Objectively ranking the top farm systems

smootness said:
That's relatively simple. Based on BR, I would say the following could be expected:

Heyward: 1 year, 6 WAR, $7.8 million due

Upton: 1 year, 3 WAR, $14.5 million due

Kimbrel: 4 years, 10 WAR, $46.5 million due

Simmons: 5 years, 20 WAR, $53 million due

Sale: 3 years, 15-20 WAR, $38 million due

Eaton: 5 years, 20-25 WAR, $29 million due

So in raw numbers, you're looking at a projection from the Braves' side of about 39 WAR at a cost of $121.8 million. On the White Sox' side, you're looking at a projection of about 35-45 WAR at a cost of $67 million.

So in raw numbers, the White Sox were looking at quite a bit more value they were trading; roughly the same value in wins at just over half the cost. And if you consider that it's likely more valuable to get the same WAR out of fewer players, the White Sox were working with even more value there.
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Alex Wood was also worth about 10 expected WAR at time of his deal
 
sturg33 said:
Alex Wood was also worth about 10 expected WAR at time of his deal
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That will be an interesting trade to analyze with surplus value. HO was actually ranked by Baseball America #16 overall in their mid season top 50 before the trade went down.
 
sturg33 said:
Hmm... well he had a 3 WAR pace in 2013, had 2.6 WAR in both 2014 and 2015... and had a 3 WAR pace last year.

And he was 25
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I think if you factor in the injury risk an 8 WAR projection for the following 4 years is a good number. My rough math gives Wood an estimated 35 million in surplus value the following 4 years of the trade. Roughly the same amount HO had for his 5 years we had him.

Seems a straight up HO/Wood deal would of been pretty fair.

edit: As the #26 prospect in baseball at the time Peraza had a surplus value somewhere between 20-38 million. As a lot said at the time of the trade. Wood or Peraza for HO was fair. Not both. I understand the draft pick and other stuff going into that. It does have to be factored as well.
 
nsacpi said:
I think we should stick to what we did with Freeman, Simmons and now Ender. Extent them 3-5 years before they hit free agency.
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I'm not sure that's been an unqualified success.

Even freeman has to repeat his career years over time to make that deal work out in its latter years. Which is possible.

They overpaid Simmons in my view.

Teheran is looking good but they've had good luck with injury there.

Those deals tend to look good when the player is cheap but the player was already cheap for those years. It's the later years where the deal makes or breaks.
 
tomahawkchop said:
Nice work on the analysis. The accountant in me appreciated the objectivity of it.

Question: What do you guys think would be a good/useful metric to calculate the value of the players that each of these teams traded away to acquire their talent? Would it be surplus value? I agree that each of those teams rebuilt their teams more quickly than ATL, but I'd be curious to see what the value of their trade pieces were in comparison to ours.
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Good point. The white sox traded away young, cheap, good and controllable assets for prospects that they hope will one day be young, cheap, good and controllable assets.

I agree that gutting the MLB team for prospects isn't hard for a gm to accomplish but at times the white sox has been praised for doing it faster. Well no ****, he started off with great assets and maybe the better question is why he couldn't figure out a way to field a good team with what he had.

Coppy has not succeeded in this rebuilding project but I think it's indisputable he has rebuilt the minor league system and I think they've been pretty creative and pursued several strategies for doing that.

Whether it translates into success for MLB club is unclear. Those are two different standards that are perhaps only loosely correlated.
 
Simmons at $13 million and $15 million in his two years of FA that were bought out, at age 29 and 30, should be a very good value. Not sure why you think that's an overpay.

And Freeman will make between $20.5 million and $22 million over the next 5 years, at age 27-31. He doesn't really have to come all that close to what he did last year for that to be very good value as well, especially considering that the market will continue to grow.
 
smootness said:
Simmons at $13 million and $15 million in his two years of FA that were bought out, at age 29 and 30, should be a very good value. Not sure why you think that's an overpay.

And Freeman will make between $20.5 million and $22 million over the next 5 years, at age 27-31. He doesn't really have to come all that close to what he did last year for that to be very good value as well, especially considering that the market will continue to grow.
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Right. When Freeman is 30 years old 20 million a year will likely but you a 2 WAR player with the way these salaries are exploding.
 
smootness said:
Yes, that is some good stuff. I'll trust that there is a small 'DH penalty'. Probably doesn't explain all of Gattis' dip, and likely not even most of it (especially since he still DH'd a decent amount last year), but I'll accept that it explains some of it.
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I guess the question for Gattis trade is whether the Braves could have done better than a top 50 SP prospect in aaa with an 80 fastball and whatever value Rio Ruiz had.

Keeping in mind that braves were disappointed in his defense catching and in left field and it was widely perceived that he would have to dh soon.

I tend to think they sold high on that one and that there wasn't much more value to be obtained.

The return so far has been a major league rotation piece whose ultimate ceiling hasn't been determined and someone that might be a useful MLB platoon player maybe.

That seems about right for Gattis.

