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Rays Acquire Adrian Houser For Curtis Mead and Pitching Prospects

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The Rays are acquiring starting pitcher Adrian Houser from the White Sox, according to MLB.com’s Mark Feinsand. Infielder Curtis Mead will head to Chicago in return, according to Joel Sherman of the New York Post. Bruce Levine of 670 The Score adds that the White Sox will also receive right-handed pitchers Duncan Davitt and Ben Peoples.

Houser, 32, had a rough 2024 season with the Mets but spent the offseason training at “at PitchingWRX, a facility in Oklahoma City where former Sox pitcher Lane Ramsey is the chief of operations,” according to James Fegan of Sox Machine.  Houser landed a minor league deal with the Rangers in December, then inked a Major League one with the White Sox on May 20th.  Houser had added over a mile per hour to his fastball due to his offseason training, and posted a stellar 2.10 ERA in 11 starts for the Sox.

Somehow, Houser has had this level of success despite a 17.1 K%.  He’s had success preventing barrels, and Statcast’s xERA supports a sub-4 mark.  Houser, a free agent after the season, joins a Rays rotation that also includes Ryan Pepiot, Shane Baz, Drew Rasmussen, and Joe Boyle.  Houser, a free agent after the season, can serve as something of a replacement for Zack Littell, who the Rays dealt to the Reds yesterday.  The Rays optioned Taj Bradley to Triple-A a week ago, but today shipped him to the Twins for elite reliever Griffin Jax.

It’s been an interesting month for Rays president of baseball operations Erik Neander, who also shipped out Danny Jansen and acquired Bryan Baker earlier this month.  The Rays simply aren’t afraid to make trades (including during a game with their opponent) and serve as both buyers and sellers.  The Rays took a painful loss in New York against the Yankees today, with Yandy Diaz, Jonathan Aranda, and Chandler Simpson all departing early with injuries.  The club still has a fighting chance at 3.5 games out in the Wild Card.

Mead, 25 in October, hasn’t done much with Major League pitching in stints in each of the last three seasons.  Nor has he been all that impressive in Triple-A in the last few years.  Still, Mead has spent ample time on Baseball America’s top 100 prospects list, peaking at #36 prior to the 2023 season.  He garnered a 55/medium risk grade at that time, at which point Baseball America considered him “one of the best pure hitters in the minors.”  Though the Rays are considered a dangerous trading partner, Mead represents a rare misstep for the club, as they acquired him for Cristopher Sanchez back in November 2019.

Not known for his defense, Mead can fit at first, second, or third base.  Those spots are occupied in Chicago by Miguel Vargas, Lenyn Sosa, and Colson Montgomery of late, with Andrew Benintendi taking a fair number of DH at-bats.  Mead can likely work his way into the playing time mix.  As Jim Margalus of Sox Machine notes, Mead bears some similarities to Vargas.

Davitt, a 25-year-old righty, earned a promotion to Triple-A earlier this month. Eric Longenhagen and James Fegan of FanGraphs described him in February as “a funky low-slot guy at Iowa who has successfully been turned into a backend starter prospect in pro ball.”  Peoples, a 24-year-old righty, has spent the entire season as a reliever at Triple-A, posting a 2.65 ERA with a 12.3 K-BB%.  The FanGraphs team wrote, “We’re betting on Peoples’ athleticism and delivery here, and still think he has a future as a fastball-heavy up/down reliever who has a chance to entrench himself in a more regular big league role if one of his secondary pitches improves.”

Guardians Claim Carlos Hernandez

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The Guardians claimed right-hander Carlos Hernandez off waivers from the Tigers, according to MLB.com’s Tim Stebbins.  Detroit designated Hernandez for assignment last week. Cleveland also activated reliever Trevor Stephan from the 60-day injured list and optioned him to Triple-A.

The veteran reliever has now changed teams via waiver claim for the third time in a little over four months.  Hernandez had spent his entire career in the Royals organization before the Phillies claimed him away in March, then the Tigers plucked him off the waiver wire in mid-June.  Both of those teams gave Hernandez some action at the MLB level, and the righty has a 6.69 ERA over 36 1/3 combined innings with Philadelphia (25 games) and Detroit (11 games).

Hernandez’s 20.5% strikeout rate and 10.8% walk rate this year are pretty close to his career marks over six Major League seasons, and Hernandez has a career 5.17 ERA in 292 2/3 innings.  Now out of minor league options, Hernandez can’t be assigned to the minors without first being exposed to waivers, hence his increasingly frequent trips to DFA limbo.

