Teams are beginning to make the hard call if they are going to buyers or sellers at the trade deadline. I’ll start investigating the players most likely to be traded, how their value will change, and their possible replacements. I’m not going to make the call on who is or isn’t going to be moved. I’m going to rely on the great writers at MLBTradeRumors.com and use their top-50 trade candidate list. I’ll start with the top five players.

1. Manny Machado

Machado is nearly a perfect trade chip. A complete hitter who can play either shortstop or third base. I can’t envision a single scenario where his value takes a hit. He may end up in a pitcher-friendly park but he’ll be hitting in the middle of a better lineup. It can’t be worse than Baltimore’s lineup.

Every single contending team could use Machado as an upgrade while some teams need him worse. Trying to pick a destination right now is about impossible. I’m a little worried he’s more likely headed to the National League for those owners with him in AL-only leagues. I don’t see Baltimore trading him to the Yankees or Red Sox to help them win a World Series.

Read the rest of this entry »

It has been quite a while since we did one of these because the Hot Stove has been so ice cold. We’re finally starting to see big moves as the stove thaws and I expect a steady stream of moves for the duration of the offseason until the bulk of available players find homes.

Yu Darvish to CHC

Darvish stays in the NL and heads to Chicago to join the Cubs. I had him ranked 13th in my most recent SP ranking update back in late-January and I can’t imagine moving him much, if at all, on my next update. He remains well supported by a deep bullpen and strong offense. Don’t get too hung up on the World Series starts. A week before that he was dismantling his new team (6.3 IP/1 ER/7 K in NLCS) and the Diamondbacks (5 IP/1 ER/7 K in NLDS). Your Mike Montgomery shares just went the way of Bitconnect for now, but in leagues deep enough to take him in the first place, he’ll still hold some value as a super reliever (just 7 appearances of an inning or less last year).

Read the rest of this entry »

We’re finally starting to see the market pick back up and as we reach mid-January, we should expect a steady stream of moves from here until camps starting opening up. Even with this bevy of moves, the big ones are still trades as opposed to big free agents finding new teams. The Pirates have firmly declared their future by dealing two stars and the Giants get another aging superstar.

Read the rest of this entry »

The market hasn’t been all that robust since the last Winter Moves update, but there have been enough moves for another piece. We’re in the holiday lull and probably won’t see much for the next week or so and then a flurry of activity in January.

• Evan Longoria to SF; Christian Arroyo, Denard Span, Stephen Woods, and Matt Krook to TB

Longoria is a Tampa Bay institution, spending his first 10 years there as the foundation of the organization, but now heads out west on the heels of his worst season ever (96 wRC+). Even if the wRC+ jumps back up, it likely won’t net any fantasy benefit given his new park. His last four years have seen 22, 21, 36, and 20 HR all in full seasons so that trend paired with the park should put expectations at a .260/20 HR/80 RBI. In other words, a mixed league corner infielder. The best I can say about this move is at least he’s not a left-handed batter or we might be looking a low-to-mid teens HR output.

Read the rest of this entry »

Yes, we did get 700 more middle reliever signings, buuttt we also got three trades of note. Meanwhile, these Manny Machado rumors are blazing hot and reports suggest he could be moved as soon as this weekend!

• Marcell Ozuna to STL; Sandy Alcantara, Magneuris Sierra, Zac Gallen, & Daniel Castano to MIA

Ozuna’s breakout in 2017 might look isolated, but if you check his 2016 splits, you will see that he was having the breakout year through June before a wrist injury sapped his power and curbed production over the second half. Before the injury he had 16 HR and a .948 OPS in 299 PA, but then just 7 HR and a .605 OPS the rest of the way. He was brilliant in 2017 with no worse than an .873 OPS in all six months of the season en route to a 37 HR/.924 OPS campaign. It’d be prudent to bake in some natural regression, but a .290/30/100 season is very believable. Andrew Perpetua digs even deeper on the new Cardinal.

