Next? Manny, Dunn, Bay, Maddux, Fuentes and more!

Today is the big day! The MLB non-waiver trade deadline is at 4pm ET. Lots of major buzz heading into the final 10 hours:

• Manny Ramirez to the Marlins?
• Adam Dunn to the Rays?
• Jason Bay to the Red Sox? Or to the Rays?
• Brian Fuentes - going or staying?
• Greg Maddux heading back to the Dodgers?

All these rumors and more - to stay on top of it all the best place to monitor today is the ESPN MLB Trade Deadline Blog - it's being manned by the whole ESPN team: Gammons, Olney, Stark, Law and the gang. It's the one place to be to stay on top of what's happening before it actually happens!

MLB Trade Deadline Blog [ESPN]

Looking Back: 1B Predictions

Now, on to the pre-season Buy-Sell recommendations for first basemen - here's how they've played out to this point using the current rankings across all MLB by both the RotoTimes and ESPN Player Raters:

This one is pretty easy as there was only one sell candidate - Carlos Delgado - and two buy candidates - Conor Jackson and Nick Johnson.

In the original post, of Conor Jackson we said, "He will easily outproduce Carlos Delgado in 2008 and beyond." Right on the money there!

Delgado ranks #12 on RotoTimes / #14 on ESPN
Jackson ranks #5 on RotoTimes / #8 on ESPN
Johnson isn't in the top 50 on either - clearly a miss there! Even before his latest injury he wasn't producing much.

So, if you were able to deal Delgado and get Jackson back, you came out in pretty good shape.

Looking Back: Catcher Predictions

As August approaches, now is a good time for a sanity check on many of the pre-season prognostications made here at Roto Advantage. We'll start with the pre-season Buy-Sell recommendations for catchers - here's how they've played out to this point using the current rankings across all MLB by both the RotoTimes and ESPN Player Raters:

SELL

• Ivan Rodriguez - #7 catcher on RotoTimes / #9 on ESPN
  
  Looks like we missed on this one. The reason for the sell recommendation was based largely on age and injury risk, but this guy is just a machine.
  


• Jason Varitek - #55 on RotoTimes / #33 on ESPN
  
  Looks like a pretty good prediction.
  


• Jarrod Saltalamacchia - #32 on RotoTimes / #32 on ESPN
  
  Again, right on the money. Especially good considering how many were predicting Salty would be a Top 12 catcher.
  

BUY

• Dioner Navarro - #12 on RotoTimes / #12 on ESPN
  
• Chris Snyder - #18 on RotoTimes / #19 on ESPN
  
• Ryan Doumit - #3 on RotoTimes / #4 on ESPN

FINAL ANALYSIS: Unless you dealt Pudge straight up for Snyder, you probably ended up quite happy with any moves you made following our pre-season catcher buy-sell recommendations.

MLB Trade Deadline: Who's buying? Who's selling?

At the start of the day, 17 of the 30 MLB teams were no worse than 6 games from the top spot in their division. With this level of open competition, it's still tough to tell just who is going to be buying vs. who is going to be selling over the next week.

Here are the teams with the biggest 'fish or cut bait' decisions facing them:

• Atlanta Braves (6 GB - NL East) - But they are in fourth place! Given the fact that they need to leapfrog three other teams, they'll likely end up sellers with Mark Teixeira as their main bargaining chip.
• Colorado Rockies (6 GB - NL West) - It appears as though the Rockies will ride out the season with what they've got, with the likely exception of Brian Fuentes.
• New York Yankees (3.5 GB -AL East) - You know they won't sell, when do they ever sell?
• Detroit Tigers (5.5 GB - AL Central) - they have overcome their horrible April and are right in the race, look for them to either buy or stand pat.
• Texas Rangers (10.5 GB - AL West) - Too far out, they need to sell.
• Toronto Blue Jays (9.5 GB - AL East) - See Texas Rangers.

For more thoughts and analysis on who the trade deadline buyers and sellers will be, check out today's Rumblings and Grumblings post by Jayson Stark on ESPN.

Buy or sell? Highlighting four teams still on the fence [ESPN]

Latest on MLB Trade Rumors

The MLB non-waiver trade deadline is only eight days away. So what's the latest buzz?

Here are some of the names more recently rumored to be available, some from buyers and some from sellers:

• Casey Blake, 3B, CLE
• Damaso Marte, RP, PIT
• Randy Winn, OF, SF
• Raul Ibanez, OF, SEA
• Andy LaRoche, 3B, LAD
• Matt Kemp, OF, LAD

For the full scoop on the above names and many more, check out Will Carroll's latest post on BP Unfiltered.

Mill Grinding [Baseball Prospectus]

MLB's Top 150 Prospects - July Edition

Here are the Top 10, according to Matthew Pouliot from RotoWorld:

1. David Price, LHP, Rays
2. Clayton Kershaw, LHP, Dodgers
3. Colby Rasmus, OF, Cardinals
4. Matt Wieters, C, Orioles
5. Matt LaPorta, OF, Indians
6. Max Scherzer, RHP, Diamondbacks
7. Elvis Andrus, SS, Rangers
8. Cameron, Maybin, OF, Marlins
9. Jason Heyward, OF, Braves
10. Rick Porcello, RHP, Tigers

To see the rest of the list, including the ETA for each player, year-to-date minor league stats, and more detailed insights - check out Matthew Pouliot's Strike Zone blog on RotoWorld.

Midseason Top 150 Prospects [RotoWorld]

It's 'Free Week' at Baseball Prospectus!

From July 21st-27th, the amazing team at Baseball Prospectus is opening up all their high-value content for FREE. If you've ever been tempted to register as a paying subscriber, now is the time to see what all the fuss is about!

Free Week at BP [Baseball Prospectus]