2024 Trade Value: Nos. 21-30

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

For those of you who have been reading the Trade Value Series the last few seasons, the format should look familiar. For every player, you’ll see a table with the player’s projected five-year WAR from 2025-2029, 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 2029 (assuming the player is under contract or team control for those seasons). Last year’s rank includes a link to the relevant 2023 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.

A note on the rankings: As we ascend towards the top of the list, the tiers matter more and more. There are clear gaps in value. Don’t get too caught up on what number a player is, because who they’re grouped with is a more important indicator. The gap between no. 20 and 19 is next to nothing; between 12 and 11, it’s much steeper. I’ll note places where I disagreed meaningfully with people I spoke with in calibrating this list, and I’ll also note players whose value was the subject of disagreement among my contacts. As I mentioned in the Introduction and Honorable Mentions piece, I’ll indicate tier breaks between players where appropriate, both in their capsules and bolded in the table at the end of the piece.

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

Arguably, Kwan doesn’t belong in this tier, which yesterday I deemed “young hitters at up-the-middle positions.” He’s 26 and plays the corner outfield. I think he’s a broadly similar player, though, and I consider his value roughly in line with those guys, so I stretched my definition a bit. Like many players who ranked similarly, Kwan does a lot of things well. Unlike those players, he has one tool that I feel comfortable calling his best: I think he’s one of the few true-talent .300 hitters in baseball, which means he gets on base at a phenomenal rate.

Like Luis Arraez, Kwan’s bat control is such that you basically can’t throw a pitch by him – he actually has a higher contact rate than Arraez does. Unlike Arraez, who has never seen a pitch he doesn’t want to flare the other way for a single, Kwan is a discerning hitter who will take a walk. He’s hitting for more power this year, and the result is a 156 wRC+, downright phenomenal for someone with below-average raw pop. Oh yeah, he’s probably the best defensive left fielder in the game too.

No one, myself included, thinks that Kwan will keep hitting at this rate. He doesn’t have to, though. ZiPS has him down for three-ish wins a season, and it’s lower on him than pretty much everyone else. The biggest downside here is that he’s been doing it for a few years already, which means he only has three years of team control left after this season. On the flip side, did you hear the part where I said he’s been producing for years already? He’s already up to almost 12 WAR in the majors! Kwan is a plug-and-play option for any lineup, and he’s so good defensively that I can overlook where he stands on the field. Sign me up, please.

Not the Orioles second baseman you expected to see on this list, huh? I guess Jackson Holliday is on here too (albeit further down), but I don’t think many people expected Westburg to be the young standout putting up spectacular major league numbers halfway through the season. Here’s some inside dirt on the making of this list: I ranked Westburg aggressively high so that I could learn what people really thought of him when they told me to move him lower. It didn’t work, though. Everyone just agreed with where I had him and moved on. In that sense, maybe it actually worked very well.

If you put Westburg’s numbers under a microscope, nothing looks particularly weird or unsustainable. He comes up to the plate looking to do damage, putting his solid sense of the strike zone to work proactively. He hits a ton of fly balls and pops homers to all fields. Camden Yards is a terrible home park for him, in fact, thanks to the new left field cutout, but he’s slugging his way through it. Projection systems have seen all they need to; they universally think Westburg is going to continue to be a plus bat going forward.

There were some early questions about his defensive viability, but he looks perfectly acceptable to me. I’d call Westburg an average defender at second and third, and that versatility is nice. That goes a long way towards describing his overall game, really. He can play a few spots defensively, he’s a reasonable bat up and down the lineup, he runs the bases well — every team could use more Westburgs. He’s 25, he won’t be a free agent until after the 2029 season, he’s mashing in the majors right now, and he’s projected to keep doing so. Sounds like a pretty good deal to me.

