Deadline Day Is Upon Us

Welcome to the final hours of what has been a dreadfully boring July, at least tradewise. (Yes, I suppose the Jeff Samardzija/Jason Hammel deal was in early July, but that now feels so long ago.) All that really happened yesterday was the relatively minor deal of Justin Masterson to the Cardinals for a minor league outfielder and Felix Doubront to the Cubs for a player to be named. That’s it. David Price is still in Tampa Bay, Jon Lester & John Lackey are still in Boston, Cole Hamels is still in Philadelphia, and so on.

I wrote all that, and now it seems Lester and Yoenis Cespedes may be swapped for one another. I’m not redoing it. But: wow!

So what do we know? Not much. It sounds pretty certain that Matt Kemp won’t be moved, though I felt that was the case even before his recent hot streak. (Besides, with his contract, July 31 is hardly the deadline to trade him if they wanted to.) If anyone is really taking Carl Crawford or Andre Ethier, it’s going to be something that’s happening very much under the radar.

Ned Colletti claims that there may not be any movement today, but I’m not sure I believe him. I can’t imagine that they don’t come out of the day without at least one reliever (Koji Uehara, please!) and hopefully a starter, though likely not one of the huge names. And that’s fine, really; the Dodgers don’t need an “ace.” They need someone better than Dan Haren. They need someone to hedge against the clear regression and health issues facing Josh Beckett.

Anyway, all we’ve seen so far are endless rumors and a whole lot of nothing. Six hours from now, things may look a little differently. Speculate away.