With apologies to Tarik Skubal and the Dodgers, for my money the most eye-catching deal ahead of Monday’s trade deadline was the Red Sox acquiring Adley Rutschman in a six-player blockbuster with the Orioles. Not only did a switch-hitting All-Star catcher move from one Wild Card contender to another, but he did so within the same division — and he’s more than a rental, with one more year of arbitration eligibility before he reaches free agency. Though he’s currently on the injured list due to inflammation in his left wrist, Rutschman is reportedly nearing a rehab assignment, and once he returns, he should provide a substantial upgrade for a team whose catchers landed on my Replacement-Level Killers list a few weeks ago.

Rustchman wasn’t the only prominent catcher on the move to a contender on Monday, as the Marlins traded Liam Hicks to the Rays, but he’s a part-time backstop whose hitting makes him a useful DH and first base option as well. While the concurrence of his being dealt illustrates that trading for a catcher on the fly in the midst of a playoff race isn’t unheard of, such moves do stand out. They’re not to be undertaken lightly because of the weighty responsibility that falls on a catcher’s shoulders in terms of quickly having to build relationships with a new pitching staff to understand repertoires, situational preferences, and interpersonal dynamics. Odds are that those newcomers are also expected to provide more offense than the catchers they replaced, because offensive slumps often spur teams to make such changes. Read the rest of this entry »

Hello. While on paternity leave, I kept a journal about baseball and my daughter, who is not named Derek Jr., but who will henceforth be referred to as Derek Jr. You can read all of the entries here.

May 26
We’re trying to decide whether Derek Jr. is ready to move up from size two diapers to size three. I mention that we’ve still got a couple size one diapers left in the diaper bag. Maybe it’s not too late to use them up so they don’t go to waste. “Those size one diapers,” replies my wife, whose gorgeous, haunting debut novel comes out next fall, “would not fit one of her butt cheeks.”

May 27
Similarities Between My Daughter and Professional Baseball Players:

• They’re disturbingly young.
• They love spending time at the park.
• They’re incapable of keeping their saliva in their mouths where it belongs.
• They have shockingly thick forearms.
• They frequently dirty their uniforms.
• They’re constantly besieged by photographers.
• They have a carefully monitored nutrition regimen.
• They’re big on naps.
• They wear protective gear around their crotches.
• They’re evaluated using percentiles.

May 28
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I thought I’d left this life behind. I thought my We Tried tracking days were behind me. I spent the past week covering trades that happened. Real trades, where one player (or two players, or three players, or a theoretical pile of international bonus pool money) moved from one team to another in exchange for one other player (or two other players, or, well, you get it). But just when I thought I was out, the Brewers pulled me back in. Of all teams, the Brewers! I started tracking We Trieds following the 2024 season, and over two offseasons, Milwaukee put up two goose eggs. The Brewers never gave me a single We Tried to track. Now they’ve had such a dramatic We Tried that they’re dragging me kicking and screaming out of We Tried retirement. What a world. Oh, and the Red Sox roped me back in too, because of course they did. But let’s start in Milwaukee.

As you might have learned from Michael Baumann, the Brewers were considered a real contender to land Tarik Skubal. That alone does not a We Tried make, but on Tuesday, MLB.com’s Adam McCalvy spilled all sorts of beans about their ace chase. McCalvy talked to “multiple club officials” and found the Brewers uncharacteristically forthcoming. He learned that although top overall prospect Jesús Made was off limits, the Brewers offered shortstop Luis Peña, whom we have ranked 26th overall on our updated Top 100 Prospects list, and two other position player prospects. One of those other prospects was also a Top 100 talent, which, depending on whose top 100 you’re talking about, could mean Brady Ebel, Jett Williams, Josh Adamczewski, or Luis Lara (though probably not Lara, as the Brewers signed him to an extension in June). That’s quite a lot of specifics.

A friend sent this article to me within an hour of its publication. It hits all the We Tried hallmarks. It lays out the offer the Brewers made, speculates on the players included and the players the Dodgers would have liked them to include. As I read on, I couldn’t help myself. I knew I’d have to get back in the game. Read the rest of this entry »

What’s the best pitch in baseball?

