2010 Trade Value: #45 – 41
#45 – Miguel Montero, C, Arizona
Somewhat overlooked because he began the season on the DL, Montero has been a monster since returning to the line-up, carrying over last year’s success and then some. At 26, he’s a quality defensive catcher who can hit for power from the left side, and he’s become a more disciplined hitter as well. He now heads into the prime of his career as one of the best all around backstops in the game, and only his two remaining years of club control keep him this low on the list. Given the diminished salaries he’ll command and the value he will produce, however, he’s the kind of player that every team would covet.
#44 – Brian Matusz, SP, Baltimore
The best of Baltimore’s young arms, Matusz is one of the game’s best young left-handed starters. Despite pitching in the American League East, he’s more than holding his own with a four pitch repertoire that keeps hitters off balance. He doesn’t light up the radar gun like some other arms on this list, but he has a better idea of how to pitch than most. Don’t judge him on just his major league numbers to date – at 23, there’s far better days ahead. Given that the Orioles have him for five years beyond this one, it would take an overwhelming offer to pry him out of their hands.
#43 – Ben Zobrist, 2B/OF, Tampa Bay
Considering that he was never going to repeat his 2009 season, this has been about as good a follow-up as you could hope for. The surprising power hasn’t carried over, but everything else is still well above average, and the total package is a high quality player that is as versatile as any in the game. The Rays took a risk in locking him up before he had a chance to repeat his monster 2009 season, but it looks like a sound investment, as they have him signed through 2013 at bargain salaries and then hold team options for both 2014 and 2015.
#42 – Geovany Soto, C, Chicago
Like Montero, Soto is a young, offensive backstop with the ability to stay behind the plate. He’s rebounded from last year’s disappointing sophomore campaign, offering his usual blend of patience and power while inexplicably hitting eighth for the Cubs. Given his ability to drive the ball, he could hit in the middle of the order for most teams, and when you have a 27-year-old cacher who can provide that kind of punch, you have a highly valuable piece. The Cubs will control his rights for three more years, and it shouldn’t take them that long to figure out that he’s better than Koyie Hill.
#41 – Yovani Gallardo, SP, Milwaukee
The Brewers ace is a bit of a challenge to rank. On the one hand, he’s one of the better arms in baseball at age 24 and already signed to a long term, below market contract. On the other hand, knee surgery has limited his career to just over 400 innings pitched, and now he’s back on the DL with an oblique injury. With a longer track record of success, teams would be more willing to project him as a future ace, but he’s yet to crack 200 innings in a season and looks unlikely to do so again this year. Gallardo has the upside to rank much higher, but the injuries and backloaded contract would make teams think twice before giving up the farm to get him from Milwaukee.
Dave is the Managing Editor of FanGraphs.
Once Lou is gone, Soto will get treated fairly. Lou is an idiot.
Amen. The Cubs finally get an offensive catcher and he plays about 60% of the time when we are lacking offense.
More Lou stupid crap. I dont care if your cleanup hitter is batting a .170 clip he goes down in the order, especially when your number 3 hitter is hitting a .230. Byrd to the number 3 hole, and then SOTO or Sori in the 4 hole. We are lacking 2-3 runs a game to win yet you move the entire lineup around except the 3-4 holes.
/end rant ***
Lou has historically been very hard on catchers, particularly young ones. The idea that Koye Hill gets as much time as he does with Soto on the roster is ridiculous. Soto has the ability to be an offensive difference maker, but they have him buried deep in the lineup. He should be hitting 5th or 6th (at worst).
I would KILL to see Soto get traded to San Diego. He’s be a great compliment to Adrian Gonzalez, and they would score more runs. Hopefully Lou has Hendry convinced Soto can’t play and they trade him on the cheap.
Not sure I like Matusz this high. The peripherals are ugly and the stuff isn’t that great. He’s a nice young piece, but he’s going to have to improve a lot to justify this ranking. I get the feeling Hanson isn’t going to make the cut (and I wouldn’t complain), but I’d take him over Matusz considering the better stuff and peripherals to go along with the same number of years of team control.
Hanson was ranked 40th last year, so I would be surprised if he didn’t make the cut.
I still fail to see how Phil Hughes could have less trade value than any of these guys, or anyone yet ranked ahead of him, for this matter.
I mean, Brian Matusz? What has he done to show you he’s worth more?
“I still fail”
Yes you do indeed.
Part of it is surely the fact that Hughes is heading to arbitration after this season. He could get expensive, and he’s under control for three more years. Matusz is under control for five more, and scouts adore him.
I’m not sure there’s a big difference between spots down in the 50s anyway.
40s, rather.
That’s simply putting far too much emphasis on the effect of the arbitration process on a player’s value. Even a nearly maxed out $10 million contract in arbitration is still a huge bargain considering what a player is worth in terms of WAR. You’re still saving money in a huge way because, say, if Hughes turns out a 4.0 win season before his last arbitration hearing and gets that $10 million contract, a team has essentially earned 2 or so wins without paying for them. It’s still a huge discount.