He does have two years of arbitration control remaining, and teams have been interested enough in his stuff to add him on multiple claims now, with the Guardians being the latest to see if Hernandez can offer more with a change of scenery.  Cleveland’s pitching development system could perhaps unlock something in the right-hander, who is still only 28 years old.  Owed just the remainder of a $1.16MM salary for 2025, Hernandez is a pretty inexpensive depth arm to the Guardians’ bullpen.

No Dylan Cease Trade Between Astros, Padres

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5:06pm: Houston did not get a Cease deal done, reports Chandler Rome of The Athletic.

3:49pm: The Astros’ monster deadline may not be finished. Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic reports that Houston is “working hard” to try to land Dylan Cease. Jon Heyman of The New York Post writes that talks between the clubs are “progressing” and suggests the Astros could try to get a reliever in the deal as well. There’s no suggestion an agreement has been reached nor that a trade is inevitable, but Houston certainly appears to be trying to get another massive deal over the finish line.

Cease remains one of the biggest wild cards of deadline season. San Diego is trying to balance things financially while taking a few massive swings of their own today. They’ve already added Mason Miller, JP Sears, Ryan O’Hearn, Ramón Laureano, Freddy Fermin and Will Wagner. That takes care of their biggest needs — left field, DH, catcher, backup infielder — but hasn’t halted talks on Cease. He’s owed $13.75MM in his final arbitration season.

Marlins Won’t Trade Sandy Alcantara, Edward Cabrera

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4:59pm: The Marlins also don’t plan to trade Edward Cabrera today, per Alden Gonzalez of ESPN.

4:49pm: The Marlins aren’t trading right-hander Sandy Alcantara today, reports Craig Mish of SportsGrid and the Miami Herald. He’ll stay put in Miami’s rotation down the stretch. An offseason trade or a deal next summer remains a possibility, of course. Alcantara is being paid $17MM this year and next, and he has a $21MM club option for the 2027 season.

Alcantara and Cabrera were two of the more notable arms on the market this summer. Alcantara, in his first season back from Tommy John surgery, hasn’t posted anywhere close to his typically excellent results. He was sharp in each of his two outings prior to the deadline, but the right-hander’s 6.36 ERA in 109 frames and struggles throughout most of the season prevented the Fish from receiving what they deem commensurate value for a former Cy Young winner who has two years of control left on what would be well below-market rates if he were back to form. They’ll hope to get him right down the stretch.

Cabrera, 27, is a former top prospect in the midst of a breakout season. He’s tossed 94 innings of 3.35 ERA ball, fanning 24.3% of opponents against an 8.4% walk rate while sitting close to 97 mph with his heater. He dealt with a minor elbow scare earlier this month but avoided a trip to the injured list. Whether that gave interested teams any trepidation remains unclear.

Miami understandably had a high asking price on both pitchers. Cabrera is making just $1.95MM this year and is controllable via arbitration for another three years. The Marlins will head into the offseason with both righties penciled into their 2026 rotation, though their future with the organization hinges on when president of baseball operations Peter Bendix and owner Bruce Sherman feel a return to contention in the NL East is viable. If next year is going to be a transition year or a continuation of the franchise’s rebuilding efforts, they could end up on the block again in the offseason. At the very least, other clubs figure to try to pry both pitchers away.

White Sox Won’t Be Trading Luis Robert Jr.

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4:58PM: The Sox will indeed be keeping Robert beyond the deadline, Feinsand writes.

2:08PM: The White Sox haven’t found an offer to their liking for center fielder Luis Robert Jr. and are increasingly likely to hold onto the outfielder rather than move him before this afternoon’s deadline, reports Mark Feinsand of MLB.com. ESPN’s Alden Gonzalez hears similarly.

If the Sox hold onto Robert, they’d likely be doing so with an eye toward picking up his $20MM club option for the 2026 season. It’s a risky gamble, given Robert’s lengthy injury history and the lack of production he showed throughout the entire 2024 season and the first two-plus months of the 2025 campaign.

Robert has performed considerably better of late, slashing .278/.361/.472 (130 wRC+) over his past 123 plate appearances dating back to early June. The ChiSox sat him for three straight days in early June as part of an effort to get Robert refocused on his mechanics, and whether due to that brief reset or pure happenstance, he indeed looks much like the peak version of himself.

