Everything that happened leading up to 2023 MLB trade deadline day

League source confirms to me and Jim Bowden: Rays acquiring Aaron Civale from Guardians.

The Rangers reacted to an injury to Nathan Eovaldi on top of the season-ending loss of Jacob deGrom by trading for Scherzer and Jordan Montgomery. The Blue Jays reacted to an injury to closer Jordan Romano by trading for Jordan Hicks.

The Orioles already were trying to add a starting pitcher before optioning Tyler Wells to Double A on Sunday for what manager Brandon Hyde called “a little bit of a break … a little bit of a reset.” The demotion of Wells, who had a 3.18 ERA and league-best 0.93 WHIP in his first 18 starts, theoretically should create even more urgency.

One option for the Orioles is to acquire a mid-level rental such as Tigers righty Michael Lorenzen. Another, after the acquisition of Shintaro Fujinami is to continue loading up the bullpen, perhaps with a reliever such as Mets lefty Brooks Raley.

Wells is not the only Orioles starter who might require a breather. Grayson Rodriguez, who has pitched well in three starts since returning from the minors, already has exceeded his career-high in innings. Kyle Bradish and Dean Kremer also are closing in on career-highs.

Read the full story on what Ken Rosenthal is hearing ahead of the deadline.

After sweeping the Rangers, the Padres (52-54) are just five games back in the wild-card race and have the third-best run differential (plus-63) and third-best X-W/L (60-46) in the National League, behind only the Braves and Dodgers. Despite that, they could still trade impending free-agent pitchers Blake Snell and Josh Hader. They could theoretically trade Snell to the Orioles for a top prospect such as outfielder/first baseman Heston Kjerstad, and Hader to the Astros for a similar prospect like outfielder Drew Gilbert. However, two deals like that would essentially end the Padres’ season on Aug. 1, which is why I believe they will either stand pat at the trade deadline or try to improve this team on the edges. They've been "all-in" in assembling this group, and there is no reason that should change now.

A lackluster final two months of the season could seriously help the Mets’ draft positioning, thanks to a carveout in the most recent collective bargaining agreement. Because New York is above the third threshold of the luxury tax ($277 million), its first-round pick is slated to be dropped by 10 spots next June (as it was this past June). However, if that first-round pick lands in the top six of the draft, it will stay there and the Mets’ second-round pick will drop 10 spots instead.

Entering Sunday, the Mets had the ninth-worst record in the sport. They don’t need three teams to pass them to get into the top six. There’s a draft lottery now, and as long as the Mets don’t make the playoffs, they’ll have a chance to enter the top six.

The ninth-worst team typically has a 2.7 percent chance of landing the No. 1 pick and a 23.1 percent chance of ending up in the top six. But, as a team that doesn’t receive revenue sharing, the Nationals (one of the eight teams worse than the Mets) cannot land in the top six for a second consecutive year. (Washington picked second this past draft.) So the lottery odds would be reshuffled to eliminate the Nats’ chances of being in the top six, giving the Mets a slightly better shot at a top-six pick.

Of course, the lottery can work the other way as well. Even if the Mets finish with one of the six worst records in the sport, they are not guaranteed to remain in the top six. The sixth-worst record has just a 53.3 percent chance of landing a top-six pick.

Read the full story on the state of the Mets entering deadline week.

Consider the torpedoes of the Angels officially damned. After publicly announcing that Shohei Ohtani wasn’t for sale, the Angels have snatched up a variety of role players who could aid the team’s long-shot pursuit of postseason glory. First they acquired Lucas Giolito and Reynaldo Lopez. Now, with outfielder Taylor Ward headed to the injured list, the lineup gets some reinforcements. Good for them. In for a penny, in for every prospect you have left.

The latest deal returns a pair of former first-round picks to the franchise. Randal Grichuk, chosen one spot ahead of Mike Trout in the 2009 draft, should help the Angels against left-handed pitching. Grichuk has posted a 1.066 OPS against southpaws this season. C.J. Cron, the 17th overall pick in 2011, provides some stability at first base, a position manned this week for the injury-depleted Angels by Mike Moustakas, Eduardo Escobar and Trey Cabbage. The team got a little bit better, which is really all you can expect, given the dearth of high-quality prospects in the farm system. General manager Perry Minasian is doing what he can to maximize what could be Ohtani’s final months in Anaheim.

And so the Halos bid adieu to Jake Madden, a tall but slender right-hander who has struggled in his first season of pro ball, and Mason Albright, a lefty who is striking out more than a batter per inning for Low-A Inland Empire. You have to grade the Rockies on a curve — at least the franchise didn’t attempt to extend both these players for no apparent reason. To turn a platoon outfielder and a below-average-hitting first baseman into a pair of decent arms feels like a victory. And if these upgrades aid a postseason push in Anaheim, then this trade might be a win-win.

