How Moving MLB Trade Deadline Could Shake Up the League

Without a trade deadline, there's no way the Detroit Tigers trade David Price this week.

Not with two months to go and a team they still believe is good enough to win. Not with the unimposing Minnesota Twins holding the second wild-card spot. Not with Justin Verlander looking like he could be ready for a strong finish (back-to-back starts of eight innings, one run), and not with Miguel Cabrera due back in August.

If the Tigers didn't need to make a buy-sell decision this week, they wouldn't. But with the July 31 deadline fast approaching and the real chance of losing Price this winter for nothing but a draft pick, they had no choice.

They're selling, as general manager Dave Dombrowski told reporters Wednesday. He called it "rebooting":

Given the way the Tigers have played, there's little question that they're making the right decision. But the bigger question for Major League Baseball is whether teams like the Tigers should be forced to make late-July decisions at all.

Or is the July 31 non-waiver deadline an unnecessary relic of a time when baseball didn't have one wild-card team per league, let alone two?

Carlos Osorio/Associated Press

Commissioner Rob Manfred told the Associated Press last week that he's open to changing it, perhaps moving it to the middle of August.

Interesting idea, but there's a real chance it wouldn't work.

"I think it would preclude clubs from trading," Dan O'Dowd said.

O'Dowd was the longtime general manager of the Colorado Rockies and is now an analyst for MLB Network. Whatever you thought of his work as GM, he understands how the market works and has spent plenty of time thinking about it.

"If you're only going to get 6-8 starts out of a starting pitcher, it's going to be tough to give up an impactful player," O'Dowd said. "And if the return isn't going to be good, a lot of teams will just hold on and take the draft pick if the player signs elsewhere."

O'Dowd has a better idea.

Instead of pushing the non-waiver deadline back to August 15, move it up to the early part of July, around the midway point of the season. Then at the end of August, add in a 48- or 72-hour trade window in which players who didn't clear waivers would be eligible to be dealt.

Moving the deadline up would keep some sellers out of the market (the Tigers might not have been willing to move two or three weeks ago), but it would add value to players who are dealt. A team getting Price this week will likely get about 11 regular-season starts out of him (what the Tigers got from Price in 2014).

A team trading for Cole Hamels in early July might get as many as 17 (what the Brewers got from CC Sabathia when they acquired him on July 7, 2008).

There's nothing in the current rules that kept the Phillies from dealing Hamels three weeks ago. But deadlines spur action.

"Everything in this game comes down to a deadline," O'Dowd said.

You see that this week, with a flurry of action already and more sure to come, especially with the Tigers entering the market as sellers. The final days of July are, in some ways, one of the most fun times of the year for baseball fans.

But there's nothing magical or traditional about the July 31 date itself.

For years, from the early 1920s through 1985, the midseason trade deadline was June 15. MLB moved it to July 31 in 1986.

It's still only a soft deadline, because every year significant August trades are made through the waiver process. In fact, the John Smoltz for Doyle Alexander trade, which we think of as maybe the best July trade ever, was actually made in August 1987, as a waiver deal.

Bebeto Matthews/Associated Press

Alexander made just 11 regular-season starts that season for the Tigers. The Tigers won all 11, and they needed every one, as they didn't clinch the division title until the final day of the season.

Smoltz went to the Atlanta Braves and went all the way to the Hall of Fame. He was joined on the podium last Sunday by Randy Johnson, who was part of midseason deals both as a prospect (going from the Montreal Expos to the Seattle Mariners in May 1989) and a rental star (from the Mariners to the Houston Astros on July 31, 1998).

Deals get made, even with teams saying they're more protective of prospects than ever. Deals get made, even with people complaining that parity means almost every team still has a chance at the end of July.

Deals will get made, whether the deadline is going to be June 15, July 10, July 31 or August 15. But moving the deadline could help ensure that even more deals get made.

Rob Manfred says he's willing to consider a switch. But the best move might not be the most obvious one.

Danny Knobler covers Major League Baseball as a national columnist for Bleacher Report.

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