Was there really any doubt that AJ Preller would push some more chips in ahead of this year’s deadline? That’s all this dude has done the past few years, and here he goes again, following up the steep price paid for Rays righty reliever Jason Adam with another huge haul sent out to land Tanner Scott, arguably the best closer on the market, and Bryan Hoeing. Scott’s command has been notably worse than it was a year ago, but the swing-and-miss stuff from the left side is still very much intact, and he has been especially dominant in July.

Alongside Adam, Scott now joins an already-loaded Padres bullpen that features All-Star Robert Suarez and flamethrower Jeremiah Estrada to make the ends of games for opponents an absolute nightmare. We’ll see if San Diego is able to bolster its rotation before 6 p.m. ET, but at the very least, the Padres have assembled a bullpen that should be able to shorten games for manager Mike Shildt and lessen the load on a thin rotation.

On the other side of this deal, the Marlins and GM Peter Bendix continue their dramatic rebuild and land an exciting quartet of young talent, especially for a pitcher in Scott slated to reach free agency at the end of the season. For just a few months of Scott, Miami was able to land two arms and two bats with six-plus years of team control and varying levels of ceiling. Not long after dealing Dylan Lesko, their first pick in the 2022 draft, to Tampa Bay for Adam, San Diego parted with their second and third picks from that year’s draft, Robby Snelling and Adam Mazur, to land Scott.

Like Lesko, Snelling’s prospect stock, which was sky-high a year ago, has soured considerably this season as his command faltered at Double-A, but he’s still just 20 years old and projects as a mid-rotation lefty starter. Mazur has been pummeled by big-league bats in a small sample but has four pitches and the ingredients to be a back-end starter if the Marlins — a team that has gotten a lot out of its arms — can help him make the necessary adjustments. Graham Pauley and Jay Beshears look like useful, multi-position utility-type players, with Pauley likely to get a shot in Miami in the very near future and Beshears still a few years away.

It has been overshadowed by the spectacular Mason Miller breakout, but Lucas Erceg is another wild development story in Oakland’s bullpen that will now be told much more frequently as he joins a team with postseason aspirations. Erceg was a second-round pick by the Brewers in 2016 as a third baseman out of an NAIA school in California, and he remained a position player prospect until 2021, when his strong arm enabled a full-time move to the mound in an effort to rejuvenate his floundering prospect status.

It took a little while, and Erceg dealt with and overcame struggles with depression and alcoholism as his career unfolded, but things have really clicked since Erceg joined the A’s. He has quietly become one of the nastier relievers in the league, with elite velocity and an absolutely vicious slider. The command is still fairly crude, but he’s throwing a lot more strikes than he did as a rookie last year and should drastically upgrade a Royals bullpen in dire need of reinforcements, even after the acquisition of Hunter Harvey a few weeks back. K.C.’s bullpen ranks 25th in fWAR, 24th in ERA and 29th in strikeout rate; Erceg should help across the board as the Royals look to secure a surprise postseason berth.

It’s a decent return for Oakland, though a tad lighter than I would’ve expected, given that Erceg is under team control through 2029. Mason Barnett is a former third-round pick whose prospect stock is stronger than the 4.91 ERA he currently has in Double-A. His delivery and command come with relief risk, but he has a deep enough arsenal to start and has been developed as such since entering pro ball. He could be a mid-rotation arm if it all comes together, with a high-leverage bullpen role as a decent fallback plan.

Will Klein throws very hard (97.3 mph average fastball) but has yet to translate the heat into effectiveness as a big-league reliever. Jared Dickey is a former college catcher who has taken well to a transition to the outfield and is hitting well as a 22-year-old in High-A (127 wRC+).

Yankees relievers rank sixth in ERA (3.63) but 17th in strikeout rate (23%), underscoring the need for more whiffs in the later innings, and Mark Leiter Jr. should provide just that. The 33-year-old righty has been sublime in seven appearances since coming off the IL on July 9, not allowing any of the 23 batters he has faced to reach base while striking out 14. His splitter is one of the better off-speed pitches in baseball, highly capable of inducing both weak contact and swing-and-miss when he needs it. His 34.9% strikeout rate is tied for 10th among relievers, and he is under team control through 2026, so he could become a fixture in the Yankees ‘pen for a while if things click. Though not necessarily Capital C-Closer material, he gives manager Aaron Boone another really strong option to turn to in the seventh and eighth innings, especially when a strikeout is needed.

In the Cubs' return, Ben Cowles is an infielder who put up big numbers as a junior at Maryland in 2021, but his modest physical tools dropped him to the 10th round. The Yankees were wise to scoop him up, as he has continued to hit well in the minors while mostly playing shortstop. He’s 24 now but is performing well enough in Double-A to be the headlining piece in a trade for a very good reliever. He’s probably a utility type at the big-league level. Jack Neely is a relief prospect with a good slider who reached Triple-A last month and could be ready to help Chicago’s bullpen pretty quickly.

