2024 Trade Value: Introduction and Honorable Mentions
Would you trade me your sandwich for my bag of chips? What if I threw in a pudding cup? Should we swap backpacks? Baseball cards? The desire to work out exchanges – and to do the comparative analysis necessary to decide whether you’d make a trade – is universal. It’s only natural that sports accentuate that feeling: At their core, sports are mostly about deciding which of two things is better.
Welcome to the 2024 edition of our annual Trade Value series. Starting today and continuing all week, we’re releasing our list of the 50 most valuable players in baseball, taking player performance, age, and contract into account. Dave Cameron, Kiley McDaniel, Craig Edwards, and Kevin Goldstein have all headlined this column before; this is my third year doing it on my own.
I say “on my own,” but that only describes the first half of the process. To start, I gathered every possible input I could think of: age, contract status, measures of current production, estimates of future production, Statcast data, pitch-level modeling — the list goes on. I used all of those inputs to come up with an initial quantitatively defined ranking, then honed that ranking by diving into individual player comparisons in greater detail. With that done, I got feedback from the FanGraphs staff (special thanks to Dan Szymborski for his ZiPS assistance and to Meg Rowley for being a frequent sounding board) to refine my thinking further.
Next, I reached out to sources on the team side. I cast a wider net than usual this year, trying to get different perspectives on player value from organizations that have different methodological leanings, and occupy different places on the win curve. Make no mistake, though: Despite all the help that this horde of people was kind enough to offer me, these rankings are my own.
To that end, this list is my subjective ranking of the 50 players in baseball who I think would fetch the most if their team traded them. It’s not a consensus list of which players are valued most by the industry, though there is of course considerable overlap with that criteria. There will be players on here who I’m higher on than consensus and vice versa. I’ll call out the largest disagreements in the individual writeups. If I’m ranking a player higher than consensus, it certainly doesn’t mean that consensus is wrong, though obviously I think it is.
With that said, I’m trying to answer this question: Taking everything about a player into account, which players would garner the highest trade value, from any team, if every team viewed players the same way I do? It’s not the average value that each team would assign a player based on those teams’ individual competitive windows and financial limitations; just as with real trades, with my list, there’s a highest bidder, a team most motivated to acquire someone’s services, and that’s what I care about. To give you an example from today’s honorable mentions, there are a lot of teams that couldn’t trade for Zack Wheeler regardless of price. That doesn’t matter, though, because it only takes a handful of teams to make a market.
I think this is an important distinction. You can imagine looking at this list from the perspective of a small-market team, or a rebuilding team, or a team with an All-Star already entrenched at a given position, and scratching your head at the order. The Orioles wouldn’t trade for Will Smith (spoiler: he’s on the main part of the list). Where would he play? The A’s wouldn’t trade for Tarik Skubal (spoiler: he’s ranked too). He’d be gone before they sniff contention even if they went out and added him tomorrow.
A list of the aggregate preference, averaged across all 30 teams, might look different. But that’s not how trades work in the real world, and so it’s not how I’m evaluating players for this series. All I care about is the highest offer every player could fetch, because in the end that’s what determines their value in trade. As long as there’s no salary cap and star players are in short supply, the best players in the market carry a trade premium beyond what you’d expect from some linear form of value, and I’ve attempted to account for that in my rankings.
A note on this specifically: I’m not happy with how I accounted for star players on large contracts last year. I went through the trouble of explaining all of these considerations, and then I just shoved every player who fit that bill into the honorable mentions. It was a cop out, and one I’m not repeating this year. I think that there are a handful of players good enough to command a huge haul in trade despite their sizable contracts. Maybe there would be an exchange of money involved, but the number of prospects going the other way in such a deal would make up for it. I’ll cover those cases when I rank those players.
One more note on structure: I’m going to indicate tiers of players this year. Is that just another thing to disagree with me about? Maybe, but I think it does a better job of explaining my thinking, and drives home the point that not every one-spot gap on this list means the same thing. The tiers should be fairly self-explanatory, but just to be safe, a reminder that the first and last player in a given tier are closer to each other in value than they are to the nearest players in neighboring tiers. The tiers will be demarcated in the table that appears at the end of each article in the series, and I’ll also reference them as I break down my thinking about the first and last player in each tier.
As I mention every year, cutting the list off at 50 players was an arbitrary decision made long ago, but it’s one I completely support. There has to be some cutoff — just look at how many honorable mentions there are — and 50 does a good job of getting all the best players on the list without filling it with too much fluff at the bottom. That said, cutting things off at 50 implies a bright-line distinction between 50 and 51 that doesn’t reflect reality. The players from 38-60 were all quite close to each other in my estimation. You could make an argument for any of those guys being on the list, and trust me, plenty of the people I talked to made those arguments. Most of the players in the honorable mention section could reasonably belong on the back end of the list, in fact.
For the players who appeared on last year’s list, you’ll see their 2023 ranking in parentheses after their name. I’ve also included a separate section of players who made the list last year but fell off and aren’t honorable mentions this year. I’m going to hold my weekly chat Friday at 10 AM ET (rather than later this afternoon) so that I can take your questions on the full list.
That’s a lot of words about the process of making this list, and there will be plenty more in the comments accompanying each ranked player. For now, though, let’s get to the honorable mentions.
Departing the List, Not an Honorable Mention
Wander Franco (2)
Framber Valdez (22)
Alejandro Kirk (39)
Jordan Walker (43)
Cedric Mullins (44)
Lars Nootbaar (47)
Ke’Bryan Hayes (48)
Josh Jung (49)
Franco is on the restricted list following charges of sexual abuse and exploitation of a minor and human trafficking in the Dominican Republic; he seems unlikely to play professional baseball again.
Valdez hasn’t been much better than league average for the last year-plus, and he’s also rapidly nearing free agency. If he had either more team control or more current juice, he’d still be on the list, but, well, he doesn’t.
The rest of the group boils down to a bunch of hitters I grouped at the end of last year’s list. First, there are the injury cases. Nootbaar has been pretty good when healthy – 2.7 WAR in 418 plate appearances in the last calendar year – but he’s accumulated enough injuries that the floor on his value feels lower. He was on the list last year because of that floor, but now I’m downgrading him to a solid player who needs to put together a few healthy years in a row. The same goes for Jung. It’s hard to value the team control when he’s played so infrequently.
Kirk, Mullins, and Hayes were all on the list because of their blend of defensive excellence and offensive competence (Kirk maybe fits that description less perfectly, but defensive metrics love him). In each case, they just haven’t hit enough; none of them has even average offensive production. Finally, Walker’s game has just collapsed; he was bopping in the majors last year even as he was held back by his defense, but he’s been 28% below average offensively in Triple-A this year.
Injury Ward
Spencer Strider (10)
Shane McClanahan (11)
Sandy Alcantara (17)
Eury Pérez (18)
Matt McLain (28)
Kodai Senga
What a brutal run of injuries. The four pitchers headlining this group are among the very best in the game and were the top four pitchers on last year’s list. They’ve all had Tommy John surgery since then. No one would trade for them right now – there’s no guarantee they’ll return to the field at their prior level of skill, and it might take them a year or two to regain their incandescent form even if they do get back to that level. If they return to what they were before injury, they’ll catapult back up the rankings, but this is about current trade value, and they just don’t have any until they return to the majors.
McLain is a slightly different case, as teams are generally more willing to take on risk when it comes to hitters. Ronald Acuña Jr. was on this list when he was recovering from an ACL tear in 2021, and he’s on it again this year despite being out for the season. McLain looks like the real deal to me. He combined excellent defense and a potent power bat last year before missing the last month of the season with an oblique injury. Then he hurt his shoulder in spring training and needed a surgical repair, and he still hasn’t even started a rehab assignment. There’s just not enough track record to support a higher valuation. If he returns at roughly the same level as his 2023 self, he’ll easily command a spot on next year’s list.
Senga is a tier down in terms of value, largely because his contract affords him a chance at an opt out after next year if he totals 400 innings from 2023-25. He isn’t a lock to hit that number, but it’s worth considering. Other than that wrinkle, he’s a great pitcher when healthy and should return to the majors soon, so he certainly belongs in this group.
