It usually happens about a week before Christmas.
The Black Friday rush has come and gone, Cyber Monday is no more, and after loading up their store shelves and supply rooms with merchandise at Thanksgiving, inventory begins to diminish. Suddenly, Amazon can’t get that trampoline to your house in 24 hours, and electronics stores need to send you to another location to pick up your unmanned aerial vehicle.
Such is the case in Major League Baseball right now. In the wake of the Juan Soto signing, the trade market opened up last week, with Garrett Crochet dealt from the White Sox to Boston, the Yankees acquired a new closer from Milwaukee in Devin Williams, and superstar outfielder Kyle Tucker shipped from Houston to the Cubs. The best starting pitcher, reliever and position player available in trade are off the market.
So what’s left? Despite the loss of those three targets, there are still plenty of good trade candidates seemingly available. Here’s my ranking of the top-10 remaining..
Framber Valdez – Houston Astros
In the wake of the Tucker trade, it seems anything is possible for Houston in their quest to free up some payroll and gain some young players/prospects to help build what they hope will be their second dynasty. Valdez is one of the best left-handed starters in baseball and a perennial Cy Young candidate, finishing 7th in the voting last year after finishing 9th and 5th in the previous two seasons. He had the best season of his seven-year career in 2024, with a 2.91 ERA and 4.5 bWAR in 28 starts (176.1 IP). The peripherals looked good, too: 3.25 FIP, 136 ERA+ and 1.106 WHIP.
Valdez is slated to earn around $19 million in his final year of salary arbitration and will become a free agent after the season, the chief reason the Astros may decide the time is right to trade him. Unlike Crochet, Valdez has a ton of postseason experience and is probably the best player potentially left on the trade market.
Ryan Helsley – St. Louis Cardinals
Like Valdez, Helsley can become a free agent after this season, and with the Cardinals retooling/rebuilding for the future, having the game’s best closer last season means more to St. Louis as a trade chip than he does on the field in 2025. The 30-year-old had a 2.04 ERA in a league-high 62 games finished, and led all of baseball with 49 saves. He finished 9th in the Cy Young voting this year, and over the past three seasons has a 1.83 ERA in 152 games (167.2 innings), with a K/BB ratio of 225/60.
For a contender in need of a shut-down 9th inning guy, it’s hard to argue Helsley isn’t a better option than Devin Williams was before he was dealt to the Bronx.
Seiya Suzuki – Chicago Cubs
After the trade for Tucker, the Cubs likely need to move one of their outfielders elsewhere, and there was already talk before the Tucker acquisition that Suzuki could be one of them. Forced to DH last year, Suzuki wants to play the outfield and it’s likely he’ll be on the move at some point this winter. The Japanese import has been largely outstanding since his debut in 2022, improving each season in WAR (1.8, 2.8, 3.5), with an .848 OPS and 138 OPS+ last season, 21 HRs and 73 RBIs in 585 plate appearances.
He’s a below average defender in the corners, but his bat more than makes up for it. There are some players available with more potential upside, but Suzuki is one the most stable and productive bats available in the wake of the Tucker deal.
Luis Castillo – Seattle Mariners
The Mariners have starting pitching galore but are in desperate need of adding offense. And while they’re not likely to deal George Kirby or Logan Gilbert, they are likely open to using Castillo to get another bat or two into their lineup. The biggest hurdle: Castillo has a full no-trade clause and would need to waive it in order for a deal to work.
That said, he’s a solid No. 3 starter. His 3.64 ERA is perfectly serviceable, has been remarkably consistent since 2019 (never an ERA below 2.99 or above 3.64) and he piles up innings, with at least 150.1 innings every eason during that stretch (not counting the pandemic-shortened 2020 season). Teams in need of a stabilizing force in the middle of their rotation should be interested in the 32-year-old right-hander.
Cody Bellinger – Chicago Cubs
Bellinger has had a strange career. He was the NL MVP in 2019 when he led the National League in WAR (8.6) and in total bases, with 47 HRs and 115 RBIs, but hasn’t come close to reaching those power numbers again over the last five seasons. He struggled terribly in Los Angeles from 2020-22, worth a combined 1.2 WAR.
But Bellinger had a renaissance with the Cubs in 2023, totalling up 4.4 WAR with a .307/.356/.525 slash line, 26 HRs, 97 RBIs and 20 stolen bases, enough for him to sign a three-year, $80 million extension prior to the start of last season. The contract contained an opt-out clause for Bellinger after the 2024 season, but he declined it, meaning he’s under team control for another two years.
