The Cleveland Guardians on Monday added an All-Star to one of the league’s best rotations, acquiring left-hander Foster Griffin from the Washington Nationals for a package of four prospects within 30 minutes of the league’s trade deadline.

In return for one of this year’s upstart players, the Nationals received pitchers Will Dion, Josh Hartle and Kendeglys Virguez and outfielder Nick Mitchell.

Griffin was one of three All-Stars on the upstart Nationals, posting a 2.77 ERA across 110 1/3 innings heading into the first half. Though he’s probably not your idea of a modern starter — his fastball sits 91-92 mph — he strikes out more batters than you think and has been uber-effective this season thanks to exceptional command, even better game-planning and a seven-pitch mix.

He joins a Guardians rotation that already had the sixth-best ERA in the league. The addition will likely shift Slade Cecconi to another role, perhaps in the bullpen. The Guardians already skipped his turn in the rotation on Sunday. But with Parker Messick and Gavin Williams pitching like front-line starters and Tanner Bibee having rebounded from a sluggish start to the season, adding an All-Star to the rotation is one way to compensate for what’s been one of the league’s worst offenses.

In his first year back stateside after three seasons in Japan, Griffin, a 30-year-old rookie, has a 3.06 ERA, a 1.08 WHIP and 116 strikeouts over 129 1/3 innings.

He probably won’t start Game 1 in October, but there is more than enough in the tank to suggest he can start a postseason game. If there is one flaw to note, it is his propensity for giving up home runs. Teams have hit 19 against him, with the two he’s allowed in the second half having been hit by the Atlanta Braves on Friday.

But the top-line metrics are encouraging. Griffin’s ability to navigate a lineup and dominate left-handed hitters is an attractive feature that has held up against some of MLB’s top lineups this year. And he’s been as consistent as they come: Griffin didn’t allow more than one earned run in eight starts from June 5 to July 19.

Griffin is a rental, which is why the Guardians didn’t part with any prospects ranked within miles of the top of their organizational rankings. They acquired Hartle and Mitchell as part of the three-team swap last December that sent shortstop Andrés Giménez to the Toronto Blue Jays and landed pitcher Luis Ortiz in Cleveland. Dion has made 12 appearances for the Guardians this season and has logged a 4.58 ERA.

The Athletic has live coverage of the 2026 MLB Trade Deadline.

HOUSTON — So many teams talk about the buy-and-sell deadline. It’s the dream for disappointing squads with hopes of a rapid turnaround. Few effectively pull it off.

But the Toronto Blue Jays, across six trades and one of the busiest deadlines in baseball, might have walked the line as well as any team can. They sold off expiring players in Daulton Varsho and Kevin Gausman. They bought big on a long-term starter in José Soriano and took upside shots on Jameson Taillon and Spencer Arrighetti. They bet on a bounce back from Josh Smith and restocked the farm with a Jeff Hoffman trade. They did it all in a day.

It was, with Toronto’s precarious position eight games under .500, the sort of deadline that could’ve been a flop. Buying would’ve been motivated by more emotion than good judgment. Fully selling would be waving the white flag and setting up way too much work in the winter. So, like so many teams talk about doing and never fully pull off, the Jays did both.

“It’s been a give-and-take approach,” manager John Schneider said. “It’s been busy. It’s been exciting. It’s been emotional.”

There’s no question, coming off a run to the World Series last year, the fact Aug. 3 was anything other than buying for Toronto is a disappointment. This was supposed to be the day to load up for another run at the trophy. Instead, it became farewells to a franchise staple in Gausman and key players such as Hoffman and Varsho. When the Jays found out on their team plane Sunday night Gausman was traded to the Chicago Cubs, Varsho said, Springer, Gausman and the outfielder cried together. Had the Jays won more games to this point, those tears probably wouldn’t have been shed.

“Every day that I’m in the stands and look out and see the 40,000-plus people that are so attentive and locked into this group,” general manager Ross Atkins said after the deadline, “You know I feel that I’ve let them down to some degree.”

But, crucially, Toronto’s trades weren’t a total white flag.

