What we learned from this MLB trade deadline and the execs who drove the market

And that was especially true if you had a proven back-end bullpen monster to sell. Nearly three dozen relievers got traded last month. But the execs I surveyed were still buzzing about:

• Miami’s return for Tanner Scott (four of the best prospects the Padres had left to deal).

• The Angels’ take for Carlos Estévez (arguably the Phillies’ two best healthy pitching prospects).

• The Rays’ package for Jason Adam (three more intriguing Padres prospects).

• And, in the first of these trades, the Nationals’ return for Hunter Harvey (highly regarded third-base prospect Cayden Wallace and the No. 39 pick in the draft).

“The prices people were paying for relievers — and starters who were going to be in your rotation but not guaranteed to start a playoff game — was incredible,” one National League exec said. “It was just a seller’s market. And I think that helped to define a lot of what happened.”

But if it was a seller’s market, what were the White Sox doing?

If you’re like most people, you know all about what the White Sox didn’t do, as in … Garrett Crochet? Luis Robert Jr.? Yup, they’re still living the 120-loss dream on the South Side. So before we get into that, we should at least remind you of what the White Sox did do:

• Traded their home run leader, Paul DeJong, to the Royals for A-ball reliever Jarold Rosado.

• Traded left-handed set-up man Tanner Banks to the Phillies for 19-year-old A-ball infielder William Bergolla.

• And they got mixed up, earlier in the week, in a big three-team trade with the Dodgers and Cardinals, in which they parted with three of their biggest trade chips — Erick Fedde, Michael Kopech and Tommy Pham — in the same deal.

So it wasn’t as if all they did this month was sit around and order deep dish from Lou Malnati’s. But remember: It was a seller’s market! And the industry consensus is that, by that standard, the White Sox weren’t able to use this market to build up the sort of prospect inventory the other big sellers collected.

In part, that was because of the way they handled that three-team trade. (More on that to come.) But the biggest part was their decision not to trade Crochet when he was clearly the most heavily pursued pitcher — and player overall — in this market.

But maybe you’re thinking: Wait. Didn’t Crochet’s agent say he wouldn’t work in relief for a new team or pitch in October unless he got a contract extension? And yep, that happened. But several execs I spoke with this week said their teams were willing to ignore that edict. And if White Sox general manager Chris Getz thought that was a deal-breaker, why did he keep talking to multiple teams about Crochet practically right until the deadline gong sounded?

“I thought for sure they would move Crochet,” said an exec from one team that at least kicked the tires on him. “Now maybe they’re going to say: ‘OK, we’ll just hold him until the winter, when you’ve got all the teams involved.’ I just know there were some pretty big prospect names being tossed around. And look, he’s not my player. But let’s just say I’d have been tempted to do something if I were them.”

Hey, it’s nobody’s decision to make but the White Sox’s. And they have every right to say no thanks. But let’s mention this one more time: It was a seller’s market!

So as one AL exec put it, “I just don’t feel like they maximized what they could have gotten. And when you’re going through a rebuild and you have really good trade assets, you have to maximize them if you’re going to get through it quickly.”

Andrew Friedman is the Leopold Stokowski of GMs

Is there anyone in any front office who loves a fun-filled three-team deal more than Dodgers maestro Andrew Friedman? He’s orchestrated quite a few of them in the last decade and a half. And he left his stamp on yet another one before this deadline. Here’s the rundown of that three-team Dodgers/Cardinals/White Sox swapfest:

DODGERS — Got IF/OF Tommy Edman from the Cardinals, Kopech from the White Sox and right-handed pitching prospect Oliver Gonzalez from the Cardinals.

CARDINALS — Got Fedde and Pham from the White Sox.

WHITE SOX — Got IF/OF Miguel Vargas, infielder Alexander Albertus and second baseman Jeral Perez from the Dodgers, plus a player to be named or cash (also from L.A.).

The industry loved the Cardinals’ end, was amazed by what the Dodgers wound up with and, once again, was mystified by the White Sox approach.

Just Fedde alone — pitching great and with another year of control — seemed to have more value in this market than Yusei Kikuchi. But Kikuchi, a rental with nearly an 8.00 ERA over his last eight starts, netted the Blue Jays three young big-league-ready players from Houston. And I couldn’t find anyone who didn’t think the White Sox got less impact back for their big three-player combo in this deal. So was packaging them really the right play here?

