Beyond not getting a SP with term, I’m really surprised and upset that they couldn’t beat out the Dodgers offer on Yarbrough or burn $1m of JWH money on Dallas Keuchel who continues to pitch well in AAA.
I do think this team was worth investing in, and at the costs involved (LAD gave up nothing for Yarbrough; Keuchel likely didn’t get a MLB offer), not adding some rotation depth (and incentivizing the team with a big league pitcher added) will end up being a missed opportunity.
However, as I mentioned in the Urias thread, I really liked that add. He’s a vastly superior baseball player to Arroyo (who has a career 2.1 bWAR - Urias is at 7.1 bWAR). On top of being far better, he’s more versatile (130+ games at 2b, 3b and SS), and he has 2.5 years left. He should be a perfect bridge to Mayer.
As it became more and more obvious the front office wasn’t going to invest the prospects necessary to get an SP with term (and I still strongly disagree with them not doing this), getting an upgrade at MI and some SP depth seemed necessary. They failed on the latter, but did a very good job on the former.
Coupled with getting literally anything at all for Hernandez, just as one wants to see improvement from players, I like seeing it from the front office too. Last years deadline was a D-, I think this year’s was a C. The way things ended up, I do think they should have moved Duvall, but holding on to players isn’t nearly as dumb this year as it was last year, so keeping Duvall is a relatively minor annoyance that’ll be forgotten by the time spring training rolls around more than something I’ll complain about continuously.
Oh, and while I generally agree with a lot of what you say
@tims4wins, I really don’t think Paxton is at all like Max or Verlander in terms of trade value. He’s more like something between Flaherty and Lorenzen. If one really wanted them to sell him off for a return like that, I’d understand, but the seller’s market for pure rentals showed the Angels / ChiSox deal to be a massive outlier.
I do think there was a real missed opportunity to add some pieces (ie Yarbrough, Keuchel along with Urias) that would have thrown the team a bone, cost literally nothing, and provided a small jolt with some depth in case (more like until) Sale and Whitlock get hurt again. That’s a shame.
However, Urias was a good buy low. Getting anything for Kike is a solid A, and it’s not like they would have gotten anything more someone else Bryan Mata or Brandon Walter for Paxton. Unlike last year, it’s not like they missed a golden opportunity to get under the threshold on a bad team, so all in all, this deadline wasn’t that bad. Certainly could’ve been better, but I think of this like the 2010 deadline (acquired Saltalamacchia) or maybe the 2016 deadline (Pomeranz). Not what I was hoping for, but with enough upside as not to get too upset over the relatively inconsequential nature of it.