JosephC

Way too generous. I talk about a "top 10 organizational prospect" in an average system. That would be equivalent to a top 300 prospect since there are 30 systems. Currently I would put Hiura, Burnes and Peralta as solid top 100 prospects. Then for Brewer players that would be top 10 organizational prospects in an average system, minus the 3 players already listed as top 100 prospects...I'd have the list as Corey Ray, Bryce Turang, Brett Phillips, Luis Ortiz, Lucas Erceg, Tristan Lutz, Mauricio Dubon. So I'd have the Brewer's top 10 organizational prospects or better right at 10...or basically 10 top 300 players. Jacob Nottingham was 10th in Baseball America's update, they didn't have Turang listed yet so that's the one difference between thier list and mine. Zack Brown is the big riser and he probably makes the list if he continues this pace through the remainder of the season.

Hopefully Gonzalez is way off his game tonight. It just looks like the Brewers will have to play with a terrible lineup versus left handers until Aguilar is ready to play.

Cabrera has little to no excess value - he's worth maybe one 40-45 OFP prospect plus a flyer. I'd do Jorge Lopez and Tristan Archer. Moore is going to be a FA in a few months unless the Brewers add him to the 40-man. More than likely, the Mets could just wait if they really liked him. There are at least two other teams in on Cabrera. Lopez and Archer would be a pitiful offer for a bat like Cabrera. .280/.332/.487/.820 this year and .280/.340/.464/.804 since the beginning of 2016. He should get at least one solid role player prospect and a couple of fringe prospects. Cabrera seems like the best middle infield candidate when looking at all the likely available middle infielders. I definitely would have rather gone shortstop, but Iglesias is my favorite and he just isn't a big enough improvement. I'd take Cabrera over Dozier due to Dozier's slow start this year. Dozier's a known second half performer, no question about that. In the first half this year he slashed .230/.314/.423/.737. From 2015-2017 Dozier's first half slash line was .248/.330/.461/.791. So his numbers are down and I do have some concerns regarding his OBP moving forward. I like Cabrera. Not much with the glove anymore but he is a really good all-around hitter and that's what the Brewers could really use. In this deal I have two solid role player prospects going to the Mets because I think that's what it would take with the other teams in the mix. Would this be an overpay? Yes, but only to the tune of 3-4 million surplus dollars which isn't that significant. As far as Dylan Moore. The Mets will be making some deals and opening spots on their roster. Moore is already 25 years old and has been a good performer in AAA/AA this year and is probably ready for his shot. Subtract Cabrera, add Moore and give him a solid 2 months (or 1 month if waiting until roster expansion) audition at the major league level and see what he can do. If he sticks, he sticks. If he doesn't, then he was only piece #3 in a deal for a rental in a trade where the Mets were on the plus side of the surplus value equation. He seems like a pretty reasonable third piece in a trade like this.

Brewers get: 2B-Asdrubal Cabrera Mets get: RHP-Adrian Houser RHP-Trey Supak 2B-Dylan Moore

I haven't heard about any teams being linked to A.J. Ellis yet. So I'll throw out this offer. Brewers get: C-A.J. Ellis Padres get: RHP-Thomas Jankins RHP-Cam Robinson

Anderson still comes out hitting #6 even when adding Braun, which ends up moving guys around and eventually kicking Shaw out of the lineup (he's hitting .205/.272/.247/.518 against lefties). 1. CF-Lorenzo Cain 2. 1B-Jesus Aguilar 3. 3B-Hernan Perez 4. RF-Christian Yelich 5. LF-Ryan Braun 6. P-Chase Anderson 7. C-Manny Pina 8. 2B-Brad Miller 9. SS-Tyler Saladino

