Re-Grading Most Noteworthy Deals from 2025 MLB Trade Deadline
Major League Baseball's 2026 trade deadline is fast approaching on August 3, after/during which you will be inundated with rapid reaction grades on all of the swaps worth mentioning.
Who knows, though, right?
In the moment, it's darn near impossible to determine which team won the various "big leaguer for prospect(s)" trades. Even a year after the fact, we're still waiting to find out whether most of those minor leaguers are going to amount to anything with their new clubs.
But as we wait on the full allotment of this year's blockbusters to come together, we thought it'd be fun to take a look back on last year's top swaps, offering up some updated grades, knowing what we know now.
Shortly after the 2025 deadline passed, MLB.com published its ranking of the biggest trades that went down. We've taken the top 10 from that list (plus six others) and assigned new grades for those transactionsāincluding the at-the-time trade grades from both our Zachary Rymer and ESPN's Bradford Doolittle and David Schoenfield for some context on how things felt about the top 10 back then.
After the initial six "bonus" exchanges that follow, the top 10 trades are presented in ascending order of MLB.com's ranking, culminating in that massive Mason Miller deal that is still kind of hard to believe.
Non-Blockbusters Worth Mentioning
1 of 11
In hindsight, sometimes the biggest trades end up being ones that barely registered on the Richter Scale amid the deadline chaos. The following six trades were not rated as top 10 swaps by MLB.com a year ago, but they clearly made an impact.
Arizona Diamondbacks send 1B Josh Naylor to Seattle Mariners for RHP Ashton Izzi and LHP Brandyn Garcia
Naylor has struggled mightily in the first season of his five-year, $92.5M re-signing with the M's, but he was massive in Seattle's run to the AL's No. 2 seed last year, providing nine home runs, 19 stolen bases and an .831 OPS down the stretchānot to mention a .340 batting average in the postseason. But Garcia has become a major part of Arizona's bullpen this season, and Izzi is one of their better pitching prospects. Updated Grades: A for both teams.
Los Angeles Dodgers send RHP Dustin May to Boston Red Sox for OF/1B James Tibbs III and OF Zach Ehrhard
Boston went 1-5 in May's six appearances with a 5.40 ERA before he got hurt, and it gave up two pretty good prospects to get him. Both Tibbs (who went to Boston in the Rafael Devers trade) and Ehrhard have been thriving this season at Triple-A Oklahoma City and would maybe be in the majors right now in just about any other organization. Updated Grades: A+ for Los Angeles, F for Boston.
Minnesota Twins send RHP Griffin Jax to Tampa Bay Rays for RHP Taj Bradley
Bradley has come back to earth a bit since his remarkable start to the year, but he has been Minnesota's second-best starter behind Joe Ryan. Meanwhile, in Jax's first 14 starts with the Rays, he had a 2.80 ERA. WAR suggests he has been a replacement-level pitcher, but he has gone five solid innings more often than not since joining the rotation, playing a huge role for a short-handed pitching staff that might end up with the AL's No. 1 seed. Updated Grades: A+ for both teams.
San Francisco Giants send RHP Camilo Doval to New York Yankees for UTIL JesĆŗs RodrĆguez, LHP Carlos De Rosa, UTIL Parks Harber and RHP Trystan Vrieling
New York gave up a platter of lottery tickets to get 2.5 years of Doval, but he has been almost unusable for the Yankees, posting a 4.85 ERA and negative-1.1 bWAR across his first 63 appearancesāafter recording more than 100 saves with the Giants. Harber, meanwhile, has blossomed into a solid prospect, recently advancing to Triple-A, and RodrĆguez made his MLB debut earlier this season. If either amounts to anything, that's a big win for the Giants. Updated Grades: B+ for San Francisco, D for New York.
Washington Nationals send RHP Michael Soroka to Chicago Cubs for IF Ronny Cruz and OF Christian Franklin
It's quite unfortunate that Soroka got hurt two innings into his first appearance with the Cubs, but including the postseason, he allowed eight runs in his 10.0 innings pitched after that trade. Meanwhile, the 19-year-old Cruz has become one of Washington's better prospects, and Franklin might be the next man up if one of their outfielders lands on the IL. Hard to argue with that return for a rental in a 96-loss season. Updated Grades: A for Washington, F for Chicago.
