Baseball Trade Values, the website that attempts to calculate the surplus value of all MLB players and most minor leaguers, has its flaws and limitations. The main one is that their trade simulator makes it too easy to create “acceptable” mock proposals. Fans are incentivized to chase the satisfaction of matching up the BTV on every side of their deals, rather than considering the motivations of the teams involved. They are misled to believe that the universe of trade possibilities is much broader than it actually is.
On the other side of the coin, when trades happen in real life, they almost always get the green light from BTV’s model.