Houston Astros: Five trades to gauge value of a pitcher in trade market

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The Astros make a trade for Sonny Gray or Gerrit Cole – 2017 ??

This was something I just could not find a recent trade that compared well with these two. The closest thing would be Jake Arrieta going to the Cubs from the Baltimore Orioles, but at that point Arrieta was just a failed prospect and didn’t nearly have the level of success that Cole and Gray have had, nor had he even made a post season start. Nor were the Cubs trading for him in 2014 to be in contention that year. They were the sellers in that situation.

We could maybe use the Ken Giles trade as a barometer, but a reliever who was a closer for a half season is not really comparable to the track records that Gray and Cole have. It can more guide us for what cheap long term control can add to a player’s price tag. And in that trade the Astros gave up a former number one draft pick in Mark Appel, power pitching prospect who already had some major league experience Vincent Velasquez, place holding starting pitcher Brett Oberholtzer, and starting pitching prospects Thomas Eshleman and Harold Arauz.

We’ll have to factor in all the different aspects of the aforementioned trades to really figure out what the cost and value of these starting pitchers will be in terms of prospects we will have to lose. The similarities between Gray and Cole are quite striking. Here’s what they have in common:

They’re both relatively young with Gerrit Cole at 26 years old and Sonny Gray at 27.
They each have one all-star game selection and a top five Cy Young Award finish, both happening in 2015 for both pitchers.
The first three seasons of their careers were quite remarkable with Gerrit Cole posting a 40-20 record with season ERAs of 3.22, 3.65 and 2.60 and Sonny Gray posting a 33-20 record with season ERAs of 2.67, 3.08 and 2.73.
They’ve both fallen on hard times via injury and ineffectiveness as last year Cole only pitched 116 innings and posted the highest ERA of his career at 3.88. Sonny Gray pitched 117 innings in 2016 and posted by far the worst ERA of his career at 5.69.
This year they both are struggling posting ERAs around 4.00 with .500 win-loss records (Gerrit Cole is 7-7 and Sonny Gray is 4-4.)
They both have small sample sizes in the post season but both were effective. In 2013, they both pitched in the divisional series of their respective leagues. Sonny Gray in his two post season starts threw 13 innings with 12 strikeouts and a 2.08 ERA. Gerrit Cole pitched 11 innings with 10 strikeouts and a 2.45 ERA in his two post season starts that year. Cole has an additional post season start where he got knocked around by the high powered Cubs offense in the 2015 wild card game.
Gerrit Cole is earning $3.75 million dollars this year with two years of arbitration left before hitting free agency in 2020. Sonny Gray is earning $3.5 million dollars this year with two years of arbitration left before hitting free agency.

Have you seen enough to know that these are almost identical players with identical track records and identical contracts? The similarities are uncanny. It’s like a more factually accurate baseball version of the Lincoln-Kennedy assassination coincidences.

So what will it take for these players? Considering they are so early in their careers with such cheap contracts there’s just no precedent that I could find that helps us gauge their value, we’ll take into account all the previous trades as a mish-mosh to see what would be needed to give up.

The Astros will get two and a half years of absurdly cheap control as both players have two years of arbitration left making them somewhat comparable to the Chris Sale trade in terms of contract, though they are much cheaper.
Both pitchers have decent track records but have struggled this year and last year with both health and consistency making them similar to the Scott Kazmir trade.
Both pitchers have successful post season starts under their belt, if ever so minimal to make it a slight comparison to the Cole Hamels trade, though not anywhere near his level of experience and success.

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Evaluating all this leads me to think the Astros would have to give up number one prospect Francis Martes, number four prospect Derek Fisher, a mid teens prospects like number 16 prospect left handed pitcher Cionel Perez, and then a lower level prospect with high upside like number 29 prospect right handed pitcher Jorge Alcala.

I don’t know for certain what is going on behind closed doors at the Astros front office. but using the market place over the past two seasons can help us understand where the Astros would be coming from and what they can use as precedence when trading for what they should offer and expect to return.

The team is in great shape for the rest of the regular season as it would take a gargantuan collapse to miss the playoffs. But the Astros roster as currently constructed gives me cause for concern if we have to face the offenses of either the New York Yankees or the Boston Red Sox in October.

Next: Astros checking in on Julio Teheran

We’ll need as much pitching help as we can acquire to prepare for that and unfortunately selling young talent is part of the trade off for that immediate help. It’s all about what you can live with losing long term for your short term gains. The Astros obvious needs are a left handed reliever and a starting pitcher. We’ll see what it takes to land them and hopefully it turns out better than our 2015 trade for Carlos Gomez. Only time will tell.

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