Last week, when the Dodgers designated lefty starter James Paxton for assignment, general manager Brandon Gomes spoke of the team targeting “an impact-type arm” ahead of the trade deadline. Gomes and president of baseball operations Andrew Friedman hit their target shortly before the 6 p.m. ET deadline on Tuesday, landing Tigers righty Jack Flaherty in exchange for a pair of prospects. Separately, the Dodgers also fortified their outfield depth by acquiring Kevin Kiermaier from the Blue Jays for lefty Ryan Yarbrough.

For all the talk about the top-of-the-line starters who could be moved before the deadline, the most discussed ones besides Flaherty — the Tigers’ Tarik Skubal, the Giants’ Blake Snell, and the White Sox’s Garrett Crochet — all stayed put, making the Dodgers’ addition of the 28-year-old Flaherty feel that much more impactful. To acquire the Los Angeles native — who was traded on deadline day for the second year in a row, after being dealt from the Cardinals to the Orioles last August 1 — the Dodgers parted with 21-year-old catcher Thayron Liranzo and 24-year-old shortstop Trey Sweeney.

After years of injuries capped by a subpar campaign that included the aforementioned change of address, Flaherty is in the midst of his best season in half a decade. Because he’s skipped a couple of turns due to injections of painkillers (not cortisone) to address recurrent lower back pain (one on June 10, the second on July 2) and then had Monday’s turn scratched in anticipation of his being dealt, his 106.2 innings is 1.1 short of the threshold to qualify for the ERA title, but his numbers are impressive. Among AL pitchers with at least 100 innings, he ranks seventh with a 2.95 ERA and sixth with a 3.11 FIP. Among all AL pitchers, he’s tied for 11th with 2.5 WAR, and among the pitchers traded this month, he’s second only to the more contact-oriented Erick Fedde (2.7). Flaherty’s numbers are a huge improvement from last year’s 4.96 ERA and 4.36 FIP in 144.1 innings. While putting up a 6.75 ERA post-trade, he was bumped from the Orioles’ rotation in mid-September and finished the season in the bullpen. Read the rest of this entry »

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 »

You didn’t really think teams were done swapping relievers after Friday and Saturday, did you? If you thought maybe they were tapped out for late relief help on Sunday and Monday, well, you thought wrong! If your bullpen doesn’t look like there are enough dudes to capture Helm’s Deep, you’re woefully short-armed.

The San Diego Padres acquired LHRP Tanner Scott and RHRP Bryan Hoeing from the Miami Marlins for LHSP Robby Snelling, RHSP Adam Mazur, 3B/2B Graham Pauley, and 3B/SS Jay Beshears

As one of baseball’s elite closers on an expiring contract, Tanner Scott was arguably the best short-term option available among relievers. His walk rate has peeked up a little to the numbers of the bad old days, but his first-strike percentage has stayed firmly in positive territory, which is an important indicator of where walk numbers will settle. Scott is likely to help the Padres in a very tight NL Wild Card race, but he’ll probably be even more important for them in the playoffs if they can get there. In San Diego, he teams up with Robert Suarez to asphyxiate opposing lineups late in the games. As far as elite closers who occasionally walk a few too many batters go, Scott is one of the less stressful of the genre, because he’s so hard to hit against with any authority, giving him a good shot at escaping jams following those free passes.

Bryan Hoeing is a sinker/slider reliever who has never quite clicked, as he’s never really been able to induce many swings-and-misses, nor has he mastered the art of inducing weak groundballs. He strikes me mostly as a depth guy who has plenty of years of club control left, and barring a breakout, he seems destined to be shuffled back and forth between San Diego and Triple-A El Paso a lot over the next few years. This trade is about Scott. Read the rest of this entry »

Two of my favorite hobbies are getting incredibly interested in minor moves made by the Tampa Bay Rays and overrating Dylan Carlson. Boy, is today right up my alley, then: the Cardinals traded Carlson to the Rays in exchange for reliever Shawn Armstrong. Another of my favorite hobbies: teams buying and selling at the same time. The Giants got in on that by acquiring Mark Canha from the Tigers in exchange for Eric Silva. Three things I love at once? Let’s dive into the details and see what’s going on in this strange pair of trades.

It’s easy to identify the sides in the first trade. The Rays are continuing to pry apart their roster piece by piece, while the Cardinals are consolidating for a playoff push. Armstrong is a depth arm and occasional opener who can give you multiple innings at once. He’s recorded four or more outs in a game 11 times already this year, hardly your average single-inning reliever. Some of those outings have been inefficient – he has a 5.40 ERA and opponents are absolutely tattooing him when they put the ball in play. But he’s been a perfectly capable reliever for the last three years, and as we all know, single-season ERA/FIP gaps are hardly predictive. 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 »

It’s been awhile since we’ve seen the Royals act like contenders, but given that they entered the morning of the trade deadline with a one-game lead for the third AL Wild Card spot, the behavior is merited. On Monday they added righty starter Michael Lorenzen in a deal with the Rangers, and on Tuesday afternoon they swung deals for A’s reliever Lucas Erceg and White Sox infielder Paul DeJong. None of them are blockbusters, but they all fortify Kansas City’s roster, with the DeJong move a step to address a particularly weak bench.

