Click here to read a transcript of Tuesday’s chat with MLBTR’s Steve Adams.
Archives for 2018
Arbitration Breakdown: Trevor Bauer
Over the last few days, I have been discussing some of the higher profile upcoming arbitration cases. I rely partly on my arbitration model developed exclusively for MLB Trade Rumors, but will also break out some interesting comparables and determine where the model might be wrong. 2019 arbitration projections are available right here.
Trevor Bauer enters his third year of arbitration following a career year, in which he had a 2.21 ERA and struck out 221 hitters in 175 1/3 innings. Although he only recorded 12 wins and started 27 games, Bauer is still projected for a sizable $5.075MM raise to propel him from $6.525MM in 2018 to $11.6MM in salary for the 2019 season.
Bauer’s season is somewhat tricky in that his ERA is extremely low and quite rare for an arbitration-eligible pitcher in his service class. However, he also didn’t throw many innings compared to the few pitchers in this class who posted similarly low ERAs. Among pitchers in his service class over the past five years, Max Scherzer and Jeff Samardzija both had ERAs just below 3.00. However, with 214 1/3 and 219 2/3 innings, respectively, they had considerably larger workloads. Scherzer won 21 games en route to a Cy Young back in 2013, so that netted him a service-class record $8.8MM raise. Samardzija got a $4.46MM raise — lower than Bauer’s projected raise — but he also only won seven games back in 2014. As such, it makes sense that Bauer would be projected for a larger raise. Clayton Kershaw actually had an ERA of 1.83 going into his third year of arbitration, but he signed a multi-year deal and is probably not a relevant comp for that reason.
The most relevant may be Doug Fister in 2015, who had a 16-6 record (four more wins than Bauer at 12-6) and a 2.41 ERA (similar to Bauer’s 2.21). Importantly, Fister’s 164 innings from that season are only 11 1/3 fewer than Bauer threw in 2018. That was four years ago, and it was good for a $4.2MM raise. The big advantage that Bauer has over Fister is that he struck out more than twice as many hitters. Fister fanned a mere 98 batters, while Bauer recorded a third strike against a whopping 221 hitters. It seems like this should make Fister’s raise a floor, although the four fewer wins could prove important. Still, I think the $5.075MM raise my model projects for Bauer is a defensible one.
If we step away from ERA to find reasonable comparables other than Fister, we find a couple interesting starters who recently had 200-plus strikeouts in fewer than 200 innings. Tyson Ross got a $4.38MM raise in 2016 after a 10-12 season with a 3.26 ERA, in which he whiffed 212 men in 196 frames. Michael Pineda racked up 207 strikeouts in 175 2/3 innings the following season, though he only received a $3.1MM raise thanks to an ugly 6-12 record and decidedly sub-par 4.82 ERA. Ross is the more logical comp, but with Bauer producing an ERA a full run lower, he should land north of Ross’ raise.
Jake Arrieta is another somewhat interesting and relevant comp. Two years ago, the right-hander struck out 190 batters in 197 1/3 innings, with more wins (18) than Bauer but an inferior ERA (3.10). Arrieta received a $4.94MM raise.
Between Fister, Ross, and Arrieta, we have three starters who received raises between $4.2MM and $4.94MM when they were in this service class. All three fall short of Bauer in one category or another. With natural salary inflation, I think the model is probably in the right neighborhood for Bauer for his 2019 salary forecast.
Pirates Designate Alex McRae For Assignment
The Pirates announced that they’ve designated right-hander Alex McRae for assignment. His spot on the 40-man roster will go to outfielder Lonnie Chisenhall, whose previously reported one-year deal has now been formally announced.
McRae, 25, made his MLB debut with the Bucs in 2018, allowing four runs with five strikeouts and five walks in 6 1/3 innings of relief. The former 10th-round pick (2014) spent the bulk of the season in the rotation for the Pirates’ Triple-A affiliate, where he logged a 4.77 ERA with 8.0 K/9 against 3.8 BB/9. McRae’s sinker sat at 92.4 mph during his brief MLB audition, and he’s used the pitch to generate average or better ground-ball tendencies throughout his minor league career.
