Category: MLB

Good morning. I obviously can’t link to stories covering every trade made on Monday. We had a very busy Trade Deadline. But many of these articles have links to more detailed analysis and I’m sure you can find some of it on your own.

• Here’s a running tally of every trade made before the Deadline.
• Johnny Flores Jr. ranks the top 30 deals. (The Athletic sub. req.)
• Jordan Schusterman goes 20 better, ranking the top 50 deals.
• Anthony Castrovince has the eight most surprising developments of the Trade Deadline.
• Tom Verducci has 12 thoughts on the Trade Deadline.
• Mike Axisa has the winners and losers of the Trade Deadline.
• David Schoenfield has the winners and losers of the Deadline.
• Jack Baer with winners and losers.
• Ben Clemens has the winners and losers of the Deadline.
• Anthony Dabbundo has winners and losers.
• The Athletic has their winners, losers and snoozers. (The Athletic sub. req.)
• Travis Sawchick has eight winners of the Deadline.
• The CBS Sports baseball writers grade every team’s Trade Deadline.
• Jake Mintz grades every team’s moves.
• Will Leitch has five deals that may have a bigger impact that you might think.
• ESPN baseball writers discuss the Trade Deadline moves of the Red Sox, Cubs, Phillies, Mets, Orioles and Guardians.
• Jonathan Mayo has seven clubs that loaded up on prospects at the Deadline.
• Kiley McDaniel ranks every prospect traded at the Deadline.
• Matt Snyder argues that the villains in the Tarik Skubal trade aren’t the Dodgers, they’re the other teams that could but wouldn’t beat the Dodgers offer.
• Bill Shaikin agrees. The Brewers should have traded for Skubal.
• Brewers manager Pat Murphy defended the team’s efforts to land Skubal. (The Athletic sub. req.)
• Adam McCalvy has more details on the Brewers’ offer for Skubal.
• Ken Rosenthal reports that the Braves tried to trade for Rangers pitcher Jacob deGrom, but deGrom refused to waive his no-trade clause. (The Athletic sub. req.) Plus, it’s not like the Rangers aren’t just one game out of a Wild Card spot.
• Gabe Lacques criticizes the Rangers, Orioles and Tigers for selling at the Deadline, noting that the three teams are within two games of a Wild Card spot. Lacques says these teams have a “loser” mentality. Remember how controversial the White Sox “White Flag” trade was in 1997 when they were just 3.5 games out of first? Now few even blink with teams selling a game out of a playoff spot.
• Matt Snyder calls the Orioles trade of Adley Ruschman to the Red Sox as a “White Flag” trade and proof that their long rebuild has been a failure.
• Julian McWilliams looks at four different American League East teams and how they took four different approaches at the Deadline. He doesn’t seem to think much about the Rays.
• Mike Trout said that the Angels’ sell-off was “the right move.” Gabe Lacques with the story.
• The Rockies did not trade outfielder Mickey Moniak. So yesterday, the Rockies signed Moniak to a two-year, $16.25 million extension. Thomas Harding reports.
• The Pirates got bad news as right-hander Mitch Keller is out for the years with a shoulder injury.
• Yankees general manager Brian Cashman said he is “optimistic” that slugger Aaron Judge will return before the end of the year, but he admits that he might not.
• Aiden Stepansky has the story of lifelong Mets fan and minor league shortstop Sammy Stafura and how he just got traded from the Pirates to the Mets.
• Sukhman Singh has the story of professional cricket veteran and World Cup winner Liam Plunkett and his appearance as a pitcher for the independent Oakland Ballers. (The Athletic sub. req.)
• And finally, the Astros’ Taylor Trammel hit a home run and he rounded the bases in a trot. Only one problem. The ball was actually caught on the warning track and Trammel couldn’t understand why no one was congratulating him.

Hey, Trammel hit a home run for real on Tueday night.

The Kansas City Royals announced a litany of moves ahead of Tuesday’s return to action, but the injury situation gets worse. Royals starters Luinder Avila and Stephen Kolek are slated for Tommy John surgery today, putting their 2027 availability into question.

“It’s been a tough year injury-wise all the way around,” Quatraro said. “You know, you can name off a whole bunch of guys that have gone through it. And like we said a bunch of times, it’s really unfortunate and I feel really badly for the guys. They have put in the work to try to stay healthy and unfortunately they haven’t. Especially when you have these major surgeries that cost you a whole year there, it’s really trying.” The Royals will now turn to remaining starters Michael Wacha, Seth Lugo, Noah Cameron and Randy Dobnak. It’s possible the club also tries Daniel Lynch IV in a starting role given the injuries.

David Lesky did not hold back in his reaction to the trade deadline by the Royals.

That was uneventful and even maddening. The Royals made three trades (though one was simply a DFA pickup, and a player I knew very little about was traded for him), but they held on to multiple pending free agents. I can’t remember the last time I was this disappointed by a Royals trade deadline. I had a pretty good idea that they were not going to trade anyone controllable other than maybe a reliever, but I didn’t expect them to hang on to John Schreiber. I can’t believe there wasn’t a team in baseball that wouldn’t have offered something for him.

So this is a big miss from me for the Royals. I will get to this shortly in more detail, but what they did (and didn’t do) yesterday has told the whole baseball world what they’re going to do this offseason. And if they don’t do it successfully, I believe that they both should and will be looking for new jobs. They absolutely can still run this gambit successfully, but they’ve chosen the path that leads to jobs being lost. In some ways, I suppose that’s admirable. In others, well, it’s probably foolish. The 2027 Royals have to win, and they have to win with pitching brought in from outside the organization. That is certainly no easy task, which I will get to shortly.

Craig Brown had similar thoughts on the trade deadline he dubbed a dud.

None of this is surprising because these are the Kansas City Royals, where next year is forever going to be their year, damnit. Therefore they never tear down or build up, instead choosing to plod forward, never failing to deviate from the only path they know. They are predictable in their mediocrity.

What makes this so frustrating is that the Royals actually have assembled a roster with some talent. They have a generational superstar. They have a decent nucleus of young bats. They built a successful pitching lab and the depth to serve it. Yet they somehow always seem to shoot themselves in the foot. And when they’ve finished blowing off a few toes, they wonder how it all happened and then resume course on the exact same path. Weird how things never seem to change around this team.

Can we be disappointed if we’re not surprised? It seems as if we’re angry at the Royals for their lack of proactivity in attacking a trade deadline, shouldn’t that be on us? We have years of evidence at this point. The Royals are who they are, stuck in a quagmire of their own mediocrity. The lack valuable players to deal and those who have value are too often held past their “sell by” date, rendering the eventual return uninspiring and unhelpful.

Royals Opening Day third baseman Maikel Garcia hasn’t played since June 23 and is still working back to playing after receiving a cortisone shot in his left hand.

“They found, you know, a similar area that had kind of not resolved yet,” Royals manager Matt Quatraro said. “They found a more specific, smaller area that they were able to give him a cortisone injection, which we think will calm it down.” Garcia is set for 4 to 5 days with no activity. And from there, he will begin a progression towards a return to action. “He’ll ramp back up for another five days or so and hopefully, he’ll be able to, if everything goes smoothly, be able to get back into games,” Quatraro said.

Royals general manager J.J. Picollo responded to reports of the interest in Michael Wacha and Seth Lugo at this week’s trade deadline.

Not only was the interest in Wacha and Lugo not as reported in the days leading up to the deadline, but discussions with teams showed the Royals wouldn’t get a return they found satisfactory.

“I think the big takeaway, it’s important to understand, you trade a Michael Wacha, you trade a Seth Lugo, you’re going to get prospects back, which is not a bad thing, but also depends on where your team’s timeline is. And right now with the injuries we’ve suffered this year, we’re going to be active trying to build a starting rotation up,” Picollo said. “Given the injuries we have, that guys who won’t be available for the better part of next year — we’ve got a lot of work to do to try to rebuild the pitching staff. So getting prospects back that are three years away, four years away, wasn’t that exciting to us, but it doesn’t mean we weren’t going to listen. It just never got to the point where I would categorize it as great interest. There was some interest, but there wasn’t great interest in that. So if we were able to get a bat, get another arm in return that are already in the major leagues, that’s a different discussion. But when we’re a team that’s not in contention right now, and you’re dealing with teams that are in contention, the last thing they want to do is really take off of their major league team, so that makes it a difficult match.”

Royals catcher Salvador Perez spoke with the media ahead of Tuesday night’s celebration of his breaking Hall of Famer George Brett’s franchise home run record.

Kansas City Star’s Vahe Gregorian had a tribute of sorts to Perez following his press availability.

While signed through next season, his production has dwindled this season, and it’s unclear how much longer he will seek to play. Farther down the road will come discussions of whether he will join Brett in Cooperstown. Time for all that later, though, after a night to pause and appreciate Perez’s journey. Perhaps most of all coming from Perez himself because of all he came from … and how unlikely any of this at all was.

The Athletic’s Eno Sarris says Royals outfielder John Rave is poised for a bigger role following the trade deadline.

John Rave, who was recalled from Triple-A Omaha last week, might be 28 years old, but that’s not too old to join the party in Kansas City. He’s done some bat speed training and now pairs well above-average raw power with good swing decisions and around average contact. The projections don’t agree but this sort of skill set should produce an above-average hitter. Since 2020, the Royals have had two outfielders put up an above-average slash line in more than 400 plate appearances, so they have a need at any outfield spot that Rave can fill.

Can he be a center fielder? The prospect grades, usage and age don’t necessarily suggest it, but that’s where the best opening is, considering that Kyle Isbel hasn’t approached league average with the stick in any of his chances at the spot. Maybe it makes sense, in a lost season, to put Rave out there in center and see if he can hack it. And see if the added bat speed has changed his trajectory as a player.

KC Kingdom’s Parker Buchele ponders if Randy Dobnak is a Royals pitcher beyond this season.

But provided that J.J. Picollo, for all his faults, has it in him to pay the man for 2027, Dobnak would probably best serve the Royals as a sort of in-between piece. KC is set on Lugo, Michael Wacha, Noah Cameron, and hopefully Cole Ragans as starters next year when he returns. Making Dobnak basically the fifth-to-sixth rotation starter and the first guy they’d call out of the bullpen to see extended time on the mound.

Assuming Dobnak can keep up his solid play so far in his Royals tenure, there should be no doubt his new contract is coming. Letting him walk in the offseason after trading for him would be incredibly poor asset management by Picollo, but that’s something he’s all too familiar with.

The Athletic gave Kansas City a C grade on the trade deadline.

The Royals decided to hold on to both Michael Wacha and Seth Lugo, as both veterans are under team control beyond this season. The best player they traded was Thomas and they got a strong return back with Braun, who profiles as a mid-rotation starter. It’s been a disappointing season for the Royals and with little to sell at the deadline, they just weren’t able to help their future much.

The Royals were also labelled “snoozers” for their bare-minimum approach by Stephen J. Nesbitt.

The Royals operated sensibly at this trade deadline. They sent lefty Kris Bubic to the Dodgers for right-hander Carlos Duran. They swapped outfielder Lane Thomas and lefty reliever Bailey Falter for two interesting prospects. They did what teams with bad records but reasonable hopes for next season do at this time of year: They sold what needed to be sold, and held the rest.

