NHL Trade Deadline: Feelin’ the Pressure?

WARNING: The following contains speculation, analysis and opinion and may not be suitable for some viewers. Viewer Discretion Advised

I was going to do a preview for the NHL Trade Deadline (AKA: Sillinger Day), but it seems a post mortem is in order.

There’s been 38 trades since the start of the season, but all those are not really “Deadline Deals”. Early season moves are often more about moving surplus roster players or contracts to teams that need to fill positions or are better able to absorb the contracts. These moves typically are not about adding something to improve your team, but moving out the deadwood.

So what is a “Deadline Deal”? And what more should we expect before the deadline?

Set-up Year for Blue Jays

This year’s offseason has seen the Toronto Blue Jays make some moves on the periphery. Trading away your opening day starter is never insignificant, but neither does it rank up there with the acquisitions of Crawford and Gonzalez in Boston or Cliff Lee spurrning the Yankees to join, quite arugably, one of the greatest rotations of all time in Philadelphia.

The Jays apparently showed interest in the young Royals hurler Zack Grienke. The 27-year-old former Cy Young award winner would have immediately strenghtened the Jays starting rotation. More importantly though, Grienke could have provided top-end depth into the future. Ultimately, Greinke apparently would not have waived his NTC to go to Toronto and the price in terms of prospects may have been to high anyway.

Despite the fact that the Jays will be able to field a young team that showed promise last season and hopes to build on that, they are probably won’t be a serious playoff contender until 2012. General manager Alex Anthopolous, has expressed the opinion that the team is likely one big piece away, and I beleive that piece could be found next off-season.

Blue Jays add Escobar, Say Goodbye to Gonzalez

Alex Anthopolous (hereafter known as AA, because I am lucky I spelled his name correct once) doesn’t seem to know how to take time off.

Wednesday, saw AA use the last day of the All-Star break to continue addressing the organization’s weaknesses and add to the young core he has been developing. He traded shortstop Alex Gonzalez, along with minor leaguers, Tim Collins and Tyler Pastornicky to Atlanta for shortstop Yunel Escobar and pitcher Jo-Jo “The Psychic Network” Reyes.