Not all trades turn heads. Often, a team deals a player who is too expensive for its current context — payroll, chances of contention, depth of the organization, etc. — for a player or players who are less expensive and whose potential value mostly lies in the future.
But sometimes less-celebrated deals turn out to be more fun than we initially thought. We might not find that out until the next season is underway, when at that point all we can do is shrug our shoulders and say, “Who knew?”
Defining an under-the-radar deal is a subjective exercise but mostly, I just looked at the list of trade pickups since the end of last season with the players sorted by 2025 AXE ratings, which I use as the basis for my Awards Watch rankings. AXE ratings are calculated from a mix of leading value metrics. The higher the score the better, and 100 is league average. Then I looked to see what and how much we wrote about the deal at the time. Or, in a couple of cases, if we wrote about them at all.
With that as the basis, here are a few under-the-radar trade acquisitions who didn’t generate many headlines at the time but are paying unexpected dividends for teams as the 2025 season careens toward the heart of the postseason chase.
The hidden treasure
The trade: Acquired from the New York Yankees for RHP Elmer Rodriguez-Cruz on Dec. 11
What we said at the time: Nothing
2025 AXE: 117.8 (5th on Boston, 67th in MLB)
This trade came together in the waning hours of the winter meetings, in the aftermath of a much splashier deal. That was the one in which Boston acquired lefty ace Garrett Crochet for a package of prospects (more on that below) that included catcher Kyle Teel.
I pay some level of attention to every move since each one requires me to make some kind of update in my database, but I’ll be honest: I have zero recollection of learning when this deal went down, and it’s not one we graded.
Narvaez had been in the Yankees’ system since 2016, but didn’t debut in the majors until last season, when he went 3-for-13 in six games for New York. The Red Sox were collecting possible options to back up Connor Wong, and while GM Craig Breslow professed “excitement” about the deal to reporters, Narvaez entered spring training as just one of several possible options to break camp as Wong’s understudy.
Now? Only the Seattle Mariners’ Cal Raleigh owns a higher AXE rating than Narvaez among American League backstops, and Wong has a .431 OPS in 18 games when behind the plate.
Last weekend, Narvaez’s breakout went national, when he clubbed a three-run homer on “Sunday Night Baseball” against — you guessed it — the Yankees. Afterward, Aaron Judge answered our rhetorical question of “Who knew?” while addressing the postgame media scrum.
“Narvy is a hard worker, a great teammate, one of the best we ever had over here,” Judge said, adding, “He outworked everybody in this room. So it doesn’t surprise me he’s having the success he is this year.”
Who knew? Well, for one the reigning AL MVP knew.
Cheating a bit
The trade: Acquired by the Atlanta Braves from the Los Angeles Angels for DH Jorge Soler on Oct. 31, then released by the Braves on Nov. 22 and signed as a free agent by the Mets on Dec. 19
What we said: “Canning could at least be a No. 5 starter. He gives the Braves another rotation option if free agent Max Fried signs elsewhere — which is a strong possibility.”
2025 AXE: 107.8 (10th on New York, 194th in MLB)
As teased above, this is a bit of a cheat. Canning was indeed an under-the-radar trade acquisition over the winter, only the team that acquired him (Atlanta) didn’t keep him. Instead, the Braves, fearing what Canning might earn via the arbitration process, non-tendered him. Thus, Atlanta’s motivation for trading Soler turned out to be a straight salary dump.
Well, the Braves and the Angels could use Canning now. After signing Canning to a one-year, $4.25 million deal (plus bonuses he now seems likely to reach), the Mets have seen the 29-year-old righty become a fixture in their stable core-five rotation. Through 13 starts, he’s 6-2 with a 3.22 ERA.
Canning is the No. 5 starter in Flushing, but his numbers would slot him second in the rotations for both the Angels (behind Yusei Kikuchi) and Braves (behind Chris Sale).
Far from a throw-in
The trade: Acquired from the Red Sox with RHP Wikelman Gonzalez, OF Braden Montgomery and C Kyle Teel for LHP Garrett Crochet on Dec. 11
What we said: “Meidroth is a potential glue player with positional versatility and features excellent bat-on-ball skills and approach at the plate. His raw tools are mediocre, per [ESPN’s Kiley] McDaniel, and his upside is limited by a lack of power.”
2025 AXE: 112.2 (2nd on Chicago, 119th in MLB)
The Crochet trade generated plenty of buzz, but in the pecking order of prospects, many might have rated Meidroth at the bottom. Indeed, many still might. Teel just reached the majors and remains viewed as a possible All-Star catcher. It’s early days for Montgomery, but he has done nothing to diminish his prospect glow. Gonzalez is raw but flashes exciting stuff as a part of a loaded staff at Double-A Birmingham.
