Early MLB 2024 trade deadline preview for all 30 teams.
We’re only about three weeks into the season, but let’s pull out the old crystal ball and look ahead three months into the future to July 30 — MLB trade deadline day.
What might happen? Who might be traded? This is a little exercise we’ll call the Way-Early Trade Deadline Extravaganza Preview. We’re going to list the one player (or sometimes, two) for each team who is most likely to be traded, focusing for the most part on major leaguers but we’ll also include some prospects. This is an exercise of looking through rosters, surveying the players in free agent years who are more likely to be traded if a team is faltering and considering which teams will be adding — or subtracting. (That is especially difficult this year since we only have a few obvious teams that won’t be playoff contenders.).
In last year’s edition, we correctly hit on seven players who were traded during the season: Lucas Giolito, C.J. Cron, Michael Lorenzen, Aroldis Chapman, Luis Urias, Luis Patino and JJ Bleday (who was traded before the season but after we completed this exercise). Another three — Jarred Kelenic, Ryan Pepiot and Dominic Fletcher — were traded this past offseason. Shohei Ohtani, you might recall, was not traded.
Who will we be right about this year? Let’s get to it.
Cincinnati Reds
Trade candidate: Sal Stewart
It’s not exactly clear what the Reds might need: an outfielder, maybe a second baseman with Matt McLain out after shoulder surgery (although they aren’t ruling out a possible return in August), a bullpen piece, a starting pitcher like everyone else. The Reds have a young team and an interesting farm system with six players in the preseason top 100, so their aggressiveness and willingness to trade from the farm will be tied to their place in the standings.
With Elly De La Cruz, Jonathan India, McLain and Jeimer Candelario, the Reds are set in the infield for the next three years. Five of their top 10 prospects are also infielders, so that’s the area of depth to trade from (although Noelvi Marte is serving a PED suspension and Edwin Arroyo had season-ending shoulder surgery). Stewart, No. 71 on the top 100, is a third baseman with power potential and the feel to hit. He and Cam Collier are on a similar timeline, so the Reds could trade one of the two.
