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After weeks of talk, we may be in the final 24 hours of Manny Machado trade rumors.
Bob Nightengale of USA Today is reporting — and Machado himself appears to be confirming — that the All-Star shortstop will very likely be traded to the Los Angeles Dodgers on Wednesday, barring “a last-minute snag.”
Jon Heyman, who has been churning out new information on the evolving story of Machado’s trade market, seems to have gotten the news from the man himself this afternoon, if you’re assuming Machado has been kept in the loop on negotiations by Baltimore’s front office:
Manny Machado just stopped by, and he said he’s seeing the reports of Dodgers and thinks/assumes they’re right (tho he said he doesn’t know for sure). The Miami product who’s been an Orioles his whole career said: “It’ll be different. But different can be good.”
— Jon Heyman (@JonHeyman) July 17, 2018
As has been the case throughout this process (and really any trade negotiation), it’s a fluid process and things can change in a hurry if things aren’t finalized.
Case in point: just this morning the Philadelphia Phillies looked like the leading contender for Machado when they upped their offer to include pitching prospect Adonis Medina, who MLB Pipeline considers the Phillies’ second-best prospect and is a Top-100 prospect in all of baseball. And despite the reports, the Phillies are under the impression they’re still very much in the race:
Multiple reports have Manny Machado likely headed to the Dodgers, but #Phillies have no reason to believe they’re out of it yet. Doesn’t mean they’ll get him. It just means nothing is finalized.
— Todd Zolecki (@ToddZolecki) July 17, 2018
The tide has appeared to shift with the Dodgers potentially offering outfield prospect Yusniel Diaz, who is coming off a two-homer performance in the MLB All-Star Futures Game. The 21-year-old has a .905 OPS in Double-A this year.
There may still be room for the Brewers to elbow their way into the conversation again, but it certainly looks like the Orioles’ apparent deadline of dealing Machado before they resume play on Friday is forcing a couple of the other contenders to increase their offers. Whether or not it causes David Stearns to include more than just Corbin Burnes remains to be seen. Stearns typically hasn’t been one to allow that kind of pressure to change his plans and idea of value, but this is also a unique situation we haven’t seen Stearns encounter before now.
Statistics courtesy of Baseball-Reference