David Price‘s trade market reportedly comes down to three teams. There are three teams with the motivation and with the goods to realistically pull off a trade for the biggest name on the market.
According to Buster Olney:
Exec involved in Price conversations said this: "It all comes down to which teams decides to be aggressive--Dodgers, Cardinals or Mariners."
— Buster Olney (@Buster_ESPN) July 21, 2014
While these three teams have in common the potential to make a deal, they all come at potential negotiations from distinctly different positions.
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The Seattle Mariners have the most urgency to make a trade. They are feeling the heat of the “win now” mentality along with the pressure to keep up with the big trades already made in the division by the Oakland Athletics and Los Angeles Angels.
The St. Louis Cardinals are the most obvious fit when it comes to having the prospects required to make a deal. At this point the Cardinals have stockpiled so many prospects that theycan likely best almost any offer from a competing team if they choose to do so.
The Los Angeles Dodgers have the money. They are the team that most obviously and most comfortably has the money to offer Price the $200 million extension that he is potentially in line for with his contract expiring at the end of the 2015 season.
All three teams have combinations of these traits, but those are the core positions from which each will approach negotiations. What will win out in the end? That will be up to Andrew Friedman and the Rays if and when they decide to officially call themselves “sellers.”