It’s the day after the trade deadline, which always means one thing: baseball writers begrudgingly cleaning up their gross, sparkling-water-can-filled workspaces. Oh, wait, actually it means two things: that, and a flood of “who won the trading deadline” articles.

This year, I’m going to do something slightly different. I won’t claim that I’ve re-invented the wheel, but I’ve always thought that those winner/loser columns are too deterministic and don’t leave enough room for nuance. I thought about listing each team that made a trade as a winner, with a “maybe” appended to indicate that we don’t know what will happen in the future; if you really want to know who won and who lost, check back in October… or maybe in October of 2025. I thought about making each team a “loser (maybe)” for the same reason. In the end, I settled on some broad archetypes. I’ll throw a subjective grade on how much I like the move, and also endeavor to explain the risks around each team’s deadline. You can find all of our deadline coverage here. Let’s get started. Read the rest of this entry »

Another trade deadline has come and gone, and I must say, this one was more exciting than I expected. I didn’t see the Yankees, Astros, or Dodgers making huge splashes, given that all three are in a daunting position both for first place in their divisions and a first-round playoff bye. There were also relatively few short-term rental options available; Juan Soto, Frankie Montas, and Luis Castillo, among others, could always be traded, but with none of them free agents after this season, teams could also pull them back if they didn’t like the offers. Meanwhile, players like Willson Contreras, Ian Happ and Carlos Rodón stayed put, also to my surprise. By and large, though, we had a whirlwind of a 48-hour period leading up to the deadline.

So, who won and who lost? That’s a bit of a loaded question, because the definition of winning and losing varies depending on each franchise’s goals. A contending team improving, a rebuilding team getting worse but acquiring a stable of prospects, or an indolent team only re-signing its 37-year-old closer are all things that can be considered a win in one way or the other. But we’re here to do some hardcore ranking, so let’s look only at who improved themselves the most in 2022.

To keep this all science-y rather than a somewhat arbitrary exercise, I first projected the entire league’s rest of season in ZiPS and then repeated the exercise with all trades since July 19 unwound. Since some teams primarily got overall playoff boosts and some teams saw improvement mainly in terms of World Series gains, I took each team’s rank in both categories and then ranked everyone by the harmonic mean of those two ranks. Read the rest of this entry »

True to his word, Chaim Bloom bought as well as sold at this year’s deadline. Filling one of his team’s biggest needs on the heels of Eric Hosmer’s no-trade-clause refusal to go to the nation’s capital as part of the Juan Soto mega–deal, Bloom acquired the veteran first baseman, along with a pair of speedy outfield prospects, from the San Diego Padres in exchange for 2016 first-rounder Jay Groome. Still holding out hope for October baseball — Boston’s postseason odds currently sit at 33.4% — it was a move that improves their chances.

Hosmer isn’t the type of player who will lift a team on his shoulders and carry them to the promised land. A career .277/.336/.429 (107 wRC+) hitter whose present-season slash line dwells in that same neighborhood, he’s by no means a savior. After a blazing start to the season that saw him hit .382/.447/.579 through May 1, he’s cooled considerably, hitting just .235/.295/.309 since. Still, he’s a capable fielder and if he can recapture something of his early-season form, he represents an upgrade at his position. Red Sox first basemen have combined to slash a putrid .203/.278/.349 this year, and they’ve been even worse on the defensive side of the ball. At -10, they have the worst DRS in either league, and OAA doesn’t like them much better (-9).

Hosmer isn’t exactly Keith Hernandez with the glove, nor is he the same adroit defender who won four Gold Gloves in his glory days with the Kansas City Royals. But again, he represents an upgrade. While Bobby Dalbec, a converted third baseman, has at least been credible at the opposite corner of the infield, converted outfielder Franchy Cordero has been nothing short of cringeworthy. Acquired from Kansas City as part of last year’s Andrew Benintendi trade, Cordero has committed eight errors in just 316 first-base innings this year. Conversely, Hosmer has been charged with 14 errors over his last 2,122 innings. As much as they’ve needed a better bat, Boston needed someone capable of catching the baseball. Read the rest of this entry »

A trade deadline that Padres fans won’t soon forget came to a close with a smaller yet still impactful move, with Brandon Drury heading to San Diego from Cincinnati in return for prospect Victor Acosta. Drury, a free agent after the season, may not be Juan Soto, who was acquired mere hours earlier, but his 132 wRC+ this season turned him into one of the more sought-after bats available at the deadline.

