Its finally here! The MLB trade deadline is upon us. It was a busy weekend with several trades finalized, while others hit a roadblock. Keep in mind players will still be changing uniforms in August as the next focus will be players clearing waivers, and therefore, being eligible to be dealt.But Monday isnt all about trades, as there are games to be played, too. So lets prepare for Mondays short evening slate with matchup ratings for every contest.PitchingEliteStephen Strasburg boasts a sterling 14-1 record with a 2.68 ERA and 0.99 WHIP, but the most impressive aspect of his 2016 campaign is averaging a career high 6 2/3 innings per start. This has the direct impact of more DFS points from whiffs and innings as well as helping increase win potential. In seasonal leagues, it adds to the influence of his ratios on your team total. Monday should be another healthy strikeout night as the host Arizona Diamondbacks fan at an above average 23 percent clip against righties. Strasburg is the clear top option for those not afraid to pay for pitching.Chris Archer still lacks the consistency intrinsic to an ace, so despite elite peripherals, his ranking is greatly influenced by the opponent and venue. Facing the Kansas City Royals checks two of the three relevant boxes as the contest will be in pitcher-friendly Tropicana Field with the visitors toting an attack that is well below average. The only shortcoming is the fact that the Royals fan at a league average rate, thus dont offer added strikeout potential. Still, Archers 10.7 K/9 is plenty dominant to make him a contrarian option to Chalk-burg. Plus, the Rays are sneakily effective versus left-handed slants, and the Royals will be handing the hill to southpaw Danny Duffy, increasing the odds of a win for Archer.SolidDanny Salazars projected game score may be lower than Archers but chances are DFS sites will price the Cleveland Indians?righty higher based on a superior ERA. The Tribe welcomes the Minnesota Twins to Progressive Field for the opener of an AL Central set. On paper, this puts Salazar in a great spot -- and he is -- just keep in mind the visitors have hit righties harder the past month. That said, Salazar still sets up in between Strasburg and Archer for DFS purposes. Relative to Archer, Salazar has more GPP upside while Archers matchup is a little safer.Kyle Hendricks is a DFS tweener. Run prevention isnt the issue. Its more that hes not dominant enough to rack up the plentiful strikeouts for GPP play, nor does he toss ample innings to be a cash game staple. Part of the problem is his excellent 2.39 ERA fuels a high DFS salary meaning bang-for-the-buck is difficult to achieve. It really comes down to Hendricks likelihood to grab the win and how much that matters on your DFS site of choice. With Hendricks facing Tom Koehler and the Miami Marlins in Wrigley Field, the Chicago Cubs will be heavy favorites, putting Hendricks in play, especially for cash games.Jimmy Nelson hasnt taken the next step as many expected this season, fanning fewer and walking more than last year. However, with a date in Petco Park against the San Diego Padres, the Milwaukee Brewers?righty is in play, as the Friars strike out at a 25 percent clip with a right-hander on the bump.StreamersStruggling pitchers alter their mechanics all the time. Sometimes the change is effective, other times not so much. Since Eduardo Rodriguez was recalled from Triple-A after working to stop tipping pitches, the results have been encouraging, as he has tossed 17 2/3 frames with 15 whiffs to only six free passes. It should also be noted hes reintroducing the slider to his arsenal with positive results. Starting Rodriguez on the road is a risk, but hell be in Safeco Field, facing a Seattle Mariners club where hell hold the platoon edge over the better hitters.Though he has struggled since, Jarred Cosart is just two years removed from a solid 2014 campaign in which he tossed over 180 innings split between the Astros and Marlins, winning 13 games with a 3.69 ERA. The Padres must believe they can get the 26-year old righty back to that level and are throwing him right out there, with his Friars debut coming against the weak-hitting Brewers. Grabbing a guy like Cosart for a spot start in these favorable conditions helps get your head-to-head week off to a fast start.Logan Verrett has quietly done a nice job for the New York Mets since entering the rotation, working at least six stanzas in three of his four starts, allowing three or fewer runs over the last three. The New York Yankees will make the bus ride to Citi Field for an interleague tussle. With CC Sabathia on the hill for the visitors, another six-inning effort should have Verrett in play for the win.AvoidIn part because its an abbreviated docket, theres not a pitcher worthy of a true avoid on the schedule. Doug Fister slips into the standard avoid game score range based on a lack of strikeouts in combination with facing the powerful Toronto Blue Jays in Minute Maid Park with the inviting Crawford Boxes. There have been slates where that wouldnt