Throughout the season the CBS Sports MLB experts will bring you a weekly Batting Around roundtable breaking down pretty much anything. The latest news, a historical question, thoughts about the future of baseball, all sorts of stuff. Last week we discussed first-place teams that needed help at the trade deadline. Now we're doing to debate contenders that didn't do enough.
Which contender needed to do more at the trade deadline?
R.J. Anderson: There are a few contenders you can go with -- I suspect the lack of clear sellers until late in the process caused this as much as anything. That said, I'll go with the Reds. I understand not giving up your best youngsters. I don't understand coming up empty on rotation reinforcements, thereby putting more pressure on Hunter Greene and Nick Lodolo coming back strong.
Mike Axisa: The Reds and Twins are the two teams that jump to mind. I'm going to say Minnesota because their deadline needs were more attainable. They needed another reliever and especially a righty bat to complement their lefty-heavy offense. The Reds needed an impact starter and those were in short supply. Their front office had a higher degree of difficulty. The Twins though, they couldn't swoop in for, say, Keynan Middleton and Tommy Pham? Or Dominic Leone and Mark Canha? Minnesota had a pretty low bar to clear at the deadline and still didn't come close. The AL Central is very weak and they might (probably will) win it anyway. The Twins had some clear needs going into the deadline that would have been theoretically easy to address in this market, and didn't do anything other than flip Jorge López for Dylan Floro. Underwhelming.
Matt Snyder: The Orioles need to shift their thinking, much like the Astros did last decade when they traded for Justin Verlander and then Gerrit Cole and Zack Greinke. They aren't building a contender any longer, as the contender is built. They have the best record in the AL. They also have a rotation that is just about to be problematic with the likes of Dean Kremer, Tyler Wells and Kyle Bradish about to hit a workload wall. I do think the Jack Flaherty addition has excellent potential. I also think they needed to push harder to get someone like Dylan Cease or Eduardo Rodriguez. This is a playoff team right now. The farm system remains loaded even with the promotions these past two seasons. It would've survived just fine had they added another starting pitcher; plus, the future is now. If they end up getting bounced by the Astros, for example, the most likely reason is the rotation wasn't strong enough.
