Fangraphs top 50 trade value list 2024

[Frobby]

8 hours ago, baltfan said:

Witt will be #1 I think because of the long term contract, though maybe Gunnar. 

Skenes is a possibility.  

[Say O!]

8 hours ago, baltfan said:

Witt will be #1 I think because of the long term contract, though maybe Gunnar. 

ZiPS has Gunnar with highest 5yr projected WAR (IIRC Syzmborski said as much in a chat or blog post recently).

[baltfan]

2 hours ago, Say O! said:

ZiPS has Gunnar with highest 5yr projected WAR (IIRC Syzmborski said as much in a chat or blog post recently).

Yeah but contract is also considered. 

[baltfan]

2 hours ago, Frobby said:

Skenes is a possibility.  

Maybe but position guys are still usually more valuable. 

[Spy Fox]

2 hours ago, Frobby said:

Skenes is a possibility.  

21 minutes ago, baltfan said:

Maybe but position guys are still usually more valuable. 

I'd be surprised if Skenes is ranked #1-- just took a look at their top 10s going back to 2015 and they have never placed a pitcher in the top five.

I think only placed a pitcher higher than #10 twice in that span: Buehler #8 in 2021 and Sale #6 in 2015. Skenes may join them but I bet the top few spots will still be hitters. 

[Aristotelian]

11 hours ago, Brooks The Great said:

I think it has to be Gunnar and Witt as the top 2 hitters in some order. Witt is incredible.

The Orioles' two options to pick from at #1 overall and then picking Gunnar, Stowers, Ortiz later in the 2019 draft is bonkers value.

Witt has $148M committed with two more years until FA. Not sure how that plays in. He would have had a full year of service time accrued more than Gunnar so if you assume his extra years are at market value, Gunnar should have the edge due to the extra year of cheap service time. 

[Say O!]

Does Westy make top30?  He was not on the honorable mention list IIRC.

[CaptainRedbeard]

2 minutes ago, Say O! said:

Does Westy make top30?  He was not on the honorable mention list IIRC.

Definitely. He’s at 2.9 fWAR so far this year and has 5 years of control after this year. He’s probably in the 21-30 list, but I wouldn’t be surprised if he was even higher.

Not going to be many more valuable commodities than a 4-5 WAR 25 year old infielder controllable through their age 30 season. 

[Say O!]

7 minutes ago, CaptainRedbeard said:

Definitely. He’s at 2.9 fWAR so far this year and has 5 years of control after this year. He’s probably in the 21-30 list, but I wouldn’t be surprised if he was even higher.

Not going to be many more valuable commodities than a 4-5 WAR 25 year old infielder controllable through their age 30 season. 

It is going to be interesting bc ZiPs future projections are showing <3fWAR per season for Westy.  Westy has more offensive talent than some of the prior guys like Volpe, Tovar, Neto.  Will he rank higher than a guy like CJ Abrams?  I would surely think Westy merited at worst an honorable mention, so if he does indeed fall in the 21-30 range that is quite the jump in perceived value for Westburg based on his 2024 season to date.

[Frobby]

14 minutes ago, Say O! said:

It is going to be interesting bc ZiPs future projections are showing <3fWAR per season for Westy.  Westy has more offensive talent than some of the prior guys like Volpe, Tovar, Neto.  Will he rank higher than a guy like CJ Abrams?  I would surely think Westy merited at worst an honorable mention, so if he does indeed fall in the 21-30 range that is quite the jump in perceived value for Westburg based on his 2024 season to date.

I don’t see how Westburg could have failed to get at least an honorable mention based on the other young guys on that list.  Since he’s not on the HM list, I have to think he’s going to be on the top 30, probably at the bottom of the 21-30 range somewhere.  If not, it’s a travesty.  

[CaptainRedbeard]

7 minutes ago, Say O! said:

It is going to be interesting bc ZiPs future projections are showing <3fWAR per season for Westy.  Westy has more offensive talent than some of the prior guys like Volpe, Tovar, Neto.  Will he rank higher than a guy like CJ Abrams?  I would surely think Westy merited at worst an honorable mention, so if he does indeed fall in the 21-30 range that is quite the jump in perceived value for Westburg based on his 2024 season to date.

