MLBTR's Steve Adams hosted a live chat today at 2pm CT, exclusively for Trade Rumors Front Office subscribers.
MLBTR is kicking off a new series for Front Office subscribers! Over the next few weeks, we'll go team-by-team and examine every club's deadline outlook as trade season approaches. There are some teams that'll be easy to categorize as buyers or sellers, but many still find themselves right on the bubble where their play over the next four to six weeks takes on extra importance.
There's nuance even for teams that are clearly into buy or sell mode. Where are those organizations from a payroll perspective? Are the buyers all-in for 2025 or just opening a long-term competitive window? Are the sellers committed to a multi-year rebuild, or are they likely to focus only on moving rentals while hanging onto players who are controllable beyond this season? Might the baseball operations leader be on the hot seat, and if so, how could that impact their deadline decisions?
We'll start the series with a focus on teams that have moved to the far end of the standings, giving a bit more time for the fringe contenders to clarify their plans. We'll get underway with the Pirates, who are headed to their seventh consecutive losing season.
Record: 29-45 (0.2% playoff probability)
Sell Mode
Impending Free Agents: Andrew Heaney, Isiah Kiner-Falefa, Caleb Ferguson, Tim Mayza, Tommy Pham, Adam Frazier, Andrew McCutchen
The Pirates aren't likely to trade McCutchen. He has played on a series of one-year deals and has made clear he hopes to retire in Pittsburgh. Unless he has a change of heart and wants to compete for a championship, he'll stick around. They'd listen on any of the other impending free agents, but they'll probably have a tough time generating much in the way of returns for Pham, Frazier or Mayza. The former two haven't hit well in 2025 (Pham, in particular), and Mayza is on the 60-day IL due to a lat strain. He hasn't pitched since late April and isn't particularly close to a return.
This week's mailbag gets into many aspects of the Rafael Devers trade, remaining questions to answer in Boston, no-trade clauses, shortstop options for the Braves, Pete Alonso's next contract, Ryan Helsley's struggles, and much more.
Kevin asks:
What's your personal take on the Giants trade? I think Boston got the better deal.
John asks:
Seen a lot of talk from fans and the media that Devers contract will age badly but I did a little digging into the Contract Tracker. Between 2015 and 2020 there were 12 contracts with an AAV at 30 mil. and over. This year alone there were 5, including one for 50. So am I wrong to think that given the way salaries have escalated by the end of the contract 30 mil. likely won't be that big a deal?
Denny asks:
Will Devers HR stats suffer playing home games at whatever the current name is of the ballpark in SF?
My initial reaction was to favor the Giants' side of the deal. They added a 28-year-old top 10 hitter in baseball who should be worth 3-4 WAR per year for the foreseeable future. The Giants also ditched Jordan Hicks' contract in the process.
The Giants could feel pain from moving Kyle Harrison and James Tibbs III, but probably not in the short-term. The balance of this deal hinges heavily on Harrison, who is just 23 and retains number two starter upside. The Red Sox can control Harrison through 2030 if they keep him in the minors for a few weeks, which I'm guessing is the plan. Harrison has at least held his own through the equivalent of one Major League season.
Tibbs is considered a 50-grade prospect; he'll have to hit a lot to profile as a corner outfield regular. Jose Bello is the wild card prospect, and those get moved regularly.
I have seen multiple anonymous executives suggest Devers' contract is underwater, meaning he's worth less than he's owed. You could look at that in a strict dollars per WAR/aging curve sense, plugging in Devers as a 4-ish WAR player for 2025 who will begin his decline in 2026 or '27 and will be paid through 2033 (age 36). WAR doesn't like a player like this, especially if he's a DH, and I could see valuing him below $250MM with this approach.
Say Devers was owed $253MM at the time of the trade, plus a $2MM assignment bonus paid by the Giants. Let's also say that Hicks should be valued around $8MM per year. Given that his contract pays $12MM a year through 2027, the Giants save approximately $10MM by unloading Hicks' contract. Factor in Devers' deferrals and we'll say it's like the Giants are paying Devers around $225MM for the next 8.5 years.
Had Devers been declared a free agent on June 15, would he have topped $225MM?
Duffy Scliff
Devers
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Dear Evan Carter
John
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Bat first
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Robert from SC
The Braves have continued to underperform as the season nears its three-month mark. They clawed back from their 0-7 start to get above .500 in mid-May -- right as they were about to activate Ronald Acuña Jr. and Spencer Strider from the injured list. Optimism was high. Then came a stretch of 14 losses in 17 contests that dropped them to a season-high 10 games below .500 over the weekend. They're coming off a solid series win in Milwaukee, but they face long odds to climb back into a tough NL playoff race. The division is all but gone, and they're nine games back with six teams to jump in the Wild Card picture.
Atlanta's front office isn't going to sell six weeks in advance of the trade deadline. They've invested a lot and this core's prior successes have earned them as much runway as possible to get hot. Jon Heyman of The New York Post wrote last night that the Braves still view themselves as buyers, highlighting shortstop and the outfield as potential targets.
Still, they're running low on time and coming off their worst stretch of the season. The back half of the lineup, late-inning relief mix, and starting pitching depth are all issues. They'll need a significant turnaround in the next 4-6 weeks to avoid selling some short-term pieces. Marcell Ozuna would be an obvious candidate as a rental bat who is raking for a third consecutive season. They could try to offload impending free agent reliever Raisel Iglesias, who has put himself on shaky ground by struggling with the longball. The tougher question is whether the front office should move any key players who are controllable beyond this year -- with Chris Sale leading the way as the team's top option.