It’s still a small sample of plate appearances, however, and Robert has frequently missed time due to injury in the past. There’s been interest in the talented 27-year-old, but not to the point where teams have been willing to offer up the sort of prospect(s) the Sox deem sufficient. A healthy two-month finish to the season for Robert could both boost his trade value in a more meaningful way and make that $20MM club option (a net $18MM decision, considering the $2MM buyout) look more palatable.

At the same time, the White Sox run the risk of encountering a scenario where Robert again falls to an injury or sees his recent production at the plate erode. Under either circumstance, exercising that $20MM option wouldn’t be all that enticing. Chicago’s payroll is quite clean, however, and even if his option were declined Robert would surely receive a big league contract as a rebound candidate. The Sox, it seems, are willing to run the risk of overpaying for his 2026 season by several million dollars in hopes that he can boost his value down the stretch or in the early portion of the 2026 campaign.

The Phillies, one of the teams that had been pursuing Robert, acquired Harrison Bader from the Twins earlier today. Other clubs that have been tied to Robert include the Padres, Reds and Mets. SNY’s Andy Martino reported recently, however, that talks with the Mets had stalled as of late last night.

Cubs To Acquire Taylor Rogers

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The Cubs are acquiring veteran left-hander Taylor Rogers from the Pirates, reports Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic. Minor league outfielder Ivan Brethowr is going back to the Pirates in the deal, per Noah Hiles of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. Rogers’ time with the Bucs will last just one day. He was acquired as a financial counterweight in yesterday’s Ke’Bryan Hayes trade with the Reds and, as an impending free agent, looked likely to be flipped elsewhere as soon as he was dealt to Pittsburgh.

The 34-year-old Rogers is an impending free agent earning $12MM in the final season of a three-year $33MM contract, though the Giants are paying half that salary under the terms of the offseason trade that shipped him to Cincinnati. Rogers never pitched in a game with the Pirates. In 33 innings with the Reds, he logged a 2.45 ERA with a 23.3% strikeout rate and 13% walk rate. Rogers has a track record as a closer and setup man but hasn’t been used frequently in high-leverage spots by the Reds this year.

Rogers gives the Cubs a third lefty alongside Drew Pomeranz and former Twins teammate Caleb Thielbar. He’s not likely to step into a late-innings role but will give manager Craig Counsell some matchup possibilities and an experienced arm to work the sixth and seventh innings ahead of closer Daniel Palencia and top setup option Brad Keller.

Rogers has had some unusual struggles against lefties this year but has typically had good success against righties and southpaw bats alike. He’ll also likely be happy to get out of Great American Ball Park, where he allowed all three of his home runs this season and posted a 3.44 ERA that’s more than double his 1.23 mark on the road.

Brethowr, 22, is listed at a hulking 6’6″ and 250 pounds. The Cubs selected him out of UC Santa Barbara with their seventh-round pick in the 2024 draft. He’s spent his first full season in High-A, slashing .221/.398/.312 with a massive 16.6% walk rate but an ugly 26.7% strikeout rate. Though Brethowr was known for his power in college — as you’d expect, given that frame — he’s hit only four home runs this season. He’s swiped 25 bags, however, and only been caught twice.

Baseball America didn’t rank Brethowr among the Cubs’ top 30 prospects. He’s a lower-minors lottery ticket who can effectively be counted alongside shortstop Sammy Stafura as the Pirates’ return for Hayes, who’ll spend four-plus seasons with the division-rival Reds and hope to get his career back on track in Cincinnati. The Bucs also shed all of the $36MM that Hayes was owed beyond the current season with this deal.

Red Sox Acquire Dustin May

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The Red Sox announced the acquisition of right-hander Dustin May from the Dodgers for minor league outfielders James Tibbs and Zach Ehrhard. May will step into the back of Boston’s rotation after the Sox optioned Richard Fitts earlier in the week.

May, 27, has had a middling season. He carries a 4.85 earned run average across 19 appearances. His 21.5% strikeout rate and 9.5% walk percentage are right around league average. May hasn’t missed as many bats or gotten as many ground balls as he did earlier in his career. The former top prospect once looked like a potential top-of-the-rotation starter, but he’s unfortunately never been able to stay healthy. He underwent Tommy John surgery in 2021 and missed most of that season and the next. He suffered another forearm strain upon his return in ’23, then missed all of last season after requiring emergency surgery after rupturing his esophagus.

