MLB trade deadline Weird & Wild: Eugenio Suárez, A.J. Prelller and a crazy save stat

New York Times

01-08-2025

What a day. What a week. What a deadline.
Eugenio Suárez! Carlos Correa! Mason Miller! The Rogers twins! Seranthony Domínguez! They all got mixed up in the Weirdest and Wildest trades of the week. Which means …
It took this very special Weird and Wild Trade Deadline Extravaganza to sum up their exploits. You're welcome!
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I don't know what you were thinking when the Mariners — a team that already had one league's home run leader (Cal Raleigh) — traded for a guy who has spent much of this season as the other league's home run leader (Suárez). But here's what I was thinking:
Has anyone ever seen that before?
So I asked that question of my friends at STATS Perform. And the answer was …
Yes, but barely!
If we start in 1995, which is about when the trade deadline took on its current meaning in North American baseball life, no team had ever employed the league leader in home runs and then traded for the other league's leader in home runs. But there's a good reason for that. Namely …
If we go back to '95, no player who was leading either league in homers had ever gotten traded, period, regardless of where he was headed.
Anyone else find that shocking? I did.
So what were the closest calls? Here they come — the only other players who ranked in the top four in their league in homers at the time they were traded, according to STATS:
But that's not all, because, as you may have noticed, the Mariners also have their league's RBI leader hanging out in the middle of the lineup. That would also be a guy named Cal Raleigh. And guess who was leading the other league in RBIs? Right. A fellow named Eugenio Suárez.
So why not ask: Has any team ever made a deal like that before? And that answer, according to STATS, is …
Nope!
Since 1995, the league leader in RBIs has never been traded at any point in the regular season … until now … when he was traded to a team that already had the other league's leader in RBIs. Amazing. Only in …
Baseball!
But wait. We're not through with Eugenio Suárez yet. Here was my next question about him:
He heads for Seattle with 36 long balls already in the books. So can he hit enough homers for the Mariners to set the record for most home runs in a season by a man who played for more than one team that year?
Well, it's possible, but he'll need to keep mashing, because the number to catch is a big one. He's 22 away! Here comes that leaderboard:
(Source: Lee Sinins' Complete Baseball Encyclopedia)
Mark McGwire bashed 24 home runs in just 51 games after he got peddled to St. Louis in 1997. The Mariners had 53 games left when Suárez joined them Thursday night. The most homers he has ever hit in any 53-game span is also 24, in 2019. His most this year? That would be 23. So all he'll need is one more streak like those two, and he'll make some pretty cool history.
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Then there's this awesome tidbit from STATS.
Have we mentioned that the Mariners just traded for a dude with 36 homers (in Suárez)? We have.
Have we mentioned that they already had another dude with 41 homers (in Raleigh)? Yep, that came up, too.
According to STATS, only one other team in history has roared into August with two players on its roster who each had at least 35 homers that year. And they were these two guys:
Roger Maris — 40
Mickey Mantle — 39
That team was the fabled 1961 Yankees. It went on to win the World Series. Maris went on to break the coolest record in sports. So if the Mariners want to dream of history repeating itself, who am I to stop them?
Have you caught the same case of Eugenio-mania that I caught? I hope so, because I've got one more of these!
If you've already gotten the impression it's kinda rare for a team to trade a player like Eugenio Suárez at the deadline, hey, I'm not done hammering that point home, because …
On April 26, Eugenio hit four home runs … for the Diamondbacks.
On July 30, Eugenio then got traded … by the Diamondbacks.
Again, I asked STATS: Has that ever happened?
Depends how you frame it. One one hand, STATS found three other men in history who had a four-homer game in a season in which they played for two teams:
On the other hand, all three of those men hit four homers after they got traded. So once again, how many teams have ever traded away a player who had thumped four home runs for them in one game earlier that season? As always in this column, 'none' is the best guess out there.
All right, we're finally moving on. Next question! What's more fun than a big-time reunion? If you've been to one of your high school reunions lately, don't answer that!
