The deadline shuffle kept moving with three more deals that each answered a different kind of need. Milwaukee went after pitching help for right now, Pittsburgh grabbed a bullpen arm it can use immediately, and San Diego filled a rotation spot with a veteran starter who has been steady since coming back from Tommy John surgery.
The Brewers’ move centered on Dustin May, and the Cardinals came out with a strong return. May had signed a one-year, $12.5 million deal with a mutual option, and St.
Louis helped him turn in the best season of his career. He had always owned a big arm, but 2025 was the first year he reached 100 innings in a big-league season.
That workload has only climbed this year, with 109 innings already, and his ERA has come down as well.
A key part of the jump has been the pitch mix. The Cardinals shifted him away from the sinker and made the four-seamer his primary fastball, and that change has helped keep the ball in the park much more often. He’s also throwing harder, averaging 96.9 mph on the four-seamer, up 1.5 mph from 2025, while his sweeper is up 0.8 mph too.
There are still real concerns baked into the profile. May gives up plenty of hard contact when hitters do square him up, and his last month-plus hasn’t matched his hot start. That could just be randomness, but it stands out more because durability has already been an issue.
Milwaukee’s side of the deal brought in lefty reliever José Romero, and that part makes plenty of sense too. Romero has been an above-average left-handed bullpen piece for the last three and a half years in St.
Louis, handling lefties especially well while doing enough against righties to work full innings. The Brewers’ relief group leans heavily right-handed, with Aaron Ashby as the only strong lefty, so Romero plugs an obvious hole once he’s back.
He’s on the injured list after an emergency appendectomy a few weeks ago.
The prospect piece for Milwaukee was Frías, who signed 18 months ago for $350,000 and has moved fast. He’s already run through the Arizona Complex League and reached Low A even though he only turned 18 in March.
He’s playing center field now, but the long-term home is expected to be right field. The upside is loud: a potential plus hit tool and plus power, backed by eight homers in 60 games between his two stops.
One of his ACL balls left the bat at 117 mph, a rare number for an 18-year-old even if it’s not a perfect measure of power.
The Cardinals also picked up Ragsdale, another center fielder who’s likely to wind up in right. The Brewers took him in the seventh round in 2025 out of Boston College, and he’s already hit 19 homers in his first full pro season.
The power has come with some swing-and-miss, including a 29 percent whiff rate in Double A from a swing built to lift and pull the ball. The bat might not hold up the same way against better pitching, but he has hit at two levels this year, including Double A, and could still profile as a regular in a corner even if the on-base percentage comes down.
Pittsburgh’s trade for Luke Weaver is the kind of move that can change the feel of a bullpen right away. Weaver has been excellent for the Mets this season, looking a lot like he did during his big 2024 run in the Yankees’ bullpen, only with a lower home-run rate.
The offseason tweak to his cutter grip has given the pitch more slider-like tilt, and that matters because he allowed eight of the 10 homers he gave up last year on the four-seamer. Leaning on the cutter more and the four-seamer less has helped him keep the ball in the yard.
For a Pirates bullpen that might be its biggest weakness, that’s a major upgrade, and he can slide into a high-leverage role immediately.
The Mets got Sammy Stafura, and they’re betting on a breakout that has become impossible to ignore. Stafura has hit .301/.365/.656 in hitter-friendly High-A Greensboro this year.
Pittsburgh originally acquired him at the 2025 deadline from Cincinnati in the Ke’Bryan Hayes deal, and at that point he was more of a high-OBP, low-power hitter who struck out too much for the profile. This year, the damage has come in bunches at home - 13 of his 20 homers at Greensboro’s launching pad - but even on the road he’s still at .270/.385/.514.
The issue is the swing-and-miss. He’s still selling out for power, and the 37 percent whiff rate on the season is a big warning sign, especially with a 34 percent whiff rate on fastballs.
