2023 Mets Trade Values

Morning Dose: Tuesday, July 18

☕️ Good Morning: The Amazins return to action against the White Sox. Billy Eppler has traveled to see Japanese ace Yoshinobu Yamamoto. We have a deep dive on trade value rankings. Grab your coffee for your morning dose of Mets Fix!

😫 Starling Marte is still dealing with lingering pain and soreness from his offseason double groin surgery. “It’s affecting me more in my hitting,” Marte told the Daily News through translator Alan Suriel. “I can’t lie and say it’s affecting my running, because that’s not how I feel at the very moment, but at the same time, we’re working every day and we’re doing everything we need to do to make it better.”

🗣️ Mets not expected to trade Pete Alonso. As the trade market takes time to develop over the next few weeks, the Mets have not talked with other teams about specific players and they do not plan on engaging with other clubs about Pete Alonso, per Andy Martino.

🔍 Billy Eppler has already traveled to Japan to scout Yoshinobu Yamamoto, per Andy Martino. The Mets are one of at least eight teams to heavily scout the 25-year-old ace, per Michael Mayer. Yamamoto is 9–3 with a microscopic 1.74 ERA and 103 strikeouts in 93.1 innings this season. He is expected to be posted by the Orix Buffaloes. Behind Shohei Ohtani, he might be the best player available in free agency next winter.

🔽 Relievers T.J. McFarland and Stephen Ridings cleared waivers and have been outrighted to Triple-A Syracuse.

🗓️ UP NEXT: Thanks to the new schedule, we get to see the White Sox at Citi Field this week. After back-to-back playoff appearances in 2020 and 2021, Chicago has fallen on hard times. They are 40–55 under new manager Pedro Grifol. They will be one of the clubs that is in sell mode come the trade deadline.

Carlos Carrasco (3–3, 5.16 ERA) will kick off the series against Lucas Giolito (6–5, 3.45), who will surely have scouts watching him as a potential trade chip.

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📺 In case you missed it yesterday, you can watch me in conversation with SNY Host Chelsea Sherrod and Ryan Finkelstein of Locked on Mets on the SNY YouTube channel:

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We are two weeks away from the trade deadline, so I thought today would be a good day to introduce some concepts for how we can evaluate trades involving retained salary and prospects.

There are a variety of factors to consider when evaluating a trade. The market is dynamic, normal supply and demand forces are in play and each team values each trade piece — be it prospects, veterans or cash — differently. Relationships also play an important role, something that is hard to evaluate from afar. We have asymmetric information as outside observers about the negotiations and counteroffers being considered before a final deal goes down.

Based on the information we do have, we can at least come up with a framework for how teams value players and prospects relative to their expected value and salary.

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How much is adding a win worth?

Let’s start by reminding you of the WAR concept.

WAR, or wins above replacement, has become the most commonly used all-encompassing metric in baseball. It’s far from perfect, and each team might have their own formula for calculating WAR, which might deviate from the publicaly-available numbers we read on FanGraphs or Baseball Reference.

It’s important to remember that WAR means wins above replacement. The idea is that a baseball team can always find someone to play a given position. A team of replacement-level players would theoretically win 40 games. When saying a player is worth three wins above replacement, it means they are adding the run equivalent of three wins to that team win total.

Using historical data to find how much teams have been willing to spend to add an extra win in free agency, we can approximate the “value of a win” in dollar terms. FanGraphs research shows this value fluctuates from year-to-year and role players tend to be paid at a discounted rate, but for ease of analysis, somewhere between $9-11 million per WAR is a fair number to use. This means that a player projected to produce 2 WAR has traditionally cost ~$18 million in free agency.

In terms of trades, it would be easy if everyone made the same amount of money and teams simply exchanged relatively equal value in future WAR. But it’s never that cut and dry. A 2-WAR player making $8 million is not worth the same as a 2-WAR player making $4 million. Exchanging cash or prospects helps make up that difference.

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How do we place a dollar value on prospects?

It starts with historical data. A study by FanGraphs of Baseball America’s Top-100 prospects from 1996-2010 found how much WAR prospects produced over the first nine years of their major-league careers relative to their scouting grade. The prospects were separated among positional players and pitchers. “70 POS” stands for a 70-grade positional player (versus “70 p” is a 70-grade pitcher) in the table below.

via FanGraphs

As you can see, even a highly-rated prospect (65 future value) has a nearly 20% bust rate. By taking into account all of the different outcomes among the different prospect types, FanGraphs found the value of each prospect expressed in terms of that $9 million per WAR value we discussed above. You can see how the model looks using a higher $/WAR value (important for in-season trades) and a slightly different methodology from Driveline below.

via Driveline and FanGraphs

Using this mapping, you can begin to think about how Steve Cohen’s wallet can help the Mets gain prospects in trades.

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Tying it all together

Tying it all together, we can use projected WAR, remaining salary and prospect valuation to evaluate trades. We must remember that teams usually are willing to pay a slightly higher premium for talent at the deadline than they are during the offseason.

We must also remember that each team will evaluate prospects differently. We are using publicaly-available grades. But what one team considers a 40-grade prospect, another team might consider a 45-grade prospect.

Using the recent Eduardo Escobar trade to tease this all out: New York sent Escobar to the Angels for prospects Coleman Crow and Landon Marceaux, while absorbing the remainder of Escobar’s salary (roughly $4.7 million). At the time of the deal, accounting for an increase in playing time, Escobar was projected to produce 0.6 WAR for the remainder of the season, which equates into $6.2 million using $10.4M/WAR.

