Everybody exhale. More than 12 hours removed from Thursday's 6 p.m. ET trade deadline, we're still trying to process everything that went down in one of the most hectic days baseball has seen in a while. All-Stars changed teams. The league's pecking order got flipped on its head. AJ Preller may have traded a member of his own family, we can't be sure.
It's still far too early to know who truly won and who lost this year's deadline. But it's not too early to know that certain executives have much more riding on the end of this season than others. Whether it's because they risked everything or because they didn't risk enough, the next two or three months will go a long way to deciding which front offices will be looking a lot different next year. Who put their job squarely on the line thanks what they did (or didn't) do at the deadline? Let's break it down.
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7. Nick Krall, Cincinnati Reds
The Reds entered play on Thursday at 57-52, armed with one of the better rotations in baseball and with a very real chance of catching the San Diego Padres for the third and final Wild Card spot in the National League. They ended it with a brutal, 12-11 loss to the Atlanta Braves, the cherry on top of a miserable deadline day that saw Krall largely sit on his hands while the Padres (and other NL contenders) went for broke.
Cincy made three deals in all. First, Krall acquired righty Zack Littell from the Tampa Bay Rays. Then came two bats, third baseman Ke'Bryan Hayes and utility man Miguel Andujar. All three additions make sense in a vacuum: Littell allows the team to bolster its bullpen by shifting Nick Martinez and/or Chase Burns into relief roles without a huge downgrade to the starting staff. Hayes upgrades the infield defense tremendously while sliding Noelvi Marte into an outfield spot he's better suited for, and Andujar gives the Reds a desperately needed option against left-handed pitching.
But the trade deadline doesn't happen in a vacuum. The teams immediately around Cincinnati all got better. Krall, meanwhile, was once again content to tinker on the margins, keeping his team afloat without really moving it forward. The Reds' window is far from closed with so many homegrown talents under team control for years to come, but it's becoming increasingly clear that Krall isn't the guy to get them over the hump. Hunter Greene, Andrew Abbott, Nick Lodolo and Elly De La Cruz are all ready to win now, if only they had a bit more help.
6. Dave Dombrowski, Philadelphia Phillies
It might be surprising to see Dombrowski on this list, given that he started Philly's trade deadline with a bang by landing dominant reliever Jhoan Duran from the Minnesota Twins — while only parting with two prospects, Eduardo Tait and Mick Abel, who were blocked in the immediate term at the MLB level. The Phillies needed to come away with impact bullpen talent, and they did so in impressive fashion.
From there, though, Dombrowski largely sat things out. Sure, he finally found someone to put Max Kepler out of a job, acquiring outfielder Harrison Bader in another deal with Minnesota. But while Bader can hit lefties and is an excellent defender, he doesn't bring the sort of offensive punch the Phillies current outfield unit is sorely lacking.
The offensive inconsistencies that have plagued this team for years now still persist, and while Duran overhauls the bullpen overnight, he doesn't address Philly's lack of relief depth; he's only one man, after all, and Jordan Romano, Tanner Banks and David Robertson will still be relied on for crucial outs. The Phillies got better, but they may not have done enough to finally get over the hump, and another October flameout could crank up the heat under Dombrowski's seat.
5. Scott Harris, Detroit Tigers
Speaking of executives who love to fiddle on the margins rather than go for broke: Harris does know that at some point he'll have to actually push his chips to the middle of the table, right?
You'd think that 2025, with a team currently tied for the best record in the AL and Tarik Skubal set to hit free agency after next season, would've been the year to do just that. And yet all Detroit did was add Charlie Morton to the back of its rotation and hope that a gaggle of uninspiring relievers (Kyle Finnegan, Paul Sewald, Rafael Montero and Codi Heuer) will amount to more than the sum of their parts. No impact arms, no additions at all to an offense that could really use them.
The Tigers will likely cruise to an AL Central title and a top-two seed in the playoff bracket. And Detroit is still positioned well for the future, with one of the deepest farm systems in the sport. Eventually, though, you need to translate all that potential into production, and instead Harris has left a contending team out to dry. Just ask the Baltimore Orioles how taking your competitive window for granted can come back to haunt you.
