The 7 MLB Teams That Blew It at 2024 Trade Deadline

The 2024 Major League Baseball trade deadline has come and gone, leaving many fanbases scratching their heads and thinking, "Really? That's it?"

Talk of Tarik Skubal, Garrett Crochet, Vladimir Guerrero Jr., Bo Bichette, Mason Miller, Luis Robert Jr., Brent Rooker, Blake Snell and more all amounted to bupkis in a quantity-over-quality type of deadline.

There were significant swaps, for sure. Randy Arozarena to the Mariners and Jazz Chisholm Jr. to the Yankees were the two big ones. Isaac Paredes to the Cubs was quite the eyebrow-raiser, too. And throughout the roughly 70 trades that went down, most of the buyers and sellers did an adequate job within the lane they chose.

Several teams blew it, though, seemingly not realizing that Tuesday was the big day to either gear up for a pennant push or sell off everything that isn't nailed down.

Acquired: IF Miguel Vargas, IF Alexander Albertus, IF Jeral Perez, RHP Jarold Rosado, LHP Trey McGough, salary relief

Gave Up: RHP Erick Fedde, RHP Michael Kopech, OF Tommy Pham, SS Paul DeJong, DH Eloy Jiménez

Chicago's unloading Eloy Jiménez's contract just before the buzzer was one of the more impressive, surprising moves on deadline day. I have to commend the White Sox for that one. They saved themselves a little over $4 million for the rest of this season while also getting out from under the $3 million buyout that will be owed on his club option.

That little maneuver brought their deadline grade from an F- to a solid F+.

In what was clearly a seller's market, this 27-83 dumpster fire—which should have spent every single day of the past four months preparing to execute one of the biggest fire sales of all time—failed to unload its two biggest trade chips.

Garrett Crochet did the White Sox no favors whatsoever with the reports that he would insist upon a long-term extension before agreeing to pitch into October. Both he and Luis Robert Jr. have considerable injury history, too. Those wrinkles undoubtedly made it difficult for Chicago to fetch what it thought those two stars were worth.

Still, they botched both bidding wars, and the two players will now both go down with this sinking ship before instantly becoming top candidates to be traded this offseason.

And what in the world was that three-team trade with the Cardinals and Dodgers?

The Blue Jays got Jake Bloss, Joey Loperfido and Will Wagner from the Astros for two months of Yusei Kikuchi. But for a Tommy Pham rental and one-and-a-half seasons of both Erick Fedde and Michael Kopech, all the White Sox could muster was a utility man with a career bWAR of negative-0.2 and a pair of 19-year-old, single-A prospects?

Yikes.

Maybe Perez and Rosado will amount to something one day, but pretty much the entire MLB blogosphere agree that the Dodgers and Cardinals jointly fleeced the White Sox in that one.

Acquired: LHP Tyler Matzek, 3B Sabin Ceballos, LHP Alex Young, LHP Jacob Bresnahan, DH Mark Canha

Gave Up: DH Jorge Soler, RHP Luke Jackson, RHP Alex Cobb, OF Austin Slater, RHP Eric Silva

We can't particularly chastise the Giants for not trading away Blake Snell. There were a lot of teams buzzing around him in those final days leading up to the deadline, but his contract was always going to be a messy one to try to trade.

There's the player option for 2025, the fact that $15 million of the player option is deferred to 2027 and the $17 million signing bonus that won't be paid until January 2026. That's a lot of cost and unknown for an excellent pitcher yet someone who has made multiple trips to the IL already this season.

However, we can criticize the Giants for a third consecutive summer in which they seemed to make moves solely to be able to say they tried without actually accomplishing anything.

Even after winning their last four games heading into the deadline, they are both four games and four teams back in the NL wild-card race. Arguably, they should have been sellers and seemed to be teetering in that direction by trading Jorge Soler and Luke Jackson back to Atlanta and shipping Alex Cobb to Cleveland.

However, they didn't move Michael Conforto, which would've saved them around $6 million. We also never heard a single report of Matt Chapman or Robbie Ray being on the trade block, both of whom have a player option and may well walk this offseason.

Even with the Snell talk, it didn't sound like the Giants were shopping him anywhere near as much as it was a case of other teams expressing an interest in Snell if they happened to be willing to move him.