Assuming the Angels are not interested in exercising Escobar’s $9 million club option in 2024, the Mets essentially traded $10.9 million in value (0.6 projected WAR + $4.7 million paid in salary) for two prospects. In return, they received Crow (a 40-grade pitcher) and Marceaux (a 35+ grade pitcher). Using the Driveline values from the table in the previous section, that’s $8.4 million of prospect capital, meaning Eppler paid a slight premium to acquire two pitching prospects, and even more so using the FanGraphs valuations.

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2023 Trade Values

Now let’s get into the fun part and identify the trade values for Mets players who could find themselves on a new team soon, or whom we find interesting to evaluate, such as Pete Alonso and Jeff McNeil.

A few assumptions to consider:

• I assumed future player options are exercised and club options declined for “Guaranteed Salary Past 2023.” Obviously, if a team feels differently about how those options will be exercised, that will change the value. For example, Brooks Raley’s $6.5 million club option might be viewed favorably.

• It’s important to keep in mind that the projected WAR values can obviously change the trade value of each player. I used FanGraphs’ ZiPS ROS projections. Perhaps you are more bullish on Tommy Pham than Mark Canha, which could then flip-flop their ranking.

• Max Scherzer and Justin Verlander would need to approve any trade, which could depress their market value.

• ROS = rest of season. I adjusted the salaries to reflect the final two months remaining in the season. The ROS WAR projections are as of this morning, so those values could slightly change over the next two weeks.

• To calculate surplus value, I used $10.4M/WAR for 2023 and $9M/WAR for future seasons (accounting for inflation on the price of an in-season upgrade).

The most sobering takeaway from this ranking is how Max Scherzer and Justin Verlander land at the bottom of the list. Even if the Mets eat the remainder of their respective 2023 salaries, their future outlays are so expensive it is nearly impossible for them to produce enough future WAR to net a surplus value. Since Verlander has a $35 million vesting option in 2025 based on whether he pitches 140 innings in 2024, it’s going to be difficult to retrieve any meaningful value for him in trade.

For Scherzer, the Mets could potentially up his value by agreeing to pay a portion of his player option in 2024. By eating the remainder of his 2023 salary and offering a 50% discount on his 2024 player option, his surplus value becomes $15.5 million, which could net them at least one 45-grade prospect using the Driveline values. Would the Dodgers be willing to trade Ryan Pepiot in this scenario? If not, maybe a few 40-grade prospects, such as Emmet Sheehan and Nick Frasso?

It’s no surprise the core pieces of Pete Alonso and Jeff McNeil (although both struggling) have the most trade value. They are in the primes of their career and under team control or signed at reasonable rates for multiple years.

🔹 The players who most realistically could be traded find their value anywhere between $2-6 million. To temper expectations, that means retrieving 35-to-40 grade prospects, maybe a 45-grade prospect if you are lucky. That means prospects well off the Top 100 list and with bust rates over 60%.

You might scoff at Daniel Vogelbach’s placement on the list, but this is where team control and perception comes into play. Compared to the players ranked below him, a trading partner would be gaining an added year of cost certainty, or an extreme discounted rate relative to the veterans on multi-year contracts. Last season, we saw Billy Eppler trade a 40+ grade pitcher in Colin Holderman for a little over two years of Vogelbach. Perception might impact his value. He has obviously regressed this season. However, it’s not impossible for the Mets to fetch a low-grade prospect for Vogie from a team with a left-handed DH opening who is relatively high on his upside.

David Robertson offers an immediate test of our method since he was traded under similar circumstances last year as an impending free agent. The Phillies were willing to give up a 22-year-old reliever, Ben Brown, for a few months of Robertson (who was owed only $1.2 million). Brown was a 35+ prospect, so worth between $1-2 million, which is a little less than Robertson’s value this season, assuming the Mets are willing to eat his remaining salary.

These valuations are meant to act as a guidepost. The market will dictate actual prices. With the expanded playoff format, there will be more buyers than sellers, which could push up prices. Relievers are usually a hot commodity, so a premium could probably be added to Robertson and Raley relative to their ranking in the table.

🔻 The main takeaway is the Mets don’t have a lot of surplus value to trade, even if they eat a bunch of salary. We will see how things develop over the next two weeks!

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🔗 All that ails the Mets can’t be fixed at the trade deadline, no matter the cost, by Ken Rosenthal, The Athletic ($): “The Mets’ .462 winning percentage would be the second-worst by an AL/NL club following a 100-win season since 1918. Cohen’s billions haven’t saved them. The deadline won’t save them. The most expensive team in major-league history is an all-time flop, and its outlook will not dramatically improve anytime soon.”

🔗 Mets’ lack of valuable contracts would make trade deadline surrender a waste of time, by Jon Heyman, NY Post: “Cohen is willing to spend, and even lose money (sources suggest he’ll be dropping about $200 million this year), and at some point, if they paid enough to be rid of the future Hall of Famers, they could overpay to the point of buying a prospect or two. But is anyone really surrendering a blue-chip prospect to spend tens of millions on pitchers just because their résumés are fantastic.”

🔗 Mets rookie Grant Hartwig, a reliable reliever so far, is learning life in the majors, by Tim Healey, Newsday: “Given the Mets’ likely status as trade-deadline sellers, plus a couple of late-game pitchers who will be attractive to other clubs, there may well be more opportunity to come, too. If Hartwig indeed is a good big-leaguer, he should have a chance to prove it.”

And we leave you with Joe DeMayo of SNY’s latest Top 10 prospect list…

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