Welcome to trading season!
Like clockwork, Memorial Day weekend opens the dialogue for trades as the 50-game mark has passed and managers feel more comfortable addressing their needs with more impactful moves.
The best business offer you can make is the one you would actually like to accept if it appeared on your screen.
Sure, you can take the garage sale approach of offering $1 for the $10 item and haggling until you get a selling price of $3 or $5, but that approach can be discouraging and even completely close off lines of communication depending on temperament. of your business partner.
Here you will find a simple and effective guide to trading.
The focus of our midweek (Wednesday) episode was on veteran players who might be showing signs of aging and young players whose performance has lagged at the major league level to date, but whose long-term prospects term remain brilliant. Timing the aging curve is difficult, but here are some things to keep in mind when considering parting with very good veterans while building for the future.
Decreasing Zone Contact Rates (% Z Contact)
- A multi-year decline in Z-Contact% may occur, even for players who could age gracefully.
- Notable falls in each of the last two seasons:
- Notable falls in a year to follow:
Note: You can also look at swing rate changes and find a similar group of players, but I think making contact less frequently in the zone is more problematic than chasing pitches outside the zone, all things being equal the other factors.
Increased chase rates (O-Swing%)
- Swinging at more pitches outside the zone, especially for a veteran player, could be a sign of declining skills at the plate.
- Two-year increases
- José Altuve (31.4% in 2022, 34.8% in 2023, 38.7% in 2024)
- Paul Goldschmidt (27.6%/29.1%/32.3%)
- Eugenio Suárez (24.7%/26.4%/30.5%)
- Notable increases in one year
- Michael Harris II (41.6% to 49.2%)
- Marcus Semien (25.3% to 30.5%): Probably a graceful decline, as we suggested in Wednesday’s episode, but maintaining extreme durability is also a challenge.
- C.J. Abrams (38.6% to 43.8%)
- Adley Rutschman (27.0% to 35.4%) — Things are still going well overall despite this, but chasing outside the zone could explain the sharp drop in his walk rate and the rise to a K rate of 18%.
- Nolan Gorman (30.1% to 35.2%)
- Matt Chapman (22.5% to 31.2%)
- Jesús Sánchez (34.1% to 43.1%) — Maybe I should finally give him up as a post-hype sleeper?
- Mauricio Dubón (44.6% to 49.0%)
- Two-year increases
Decrease in the rates of the most affected (HardHit%)
- A reduction in hard contact (balls hit at 95 mph or faster) may be an indication of loss of bat speed. Once we have several years of bat tracking data, it will be much easier to line it up.
- Two-year falls
- Notable falls in one year
- Ozzie Albies (38.9% to 28.2%)
- Corey Seager (53.2% to 43.1%) – What level you’re at matters: a 43.1% hard hit rate isn’t bad, especially for a player who missed most of training spring.
- Spencer Torkelson (50.5% to 39.0%) – Note: Scored 41.4% as a rookie in 2022
- Paul Goldschmidt (50.7% to 43.8%)
- Nolan Arenado (38.1% to 28.8%)
- Alex Bregman (38.2% to 34.6%)
- Antonio Santander (46.0% to 32.8%)
- Ke’Bryan Hayes (48.3% to 38.9%)
- Nolan Gorman (48.5% to 38.4%)
- Eugenio Suárez (43.0% to 31.7%)
- Matt Chapman (56.1% to 46.4%)
Finding players who are losing ground across multiple metrics is one way to soften the blow as you enter a rebuilding window. Even if you think Freddie Freeman will age particularly well (you should), the smart money is probably on moving forward now rather than waiting for further evidence of power (or velocity) loss.
Listen to Rates & Barrels wherever you enjoy podcasts, including Spotify, Apple Podcasts, YouTube, the ad-free option within The Athletic app.
Monday
Max Bay, the co-creator of Stuff+, joined Eno to discuss baseball research, where it’s currently headed, and how far a team using public data could go.
- Eno highlighted the difficulty of making changes for a team that relies exclusively on public data, as opposing clubs could completely decode their process. This is even more true in fantasy. Understanding how other coaches in your league think and value players is a big help.
- Recommended Reading: Analyzing Baseball Data with R by Max Marchi and Jim Albert | Recommended Resource: Bill Petti Baseball Player
Tuesday
I’m back to our regular Monday format to discuss Cooper Criswell’s extended opportunity in the Red Sox rotation, Edwin Diaz’s hiatus as a closer, Luis Gil’s rise, and a few other questions.
- We wondered in this episode how the Astros would handle the return of Chas McCormick from the IL. McCormick flanked Jake Meyers in the outfield with a starting nod in left field on Tuesday night before giving up the start to Mauricio Dubón against a left-handed starter on Wednesday. Joey Loperfido missed both games, and a return to Triple-A could be in the cards even though he has posted a nice .333/.381/.436 line despite 17 strikeouts in 43 plate appearances.
- Brett Baty and MJ Melendez were our featured “healthy” pitchers this week, and we wonder if our patience with both players will ever be rewarded. Melendez continues to receive regular runs as the Royals’ big-side hitter, while Baty was benched against a right-handed starter in favor of Mark Vientos in each of the Mets’ last two games against the Guardians this week. The surprising drop in Baty’s hard hit rate (from 43.8% last season to 30.3% in 2024), coupled with the continued struggle to consistently pick up the ball, has quickly reduced my optimism about a breakout. this season. At this point, he looks more like a throw-in for a rebuilding dynasty goalie/manager than a building block.
Wednesday
Inspired by Paul Goldschmidt’s current struggles, we wonder which aging stars might be showing signs of decline.
- By age, the outlier in our veteran group was Vladimir Guerrero Jr. A career-low .404 slugging percentage entering play on Friday marks the third consecutive season he has fallen into that category since his huge 2021 campaign (.311/.401/ .601, 48 home runs). At just 25 years old, the debate over whether he can return to that ceiling continues, but there is an opportunity to trade him into long-term leagues while still earning a significant return. Guerrero finished just outside the Top 50 among hitters in earned value in 2023 (12-team league, FanGraphs Auction Calculator) after tying Mike Trout as the 23rd-best hitter in 2022 (he was No. 2 among hitters in 2021).
- In the players to target section, I mentioned Jordan Walker’s “Best Velocity” (average exit velocity from the hardest 50 percent of his batted ball) as a reason to be confident that he could be less of a batting average hitter than Spencer Torkelson in the long term. run. Torkelson finished 2023 with a better Velocity (102.7) than Walker (101.9, both very good), and the difference in batted ball distribution is more likely to determine whether Walker ends up being a more balanced hitter over the long haul. term. Since the start of last season, Torkelson has a 48.1% draw rate compared to Walker’s 39.2% mark. Walker has also shown 80th percentile sprint speed, which will help him with some batted balls and give him a chance to offer outright value in the stolen base department.
Thursday
With the long holiday weekend ahead, our livestream episode with Trevor May moved up a day as we discussed pitching changes, several young pitchers we overlooked during last Friday’s “Choose Your Fighter” segment, our strikeouts favorites of the season (so far), and a massive expansion plan that would change MLB forever.
Our favorite strikeouts of the season so far?
DVR: Mason Miller vs. Juan Soto (second confrontation of the week), April 25.
Trevor: Andrés Muñoz vs. Aaron Judge, May 20.
Eno: Paul Skenes vs. Cody Bellinger (first matchup of the game), May 17.
Enjoy the long weekend, the show returns on Tuesday!
(Top photo by Vladimir Guerrero Jr.: John E. Sokolowski-Keynote USA Sports)
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