GDT 8-29-18.....THE NEWK FROM 20,000 FATHOMS

[Hulavol]

I like Newk moving forward and see no reason why he doesn't get every opportunity to succeed, as he's shown he can definitely be a solid MLB pitcher, but Touki specifically needs to be added to the rotation yesterday.

This all day long- but I think I'd only skip him once.

[striker42]

The Rays are a team of pesky hitters who are playing their best ball of the season right now. Can't be upset with a split. It was just good to see the bats wake up a little bit after going into a vegetative state in Miami.

[GeorgiaGirl]

I'd just have Toussaint start Sunday (as it's his turn anyway), push Teheran to Monday (although unfortunately it's against you know who), and drop Newcomb from this turn around (the good thing though IF this is done, is it avoids Newcomb in a day game where it could be sunny, probably humid, and feels like low 90s still). I might do it for two weeks but one for sure and having Toussaint make a few 6 man starts will help Newcomb with the normal rest vs 5 days rest thing.

[Enscheff]

Freeman isn't elite by any means, but he's nowhere near as bad a posters on here has acted like he is.

Folks over react to recent performances way too much. We see it all the time on this board. In this case they were overreacting to 5-10 bad IP by Sam Freeman due to being overused.

Freeman is a perfectly acceptable BP option for mid-leverage innings as long as he isn't consistently run into the ground. He is not a LOOGY, and he is not a high leverage stud.

He certainly should not be extended, no matter what the realty photographer says. When he starts to get expensive he will be a non-tender candidate.

[Enscheff]

We could have come up with a package that didn't include Acuna. They traded freaking Brinson. I know he was a top prospect in the minors but we could have easily matched without Acuna.

If the Marlins were insistent on a position player, and the Braves wouldn't include Acuna or Albies, then no, they could not have matched it.

[wowbobwow]

I think it's pretty funny when fans try to act like they know what particular package of prospects would or wouldn't have gotten a hypothetical deal done. Listen, unless you are in the room when the phone call is made, or are on the inside enough to be privy to that information... you have NO CLUE what list of players might have yielded a trade. Major league front offices evaluate players much differntly than fans, and those evaluations are internal. Just because some website ranked a guy at a particular position in their top100 doesn't mean that player holds that same value to the club in question. The guy may be way higher on their board, or way lower. In many ways, those rankings are fun. But they should not be given the weight that most fans give, in terms of real life

[Enscheff]

I think it's pretty funny when fans try to act like they know what particular package of prospects would or wouldn't have gotten a hypothetical deal done. Listen, unless you are in the room when the phone call is made, or are on the inside enough to be privy to that information... you have NO CLUE what list of players might have yielded a trade. Major league front offices evaluate players much differntly than fans, and those evaluations are internal. Just because some website ranked a guy at a particular position in their top100 doesn't mean that player holds that same value to the club in question. The guy may be way higher on their board, or way lower. In many ways, those rankings are fun. But they should not be given the weight that most fans give, in terms of real life

Well...you're wrong.

We have shown over and over and over that the surplus value model very accurately predicts packages required to get MLB players via trade.

If a player has a surplus value around $100M, we know it takes a headliner worth 50%+ of that value, and then other pieces whose value add up to something very close to $100M.

Sure, the exact names aren't known, but there are very few names that carry the required value to make the deal work.

In the case of Yelich, if the deal was Albies/Acuna, we know the Braves didn't have anyone else who could come close to matching that value.

[BeanieAntics]

I think it's pretty funny when fans try to act like they know what particular package of prospects would or wouldn't have gotten a hypothetical deal done. Listen, unless you are in the room when the phone call is made, or are on the inside enough to be privy to that information... you have NO CLUE what list of players might have yielded a trade. Major league front offices evaluate players much differntly than fans, and those evaluations are internal. Just because some website ranked a guy at a particular position in their top100 doesn't mean that player holds that same value to the club in question. The guy may be way higher on their board, or way lower. In many ways, those rankings are fun. But they should not be given the weight that most fans give, in terms of real life

This is only partially true. Most front offices, at least the smart ones, use a trade value model very close to the one that the public is aware of. Basically a player's projected WAR converted into dollars (by calculating how much it takes to purchase 1 WAR on the free agent market. Right now its about 8.5-10 million) multiplied by number of years left on the contract minus the value of the contract equals the value of the MLB player being sent. Sometimes a contender's premium will be baked in to that value as well and can add a few million to the equation. For top 100 prospects being sent their value is basically calculated the same way: projected value multiplied by 6 years of control with a little bit taken off the top for the assumed value of those 6 years. Maybe a little bit of risk baked in there as well, but that is usually reflected in the WAR projections. So a top 10 hitting prospect will be worth something like 65-85 million while a top 10 pitching prospect will be worth something like 45-75 million. There is a steep dropoff the lower you get into the top 100. Something like 15-20 million for hitters 81-100 and 10-15 million for pitchers 81-100. By using this methodology, it really isn't that difficult to figure out a player's worth on the trade market and usually almost all of the deals made can be justified by using this method, granted with a small margin of error.

Every now and then you'll have an outlier trade where one team will drastically under or overpay for a player, but usually its an extenuating circumstance or an obviously dumb franchise that makes moves outside of this norm.

However you are correct that teams can value prospects differently. For example, maybe the Blue Jays value Mike Soroka as a top 15 pitching prospect with a 60 FV while the Padres see him as a top 45 guy with a 50-55 FV. That isn't a HUGE difference in evaluation, but it is meaningful enough that it could cost the Braves several million in surplus value if they decided to do business with the Padres rather than the Jays. However there is usually an industry consensus on a player and most organization's talent evaluators don't deviate far enough from that consensus to create trade scenarios that don't make sense in terms of valuation.

[BeanieAntics]

Well...you're wrong.

We have shown over and over and over that the surplus value model very accurately predicts packages required to get MLB players via trade.

If a player has a surplus value around $100M, we know it takes a headliner worth 50%+ of that value, and then other pieces whose value add up to something very close to $100M.

Sure, the exact names aren't known, but there are very few names that carry the required value to make the deal work.

In the case of Yelich, if the deal was Albies/Acuna, we know the Braves didn't have anyone else who could come close to matching that value.

Yeah if the trade were to happen today, MAYBE the Braves could have beaten a package with Pache and stronger supplementary pieces. But at the time of the trade, anything short of Albies/Acuna and we couldn't have gotten that deal done.