Baseball's trade season expired on Tuesday, and unless you want to have an argument about whether the Dodgers overpaid for Jack Flaherty or an existential debate about whether the Marlins actually still exist in any meaningful form, not much of note really happened. Mostly it was a mass shipment of minor leaguers from one small town and decrepit ballpark to another, as most trade deadlines tend to be.
The highlights were few enough. An obvious one is Miami getting 14 minor leaguers in seven trades over four days, including one deal that gained them Abrahan Ramirez and Agustín Ramírez (no relation). Baltimore stoked its playoff run by acquiring the best available Soto not named Juan. Cincinnati made three trades in which the prime return was cash, which tells you much about how the Reds view baseball at this moment. The Rays made a bunch of trades that might make them better in the future, but which made them significantly cheaper in the near term. All very busy, all pretty familiar, none of it especially interesting.
But then there is the case of Disappearing Mike Baumann, who did something to someone of influence in a previous life and is now paying what in baseball terms is full retail atonement. Any—every—MLB deadline will feature what this one did. It takes a story like Baumann’s to add the necessary purgatorial note.
Baumann is a pitcher, and what you might call “a big galoot” if you owned a bar in Wyoming in 1878. He is 6-4, 240 give or take a belt hole, which in cannibal terms is food until Labor Day, and he has been a journeyman reliever for four years. He finally got an extended look last year with a good Orioles team and had a 10-1 record, which is a novelty stat now but still beats going 1-10, as Colorado's Ryan Feltner can attest.
But something happened to Baumann this year, and he has found himself a struggling but often-acquired trade piece for teams with ever more diminishing aspirations. He began the year as an Orioles reliever, but as an Oriole with no remaining roster options, he was therefore also an easy solution for a twitchy general manager who wants to look busy in case the owner drops by to check on the operation. That clock was ticking on Opening Day.
Baumann was sent to Seattle with some other guy in a deal for yet another guy (no, not even Guys) on May 22, just as the M's were beginning their sprint to the front of the AL West race, but his performance there wasn't terribly imposing despite filling up so much of the clubhouse. He was bought by San Francisco July 22 for what, in terms of baseball money, amounted to a modest date night. Baumann got into one game in Colorado, starting the eighth inning of a game the Giants won, 11-4; he gave up a two-run triple to Brenton Doyle. On Tuesday, Baumann was sold to the Angels, presumably to cover the tip for that dinner.
In other words, Baumann went from a division leader, to another division leader, to a team that spent the trade deadline dumping money, and finally to the post-Trout/Ohtani Angels—and all in less than 10 weeks. If that doesn't stick a knee into the chest of one's self-esteem, what does? Well, maybe getting assigned to Salt Lake, or worse yet, the Rocket City Trash Pandas. But being an Angel on this Angel team is depressing enough, if we’re being honest.
Still, this is enough to make Baumann our favorite player, if only out of sympathy; his journey from the top to freaking Anaheim has become a metaphor for the cruelty of life in the dying embers of the American Empire. He was a useful Oriole in a year in which they won 101 games, and now he is disappearing into the bushes, Homer Simpson style. Baumann just got married in December of last year and is showing his wife the despair of his career with every new phone call from whoever his general manager is, or was. He is the 180-degree turn from Jazz Chisholm, scorned in Miami as an underperforming hot dog on a cart full of them and now the Best Yankee Ever after two days.
Maybe this is just a downward blip on Baumann's career arc, and maybe he'll still be working in 10 years at age 38; it would be nice to see him as a crafty refrigerator-sized opener for wherever the A's end up (hint: not Vegas, Sacramento or Little Rock). But however this ends, the memory of this year will not be sweet. A potential playoff share has now vaporized into a federal witness protection gig on a team that casts no shadow even on the hottest and most cloudless day of the year. Whatever it is that Previous Life Mike Baumann did, it can't be bad enough to merit this. Although, his walk rate is a little high.