That’s a tough question. Whatever answer you come up with will certainly say just as much about your methodology as the pitch itself. That’s OK. We’re open-minded people here, and there’s more than one way to approach this problem. Read the rest of this entry »

Ranked and briefly analyzed below are the prospects who have been traded during the loosely defined “2026 deadline season,” which for simplicity’s sake we consider all of July. Most of the deals these prospects were a part of have been analyzed at length on this site. An index of those pieces can be found here; you can also click the hyperlink in the “Trade” column below, which will take you to the relevant article. We’ve moved all of the 35+ FV and above players listed here to their new orgs over on The Board, so you can click through to see where they rank among their new teammates and read their full scouting reports. You can also view all of the traded prospects on the 2026 Trade Deadline tab. The Farm System Rankings, which update live, also reflect these changes, so you can see where teams’ systems stack up following the draft and the deadline. Read the rest of this entry »

Opening weekend of the WPBL’s inaugural season is officially in the record books. Around 5,200 fans happily crowded into a wet and windy Robin Roberts Stadium in Springfield, Illinois on Saturday for the privilege of being able to say they were present for the league’s first pitch. A rain delay lasting just over an hour prolonged the suspense that had been building since the league was first announced early last year, but women are used to waiting their turn.

With the season now underway, I’ll be recapping each week’s action by highlighting the most notable players, moments, and anything else I deem worthy of further commentary. For each edition of the recap, I will re-license the naming rights to this list of highlights to whichever team I feel has won the week. And how does a team win the week? Well, unlike actual wins and losses in baseball, this type of win is purely subjective and will operate under the time-honored tradition of making it up as we go along.

Along with the list of highlights, the Unforced Errors list will discuss the more confounding aspects of the prior week because good faith criticism is a necessary component of continuing progress. And to round things out, we’ll touch on the Historic Firsts of Lesser Renown. The league’s momentous firsts will obviously get their shine, but there’s something to be said for the more strange and mundane firsts, the smaller day-to-day occurrences that make a new league feel familiar and complete. Think of these firsts as the knickknacks on a shelf that make a new house feel like a home. Baseball fans won’t really feel settled into their new league until the first time a player on their favorite team commits a TOOTBLAN. Read the rest of this entry »

Kevin Gausman has been a fan favorite for most of his 14 big league seasons, and for good reason. Now a Chicago Cub after Sunday’s swap with the Toronto Blue Jays, the 35-year-old right-hander has not only performed well on the field, he is widely regarded as both a good teammate and an all-around nice guy. With that reputation in mind, and the trade deadline fast approaching, I broached the subject of fandom with him at Fenway Park in the final week of July.

I began by asking about his boyhood allegiances.

“I was more a fan of players than teams,” replied Gausman, who was born and raised in the Denver area. “I wouldn’t say I was a huge Rockies fan — I was more fair-weather — although when I was in high school, they did go to the World Series. Even so, I was more a fan of the Cargos [Carlos González], the Tulos [Troy Tulowitzki], and guys like Todd Helton and Ubaldo Jiménez. It wasn’t so much, ‘This is my favorite team.’ I didn’t have that. I did have my favorite uniforms, which is kind of funny looking back. I always liked the old Blue Jays uniforms.” Read the rest of this entry »

Every year, baseball teams cram a whole season of trade activity and rumors into about four days of mayhem. This year was no exception, and there was an even bigger prize than normal. The best player available at the deadline isn’t always one of the best players in baseball; it’s often merely the best player nearing free agency on a team that isn’t competing. But this year, one of the best few pitchers on the planet fell into that category, and a broad cast of would-be contenders saw opportunities to add some juice to their rosters too. This isn’t a comprehensive list. Give me another few weeks, and I’ll have more nuanced opinions about everyone’s actions. But one day after the sound and the fury, here are the trends that most stood out to me.

