The trade market has officially awakened.
Twenty trades are already on the books, 16 of the league’s 24 teams have gotten involved, and there are now six weeks until the trade deadline.
Six weeks.
That’s enough time for a patient front office to methodically identify its needs, explore the market, make some sensible moves and generally behave like adults.
It is also enough time for somebody to trade half their roster because they lost three games in a row.
So far, the market has been a little bit of both.
Toronto: Please Put the Phone Down
The Toronto Blue Jays have appeared in seven trades.
Seven.
The next-closest team is Cincinnati with five.
At this point, Toronto isn’t participating in the trade market so much as occupying it. If there is a trade being discussed anywhere in the league, there’s a reasonable chance somebody in Toronto is asking whether they can get involved.
The Jays have already traded with Colorado twice, as well as Cincinnati, Charlotte and Orlando. Apparently one transaction wasn’t enough to satisfy whatever particular itch Toronto’s front office is trying to scratch.
There are still six weeks left.
At this pace, Toronto could either have a completely different roster by the deadline or be legally classified as a real estate agent.
Cincinnati Has Entered the Chat
Cincinnati has made five trades, putting the Reds firmly in second place in the unofficial “Why Are You Like This?” standings.
The Reds have been willing to deal with Colorado, Kansas City, Toronto and Charlotte, giving them a fairly broad footprint across the market.
Five trades this early doesn’t necessarily mean Cincinnati is tearing everything down or rebuilding everything at once. It does, however, mean the Reds are clearly willing to pick up the phone.
And unlike the teams that have made one trade and subsequently vanished into the mist, Cincinnati appears to have discovered that trades can be made more than once.
Cleveland and Colorado: Also Apparently Available
The Cleveland Spiders and Colorado Rockies have each made four trades, putting them in the next tier of market activity.
Colorado has already established a particularly cozy relationship with Toronto, while Cleveland has done business with San Diego, Colorado, Los Angeles and Milwaukee.
Neither club is matching Toronto’s “trade until somebody changes the locks” approach, but four transactions is enough to make it clear these aren’t teams merely browsing the trade block from a safe distance.
The Middle Class Is Watching
Charlotte and Milwaukee have each made three trades.
Chicago, Kansas City, Orlando and Washington have each made two.
This is the portion of the league where everyone can still claim to be perfectly rational.
Three trades? “We’re being opportunistic.”
Two trades? “We’re evaluating the market.”
Seven trades? “We’re aggressively pursuing opportunities.”
One trade? “We’re happy with our roster.”
Zero trades? “We like our guys.”
Six weeks from now, some of these statements may look considerably more ridiculous than they do today.
Welcome to the One-Trade Support Group
Six teams have made exactly one trade:
- Arizona Diamondbacks
- Boston Red Sox
- Florida Marlins
- Los Angeles Dodgers
- Oakland Athletics
- San Diego Padres
To these six organizations: congratulations on your participation trophy.
They have technically entered the market, which is important because it means nobody can accuse them of doing absolutely nothing.
They made a trade.
One.
Then presumably went home.
There is, of course, nothing inherently wrong with making one trade. One good trade can be more meaningful than five mediocre ones. A front office doesn’t get bonus points for generating transaction emails.
But with six weeks remaining, these teams now have an interesting decision to make: Was that the move, or was that merely the opening act?
Because six weeks is a long time.
A lot can happen in six weeks. Players get hot. Players get cold. Prospects become expendable. Contenders discover they aren’t contenders. Rebuilding teams discover that rebuilding is less fun than advertised.
And GMs discover that the guy they were determined not to trade is suddenly “available for the right price.”
And Then There Are the Eight Who Have Done Absolutely Nothing
Baltimore.
Detroit.
Las Vegas.
Minnesota.
Montreal.
New York.
Philadelphia.
St. Louis.
Zero trades.
Not one.
These eight clubs have collectively contributed exactly nothing to the trade ledger so far, which is either the mark of extraordinary discipline or an absolutely fascinating level of commitment to waiting.
Perhaps they’re happy with their rosters.
Perhaps they’re waiting for prices to come down.
Perhaps every trade offer they’ve received has been so bad that their GMs have simply started forwarding them to each other for entertainment.
We don’t know.
What we do know is that one-third of the league has yet to make a trade with six weeks to go.
That makes the next few weeks rather interesting.
Because nobody wants to be the team that spends six weeks explaining why it doesn’t need to make a move, only to discover in Week Six that everyone else already bought what it wanted.
Half the Market Belongs to Four Teams
The numbers tell the story.
Toronto, Cincinnati, Cleveland and Colorado account for 20 of the league’s 40 team-trade appearances.
Half.
Four teams are responsible for half of all the activity we’ve seen so far.
Meanwhile, six teams have made one trade and eight haven’t made any.
So the trade market currently resembles less of a bustling marketplace and more of a handful of lunatics aggressively shopping while everyone else stands around with their arms crossed.
And that’s before we get to the important part:
There are six weeks left.
Six weeks for the eight inactive teams to decide they actually do have needs.
Six weeks for the six one-trade teams to decide whether their first move was enough.
Six weeks for the middle class to get ambitious.
Six weeks for Toronto to make another seven trades.
And six weeks for somebody to make a transaction so inexplicable that everyone else suddenly feels compelled to respond.
The market has a pulse.
It just hasn’t started screaming yet.