“In general, I feel this way,” said one rival exec. “As a buyer, I’m always trying to get people to package things together. But as a seller, you almost never want to do that.”

So how’d that happen? The White Sox had to agree to it. And John Mozeliak and the Cardinals front office did an excellent job of driving it in their own direction. But Friedman, the Dodgers’ president of baseball operations, just has this way of spinning that sort of three-team magic. And his fellow execs can’t help but applaud it.

“Andrew always knows how to find a way to extract the talent that he’s looking for,” said one NL exec, “even if the match isn’t quite there with the team he’s trying to extract the talent from.”

We’ve never seen a seller quite like the Rays

“You have to admire it — the decisiveness with which they operate and their willingness to take risks,” an exec said of Erik Neander’s Rays.  (Christopher O’Meara / Associated Press)

They awoke on Deadline Day with a winning record (54-52) and just three games out of a wild-card spot. So of course those free-thinking Tampa Bay Rays sold.

In truth, they didn’t wait until Deadline Day as they started selling early and often. From July 26 through Tuesday — a stretch in which they were never under .500 at any point — they made eight trades, involving 22 players, and wound up with 12 prospects, plus fascinating reclamation projects in Dylan Carlson and Christopher Morel.

So I started asking other teams, throughout the week, if they could remember any team in the Rays’ position selling like that? And when the no’s started rolling in, I decided to ask my friends from STATS Perform about just how unprecedented this was. The answer?

In the wild-card era, there has never been a seller quite like this.

STATS looked at every team since 1995 that was at .500 or above through the entire week before the deadline and made at least six deals in that week. And naturally, none of those teams could match the Rays’ volume over this last week. The only team even close was — who else? — the Rays!

Back in 2018, the Rays pulled off a similar buy/sell flurry featuring the sale of Chris Archer, Nathan Eovaldi and Genesis Cabrera. That year, the group coming back included Tyler Glasnow, Austin Meadows and Tommy Pham. But that was also in a year when they were further out of the race — and they pulled off “only” six trades, not eight.

Aw, whatever. Both of those deadlines were a window into the unique, aggressive way this front office thinks, led by their relentlessly creative president of baseball operations, Erik Neander.

“They do a great job of targeting players that they feel can have impact or that have some hidden value,” said one NL exec. “And they just collect so much talent that clearly, it’s a successful way of operating based on their budget constraints. So you have to admire it — the decisiveness with which they operate and their willingness to take risks.”

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Dave Dombrowski traded more prospects — and doesn’t care what you think

We’ve seen the Dave Dombrowski Deadline Show before. In Boston. In Detroit. In Florida. In Chicago. The prospects go spinning through his revolving door. And Dombrowski just waves goodbye and keeps on trying to win,

So naturally, the Phillies’ ever-aggressive president of baseball ops made three more “win-now” trades before this deadline — with the Orioles for outfielder Austin Hays, with the Angels for Estévez and with the White Sox for reliever Tanner Banks. Off went three of the Phillies’ top 10 prospects, by some rankings, plus three more players off their big-league roster.

In other words, the price was heavy. But if you’ve seen Dave Dombrowski at work before — and we all have — that isn’t how he looks at this. The price is just The Price, the price you pay for winning.

Not everyone who runs these big-league teams is that decisive. You’ve probably noticed that. But listen to how people in rival offices talk about Dombrowski. It’ll tell you something.

FROM AN NL EXEC: “To those of us who have dealt with him, this is not surprising. He definitely gave up some talent. He’s never been afraid to do that. But … Dave addresses his team’s deficiencies as well as anybody. And he usually does it at market prices. So I always admire the moves he makes — and the decisiveness of the moves he makes.”

FROM AN AL EXEC: “No one is going to write his name on his Hall of Fame plaque and say: ‘He made great surplus-value trades.’ They’re going to say: ‘He won X number of World Series. His teams have won this many divisions. He won Executive of the Year this many times.’ I just think that’s really admirable, the lack of fear of people saying, ‘Dave just makes reckless trades.’ I don’t think he cares. It’s just: Did I give my team the best chance to win the World Series?”

