Bargain Hunting at the Trade Deadline

With the trade deadline now eight days away, most of the trade speculation has centered around a few big name players. Johnny Cueto, Cole Hamels, Jeff Samardzija, and Scott Kazmir were the primary pitching targets for contenders looking to upgrade their rotation, and David Price might end up in that mix too. The hitting class is a lot weaker, but Justin Upton’s name continues to float out there, and Ben Zobrist is probably available to a team who wants a do-everything guy instead of just a bat. But if you want any of those guys, they aren’t going to come cheap, and there is going to be a lot of competition for their services.

But while I still think this remains a seller’s market — though to a lesser degree than it was a month ago — I do think there are some potential values to be had for teams that are willing to shop in the mid-tier instead. To that end, here are the three players I’d be aggressively targeting this month, given their expected production and my sense of what I think they’ll cost, relative to the big name guys.

Carlos Gomez, OF, Milwaukee
.270/.336/.437, 113 wRC+, +1.9 WAR
Rest of Season Projection: +1.8 WAR

While most of the big names available right now are pitchers, our depth chart forecasts think Carlos Gomez might actually be the most valuable player moved over the next week; in fact, his projected value over the rest of the regular season is higher than all but eight pitchers in baseball, and among the potentially available pitchers, only David Price is in that group. You could make a case that the ability to give a higher proportion of innings to your best pitchers in October puts Cueto and Hamels slightly ahead of him as well, but Gomez is in that tier in terms of overall value.

Only unlike Price and Cueto, he’s not a rental, and unlike Hamels, he’d fit into every single contender’s budget without a problem. At less than $4 million for the rest of this year and just $9 million next year — when he should be projected as a +3 to +4 win player again — Gomez’s contract is highly valuable, especially with the very low risk attached. So the Brewers center fielder is nearly as productive as all of the big name pitchers, yet with a far better contract situation than any of them. And the contract doesn’t add value by giving you a quality outfielder at a cheap price for 2016; the high probability that you can obtain a draft pick by making him a Qualifying Offer next winter offers the chance to mitigate some of the cost that you’ll pay to get him in the first place.

If I was a deadline buyer without a complete outfield in place, I would pay more for Gomez than any other player available, and while I think the Brewers will get a solid return for him, I bet it won’t reflect the entirety of his value. Despite his uptick in power the last few years, he’s still not a classic slugger, and is more of the good-at-everything type that teams have historically underpaid. But while people continue to fawn over one dimensional players like Justin Upton, Gomez pretty clearly helps a team win more games than Upton does. For teams looking for a high quality upgrade for both 2015 and 2016, Gomez is probably the best option on the market.

Hisashi Iwakuma, SP, Seattle
4.89 ERA/5.78 FIP/3.54 xFIP, -0.3 WAR
Rest of Season Projection: +1.0 WAR

2015 has been a pretty miserable year for Iwakuma, as he spent the first couple of months of the year on the DL due to a strained lat muscle, and since returning, he’s given up 10 homers in just 35 innings pitched on his way to a 4.89 ERA/5.78 FIP. With the Mariners essentially out of contention and Iwakuma headed for free agency, he’s one of the few pieces they could probably deal to try and retool for 2016 without the team punting the short-term and having a fire sale. And since he’ll be headed into his age-35 season, and the Mariners already have a lot of money tied up in Felix Hernandez, Robinson Cano, and Nelson Cruz, it isn’t even clear that the team would risk making him a Qualifying Offer this winter, so they have more incentives to make a deal than other teams with free agent pitchers.

And if the Mariners aren’t sure they’re going to make a QO, then Iwakuma may very well cost a lot less than the rest of the pitchers on the market. While he’s not in the top-tier of pitchers available — even though his 27% HR/FB ratio won’t continue, he does have a legitimate dinger problem — he’s likely even better than our forecasts suggest, given the fact that he’s run a .270 BABIP during his 559 innings in the Majors, and looks like a guy who may be able to outperform his FIP on a consistent basis. FIP holds his HR problem against him but doesn’t give him any credit for BABIP suppression, while both ERA and xFIP even those things out, and both think he’s better than FIP suggests.

From a runs allowed perspective, Iwakuma might be expected to be nearly as good as guys like Kazmir and Samardzija, but he’ll certainly cost less to acquire. There’s no question he’s a higher risk option, given his age and recent injury, but a team looking for lower cost upside would have a hard time finding a better option in the pitching market than Iwakuma. I don’t know that I’d want to count on throwing him in the Wild Card game with my season on the line, but for a team that already has an ace — or is likely to win their division — Iwakuma could be a really nice depth option in the middle of their rotation.

Gerardo Parra, OF, Milwaukee
.315/.353/.512, 134 wRC+, +1.1 WAR
Rest of Season Projection: +0.8 WAR

For years, Parra was the kind of player I’ve been been a loud advocate for, the good-enough hitter who plays very good defense, which is a package that adds up to a very solid all-around contributor. This year, though, he’s having an odd season, posting a career-best 134 wRC+ while running a -10 UZR through the first half of the year. Just like we shouldn’t expect him to keep hitting like an All-Star, though, we also shouldn’t believe that he’s turned into a huge liability in the field, and we’re better off looking at the entirety of his track record rather than just the last few months.

And that larger picture suggests that Parra is something like a league average hitter (career 94 wRC+, projected 101 wRC+ rest of season) who should be an average or above average defender in a corner spot, while being able to play center field in a pinch. This makes him a classic tweener, the kind of guy that slips through the cracks because he doesn’t fit into the outdated position-specific roles teams have historically looked for.

Parra comes from the same mold of historically underrated players such as Angel Pagan and Shane Victorino, though the fact that he’s not really an asset on the bases makes him a bit less valuable than those two. Still, the total package makes Parra roughly an average Major League player, which plenty of contenders could use to fill a hole.

And on the off-chance that Parra’s improvement against left-handers this year is real, any acquiring team might get an early look at a guy who could end up being a quality re-sign option after the season. He just turned 28, so he’s young enough to still have some peak years left, and if Parra’s 2015 is more substantial improvement than a hot streak at the plate, picking him up for the stretch run could lead to a chance for a below-market extension before he hits free agency.

He’s not the sexiest of additions, but for a team with a replacement level outfielder in the line-up, Parra could be a very nice role player down the stretch.