The trade market has been clogged up for months and probably will be another week or so, but something's gotta give in one of these situations:
Cleveland: I'd thought Cleveland trade Amed Rosario this offseason, slide Gimenez to short and make room for Rocchio and Freeman. They have eight middle infielders on their 40-man roster at the moment, many of them solid prospects (Rocchio, Arias, Freeman, Jose Tena, Angel Martinez and Juan Brito) they likely don't consider fungible.
Miami: We've been over this a bunch, but it seems inevitable they'd trade away someone from their Chisholm, Segura, Wendle, Rojas (traded to the Dodgers), Berti, Xavier Edwards logjam in the middle infield. They've also got Garrett Hampson on an mL deal, who is probably still useful.
Minnesota: They grabbed Kyle Farmer as a shortstop safety net as soon as free agency began. Now they've got Correa, Arraez, Polanco, Miranda as sure bets in the infield, a couple backups in Gordon and Farmer, and top prospects in Royce Lewis (returning midseason), Edouard Julien and Austin Martin. Not certain there's a surplus here, the Twins are good at managing this stuff, but Falvey said earlier they were planning to deal from the major-league roster (likely Kepler) and Farmer seems expendable with Correa in town. Nick Gordon had a great year at the plate in 2022, but he's not much of a shortstop these days.
Anaheim: Big infield cluster here with Rendon, Rengifo, Fletcher, Urshela and Drury vying for three spots (and no DH), with fungible backups Velazquez, Soto and Stefanic kicking around. Fletcher is a very weak hitter but a particularly ideal, but he's a solid defensive shortstop.
Kansas City: Bobby Witt is the future at shortstop, and Nicky Lopez is probably a good enough defensive second baseman to stick despite the punchless bat. That leaves the bat-first 2B/3B Michael Massey, 3B/OF speedster Nate Eaton, snakebit former top prospect Adalberto Mondesi and emerging SS Maikel Garcia. Plus Hunter Dozier, who probably still has a third base glove in his basement somewhere.
Chicago North: Not much of a bottleneck here but the Swanson add seemed to end their experiment with Nick Madrigal, with Nico Hoerner slotting as their full-time 2B the next three years, and the fairly useful Christopher Morel/Zach McKinstry utility team backing him up. Madrigal is an extreme player — an off-the-charts contact hitter (and solid defender) who may not have enough oomph in his bat for it to matter. Charitably to him, he battled leg, groin and back injuries all last year and reportedly didn't have his footing right. He may not be cut out for this version of the game, or he may be Marco Scutaro.
Milwaukee: Part of this is wishcasting, but maybe they see two years of team control of Willy Adames as their last best ticket to get out of the Yelich contract. In that case they'd supplant him with top shortstop prospect Brice Turang. It's worth mentioning that they acquired two 2B/3B types in Abraham Toro and Owen Miller, and still have Keston Hiura in the 2B mix as well. Luis Urias is the 3B, but can play a capable shortstop too. He's not the prize Adames is, but I'd be thrilled to get him for a reasonable cost, and I get the sense they might be down on him in Milwaukee.
Baltimore: They don't trade real players within the division, but they've got Mateo at short, Gunnar Henderson slated for third and newly signed Adam Frazier at second. That could leave Mateo or the other Urias brother, Ramon, without a full-time job. Mateo had a rough offensive year last year but Urias was pretty solid. Both likely lost a few homers from their decision to move the LF fence back (Urias had a 125 wRC+ on the road).
There are probably more, and then there are Andrus, Iglesias and Villar, whose asking prices are probably dropping now that the Dodgers found their shortstop. I'm guessing Bloom has several of these options tiered, and is waiting for one or more combinations to shake loose.
I'd say shortstop defense is a top priority. We're looking like a much more groundball-heavy pitching staff than last year. Bello, Whitlock, Sale, Houck, Martin and Winckowski are all heavy groundball pitchers; so are Paxton if he's the 2013-17 version and Kluber if he wants to be.