Minnesota Twins send RHP Louis Varland and 1B Ty France to Toronto Blue Jays for LHP Kendry Rojas and OF Alan Roden
Rojas needs to get his walks under control and Roden needs to figure out how to get his Triple-A bat (.915 OPS) to translate to the majors (.551 OPS). If either of those happens, maybe this trade evens out in a big way. But 2026 All-Star Varland has been sensational as Toronto's closer, this after he set an MLB record with 15 appearances in the 2025 postseason. If the Blue Jays ultimately claw back to make the playoffs this year, this trade will be a major reason why it happens. And he is under team control through 2030. Updated Grades: A+ for Toronto, C+ for Minnesota
Ryan McMahon to the Yankees
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The Trade: Colorado Rockies send 3B Ryan McMahon to New York Yankees for LHP Griffin Herring and RHP Josh Grosz
Rymer's Grades: A for Colorado, B for New York
ESPN's Grades: B for New York, C for Colorado
After losing Oswald Cabrera to a broken ankle, accepting that Jazz Chisholm Jr. had to play second base and throwing in the towel on DJ LeMahieu, the Yankees entered last year's deadline in desperate need of a third baseman.
So desperate, in fact, that McMahon was just one of three hot corner options that they traded for, also acquiring JosƩ Caballero and Amed Rosario in the days after finalizing this deal with the Rockies.
As was the fear with taking McMahon out of Colorado, though, he simply has not been the same hitter since joining the Yankees, giving them a .645 OPS and 13 home runs in 139 games played, compared to a .743 OPS during the Rockies portion of his career.
And New York paid a steep price to get the marginally-better-than-replacement-level third baseman. Not only did they absorb the full roughly $36M remaining on his contract through 2028, but 2024 fourth-round draft pick Griffin Herring was one of their better pitching prospects. (Though, he has struggled mightily with his control this season.)
Updated Grades: B+ for Colorado, D for New York
Ryan O'Hearn and RamĆ³n Laureano to the Padres
3 of 11
The Trade: Baltimore Orioles send 1B/OF/DH Ryan O'Hearn, OF RamĆ³n Laureano and cash to San Diego Padres for LHP Boston Bateman, UTIL Brandon Butterworth, 1B Victor Figueroa, IF Cobb Hightower, RHP Tyson Neighbors and RHP Tanner Smith
Rymer's Grades: A for Baltimore, B for San Diego
ESPN's Grades: A- for San Diego, B+ for Baltimore
With a total of eight players on the move, this was the biggest deadline deal in terms of volume.
But in terms of impact?
Both O'Hearn and Laureano provided decent value down the stretch in San Diego, however, neither one produced at quite the same level as he did in Baltimore. O'Hearn's OPS (.736 with SDP; .837 with BAL) dropped 101 points while Laureano's dipped 72 points to .812.
Still, that's a heck of a lot better than what San Diego was getting from the likes of Jose Iglesias, Brandon Lockridge, Jason Heyward and Tyler Wade, who made a combined 563 plate appearances prior to the trade deadline, each with an OPS of .570 or worse.
As a result, the Padres went from averaging 4.08 runs through the end of July to 4.85 the rest of the way and managed to maintain the wild card position they were in at the deadline.
Hard to argue with that end of the deal, even though O'Hearn was a two-month rental and Laureano might as well have been one, too, giving the Padres a .660 OPS in 53 games this year before suffering a season-ending injury.
On Baltimore's end, Bateman has shown some promise, averaging nearly 12 K/9 at high-A Frederick this season. That's also where Figueroa has 22 home runs in 78 games played. But none of those six lottery tickets (all of whom are still in Baltimore's farm system) ranked top 10 in our Joel Reuter's recent update to his farm system rankings.
The O's also agreed to retain basically the entirety of the outgoing players' salaries, with San Diego only on the hook for a combined $482,150, per Spotrac. Thus far, it doesn't seem like Baltimore actually gained anything for giving up what had been two of its five most valuable players.
