Ah, the trade deadline. It’s a time to dream about the huge moves your club could make. It could go get a big bopper, the kind of hitter who could put the team on his back down the stretch and carry it to October. Maybe you’re more interested in a CC Sabathia-style workhorse, a starter who could anchor your pitching staff and throw as many innings as you need, regardless of what that number is. Perhaps an electrifying defender is on the table, or a game-breaking speedster who could transform your lineup. But let’s be realistic: None of that’s going to happen. Instead, your team is going to trade for a reliever.

Relievers are the common currency of the trade deadline. Every team needs more of them. I don’t see a single bullpen in baseball that couldn’t benefit from adding an arm or two. Meanwhile, most of the acquisitions fans dream about simply aren’t on the table, because those players don’t exist. Sure, half a season of one of the best hitters in baseball is enticing, but you can’t get that at the trade deadline because no team has one to spare, at least not for a reasonable cost. But relievers? Oh, there will be relievers on offer.

Today’s article is something of a real world shopping guide. Obviously, a huge move would be more fun. Maybe Luis Robert Jr. or Garrett Crochet will get traded. Realistically, though, most of the prizes this deadline will be middle relievers. So let’s take stock of an assortment of the best options who might be on the market, as well as what past years suggest about their probable cost in prospects.

A few rules of engagement: I’m looking only at likely sellers, and going team by team. I didn’t use a hard-and-fast rule in terms of playoff chances when constructing my seller’s list, and I’m erring on the expansive side, so if I list your team in the article and you think they’re still in the race, my apologies. I’m using the last few years of trade returns as a guide, and I’m going to stick to naming prospect value tiers rather than individual names. Let’s get started.
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The Cleveland Guardians made history at the Fort Worth Stockyards on Sunday night, drafting Oregon State second baseman Travis Bazzana first overall. I planted my flag on Bazzana Island back in February, and noted that he could become the first Australian player drafted no. 1 overall, as well as the first player born and raised anywhere other than the U.S. or its dependencies. Keith Law pointed out that because no. 2 overall pick Chase Burns was born in Italy (though raised in Tennessee), 2024 marked the first time that both of the top two picks were born outside the U.S.

Had the Guardians chosen University of Georgia third baseman Charlie Condon, a different kind of history could’ve been made. Condon would’ve been the third no. 1 overall pick from Marietta, Georgia, after Dansby Swanson and Kris Benson, which would’ve given that city of some 60,000 people the distinction of being the only municipality in America to produce three no. 1 overall picks. Read the rest of this entry »

For those who enjoy the loudest, simplest, most dopamine-drenched form of baseball, today is a special day. It’s Derby day, and even better, the silly hats are not mandatory. The MLB Home Run Derby takes place at 8:00 p.m. ET at Globe Life Field in Arlington, Texas. What the Costco-coded ballpark lacks in aesthetics it makes up for in bulk. According to Statcast’s park factors, Globe Life yields more home runs than the average park both for righties (120) and for lefties (110), so we should be in for a show. You can watch on ESPN, but if you’re a nerd – and you’re reading FanGraphs right now, so I’m sure you can do the math on this one – you’ll probably prefer the Statcast broadcast over on ESPN 2.

As in any year, there’s a laundry list of Derby-worthy players who won’t be participating, with Shohei Ohtani, Aaron Judge, and Elly De La Cruz at the top. Still, this a solid sampling of swatters, and nearly every participant figures to have a legitimate shot at winning. Either we’ll have a first-time winner or Pete Alonso will take home his record-tying third title.

The field features three of the top six home run hitters in baseball this season — Gunnar Henderson, Marcell Ozuna, and José Ramírez — and two of the game’s brightest young shortstops: AL MVP candidates Henderson and Bobby Witt Jr.. It also includes three sluggers who take the Derby much more seriously than your average participant — Alonso, Henderson, and Teoscar Hernández — and two others who’ve won derbies at lower levels: Witt and Alec Bohm. Finally, there’s Adolis García, an electrifying slugger whose historic power display during the Rangers’ World Series run last season is sure to keep the crowd at full throat. In the sections below, I’ll break down all the new rules and I’ll try to make a case for why each candidate has a shot at the crown. Read the rest of this entry »

