I love the site.  It's always fun to "dream" up a trade or two that would benefit the Twins or whoever your favorite team is, and the "values" assigned each player take a lot of factors into consideration.  Otherwise, you're doing nothing more than trading baseball cards with other kids in your neighborhood, where the "big kids" take advantage of the "little kids"  by proposing a Johnny Klippsten (because he's a Twin and the card looks cool) for Mickey Mantle (or in a more subtle move, Al Kaline).  The challenge is proposing something where not only the "values" come close, but the trade benefits BOTH teams. And it's always O.K. to agree to disagree.  I have posted several proposed trades on the site and a few have involved an Arraez centered package that brings back Frankie Montas.  There's a guy named "Grover" who always downvotes my trade (he's an A's fan, or at least I THINK he is) because he doesn't see the A's needing Arraez.  I usually counter with pointing out that the A's only have Tony Kemp at 2B and he's a converted outfielder and if they trade Chapman, they could use Arraez at 3B in addition to DH.  But I respect his criticism because he's probably more vested in what the A's would get back.  I did plenty of downvoting and commenting when people proposed trades for Buxton that I deemed unworthy.  But it's a great site that helps give you a sense of why player "X" is valued more than player "Y" even though "X" may be an accepted "Star" in the league.  Or why some players, like Donaldson or Sano would actually carry a "negative" trade value.  

It's not the absolute last word regarding a player's value, because there is no such resource to tell you that.  Team GMs tend to keep their thoughts to themselves on a topic like this, and every GM will have different perceptions and different situations to work under.

The results from any tool like this will be based on the assumptions baked in.

The single best thing about it is that it factors in the remaining years of control and the dollars committed in any existing contract.  Typically fans will forget about this, and just construct trades based on perceived talent.  For example Garver and Jeffers have similar projections for contributions on the field per year, but Jeffers has more years of control remaining and thus looks like the one who would bring more in trade.  (Of course the same logic might dictate that he's the one you keep and build on.)

Now, does Josh Donaldson (for one example) really have negative trade value, as this site will instruct you?  For some trading partners, probably yes.  If you wanted to swing a trade with the Orioles, they would have less than zero interest, which is one way of saying "negative value," and you might have to offer a good prospect along with him, or pay most of his remaining salary, just to get him off our books.  But money aside, he remains an above average bat, and maybe he won't get injured; if some team with World Series aspirations for 2022 thought he was the missing piece, you might be able to pry a decent prospect away from them.  "We have him, and you don't," remains a critical factor, and isn't something easily captured in a tool like BTV.

Any trade involving one or more desirable players will go to the highest bidder, almost by definition, which means that some GM saw things differently than any competing GM did, which in turn means the trade will probably violate what BTV would tell you.  I don't know how you could construct a tool to predict those outcomes.

Bottom line, I like the site very much and I use it as a sanity check for proposed trades.  I don't treat it as anything remotely approaching gospel, nor I believe would they expect me to.

6 hours ago, TopGunn#22 said:

I love the site.  It's always fun to "dream" up a trade or two that would benefit the Twins or whoever your favorite team is, and the "values" assigned each player take a lot of factors into consideration.  Otherwise, you're doing nothing more than trading baseball cards with other kids in your neighborhood, where the "big kids" take advantage of the "little kids"  by proposing a Johnny Klippsten (because he's a Twin and the card looks cool) for Mickey Mantle (or in a more subtle move, Al Kaline).  The challenge is proposing something where not only the "values" come close, but the trade benefits BOTH teams. And it's always O.K. to agree to disagree.  I have posted several proposed trades on the site and a few have involved an Arraez centered package that brings back Frankie Montas.  There's a guy named "Grover" who always downvotes my trade (he's an A's fan, or at least I THINK he is) because he doesn't see the A's needing Arraez.  I usually counter with pointing out that the A's only have Tony Kemp at 2B and he's a converted outfielder and if they trade Chapman, they could use Arraez at 3B in addition to DH.  But I respect his criticism because he's probably more vested in what the A's would get back.  I did plenty of downvoting and commenting when people proposed trades for Buxton that I deemed unworthy.  But it's a great site that helps give you a sense of why player "X" is valued more than player "Y" even though "X" may be an accepted "Star" in the league.  Or why some players, like Donaldson or Sano would actually carry a "negative" trade value.  

Thank you Top Gun for your response. I like your trade and I agree with you and many experts that the A's do need a 2B and Arraez would come in handy if they trade Chapman which is very likely. The end result is the A's will do what they deem best no matter what their fans want. 

I've gotten feedback also and some are enlightening in how to fine tune a trade. Which it should be in a real life situation to actualize a trade. 

P.S.: I like analogy of the trading baseball cards, my older brother would try this with me yet I'd trade anything for a Tony Oliva card.

1 hour ago, ashbury said:

It's not the absolute last word regarding a player's value, because there is no such resource to tell you that.  Team GMs tend to keep their thoughts to themselves on a topic like this, and every GM will have different perceptions and different situations to work under.

The results from any tool like this will be based on the assumptions baked in.

The single best thing about it is that it factors in the remaining years of control and the dollars committed in any existing contract.  Typically fans will forget about this, and just construct trades based on perceived talent.  For example Garver and Jeffers have similar projections for contributions on the field per year, but Jeffers has more years of control remaining and thus looks like the one who would bring more in trade.  (Of course the same logic might dictate that he's the one you keep and build on.)

