MLB 2023 trade deadline: Biggest winners and losers - ESPN

All and all, the 2023 trade deadline turned out to be pretty standard fare. Most of the teams we thought would subtract did so. Most of the teams we thought would add also did so, at least to some extent.

There were no franchise-altering moves, such as last year's Juan Soto bonanza. Shohei Ohtani remained with the Los Angeles Angels, though we've known that would be the case for some time now. The biggest names that moved were future Hall of Famers Max Scherzer and Justin Verlander, but their trades were less than shocking given the New York Mets' disappointing season.

So, while this deadline was more about jostling for position than truly shaking things up, there are still winners and losers. Let's see who came out the best — and the worst — after the dust from baseball's annual transaction bazaar settled.

Texas Rangers

Even if you see the Verlander-Astros reunion as offsetting Texas' acquisition of Scherzer, consider this: The Rangers would have been big deadline winners without that deal. Jordan Montgomery has been better than Scherzer this season, and Chris Stratton is a meaningful addition to the bullpen. Also, I consider «deadline deals» as basically any in-season deal that isn't simply the shell game teams play with roster spots and DFA transactions. The first one of those we saw this season involved the Rangers when they brought in Aroldis Chapman from Kansas City.

So the Rangers ended up adding Scherzer, Montgomery, Stratton and Chapman to the pitching staff of a first-place team that has had plus run prevention all season long. And in the end, with breakout catcher Jonah Heim hitting the injured list, Texas nabbed defensive whiz Austin Hedges from the Pirates in the waning moments of the trade period. This