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Today, we turn our attention to the second base Killers. While still focusing on teams that meet the loose definition of contenders (a .500 record or Playoff Odds of at least 9.5%), and that have gotten about 0.6 WAR or less out of a position thus far — which prorates to 1.0 WAR over a full season — I have also incorporated our Depth Charts’ rest-of-season WAR projections into the equation for an additional perspective. Sometimes that may suggest that the team will clear the bar by a significant margin; as you can see by the table below, four of the six teams listed here project to receive more than a win from their current cast of second base options. Even so, I’ve included them here because the team’s performance at that spot is worth a look, and the incumbent may no longer appear to be the best option.

Particularly in light of those projections, I don’t expect every team to go out and track down an upgrade before the July 30 deadline, though I’ll note that some of the players cited within for their poor performance are themselves change-of-scenery candidates; one team’s problem may be another team’s solution, albeit not necessarily an ideal one. Either way, I’m less concerned with those solutions – many of which have more moving parts involved than a single trade — than I am with the problems. Unless otherwise indicated, all statistics are through Sunday.

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Over the past week, some of baseball’s top teams stumbled their way into the All-Star break while a chunk of fringe contenders ended the first half with encouraging results.

This season, we’ve revamped our power rankings. The old model wasn’t very reactive to the ups and downs of any given team’s performance throughout the season, and by September, it was giving far too much weight to a team’s full body of work without taking into account how the club had changed, improved, or declined since March. That’s why we’ve decided to build our power rankings model using a modified Elo rating system. If you’re familiar with chess rankings or FiveThirtyEight’s defunct sports section, you’ll know that Elo is an elegant solution that measures teams’ relative strength and is very reactive to recent performance.

To avoid overweighting recent results during the season, we weigh each team’s raw Elo rank using our coinflip playoff odds. (Specifically, we regress the playoff odds by 50% and weigh those against the raw Elo ranking, increasing in weight as the season progresses to a maximum of 25%.) As the best and worst teams sort themselves out throughout the season, they’ll filter to the top and bottom of the rankings, while the exercise will remain reactive to hot streaks or cold snaps.

First up are the full rankings, presented in a sortable table. Below that, I’ve grouped the teams into tiers with comments on a handful of clubs. You’ll notice that the official ordinal rankings don’t always match the tiers — I’ve taken some editorial liberties when grouping teams together — but generally, the ordering is consistent. One thing to note: The playoff odds listed in the tables below are our standard Depth Charts odds, not the coin flip odds that are used in the ranking formula.

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The Phillies began the final week of the first half on the highest of notes — they swept the Dodgers behind a pitching staff that held the mighty Los Angeles offense to just five runs across the three-game series. Unfortunately, Philadelphia followed up that triumph with a series loss to the lowly A’s that included an 18-3 blowout on Sunday. Zack Wheeler was scratched from his scheduled start with a minor back injury and Ranger Suárez is also dealing with back tightness. Their ailments will keep both starters from pitching in the All-Star Game, though they’re expected to recover in time to make their next scheduled starts. Regardless of how the week ended, the Phillies carry baseball’s best record into the break and are a cut above the rest of the contenders.

Entering the final weekend of the first half, the Orioles had a chance to pull further ahead of the sputtering Yankees in the AL East standings. Sure, Baltimore had just been swept by the Cubs, but it still held a two-game lead in the division ahead of its three-game series against New York at Camden Yards. Instead, the O’s barely avoided suffering another sweep, which would have dropped them to second place. Down to their final out after Craig Kimbrel had coughed up the lead in the top of the inning, the Orioles scored three unearned runs on a costly error, by Gold Glove shortstop Anthony Volpe, and a misplayed fly ball, by Alex Verdugo, to beat New York in walk-off fashion. It was a terrible loss for the Yankees during an especially brutal month of games; their 8-18 record since June 15 is the worst mark in the majors. And yet, for as awful as they’ve played, the Yankees finished the first half just a game behind the Orioles. The AL East race is going to be quite the treat down the stretch.

Baltimore wasn’t the only AL division leader to limp into the All-Star break. The Guardians lost both of their series last week and are now just 4.5 games ahead of the Twins in the AL Central.

