Trade Market for Big-Hitting Outfielders Is Just Warming Up

Major League Baseball is in an era of offensive depression, and teams in search of a boost don’t have the plethora of options they did in eras past.

Partly because of stricter drug testing and partly because more hitters are being signed to long-term extensions before free agency, the crop of available offense in this winter’s open market is small and mostly unappealing. Victor Martinez, the best hitter in free agency, has already signed, and the others without teams—Pablo Sandoval, Hanley Ramirez and Nelson Cruz to name a few—are flawed in one way or another.

Teams underwhelmed by those options have one other avenue to explore—the trade market. For those clubs with pockets deep enough to take on large salary or the prospects to swap for a cheaper top-tier bat, there are enticing names to be had, particularly in the outfield.

The top names: Matt Kemp, Justin Upton, Yoenis Cespedes and possibly Carlos Gonzalez.

“I think it’s going to be an active trade market,” Washington Nationals general manager Mike Rizzo told Bob Nightengale of USA Today Sports at the GM meetings last week. “There’s a lot of aggressive conversations going on. It seems like there’s a lot of teams looking to change their clubs.”

Kemp is the biggest name being discussed to this point, and the Los Angeles Dodgers have made it quite clear they are willing to trade him or other parts of their outfield surplus. While the team wouldn’t mind getting rid of Andre Ethier or Carl Crawford, Kemp is clearly the gold nugget of the group and maybe the offensive gem of the entire trade market.

He is 30 years old and appeared to be healthy in the second part of last season, when he hit .314/.367/.623 with a .990 OPS, 17 home runs and 52 RBI in his last 60 games. Kemp is owed $107 million over the next five years, and if he can stay healthy—a big “if” since 2012—he comes as a bargain, well worth the money and the haul it would require to land him.

While the Dodgers would gladly pick up a good chunk of the money owed Ethier and Crawford while not requiring a huge return in trade, they are dealing from a position of power on Kemp. They are happy to keep him, knowing he can be an MVP-caliber hitter. So they are not likely to pick up much of his remaining money and would still want a decent return in young players.

“I think it’s most likely the best course of action to move one of those players,” new Dodgers President of Baseball Operations Andrew Friedman said at the GM meetings, according to ESPNLosAngeles.com beat writer Mark Saxon.

“We’re open to have any discussions,” Freidman continued. “That doesn't mean that some aren’t much more difficult to push across the finish line. Obviously what Matt has done, what Matt’s capable of doing, is significant, especially in this day and age with the run-scoring environment the way it is. His ability in the batter's box is different.”

When he is right, the same can be said about Justin Upton. The Atlanta Braves have already traded one-third of their starting outfield, and they won’t be opposed to moving Upton, who will not turn 28 until Aug. 25 and has a 127 OPS+, 104 home runs and a .355 OBP over his last four seasons. 

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The #Braves are definitely not done moving some of their guys. J-Up and Gattis might both be traded at some point this winter.

— Mark Bowman (@mlbbowman) November 18, 2014"

Upton is in the same contractual situation as recently traded Jason Heyward. He has one year remaining but at a much higher salary of $14.5 million. If Upton can duplicate his 2014 season, that price is more than reasonable for a hitter of his ilk.

However, as Andy Martino of the New York Daily News reported, teams calling the Braves on Upton are finding out the price for him is going to be much higher than what the St. Louis Cardinals paid for Heyward. Like the Dodgers with Kemp, the Braves are willing to hang onto Upton next season.

“As we sit here today, there’s certainly a good chance Justin Upton is back,” Braves president John Hart said earlier this week (via Grant McAuley of 92.9 The Game in Atlanta).

Mitchell Leff/Getty Images

The obvious drawback on trading for Upton, besides the asking price, is that he can become a free agent next season, and the Braves fully expect him to take his first foray into free agency. Once there, Upton will command a nine-figure contract, making it possible he is a one-year rental for a strong suitor like the Seattle Mariners, who Upton recently dropped from his no-trade list.

Boston’s Yoenis Cespedes is also headed into a contract year. The Oakland A’s traded him to the Red Sox for Jon Lester in July because they knew they would not be able to re-sign him after next season, when he can become a free agent at age 30.

Cespedes is nowhere near the hitter Kemp or Upton is, but he provides power. He has hit 71 home runs in three seasons.

Patrick Semansky/Associated Press

It is possible Red Sox GM Ben Cherington is slow playing his hand with Cespedes, but Cherington is on the record as saying the team is in no hurry to trade its left fielder going into a season when it is trying to contend again.

“We're happy to have him,” Cherington said at the GM meetings via MLB.com’s Ian Browne. “We felt like as we were building a lineup for next year, adding that power element in the middle of the lineup was critically important to us. So now that we have it, we're not really anxious to give it away. We believe he's very important in 2015, and 2015 is very important to us.

“It’s harder to find power. We don’t really want to go into next year without a power element in our lineup aside from David [Ortiz].”

If teams choose to cruise down the aisle past Kemp, Upton and Cespedes, they may find themselves eyeing Colorado Rockies left fielder Carlos Gonzalez. He is a former All-Star and MVP candidate with an injury history, a 29-year-old birth certificate and $53 million owed to him through the next three seasons.

When he is on the field, Gonzalez is an elite hitter, although taking so many of his at-bats in Coors Field has greatly helped his numbers. His OPS at home is 1.025. Everywhere else it is about .750.

David Zalubowski/Associated Press

And to get Gonzalez, it is sounding like a team is going to have to completely wow the Rockies. They won’t let him go cheaply, and they are making that known.

“It’s arguably the best left fielder in the game when healthy,” Rockies GM Jeff Bridich told ESPN.com’s Jerry Crasnick, using similar language to refer to shortstop Troy Tulowitzki. “The recognition of that type of talent makes it tough to swallow the pill of wanting to trade these guys.

“For us to even start to wrap our heads around moving these guys is a tough one.”

Obviously, none of these options will come cheap, and it is entirely possible that teams might be renting a couple of them. But the offensive landscape of 2015 might make some teams desperate for production, and that will likely lead to at least a couple more blockbuster trades.

This market is just getting warm.

Anthony Witrado covers Major League Baseball for Bleacher Report. He spent the previous three seasons as the national baseball columnist at Sporting News and four years before that as the Brewers beat writer for the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. Follow Anthony on Twitter @awitrado and talk baseball here.