Adrian Gonzalez’s trade value
July 21st, 2009 | Published in Myron Logan, Sabermetrics, San Diego Padres | 4 Comments
by Myron Logan
Recently, there have been some rumblings about Adrian Gonzalez heading to Boston, or some other club. While a trade seems unlikely, I figured it’d be interesting to attempt to quantify how much Adrian is worth in a trade, by looking at his surplus value over the length of his contract. First we simply* have to estimate his true talent level.
Gonzalez’s ZiPS projection for the rest of the season – essentially, an estimate of his true talent with the bat — is .385. With Petco taken into consideration, that gets bumped up to .401. For 600 plate appearances, that works out to about 34 runs above average. Gonzalez’s fielding, despite scouting reports, remains around average by most fielding metrics. Let’s give some weight to our eyes and put him at, oh let’s say, +3 runs.
Overall, I get a current projection of about 4.5 Wins Above Replacement for Adrian. Based on his track record, that may be a touch high, but I think it’s reasonable. Now, we’re going to assume that Gonzalez is going to decline at .5 wins per year, and that 1 WAR is worth $4.8M (and inflation is at 10%). Here’s a little chart:
| Year | 2009 | 2010 | 2011 | Total |
| WAR | 2.6 WAR | 4 WAR | 3.5 WAR | 10.1 WAR |
| Salary | $1.7M | $4.75M | $5.5M | $11.95M |
| Market Value | $12.5M | $21M | $20M | $53.5M |
| Surplus Value | $10.8M | $16.25M | $14.5M | $41.6 |
Gonzalez will be paid approximately $12 million through 2011, when his current contract expires. During that time period, I expect him to be worth about 10 WAR, or $54 million worth of production as a free agent. So his surplus value, which is simply market value minus actual salary, is about $41 million.
That’s a lot of value, considering Gonzalez doesn’t even have three years left here. I mean, his contract is a steal for the Padres (or any team lucky enough to get him). He’s worth somewhere around $20 million a year on the free agent market, and he’s making under $5 million per. He’s truly a valuable asset.
This doesn’t necessarily mean that the Pads shouldn’t considering trading Gonzalez. It just means that if they do, they should obviously be getting a lot back in return, be it in prospects or young major leaguers. It doesn’t take any number-crunching to tell you that, but it helps (me, at least) to go through the process.
*The idea of estimating a player’s value is not actually simple or straightforward. There are many assumptions made and many things left unturned. But a simple evaluation like this should at least give us some representation of Adrian’s value.
July 22nd, 2009 at 1:37 am (#)
Using Erik Manning’s chart from Beyond the Boxscore on prospect value, about $41.6 mil surplus value is roughly a top 10 hitting prospect + a grade B hitter (as graded by John Sickels).
So, that’d be something along the lines of Jason Heyward from the Braves(OF) and Tyler Flowers (catcher).
July 22nd, 2009 at 10:30 am (#)
Good stuff.
Reading my mind. I was actually thinking about a possible part 2, doing something like what you just did. May or may not do that.
Anyway, that seems somewhat realistic, though I think the Padres may be able to command a little bit more.
July 22nd, 2009 at 11:57 am (#)
Flowers went to the White Sox in the Vazquez trade. But a player “like” Flowers would be valuable.
Unfortunately, almost nobody trades Top 10 hitting prospects. It’s not unheard of, but it’s not common. The Braves simply will not move Heyward, period.
Now that the Red Sox have acquired Adam LaRoche, one of the teams that we best match up with, in terms of depth, history, and organizational philosophy, is off the market. Teams that might have interest right now, as opposed to over the winter, would seem to be:
Angels
Rangers
Giants
The Braves and Rays would be major longshots. Atlanta has traded a lot of young talent in the last 10 months and the Rays would have to rotate Pena, Gonzalez, and Burrell through DH. So let’s forget them for now.
The Angels no longer have what it takes to land Agon.
The Rangers do, but something tells me a lot of their top talent is off-limits. Something built around Derek Holland (LHP), Julio Borbon (OF), and Max Ramirex (hitter who wears catcher’s gear) probably doesn’t get it done. You trade Agon, you’re trying to hit a grand slam. In that package only Holland looks like he has great potential.
The Giants probably match up best in terms of players, but the divisional rival factor may preclude any deal at all. You’d have to think long and hard about a deal involving Posey and Alderson, though.
July 22nd, 2009 at 11:42 pm (#)
Tom: I was just providing names for the examples, not meaning to propose an actual trade. But good info all around. I think San Deigo’s got some problems in trying to move AGon for a little bit — for reasons that you just stated.