The Atlanta Braves carried a 10½-game lead into the summer, looking like they’d lapped the National League East. Two months later, that margin is three games, the Philadelphia Phillies are breathing down their necks, and the Miami Marlins have gotten hot enough to turn a runaway into a three-team rodeo. The August 3 trade deadline — 6 p.m. ET, two weeks out — can’t arrive soon enough for a club whose starting rotation has sprung leaks in every direction you look.
General manager Alex Anthopoulos spent the winter saying he wanted a proven starter to anchor the October push. He didn’t get one. Now he’s paying for it in innings.
Since June 1, Braves starters have averaged 4⅔ innings per outing. Only the Nationals, Padres, and White Sox have gotten less from their rotation over that stretch. The staff has produced 0.7 fWAR in that span — 25th in baseball. Here’s the part that’ll make you wince: Chris Sale accounts for 1.3 fWAR by himself over his last seven starts. Do the math on the other eight men who’ve taken the ball, and you’re staring at a negative number. The film doesn’t lie.
Spencer Strider hasn’t picked up a baseball since landing on the injured list June 13 with elbow inflammation, and given his history with that joint, the clock is working against him. Spencer Schwellenbach is ramping up in Florida but with no clear return date. AJ Smith-Shawver is rehabbing at Triple-A Gwinnett, working back from Tommy John surgery in a brisk 13 months. Hurston Waldrep had loose bodies removed from his elbow in spring training, got a few big-league starts under his belt, and was shipped back to Gwinnett to find his 2025 form. Martin Perez should return this week after a line drive caught him in the forearm. Top prospects JR Ritchie and Owen Murphy have been pressed into service with mixed results.
What’s left? Reynaldo Lopez and Grant Holmes are essentially five-inning pitchers. Bryce Elder started strong and has regressed hard. After Sale takes his turn, it’s patchwork and prayer.
The problem for Anthopoulos and every other buyer is that the shelves aren’t exactly stocked. The expanded playoff format — in place since 2022 — has made sellers scarce. Twenty-three of 30 MLB clubs sat within 4½ games of a postseason berth entering Monday’s action. A well-timed hot streak can turn a would-be seller into a holder, which is exactly what happened in Boston: the Red Sox ripped off 13 straight wins, grabbed the third AL Wild Card, and made 36-year-old Sonny Gray — 12-1 with a 2.48 ERA across 18 starts — look like a piece they’d rather keep than flip.
The biggest name that could move is Detroit’s Tarik Skubal, the two-time reigning AL Cy Young winner. Skubal is 6-5 with a 2.83 ERA in 14 starts this season, but the year hasn’t been clean. He underwent surgery in May to clear loose bodies from his pitching elbow — a cutting-edge procedure that cost him only six weeks — and has been more homer-prone since returning, surrendering eight long balls in 39⅓ innings. He’s still rung up 12.1 batters per nine in that stretch, and his first post-All-Star start was vintage: seven scoreless, nine strikeouts. The prospect haul Detroit would demand is enormous, and Skubal is owed the remainder of a $32 million salary. Every contender will at least make the call.
Minnesota’s Joe Ryan might be the best arm genuinely available — if the Twins are willing to listen. Ryan is 6-5 with a 2.85 ERA in 20 starts, 128 strikeouts in 110⅓ innings, and a .218 opponent batting average. He’s not a rental: signed for $6.1 million this season with a $13 million mutual option for 2027 and another year of arbitration control after that. That contract makes him valuable and expensive to acquire in equal measure. But Minnesota is contending for an AL Wild Card spot, which complicates everything.
Anthopoulos has built his reputation on deadline swings that pay off in October. He’s going to need another one. The rotation won’t survive a playoff series the way it’s currently constructed, and no amount of organizational depth can paper over a staff where one man is carrying the load and the rest are running on fumes.
