LA Angels Thursday News Crash: Milestones

I know. I know. “DURR TRAY SIMPLATER NAH GOO REAL NO GUTZ BLAH HERR!” and stuff. accept that most trades that happen actually match up pretty good with the Sim.

That being the case. Koochi has a -2.3 trade value. Make of that what you will, but since the Sim uses a lot of the same modeling that POBOs we drool for use we should probably be aware that this is how FOs think and that guys who are getting paid (Kooch) and guys who are close to getting paid (Ward) bleed off a lot of value unless they are Juan Soto.

Another example. Adolis Garcia is a “dangle” of the Rangers. He’s close to contract time. He has 0.7 value. He is basically the same value as Ward as far as WAR.

So there is a cost to just holding onto a player. Some team that really wants Garcia will likely cough up more value than that, but it’s not gonna be a serious prospect.

The same is true of a guy like Detmers or Soriano now.

It’s bleak AF. But if we are gonna “stand pat” for a couple years we may as well trade them while they are high value and get several position player prospects and a couple AA pitchers. They will just bleed value, even if they are good, if we hold onto them through arb.

Not saying we should do this. But there is an argument for it. The team as a whole is still VERY FAR from good. You make up that ground by picking up a lot of 50 grade prospects. This is why prospects with a 50 grade or higher are always valued at LEAST over 10 and usually higher while can’t miss guys are in the 40s and 50s.

But as soon as you get into those 45 grades you can get a lot of guys around a 4 or 5 value. Because 2/3 of them will amount to nothing.

You get 50 grade guys by trading Soriano while he’s in his best season with years of control left. Like if he puts it all together next year.