Walking Through a Potential Mookie Betts Trade
Making sense of Mookie Betts trade rumors can be a frustrating task. Betts is one of the best players in baseball, perhaps second-best to only Mike Trout. Every single team in baseball should love to have Mookie Betts on their team. A club competing for a playoff spot is even more ideal, or a team whose playoff odds without Betts are just so-so, but that with him head well north of 50%. It would also be helpful if that team had plentiful financial resources and could easily absorb Betts’ expensive (but still a bargain given the production) $27 million salary next season. The Boston Red Sox are basically the perfect for Mookie Betts, but they might trade him anyway.
Back in November, Ben Clemens made the case for the Red Sox keeping Betts, while I recently did a pro/con list for ESPN weighing the merits of trading four different stars, including Betts. Clemens focused on the baseball logic of the move, which revolves around getting worse now by trading Betts but improving in the future with the addition of prospects. Clemens shot through that argument by showing that Boston’s playoff chances over the next four seasons were actually worse by trading Betts for prospects. As a practical matter, Clemens compared a potential Betts deal to Paul Goldschmidt’s trade to the Cardinals a year ago. There are a few differences that we’ll get to later, but let’s first focus on their similarities using a rumored trade package.
Kevin Acee of the San Diego Union-Tribune discussed the possibility of a Betts trade to the Padres, citing that the team was prepared to part with “two young major leaguers and at least one prospect” to get Betts to San Diego. As for the major leaguers:
The Padres, the sources said, are willing to include outfielder Manuel Margot or Josh Naylor and starting pitcher Cal Quantrill or Joey Lucchesi in the deal.
This is actually a pretty solid starting point to compare with the trade that brought Goldschmidt to St. Louis. On the pitching side, Luke Weaver and Lucchesi are roughly equivalent as average projected starters. Lucchesi has a slightly better track record in the majors but also is a year closer to free agency. Quantrill has more control but was a lesser prospect and is projected to be below average this season.
On the position player side, Margot and Naylor don’t add a ton of value to the deal. Margot is young and has potential, but he is already into arbitration and projects to be below average this season. A somewhat similar player by age and production to Nomar Mazara, the latter was traded for Steele Walker, a 40+ FV prospect earlier this winter. Naylor was a 50 a year ago, but he is stuck at first base, struggled in half a season in the majors, and projects as a close to average bat with a poor glove at first base, making him another below-average player. Value-wise, that’s probably in the range of Andy Young, plus the draft pick the Diamondbacks received in the Goldschmidt deal.
That leaves the prospect. Assuming top pitching prospects MacKenzie Gore and Luis Patiño are unavailable (with the same likely true for last year’s first-rounder, CJ Abrams), we’re left with a group of 50 FV players available for trade. One possibility in that group is Luis Campusano, as mentioned by Dennis Lin. Further dovetailing with the Goldschmidt trade, the Diamondbacks received a similarly valued Carson Kelly, though he was no longer eligible for prospect lists at the time.
So let’s say that with Joey Lucchesi, Manuel Margot, and Luis Campusano, we’ve constructed a trade for Mookie Betts that matches up well with Paul Goldschmidt’s trade a year ago. Great, right? Wrong. This deal is actually awful for couple reasons. First, this trade doesn’t work because Betts is way better than Goldschmidt. When I recently surveyed the FanGraphs crowd, Betts was far and away the top choice in present value of the potentially available stars, and he was determined to have greater value than players with more team control, like Kris Bryant and Nolan Arenado. Last year, Goldschmidt was projected for a roughly four-win campaign, while Betts is forecast for 6.6 WAR this season. That makes Betts 60% better than Goldschmidt. Betts’ salary is $12.5 million higher than Goldschmidt’s last year, but even factoring that in, Betts’ value should be something like 45% higher that what it took to land Goldschmidt a year ago. The Cardinals-Diamondbacks swap wasn’t some sort of heist, either. It was a fair trade and there is nothing about Betts, his salary, or his projection (matching his 2019 total) to make us think a trade involving him shouldn’t also be fair. It gets worse, though.
As part of this hypothetical trade, the Red Sox were being asked to take on at least part Wil Myers’ contract as well. The Padres currently owe Myers $61 million over the next three years, which includes a $1 million buyout on a $20 million option. Myers is currently a one-win player, the type of player teams are paying less and less for on the free agent market. The contract is at least $40 million under water compared to what teams would pay a free agent. According to Acee, the Red Sox wanted the Padres to assume half of the contract, while San Diego only wanted to pay half of that. A wrinkle to Myers’ contract is that it only counts for close to $14 million against the competitive balance tax, which matters for Boston but not for San Diego. If the Padres pick up $30 million, then Myers’ contract only counts for about $4 million against the luxury tax. The Myers contract wrinkle is a red herring.
Yes, trading Betts and getting Myers for under $4 million plus Margot’s salary gets Boston a Jackie Bradley Jr. giveaway (they have Margot to take his spot!) from getting under the competitive balance tax next year. However, they still have to pay Myers $30 million over the next three seasons, which lessens or completely negates the cost savings of getting under the competitive balance tax, and ignores that trading Betts and Bradley without taking on any other salaries gets the Red Sox under the tax without additional financial obligations. While the Padres might want to pay just $15 million of Myers’ future salary, if they could get Betts for the player package listed above and pay down half of Myers’ deal, they would be getting an absolute bargain. That offer is considerably less than what the Cardinals sent for Goldschmidt, and Betts is much better.
The above is based on reports and my own conjecture, but it just doesn’t look like potential offers for Betts come anywhere near his actual value. That’s not to say we are so far off that we couldn’t build a fairer deal. If we were to take the situation above, the Padres would either need to include another prospect in the back end of the top 100 (50 FV) or take Myers out and include a couple of prospects in the 45 or 45+ FV range. Or, in a situation that clearly won’t happen, the Red Sox could offset the lack of value for Betts and taking on part of Myers’ deal by including David Price.
The Padres are not Betts’ only potential suitors. In his piece on the Betts situation, Ken Rosenthal mentions the Dodgers, and Alex Speier has done the same. After top options Gavin Lux and Dustin May, the Dodgers have a host of solid prospects, and a pair of those players might be enough for Betts. While Rosenthal reports that Price is not currently part of the discussions with the Dodgers or Padres, if the offers for Betts aren’t great, combining him and Price and taking on a contract like Myers’, A.J. Pollock’s (a name mentioned by Speier), or Justin Upton’s might net the Red Sox the most cash savings, which seems to be the main goal given their willingness to deal Betts at all.
