As we head toward the second half and the trade deadline, the teams with the most incentive to make a splash are those living on the margins, with their playoff fates in doubt. Manny Machado is a no-doubt-about-it superstar, but in the context of losing him to an injury or being kidnapped by aliens, the loss of Machado is essentially meaningless to Baltimore's playoff hopes.
So who are baseball's most indispensable players to their team's chances as of right now in 2018? They might not be the players you expect -- the position of their team and the quality of their in-house replacements is almost as important here as the players themselves are. If one of these players winds up lost for the season after a trip to Dr. James Andrews or due to an injury resulting from a spider-related dream, you'd likely see some roster scrambling.
10. Clayton Kershaw, Los Angeles Dodgers: 13.2 percent playoff odds bump
Dodgers' playoff odds: 65.0 percent with him, 51.8 percent without
You might have expected to see Kershaw place a little higher, but given the nature of his back injuries that have cost him parts of three seasons in a row, some missing time was already "baked into the cake," so to speak, as far as projecting the rest of the season. The Dodgers aren't without depth, either, even though their usual spate of injuries has tested that depth.
9. Mike Trout, Los Angeles Angels: 14.2 percent playoff odds bump
Angels' playoff odds: 19.3 percent with him, 5.1 percent without him
As long as the Angels have a serious chance at making the playoffs, Trout will place on this list, as the guy is inarguably the best player in the league. Losing Shohei Ohtani for an uncertain length of time already leaves the Angels more vulnerable than they looked a month ago. The loss of Trout would be nearly crippling but wouldn't put the team in a hopeless position. Simply put, while the Angels are several games behind the second wild-card spot, the competition for that slot is less numerous than it has been over the past several years.
8. Justin Turner, Dodgers: 15.5 percent playoff odds boost
Dodgers' playoff odds: 65.0 percent with him, 49.5 percent without him
Seeing Turner rank this high is a demonstration of how important it is for him to start hitting soon. ZiPS is still optimistic that he will, projecting a .286/.367/.465 line for Turner, something the team really needs with Corey Seager out for the season. Replacing Turner and Seager at the same time would test the Dodgers' depth in ways that could force a trade, what with Logan Forsythe's hold at second looking increasingly tenuous and Chase Utley roughly a billion years old.
7. Aaron Nola, Philadelphia Phillies: 16.2 percent playoff odds boost
Phillies' playoff odds: 51.7 percent with him, 35.5 percent without him
Enyel de los Santos is very quickly looking like an excellent break-glass-in-case-of-fire fill-in for the Phillies, something they couldn't be sure of before the season started. But replacing Nola is an incredible internal challenge, and I'd argue he is the most underrated starting pitcher in baseball today. (As it was, he was on my final 15 winnowing down for the Cy Young ballot last year.)
6. James Paxton, Seattle Mariners: 17.5 percent playoff odds boost
Mariners' playoff odds: 75.9 percent with him, 58.4 percent without him
The King is dead, but long live Big Maple. The seemingly typical weak back-of-rotation depth on the Mariners used to make Felix Hernandez's services next to impossible to do without during a tight pennant race. Seattle has some breathing room, and lucky wins always count as wins in the standings, but losing the team's top starter -- striking out nearly four batters per nine more than their next-best -- would be crippling.
5. Paul Goldschmidt, Arizona Diamondbacks: 17.7 percent playoff odds boost
D-backs' playoff odds: 59.5 percent with him, 41.8 percent without him
Within this season, we've already been able to make real-life observations as to what happens to Arizona without their proper Goldschmidt contributions. During Goldschmidt's .144/.252/.278 May, Arizona went 8-19. They're 35-14 in their other games. Now, other things went wrong for Arizona in May, too, but when a team is scoring fewer than three runs a game, as the D-backs did that month, the first baseman with a .530 OPS has to shoulder a large percentage of the blame.
4. Anthony Rendon, Washington Nationals: 17.7 percent playoff odds boost
Nationals' playoff odds: 51.9 percent with him, 34.2 percent without him
This is perhaps the Nationals player you expect to see here. Yes, ZiPS projects Bryce Harper -- weirdly low batting average and all -- to be the better player, but the Nationals are simply better equipped to deal with an outfield injury as their roster is currently stocked. Juan Soto's quick emergence leaves the team with Soto, Adam Eaton (until his next injury), Michael Taylor and eventually Victor Robles. Nobody's going to confuse Taylor with a star, but he's far better than the typical replacement-level Triple-A guy. Losing Rendon's projected production at third base effectively hurts them worse.
3. Kris Bryant, Chicago Cubs: 17.9 percent playoff odds boost
Cubs' playoff odds: 82.1 percent with him, 64.2 percent without him
Bryant remains the team's most valuable position player, and it's unlikely both the Brewers and Cardinals just go away and leave the division for the Cubs to stroll through September en route to a title and avoid the wild-card play-in game. The usual suspects such as Ben Zobrist don't have as much professional experience at third as you might think at first glance.
2. Freddie Freeman, Atlanta Braves: 18.7 percent playoff odds boost
Braves' playoff odds: 71.0 percent with him, 52.3 percent without him
It took a while, but Freeman has officially passed Bryce Harper as the best-projected rest-of-season hitter in the National League. Now, say Freeman is hurt -- you can talk some creative, if uninspiring, replacement options, such as moving Johan Camargo over and bringing up Austin Riley (when his knee is better), but that's not going to replace what Freeman gives you at the plate ... not even close.
1. Max Scherzer, Washington Nationals: 22.9 percent playoff odds boost
Nationals' playoff odds: 51.9 percent with him, 29.0 percent without him
There are other aces in baseball, but Scherzer is perhaps having his best season in the majors, with ZiPS now projecting him to have the second-best rest-of-year ERA (after the theoretically omnipresent, uninjured Kershaw) and finishing the season with 7.7 WAR via FanGraphs. And unlike other No. 1 pitchers such as Justin Verlander, Chris Sale or Jacob deGrom, there's a lot of play in Washington's playoff hopes. The team obviously would have preferred squeezing out another year before the rebuilds of Atlanta and Philadelphia reached the contending stage, but it's just not likely both of those teams tail off in the second half. For the Nats' hopes to stay alive, Scherzer is indispensable.