The Phillies and Orioles consummated their second trade of the deadline period yesterday, as hard-throwing 29-year-old lefty Gregory Soto was sent to Baltimore in exchange for pitching prospects Seth Johnson and Moisés Chace. Soto has been having a pretty typical season, with a 4.08 ERA across 35.1 innings (43 appearances). He’s still throwing hard, and he’s accumulated a ton of walks and strikeouts having leaned more heavily on his incredible slider than in prior seasons. After a career-best year at avoiding free passes in 2023, Soto’s walk rate has ticked back up closer to his career norm of 12%; his fastball is also generating fewer swings and misses than ever before at a paltry 4.9% swinging strike rate, which is really low for a 98 mph heater.

Soto had mostly been squeezed out of high-leverage situations in Philly in deference to Matt Strahm and Jeff Hoffman, and was likely to see his opportunities further reduced by the recent acquisition of Carlos Estévez. While there’s nothing wrong with having a lefty who sits 98 as one of your lower-leverage guys, the way the market shaped up for multi-year relievers perhaps made it tempting for the Phillies to get more back in trade than is typical for a pitcher who is near the bottom of a bullpen depth chart. This one-for-two deal helps to build back a little of their farm system after the Estévez and Austin Hays trades.

In Baltimore, Soto joins Keegan Akin and Cionel Pérez as the lefties in the Orioles bullpen. He is under team control through next season. Any time an org like the Orioles acquires a pitcher whose results feel as though they’ve been far worse than his talent, you wonder if there’s something they might change about him that could help him be great. But Soto’s previous orgs, the Tigers and Phillies, have had recent success at improving pitchers, including late-bloomers like Hoffman. Perhaps there’s no low-hanging developmental fruit for the Orioles to reap here; Soto is 29 and might just be a semi-frustrating player who performs below what is typical for someone with his arm strength, let alone a lefty. That’s still constitutes a middle-inning upgrade for Baltimore. Will one of these teams be cursing themselves in a few months for having made the other more complete?

The Phillies got back two pitchers, one could help them as soon as next year, with the other being more of a developmental piece. Johnson, who is about to turn 26, had posted a 2.63 ERA (with a FIP and xFIP in the 4.13-4.26 range) as a starter at Double-A Bowie prior to the trade. The pandemic and an unfortunately timed Tommy John have prevented Johnson from posting a starter’s load of innings for consecutive seasons, and his 65 innings pitched as of the trade is already the most he’s thrown in a single season since 2021. Johnson sits 94-96 with riding life. An upper-80s cutter is his secondary weapon of choice, and he also has a mid-70s curveball with huge depth. There isn’t a platoon-neutralizing weapon here and the 2025 season will be Johnson’s last option year (unless the Phillies are given an extra option year because of his 2022 TJ), which together will probably squeeze Johnson into a bullpen role sometime next year.

Chace (pronounced CHA-say) is a medium-framed 21-year-old righty in his fourth pro season who has struck out more than a batter per inning each year of his career. Working in a piggyback role at Aberdeen prior to the trade, Chase has a good chance to develop a starter-quality pitch mix but probably not starter-quality command. He sits 93-96 with plus-plus vertical ride, he has a plus, 81-85 mph sweeper-style slider, and his changeup flashes bat-missing tail. Chace’s slider feel is advanced but that isn’t true of his other offerings. He’s Rule 5 eligible after this season and he’s going to be one of the more fascinating cases for protection. There are pretty clearly two viable big league pitches here right now, but Chace is quite far from the majors. Right now, I’d call him an unlikely add and bet that he doesn’t get Rule 5’d.

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The Boston Red Sox added 12-year veteran big league reliever Luis García to the back of their bullpen, which to this point was in the bottom third of the league in combined reliever ERA and strikeout rate. Headed to Anaheim are four prospects, three of whom are relatively close to the big leagues. Former shortstop and current 23-year-old left fielder Matthew Lugo, 25-year-old first baseman Niko Kavadas, and 26-year-old reliever Ryan Zeferjahn were all at Triple-A Worcester, while 19-year-old pitcher Yeferson Vargas was promoted to Low-A just before the deal.

García has been one of the 50 most productive relievers in baseball since the 2021 season. He’s top 60 in WAR, FIP, ERA, strikeouts, and WHIP among relievers who’ve thrown at least 150 innings during that time, essentially a viable second-best reliever on a good team even as he climbed into his late-30s. García has a 1.17 WHIP this season even as his fastball velocity has declined two ticks from peak and a little more than one tick compared from last season. His sinker, splitter, and slider (especially the two secondaries, which are plus or better offerings generating huge swing-and-miss against big leaguers) remain good enough for García to play a relatively high-leverage role on a contender.

