Another deadline is in the books, but this one felt…different. Between Tarik Skubal getting traded leading to fan (and league) tension as teams navigate the looming forecasted lockout, this will go down as an unforgettable deadline. So, what follows? Who are the favorites? We’ll get to it all, starting with the runway that the week before set up.
7/25: Boston and Washington go 1-for-1 in Splash Deal
Late into the night, Boston and Washington got the deadline train rolling with a huge player-for-player trade with Boston taking on the red hot Curtis Mead
from the Nats, flipping left-handed pitcher, Connelly Early, to get the deal done.
INITIAL REACTION: Mead was DFA’d by the White Sox and traded for almost nothing to the Nationals just months prior. Now, he’s moved for a consensus top-50 prospect. Prior to Mead breaking his wrist in his first game in Boston, I felt like this was a strange utilization of Early’s value to begin with. Early, while dealing with an arm issue, pitched excellently down the stretch last season, and then followed it up with a solid start to 2026. Early was a widely regarded top-50 prospect in baseball prior to graduating this season.
Mead had shown one half of a season of good baseball thus far in his career, and it was this first half. The simple answer is that Washington unlocked the potential of a former top prospect because that’s essentially what happened. Pull the ball, kids! Regardless of that, it’s a huge gamble to place the future quality potential of Connelly Early on the table for Mead. That being said, once Mead gets healthy, he will be a solid utility piece for Boston who will especially thrive at Fenway.
Back to Boston. Early felt like the big fish to be had this deadline as Boston had made him available, and it felt like Breslow jumped at the first capable bat instead of waiting this out. Boston has developed and traded for pitching exceptionally well, with quality depth across their minor leagues as well. While Mead is under team control through 2030, Boston is pushing chips in to win now, this felt like a suboptimal use of their best MLB-ready trade chip, and one of the best MLB-ready trade chips in baseball.
7/29: Rangers snag relief help, reclamation project
INITIAL REACTION: Rangers went searching for relief help, and Silseth appeared. Texas also takes on Logan O’Hoppe here, a once promising catcher who has fallen on hard times (he won’t be the last one of those we discuss!). We’ll start with Chase Silseth, the prize of this trade. Silseth is nasty, under team control through 2030, and will slot into a Rangers bullpen that has some solid pieces but is overall below average. Silseth’s fastball, splitter, and sweeper are all running whiff rates north of 30% this season, and the only real knock this season has been occasional command issues. O’Hoppe is a throw-in letting the Angels shed some future arbitration salary. Texas has already sent him to Triple-A, and if he can’t show serious progress, he’s a major non-tender candidate as his arbitration price tag for next season will be hefty.
The Angels’ return here is interesting. Arredondo is a glove-first shortstop with quality contact skills and borderline 20-grade power capabilities. It’s not an outwardly bad return, but given Silseth’s stuff, it should have been more. Arredondo has a sub-100 mph EV90, significantly below average, and he’s already suffered a serious shoulder injury, a precursor to power development hinderance. Again, not a terrible return, but if this was the best they could do to get O’Hoppe off the books, it’s very underwhelming.
7/30: Twins established as buyers, snag Minter
INITIAL REACTION: The Twins, for some reason, are buying. Your guess is as good as mine. Despite this, they made a good move here. Just a game out of the Wild Card, Minnesota snags lefty specialist, AJ Minter, from the Mets. Minter has been terrific as the three batter minimum’s evolution of a LOOGY (left-handed one out guy) this season. The Twins are chasing the Guardians, who can’t hit lefties, and Minnesota badly needed a leverage lefty arm besides Rogers, and as a rental, Minnesota didn’t have to give up much of consequence.
The Mets get Billy Amick, a third baseman who strongly profiles for 1B now, rather than later. Amick went from a contact bat with big whiff problems to a power bat with untenable whiff problems (38.4% in AA), but in year one of a newer approach, Amick has begun pulling the ball in the air at a high rate and slugged 24 home runs prior to the trade. The other piece of this trade is son of former Met, Benny Agbayani, Bruin. Agbayani is a contact-first, low power threshold shortstop who was running a 94% zone-contact rate in A-ball.