Updated Grades: A- for San Diego, C- for Baltimore
Shane Bieber to the Blue Jays
4 of 11
The Trade: Cleveland Guardians send RHP Shane Bieber to the Toronto Blue Jays for RHP Khal Stephen
Rymer's Grades: A for Cleveland, C for Toronto
ESPN's Grades: B+ for Toronto, C+ for Cleveland
When this trade went down, Cleveland was sitting at .500, nine games behind Detroit in the AL Central and 2.5 games out of the wild card picture. Meanwhile, Bieber was four starts into his rehab from Tommy John surgery and holding a $16M player option for 2026.
That latter factor undoubtedly concerned the low-budget Guardians, who have just one player (JosĆ© RamĆrez) making more than $8M in 2026.
But the Blue Jays had the best record in the American League at the time and were more than willing to risk getting stuck with that eight-figure bag. Max Scherzer was struggling, Bowden Francis had pitched his way out of a job, Trey Yesavage had yet to make his MLB debut and they needed another option to tentatively start Game 3 or Game 4 of the postseason.
Unfortunately for the Blue Jays, Bieber did allow what proved to be the World Series ending home run to Will Smith.
Would they have gotten that far without him, though? He made seven regular season starts (Toronto won five of them) with a 3.57 ERA, as well as four postseason starts with the exact same mark, recording one win in the ALCS and another in the World Series.
He did end up accepting the $16M player option, which has thus far been a bust for Toronto. But at least he's healthy at the moment and just might play a key role in bringing the Blue Jays back from the dead. (Or maybe bringing Toronto a solid prospect ahead of the deadline.)
On Cleveland's side of things, Stephen was one of the most noteworthy prospects moved at the deadline. However, he underwent UCL surgery in early July and may well be out of commission until 2028. We'll see if he amounts to anything down the road.
On the unexpected plus side, even without Bieber, the Guardians went 34-20 down the stretch and stole the AL Central crown from the Tigers. And a big part of that was Parker Messick, whose MLB debut in late August probably wouldn't have happened if Bieber had been there blocking his path to a chance.
Updated Grades: A for Toronto, A- for Cleveland
Ryan Helsley to the Mets
5 of 11
The Trade: St. Louis Cardinals send RHP Ryan Helsley to New York Mets for IF JesĆŗs BĆ”ez, RHP Nate Dohm and RHP Frank Elissalt
Rymer's Grades: A for St. Louis, B for New York
ESPN's Grades: A- for St. Louis, B for New York
Let's start out on the prospects side of this one.
BƔez entered last season with a lot of promise, rated by Baseball America as the 92nd-best prospect in the minors. After a disappointing, .712 OPS run through 2025, he has blossomed into a promising piece for the Cardinals with 25 home runs in 78 games played.
Neither pitcher in this trade has given the Cardinals anything worth getting excited about, Dohm saddled with a near-7.00 ERA at high-A Peoria and Elissalt yet to pitch in 2026 due to a hip injury. However, BƔez alone is looking like a potential win to go along with the $2.65M the Cardinals saved by unloading their impending free agent closer.
And what a lemon of a deal they sold the Mets.
After recording 21 saves and a 3.00 ERA through the first four months of the season, Helsley imploded in New York, blowing four saves, converting zero and posting an 11.08 ERA through his first 16 appearances.
He did eventually reel it in a bit, ending the season with six consecutive scoreless appearances. But it was too little, too late. They brought him in to repair their NL East-leading bullpen, and he was instead one of the biggest sources of their collapse.
Updated Grades: A+ for St. Louis, F for New York
Merrill Kelly to the Rangers
6 of 11
The Trade: Arizona Diamondbacks send RHP Merrill Kelly to Texas Rangers for LHP Kohl Drake, LHP Mitch Bratt and RHP David Hagaman
Rymer's Grades: A for Arizona, B for Texas
ESPN's Grades: B+ for Arizona, B- for Texas
Texas entered deadline day tied with Seattle for the AL's final wild card spot, five games behind Houston for a possible AL West crown. And the Rangers went for it, shipping out a combined total of six prospects for Merrill Kelly, Phil Maton and Danny Coulombe.
This was the big one, though. In fact, Kelly was arguably the cream of the crop of starting pitchers who actually got traded, landing in Arlington with a 3.22 ERA and 13 quality starts in his 22 turns through the rotation. Texas was hoping he would join forces with Jacob deGrom and Nathan Eovaldi in a World Series-caliber rotation.
