Opinion

The hottest free agent in baseball right now is not a guy who throws in the mid-90s or hits towering home runs. Rather, it's a guy who specializes in building winners.

His name is Dave Dombrowski, and he needs a job.

The Yankees were uncharacteristically quiet as the non-waiver trade deadline came and went.

What moves can they still make to bolster their club?

Bleacher Report's Scott Miller joins Kay Adams to discuss the Yankees in the video above. 

Read more MLB news on BleacherReport.com

A.J. Pierzynski is roughly 45,000 years old. 

Jose Fernandez went into his Tommy John operation last May as one of baseball's elite pitchers. Coming out of the operation, however, it wasn't fair to expect him to pick up where he left off right away.

Instead, here we are a month into Fernandez's return in 2015, and the only thing to say is this: Whoa.

1. Baseball's Newest Must-See Rivalry: Royals-Blue Jays 

The Jays and Royals played absolutely phenomenal baseball over three games before Sunday's contest turned into something right up Ronda Rousey's alley. Newcomers Troy Tulowitzki and Mark Lowe (Toronto) and Johnny Cueto and Ben Zobrist (Kansas City) were involved immediately, with Tulo doing Tulo things at the plate and Lowe being tagged with the loss on Saturday when he served up Zobrist's second home run of the game.

Two teams that haven't won the World Series in more than two decades went all in at the July 31 trade deadline.

One team with a $230 million payroll and a 27-year drought did not.

The Kansas City Royals and Toronto Blue Jays acted as if they were desperate to win this year. The Los Angeles Dodgers did not.

With MLB's non-waiver trade deadline having come and gone on July 31, it's finally here. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the stretch run.

Which teams have the goods to make the most of it? Well, that's what we're here to discuss.

When you were as bad at offense as the New York Mets were, any slight upgrade is not only noticeable, it is celebrated. 

That was the case when the team traded for Juan Uribe and Kelly Johnson, players with limited offensive abilities but certainly no worse than what it already ran out there every day. But the next upgrade was major, and it looks to have completely transformed the Mets from a meek attack to one with the potential to be good.

You could call it a comeback.

Except Clayton Kershaw never went anywhere. 

The best pitcher on the planet still is and has been for most of this season. It's fair to say he hasn't been as good as he was a year ago, but you would just barely be correct in that assessment.

It remains to be seen if the activity before this year's MLB trade deadline will contain dramatic shifts of talent around the league. In a season where a lot of teams have remained within sniffing distance of a wild-card berth, there may not be many sellers on the market. 

But the teams in the hunt will still attempt to work out whatever big moves they can. 

New York Mets