2023 Trade Value: Nos. 41 – 50

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.

One note on the rankings: Particularly at the bottom of the list, there isn’t a lot of room between the players. The ordinal rankings clearly matter, and we put them there for a reason, but there isn’t much of a gap between, say, the 39th-ranked player and the 60th. The magnitude of the differences in this part of the list is quite small. Several of the folks I talked to might prefer a player in the honorable mentions section to one on the back end of the list, or vice versa. I think the broad strokes are correct, and this is my opinion of the best order, but with so many players carrying roughly equivalent value, disagreements abounded.

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

Oh boy, this one was tough for me. I look at my past work every year to try to identify holes in my process, and I’ve consistently left out players who haven’t yet debuted in the majors. That’s mostly for a good reason: I don’t think they’re totally in keeping with the spirit of this exercise. Valuations differ wildly from team to team, and the very best prospects generally get traded for stars, not as the highlight of the deal in their own right. But it didn’t quite sit right with me, and when Meg suggested Wood for the tail end of the list this year, something clicked.

For the most part, this list is about trading for players who are going to help your team now and in the future, with both sides being important. It’s still about that – you’re not going to see 18-year-old prospects in the low minors on here no matter how big the hype gets. But Wood has a spectacular combination of talent and proximity to the majors that makes him fit the general concept of these rankings enough that I’m throwing him on here as a signpost.

What is he a signpost of? I think there’s a good chance that Wood is a fixture at the top of trade value lists in the next few years. It’s not a lock – he’d be higher up if it were – but if you’re looking for the next player who might have an Elly De La Cruz-like rise, Wood fits the general silhouette. That’s true physically – he’s 6-foot-7 and he’s fast – but it also fits in terms of having loud tools and an excellent feel for the game.

This time next year, Wood will likely be in Triple-A, but I don’t think a meteoric major league rise is out of the question given how well he’s handled the minors so far. The service time estimate up above reflects a call-up in the middle of next season, though obviously it’s just a guess. There is, of course, some chance that he doesn’t pan out, and the odds that he’s as good as De La Cruz (or Corbin Carroll, or any number of current phenoms) are definitely less than 50% in my eyes. But if you’re wondering who the next capital-d Dude is gonna be, Wood is my best guess. Would the Nats trade him for anyone in this range? No way. But he’s ranked 50th as a reminder that prospects probably belong somewhere on the list, even if it can be tricky to decide exactly where.

Jung’s value has pin-balled wildly over the past few years. He was a top prospect coming into last season, and the Rangers cleared a spot for him, but he missed the first half of the year thanks to a torn labrum in his left shoulder. He struggled upon his return (hardly unusual after a major surgery) and came into 2023 without quite the same hype that accompanied his previous campaign. Naturally, he lit the league on fire right away, though a slump in the second half of June brought his numbers back down to earth.

Jung’s game is built around raw power, and he looks like a perennial 30-homer guy when healthy. He’s an above-average defender at third base to boot. His biggest weakness is a propensity to chase, which leads to a worrisome number of strikeouts. It’s attributable as much to strike zone judgment as it is to approach; Jung isn’t particularly aggressive over the heart of the plate, but he swings too often at breaking balls below the zone.

That kind of profile tends to work out more often than not; power-and-defense third basemen can put up valuable seasons without huge on-base numbers, and Jung’s plate discipline is more worrisome than unfixable. His minor league track record is a mark in his favor, too. The biggest risk here is injury, and it’s a major concern at this point. Jung missed half of 2021 with a foot injury, then half of 2022 with the aforementioned shoulder issue. That’s two more major injuries than you’d hope for. Without that history, Jung would finish higher here, but risk aversion matters when you’re considering trading multiple prospects for one player.

Hayes has been the apple of my eye for a long time, but I’m finally starting to shake off the spell. He has a lot going for him – he’s the best defensive third baseman in baseball, he makes consistent, loud contact, and he’s under contract for a long time at a low rate. There’s just one problem: All that loud contact goes straight into the ground, and the chances of that fixing itself look slim at this point.

Hayes is a generational defender, but that can only get you so far. He put up a 3-WAR season last year with an 88 wRC+, but that’s pretty much his ceiling unless he can get himself sorted out at the plate. Even as he’s started to elevate the ball more frequently this year, his hardest contact still comes on grounders, and there’s just no offense to be had that way.

