Dodgers Acquire Shane Victorino From Phillies

The PTBNL was named today, and he has a connection to someone very important to the Dodger family:

Stefan Jarrin was a 40th-round pick of the Dodgers in the 2011 draft; Baseball-reference’s list of 2011 Dodger draftees doesn’t list a high school or college for him. It’s not an unreasonable assumption that Jarrin was selected as a personal favor to his grandfather, who has been the Spanish-language radio voice of the Dodgers ever since they moved to Los Angeles in 1958.

Leading up to the MLB trade deadline, most everybody wants to see their team do something big, something substantial. It’s not even so much about a move being wise; it’s about a team making headlines, or, in the contemporary parlance, making a splash. People want to get caught up in the trade-deadline spirit. Fans of bad teams want their teams to bring in some haul of prospects. Fans of good teams want their teams to bring in somebody talented and recognizable. There are few things that drive people more insane than trade-deadline inactivity, and a lot of people just won’t stand for it.

Of course, it is important to be wise. It’s always important to be wise, at all times in all things, and around the trade deadline’s no different. Everybody would prefer that their team make a smart move instead of a dumb move, because as much as a dumb move can still be exciting, no one wants to hear about how their team screwed up. People want to hear about how their team improved, and about how their team did well for itself.

Or as I like to call it, “tradar.”