2025 Trade Deadline

[spats]

Attended the game in Buffalo today to watch Beiber. He struck out the first 2 batters aand then looked pretty pedestrian after that. I may have been expecting too much from him but he went 5 innings with 6Ks and 2 runs allowed. His fast ball sat and peaked at 93 but slider looked awesome.

[Grant77]

https://blogs.fangraphs.com/ranking-the-mlb-prospects-traded-at-the-2025-deadline/

 

Fangraphs ranks the top prospects dealt at the deadline. They have Stephen #2, Roden #5, and Rojas #11. That certainly gives us the worst deadline of any team if you have blind faith in their rankings, which you shouldn't.

[Terminator]

55 minutes ago, Grant77 said:

https://blogs.fangraphs.com/ranking-the-mlb-prospects-traded-at-the-2025-deadline/

 

Fangraphs ranks the top prospects dealt at the deadline. They have Stephen #2, Roden #5, and Rojas #11. That certainly gives us the worst deadline of any team if you have blind faith in their rankings, which you shouldn't.

I actually have it the other way around. I think we had one of the better deadlines of any team and I do have blind faith in their rankings.

[Grant77]

2 hours ago, Terminator said:

I actually have it the other way around. I think we had one of the better deadlines of any team and I do have blind faith in their rankings.

To preface, I also think we had a solid deadline, but how do you reconcile the fact that we paid an absolutely massive prospect haul (as per fangraphs) when other teams got similar players for comparatively little.

[Brownie19]

On 8/2/2025 at 10:26 PM, Grant77 said:

If you believe Atkins, they didn't really want a bat. He said that we were able to complete in every level of the market and that we were able to accomplish our goals. 

We paid more for Varland than the Yankees paid for Bednar or Doval and I kind of get it, given the control, but I would have preferred a more elite reliever on a shorter term. 

Bieber and Dominguez are the type of moves that people wanted and expected. We'll have to reserve judgment until Bieber actually starts. I think people rendering a verdict on that dea el already are a little foolish.

Varland is already better than Doval, who wasn't good last year either.

[Terminator]

1 hour ago, Grant77 said:

To preface, I also think we had a solid deadline, but how do you reconcile the fact that we paid an absolutely massive prospect haul (as per fangraphs) when other teams got similar players for comparatively little.

We landed the best starter of the entire deadline which counts for something.

If you compare the individual deals I think we held our own too:

• Jays gave up #5.5 and #11 for 5.5 years of Varland.
• Phillies gave up #3 and #9 for 2.5 years of Duran.
• Mets gave up #5 and #13 for half a year of Tyler Rogers.

Some say 5.5 years of control doesn’t matter for relievers and I think that has some merit, but Varland is making the minimum for 2.5 more years and Duran will be getting paid pretty well via arb.

The Yankees pulled their usual heist. They traded nine prospects (ranked from #10–#91) for Bednar (1.5 years), Doval (2.5), and Bird (3.5). But those guys are in arb, Bednar/Doval were demoted this year, and Doval reportedly has makeup issues.

We gave up #35 for half a year of Dominguez. The Yanks may regret going quantity over quality. Sometimes those lesser ranked guys can pop. Tatis Jr. was a throw in for James Shields 9 years ago.

 

[glory]

The only overpay was the Varland trade, and that depends entirely on what you think of Rojas. Based on what I was reading about Rojas before he was dealt, I thought they’d use him as the 2nd lefty in the pen down the stretch but obviously the 2025 window was very important so Varland already being a successful big league RP made him the safer 2025 play.

One thing Atkins is good at typically is picking the right prospects to trade so we will see what this trade looks like down the road. The other deals seem fine value-wise.

[Laika]

Rojas is indeed the only one I care about losing 

I was getting pretty excited for him 

[BatFlip]

1 hour ago, glory said:

The only overpay was the Varland trade, and that depends entirely on what you think of Rojas. Based on what I was reading about Rojas before he was dealt, I thought they’d use him as the 2nd lefty in the pen down the stretch but obviously the 2025 window was very important so Varland already being a successful big league RP made him the safer 2025 play.

One thing Atkins is good at typically is picking the right prospects to trade so we will see what this trade looks like down the road. The other deals seem fine value-wise.

Rojas was a tough one for sure. 

