MLB trade deadline 2026: Biggest winners and losers - ESPN

This year's MLB trade deadline is over, and, as is usually the case, the final hours before the 6 p.m. ET cutoff went down with a flurry of activity.

The biggest trade of this year's deadline came Saturday night, when the Detroit Tigers dealt star ace Tarik Skubal to the reigning champion Los Angeles Dodgers. Things heated up after that, with a few more big deals Sunday — Freddy Peralta to the Tampa Bay Rays and Kevin Gausman to the Chicago Cubs, to name a few — before Monday rolled around with all the action, including multiple intra-division swaps and a blockbuster trade. That was the Baltimore Orioles sending catcher Adley Rutschman to the Boston Red Sox for a haul of Boston's top prospects in one of the more surprising deals of this deadline. Other big movers Monday included Luis Arraez, Clay Holmes, Luke Weaver and more.

Who came out on top as the biggest winners of the deadline? And who were the biggest losers, leaving much to be desired? Let's dig in.

Jump to:
Winners | Winner… and loser? | Losers

The general reaction around the sport after the Dodgers acquired Skubal for Zyhir Hope, River Ryan and Brady Smith: That's all it took? Or: No, not the Dodgers! With many additional exclamation points.

Hope and Ryan are certainly good prospects, ranking fifth and the eighth in a talented Dodgers system before the trade, but Hope was the third-best outfielder on his team at Double-A Tulsa and Ryan has pitched sparingly the past few years — only 36 innings this season in Triple-A, as he hasn't pitched since June 17. Smith is, believe it not, 0-10 in his minor league career (OK, also with 113 strikeouts in 74 innings this year between Single-A and High-A).

Still, this is like a pinprick to the Dodgers, acquiring arguably