The weekend before the trade deadline was light on big names moving — poor Eugenio Suárez has probably had to take his phone charger out of his go bag a dozen times this month — but we did see plenty of preliminary action. The Orioles began their sell-off by shipping hard-throwing left-hander Gregory Soto up to the Mets. Meanwhile, the Royals sought to maintain their spot on the postseason wait list by picking up a right-handed bat from Arizona: not Suárez, but Randal Grichuk.
Finally, the Braves picked up some reinforcements for their injury-riddled rotation, tossing the Cardinals a player to be named later or cash in exchange for the right to jump the waiver line on recently DFA’d right-hander Erick Fedde.
Of these three big leaguers, Soto generated the weightiest return: minor league pitching prospects Wellington Aracena and Cameron Foster. I don’t know if I agree that this was a wise expenditure of resources by the Mets, but I absolutely understand why they made this trade.
First, the boys from Queens are appallingly light on left-handed relievers. Or, at least they were before this trade. A.J. Minter (lat surgery) has been on the IL since late April; ditto Danny Young, who had Tommy John surgery. Neither one is coming back this year. That left 37-year-old Brooks Raley as the Mets’ only left-handed reliever.
The Mets and Phillies haven’t been separated by more than two games in the NL East since June 15. You could say that’s a close race. What I’d call it is a kind of psionic tether, like in E.T. But not the cute and/or funny parts of the film. No, I’m talking about the scene where E.T. gets day drunk and Elliott frees all the frogs in his science class. No sentimentality, just chaos.
These two rivals play each other six times over the rest of the season; surely those two series will determine who wins the division and gets a shot at a first-round bye. The Phillies’ two most dangerous hitters, Kyle Schwarber and Bryce Harper, are both left-handed, and the rest of their lineup is full of vulnerable left-handed platoon candidates like Brandon Marsh and Max Kepler.
Barring some bizarre and terrible event, well, since we’ve got this reference out already, like aliens landing on Earth, the Mets are going to make the playoffs in some capacity. If they want to make a run out of the NL bracket, they’ll not only have to navigate Schwarber and Harper, but some combination of Shohei Ohtani, Freddie Freeman, Kyle Tucker, and Pete Crow-Armstrong.
Now, I don’t know about you, but if I were a big league manager, I wouldn’t want to try to navigate that particular obstacle course with only one left-handed reliever in my bullpen.
Why Soto in particular? Well, the Mets are not the first team to be ensorcelled by his velocity. He is fourth among left-handed pitchers in four-seamer velocity this season. His primary fastball, however, is a sinker, which ranks fifth in velo among lefties. Soto is also pretty durable; the 30-year-old is on track for his fifth consecutive season of 60 or more relief appearances. He’s not especially homer-prone, and he’s having a good season. This year, Soto has his lowest ERA since 2022 and his lowest FIP ever.
That said, Soto has had trouble converting that velocity into reliable outs. His strikeout rate is 27.6%, 41st out of 169 qualified relievers, and one spot ahead of Tanner Scott. That’s the same Tanner Scott who went on the IL while he was in the process of being run out of Los Angeles on the rail. Soto’s walk rate, 11.0%, is almost twice Scott’s. Soto is also a free agent at the end of this year, and will cost the Mets almost $4 million in salary thanks to their permanent residency in the highest luxury tax bracket.
Not that those things matter a ton; money is fake to Mets owner Steve Cohen, and team control for non-elite relievers is one of the most overrated commodities in baseball.
Nevertheless, it seems the Mets gave up quite a bit to get him. Aracena, a 20-year-old currently in Single-A, is in the midst of his second major velo bump in as many years; he’s currently topping out at 101 mph. Add in a low-90s cutter and a high-80s slider with plus vertical movement, and our Eric Longenhagen felt comfortable putting a 45 FV grade on Aracena — not the most overwhelming number out of context, but indicative of a good high-leverage reliever down the line.
Foster, 26, shoved at Double-A this year (a 1.01 ERA and 1.27 FIP in 26 2/3 innings of relief work) and just got promoted to Triple-A before the trade. The 6-foot-5 righty is in his first full season in the bullpen, where he’s used his broad pitch mix and seven-foot extension to great effect. Eric’s grade on Foster, 35+, indicates a probable future big leaguer, if not a setup man or closer.
It’s a lot to give up for a non-elite reliever rental. But again, the Mets specifically needed a lefty in a trade market that is weirdly light on southpaws, and the Orioles did quite well to sell from this advantageous position. I don’t love Soto, but I also don’t know that there was a better option out there for this specific job.
Ultimately, this trade will probably be judged by a single-digit number of confrontations between Soto and the left-handed sluggers I listed above. If he can get Tucker or Ohtani out with runners on base in the seventh inning of an NLCS game, I don’t think anyone with or around the Mets will give a damn if Aracena saves 40 games for the Orioles in 2030.
The Royals continue to stand by, hanging around .500 while they see just how far the Tigers are capable of spiraling. As of Monday morning, Kansas City had a 12.6% chance of making the playoffs. That’s not a position from which I’d want to offload big-time prospects in order to get a rental, but neither is it a clear indication that it’s time to run up the white flag.
Trading minor league pitcher Andrew Hoffmann for Grichuk is kind of like the recent Adam Frazier deal, in that the Royals are exchanging minor league depth for a player they hope will bring competence to a position that’s currently a void. I like this deal more than the Frazier trade for two reasons: First, I think trading Hoffmann has less of a chance of coming back to bite Kansas City than dealing Cam Devanney does. Second, I think Grichuk, despite his pitiable overall numbers, will be more useful than Frazier.
