I wanted to organize my thoughts on the trade value of those three.
Age is a good starting point. Sale is in his age 27 season, Archer in his age 27 season, Teheran in his age 25 season.
Their contracts are as follows: Sale would be paid $42 mil through 2019 (assuming team options in 2018 and 2019 are picked up), Archer would be paid $40M through 2021 (assuming team options in 2020 and 2021 are picked up), Teheran would be paid $38M though 2020 (assuming the 2020 option is picked up).
What about productivity and value: Based on production in the past three and a half years, I would say Sale is a 5 win player and Archer and Teheran are 3.5 win players. Given their ages and injury histories, projecting forward I'm comfortable with assuming they hold that level of production. There is obviously some risk with any pitcher no matter how durable and young (see Kershaw). There is also some modest upside risk with all of them. Also to note is that the options that are present in all their contracts provide some partial insurance against injury or steep downturn in performance.
Bottom line: I would project Sale to accumulate 17 wins over the life of his contract, Archer to accumulate 19 wins, and Teheran to accumulate 15.5 wins.
Excess value: At a market price of $7M per win, Sale is being paid the equivalent of 6 wins for 17, implying a surplus of 11 wins. The surplus values for Archer comes out to 13 wins and for Teheran to 10 wins. We see here how team friendly all three contracts are relative to free agent prices and also how Archer's contract is especially valuable to his team.
Last bit, what does the valuation of each player imply in terms of return value if prospects are the currency. For Teheran, his value is equivalent to a top 3 prospect, or equivalently one prospect in the 26-50 range and one in the 75-100 range. Sale is slightly more valuable: a top 3 guy plus a solid prospect outside the top 100, or a guy in the 26-50 range and one in the 51-75 range (if you want an example, think Newcomb and Allard).
Archer would cost a mint. I think their rumored ask of Meadows and Glasnow is reasonable if they are trying to win the trade.
I'll close with my mantra, which is I think the Braves are in a position to be patient and insist on winning the big trades. I'm not asking for overpays of the magnitude of the Miller trade. I'm not looking to set the bar high in order to avoid trades, whether it be trading Teheran or trading for Sale. What I'm looking for is our winning the trades, whether we be buyers or sellers of major league talent.
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