Dodgers: LA should offer whatever it takes to acquire Felipe Vazquez

The Prospect Package

Brace yourself. For many, if not all of you, especially the prospect-huggers amongst you, this one is going to hurt.

So before I get directly into the cost, I am going to cite research from a past Vazquez deep dive into the cost of elite relievers at the trade deadline in the past few seasons (I will link to this article while only quoting the Aroldis Chapman cost though I have the Andrew Miller and Mark Melancon costs in my previous piece):

"Aroldis Chapman Trade to the Chicago Cubs, 2016 Result: World Series Win for the Cubs Cost: Gleyber Torres- the top-ranked Cubs prospect, #24 overall prospect in MLB at 19 years old Billy McKinney- 2013 1st rd pick, 5th overall Cubs prospect Adam Warren- Major League relief pitcher (7th inning type) Rashad Crawford- minor prospect, hit .280 with 4 homers at Single-A full season in 2015 Analysis: The Cubs needed shut down closer, and this was the guy to get. They went and got him and paid the price. While they won the World Series, they gave up their top prospect, the 19-year old Gleyber Torres, who has blossomed into an All-Star caliber second baseman with 30+ homer power."

So one half-season of Aroldis Chapman cost the Cubs a future All-Star. Some may say that isn’t worth it. But at the same time, that’s the point of making trades. One team improves a great deal in the present and another a great deal for the future.

That’s the tradeoff. Plus, prospects are inherently risky, as they not only may get injured but they may prove unable to reach the major league level or ineffective when they do reach the bigs.

Now that you’ve been primed or re-primed to the cost of a rental superstar reliever, here’s what I believe Vazquez will cost and why I think that will be the case.

I think that Vazquez is worth a collection of four of the Dodgers’ top-10 prospects, and potentially a current major leaguer out of the bullpen. I think that the ideal package for both sides would be as follows:

The Dodgers would give up their #2, #3, #6, and #13 prospects in their system, plus Yimi Garcia out of the major league bullpen. That would mean Keibert Ruiz, Dustin May, Tony Gonsolin, and D.J. Peters out of the farm system and into Pittsburgh’s coffers. Ruiz is a top-30 MLB.com prospect in all of baseball (26th) and May is the 49th-ranked prospect in baseball. Gonsolin and Peters are not in the top 100.

I’ll let you catch your breath.

That may seem rich, but I’ll explain why it really isn’t more than market value. If Chapman or Miller is worth a top prospect who is within the top-25 prospects in all of baseball for just a few months, then the Dodgers will need to give up significantly more than that to land Vazquez.

Ruiz would be the headliner who could help the Pirates win now along with Yimi Garcia, with the red-headed pitcher May being the headliner for the future. Gonsolin and D.J. Peters have also been shown to have major league upside without a clear path to playing time for the Dodgers.

Send them to a team who needs a youth movement like the Pirates, and they will have to send back a package of reciprocal value in Felipe Vazquez.  If you’re thinking that there is no way that Felipe Vazquez is worth this astronomical cost, I’ll compare him to the league-wide relief environment on the next slide to help dispel this opinion.