Let’s Judge Midseason Trades Now

“Don’t grade trades on deadline day,” said the wise man. It takes months to find out if Jhoan Duran will put the Phillies over the top, years to learn how Carlos Correa’s second stint in Houston will go, and perhaps as much as a decade to learn exactly how much the Padres might eventually regret trading Leo De Vries.

At least, so says the wise man. “Hogwash,” says I. Let’s grade the midseason trades now.

According to RosterResource, 391 players have been traded since the end of last year’s World Series. Or at least, there have been 391 discrete player trade movements; a few of these guys have moved more than once. I’m only interested in midseason trades, which I’m defining as trades that took place after the general MLB Opening Day, March 27. Apologies to South Jersey legend Tyler Phillips, who’s been weirdly good (and weirdly aggro) since joining the Marlins; you were traded two days too early.

That leaves us with 264 player movements by trade since the day after Opening Day. I pared that list down to only include players who appeared in at least one game with the team that traded for them. So, goodbye long-term prospects like De Vries and Eduardo Tait. Goodbye injured vets like Jordan Montgomery. Goodbye maturing prospects or fringe major leaguers like Blade Tidwell, who appeared in the majors before they got traded, but not after.

That’s a subset of 147 player movements, involving 62 position players and 82 pitchers. (Scott Blewett, Michael Petersen, and Rafael Montero got traded twice and made major league contributions to multiple new teams this year.)

By having the most liberal possible definition of the word “midseason,” I’ve avoided having to make a judgment call on when the trade deadline actually starts. Though that does cause other problems, as you’ll see on this list of the most productive post-trade players.

The Brewers top this list twice not just because Vaughn and Priester have been good, but because they got their business done super early. (A cynic might argue that because the Vaughn and Priester trades were so successful, we should cut the Brewers some slack for their somnambulant deadline season.) That’s why the most valuable player involved in a Phillies-Twins trade this year was not Duran, nor the white-hot Bader, but Kody Clemens.

The Phillies, inundated with left-handed platoon bats and with guys who can theoretically play second base but really ought to be in left field, had no use for Clemens, who was unlucky enough to fit both categories. They sent him to Minnesota for cash in late April, and since then Clemens has been solid enough, playing six defensive positions and posting a 101 wRC+. But his placement here is an artifact of his having played 107 games since the trade, 21 more than any other eligible player.

Good for Clemens, who’s now an everyday player for the first time in his major league career at age 29, but he’s not the kind of player we’re talking about. Let’s limit the sample to players who got traded during the month of July.

That’s more like it. This list includes some of the biggest names who moved at or near the deadline. Even the Royals’ pickups came from the Freddy Fermin challenge trade and a win-now move for Yastrzemski. Now, if you’re trading the second-best Dominican pitcher named Yunior Marte for a 34-year-old Yastrzemski, I don’t know if you’re trying especially hard to win now, but it’s still a deadline addition for a team that had playoff aspirations at the time.

Jackson is the only player here who wasn’t added to assist a playoff push. The by-then-obviously-doomed Orioles picked Jackson up from the Yankees because if you don’t put someone behind home plate the ball is going to go to the backstop on every pitch. Still, he’s been quite good since arriving in Baltimore.

On this short a timeline, WAR might not be the best metric for judging trades. Deadline acquisitions don’t just compile stats, they’re intended to drive in a run or get an out at a key moment. So who’s done the best job by win probability?

It’s probably appropriate that this list is dominated by relief pitchers, who moved in huge numbers, and in a few cases, for huge returns. Plus Miguel Andujar, who I keep forgetting is still in the league. But in just 29 games with the Reds, he’s been not only productive but apparently also clutch: He has 30 hits in a Reds uniform, and five of those have either tied the game or given Cincinnati the lead.

In the process of compiling this information, it became clear to me that — the heroics of Andujar notwithstanding — one individual trade isn’t going to swing a pennant race. No season-tilting superstar changed employers at the deadline; the biggest names to move were either closers or stars of the late 2010s, like Correa and Shane Bieber.

Of the 144 players who were traded this season and went on to make a contribution to their new teams, only 15 — or about one in 10 — has improved his team’s chances by as much as a win, either by WAR or WPA. Nobody’s broken the two-win threshold.

But several teams have acquired packages of reinforcements who have made a big difference as a group: The Mariners with Naylor and Eugenio Suárez; the Phillies with Duran and Bader; the Brewers with Priester and Vaughn. So let’s end by looking at each team’s trade performance in the aggregate.

The Cardinals are the only team that hasn’t added a major league player via trade this season. The Rockies, ever content to stand pat, came close. In April, they purchased Alan Trejo from the Rangers; Trejo had only left the Rockies organization in the first place 10 months prior. Trejo spent three weeks in the organization, during which time he appeared in 13 games, batted .175 with one walk and two doubles, and generate -0.4 WAR. The Rockies released him on May 18, and nine days after that he re-signed with the Rangers.

Technically, that counts as acquiring a big leaguer in a trade. Practically, not so much.

In this table, we see yet more evidence of the Rays, Dodgers, and Padres being inveterate fidgeters, along with confirmation that the Mariners’ deadline moves were worth the cost.

But I was mildly surprised to learn that the Royals were massive winners in this year’s midseason trade market. Kolek has generated a full win in just four starts, which I can’t get my head around given his modest strikeout rate. The third guy in the Fermin trade, Ryan Bergert, has also been decent in his eight starts. Yastrzemski has hit well, and even Adam Frazier, whose acquisition I mocked two months ago, is hitting .281 since his return to Kansas City.

Was that enough to put the Royals back in the playoff hunt? No, and it wasn’t especially close, even in the depressingly winnable AL Central. But J.J. Picollo had one of the best hit rates of any GM this deadline, so bully for him.

I’m sure that in time we’ll look back on the 2025 deadline and pick winners and losers based on how various prospects developed, or how various newcomers impacted this year’s postseason. But that’s the future’s problem. In the meantime, congratulations to the Brewers and Royals.