If the Red Sox do nothing, they likely have a 95-win team that should make the playoffs and has a real shot at the division at a cost of around $250 million, including the competitive balance tax. If they trade Betts and then move Bradley, they’ll probably have an 88-90 win team with a decent shot at the Wild Card at a cost of around $205 million. They’ll also have a couple more decent, but not-super-high-end, prospects. Maybe there’s a fair deal out there that gets the Red Sox what they want, but so far the reports aren’t close to offering what Betts is worth. His trade value is going to be limited somewhat by his pending free agency and his relatively high salary, but that’s all the more reason for the Red Sox to keep him as opposed to taking the best available offer.
Craig Edwards can be found on twitter @craigjedwards.
Its my understanding that any team whom trades for Mookie before the season would then lose a draft pick as Mookie is likely to reject the qualifying offer as he wants to be a free agent. That brings down his valve by several million no?
Am I missing something here? They’d gain a supplemental pick if he rejected the QO and signed elsewhere. Which should raise his value.
That’s not correct. A team making the qualifying offer receives a draft pick. For San Diego, it would be a pick immediately after the first round in the low 30s. The pick wouldn’t be as good for the Dodgers, as an example, but for the Padres, it softens the prospect blow a little.
Quite the opposite in fact. Acquiring him before the season is tantamount to also getting a draft pick. Acquiring him in season would eliminate the ability to extend a QO and therefore eliminate the draft pick compensation.
No.
The team trading for him would get the draft pick. That enhances his value.
No. In fact, they’d GAIN a draft pick if they trade for him before the season. Following the season, he will reject the QO and then sign with another team. That THIRD team will forfeit a draft pick TO the team that trades for him now.
For example. Red Sox trade Mookie to Dodgers today. At the end of the 2020 season, the Dodgers make Mookie a QO, which Mookie rejects. Mookie signs with the White Sox. The White Sox forfeit a draft pick, and the Dodgers gain a pick for losing a player to whom they made a Qualifying Offer.
The fact that whoever trades for Mookie now can make him a QO in a year actually enhances his value to that team, and mitigates some of the pain that he’ll likely walk after they trade for him.
Thanks all, I had it backwards.
Good lord, this place has become a cesspool.
I don’t see any reason why the Red Sox would trade Betts in any of these “fair” scenarios. Giant payroll teams are supposed to try their best to win every year when they’re contenders. If you want a cold business reason for this, not doing so hurts their brand.
I feel like we have been over this so many times the repetition is getting frustrating. They are probably championship contenders if keep Betts, and probably not if they trade him, and whatever return they get for him would probably not put them back on the road for a championship team. Since the whole point is to try to have a team that will contend for a championship, this would seem to be a painfully obvious decision. But there is so much smoke around them trading Mookie Betts that it feels like we’re watching a car crash or something like that happening in slow motion.
It is hard to know exactly where this is coming from. Is this really ownership and money-driven? Is it part of a Rays-style philosophy that Bloom brought in, where concentrating value in a single player with less team control is overrated, and you should be regularly churning over the roster to improve depth and get more team control? Is it a case where ownership hired Bloom because they’re on the same page about this? Whatever it is, I don’t like it.
The idea of trading Mookie predates Bloom
Though they may have brought him in to get tbe best possible return.
If Boston doesn’t think they’re any better than WC contenders this year, and don’t think they can re-sign Betts, there’s absolutely a case for moving him before he walks.
Given that the season has yet to begin and predictions have huge error bars, they should only move him now if they get a package they truly like. Else, hold and see what the season brings.
Why should they view themselves only as a WC contender? They’re too talented to concede the division.
The economics in this sport are a shambles with so many elite players being shopped purely for financial reasons… and we are not talking about tanking in these cases. These are contending teams looking to move elite players. When has that ever happened? I’ve never seen anything like this before. What’s worse is that people aren’t talking about it in these terms.
Of course SadT is right. How does trading Betts make the RedSox better? Certainly it doesn’t in the short term and they shouldn’t be giving up on 2020 which is effectively what a Betts deal does. Why would the Cubs give up 2 years of Bryant? How does trading him possibly make them better? Ditto Lindor and the Tribe.
Arenado and the Rox is a whole other mess. How do they get him to sign long term and 1 year later look to deal him?? What the heck is going on in this sport?!? I feel like we’re still dealing with the issue of tanking when a whole new problem has cropped up now. Now even contending teams are attempting to dump established talent.
There are big structural problems that these occurrences are bringing out and I don’t hear any respected voices in the game talking about them. These problems are going to have to get worked out by the next cba and I really worry now that the players may not be represented well enough with Tony Clark if we can judge by the last go round.
Comparing the Goldschmidt deal to a potential Betts deal without including the probably too-well-known fiscal desires of the Red Sox owners in the calculus of the return feels incomplete, though I have no idea how to quantify predation on desperation. But, if there’s blood in the water, sharks are gonna circle, and that feels like what’s happening. Strange days.
Their “fiscal desires” are short sighted and not in the best interests of the franchise value. In fact this whole episode whether Betts is traded or not isn’t good for franchise value. It’s way better to do what the Nationals did with Harper and the Cardinals did with Pujols and stay in the hunt to keep the franchise player until someone else blew THEIR budget. Not going all out to win when you have a 95 win team is much worse than losing $40 million.
The wrongness has nothing to do with whether or not these things are present, or whether they should be accounted for.
Yes, the Red Sox should try to win. Every team should. How many teams are trying to win in 2020? Uncomfortably few.
$40M? The Red Sox face $100M in penalties if they don’t get their payroll down from the current $233M to $205M. They’ve paid penalties for years, but as repeat offenders, they will get hammered over the next 3 years. They’ve probably tried to trade Price & JBJ (not sure why they tendered him), but have found no takers, thus they’re seeing what they can get for Betts. Read Alex Speier’s article in the Boston Globe from 12/10/19 to understand why they don’t want to throw $100M away. Last I checked, you can get Zack Wheeler for a bit more than $100M.
