2023 Trade Value: Nos. 21-30

As is tradition at FanGraphs, we’re using the lead-up to the trade deadline to take stock of the top 50 players in baseball by trade value. For a more detailed introduction to this year’s exercise, as well as a look at the players who fell just short of the top 50, be sure to read the Introduction and Honorable Mentions piece, which can be found in the widget above.

For those of you who have been reading the Trade Value Series the last few seasons, the format should look familiar. For every player, you’ll see a table with the player’s projected five-year WAR from 2024-2028, courtesy of Dan Szymborski’s ZiPS projections. The table will also include the player’s guaranteed money, if any, the year through which their team has contractual control of them, last year’s rank (if applicable), and then projections, contract status, and age for each individual season through 2028 (if the player is under contract or team control for those seasons). Last year’s rank includes a link to the relevant 2022 post. Thanks are due to Sean Dolinar for his technical wizardry. At the bottom of the page, there is a grid showing all of the players who have been ranked up to this point.

At this point, we’re into the good stuff. All of these players are hugely valuable, and few are likely to actually get traded. That doesn’t mean this is purely theoretical, but it’s something approaching that. Like most lists, ordinal rankings can be deceiving; there isn’t an equal value gap separating every spot on the list. I’ve tried to mention where there are large gaps, but don’t read too much into someone being 26th instead of 23rd. There just isn’t much difference between those two spots, and both players are a lot more valuable than the guy ranked 40th.

With that out of the way, let’s get to the next batch of players.

Another year, another great hitting season from Tucker. You know what you’re getting with him at this point: He rarely strikes out, takes a bunch of walks, and hits for a little bit of average and a lot of power. He’s a perennial 30-homer type, and he’ll swipe 20 bags to boot. That’s a really valuable player regardless of where he plays, and there’s little reason to think he’ll do anything but hit over his last two and a half years of team control. Also, he’s somehow only making $5 million this year despite back-to-back seasons posting just under 5 WAR, so you’re getting huge bang for your buck in those years.

There’s some cause for concern defensively. Every defensive system you can imagine thinks Tucker is putting up a clunker this year, and he’s not very fast despite great instincts on the basepaths. I think he’s probably about average in right field, whereas a few years ago I thought there was a chance he’d end up as a perennial Gold Glover. You’re going to play him regardless of his defense, of course, so it’s more a note than a true weakness, but you have to pick nits when you’re talking about players this good.

Tucker’s production in an outfield corner is slightly less interesting to me than if someone had the same WAR output at a harder-to-fill position, but that’s really just a tiebreaker rather than a reason not to like him. I don’t have many negatives to note here. He’s going to hit a ton and he’s not going to kill you on defense. The ship has probably sailed on him adding a ton of power and turning into one of the best five bats in the game, but top 15? I completely buy it.

The point of all of this is to say that Tucker is great, and that everyone from here on out is a high-probability stud. If he had another year of team control remaining, he’d be pushing the top 10.

I initially had Soto at the very low end of what I’d consider the clearly great players (if you’ll recall from yesterday, I think there’s a big gap between no. 33 and no. 34 on the list). It’s a timing thing; he hits free agency after 2024, and he’s certainly not cheap. He’s a subpar defender (not as bad as he showed last year, but below average for sure). Those are all real negatives. But wow, can he hit.

Soto detractors will rush to tell you that he’s had two straight down years. That’s kind of true… but he’s also a top-10 hitter in baseball during that time frame. ZiPS projects him as the second-best overall player over the next five years, behind only Shohei Ohtani. Not hitter — player, full stop. He walks more than he strikes out, hits for power, and somehow doesn’t turn 25 until October. If you’re looking for someone who’s a great hitter right now, he obviously qualifies. If you’re looking for someone whose statistical markers suggest that he’ll continue to be a great hitter, there’s no one better. Take it from ZiPS.

I don’t think Seattle would trade Gilbert for Soto, so maybe he should be below Gilbert. But I don’t think the Padres would trade Soto for Gilbert either, which makes the whole thing more confusing. Suffice it to say that even one year of elite hitting, with a high floor and gargantuan ceiling, is in high demand. When teams talk about consolidating prospect capital or any similar business-world euphemisms, a Soto-level player is what they’re hoping to red paper clip into a house.

In a year’s time, Soto won’t be on this list because he’ll be an impending free agent. He already wouldn’t fetch what he did in trade last year, one of the richest prospect packages in recent memory. That’s time for you, always marching on. But if you’re wondering whether teams will pay a lot to get a star for a few years, Soto offers an answer in the affirmative.

