Winners and losers of deadline deals

Keep in mind the Marlins were viewed as a big winner last offseason and spent this month in a salary dump.

The Red Sox were the champs of the previous offseason after landing Adrian Gonzalez and Carl Crawford and, well, how have things gone since then?

All of the knee-jerk anointed winners of last July’s trade bazaar turned out not to be. The Giants (Carlos Beltran), Braves (Michael Bourn) and Indians (Ubaldo Jimenez) did not even make the playoffs, the Phillies ended up trading Hunter Pence one year after obtaining him, and the Rangers — after being hailed for deepening their bullpen with Mike Adams and Koji Uehara — lost the World Series because of terrible relief (Uehara was so bad he didn’t even make the playoff roster).

The teams that obtain the most famous names and spend the most money tend to be declared winners at this time of year. I tried to keep that in mind while making this quick call on the five biggest winners and losers of this swap meet:

WINNERS

WHITE SOX — They were viewed as having, perhaps, the majors’ worst prospect base. Yet, they capitalized on teams in dump mode to add Brett Myers, Francisco Liriano and Kevin Youkilis (actually obtained in late June) to try to shock Detroit and win the AL Central.

ANGELS — They gave up good, but not great, prospects to get Zack Greinke, who in conjunction with Jered Weaver and Dan Haren could provide an awesome playoff trio. Of course, the Angels have to make the playoffs, and that is not sure even after going all-in with Albert Pujols, C.J. Wilson and now the Greinke addition.

DODGERS — My suspicion is they will be hailed as the big winners because of aggressive acquisitions of Hanley Ramirez, Randy Choate, Shane Victorino and Brandon League. But Ramirez is an expensive malcontent, albeit one much more talented than what L.A. had on the left side of the infield. Victorino cost a reliever, Josh Lindblom, who is probably better than League — albeit without the closer pedigree. They are better than they were on July 1, but they obtained loads of pressure to win the NL West now.

YANKEES — Getting Ichiro Suzuki for essentially nothing gives them, at the least, a Brett Gardner clone. They turned a player they picked up for cash, Chad Qualls, into Casey McGehee, a righty bat who can help alleviate some of the sting of losing Alex Rodriguez while being a temporary salve with Mark Teixeira out. Thus, Brian Cashman did what he does in July: made small trades that cost little in dollars or prospects to address shortcomings on the roster. But the Yankees did make a late run yesterday at Ryan Dempster, though they were unwilling to surrender the dollars or level of prospect Texas did (notably third baseman Christian Villanueva) to get the righty. Texas has lost a lot of pitching (Neftali Feliz was the latest with the announcement yesterday he needs Tommy John surgery), and the Rangers are feeling the heat of the Angels and upstart A’s. The Cubs were known to like two of the Yankees’ better low-level position prospects, Dante Bichette Jr. and Angelo Gumbs. We will see if Dempster in Texas matters on the road to the playoffs or in the actual playoffs, especially if the Rangers and Yankees meet.

ASTROS — My guess is they will be atop most loser lists because they dumped J.A. Happ, Chris Johnson, Carlos Lee, Brandon Lyon, Brett Myers and Wandy Rodriguez for not high-end prospects even while eating a good deal of money in some cases. But the return reflects how bad the contracts or players were. I like when teams act definitively, and the Astros and Cubs recognized their plight and acted to try to secure a better tomorrow as quickly as possible. Good for them.

LOSERS

TIGERS — The most prohibitive favorite to win a division in the offseason, especially after they made what seemed an overkill move for Prince Fielder while the rest of the AL Central essentially did nothing. So simply having to give up touted prospect Jacob Turner to land Anibal Sanchez and Omar Infante was a setback — a recognition that Plan A was not working well enough.

MARLINS — They did right by recognizing that they were not contenders and turning an expensive bad actor (Ramirez) and a walk-year pitcher they were not re-signing (Sanchez) into prospects and saved dollars. But the sell-off is acknowledgment their plan to open a new stadium in style had gone horribly wrong. And now they may have lost any hope of building a strong fan base in South Florida.

METS — They were in the horrible middle ground of not good enough to buy and with nothing really alluring enough to sell. There was an awful lot of discussion about Scott Hairston, and I think the Mets should have dealt him for as good a secondary prospect as they could get, but he is a righty bat vs. lefty starters and the return is not good on that narrow job. The Mets couldn’t even get a few good weeks from Jason Bay to see if they could eat salary and get rid of him, like the Astros did with Lee. The Orioles and Indians were among other pseudo-contenders stuck in the middle who did not really act one way or the other. In fact, ironically, the Orioles and Mets made one tiny deal with each other — Baltimore buying Omar Quintanilla.

PHILLIES — They are here mainly because the greatest era in their history (five straight NL East titles, one championship) is, at best, on hiatus for a year. But, at the least, they acknowledged a need to get younger and less expensive, and obtained some interesting pieces for Victorino and, especially, Pence (scouts really like catcher/first baseman Tommy Joseph). The deals got them under the luxury tax threshold for this season — a short- and long-term money saver. Now can they find an offseason takers willing to give up prospects while assuming Cliff Lee’s unwieldy contract.

A’S — They are one of the best stories in the majors, mixing a sensational rookie class headed by Yoenis Cespedes, a great offseason acquisition (Josh Reddick) and oodles of pitching of all stripes. But because they have Brett Anderson and Dallas Braden due back from Tommy John surgery soon and touted prospect Dan Straily at Triple-A, the A’s have surplus pitching. Yet they were unable to translate that into an offensive piece at short or third, in particular, that would make their unlikely assault on the Rangers and Angels even more frightening.