The Marlins Haven’t Traded Their Most Valuable Player
With Giancarlo Stanton and Marcell Ozuna having been dealt, the Marlins might as well go all the way and sell everything they can.
Half-measures have no value at this point, in this process. This is an everything-must-go sale. The Marlins are bottoming out with or without Yelich, so they might as well cash in on his considerable value now for younger pieces that could conceivably be part of the next competitive Marlins team. And while the notion of a “competitive Marlins team” seems merely like a hypothetical at the moment, it could become a reality in the wake of a rebuild. That rebuild likely wouldn’t reach its apex until after 2022, though, the club’s last year of control over Yelich.
The Marlins have one of the weakest systems in baseball, and the returns from the Stanton and Ozuna deals are unlikely to elevate the team’s farm into the upper, or even middle, tier of the rankings.
While there are some reports suggesting that Miami intends to keep Yelich, that makes little sense at this point. The Marlins do seem open to fielding offers.
#Marlins prez of bb ops Michael Hill did not rule out moving Yelich on @MLBNetwork: “As we look to build, look at whatever opportunities there are to make things better . . . we need to add depth to our system and put ourselves in position to win on a consistent basis.”
— Ken Rosenthal (@Ken_Rosenthal) December 13, 2017
The club’s new ownership group has been criticized for dumping Stanton’s contract and trading Ozuna while failing to receive a single top-100 prospect in the process. Ozuna and Stanton combined for 96 home runs and 12 WAR last season.
Said agent Scott Boras to a horde of reporters on Wednesday at the Swan and Dolphin Hotel in Orlando:
“You would hope that [with] ownership — new ownership — that MLB would screen the ownership, so that we have an ownership that comes in and provide additions. … [Instead], they come in and they redirect, so you’re not a jewelry store that’s coveting your diamonds. You now become a pawn shop that is trying to pay the rent of the building.”
Some have suggested that what the Marlins are doing is not so much different than what the White Sox did a year ago, just that the optics are worse.
What is different, though, is the trade value of the players who’ve been moved. In the case of Chris Sale specifically, the White Sox possessed an elite pitcher with three years of team control at modest prices. Sale appeared 15th overall on Dave Cameron’s trade-value list in the middle of the 2016 season. By contrast, neither Ozuna or Stanton appeared on Cameron’s most recent list from this past July.
As for Yelich, he’s a different case.
Dave placed Yelich 27th in his trade-value series this past season after ranking him 23rd in 2016. Thanks to his skill, youth, and a club-friendly deal, Yelich is among the most valuable trade chips in the game. He’s a franchise-caliber cornerstone around which many teams would love to build. Yelich has produced 4.5 WAR in each of the last two seasons. He is projected for four wins in 2018.
Yelich is under club control for five more seasons at $58 million. FanGraphs projects him to produce about 21-22 wins during that period. Making some generic assumptions — that the present cost of a win is $9 million, that Yelich will age normally — he might be worth more than $200 million during that span. That’s a pocket full of Bitcoin.
| Year | Age | WAR | $/WAR | Est. Contract |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2018 | 26 | 4.1 | $9.0 M | $36.9 M |
| 2019 | 27 | 4.3 | $9.5 M | $41.1 M |
| 2020 | 28 | 4.3 | $9.9 M | $43.2 M |
| 2021 | 29 | 4.3 | $10.4 M | $45.3 M |
| 2022 | 30 | 4.3 | $10.9 M | $47.6 M |
| Totals | 21.5 | $214.1 M |
Assumptions
Value: $9M/WAR with 5.0% inflation (for first 5 years)
Aging Curve: +0.25 WAR/yr (18-27), 0 WAR/yr (28-30),-0.5 WAR/yr (31-37),-0.75 WAR/yr (> 37)
Yelich is projected to produce basically $150 million in surplus value over the remainder of his contract. According to prospect values, that should return a haul. According to those valuations, Yelich is theoretically worth a hitting prospect with a future value of 70 ($107 million) and a pitching prospect with a future value of 60 ($34 million).
Yelich, in other words, is almost certainly talented enough to net a return headlined by a top-10 overall prospect.
For instance, Sale was projected to produce about 18 WAR over three seasons last winter and was owed $38 million. In that case, Sale netted four top-20 Red Sox prospects, including the game’s then-top prospect in Yoan Moncada and Michael Kopech, another top-30 overall prospect. Eric Longenhagen placed a 70 FV on Moncada and a 55 on Kopech. That’s a total of $129 million in estimated value.
Not very different than what one could reasonably expect from Yelich.
The Marlins desperately need a haul, preferably one marked by youth and upside. And the Marlins should have a larger market for Yelich than with a shorter-term asset like Ozuna. A number of contending teams could have interest in Yelich along with teams like the Braves, Padres, Phillies, and White Sox that have young talent but are better positioned for 2019 and beyond.
There should be more bidders for Yelich. He should yield a premium return. Given his contract length and value, the Marlins can be more patient in finding a fit. And with this chip, their most valuable asset, Marlins cannot afford to miss.
