GMs tell their best (and wildest) trade stories: ‘Uncle Mike would have absolutely loved that you executed a trade at his funeral’
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Jesse Rogers
From births to funerals — and everywhere in between — the job of a major league baseball general manager is never done. That is especially the case this time of year, when talks heat up in advance of the July 31 trade deadline.
Calls and texts can come at the most inopportune times for front office members, but that doesn’t mean they’re going to go unanswered. After all, there’s always another team willing to do a deal.
With that in mind, we asked MLB executives to tell us their favorite trade stories.
Trade talks at the most inopportune times
‘We went back and looked at the time stamp of when he had sent texts and when the baby was born’
Brewers general manager Matt Arnold and Dodgers president Andrew Friedman worked together in the Tampa Bay Rays front office before moving on to their current jobs. Arnold was an assistant to Friedman, who was the executive vice president of baseball operations.
“We had two different trade deadlines with Andrew in the hospital,” Arnold recalled. “One year his appendix almost burst. He was doubled over in a lot of pain and we ended up having the doctor come to the stadium.”
Friedman was rushed to the hospital, where the Rays’ staff spent the trade deadline trying to work out deals while their front office leader was undergoing treatment for an appendicitis.
“We spent July 31 at the hospital with him, medicated, going in and out of consciousness,” Arnold said. “We’re trying to piece together conversations we’ve had with him as he’s in a lot of pain. That was pretty nuts. BJ Upton was involved, but I don’t think we ended up trading him.”
Arnold believes his second Friedman-in-the-hospital trade story tops even a deadline-day emergency appendix removal.
“Something like the next year, he’s at the hospital because his wife is in labor,” Arnold said. “She had a baby on the trade deadline.”
With the team involved in several trade scenarios and the deadline fast approaching, Rays staff members were texting with Friedman the entire time.
“We went back and looked at the time stamp of when he had sent texts and when the baby was born,” Arnold said with a laugh. “It was minutes apart. So we asked him what was going on in there?”
“He said she was kind of propped up, and behind her head, he was texting stuff about the trade. We were like ‘Welcome to the world, Zach Friedman.'”
‘My phone is ringing at the funeral now’
White Sox general manager Chris Getz loved his Uncle Mike. So when his uncle died during the offseason, Getz made sure to attend the funeral and even was asked to be a pallbearer. But on the day of the proceedings, the White Sox top decision-maker’s phone was buzzing.
“There’s a GM out there who if there is interest, he doesn’t stop calling,” Getz recalled. “So I told him my uncle had passed away and I have his funeral, but don’t worry, we’re going to do the deal. I’m not going anywhere other than the fact that I’m a pallbearer at my uncle’s funeral. I need a couple hours. He says, ‘Cool, I got you.'”
The funeral started, but the calls didn’t stop.
“My phone is ringing at the funeral now,” Getz said. “It wasn’t actually ringing when I was carrying the casket, but it was close enough. I told people at the celebration afterwards what was going on and they were like ‘Hey Chris, Uncle Mike would have absolutely loved that you executed a trade at his funeral.”
‘I’m literally going from the church to the graveyard, on the phone trying to get us $500,000′
Getz isn’t the only executive who has needed to tend to work matters during a family funeral. New San Francisco Giants GM Zack Minasian had a similar experience after his grandmother died last offseason.
“It was this past January. I had to find us $500,000 of international money,” Minasian said. “I’m literally going from the church to the graveyard, on the phone trying to get us $500,000. It was not my best day. And it’s the same church my grandmother got married in. I had my brother [Perry] next to me as I’m trying to hide my phone. He was driving so I could text.”
Zack’s older brother is the GM of the Angels, but it wasn’t Perry he was working to acquire the international bonus money.
“I got $250,000 from the Red Sox for Blake Sabol and $250,000 from the Marlins for Will Kempner,” Minasian said. “I got it done.”
Minasian was asked why not just ask his brother for it. He was sitting right next to him.
“Shocker. He didn’t have it!” the younger Minasian said with a laugh.
‘I’m feeling the texts coming through in my pocket’
Another executive, who was willing to tell his story as long as his name wasn’t used, remembers navigating a Passover seder while trying to pull off a minor deal.
“I was at my in-laws’ temple’s seder,” the executive said. “Not a fancy, formal one, but still. I’m feeling the texts coming through in my pocket.”
At one point, he excused himself to go to the bathroom. That allowed the trade to move closer to the finish line — but it wasn’t done yet.
“I was trying to be respectful, not checking the phone,” the executive said. “But at one point, one of my kids needed to go to the bathroom and my hand shot up. I said, “I’ll take him.’
“I ran out in the hall and took him to the bathroom and real quick called the other team to get the ball rolling. It definitely wasn’t easy, but we got the deal done.”
Communication issues
‘I knew I was going to lose cell service’
A few days before Christmas during the 2022 offseason, Arizona Diamondbacks GM Mike Hazen was in the midst of a family vacation in Hawai’i — and also working the phones for a major trade during what is usually a rare quiet stretch for MLB execs.
Executives never know exactly when a deal is going to line up, but Hazen had a feeling he might be caught in a tough spot being so far from his home base.
