BaseballTradeValues - Twins Players

[bean5302]

Some recent (post end of season) trade proposal valuations for Twins players hitting arbitration or under contract. Baseballtradevalues helps to remove personal biases regarding players and how valuable the rest of the league may or may not see them. Some trades wind up being pretty lopsided by their website, though, so it's hardly perfect.

Griffin Jax +40.9
Pablo Lopez +37.4
Jhoan Duran +31.0
Royce Lewis +26.3
Bailey Ober +22.9
Carlos Correa +22.8
Ryan Jeffers +13.1
Byron Buxton +0.4
Manny Margot  -0.4
Christian Vazquez  -7.8

Joe Ryan?
Chris Paddack?
Jorge Alcala?
Brock Stewart?
Michael Tonkin?
Justin Topa?
Randy Dobnak?
Willi Castro?
Trevor Larnach?
Alex Kirilloff?
Kyle Farmer?

[ashbury]

For every player with a positive value that you listed (where's Wallner?) there appears to be an article at TD titled something like "To Save Money Should the Twins Consider Trading X?"  😀

[tony&rodney]

I agree that the site is hardly perfect, solely for entertainment.

[bean5302]

4 hours ago, ashbury said:

For every player with a positive value that you listed (where's Wallner?) there appears to be an article at TD titled something like "To Save Money Should the Twins Consider Trading X?"  😀

Wallner isn't arb eligible yet. I didn't include the whole 40+ man haha

[ashbury]

46 minutes ago, bean5302 said:

Wallner isn't arb eligible yet. I didn't include the whole 40+ man haha

Yes, sorry, I missed that caveat in your explanation.  I expect he has some trade value in a full teardown.  That's the only scenario I care about anymore.  The onslaught of trade this guy, trade that guy, has worn me down.

[Doctor Wu]

9 hours ago, ashbury said:

Yes, sorry, I missed that caveat in your explanation.  I expect he has some trade value in a full teardown.  That's the only scenario I care about anymore.  The onslaught of trade this guy, trade that guy, has worn me down.

It's only mid-October and all the opinions and conjecture and projections about next season have already worn me out. I'm ready for basketball to clear my head. Maybe. 

[Parfigliano]

54 minutes ago, Doctor Wu said:

It's only mid-October and all the opinions and conjecture and projections about next season have already worn me out. I'm ready for basketball to clear my head. Maybe. 

Hockey will clean your soul.

[bean5302]

If people want to see more values, you can get a subscription to the site for all the values any time you want them.

Or, you can search for your desired player in recent trade proposals
https://www.baseballtradevalues.com/trades

In regard to Matt Wallner specifically, he's not in any trades since July. His value fluctuated radically throughout the year (for obvious reasons)
January 9th = +23.1
June 15th = +7.5
June 18th = +8.7
July 23rd = +17.6
I'd be willing to bet it's far higher right now.

Considering the Twins have 5 more years of control over Wallner and he still has an option, a full teardown and rebuild strategy wouldn't generally include guys like him.

[harmony55]

On 10/16/2024 at 5:08 PM, tony&rodney said:

I agree that the site is hardly perfect, solely for entertainment.

In its valuations, Baseball Trade Values considers relevant factors that some fans overlook.

But it's not perfect.

We all bring our own biases when we question BTV valuations.

Baseball Trade Values recently assigned Seattle catcher Cal Raleigh a surplus value of $19.8 million.

Raleigh plays a premium position.

Over the past three seasons Raleigh topped all catchers with 13.9 fWAR, valued at $111.4 million.

https://www.fangraphs.com/leaders/major-league?stats=bat&lg=all&qual=y&type=8&month=0&ind=0&startdate=&enddate=&season1=2022&season=2024&pos=c

$111.4 million

https://www.fangraphs.com/players/cal-raleigh/21534/stats?position=C#value

Raleigh, who turns 28 years old next month, has three seasons of team control with a projected 2025 salary of $5.6 million.

The past three years Raleigh's home run production has increased from 27 to 30 to 34 playing his home games in a pitchers park. The relevance of RBI has been questioned because of the stat's dependence on factors outside the hitter's control. Still, Raleigh drove in 100 runs this year on a club that for much of the season struggled to score runs.

Perhaps the BTV valuation overlooked Raleigh's defensive skills that have been credited for the success of the Seattle pitching staff. Raleigh, who led MLB in innings caught, may receive a value boost from his recent Gold Glove nomination. 

The Mariners would be more likely to trade a starting pitcher than trade Raleigh.

[tony&rodney]

1 hour ago, harmony55 said:

In its valuations, Baseball Trade Values considers relevant factors that some fans overlook.

But it's not perfect.

We all bring our own biases when we question BTV valuations.