A Cleveland native, FanGraphs writer Travis Sawchik is the author of the New York Times bestselling book, Big Data Baseball. He also contributes to The Athletic Cleveland, and has written for the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, among other outlets. Follow him on Twitter @Travis_Sawchik.
Bo Bichette
A lot more than Bo. Bo+Alford might start the talks, but based on the above valuations that’s still way below the mark.
Maybe start at Vlad Jr. plus two good pitching prospects and another position player. If I’m the Marlins that’s where I’m starting.
Vlad Jr is as close to an untouchable prospect as it gets.
Yes.
And he’d be a starting point for Yelich.
Really?
I mean, he is certainly deserving of his status as a top prospect but he is still what, 18 years old? I dont think any player that young can inspire quite that level of confidence.
There are also some questions about where he will actually play (he almost certainly winds up on one of the corners) and his only pro experience is in A ball playing in a pretty hitter friendly park.
Valuable prospect absolutely. Untouchable seems a bit much.
I agree. with our northern contingent. Vlad Jr is way off limits. Yelich is a good player but he’s not an elite level guy. He just had a good season but 115 wRC+ and the power is pretty average.
With what Vlad has shown in terms of power, patience, approach and contact being such a young player for his league you have to see where that talent takes you.
I wouldn’t be surprised if in his first full season in the show he could post a 115 wrc+. As a young and very controllable 3B that is just way too enticing.
The Jays would never consider it.
Yelich is 26 years old and put up his third 4+ win season. And he can play CF.
I havent looked but the list of 26 year old CF’s with multiple 4+ win seasons is probably not very long. In fact its probably 1 name and it rhymes with Ike Rout.
The last number 1 or 2 prospect traded brought back Chris Sale. Moncada had more warts than Vlad Jr and a less enticing offensive profile.
Sale >>> Yelich
In that case, the Jays can’t afford Yelich.
It really is that simple.
I don’t think anyone thinks Vlad Jr. is UNTOUCHABLE untouchable. Anyone who has team control for about as long as Yelich and is on one of these lists would be someone they’d at least consider swapping Vlad Jr. for…
https://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/2017-trade-value-1-to-10/
https://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/2017-trade-value-11-to-20/
I’m undecided on whether the guys on the next list up (which include Yelich) would be worth it, but there are probably only 5-7 truly untouchable prospects (like Ohtani, Harper, Strasburg, Corey Seager) over a 10 year period and maybe Vlad Jr. gets there but he’s definitely not there yet. He was in High A last year.
“He was in High A last year.” Yup. We’ve all seen far too many “can’t miss” guys who missed. Vlad Jr. has high upside, for sure, but right now his value has to be measured as someone who might not be as good as projected. Especially when it happens so often. Yelich is a proven commodity, his value is proven; Vlad’s value is speculative.
Yelich is the moment of truth for Marlins fans (from my view). If the Marlins decide they’re going to use Yelich to get a boatload of young talent, I agree with Travis this is a good idea. If the Marlins decide they’re going to use Yelich primarily to dump negative-value contracts, Marlins fans have every right to give up.
Literally nothing they’ve done to date indicates they would do something like that (they ate a large amount of money in both proposed Stanton deals, and in the one that occurred, in order to secure a legitimate prospect return).
It’s really, really not the Marlins’ fault that they’re behaving like a rebuilding team with Rays-level revenue…since, you know, they’re a rebuilding team with Rays-level revenue.
But they aren’t (so far) rebuilding in a smart way. Instead, what they are doing is 99% payroll deduction because the owners didn’t have enough money to afford the buying price.
No, that’s a myth that Dave Cameron unfortunately perpetuated with an article here a few days ago.
The Marlins have Rays or A’s level revenue. That’s the Forbes estimate (published April 2017) for the 2016 season: second to last in baseball, $1 million ahead of the Rays and $10 million behind the A’s. Google attendance numbers, and Google the FG article on estimated local TV revenue, and it all points in that same direction.
Before recent trades (Gordon, Stanton, Ozuna), the Opening Day payroll for 2018 was going to be a bit over $130 million.
Then go to Cot’s and look at the level of Opening Day payroll for the A’s and Rays in recent years. It’s $40 to $60 million below that $130 million number.
At some low-level of payroll, one can say that the debt service might be the main driver of the decision to cut it. That level is way, way below $130 million, however. It’s something like a number in the $50 to $70 million range.
Addendum:
Because, what Dave Cameron failed to mention is that 4 of the 5 past baseball sales involved significant, non-stadium debt. The exception was the Padres. The Dodgers, Astros, Rangers, and Cubs all did. A person is free not to like it, but that’s simply how baseball teams have been bought in recent years. That’s easy to find with Google and an hour or two to spend on research. What’s different about the Marlins isn’t the debt. What’s different is having future payroll commitments that are out of whack with the team’s revenue.