Idk where this “sharks gonna circle” nonsense keeps coming up. Betts is a top-6 player in the game so the Red Sox will get fair value for him. The low value deal the Padres are offering must have Price going back to the Padres or they’re offering multiple 50’s, else they don’t make any sense as Craig Edwards is saying.
“Sharks gonna circle” comes from the staring contest that is currently going on. The Padres offered Manuel Margot and Joey Lucchesi, for crying out loud. “Dangled” Margot, as Buster Olney put it, which is brilliant.
A 7 win season from Betts is ~30 mil in surplus value. What’s a fair return? The author put a value on a 50 POS at 28 mil, and a 50 P at 21 mil. There’s certainly value in having so much production from one guy, it can make the whole roster more dynamic. How much? This will at the very least be a good test case, if anything even happens.
Craig Edwards gave you the Goldschmidt trade as a model for a Betts trade and found the Padres offer vastly inferior. No need to use the obsolete Surplus Value formulation.
I agree the offer was vastly inferior, hence, sharks circling. That doesn’t mean they’ll eat. I’m not certain valuations and therefore returns are linear as production escalates to these elite levels. Betts is the superior player, it isn’t terribly close, but while the Dbacks were looking to get something for their guy, the Red Sox *appear* to need to get under some self-imposed limit. They are different circumstances.
Correct me if I’m wrong, but isn’t JBJ’s salary non-guaranteed, so they could cut him before the season starts and save most of that salary a la what the Mets did with d’Arnaud last season?
They might be thinking if they can clear up salary without cutting Bradley, they’ll do it, but if they still need to clear salary, then they’ll cut JBJ
Except that the Mets didn’t do that with TDA. They brought him back and then released him after 1 month and thus ate his whole 2019 $.
I read the Speier article. Of the $95 million in savings, $35 million is just due to cutting payroll this year. It also assumes similar penalties and tax levels for 2022, the first year of the next CBA. It further assumes $240+ M payrolls in 2021 and 2022. You makes the assumptions a little differently and it eats away more than half of those savings. Getting under could save $35-$40 million in taxes with another $25 M in revenue sharing redistribution. It could also be a lot less and end up as the same amount they would be paying Myers in the scenario in the article.
So, it’s more like $60-$65M in savings. That’s still Castellanos/Moustakas money. (For the Reds at least, I’d never pay them that.)
And now your article is inspiring every one to post their own version of a lopsided Betts trade to their favorite team, so thanks a lot!
Top six? Who are the five players better than Betts? I will spot you Mike Trout.
While I’m usually a big champion of franchise value and whatever tobin’s q metrics you want to use…. it’s hard to do $100 million of damage to a franchise, which is what will actually happen (if not more!) from the Red Sox going over the tax again.
Not if that $100M results in more wins, because wins increase a franchise’s value.
Only if the wins offset the loss from the luxury tax…. which it’s not clear they would. He’s not going to generate 100 million in brand equity this year, basically
Yeah, I’m sure you know more about franchise valuations than they do.
SS, good points. It seems to me ownership is emboldened by the last strip down, which worked quite well.
I’ve been keen on the #BFIB to try to make Hudson, Fowler, and ?? work for Betts and Price. Never completely squared the circle, but (presuming Fowler would consent) interested in what Craig thinks might work for the ?? part.
Red Sox would be fools to entertain this but that doesn’t mean it won’t happen.
Hudson projects to be worse than Lucchesi though with one more year of control. Fowler costs $16.5M both of the next two seasons, and with his 0.8 WAR projection actually adds negative value to the deal. That sure sounds like a nonstarter unless they’re giving up Gorman or Carlson, which I can’t see happening.
Frankly, this whole exercise is lunacy because the Red Sox shouldn’t be doing this. My guess is that if that is on the table, Fowler probably isn’t going anywhere and the team probably including 2 of Bader, Liberatore, Herrera, Gorman, or Thompson. But at the same time, the rationale and goals of this trade are still pretty fuzzy to me, so who knows.
It’s making the Red Sox look bad and isn’t winning them any new fans. Most businesses consider that a bad thing.
I could see a Cardinals, Red Sox trade something like Betts to Cards for Fowler, the cards pay half his salary, Hudson and Liberatore. That seems about right. It would give the Cards the best right fielder in baseball and the Red Sox would get around 18-19 million in salary relief and a solid prospect plus a major league pitcher I like with upside and control.
Yeah I’ve also thought Price makes some sense ending up in StLoo with Fowler part of the return. I didn’t see Betts in that one tho.
Trading Betts is simply not going to return his full value.
No team will surrender that much for a single year of Betts.
It is a lot like trading Lindor or Arenado: it has to be driven solely by money. And the threat of lost draft picks, for Boston.
Also, Boston needs to evaluate the whole team now and moving forward.
Resetting the cap this year will let them exceed it for a couple years moving forward and even a 95-win season migbt only get them a will card, no different than an 88 win season.
They might really be better off with a wild card in 20, 21, and 22 without Betts.
Only they know if even that is possible with Betts.
Is Sale really healthy? How will Price perform?
It is tough division and even Baltimore projects to be marginally tougher.
Baseball is a business on multi-year cycles.
Betting everything on one season has proven over and over to be risky.
The last time I can recall it working was the Huizenga Marlins.
And that left a bad aftertaste.
It worked pretty well for the 2019 Nationals. Or should they have traded Rendon and Strasburg mid season since they were only going to maybe get a Wild Card?
They had a shot to sign at least one.
Boston signing Mookie is much lower.
Also, it’s a different story because tbeir finances are under control.
Remember, they refused to go all in to Harper.
The Nats were actually playing the multiyear game by giving their money to Corbin and betting on Soto and Robles.
Likewise, this year they gave the money to Strasburg and are instead betting on Kieboom (and placeholders) instead of breaking tbe bank for Rendon.
If anything, the Nationals have for years been playing for continued competitiveness instead of “banners fly forever”.
They’re just not great (or ridiculously unlucky) at evaluating relievers.
So they should have traded Rendon and not Strasburg mid Season?
They had no budget troubles so neither.
The Sox problem is money.
The Marlins “problem” was Huizenga and money.
The issue isn’t absolute but relative.
Both are competitive but the Nats budget is long term sustainable so standing pat, even for a WC mades sense.