“I was trying to finalize the Daulton Varsho/Gabriel Moreno/Lourdes Gurriel trade [with the Blue Jays],” Hazen said. “I talked to [Brian Cashman] in the morning, I talked to another team later, and I finalized the deal with Ross [Atkins] right before we were supposed to go zip lining that day.
“I was with my kids. We are driving to the middle of nowhere in Maui, and I knew I was going to lose cell service. We have a time slot for the zip lining we have to get to. I had my oldest kid driving and I was trying to get a hold of Varsho to tell him about the trade and I couldn’t. And we were getting closer and closer to the abyss, knowing I was going to lose service.”
Hazen couldn’t find Varsho anywhere and was told the outfielder could be “in a tree hunting somewhere.” This put Hazen in a time crunch to inform the player he would be included in a deal, but eventually he got a hold of him to tell him of the trade. Now he wanted to talk with the guys he was acquiring.
“When we get to the bottom of the gully, there is no cell service, so I’m hoping the zip line company has Wi-Fi to use,” Hazen said. “And they were like ‘The Wi-Fi just went down.’ I could not believe it. So I had not talked to Gurriel or Moreno yet. So I drop the kids off at the zip line and tell them I’ll be back when I can, and I drive back to the closest town so I could get cell service.”
Hazen sat at a restaurant, called his players and then headed back to his kids.
“They were halfway through zip-lining,” Hazen said. “They didn’t mind. At least, I don’t think so.”
‘He whipped the phone to me and he said, “Finish the Roberts deal”‘
Current Cubs president Jed Hoyer was a young executive with the Boston Red Sox in 2004, working under GM Theo Epstein during a tumultuous trade deadline.
Boston was seemingly having talks with everyone in the league, eventually trading star shortstop Nomar Garciaparra to the Cubs in a blockbuster, four-team trade. The team was also trying to trade for a base-stealing player named Dave Roberts.
“Theo was trying to finish the Nomar deal on like an old-school phone,” Hoyer said. “At one point, he whipped the phone to me and he said, ‘Finish the Roberts deal.’ But I couldn’t understand [Dodgers GM] Paul DePodesta on the phone. It was a choppy connection.”
After Hoyer hung up, Epstein asked him if he got the deal done.
“I just looked at him and said, ‘I think so?’ with a shrug,” Hoyer said with a laugh. “I think we’re good, but not sure.”
Hoyer noted what that trade led to a curse-breaking title in Boston and newfound fame for Roberts, whose crucial stolen base during Game 4 of the 2004 ALCS will live forever in Red Sox lore.
“And now he might be a Hall of Fame manager,” Hoyer said. “Glad it worked out.”
‘All of a sudden the skies open up, it’s pouring, and I can’t hear on my cell phone’
In July 2009, St. Louis Cardinals executive John Mozeliak was getting ready to play golf when trade talks began to heat up.
“I wasn’t a golfer but I got invited by a friend to play at St. Louis Country Club,” Mozeliak recalled.
The calls he was getting came from Athletics GM Billy Beane with the two sides discussing a deal involving slugger Matt Holliday.
“All of a sudden the skies open up, it’s pouring, and I can’t hear on my cell phone,” Mozeliak said. “It was just disastrous. And by the way, I only played three holes because my phone was just blowing up.”
Mozeliak headed back to his car — to stay dry and find some quiet. And also to avoid trouble at the club.
“I ended up having to call our Double-A manager to get his opinion on a couple of players that were going to Oakland, trying to orchestrate all of this at a very exclusive country club where you’re not supposed to be on your cell phone,” Mozeliak said. “I’m sitting in my car getting pelted by small hailstones and rain.”
The conversation carried on through dinner time, when Mozeliak was due to be with his family and his friend’s family.
“We’re having dinner at Dewey’s Pizza, which is a local pizzeria in New City,” he said. “And so there I’m having to just not focus on this family dinner. I already missed 15 holes of golf, but by the time that dinner ended, we had a deal and we got Matt Holliday.”
With the help of their new slugger, the Cardinals went on to win 91 games and the NL Central.
“You’re not in your office, you’re not in your normal environment to do it but we were able to complete it and obviously the rest was history when it came to having Holliday.”
When chaos reigns
‘We had to tell Drew he was going to be traded — but not for two weeks’
In July 2012, current Cubs GM Carter Hawkins was an assistant in Cleveland.
“We were about to trade Alex White, Drew Pomeranz and two other players to Colorado for pitcher Ubaldo Jimenez,” Hawkins said.
After the deal was complete, Hawkins was dispatched to the farm team in Akron to inform the players they were being dealt.
“Pomeranz was starting,” Hawkins said. “We had to go get him out of the bullpen and tell him. But there was some miscommunication and Jimenez was still in the game for the Rockies that day so the trade was on hold. So we brought them all back in to tell them they weren’t being traded.”
Eventually, Jimenez was pulled from the game and was told he was going to Cleveland.
“So we brought all the guys back in to tell them they were being traded, including Pomeranz. Then we realize it had not been a calendar year since the day Pomeranz had signed and that used to be a rule. You could not trade a drafted player within that first year of his signing. So now we had to tell Drew he was going to be traded — but not for two weeks. By that time, his head was spinning.”