NBC Sports, George Bissell reports that former Royals pitcher Dan Altavilla exercised the opt-out in his minor-league contract with the Royals.

FanGraphs names its winners and losers from the 2026 trade deadline.

The San Diego Padres’ new rotation additions are set for their team debuts this week.

The Colorado Rockies sign surging outfielder Mickey Moniak to a two-year deal worth $16.25 million.

The Milwaukee Brewers push young pitcher Brandon Sproat to Triple-A after acquiring Dustin May.

The Seattle Mariners shuffle the position player corps as they look to right the 2026 ship.

Shortstop George Lombard Jr, the New York Yankees’ top prospect, hits a home run for his first MLB hit.

Philadelphia Phillies fans hear from new acquisition Luis Arraez for the first time.

How does backstop Adley Rutschman gel with his new team? The Boston Red Sox catcher is trying to find the answer.

The Atlanta Braves activate catcher Sean Murphy and utilityman Ha-Seong Kim from the IL.

After decades of dwindling numbers, a drive-in theater in Wichita is rebuilding hope for the niche movie-going experience.

Could two houses in Ivanhoe blossom into a larger, more affordable community for area families?

Today’s song of the day is I Hope I’m Stoned (When Jesus Takes Me Home) by Charlie Worsham and Old Crow Medicine Show.

The 2026 MLB Trade Deadline has come and gone, and nearly 50 trades were made across the league. The Colorado Rockies were relatively more active this time around than in years past as they made three trades during the day, bringing back five prospects and a utility infielder with big-league experience. They also decided to extend outfielder Mickey Moniak to a two-year deal.

As the dust settles from the hectic Monday, there are those surprised, myself included, that more moves weren’t made.

President of Baseball Operations Paul DePodesta explained the thought process behind holding onto a lot of their tradeable players on Monday, and it makes sense. The value the offensive players bring to the current Rockies, both on and off the field, is important, and the team values that even more than settling on the principle of trading a player just to trade him. Still, there is one move that wasn’t made that needs a little more diving into.

Should left-handed reliever Brennan Bernardino have been traded?

Heavily Rumored

Bernardino has been a phenomenal addition to the Rockies bullpen this season. Entering Tuesday, he owns a 3-3 record and a sparkling 2.28 ERA in 45.1 innings over 52 games. He started the year with a 0.71 ERA in his first 14 appearances before getting roughed up a little more in May. However, since June 9, Bernardino has thrown 20 innings without allowing an earned run.

His name was certainly a popular one to come up in trade discussions this year. His name swirled in prediction circles because effective left-handed relievers are always valuable, teams always need bullpen help, and despite being 34, he doesn’t become a free agent until 2030.

It’s understandable why the Rockies would keep him around. He’s been the only lefty reliever they have in the bullpen all season and he’s easily one of their most reliable bullpen arms this season as well as a leader. Yes, the team added left-handed prospect Mark Manfredi from the Milwaukee Brewers in the Antonio Senzatela deal, but big-league-ready southpaw relievers are fairly scarce in the organization as a whole.

Still, with the moves that were being made around the league, was it wise not to push harder to move him? Let’s take a look at deals for lefty relievers that were made at the deadline.

JoJo Romero

The Brewers were busy trying to acquire pitching, and they swung a deal with the St. Louis Cardinals to acquire starting pitcher Dustin May and left-handed reliever JoJo Romero.

Romero has been excellent for the Cardinals since joining them in 2022 in a trade with the Philadelphia Phillies. This season, he has a 3.35 ERA in 43 innings of work with 43 strikeouts against 16 walks. He is a solid, reliable arm but is also slated to be a free agent after the season at the age of 30.

The combination of Romero and May, who is also a likely free agent after the season, netted the Cardinals a pair of intriguing outfield prospects in a strong Brewers farm system. Alexander Frias was the No. 11 prospect in a Brewers system, while Carson Ragsdale ranked 13th.

Caleb Ferguson

The Cardinals also pivoted to make a trade for left-handed reliever Caleb Ferguson from the Cincinnati Reds in exchange for international bonus pool money.

Ferguson, 30, has bounced around the league quite a bit with overall success in his career. He appeared in 26 games with the Reds this season, posting a 4.01 ERA in 24.2 innings with 22 strikeouts and 11 walks. He is also slated to become a free agent after the season.

Erik Miller

The Boston Red Sox were busy on Monday and matched up with the busy San Francisco Giants for a quick deal for reliever Erik Miller and outfield prospect Carlos Gutierrez.

Miller has had a fantastic season for the Giants, pitching to a 2.76 ERA in 38 games while racking up 45 strikeouts — and also issuing 22 walks — in 32.2 innings. Despite the high walk rate, Miller has a higher strikeout rate than any Red Sox pitcher to throw at least 30 innings this season. At the age of 28, Miller is entering his first year of arbitration and is under team control through 2029.

The Giants received former Top 10 prospect Marcelo Mayer, who has not lived up to the pedigree of a fourth-overall pick in 2021. He has dealt with injuries, and there is a sense of a clash of personalities that exhausted his time in Boston. Still, there is plenty of potential that the Giants will try to unlock.

Brooks Raley

Another disappointing season for the New York Mets led to them moving what they could at the deadline. 38-year-old veteran Brooks Raley found himself on the move to Philly after four years with the Mets.

Raley has been having one of the best seasons of his career, pitching to a 1.96 ERA over 41.1 innings in 45 games. He has collected 40 strikeouts against 15 walks and allowed just nine earned runs all season. He also has limited hits against him while continuing to keep the ball in the yard. As a pending free agent, Raley is making $4.75 million this season, so the cost was relatively small, but the results could be huge for an already strong Phillies bullpen down the stretch.

In return, the Mets received unranked pitching prospect Luke Gabrysh and outfielder John Spikerman, who was the Phillies’ No. 27 prospect. Spikerman is the notable piece here with 55 stolen bases in his minor league career over three seasons.

A.J. Minter

Another notable move was for veteran southpaw A.J. Minter when the Mets sent him to the Minnesota Twins on July 30.

Minter, 32, was also having a fabulous season with the Mets after returning from injury in May, but became expendable with his expiring $11 million contract, meaning the Twins only have to pay about $3.5 million before he becomes a free agent. In 23 games, he posted a 2.35 ERA for the Mets with 20 strikeouts against just two walks. He is playoff-tested and is a nice late-game option for the Twins as they try to fight for a postseason run.

The Mets acquired infield prospects Bruin Agbayani and Billy Amick. Agbayani was a sixth-round pick by the Mets last season but hasn’t been able to do much in his career thus far as he was placed on the 60-day injured list back in May. Amick was the Twins’ second-round pick in 2024 and has exploded this season with 24 home runs in Double-A.

Brent Suter

Old friend Brent Suter has continued his reliable ways since leaving the Rockies in 2023, making stops with the Reds and the Los Angeles Angels. The latter organization went on a fire sale Monday, sending Suter to the Atlanta Braves.

Suter, 36, pitched to a 4.12 ERA over 41 games with the Angels this season, continuing to pound the zone and limit hard-hit balls. He also has a 2.51 ERA in nine appearances since the start of July. Suter is mostly just a reliable and durable arm that will be helpful down the stretch and is making just $1.25 million before becoming a free agent after the season.

The Angels received utility man Nacho Alvarez Jr., who was once a highly regarded prospect for the Braves but has been hindered by injuries. He hit .216 with two homers and a .575 OPS across 240 plate appearances for Atlanta from 2024 to 2025. 

Could a deal have been made?

Looking at the deals across the league, it’s difficult to assess what the Rockies could have gotten for Bernardino. He is certainly as good, if not better, than most of the arms moved. However, the Rockies had a set price point for interested teams, and if they didn’t meet those demands, Colorado was fine holding on to the player.

That strikes me as the case for Bernardino. While it would have made perfect sense to trade him, and certainly would have brought back a nice piece or two, the unwillingness to settle for something other than what you truly wanted could have hurt the market.

Still, Bernardino could be a chip in the offseason, or a carryover into a 2027 season as the key part of the bullpen foundation. He’s already proven to be a reliable piece of the puzzle that the Rockies hope can help them compete sooner rather than later.

He probably should have been moved if possible, but retaining the services of a controlled quality lefty isn’t a bad idea at the end of the day.

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On the Farm

Triple-A:Sugar Land Space Cowboys 4, Albuquerque Isotopes 3

The Isotopes fell behind early, scoring just one run until they rallied for two in the eighth, but couldn’t finish the job in the 4-3 loss. Jake Brooks made the start on the mound and took the loss after allowing four runs, two in the first, on seven hits over six innings of work. Chad Stevens had two of the Isotopes’ seven hits while Vimael Machín launched his 12th home run of the season, a two-run shot in the eighth. Blas Castaño and Victor Juarez were excellent out of the bullpen, firing three scoreless innings.

Double-A:Binghamton Rumble Ponies 6, Hartford Yard Goats 3

A close game early got away from the Yard Goats as they failed to score past the fourth inning and fell 6-3. Roc Riggio and Aiden Longwell each had two hits in the game while GJ Hill drove in two runs with his 13th home run of the season. Fisher Jameson made the start and went 3.2 innings, giving up four runs on six hits with three strikeouts. Davison Palermo followed with three innings of relief, giving up two runs on two hits.

High-A:Eugene Emeralds 13, Spokane Indians 1

It was a tough night Spokane’s pitching as they combined to give up 13 runs on 13 hits in the loss. The pitching also issued 12 walks against seven strikeouts. The only pitcher to not allow a run was Austin Emener who recorded just one out in the ninth inning. The lone run for Spokane came in the fourth inning when Roldy Brito hit a home run. The offense combined for four hits, while striking out eight times and walking twice.

Low-A:Visalia Rawhide 10, Fresno Grizzlies 9 (F/11)

The Grizzlies took a 7-4 lead into the eighth inning, before giving up four runs to trail 8-7. They managed to tie things back up in the bottom half of the inning as both teams traded runs in the 10th to keep the game tied 9-9. However, Visalia finally got the deciding run in the top of the 11th as Fresno failed to get the ball in play to score the tying run. Marcos Herrera made the start, giving up four runs on nine hits over 3.1 innings. Grif Hughes followed with 3.2 scoreless innings of relief. Easton Marks was tagged for the four runs in the eighth and althrough Manuel Olivares gave up two unearned runs over three innings, he was tagged for the loss. Ronny Ugarte drove in four runs offensively, including hitting a three-run Homer. Wilder Dalis also drove in three runs and had a solo home run.

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Rockies Reacts Survey: Grade the 2026 trade deadline

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Affected by Altitude Episode 220: Farewells and New Faces | Rocky Mountain Rooftop

On this week’s episode, Evan Lang and I break down the Rockies moves at the deadline and then share our Players of the Month.

Rockies trade deadline analysis: How the moves Colorado didn’t make signal the direction of club | The Denver Post ($)

Kyle Newman shares some thoughts on how the Rockies’ inactivity at the deadline says a lot about how the front office is going about trying to build the roster and a winning culture.

Purple Row Prospects polling thread, mid-season 2026 | Purple Row

Be sure to join the polling thread to get your new PuRPs rankings in for mid-season!