Adding to it that Hughes has essentially become a sure enough thing where you wouldn’t lose sleep over wondering if he’d amount to anything at all in a trade involving mostly prospects (such as the Ken Griffey Jr. trade to Cincinnati) and I’m not sure whether two cheap years are worth the comfort of a person who is already at an All-Star caliber level.
I suppose it would matter where a team stands, as the Pirates are likely more closer to five years than three away from contending, but I’d estimate that outside of perhaps five teams in baseball, none is so far back that it couldn’t dream of making the playoffs in 2014 or sooner.
I’ll concede that it is certainly splitting hairs among the first decade of the top fifty in this subject, but I’m not sure that Phil Hughes shouldn’t be in the 30’s range, anyway. I’ll have to see how the list goes on.
It’s the club control. Phil Hughes only has one cheap year left before arbitration. Brian Matusz has an extra cheap year.
You’re placing A LOT of stock in what essentially boils down to 9 starts. Hughes ended April and went through all of May as a stud, but since has been a bit more underwhelming and not just from an ERA standpoint, but the 2+ drop in K/9. His control has stayed firm, at least.
But we are nowhere near able to label the 24 year old a “sure enough thing” based on 44 good relief appearances and 44 mediocre starts. Unfortunately, you haven’t made a particularly compelling case even outside of these omissions to Hughes’ profile.
Based on what we’ve seen thus far, I don’t think it is horrible that he didn’t make the 50-41 cut and I think it’s quite clear he doesn’t belong in the 30s as you suggest. Making the All-Star team based on a few good months and a heap of wins doesn’t instantly making you “All-Star caliber”. Though I think he can and will get there, we will probably a see few more bumps in the road before he establishes himself as that consistent All-Star worthy talent.
Again, don’t see how Matusz can be ranked above Jaime. Matusz was a higher rated prospect, but that was because Jaime was out of baseball for a year due to TJ surgery and nobody had enough confidence in him. I think he is a proven that there are no lingering effects from the TJ surgery this year (there usually aren’t with TJ these days – most pitchers generally come back stronger).
From a scouting profile, the two have to be considered close to even at this point. Jaime has good command of 5+ pitchers and his curveball might be one the best in baseball from a lefty. Matusz has a similar repertoire, but relies more on his fastball (throwing his fourseamer and twoseamer over 60% of the time, whereas Jaime throws his fastballs around 40% of the time and his cutter around 10% of the time. And again, Jaime has a much better curveball.
From a stats profile, Jaime is clearly better. Both are putting up even K and BB numbers, but Jaime has 20% groundballs on Matusz. Jaime’s FIP, xFIP and tERA are all around 1 run lower.
You’d have to be weighting Matusz’s performance in the context of his division highly (and there is no way that Matusz has faced opponents that were 1 run better per 9 than Jaime’s) and weighing his preseason scouting ranking highly. I would bet that if BA re-ranked both Jaime and Matusz right now, the two would be around the same.
“From a stats profile, Jaime is clearly better.”
Based off 3 months in the big leagues. Ladies and gentlemen. Case closed! Matusz’ ceiling is a #1. Garcia will never be that.
I’ve never seen anyone refer to Matusz’s ceiling as that of a true #1. He’s more of a high floor #2/#3 type guy.
Until this spring, most of the popular publications (maybe just BPro/BA, actually) had Matusz as the definite #3 and Tillman as the future ace. That changed this spring, for whatever reason. Not even sure if it’s justified.
(Pointing it out because it’s confused me, too.)
100 innings isn’t a great sample size, but it isn’t meaningless. And Jaime has pitched *significantly* better. If it were a difference of .40 points of ERA, that wouldn’t mean anything, but’s it’s more like 2.00 points of ERA and 1.00 points of component based metrics. And it’s not driven by HR rate or anything, the difference is driven completely by ground ball rate, which is something that stabilizes mightly quicklike.
And I don’t understand how you can say Matusz has #1 potential and Jaime doesn’t. Have you watched the two pitch? They are practically identical (except Jaime has a much better curveball and keeps the ball down).
Although, having seen both pitch, I will say it is very important to note that Matusz has the better change-up, a pitch that both use more often than their curveball.
Jaime’s only thrown his changeup around 11% of the time this year (and he’s only thrown 2 to lefties all year) which is roughly the same rate as his curveball.
And It’s much harder to rate changeup effectiveness because most of it comes from deception. According to Pitch f/x, both of their changeups are thrown with the same velocity and with similar movement (Matusz actually has less drop that Jaime). Jaime actually has a slightly higher whiff rate (19.1% to 18.2%) on the change and a much higher swing rate. Matusz throws much more strikes with his though (most of that coming from the extra foul balls).
And here we have this year’s Pablo Sandoval! Didn’t know it would be that easy.
So whenever someone disagrees with a ranking we’re gonna compare it to Pablo Sandoval? I didn’t know Dave was omniscient. That’s amazing!