The evidence is that only the Dodgers’ ownership incurred significant operating losses in the first years of their ownership. That’s a very different situation due to the revenue upside of their market, and the Dodgers’ well-established standing there. Looking from the outside, it’s possible to discern a clear business strategy of (1) getting a big new local TV deal and (2) getting good carriage for it with cable and satellite operators.
The first worked: think it was a coincidence that the Dodgers signed the huge SportsNet L.A. deal in late January 2013, not long after both the Adrian Gonzalez plus bad contracts trade mid-season 2012 and signing Greinke as a free agent in December 2012?
The second is tied to the Dodgers’ reportedly owning 50% of SportsNet L.A., so they clearly want it to be a success. (They almost certainly do anyway, because having your broadcast partner lose a lot annually on a cable deal that is supposed to run 25 years is an untenable and contentious situation.) So far, that part of it is hasn’t worked nearly as well, as the channel only has carriage covering less than 50% of cable/satellite subscribers in the L.A. area.
And the baseball strategy with that for the Dodgers was to build a really good team, but extraordinarily expensive, that bridged to a point of having a farm system providing cost-controlled talent that allowed them to lower payroll but still be a top-tier contender. They’d still spend, but more in the Yankees/Red Sox “over the luxury tax but near it” kind of way. That part of it has worked great, and sure enough we see the Dodgers near the $197 million luxury tax calculation rather than the $297 million for luxury tax purposes at which they peaked in 2015, which meant they paid $43 million in luxury tax that year on top of payroll. ( See the tab at https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/12Fdcz-v1dHv7WUA6N73JhLNL7cZ-JCaUSRyh8LQvG7A/pubhtml# ). A Dodgers team with payroll near the luxury tax, especially a playoff Dodgers team, should print money ever year.
An attendance boost was also a nice part of it. Attendance dipped to 2.9 million in the last year of McCourt, 2011, and history shows that the Dodgers can draw north of 3.7 million when they’re a good team. Estimating the back of the envelope math, though, it looks like the bigger money was in the cable deal.
If anyone can explain to me a strategy for the Marlins that makes that much financial sense, I’m all ears.
Moneyball, Florida style.
Let’s see. The Ozuna deal–while I think it was not a great deal for the Marlins–made me think that they’re interested in actually building for the future. I did not get that sense from the Stanton deal.
Also, I would argue that the whole thing is the Marlins’ fault, because they’ve been dumbasses with community relations since they moved the team. I mean, not the current ownership team’s fault, but the Marlins as a unit.
“I mean, not the current ownership team’s fault, but the Marlins as a unit.”
Sure, I fully agree with that. That’s the current situation, however, and I’d argue as a matter of both business strategy and baseball strategy that it’s delusional to expect that to change overnight. The situation wasn’t broken overnight, and it’s realistically I think about a 10 year project to fix it. It won’t be fixed overnight. And where the two intersect is setting a realistic budget for payroll.
It’s like if the A’s or Rays were to say “if we do x, y, z, then we’ll draw attendance of 2.75 to 3 million in two years, so let’s plan for that.” That’s delusional for either market, and we’ve seen it’s delusional in the last 10 years when those teams go to the playoffs even multiple years in a row.
The new ownership group has done a poor job of handling the PR by doing the admittedly difficult task of laying out reality and a 5+ year plan of where they want to take the team baseball-wise and perhaps also business-wise. It’s not always easy or wholly successful. My recollection is that Luhnow sometimes got killed in the media when the Astros were really bad. Cubs’ fans are more patient, so Epstein got a good reception to talking about the baseball plan and using phrases like “the baseball plan syncing up with business plan” over time.
But those are really different complaints, about whether Jeter is the wrong CEO, or if they need different baseball people making the decisions. It’s not about whether a team that, business-wise, is the A’s or the Rays should be carrying a 10 year / $295 million contract with a player opt-out after three years.
They tried to eat $50-60m to get a real prospect package from the Cards or Giants…but Stanton vetoed both teams.
Among the four teams he named, only the Yankees were interested…and they ate $30m plus Starlin’s contract in order to get a high upside 50 FV guy in Guzman.
Stanton’s good, but his contract means that he simply does not offer a ton of surplus value (and he has a TON of downside, financially).
Seems like the Marlins would be better off holding on to Yelich if a 70 FV hitting prospect is hypothetically worth a lot more than what they’re paying him. Save that money in the long run and spend it when they are ready to contend once again
It’s a question of when they want to compete. If they’re not planning on winning in the next 3-4 years, then they essentially “waste” Yelich’s surplus value for that time. Better to turn it into assets that will mature when they’re ready to compete again.
Honestly, Yelich has so much surplus value that you could probably do both: Prado has perhaps $10M of negative value ($28/2; let’s assume he could get $18/2) and Chen has .. $30? (He’s $52/3; let’s assume that last option doesn’t vest and h e could get at least $22/3.)
So you could bundle them both with Yelich and still theoretically get a 70 FV hitter back.
BUT – and I think this matter here – at that point they’d basically be paying no one. And I think the optics would be bad enough – and the MLPBA would make enough noise about minimum payrolls – that it’s unworkable.
