How the biggest recent Deadline rentals fared

With the Aug. 1 Trade Deadline right around the corner, chances are you’re going to be hearing a lot about “rentals” over the next month.

A rental is a player whose contract is set to expire at the end of the season, who typically gets traded from a non-contending team to a contender. That team “rents” his services for the stretch run (and postseason), then he typically enters free agency in the offseason (unless his new club signs him to an extension before that.)

Every Trade Deadline features plenty of buzz around rental players. While pending free agent Shohei Ohtani theoretically could be the biggest one in 2023, the Angels are very much in the American League Wild Card picture and have all but confirmed they are not planning on selling. Still, there’s a good chance that this summer and fall will feature some signature moments by rental players acquired at the Deadline.

Here’s a look back at 10 of the biggest Trade Deadline rentals from the past 10 seasons, and how those deals unfolded:

2021: RHP Max Scherzer (Nationals to Dodgers)
This deal was the talk of the baseball world -- and for good reason. Two seasons after winning the 2019 World Series, the Nationals entered the Trade Deadline eight games under .500, and decided to change the direction of their franchise. Washington traded Scherzer (an impending free agent) and shortstop Trea Turner (who had a year and half of control remaining) for a package of prospects that included pitcher Josiah Gray and catcher Keibert Ruiz.

Scherzer hit the ground running with the Dodgers, only allowing five earned runs in his first five starts (29 innings) with the club. He finished the regular season with a 7-0 record and an ERA of 1.98 in 68 1/3 innings for Los Angeles and picked up his 3,000 career strikeout that September.

Scherzer’s postseason was more of a mixed bag, however. He helped the Dodgers reach the National League Championship Series before being plagued by a “dead arm” that limited him to 4 1/3 innings in that series, which Los Angeles dropped to Atlanta. Scherzer then signed a three-year, $130 million contract with the Mets the following offseason, while Gray and Ruiz have become mainstays on a rebuilding Nats team.

2021: OF Kris Bryant (Cubs to Giants)
Before the Dodgers’ 11th-hour trade for Scherzer, Bryant was the biggest news of the 2021 Trade Deadline, given his track record in Chicago as a Rookie of the Year, MVP and key member of the 2016 championship team. Bryant opened the season on a tear for the underachieving Cubs, and he was named to his fourth All-Star Game after he hit .271 with 16 home runs and 46 RBIs in the first half of the season.

After going to San Francisco for prospects Alexander Canario and Caleb Kilian, Bryant slashed .262/.344/.444 in 51 regular-season games for the Giants, then had a big NL Division Series against the Dodgers, including a home run off Walker Buehler in Game 1. However, San Francisco lost that series.

Bryant parlayed his body of work into a seven-year, $182 million contract with the Rockies. Almost two years later, Bryant’s Colorado tenure has been limited by injuries, while neither Canario nor Kilian have made an impact in Chicago yet.

2018: 3B Manny Machado (Orioles to Dodgers)
On July 17, Machado and Matt Kemp took a selfie at second base in the middle of the All-Star Game. A day later, the two became teammates when the Orioles shipped their longtime third baseman away for a haul of five prospects, with pitcher Dean Kremer ultimately becoming the most significant contributor in Baltimore.

That attention-grabbing trade set the tone for Machado’s three-month cameo in Hollywood. Machado slashed .273/.338/.487 with 13 home runs and 42 RBIs in 66 regular-season games to help the Dodgers win the NL West via a tiebreaker. And that’s when things got interesting.

Machado’s tumultuous postseason run included a .672 OPS, a kerfuffle regarding his lack of hustle, a benches-clearing NLCS incident and whiffing for the final out of the World Series against the Red Sox. After the season, he signed a 10-year, $300 million contract with the NL West rival Padres and has since logged two Top 3 NL MVP Award finishes.

2017: OF J.D. Martinez (Tigers to D-backs)
Martinez’s 2017 run with the D-backs is the gold standard for position player rental acquisitions. While Martinez only spent a little over two months with the D-backs, he finished ninth on the team in bWAR (2.4) and tallied more RBIs (65) than games played (62). Six of those RBIs came on Sept. 4 at Dodger Stadium, when Martinez became the 18th player to hit four home runs in a game.

Martinez won consecutive NL Player of the Week Awards and was also named the NL Player of the Month in September. After going hitless in the D-backs’ Wild Card Game win over the Rockies, Martinez hit .364 in the D-backs' NLDS loss to the Dodgers.

After the season, he signed a five-year, $110 million contract with the Red Sox. None of the three Minor Leaguers who went to Detroit in the deal made a significant impact there.

2017: RHP Yu Darvish (Rangers to Dodgers)
Darvish’s deal to the Dodgers ended the speculation around whether or not the Rangers would trade their four-time All-Star. Darvish wasted no time endearing himself to the Dodgers faithful by tossing seven scoreless innings in his first start with the club. He finished the regular season with a 3.44 ERA in 49 2/3 innings for Los Angeles and won his starts in the NLDS and NLCS to help the Dodgers capture their first NL pennant since 1988.

