The dust is just now beginning to settle. Late Saturday night, the Dallas Mavericks and Los Angeles Lakers got together for one of the biggest and most stunning trades in sports history: Luka Doncic for Anthony Davis. There were other players and draft picks involved, but it’ll be the Doncic/A.D. trade forever and ever. Two of the sport’s best traded for one another.
Baseball superstars get traded all the time (Mookie Betts, Francisco Lindor, Juan Soto, etc.), though we can usually see those trades coming down the pike because a team is rebuilding, the player is coming up on free agency, whatever. Very rarely do we get an out-of-nowhere blockbuster like Luka for A.D. The last surprise blockbuster was what? Shelby Miller for Dansby Swanson?
With that in mind, let’s rank the five MLB stars we would be most surprised to see get traded. It’s a hard list to put together because I think you can squint your eyes and see, say, Ronald Acuña Jr. getting traded, or Tarik Skubal. I’m not saying it will happen, or that it would be a good idea to trade them. Just that you can kinda sorta see how it would come together.
Anyway, here are the five baseball superstars who would most shock us to see get traded.
Aaron Judge NYY • RF • #99 BA 0.322 R 122 HR 58 RBI 144 SB 10 View Profile
The Yankees couldn’t possibly trade their captain, could they? Not only is Judge their best player and captain, he’s the best hitter in the world right now, and the Yankees don’t trade guys like that. Judge is not Derek Jeter level untouchable, but he’s pretty darn close. He is way too important to the Yankees on the field and also at the box office. The man sells tickets and shirseys and commercial time on the YES Network. To put it another way, Judge is the Yankees’ meal ticket.
Julio Rodríguez SEA • CF • #44 BA 0.273 R 76 HR 20 RBI 68 SB 24 View Profile
I know he had a