Episode 345: Trade Deadline Postmortem

We are back to being a fantasy baseball podcast! Mike and Jon discuss the fallout from the 2026 trade deadline, looking at the general shift that the additional wild cards have made to the timing if deal-making, as well as the specific weirdness of a Monday deadline when many leagues run their waivers on Sunday night. Then we talk players. So many players.We keep our starting pitching conversations limited to a few guys of interest (Foster Griffin, Freddie Peralta, Kevin Gausman, Clay Holmes), and we dip into a brief discussion of relievers who were moved, mainly touching on the Pirates bullpen situation with their addition of Luke Weaver.For hitters, the rundown is as follows: Catchers (Hicks, Rutschman)OF bats (Ramos, Ward, Adell, Varsho, Nootbaar)IF bats (Garcia, Arraez, N.Lowe)New (possible) regular jobs (H.Rodríguez, Basabe)And, why Matt Chapman should start his offseason now.Flags Fly Forever is a Baseball Prospectus podcast. For more fantasy baseball information, visit baseballprospectus.com and click on "Fantasy."You can find Flags Fly Forever on Bluesky (@flagsflyforever.bsky.social). The hosts of Flags Fly Forever are Mike Gianella(@mikegianella.bsky.social) and Jon Hegglund(@jonhegglund.bsky.social). The producer of Flags Fly Forever is Jon Hegglund. Special thanks to the awesome and generous Petite League for permission to use their track "Mets" for the intro and break music. Find their sweet lo-fi indie-pop sounds at petiteleague.com.