@kagami

should teams trade prospects for rental players? the trade deadline always leaves some fans disappointed and can look bad in hindsight. but prospects are extremely high variance and rarely have impactful careers. a quick breakdown on what the numbers tell us: 1. about 20% of drafted players (excludes international free agents) reach the majors and only 9.8% produce more than more than 0.1 career war 2. the top prospects in the top rank systems product the most career war and there’s a steep drop-off of war after the top prospect in each teams system 3. there’s extreme variance across top 30 prospects in a teams system. across every top 30 prospect in every mlb team, there’s someone who produced a relatively significant career war so, what does that tell us about trading prospects at the deadline? 1. trading non-top 1-2 prospects in a teams farm system is likely a good call. odd are, prospects 3-30 will like produce insignificant to 0 career war 2. trading quantity of quality is a great strategy. the mets traded 3-4 prospects for rental relievers that many thought were overpays. but odd are the few months of a reliever will be worth more war than the career war of those 4 prospects 3. fans are bias towards potential and think the prospects in their teams system will be the outlier to produce an outsized amount of career war

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