NEWSLETTER
Yankees at one point. Brewers after that. Then it was the Phillies yesterday. Now it’s the Dodgers.
As we discussed this morning, you can’t quite know which team is *actually* in the lead for Manny Machado, because I suspect this is simply how the Orioles have chosen to do their public negotiating. Being in the “lead” for a trade doesn’t really mean anything until the other team is ready to pull the trigger.
To that end, we do now have strong evidence that a deal will happen before the Orioles play their next game on Friday. That was already kinda the general sense, but now there’s this:
#Orioles likely to complete Machado trade over next 72 hours. Source said expectation is that deal will be done before O’s resume regular season on Friday.
— Eduardo A. Encina (@EddieInTheYard) July 17, 2018
Sources: The Orioles have structure of a deal in place, and are going through the medicals/paperwork portion of the transaction. Dodgers have been very invested in their pursuit of Machado, as have the Phillies and other teams, but this in not finished yet.
— Buster Olney (@Buster_ESPN) July 17, 2018
Word could drop at any moment about which team is getting Machado, or it could surprise us all when the final deal is announced.
… or the Orioles could screw this up by getting cute with the physicals, which they have done before. Stay tuned. It sounds like Machado is most likely headed to an NL contender at this point.
Why the extreme secrecy today? The best guess is that MLB and the Orioles want Machado to be out there in an Orioles uniform tonight at the All-Star Game, representing his team, and free-ish from the stamp of whichever team he’s going to. Me? I kinda think it would be fun if word broke during the game …
