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The Los Angeles Angels didn’t deal Shohei Ohtani and instead surrounded him with new additions. The New York Mets traded both Justin Verlander and Max Scherzer, and threw in the towel for 2023. Those future Hall of Fame pitchers, by the way, just made the Houston Astros and Texas Rangers, respectively, a lot more powerful for the postseason.

Which clubs made the right calls? What should we believe (or not believe) about the rest of the baseball season? Now that the dust has settled from the 2023 MLB trade deadline, we asked our ESPN MLB experts to debate what’s real — and what’s not — moving forward.


Real or Not: The 2023 Angels are now legit contenders

Alden Gonzalez: Real. Look, I’m not going to sit here and pretend the Angels are world-beaters. Or even that they’re one of the six best teams in the American League. What I will tell you is that they have a chance. And to them, having a chance was enough to justify going all-in on a roster that many others consider inferior.

Before you trash them, consider the context: They had already decided not to trade Ohtani last summer. Then they decided not to trade Ohtani in the offseason. Then they vaulted their payroll to a franchise record in hopes of contending in what is potentially their final season with Ohtani. And when the trade deadline came around … they were still contending.

The Angels’ thinking can best be summarized this way: We’ve already gone this far. We might as well go all the way. Yes, there is a very real chance they miss the playoffs, then Ohtani leaves in free agency and the Angels come away with nothing more than a compensatory draft pick. Clearly, they’re more comfortable with that possibility than another grim alternative — Ohtani is traded, he makes a playoff run and wins an MVP with another team, and whatever chances the Angels had of signing him in free agency are whittled down to zero.

At present, the Angels aren’t good enough. But if Mike Trout gets back relatively soon … and Logan O’Hoppe rejoins the lineup … and Anthony Rendon finally gets healthy … well, they’re in this. And that’s all they wanted.

Bradford Doolittle: Not. The Angels began the day with a 10% shot at the postseason in my simulations. That, simply put, is why I can’t see them as legit contenders. The probabilities are too stacked against them getting into the playoffs.

That’s not to say that L.A. doesn’t have a playoff-quality roster. I think the Angels probably have one of the seven or eight best rosters in the AL. It’s also not to say that I think the Angels took the wrong approach at the deadline. I’m not sure I would advocate for such an aggressive approach for most 1-in-10 wannabe contenders, but the Shohei Ohtani situation makes this a special case.

If the Angels beat the odds and play into October and, somehow, that proves to be the tipping point in an eventual Ohtani free-agent decision to stay put, then obviously the decision to add is more than justified. I don’t know what the odds are that any of that will happen, but they aren’t zero. Given how great, unique, marketable and irreplaceable Ohtani is, I’m willing to roll the dice.

But the odds are the odds. The Angels are a solid team in an AL playoff field crowded with quality teams. They don’t have access to the AL Central crown. It’s just too steep a hill to climb.


Real or Not: The Mets were right to trade two future Hall of Fame pitchers in a three-day span

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What are the Mets getting in Drew Gilbert?

Kiley McDaniel details what the Mets are getting in Drew Gilbert, who they acquired from the Astros in the Justin Verlander trade.

Kiley McDaniel: Real. Scherzer had a year and a half left at $43.3 million per year while his performance this year is tracking to be worth about one-third of that. Accordingly, the Rangers are getting him for the rest of this year and all of next year for $22.5 million, roughly in line with the pitcher he’s been this year, with a chance he regains his form. In exchange, the Mets got shortstop Luisangel Acuna, who is a back-third of the Top 100 type of prospect, with an implied trade value of about $20 million-$25 million. Acuna is a likely shortstop with plus speed, a chance for 15-18 homers, and solid contact skills who will open next season in Triple-A. You can see the math broadly implying the Mets covered Scherzer’s deal to get Acuna’s controllable six years.

