Eight Lessons to Learn From the MLB Trade Deadline

What we learned from a trade deadline unequivocally won by the Astros...

1. Mets owner Steve Cohen is playing by different rules.

The Mets included up to $88.5 million in sweeteners in deals to make Max Scherzer and Justin Verlander go away. The two veteran pitchers wanted out of New York as soon as they learned Cohen was no longer “all in” on this season and the next.

Cohen paid down their salaries not just to accommodate the two pitchers he recruited with a “win at all costs” promise, but also to ensure that he received top prospects in return from the Rangers and Astros. The Mets essentially bought prospects with Cohen’s checkbook. Smart move.

Including luxury tax payments and money the Mets paid for players to go away (James McCann, Eduardo Escobar, etc.), New York is spending about $210 million in dead money. The Mets’ dead money would rank as the 14th highest payroll in baseball.

More staggering numbers: the Mets paid Scherzer and Verlander $188.4 million to go 26–14 over 58 starts—$7.2 million per win. (The tab includes half of Verlander’s 2025 salary if his player option vests with 140 innings next season.)

It’s a great deal for players to have someone like Cohen around—somebody who spent a record amount of money for two pitchers and then quickly spent a bundle to get out from under them. The other owners? Not so happy.

Steve Cohen is more willing than any other team owner to eat cash to get out of what would normally be considered an untradeable contract.

Brad Penner/USA TODAY Sports

2. The Mets are out of the Shohei Ohtani sweepstakes.

Truthfully, Ohtani probably was never going to go to the Northeast, at least to Queens—not with the Mets’ recent track record. But deadline day officially took the Mets out of play for the greatest free agent ever. To agents’ chagrin, it also takes the Mets out of play for this winter’s top-of-the-market free agents. It also means Jose Quintana and Pete Alonso, free agents after next season, will hit the trade market after this season barring extensions.

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3. Rangers vs. Astros became the best rivalry in baseball down the stretch.

Scherzer vs. Verlander. Bochy vs. Dusty. No team was more active than Texas and no team made a more impactful move than Houston—with half a game separating them. The teams have one more series left against one another: Sept. 4-6 in Houston.

4. Starting pitchers replaced relievers as the most valuable commodity.

Teams are so loaded with two-pitch pitchers who throw hard that the supply has driven down what used to be the typical need this time of year to fortify bullpens. Meanwhile, organizations have so dialed back the workload and development of starters (inning and pitch limits, openers, third time around theory, six-man rotations, etc.) that the market went into overdrive to supply some dependable rotation additions.

Here’s the ranking of the most impactful starting pitcher acquisitions: 

1. Verlander to Astros
2. Jack Flaherty to Orioles
3. Scherzer to Rangers
4. Lucas Giolito to Angels
5. Aaron Civale to Rays
6. Michael Lorenzen to Phillies
7. Lance Lynn to Dodgers
8. Rich Hill to Padres

5. Remember Marco Scutaro, Steve Pearce, Daniel Hudson, Christian Vazquez...

It’s not always the blockbusters we recall at the World Series.

The best under-the-radar finds based on need and fit: 

1. Austin Hedges to Rangers
2. Tommy Pham to D-backs
3. Chris Stratton to Rangers
4. Carlos Santana to Brewers
5. Jeimer Candelario to Cubs

Aaron Judge received no lineup support despite his team’s struggling offense.

Vincent Carchietta/USA TODAY Sports

6. The Yankees were a non-factor.

The best part of their team is their bullpen, especially with Jonathan Loaisiga on the way back. And so the Yankees added to ... their bullpen (Keynan Middleton). Huh?

But really, having failed to jump the market for Cody Bellinger the way the Rangers did for Aroldis Chapman, New York had no impactful choices in a market without big bats. This means Aaron Judge will continue to see nothing to hit.

The Yankees chose to ride the “back of the baseball card” philosophy and instead are seeing former stars age at a time when the game has turned to youth, athleticism and speed. This stretch vs. the Orioles, Rays and Astros is exposing the Yankees’ flaws, especially as they continue to look old and slow with the bats:

Vs. Pitches 95+ MPH, 2023	Age	Average
Giancarlo Stanton	33	.178
Anthony Rizzo	33	.209
D.J. LeMahieu	35	.143
Josh Donaldson	37	.048
MLB Average		.242

7. The Orioles had better be right about Flaherty.

The team with the best record in the AL is in danger of becoming the 2001 Mariners: fun team that might not have the starting pitching to get through multiple rounds of the postseason. Baltimore has a window now to win the World Series and is sitting on a pile of prospects who are backed up in the system because of young players just getting to the major leaguers.

Their answer to this opportunity was a last-minute deal for Flaherty, a guy with a 4.43 ERA, including 5.29 in his past three starts, and a below average strikeout rate. When Flaherty is at his best, he is the kind of pitcher the Orioles need. He just hasn’t been that front-of-the-rotation guy over the past four years (4.12 ERA over 55 games).

8. Those who wait are often left with nothing.

Detroit wound up stuck with Eduardo Rodriguez in what was a sellers’ market for starting pitching after wasting time trying to trade him to the Dodgers, a team on his no-trade list. Such conversations should have taken place earlier.

A sinking Arizona team let weeks go by without addressing a clear need to bolster the rotation.

Minnesota, burned at the deadline last year more than any other team with bad deals, did nothing to fix an awful offense that swings and misses way too much.

No NL team gained any ground on Atlanta, the clear favorite to come out of the league. The Dodgers whiffed on Verlander, Rodriguez, Giolito and Dylan Cease. The Padres tinkered around the edges of their roster but somehow need to find some chemistry among their stars in their last 55 games, of which they probably must go 35–20 (.636). The Reds are counting on Hunter Greene and Nick Lodolo coming off the IL rather than supplementing their rotation through a trade. Most of the impact at the deadline was made by AL teams. It was a better day for the Braves than all their pursuers.