Not sure what negative you can say about Heyward trade and resulting tree other than it worked out fortunately, which isn't really analysis.

I think what the war analysis of the white sox vs braves trades shows is that maybe there is an unrealistic portrait in the minds of some as to what atlanta's assets were worth.

Expiring contracts and the wren extensions made some of them less valuable in trade than perhaps their raw numbers would suggest.

You can only accept offers that are made. Maybe there were better offers out there though it's hard to really prove it.
 
Southcack77 said:
I guess the question for Gattis trade is whether the Braves could have done better than a top 50 SP prospect in aaa with an 80 fastball and whatever value Rio Ruiz had.

Keeping in mind that braves were disappointed in his defense catching and in left field and it was widely perceived that he would have to dh soon.

I tend to think they sold high on that one and that there wasn't much more value to be obtained.

The return so far has been a major league rotation piece whose ultimate ceiling hasn't been determined and someone that might be a useful MLB platoon player maybe.

That seems about right for Gattis.

Not sure what negative you can say about Heyward trade and resulting tree other than it worked out fortunately, which isn't really analysis.

I think what the war analysis of the white sox vs braves trades shows is that maybe there is an unrealistic portrait in the minds of some as to what atlanta's assets were worth.

Expiring contracts and the wren extensions made some of them less valuable in trade than perhaps their raw numbers would suggest.

You can only accept offers that are made. Maybe there were better offers out there though it's hard to really prove it.
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To be fair Folty had fallen out of the Baseball America top 100 by the time the trade was made. He was around ~50 the year before but had a poor 2014 season.
 
smootness said:
Simmons at $13 million and $15 million in his two years of FA that were bought out, at age 29 and 30, should be a very good value. Not sure why you think that's an overpay.

And Freeman will make between $20.5 million and $22 million over the next 5 years, at age 27-31. He doesn't really have to come all that close to what he did last year for that to be very good value as well, especially considering that the market will continue to grow.
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I think there is diminishing return in increased gradations of defense and I'm not a big believer in his bat. You can probably get more than solid defense cheaper.

He's probably paid fairly in my view which doesn't necessarily make him a great asset.

Similar observation about freeman except that you can't necessarily find that kind of production on market, but he needs to keep it up to earn the contract.

If freeman just had his peak season and he comes back down his contract isn't a killer but it won't be a value either.

But I'm not good at estimating k inflation so I could be swayed there.
 
Southcack77 said:
I'm not sure that's been an unqualified success.

Even freeman has to repeat his career years over time to make that deal work out in its latter years. Which is possible.

They overpaid Simmons in my view.

Teheran is looking good but they've had good luck with injury there.

Those deals tend to look good when the player is cheap but the player was already cheap for those years. It's the later years where the deal makes or breaks.
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Freeman is being paid as a 2.5 win player the rest of his contract. I'm happy to hold the over on that deal.

Simmons is being paid as a 1.5 win player the rest of his contract. The over on that looks good to me as well.
 
Southcack77 said:
I agree that gutting the MLB team for prospects isn't hard for a gm to accomplish but at times the white sox has been praised for doing it faster. Well no ****, he started off with great assets and maybe the better question is why he couldn't figure out a way to field a good team with what he had.
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I dunno. I prefer the package of Heyward (1 year), Upton (1 year), Kimbrel (5), Simmons (4), Wood (3.5), Gattis (4) over Sale (3) and Eaton (5) controlling for the contracts.

We await that Ventura dude's analysis for the final verdict.
 
nsacpi said:
I dunno. I prefer the package of Heyward (1 year), Upton (1 year), Kimbrel (5), Simmons (4), Wood (3.5), Gattis (4) over Sale (3) and Eaton (5) controlling for the contracts.

We await that Ventura dude's analysis for the final verdict.
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Eaton and Heyward are pretty similar in terms of pure on-field value. So you value 4 years of that kind of a player and 3 years of a bona fide ace less than the Kimbrel/Simmons/Gattis/Wood package, with one year of a 3-ish WAR player thrown in?

Considering the contracts, I don't see how it's even close.
 
smootness said:
Eaton and Heyward are pretty similar in terms of pure on-field value. So you value 4 years of that kind of a player and 3 years of a bona fide ace less than the Kimbrel/Simmons/Gattis/Wood package, with one year of a 3-ish WAR player thrown in?

Considering the contracts, I don't see how it's even close.
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i disagree a bit with your projections for Eaton...I think he will average about 3 wins over the next five seasons...I think you are slightly optimistic about sale too

and don't forget peraza
 
this is pretty interesting. I need to finish my analysis, but so far, it looks like the Braves traded away more WAR by a good bit.. need to add contract next and see surplus value..

I am making some small assumptions but I think the WAR is a good projections so far. The Braves might get hurt a little because I project a players WAR to 500 ABs if they didn't get that many.. so guys like Simmons and Heyward are hurt because their WAR is derived by defense too. I might alter my formulas a bit to factor oWAR and dWAR.. and I am using BR not Fwar..
 
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