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Buy Or Sell?
Major League Baseball has made dealing at the trade deadlines quite nerve wracking. MLB expanded it’s playoff system and has kept most MLB teams in the hunt for a post season run. Your team is still in the race unless you’re in last place, double digits away from the last wild card spot. In earlier times most teams knew early if they had a chance to play baseball in October instead of golf. Hence, general managers are under pressure to buy. Trading valuable players when the team is still in contention is dereliction of duty! GM’s telling impatient fans that the team is looking to the future will spark burning in effigy among the fan base. Those executives who talk about “rebuilding” will be exiting the team building carrying a cardboard box of personal effects.
The only exceptions are teams who are hopelessly out of the playoff race. Their fans will understand that there’s nothing to lose by starting over. Trading the last one or two decent players the team has left will return young prospects. Maybe the franchise will turn around. Trade deadlines can feel like Monte Carlo Night when risking the future for the present.
Short Term Or Long Term?
Some teams truly believe they are one or two players away from making the World Series. They will sell off the future to get a victory this season. For example, the Boston Red Sox parted with several high draft picks to the Baltimore Orioles and the San Francisco Giants. They traded promising left hander Connelley Early to the Nationals for hitter Curtis Mead. They had a plethora of pitching but needed a bat, so this made sense on paper. Yet Mead got hit by a pitch in just his second at bat with the Bosox and may miss the rest of 2026!
Other teams will size up how close their team is to the making the playoffs next season or the year after that. They trade for players to build their team around and are not necessarily counting on a 2026 playoff spot. The Toronto Blue Jays traded top prospects to the last place Angels in exchange for pitcher Jose Soriano. The Jays aren’t out of the playoff hunt but have mostly struggled this season. They are a shell of the 2025 team that were an out from winning the World Series. They hope to build for rebound in 2027.
Rich Get Richer
Then there’s the Los Angeles Dodgers. The two time defending champs just picked up one of the game’s top pitchers in Tarik Skubal. Skubal won the American League Cy Young award two straights years in 2024 and 2025. The Dodgers are piling on and taking nothing for granted despite having the second best record in baseball. The Skubal trade sparked calls for salary caps in baseball, similar to football and basketball. However, the New York Mets have the highest payroll in MLB ,but also have one of the worst records in the game.
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Which teams do you think got a boost or a bust from their trade deadline moves? Leave you comment below.