Image: Mark Blinch/The Canadian Press via AP
Major League Baseball’s trade deadline officially passed on Tuesday, August 1st at 6 PM EDT. The AL East has been fun to watch this season with the rise of the Baltimore Orioles, the Tampa Bay Rays’ historic start to the season, and the highly disappointing Yankees.
Around the trade deadline, the AL East brought in some high-end starting pitchers, strong role players, and an exchange of top prospects. Every AL East team was in contention for top trade targets in a division with historically good farm systems and a tight AL Wild Card race.
How did your team do?
Baltimore Orioles:
The Orioles have been bad for a long time. Having a top-5 draft pick four out of the five last MLB drafts, and even having the number one pick twice, Baltimore’s long rebuild started to pay off this season, currently sitting in first place in the AL East with a 71-44 record, 3 games ahead of second-place Rays.
With the rise of superstars catcher Adley Rutschman (.813 OPS, 16 HR), third basemen Gunnar Henderson (.791 OPS, 19 HR), and relief pitchers Felix Bautista (1.66 ERA, 31 saves) and Yennier Cano (1.81 ERA, 4 saves), the Orioles have been young, hot, and electric.
Nonetheless, the O’s lacked starting pitching depth, and that’s exactly who they attacked at the deadline.
The Orioles made two splashes at the deadline, acquiring starting pitcher Jack Flaherty from the St. Louis Cardinals and starting pitcher Shintaro Fujinami from the Oakland Athletics.
On the way out went 2B César Prieto (Cardinals), LHP Drew Rom (Cardinals), RHP Zack Showalter (Cardinals), and LHP Easton Lucas (Athletics).
Flaherty, 27, was in the final year of his deal with the Cardinals this season, so it made sense for St. Louis to deal him to a contender. He currently has a 4.33 ERA in 22 starts, a little higher than years previously, and he has given up a whopping 58 walks this season, one away from matching his career high in 2018.
Nonetheless, he is a high-end starter that is still relatively young and strikes out batters (9.10 K/9). He also has pitched much better recently, posting a 3.03 ERA in five starts in July. It would have been nice to see the Orioles take a big swing going for Verlander, Scherzer, Cease, or Rodriguez, so settling for Flaherty appears a little underwhelming. That said, the Orioles needed a veteran starter that can pitch in the playoffs and Flaherty should be up to the task.
Fujinami, 29, made his MLB debut this season and has not made the impact he probably wanted. He was 5-8 with the Athletics and accumulated an 8.57 ERA in 34 appearances (7 starts). It was interesting to see the Athletics deal the right-hander given it was his first season, but the O’s hope they can develop Fujinami in a way the A’s couldn’t and make him a high-end arm with many years of baseball ahead of him. For Baltimore, he will probably slot in as a long reliever that can start in doubleheaders or in a pinch.
These moves don’t automatically make the Orioles World Series contenders, but they were decent enough to keep them at a steady pace in first place. With such a strong farm system, it makes you wonder why they prefer to stash their prospects for now and possibly pull more triggers next season.
Overall Grade: B
Tampa Bay Rays:
The Rays started the season 13-0, matching the 1982 Atlanta Braves and 1987 Milwaukee Brewers as the second-best start in MLB history. Since then, the Rays have cooled off immensely, recently falling out of first place in the division to the Orioles. The Rays have a good mixture of young stars and veterans, but a team that proved to the world they can beat anyone definitely needed to add at the deadline to secure a playoff spot and fight with Baltimore for a division title.
The Rays came out swinging at the deadline, acquiring Aaron Civale from the Guardians for 1B Kyle Manzardo (CLE No. 2 prospect), RHP Robert Stephenson from Pirates for SS Alika Williams (PIT No. 25 prospect), RHP Manuel Rodríguez, RHP Adrian Sampson and international bonus pool money from Cubs for RHP Josh Roberson, and C Alex Jackson from Brewers for RHP Evan McKendry.
Civale, 28, is 5-2 with a 2.55 ERA in 14 starts this season. He slots in as the number 3 pitcher in Tampa Bay’s rotation that has seen its fair share of season-ending injuries this season to Shane McClanahan, Drew Rasmussen, Shane Baz, and Jeffrey Springs. Also worth noting, Civale is under team control through 2025.
Manzardo, 23, was a second-round pick in 2021 out of Washington State. As one of the best pure-hitting prospects in the minors, he hit .349/.440/.605 in rookie ball and .327/.426/.617 last season between A+ and AA. While it’s never easy to part with a top prospect, especially one that has these numbers, the Rays just inked first-basemen Yandy Diaz to a three-year deal worth $24 million in the offseason, so there was no need to keep the first base prospect to sit on the bench. I think the return worked out for both teams.
The Rays bolstered their injury-prone pitching staff, which will go a long way down the final stretch and into playoff time.
Overall Grade: A-
Toronto Blue Jays:
The Blue Jays, 65-52, currently sit in the third and final AL Wild Card spot, just 1.5 games up on the Seattle Mariners. That position definitely does not spark comfort, so the team needed to make some deals at the deadline to stay in the Pennant race.
