Yankees & Rays & Mariners
Submitted by: acarter13
Yankees
| Name | Age | Level | P1 | P2 | Availability | Years | AFV | Salary | Surplus | Low | Median | High |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Brandon Lowe | 29 | Majors | 2B | Low | 3 | 48.7 | 30.8 | 18 | 14.4 | 18 | 21.6 | |
| Gabe Speier | 29 | Majors | RP | Medium | 5 | 17.2 | 8.9 | 8.3 | 6.6 | 8.3 | 10 |
Total Value:
26.3
Rays
| Name | Age | Level | P1 | P2 | Availability | Years | AFV | Salary | Surplus | Low | Median | High |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Clarke Schmidt | 28 | Majors | LRP | SP | Medium | 4 | 39.7 | 22.4 | 17.3 | 13.8 | 17.3 | 20.8 |
Total Value:
17.3
Mariners
| Name | Age | Level | P1 | P2 | Availability | Years | AFV | Salary | Surplus | Low | Median | High |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Gleyber Torres | 27 | Majors | 2B | Medium | 1 | 22.2 | 15.3 | 6.9 | 5.5 | 6.9 | 8.3 | |
| Clayton Beeter | 24 | Minors | SP | 0 | 0 | 0 | 2.3 | 1.8 | 2.3 | 2.7 |
Total Value:
9.2
Comments
7Yankees get Brandon Lowe, Gabe Speier. Add a much needed left handed bat to the lineup, left handed reliever to the bullpen. Rays get Clarke Schmidt to add rotation depth. They are going to trade Glasnow and will need to fill in the rotation, and dealt with a LOT of injuries last year. Lowe gets a lot more expensive this year and I can see them trading him to save money, plus they have Curtis Mead and Junior Caminero nearly MLB ready to replace Lowe and Franco. Mariners get Gleyber Torres to fill their hole at second base.
Rays aren’t trading Lowe or any other core member of the team to the Yankees. Rays kinda sorta hate the Yankees. Also, Lowe’s salary only rises from $5.25MM to $8.75MM next year. Even by the Rays standards, that is a very reasonable salary for the production.
I also don't think Lowe would be traded to the Yankees, more of a hypothetical. I do think this makes each team better as long as the Rays believe Caminero/Mead can produce in 2024.
I think the Rays have high hopes for both. One or both of them is going to get a lot of playing time next year. I don’t know how the Rays will make it work, but my current expectation is that Aroz and Ramirez get moved and the Rays have Diaz play more DH, Paredes play more 1B, Caminero play a lot of 3B and Mead play mostly 2B and LF.
NEWSLETTER? SURE, SIGN ME UP!
"Mariners get Gleyber Torres to fill their hole at second base." I know that's the national narrative, but compare Torres's 2021-2022 to Josh Rojas's 2021-2022. Over those two years Rojas was worth 0.3 more fWAR despite slightly fewer plate appearances. He had a down start year with Arizona but bounced back after the trade to the mariners. Torres would probably be a slight upgrade, but not a sufficient one to trade Speier IMO and Torres is a free agent in 2025.
Torres is a significant upgrade over Rojas. You cited fWAR, but I don’t think you can ignore the major gap in 2023 fWAR. Projections all indicate Torres will have a significantly better 2024 than Rojas. I do think it’s fair for I not want to trade Speier for 1 year of Torres, but most Yankees fans likely wouldn’t want to trade Torres for 5 years of a reliever. That probably means the trade is fairly equal value.
I wasn't ignoring the difference in fWAR for 2023, but there was also a pretty significant shift in Rojas's play with Arizona before the trade vs. with Seattle after the trade. If the first part was a blip and his true talent is more 2021-2022, then the upgrade isn't worth it.