4. Ross Atkins, Toronto Blue Jays
Maybe this is harsh. Atkins and the Jays have been one of the pleasant surprises of the season so far, and he deserves credit for both avoiding disaster with Vladimir Guerrero Jr. and assembling a team that currently leads the AL East. Plus, it's not like Toronto had a bad deadline by any means: Shane Bieber is a big swing worth taking in the rotation, and Seranthony Dominguez and Louie Varland are necessary bullpen additions.
But the fact remains that Atkins (and president Mark Shapiro) is still in the final year of his contract, and he still has a lot to prove. This deadline haul was solid, but it certainly wasn't spectacular; Bieber and Max Scherzer come with a lot of risk, and you're asking a lot of an offense that has punched above its weight to date (and whose bench is still somewhat thin). If the Blue Jays don't make a deep October push, it's entirely possible that the team will opt to clean house in its front office. Atkins better hope that he's pulled the right levers.
3. Craig Breslow, Boston Red Sox
Of course, it helps that one of Toronto's main rivals for the division crown slept through much of this trade deadline season. With a young, ascending lineup and Garrett Crochet atop the rotation, Boston seemed well-positioned to be big buyers on Thursday. Instead, Craig Breslow did what he's always done: He played it safe, agreeing to a couple of moderate deals for lefty reliever Steven Matz and Dodgers righty Dustin May.
This isn't an indictment of either of those players; Matz will certainly help a bullpen in need of it, and May has tantalizing stuff that the Red Sox might be able to unlock either in the rotation or long relief. But still: That's it? This rotation is running on fumes, with precious little in the way of reliable innings behind Crochet, and Breslow apparently wasn't even close to the Twins' asking price for Joe Ryan?
Much like Detroit, Boston is positioned smartly for the future. But much like Detroit, you start to wonder whether the future will ever actually convert to the present. The Red Sox had the talent and the opportunity to cement their status as AL favorites, and instead Breslow once again insisted on being the most rational man in a fundamentally irrational market.
2. Jed Hoyer, Chicago Cubs
Really, you could copy and paste everything I just said about Breslow and apply it to Hoyer as well. Except it's somehow even worse, because the 2025 season is even more pressing for the Chicago Cubs than it is for the Red Sox.
This is your only guaranteed season with Kyle Tucker; big names like Ian Happ, Nico Hoerner and Seiya Suzuki are hitting free agency in the next year or two; you have a budding, cost-controlled MVP candidate in Pete Crow-Armstrong, arguably the best offense in baseball and are in a dogfight with the Milwaukee Brewers for the NL Central crown. If you're not going all-in now, will you ever?
Apparently, for Hoyer, the answer is no. Chicago wasn't willing to outbid the Seattle Mariners for Eugenio Suarez, and they weren't willing to pry Ryan from Minnesota or Sandy Alcantara from Miami. Heck, they couldn't even add a rental starter like Merrill Kelly or Zac Gallen, instead settling for Washington Nationals righty Michael Soroka. The rotation and bullpen remain big question marks, and while Willi Castro will help the bench, he won't help quell concerns about whether rookie Matt Shaw is ready to lock down the third base job. The Cubs had the motive and the prospects to be the big winners of this deadline; that they didn't should have fans awfully nervous about Hoyer's recent extension.
1. AJ Preller, San Diego Padres
Could it be anybody else? I'm not sure whether I like all or even most of what Preller did during one of the most frenetic few hours any MLB front office has ever had, but I do admire the chutzpah. San Diego added A's star closer Mason Miller to what was already the best bullpen in baseball, then patched big holes in his lineup by bringing in Freddy Fermin from Kansas City and Ramon Laureano and Ryan O'Hearn from Baltimore. The result is a totally overhauled roster, one that still has some depth concerns in the rotation but looks pretty darn good everywhere else.
Of course, there's still no guarantee it will be enough. The Dodgers remain kings of the NL West, and the Padres will also have the Mets, Phillies, Cubs and Brewers to worry about in what figures to be a loaded playoff bracket. And again, the starting rotation remains murky, with Michael King and Nestor Cortes coming back from serious injury and Yu Darvish starting to show his age. If San Diego finally gets back to the World Series for the first time in more than 25 years, all will be forgiven. If they fall short, though, the future starts to look grim, and the decision to give up top prospect Leo De Vries could haunt this team the way James Wood already does.