How valuable are Houston's starting pitchers?
It's difficult to slap a value any player. We've got some good measures, with WAR to say how they've performed and a nifty conversion to see how much that production would be worth on the open market (usually $5.5-6 million per win and rising every year).
Back in 2009, Beyond the Box Score created one of my favorite tools using those concepts. It's a simple Excel spreadsheet that takes a player's salary and value before showing how much surplus value a player possesses. If that value is positive, it means he's more valuable than his contract and should net a hefty haul in trade.
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After five years, the sheet needed some tweaks. It used values for Type A/B free agent status. That's gone now, as the rules for getting a comp pick for a traded player are tougher. Also, it had the open market win total at $4.5 million, so that got adjusted up.
But, what we're left with is a nifty tool for projecting player value. Since Houston has three starting pitchers who have been mentioned as possible trade candidates, it seemed a good time to break out the trusty companion and see how much surplus value each had.
Any references to prospect value use Victor Wang's research, which is summarized here.
Dallas Keuchel
How valuable is the best pitcher on Houston's staff? Pretty darned valuable. Let's take a moment, first, and put some things into focus. This valuation has nothing to do with his "value to the team," or to his place as the lead pitcher in a decent, rebuilding rotation.
But, let's also remember that he's 26 and in the midst of a career year. His value is likely to peak in the next few years (although as a lefty, there's also a chance he strings together another 20 effective years). His future value may never be higher than it is right now. That's why Houston must look at him objectively and see how much value he's worth on the market.
if we go by the Trade Value Calculator, Keuchel has a surpus value of $61 million. That's assuming he's got four years of team control left and three arbitration years. It also assumes he is worth 3 fWAR in each of those seasons while being worth 3.6 fWAR this season. In essence, we're giving him credit for his breakout this season while showing a bit of a decline overall going forward.
But, it's harder to project out Keuchel, since he's made such a jump in performance this season. That's likely sustainable, but his struggles in the last month could be a sign that he's not quite as good as he was in the first half. But, pegging his value around $60 million feels about right.
At that value, Keuchel would be worth a top ten hitting prospect in addition to a top 100 hitting prospect. Or, he could be worth the value of two arbitration-eligible guys two years away from free agency who average 7.0 fWAR this season and next.
Those players don't exist.
The calculator sort of breaks down with young players. But, it's fair to say that Keuchel has quite a bit of surplus value. Unless he brings back a whale of a return, including a possible MVP candidate or two, he's not going anywhere. Possible exception? A straight-up trade with the Cubs for Anthony Rizzo. Unless that happens, Keuchel probably is too valuable to the Astros for another team to meet their price.
Jarred Cosart
Here's where things get difficult. Cosart has yet to throw 200 innings in the pros. So far, he's been worth 1.7 fWAR in 176 innings. For this, we have to project out his value over the next five year of team control. How do we do that? We don't have a fancy ZiPS machine like Dan Szymborski and we don't have the Cray supercomputers that the Astros may or may not have purchased.
Again, how do we value him? He's established a baseline in the majors, so he's worth more than the $15.9 million a Top 50 pitching prospect gets. But, if we project him out as a 2.0 fWAR guy over the course of his team control, he's worth $47 million in surplus value.
That sort of downgrades his potential to grow, right? Young guys often get better with time in the big leagues. So, what if we slowly increased his fWAR to 3.5 (or Keuchel territory) by his final season in the rotation? Then, he's worth $55 million. If he makes some immediate gains and jumps up to 3 fWAR next season and goes up from there? He'd be worth $77 million.
I'd note that only 14 players in MLB posted WAR totals of 4.5 or better last year, so for Cosart to attain that third (or even second) surplus value amount, he'd have to turn into an ace starting next season. That probably isn't happening.
Still, $47 million is a heck of a lot in surplus value. It'd get Houston back a top 10 hitter (worth $36.5 million) and a top 100 pitcher ($9.8 million) in a trade. Except things like that don't happen. To get Addison Russell and Billy McKinley, the Cubs had to give up two players, both of whom have a better career track record than Cosart.
Ultimately, it's his inexperience in the majors that lowers his value. If I had to peg it, I'd say it was somewhere around $25-30 million right now.
Collin McHugh
Whatever I said about Cosart, double it for McHugh. We really don't know how he will perform in the future. He had good numbers in the minors, but was never regarded as a big-time prospect. Plus, he's more volatile than Cosart. Sure, we know that pitch tunnelling has helped him immensely That seems to be something that could be sustainable.
But, we also know he's had control issues. We haven't seen him pitch an entire season, throw more than 175 innings in the majors or show that he can maintain his 2.0 fWAR pace.
That probably puts his surplus value pretty high, but the lowest of the three players we mentioned. The team control is balanced by his age, so I'd peg his surplus value around $15-20 million.
Which is why he'd be the most likely Astro to get traded and would likely fetch an underwhelming haul (at first glance).