2026 Trade Deadline Thread

sliderguy35 · 2026-07-31T17:32:51Z

Because it's the friday before a long weekend and i dont want to work, i decided to put together a list of my favourite under-the-radar prospect from each "buying" team, with the caveat being that it has to seem reasonable that the player might get moved for a rental. (we arent going to get anyone on the top 100 for gausman or varsho, sorry people)

Parameters i set for myself are no 50 FV guys from fangraphs, & nobody on the mlb pipeline top 100. (the majority of these guys are arms b/c the data we have available to scout hitters on the public side is really lacking):

Pitchers:

Junior Ciprian - ARI
Zach Royse - ATL
Dylan Brown - BOS
Brooks Caple - CHC
Gabe Davis - CHW
Franklin Gomez - CLE
Bryce Mayer - HOU
Manuel Genao - MIA
Merit Jones - MIN
Henry Lalane - NYY
Brad Pacheco - PHI
Jesus A. Castro - SD
Yhoiker Fajardo - STL
Ty Johnson - TBR
Dalton Pence - TEX
Jackson Kent - WAS

Hitters:

Zach Ehrhard - LAD
Josiah Ragsdale - MIL
Easton Carmichael - PIT
Juan Rijo - SEA

Praying that the jays end up with 1 or a few of these guys.

Side notes:

the houston and white sox systems were the hardest to find guys for. I like the top 100 guys they have, but otherwise its DIRE over there)
dylan brown is probably my favourite find from doing this list, he didnt even make the red sox top 48 on fangraphs but i think he has real juice

G-Snarls · 2026-07-31T18:14:54Z

Freddy Peralta also scratched

Brownie19 · 2026-07-31T18:15:02Z

1 hour ago, Laika said:

Yes to some of them

Ranger Suarez as well

I would guess at least $25M AAV over 4 years but he could reasonably get 5 years. Depends on the market, of course. Is it a strong FA class? I guess it is.

I don't see comparisons to Ranger Suarez, Valdez, King, Eovaldi, etc. Pivetta's a good comp and he got 4 years $55M.

I can't imagine a world where Mize gets $100M+ after posting a 2.4 and a 3.5 WAR season (this year aid by a low BABIP and HR/FB%). He's certainly not a target at that price - even if his statcast page is pretty red this year (for the first time in his career).

G-Snarls · 2026-07-31T18:15:09Z

Dammit I wish Bieber had been scratched this week "due to increasing trade interest" like Mize and Peralta

Brownie19 · 2026-07-31T18:19:07Z

Zach Ehrhard (LAD) and Josiah Ragsdale (MIL) both seem like they have potential to play CF. I love both of those targets.

Ehrhard probably has 5 OF prospects in front of him in the Dodgers system - let's steal him.

Laika · 2026-07-31T18:55:57Z

37 minutes ago, Brownie19 said:

I don't see comparisons to Ranger Suarez, Valdez, King, Eovaldi, etc. Pivetta's a good comp and he got 4 years $55M.

I can't imagine a world where Mize gets $100M+ after posting a 2.4 and a 3.5 WAR season (this year aid by a low BABIP and HR/FB%). He's certainly not a target at that price - even if his statcast page is pretty red this year (for the first time in his career).

2024 Nicky Pivetta was worse than Mize and two full years older.

Also an entire career's worth of drastic HR/FB problems

sliderguy35 · 2026-07-31T19:21:07Z

23 minutes ago, Laika said:

2024 Nicky Pivetta was worse than Mize and two full years older.

Also an entire career's worth of drastic HR/FB problems

piv was a 22% K-BB guy in the 2 seasons before his free agency.

mize has a good 19% K-BB this season but its 3% better than anything hes ever posted before.

i think brownie was tryna make the point that his HR/FB rate being under 5% despite having one of the highest FB%s in the league is the red flag here, his market is gonna be limited to teams with big ballparks most likely

G-Snarls · 2026-07-31T19:42:05Z

Ken Rosenthal thinks the Brewers are pushing to get Skubal

Brownie19 · 2026-07-31T19:53:51Z

25 minutes ago, sliderguy35 said:

piv was a 22% K-BB guy in the 2 seasons before his free agency.

mize has a good 19% K-BB this season but its 3% better than anything hes ever posted before.

i think brownie was tryna make the point that his HR/FB rate being under 5% despite having one of the highest FB%s in the league is the red flag here, his market is gonna be limited to teams with big ballparks most likely

Yeah - generally.

I used Pivetta simply because he was something who hadn't really had a breakout season prior to reaching free agency, but he was coming off B2B good seasons, with some indicators that there was potential for "more". I think that's what people will see in Mize. I don't think he's going to get $25M AAV. Maybe he gets 3 years $60M?

I think most of the other comps thrown out there had much stronger track records and/or have already had breakout seasons.