While he hasn’t found success in Triple-A or the Majors yet, McRae did post a 3.61 ERA with 5.4 K/9, 2.2 BB/9, 0.54 HR/9 and a 49.1 percent ground-ball rate in 149 2/3 innings with Pittsburgh’s Double-A affiliate in 2017.
Pirates Sign Lonnie Chisenhall
Nov. 27: The Pirates have formally announced the signing, via press release.
“Lonnie Chisenhall adds an experienced, productive and versatile player to our Major League Team,” said GM Neal Huntington in a statement accompanying the announcement. “When healthy, Lonnie has been a quality hitter while offering defensive flexibility. He also provides us an immediate option in right field while Gregory Polanco is getting healthy and his abilities and versatility will make our club better once Polanco returns.”
Nov. 26: The Pirates have struck a deal with free agent outfielder Lonnie Chisenhall, per Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic (Twitter link). It’s said to be a one-year, $2.75MM pact.
Chisenhall, 30, missed much of the 2018 season owing to a nagging calf injury. If he can avoid the DL, and earn playing time, he’ll have a chance to boost his salary in Pittsburgh. Per Rosenthal, the deal comes with some reasonably hefty potential incentives. Chisenhall will receive $250K upon reaching 250, 300, 350, and 400 plate appearances along with $500K if he makes it to 450, 500, 550, and 600 trips to the dish. That’s a potential $3MM boost.
Of course, it’d be rather surprising to see the left-handed-hitting Chisenhall receive enough action to max out the contract. He has only topped the five-hundred PA barrier once in his career, most of which has been spent in platoon duty. And for good reason: Chisenhall has been 58 OPS points better against right-handed than left-handed pitching in the majors.
For the Bucs, Chisenhall represents a part of a solution for the absence of Gregory Polanco, who is expected to miss a big chunk of the season recovering from shoulder surgery. Frankly, it’s unclear what the club will receive from Polanco in 2019, so it was imperative that a fill-in be found.
While a right-handed hitter might have dovetailed better with the existing unit by the time Polanco is back in action — after all, he and Corey Dickerson both hit from the left side — adding a lefty makes for a cleaner immediate fit with the team’s slate of reserve options. Pablo Reyes, Jose Osuna, and Patrick Kivlehan are among the players who could compete for bench duties. Of course, it’s also still possible that a higher-end asset could fall into the Bucs’ laps at some point over the offseason.
Regardless of how the platoon machinations work out, this is an interesting signing. Chisenhall is a sneaky upside play, given the ceiling he has shown on both sides of the ball.
Offensively, Chisenhall has produced at about a league-average clip over his eight-year career. But he churned out a 117 wRC+ in 2014, the season in which he saw his most extensive playing time (142 games, 533 plate appearances). And since the start of the 2017 season, he’s a .297/.368/.503 hitter with 13 home runs over 365 plate appearances. That represents a notable power surge as against his prior track record, though it came in a short sample and showed up more in ’17 than in his brief ’18 effort.
With the glove, Chisenhall went from a questionable third baseman to a high-end right fielder in 2015. The exuberant defensive metrics have cooled in the years to come, but he generally grades out in sight of average. It’s at best questionable whether he’ll be more than a solid performer in the field, particularly given that he’ll be looking to move past the longstanding lower-leg ailment, but there’s reason to think the Pirates will at least have an average defender for their money.
All things considered, as Jason Rollison of Bucs Dugout noted in tweeting the club’s interest recently, it seems like a nice match that will serve both player and team. Chisenhall joins Jung Ho Kang as a reasonably high-upside early signee, giving the Pirates two roster pieces at a palatable price and leaving a relatively robust amount of spending capacity untapped for further additions. (Of course, some potential payroll space could be held and deployed at midseason if the team proves worthy of further investment.)
Photo courtesy of USA Today Sports Images.
Tommy Joseph, Justin Haley Sign With KBO Teams
Former Phillies first baseman Tommy Joseph has agreed to a one-year contract with the LG Twins of the Korea Baseball Organization, Jeff Passan of Yahoo Sports reports (via Twitter). The Jet Sports client will be guaranteed $1MM on the contract — the maximum amount for which a foreign player can sign for his first year in the KBO.
