Does the Josh Bell trade peg Trey Mancini’s trade value?

[Frobby]

The Pirates traded Josh Bell to the Nats today for two pitching prospects, Wil Crowe and Eddy Yean.

Bell is a career .261/.349/.466 hitter with 4.053 years of service, coming off a poor season.

Trey is a .276/.335/.485 hitter with 4.015 years of service, coming off cancer recovery.   

Crowe was a 2nd round pick in 2017, generally appearing between 2 and 6 on Nats top 10 lists.  He had a rocky 3 game debut in the majors this year.  Yean is a Dominican pitcher usually in the bottom half of the Nats top 10, received a $1.25 mm signing bonus and ranked the no. 16 amateur FA signing that year.   He’s gotten as far as the GCL as an 18-year old.   

Would you have traded Trey for that package?
 

 

[SteveA]

Crowe will turn 27 before next season is over and he's one of the Nats' top 6 prospects?

No thanks.

[Just Regular]

Josh Bell isn't as young as I thought, just five months younger than Mancini.

Here is where pedigree I think still affects today's valuations - Bell got $5M, tied for the fifth biggest bonus in his draft and 125% of not entirely un-hyped draft mate Dylan Bundy.   My guess is Nationals fandom elated tonight, and the blogosphere's general reaction won't be favorable to Pirates.   This isn't the Indians broadcasting to the world Corey Kluber is washed up, and many takes will be this stud is going to be so excited to finally be out of a hopeless situation good things will happen.   Especially if mulligans for outlying 2020 bad years are liberally given.

That this deal closes on Christmas Eve hints to me somebody was anxious to close and it's no great mystery who the shark and the fish are here.

[Roll Tide]

No 

[HowAboutThat]

I was wondering the same thing. 
i would not have done that trade. For Mancini, I want someone closer to ready and higher ranked, but I’d be happy with a single top-10 prospect.

I don’t think he’d bring that at this time, though so best to wait so No.

[Sports Guy]

Probably not.  Yean is a legit prospect and a lot of people like Crowe.

Mancini has more upside in a trade than this imo but we make look back and wish we got a prospect as good as Yean.

[oriole]

I think with Mancini working back after what he went through that it’s tough to gauge what type of player he’ll be. It wasn’t just a year with no baseball. I think that effects his value negatively but when you combine his unfortunate diagnosis, the fact that he seems to be a hard working and easy to root for type of guy, and that he seems to have that chapter of his life behind him it makes for a great comeback story and worth keeping him just to see him play baseball with a F U C K cancer attitude. 

[wildcard]

I think we will see Mancini play another half season with the O's and that half season will determine his value. Is he back or a shadow of his former self?

So no, I don't think the Bell trade sets his value.  And I would not trade him for that package without knowing how he will do until the deadline.

[Just Regular]

Just in baseball terms, I think I would do this deal, but just as tendering him was more of a humanistic certainty, I think holding him is too - however good a hitter anyone in the market might see him as, they are going to want to see that guy back on the field some first, and any deal now would feel a bit unsavory to me.   I think healthy Mancini has played his way up close to Bell's level, but the illness is the only thing making Crowe/Yean a clear Yes.

I think the Pirates should have given the mulligan and could probably do as well in July even if Bell was just meh, with a fair chance to do better.   Knowing that the Nationals are buttressed with the World Series revenue bump for the short/medium term, and the Pirates market being what it is, this feels like a second Raisel-type head scratcher.  It doesn't have the competitive contrast with notional contenders like the 2021 Reds subtracting to Castellanos and Moustakas' befuddlement, but the Sell Low locking in of losses of a draftee given Franchise Cornerstone money and having occasionally performed that way despite your team's terrible malaise feels suboptimal.

I don't know much about Yean (I'll kind of ding Crowe based on scuffling Nationals pitching terrible Voth/Fedde/Anibal a lot while season still going down the tubes), but I think any given Nationals international propsect probably gets some kind of halo benefit from Robles/Soto/Garcia.

Would we trade say Akin and Rom for Crowe and Yean?  I have Akin hopes but if I had walk year Scherzer and Strasburg/Corbin maybe entering endgame phase, 2 years of Bell (or parallel universe healthy Mancini) could work, if only to stop FP kvetching about Soto walking 200 times.