Brownie19 · 2026-07-31T19:55:03Z

12 minutes ago, G-Snarls said:

Ken Rosenthal thinks the Brewers are pushing to get Skubal

Reminds me of when they made the trade for CC...

G-Snarls · 2026-07-31T19:56:44Z

14 minutes ago, Brownie19 said:

Reminds me of when they made the trade for CC...

And rode him into the f'n ground LOL

It was epic

metafour · 2026-07-31T20:01:54Z

Pretty significant news out of Tampa as Shane McClanahan is placed on the 15-day IL with a back issue. This is a team that already needed a SP even prior to this injury.

Brownie19 · 2026-07-31T20:12:54Z

14 minutes ago, G-Snarls said:

And rode him into the f'n ground LOL

It was epic

Yeah they did - I was going to say that as well. It was an incredible run to watch. Dude was a horse.

Jays24 · 2026-07-31T20:13:49Z

Can we give Bieber a qualifying offer in the scenario we cant trade him and he ends the season on a heater?

G-Snarls · 2026-07-31T20:14:16Z

1 minute ago, Jays24 said:

Can we give Bieber a qualifying offer in the scenario we cant trade him and he ends the season on a heater?

Yes we can 😁

Thankfully they didn't have to play that card last year before he accepted his option

Brownie19 · 2026-07-31T20:18:01Z

11 minutes ago, metafour said:

Pretty significant news out of Tampa as Shane McClanahan is placed on the 15-day IL with a back issue. This is a team that already needed a SP even prior to this injury.

Jacob Melton, Ty Johnson, Jonny DeLuca seem like solid targets?

Jays24 · 2026-07-31T20:19:00Z

4 minutes ago, G-Snarls said:

Yes we can 😁

Thankfully they didn't have to play that card last year before he accepted his option

Awesome... id rather bet on that than giving him away for peanuts.

Brownie19 · 2026-07-31T20:33:09Z

13 minutes ago, Jays24 said:

Awesome... id rather bet on that than giving him away for peanuts.

You want to give him $23M this offseason? That's pretty big risk. Would depend on his medicals and how likely the team thinks he can regain his form.

Jays24 · 2026-07-31T20:38:10Z

1 minute ago, Brownie19 said:

You want to give him $23M this offseason? That's pretty big risk. Would depend on his medicals and how likely the team thinks he can regain his form.

I said I'd rather bet on him finishing the season strong than to trade him for peanuts. In that scenario... he would have several more starts to show "he's back" and then yes, id give him the qualifying offer assuming the medicals back that up obviously.

Only the Jays know what type of offers theyre getting for him right now vs what this other scenario could lead to.

Brownie19 · 2026-07-31T21:01:00Z

22 minutes ago, Jays24 said:

I said I'd rather bet on him finishing the season strong than to trade him for peanuts. In that scenario... he would have several more starts to show "he's back" and then yes, id give him the qualifying offer assuming the medicals back that up obviously.

Only the Jays know what type of offers theyre getting for him right now vs what this other scenario could lead to.

That's fair - I think that's a reasonable approach if they Jays aren't offered something of value.

Terminator · 2026-07-31T21:04:53Z

3 hours ago, sliderguy35 said:

Because it's the friday before a long weekend and i dont want to work, i decided to put together a list of my favourite under-the-radar prospect from each "buying" team, with the caveat being that it has to seem reasonable that the player might get moved for a rental. (we arent going to get anyone on the top 100 for gausman or varsho, sorry people)

Parameters i set for myself are no 50 FV guys from fangraphs, & nobody on the mlb pipeline top 100. (the majority of these guys are arms b/c the data we have available to scout hitters on the public side is really lacking):

Pitchers:

Junior Ciprian - ARI

Zach Royse - ATL

Dylan Brown - BOS

Brooks Caple - CHC

Gabe Davis - CHW

Franklin Gomez - CLE

Bryce Mayer - HOU

Manuel Genao - MIA

Merit Jones - MIN

Henry Lalane - NYY

Brad Pacheco - PHI

Jesus A. Castro - SD

Yhoiker Fajardo - STL

Ty Johnson - TBR

Dalton Pence - TEX

Jackson Kent - WAS

Hitters:

Zach Ehrhard - LAD

Josiah Ragsdale - MIL

Easton Carmichael - PIT

Juan Rijo - SEA

Praying that the jays end up with 1 or a few of these guys.

Side notes:

the houston and white sox systems were the hardest to find guys for. I like the top 100 guys they have, but otherwise its DIRE over there)

dylan brown is probably my favourite find from doing this list, he didnt even make the red sox top 48 on fangraphs but i think he has real juice

This is great work but it's also kind of depressing.

I'm still not over 2025 and this season has made it even worse. We'll make some trades which will be fun but we probably aren't even going to get anything that great out of it because our rentals aren't that good.

We need one of these under the radar prospects to hit their 90th or higher percentile outcomes for this deadline to make a big impact moving forward. Otherwise, it's just acquiring more Charles McAdoo's.