Now that the Diamondbacks are selling, there are trades they have to nail, or else risk imperiling their ability to contend in 2026 and 2027. They can’t just cast Suárez or Merrill Kelly off for a player to be named later, or give up on a player of Zac Gallen’s stature (if not necessarily his performance this season) wantonly.
But Grichuk is a career platoon outfielder who’s now on his fourth team since the start of 2023. The Diamondbacks already let him walk after a much better season last year, before re-singing him on the cheap just before spring training. Nobody cares. If you can clear the 40-man spot and his remaining salary, great. Any adult human who comes back in the trade is gravy.
Hoffmann, a 25-year-old former fourth-round pick out of the University of Illinois, made his major league debut in May, got sent back down after one appearance, then appeared in two more games about a week ago.
He is big (6-foot-5, 210 pounds) and throws reasonably hard (sits mid-90s, touches 97) from a high arm slot. He’s mostly a fastball-changeup guy now — definitely capable of filling some kind of role in a major league bullpen. A high-leverage role? Probably not, unless he unlocks a skill or a pitch not previously in evidence. But he’s a live arm with mere days of service time and three (counting this season) intact major league option years. These days, even good teams have to reserve a bullpen spot or two for low-leverage reliever churn. Hoffmann can fill that role, more or less immediately. It’s not exciting, but it’s useful.
If you’re reading this site and you don’t already know Grichuk, there’s a wealth of previous transaction analyses for a player who’s now been traded five times in his professional career. This season, Grichuk is a replacement-level player overall, and his big carrying tool — an ability to crush lefties — has receded. Grichuk had a 151 wRC+ against lefty pitching in 2024; this year that figure is down to just 98.
It’s not what you want.
Maybe Grichuk is slowing down; he turns 34 next month. However, I actually think he’s been the victim of some pretty rotten batted ball luck that, because he only plays a couple times a week, hasn’t had time to even out.
For instance: Grichuk’s wOBA last year was .373. This year, it’s .307. But his xwOBA has only dropped from .359 to .347. His BABIP — .313 last year and .309 each of the two years before that — is down to .265 in 2025, which would be lowest mark of his major league career.
And it’s not because Grichuk is making worse contact. His in-air pull rate is the highest it’s been since 2019. The highest exit velocity of his career came this season, along with (as of this writing) career highs in average exit velo, barrels per plate appearance, xSLG, and HardHit%.
I think a regression for Grichuk, in the positive sense, seems like a pretty smart bet. Especially because the Royals just put Jac Caglianone on the IL and are therefore hurting for power. Even after landing Grichuk, the Royals, God save them, are giving significant playing time to left-handed-hitting outfielders John Rave, MJ Melendez, and Kyle Isbel. Any kind of right-handed thump would be useful in this scenario.
Grichuk and Soto are getting back into the playoff hunt with their recent moves; Fedde is treading water. The Cardinals, despite holding similar playoff odds to their cross-state rivals, seem to be packing things in.
Actually, I take that back. Fedde was outstanding last season, in his first big league campaign after returning from the KBO, and the Cardinals’ big deadline move last season was liberating the righty from an unprecedentedly bad White Sox team.
In 2025, Fedde has been bang-on replacement level. His strikeout and walk rates last season weren’t amazing, but they were acceptable for a pitchability right-handed starter. This year, Fedde’s K% has dropped from 21.2% to 14.1%, and his walk rate has climbed from 7.2% to 10.5%. It should come as no surprise, then, that Fedde’s ERA has risen to north of 5.00.
The stated return for Fedde is a euphemism for nothing. You get the sense that if the Braves never actually got around to sending a player or cash along, the Cardinals wouldn’t be especially put out. Like how if you picked up chips and dip on your way to watch a movie at a friend’s house, it’d be considered impolite if you hassled him over $3 for his share of the Tostitos.
By moving on from Fedde, the Cardinals clear a parking spot for some of their younger pitchers. Michael McGreevy, for instance, has been optioned and recalled five times this season. Gordon Graceffo has gone up and down four times. In addition to becoming more alliterative, the Cardinals can now take a longer look at some of their mid-20s arms who might be useful in 2026.
Why, then, do the Braves want Fedde? Well, he’s mega cheap. The two-year, $15 million contract Fedde signed before the 2024 season would never have been a major obstacle to start with, but the Cardinals are covering most of the salary due Fedde for the rest of this year.
And with Atlanta already out of the playoff picture, any durable starting pitcher is useful. The Braves have been banged up all over the place this year, but as of this moment, they have only six major league players on the IL. Unfortunately, all six of those players are pitchers on the 60-day IL, and five of those six are starters. That includes reigning Cy Young winner Chris Sale, Reynaldo López, breakout star Spencer Schwellenbach, and prize prospect AJ Smith-Shawver. Even Grant Holmes, who’s been one of the few pleasant surprises for Atlanta this year, just went on the IL with elbow inflammation. That’s an entire playoff-quality rotation on medical leave.
And so the Braves, whom I thought had inexhaustible pitching depth at the start of the year, are just completely out of arms. During this season, they’ve already traded for Dane Dunning and Hunter Stratton and brought back 2016 draft picks Ian Anderson and Joey Wentz, and apparently it’s still not enough.
Has Fedde been good this year? No. Can he hold a baseball and fog a mirror? Absolutely.
With a little over 72 hours until the deadline, we’re probably in for some trades involving players with more exciting competencies than these. But until then, Immaculate Grid just got slightly easier, so enjoy that while you can.
Content Source: blogs.fangraphs.com