When the month of July rolls around in the MLB, the time comes for teams to first decided whether they’ll be buyers or sellers leading up to the deadline and then what needs to be addressed if they are in fact buyers.
For some teams, their weaknesses will be solved by in-house players coming back from injury or top prospects being called up to make a second-half impact. For others, however, what they do at the trade deadline could mean the difference between sitting at home come October and contending for a title.
Here is a look at each MLB contender’s weakest link at midseason. For the sake of this article, I considered everyone less than six games out of a playoff spot, whether division lead or wild card, to be a contender.