3 MLB Teams Already Regretting Their Trade Deadline Decisions

Today marks a week since the Major League Baseball trade deadline. And just as everyone expected, the Detroit Tigers are thriving and the Los Angeles Dodgers are skidding since the Tigers dealt Tarik Skubal, perhaps the best pitcher in the game, to the Dodgers as part of the latter’s bid to three-peat and possibly bring the sport to a screeching halt.

The Tigers have gone 4-2 since the Skubal blockbuster was officially announced Aug. 2 to climb within one game of the final American League wild card spot and within three games of the AL Central-leading Chicago White Sox.

The Dodgers are 1-5 since the trade and 3-10 overall since July 26 as they’ve fallen to the No. 3 seed in the National League, which would force them to open the playoffs in the best-of-three wild card round.

Of course, this is the smallest of sample sizes for two teams who would have been rightfully blasted if they’d operated in any other fashion at the deadline.

The Tigers can’t or won’t re-sign Skubal to a lucrative deal once he hits free agency (even if Skubal must be giving Scott Boras fits by pining for a return to the Motor City), so it made sense to begin restocking the cupboard even as Detroit hung around the hilariously mediocre AL playoff race.

As for the Dodgers, this is real life and not some preteen fable where the bully gets his immediate comeuppance. They proved last season they can punt the regular season and still roll almost untouched to a championship, so Los Angeles is the favorite to once again win it all until someone else is dogpiling at the pitcher’s mound.

But there are a few other clubs for whom it’s not too early to begin second-guessing their activity — or lack thereof — at the deadline. Here’s three teams whose executives put themselves under the microscope last week.

MIAMI MARLINS

The Marlins being 1 1/2 games out of the last wild card spot entering last Monday and selling anyway is another reminder the biggest and bestest salary cap isn’t going to force woefully owned small market teams to start trying.

Dealing solid set-up man Lake Bachar and budding star catcher Liam Hicks to the Pittsburgh Pirates and Tampa Bay Rays, respectively, for six minor leaguers delivered a terrible message — one Miami heeded by immediately getting swept by the Atlanta Braves. Yet consecutive wins over the Los Angeles Angels, the worst team in baseball, leave the Marlins just three games out of the last NL wild card spot, opening up the possibility they’ll be rewarded for waving the white flag after all.

SEATTLE MARINERS

The Mariners were eight outs away from winning their first pennant fewer than 10 months ago and are mired in the muck that is the AL wild card race, so they did the right thing by adding at the deadline despite entering last Monday three games under .500.

But Seattle, whose 454 runs heading into Monday were third-fewest in the league, should have done much more to address the offense than simply acquiring outfielder Taylor Ward, who leads the AL in walks but has just 30 RBIs, 73 fewer than last season. Now the Mariners have the fewest runs in the majors after being outscored 34-9 since Tuesday and are 3 1/2 games out of the last wild card spot and tied for the fourth-worst record in the AL.

KANSAS CITY ROYALS

The Royals, in last place in the AL Central, were one of the fewer obvious sellers last week yet traded just one player — outfielder Lane Thomas — from their big league roster.

Starting pitchers Michael Wacha and Seth Lugo are two of the few innings-eaters left — they entered Sunday ranked fifth and ninth in the majors in batters faced — and each is signed through next season. Kansas City wasn’t going to get an organization-changing haul for either pitcher, but dealing them could have yielded prospects more likely to help the next contending Royals club than a pair of pitchers in their mid-30s.