Question of the week: Grade the trade deadline

[Brock Beauchamp]

Now that the dust has settled, what grade do you give?

[Jason Ross]

I think the baseline was met the moment they addressed their need for a playoff starter. Getting a second playoff starter, a leverage reliever who has five years of control, and a hitter you can have hit lefties to boot pushes it from the baseline and well above. 

The only thing that they didn't get was a controlled starter. While I won't adjust my grade later regardless, Clay Holmes feels like he could remain with the organization beyond 2026 with an extension at some pointz so that may still be addressed. That would have gone to A territory for me.

As for the cost, Rojas for Holmes/Taylor feels steep on paper, but I really think the value on Rojas both internally and around the league does not match what we thought it would have. I was shocked at first but today, I am far less surprised. The Cubs didn't hold as high of a view on him and I really am not sure the league did either. Moises Ballesteros was the oddman out and based on how the Cubs acted about the catching position, it feels like they had soured on his defensive future. 

Beyond that, I think the Cubs gave up spare parts. Every prospect that was traded at the deadline except one was 40-man-eligible next year and I am not sure most would have been added. 

I am sure it didn't hurt that it was the Dodgers of all teams who we played right after, but the vibes just felt different around the team. I won't pretend I know how much that changes anything, but I think it counts for something. 

It was not a perfect deadline but it was a very good deadline. There is a real chance someone like Jefferson Rojas bites the Cubs in the ass. But this is how big markets should act; you sometimes have to roll the dice a little to supplement the roster. 

Final Grade: B+

[mk49]

I wanted to make it A-/B+.  Since there's no + and -, I graded it "A".

Before the dead line, I wanted Holmes as a rental, a younger controllable guy like Detmers or Hancock and a good RP.  IMO, Holmes is arguably the 2nd best pitcher available.  We got Gausman first, instead of Holmes, so I started wanting Detmers, Kirby or Hancock.  Then, there was the Cerami's fake tweet or whatever that was.  Like most people, I believed it, and I was happy.  Then, we found that was a false alarm.  At that moment, I figured a controllable SP would be too expensive, and wanted Holmes again.  And, we got him + Taylor as a bonus.  Yes, we gave up Rojas, who was blocked, anyway, but we didn't give up Ayers and Hartshorn.  Heck, we didn't give up Pedro.  I'm hoping Amaya and Ayers will be a good catching duo next year.  

I didn't want to see Mo traded, but Zeferjahn looks pretty good, and Mo didn't have much value to the Cubs, because of Ayers + his struggles in Iowa.  So, I'm fine with it.

As for Garrett, we have to wait, and see.  

If Holmes pitches well for us, we should re-sign him.  If Ayers is a real deal, we wouldn't need Carson next year.  One (two?) last thing was about Shaw and Alcantara.  I was surprised Alcantara wasn't traded.  I guess, either nobody wanted him, or the Cubs still thinks he can be a decent corner OF, and valued him higher than other teams.  And, Shaw has been on the IL for a while, and other teams didn't really want him.  Maybe, Shaw or Pedro will be traded in the off season?  I don't know.

Either way, again, I'm pretty happy with the deadline, because my main target was Holmes to begin with.  The reason why I wanted to grade this A-/B+ was because we didn't get a young controllable SP, other than Garrett.

Edited Thursday at 12:57 PM by mk49

[Geographyhater8888]

It’s an A. 

they’re 17 games above 500 despite having enough arms on the IL to fill out a pitching staff of a 26 man roster including key arms like Brown, Horton and Palencia. Factoring in Taillon and wicks making 18 combined starts, their resilience deserved to be rewarded..

Gausman cost nothing, Zeferjahn is now our second best reliever and with many years of control. I won’t knock Jed for discarding Rojas when the Angels showed no interest in him. I’d rather have Clay Holmes for at least couple of months than holding onto him, because maybe there’s a better trade package in the offseason, leaving us all wondering what could’ve been.
 