I agree with DBA455 on the optics, but I also think that you’re high on Chen’s value as a player.
With what I’ve read about his medical situation, I think that he’d be something like a 1-year pillow deal for $3 to $5 million with incentives tied to starts/innings and then a team-friendly option for less than $10 million for a second year, perhaps again with incentives for starts/innings.
That’s admittedly challenging to translate into a number that’s guaranteed, but I don’t think that any team would guarantee Chen $22 million or even $10 million. There’s a real chance that before long he’s a 33 year old pitcher (his age in July 2018) trying to come back from TJ surgery.
Pretty much.
The only teams capable of assembling a package worth Yelich are the Yankees and White Sox…and that will be true for the next two years, as well.
The Dodgers could, but won’t.
“The Dodgers could, but won’t.”
The Dodgers could have made all kind of brilliant trades and acquisitions this offseason. Instead they have done nothing, and all of the talent has gone elsewhere. The front office has decided that profits are more important than winning – which puts them I exactly the same group as the Marlins.
I applaud the Yankees and I am firmly convinced that Cashman is the best GM in baseball, because when he sees a way to make his team better, he does whatever needs to be done to make it better. You can expect to see the Yankees back in the World Series soon.
Meanwhile, the Marlins sell off everything of value they have, and the Dodgers stand pat and let all of the available talent go elsewhere and make their rivals into better teams because their front office is totally paralyzed in fear of the luxury tax. It’s a nice offseason to be a Yankees fan, while it completely, totally sucks to be a Dodger fan. I won’t say anything about how it must feel to be a Marlins fan watching your team sell off everything of value for pennies on the dollar, because I’m not convinced there are any Marlins fans left after the way that franchise has systematic alienated everyone in Florida who likes baseball.
But I really, really hate being a Dodger fan right now. I want to throw things because of the players they have let slip away that could have made them so much better.
Wow. What a bad post. I’m in the strange position (as a hardcore Giants fan) of having to cheer you up. The Dodgers have passed on talent this off-season because they have so much already, and not just at the major league level. They’re stacked in the minors, too. The division is pretty much a given for them (again) next year. They came within 1 game of a championship this year! The future for the Dodgers is about as good as it gets. They see the big picture and have built an organization that will be VERY good for at LEAST the next 5 years. And if YOU hate being a Dodger fan right now, you should see it from my side. I love resting on the Giants’ laurels. The 3 trophies make for a very pleasant resting place. But the future….ugh.
+1 to tramps like us.
The Dodgers paid a cumulative $100 million of luxury tax over the three years from 2014-16, on top of the big payrolls. They also paid some luxury tax in 2017, though the final numbers isn’t at Cot’s yet. It was clear to any close observer that level of payroll wasn’t going to continue forever.
It’s really tough for a good contending team – picking late in the first-round, usually making at least some “prospects for rentals” in-season acquisitions, and usually losing picks on a net basis through the QO system – to rebuild a farm system once it’s depleted. The high-revenue teams can’t just try to do it any longer with a huge IFA splash every few years due to the hard caps on IFA pools in the new CBA.
Look at the Cubs. Their outlook is still bright for the next few years, and fans are happy because they won their WS Game 7 in 2016. Their longer-term outlook is looking less rosy than it once did, however, because their next wave of cost-controlled young talent (Torres, Jimenez, Cease, Candelario, etc.) are gone in trades. At the end of 2018, what they’ll have to show for it in future value is two more cost-controlled years of Quintana plus whatever they get with a QO pick for Davis (if we include the Soler-Davis trade in the deals they made). And they’ve had a better team for 2016-18, which we can’t ignore.
Eventually, though, selling years of control in trades and dealing with the decline years of big contracts catches up with pretty much every team. Some fans always want to say “more” and “now”, but they need then to accept that later comes at some point.
As a Dodger fan it’s been essentially a drought since 1988. Winning your division used to actually mean something; now it’s just a way to get into the playoffs along with the wild card teams. The Giants won WS after WS after WS; meanwhile the Dodgers, yes, consistently won their division, but that’s meaningless these days, and they only won one pennant before finding a way to implode.
The Dodgers have tons of money and supposedly a lot of brains. But they only win games and divisions and just can’t ever get it done – like, say, the Giants repeatedly have – and exactly like the godawful Marlins the Dodgers have proven that they far prefer saving money to fielding a better team. That’s not behaving like a competitor, that’s behaving like a businessman. Like, say, Jeffrey Loria.
I’d much prefer to be a long-time fan of today’s Giants over today’s Dodgers, exactly because the Giants do have those three recent trophies on their shelf, whereas next year will mark thirty consecutice years of frustrating Dodger fumbles, collapses, implosions, and abject failures. In sales terms, the Giants have proven that they know how to close. The hapless Dodgers just don’t know how to do that.
It’s enough cumulative frustration to turn a guy from L.A. into a Yankees fan. At least Cashman – who I think is the best GM in the game – really knows how to improve a team, and he does exactly that.
Unlike, say, the Dodgers.
