Fantasy Baseball Trade Deadline Tracker: A Complete Rundown

The trade deadline has come and gone, and the deals were in ample supply. Scott White and Chris Towers used this space to break down the deals in real-time, and now you get to enjoy the fruits of their labor.

Heliot Ramos Traded to Yankees

The current rendition of the Yankees outfield wasn’t cutting it, so they needed to get a boost from somewhere. Enter Heliot Ramos, who they acquired from the Giants for prospects Henry Lalane and Kaeden Kent. He’ll take the lineup spot of Jasson Dominguez, who was optioned to the minors.

Ramos isn’t a difference-maker, mostly because his on-base percentage runs low, but he’s a serviceable power bat for whom you can pencil in 20-25 homers and a mid-.700s OPS. He might fare a little better at Yankee Stadium since he’s more of an all-fields hitter than a dead pull hitter. Statcast estimates he’d have 13 home runs rather than nine if he had played every game there this year.

Between that and the upgraded supporting cast (at least in theory, but whew, it’s been rough lately), you can consider this a step up for Ramos, though he’s still no more than a fourth outfielder in Fantasy.

Clay Holmes Traded to Cubs

The Cubs continued their on-the-fly rebuild of their rotation by acquiring Holmes, who is on the verge of returning from a multi-month absence due to a fractured fibula. The veteran has pitched well when healthy this season, putting up a 2.39 ERA, and while that won’t prove sustainable, the Cubs are just about the perfect landing spot for his groundball-heavy skill set.

He’ll have the best defense in baseball backing him up and turning those sharply hit grounders into outs at a high rate, which should keep Holmes Fantasy relevant whenever he’s back – which should be in the next week or so.

For their trouble, the Mets received Jefferson Rojas in return. Rojas was a top-100 prospect prior to a tough 2025 season, but he’s having a nice bounceback season at Double-A and is still just 21. He’s hitting .270/.339/.461 with a very good approach at the plate, 15 homers, and 17 steals in 91 games.

Given how up-and-down his pro career has been so far, who knows what the future holds for him, but it’s a nice get for a guy in Holmes is likely to turn down his player option and become a free agent at the end of the season.

Tyler Wells Traded to Rays

Wells had been working his way into at least a split of the Orioles closer job in Ryan Helsley’s absence, but now he’s heading to Tampa where he will almost certainly just be part of the lineup trying to get the game to Bryan Baker to close it out.

If Baker starts to stumble, maybe Wells could figure into replacing him, but Baker hasn’t really shown any signs of weakness, and there’s no reason to think Wells would take that job on for himself if it did happen, so I think we can safely drop him in pretty much all formats.

The more interesting part is what this means for the Orioles. Wells’ primary competition for saves lately had been Andrew Kittredge, so smart money is on him emerging as the primary option here.

But Rico Garcia has had some opportunities and looked okay in that role, and Helsley’s eventual return also looms.

But the name to keep an eye on here could be Felix Bautista, the team’s once-dominant closer who is working his way back from another serious injury. At this point, there is no obvious timeline for Bautista to get back from shoulder surgery, but he’s set to face hitters in a live bullpen session this week and could be back by September.

Kris Bubic Traded to Dodgers

When this trade was announced, I saw a lot of people acting like this was yet another coup for the always-winning Dodgers. I don’t see it that way. Bubic has been out since mid-May, first with an elbow injury, and now with a shoulder issue.

He threw just eight pitches in a rehab start before suffering the shoulder injury, and there almost certainly won’t be enough time for him to work back as a starter – the team acknowledged as much after acquiring him.

Maybe the Dodgers just stole a good high-leverage bullpen arm for the playoffs, in which case, kudos to them for taking the flier. But the likelier outcome is that Bubic doesn’t make any kind of an impact for the Dodgers this season before heading into free agency.

Either way, it’s unlikely he’ll start again this season and can be dropped in any leagues where you might still be stashing him.

Daulton Varsho Traded for Spencer Arrighetti

Here’s another need-for-need trade (or maybe headache-for-headache). Daulton Varsho and Spencer Arrighetti have both demonstrated considerable upside in the past but have largely floundered this year.

Arrighetti is currently unavailable, in fact, contending with nerve irritation in his foot, but the Blue Jays seem to be using the trade deadline to position themselves better for next year, having already acquired Jose Soriano from the Angels.

As for Arrighetti, he has an excellent curveball that yields weak contact and piles up whiffs, but he can become a little too infatuated with his fastball and struggles to throw strikes overall.

He’ll make for a fun project for the Blue Jays, and we may see some early returns before the season is done.

The Varsho part of this deal might be even more significant for Fantasy. Last year, the 30-year-old made a huge leap as a power hitter, homering 20 times in just 71 games for a 46-homer pace, but he’s given it all back and then some this year.

The culprit would appear to be bat speed — his average mark has dropped nearly 3 mph from a year ago, cutting his fast-swing rate in half, from 56 to 28 percent — and the Astros have a reputation for nurturing that.

Will the remaining two months be enough time to salvage Varsho, who’s a free agent at season’s end? The possibility offers new reason for optimism, at least in five-outfielder leagues.

Ryan Zeferjahn Traded for Moises Ballesteros

The Cubs had a need in the late innings of the bullpen with Daniel Palencia still on the IL with an elbow issue, and Zeferjahn gives them another tough arm to throw into the mix.

Zeferjahn has been pretty good whenever he can throw enough strikes, and even with that limitation, he has a 3.66 ERA and 2.95 XERA despite walking 14% of opposing hitters this season.

A 34% strikeout rate plays a big part in that, thanks to a sweeper and four-seamer combo that both have racked up whiff rates over 40% this season, elite marks for any pitch type.

That kind of bat and barrel missing helps overcome the walk rate, but the lack of command could make it tough for Zeferjahn to ever lock up the closer job for long.

He could have a chance here with nobody really stepping up in Palencia’s absence, making him worth a flier in leagues where you are chasing any possible source of saves.

But, I’ll be honest, Ballesteros is the more interesting part of this trade, at least for Fantasy purposes.

The Angels love a former top prospect, and Ballesteros was viewed as a top-100 guy as recently as the start of his season.

He got off to a hot start at the MLB level, but once he cooled off, his lack of a position proved too much for the Cubs to stomach, and he hasn’t done much since his demotion to Triple-A either.

Still, he marries plus bat-to-ball skills with at least above-average raw power, and while he doesn’t always drive the ball to the right parts of the field, he has a career 293/.366/.450 slash line at Triple-A.

The Angels have a lot less to lose than the Cubs by just throwing Ballesteros in the lineup every day to see if he can hack it against big league pitching, and I expect them to do that somewhere most days the rest of the season.