Outside of sending Ross Stripling to the Toronto Blue Jays for prospect Kendall Williams and a player to be named later, the Los Angeles Dodgers were quiet at the MLB trade deadline this season.
The club was reluctant to make a deal just for the sake of doing so, but nonetheless explored multiple scenarios. L.A. was connected to several high-profile players such as Mike Clevinger, Josh Hader and Lance Lynn.
Of the trio, however, only Clevinger changed teams, going from the Cleveland Indians to San Diego Padres. The right-hander was one of nine players brought in by San Diego prior to the deadline.
The Padres also acquired the likes of Trevor Rosenthal, Mitch Moreland, Austin Nola and Jason Castro, just to name a few. At 23-15, the club wanted to load up in preparation of what should be their first postseason appearance since 2006.
San Diego hopes the moves that were made can help them close the gap on L.A., who own the best record in baseball at 27-10. “They are a very formidable team,” Dodgers president of baseball operations Andrew Friedman said.
“We knew and expected that A.J. would be aggressive. Look forward to playing them in September, and who knows, maybe October as well.”
Entering Sunday, only three games separates the first-place Dodgers and Padres in the National League West. L.A. is 4-3 against San Diego this season.
The teams meet for a three-game series at Petco Park, starting Monday. It’ll mark the final time the Dodgers and Padres play each other during the regular season.
Friedman didn’t expect trade deadline to be as active
In the weeks leading up to the Aug. 31 trade deadline, many executives were under the impression there wouldn’t be much activity.
That obviously wasn’t the case, as a flurry of deals came to fruition on the final day of August. “It’s funny. Three weeks ago, I kind of anticipated this to be a very type of deadline. It definitely didn’t play out all that differently in terms of conversations,” Friedman said.
“From our standpoint — we talked about this before the deadline — we feel really good about the team that we have, and also the depth behind it. Our mindset was not to just do something to do something, and that we have guys on our 28-man roster who are deserving of playing time. Didn’t want to block that unless it was someone really impactful.
“So we had some of those conversations; nothing that ultimately got all that close. But again, we felt like we were operating from a position of strength in that we’ve been fortunate from a health standpoint, that we feel really good not just about our starting group but our entire roster and even some depth that right now is at USC.”
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