It’s one of the questions you have likely seen asked countless times across the baseball blogosphere: how do we quantifiably value players? With the upcoming cycle of trade deadline rumors not too far off the horizon, so too will come the good ole “surplus value” tables used to evaluate potential deals at sabermetric-slanted websites like yours truly. At its core this methodology for player valuation attempts to weigh a player’s projected level of future production relative to the cost to acquire said player’s services.
While we can utilize a catch-all metric like wins above replacement (WAR) to establish some sort of tangible barometer for on-field prowess, there is still a critical missing piece to the puzzle: how much teams are willing to pay for one of these “wins” on the open market.