MLB trade deadline Urgency Index 1.0: Who needs what? Who needs it most?

New York Times

2 days ago

We're less than 50 days to Major League Baseball's trade deadline — so there are less than 50 days for front offices to determine how much they like what they see, how much needs to change and how to value that change in acquisition cost.
This far out from July 31, it's easier to pinpoint what team needs exist (or might arise in the next seven weeks) than to hammer down what players might be available as solutions, let alone the proper ones. So this week, The Athletic is introducing the first installment of its Urgency Index — a ranking of which teams are likely to need starting pitching, offensive help and relief pitching by July 31. It's a mix of obvious needs in the here and now, projecting what can change over the next several weeks, and analyzing how valuable even small improvements might be for teams straddling playoff contention.
This week, it's Eno Sarris on starters, Tim Britton on bats and Aaron Gleeman on relievers.
The Giants already shook up the offensive mix last week, designating LaMonte Wade Jr. and bringing aboard Dominic Smith. The bigger move for San Francisco's first-base issues might have been the one behind that one: Bryce Eldridge's promotion to Triple A after a solid six weeks at Double-A Richmond coming back from a spring wrist injury.
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On the plus side, Eldridge's numbers in the Eastern League compare pretty well with those of fellow 6-foot-7 slugger Aaron Judge, and Eldridge posted them at 20 years old and not 23. On the minus side, Judge didn't break out in the majors until two years after he posted those numbers in Double A, and so it might not be wise for the Giants to bank on Eldridge saving them at first base down the stretch this season.
No, this is a spot where a rental bat could be pivotal to the Giants' hopes of sticking with the Dodgers in the West or locking down a wild-card berth in the highly competitive National League. San Francisco's pitching staff, especially its bullpen, has helped it start the season this strong. Its offense ranks in the bottom half of the league, however, and FanGraphs projects only marginal improvement.
The presence of Wilmer Flores permits San Francisco some latitude in positional fit: He can play first if needed, though he hasn't done so much this season as the Giants aim to keep him healthy. But adding one 1B/DH bat here could prove the difference between a postseason berth or another quiet October by the Bay.
Sometimes a need arises out of the blue because of injury or unexpected underperformance. And sometimes a team enters the season with questions about its outfield's ability to produce, and it spends the first few months of the season justifying that skepticism.
To the Royals' credit, they're very much in the postseason hunt in the American League, despite receiving the worst outfield production in the majors in 2025. Think of it this way: The Dodgers' Michael Conforto has been one of the most disappointing hitters in baseball all season, and he still owns a better wRC+ than Kansas City's collective outfield. (On the other hand, Toronto's Anthony Santander, whom KC pursued in free agency, would have actually made the outfield worse to this point.)
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The Royals have already optioned MJ Melendez and released Hunter Renfroe. They've called up Jac Caglianone and tried out Maikel Garcia in center last week. They're trying.
But the answer here should come from outside the organization. Get at least one more solid outfielder — and it doesn't have to be a superstar to be a marked improvement — and the Royals can compete in an American League without runaway wild-card contenders.
The Royals are 30th in offensive production from their outfielders this season. The Guardians are 27th — a remarkable achievement considering how good Steven Kwan is in left field. 'Kwan has more hits this season than every other Cleveland outfielder' is a stat that isn't quite true but is close enough to make you do the math to be sure. Outfielders not named Kwan have more than 550 plate appearances this season and an OPS that is lower than that number of plate appearances.
Nolan Jones, Angel Martínez, Jhonkensy Noel and, now back from injury, Lane Thomas have all struggled significantly. And none of them have provided the kind of defensive value that allows you to mitigate those struggles. Thomas was an imperfect trade deadline acquisition last season — though one postseason swing was, indeed, perfect — and Cleveland will have to get back on the outfield market if it wants to stick in that tough AL Central the rest of the way.
Look, there are dozens of stats to express how disappointing the Rangers' offense has been this season. My favorite is this one: Texas' designated hitters — the players designated to hit — are batting .120 on the season. The worst batting average a team's DHs have ever compiled over a 162-game season is .174 by the 2022 Athletics — a team that lost 102 games and was pretty actively attempting to lose more. And these Rangers are 50 points worse! (Fair fair, batting average is out, slugging is more in vogue: There, Texas' .218 slugging percentage from its DHs is 60 points worse than the 1981 split-season Twins at the position.)
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Of course, Joc Pederson will be better than this going forward and maybe even a well-above-average hitter from here on out. But the Rangers have underperformance at so many different positions that one of those 'of course this guy will be better' won't come to fruition enough to prevent Texas from needing some outside help — if it's even in position to add at the deadline.
Only the Yankees and Red Sox have scored more runs per game than the Tigers this season in the American League. So yes, Detroit is an odd and somewhat contrarian pick here, based on projections that are less bullish on the offense moving forward. There's also this: With their outstanding start to the season, the Tigers should shift their ambition from building a potential division winner to building a potential pennant or World Series winner.
And if that's what they're thinking about, there are possible avenues to improve, especially on the left side of the infield. Detroit is in the bottom five in baseball in offensive production out of shortstop, and your optimism for improvement there probably relies on Javier Báez continuing a rebound from three miserable seasons. Zach McKinstry has been terrific; his career OPS entering this season was .643, and compiling seven good months is harder than compiling two.
Right now, no, Detroit doesn't need another bat. In 50ish days? We wouldn't be surprised.
Honorable mentions: Houston Astros, Atlanta Braves, San Diego Padres
