MLB trade deadline winners and losers: Yankees and Mets big winners, Red Sox and Twins among head-scratchers

Major League Baseball again got what it wanted in the hours leading up to Thursday’s trade deadline: the frenzied activity that owns the sporting world’s attention like no other time of the year. Basically, it’s Christmas in July, with highly coveted players as the gifts.

As for what teams were hoping to acquire, well, that was more of a mixed bag. Two trends continue to hold true at the deadline: Clubs remain very reluctant to trade their most prized prospects, and the appetite for relief pitching is nearly insatiable as contenders eye the home stretch (as well as October).

Check the stats. During the seven days leading up to Thursday’s deadline, 63 prospects were traded who ranked among the top 30 from their previous teams (according to MLB Pipeline), but only three of those placed in the sport’s top 100.

Locally, the Yankees made seven total trades and didn’t give up anyone higher than their No. 8 prospect, catcher Rafael Flores, in the deal for Pirates closer David Bednar. The Mets also drew the line at No. 8, infielder Jesus Baez, as part of the package for Cardinals closer Ryan Helsley.

“I think the story of this deadline for us is really an amateur talent acquisition and player development story,” Mets president of baseball operations David Stearns said. “They put us in position to be able to have this type of deadline, where we’re able to go out, acquire players that we really think are going to help us at the major-league level and not touch some really high-upside players at the top of our system.”

Said Yankees general manager Brian Cashman: “Some guys are more accessible than others. We were trying to stay away from some guys.”

On the bullpen front, Bednar and Helsley were among the many top-tier relievers dealt, joining Mason Miller, Jhoan Duran, Griffin Jax, Camilo Doval, Tyler Rogers, Gregory Soto, Jake Bird, Phil Maton and Seranthony Dominguez. A handful of those were swapped Thursday, when 35 trades went down, three more than deadline day a year ago, which fell on July 30. Fifty trades were made in the final 48 hours.

“It was competitive, absolutely,” Stearns said. “And it should’ve been competitive. There were a lot of teams looking for arms, and we knew that.”

Overall, 92 trades were made from June 1 through Thursday’s 6 p.m. deadline, including 23 former All-Stars, the most since 27 changed teams in 2021.

Despite all that craziness, you know what didn’t happen? Trades involving front-line starting pitchers. Merrill Kelly, Charlie Morton and (still rehabbing) Shane Bieber were some of the bigger names moved; Sandy Alcantara, Zac Gallen, Joe Ryan and McKenzie Gore stayed put.

Now that the deadline is in MLB’s rearview mirror, let’s take a look at some winners and losers from this year’s trade season:

WINNERS

MARINERS

While there’s nothing remarkable in itself about president of baseball operations Jerry Dipoto making trades — he does so more than other GMs brush their teeth — he attacked Seattle’s biggest weakness by acquiring the two best offensive weapons on the market in first baseman Josh Naylor (.292 batting average, .807 OPS) and Eugenio Suarez (36 homers) in separate deals with the Diamondbacks. Teamed with MVP candidate Cal Raleigh, who leads the majors with 42 homers, expect the Mariners’ 12th-ranked offense (4.53 runs per game) to climb the list quickly.

METS

Only the team across town restocked its bullpen with as much fervor as Stearns, who outdid himself by landing three top-shelf relievers with different looks — pivotal for a playoff series. There’s the flamethrower Helsley, the knuckle-scraping submariner Rogers and the lefty-dominant Soto, all paving the way to elite closer Edwin Diaz. Stearns publicly sounded as if he were on the fence about adding a centerfielder, but he paid little for a two-month rental of Cedric Mullins, who gives the Mets a more stable two-way option for the position.

YANKEES

Cashman had a signature trade deadline, going all-in on bullpen reinforcements, as he always does, and adding two high-velo arms in Bednar and Doval to go with the sweeper/curve-reliant Bird. Relief help was a red-flag necessity as the bullpen’s 4.85 ERA since June 13 was the sixth-worst in baseball at the deadline. Cashman also got his third baseman in Ryan McMahon, who already has thrived in pinstripes, and significantly upgraded the bench by picking up Amed Rosario, Austin Slater and Jose Caballero.

