I can't recall anyone even mentioning "untouchable" and "Palacios" in the same sentence.
A GM that brings up a prospect that performs well looks like a genius. That's the other side of an assumption that didn't get addressed. There are numerous examples of both. Every year there are rookies the help their teams win, but that doesn't fit the narrative.
Stating that not trading prospects for whichever player preferred is a double edged sword. Either way, there's 1 side of the deal getting the short end of the stick. Especially if their trading a young player controlled for several years. The idea of prospects having a small chance of making it is accurate with lower level prospects. Take the lower level prospects out of the equation and you have a very different picture. Projection is pretty much out the window and that's where the inaccuracy comes into play.
It's been made public that Pittsburgh will not take anything less than a haul for Reynolds. I don't blame them, but you see he's still in a Pirates uniform and their are cost limits to everything. Remove Reynolds name and insert Mullins and the same applies.
Marte's ability to play OF and hit would help this team if he's healthy and the cost to get him would be significantly less than Reynolds or Mullins, but his hamstring issues concern me TBH. Those things never really go away. The WAR numbers mentioned aren't the whole story. In 2019 Marte put up 6.9 WAR in 628 PA and an OPS+ of 149. His OPS+ was 143 last season which is right there with his 2019 production. The big difference in his WAR is that the metrics didn't like his defense last season which was the only anomaly in his career. Defensive metrics aren't worth a shit anyway and I'd guess his defense in a corner OF would be excellent if his hammy's hold up.
Their going make a trade or 2. I think the biggest one will be one of the SP again. If they make a 2nd trade it could be a few prospects for a major league need, but they probably have a list that they will not deal from. The farm is deep enough that they don't have to trade any of the upper level prospects that look like they can help this team win.
Some of this is just plain wrong, but lets concentrate on the part about taking lower level prospects out of the equation of MLB success.
Several researches have been done on just Top 100 prospects, using BAs lists. (BA is certainly a respected rating service.)
70% of top 100 prospects fail over their first six years in MLB, the rate being nearly 80% for pitching prospects.
Failure is measured as averaging less than 1.5 WAR over the first six years in MLB.
Top ten prospects have a much higher rate of success than 50 thru 100. Surprisingly, most of the 30% who do succeed become major producers, averaging over 3 WAR per season over their first six years, meaning that they often are immediate impact players.
On our active roster right now we have these former BA top 100 prospects:
TMac
Allen
Quantrill
Hedges
Bradley
Naylor
Amed
Zimmer
Gimenez
We presently have two BA top 100 prospects listed in our system...
Freeman
Jones
(That will likely change when the new lists are put out in February. It may have already changed.)
In any case, Rocchio, Valera, and Espino have to be considered top 100.
We presently have NINE former BA top 100 prospects on the active roster. How many of them made an immediate impact when they hit MLB?....the kind of impact that could be considered significant enough to make a difference to a contending team?
Zero
How many had that kind of impact in his second year?
Zero
How many in their third year?
Quantrill and Amed.
Of all the BA top 100s that we have had in the last decade, how many made an instant difference?
Lindor and Santana
How many made a significant difference over their first three years?
Lindor and Kipnis