Blue Jays trade deadline pic.twitter.com/q0oQbxIIVS

— Blake Murphy (@BlakeMurphyODC) August 3, 2026

The Jays kept Springer and Shane Bieber. Soriano might now be the second-best pitcher on the staff, and Smith could boost the lineup depth. Even with the exits of three significant players, it’s hard to declare Toronto’s roster is definitively worse than it was a day ago. The team restocked the farm, adding the Nos. 6, 17, 20 and 25 prospects, per MLB Pipeline, and acquired players who can play in 2027 and beyond. But the Jays still left the door open a crack this season.

The postseason remains a long shot. Before Monday’s game against the Houston Astros, Toronto’s FanGraphs playoff odds sat at 5.8 percent. Realistically, this team has a tough slog to make the playoffs. But if Alejandro Kirk and Springer stay hot and, more than anything else, if Vladimir Guerrero Jr. figures it out, the door is there to be kicked down.

“It is still a team that, if you play the game you’re supposed to play, we can win a lot of games,” Schneider said.

Toronto’s veteran players, Atkins and several of the exiting Jays said, knew this was the plan. The GM walked into the clubhouse last week and told a few, such as Gausman, under what circumstances they’d be moved. He offered to answer any questions.

The Jays targeted this approach, Atkins said, because the deadline is a rare time when every team is engaged in trade talk. It’s a chance to make moves for the future and now — sometimes both. Really, though, it was just the reasonable approach to take. Toronto’s games are expected to be sold out for the rest of the season, even with the team well outside a playoff spot, and those fans still have a reason for hope.

So many teams talk about doing both. The Baltimore Orioles said it was their goal a few days ago, and instead only sold. They sent away Adley Rutschman, Taylor Ward and Tyler Wells. It was all talk, and the Jays chose action.

Who knows if this will actually work out. Maybe Arjun Nimmala, a top prospect sent to the Los Angeles Angels for Soriano, will turn into a superstar. Maybe Smith won’t rebound and Arrighetti won’t stay healthy. Maybe Guerrero will never find his swing and the additions around him will not pick up the slack.

At the very least, the Blue Jays decided to do both and then actually did it. That’s much more than most.

CINCINNATI — With a 53-58 record, seven players on expiring contracts and obvious needs for the future, the Cincinnati Reds entered Monday’s trade deadline as one of the most obvious sellers on the market. The result of a sleepy deadline for the front office: a 19-year-old pitcher with one A-ball start under his belt, a Triple-A infielder who was designated for assignment earlier in the day, and $250,000 of international signing bonus cap space.

Some teams were buyers, like the Boston Red Sox, and some were sellers, like the Baltimore Orioles. And then there was Cincinnati.

The Reds after the trade deadline look a whole lot like the Reds who took the field before the trade deadline. Only two players on the big-league roster — designated hitter/first baseman Nathaniel Lowe and left-handed reliever Caleb Ferguson — won’t be at Great American Ball Park on Tuesday when the Reds prepare to host the Athletics for a three-game series. The only addition will be outfielder Héctor Rodríguez, one of the team’s top prospects, who will join the team Tuesday for his big-league debut.

“We had a lot of conversations about a lot of guys. At the end of the day, the deals just weren’t there for us,” said Nick Krall, the Reds’ president of baseball operations.

The deals that were completed were Lowe to the Cleveland Guardians for right-hander Alejandro Rivera; Ferguson to the St. Louis Cardinals for international signing pool space; and switch-hitting infielder Juan Brito, who was designated for assignment earlier in the day. The Reds sent cash considerations to Cleveland for Brito, who will report to Triple-A Louisville, Krall said.

Ultimately, the Reds decided two months with catcher Tyler Stephenson and right-hander Brady Singer — perhaps seen as the two most likely players to be moved before Monday’s 6 p.m. ET deadline — were worth more to them than what the team was offered in trade, Krall said.

“Brady Singer is one of our veteran leaders in our starting pitching staff; Tyler Stephenson’s the same way,” Krall said. “I think it’s really important to have those guys around this club rather than just saying we’re going to move guys off. I think it’s really important to have bullpen guys that can lock down wins for this group, the young group we have right now.”

In addition to Singer and Stephenson, third baseman Eugenio Suárez, left-handed reliever Brock Burke and right-handed reliever Pierce Johnson are scheduled to be free agents at the end of the season.

