JotCast | Top 50 Trade Value Chat | 7/24/2026

Top 50 Trade Value Chat

powered by

Prev Page View Full Chat Next Page

This chat is available to members only. Please log in to participate.

Ben Clemens

12:24

that's the nature of comment sections

no one goes to a list to say 'hey good list'

but yeah.... I appreciate it. this is a hard task. I think I'm pretty good at it. I think I've gotten better at it over time. I'm glad people like it

jdankosky

12:24

Thank you for answering my question! If you'll endulge one more...you've made a pretty strong case that clubs themselves won't pay as much for a defensive win as an offensive win. If this is the case - demonstrably true over time - then why doesn't WAR reflect that? I mean, if teams don't think def. is as value, should we?

Ben Clemens

12:24

gets into a question of forward-looking vs backward-looking

and also, what it costs to replace

12:25

i guess another way of looking at this is like, WAR isn't supposed to be a measure of what teams will pay for a player

it's supposed to measure what they did on the field

12:26

if you wanted to make a different kind of WAR, a 'what teams think about the most likely future outcomes, and hte cost of acquiring thoes outcomes elsewhere, and their opportunity cost in doing so' then it would be a more complicated measure, but also a valid one

I would say that WAR is not really FOR trade value. and moving WAR around to try to mimic that would make WAR worse, without really accomplishing our goals

Bud Smith

12:26

I think the fact that there are 200+ comments on each post speaks to the quality of the lists, the information, the effort. They're all disagreements, but if you got 13 comments that just said "looks great!!!" that probably wouldn't be very rewarding

Ben Clemens

12:26

oh for sure

like I said, it's the nature of lists

and of posting them on the internet

rickdugo3000

12:26

in a world where Roman Anthony doesn't suffer the same injury konnor griffin just did -- obviously that's not this world, and that's part of why he was difficult -- bats to his 2026 .352 xWOBA, and looks generally like the guy with a .920 ops in the WBC, is he somewhere else on the list?

Ben Clemens

12:27

wonderful framing, and I'll just say broadly that in a world where Roman Anthony continued playing incredibly well, I'd have him ranked higher

but I didn't spend a lot of time trying to figure out where, because I already have a ton to do in making this list and he's still not swinging a bat and hasn't been for a while

I probably should have just not ranked him, honestly

12:28

I did it to stick to some nebulous principles about hitters and stuff. but it'd be easier to say that his health is just too tough for me to parse

and so we're clear, maybe I'm just a complete sheep. But no one I talked to said 'dude you're way too low on Anthony we're not worried about that injury at all, get with the program'

and likewise, no one said 'have Griffin low'

sadman

12:28

Why don't pitchers apologize when they hit a batter

Ben Clemens

12:28

no idea!

12:29

I totally would

war2d2

12:29

Ben! Once again I loved the list as a whole, definitely a highlight on the site every year. You clearly put in a ton of work and it is very much appreciated. BUT! I once again have to ask why Michael Busch didn’t make it. Last year I thought that Masyn Winn was a stretch over Busch, and this year it’s Greene. Less control, plays worse defense, has never had a season as valuable as Busch’s ‘25. The tl;dr is: I think you have a vendetta. Did Busch steal your parking spot? Does his cat poop in your geraniums? Did he not paint his garage door an HOA-approved shade of tan?!? The world needs to know!

Ben Clemens

12:29

I think if I bought him as his 2025 self, he would be in there undoubtedly

but I kind of thought he was more like his 2024, 2026 line, as a true talent line

12:30

and a first baseman with a true talent 120 wRC+ is generally not gonna move the needle unless I'm betting big on some improvements

I had him in a group with Rice, Ivan Herrera, Eldridge, and maybe one other I'm forgetting

12:31

and I thought that I'd clearly prefer Rice and Eldridge

and was close with Herrera, basically

like I mention in these, that part of the list has a lot of very similar values. a different person using roughly the same principles as me to rank the players totally could have had him on the top 50

oaktownblues

12:31

What caused you to move Bryan Woo 10 spots higher than the 2025 list? I would think with one fewer year of team control and several new entrants above him, he would've moved down

Ben Clemens

12:32

it's a good question, and I think I have two interesting things to say about it

one, I try not to look at last year's rankings until I've made my initial cut of the list

I don't want past Ben's biases to make me stick to some silly guns for too long

I do like to look over my old analysis after I've made my initial run of the current year's trade value, and that can be helpful

12:33

but generally speaking I want to start from scratch each time, so that I get my mindset in 'what do I think right now' instead of 'what did I think last year?'

12:34

but okay, I still do look at last year's rankings. and I'd say that basically the middle of the list was a hair softer this year and Woo kept pitching really well. like, last year's Ketel Marte pivot at 30, I think I'd take Ketel Marte's 2025 outlook over this year's #30, Dingler (or Jackson Merrill if we want to avoid my re-ranking catchers thing)

but also I think my estimation of Woo has gone up slightly

Connecting…

Register

Message History

On Off

On Off

On Off

On Off

Your current subscriptions

None

Register now to continue managing your subscriptions

E-mail Address	Chat Owner	Status	Remove

Enter your email address to be notified when Ben Clemens hosts a chat