Does Mountcastle have any trade value?

[HakunaSakata]

1 minute ago, interloper said:

Of course, we all felt very differently about trading Mateo in April...

Well, not all of us. A lot of us. 

The thing is we'll never know if teams were making serious inquiries about Mateo in the offseason. And when he got off to a hot start with the bat, Elias was in a tough spot in that I'm sure he knew the underlying numbers suggested it aboslutely wouldn't last, but how do you justify trading the 3 week MVP of the season to your fan base when you said your goal was to contend this season? It would have been a much easier pill for everyone to swallow if he did it in the offseason. Urias is probably the one he really should have been looking to sell high on. A versatile guy like that coming off a season in which he showed decent pop, it seems like he would have been a commodity to other teams. I personally would have liked to have seen Mateo and Urias traded for young pitching to balance out our surplus of hitters in the minors. You know what they say about hindsight though...

[Dale]

Here's an example of a trade that might be a possibility: Would you take Julian Merryweather of the Cubs for him? 

[Hank Scorpio]

5 minutes ago, interloper said:

Of course, we all felt very differently about trading Mateo in April...

Well, not all of us. A lot of us. 

Not I!!!!!!!!!!!

You can't trade Mountcastle right now. Best course of action is to demote him to Norfolk and hope he gets his stuff together. If his defense was average, I guess you could continue to be patient (I wouldn't.) 

He's just not a great player.

[Sports Guy]

2 minutes ago, Dale said:

Here's an example of a trade that might be a possibility: Would you take Julian Merryweather of the Cubs for him? 

No.

Id be wary about a 31 y/o reliever who hasn’t done much prior to this year although I admit I don’t know much about him.

I think RMs value is part of a larger deal.

Edited June 13, 2023 by Sports Guy

[HakunaSakata]

Getting back to the OPs original question, the Angels desperately need a 1B. They just signed Daniel Murphy for god's sake who hasn't played since 2020. That's the only type of team who might be interested in Mountcastle right now. A desperate one. 

[interloper]

2 minutes ago, Hank Scorpio said:

Not I!!!!!!!!!!!

You can't trade Mountcastle right now. Best course of action is to demote him to Norfolk and hope he gets his stuff together. If his defense was average, I guess you could continue to be patient (I wouldn't.) 

He's just not a great player.

For me, I just think you turn him into a strict platoon player. He becomes Danny Valencia and you start Santander or O'Hearn at 1B most of the time. Or Diaz or Lester or Kjerstad. Lol... clearly the Orioles were preparing for this eventuality. 

[HakunaSakata]

4 minutes ago, Dale said:

Here's an example of a trade that might be a possibility: Would you take Julian Merryweather of the Cubs for him? 

It's a bad hypothetical, because the Cubs already have Mervis and Mancini and probably wouldn't see Mounty as an upgrade. You need to find a team in desperate need of a 1B, like the Angels or possibly even the Mets now that Alonso is out for 4-6 weeks. Although, if the Mets were smart they would try Baty at 1B and give in regular ABs. Then again, we know (first hand) how much Buck likes to bury his rookies and play his vets, even when they don't deserve the ABs. 

[HakunaSakata]

2 minutes ago, interloper said:

For me, I just think you turn him into a strict platoon player. He becomes Danny Valencia and you start Santander or O'Hearn at 1B most of the time. Or Diaz or Lester or Kjerstad. Lol... clearly the Orioles were preparing for this eventuality. 

This seems like the most likely scenario. 

[Sports Guy]

Mounty doesn’t need to be dealt to a contender. 
 

If I were a team in need of a first baseman for a few more years and I had a more favorable park, I would inquire.

He’s got a lot of power and until he gets into his arb 2 season, he should be worth the money. Beyond that season depends on his performance.

A team like Cincinnati makes a lot of sense imo. Actually, 2 other teams in that division, the Cubs and Brewers make some sense too.

[Sanity Check]

28 minutes ago, interloper said:

The Orioles wouldn't want to trade for him, but maybe some team who is contending with a weak 1B or who needs a bat vs LHP. I could also see a rebuilding team who thinks they are ready to pop trading for him since he's still plenty young. 

The Orioles are a contending team with a weak 1B and need a bat vs. LHP....and that's BECAUSE of Mountcastle.  I'm missing something here....would we want this guy in a trade?  I'm guessing the answer is "no."  So, how can we justify another GM deciding he's the answer to the dilemma he's created here??

The best think I see happening right now is that Hyde now has somoene else - very capable - competing with Mountcastle for at bats, and if that doesn't get him to up his game, then he's toast..... 

