. Players the Mets are paying not to play for them at the moment include not just Verlander and Scherzer but also … Robinson Canó, Gary Sánchez, Chris Flexen and Darin Ruf.
Not included, by the way, are Barry Bonilla … and Bret Saberhagen! Yes, they both get checks from the Mets every year — $1.2 million or so for Bobby Bo, $250,000 for Saberhagen. But Spotrac computes those as “deferred” salary, not current salary. So they’re in a separate category.
But here’s an update that you can’t miss: Current MLB payrolls, with the Mets active/seeya payrolls listed as two separate franchises. The Mets’ total payroll? Still No. 1. But if we make the Former Mets payroll a separate franchise, it would rank above the Cardinals ($155.1 million), plus all these current contenders:
| TEAM | MILLIONS |
|---|---|
|
Former Mets |
$156.5 |
|
Brewers |
$146.6 |
|
Diamondbacks |
$138.6 |
|
Reds |
$117.2 |
|
Marlins |
$113.4 |
|
Guardians |
$107.2 |
|
Orioles |
$101.7 |
|
Rays |
$93.3 |
(Source: Spotrac)
So has anything like this ever happened — a team paying more money for players to go away than to actually play for that team? Excellent question. That’s not a thing that’s going to appear in any box scores on your smartphone or mine. And there’s no good way to research it.
But Fisher used the term “historically unique” to describe it. And that’s good enough for this column — not just to describe the Mets but to describe this whole, one-of-a-kind deadline.
GO DEEPER
MLB trade deadline grades for all 30 teams: Astros (A), Rangers (A), Mets (!) … Yankees (D+)
GO DEEPER
Ranking the winners, losers and snoozers of the 2023 MLB trade deadline
GO DEEPER
MLB trade deadline: All of The Athletic’s 2023 trade grades in one place
(Top photo of Justin Verlander and Max Scherzer: Dylan Buell / Getty Images)