Red Sox are multiyear tax offenders. The penalties are severe and the gap above tbe WC inmense.
And we have yet to see the penalties from sign stealing.
Whether we like it or not money is an integral part of the equation created by the Collective Bargaining Agreement.
The Red Sox problem is not money. Their problem is that they are smelling their own farts (if they are seriously considering this path).
A hundred million tax problem is made up?
That is half the team payroll.
What about dropping 10 slots in the draft?
Why not (attempt to) trade him to the Rockies for Arenado and farm pieces? While that’s likely a bad deal for the Rockies, the Rockies aren’t all that averse to bad deals (as one of the last true suckers left in the league).
The problems as I see them are, well, money- Arenado’s deal may not help the Sox get under the tax that much, and that the Rockies way overvalue their farm.
Wil Myers inclusion in this discussion makes no sense to me, why in the world would Boston even entertain the idea of taking on any of his contract? If it were up to me, my Marlins would get involved in this discussion, use all that money they aren’t spending to take Myers off the Padres hands, eat at least 2/3rds of the contract, and then accumulate 2 or 3 quality prospects from the Padres stacked farm system. Then that frees up the money to bring in Betts and hopefully for Padres fans’ sake re-sign him as well.
Flipping him?
He might end up like Matt Kemp, traded multiple times, with the team getting him paying less and less each time.
Basically because only 2/3rds of the money counts against the luxury tax, allowing them to dip under it more easily. So the Wil Myers contract is literally less of a liability for the Red Sox than the Padres.
All that said, this logic works a lot better when you’re talking about a David Price deal where you’re just shifting around bad contracts. A Price for Myers deal, straight up, would subtract about $17M from the Red Sox’s luxury tax number and add about $9M to the Padres’ payroll. That’s more or less a win-win. Plus, they didn’t just trade Mookie Betts.
Pitching isn’t the Padres biggest problem.
Having both Myers and Hosmer is.
Getting Price for Myers is addition by subtraction but reduces what they get from the displaced starter. Trading for Mookie is pure addition so they’re bound to prefer it.
Yeah, but from the Padres’ perspective they didn’t just trade a really good prospect, and from Red Sox’s perspective they didn’t just trade Mookie Betts.
I’m not sure if it’s possible, but if San Diego can pay even the first year of the Myers deal specifically, then that helps the redsox ‘reset’ the luxury tax by getting rid of $27mil in year one and taking in $0 from Myers. Drop JBJ then…and your done. Maybe they think Myers can rebound too, it’s not like Mitch Moreland is fantastic at 1b, so if you squint it may be possible for Myers to reclaim value at Fenway and right hand hitters love fenway.
As long as we’re talking about this–for which teams does it actually make sense for them to trade for Mookie Betts under this framework? The Padres are the team that is probably reported the most here, and I get why Preller is doing this–he probably thinks he’s fired if the team isn’t making a strong push for a wild card next year. But that strikes me as something kind of like moral hazard, where Preller’s incentives are not aligned with the best interests of the organization. I don’t think anyone is going to miss Margot and Cal Quantrill but that other prospect seems like a pretty big sticking point for a team whose best days are still clearly ahead of it.
My sense here is that the Dodgers are at the absolute top of the list of teams that should be looking to trade for Betts, since they’ve been looking for a right-handed outfielder forever, because they’ll probably be facing a rule 5 situation, and because there are few other ways to improve. The Cubs would make a lot of sense too, although they seem strangely averse to improving right now. Maybe the Reds, because they’re clearly trying to push all their chips in.
Cubs really need pitching more than another OF.
Ditto Philly.
The team that could most benefit from him is St. Louis but it’s not in their DNA to go for broke.
Dodgers could use him but don’t really need him.
Reds are already up to their gills in OF but the Sox might go for a package with Senzel, Aquino, and some pitchers.
Padres could best use him to jump into instant respectability and reduce the pressure on the young’uns, so the rumors make some sense.
Sox just re-signed Moreland so if they get Myers they would need a third team.
Actually, a real challenge trade would be Bauer, Aquino, and Senzel for Mookie.
Reds get an anchor for their offense, simplify tbe OF, and move Senzel while he’s still worth something.
Sox get (risky) upside all across the board.
Senzel for 2B, Aquino for the OF (and eventually 1B), and Bauer a top righty for the rotation.
A truly gutsy all or nothing deal on both ends.
Obviously not going to happen.
The Reds take a hard pass on that deal. They view Bauer as a potential rental ace. I think Senzel would be more than they are comfortable adding to a hypothetical package like this.
A Senzel – Betts framework made a lot more sense before the Casty signing as well.
I said it wasn’t going to happen, no?
But it’s the kind of trade required to get value. Which as I said above, isn’t going to happen.
If there is a trade at all it will be for money reasons not for value.
Well for one, the premise of a challenge trade assumes there is more uncertainty in the abilities of the players involved. Betts, and to a lesser extent, Bauer have established their floor/ceilings. A challenge trade better describes the Brewers-Padres swap. Or the Diamondbacks-Marlins swap last year.
Regardless, the deal still makes little to no sense from the Reds perspective. It’s not a challenge trade, it’s unrealistic.
And any trade that involves Betts is going to be about both financial considerations and value. That’s why there hasn’t been a deal yet. You don’t become a billionaire like John Henry without a full understanding of maximizing value.
Bauer has one premium year, a couple of average years with flashes of brilliance and a fairly bad run at Cincinnati.
Will the real Bauer stand up?
He has a high ceiling but a so-so floor given his service time.
Everybody else is an upside bet.
The only sure thing is Betts but with him the question is whether he puts the Reds over the top or has a great year and the team still falls short. It’s a gamble on both sides.
It’s not as if were going to the Dodgers or Yankees or last year’s Astros. The Reds have made a lot of moves but they’re no sure thing.
What I listed is an example of why he won’t move for value.
To get Mookie it would have to be a team that is already competitive. Even without him, the Sox would be marginally competitive so a Betts trade would be between two competitive teams and those are rare. Especially for expensive rentals.
I think the problem remains the initial hypothetical trade was unrealistic both in terms of Cincy subtracting too much current and future value and Boston not saving enough on payroll. Neither team is really achieving their goals with your hypothetical.
