Effectively Wild: A FanGraphs Baseball Podcast - Effectively Wild Episode 930: Dave Cameron’s Semi-Responsible Trade Speculation

Episode Date: July 22, 2016

Ben and Sam talk to FanGraphs managing editor Dave Cameron about his probably-not-entirely-inaccurate predictions for the upcoming non-waiver trade deadline.

Now when the rumor comes to your town, it goes and goes where it started no one knows. Some of your neighbors will invite a brand new. Hello and welcome to episode 930 of Effectively Wild, the daily podcast from Baseball Perspectives presented by our Patreon supporters and the Play Index at BaseballReference.com. I'm Ben Lindberg of TheRinger.com, joined by Sam Miller of Baseball Perspectives. Hello. Hey there. Today we are going to talk to someone who somehow has not been on any of the previous 929 episodes of this podcast. It's long overdue.

Dave Cameron, Managing Editor and Writer for Fangraphs. Hey, Dave. Hey. Thanks for lifting the ban and allowing your competitor to come on. Yes, this is the final evidence of the thaw. Exactly. We're all friends now. The baseball perspective is Fangraph's rivalry.

We've had every person who works for you on. I guess we were just waiting to see if you actually knew anything about baseball. Well, I don't, though. Your mistake. So your latest piece is some wild speculation About the trade deadline So we thought we would bring you on to Wildly speculate about the trade deadline here Awesome

And one of the things I've always admired about you Is that you are very willing to propose Specific trades To name names Like when the rest of us Wishy-washy baseball writers Will say something vague about someone being a buyer Or a oh, maybe they need an outfielder or something. You will name the specific name, which of course then, you know, people can say that

you were wrong about for all eternity. But, you know, I'm sure that you're not any more wrong than anyone else, but I admire your willingness to actually get specific and have a record that people can judge you on, and they do. Well, thank you. I kind of enjoy the speculative, let's put things together, and even back to the USS Mariner days when I was trying to get them to sign Vladimir Guerrero or do crazy things, it always seemed more fun to me to kind of put a specific name to it rather than saying, like, they need a left-handed reliever, and there's 17 of them, you just pick which one you want. It seems like a little more interesting exercise to me if

we say they're gonna get xavier sedenio obviously we don't actually know that but it's a i don't know i enjoy it a little bit more yeah i think it's an admirable quality thank you before we get to the specifics i want to ask a big overarching question to the question of who is buying and selling at this point and ben and i did an episode a week ago looking at the wildcard and what it means to be in the wildcard race. Does that make you a buyer? Does that make you a holder? How much is a wildcard spot really worth? And it used to be really simple. A wildcard spot was the same as a division crown for the most part. And if you were likely to make the playoffs that way, it didn't really matter which way you went. But now you have teams who are in the thick of a playoff race, quote unquote, but the

prize is only one game. And we don't really know, Ben and I, I think, at least I don't really know how to value a playoff spot. I don't really know how to even display playoff odds because of that. So when you look at a team that is more or less out of a division race, like, say, the Mets or the Tigers, but in the thick of a playoff race, how do you weigh that? Is that a playoff spot? Is that a spot that you should be buying? Or is there just not enough assurance that you're actually going to get a five-game series to give anything from next year's team up? Yeah, I mean, I think it's worth something, but it's definitely worth a a like a division title where you're kind of guaranteed that five game series and a chance

to advance i think if you look at like a team like the cardinals or the pirates who realistically they're chasing the dodgers who are probably a slightly better team than them they're chasing the marlins of the mets who are at least on par with them and ahead of them in the standings and you're saying okay how much do i really want to give up for the right to maybe face clayton kershaw no Noah Syndergaard, or Jose Fernandez with my season on the line? Like, that's not a great place to be. And I think, like, you owe it to your fan base

if you're in contention for a wild card to not just give it up and say, we don't even want to try and get into that game because obviously in one game anything can happen. The Phillies could beat Syndergaard on any given day. But I don't think you want to say, I'm going to give up one of my real valuable assets. i think you kind of toe the line a little bit and if you're the cardinals or the pirates or one of these teams even the tigers you probably say okay i'm not going