That’s been the biggest knock on Jed and he should be praised for going out of what some people perceive as his comfort zone.

Edited Thursday at 11:40 AM by Geographyhater8888

[Post Count Padder]

I gave it a solid B. I'm still miffed on trading Mo Baller and Rojas in those deals so that brings it down for me but I absolutely cannot complain about the guys we acquired. The fill both immediate and future needs. Gausman and Holmes were the two rental SPs I wanted most.

[Bull]

15 hours ago, Geographyhater8888 said:

It’s an A. 

they’re 17 games above 500 despite having enough arms on the IL to fill out a pitching staff of a 26 man roster including key arms like Brown, Horton and Palencia. Factoring in Taillon and wicks making 18 combined starts, their resilience deserved to be rewarded..

Gausman cost nothing, Zeferjahn is now our second best reliever and with many years of control. I won’t knock Jed for discarding Rojas when the Angels showed no interest in him. I’d rather have Clay Holmes for at least couple of months than holding onto him, because maybe there’s a better trade package in the offseason, leaving us all wondering what could’ve been.
 

That’s been the biggest knock on Jed and he should be praised for going out of what some people perceive as his comfort zone.

Cubs IL pitching staff.

Steele

Horton

Cabrera

Brown

Shelby Miller

 

Daniel Palencia

Hunter Harvey

Hobie Milner

Phil Maton

Ethan Roberts

Porter Hodge

Gavin Hollowell

Riley Martin

 

[BKHoo]

Wow I did not know about the five years of control for Zeferjahn.  That's very interesting to have that much of a future with a talent like that.  I did not like giving up Mo Baller but this takes the sting from it a bit. 

[Bull]

54 minutes ago, BKHoo said:

Wow I did not know about the five years of control for Zeferjahn.  That's very interesting to have that much of a future with a talent like that.  I did not like giving up Mo Baller but this takes the sting from it a bit. 

Traded a potential all star DH for potential all star closer.

 

[Geographyhater8888]

1 hour ago, Bull said:

Cubs IL pitching staff.

Steele

Horton

Cabrera

Brown

Shelby Miller

 

Daniel Palencia

Hunter Harvey

Hobie Milner

Phil Maton

Ethan Roberts

Porter Hodge

Gavin Hollowell

Riley Martin

 

Including position players. 12-13 arms with position players filling out the rest of a roster is the norm. 

[Bull]

11 minutes ago, Geographyhater8888 said:

Including position players. 12-13 arms with position players filling out the rest of a roster is the norm. 

Oh I’m agreeing with you. It’s obscene.

[Jason Ross]

18 hours ago, Post Count Padder said:

I gave it a solid B. I'm still miffed on trading Mo Baller and Rojas in those deals so that brings it down for me but I absolutely cannot complain about the guys we acquired. The fill both immediate and future needs. Gausman and Holmes were the two rental SPs I wanted most.

I think the important thing to square away, especially the Moises Ballesteros trade, is that it highly depends on how you view him. If you still think he's going to catch 60 games a season at the MLB level and hit LHP decently, than I think you probably have a good reason to be miffed. 

But if you don't think he's going to be a 60-game player at catcher than it's really hard to compile value. If we look at the top-"primary DH" players, there isn't a lot of fWAR compilers. You've got your Ohtani/Alvarez tier, and I think we are going to be honest with ourselves, Ballesteros is no where near that level, sitting well above the 3-win mark. Ben Rice has 3 wins, but he's logged 54 games at 1b already. Then you're at Kyle Schwarber who has a 139 wRC+ at 2.3 wins, Hunter Goodman at 2.3 wins (74 starts at catcher), Chase DeLauter (52 in OF), Yandy Diaz (37 at 1b, 6 at 3b), Drake Baldwin (66 at C), Carter Jensen (69 at C), Liam Hicks (39 at C and 27 at 1b) and Rafael Devers (87 at 1b). Beyond these guys you're below 1.0 fWAR accrued and aren't going to sniff the 2 win marker.