Luxury Semi-Rentals
Bo Bichette (20)
Zac Gallen (24)
Kyle Tucker (30)
Randy Arozarena (34)
Vladimir Guerrero Jr. (35)
Dylan Cease (HM)
Ranger Suárez
These seven players will all help your team, and none of them will break the bank. The reason they didn’t break into the top 50 comes down to how long they’ll help you for. Arozarena will reach free agency after the 2026 season, the other six after 2025. Team control isn’t the only factor in trade evaluation – give me 1.5 years of Gallen over five years of a below-average pitcher every day – but no one in this list quite had the juice to get past honorable mention status.
Gallen, Cease, and Suárez are each having a solid season, but their 2024s have been more “great number two” than “world-beating ace,” and Gallen has dealt with a hamstring injury besides. Guerrero is in the midst of his best season since 2021, but he still hasn’t come close to repeating that incredible high. He looks like an above-average first baseman more than he does an MVP-contender. Arozarena and Bichette have been quite poor this year so far, but each has a long enough track record of raking that a second-half bounce-back is likely, though Bichette is now dealing with a calf strain that could keep him out for a few weeks.
That just leaves Tucker, and his situation is the strangest of the group. He was breaking out to the tune of a 174 wRC+ this year, but he’s been sidelined since the beginning of June with a shin injury and still hasn’t started a rehab assignment. If he had a clean bill of health, I think teams would back up the truck for him, but health matters here, and I can’t imagine offering a huge prospect haul in exchange for a player who’s gone after 2025 and whose status for the rest of the season is still in question. More than anyone else here, Tucker’s value will fluctuate quite a bit based on reports of his health.
Ultra-luxury Rentals
Juan Soto (29)
Corbin Burnes (HM)
Soto and Burnes will both hit free agency in three months, and they both got traded this offseason as a result. They’re clearly staying put – but if they weren’t, there’d be a feeding frenzy, because they’ve both lived up to the billing. Burnes is on his way to his fifth straight excellent season, and given that he’s throwing harder and missing more bats, I’m not worried about the downtick in strikeout rate. Soto is doing Juan Soto things – he’s racked up 8.3 WAR in the last calendar year, and nothing about it looks unsustainable. Either of these guys could credibly be the best player on a World Series winner. It would just have to be this year’s World Series winner if they were somehow traded, because there’s no extension equity here; it’s 2024 parade or bust.
Good Pitchers on Good Contracts
Luis Castillo (32)
Shota Imanaga
Tyler Glasnow
Sonny Gray
All four of these pitchers are All-Star caliber arms on reasonable contracts. They all have potential yellow flags – age for Castillo and Gray, lack of track record for Imanaga, and workload for Glasnow. I think that each has meaningfully positive trade value, and if I were a contending team with limited prospect capital, I’d love to add any of these options. I just don’t think you’d get quite the juice for these four that you would for some of the pitchers in the 41-50 range.
The Catcher Vortex
Sean Murphy (12)
Cal Raleigh
Murphy’s sudden fall seems injury-related, but I simply wouldn’t feel comfortable trading a lot for him when his last calendar year comprises 280-ish PA of 76 wRC+ work. It’s a good reminder that catchers don’t age predictably. I think that the worst-case trajectory for Murphy is that he turns into a high-end backup, but if that scenario is even a question, he can’t be more than an honorable mention.
Raleigh could very reasonably have been included on the main section of the rankings; he got squeezed out at the very end, but ask me a month ago or six weeks in the future, and I might give you a different answer. He’s above average in a lot of categories, but I’ve always been afraid of his offensive profile. He strikes out so often that he really needs to be leaving the yard to make the equation work. I’m far more confident in his defense, and he’s around for another three years after this.
Infielders With Upside
Ozzie Albies (31)
Jeremy Peña (37)
Oneil Cruz (42)
Spencer Steer (46)
Isaac Paredes (HM)
Andrés Giménez
Brice Turang
Albies has been a mainstay on trade value lists for years, and he’s still a good player, an All-Star if you catch him in a good season. He’s on a crazy good deal even now – $7 million a year through 2027 – but I think he’s on the decline defensively, so he’s less of a do-it-all guy than he was at peak. I have him as a solid contributor instead of a star at this point, and he’s going to be out for most of the rest of the season thanks to a broken wrist, further dimming his current appeal.
Peña, Giménez, and Turang are all plus defenders at up-the-middle positions, so they have a nice value floor. I’m not convinced that any of them will hit, though. Peña’s team control is ticking down, and Giménez’s contract starts to ramp up in 2025, so he’s less of a bargain than the other two. Turang is the best of the bunch for me; he won’t hit free agency until after the 2029 season and he’s playing at a similar level right now.
Steer and Paredes are broadly similar; they’re both good hitters who don’t move the needle defensively. They were both at the tail end of the top 50 in previous iterations. I think Paredes is the better of the two, but I’m cognizant of the fact that his game is custom-built for Tampa Bay’s ballpark, which makes trade evaluations hard. In either case, if you’re looking for offense in a can, these are good, young, controllable options.
Cruz still hasn’t put his extensive set of tools together consistently, and at this point his upside is probably “very good” instead of “Randy Moss playing baseball.” I opted for a little more present-day production in this year’s version of the list relative to previous years’, reflecting my changing understanding of the trade market and the competitive landscape, which is why I have him in HM land instead of in the 35-45 range.
I’m Skeptical, But I Could Be Convinced
Reese Olson (HM)
Evan Carter
Brenton Doyle
Jarren Duran
Royce Lewis
Brent Rooker
Cristopher Sánchez
Duran, Doyle, Olson, Rooker, and Sánchez are all enjoying breakout seasons. If they continue to produce like they have in recent history, they’ll be slam dunks for next year’s iteration of the list. In each case, though, I haven’t seen it for quite long enough to update my priors about them. Minor yellow flags – Duran’s power, Doyle’s plate discipline, Olson’s raw stuff and now injury, Rooker’s strikeouts, and Sánchez’s durability/consistency – mean I want more data before I’m convinced. If they finish 2024 playing at their current pace, though, they’ll easily belong in the top 50 next year.
Lewis was the hardest player in the majors for me to place; I’ve had him in the top 50 and outside of the top 100. I’m putting him here as an acknowledgement that he’s crazy talented, but let’s be real: It’s hard to trade for someone who can’t stay on the field. Finally, I just want to see more data on Carter. He was a spectacular hitter for about 150 PA (including the playoffs) last year, a bad hitter for about 150 PA this year, and is currently hurt. He could be a mainstay in future lists, or more of an above-average regular if 2024 is closer to his true talent than 2023.
Mason Miller
Mason Miller (HM)
There’s only one person in this category, naturally enough. Miller’s value is capped by his injury history and his role; peak Edwin Díaz fetched a ton in trade, but I’m not sure the same would be true today. This much team control for a pitcher this transcendent is rare, and teams will undoubtedly offer Oakland a valuable array of prospects for Miller at the deadline, but I don’t think he belongs higher than an honorable mention if he can’t start, and I doubt a team that trades for him will take that risk given how much time he missed with injury the last time he was in the rotation.
Byron Buxton
Byron Buxton (HM)
Two one-player categories? I couldn’t find anyone to group with Buxton, who is playing on an incentive-laden contract and also didn’t take the field for a single game in 2023. He looks elite in center field this year, and he’s absolutely raking, but I’m afraid enough of his injury history that I don’t think he belongs on the main part of the list. This could make me look pretty silly in a year, because when Buxton is on, he’s on, but there’s too much risk in my eyes.
You Can Never Have Enough Pitching
Hunter Brown (40)
Joe Ryan (45)
Taj Bradley (HM)
Bryce Miller (HM)
Freddy Peralta (HM)
Bryan Woo (HM)
Garrett Crochet
Tanner Houck
I’ll level with you: these eight fit snugly into a tier with six pitchers at the tail end of the top 50. There’s not a ton to differentiate them; it’s all a tradeoff between raw stuff, results, team control, and injury history. Would I feel great plugging any of these guys in as my unquestioned ace? Certainly not. Would I want them on my team? Certainly so. I personally like Houck most out of this group, but that was by no means true for everyone I talked to. I know I’ve already mentioned that there’s little separation at the tail end of the top 50, but I’m going to repeat it in specific reference to this group.
