2022 Trade Deadline

[Bobson Dugnutt]

Per the article, the offer was for 15 years(29M AAV), but didnt specify if there were any deferrals the Lerners love.

 

Brett’s article on BN indicates there were no deferrals included in the offer.

[Transmogrified Tiger]

 

If you use Baseball Trade Values as a crude starting point, you're basically at “Washington picks their 5 favorite players in your org and maybe that gets in the ballpark”

[Bertz]

I would normally say there's no way Soto is available right now. That is a franchise altering move and not the sort of thing you do while a team is being handed off to new ownership.

 

But maybe that's exactly why he's available. If you're a new owner and see that dealing him is the right thing to do, forcing your predecessor to pull the trigger and take the PR hit makes a lot of sense?

 

I also imagine any deal would involve taking either Corbin or Strasburg back?

[UMFan83]

With the caveat that Juan Soto should absolutely treated differently than any other player in baseball including Trout (due to age), it seems very anti-Jed to trade your top 5 prospects and give out a 10+ year $500m deal for a single player.

[Derwood]

We should all be so lucky as to be in a position where we can turn down 0.01% of that type of money

[Transmogrified Tiger]

With the caveat that Juan Soto should absolutely treated differently than any other player in baseball including Trout (due to age), it seems very anti-Jed to trade your top 5 prospects and give out a 10+ year $500m deal for a single player.

 

 

I imagine Hawkins’ reaction would basically be “you can do that?!?!”

 

I’m not gonna imagine for a second this would happen, but if you did you also would have a pretty quick opportunity to restock with Happ and Contreras trades plus a top 10 pick(and probably another next year). That might seem contradictory in intent, but they may just not want to keep Contreras for his 30s, and trading Happ rather than DHing him or Soto could be a preferable path. Soto might be enough to encourage a Correa signing, which you pair with a SP and all of a sudden you’re cooking with gas.

[Andy]

Per the article, the offer was for 15 years(29M AAV), but didnt specify if there were any deferrals the Lerners love.

 

Brett’s article on BN indicates there were no deferrals included in the offer.

Sounds like the contract was very backloaded, however. So not quite deferrals, but the closest thing to it.

[Backtobanks]

 

If you use Baseball Trade Values as a crude starting point, you're basically at “Washington picks their 5 favorite players in your org and maybe that gets in the ballpark”

 

Using MLBTV, "equivalent" value for Soto would be Davis, Crow-Armstrong, Hernandez, Hoerner, Kilian, Morel, Steele, Suzuki, and Triantos. Talk about rebuilding your team and your system in one deal. :lol:

[muntjack]

I understand that Juan Soto is a baby unicorn and is worth a metric ton moving forward, but there is the fact that Nico Hoerner is 14th in the NL in WAR. Soto is 17th.

 

Obviously this isn't to say that I wouldn't give up Nico + a hefty package of top prospects, but it's worth SOMEthing.

 

I'd do:

 

1. Nico or Morel + Herz

 

Then choose

 

2. PCA or Davis + Devers

 

Then 2 of

 

Cassie/Triantos/Made/Hernandez

 

and then any one prospect outside of our named top 20.

 

Basically, I'd just try to incentivize them to take quantity and avoid the guys I most want to keep , the names could be changed depending on how you feel.

[CubinNY]

I don’t think I really want the Cubs to go after Soto. The cost is too high and I don’t trust the Ricketts to keep the payroll needed to surround him with good players after the trade cleans out the farm.

[CubinNY]

The pessimist in me thinks Soto is going to go to the Cardinals.

[Backtobanks]

I don’t think I really want the Cubs to go after Soto. The cost is too high and I don’t trust the Ricketts to keep the payroll needed to surround him with good players after the trade cleans out the farm.

 

I don't trust Ricketts to pay Soto, let alone the rest of the team.

[Bertz]

"I don't think the Ricketts will trade for Soto because they're cheap" and "I'm worried about the Cardinals" are extremely contradictory statements, no? The Cardinals barely outspent the Cubs last year (Cubs had a higher OD payroll but the selloff brought them below the Cards), and otherwise haven't in nearly 10 years.

[Transmogrified Tiger]

"I don't think the Ricketts will trade for Soto because they're cheap" and "I'm worried about the Cardinals" are extremely contradictory statements, no? The Cardinals barely outspent the Cubs last year (Cubs had a higher OD payroll but the selloff brought them below the Cards), and otherwise haven't in nearly 10 years.

 

Yes. The Cardinals have been successful with trading for big players, but their overall conservatism and frugality means they target already extended players so the contract brings the trade market and player cost down. They don’t win bidding wars in FA or trade.

[CubinNY]

Was not a serious statement.

[Irrelevant Dude]

Willson really seems to want to stay with the Cubs, and I think he would take a discount to do it, but the Cubs don't appear willing to even make him an offer. The chances of finding another catcher who can put up comparable production to him over the next few years are slim to none.

[Rex Buckingham]

Willson really seems to want to stay with the Cubs, and I think he would take a discount to do it, but the Cubs don't appear willing to even make him an offer. The chances of finding another catcher who can put up comparable production to him over the next few years are slim to none.

 

Not only his production at catcher, but how many players at any position can they get that match his production at the plate? In 78 games this year, Willson has a 130 OPS+, good for 37th in the league (and the team lead) right now.