Oh, and a quick quiz: over last seven years, team A has won five division titles and zero World Series, while team B has won two division titles and three World Series. Which team is clearly the more successful team? Which team has made its fans far happier? (Hint: it’s the one with the trophies and the rings.)
Tramps, I envy you.
All true. But my comment was about the now and future, the current juxtaposition of futures. And the Dodgers don’t need to spend a boatload of money to compete at the highest level. But I do like having to decide every day which championship cap to wear, too.
I like the idea of Yelich to the White Sox. Makes all the sense in the world if they don’t have to deplete the farm to do it. As long as Kopech and Jimenez are off the table it all depends on what the deal includes. Personally I like a deal headlined with Giolito and Cease.
Yelich should be able to net Miami Jimenez and Cease. He has similar value to Quintana and Travis notes in the article that Yelich should be able to return a top 10 hitting prospect (Jimenez is #5 per MLB.com) and a 60 FV pitching prospect (most sites have Cease at 55 FV but Jimenez and Kopech (#10 overall prospect per MLB.com) feels like an overpay).
But, Jeter has not shown any signs of competence when it comes to trades, so maybe he would deal Yelich for Cease and Giolito.
I was thinking Giolito, Rutherford, and Cease for starters. If the White Sox are smart they keep Jimenez and Kopech. Both are too close and too good to deal at this point. Similar to Torres with the Yankees. Baring some big haul they should be untouchable and Yelich isn’t worth losing either of those two. Carson Fulmer should be up in a trade before those two.
The White Sox don’t really have an immediate need unless they want to be competitive immediately. Avi should get another year in RF till Jimenez forces his way up next year or 2019, Luis Robert is in line to play CF and was billed as “one of the best baseball prospects in the world” when the White Sox acquired him. Delmonico can hold down LF if he can return healthy. Yelich would certainly be nice but trading away top tier talent as polished as Kopech and Jimenez isn’t the best course of action here. The White Sox could be fringy next year but 2019 is when their window starts to open. No need to rush this.
If everything goes perfectly…Eloy Jimenez will be as good in three years as Yelich is today.
Jimenez is a *starting point*, just like he was for Quintana
Jimenez has the potential to be better than Yelich. He’s breezing through the minors and should be ready to come up in 2019. He has yet to struggle at any level and will cost considerably less. I’ll take Jimenez over Yelich all day. When’s the last time Yelich was compared to Stanton? Jimenez has been compared to him and I’ll take a potential 6+ WAR player over a 4.5-5 WAR player. Especially when the 6+ WAR guy is so close to being MLB ready and your window isn’t really open yet.
If (and that’s a huge if) Eloy is as good as Yelich, and does it as a power hitting RF, he’ll make $20m in his final pass through arbitration.
People really don’t seem to understand how hard it is to be a 4-5 win player, or how cheap this contract is.
They can always buy out those years and some FA years. But either way the White Sox have time. They don’t need to rush and the Marlins are in a bad position with a disgruntled player.
If Jimenez lets them.
Having already received life changing money in IFA, he can afford to bet on himself in a way that, say, Starling Marte couldn’t.
So far, the complaints about the Marlins trades that I’ve read seem to boil down to three things:
(1) Not liking the Ozuna return because they don’t agree with rankings saying that Sierra and Alcantara are actually 50 FV prospects. Fair point of contention with the rankings of Longenhagen and others.
(2) Not liking the Ozuna return because they either (a) think that Ozuna’s projection for a trade return should be him repeating 2017 or (b) try to value Ozuna using a high $ per WAR than $8 million, but don’t realize that the FG prospect values based on $8 million per WAR also need to change. Or, just generally not understanding how those values are put together, such as that future performance is discounted back to NPV at 8% per year. Or forgetting that Ozuna only has two years of control at arb salaries that will total $25 to $30 million. These aren’t fair criticisms.
(3) Don’t understand that Stanton plus his contract is devilishly tricky to value due to the opt-out with so much money and so many years after it, and that various reporters said that other front offices saw it as roughly market for what Stanton would get in free agency. The Yankees trade is right around that number. The reported final offers per Bob Nightentgale from the Cardinals ($250 million plus Alcantara and Flaherty) and Giants ($230 million plus Beede and Aramis Garcia) were perhaps right around that number (Cardinals) or less (Giants). Or, perhaps, people simply fail to understand that a player’s value depends on his contract, so Stanton’s contract at roughly market wasn’t going to net a big return
I’ve not read much if any criticism of the Marlins’ return for Dee Gordon.
I argue point #1 and that Jeter/Hill made many tactical mistakes in the Stanton ordeal.
First, they did not speak to Giancarlo about which teams he would reject trades to before agreeing to frameworks of deals with St. Louis and San Francisco, leading to a huge loss of bargaining power when he vetoed those trades.
Second, the Marlins also announced loudly that they were desperate to trade Stanton, putting themselves in a weak negotiating position before even really starting the process.
Third, they informed teams that they prioritized salary relief over prospect quality, limiting the form of their return when teams that were in the running with deep farm systems and luxury tax concerns (Yankees and Dodgers) very well may have offered significantly more value in prospect capital than in salary relief.