Worse yet, they undid a decent chunk of their Soler/Jackson/Cobb payroll slashing by trading for Mark Canha's near-$4 million prorated salary at the last minute.

It all just feels like a team that tried to fudge its way through the deadline without any real plan...yet again.

Acquired: LHP Samuel Aldegheri, RHP George Klassen, 1B Niko Kavadas, IF Matthew Lugo, RHP Yeferson Vargas, RHP Ryan Zeferjahn

Gave Up: RHP Carlos Estévez, RHP Luis García

The going-nowhere-fast Angels did procure a decent haul of prospects for their two primary relievers on expiring deals. In particular, the duo they got from the Phillies (Aldegheri and Klassen) have a lot of promise and could be starters in this rotation by 2026.

What about all their other trade chips, though?

Both LHP Tyler Anderson and IF Luis Rengifo should have been worth quite a bit in this year's market, but they couldn't manage to move either.

(Do they actually think they'll be in a position to contend in 2025 and that's why they didn't move either player with one year of team control remaining?)

It's a little more understandable not to trade Taylor Ward with two years of arbitration eligibility remaining, but he could also have easily been on the move for perhaps more than the Nationals got for Lane Thomas, though not quite as much as what the Marlins got for Jazz Chisholm Jr.

Hunter Strickland should've been traded.

Kevin Pillar absolutely could've and should've been dealt.

Griffin Canning and Luis Guillorme were at least candidates to be moved.

Again, great job with the two trades they did get done. But the Halos put a half-hearted effort into what could have been a future-improving fire sale on par with what the Tampa Bay Rays pulled off.

Acquired: DH Jorge Soler, RHP Luke Jackson

Gave Up: LHP Tyler Matzek, 3B Sabin Ceballos

Heading into Tuesday, the Chicago White Sox had the worst record in baseball dating back to July 9. The very bad AL Central basement-dwellers had gone 1-15 in their last 16 games.

The next-worst record?

The Atlanta Braves at 5-10, plummeting to within one game of missing the playoffs altogether.

No team has been leaking oil quite like this one, which was neck-and-neck with the Dodgers for World Series co-favorites heading into the season. This is in large part because they've become a walking hospital ward.

Spencer Strider and Ronald Acuña Jr. have been long gone at this point, but they've also lost Michael Harris II, Ozzie Albies and Max Fried to the IL. Meanwhile, Reynaldo López skipped a turn through the rotation the other day because of forearm tightness, which almost never ends well.

If any team was going to go all-in and make a big splash for a package of Luis Robert Jr. and Garrett Crochet—or a less-big-but-still-significant tandem of Tyler Anderson and Luis Rengifo—it sure seemed likely Atlanta would be that team.

Instead, for the first time in a long time, we're left to question what exactly Alex Anthopoulos and Co. were trying to accomplish.

The Braves made just one trade and attempted to upgrade...the only position that clearly doesn't need any help?

Marcell Ozuna has been almost single-handedly keeping this team's head above water, flirting with a possible triple crown while starting every single game of Atlanta's season at DH. Yet, it traded for Soler, who was a DH for the vast majority of last season and the entirety of this season.

He can play corner outfield, but what a strange choice. It seems to stem from nothing other than a desire to get the 2021 band back together again. (Luke Jackson was also a key part of that World Series squad.)

They should have grabbed a middle infielder, an actual outfielder and at least one decent starting pitcher. That would have inspired some hope they could salvage this sinking ship.

Acquired: LHP Andrew Chafin, C Carson Kelly, LHP Walter Pennington

Gave Up: RHP Michael Lorenzen, C Liam Hicks, RHP Tyler Owens, RHP Joseph Montalvo, RHP Chase Lee

On the one hand, we've been saying for months that the Rangers probably wouldn't do much of anything at the trade deadline, doing the bulk of their "buying" in the form of getting guys back from the IL.

To that end, they did finally get Josh Jung back into the lineup on Tuesday after nearly four months on the shelf. They also activated Cody Bradford from the IL and might just be a week or so away from Tyler Mahle's 2024 debut. Jacob deGrom is still progressing, too, and might be back by the end of August.

But at 3.5 games back in the AL West and six games out of the wild-card picture, is that enough?