But Meidroth beat them all to the majors and has become a fixture at second base and in the upper slots of the lineup for the White Sox. He’s hitting .296/.385/.365 and has displayed the same kind of almost pathological patience at the dish as he showed as a minor leaguer. As suggested, his power is below average, but he has stolen eight bases and played (mostly) good defense.
Even better, when you combine Meidroth’s lack of power with his excellent bat-on-ball skills and off-the-charts plate discipline, it’s not hard to imagine him becoming the kind of player who has vanished from today’s game: the hitter with at least a .400 on-base percentage but a sub-.400 slugging percentage.
Such players used to be common in the majors, but they’ve gradually gone extinct. There hasn’t been a qualifying hitter to meet those parameters since Florida’s Luis Castillo in 2000, when he hit .334/.418/.388 over 626 plate appearances.
Making a name for himself
The trade: Acquired from the Pittsburgh Pirates with LHP Michael Kennedy and Josh Hartle for IF Spencer Horwitz on Dec. 10
What we said: Almost nothing
2025 AXE: 102.7 (13th on Cleveland, 328th in MLB)
The only mention on our grades page about this trade was at the end of our write-up about the deal that sent Andres Gimenez from the Guardians to the Blue Jays and included Horwitz. We didn’t hand out any grades when Horwitz was subsequently flipped to Pittsburgh, even though it turned out to be the splashiest thing the Pirates did all winter. Who knew?
Ortiz hasn’t been an ace, but he’s second on Cleveland in starts and innings and leads the club in strikeouts. The Guardians’ pitching program has long been lauded for its ability to push hurlers to a higher level of production, and they’ve displayed that trait with Ortiz in vivid terms.
With Cleveland, Ortiz has cut back on use of his sinker, added velocity to his four-seamer and ramped up the frequency of what was a seldom-deployed changeup. The end result: Ortiz’s strikeout rate has soared from 19.2% to 25.2%.
The DFA merry-go-round
The trade: Acquired from the Philadelphia Phillies for cash on April 26
What we said: Nothing
2025 AXE: 105.5 (11th on Minnesota, 245th in MLB)
Hopefully, the Phillies did something fun with that money, because they sure could use the services of Clemens right about now.
OK, that’s not entirely fair. This deal, which went down about six weeks ago, came when the Phillies ran into a 40-man roster crunch and designated Clemens for assignment. Clemens had barely been used, and during his time with the Phillies, going back to 2023, he’d slashed .220/.265/.394. The Phillies are short now though with Bryce Harper battling wrist problems.
The Twins were in dire straits back in April because of a broken arm suffered by newly called-up infielder and touted prospect Luke Keaschall. Minnesota surely saw Clemens as the kind of stopgap solution that so many DFA-related moves turn out to be. Such players are the temp workers of MLB. Just ask frequent Mariner Casey Lawrence, who has been DFA’d six times (five by Seattle, once by Toronto) since the season began. It’s no way to live, even if it does pay really well for temp work.
Instead of joining Lawrence on the DFA merry-go-round, Clemens helped keep a struggling Minnesota team afloat until it got healthier and caught fire. Clemens has hit .236/.340/.517 for the Twins, who have gone 24-15 since he debuted for the team on April 28.
The bull who became a bear might be a bull again
Jesus Luzardo (SP, Philadelphia Phillies)
The trade: Acquired from the Marlins with C Paul McIntosh for OF Emaarion Boyd and SS Starlyn Caba on Dec. 22
What we said: “The Phillies now project to have arguably the best rotation in the majors, and the upgrade with Luzardo could be a difference-maker in what should be a three-team race with the Braves and Mets for the NL East title.”
2025 AXE: 119.5 (4th on Philadelphia, 53rd in MLB)
Luzardo was actually the inspiration for this piece. It’s not that the move was unnoticed. We wrote it up and David Schoenfield gave the Phillies a B+ for it. Luzardo, a longtime top prospect whose big league career has been more solid than spectacular, was a recognizable name.
Yet when he was brought in, it seemed like he was destined to be the Phillies’ No. 5 starter and perhaps might get bumped from the rotation altogether once Andrew Painter and/or Mick Abel ascended from the minors.
Instead, when I wrote the season’s first Awards Watch, Luzardo had emerged as the early front-runner for NL Cy Young. Who knew?
Luzardo still earns props for his early success, especially in lieu of Aaron Nola’s struggles with production and health this season. But the news for Luzardo since that Awards Watch turned sour, at least for a couple of starts. In two brutal outings, Luzardo was hammered for 20 runs in 5 2/3 innings, raising his ERA from 2.15 to 4.46.
Luzardo and the team reportedly diagnosed the issue as pitch tipping and apparently they were right. On Wednesday, Luzardo held the Cubs to a lone run over six innings and struck out 10. Luzardo isn’t the Cy Young frontrunner he was just two weeks ago, but his suddenly bearish season has once again gone bullish for a Phillies team going through some struggles.