As everyone has speculated, the Jays must be considering the possibility of trying the starter route again or they see a high likelihood of Varland continuing to perform as a high leverage reliever.

Before a certain someone goes on a rant, everyone here knows that relievers have greater variability.  Greater variability does not mean complete randomness - relievers with great stuff and a younger age are still very valuable, just look at the multi-year contracts that educated GMs are signing high-end relievers to in free agency.

The Jays probably see Rojas as a likely high leverage reliever and valued the Varland control years x probability of performance > Roja's control years x probablity of performance and have dramatically lowered expectations on Roden in a show-me year given he turns 26 soon.  At the end of this year, I suspect Roden will have fallen way down the prospect rankings.  It's disappointing because I had high hopes for him at the beginning of the year, but prospects usually break your heart.

 

 

[Terminator]

Truth is I'd probably rather have Duran. Throwing 102 sounds awesome and he's got a longer track record. I'm sure we tried.

But he will be making like 17 million or something over his final two arb years. Varland will be getting less than a million each of those years. So that's something like 8 mil a year which can get you something pretty decent.

[glory]

1 hour ago, BatFlip said:

Rojas was a tough one for sure. 

As everyone has speculated, the Jays must be considering the possibility of trying the starter route again or they see a high likelihood of Varland continuing to perform as a high leverage reliever.

Before a certain someone goes on a rant, everyone here knows that relievers have greater variability.  Greater variability does not mean complete randomness - relievers with great stuff and a younger age are still very valuable, just look at the multi-year contracts that educated GMs are signing high-end relievers to in free agency.

The Jays probably see Rojas as a likely high leverage reliever and valued the Varland control years x probability of performance > Roja's control years x probablity of performance and have dramatically lowered expectations on Roden in a show-me year given he turns 26 soon.  At the end of this year, I suspect Roden will have fallen way down the prospect rankings.  It's disappointing because I had high hopes for him at the beginning of the year, but prospects usually break your heart.

 

 

Usually I'd be against converting a "failed" starter turned good reliever back into a starter, but Varland's profile isn't the sexiest for a reliever, at least this season. Maybe next season they can work on generating more K's/swing and miss as a reliever, assuming they want to keep him in that role, but if they view him as a SP option long-term then it wouldn't be the worst option to try it out. If he had Brendan Little's profile as a RP where he was striking everyone out with lots of swing/miss then I'd be temped to leave him in the pen, but that hasn't been the case. That's where the 5 years of control is beneficial. They have time to figure it out.

Based on everything i've read about Rojas, I think he would have helped the 2025 bullpen. Him panning out as a SP given his injuries and lack of innings might be a bit of a long shot, but the profile seems there for a high leverage reliever. Of course it wouldn't have been a lock for him to come in and succeed right away, and the Jays wanted to maximize 2025, as they should, so this swap likely made sense for that reason. Will be interesting to see how this trade looks over the years. The Twins have done a good job developing RP's (as witnessed by the trade deadline) so Rojas is probably in a good spot if that's his best role. 

[metafour]

23 minutes ago, glory said:

Usually I'd be against converting a "failed" starter turned good reliever back into a starter, but Varland's profile isn't the sexiest for a reliever, at least this season. Maybe next season they can work on generating more K's/swing and miss as a reliever, assuming they want to keep him in that role, but if they view him as a SP option long-term then it wouldn't be the worst option to try it out. If he had Brendan Little's profile as a RP where he was striking everyone out with lots of swing/miss then I'd be temped to leave him in the pen, but that hasn't been the case. That's where the 5 years of control is beneficial. They have time to figure it out.

Based on everything i've read about Rojas, I think he would have helped the 2025 bullpen. Him panning out as a SP given his injuries and lack of innings might be a bit of a long shot, but the profile seems there for a high leverage reliever. Of course it wouldn't have been a lock for him to come in and succeed right away, and the Jays wanted to maximize 2025, as they should, so this swap likely made sense for that reason. Will be interesting to see how this trade looks over the years. The Twins have done a good job developing RP's (as witnessed by the trade deadline) so Rojas is probably in a good spot if that's his best role. 

