Phillies Nation

The trade deadline tends to be the most exciting time of the year. As with, say, the NFL Draft, each team goes into the period with clear intentions, and even those with poorly constructed rosters are offered hope of improvement.

The best teams buy, the worst teams sell, the ones in the middle decide how to exit baseball purgatory. The Rockies decided to move from mediocre to bad by trading Ubaldo Jimenez and picking up arms for the future. The Blue Jays chose to make high impact moves, disregarding their current position in the standings while attempting to put together the best possible roster.

In the National League, the moves made by teams other than the Phillies were just as important as the Hunter Pence deal itself. Why? Because the rest of the NL has faced an uphill battle since late-April, and many teams were in need of an external boost to strengthen their World Series odds.

With that, let’s take a look at how each contender fared…

Atlanta Braves: A

The Braves get a clear A for addressing their biggest need – a leadoff hitting centerfielder – while giving up very little. All along, Atlanta tried to upgrade its offense while holding on to top pitching prospects Julio Teheran, Arodys Vizcaino, Mike Minor and Randall Delgado. Somehow, some way Frank Wren’s hard-line stance worked, as the best prospect the Braves traded for Bourn is probably No. 8 on their list.

The addition of Bourn makes the Braves unquestionably better, and he is a more logical fit for them than Pence or Carlos Quentin or any number of players on the trading block. It was Bourn-to-the-Braves that I feared most a month ago, and that’s exactly what happened.

Philadelphia Phillies: B+

Obtaining Hunter Pence is enough for an A, as it filled what was essentially the only remaining need, but the grade is lowered for the loss of Jonathan Singleton. Both teams took a risk here – the Phillies that their top pitching and hitting prospects might one day produce in a big way for another team, and the Astros for centering a deal around two players in Single-A.

Jarred Cosart won’t be missed a ton by the Phillies faithful … it is very unlikely that he turns into a legitimate No. 1 starter, and when you have a multitude of young arms in the farm system, you trade a Cosart for a Pence every single time. I am heavily in favor of what Ruben Amaro decided to do and applaud him for selling high on two guys whose value might never surpass what it was in July 2011. The B+ is given out of a fear that Singleton one day hits .292/.380/.510 for the Astros with 27 homers.

Cincinnati Reds: B

It might be surprising to see the Reds ranked third here, but Waly Jocketty should be commended for not giving up a ton for Ubaldo Jimenez or selling off a piece like Ramon Hernandez. The Reds are still alive in the NL Central – granted, not by much, but their +40 run differential tells you more about the team than the 53-55 record. The Pirates are two games better despite being outscored by four runs, and the Brewers are 6.5 ahead while maintaining an ugly +5 mark. The Reds can still win this thing with their current roster. The fanbase might not be thrilled with a quiet deadline, but sometimes a rice cake is better than a chocolate cake.

Milwaukee Brewers: B-

They have no farm system left due to trades for Zack Greinke and Shaun Marcum. They are going for broke in 2011 because Prince Fielder will walk after the season. Acquiring Francisco Rodriguez was important, even more so for the fact that the Brewers did so weeks before every other team started trading.

Picking up Felipe Lopez and Jerry Hairston, Jr. probably wasn’t part of the initial plan, but an injury to Rickie Weeks changed things. The only fortunate part of Weeks’ ankle injury (out 2-6 weeks) is that occurred days before the deadline, not days after.

St. Louis Cardinals: C-

I’ll never be on board with trading an already good, potentially very good centerfielder under team control until 2015 for a rental starting pitcher and an eighth inning reliever. Likee the Rafael Furcal move, though.

Arizona Diamondbacks: C-

They needed to address the shortstop gap left by Stephen Drew‘s season-ending injury, but didn’t. Willie Bloomquist is not a starting shortstop for a team fighting to win its division.

Jason Marquis was a nice move and Brad Ziegler will help, but not at the expense of Brandon Allen. That was a weird move.

San Francisco Giants: D

They needed to upgrade the game’s 27th best offense, but it only makes sense to trade your best pitching prospect for a rental bat if you plan to re-sign that rental bat. If the Phillies traded Cosart straight up for Beltran I’d love the acquired player, but would hate the move.

Bringing in Jeff Keppinger was shrewd, but then trading a potential starting outfielder, Thomas Neal, to Cleveland for Orlando Freaking Cabrera was ludicrous. Neal has hit .292/.372/.467 in five minor league seasons and has moved swiftly from Rookie ball to Triple-A by the age of 23. And Orlando Cabrera is a poor hitter and defender. And they already had Miguel Tejada. And Brandon Crawford. And Cabrera is probably worse overall than both.

But ok.

Pittsburgh Pirates: F

They needed to make moves weeks ago. On July 17, the Bucs were 49-44, 0.5 games out of first place and about to embark upon a season-defining stretch of thirteen games against the Reds, Cardinals, Braves and Phillies. A move needed to be made then.

Instead, the Bucs waited until July 30 and 31 to trade for two mediocre, aging bats. They went 5-8 during that stretch and got zero help from outside sources.

This was really, really bad. The Pirates needed to make moves for two reasons: 1) to improve a team that had overachieved by winning one-run games and getting unsustainable production with two outs and men in scoring position, and 2) to show the fanbase that they were willing to finally try to win.

In the end, bringing in Derrek Lee and Ryan Ludwick felt more like the second reason than the first, and at 4.5 games behind two markedly better teams, respected GM Neal Huntingdon completely blew it. If you were gonna’ wait until the Saturday and Sunday of the trade deadline, selling made more sense. Huntingdon is probably kicking himself.