A tried and true tactic, to be sure.  HOWEVER, this usually also only occurs when the player being acquired is actually good, and somewhat usefull and needed to the team getting him.  In respect to the Dodgers, and thinking of Barney, there is no need for him.  As such, I am just left scratching my head here.

Should have done that avatar bet BigD!

I kid, I would've never accepted.

lol.......

There was one other player that this happen too, no?

The Braves are unpredictable because they have trouble hitting and pitching at times.

Tip of the day: Don't ever bet on a Braves game. You think they'll lose they win, you think they'll win they lose. Been that way for 50 years.

Oh, and pretty much regardless of you the individual posters opinion, I feel very strongly that the person announcing the game for your favorite teams knows that Vin Scully is the best of all time.

It actually brought a tear to my eye when I heard he was returning for year 66.

Cubs fans are in fact a different breed of human all together -

Looking back at some recent blockbuster trade deadline deals -

July 31, 2004: The Red Sox were treading water as the Deadline approached before general manager Theo Epstein made two moves, one bold and the other under the radar, that would alter the course of the franchise forever. Franchise icon Nomar Garciaparra was traded to the Cubs as part of a four-team blockbuster that brought shortstop Orlando Cabrera from the Expos and first baseman Doug Mientkiewicz. Almost as an afterthought, speedy outfielder Dave Roberts was acquired from the Dodgers for a marginal prospect.

Everybody knows what happened next. Boston went 34-12 down the stretch, made a remarkable comeback in the American League Championship Series with the help of one of the most famous stolen bases in history by Roberts and went on to win the organization's first World Series in 86 years. They've since added two more trophies.

July 31, 1998: The Astros were already looking ahead to October when they sent Freddy Garcia, John Halama and Carlos Guillen to the Mariners for free-agent-to-be Randy Johnson. The Big Unit excelled, going 10-1 with a 1.28 ERA in 11 starts, helping Houston reach the playoffs.

Three years later, Garcia and Halama combined for 28 victories and Guillen was the everyday shortstop for a Mariners team that won 116 games.

July 29, 2011: The Phillies had a comfortable lead in the National League East but badly wanted a right-handed bat to balance their lineup. So they sent prospects Jarred Cosart, Jon Singleton, Josh Zeid and Domingo Santana to the Astros for Hunter Pence. The right fielder batted .324 with 11 homers and a .954 OPS, helping the Phillies win a franchise-record 102 games.

The Phillies subsequently traded Pence to the Giants. All four players the Astros got in return have appeared for them in the big leagues this year; Cosart is in the rotation and Singleton is the starting first baseman.

July 30, 2010: Sometimes deals become important only in retrospect. That was the case when the Nationals traded infield depth in Cristian Guzman to get Double-A pitcher Tanner Roark from the Rangers. Going into his Wednesday start against the Marlins, Roark is 17-7 with a 2.43 ERA since being called up last year and might just be the best pitcher on a staff that includes All-Stars Stephen Strasburg, Gio Gonzalez and Jordan Zimmermann.

July 31, 2008: Mannywood was established in Chavez Ravine when the Dodgers picked up Manny Ramirez as part of a three-team swap that also involved the Pirates. And the talented but erratic slugger put up ridiculous numbers the rest of the season, batting .396 with 17 homers, 53 RBIs and a 1.232 OPS in 53 games to help the Dodgers edge the D-backs in the NL West.

July 31, 2007: The Braves were in third place but only 4 1/2 games off the lead when they got first baseman Mark Teixeira from the Rangers to be the middle-of-the-order bat they were lacking. It didn't work out. The Braves played .500 ball the rest of the way, missed the playoffs and flipped Teixeira to the Angels the following July.

Texas, however, benefited tremendously. The Rangers got shortstop Elvis Andrus plus pitchers Neftali Feliz and Matt Harrison, all players who helped the franchise make back-to-back World Series appearances in 2010 and 2011.

July 29, 2010: After two straight World Series appearances, the Phillies were lagging until Roy Oswalt was acquired from the Astros for J.A. Happ, Anthony Gose and Jonathan Villar. He proved to be just the spark the team needed, going 7-1 with a 1.74 ERA in red pinstripes as the Phillies won their fourth straight NL East title going away.

Oswalt was unable to reprise that success as a member of the "Four Aces" rotation the following year as he battled injuries and departed as a free agent. Happ and Gose are now with the Blue Jays. Villar was the Astros' regular shortstop when the 2014 season opened but is now at Triple-A Oklahoma City.

July 31, 1997: Mark McGwire was scheduled to become a free agent at the end of the season when the Athletics traded him to the Cardinals. A known quantity, McGwire exploded for two of the most prodigious power seasons in history in 1998 and 1999, bashing a then-record 70 homers his first year and following it up with 65 before suspicions of performance-enhancing substances surfaced.

