The Trade Deadline Is Here: Gray to Yankees, Darvish to Dodgers, Pirates Sell, Much More (Rolling UPDATES)

Well, the home stretch is here, and it has been the most uncommonly quiet run up to the Trade Deadline that I can remember. The biggest trade in this two, three-day period was the one that sent the Cubs Justin Wilson and Alex Avila, so it doesn’t feel quite as light for Cubs fans, but around baseball? Crickets.

That will change. Imminently.

Probably.

And I’ll keep track right here as stuff starts flying.

  • The Brewers are getting back reliever Jeremy Jeffress, who saw his best years with them before the Jonathan Lucroy trade that sent him to Texas. He’s been a disaster for Texas this year, and maybe he’ll find it again with the Brewers.
  • The Blue Jays are sending Francisco Liriano to the Astros for Teoscar Hernandez and Nori Aoki (to offset some salary). Is this it? Is this the Astros’ big pitching move? Liriano might be good as a lefty reliever, but it’s really a big question market.
  • The Cubs are still lurking around on Sonny Gray, hoping things fall apart with the Yankees, though they are not the only team in that position.
  • Well, the Yankees just opened up a 40-man roster spot. (Naturally, the Orioles traded away IFA money in the process.)
  • And there it is:
  • I’ll need to dig in a bit, but that … seems like a pretty light return for the A’s, doesn’t it? And would explain how it was at least plausible that the Cubs were still involved. Gray’s injury history was obviously a drag on his value.
  • And Joe Smith is headed back to the Indians (Rosenthal).
  • And like they did last year, the Pirates sell off just a little bit from their bullpen, as the Dodgers get a lefty:
  • Watson was fantastic in 2014 and 2015 for the Pirates, but was really only so-so the last two years. Do the Dodgers now have leverage in talks to get a higher-caliber target?
  • A second lefty arm for the Dodgers, but again, not the impact kind; more like the buy low kind:
  • The Nationals added a solid, but unspectacular reliever:
  • Just to confirm that the Cardinals did not deal Lance Lynn.
  • Barring some last minute shaking out, this was a terribly disappointing trade deadline, not only for enjoyable action, but also in terms of teams boldly supplementing themselves for a second half/playoff run.
  • UPDATE: Yes, indeed, shaking out after the closing bell, dang:
  • Good on the Dodgers for powering up for the postseason. It’s what a team like they have – with prospect reserves like they have – is supposed to do. They were already going to be a formidable postseason foe, and now they’ll be even tougher.
  • written by

    Brett Taylor is the Lead Cubs Writer at Bleacher Nation, and you can find him on Twitter at @BleacherNation and on LinkedIn here. Brett is also the founder of Bleacher Nation, which opened up shop in 2008 as an independent blog about the Chicago Cubs. Later growing to incorporate coverage of other Chicago sports, Bleacher Nation is now one of the largest regional sports blogs on the web.

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