The 2024 trade deadline is now in the history books, so it’s time for a post-mortem on how it went. As I do every year, I set the ZiPS projection system the task of seeing which teams moved their division, playoff, and championship probabilities the most. The methodology is relatively simple: I take the ZiPS projected standings the morning after the trade deadline and compare them to a second set of projections in which I undo every trade that was made over the prior three weeks. I always find the results fascinating because people often underestimate the secondary effects of the deadline, such as how a team did relative to their competition, how a team’s strength of schedule can change based on the strength of their opponents, and how the contours of the Wild Card races change when a competitor effectively drops out or suddenly gets better.
With players like Tarik Skubal, Garrett Crochet, Luis Robert Jr., and Blake Snell staying put, there weren’t many impact trades, but it was still a busy deadline. On the whole, ZiPS found this deadline to be considerably more consequential than last year’s. In 2023, ZiPS only projected three teams as having moved their playoff probability by at least five percentage points, while this year, there were eight. In fact, two of the changes were the largest percentage-point shifts that ZiPS has seen as long as I’ve been doing this, one positive (Baltimore), one negative (Tampa Bay).
Note that this is only measuring 2024 impact. A team doing poorly here doesn’t necessarily mean that club had an awful trade deadline, and vice-versa. If the Giants had traded Jorge Soler for, say, Xavier Isaac and Carson Williams, they’d show up as losing here, but I think we’d all agree they’d have absolutely crushed the deadline.
The table below is currently sorted by change in playoff probability, but all of the columns are sortable if you click on the header:
ZiPS Trade Deadline Projection Changes
Team
Before
Diff
Playoff%
Before
Diff
WS Win%
Before
Diff
Kansas City Royals
6.8%
4.9%
1.9%
51.0%
42.5%
8.5%
1.7%
1.5%
0.2%
New York Mets
5.8%
4.8%
1.0%
57.4%
49.2%
8.2%
3.3%
2.6%
0.7%
Boston Red Sox
1.3%
2.1%
-0.8%
43.6%
36.7%
6.8%
1.9%
1.8%
0.1%
Atlanta Braves
9.2%
8.5%
0.7%
68.6%
63.3%
5.4%
4.9%
4.5%
0.4%
San Diego Padres
12.0%
14.0%
-2.0%
62.9%
59.7%
3.2%
4.4%
4.5%
-0.1%
Baltimore Orioles
56.8%
47.3%
9.5%
98.8%
95.7%
3.2%
16.0%
10.7%
5.3%
Chicago Cubs
3.9%
2.2%
1.7%
8.4%
5.6%
2.8%
0.4%
0.3%
0.2%
Los Angeles Dodgers
76.8%
69.5%
7.3%
96.3%
93.6%
2.7%
12.6%
10.2%
2.4%
Seattle Mariners
45.7%
44.7%
1.0%
53.9%
51.2%
2.7%
2.6%
2.8%
-0.2%
Houston Astros
36.8%
36.0%
0.8%
45.0%
42.5%
2.5%
2.3%
2.4%
-0.2%
New York Yankees
41.8%
49.0%
-7.2%
97.8%
95.9%
1.8%
12.9%
12.6%
0.2%
Minnesota Twins
16.9%
16.8%
0.1%
72.7%
71.6%
1.1%
5.1%
6.3%
-1.2%
Milwaukee Brewers
67.3%
64.2%
3.1%
76.3%
75.7%
0.6%
2.4%
3.1%
-0.7%
Philadelphia Phillies
85.0%
86.7%
-1.7%
98.9%
98.7%
0.2%
12.5%
13.6%
-1.1%
Washington Nationals
0.0%
0.0%
0.0%
0.7%
0.5%
0.2%
0.0%
0.0%
0.0%
Chicago White Sox
0.0%
0.0%
0.0%
0.0%
0.0%
0.0%
0.0%
0.0%
0.0%
Colorado Rockies
0.0%
0.0%
0.0%
0.0%
0.0%
0.0%
0.0%
0.0%
0.0%
Miami Marlins
0.0%
0.0%
0.0%
0.0%
0.0%
0.0%
0.0%
0.0%
0.0%
Oakland A’s
0.0%
0.0%
0.0%
0.0%
0.0%
0.0%
0.0%
0.0%
0.0%
In terms of playoff probability, the Kansas City Royals head the list, though they remain long-shots to catch Cleveland and their World Series winning percentage didn’t budge that much. They didn’t make any huge additions, but Michael Lorenzen, Paul DeJong, Lucas Erceg, and Hunter Harvey are all generally replacing below-replacement talent. What benefitted Kansas City the most, however, is what happened elsewhere. Two teams in their division got noticable weaker, and while that benefits the Guardians as well, ZiPS already saw Cleveland’s fate as being less up in the air. ZiPS also doesn’t expect Cleveland to need to make the playoffs via the Wild Card, but the Royals, like the other AL Wild Card teams, got the extra benefit of the Rays killing off their playoff shot.
