Grades for each NL East team’s trade deadline

The Atlanta Braves have held a strong lead in the NL East for quiet awhile now. However, that doesn’t mean their rival counterparts would stand pat at the trade deadline and concede the division crown to Atlanta. Each team made moves, albeit some in different directions. Let’s take a look at how each team did.

Washington Nationals: C-

The team at the basement of the NL East was they only team expected to be selling coming into the 2023 season. That held true in the seasons first half, as the Nationals have had a tough time winning ballgames.

As you could imagine a team with as poor a win-loss record as Washington isn’t exactly littered with talent to sell at the trade deadline. That being said, Washington did move infielder Jeimer Candelario to the Cubs for prospects, DJ Herz and Kevin Made.

Herz is a young left-handed starter that possesses a really strong changeup. He has pretty good stuff, but can struggle at times repeating his mechanics and throwing enough strikes. Kevin Made is a 20 year-old Dominican born shortstop. Early reports have him as a above-average defender with potential for power down the line. Both prospects rank right in the middle of their top 30.

Both Herz and Made net a pretty solid return for Candelario, who was having a career year and has gotten off to a scorching start with the Cubbies. The grade could have been higher had GM Mike Rizzo decided to move outfielder Lane Thomas at the deadline as well.

Thomas is having a career year as well (career high 112 wRC+ as of today) and absolutely crushing left-handed pitching with a .356/.401/.629 slash line against southpaws. However, it was reported that the Nationals were shopping Thomas as an everyday player rather than a platoon bat, thus the reason no team met their asking price.

New York Mets: B

Had you told me in March the Mets would be selling at the 2023 deadline there is no way I would have believed you. Even as LOL METS as it would have seemed, I would’ve had a hard time believing a 100 win team would fall that far.

Well, it’s August and guess what happened? More than a few Mets hitters saw their crazy BABIP driven 2022 season flip upside down in 2023. A rash of injuries and just some flat out underperformance and bad luck has resulted in the team with the largest payroll in baseball history having a hard to swallow garage sale at the deadline. Frank was right.

The Metropolitans started the sale by moving David Robertson to another NL East rival. The return for the reliever was a solid one in two prospects under 20 years-old. The headliner was Marco Vargas, an 18 year-old infielder out of Mexico. Vargas is linked to having great plate discipline for someone his age. The Mets also recieved Ronald Hernandez, a Venezuelan born switch-hitting catcher, who already does a good job of cutting down base stealers.

New York really had the first Passan bomb of the deadline on July 30th when they traded Max Scherzer to Texas for the Luisangel Acuña, younger brother of Braves star, Ronald Acuña Jr. I suppose this means we're in for a divisional sibling rivalry.

The Mets will have to cover a lot of Scherzer’s deal but getting (now the Mets 2nd best prospect) for a 39 year-old 0.8 fWAR pitcher is a job well done. New York dealt their first position player, when they traded outfielder Mark Canha to Milwaukee for RHP Justin Jarvis.

Jarvis, a 2018 fifth round pick, has already reached Triple-A and provides the Mets with some starting pitching depth. Right now he doesn’t project much more than a back of the rotation arm.

The big piece that seemed to be holding the final day of the MLB trade deadline up was veteran pitcher Justin Verlander. The Mets dealt JV back to Houston on August 1st in exchange for the Astros top prospect, Drew Gilbert, and Ryan Clifford. Mark Feinsand gives the details of how the Mets and Astros will divide Verlander’s contract below.

Gilbert was the first round selection of the Astros in 2022, after having an impressive season with the Tennessee Volunteers. He is a 5’9 left-handed hitting outfielder who plays the game very aggressively. MLB Pipeline gives him an overall of 55 in their scouting grade.

Clifford is an impressive looking 20 year-old who possesses some interesting raw power. He’s a big kid, listed at 6’3, 200 lbs and already has 19 homers in 2023. The powerful lefty does struggle at time recognizing offspeed pitches however.

The last two deals the Mets made were more of the lottery ticket variety hoping to hit on a couple young infielders. The first is Jermey Rodriguez, whom they got from Arizona in exchange for Tommy Pham. The second is Jeremiah Jackson, whom they recieved from the Angles in exchange for Dominic Leone.

2023 wasn’t the season the Mets were hoping for, but it also wasn’t the worst one to have to sell in. The sellers market allowed the Mets to get some exciting pieces back and let the front office spend the rest of the year deciding how to approach 2024.

Philadelphia Phillies: C

It’s hard to hand out grades on deals with prospects already, but it’s especially the case when you don’t know what you’re going to get from the major league player involved in the deal.

The Phillies have known what their roster is and it’s potential all year. Truthfully, there wasn’t many moves to make for Philadelphia. Their second half really consists of the hope of more career like numbers from the guys they are paying (Turner and Schwarber to be specific).

But as they cling to a narrow lead in the wild card standings, some sort of move had to be made by Dave Dombrowski. This led to the trade for All-Star Michael Lorenzen from Detroit for prospect Hao-Yu Lee.

Yesterday, our writer Logan, wrote about how the Braves could regret not being the ones to jump in on a deal for Lorenzen. However, he still provides a puzzling case as his numbers are better than his peripherals would suggest. That being said, Lorenzen certainly stabilizes the backend of the Phillies rotation and makes them a scarier postseason opponent.