We are 12 days removed from the MLB Trade Deadline, and the standings are entirely out of whack.
Two weeks prior, baseball fans were glued to their screens, waiting to see if their teams traded for or traded away their favorite players.
The “hecticity” of the Trade Deadline threw a wrench into everyone’s preseason predictions. We saw teams like the Mets blow it up, while teams like the Angles went all in this year, no matter the cost to the future.
Meanwhile, the teams on the verge of being counted out by mid-July, like the Mariners, are tearing it up and putting themselves into a good position for the playoffs.
Fans in Chicago have been on a roller coaster all season. On July 12th, the Cubs were 42-46 in third place in the NL Central. The Cubs sat behind four teams in the Wild Card race. They have gone 18-10 in the past four weeks and jumped all four teams into the final Wild Card spot.
Revitalized Cody Bellinger has put the Cubs on his back through this last month. The All-Star break moved mountains for Bellinger, who hit two home runs in their first game back, and got his batting average above .300. He has hit nine bombs since the break and has been the driving force of the Cubs’ offense.
The Cubs were expected to sell instead of buy in the weeks leading up to the deadline. Cy Young candidate Marcus Stroman and Bellinger’s names were in trade rumors on social media. But players, including shortstop Dansby Swanson, solicited the front office not to sell. The players’ belief, mixed with the Cubs going 11-2 after the break, convinced the front office to buy instead.
Among pitching support, they brought in the most undervalued player of the 2023 season: third basemen Jeimer Candelario. Candelario is first among all qualifying third basemen in WAR. He has 17 home runs and a 136 OPS+ on the season.
The Cubs sit 2.5 games back of the Brewers atop the NL Central. Chicago has the best run differential in the unremarkable NL Central and the third easiest strength of schedule remaining.
On the other end of the spectrum, the snakes in the desert are going through a dry spell. The Diamondbacks have won just eight games since July 1st and have fallen to three games back of a playoff spot, the most substantial gap of their season.
Rookie of the Year candidate Corbin Carroll has cooled off significantly in the past six weeks. Since June 23rd, Carroll’s batting average has dropped 30 points, and his OBP has dropped 97 points. Carroll had an injury scare on his surgically repaired shoulder in early July, which could play into his recent downward spiral.
The Diamondbacks, who haven’t won a game in August, playoff odds peaked in July, reaching 75% when they finished the first half in contention for first place in the NL West. But this nine-game losing streak seems to be the final nail in the coffin, as Fangraphs has their playoff percentage lower than it was at the start of the season.
The unexpected success of the first half convinced the Diamondbacks to buy at the deadline and buy they did. They acquired one of the best closers in the league, Paul Sewald, from Seattle, and career rental Tommy Pham from the Mets. Sewald blew the save in his second appearance for the snakes, but Pham is doing what he does best. He is playing better for his second team of the season.
The Diamondbacks are currently in third place in the west but are only one game above the fourth-place Padres. The two are amid a three-game set, and the NL West could look completely different on Monday.
