When the White Sox traded for Ken Griffey Jr., one week ago today, I made the snap judgment that Chicago had just made itself better. I also said Detroit had made itself better with the Kyle Farnsworth-for-Pudge trade, suggesting those moves ramped up the pressure on the Twins to swing a deadline deal.

Well, that Farnsworth opinion looks just plain silly now. The Tigers haven’t won a game since July 30. Farnsworth has a 10.80 ERA and two blown saves in three appearances (with three home runs allowed in 3 1/3 innings). Detroit’s bullpen couldn’t be a bigger mess.

I do think the White Sox improved with the Griffey deal. If nothing else, it let them take a load off the slumping Paul Konerko. The Sox are 3-3 since Ken Williams sat in the dugout at the Metrodome saying, “It’s never a bad thing to be in a pennant race and have help walk through the door. It’s not going to hurt when guys know there’s another weapon that they can use.”

But it’s notable that Griffey did not play Wednesday with the Sox facing Justin Verlander. Griffey is 4-for-13 with two RBI and a .308/.357/.308 batting line since the trade.

I still think the Twins should have swung a deal for LaTroy Hawkins, who has three scoreless appearances and one save since joining the Astros. The Diamondbacks also seemed ahead of the curve when they acquired RHP Jon Rauch from the Nationals, as he’s posted a 2.84 ERA (with seven strikeouts and one walk) in seven appearances.

Arizona is 10-5 since that trade, and the bullpen has settled in nicely. But the price for Rauch was Emilio Bonifacio, who could be the second baseman of the future for Washington.

Now that the deadline dust has settled, I believe the Twins missed a chance to upgrade their bullpen, but time is putting proper perspective on the moves made around them in the division. The Twins didn’t upgrade, but at least they didn’t make themselves worse.

This entry was posted on Thursday, August 7th, 2008 at 12:00 pm and is filed under Around MLB, Twins thoughts. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.