PADRES

A regular on the winner’s list, Huntington Station native A.J. Preller always gets an A for effort alone simply because he can’t resist doing something — and it tends to involve the biggest names on the board, regardless of cost. Preller was at it again Thursday, trading his top prospect (No. 3 in MLB) Leo De Vries to land A’s closer Mason Miller, who’s under team control through the 2029 season. He took advantage of the Orioles’ fire sale to get first baseman Ryan O’Hearn and leftfielder Ramon Laureano — two areas of need — along with catcher Freddy Fermin from the Royals. With the Dodgers looking more vulnerable, Preller’s Padres got stronger.

ASTROS

Give them style points for bringing back local hero Carlos Correa in a trade to play third base three years after refusing to pony up the cash to keep the homegrown star at shortstop (Houston will pick up roughly $70 million of the $104 million left on his deal). The first-place Astros didn’t expect to be lobbying for Correa’s return, but a potentially season-ending injury to Isaac Paredes created a vacancy and the Twins’ massive sell-off made Correa more than willing to waive his no-trade clause. General manager Dana Brown also added outfielder Jesus Sanchez, a lefthanded-hitting slugger, to help balance a very righthanded-hitting lineup and reliable utility infielder Ramon Urias.

PHILLIES

GM Dave Dombrowski got the Mets’ attention by landing arguably the top prize (non-Mason Miller division) in the closer market with Wednesday’s trade for the Twins’ Jhoan Duran minutes after his Flushing counterpart grabbed Rogers from San Francisco. The Phillies were shaky at the back end of the bullpen, and Jordan Romano (with his 6.81 ERA) was the team’s saves leader with a whopping eight. The other added benefit of Duran? He’s signed through the 2027 season, which is why the closer didn’t come cheap. The Phillies parted with their No. 4 prospect (Eduardo Tait) and No. 5 (Mick Abel) to get Duran. They also brought former Yankee and Met Harrison Bader (.258 batting average, 12 homers) back into the NL East.

LOSERS

RED SOX

This one sort of gets an asterisk because Boston’s June dumping of Rafael Devers on the Giants — a move ridiculed in the public domain — now looks brilliant after the Red Sox responded by playing themselves into a wild-card berth (17-7 in July) while shedding the $250 million remaining on his deal. What gets them the L, however, is their light haul at the deadline, trading for a pair of pitchers — Dustin May and Steven Matz — when they badly needed an offensive boost at first base, a position with good options available. Just not enough for a team that should be more serious about making some noise in a wide-open American League.

TWINS

With three playoff wins since 2006 — that’s games, not series — it’s not as if the Twins have built up a ton of goodwill to kick away with another tear-down at Target Field. But now that the franchise is up for sale, with Minnesota slipping out of wild-card contention, the Twins decided it was time to strip the rest of it as well in selling off nearly half (10 players) of the 26-man roster. They were basically farmed for quality bullpen arms — Duran, Jax, Danny Coulombe, Louis Varland — and despite shedding a large chunk of payroll, the Twins still kept two players who would have yielded the greatest return in Joe Ryan and Byron Buxton.

CUBS

It’s puzzling that the Cubs, like the Red Sox, didn’t push harder to improve, especially now that they’ll be in a second-half dogfight in the NL Central with the first-place Brewers.There was some middling activity on the North Side with the pickups of Michael Soroka, Andrew Kittredge and Willi Castro, but the Cubs declined to take any big swings at next-level starting pitchers, a slugging third baseman or the half-dozen elite bullpen arms who flew off the shelves.

TIGERS

Detroit picked up seven players at the deadline, but for a team with World Series aspirations, maybe the Tigers got lulled into thinking their runaway AL Central title (nine-game lead) is proof they’ll be tough enough come October. The Yankees and Astros know better, which is why Detroit acquiring the likes of Charlie Morton and Chris Paddack to go with a quantity-over-quality approach for the bullpen is a strategy that may end up being regretted in the playoffs.