Why there could be a depressed MLB trade deadline in 2022

With one week remaining before the MLB trade deadline, we are about to find out whether MLB’s expanded postseason format will have unintended consequences.

As an outgrowth of the winter’s labor dispute, players and owners this spring agreed to expand the 2022 postseason by two more Wild Card teams. That means a dozen of the 30 teams will be playing meaningful ball after the regular season concludes.

Logically, that also means that more teams than ever approach the August 2 MLB trade deadline as buyers rather than sellers.

That, in turn, could mean a reduced market of players who are actually available on the trade market.

Here are the key numbers. A week out from the trade deadline, 19 of the game’s 30 teams either occupy a postseason slot or are within five games of one. That means only 11 teams have fallen more than five games behind the final playoff spot.

Assuming that teams “in the race” are buyers while teams “out of the race” are sellers — admittedly a generalization — the result could be both fewer deals overall and record returns for those deals that are made.

It’s simple supply and demand, and the proof lies in recent history.

One year ago today, only a dozen teams either occupied a playoff spot or were within five games of a team that did. The average for non-COVID seasons since 2016 is 15.8 teams within playoff reach, 14.2 outside playoff reach.

Let’s review the numbers for 2022 again: 19 teams in playoff contention, only 11 out of contention as measured by the five-games standard.

That’s a glut of seven newly minted playoff contenders this season compared with 2021, and 4.8 more than the recent non-COVID average.

That kind of imbalance favoring contenders ought to depress the market of available players. It’s possible the signs of such a depressed market are already beginning to show. Again, a comparison of 2021 and 2022 is instructive.

Between July 1 and July 24 of 2021, 10 trades involving 15 Major Leaguers were made. While few were viewed as pivotal players, the 15 players who were moved by this time last year did include Joc Pederson, obtained by the eventual World Series-winning Atlanta Braves, and Nelson Cruz.

Over the subsequent seven days, another 53 trades involving 89 Major Leaguers were consummated.

In stark contrast, this year’s trading season has to date been utterly sleepy. Only four deals involving four Major Leaguers have been completed to date. And none of the four players involved are viewed as consequential at anything approaching the level of Pederson and Cruz, the stars of last season’s early trading period.

The four deals completed already involved:

• July 8: Cleveland traded Yohan Ramirez to Pittsburgh for unknown considerations
• July 9: Oakland traded Christian Bethancourt to Tampa Bay for two minor leaguers
• July 14: The Angels traded Tyler Wade to the Yankees for a player to be named or cash
• July 16: Kansas City traded Foster Griffin to Toronto for a minor leaguer

Nobody can say for sure why teams have slowed the pace of deal-making, or whether that slow pace will continue. But with nearly two-thirds of the teams figuratively “in the race” coming down the impending home stretch, logic suggests that the number of willing sellers won’t keep up with the number of eager buyers.

That should drive up the price for the truly in-demand players such as Juan Soto and Willson Contreras. But if the laws of baseball economics hold, it should also mean a depressed level of trade activity overall.