I mean Emmanuel Clase doesn't really strike anyone out (by closer standards) and he has been the best reliever by fWAR since 2020. Robert Suarez is another guy who throws really hard but doesn't strike a lot of batters out. These definitely may be outliers, and the best relievers traditionally are striking out 10+ per 9, but its not unprecedented. Varland should be able to get away with less than sexy K-rates if he can maintain his elite ability to induce groundballs (95th percentile this season) and BB%. But even still, his success is so newfound that its hard to really conclude that he can't get even better and start missing more bats as they refine his pitch mix/approach. His velocity blew up and he has completely changed his pitch mix, but there may be more refining left to do.

I think that Rojas is more of a control-over-command guy right now, so while his stuff should play out of the pen even right now, I don't think that there was much confidence that he wouldn't get hit around by MLB hitters. Its a small sample, but he has allowed 4 HR's in his two most recent outings in AA and AAA and has surrendered hits. He will be interesting to follow in AAA because it may turn out that he was just overpowering A+ hitters by throwing his pitches in the zone, but once you start facing better opposition you need to be able to throw quality strikes - not just strikes in order to not get hit around.

[jmomcc]

3 hours ago, BatFlip said:

Rojas was a tough one for sure. 

As everyone has speculated, the Jays must be considering the possibility of trying the starter route again or they see a high likelihood of Varland continuing to perform as a high leverage reliever.

Before a certain someone goes on a rant, everyone here knows that relievers have greater variability.  Greater variability does not mean complete randomness - relievers with great stuff and a younger age are still very valuable, just look at the multi-year contracts that educated GMs are signing high-end relievers to in free agency.

The Jays probably see Rojas as a likely high leverage reliever and valued the Varland control years x probability of performance > Roja's control years x probablity of performance and have dramatically lowered expectations on Roden in a show-me year given he turns 26 soon.  At the end of this year, I suspect Roden will have fallen way down the prospect rankings.  It's disappointing because I had high hopes for him at the beginning of the year, but prospects usually break your heart.

 

 

Its not just the variability. Its the opporunity cost. 

If we had 100 units of trade capital, we spent like 50 of them on the next 5 years. We don't know if we will be good those years. 1.5 WAR of good reliever is intensely useful when good and not so much when you aren't. 

We could spend all 100 units this year or mostly this year, and be better this year. We could have three relievers, a starter and a good bat. 

The whole thing is more sounds smart than actually smart to me. 

Also, money is cheaper for us. In real terms if a team has half our budget, then we can spend twice as much as them for the same value. Prospects are the same price, which means i'd be more willing to spend money and less willing to spend prospects. That's essentially what the dodgers gm was talking about when trying to get as much business done in the offseason as possible. We seem to be the opposite. We love paying for multiple years of control at the exact most expensive time to do so. 
 

The signings we should be making is from twins pitching dev. They obviously know what they are doing.
 

 

[metafour]

1 minute ago, jmomcc said:

We don't know if we will be good those years. 1.5 WAR of good reliever is intensely useful when good and not so much when you aren't. 

Sure, but if Varland is a 1.5 WAR reliever and we are bad in some future season, then you can just sell high on him at the deadline and recoup a lot of the capital that we paid to get him. A reliever who is performing well and throws 98-100 will never not be valuable at the trade deadline, and he has so much control left that its hard to imagine that we won't have an opportunity to extract value back out of him at some point in the event that the team isn't competitive 2-3 seasons from now (or whenever).

Of course that is dependent on him maintaining his performance, but that is why control is still valuable for a reliever. Look at Bednar with Pittsburgh: he completely fell apart last year, but because of the years of control they could build his value back up and still sell him for assets a year later. s***, its possible that Varland isn't even done improving and his value actually ends up increasing in future seasons.

[jmomcc]

3 minutes ago, metafour said:

Sure, but if Varland is a 1.5 WAR reliever and we are bad in some future season, then you can just sell high on him at the deadline and recoup a lot of the capital that we paid to get him. A reliever who is performing well and throws 98-100 will never not be valuable at the trade deadline, and he has so much control left that its hard to imagine that we won't have an opportunity to extract value back out of him at some point in the event that the team isn't competitive 2-3 seasons from now (or whenever).

Of course that is dependent on him maintaining his performance, but that is why control is still valuable for a reliever. Look at Bednar with Pittsburgh: he completely fell apart last year, but because of the years of control they could build his value back up and still sell him for assets a year later. s***, its possible that Varland isn't even done improving and his value actually ends up increasing in future seasons.

Yea, but that's the same deal. Why are we caring so much about finding ways to get value two years from now when we are good now. 