But he was just OK, giving the Rangers a 4.23 ERA in his 10 starts as they cratered to the finish line, missing the postseason by a six-game margin.
For that underwhelming two-month rental, they gave up a haul of pitching prospects.
Hagaman is already now Arizona's highest-rated pitching prospect. Bratt had a 2.41 ERA in 13 starts at Triple-A Reno before making his MLB debut about a month ago. And though Drake has struggled since entering the Diamondbacks' farm, he was the headliner of the deal at the time, rated as a top-five prospect for the Rangers.
It's plausible all three will feature in Arizona's 2027 rotation.
Updated Grades: A+ for Arizona, D- for Texas
David Bednar to the Yankees
7 of 11
The Trade: Pittsburgh Pirates send RHP David Bednar to New York Yankees for C/1B Rafael Flores Jr., C/1B Edgleen Perez and OF Brian Sanchez
Rymer's Grades: A for New York, B for Pittsburgh
ESPN's Grades: B+ for New York, C- for Pittsburgh
The Yankees sure did make it a point to address their bullpen at the 2025 deadline, sending a combined total of nine prospects to National League teams for Bednar, Camilo Doval and Jake Bird.
By leaps and bounds, Bednar has been the best of that bunch.
The former Pirate became New York's primary closer almost immediately upon arrival. He gave them a 2.19 ERA last year, and after a rocky start to the current campaign, he has been just about unhittable over the past two months, last allowing a run 21 appearances ago on May 18. He also allowed just one run in his six innings of work in the postseason.
Pretty hard to argue with what he has done for the Yankees over the past calendar year.
Also pretty hard to argue with what they gave up to get him.
Flores was one of New York's top 10 prospects at the time, ending last season with 22 home runs and an .825 OPS. He also had 21 home runs and an .875 OPS the previous year. But he hasn't been anywhere near that good this season, with just four home runs in his 65 games played at Triple-A Indianapolis.
Neither Perez nor Sanchez has shown much in Single-A ball, either.
And how much better off would the 2026 Pirates be if they had just held onto Bednar? Bullpen woes have held them back, as they are probably going to be looking to add a closer at this year's deadline.
Updated Grades: A for New York, D+ for Pittsburgh
Jhoan Duran to the Phillies
8 of 11
The Trade: Minnesota Twins send RHP Jhoan Duran to Philadelphia Phillies for C Eduardo Tait and RHP Mick Abel
Rymer's Grades: A for Philadelphia, C for Minnesota
ESPN's Grades: A for Philadelphia, B for Minnesota
Between JosĆ© Alvarado's 80-game suspension for a failed PEDs test and Jordan Romano's poor pitching, the Phillies were hellbent on upgrading their closer situationānot just for the 2025 campaign, but for years to come.
The price tag for Mason Miller was more than they could afford, but they were willing to part with a pair of top 100 prospects in order to get Duran for 2.5 seasons.
To put it lightly, he has been worth it.
Through his first 60 regular-season appearances with the Phillies, he had a 1.62 ERA, 40 saves and a K/BB ratio of 11.4. Aside from Miller and maybe Cleveland's Cade Smith, Duran has been the most valuable reliever in all of baseball over the past 12 months.
As far as the prospects in the deal go, Abel made a couple of promising starts in the big leagues this April, but has been out with an elbow injury for more than three months and isn't expected to return this season. And though Tait is still only 19, he has yet to advance beyond High-A Cedar Rapids, struggling in the on-base percentage department since his transition to Minnesota's farm.
Updated Grades: A+ for Philadelphia, C- for Minnesota
Eugenio SuƔrez to the Mariners
9 of 11
The Trade: Arizona Diamondbacks send 3B Eugenio SuƔrez to Seattle Mariners for 1B Tyler Locklear, RHP Juan Burgos and RHP Hunter Cranton
Rymer's Grades: A for Seattle, D for Arizona
ESPN's Grades: A for Seattle, C for Arizona
The overwhelming response to this trade was: Seriously? That's all it took to get the best slugger on the market?
Never before in MLB history had a player been traded with more than 34 home runs in that season, but SuƔrez got to 36 with the Diamondbacks before they sent the free-agent-to-be packing.