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The Boston Red Sox were as busy as you could possibly be on Monday.

If you missed the events of the trade deadline, go ahead take a look at the three deals that they were able to agree upon:

TRADE 1
Red Sox: C Adley Rutschman, C Jake Rogers, and Cash
Orioles: RHP Anthony Eyanson, RHP, Kyson Witherspoon, OF Enddy Azocar, C Carlos Narváez, PTBNL

TRADE 2
Red Sox: LHP Erik Miller
Giants: IF Marcelo Mayer

TRADE 3
Red Sox: OF Eli White
Braves: RHP Tyler Uberstine

I could hand out grades for each of those moves but that has already been done, so what we’re going to do is look at how they all came together and what it means for the organization in the grand scheme of things.

The Red Sox have been butchered for overpaying for Rutschman, selling low on Mayer, and making the relatively confusing addition of White, but what they also did was reiterate a point previously made by chief baseball officer Craig Breslow after the Curtis Mead deal:

“I’ve tried to shift to our goal so it’s not to win the trade. Our goal is to make our major league team better.”

If you’re taking that into consideration, it’s safe to say that they’re better today than they were on Monday, no?

Mead’s inclusion in that list of trade deadline acquisitions certainly makes it look better, but even when acknowledging the fact that he might not return until the postseason you can easily see how much they upgraded with Rutschman, Miller, and (kind of) White. I haven’t even mentioned what things could look like if Roman Anthony and Trevor Story return before October, but now is as good a time as any…

POTENTIAL PLAYOFF LINEUP

1. Roman Anthony (L)
2. Curtis Mead (R)
3. Adley Rutschman (S)
4. Willson Contreras (R)
5. Wilyer Abreu (L)
6. Ceddanne Rafaela (R)
7. Masataka Yoshida/ Jarren Duran (L)
8. Trevor Story/Andruw Monasterio (R)
9. Caleb Durbin (R)

BENCH: Eli White/Jahmai Jones, Romy Gonzalez/Anthony Seigler

POTENTIAL PLAYOFF PITCHING STAFF

1. Sonny Gray (RHP)
2. Ranger Suarez (LHP)
3. Payton Tolle (LHP)
4. Jake Bennett (LHP)

RHP: Garrett Whitlock, Justin Slaten, Tyron Guerrero, Brayan Bello, Greg Weissert

LHP: Aroldis Chapman, Erik Miller, Patrick Sandoval, Jovani Moran

It’s not going to look like that because… well, nothing ever ends up turning out the way we expect and that is too many players, but that’s as deep a roster as we’ve seen all season. Boston wasn’t going to do any better, either, especially if they weren’t willing to give up Mayer, Eyanson, and Azocar.

Breslow almost certainly overpaid on all three moves, so go ahead and complain about that if you want. I just don’t think there was any other way to capitalize on a once-in-a-generation run, and isn’t that what this is all about? The Red Sox have an opportunity to go compete for the American League, and after what we saw over the weekend, they could even conceivably compete for a World Series.

If that takes flirting with the line of aggressiveness and recklessness… so be it.

Ok, I have tackled the topic of what is perhaps our main weakness, the bullpen, and how it correlates with winning teams, how our middling at best bullpen (at the time) wasn’t doing us any favors. Well that was a month or two ago, feels like 6 weeks? And our bullpen is now worse than it was when I suspected it was an issue. Before I move on to the offense, the Cardinals bullpen is around 24th/25th in MLB in ERA, xERA, and xFIP. It is best by FIP, but even incorporating that stat into WAR, the bullpen has been about replacement level. And that’s with a decent closer. The bullpen has definitely been a big problem.

But, you can’t win games with poor run scoring abilities. Since July 4th, the Cardinals have scored right at 100 runs. That may be (surprisingly) more than the Dodgers and Yankees have scored, but it’s still in the bottom 10 teams of MLB. With an even worse bullpen over that time, it’s tough to win a lot of games. If any of you (I know I have) have been saying the Cardinals offense seems cursed, well you might be right! They have the second worst batting average on balls in play (babip) in all of MLB. Only Toronto is experiencing worse luck on that. Or whatever it is that is happening.

Looking beyond BABIP, there are ways to try and suss out what is going on with the offense. First off, there is almost no power in the Cardinals attack. They have the second lowest ISO (isolated power) in MLB since the 4th of July. So we need to get what power we had back. They’re also not getting on base super well.

What I found out using Statcast

The issues with the Cardinals offense with all the data from this season are that their hitting results show topping the ball too much, so too much ground pounding. They are not elevating the ball enough, and are not barreling the ball enough. They are actually hitting the ball hard, but not effectively.

MLB Ranking by xBA

As you can see, the Cardinals batting average should be, according to xBA (expected batting average) one of the best in MLB! But we are far from that! This is because we are not barreling the ball enough and are suffering from BABIP luck.

MLB Ranking According to Barrel Percentage

The Cardinals need to get better quality of contact. They also are not elevating the ball well.

MLB Rankings by Average Launch Angle

The Cardinals appeared trained to not swing for the fences, almost! How else to describe a full team doing that that should be hitting better by xBA? But look at Milwaukee in dead last, they definitely are not swinging for the fences either. So I don’t know! Is this a hitting philosophy problem, or just something the Cardinals are prone to do? Why are the Brewers so anti-launch angle? What is going on here.

MLB Rankings by Average Exit Velocity

This has me convinced the offense isn’t living up to its true potential. We ARE hitting the ball hard, but not elevating it enough, apparently. Cardinals hitters are swinging over the ball and topping it. But the Cardinals DO have some power, maybe not elite but what we saw towards the beginning of the season wasn’t some mirage.

MLB Rankings by xISO

The Cardinals exit velocity is actually the 6th best in MLB, surprisingly, and now look their expected ISO backs this up because the Cardinals almost crack the top 10 in *expected Isolated Power (their actual results in ISO are BAD, almost dead last in MLB since July 4).

MLB Rankings by xOBP

And here we see the Cardinals should be getting on base more, since July the Cardinals have one of the worst team on-base percentages with only a couple teams worse. But, they should be getting on base with the best of ‘em, apparently! These have been very bad times for the offense, almost inexplicable.

MLB Rankings by xwOBA

Well, well, well, if you have hopes for the Cardinals offense getting out of this rut, you’re not smoking the hopium too much, you are maybe spot on. The offense will improve, if they stop topping the ball and start barreling it.

MLB Rankings for Topped Ball %

Would you look at that, the Brewers are terrible at Topped % while the Cardinals are top 5. Our spinny ground hits are being chopped in the wrong way, it would appear. Great.

Well as you can see, the Cardinals hitters really SHOULD be getting better results, but I suspect they will need to improve their barrel percentage and stop swinging a bit over the ball. I don’t know how they improve this, but it appears to be a major issue. Or maybe not because some teams can get away with it. The Brewers and Cardinals offense shouldn’t be much different. Both teams should be around the top 10 offensively, while one is firmly in the top 10 by wRC+, the other, the Cardinals, are not even a top 20 offense by that measure. Currently, only 8 teams are worse than the Cardinals by wRC+.

So don’t be surprised if the Cardinals offense comes back to do some damage. They can, their average exit velocity as a whole is actually really good. They should be having more opportunities land as hits. If you are hopeful, I can’t really blame you. The starting rotation ain’t bad at all, and the offense has been cursed, apparently… or just not swinging at the right angle, to be real about it. Maybe a bit of both to explain most of July.

1994 Music Picks (Metal Free Edition)

I have 30 albums for you this week, so I am going to be even more brief than usual in my reviews! 1994 was ridiculous. I graduated from high school back in 1994, and it was one of the toughest years of my life.

No particular order, but the first few albums stick out in my mind…

• Kyuss – ‘Welcome To Sky Valley’ can’t really explain it, but I would not call this a heavy metal album, but one of the heaviest psyche rock masterpieces ever recorded in the southern California desert.
• NIN – ‘The Downward Spiral’ if you had to pick one album to represent the 1990s, I think you could do worse than this.
• Portishead – ‘Dummy’ sure Massive Attack were ahead on the triphop thing, but this album put the genre on the map! Still one of the best albums ever.
• Failure – ‘Magnified’ this band doesn’t really sound like any other band but they sound very, very 90s, and this album is a perfect album start to finish. Very heavy alt rock sounds that aren’t quite grunge, aren’t quite industrial, but in a world all its own.
• Heavy Vegetable – ‘The Amazing Undersea Adventures of Aqua Kitty’ imagine what pop punk sounds like in an alternate universe and you might get close to what this all over the map album sounds like. Prog meets pop punk? ok!
• God – ‘The Anatomy of Addiction’ wild dubbed out noise rock, avant-garde punk jazz industrial band from the UK with members of Godflesh and The Bug! One of my favorite albums of all time!
• Jawbox – ‘For Your Own Special Sweetheart’ one of the best indie rock albums you’ll ever hear and For Your Own Special Sweetheart captured the times perfectly. Jawbox at their very best.
• Melvins – ‘Stoner Witch’ much too “not serious” and absurd for heavy metal, but this album sure is heavy.
• Unwound – ‘New Plastic Ideas’ what punk rock should sound more like. There should be more bands like Unwound. But they’re one of a kind, so what you gonna do?
• Today is the Day – ‘Willpower’ one of the most emotionally charged, disturbing, and spiritually moving rock albums you’ll ever experience. Americana.
• Deep Turtle – ‘There’s a Vomitsprinkler in My Liverriver’ here is my weirdo, unexpected find! this album is insane good! It’s just as weird as its name. I don’t know how to describe it but it’s full of recognizable genre based riffs but all strung together to make complex songs similar to something Mr Bungle might do if they were an alt punk band with a lesser budget? Maybe? Whatever it is, I’m glad I found it!
• Thinking Fellers Union Local 282 – ‘Strangers From The Universe’ I have known about this band for years and have liked them, but I have never connected with any of their albums like I have with this one.
• Ween – ‘Chocolate and Cheese’ pretty sure these guys (Dean and Gene Ween in case you didn’t know!) were already legends even by this point, early on in their career, but if not, they were after Chocolate and Cheese!
• Stereolab – ‘Mars Audiac Quintet’ you just cannot go wrong with Stereolab! alt pop, motorik, band of musicians, electronic, you just cannot define them…
• Osamu Sato – ‘Transmigration’ electronic music is starting to take off a lot this year, but still pretty early… anyway, the hidden gem I found is my pick for 1994 electronic music! If you’re into that kind of thing.
• Soundgarden – ‘Superunknown’ grunge masterpiece! Even the lesser known songs are top notch!
• Starflyer 59 – ‘self-titled’ here is my shoegaze pick from 1994!
• Mark Lanegan – ‘Whiskey For the Holy Ghost’ one of the great American singing voices! Highly recommended! Check out Mark Lanegan Band and his solo albums. Screaming Trees were good too, but I feel that he shines on his own.
• Dazzling Killmen – ‘Face of Collapse’ gotta throw my favorite Dazzling Killmen on the list, they’re from St Louis and one of a kind! Noise punk math rock? Mathy noise rock punks?
• MC Solaar – ‘Prose Combat’ the finest French hiphop you’ll ever find. MC Solaar is always on point, spot on.
• Massive Attack – ‘Protection’ the second Massive Attack album may not be the total classic Blue Lines was, but it’s close… almost feels like an EP to me, but on here for the title track alone! Good stuff.
• Cherubs – ‘Heroin Man’ not very politically correct, but I’m sure there were plenty of heroin overdoses in Austin TX in the 1990s, and 1994 was the year Cobain died too, so maybe that’s how they came up with their album title? Anyways, top tier noise rock masterpiece herein!
• Gang Starr – ‘Hard To Earn’ Guru and DJ Premier, hiphop elites, need I say more?
• Drive Like Jehu – ‘Yank Crime’ highly energetic, explosively creative punk rock! I hadn’t heard this one before, but it might be my favorite Drive Like Jehu album I’ve heard.
• Stone Temple Pilots – ‘Purple’ this, along with Jawbox, reminds me of driving around in the summer of 1994. Purple would be a good soundtrack for that summer, if I had to pick just one. It kind of blew up because of The Crow soundtrack, too. Still holds up to this day as an all-time rock’n‘roll classic!
• Killing Joke – ‘Pandemonium’ at this point Killing Joke were moving more towards industrial metal but still retaining their 80s songwriting chops. It’s the first KJ album I ever bought and I still love it, although I listened to it the most that year it came out. The super catchy opening track seals the deal right away.
• Organized Konfusion – ‘The Extinction Agenda’ hidden gem hiphop! Very highly recommended!
• Dog Faced Hermans – ‘Those Deep Buds’ alt punk/art rock at its best with Dog Faced Hermans!
• Beastie Boys – ‘Ill Communication’ this album was everywhere in 1994! and it’s a good one.
• Tom Petty – ‘Wildflowers’ and this album has been everywhere since it came out! a rare occasion where I think an album of this stature pretty much deserves it! Absolutely stacked.

