Sky Kalkman has a great new piece up assessing what JP Ricchardi can reasonably expect to get back in a Roy Halladay deal. Using his model for calculating various prospect’s value, Halladay’s own value and subtracting what Roy earns, he comes to some surprising conclusions. Here’s a taste of his analysis:
Roy Halladay’s Trade Value
Halladay’s under contract through 2010, owed about $7M more this year and $15.75M next year. A rough estimate of production (200 IP at a 3.00 ERA in a 4.40 ERA league) puts him at 6 WAR in 2010, and 3 more WAR in 2009. At $4.5M per marginal win, that production is worth $41M on the free agent market. Add in an expected $5M from Type A free agent compensation picks and a team would get $46M in production at a cost of $23M, or a net trade value of $23M. Not bad. I certainly couldn’t afford that.
What’s $23M Look Like in Prospects?
The Blue Jays are looking to acquire young players with more cost-controlled years than Halladay’s 1.5. Whether the young players are minor league prospects or early-career major leaguers, the method of cost-savings is obvious — these guys won’t make any money their first few years in the big leagues and will be paid less then free agents during arbitration. Therefore, they don’t have to be stars in order to help their teams as much as free agent stars, because they earn much less money. The Jays are trading value now for value later, when it will hopefully do more to help them reach the playoffs.
Thanks to Victor Wang, we have a good guess as to the future net value provided by prospects of various standing. Erik Manning compiled this chart:
Top 10 hitting prospects $36.5M Top 11-25 hitters $25.1 Top 26-50 hitters $23.4 Top 51-75 hitters $14.2 Top 76-100 hitters $12.5 Top 10 pitching prospects $15.2 Top 11-25 pitchers $15.9 Top 26-50 pitchers $15.9 Top 51-75 pitchers $12.1 Top 76-100 pitchers $9.8 Grade B pitchers (as graded by Sickels) $7.3 Grade B hitters $5.5 Grade C pitchers 22 or younger $2.1 Grade C pitchers 23 or older $1.5 Grade C hitters 22 or younger $0.7 Grade C hitters 23 or older $0.5 It’s apparent that a stud position player prospect would be more than enough of a return for Halladay on his own. Looking at Baseball America’s mid-season Top 25, that could be Jason Heyward, Mike Stanton (not that that Mike Stanton), Jesus Montero, Justin Smoak, Buster Posey or Carlos Santana (not that Carlos Santana) .
So according to his player valuation models, Jesus Montero ALONE would be overpaying Roy Halladay’s present market value to a team by approximately DOUBLE. This goes a long way toward explaining why players tend to go for far less than the rumors that get floated in the weeks leading up to the trade deadline.
It should be noted, that JP Ricchardi will try to get as much as he can regardless of these estimates. In his mind, he has a unique commodity who will be worth whatever the market will bear. And when teams get into bidding wars the auction-style atmosphere can send prices skyward. Especially when discussing a pitcher who will very likely make the team that lands him the overwhelming favorite to win it all this year, assuming he lands with one of the contenders.
But the Yankee business model places a heavy premium on winning it all, and the team spends lavishly to achieve this goal. It wouldn’t surprise me if the team that spent over 400 million this off season will open up the purse strings once again, but this time with talent.
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0 Responses to What's a Fair Return in a Roy Halladay Trade?
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TIQ IQ
I am standing by my statement that they want and will get 4 prospects with 1 being high ranking and 2 being notable. If I was building off of our system I would say Hughes is who they value, Zach Mcallister, George Kontos and Austin Romine would be about what they will get. With that they get one sure starter now, one starter one possible starter both of whom are close to ready if not ready for a taste of the Majors and a position player they can value long term at an important position. Will they take that not sure but I would sure as hell find out if I was Cashman…
FYI, Kontos recently underwent Tommy John surgery, and McAllister was just placed on the disabled list at Trenton. Better find other pieces.
Any word on what is wrong with ZMAC
Then the trade wont happen and there are no other pieces… They want guys who are major league ready or close to that and besides Mcallister and Kontos we can’t provide that outside of Hughes and Joba. I didn’t think we could get Halladay and that confirms it! In fact at this point I doubt the Yanks make any move at all.
Some team will take the hit and overpay if they believe it is the difference between a shot a the WS or not. Obviously there is value there. I just hope it is not the Yanks or Redsox, unless we could do the trade without using Phil, Joba, or perhaps even Montero. If our best young players are involved I think we lose out in the long run. Ajax seems like the best centerpiece we should consider.
He is our only outfielding prospect and we are low on outfielders who are good and young and under contract I do not want to trade him at all!
Halladay is not worth the price. Trade for a young left handed bat!
The Yankees don’t make this trade if it involves Joba, Hughes or Montero. I’d imagine the highest price they will give up is A-Jax, Romine, Melancon and an A-ball guy.
The Yankees don’t make this trade because it is a dumb IDEA!
They don’t make this trade because the Yankee organization thinks very highly of guys named Austin.
At this point Romine is leading the FSL in RBIs and 4th in HRs (with the exception of Mike Stanton the only other guys with as many or more homeruns are lumberjacks with batting averages hovering in the low .260′s at best). He’s a plus defender at the toughest position to field on the diamond. When does he start progressing from intriguing to top prospect? I can’t help but think that we’d be a lot more excited about Romine if Montero wasn’t destroying the competition.
Agreed, Chip. They’ll probably try to deal from those guy.
I say make the deal if you can keep Montero out of it-I dont know if anyone has noticed, but after cc and aj we have the head case (joba) thetin man(wang) nad the old man(pettite) and we dont even have wang now so I suppose we go with a our man rotation and thus be about 12 games out in about three weeks. If the Yankee owensrship is about winning it all you make th deal. Maybe Halladay will limit his choices and drive the price down?
The problem with HAllady is that in an economic environment that is so bad even the YAnkees are going to need to cut salary, they want too many players.
Yankees need to let Damon, Matsui and NAdi go, let Molina go, let Pettitte and possibly let WAng go if they want to sign Hallady.
CC, AJ and Hallady with 2 cheap oyung starters would work financially.
Question is, do you want to give up a lot of prospects to be in that position.
Whta I am saying is what if Halladay will only go to 1 or 2 places? that would lower the price no?
Then the Jays will not trade him. They should keep him anyway and make one last push with him next year.
With what players besides him? Rios? Wells? Tallet? Kevin Millar?
No it won’t! If he says he will only go to the Red Sox or Yankees the Jays would simply keep him and take the two draft picks they would get if he leaves or try again next year to trade him… In this deal Halladay has a lot less control than Peavy did.