Ever binged a show you found boring at first? Then you got hooked, and it wasn’t until the final credits rolled that you unglued your eyeballs from the screen.
That is how tracking this year’s MLB trade deadline felt. A slow-moving market morphed into a sprint over the final 24 hours, and now Mason Miller is a Padre, Shane Bieber is a Blue Jay, David Bednar is a Yankee and Carlos Correa is an Astro … again.
It’s time to sort all 30 MLB teams into the only categories that matter this time of year: winners, losers and snoozers. Winners are buyers or sellers who addressed their clubs’ needs and got better without getting fleeced. Losers overpaid, misread the market or made minor moves when big swings were needed to address areas of need. Snoozers snoozed.
Winners
Baltimore Orioles
The Orioles are here because this season has been a failure. But once here, Baltimore’s front office did what it had to do these past two weeks. The team had a stockpile of pending free agents, and general manager Mike Elias cashed in that stockpile in an efficient fashion that could prove effective down the road. It feels silly to declare Baltimore a winner in a season in which the club entered with World Series aspirations only to become one of the most active sellers by July. Perhaps this is the sort of losing season that could be a springboard back to contending. Give the Orioles credit, at the least, for decisiveness.
Colorado Rockies
Rejoice, ye faithful. The Rockies finally acted like a regular bad team at the deadline and sold. We should not be giving them bonus points for doing the most obvious thing a rebuilding team can do, but we can’t help it. Even before the Rockies get anything out of the prospects they received in return for Ryan McMahon, Jake Bird and Tyler Kinley, they are winners in our book.
Houston Astros
Think back to the end of the 2021 season. Carlos Correa was 27 years old and a free agent. He was coming off a fifth-place MVP finish and was one of the clubhouse leaders on a championship team. He was a superstar with the world in front of him. Since then, one-year deals, failed physicals, injured list trips, All-Star seasons, a multiyear deal with all kinds of club options and finally a trade back to where it all started. What a weird hiccup in what was a completely normal Hall of Fame path. With the Minnesota Twins picking up $30 million of his contract, this is a worthy gamble for the Astros to take on an old friend, who is joining a team that is already much better than most people expected it to be.
Kansas City Royals
The Royals’ most impactful move was extending starter Seth Lugo rather than dangling him at the trade deadline. They also did well with their smaller moves. They got a lefty-mashing outfielder, Randal Grichuk; a righty-mashing outfielder, Mike Yastrzemski (OK, mashing might be overstating); a reunion with utility infielder Adam Frazier; and three major league arms — Stephen Kolek, Ryan Bergert and Bailey Falter — for catcher Freddy Fermin and two minor leaguers. That is tidy trade deadline work for an organization that is still on the periphery of the playoff race. The Royals got a bit better, and they will now have Kolek, Bergert, Falter and Lugo for 2026 and beyond.
New York Mets
While other teams pursued pitchers with multiple years of team control, David Stearns scooped up two of the best rental relievers, Ryan Helsley and Tyler Rogers, without doing much damage to his farm system. On deadline day, he swooped in for outfielder Cedric Mullins. Is there a chance the Mets will miss the surplus value of outfielder Drew Gilbert or pitcher Blade Tidwell? Sure. But those are gaps easily plugged in the future with the wallet of owner Steve Cohen. This is the closest the Mets have come to looking like Cohen’s dream, the East Coast version of the Los Angeles Dodgers, using a bustling minor league system to set up the big league club for October success.
New York Yankees
The Yankees improved in several areas at the deadline as general manager Brian Cashman used a plethora of catching prospects to help the big league club. Ryan McMahon offers strong defense, cost certainty and some potential offensive upside at third base. Austin Slater should aid the lineup against left-handed pitching. The relief duo of David Bednar and Jake Bird can keep traffic off the bases in the late innings. Camilo Doval, a last-minute acquisition, is more of a wild card, but he has flashed the potential to be a closer in the past. It’s a good haul.
Philadelphia Phillies
The Phillies needed a closer. So Dave Dombrowski went out and got a closer. Jhoan Duran has been one of the best relievers in baseball since he made his debut in 2022. Duran is under team control through 2027, but make no mistake: This deal is about this October. Philadelphia has the best starting rotation in baseball. The lineup features battle-tested veterans. And now the bullpen has a final boss. Dombrowski did what needed to be done, and he managed to protect top prospects Andrew Painter and Aidan Miller.