And that’s enough 1994 music to keep anyone occupied for a while! Sure you may know a bunch of it, but there’s plenty of obscurities too. Or maybe it’ll all be familiar to you. Except Deep Turtle. I don’t believe you that you know that one.

Back to baseball! I have one more graphic from baseball savant/statcast for you. It shows how our defense has been performing this season using Outs Above Average (OAA).

The Cardinals play the Yankees at Yankee Stadium at the same time the third day in a row tonight at 6:05. Then they move on to the Rockies. Andre Pallante vs Will Warren, looks like. Pallante has been the better pitcher in this matchup, but ESPN is picking the Yankees to win. Let’s make ESPN look dumb, please.

The MLB trade deadline is over and we're at the latter part of the 2026 baseball season, during which teams are either jockeying for postseason position, evaluating young prospects and other talent they recently acquired, and re-evaluating those held on to.

If you're 49-65 and have one of the worst records in baseball like the San Francisco Giants, then odds are the remainder of the season is an extended tryout period to see who will claim a starting spot, find a way into the batting lineup or even make next year's 40-man roster.

That's the direction the Giants are headed to next.

"We're going to get some looks at some younger players, and I think as much as anything, it's going to be an opportunity for us as a front office and a coaching staff to evaluate some of our players, and some of them are going to get some longer runways than they've had in the past," Giants general manager Buster Posey said in a radio interview on 97.5 FM.

It's about the only thing left for San Francisco to play for since being left out of playoff conversations. The Giants are 21 games back of the first-place Los Angeles Dodgers in the NL West. Grading talent and going into the offseason this fall is about all the Giants have to look forward to.

But there are still questions that need to be answered going into the offseason. There are holes in the roster that need to be filled. And overall, San Francisco needs to figure out which direction it's headed.

"I think these last two months that we can be excited about, to build off of, and you know to look to build on from what we do here these last couple months and into the future," Posey said.

Posey will have his work cut out for him as the Giants face many questions as the season comes to a close following the deals made, and those not made, at the deadline. It seems like San Francisco went through a semi-reset, dealing six players at the deadline including Luis Arraez, Robbie Ray and Tyler Mahle.

Here's what San Francisco needs to consider in these final two months and into the offseason:

Play the top prospects

Wins have been hard to come by all year long, so it shouldn't be an issue to play younger players a bit more in the final two months of baseball.

There should be more sightings of guys such as Blade Tidwell, Dylan Smith, Drew Cavanaugh, Daniel Susac, Osleivis Basabe, Drew Gilbert and Bryce Eldridge.

Eldridge has particularly shown promise as a designated hitter, but he could be more and San Francisco should consider giving him the chance to play elsewhere other than at designated hitter. Test him out at first baseman for a string of games.

Posey wants to create a particular "brand of baseball," he said during a radio appearance on Bay Area sports radio station 97.5 FM.

"We keep saying you look for fundamental baseball guys that are going to throw throw the ball over the plate, control the strike zone at the plate, catch the ball on defense and make smart decisions on the bases," Posey said. "I do think it's been nice to see that we've been pushing the envelope a little bit more as far as stolen bases have gone the last month or so. So that's been nice to see, but just trying to create a brand of baseball."

Guys who are under 30 should be getting those opportunities to show that they can buy-in to the brand Posey wants the Giants to play.

Is a full rebuild on the horizon?

Next, the Giants need to figure out which direction they are going in. Whether it's a full overhaul, or mixing young and the old, they need a clear direction.

They weren't able to get rid of Rafael Devers, Matt Chapman and Willy Adames, some of the most expensive contracts on the payroll. These guys aren't that old. But they also aren't under 30 years old, except Devers who turns 30 in October.

They opted to keep Jung Hoo Lee, who turns 28 this month, out of trade talks, but there are two months to decide whether that should be reconsidered. There's a bunch of money tied up between these four, nearing $100 million. San Francisco should have a hard look at who's costing money but not producing on-field.

Will Logan Webb remain a Giant?

Logan Webb is one of few bright spots on the Giants' pitching staff. The bullpen needs help. If the Giants were to lose Webb, then that would be another setback dilemma. San Francisco had already made it known to those who inquired about Webb near the MLB trade deadline that he wasn't available, according to USA TODAY Sports baseball columnist Bob Nightengale, who reported interest from the Houston Astros and Atlanta Braves.

Webb, 29, is the longest-tenured member of the Giants. He turns 30 in November. It's likely he remains a Giant, which directs the attention back to whether a fire sale or full rebuild is coming or not.

Maybe. Probably not. To be determined.

Is Tony Vitello's job still safe in San Francisco?

It hasn't been the rookie year that first-year MLB skipper Tony Vitello had hoped. There were more head-scratching moments than celebratory moments this season. But that's what comes with a rookie manager and a team without clear direction: growing pains filled with ups and downs.

Posey and company need to determine soon whether Vitello is the man for the job. Realistically, if evaluating him as well, he should get one more year to see if the experiment should end early or not.

Vitello signed a three-year contract that pays him $3.5 million annually. It's like that line from J. Cole, "fool me one time, shame on you. Fool me twice, can't put the blame on you."

With that said, Vitello should see a second season, but if plays out his three-year deal and the next couple seasons mirror 2026, then you can go ahead and finish that lyric and dump him.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY Sports: San Francisco Giants biggest questions after the trade deadline reset

Triple-A Scranton/Wilkes-Barre RailRiders:W, 8-3 vs. Rochester Red Wings

C J.C. Escarra 2-3, HR, 2 BB, 2 RBI — went yard in three-run fifth
2B Marco Luciano 2-5, 2B, GIDP
SS Oswaldo Cabrera 2-5, RBI
RF Yanquiel Fernández 2-4, RBI, K
3B Tyler Hardman 2-4, 2B, RBI
1B Ernesto Martinez Jr. 0-3, BB
DH Christian Bethancourt 1-4, K
CF Duke Ellis 1-4, 2B, 2 RBI, 2 K, 2 SB — second-straight season with 40 steals in the Yanks’ organization
LF Kenedy Corona 1-4, RBI, K

Brendan Beck 6 IP, 4 H, 0 R, 1 BB, 12 K, WP (win) — 22 whiffs and a new season-high with a dozen punchouts
Zach Messinger 1.2 IP, 1 H, 2 R (2 ER), 1 BB, 2 K
Brian Hendry 0.1 IP, 2 H, 1 R (1 ER), 1 BB, 0 K
Rafael Montero 1 IP, 1 H, 0 R, 1 BB, 1 K

J.C. ya later 👋#RepBXpic.twitter.com/bWwE8IKNtR

— SWB RailRiders (@swbrailriders) August 5, 2026

Double-A Somerset Patriots:L, 3-17 at Akron Rubber — they’ve had better matinees

CF Jace Avina 2-4, BB, RBI, K
DH DJ Gladney 2-5, 2B, 2 K
C Omar Alfonzo 1-5, 2 K, passed ball, throwing error — first hit with the organization
SS Roderick Arias 1-5, RBI, 2 K, CS, fielding error — bumpy Double-A debut outside of the ground-ball RBI single in his first at-bat
2B Connor McGinnis 1-4, BB, 2 K
LF Jackson Castillo 0-2, 3 BB
3B Coby Morales 1-5, 2B, K
1B Josh Moylan 1-3, BB, RBI, K, 2 throwing errors — Patriots committed five errors on the day
RF Luis Durango 0-2, 2 BB, outfield assist

Cade Smith 4 IP, 5 H, 3 R (3 ER), 3 BB, 5 K (loss)
Harrison Cohen 1 IP, 1 H, 3 R (3 ER), 3 BB, 2 K
Hueston Morrill 0.2 IP, 2 H, 4 R (1 ER), 1 BB, 0 K, HBP, WP, throwing error — Somerset allowed seven runs each in the sixth and seventh, yuck
Matt Keating 0.2 IP, 1 H, 2 R (2 ER), 2 BB, 1 K
Michael Arias 0.2 IP, 4 H, 5 R (5 ER), 1 BB, 1 K, HBP — un-good, as they say
Kelly Austin 1 IP, 0 H, 0 R, 1 BB, 1 K — Cy Young for him!

All 5⃣ of Cade Smith's (@Yankees No. 12 Prospect) strikeouts today.

