How did our model do at the deadline?

 

Starting with the Mets/Cubs David Peterson trade on June 25, here’s the scorecard:

• Number of trades: 86
• Number accepted by the model: 76
• Acceptance rate: 88%
• Average value variance per deal: 3.4

 

That’s the exact same result as the 2025 deadline period, so at least we’re consistent. As we said then, the trade market is inherently inefficient, and there are multiple variables involved, so to go 76-10 isn’t bad.

And yet, it could always be better. More on that below.

 

Wins: Significant trades on which our model was very close – aka “fair deals” (bigger names in bold):

Lance McCullers, Jr., Seth Halvorsen, Chase Silseth, A.J. Minter, Craig Yoho, Camilo Doval, Aaron Civale, Jameson Taillon, Luis Garcia, Jr., Kevin Gausman, Tyler Mahle, Huascar Brazoban, Luis Arraez, Brooks Raley, Brent Suter, Jo Adell, Taylor Ward, Brenton Doyle, Adam Macko, Kris Bubic, Braxton Garrett, Daulton Varsho, Joey Bart, Eli White, Antonio Senzatela, Foster Griffin, Victor Vodnik, Casey Mize, Nathaniel Lowe, Caleb Ferguson, Kirby Yates, Lars Nootbaar, Hunter Feduccia, and a whole bunch of onesie/twosies

 

Borderline calls: Significant trades marginally accepted by our model as overpays within reason:

Tarik Skubal, Luis Castillo, Freddy Peralta, Lane Thomas, Curtis Mead*, Jose Soriano, Robbie Ray, Luke Weaver, Lake Bachar

 

*This trade was initially rejected by our model, but later we found a data error that, when applied, changed Mead’s value. (Hopefully you'll allow it.)

 

Misses: Significant trades rejected by our model as unreasonable overpays:

Liam Hicks, Adley Rutschman, Dustin May, Ryan Zeferjahn, Clay Holmes, Tyler Wells, Heliot Ramos, Marcelo Mayer, Jeff Hoffman 

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The big picture

Overall, it was a weird market. We knew going in that the story of this year was the amount of bubble teams who were still on the margins of contention, who hadn’t picked a lane, right up until deadline day. And even then, the ones who did pick a lane did so half-heartedly. The Astros made only one deal. The Padres made two. The Pirates acquired a couple of relievers. So did the Twins. Mildness was the order of the day.

Until it wasn’t.

 

The big overpay

The Adley Rutschman trade was bonkers. It will likely go down as one of the biggest overpays of all time, right up there with infamous examples like the Chris Archer trade, the Josh Donaldson trade, and the Aroldis Chapman trade. The latter is probably the best antecedent for this one, as it was an all-in move by a team desperate to win a World Series.

There was clear consensus across the baseball industry that the Adley trade was a massive overpay, as exemplified in this tweet from famed Red Sox columnist Sean McAdam: “Some people in the game are completely stunned by what the Red Sox gave up. Said one evaluator from another org: ‘I’m absolutely dumbfounded by this… This is literally one of the most ridiculous trades I’ve seen in 30 years.’”

So in our view, it wasn’t so much a miss as it was an all-in move by Boston, and a matter of a high price placed on a franchise fan favorite to unlock him from a division rival. 

In this day and age, though, with most front offices sticking to their models, it was rare to see one blow it up – especially one led by Craig Breslow, who has a reputation for being a model guy. But are the Red Sox that desperate? Did they need to overpay by this much, for this guy?

 

Let's dive in on Rutschman

It would make more sense if they blew up their model for a true impact guy, but Rutschman is arguably not that. He’s actually struggled mightily over the last two years, as this article in Fangraphs by Michael Baumann points out. Since he injured his hand in July 2024, he’s put up a total of only 1.5 fWAR, with a 90 WRC+, a below-average hitter. To be fair, he’s improved this year, but he’s back on the IL for a wrist injury, and one wonders if that’s the new norm for him.

Not to mention the fact that Rutschman is only under team control for another year after this one – one that may be disrupted by an extended lockout. And if you’re wondering if the Red Sox will extend him to make up some of that value, be advised that he’s already turned down an extension offer, and when players get close to free agency, they tend to wait it out more often than not.

So Breslow gave up a ridiculous package for a guy who’s been underperforming, frequently on the IL, and about to hit his last year of control, which may itself be disrupted.

Granted, he’s an improvement at their catcher spot, which had been manned by a struggling Carlos Narvaez and a couple of replacement backups.

Still, if you’re going all-in, you want certainty that the guy you’re doing it for can really move the needle for you, and while he’s clearly an improvement for them at catcher, it’s unclear whether he’s the key to a championship.

 

To be fair...

The other possible mitigating factor here is Boston’s confidence in their organization’s ability to develop prospects. Their farm system has improved over the last couple of years (starting under Chaim Bloom, continuing under Breslow) to the point where, somewhat like the Dodgers today and the Padres a few years ago, perhaps they believe they can sell high on young talent because they know they can replenish it in due time. Giving up a package like that may be less painful if you know what you’re doing on that side of the house.

