The trade deadline has come and gone. While trade season was slow to get started this year, when all was said and done, there were several dozen trades made in a flurry of movement over the final few days before the deadline arrived. The full impact of these trades won’t be known for years to come, but that doesn’t mean we can’t analyze the deals and decide whose haul looks the best right now. Over the next week-plus, MLBTR will be running a series of polls asking which club in each division had the best deadline. So far, the
Phillies,
Reds,
Padres, and
Mariners have each come out on top in their respective divisions. Today, we’ll be continuing on with the American League with the AL Central. A look at each of the five clubs, listed from best to worst record in 2025:
Detroit Tigers
The Tigers have the biggest lead in their division in all of baseball, and that might have led them to a much more cautious deadline than previously expected. Aside from a handful of minor trades of players (
Matt Manning,
Dietrich Enns,
Brewer Hicklen) who had been squeezed off of the 40-man roster, the Tigers acquired seven pitchers across six trades. It was clearly a quantity over quality approach, however, as the rotation was deepened by adding
Charlie Morton (5.42 ERA at the time of the trade) and
Chris Paddack (4.95 ERA at the time of the trade) to the back of the staff.
That pair of starters was joined by five relievers:
Randy Dobnak,
Codi Heuer,
Rafael Montero,
Paul Sewald, and
Kyle Finnegan. Dobnak and Heuer have both made just one MLB appearance this year. Montero carried a 5.40 ERA when he arrived in Detroit, and Sewald won’t pitch again until September due to injury. That leaves Finnegan and his 95 ERA+ in a Nationals uniform this year as the most impactful addition of the Tigers’ deadline this year, at least on paper. While Detroit added plenty of pitching depth to the roster without surrendering any of the prospects within their Top 15 according to
Baseball America, it’s hard not to see a quiet deadline in what could be
Tarik Skubal’s penultimate season with the club as a potential missed opportunity.
Cleveland Guardians
The Guardians’ performance this trade season must be viewed in the context of the potentially franchise-altering reality that struck just days before the deadline: superstar closer
Emmanuel Clase, a potential trade candidate and foundational piece of the Guardians’ roster, was
placed on administrative leave as part of a sports betting investigation. That news not only severely damaged whatever hopes the Guardians may have had of making it to the playoffs this year, but also took one of their most valuable trade chips off the market.
That led the Guards to make just two trades this summer: one that shipped Sewald to the Tigers for a player to be named later or cash, and a second one that sent
Shane Bieber to Toronto for right-hander
Khal Stephen. Both trades were sensible moves. Stephen is a particularly well-regarded prospect to receive for a pitcher who hasn’t thrown at the big league level this year, and the Sewald trade cleared the remainder of a currently injured rental reliever’s $7MM salary. Bigger than the moves they did make, arguably, is the ones they did not: outfielder
Steven Kwan and star reliever
Cade Smith, among other rumored trade candidates, remain in Cleveland as controllable building blocks for the future.
Kansas City Royals
Despite sitting around .500 for the majority of the year, the Royals were actually the most aggressive buyer in their division. They made their intention to eschew selling clear when they
extended Seth Lugo on a deal that could keep him in town through the end of the 2028 season. Aside from locking up Lugo, the Royals deepened their lineup and pitching staff.
A trio of controllable, starting-caliber arms were brought in to join Lugo and
Michael Wacha in the short-term while providing depth behind
Cole Ragans and
Kris Bubic for the future.
Bailey Falter was acquired from the Pirates, while the Royals surrendered backup catcher
Freddy Fermin to the Padres in a deal that netted both
Stephen Kolek and
Ryan Bergert. Aside from those rotation additions, the club made a trio of rental acquisitions to try and boost the offense.
Adam Frazier is unlikely to be a needle-mover, but both
Mike Yastrzemski and
Randal Grichuk have been impactful complementary pieces for playoff clubs in the past.
Even if the Royals end up missing the postseason, they won’t have lost much by pushing in this year; their best trade chip (Bubic) suffered a season-ending injury shortly before the deadline, and No. 15 prospect (
per Baseball America)
Yunior Marte was the top young talent they surrendered (in return for Yastrzemski).
