Bargain Hunting at the Trade Deadline
With the trade deadline now eight days away, most of the trade speculation has centered around a few big name players. Johnny Cueto, Cole Hamels, Jeff Samardzija, and Scott Kazmir were the primary pitching targets for contenders looking to upgrade their rotation, and David Price might end up in that mix too. The hitting class is a lot weaker, but Justin Upton’s name continues to float out there, and Ben Zobrist is probably available to a team who wants a do-everything guy instead of just a bat. But if you want any of those guys, they aren’t going to come cheap, and there is going to be a lot of competition for their services.
But while I still think this remains a seller’s market — though to a lesser degree than it was a month ago — I do think there are some potential values to be had for teams that are willing to shop in the mid-tier instead. To that end, here are the three players I’d be aggressively targeting this month, given their expected production and my sense of what I think they’ll cost, relative to the big name guys.