Robert is the highest-ranked player in this tier, and he’s also one of the players who sparked the most disagreement in this entire exercise. I’ll give you a quick rundown of his bona fides first, then take you through what people disagreed about, broadly speaking. Robert is the kind of guy who can rip off a five-win season and have it feel like there’s more in the tank, like he did just last year. He’s a spectacular center field defender, with great routes, great speed, and a plus throwing arm. He boasts top-shelf power, and it’s not wasted on grounders, either. There have been 176 players who have racked up at least 1,000 batted balls since Robert’s debut; he’s seventh in wOBA on contact out of that group.

Sounds like an MVP candidate, right? Now let’s get to the downsides. Robert’s approach at the plate leaves something to be desired. This is the first year his chase rate has been better than the fifth percentile (95% of hitters chase less frequently, in other words). His newfound patience hasn’t worked, though; he’s striking out a third of the time, the worst mark of his career, because he’s added enough called strikes to offset the decline in whiffs. He’s had trouble staying healthy; since his 2020 debut, he’s 126th in plate appearances. He’s averaging 425 PAs per 162-game season. He has fewer plate appearances than Fernando Tatis Jr. in that stretch, and Tatis missed more than a full season thanks to injury and then a suspension. Robert is Schrödinger’s center fielder: He might be the best player on your team, or he might make very little impact.

His contract is certainly a mark in his favor as far as teams are concerned; he’s set to make $15 million next year, then has two $20 million team options after that. Those are reasonable rates, and Robert is in the prime of his career. That’s solid, but there are center fielders on better deals, and center fielders who play more frequently. If you think he’s worth the kind of return that would put him in this spot on the list, you have to think he’ll be mostly healthy. You can see from the projections that ZiPS isn’t so sure about that.

Now, the takes. Oh boy, the takes. I don’t think a single person liked where I had Robert on the list. Fifteen spots lower! Ten spots higher! He’s too much of an injury risk! You have to take a gamble on talent like this! The exclamation marks weren’t always explicit, but they were always at least implied. No one has a measured take about Robert. They love him or hate him. I feel like such a wimp putting him right around the middle of the list, but despite his spectacular ceiling, I just couldn’t move him any higher than the seven-player tier that started with Gabriel Moreno.

How you feel about the stickiness of catcher framing informs how you’ll feel about Contreras. In 2023, every imaginable system graded him as one of the best receivers in the game. This year, every one agrees he’s below average. If 2023 is the truth, I’m too low on him. If 2024 is right, I’m too high. I’m splitting the difference and leaning towards his 2024 numbers as a tiebreaker, because even last year, I didn’t quite believe he’d become an elite defender overnight.

Now, offense? That he has in spades. Contreras is a bat speed deity. He’s the patron saint of an entire new Statcast measure. Over the past three seasons, he’s posted a 127 wRC+, behind only Adley Rutschman (128) and his brother (136) among catchers. He doesn’t need to be a great defender to be a great player; average will suffice.

He’s here, the lesser-ranked of two catchers in a mini-tier, because he’s only under team control for three more years after this one. That sounds like a ton, but only one player higher on the list has less control remaining, and only two are tied with him. The other 23 are going to be around for longer, which means there’s a high bar to clear here.

Here’s the catcher defense counterpoint. Bailey was the best overall defender in baseball last year. This year, he’s still the best, and he’s lapping the field. He does everything well other than blocking, but I expect that to improve in short order because he’s just so good behind the plate. His pop times beggar belief. He’s a naturally gifted receiver who led baseball by everyone’s version of the metric despite only catching 765.2 innings last year, and he’s comfortably in first again this year. There just aren’t better defenders out there at the moment — period.

I don’t expect that to continue – it would be wild to forecast something so superlative to continue without any regression towards the mean. But even 80% of that level would be overwhelmingly valuable, and you can dream on Bailey’s offense as well. He’s walking more than league average, striking out less, and hitting for credible power this year. His game is probably always going to be OBP over slug, but there’s nothing wrong with that; it’s just somewhat unusual for a catcher. At just 25 years old, he’s not about to careen off of the age cliff, which means he’ll probably produce around this level for a while.

“For a while” also refers to his team control. Bailey didn’t accrue a full year of service time last year, which means he has five more years after this one before reaching free agency. Only my fundamental uncertainty about how best to handle defense-first catchers (see Sean Murphy from 2023 for corroborating evidence) keeps him this low.

