MLB trade deadline 2024: Cubs, Rangers, more tough decisions - ESPN

For many teams, the decision of whether to add or subtract at the MLB trade deadline is as simple as checking the standings.

But every summer, there are a handful of front offices that have a more difficult dilemma. Some teams are on the edge of contention — or have legitimate hopes of contending the next season — while also holding some of the deadline's most intriguing trade candidates.

ESPN has identified six such teams, and with the July 30 deadline less than a week away, time is running out for these franchises to choose a direction.

Complicating the decision this year is muddled races for the final playoff spots in both leagues. Even sub-.500 clubs could be one good run away from a legitimate chance to play in October.

With that in mind, we enlisted a panel of eight MLB front-office executives and scouts to help decide the best deadline direction for each of our teams facing the toughest decisions, offering up a verdict and the one big move each should make — should they choose to make one.

Record: 49-55 | Playoff odds: 8.7%

Our panel says: Stand pat

Even president of baseball operations Jed Hoyer's recent comments that the Cubs were concentrating on the future beyond this season didn't completely convince our panel that Chicago should subtract from its major league roster in the coming days.

«It's one of those rare years where doing almost nothing might benefit them,» one executive said. «They don't have a slew of pending free agents who will be gone at year's end and they have a young, emerging bullpen which has looked better lately. Plus, they aren't that far out of the playoff race. Who knows what can happen in the final two months?»

One dissenter to that idea believed that trading away some relievers would