I just took the 8 available Brewers hitters with the highest season OPS's against lefties that can fit on the field all at once. Then I plugged them into Baseball Musings lineup generator (using the OBP and SLG against lefties only), and this is the best lineup the generator came up with. 1. CF-Lorenzo Cain 2. 1B-Jesus Aguilar 3. C-Manny Pina 4. LF-Christian Yelich 5. RF-Hernan Perez 6. P-Chase Anderson 7. 3B-Travis Shaw 8. 2B-Brad Miller 9. SS-Tyler Saladino Pretty much says it all when the pitcher comes out #6 in the lineup. http://www.baseballmusings.com/cgi-bin/LineupAnalysis.py

That's pretty close. With the season Realmuto is having, I'd project him at right around 4.3 WAR per season through 2020. That would put his value at 103.735 million. He's going to get big, big arbiration raises so I'd guess he'll end up making about 21 million from now through the end of 2020. I'd put his surplus value in the 80-82 million range. If I'm the Marlins, I wouldn't consider selling him for anything less than 70 million. I have the following surplus values on the player's mentioned: -Hiura = 43.73 million (#26-#70 hitter) -Woodruff = 14.66 million (between #75-#100 pitcher and top 10 organizational prospect) -Ortiz = 11.45 million (top 10 organizational prospect) -Henry = 4.01 million (between role player prospect and fringe prospect) Total value = 73.85 million No way the Brewer's get to Realmuto's value without including Hiura. If he's not in the deal, the deal doesn't work.

I'm guessing the majority of MLB franchises would value Mejia as a #26-#50 hitter, and if so that would put his prospect surplus value at 43.73 million. Hand's Fangraphs WAR over the last three years (pro-rating 2018 to a full season) are 1.5 (2016), 1.7 (2017) and 1.2 (2018). Doing the same for Baseball Reference and the WAR's are 1.7, 2.8, -0.2. I don't like that -0.2 number and would like to treat it as an outlier and ignore it so I'll do the calculations both ways. Hand will make approximately 24.96 million over the remainder of his contract assuming the option year is picked up. If the 2018 -0.2 WAR from Baseball Reference is ignored, the average of the other 5 numbers is 1.8 which brings Hand's total value over the remainder of the contract to 63.59 million. Subtract 24.96 million from that and his surplus value would be 38.63 million. If the -0.2 is factored in, then the average WAR per season is 1.5, his total value is 53 million and his surplus value is 28.04 million. Cimber doesn't have enough of a track record to run these numbers IMO. I'd still just assign prospect value to him (as I would do for a player like Brandon Woodruff). Cimber looks like a top 100 player against righties and a fringe players when facing lefties. What kind of prospect would he get traded for in a straight-up deal? I'd guess somewhere between a top 10 organizational prospect and a role player prospect. Since he's doing it at the major league level, I'd put a top 10 organizational prospect grade on him which makes him worth 11.45 million. Mejia = 43.73 million Hand (if using all the data including the odd -0.2 2018 Baseball Reference WAR value) + Cimber = 39.49 million San Diego with a slight 4.24 million advantage which makes this a pretty equal trade. If that -0.2 WAR season is ignored, then the Indians have a slight advantage. But overall, just from the numbers standpoint, this looks like a really even trade. Will also add one more note. For anyone out there who thinks Mejia is the real deal, my evaluation of him is low and he really should be considered the #15 prospect in all of baseball as listed by MLB.com. If Mejia still ranks up there then his prospect surplus value shoots all the way up to 70.98 million and then the numbers say this is a bad, bad, bad deal for the Indians. But I just don't think Mejia carries that sort of ranking anymore.

I'm surprised Liriano sat out there that long. The Angels released him about 6 weeks ago. So far he's looked like a classic AAAA player, but I still wonder if he might have a few good MLB seasons in him? He's 27 years old and a lifetime .282/.361/.466/.827 hitter in AAA. Great guy to bring in and give a solid audition in AAA.

