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.
Houston Astros
Trade candidates: Brice Matthews
Are we witnessing the demise of the Astros? It has been a horrific start — witness Hunter Brown’s recent nine-run first-inning disaster — with pitching problems and injuries up and down the staff. It might just be one of those years, although for now I still have the Astros looking to add at the
deadline rather than subtract. Matthews, an athletic shortstop with power and speed and strikeout concerns, was the team’s first-round pick in 2023 after putting up huge numbers at Nebraska. Jeremy Pena blocks him at shortstop and Jose Altuve at second base, so he’s potential trade bait. If the Astros continue to struggle, their big pending free agent is Alex Bregman, who certainly will add some spice to the trade deadline if he becomes available.
