As is the annual tradition at FanGraphs, we’re using a week around the All-Star Game — when the industry pauses to take a metaphorical breather — to take stock of the top-50 trade chips in the sport. For more context on exactly what we’re trying to do here, see the Honorable Mentions post linked at the top of the page.

For this post and the three to follow, I’ll present a graphic (by way of the wizard Sean Dolinar) breaking down each player’s objective skill level (represented, in this case, by a five-year WAR projection from ZiPS), contract/team-control details, rank in last year’s series, and then year-by-year details of age, WAR, and contract through the end of 2023, although a couple players have control beyond those five years, and some, you’ll notice, show projections for fewer years to reflect when those players reach free agency. For those readers who are partial to spreadsheets rather than blocks of text, I’ll also include all of the players we’ve ranked so far in grid format at the bottom of the post.

It should be noted that the ZiPS WAR forecasts influenced the rankings a bit. For players who were bunched together, it acted as an impartial tiebreaker of sorts, but the industry opinions I solicited drove the rankings.

With that said, let’s get to the next 10 spots on this year’s Trade Value list.

I get the impression that the average baseball fan might not realize that Max Kepler is good now, and may only have a vague awareness of him as the prospect from Germany who ended up being more than just a generic baseball player who hails from a country off baseball’s beaten path. Now that we have a bigger sample of UZR and StatCast defensive metrics, we know that Kepler is a well above average defender. He’s 11th in outs above average among all outfielders this year and his UZR in the last season and a half is +21.4 runs, making him tops amongst major league outfielders in that span. The tidbit everyone repeated when Kepler initially signed out of Germany at age 16 was that both of his parents were ballet dancers; to be the top outfield defender in baseball at 6-foot-4 and 205 pounds suggests Kepler may be light on his feet as well. He’s having an offensive breakout in his age-26 season while also running a .258 BABIP, and he also signed a pretty team-friendly extension before the season. Read the rest of this entry »

As you might have already heard, RosterResource will be transitioning its baseball content to FanGraphs over the next few months. Effective today, the 30 depth charts can be found here.

Our first version is close to an exact replica of RosterResource, with a few important improvements. The load time is much faster, and player names link to the corresponding FanGraphs player page. In addition, the minor league power rankings, plate appearances, and innings will be updated daily as opposed to weekly.

In case you’re unfamiliar with RosterResource, here’s the lowdown. I created the site just over 10 years ago. It was initially called MLBDepthCharts but was renamed RosterResource a few years later. The idea was that the site would be an easy-to-read, visual interpretation of a team’s 25-man roster and organizational depth throughout the entire year. It has evolved over time, but at a pace that was never fast enough for me. With the move to FanGraphs, you should expect to see a cross-pollination of data and features from both FanGraphs and RosterResource in the hopes of bringing you a more useful product. Read the rest of this entry »

In January 2017, a publicist from SCP Auctions contacted me with an invitation to interview Jim Bouton, the pitcher-turned-author whose candid, irreverent, and poignant “tell-some” account of his 1969 season, Ball Four, became not just a best seller but a game-changer in the coverage of athletes, and a cultural touchstone that resonated far beyond the diamond. I jumped at the chance; not only had I first read a dog-eared copy of Ball Four at age nine, I had returned to the book countless times over the years, connecting to its outsider point-of-view and drawing the inspiration to write myself while crossing paths with Bouton a few times from 2000-08. Our conversations had always been a delight.

SCP was auctioning the Ball Four original manuscript and ancillary materials, “every note Bouton scribbled, every tape he recorded, the full manuscript and all the heated correspondence from Major League Baseball, which ordered him to deny it,” wrote the New York Times’ Typer Kepner. Also included was the edited manuscript “detailing the publisher’s attempt to gut the book of every tough, revealing, or sexual passage,” a letter from the publisher’s lawyer “identifying 42 instances of potential libel, and Bouton’s final edits that addressed only 4 of them,” correspondence related to Bouton’s always-contentious contract negotiations from his playing days, and “exquisitely maintained scrapbooks” kept by Bouton’s mother, detailing every stage of his career, including his 1978 comeback. The Ball Four lot, whose auction was scheduled to end on January 21, was expected to fetch “somewhere in the $300,000-to-$500,000 range” and already had attracted multiple bidders, according to the managing director of SCP Auctions.

The stars did not quite align. Initial hopes of conducting our interview face-to-face at MLB Network headquarters in Secaucus, New Jersey, in connection with separately scheduled appearances on MLB Now, were dashed when the 77-year-old Bouton decided to pass on a trip from his home in the Berkshires to the studio. Instead, we did the interview by phone on Friday, January 13, eight days before the auction closed. What I did not know until calling was that Bouton was ailing. As his second wife, Dr. Paula Kurman, explained before our interview, he had not fully recovered from a 2012 stroke and had difficulty speaking (as well as reading and writing). Hence, she would assist with the interview.

Read the rest of this entry »

We all know factors beyond talent — be it contract length or value, a team’s competitive window, or a player’s social fit within the org, among others — have an impact on how trades balance and are agreed upon. Just being mindful that these factors exist, and that we’re not always privy to them, can help us to square what we perceive to be a context-free gap in the talents exchanged. But can we bridge what is, based on our evaluations, a sizable gap in this weekend’s Rangers and Rays prospect-for-prospect trade?

Rangers get:

2B Nick Solak, 50 FV, No. 93 overall prospect

Rays get:

RHP Peter Fairbanks, 40 FV

This deal looks very good for Texas in a vacuum based on our evaluations. Kiley and I both think Solak, who is a career .290/.382/.453 hitter in the minors and has raked since his freshman year at Louisville, is going to be an average everyday second baseman, while Fairbanks is a 25-year-old reliever who has had two Tommy John surgeries, a demographic we rarely rank at all. Read the rest of this entry »

I spent the July 4th weekend in Cape Cod this year, which is far from the worst place to be for that holiday. Beyond the pleasant weather and plentiful beaches there was, of course, lots of baseball being played in the prestigious Cape Code League. Below are some of my observations of a few of the college players I saw.

