With the deadline to tender contracts to arbitration-eligible players looming, Jake Kaplan of the Houston Chronicle reports that the Astros will “surely attempt to trade” right-hander Mike Fiers between now and that 8pm ET deadline on Friday.
MLBTR contributor Matt Swartz projected the 32-year-old Fiers to take home a $5.7MM salary in what would be his second trip through the arbitration process. Any club that acquired Fiers would be picking up his rights not only for the 2018 campaign but also for the 2019 season, as he’ll be arbitration-eligible once more next offseason. Of course, the fact that Fiers is already a non-tender candidate speaks to the fact that he’s coming off a down season, and he’d need to enhance his stock with a solid 2018 performance for those 2019 rights to even come into play.
Fiers served as a useful rotation piece for the Astros and Brewers in 2015-16, working to a combined 4.07 ERA with 8.1 K/9 against 2.7 BB/9 with a roughly 40 percent ground-ball rate in 349 innings. The righty traded some of his 2015 strikeouts for improved walk and ground-ball tendencies in 2016 and experienced generally useful results in both years. The 2017 campaign saw the return of Fiers’ ability to miss bats (8.6 K/9) but also some control issues (3.6 BB/9) — this time paired with a best-yet 42.9 percent grounder rate.
Home runs have long been an issue for Fiers, a righty who works with a four-seamer that averages just under 90 mph, but that issue was more pronounced than ever in 2017, as Fiers yielded an average 1.88 HR/9 in this past season’s 153 1/3 innings. The resulting 5.22 ERA wasn’t pretty, though an uptick in home runs plagued pitchers across the league this season as pundits and players alike speculated on the possibility of some alterations to the composition of the baseball.
For a team that believes Fiers’ homer spike can be managed in 2018-19, he could represent a durable option to fill out the back of a rotation. Fiers has made at least 28 starts per season in each of the past three seasons and has never been on the Major League disabled list. While Fiers isn’t teeming with upside, he’s been a solid two-win pitcher in seasons past and could provide solid value if he can return to that form.
Considering the fact that reclamation projects on the free-agent market are oftentimes priced similarly to Fiers’ arbitration projection — Tyson Ross and Derek Holland each made $6MM on one-year deals last offseason, for instance — and the fact that Fiers has a remaining year of control beyond ’18, it’s not hard to see a club rolling the dice on a low-cost trade. If Houston isn’t able to find a taker, Fiers could be non-tendered and join what has been a bizarrely stagnant free-agent market to date.
I remember during the summer Mike Fiers was the best pitcher on the astros, but besides that, he is just frustrating to watch. This guy hands out homers like it’s nothing.
He is the sole prophet of Houston’s victory over LA in the World Series. Threw a no-hitter against the Dodgers in 2015 #neverforget #neverragret
No ragrets
Ragrets? Were you eating a Milky Way?
youtube.com/watch?v=JWvjI5CoTrM
I bet if we packaged him with Fisher wr could probably get Stanton or JD Martinez back. Who hangs up first?
JD is a FA and Miami would definitely hang up on that.
Yes. I know.
Then why did you make such a dumb post?
Sarcasm and humor. I thought using the FA and who hangs up made that pretty clear.
Hard to understand sarcasm online and your humor is weak. Don’t quit your day job.
It was clear. It’s also clear that the world needs a sarcasm font! Our lives would be smoother.
how dare you offer them as slaves for JD Martinez I think he wants money
He’d be a much better alternative than paying a lot more for someone like Andrew Cashner
His curveballs not spinning he’s never winning.
It just hangs in the air like a cloud without a care. You should see his different faces as the hitters are running the bases. The homer was never in doubt while Fiers let out a tremendous shout. The game was now over and the Astros as unlucky as a 3 leaf clover. But the fans need not fret they’ll win the world series they just don’t know it yet. And soon the man so slender will be traded or non tendered.
FTFY
lol
He’d make sense for the Phillies to go after. Shouldn’t be a high cost acquisition and they need at least two veteran arms.
theres better options than Mike Fiers. He gives up too many HRs to be effective
He’s 32 and showed a brief flash of competence 3 years ago. I can’t see a team paying him $5.7 million.
He showed brief flashes of brilliance this year. He just an’t got more than 3 games in a row with good stuff.
Padres?
is this a subtle “throw the Fiers at the Friars” joke?
Yes, good call out. I also like the idea of the Padres trading for him.
Think Fister might have set the market already for #5 starters at 4m. hellickson, Tillman, Miley, Bucholz Tons of them on the market equal or better. can’t see anyone taking on the near 6m rather than waiting for him to be set free.
He’d make sense for any rebuilding team or team that needs pitchers who can throw a lot of innings. Half the damn league can use a guy like him. Unfortunately, most of this years pitchers in the free agent market are the same
A guy named Fiers should not be allowed to be in the league if his fastball velocity is below 90.
