Trade Deadline Dust Settles: A Look at the American League West

Well, the MLB trade deadline for 2021 has passed. The Houston Astros’ trades and moves says that they were happy with the state of the team beyond the need to improve the bullpen. They went out and confidently grabbed a couple of arms to hold those high-leverage innings.

As for the rest of the American League West, there certainly wasn’t a lack of moves to discuss from divisional rivals. So, while we aren’t necessarily grading each trade, we are going to take a look at the trades from a players-exchanged perspective to see how AL West did at the trade deadline to discuss how it impacts the Astros down the final stretch in 2021.

With the Astros adding arms, what other AL West teams bolstered their rosters at the trade deadline?

Oakland Athletics

Players Acquired:

• Andrew Chafin – LHP
• Starling Marte – OF
• Yan Gomes – C
• Josh Harrison – 2B

Players Given Up:

• Greg Deichmann – 1B (prospect)
• Daniel Palencia – RHP (prospect)
• Jesus Luzardo – RHP
• Richard Guasch – RHP (prospect)
• Seth Shuman – RHP (prospect)
• Drew Millas – C (prospect)

The Oakland Athletics seemed to have had two big objectives prior to the deadline. In order to make strides in catching the Astros and/or create separation between the Mariners, they needed to secure bullpen help and add a productive outfield bat to the lineup.

That’s exactly what they did. The A’s kicked off their moves with a trade for Andrew Chafin, left-handed reliever from the Chicago Cubs. After losing Trevor Rosenthal for the season due to a hip surgery, it was imperative that the A’s find a way to add someone to compliment Yusmeiro Petit, as backups to Lou Trevino and Jake Diekman. Chafin can do just that. He was having a solid season with the Cubs sporting an ERA of 2.04 over 39.3 innings prior to being traded, per Baseball Reference.

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The biggest wave made by the Oakland Athletics was their exchange of Jesús Luzardo for one of the best rental players on the market, Starling Marte from the Miami Marlins. Now if you ask Astros fans on Twitter, they would probably try to convince you the A’s made the move simply to block the Astros from acquiring Marte.

However, the realty is that the A’s paid a hefty price to add a much-needed offense bat to their outfield. Per Baseball Reference, Marte has accumulated a slash line of .306/.407/.453 in Miami. When compared to A’s team slash line .233/.312/.402, Marte is going to be a much welcomed addition. So much so that Ramón Laureano volunteered to slide over to right field to make room for Marte, per Matt Kawahara of The San Francisco Chronicle.

The Oakland A’s were already a solid team. However, they had to make some serious moves to keep playoff hopes alive with Astros and Mariners surging. With the addition of Chafin, Marte, two-time All-Star, Josh Harrison and Yan Gomes, I do think we will see the Athletics creep up higher in the standings. While on paper the Astros have the better team, in terms of talent top to bottom, the Athletics will prove to be a feisty competitor down the stretch.

The Mariners gave up their best reliever, but did they add anyone to make their situation better?

Seattle Mariners

Players Acquired:

• Joe Smith – RHP
• Abraham Toro – 3B
• Tyler Anderson – LHP
• Diego Castillo – RHP

Players Given Up:

• Kendall Graveman – RHP
• Rafael Montero – RHP
• Carter Bins – C (prospect)
• Joaquin Tejada – RHP (prospect)
• J.T. Chargois – RHP
• Austin Shenton – 3B (prospect)

There is a general consensus by several media outlets that the Seattle Mariners were big losers at the trade deadline. This was due to the fact that the Mariners traded away lights-out reliever, Kendall Graveman, to an interdivisional rival while upsetting the clubhouse in the process, according to Seattle Times’ Ryan Divish.

This might be a bit of an overreaction. Kendall Graveman will be a big free agent in the offseason. The Mariners aren’t well known for resigning big free agents. Being only two and a half games behind the Athletics for the second Wild Card spot in the American League, Mariners’ General Manager Jerry Dipoto wanted to make moves to keep pace.

He flipped Graveman for solid assets in Joe Smith and Abraham Toro. The primary piece for the Mariners here being Toro, a young, switch-hitting infielder that adds a legit big league hitter to the Mariners line up. Toro made quite the impression in his first two games with the Mariners, homering twice off his former team.

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While the Mariners were in hot pursuit of Jose Berríos, per Mark Feinsand of MLB.com, they ultimately came up short on adding any additional top-tier talent beyond a replacement for Graveman, Diego Castillo from the Tampa Bay Rays. While not quite the mouth-dropping stats as Graveman, Diego is a two-seam flamethrower in his own right and remains under club control for the next few years.

Mariners also added left-handed starting pitcher, Tyler Anderson from the Pittsburgh Pirates. Mariners desperately need him at the back of their rotation that has been plagued with injuries all season.Unfortunately, post trade deadline, Mariners will only be able to bring water guns to a tank fight, compared to the moves the Athletics, the Yankees and the Blue Jays made in attempt to vie for a Wild Card playoff spot in the American League.

That is not to say they didn’t improve through the trades. However, their success this year mostly hinges on their young very young line up furthering their development to support J.P. Crawford, Mitch Haniger and  Kyle Seager.

Even with three of the best players in baseball, the Angels couldn’t be contenders.

Los Angles Angels

Players Acquired:

• Janson Junk – RHP (prospect)
• Elvis Peguero – RHP (prospect)
• Sam Selman – LHP (prospect)
• Ivan Armstrong – RHP (prospect)
• Jose Marte – RHP (prospect)

Players Given Up:

• Andrew Heaney – LHP
• Rafael Montero – RHP

The Los Angles Angels are in the one of the most perplexing teams in the entire major leagues. They are currently have two of the game’s biggest stars in Shohei Ohtani and Mike Trout. Additionally, they also have solid veteran players, like closer Raisel Iglesias, third baseman Anthony Rendon, and starter Alex Cobb. However, they are sitting at a .500 record and 6 games out of the second Wild Card spot in the American League.

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Frankly, the team has been plagued with inconsistent pitching and a myriad of injuries. So, it would make sense that they would be sellers looking at the standings in the division and wild card race.

As affirmed by the Angels shipping Andrew Heaney to the New York Yankee and Tony Watson to the San Francisco Giants for prospects. Okay. That makes sense. Until the report that the Angels were making a pitch for Max Scherzer, according to Jon Heyman of MLB Network.

Maybe this was just a half-hearted attempt at appeasing the fans. Perhaps, Los Angles Angels General Manager, Perry Minasian, thought the Angles have a legitimate shot at a deep playoff run with the addition of Scherzer.

Regardless, it’s all moot. The Angels moves prior to the deadline created more holes than it filled. Unless the Angels know some kind of shaman that can magically heal up the roster, they are going to continue to muddle around .500. But, hey, they got Shohei and he is fun as can be.