It’s finally trade season.

In my opinion, we’re in the midst of one of the most interesting times of the baseball season as teams buy and sell, rumors swirl and contenders look to bolster their teams for a potential late-season run.

I feel like I should mention, I’m writing this late Saturday and it is entirely possible some of what I talk about will be out of date or flat-out wrong by the time you’re reading it. I hope some of it is.

It’s been a slow build to the deadline, which sits at 5 p.m. Central Tuesday instead of the usual July 31. And don’t forget, there will probably be at least a couple of trades we don’t learn about until hours after the deadline. They just have to be turned in to the league office by 5 p.m., reporting comes later.

We’ve seen a couple of deals including the Kansas City Royals already as the team looks to sell off veterans and make room for new young stars in the everyday lineup. Carlos Santana was shipped off to the Seattle Mariners — where he’s had a pretty successful couple of weeks — for two minor-league pitchers. The Royals then sent Andrew Benintendi to the New York Yankees for another three pitching prospects.

The Royals are clearly focused on bolstering the pitching rotation as, hopefully, future star position players Bobby Witt Jr., MJ Melendez, Vinnie Pasquantino and Nick Pratto come into their own.

Kansas City has room to keep selling, Whit Merrifield and Michael A. Taylor could both bring the Royals some more prospects. And every contender is always looking to buy a bullpen arm.

The Mariners also went out and brought in probably the best starting pitcher available — Luis Castillo — in a deal Friday with the Cincinnati Reds. The Mariners sent four prospects, all below the Triple-A level, with three of those rated in the team’s top five. There were reportedly 12 teams talking to the Reds about Castillo, including the Yankees who just missed out.

The deal probably takes the Mariners out of the most anticipated trade of this deadline.

They had reportedly been in talks with the Washington Nationals for 23-year-old superstar Juan Soto, who became available during the All-Star break…