Toronto went out and took advantage of the struggling St. Louis Cardinals (like many teams), grabbing RHP Jordan Hicks, LHP Génesis Cabrera, and SS Paul DeJong.
Hicks, 26, throws 102 MPH and has been very solid for St. Louis since May, posting a 3.67 ERA and tallying 8 saves. Since joining the Blue Jays, that production has not slowed down, accumulating a 3.86 ERA and 3 saves in 5 appearances. Hicks is young, throws hard, and is accurate (61% strike rate). He’s already fit in nicely at the back end of the Blue Jays bullpen.
Cabrera, 26, is a hard-throwing lefty, a rarity in today’s game. He had a 5.06 ERA and 5 holds for the Cardinals in 32 appearances, but he’s since been even more dominant, posting a 2.61 ERA in 10 appearances since joining Toronto.
The additions of Hicks and Cabrera give the Blue Jays many solid options late in games.
Don’t forget about DeJong, though. This move was very methodical for Toronto, as star shortstop Bo Bichette suffered a knee injury right before the deadline and the team did not know the long-term status of the injury. While manager John Schneider later said an MRI of Bichette’s right knee revealed “no significant structural damage,” the acquisition of DeJoung provides a huge safety net if the knee were to flare up again or something else were to happen.
DeJong, 30, has struggled offensively the last three seasons, batting just .197, .157, and .216 respectively. He did hit .233 for the Cardinals in 81 games, even hitting 13 home runs, but he’s only batting .065 for Toronto in 31 at-bats since joining the team. DeJong isn’t expected to start many games for Toronto once Bichette gets back in the lineup, but until then, DeJong provides a serviceable option.
Overall Grade: B+
Boston Red Sox:
The Red Sox currently sit four games behind the Blue Jays in the Wild Card and were even closer at the trade deadline. So it was baffling to see Boston not make any substantial moves to bolster its team.
The most notable moves the Red Sox made were acquiring INF Luis Urías from the Brewers for RHP Bradley Blalock and trading away INF/OF Kiké Hernández back to the Dodgers for RHP Nick Robertson and RHP Justin Hagenman.
Urias, 26, is having an extremely down year offensively, a large part of the reason the Brewers were ready to move on from him and also why Boston gave up so little to get him. After hitting at least .239 the last three seasons, he was batting .145 for Milwaukee this season with just a .535 OPS.
I actually like this move for the Red Sox. Urias has compiled more than six Wins Above Replacement combined over the last two years. He’s also very young, yet has five years of MLB experience to add to the locker room. Boston only gave away pitching prospect Bradey Blalock (No. 19 Brewers prospect), who is still in A+, so I believe this trade benefits the Red Sox.
Robertson, 25, reached the majors earlier this year, and Hagenman, 26, has been pitching in Triple-A this season. Both pitchers compiled solid strikeout numbers in the minors, with Robertson striking out 13.3 batters per nine innings in Triple-A and Hagenman striking out nearly 10 batters per nine innings. Hernández was not only a pending free agent, but he was on the verge of getting DFA’d for his poor hitting this season in Boston, so it appears Boston received a reasonable return.
It would have been nice to see Boston take a bigger swing in the pitching market or go out to get a lefty bat, so it was another disappointing deadline for a team that is still very much in contention for a playoff spot. Time will tell on Urias and the pitching prospects, so for now, we can chalk it up to another underwhelming performance by Chaim Bloom.
Overall Grade: C+
New York Yankees:
Add the Yankees to the list of disappointing juggernauts that couldn’t get it going this season. After winning the AL East last season and making it to the ALCS until they lost to the World Champion Astros, the Yankees find themselves in last place in the division, but still only 5 games back in the AL Wild Card.
Aaron Judge had been hurt for a lot of the season, Anthony Rizzo and Giancarlo Stanton have been inconsistent, and the bullpen has not been up to par. If the Yankees wanted to make a playoff push, they could have. But instead, they did not add any bats (that they desperately needed).
The only move the Yankees made was a good one, but it’s not team-altering.
New York acquired RHP Keynan Middleton from the White Sox for RHP Juan Carela.
Middleton, 29, is having his best season in the majors, posting a 3.70 ERA in 42 appearances, way down from his career 3.94 ERA. For Chicago, he had a 1.35 WHIP and a very impressive 11.64 K/9. For the Yankees, albeit a small sample size, he has a 1.80 ERA, 0.40 WHIP, and 10.40 K/9 in 3 appearances. Middleton is a perfectly solid addition who could be even better if he starts to prevent the home runs.
The Yankees had to give up a ready good prospect. Carela, 21, is a 6-foot-3, 186-pound right-hander with a 3.67 ERA and 109 strikeouts in 83 1/3 innings at High A. The Yankees are baking on Middleton continuing his dominant success into next season as one of their top relievers.
The Yankees were in a weird position at the deadline, debating whether to buy or sell. It appears they did neither, and while Middleton makes their bullpen better, it does not improve the projected win totals for the season. Unless the bats start heating up right now, the Yankees will miss the playoffs.
Overall Grade: C-
All prospect rankings are courtesy of MLB.com.
M-SABR 
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