Read the full story grading the Angels-Rockies trade.

The front entrance to Pro Wheel Repair of Lubbock, Texas, sits just off Buddy Holly Avenue in a quiet industrial park near downtown, a blue and red logo adorning the face of a plain brick building. Brandon Claussen, the company’s 44-year-old owner, usually pulls into the parking lot at 5:30 a.m. He spends his mornings in the shop, welding, sanding and rebuilding around 30 wheels per day. When he finishes each day around 2 p.m., his hands are covered in sweat, powder and what he calls “tire slime.”

The company was born a decade ago, when Claussen left his father-in-law’s tire business and started out on his own. Before that, he was a service-truck driver for Forrest Tire of Hobbes, New Mexico, and before that he was a major league pitcher, a southpaw who happened to find himself in the middle of one of the most significant deadline trades in Yankees history.

On July 31, 2003, the Yankees traded Claussen, then the organization’s top pitching prospect, to the Cincinnati Reds in exchange for Aaron Boone, a versatile third baseman from one of baseball’s most accomplished families. The trade drew tepid reviews in the moment, as the Yankees jousted with the Red Sox in the AL East race, but it paid off in the Bronx when Boone crushed a Tim Wakefield knuckleball into the night in the 11th inning of Game 7 of the American League Championship Series, sending New York to the 2003 World Series. It also led, indirectly, to Alex Rodriguez joining the Yankees.

Two decades later, it’s hard to think about the Yankee-Red Sox rivalry without harkening back to that 2003 night at old Yankee Stadium. Likewise, it’s hard to imagine Boone managing the Yankees today without his starring cameo in pinstripes. Yet 20 years on, the other side of the deal reveals an enduring truth about the MLB’s annual trade deadline. The flurry of action that takes place before 6 p.m. Tuesday will impact the pennant race, but it will also alter lives. Doors will open. Others will slam shut. Dozens of prospects — players who will likely never become stars — will enter the sliding doors.

“There are more guys that are like me,” Claussen said after work one day this month, and by that he means a former pro pitcher turned trivia answer turned, in his words, “pro wheel-repair technician.”

The story of Claussen and one deadline trade is actually not all that unusual, which makes it all the more interesting.

Read the full story on the 2003 trade.

Already a source of league-wide fascination, the Padres’ trade-deadline calculus might have gained some clarity amid an eventful Sunday afternoon.

A confounding, still-kicking team beat the Rangers 5-3 to complete just its second three-game sweep this season — and its second sweep this month. Blake Snell alternated between walking and overwhelming hitters on his way to another relatively brief but effective start. Fellow trade candidate Josh Hader extricated himself from a bases-loaded jam in a scoreless ninth. Catcher Gary Sánchez supported both pitchers with his first two-homer performance in almost two years. Elsewhere, four teams ahead of San Diego in the National League wild-card fray lost games of their own.

And in the bottom of the third at Petco Park, the Padres temporarily lost one of their most productive players.

The subsequent news came as a relief: Leadoff hitter and second baseman Ha-Seong Kim is day to day after jamming his right shoulder sliding into home plate on a sacrifice fly. Initial tests did not reveal any dislocation or other structural damage, and Kim was hopeful he would return to the lineup soon, though perhaps not as soon as Monday’s series opener at Coors Field against the lowly Rockies.

Sunday’s result versus a first-place club brought additional comfort.

“It was a huge series for us,” Kim said through interpreter Leo Bae. “And obviously, we’re at the moment that every win matters right now.”

It does. Not only for the Padres’ playoff odds — now close to 40 percent, according to FanGraphs — but also for their chances of staying together.

While league sources early Sunday evening said the Padres were still listening on Snell and Hader, there was a growing feeling around the industry that San Diego would hang on to both pending free agents through Tuesday’s trade deadline. President of baseball operations A.J. Preller has maintained high asking prices for either pitcher, and it seemed safe to assume a third consecutive victory over an impressive Rangers team would not significantly lower his target.

But at this time of the year with this particular club, it is safe to assume next to nothing.

“I’m very happy we got a sweep. Hopefully that helps our chances more to be buyers. I believe it does,” said Snell, who walked four and struck out nine over five innings of one-run baseball. “I don’t know. I’m not gonna think about it at all. Whatever happens, happens, but I can focus on my pitching and really just lock into that.”

Read the full story on the Padres' deadline strategy.

The White Sox are listening on Dylan Cease and everyone else on their roster. The perception among many in the industry is that Cease and center fielder Luis Robert Jr. remain all but untouchable. But some rival executives see the White Sox’s willingness to entertain offers as an opening, however small.

