Trade deadline fill-ins, 2025

With the MLB trade deadline around three weeks away, throwing speculative darts at the "next men up"—those who fill vacated spots left by a departing starter—ahead of time can be a profitable endeavor.

A few years ago, Jeff Zimmermaresearched the odds of a player being traded based on the annual MLBTradeRumors.com (MLBTR) Top 50 Trade Candidates list. As a quick refresher, here are Jeff's findings on those trade odds ("Trade Rate") from his 2021 update based on MLBTR's list from 2016-19:

Rather than blindly speculate on where these players might go, we’ll take an alternate approach by focusing on the most attractive fill-ins for those most likely to be dealt. We'll group these players by hitter/pitcher and sort them by...

Almost!

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