First thing that everybody looks at with San Diego pitchers are the home/road splits. That's not an issue with Cimber. He has a 2.96 ERA and 1.07 WHIP at home, a 3.38 ERA and 1.08 WHIP on the road. Then when looking at the submariner, the next split to look at is the lefty versus righty hitter. Righties have slashed a truly pitiful .210/.221/.261/.482 off of Cimber, but lefties have put a .293/.391/.569/.960 beating on him. ROOGY material? Sure looks like it. Brad Hand is the real deal. Personally I like what the Padres did but I'm pretty much always going to be biased when it comes to relievers just because many of them are so up and down (look at Knebel and Jeffress last year compared to this year). Again, I like Brad Hand but not enough to think that him and a 27 year old pitcher with limited MLB experience who hasn't been able to get lefties out are worth the upside of Mejia. On the flip side, since the beginning of this season I've questioned if the Indians think Mejia can be an MLB level catcher. Now that the Indians have traded him for two relievers is just more information that makes me think that the Indians, who know more about Mejia than anybody, don't believe he can be a MLB catcher (at least not an everyday MLB catcher). Watching Mejia's development will be very interesting.

If Mejia sticks behind the game and becomes a good (not necessarily great) defensive catcher, I think his prospect status entering the year (top 20 in all of baseball) is justified. But the more I read about him, the more I think he just might wind up in left field. The guy will probably hit for average and post a good OBP, but will there be enough pop in that bat to make him a real attractive LF? Take the four years from the height of Lucroy's career. From 2013-2016 he slashed .286/.351/.457/.808. Those numbers play anywhere. Getting those numbers out of a solid defensive catcher is outstanding. Getting those numbers out of a left fielder...well one wouldn't complain about it...but it doesn't exactly blow anybody away either. Mejia, I think he has a pretty good chance of being a .310/.360/.440/.800 hitter.

Baltimore had one of the worst systems in baseball just a couple years ago, but they had done a pretty good job of rebuilding it over the last couple years (even before this trade). Baseball America had them ranked #17 going into the season and they've gotten good performances out of many of their top prospects like Ryan Mountcastle, DL Hall, Cedric Mullins, Keegan Akin, Brenan Hanifee. MLB.com has slotted Kremer at #13, Bannon at #17 and Pop at #29. It's reasonable to assume that I had undervalued both players in the assignment of surplus values and each of them should have been valued at 5.72 million. Pop is low enough where he still gets a 2.29 million dollar value. Adding in 25.65 mlllion for Diaz then brings the total package worth to 39.38 million going to Baltimore. For the Brewers to match this, I think the package would have had to been something like: RHP-Corbin Burnes (51-75 pitcher) = 18.90 million RHP-Brandon Woodruff (between 76-100 pitcher and top 10 organizational prospect) = 14.66 million OF-Troy Stokes (role player prospect) = 5.72 million Total package = 39.28 million

I was wrong about this. Diaz reached AA for the first time last year and had 118 AA plate appearanes in 2017. In 382 plate appearances as a AA player, he's posted a slash line of .320/.416/.482/.898.

As impressive as Ray has been this season, I don't think he's elevated his stock nearly as much as Diaz. Diaz reached AA for the first time this year and in over 260 plate appearances has a .428 OBP. .428 OBP. And if his date of birth is to be believed, he's actually two months younger than Hiura. My only disappointment as an Orioles fan would that that there was talk of pitching, pitching, pitching...and the headliner isn't a pitcher and IMO the second best guy in this package isn't a pitcher either. I'm only interested in value, but as a fan would have to wonder why one thing was said and the opposite was done. I disagree with Callis in that I think this is a pretty good return for 2.5 months of a player. But I agree big time with Callis in that the Orioles should have traded him when they could have gotten a package worth 6 months of Machado.