even register as one of the five worst spots. The other tenuous scenario is Jose Berrios being recalled to face Tyler Duffey taking on the Cleveland Indians. The rookie is still a top prospect but struggled with his initial foray into the bigs back in late April, early May. The Tribe may not have acquired Jonathan Lucroy, but its obvious the club is riding the citys wave and is in go-for-it mode. They hit right-handers hard, so Berrios is best left on the fantasy sidelines.HittingMuch the same way the guy who makes the great defensive play always seems to lead off the next inning, the offenses facing the pitchers to avoid always seem to lead off the hitting section. Progressive Field is quietly favorable for lefty power, putting the lefty-swinging contingent of the Cleveland Indians in a great spot. Jason Kipnis, Lonnie Chisenhall and Tyler Naquin are pure lefties while Carlos Santana, Francisco Lindor and Jose Ramirez are switch hitters wholl step into the left-handed box against Berrios, who surrendered five dingers in his initial 15 frames.A full-on stack versus Fister feels like a trap since, despite his inability to miss bats, he throws a heavy ball thats hard to elevate out of the yard. The Toronto Blue Jays score a healthy 46 percent of their runs via the long ball. The safer play is to pick out one or two Jays and hope they catch a hanger. The most likely to run into a long ball are the usual suspects: Josh Donaldson, Edwin Encarnacion, Jose Bautista and Troy Tulowitzki. Just dont put all your eggs in the Toronto basket.Stacking either the Mets or the Yankees seems aggressive, but using a hitter or two from each side could be fruitful. Sabathias struggles with right-handers continue, putting the Mets Yoenis Cespedes, Wilmer Flores, Travis dArnaud and newly acquired Justin Ruggiano in play. Verrett doesnt exhibit appreciable splits, but it still makes sense to focus on the lefty swinging Jacoby Ellsbury, Brett Gardner and Brian McCann from the Bronx visitors.Most likely to go yard: The next homer Kipnis hits will set a career-high mark. Theres a good chance it comes Monday night against Berrios.Most likely to swipe a bag: The San Diego Padres will have to play even more small ball to score runs, putting the onus on leadoff hitter Travis Jankowski to make things happen. 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Authentic College Football Jerseys .J. -- Marty Brodeur beat the Pittsburgh Penguins yet again.NATIONAL HARBOR, Md. -- The prospects keep flying out the revolving door. But Dave Dombrowski doesnt care.He didnt come to Boston to pile up names on Keith Laws Top 50 prospects list. He didnt come to Boston to help his good friends in Pawtucket, Rhode Island, finish first in the International League.He came to Boston to spray champagne and ride the duck boats, as confetti floats out of the New England sky. And if that means paying a price that the other baseball decision-makers of his era are too cautious to pay, then guess what?Dave Dombrowski doesnt care.And so, on the day he gave up four more good-to-great young players to add Chris Sale to a star-studded Red Sox rotation, he justified that cost in eight simple words: We feel its a chance to win now.Win now. If his wife doesnt give him a win now T-shirt for Christmas, shes missing the easiest gift-buying opening of all time. Win now. Its now, more than ever, what Dombrowski is all about.This is what Dave Dombrowski was brought there for, one rival AL executive said Tuesday, as he and his peers around baseball did their best to digest this whopper of a deal. He was brought in there to take a good team with a good system and push them over the edge. And thats what hes done. This is a really good team.Wow. No kidding. And how good are they?Put it this way, the same executive said with a laugh. I think a lot of teams in the American League just went into sell mode now that they see the Red Sox are in go-for-it mode.Hey, did someone just say go for it? Those would be the president of baseball operations magic words, you understand, because nobody goes for it like Dave Dombrowski. At least not in the times we live in.Just in one day in December, he traded for Sale, made a deal for an impact reliever (Tyler Thornburg) and signed a free-agent first baseman/DH (Mitch Moreland). So if you sometimes look at Dombrowski and feel like hes a team-builder out of another era, youre not the only one.Hes not afraid, said a fellow we know as Trader Jack McKeon, now a special assistant to the owner in Miami but once a GM who used to dominate the winter meetings of the 1980s the way Dombrowski does now. If you want to make deals, youve got to gamble. Youve got to have a plan. When I came into San Diego, I had a plan to go get Joe Carter. Everyone said, You cant get him. I said, The hell I cant get him. One thing I learned from Charlie Finley -- if you need a piece, sometimes youve got to overpay. And thats what this guy is willing to do.But thats not what most GMs are willing to do here in the 21st century. They study. They analyze. They crunch the