The New “The Trade” Results

[Bourgeois Zee]

You’re ignoring the years of control and the fact that Suarez has been terrible outside of a couple months for the past 2 years. They get 2 years of Winker and 3 years of Suarez. 3-4 years of a steady 4-5 starter is probably 6-9 WAR if you take 2-3 WAR as a good BOR starter. I think that’s about what you can expect out of Winker and Suarez over the life of the deal. Unles Suarez turns back into 2019 Suarez.

We really, really disagree about this.

You're arguing that quantity is better than quality.

Any team worth its salt could find a BOR starter. They're, almost by definition, fungible.

We continue to disagree about your mischaracterization of Winker and of Suarez as players. It's frustrating to try and discuss topics because of those repeated mischaracterizations.

[757690]

We really, really disagree about this.

You're arguing that quantity is better than quality.

Any team worth its salt could find a BOR starter. They're, almost by definition, fungible.

This is not accurate. A solid BOR starter is not easy nor cheap to find. Every year, there are only around 100 starting pitchers who produce 1 or more WAR. That’s around 3 per team. Meaning, most teams are filling their 4-5 spots with guys who are close to replacement level.

It usually costs around $10M on the free agent market to get a solid 4-5 starter (see Mike Minor’s salary). Getting that for league minimum for 3 years and then on the cheap for 2 more, is quite valuable.

[Bourgeois Zee]

This is not accurate. A solid BOR starter is not easy nor cheap to find. Every year, there are only around 100 starting pitchers who produce 1 or more WAR. That’s around 3 per team. Meaning, most teams are filling their 4-5 spots with guys who are close to replacement level.

It usually costs around $10M on the free agent market to get a solid 4-5 starter (see Mike Minor’s salary). Getting that for league minimum for 3 years and then on the cheap for 2 more, is quite valuable.

If there are only 100 SP who produce 1+ WAR, by definition, BOR starters should be easy to acquire, as they're nearly replacement level. Fungible, in other words.

Perhaps the OP meant a MOR starter, which is slightly more defensible than a BOR SP-- though still woefully short of the value Winker would likely have provided as a DH/ LF. (Not to mention the value Suarez might have accrued.)

[757690]

If there are only 100 SP who produce 1+ WAR, by definition, BOR starters should be easy to acquire, as they're nearly replacement level. Fungible, in other words.

Perhaps the OP meant a MOR starter, which is slightly more defensible than a BOR SP-- though still woefully short of the value Winker would likely have provided as a DH/ LF. (Not to mention the value Suarez might have accrued.)

Most contending teams have decent 4-5 starters who are better than replacement level. Those 100 starters are not spread out evenly among every team. They usually have to spend resources to get them.

As for Winker’s value, at his peak, he’s a 3 WAR player. That’s 6 WAR over two years and they are at near retail price at this stage of his career. He’s getting paid around $25M for 6 WAR over two years, and that’s assuming he stays at peak production.

Compare that to someone providing that around same 6 WAR over multiple years, getting paid league minimum for most of them. Looks to be about even. That is the calculation that every team makes.

[MoneyInTheBank]

Most contending teams have decent 4-5 starters who are better than replacement level. Those 100 starters are not spread out evenly among every team. They usually have to spend resources to get them.

As for Winker’s value, at his peak, he’s a 3 WAR player. That’s 6 WAR over two years and they are at near retail price at this stage of his career. He’s getting paid around $25M for 6 WAR over two years, and that’s assuming he stays at peak production.

Compare that to someone providing that around same 6 WAR over multiple years, getting paid league minimum for most of them. Looks to be about even. That is the calculation that every team makes.

I think you are mistaken about Winker's contract

[757690]

I think you are mistaken about Winker's contract

Yeah, you’re right. I thought he was going to get around $10M this year, and $15M next year, which is what a 3 WAR player would get in those arb years. But he slow start in his career drove his salary down, so he likely gets around $7M this year and around $10M next year.

Thanks for the correction

[Old school 1983]

We really, really disagree about this.

You're arguing that quantity is better than quality.

Any team worth its salt could find a BOR starter. They're, almost by definition, fungible.