García hits free agency again this winter. It might feel like giving up four players is a lot for two months of a reliever, but if any team had a 40-man crunch this offseason it was going to be the Red Sox because of how many potentially serviceable position players they had in their system. Several of those players are now gone, including Kavadas, Lugo, Zeferjahn, Eddinson Paulino, and Nick Yorke. It’s good to have depth in the event of injury, but it’s plausible the Red Sox would either have lost a couple of these guys in the Rule 5 draft this offseason or clogged their roster trying to keep them.

Kavadas is striking out a third of the time at Triple-A, but he has enormous power and had a .975 OPS at the time of the trade. He’s posted a 57% hard-hit rate in Worcester and his swing is geared for lift in the extreme, with 20 degrees of launch on average. There will probably be a narrow window in Kavadas’ prime when he can get to enough power to be a relevant big league first baseman. A career trajectory similar to what Jared Walsh had with the Angels is feasible, where he enjoys one or two peak years of big power but over time is hindered by strikeouts in a way that is a problem for the overall profile of a 1B/DH athlete. Think Mike Ford.

A swing change and a more patient approach have unlocked an extra gear of power for Lugo and may have salvaged the former second round pick’s career, especially as he’s slid all the way down the defensive spectrum from shortstop to left field. His mistake-crushing style has him on pace to hit 30 homers in the minors this year. Hellbent on pulling the baseball, Lugo struggles to cover the outer third of the zone and swings inside a ton of pitches out there. Given his hit tool limitations and the way his defensive versatility has trended down, he looks more like an above-replacement up/down outfielder than a consistent role player.

Zeferjahn is a hard-throwing reliever who has averaged 96-98 with his fastball this year. He was utterly dominant at Double-A early in the season and was promoted to Worcester, where his command has returned to problematic career norms; he’s walking six batters per nine there. Zeferjahn’s fastball plays down because of poor movement and his lack of command, but he essentially has three average pitches and would be an up/down reliever in most orgs. He might play a more significant role for the Angels in the next couple of years. I expect he’ll be added to their 40-man roster this offseason.

Finally, Vargas is a stout, six foot righty who has cut his walks substantially compared to 2023 while also enjoying a two- or three-tick velocity spike. Vargas’ fastball averaged 92-93 last year and a scout who saw him earlier this spring had him sitting 93-95, but when I saw Vargas in June, he held 95-96 and touched 98 across three innings of work. He also has a snappy curveball in the 81-84 mph range that flashed plus on my look. At Vargas’ size, he’s perhaps more likely to be a reliever, but he’s made a ton of progress in the last year, especially in the strike-throwing department. He’s a hard-throwing developmental prospect with a good two-pitch foundation.

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The Yankees acquired Enyel De Los Santos and Thomas Balboni Jr. from the Padres in exchange for 27-year-old Triple-A center fielder Brandon Lockridge. The 28-year-old De Los Santos was having a strange, homer-prone season in San Diego prior to the trade but has otherwise performed near his career norms. In 40.1 innings, De Los Santos has a 4.46 ERA, a 28% strikeout rate, and a career-best 7.6% walk rate. His stuff has also been consistent with career norms, but Enyel’s approach to pitching has changed. His slider usage is way up this year and his approach to locating his fastball has also shifted to the upper part of the zone. Here are De Los Santos’ fastball locations against lefties each of the last two years:

Seven of the 11 homers (in 40.1 innings!) De Los Santos has surrendered this year have been off his fastball, a pitch he’s throwing less than ever before. Especially in the Yankee Stadium bandbox, I’d expect some kind of fastball alteration to happen here, even if it’s just a return to more of an east/west style of pitching.

De Los Santos has been in the big leagues since he was 22 but because several of those have been partial seasons, he’s only just now in his arbitration years and will hit free agency after the 2026 season, at age 31. In addition to the other relief pitcher additions that crowded out De Los Santos on the roster, it’s possible the Padres’ more budget-beholden approach post-Peter Seidler made De Los Santos’ looming arb salary consequential. Perhaps the lack of leverage created by this is why the Padres had to attach a prospect to Enyel to get Lockridge. That prospect is the 24-year-old Balboni, a sidearm reliever who has had a two-tick velocity spike this season. Balboni now sits 93-96 and has a high-spin slider. He’s not a great strike-thrower, but he’s got good stuff and a pretty good shot to wear a big league uniform eventually.