In the other big deal, Verlander hasn’t fallen off quite as much and also has a 2025 player option that could trigger if he throws 140 innings in 2024. The Mets are kicking in $35 million (more than half of what’s guaranteed in his deal) and would cover half of his player option if it vests. So the Mets are even more aggressively buying prospect value, and they got it in center fielder Drew Gilbert and right fielder Ryan Clifford. Two of the four breakout great values in the 2022 Astros draft, Gilbert is ahead of Acuna in the back-half of the Top 100 and Clifford is just behind Acuna, on the periphery of the Top 100. That’s about $35 million-$40 million in prospect value, again almost matching the money the Mets kicked in, and Gilbert is another player like Acuna who could be in the big leagues next year.

It’s never easy to trade Hall of Fame talents, but the Mets used this terrible season and their deep pockets to reload for their next contending team, which could be playing together in New York at this time next season.

David Schoenfield: Not. Is there a master plan here? Thanks to Steve Cohen’s fat wallet, they ended up more or less buying some good prospects by including tens of millions of cash in the two trades. The Mets are operating differently from any other team, running up a record-breaking payroll and tearing it all down after four months. They’ll have to replace Verlander and Scherzer in the rotation for next season if they want to compete, which will mean signing more free agents, and there’s no guarantee those starters will be any better than the two future Hall of Famers they just traded away (and who were hardly the team’s biggest problem this season). I’d say the other 29 owners are probably ticked off at the Mets, except the Mets are just another run-of-the-mill team with some decent prospects, a large payroll and an uncertain future.


Real or Not: Verlander’s Astros have passed Scherzer’s Rangers as the team to beat in the American League West

Gonzalez: Real. Every executive in the industry would probably tell you Verlander is a better pitcher now than Scherzer. When the Astros brought Verlander back on Tuesday, they were only half a game behind the Rangers — even though Yordan Alvarez had missed seven weeks and Jose Altuve had played in less than 35% of their games. They’re both healthy now. Jose Urquidy is on his way back, and the likes of Jose Abreu, Jeremy Pena and Rafael Montero should be better. This division is going to come down to what could be a really fun two months — and I’m riding with the team that has made six consecutive appearances in the American League Championship Series.

Jesse Rogers: Not. OK, so both teams added a good pitcher. Oh, wait, the Rangers got two good ones in Justin Verlander and Jordan Montgomery, and they’ve already led the division all season. They also have a manager who can match wins and experience with Dusty Baker. And they’re not going to experience any fatigue, considering they haven’t been to the postseason since 2016. All that mileage on the Astros might not prevent them from making the playoffs but it may slow them down in September. They’ve already had an inordinate amount of injuries and are bound to see some more. That’s what happens when you play deep into October every year. Every part of the Rangers can match the Astros in talent, though maybe not experience. Still, the new kids on the block will hold off the defending champs and win the AL West.


Real or Not: The Yankees are not going to make the playoffs after an underwhelming trade deadline

Gonzalez: Real. The Yankees’ approach to the trade deadline might be the most confusing of all, for one simple reason: status quo just wasn’t the answer. They either needed to add in order to vault themselves into contention or better situate themselves for 2024. As it stands, they’re simply not good enough. Of course, Aaron Judge helps a lot. And maybe Nestor Cortes and Jonathan Loaisiga can give that pitching staff a boost — but Cortes had a 5.16 ERA through his first 11 starts and Loaisiga has made three appearances all year. Worst of all, the offense that surrounds Judge is a complete eyesore, and they didn’t make it any better. But forget all that. Let’s just go through it: Are the Yankees better than the Rays or the Orioles? No. Are they better than the Rangers or the Astros? No. That’s four teams, plus the AL Central winner, leaving only one realistic playoff spot — and I think the Blue Jays are a far superior team. The Yankees might legitimately be the fifth-best team in their own division. It’s time we stop pretending otherwise.

Schoenfield: Not. You’re not going to suck me in and say the Yankees are going to miss the playoffs. No way. I know what’s going on. I see that .230 team batting average and Jake Bauers hitting leadoff and Anthony Rizzo hitting .170 since the beginning of June and Aaron Judge hobbling around on a bad toe and Domingo German missing a start because of an infected hair follicle, which is an injury so ridiculous you can’t even make it up. It’s all goofy and weird and it makes so many baseball fans so happy to see. It’s like the Yankees are re-living the era of Alvaro Espinoza and Oscar Azocar and Bye-Bye Balboni — the last time they finished in last place. But I know better. You should know better. Of course the Yankees will get hot and make the playoffs. I don’t know how, but it will happen. The Blue Jays will fade. The Red Sox have no pitching. The Angels or Mariners? Please. The Yankees will win that third wild card and, as they say, you just have to get in. Be prepared, baseball fans.