I also don't think Dozier gets a qualifying offer from the Twins although they would for sure be talking about that in negotiations, trying to get the trading partner to think that they need to push offers higher to break that threshold. If I remember the rules right, the Twins would only get a 1-comp pick if Dozier signs a deal for 50+ million. Considering the number of big names out there this year, Dozier will be 31 years old, 2B'men went for cheap last year...can Dozier get 4 guaranteed years which would probably be necessary to push the deal over 50 million? The Twins would have to go into it thinking that Dozier is a <50 million dollar player and the likely compensation would be a 2-comp pick which is worth way less. And we know the approximate value of a 2-comp pick. It's roughly 7 million dollars. That's the amount of money the Padre's picked up when they took on Phil Hughes and received a comp-B pick for their trouble.

I have Diaz as a 51-75 hitter which puts a 25.65 million surplus value on him. Generally all fringe prospects would get a 2.29 million assessment, but I don't think Valera even qualifies for that so I'm putting a zero on him. The other three all get 2.29 million although I had read stuff on Bannon prior to this deal and he's a guy who is probably going to get adjusted up in the rankings pretty quick. So I have 32.52 million dollars in prospect surplus value headed to Baltimore and I'd only put Machado as having 16.25 million dollars in surplus value so it's rather lopsided towards the Orioles. But it was expected that someone would overpay for him. I was anticipating it would get up to around 25 million and IMO, teams really shouldn't go higher than that. If Hiura is off the table, which he should have been, I think it's very hard for Milwaukee to get to that number without including Burnes or Peralta. For the Brewers to match this Dodger offer in terms of surplus value, I think it would have taken a package of Burnes, Woodruff and someone like Demi Orimoloye. Now it will be interesting to see what happens with Logan Forsythe as it sounds like the Dodgers need to move him for luxury tax purposes. He has a .570 OPS and probably has negative surplus value at this point. It will be interesting to see what team steps up and takes the rest of Forsythe's contract for a prospect because I think it's very likely to happen (Rangers? Padres?).

What about Yelich? Stearns traded over 100 million in prospect surplus value in that trade. That qualifies as a pretty big move.

Diaz would be a wonderful get for the Orioles. I guess that, at a minimum, he'd be rated as a 51-75 hitter prospect. That would put his prospect surplus value at 25.65 million. That's just him alone. I still feel pretty strongly that Machado's surplus value max is around 16.25 million...but to overpay in the 20-24 million range would still be reasonable. Anything the Orioles would get beyond Diaz would just be icing on the cake.

The Dodgers have several tops arms that they could take off the board and still have enough minor league pitching to swing a Machado deal, but over the last couple years they have been so incredibly stingy with arms that I still think the Phillies would be the favorite.

Boras is not Machado's agent unless there was a very recent switch. https://www.pressboxonline.com/2018/02/17/manny-machado-im-here-to-be-an-oriole (indicates Dan Lozano is his agent) http://www.baltimoresun.com/sports/orioles/blog/bs-sp-orioles-boras-20171213-story.html (says Boras does not represent Machado)

Unfortunately that is the part of the "prospect evaluation" process that us armchair folks struggle with. There are a lot of folks on here that look at a stat line and think they can make an informed decision on what kind of prospect a guy is. Corey Ray and Luis Ortiz are examples. The concepts of tools and projection is a difficult one for us to grasp especially in this age of instant information so we tend to focus on production. I don't disagree that Diplan is an interesting comp, which might say more about the quality of Diplan and our reliance on stat lines to evaluate players than it does about the mediocrity of Medina. Either way, the Phillies value Medina highly (assuming reports are correct) and there appears to be an industry consensus around his projection. Corbin Burnes is probably the better comp when talking about trade value. At least people could look at the entire stat line and a player's performance over his career to make a judgement instead of just picking out the 2018 ERA. Medina's ERA is high but the BB/K ratio is 2.88 and the numbers over his professional career are very good. 327 1/3 innings, 3.27 ERA, 1.19 WHIP, 2.85 K/BB ratio, 8.2 K/9, 2.9 BB/9, 0.6 HR/9. There is not a single alarming number there. Going to Diplan and his WHIP was 1.45 last year and has gone up to 1.54 this year. K/BB ratio under 2 this year and under 2 for his career. BB/9 ratio is a hideous 5.5 this year and is a fairly ugly 4.7 over his professional career. I had made the mistake a couple days ago of saying Medina might have slipped into the Luis Ortiz class and out of the top 100. But after doing a review, which was not only looking at the stat line but also going around the internet and looking at scouting reports (+ the Baseball America handbook), I think Medina is firmly in the back half of the top 100 prospects.