So for him to really get value, he's going to either have to find 50-70 games in the field, or be an elite bat like Ohtani, Alvarez or Schwarber. It's such a difficult line. 

I think we all like Baller, I think the bat can be fun, and I think he's a fun player. But when we take a step back and are objective...it's an incredibly narrow strip for his profile. I think when you look at how the Cubs handled him, they don't believe he's making 50-70 starts at a position. 

[imb]

anything below a B is a joke. come on.

[Stratos]

A-

[Outshined_One]

I want to hear from the F and C votes.

I get it if you think it's a B because the Cubs didn't get Skubal and/or because they traded Mo Baller and/or they should have gotten more for Rojas, but they got the second and third best SPs traded at the deadline and also beefed up the pen. But I'd love to hear a serious non-trolling/non-doomboner take.

[Geographyhater8888]

4 minutes ago, Outshined_One said:

I want to hear from the F and C votes.

 

The F vote was definitely @Patrick88 . 

[Post Count Padder]

5 hours ago, Jason Ross said:

I think the important thing to square away, especially the Moises Ballesteros trade, is that it highly depends on how you view him. If you still think he's going to catch 60 games a season at the MLB level and hit LHP decently, than I think you probably have a good reason to be miffed. 

But if you don't think he's going to be a 60-game player at catcher than it's really hard to compile value. If we look at the top-"primary DH" players, there isn't a lot of fWAR compilers. You've got your Ohtani/Alvarez tier, and I think we are going to be honest with ourselves, Ballesteros is no where near that level, sitting well above the 3-win mark. Ben Rice has 3 wins, but he's logged 54 games at 1b already. Then you're at Kyle Schwarber who has a 139 wRC+ at 2.3 wins, Hunter Goodman at 2.3 wins (74 starts at catcher), Chase DeLauter (52 in OF), Yandy Diaz (37 at 1b, 6 at 3b), Drake Baldwin (66 at C), Carter Jensen (69 at C), Liam Hicks (39 at C and 27 at 1b) and Rafael Devers (87 at 1b). Beyond these guys you're below 1.0 fWAR accrued and aren't going to sniff the 2 win marker.

So for him to really get value, he's going to either have to find 50-70 games in the field, or be an elite bat like Ohtani, Alvarez or Schwarber. It's such a difficult line. 

I think we all like Baller, I think the bat can be fun, and I think he's a fun player. But when we take a step back and are objective...it's an incredibly narrow strip for his profile. I think when you look at how the Cubs handled him, they don't believe he's making 50-70 starts at a position. 

I think this is all fair. I did want Holmes, and I think if he sticks around after 2026 I'll feel a little better about the trade.

And I've warmed up to Zeferjahn the more I've read about him and we have him under control for quite awhile. If he ends up as closer or an elite setup man, it will be hard to argue against this one. I do think Mo will catch a bit and have a good career so that's where I'm at. I'm no scout and clearly the Cubs thought this was fair value for him.

[Jason Ross]

33 minutes ago, Post Count Padder said:

I think this is all fair. I did want Holmes, and I think if he sticks around after 2026 I'll feel a little better about the trade.

And I've warmed up to Zeferjahn the more I've read about him and we have him under control for quite awhile. If he ends up as closer or an elite setup man, it will be hard to argue against this one. I do think Mo will catch a bit and have a good career so that's where I'm at. I'm no scout and clearly the Cubs thought this was fair value for him.

I think that's a measured take, too. 

I sincerely hope Mo does well. And I hope he does catch; that would be a great outcome for him. I do think the Cubs don't feel they can get him there, and if there's one thing the Cubs have done well lately, it's identify and work with catchers defensively. They've done great work with Kelly and Amaya, as well as Ayers. And behind the scenes many rave about their catcher work. All of that has me fairly confident he'll be far more "DH" than "C" but it doesn't make the Cubs' infallible there either. 

