fWAR of 3.7 in 2016, 3.8 in 2017, and 4.8 in 2018.
Has 2 more arb years left.
Would project him at 4.5 per year for those two years.
Salary in 2018 was $2.9M.
Lets say it goes up to $5M in 2019 and $9M in 2020. So he will be paid the equivalent of 1.5 wins at the going market rate.
Surplus value is 4.5+ 4.5-1.5=7.5 expected wins.
That gets you a Top 25 prospect. But not a Top 5 prospect.
The Braves top prospect at MLB pipeline is Soroka at #20. I don't think that would quite do it given the injury uncertainty. Maybe Soroka plus Fried. That would be a fair value package. Of course the Marlins will be looking for some team to overpay.
OK - so IF we can assume Soroka's likely one of those that's "off-limits" (and obviously without your charts and using that same Pipeline Top 100 which Fried isn't on), after seeing the Yelich package, is it really THAT unrealistic to think that a quantity over quality offer of Gohara, Fried, A-Jax, and Allard would at the very least be worth making given the state of their system?
That's three arms who would immediately compete for starts in their rotation, plus a Catcher with experience handling each. Their current 2019 rotation looks something like Urena, Chen, Alcantara, Trevor Richards (and his Teheran-like velocity), and Jeff Brigham. Gohara and Fried would almost certainly replace Richards and Brigham, and would instantly upgrade their rotation. The only one of their next-best arms that's even close to ready is Nick Neidert, (who profiles as a #4/#5 at best), and he could arguably use another full year in the minors. Their closest "impact" arms (Guzman, Cabrera, and Garrett) are still in A-ball or injured.
They definitely aren't going to hand out market-value deals to SPs in their current state, and Gohara and Fried would certainly allow them to swallow some of the money that's due Chen that much earlier. Given the depth of RH starters in our system that are getting close (Touki, Soroka, Wright, Anderson, and Weigel) and the fact that we control Folty, Gausman, and Julio until some (if not all) of them are ready, I might even go so far as to tell them I'd substitute Wilson for Allard if that got it done - even though I'd try to avoid doing so if at all possible.
While that's a fairly substantial amount of controllable talent in a vacuum, from our perspective it really wouldn't hurt THAT much - and it would also be selling high on the guys most people have the most questions about around here to land arguably the biggest upgrade at a position of need that won't even cause a ripple in our financial pond. It's a big package, sure, but not the "monster package" Carp's talking about trying to avoid.
