So I was thinking about the trade deadline. Overall, the team is more complete than I would have expected when thinking about it prior to the season. By that I mean I expected there would be more obvious holes to fill where you could make a smaller trade to improve on someone who's below average. However, outside of C(a younger long term solution), and maybe a #3 pitcher most of the moves feel like they might be marginal increases unless they go balls to the wall to land a superstar. I left 2B out here because I'd frankly be shocked if they traded for a 2B with Russell and Baez in the minors and obviously I like Alcantara a lot myself.
Looking at the present standings your worst 10 teams are presently MIL(2-8), SF(3-9), MIA(3-8), PHI(3-8), SEA(3-7), CLE(3-6), CHW(3-6), HOU(4-6), PIT(4-6), NYY(4-6) and MIN(4-6). Just looking through these teams names that pop out to me as making sense for trades in general are Mat Latos(2016 FA), Cole Hamels, Hisashi Iwakuma(2016 FA), Jeff Samardzija(2016 FA), and Francisco Liriano(2017 FA). Of that list I'm kind of most interested in Latos frankly. Hamels is probably the best pitcher but given where the Phillies have started I doubt they come down enough to make it much of a deal and given Hamels is likely to be the best available pitcher someone will probably pay them close to what they want. Latos is 27 and while not your typical "ace" he would sit well in the #2/3 role with Arrieta. You could possibly argue Shark in this conversation too but I kinda feel like that ship sailed last year.
Outside of that situation I'm not really seeing an obvious move unless someone unexpected becomes available. Sonny Gray perhaps? Never count out Beane. Jose Fernandez? Never count out the Marlins going crazy. The nationals trading Strasburg/Zimmerman for a missing part? Tampa making Archer available? In terms of positional players that are super stars no one strikes me as likely to be available. McCutchen would clearly be worth getting but he's not a FA until 2018. Puig maybe if the Dodgers soured on him enough but given they dealt Kemp I doubt Puig goes. The rest of the higher tier players seem like either a poor fit positional, are past their prime and a poor fit age wise, or just aren't really worth making a move.