San Diego Padres
Mason Miller with Robert Suarez at the back of the bullpen gives the Padres the best 1-2 punch in the sport. Add in All-Stars Adrian Morejon and Jason Adam as well as Jeremiah Estrada, and San Diego has a ridiculous bullpen that could be potent in the playoffs. Ramón Laureano and Ryan O’Hearn give the Padres the two bats they were looking to acquire at the deadline, and Freddy Fermin is a big upgrade at catcher. It’s official: From now on, general manager A.J. Preller should be considered the king of the trade deadline.
Seattle Mariners
Do you remember the last time the Mariners traded for a corner infielder, then went back and immediately traded with the same team for another one? It was 2006, when they acquired Eduardo Pérez and Ben Broussard from Cleveland. Those deals don’t have much in common with the Josh Naylor and Eugenio Suárez trades, almost two decades later, but it is an amusing note for amateur Seattle historians. What else can you say about what the Mariners did at this deadline? They had obvious holes in their lineup, and they fixed them with two of the best players available at the position, without emptying the farm. As clear a win as there is.
The Athletics
The A’s organization has not been in its traditional sell-sell-sell mode over the past couple of seasons, preferring instead to lock up a variety of players to long-term deals, ostensibly for the team’s eventual home in Las Vegas. So the front office was not going to trade Mason Miller unless it got one of the very best prospects in the game, which is exactly what it got from San Diego in Leo De Vries. The A’s held out for one of the best prospects traded since Yoan Moncada, and they won, with some other talented prospects to boot.
Losers
Arizona Diamondbacks
The Diamondbacks are not necessarily here because of the prospects they got back in their deals. The Eugenio Suárez return seemed a little light, but the Merrill Kelly haul was more than ample. All in all, they did what a rebuilding team is supposed to do, trading some of their best players away for future contributors. The wrinkle is that the Diamondbacks are not supposed to be rebuilding at all, and it’s hard not to wonder if they should be the ones half-going for it, like the Angels.
Chicago Cubs
No contender needs a great starter like the Cubs do. There was plenty of smoke, but when the deadline came and went, there was no fire. The Cubs got three veteran pitchers — starter Michael Soroka and relievers Andrew Kittredge and Taylor Rogers — and utility player Willi Castro, a league-average hitter. They declined to part with the top prospects that might have brought back a top-end starter. They also decided not to upgrade the lineup in their one (and only?) season with Kyle Tucker. The answer to their third-base question, apparently, is Matt Shaw staying hot. It was a surprisingly conservative approach.
Cincinnati Reds
An evaluator texted Wednesday afternoon, “What on earth did the Reds just do?” They had just acquired Gold Glove third baseman Ke’Bryan Hayes from the Pittsburgh Pirates for shortstop prospect Sammy Stafura and reliever Taylor Rogers. Hayes is one of the best defenders in baseball, but whatever value he brings with the glove is drowned out by his poor hitting. Starter Zack Littell is a solid add, but the bullpen lost Taylor Rogers and did not replace him. The lingering question, though, is whether the Reds can solve Hayes’ hitting woes before his contract is up in 2030. If he can become an average hitter, they will have won this trade.
Detroit Tigers
The Tigers certainly were active. They rebuilt half their pitching staff this week. But the group of Charlie Morton, Chris Paddack, Kyle Finnegan, Paul Sewald, Randy Dobnak, Rafael Montero and Codi Heuer is not a winning deadline. It’s depth. Where are the bats? Where are the stud late-inning relievers? The issue is not that the Tigers lost the individual trades. It’s that they were so unwilling to overpay on elite relievers that they did not come close to landing any of them. Instead, they incrementally improved and didn’t raid their prospect stash. Feels great until it’s the ninth inning of a playoff game and you could have had Ryan Helsley or David Bednar trotting in from the bullpen.
Los Angeles Angels
The Angels once again kept the baseball world guessing, opting to buy instead of sell. They added righty Luis García and lefty Andrew Chafin, two veteran relievers who improve their bullpen depth. OK, fine. But the Angels just never seem to take advantage of trade deadlines to improve their future, which is disappointing. Closer Kenley Jansen and outfielder Taylor Ward could have been dealt for solid returns. Nope! Once again, they missed an opportunity to build for the coming years.