If I were a GM, I’d be calling the Pirates about Hayes because an adjustment at the plate could turn him into peak Josh Donaldson in a heartbeat. But rationally, I have to admit that a sudden transformation seems increasingly unlikely. You can only be a below-average hitter for so long before potential stops mattering and (lack of) production takes over. I hope I’m wrong about Hayes’ trajectory, but at this point he looks more like a role player on an attractive deal than a future superstar.

While we’re on the topic of players I love to an irrational degree, Nootbaar is the new top of the list. He has a patience and power skill set, consistently posting double-digit walk rates throughout his pro career while generating 80th-percentile maximum exit velocities in his time with the big league club. He’s a plus outfielder who can play all three positions, and he even has a strong throwing arm. In a lot of ways, he’s all the good things about the various Cardinals outfielders of recent vintage rolled into one.

With all those good things out of the way, let’s get to some negatives. He hit far too many grounders in the minors, a tendency that is rearing its head again this year. He’s missed time with injury in each of the last two seasons. He’s too passive at the plate; though he never chases, he gets himself into bad counts thanks to a low swing rate over the heart of the zone, and he has enough swing-and-miss that he ends up with a pedestrian strikeout rate despite rarely swinging at bad pitches.

For me, the total package works out to a borderline All-Star with a ton of team control remaining. For some of the people I talked to, both internally and on the team side, he’s more of an average player (with injury risk to boot). He’s got promise, no doubt, but I heard plenty of feedback that the glass was half empty.

Me? I’m a glass half full guy, at least when it comes to Nootbaar. I like betting on players with Nootbaar’s skill set and drive to improve, and even in a down year, he’s on pace for a 3.5-WAR season. Seems like a valuable trade chip to me.

Steer doesn’t have a defensive home. He has bounced around between first, third, and left this year, and he’s probably slightly below average at all three. As awkward as he looks in the field, though, he’s a natural at the plate. He combines above-average power with an excellent sense of the strike zone; I see years of double-digit walk rates in his future, and he doesn’t strike out very much, which makes his offensive floor very high indeed.

In the long run, Steer’s development might best be served by finding him an everyday spot, but his versatility has already paid off for the Reds as they’ve shuffled through lineups amid promotions and injuries. That would be a bonus for any team looking to trade for him, too; it’s a lot easier to construct a lineup when one of your top hitters isn’t 1B/DH only, even if they aren’t a defensive whiz.

If you’re looking for a comparison from recent baseball, think of Kris Bryant on the Cubs with the volume turned down a bit. I don’t think Steer will average a 140 wRC+, and I don’t think he’ll be above average at any defensive position, but that version of Bryant was so good that even 80% of him would be a perennial All-Star candidate. That’s the vibe I get from Steer.

Does your team need a reliable starter? Of course it does. This is baseball we’re talking about; every team needs more pitching all the time. Ryan promises to deliver just that – frequent and reliable pitching – at a bargain rate for years to come. His big league track record is now long enough that I’m willing to believe his fastball-first approach will work; it’s a good enough pitch, and his new splitter complements it well enough, that he doesn’t need to change anything to be sustainably solid.

The big risk with trading for a pitcher is that they might get hurt. One season of an ace sounds a lot worse than two and a half seasons, but a serious injury could keep them on the shelf for about that long. As a trade chip, Ryan is relatively immune to that risk, because he’ll be around for a long time. He isn’t due to hit free agency until after the 2027 season, which means a lost year won’t torpedo his entire time with a team.

What gives Ryan the edge over the crop of rookie starters on the list of honorable mentions? It’s the certainty, more or less. Pitchers always have some likelihood of injury, but they also have a likelihood of taking a leap forward into stardom. Ryan marries that potential leap with a high floor; the combination of that and the amount of time you could have him on your team makes him more valuable than you might think.

I’m a sucker for great up-the-middle defenders. Luckily for Mullins, so are the vast majority of big league GMs. Mullins is durable and he’s a 70 defender in center field. Even if he couldn’t hit at all, he’d be a surefire starter for most teams in baseball based on those two factors alone. That makes for a lofty floor; it’s hard to imagine a world where a team trading for Mullins does worse than a rock-solid everyday player.

