BOSTON _ Within a week of Tuesday's non-waiver trade deadline, the Yankees' biggest rotation upgrade already was on the disabled list, as J.A. Happ was forced to sit out this AL East showdown at Fenway Park due to hand, foot and mouth disease.
The affliction is rare among adults, so we spent more time on the Mayo Clinic's website than FanGraphs for the most up-to-date scouting reports on Happ, who was acquired for his success against the Red Sox and yet was home watching on TV this weekend. Point is, trades are very much an inexact science, and for all the analytics, teams have to rely on their best guesses in pulling the trigger by the end of July.
There's no way Brian Cashman could have seen the coxsackievirus coming. Fortunately, it's a short-term virus, and Happ should be as good as new in a few more days. The Rays also experienced a spot-deadline setback when they lost new acquisition Tommy Pham to a fractured foot (after only eight plate appearances) and the Red Sox had Ian Kinsler suffer a hamstring strain in Friday's win over the Yankees.
As for some of the other post-deadline deadline wrinkles, the Reds were never able to move Matt Harvey _ condemning the Dark Knight to finish the season pitching in the Queen City _ and his former Mets' rotation-mates all stayed put in Flushing, which was a bit of surprise for the likes of Zack Wheeler and Steven Matz.
Overall, there were 65 trades between June and July, the most since MLB went to 30 teams in 1998. Monday alone had 18 deals, tied for the busiest day with 2016 as the most since 1995. Now that the dust has cleared, we have a list of this year's winners and losers, which also contains plenty of Gray area _ and not just because the Yankees chose to remain stuck with struggling Sonny.