I’m a pretty simple guy, at least when it comes to my talent evaluation skills. If you hit at the major league level and play acceptable defense at a tough position, I’m interested. McLain combines power and patience, and showed off those skills even as he struck out an uncomfortable amount in the minors last year. But he’s improved since then, as young players often do, and is now making contact at an average rate for a big leaguer, let alone one with pop who also plays shortstop.

How highly you value McLain comes down to two things: How much you’re willing to rely on projection systems (get a load of those ZiPS, jeez), and how you parse different skill sets in a small sample. No one expects McLain’s BABIP to stay quite so high, for example, so that’s a mark against his future offensive production. On the other hand, players with his chase and contact rates don’t usually strike out that much, and they usually walk more than he has so far. Players who make a lot of hard elevated contact tend to slug a lot. Defense is even trickier; I feel pretty confident that McLain can stick at shortstop, but there’s a lot of extrapolation and trust in that viewpoint.

I see McLain as an above-average hitter going forward, though probably with a different shape to his production than what he’s displayed in the majors so far. A double-digit walk rate looks likely, as do fewer strikeouts, but his average will probably still take a turn for the worse. Above-average hitters who play a capable shortstop and won’t hit free agency until after the 2029 season are few and far between, and I think teams know it.

To be clear, I don’t think “above-average shortstop bat” is McLain’s ceiling. If you’re this good at 23, there’s always a chance of unlocking another level. That, combined with the floor of a plus regular, sounds great to me.

Maybe I’m too willing to believe in McLain’s floor based on two months of major league playing time. Maybe he’ll suddenly fall apart, though I think the patience and power alone make that outcome unlikely. Even if he strikes out too much and doesn’t make up for it with a bunch of walks, I think there’s 25-homer power in his bat. My evaluation here is based on that: I think there’s a high likelihood of McLain being a good player and a decent chance that he ends up a great one.

I got a lot of different responses when my various sounding boards ranked Volpe, McLain, and Zach Neto as 2023 shortstop debuts. Some people wanted them all in a tier. Some had Volpe first by himself. Some thought Volpe didn’t belong with the other two. In the end, I think Volpe’s additional prospect shine makes up for McLain’s thus-far superior major league performance, and that the two are more or less indistinguishable from a trade value perspective.

In his rookie season, Volpe is already a menace on the basepaths, and he’s on track to finish with 20-25 homers as well. Nothing in his batted ball data suggests that he should be should be running an especially low BABIP, particularly given that he’s hitting more line drives and grounders than he did in the minors. If you’re looking for an offensive comparison in type, think Marcus Semien: A hitter who makes the most out of middling raw power by lifting and pulling the ball, though Semien decided to stop striking out in recent years, a trick Volpe clearly hasn’t mastered.

I’m a little worried about Volpe’s swinging strike rate in the big leagues, but I’m cutting him some slack given his meteoric rise through the minors. He’s making far more contact in recent weeks, and he’s trending upwards in terms of his overall offense too. Defensively, he plays better than his speed and arm strength because of tremendous instincts and actions, and I think he’s a decent bet to stick at shortstop for that reason.

One thing I’m never quite sure of is how to weigh recent debuts who are merely treading water in the majors. Volpe would absolutely not be this high on the list if the Yankees had kept him in the minors, even if he were tearing up Triple-A. He’s obviously not having an incredible season, though he does enough in multiple facets of the game to be tracking fairly well overall. That creates some cognitive dissonance: Is it better to fail in the majors than succeed in the minors?

In this case, I decided that Volpe’s pedigree earns him a spot here. Heck, he’s not even exactly “failing,” no matter what your friendly neighborhood Yankees fan tells you. But more than any of the other rookies on the list, I’m giving Volpe the benefit of the doubt because both scouts and models love him. If he isn’t performing meaningfully better in a year’s time, he’ll drop considerably. That performance versus expectation gap is always a tough tightrope to walk. I’m definitely not confident I managed it here, and I’m going to have my eye on Volpe and players like him when I review this year’s list going forward.

There’s a lot to like in Kirby’s performance in the majors so far. He barely walks anyone, but it’s not because he’s just lobbing in fastballs with no respect for opposing hitters. He has spectacular fastball command, which he uses to dot the zone without surrendering meatballs. That leads to low pitch counts that let him get deep into starts, and he keeps the bases clean enough that home runs aren’t a huge worry.

I’m skeptical that ZiPS has Kirby pegged — it sees his early-career innings and thinks he won’t deliver workhorse volume. I’ll take the over on that, and I’m maybe one season away from thinking he’s Luis Castillo part two. He won’t reach free agency until after the 2028 season, and arbitration salaries are such a bargain that he’ll deliver huge surplus value even if he misses most of two seasons with injury.