In a pretty big battle for the final AL Wild Card spot last weekend, the Red Sox emerged triumphant in two of their three games against the Royals. Rafael Devers has been on fire this month, but he’s getting a lot of help from Jarren Duran and a surprising breakout from Connor Wong. Boston finished the first half as one of the hottest teams in baseball, winning 18 of its final 25 games entering the break. That 18-7 record since June 15 is the best in the majors across that span. That said, the Sox have a pretty formidable schedule ahead of them; they’ll open the second half with nine of their next 10 series against teams in the middle of the playoff hunt.

The Braves went 4-3 last week, winning a weekend series against the Padres to tighten their grip on the top NL Wild Card spot.

After being swept by the Phillies, the Dodgers traveled to Detroit and were walked off twice in their weekend series with the Tigers. On Saturday, the bullpen squandered a five-run lead in the ninth before losing the game in the 10th. Then on Sunday, a pair of errors by pitcher Yohan Ramírez on back-to-back sacrifice bunts allowed the winning run to score. That loss dropped Los Angeles to 5-10 over its last 15 games, the second-worst record in the National League since June 28. Yet, despite the recent woes, the Dodgers still hold a seven-game lead in the NL West.

The Astros, Brewers, and Twins all wobbled their way into the All-Star break; Houston lost a series to the Rangers, Milwaukee salvaged a single win against the Nationals on Sunday, and Minnesota got tripped up against the Giants.

The Mets won five in a row last week before that streak was snapped on Sunday. Still, those wins carried them into the final Wild Card spot, a game ahead of the Diamondbacks and Padres. Francisco Lindor is once again proving just how much he deserves to be an All-Star despite not being selected to the roster in any of his four seasons with the Mets. Since the beginning of June, Lindor has posted a 155 wRC+, and overall, he’s slashing .253/.329/.454; among NL shortstops, he is tied for first in home runs (17), fourth in wRC+ (125), and second in WAR (4.2). Brandon Nimmo has been even better during this prolonged stretch (172 wRC+), and he won’t be joining the festivities in Texas either.

With a pair of doubleheaders, the Cardinals wound up playing six games in five days last week. They lost both games Wednesday against the intrastate-rival Royals and split their four-game series with the suddenly hot Cubs over the weekend. Despite those lackluster results, St. Louis pulled within 4.5 games of the NL Central lead because of the Brewers’ recent struggles.

After showing some signs of life with 8-3 and 11-0 victories early last week, the Mariners fell back to their familiar, frustrating inconsistencies with three straight one-run losses against the Angels to close the first half. Less than a month ago, on June 18, Seattle held a 10-game lead in the AL West. Now, the M’s enter the break barely clinging to a one-game advantage over the second-place Astros.

The Royals may have lost their series to the Red Sox over the weekend, but they were one of the early movers in the trade market, acquiring Hunter Harvey from the Nationals on Saturday to bolster their bullpen. The relief corps has been a particularly glaring weak spot for Kansas City, but more importantly, the deal signals that the organization is looking to aggressively buy before the deadline in an attempt to take advantage of this surprisingly successful season.

The Diamondbacks had an encouraging finish to their mostly disappointing first half, splitting their series with the Braves early last week and then winning two of three against the Blue Jays over the weekend. With Friday night’s win, Arizona went above .500 for the first time since early April; at 49-48, the D-backs are tied with the Padres in the NL Wild Card standings, just a game behind the Mets for the final playoff berth. Meanwhile, San Diego won just once last week and lost its grip on a playoff spot in the process. The good news is that Xander Bogaerts was activated off the IL on Friday and hopefully can provide a boost to the Friars down the stretch.

The Pirates won a big series against the Brewers last week before sweeping the White Sox over the weekend. Those five wins pushed Pittsburgh’s record back to .500 for the first time since April, and the team sits just a game and a half back in the NL Wild Card race. Of course, the most exciting member of the Pirates is rookie right-hander Paul Skenes, who was selected to start for the NL in Tuesday’s All-Star Game. His sheer dominance just might keep the Pirates in the playoff picture for at least another few weeks and force the organization to make some difficult decisions about whether it wants to push for the postseason or stay the course and continue its rebuild for yet another year.