Real or Not: The going-for-it Cubs will win the National League Central

Schoenfield: Real. OK. OK. The Cubs are four games behind the Reds entering Wednesday’s critical game against Cincinnati, the third of a four-game series. They’re behind the Brewers. They are not the betting favorite with that deficit and two teams to leap over, but there’s this: They’ve been the best team in the division. Yes, I’m going to drop the run differential on you here: The Cubs are plus-67, the Reds are minus-7 and the Brewers are minus-14. The Reds have a lousy rotation and the Brewers have lousy hitting, while the Cubs have been pretty solid in both departments.

They do need to get Marcus Stroman back on track (2.28 ERA through June 20, 9.00 in seven starts since, including 13 runs in 6⅓ innings his past two outings). Justin Steele (12-3, 2.65 ERA) continues to pitch well, Kyle Hendricks continues to get the job done with his 87-mph sinker and Jameson Taillon has perhaps figured things out with a 1.78 ERA over his past four starts. That’s a good rotation if Stroman fixes what he says has been a mechanical issue that popped up when the team went to England for the London Series. The Cubs also added the best hitter to switch teams at the deadline in Jeimer Candelario, giving the Cubs even more flexibility with the lineup. Certainly, these games against the Reds are huge, and then the Cubs host the Braves, but after that comes a stretch where the Cubs can do some damage: Mets, Blue Jays, White Sox, Royals, Tigers and Pirates before a crucial six games against the Brewers and Reds in late August and early September. I feel a big stretch run coming on.

Rogers: Not. It’s not that the Cubs aren’t as good as Milwaukee or Cincinnati. They probably are. Maybe even better. It’s just that the math isn’t in their favor. Even being just five games behind those teams is enough to bet against the Cubs overtaking them. FanGraphs gives them a 15% chance — granted that was before factoring in the addition of Jeimer Candelario. Then again, the Brewers added as well, so perhaps there will be no real change in those odds. If Stroman and Drew Smyly — or even just one of them — find their game again, the Cubs will have a much better chance. But that’s assuming Taillon continues on a positive path and fatigue doesn’t catch up to Steele. Perhaps the same kinds of things can be said about a shaky Brewers squad — but they’re the team in front. For that reason, they get the edge.

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Red Sox activate 3B Bregman from 10-day IL

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Red Sox activate 3B Bregman from 10-day IL

BOSTON — The Red Sox activated All-Star third baseman Alex Bregman from the 10-day injured list before Friday’s game against Tampa Bay.

Bregman, who has been sidelined since May 24 with a right quad strain, returned to his customary spot in the field and was slotted in the No. 2 spot of Boston’s lineup for the second of a four-game series against the Rays. He sustained the injury when he rounded first base and felt his quad tighten up.

A two-time World Series winner who spent the first nine seasons of his big league career with the Houston Astros, Bregman signed a $120 million, three-year contract in February. At the time of the injury, he was hitting .299 with 11 homers and 35 RBI. Those numbers led to him being named to the American League’s All-Star team for the third time since breaking into the majors with the Astros in 2016.

Bregman missed 43 games with the quad strain. Earlier this week, he told reporters that he was trending in a direction where he didn’t believe he would require a minor league rehab assignment. With three games left before the All-Star break, the Red Sox agreed the time was right to reinstate a player to a team that entered Friday in possession of one of the AL’s three wild-card berths.

“He’s going to do his part,” Red Sox manager Alex Cora said before Friday’s game. “Obviously, the timing, we’ll see where he’s at, but he’s been working hard on the swing … visualizing and watching video.”

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How Jim Abbott changed the world

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How Jim Abbott changed the world

JIM ABBOTT IS sitting at his kitchen table, with his old friend Tim Mead. In the late 1980s and early 1990s, they were partners in an extraordinary exercise — and now, for the first time in decades, they are looking at a stack of letters and photographs from that period of their lives.