Youths
Roman Anthony
Samuel Basallo
Junior Caminero
Colton Cowser
Dylan Crews (HM)
Jackson Jobe
Xavier Isaac
Colt Keith
Heston Kjerstad
Coby Mayo
Joey Ortiz
Noah Schultz
Andrew Painter
Ceddanne Rafaela
AJ Smith-Shawver
As is customary, I asked Eric Longenhagen for a list of prospects with big upside or who could crack the list next year if they continue at their current pace. I mixed in some recent debuts who didn’t fit cleanly into any of the other honorable mention groups, too; Keith, Cowser, and Ortiz all look like they belong in the majors already, but they haven’t really kicked it into high gear yet. It’s a slimmer prospect list than normal; last year’s number one pick is already in the majors and on the main part of the list (spoiler), this year’s draft looks pretty thin at the top, and many of our preseason top prospects made the list proper. I think it’s just a cyclical issue, rather than a long-term shift, but this crop feels pretty light.
I had to draw the line somewhere for honorable mentions, but I’ll just mention one more group of players who got consideration: stars on big contracts who didn’t crack the top 50. Freddie Freeman, Wheeler, Gerrit Cole, Marcus Semien, Trea Turner, Yoshinobu Yamamoto – I think all of them are interesting, but just a tick or two behind the group of similar players who appear in the 41-50 section of the list. For what it’s worth, no. 51 on my list would have been Tanner Houck, with Cal Raleigh no. 52.
Ben is a writer at FanGraphs. He can be found on Bluesky @benclemens.
Duran not on the list is an absolute travesty. He’s 8th in WAR and has 5 remaining years of control…. That’s closer to top 20 than it is to HM. This list is a joke now.
I would advise reading the reasoning
There will be players ranked ahead of him who have significantly less power (Duran is slugging .499 lol) and who have been doing it for less time.
.292/.348/.491 over 201 games since the start of 2023, 20 homers 64 doubles 12 triples 46 steals, 6.7 war … superstar stuff. 95th percentile OAA this year.
Concerns about power for a guy who is tied for third in baseball (with Witt and Henderson!) with 52 xbh this year.
I get that he’s relatively new on the scene but he has genuinely been one of the ten best players in baseball this year. He’s going to put up close to 7fwar. There will be players on this list who will never even come close to having a season like that.
Like, I know there’s an age/pedigree difference that absolutely matters, but Duran is going to have a better year this year than Corbin Carroll did last year, and now Carroll sucks somehow.
Duran is significantly better and more proven than his teammate Casas, who I imagine will be ranked. He’s having a much better year than Michael Harris, Alec Burleson, Jazz Chisholm, Randy Arozarena, and many other guys who I imagine will be on here.
And if Volpe is on the list……
I’m pretty sure Volpe is on the list, he was on the list last year (27) and is not listed as a departing player.
Much as the way Rick hyperbolically phrased the first post p*ssed me off, he’s correct in that Duran should be ranked and that power being the flag that excludes him is silly. The only thing that might be a flag is defense, and that’s because A) the Green Monster induces a lot of LF randomness, and B) it’s the first year he’s been above-average and instead he turned the dial to 11. Maybe you could quibble that his launch angle isn’t ideal, but that’s a quibble, and it’s meaningfully improved backed by easily visible and verifiable changes in approach. Every other facet of the game he’s at worst average in, and better in most with not really any dropoff in the expected stats. If there’s any one player I’d want to trade for on the Red Sox and who I’d want them to extend if I were a fan of them, it’s Duran.
As an avid fan of the Red Sox I have put forth the idea of extending him in the range of $25M/year for a period of 10 years. I was surprised that at least one commenter thought that was “absurd”. He has shown for the past 2 years that he is one of the leading offensive forces in the game and is now being recognized for his defense. There is no facet of his game that isn’t well above average with his base running skills leading the list. In 2023 he turned many singles into doubles and makes players rush their actions.
“Carroll sucking right now” is exactly why Duran isn’t on the list yet.
Carrol “sucking for some reason this year” has to do with his shoulder injury that he sustained at the end of last season.
People are so weird about shoulder injuries and pretend that they never happened.
He didn’t sustain it at the end of last season. He reaggravated it. And it happened in early June, he only hit 2 HR each in July, Aug, and Sept.
That’s much more concerning. He missed the whole 2021 season because of the shoulder, and it was talked about nonstop before 2023 started in the context of trying to peg his value.
So I agree with you, but even you’ve got a little bit of the blinders thing going when it comes to how worried people should be about his long term value and production.
I give you a lot of credit for having a poor first comment, and completely redeeming yourself with articulate follow up comments
Agreed. It’s rare that I downvote a first comment but upvote the rest. I even went back up and re-read the first comment, but I just couldn’t take away my downvote because it’s first here, and with how powerful bandwagon mentality has become (I’d like to think FG readers are excepted, but they’re not, that’s why they had to put controls on the up/down votes a couple years ago), readers need to know not to take that first comment seriously. There’s no doubt that there are thousands of readers that read the headline and jump to the comments. Maybe they scroll and look for some bold names, and that’s probably not the average profile, but I’m sure it’s a common one.
But they should also know the others are really insightful. Weird combo and a quick redemption. Good on him.
“Questions about power”.
Not much there, especially when he’s top 3 in extra base hits, above Gunnar, Witt Jr…
Not including Duran was a mistake.
Duran doesn’t have enough power (.451 SLG in 1151 AB) but Volpe (.378 SLG in 1052 AB) is on the list, apparently…
And of course the writer is a NYer. I’m not saying bias, but.
Besides being an offensive thing to accuse a writer like Ben of, Ben has been open about being a Cardinals fan anyway.
Idk if he’s from NY, and I’m not a Clemens fan precisely because of this sites tendency to blindly defend him, which isn’t even his fault, but that frustration manifests somewhere and he’s it. Plus I truly think the reader base got it wrong, he’s fine, and he’s the best of the new writers that came over right after Sullivan left, which was preceded by about a half dozen other vastly superior writers being hired away from the site the year or so before that. And I legitimately think that he was bad for the site during the COVID shutdown. Point is, I’m not an apologist, I’m probably too hard on him and always be. I’ll never be a fan. BUT…
But he lives in SF and he’s a Cardinals fan, so I don’t think you’re correct here, other than a lot of his sources probably have a bias toward preferring Volpe, especially if he started putting feelers out in late April/early May like he did, Volpe started the season on relative fire.
Yeah
The reasoning is wrong. This is Duran’s second consecutive great season. With 4 more years of control it wouldn’t be a mistake to place him right near, or even at, the top.
You are absolutely spot on! Right now Jarren Duran is no less than a Top 10 player in the game. I find it hard to believe that people on this site, and that includes Ben, think that this is his first great season. He was every bit as good in 2023 and has added top level defense to his package. I wouldn’t hesitate to offer him a huge long term contract in the neighborhood of $250 for 10 years.
Okay, this goes WAY too far.
Would you have said that when the Braves signed Albies and Acuna? The time to sign Duran is now and not wait for the price to go higher. Rafael Devers recently signed an extension of $313.5M for 10 years. In today’s market that is a reasonable deal for one of the game’s best hitters but over the past 2 seasons Duran has outperformed Devers, and almost every other player, by a solid margin. With these 2 seasons under his belt a contract extension in the neighborhood I mentioned seems eminently reasonable.
I think we were all in agreement that he’s wildly underrated on this list, but you’ve now jumped 3 steps ahead with an absurd contract
Which contracts would you rather have? Those of Albies, Acuna, Riley and Harris or wait and end up with the albatross contracts of Rendon and Bogaerts. Even Machado’s is beginning to show signs of being a disaster. My previous comment is far from absurd and with these 2 seasons showing the tremendous all-around game Duran brings every day this seems like the going price for a superstar, which he is.
your question implies that those are the only two options
Of course there are other options but when Alex Anthopoulos jumped the gun and got his stars locked into long term contracts he put the Braves in a very strong position for several more years at a very affordable cost. Of course there is risk but locking up impact players for the long term is the way the game is being plated now. I watch Jarren Duran play every game and if unproven players, Julio Rodriquez, for example, are worth huge contracts which I believe was a good move, then Jarren Duran, whose play has been superior to almost every player in the game for 2 years, is well worth the gamble that any long term contract is. If Rafael Devers is worth $30 million a year, which he is, then Jarren Duran is worth something not much below that.
Dude, Albies and Acuna weren’t locked up for 25M/year for 10 years, not even close, and Acuna definitely came w/ much higher pedigree *and* has proven he can really be that great when he’s fully healthy. Duran’s been (very) good for 205 games across 2 seasons, but not really as good as Acuna can be when healthy. And he’s also going to be 28 by the end of this season, not 21 like Acuna was when he got locked up (for far less than the 250M you’re talking).