I think there a lot of ways to get value for Betts in a trade with another contender that doesn’t take a key cog out of that contender.
Betts to the Mets for Conforto, Dom Smith, and a lottery ticket could actually make sense for both sides. It just involves moving superfluous parts or direct upgrades.
I don’t understand the distinction you are trying to make between making a trade for value and making a trade for ‘money’ reasons. They are not separate. The money impacts the value and the value impacts the money.
The White Sox for the same reason as the Reds. They are looking at Mazara in RF. He is somehow predicted to be worth 1.5 WAR despite never posting more than 0.9. The team is predicted for 38 WAR, but adding 5 by replacing Mazara with Betts (projected for 6.6) puts them ahead of Cleveland, ties them with the Angels, and puts them within one win of Oakland, Tampa, and Minnesota. If you take 5 wins off the Red Sox for the loss of Betts then they are only 1.7 WAR behind them. They have $40+M in space below the tax per Spotrac’s estimates.
In fact, adding Betts to the Reds only gets their projection to about where the White Sox already are, although it is something of an apples to oranges comparison since it is a different division and league.
Betts takes the White Sox from a middle of the pack team with a chance to make the playoffs if everything breaks right to a legitimate contender. They probably have the prospects to get it done, even if you exclude guys who they need to contribute this year like Madrigal, Robert, Jimenez, Kopech, and Cease.
The Reds actually have Senzel & India and multiple 50’s to trade for Betts and seem indifferent about damaging their future to contend in 2020. The White Sox only have Vaughn, else they’re trading valuable pieces off their major-league roster for a 1-year rental. They don’t make any sense for Betts now (and I wouldn’t have given Keuchel multiple years to force contention this year), but I like aglossman’s scenario above where they sign him in the offseason.
I agree completely that they are better off signing him next year. I accidentally edited out a sentence that said it only makes sense if they are just looking at 2020.
The White Sox have a much brighter future than the Reds do with a huge influx of talent coming soon or present (Madrigal, Robert, Vaughn, Kopech, Cease, Jimenez), which I assume would be off-limits anyway, and which would severely limit what they could offer.
The Reds, on the other hand, have no place to play either Senzel or India for the next 3 years or so, plus a couple of higher-risk pitching prospects (Lodolo, Greene) so you’ve got the makings of a pretty solid set of guys to pick from. And the clock is ticking on the Reds’ roster with Bauer one year away from FA, Castellanos’s opt-outs, and a veteran-heavy roster, which you can’t really say about the White Sox. The Reds should be way more desperate to capitalize on what they have, and have a really mismatched roster/farm system.
It would never happen, but…..Cleveland.
They have the pieces to compete this year, have cleared $45M in payroll room over the least two offseasons, and the weakest spot on the team by a wide margin is the OF.
Adding Mookie makes their team sexy in a hurry.
With a different owner.
Trading for Betts would put them at 120 million in payroll so it’s not completely crazy.They would get the draft pick and they could to a quantity for quality deal with their prospects.
The Indians at $120 won’t sniff $120 this year.
Maybe next year…if they keep Lindor to free agency.
Again, these aren’t baseball decisions; they’re money decisions.
Angels would make a lot of sense. Could swap the Upton deal as part of it ot use the trade to hedge on Upton’s health.
*or use the trade
The Mets make sense on paper as well. They would get a true CF, they still have savings from the Cespedes restructure, and they have enough superfluous ML talent to get talks going.
Trading betts doesnt make sense. They should offer him a mega deal. Generational talents are rare.
Even if he turns out to fall off a cliff like Charlie Keller, Pete Reiser, Tonly Oliva and Albert Belle, it’s still the right decision to try to win in 2020.
Merloni of WEEI reports that the Sox offered Betts 10/300 and Betts countered with 12/420. Given that absurd number, there would seem to be no point in offering Betts a megadeal. People keep suggesting this on every website. The Betts gamble is that he can get enough teams bidding that 12/420 becomes a reality. I can’t imagine any team coming close to that, and I even have trouble coming up with teams who will be willing to go 330 for 10 or 11 years next offseason.
Meet in the middle at 11/$360M?
Here are his ‘career fWAR through age 26’ neighbors, debut 1950 onward:
94.6 $3.8M Willie Mays
57.2 $6.3M Rickey Henderson
51.3 $7.0M George Brett
50.6 $7.1M Cal Ripken
36.4 $9.9M Ron Santo
32.9 $10.9M Tim Raines
29.1 $12.4M Dick Allen
25.2 $14.3M Andruw Jones
12.9 $27.9M Cesar Cedeno
11.6 $31.0M Vada Pinson
I dropped Machado and Harper asthey don’t have the 27+ track record to be useful for a projection and I dropped Bonds because *…
The numbers are fWAR age 27-37 and then $/win for those wins at $360M. With the latter, we’re looking at four monumental bargains, two epic fails and four that unless MLB salaries stagnate are likely to be in the range of fair to moderate disappointment.
The average works out to $9.0M/win.
I think Betts will get 10/$400M easily. Machado and Harper both got $300M and were admittedly 2 years younger but here’s their production in the 4 years prior FA:
Betts: 30.3 FWAR (I’m replacing this year with his year of 4 seasons ago)
Machado: 21.5 FWAR
Harper: 20.4 FWAR
A lot will depend on his 2020.
If he goes 2018 nuts, $400M is an option.
If he’s closer to 2019 or even slightly lower, he’ll “only” get Harper money.
Oh, to have that probem…
Contracts are a two way street ,Betts wants to test free agency same thing with Lindor.
Teams can’t force a guy to sign a deal unless they give them crazy stupid money,and even then it’s no guarantee.
I think where the Betts and Goldschmidt comparison falls a little short is that the Cardinals were confident they could extend Goldy, while Betts and Boras seem intent to test the FA market.
And go for $300M+.
If the Sox were under the cap now, they could match any deal.
But as three-peat offenders the tax would hurt even their bottom line.
The Sox already played the “banners fly forever” card under Dombrowski when they signed Price and Martinez and traded for and extended Sale.
The party was 2018, 2020/21 is the hangover.
