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 Photo by Adam Hunger/Getty Images By Chris Kubak
A week after it was first reported, the Mets made the move official: Jay Bruce is once again a New York Met. Five months after trading him to Cleveland for minor league pitcher Ryder Ryan, the lefty slugger is set to spend the next three years in Queens and will reportedly earn $39MM worth of guaranteed money along the way. For the investment, the Mets are banking on Bruce to provide some pop to a lineup that badly needs to produce if the team is to have any chance of competing for a Wild Card spot in 2018, and some protection in the batting order for the likes of Yoenis Cespesdes and Michael Conforto. It’s a move that makes a lot of sense for the Mets, a team that has been hamstrung in their ability to spend over the last several years, and at least some sense for Bruce given the success he has experienced during his playing for the Metropolitans. But consider this: given the current state of the market, has there ever been a free agent who’s so closely matched his value as Jay Bruce? When you look at the money that has been spent, along with the projected contracts for the players still unsigned, chances are you will be hard pressed to produce an alternate answer. I’m sure if you go back several seasons you could find one. So far this offseason, Bruce has a stranglehold on the title, and the reasons why become clearer when you look at the details.
by Chris Kubak On the 1/4/18 edition of his MLB Network show “High Heat,” Chris “Mad Dog” Russo spent a good portion of the program discussing the Hall of Fame credentials of several players featured on this year’s BBWAA ballot. While he championed the merits of a few, most notably Edgar Martinez, he mostly used the platform to deride many of the candidates as merely being “very good” and having no place in Cooperstown. One of the focal points of this discussion was Mike Mussina, a guy Russo argued was merely ‘very good’ and not stacking up to the likes of the great pitchers, citing Tom Glavine as an example of the type of pitcher who does belong. I could not help but to be curious with the fact that Russo chose to use Glavine as a tool to illustrate Mussina’s Hall of Fame shortcomings, so I thought it would be a fun exercise to stack them up against each other to see how the two pitchers compare from both a traditional and sabermetric point of view.
 Courtesy of mlb.com by Tom Baird
First, please read a brief explanation of my rankings. These rankings should read like a crappy Fantasy Draft preview. They should not be understood as a straight ranking of players. I know that JD Martinez is better than Carlos Santana. I think that Santana will be underrated in this market, and will thus make a better signing for a team looking for value. Obviously, free agent signings have loads and loads of context that we cannot predict, so these rankings are extremely flawed. Still, I would rather consider cost than not consider it, even if the cost is a huge guess on my part, so here are my flawed rankings. Obviously, when these players get signed for significantly more or less money than I am expecting, the rankings will change.
 Courtesy of NBC Sports by Tom Baird Mike Minor was supposed to be good. Then he faded. Over the past eight years, there have been several Atlanta Braves' players that were going to be great but weren't. While I understand this is common, it appeared that many players struggled to develop within that system over a brief time period. The team had Jason Heyward, Kris Medlen, Tommy Hanson, Mike Minor, Brandon Beachy, Andrelton Simmons, Julio Teheran, Jair Jurrjens, Johnny Venters and more over the past eight years, and they all seemed to stagnate in their development shortly after arriving to the majors. Some of this stagnation can be explained by injuries, but there is a solid argument that Fredi Gonzalez and his staff mismanaged some great players. We all know what happened with Simmons. The under-appreciated all-world defensive talent was sent to Anaheim in an exchange that brought Atlanta two solid pitching prospects. Simmons initially struggled, and then found his groove. ESPN reports that this happened the week Simmons started hitting:  Unfortunately for Mike Minor, he was never traded to Anaheim, and thus never received divine help. He was forced to figure it out on his own. He did receive some helpful guidance from his pitching coaches in Kansas City, and managed to turn his career around. With the help of Royals' coaching staff, Minor decided to utilize a Fastball-Slider combination to dominate hitters. In fact, The Roundtripper has exclusive transcripts from their conversations:* We can show you, in great detail, how Mike Minor decided to adjust his repertoire. Coach: Hey Mike, you need to throw one or two innings at a time. It will help your velocity, and it will help save your pathetic broken body. Mike: Sounds good. I'm a reliever now. Coach: Once you're regularly throwing 95mph, you can use the fastball about 10% more than you did in 2014, which is the last time you pitched because your body was broken. Mike: Sounds good.  Gif from MLB.com via Beyond the Box Score And it WAS good. This rising fastball showcases his new velocity and high spin rate. In 2017, he struck out 88 batters in about 77 innings. He also had a 4 to 1 K/BB rate. The conversation continued. Coach: Also, you know that slider you rarely throw? Can you please throw that twice as much as you did in 2014? It looks JUST LIKE your fastball when it comes out of your hand, and then either disappears or trails off the plate. If a dude does get a piece of it, it'll look like Tom's best hit in Little League. Mike: Who's Tom? Coach: Super cool guy, but he's bad at playing baseball.  Gif from MLB.com via Beyond the Box Score And then 2017 happened. Mike Minor became Andrew Miller Lite, and now he's living the High Life. Minor's slider/fastball combination was likely the second greatest such combo among relievers in 2017. If you have watched the playoffs at all over the past ten years, you have likely seen a dominant fastball/slider combination from guys named Lidge, Romo, or Miller. When the pitcher is elite, this particular skill set can be close to unhittable. Hitters have to guess when they'll get a fastball, and it's almost impossible to guess that consistently against dominant relievers. If it's a fastball with a spin rate like Minor's, they will have a tough time barreling the ball.
