TODAY: The contract is now official. It’s for $15.5MM, reports Jon Heyman of FanRag Sports (Twitter links), with a $1.5MM signing bonus and consecutive salaries of $8MM and $6MM.
YESTERDAY, 1:49pm: The sides are working to finalize a two-year pact for something approaching $8MM annually, per ESPN.com’s Jerry Crasnick (Twitter links). That’s right around the contract value that MLBTR suggested entering the winter.
11:19am: The Brewers are closing in on a contract with free agent righty Jhoulys Chacin, according to Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic (via Twitter). Terms of the prospective deal are not known at this time. Chacin is a client of the Legacy Agency.
Chacin, 30 next month, is fresh off one of the best seasons of his career, having notched a 3.89 ERA with 7.6 K/9, 3.6 BB/9 and a 49.1 percent ground-ball rate over the life of 180 1/3 innings with the Padres, who signed him to a modest one-year commitment last offseason. Chacin’s strong output in 2017 positions him to handily top the $1.75MM guarantee he received in San Diego last winter. He’d join a Brewers rotation that will be without top starter Jimmy Nelson for a yet-undetermined portion of the 2018 campaign following September shoulder surgery.
Assuming the deal is ultimately completed, Chacin will join Chase Anderson and Zach Davies in the Milwaukee rotation, with Josh Hader, Brent Suter, Brandon Woodruff and Junior Guerra among the other candidates vying for opportunities to start. Chacin may not bring significant upside to the table, but he’s been a durable mid-rotation arm over the past two seasons and should help to stabilize a group that carried significant questions about the number of innings it could be reasonably expected to provide to manager Craig Counsell.
Chacin’s solid 2017 season did produce its fair share of skeptics — most notably owing to his significant home/road splits. In 100 1/3 innings at the pitcher-friendly Petco Park, Chacin logged a sensational 1.79 ERA, but that number spiked to a ghastly 6.59 in 80 road innings. Chacin also dominated right-handed hitters to the tune of a .213/.284/.318 opponents’ slash line, while lefties posted a much more adept .251/.356/.433 slash against him.
The move to a more hitter-friendly Miller Park, then, will undoubtedly raise some questions. However, Chacin enjoyed success earlier in his career in the game’s worst pitching environment, Coors Field, and he’s long limited home runs better than the average pitcher. Despite spending parts of six seasons in Colorado and despite the recent uptick in homers throughout the league, Chacin has averaged just 0.85 HR/9 as a big leaguer.
Newer metrics paint Chacin in a favorable light, as well; Statcast pegs Chacin’s average exit velocity on balls in the air (91.3 mph) and overall exit velocity (85.4 mph) among the weakest in the game for qualified pitchers. His .303 xwOBA, while not elite, places him alongside names like Danny Duffy, Jake Arrieta and Madison Bumgarner. That’s not to say, of course, that Chacin should be expected to produce at comparable levels to those three starters, but rather that his solid results and overall penchant for weak contact could be more conducive to success than his surface-level home/road splits would suggest.
Photo courtesy of USA Today Sports Images.
Wouldn’t mind this at all as a Crew fan.
The rest of the division doesn’t mind it either.
Again a clear upgrade to the backend of our rotation? I’d love to see you name a better #5 than Chacin in the NL Central.
Lol Ironically, the commenter named “wellhitball” is dissing Chacin. Considering, Chacin was one of the better NL pitchers at avoiding “well hit balls.” haha
First off, I would like this signing if MIL acquired a top-flight arm. But that hasn’t happened yet, so right now Chacin is their #4.
Since brecrew08 brought it up, I’ll humor the 5th starter argument (and 4th for good measure).
It sounds like CHC will overpay for another top-flight starter, so…
Chatwood’s road ERA over the past few years is 2.57 and Chacin’s is 6.10. Chatwood’s stuff is great and the numbers suggest there’s #2-#3 upside there.
Montgomery is less valuable because he’s just a swingman, but great for $550k. Is Chacin better than Eddie Butler? Probably, but age is on Butler’s side.
Regarding the Cardinals, Luke Weaver can’t be used for comparison because hitters haven’t seen enough of him yet. Last season he was better than Chacin, and the numbers suggest that Weaver should be even better than Chacin next year.
We have little to no idea how Miles Mikolas will perform after putting it all together in Japan. Chacin has a case here, but nothing shifting the odds overwhelmingly in his favor.
Trevor Williams pitched as well as Chacin for the Pirates last year, but we don’t have enough evidence to suggest that he’ll be any better or worse than Chacin over the next 2 years.
Chad Kuhl also put up solid numbers. Age is on their side and they’re dirt cheap to keep.
I’m not really willing to go over the Reds’ rotation in depth so I’ll give Chacin the benefit of the doubt here, despite that fact that a lot of those guys performed pretty well considering how cheap and inexperienced they were.
Tl;dr – Chacin is a palatable addition, but not particularly appetizing at $16 mil for 2 years.
Dumb question: is Miller Park a hitter or pitcher friendly stadium?
Same question for Petco field.
Petco field is a pitcher friendly park
It was it’s more neutral but he should of went back to sd
His era was like 6 on the road and sub 2 at him
He will struggle next year even more so with all of those small parks in the central
But, hey, at least he is getting paid
Home*
Chacin was very good at Coors Field earlier in his career. He’s always pitched better at home no matter where that was. Guy probably sleeps better in his own bed and/or travel doesn’t agree with him. Milwaukee team travels fewer miles than almost any team in baseball over the course of a season. He’s a good fit.
That’s a ton of assumptions, IMO.
This is the singular, thoughtful, well-written comment that I’ve seen on MLBTR.
Thank you for using “fewer”.