‘All he said was “No, I don’t want to trade him.” No reason. Just “No!” I couldn’t believe it’
Jim Duquette and Mike Flanagan were the co-GMs of the Baltimore Orioles in 2006 and the duo was working hard on a July deal involving slugger Miguel Tejada after getting permission from ownership to trade him.
“We spent like 16-hour days sorting through the level of interest,” Duquette recalled. “We had it narrowed down to three teams: the Mets, Astros and Angels. I mean we worked hard on this deal.”
The duo determined the Angels had the best offer.
“It was a significant trade,” Duquette said. “We had a chance to get Bartolo Colon and Erick Aybar or even Ervin Santana. It would have changed our organization.”
When they were ready, Duquette and Flanagan marched down to owner Peter Angelos’ law office to present the offers and their suggestions to him.
“I had a whiteboard,” Duquette explained. “We put down all of the names on it. It was a whole elaborate presentation to Peter. We’re up against the deadline. We sat there for 30 minutes going through all the options.
“At the end of it, he pauses, looks up at us both and all he said was, ‘No, I don’t want to trade him.’ No reason. Just ‘No!’ I couldn’t believe it.”
A few years later, Duquette had a laugh at his cousin Dan’s expense when nearly the same thing happened to him. In 2017, the Cubs and Astros were both vying to trade with Baltimore for reliever Zack Britton. Dan was now the Orioles’ general manager and was fielding offers.
“Theo [Epstein] opted out of the running for Britton,” Jim Duquette recalled. “He didn’t want to wait around for Peter [Angelos]. The Astros rolled the dice and waited. And Peter said no to that too. They got stuck with nobody. If you remember, one of their players even criticized ownership for doing nothing but that’s only because Angelos said no at the last minute.”
‘Frankly, we got that done well after the deadline’
In 2008, Hoyer’s Red Sox were looking to move on from Manny Ramirez, who wanted out of Boston.
“Manny was really disgruntled about his contract,” Hoyer said. “He had two club options with no buyouts. He was forcing his way out. We felt like we had to do the deal.”
The deal was “convoluted,” according to Hoyer, because it involved multiple teams as the clock was ticking down on deadline day.
“It looked like it was never going to get done,” Hoyer said. “It was a last-second three-team deal. That was the most confusing one because there were so many cooks in the kitchen. At one point, the Marlins were involved with a young [Giancarlo] Stanton.”
In the end, the Red Sox, Pirates and Dodgers pulled off the three-teamer, which sent Ramirez to Los Angeles and outfielder Jason Bay back to Boston while the Pirates got four prospects.
“Frankly, we got that done well after the deadline,” Hoyer stated. “That was the most manic and confusing one.”
When the trade goes through — for better or worse
‘We didn’t know we were getting a star’
In 2012, Jerry Dipoto was in his first full year as GM of the Los Angeles Angels. He had a good team with All-Star hitters and top-of-the-rotation pitchers, but his bullpen really struggled early in the season.
“May is a difficult time to make any meaningful trades,” Dipoto said. “And we didn’t have a burgeoning farm system to deal from either. But we were able to acquire Ernesto Frieri from the Padres. He was like fourth or fifth on the Pads depth chart.”
Frieri was out of options so the Padres didn’t mind moving him.
“He was like a 1.5-pitch type of reliever,” Dipoto said. “We got him for two prospects: second baseman Alexi Amarista and minor league pitcher Donn Roach.”
The Angels were immediately impressed with their new reliever.
“He played catch down the line the first day and our pitching coach was like ‘Wow, you can’t pick up this guy’s ball at all,'” Dipoto recalled. “He threw a scoreless inning that night and the next night he was closing.”
Frieri ripped off 20 scoreless innings to begin his Angels career and was a finalist to make the All-Star team.
“I distinctly remember [scout] Charlie Kerfeld asking me how I pulled that one off. It’s so hard to do it in May. We didn’t know we were getting a star.”
‘He threw out a slew of names and said, “We will overpay”‘
Trader Jerry, as Dipoto is known, was at it again during the shortened 2020 season, now working for the Mariners. And again, it was the Padres on the other end of the phone. San Diego had a really good team and was looking for some specific help.
“They were trying to fortify and they needed a catcher,” Dipoto said. “We had Austin Nola, who was going bananas for us in that short season.”
Nola was hitting .306 with a 151 OPS+ when AJ Preller called Dipoto.
“We were in full rebuild mode but didn’t have much interest in moving him, simply because it’s a tough position to fill and he’s a great makeup guy,” Dipoto said.
But Preller wouldn’t take no for an answer.
“He threw out a slew of names and said, ‘We will overpay,'” Dipoto recalls. “AJ is that way.”
In return, the Mariners received four players, including Ty France — but it was a second, late trade that year with San Diego that Dipoto liked even more. The Padres wanted reliever Taylor Williams.
“After doing the first deal, we’re inside of 10 minutes until the deadline,” Dipoto said. “We’ve asked for a number of mainstream players. They said no. But they had a guy in their farm system who had thrown one inning as a minor leaguer after being drafted the previous year. Then COVID hit. That was Matt Brash. We were so close to the deadline that I heard AJ cup the phone and yell, ‘BRASH?’ to one of his assistants. Then he gets back on and says, ‘We’ll do it.’
“It’s the only deal I’ve ever done without seeing the medicals. There was no time. But Brash has been good for us.”
