Adventures in the Trade Trade: Equivalent Value for Under- and Overachievers

In the run-up to the season, our sense of adventure shone brighter than our always-flickering common sense, and so here we are playing in not just one but several leagues that permit trading. When you trade, to state the obvious, you’re betting that the package of stats you’re giving up is less valuable to you than the package you’re getting. Sometimes, this is just a question of trading stats you don’t need for stats that you do. If you’ve got four closers but your hitters have no speed, you’re going to trade some saves for some stolen bases. And sometimes, of course, just like teams in Reality Baseball, you’re trading this year for next year.

But—as we used to say in Academe when we didn’t want to do any more work on a project—keepers are Beyond the Scope of this Article. The thing you’re most often trying to do when you contemplate trades is divine who on your team has produced stats that flatter his actual performance, and who on the other guy’s team has better things in store. And to assist ourselves, and now you, with this project, we’ve tried to identify hitters who, through the first one-fifth of the season, have been lucky or unlucky, and who figure (we hope) to produce numbers more typical of their projected performance.

To do this, we’re enlisting an approach we first used in the pre-season. For a full explanation of it, go here. It’s not complex. We look at a player’s Batting Average on Balls in Play, his Home Run to Fly Ball Ratio, and his Hard-Hit Ball Percentage. When we see a guy who’s in the top third of all hitters in HH% but the bottom third of BABIP and HR/FB, we figure he’s been unlucky and that his luck is going to change. And vice versa. One the one hand, using this technique would have led you to Cody Asche (.180/.179/.359) in the reserve rounds of your draft. On the other hand, it would have led you to Marcell Ozuna, a top-10 outfielder so far. So the approach has some promise. Let’s see who it turns up now. In ascending order of interest:

—Joe Mauer. Stifle that yawn, please. That’s right—you don’t especially want Mauer as your first baseman, corner guy, or utility hitter. But you could do worse. So far, in about 100 at bats, Mauer’s hitting .240, with 2 home runs, 13 runs scored, and 12 RBIs. Assuming that he has in fact been more unfortunate than mediocre so far, we figure that his luck will balance out over the rest of the season, he’ll hit his projected full-season numbers, and in 350 or 400 at bats hit about .272 with roughly 7 home runs, 50 runs scored, and 42 RBIs. In other words, you can expect his numbers to be about what you’ll get from Brandon Drury.

To be clear: We’re not suggesting that you trade Drury for Mauer even-up, unless all your first basemen have been stricken with scurvy or something. What we’re saying is that (leaving aside position eligibility, which we’re inclined to think is a chimera anywhere but two-catcher leagues) Mauer/Drury looks like a wash. But it won’t look like a wash to your counterparty, who will have to offset the apparent imbalance with the other guys included in a multiplayer trade.

—Steven Souza Jr. People have expected such big things from Souza for so long that the temptation beckons to conclude that his current .284/.385/.457 with 4 home runs in 116 at bats is the real deal. We’re skeptical. He still should wind up with somewhere between 15 and 20 home runs, but figures to hit .230 the rest of the way. That puts him in the company of Joc Pederson ( if you think he survives the advent of Cody Bellinger) or perhaps Souza’s teammate Colby Rasmus, or possibly, if you squint very hard, Ryan Schimpf.

—Jackie Bradley Jr. He’s been in a terrible slump, but we figure he’ll keep playing every day because his defense is so good and because we don’t see Chris Young as an everyday player. More importantly, the stats suggest that Bradley’s been unlucky, and therefore can turn things around just by doing what he’s been doing. So far, he’s had 57 at bats with only one home run and a .175 batting average. He should get more than 400 at bats the rest of the way, and hit about .260 with about 15 home runs and 110 or more runs plus RBIs. That’s about what you’re going to get from Matt Carpenter or perhaps Kyle Seager.

—Gregory Bird. This one’s really interesting. Towards the end of spring training, Bird fouled a ball off his ankle, and it bothered him throughout April, leading to a DL stint that is ongoing. The numbers he produced before hitting the sidelines were almost comically bad: 60 at bats with only six hits and one home run. Whatever role the bruised ankle played in his performance, we can tell you that statistical misfortune played a part as well. His BABIP is the fourth lowest of anyone with more than 50 at bats so far, and his HR/FB is 4.5% instead of his 2015 number of 20.4%–high, it’s true, but by no means uncharacteristic of all-or-nothing power hitters like Bird. So suppose he’d had a league-average BABIP of .291 and a 20% HR/FB rate in the first month? He’d have hit .233 with four home runs—roughly the performance you bought in your auction (and roughly the one you thought you’d get from Souza). If you think that Bird (1) comes back soon and healthy, and gets another 300 at-bats this season, and (2) the luck balances out, then figure a .265 batting average with 15 home runs from now on—approximately what you’d expect to get from Jake Lamb. If you figure that Bird’s ankle is a co-culprit, go higher.