There ain’t many of them and they aren’t as good as you’d think
We’re at the time of year where I am searching for ideas and I was provided one by thp a few days ago.
“A good article here would be to look at the last 3 or so trades of marquee closers with a year left on their deals or so.”
Great article idea! Problem: doesn’t really happen. There are roughly comparable situations, and I mean roughly, but there was no perfect comp to Ryan Helsley in the past seven or so years. Hell, I wasn’t even looking for perfect, I was looking for something even a little close. So, the first part of my comparison will be me explaining why this isn’t actually a good comparison. Let’s start.
Josh Hader
Traded for Robbert Gasser, Dinelson Lamet, Taylor Rogers, Esteury Ruiz
Why this is a bad comp: Simply put, Hader is much better than Helsley, or at least he was at the time of the trade. Hader was just in a different class. I can tell you that Helsley will not be getting a $95 million contract when he reaches free agency. The second part is that it involved an extra two months for what became a postseason team. So basically what I’m saying is that Hader had so much more value than Helsley has right now that it basically makes this a pointless exercise. Nevertheless.
The trade: I’m trying to look at this retroactively, because… kind of an underwhelming return? Rogers was a direct replacement of Hader, because they were still trying to compete. So that probably lessened the prospect value of the return. Lamet never even pitched for the Brewers. They DFA’d him less than a week later.
Gasser was the #9 prospect for the Padres entering the season and #10 prospect for the Brewers the following season. Esteury Ruiz never got ranked in the Brewers system cause he was traded in December in the William Contreras trade. But he was also a 45 future value prospect.
In hindsight, I’m not giving the Brewers credit for Ruiz turning into Contreras for the purposes of this trade. That future trade is not a factor when looking at this specific trade is what I’m saying. Gasser is hard to judge right now – he pitched pretty good, but struck out nobody in 5 starts and now needs Tommy John and will miss most of next year, if not all of it, since his surgery was in late June. He’ll be 27 by the time 2026 rolls around with probably 5 MLB starts to his name. Esteury Ruiz has never looked like more than a fifth outfielder as an MLBer.
Value: Essentially two 45 FV prospects ($10 million in value). Rogers was probably expected to contribute half a win the rest of the season, which makes the total return value of this $15 million.
Joe Jimenez
Traded for Jake Higginbotham and Justin Henry-Malloy
Why this is a bad comp: Jimenez was a lot more volatile than Helsley is. He’s also never really been a closer. Jimenez had a great year leading up to this trade, but was terrible the previous two years. The Braves were buying really high when they traded for Jimenez.
The trade: Yeah so we would all be mad if this is what the Cardinals got for Helsley, but of course that makes sense because Jimenez was (at the time) a one-year wonder! Henry-Malloy was a 40+ future value prospect, and he was at the beginning of this season. He struck out 37% of the time in his rookie season with an 89 wRC+. I don’t know why Higgenbotham was in this trade, except for his name I guess, cause that dude is just minor league filler. He’s 28 right now!
Value: One 40+ FV position player prospect ($4 million in value)
Craig Kimbrel
Traded for AJ Pollock
Why this is a bad comp: Pretty much everything about it. The White Sox had different goals than the Cardinals do, which is why they traded for an established MLB player coming off a 3.2 fWAR season. Kimbrel was getting paid $16 million and although he was coming off an elite season, his previous two did not go well.
And by projections the following season, this would be called an unremarkable trade. Kimbrel was projected for 0.6 fWAR and Pollock for 1.7 fWAR. By that metric, the White Sox made out like bandits. Of course, the Dodgers don’t actually care about money, so it’s hard to judge a trade like you would for the Cardinals. Did they care that his contract was $-10 surplus value? In fact, if you take that literally, this trade is a directly even swap: Pollock’s surplus value was $6 million.
Value: With an underwater contract, Kimbrel fetched $6 million in value
Corey Knebel
Traded for Leo Crawford
Why this is a bad comp: Knebel was a nontender candidate at the time of the trade. That’s why. He would have fit if his 2018 or 2019 was the season preceding the trade, but he had an awful 2020. But it was also a weird year, so it probably wasn’t treated the same as any other year.
Trade: Nonetheless, Leo Crawford was a complete non-prospect. The only mention of him on Fangraphs is this “Crawford sits 86-90.” which was in August of 2019. He actually has good numbers, but stopped pitching after 2021, despite okay numbers at AA at 24. Probably because his fastball sat 86-90.
Value: $0
Paul Sewald
Traded for Ryan Bliss, Dominic Canzone, and Josh Rojas
Why it’s a bad comp: I would assume Sewald would have less trade value than Helsley by not being as good as him. He’s also just… less flashy? His fastball averaged 92.1 at the time of the trade. He was 33. He seems like the type of reliever where there’s even more risk than your normal reliever risk that he will not be dominant. Which sounds like hindsight given… he was a pretty mediocre reliever for the Diamondbacks. And also, he was traded to a postseason contender at the deadline, plus an additional year.
The trade: The hardest player to value in this trade is Josh Rojas. He had a good ZiPS projection entering 2023, but was horrible at the deadline. He had a 61 wRC+ and was hitting the ball very weakly. From Fangraphs: “This year, his 86.9 mph average exit velocity, 3.4% barrel rate, and 26% hard-hit rate are his worst numbers since getting a foothold in the majors in 2021.” He also had a 63 wRC+ in AAA in 12 games.
On top of that, while he was a utility player, he was (for Arizona anyway) terrible at SS and terrible at 3B, and basically average at 2B. I mention this because for some reason, he’s been a great defender for Seattle. This would annoy me if I were an Arizona fan.
Canzone, who I will totally call Calzone if he ever gets to the Cardinals, was a 40 future value prospect. Ryan Bliss is also a 40 future value prospect.
Value: This is $4 million in prospect value and… however the hell you want to value Rojas. Like I legit think he had no trade value at the time of the trade. Let’s call it… I don’t know $4 million.
That’s all I got. David Robertson, way back in the day, was traded at his second to last deadline before he reached free agency, but was paired with Tommy Kahnle and Todd Frazier. And that’s not a trade we want to mention, two players never made the majors, and a third has 37 days of service time for his career and did not play in 2024. And also Tyler Clippard, two months before he reached free agency.
What have we learned
You want a top 100 prospect for Ryan Helsley? It ain’t happening. That’s the lesson. Prepare to be underwhelmed by the return. Even the $15 million return that Hader fetched is less than the value that any 50 future value prospect has. Hell, maybe the Cardinals would be smart to wait for the deadline. Jordan Hicks for two months got as much as a full year of a reliever coming off a 1.4 fWAR season. A potentially volatile reliever, but I am comparing him to Jordan Hicks so it’s not an off-base comparison.
The truth is the sample for this kind of trade is tiny so anything’s possible. But I’m glad I did this exercise actually. I’m totally cool with keeping Helsley through next year’s trade deadline. I’m not saying it doesn’t make sense to trade him, because it does, I’m saying if the return is just “okay fine,” then I’m just not gonna feel miffed about losing the chance for a 45 FV pitcher and 40 FV position player.
Trade him absolutely. But also, if it doesn’t happen, I’m pretty sure there just weren’t great offers coming in for Helsley.