‘To this day, I don’t think Kazmir knows the full story of why we traded him’
When asked about his most interesting deals, Jim Duquette immediately thought of the oft-discussed trade of prospect Scott Kazmir during his time as GM of the Mets — with some insight even hard-core Mets fans may not know.
In July 2004, Duquette traded Kazmir to the then-Tampa Bay Devil Rays for starter Victor Zambrano. But few knew that an off-the-field sponsorship would have a lasting impact on the deal.
“A lot of it centered on the medical,” Duquette said. “[Kazmir] was high risk.”
Kazmir was a first-round pick, but the Mets were worried about his health from the time they drafted him on. They did the deal after clearing Zambrano of any medical concerns of his own. And that backfired on them.
“It didn’t help that we had an inexperienced ortho group that had just started overseeing our entire medical staff in 2003, after their hospital had signed a multiyear sponsorship deal with the organization,” Duquette said. “The ultimate irony is Kazmir never got injured while Zambrano was cleared and got injured after three starts. It was a double whammy.”
Zambrano missed the rest of 2004 but was healthy in 2005 before undergoing Tommy John surgery in 2006. Kazmir eventually did get hurt but first provided the Rays and later the Angels with several productive seasons before needing Tommy John surgery in 2011.
“To this day, I don’t think Kazmir knows the full story of why we traded him,” Duquette said.
When the deal falls apart
‘For an hour we thought we were getting Felix Hernandez’
Before joining the Giants in 2018, Zack Minasian spent 14 years in the Brewers. During one of his seasons under GM Doug Melvin, the team thought it had a deal for one of the game’s top pitchers.
Milwaukee was deep in conversations with the Seattle Mariners, who had a former Brewers executive, Jack Zduriencik, serving as GM.
“Jack and Doug were talking about a trade that would have sent Felix Hernandez to Milwaukee,” Minasian recalled. “At one point, we thought Jack had agreed to it but he needed to make one other move before we could finalize it.
“It didn’t happen, but for an hour we thought we were getting Felix Hernandez. We were nervous, anxious, excited and just waiting.”
That is not the only time a trade that failed to come to fruition created a memory for Minasian. After a trade with the Mets involving Wilmer Flores and Zack Wheeler fell through, Minasian ended up at a bar while the front office was looking at other potential deals.
“One of my friends owned a place in Milwaukee,” he said. “I got a call from Doug while I was there and I had to go in the basement of the bar where all the liquor is being stored, huddled in the back corner, going through Astros prospects.
“You have to do what you have to do, right?”
‘We don’t get Gallen if we make that trade’
Sometimes a trade that fell through can turn out to be a blessing in disguise for a team. Hazen remembers such a trade during his second trade deadline as Diamondbacks GM.
As trade season heated up, Arizona was running neck and neck with the Los Angeles Dodgers in a battle for the top spot in the National League and the teams were among the top suitors for the prize of the deadline: Baltimore star Manny Machado, who was set to hit free agency after the season.
Ultimately, Machado went to the Dodgers and L.A. won the NL West and reached the World Series. But the ripple effects of Arizona not landing Machado helped the D-backs make a World Series appearance of their own in 2023.
“We tried to get Manny Machado from the Orioles in 2018 and Jazz Chisholm would have been in that trade,” Hazen said. “We didn’t trade Jazz there but that got us Zac Gallen in 2019. We don’t get Gallen if we make that trade for Machado, so you never know.”
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David Schoenfield
We’re past due to hand out some midseason grades, so let’s hand out some midseason grades.
As we pass the 90-game mark in the 2025 MLB season, my team of the first half isn’t the well-rounded Detroit Tigers, who do get our highest grade for owning MLB’s best record, or the explosive Chicago Cubs or Shohei Ohtani‘s Los Angeles Dodgers, but a team most baseball fans love to hate: the Houston Astros. They lost their two best players from last season and their best hitter has been injured — and they’re playing their best baseball since they won the 2022 World Series.
Let’s get to the grades. As always, we’re grading off preseason expectations, factoring in win-loss record and quality of performance, while looking at other positive performances and injuries.
Jump to a team:
AL East: BAL | BOS | NYY | TB | TOR
AL Central: CHW | CLE | DET | KC | MIN
AL West: ATH | HOU | LAA | SEA | TEX
NL East: ATL | MIA | NYM | PHI | WSH
NL Central: CHC | CIN | MIL | PIT | STL
NL West: ARI | COL | LAD | SD | SF
Tarik Skubal is obviously the headline act, but the Tigers are winning with impressive depth across the entire roster.
Javier Baez is putting together a remarkable comeback season after a couple of abysmal years and will become the first player to start an All-Star Game at both shortstop and in the outfield. Former No. 1 overall picks Casey Mize and Spencer Torkelson have put together their own comeback stories, while Riley Greene has matured into one of the game’s top power hitters.
Given their deep well of prospects and contributors at the MLB level, no team is better positioned than the Tigers to add significant help at the trade deadline.
I heard someone refer to them as the Zombie Astros, which feels apropos. Alex Bregman left as a free agent, they traded Kyle Tucker, Yordan Alvarez has been injured and has just three home runs, and the Jose Altuve experiment in left field predictably fizzled.