Meanwhile, former Twins and Red Sox right-hander Justin Haley has signed with the KBO’s Samsung Lions, the team announced via press release (hat tip: Dan Kurtz of MyKBO.net, on Twitter). Haley’s deal will pay him a guaranteed $650K ($550K salary, $100K signing bonus) and provide him with the opportunity to earn an additional $250K via performance incentives. He’s represented by PSI Sports Management.
Joseph, 27, turned away interest from teams in Japan and Korea last offseason, telling NBC Sports Philadelphia’s Jim Salisbury at the time that he didn’t want to forgo the opportunity to return to the big leagues in 2018. Circumstances have changed since that time, of course. Joseph was still on Philadelphia’s 40-man roster at that point, and while he was undoubtedly cognizant of the fact that he wasn’t likely to have a prominent role on a roster with both Carlos Santana and Rhys Hoskins, there was perhaps hope that he’d land with another organization.
That proved to be the case to an extent; the Phillies designated Joseph for assignment, and he was claimed by the Rangers in Spring Training. Texas, though, designated Joseph for assignment at the end of camp and outrighted him to the minors. The slugger spent most of the 2018 season with Texas’ Triple-A affiliate, where he raked at a .284/.353/.549 clip and mashed 21 homers in 357 plate appearances. He’ll head to South Korea with a career .247/.297/.460 batting line and 43 homers through 880 Major League plate appearances — all with the Phillies.
Haley, meanwhile, pitched in the Majors in both 2017 and 2018 — albeit in limited fashion. Minnesota selected Haley out of Boston’s system in the 2016 Rule 5 Draft, and he made hit MLB debut in 2017. However, Minnesota didn’t hang onto him for the full season, ultimately returning him to Boston that May. Haley had his contract selected by the Red Sox in 2018 and made four relief appearances, though he lost his roster spot back on Nov. 1. In 25 2/3 career innings at the Major League level, Haley has a 5.61 ERA and a 14-to-9 K/BB ratio. However, he’s been substantially better in Triple-A, where he’s compiled a career 3.53 ERA with 7.6 K/9 and 2.4 BB/9 in 260 1/3 innings.
Both Joseph and Haley stand to earn considerably more money than they’d have made by signing a minor league contract and opening the season in Triple-A with a new organization. And, should either player cement himself as a quality contributor in the KBO, there’s certainly the opportunity to earn a raise in the KBO for the 2020 season as well. It’s not especially common to see players elevate their stock overseas and then return to find big league success, though Eric Thames and Miles Mikolas both stand out as recent examples of that route to multi-year free agent contracts.
Minor MLB Transactions: 11/27/18
We’ll track today’s minor moves from around the league here…
- The Cardinals announced yesterday that right-hander Derian Gonzalez has cleared waivers and been assigned outright to Triple-A Memphis. The 23-year-old pitched to a 3.51 ERA with 8.6 K/9 and 4.1 BB.9 across three levels (Rookie, Double-A, Triple-A) in 33 1/3 innings during an injury-shortened 2018 season. That marked the first action in either Double-A or Triple-A for Gonzalez.
- Left-hander Hoby Milner cleared waivers and was outrighted to Triple-A by the Rays, per Marc Topkin of the Tampa Bay Times (Twitter link). He’ll head to Spring Training as a non-roster invitee in hopes of once again cracking the roster. The 27-year-old Milner (28 in January) owns a 3.03 ERA in 38 2/3 big league innings, but there’s a fair bit of smoke and mirrors at play in that regard. Milner has just 7.0 K/9 against 4.9 BB/9 in the Majors and has stranded an unsustainable 86.2 percent of the runners he’s put on base. Fielding-independent metrics cast a much less favorable picture than his ERA (5.30 FIP, 5.65 xFIP, 5.07 SIERA). To his credit, Milner has held lefties to a laughable .177/.292/.277 slash through 98 plate appearances.