The letters are mostly handwritten, by children, from all over the United States and Canada, and beyond.

“Dear Mr. Abbott …”

“I have one hand too. … I don’t know any one with one hand. How do you feel about having one hand? Sometimes I feel sad and sometimes I feel okay about it. Most of the time I feel happy.”

“I am a seventh grader with a leg that is turned inwards. How do you feel about your arm? I would also like to know how you handle your problem? I would like to know, if you don’t mind, what have you been called?”

“I can’t use my right hand and most of my right side is paralyzed. … I want to become a doctor and seeing you makes me think I can be what I want to be.”

For 40 years, Mead worked in communications for the California Angels, eventually becoming vice president of media relations. His position in this department became a job like no other after the Angels drafted Abbott out of the University of Michigan in 1988.

There was a deluge of media requests. Reporters from around the world descended on Anaheim, most hoping to get one-on-one time with the young left-handed pitcher with the scorching fastball. Every Abbott start was a major event — “like the World Series,” Angels scout Bob Fontaine Jr. remembers. Abbott, with his impressive amateur résumé (he won the James E. Sullivan Award for the nation’s best amateur athlete in 1997 and an Olympic gold medal in 1988) and his boyish good looks, had star power.

That spring, he had become only the 16th player to go straight from the draft to the majors without appearing in a single minor league game. And then there was the factor that made him unique. His limb difference, although no one called it that back then. Abbott was born without a right hand, yet had developed into one of the most promising pitchers of his generation. He would go on to play in the majors for ten years, including a stint in the mid ’90s with the Yankees highlighted by a no-hitter in 1993.

Abbott, and Mead, too, knew the media would swarm. That was no surprise. There had been swarms in college, and at the Olympics, wherever and whenever Abbott pitched. Who could resist such an inspirational story? But what they hadn’t anticipated were the letters.

The steady stream of letters. Thousands of letters. So many from kids who, like Abbott, were different. Letters from their parents and grandparents. The kids hoping to connect with someone who reminded them of themselves, the first celebrity they knew of who could understand and appreciate what it was like to be them, someone who had experienced the bullying and the feelings of otherness. The parents and grandparents searching for hope and direction.

“I know you don’t consider yourself limited in what you can do … but you are still an inspiration to my wife and I as parents. Your success helps us when talking to Andy at those times when he’s a little frustrated. I’m able to point to you and assure him there’s no limit to what he can accomplish.”

In his six seasons with the Angels, Abbott was assisted by Mead in the process of organizing his responses to the letters, mailing them, and arranging face-to-face meetings with the families who had written to him. There were scores of such meetings. It was practically a full-time job for both of them.

“Thinking back on these meetings with families — and that’s the way I’d put it, it’s families, not just kids — there was every challenge imaginable,” Abbott, now 57, says. “Some accidents. Some birth defects. Some mental challenges that aren’t always visible to people when you first come across somebody. … They saw something in playing baseball with one hand that related to their own experience. I think the families coming to the ballparks were looking for hopefulness. I think they were looking for what it had been that my parents had told me, what it had been that my coaches had told me. … [With the kids] it was an interaction. It was catch. It was smiling. It was an autograph. It was a picture. With the parents, it ran deeper. With the parents, it was what had your parents said to you? What coaches made a difference? What can we expect? Most of all, I think, what can we expect?”

“It wasn’t asking for autographs,” Mead says of all those letters. “They weren’t asking for pictures. They were asking for his time. He and I had to have a conversation because this was going to be unique. You know, you could set up another player to come down and sign 15 autographs for this group or whatever. But it was people, parents, that had kids, maybe babies, just newborn babies, almost looking for an assurance that this is going to turn out all right, you know. ‘What did your parents do? How did your parents handle this?'”

One of the letters Abbott received came from an 8-year-old girl in Windsor, Ontario.