These six teams have been hanging around the margins of the playoff picture for most of the season, and all of them finished off the first half with some really encouraging results.

The Rays scrambled back to .500 with critical series wins against the Yankees and Guardians last week, though because Boston has been so hot recently, Tampa Bay and the rest of these AL fringe teams still have long odds to make a run at a Wild Card berth. For the Rangers, that possibly means selling off a few of their expendable players at the trade deadline. Texas managed to win its weekend series against the Astros, but the path to the playoffs for the defending champs is crowded and might be too tough to follow. The Tigers took three of four from the Guardians and two of three against the Dodgers last week, but Detroit faces an even longer and more difficult road than the other AL clubs in this tier.

For the Cubs, Giants, and Reds, there’s still plenty of hope that they can make a run over the next few months. Both Cincinnati and Chicago went 5-2 last week to pull within striking distance of the final NL Wild Card spot; the Reds are three games out, while the Cubs are 3.5 back. San Francisco didn’t have as good of a week as those other two teams, but Blake Snell turned in a brilliant start after being activated off the IL on Sunday. Still, of this trio of NL fringe contenders, the Giants have the best odds to make the playoffs.

The Blue Jays haven’t committed to selling or standing pat yet, but their series loss to the Diamondbacks over the weekend didn’t do much to encourage them to try and stick in the playoff race. The decision to trade away some of their best players could significantly alter the fortunes of their franchise, but it seems more likely that they’ll just retool a bit and try to come back competitive next year.

Despite flirting with the NL Wild Card race a month ago, the Nationals announced their intention to sell at the deadline when they traded reliever Hunter Harvey to the Royals on Saturday. That’s wise, because in a seller’s market, Washington has a handful of players who would be very enticing acquisitions for contending clubs. Yes, selling is a bummer, but considering the development of young talents such as James Wood and CJ Abrams, it might not be too long before the Nats are deadline buyers once again.

The A’s added another gigantic offensive outburst to their ledger this year with an 18-3 drubbing of the Phillies on Sunday. They scored 19 against the Orioles just a few weeks ago and 20 against the Marlins on May 4. Of course, that means they’ve scored just 3.5 runs per game in the other 95 they’ve played so far. Still, there are some positive signs from their offense, including Brent Rooker’s continued breakout and a red hot Lawrence Butler.

With his home run on Sunday, Brenton Doyle has already blasted eight dingers in July, and he’s looking more and more like a core player the Rockies can build around. His defensive prowess has already made him one of the more valuable center fielders in the game, but now he’s hitting and hitting for power, giving Colorado an all-around talent at a premium position. That should give Rockies fans some hope as they suffer through yet another disappointing season.

FanGraphs was at the Futures Game in Arlington on Saturday. In total, 16 pitchers appeared in the seven-inning game. The following are some quick notes on every pitcher who toed the rubber during All-Star weekend’s premier prospect event. Obviously one game isn’t enough on its own to move the needle significantly for any of these guys — they all have a large body of work that can better inform our evaluations — but it’s useful to see whose stuff ticks up when they’re in an environment like the Futures Game and get to let it eat in a shorter burst than they’re accustomed to. Read the rest of this entry »

Below is a team-by-team analysis of last night’s draft activity. Remember that you can find more detailed scouting reports and tool grades for the players drafted yesterday over on The Board. The positions below are what the player was announced as, not necessarily what I have them projected as on The Board. For pitchers, I have a role designated below: starter (SP), or single-inning or multi-inning reliever (SIRP and MIRP). Read the rest of this entry »

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1. Cleveland Guardians
Pick: Travis Bazzana, 2B, Oregon State
There has been a lot of buzz today about Wetherholt going here and, as I wrote in my first mock, he is the guy to cut an under-slot deal with if you’re going to do it with anyone because his other homes are later than the other candidates. I also have Wetherholt first on my board and would be fine just taking him here on talent. The rumors smell almost too strong today, as if they’re a last ditch effort to drive Bazzana’s price down before taking him. I’m staying disciplined and leaving Bazzana here, but it’s purely on intuition. Read the rest of this entry »