MLB Trade Deadline: Will Teams Push for October or Plan for Future?

Go all-in or play for next year? MLB’s trade deadline is approaching Tuesday, but the highly anticipated date is likely bringing an extra dose of confusion for clubs this year. 

Every season, some teams struggle with whether to commit additional resources toward a late-season push for the playoffs or pivot toward a longer-term organizational rebuild. But this year’s standings reveal a particularly muddled situation. Entering Sunday’s games, 21 of MLB’s 30 teams were within five games of a playoff spot, including three with losing records. As a result, many of those clubs are just one significant winning streak away from solidifying their chances of playing in October, and equally, one meaningful losing streak away from a very different situation.

Those numbers are similar to this point last season. But there is now the additional complication of what MLB’s near- and long-term local media situation is going to be, and adding to the complexity of how teams choose to budget their player spending both now and in the future. 

MLB is particularly entangled in the ongoing bankruptcy of regional sports network operator Diamond Sports Group, and commissioner Rob Manfred has often spoken of a desire to overhaul that critical revenue stream through a new, league-controlled offering.

“With just very few exceptions right now, almost everybody is on hold,” said Mariners president of baseball operations Jerry Dipoto recently on KIRO-AM. “What you see when you pick up a paper, look at the standings, or flip on a site and check out where teams stand, almost everybody in baseball is within three games of a playoff spot, it seems.”

‘We are open to doing something that has the potential to be dynamic. [I] don’t know if that’s going to be available. Right now, it’s not, and this is as late as we’ve ever gone into a deadline where I can honestly say it’s not,” he said.

Subsequent to those comments, Dipoto and the Mariners have been particularly active as the deadline nears, making trades for outfielder Randy Arozarena and reliever Yimi García. Whether either player proves to be “dynamic” in Seattle is still unknown. Other trade movement began to emerge over the weekend, led in part by the Yankees’ deal with the Marlins to acquire former All-Star Jazz Chisholm Jr.

There is some additional help coming on the TV front, though, as The Athletic reported that MLB and the MLB Players Association have agreed to direct some luxury-tax money toward teams that have lost local TV revenue. Those funds, termed a “media-disruption distribution,” are limited to $15 million per team, $75 million across the league, and will be available for just one year. 

“We believe this agreement should positively affect the player market by softening the impact of revenue declines, by increasing the number of clubs who have monies to spend, and by undermining the ability of clubs to weaponize recent developments in RSN markets,” the MLBPA wrote in the memo to players.

Player Demands

Meanwhile, this year’s trade deadline is also arriving with a heightened level of player advocacy for their futures. According to multiple reports, one such notable case involves White Sox pitcher Garrett Crochet (above), who does not want to pitch in the postseason if he is traded without first signing a long-term contract extension. 

The 25-year-old, the White Sox’ lone All-Star this year and Fangraphs’ major-league leader in pitching wins above replacement, has already experienced a massive increase in his workload this season, having thrown more than 111 innings compared to after posting fewer than 13 last year. Such a jump already places Crochet at a sharply elevated risk of serious elbow injury in the future, and with the demand, is clearly looking to solidify his financial future. Crochet already has undergone Tommy John surgery in 2022.

There have been some similar demands made in recent years by other pitchers on the trading block, but involving much more accomplished ones than Crochet, still in his first year as a starter.