Expectations High for Newest Diamondback Gabriel Moreno

What will it take for fans to feel this trade was a success?

When Mike Hazen made the trade sending Daulton Varsho to Toronto in exchange for catcher Gabriel Moreno and outfielder/DH Lourdes Gurriel, he took a risk. Varsho is an established major league player with four years of control coming off a 5-WAR season. With his great defense, power/speed combination and overall athleticism he leaves a void to fill on the field. He also has a strong clubhouse presence and won the team's Heart and Hustle award in 2022. Those are some very big shoes to fill. 

In our detailed trade evaluation articles, Part One and Part Two, we dove into how the players involved in the trade project out during the course of the player control, and also the impacts to the entire roster. Gurriel is a free agent after 2023 however, so beyond next season, the perception of the success or failure of this trade will rest primarily on the shoulders of the young Moreno, who turns 23  on February 14th.

Perception among fans, writers, and even the teams themselves can be a tricky thing in and of itself. I tried to get at this by asking in an informal twitter poll what level of production over the next four years would be considered a success.

What would you consider min. level of success as measured by WAR for Gabriel Moreno to reach while with #Dbacks over next 4 seasons 2023-2026? (Same time period they had control of Daulton Varsho for, who is projected for 3 WAR in 2023) Moreno pre arb league min salary 2023-25

— Jack Sommers (@shoewizard59) December 29, 2022

I set the baseline expectation at 2.5-WAR per season, or 10 WAR over the next 10 years. I did that because everyone, the team, fans, and pundits alike will be expecting at least an above average catcher. Typically a league average player will accumulate about 2-WAR. The threshold for catchers is probably a little lower than that, as they don't play as many games due to the demands of the position. So a catcher getting to 2.5 WAR has easily passed the bar of average by a decent margin. 

Since the 1998 expansion that brought us to 30 teams here is the average number of players reaching these various WAR thresholds. (2020 excluded due to shortened season, WAR is the average of Baseball Reference and Fangraphs, or aWAR)

On average, slightly less than one third of MLB teams (9.4) have a catcher that is solidly above average. Once you get over 3-WAR, which is borderline All Star leavel production for a catcher, there are on average seven players per year. Upon reaching 3.5-WAR or higher, which is no longer borderline, but clearly All Star level production for the position, there are only five players on average. Above 4-WAR is elite. There are only about 10 catchers dating back to the early 1990's that have four or more seasons of 4-WAR or greater. 

So based on the poll above, and in the context of what those various poll thresholds represent among the catcher population in MLB we can infer the following:

Roughly 13% of respondents felt that just  being above average, (>2.5 WAR per year, 10 total) but not necessarily All Star caliber would be considered a success for Moreno and the Diamondbacks

However a plurality of 45.4% felt that Moreno must reach and exceed 3-WAR, 12 total,  or in other words be a borderline all star for the trade to be considered a success.

29% felt that Moreno needs to achieve greater than 3.5-WAR per year, 14 total. That's an All Star almost every year.

13% feel that Moreno needs to reach elite production levels to justify this trade.

Another way to put it is 42% of respondents are not going to view this trade as a success unless Moreno gets to multiple all star games and/or reaches elite level status. Those are high expectations indeed !

There are obviously limitations with this approach to gauging expectations. First and foremost, it's based on a twitter poll. It's not scientific, and the sample size is not only limited in number, but limited in scope to my followers.  Secondly, some of the respondents may not have had a strong intuitive sense of what the different thresholds represented.  Is everyone aware that for a catcher,  2+ WAR is above average, over 3-WAR is getting to All Star territory, and over 4-WAR is elite? 

As mentioned at the top of the article, the other important context besides WAR thresholds is simply the the fact that the  D-backs gave up a really good player to get Moreno. Trade perception is not only about what Moreno does. If Varsho is merely a good but not great player going forward, it will make the perception bar more easily passable for Moreno. If Varsho maintains a 5-WAR level or gets even better, then it's going to be very difficult for fans to accept this trade as a successful one. Mike Hazen swung for the fences. Whether he hit a home run or extra base hit with this deal, or simply hit a single or in a worst case struck out is something we will all watch closely over the next several seasons.