We continue to disagree about your mischaracterization of Winker and of Suarez as players. It's frustrating to try and discuss topics because of those repeated mischaracterizations.

Luckily for me, I defined my term in post #13. BOR starter in the context I used it was 2-3 WAR a year. I’ve probably been spoiled by recent Reds staffs. But a solid BOR starter on a good team is that kind of guy. That’s not fungible.

I’m not mischaractetizing players. For some reason you called Winker an All-Star and Suarez a starter. Of course Winker was an All-Star last year, and in a small sample this year Suarez is playing a starting caliber 3b. However, last year, he was one of the worst starting players in the majors. Point being, it’s better to characterize the players as they were at the time of the trade. Winker. Great hitter, but not good at anything else. Suarez. Once great hitter who transformed into a 3 outcome machine and one of the worst position players in the league.

Now I said the Reds could potentially win that trade if one of the guys they got turned into 2-3WAR a year starter for 3-5 years. That isn’t the same thing as saying I’d trade Winker and Suarez prior to start the season for a 2-3 WAR a year pitcher. That’s a known commodity that has no potential higher value. The guys they got in the trade, have higher potential than that. Dunn may already be that.

So, unless Suarez goes back to being a 4 win player, 3-5 years of 2-3 WAR could take it. Let’s give Suarez the benefit of the doubt. 6 WAR for 3 years. Winker will be hard pressed to make it over 2 this year unless he goes supernova. So let’s say 1.5 WAR this year. And matches his career year next year 2.7. That all comes out to 10.2. That’s doable if you put up 2-3 WAR a year for 3-5 years. I think there’s a pretty solid chance the Reds get a starter like that and a reliever at the end of the day out of the mix. If Suarez regresses from his current pace at all or in the next 2 years, the Reds will be sitting pretty on this one.

[Bourgeois Zee]

Luckily for me, I defined my term in post #13. BOR starter in the context I used it was 2-3 WAR a year. I’ve probably been spoiled by recent Reds staffs. But a solid BOR starter on a good team is that kind of guy. That’s not fungible.

I’m not mischaractetizing players. For some reason you called Winker an All-Star and Suarez a starter. Of course Winker was an All-Star last year, and in a small sample this year Suarez is playing a starting caliber 3b. However, last year, he was one of the worst starting players in the majors. Point being, it’s better to characterize the players as they were at the time of the trade. Winker. Great hitter, but not good at anything else. Suarez. Once great hitter who transformed into a 3 outcome machine and one of the worst position players in the league.

Now I said the Reds could potentially win that trade if one of the guys they got turned into 2-3WAR a year starter for 3-5 years. That isn’t the same thing as saying I’d trade Winker and Suarez prior to start the season for a 2-3 WAR a year pitcher. That’s a known commodity that has no potential higher value. The guys they got in the trade, have higher potential than that. Dunn may already be that.

So, unless Suarez goes back to being a 4 win player, 3-5 years of 2-3 WAR could take it. Let’s give Suarez the benefit of the doubt. 6 WAR for 3 years. Winker will be hard pressed to make it over 2 this year unless he goes supernova. So let’s say 1.5 WAR this year. And matches his career year next year 2.7. That all comes out to 10.2. That’s doable if you put up 2-3 WAR a year for 3-5 years. I think there’s a pretty solid chance the Reds get a starter like that and a reliever at the end of the day out of the mix. If Suarez regresses from his current pace at all or in the next 2 years, the Reds will be sitting pretty on this one.

We disagree about nearly all of this.

Best to characterize players as they will be moving forward.

Winker was producing better offensively than any LF in baseball.

Suarez was a wildcard who could have been an All-Star and could have been a second-division starter.

Both of those are better than a BOR starter.

[RedTeamGo!]

williamson has been pretty good lately. i like the return for the reds (meaning just phillips and williamson since we all know fraley & dunn were nothing more than throw-ins).

also, how in the world was phillips the "player to be named later" when he's the best player the reds got in the deal? when does that ever happen? almost always, the PTBNL is a throw-in/lottery ticket type. we all (myself included) laughed when krall said they also liked the player to be named later in the deal. if he knew it was phillips, why wasn't phillips just included in the original deal? why was he a PTBNL? so strange. but bottom line, i think we might look back on getting phillips and williamson for winker and geno as a very good trade for the reds.