Minnesota Twins
The Twins completely changed the trajectory of the trade deadline when they kicked off a massive fire sale. The club made ten trades in total while moving 11 players out of the organization. Paddack and Dobnak were shipped to Detroit in a deal for catching/first base prospect
Enrique Jimenez that also cleared the remainder of Dobnak’s low-cost but ill-fated $9.25MM extension off the books. Rentals
Willi Castro,
Harrison Bader, and
Danny Coulombe were shipped out in deals that should help to fill out the middle ranks of the Minnesota farm system. Fellow rental
Ty France was packaged with dominant young reliever
Louis Varland to bring back a big league-ready outfielder,
Alan Roden, and Triple-A southpaw
Kendry Rojas (The new No. 7 prospect in the Twins’ revamped system, according to
MLB Pipeline).
Varland wasn’t the only star reliever to move. The Twins traded both
Jhoan Duran and
Griffin Jax to the Phillies and Rays, respectively. Duran netted a pair of top-100 prospects from the Phils, who surrendered catcher
Eduardo Tait and right-hander
Mick Abel to get the deal done. Jax was traded away in a one-for-one swap that brought back young starter
Taj Bradley. A slightly less impactful bullpen arm with control remaining was also moved when
Brock Stewart was shipped to the Dodgers in a deal for post-hype outfielder
James Outman. Of course, the most shocking trade of the deadline was the Twins’ decision to deal
Carlos Correa back to the Astros in what amounted to a salary dump. 26-year-old High-A southpaw
Matt Mikulski was the only player who Correa brought back to Minnesota, even as the Twins ate $33MM of the $103.5MM Correa is owed going forward.
On the one hand, the Twins undeniably did well with the return for several of the players they moved. Abel, Bradley, and Rojas form a wave of young, upper-level starting pitching talent that could impact the team as soon as 2026. They should form an organizational strength in conjunction with young arms like
Simeon Woods Richardson,
Zebby Matthews, and
David Festa going forward. On the other hand, dumping two-thirds of Correa’s salary for no prospect return and decimating a bullpen that has been a major strength are tough pills to swallow for fans.
Chicago White Sox
The White Sox had a surprisingly quiet deadline for one of the league’s most obvious sellers. They acquired
Will Robertson and
Blake Sabol while dealing away
Tristan Gray in three separate cash deals with the AL East, though none of those moves is much of a needle-mover. Outside of those minor transactions, they added a rental veteran starter in
Aaron Civale and change-of-scenery first baseman
Andrew Vaughn to the Brewers in order to get the deal done. Vaughn has blossomed (albeit in a small sample) with Milwaukee, which would surely be easier for fans in Chicago to swallow had the White Sox managed to flip Civale for a prospect return. Civale is pitching well of late but remains on the South Side.
The White Sox made just two sell-side trades ahead of the deadline. Outfielder
Austin Slater was shipped to the Yankees in a deal that brought back right-hander
Gage Ziehl (the club’s new
No. 14 prospect, per Pipeline), and the biggest deal of the club’s deadline sent righty
Adrian Houser to Tampa. In return for Houser, the White Sox brought in infielder
Curtis Mead, Triple-A reliever
Ben Peoples, and Triple-A starter
Duncan Davitt. Davitt seems likely to be a back-end starter or swingman in the mold of Houser. Peoples seems unlikely to be more than a middle reliever. Still, it’s a solid return for a rental arm signed in-season, particularly when considering that Mead was a consensus top-50 prospect in the sport just a few short years ago. Chicago didn’t make many trades for a selling club, but the ones they made look like strong ones.
Most surprising was the South Siders’ decision to hang onto
Luis Robert Jr. The talented center fielder finally began to come alive at the plate in early June, and many thought the Sox would capitalize on his first productive stretch since 2023 to bring in some young talent, even if it meant paying down Robert’s contract. Instead, they held onto Robert and will now consider picking up the first of two $20MM club options for the 2026 season. If Robert keeps raking down the stretch, it may prove to bring a better return in the long run (assuming he eventually is traded), but there’s plenty of risk in this approach.
No division in baseball did less buying than the AL Central this year. While the Royals made some savvy additions and the Tigers at least bolstered their depth, no impact additions were made as the Guardians, Twins, and White Sox all focused on selling at varying levels. Who did the best of this quintet during trade season? Have your say in the poll below:
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