IF Duran is say 5 years younger and still in his early 20’s while producing like this, you’ll have a better argument. But even then, 250M might be too much more than actually needed to lock him long term. In any case, he’s not gonna still be 23 this coming offseason, but 28, so it’s silly to try to lock him up for 250M even if he continues performing and end up w/ say 7 WAR this year.
BTW, his xwOBA last year actually wasn’t that good — his results were waaay higher than expected given his xwOBA, so need to temper expectations coming from last year’s numbers. His results are much more in line w/ xwOBA this year, but still a fair bit over.
IF you merely extrapolate his results over the last 205 games for the next 10 years w/out accounting for his (expectable) underlying nor for age-related decline, you’re very likely gonna waaay overpay him and regret it big time…
$250 isn’t that much. It’s costing me more to get the roof of my house cleaned today.
I am 82 and my meds, just for today, went for $307. ROFL.
This list is a joke every year.
I’d like to hear one example of a player owed near the top end of remaining salary that was traded for any real value. The two best examples of guys with lots of money left who were legit great players at the time are Alex Rodriguez and Giancarlo Stanton, and neither gave the trading team really much at all in return, when you consider the money going with them. You could add Scherzer and Verlander as examples here, but they don’t fit the mold of the overrated trade assets we are about to see.
I know this is setting up to say Shohei Ohtani and his $700m contract (okay, $465m contract) is somehow a top trade asset, and the article written last week seems like the classic academic move of citing your own work, but I simply don’t buy it.
If you have to throw in tens of millions of dollars with a guy to get something back, all you’re doing is hiding the fact that the player’s contract went into the toilet. It’s more about face-saving for the organization than anything.
Honestly, if your choice is literally giving a player away along with $5m dollars for literally nothing, or you give $50m and get a few prospects in return, you may very well do the latter because it hides your previous poor decisions, even if on paper it is not the right move.
There might be a few teams that would claim Ohtani off waivers, but if there were somehow a rule that said the trading team couldn’t send money with the player, the Dodgers probably couldn’t get more than a fringe top-100 prospect for him. Sure, throw in $100m and all the sudden there’s value, but that value is the $100m, not the record-breaking contract.
It’s weird because Ohtani probably has more value to the Dodgers than he does almost any other team. Maybe Seattle, maybe NYC, but the vast majority of teams wouldn’t pick up that contract.
A-Rod did extremely well for the Yankees with the time remaining on his original deal. Two MVPs, a near MVP, and a World Series win. It was the second deal that was the issue.
Other than the fact that this is about Arod, it has nothing to do with my point. I’m talking about the Arod trade from the seller’s perspective. The Arod trade and the Stanton trade are the best two modern examples of superstars in their primes owed a ton of money being traded away and in both cases the returns on those trades were paltry at best. In both cases the trading team sent a lot of money, and only received a far inferior major league player and either no real prospects at all (Arod) or a lottery ticket type (Stanton).
Fair, but you’re missing a big one that supports your argument in Arenado. And even Goldy to an extent, because that trade was contingent on the extension he got. Lindor also fits this mold and I think it’s fair to use him as a comp too.
Mookie pseudo fits because the intention was always to extend him, but then it had all kinds of other stuff like the big Price contract and Boston paying it down so much
I agree with this. Say Soto leaves this offseason, the Dodgers put Ohtani on waivers, and the Yankees claim him – what would they really give, if they’re taking on the full contract?
I think your guess on the haul is about correct: a lower end 50 (i.e. a fringe top-100 guy), maybe a high-variance 40, maybe some randoms tacked on at the end. But not a ton more. And the Dodgers don’t take that deal unless their financial situation becomes truly desperate. Which doesn’t seem like it will be the case.
I definitely agree that with the fact that a team paying down a contract to get prospects is not a player’s own value so much.
But I have no idea how much a team would have to pay down Ohtani, Betts, Judge, Devers, Seager, etc. There might be a huge prospect return for some even without paying anything down. At the minimum, I’m pretty confident that Witt wouldn’t have to get paid down at all and would still get a zillion prospects. Probably Julio Rodriguez too.
Ohtani literally pays for himself.
https://www.sportsbusinessjournal.com/Articles/2024/07/22/marketing-and-sponsorship
Ohtani jersey sales are No. 1, the Dodgers have added more new Japanese sponsors and the team will open the next MLB season in Japan after starting this one in South Korea. When the Dodgers sold out of behind-the plate ads early this year, a brisk market developed for away teams’ inventory in games versus the Dodgers. SponsorUnited has counted 30 Japanese brands with TV-visible advertising in Dodgers away games.
Up to the All-Star break, 59 brands with offices or HQs in Japan have purchased sponsorships with MLB and its teams, according to the research house; the other four top U.S. leagues combine for 40. Longtime MLB attendance leaders at home, the Dodgers also lead the league in road attendance, averaging 34,909 over 96 games.
The Dodgers are perennially at or near the top in MLB team sponsorship revenue. The addition of Ohtani has allowed the team to land 10 Japanese brands as sponsors/advertisers, including All Nippon Airways, Daiso and others. MLB signed JTB Corp., the largest travel agency in Japan, to a sponsorship early this year.
“The Dodgers will be the highest new-revenue generating team in [U.S.] professional sports this year,” said SponsorUnited founder and CEO Bob Lynch. “Our estimates put that at $30 million or more.”
The Dodgers were counting on global sponsorship to compensate for some of the outlay for Ohani’s massive contract. So far, “His economic impact for us has been significantly past what we expected,” said Dodgers President Stan Kasten. “As categories open, we expect to reach another new level on that next year. Shohei’s foremost impact for us has been on the field, but we can’t overstate how significant his business impact has been for us and across baseball, since high-revenue teams contribute so much to teams across the league.”
MLB sources say Ohtani will help the Dodgers generate a “healthy double-digit spike” in sponsorship revenue this year. SponsorUnited’s Lynch sees “the Ohtani effect” eventually elevating the Dodgers to just below the level of “super elite” teams like the Dallas Cowboys and Golden State Warriors in sponsorship.
On the licensing side of things, John Killen, Fanatics senior vice president of hardgoods, likened the Ohtani effect to what’s happening this season in the WNBA. “Ohtani’s MLB impact is like the Caitlin Clark effect,” Killen said. “The Fever is doing great, but we’ve seen a lift in business across every [WNBA] team.”
All during a season in which Ohtani hasn’t demonstrated any of the pitching ability that made him one of sports’ most unique attractions. Somehow, now it doesn’t seem hyperbolic to call Ohtani the closest thing MLB has seen to one player outdistancing the rest of the league since Babe Ruth, MLB’s last two-way player of consequence.
“As far as marketability of a player in baseball, right now, there’s Ohtani and then everybody else,” acknowledged Braves President Derek Schiller.
Kasten, a pro sports team exec for more than four decades, couldn’t recall an MLB player approaching Ohtani’s current magnitude in all of those years. “I’m thinking more about Jordan and LeBron,” said Kasten, when asked for a comparable athlete. “Shohei has a global element we haven’t seen before, which is allowing us and baseball overall to break new ground in Japan and other Asian countries — even in Europe.”
“When you look at his social media presence, it’s clearly tops in baseball, but he transcends or competes with a lot of [non-sports] celebrities — where we’d like more of our players to be,” Noah Garden, MLB deputy commissioner, business and media, said inside the Commissioner’s Suite. “Wherever he plays, his overall impact on ticket sales is huge.”
Still unclear is whether Ohtani’s coattails will push Dodgers attendance over 4 million for the first time. While the Dodgers have led MLB in attendance for more than a decade, no MLB team has hit 4 million since 2008. Their average attendance at the break of 47,769 does not quite extrapolate to 4 million, but a meaningful division race could alter that. Whether that happens, MLB and Ohtani are increasingly symbiotic.
“Research and anecdotal evidence are telling us this is not just a Dodgers story,” said Karin Timpone, MLB executive vice president and chief marketing officer. “Ohtani is inviting more kinds of people to sample the game. Exceptional players are what make the biggest difference, and they generate the broadest marketing opportunities for us because they broaden the base.”