On the same day, the White Sox sent pitchers Wilson Alvarez, Danny Darwin and Roberto Hernandez to the Giants for six Minor Leaguers. Because the Sox were only 3 1/2 games behind the Indians at the time, it was widely decried as "the White Flag Trade." However, two of the players Chicago received in return (Keith Foulke, Bob Howry) helped the team win the AL Central in 2000.

July 26, 2000: The D-backs gave up four solid players -- Vicente Padilla, Nelson Figueroa, Travis Lee and Omar Daal -- to get Curt Schilling from the Phillies. Schilling teamed up with Johnson to give Arizona a devastating 1-2 punch at the front end of the rotation and the D-backs rode that combination all the way to its only World Series title in 2001.

Though it is otherwise nice, close and convienient, proof that parking at Fenway is not the best idea.

So, which pitchers put the most butts in the seats?

Proof that not all baseball trades are created equal, and, that some have little to do with the game really at all.

Heck, we've seen teams (Tigers and Indians) swap managers (Joe Gordon and Jimmy Dykes), and even players (Mike Kekich and Fritz Peterson) swap wives (Marilyn Peterson and Susan Kekich). We've seen two guys (Max Flack and Cliff Heathcote) dealt for each other between games of a doubleheader. We've seen John McDonald, Dickie Noles and Harry Chiti traded for ... themselves. (They turned out to be the "player to be named" in deals that had briefly shipped them elsewhere.)

But in terms of players dealt for inanimate objects, these are a few of our favorites:

Lefty Grove for a fence: Before he went on to win 300 games and a whopping nine ERA titles, Grove pitched seven games for the Martinsburg Mountaineers in 1920. He was sold to the Orioles in June of that season for $3,500 -- the cost to replace Martinsburg's outfield fence, which had been leveled by a storm.

Dave Winfield for dinner: The Indians thought they had acquired a valuable veteran piece for their up-and-coming lineup at the July Trade Deadline in 1994 when they landed Winfield from the Twins. Only one problem: The Players Association went on strike two weeks later, before Winfield even played a game for the Tribe. The strike wiped out the rest of the season, and the "player to be named" from the Winfield deal was never named. To settle things, Indians executives took Twins executives out for dinner. If the steak was anywhere near as good as Winfield, it must have been a heck of a meal.

Buzzy Wares for rent: The 1913 Montgomery Rebels, of the Southern Association, were kind enough to let the St. Louis Browns use their ballpark during Spring Training. When camp concluded, the Browns left behind a token of their appreciation -- Wares. The shortstop would eventually make it to the big leagues with the Browns later that year.

Johnny Johns for a live turkey: OK, the turkey was -- briefly -- an animated object. This still qualified. Johns never made it to the big leagues, but his name lives on in infamy as the player Joe Engel, "the Barnum of Baseball," traded for a turkey. Johns was a light-hitting shortstop for the Chattanooga Lookouts who had drawn the ire of the local press. So Engel sent him to the Charlotte Hornets of the Piedmont League in exchange for a 25-pound turkey that Engel had cooked for the Southern Writers' Association Dinner. The turkey, though, turned out to be a little tough, so it was decided by the press that the Hornets had gotten the better end of that deal.

Kerry Ligtenberg for bats and balls: Undrafted out of college, Ligtenberg landed with the Minneapolis Loons of the independent North Central League, pitching for $650 a month. In 1996, he was one class away from graduating from the University of Minnesota with an engineering degree and likely leaving baseball behind, but the Braves took an interest in him at the urging of Loons manager Greg Olson. The Braves signed Ligtenberg, and assistant general manager Dean Taylor offered to compensate Olson for the find. Olson was practical enough to ask for what his club really needed -- 12 dozen baseballs and two dozen bats. A steal of a deal for the Braves, for whom Ligtenberg went on to make 254 appearances over the next six seasons.

Joe Martina for oysters: Martina pitched just one season for the Washington Senators in 1924, but his name was not lost to history because of the 1921 Texas League swap in which Dallas sent him to New Orleans for two barrels of oysters. Martina was forever known as "Oyster Joe."

Cy Young for a suit: The Cleveland Spiders needed an arm, and owner Frank Robison decided to take a chance on Denton Young, who had put together a solid season with the Canton Nadjys of the Tri-State League. Young would inspire not only a great nickname ("Cy" for "Cyclone," a nod to the tenacity of his pitches) but also the game's most prestigious pitching award, named in his honor. And all it cost Robison to acquire him was about $250 or $300 (accounts vary) and a new suit for Canton's skipper.

Another in a long list of otherwise "broken" pitchers the Cards feel they can fix.  Why not, if the price was low and right for them?  They have a great track record of getting guys back on track.

So, Felix Doubront was bitching recently that he wanted to be a starter with the Red Sox. Well, I see he got his wish. Sort of. Seems the Sox don't want a malcontent around, so, they shipped him off the the Cubs for the old PTBNL.

Enjoy starting those games in Chicago Felix, and, as always, be careful with you ask for......

lol