The Post-MLB Trade Deadline Hope Index

The Los Angeles Dodgers essentially broke the MLB Trade Deadline before it even started on Saturday night by trading for Tarik Skubal.

It may be the biggest and smallest move in free agency at the same time. 

It’s big in the ripple effects that it causes: the back-to-back World Series Champion team that has a payroll over $300 million and already had 3 MVPs on the team just got the reigning back-to-back AL Cy Young, and this team was already the subject for the “yeah, we need a salary cap” conversation because of their record-breaking spending and preventing a competitive balance ahead of the expiring CBA.

If we hadn’t already reached that point, this was the Robert Oppenheimer “what have we done” moment that makes everyone think we’re not getting baseball for a while after this year.

It’s also small in that this was almost preordained. Any time there’s a free agent on the market as high-profile as Skubal, no one is better-equipped to go out and get him than the Dodgers. It’s comical to the point where you don’t bat an eye when the rich only get richer, and the teams that are competitive but don’t normally spend just don’t put an offer on the table, or their offer isn’t as good as theirs.

So, what does this all mean? Is there hope? Sports are intended to give us hope in a world where we feel like there is none, from the victories both big and small.

Following the ripple effects of the trade deadline, instead of giving the stereotypical “Grades” or “Winners and Losers,” since this consisted of a nuke so grandiose, let’s create a hope index.

Los Angeles Dodgers

Level of Hope: Being up 3-0 in a Series

You don’t need hope in these circumstances. You are expected to win. The only thing standing in your way is fear- fear that you could be the second team in baseball history or the fifth in sports history that you’re going to blow a 3-0 lead. But that’s why we play the games. They have the highest betting odds of any single team in history at this point in the MLB season.

Milwaukee Brewers

Level of Hope: Charlie Brown trying to kick the football

It’s probably not going to happen. It feels like a lost cause at this rate. This was THE year if the Brewers were going to go out and make an all-in move like going to get Tarik Skubal with the prospect haul that they have, with the history of having duds in the postseason after the injury bug and plain bad luck striking them in October. We tried to talk ourselves into the Brewers not having a stereotypical Brewers deadline, and they were still the Brewers. Not only did the Dodgers land who they could have easily gotten, but the only moves they made were also for Dustin May, Antonio Senzatela, Jojo Romero, and Bo Naylor.

They may very well be better than where they were when they arrived with the Brewers, like many other players who have joined the organization. Still, Dustin May will be lined up to face Tarik Skubal on the Dodgers in game 2 of a postseason series if that pans out. That’s an incredibly defeating feeling.

Detroit Tigers

Level of Hope: Pre-ordering Grand Theft Auto VI

It very well could be on the way. It may never happen at all. But you at least put your name down and signed the paper for something that could happen that will be great in the future. 

The Detroit Tigers were not willing to pay the Scott Boras tax on Tarik Skubal. Negotiations were going nowhere for a two-time Cy Young winner repped by the wolf of the industry, who will only want to get his guy top-dollar paid. It’s devastating not to have him be a “one jersey guy” and win in Detroit. However, if they were 100% certain that Skubal was going to leave in the offseason, they didn’t do the Angels Shohei Ohtani route and keep him, only to lose without getting anything in return. Ironically, the last time the Tigers sold out the deadline was when they started winning and turned things around!

Philadelphia Phillies

Level of Hope: The guy who says “I can definitely parallel park there”

They’re calling their shot! They’re confident in the most Philly way possible, riding the high of turning the season around, getting LeBron on the Sixers, and Red October is coming!

The Phillies were slumping ahead of the deadline. Bryce Harper literally came out and said, “Yeah, we need BOTH a hitter and a pitcher.”

They certainly got a little of both! Luis Arraez is the mongoose in the box who refuses to strike out, and they’re going to tell themselves this animal that does nothing but get on base is Tony Gwynn. He’s also notoriously bad in the field, so sure! Bryce can hop over to the outfield, which he hasn’t played since 2022! Getting some bullpen help for Jhoan Duran is going to help the back end of games after Sanchez, Wheeler, Nola, and Luzardo starts, but for a team that is now looking up at a Braves team that has seemingly turned things around following their June swoon, the front office has a lot of hope. Do the fans of Philadelphia that are sitting in the passenger seat of the car?

