Fifty players on the trading block. Plus: Buster Posey, do better
NewsletterFifty players on the trading block. Plus: Buster Posey, do better
Tarik Skubal is the No. 1 target on our Trade Deadline Big Board 1.0. Calvin Hernandez / Getty Images
By Levi WeaverJune 24, 2026 1:48 pm EDT UpdatedThe Windup Newsletter ⚾ | This is The Athletic’s MLB newsletter. Sign up here to receive The Windup directly in your inbox.
Our Trade Deadline Big Board (1.0) has arrived! Plus: Buster Posey comes up short in San Francisco, Pete Crow-Armstrong was called out in a way I’ve never seen before, the Phillies had a wild comeback and MLB players let us know where they do (and don’t) want to play.
I’m Levi Weaver — welcome to The Windup!
Trade Deadline: Big Board 1.0 is here
I’m mostly going to post the link and get out of the way here, but version 1.0 of our Trade Deadline Big Board is out today, featuring our top 50 trade targets, starting with No. 1 Tarik Skubal.
Red dots mean a player is unlikely to be traded, green means they are likely and yellow … look, you know how colors work.
You might see a lot of yellow dots next to AL players. As we’ve said here on a few occasions, the AL is so bad this year that a lot of sub-.500 teams are still very much in the wild-card chase. So … yellow dots.
That should change in future editions of this Big Board, as bad teams keep losing and a few go on hot streaks. For now, this is a snapshot of the players we think make sense to highlight right now.
Alright, I’ll leave you to it!
More deadline:
- Byron Buxton wants to stay in Minnesota. The Twins GM says they’re not trading him.
- Chris Kirschner explains why it makes sense for the Yankees to pursue Skubal.
Middle Relief: MLB players rank orgs
Today, we have another edition of our Players Poll, in which we asked big leaguers about franchise reputations. Here’s an excerpt:
As part of our annual player poll, we wanted to know: Which organizations have good reputations among uniformed personnel? Which organizations have bad reputations? Players were allowed to offer multiple responses to each prompt and were granted anonymity in order to speak candidly.
Let’s start with the results of the latter question, which was posed to just over 100 players from 23 teams across the league.
Unsurprisingly, few of the players we polled were eager to answer this prompt.
One American League pitcher answered this question with a question. It sounded rhetorical.
“Which,” he said, “are the ones that are cheap as f—?”
On Opening Day, each of the aforementioned teams had one of the majors’ 10 lowest payrolls. Given their lack of on-field success, it came as no surprise that the top four “worst” clubs in the graph were viewed as the organizations with the poorest reputations: The Rockies, on the heels of a historically awful season, received the most mentions with 28. They were followed, in order, by the Pirates, A’s, White Sox and Angels, who continue to have a decent-sized payroll but seemingly little direction.
“They have no idea how to make anyone better at anything,” another pitcher said of the Angels. “And that’s from guys who worked there. They have no idea what’s going on.”
For years, many have said the same of the Rockies. Now, first-year president of baseball operations Paul DePodesta is tackling baseball’s most unique challenge with the aid of first-year general manager Josh Byrnes, an alum of the Dodgers’ front office. The difficulty level at altitude is as high as ever. But the bar, in Denver, is low.
“Colorado has been bad for a long time, but it sounds like they might be improving now with some new people,” an AL hitter said.
For the rest, including the good reputations and some city-by-city quotes, click here.
Baseball Questions: Posey’s answer comes up short
You could make the argument that president of baseball operations is — it’s right there in the title — a job that involves making baseball decisions. Signing free agents, trading players, making an outside-the-box manager hire … you know, baseball stuff.
That sure seemed to be the line Posey took yesterday when addressing the media. Knowing the Giants’ Pride Night caps controversy would come up — the commissioner wrote a letter, after all — Posey started with a statement that … acknowledged the problem.
“I understand that there’s strong feelings on this topic,” Posey said. “There’s differing perspectives and out of respect to everybody involved, it’s not something I’m going to revisit. I understand some fans are upset and frustrated. I can promise you this is something that we’ve talked about a lot internally and will continue to do so. Our focus is on the team right now, the upcoming draft, the trade deadline and trying to win games. Anyone who has baseball questions, I’m happy to take baseball questions right now.”