Michael Brantley was the PTBNL in the Sabathia to the Brewers trade from like 15 years ago. Everyone thought Matt LaPorta was the main piece coming back, and 2-3 years later Brantley was one of the best young players in baseball.

Baseball trades are the legit best. I feel like you don’t see anything like that in other sports. In NFL you don’t really see many player for player deals other than fringe roster guys. In NBA everyone knows who is legit and who isn’t. It’s possible 5 years from now folks will be saying “why in the world did the Mariners trade Connor Phillips??!!” It’s also possible 5 years from now Connor Phillips will be smoking heaters behind the bar he tends with a waitress he’s hitting on.

[757690]

We disagree about nearly all of this.

Best to characterize players as they will be moving forward.

Winker was producing better offensively than any LF in baseball.

Suarez was a wildcard who could have been an All-Star and could have been a second-division starter.

Both of those are better than a BOR starter.

You’re leaving out or ignoring years of team control and the salaries for the players. Every team values those as much as production in calculating trades, as they should.

Winker is under team control for 2 years and Suarez for 3 years, with both due a combined over $50M in salary. At best, they combine to produce 12 WAR over those years, and that is being extremely optimistic.

If either Williamson or Phillips develop into a solid 2 WAR starting pitcher, which is the hypothetical that Old School is using, that would mean they are producing 10 WAR over 5 controlable years, and getting paid less than $10M overall for those 5 seasons.

That’s the math. That is how every team calculates trades. Paying $50M for 12 WAR over 3 years, or $10M for 10 WAR over 5 years, and that is the best case scenario for Winker and Suarez. They they are playing right now, it seems highly unlikely they reach a combined 12 WAR while playing for the Mariners.

[mth123]

I disagree about this re-evaluation. Lets add some perspective here. Offense is down everywhere and the AL West is a much tougher hitting environment than GABP and the NL Central. Suarez .760 OPS this morning is a very good OPS+ of 126 and would be the second best bat in the Reds line-up behind only Stephenson. Winker's stinker of a .614 OPS is an OPS+ of 86 which is right in the neighborhood what they Reds are getting from Mike Noustakas and Tommy Phan (OPS+ of 89 each). Both are performing better than Votto, India, Senzel and Farmer as of this morning.

So far, the Reds have nothing to show for this trade. Fraley is an interchangeable part whose defense may be as bad or worse than Winker in the OF. Dunn will be over a full calendar year on the DL with shoulder issues before he hopefully appears in a big league game again. Not very high hopes there. The pitching prospects are OK so far, but success in High A doesn't really impress me much (though its a lot better than failure in high A). We'll know about Willianson and Phillips after they've had 350 innings in the big leagues or they been dealt for somebody else who helps the team. Until then, they aren't anything.

Oh and the money saved was used on Pham (about the same offensive production as Winker and well below Suarez), Minor (hasn't appeared yet and just had a poor outing in rehab). Solano, out indefinitely, and Moran (probably the best of the bunch so far with an OPS+ of 74 and surprisingly good defense at 1B).

Still looks like a horrible deal from here.

[757690]

I disagree about this re-evaluation. Lets add some perspective here. Offense is down everywhere and the AL West is a much tougher hitting environment than GABP and the NL Central. Suarez .760 OPS this morning is a very good OPS+ of 126 and would be the second best bat in the Reds line-up behind only Stephenson. Winker's stinker of a .614 OPS is an OPS+ of 86 which is right in the neighborhood what they Reds are getting from Mike Noustakas and Tommy Phan (OPS+ of 89 each). Both are performing better than Votto, India, Senzel and Farmer as of this morning.

So far, the Reds have nothing to show for this trade. Fraley is an interchangeable part whose defense may be as bad or worse than Winker in the OF. Dunn will be over a full calendar year on the DL with shoulder issues before he hopefully appears in a big league game again. Not very high hopes there. The pitching prospects are OK so far, but success in High A doesn't really impress me much (though its a lot better than failure in high A). We'll know about Willianson and Phillips after they've had 350 of innings in the big leagues or they been dealt for somebody else who helps the team. Until then, they aren't anything.