Going forward, Minor will have to maintain his control, keep his newfound velocity, and avoid hanging his slider, but he should continue to be dominant. Brad Lidge and Sergio Romo ultimately declined due to hitters laying off the slider and waiting for a weak fastball. Given Minor's age and skill set, he is an excellent free agent reliever. I have a confession. I have always insisted that teams should NEVER pay for relievers. I believe, just like Jonah Keri, that "relievers are fickle and unpredictable." In a recent article for Sports Illustrated, Keri states that teams should simply "scoop up as many quality arms as you can, then see which ones stick." I could not agree more, given how unpredictable relievers can be. As the Dodgers saw this year with Brandon Morrow and Kenta Maeda, and as the Royals previously witnessed with Wade Davis, some mediocre starters can be used quite effectively as power relievers. Why pay large amounts in cash or prospects to acquire a reliever when a player like Brandon Morrow can be found on the scrap heap for the league minimum? With all that said, I think that contending teams can pay for a good reliever. I think that Mike Minor will make any contender a greater threat, both throughout the regular season and during the playoffs. Teams are able to maximize leverage through matchups, and we've seen recent playoff teams like the Royals, Cubs, Indians and Dodgers rely more heavily on their bullpen than on starting pitching in order to maximize leverage. I personally believe this may signal a new movement in baseball, even during the regular season. Although Minor should land with a contender, I would not be surprised if a team like the Mets, Phillies, Brewers or Angels make a strong offer. Obviously, his market may ultimately be effected by Greg Holland, Wade Davis, and Addison Reed. Considering age, health, and pitch control, I rank Minor as the top reliever available. I predict that he will be sought by half the teams in MLB, but will likely land with Los Angeles, Chicago, Houston, Boston, or San Francisco, for 40M/4yrs. *This statement is a lie. I am lying. We have no connections.  Cartoon of Bill James, Courtesy of The New Yorker We have new pages! Yay! Be excited! We have added further content to assist our readers in being the best baseball fans they can possibly be.
If you are staring at this screen, you are a baseball fan. At the very least, you know that baseball exists. Congrats. You are awesome, and we appreciate your readership. We made this website for you. This site was created by nerdy fans for the casual fan. Yes, we occasionally talk about advanced statistics. We also occasionally talk about bad 1980's television and pro wrestling. If we were forced by the internet to create a mission statement, it would likely be something like this: We want fans to have all the information, but understand they may not want it. We want fans to know where to find it, and how to use it. Furthermore, we want all stadiums to serve more garlic fries and Tom wants his son to play minor league baseball for the Binghamton Rumble Ponies. We understand that all 7 of our readers come here for their own reasons. You might have a fantasy league opponent that you want to destroy, and your thirst for victory has brought you a lukewarm affinity for baseball. Perhaps you purchased a team cap because the color makes your eyes pop, and you want to defend the hat with some baseball knowledge. However you got here, we want you to leave us as better fans. When you finally decide to click on a wildly inappropriate internet ad and leave this site, we want you to know just a tiny bit more about player value. So, in an effort to improve our efforts, we are efforting to put forth more effort. We understand that there is great information out there, and we want you to know where to find it. Rather than produce better content, which would take way too much time, we want to direct you to the many sites that already produce it. We begin by presenting you with our favorite team sites. We understand that our own coastal biases might leave you wanting more Twins content, or Royals content, or garlic fries, so we will do our best to point you in the right direction. Enjoy the team sites, and check out our Resource page for more nerdy fun. |
ABoutSpanning an entire continent, lifelong fans Chris Kubak and Tom Baird take you on a magical, sabermetrically enhanced journey through Major League Baseball. Archives
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