The dealing season has begun.

With the first-year player draft concluded and just over six weeks remaining until the non-waiver trade deadline, front offices will turn their attention to in-season acquisitions.

For this year’s edition of the Toronto Blue Jays, though, the season has had a constant undercurrent of trade anxiety, with the sense that the team broke camp without having truly finalized their work on the 25-man roster. While trade rumours are perpetual for most teams and fanbases, the amount of time and energy put into casting our collective gaze at potential targets seems especially high this year.

Unfortunately, this might not be the best time to be an in-season buyer.

Traditionally, we look upon the trade season by sorting out who are the buyers and who are the sellers. But a number of factors have created a situation in which there are fewer sellers, more buyers, and fewer opportunities to make relevant and impactful changes to a roster on the run.

More than anything, the extraordinary level of parity in the game makes the player acquisition marketplace as cutthroat as it has ever been. That parity is driven in part by the fact that front offices have become almost universally shrewder in how they manage their resources. But it’s also indicative of how the supply of talent has increased and the probability of success – at least in terms of reaching the playoffs – has increased while the size of the league has remained stagnant.

It’s been 18 years since baseball’s last expansion diluted the player pool, and in that intervening time, the game has dug deeper to find and develop talent internationally, with more talent emerging from Asia, traditional Latin American markets like the Dominican Republic and Venezuela, and new ones including Cuba, which has already grown to 18 MLB players on opening day with more certain to become available as that nation’s relations with the U.S. improve.

On this date in 1992 – the last season before the latest wave of expansion – 12 of 26 teams MLB teams were more than eight games out of a playoff spot, of which there were four available. At the start of play Thursday, there are just five of 30 teams who are eight games or more out of one of the ten postseason berths. Moreover, only the Philadelphia Phillies seem likely to be on a multi-year rebuilding project, while the 29 other teams seem to be within a year – or even a really good month – of contention.

All of this means there are no fire sales or steep discounts available. Any team that wants to acquire everyday talent had best be prepared to dig deep until it hurts. Premium talent will cost even more.

And so it follows that Blue Jays fans constructing potential deals to bolster the team for a run at the ever-elusive October baseball dates must be prepared to accept some pain if they are realistic.

Last year’s major deadline deals saw not only top prospects like Addison Russell and Eduardo Rodriguez moving for short-term additions like Jeff Samardzija and Andrew Miller, but also core contributors like Yoenis Cespedes and Austin Jackson being shipped out by their respective contending teams in favour of pitching upgrades.

Even the Blue Jays’ lone July deal of significance involved sending two rosterable players to the Royals for Danny Valencia.

That means that Blue Jays supporters should not expect to get something for nothing in the coming weeks. No “mid-level prospect” tacked on to a surplus catcher as a throw-in to seal the deal for a highly desirable bullpen ace. It means all prized prospects – including Jeff Hoffman, Daniel Norris, Miguel Castro and Dalton Pompey – should be expected to be on the table, even for short-term gain. It also means looking at players on the current roster who might provide sufficient short and medium term value to a trade partner.

You think you might be able to cash in on Chris Colabello’s two good months? Think bigger. The size of say, Edwin Encarnacion. Preposterous? Tell that to the small handful of sellers in the market. You’ll be lucky if they hear you over the din of the offers being shouted in their direction.