I don't think we can discount the possibility Espinal is still improving at 27. Wendle going into his age 32 season, probably not, probably the other way if anything.
Picks/drafted players take a while to bear fruit.
1st round picks are very valuable in a dynasty league, the value of later picks depend on number of teams. Later picks have more value in a 30 teamer than a 12 teamer.
A top 5 pick in this league is worth something like a Framber Valdez.
To recap:
Steamer has Espinal with a better bat than Wendle in 2022, plus his defense is better
My gut tells me Wendle will be slightly better with the bat, but Espinal more than makes up for the difference with his defense
Laika's gut says Wendle will be >> Espinal
So let's see what happens.
Agreed but Steamer is better than looking at individual parameters and using them to say player x is better than player y. While every assessment method has limitations, whether they be the publicly available ones or the proprietary team ones, the best comparison tool we have is Steamer and the like.
Ya, ya, ya. And in terms of the real world, the difference is of limited impact, given the difference in K rate among other things. Projection systems do this multi-parameter review for us.
Think big picture, my man.
The comparison is between Wendle and Espinal, not the rest of MLB.
Espinal EV 84.8, Wendle 87.9.
A bit of a difference. Offset by the K rate difference?
Nah, cuz that is likely to happen. But the difference between the two is too small to warrant trading someone and DFA'ing someone on the 40 in order to make room for Wendle.
And besides, even if Wendle beats Espinal in wRC+ by a few points, Espinal superior defense more than offsets that.