Matt Garza’s Trade Value
If there was any question about the valuation that MLB teams put on quality young arms, it’s been answered this winter – the returns garnered by San Diego and Oakland when they moved Mat Latos and Gio Gonzalez illustrated that a team willing to move a good young pitcher under multiple years of team control could do very well for themselves and accelerate a rebuilding process by getting pieces at several positions that could be long term answers. So, given the prices those two arms have commanded, it shouldn’t be a big surprise that Theo Epstein is exploring the market for Matt Garza, looking to see if he can pull off a similar deal to replenish the Cubs organization with the kinds of young players they need to build around for the future.
However, Garza’s a different asset than Latos or Gonzalez, as his longer track record in the big leagues also means that the Cubs are selling a pitcher who is only going to be under team control for half as long as the other two. Additionally, since Garza qualified as a Super-Two, he’s already on his third trip through arbitration, and his salaries have escalated more quickly than most players that are two years away from free agency. So, while the Padres and A’s were marketing four years of a good young pitcher, several of those years at prices that were just a fraction of what similar pitchers would cost to acquire via free agency, the Cubs are shopping two years of a pitcher whose salaries are somewhat depressed relative to his market value, but aren’t really that much lower than what a team could buy a decent free agent starter for.
So, it stands to reason that the Cubs will get less for Garza than what other young arms have been going for this winter. How much less? Well, let’s look at just what kind of trade value Garza should actually have.