Trades from the Trade Value Lists: Part 1 – 2007

As regular FanGraphs readers know, during the All-Star Break every baseball season, managing editor Dave Cameron meticulously assembles what he believes to be the 50 most valuable trade assets in all of Major League Baseball at the given moment. These posts are almost always the most highly viewed, anticipated, and commented on articles that FanGraphs publishes, and are guaranteed to stir up lively debate over the superstars of today’s game. As fans, we love to break down contracts and skillsets, evaluating players to the most minute of details in order to argue Kris Bryant versus Carlos Correa or Mookie Betts versus Joc Pederson.

I asked David Schoenfield, MLB blogger at ESPN, on one of his chats, what he’d like to know if he had complete and easy access to all of Dave’s past trade value lists, with all the relevant information for each player such as age, contract status, and years controlled. I’m not saying I tediously compiled all that for each list, but I’m not saying I didn’t.

I’d like to thank David for answering, and not just answering, but giving me a two-part response. The first part reads, “How many actually got traded and what did they get in return?” He begins with a direct answer, telling me exactly the kind of analysis he would conduct using Dave’s lists. The ESPN Sweetspot blogger then follows with “I think we’d learn that the returns for these types of players is less than pre-trade speculation. With Tulo, the Jays didn’t have to give up their top prospects, for example.” David offers his own hypothesis based on observations from recent events, a solid well-founded theory. Not only was former Colorado Rockies superstar Troy Tulowtizki just traded for a package some have deemed a little light, David was likely also considering the trade involving former Oakland A’s superstar Josh Donaldson as well, which surprised many people by the seemingly inadequate return Billy Beane acquired for his third baseman.

Let’s take a look. What are Dave’s top 50 players being traded for?

For this exercise, I only looked at players traded while being listed for the most recent trade value list released by Dave, up to 2007. In other words, if a player was ranked, then at any time was dealt before the next list was released, he’s fair game. That provides us nine lists to look at, but unfortunately for the AJ Preller in all of us, there haven’t been any trades involving the players in this year’s top-50 just listed a couple weeks ago. So in other words, sorry David. The Tulowitzki trade won’t count here because Dave did not consider him a top-50 trade asset, despite the shortstop qualifying for every single list before this year’s since 2008 and only dropping out of the top 15 once in those seven years.

All trade information was taken from Baseball-Reference.com. For each player, I’ve included next to their name, their age at the time of trade, along with their final year of team control and the amount due for that player including all team options.

Starting with 2007: http://www.ussmariner.com/2007/04/12/mlb-trade-value-for-2007/

2007

3. Miguel Cabrera: 24 years old, controlled through 2009, Arb2 – Arb3

• December 4, 2007: Traded by the Florida Marlins with Dontrelle Willis to the Detroit Tigers for Dallas Trahern (minors), Burke Badenhop, Frankie De La Cruz, Cameron Maybin, Andrew Miller and Mike Rabelo.

For the best hitter of this generation, the Florida Marlins received two top 10 overall prospects in Cameron Maybin and Andrew Miller along with two more organizational top 10 players in Eulogio de la Cruz and Dallas Trahern. Burke Badenhop and Mike Rabelo, two lesser pieces, rounded out the haul sent to South Florida. Maybin and Miller are both thriving in different places right now, but unfortunately, nothing the Marlins got in return for Miguel Cabrera ended up working out for them. However, at the time, to acquire two consensus top 10 overall prospects in all of baseball is not a bad coup at all. On the other hand, rumor has it the Dodgers were willing to trade prospects Matt Kemp and Clayton Kershaw for Cabrera. Yeesh.

7. Johan Santana, 28 years old, controlled through 2008, $13.25 million (signed 6-year, $137.5 million extension immediately following trade)

• February 2, 2008: Traded by the Minnesota Twins to the New York Mets for Carlos Gomez, Deolis Guerra, Philip Humber and Kevin Mulvey.