to trade justin wilson away i might not trade mark melanson away i'm going to keep together what i have but i probably won't be like a significant buyer where i'm going to trade trade you know something that i really like for the future for the chance to go in and beat one of the best pitchers in baseball on one game. So I guess before we get into the specific teams, we should sort of set the scene for this deadline. How would you describe this deadline in terms of, I guess, the balance between buying and selling and also the amount of talent available? I think the weird thing about this deadline is we're going to see a ton of trades, I we're going to see a large quantity of deals and most of them are going to be like kind of yawners like we don't have a david price or a johnny cueto or a cole hamels this year but what we have is a bunch of contenders who need like six guys so like i have the indians and the rangers

as two of my big buyers and i have them both acquiring four players where like normally i think the big buyer kind of just makes one big trade or occasionally two but I think we can see some teams making three four or five separate deals to go get the kinds of things they need because we have a lot of flawed contenders especially in the American League this year where you look at it and be like the Rangers are in first place with an average or below average offense and a terrible pitching staff like how did we get here to the point where this is a first place team but that's kind of what we have in the american league we have a lot of parity in the national league i think we have some teams like the dodgers have been wrecked by injuries the giants bullpens in trouble they could add a couple pieces we do i think we're going to see contenders make more moves than usual

for pieces that they hope will add up to one good player like we've seen in the past all right so you've separated all the teams into different tiers based on how active you think they'll be. You've got a handful of big buyers, and the team at the top of the list is one that was like the smallest buyer last winter and hasn't really hurt them much so far, but they do have some room to improve. So tell us about the Cleveland Indians. Yeah, I mean, you wrote about Jonathan Lucroy being the big target of the trade deadline in your first piece for Ringer or second piece for Ringer, I guess, and kind of pointing out that this is still a star player and probably the best available player to move at the deadline.

I think when you look at the Indians, you know, they've said, hey, look, we're comfortable with Roberto Perez and we think Jan Gomes might come back, but those guys aren't Jonathan Lucroy. And with Michael Brantley potentially not coming back or who really knows what he's going to be if he comes back with a shoulder problem that sent him to the DL a couple times and shoulder problems linger this is a team that probably deserves to make a real run I mean like when you look at their pitching staff they look a lot like last year's Mets right with Kluber and Carrasco and Salazar and Bauer you can dream on what they could be in October but you also don't know what they're going to be next year the year after that and this could really be the Indians' best chance to win. So I think

when you look at what they have and kind of their position where they have a strong lead in the division, so it's pretty likely they're going to get to the playoffs. If ever there was a time for the small market Cleveland team who just saw the basketball team in their home market win a championship and try and get those fans to also jump on the baseball bandwagon, this is the time to do it. I know they like Clint Frazier and they like Bradley Zimmer, but they've got chips that the Brewers would want. The Brewers also have bullpen pieces that they could add. I think this is really the right time for the Indians to say, forget being a small market team. We're really going to push in and try and win the American League this year. And they recently got more bad news

about Michael Brantley. And so everyone said, well, outfielder is hurt. So they need to go get an outfielder. But I guess you have Coco Crisp in there. He's an outfielder. But you don't think that the big addition will be outfielder. I guess just runs are runs and you could upgrade elsewhere and it helps you just as much. Yeah. I mean, I think when we look at the outfielders that are out there, like Jay Bruce, I think is, you know, an okay player, but certainly nothing on the magnitude magnitude of Jonathan Lucroy you could try and talk the Rockies out of Carlos

Gonzalez but teams have been trying to do that for four years and they've never sold him so I don't know that you want that to be your plan it seems to me like Lucroy is the best available player they can they can make the biggest substantial upgrade by putting him in their lineup uh and you know if you get Will Smith who's a good left-handed reliever to upgrade the bullpen at the same time in that deal, it justifies giving up one of their top prospects in a way that if you're going after Bruce or a Carlos Beltran or something like that, probably not as, as an important as an upgrade. Even if you look at it and say, this is what we need. What you really need is just to outscore your opponents. And I think Luke Roy helps do that more than the other players. Yeah. So you have the Rangers next. So how are they going to get from the team that is inexplicably good to a team that is actually really, really