And that is partly why the Dodgers consider the Ohtani contract as “the gift of a lifetime.”
https://www.reddit.com/r/baseball/comments/1bcvvqw/passan_the_dodgers_see_ohtanis_10year_700m_deal/
It’s not a surprise for an entity that makes an enormous deal to then promote that deal. Just believing anything they say uncritically is not smart.
Remember that, thanks to funky deferments, this deal is only $460 million in cost to the Dodgers, not $700.
It’s funny to me how we state the actual cost as a given. Considering the state of our economy, inflation, debt, interest rates, and future outlook, etc. It seems unlikely to me that the dollar and the markets maintain their value close enough to the historical data used to make this an accurate statement, but who knows.
Still, I think it’s fair to say that’s +/- $100MM. Maybe even more variance.
Most everything you say here is more of a benefit to MLB as a whole than the Dodgers.
You’re not wrong, not sure why you’re being downvoted on it. A lot of it was sport or league specific. Ohtani drawing more fans to road games does not help the Dodgers pay for the contract.
Even as old as I am I don’t go back to Babe Rurh’s era but I can’t remember any player who has risen above the game as much as Ohtani has since 1950 when I started to follow baseball enthusiastically. Willie Mays was great but Mickey Mantle was his equal and while there has always been plenty of stars to enjoy none has reached the level that Ohtani has. If his return to the mound equals his performance with the bat his value to baseball will be unmeasurable.
The guys getting $300M contracts are — with the exceptions of the Twins signing Correa, Marlins signing Stanton, and the Rox signing Arenado — going to teams for whom that contract is NOT the last big money contract that they can give out. Thus, they are never in the predicament that they have to dump a contract and so the sample size for these trades is tiny.
Ohtani and Betts are perennial MVP candidates whereas Correa, Stanton, and Arenado are, at the times of their trades, MVP candidates only every 4 years or so. Thus, Ohtani and Betts as perennial MVP candidates are just on another level than even perennial All-Stars. So I would say the opposite — that there are only a couple teams that WOULDN”T claim him off waivers — he’s just that good!
Ohtani or Betts would fetch a haul and should rightfully slot in the top-15 TV’s even if we might say that to achieve that TV, the Dodgers might need to take back a rather larger bad contract. The Dodgers will just never be in that situation because they are a large market and almost equally important, they can continually replenish their farm system to continually be top-10 so they’re never in a situation where both their major league team and farm system are both terrible.
The vast majority of teams didn’t even really try to sign Ohtani. They’re not going to take him now, and especially if it’s going to cost real prospects too.
I think what these takes are missing is the fact that Ohtani was literally just a free agent. If another team valued Ohtani significantly more highly than the contract the Dodgers gave him, he would likely be playing for that team.
My take is that Ohtani is worth his contract, but to rank highly on trade value he’d have to be worth considerably more than his contract. Which I don’t think he is.
We have to consider that Ohtani is more deliberate and picky with where he plays than the average player that probably just goes to the highest bidder. Ohtani wanted to be on a winner, we know that unequivocally, but we also can glean a lot from his first signing when the amount was capped and all 30 teams had an opportunity. He liked California, and he liked playing alongside Trout. I suspect that Mookie, Freddie, Clayton, California, and the decade of excellence all factored in to the calculus enough that we can’t just take at face value that no other team would pay this.
Also, we know the Mets valued him more, for instance.
Then, teams also didn’t know if he could pitch, and he had only had one superstar year at the plate. Repeating that has done nothing but increase his value, and there isn’t an argument that can be made against this point.
I don’t necessarily think you’re wrong, but I don’t think that the criteria you’re using is the way to determine it. He just wasn’t a typical free agent in anyway.
I think that’s fair and I guess I’m admitting that to achieve full-trade value, trading Ohtani would require taking negative-value or at least very expensive and not-very-positive value players back thus diminishing his overall trade value.
My argument is that the teams who trade prospects (future wins) for stars (current wins) especially want MVP-candidates and since those are scarce, they’re very valuable in prospect return even if some bad contracts have to come back to achieve that return. I don’t think because Ohtani has near-zero surplus value, he has near-zero trade value. I’ve written many times here that surplus value is a terrible predictor of trade value to the extent of being almost useless since it doesn’t tell us what level of prospect (2 FV50’s or 1 FV55 and an FV45) is returned to equal the surplus value. And there isn’t much surplus value on two months of a 3-win starting pitcher, but those go for FV50’s routinely as Jack Flaherty will this year. So, mostly I’d throw surplus value in the garbage, but I’ll make that point more strenuously when actual trades start happening.
One last thought. I think TKDC, SadTrombone, and I all agree that spending on Free Agents is the worst investment in team-building that one can do, so their view of recently-signed FA’s trade values is more consistent with that notion than mine is.
Thus, I’ll concede the point that Ohtani shouldn’t be on this list and that surplus value has more input into trade value than I am giving credit for.
A lot of quality young players, guys having 5 WAR seasons with a lot of team control left, to miss the top 50. Interested to see the 50 to make it.
Parades, Duran, Houck, Crochet. Then the high upside players like Cruz, Lewis, Mason Miller also outside of the top 50. Quite a list of guys I’d like my team to acquire!
You can add Cease to that list also. He is on pace for 4.5 – 5 WAR, has cut down his walk rate, and is under control through 2025. He’s 10th in MLB in IP and 6th in fWAR since 2021. That’s the best pitcher ion most MLB rosters.
Pitchers seem to really be undervalued, probably due to injury risk and the fact of the top 4 pitchers from last year falling off the list as mentioned in the article. If I’m building a team and trying to win the World Series, that just means I need more of those guys to compensate for the inevitable injuries and underperformance from the 5 guys I break camp with as starters. That should create more demand. But I’m aware not every GM is allowed to approach it that way.
I understand Crochet and Paredes. The former has already pitched more this year than in the entire rest of his professional career and there are huge questions about how the latter’s game will translate to other stadiums. ( You have to assume Paredes will lose about 20 points off his wRC+ in most other stadiums. )
I plead ignorance. What is it about the Trop that helps Paredes game? He’s an extreme pull hitter. He’d still hit with the Crawford boxes or the Green Monster.
That is still only 2 teams!
True. But what is it about the TROP that helps Paredes??
They have a really short distance/fence in the LF corner.He’s developed the ability to pop what would normally be a lazy fly ball just over that fence, just inside the foul pole. I think you can view spray charts that show a # of his HR’s would be outs in most other parks.
That would only work in a few parks (Fenway, Houston being the other 2 most likely).
That said, is it a one-trick pony or is he a good enough hitter that he could change his approach to some other method in other surroundings? I.E., COULD he tailor his approach to somewhere else..like would he be able to hit line drives to the gaps in Coors Field or KC?
There are a fair few others where he’d work just fine in terms of home run power. The bandboxes (Citizens Bank, GABP, Guaranteed Rate, Rogers Center with the roof closed), the parks with a lower left field wall (Nats Park, Target Field, Chase Field, Chavez Ravine, Petco Park), and Coors all give him higher HR numbers than the 16 he has on the year, in addition to if he’d played only at the Trop.
That said, Paredes just pulls the ball in the air. That’s his entire strategy. It will play less in most parks than one with a Crawford’s Corner, but he’s continued it for three years because it works. 54% pull rate and 50% Fly Ball rate will work for most right-handed hitters. It’s just difficult to do it to the degree Paredes does it.
Couldn’t we all just look at Paredes’ performance at home vs on the road? Seems like that would answer this question.
To some extent it would, and he’s about 20 points better at home than on the road in wRC+. He might do better than that because some players just play worse on the road regardless of stadium dimensions. But with such an obvious explanation it’s a bit of a risk.
Love this week, my favorite series of columns! I’m sure it’ll be great & I’ll mostly agree with Ben.
Without seeing the Top 50 list, I think I would have 5 guys here in the top 50-
Luis Castillo- 7 straight years of above average performance, still only 31, contract is a steal and only runs thru age 34 (or age 35 if the option hits, which would actually make him more of a steal). I think the age concern may be overstated.
Imanaga- contract is ridiculously low at a little over $13M/year.
Jarren Duran- We’re over 7+ WAR in his last 800 PA’s. He’s for real, IMO.
Brenton Doyle- great defender, so his floor is high. Even if his offensive surge backslides a little, he’s a great value.
Tanner Houck- 4 more years of control, I like that he’s 28 not 22 & has lower inning totals in 2020-2023, has less mileage on that arm & his performance looks legit.