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Oh, and A.J. Preller doesn’t care, either

A.J. Preller put his stamp on another trade deadline.  (Sean M. Haffey / Getty Images)

If we’re going to shower applause on Dave Dombrowski for deadline fearlessness, how can we leave out the most fearless GM of them all — the Padres’ turbo-driven A.J. Preller.

He decided that building the most terrifying bullpen in baseball would be a cool way to spend deadline week. So in came Jason Adam and Taylor Scott — and out went seven of the Padres’ most ballyhooed prospects.

But we’ve seen that A.J. Preller movie before, too. And is it fair to say this looks familiar? He may not have done all the winning that Dombrowski has done. But the Padres’ president of baseball ops can disperse prospects around this sport at a rate unmatched by literally anybody. So why shouldn’t we be allowed to compare these two men?

“I think Dave has a really, really good sense of how to round out his major-league roster,” said one rival NL exec. “I think A.J. is a little different, because he chases the top-end talent. But he does such a good job replenishing his system every year, with under-the-radar value, that he’s been able to continue to do this.

“Every time you turn around, you say, ‘Oh, they’re trading a ton more prospect value.’ But they’ve been doing it every year. So how many years have we said, ‘They’re going to run out of talent?’ But they haven’t.”

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We need some new words besides “Buyer” and “Seller”

How weird does a deadline get when there aren’t enough sellers? So weird that last weekend, the Orioles and Phillies made a trade with each other – when they both had the best record in their league. (Asterisk alert: The Orioles were actually tied with Cleveland for the best AL record when that happened. But still.)

So was the big news here the swap of Austin Hays for Seranthony Domínguez and Cristian Pache? Or was the big news actually: the two best teams in baseball made a trade?

It’s my duty to tell you exactly how unusual this sort of thing is. So I asked my friends from STATS for some help. Again, they looked only at the wild-card era. And in all that time — three decades — there had been only one other trade, this late in any season, between the clubs with the best record in baseball at the time:

Except that one other deal — Joey Gallo for Clayton Beeter (Dodgers-Yankees) at the 2022 deadline — was a minor Yankees dump Joey Gallo for whatever kind of trade. This time, it was two buyers who wound up buying from each other. So we’re officially decreeing this to be uncharted territory. And Dombrowski and the Orioles’ Mike Elias were exactly the right guys to pull this off.

“Dave is just so in tune with his vision, and what he wants,” one NL exec said. “And he’s so in tune with what his manager thinks, and what his scouts think, and what his analytics guys think. And he’s just trying to piece his puzzle together within a four- or five-day window. Mike Elias is that way, too. And I think this is proof that you have to be that way.”

But hold on one second. I think we just stumbled upon the perfect word for this sort of thing besides “buyer” and “seller.” What about …

Why can’t teams just be “Shoppers”?

It’s wild how easily the masses can get confused this time of year. Take the Cubs, for instance.

All their president of baseball ops, Jed Hoyer, said last month was that it made no sense for him to plow into the old deadline supermarket and pick up a few things to help his team for this year. But somehow, people heard that message and started using words like “selloff” to describe what the Cubs were up to.

Turns out, that wasn’t it at all. Hoyer didn’t want to be a “buyer.” But he didn’t want to be a “seller,” either. All he wanted to be was a “shopper.”

There are only certain times a year, you see, when the Player Store is open for business. So why wouldn’t the Cubs wheel their cart into the Player Store and shop for players? They just had to be players who would come in handy next year and beyond. That’s not too complicated, is it?

Then Hoyer loaded players like Isaac Paredes (under control for three more seasons after this one) and Nate Pearson (controllable for two more years after this one) into that shopping cart. And boom. Suddenly, it all made sense. It makes so much sense, in fact, that I wonder why more teams don’t think that way.

“I’m a fan of that,” said an AL exec. “I think it’s really smart. And because that’s how they approached it, I thought they did interesting stuff. They’re in a unique position where they’re probably not going to (win) this year. But at the same time, they’re not here to rebuild. So (Jameson) Taillon stays because he’s going to be part of the rotation next year. And they thought Paredes can help them be better next year. And it’s all stuff that makes sense for them. So I think it’s a really good way to approach the deadline.”