I labeled the player tiers I created when I was making this list, and most of them had descriptive names: “playoff-caliber starters with team control,” “top prospects who haven’t broken out yet,” “wait ‘til you see him play shortstop defense,” etc. This tier was just called “Tier Seven: Jackson Chourio.” I tried and failed to find players of roughly comparable value, so I ended up placing him on the list by process of elimination as much as anything else.

Chourio’s potential is off the charts. He’s 20 years old and on pace for a three-win season. He’s hitting major league pitching as well as or better than plenty of more advanced hitting prospects. He’s adding value on the basepaths. He’s getting better as the year goes along. I wouldn’t be shocked if he posted a 20/20 season. He’s a difference maker on defense, too. The Brewers are awash in good defensive center fielders and I understand why Chourio ended up in right, but he’s one of the best defensive corner outfielders in the majors already.

Chourio’s contract is also enticing; it’s in the Goldilocks zone where all the terms are just right. The AAV is low enough that even if he ends up as merely an average regular in the long run, his deal won’t significantly impact a team’s cherished financial flexibility. The two team options (2032 and 2033) are nice kickers if he’s a star, and those will be his age-28 and 29 seasons, so it’s not like they’re unlikely to be exercised because he’ll be in the midst of his decline phase. The extra years relative to the normal arbitration process feel extra valuable because he’s so young – how many players are 27 in the eighth year of their contract? If he’s a superstar, this deal will make Chourio the best bargain in baseball for years to come.

I don’t think he fits with the other 2024 prospect debuts because he’s signed for longer and is doing more in the majors already. But there’s still uncertainty here; it’s a long deal, and he isn’t great yet, just potentially so. Chourio vs. Bailey made me think for a looooooong time. In the end, I decided that Chourio’s combination of high defensive floor and breakout potential, combined with his contract, put him over the top.

Skubal is the only player on this entire list who will hit free agency after the 2026 season. Baseball decision-makers value team control more than ever. They’re not wrong to; as everyone gets better at hunting draft and development inefficiencies, keeping your own success stories in town for a while matters more and more. Guys who are a long way from free agency are also more willing to sign mutually beneficial extensions. None of this is rocket science.

Speaking of rocket science: Skubal breaks this mold because he’s throwing rockets past opposing batters with the regularity of a replicable science project. He’s one of the top two pitchers in baseball right now (the other guy is higher up on this list). In the last calendar year, he’s a WAR clear of the field, and just so we’re clear, this isn’t some FIP creation; he has a 2.35 ERA and 2.33 FIP in that span. He throws five pitches, and they’re all average or better. He has pinpoint command and generates swinging strikes like most people breathe.

Does he carry injury risk? You saw the part up above where I said he’s a pitcher, right? Of course he carries injury risk. Trading for pitchers requires plugging your ears a little bit when models like ZiPS quote you projected WAR. But you don’t get to build your team without pitchers, and there’s real scarcity value to someone who gives you an edge in every game they pitch.

Skubal, and the three players immediately above him, represent my attempt at quantifying that tradeoff. Each of them will likely be very good so long as they’re healthy. Each of them could go up in a puff of smoke at any moment. Good luck building a good team without some guys like that, though. Whether via free agency, short-term rental, drafting and developing, or backing up a truck full of top-tier prospects for years of control, you can’t really get by without them.

Gilbert versus Skubal was a tough debate for me. Every year, when I’m not doing this exercise, I forget how good Gilbert is. He’s outrageously consistent, and at a high level too. He’s never hit the IL. He doesn’t miss turns in the rotation. He’s had two or three bad starts all year. He debuted in May 2021, and he’s three starts shy of the major league lead in starts since then, 30 innings short of the leader. He posts ERAs and ERA estimators in the 3.00s with monotonic regularity. His player page makes me wonder if we’re duplicating lines, but we’re not. He’s just that steady.

