The month leading up to last Tuesday’s trade deadline, rumors had dominated the sport of baseball. Coming into deadline day, there were 16 Major League Baseball teams who still had more than a 25% chance of making the postseason, per Fangraphs. With all those teams looking to make key additions to their rosters ahead of a final playoff push, a total of 68 trades were made since the start of July, involving well over 200 players, including Pitman High alum Kade Morris.

One minor league ballclub significantly impacted by this year’s trade deadline was the Modesto Nuts, the Single-A affiliate of the Seattle Mariners. The Mariners, who are 59-54 and are in sole possession of first place  in the American League West coming into Tuesday, made four trades in July to bolster the big league roster. Those trades came at the cost of four players that had been playing in Modesto — outfielder Aidan Smith, catcher Jacob Sharp and pitchers Brody Hopkins and Will Schomberg.

Smith and Hopkins were packaged together to the Tampa Bay Ray organization on July 26 in a move that brought All-Star outfielder Randy Aronzarena to Seattle. Later that day, Sharp was sent alongside former Nut and current Triple-A outfielder Jonathan Clase to the Blue Jays in exchange for relief pitcher Yimi Garcia. And just minutes before the deadline of 3 p.m. PST Tuesday, Schomber was dealt to the Miami Marlins for reliever JT Chargois.

Second-year Modesto manager Zach Vincej described the trades as “the weird part of the business,” but that the moves can truly benefit each party involved.

“It's something where we have to keep reminding the guys that it's a part of the business. It's nothing that they did wrong or anything, it's more of a positive for those guys,” Vincej said Tuesday at John Thurman Field. “Especially for Aidan and Brody, those guys were a huge part of our team and they really opened up some eyes this year. I told them right when they got traded, ‘You did everything that you can to try to make it to the big leagues with the Mariners, but at the end of the day… it really opened up their eyes (to) what the business is like.

“I see it as a bittersweet moment. It stings for us because we lose two really good players and really good people, but at the same time, it's probably an awesome opportunity for them to keep progressing in their careers.”

Smith was Seattle’s fourth-round pick (124 overall)  in the 2023 MLB Draft, and had settled in nicely in Modesto, batting .284 (84-for-296) with 26 doubles, 9 home runs, 52 walks, 42 RBI and 28 stolen bases. The 20-year-old helped the Nuts win the California League title last year.  Hopkins, meanwhile, had a stellar 2.90 ERA in 83 2/3 innings over 18 starts this year after being selected in sixth-round (187 overall) in last year’s draft. Both their efforts helped Modesto win this year’s California League Northern Division first-half championship.

With Smith and Jopkins being traded four days before the deadline, Vincej found himself in the unique situation of having to calm the nerves of others in the clubhouse. He said there was a noticeable change in the clubhouse once the moves were made public.

“Once the news broke out about Aidan and Brody, it was the next day and I approached the team. ‘There's the elephant in the room. Here's the dilemma that we have going on.’ And so we talked about it and we said all the same things that I'm saying now — only worry about the controllables, and it's the business of the game,” he said.

He believes the message was especially important to relay to the team since many of them are young adults and are subject to seeing their names pop up in trade rumors across social media platforms.

“I don't really look at that stuff (rumors) that often. I have a job to do at the end of the day, and it's to get these guys better, to make sure that they're getting 1% better every single day,” Vincej said. “I'm sure they see it. They see Twitter feeds, they see all the news going out, but we try to remind them, those are things that you can't control. The things that we can control are the things that we focus on a daily basis: How are we going about our routines? How are we preparing for the games each day? What are we learning each and every day? So we try to remind them of that. I know it's very, very hard at times. It will creep in your mind… But they're young, they need to learn to focus on the controllables. And if they don't, then they're going to put themselves in a weird spot moving forward.”

The deadline was also a wake-up call for the players in terms of the scouting operations of teams from around the league.

“You're not only playing for the Mariners, but you're also playing for 29 other teams as well. That's a big eye opener for them, too, because they don't realize how many scouts and how many general managers come to the game that are part of other organizations. They're looking for trades. They're looking for guys all the time. There's always somebody watching and I tried to tell them that. I think they had a really good shock from that from these trades.

“We also have to remember that when we make these trades, it's also making our big league team better at the end of the day, potentially. Here, we get an awesome player in Randy Arozarena and a couple of key pieces in the pen that could put us over the top to make it to the playoffs and be a contender. That's the thing that all coaches need to realize, too. We got Aidan Smith and Brody, interesting enough, to be put into a cool trade like that.”

The Modesto Nuts are currently 58-42 on the season and play host to the Visalia Rawhide this week at John Thurman Field.