Mullins has been much better than that over the past three years, and I wouldn’t bet on it changing anytime soon. He gets on base and hits a ton of doubles, making him an ideal top-of-the-order bat. He’s under contract for two more years, which is about the only downside worth mentioning. That’s not even a clear downside, though; at that point, Mullins will be entering his age-31 season, an age when defensive value often declines.

The value proposition here is really clear: Trade for a great defender who will likely hit well, for a few key years, starting right now. After that, wipe your hands clean and move on. I considered moving Mullins up the list even more despite the limited service time, and at the end of the day, only four hitters in Mullins’s future free agency class (the 2025-26 offseason) placed ahead of him on the list. You might not think of him as a star, but this level of defense coupled with above-average hitting is a tremendously valuable combination.

Whoa there, hold up Cardinals fans — don’t go getting out the pitchforks after looking at that ZiPS projection. ZiPS isn’t in love with Walker, but the numbers above are a result of the system projecting him as an absolutely abysmal defender for years to come. Switch him to DH and his projection would improve by an aggregate six wins. It’s inconceivable that Walker would actually be that bad defensively; he’ll either improve, or he’ll move to first base or DH.

His defensive issues are a real negative, but his offensive profile is still full of upside. We’re talking about a potential ultra-premium power bat, the kind of game-changing hitter who doesn’t grow on trees. Even in a fairly lackluster rookie season – way, way too many grounders have put a lid on his batting line – his outrageous power stands out. He’s absolutely crushing the ball when he makes contact and hasn’t proven easily exploitable despite his Stretch Armstrong frame. We’re talking about a premier power hitter for years to come, one with Giancarlo Stanton upside.

That upside isn’t guaranteed, which is why Walker doesn’t place higher on the list. If he ends up as merely a good hitter instead of a great one, his value will take a huge hit thanks to the sheer mass of solid hitters without defensive homes. That’s the risk. The reward is fairly obvious, though: You might end up with the next incarnation of Aaron Judge (minus the ability to moonlight in center). A lot of teams would take that gamble.

If you want Elly De La Cruz but can’t have him, what about the closest possible thing? Cruz has similar upside as an 80-power/80-speed shortstop, only with more red flags thrown in. His strikeout rate was enough to hold him back from greatness in 2022, while a brutal leg fracture early this season has limited him to just nine games so far. He’s only racked up 410 big league plate appearances, which means we still have a lot to learn about whether someone with his colossal frame can make enough contact and stay healthy enough to realize his sky-high potential.

Even with those risks, I think a lot of teams would be calling if the Pirates made Cruz available. The upside has always been mammoth, but it’s even more apparent now that De La Cruz is here to provide a proof of concept. This skill set can work, and it can work incredibly well. I’m not saying that it wasn’t possible before, but now it’s not even up for debate.

In a year, Cruz will either be a much more valuable or much less valuable trade chip. At some point, potential needs to turn into production, or the odds of things working out decline precipitously. That makes Cruz’s place on the list kind of silly – the Pirates aren’t going to trade him anytime soon, which makes this purely theoretical. This whole list is an exercise in theory, though, and I think that this valuation properly weighs the future paths Cruz might take.

I lost count of the number of people who pointed out Greene’s fastball shape during my cross-checking. For a guy who lives around 100 mph on the radar gun, his heater is exceedingly hittable. The total package works out, though, because his slider is sensational. He’ll likely always walk a few too many batters, but as long as he has that nasty breaking ball, I think he’ll pile up enough strikeouts to make the whole thing work.

I think Greene is one of the players with the greatest disconnect between the baseball industry consensus and what the general public thinks. Six affordable years of a 23-year-old pitcher with this kind of stuff? It sounds like a bonanza. Meanwhile, a number of people I talked to questioned whether he belonged on this list at all. That’s how seriously talent evaluators are taking Greene’s perceived fastball deficiency.

I’m closer to the people than the elites on this one. I get it: Greene isn’t a blow-’em-away-high pitcher, and he might never become one. But I like how well he’s adapted to life at the major league level, using his fastball as a complementary tool rather than sticking with it while it got bludgeoned. Greene is young enough that the cement isn’t yet dry on his game; it’s more important that he has the tools to improve than that he’s a finished product now. The only reason I didn’t push him higher on the list is a hip injury that sounds like it will hold him out through August.