Yeah, will be interesting to see what’s above guys like that, in particular Duran. The Red Sox would get a ton if they decided to move him.
I’d also add Albies, who seems to have been systematically underranked the last few years. 2024 is now a wash, but he’s been a 3.5-4 WAR guy you get for 28/29/30 at $7m per. That’s a fantastic deal, even if you think he’s a 2.5-3 WAR guy moving forward. If the Braves did decide to move him for some reason this offseason they’d get a very tasty package. I think he’s just so cheap that he breaks people’s brains.
Albies would have been the next one on my list & without the injury would also be in my Top 50.
I agree people underrate him because he doesn’t have a 6 WAR ceiling..but, a consistent 3.5-4 WAR player in his prime for $7M a year for 3 more years? Yes, please!!
Oneil Cruz has put up 2 WAR already this year and is trending up as the year goes on, surprised his upside is only “Very Good”.
He’s playing well, but he’s not going to continue a .340 BABIP, especially not while striking out a third of his PA. While he has been somewhat unlucky on contact, his flags are bright red and large enough to hang as a wall tapestry.
Not to say he’s bad, but there are reasons people remain skeptical.
Striking out a third of the time has nothing to do with the sustainability of a high BABIP. He hits the ball very hard and is very fast, a high BABIP may be entirely sustainable.
He is NOT .340 fast. 87th percentile speed is very nice, but he’s not in the league of the fastest hitters, and doesn’t have the bat control to put the ball in play that often, that effectively, and his squared up percentages (22.2%, which is the 21st percentile) backs that up. He’s powerful and fast, and has fixed most of his defensive issues. But the BABIP doesn’t follow the rest of his profile. Look at his spray chart this year. The number of in-between bloop singles, especially oppo ones, is massive relative to what you’d expect from a lefty power hitter running a 40% pull rate. He has a nearly identical number of them to Josh Naylor, who is leagues better in terms of bat control.
Also, yes it does. Striking out that much reduces your sample size considerably. His BABIP is going to fluctuate more than less strikeout-prone hitters.
He has the power, the speed, and the overall physicality to be a great player, and looks like he’s taking those steps. But there are obvious flags still.
You’re right that K% doesn’t affect BABIP. Expecting him to maintain a .340 BABIP is quite hopeful tho. Only 5% of qualified batters over the last 3 years have a BABIP over .340. And even with such a strong BABIP this season, Cruz only has a 109 wrc+. The K rate is a serious problem. And he doesn’t compensate for that with a good walk rate either. He requires high BABIPs just to be an effective hitter. If and when the BABIP luck regresses, he’s in trouble. Not top 50 until his approach matures.
When you hit the ball that hard and run that fast, a .340 BABIP is definitely a long term possibility. The main problem is that Cruz cannot hit lefties at all.
Maybe in the future, but right now it looks like it’s outsized relative to what he’s actually doing.
The other issue is that he’s hitting/slugging .181/.310 against breaking pitches and whiffing on them 45.2% of the time, and it’s deserved in every way.
Why do you keep responding to BABIP comments by talking about whiff rate?
That second one was an entirely separate issue. His inability to hit breaking stuff is what was highlighted there, which I see as a bigger issue than the ability to hit lefties.
The first one was a rebuttal for an incorrect statement, that whiff rate has nothing to do with BABIP sustainability. It doesn’t directly, but it influences the sample size because it reduces the ability to put the ball in play and the number of chances a hitter has to do so. It’s indicative, not a direct calculation.
Yeah, sorry, what does sample size have to do with sustainably high BABIP? Are you just saying that .340 is a blip?
I think everyone else is saying it’s plausible he could actually maintain a .340 BABIP, because of his BIP characteristics
No.
What they’re saying is true, that his BIP characteristics could conceivably play to create a BABIP where .340 is realistically sustainable.
What I said is that while that’s true, several of his present characteristics such as his lack of ability to square the ball with consistency (backed by squared-up rate in the 21st percentile), lack of overall contact generated (puts the ball in play roughly once out of every seven pitches seen, which is noticeably less than the majority of players running similar BABIPs this season, and he doesn’t have a walk rate that is far above-average, and his zContact is 78%, which is nine percentage points below the league average of 87%), and difficulty generating large amounts of contact as a part of his profile (which is what whiff rate correlates with), make it look like his present .340 BABIP this year is not sustainable.
He could post a lower BABIP and still be a valuable hitter, or he could just post higher ones in the future because his contact quality/foot speed are just that good. But the way he’s done to this point doesn’t look like it’s going to continue to be that effective in terms of BABIP alone. He has the tools to make it so in the future. But to this point in his career, some of it looks like luck.
So…
Maybe you know something I don’t, but I haven’t heard anything about either whiff rate (cited twice above) or squared up rate (cited once) correlating with BABIP.
I just looked up another big-swinging left handed hitter who runs above average BABIPs, Bryce Harper, and his whiff rates and squared up rates don’t look massively different in comparison to Oneil Cruz?
Barrel/BBE: 12.4% v 19.1%
Whiff%: 28.3% v 32.9%
Squared-up percentile: 30.9% v 32.3%
I don’t see any alarming differences there. In fact, if I were to blindly pick a profile which favors BABIP from those stats, I’d probably pick the latter one, because you don’t generate BABIP stats from whiffs.
(the latter is Oneil Cruz, if that wasn’t apparent).
Here’s my 2 cents. Because Cruz’s whiff/K rate is so high, he requires a higher BABIP than most to maintain a respectable batting average (because he’s putting fewer balls in play per AB than most). With his exit velos and speed, it’s very conceivable that he can maintain a higher than average BABIP most years. However, BABIP also depends heavily on “luck” (i.e. hitting it where they’re not). He’s 15th in BABIP this year and no one else in the top 40 of BABIP has a lower batting average than his .252. That’s a red flag. If his BABIP luck starts to turn even a little, he’s in trouble because he’s already wasting such a large portion of his ABs getting K’d. Add in the fact that his walk rate is also pedestrian, and that’s a recipe for crippling lows. Granted, with his prodigious power, the highs will be impressive. So, what you have is the streakiest of streaky hitters.
He’s young. Maybe as he matures he develops a better eye at the plate or closes some of the holes good pitchers routinely exploit against him, but imo that’s far from a guarantee. Right now he’s a one-dimensional slugger who doesn’t walk. And there are plenty of questions about his defense as well. He’s not top 50.
“They’ve all had Tommy John surgery since then. No one would trade for them right now –”
I disagree. I’ll bet there would be (is?) a very large market for Strider, McClanahan, Alcantara, and Perez. Tommy John is not nearly the discriminator it used to be.
Strider definitely. I’m not so sure about the others.
Also, not sure it’s better or worse, but Strider didn’t have TJ, which would have been his second, he had the less intrusive brace, and could theoretically be back for spring training 2025.
ETA: by “worse” I am including his previous TJ surgery into the calculous; obviously avoiding TJ this time is better in isolation.
I agree that there would be a market for them, but I also agree that the surgeries keep them off this list.
No mention of Tovar is egregrious. Take a look at what he is doing with the bat at 22 yrs old. Plus elite defense at SS.
He very well might be on the main list.
Am very surprised that Duran, Joe Ryan, Joey Ortiz, and Tanner Houck aren’t clear inclusions. Those four look like the real deal, or at least they could slide pretty far and still be good players. Other guys like Turang, Steer, Doyle, Rooker, Buxton, Bryce Miller, Mason Miller, Crochet, Royce Lewis …they have all have a lot of value but have huge question marks that the first four don’t have.
It’s interesting, as an observation, how divorced the perspective on this trade article is from perspective on a projections article.
People are _losing their minds_ that Duran isn’t on this list, but his midseason zips has him at 11.4 WAR over the next 5.5 years.
It’s like we collectively get SSS eyes, and forget how that generally works out.
Or, maybe this is a reminder that projection systems like zips are slow moving, bad at understanding things that computers can’t know (like, he instituted a swing change and learned how to deal with depression) but which humans can and should understand, and built with an eye toward regression.
Zips isn’t god, and small samples (even though Duran has been on a superstar pace for 200 games now) sometimes are predictive.
I mean, sure. Small samples are sometimes predictive. But sometimes they aren’t?