I'm getting the gut feeling that the Orioles and Phillies do have a deal worked out but are denying it due to the All-Star Game. I also have the gut feeling that they don't have the names right...but we'll find out on Wednesday. But I think I'm usually correct about 5% of the time so take my gut feelings for what they are worth which isn't much! While I think the names are wrong, it still is kind of fun to look at the rumored names. I'd be rather underwhelmed if I were an Orioles fan. In terms of value it is more than fair from the Orioles end. After re-reading some scouting reports on Medina and checking the career stats, I would put him in a group above Luis Ortiz and slap a back end of the top 100 grade on him (surplus value = 17.86 million). I think MLB.com has Gamboa wrong listing him at #8 in the Phillies system. Baseball America had him at #20 in the Prospect Handbook and there is nothing I see in his bio/stats that indicate he should be a top 10 organizational prospect. I'd slap a "role-player prospect" tag on him (surplus value = 5.72 million). IMO, Franco has no surplus value. He averages out to about 0.6 WAR per season and he'll be in his second year of arbitration (he was a super two) and probably makes a minimum of 3.5 million in 2019. I don't even know if I'd value him as highly as a top-end fringe prospect. 17.86 million + 5.72 million = 23.58 million and 2.5 months of Machado at 6.5 million surplus value per month (went through the math in previous Machado thread) = 16.25 million. Orioles would be getting value here but I have to admit I'm just not that high on the players included. The ironic (or moronic) thing is that the Orioles made out like they wanted MLB-ready starting pitching, even was reported by one of the beat writers on the Orioles website, and in this package they would get one A-Adv pitching prospect and two bats...one being an MLB bat with little value that is already in arbitration. I'd personally take the spare pieces (as defined by a baseball writer or two) package of Phillips and Ortiz before I would take this deal from the Phillies. Although I should note that as top 10 organizational prospects, Phillips and Ortiz would carry 22.9 million in surplus value which is just a tad less than the Phillies package. It will be interesting to see what happens on Wednesday. If there isn't a deal in place, then one has to figure that teams will start telling the Orioles that the more games go by the less value Machado is to them and therefore the offers will start going down. So have to figure a deal gets done before the All-Star break is finished. A real fun time of the year to just kick back and watch it all play out.

I think the Brewer's left field wins above average is over-inflated by Yelich's defense. Yelich's overall slash line is good, but when playing LF it's .299/.349/.395/.744. Nothing wrong with that OBP but the SLG is a bit on the low side. Add in Braun's terrible OBP and a .473 OPS by Perez when playing LF, and in total the Brewer left fielders have slashed .266/.318/.416/.734 (and that's with Thames 1.542 OPS in 18 at-bats). MLB average LF is hitting .257/.329/.423/.752 and in the NL it's .260/.329/.432/.761. They have not gotten top 10 production out of LF this year, despite what is supposed to be plus-plus defense out of Yelich.

I think the Brewer's left field wins above average is over-inflated by Yelich's defense. Yelich's overall slash line is good, but when playing LF it's .299/.349/.395/.744. Nothing wrong with that OBP but the SLG is a bit on the low side. Add in Braun's terrible OBP and a .473 OPS by Perez when playing LF, and in total the Brewer left fielders have slashed .266/.318/.416/.734 (and that's with Thames 1.542 OPS in 18 at-bats). MLB average LF is hitting .257/.329/.423/.752 and in the NL it's .260/.329/.432/.761. They have not gotten top 10 production out of LF this year, despite what is supposed to be plus-plus defense out of Yelich.