How much durable, controlled production a Future-oriented trade added to the roster foundation needed to become competitive.
RFA evaluates the building side of the trade market. It asks whether a Future-oriented deal added controlled production that moves the existing roster toward a playoff-ready foundation. It is designed for rebuilding and foundation-building decisions, not deadline rentals.
For each package, expected controlled WAR is converted into a durable annual foundation contribution. The at-trade playoff-readiness curve is fit only on seasons available before that trade.
\[ \text{RFA quality}_i=100\times\left[P(\text{base WAR}+\text{durable WAR acquired})-P(\text{base WAR}+\text{durable WAR surrendered})\right] \]The displayed GM value is a bounded robust average of trade-level RFA quality, weighted by each deal’s continuous Future strategy share. That prevents one enormous prospect package from determining an entire career score.
Playoff-readiness percentage points per Future-oriented trade. An RFA of +2.0 means the GM’s typical Future-oriented trade improved the modeled readiness of the roster foundation by about two percentage points. This is a readiness-scale point value, not current playoff probability.
Mike Rizzo traded Soto and Josh Bell for a package led by CJ Abrams, James Wood, Robert Hassell III, MacKenzie Gore, and Jarlin Susana.
1. Before the deal, Washington's roster foundation was approximately 28.5 WAR.
2. Using only information available at the trade date, the model credited the incoming package with 14.99 durable expected WAR and the outgoing package with 3.93.
3. Moving that net controlled production through the readiness curve raised Washington's modeled future roster readiness by +3.97 percentage points.
The trade therefore receives +3.97 RFA. In plain English: Washington exchanged short-horizon star value for enough controlled production to materially strengthen its future competitive foundation. This is an at-the-time expectation, not hindsight credit for how Abrams or Wood eventually performed.
The robust trade-quality version is repeatable across alternating trades and predicts stronger roster foundations and rebuild progress. The profile can recalculate it for a season or tenure, but very short ranges remain small-sample estimates.
Built from trade-side decisions since 1985 using only information available at the trade date. Values are credited to the executive and franchise responsible for the trade.