I’m generally a fan of getting the pitchers who are the very best right this minute and worrying about the future in the future. Time is undefeated, and no pitcher is a great bet to be healthy and effective in six years’ time. Let’s put it this way: there are eight(ish) pitchers ahead of Kirby on the list, and I’d only take him over one of them if my only goal was to win a game tomorrow. But he’s going to be a Mariner for an eon and my perception is that command-first guys have high floors. Kirby’s general archetype isn’t the one I’d favor if I were acquiring pitching for my team, but I think he’s the very best example of it, which explains his placement here.

“I have a hard time wrapping my head around Ohtani being this high.” “He should either be number one, or not on the top 50.” “I think teams would give up more than this for him.” Time after time, Ohtani was the player folks most wanted to talk about while I was gathering feedback for this series. He’s the best player in the world, and if he’s moved, his tenure with his new team will be over in the blink of an eye. In the history of the Trade Value Series, we’ve never had a rental ranked in the top 50 and we probably won’t ever again. Even our tableizer can’t handle Ohtani; you can’t build rows for future years of team-controlled value when no such future years are locked in yet.

Ranking him 25th is somewhat arbitrary; he doesn’t operate on the same axis as anyone else in this exercise. All the production/time/money calculations I do to help determine trade value don’t work for him. Trading for Ohtani isn’t about counting up wins and dollars; you’re obviously going to be giving up more than you get back. It’s about getting a global superstar for your playoff push, getting a huge influx of fans and international attention, and spending four months trying to convince a two-way wonder to accept a huge pile of loot to play for you until he retires. It’s about the chance to have your team’s logo on his cap when his plaque goes up in Cooperstown.

Is Ohtani going to favor the first team to take him to the MLB postseason when he’s choosing his long-term fate? I don’t know! GMs don’t know. Owners don’t know either, but they might be willing to find out. This isn’t like trading for Juan Soto; my friends who don’t follow baseball have never heard of Juan Soto. Ohtani is bigger than baseball, here or anywhere else; he’d make a Yankees hat more famous than Jay-Z did.

Most front offices wouldn’t consider it. It’s irresponsible in the long run if your goal is to win the most baseball games while expending the least amount of resources. Just wait three months and pitch him in free agency. But I think Ohtani is a big enough deal to the game as a whole that owners, not baseball ops people, will be making this decision, and the chances that one of them says “Screw it, go get him,” are non-zero. Will a few 55 FV prospects stand between a billionaire and their chance at history? We’re about to find out.

Or maybe we aren’t. Arte Moreno might not be willing to give up on Ohtani, even if he could get a king’s ransom in return. Again, he’s Shohei Freaking Ohtani, the only one there will ever be, and even if he’s done wearing an Angels uniform after the season ends, he’s going to pack a lot of folks into the ballpark in the meantime.

Let’s assume there is a trade, though, because that’s more fun. I can guarantee you two things. First, the team that trades for him will give up a prospect haul that would make Eric Longenhagen giggle uncontrollably, a return far in excess of what any reasonable valuation system would suggest for a rental player. Second, the fans and employees of that team won’t care. They will have gotten Ohtani! Very few teams in the history of baseball will be able to say that when it’s all said and done.

In the past calendar year, Zac Gallen has been the best pitcher on the planet. He has a 1.49 ERA over that span. Prefer FIP? His is 2.07. He’s allowing a .207 OBP, for crying out loud. If you want a pitcher for right this minute, Gallen has a strong argument to be the guy, even if his incandescent second half of last year is doing some heavy lifting here.

He doesn’t walk anyone. He consistently strikes guys out. His four-seamer carves hitters up, his curveball is vomit-inducing, and he has three other pitches to add to the mix. Maybe he’s an adjustment away from getting figured out, maybe the spell will wear off any minute, but why in the world would you bet on that?

If there’s anything to dislike here, it’s Gallen’s streakiness. He’s been one of the best pitchers in the game this year, and he’s also allowed five earned runs three different times. Sometimes his stuff seems to just abandon him, or his command disappears for a start. If you’ve watched Gallen in the past year, the odds are good that he looked even better than his bonkers numbers, because he’s squeezed a lot of his bad results into a handful of games.

That doesn’t matter enough for me to change my valuation. If you want someone you can plug into the top of your rotation through the end of 2025, Gallen is a tremendous option. Three postseasons worth of him could be the difference between short Octobers and championship parades. The Diamondbacks aren’t going to soft sell this year or pivot to the future. They’re in the thick of things right now, and they need an ace starter as much as the next contender. But if they were to suddenly change directions, you can bet that teams would line up a dazzling array of prospects in an attempt to add him.

I thought I’d get pushback here. Alvarez is my kind of catcher, one who looks better statistically than his visual evaluation would suggest. ZiPS and I both love him, and I thought we’d be the high person (or computer) out of everyone I talked to. But uh, not so much. My ranking was met with nods and thumbs ups, not confusion.

