Best and worst MLB trade deadline moves one month later: Adley Rutschman, Clay Holmes, Luis García Jr., more

It's tricky, the deadline addition from the buyer's standpoint. You're getting a player expected to play well and improve your contending roster, but the post-deadline stretch drive provides a small sample size for those new faces. As such, aberrant performances – especially for pitchers – are entirely possible. That means even the most headline-grabbing deadline additions are prone to being disappointments across those limited samples. On the other hand, some of those talents procured in the name of improving their new teams' playoff odds and World Series chances do exactly what they were supposed to, sample sizes be damned. Some are even better than expected.

With the 2026 Major League Baseball trade deadline exactly one month behind us, it's time to look back at some of the more notable deals and highlight which headliners have thus far been major successes … or major disappointments. There's still the month of September left to correct or reinforce these performances thus far, but here's where things stand one month out. Bad news first, in keeping with therapeutic best practices …

Padres lead exec AJ Preller correctly identified the rotation as an area of need prior to the deadline, but the Mize addition has…

Original source: https://www.cbssports.com/