As most baseball fans know, it’s highly likely that Indians star SS Francisco Lindor [baseball-trade-values-player-link player="8706"]will be traded this winter. So the question is, what’s the most likely return? Unfortunately for Cleveland fans, we don’t think it will be huge. Lindor is approaching his final year of control before free agency, which makes the likelihood of a trade even higher, especially considering the budget outlook of the small-market Indians. But that...

It’s mid-January; time to take stock. How is our model doing vs. real life?   As of January 18: Total trades: 36 Total trades accepted by our model: 30 Acceptance rate: 83.3% Variance: +/- 4.2 Basically, the model has been right five out of every six trades, and overall the numbers have held up reasonably. As a reminder, we keep a running tally of all trades, log each one individually on our site, and keep score via these tracker updates, so you can see how the model is faring...

Recently, on an episode of MLB Tonight, John Smoltz was asked to compare the difference between signing Josh Donaldson or trading for [baseball-trade-values-player-link player="7589"]. His response was, to paraphrase: Donaldson doesn’t cost anything in prospects, but if Arenado was available? You’d have to “back up the truck.” In other words, he thinks trading for Arenado would cost a huge prospect haul. With all due respect to Smoltz, he is not a GM. He assumes...

Update: Corey Kluber was traded to Texas on 12/15/19 for Delino DeShields and Emmanuel Clase, a package that totals $9.7M in value. The trade was accepted by our system as an overpay, but within the bounds of acceptability. Many observers felt like the return for Cleveland was light. As you can see below by our analysis, we're not surprised by the size of the return. And assuming his medicals check out, Kluber's discount for medical unknowns would lift up his value a degree, making the...

Recently, Joel Sherman of the NY Post advocated strongly for the Yankees to trade for [baseball-trade-values-player-link player="8706"], in the wake of the Yanks’ defeat to the Astros. Granted, Sherman is a NY beat writer, so there’s some classic Yankee homerism in his take that that the Yanks could actually acquire him. What’s missing in his proposal is a dose of reality from the Indians’ perspective. First, as BTV regular and Indians fan hockeyjohn often points...