7/31: Twins pay high price for Dean Kremer…?
INITIAL REACTION: Let’s play which weighs more: in one hand sits Dean Kremer’s splitter, a capable swing-and-miss pitch, and his ability to suck up some innings which might help Minnesota down the stretch here. In the other hand is a fastball and sinker-led profile that’s running an xwOBACON pushing .500, a teammate who has been caught multiple times showing up his teammates on the field, including Pete Alonso and Samuel Basallo, and an ERA north of 6.00.
Well, at least Minnesota didn’t give up mu…I’m sorry what’s that? They gave up an outfielder who just posted a 17% barrel rate and 108.7 EV90 as an 18 year-old on the Complex as a lottery ticket? Who, with a hot final two months could see T100 consideration?
FanDuel still has the Twins as extreme underdogs to win the AL Central (+650) and even longer odds at making the postseason (+1300). These deals do not do anything to help.
Oops.
8/1: And we’re off…
Guardians send off Bo to Brewers, snag Yoho in return
INITIAL REACTION: …are the Brewers gonna do it again…? Naturally, fear trekked down my spine. Jake Bauers, Jesus Aguilar ring any bells? No? Okay, me either…
Milwaukee will see Bo as a solid defensive, athletic backstop with a smooth swing who routinely underperformed his expected stats. Under the hood, Naylor should be so much better. The reality was he routinely fell short offensively and defensively. Milwaukee also snags Codi Heuer here, a depth relief piece who never really got much time in Cleveland.
Cleveland has a real chance to get a big win here. Craig Yoho is a solid reliever with potential to be very good. Yoho adjusted his four-seam grip to a true two-seam grip to throw a more natural sinker, ditching his four-seamer entirely, and it’s paid off well. Prior to 7/20, Yoho was still primarily throwing his fastball with a 4-seam grip over 32% of the time. Since then, he’s thrown it 5% of the time with the sinker completely taking over. The sinker generates better drop and tunnels better with his outlier, freakish changeup, and now Cleveland gets to figure out what the sweeper holds.
Ideally Cleveland is not done at this point…hopefully.
Pirates buy low on Doval
INITIAL REACTION: Good deal for both sides? The Yankees badly needed to get Doval away from Aaron Boone. They no longer have to feel compelled to go to the flamethrower who can’t prevent runs late in games. The Pirates, on the flip side, are buying low on what was once a good reliever, and they’re going to hope they can take the final stretch this season to correct some issues to get him ready for next season(?).
The Yankees get back Omar Alfonzo, a Rule-5 eligible catcher who is pretty fringy here. The real interesting piece here is Luis Cruz, a lanky outfielder with capable bat-to-ball skills. The Yankees are banking on physical development to bring along some power to his profile. Overall, this is about all New York could expect, and I think they did well enough.
Braves add short-side platoon in Thomas
INITIAL REACTION: I’ll keep this one short and sweet. Right-handed hitters are going to be at a premium price this deadline. They simply are scarce. The Braves, badly needing a right-handed outfield bat, found one in Lane Thomas. A near 50% hard-hit rate against lefties with a big air-pull approach, and they gave up two pitchers in Braun and Holton who have subpar stuff and can’t get whiffs. Kansas City did not realize they had a bigger chip until it was too late.
Pale Sox add innings eater in Seattle salary dump
INITIAL REACTION: A good deal for both sides here. Castillo is far from his old self, and the White Sox were willing to eat the salary just to get some help in the rotation. In doing so, the big piece they part with here Seranthony Dominguez, their big bullpen signing who hasn’t quite lived up to the money. For Seattle, they don’t get much in return, but they trade from immense starting pitching depth and shed over $31,000,000 owed to Castillo (and possibly more), who had met his decline sharply, especially against left-handed hitters. Seattle gets a living, breathing outfield piece in Nolan Jones, Boston Smith, a catcher walking over 20% of the time in Double-A, and Dominguez, who will slot into the middle innings of a very solid bullpen that’s top five in baseball in ERA.