> even though Duran has been on a superstar pace for 200 games now
I disagree here. I think this year has been amazing, but, looking at underlying metrics, his last year was not. Which is why I think zips is moving slower here. It only sees a half season of high level performance.
And I think that there is a nice narrative around why he’s performing better this year, but… there always is 🙂
I would love to see him hold on to this level of performance, I just think it’s too soon to tell.
Agreed, it’s dangerous when we abandon all other observable data in favor of a projection system, which the current authors on the site do. I think they do it to have a consistent measuring stick, which is helpful if you’re writing baseball content. But too many readers have taken to treating the projections like prophecies of a guaranteed outcome, instead of like, well, projections.
Maybe they depression comes back when the Sox miss the playoffs and he can’t pull himself up again. Does ZIPs guess that!?
I don’t think what he is doing is what he will continue to do going forward. But I do think he can regress a lot and still be in that honorable mention category, which indicates to me he probably deserves to be higher.
They’re acting like he’s 24 and not 28 already.
I’m surprised that Kyle Bradish didn’t make the list with the other injured pitchers.
I can’t decide if Tatis Jr. is being overrated or forgotten here. Given that it’s been 3 full years, and a PED suspension, since he’s been an elite hitter, and he’s owed a ton of money that looks very dicey if he’s just a “good” player like he’s been the last two years. Given his injury history, it seems he could have been in the Byron Buxton category, or at the very least the honorable honorable mention category of good players on big contracts. But I don’t know? Is he actually ranked? That also seems crazy to me!
I think he’s ranked. He was ranked #8 last year & he’s not in the guys that dropped off the list section (or anywhere else).
I do think it is get to the point where his inclusion is shaky, for the reasons you state. My gut says Ben is thinking that ceiling that he showed in 2020/21 is still in there somewhere & if he hits it, his contract is a steal.
I do think I remember being flabbergasted at his ranking last year. If he’s in that first tier (38-50), then while I would disagree, I think you could squint to make the case. I don’t know how anything higher is justified. The injury history and steep decline in power after a PED suspension have to scare the hell out of you, right?
He’s probably a top 25 hitter and he’s young. I don’t know if that means I would put him in the back half of that list or not but I’m at least thinking about it.
I’m sorry but I’m not giving a probably top 25 hitter who is now a very good corner outfielder instead of being a shortstop who has a history of injuries and a PED suspension $300m+. I’m certainly not giving up real assets to take that on.
He’s better than a top-25 hitter. His underlying data is all truly absurd another year removed from the surgery and his Xwoba is top 3% in the majors despite dealing with a major injury thus far that has gotten in the way of his gold glove defense/base stealing as well. When healthy he’s very capable of being a top 5 hitter in baseball and the best RF in baseball. A player that talented needs to be on the list. I’d only agree with you if his underlying data looked like last year, as in that case, I’d assume his story about the PEDs was bogus. I can understand the injury trepidation knocking him out of the very top end of the list but he should absolutely be on it.
His surface hitting stats are very good but not elite, though the underlying data indicates that he’s back to being a world beater at the plate, and he’s accrued it despite dealing with two fairly serious injuries he’s played through thus far (which is why his OAA is down, he’s the best RF in the majors when healthy). I think the biggest argument against him is by far his injury history, the talent is so extreme and another year removed from the surgery the underlying data spiking again gives me little reason to doubt that he’ll be an MVP candidate going forward when healthy. I definitely think he should be on the main list despite the injury concerns as should any player who is very reasonably capable of being the best hitter in their league and the best fielder at their position in the big leagues.
I think this series is both interesting and thought-provoking on many levels — thanks for doing it.
I wonder what is says about a ranking system when top 20 players one year are suddenly off the list the next year. Shouldn’t that be considered as well in the ranking? Perhaps a number and a volatility (H, M, L). I do like the tiers approach — this acknowledgement to the fact that 39 to 38 may be MUCH different than 15 to 14, for example. Ranking numerically is constraining, so tiering is a much more useful
Also, I think ranking the injured pitchers is hard, but to lump them all in HM is another sort of cop out.
Finally, I don’t have to wait till next year to know that not ranking Jarren Duran in a top 50 list for a player who isn’t a FA until 2029 is too cute. Ben should already start writing his “mea culpa” on that now to get it out of the way for next year.
If I had OOTPed the Pirates in the offseason I would have made a run for Brenton Doyle. Of course the real Rockies would have never gone for it. That roster spot has gone to Michael A. Taylor who is at least worth more than surface value as a pinch fielder. And I think he should start more as the roster stands (uh, like behind Gonzales).
Thing is, Doyle is a type the Pirates are very unlikely to develop or sign as free agents, and perhaps with the expanded playoffs this player type is going to be more valuable.
Ben mentioned it, but it is still shocking how underwhelming the top trade value players from last season has been.
Among the top 5 pitchers last year (Strider, McClanahan, Webb, Alcantara, Pérez), Webb is the only player who threw more than 10 innings in 2024.
Among the top 5 hitters (Acuña Jr., Franco, Julio, Carroll, and Rutschman), Rutschman is the only one who has not been significantly disappointing.
Couple of notes:
Ranger Suárez is 10th in far, 10th in ra9-war, 7th in ERA-, 10th in FIP-, 11th in WPA. How is that closer to “great number two” than “world-beating ace?”
Would Albies have been left off the list without the injury? He is having a down year, but he is still 27 coming off of his career high wRC+ 124 last season.
For Suarez, guessing it’s the relatively low K rate and recent slump? With his lack of ace track record, maybe it’s easier to feel like it’s been a mirage to some extent. It definitely feels less overpowering when you’re not striking out guys left and right.
(I’m a Phillies fan and I definitely don’t trust it, though I agree he’s been pretty clearly somewhere around the 10th best starter so far)
Dude had a 1.36 ERA in 2021, and a career 3.30 ERA.
I’m only using ERA to describe what happened as shorthand. His FIP is 3.56 but no one is ever going to convince me that he doesn’t have contact suppression skills that aren’t being captured if he was able to do that pitching for Philly, in front of 5 DH/bad 1B/bad corner OF types.
I’d guess that it has to do with being in his 7th season and never pitching enough innings to qualify, though the 155 IP in 2022 were close. Still, he doesn’t bring the volume of an ace.
Philly’s defensive problems are overrated. They’re bad, but not so bad that you should give huge boosts to the pitcher. And they’re actually not even bad this year.
He was a reliever for half his career. He’s only been a starter for 3 full seasons now (counting this one).
Since he became a starter, he was an ace (in tiny sample), a #2, a #3, and then back to an ace.
His career 83 FIP- as a starter would be close to 20th most years among qualified pitchers.
I’m okay with calling that type of pitcher an ace or an elite #2. I don’t think either is a bad label.
I’m definitely not saying he’s been bad. I like him a lot (I’m a Phillies fan!). I’m just pretty sure that his track record is a pretty fair factor for Ben’s take. Maybe not an optimistic one, but fair.
Good point about the relieving. Once he moved to SP late in 2021, he’s been a SP, but prior to that the innings totals aren’t relevant other than the ramp up time needed to go from RP to SP.
But he started his career as a SP with elite results, it’s nuts to say anything else. You can say it was a small sample size and you’d be correct, but it was the starts he was given in 2021. And Suarez was considerably worse as a RP, tack on a full run to that ERA vs. his time starting, so it didn’t inflate his stats. And still to the point, he has never shouldered an ace workload, and we don’t know if he can, which is one of the factors teams will consider when shopping for an ace, or determining if a guy is an ace vs. a 2 or high-end 3.
I disagree on the Phillies D. I was referring to the pre-Stott/Turner/Bohm era, which though Bohm has varied opinions, is a real infield D. That era was punctuated with Hoskins/Casty/Schwarber/McCutchen starting at the same time that Harper was team that only had Realmuto and Segura as credible defenders. And it was before the NL had the DH. I am definitely not overestimating how bad their D was, or the affect to pitchers (see Nola and the two-years in a row of historically bad bullepens, from top to bottom for examples).
This year they aren’t even in the same universe defensively as that team. Regardless, I said no one is ever going to convince me, so the “overrated, trust me bro” defense isn’t going to be compelling to me. I can’t imagine anything will be, but certainly not hand-waving it away like that. Not that you were intending to convince me, but if you were, don’t bother to try 🙂
Regarding Suarez:
He obviously pitched like an ace in 2021. It was just way too small a sample for future considerations
Regarding the defense:
Since 2021, the Phillies are 24th in OAA (big chunk of that is this year, but even 21-23, they’re 27th and clearly ahead of the truly worst teams). UZR has also been similar to that.