[Sports Guy]

2 hours ago, wildcard said:

I think we will see Mancini play another half season with the O's and that half season will determine his value. Is he back or a shadow of his former self?

So no, I don't think the Bell trade sets his value.  And I would not trade him for that package without knowing how he will do until the deadline.

Mancini isn’t likely to have more trade value than this in July.  Perhaps if he gets through the whole season and performs well and is healthy, he will but I don’t think 300 at bats will be enough for teams to part with more than this.

[Frobby]

9 hours ago, Sports Guy said:

Mancini isn’t likely to have more trade value than this in July.  Perhaps if he gets through the whole season and performs well and is healthy, he will but I don’t think 300 at bats will be enough for teams to part with more than this.

It depends entirely how he does.   If he performs like 2019 Mancini for three months, I think teams would conclude pretty quickly that he’s 100% back.    I doubt teams are sure of that right now.   If he performs like 2018 Mancini that’s a different story.   If I were a team evaluating Mancini right now, I’d probably expect something below his career averages.   But he could dispel that with three solid months — if he has them.   

[Sports Guy]

12 minutes ago, Frobby said:

It depends entirely how he does.   If he performs like 2019 Mancini for three months, I think teams would conclude pretty quickly that he’s 100% back.    I doubt teams are sure of that right now.   If he performs like 2018 Mancini that’s a different story.   If I were a team evaluating Mancini right now, I’d probably expect something below his career averages.   But he could dispel that with three solid months — if he has them.   

I don’t think 3 good months will net him more than this package.

Combine his cancer, missing 2020 And the idea that positional talent usually fetches more in the offseason than it does at the deadline and I think he falls short of this deal.  He also doesn’t play a premium position.

This is essentially trading Akin or Kremer and a high end lower level pitching prospect...a guy that has a big upside but is a ways away from realizing it.

I think for Mancini to get more than that, he has to be really good for a full season.

[Oriole1940]

I think the whole ball game on Trey depends on his medical results 3,6 and 12 months out.  If after 12 months he is cancer free,  I would expect him to be the old Trey.  Cancer robs people of nearly everything, but I have not heard that it takes away the skill to hit a baseball, if it is entirely out of your body.  Prayers are with you Trey for a complete medical recovery.  If that happens, I look for Trey to be Trey again.  

[OFFNY]

o

 

I remember when "the other" Josh Bell missed by a few feet of hitting 3 home runs in a single game for the Orioles against the Rangers on a Saturday afternoon in 2010. He had to settle for 2 home runs and a very long single, as the potential 3rd home run hit the high portion of the outfield wall in right-centerfield. He pulled the ball just a bit too much, otherwise it would have easily landed in the bleacher seats that are immediately to the left of that tall wall.

 

https://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/BAL/BAL201008210.shtml 

 

o

[Frobby]

35 minutes ago, Sports Guy said:

I don’t think 3 good months will net him more than this package.

Combine his cancer, missing 2020 And the idea that positional talent usually fetches more in the offseason than it does at the deadline and I think he falls short of this deal.  He also doesn’t play a premium position.

This is essentially trading Akin or Kremer and a high end lower level pitching prospect...a guy that has a big upside but is a ways away from realizing it.

I think for Mancini to get more than that, he has to be really good for a full season.

I could make an objective argument that Mancini (6.6 rWAR, 5.2 fWAR career) has been a better player than Bell (2.6 rWAR, 3.5 fWAR career).   Mancini is a very mediocre defender, but Bell is really putrid with the glove.  

We disagree on how long it will take Mancini to reestablish his value if he performs well.   I don’t necessarily disagree that in general position players have more trade value in the offseason than at the trade deadline.   

The specific trade package the Nats got for Bell isn’t that attractive to me.  I think we have a number of pitchers who have just broken into the majors or who are on the cusp who are as good or better than Crowe, so I don’t think he helps us materially in the next several years.    Yean is intriguing but far from a sure thing and still 3-4 years from the majors.    I’d be willing to move Mancini in the right circumstances but I don’t think this particular player combination is the right fit, plus I just think Mancini is worth a bit more than Bell.   But that may just be my orange colored glasses.