Coming back to the Padres is Lockridge, a nice upper-level depth player who can really go get it in center field and who fortifies the Padres’ center field depth behind Jackson Merrill to a degree. Fernando Tatis Jr.’s injury has put pressure on the Padres’ outfield depth and forced David Peralta, who isn’t hitting, into action. Lockridge might be a better big league roster fit than Bryce Johnson, who isn’t as good a defender. Tim Locastro, Óscar Mercado, Cal Mitchell, Tirso Ornelas, and José Azocar are all in El Paso, too.

The trade deadline isn’t a coda to this White Sox season — this debacle, this farce, this insult to tire fires — because the song isn’t over yet. There’s still another third of the way to go, another verse on the road to 120 losses. No, in songwriting terms this is a bridge, a shift to a minor key followed by a saxophone solo, meant to put you in the mood for a modulation and the big finish.

The White Sox aren’t trading Garrett Crochet. They are trading one of the two big outfielders who were supposed to turn into a legendary Chicago sports double act, alongside Jordan and Pippen, Toews and Kane, Perry and Singletary. But they’re not trading Luis Robert Jr.

Remember, all the way back in 2019, when Eloy Jiménez was one of the top five prospects in baseball? When securing his future commitment to the franchise was so important that the White Sox only allowed him to make his major league debut after he signed a six-year contract extension with two team options? Yeah, well after years of injuries and disappointment and recriminations, Jiménez is headed to Baltimore in exchange for minor league left-hander Trey McGough. Read the rest of this entry »

Maybe the Orioles just like shopping for pitchers in Florida. Days after Baltimore acquired Zach Eflin from Tampa Bay, Ken Rosenthal reported that the team has traded for Marlins left-handed starter Trevor Rogers in exchange for Connor Norby and Kyle Stowers. The Orioles have selected the contract of Terrin Vavra, who is running a 112 wRC+ with Triple-A Norfolk this season, to take Norby’s place on the big league roster. (Shortly after this article was filed, Jeff Passan reported that the Orioles have also acquired Eloy Jiménez from the White Sox, while C. Trent Rosecrans reported that Austin Slater is headed from the Reds to the land of Old Bay; Michael Baumann will write up those transactions shortly.)

On its face, this seems like either a great get for Miami, or a sign that the price for starting pitching is sky high. Last April, Rogers suffered a biceps strain that ended his season after just four starts. This season, he’s stayed healthy and thrown 105.1 innings, but the results haven’t exactly been there. Following his breakout rookie campaign in 2021, Rogers is 7-22 with a 4.92 ERA and 4.36 FIP. This season, those figures are 4.53 and 4.42. Read the rest of this entry »

After a somewhat slow start to this year’s trade deadline, one of the better pitchers available has a new team, with Zach Eflin heading from Tropicana Field to the land of Old Bay and Natty Boh. (That’s Baltimore, for those of you unfamiliar with properly seasoned shellfish and/or nostalgic mass-market budget lager.) Heading back to the Rays from the Orioles are three prospects, right-handed starter Jackson Baumeister, infielder Mac Horvath, and outfielder Matthew Etzel. In his second season with the Rays, Eflin has a 4.09 ERA and 3.65 FIP over 19 starts, good for 1.8 WAR.

Entering the season, the depth of Baltimore’s rotation was something of a concern. Acquiring Corbin Burnes in his walk year did a lot to alleviate the situation, and with the seventh-best ERA and 10th-best WAR in baseball, the rotation hasn’t really hindered the Orioles’ quest to win their first World Series trophy since I was just a wee cynical kindergartener. Still, despite their positive starting pitching rankings, the water has gotten pretty choppy. Both Kyle Bradish and John Means underwent Tommy John surgery in June, and Tyler Wells is out for the season after an internal brace surgery on his UCL in . Further complicating matters is the fact that Cole Irvin, a pleasant surprise in the season’s early going, had a worse June than the Soviet army in 1941. Cade Povich was decidedly mediocre in his debut and was optioned to Triple-A earlier this month, and Chayce McDermott still has command issues to iron out. The team has good reason to expect more from those two in the future, but that future isn’t going arrive this week, and the team needed a bit more certainty in the rotation behind Burnes and Grayson Rodriguez. Read the rest of this entry »

I updated the Top 100 Prospects list today. This post goes through the pitchers and why they stack the way they do. Here’s a link directly to the list, and here’s a link to the post with a little more detail regarding farm system and prospect stuff and the trade deadline. It might be best for you to open a second tab and follow along, so here are the Top 100 pitchers isolated away from the bats. Let’s get to it.
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Count me among those who worried that, with about 12 teams in the National League playoff hunt in the week before the trade deadline, there might not be enough sellers to kickstart a trade market. Well, the Philadelphia Phillies — who have the best record in baseball — and the Baltimore Orioles — who are tied for the best record in the American League — have come together and said, “To heck with all that.”