The Mets didn’t land a star either, but ZiPS is a big fan of their remade bullpen, especially Huascar Brazoban, and it’s optimistic about the impact of Paul Blackburn and Jesse Winker. The team also had the advantage of being right on the edge of a knife entering the deadline, so extra wins here are incredibly high leverage. It also helps that, apart from the Padres, several NL Wild Card contenders treaded water.
The Red Sox don’t really feel like a winner to me — though the computer really likes Danny Jansen and the full-fat ZiPS is far more optimistic about James Paxton than the in-season model — but ZiPS has them benefitting the most from the Rays and Blue Jays getting a good bit worse.
Atlanta didn’t bolster their rotation, but getting a corner outfield bat in Soler was absolutely crucial to help slow the team’s fall given the other choices available.
In terms of wins added, ZiPS sees the Orioles and Dodgers as the big winners, though you see the change more in their championship probability rather than the playoff numbers, given that both teams were already overwhelmingly likely to make the postseason. ZiPS was really worried about the back of Baltimore’s rotation come playoff time, and as a result, adding Zach Eflin was a big Eflin deal, so much so that the O’s got a larger World Series boost than any other team at the deadline, and they did it without trading away any of their best talent. Also helpful was the trade with the Phillies; while Austin Hays has value, he didn’t have much value to the Orioles given their roster, making Seranthony Domínguez and Cristian Pache, for all intents and purposes, free additions. ZiPS also still likes Trevor Rogers, as it doesn’t take my constant disappointment that he’s not a triplet with Taylor and Tyler into account.
Turning to the Dodgers, Jack Flaherty has been terrific. ZiPS thinks that Los Angeles did the best in the White Sox/Cardinals/Dodgers three-way trade, with Flaherty instantly the member of the Dodgers’ projected playoff rotation with the best recent track record of health (ZiPS obviously doesn’t know whether the Yankees’ reported worries about his back have any merit).
The Guardians also see a World Series benefit from their quiet moves for Alex Cobb and Lane Thomas.
Remember when the Cubs were going to be sellers? They did trade Mark Leiter Jr., but the addition of Isaac Paredes added a crucial win to the team’s bottom line, and ZiPS wasn’t a fan of the moves made by the Pirates, Reds, or Cardinals. The system being down on St. Louis might raise some eyebrows, but the computer didn’t really see a net gain in getting Erick Fedde because of the loss of Tommy Edman.
I also have to address the Rays. With the roster as it was, ZiPS projected Tampa Bay with a nearly one-in-three chance of making the playoffs. But after losing approximately 2.8 wins following their deadline moves, that probability drops from 32.3% to 13.2%, almost a fifth of a playoff spot gone in just a few days of trades. Remember the notorious White Flag Trade of 1997, when the White Sox traded their best pitcher (Wilson Alvarez) and their closer (Roberto Hernandez) to the Giants despite only being 3 1/2 games back in the AL Central? Well, I did a rough ZiPS in-season projection for the effect of that trade, and ZiPS estimates the White Sox went from a 14% chance to make the playoffs to a 4% chance, barely half the drop in percentage points the Rays experienced.
The Marlins lost the most estimated wins at the deadline (3.4), more than the Rays did, but Miami had the “benefit” of already being dead in the water.
Well, that wraps up the deadline — enjoy the playoff races to come!