Are you looking at the ZiPS 3 year projections on his player page that go 2.8, 2.7, 2.6 for 2024-2026? Those are from pre-season and aren’t updated for his performance this year to date. He’s bumped up his projections quite a lot this year. 

For instance ZiPS rest of season projects him for 1.4 WAR in 55 games. Over a full season, that’s about 4 WAR. 

In a recent article Szymborksi includes Westburg as one of the biggest gainers in improving his projections this season (along with Gunnar, Cowser and Joey Ortiz). Westburg’s now projected for 19.7 WAR from 2025-2029, again about 4 WAR a season (and that will include some decline years, so his peak will be higher than that).

https://blogs.fangraphs.com/zips-midseason-movers-and-shakers-hitters/#more-440701

Just looking at the table in that article, for 2025-2029 WAR Westburg is ahead of Jackson Merrill and Joey Ortiz but below Riley Greene and Elly De La Cruz. About the same service time for all of those players so I expect the trade value rankings will be very similar. 

[CaptainRedbeard]

The only Orioles quasi-“snub” from this list is that Bradish didn’t make the honorable mention “Injury Ward” pitchers group, but that’s mostly almost all pitchers that were ranked last year and fell off. 

Grayson and Holliday are already on it, Westburg, Adley and Gunnar will be, and Cowser, Mayo, Basallo and Kjerstad were honorable mentions. 

[Say O!]

1 hour ago, CaptainRedbeard said:

Are you looking at the ZiPS 3 year projections on his player page that go 2.8, 2.7, 2.6 for 2024-2026? Those are from pre-season and aren’t updated for his performance this year to date. He’s bumped up his projections quite a lot this year. 

For instance ZiPS rest of season projects him for 1.4 WAR in 55 games. Over a full season, that’s about 4 WAR. 

In a recent article Szymborksi includes Westburg as one of the biggest gainers in improving his projections this season (along with Gunnar, Cowser and Joey Ortiz). Westburg’s now projected for 19.7 WAR from 2025-2029, again about 4 WAR a season (and that will include some decline years, so his peak will be higher than that).

https://blogs.fangraphs.com/zips-midseason-movers-and-shakers-hitters/#more-440701

Just looking at the table in that article, for 2025-2029 WAR Westburg is ahead of Jackson Merrill and Joey Ortiz but below Riley Greene and Elly De La Cruz. About the same service time for all of those players so I expect the trade value rankings will be very similar. 

Thx.  Yes, I was looking then at the old 3yr ZiPS on player page.  With those new projections perhaps Westy sneaks into top20. 

[Can_of_corn]

Westburg at 29.

Skubal at 24.

[Frobby]

Westburg:

“Not the Orioles second baseman you expected to see on this list, huh? I guess Jackson Holliday is on here too (albeit further down), but I don’t think many people expected Westburg to be the young standout putting up spectacular major league numbers halfway through the season. Here’s some inside dirt on the making of this list: I ranked Westburg aggressively high so that I could learn what people really thought of him when they told me to move him lower. It didn’t work, though. Everyone just agreed with where I had him and moved on. In that sense, maybe it actually worked very well.

“If you put Westburg’s numbers under a microscope, nothing looks particularly weird or unsustainable. He comes up to the plate looking to do damage, putting his solid sense of the strike zone to work proactively. He hits a ton of fly balls and pops homers to all fields. Camden Yards is a terrible home park for him, in fact, thanks to the new left field cutout, but he’s slugging his way through it. Projection systems have seen all they need to; they universally think Westburg is going to continue to be a plus bat going forward.

“There were some early questions about his defensive viability, but he looks perfectly acceptable to me. I’d call Westburg an average defender at second and third, and that versatility is nice. That goes a long way towards describing his overall game, really. He can play a few spots defensively, he’s a reasonable bat up and down the lineup, he runs the bases well — every team could use more Westburgs. He’s 25, he won’t be a free agent until after the 2029 season, he’s mashing in the majors right now, and he’s projected to keep doing so. Sounds like a pretty good deal to me.”