good? I think Rangers fans will continue to dislike me in the fact that I don't think they're going to ever get to the point where they're, I mean, this roster to me is just very flawed. So I think they're in a position where they have to make upgrades just because of where they are in the standings, but they've got a lot of holes i mean after cole hamels and whatever if you'd argue this is healthy that rotation is atrocious so i've got them getting matt moore from the rays and andrew kashker from the padres i know having john daniels and aj pillar trade together is not the most unique idea but it does fit in terms of giving them a couple of back-end starters with some upside more as a guy they would control long term so maybe they would give up one of their younger prospects,

maybe a Louis Brinson, something like that, in order to get a guy they could have for multiple years. And then I've got them getting Carlos Beltran, because they think he makes the most sense. I think Beltran's definitely going to go. If you look at the other American League teams who could use an outfielder slash DH, there's probably not as much interest or need as there is in Texas. And then I've got them adding Jeremy Jeffress from the Brewers

Because they could really use some bullpen help as well So I think that the Rangers are in a position where All four of those guys would be substantial upgrades And would give them a chance to really fight the Astros down the stretch Even though they've got some pretty serious problems So Moore is a guy who's under team control through 2019 with options And Jeffress is a guy who is under team control through 2020. And those aren't normally the kinds of guys that we see get traded in the summer. If they do,

it tends to be in the off season. And they tend not to get traded all that much at all because rebuilding teams can still see them being good when they've been rebuilt. Do you think that there is sort of something about the free agent market that is going to create a seller's market for these guys who are available not just for the summer or not just for next year, but well, well into the future? Because the Brewers and the Rays will both be, you know, at least envision themselves being good before either of those players can hit free agency. Yeah, but I think it's one of the interesting changes where you see buyers saying, look, if we're going to value our prospects more, we're not going to necessarily want to trade them for a Rich Hill-type rental.

We saw the Red Sox say, look, we'll give Anderson Espinoza for Drew Pomeranz because we can get him for a couple of years and not just this year. I think with the Rangers having some quality chips, that's probably going to incentivize them to make moves for guys they can control longer rather than going for rentals. I think, to me, the Matt Moore kind of analogy would be when the, when the Rays traded Wade Davis, he had team control left, but he wasn't really all that good. Like they looked at him and said, okay, we've got a couple option years, but given that

what he was doing in the rotation for them, it wasn't a guarantee that those option years were going to be all that valuable or even that they would pick them up if he got injured. So I think you can look at Moore and say, you know, yeah, we have team control through 2019, but is Matt Moore right now worth $10 million in three years? Or should we project that as a super valuable thing that we want to hold on to? I mean, it's certainly possible. Obviously, Wade Davis turned into a really good pitcher. But I think when you look at the Brewers with Jeffress and any relief pitcher projecting him four or five years down the line, or Moore, who's at this point maybe an average starting pitcher,

and you say, how much do I want to put long-term value on pitcher attrition four years from now? I think it's probably easier for those teams to sell that long-term value in exchange for something now and for the buying team to justify it because they're not getting a rental. I have forgotten what has been found, but I think you, but certainly people have looked at whether you get more if you

wait until the offseason to trade guys who have many years remaining. What was the conclusion? So what I've looked at it is I actually found that the deadline price is about twice as high as the offseason price in terms of kind of dollars per win if you look at it. Historically, I think with guys under team control, you're probably not going to see the same premium. It's more like 1.5x. It's still a pretty significant premium you get just because the buyers have more information that the guy is going to be available to them in the postseason than they do in the offseason. So I think with a guy like Moore or Jeffress, you're probably going

to get more for them now because you're getting buyers who say, okay, I already know this guy's very likely to pitch for me in October, where in the offseason, the don't necessarily know that. They're going to discount for their lack of information. So the Dodgers just lost the best pitcher in the National League, and you have them replacing him with the best pitcher in the American League, according to Billy Bean and according to Sam Miller. Yeah, Rich Hill's pretty good, and he's not Clayton Kershaw, but he throws a lot of curve balls. So if you're going to miss a guy who throws a lot of curve balls, maybe you go get the American League version of the guy who throws a lot of curveballs uh i do think that the a's are set up as a really interesting seller for a bunch of teams not just the dodgers because they have

like josh reddick so you know maybe the best outfielder on the market depending on if carlos gonzalez is available but i think he's definitely better than jay bruce or carlos beltron in terms of overall value and sean doolittle when he's healthy is one of the best left-handed relievers in baseball. He's not currently healthy, but it doesn't mean he won't come back this year, and he could be an interesting risk and another guy under team control for multiple years. So I think the A's are set up in a position where,