He’s pretty clearly not the best pitcher in baseball right now, unlike Skubal. But it’s not like he’s some slouch. He’s 18th in ERA- among all starters to throw 500 innings since his debut – and he’s thrown 630 innings (he’s 17th in FIP-, for you true-outcome truthers). He’s kind of boring (sorry Logan), which makes all of this fly under the radar; not walking anybody isn’t the kind of thing that gets you GIF’ed endlessly. But man, taking the ball every fifth day and putting up a credible effort is not something you can count on in modern baseball.

I wouldn’t fault anyone for switching these two. It’s like splitting luxurious, flowing hairs. I don’t think you can realistically pick between them with confidence. I definitely don’t think that picking between them means much of anything; it’s not like they’re getting swapped for one another, and their overall value is quite close. I solicited feedback on the list with these two flip-flopped more than once, and no one ever corrected me in either direction.

Can we do callbacks between days in Trade Value blurbs? Because my number one consultant, Count von Count, is still on hand, and he has a message for everyone wondering why Kirby is ahead of Skubal and Gilbert: “Four! Four years of team control remaining, ah ha ha!” But there’s more to it than that. Kirby isn’t just an 80-command guy anymore. Pitching models across the board agree with what my eyes are telling me: He’s harnessing his stuff better than ever and growing into a strikeout pitcher by understanding when it’s acceptable to leave the zone.

My biggest hangup with Kirby in previous years was that he cared too much about never walking anyone. He flooded the zone, even in advantageous counts and even without bat-missing stuff, and it occasionally came back to bite him. His zone rate has fallen by 3.4 percentage points this year, and it’s much to his benefit. Now he’s throwing nastier pitches and throwing them less predictably. His swinging strike rate is ticking up in lockstep with his strikeout rate, and his walk rate hasn’t budged because he’s still so dang precise when it matters.

I’m not sure Kirby will ever put together a best-pitcher-in-baseball stretch. The guys who do that are usually striking out 30-40% of opponents when they’re truly locked in. But like Gilbert, Kirby’s consistency boosts his ranking significantly. I’m not worried about him falling off a cliff performance-wise. His game is too stable for that.

The reason Kirby isn’t higher on the list is simple: There aren’t many pitchers higher on the list. If you’re looking for consistency in pitching, call the Mariners. They might laugh at you and hang up the phone, sure, but they have what everyone else wants in that particular category.

Distinguishing between Ragans and Kirby was really difficult. I have them and the Skubal/Gilbert duo in the same tier, but I definitely think there’s a gap between the top two and the bottom two. I think there’s almost nothing separating Ragans and Kirby, though. They’re the same age. They’ll both hit free agency after the 2028 season. In the past calendar year, Ragans has a 3.23 ERA to Kirby’s 3.20, and a 2.75 FIP to Kirby’s 2.74. He’s pitched 122.2 innings; Kirby has pitched 123.2. Results-wise, they’re mirror images.

Ragans gets to his statistics differently, obviously. He’s a strikeout pitcher learning command, rather than the inverse. Our stuff models love almost all of his pitches, and I think they’re probably underestimating him even still. Ragans attacks with everything, throwing five pitches 10% of the time or more. Guys with kitchen-sink pitch mixes are usually using quantity to replace quality; Ragans has both, which means I think there’s room to refine his arsenal even further.

ZiPS hasn’t bought into his rise just yet, but I’m a lot more interested in overriding the model when it comes to pitchers. Ragans is pretty clearly a different guy than he was in Texas, and he’s been extremely consistent for 33 starts now, a chunky sample. I’d buy that his range of outcomes is wider than Kirby, but I don’t think it’s lower, just tail-ier, for lack of a better word. There are more worlds where Ragans is the best pitcher in baseball and more worlds where he’s average or unavailable.

This group of pitchers makes for another nice breakpoint in the list. All four of them are pretty clearly ahead of everyone behind them on the list in my eyes. I didn’t have any of them much higher at any point in this exercise, either. I’ve mentioned that bright dividing lines are rare when you’re lining up trade value, but for me at least, there’s one right here, between the top 20 and the four elite pitchers who are knocking on the door.