Watch out for the NASTY breaking ball 👀 pic.twitter.com/6pErIqYRRa

— Somerset Patriots (@SOMPatriots) August 4, 2026

High-A Hudson Valley Renegades:L, 6-12 at Greenville Drive

SS Core Jackson 2-4, 2B, BB, K, fielding error — returned from IL
CF Jackson Lovich 2-5, 2 RBI, 2 K
DH Eric Genther 1-4, 2B, BB, K
1B Kyle West 3-5, HR, 2 RBI, SB, missed catch error — 18th dinger of season
2B Enmanuel Tejeda 0-5, 2 K, 2 GIDP
RF Willy Montero 1-3, BB, RBI, K, SB
LF Robbie Burnett 0-3, BB, 2 K, SB
C Josue Gonzalez 0-3, 3 K, HBP, passed ball — tough day
3B Bryce Martin-Grudzielanek 0-3, BB, K, SB — High-A debut

Franyer Herrera 3.1 IP, 3 H, 6 R (6 ER), 4 BB, 4 K, HR, HBP (loss)
Andrew Landry 0.2 IP, 1 H, 3 R (0 ER), 1 BB, 0 K, throwing error
Jackson Fristoe 1 IP, 1 H, 2 R (2 ER), 2 BB, 0 K
Thomas Balboni Jr. 1.2 IP, 1 H, 1 R (1 ER), 1 BB, 3 K, HR
Jack Sokol 1.1 IP, 1 H, 0 R, 0 BB, 1 K

THAT BALL IS CRUSHED. Kyle West with the solo shot🔥 pic.twitter.com/Iz59KRHQ7j

— Hudson Valley Renegades (@HVRenegades) August 4, 2026

Low-A Tampa Tarpons:L, 2-5 at Clearwater Threshers

SS Dax Kilby 0-2, 2 BB
RF Wilberson De Pena 0-4, K, outfield assist
CF Yostin Pena 2-4, 2 K, SB
LF Paul Gutierrez-Contreras II 1-4, RBI, K, SB — singled for first pro hit in debut for 2026 fourth-rounder, 110.1 mph off the bat (also two other bits of contact at 107.9 mph or better)
C Bear Harrison 1-4, 3B, K — tripled 106.1 mph off the bat for first pro hit in debut for 2026 fifth-rounder
3B Hans Montero 1-4, 2B, RBI, K
1B Tyce Armstrong 0-4, 2 K — pro debut for 2026 19th-rounder
2B Blake Cyr 1-3 — singled for first pro hit in debut for 2026 18th-rounder
DH Luis Puello 0-2, BB, K

Sabier Marte 3.2 IP, 4 H, 3 R (3 ER), 3 BB, 2 K, 2 HR, HBP (loss)
Rafael Arias 1.1 IP, 1 H, 0 R, 1 BB, 4 K, HBP — got K’s for all four outs in Low-A debut
Josh Tiedemann 1 IP, 1 H, 1 R (1 ER), 0 BB, 2 K, HR
Austin Breedlove 1 IP, 0 H, 1 R (1 ER), 2 BB, 0 K, WP
Jose Martinez 1 IP, 1 H, 0 R, 0 BB, 3 K — struck out the side

#Tarpons C @bearharrison32 pulls a triple into the left field corner for his first professional hit and would score his first run on the ensuing groundout by Hans Montero. #Yankees 2026 5th RD Pick pic.twitter.com/SLbLN3fwFn

— Nick Flammia (@NickFlammia) August 4, 2026

Florida Complex League Yankees: Season over

Dominican Summer League Yankees:W, 15-6 (8) at DSL Rockies

CF Isaias Castillo 1-3, 2B, 2 BB, RBI, K, HBP
LF Luis Cruz 1-4, 2 BB, RBI, GIDP
SS Stiven Marinez 4-5, 3 RBI, 2 SB, CS
SS Emmanuel Orozco 0-1
2B Juan Torres 2-4, BB, 4 RBI, SB, HBP — two-run single was crowning blow in seven-run second
DH Juan Martinez 2-5
PH-DH Jose Peralta 0-1, K
C Cesar Lopez 0-4, BB, RBI, SB, HBP — stole home on front end of double steal
1B Stalen Ramirez 1-3, 2 BB, K, HBP
1B John Rosillo 0-0
RF Alfiery Matos 2-5, RBI, 2 SB
3B Abrahan Pichardo 1-3, 2 BB

Dalvin Taveras 5 IP, 3 H, 4 R (4 ER), 3 BB, 2 K, HR, 2 HBP (win)
Freddy Lopez 2 IP, 3 H, 2 R (2 ER), 3 BB, 2 K, WP
Emanuel Vargas 0.2 IP, 0 H, 0 R, 1 BB, 0 K

Dominican Summer League Bombers: suspended in the ninth inning tied 4-4 vs. DSL Colorado

CF Ruben Castillo 1-4, 2B, GIDP, HBP, SB, CS
SS Dariel Santana 0-5, 3 K, throwing error
DH Alessandro Rodriguez 2-3, 2B, BB, K
2B Carlos Bello 0-3, 2 K
RF David Carrera 1-3, HR, BB, RBI, K — tied game with solo shot in eighth; probably why this wasn’t just called at a 4-3 Colorado final!
C Kenneth Melendez 0-4, RBI, 2 K, throwing error
3B Germayhoni Beltre 1-4, 2 SB
LF Richard Meran 1-3, 2B, BB, K, SB
1B Alfred Ciriaco 0-4, 2 K

Higor Requena 3.1 IP, 5 H, 4 R (4 ER), 2 BB, 3 K, HBP, 2 WP
Junior Tavera 4.2 IP, 2 H, 0 R, 2 BB, 8 K, 2 WP
Andre Avila 0 IP, 0 H, 0 R, 1 BB, 0 K

Triple-A: Syracuse Mets (38-37/14-19)

COLUMBUS 15, SYRACUSE 7 (BOX)

Jonah Tong was initially scheduled to start this ballgame but he was pushed back so that he would start later in the week. Dakota Hawkins got the start instead, and I will give him the benefit of the doubt that he wasn’t as prepared as he would’ve otherwise been or something, because he got shelled. The right-hander recorded just two outs and allowed 6 runs to score- with two additional runners scoring after he was lifted from the game. Down 8-0 before even coming up to the plate, Syracuse predictably lost this one. The offense made sure this one wasn’t a complete embarrassment- Christopher Morel hit another homer, his fourth homer in five at-bats, and Nick Lorusso hit one in his first at-bat with Syracuse- but even scoring 7 runs in total, the Mets were at no point really in this one. Let’s focus on silver linings though: Brian Metoyer threw 1.1 scoreless innings and struck out all 4 batters he faced in his first Triple-A outing, inching that much closer to being the final 40th round draft pick to make their MLB debut and Mike Tauchman improbably threw not just one but two scoreless innings.

·  2B Vidal Bruján: 1-5, 2B, 2 RBI, E (7)

·  CF Nick Morabito: 1-4, R, BB

·  3B Christopher Morel: 1-5, R, HR (9), 2 RBI, 2 K

·  SS Ronny Mauricio: 0-5, 2 K, E (8)

·  DH-P Mike Tauchman: 0-4, R

·  1B Nick Lorusso: 1-4, R, HR (1), 2 RBI, 2 K

·  RF Jose Ramos: 2-4, R, 3B, K

·  C Hayden Senger: 2-4, R, 2B, RBI, K

·  LF D’Andre Smith: 2-3, R, HBP

·  RHP Dakota Hawkins: 0.2 IP, 5 H, 8 R, 8 ER, 3 BB, 0 K, L (0-1)

·  RHP Ofreidy Gómez: 1.1 IP, 4 H, 3 R, 3 ER, 2 BB, 1 K

·  RHP Brian Metoyer: 1.1 IP, 1 H, 0 R, 0 ER, 1 BB, 4 K

·  RHP Zach Franklin: 1.2 IP, 3 H, 2 R, 2 ER, 0 BB, 1 K

·  RHP Dylan Ross: 1.1 IP, 1 H, 2 R, 2 ER, 2 BB, 3 K

·  RHP Dan Hammer: 0.2 IP, 1 H, 0 R, 0 ER, 0 BB, 0 K

·  LHP Mike Tauchman: 2.0 IP, 1 H, 0 R, 0 ER, 0 BB, 0 K, HBP

ROSTER ALERT: RHP Brian Metoyer assigned to Syracuse Mets from Binghamton Rumble Ponies.

ROSTER ALERT: SS D’Andre Smith assigned to Syracuse Mets from Binghamton Rumble Ponies.

ROSTER ALERT: CF Jose Ramos assigned to Syracuse Mets from Binghamton Rumble Ponies.

ROSTER ALERT: 3B Nick Lorusso assigned to Syracuse Mets from Binghamton Rumble Ponies.

ROSTER ALERT: RHP Dakota Hawkins assigned to Syracuse Mets from Binghamton Rumble Ponies.

ROSTER ALERT: Syracuse Mets released LHP Brandon Waddell.

ROSTER ALERT: Syracuse Mets released 3B Jose Rojas.

Double-A: Binghamton Rumble Ponies (27-42/12-22)

BINGHAMTON 6, HARTFORD 3 (BOX)

So, remember yesterday where I said that Mitch Voit was not going to be able to sustain his   .500/.593/909 batting line over the course of the rest of the season? Well, maybe I was wrong about that, as the infielder logged another two doubles en route to a 3-4 evening which raised his line to .538/.613/.962 in 7 games with the Rumble Ponies. Voit drove in two of Binghamton’s runs, with Marco Vargas and a returning Jacob Reimer driving in another two apiece.

·  SS Mitch Voit: 3-4, 2 R, 2 2B, 2 RBI, SB (4)

·  DH Marco Vargas: 2-3, 2 R, HR (1), 2 RBI, BB

·  2B Émilien Pitre: 2-4

·  3B Jacob Reimer: 1-4, 2 RBI, K

·  C Chris Suero: 0-3, K, HBP, E (12)

·  1B Billy Amick: 0-4, 3 K

·  CF John Bay: 0-4, 2 K

·  LF Corey Collins: 0-3, R, BB

·  RF JT Benson: 1-4, R, K

·  RHP Channing Austin: 3.0 IP, 2 H, 1 R, 1 ER, 2 BB, 1 K, HBP

·  RHP Cristofer Gomez: 2.1 IP, 3 H, 2 R, 2 ER, 1 BB, 0 K, W (1-0)

·  RHP Zach Peek: 1.2 IP, 1 H, 0 R, 0 ER, 0 BB, 3 K, H (4)

·  RHP Bryce Jenkins: 1.0 IP, 1 H, 0 R, 0 ER, 0 BB, 0 K, H (1)

·  RHP Garrett Stratton: 1.0 IP, 0 H, 0 R, 0 ER, 0 BB, 2 K, S (1)

ROSTER ALERT: OF JT Benson assigned to Binghamton Rumble Ponies from Brooklyn Cyclones.

ROSTER ALERT: RHP Bryce Jenkins assigned to Binghamton Rumble Ponies from Brooklyn Cyclones.

ROSTER ALERT: OF Yohairo Cuevas assigned to Binghamton Rumble Ponies from Brooklyn Cyclones.

ROSTER ALERT: RHP Cristofer Gomez assigned to Binghamton Rumble Ponies from Brooklyn Cyclones.

ROSTER ALERT: Binghamton Rumble Ponies placed RHP Danis Correa on the 7-day injured list.

ROSTER ALERT: Binghamton Rumble Ponies activated 3B Jacob Reimer from the 7-day injured list.

ROSTER ALERT: Binghamton Rumble Ponies transferred C Vincent Perozo to the Development List.

ROSTER ALERT: Binghamton Rumble Ponies released SS Wyatt Young.

ROSTER ALERT: Binghamton Rumble Ponies released RHP Jordan Geber.

ROSTER ALERT: Binghamton Rumble Ponies released OF Matt Rudick.

ROSTER ALERT: Binghamton Rumble Ponies released 1B JT Schwartz.