whether it's the Dodgers or another team, they could package these three guys together and really get something kind of one piece back. I think one of the problems the A's have run into over the last few years is they've traded for a lot of bit pieces right like obviously the josh johnson trade has worked very poorly and they landed guys like kendall graveman in that deal where they said we're kind of betting on low upside quantity guys we're going to trade one for four or five i'm

guessing the a's probably don't want to keep doing that and they might be more incentivized to say let's package three of our guys together and get you know maybe jose de leon or one of the dodgers better prospects and then you've got the giants and the nationals trading for bullpen upgrades a new closer for the nationals because that worked so well last time it's what they do every summer i wonder what jonathan pebble bun would do if he were demoted to setup man because as closer he was choking people losing his job he might have to elevate that to something worse yeah dave is dave is not exactly known for understatement but quote jonathan papelbon might not like getting moved out of the ninth inning

is like an all-timer yeah i think i really am trying to find the new subtle dave cameron it's a it's a slow process. I guess that's where Dusty Baker comes in handy or where he's supposed to be. Yeah, I mean, I think if you're Jonathan Papelbon, I can see if a role as Chapman comes in throwing 104, maybe you say, like, I realize I'm not as good as that. It might be easier for Papelbon to realize he's not as good as a role as Chapman than it was for Drew Storen to realize he wasn't as good as Papelbon. I think you're hoping that, like, the velocity just convinces Papelbon to take his

eighth inning role and like it. So what are the team or teams that you are kind of being a wet blanket about doing something big? Like their fans are hoping there's going to be a huge haul and you just don't see it. Yeah. I mean, I think the Cubs have got to be at the top of that list, right? I mean, they've been speculated for miller or chapman or miller and chapman uh and i think the cubs fans obviously look at this as potentially their best chance to win a world series in 108 years but i think if the cubs are really set on we're not trading kyle schwerber which it seems like they probably are i can see brian cashman saying fine you want to keep kyle schwerber i want to keep andrew miller i've got miller for two more years after this I don't have to move him certainly so I could see that they're being a

little bit of an impasse there and them not finding a deal so if I think with the Mike Montgomery trade the other day to me I read that as a little bit of a signal of the Cubs not thinking they were going to be able to land a guy like Miller and hedging their bets and saying we're going to go get some kind of left-handed relief because we don't know if we can get the guy we want and if they can't get Andrew Miller that team is so good that i don't really know what else they do right like i was looking around for like okay what would their backup plan be if they can't go get the guy they really want and like i so i gave them alex column a who's a good reliever for the rays uh but is you know a short track record guy and has a history

of health problems certainly not an andrew miller level reliever he's also right-handed which doesn't fit as well but i think the drop-off in left-handed elite relievers after miller and chapman to the next tier is so severe that it's hard to justify for the cubs giving up one of their you know good young prospects for uh you know like a will smith who would have to be an indivision trade anyway so i think with the cubs it's just not easy to see if they don't trade for miller what else they're gonna do because that team is already really really good what do you think is behind the refusal to move schwarber is it that they actually see him being there for five years or just that uh if he's healthy a year from now and uh you know he's putting up a 300 400 500 line he's much more valuable as a trade base.

Yeah, but I think it's probably a little bit of both. I mean, I think they're probably realistic that he's not a left fielder for like the next 10 years. But if they think he can come back and be even a decent left fielder next year and hit like it sounds like they think he's going to hit. I mean, I wrote a piece yesterday kind of talking about how I see him as like a Mike Napoli type. But I think there is an argument to be made that he didn't strike out that much in the minor leagues. This could be a guy who's more of like a Lance Berkman type. And if you think he's that, then I can see not wanting to trade him for a relief pitcher. And if you think, hey, look, you know, even if he can only be a decent, you know, left fielder who catches, you know, once

a week for us and plays 130, 140 games, if he establishes himself as like a four-win player next year, making the league minimum, we could trade him for a whole heck of a lot more than Andrew Miller next summer. So you've got three AL East teams on your playoff odds with higher than 50% chances of making the playoffs, and all three are in your middle tier of buyers. So what do you see as the biggest weaknesses on the top AL East contenders or the ones most likely to be addressed? Yeah, the Orioles are like really the fascinating team because contenders are the ones most likely to be addressed yeah the orioles are like really the fascinating team because kind of like the rangers like their pitching staff is just a disaster right like kevin gaussman's fine like he hasn't lived up to his potential but at

