The Trade Deadline: Report Card

July 31st. For a baseball fan, it's like Christmas in July. Either your team buys a piece or two to make the push towards the playoffs, or your team calls it a season and adds money or prospects to make a run for next season. Either way, most teams and fans go home feeling like their team has done something in order to make it better either for the now or for the future.

Every deadline there are a few big splashes. This year: Ubaldo, Beltran, Pence, and K-Rod, and Bedard were some of the larger names to change hands. Now, reflecting on the deals a few days later, here's who we think some of the winners and losers were this trade season.

A's fans might know a bit more about this face soon.

San Francisco Giants Mid-Season Update

Consider two headlines:

"Despite Struggling, Giants Winning"
"Despite Winning, Giants Struggling"

Which one is more accurate?

The Giants reach the All Star Break 12 games over .500 and 3 games ahead of the Arizona Diamondbacks atop the NL West.

The Giants also reach the All Star Break with its best player out for the season with a devastating injury. Their $11 million first baseman has homered in only 5 of his first 90 games. According to John Shea, the 2011 Giants have provided the lowest amount of run support since the 1902 New York Giants. And that team finished 53.5 games out of first place. Up until last week, the Giants had gone the entire 2011 season without scoring more than 5 runs in a home game. Then they scored 6. According to Mike Krukow (who can count nano-seconds in his head), the 2011 Giants are the first team in franchise history to go an entire first half without  scoring more than 6 runs in a home game.

And yet, they are 28-16 at home this season.

So which is it? Are you amazed that in spite of the injuries and horrendous offense, the Giant are still in first place? Or are you amazed that in spite of incredible pitching and clutch hitting, the Giants still look like a team that could go out and lose 15 of its first 20 after the break?

As Giants announcer Duane Kuiper said after a walk-off win on April 9th, "I'm having a hard time explaining this one."

Stuck on Repeat / MLB Preview: San Francisco Giants

As Michael Jackson once said, this is it. The final team on the final day before the 2011 regular season.

Close your eyes and imagine you're in Heaven. What's it like? Who is there? How do you spend your time? How are you reading this if your eyes are closed? Are there any horse socks?

Ok, now open them. What did it look like to you?

When you Google image search "Heaven", you get some interesting results. My favorite was this:

For any fan of the San Francisco Giants, Heaven looked like November 1, 2010. It looked like Brian Wilson firing a 3-2 cutter past Nelson Cruz. It looked like the pandemonium outside AT&T Park, where fans gathered to light toiled paper on fire, throw corn tortillas in the air and other things celebratory mobs do. It looked like a million people packing Market St. and skipping an entire afternoon of work and not feeling an ounce of guilt. It looked like watching the World Series games on DVD so many times that your girlfriend thought a new baseball season had already started.

MLB Preview: Philadelphia Phillies

Sliced bread is pretty darn good.

But we now have something even better: Tasty Kake -- I mean, the 2011 Philadelphia Phillies.

I can remember the exact moment I learned Cliff Lee signed with the Phillies. I followed the Winter Meetings closely and was excited to hear where he wound up. A Giants fan, I was simply thankful he was staying in the American League, be it in Los Angeles, New York or Texas. Just keep him the heck out of my league. 

The news came to me in a late night text message from Eric: “Lee to Phillies. Holy S***.”

My mouth dropped. I was literally stunned. Quickly the shock turned to awe, then from awe to anger. It just didn’t seem fair. I never really understood Eric’s hatred toward the Yankees. Now I knew. The National League had its Yankees.

Don't Cry for Me Juan Uribe / MLB Preview: Los Angeles Dodgers

I will never forget the Jazz Hands.

I will never forget that man, swinging with all his might. Hacking at pitches a foot outside, whiffing so hard he fell to the ground.

But oh, when he made contact. The ball would leap to Left Field as if it were shot out of a cannon. No-doubters taylor made for Duane Kuiper's home-run call. His low, swooping swing connecting on a slow curve ball -- it's an image I will never forget.

But most of all, I will remember The Sac-Fly. And I will remember the home-run in Game 6, kicking my chair back at Raleigh's and watching in disbelief as the ball sailed into the first row. Uribe never went opposite field. But he did that night.

Here it is.

But then on a November afternoon, everything changed.