High-A: Brooklyn Cyclones (25-40/18-18)

BROOKLYN 7, WILMINGTON 1 (BOX)

For a while, it looked like the Cyclones might throw their third no-hitter in franchise history, as Nicolas Carreno blanked the Blue Rocks for 5.1 no-hit innings and Parker Carlson did the same for another 1.1. In the bottom of the eighth, Luis Rodriguez led off the inning with a walk- Wilmington’s fifth- subsequently allowed a hit to end the no-hitter, and a few batters later, a run to end the shutout. These things happen, what can you do? The left-hander limited the damage to just a run and his replacement, Juan Arnaud, threw a scoreless ninth so no big deal ultimately. With the win, the Cyclones are back to .500 for the second half and could conceivably end the week in first place if they do well in the rest of this series against the first place Blue Rocks.

·  CF Aidan Smith: 2-4, R, BB, K, SB (15)

·  LF Trey Snyder: 2-5, 2 R, HR (1), 2 RBI, 2 K

·  1B Cole Mathis: 0-4, BB, 2 K

·  DH Randy Guzman: 1-5, R, RBI, K

·  2B Yonatan Henriquez: 1-2, 2B, 2 BB, CS (8)

·  RF John Spikerman: 1-4, RBI, 2 K

·  C Ronald Hernandez: 0-4, RBI

·  3B Jamari Baylor: 1-3, R, HR (3), RBI, BB, K, E (2)

·  SS Antonio Jimenez: 0-2, 2 R, 2 BB, 2 K, 2 SB (4, 5)

·  RHP Nicolas Carreno: 5.2 IP, 0 H, 0 R, 0 ER, 5 BB, 8 K, W (1-1)

·  RHP Parker Carlson: 1.1 IP, 0 H, 0 R, 0 ER, 0 BB, 0 K

·  LHP Luis R. Rodriguez: 1.0 IP, 2 H, 1 R, 1 ER, 2 BB, 2 K, WP

·  RHP Juan Arnaud: 1.0 IP, 0 H, 0 R, 0 ER, 3 BB, 2 K

ROSTER ALERT: 1B Carter Dierdorf assigned to Brooklyn Cyclones from FCL Mets.

ROSTER ALERT: RHP Elwis Mijares assigned to Brooklyn Cyclones from St. Lucie Mets.

ROSTER ALERT: RHP Joe Scarborough assigned to Brooklyn Cyclones from St. Lucie Mets.

ROSTER ALERT: Brooklyn Cyclones activated 3B Cole Mathis from the 7-day injured list.

ROSTER ALERT: Brooklyn Cyclones placed RHP Frank Camarillo on the 7-day injured list.

ROSTER ALERT: Brooklyn Cyclones transferred SS Colin Houck to the Development List.

ROSTER ALERT: Brooklyn Cyclones transferred 3B Trace Willhoite to the Development List.

ROSTER ALERT: Brooklyn Cyclones released RHP Tanner Witt.

ROSTER ALERT: Brooklyn Cyclones released 3B AJ Salgado.

Single-A: St. Lucie Mets (33-33/13-21)

POSTPONED (RAIN)

ROSTER ALERT: RHP Candido Cuevas assigned to St. Lucie Mets from Brooklyn Cyclones.

ROSTER ALERT: 1B Reed Stallman assigned to St. Lucie Mets from FCL Mets.

ROSTER ALERT: RHP Dillon Stiltner assigned to St. Lucie Mets from FCL Mets.

ROSTER ALERT: RHP Camden Lohman assigned to St. Lucie Mets from FCL Mets.

ROSTER ALERT: St. Lucie Mets transferred SS Branny De Oleo to the Development List.

ROSTER ALERT: St. Lucie Mets released RHP Franyel Diaz.

ROSTER ALERT: St. Lucie Mets released RHP Luis Alvarez.

ROSTER ALERT: St. Lucie Mets released RHP Omar Victorino.

Rookie: FCL Mets (24-33)

NO GAME (SEASON OVER)

STAR OF THE NIGHT

Mitch Voit

GOAT OF THE NIGHT

Dakota Hawkins

Good morning, Camden Chatters.

I’ve just double-checked, wondering if perhaps Monday’s events were just a fever dream, and I can confirm: yes, the Orioles really did trade Adley Rutschman to the Red Sox.

It still stings. And don’t just take my word for it. The clubhouse reaction from Orioles players yesterday reflected just how much the Rutschman trade has affected his longtime teammates and friends. Trevor Rogers described it as “a shock.” Jackson Holliday said, “he’s going to be very missed around here.” Gunnar Henderson was too worked up to even put it into words, telling reporters, “I’m not going to be able to talk about it today.”

The impact of Adley’s departure was best described by Colton Cowser, who was with Rutschman when he received the call that he’d been traded. “Just from a human side of it, obviously, it was tough. I was pretty emotional yesterday,” he said. “Definitely some sadness there, and all I could do was give him a hug and tell him I’m here for him and I love him.” (I’m not crying. You’re crying.)

I attended last night’s game and I couldn’t help sensing a bit of a funereal atmosphere, as if fans were saying goodbye not just to Adley the individual, but also to the era of Orioles baseball that he represented. Rutschman’s much-hyped arrival in 2022 ushered in an (all too brief) renaissance of the club’s fortunes, a return to glory fueled by young, exciting, homegrown players. When the O’s peaked to a 101-win season and AL East title in 2023, Adley was the poster child for their success, the affable All-Star and team leader who seemed destined to guide the Orioles to perennial contention for his long and illustrious Baltimore career.

It didn’t turn out that way. The O’s stumbled into mediocrity during the 2024 season and have really never recovered. Many of the homegrown prospects have failed to develop in the majors, or have regressed after having initial success. Rutschman himself is part of that group, having battled injuries and offensive struggles for the last three years. And now the Adley Era is officially over for the Orioles. He’s moved on to greener pastures, while the O’s are left to face the harsh reality that the total organizational rebuild they underwent for the last seven years has fizzled out, with not even one playoff game win to show for it. It sucks.

That’s not to say that the Orioles are necessarily doomed. They’ve still got plenty of talented players on the roster and intriguing prospects on the farm who could help the team in the not-too-distant future. But after witnessing the disappointing, anticlimactic end to the Adley Era, it’s hard to feel particularly optimistic about the state of the Orioles or the people who are making the decisions right now.

Links

More from Elias on yesterday’s trade deadline activity and impact on Orioles – School of Roch

Considering that Mike Elias is the architect of this wholly disappointing Orioles team, it’s hard to stomach his comments about how he’s trying to “make the right moves by the franchise.” Why start now?

After a whirlwind day, Adley Rutschman reflects on the ‘unbelievable amount of love’ he felt in Baltimore – The Baltimore Banner

In his farewell to Baltimore, Adley has some nice things to say about the Orioles and their fans. Warning: this article features a photo of Rutschman in his Red Sox uniform. If you’ll excuse me, I need to go throw up.

Orioles defeat Angels behind a strong Cade Povich spot start, 3-1 – Camden Chat

The Orioles won their first game of the post-Adley era last night, and Andrea SK has the details. Sure, the Orioles just barely beat the worst team in baseball, and were out-hit 11-4, and were dominated by former Oriole Grayson Rodriguez and his 7.98 ERA. But a win is a win, I suppose.

Orioles birthdays and history

Is today your birthday? Happy birthday! You share your day with two former O’s right-handers: John Wasdin (54) and the late Nelson Briles (b. 1943, d. 2005).

On this date in 1994, Orioles righty (and current MASN analyst) Ben McDonald pitched a one-hit shutout against his future team, the Brewers. McDonald threw 145 pitches (!) in tossing his sixth — and final — career shutout.

And on this day in 2019, Jonathan Villar hit for the cycle, becoming the fifth player in O’s history to do so. Villar tripled in the third, doubled in the fifth, homered in the sixth, and singled off Aroldis Chapman in the ninth. Sadly, the Orioles still lost the game, 9-6, largely because they coughed up five home runs to the Yankees. It was the Orioles’ 10th straight game in which they gave up multiple home runs, setting a dubious major league record.

That was a rough year for the Orioles, but at least the rebuild was all worth it in the end, right? …Right?

Random Orioles game of the day

For today’s date, the random number generator spat out the number 2025. Well, OK then. So much for reminiscing about some old Orioles teams. Way back on Aug. 5, 2025, the Orioles got shut out in Philadelphia, 5-0. Starter Dean Kremer gave up four runs, including a Max Kepler homer, while the O’s offense — which days earlier had traded away Ryan O’Hearn, Ramón Laureano, Cedric Mullins, and Ramón Urías — was utterly stymied by Taijuan Walker and three Phillies relievers. They managed only five hits, all singles.

Free of charge for the discerning reader.

Happy birthday to Tim Federowicz, and a mighty host of others.

Today in baseball history, in 1921 – KDKA radio station provides its listeners with the first-ever broadcast of a major league game. Harold Arlin becomes baseball’s first play-by-play announcer as he details the action as the Pittsburgh Pirates beat the Phillies at Forbes Field, 8-5, and other stories as well.

Today in baseball history:

• 1922 – Tommy McCarthy, a top outfielder in the 1890s, dies at 58. He will enter the Hall of Fame in 1946. On the 14th, an all-star team will beat the Red Sox in a benefit game that raises more than $5,000 for his family.
• 1959 – Willie McCovey hits two home runs and Willie Mays another as the Giants whip the Braves’ Bob Buhl, 4 – 1, to move into first place.
• 1969 – Willie Stargell becomes the first player to hit a home run completely out of Dodger Stadium. The 512-foot, seventh-inning, bases-empty blast breaks a 3-3 tie, helping the Pirates defeat Los Angeles, 11-3. The 2,500th career hit of Roberto Clemente and a two-run homer from Bill Mazeroski figure prominently in Pittsburgh’s seven-run ninth inning. Taking a no-decision in what will prove to be his final Major League appearance is Dodger starter Don Drysdale, pitching with a torn rotator cuff, which, despite assurances that it is “something I’m going to have to learn to pitch with,” will lead to his retirement within less than a week.
• 1973 – Braves knuckleballer Phil Niekro no-hits the Padres, 9-0, and improves his record to 11-4. He walks three and strikes out four in recording the first no-hitter by the franchise in Atlanta.
• 1994 – Atlanta 1B Fred McGriff hits a home run in the Braves’ 16-6 win over Cincinnati, making him only the ninth major leaguer in history to hit 30 or more homers in seven consecutive seasons.
• 2005 – Albert Pujols becomes the first player to connect for 30 home runs in each of his first five big league seasons. The St. Louis Cardinals first baseman has hit 190 homers during this five-year span from the start of his career, equaling Eddie Mathews‘ total (1952–1956) and with 25 fewer than Ralph Kiner (1946–1950).
• 2007 – Tom Glavine becomes the 23rd pitcher and fifth left-hander to win 300 games in the major leagues with an 8-3 victory over the Cubs. 
• 2009 – Jim Thome hits two homers, including a three-run blast off Darren Oliver in the sixth, to pace the White Sox to a 6-2 win over the Angels. It is the 44th multi-homer game of Thome’s career; with 561 round-trippers, he is only two behind Reggie Jackson for 12th place on the all-time list.