If i was projecting right now, i'd say we probably won't be a playoff team next year by projections. Why would you not maximize winning this year? 

[Terminator]

27 minutes ago, jmomcc said:

Yea, but that's the same deal. Why are we caring so much about finding ways to get value two years from now when we are good now. 

This is valid and is a good argument for why Duran would have been a better acquisition. A lot of the trade deadline is about improving the team right now.

[max silver]

1 hour ago, jmomcc said:

I

The signings we should be making is from twins pitching dev. They obviously know what they are doing.
 

 

If this is true then is it not conversely true that they are a good team to target for pitching acquisitions through trade?

[jmomcc]

15 minutes ago, max silver said:

If this is true then is it not conversely true that they are a good team to target for pitching acquisitions through trade?

It would probably be cheaper to get the people who develop the pitching. But yea, all the relievers they sold (i think there were 5?) look good. 

. 

[max silver]

12 minutes ago, jmomcc said:

It would probably be cheaper to get the people who develop the pitching. But yea, all the relievers they sold (i think there were 5?) look good. 

. 

That was a ridiculously stacked bullpen that they decided to liquidate at the deadline. 

[jmomcc]

4 minutes ago, max silver said:

That was a ridiculously stacked bullpen that they decided to liquidate at the deadline. 

You would think with the chaos around their franchise with the sale, now would be a good time to hire off them? 

[max silver]

3 minutes ago, jmomcc said:

You would think with the chaos around their franchise with the sale, now would be a good time to hire off them? 

Perhaps some of their front office staff could be poached in the offseason.

[Stangstag]

6 hours ago, Terminator said:

Truth is I'd probably rather have Duran. Throwing 102 sounds awesome and he's got a longer track record. I'm sure we tried.

But he will be making like 17 million or something over his final two arb years. Varland will be getting less than a million each of those years. So that's something like 8 mil a year which can get you something pretty decent.

Im sure money was a consideration. Its tough to have 2 guys in the bullpen making 15+ per year. We are tied to Hoffman for another couple seasons already.

Rotation is also expensive and we have to replace potentially 2 spots next season.

And then losing Bo… not sure what will be done with the INF situation 

[Vancouverite]

On 8/3/2025 at 8:43 PM, Terminator said:

We landed the best starter of the entire deadline which counts for something.

If you compare the individual deals I think we held our own too:

• Jays gave up #5.5 and #11 for 5.5 years of Varland.
• Phillies gave up #3 and #9 for 2.5 years of Duran.
• Mets gave up #5 and #13 for half a year of Tyler Rogers.

Some say 5.5 years of control doesn’t matter for relievers and I think that has some merit, but Varland is making the minimum for 2.5 more years and Duran will be getting paid pretty well via arb.

The Yankees pulled their usual heist. They traded nine prospects (ranked from #10–#91) for Bednar (1.5 years), Doval (2.5), and Bird (3.5). But those guys are in arb, Bednar/Doval were demoted this year, and Doval reportedly has makeup issues.

We gave up #35 for half a year of Dominguez. The Yanks may regret going quantity over quality. Sometimes those lesser ranked guys can pop. Tatis Jr. was a throw in for James Shields 9 years ago.

 

 

the bolded is the arguement i don't understand for folks.

On one hand we have Varland who has 5.5 years of control, has established himself as a bullpen arm and has MLB experience as a starter. Is young enough that can improve, or even convert back to a starter.

But... he's 5.5 years of control doesn't matter?

However, Rojas who is a prospect and hasn't thrown a pitch at the MLB level is a more valuable piece and his performance is more guaranteed?

The way i see it, both Rojas' and Varland's future performance is unpredictable. But, in Varland's case he's shown success at the MLB level so this is a very FAIR trade in my opinion and i'm happy we made it

[Vancouverite]

23 hours ago, jmomcc said:

Yea, but that's the same deal. Why are we caring so much about finding ways to get value two years from now when we are good now. 

If i was projecting right now, i'd say we probably won't be a playoff team next year by projections. Why would you not maximize winning this year? 

the simple, and most realistic, thing here is that the Twins probably liked the Phillies offer the most for Duran. Each team has their own scouting reports and version of top 50 prospects in each organization. I doubt they follow public lists. 

I'm pretty sure the Jays probably would've liked Duran over Varland too.