This year’s 104 innings are by far the most of his career. May’s velocity has held all season, but he has allowed an ERA of 4.45 or higher in each month since April. The Dodgers seemingly were on the verge of kicking him to the bullpen. GM Brandon Gomes told reporters (including J.P. Hoornstra of Newsweek) that May preferred to start. Gomes stated that May did not demand a trade but suggested the Dodgers were open to accommodating him by dealing him to a team that’d give him a rotation spot if a deal presented itself.

They not only found that team but got a strong return out of it. Tibbs was the Giants’ first-round pick last summer. San Francisco sent him to Boston alongside Kyle Harrison in June’s Rafael Devers blockbuster. His production tanked immediately after the trade, as he hit .205/.321/.268 with only one home run in 29 games for Boston’s Double-A affiliate. Tibbs had put together a much more impressive .246/.379/.478 line in High-A before the trade.

The Red Sox evidently soured on his future extremely quickly. Not only has May not had a particularly good year, he’s an impending free agent. He’s only playing on a $2.135MM salary because the injuries tamped down his arbitration earnings. Still, two months of a fifth/sixth starter isn’t a particularly valuable trade asset. If the Red Sox valued Tibbs anywhere near as highly as they did when they included him in the Devers trade, they would not have made this deal.

Ehrhard was Boston’s fourth-rounder last season. He’s a righty-hitting corner outfielder with a .270/.371/.434 line and 23 steals in 88 games between High-A and Double-A on the year. Baseball America slotted him 29th in the Boston farm system. He has a tweener profile but could be a fourth or fifth outfielder on the strength of his hitting ability.

ESPN’s Jeff Passan first reported the Red Sox were acquiring May. FanSided’s Robert Murray had Tibbs’ inclusion, while Christopher Smith of MassLive reported that Ehrhard was in the deal. Jon Heyman and Joel Sherman of the New York Post previously reported that the two sides were in talks on a deal involving May. Image courtesy of Neville E. Guard, Imagn Images.

Rays, Yankees Swap Jose Caballero For Everson Pereira

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The Yankees have acquired utilityman Jose Caballero from the Rays in exchange for outfielder Everson Pereira and a player to be named later, per announcements from both clubs. Both players were on their respective teams’ 40-man rosters, so no corresponding 40-man moves were needed.

The versatile Caballero adds plenty of speed and defensive flexibility to the Yankees’ bench mix. The 28-year-old is hitting just .226/.327/.311 on the season but is tied for a share of the major league lead with 34 stolen bases (in 44 attempts). He’s played second base, third base, shortstop and all three outfield positions this season.

Caballero draws plus defensive grades all over the infield and in the outfield corners as well. He’s controllable for another four years beyond the current season but will be arbitration-eligible as a Super Two player in the offseason.

The 24-year-old Pereira ranked among Baseball America’s top-100 prospects in the 2022-23 and 2023-24 offseasons. His path to the majors has been slowed by injury, most notably a UCL repair surgery performed last June. Because of injuries and the shortened 2020 season, the Yankees were granted a fourth option year over the Venezuelan-born outfielder. He’ll be out of options next season.

Pereira got a brief big league debut with the 2023 Yankees but looked overmatched as a 22-year-old who’d only played 35 games above the Double-A level. He hit .151/.233/.194 and fanned 40 times in 103 trips to the plate (38.8%). He’s now in his third partial season at the Triple-A level and hitting .254/.357/.507 with 19 homers and nine steals in 314 plate appearances. Pereira has gone down on strikes in 29.5% of his plate appearances but walked at a stout 12.1% clip. He’s averaging 92.1 mph off the bat and sporting a huge 50% hard-hit rate.

Pereira can play all three outfield spots and brings some upside to the Rays, though he’s continually shown a worrying lack of contact skills in the upper minors. He’ll give Tampa Bay some depth in the outfield. Notably, speedy outfielder Chandler Simpson exited today’s game with a hand injury, so the acquisition of Pereira could be tied to concerns that Simpson will miss time. Josh Lowe, Jake Mangum, Jonny DeLuca and Kameron Misner are among the other Rays options on the 40-man roster.

Jack Curry of the YES Network first reported the trade.

Reds Acquire Miguel Andujar

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The Reds have acquired utility player Miguel Andujar from the Athletics in exchange for right-handed pitching prospect Kenya Huggins, according to Ari Alexander of KPRC2.  Andujar is a free agent after the season, and was seen as a very likely candidate to be moved by the rebuilding A’s.

