The first sure-fire sign of any good, impending mid-season selling frenzy is upper-management coming out and insisting to the public, “Who, us? No, no way. We’re definitely not selling. Which, that’s fine. Makes sense. Job of upper-management is to make money, and letting all the fans know a month in advance that the team is throwing in the weol of the now for a towel of the future isn’t a great way to keep fannies in the seats, even while the team’s still intact. Despite those claims, though, word always gets out, and the second sure-fire sign of any good, impending mid-season selling frenzy is the resignation that, “Yeah, OK, you caught us; we’re probably sellers.” The third sign is the sale itself.

The New York Yankees have exhibited the first two symptoms of fire-sale fever. After dropping the first series out of the All-Star break to the Boston Red Sox, the Yankees are now 45-46, fourth place in the American League East, and owners of a 6.1% chance to make the postseason, according to our playoff odds. The last three days have represented the club’s lowest points of the season.

And, given the unique construction of the Yankees’ roster, the club seems poised for a rare sell-off, one that, if executed to the fullest extent, could have the second-half version of the team appearing unrecognizable to the first. It seems likely that very few players of the next good Yankees team currently exist on this one. The Yankees are going to make some moves. The question is: how many? Let’s take the lever and push it all the way up. Just for fun, let’s imagine what a complete Yankees teardown looks like.

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With Tyler Thornburg traded to Boston today, we’re re-featuring this post, since it is now relevant again.

We are now officially two weeks away from MLB’s non-waiver trade deadline, and one thing is clear: over the next 14 days, you’re going to see a lot of relievers on the move. The teams that are definitely selling don’t have many starting pitchers to move, and the crop of walk-year hitters isn’t so great either, but what these non-contenders do have an excess of are relief pitchers.

Aroldis Chapman and Andrew Miller from the Yankees. Alex Colome and Xavier Cedeno from the Rays. Tyler Clippard and Daniel Hudson from the Diamondbacks. Ryan Madson and John Axford from the A’s. Jeanmar Gomez from the Phillies and Joe Smith from the Angels will probably be on the move, and that isn’t even counting guys like Mark Melancon or Steve Cishek who could get moved if things go south for their teams over the next couple of weeks. With nearly every contender looking at bolstering their bullpen, there’s enough demand to clear the supply of available relievers, but we’re definitely not looking at a shortage at the position like there are at other spots this year.

But yet, if I was hunting for a relief pitcher over the next two weeks, my first call would be to the Milwaukee Brewers. They’ve been baseball’s most aggressive team in remaking their roster since David Stearns took over last year, and you know that front office is looking for any opportunity they can to add long-term value, knowing their chances at contention over the next few years are slim at best.

Jeremy Jeffress, the team’s closer, is already generating plenty of trade chatter, as you’d expect from a closer with 23 saves, a 2.35 ERA, and a 96 mph fastball, but he’s not the guy I’d be after. Will Smith would have been a really interesting name if he hadn’t blown out his knee in Spring Training, and while he’s recovered enough to get back on the mound, he doesn’t really look like his old self right now; missing velocity and strikeout rates lead me to guess that the Brewers hold onto Smith and hope he rebuilds some value as he gets further away from the injury, then look to move him over the winter or next summer.

No, the guy I’d want is Tyler Thornburg.

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Luis Valbuena has a 157 wRC+ since the beginning of June playing third base for the Houston Astros. Super-prospect Alex Bregman is beating down the door with his performance at Triple-A. Perfect fits be damned. Try and tell a contending club it’s got too many good players. They’ll find some room.

MLB.com’s Jesse Sanchez just broke some news:

Source: INF Yulieski Gurriel agrees to 5-year, $47.5 million deal with #Astros #Cuba More on https://t.co/mkcBseoZWQ pic.twitter.com/6uj12AgGGL

— Jesse Sanchez (@JesseSanchezMLB) July 15, 2016

Let’s get brought up to speed. Gurriel (previously spelled Gourriel) is 32, and he’s been considered Cuba’s best baseball player for about a decade. He’s primarily played third base, and also kicked around at shortstop and, more recently, second base. In 15 years between Cuba and Japan, Gurriel hit .335/.417/.580 with 250 homers and 121 steals. In early February, Yulieski and his younger brother Lourdes Jr., 22, defected from the island. In June, Yulieski was declared a free agent, able to sign with any club free of international spending limits. He’d been linked to the Dodgers, of course. The Mets had shown some interest. The Angels seemed to make some sense. Now, he’s an Astro.

