MLB Bullets almost missed the deadline

I really thought Al was going to trade me to The Crawfish Boxes for two younger writers and a laptop to be named later.

Now I get a week of following Premier League transfer rumours.

• I can’t list all the trades made at the deadline, so here’s a list of all the major league deals. No one even bothers to mention poor Jimmy Herron to the Rockies.
• So did we have more or fewer deals with the new deadline? Ben Clemens looks at the numbers and has a verdict. We certainly got a lot more deals with two minutes to go before the deadline. Many fewer in the weeks leading up to the deadline.
• Jeff Passan has the inside story of the last-minute deal that sent Zack Greinke to the Astros.
• Ben Lindbergh says the Astros are now the World Series favorites after acquiring Greinke.
• I get to do this a few times a year. David Schoenfield has winners and losers from the trade deadline.
• Mike Oz has winners and losers from the trade deadline.
• Jon Tayler has winners and losers from the trade deadline.
• Bill Baer has winners and losers from the trade deadline.
• Matt Snyder has winners and losers from the trade deadline.
• Michael Baumann has winners and losers from the trade deadline.
• Emma Baccellieri went the extra mile and gave all 30 teams a trade deadline grade.
• Jay Jaffe just listed deals he liked and ones he didn’t.
• Mike Petriello ranked every deadline deal.
• Richard Justice has seven questions from the trade deadline.
• Ken Rosenthal thinks that MLB teams have become too risk-averse and it’s no fun. (The Athletics sub. req.)
• Jayson Stark reports that several general managers have complained about the new hard July 31 deadline. (The Athletics sub. req.) Also, both Stark and Rosenthal report that many GMs don’t think that the chance to get to a one-game winner-take-all Wild Card is worth making big moves at the deadline.
• Stephanie Apstein explains why the Giants didn’t trade pitcher Madison Bumgarner.
• Bumgarner was pretty chill about the entire deadline.
• The Giants didn’t sell off (mostly), but they’re still a longshot to make the playoffs and have even longer odds to win the World Series. But Hannah Keyser notes the Giants have been in this position before and succeeded.
• Bob Nightengale praises Giants GM Farhan Zaidi and the rest of the front office for giving the team one last chance to win in manager Bruce Bochy’s final season (and probably Bumgarner’s last season as well.)
• Alden Gonzalez wonders whether the Dodgers will regret not adding to their bullpen.
• Wallace Matthews chides the Yankees for not adding some sorely-needed pitching, although he does let GM Brian Cashman explain what happened.
• Matt Ehalt criticizes the Mets from missing the opportunity to do something (one way or the other) at the deadline.
• Yet as Bradford Doolittle writes, the Mets can’t lose right now.
• Final Trade news. New Reds pitcher Trevor Bauer vowed to be a “better person [and] a better player” in Cincinnati.
• Unless you consider this trade news: Nevada officials tried to lure the Diamondbacks to move to suburban Las Vegas with a new stadium in Henderson. Trading the #12 TV market for the #39 market didn’t appeal to Diamondbacks owners much.
• A whole mess of suspensions were handed down after the Reds/Pirates brawl.
• Buster Olney sees the tide in baseball turning against the kind of “headhunting” that the Pirates have engaged in (and which Keone Kela admitted to). (ESPN+ sub. req.)
• Rick Porcello broke two dugout TVs sets after a crappy outing.
• Pirates hurler Jameson Taillon is out after surgery until May 2020.
• Hannah Keyser notes that the players in the Atlantic League are having a lot of trouble adjusting to all the new rules. Not the robot umps, however, whom they hardly notice.
• Today is the 40th anniversary of the death of Yankees catcher Thurman Munson and Jay Busbee looks back on Munson’s career and that fateful day. (Come to think of it, today is my 22nd wedding anniversary.)
• If you’ve ever heard of turn-of-the-last-century outfielder Chick Stahl, you’ve probably heard of the way he died, drinking a bottle of carbolic acid before a Spring Training game in 1907. Steven Goldman remembers the career and death of Stahl and how “the mystery” of his death has been wrapped up in myths about suicide.
• Mets infielder Jeff McNeil put the new expanded netting at Guaranteed Rate Field to good use as he jumped into it to catch a foul pop.
• And finally, the feel-good story of the week involves 23-year-old Nathan Patterson, who got some attention on social media last month when he hit 96 mph at a Rockies game in one of those booth where they clock how fast you can throw. This week, Patterson signed a professional contract to play ball for the Athletics. A major league career is still a longshot, but it’s less of a longshot than it was last week.

And tomorrow will be a better day than today, Buster.