Another year, another frenetic trade deadline. This year’s bonanza was light on top talent relative to recent years, but it made up for that in volume. With tight races in both leagues and plenty of teams looking to shore up clear weaknesses, it was a seller’s market, particularly when it came to pitching. Now that the dust has settled, I’m here to hand out some judgment.
These are going to be inherently subjective, but that doesn’t mean I don’t put a little rigor into my system. I’m focusing on two things here when I look at individual teams. First, and more important: Did a team’s moves match up with its needs? This is easy to gauge, and since it’s the whole point of the deadline, it carries the most wait. Second: How’d teams do on the trades they made? I think this part is inherently more subjective – there’s no unified prospect ranking or database where we can see how traded players will do the rest of the season, and we’re working with less information than teams have. That doesn’t mean I’m not crediting teams for trades I like or docking them for moves I don’t, just that I’m weighting it slightly less than the first category. Let’s dive right in.
Winners
Teams Trading Pitchers
It was a good year to have an effective pitcher on the trade block. With plenty of teams looking for rotation and bullpen help and the biggest names mostly not getting moved, the teams who dealt effective pitching all did fairly well — with one notable exception that we’ll get to later. I initially thought Houston’s trade of Jake Bloss, Joey Loperfido, and Will Wagner for Yusei Kikuchi was an outlier of a haul. I still do, but the trades that came afterward make it look more like an overpay than a complete highway robbery, because good starters were in short supply, and demand was as high as ever.
The Tigers traded right-hander Jack Flaherty for less than Kikuchi, but still got an interesting Top 100 prospect back. The Marlins got two intriguing young hitters for Trevor Rogers, who desperately needed a change of scenery. The Reds got out fielder Joey Wiemer for Frankie Montas despite the latter’s rough year.
On the reliever side of things, Tanner Scott was the clear prize of the deadline, and the Padres did Padres things by offering a bunch of their non-elite prospects for him. They did the same for Jason Adam, even kicking in a high-upside recent draftee in Dylan Lesko. The Brewers coughed up two reasonable pitching prospects for Nick Mears. The Phillies did the same for Carlos Estévez.
This was a down year in terms of the number of impact pitchers available at the deadline, and the teams who had someone to send out generally did quite well. Or, they almost all did, at least, which leads me to the next item:
St. Louis Cardinals
Erick Fedde might be the best pitcher traded this deadline when you take his contract, which keeps him around through next year, into account. He’s a solid mid-rotation arm with upside for more if his sterling command keeps up, and he’s a credible playoff starter, albeit not an imposing one. That’s the kind of pitcher that a lot of teams were in the market for. Somehow, the Cardinals got him for a song.
Tommy Edman surely has more value to the Dodgers than to the Cardinals, but he hasn’t played all year, hasn’t looked healthy in his rehab assignment, and is more of a nice complementary player than an All-Star. He’s kind of the hitting version of Fedde, only he’s not producing right now. He’s even hitting free agency at the same time and on a similar contract. The Cardinals needed pitching more than they needed hitting. And oh by the way, they even got a one-year outfield boost in old friend Tommy Pham, who clobbered a pinch-hit grand slam last night in his first game back with St. Louis.
That would already put the Cards in the winners column – they needed pitching and got it, and they managed to do so without digging into their prospect war chest. That’s lucky, because that’s basically all they did at the deadline. Their other move, Dylan Carlson for Shawn Armstrong, doesn’t really move the needle for me, though I understand the intent: They needed a fresh arm for their overworked bullpen. But even with trade deadline returns climbing back from the prospect-hugging lows, the Cardinals managed to get one of the best arms available on the market without breaking the bank.
Pittsburgh Pirates
I’m not blown away by the deals the Pirates got in trading for hitters, but who cares? They needed an offensive jolt badly, and they acquired Bryan De La Cruz, Isiah Kiner-Falefa, and Nick Yorke to see if there’s any spark there. De La Cruz lets Connor Joe move into a platoon role that suits him better than an everyday starting role. Kiner-Falefa is a luxury utility defender who raises the floor considerably for a team playing some sketchy bats in its regular lineup. Yorke will probably get a shot in the majors with Nick Gonzales on the IL, and I’m a sucker for his well-rounded offensive skillset despite his lack of a natural defensive home.
These moves aren’t blockbusters, but there just weren’t a lot of blockbusters to be had this year. Adjusted for what was available, I thought the Pirates did a good job of threading the needle. They added some offensive help this year, and even played for the future a little bit with Yorke, without giving up anyone they’re likely to miss. I feel that teams who straddle present and future are often too cute by half, but the Pirates did a good job in my eyes.
New York Mets
The Mets didn’t do anything flashy, and in many years, I’d feel like what they did wasn’t enough. But I think they read this trade market quite well and understood where they could upgrade their team in a reasonable way without messing with the long-term prospect accumulation they started in earnest last year. The Mets got one of the top available hitters, a starter who plugs right into their rotation, and bullpen depth that I’d consider both safe and high impact.
They got all of that for a relative pittance. I think Phil Maton will be one of the best handful of relievers moved this deadline, and the Mets only paid cash. Jesse Winker was the best left-handed hitter traded at the deadline – I’d take Jazz Chisholm Jr. if I were accounting for team control and defense, but Winker has comfortably out-hit him this year. (The Yankees needed Chisholm more than the Mets did, and so far that trade has worked out; he already has four home runs with his new team.) Paul Blackburn is a perfectly serviceable starter.
This is a classic case where no individual trade is overwhelming but all of the moves add together nicely. Because the Mets went after a lot of players who were the second-most-attractive pieces on teams that were looking to make multiple deals, they didn’t break the bank for anyone. It was a great display of taking what the market gives you while still looking to meaningfully improve.