- The Marlins announced that right-hander Ben Meyer and outfielder Braxton Lee have both cleared waivers and been outrighted to Triple-A New Orleans and Double-A Jacksonville, repsectively. The 25-year-old Meyer made his MLB debut in 2018 but was hammered for 22 runs in 19 innings. The 2017 season was much better for the righty, as he worked to a 2.02 ERA with 10.8 K/9 against 1.9 BB/9 in 111 1/3 innings — albeit against much younger competition between Class-A and Class-A Advanced. Lee, meanwhile won a Double-A batting title in 2017 but hit just .233/.316/.294 across three minor league levels in 2018 in addition to a weak showing in a brief MLB debut of his own (18 plate appearances). Lee received plus grades for his speed and above-average marks for his outfield defense in the past but has never shown any power.
- The Marlins have signed outfielder Harold Ramirez to a minor league contract, per John Dreker of PiratesProspects.com (Twitter link). The 24-year-old Ramirez spent a third consecutive season at the Double-A level in 2018 and put together a strong campaign, hitting .320/.365/.471 with 11 homers, 37 doubles and 16 steals in 505 trips to the plate. Ramirez was once considered to be on the fringes of the game’s top 100 prospects, but his stock has dipped in recent seasons — particularly in 2017 (.678 OPS in his second full season of Double-A ball).
- Australian righty Todd Van Steensel tweeted last night that he’s signed a minor league pact with the Padres. The 27-year-old has spent the past six seasons in the Twins organization, where he’s topped out at the Double-A level. Van Steensel has a career 2.11 ERA with 9.4 K/9 against 4.1 BB/9 in 110 2/3 innings at that level, with all but two of his 66 Double-A appearances coming out of the bullpen.
Giants “Willing To Engage” In Talks On Madison Bumgarner
The Giants are “willing to engage” with rival organizations on trade scenarios involving star lefty Madison Bumgarner, according to a report from Jon Morosi of MLB.com. It’s not yet clear just how likely it is that the San Francisco organization will actually move one of its best-loved and most-accomplished players.
Bumgarner is a living baseball legend, owing less to his years of excellent regular-season service than to his incredible postseason feats. The version of the burly southpaw that owned the 2014 World Series will live on no matter the course of the remainder of his career. But after the two seasons he just endured, with a shoulder injury seeming to sap his strength, it’s at best questionable whether the Giants’ staff ace can still deliver a vintage performance.
While front office opinions on the matter no doubt vary, numerous teams figure at least to check in on the lefty. Three, at a minimum, have done so already, according to Morosi. The Brewers and Phillies “have had at least preliminary dialogue,” he writes, while the Braves “checked in” but do not appear to be engaged at the moment.
It’s said that newly installed Giants president of baseball operations Farhan Zaidi is angling for young pitching in a deal, but it’s fair to wonder whether he’ll be able to get any top-flight arms. After all, the upside here is limited by the fact that Bumgarner is one season away from free agency. His $12MM contract is plenty reasonable despite the questions, and the possibility of a qualifying offer (or even an extension) hold out hope for some future value. But the unanswered questions create significant downside, even on a single-season commitment.
At base, acquiring Bumgarner would mean buying a pitcher who has been a solid, not terribly durable performer over the past two seasons. He certainly did what he could to make it back from a shocking early-2017 dirt bike accident, and has somehow maintained a 3.29 ERA since the start of that ill-fated campaign, but it’s hard to look past the warning signs.
Before the injury, the now-29-year-old hurler had been good for about a strikeout per inning with two or fewer walks per nine innings, and a total of 200+ frames per season. He had run up four-straight sub-4.00 ERA campaigns, with peripherals that largely matched, all before his near-unimaginable playoff heroics. At his best, Bumgarner drew swings and misses at more than an 11 percent clip while allowing hard contact on less than a third of the balls put in play against him.
Operating at less than full capacity last year, Bumgarner’s swinging-strike rate fell to 9.2% and his K%-BB% dropped to 12.0%. (He had once sat at over a 10 percent K%-BB% for three-straight seasons.) And his hard-hit rate ballooned to 41.6% (per Fangraphs) — a massive rise for a pitcher who has averaged below 30 percent for his career.
The physical changes certainly appear to have had a role. While he was never a flamethrower, Bumgarner averaged as much as 93 mph with his fastball. It has now been three seasons since his heater average heater topped 92 mph. As the effectiveness of that table-setting offering declined, he increasingly went away from the four-seamer in 2018, throwing it just 34.2% of the time — well shy of his 45.6% career average. While the remainder of his arsenal was still effective, the heater had been the bread to his cutter’s butter.
