Rozner: Cubs, White Sox among deadline winners

In Chicago, there are some fans upset that the Cubs have dealt their best remaining prospects to acquire the likes of Jose Quintana and Justin Wilson, two players who can help them this year and are under control beyond 2017.

And in Houston, where the Astros have dominated the American League all season, fans are outraged that the club has done nothing to help the team this year because they were unwilling to deal from their wealth of prospects.

Baseball, right?

Once again, Theo Epstein has done a spectacular job of upgrading his roster while keeping an eye on the future, and at the same time preventing divisional-rival Milwaukee from getting its hands on the same players the Cubs wanted.

And he did it without moving anyone off a roster built to win right now.

Sure, the Cubs have subtracted from the stable, but that's part of a rebuild, where you stockpile assets and use some of them to fill holes as needed. If they didn't have guys like Gleyber Torres, Eloy Jimenez and Jorge Soler, they wouldn't have been able to get what they needed.

So the trade deadline has passed and the Cubs were among the winners, as were the White Sox as they continued to speed up their rebuild with deal after deal. Of all the prospects traded in July, the Sox got the top three in Jimenez, Blake Rutherford and Dylan Cease.

That's a big score to add to an absurd haul over the last nine months.

Several teams did well and the Cubs will have to worry about them at some point if they hope to repeat as champs.

Winning the deadline doesn't usually mean winning the pennant, but the Yankees and Dodgers got considerably better without having to part with their best prospects, which is huge for two big-market teams that are very good now and will be very good for a long time.

Yu Darvish adds stability to a - when healthy - deep Dodgers rotation, and Los Angeles also brought in lefties Tony Watson and Tony Cingrani to beef up the bullpen.

The Yankees have turned every game into a five-inning affair with a ridiculous bullpen currently featuring Aroldis Chapman, Dellin Betances, David Robertson, Tommy Kahnle, Adam Warren and Chasen Shreve.

Good luck with that.

The rotation has been hot of late but GM Brian Cashman wasn't convinced, so he got the big prize in Sonny Gray. Jaime Garcia is a nice depth piece.

The Yanks are now a serious part of the American League conversation and they are built to be around for a long and scary run.

The Nats, who appear headed for a showdown with the Cubs in the first round, added Twins closer Brandon Kintzler to go with Sean Doolittle and Ryan Madson for a bullpen that has been the worst in the league all season.

Is it enough for Washington to finally win a playoff series? D.C. fans would have preferred a bigger name in the bullpen and another starter, but the Nationals are awfully good any way you slice it.

The sleepers in the American League are the Rays and Royals, two small-market operations that have to be creative as they try to fight the monsters in New York and Boston.

Kansas City is making one last run at the World Series with a handful of free agents that might walk after the season. The Royals added a nice bat in Melky Cabrera, a middling starter in Trevor Cahill and bullpen help with Brandon Maurer and Ryan Buchter.

Without the prospects or money to make major deals, the Royals did the best they could for a final shot with a great group of players.

Similarly, Tampa didn't make a big splash, but the Rays got help with underrated acquisitions like Dan Jennings, Sergio Romo, Steve Cishek, Lucas Duda and Adeiny Hechavarria.

Is that enough to get them into the race with the Yanks and Red Sox? Their rotation is one of the best and that will probably determine their playoff fate.

The biggest loser was Houston. The American League's best team needed rotation help and did nothing. With a chance to win the World Series, it's truly inexplicable.

Boston, Cleveland and Milwaukee also failed to grab difference-makers, Arizona should have picked up a closer, and sellers Baltimore, Detroit, Seattle, San Francisco, St. Louis and the Mets failed to move significant pieces that could have helped them turn things around.

There will be more deals in August as players clear waivers, but the biggest moves have been made, and here in Chicago both teams have to feel very good about what they've accomplished.

As for repeating as champs, Cubs management has done its job.

Now it's up to the players to do theirs.

brozner@dailyherald.com

• Listen to Barry Rozner from 9 a.m. to noon Sundays on the Score's "Hit and Run" show at WSCR 670-AM and follow him @BarryRozner on Twitter.