MLB trade deadline: What's ahead for the Astros? Which teams are going to sell? And what will David Stearns do with the Mets?

The MLB trade deadline is 10 days away.

Here’s a smattering of thoughts, questions and rumblings from around the baseball world as we inch closer to the busiest transactional day of the season.

The Astros are in a weird spot

The Houston Astros are not what they once were. Sure, pillars of that dynasty remain. Jose Altuve is still around; so, too, is Yordan Alvarez. But these Astros — four games under .500 with a minus-45 run differential — are not those Astros. Still, a three-game sweep of the Miami Marlins has pushed Houston back up the wild-card standings, back toward that poisoned chalice of being good enough for false hope.

The overwhelming expectation around the industry is that the Astros, almost regardless of their record, will be buyers per usual. How close their record is to .500 come deadline day will likely determine just how aggressive general manager Dana Brown is in upgrading the roster. Brown is a critical, fascinating character as trade season gets underway; his contract runs out at year’s end. Considering that his tenure has been marked by a gradual decaying of the roster and an inability to keep the window legitimately propped open, it would be a surprise to see him retained for 2027.

Also worth noting: Team owner Jim Crane has more influence over baseball operations decisions than any other owner in the sport. He wielded that pull last summer to bring Carlos Correa back. Crane will surely put his finger on the scale once again to push Brown toward a more buy-heavy posture. Expect the Astros to be linked with lefty rental starting pitchers (Robbie Ray, Foster Griffin) and outfielders of all shapes and sizes (Luis Robert Jr., Lars Nootbaar, Daulton Varsho). Houston ranks dead last in MLB in offensive production from outfielders and is 28th in rotation ERA.

Whether Houston should buy is a different conversation, but this unit certainly won’t go gently into that goodnight.

Which bad teams are focused on 2027?

At present, only two franchises, the Los Angeles Angels and Colorado Rockies, seem primed to enter deadline conversations with their focus on the distant future. The other sellers and cellar-dwellers — the Royals, Athletics, Blue Jays, Mets, Giants, Reds and maybe the Tigers — all have serious intentions to contend next season. That dynamic has the potential to create a very bizarre deadline in which more upper-level minor-league talent and controllable big leaguers are traded than usual. It’s also hard to envision any of those clubs conducting a complete teardown, though of course it's always possible. Remember what the Twins did last year.

That’s particularly relevant as it pertains to the Giants, a club that entered 2026 with high expectations but has instead endured a season of woe. San Francisco is expected to trade away its expiring contracts — second baseman Luis Arraez, lefty starter Robbie Ray, back-end righty Tyler Mahle — but could avoid a full-blown revamping. That would mean hanging on to expensive, under-contract characters such as Willy Adames, Matt Chapman, Jung Hoo Lee and the difficult-to-move Rafael Devers. A report earlier this year indicated that the Giants would be open for business on some of those guys, but based upon current chatter, that seems less likely at this point. One big-league source indicated that San Francisco was talking to the Angels about sought-after starter Reid Detmers; that strategy feels more reboot than rebuild.

David Stearns, it’s time to prove it

What a catastrophe 2026 has been for the Mets — legitimately one of the most disappointing campaigns in recent baseball memory. Now a whopping 17 games under .500, the Mets are in full sell mode as president of baseball operations David Stearns seeks to rebuild his roster and his reputation.

Stearns came to New York in October 2023 after nearly a decade spent building the Milwaukee Brewers into one of the game’s more respected organizations. He shined in year one as the “OMG Mets” became the darlings of the baseball world. Since then, however, it has been a disaster, with a magnificent collapse in 2025 followed by whatever the heck 2026 has been.

And now the Mets’ head honcho has pieces to sell. Freddy Peralta, Clay Holmes, Brooks Raley, Tyrone Taylor and Luis Robert Jr. are all impending free agents expected to garner real interest. Most, if not all, of those players should be wearing different colors by Aug. 4. What types of players Stearns and Co. prioritize in the returns will provide real clues about what the 2027 team will look like. So would any trades involving players under contract past next season. Luke Weaver, Bo Bichette, Mark Vientos, Brett Baty and Francicso Alvarez have all been mentioned as potential trade candidates. 

For Stearns, this is an absolutely crucial deadline. The sheen on his résumé has worn off and then some. He needs to build a winner in 2027 around Juan Soto, Nolan McLean and Carson Benge. That job begins over the next 10 days.

Will the Angels blow it up?

Everything in Anaheim — all the losing, all the hopelessness, all the poor decision-making — begins with owner Arte Moreno, the closest thing baseball has to a cartoon villain. The Angels organization is eons behind the rest of the industry, a result of years of stasis and a refusal to accept reality. 

But earlier this season, for the first time in a long time, Moreno looked outside and saw the sun. He relieved GM Perry Minasian of his duties and appointed former St. Louis Cardinals lead architect John Mozeliak as interim GM.

While Mozeliak is considered more of an old-school operator, he provides something the Angels have sorely lacked over the past decade: reason. So often, Anaheim has bought or stood pat or executed half-measures at the deadline, too scared to tear it all down, too poorly run to win anything. Mozeliak has already adopted a different tone, admitting that difficult decisions need to be made for the long-term health of the organization. 

Whether that portends a different strategy remains to be seen, but an aggressive, tactful sell-off in Orange County feels more possible than it has for quite some time.