Insider
Buster Olney, ESPN Senior Writer 7y

Olney: Grading the 2017 trade deadline

The other day, an evaluator talking about the landscape of the trade market cited the essential purpose for the trade deadline: Either you advance and attack your weaknesses, or you retreat strategically. As best they can within their context, teams should either work to improve their playoff hopes or they should improve their chances of winning in future seasons by trading players whose value is about to expire. This is the standard on which the following grades are based. A "C" grade is perfectly average (as I established in my college experience).

^ Back to Top ^