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And holy shit, when you compare it to Paul Goldschmidt. Who is nearly as expensive as Harper at his peak. Who is older and looks to be declining. Who cost some controlled young pieces to acquire (Kelly and Weaver both put up 2 win seasons in 1/2 time last year).
Just in terms of Harper vs Goldy straight up, Harper wins everything except risk past 2024.
You throw in Kelly and Weaver and shit gets really rough.
Just basing surplus on last year and projections from this year, Harper’s surplus value on the market is around $30 million bucks. As are Weaver and Kelly (2-win players on pre-are salaries are worth around $15 million surplus value a year).
Goldschmidt’s surplus is a modest $10 million, and that’s with current models predicting a mild bounce back for him at age 32 to being a 3.5 win player.
If you project his value out over the course of the deal, unless he breaks the aging curve you’re likely looking at being $10 million in the hole or so on the value of his deal. Even projecting basically flat performance for Harper (around 4 wins a year) and Kelly and Weaver (basically 2 wins a year/player) the Cardinals are about a quarter of a billion dollars in the hole on overall from the decision to trade for Goldschmidt instead of just signing Harper and keeping Kelly and Weaver.
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