There has been quite a bit of discussion over whether a fan base would rather see their team be consistently competitive or go “All-in” for a short period of time then disappear. Thankfully the Red Sox got their championship in 2018 or the Dombrowski era would have been a complete disaster. His “Damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead” approach to building a baseball team has come back to haunt every team he has been associated with. The Marlins got their title then simply gave up and haven’t been seen since. The Tigers came close but never drank the champagne and how does that Miggie contract taste now. Boston ownership realized their mistake and made the right move. There is enough talent around to not become a 47-114 team but Dombrowski’s spending binge is going to weigh heavily on the Red Sox for the immediate future and beyond.
Everything has a price.
Some owners might be willing to do boom-bust cycles but the trend among many current owners is for sustained competitiveness: aim for 90 every gear and hope everything comes together once in a while.
I don’t think a player’s willingness to sign an extension would alter his value beyond the very fringe of the return. Does the ability to extend a guy at or slightly above market rate have value? I don’t think it does.
And in the Cards case, extending Goldy looks to have actually cost them some money since he had a down year, but signed his extension at or slightly above his market rate at the end of the 2018 season.
I think the difference also is that Betts has zero chance of resigning with San Diego prior to free agency whereas Goldschmidt was always a high percentage extension guy when he went to St Louis. Also – I think Myers going to Boston versus hitting in San Diego could make him a +110-115 bat again.
While the focus of this article is on the fact that the trade return seems ‘light’ (which I can’t disagree with) why the hell would a 70 win team want to trade away ANY future value for one year of Betts? As a Padre fans I’d love to see him play here next year but short of a LOT of things going right they’re still a long way from the playoffs. I get some of it centers around dumping Myers but it’s not like the guy is a clubhouse cancer, he was just wildly overvalued when they made a dumb decision to overpay him. (which they amazingly did again with Hosmer). Sit tight Padres and stay the damned course. If they want to dump Price so bad I agree a Price for Myers swap could make sense. Myers is actually physically talented, and a change of venue/coaching may help him.
imo they must think they can get him to enjoy his time in SD and then offer a market (or near market) contract in hopes he stays. its not a bad play to me.
Preller thinks he’s gone if the team doesn’t make a run at a wild-card spot. This is a situation where the incentives for the GM and the organization are pretty mismatched.
The Zips projections for the Padres are sneakily good. I don’t see them matching up with the Dodgers, but a wild card looks within reach.
Trading a great player for a lot of mediocre players is a tried and true way to fail. It has been done in every sport and the list of horrible trades is long. Mike Ditka traded his entire draft for Ricky Williams, disaster. Ollie Matson was traded for 9 players and the Rams never won a title. Pedro Martinez to the Red Sox for mediocre players and, recently, Gerrit Cole for average players. The Red Sox would be fools to follow this path. The only deal that might work is a one for one for a top prospect, Gore from the Padres or Lux or May from the Dodgers and that isn’t about to happen.
Wasn’t the Goldschmidt trade considered a great deal for Arizona? I don’t see that one being a great comp. If Betts is worth 6.6 wins at $9m a win that is $59.4m, giving him about $32.4m in surplus value. So he’s basically worth a 50 FV position prospect and some filler.
100% agree. Not sure why Craig thinks pulling basing this analysis solely off of another trade is the best way to do it.
Suppose the Sox call up Minnesota and offer Betts straight up for Byron Buxton. I think the Twins, given where they are right now, would have a hard time saying no to that. And I’d much rather have Buxton than any of these packages.
Not suggesting they should do that, really, just, it seems like the negotiating baseline needs to be higher.
Buxton plus some low ceiling pitching (Dobnak?) and some lottery tickets in the low minors would be interesting
I don’t know the numbers like so many here, but as a Twins fan I’ve been wondering what the Twins would have to give up to take Mookie and Price off Boston’s hands. With that the Twins – who are built to win now – trade out Eddie Rosario for Mookie and add 4+ wins and take another risk on high upside pitching. It puts the payroll far beyond where it’s ever been but they’re not re-signing Mookie and Price’s contract won’t hang around forever. It seems like the Red Sox must want something in prospect, but if the price is low the Twins don’t have to trade anyone and ca win now and later.
Good analysis. Just want to add a couple of points. It’s true that Mookie would make any team better on the field at his position. But you do need to project the cost of Mookie out in a few ways. First, there’s the $27 Million. Yes, on a WAR per dollar basis, he’s more than worth $27M, but it’s still $27M, and more than that for the few teams with CBT issues. If you are spending $27M, do you have enough extra cash to make inside-the-season moves for 2020 as needs arise? Second, the talent going back to the Red Sox is likely to have one consistent component–cheap youth. So, looking out to 2021 and beyond, have you spent that prospect talent, and, in doing so, forced yourself to either accept lesser production or to bid on 8-figure free agency salaries. If you are diving into the free agent market in later seasons, then the true monetary cost of Mookie can be a lot higher than the $27M.
It would seem to me that, unless you had the right competitive situation, and prospect depth to sell from surplus, you’d need a 2016 Cubs-like return for Chapman (a World Series, or at least a deep run through the playoffs) in order to justify giving what Boston probably thinks would be fair.
And that’s what makes the Dodgers seem like a much likelier trade partner for Betts than San Diego.
Might take a third team to get this to work, which slightly complicates things
The Betts situation might be the oddest, stupidest, most needless, and most avoidable situation I’ve ever seen a MLB team get themselves into, especially one with the resources of the Red Sox. It’s almost difficult to know where to start, but let me take a shot at it.
1. After getting out of the Hanley Ramirez – Pablo Sandoval mess, you might have thought they’d learned their lesson and thanked their lucky stars. But no, they allow Dave Dombrowski to walk them into the exact same trap. Except now there’s literally no one in the farm system who can help them. Chavis? Sucks. Dalbec? Blows. Casas? At least 2-3 years away. Pitching? None. And to make things worse, DD gave out the inane contracts to Eovaldi and Sale, the latter of which was completely unnecessary at the time. The Price deal from years ago I understand, the rest no.
2. Mookie Betts has never in his entire Red Sox career given any indication that he wanted to stay with Boston when he was ready to become a free agent. So you’ve got a guy who was going to leave regardless of any other factors. Accept it.