Arguably the best pitcher in the game at the time, Santana was traded to the Mets for the 35th and 52nd best prospect in the game in Guerra and Gomez. Humber was also ranked in the top 100 just a year ago, and Mulvey was a 23-year-old former second-round pick. This haul isn’t quite on par with the Marlins’ for Cabrera, but Gomez did blossom into a true superstar, which can’t be said for anyone that Florida received. Boston apparently had packages involving prospects Jacoby Ellsbury and Jon Lester on the table for Minnesota, but the fact that Johan needed a contract extension to be traded was not appealing for the Red Sox.

9. Delmon Young, 22, controlled through 2012, PreArb – Arb3

• November 28, 2007: Traded by the Tampa Bay Devil Rays with Brendan Harris and Jason Pridie to the Minnesota Twins for Eddie Morlan (minors), Jason Bartlett and Matt Garza.

For their former number one overall draft pick and two other rather significant pieces, the Rays received Garza, the 21st overall prospect the year before, Morlan, the 4th ranked prospect in the Minnesota system according to Kevin Goldstein, and Bartlett, a serviceable major league shortstop at the time. Not the best package in the world, especially considering Tampa also sent a solid major league SS in Harris the other way. However, the Rays would go on to win the AL Pennant less than a year later with Garza as the ALCS MVP.

39. Erik Bedard, 28, controlled through 2009, Arb2 – Arb3

• February 8, 2008: Traded by the Baltimore Orioles to the Seattle Mariners for Tony Butler (minors), Adam Jones, Kam Mickolio, George Sherrill and Chris Tillman.

One of the most infamous packages ever dealt for a star, this is one for the ages in both Seattle and Baltimore history. Future Orioles superstar Jones was the number 28 prospect on the 2007 Baseball America Top 100 list, and future ALCS Game 1 starter Tillman would be ranked third on Baseball America’s Top 10 rankings for the Mariners just weeks before the trade. Butler was highly ranked in the Mariners system before the 2007 season before falling off the list the next year, while Sherrill was a veteran reliever coming off his best year. For a pitcher who was coming off a 221-strikeout campaign but only had two years left on his contract, this seems like a massive haul almost disproportionate to the amount that the Rays got for Young.

40. Dan Haren, 27, controlled through 2010, $16.25 million

• December 14, 2007: Traded by the Oakland Athletics with Connor Robertson to the Arizona Diamondbacks for Brett Anderson, Chris Carter, Aaron Cunningham, Dana Eveland, Carlos Gonzalez and Greg Smith.

Dave only ranked 40 players in his 2007 list, but the last player who snuck on was worth the 22nd (future Colorado Rockies superstar Gonzalez) and 36th (Anderson) overall prospects, and the 7th and 8th prospect (Cunningham and Carter) in Arizona’s system. Sweeten this package with two more pieces in Smith and Eveland, and it looks like Oakland’s return was at least on par with Minnesota’s, if not even better. It seems here that Dave may have seriously underestimated the value that Haren’s cost-controlled years had in other teams’ eyes. On a sidenote, this Arizona system was absolutely loaded, with Jarrod Parker, Gerardo Parra, Max Scherzer, and Emilio Bonifacio also in the top 10 of that year’s list.

Interestingly, we have three top-10 rankings traded from the 2007 list, but no other player from here on out with a ranking higher than 17 got dealt. We could analyze these trades from hindsight, and hindsight would tell us Baltimore and Tampa Bay did extremely well in selling their trade chip, receiving valuable pieces that would propel them into the postseason down the line and in the case of the Rays, to an American League championship the very next season. But looking at the deals at the time, Young was perhaps ranked too well, as Tampa only received one elite prospect back while sending two pieces along with their young star. Haren on the other hand was definitely ranked too low, as he was able to return two top 50 talents.

I’ll be back with more deals for players ranked in Dave’s top 50.