[sliderguy35]

1 minute ago, Vancouverite said:

 

the bolded is the arguement i don't understand for folks.

On one hand we have Varland who has 5.5 years of control, has established himself as a bullpen arm and has MLB experience as a starter. Is young enough that can improve, or even convert back to a starter.

But... he's 5.5 years of control doesn't matter?

However, Rojas who is a prospect and hasn't thrown a pitch at the MLB level is a more valuable piece and his performance is more guaranteed?

The way i see it, both Rojas' and Varland's future performance is unpredictable. But, in Varland's case he's shown success at the MLB level so this is a very FAIR trade in my opinion and i'm happy we made it

generally, reliever control is considered less valuable because A) even the good ones are usually only throwing 60-70 innings a year & B) their performance is a lot more volatile year to year. 

that being said, if i was going to bet on a reliever being good throughout their years of control, it's gonna be on the guy that throws 98-100 with a multi-year history of good command & groundball tendencies.

[Vancouverite]

6 minutes ago, sliderguy35 said:

generally, reliever control is considered less valuable because A) even the good ones are usually only throwing 60-70 innings a year & B) their performance is a lot more volatile year to year. 

that being said, if i was going to bet on a reliever being good throughout their years of control, it's gonna be on the guy that throws 98-100 with a multi-year history of good command & groundball tendencies.

thanks and i agree here. But, just frustrating to me on the push back on this Varland acquisition. Control does matter very much. Yes Varalnd could become the next Erik Swanson ... or he could continue being an elite arm for next 5 years or, converting back to a starter ... all at a very good cost-controlled contract.

It's a risk yes. But, that's baseball. Rojas is a risk too, he could amount to nothing, or could be the next Johan Santana. 

[Brownie19]

Varland could be the next Liam Hendriks.

[BB17]

3 minutes ago, Vancouverite said:

thanks and i agree here. But, just frustrating to me on the push back on this Varland acquisition. Control does matter very much. Yes Varalnd could become the next Erik Swanson ... or he could continue being an elite arm for next 5 years or, converting back to a starter ... all at a very good cost-controlled contract.

It's a risk yes. But, that's baseball. Rojas is a risk too, he could amount to nothing, or could be the next Johan Santana. 

I think the issue some people have is that you are buying Varland at peak value. 5 years of control is valuable but Varland has been good for exactly one year and could revert back to being nothing which means control of the asset doesn't mean much. Even his xERA suggests he's been more good versus elite, and even though he throws hard the lack of missing bats could mean more variable performance year to year.

I agree personally that you rather have the best possible player when targeting relievers especially for a team in a playoff race. Not only is reliever performance volatile but there is no guarantee the Jays are going to be good next year either so thats why I rather have the better player. Like would you rather have Braydon Fisher or Bryan Abreu/Griffin Jax? Fisher is having a great season and you have lots of control but he doesn't have a track record of command/success where as the other guys have been elite for a few years but you have less control.

Now no one really knows if the Jays prioritized getting a reliever with control over guys like Duran, Jax, Bednar etc.. Like someone else mentioned certain teams like certain prospects more so we don't really know if the Jays offered the same package for some of the better arms.  

[jmomcc]

46 minutes ago, Vancouverite said:

the simple, and most realistic, thing here is that the Twins probably liked the Phillies offer the most for Duran. Each team has their own scouting reports and version of top 50 prospects in each organization. I doubt they follow public lists. 

I'm pretty sure the Jays probably would've liked Duran over Varland too.

This is possibly true. I just think at the end of the day you probably get more for this year overall, if you don't spend on the next 5 years as well. 

I was reading some stuff about the red sox attempt to get Crochet, and how the proposed cost was way less than at a deadline, albeit still high. The offseason seems the best time to attempt those kinds of trades. 

[keggy]

Because of Varland's control, we have a good chance of winning this trade. If Varland is an elite reliever over the duration of his tenure and/or converts to an effective cost controlled SP (very unlikely I think), we win.  If Varland gets huge outs down the stretch and throughout the playoffs it's almost a moot point on who 'won', we'll take it.

If Rojas turns into an effective starter or Roden becomes a league average everyday player, they 'win'. The most likely outcome is that Rojas turns into a Varland level reliever in his pre-arb years and Roden becomes a decent bench player which is relatively even.