However, Darvish was roughed up in the World Series. He was unable to get out of the second inning in both of his two Fall Classic starts, although the subsequent revelation of the Astros’ sign-stealing that season put those performances in a different light.

After the season, Darvish signed a six-year, $126 million contract with the Cubs but only ended up spending three seasons with the club before being traded to the Padres ahead of the 2021 season. Meanwhile, none of the three prospects the Rangers acquired for Darvish -- most notably outfielder Willie Calhoun -- were able to establish themselves in Texas.

2016: LHP Aroldis Chapman (Yankees to Cubs)
A trade that will forever live in Cubs lore. With the North Siders looking to end their World Series drought, they traded away Gleyber Torres (their No. 1 prospect at the time) as part of a three-player package for three months of Chapman at the height of his powers.

Chapman was nearly unhittable in the regular season -- he allowed three earned runs in 26 2/3 innings with Chicago -- but stumbled a bit as the postseason went along. He tied a Major League record with three saves in the NLDS and picked up the final five outs of the NLCS, but he was in the dugout when the Cubs won it all after Rajai Davis tagged him for a memorable two-run, game-tying homer in Game 7 of the World Series.

After his brief stop in Chicago, Chapman headed back to the Bronx after the season on a five-year, $86 million contract. While Torres would become a solid player for the Yankees, there are no Cubs regrets about this one -- after all, flags fly forever.

2015: LHP David Price (Tigers to Blue Jays)
On July 31, 2014, the Tigers acquired Price from the Rays as part of a three-team deal with the Mariners in the hopes of bolstering their starting rotation for the stretch run. Three-hundred and sixty-four days and one ALDS sweep later, Detroit sent Price north of the border so Toronto could do the exact same thing.

Price wasted no time proving his worth by recording 11 strikeouts in his Blue Jays debut. That start set the tone for his time with the club, as he went 9-1 with a 2.30 ERA in 74 1/3 innings to help the club capture the AL East title and clinch its first postseason berth since 1993. That dominance didn’t carry over into October, however, as Price had a 6.17 ERA in four playoff games, with Toronto falling in the ALCS.

He then signed a record-setting seven-year, $217 million contract with the Red Sox, which led to a World Series ring in 2018. Lefties Daniel Norris and Matthew Boyd, who went from Toronto to Detroit in the Price trade, both became longtime members of the Tigers pitching staff, but neither achieved consistent success with the club.

2015: RHP Johnny Cueto (Reds to Royals)
A year after the Royals lost the World Series, they loaded up for another pennant run with Cueto, who had a 2.62 ERA with the Reds at the time. Cueto immediately made an impact with the Royals (he threw a four-hit shutout in his first home start with Kansas City), but ultimately posted a 4.76 regular-season ERA for his new club.

He made up for those struggles by spinning eight strong innings against the Astros in the ALDS clincher and firing a one-hitter in Game 2 of the World Series, as the Royals beat the Mets in five games for their first championship since 1985.

Coming off that postseason success, Cueto signed a six-year, $130 million contract with the Giants. All three young pitchers Cincinnati acquired for Cueto (Brandon Finnegan, John Lamb and Cody Reed) went on to pitch for the Reds, but none achieved lasting success there.

2014: LHP Jon Lester (Red Sox to A’s)
At the time of this trade, the Red Sox had bottomed out (11 games back in the AL East), while the A’s were holding onto a two-game lead over the Angels in the AL West. So Boston sent Lester, along with outfielder Jonny Gomes, to Oakland for dynamic outfielder Yoenis Cespedes, looking to add a proven postseason pitcher to the top of their rotation.

Lester, who entered Oakland with two World Series championships under his belt, had a 6–4 record and a 2.35 ERA in the regular season for the A's. Then he ended up on the wrong end of one of the greatest postseason games in recent memory, as the A’s gave away a 7-3 lead to the Royals in the AL Wild Card Game, which Kansas City won 8-7. Lester allowed six runs in 7 1/3 innings in the game.

Lester signed a six-year, $155 million deal with the Cubs in the offseason (and was a huge part of their 2016 World Series win), while Cespedes hit .269 in 51 games with Boston and was traded to the Tigers the following offseason.

2014: LHP Andrew Miller (Red Sox to Orioles)
This is the type of trade that has gone mostly extinct, as the Orioles gave up a Top 100 prospect (Eduardo Rodriguez) to rent an impact reliever. That’s not to say that Miller wasn’t talented, however, as he had a 2.34 ERA at the time of the trade and was one of five relievers who was striking out 40% of the batters he faced.

Miller was excellent in Baltimore (1.35 ERA in 20 innings), and the Orioles ran away with the AL East. That set the stage for a dominant postseason, in which he threw 7 1/3 scoreless innings with eight strikeouts in the ALDS and ALCS, though Baltimore was swept by Kansas City in the latter.

That was it for Miller’s Orioles tenure, as he signed a four-year, $36 million contract with the Yankees and went on to further postseason greatness in New York and Cleveland. This one stung a bit for Baltimore, as Rodriguez ended up blossoming into a front-line starter for the Red Sox.