⚾ Baseball Bytes: Deadline Needs, Ranked

Which teams have the means, motive and opportunity to make a deal? Plus: 💔 A tribute to the late Ryne Sandberg.

Welcome back to Baseball Bytes — a new, improved version¹ of my baseball column in which I point out several byte-sized pieces of information that jumped out to me from my various baseball spreadsheets. If you’ve noticed a Baseball Byte of your own, email me and I’ll feature it in a future column!

⚾ Deadline Desperations

Yes, I just spent time last week unpacking how the MLB trade deadline may not move the needle quite as much as we like to think it does, or should (unless you land a performance like CC Sabathia with the Brewers in 2008). However! That doesn’t mean teams won’t still try to load up before Thursday’s 6 p.m. ET deadline.

According to the Doyle Number, which quantifies the amount of long-term value² a team should be willing to give up at the deadline in exchange for gaining 1 extra win this season (if their goal is to maximize total overall World Series wins), the Milwaukee Brewers have the most incentive to go all-in, followed by the Chicago Cubs and Toronto Blue Jays.

📈 Where should they — and others — try to improve? See below for a chart that shows each buyer’s biggest WAR weaknesses — ranked across MLB — along with how strong their farm system is to help fix it: