Given a lot of these "big" trades were for things like the other team's #9 or lower prospect and such, hanging on to get the compensation pick becomes a pretty reasonable thing, at least if you're a team that receives revenue sharing and so gets a pick after the end of the (real) first round. (If I read the rule right). That guy probably is your #9 prospect and you don't have to deal with "you traded Story for some nobody who never made the majors!"

I'm not current on prospects at all, what was the biggest prospect traded this deadline? Everything I noticed was relatively minor, I think the Dodgers gave up a premium catcher prospect, but that was about the extent of blue blood prospects from my readings.

Again, the last two years I haven't really paid much attention to MLB and the inner workings and under workings, so I could be wrong, but it just feels like teams gave up stuff, simply to give them up.

The best prospect deal was the twins haul on Berrios. The kimbrel Madrigal deal was a big one

The Dodgers catching prospect Ruiz was ranked 15th overall on BA’s midseason list. The SP Gray was #53.

Blue Jays traded Austin Martin ranked #21 by BA.

A tough time to pull these trades off ... maybe everybody would have been better off staying out of it. With no minor leagues in 2020 and a late start this year, very little info has been added since 2019. So basically:

a) if you were an emerging prospect at AA (say) in 2019, you're not two years older and have barely had any chance to (officially) show any development
b) If you were in A+/AA/AAA already in the top 100 at the end of 2019, you're now must two years older
c) If you were a 2019-20 draftee/signee, you're lucky if you have more than two months pro experience

I've been poo-pooing the likely outcome of some team's #9 or lower prospect ... but being #12 (or whatever) at 19 with no pro experience is probably actually pretty good. Probably half those guys who are in 9-15 now will be your #5-7 next year and sprinkled across your top 5 the next year. If a couple of those guys are 21, that's not bad. But still, seems like almost all the trades were for pigs in pokes.

The writer: you should have traded your stars for whatever you get.

Find another writer if you trade your stars for whatever you can get: how dare you tear down the franchise, don’t try and tank.

Huh ... my (b) in #5 was supposed to say if you WEREN'T already in the top 100 at the end of 2019, then you're pretty much off the radar.

#6: Seems a bit unfair. It's at worst "trade 2 months of your stars for whatever you get." The decision not to re-sign the star player (at least at a price the star player finds acceptable) has already been made. Therefore the trade has nothing to do with the franchise tear down nor the quality of next year's team.

Now the trading team (let's call them the Cubs) does have to take into account that the team will be horrible for the next two months, Sept attendance will be pathetic and most fans will not be impressed with the return on these trades. But that adds up to "the team would probably be better off financially/PR if they hadn't made these trades ... so we can't really say that money was the motivation in the trade decisions.

What I find annoying is that maybe the two most active teams are very rich -- the Cubs and the Nats. There is zero reason teams with big money to go through a complete tear down. Who knows, maybe both teams will be very active this offseason but I'll be surprised. The Nats in particular trading Turmer is questionable although they are at least the team that got pretty big return.