She wrote, “Dear Jim, My name is Tracey Holgate. I am age 8. I have one hand too. My grandpa gave me a picture of you today. I saw you on TV. I don’t know anyone with one hand. How do you feel about having one hand? Sometimes I feel sad and sometimes I feel okay about it. Most of the time I feel happy. I hope to see you play in Detroit and maybe meet you. Could you please send me a picture of you in uniform? Could you write back please? Here is a picture of me. Love, Tracey.”

Holgate’s letter is one of those that has remained preserved in a folder — and now Abbott is reading it again, at his kitchen table, half a lifetime after receiving it. Time has not diminished the power of the letter, and Abbott is wiping away tears.

Today, Holgate is 44 and goes by her married name, Dupuis. She is married with four children of her own. She is a teacher. When she thinks about the meaning of Jim Abbott in her life, it is about much more than the letter he wrote back to her. Or the autographed picture he sent her. It was Abbott, all those years ago, who made it possible for Tracey to dream.

“There was such a camaraderie there,” she says, “an ability to connect with somebody so far away doing something totally different than my 8-year-old self was doing, but he really allowed me to just feel that connection, to feel that I’m not alone, there’s other people that have differences and have overcome them and been successful and we all have our own crosses, we all have our own things that we’re carrying and it’s important to continue to focus on the gifts that we have, the beauty of it.

“I think sometimes differences, disabilities, all those things can be a gift in a package we would never have wanted, because they allow us to be people that have an empathetic heart, an understanding heart, and to see the pain in the people around us.”

Now, years after Abbott’s career ended, he continues to inspire.

Among those he influenced, there are professional athletes, such as Shaquem Griffin, who in 2018 became the first NFL player with one hand. Griffin, now 29, played three seasons at linebacker for the Seattle Seahawks.

Growing up in Florida, he would watch videos of Abbott pitching and fielding, over and over, on YouTube.

“The only person I really looked up to was Jim Abbott at the time,” Griffin says, “which is crazy, because I didn’t know anybody else to look up to. I didn’t know anybody else who was kind of like me. And it’s funny, because when I was really little, I used to be like, ‘Why me? Why this happen to me?’ And I used to be in my room thinking about that. And I used to think to myself, ‘I wonder if Jim Abbott had that same thought.'”

Carson Pickett was born on Sept. 15, 1993 — 11 days after Abbott’s no-hitter. Missing most of her left arm below the elbow, she became, in 2022, the first player with a limb difference to appear for the U.S. women’s national soccer team.

She, too, says that Abbott made things that others told her were impossible seem attainable.

“I knew I wanted to be a professional soccer player,” says Pickett, who is currently playing for the NWSL’s Orlando Pride. “To be able to see him compete at the highest level it gave me hope, and I think that that kind of helped me throughout my journey. … I think ‘pioneer’ would be the best word for him.”

Longtime professional MMA fighter Nick Newell is 39, old enough to have seen Abbott pitch for the Yankees. In fact, when Newell was a child he met Abbott twice, first at a fan event at the Jacob Javits Center in Manhattan and then on a game day at Yankee Stadium. Newell was one of those kids with a limb difference — like Griffin and Pickett, due to amniotic band syndrome — who idolized Abbott.

“And I didn’t really understand the gravity of what he was doing,” Newell says now, “but for me, I saw someone out there on TV that looked like I did. And I was the only other person I knew that had one hand. And I saw this guy out here playing baseball and it was good to see somebody that looked like me, and I saw him in front of the world.

“He was out there like me and he was just living his life and I think that I owe a lot of my attitude and the success that I have to Jim just going out there and being the example of, ‘Hey, you can do this. Who’s to say you can’t be a professional athlete?’ He’s out there throwing no-hitters against the best baseball players in the world. So, as I got older, ‘Why can’t I wrestle? Why can’t I fight? Why can’t I do this?’ And then it wasn’t until the internet that I heard people tell me I can’t do these things. But by then I had already been doing those things.”

Griffin.

Pickett.

Newell.

Just three of the countless kids who were inspired by Jim Abbott.

When asked if it ever felt like too much, being a role model and a hero, all the letters and face-to-face meetings, Abbott says no — but it wasn’t always easy.