Tl;dr: People are mad, so we’ve talked a lot about it, next question.
Except he didn’t answer the next question. Or the next. He just kept repeating that he was only going to answer “baseball questions.” Eventually, Giants PR threatened to end the media availability.
Man, what a cop-out.
Even if Posey wanted to keep his personal thoughts on Pride Night private, he still could have done better than clamming up. Because here’s the truth: This is a baseball question. The commissioner (of baseball) specifically said the Giants failed to properly communicate with their players.
Relationships, communication, motivation, chemistry and the team’s relationship to its fans could all be classified as off-field stuff, but they absolutely affect what happens on the field. Communication with players is one of those “baseball operations.”
If Posey wanted a job that didn’t involve these things, he could have applied to be the bullpen catcher. Instead, he took the front-facing job that requires delicate diplomacy on a lot of things.
No, it’s not fun. But it’s all part of the same gig, and Posey utterly failed at it yesterday.
More “communication” issues in San Francisco: Rafael Devers said he apologized to manager Tony Vitello after the pinch-running fiasco, then blamed the media for blowing it out of proportion because he didn’t talk to them enough. So that’s going really well!
More Pride Night: MLB’s stance has changed during Manfred’s tenure. Is “riding it out” really the best they can do?
More “what front-office members do”: This week’s mailbag gave readers a chance to be GM for a day, and hoo boy, a whole lot of people think GMs have way more power than they really do.
Never Seen This: PCA’s wild ride
In the top of the seventh inning of last night’s 7-1 win over the Mets, Cubs outfielder Pete Crow-Armstrong attempted a steal of second base. But the pitch to Michael Busch was ball four, so Armstrong was automatically safe … right?
Not exactly. Here, take a look:
But wait. Isn’t it a dead ball after ball four?
Nope. Here’s a hypothetical to make (slightly) more sense of it. If ball four was a wild pitch and PCA had rounded second, he would clearly be fair game to tag out. So once he touches the bag and then comes off of it, it’s sorta … game on? I guess?
So, in watching that GIF, it’s not the first tag that does the job, it’s the second one — on the red sliding glove — since it came after he touched the bag he was entitled to, then came off it.
You see something new every day in this game.
More Cubs: The last thing they need is more pitcher injuries; Edward Cabrera’s hamstring and adductor strains aren’t going to help.
More Mets: Francisco Lindor should return today, but Juan Soto left last night’s game with lower back pain, and it appears they’re losing patience with Kodai Senga.
Wild Win, Wilder Loss: Phillies stage absurd comeback
It was just yesterday we showed a win probability chart, pointed at it and went “pretty wild, right?” Well, that was nothing.
Look at this one (courtesy of Baseball Savant):
It’s basically touching the 100 percent line! That’s because the Nationals led the Phillies 8-6 in the top of the ninth … with two outs … and a 1-2 count on Trea Turner.
But then Turner singled, and Brandon Marsh homered to tie the game. Aaaaand the Phillies went on to score six more runs to take a 14-8 lead.
The Nats (41-39) scored one more in the bottom of the ninth, but it was nowhere near enough; they lost 14-9. The Phillies (43-36) are now just 5.5 games back in the NL East.
More Phillies: Jayson Stark makes the case that Kyle Schwarber is the best-hitting free-agent signing of all time. I know, I know. Barry Bonds, right? But Stark makes a convincing argument.
Handshakes and High Fives
Curious what the league’s new draft proposals mean? Ken Rosenthal has a great in-depth explainer here with the potential implications.
If baseball players can have sunflower seeds, why can’t they have Blow Pops? Anyway, if Aaron Boone’s quotes are any indication, Jazz Chisholm Jr. won’t be doing it again.
Fabian Ardaya tells us how the Dodgers are putting the “old” in “Gold Glove.”
An update on MLB’s inquiry into Dr. Neal ElAttrache: The league says he has been cleared of any wrongdoing.
If you have between $3 million and $5 million, you could buy Aaron Judge’s debut jersey.
Most-clicked in our last Windup: The footage of Jason Benetti narrating Jazz Chisholm’s prodding of a Dirt Cam.
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