Yankees, Mets improved a bit after MLB deadline with little impact

The Mets and Yankees acquired nine players in these deadline days, and if you’ve heard of five of them, consider yourself a Grade A baseball aficionado.

The Yankees and Mets worked around the margins, making incremental improvements here and there. And they still wound up outdoing most on a dud of a deadline.

The Yankees acquired the one headline-grabber to come here, the energetic and versatile Jazz Chisholm Jr., and even he came with exactly a 101 OPS-plus, almost exactly league average (but the suspicion is he’ll be much better than that now that he’s in pinstripes).

Beyond that, it was mostly a litany of mainly anonymous relievers for both our teams.

Normally that would be cause to kill the two teams in the biggest market.

But in this case, both clubs fared above average on a deadline with a lot of movement but very little impact.

Grading on that curve, the Yankees and Mets get above average marks.

There were just two bona fide stars moved at the deadline, and both went to teams fighting out West.

Yankees upgrade bullpen with trade for Padres’ Enyel De Los Santos at deadline

The Padres landed star rental reliever Tanner Scott , who hasn’t given up a run since June 13.

And their rival Dodgers plucked star right-handed starter Jack Flaherty , who has a 2.95 ERA, right before the deadline hit.

From here, among contenders those Southern California teams are the two winners of the deadline.

Of the sellers, all of whom made out well or better in the biggest sellers’ market we’ve ever seen, the biggest winners are easily the two Florida teams, who both sold just about everything not nailed down.

That surely was the right strategy for the Marlins, who understood from almost the start they weren’t going anywhere and started their selling brigade months ago with their first big trade of Luis Arraez.

And selling was also the smart thing for the Rays, even though they are above .500.

It’s unusual to see a team on the cusp of the race wave the white flag, but they wisely understood they weren’t going to pull off another of their almost annual miracles this year and took advantage of a situation where there were barely a half-dozen sellers and 20 or so hungry buyers.

The Marlins staged a flurry of activity on deadline day, dealing a half-dozen guys, getting reasonable or better returns and thoroughly impressing us.

Jose Butto sticking in bullpen for now after Mets’ trade deadline additions

The Marlins, of course, were the ones who sent the dynamic fireballing Scott to the Padres, and they received a haul in return.

The Padres sent highly regarded left-hander Robby Snelling and almost-as highly regarded right-hander Adam Mazur among a quartet of prospects, for Scott, the most unhittable reliever in baseball over the last month and a half.

This is what Padres GM A.J. Preller does — he wins the deadline.

Meantime, the Dodgers said they were looking for impact, and after days of working around the edges, they made good on that promise by landing Flaherty, an outstanding pitcher who for some reason wasn’t quite as popular as he should have been.

The Tigers did fine landing two of the Dodgers’ top-30 prospects, but Flaherty was a big move for the Dodgers, who’ve had upwards of eight starters on the injured list at different times.

And not just any starters, either — guys such as Clayton Kershaw, Walker Buehler and now Yoshinobu Yamamato.

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They are hopeful for a return from Yamamato, the $325M import, but there are no givens in this game, so the Dodgers made sure to acquire the only top-of-the-rotation starter that went this week.

Oh sure, there was hope for a much more thrilling deadline, what with names like Tarik Skubal, Blake Snell and Garrett Crochet thrown around the past couple weeks.

The improving Tigers never were going to trade Skubal, the rotation-rich Giants want to retain hope on the outskirts of the race and ultimately Crochet’s market didn’t materialize.

We may never know whether Crochet ended up staying because he made clear that to pitch in October he needed an extension, and teams just didn’t want to risk that he’d stick to the stance first reported by The Post.

There’s sympathy here for a guy who’s up nearly 1,000 percent in innings from 12 ²/₃ innings last year to 114 ¹/₃ this year, who is yet to make real MLB money (his salary is $800,000), but the tactic may be why he stayed on the South Side.

With almost all stars staying, the Yankees and Mets did fine.

Mark Leiter Jr., the son of the ex-Yankee and nephew of Al Leiter, brings familiar pedigree and nice 2024 stats, and Enyel De Los Santos has a terrific arm.

So with Chisholm, who seems ultra-excited about his move to New York, the Yankees certainly improved.

The Mets’ new pieces — relievers Huascar Brazoban, Tyler Zuber, Ryne Stanek and Phil Maton plus starter Paul Blackburn and outfielder Jesse Winker — can’t even match the Yankees’ trio of moves for Q rating.

But the Mets did address their obvious need of the bullpen in spades and give themselves a chance in a league where hardly anyone else did better.

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