The Athletic has live coverage of the 2026 MLB Trade Deadline.Trade details: Tampa Bay Rays acquire C Liam Hicks from the Miami Marlins for INFs Adrian Santana and Brayden Taylor and RHP Jacob KistingThe Marlins have supposedly been asking for some significant returns on their non-rental players, and it looks like they got a bite: The Rays shipped a very impressive three-player package to Miami for Liam Hicks, a late-blooming catcher who is having the best season of his pro career.Hicks is a bat-first catcher who has always been able to hit, and now he is doing so enough to make up for his below-average defense across the board. He rarely whiffs or strikes out, walking more than he has struck out this year. His raw power is a 45 at best (on the 20-80 scouting scale), but he’s another example of the Marlins getting a hitter to pull the ball in the air a bit more to max out his in-game power. He has 14 homers already this season. His previous career high was seven, and that came at Arkansas State in 2021.His arm is a 40, and he has thrown out 12 percent of opposing base stealers in the majors, down from 17 percent in the minors, neither number being good. Offense behind the plate isn’t the Rays’ biggest need, but he’ll be an upgrade and he isn’t even eligible for arbitration yet. He’ll be the latest in what has been a revolving door at catcher for the Rays, who have used 106 different catchers since 2000, the most in MLB.I love this trade for the Marlins. I was a big Brayden Taylor fan when the Rays took him in the first round in 2023, but he was mediocre in 2024 and downright awful in 2025, hitting .173/.289/.287 as a 23-year-old SEC product in Double A. He has repeated that level this year, so you have to take the performance with a few grains of salt, but his current .284/.384/.513 line is a real improvement, backed up by better contact rates across the board, notably against his nemesis, the slider. He has always had a beautiful left-handed swing that produced consistent hard contact, and I thought he would end up at least an above-average defender at third.Adrian Santana is a small shortstop who is an elite defender and controls the strike zone exceptionally well, but until this year it looked like he’d lack the strength to keep his batting average up or hit for any power at all. He has put on a good 10-plus pounds of strength and is hitting the ball harder, enough now to see him hitting for that higher batting average, although I doubt he ever hits 10 homers in any season. With 70 defense and high contact rates, he should be an everyday shortstop in two to three years.Jacob Kisting has now been traded twice in about eight months, after the Twins sent him to the Rays in November for reliever Eric Orze. Kisting comes from a low three-quarters slot but pitches north-south, a very unusual combination. He has a two-seamer with big life to his glove side, an above-average changeup and a fringe-average slider. He’s walked just 5.3 percent of batters he has faced in High A this year. He is 23 and a college product — drafted in the 14th round in 2024 out of Bradley — so he really should have been in Double A by now. He could be a back-end starter, maybe more if he improves the breaking ball.Aug 3, 2026Connections: Sports EditionSpot the pattern. Connect the termsFind the hidden link between sports terms