Deadline Deals Not That Big

General managers have already been busy in the week leading up to baseball’s trade deadline.

But if a look at last year’s deadline deals is any indication, those trades sometimes don’t have as much effect on the pennant races as the GMs would like.

The biggest deal in the week leading up to last year’s deadline didn’t impact the standings much until this season.

When Arizona acquired Curt Schilling from Philadelphia for Travis Lee, Omar Daal, Nelson Figueroa and Vicente Padilla, it was expected to lead the Diamondbacks into the postseason.

Arizona, which was in first place at the time of the deal, went 29-32 down the stretch and finished 12 games behind the Giants in the NL West.

But Schilling is impacting this year’s race. He is a major reason why Arizona entered the weekend in first place and strikes fear in other NL teams with the best 1-2 punch of any rotation in baseball.

The Phillies were looking to the future when they made that deal. And the future has come even sooner than they thought as they entered the weekend tied for first with Atlanta.

The Schilling trade was a big reason why. Daal has 10 wins, Lee has played a steady first base and Figueroa has been a boost to the rotation.

“That’s a deal that has helped both clubs,” Phillies GM Ed Wade said. “We wouldn’t be where we are without the contributions of the guys we got.”

Not all deals work out that way. Take Toronto’s trade of second base prospect Brent Abernathy to Tampa Bay for Mark Guthrie and Steve Trachsel. The Blue Jays got two wins out of the two pitchers last year and a third-place finish, while the Devil Rays found a regular second baseman--a position Toronto still needs to fill.

The deals that had the biggest impact last year were St. Louis’ acquisition of Will Clark, Oakland’s trade for Jim Mecir and the Mets’ deals for Mike Bordick, Bubba Trammell and Rick White.

But none of those were the blockbusters that have fans furiously dialing sports talk shows.

The most important trade last year came in June, when the Yankees acquired David Justice from Cleveland.

“He can light up the scoreboard in September and October,” Yankees manager Joe Torre said. “We couldn’t have done it without him last year.”

But most of the trades last year were forgettable. Ismael Valdes did little for the Dodgers, Charles Johnson couldn’t help the White Sox win even a single playoff game, and B.J. Surhoff didn’t provide a boost to the Braves either.

The next two months will determine whether Jermaine Dye, Albie Lopez, James Baldwin and anyone else traded before Tuesday make their deals memorable.

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GOT YOUR GOOSE: Rich Gossage didn’t like what he saw in 1998 when Sammy Sosa and Mark McGwire eclipsed Roger Maris’ home run record. And he doesn’t like what he sees from the way Barry Bonds and Luis Gonzalez are being pitched this year.

The Goose insists he wouldn’t have made it this easy on the sluggers.

“I would have undressed them,” Gossage said. “If they’re going to hit like that, then you have to go inside, but pitchers today are afraid to come inside.

“Bonds isn’t going to beat me, but pitchers today don’t think that way. It’s like, ‘Go ahead and hit it.’ Like they want to be a part of it.”

Gossage has gotten so frustrated watching the balance of power switch from the pitcher’s mound to the batter’s box.

“It’s a joke,” he said. “Pitchers have gotten too soft. The owners could save millions of dollars by getting rid of pitchers and letting batters hit off a tee. That’s what the game has become.”

Gossage isn’t advocating pitchers hitting batters in the head--having anguished over beaning Ron Cey in the 1981 World Series--but he said they need to be able to brush back hitters.

One time when Gossage came up and in on a batter, it didn’t have the result he wanted and became one of the most famous regular season games.

On July 24, 1983, Kansas City’s George Brett nearly hit a go-ahead homer to left field on the first pitch from Gossage.

“I was coming in on his shoulder on the next pitch and he tomahawked it into the seats,” Gossage recalled. “If he hadn’t hit it, it would have hit him in the neck.”

That was the Pine Tar Game. Umpires disallowed the homer because Brett had too much pine tar on his bat, but AL president Lee MacPhail overruled the call and the Royals won the game.