But here they are, fighting for the best record in the majors and holding a comfortable lead in the AL West. They’re getting star turns from Hunter Brown, Framber Valdez and Jeremy Pena, while the risky decision to start Cam Smith in the majors with very little minor league experience has paid off, as he has now become their cleanup hitter.
If we ignore the COVID-19 season, the Astros look on their way to an eighth straight division title.
This could be at least a half-grade higher based on everything that has gone right: Pete Crow-Armstrong‘s attention-grabbing breakout, Tucker doing everything expected after the big trade, Seiya Suzuki‘s monster power numbers and Matthew Boyd‘s All-Star turn in the rotation. The Cubs are on pace for their most wins since their World Series title season in 2016.
There have been a few hiccups, however, especially in the rotation with Justin Steele‘s season-ending injury and Ben Brown‘s inconsistency, plus rookie third baseman Matt Shaw has scuffled, and the bench has been weak aside from their backup catchers.
Still, this is a powerhouse lineup, and the Cubs will seek to improve their rotation at the deadline.
They just keep winning of late, going from 25-27 and seven games behind the Yankees on May 25 to taking over first place from the slumping Bronx Bombers, a remarkable turnaround over just 36 games. They went 27-9 over a 36-game stretch ending with their eighth win in a row on Sunday.
George Springer‘s recent surge has been fun to watch, a reminder of how good he was at his peak, and Addison Barger has been mashing over the past two months.
Some of the stats don’t add up to the Blue Jays being this good — they’ve barely outscored their opponents — but there might be more offense in the tank from the likes of Vladimir Guerrero Jr. and a healthy Anthony Santander, and the bullpen, a soft spot, is the easiest area to upgrade.
Their success is best summed up by the fact that Freddy Peralta is their lone All-Star, but they have a whole bunch of players who have contributed between 1 and 2 WAR.
Brandon Woodruff looked good Sunday in his first start in nearly two years, so that could be a huge boost for the second half.
I’m curious to see how Jackson Chourio performs as well. While his counting stats — extra-base hits, RBIs — are fine, his triple-slash line remains below last season, especially his OBP. He had a huge second half in 2024 (.310/.363/.552), and if he does that again, the Brewers could find themselves back in the postseason for the seventh time in eight seasons.
The Rays started off slow, with a losing record through the end of April, but then went 33-22 in May and June to claw back into the AL East race — as the Rays usually do, last year being the recent exception.
Two key performers have been All-Star third baseman Junior Caminero, who has a chance to become just the third player to hit 40 home runs in his age-21 season, and All-Star first baseman Jonathan Aranda.
Due to the league wanting the Rays to play more home games early in the season, the July and August slate will be very road-heavy, so we’ll see how the Rays adapt to a difficult two-month stretch, especially since their pitching isn’t quite as deep as it has been in other seasons.
No, they’re not going to be the greatest team of all time. But they might win 100 games — even though Blake Snell and Roki Sasaki, their huge offseason acquisitions, have combined for just two wins in 10 starts.
The lineup, of course, has been terrific, with Ohtani leading the NL in several categories and Will Smith leading the batting race. By wRC+, it’s been the best offense in Dodgers history.
If they can get some combo of Snell, Sasaki and Tyler Glasnow healthy, plus Ohtani eventually ramped up to a bigger workload on the mound, the Dodgers still loom as World Series favorites.
They are on pace for 95 wins, mainly on the strength of Zack Wheeler, Ranger Suarez and Cristopher Sanchez, who are a combined 23-7 with 11.8 WAR. Jesus Luzardo‘s ERA is bloated due to that two-start stretch when he allowed 20 runs, but he has otherwise been solid as well.
But, overall, it hasn’t always been the smoothest of treks. The bullpen has imploded a few times and the offense has lacked power aside from Kyle Schwarber. Bryce Harper is back after missing three weeks, and they need to get his bat going. Look for some bullpen additions at the trade deadline — and perhaps an outfielder as well.
The Cardinals have been a minor surprise — perhaps even to the Cardinals themselves. St. Louis was viewing this as a rebuilding year of sorts — not that the Cardinals ever hit rock bottom and start completely over. They had a hot May, winning 12 of 13 at one point, but the offense has been fading of late, with those three straight shutout losses to Pittsburgh and six shutout losses since June 25.
The starting rotation doesn’t generate a lot of swing and miss, with both Erick Fedde and Miles Mikolas seeing their ERAs starting to climb. Brendan Donovan is the team’s only All-Star rep, and that kind of sums up this team: solid but without any star power. That might foretell a second-half fade.
All-Star starting pitchers Logan Webb and Robbie Ray, plus a dominant bullpen, have led the way, although after starting 12-4, the Giants have basically been a .500 team for close to three months now. Rafael Devers hasn’t yet ignited the offense since coming over from Boston, and the Giants have lost four 1-0 games.
These final three games at home against the Dodgers before the All-Star break will be a crucial series, as Los Angeles has slowly pulled away in the NL West.
This was an “A-plus” through June 12, when the Mets were 45-24 and owned the best record in baseball, even though Juan Soto hadn’t gotten hot. Soto finally got going in June, but the pitching collapsed, and the Mets went through a disastrous 1-10 stretch.