least he doesn't need to necessarily be replaced right now and then you're kind of like hoping for giovanni gaillardo's shoulder to stay all right and like you're still starting obalo jimenez with the area of six yeah it's probably it's worse than the royals rotations we've seen that have succeeded right it's worse than that i think it's it's amazing that this team is in contention with this group of starting pitching i mean this has got to be one of the worst rotations of a playoff contender we've seen heading into the trade deadline in a very long time definitely worse than what the royals had last year and there's no johnny cueto for them to come save them and they have no prospects to trade for a johnny cueto if there was.

So I've got them getting Jorge de la Rosa and Ricky Nolasco in what has to be like the saddest combination of deadline acquisitions for any contender in history. But those guys might actually be better than what they have, which is really scary. When a Rockies outcast and a Twins outcast are upgrades for a contender, it's kind of amazing. And I think the Blue Jays' situation is really fascinating because it really hinges on Aaron Sanchez. He's developed into a much better starter than I expected.

And I think at this point it looks like he might even be their number one starter ahead of Marcus Stroman. So if you think you're going to kind of abandon your preseason idea of moving him to the bullpen, then maybe you need to trade for bullpen help. But if you're really not going to let Sanchez throw more than 180 or 190 innings this year, then you need to move him to the bullpen then maybe you need to trade for bullpen help but if you're really not going to let sanchez throw more than 180 or 190 innings this year then you need to move him to the bullpen sooner than later because he's already at 130 so realistically then they'd have to probably go try and trade for a starting pitcher and maybe like a guy like rich hill would fit for them instead all right and you've got the mets and the marlins in there too i suppose

there's nothing you think they could do that could help them catch the Nationals, but this is a wildcard-oriented move. Yeah, I think so. I mean, when you look at the Marlins clearly need a starting pitcher. I guess they could go for Rich Hill, but is Rich Hill going to get them to catch the Nationals? Probably not. Same thing with the Mets, right? They've just had a bunch of injury problems, have really derailed their season. And on the position player side, they're actually a little bit crowded,

especially now that they don't have room for Conforto playing anywhere, so they're not going to trade for an outfielder. There's no real center fielder out there that's better than Juan Ligaris. So they can trade for pitching, but they've got Zach Wheeler coming back. It's like the Mets are a little bit like the Cubs in that it's not easy to see what they're going to do because there's no big move out there for them to make. So I've got them getting a couple bullpen pieces.

But, right, I don't necessarily see, even if the Mets really wanted to push in on this year, I don't know how they would do it. All right. And then moving on to the, there are just a few teams that you see sort of standing pat that are either in contention or kind of on the fringes of contention, the Astros, the Cardinals, the Pirates, the Tigers, the Royals. So it's a combination of either not really being in a position where they need to do something or just being too far out to really make it worth doing something. I mean, I think of that group, the Astros are the one who could really move themselves. And, you know, I mean, like potentially they could even make a play for a Chris Archer's Chris sale. They could really try and make a big

move because they've got now excess position players after signing Uli Eski Gurriel. If they're saying he's going to be at third base in two to three weeks, well, what are you going to do with Alex Bregman, who was supposed to move to third base because Carlos Correa was blocking him at shortstop so now they've had Bregman playing the outfield but you know Colby Rasmus isn't atrocious and they've got George Springer in right and we don't know if Bregman can play center and Carlos Gomez is okay like I think the Astros are a team that certainly could kind of make the surprise deal and blow the Rays away or the White Sox away and and make a big splash.

But I don't know that you necessarily want to expect that, especially with as good as Bregman's hitting in the minors. This is the kind of guy you don't see traded really. So I kind of put them in that scenario because I don't know what they would do if they're not going to make a big move. But with the Cardinals and Pirates, Tigers and Royals, I think they're all kind of like that 500 team.