3. I don’t know anyone in their right mind who thinks the Red Sox can win 95 games this year even if they don’t deal Mookie off. Where’s the pitching?!? Sale is facing, best case scenario, TJS. Worst case, rotator cuff and he’s done. I mean done done. Price is probably the best thing they have going for them pitching-wise, but there’s his contract and his divisiveness in the clubhouse. Who in the heck are their 3-4-5 pitchers? They’re replacement-level or below guys, all of them.
4. So to me, as configured, they’re an 82-85 win team, just like last year. With Mookie. Trade him and they’re under .500. With that kind of record, attendance goes down, losing even more revenue and making it even more painful to pay the luxury tax. So what are the options?
5. Trade Betts and maybe Price to the Padres? Hahahahaha… no. Taking Wil Myers is taking on another albatross contract. Margot? Lucchesi? Quantrill? All JAGs. Even if they stand pat or got zero in return, the Red Sox take Mookie’s $27m off the books next year anyway, and they haven’t added a bunch of guys nobody but San Diego wanted. Same thing, but with the Dodgers, who might be willing to part with Gavin Lux? Better, but still doesn’t solve their pitching issue, and until I see Lux prove that he can hit lefties (he really hasn’t at any level), what is he, really? If the Red Sox make either the SD or LAD deal, as currently proposed, they’re getting screwed. Memo to Red Sox: If you find yourself in a hole, the first thing to do is stop digging.
6. Someone mentioned a deal with the Reds involving Bauer and Senzel. Okay, now we’re getting somewhere. I like the idea of approaching the Reds and seeing where they’re at. If they’re open to talks, so much the better. I also like the idea of the White Sox as a potential partner. In fact, I like this scenario best. Chicago has been building a good groundwork for several years now and has lots of young, good talent, especially what the Red Sox need most, pitching. They won’t part with Giolito, but I’d take him, Kopech, or Cease in a heartbeat.
Time for the million dollar question – what would I do if I were the Red Sox? I’d start with a top to bottom *honest* analysis of every other team’s assets a) 25 years old or younger, both MLB and MiLB included, who either have proven they are or currently have the tag of 55+ FV. Exclude any team that doesn’t have at least 5-6 of these guys in their system or in MLB already. Approach every team that’s left. Set the price up front – It’s gonna take 3 of those guys plus one proven MLB SP, a #4-#5 guy, to make a deal. No interest? Too bad. Keep Mookie for now. Teams will get more interested come June. Be willing to walk away. Focus on good, projectable young guys. Think Jimmy Johnson’s strategy when he traded Herschel Walker to the Vikings.
I’d also explore the market for Chris Sale and try to make a deal before the season starts. Once games start meaning something, other teams will see that 2019 is his new normal, or he’ll get injured, one of the two. Throw in Bradley Jr to sweeten the pot.
Sign Scooter Gennett. They need a 2B, Gennett is only 30, and they could probably get him for 1 at $4m or 2 at $7m. Big upside, cheap, a placeholder at worst, but if it doesn’t work, what have they lost?
Knowing the Red Sox, I’m sure they’ll try to convince their pink-hat fanbase that they’re going to contend in 2020 no matter what happens. But the fact remains, they can’t have both a contender and lower payroll. Better to bite the bullet and take the hit for a few years, while trying not to shoot themselves in the foot in the meantime.
Considering that the Red Sox are projected for 48.7 by Steamer, and replacement level is set at something like 48 wins, that means that right now they’re projected for 96-97 wins. You can knock that down a little bit because of the division they play in, and maybe a little more because of some optimism about Peraza or Eovaldi that isn’t warranted, but the evidence is stronger for a 95 win team than an 85-win one.
I assume you’re making that assumption because you assume all the pitchers who were hurt at the end of last year will continue to be hurt, which is kind of a leap. And that’s before we get to some other questionable assumptions, such as refusing to negotiate an extension meaning a guy is gone, that Wil Myers’ contract has the same luxury tax implications as other contracts (which is mentioned in the article), that teams are lining up to give huge prospects for one year of Mookie Betts (which again, is well-explained in the article)…
Players who develop a history of injury tend to keep getting injured, especially pitchers. Staying healthy manifests in the same way as a skill does for some reason. I know it’s not logical, but it’s the way it is. Research it. It’s true.
1. I more or less agree with you here. I think Chavis is a solid 1-2 win role player, but I agree that no one else in the upper minors has much more upside than that, and the pitching prospect depth is pretty bad overall.
2. He’s never said he wouldn’t re-sign with the Red Sox, just that he wanted to test free agency. By all accounts he likes playing in Boston, but he and his family/agent made the decision to try to maximize his earnings, and I have no issues with players doing that. It’s not out of the question that he could sign back with them in free agency, though that doesn’t seem all that likely at the moment.
3. I think 95 might be aggressive, but with some better injury luck I don’t see why they can’t win 90 games. Sale has been responding well to the PRP injection and is expecting to be ready for Spring Training. His shoulder wasn’t the issue, so I don’t know why you are so concerned about that. Their 3-4-5 right now would be Eduardo Rodriguez (who was good last year), Martin Perez, and Eovaldi. Certainly some injury risk, and the depth beyond that is pretty questionable, but you can pencil in 1-5 and it’s not a dumpster fire.
4. Meh. They’d be worse but not under .500 without Mookie, and I don’t think attendance will be affected all that much. Boston tends to draw well even when they aren’t a great team.
5. Any trade of Mookie that brings back a bad contract doesn’t really make sense to me, so on that point we agree. I understand there are luxury tax implications, but getting to pay Myers for 3 more years doesn’t sound like a big win. I’d much rather have Lux than anyone the Padres appear to be offering as he looks like he could be really good, but they’ve been incredibly resistant to trading him in the past and I don’t think that’s changed.
6. I find it unlikely the Reds trade Bauer, or anyone really, for Mookie. While he certainly would upgrade any team’s outfield, the Reds have plenty of OF depth and much bigger holes at SS and C. The White Sox think they are entering a period of contention due to all of their young players reaching the majors or being very nearly there, so I find it unlikely they’d move any of them, especially on the pitching side. I could see them being players for Mookie in free agency after the season.
Sale has basically no trade market at this point. He’s coming off a bad season and injury and his extension just kicked in, so they wouldn’t be able to get anything of value for him. For what should be contending team it makes way more sense to let him get healthy and play. They have Jose Peraza and Chavis to cover 2nd, both of whom are younger, cheaper, and probably have more upside than Gennett, so I don’t see the point of that.