Jeter’s range as a GM is even worse than his range as a shortstop.
Let’s continue the aggregation of power and send Yelich to the the Astros with Tucker headlining the return.
Yelich would look pretty dang good in that right heavy lineup.
Tucker + Martes + C. Perez + Stubbs gets it done?
I would think it does
Hide this article from the Marlin’s front office, please.
I guess I can stop lying to myself about the Rangers having a chance at Yelich.
I don’t think the Marlin’s front office reads Fangraphs…
I don’t think that their front office knows what it is.
Post idea: which teams possess the sort of prospect capital, and are at the right point in terms of their ‘window’ for this to be a feasible deal. I suspect the list is a short one.
My first approximation, would be:
– Yankees
– Brewers….maybe…?
– Rays….maybe….?
And even those are stretches, as there are very few prospects out there that are seen as 60-70 value. The rest of the teams are likely armed with the right sorts of prospects aren’t anywhere near looking for a win-now type of player like Yelich.
If Miami can’t deal him, it’s because it’s hard to imagine them getting anything they’d prefer back in return.
The Yankees have too many OF already.
There is this thing called first base, and another thing called the DH.
The Indians…
The nixed offer for Lucroy would be a good starting point:
C F.Mejia (now a top 20 talent)
SS Yu Chang
CF Greg Allen
Instead of Allen, who already debuted in the Majors, put in OF/1B Will Benson and add any pitcher not named T.McKenzie. If they liked Zac Gallen, then probably Shane Bieber does the trick.
If you’re planning on competing in 2019 or maybe even as late as 2020, I’d think you would be interested in Yelich. So I’d maybe expand the window a bit.
Some thoughts:
-Rockies could build a package around Brendan Rodgers
-The White Sox around Kopech (or maybe Eloy)
-Cleveland around Mejia
-Rays around Adames
Less valuable, but possible headliners with other pieces:
-Dodgers around Yadier Alvarez (I think he may be more attractive to the Marlins than to a lot of other teams)
-Twins around Royce Lewis
-Phillies around Moniak
I can’t imagine the Brewers would trade Brinson or the Braves would trade Acuna or the Astros would trade Tucker, but they might or they could also substitute lot of depth. So you’d have to include them too.
Correct — Acuna is basically locked-in as the starter at one of the corner OF positions going forward. As a Braves fan, Austin Riley and Kolby Allard would be the other two prospects in my mind that are at this point untouchable. I’d hope that a package of something like Christian Pasche (FV 50) + Mike Soroka (FV 50) would be acceptable to get the Marlins interested (particularly since they seem more interested in clearing off the $$ than getting the best FV prospects), but I feel like they’d probably push at this point to include someone like Allard, and that would be tough to stomach for me (and, I imagine, most Braves fans, and most importantly, Alex Anthopoulos).
For the Braves, no one other than Acuna should be untouchable. I like what Riley has done, but Braves fans (of which I am one) are getting a bit ahead of themselves with him. And when it comes to pitching prospects, well, I don’t think you could ever talk me into one being untouchable.
Why wouldn’t you trade Tucker for Yelich? Yelich is so cheap and under control for so long that trading for him is almost like calling up an outfielder who is guaranteed to be good from day one. You are basically trading uncertainty for certainty for little monetary cost and comparable ceilings.
I included those three because they’re basically ready, play the outfield, and are cheap. The “cheap” part is probably the key reason they won’t get traded. But I think you make a good point that any one of them should be considered in a trade for Yelich.
The question this comment brings up for me is whether there is any prospect that is “too good” to trade for Yelich. Ohtani, absolutely not trading him. Corey Seager back when he was the #1 prospect. Giolito back when he was the #1 pitching prospect. Trout, Harper, and Strasburg when they were prospects. Any prospect at that level I’m not interested in trading.
Okay, so maybe an FV70 prospect (FV75?) is too much. What about an FV65? Are Acuna and Tucker at that level? I think of them as being two of the best prospects in MLB, along with Torres, Robles, and Vlad Jr.
I’m not sure about what I think, but it’s a conversation worth having.
See, I think Acuna and Tucker are in different boats.
Astros are built to win now, so it makes sense to have a guy ready to play now rather than a guy whose peak is 2-3 seasons off, even if that peak looks promising.
With Acuna, the Braves are a season+ away, meaning they are wasting at least one season of that nice deal from Yelich. They can patiently let Acuna settle in this year knowing that his theoretical peak aligns better with when they want to contend. I’d put the Jays in the same situation with Vlad.
I just think that this is a weird case where you’re basically looking at trading a guy with huge theoretical surplus value for a guy with presently huge surplus value. If you’re contending that makes all the sense in the world.
I think the Rockies would be wise to explore this, especially given the health concerns for Dahl and the real possibility of losing Charlie Blackmon next winter.
Rodgers + Almonte + ?