The reason I ask, of course, is that now it's Carlos Correa's turn to star in his own reunion show — back in Houston, where he was traded by the Twins on Thursday.
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This deal is staggering on lots of levels, but here's the Weirdest and Wildest:
Once upon a time, in his previous life, Correa played in 79 postseason games for the Astros, only to leave and (now) return. Does that seem like a lot? I'll vote yes.
I got so curious about that, I fired that question at the gang from STATS, too. And what did I learn? That it's the most games in history by a player who left and then was reacquired by the team he played for in all those October games. Your leaderboard:
If you're curious, only two of those previous re-acquisitions were via a midseason deal: Kiké Hernández to L.A. in 2023 and Jim Thome back to Cleveland in 2011.
How many relief pitchers got traded at this deadline? I lost count. Was it 50? Or 450? Maybe ChatGPT could tell us. Or not.
I do know that Jhoan Duran got traded. And Ryan Helsley got traded. And Mason Miller got traded. Not to mention Camilo Doval, David Bednar and Kyle Finnegan.
These were huge deals, for big names, and filled with excellent intentions. Now here's a secret the teams that made those trades might not want to know:
The modern save rule arrived in this sport in 1969. In all that time, how many closers would you guess were traded in midseason and then went on to save the last game of the World Series that year?
Hint: It's not a big number … by which we mean zero!
I am not making this up. I promise. We've seen starters save those games (MadBum!) and match-up relievers save those games (Josh Sborz!) and all sorts of unlikely pitchers save those games (Mike Montgomery!). But no team has ever traded for a new closer in the middle of a season and had that guy save that game. Yes, really.
The closest call? In 2019, the Nationals traded for Daniel Hudson, and he got the last out of that World Series. But … it wasn't a save situation … and he wasn't 'the closer.' He was acquired mostly to be Sean Doolittle's setup man. But he did save five games in September and four more in the postseason with Doolittle battling a knee issue.
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At any rate, I said that was close! But again, it wasn't a save. So here's the list you've been waiting for, of every pitcher who got 'the last out' of the World Series after pitching for another team earlier that season. Hat tip: MLB Network Research Department.
2019: Daniel Hudson, Nationals
2016: Mike Montgomery, Cubs
1977: Mike Torrez, Yankees
1961: Bud Daley, Yankees
1951: Bob Kuzava, Yankees
1926: Grover Cleveland Alexander, Cardinals
Only Montgomery recorded an official 'save,' via the rules we use these days. Kuzava and Alexander would have gotten a save, but that was in an era where there actually was no such thing as a 'closer' who would even remotely resemble, say, Mason Miller.
So good luck to all those teams that emptied the farm system this week. But this is just a reminder. Baseball is weird!
At one point Thursday, after the Mason Miller deal went down, I wrote a mini-column pronouncing A.J. Preller, the GM/president of baseball ops for the Padres, as 'the king of the deadline.' Hoo boy. That was a popular take.
Thanks to all of you who so helpfully pointed out that you must have missed all the Padres parades those deadline deals led to. OK, I get your gist. I even acknowledged that myself!
But let's do it this way. Just since 2022, Preller has traded for 13 All-Stars in midseason. Yes, I said 13. That counts players who made the All-Star team after he traded for them, too. But whatever. Here they are:
2022: Juan Soto, Josh Hader, Josh Bell, Taylor Rogers, Brent Rooker
2023: Garrett Cooper
2024: Luis Arraez, Martín Pérez, Tanner Scott, Jason Adam
2025: Mason Miller, Ryan O'Hearn, Nestor Cortes
By my count, the Padres had to trade away 37 prospects (plus a handful of veteran players) to make those deals. So that's also a nutty number. But it's all just part of A.J.'s wild ride — and a reminder that no GM in modern times has been more aggressive in-season, and at the deadline in particular, than A.J. Preller.
