MLB teams that could be buyers or sellers at Trade Deadline 2025

Now that the All-Star Game is behind us, it is time for what is essentially a dead sprint. Not to the end of the season — there will be some dog days in August as always, let there be no doubt — but to the Trade Deadline, which is less than a fortnight away.

The next 13 days, until 6 p.m. ET hits on July 31, won’t just be a fountain of trade rumors: They will be a referendum on which direction certain teams are turning as the Deadline approaches. Will they be buyers? Sellers? Both? Neither? So much will be determined by what happens in the next 13 days of actual baseball. Go on a hot streak, and you may be tempted to floor it; lose four in a row, and eyes may turn to 2026 and beyond.

Which teams face the most pivotal stretch? Here are eight. (Playoff odds cited below are as of Thursday, via FanGraphs.)

Cardinals
Playoff odds: 28.3%

Of all the teams on this list, the one with the lowest expectations heading into this season might have been the Cardinals. They added almost nothing this offseason (only reliever Phil Maton), and they spent most of their winter trying (and failing) to trade Nolan Arenado, their most popular player. The 2025 campaign was mostly thought to be a bridge to incoming president of baseball operations Chaim Bloom, who will be taking over from John Mozeliak in 2026. But the Cardinals have been a pleasant surprise this year, riding a fantastic defense, a versatile bullpen and some timely hitting to a 51-46 record — just 1 1/2 games out of the final NL Wild Card spot.

It’s hard to imagine the Cardinals being aggressive buyers, even though there might not be a team in the race that needs starting pitching help more than they do. But if they can navigate a not-that-terrifying schedule heading into the Deadline (nine of their 13 games are against teams with losing records), they might resist being sellers. It still feels like 2026 is the primary focus here, though.

Diamondbacks
Playoff odds: 10.6%

The Diamondbacks hung in there for a while after losing Corbin Burnes to Tommy John surgery, but they’ve fallen back a little bit of late, largely because they really are starting to run out of pitching. (That’s quite the irony considering the signing of Burnes was greeted with some skeptics saying, “Don’t they already have enough guys in their rotation?”) Keeping them afloat has been their offense, led by free-agent-to-be Eugenio Suárez, who has a legitimate chance at 50 homers this year. The question is whether he’ll get to that milestone with the Diamondbacks, or someone else.

Their three-game series against the Cardinals right out of the break could be the deciding point. The Diamondbacks are 5 1/2 games out of the last NL Wild Card spot, but if they sweep that series against a theoretical competitor, they could be right back in this. If that doesn’t go well, series against the first-place Astros and Tigers await, and the die may be cast.

Guardians
Playoff odds: 10.4%

A week or so ago, the Guardians looked completely lost — a team that couldn’t hit, had lost 10 in a row and was so far behind the Tigers that defending its division title was a pipe dream. The Guardians recovered a little bit in the first half’s final week, and while the Tigers’ runaway success has put the AL Central seemingly out of reach, there’s still some hope for them in the Wild Card chase.

They’ll have no better opportunity to get themselves back in the race — 4 1/2 games is hardly insurmountable — than with their schedule the rest of July. None of those opponents have a winning record, and 10 of those games are at home, including three against the lowly Rockies to close the month. If they can’t take advantage, deciding to shift to selling will be, frankly, a pretty easy choice.

Orioles
Playoff odds: 2.9%

It’s probably a little generous to put the Orioles on this list at all, and considering the O’s already traded away reliever Bryan Baker last week, they might not even think of themselves as contenders. But the Orioles have been playing a lot better lately, at least until they dropped their last two games to the Marlins before the break, and it’s obviously still an incredibly talented team.

The issue for the Orioles is that the rest of the AL East has been so good; there are no real escape hatches for them. The model for the O’s might be the Blue Jays, the team they have a four-game set against to end the month. They essentially need a Jays-like run to keep their head above water. If the Orioles can get to .500 by the end of the month — something they’ll need to go 12-2 to do — maybe they can justify not trading away Ryan O’Hearn, Cedric Mullins and others. But they’re probably not going to do that.

Rangers
Playoff odds: 17.6%

It sure feels like the Rangers should be in the thick of this race, doesn’t it? They’ve got established veterans in both the lineup and the rotation, they’ve had steps forward from youngsters Evan Carter and Wyatt Langford, they’re getting an incredible season from Nathan Eovaldi (and Jacob deGrom isn’t far behind). But they’re still a game under .500, are 3 1/2 games out of the last AL Wild Card spot, and have the feel of a team that’s just dog paddling in place.

Part of the problem is that they failed to take advantage of the Astros being without Yordan Alvarez, but Houston has also been so much better than anyone expected. The Rangers have an immediate put-up-or-shut-up series against the Tigers out of the break. If they can win that series, they face no more winning teams until the Deadline. More than anyone else, even with those low playoff odds, they can justify making a push if they come out of the break hot.

The hiring of Terry Francona, who just became the 13th manager in MLB history to reach the 2,000-win plateau, was meant to provide a new, more professional direction for this franchise. While it might have done that, it hasn’t really changed the results much. This is the same roughly .500 or so team it has been for essentially the last half-decade (save for the 100-loss wipeout of 2022). The pitching has been the highlight this year, with Andrew Abbott particularly outstanding, but they’re still bouncing around .500, currently in fourth place.

The Reds don’t really have a lot to sell or buy at the Deadline, but their direction would seem pretty clear one way or another by the end of the month, thanks to their schedule. It’s really tough, with nine games against the Mets, Rays and Dodgers. If they can thrive in that gauntlet, they’ll be soaring into August. But that’s quite a gauntlet.

Royals
Playoff odds: 12.2%

The Royals barely made it to the playoffs last year despite not really having anyone who could hit other than Bobby Witt Jr., who was having an MVP-caliber season. This year, Witt is not … and the rest of the Royals still can’t hit. That makes the Royals perhaps the least likely AL Central team to make a run, even if you think (for good reason) that Jac Caglianone will have a much better second half than he did in the first half after his debut. You actually sort of wonder if the Royals — if the second half starts poorly — might think about being full-on sellers: Could even Seth Lugo be on the market?

The Twins have the second-best playoff odds of any team on this list, but they’re only a half-game up on the Guardians. Part of the hope comes from their schedule, which has a full 10 games left against the Rockies and White Sox.

The issue with the Twins, like with the rest of the AL Central, is that the Tigers have just sprinted out so far ahead. The more and more you look at, the more it looks like only a season after having three teams in the postseason, the AL Central may well just have one.