Tigers bite the bullet, move Skubal to Los Angeles
INITIAL REACTION: It finally happened, and naturally it’s the Dodgers. Detroit, the season’s biggest underachievers in a landslide, moved their prized ace and reigning two-time Cy Young winner, Tarik Skubal late at night. In return, the Dodgers land Zyhir Hope, a near consensus top-40 prospect, River Ryan, an older prospect for a few reasons who possesses some of the best stuff across the minor leagues, and Brady Smith, a right-handed pitcher.
I’ve seen a lot of bad faith talk about this trade. This is where I stand. As you can tell by the B- grade, I like this return for Detroit.
It’s among the heaviest packages ever given up for a rental player, let alone arm. Yes, a rental. That’s key here. This is not quite Tarik Skubal of old, but he’s still good. Skubal’s fastball is down a full tick as you can see here, thanks to TJStats, and from start to start, that can fluctuate even further. He still gets plenty of swing and miss, and if a team is going to find more even after the injury, it will be the Dodgers, but for a rental arm with questionable medicals, to say the least, they gave up a pretty penny to get it done. Now, that’s not to say Detroit couldn’t have done better with LA. Sirota and De Paula are still safe and sound atop this system, as is Zazueta, but it doesn’t sound like the competition was very fierce. Milwaukee and Tampa Bay are reportedly among teams scared away by Skubal’s medicals which, for a 2.5 month rental, doesn’t seem like a huge issue unless they see his arm as a ticking time bomb right now.
At the end of the day, the Dodgers aren’t making moves unless it can help their championship odds. Skubal is one of the few pieces who do. Over at FanDuel, their odds have increased up to +160, ridiculous odds given the sport we’re playing here, but that’s where we’re at. Yamamoto-Skubal-Ohtani-Snell-Glasnow. Wow.
8/2: Arms, arms, arms
Braves snag Mahle
INITIAL REACTION: The Braves get what they needed here, and that’s some rotation extending innings from an arm they think they can rework into his old self. They give up next to nothing here, but the Giants at least get something mildly interesting in return with 24 year-old Anthony Molina. Molina’s stuff has improved a bit recently with a reliever’s arsenal. Again, Mahle underwhelmed pretty heavily with the Giants, so any level of return would have just been welcomed.
Yankees snag biggest bat available for arms
INITIAL REACTION: Luis Garcia Jr. chases a lot, but he also leads the NL in SLG and thrives when he pulls the ball. Now, he will be in Yankee Stadium pulling the ball. Easy win for the Yankees, who can now platoon Garcia with Goldschmidt and let Ben Rice DH full-time. A good lineup in need of someone in the middle of it without Judge got their guy. In return, the Nats got four arms: relievers Yovanny Cruz and Jake Bird, and prospects Ben Grable and Jack Cebert.
Cruz is the immediate helper here. He’s looked dominant in Triple-A and in his short stint with the Yankees, averaging 100 on his fastball with a 90 mph slider to pair with it. Cruz was running a whiff rate north of 40% across his entire arsenal in Triple-A. Jake Bird is a reclamation throw-in for a bullpen in immediate need of help. Washington is closer to contending than most and believe in their ability to replace Garcia’s bat, but arms is where they’ve been hurt the most, so this kind of a swing makes sense here. Grable is also a reliever with big stuff who has dominated Double-A. Cebert is the lone starter here, and he also possesses big stuff. He needs to clean up some things mechanically, but he has good potential.
This is a good return for the Nats, but it does feel light. Garcia Jr. comes with 1.5 years of control and big SLG ability, and while the Nats revitalized their future bullpen here, they could have squeezed more out here. The Yankees come out of this with +600 odds to reach the World Series, per FanDuel.