The rotation injuries have piled up, exacerbating the lack of bullpen depth. Recent games have been started by Justin Hagenman (who had a 6.21 ERA in Triple-A), journeyman reliever Chris Devenski, Paul Blackburn (7.71 ERA) and Frankie Montas, who has had to start even though he’s clearly not throwing the ball well. The Mets need to get the rotation healthy, but also could use more offense from Mark Vientos and their catchers (Francisco Alvarez was demoted to Triple-A).
At times it has felt like Cal Raleigh has been a one-man team with his record-breaking first half. But he will be joined on the All-Star squad by starting pitcher Bryan Woo, closer Andres Munoz and center fielder Julio Rodriguez, who made it on the strength of his defense, as his offense has been a disappointment.
The offense has been one of the best in the majors on the road, but the rotation has been nowhere near as effective as the past couple of seasons, with George Kirby, Logan Gilbert and Bryce Miller all missing time with injuries. They just shut out the Pirates three games in a row, so maybe that will get the rotation on a roll.
They’re just out of the wild-card picture while hanging around .500, so we give them a decent grade since that exceeds preseason expectations. It feels like a little bit of a mirage given their run differential — their record in one-run games (good) versus their record in blowout games (not good) — and various holes across the lineup and pitching staff.
But they’ve done two things to keep them in the race. One, they hit a lot of home runs. Two, they’re the only team in the majors to use just five starting pitchers. The rotation hasn’t been stellar, but it’s been stable.
The Padres are probably fortunate to be where they are, given some of their issues. As expected, the offensive depth has been a problem.
Not as expected, Dylan Cease has struggled while Michael King‘s injury after a strong start has left them without last year’s dynamic 1-2 punch at the top of the rotation (although Nick Pivetta has been one of the best signings of the offseason). Yu Darvish just made his season debut Monday, so hopefully he’ll provide a lift.
The Padres haven’t played well against the better teams, including a 2-5 record against the Dodgers, but they did clean up against the Athletics, Rockies and Pirates, going 16-2 against those three teams.
For now, the Reds are stuck in neutral. Leave out 2022, when they lost 100 games, and it’s otherwise been a string of .500-ish seasons: 31-29 in 2020, 83-79 in 2021, 82-80 in 2023, 77-85 in 2024 and now a similar record so far in 2025.
The hope was that Terry Francona would be a difference-maker. Maybe that will play out down the stretch, but the best hope is to get the rotation clicking on all cylinders at the same time. That means Andrew Abbott continuing his breakout performance, plus getting Hunter Greene healthy again and rookie Chase Burns to live up to the hype after a couple of shaky outings following an impressive MLB debut.
Throw in Nick Lodolo and solid Nick Martinez and Brady Singer, and this group can be good enough to pitch the Reds to their first full-season playoff appearance since 2013.
The Yankees have hit their annual midseason swoon — which has been subject to much intense analysis from their disgruntled fans — and that opening weekend sweep of the Brewers, when the Yankees’ torpedo bats were the big story in baseball, now seems long ago.
Going from seven up to three back in such a short time is a disaster — but not disastrous. Nonetheless, the Yankees will have to do some hard-core self-evaluation heading to the trade deadline.
The offense wasn’t going to be as good as it was in April, when Paul Goldschmidt, Trent Grisham and Ben Rice were all playing over their heads. So, do they need a hitter? Or with Clarke Schmidt now likely joining Gerrit Cole as a Tommy John casualty, do they need a starting pitcher? Or both?
From the book of “things we didn’t expect,” page 547: The Marlins are averaging more runs per game than the Orioles, Padres, Braves and Rangers, to name a few teams. They’re averaging almost as many runs per game as the Mets, and last time we checked, the Marlins weren’t the team to give Soto $765 million.
An eight-game winning streak at the end of June has the Marlins going toe-to-toe with the Braves for third place in the NL East even though the starting rotation has been a mess, with Sandy Alcantara on track to become just the fourth qualified pitcher with an ERA over 7.00.
Heading into the season, I thought that if any team was going to challenge the Dodgers in the NL West, it would be the Diamondbacks. The offense has once again been one of the best in the majors, but the pitching issues have been painful.
After the aggressive move to sign Corbin Burnes, he went down with Tommy John surgery after 11 starts. Meanwhile, Zac Gallen, Eduardo Rodriguez and Brandon Pfaadt each have an ERA on the wrong side of 5.00. Rodriguez was better in June before a shellacking on July 4, while Gallen remains homer-prone, so it’s hard to tell if improvement is on the horizon. Their playoff odds are hovering just under 20%, so there’s a chance, but they need to get red-hot like they did last July and August.
It feels like it has been more soap opera than baseball season in Boston, with the Devers drama finally ending with the shocking trade with the Giants.
If you give added weight that this is the Red Sox, a team that should be operating with the big boys in both budget and aspirations and instead seemed to only want to dump Devers’ contract, then feel free to lower this grade a couple of notches, even if the Red Sox are close in the wild-card standings.
On the field, the heralded rookie trio of Kristian Campbell, Roman Anthony and Marcelo Mayer hasn’t exactly clicked, with Campbell returning to the minors after posting a .902 OPS in April. A big test will come out of the All-Star break, when they play the Cubs, Phillies, Dodgers, Twins and Astros in a tough 15-game stretch.
