PHOENIX — The Major League Baseball trade deadline is 6 p.m. ET Tuesday, and buyers far outnumber sellers. With 56 games remaining, 23 teams still have a chance to clinch a division title or a Wild Card spot.
There are 12 of them – six division titles and six Wild Card spots, three and three in each league.
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In the American League, three teams finished: the Los Angeles Angels, Oakland A’s and Chicago White Sox, with 31 games played in the Wild Card race, are so far behind that they can’t even be seen in the rearview mirror.
In the National League, only Miami and Colorado, which entered the MLB together as expansion teams in 1993, are completely sold out. The top six teams have just two games of separation, and there is only a 6 1/2 game gap between the top 13 teams.
This is what has happened since MLB expanded from a 10-team playoff format to 12 teams in 2022: the more the merrier in the playoff races, but far fewer trade partners. Torey Lovullo, manager of the defending NL champion Arizona Diamondbacks, whose team is once again in the thick of things, thinks this is good for baseball.
“It’s great for the fans,” he said in an interview on Saturday. “The classification is changing rapidly. And then it becomes difficult for front offices to make that decision: buy or sell. There is no perfect science for this. I’m happy that we’re among the buyers, among the group of teams that are trying to make things better.”
The D-backs already upgraded the back end of their bullpen on Friday, sending a group of promising minor leaguers to the Marlins for left-handed reliever AJ Puk, who on Saturday and Sunday pitched a pair of fairly clean innings while the D-backs split these games with Pittsburgh.
The Marlins continued their own dismantling, sending the versatile Jazz Chisholm to the New York Yankees in another trade for minor leaguers.
Miami decided early to retool, sending Luis Arráez to the San Diego Padres back in may. The Padres, in their quest to reach the playoffs and win the first World Series in club history, picked the pockets of the Marlins and White Sox early, signing starter Dylan Cease from Chicago before the end of spring training. Cease just threw the second no-hitter in Padres history. Arráez, batting .309, still has a chance to win his third consecutive league batting title for his third team, although Shohei Ohtani of the Los Angeles Dodgers is currently batting .314 with a chance to win the NL Triple Crown.
“It gives us room to do other things this season if we need to,” Padres general manager AJ Preller said at the time of the Arráez trade. “I hope that now we have a team that is competitive. But we’re constantly keeping an eye on what’s out there, evaluating our payroll and budget.”
The Padres have yet to make a big move at the deadline, signing reliever Jason Adam from the Tampa Bay Rays for three prospects, but you know Preller is working on it because that’s what he does.
Two years ago, he engineered the blockbuster deadline trade, getting Juan Soto from the Washington Nationals. Soto had an excellent postseason and helped the Padres reach the NL Championship Series, where they lost to the Philadelphia Phillies in five games. Last offseason, Preller traded Soto to the Yankees for some pitching that helped the team.
The Padres, at 57-51, are atop the list of NL Wild Card teams, having won eight of their last 11 before the deadline.
So far, there have been no such deals for high-profile players like Soto, but time is ticking.
Instead, the Dodgers sent veteran pitcher James Paxton back to the Boston Red Sox. The Nationals, on the brink of the Wild Card race seven games away, sent outfielder Jesse Winker to the New York Mets to replace pitcher Tyler Stuart.
The Rays also traded starter Zach Eflin to the Baltimore Orioles, outfielder Randy Arozarena to the Seattle Mariners and All-Star infielder Isaac Paredes to the Chicago Cubs in their own purge. The Orioles, in a tight race for the AL East and playoffs with the Yankees, also signed reliever Seranthony Dominguez and outfielder Cristian Pache from the Phillies for outfielder Austin Hays.
With so much competition for available talent and playoff positions, there are bound to be more moves.
The D-backs, at 55-51, wanted to attack their needs this week. With starters Merrill Kelly and Eduardo Rodriquez slowly recovering from season-long shoulder injuries, the D-backs aren’t done yet, general manager Mike Hazen told reporters during a conference call Friday. But they’re not in the market to start pitching, although there’s no way of knowing how healthy these guys will remain and what they’ll be able to contribute to return so late in the season.
“You can’t just say you want to improve your team and then not do it,” Hazen said. “But I’ll probably have to roll the dice and not acquire a starting pitcher.”
The D-backs were unable to acquire a starter by the 2023 deadline and it came back to haunt them when they went to bullpen games in both the NLCS against the Phillies and the World Series against the Texas Rangers. The NLCS game was successful, but the World Series was not, as the D-backs lost in five games.
Hazen called his inability to draft a starter last year one of his biggest regrets. Now he’s back at that juncture again.
No analysis or instinct can give any general manager a crystal ball. What is certain is that once again the fight for playoff positions is reaching the last weekend of the season. Last year, the D-backs had 84 wins and made the playoffs despite losing their last four games. This year, it will probably take more than that.
“Sellers are in a very good situation,” Lovullo said. “It could be a little dangerous. Some teams will be a little desperate.”
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