The rumors you've heard are true: The trade deadline has passed.
If you want a full accounting of all the moves that matter for Fantasy Baseball, then you should check out our Trade Deadline Tracker, complete with analysis from Chris Towers and myself. But if you're short on attention or starved for time and would prefer a simple rundown of the moves that matter most, well, I have you covered right here.
Not every one of these winners and losers was involved in a trade himself. Sometimes, it's the innocent bystanders who are impacted most, and you could say the same for the players who were presumed to be on the move but wound up staying put. The point here is to zero in on what actually changed for Fantasy Baseball. If the trade deadline, whether directly or indirectly, altered a player's outlook in some meaningful way, rest assured, he gets a mention here.
I want to give a special shout-out to the Marlins, who won't get much pub here but, to me, were the true deadline standouts, dealing away mostly low-impact players for a bounty of under-performing or under-the-radar prospects. They gave up a little to get a lot more bites at the apple basically, which is a smart plan for a team in the earliest stages of a rebuild.
If you'd like the specifics of what they did, again, you'll want to check out the Trade Deadline Tracker, which I've linked above.
Winners
Jazz Chisholm has done the thing we've always wanted him to do, stay healthy, and yet the returns prior to this trade were underwhelming. The problem wasn't the home runs or stolen bases. The problem was the lack of production around him. The Marlins lineup is so bad that he was on pace for just 72 runs and 78 RBI at the time of this trade. He'd be pacing for 25 more of each if he had spent all season with the Yankees. His first three games with his new club have already made a world of difference. Granted, back-to-back two-homer games will make anyone look good, but here's what's crazy about that: The Yankees are on the road right now. Yankee Stadium is where Chisholm will see the biggest surge, with Statcast estimating that he'd have six more home runs if he had played every game there this year.
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It was probably inevitable that Hayden Birdsong would find his way into the Giants rotation given how he's pitched recently, but the Giants took all the suspense out of it by dealing Alex Cobb to the Guardians. Cobb has yet to appear in a major-league game this year but was nearing the end of a lengthy recovery from hip surgery and had a rotation spot with his name on it. Now, that spot belongs to Birdsong, whose last two starts, both against the Rockies (one home, one away), saw him allow a combined two runs on five hits with 20 strikeouts in 11 innings. The 22-year-old has control issues, but his bat-missing is on point, with his slider, curveball, and changeup all boasting a whiff rate of at least 40 percent.
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Wait ... Chad Green wasn't moved, was he? Yes, and that's precisely the point. Despite his stellar bullpen work, he didn't fetch the Blue Jays an offer that was to their liking, which means he's a surefire closer now rather than some short-term fill-in. In fact, his job security has improved twice over because his biggest threat for the role, Yimi Garcia, was indeed moved at the deadline. The possibility of a trade and the presence of Garcia combined to suppress Green's rostership even while he had proven his worth as a closer. His 34 percent roster rate should more than double now.
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Jack Flaherty's placement here is fairly obvious, I think. When a pitcher goes from the Tigers to the Dodgers, he stands a better chance of winning games, and in most Fantasy formats, there's nothing more valuable than a win. His new home park may not be as favorable toward pitching, but seeing as Flaherty has the league's second-highest K-minus-walk rate, the venue doesn't matter so much. What may be cause for concern is that Flaherty is only three starts back from a bout with back soreness, and according to Ken Rosenthal, the Yankees backed out of a trade for him due to medical reports. He's looked good in those three starts, though, putting together a 1.53 ERA and 0.74 WHIP with more than a strikeout per inning, so I'd value him like a top-20 starter the rest of the way.
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It just seemed like the Dodgers were never going to give Miguel Vargas an honest chance, placing too high of a priority on defense to let him take his lumps at any of the positions that they've struggled to fill. The White Sox have a diamond full of openings, too, but also the leeway to take as many lumps as they want. Rest assured, they acquired Vargas to play him, and I have confidence that this second trial will go better than the first early last year. A hand injury likely impeded Vargas then, and his exit velocities have improved in both the majors and minors this year. Through 41 games at Triple-A Oklahoma City, he was slashing .290/.440/.566 with eight homers, eight steals, and more walks (38) than strikeouts (33).
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At first glance, a contender acquiring a part-time outfielder wouldn't seem to move the needle in Fantasy, but then, Austin Hays wasn't always a part-time outfielder. He got squeezed out of a crowded situation in Baltimore, but really, the Orioles hung him out to dry when they reconfigured their ballpark in 2022, giving Camden Yards the deepest left-field fence in all the majors. The year prior, Hays hit .270 with 13 homers and an .852 OPS in 65 games at home. The Phillies recognize this and have made clear that they intend to play him full-time rather than part-time. If he had played every game at Citizens Bank Park last year, he would have hit 23 homers rather than 16, according to Statcast, so he's now a viable option in five-outfielder leagues.
