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Happy Monday — and that means happy MLB Trade Deadline Day to those who celebrate, with the annual cutoff for wheelings and dealings arriving at 6 p.m. this evening. This year’s deadline comes with two competing forces pulling the sport in opposite directions: A record number of teams are still close enough to justify buying, but the Dodgers may have already pulled off the blockbuster move that makes everyone else feel like they’re merely going for second place. We’ll get into that dilemma below, plus a note on the WNBA team that keeps strengthening its case as the title favorite by repeatedly topping the best the league has to offer. Along with that, here’s everything else we’re watching today:
🗓️ TONIGHT’S DANCE
The Main Events
All listed times are Eastern. 🚨= Elimination game
MLB:
⚾ Trade deadline - 6 p.m. 🚨
⚾ Dodgers (55%) at Cubs (45%)* - 8:05 p.m. (SportsNet LA / Marquee / MLB.tv)
⚾ Cardinals (34%) at Yankees (66%) - 7:05 p.m. (YES / MLB.tv)
⚾ Padres (48%) at D-Backs (52%) - 9:40 p.m. (MLB.tv)
⚾ Championship check-in: Dodgers 41% to win World Series
WNBA:
🏀 Aces (46%) at Dream (54%) - 7 p.m. (Peacock / Victory+ / WNBA League Pass)
🏀 Storm (24%) at Liberty (76%) - 7 p.m. (WNBA League Pass)
🏀 Mercury (49%) at Sky (51%) - 9 p.m. (USA Network / WNBA League Pass)
🏀 Championship check-in: Lynx 47% to win WNBA title
Soccer:
⚽ Carabao Cup: York City (59%) vs. Crawley Town (19%) - 2:30 p.m.
⚽ MLS Championship check-in: Inter Miami 29% to win MLS Cup
⚽ NWSL Championship check-in: Washington Spirit 30% to win
Football:
🏈 NFL training camps open (veterans reported across all 32 teams)
Tennis:
🎾 National Bank Open (Canadian Open) - Main Draw Round 1 - 11 a.m. (Tennis Channel / TC Plus) - Alexander Zverev 27% to win (men’s)
🔍 FIND THE EDGE
The final countdown
As mentioned up top, we’ve finally arrived at one of the biggest days on the baseball calendar: Deadline Day. It’s the last chance for contending teams to beef up on their rosters before the stretch run and playoffs, and at the same time, the last chance for other teams to waive the white flag and get out of the race, recouping prospects for future years.
(To use a poker analogy, it’s effectively baseball’s last chance to decide who’s pushing chips in and who’s folding before the river.)
And this year’s deadline is especially being complicated by a logjam in the MLB standings. As we pointed out last week, a record number of teams are within just a few games of the last playoff spots in their respective leagues — which remains true — giving more weight than usual to the fateful decision to buy or sell.
Another factor weighing on today’s moves: The one big deal that has already happened. Late Saturday night — because that’s apparently when all controversial star trades to LA need to happen — the Dodgers acquired Cy Young ace Tarik Skubal from the Tigers, giving the World Series favorites the most coveted player on the deadline market. The move added even more to Los Angeles’ overwhelming-favorite status, pushing their championship odds to around 40% in the prediction markets, or around 3-4x that of anybody else in the field:
That being said, it remains more likely that some team other than the Dodgers win, as difficult as that is to wrap our brains around amidst all the gnashing of teeth around the Skubal move, and how it has ruined baseball. (Some nameless baseball executive reportedly told USA Today, “no use playing the rest of the year. It’s over.”) That’s the strange paradox of this year’s deadline in a nutshell: Nearly everybody’s still in the fight, so it’s tough to tap out prematurely, yet there’s a — perhaps misplaced? — sense of inevitability around the Dodgers just winning in the end again anyway. How do you make rational decisions in that environment?
It’s all worth considering as we watch and wait to see if the following likely trade candidates (or anybody else) ends up getting shipped to a contender today:
📊 CHART OF THE DAY
No weak Lynx
The Minnesota Lynx keep proving they belong as WNBA title favorites this season — most recently, with a 108-100 win over Caitlin Clark, Kelsey Mitchell and the Indiana Fever on Sunday, thanks to rookie Olivia Miles outplaying Clark. The victory brought Minnesota’s record to 25-6 overall this season, but perhaps more telling is the Lynx’s cumulative 8-3 record (and +56 point differential) against the six other WNBA teams with positive point differentials overall this season — Golden State, Indiana, Las Vegas, Dallas, Atlanta and New York. Those are the teams Minnesota will ultimately have to surpass to win the title, and they have a .500 record or better against all but one them — the Aces — so far:
❄️ STAY FROSTY
What else we’re reading
Smart, short reads we liked while building today’s odds.
⚾ “The Dodgers Deserve Your Praise, Not Your Vitriol” by Andrew Steele
🥇 “The Week in International Sport: a Commonwealth Games special” by Ben Wylie
🏒 “Macklin Celebrini will be the NHL’s highest-paid player. Now what?” by Brendan Farrell
🏁 “How Realistic Are F1 Simulators?” by Formula Reports
🏀 “WNBA SuperLeague: Minnesota Outscores Indiana in Superstar Showcase” by Jeff Fogle
👀 EYES UP
Next on deck…
Tuesday (8/4)
⚾ MLB: Nationals at Phillies
🏀 WNBA: Toronto at Golden State
Wednesday (8/5)
⚾ MLB: Pirates at Brewers
🏀 WNBA: Wings at Mystics
⚽ NWSL: Denver at North Carolina
Thursday (8/6)
⚾ MLB: Padres at D-Backs
🏀 WNBA: Aces at Fever
🏈 NFL Hall of Fame Game: Panthers vs. Cardinals - NFL preseason begins! 🎉
🧠 Looking ahead
Stay tuned for more updates and in-depth analysis of these events and more as they unfold. We’ll be bringing you all the scores, highlights, and expert commentary.
Got a favorite team or sport you want us to cover more? Let us know!
All data current as of time of send.
— by Neil Paine
*Event contracts are offered through Robinhood Derivatives, LLC — probabilities referenced or sourced from KalshiEx LLC or ForecastEx LLC.