A week ahead of the MLB trade deadline, conversations -- the sort that will turn into a deluge of deals in the coming days -- started to pick up around Major League Baseball on Monday. With the MLB draft complete and the All-Star break passed, teams are finally turning their full attention to trade season.
The expectation, according to more than two dozen front office personnel members, is that while this deadline lacks a top-of-the-industry player, the openness of the playoff picture will compel a wide swath of teams to add from a limited pool of players.
Contenders, sources said, could subtract from positions of strength while simultaneously adding to address weaknesses. Teams near, or even over, .500 could take advantage of the market's spare inventory to hunt for value and offload players. In a landscape where, as one official said, "everybody needs bats and there are no bats available," creativity will be paramount.
It's all another consequence of expanding the postseason to 12 teams, making the days leading up to the 6 p.m. ET deadline on July 30 that much trickier to navigate. With a week to go, here is where every team stands, broken into categories that reflect their intentions. Whether they can execute on them gives this deadline its greatest source of intrigue.