In the White Sox’s view, nothing has changed. They are simply doing their due diligence, staying open-minded, assessing the values of players and what might be possible. A trade of Cease, a 2022 American League Cy Young finalist who is under club control for two additional seasons, would require a massive return. But given the demand for controllable starting pitching, who’s to say the White Sox couldn’t get what they want?

Two rentals, right-hander Lucas Giolito and reliever Reynaldo López, brought the White Sox a top 100 prospect from the Angels, catcher Edgar Quero, and a 6-foot-6 left-hander who was a second-round pick in 2021, Ky Bush. A diminished Scherzer and approximately $36 million enabled the Mets to acquire another top 100 prospect, Luisangel Acuña, from the Rangers.

The White Sox have signaled they want to compete in 2024 around a core of Cease, Robert, Michael Kopech, Andrew Vaughn and perhaps a few others. They play in the AL Central, the game’s weakest division. But they’ve already traded five pitchers, including one, reliever Kendall Graveman, who is under contract for next season. And at the deadline, the market changes quickly.

The pressure on buyers continues to mount as the hours tick away to the trade deadline at 6 p.m. ET Tuesday. The White Sox figure to listen right down to the end. If someone meets their price for Cease, great. If not, they will simply hold him and perhaps revisit the discussions in the offseason.

Read the full story on what Ken Rosenthal is hearing ahead of the trade deadline.

The Yankees head back to the Bronx on Monday to start a three-game set with the second-place Tampa Bay Rays before the rival Houston Astros visit for four games. The Yankees also trail Houston in the wild card by 3 1/2 games.

“There’s enough in there that’s happening that we can build on,” Aaron Boone said.

“There are 50-plus games left, and with this division, we could get hot and teams could get cold,” said struggling first baseman Anthony Rizzo, who struck out five times.

Or the Yankees could stay in last place. It’s something the front office will have to consider as the 6 p.m. Tuesday trade deadline fast approaches. So far, the Yankees have been the mannequins at the market, not making a single move as deals happen all around them, from the Texas Rangers’ acquiring Max Scherzer from the New York Mets and ex-Yankee Jordan Montgomery from the St. Louis Cardinals, and the Los Angeles Angels’ acquiring outfielder Randal Grichuk — considered a Yankees target — from the Colorado Rockies.

“The deadline is always tricky,” Rizzo said, “especially this year with so many teams that are in the mix and going for it. I think we have the guys in here. And if I start hitting again a little bit — just a little bit — we got Judgey back … the production can come from within here. We know that. But it’s like a broken record. It’s easier said than done.”

Here are four moves for Brian Cashman to contemplate as he looks over the Yankees’ mess.

Justin Verlander prefers to stay with the Mets if they are committed to winning in 2024 and beyond, and by all indications they are. General manager Billy Eppler said Sunday that the Mets aren’t “punting” on 2024 in explaining that the team’s deadline moves were a “repurposing” of owner Steve Cohen’s investment in the club, not a full rebuild. Therefore, I think it’s unlikely the three-time Cy Young Award winner is traded by Tuesday night.

Verlander will make $43.3 million in 2024 and has a 2025 vesting option of $35 million based on 140 innings pitched next year at age-41. That price tag has contending teams uninterested unless the Mets cover a significant portion of Verlander’s salary, like they did in the Max Scherzer trade, which they are not inclined to do. The Dodgers would be the only logical landing spot for Verlander because teams such as the Orioles, Rays, Astros, Diamondbacks and Reds aren’t putting that type of financial exposure on their books.

The situation could change, but as of now, it sounds like it’s the Dodgers or bust, and I’d bet on the bust.

For more, read our full trade deadline primer.

Tristan Beck remembered huddling around the clubhouse television with his teammates at Low-A Kissimmee. He remembered the pins-and-needles sensation that the Atlanta Braves would be bolstering their roster at the trade deadline in 2019 and that he could be one of the minor-league players headed elsewhere. With a minute to go, he remembered watching the news break that the Braves had acquired reliever Shane Greene from the Detroit Tigers.

“And once I saw that my name wasn’t in the deal, I got up and went into the kitchen for a cup of coffee,” Beck said. “I was like, ‘Well, that’s it. I’m not gonna get traded. Whatever. I guess I’m actually starting today.’

“Then I hear this roar from the locker room. I run back and poke my head in and it’s my face and Mark Melancon’s face on the TV. And the whole team is looking at me.”

There’s a chance that the Giants won’t make any meaningful additions to their major-league roster ahead of Tuesday’s trade deadline, even though they lead a seven-wide race in the National League wild-card standings and linger just two games behind the Los Angeles Dodgers in the NL West. The Giants have relied on their organizational depth, not the waiver wire or the trade route, to patch holes and satisfy needs all season. Although they could add an infielder like the Cardinals’ Paul DeJong and will remain engaged in case a surprising name or two becomes available, they are just as liable to deal from their stable of pitching depth than to add to it.