The Royals acquired the 30-year-old DeJong, who’s making $1.75 million this year and has another $250,000 in bonuses within reach for attaining the 400- and 500-plate appearance thresholds, in exchange for 21-year-old righty Jarold Rosado, a reliever with the Royals’ A-level Columbia affiliate. The trade took place about four hours before the Royals were set to play the White Sox at Guaranteed Rate Field, so DeJong joined his new club — his fourth since the start of the 2023 season — by walking from one dugout to the other.

Paul DeJong has walked over to the other dugout pic.twitter.com/Olm4BoirNH

— James Fegan (@JRFegan) July 30, 2024

Drafted and developed by the Cardinals, DeJong was once considered a foundational player. Coming off a 25-homer 2017 season in which he was the runner-up in the NL Rookie of the Year voting, he signed a six-year, $26 million extension, a record at the time for a player with less than one year of service time. He hit 30 home runs and made the NL All-Star team in 2019, but by May ’22, in the midst of his second consecutive season with a sub-.200 batting average, the Cardinals optioned him to Triple-A Memphis to revamp his swing. His performance rebounded, though not to his 2017–19 level, and so on August 1, 2023, he was traded to the Blue Jays. He went an unfathomable 3-for-44 for the Jays before drawing his release three weeks later, and then just 9-for-49 after being picked up by the Giants. For the season, he hit .207/.258/.355 (66 wRC+). Read the rest of this entry »

Being Mets-y has been an insult for years, a description of a team combining bad execution and bad luck to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. It’s the kind of thing that describes poor decisions but also poor circumstances. Kodai Senga spraining his calf in his first game all year and missing the remainder of the season? That’s Mets-y. Trading a huge haul to replace him and then getting nothing from the big name replacement? That’d be Mets-y too, but things have changed in Queens. Instead of splashing out prospects for Yusei Kikuchi or going after a toolsy young arm, as the Orioles did for Trevor Rogers, the Mets are doing the MLB equivalent of shopping at Costco. They acquired Paul Blackburn from the A’s in exchange for Kade Morris, their 17th-best prospect, as Will Sammon reported.

Blackburn is definitely not a name you’d put on a marquee. He’s pitched to a 4.83 ERA and 4.36 FIP in his major league career. You know how Yu Darvish is so fun because he throws seven pitches and they’re all above average? Blackburn is like that – only all of his pitches are below average. He has six different options, but our stuff models think that only his slider and cutter are even decent. He makes up for that lack of raw juice with command and with the willingness to throw any pitch in any count.
Read the rest of this entry »

The Cleveland Guardians continued their busy deadline period Tuesday afternoon with the acquisition of veteran right-hander Alex Cobb. Pitching prospect Jacob Bresnahan and a player to be named later are heading west to San Francisco in return.

The Guardians, having already traded for Lane Thomas the night before, picked up a veteran rental to bolster a rotation that, in the absence of Shane Bieber, would’ve undermined the entire enterprise once Cleveland hit the playoffs. Read the rest of this entry »

The Pirates have made three trade in the last two days. Yesterday, they swapped post-hype prospects with the Red Sox — struggling right-handed pitcher Quinn Priester for Triple-A 2B/LF Nick Yorke — and added veteran southpaw Jalen Beeks from the Rockies in exchange for minor league lefty Luis Peralta. Then, earlier today, Pittsburgh acquired 29-year-old lefty Josh Walker from the Mets for DSL pitcher Nicolas Carreno. Read the rest of this entry »

This is a trade article, as the Diamondbacks acquired Josh Bell from the Marlins today in exchange for cash considerations. It’s also an injury article, sadly. Christian Walker departed last night’s D-backs/Nationals game with an oblique injury, and was due for an MRI this morning. The results haven’t been made public yet, but trading for Bell is a statement in and of itself, so let’s walk through the trade and injury in combination.

Walker has quietly been the second-best first baseman in the game over the past three years. I don’t mean that hyperbolically; he’s second only to Freddie Freeman in WAR over that time period. He’s done it with good offense and outrageous, comically good first base defense. I don’t think I’m selling this enough. Per Statcast, Walker has been 38 outs above average over that time period. Carlos Santana is second… with 17. DRS scores it 33-20 in Walker’s favor, with Matt Olson at 21. However you look at it, Walker is head and shoulders above everyone else at the position. Last night, he made a standard-for-him, spectacular-for-most play on a foul ball:

After that inning, he came back to the dugout and departed the game. Now we and the Diamondbacks can only wait to hear the injury news. Read the rest of this entry »