Toronto Blue Jays

Level of Hope: Marvel announcing a new movie

The Blue Jays have had the year from the underworld. Everyone aside from Dylan Cease and Kazuma Okamoto has been either injured or putting up horrific numbers. They sold off Daulton Varsho, Trevor Hoffman, and Kevin Gausman and are looking like they’ve folded. HOWEVER, they also simultaneously bought Jose Soriano, the Angels ace, Spencer Ariggietti, and Josh Smith, as if to say, “Yes, this movie was bad, but Robert Downey Jr. will RETURN in Avengers: Doomsday,” to put all their stock in the future.

Toronto is a big-market team with still-controllable talent on their roster and could just chalk it up as a poor year, and Vladimir Guerrero Jr. will get it right in the next movie where he doesn’t have a slugging percentage worse than Chandler Simpson, right?

New York Yankees

Level of Hope: Ordering another appetizer at a restaurant as you wait on your entree

The New York Yankees have been outrun by the Tampa Bay Rays, who have been a steady ship all season, and have the Boston Red Sox now creeping up behind them in the standings. Aaron Judge and Giancarlo Stanton have been out, and there’s no timeline for their return in their absences this season. This is one of the best pitching staffs in baseball, and while Judge and Stanton haven’t been there, they’ve had surprise performances from Ben Rice and Paul Goldschmidt. Goldschmidt is DH or at first and Ben Rice a lefty-masher and a DH or at first, so what do they do as they’re waiting on the team to get healthy? They get a lefty mashing first baseman in Luis Garcia Jr. and another outfielder in Heliot Ramos. It’s additive, sure, but it’s what you already have as if they keep looking around for their waiter to arrive with the steak they ordered ahead of October and they just said, “Yes, ANOTHER round of nachos, please.”

Baltimore Orioles

Level of Hope: You packed up your childhood bedroom

Adley Rutschmann was the Orioles’ top prospect who started the “golden generation” off after years of abysmal tanking. They put it all together for one very fun run in 2023 through 2024 and even had 106 series to start his career where they did not get swept.

Trading off Adley to the Boston Red Sox after the All-Star Game, having battled through injury stints and the rest of the top prospects having underperformed, officially felt like the end of an era. Sure, Boston parted ways with 3 of their top 10 prospects to do so, but what we thought could have been a decade’s worth of guys all in their 20s bringing Baltimore baseball back feels like it may be over. Gunnar Henderson is the only person left in that 2024 postseason lineup that isn’t injured, and now Adley is playing for a division rival.

Pittsburgh Pirates

Level of Hope: Your dad telling you “Go ask Mom”

Ironically, this year was supposed to be the “prove-it” year for the Pirates to show Paul Skenes that they were committed to winning in his prime before he has a Skubal move of his own, since Bob Nutting has been the owner most notorious for crying poor in history. It’s been the offense that has needed more out of Skenes as the second-best in the NL! Even with an offense strong enough to support Skenes when he’s right, the Pirates did add Luke Weaver, Lake Bachar, and Camilo Doval, and Kirby Yates to their bullpen.

Still, to the Pirates fans that wanted a huge swing to capitalize at the deadline, like a Mason Miller or even an impact bat, that is still a pipe dream, where Ben Cherington still said to go ask Bob Nutting to give me a longer leash.

October Baseball

Level of Hope: Kino’s “One way out” Speech in Andor

“There are 5000 of us. If we can fight half as hard as we’ve been working, we will be home in no time. ONE WAY OUT!”

We have never been more desperate as a baseball-watching community if you are not a Dodger fan. However, baseball is at its best when there is a unified hatred towards a villain that is a conglomerate. Think about the cheating scandal: the Astros biting the dust. The Heatles Big Three slain by Dirk Nowitzki. Tom Brady losing at any point. There are more than 5000 of us.

October baseball is going to be the best it’s ever been, whether you’re a Dodger fan rooting for a threepeat, or someone trying to watch Goliath get slain.