In 2022, Martín Pérez was absolutely on fire. He put up a sterling four-win season, made the American League All-Star team, and established a new career-high strikeout rate. The Rangers gave him a qualifying offer to keep him in the fold, and he accepted it. All the while, I steadfastly refused to write about him, because c’mon, really, could this be real? Surely the other shoe was going to drop, right?

It largely did. Last season saw Pérez banished to the bullpen and then used sparingly as a lefty specialist in the playoffs, where he struck out two, walked three, and gave up five runs in three outings. He signed with the Pirates after the year, and his role seemed clear: soak up innings until their exciting young pitchers were ready, and potentially continue to work with those guys in a six-man rotation thereafter. The Pirates needed bulk pitching at a reasonable rate, and he gave it to them, delivering 16 starts, 83 innings, and 0.3 wins above replacement.

Now it’s time to write about Pérez, though. Why? The Pirates didn’t have a ton of space for him given the excellence they’re getting from the rest of their rotation, so they put him on the trade block, and the most natural thing in baseball happened: AJ Preller came calling. That’s right, the Pirates traded Pérez to San Diego in exchange for Ronaldys Jimenez. The Pirates are also covering some of his salary – a sentence I’ve never actually typed before, so they’ve got that going for them. Read the rest of this entry »

The Cleveland Guardians continued their busy deadline period Tuesday afternoon with the acquisition of veteran right-hander Alex Cobb. Pitching prospect Jacob Bresnahan and a player to be named later are heading west to San Francisco in return.

The Guardians, having already traded for Lane Thomas the night before, picked up a veteran rental to bolster a rotation that, in the absence of Shane Bieber, would’ve undermined the entire enterprise once Cleveland hit the playoffs. Read the rest of this entry »

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 hung up on what number a player is, because who they’re grouped with is a more important indicator. There are three distinct tiers in today’s group of 10 players, and I think they have clearly different valuations; I’d prefer everyone in a given tier over everyone below it, but I’m far less certain within each group. 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 final batch of players. Read the rest of this entry »

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 11 and 10, 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. Read the rest of this entry »

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. Read the rest of this entry »

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.

One note on the rankings: Particularly at the bottom of the list, there isn’t a lot of room between the players. The ordinal rankings clearly matter, and we put them there for a reason, but there isn’t much of a gap between, say, the 38th-ranked player and the 60th. The magnitude of the differences in this part of the list is quite small. Several of the folks I talked to might prefer a player in the honorable mentions section to one on the back end of the list, or vice versa. I think the broad strokes are correct, and this is my opinion of the best order, but with so many players carrying roughly equivalent value, disagreements abounded. 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 also 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. Read the rest of this entry »

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.

One note on the rankings: Particularly at the bottom of the list, there isn’t a lot of room between the players. The ordinal rankings clearly matter, and we put them there for a reason, but there isn’t much of a gap between, say, the 38th-ranked player and the 60th. The magnitude of the differences in this part of the list is quite small. Several of the folks I talked to might prefer a player in the honorable mentions section to one on the back end of the list, or vice versa. I think the broad strokes are correct, and this is my opinion of the best order, but with so many players carrying roughly equivalent value, disagreements abounded. 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 also indicate tier breaks between players where appropriate, both in their capsules and in the table at the end of the piece.

With that out of the way, let’s get to the first batch of players. Read the rest of this entry »

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. Read the rest of this entry »