Ben Zobrist, on the trade block?
Ben Zobrist, on the trade block?

While the trade rumors surrounding Ben Zobrist continue to mount, multiplied in kind are the questions of whether Matt Silverman would attempt to move Zobrist before the start of the season, and who the Rays would get in return if he was dealt. Personally, I don’t see the team moving Zobrist until the Rays are firmly out of contention.

For one thing, as Marc Topkin noted on December 20, it seems to make more sense to at least start the season with free-agent-to-be INF/OF Ben Zobrist, but there may be a scenario in which he gets moved before that if the Rays are overwhelmed by an offer. Furthermore, Topkin also noted in the same article, without Myers (and Matt Joyce), it sure seems the Rays need more offense, someone else to try to protect Evan Longoria. That is, it wouldn’t be a prudent idea for Silverman to trade Zobrist — who’s projected (per Steamer) to slash .262 BA/.349 OBP/.400 SLG/.749 OPS/.333 wOBA/.138 ISO in 2015, with 57 RBI and 119 wRC — to start the season.

Nevertheless, the folks at Dock of the Rays blog recently put together a piece titled Irresponsibly Speculating on the Return From a Hypothetical Ben Zobrist Trade.  Jason Hanselman’s reason for writing the piece in the first place, to determine the haul the Rays could get in return for Zobrist — a player who is projected to be worth around $25M in surplus value for 2015. What’s more, Hanselman ranked the likelihood of a deal being made (and with whom) from least to most likely:

11 Reds
10 Athletics
9 Rangers
8 Astros
7 Braves
6 Cardinals
5 Nationals
4 Mariners
3 Blue Jays
2 White Sox
1 Cubs

Using the JAVIER* prospect system, Hanselman concludes that the Cubs would be the best trading partner with the Rays, writing,

Cubs have been busy turning an also-ran into a real competitor, but could probably use an upgrade in LF over Chris Coghlan. Additionally, Ben gives flexibility in the event that Baez isn’t working out at 2B or Soler gets hurt again out in RF and obviously there’s the Maddon connection. Soft skills are often poo-poo’d by me and other analysts, but Ben would certainly be able to provide a veteran perspective to a locker room that is going to be big on talent, but short on emotional stability. The Cubs are another team that could pretty easily extend Ben and I think he would be amenable to that with his former manager calling the shots.

Cubs_zps483b5d73
You’re looking at are the positions, JAVIER scores, and JAVIER categories for each of the top prospects in the best farm system in the game.

Adding Kiley’s (McDaniel, FanGraphs) Thoughts in his assessment,

Good lawds. There’s a reason that Joltin’ Joe wanted to go play with the kids. Bryant is one of the most highly regarded prospects of all time, no hyperbole, by JAVIER. Soler and Russell are equally untouchable, but then we start to get into the part of the system that features good prospects that may have more value to the Cubs as a trade chip due to roster constraints. Edwards looks like a nice little arm and Schwarber is going to be a menace even though he’s unlikely to stay at catcher. Torres could be an upside play that’s pretty far away. Whatever your appetite the Cubs have a cook in the kitchen ready to deliver sweet morsels and it doesn’t stop there as they also have some good options that have lost their prospect status. Baez probably isn’t going anywhere, but if the Cubs sign another high profile pitcher they may look to sell a touch high on Hendricks. Heck, even Hector Rondon could have a role here as another elite power arm to pair with Jake & the Box, though I’d want something like Caratini or Torres thrown into that deal, as well. The Cubs look like a really strong fit for both teams.

If anything, Hanselman’s piece is interesting. Andrew Friedman set the high water mark for Zobrist with his 2015 Winter Meetings moves — it’s going to cost a prospective team A LOT in order to acquire the Rays’ All-Star utility player. If Silverman is sincere in his assessment, that the Rays can contend with their current roster, they will either need to sit on Zobrist for the time being, or deal him for a load of +WAR players — a couple whom would need to be big league ready.

Noteworthiness:

  • Zach’s Links of MLB Trade Rumors writes,

    The Indians would like to trade Nick Swisher after acquiring Brandon Moss from Oakland and the Rays, Blue Jays, Orioles, Padres, Brewers, and Cubs could all be possible trade partners. Swisher is owed about $30MM on his deal, however, so Cleveland might have to foot some of the bill.

    One National League GM told Cafardo (Nick, Boston Globe) that he inquired about Rays third baseman Evan Longoria and was rebuffed. The Rays have Longoria under contract at $11MM this year and $11.5MM next year before his extension kicks in in 2017, running through 2023.

  • Brandon Gomes has cleared waivers and accepted an outright assignment to Triple-A Durham. He will be invited to Major League Spring Training.
  • *The basic idea is that you can look at a couple of key indicators like strikeouts or walks or speed score for batters and pitchers and using these things you can create a pool of similar players. By then looking at how these similar players performed you can get an idea of the range and the average expected performance of the player. The Javier column shows each players Javier score which is basically a totaling of z-scores. He does a neat little trick by punishing players the further they are from the show, which means that you should also pay attention to the J Group column which shows a few different buckets of where the player Javier score falls BEFORE adjusting for the level the player is at.

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