BaseballAmerica’s Ben Badler worked up a scouting report on Gurriel last April in which he called him a plus defender at third with quick reactions, athleticism, a 70-grade arm, and the occasional mental lapse. He’s a complete hitter who bats from the right side, able to hit for average and draw a walk, and scouts see good bat speed that should translate to plus power in the majors. At the time, Badler drew comps to Hanley Ramirez and David Wright, which don’t sound so great anymore, but remember this was before the beginning of the 2015 season; Ramirez was coming off a 135 wRC+ at third base with the Dodgers, Wright was still Wright. Brian Cartwright does good work translating international player’s stat lines to MLB equivalents, and he projected Gurriel for a .283/.330/.458 line back in February, good for a .340 wOBA. There’s no expectation that Gurriel won’t hit.

Five years for a 32-year-old is perhaps a bit scary, and it’s a little more than what Dave Cameron estimated he might get last month, but Gurriel makes the Astros better now. Or, more accurately, in three weeks or so, which is when FOXSports’ Ken Rosenthal reports he’ll be ready to join the club. The Astros plan to keep Gurriel at third base, which creates an interesting positional logjam in Houston.

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Know this — Dave Dombrowski likes to make trades. He was first named a general manager back on July 5, 1988, assuming the title of “youngest GM in the game” back before it was cool with the Montreal Expos. He made his first trade on July 13. His aggressive nature was sometimes just off center stage, as the teams he had previously helmed — the Expos, Marlins and Tigers — have rarely been media darlings. But now he is running the Red Sox, and they get plenty of coverage. While that level of coverage might not be fair or warranted, his deals are being scrutinized hard these days. Is he gutting the farm system? Or does Dombrowski know how to pick ’em? I thought I’d take an objective stab at his trade record.
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And now here we are. After ticking through 40 of the most valuable players in baseball, we’ve come to the top 10, and what a remarkable list of players it is. The wave of young talent that has poured into baseball makes this group the best crop of talent I think I’ve ever seen in doing this exercise, and for the first time in a long time, there was actually a real question about who would rank #1. The top four, in fact, shifted around numerous times, and I didn’t settle on their final order until yesterday. And even at #5 and #6, you could make a legitimate argument that they belong in the conversation. This is a deep, strong, elite group of young players. With these kinds of stars already dominating at an early age, baseball looks to be in very good hands for the foreseeable future.

As a reminder for those who didn’t read the first four parts of the series, we’ve significantly upgraded the way we’re presenting the information this year. On the individual player tables, the Guaranteed Dollars and Team Control WAR — which are provided by Dan Szymborski’s ZIPS projections — rows give you an idea of what kind of production and costs a team could expect going forward, though to be clear, we’re not counting the rest of 2016 in those numbers; they’re just included for reference of what a player’s future status looks like. And as a reminder, we’re not ranking players based on those projections, as teams aren’t going to just make trades based on the ZIPS forecasts. That said, they’re a useful tool to provide some context about what a player might do for the next few years.

With those items covered, let’s get to it. Here is my take on the 10 most valuable assets in baseball.

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The Padres continue to capitalize on the short-term success of their big leaguers by parlaying what might just be small-sample mirages into good prospects. For those of you missed my report on RHP Chris Paddack, who San Diego got from Miami in exchange for Fernando Rodney, that write up is here. The Padres arm du jour is Anderson Espinoza, one of baseball most electric young arms and, in my opinion, a great return for the likes of Drew Pomeranz. Read the rest of this entry »

The All-Star break is often just that — a much-needed break, for players and executives alike. You might’ve heard this before, but the regular season is something of a grind. Yet the break also comes just in advance of the trade deadline, so one can never get too comfortable. And as trades go, today there’s been a big one: Drew Pomeranz is going from the Padres to the Red Sox, and Anderson Espinoza is reportedly going from the Red Sox to the Padres.