 

...and that’s not all! 

They also overpaid for reliever Erik Miller, by sending Marcelo Mayer to San Francisco. Yes, we know Mayer was struggling, and due for a change of scenery, so the fact that he was traded was not a surprise. But he’s still not far removed from being a top five prospect in the game, and he’s only 23, so the upside is still there. You’d think he’d have returned a much bigger get than a reliever. Nothing against Erik Miller, but he’s not Mason Miller.

 

The other reliever miss

One trait Miller shares with Ryan Zeferjahn, who was also in an overpay deal, is controllability. Boston now has Miller through 2029; the Cubs have Zeferjahn through 2030. One could argue that that merits a haul. Yet we know that relievers are volatile – heck, these two guys have thorny volatility issues themselves – so relying on them to be consistent through those years, which would justify paying up for them, is a big gamble.

 

The model breaker

The Tarik Skubal trade was accepted by our model as a minor underpay by the Dodgers. The contours of the package to Detroit – a Top 50ish prospect in Zyhir Hope as the lead piece; a secondary piece with upside in River Ryan as a potential Skubal replacement; and a flyer in Brady Smith – looked fine and reasonable.

But we caught some flak for Ryan’s valuation (0.1), and rightly so. On the one hand, he’s low because of some big red flags: he turns 28 this month, and hasn’t pitched consistently since 2023 due to multiple injuries. You can't contribute if you can't play.

On the other hand, his stuff is electric, and the age factor can be mitigated somewhat by the fact that he was a position-player conversion case.

Our model saw the red flags and downgraded him for them -- which makes sense, as most players with those issues end up as DFA fodder. As a general rule, we try not to intervene with the model and put our thumb on the scale.

But we accept that there’s enough evidence here to suggest Ryan is an outlier, so in this case we should have adjusted for the positives a bit more. One would expect he should be valued more in the high-ish single digits, which would put this trade squarely in the fair-deal group.

 

Once again: Real trades bear no resemblance to rumored trades

As I mentioned in an article recently, most of what you hear in the media leading up to the deadline is useless. Not to pick on ESPN, but given its prominence in the mediasphere, let’s do that: None of top seven trade candidates recently updated on espn.com were traded. Mason Miller, CJ Abrams, Zach Neto, Jeremy Pena, George Kirby, Otto Lopez, Hunter Goodman – all stayed put.

Granted, the reasons may vary – the Padres’ hot streak turned them into buyers; the prices for controllable shortstops like Abrams, Neto, Pena and Lopez were very high (in our model for sure, but likely in trade discussions as well). Other names bandied about – Shea Langeliers, Hunter Greene, even Elly De La Cruz – also did not move.

Meanwhile, players who were trumpeted by many as likely to bring back a “haul” – Skubal and Weaver for sure; Gausman, Arraez, Griffin, and Adell to a lesser extent – did not. Instead, Jose Soriano, who received very little coverage as a trade candidate, returned a higher-value package than any of them.

The takeaway: don’t get too caught up in the rumor mill.

 

Journalists: Please, follow the money

A pet peeve: most baseball journalists still cover trades as if we’re in the 1990s. There’s no apparent framework for evaluating them, other than the old “good player for good player” rubric, like we’re all kids trading cards on the playground.

Several questioned the return for Gausman, without once mentioning the fact that the Cubs have to pay him the $7M he’s owed on the remainder of his contract – the biggest factor of all in the light return.

Most also don’t bother reporting the cash amount exchanged, which was a key factor in the deals for Robbie Ray and Luke Weaver. And the Luis Castillo contract was partially offset by Seattle taking Seranthony Dominguez’s underwater contract, which got little attention.

Since the exchange of contracts – and the money involved – is a key part of every trade, you’d think this would get more coverage. But I get it, it’s not sexy. And most casual fans don’t care, because it’s not their money.

But if we’ve shown anything over the seven years we’ve been doing this, it’s hopefully that the concept of surplus value is the dominant framework for baseball trades. Our hit rate was 88% this deadline, and our longer-term, 7-year hit rate is 92%. The point here is not to toot our own horn, it’s to show that anyone wanting to understand how this works should understand surplus value, and journalists (who are often labeled “insiders”) should be held to a higher standard.

But instead we get…

 

Trade grades

Several journalists – most notably at The Athletic – post their grades for each major trade. I’m sorry, but this is absurd, for many reasons – 1) it appears to be completely subjective; 2) it’s not based on any apparent framework; 3) it ignores the money (as evident in cases like Gausman); 4) by and large, these grades don’t seem to take into account the key drivers of the decisionmaking process in front offices.

This appears to be a cutesy device aimed at casual fans, so they can understand at a glance who “won” each trade. Again, journalists should be held to a higher standard. It’s embarrassing.

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That's a wrap

In any event, we will continue to fine-tune our model, as always, to account for any patterns we see in the misses, and to correlate to an ever-changing market.