I floated the idea below of a deal based on Rodgers + Pint
Even San Diego could be interested and has the prospect capital. I think they could easily land Yelich with a package based on some combination of Quantrill/Tatis Jr./Urias/Espinoza/Morejon/Biaz. They wouldn’t even have to move Gore to get it done. SD is on the upswing and with SF stalling out and AZ/LAD hitting payroll ceilings, this offseason could be a good time to buy some long-term MLB pieces
The Dodgers should absolutely make that trade and move Bellinger permanently to first base while trading the incumbent.
Acuna’s best case is Yelich. He would absolutely be in play.
Depending on the quantity of prospects included in the deal, I imagine a lot of teams could put something interesting together. Cleveland comes to mind – start with Mejia and McKenzie. Maybe Pittsburgh starting with Meadows and Keller (and then could flip McCutchen). The Braves seem to think they’re heading to contention soon-ish and definitely have the prospect capital. Even Nats if they were willing to include Robles (doubt they would).
The Nats are a little tougher because of the in-division thing and because Miami would certainly ask for Robles and Washington would certainly refuse, but maybe Washington could land Yelich for something like Soto, Kieboom and Fedde. Maybe Joe Ross if the Marlins don’t mind waiting for his recovery from TJS. This definitely does not happen if the Nationals think they have any chance of signing Harper though.
Robles’ 80% outcome is Christian Yelich.
The Marlins shouldn’t, and won’t, trade him for anything less.
I agree that they shouldn’t, but this front office hasn’t been the greatest so far so I think there is a good possibility that they will.
All the evidence for their “not being good” so far seems to consist of their having run a teams with Rays-level revenue like a team with Rays-level revenue…and thinking Eric, (along with Callis and Mayo) is wrong to consider Sierra a 50 FV, because he didn’t hit any balls hard over 60 PA as a 21 year old fresh out of A-ball.
We’re going to start seeing a lot more free agents signing with a 1-team no-trade clause.
The Matt Holliday Clause?
http://ftw.usatoday.com/2016/12/new-york-yankees-matt-holliday-contract-no-trade-oakland-lol-mlb
Haha, I don’t think there’s too much risk of the Marlins trading for any players who signed market value free agent contracts any time soon, though.
There are dangers with putting a completely non-competitive team in the field. At the moment, the Marlins have already traded away three of their five best players for not a lot of value. Trading Yelich for exciting prospects is defendable, probably. Trading Yelich just to trade Yelich has the potential to be a complete disaster for the future of the franchise. If Yelich is to be traded, the haul better be great.
I would like to think that given the amount of money they have managed to clear from the books with their current trades, they could afford to demand a premium return for Yelich.
I don’t think the Marlins can lose much more goodwill from fans/media/players than they already have.
There are still people commenting here who claim they are Marlins fans, so I would think they haven’t hit rock bottom yet. Although they’ve certainly tried.
I think that those alleged fans must all work for the team.
The Marlins had some goodwill? Where?
“the potential to be a complete disaster for the future of the franchise.”
The franchise is already a disaster, has been a disaster, and the new management seems quite intent on continuing that awful tradition. We can safely assume that the future of the Marlins is going to be disastrous.
In other news, the sky is still blue and Francisco Franco is still dead.
i mean, if they don’t trade him now it’ll be proof that they are not strategically rebuilding but just pawning off assets in pure financial moves.
…huh?
Yelich is under team control at a well below market rate through 2022.
They have absolutely zero reason to trade him now, unless they get blown away by a Quintana-esque offer.
that’s moronic given their noncontention in foreseeable future. do you understand future wins vs current wins?
“The Marlins Haven’t Traded Their Most Valuable Player”
Clearly Stanton was their most valuable player. So I guess this headline is saying that the Marlins haven’t traded their most valuable player who is still a Marlin?
I believe they’re talking from a position of surplus value, which Yelich has gobs of compared to Stanton given their respective contracts.
It’s not even MVP season and we have to talk about how to define value. sheesh…
Ah, good point.
At 9 million per WAR Stanton had almost 50 million in surplus value last year alone. That drops10-15 million a year going forward at the same production due to raises but much more of his value is offensive which is a scarcer commodity
I countered at least one of the many downvotes for this one. It’s clear that Stanton was more valuable than Yelich in 2017, and Stanton projects to be more valuable in 2018. I think that their projected value as players over the next 5 years is actually a lot closer than people think because of Stanton being two years older and having his injury history.
However, the value here is “player plus contract”, not just the player as a “player”. While it’s a bit nit-picking, I’d rather see a headline like “The Marlins Haven’t Traded Their Most Valuable Trade Chip”, because that’s what we’re talking about.
As for Yelich’s contract estimate, does it make sense to escalate the $/WAR value like that?
I believe the $9M figure was calculated based on entire contracts rather than just the first year, i.e. all expected WAR over the length of the deal would be worth the same amount. I could be wrong about that.
There is also the fact that teams are bound to value short-term production more highly than long-term production, so it seems odd that in a present-day analysis we would value 2018 WAR at 9M and 2022 WAR at 10.9M.
