Fan News

As Minnesota Twins fans eagerly checked Twitter to see if general manager Terry Ryan would make a move at the Major League Baseball trade deadline, one had to wonder what would happen if this scene was set in the film Major League II.

Last year at the trade deadline, the Philadelphia Phillies were 68-39, six games up in the NL East. This season, the Phils are just 45-57, 16.5 games out in the NL East and 13 games out in the wild-card race.

Needless to say, with the payroll over $174 million, second to the New York Yankees in MLB, expectations were high.

They have not come close to meeting those expectations.

The Los Angeles Dodgers were easily the most active buyers leading up to today’s 4 p.m. ET, MLB non-waiver trade deadline. 

They pulled off a stunning trade last week when they acquired former All-Star Hanley Ramirez and left-handed reliever Randy Choate from the Miami Marlins for 22-year-old pitcher Nate Eovaldi and lightly regarded relief pitching prospect Scott McGough.  

The non-waiver trade deadline has come and gone, and as has become the "Yankee Way," Brian Cashman and the Yankees' front office made a couple of minor moves without pulling off a blockbuster deal.

It’s official.

Minus the minuscule Francisco Liriano deal, in which Minnesota acquired two fringe prospects, the Twins waved hello to the trade deadline and quickly waved goodbye without making a follow-up move.

In some respects, this should be taken as a positive. The Twins could have made a move merely for the sake of making a move and done something foolish.

The San Francisco Giants went into the trading deadline needing to fill three obvious areas of deficiency: a lack of power in the lineup, a lack of depth on the bench and in the bullpen due to the loss of closer Brian Wilson earlier this season.

For Giants' general manager Brian Sabean, two out of three wasn't bad.

In the first half of the 2012 season, Chicago White Sox lefty Chris Sale was as dominant as any pitcher in baseball. He went into the All-Star break with an ERA of 2.19 and an opponent's batting average under .200.

Sale has been a different pitcher thus far in the second half, and not in a good way. His velocity is down, his stuff is flat and he hasn't missed many bats. In three starts since the break, he's seen his numbers take a hike.

As a result, Sale has gone from being an AL Cy Young favorite to being a guy on the fringe of the race.

While the St. Louis Cardinals did make a move before Tuesday afternoon's non-waiver trade deadline, their NL Central opponents made a bigger splash.

Will the Cardinals be able to make it past the Pittsburgh Pirates or the Cincinnati Reds? Have those teams shown they mean business in 2012?

The New York Mets showed up as an utter failure in the MLB Trade Deadline of this season.

It’s funny how well your sports team can act as a perfect mirror image of your life at some points. The relationship of your favorite sports team and your role as a fan is entirely abstracted in that you essentially make of it what you wish.

Hunter Pence did not expect the news he received early Tuesday afternoon as he was preparing to face the Washington Nationals later that night.  He was no longer a member of the Philadelphia Phillies, who had just traded him across the country to the San Francisco Giants.