As is tradition at FanGraphs, we’re using the lead-up to the trade deadline to take stock of the top 50 players in baseball by trade value. For a more detailed introduction to this year’s exercise, as well as a look at the players who fell just short of the top 50, be sure to read the Introduction and Honorable Mentions piece, which can be found in the widget above. For those of you who have been reading the Trade Value Series the last few seasons, the format should look familiar. For every player, you’ll see a table with the player’s projected five-year WAR from 2025-2029, courtesy of Dan Szymborski’s ZiPS projections. The table will also include the player’s guaranteed money, if any, the year through which their team has contractual control of them, last year’s rank (if applicable), and then projections, contract status, and age for each individual season through 2029 (assuming the player is under contract or team control for those seasons). Last year’s rank includes a link to the relevant 2023 post. Thanks are due to Sean Dolinar for his technical wizardry.
At the bottom of the page, there is a grid showing all of the players who have been ranked up to this point. A note on the rankings: As we ascend towards the top of the list, the tiers matter more and more. There are clear gaps in value. Don’t get too caught up on what number a player is, because who they’re grouped with is a more important indicator. The gap between no. 20 and 19 is next to nothing; between 12 and 11, it’s much steeper.
Five-Year WAR 15.1
Guaranteed Dollars – Team Control Through 2027
Previous Rank – 2025 27
3.6 Arb 1 2026
3.2 Arb 2 2027
3.0 Arb 3
Arguably, Kwan doesn’t belong in this tier, which yesterday I deemed “young hitters at up-the-middle positions.” He’s 26 and plays the corner outfield. I think he’s a broadly similar player, though, and I consider his value roughly in line with those guys, so I stretched my definition a bit. Like many players who ranked similarly, Kwan does a lot of things well. Unlike those players, he has one tool that I feel comfortable calling his best: I think he’s one of the few true-talent .300 hitters in baseball, which means he gets on base at a phenomenal rate. Like Luis Arraez, Kwan’s bat control is such that you basically can’t throw a pitch by him – he actually has a higher contact rate than Arraez does. Unlike Arraez, who has never seen a pitch he doesn’t want to flare the other way for a single, Kwan is a discerning hitter who will take a walk. He’s hitting for more power this year, and the result is a 156 wRC+, downright phenomenal for someone with below-average raw pop. Oh yeah, he’s probably the best defensive left fielder in the game too.
No one, myself included, thinks that Kwan will keep hitting at this rate. He doesn’t have to, though. ZiPS has him down for three-ish wins a season, and it’s lower on him than pretty much everyone else. The biggest downside here is that he’s been doing it for a few years already, which means he only has three years of team control left after this season. On the flip side, did you hear the part where I said he’s been producing for years already? He’s already up to almost 12 WAR in the majors! Kwan is a plug-and-play option for any lineup, and he’s so good defensively that I can overlook where he stands on the field. Sign me up, please.
Five-Year WAR 19.5
Guaranteed Dollars – Team Control Through 2029
Previous Rank – 2025 26
3.9 Pre-Arb 2026
4.0 Pre-Arb 2027
4.0 Arb 1 2028
4.1 Arb 2 2029
3.5 Arb 3
Not the Orioles second baseman you expected to see on this list, huh? I guess Jackson Holliday is on here too (albeit further down), but I don’t think many people expected Westburg to be the young standout putting up spectacular major league numbers halfway through the season. Here’s some inside dirt on the making of this list: I ranked Westburg aggressively high so that I could learn what people really thought of him when they told me to move him lower. It didn’t work, though. Everyone just agreed with where I had him and moved on. In that sense, maybe it actually worked very well. If you put Westburg’s numbers under a microscope, nothing looks particularly weird or unsustainable. He comes up to the plate looking to do damage, putting his solid sense of the strike zone to work proactively. He hits a ton of fly balls and pops homers to all fields. Camden Yards is a terrible home park for him, in fact, thanks to the new left field cutout, but he’s slugging his way through it. Projection systems have seen all they need to; they universally think Westburg is going to continue to be a plus bat going forward. There were some early questions about his defensive viability, but he looks perfectly acceptable to me. I’d call Westburg an average defender at second and third, and that versatility is nice. That goes a long way towards describing his overall game, really. He can play a few spots defensively, he’s a reasonable bat up and down the lineup, he runs the bases well — every team could use more Westburgs. He’s 25, he won’t be a free agent until after the 2029 season, he’s mashing in the majors right now, and he’s projected to keep doing so. Sounds like a pretty good deal to me.
Five-Year WAR 13.9
Guaranteed Dollars $15.0 M
Team Control Through 2027
Previous Rank #14 2025 27
2.9 $15.0 M 2026
2.9 $20.0 M 2027
2.9 $20.0 M
Robert is the highest-ranked player in this tier, and he’s also one of the players who sparked the most disagreement in this entire exercise. I’ll give you a quick rundown of his bona fides first, then take you through what people disagreed about, broadly speaking. Robert is the kind of guy who can rip off a five-win season and have it feel like there’s more in the tank, like he did just last year. He’s a spectacular center field defender, with great routes, great speed, and a plus throwing arm. He boasts top-shelf power, and it’s not wasted on grounders, either. There have been 176 players who have racked up at least 1,000 batted balls since Robert’s debut; he’s seventh in wOBA on contact out of that group. Sounds like an MVP candidate, right? Now let’s get to the downsides. Robert’s approach at the plate leaves something to be desired. This is the first year his chase rate has been better than the fifth percentile (95% of hitters chase less frequently, in other words). His newfound patience hasn’t worked, though; he’s striking out a third of the time, the worst mark of his career, because he’s added enough called strikes to offset the decline in whiffs. He’s had trouble staying healthy; since his 2020 debut, he’s 126th in plate appearances. He’s averaging 425 PAs per 162-game season. He has fewer plate appearances than Fernando Tatis Jr. in that stretch, and Tatis missed more than a full season thanks to injury and then a suspension. Robert is Schrödinger’s center fielder: He might be the best player on your team, or he might make very little impact. His contract is certainly a mark in his favor as far as teams are concerned; he’s set to make…