The value proposition here is pretty obvious: We’re talking about a catcher who hits like a good DH. He thumps the ball when he connects, though a high-effort swing means he’ll always run high strikeout rates. But oh, that power! If he weren’t limited to catcher-level playing time, I’d project 40-homer seasons in his future. That’s comically above the bar at the game’s toughest defensive position.

Defense is where you’d expect to find concerns. Alvarez is a mountain of a man, built like a brick wall (my apologies for mixing metaphors, but I’ve been writing a lot of these blurbs and I’m getting a little punchy). He’s been great so far behind the plate, though. Statcast thinks he’s an above-average blocker. He grades out as an excellent receiver across every system. His greatest defensive weakness thus far is controlling the running game, but it’s a slight minus, not a disaster. Forget DH-only; he’s a plus defensive catcher at the moment.

Will he still be one in three years? Will he still be one in 2028, his last year before hitting free agency? It’s an open question, and a half-season’s defensive statistics don’t offer a definitive answer. He doesn’t have much room to get slower or less athletic while still standing up to the daily rigors of the job. A drop from catcher to DH wouldn’t torpedo Alvarez’s value completely, but it would be a massive hit. He clearly wouldn’t be on the list as a DH.

That risk is embedded in my evaluation here. If Alvarez were a lock to stay behind the plate, I’d bump him up even further. I’m always looking for a reason to get behind a catcher who can hit, which explains why I can’t quit Alejandro Kirk. I want Alvarez if I can’t have the three catchers who will appear higher on this list – Will Smith, Sean Murphy, and Adley Rutschman. That doesn’t mean some of the catchers I left on the honorable mention list – Patrick Bailey in particular, but also Jonah Heim and William Contreras – can’t crash the party. But I just like the total package more with Alvarez. I have a lot of certainty that his bat will play, and the early returns on his defense are impressive.

Every year, Valdez gets better. If you exclude a brief cameo in 2018, he’s improved his ERA each year of his career. He used to walk too many hitters; now he’s a command artist. He didn’t strike enough guys out because of all the sinkers he threw; now he’s near the top of the league in strikeout rate. A finger injury before the 2021 season raised durability questions; he responded by topping 200 innings in 2022, and he might do it again this year.

The argument against Valdez as one of the best handful of pitchers in baseball comes down to familiarity. This career arc, this pitch mix, it isn’t how elite pitchers generally operate. I think that’s small-minded thinking, though. I care more about a pitcher’s peripherals than how they get to them. He might build his game around a pitch that’s inhospitable to strikeouts, but his two main secondaries are so nasty that they make up for it. He uses his sinker to get ahead and then deftly pivots when the situation changes.

Like Gallen, Valdez will be around for two more campaigns after this one. Like Gallen, he’d fit snugly at the top of any rotation. I have slots 26-20 on this list in a similar tier, in fact. This ranking is just a preference statement within that tier: I like Valdez’s durability and trajectory quite a lot, enough that I’d take him over the other pitchers who have broadly similar value.

I hate to say it, but I’m fresh out of Will Smith jokes. I won’t try to convince you that he’s an actor/rapper/baseball player, or even a catcher/pitcher. Smith has outlived all those quips by being one of the best catchers in baseball year after year, and 2023 is his best campaign yet. He’s joined the exclusive more-walks-than-strikeouts club while continuing to hit for power. Again, he’s doing all this while playing the most demanding position on the field.

Catchers routinely put up less WAR than other position players thanks to the rigors of the job. That seems like it might be a cap on their value, but there’s a countervailing force: It’s really hard to find good catching. When Smith isn’t playing, the drop-off to Austin Barnes is precipitous. Catchers aren’t just valuable for the raw runs they score and help prevent; they’re also valuable because if they weren’t doing it, the next man up would probably be a lot worse. You can’t just plug in a utility infielder or fourth outfielder back there on their days off.

Smith’s 5-WAR projection for next year is even more outrageous in that context; there have only been 20 5-WAR catcher seasons in the past decade, and most of those were driven by outlandish framing numbers (Yadier Molina was a +21 framer in 2013, while Jonathan Lucroy was +34 the same year). There have only been three such seasons since 2019. The catchers who put up campaigns that good these days are the very best of the best.

Smith belongs in that tier. If I were building a team for this year and this year only, I’d take him by a hair over Rutschman and Murphy. He’s really, really good. There’s only one player ahead of Smith on this list with similar team control remaining – everyone else has four or more years left after 2023. That player is the very next slot on the list – but you’ll have to wait until tomorrow to find out who it is. Dang arbitrary cutoffs.