His average fastball velocity this year was 90.4
What about a trade with the Orioles also involving one of their relief pitchers? Not saying Fiers for a RP straight up, but the Orioles need back end depth and have some middle relief to spare.
It’d be a good way to offset Britton’s high salary if he were to be traded.
Why would he be used to offset salary? If the Astros don’t want to pay his salary, they could just non-tender him and owe him nothing.
that’s actually not a bad idea at all, I don’t know who the orioles have in the bullpen that they’d just give up for someone like Fiers
Why trade for him?
If you trade for him a.) you give something up and b.) you have to give him more $ through arb
The ‘stros have no leverage on him. Once he’s non-tendered he can probably be had for $3-4 million.
The Astros still have leverage because he has not been non tendered yet. Just because some analysts think he might be, doesn’t mean Houston has to agree with them.
Assuming the Astros aren’t looking for much, Mets make sense. The upside being that combo of Citifield/NL supresses the HR’s and Fiers ends up being a good starting pitcher, with a downside of a 4.80 ERA with 180 IP, which the Mets would settle for.
When most of the Astros’ pitching staff was down early-mid season, Mike Fiers stepped up and was talked about as the best starter on the team but, he faded late season, lost his spot in the rotation and was left off the post season roster. When pitchers become prone to giving up HRs, many pitchers do recover and have some of their better seasons following that year in which they gave up a high number of HR. He lead the team in GS and IP so, maybe another team should take a chance on him.
Is he the one that destroyed Giancarlo’s face?
Yes.
Tale of 3 seasons, all in 2017. Horrible pitching his first 8 starts or so, then fabulous in the middle dozen starts or so, and then horrible again the last 8 starts or so. And pretty much that was his three seasons with the Astros – when he pitches well, he looks like he could be an ace, and when he doesn’t he looks like he shouldn’t be on the team. Hard to figure why. If the Astros trade or let him go, I wish him all the best. Always seemed to give it good effort.
Fiers for Matt Adams?
That would be a good deal but then where would Matt Adams play on the stros ? Not at first base, Gurriel is the first baseman. Gattis is the DH. It may allow the stros to trade Gattis for a relief pitcher, and Adams could be the DH. There is a Jeff Luhnow connection there, as I believe Adams was drafted by Luhnow with the Cards.
How about Matt Adams, Jace Peterson and Nick Markakis for Mike Fiers and Yuneski Gurriel.
Astros say no to that real fast. Peterson is basically worthless, Markakis’s contract renders him a neutral asset at best, and Adams is already a borderline non-tender candidate. Packaging 3 players with little to no surplus value isn’t going to get the Braves a good player like Gurriel, even if one believes that Fiers is going to make more than he’s worth.
Could see this working. Adams could platoon with gattis as gattis isn’t great against RHP
Sounds like a Mike Fiers for Matt Adams, or Nick Markakis, or Matt Kemp deal might have some merit.
“Shop” = non-tender
best part of the Gómez deal
I would try him out in the bullpen. I don’t see much of a reason getting rid of too many guys when we just won the WS. We need to be focusing on our bullpen, and maybe another starter. Everything else seems pretty set. If Fiers were in the bullpen, it might cut down on some of those home runs. Might even be able to get us out of some jams with a double play ball.
The man who threw at Stanton face and threw over a former teammate head…this guy is a head hunter
Yeah, I had forgot this season that he was the one who hit Stanton. I can’t believe he would throw at someone’s head intentionally after that, because he appeared to be pretty distraught when he hit Stanton.. Guess I was wrong, or he just forgot about it. Either way, not a good look for him.
If you’ll remember, Stanton was swinging at the pitch that hit him. He wasn’t awarded first base. Fiers’ weird delivery had any number of hitters swinging at pitches way too high..
Yeah, no way was that intentional. Fiers had such wicked movement, and a weird delivery, that he often K’d guys with high fastballs at only 90 mph. Remember what happened on the next pitch?
Reed Johnson came in to finish Stanton’s AB, and was also hit while swinging! The umps called strike 3 and ended the inning after the benches cleared. Ironically, Fiers finished that season with 0 HBP’s!
Just to clarify, I knew hitting Stanton wasn’t intentional. But when he then threw over Valbuena’s head this last season, that was very much intentional. You’d think after seeing what happened to Stanton, he’d refrain from ever doing something like that on purpose.
I think he’s worth keeping. He’ll never be better than a 5th starter, but the Astros are stacked and he’s a decent depth piece.
This is how I’m leaning as well. At one point the Astros had 5 starting pitchers on the DL last year, so I’d work him as the long man unless someone wants to give up a decent prospect for him. Maybe he’d have better feel for his curve if he throws it more often, when it’s on, it’s a good pitch.
Texas Rangers should trade for him and Evan Gattis. Would solve most of their problems.