The Orioles are sending outfielder Austin Hays north in exchange for reliever Seranthony Domínguez and outfielder Cristian Pache. This being a transaction between Baltimore and Philadelphia, I assume there’s a quantity of Old Bay changing hands in the deal, but how much is as yet unspecified.

An exchange of three major leaguers between two first-place teams? Hallelujah, a challenge trade! Read the rest of this entry »

Welcome to another edition of Five Things I Liked (Or Didn’t Like) this week. This is a strange week for the column. The All-Star break cut into the number of games available to watch; mathematically speaking, fewer games means fewer chances for weird things to happen. I took a weekend trip and didn’t watch any MLB games on Friday or Saturday. I’m also hard at work on the upcoming trade value series, which comes out between the All-Star game and the deadline every year – check back Monday for that annual exercise’s kickoff. In any case, that means this is a hodgepodge list: some stuff from this week, sure, but also plays and series that got left out last week, and some low-level baseball to boot. Thanks, as always, to ESPN’s Zach Lowe for the format idea. And two quick programming notes: I won’t be doing my regular Monday chat or Five Things next week; instead, I’ll be doing a jumbo-sized chat Friday morning.

1. The New Derby Format
The modern swing-happy Home Run Derby has been a great success, at least as far as I’m concerned. It’s more fun to see sluggers launch as many home runs as they possibly can than it is to see them agonize over every single swing. The format wasn’t perfect, though. I’m not trying to be a grump about it – is it even possible to be a grump about the Home Run Derby? – but there was one downside to the timed-round format: not enough drama.
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Today, we turn our attention to the second base Killers. While still focusing on teams that meet the loose definition of contenders (a .500 record or Playoff Odds of at least 9.5%), and that have gotten about 0.6 WAR or less out of a position thus far — which prorates to 1.0 WAR over a full season — I have also 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; as you can see by the table below, four of the six teams listed here project to receive more than a win from their current cast of second base options. Even so, I’ve included them here because the team’s performance at that spot is worth a look, and the incumbent may no longer appear to be the best option.

Particularly in light of those projections, I don’t expect every team to go out and track down an upgrade before the July 30 deadline, though I’ll note that some of the players cited within for their poor performance are themselves change-of-scenery candidates; one team’s problem may be another team’s solution, albeit not necessarily an ideal one. Either way, I’m less concerned with those solutions – many of which have more moving parts involved than a single trade — than I am with the problems. Unless otherwise indicated, all statistics are through Sunday.

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Below is an analysis of the prospects in the farm system of the Baltimore Orioles. Scouting reports were compiled with information provided by industry sources as well as our own observations. This is the fourth year we’re delineating between two anticipated relief roles, the abbreviations for which you’ll see in the “position” column below: MIRP for multi-inning relief pitchers, and SIRP for single-inning relief pitchers. The ETAs listed generally correspond to the year a player has to be added to the 40-man roster to avoid being made eligible for the Rule 5 draft. Manual adjustments are made where they seem appropriate, but we use that as a rule of thumb.

A quick overview of what FV (Future Value) means can be found here. A much deeper overview can be found here.

All of the ranked prospects below also appear on The Board, a resource the site offers featuring sortable scouting information for every organization. It has more details (and updated TrackMan data from various sources) than this article and integrates every team’s list so readers can compare prospects across farm systems. It can be found here. Read the rest of this entry »

Welcome to another edition of Five Things I Liked (Or Didn’t Like) this week. I’m not sure if this is by design or simply a scheduling coincidence, but this week was full of compelling matchups between current rivals. The Cubs and Cardinals squared off. So did the Yankees and Orioles. The Guardians and Mariners aren’t exactly rivals, but their series rocked too, and I’m sad I couldn’t find a way to squeeze them in this week. That said, there’s a ton to talk about, so let’s get to it, after our usual nod to Zach Lowe of ESPN, who is surely enjoying a well-deserved vacation after the conclusion of the NBA season. To baseball!
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