After last season’s surprise playoff appearance, it’s been a frustrating 2025 — although I’m not sure this result is necessarily a surprise.
There were concerns about the offense heading into the season and those concerns have proven correct. They were getting no production from their outfield, so they rushed Jac Caglianone to the majors to much hype, but he has struggled and might need a reset back in Triple-A. Even Bobby Witt Jr., as good as he has been (on pace for 7.5 WAR), has seen his OPS drop 140 points.
On the bright side, Kris Bubic emerged as an All-Star starter and Noah Cameron has filled in nicely for the injured Cole Ragans, so maybe they trade a starter for some offense.
Coming off a catastrophic 2024 season, nobody was expecting anything from the White Sox. Indeed, another 121-loss season loomed as a possibility. While they’re on pace to lose 100 again, they’ve at least played more competitive baseball thanks to their pitching.
Rookie starters Shane Smith and Sean Burke have shown promise, while rookie position players Kyle Teel, Edgar Quero and now Colson Montgomery are getting their initial taste of the majors.
There has been the mix of calamity: Luis Robert Jr. has been unproductive and is probably now untradable, and former No. 3 overall pick Andrew Vaughn hit .189 and was traded to the Brewers.
The Twins are one organization that might like a do-over of the past five seasons. It feels like they’ve had the most talent in the division, but all they’ve done is squeeze out one soft division title in 2023. Now, the Tigers have passed them in talent and other factors, such as payroll flexibility.
There’s still time for the Twins to turn things around in 2025, but outside of that wonderful 13-game winning streak, they haven’t played winning baseball.
Overall, it’s been yet another bad season, despite Paul Skenes‘ brilliance. Really, do we talk enough about him? Yes, we do talk about him, but he has a 1.95 ERA through his first 42 career starts. Incredible.
Here’s an amazing thing about baseball. The Pirates are not a good team, but they recently put together one of the best six-game stretches in history. That’s not stretching the description. First, they swept the Mets — a good team — by scores of 9-1, 9-2 and 12-1. Then they swept the Cardinals — a good team — with three shutouts, 7-0, 1-0 and 5-0. They became the first team since at least 1901 to score 43 runs or more and allow four runs or fewer in a six-game stretch. And then they promptly got shut out three games in a row, making them the first to win three straight shutouts and then lose three straight shutouts.
Eighteen of our 28 voters picked them to win the AL West before the season, but it’s looking more and more like the 2023 World Series might be a stone-cold fluke in the middle of a string of losing seasons. That year, nearly everyone in the lineup had a career year at the plate, and the pitching got hot at the right time.
This year’s Rangers, though, have struggled to score runs, and while some have pointed to the offensive environment at Globe Life Field, they’re near the bottom in road OPS as well. It’s been fun seeing Jacob deGrom back at a dominating level, and Nathan Eovaldi should have been an All-Star.
Put it this way: If the Rangers can somehow squeeze into the postseason, you don’t want to face the Rangers in a short series. Indeed, if any team looms as an October upset special, it might be the Rangers.
The Nationals received superlative first-half performances from James Wood and MacKenzie Gore, while CJ Abrams is on the way to his best season. But there remains a lack of overall organizational progress, which finally led to the firings on Sunday of longtime GM Mike Rizzo and longtime manager Dave Martinez. A 7-19 record in June sealed their fate, as the rotation has been bad and the bullpen arguably the worst in baseball.
Until the Nationals figure out how to improve their pitching — or, better yet, find an owner who wants to win — they will be stuck going nowhere.
That fell apart in a hurry. Sunday’s loss was Cleveland’s 10th in a row, a stretch that remarkably included five shutouts. Indeed, the Guardians have now been shut out 11 times; the franchise record in the post-dead-ball-era (since 1920) is 20 shutouts in 1968.
There’s nothing worse than watching a team that can’t score runs, so that tells you how exciting the Guardians have been. Last year, the Guardians hit exceptionally well with runners in scoring position, keeping afloat what was otherwise a mediocre offense. That hasn’t happened in 2025 (trading Josh Naylor didn’t help either). Throw in some predictable regression from the bullpen, and this season looks lost.
We can’t give this a complete failing grade due to the emergence of All-Star shortstop Jacob Wilson (the Athletics’ first All-Star starter since Josh Donaldson in 2014) and slugging first baseman Nick Kurtz, who have a chance to finish 1-2 in the Rookie of the Year voting. Plus, we have Denzel Clarke‘s circus catches in center field.
But otherwise? Ugh. The Sacramento gamble already looks like a disaster, three months into a three-year stay. The team is drawing well below Sutter Health Park’s 14,000-seat capacity, with many recent games drawing under 10,000 fans. Luis Severino bashed the small crowds and the lack of air-conditioning.
The A’s had a groundbreaking ceremony for their new park in Vegas, renting heavy construction equipment as background props. Maybe they should have spent that money on more pitching help.
Based on preseason expectations, the Braves have clearly been the biggest disappointment in the National League — fighting the Orioles for most disappointing overall.
What’s gone wrong? They haven’t scored runs, as the offense continues its remarkable fade from a record-setting performance just two seasons ago. The collapses of Michael Harris II and Ozzie Albies lead the way, with lack of production at shortstop and left field playing a big role as well. Closer Raisel Iglesias has struggled, and the team is 11-22 in one-run games. Spencer Strider hasn’t yet reached his pre-injury level and Reynaldo Lopez made just one start before going down.