Whether Bumgarner can regain some of the lost velocity, or find a way to make up for it, remains to be seen. There’s still reason to believe he’ll be at least a useful starting pitcher regardless, if for no other reasons than because of his undeniable competitive fire and remaining youth. While he gutted out the results last year, his 3.99 FIP, 4.32 xFIP, and 4.42 SIERA tell a different story — though it’s not a tale of an irredeemably lost pitcher. Even if he can’t regain much of his former luster, Bumgarner will bring the promise of some solid innings, at least so long as he’s able to remain healthy.
Of course, the allure of the Bumgarner of yore will no doubt play some role in negotiations. Clubs such as those rumored to have interest aren’t looking only for a useful, back-of-the-rotation piece. They all have designs on the postseason, and no doubt at least entertain dreams of Bumgarner not only helping to get there, but also rising to the occasion when the moment calls for it.
Perhaps, too, some teams’ scouts and analysts have sussed out some reasons to believe in a turnaround. It’s fair to guess that Zaidi is about as well-versed on the subject as anyone. His former club, the Dodgers, no doubt analyzed Bumgarner closely as a division rival. And he’s now privy to all that the Giants know about their own leading pitcher. Whether Bumgarner is dealt, and what he draws in return, will also tell us quite a bit about the San Francisco organization’s views — on the southpaw as well as the rest of the roster. After all, the club has the financial means to hold on to Bumgarner, whether to maintain fan interest and boost his value for the summer trade deadline or to pursue another extension.
The broader market is certainly a factor as well. Zaidi can only market one season of Bumgarner, but in some regards that’s a positive. There are plenty of intriguing lefty starters available in free agency — most notably, Patrick Corbin, Dallas Keuchel, J.A. Happ, and Yusei Kikuchi — but all figure to command significant guarantees over multiple seasons. Giving up some young talent, rather than taking on potentially damaging long-term contract commitments, will surely hold appeal. Of course, it’s also true that the presence of so many alternatives — remember that James Paxton (via trade) and CC Sabathia went off the board already, and there are other talented starters available in trade free agency — will tend to reduce demand.
All said, it’s far from clear that there’ll be sufficient interest to force Zaidi’s hand. But the mere fact that there’s a possibility of a pre-season swap is itself notable, especially given Bumgarner’s special status in franchise lore. It’ll certainly be interesting to see how this situation plays out.
Arbitration Breakdown: Nolan Arenado
Over the last few days, I have been discussing some of the higher profile upcoming arbitration cases. I rely partly on my arbitration model developed exclusively for MLB Trade Rumors, but will also break out some interesting comparables and determine where the model might be wrong. 2019 projections are available right here.
Nolan Arenado already earned $17.75 million in 2018, and put together another storied season. He led the league with 38 home runs, and hit .297 while knocking in 110 runs. He won yet another Gold Glove, yet another Silver Slugger, made the All Star Game, and again finished in the Top 5 of MVP Voting. That makes for his sixth, fourth, fourth, and third consecutive season in each of those accomplishments.
Entering his fourth year of arbitration, it stands to reason that Arenado will earn more than any player ever has in arbitration. After all, Josh Donaldson currently holds that record at $23 million just last year. Since the arbitration system generally awards raises based on platform year performance (except for in the player’s first year of arbitration eligibility), Donaldson’s level of pay would only reflect a $5.25 million raise, which is frankly too small for Arenado.
Indeed, the model predicts a big move up to $26.1MM for Arenado, which would represent a raise of over $8MM from his 2018 salary. Notably, too, there is some uncertainty present, since he earned $17.75 million last year only as part of a two year deal. Players do sometimes get treated differently in the event of returning to arbitration following multi-year deals. In the industry, this is often termed a “re-slot.” Probably the most recent notable example of such was Bryce Harper. In 2017, he received an $8.625 million raise from $5 to $13.625 million after a two-year deal. In that case, Harper had won the MVP Award in the first year of the two covered by the earlier agreement, and may have been treated as someone who would be re-slotted. In this case, if we were to estimate what Arenado would have earned in arbitration in 2018 based on his 2017 performance, we might have guessed $20.7 million rather than $17.75 million.
