MLB Trade Deadline 2016 Roster

Another wild MLB non-waiver trade deadline is now in the books, before which more than 150 players changed teams via trade over the first four months of the 2016 season. As a way to sum up all this player movement, I've constructed a 25-man roster made up of the best such players (according to my preferred fantasy point system). Without further ado, here's an extensive chart with a glut of information, some of it useful, some of it interesting, but all of it expressing my Rain Man-esque fascination with color-coded lists. I'll post the chart first and then follow up with some commentary later!

First I'd like to say a few words about the color-coding. Normally on my patented baseball charts, the names of players who changed teams midseason would be highlighted in an aqua/cyan color. I left that part out here, since this list contains ONLY such players, but I did keep the yellow highlights to signify players who changed teams over the offseason. The two players who have red highlights in their Bat/Throw column are currently on the disabled list, which is why I included an additional starting pitcher and bench bat as fill-ins. (More about them later, when we go over lineup construction.) The contract status column is pretty self-explanatory: red for impending free agents, green for players who have an option on their contract for next year (either of the club, player, mutual, or vesting varieties), and blue for players who have an upcoming arbitration year. And if you click on the chart, you'll be able to see the whole thing, including a different color for each of the 12 Astrological signs.

And now for the roster itself, let's go position by position, because I don't want to put too much weight on my projected batting order. Both catchers on this roster have the distinction of being acquired by the Rangers when both their projected starter and backup options went down due to injuries. Bobby Wilson had played the most games behind the plate for Texas heading into deadline day (after Texas traded for him for the second time in two years), but he was unceremoniously cut from the roster upon the acquisition of Jonathan Lucroy from Milwaukee, one of the season's most sought-after players. Indeed, the Brewers had an arrangement in place to send Lucroy to the Indians, but the veteran backstop used his limited no-trade protection to block the deal, apparently demanding a promise that Cleveland would decline his ridiculously team-friendly contract option for the 2017 season, allowing him to hit free agency a year sooner. This was obviously a non-starter, as Lucroy's future control was one of his biggest selling points, and now Texas is set at catcher through at least next year.

Steve Pearce has played mostly first base for the Rays this season, but part of his appeal to the Orioles is his ability to (marginally) play second base and the corner outfield. But the main reason Pearce was brought back to Baltimore is his above-average bat, which is looking more like his breakout 2014 season than his disappointing 2015. Aaron Hill has played enough games at the keystone for Milwaukee to qualify as a fantasy second baseman before he was shipped to Boston in early July, where he's played exclusively at the hot corner. Hill moves off his primary position to make way for former Giants third baseman Matt Duffy, who has fallen on hard times since finishing second in last year's Rookie of the Year balloting and found himself traded to the Rays while on the disabled list. If we're staying true to injury status, Duffy's unavailability would push Hill back to third, Pearce to second, and create a spot at first base for James Loney, who was traded from San Diego's minor league system directly to the big league Mets when Lucas Duda went down at the end of May.

Breakout infielder Eduardo Nunez likely won't see much time at his natural shortstop position with his new team, since the Giants already have Brandon Crawford entrenched up the middle, but the injury and now departure of Duffy should leave third base open. Or if the Giants prefer the play of Conor Gillaspie at the hot corner, Nunez could get some reps in the outfield where he has nearly 30 career games under his belt. Speaking of the outfield, this team's is much more impressive as a whole than its infield, even given Nunez's still-AL-leading 27 steals, despite the fact that he doesn't even play in that league anymore. Jay Bruce was by far the most impressive offensive player traded at the deadline, even though his arrival in New York only seems to complicate an overcrowded corner outfield situation for the Mets, who still don't have a true center fielder. Carlos Beltran and Matt Kemp have fairly similar fantasy profiles in 2017, but they were each acquired for very different reasons: Beltran is an impending free agent brought in to bolster the lineup of a contender, while Kemp went from one rebuilding team to another in an exchange of two albatross contracts. (Interestingly enough, both pieces of this trade - Kemp and Hector Olivera - signed their contracts with the Dodgers.)

Melvin Upton Jr. hasn't technically been a center fielder this year (he only has 12 games at the position, 8 short of qualifying in fantasy), but with more than 1,100 games at center in his career, he's more than qualified. Interestingly enough, Upton Jr.'s fantasy value has all but evaporated with his trade from the Padres to the Blue Jays where he went from starting left fielder to glorified fourth outfielder. If I was being strict about 2016 positional eligibility, center field would have gone to Brandon Guyer, Cleveland's consolation prize on the offense market after missing out on Lucroy. As it stands, Josh Reddick brings a lot more upside as a fourth outfielder, both on offense and defense, plus his lefty bat offsets a very right-handed heavy lineup. Guyer might have been a better choice to supplant either Kelly Johnson or Chris Coghlan just to have someone to spell Upton in center field, but I obviously put a high value on lefty-swinging utility options.

On the pitching side of the equation, while Drew Pomeranz might have outscored Rich Hill in terms of overall fantasy points, the latter of the two has obviously been the more valuable pitcher when he's been able to take the field. Hill is obviously no Clayton Kershaw even when healthy (the Dodgers ace was averaging nearly 117 points per game when he went down in late June), but Los Angeles certainly hopes that he'll be able to fill the void until Kershaw can return. The names of pretty much all of the Rays' starting pitchers had been swirling around the rumor mill for months, so it's no surprise that Matt Moore found himself traded, especially to the contending Giants. But while it was undoubtedly correct for the Angels to take a selling posture at the deadline, Hector Santiago's trade to the Twins was a bit puzzling, considering that the lefty only has one year of team control remaining beyond 2016. I guess the Twins are about to make a strong push to contend in 2017.

After these four pitchers, the list of candidates for fifth starter (or fourth AND fifth starters, if you're considering current injury status) gets a little homogenous: the next eight not-currently-injured pitchers to change hands at the deadline have between 450 and 650 total fantasy points and between 20 and 35 points per game. While guys like Andrew Cashner (502, 29.5) or James Shields (523 points, 24.9 PPG) might have more upside, I went with Nova and Miley because there's something special about the 30 PPG threshold. Bud Norris (686, 23.7) has a leg up on the competition in terms of total points, but his PPG totals are rather uninspiring, plus he's currently on the DL. I should also mention that Lucas Harrell (299, 49.5) and Wade LeBlanc (229, 45.8) have been performing very well, but I left them out for small sample size concerns.

I haven't done the research to support this, but I would guess that the sheer volume of excellent relief pitchers moved this year rivals that of any trade deadline in recent memory. No fewer than six teams' closers changed hands at the deadline, with the field pretty evenly split as far as who will continue to play the same role for their new teams. Aroldis Chapman, Mark Melancon, and Andrew Miller were all acquired to supplant Hector Rondon, Jonathan Papelbon, and Cody Allen, respectively, while Jeremy Jeffress, Fernando Rodney, and Brad Ziegler were brought on to serve as setup depth behind Sam Dyson, A.J. Ramos, and Craig Kimbrel, also respectively. (Ziegler is currently closing games for the Red Sox, but that's only because both Kimbrel and Koji Uehara are down with injuries.) Mike Montgomery doesn't even show up on the Cubs' closer depth chart, but I thought it was important to have another lefty on the staff, especially one with the capacity to throw multiple innings. Other more traditional setup options include Jason Grilli, Joe Smith, or Tyler Clippard from the right side, and lefties Zach Duke, Felipe Rivero, Fernando Abad, or Will Smith.