This isn’t your normal MLB trade deadline. Keep an eye on Angels, Cubs, Mariners

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Fred McGriff and Scott Rolen are officially Hall of Famers, and the trade deadline vibes are in shambles. I’m Levi Weaver, here with Ken Rosenthal — welcome to The Windup!

Your heart was open wide, and you loved things just because

It is nostalgic by nature, the annual Hall of Fame ceremony — after all, you aren’t eligible until you’ve been retired for five years. But this year’s trip down memory lane required a few more steps to reach its destination. For Scott Rolen, it was his sixth year on the ballot.

As Jayson Stark notes in his in-depth look at this year’s festivities, Rolen’s “yes” votes accounted for just 10.2 percent of the ballots that first year, climbing each winter until he crossed the magic number of 75 percent.

For McGriff, the wait was even longer. In 10 years on the ballot (the maximum number allowed — even nostalgia has its limits), he never passed the threshold for induction or made it past 40 percent. As Stark notes, that had more to do with the era in which he played than anything else. He was inducted by the Contemporary Baseball Era Players Committee (the same committee, incidentally, that did not include Barry Bonds, Roger Clemens or Rafael Palmeiro).

Next year’s ballot should be a fun one — we’ll start to see an influx of players whose peaks came after the PED era.

Ken’s Notebook: Teams to watch as deadline approaches

It’s going down to the end. I mean, it almost always goes down to the end, but this is one of the stranger buildups to the trade deadline I can remember.

A number of high-priced teams have flopped. A number of surprise teams have emerged. Few impact players are known to be available because the sellers mostly stink.

The sport is essentially upside down.

While team executives report trade conversations are increasing, the market lacks definition. Some clubs likely will wait until the weekend to determine their course, with the deadline looming a week from Tuesday.

Coming out of the All-Star break, I wrote about six teams on the bubble. As I’ve mentioned, the buy/sell decision is not always either/or, and several teams likely will do both at once. Still, the Mets probably are more sell than buy at this point, the Red Sox and Padres more buy than sell.

Three other teams bear watching:

• The Angels. Well, of course. The entire sport is waiting to see if owner Arte Moreno will trade Shohei Ohtani, which is yet another reason the market is on hold. But the chances of an Ohtani trade appear increasingly slim, not that it was ever likely in the first place.

The Angels are 6-3 since the All-Star break. They’re two games above .500 and just four out in the AL wild-card race, with their next two series in Detroit and Toronto. Oh, and Ohtani is on pace to hit 58 homers. Even…