Rays miss out on Skubal, snag rental Peralta
INITIAL REACTION: I love this for the Rays, what a rebound from not landing Skubal. Yes, Peralta has not been typical Freddy Peralta, but he’s going back to the confines of a dome (the dome boost is real, folks). Peralta has just has had a brutal year. All that being said, his 4.99 ERA is over a full run above his xERA of 3.79, and his stuff is still very good. His usage is still largely the same, but again, a dome bump does wonders, just ask Bryan Woo. I am all in on this move. Great snag from Tampa Bay, they needed another top third of rotation arm.
For the Mets, the return mirrors Peralta’s season for them. Underwhelming. Gill Hill is a groundball creator on the mound with little whiff capability, Smith is an outfield prospect whose swing mechanics are leading to struggles with velocity, and Emilien Pitre, the prize of this return, has great contact skills and approach but 30-grade power.
Cubs dip into pitching market, nab Gausman
INITIAL REACTION: Another good rental haul, and this may be the best of the bunch outside of Skubal. Gausman is still quite good, the Cubs were in dire need of pitching, and they gave up two glove-first, contact centered profiles to get it. Gausman still induces a ton of chase, above average whiff, and the 4-seam/splitter combo is still nasty. The Cubs were needing not just more starter innings, but innings from someone they can start in a postseason game, and Gausman fits the bill across all fronts.
8/3: Deadline Day
Arraez to Philly, moving parts to follow
INITIAL REACTION: Arraez and relief help benefit the Phillies, but where does he play? It sounds like Harper is moving back to the outfield, which is…a decision, and Alec Bohm moves to 1B. The Phillies now go from Harper’s power at 1B to the worst 1B production in baseball. Again, lots of moving parts here. Arraez’s bat presents quality contact ability and more notably, little swing and miss, something that has plagued Philadelphia’s postseason runs.
I love this return for the Giants. Ramon Marquez is a fringe-top 100 prospect in baseball (he’s in mine). He possesses a good sinker that acts more like a 2-seamer that generates good run without sacrificing vertical pace, but the plus changeup and good command are what highlight this profile. Gair is a reliever with an extreme overtop release and huge vertical fastball. It sits 98, touches 100, and borders on double-plus. San Francisco flipped their pitching depth within the system through the draft. They’ve now bolstered it in a huge way.
Phillies get badly needed relief help, nab Raley from Queens
INITIAL THOUGHTS: The Phillies needed bullpen help yesterday, and they were in even bigger need for a lefty. Enter the most prominent LOOGY equivalent arm this deadline, Brooks Raley. It’s a rental, but the Phillies needed this in the worst way.
The Mets get outfielder John Spikerman, a contact/speed/defense prospect whose speed is true double-plus, and RHP Luke Gabrysh, a sidearm starter who has good stuff and has seen a spike in strikeout stuff this season. The Mets do very well here considering it’s a divisional move. Gabrysh has reliever risk, but the stuff works well, and if he can continue to improve command, starting until he can’t isn’t off the table here.
M’s need OF help, get Ward
INITIAL REACTION: The profile overhaul for Ward scares me. In with passivity and higher OBP, out with the SLG. How much does Wall-timore contribute to this? Time will tell, but given how flawed the Mariners are offensively, bringing in a flawed bat like Ward is a terrifying premise. Do we trust he can rekindle power in one of the hardest home parks to slug in? I don’t.
In return, Baltimore nets reliever Alex Hoppe, a big velo/stuff reliever who Baltimore sees as someone they can get more strikes out of, Harrison Kreiling who hasn’t thrown a ton of innings, and Brock Moore, a reliever with a plus fastball and quality slider who has some funk to his motion. Baltimore does well here.
Jays shock everyone, trade Nimmala for Jose Soriano
INITIAL REACTION: A terrific trade for both sides here. Nimmala has made major strides this season to not only rekindle his top prospect status but even rise back into the consensus top-50 area, and even after moving Kevin Gausman, Toronto goes out and gets Jose Soriano, a pitcher in his prime with years of control who goes from the worst defense in baseball to the best. Soriano runs a groundball rate north of 50%, and he will go from Neto and co. along the infield to platinum-caliber defense with Andres Gimenez and Ernie Clement.