Losers
Chicago White Sox
What the heck was going on here? The Sox had a monopoly on top-flight talent available at the trade deadline. They had the best pitcher and hitter for this year in Garrett Crochet and Luis Robert Jr. Sure, Crochet was always going to be tricky to trade because of his innings limitations, but these were the players teams around the league coveted most. They also had Fedde, who combines performance and team control like few other pitchers available at the deadline. Somehow they didn’t trade their most attractive players and then got the least enticing return of any pitcher dealt when they traded Fedde.
I’m sure that there’s some kind of plan going on here, but I don’t get it. The White Sox got very little to improve their farm system even though they badly needed to do something. They traded Eloy Jiménez for absolutely nothing other than salary relief, and not even that much salary relief given that his contract contains only team options after this year. They dealt Michael Kopech and Tommy Pham as throw-ins in the Fedde trade.
I think we’ll look back at this deadline as a time when contending teams started to emerge from their prospect-biased shells a little bit and focused on improving however they could, even if sellers were asking for more than they were in recent years. Yet, somehow, the team with the most to offer and the bleakest short-term outlook didn’t capitalize on that new direction. It’s head-scratching for sure.
Tampa Bay Rays
This one is going to be controversial, but I feel like the Rays gave up a lot without getting Rays-level value in return. Randy Arozarena and Isaac Paredes have been key parts of the Rays’ offense for years now, and they’re both under team control for several more years. These are the kinds of players who historically fuel the Rays. They were both acquired for a relative pittance, they’ve both been phenomenally valuable, and generally speaking, the team waits for a relative high point in valuation before swapping current performers for future ones.
Maybe I’m just wrong on this, but I think that the Rays missed the mark on both of these trades. I don’t think they got full value for either of their hitters, and I also don’t think they’ve set themselves up to be competitive in 2025 without some other additions. I like the Jason Adam trade — going after the Padres’ remaining stockpile of prospects before A.J. Preller sent them all away was good business — but if these were the best offers for All-Star hitters who can help out long into the future, why trade them?
The Rays ethos isn’t really about trading for trading’s sake; it’s about getting players who are undervalued by the league and giving them a chance to shine. The trade packages that netted Arozarena and Paredes suggest that they’re both still undervalued, so what are we doing here? The Rays know that they can get excellent seasons out of those guys. If Christopher Morel pans out perfectly, he’s probably the next Isaac Paredes, and he’s not even under team control for much longer than Paredes. The Rays badly need offensive firepower, and instead they dealt away the few impact batters they had without getting a crazy return. I just don’t get it, even adjusting for the fact that they are the Rays.
Pitching-Needy Contenders
There was at least a chance that this deadline was going to see Tarik Skubal and Garrett Crochet on the move. They are both rotation-topping starters, and you’d feel comfortable sending them out there in the first game of a playoff series (give or take Crochet’s contractual demands, which I would make if I were in his position, for sure). But the Tigers and White Sox (and even the Giants with Blake Snell) ended up standing pat, which means that teams looking for aces were out of luck.
Flaherty, Kikuchi, Fedde, and Rogers are playoff starters, but even those guys have question marks. Only a few relievers feel like lockdown options. This deadline was just light on impact talent, and there were a lot of teams who could’ve badly used an ace starter or dominant closer. Teams with good offenses and pitching problems were frozen out this July.
Too Soon To Tell
Improving Contenders
The Astros and Padres made some aggressive trades, sending out top-of-market returns for the players they got back. The industry consensus is that both teams gave up too much for the necessary improvements they were making. I agree with that consensus. But I’m also realistic enough to know that I’m not an all-knowing arbiter of prospect talent, and none of the players going out are sure things. They’re mostly mid-round draft picks who have seen their value climb meaningfully in recent years or speculative pitchers who haven’t yet gotten results.
Meanwhile, the teams went out and got their targets to improve their rosters in the way they wanted. They did so despite the context of a very fallow trade deadline. I don’t think I would have done what either team did, but I don’t think either made obviously awful moves. They each went in the right direction, and the question is just how aggressive they had to be in doing so. I’ll take that over inaction despite a clear need for improvement any day.
The Mariners are in a slightly different boat, because I’m pretty sure their moves were all good. I’m just not sure whether they were enough. I was hoping for a slightly bigger swing on the offensive side after they got Arozarena, but it’s not like they missed out on a ton of good hitters who got traded. I wish they’d done more, but I like what they did do, so that gives them a similar grade.
Retools
The Marlins and Blue Jays did a decent amount of selling, and I liked what both teams got back. The Marlins went for quantity over quality, which makes sense given the shape of their system. They were extremely thin all the way down, and now they have a lot more interesting young players than they did a week ago. Honestly, they might belong in winners, but I already threw enough names in there and I think that some of their down-roster reliever trades left something on the table. Either way, I’m excited to see what the farm system looks like by next year.
The Blue Jays made a statement by keeping both Vladimir Guerrero Jr. and Bo Bichette. They dealt largely from their stash of players who will hit free agency after this year, but they got great returns on the trades they did make. I’m not sure what to make of this middle option; it’ll depend on how they complement their roster this offseason. If this deadline was a prelude to signing one or both of their stars to extensions, I’ll think the Jays did right by not trading them. If they sit on their hands, they’ll regret their relative inaction this week. But either way, it’s too soon to tell how this will pan out.
I could probably keep going on both sides. I liked Washington’s approach to selling, and the Cubs’ approach to opportunistically adding. I liked the Brewers doing Brewer things, and thought the Rangers and Giants chose strange paths. But these are my high-level views of who did best and worst at the deadline, accounting both for position in the 2024 playoff picture and future considerations. I’m anxious to see how these views pan out – and also anxious to take a nice long bath and relax for a few days after this frenzy.