In 2021, Ronald Acuña Jr tore his ACL. The Braves added a quartet of outfielders at the trade deadline — including Jorge Soler — and won the World Series. This year, Acuña tore his other ACL, and the Braves … just traded for Soler. Again.

Asked recently by Yahoo Sports whether he looks back on 2021 as instructive for this season, Braves manager Brian Snitker replied, "No, every year is such a separate entity that you can't say well, 'OK, it's OK that we're doing this.' In 2021, we lost one guy. Really. You know, we've lost a big chunk of what we had going on this year. And I don't think you can look at [2021] and think it's necessarily going to transpire and be that same result again. I think you just got to deal with this year this year. I mean, every year presents its own set of problems."

Read more on the Braves-Giants trade from Yahoo Sports' Jake Mintz.

Cincinnati’s Opening Day starter after inking a one-year, $16 million free-agent deal last winter, Montas showed infrequent flashes of being a frontline starter during his brief tenure as a Red but has generally disappointed and now finds himself shipped off to a contender in serious need of starting pitching. The velocity is still plus, and his go-to splitter has been pretty solid, but the results simply haven’t been there. I’m eager to see what tweaks Milwaukee can make with Montas and if he can get back on track to the point that they feel confident handing him the ball for a postseason start.

Wiemer’s plus speed and athleticism have yet to translate to consistent big-league production, thus squeezing him out of Milwaukee’s long-term outfield plans. While his excellent defense in center field gives him a fairly high floor as a useful fourth outfielder, his track record of hitting in the minors suggests that he could be a lefty-mashing platoon bat that brings more consistent value at the plate. Wiemer also has some local ties, having played collegiately at the University of Cincinnati.

Junis has had some success this year as a multi-inning reliever for Milwaukee and should help cover some innings down the stretch for Cincinnati. He has a mutual option for 2025.

The Astros seem to have committed something of an overpay. Sending two talented youngsters with big-league time and another upper-minors prospect to Toronto in exchange for Yusei Kikuchi, an impending free-agent rental starter, is a bit rich for how the market has acted so far this deadline.

To be clear, the Astros should be going for it. That isn’t the issue here. Houston entered play Monday tied with the Mariners atop the AL West. They have admirably climbed their way out of an abyss after a sluggish start to 2024. When you employ dudes such as José Altuve, Alex Bregman and Yordan Álvarez, the World Series is always a reality. This club has made seven consecutive ALCS for a reason.

The Astros also correctly addressed an area of need on their roster: starting pitching. A litany of injuries has left Houston’s rotation criminally undermanned. But the issues here are (1) the player they acquired and (2) the price they paid.

Yusei Kikuchi is a quality MLB starter who should slot right into Houston’s rotation and hoover up innings down the stretch. But is he starting a postseason game for the Astros? Unless the still-iced Justin Verlander isn’t healthy come October, probably not. Verlander, Framber Valdez and a pair of breakout performers, Ronel Blanco and Hunter Brown, would be ahead of Kikuchi on the list. The 33-year-old Japanese southpaw started the season well, but his secondary pitches have gotten absolutely pummeled this year, and considering that he’s a free agent at season’s end, the price Houston paid looks steep to me.

Jake Bloss, Joey Loperfido and Will Wagner are all either in Triple-A or have big-league time. That indicates that Toronto is interested in more of a refresh than a rebuild, which makes sense considering that Bo Bichette and Vladimir Guerrero Jr. remain under contract for next season. So who are these guys?

Bloss scuffled in a three-start debut run for Houston this season, but take those numbers with a whole pillar of salt. The 23-year-old right-hander was drafted out of Georgetown University last season and was rushed to the big leagues as a result of Houston’s injury woes. He has a heater in the mid-90s with excellent carry, which gives him a great floor to be a rotation option in the future. There’s more work to be done here, but he’s under team control until the sun melts.

From a physical perspective, Loperfido smells a bit like Cody Bellinger. Obviously, he’s not that good, but there’s athleticism to like with the big-swinging OF/1B. The former Duke Blue Devil also debuted this year and was more blah than disastrous, even though he ran a yikes-inducing strikeout rate. If he can cut down some of the in-zone whiff, he could become a decent every-day player.

Wagner, the son of former MLB closer Billy Wagner, is more of an up-down utility bench guy with good swing decisions and limited power.

When you consider that Kikuchi will hit the open market at season’s end and compare Toronto’s haul to the underwhelming return the White Sox got for a more sought-after starter in Erick Fedde, it’s hard not to view this as an overpay by Houston.

The Astros get themselves on the board this trade deadline by acquiring left-hander Yusei Kikuchi from the Toronto Blue Jays. Houston has been aggressively looking for starting pitching, and the team was one of the front-runners for Erick Fedde along with St. Louis, which ultimately landed the right-hander.

Kikuchi fills a big need for a Houston team that is trying to win the AL West after a dreadfully slow start to the season.