So, if anything, we would probably expect Arenado to argue for more than $26.1 million based on a re-slotting. Already in uncharted waters in terms of salary, that may or may not be a hard sell. After all, at that point, we would be looking at a “Kimbrel Rule” situation. That “rule” is named after Craig Kimbrel, and basically describes the maximum amount that we should expect a player to break the record raise for his service class. This rule exists because Craig Kimbrel’s first year of arbitration eligibility was so unique that my model had him earning significantly more than any closer had ever earned. We therefore capped his projection. The Kimbrel rule as applied to Arenado would give him a $26.75 million maximum, not much different than his $26.1 million projection.
If we look for comparables, it’s hard to find any for Arenado regardless of the method used to evaluate him. Donaldson would actually be a floor in my estimation. He hit .270 with 33 HR and 78 RBI in 2017, but in just 496 PA. With Arenado stepping up to the plate a whopping 673 times, and hitting .297 with 38 HR and 110 RBI, he will surely not command a smaller raise than Donaldson’s $6 million.
One potential comparable for Arenado could be teammate Charlie Blackmon, who produced .331/37/104 the year before last, and got a $6.7 million raise. We might expect that to be a rather close match for Arenado, although Blackmon’s ultimate raise was called into question by other agents at the time. Still, if we think that Arenado would come in at about a $6.7 million raise, that would land him at a $24.45 million salary — less than his $26.1 million projection. On the other hand, if Arenado’s Gold Gloves or higher service time factor in, we may still be north of that and closer to his projection.
Arenado will be an interesting, record-breaking case this year. With several complicating factors impacting his case, there’s a fairly large spread of dollars theoretically open for discussion. Ultimately, I suspect that the model is pretty close, but I could see being off by a couple million in either direction.
Nationals To Sign Henderson Alvarez
Right-handed hurler Henderson Alvarez has reportedly inked a minor-league deal with the Nationals that includes a spring invite. It appears that Ángel D. Conde Trujillo had the news first on Twitter, with multiple stateside reporters tweeting the signing as well this evening.
Alvarez, 28, is again trying to make his way back to the majors after his career was derailed by shoulder woes. The former Marlins hurler, who signed with but never threw for the Athletics in 2016, appeared briefly with the Phillies in 2017 but did not pitch in affiliated ball in the most recent season.
While he was away, Alvarez did throw in the Mexican League. He turned in 120 2/3 innings in the Mexican League, working to a 3.58 ERA with 4.8 K/9 and 1.8 BB/9. Alvarez has also been pitching in winter ball in his native Venezuela, where he has allowed twenty earned runs on 43 hits over 30 2/3 frames while recording just ten strikeouts and five walks.
Needless to say, those numbers don’t inspire confidence. But it’s fair to note that Alvarez has never been a strikeout pitcher. Indeed, he barely averaged more than a strikeout every other inning as a big leaguer. But he did pitch to a 3.82 ERA in 577 2/3 career MLB innings, owing in large part to his ability to limit the free passes (2.2 BB/9) and long balls (0.87 HR/9) while churning out groundballs (54.8% GB%).
For the Nationals, Alvarez is simply a player who’ll have a chance to show something in camp. The big question, perhaps, is whether he’ll be able to regain some of his lost velocity. After sitting at 94 with his four-seamer and sinker from 2011 to 2014, Alvarez clocked in at less than 92 mph with both pitches during his injury-shortened 2015 effort and short-lived 2017 return.
Braves Designate Adam McCreery
The Braves have designated lefty Adam McCreery for assignment, per a club announcement. His roster spot will go to just-inked slugger Josh Donaldson.
McCreery, 25, came to the Atlanta organization in the early-season 2016 swap that sent Jhoulys Chacin to the Angels. He has steadily moved up the ladder in the Braves system since his arrival, even briefly cracking the big leagues last year.
The 2018 season was McCreery’s first in the upper minors. He produced solid results, working to a 3.59 ERA in 62 2/3 innings (including his frames in the Arizona Fall League), but coughed up 5.7 free passes per nine to go with a healthy tally of 11.2 K/9. Whether the 6’9 southpaw can stay in the zone enough to establish himself at the MLB level remains to be seen.