Doesn’t really matter for the purposes of the article but I was just wondering about this, particularly given that the same model valued Stanton at a ~100M surplus, which clearly conflicts with actual team evaluations (although that may have been largely due to improper aging curve).
Cubs? Include Schwarber and prospects, and Yelich can play LF or CF for them?
LMAO
Gretchen, stop trying to make Schwarber happen.
To be fair he could be a pretty fetch pickup for some team in the AL, where he’s always belonged.
The man was born to be a DH, but so far the fates have conspired against him.
How about Yelich to Colorado for Brendan Rodgers and Riley Pint? Rogers is blocked by Story and LeMahieu this year, and Yelich slots in at LF and provides a more than capable CF backup plan when Blackmon becomes a FA after 2018. Miami gets the #7 and #55 prospects in baseball (per MLB.com), giving them their only top 100 prospects and instantly making their system at least respectable.
I’m hard-pressed to imagine the Rockies trading both their best position and pitching prospects like that. I would be fine with them building a deal around Rodgers, but I just don’t see both of them being moved.
Rodgers and non-Pint prospects does not really come close to the Sale package that Travis referenced as a comp…
I’m hard pressed to see the Marlins settling for anything less.
The four biggest differences between Yelich and Jose Quintana:
1) Yelich is younger.
2) Yelich is a position player.
3) Yelich has more years of teams control.
4) Yelich has a lower AAV for luxury tax purposes.
The only explanations for most of these comments are that people either don’t know how good Yelich is, or don’t realize how good his contract is.
I agree. The return should probably be closer to what the Sox got for Sale than what they got for Quintana
Yelich to Rangers:
Mendez, profar, Calhoun, Jon Daniels, 50 million bucks, and 17 players to be named later
Seems fair…
Much of his value is on the defensive side and teams value hitting more, its just true. Hitting is a scarcer commodity than defense. He is a good all around player though making peanuts forvyears to come , even if not an elite hitter, and should command at least top 50 prospect and a couple of promising prospects close to a top 100 ranking or someone who has recently dropped out.
Maximum value may be attained at the trade deadline although hitting in a lineup of replacement level hitters and chasing many rockets allowed by the pitching staff could hurt his numbers
Its not like he is Billy Hamilton. He has a career 121 wRC+ and has been as high as 132.
If you count him as a CF he ranks 5th in wRC+ over the past 3 seasons with only a couple points separating 3rd and 5th. And the only one of those five younger than him is Trout who makes approximately a billionity times more money.
The more I think about this, the more I think that the Adam Eaton trade is the most comparable situation. Good hitter, guy can moonlight in center but should be in a corner, etc. Yelich might be less valuable since Eaton’s contract was ridiculously underpaid, but that’s the most direct comparison.
Which would imply, I think, that $150 million of surplus value is high by a fair amount.
To give some idea of how sensitive this number is to aging assumptions, though, tweak it keeping the same $ per WAR assumption but focus on the 2006 to 2013 aging curve here – https://www.fangraphs.com/library/the-beginners-guide-to-aging-curves/. So keep Yelich flat for the first two years, then declining 0.25 WAR per year for the rest of the contract. That lowers his surplus by about $25 million.
The thing is, Eaton was only $2.4m/year cheaper (for tax purposes).
Yelich is 2 years younger than Eaton was. He’s also better, and he’s more physically talented.
The Marlins won’t move him for “just” the Eaton package.
Problem is the need for pitchers is always greater than for outfielders. He is worth a lot but which team is in such need of a CF that he would gut the farm for it? Ace SP are different but I think to get the full price for yelich they need to hope a big contender suffers a key outfielder injury.
Why do people keep be-moaning the fact that Miami did not get a top-100 prospect for Stanton? They got an actual major leaguer and not a shabby one in Starlin Castro. Of course it was primarily a salary dump. Small market teams do it all the time without being harangued for it. That’s what the Marlins were out to do and everyone knew it. They couldn’t get ANYONE to take the whole $295MM. They couldn’t get ANYONE to pay more than the Yankee’s $265MM. This wasn’t a Jeter sweetheart deal for NYC. THIS was what the market, defined by Stanton, would bear. The Dodgers wouldn’t even go that far. So stop with this simple-minded complaining about whether the Marlins should have gotten better prospects. Sheesh!
I don’t know what “most valuable” means to some people, but had all the end-of-the-season Marlins hit the free agent market, there’s no way Yelich gets the biggest contract.
None.
He may be the “biggest value”, but he’s not the “most valuable”.
Unless this means that they haven’t traded the most valuable Marlin still remaining, which is a tautology.
2 random thoughts on the comments section:
1. lol @ all the people saying their teams top prospects arent in play for yelich.
2. shoutout to dave t. his posts about the dodgers over the last 3 months have been great. well thought out, knowledgeable and articulate. good poster.
My perfect trade, as a Miami fan: Yelich, Realmuto, and Straily to Padres for Gore, Tatis Jr. and Chris Paddack. Ozuna should have fetched Reyes or Flaherty, but this one pans out better.