2026 MLB trade deadline awards: Dodgers, Yankees, Mets, more - ESPN

According to sources: Despite their superstar acquisition, the Los Angeles Dodgers have not clinched the World Series… just yet.

This turned out to be a much more fascinating 2026 Major League Baseball trade deadline than we expected, with every team in playoff contention making at least one move — and usually multiple moves — to improve their rosters. OK, maybe not the Detroit Tigers or Baltimore Orioles, who decided to surrender on their declining playoff chances and trade away the two biggest names.

As ESPN's Jeff Passan wrote in his awards last year: Nobody does a deadline like baseball. And this one was one of the most interesting in years, even if it featured just one big superstar who was traded.

With a number of expected deals, as well as some more surprising ones, let's have some fun and hand out some awards in the wake of this year's deadline.

Cone basically created the modern trade deadline — well, more accurately, it was two Cone trades that led to the idea that every team in the playoff race should look to make at least semi-significant additions at the deadline. In 1992, Cone went from the New York Mets to the Toronto Blue Jays and helped them win the World Series. In 1995, he went from the Blue Jays (who had reacquired him in an earlier trade) to the New York Yankees and helped the Yankees reach the playoffs for the first time since 1981 (and then re-signed with the Yankees and helped them win the World Series in 1996).

Skubal, as the reigning two-time Cy Young winner, goes down as one of the all-time rentals. Here are the top five since Cone — pitchers only, and only considering those heading to free agency (so no Justin Verlander in 2017, for example):

1998: Randy Johnson, Seattle Mariners to Houston