There are some warts in Soriano’s profile, namely his walk rate, but the curveball is among the very best in the sport, and he compliments that with a power sinker and splitter. A huge get for the Jays to bolster around Dylan Cease in the rotation.
Guards land bat, get Adell for Cozart
INITIAL REACTION: Considering the expected price of the short-side platoon bat, the Guardians did great here, trading from a position of depth to land the biggest power bat of the bunch in Jo Adell. Adell is far from perfect, but over the last two seasons, his 151 wRC+ against left-handed pitchers is a top-10 mark in the sport. Adell will generate no value elsewhere, thus this being a B-grade and no higher, but considering the price, they did quite well here.
The flip side of this is the Angels. I thought they could have gotten more, but they need catching in the worst way and nabbed a riser in Jacob Cozart. Cozart was a glove-first catcher upon being drafted, and the Guardians have done a good job developing him into a more well-rounded profile, selling high on him here. This is well done all-around, more importantly by Cleveland’s front office.
Rays net Liam Hicks
INITIAL REACTION: While this won’t be the big catcher trade of the day, the Rays net bat-first backstop, Liam Hicks, from the Marlins, sending over a trio of prospects. Hicks is under control through 2030, and in return, Miami will get a resurgent Brayden Taylor whose swing changes have revitalized his career, RHP Jacob Kisting, a big strikeout arm with good command, and infielder Adrian Santana, whose contact skills are highly touted.
With Joe Mack ready to take over everyday duties as a plus defender, Miami traded from depth and did well here. Good trade for both sides.
Pirates push chips in, get their closer
INITIAL REACTION: Great, great job from Pittsburgh here. The Pirates sell high on white hot Sammy Stafura, netting them Luke Weaver who will immediately slot in as their closer. Weaver has had a return to form with the Mets and was the prize reliever at this deadline. Pittsburgh got him without giving up any of their coveted prospects, instead sending power hitting shortstop Sammy Stafura. Stafura had a crazy last two months, but his chase and whiff tendencies are hard to overlook here. The Mets not being able to land a Murf Gray or Wyatt Sanford is a bit underwhelming here, but Stafura has more than risen his stock.
Brewers land May, Romero, pay heavy price
INITIAL REACTION: Our one and only A+. The division tax is a heavy price. Alexander Frias feels like he’s on the cusp of breaking out into one of the best prospects in baseball. The Baseball America ranking at 100 feels light. FanGraphs has him within the top-50. Prospects Live is incredibly high on him. On top of that, they nabbed outfielder Josiah Ragsdale, another riser into the fringe-top 100 territory. All of this for rental Jojo Romero and possible rental Dustin May. The positive here is both May and Romero make the Brewers immediately better, but it’s incredibly difficult to get past the cost.
Sox land Rutschman in blockbuster trade
INITIAL REACTION: Boston bolsters their lineup with Rutschman who, while not quite who he once was, is still a very good player. The price, however, was steep. Again, these divisional trades! Rutschman nets Baltimore Anthony Eyanson, a legitimate top-50, and rising, pitcher, Kyson Witherspoon who is inside BA’s top-100, Enddy Azocar, a pull-side monster having a breakout season in High-A, and major league catcher Carlos Narvaez.
Woah, that’s really all I can say. Both sides do well here, Baltimore does better. Adley is a culture changer for Boston. Have to be willing to weed out the bad, however, so does Duran get moved?
OTHER TRADES
- Cubs land RP Ryan Zeferjahn for C Moises Ballesteros, RHP Mason McGwire
- Blue Jays get INF Josh Smith, RHP Josh Stephan; Rangers get LHP Adam Macko; White Sox get C Joey Bart; Braves get RHP Duncan Davitt
- Astros get OF Daulton Varsho for RHP Spencer Arrighetti