After a runner-up finish in AL Rookie of the Year voting in 2018 and then a few uninspiring years with the Yankees, Andujar has rebuilt his value as a regular contributor since leaving New York.  He has hit .285/.320/.412 over 640 plate appearances with the Pirates and Athletics since Opening Day 2023, good for a 105 wRC+.

As per the norm for a right-handed batter, Andujar has performed far better against left-handed pitching than he has against righties.  Cincinnati will probably deploy Andujar as a platoon bat with lefty-swingers Gavin Lux or Jake Fraley in the corner outfield slots, and Andujar will likely get some time at third base as a better-hitting alternative to Ke’Bryan Hayes.  Another of the Reds’ deadline pickups, Hayes is an elite defender who struggles mightily at the plate, so Andujar figures to get some late-game pinch-hitting opportunities as well.

Andujar is earning $3MM in his final year of arbitration eligibility, so the Reds will only owe him a little under $1MM for the remainder of the 2025 campaign.  That’s a bargain price for an above-average bat who has upside as a lefty-masher, and it’s a particularly smooth fit since the Reds are working within a limited budget.

Cincinnati emerges from deadline day with an estimated payroll of just under $119.9MM (hat tip to RosterResource).  This stands as the Reds’ highest payroll since the 2021 season, and the acquisitions of Hayes, Andujar, and Zack Littell indicate that the team is making a strong push towards its first postseason appearance since 2020.  The Reds are 57-52 entering tonight’s action, and sit three games behind the Padres for the final NL wild card spot.

Huggins was a fourth-round pick for Cincinnati in the 2022 draft, and a Tommy John surgery shelved him for big chunks of the 2023-24 seasons.  As a result, Huggins has only 107 pro innings to his name, with 63 1/3 of those frames coming this year with A-level Daytona.  Huggins has a 3.69 ERA in his return to action this year, looking pretty sharp even with a diminished strikeout rate that could be a by-product of his long layoff.  MLB Pipeline slots Huggins in as the 27th-best prospect in the Athletics’ farm system, noting that he has exhibited better command post-surgery.

Royals Acquire Bailey Falter

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The Royals have acquired left-handed starter Bailey Falter from the Pirates, with lefty Evan Sisk and minor league first baseman Callan Moss headed back to Pittsburgh in return. Both teams have announced the trade.

Falter, 28, settled in as a capable back-end starter for the Pirates over the past two seasons. From 2024-25, he has made 50 starts, averaging just over five innings per game. He has a 4.12 ERA and a 4.99 SIERA in that time. Neither a strikeout pitcher nor a groundball pitcher, none of Falter’s pitches stand out as especially dangerous, but he survives thanks to average control and elite extension. He will offer the Royals some much-needed rotation depth, with Kris Bubic out for the season and Cole Ragans, Michael Lorenzen, and Alex Marsh also on the IL. Falter might not be the kind of pitcher the Royals want starting in a postseason series, but he can help them in the uphill climb they’re facing to get to the playoffs. He is making $2.22MM this year and will be under team control through arbitration for another three seasons.

Sisk, now 28, was drafted by the Cardinals in 2018 and traded to the Twins in 2021 as part of a package for J.A. Happ. A year and a half later, the Twins flipped him to the Royals as part of the deal that brought Michael A. Taylor to Minnesota. Almost seven years after he was drafted, Sisk made his MLB debut for KC earlier this year. He threw a total of 5 1/3 innings in two separate stints with the big league club, giving up just one earned run and striking out 11. He also pitched to a 3.77 ERA and 3.83 FIP in 28.2 innings with the Triple-A Omaha Storm Chasers. Sisk has never been a top prospect, in no small part due to questions about his ability to retire right-handed hitters at the highest level. That helps explain why he has pitched at Triple-A with two different organizations in parts of four separate seasons, and he’s only managed to earn five big league appearances.

Moss, now 21, signed with the Royals as an undrafted free agent last summer. While he is not a highly-regarded prospect, the righty batter crushed the baseball last year at Single-A (177 wRC+ in 22 games) and has continued to hit well this year at High-A (123 wRC+ in 92 games). He’s also added a total of 17 stolen bases in 24 attempts.

Jon Heyman of The New York Post was the first to report that Falter was heading to Pittsburgh, while Alex Stumpf of MLB.com was first on the return of Sisk and Moss.

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