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So how rare is it for any team to trade for 13 All-Stars in the middle of a season in a span of only four seasons? STATS dug into that for me, too. If we start the search in 1993, we find only two GMs/PBOs in all that time who traded for at least 13 players in-season who were All-Stars at some point in their careers. And it's exactly who you'd expect.
There's Preller and … Alex Anthopoulos of the Braves. Who else?
Anthopoulos pulled off all his wheeling and dealing in the 2018-19-20-21 seasons, by acquiring all of these guys: Kevin Gausman, Brad Brach, Adam Duvall (twice), Darren O'Day, Jonny Venters, Mark Melancon, Shane Greene, Chris Martin, Joc Pederson, Stephen Vogt, Orlando Arcia and Jorge Soler.
Asterisk alert! If a GM trades for the same player twice, should that count as one or two? I gave full credit for Duvall, but feel free to cast your votes.
Of course, Anthopoulos' work at the 2021 deadline turned his team into a World Series winner. So I know you'll all want to give him the crown here. But the point is, nobody loves the deadline like the president of baseball ops of the Padres. And I think I just proved it!
Speaking of the Padres … they went into deadline day leading the major leagues in bullpen ERA … and they employed the reliever who was leading the entire sport in saves (Robert Suarez) … and then, because A.J., they traded for Mason Miller.
So who else has done something like that? Nobody has done something like that.
Miller had 20 saves at the time. And the only other team STATS could find in the last 30 years that had the best bullpen ERA in baseball and then traded for a pitcher who even had 10 saves (or more) was the 2007 Red Sox. Those Sox traded for Eric Gagne (who had 16). But they weren't adding him to the team with the major-league saves leader. So never mind!
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O Brother Where Art Thou … There's nothing I aspire to get more mileage out of than the Taylor-and-Tyler Rogers brother act. Like that time two 'twins' pitched against the Twins in 2023? Still one of my favorite notes of the decade.
Then came Wednesday, when they both got traded on the same day! First Taylor went from the Reds to the Pirates (only to have the Pirates flip him again the next day to the Cubs). Then, just minutes later, Tyler went from the Giants to the Mets.
What were the odds of 2 twins being traded today before any Twins? https://t.co/GYGefqKHAc
— Jayson Stark (@jaysonst) July 30, 2025
So yes, of course they're the first twins traded on the same day. And according to the great Sarah Langs of MLB, only two other sets of non-twin brothers have ever been traded, in separate deals, on the same day: Hal and Danny Breeden in 1970, and Hank and Ed Sauer in 1949. If only there had been such a thing as a Weird and Wild column back then!
The road to Canada … has never felt shorter than it must have felt to Seranthony Domínguez this week. On Tuesday, he got mixed up in the trade of the century, when he got dealt from the Orioles to the Blue Jays — between games of a doubleheader between the Orioles and the Blue Jays!
So was that a thing? If I had 10 bucks for everyone who thought I was just the right person to tell them how many other players in history had worn the uniform of both teams in a doubleheader, I could have bought Camden Yards and the entire Inner Harbor.
OK, here's the deal. We only know of one other player who can make that claim. On May 30, 1922, Max (Killing Me Softly) Flack started for the Cubs in right field in Game 1 of a doubleheader against the Cardinals … and then started in right for the Cardinals in Game 2 (and even got a hit against the team he started the day with). Hat tip: Lee Sinins.
So that was fun. But so was this post, from one of my favorite X accounts.
Is the Seranthony Dominguez trade the first in baseball history in which a player was traded to another country and only had to travel about 100 feet to get there? @jaysonst is that Weird and Wild enough?
— MLB Scoring Changes (@ScoringChanges) July 30, 2025
My mapping app tells me that Seranthony will get 460 miles worth of moving expenses for that deal. But where else could a guy walk down a hallway in Baltimore for like a minute and a half and wind up in Canada? Yep, only in …
Baseball!
(Top photo of Eugenio Suárez: Steph Chambers / Getty Images)