Anyway, the Garcia – Matusz comparison is pretty easy to make because both of them have the same exact service time situation and comparable amount of major league performance from which to judge. The only difference between the two should be “which one is better”. I’m arguing that Jaime is better and I have yet to see someone take me on.
Isn’t Garcia 25 or 26? I’d imagine that’s a big reason.
No, he just turned 24. Matusz is about a half a year younger.
Garcia had significantly more minor league development time (just over 400 IP), even with the injury, and Matusz is learning to pitch at the highest level with a brief 113 minor league innings under his belt. Doesn’t make much sense to say that they have similar major league inning totals and completely ignore their respective development paths. Factoring in Matusz league, and especially his divisional, comp (you’ll grant the usual half run differential between league avg ERA I assume?) and aggressive promotion I think comparing the two directly is problematic. And the fact that Garcia has gone under the knife will remain a strike against him until he has several consecutive, and successful, seasons behind him. I don’t think there’s some tremendous difference between them, and Garcia looks better today, but I think it will be more fruitful to pursue the comparison in two years.
Didn’t you read the introduction from last year? Apparently the NL sucks in comparison to the AL so Dave swings his sabermetric light saber and chops all NL pitchers off at the knees. It must have been sheer luck that the “superior” league only managed to score a solitary run in the All-Star game.
I know this is extremely unfair to be mocking an awful comment from months ago, but this one is truly awful. The AL All-Stars won every All-Star game from 1996 to 2009, but they lose 1 game in 2010, and suddenly the AL is no longer the superior league?
I honestly can’t tell if this is super-ironic trolling or just typical fan-on-the-internet stupidity.
You must be some kind of Zen master.
ricky romero? more trade value than all these players…. especially soto, montero
this list seems like a joke….
You can disagree with something without it being “a joke”. Particularly when comparing, say, number 48 to number 44 – they’re close enough in value (as evidenced by their ranking) that reasonable minds can disagree or even reverse the two.
Do you think Boesch cracks the Top 10? Cost-controlled Miguel Cabrera type performance?
Lol, that’s not gonna happen. I believe he is a bit older himself, correct? If we haven’t seen him yet today or yesterday I don’t think we will see him at all on this list.
I’d be shocked if Boesch was in the Top 100.
Miguel Cabrera type performance?!? Whoa, slow that runaway hype train down…what do you think Foghorn Leghorn?
“Whoa, there, I say WHOA!”
Okay if thats the case this Cubs fan will trade Soto right now for Boesch.
.349 average 12 dingers and 49 clutch ribbies at the break. If he had been up the whole year, he would be on pace for a .350 35+ homer 120+ rbi season.
Considering it’s his rookie year and he is bound to improve, i think its reasonable to assume a .370 60+ homer 180+ RBI season. What is more valuable than that?
“Bound to improve” to a .370/60/180 season?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!
Hang on, gotta answer the door…
…
…ok back. As I was saying… ?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?
It’s a good thing everyone improves after their first year. That’s a statistical fact.
Ummm, no & I’m a huge Tigers fan. I’d be blown away if he was on the list.
i have to assume bucholtz will be on this list somewhere but ahead of hughes? makes zero sense.
Eh, I wouldn’t say this.
Matusz is one thing, but it’s difficult to argue that there’s no doubt that Hughes should be ahead of Buchholz. It’s not all that easy to argue that Hughes should be taken ahead of Buchholz at all, either.
Buchholz isn’t arbitration eligible until ’12, you’d get a whole extra year for the minimum with Buchholz compared to Hughes.
Yeah, it seems that Dave’s a cheap bastard….most teams can afford to extend high quality players a year or two into free agency, so the extra arb year I think is a bit moot.
well there you go. that seems reasonable to me.
The extra year is not moot. It means you have a full season of a player’s service at below market rate. That’s huge.
Zobrist at 43? For shame.
This seems inappropriately named, perhaps Top 50 Players That Haven’t Reached Arbitration, Yet would be more apt.
I have a hunch we’ll see Evan Longoria’s Preposterous Contract (intentional caps) in the top couple again this year.
Perhaps “Top 50 Players With Team-Friendly Contracts or That Haven’t Reached Arbitration.”
And Pujols (although maybe not).
I fail to see how “Top 50 Players That Haven’t Reached Arbitration, Yet” or “Top 50 Players With Team-Friendly Contracts or That Haven’t Reached Arbitration” differs from “Top 50 Trade Value.”
Zobrist isn’t as versatile as Bill Hall. He’s the versatilist.
but unlike Bill Hall, Zobrist is actually good at all the positions he plays
LOL It’s amazing to me that Zobrist makes the list despite being a total zero at the plate whose meager offensive production is driven by a high BABIP, low LD% & GB%. Sounds like a winner to me. Yet another example of Dave’s intense AL bias.
Zobrist and Soto over Carlos Gonzalez? I just don’t see it.
Tito o’m kinda surprised about that myself. I think Gonzales is over Zobrist and Soto. But we don’t make this rating. 😀