Yet, Seattle was able to make the reunion happen without parting with any of its upper echelon prospects. Locklear was the headliner going Arizona's way, but he was a fringe top 100 prospect who proceeded to post a .529 OPS in 31 MLB games with the Snakes. (He has since turned things around with a near-.900 OPS at Triple-A Reno this year, though, getting called back up about a week ago.)
Seattle didn't get what it thought it was getting, though. SuƔrez had an .897 OPS with Arizona, but had a .682 OPS the rest of the way with the M's. He did hit 13 home runs down the stretch (plus three more in the postseason), but he never got into one of those grooves that had become commonplace for him in the desert.
That said, adding SuƔrez (and Josh Naylor) definitely raised the vibes in Seattle. Even though he was basically a replacement-level contributor, the Mariners nearly had the best record and nearly had the highest-scoring offense from the trade deadline onward.
Updated Grades: C+ for Seattle, C- for Arizona
Carlos Correa to the Astros
10 of 11
The Trade: Minnesota Twins send SS Carlos Correa and cash to Houston Astros for LHP Matt Mikulski
Rymer's Grades: B for Houston, F for Minnesota
ESPN's Grades: B for Houston, C for Minnesota
The salary dump of all salary dumps, the Twins sent Carlos Correa back to Houston for a 26-year-old Single-A pitcher who they released in early October.
Minnesota also agreed to retain $33M of the slightly more than $100M remaining on Correa's contract. (There are also conditional options for 2029 and beyond that don't factor into those figures. Houston would be on the hook for those full totals if they vest.)
But have the Twins won the deal at this point?
Houston had a five-game lead in the AL West at the 2025 deadline, but a 25-28 record the rest of the way left the Astros on the wrong end of a tiebreaker with the Tigers for the final wild card spot, missing the postseason for the first time since Correa's "sophomore" season (2016).
He played well enough, batting .290 in his 51 games back home. But his re-arrival seemed to otherwise break this offense, with Astros not named Correa batting .228 from July 31 onward as they crashed and burned.
And then this year, Correa lasted just 32 games before suffering a season-ending injury to the leg that wasn't the surgically repaired one that caused both the Giants and the Mets to back out of their gargantuan offers to him a few years ago.
Even though it got nothing in the deal other than $70M of salary relief, Minnesota may have dodged a bullet by moving Correa when it did. We shall see what 2027 and 2028 bring.
Updated Grades: B for Minnesota, C- for Houston
Mason Miller to the Padres
11 of 11
The Trade: Athletics send RHP Mason Miller and LHP JP Sears to San Diego Padres for SS Leo De Vries, RHP Henry Baez, RHP Braden Nett and RHP Eduarniel NĆŗƱez
Rymer's Grades: A for Athletics, B for San Diego
ESPN's Grades: A for Athletics, B for San Diego
Even though Mason Miller has been the most dominant reliever since sliced bread, there was a pretty clear consensus that the Athletics won this trade, getting not only one of the top prospects in all of baseball in De Vries, but also Nett (one of San Diego's top five prospects at the time) and two other pitching prospects of some value.
Well, on that prospect front, both Nett and Baez got late starts to this season and haven't pitched particularly well, and the A's sold NĆŗƱez to the O's in mid-May. But De Vries has looked the part at Double-A Midland. He's still only 19 and is probably at least a year away from contributing in the majors, but he might be a franchise cornerstone by the time they move to Las Vegas on a full-time basis.
While De Vries might be great a few years from now, Miller has had a calendar year for the record books since landing in San Diego.
He had allowed 16 earned runs in 38.1 innings pitched last season with the A's, but including San Diego's brief stay in the 2025 postseason, he's sitting at a line of 68.2 IP, 28 H, 6 ER, 25 BB, 132 K since the trade, striking out nearly 52 percent of batters faced.
Between Lourdes Gurriel Jr.'s home run on 8/5/25 and Carter Jenson's double on 7/17/26, Miller went 235 batters without allowing even one extra base hit.
Let that one sink in for a moment.
There has been some scuttlebutt recently about San Diego maybe considering trading him away ahead of this deadline, but he has been so dominant with the Padres that AJ Preller could maybe get more for Miller than he gave up for him, even with one less year of team control remaining. (He's still arbitration-eligible through 2029.)
Updated Grades: A for San Diego, A for Athletics
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