This is Decision Week for a wide swath of teams in Major League Baseball, with the Trade Deadline coming up on Thursday at 6 p.m. ET.
Some teams are obviously buyers, and others are obviously sellers. But some teams are still up in the air, waiting for this week to (hopefully) tell them which direction they should go.
So allow me to help guide them. Here are the six teams, ranked by urgency, who should be most aggressive leading up to the Deadline. After all: Flags fly forever.
Obviously, the Giants have already been aggressive: There won’t be a better player changing teams at this Deadline than Rafael Devers, who came over from Boston in mid-June. But even though San Francisco heads into the Deadline week in a skid, and a full three games out of the Wild Card in the National League entering Monday, this is no time to suddenly get skittish and tentative. You don’t trade for Devers in the first place if you’re not trying to win immediately — yes, Devers is signed through 2033, but his prime is right now.
Giants president of baseball operations Buster Posey, also a franchise legend, made it clear that prudence and caution are no longer the coins of the realm in San Francisco. Every team is looking for a proof of concept, and the whole Posey regime’s concept is winning — and doing whatever it takes to make that happen. Losing streak aside, the Giants have to go after a playoff spot, hard.
Meanwhile, the team that traded away Devers not only has a better record without him than they did with him — and a better record than the Giants — they are on an uptick right now. Entering Monday, the Red Sox were in playoff position and had even climbed within one game of the Yankees for the top American League Wild Card spot. That’s right: The Yankees, who held first place in the AL East for most of the season, are fading at the exact time the Red Sox are surging … and are, of course, missing the otherworldly power bat in the middle of their lineup.
The Yankees are vulnerable, and no team is better positioned to take advantage than the Sox. Boston also is loaded with prospects and, even with the injury to Marcelo Mayer, has some positional redundancy. The Red Sox need pitching, and they need it badly. If they can get it, they could make the playoffs and knock out their arch-rivals in the process.
The Reds continue to sneak up on everyone, don’t they? They entered the week at a season-high six games over .500 and are playing their best baseball in years at this exact moment. (That the Cardinals have faded has helped clear a path for the Reds as well.) There’s always a question of how much ownership will be willing to add, payroll-wise, but you don’t bring in a legendary manager in Terry Francona (who, you know, knows his way around a postseason) if you’re not at least somewhat serious about winning right now.
The Reds, as you take a closer look at them, sort of have everything you want in a sleeper contender: young emerging talent, a fantastic rotation, a wise and experienced manager. They could use some bullpen help and another outfield bat or two, but the good news is that those are the two bits of inventory perhaps in the most plentiful supply right now. And while he’s not an outfielder, it sure would be nice to see Eugenio Suárez back in a Reds jersey, wouldn’t it?
If you’re a fan of a team that has had a disappointing season and is looking to sell at this year’s Deadline but still has hopes for 2026 and beyond — like, say, the Orioles or Braves — the Blue Jays are your aspirational North Star. This team looked like it might trade everyone at the Deadline last year, including Vladimir Guerrero Jr., who still hadn’t come to terms on an extension.
One year later, not only is Vlad Jr. wrapped up long term, the Jays entered Monday with the best record in the Majors and are vindicating nearly every decision they’ve made (or haven’t made) over the past decade. There may be no better reason for them to floor it than that. Like the Reds, they could use outfield and bullpen help, but more than anything, a big move would keep the good vibes going … and remind their fans of just how far they have come.
It’s rather ridiculous that the Astros are even here at all right now. Most teams would have caved under the injuries that have decimated Houston’s pitching staff and taken Yordan Alvarez and Jeremy Peña out of the lineup. But at the exact moment when the Astros should have faded, they got red hot, as the rest of the AL West not only failed to take advantage of the injuries but in fact faded from the competition.
Well, in the past few weeks, both the Mariners and the Rangers have gathered themselves and are starting to make a charge at the Astros, right when Houston is dealing with yet another injury, to third baseman Isaac Paredes. Maybe they get into the Suárez sweepstakes? No matter what happens, the Astros felt like a potentially teetering division dynasty heading into the season. Now that they’re still in first place this late, they need to seize this moment: Losing that division lead to either Seattle or Texas would be a lousy way for this party to end.
The Phillies will be buyers forever, or at least until all these veterans end up reaching their 50s. But it’s particularly urgent for them to be so now, with the Mets charging and the NL standings so clogged at the top. (The difference between the No. 1 seed in the NL and the No. 5 seed could end up being only a game or two.) For all those big-name Philadelphia veterans, it should be said that the bottom half of this lineup, particularly the infielders, is awfully thin right now — far too thin for a team with the Phillies’ World Series hopes (really their World Series desperations).
The starting pitching has been a wonder this year, but the club needs some more bats to back it up. The future? The Phillies stopped worrying about the future a long time ago. As always in Philadelphia: Whatever it takes to break through and win that title, it must be done. Before it’s too late.
