Yesterday, I wrote up the information that David Robertson had signed with the Phillies. In my (and, I assume, everybody else’s) favourite paragraph, I discussed that a number of groups had reportedly been in on the veteran right-hander. Ken Rosenthal and Jon Heyman mixed to say curiosity from the Mets, Yankees, Pink Sox, Tigers, and “many others.” Relying in your perspective, this marked both the final We Tried of the 2025 free company interval or the primary of the commerce deadline interval. As a fast refresher, We Tried is a catch-all time period for any time we discover out, after a participant has ended up with one group, that one other group additionally tried to land them. In its purest kind, the We Tried is a entrance workplace’s bid for partial credit score, an try to curry favor with the followers by demonstrating that it’s attempting to construct a winner for them. I spent the offseason documenting each one in a disturbingly complete spreadsheet.
I didn’t make a meal of this yesterday, primarily as a result of Robertson’s free company was an actual outlier. The offseason ended months in the past. He’s a 40-year-old reliever who didn’t get a proposal he cherished, so he stayed in form and spent the spring hanging out together with his household, then held a exercise for groups on Saturday so as to signal earlier than the deadline. A lot of groups have been in on him and plenty of groups confirmed as much as watch him pitch, so phrase of who was there was sure to come back out in some unspecified time in the future. It positively represented a We Tried, however it didn’t appear earth-shattering, and it was under no circumstances a typical one.
Then I checked my telephone this morning. Each Craig Goldstein and Daniel R. Epstein of Baseball Prospectus had tagged me on an article by Tim Healey of the Boston Globe, and folk, I can verify that discovering your individuals is a superb feeling. Right here’s the headline that made Craig and Dan consider me:
It appeared like we have been veering into conventional We Tried territory. Not solely have been the Pink Sox in on Robertson, we have been getting what feels like basic team-speak about how very arduous they tried. After I first launched the idea of the tracker, the Pink Sox have been extensively predicted to be the favourite, and so they greater than lived as much as that billing. For no matter motive, the Boston entrance workplace has lengthy held a coverage of radical transparency, at the least with regards to whiffs on free brokers. This coverage predates the Craig Breslow period, however it has definitely continued underneath his steely gaze. Over the offseason, the Pink Sox led all groups with 13 We Trieds, and the Padres and the Blue Jays have been the one different groups to succeed in 9. The Pink Sox had extra We Trieds than the underside 14 groups mixed.
Realizing all that, if all you learn of Healey’s article was the headline, you’d understandably assume that this was extra of the identical, however that’s not what occurred. The Pink Sox didn’t leak it. The Phillies occurred to be enjoying the Pink Sox on Monday, and Robertson spoke to reporters within the dugout at Residents Financial institution Park earlier than the sport. The truth that the Pink Sox have been in on him had already been reported, so it was comprehensible {that a} Boston author would ask about it. Robertson confirmed that Breslow himself was on the exercise on Saturday, persevering with, “Bres is a superb man. The Boston Pink Sox are an amazing group. It didn’t work out for my household to go there this yr. It was an amazing pitch. Everyone had a very good pitch. I simply needed to go the place I felt snug and the place it felt proper for me and my household.”
That makes Robertson simply the second participant to substantiate his personal We Tried since we began this train. The primary was Carlos Santana, one other extremely regarded, closely recruited elder statesman. It appears that evidently solely when you attain your late 30s are you allowed to sound like a human being and inform the trustworthy fact about your decision-making course of throughout free company. Robertson additionally talked about that one of many causes he waited till now to signal was that he didn’t need to be moved on the deadline, revealing that he thought of retirement after the Mets traded him to the Marlins in 2023. Realizing this, I really feel duty-bound to say that the Phillies have the prospect to do the funniest factor ever. They completely shouldn’t commerce Robertson on July 31. It will be extraordinarily uncool. It will be downright merciless. However it could even be fairly humorous.
As Robertson’s state of affairs illustrates, it’s arduous to say what number of extra We Trieds we’ll see over the subsequent week and alter. The motivations and the timeframe are very completely different at this level within the season. In the course of the offseason, all people’s anticipating so as to add at the least just a few gamers, so if you whiff on one, letting your followers know that you simply have been in on them represents an implicit assurance that you simply’ll get the subsequent one. The compressed timeframe of the commerce deadline, with tons of offers being introduced at and even after the final minute, means there’s no future to reassure the followers about. It’s the final likelihood. Both you traded for somebody otherwise you didn’t, and asserting that you simply had designs on a participant who went to a different contender is extra prone to make it seem like you weren’t dedicated strongly sufficient to get the deal accomplished. It’s additionally trickier to execute a We Tried on a commerce. You don’t need to alienate your individual gamers by asserting that you simply virtually traded them away or almost acquired somebody to take their spot. You don’t need to upset different groups by asserting that they virtually traded considered one of their gamers. You don’t need to touch upon gamers or groups in your division or with whom you’ll be competing for a playoff spot.
For all of those causes, we’re not asserting a “We Tried Tracker, Commerce Deadline Version: F— It, We Ball” – at the least not but. However I will likely be holding my eyes open for We Trieds as deadline offers begin flying, and I humbly request that you simply do the identical and let me know for those who spot one. You may attain me on Bluesky and you may e-mail me at WeTriedTracker@gmail.com. As all the time, I remind you that it is a actual e-mail handle that I actually verify. On that word, whoever is chargeable for the a whole bunch of spam emails I’ve obtained, which consist virtually fully of climate updates for Cook dinner County, Illinois, and job postings addressed to a presumably fictional particular person named Michael Anderson, you’re formally useless to me.
In order that’s the place we’re. We aren’t beginning a We Tried Tracker for the commerce deadline, however we’re formally fascinated about it, so I need you to place the phrase on the market that we again up. Probably. I need you to place the phrase on the market that we might presumably be again up. I can’t say for sure that it’ll occur, however I can promise you that I’ll strive.