It’s been a long road for the 29-year-old Drury up to this point in his career, with the Padres representing his sixth franchise in eight seasons. After years of below-average hitting, he surprisingly put up a 114 wRC+ mostly off the bench for the Mets in 2021. That came in only 88 plate appearances, but it was enough to earn him a deal with the Reds in late March after the team’s post-lockout fire sale. He settled in as the team’s regular two-hole hitter and third baseman after injuries put Mike Moustakas on the shelf and stayed in the lineup thanks to a power surge that’s seen him cross the 20-homer threshold for the first time in his career. Playing in Cincinnati, the best home run park in baseball for righties, certainly played a factor in that development; his new home in San Diego, the more spacious Petco Park, is middle of the road in terms of righty power, so it remains to be seen how many of those homers will travel with him to California.
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Over the last two and a half years, the Nationals’ World Series championship roster has deteriorated around Juan Soto, hollowed out by trades and underperformance. After rejecting a 15-year, $440 million extension offer, the club realized Soto’s camp was hellbent on him hitting free agency, an eventuality that put Washington at risk of only receiving draft pick compensation for him, and not until a few years from now. With new ownership looming, the Nationals were unlikely (and the team’s current owners seemingly unwilling) to build a contender around Soto before he hit the market; every passing day, arbitration year, and postseason spent in Washington diminished his trade value. Once the team decided to move on, it made sense to deal Soto now, while the club trading for him could enjoy him for three postseasons instead of two. Still, it’s a painful parting, just as it’s painful for it to have unfolded in public the way that it did, with information leaked to prime fans with the logic I outlined above in the hopes of avoiding blowback.

The Padres, meanwhile, obviously coveted Soto. A.J. Preller tends to press the gas pedal a little harder than other folks in the industry, both in terms of the players he asks for and what he’s willing to give up in return. There are alternate timelines in which this deal doesn’t get done. There are iterations of a Bryan Reynolds trade that could have occurred this past winter that would have put Soto out of reach; there’s a version of the 2020-21 offseason where Nolan Arenado becomes a Padre instead of a Cardinal. But because those (and other deals) didn’t happen, and thanks to James Wood’s emergence, the Padres still had enough at the top of their farm system to trade for a 23-year-old future Hall of Famer and carry several of the most exciting and talented players of this century on their roster at the same time while they’re at it. Soto, Fernando Tatis Jr., Manny Machado, and Yu Darvish all have enduring baseball significance. The Padres are no-doubt contenders and among the most exciting teams in pro sports.

That comes at a great cost. There are many talented players headed to Washington in this trade: MacKenzie Gore, C.J. Abrams, Robert Hassell III, and Wood are all current or recent Top 100 prospects, while Jarlin Susana might have the nastiest stuff of any pitcher his age in pro baseball. Read the rest of this entry »

Players like Juan Soto don’t get traded. Why would they? A 23-year-old with a stat line that stands next to those of the all-time greats of the game is the kind of player you dream about stumbling into. They’re shooting stars, once-in-a-lifetime phenoms. All you have to do is hitch your wagon to their meteoric ascent and enjoy the ride.

The Nationals, though, didn’t feel that way. In the depths of a crushing teardown that has seen them fall from 2019 World Series champion to worst in the majors this season, the Nationals had nothing around Soto to make the team competitive. Soto was a mint Ferrari in the garage of a one-room shack. They offered him a 15-year contract extension worth $440 million this season, but he turned it down, either holding out for more money in free agency or hesitant to sign up for 15 more years with a currently-bad team that has an uncertain future thanks to a pending sale.

Let’s just call it that: thanks to their own rebuilding plans and potential organizational changes, the Nationals decided they could neither compete in the immediate future with Soto nor retain him beyond the 2024 season. I don’t really believe that to be true – I think they could have worked something out if they had truly put their mind to it and committed to making Soto the centerpiece of their next competitive team – but that’s a discussion for another time. If you determine that your options are to trade him or let him walk after 2024, trading him is the lesser of two evils. Read the rest of this entry »

After months of rumors and loud whispering, the mega-trade for Juan Soto has finally happened, with the winner being the San Diego Padres. It’s hard to overstate the impact of a trade like this; while stars are always traded, Soto is a very young and already quite accomplished player with generational-type talent, and players in that category do not change uniforms by trade all that often. I’m already tempted to type this piece in all capital letters, damaging the eyes of our esteemed editors; the Padres adding an excellent rental in Josh Bell just makes it an even harder test for my willpower.