According to Krall, there weren’t sufficient offers for the five players on expiring contracts the team kept. The lack of compelling offers reflects a broader market reality: As Major League Baseball has limited teams to a minor-league roster of 165 players, teams can no longer hide “lottery ticket”-type players like they once did. To add a player to the minor leagues, the team has to release one. So while there are lottery tickets to be had, teams can’t just accumulate a handful and hope one hits big. Instead, they must decide between the two lottery tickets.

Teams can also recoup value by making a one-year qualifying offer when free agency begins in November.

Of the seven soon-to-be free agents, Singer seems to be the only candidate to receive a qualifying offer at the end of the season. Next year’s qualifying offer is expected to be somewhere around $23 million, with a decision for both parties due before December’s impending lockout. A player who receives a qualifying offer may accept the one-year deal or reject it, and the team is compensated with a draft pick. After Nick Castellanos rejected the qualifying offer after the 2021 season, the Reds used that draft pick to select Sal Stewart in the 2022 MLB Draft. Stewart made the All-Star team as a rookie this year and entered Monday tied for the most RBIs in baseball, with 85.

Singer, who celebrates his 30th birthday Tuesday, is 5-10 with a 4.35 ERA in 21 starts for the Reds. Last season he was 14-12 with a 4.03 ERA in 32 starts and was worth 3 bWAR. After dealing with blisters early in the season, Singer’s 3-5 with a 2.70 ERA in 10 starts since June 1.

Two years ago, the Reds gave starter Nick Martinez a qualifying offer, which he accepted.

Stephenson, who turns 30 later this month, hit a home run in what he thought might be his last at-bat with the team that drafted him 11 years ago and was emotional in his postgame interview. Though there was a need for catchers around the league — especially right-handed-hitting catchers — the offers for Stephenson never reached a point where Krall believed it was worth moving on from him.

Jose Trevino is under contract for next season, but just one other catcher, Will Banfield, is on the Reds’ 40-man roster. One of their top prospects is catcher Alfredo Duno, but the 20-year-old has played just 18 games at Double A and is probably at least two years away from reaching the big leagues.

Since June 1, Stephenson has hit .320/.393/.520 with five homers over 140 plate appearances. He was 60th among 61 qualified players with negative-10 framing runs, according to Baseball Savant. However, Stephenson has been among baseball’s best with ABS. His 71 overturns are the most in baseball, and his 72 percent winning percentage is best among catchers with at least 35 challenges.

Though the New York Yankees were rumored to be looking for a right-handed-hitting catcher, team and league sources who were granted anonymity to speak candidly told The Athletic that an offer was not made by the Yankees.

Rodríguez, who was acquired in the trade deadline sell-off of 2022, will make his big-league debut Tuesday. The 22-year-old is hitting .274/.347/.533 with the Triple-A Louisville Bats and hit his 27th home run of the season as part of a four-hit performance Sunday. Krall said Rodríguez will play right field Tuesday, but the left-handed hitter will also see some time at designated hitter, where playing time was opened with the trade of Lowe.

Brito, 24, made his big-league debut earlier this year but has spent most of the season at Triple A, where he was hitting .237/.351/.394 with nine home runs before being designated for assignment Monday. The switch-hitting infielder will move around the diamond for the Bats, Krall said.

Rivera was recently promoted from the Arizona Complex League to Class A, where he made one start last week. Rivera was 4-2 with a 2.44 ERA in 12 appearances and eight starts in Arizona and gave up five runs in five innings in his first start with Hill City of the Carolina League. Baseball America recently listed Rivera as the No. 15 prospect in the Arizona Complex League. Five other Reds prospects appeared in the publication’s list of the top 20 players in the league.

The Reds have won 10 of 16 games to start the second half of the season, including series wins against the Cardinals and Pittsburgh Pirates, two teams ahead of them in the National League Central and wild-card races. Krall said the team explored deals for players who would be more than a rental, but none of those deals came to fruition, nor was the front office’s outlook for the trade deadline changed by the short-term surge.

“We’ve played really well over the course of the last few weeks, so this team finally feels together and moving in the same direction,” Krall said. “But at the same time, we looked at it as, ‘How can we make the best moves for this organization now and for the future?’ It’s just the offers weren’t there.”