Oh and the money saved was used on Pham (about the same offensive production as Winker and well below Suarez), Minor (hasn't appeared yet and just had a poor outing in rehab). Solano, out indefinitely, and Moran (probably the best of the bunch so far with an OPS+ of 74 and surprisingly good defense at 1B).

Still looks like a horrible deal from here.

Evaluating a trade of MLB players for prospects a month in, before the prospects even have progressed past AA is just silly. The Larry Anderson for Jeff Bagwell trade looked like a loser for the Astros at this point.

Anyway, the discussion was not an evaluation of the trade at this point, but a hypothetical if one of the prospects became a decent starting pitcher. The math is clear on that, if that happens.

[Kc61]

Trade itself was ok. Got two good pitching prospects. Mariners took on a salary dump with Suarez.

But even if Reds passed the trade, they flunked the situation.

The best play was to hold both Suarez and Moose into the 2022 season. Both are fundamentally good players who had declined. Neither is that old. One of them (if not both) was likely to improve his trade value.

Similar to other Reds trades. They want to dump salary and the timing, therefore, does not maximize value.

[Old school 1983]

I disagree about this re-evaluation. Lets add some perspective here. Offense is down everywhere and the AL West is a much tougher hitting environment than GABP and the NL Central. Suarez .760 OPS this morning is a very good OPS+ of 126 and would be the second best bat in the Reds line-up behind only Stephenson. Winker's stinker of a .614 OPS is an OPS+ of 86 which is right in the neighborhood what they Reds are getting from Mike Noustakas and Tommy Phan (OPS+ of 89 each). Both are performing better than Votto, India, Senzel and Farmer as of this morning.

So far, the Reds have nothing to show for this trade. Fraley is an interchangeable part whose defense may be as bad or worse than Winker in the OF. Dunn will be over a full calendar year on the DL with shoulder issues before he hopefully appears in a big league game again. Not very high hopes there. The pitching prospects are OK so far, but success in High A doesn't really impress me much (though its a lot better than failure in high A). We'll know about Willianson and Phillips after they've had 350 innings in the big leagues or they been dealt for somebody else who helps the team. Until then, they aren't anything.

Oh and the money saved was used on Pham (about the same offensive production as Winker and well below Suarez), Minor (hasn't appeared yet and just had a poor outing in rehab). Solano, out indefinitely, and Moran (probably the best of the bunch so far with an OPS+ of 74 and surprisingly good defense at 1B).

Still looks like a horrible deal from here.

My dad is not a very patient dude. If we watch a baseball game together, he will basically act like it’s over if whoever the Reds are playing score in the first inning and the Reds don’t. I always respond with they play 9 innings. It really seems like you are judging this trade and it’s not even the middle of the first inning. Real winners and losers of this one probably won’t be known until 2024 or so.

[mth123]

Evaluating a trade of MLB players for prospects a month in, before the prospects even have progressed past AA is just silly. The Larry Anderson for Jeff Bagwell trade looked like a loser for the Astros at this point.

Anyway, the discussion was not an evaluation of the trade at this point, but a hypothetical if one of the prospects became a decent starting pitcher. The math is clear on that, if that happens.

Call me skeptical on both counts. Not impressed with the lack of control that Williamson is showing so far. Bullpen or whatever IMO. Phillips is doing well in High A, but a lot of guys do well in High A and go to AA and die. Since Phillips was generally considered the lesser prospect of the two and since I'm not impressed with Williamson, that leaves me with not very high hopes about Phillips in spite of what he's doing in Dayton. He could change my mind by repeating his performance ay higher levels, but until he does, I'll remain a skeptic. I hope they both go on to be successful big leaguers. Its the best thing that could happen to my favorite team, but until they do something to change my mind, I don't think this trade needs to be re-evaluated.

So far, its still the Reds giving away an All Star bat in order to get a team to take a guy with a reasonable contract who just happens to be putting uo a 126 OPS+.