[Cubswin11]

 

 

[UMFan83]

https://twitter.com/MichiganYankees/status/1549413264802603008

 

 

Brennen Davis

Cristian Hernandez

PCA

Kilian

Steele/Keegan

Morel/Vazquez

 

Is that enough? Probably not

[Cubswin11]

https://twitter.com/MichiganYankees/status/1549413264802603008

 

 

Brennen Davis

Cristian Hernandez

PCA

Kilian

Steele/Keegan

Morel/Vazquez

 

Is that enough? Probably not

 

If Corbin and his money is coming back I think one of Davis/PCA/Hernandez shouldn’t be in it. That’s a big bailout for the Nats to take the money.

[Bertz]

https://twitter.com/MichiganYankees/status/1549413264802603008

 

 

Brennen Davis

Cristian Hernandez

PCA

Kilian

Steele/Keegan

Morel/Vazquez

 

Is that enough? Probably not

 

Taking MLB Trade Values as direction, it'd be something like

 

Cubs Get:

 

Soto

Corbin

 

Nats Get:

 

Hoerner

Davis

PCA

their favorite of Steele/Thompson/Kilian/Alzolay

another medium sized trade chip (e.g. another one of the above starters, Madrigal, Wisdom, one Hernandez/Alcantara/Triantos)

 

FWIW, the tool says that Happ and Hoerner are roughly evenly valued, so given that Happ is definitely gone in this scenario, it does help backfill a lot of the value you lose above.

[Transmogrified Tiger]

Starting to struggle a bit with the surplus value calculations that lead to that much of a package. Soto's best season was 7 fWAR, if we assume 10 million per win, that's about 175 million in value before he hits FA assuming career highs straight through. Then you pay him 55-60 million for those 2.5 years and pay that much again for Corbin to provide less than 20 million in value himself. The best case scenario for an acquiring team is you're getting about 85 million in surplus value for Soto and Corbin, probably a bit less. That's like 2 very good prospects or one good major leaguer and one prospect territory, not really godfather offer territory. Yes the deadline raises prices, Soto's value consolidation is notable, and maybe you pay more for the right to try to talk him out of FA, but I struggle with any team that's not already a contender with a pretty specific roster hole/prospect/young major leaguer combo coming out ahead with a price tag like that.

[Bertz]

Starting to struggle a bit with the surplus value calculations that lead to that much of a package. Soto's best season was 7 fWAR, if we assume 10 million per win, that's about 175 million in value before he hits FA assuming career highs straight through. Then you pay him 55-60 million for those 2.5 years and pay that much again for Corbin to provide less than 20 million in value himself. The best case scenario for an acquiring team is you're getting about 85 million in surplus value for Soto and Corbin, probably a bit less. That's like 2 very good prospects or one good major leaguer and one prospect territory, not really godfather offer territory. Yes the deadline raises prices, Soto's value consolidation is notable, and maybe you pay more for the right to try to talk him out of FA, but I struggle with any team that's not already a contender with a pretty specific roster hole/prospect/young major leaguer combo coming out ahead with a price tag like that.

 

Yeah my (obviously biased) gut says the addition of Corbin means it should be either/or on Davis/PCA not both. I wonder if they're not properly accounting for Soto's top of the scale impending arb salaries.

[Transmogrified Tiger]

Starting to struggle a bit with the surplus value calculations that lead to that much of a package. Soto's best season was 7 fWAR, if we assume 10 million per win, that's about 175 million in value before he hits FA assuming career highs straight through. Then you pay him 55-60 million for those 2.5 years and pay that much again for Corbin to provide less than 20 million in value himself. The best case scenario for an acquiring team is you're getting about 85 million in surplus value for Soto and Corbin, probably a bit less. That's like 2 very good prospects or one good major leaguer and one prospect territory, not really godfather offer territory. Yes the deadline raises prices, Soto's value consolidation is notable, and maybe you pay more for the right to try to talk him out of FA, but I struggle with any team that's not already a contender with a pretty specific roster hole/prospect/young major leaguer combo coming out ahead with a price tag like that.

 

Yeah my (obviously biased) gut says the addition of Corbin means it should be either/or on Davis/PCA not both. I wonder if they're not properly accounting for Soto's top of the scale impending arb salaries.

 

Yeah my assumption is they have a very generous accounting of his expected output and are using some aggregate placeholder to estimate arb salaries, plus some other stuff like their year-to-year inflation.

 

Maybe more to the point, I find it really hard to see a team hitting all 3 of those requirements(young MLBers, top 4 prospects, Corbin) unless there's some very specific circumstances(weak farm, marginal young MLBers, peak competitive window). 2 out of 3 feels very possible for an aggressive team winning a deadline bidding war, but all 3 crosses into absurdity.

 

Or said another way, by taking Corbin you're paying for Soto at FA rates right away, Soto's production isn't so cartoonish that it's worth locking that in for 2 years at the cost of 150 million in young player capital.

[Irrelevant Dude]

Soto is a Boras client, so he's going to hit the market in 2.5 years. I can't justify a team like the Cubs giving up the young talent that would be required to bring him in. They would be much better off building up the team over the next 2 years and then taking a huge run at him in free agency. For a team that is competing this year and next, it would be a completely different story.

 

Said another way, you're paying a big premium for current value, and that current value means much less to the Cubs than it does to another team that is positioned to win this year and next.