Archetypes of the MLB trade deadline: The Ace, the Shutdown Closer and more

New York Times

6 days ago

Every trade deadline is different; every trade deadline is the same.
Every deadline includes buyers and sellers and teams stuck in the middle. Every deadline has dozens of relievers and one solitary catcher available — and he might not even get moved. Every deadline has the same basic parameters.
But the details of each deadline differ. There's always an ace on the table, but some years it's a future Hall of Famer and others it's a guy who will linger on the free-agent market for months. There's always a handful of back-end starters who switch uniforms, but sometimes he turns into a front-end starter by October.
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So, to get a sense of the 2025 trade deadline, we're going to examine seven different 'archetypes' for a deadline acquisition: the ace, the shutdown closer, the one-time star, the extra bat, the back-end starter, the reliever you've never heard of, and the guy for next year. How do this year's versions of those archetypes match up to previous deadlines?
This is the jewel of the trade deadline — the single player who lifts a team from a fringe to a legitimate contender. This is Randy Johnson to the Houston Astros, Cliff Lee to the Texas Rangers, David Price to the Toronto Blue Jays, Max Scherzer to the Los Angeles Dodgers. With apologies to all of those aces, who were nails down the stretch for their new teams, nobody owned this dynamic quite like Sabathia with the Milwaukee Brewers in 2008. Acquired in early July, Sabathia ended up making 17 starts, completing seven of them, and pitching to a 1.65 ERA. Milwaukee went 14-3 in those games; it made the postseason by a game.
Short of the Pittsburgh Pirates changing their mind on Paul Skenes, nobody this year (or last year, for that matter) looms as that kind of difference-maker. And yes, I understand the absurdity of choosing as this year's 'ace' someone in Sandy Alcántara who carries an ERA over seven into the All-Star break. But nobody else on our latest MLB trade deadline Big Board has won a Cy Young (as Alcántara did in 2022), and nobody else tantalizes pitching coaches across the league with what he could be with one simple adjustment.
This is the giveaway that a front office thinks it doesn't just have a good team, but that it has a team that can win a championship. This is when an otherwise smart front office gives up more than it knows it should to feel better about the final three to six outs of games in October. You can't follow baseball in July and not hear someone recall Theo Epstein's rationale for trading Gleyber Torres for Aroldis Chapman in 2016: 'If not now, when?'
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Emmanuel Clase is not having the type of historically good season he had in 2024 for the Cleveland Guardians; in fact, he's already allowed nine more earned runs than he did all of last year. But you can attribute a lot of the jump in ERA to a skyrocketing BABIP and a bad strand rate; the peripheral numbers aren't that far off from where they were last year, and he's still just 27. Plus, Clase represents a twist on the genre because of his extended team control. An acquiring team would have Clase under contract inexpensively through 2028, which provides huge value and, of course, plenty of reason for the Guardians to hold on to him if they don't think the offers are worthwhile.
This is a player who's no longer at the peak of his value but still is talented enough to make a difference in a pennant race. By 2021, though Kris Bryant had come down from the heights of his 2016 MVP with the Chicago Cubs, he was putting together a strong season in his platform year when he was dealt to the San Francisco Giants. He helped San Francisco hold off the Dodgers in the NL West and then had a monster NLDS in the loss to L.A., hitting .471 and starting games in four positions, including center field.
Ozzie Albies was never quite the star that Bryant was, but he's a three-time All-Star who's only 28 and under cheap team control for two more seasons after this one. He's followed up a subpar season in 2024 with a pretty miserable one this year, but his talent and relative youth could intrigue a team that thinks he just needs a change of scenery.
This is the deal that doesn't get its own headlines during the deadline but rather an 'oh, by the way, they picked up (Player X)' kind of story, right up until Player X wins the LCS or World Series MVP — or, if you're the 2021 Atlanta Braves, both. Maybe it's cheating to include all four extra bats Atlanta acquired at that deadline, but no individual one represented a significant move at the time. The collective quartet ended up playing huge roles in the club's comeback from under .500 to win the World Series.
Ramon Laureano has been tremendous for an underachieving Baltimore Orioles team that should probably open up regular playing time for some younger pieces. The veteran has just continued the uptick in production he started last season when Atlanta picked him up in late May. The difference is the way Laureano has crushed righties this year, rather than lefties.
This is the guy you pick up to help you get to the postseason and maybe start Game 4 once there. Each of the three times J.A. Happ was moved at the deadline as a veteran (since the other two times he was dealt at the deadline in his 20s don't matter here), he exceeded those expectations. If those three post-deadline stints with Pittsburgh, the New York Yankees and the St. Louis Cardinals constituted one single season, Happ would have won a Cy Young: In 33 starts after getting dealt, he went 19-4 with a 2.78 ERA.
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Besides being another lefty whose surname begins with H, Andrew Heaney fits the back-end bill. Over the last three seasons, he's reliably taken the ball every turn, keeping his team in the game with an ERA in the low 4s. He started in the World Series for the champion Rangers in 2023. Most every contending team would take that from their No. 4 or No. 5 starter.
This deal has become particularly popular as of late, with good teams snatching up middling relievers from bad teams and turning them into something better. It almost seems unfair when the Yankees can take a guy like Clay Holmes, who pitched in the sixth and seventh innings for the Pirates, and make him, over time, into their closer. Pittsburgh, for what it's worth, has extracted some revenge by claiming Dennis Santana from New York and turning him into an excellent reliever over the last 13 months.
If I could accurately pinpoint the reliever with pedestrian stats who'd take off somewhere else, I'd be working in a front office. But let's highlight Brandon Eisert, a 27-year-old rookie left-hander who doesn't hit 90 and whose ERA is near 5. His strikeout-to-walk ratio is better than 4-to-1, and his BABIP is elevated by pitching in front of one of the sport's poorer defenses.
This is a move that often raises an eyebrow, that lets you know that a team that isn't exactly in the middle of a playoff hunt this year thinks it should be part of the mix the next season. The 2019 New York Mets were listening on offers for Zack Wheeler and Noah Syndergaard when they acquired Marcus Stroman from Toronto, mainly to take Wheeler's spot in the rotation the next year. (It didn't work out: Wheeler's resurgence with the Mets has just kept going for six years with the Philadelphia Phillies, and Stroman opted out of the 2020 season.)
The 10th pick in the 2020 draft, Reid Detmers has rebounded from a miserable 2024 by shifting to the bullpen and becoming a late-game monster. He's controlled for two seasons beyond this, and an acquiring team could even consider trying him back in the rotation. (The Los Angeles Angels are not exactly known for getting the most out of their pitchers.) If the Halos decide to move him, Detmers could be a big help in a pennant race this year. But the 25-year-old — you read that age right — carries significant appeal for teams looking to add pitching beyond this season, which could allow Los Angeles to bring back a haul for him.
(Photo of CC Sabathia celebrating a wild-card berth with the 2008 Brewers: Darren Hauck / Getty Images)