JotCast | 2025 Trade Value Series Chat

2025 Trade Value Series Chat

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Ben Clemens

10:34

This is a good time for a quick aside, both reading the comments and spending a lot more time with my list after it's out of my hands and can't change it has me looking at two things and figuring out how to improve them for next year

The tiering system is, I think, really useful. It's also a great narrative tool. But it leads to me dragging players a little higher or lower than they'd otherwise go. Like, George Kirby was #23 b/c he's broadly similarly shaped to #22, Hunter Brown

10:35

but as I mentioned, I had 28-21 all mixed up at various points. and by list's end, I probably would have preferred the 'franchise players with question marks' group to Kirby

but it'd break the tiers!

likewise, the Adley/Contreras double should have been a little bit lower. But I had them in a three-player tier with Alejandro Kirk (#29 right in front of Ketel Marte, but had been #30 behind Ketel b/c I had the two of them at almost exactly the same value)

10:36

so wanting to put Kirk next to Marte dragged up his tier-mates

I need to figure out a way to handle that next year, perhaps looser tiering. I don't think it's a huge dela, but that's my first takeaway

Bal'mer

10:36

Colton Cowser close to an honorable mention?

Ben Clemens

10:36

Yeah

He was one of the last names left on the HM cutting room floor this year

10:37

I don't think his value is tremendously different from some of the other defensive-ish, offensive-wishcasting guys

Guest

10:38

Was Jarren Duran close to an honorable mention?

Ben Clemens

10:38

haha he was one

I'm very curious to see what he or Abreu fetch in return if the Sox decide to do some kind of buy/sell mix

10:39

They're a fascinating team. I was looking back at my preseason projections and I had Devers MVP (whoops!) and Anthony ROY (maybe!) and yet I didn't realize enough what a logjam they'd have

still wild to me that they're playing Rafaela at second base

Oaktown Blues

10:39

I'm sad you left Nick Kurtz off the list, not because I think it's indefensible, but because it deprives us of seeing his 5 year ZiPS projections! Think of the children!

Ben Clemens

10:39

I was hoping you'd ask this question!

I have a Nick Kurtz anecdote all queued up

10:40

Okay, so I sat down on July 5 to start this process with fresh ZiPS, up-to-date career and recent stats, all my contract stuff, big old spreadsheet ready to go

and I worked off of that, incorporating new data, for the next call it two weeks

as of games of July 4, Nick Kurtz had a 116 wRC+ and Jacob Wilson had a 136 wrC+

10:41

Now today, on the other hand, Kurtz has a 163 wRC+ and Wilson is at 119

10:42

So it's safe to say that the trajectory of their performances played a role in their relative rankings. I try to update my priors to account for new players but it's a)not like I'm getting brand new 5y zips runs for the whole league every day b)not every day that a guy has a 314 wRC+ for a three week span

for the record, though, Kurtz was in Dan's top 100 prospect movers article. 10.4 WAR over the next 5 years

10:43

he didn't include a distribution, but you can probably imagine it

TKDC

10:43

Yamamoto is either a guy on a 4/$90m deal or else he’s an albatross or dead money, depending on his health. Did you heavily weigh him down for that and he still ended up where he is or do you not see his opt outs as a massive downward pressure on his value?

Ben Clemens

10:43

Yeah

I think he'd be meaningfully higher if not for that

I and the person I talked to most about his deal concur that the balance of probabilities is weighed pretty squarely towards an opt out right now

like 70/30 or better

10:44

in my subjective opinion

you obviously have to weigh both into account, though

TKDC

10:44

If none of the other 29 teams would value Yordan as the 28th best trade value asset, then doesn’t that squarely mean he is not the 28th best trade asset?

Ben Clemens

10:44

This is my list. I say that every year. People don't seem to care. This is the list of who I think are the top 50 trade values in baseball, subject to the criteria that people who generally think like me ran front offices

I can't actually tell you what all 29 teams think about Yordan

Sadly, I don't get full brain access to the 30 top decision makers

10:45

Honestly, I didn't even speak to one! I talk to guys who spend a lot of their time scouring waiver wires or trying to pick between which of four relievers to trade for, because that's what almost everyone in baseball does. I don't think people spend very much time on these grand questions

10:46

So yeah, this is my ranking of the players. I noted why I think the Yordan one is unique. If you want an unbiased exactly accurate assessment of what teams think with no editorial bent, I mean, that doesn't exist, but also I'm not trying to offer it to you

10:47

I at least do a bunch of explaining where I think I'm way out of line. But yeah....I don't see this list as getting to some objective truth. I am doing my best, using both a ton fo back-checking of my own work and a ton of anchoring it to real world trades, to get an idea of what these players 'should' be worth in trade value. Given that they don't often trade, it's kinda difficult. But I also add in my own views. I think that is what people want. Maybe it's not

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