Let’s get this out of the way now: The A’s look really silly. They looked silly even before this — Pomeranz was an All-Star! — but Espinoza is a major return, and quite preferable to Yonder Alonso and Marc Rzepczynski. This is a move I’m sure Oakland regrets. There’s another move I’m sure they regret more.

The Oakland part of this is funny. But the Boston and San Diego parts are also interesting, and obviously more relevant. For the Padres, this moves the rebuild forward, getting another boost from the Red Sox farm system. Perhaps the team learned a lesson from last summer’s inactivity. And for the Red Sox, they’ve now picked up one of the only quality starters known to be out there. Pomeranz’s sudden breakout appears to be legitimate. In question is how much he has left in the tank.

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And now we’re really getting into the best players in the game. This group is made up of some of the elite performers in the sport, and the quality of short-term value is nearly as high as it is with the top 10. The difference for most of these guys is price and control years; many of them are into their arbitration years and are close enough to free agency that they don’t bring a lot of long-term value. But their short-term impacts are still large enough to put them among the most valuable assets in baseball.

As a reminder for those who haven’t read the first three parts of the series, we’ve significantly upgraded the way we’re presenting the information this year. On the individual player tables, the Guaranteed Dollars and Team Control WAR — which are provided by Dan Szymborski’s ZIPS projections — rows give you an idea of what kind of production and costs a team could expect going forward, though to be clear, we’re not counting the rest of 2016 in those numbers; they’re just included for reference of what a player’s future status looks like. And as a reminder, we’re not ranking players based on those projections, as teams aren’t going to just make trades based on the ZIPS forecasts. That said, they’re a useful tool to provide some context about what a player might do for the next few years.

With those items covered, let’s get to the guys who just missed making the top 10.

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We’re now halfway through this year’s trade value list, and today’s crop is an interesting group, comprised almost entirely of outfielders and pitchers, many of whom have signed long-term deals at bargain prices, relative to the current market rates for players of their abilities. This group skews a little older than the last ten names we discussed, but the oldest player here is still 29; youth is still a near-requirement for making this series.

As a reminder for those who haven’t read the first two parts of the series, we’ve significantly upgraded the way we’re presenting the information this year. On the individual player tables, the Guaranteed Dollars and Team Control WAR — which are provided by Dan Szymborski’s ZIPS projections — rows give you an idea of what kind of production and costs a team could expect going forward, though to be clear, we’re not counting the rest of 2016 in those numbers; they’re just included for reference of what a player’s future status looks like. And as a reminder, we’re not ranking players based on those projections, as teams aren’t going to just make trades based on the ZIPS forecasts.

That said, they’re a useful tool to provide some context about what a player might do for the next few years. And for prospects who haven’t yet been called up, we have to guess when they’ll become arbitration eligible, since we don’t actually know how their organizations will handle the service time issue yet.

With those items covered, let’s get to the middle of the list.

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Over the last few days, we’ve started off the Trade Value series with the introduction, the honorable mentions, and the first 10 names of the series. I strongly encourage you to read all of the linked articles for an explanation of the question we’re trying to answer, and some context for who we’ve already discussed.

As we move to the second group, you’ll note that this tier is heavy on prospects and guys without a substantial big-league track record. These guys are always controversial, as some people value history over potential, but there’s no question teams are becoming more and more protective of their top young minor leaguers, especially the ones who can come up and make an impact on the big-league team. That is mostly what sets this group of prospects apart from the ones who didn’t quite make the cut: these guys have present value, and could mostly play in the big leagues today. The ability to impact a team in the second half of the year, as well as turn into a franchise cornerstone with more development, is what makes them so valuable to major-league clubs.

Also, thanks to Sean Dolinar, we’ve significantly upgraded the way we’re presenting the information here. On the individual player tables, the Guaranteed Dollars and Team Control WAR — which are provided by Dan Szymborski’s ZIPS projections — rows give you an idea of what kind of production and costs a team could expect going forward, though to be clear, we’re not counting the rest of 2016 in those numbers; they’re just included for reference of what a player’s future status looks like. And as a reminder, we’re not ranking players based on those projections, as teams aren’t going to just make trades based on the ZIPS forecasts. That said, they’re a useful tool to provide some context about what a player might do for the next few years.

On to the second part of the series.

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