The Orioles, Marlins and Mariners gave us a lot to think about

So let’s think about those teams.

The Orioles were that team everyone on the outside thought should “go for it.” But is that what they did? They traded for eight players. But “go for it” doesn’t describe what this was.

Trading for Crochet or Tarik Skubal? That would have been “going for it.” But Zach Eflin, Trevor Rogers, Seranthony Domínguez, Gregory Soto, Eloy Jiménez, Austin Slater, Livan Soto and Cristian Pache? That’s about pitching depth and roster depth, plus some emergency pothole repairs for Domínguez, Soto and Rogers. It doesn’t make the Orioles the favorites to ride the parade floats. But it provided lots to chew on.

“My take was, this was different than how they’ve operated in the past,” an NL exec said. “I felt like they were really conservative last year, when they probably shouldn’t have been. But this year, it seemed like they were a lot less conservative. So relative to last year, it felt like they were being more decisive…. They didn’t really go for it and acquire the best talent on the market. They were just more willing to make moves than they’ve been in the past.”

The Mariners got good marks for their acquisitions, including Randy Arozarena. (Sam Navarro / USA Today)

The Mariners didn’t generate the kind of headlines people seem to expect their deal-making wizard, Jerry Dipoto, to generate this time of year. But they made three excellent trades — for two badly needed bats, Randy Arozarena and Justin Turner, and a strong set-up arm, in Yimi García — at prices that seemed a lot more reasonable than the prices other teams paid.

“Offense was clearly an issue for them, and it seems like they addressed it,” an NL exec said. “Jerry always wants to deal. And he got a couple of proven right-handed bats. I know (Seattle’s T-Mobile Park) has always been tough for right-handed hitters. But that division seems like it’s wide open, so it makes sense.”

The Marlins made so many trades (eight) that it’s almost easier to list the players who are left than the players they shipped out. But I’ll resist that temptation.

The Marlins were playing postseason games 9 months ago. They’re now doing more selling than the White Sox

Traded just in the last 5 days:
Jazz Chisholm
Tanner Scott
Trevor Rogers
AJ Puk
Josh Bell
Bryan Hoeing
JT Chargois

And they’re still open for business!

(Updated!)

— Jayson Stark (@jaysonst) July 30, 2024

And I posted that Tuesday before they dealt Bryan De La Cruz to the Pirates. So now these Marlins are basically unrecognizable and bound for last place. But the industry liked almost every deal they made. And if new president of baseball ops Peter Bendix is driving this rebuild train, at least you can see the station from here. Which is more than you can say for the White Sox.

“Both of those teams are really far away, but the Marlins are much, much closer (to contention),” an AL exec said. “If you look back 10 months ago, to Nov. 1 or whatever day you want to say both of these front offices took over their teams, and you asked, ‘Who had better things to trade to restart a rebuild?’ I think it unquestionably was the White Sox. But today, after this deadline, I would say at this stage the Marlins are much, much farther along.”

You could play zero games and still get traded

Finally, how about this: Alex Cobb hasn’t thrown a pitch in the big leagues this whole season (while recovering from hip surgery). But two different execs on our panel said the trade that sent him from the Giants to Guardians was their favorite deal of Deadline Day.

Tommy Edman hasn’t appeared in a big-league box score in 2024, either (thanks to wrist surgery). But he now has invaluable Dodgers super-utilityman written all over him,

So what does that tell us — that two trades for players who haven’t seen or thrown a pitch were among the biggest highlights of this trade deadline? Go back and read the top of this column again. There was so little talent that why the heck not?

The Guardians and Dodgers scouted the heck out of Cobb and Edman from the moment their minor-league rehab journey began. So for everyone out there who thought all 30 teams had fired every scout on the payroll, how ’bout that. Scouting isn’t dead yet after all.

“I think it really shows how important it still is to have people out scouting these players and digging into whatever performance they have had on whatever field,” said one of these execs. “And that’s still true — even if it’s not a major-league field.”

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(Top image: Photos: Dave Dombrowski and Andrew Friedman: Brian Rothmuller / Icon Sportswire via Getty Images; Garrett Crochet: Quinn Harris / Getty Images)