Los Angeles Dodgers
Brock Stewart? Alex Call? Trading away a starting pitcher, even if he is oft-injured and mercurial? The Dodgers had one of the snooziest deadlines an active team can have, even if they were technically “active.” And when you’re in the Dodgers’ position, when you snooze, you lose. This isn’t what you want from a team that was leaking oil throughout July. There was more room for them to get aggressive and weird.
Minnesota Twins
Well, they sure incinerated that roster. Jhoan Duran, Carlos Correa, Danny Coulombe, Harrison Bader, Brock Stewart, Willi Castro, Griffin Jax, Ty France and Louie Varland. Gone. All gone. Sheesh. The Twins acquired talented prospects, but it is not yet time to celebrate organizational depth. For Duran, they got catcher Eduardo Tait — likely the second-best prospect moved at the deadline — and former first-round pick Mick Abel. They got a couple other likely top-20 organizational prospects. They acquired change-of-scenery candidates James Outman and Taj Bradley. And they extracted themselves from a long-term commitment with Correa, who is far more likely to participate in October baseball in Houston throughout his contract than in Minnesota.
Pittsburgh Pirates
General manager Ben Cherington’s stated intention was to “be prepared to strike” if he saw chances to improve the 2026 ballclub. So that is how we’re grading the club’s trade deadline. Understandable as it was to trade David Bednar, escape the long-term contract of Ke’Bryan Hayes and keep Mitch Keller, the only new acquisition who could make an impact in the lineup next season is 24-year-old catcher Rafael Flores. The Pirates’ top prospect list got more interesting with the additions of Flores, Sammy Stafura, Edgleen Perez, Brian Sanchez and Jeter Martinez. But, ultimately, they got more quantity than quality, and other than saving some money, the 2026 outlook is unimproved. Perhaps the big-swing trades will come this offseason.
St. Louis Cardinals
The Cardinals had held onto closer Ryan Helsley, looking for the perfect time to trade him. This seemed to be that time. The return, though, was light. An evaluator who had been impressed with how little Phillies general manager Dave Dombrowski gave up to acquire Jhoan Duran then said the Mets’ David Stearns “blew him out of the water” with the Helsley deal. Jesus Baez is a very skilled prospect, but he’s raw and a long way off. None of the other minor leaguers acquired at the deadline — Nate Dohm, Frank Elissalt, Skylar Hales, Mason Molina, Blaze Jordan — project to be above-average big leaguers.
San Francisco Giants
It wasn’t that long ago that the Giants were already the winners of the trade deadline. They had Rafael Devers, who still might be the best player traded in July. Since then, the Giants have been the worst team in baseball, so bad in July that they committed to an aggressive sell-off. They have a thin system in the middle of a mostly unexciting 2025, so the prospects will help. The prospects they got in return for Tyler Rogers from the Mets, in particular, will have some name value and a Giants debut sooner rather than later. Still, it’s hard to see them as anything but losers after the past few weeks.
Toronto Blue Jays
There were so many high-end relievers dealt during these past few days, from the likes of David Bednar and Tyler Rogers to long-term solutions like Jhoan Duran and Mason Miller. The Blue Jays settled for middle relievers Seranthony Domínguez and Louis Varland while taking a flier on rehabbing starter Shane Bieber. It’s possible that Domínguez and Varland will deepen the relief corps enough to last through October. It’s possible that Bieber, as he returns from Tommy John surgery, can crack the postseason rotation. But on the surface, Toronto missed an opportunity to make a sizable addition to a club that has outplayed its run differential to reach first place in the American League East.
Snoozers
Atlanta Braves, Boston Red Sox, Chicago White Sox, Cleveland Guardians, Miami Marlins, Milwaukee Brewers, Tampa Bay Rays, Texas Rangers, Washington Nationals
Whether because of extenuating circumstances (Hello, Cleveland), a lack of trade partners or a plan to do nothing all along, these teams mostly stood pat. The trade deadline isn’t always for everyone.
This article originally appeared in The New York Times.
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