Now, does Josh Donaldson (for one example) really have negative trade value, as this site will instruct you?  For some trading partners, probably yes.  If you wanted to swing a trade with the Orioles, they would have less than zero interest, which is one way of saying "negative value," and you might have to offer a good prospect along with him, or pay most of his remaining salary, just to get him off our books.  But money aside, he remains an above average bat, and maybe he won't get injured; if some team with World Series aspirations for 2022 thought he was the missing piece, you might be able to pry a decent prospect away from them.  "We have him, and you don't," remains a critical factor, and isn't something easily captured in a tool like BTV.

Any trade involving one or more desirable players will go to the highest bidder, almost by definition, which means that some GM saw things differently than any competing GM did, which in turn means the trade will probably violate what BTV would tell you.  I don't know how you could construct a tool to predict those outcomes.

Bottom line, I like the site very much and I use it as a sanity check for proposed trades.  I don't treat it as anything remotely approaching gospel, nor I believe would they expect me to.

I get your point about them not giving us resources on their evaluations. But that's not to say they don't use resources when they make their values. When you select a player you can get a nice Fangraph stats.

Negative trade values are tricky and are usually unfair which I usually deny. Normally to make them fair, the clubs would pay down part of their salaries along with the trade, like the Arenado trade in real life.

In real life there are many variables which would effect a trade like maybe another team sees something in a player that most do not or a desperate need. Like I said before and I'm sure BTV will agree that they are not absolute. Many people are bias and others don't have great evaluation skills which may include some FOs. IMO BTV is nonbias on the most part

I agree with what ashbury said in response to my comment.  BTV is not the "be all and end all" but it's at least a point I can start when imagining a trade.  Even as fervent fans there is SO MUCH we have no clue about.  But of course as fans we want to imagine a trade or two that would help our hometown team.  I especially agree with his take on Donaldson's value but I also can absolutely see the logic as to why that site could assign him a negative trade value.

Doc, I am convinced that I traded a Hank Aaron for a Tony Oliva to an older kid in my neighborhood when I was probably 7 or 8 years old.  Tony-O was my favorite and in my history-altering memory, I'm convinced I traded the Aaron where he's holding the bat cross-handed (making me convinced the stats on the back of his card MUST be fake) !!  Oh, the memories !!

I'm sorry TopGun but Hank Aaron did bat cross-handed, at least part of his career.

https://www.foxsports.com/watch/712568899832

As I stated before BTV is a great tool to get an idea about trades. Yet I always think they undervalue the Twins but probably all fans feel that way and in general the Twins are probably are under valued.  

Arraez was an all-star, batting champ, silver slugger, GG nomination, I believe most players would see a notable uptick in value, Arraez needle did not move. Julien had a MVP AFL performance, his needle didn't move. Martin had a very good & steady AFL performance, his value fell from 11 to 7. Hopefully GMs are less bias.

This won't let this deter my trading but it's a little frustrating

I was going through my BTV trading history and I came up these past values.

'21/'22 Off-season principle trading targets (some)

Lopez (MIA) 53.8    Montas (OAK) 38.8       Gallen (AR)  44.2

Twins main offerings (some)

Arraez    34.1         Balazovik   14.5         Jeffers   27.9

'20/'21 Off-season trading targets (some)

Castillo (CIN)  110.8   Musgrove (PIT) 36.4  Reynolds (PIT)  31.1   Clase' (CLE) 1.7         Alacantra (MIA)  27.4    E Hernandez (MIA) 8

Twins main offerings 

Maeda  (55.3)   Kiriloff  (51.2)   Arraez (44.8)   Larnach (35.9)  Balazovik (17.1)

Personal NOTES: Castillo trade could have been made if Kiriloff was included- Musgrove was offered to us for Larnach, there was no counter offer so we lost out- I had put Gordon in many of my trades because he had no value at SS. My assumption as right but he proved valuable in the OF.

Todays BTV values

Arraez (19.7)  Balazovik (2.8)  Jeffers (13)  Kiriloff (11.9)  Larnack (14.6)  Maeda (-5.2)

That's one reason I like the site, and why I sometimes struggle to figure it out.  Players values change.  Player values are a volatile market.  When they're cheap and affordable their value is sky high.  When they start making decent salary, their value drops like a stone.  Suffer recurring injuries like Balazovic and they appear to be worthless.  It's an imperfect science, but BTV has at least given me a metric to have an idea of what a reasonable trade would look like.

5 minutes ago, TopGunn#22 said:

That's one reason I like the site, and why I sometimes struggle to figure it out.  Players values change.  Player values are a volatile market.  When they're cheap and affordable their value is sky high.  When they start making decent salary, their value drops like a stone.  Suffer recurring injuries like Balazovic and they appear to be worthless.  It's an imperfect science, but BTV has at least given me a metric to have an idea of what a reasonable trade would look like.

It's like trading on the stock market. it's normally volitile. You have to sell high & buy low, if you hold on to some stocks too long, you miss out some very good returns

I noticed Arraez BTV value has gone up from 19.7 to 26.6. You also have seen Arraez name come up more often on the trade board by other teams fans. I imagine that there is a correlatation between the bigger demand of Arraez & his trade value on BTV.

I also think that Arraez's name was leaked to the press to drum up interest in Arraez, raise demand & increase trade value. IMO if FO finds an offer they like, Arraez might be gone.

My guess it could be Boras's idea (IDT that this FO has that economic sense) to incentivate Correa to return to MN. If the Correa deal doesn't goes thu neither will the secondary.