Harwich Mariners
Daniel Cabrera, OF, LSU

Cabrera opened a lot of eyes as a freshman in Baton Rouge, hitting .315/.405/.525 with 36 strikeouts against 34 walks in 63 games. He followed up with a sophomore campaign that saw him hit 12 home runs but also decrease his walks (24) and increase his strikeouts (54) in 59 games. He steps into this 2019 Cape Cod League campaign ranked 21st on THE BOARD for the 2020 draft.

Cabrera has a smooth and polished left-handed swing with a good path to the ball. He gets into his back hip well and transfers weight quickly, and has a handsy, athletic-looking swing. In my look, he showed solid average bat speed and an aggressive, pull-oriented approach geared for power. Cabrera’s aggressiveness was a negative in this look – he expanded the zone on several occasions against pitchers with below average fastballs – enough so that I think there’s a chance it holds him back from reaching his peak potential hit tool. A swing like Cabrera’s could project as one of an above average hitter, but I think he settles more in the 45-grade hit range with a propensity to swing and miss. However, the power should play at least average and I would be comfortable projecting more. It is likely more 55-grade power than anything above it, but the ball jumps off his bat and his hands’ quickness should allow him to jump on hittable pitches and drive them more often than not. Read the rest of this entry »

The two of us recorded a podcast during which we combed through our Futures Game notes. This announced update to THE BOARD is that discussion made real on the site. All of the guys with new FVs are noted below, along with brief notes on why their FVs changed. If a player moved within their FV tier, there is a stock up or stock down arrow on THE BOARD. The updates noted here don’t include players who have been added to our rankings and went from 35 FV to 35+ FV, since that happens pretty often. We’re also fully updated to reflect recent trades. Lastly, if you’d like to see who is set to graduate from the list next, check the right sidebar on the FG Prospects homepage. And remember to follow @FG_prospects on Twitter for live BOARD updates.

Moved Up

Jo Adell, CF, Angels and Bo Bichette, INF, Toronto Blue Jays (60 FV to 65 FV):
Both move up due to increased confidence that they’ll be stars, with the ZiPS updates Kiley received for the Trade Value Series also helping. Adell seems fully recovered from a scary ankle and hamstring injury suffered during spring training, and he’s hitting .376/.442/.673 as a 20-year-old at Double-A. Bichette has a 116 wRC+ as a 21-year-old at Triple-A and Toronto seems inclined to leave him at shortstop.

Yordan Alvarez, DH, Astros (50 FV to 55 FV):
Alvarez is generating huge power with ease and comfort. Houston’s handling of his playing time while the team was in Colorado is an indication that he’ll offer no defensive value while his skillset is that of an older player, but his offensive tools are a cut above some of this year’s more productive DHs.

Drew Waters, CF, Braves (50 FV to 55 FV):
Waters continues to rake as a young-for-the-league, up-the-middle prospect, and while the .459 BABIP isn’t sustainable, scouts are split on him vs. Cristian Pache long-term, so they’re a little closer on our list now.

Nate Pearson, RHP, Blue Jays (50 FV to 55 FV):
Pearson belongs in the same FV tier as Sixto Sanchez as they each have monster stuff, questionable builds, and no track record of pitching for a full season. Read the rest of this entry »

The Boston Red Sox and the Baltimore Orioles completed a trade over the weekend, with Baltimore sending pitcher Andrew Cashner to Boston in return for center fielder Elio Prado and third baseman Noelberth Romero.

At 28-65, the Orioles appear likely to be eliminated from the playoff race sometime in August. Andrew Cashner is a free agent at the end of the season, and even if Baltimore had a less implausible shot at the playoffs, it makes a lot of sense to get something in return for the right-hander while the getting is good. In this case, the getting is two very deep dives into the Red Sox organization. Prado and Romero are both 17 year-olds out of Venezuela. Neither player is anywhere near the top of the prospect radar at this point. To grab a couple of lottery picks, the Orioles agreed to pay half of Cashner’s salary to the Red Sox, a figure just a bit under $2 million. If either prospect works out, it won’t be a new experience for Cashner, who has been swapped for Anthony Rizzo and Luis Castillo in previous trades.

Cashner has had a decent season on paper, but the Orioles’ return suggests that there is a good deal of skepticism surrounding his 3.83 ERA and 4.25 FIP. The bump in Cashner’s peripherals in 2019 is at least enough for ZiPS to think of him as a one-win player. That’s par for the course for a fifth starter, and it just so happens that’s exactly what the Red Sox were in the market for. It isn’t something that will show up well in playoff projections, but remember that teams can no longer pick up major league-caliber fourth and fifth starter types in August, which means that teams ought to take more care to prepare for emergencies now. And pitchers famously have lots of emergencies. Brian Johnson is currently out due to an intestinal issue, and given that he’s been out for weeks, it seems to be something a good bit more serious than overindulging in spicy chili. He has thrown a couple of bullpens, but his trip to the IL creates some uncertainty, which isn’t a good state of being for a contending team. And Cashner is likely a safer below-average pitcher than Hector Velazquez. Read the rest of this entry »

12:02

Dan Szymborski: Release the Chaten!

12:03

Dan Szymborski: Intrigued by it, but haven’t dipped my toes in yet. HS has been fun!

12:03

Dan Szymborski: You should see a WAR update in the trade value series. I may do something more substantial before the offseason.

Read the rest of this entry »