The Cubs sit just one game back of the Brewers in the NL Central, but the two division rivals exist as almost perfect inverses of one another when it comes to on-field performance. Chicago ranks second in wRC+ at 117 and 15th in ERA- at 98, while Milwaukee ranks 13th in wRC+ at 102 and fifth in ERA- at 89. Their common ground is on defense, where both teams are top three in defensive value.

Coming off a series loss against the Brewers and with the trade deadline bearing down, the Cubs added some depth to their weaker side of the ball on Wednesday by acquiring pitcher Michael Soroka from the Nationals. Soroka will be a free agent at the end of this year, after signing a one-year $9 million dollar deal with the Nats last December. In return, Washington received Triple-A outfielder Christian Franklin, Chicago’s fourth-round pick in 2021, and 18 year-old shortstop Ronny Cruz, whom the Cubs selected in the third round of the 2024 draft. Read the rest of this entry »

The Philadelphia Phillies needed to get a reliever at the deadline, and they’ve got a doozy. Jhoan Duran, the 27-year-old flamethrower late of the Minnesota Twins, is taking his splinker east. This is a seller’s market for relievers, and Duran is the best one available; certainly the best with any kind of long-term team control remaining, and even more so now that Emmanuel Clase is indisposed.

Given Duran’s prodigious gifts, track record of durability and reliability, and two full remaining arbitration years, the cost is high: rookie right-hander Mick Abel and teenage catcher Eduardo Tait. Abel, the first high school pitcher taken in the 2020 draft, had an unsteady progression through the minors, but has shown flashes in limited major league action. Tait, fresh off a futures game invite, is an 18-year-old catcher and therefore quite raw, but he has the tools to be a good defender with plus, even plus-plus power at the plate.

It’s not Andrew Painter, or even Aidan Miller, but it’s a lot of freight from a not-that-great farm system, in order to get a one-inning reliever. Why would the Phillies do this? Well, not to be impolite, but they’re kind of desperate. Read the rest of this entry »

Having just added Gregory Soto to the bullpen, the Mets are at it again. Less than 90 minutes after his identical twin went to Pittsburgh in the Ke’Bryan Hayes trade, Tyler Rogers is also on the move.

Rogers, with his 1.80 ERA and 2.59 FIP in 50 innings this year for the Giants, has been one of the best relief pitchers in baseball. Still, he’s 34, and a rental, and a major departure from the hard-throwing Adonises the Mets might otherwise have pursued. And yet, David Stearns saw fit to give up Drew Gilbert, Blade Tidwell, and José Buttó — two big-name prospects and a guy who’s been decent in the majors this year — for two months of a guy who throws underhand. Maybe up to three months, if the Mets make the playoffs and stay there for a couple rounds.

It’s not quite that simple. Rogers is good, relievers are expensive now, and fame does not always equal value in the prospect world. Read the rest of this entry »

Winners of three straight games to lift their record to 53-55, the Angels are suddenly acting like contenders. On Wednesday, a day before this year’s trade deadline, the team bolstered its bullpen — which has been one of the majors’ worst this season — by acquiring relievers Andrew Chafin and Luis García from the Nationals in exchange for reliever Jake Eder and first base prospect Sam Brown.

This is the third stop of the season for the well-traveled García, a 38-year-old righty who has pitched for eight different teams — and the third time he’s joined the Angels. Not only did he spend the 2019 season in Anaheim, but he also re-signed with them as a free agent in December 2023 and spent the first four months of ’24 with them. In fact, the Angels traded him to the Red Sox in exchange for four prospects exactly one year ago.

García’s odyssey has since continued. He signed with the Dodgers in mid-February and made 28 appearances totaling 27 1/3 innings before being designated for assignment on June 29 and released on July 4. He missed about a month from late May to late June with a right adductor strain, then returned for two appearances before getting DFA’d. That last outing was abysmal; he allowed three runs in one-third of an inning against the Royals on June 28, capping a stretch in which he gave up nine runs and 19 hits in his final 10 2/3 innings with the Dodgers and ballooning his ERA to 5.27. Four days after being released, he signed with the Nationals. Since then, he’s gone on a roll, allowing just one run and five hits in 10 innings. Despite the contrast in ERAs, García’s 3.57 FIP with the Dodgers and 3.59 FIP with the Nationals suggest he’s basically the same pitcher, a worm-killing machine (54.6% groundball rate overall) who doesn’t miss many bats (19.5% strikeout rate) but keeps the ball in the park (0.48 homers per nine). Read the rest of this entry »

I’m not going to sugarcoat it, it’s been a slow week for deadline trades. The way the haves and have-nots line up this year, impactful additions are few and far between. The teams out of the playoff picture don’t have a lot to give up, and the teams with intriguing rental players are mostly already in the race. But the Pittsburgh Pirates, consistent innovators in ways to do weird things without contending, have entered the fray by trading Ke’Bryan Hayes to the Cincinnati Reds in exchange for Taylor Rogers, minor leaguer Sammy Stafura and cash considerations, as Mark Feinsand first reported.

Hayes is about as far from a deadline rental as you can imagine. He signed a lengthy contract extension in April 2022 and is still on that deal; he’s under team control through as long as 2030, in fact, and for cheap! He’s due an average of $7.5 million annually for the next four years, and the pact’s 2030 club option is for just $12 million with a $6 million buyout. That’s the kind of deal that gets teams salivating: long team control at rates that would barely get you a good middle reliever in free agency.