If they don’t make a deal, the punditry will be sure to label them as deadline losers. But teams don’t win or lose the trade deadline. It’s not a point-scoring exercise. It’s just an opportunity to get better, either in the present or in the future. And you can’t tally the score in the immediate aftermath. That’s because some deals might not pay off for a year or two.

Or four.

The Giants won a game and a series over a quality opponent because of a deadline deal in 2019 that is paying off for them now. They recalled Beck from Triple-A Sacramento on Sunday morning while placing struggling right-hander Anthony DeSclafani on the 10-day injured list because of a forearm strain. And Beck calmly contributed two scoreless extra innings, stranding an inherited runner at second base both times while setting up the Giants for a 4-3, 11-inning win and a two-of-three series victory over the Boston Red Sox.

Read the full story on Tristan Beck's impact on San Francisco over the weekend.

The Cardinals were clearly going to sell at the deadline, and they finally began that process on Sunday with a pair of trades, sending left-hander Jordan Montgomery to Texas for two prospects and a relief pitcher, and right-handed Jordan Hicks to Toronto for two prospects. It’s a big deal for a team that rarely finds itself in the position of seller on deadline day, and they did well in both trades, especially the Montgomery swap.

Montgomery was one of the best starting pitchers on the trade market, and as a result he netted the Cardinals two very good prospects plus a big-league reliever. Infielder Thomas Saggese has taken a significant step forward at the plate this year with a .314/.380/.514 line for Double-A Frisco as a 21-year-old, already matching his career high in homers. He’s split his time almost evenly between second base and third base and should be able to play either position at an average level. He’s aggressive at the plate but doesn’t miss too often, having some trouble with breaking stuff since he got to Double A. I wrote this winter that I thought he’d peak around 45/50 power, but it looks like I was wrong as he’s already there and should get to at least 55 power. I think he’s a solid regular with a chance to be something like a 4-WAR guy in his best years.

Saggese alone would be a nice return for two months of Montgomery, but the Cards also got right-hander Tekoah Roby, who was pushing to become the Rangers’ top pitching prospect until he hit the injury list in early June with a shoulder issue. Prior to that, he was 92-96 mph with a plus changeup, 50/55 slider, and a yakker of a curveball that he started throwing way more often than the slider, presumably because it was so effective. It’s better control than command right now, although his control keeps improving and he didn’t walk more than one batter in any of his last seven outings. He projects as a No. 2 starter, although there’s a ton of variance here with his shoulder issue this year and an elbow injury in 2021 that didn’t require surgery. He should return before the end of August. The Cardinals also got left-handed reliever John King, who has pitched in the major leagues.

Read the full story assessing the Cardinals' return for their pair of trades Sunday.

Left-hander Mason Albright was the one high schooler the Angels took in their all-pitching 2021 draft class, which featured 19 college arms and this oddball. He has a very long arm action but throws strikes, with a fringy fastball but some promise to the slider and change along with an old-fashioned slow curveball.

He posted a 9 ERA in limited time in Low A last year as a 19-year-old, but he’s returned to the level this year and has a 3.62 ERA with improvements across the board.

I have a hard time envisioning him as a starter with this delivery, but if his fastball trends upward, the Rockies have to let him stay in the job given his two secondaries and the solid-average or better control. One odd note — he has been killed by left-handed batters this year in a limited sample, especially on his fastball, which tells me they’re just seeing the ball too well because of that delivery.

Right-hander Jake Madden needs to go to the bullpen, stat, but he has three pitches that project to 55 or 60, with a mid-90s fastball, slider, and change. It’s a very long arm action (yes, again), and he doesn’t throw anything for strikes consistently enough to start, which is also why he has a 5+ ERA in Low A as a 21-year-old.

It’s a great arm, though, and stuff that should play at any altitude; maybe the Rockies can do something with the delivery, although I would just move him to a relief role and see if he hits 100. For an extra outfielder and a DH who might not have much left in the tank, this is a great return for Colorado.

If it’s been said once, it’s been said a million times, the Angels are all in. They already had a very weak minor-league system, and this only makes it weaker. But hey, I don’t think they care at all. And there’s no guarantee any of the minor-league pitchers they have traded will stick in the big leagues.

The Angels needed to plug some holes over the last couple days leading up to the trade deadline. Taylor Ward is expected to miss a lot of time, and Randal Grichuk (famously drafted by the Angels one pick ahead of Mike Trout) will fill that hole.

C.J. Cron, also a former Angel, should slide in to play first base regularly, with Mike Moustakas getting a good look at third base. Los Angeles is putting itself in a good position to win. The Angels have a lot of ground to make up.

Read the full story on Sunday's Angels-Rockies trade.