Baseball Trade Values recently assigned Seattle catcher Cal Raleigh a surplus value of $19.8 million.

Raleigh plays a premium position.

Over the past three seasons Raleigh topped all catchers with 13.9 fWAR, valued at $111.4 million.

https://www.fangraphs.com/leaders/major-league?stats=bat&lg=all&qual=y&type=8&month=0&ind=0&startdate=&enddate=&season1=2022&season=2024&pos=c

$111.4 million

https://www.fangraphs.com/players/cal-raleigh/21534/stats?position=C#value

Raleigh, who turns 28 years old next month, has three seasons of team control with a projected 2025 salary of $5.6 million.

The past three years Raleigh's home run production has increased from 27 to 30 to 34 playing his home games in a pitchers park. The relevance of RBI has been questioned because of the stat's dependence on factors outside the hitter's control. Still, Raleigh drove in 100 runs this year on a club that for much of the season struggled to score runs.

Perhaps the BTV valuation overlooked Raleigh's defensive skills that have been credited for the success of the Seattle pitching staff. Raleigh, who led MLB in innings caught, may receive a value boost from his recent Gold Glove nomination. 

The Mariners would be more likely to trade a starting pitcher than trade Raleigh.

Pretty much a great example of why the site, for all of its efforts, is merely for entertainment.

[bean5302]

On 10/18/2024 at 9:45 AM, harmony55 said:

In its valuations, Baseball Trade Values considers relevant factors that some fans overlook.

But it's not perfect.

We all bring our own biases when we question BTV valuations.

Baseball Trade Values recently assigned Seattle catcher Cal Raleigh a surplus value of $19.8 million.

Raleigh plays a premium position.

Over the past three seasons Raleigh topped all catchers with 13.9 fWAR, valued at $111.4 million...

Baseballtradevalues doesn't appear to use "catcher framing" in the same way Fangraphs or Baseball Reference (DRS) have chosen to dive full on into it. Catcher framing is where a huge portion of Cal Raleigh's fWAR and bWAR comes from. I do not believe in catcher framing as a statistic catchers have good control over anymore. It's not stable or predictable. It seems to me the "framing" metric appears to be more reliant on the pitching staff and umpire adjustments so you see massive swings in catcher defensive value from year to year. I hate that. Just like OAA or DRS in general have wild adjustments from one year to the next in even medium sample sizes. For example. Cal Raleigh's DRS value over 1200 innings projected.
2021 = -4 or below average
2022 = +18 or elite
2023 = +2 or average
2024 = +17 hey, he's elite again!

Cal Raleigh's breakdown for Baseballtradevalues is as follows: AFV = 56.7 (2.4 WAR per year, approx), Salary = $28MM remaining over 3 years.  AFV - Salary = 28.7.

Jeffers is at AFV 24.9 (average 1.5 WAR per year)

I agree, it's certainly not perfect, which is why I stated that in the initial post, but it's a pretty good ballparking tool to correct fan biases about the value of players on the Twins. In Cal Raleigh's situation, I think his value likely depends on how much any given front office believes in his framing value, but I also have a feeling BaseballTradeValues is low on his performance.

Ryan Jeffers Arb2 (+13.1)
    2024 = 122 G, 64 RBI, .226/.300/.432 .732 OPS, wRC+ 107, OPS+ 103, 1.7 fWAR, 2.1 bWAR
Cal Raleigh Arb1  (+28.7)
    2024 = 153 G, 100 RBI, .220/.312/.436 .748 OPS, wRC+ 117, OPS+ 119, 4.3 fWAR, 4.6 bWAR
    Last2 = 298 G 175 RBI, .226/.309/.446 .755 OPS, wRC+ 115, OPS+ 117, 9.7 fWAR, 7.8 bWAR

If you compare Jeffers and Raleigh in BaseballTradeValues, I think it's within reason in terms of true projection (lots of catcher injuries?), but probably not in real life since I don't think front office's "expect" injuries from previously healthy players, they just understand the elevated risk.

[harmony55]

22 hours ago, bean5302 said:

Baseballtradevalues doesn't appear to use "catcher framing" in the same way Fangraphs or Baseball Reference (DRS) have chosen to dive full on into it. Catcher framing is where a huge portion of Cal Raleigh's fWAR and bWAR comes from. I do not believe in catcher framing as a statistic catchers have good control over anymore. It's not stable or predictable. It seems to me the "framing" metric appears to be more reliant on the pitching staff and umpire adjustments so you see massive swings in catcher defensive value from year to year. I hate that. Just like OAA or DRS in general have wild adjustments from one year to the next in even medium sample sizes. For example. Cal Raleigh's DRS value over 1200 innings projected.
2021 = -4 or below average
2022 = +18 or elite
2023 = +2 or average
2024 = +17 hey, he's elite again!