The Dodgers prefer Lux, too.
Look, I love Sale and as a baseball fan I want to see him succeed and be healthy all year. I just gotta see it, and I haven’t the last two years. Even before that he had the rep of fading down the stretch. My point was simply that you have to consider that his highest value as a trade piece might in fact be now. If they want to roll the dice, it’s their money. I guess we’ll find out who’s right soon enough.
You had me up until the “5 or 6 guys who are 55+ prospects.” There are no teams like that. San Diego is the closet, with 4 from the 2019 updated BOARD.
What I wrote was:
25 years old or younger, both MLB and MiLB included, who either have proven they are or currently have the tag of 55+ FV.
I specifically included MLB players. I would venture a guess that counting MLB players, there are probably 6-10 teams out there with 5-6 guys who are 55+ FV when you include both their MLB and MiLB rosters. Those are the teams the Red Sox should be dealing with.
Who was it who said, “Never trade youth for age”? Yeah, I know, Mookie’s only 27 years old, but given their payroll problem, they should be looking exclusively for younger guys in return.
I would instead look to unload Price. That’s a much bigger financial burden to offload. Price and JBJ for Hudson, Liberatore and Fowler.
Pushes some chips in for the Cards, while also helps the Sox financially but also keeps the Sox viable this year if Hudson pitches well and keeps Betts in Boston at least till July.
How many teams would be willing to give three 55+ FV prospects, plus a proven ML pitcher for one year of Betts? Zero is the number I come up with.
Betts is a great player, second best position ML player, IMO. But Boston can only trade one year of him.
The problem with trading Betts is it doesn’t really address the Red Sox need to get below the repeater penalty threshhold
After signing Moreland, they are 31 million over that line,even if they make the proposed Padres deal that only shaves 23 million off.They can’t make that deal without knowing they can deal Price,Bradley,Eovaldi or some other contract that would meet that goal.
I imagine that would be a helluva a two step for the GM to pull off.Especially with the Manfredian Sword of Doom hanging over the franchise and the Boston Media Greek Choir chiming in.
This is my biggest gripe with Boston’s offseason. Martin Perez, Mitch Moreland, and Jose Peraza are not good players, and that’s $11M right there, maybe more. I don’t know where you’re getting the $31M number from (it looks more like $28M right now?). But if your number is true, and if you want to get under the tax line, adding those players has moved you from possible to impossible. Before, that Myers-for-Price deal gets you most of the way there, straight up. Trading Chris Sale gets you there. Trading Mookie Betts, while not a good move, gets you there. Right now they have to give away Bradley in addition to doing one of those other things.
I agree with you here to an extent. The most frustrating part of watching the Sox the last several years is the money handed out to middling players (Nunez and Moreland are my biggest gripes previously).
Except, they have kind of had to do this. With no farm or even fringe ML guys at the door the Sox have needed to fall back on below average vets. They don’t have 10 multi-positional, passable big leaguers sitting at AAA like the Rays have had.
That said, there have to be 1B options available in trades for little cost that could put up similar value to Moreland while only costing league minimum. Voit, Ford, Garrett Cooper, these guys pop up regularly. Just feels like the Sox don’t take a lot of chances on guys like that or may not have the player dev in place to maximize their talent.
This is what happens to a Dombrowski team,the Tigers are the road map for the Red Sox right now.
CJ Cron would have been cheap, too
Sox can cut JBJ in the spring. Arb contracts are not guaranteed until the season starts.
Between the AL East and the wild card I’m not sure 95 wins does it this year. In fact the only way I can imagine it is the Rays win less than that. And it’s a near-lock that it’s just a wild card spot they get if they get anything.
Unbalanced schedule means a lot of NY and RAYS, which will be tough matchups, evenwith Betts, and the potential of the Jays and O’s being somewhat better.
Even the AL central won ‘t be as easy as last year.
And tbeir pitching isn’t as deep as a contender needs.
Wild Card contender, yes but that’s a tough division.
Based on the scenarios speculated, I fail to see any trade involving Betts that benefits the Red Sox. Even if it is 100% guaranteed that he leaves via free agency, as a greedy fan I’d be happier with one final full season of Mookie Betts baseball.
We’d obviously prefer he keeps playing at Fenway but I think most of us Sox fans can live with Betts personal choice to become a free agent and losing him that way, rather than the organization choosing to dump him for some 45 FV prospects and Wil “not Clark” Myers to simply get under the impenetrable luxury tax line 1 season sooner. It will be an incredible disappointment if a deal like that actually happens.
The projection of 95 wins is surprising for a Red Sox club that last year won only 84 games (albeit with a Pythagorean record of 87-75), 12 games behind the second Wild Card slot, followed in order by the now-improved Rangers, White Sox and Angels, adding little more than Jose Peraza, Martin Perez and Kevin Plawecki this offseason, with the question marks of Chris Sale, David Price and Nathan Eovaldi in the rotation.
Run on.
So if Betts goes to the Dodgers, who plays CF? Betts or Bellinger?
The Goldschmidt deal was an overpay in terms of surplus value partially because of the expectation that Goldschmidt would be amenable to signing an extension with the Cardinals, which he did. That element does not exist in this scenario.
“First, this trade doesn’t work because Betts is way better than Goldschmidt. When I recently surveyed the FanGraphs crowd, Betts was far and away the top choice in present value of the potentially available stars, and he was determined to have greater value than players with more team control, like Kris Bryant and Nolan Arenado.”
The comparison to players with more team control implies that by “present value”, you are referring to trade value. Which then makes your statement false because the only crowd poll in the article you linked to that has Betts at #1 is the “which player is better right now…without regard for contract size or status” poll. In the trade value poll, which you imply you are referring to, Betts is 3rd out of 4 players and behind players with more team control, like Francisco Lindor and Kris Bryant. I’m not sure if this was intentional or not, but either way it’s definitely misleading.
And Bryant’s value just jumped since he lost his contract manipulation complaint and has another year.
Pretty sure if nobody is offering what estimates say that Betts is ‘worth’, then he clearly isn’t worth that much. He isn’t a security that trades in a liquid market with millions of participants. He is a unique asset with only a few possible bidders. He is worth exactly what the market will pay.