Three Up, Three Down: The MLB hot/cold report

The Pirates make the biggest deadline splash

Last week, the Pirates were at the top of this column because they were red-hot. As of writing, they are still three games over .500, seven games out of the NL Central and four games out of the second and final wild card spot. Still, it appears that the Pirates' front office brass has decided that this hot streak is enough for them to go for it, because they ended up being the team that made the biggest splash at the trade deadline by trading for Chris Archer.

With other trade dominoes falling during July, Archer was the biggest potential trade acquisition left and in a shock, it was the "small-market" Pirates who ended up swooping in and picking up the two-time All-Star in exchange for a few prospects. Combine this with Pittsburgh's acquisition of reliever Keone Kela, and the Pirates made a statement of intent for the stretch run of the 2018 season.

It's definitely a brave move on Pittsburgh's part, and again it's proof that the front office believes in the team that's currently in the dugout at PNC Park, even if most of the projection models still don't believe the Bucs can leapfrog both their rivals in the division and their competition for the wild card spot. But they have to be commended for being bold and deciding to seize the day instead of punting on the season. That makes them very easy for the neutral fan to root for, and their fan base should be energized as well!

The Orioles finally tear it all down

While we're congratulating teams for being brave and going for it, we also have to congratulate the teams that face facts and realize it's time to start really building for the future. During this trade deadline, the Orioles did just that as they basically shipped off most of the major league talent that any team wanted and asked for. The only reason why Adam Jones is still there is because he exercised his 10/5 rights (and was doggone proud to do so).

After sending out all of the assets they probably could, they've acquired plenty of young talent for their farm and they've also actually decided to start acquiring money to use in the international signing market as well. It appears that the Orioles have faced facts and finally decided to rebuild after making a terribly misguided attempt to actually compete when it wasn't reasonably feasible for them to do so. Now they're focused on the future and while it may be extremely dark for the O's right now, they at least have a modicum of hope for the future!

This Hall of Fame class was loaded

The headline says it all: 2018 gave us an absolutely amazing Hall of Fame class and on Sunday, those players received their time in the sun and were officially immortalized in the hallowed grounds of Cooperstown. Four titans of the 1990s were inducted, Alan Trammel finally got his due for nearly 20 seasons of great baseball with the Detroit Tigers and Jack Morris proved that one game can indeed get you into the Hall of Fame.

You seriously cannot argue with the likes of Vladimir Guerrero, Trevor Hoffman, Chipper Jones and Jim Thome getting into the Hall of Fame, though. There's no way that any baseball fan could forget things like Thome's massive moonshots that went soaring over nearly every fence imaginable in the big leagues, Chipper's astonishing ability to play the game at an extremely high level all the way into his late 30s, "Hell's Bells" ushering Trevor Hoffman onto the field as he went to crush the opposing team's hopes and dreams in the ninth inning and Vladimir Guerrero turning a ball a foot outside of the plate into a home run.

That's the stuff that baseball dreams are made of, and now they've all officially received their proper respect with the bust at the Hall of Fame. If you haven't done so yet, I suggest you search through the massive video archive on MLB.com or their YouTube pages and go watch a video or two. This is a beautiful game, and these guys did an amazing job of bringing that beauty to life in living color during their time.

Three Down

Past tweets once again mar present performance

On Sunday afternoon, Sean Newcomb came within one strike of throwing a no-hitter, which would have been the first no-no for the Braves since the 1990s and it also would have been a major moment of arrival for one of Atlanta's many, many young pitching talents. Newcomb had all of maybe 30 minutes to savor that amazing performance because he ended up pulling a Josh Hader, having some abhorrent tweets come to the forefront shortly after he left the game.

To make matters worse, the same exact thing happened in relation to Trea Turner of the Washington Nationals. Although the tweets were composed when both players weren't big leaguers, there's still no excuse for anybody of any age to say the stuff that they were saying. It's shameful but also not really surprising at this point.

The only good thing to come of this was actually Trea Turner's apology, in which the Nationals shortstop actually seemed to express remorse and take responsibility for what he said. This was in contrast to the other apologies appearing to be more of a "let's sweep this under the rug" thing than an actual sincere apology. Now as long as neither team's fan base responds to this by giving the player a standing ovation like Milwaukee did with Hader, then maybe we can start making a tiny bit of progress here.

Braves commentator goes on dumbest rant for dumbest reason

This really was a rough weekend for the Braves. Between the terrible tweets from Newcomb and the on-field drubbing at the hands of the Dodgers over a four-game series, you'd need some words of comfort if you were a fan. Unfortunately for Braves fans, they didn't get that from their TV commentators. Instead, they got an unhinged rant from their color commentator about — I hope you're sitting down for this — batting practice attire.

Indeed, Braves color commentator Joe Simpson went on for five minutes about what the Dodgers were wearing during warmups. Keep in mind the T-shirts that the Dodgers were wearing were "K Cancer" shirts, which were meant to raise awareness for Jason Motte's foundation that's trying to "strike out cancer." So this was an incredibly foolish time for Simpson to go on a rant about that sort of thing.

It's a problem that's also emblematic of baseball's struggles to connect with the youth and young adults. Who is going to want to stay tuned to a baseball game when the announcers are busy complaining about how the game was better 20 to 30 years ago? If you don't like the game now then maybe you should get off our lawn and turn over the reins to people who actually enjoy the personalities and players who surround the game today.

Another player caught hand, foot and mouth disease

What in the world is going on in New York?! I mean, it's understandable that a Mets player would end up being the one to catch hand, foot and mouth disease, which was the unenviable fate that befell Noah Syndegaard a while back. However, this type of stuff doesn't happen to the Yankees. Well, we can't say that anymore since J.A. Happ also ended up contracting hand, foot and mouth disease.

While Syndegaard could trace his steps and figure out how he caught it, there's no such luck for one of the newest Yankees on the block. It appears to be a mystery at the moment, and I highly doubt that we are going to solve it anytime soon. For now, the entire city of New York can lay claim to having the only two MLB players who have been known to catch hand, foot and mouth disease as members of their ballclubs. The Subway Series fever is truly contagious.