Jordan Romano has been a bust thus far, and José Alvarado is suspended through mid-August and then ineligible for the postseason, making it clear the Phillies will need to shop for late-inning bullpen help if they're going to make another playoff run this October.
That's nothing new for a Dave Dombrowski-led front office. Philadelphia switched up its bullpen at last year's deadline, bringing in Carlos Estévez and Tanner Banks while sending out Gregory Soto and Seranthony Domínguez. And multiple moves might be required again to solidify a unit that ranks 25th in ERA. Something resembling, say, a Jeff Hoffman replacement would work.
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Atlanta isn't short on major problems, but the bullpen's issues can be summed up by the Craig Kimbrel debacle. Overall, the Braves' relievers have an average-ish ERA, but that number is trending in the wrong direction and repeated late-inning blowups have led to ranking 24th in Win Probability Added (WPA).
For now, at least, this seems like too talented of a roster to give up on. But even if other areas of the team start meeting preseason expectations, the patched-together bullpen remains an obvious weakness. Braves relievers have taken an NL-high 15 losses while recording an NL-low 10 saves.
Arizona has had the worst bullpen of any contender, by far, ranking 27th in ERA and dead last in WPA, but a sub-.500 start combined with Corbin Burnes' elbow injury makes it unclear if the Diamondbacks are actually contenders anyway. If they are going to stay in the playoff picture, relief reinforcements are a must.
It wasn't always like this. Arizona had a functional bullpen through mid-April, but things unraveled after A.J. Puk went down with an elbow injury on April 17. Since then, Diamondbacks relievers have an ERA over 6.00 and their league-worst WPA is 50 percent worse than the No. 29 bullpen. And now Justin Martinez is out again.
Andrés Muñoz has been amazing enough to carry the entire bullpen, but Seattle's non-Muñoz relievers have combined for a 4.17 ERA and sizably negative WPA. At minimum, the Mariners could use a reliable veteran setup man to help get leads to Muñoz intact. And the eighth inning, in particular, has too often been a problem.
Brewers starting pitchers have been very good at preventing runs and very bad at eating innings, so the bullpen has been forced to carry tons of weight. Milwaukee's relievers have thrown MLB's second-most innings and haven't been very effective, ranking 24th in ERA and 23rd in WPA. Without help, this bullpen could crumble down the stretch.
Honorable mentions: Baltimore Orioles, Los Angeles Dodgers, Cincinnati Reds
It's not just that the Cubs' rotation has been mediocre this far into the season — their starters have been below-average whether you use Wins Above Replacement, ERA or strikeout rate to rank them. What's more worrisome is what their rotation is likely to do going forward. Over at FanGraphs, even with 81 more innings penciled in for Shota Imanaga, Chicago's rotation is projected at 23rd. And this isn't the case where a back-end arm is all the Cubs need: their top three starters are also bottom 10 in the league.
With the Cubs' offense coalescing (they're second in the league in runs), and Kyle Tucker on an expiring deal, there's increasing pressure on this front office to get an impact arm at the deadline. Who that guy is might be a mystery until more sellers identify themselves in coming weeks, but this team needs that impact arm more than any other.
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The Blue Jays' rotation has been worse than the Cubs'. Ranked 28th in starting pitcher WAR, Toronto's starters are 24th in ERA, 21st in strikeout rate, 14th in walk rate and 29th in home runs allowed per nine innings. Kevin Gausman, José Berríos and Chris Bassitt have been decent so far, but the projections think the latter two will add about a run to their ERAs – they're 17th going forward in projections, and even that top three is only 14th in the league among top threes.
The Cubs do probably have their playoff starters, no matter what projections think of the big three in the T-dot. They might be able to spend less to get an arm that will get them there, rather than absolutely needing that player to start a playoff game. But if they want to be real postseason contenders, a top quality starter would go a long way.
Cleveland has long been considered a pitching factory, but the gears are grinding a little bit these days. Gavin Williams and Tanner Bibee are quality arms, but they're working through some of the adjustments that separate the young from the established. Ben Lively keeps getting decent results with poor peripherals and a fastball that barely cracks 90 mph, and the back end has been a problem no matter what numbers you look at.
The Guardians' rotation ranks in the bottom 10 in the league in: WAR, ERA, strikeout rate, walk rate, home run rate, Stuff+, Location+, innings and wins. The Guardians are projected to have the 21st-best rotation going forward, and their top three isn't liked any better by the numbers. This team urgently needs a starter — will it go get one?
The Yankees rotation has been better than it might have seemed when Luis Gil and Gerrit Cole went down in the spring. As a unit, it has floated between 12th and seventh in pitching WAR to this point in the season, as Clarke Schmidt and Will Warren have been indeed good enough to power the back end of the rotation on a team with a strong offense. The Yankees don't have to make a move here if everyone stays healthy. Theirs should be a top 10 unit going forward.
But the temptation, especially for a team trying to get back to the mountaintop, has to be high to see if it can't get a Game 3 starter who can push the younger guys into support roles.
This might be surprising to many: the Dodgers are projected to have the fourth-best rotation in baseball going forward. At a time when it seems like they don't know who will start their next game, this might seem ridiculous. But they have so many pitchers on the injured list that projections just shrug, give them all a little bit of innings because that seems most probable, and out spits a good rotation built on 60 innings each from Tyler Glasnow, Clayton Kershaw, Blake Snell, Tony Gonsolin and Roki Sasaki.
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Betting the under on those numbers? You wouldn't be alone. But it does point to how much this team has invested in this rotation, and how its young replacements have been good enough to power this team to another strong record. They won't get better on the market than their injured top-end options, and their kids are doing OK and, hey, the projections say they'll be fine.
You can never count out the Dodgers from improving at the deadline, though, and if those injuries lag further, you can almost expect to see Los Angeles get a starter.
Honorable mentions: Baltimore Orioles, Minnesota Twins, San Diego Padres, Houston Astros
(Illustration: Demetrius Robinson / The Athletic; Top photos: Ezra Shaw, Greg Fiume, Samuel Corum / Getty Images)