numbers. They crunch them again. And then they weigh whether their equity equals the equity coming back, according to the latest spreadsheets.Not that theres anything wrong with that. But its still refreshing to see a guy like Dombrowski who is still willing to charge into the nearest Neiman Marcus, plop down his credit card and say, This is what I want. Just tell me where to sign.What Dave has clearly shown over the years, said the AL exec quoted earlier, is that when he has the match [on a deal] and the match clearly makes his team better, hes not afraid of the players he has to give up. Hes going to make that deal.Everyone in this day and age is so tied up with the value of the player. But Dave doesnt look at it like everyone else. If it makes his team better, he doesnt let stuff like whos got one more year of control affect him. He doesnt let the minutiae affect him, is what Im saying. Hes not going to let the little things stand in the way.Maybe youre thinking right now thats how you run your fantasy team. But recognize this. Its not how most GMs run their real-life baseball teams. So when someone comes along like this, he is opening up himself to a level of second-guessing -- by fans, by prospect junkies, by social-media geniuses everywhere -- that not everyone is willing tto live with.ddddddddddddBut have we mentioned lately that Dave Dombrowski doesnt care?Its a huge deal to make, one NL executive said Tuesday. That town will be fired up. And their depth of starting pitching now is incredible. But to keep blowing through prospects the way they have, with the way trades are evaluated now by everyone in the world, there will be blowback. In the short term, theyre really, really good. But in three or four years, when they have to reach for young players to replenish, theyre not going to be there. So there is a cost.So if this fearless casting for the biggest fish in the pond doesnt bring another parade or three for Dombrowski and his team, he is going to hear about that cost. But what has made this guy one of the best executives of his time? He doesnt hear that noise. He isnt intimidated by that blowback.What was his mission? His mission was to win now. So whats the problem here?In baseball, four years down the road is an eternity in many ways, Dombrowski said Tuesday. So you need to take advantage of that opportunity. Nothings guaranteed in life. If you make these moves, it doesnt guarantee that youre going to win. But I think you just keep taking a chance. You keep going for it as much as you possibly can. And hopefully, it works for you some day.He rolled these same dice in Detroit and never did win a World Series. But it tells you all you need to know about him, that what happened to him at his last stop clearly hasnt scarred him at all. And its rare to find that strength of purpose in his line of work.I think theres some credence to that old saying, Flags fly forever, the AL exec said. So I give Dave a lot of credit. Hes not afraid of what somebody might say three, four, five years from now. To win a championship, this is just the gamble you take. If you end up on the top of the heap, you dont have to worry about what you gave up. And if you dont, you have to wear it. But Dave is never afraid to wear it.In his latest blockbuster, Dombrowski gave up two potential stars in Yoan Moncada and Michael Kopech, plus two other intriguing young players in Luis Basabe and Victor Diaz. He has unloaded a slew of the top 20 prospects he inherited 15 months ago.But think of it this way. What does he have to show for it? Probably the best rotation in the American League. Thats what.Sale ranks first among all active American League pitchers in career WHIP (1.01). His new top-of-the-rotation co-star, David Price, ranks second (1.14). Theyre also 1-2 in Fielding Independent Pitching. And they rank first and third, respectively, in career ERA and strikeout-to-walk ratio.So thatll work. And we should probably add that their, ahem, No. 3 starter,?Rick Porcello, just won the Cy Young Award.But you should also think of what Dombrowski did this way: He controls Sale and Porcello for the next three years, Price for the next six years and most of his best young position players for the next three to five years. So where were all of his hot prospects going to play anyhow?They didnt have room for all those guys, one assistant GM said. And thats what gets lost here. Not all those prospects are going to actually play on your club. ... People forget that young major leaguers are more valuable than prospects. And the Red Sox have more of those good young major leaguers than just about anyone. And you dont have to wonder about them, because theyre already in the big leagues.So as happy as the Chicago White Sox might be with their haul -- a package every scout and executive I surveyed liked better than Washingtons offer for Sale, by the way -- just remember this:Dave Dombrowski doesnt care.To win, said Trader Jack McKeon, youve gotta wheel and deal.And on Tuesday, one of the great wheelers and dealers of his time struck again. ' ' '