[interloper]

4 minutes ago, Sanity Check said:

The Orioles are a contending team with a weak 1B and need a bat vs. LHP....and that's BECAUSE of Mountcastle.  I'm missing something here....would we want this guy in a trade?  I'm guessing the answer is "no."  So, how can we justify another GM deciding he's the answer to the dilemma he's created here??

The best think I see happening right now is that Hyde now has somoene else - very capable - competing with Mountcastle for at bats, and if that doesn't get him to up his game, then he's toast..... 

Lol I guess that's fair. Maybe you're right about the contending club thing.

I do still think he has value to a rebuilding club, or a club who thinks they are close to making a jump soon. The question to me is how confident are the Orioles in their 1B depth to let him go, and like you said, are they going to want his platoon bat. 

For me, I don't want to make a move until I see a strict platoon with Mounty/O'Hearn/whoever and see what that looks like. Because I think that could be pretty effective. 

[OsFanSinceThe80s]

I think the best return you could get for Mountcastle is trading him for another top prospect who has also had a flawed career. 

Maybe there’s a player that Elias and Sig thinks they could fix and Mountcastle is enough to land that player in a trade. 

[e16bball]

53 minutes ago, interloper said:

Absolutely. If you're a rebuilding club with no 1B prospects to speak of, I think you'd be pretty psyched about getting a power-hitting 1B with a few years of control who is still only 26. You look at this metrics and how hard he hits the ball and this bad luck and the Wall and you start to talk yourself into Ryan Mountcastle being a guy you might be getting at exactly the right time. 

I made a post in a different thread where I was arguing basically the same thing. 

To me, the Wall is the biggest “narrative” factor that would help teams get there, in terms of being willing to bet on a resurgence. You can see its effect on him in a very literal sense, as he’s hit fewer HRs for us (33 since Opening Day 2022) than he would have in almost every other park, per Baseball Savant. Their numbers show that there are 17 parks in which he would have hit at least 40 HRs during this span, led by CIN at 55 expected HRs (!) and LAA with 47 expected HRs. He’d be a very different position if you added another 7-22 bombs to his ledger over the past year-plus, and even the 47 HRs would have him right on the edge of the top 10 in all of baseball — just behind some guys named Betts, Olson, and Riley, and just ahead of some guys named Goldschmidt, Arenado, and Devers. 

The other thing is that you can see pretty readily in the data how it’s affecting his approach. Pull rate is way down from 2021, and the fly ball rate is also down. More ground balls and more line drives/fly balls to right center are canceling out a lot of the benefit of the massive EVs he still puts up.

Anyone whose hitter projection model centers around EV and the ability to barrel the ball would still be very intrigued by Mountcastle. And there’s probably another “narrative” factor that works in his/our favor based on the position we’re in as a franchise (i.e., “the Orioles probably wouldn’t be giving up on him if they didn’t have such a logjam to clear up”). Feels a lot more like an “opportunity” under those circumstances. 
 

I like the idea of moving him to get a good reliever, maybe packaged with a prospect (depending on how good a reliever we’re discussing). I mentioned the Angels as the place he would have hit 47 HRs — if they fall back in the race, they have two guys in Carlos Estevez and Chris Devenski who are having great half-seasons so far. Maybe the sheen on Estevez is a little too bright to get him with Mountcastle alone, what with the sparkly ERA/save numbers — but surely he might be able to bring back Devenski, who is a guy Elias is probably familiar with. They have basically zero at 1B in the big leagues, so it would seem a pretty natural match.

Obviously, his offensive game must be tailor-made for the Reds, but they’re looking kinda set in the IF, and the only reliever they have that we’d want is Alexis Diaz — and it would probably take a significantly higher-level prospect than we’d be comfortable sending with RMC to bring that kid back in a trade.

[Pickles]

Has Mountcastle even played?  Is he healthy?  Last I heard he was dealing with dizziness, which, frankly, is a bit scary to hear.

So first his health his, both long and short term, needs to be determined.

As far as his trade value goes, I upvoted Frobby and Sportsguy because they said it the best imo:

He's got more value than people are giving him credit for, but no it isn't major value.

But probably more importantly, you'd be trading him at his absolute lowest value.

I'm willing to try to get him healthy, see if there wasn't some underlying cause to his performance this year, and give a chance to rebuild his value and playing time.

At the very least, there's a role for him on this team vs LHP.

[oriole]

I don’t think you’re gonna get much for a first basemen that can’t hit righties, get on base, or play good defense. You may as well keep him to fit the role he is in. But a semi-permanent move has to be made. He can’t be in the lineup every day anymore. It’s beyond “bad luck”

Edited June 13, 2023 by oriole