The Carson Kelly pickup was a good call. Andrew Knizner wasn't doing the Rangers any good as the backup catcher. Adding Andrew Chafin's left-handed pitching to the bullpen was a similarly respectable move.

Neither is a game-changer, though.

And while trading away Michael Lorenzen originally seemed like a logical move in light of the pitching on the mend, doing so right after losing Jon Gray to the IL was more than a little puzzling.

At the very least, Texas should have been in the market for Luis Robert Jr. or Jazz Chisholm Jr. Leody Taveras has been operating at a replacement level all season, and it doesn't sound like Evan Carter is returning any time soon.

Going from "isn't actively hurting us" to "legitimately helping the offense" with the primary center fielder would have been a game-changer.

Instead, while Houston hopes to have improved its rotation with the addition of Yusei Kikuchi and while Seattle went pretty all-in by trading for Randy Arozarena, Yimi Garcia and more, the reigning champs may have lost even more ground in that AL West race by trying to just tinker a little bit.

Acquired: RHP Trevor Richards

Gave Up: IF Jay Harry

Can the Twins possibly continue getting away with doing nothing?

During the offseason, they lost way more talent than they gained. Sonny Gray, Michael A. Taylor, Donovan Solano, Emilio Pagan and Kenta Maeda all walked as free agents. They traded Jorge Polanco for four players who have yet to appear in an MLB game in 2024. The only acquisition of any particular note was Carlos Santana.

Somehow, though, their winning percentage has improved from last season, and they presently have a loose grip on the No. 5 seed in the AL postseason picture. The Twins are one game ahead of Kansas City, two ahead of Boston and 3.5 ahead of the Houston/Seattle stalemate atop the AL West.

The Mets and Padres are in a similar spot in the NL, and they went pretty hard at the trade deadline to try to stay there. New York got Paul Blackburn, Jesse Winker, Phil Maton and a few others. San Diego traded for Tanner Scott and Jason Adam in hopes of putting the finishing touches on an elite bullpen and also took a last-second flyer on Martín Pérez.

Minnesota? Twiddled its thumbs and opted to just let it ride.

The Twins did make one minor move, acquiring Trevor Richards and his 5.00 ERA dating back to the beginning of 2022.

That's it, though.

Every other team added at least two pieces at the trade deadline, but Minnesota's lone acquisition was a reclamation reliever who has allowed 15 earned runs dating back to July 4.

Can the Twins stay ahead of those teams right behind them that made a bunch of trades (especially Kansas City), or will they have to answer in two months for their persistent insistence on not investing any more in this team?

Acquired: LHP Luis Peralta, RHP Bradley Blalock, RHP Yujanyer Herrera

Gave Up: LHP Jalen Beeks, RHP Nick Mears

One of these years, the Colorado Rockies are going to figure out how to be a proper seller at the trade deadline.

Goodness knows they've had enough learning opportunities.

This was most definitely not that year, though.

In Elias Díaz and Jacob Stallings, Colorado had two of the best catchers on the trade block. The former is an impending free agent, while the latter might as well be an impending free agent with a mutual option for 2025. And they have a combined batting average of around .270.

But while Boston sent Toronto a nice package of prospects for Danny Jansen and Texas acquired Carson Kelly from Detroit, Colorado still has Díaz and Stallings on its roster.

OK, though. Maybe the Rockies were more focused on moving starting pitchers Cal Quantrill and Austin Gomber, both with one year of arbitration eligibility remaining and enjoying what is (by Colorado standards) a solid year on the mound.

Or how about moving Brendan Rodgers, who also has one more year of arbitration eligibility and whose career .265 batting average and one Gold Glove at second base surely would have generated a ton of interest in a market lacking for middle infielders—especially with the Angels not trading Luis Rengifo?

Maybe some payroll slashing in the form of Ryan McMahon, who is owed about $48 million between now and the end of 2027, but who might have been of interest to a team like the Yankees and Dodgers who have been grasping at straws at third base all season?

No? None of those things?

Just a pair of relievers who had a combined ERA of 5.13 for the year and were never going to net the Rockies anything close to a top-tier prospect?

Cool. Business as usual in Colorado.

It must be cozier in that NL West basement than it looks.