Cal Raleigh's breakdown for Baseballtradevalues is as follows: AFV = 56.7 (2.4 WAR per year, approx), Salary = $28MM remaining over 3 years.  AFV - Salary = 28.7.

Jeffers is at AFV 24.9 (average 1.5 WAR per year)

I agree, it's certainly not perfect, which is why I stated that in the initial post, but it's a pretty good ballparking tool to correct fan biases about the value of players on the Twins. In Cal Raleigh's situation, I think his value likely depends on how much any given front office believes in his framing value, but I also have a feeling BaseballTradeValues is low on his performance.

Ryan Jeffers Arb2 (+13.1)
    2024 = 122 G, 64 RBI, .226/.300/.432 .732 OPS, wRC+ 107, OPS+ 103, 1.7 fWAR, 2.1 bWAR
Cal Raleigh Arb1  (+28.7)
    2024 = 153 G, 100 RBI, .220/.312/.436 .748 OPS, wRC+ 117, OPS+ 119, 4.3 fWAR, 4.6 bWAR
    Last2 = 298 G 175 RBI, .226/.309/.446 .755 OPS, wRC+ 115, OPS+ 117, 9.7 fWAR, 7.8 bWAR

If you compare Jeffers and Raleigh in BaseballTradeValues, I think it's within reason in terms of true projection (lots of catcher injuries?), but probably not in real life since I don't think front office's "expect" injuries from previously healthy players, they just understand the elevated risk.

Thank you for the thoughtful response.

FWIW Spotrac assigns 27-year-old Cal Raleigh a market value of $193,904,176 over eight years for an AAV of $24.2 million:

https://www.spotrac.com/mlb/player/market-value/_/id/26119/cal-raleigh

Spotrac ranks Ryan Jeffers third in market value among catchers:

https://www.spotrac.com/mlb/player/market-value/_/id/26082/ryan-jeffers

[bean5302]

1 hour ago, harmony55 said:

Thank you for the thoughtful response.

FWIW Spotrac assigns 27-year-old Cal Raleigh a market value of $193,904,176 over eight years for an AAV of $24.2 million:

https://www.spotrac.com/mlb/player/market-value/_/id/26119/cal-raleigh

Spotrac ranks Ryan Jeffers third in market value among catchers:

https://www.spotrac.com/mlb/player/market-value/_/id/26082/ryan-jeffers

I'm inclined to think Spotrac is way high and Baseballtradevalues is way low on Cal Raleigh's. Raleigh's best comp is probably J.T. Realmuto who got 5yrs and $115MM, which seems pretty reasonable as to what Raleigh might expect on the open market right now. Will Smith's contract was at $140MM, but he was still under team control and the AAV is far lower than what free agency would get. Raleigh isn't in the realm of Buster Posey or Joe Mauer comps, and he'd never approach that $194MM figure Spotrac is projecting for a few reasons. The biggest is injury risk/durability for catchers as they just don't age well. Second is Raleigh's bat being above average rather than elite. Third is the looming possibility of robo umps. If robo umps come to fruition, Raleigh's value would be halved.

When it comes to Jeffers, he's basically Gary Sanchez. All power - no on base, but league average-ish bat with mediocre defense. Also not going well for Jeffers is how few games he plays, even if that's just Baldelli being Baldelli. Durability concerns are real for Jeffers. I think anything over 3yrs $40MM would be unrealistic for him if he were hitting the open market.

[Doctor Gast]

On 10/16/2024 at 2:27 PM, bean5302 said:

Some recent (post end of season) trade proposal valuations for Twins players hitting arbitration or under contract. Baseballtradevalues helps to remove personal biases regarding players and how valuable the rest of the league may or may not see them. Some trades wind up being pretty lopsided by their website, though, so it's hardly perfect.

Griffin Jax +40.9
Pablo Lopez +37.4
Jhoan Duran +31.0
Royce Lewis +26.3
Bailey Ober +22.9
Carlos Correa +22.8
Ryan Jeffers +13.1
Byron Buxton +0.4
Manny Margot  -0.4
Christian Vazquez  -7.8
 

I filled in your ?s & added Wallner

Joe Ryan?    33.3
Chris Paddack?   - 1.6
Jorge Alcala?   0
Brock Stewart?   7.1
Michael Tonkin?   0
Justin Topa?   9.8
Randy Dobnak?   -4
Willi Castro?   15.1
Trevor Larnach?  14.5
Alex Kirilloff?   -1.6
Kyle Farmer? no longer listed as a Twin

Matt Wallner     42.2

[Doctor Gast]

There's a lot that goes into a trade that influences them. Like need & surplus. Deadline trades are ridiculously high for buyers. I turn down about 85% of all Twins offers that are not mine.