[Thusly Boned]

I was around A- to B+, so I went with a B. I would have preferred one of the SP had more control, but all the major needs were hit, and both Gausman and Holmes are good fits (I wouldn't mind Holmes being extended, depending on how things go). 

Zeferjahn adds much needed strikeouts to the bullpen and has a lot of control. It'll be interesting to see what the lab can make of Braxton Garrett, too.

Not in love with giving up Mo/Rojas, but some of that is probably prospect bias.

If Brown/Cabrera come back healthy, the new depth will give the team a lot of options for pitcher deployment in October.

Not sure how anyone could rationally grade this lower than a B.

[imb]

i dont get the ballesteros angst. if Zeferjahn had come up in the cubs system, would you guys have traded him to the Angels for a fat 5'8 DH hitting .230 in AAA after washing out in the bigs? With our pen? Hell no you wouldn't.

[bukie]

It's Hee Seop Choi for Derrek Lee all over again.

[imb]

9 minutes ago, bukie said:

It's Hee Seop Choi for Derrek Lee all over again.

maybe more like david kelton for carlos marmol but still

[Backtobanks]

On 8/5/2026 at 10:47 PM, mk49 said:

I wanted to make it A-/B+.  Since there's no + and -, I graded it "A".

Before the dead line, I wanted Holmes as a rental, a younger controllable guy like Detmers or Hancock and a good RP.  IMO, Holmes is arguably the 2nd best pitcher available.  We got Gausman first, instead of Holmes, so I started wanting Detmers, Kirby or Hancock.  Then, there was the Cerami's fake tweet or whatever that was.  Like most people, I believed it, and I was happy.  Then, we found that was a false alarm.  At that moment, I figured a controllable SP would be too expensive, and wanted Holmes again.  And, we got him + Taylor as a bonus.  Yes, we gave up Rojas, who was blocked, anyway, but we didn't give up Ayers and Hartshorn.  Heck, we didn't give up Pedro.  I'm hoping Amaya and Ayers will be a good catching duo next year.  

I didn't want to see Mo traded, but Zeferjahn looks pretty good, and Mo didn't have much value to the Cubs, because of Ayers + his struggles in Iowa.  So, I'm fine with it.

As for Garrett, we have to wait, and see.  

If Holmes pitches well for us, we should re-sign him.  If Ayers is a real deal, we wouldn't need Carson next year.  One (two?) last thing was about Shaw and Alcantara.  I was surprised Alcantara wasn't traded.  I guess, either nobody wanted him, or the Cubs still thinks he can be a decent corner OF, and valued him higher than other teams.  And, Shaw has been on the IL for a while, and other teams didn't really want him.  Maybe, Shaw or Pedro will be traded in the off season?  I don't know.

Either way, again, I'm pretty happy with the deadline, because my main target was Holmes to begin with.  The reason why I wanted to grade this A-/B+ was because we didn't get a young controllable SP, other than Garrett.

Resign Suzuki, sign Arozarena, and trade Alcantara + Shaw + Wiggins for Kirby.  Wouldn't mind expanding the deal to get Brendon Donovan too.

[bukie]

20 minutes ago, imb said:

maybe more like david kelton for carlos marmol but still

Dan Vogelbach for Mike Montgomery in terms of actual trades that kind of line up, though Montgomery wasn't ever as dominant as Zeferjahn has been of late.

[imb]

2 minutes ago, bukie said:

Dan Vogelbach for Mike Montgomery in terms of actual trades that kind of line up, though Montgomery wasn't ever as dominant as Zeferjahn has been of late.

great one. vogelbach played 9 seasons in the majors and even had a 30 homer season in 2019. anyone miss him?

Edited Friday at 11:06 PM by imb

[BKHoo]

You can definitely give it lower than a B if you think Mo Baller and Rojas are future all stars.