Read the rest of this entry »

In leagues with Runs and RBIs as categories, predicting how a player’s mix will change with a new team can be guessing. Some clown at Fantrax yesterday wrote the following:

“As for Headley, his value drops by going to a worse offensive team in a pitcher-friendly park. Part of the decline could be offset by a move up in the lineup since he mainly batted seventh for the Yankees last season.”

It could go up, it could go down, who really knows? While writing the statement, I needed a better answer so I created a couple quick and simple tool. If an owner can estimate a few stats, they can predict changes in plate appearances, Runs, RBI when a hitter moves from one team to another.

The key was to be simple and quick. For simplicity, only the following stats are needed.

• New likely lineup location
• Estimate of projected home runs
• Estimated games played such 150 out of 162 games as a percentage.
• Estimated Runs scored by a team. Used over on-base percentage because team level runs scored is easier to find and remember.

The estimated runs scored is the toughest value to come up with. I’d just go to FanGraphs team projection page to get a decent idea. Just take that year’s RS/G and multiply it by 162. Another method is to take the previous season value and plug it into the following regression equation:

`RS in Y2` = .575 * `RS in Y1` + 311

The goal is just to get a basic idea of possible changes.

Read the rest of this entry »

The Hot Stove is operating a  simmer right now after the busy weekend with Shohei Ohtani and Giancarlo Stanton. We’re getting a couple moves per day, but they are far from blockbusters. In fact, it’s been a bunch of middle relievers of late with a pair of TJ recovering SPs mixed in. It’s never ending! As I was typing up this paragraph, the Mets agreed to terms with yet another middle reliever.

• Luke Gregerson to STL (2 yr/$11 mil deal)

This is the first piece in a pen rebuild for the Cardinals. Trevor Rosenthal is out with Tommy John recovery so they non-tendered him while Seung Hwan Oh, Juan Nicasio, and Zack Duke are all free agents. Gregerson joins Tyler Lyons and Brett Cecil at the backend of the pen. Alex Reyes will also start the season in the bullpen, but probably as a multi-inning option earlier in games. Gregerson logged 47 saves in three years with Houston, including a 31-save season back in 2015. The Cards could tab the 34-year old as their closer, but I wouldn’t draft him as such right now.

Read the rest of this entry »

The hot stove is finally rocking! As I’m writing this, Shohei Ohtani has signed with the Angels. I wrote about him yesterday and even though I was hyping my Mariners pick, you can just ignore that part and focus on the ranking and skills assessment. A bevy of moves with fantasy impact took place yesterday, too!

• Tyler Chatwood signed by CHC to a 3-year, $38 million dollar deal

Chatwood was a buzzy free agent this year thanks in part to Mike Petriello showing how he could be this year’s Charlie Morton. The Cubs snatched him up and while I wouldn’t say $12.7 mil is an overpay, I kinda expected him to be more in the $9-10 mil per year level. Of course, all the teams were aware of the things Petriello covered in his piece already so I’m sure there was some competition that pushed him up to that price. His 3.31 career road ERA has gotten a lot of run, as it’s nearly two runs lower than his 5.25 at home, done mostly at Coors Field. Read the rest of this entry »

Yesterday, The Marlins traded Dee Gordon to the Mariners for three minor league prospects. The trade came out of nowhere since the Mariners already rostered a top second baseman, Robinson Cano. Then it became known that Mariners plan on playing Gordon in centerfield. Having both middle infield and outfield qualifications a couple weeks into the season could move up his average draft position. The question remains though, will Gordon be able to cut in centerfield? Probably.

Gordon’s offensive talent is easy to access. The 29-year-old makes a ton of groundball contact and gets on first base using his speed. Once on base, he uses those legs to steal as many bases as possible. That’s it.

Read the rest of this entry »

We are finally starting to see some moves trickle in during what has been a relatively quiet offseason thus far. The Giancarlo Stanton and Shohei Ohtani sagas remain out in front this winter, but at least we’ll have a resolution on the latter no later than December 23rd after Ohtani’s posting and the three-week window he has to get signed. In the meantime, let’s look at the flurry of activity over the last few days:

• To LAA: Jim Johnson and International Bonus Money
• To ATL: Justin Kelly

Read the rest of this entry »