The stable of talent sent to Washington is impressive, as it should be. Heading to D.C. are starting pitcher MacKenzie Gore, shortstop C.J. Abrams, outfielder Robert Hassell III, outfielder James Wood, pitcher Jarlin Susana, and first baseman Eric Hosmer. For the Nationals, any lingering concerns that someone would have to take Patrick Corbin, thus reducing the value of the return significantly, have now safely evaporated, and they’ll now have to turn to other options there. The Padres even fulfilled Washington’s desire to include a major leaguer who can help the team win games right now in the form of Gore. There are still issues to iron out with Hosmer’s no-trade clause, but for now, we’re going to look at this trade with the assumption that this works out, one way or the other. One possibility is an effort to get a third team into the mix, one that is interested in Hosmer’s services and not on his no-trade list, or at least a team he’d be more willing to waive the clause to join. Who that would be exactly is a tricky question; maybe the Royals?

UPDATE: Hosmer has officially vetoed his move to Washington, though the trade will still go ahead without his involvement. San Diego now has an interesting contract situation to resolve this afternoon.

UPDATE 2: Hosmer is now heading to Boston, per multiple reports, with fellow first baseman Luke Voit now part of the Soto trade in his stead.

UPDATE 3: The deal is now official: Soto and Bell for Voit, Gore, Hassell III, Wood, and Susana.

To wet your whistle — my colleague Ben Clemens will be around shortly with a full rundown of the particulars of this trade, and Eric Longenhagen will run through the prospects — here are some projections which I swear aren’t fan service. (Year-by-year projections for Wood and Susana are unfortunately beyond ZiPS’ scope at this stage of their careers.) Some may be disappointed that Soto’s numbers aren’t quite what they were last year, but his defense looks worse and he’s not quite at his normal level of offense. But considering ZiPS has only “downgraded” his top comp to Carl Yastrzemski, it’s still a great projection!

Much more to come.

The Padres pulled off a blockbuster on Monday afternoon, though it wasn’t the Juan Soto trade that so much of the industry expects. Instead, San Diego sent a four-player package headlined by closer Taylor Rogers, an All-Star last year, to Milwaukee in exchange for closer Josh Hader, an All-Star in four of the past five seasons, including this year.

On the surface, this appears to be something of a challenge trade: a pair of contenders swapping southpaws whose holds on the ninth inning had loosened due to shaky performances over the past month, sending their ERAs north of 4.00:

But there’s more to the deal when it comes to its respective impacts on the two teams’ 40-man rosters and payrolls, all of which is worth bearing in mind as Tuesday’s deadline approaches. Read the rest of this entry »

Rumors of a contract negotiations between starting pitcher Joe Musgrove and the San Diego Padres have been percolating for the last month, and those discussions bore fruit over the weekend: With a five-year, $100 million contract extension, the Padres have locked up their best and most dependable starter through the end of the 2027 season.

I discussed a possible Musgrove extension a couple of weeks ago, and not much has changed in the right-hander’s valuation since then, when ZiPS thought that a five year, $126 million contract would be fair for both sides. That makes landing Musgrove for $100 million a nice deal for the Friars, likely the result of some unknown combination of canniness, Musgrove’s comfort at the top of the rotation, and his stated desire to stay with his hometown team (Musgrove is from the San Diego area).

For Padres fans, it must be a relief to get this extension done — even when most of the factors suggest a deal can be reached, there’s no guarantee until there’s ink on the paper. Being from Baltimore, I think back on the acrimonious end to Mike Mussina‘s time in Charm City. Mussina had previously given the O’s a very good deal on a three-year, $21 million contract that bought out a year of free agency, but when he actually did hit the open market, the O’s basically underbid the Yankees, working on the assumption that a hometown discount would be permanently built into his contracts. That the second half of Moose’s Hall of Fame career came with the Yankees still makes me sad! ZiPS projects Musgrove as the best pitcher available in free agency — his projection edges out Carlos Rodón’s — and as with Mussina and the Yankees, all bets are off once the 29 other teams can bid on your franchise pitcher. Read the rest of this entry »

While still focusing upon teams that meet the loose definition of contenders (a .500 record or Playoff Odds of at least 10%), this year I have incorporated our Depth Charts’ rest-of-season WAR projections into the equation for an additional perspective. Sometimes that may suggest that the team will clear the bar by a significant margin, but even so, I’ve included them here because the team’s performance at that spot is worth a look.

At the other positions in this series, I have used about 0.6 WAR or less thus far — which prorates to 1.0 WAR over a full season — as my cutoff, making exceptions here and there, but for the designated hitters, I’ve lowered that to 0.3, both to keep the list length manageable and to account for the general spread of value; in the first full season of the universal DH, exactly half the teams in the majors have actually gotten 0.1 WAR or less from their DHs thus far, and only 10 have gotten more than 0.6. DHs as a group have hit .239/.317/.404 for a 104 wRC+; that last figure matches what they did as a group both last year and in 2019, and it’s boosted by the best performance by NL DHs (103 wRC+) since 2009, when their 117 wRC+ accounted for a grand total of 525 PA, about 32 per NL team.

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