“I had incredible people who helped me send the letters,” he says. “I got a lot more credit sometimes than I deserved for these interactions, to be honest with you. And that happened on every team, particularly with my friend Tim Mead. There was a nice balance to it. There really was. There was a heaviness to it. There’s no denying. There were times I didn’t want to go [to the meetings]. I didn’t want to walk out there. I didn’t want to separate from my teammates. I didn’t want to get up from the card game. I didn’t want to put my book down. I liked where I was at. I was in my environment. I was where I always wanted to be. In a big league clubhouse surrounded by big league teammates. In a big league stadium. And those reminders of being different, I slowly came to realize were never going to go away.”

But being different was the thing that made Abbott more than merely a baseball star. For many people, he has been more than a role model, more than an idol. He is the embodiment of hope and belonging.

“I think more people need to realize and understand the gift of a difference,” Dupuis says. “I think we have to just not box everybody in and allow everybody’s innate light to shine, and for whatever reasons we’ve been created to be here, [let] that light shine in a way that it touches everybody else. Because I think that’s what Jim did. He allowed his light to permeate and that light, in turn, lit all these little children’s lights all over the world, so you have this boom of brightness that’s happening and that’s uncontrollable, that’s beautiful.”

“Southpaw – The Life and Legacy of Jim Abbott,” a new edition of ESPN’s “E60,” debuts Sunday at 9 p.m. ET on ESPN; extended version streaming afterward on ESPN+.

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Cubs’ PCA on track for $1.1M from bonus pool

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Cubs' PCA on track for .1M from bonus pool

NEW YORK — Chicago Cubs center fielder Pete Crow-Armstrong is projected to receive the largest amount from this season’s $50 million pre-arbitration bonus pool based on his regular-season statistics.

Crow-Armstrong is on track to get $1,091,102, according to WAR calculations through July 8 that Major League Baseball sent to teams, players and agents in a memo Friday that was obtained by The Associated Press.

He earned $342,128 from the pool in 2024.

“I was aware of it after last year, but I have no clue of the numbers,” he said Friday. “I haven’t looked at it one time.”

Pittsburgh pitcher Paul Skenes is second at $961,256, followed by Washington outfielder James Wood ($863,835), Arizona outfielder Corbin Carroll ($798,397), Houston pitcher Hunter Brown ($786,838), Philadelphia pitcher Cristopher Sánchez ($764,854), Cincinnati shortstop Elly De La Cruz ($717,479), Boston catcher Carlos Narváez ($703,007), Red Sox outfielder Ceddanne Rafaela ($685,366) and Detroit outfielder Riley Greene ($665,470).

Crow-Armstrong, Skenes, Wood, Carroll, Brown, De La Cruz and Greene have been picked for Tuesday’s All-Star Game.

A total of 100 players will receive the payments, established as part of the 2022 collective bargaining agreement and aimed to get more money to players without sufficient service time for salary arbitration eligibility. The cutoff for 2025 was 2 years, 132 days of major league service.

Players who signed as foreign professionals are excluded.

Most young players have salaries just above this year’s major league minimum of $760,000. Crow-Armstrong has a $771,000 salary this year, Skenes $875,000, Wood $764,400 and Brown $807,400.

Carroll is in the third season of a $111 million, eight-year contract.

As part of the labor agreement, a management-union committee was established that determined the WAR formula used to allocate the bonuses after awards. (A player may receive only one award bonus per year, the highest one he is eligible for.) The agreement calls for an interim report to be distributed the week before the All-Star Game.

Distribution for awards was $9.85 million last year, down from $11.25 million in 2022 and $9.25 million in 2023.

A player earns $2.5 million for winning an MVP or Cy Young award, $1.75 million for finishing second, $1.5 million for third, $1 million for fourth or fifth or for making the All-MLB first team. A player can get $750,000 for winning Rookie of the Year, $500,000 for second or for making the All-MLB second team, $350,000 for third in the rookie race, $250,000 for fourth or $150,000 for fifth.

Kansas City shortstop Bobby Witt Jr. topped last year’s pre-arbitration bonus pool at $3,077,595, and Skenes was second at $2,152,057 despite not making his big league debut until May 11. Baltimore shortstop Gunnar Henderson was third at $2,007,178.

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