Today in Cubs history:

• 1911 – Cubs manager Frank Chance suspends Joe Tinker and fines him $150 for indifferent play. He is reinstated the next day.
• 1922 – Rogers Hornsby sets a new National League single-season home run record with his 28th, eclipsing a 38-year-old mark set by Ed Williamson of the Chicago White Stockings in 1884.
• 1931 – The Cubs edge the Reds, 3-2 at Wrigley Field, when Leo Durocher boots a ground ball hit by Kiki Cuyler. It ends a string of 251 errorless chances in 53 games for Durocher.
• 1945 – The Cubs bang out 22 hits in the first game of a pair to overwhelm the Reds, 12-5. Stan Hack has three doubles and a single, and Phil Cavarretta has four hits. The Cubs take the nightcap, 2-1, behind Claude Passeau‘s six-hitter. Chicago has won 17 of their last 18 games.
• 1979 – In pre-game ceremonies at Wrigley Field, announcer Jack Brickhouse is honored. Today’s broadcast is his 5,000th television broadcast of a game.
• 2000 – Sammy Sosa becomes the first Cubs player to reach 100 RBIs six consecutive times. Hack Wilson did it for five straight seasons from 1926 to 1930.
• 2014 – Highly touted prospect Javier Báez homers in his major league debut for the Cubs, leading off the 12th inning against Boone Logan of the Rockies, to lead his team to a 6-5 win.

Cubs Birthdays:Tim Federowicz*, Tony Jacobs, Rube Novotney.

Today in history:

• 1864 – Battle of Mobile Bay won by the Union Navy, led by Rear Admiral David Farragut with the cry “Damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead!”
• 1926 – Harry Houdini stays in a coffin underwater for 1½ hours before escaping.
• 1932 – Clyde Barrow and two associates kill Sheriff C.G. Maxwell and his deputy, Eugene C. Moore, in the first instance of the Barrow gang killing a lawman.
• 1936 – American athlete Jesse Owens wins the 200 m in a world record time of 20.7 seconds, his third gold medal of the Berlin Olympics.
• 1992 – Four officers of the Los Angeles Police Department, previously acquitted on charges of beating Rodney King, are indicted on federal civil rights charges.
• 2012 – Jamaican sprint superstar Usain Bolt wins the 100 m at the London Olympics in 9.63 seconds, breaking the record he set in the 2008 Olympics.

Today in music history:

• 1966 – The Beatles release their “Revolver” album in the UK,
• 1967 – Bobby Gentry releases her hit “Ode to Billie Joe”.
• 1972 – The Moody Blues reissue their 1967 single “Nights in White Satin,” and it reaches #2 on the US charts, higher than the initial release..
• 1974 – Joan Jett forms her rock group, The Runaways, in the United States.
• 2021 – Rolling Stones drummer Charlie Watts (80) announces he will be unable to accompany the band on its 2021 U.S. tour based on medical advice, with American Steve Jordan tapped to fill in.

*pictured.

We’ve finally reached the end of trade deadline season, and after five weekly articles previewing what might happen, we now know: the Brewers tried but failed to acquire Tarik Skubal, and instead settled for two trades that netted Dustin May, JoJo Romero, and Antonio Senzatela. (A smaller trade earlier in the week shored up catching depth, with Bo Naylor heading to Triple-A Nashville.)

First, on Skubal

There has been an inherent disappointment with the Brewers around the league’s punditry because they did not acquire Tarik Skubal. By all accounts, they pushed extremely hard, but the Tigers chose to go with the Dodgers’ offer, and there’s not really much the Brewers can do about that. If they were willing to include Luis Peña, as reports suggest, the only thing they could’ve done to up the ante would’ve been to include Jesús Made. Trading the game’s top prospect for a two-month rental that probably wouldn’t even make you the favorite in the National League would’ve been insanity for a small-market team like the Brewers.

If you’ll allow me to rant a little, this disappointment—which in many cases feels like blame or rage from people who did not want the Dodgers to get Skubal—drives me nuts. I am extremely tired of national writers who pay no mind what it’s like to be a long-term fan of a small-market club telling me that it is my team’s fault for ruining baseball. Let’s dissect the Skubal scenario for a minute.

The Tigers wanted a controllable pitcher who was in or close to the big leagues. For the Brewers, this likely meant Logan Henderson. Obviously, Henderson is not Tarik Skubal. But… Henderson has a better ERA than Skubal this season. He has a better WHIP. He has struck out more batters per nine innings. He has nowhere near enough innings to qualify, but if he did, Henderson would be ninth in the majors in ERA this season, nestled comfortably in between Cristopher Sánchez and Yoshinobu Yamamoto. [Note that stats in this article are current as of Tuesday morning.]

Logan Henderson is really good. In the majors. Right now. Henderson is not Skubal, but this season he’s producing at a level that’s about 80% of Skubal… so if you give that back in a trade, is that not like four steps forward, three steps back? There were no other real options for the Brewers to build a trade like this around. Kyle Harrison is a good young pitcher but the same concept applies to him. Brandon Sproat has been a mess this season, and I can’t imagine the Tigers would’ve gone for that. Jacob Misiorowski is obviously not going to be included. Tyson Hardin, the top Brewers prospect at Triple-A Nashville, isn’t in the same league.

The Dodgers can afford to give away a guy like River Ryan because they have Yamamoto, Shohei Ohtani, Blake Snell, Tyler Glasnow, Roki Sasaki, Emmet Sheehan, and Justin Wrobleski.

All of this ignores the other obvious factors at play. Like how the Dodgers don’t need their prospects to work out because they can just buy starters when they need them. Or how they got Zyhir Hope, the centerpiece of the Skubal trade, because when 29 other teams would’ve promoted Michael Busch to play first base, the Dodgers instead signed Freddie Freeman as a free agent and traded Busch to the Cubs for younger prospects… including Hope. They don’t have to worry about Hope making it to the big leagues because if they have a hole, they’ll just fill it with the next Kyle Tucker that comes along.

Yes, the Brewers could maybe push their payroll a little further. They could’ve done the incredibly irresponsible thing of offering Made. But the Brewers, the team in the smallest market in the league, has made the postseason in eight of the last nine years. Shouldn’t that give the front office a little bit of the benefit of the doubt? Haven’t they proven that whatever approach they have taken works? That maybe the fact that they are risk averse isn’t a flaw but is in fact central to their unprecedented success?

There will come a time when Matt Arnold will need to go for it. But the Brewers simply cannot afford to be reckless with their assets. The “bites of the apple” approach might be infuriating sometimes, but there’s no denying that they’ve set themselves up for success. The team is still very young. There’s no reason to think they won’t be good again next season and the season after. At a certain point, Arnold not making a huge move will be a true mistake, but I don’t think this trade deadline was that time.

Ignore all of the pundits who say the Brewers failed by not acquiring Skubal. They are the same pundits who’ve predicted the team’s downfall over and over again, only for the team’s win total to keep rising.

The Brewers are better

With all that said and the context understood, let’s look at what the Brewers actually did.

If I were to put forth an optimistic take about Dustin May, it would be this: if, when the season ends in a couple months, we look back and see May as the second-best pitcher traded at the trade deadline, I would not be shocked. Would I predict that? No. Does that say more about the market than May? Yes.

But everyone raves about May’s stuff, and he’s gone through stretches where he looked great this season. In a 12-start stretch between April 10th and June 15th, May had a 2.54 ERA, 2.68 FIP in 74 1/3 innings. This included a game when he took a no-hitter into the eighth inning against the Brewers (but ultimately lost, 2-1) and a complete-game, one-hit, one-walk, nine-strikeout shutout of the Padres. May’s overall numbers on the season are somewhat mediocre—his 4.38 ERA translates to just a 91 ERA+, for instance. But the underlying numbers are strong: May’s 3.14 FIP is well over a run better than his ERA, and if you merely lop off the two duds he started the season with, May has a 3.54 ERA and 2.91 FIP in 19 starts.

There will always be injury questions with May. With 109 innings pitched, he’s already approach his career high (132 1/3) despite debuting eight years ago, in 2019. He had a brief bout of back tightness in June during a start against the Royals in which he got lit up; he skipped his next turn in the rotation but never went on the IL. But he is healthy right now, and there’s some real upside.

In the bullpen, the Brewers did not get the lights-out reliever they coveted, and given the relatively small price the Pirates paid for Luke Weaver, one wonders if David Stearns and the Mets were ignoring the Brewers’ calls. They did, however, get two players who can help. Romero is on the injured list after an emergency appendectomy but should be back in the big leagues within a few weeks. He is having mixed success this season, but he was lights out in 2025 to the tune of a 2.07 ERA in 65 appearances. He’s also left-handed, which, along with DL Hall’s return, can take some of the pressure and usage off of Aaron Ashby.

Senzatela was a career-long starter until this season; he got off to an incredible start and has been roughed up of late, but while he posted a 1.30 ERA in his first 17 appearances and an 8.15 ERA in his next 17, is FIP is nearly identical: 3.30 in the first half, 3.49 in the second. Senzatela’s home vs. road splits also tell the story of a guy who will be happy to get out of Coors Field: this season, he’s got a 4.81 ERA in 16 games in Colorado and a 2.57 ERA in 18 games on the road.

All three players will help. Adding May to the mix will keep some pressure off of Misiorowski, Harrison, and Henderson, and the bullpen adds a couple of pieces that should give Pat Murphy and Chris Hook a couple more options that they can really count on.

What went out

The trades were not without cost. The prospects sent out for Senzatela were marginal (left-handed pitcher Mark Manfredi and shortstop Juan Martinez), but the Brewers gave up (and gave up on) Craig Yoho and parted with longtime depth piece Blake Perkins to acquire Naylor, who probably won’t even play in the majors this season. (The other player the Brewers acquired in that trade, Codi Heuer, was shuttled along to the Orioles for cash on deadline day.)

But the big headlines came in what the Brewers sent the Cardinals—a longtime foe—for May and Romero. Center fielder Josiah Ragsdale has enjoyed a big breakout season and is killing the ball at Double-A Biloxi, but, as they say, you have to give up something to get something. However, if you’d told me before the deadline that Ragsdale was included in a trade for May and Romero, I’d have assumed he was the better prospect.

That wasn’t the case here, as the highly-regarded 18-year-old Alexander Frias was the other piece sent out. Like Jackson Chourio and Jesús Made before him, Frias put up eye-popping numbers (and batted-ball metrics) in the Dominican Summer League and Arizona Complex League before making it to low-A Wilson as an 18-year-old; Frias hit .316/.411/.400 in 27 games in the Dominican Republic, then hit .441/.518/.678 in 32 games with one of the Brewers’ teams in Arizona. He was promoted to the Carolina League in July, and in 28 games hit just .236 but he showed patience and flashed pop, with four homers, four doubles, and two triples, good for a .328 OBP and .418 slugging percentage.

Frias’s batted ball metrics were high enough for some prospect observers to rate him very highly. FanGraphs was the most optimistic: they had Frias as the #43 overall prospect on their big board, behind only Made and Luis Peña on the Brewers. Keith Law also included Frias in his midseason update at #69, again behind just Made and Peña among Brewer prospects.

That feeling on Frias is far from universal. MLB Pipeline had Frias as the Brewers’ #11 prospect, and while Baseball America did give Frias the #100 spot on their midseason update, that was behind eight other Brewers, though three of those have graduated or are about to (Made, Peña, Cooper Pratt, Luis Lara, Logan Henderson, Josh Adamczewski, Braylon Payne, and Jett Williams).