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Other winners: Junior Caminero, 3B, TB; Ben Joyce, RP, LAA; Joey Loperfido, OF, TOR; Connor Norby, 2B, MIA; Kyle Stowers, OF, MIA
Losers
Tanner Scott was a closer going into the trade deadline. The expectation now is that he won't be. The Padres already have an All-Star closer in Robert Suarez, and for as good as Scott is, he's the more combustible of the two given his elevated walk rate. He's also the one left-hander among the Padres' many late-inning arms, which makes him better deployed situationally. It's pretty much always the case that the biggest loser at the trade deadline is a reliever traded out of the closer role. In most Fantasy leagues, the only relievers who matter are the ones in line for saves, so Scott has gone from mattering to not mattering in the blink of an eye.
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Isaac Paredes' entire profile is built on a gimmick. His exit velocities are some of the lowest in game, and yet he masquerades as a power hitter by taking aim at the shallowest part of the fence, right down the left-field line. His spray chart reveals a cluster of home runs there. It turns out, though, that Wrigley Field is one of the deepest ballparks down the left-field line, measuring 355 feet from home plate. Statcast estimates that Paredes would have 13 fewer home runs over the past three years if he had played every game there. Granted, he won't play every game there, but I'll reiterate that there isn't much to his offensive game other than yanking the ball down the left-field line, which means that any little snag could unravel the whole player.
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How long have we been begging manager Rob Thomson to make Jeff Hoffman his full-time closer, ending the timeshare with Jose Alvarado? It seemed like it was about to happen after a couple meltdowns for Alvarado, but then president of baseball operations Dave Dombrowski had to throw a wrench into the equation by acquiring Carlos Estevez. Estevez hasn't been as good as Hoffman this year, because no reliever has, but he's been good enough and has more closing experience. "It wouldn't surprise me if he gets a lot of ninth innings," Dombrowski said of his new acquisition, and sure enough, Estevez worked the ninth inning of a tie game in his Phillies debut Tuesday. The dream of Hoffman becoming a full-time closer is effectively dead, but the irony is that Estevez likely won't be either since that's not how Thomson runs things. So then, they're both losers.
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Given that he's broken through as an ace with only two years of control remaining for an organization with no hope of contending during that time, it made all the sense in the world for the White Sox to move Garrett Crochet. But since they didn't, all the mixed messages concerning his workload take on new significance. He's said that he intends to build back up to a full workload after taking it easy on both ends of the All-Star break, which made sense when it seemed like he'd be part of a pennant race. But now, the White Sox's whole incentive is to preserve his value. Every additional inning works against that incentive. You don't want to sell short a pitcher with top-10 potential, but Crochet's usage is entirely up in the air now, with even a full-fledged shutdown being on the table.
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Just when you thought the Orioles were finally clearing the way for some of their overdeveloped young hitters, having just dealt Austin Hays four days earlier, they went out and got Eloy Jimenez ... because if there's any organization that needed a reclamation project clogging up its DH spot, it's this one. Presumably, Ryan O'Hearn will spend most of his time in left field now, with Colton Cowser factoring in ... somehow. It'll be a struggle to get Jimenez, O'Hearn, and Cowser the at-bats they need, and that's before even considering Kjerstad. The 25-year-old may have been trending toward more playing time -- deservedly, after hitting .301 with 16 homers and a .998 OPS in his 56 games at Triple-A Norfolk -- but I don't see any room for him now.
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The concern for Lane Thomas is basically the same as for Isaac Paredes -- i.e., he's going to a park that could undermine his power. In fact, Statcast estimates he'd have 11 fewer home runs the past three years if he had played every game at Progressive Field. Still, my concerns for him aren't as acute as for Paredes for a couple reasons. The first is that his exit velocity readings are closer to the middle of the pack, meaning his power doesn't rely on him angling the ball in the most perfect way like Paredes' does. He's more adaptable, in other words. The second is that Thomas has become so prolific of a base-stealer, pacing for 43 steals despite spending a month on the IL, that the power is sort of an afterthought. He'll probably be fine, but he has a lower floor now.
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Other losers: Yusei Kikuchi, SP, HOU; Yimi Garcia, RP, SEA; Michael Kopech, RP, LAD; Bryan De La Cruz, OF, PIT; Alec Marsh, SP, KC
