Originally Posted by
Enscheff
The fear with JD is that he falls completely off a cliff in the next couple years. His contact rates are trending down, and he wouldn’t be the first late blooming slugger to suddenly stop hitting in his mid-30s.
The idea of selling high on Riley is based on his horrid contact rates. This might be his absolute high point in terms of value. Guys like Gallo and Alfaro and Baez make similar rates work because they either play a premium position, or hit the ball harder than any other human on earth. Riley doesn’t possess those other traits to make up for the lack of contact and zone recognition.
With Anderson the idea is his spin rates won’t produce an MLB quality breaking ball. We see evidence that he is a fastball/change guy in his reverse splits (change works well on LHH), and that could point to less experienced hitters struggling with an MLB quality change...which won’t be the case at the MLB level.
I am against trading Waters for KB unless he’s pretty much the whole package. The other guys are hopefully being sold high in exchange for an MVP contender in his prime that can play a competent 3B/LF at bargain salaries for 2 years. To me, that’s much preferable to giving JD 4/100.