The trade deadline was sleepy. It was getting late on Wednesday night, and things just weren’t happening. Most moves always wait until the end, but this was slow. Not deliberate. Just glacial.
And then — wham! — everything happened.
Where does Mason Miller pitch, again? Who’s the new Astros right fielder? Did someone say Mike Yastrzemski got traded?
We’re still wrapping out heads around it, but here are some initial takeaways after a wild 24 hours.
Minnesota Twins! OMG!
The Minnesota Twins crashed in the last two months, and they fell apart in the last two weeks. In the last 24 hours, they set on fire whatever was left.
The dismantling was swift and shocking. The Twins traded not only their rentals, but also their closer (Jhoan Durán was under team control through 2027), and their highest paid player (Carlos Correa was signed through 2028 with team options through 2032). They traded 10 players in all.
No, wait, 11. One of the last shockers of the deadline was Griffin Jax to the Rays. Another elite reliever, homegrown, with excellent numbers and two more years of team control. Gone.
Clearly, the Twins weren’t buyers. No one expected them to add. But this was the kind of sale that blindsides a fan base and rattles a clubhouse. Maybe it was the right thing to do, but it’s hard to feel that way as the bulldozers are driving away.
“Now no one wants to stay if they’re selling like this,” one player told The Athletic’s Dan Hayes.
Relievers rule
The stars of the 2025 trade deadline were the relief pitchers. The entire trade market was cold and uneventful until Wednesday night when the Twins traded Durán and set the whole thing in motion.
The Phillies gave up two high-end prospects in the Durán deal. The Mets traded three prospects for two months of Ryan Helsley. The Yankees convinced the Pirates to move David Bednar, then made another trade for Giants closer Camilo Doval. The Tigers got Kyle Finnegan. And, in the real stunner, the Padres gave up Leo De Vries — one of the most highly touted prospects in the sport — for Athletics flamethrower Mason Miller. Both Jax and Doval were traded in the deadline’s final minutes.
The Mets added three relievers. So did the Yankees (and two of them were closers). Even the Angels got a couple of bullpen arms, and there were more — Pete Fairbanks, Carlos Estévez, Reid Detmers, Dennis Santana — left on the table.
Preller at it again
The Padres were not the Twins. With his team’s playoff odds trending heavily upward in the past week, Padres president of baseball operations A.J. Preller did what he always does: he got aggressive and found ways to get what he needed.
A willingness to trade a prospect like De Vries tends to open some possibilities.
But after burning his top trade chip on Miller, Preller was still able to address his most glaring need — getting some actual bats — in a late two-player deal with the Orioles for Ryan O’Hearn and Ramón Laureano, who have some of the best offensive numbers of anyone on the block.
There was some thought that Preller might have to thread the needle to get what he wanted — he might have to trade away Dylan Cease or Robert Suarez to add elsewhere — but Preller didn’t have to get cute. He just got aggressive. Which is what he does.
Where were the Tigers?
For a while this season, the Tigers were making a compelling case for being the best team in baseball. Then they fell hard in the past month before dusting themselves off the past few days. They didn’t necessarily have a glaring need, but the Tigers seemed primed to build and buy.
Instead, they went quantity over quality with a bunch of half measures on their pitching staff. They added a back-end starter (Chris Paddack), then announced that Reese Olson is likely to miss the rest of the year. They settled for the Nationals’ closer Finnegan when other teams made real splashes in the ninth inning. They got Paul Sewald (who’s hurt) and Rafael Montero (who has a 5.40 ERA). In the final minute, they got Charlie Morton.
This was not the trade deadline of a team that thinks it’s on the verge of a championship. Of course, the Tigers sold last deadline and still made a playoff run, so who knows?
The Red Sox (Dustin May and Steven Matz), Cubs (Michael Soroka and Andrew Kittredge) and Brewers (Danny Jansen and Shelby Miller) also made additions, but might have left some meat on the bone. Also in this group: the Dodgers, who traded for reliever Brock Stewart but otherwise seem to be banking on their existing roster getting healthy enough to repeat as world champs.
Can’t tell the buyers from the sellers
The Braves, I guess, forgot to trade Marcell Ozuna, and accidentally added Erick Fedde and Carlos Carrasco instead. The Angels clearly have never learned their lesson and again refused to sell. They traded for a couple of relievers in their mid to late 30s. The Royals added, too.
The Pirates wound up stuck in the middle. They sold — Ke’Bryan Hayes to the Reds, Bednar to the Yankees, Bailey Falter to the Royals — but their hearts weren’t in it. No Santana trade. No Mitch Keller. No Bryan Reynolds. The Pirates have a .431 winning percentage and approached the trade deadline as if they’re one free agent away from turning this thing around. Except, they never sign free agents.
The team that did the best job of blurring the line between buying and selling was the Rays. Their early swap of one catcher for another was a sign of things to come, because they also traded away a couple of starting pitchers. One was included in their deal for Twins reliever Jax, and the other was ultimately White Sox starter Adrian Houser, who’s been one of the biggest surprises in the sport. The Rays “sold” and wound up adding one of the game’s best relievers and a starter with a 2.10 ERA.
Wasted potential is hard to value
Two of the most intriguing names on the trade market were White Sox center fielder Luis Robert Jr. and Marlins starter Sandy Alcantara. Both are relatively young, and both were legitimate superstars not so long ago. Both have also been awful this season: a .653 OPS for Robert and a 6.36 ERA for Alcantara.
The idea of a contender taking a shot on either one had been a trade deadline fascination for weeks. But both stayed put. Teams certainly engaged, but even in a trade market that saw a flurry of deals in the past 24 hours, no one could agree on a cost for those two.
Winners and losers
It was a midnight surprise that brought Eugenio Suárez to Seattle Wednesday night. He joins his former Diamondbacks teammate Josh Naylor in addressing the Mariners’ glaring offensive issues at the infield corners. That lineup looks a lot more potent with those two. And if the Mariners can score some runs for that pitching staff, they’ll be dangerous.
The Mets, too, addressed their bullpen without giving up much of anything (David Stearns remains one of the best in the business), and the Yankees wiped away their bullpen and third base issues by trading for two third basemen and three late-inning relievers. That feels like a radically different team than it was just a few years ago.
The Padres and Astros — Carlos Correa! — also found ways to improve in important ways despite having little financial wiggle room (Padres) or prospect capital (Astros). The Phillies also did exactly what they came into this deadline to do: They got the best closer on the market and maybe the best all-around center fielder.
But while the Rays were getting creative and the Yankees were overloading their bullpen, the Red Sox were settling for second-tier arms and the Blue Jays were crossing their fingers on Shane Bieber’s return. And while several contenders in the East and West — in both leagues — made bold moves toward improvement, the teams in the Central weren’t nearly as aggressive.
At least the Twins picked a lane and followed it all the way to the end.
(Photo of Carlos Correa: David Berding / Getty Images)
