The Braves did nothing on Monday, so a non-Braves question to fill the gap.
The Mets and Rangers pulled off a relatively rare form of trade this weekend, moving one productive player for another. Most transactions involve exchanging some appearance of future value for present value, but occasionally positional fit and liquidity considerations take center stage; something like that seems to have happened here.
Both Marcus Semien and Brandon Nimmo are relatively well-known celebrities at this point. Semien is 35, has almost 40 career fWAR and started his 30s by alternating between 6+ fWAR and 4+ fWAR seasons until a 2025 where he significantly undershot his xwOBA And had a defensive regression from his league-best performances in 2023 and 2024. All of that led to “only” a 2.1 fWAR season across 534 PAs. He’s projected by Steamer for 3 WAR, and that assumes both some regression with the bat and some defensive regression – but not the massive underachievement of xwOBA (which no projection system will touch at this point). I think that might be a bit low; Steamer has always tended to heavily discount defensive performances on both ends of the spectrum, and I think there’s a good chance his 2025 was a blip defensively rather than a new normal that will deteriorate with age.
Nimmo will turn 33 around opening day and has 28.0 fWAR in his career so far. He had a career-high of 5.5 fWAR in 2022, 4+ in 2023, and has been around 3.0 the past two seasons. His line was buoyed by a bit of xwOBA overperformance in 2025; his xwOBA has decreased year-over-year from 2023 to 2025. He has largely switched to left field over the last two years, which has hurt him in value because he previously played average center field defense, and now plays average left field defense, which is a complete win lost in value with the current positional adjustments. Steamer has him right around 2.5 WAR, which I think could also be a bit low – but it could be right if he doesn’t halt his offensive decline and the fact he moved to left field reflected the continued decline in skills.
Of course, this trade isn’t just about performance in 2026. Both guys are on long-term contracts, and the Mets are always in the mood for a roster move that will allow them to fill newly created vacancies with Steve Cohen’s bucketload of money. But that aside: who do you have for 2026?
#Marcus #Semien #Brandon #Nimmo