With Major League Baseball's trade deadline looming on Thursday, at least half the teams in the league should have it in mind to lean into contention. But some should be more desperate than others, right? Right, indeed. And the idea here is to sort the league's foremost contenders—in this case, the 17 teams that went into Thursday with winning records—by how strong their urgency should be as the July 30 deadline bears down.
This partly concerns how open teams' contention windows are and how long they figure to remain that way. It's otherwise about what teams need and what they stand to gain if they do what they must. Either way, suggestions for players each team should target will be provided along the way.
Starting with two unlikely bedfellows, let's count 'em down. And be warned that the first 10 teams are lumped together in pairs of two. Note: All farm system and prospect rankings are by B/R's Joel Reuter.
Pirates Record: 52-50, 3rd in NL Central Mets Record: 54-48, 3rd in NL East The Pirates (29th in MLB) and Mets (2nd in MLB) occupy totally opposite spheres when it comes to payroll, yet they're in a similar sort of niche as contenders. Not much was expected of either club coming into 2024, so them being in the thick of the National League wild-card race is akin to a happy accident. And neither necessarily needs to lean into it.
Paul Skenes is merely the first of many talented young players still to come in Pittsburgh, while the Mets have a top-10 farm system in their.