The 2016 MLB trade deadline is just 40 days away. Rather than target individual trade candidates or destinations for players, Banished to the Pen is going to let you, the reader, find your own targets. With a hat tip to MLBTraderumors.com for their free agent leaderboards, Banished to the Pen has created trade block leaderboards, thanks to Fangraphs’ custom teams feature, full of potential trade targets from the teams that appear to be destined to sell off players in the upcoming weeks.
Included in the pitching and position player leaderboards are players from the following teams:
Minnesota Twins (25-53), Atlanta Braves (27-52), Cincinnati Reds (29-51), Los Angeles Angels (32-47), San Diego Padres (33-46), Tampa Bay Rays (33-45), Philadelphia Phillies (35-45), Oakland Athletics (35-44), Milwaukee Brewers (35-43), Colorado Rockies (37-41), Arizona Diamondbacks (36-45), Pittsburgh Pirates (38-41), New York Yankees (39-39) and Chicago White Sox (40-39). The White Sox are included thanks to their rather lengthy slump after jumping out to a hot start to the season.
The choices for the leaderboards are culled mostly from players on short term guaranteed contracts and older players who may still be in their arbitration or pre-arbitration years but aren’t likely to be considered building blocks by their current teams. Some younger players, like Wil Myers, have been added according to their attachment to trade rumors and service time considerations. I was more liberal with players who play for teams that appear to be more than a season or two away from contention, since a player like Myers could return a considerable haul for a team like the Padres, who may need time to rebuild their minor league system. Some players may seem like cheap assets their team might want to hold onto, like 27 year old reliever Héctor Neris and his solid 144 ERA+, but the combination of low salary and above average production might be exactly the reason the Phillies should trade him while his value is at its highest for the rebuilding organization.
Notable omissions from this list include players I see as extreme longshots to be traded because of their contracts or legacies with their teams, such as Joe Mauer, Evan Longoria, Alex Rodriguez, or Albert Pujols. I included Freddie Freeman because, while the Braves have indicated he’s off-limits, recent Braves’ trades seem to indicate that no player is truly off-limits if the price is right. It’s important to note that no one expects all of these players to move at the deadline, but this gives readers a wide swath of players that many teams in the league might target or should target in the upcoming month.
Position Player Leaderboard (includes all players with >20 PA)
Pitcher Leaderboard (pitchers with >10 IP)
You can adjust the leaderboards for plate appearances to see how the pitchers in the list hit or change the list to see splits to try to find lefty mashers or LOOGYs.
Find a hidden gem or a notable omission in the leaderboards? Please feel free to leave a comment with player names that should be added, removed, or discussed at length.
Next post: Mop-Up Duty: The Off-Topic Podcast – Seinfeld DraftPrevious post: An NL Central Podcast, Episode 8
Leave a Reply