When the dust settled at 6 p.m. ET on Monday, there was all sorts of transactional carnage to sift through. It was a fittingly chaotic trade deadline day of dealing given how bunched up the standings have been all season long, but the biggest swing took place over the weekend when the two-time defending champion Dodgers landed the biggest fish out there in Tarik Skubal.
Given the timing of that move, it gave the subsequent flurry of activity the sense that the rest of the pack was scrambling to catch up with baseball’s undisputed kings. Hindsight will tell us which trades actually made the biggest impact in crowning 2026’s champion. In the meantime, let’s hand out some kneejerk reaction grades for each club’s course of action at this year’s trade deadline in our latest batch of power rankings.