His 2024 season wasn’t quite as strong – 2.2 WAR, .751 OPS and just 18 HRs in the same number of games (130) as the season before. Still just 29 years old, the left-handed outfielder can play all three outfield positions and could be a fit for a team hoping some of the 2023 magic remains.
Ryan Pressly – Houston Astros
Pressley has not been able to recapture his All-Star form of 2021 over the last four seasons, and last year was removed from the closer’s role in favor of Josh Hader. Hey, who can argue about that decision, right? The 36-year-old is still a good reliever, with a 3.49 ERA in 59 appearances as a set-up guy, but saw his strikeout rate drop by one K/9 and his WHIP jump from 1.071 to 1.341, allowing a .718 OPS that was the highest in any full season since 2016.
For teams in need of a veteran right-handed reliever who can be thrown into the high leverage mix, Pressley won’t be as expensive to obtain as Helsley and could be a nice secondary option for a contender in need.
Brendan Donovan – St. Louis Cardinals
Donovan has been a solid player for the Cardinals over the last three seasons, a very typical St. Louis guy. He’s not flashy, as evidenced by his 14 HRs and 73 RBIs in 153 games last year, but posted a solid slash line of .278/.342/.417, and hit 34 doubles with an OPS+ of 112. Donovan is exceedingly cheap, slated to earn about $4 million in arbitration this year, and he cannot become a free agent until after the 2027 season, three more years of team control. He has elite plate discipline and plays a solid outfield as well.
It’s doubtful the Cardinals are itching to move him, but given they are open to trading away players who could bring back a nice return, it would make sense if he’s available to an outfielder-starved team. Lars Nootbarr is a similar player who could also be moved.
Brandon Lowe – Tampa Bay Rays
Essentially, any Tampa player that is due to earn more than $7 million this season is likely a trade candidate. The best of those players is probably Brandon Lowe, who can shuttle between second, third and first and dabbles in the corner outfield from time to time. He was worth 2.4 WAR in 107 games last year, but has only played more than 109 games once in his seven-year career. He does have two straight seasons of 21 homers, and had a career-best 39 blasts and 99 RBIs in 2021.
He’s under two more years of team control at $10.5 and $11.5 million the next two seasons. Seems like a guy the Rays would want to keep around, and someone multiple teams would love to add to their roster.
Nolan Arenado – St. Louis Cardinals
Through the 2022 season, Arenado was on track to be this generation’s Mike Schmidt. A 10-time Gold Glove winner who was the NL home run king three times and hit 30 or more dingers a season every year from 2015-22 (except 2020 of course), Arenado suddenly hit a wall in ‘23, his age-32 season. After posting an NL-best 7.7 WAR in ‘22, it dropped to 2.4 in ‘23 and last year was 2.5. He hit just 16 bombs last season in 152 games and saw his OPS fall to a meager .719. It kinda makes you appreciate how great Schmidt was for so long.
Arenado will be 34 years old this season, and it seems unlikely he’s going to make a giant leap in 2025. His defense remains excellent, however, and if his power numbers tick up even a little, he can be a 3-4 win player again. He still hit .272 in ‘24, but would need to see his walk rate jump a bit (just 44 walks last year) if his power doesn’t return. He’s also under contract for three more seasons at $74 million total, so St. Louis may need to help a team pay some of that down.
Luis Robert Jr. – Chicago White Sox
There is apparently an epidemic throughout baseball that has seemingly wiped out elite center fielders from the game. The 27-year-old Robert seemed to be on the path to bucking that trend in 2023 when he was an All Star, put up 5.0 WAR with an OPS of .857, 38 HRs, 80 RBIs and 20 stolen bases. Big things were expected of him in 2024, but injuries (which have bedeviled him throughout his five years in the big leagues) hampered him once again. He appeared in just 100 games and was brutal at the plate, with a .657 OPS and a staggering 141 strikeouts in 425 PAs.
According to Baseball Savant, out of 251 players on their list, Robert ranked 247th in strikeout rate and whiff rate percentile, 227th in chase rate, and in the 28th percentile of walk rate. In short, awful plate discipline torpedoed his numbers last year, when healthy.
There’s no denying the talent is there for Robert to become one of the game’s few premier center fielders. He’ll be just 27 years old this year, he plays a terrific defensive center field, and doesn’t cost much. Maybe there’s a team willing to roll the dice and hope the White Sox are willing to sell a bit low on him.