You're probably going to throw in the Seattle Mariners in there too. Good enough to not totally blow it up, but not good enough to justify, as Sam was asking earlier, if we're just playing for a wild card spot, how much do we really want to give up? Is this even a playoff spot? Are we just extending our season by one game for no real reason whatsoever? And I think the Royals, obviously, defending World Series series champs they're not going to tear it down after a bad start to the season but at the same time you look at that rotation it's almost as bad as baltimore's uh their offense isn't doing that well

it's hard to see how kind of the royals and tigers would fix themselves at this deadline when the kind of their second and third tier available players in order to make a real run and say okay now we think we're as good as Boston or Houston or, you know, one of these teams that's going to get the wild card spot. Okay. And so with the sellers, we've talked about this on the podcast in the past, but it's, you know, every day there's a new article about what the White Sox should do or what the Yankees should do. These are these teams that are kind of in this strange in-between place where they're not so far out of the wild card, but no one really thinks they're going to make a run. And yet they're not really at any identifiable point in

their kind of window or arc of contention. They could be okay next year. They could be bad. It's hard to say what they should do. And so now the White Sox are sort of saying some stuff about selling, but it sounds like you're not expecting a complete sell-off from either of these teams. Yeah, I mean, I think it's an interesting kind of setup that baseball's created with this second wild card and with kind of the parody that baseball's in, is I think it's difficult for a team like the White Sox or the Yankees to say, look, we can't go on a run. I mean, I think Ken Rosenthal mentioned today that the Rangers were below 500 last year when they traded for Cole Hamels. They kind of saw that as a move for 2016.

They were just doing it in advance. And then all of a sudden they won the division because they got hot down the stretch. And I think if you have ownership looking at that and saying, hey, look, if it's only going to take, you know, 88, 89, 90 wins to win one of these divisions, which it might, why do we want to punt? Why do we want to give up the second half of the season? If we could just go on a tear and all of a sudden, you know, middle of August, we're sad that we traded away one of our best players because we won 10 in a row. So I think with this kind of compacting of the standings, especially in the American League, it's difficult for these teams to really just pull the plug and say, we want to go the way of the Astros and just blow this thing up and be bad for a few years because it's just not that tall of a ladder to climb anymore.

So I don't think that the White Sox have the stomach to trade Saylor Quintana. I could be wrong. And certainly this would be the deadline to do it at because there's no other ace out there and they would probably get a bigger return for them now than they ever would. But it's just hard for me to see, especially the White Sox kind of pushing in, buying Frazier over the offseason, giving Robertson all that money. So for them to reverse course at this point and say, OK, now we're really going to tear it down midseason, that feels more like an offseason decision to me.

Yeah. And then there are some teams that are in the typical seller's position in the standings, but I guess they've already sold. They've plundered their rosters to such an extent that there just isn't all that much left, really. And there are a few teams that are exceptions to that you mentioned the rockies for instance who have at least one guy that teams would want but you as you say you've stopped trying to figure it out yeah i mean the rockies i think probably should be a team that's really active i think even beyond carlos gonzalez they should probably be trying to trade you know charlie blackman they should probably be listening to offers for guys like jake m, who I still don't know why they acquired

in the first place. They should probably be listening to offers for everyone not named Nolan Arenado. I mean, the Rockies should be looking at it and saying, look, the Giants are really good. The Dodgers are a behemoth. We're a long way off. We should be trying to get as young as possible and build around Arenado and Gray. But it seems like they're maybe also kind of stuck in this, we're just good enough to dilute ourselves into thinking that we shouldn't sell, so we're just going to hang around 75 to 80 wins forever. I don't really know what that gets you in baseball anymore, but they seem to enjoy doing it.

Okay, so if you were going to make one classic Cameron call of one specific player to one specific team, which one would you feel most confident about? Oh, man, that's a good question. I didn't really feel super confident about any of these. I think, like, if I looked at one, I might say David Robertson to the Giants. I think Bobby Evans and Brian Sabian have both said over the last few days, like, we want a dominant ninth inning guy. We don't want a second-tier relief pitcher. You know, we don't want, like, some pitch-to- to contact guy who's just going to come in and pitch the seventh inning we

want like some guy who can hand the ball to in the ninth inning and say you're going to go strike everybody out and we're going to walk off the field but i don't necessarily know that they're going to be the high bidders for chapman and if miller doesn't move robertson's kind of the only other guy out there that you could say that about so i guess if i had to like make one cameron call it's like the giants are definitely definitely trading for David Robertson. You heard it here first. I guarantee it, except for I'm going to be wrong, of course. The way this is basically framed is that there are teams that are buyers

