Atlanta Braves and Oakland: is there a deal for an outfielder possible?

The deal and excess values

While the numbers are marginally different, Laureano projects much like Atlanta Braves outfield prospect Drew Waters. These ranks come from Fangraphs.

Laureano is still pre-arb and under team control through 2024.

I used the trade calculator originally created by Skye Kalkman back in 2009 – updated to 2018 WAR values – for the excess value (EV) calculation and assigned a $600K salary to each of the three pre-arb years.

In limited service with Oakland in 2018, Laureano produced 2.1-fWAR. I projected him to do a little better each year and level out at 3-fWAR. That’s likely high, but if you’re trading for a prospect, you should expect him to improve.

I based the arbitration salaries on the 25/40/60 formula; that may be low if he produces as I project, but clubs tend to hold those down unless they extend the player.

Any deviation from the real numbers applies universally. As a result, inaccuracies in the projections are equivalent and offsetting.

If you drop Laureano’s expected fWAR to 2.0 for each year, the EV drops to $83.1M.

Finnegan is still a prospect, and while he’s not a top 100 prospect, he’s a 50FV pitcher per Fangraphs.  Their Big Board lists values for the top 131 prospects. A 50FV pitcher outside of the top 100 is worth about $9M.

That makes the deal worth about $110M in excess value + future value.

Putting a future value on Max Fried depends on whether you see him as a prospect who ranked as high as 50 across three lists, or a major league starter.

As a 50 FV prospect, Fried’s FV falls between $27M and $29M. If you consider him a Major League pitcher whose WAR increases with experience, his FV becomes higher. I used the latter premise because that’s how I see him. The Athletics could see it differently, at least when negotiating.

For this exercise, I assumed that in their magnanimity, they would agree with my valuation.

Coincidentally, Fried’s under team control for six years, just like Laureano.

Using that calculation sending only Fried in exchange for both players isn’t equal value. If the Atlanta Braves sent Kolby Allard and Adam Duvall as well, the trade would be equitable; but this is Oakland, and they have other considerations.