Winner: The Dodgers
Duh. They got Tarik Skubal. Analysis doesn’t always have to be complicated. The Dodgers gave up two Top 100 prospects in the deal, but they’re accumulating top prospects through good drafting and development faster than they can spend them in trades and major league playing time, so that’s not a huge cost. They even get the ancillary benefit of preventing their opponents from trading for Skubal, which is non-neglible.

The Dodgers have made three big acquisitions in the past year: Skubal, Kyle Tucker, and Edwin Díaz. That’s the top available starter, hitter, and reliever (in expectation, at least) over that time period, whether in free agency or trade. The Dodgers know that they’re good now, and they’re pressing the advantage at every turn. That killer instinct puts them in great position to add a third straight championship. Not that they’re favorites, because the baseball playoffs are fueled by randomness, but they’re about as favored as it’s possible to be. Read the rest of this entry »

Plan A for Chicago’s starting rotation went out the window all the way back on April 4 when Cade Horton went down with a forearm strain. After he’d finished second in Rookie of the Year voting in 2025, the Cubs were counting on him as a key contributor in 2026. Instead, his season ended after just two starts. Then on April 6, Matthew Boyd hit the IL with a bicep strain. Fortunately, he was only sidelined for two weeks, but by May 6 he was out of commission again, this time with a meniscus tear that took him out until June 25. Offseason rotation addition Edward Cabrera has also logged multiple IL stints this year — first, a blister that sidelined him from May 24 to June 5, then a hamstring strain that has had him on the shelf since June 24. Strained hamstrings aren’t contagious, but if they were, Cabrera would’ve caught his from Jameson Taillon, who was out with the same injury from June 9 to July 20 and then designated for assignment a week following his return due to poor performance. Given the myriad of injured starters, by early May the Cubs were forced to move Ben Brown from his long-relief role in the bullpen back to the starting rotation. He made eight starts before landing on the IL with a neck strain.

After placing both Cabrera and Brown on the IL on June 24, the Cubs started their deadline shopping a little early, trading with the Mets for left-handed starter David Peterson on June 25. Peterson has not pitched well this season, posting a 5.52 ERA and a 4.11 FIP over 101 innings, but aside from one clunker against the Cardinals, his results have been much better with the Cubs. Over his last four starts, he’s pitched to a 1.52 ERA, albeit with a 4.20 FIP. Nevertheless, Peterson does not single-handedly fix the Cubs’ rotation, nor does Kevin Gausman, whom they acquired from the Blue Jays on Sunday. No, and even with Cabrera pitching in his first Triple-A rehab game last Friday (1 2/3 IP, 3 ER, 2 BB, 3 K), it’s always a good idea to go ahead and add one more guy. Maybe even two.

Thus, in the hours before the trade deadline on Monday, the Cubs linked up with the Mets once more, this time agreeing to send infield prospect Jefferson Rojas to New York in exchange for right-handed starting pitcher Clay Holmes and outfielder Tyrone Taylor. But that’s not all, as Chicago also acquired right-handed reliever Ryan Zeferjahn from the Angels in exchange for catcher/DH Moisés Ballestero and right-handed pitcher Mason McGwire. To cap it off, the Cubs sealed a swap with the Marlins in which they sent infielder Jonathon Long and pitcher Jace Beck to Miami for pitcher lefty Braxton Garrett. Read the rest of this entry »

The Baltimore Orioles have traded Adley Rutschman to the Boston Red Sox, along with Jake Rogers, for catcher Carlos Narváez, a PTBNL or cash, and three prospects: right-handed pitchers Anthony Eyanson and Kyson Witherspoon, and teenage center fielders Enddy Azocar.

Wow.

The first reaction to this deal can only be one of astonishment, on multiple levels. The trade itself is audacious, from both teams’ perspective. Even with his trade value and reputation at a low ebb, Rutschman’s talents are gigantic, and the return reflects that.

But this trade’s on-field impact pales in comparison to What It All Means. Rutschman, the no. 1 overall pick in the 2019 draft, was the Orioles’ franchise player as they emerged from nearly a decade in the wilderness to become (if only briefly) a power player in the AL East. Seeing Rutschman in any other team’s colors will be weird enough to inspire the heebie-jeebies. Read the rest of this entry »