and there are teams that are sellers, and then there are the players that the sellers are going to be selling to the buyers. And for most of trade deadline history, the return on the pieces that you sell is prospects. You don't even have to write the second half of the trade. What are you going to get back? Prospects. In the last few years, that has sort of changed. Teams that you think of as buying are sending back actual major leaguers

to the teams that you think of as sellers because they're under cost control. You wouldn't have gone into any of these trade deadlines, for instance, thinking UN Assessments was going to get moved or maybe even Drew Smiley was going to get moved. You wouldn't have thought that Brett Laurie or Dee Gordon was going to get moved. But those are the kinds of players that sellers are asking for back from buyers. So do you see any players like that who are established major leaguers that are good ball players that people know exist already,

even if they're not prospect towns, who you think might get moved to some of these sellers this deadline? Yeah, that's a fascinating question. I think the one guy we haven't talked about is Julio Tehran, where the Braves are putting a really high price on him. And what's been reported publicly is they don't want prospects in return. Their position is, look, we have a good young major league starting pitcher. We're not going to trade him for some guy in A ball or some guy we're not going to see for three years. If you want Tehran, you've got to give us two of your better young players as well because we want guys we can stick on the big league roster.

I think they're hunting for a guy, maybe not necessarily with big league experience, but a guy like that Alex Bregman, where if you could get a guy who you traded for him, he's not necessarily a key component of the Astros team. But you said, look, we can just stick him on our roster tomorrow. Bregman doesn't need any more time in the minor leagues. We can basically call him a major league player. I think that's the kind of guy that I could maybe see if the Astros say, you know what? We've got Altuve having this crazy monster year.

We think this could really be our year. We think the Rangers are weak and we can run away with this division in the second kind of the final two months of the year. We don't really know where Bregman's going to play anyway. Maybe he has more value to a team that can play him at shortstop than if we have to stick him in the outfield. Maybe there's an efficiency here where we can trade him and get multiple things back that can really help us long-term at positions we need.

So I think if I was going to identify one guy who I would think kind of fits that mold of guys you didn't used to see traded, Bregman might be it because he can't play shortstop in Houston. Now he might not even be able to play third base in Houston but I'd still be pretty surprised I mean just how often do you see the top prospect in baseball who's basically big league ready and could be playing for the Astros this weekend you don't you don't see those kinds of guys traded that often but if there's going to be pick pick one guy like that I think he was probably the most likely to go and Jerickson Profar is maybe another guy that you could see being moved who fits that profile

you don't think that they will trade Jerickson Profar. How confidently did you write those words? Not that confidently. I mean, I think they could dangle Profar. But the interesting thing with Profar is he was hurt for so long that he's already burned through a good chunk of his service time, right? So he's a 23-year-old with not a lot of track record of big league success who's eligible for arbitration this winter.

That's an odd combination of things. If you're if you're a buyer like oh i'm getting this really good young shortstop who i don't totally know can play shortstop because he's played all over the field this year and he's had so many arm problems that i you know i can't be 100 confident that he can play shortstop and even if i'm right he's going through arbitration and he's going to get expensive and then i have to give him a contract extension in like six months and so i don't necessarily know that he's the long-term asset that his talent and his kind of prospect profile would suggest because if you're a buyer you're not getting five six seven years of control you're getting three and they're the expensive three if he's good so i think they're going to keep profar just because he's he's not

a great fit for a rebuilding team uh and you know realistically with prince fielder being out for the season and mitch moreland being mitch more, they should just keep him because he's one of their nine best starting position players. All right. Well, we are a mere 10 days away from being able to scrutinize everything you said and find all the mistakes and errors and point them out to you. I'm very excited for that. All right. Well, we will deliver a full report on your errors in a couple of weeks. All right. So you can read Dave at Fangraphs. You can listen to him humor Carson Sestouli on Fangraphs Audio every week. And you can follow him on Twitter at DKameronFG.

Thank you, Dave. No problem. Are we going to have our annual fight at Saber Seminar this year? Yeah, Sam and I will both be there. So we'll do something. I don't know if we're recording. Maybe you guys will tag team me this year i'm gonna have to bring some other fangraphs guy to even this out yeah that'd be fun all right good

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