Tony
Gadzooks
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Wandering Chief
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Bo Knows Deadlines
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Matt
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RAGBRAI
GBS42
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Rhys Hoskins
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Chris
It's time for another installment of our weekly MLB Mailbag. I'm pinch-hitting for Tim Dierkes once more this week before he takes back over next week. In today's mailbag, we'll look at Devin Williams' signature changeup, a group of potential first base targets on the trade market and what they might cost, Framber Valdez's earning power, Colt Keith's role in Detroit, the Red Sox' struggles and Rafael Devers' future, the Dodgers' third base outlook and Toronto's collection of outfielders. Let's dive in.
Elden asks:
I admittedly never followed Devin Williams before the NYY acquired him but isn't it odd to have a closer so heavily reliant on changeups? What is the current timeline to get Weaver back?
It's odd, yes, but when said changeup is arguably the best pitch in baseball since Williams' debut, it's hard to argue with the approach. First, let's look at historical changeup usage by Williams.
Sports Info Solutions began tracking pitch types back in 2002. Since the 2002 season, there have been 6500 individual seasons by relievers with more than 20 innings thrown. Only 20 of them have seen a reliever deploy his changeup at a 50% clip or higher. Williams has five of those. Tommy Kahnle has four of them.
Williams isn't the only reliever to make a career out of a lethal changeup, of course. Trevor Hoffman rode his changeup to the Hall of Fame. Francisco Rodriguez and Fernando Rodney had dominant changeups at their peaks. None threw their changeup even close to as frequently as Williams, however. Broadly speaking, yes, it's quite rare for relievers to be this reliant on changeups. It's rare for relievers to even have a changeup as their go-to secondary offering; fastball/slider combos have been en vogue for years and remain so.
Statcast and its pitch tracking data were rolled out in all 30 MLB parks back in 2015. Since 2015, Williams' "Airbender" unsurprisingly grades out as the best changeup in the sport, but it's also the eighth-most valuable pitch overall. The only individual pitches that carry greater value in that time are (in order): Kenley Jansen's cutter, Josh Hader's sinker, Chad Green's four-seamer (!!), Edwin Diaz's slider, Zack Britton's sinker, Emmanuel Clase's cutter and Liam Hendriks' four-seamer. Of course, it bears mentioning that Jansen, Hader, Green, Hendriks and Diaz have all pitched far more in that decade-long window than Williams, who only debuted in 2019.
MLBTR's Steve Adams is hosting a chat today at 2pm CT, exclusively for Trade Rumors Front Office subscribers.
Marlins
Steve Adams
Beano
Steve Adams
He's tied for the eighth-biggest drop in bat speed, as measured by Statcast, among 175 qualified big leaguers. That's not great, obviously. He was at 73.6 mph in 2024 and is down to 71.8 mph in 2025.
You never know precisely how healthy a player is. Maybe he's working through something that's hampering his shoulder or wrist strength. Maybe he made a tweak in his mechanics moving to a bigger park and it's having an adverse effect.
It's impossible to say, but you're plenty justified to be concerned with the first two-plus months at this point.
Kegger
Steve Adams
Kevin in Ranger Texas
MLBTR’s Anthony Franco held a live chat today, exclusively for Trade Rumors Front Office members! Subscribe to Front Office to view the full transcript and to participate in future Friday chats.
Anthony Franco
Cedanne Rafaela
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AA
Jeddy
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Tigerfan
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RAGBRAI
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Mike Rizzo Fan Club
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Black Hole at 2B
The Cardinals are amidst a transition year. That's true literally, as John Mozeliak will turn control of baseball operations to Chaim Bloom at season's end. Dating back to last fall, they've framed this season as one primarily about evaluating and developing young players. It's not a rebuild, but their only move to improve over the winter was a bargain $2MM signing of setup man Phil Maton.
It set them up as expected deadline sellers. Impending free agents Ryan Helsley and Erick Fedde ranked among the likeliest players to move in July. It was surprising that the Cards even held both players into the season. Nolan Arenado's contract and no-trade clause meant he'd be a tough player to move midseason, but those rumors figured to resurface.
The team is trying its best to avoid those conversations. They have a 34-27 record that has them narrowly ahead of San Francisco and Milwaukee for the NL's final playoff spot. They've outscored opponents by 28 runs, giving them the fifth-best run differential in the National League. They went an MLB-best 19-8 in May. They've played like a contender so far. One opposing GM who was eyeing trade targets on the St. Louis roster succinctly told Jeff Passan of ESPN this week that the team's better than expected play "sucks" for potential buyers.
Much can change in the next six to eight weeks, but the front office may find itself in a tricky spot. Mozeliak addressed the situation in a chat with Derrick Goold of The St. Louis Post-Dispatch last week. "We went into this year with an understanding this was going to be about opportunity for players and depending on what they do with it would determine our next steps, right?" he rhetorically asked. "So when you think about how the public had us as sellers — whether it was selling this offseason or selling at the trade deadline. It might look a little different based on how we’re playing."
It's an acknowledgment that the team could play its way off selling. At the same time, that wouldn't provide much clarity on how aggressively the team should add if they remain competitive. That's a tougher call, especially because of the way their first half has unfolded. The team may be better than expected, but the production has come mostly from their more established players -- particularly on offense. If the Cards are going to upgrade, the most obvious spots to do so would limit the playing time of a pair of young hitters on whom much of their season is supposed to be focused.
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