Hopeless Joe’s 2014 Trade Deadline Reaction Roundup

The Jon Lester Trade: “First Yoenis Cespedes gets to leave Cuba, then he gets to leave Oakland. At this rate of quality-of-living advancement, he’ll be in Denmark by the end of the month, or at least Sweden. Some guys have all the luck. Although I mistyped his name as Ypenis before noticing and fixing it, so I guess he doesn’t have all the luck. But he has a lot of it.”

The Sam Fuld Trade: “Sam Fuld is awesome because he makes people like me think that if only we had a thousand times more talent than we do, we could be baseball players. I mean, most players seem like they’re a different species, but Sam Fuld just seems like an extra-awesome member of the same species. Though probably with fewer defects in his DNA.”

The David Price Trade: “I don’t understand all the criticism being heaped on the Rays for this one. I wish I could be Smylyer, that’s for sure. So who can blame the Rays for thinking the same way. It may not always be a Ray of sunshine down there. And so, to be Smylyer, they paid the Price. I actually feel bad for David Price, because he’s going from being a big Ray in a small pool to just one of sixteen ace starters in the Tigers rotation. Justin Verlander is probably a big bully. And that whole clubhouse probably still smells like smoke from Jim Leyland’s tenure. They probably can’t do anything to get that out of the carpets and the walls. So I’m not jealous of David Price, no way. I wouldn’t pay any amount of money to be him, except any amount of money.”

The John Lackey Trade: “It’s trades like this that make me forget why I’m a baseball fan. I think maybe it’s just the Cardinals making a sensible, relatively unsexy trade that makes me forget what’s fun about following this sport. I mean, the Cardinals are usually competitive, win the World Series sometimes, make generally decent decisions… I guess they make it all seem a little too easy. Buy some players, make some trades, win some games, where’s the challenge? At least if you’re a Cubs fan, a Royals fan, a Mets fan, you can curse the world and have all that fun angst to deal with. But if you’re a Cardinals fan, you just shrug and wait a couple of years for the next championship season. And it’s not the Yankees where you have to deal with everyone saying you just outspend everyone. You actually kind of earn it. And what’s the reward there? Really, what am I doing with myself writing nonsense about John Lackey when I could be reading something important about Gaza instead? Okay, I have to stop this paragraph before I cause them to end NotGraphs or something like that.”

The Asdrubal Cabrera Trade: “So now we’ve reached the portion of this roundup where we’re talking about nonsense trades for people who aren’t really making a genuine difference for anyone. I thought Cespedes had it bad because sometimes I type his name as “Ypenis” — but Asdrubal has an even worse problem, because his actual name sounds like a really filthy activity. If you’re dealing with an Asdrubal problem, you really have to see a doctor. And not any of the doctors I go to, because they will all try to get you to check yourself into a facility, and who can afford the kinds of facilities that they’re talking about if you have the kind of insurance I do? No, if I have any Asdrubaling going on, I’m not going to the doctor, I’m just going to slap a diaper around my waist and hope for the best.”

The Andrew Miller Trade: “Wow, I wish I were tall.”

The Gerardo Parra Trade: “Did you know Gerardo Parra is from a place called Zulia, in Venezuela? I didn’t either, until I looked him up on Wikipedia to find something to say about him. Also from Zulia is Julio Machado, who pitched for the Mets until he was arrested for shooting a woman following a car accident, and sentenced to 12 years in prison in 1996. Which means he’s surely out by now, and after he reads this — because I’m sure he reads NotGraphs — will track me down and shoot me. And I don’t think I paid my last life insurance premium. Oy, is Carson responsible if Julio Machado reads this and shoots me? I think he should be.”

The Chris Denorfia Trade: “Denorfia sounds like the name of a fantasy space island. Maybe it’s like the one I dream about, where sadness is the new charisma, and everyone wants to be around a whiny complainer. Although if everyone was trying to be around me, it would be too much and I would need to get away to some other island where no one is in my face all the time trying to make me be friendly. Maybe that island would be called Almonte Kohlscheen, and no one would bother visiting it because it doesn’t sound as catchy as Denorfia, and the drinks aren’t cold enough and there’s not really much of a beach. I don’t know why people want to go to beaches. Sand gets on everything, including in your food, and it’s too sunny and too hot and there might be sharks in the water. No, I’ll hang out alone on Almonte Kohlscheen reading a long, sad novel while all of you are off partying on Denorfia. I mean, invite me to come too, definitely, but don’t be annoyed when I say no. Really I just want the invitation.”

The Martin Prado and Stephen Drew trades: “Yep, let’s combine these because neither one is interesting enough on its own. Stephen Drew seems like the kind of guy who could use a therapist right around now, given the crap he’s inflicted on his own career just by thinking he could do better. I assume it’s all Scott Boras’s fault, because why have an agent if you can’t blame him when stuff doesn’t go your way, but even so, Drew is probably the baseball player I feel the most kinship with, at least in the $10 million-and-up salary division. Also, the Yankees shouldn’t be allowed to trade for players because the world is a better place when they finish last.”