The Braves haven’t missed the playoffs since 2017, but that run is clearly in jeopardy.
The Orioles have a similar record to the Braves but have played much worse, including losses of 24-2, 19-5, 15-3 and two separate 9-0 shutouts.
They will spend the trade deadline dealing away as many of their impending free agents as possible, and then do a lot of soul-searching heading into the offseason. After making the playoffs in 2023 and 2024, will this season just be a blip? While the pitching struggles aren’t necessarily a big surprise, what has happened to the offense? Are some of their young players prospects or suspects?
After two months of Cleveland Spiders-level baseball, it would be easy to make fun of the Rockies. Especially since they recently announced Walker Monfort — son of the owner — was promoted to executive VP and will replace outgoing president and COO Greg Feasel.
On the other hand, the Rockies are doing something right: They just drew 121,000 for a three-game series against the White Sox.
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Jorge Castillo
NEW YORK — The Yankees designated two-time batting champion DJ LeMahieu for assignment Wednesday, presumably ending the infielder’s seven-year tenure with the organization despite being owed $22 million through next season.
“Tough decisions,” Yankees general manager Brian Cashman said. “In the end, it ultimately comes down to how this roster sits and what’s best. You want to provide your manager with enough chess moves to deal with on a day-in and day-out basis in-game.”
Manager Aaron Boone explained that the move resulted from “an evolving conversation” in recent days that included multiple meetings with LeMahieu, a respected veteran in the Yankees’ clubhouse.
It comes a day after Boone announced that Jazz Chisholm Jr. would shift back to playing second base every day from third base, bumping LeMahieu from the team’s everyday second baseman to a bench role. Boone acknowledged LeMahieu took the demotion “not necessarily great” but emphasized that LeMahieu did not ask for his release.
“It’s been a tough couple of days,” Boone said. “Some hard conversations. And then ultimately coming to this decision, conclusion, obviously not easy for [who’s] been a great player. He’s done a lot of great things for this organization. So, difficult, but at the end [we] feel like this is the right thing to do at this time.”
LeMahieu, who turns 37 on Sunday, batted .266 with a .674 OPS in 45 games this season after starting the season on the injured list with a strained calf. He has been better since June 1, hitting .310 with a .754 OPS in 96 plate appearances as the Yankees’ primary second baseman, but Cashman ultimately decided the production wasn’t enough to offset his defensive liabilities.
The Yankees signed LeMahieu to a six-year, $90 million contract before the 2021 season — fresh off LeMahieu hitting .364 during the COVID-shortened 2020 campaign to become the first player to win a batting title in both leagues in the modern era — envisioning him as an everyday utility player bouncing between infield positions.
LeMahieu made 36 of his 55 starts last season at third base before going on the injured list in early September with a right hip impingement for the remainder of the year. That injury, according to Cashman, inhibited LeMahieu’s ability to play third base, and led to LeMahieu informing him that he couldn’t physically handle playing the position anymore.
“He was always just sharing that the recovery was really difficult,” Cashman said. “The physical toll on him to tee up at that position was a problem and so therefore that position is a problem.”
The limitation was cemented during spring training when LeMahieu strained his left calf in his first Grapefruit League game playing third base, forcing the Yankees to conclude that LeMahieu was no longer an option at the position. He only played second base in his nine rehab games before making his season debut May 13 as a second baseman with Chisholm on the injured list with an oblique strain.
Three weeks later, Chisholm, who started the season as the team’s everyday second baseman, came off the injured list to play third base despite LeMahieu’s range at second base being glaringly limited. Chisholm, who feels most comfortable at second base, accepted the assignment and returned to third base, a position he picked up last season after the Yankees acquired him from the Miami Marlins at the trade deadline through the World Series.
The calculus changed Sunday when Chisholm, with the Yankees in the midst of a six-game losing streak, told reporters that he hurt his shoulder making a throw from third base three weeks earlier and the injury impacted his throwing. Two days later, Chisholm, who had made three throwing errors in his final four starts at third base, was the Yankees’ starting second baseman again.
With Chisholm, an All-Star this season, stationed at second base, former MVPs Paul Goldschmidt and Cody Bellinger entrenched at first base and Giancarlo Stanton occupying the DH spot, playing time would have been sparse for LeMahieu.
Factoring in that the Yankees’ options at third base behind Oswald Peraza, who is also the team’s backup shortstop, would have been catcher J.C. Escarra, Cashman determined that LeMahieu’s presence hampered the team’s flexibility to an extent that would have handcuffed Boone’s in-game decision-making. Infielder Jorbit Vivas, a light-hitting versatile defender, was called up from Triple-A Scranton/Wilkes-Barre to replace LeMahieu on the roster.
“I wouldn’t say he’s unwilling to still make the attempt and maybe spell over there,” Cashman said of LeMahieu. “But it was something that he was without sharing that was steering clear of to the extent he could.
“Because, again, like anything else, he’s got a lot of pride. He’s a great player. He wants to contribute to the team. He loves this team. He loves this organization. But he felt that was an avenue that was no longer a realistic avenue and that kind of ties our hands a little bit more moving forward.”
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