That’s not a path that holds up forever, and he’ll have to sacrifice some of the pop to put the ball in play enough to become an everyday player. He does bring plus speed and the chance to be a plus defender at short, though he has also spent some time at second base this year.
San Diego’s addition of Robbie Ray gives them a starter who has already shown he can hold up over a full workload since returning from Tommy John surgery. Since the start of the 2025 season, Ray has thrown 305 innings with a 3.42 ERA and 4.10 FIP, limiting hard contact well enough to profile as a fourth starter for almost any club. The Padres only have one healthy starter who is better than Ray right now, and he’s clearly an upgrade over Walker Buehler or the bullpen-game route they used on Sunday in what might otherwise have been Griffin Canning’s turn.
The Giants received Miguel Mendez and Joniel Hernandez. Hernandez signed with San Diego out of Cuba for $1.4 million in January and has already hit well in his first pro season, posting a .303/.424/.503 line in the Dominican Summer League. The on-base percentage sits a bit above the league median, while the slugging percentage is in the top 20 percent of qualifying hitters.
He’s lean, projectable and already shows excellent bat speed, with a chance to grow into future plus power. He’s also 17 and has not played in the United States yet, so he remains a long way away and is likely a level or two behind the Giants’ pair of elite shortstop prospects in Low A, Josuar Gonzalez and Luis Hernández.
Mendez is a three-pitch starter who hasn’t had much success this year. A shoulder injury cost him time, and he just returned last week with two rehab appearances in High A. He still has the kind of arm that could land in a rotation, but he walked 11.1 percent of the hitters he faced in Double A before the injury and averaged only three innings per start.
In Other News...
Brewers May Be Trying Another Deadline Turnaround Fans Have Seen Before
The Brewers were active again at the deadline, working a four-player deal with Cleveland that added catcher Bo Naylor and reliever Codi Heuer to a roster built around constant roster churn and opportunistic bets. In return, Milwaukee sent reliever Craig Yoho and outfielder Blake Perkins to the Guardians, another reminder that this front office is rarely afraid to swap pieces if it thinks theres a path to squeezing more out of them.
Naylors arrival is the part that makes the move feel familiar to longtime Brewers watchers. He is at a similar stage in his career to Andrew Vaughn when Milwaukee brought him in previously, and the club has shown before that it believes a fresh setting can unlock a player it thinks still has room to grow. Both Naylor and Heuer were optioned to Triple-A after the trade, so the next phase of this move will play out away from the majors while the Brewers see whether another deadline swing can produce the kind of turnaround they have chased before. [Read more 🡒]
Brewers Fans Just Got Another Trade Deadline Twist In Relief Market
Another familiar bullpen name is on the move at the deadline, and this one has a Milwaukee tie. Brent Suter, the left-handed reliever who recently faced his former club, has been dealt from the Angels to the Braves, according to ESPNs Jeff Passan, with Atlanta sending infielder Nacho Alvarez Jr. back the other way.
For Brewers fans, it adds another layer to a market that has already been buzzing around relief help. Suter is heading to a contender for the stretch run, and there is at least one more twist to monitor if the schedule lines up, because the Brewers could see him again when the Braves come to town later this month. [Read more 🡒]
Brewers Just Made A Staff Move Pat Murphy Really Needed
The Brewers have been looking for another layer of stability around a pitching staff that has had to keep adapting all year, and a recent move with St. Louis gives Pat Murphy another pair of arms to work with as the calendar turns toward the stretch run. It is the kind of trade that makes sense on Milwaukees side: add big-league help where it can matter most, while dealing from a deeper group of minor-league position players to make it happen.
For a club trying to piece together innings and shorten the distance from starter to endgame, the attraction is obvious. The shuffle also shows how much the Brewers value getting immediate pitching support without waiting on a prospect timeline, even if it costs them two outfielders who had been part of the organizations future depth. What comes next is the part Milwaukee will care about most: whether the new arrivals can settle in quickly enough to help right away. [Read more 🡒]