It gets better! Hayes is one of the best defenders in baseball. Since his 2020 debut, he leads all major leaguers with 73 Outs Above Average. Think that’s a fluke? He leads all major leaguers in Defensive Runs Saved – by 28 runs! The distance between him and second place is the same as the distance between second place and 25th. There are plenty of good third basemen with good defensive numbers. Hayes is head and shoulders ahead of all of them, unquestionably, and he’s lapping the third base field again this year, with 15 OAA (second place is four guys tied with four). Read the rest of this entry »

Some transactions are epic sagas that unfold over weeks or months, while others are compact little one-act plays that are over and done with in an afternoon.

On Tuesday, the Blue Jays lost Game 1 of a doubleheader to the Orioles by a score of 16-4. Chad Green, the team’s second-most expensive reliever, surrendered four of those runs in one inning, bringing his ERA to 5.56 and his home run total to 14 in just 43 2/3 innings. Before Game 2, the Blue Jays DFA’d Green and traded for Orioles right-hander Seranthony Domínguez, an unused substitute in Game 1.

Cutting ties with Green, who makes $10.5 million this year, will be expensive, but the Blue Jays did save a few hundred bucks on airfare by trading for a guy who was already in the building. Read the rest of this entry »

The Rays have shuffled up their catchers just a few days before the trade deadline, first sending their starter Danny Jansen to the Brewers along with some cash in return for infielder Jadher Areinamo. Then, Tampa Bay followed it up with a second swap, this time bringing in Nick Fortes from the Marlins for outfielder Matthew Etzel.

While Jansen’s bat has fallen off significantly from his 2021-2023 seasons, when he posted a 120 wRC+ over 754 plate appearances for 6.0 WAR, he’s still an adequate part of a catching tandem and provides the occasional round-tripper. He’s slashing .204/.314/.389 with 11 home runs and a 98 wRC+ this season. His framing numbers have been down considerably the last few years, as well, enough to knock off just under a WAR per season or so from his overall value. Considering the Rays were practically certain to pay out Jansen’s $500,000 buyout rather than pick up their side of a $12 million mutual option, this looks like them getting what they can while the getting was good. Read the rest of this entry »

The Tigers didn’t wait long. On Monday, the team announced that starter Reese Olson would miss the rest of the season (and possibly the postseason) with a right shoulder strain, and that same day, Detroit filled Olson’s rotation spot by swinging a trade within the division for Minnesota right-hander Chris Paddack. The full deal brought Paddack and reliever Randy Dobnak to the Tigers in exchange for 19-year-old catching prospect Enrique Jimenez. The trade represented an attempt to stabilize an increasingly banged-up Detroit rotation for an increasingly important stretch run. For the Twins, the move kicked off what has the potential to be a significant sell-off.

We’ll start with the Twins side. “It’s just crazy how fast it can turn around,” Paddack told Dan Hayes of The Athletic, who initially reported news of the deal along with Ken Rosenthal. “World just got twisted upside down, to say the least. It stinks. This business is out of our control sometimes. I was really pulling for us, as a Twin. I was hoping we would make some moves and go get that Wild Card spot. I’m excited for this new opportunity with a new team.” It’s not immediately clear who will take Paddack’s spot in the Minnesota rotation. The Twins have a bullpen game planned for today. Paddack will start tomorrow, and he’s lined up to face his old squad when the Tigers and Twins face off a week from today. The Twins broadcast made a point of circling the date on the calendar during last night’s game. Read the rest of this entry »

The weekend before the trade deadline was light on big names moving — poor Eugenio Suárez has probably had to take his phone charger out of his go bag a dozen times this month — but we did see plenty of preliminary action. The Orioles began their sell-off by shipping hard-throwing left-hander Gregory Soto up to the Mets. Meanwhile, the Royals sought to maintain their spot on the postseason wait list by picking up a right-handed bat from Arizona: not Suárez, but Randal Grichuk.

Finally, the Braves picked up some reinforcements for their injury-riddled rotation, tossing the Cardinals a player to be named later or cash in exchange for the right to jump the waiver line on recently DFA’d right-hander Erick Fedde. Read the rest of this entry »

“All in all, we got good news today,” Yankees manager Aaron Boone told reporters on Saturday. “I think all of us kind of feared the worst.” On Sunday, the good news Boone was referring to became official. The scuffling Yankees placed Aaron Judge on the 10-day injured list with a flexor strain in his right elbow, but not a torn UCL. Judge underwent an MRI on Saturday, and based on reports that the Yankees think Judge has a chance to miss only the minimum 10 days, it seems safe to assume that the imaging revealed only a minor strain. He has received a platelet-rich plasma injection and won’t throw for 10 days to two weeks. Crucially, returning after the minimum would also allow Judge to be back by the time of his bobblehead day on August 13. The Yankees also traded for utility player Amed Rosario on Sunday, but we’ll cover that move after addressing the news about Judge.

Concern about the elbow arose last Tuesday, when Judge was noticed grimacing after throwing the ball in to the infield. The right fielder did his best to tamp down concerns, telling reporters, “I make facial expressions all the time,” in his characteristic deadpan. He also downplayed the injury to the organization, trying to push off calls for an MRI. “You never want to go in the tube,” he said. But he DH’d on Wednesday and exhibited more discomfort on Friday. “Throwing is the main concern,” Judge said on Saturday. “Hitting happens too quick, and it’s not really the motion that I felt anything. I think the muscle that hurts is the muscle used to grip, so there might be some issues with that.” Over his past nine games, he’s batting .143 with a 35 wRC+. That stretch dropped his best-in-baseball 220 wRC+ all the way down to a still-best-in-baseball 208. According to Jon Heyman of the New York Post, the absolute best-case scenario is that Judge returns after 10 days, then needs just 10 days at DH before getting back to right field. Read the rest of this entry »