The reality here is that the Brewers—the team with the most knowledge on Frias—were probably lower on him than the public consensus. And while he drew early comparisons to Chourio and Made, that’s a bit overblown; those two players were both considered five-tool prospects, while Frias is viewed as a future corner outfielder who isn’t likely to have speed as a killer tool in his arsenal. There’s a world where Frias turns into a deadly power hitter, and another where he’s a top-10 overall prospect by the end of next season, but the risk factor here was clearly higher than it was with Chourio and Made (who both, for what it’s worth, put up better offensive stats at the same age as Frias did).

What they didn’t do

Of course, adding pitchers, whether that’s May or Skubal, doesn’t change the fact that the Brewers have the fewest home runs in baseball and an offense that, at times (like right now!), can look awful. The paths to any sort of meaningful offensive upgrade were challenging; the best offensive players to move at the deadline didn’t really have positional fit on the Brewers. Luis García is a left-handed first baseman, duplicative of Jake Bauers. The Brewers wouldn’t have made an offer for Curtis Mead (who unfortunately broke his wrist in his first game with the Red Sox) that included a controllable, promising big-league pitcher (Connelly Early) like Boston did. Adley Rutschman didn’t make sense for Milwaukee and the cost was enormous.

The increasingly large elephant in the room is Christian Yelich’s poor performance as the designated hitter. The Brewers are surely hoping that Yelich can turn things around, given that they still owe him another $48 million over two years after this season, but at this point, his performance and Murphy’s insistence to keep him at or near the top of the lineup is actively hurting the ball club. Over his last 38 games, since June 12, Yelich is batting an appalling .182/.285/.318 with three home runs.

Bringing in a right-handed platoon option—or a right handed batter that would move Andrew Vaughn into a platoon situation at DH—could’ve really helped the team, even if Yelich has been slightly better against left-handed pitchers than righties this season (that bucks a career-long trend, so I don’t really trust those numbers). Jo Adell, Heliot Ramos, and George Springer (who did not move) are all right-handed batters who would’ve interested me as a way to get a little more power into the Brewers’ lineup, and to mitigate the presence of the apparently rapidly deteriorating Yelich.

Another offensive question without an apparent solution is that of William Contreras, who, like Yelich, has been alarmingly bad lately. Contreras’s OPS is down to a career-low .722 (not counting his partial rookie season in 2021), and it is trending in the wrong direction: since a season peak in late June, Contreras has hit an absolutely abysmal .165/.227/.257 over his last 29 games.

The Brewers did not have much of an avenue to improve on Contreras—they’re not going to bench him, and the reality of the situation is that they’re not going to bench Yelich, either. Now that the Brewers have chosen not to make any offensive changes at the trade deadline, they have no choice but to hope that Yelich, Contreras, and Chourio (.240/.304/.351 since June 21) find a way to turn things around. They simply cannot afford not to get contributions from any of these three players; that the Brewers went 15-10 in July with all three players mired in deep slumps is a minor miracle (and a testament to the excellent months had by Garrett Mitchell, Joey Ortiz, and Cooper Pratt).

Moving forward

The Brewers wanted to take a Prince Fielder-style swing at this deadline, but the Dodgers, as they do, stepped in and walked away with the top prize. After missing on Skubal, there wasn’t anyone else even close to that league for the Brewers to pivot to, but they did reasonably well to shore up their pitching staff.

The rest of the job will need to be done by players who were already on the team. The simple fact is, the Brewers even with Skubal wouldn’t have been a favorite to beat the Dodgers in a postseason series (which is a solid argument for why they shouldn’t have gone all in for him in the first place). That the Brewers’ two biggest potential postseason rivals—the Dodgers and Cubs (who added Kevin Gausman, Clay Holmes, Braxton Garrett, and Ryan Zeferjahn)—were two of the teams that did the most at this deadline is not encouraging, but Milwaukee should take heart in the fact that they’ve still got the league’s best record and a healthy cushion in the division. The offense needs to improve, no doubt. But this team is really good, and there’s no reason to say they couldn’t catch lightning in a bottle at the right time come the postseason.

It’s amazing what happens to a lineup when people aren’t constantly getting struck out with men on base and less than one out. I know the defense is going to be wonky, but the addition of Luis Arraez to the lineup is going to be great.

On to the links.

Phillies news:

• When Arraez gave his first interview with the Philly media, he talked about how thankful he was to be in a playoff race.
• With the new lineup and defensive alignment, the team was searching for a spark to carry them to October ($).

MLB news:

• Tuesday was a day for grading trades around the game, so let’s get you caught up. Here are the winners and losers as Fangraphs saw them.
• The Athletic saw some winners and losers at the deadline, as well as some snoozers ($). Seriously, what were the Reds doing, sleeping?
• Finally, the last set of grades from around the trade deadline. I promise, no more grades for trades.
• The Yankees called up their top prospect in George Lombard, Jr. Of course, he then homered in his first at bat.

Well, last night was a blast, wasn’t it? The only nitpick I have is that I’d have liked more offense than a couple solo shots, but Ryan Weathers was great, David Bednar was nails in relief, Jazz Chisholm Jr. provided the pop, and—oh yeah—the Yankees’ youngest shortstop since Derek Jeter looked years beyond his age (which is younger than this very website). As the late Stuart Scott would say, George Lombard Jr. was cool as the other side of the pillow in his MLB debut, making excellent plays on defense and even making his first career hit a 392-foot homer. That’s the dream, isn’t it?

So where does one go from here? It’s baseball, so you know the answer: right back to the grind. The Yankees have a series to hopefully win against the Cardinals tonight, with Lombard back in the lineup at the six. There’s no rest yet for the weary on this long stretch of games on 13 consecutive days, though they will at least have an offday tomorrow. The Rays and Red Sox both just keep winning, too, so the Yanks can’t take a beat just yet.

For today’s question, we’re falling back a bit on an old cliché: X-factors. Yeah, yeah, they’re a little silly, but they’re fun to consider. The definition is in the eye of the beholder, but generally, it’s not someone (or something) that you would typically expect to be decider. It’s too easy to say that Aaron Judge’s health and recovery from his rib injury are the biggest X-factor in the Yankees’ 2026 fate. Although it may literally be true, it’s not the spirit of the exercise!

I’ll get us started. This is just a gut instinct that I’m coming up with while writing this, but two guys who keep popping up in my head are Paul Blackburn and Clarke Schmidt. It’s no secret that the Yankees have given a lot of bullpen work to David Bednar, Brent Headrick, and Fernando Cruz late in ballgames throughout 2026. Headrick and Cruz rank second and fifth in the majors in most games pitched with 58 and 54, respectively, and Bednar leads MLB with 42 games finished across his 46 appearances.

The trio needs a little breathing room, and though the Yankees perhaps regrettably stood pat on bullpen aid at the Trade Deadline, Blackburn has helped provide it in recent months as he’s ascended the pecking order, transforming from a middle/long relief option to someone now accustomed to short relief himself. His potential has been apparent, and it’s vital that he keeps it up. Schmidt keeps coming to mind as well as a former starter who can be a boon to the bullpen once his Tommy John surgery rehab is complete. The 2024 playoff rotation member has already said that he doesn’t have time to come back to start, but that he’s hopeful of returning to the mound in the big-league bullpen this year. Schmidt has pitched in relief earlier in his career, too, so it’s not a totally unfamiliar role.

Now, it’s not wise to count on someone coming back from Tommy John, especially since Schmidt’s procedure was done just 13 months ago. Setbacks happen all the time, and this is also Schmidt’s second Tommy John. It’s very possible that he doesn’t pitch in 2026, or that he throws a few innings and isn’t that good, so they nip it in the bud and have him focus on 2027. Schmidt is getting closer to a rehab assignment though, so for now, let’s dream. (And if it doesn’t work out, then Blackburn can be the X-factor on his own.)

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Today on the site, we’ll have Jeff, Jeremy, and Sam write up our post-Trade Deadline/monthly check-ins on the NL East, NL Central, and NL West, respectively. Sam will also write up the birthday of the owner who made them the Yankees perhaps more than anyone else: Jacob Ruppert. Madison will tackle the Rivalry Roundup, and Peter will discuss a pair of excellent trips to the dish by José Caballero and Ryan McMahon for our At-Bat of the Week feature.

Today’s Matchup:

New York Yankees vs. St. Louis Cardinals

Time: 7:05 p.m. EST

TV: Amazon Prime Video, Cardinals.TV

Venue: Yankee Stadium, Bronx, NY

Before the Braves moved to Atlanta from Milwaukee in 1966, the minor league Atlanta Crackers called Atlanta home for most of the century. Their park, as well as that of the Atlanta Black Crackers of the Negro Leagues, was Ponce de Leon Park located just east of downtown Atlanta.

In the outfield at “Poncey” was a majestic magnolia tree that was as iconic as the park itself. The final season of full-time baseball there was 1964, and the stadium – which was across the street from the Sears building now known as Ponce City Market – was demolished in favor of a shopping center. Then, when that shopping center was replaced with the current retail development, one constant remained: the magnolia.

Nestled between that retail center and the re-developed rail lines called the Atlanta BeltLine, the tree was a living monument to baseball in Atlanta.

That was until August 3, 2026, when storms that rolled through Atlanta felled the magnolia, as seen in this post by long-time Atlanta sportscaster and journalist Jeff Hullinger.

The mighty Spiller has been felled, a pair of historic 125-to-160-year-old trees in Atlanta. They famously stood in the outfield (deep center-right field) of Ponce de Leon Park—also known as Spiller Field—where any batted ball hitting the trees remained live in play until 1947. pic.twitter.com/DCVSieJ2I3

— Jeff Hullinger (@jeff_hullinger1) August 3, 2026

Most of you reading this may not be aware of Ponce de Leon Park – or if you are, it is from stories of parents or grandparents or friends or relatives who visited the park that also hosted Georgia Tech football games and other events. If you have spent time in this area of Atlanta in the last 10-15 years, you are aware that it has seen massive redevelopment with an influx of residential and commercial development.

But with fading baseball lore, sickos of the sport would often go there to get a moment of historical retrospection standing between the branches of a tree that saw baseball and Atlanta in a different era, a different time, but with the same grand game.

As Hullinger noted in his post, the magnolia that was 462-feet from home plate was in play as the reconstructed ballpark Spiller Field – the original Ponce de Leon Park had burned in 1923 – was built around the trees. The stadium was re-named back to Ponce de Leon Park in 1934 when the team’s owner, for whom the re-build stadium was named, sold the team.

Famously, the legendary “500-mile home run” was hit at Poncey in 1954 when Crackers’ slugger Bob Montag hit a home run that landed in a coal car of a train passing on the rail line and ended up in Nashville, TN, before being found and returned to Montag.

Legend also has it that Babe Ruth hit a home run even further – with the Bambino also hitting one into a coal car that ended up in Joplin, MO. That 700+ mile home run may be more lore than truth. But Ruth and Braves Hall of Famer Eddie Mathews were two players to have hit balls that got caught in the branches of the in-play magnolia.

Ironic how trees and baseball are connected as the crack of the bat couldn’t be possible with out ash or hickory trees. In a time with trees are seemingly being cut down without care, it was a thunderstorm brought down a magnolia that thousands of people walked by daily and likely never know how significant that old magnolia was.