Soto's been pretty good, .875 OPS isn't lighting it up by his standards but not bad. Josh Bell's totally sucked it up though.
Interesting how a lot of the trade deadline pick-ups have been underwhelming. Hader, Montas, Syndergaard, Mahle (good but now injured), Bader (still injured), Bell Really the only slam dunk as advertised is Luis Castillo for the M's... and maybe Iglesias for the Braves
Jordan Montgomery looks like a good pickup for the Cards. Three starts, 3-0 with 0.54 era. Also not a deadline pickup but basically it was but Benintendi in the bad category as well.
Mancini and Vasquez interestingly enough I think have both been win moves (in conjunction with rest of the league performances) LMJ for Odo is a win too
Oof. That's just... yikes. The Tigers did end up beating the Angels 4-3 but the go ahead run was a few innings later.
Not quite sure why the Yankees traded Montgomery, he's a decent pitcher having his best season and is under control until 2024. And all they got for it was a mediocre hitting center fielder. For those who question why we didn't go all in for a CF, this is why.
He won the Gold Glove in CF last year.... The bigger question is why did they bother getting a CF? Judge is decent in center and I'm not sure the defensive upside of Benentendi/Bader in LF/CF is better than getting both Judge and Stanton playing OF spots and getting another bat in the DH spot. The big boy OF (LF-Gallo, CF-Judge, RF-Stanton) wasn't great defensively but acquiring Bader on top of Benentendi at the cost of Monte was super confusing.
There were a couple of theories. 1)thought they acquired Pablo Lopez and jumped the gun by trading Montgomery. (This I think was from fans) 2)Montgomery wouldn't have been in their playoff rotation and Yankees didn't envision using him as a relief pitcher. And even if he made it into the rotation, might not have lasted 4 innings. (this was in an article by Ken Rosenthal) 3)From the same Rosenthal article, according to a major league source, Yankees felt Bader would be more valuable through 2023, especially in the playoffs. What was more wierd about the trade was 1 minute, interested in Lopez possibly because concerns over Severino and his injury and Cortes and maybe Taillon getting close to their career high in innings pitched and then they trade a starter. Even if they acquired Lopez, wouldn't make sense because essentially he replaced Montgomery. The depth remained the same.
The Yankees not wanting Judge in CF full-time reminds me of why the Astros don't want Tucker in CF full-time.