They never had McCutchen with Schwarber and Castellanos. Former left after 21. Latter joined after 21.
2021: The team was also pretty bad with Didi playing short, but the corner outfielders were Harper and Cutch. JT was great that year and Odubel was pretty good. Torreyes was a mainstay and was fine. The team was way closer to bad than worst in the league.
2022: The Phillies were at their worst, with Schwarber and Casty both playing the majority of the corner OF minutes with Harper getting hurt and Stott playing out of position. That was the only full season that was as bad as what you’re talking about, and the season where the “all DHs” memes come from.
2023: Defense was overall fine because of bringing up Rojas, Bohm having a good year when at 3B, and Stott being great. Castellanos also surprisingly not that terrible. Team was bad to start the year, but quite good in the second half when Schwarber got less time. Overall below average for the year but not that bad.
2024: defense is actually pretty good.
To sum up, since Suarez became a starter, they were bad for a year, horrible for a year and a half, and then above average for the past year. The total is bad, not dreadful, which the above OAA and UZR says
(I’ll admit that DRS was always lower on their defense, but DRS is often too extreme anyway imo)
Cal Raleigh is frustrating as hell, but a top defensive catcher workhorse with 20 HR’s at the break, and 3 years of team control? Reportedly, he’s very good working with the Mariners pitchers as well. (2nd in AL catcher WAR at the break?)
I’m pretty sure there will be about 20 players on the top 50 that I wouldn’t want Cal to be traded for.
(Julio, on the other hand, has had so many months of nearly zero offensive contribution. As good as he is defensively, his HOF sunny future star has dimmed quite a bit.)
Think that’s just his position more than anything, catchers have weird aging curves. His offensive profile is also completely dependent on balls going over the fence
Hard to imagine 50 players having more value than Jarren Duran
currently has 4.2 WAR, 131 wRC+, 15 DRS, 5.7 BsR. Will likely finish year w over 5.5 WAR
Even last year, he put up 120 wRC+ and was on pace for over 4 WAR.
has 4.5 years of control. Making league minimum
i would argue he’s closer to top 20 than outside the top 50.
I more or less agree that Crochet is an HM but I would love to have a whole article on your conversations with teams about him. I am very curious to hear how teams are handling this unusual set of factors (reliever conversion, major injury risk, no track record anything like this before this year, few innings pitched in career, might need to get shut down soon, but dominating performance and cheap).
I’m totally biased but the White Sox are in such a sad state, they can’t really afford to just give him away right now. They need to make it count. If they can get more long-term value by managing the rest of his season healthy: shutting him down at 160 innings perhaps, that removes some doubts about durability and may make him more appealing in the off-season. Two years of cheap, solid starting pitching might sound a lot better at that point.
Also, they need to be willing to walk away from weak offers and just hold. You can’t negotiate a good deal if you are desperate. And why should the Sox be desperate or rushed? They aren’t going to compete for the division next year.
Sox fans are all acting like we need to trade Crochet to get back on track, but it’s hard to see how we get enough right now to make enough of a meaningful difference.
Senga’s ability to get to 400 innings has to be under 15% at this point. He has to get 234 more innings to get there. He has 10 or 11 starts left this year and you figure he’s going to be eased back into things. Let’s give him 11 but say he only averages 5.3 IP (he was at 5.7 last year)
That means he needs 175 innings next season. He has exceeded that number…one time in his career. And the acquiring team would be in control of this to some degree. The Mets try to only pitch him every 6 days like his routine in Japan. You can pull him after 5 instead of 6 or 6 instead of 7 if you’re really worried about, etc. And, realistically, the Mets (or your team, if you traded him) are probably only giving him 9 or 10 more starts this year.
I wouldnt be bothered about the contract stipulation. I would just put him in the same category of Imanaga where it’s a deal but there’s risk because the league hasnt had enough time to adjust and there’s injury concerns (although, isnt this the case for every pitcher?)
This is my favorite FG feature – look forward to it every year. Paul Skenes is #1
I would nearly guarantee that Skenes is not #1, for no other reason other than he’s a pitcher and pitchers get hurt
Well, #3 ain’t bad after 12 games in the majors. Paul.Skenes.will. be.the.best.pitcher.in.baseball.history. Period.
Looking forward to the remaining rankings. I feel the Cardinals need FAR more than any of these dudes. Full disclosure: I am an unabashedly one-team fan. Love to hear how the Cardinals rankings compare (I promise not to tell the other teams:-)
Late to comment but I love the rationales even if I disagree with a lot of the HMs. Mason Miller for one, we know is going to move for a solid return… so 35-ish?
I have a few points I would like to make about your list Ben. As it is YOUR list obviously it is based on your opinions & prejudices however informed they are. I would like to state my few probable disagreements to your list so far.(I say probable because list 10-1 hasn’t been released yet so there is a remote possibility that 1 or more of these players are on it.)
I am an Astros fan who loves baseball period, & watches 162+ Astros games as well as all nationally televised games, also a regular visitor to Baseball Refrence, Fangraphs, ESPN, & MLB.com. So I feel fairly informed though certainly not as well as you Ben, since you have access to actual front offices, executives, players, etc. As an Astros fan my focus here is obviously a few Astros players.
I am fairly certain Yordan Alvarez will be on your top 10 list tomorrow, as he has at least a claim to the best hitter in baseball title, is only 27 years old, as clutch in the post season as players get, & is under contract for another 4.5 years that averages out at this moment to roughly 22.3 million per year. Compared to say A. Judge who also has a strong argument as the best hitter in MLB, but is 33 years old, so far has semi-choked during play-off games, & while under contract for another 7.5 years he will be 39 years old during his last season & makes 40 million per year. And A. Judge rightfully imo made the top 20 on your list so I feel sure Y. Alvarez will make the top 10.
I personally think H. Brown should probably have made the top 50 since G. Rodriguez did, & Browns stuff is as filthy as anyones this side of P. Skenes, but I understand the tough start to this year he had as well as the horrible end to last year. But I think most people know last year he clearly fatigued during the 2nd half as he passed previous career highs of innings pitched which was 126 in 2022. His first 13 GS in ’23 he had a 6-3 record with a 3.35ERA, but had a 5-8 record with a 6.96ERA over his last 13GS. He was also clearly off for his first 6 starts this season but started finding the strike zone more after that & added a sinker starting on May 5th, since then he’s been one of the best SP in MLB over those 15 games with a 9-2 record & 2.47ERA. Also cant discount his post season experience already having pitched in a WS, & yes in a limited sample size has pitched very well in the playoffs, which small sample size is much better than no playoff experience or putting up bad #’s in them. But he at least made your HM list.
The player I DONT think will make your list (as I can’t see you having him in the top 10), but I think should make the list compared to some players that play the same position & made your list is, Yainer Diaz. Compared to 4 other young Catchers that made your list it seems clear he should have made it, perhaps even as the highest valued of them, but at least amongst them or just behind.
Here is some info & stats for all of them. (All stats are Baseball Refrence stats as this is a Fangraph site/comment & everyone can clearly look at the players FG’s stats.) OPS+ is since they all became full time players & Catchers in 2023. Rfield is the number of runs the player was above or below average in the field & to make things roughly equal all Rfield stats listed are per 600 Plate appearances(I know some will DH a little more than others, but they are all fulltime Catchers so it will be fairly close using 600 PA’s.) WAR will be per 600 PA’s from 2023-2024 as well. The ages I list & years remaining under contract will all be as of the start of 2025.
W. Contreras:
Age= 27, control= 3 years, OPS+= 121, Rfield= -2, WAR= 3.6
P. Bailey:
Age= 26, control= 5 years, OPS+= 96, Rfield= +6, WAR= 3.1
G. Moreno:
Age= 25, control= 4 years, OPS+= 104, Rfield= +24, WAR= 5.4
F. Alvarez:
Age= 23, control= 4 years, OPS+= 105, Rfield= -6, WAR= 2.0
Y. Diaz:
Age= 26, control= 4 years, OPS+= 116, Rfield= +4, WAR= 3.5
Seems like Y. Diaz matches up favorably with his age, control, & stats with all 4, so unless he is in your top 10 it seems a glaring oversight to not even include him in your HM.