Trade deadline rentals -- market efficiency for buyers?

[adambr2]

This post comes about 6 months too late, but prior to last year's deadline, I was more on the side of being anti-rental. After all, controllable talent is the name of the game.

 

Which got me to wondering, maybe that's become the name of the game to the degree where it's actually created an opportunity for buyers near the trade deadline for rentals. Seeing many useful late inning relievers such as Pat Neshek go for players well outside an organization's top 10 prospects seemed rather unique to last year. The only substantial return I can recall for a rental was for Darvish.

 

I won't call Ryan Cordell "nothing", but the fact that he's an older prospect with a likely 4th OF trajectory more than likely played into the feeling that he was expendable. Neil Walker was basically acquired as a salary dump.

 

Again, not really the time of year where this is going to apply, but based on his activity last summer, I wonder if Stearns and his team are currently seeing the same thing with an opportunity for cheap rentals. Part of the advantage of a deep system is having many of these spare parts around where it's feasible that he may like to use the time up to the end of July to see where we are at and then very inexpensively supplement the roster to patch weaknesses with rentals.

[KeithStone53151]

This post comes about 6 months too late, but prior to last year's deadline, I was more on the side of being anti-rental. After all, controllable talent is the name of the game.

 

Which got me to wondering, maybe that's become the name of the game to the degree where it's actually created an opportunity for buyers near the trade deadline for rentals. Seeing many useful late inning relievers such as Pat Neshek go for players well outside an organization's top 10 prospects seemed rather unique to last year. The only substantial return I can recall for a rental was for Darvish.

 

I won't call Ryan Cordell "nothing", but the fact that he's an older prospect with a likely 4th OF trajectory more than likely played into the feeling that he was expendable. Neil Walker was basically acquired as a salary dump.

 

Again, not really the time of year where this is going to apply, but based on his activity last summer, I wonder if Stearns and his team are currently seeing the same thing with an opportunity for cheap rentals. Part of the advantage of a deep system is having many of these spare parts around where it's feasible that he may like to use the time up to the end of July to see where we are at and then very inexpensively supplement the roster to patch weaknesses with rentals.

 

I completely agree. That's not a hard and fast rule, elite players still see sizeable returns(see chapman). I could definitely see targeting a rental high end SP if there's a need and the cost is right...my guess is Hamels of the Rangers as I expect the Rangers to fall out of contention by the deadline this year.

 

On a side, this deadline I forsee being tricky as teams will try to stay under the luxury tax, so trying to trade a guy with 2.5 months of a $10-20 million salary might be impossible to some teams. I think we'll have a distinct advantage because of this, we don't have a line we can't cross and I think Mark A will be willing to add those types of costs if we look like a playoff-bound club.