MLB Trade Deadline 2015: 5 moves that must happen

With the MLB trade deadline just two weeks away, we take a look at five trades that need to happen right now.

The days leading up to the MLB trade deadline are among the most hectic in all of sports.

Some teams strike a deal that positively alters the future of the franchise. There are blockbuster deals, such as the one that sent Mark McGwire to the St. Louis Cardinals on the eve of a record-setting, 70-home run season.

There are also the moves that net lesser-known players who make an equally large impact. The Red Sox shipping All-Star shortstop Nomar Garciaparra to the Cubs in a deal that landed Orlando Cabrera, Doug Mientkiewicz and Dave Roberts comes to mind. Garciaparra never repeated the success he experienced in Boston, while Roberts and Cabrera played a significant role in ending the Red Sox’s historic World Series drought.

Other teams fall flat on their face at the trade deadline, and thus dig a hole for themselves that takes years to climb out of.

The Houston Astros thought they had landed the ace that they needed to make a World Series run in 1998, when they traded a group of promising young prospects to the Seattle Mariners for Hall-of-Fame pitcher Randy Johnson. The Big Unit was a star in Houston, but the Astros would get bounced in the first round of the playoffs and Johnson would bolt for the Arizona Diamondbacks in free agency, leaving the farm system bankrupt with nothing to show for it. The players they shipped to Seattle, meanwhile, would play a vital role in the Mariners’ 116-win season three years later.

One thing is certain, though; playoff contenders will always attempt to make moves at the MLB trade deadline that, in their mind, land the missing piece to a championship puzzle.

Here are five trades that need to be made right now.

Next: Johnny Cueto to the Houston Astros