Petco Park is a fairly neutral park nowadays. Over the years, fences he been moved in, a bigger scoreboard was added, and other buildings near the park have been built. It’s not 2004 anymore.
while this is true, petco is still a complete pitchers park just like coors, even with adjustments, is a hitters park
Miller is certainly a hitters park, just the opposite for Petco.
Miller is pretty hitter-friendly.
Miller has generally been considered a hitters park because of the long ball. What killed guys like Bush and Estrada is that they gave up the long ball. If he can keep it in the park as he historically has, he will do just fine.
Miller is hitter friendly
Miller is friendly
Just wanted to say I posted the question BEFORE they updated the article …
For all those who just put the blanket statement of hitter friendly out them, I have 2 questions.
1- have you ever been to an afternoon game where it’s sunny out? Many times where you need a run in the first inning.
2- for pitchers who are good at keeping it in the park, how friendly is it for hitters?
Not a dumb question. The replies are generally accurate, but the supporting arguments aren’t so much.
Eric Thames makes Miller Park look tiny. It’s still up in the air if he’s cheating or not. Also Prince Fielder made it look small before leaving for Detroit and retiring later with a very hitter friendly park at the ballpark at Arlington.
I thought he was going to re-sign with the Padres.
Too much money and commitment after coming off a strong season. He’s easily going to get 6 mill a year for two to three years.
My guess he gets 3 years 18 mill minimum.
With Perdomo, Lamet, Richard, Mitchell padres would be looking for a 1 year guy like tillman with rea and erlin as possible options coming back from tjs.
A’s a Card’s fan I like this deal.
A clear upgrade to the Brewers backend of the rotation and you’re happy as a cards fan..?
^what he said
Uh, yeah. I was afraid the Brewers might do a lot better than Chacin.
Who’s to say they are done.
In my mind he is a worse option than all the alternatives listed above. Plus that weak contact stat can be misleading, cause when contact is made it is done with severe damage.
I’m confused how .85 HR per 9IP with have of his career spent in Colorado isn’t respectable? The .213 average against righties and .251 average against lefties last year shows he wasn’t bad at keeping guys off base too.
Sinker ballers usually play well in Miller also. People are acting like Chacin was signed to be our 1 or 2. He’s comparable to most 5’s in baseball. If Stearns goes out and gets a legit #2 even to pair with Nelson, Anderson, Davies and Chacin our rotation is very serviceable.
I wanted the Phillies to sign him
This is why Preller should have traded him last summer. I hope he likes just losing him for nothing.
Agree, same thing when Stammen eventually signs with someone else. It’s inexcusable to get nothing and let guys walk when you are rebuilding.
Padres have plenty of organizational depth in the minors and that’s all they would have received in return for two months of a #5 starter on a contending team and a middle reliever with recent injury trouble. You’re hyping up these guys in your head or overestimating the value of career minor leaguers.
Yeah, the return would have been worth less than the value of having him go out and throw every five days.
Having him go out every five days had no value to the Padres.
That’s an illogical statement but I’m not surprised. Someone needs to pitch, he cost the Padres only $400,000 more than league minimum while providing average results over the last two months of the season. That is more valuable than a non-prospect clogging up the minors.
Bring up their best starter from AAA. Easy. Will save them some money, get them a lottery ticket and help with the team’s draft position.
There’s value, even for a bad team, to a pitcher who can throw 180 innings of average baseball. Certainly saves some wear-and-tear on the young arms. They aren’t robots out there or pitching machines, obviously.
Unless what was being offered were players the padres would of had to protect from the rule 5 draft this off season. Which he could of lost in the rule 5 draft if he left them unprotected.
We dont know what was offered, but if chacin and stammen deals were for guys the padres would of have to protect from the rule 5 draft preller probably liked his guys he chose to protect- wieck and castillo- more so than what was being ooffered.
Idk why they werent just sent along with butcher maurer and cahill to the royals though.
Exactly, I totally agree. If Chacin could have been traded, they might as well have made him a part of the royals package. That could have netted them an even better return.
Peripherals impacted already small trade value.
You’re dreaming if you think Chacin would have brought back anything more than a low-mid tier relief prospect.
So letting him walk for free is better? I don’t understand the logic.
Because the Padres didn’t have anyone to take his place. Trading him and rushing someone up to fill Chacin’s spot would have been a bad call.
Did they need anyone to fill his spot?
Thats not entirely true.
They had overton and lloyd down at triple a.
I would love to see a 2yr/10M deal with a 6M option for a 3rd.
gonna take more than that to convince him to come to Milwaukee of all places.
Please explain the logic behind what right now looks like one of the dumbest things posted today on this site.
Preller picked up Chacin and Stammen for nothing anyway. Preller tried to trade Hand and the best he was offered was mid-level prospects. The Padres farm already has plenty of those. Chacin and Stammen would have gotten less.
The Padres got so many international players in 2016 that they needed TWO teams in the Arizona Rookie League. They have more stashed in the Dominican Rookie League. A few have already gone to short season low-A, and more are on the way. The last thing the Padres need is farm filler types.
The mets could have used him, but then again, all 30 teams could use a guy like this
I like this. Don’t break the bank for the next 6-7 years on one of the top guys. He’ll be a nice stop-gap. Remember, 1 year ago we were at the start of a rebuild.
Exactly. If we just stay patient, Burnes, Peralta and Ortiz will all be solid rotation pieces. This team is set up to be competitive for several years.
And it’s a 2 year deal. The 3rd year in FA deals has historically killed the Brewers
Brewers have the payroll space to aim much higher than Chacin and Gallardo. MIL must be saving up to make a run at Harper/Machado/Kershaw next winter.
Just cause we have payroll space doesn’t mean we should be stupid with it. Small market teams can’t afford to have a big contract eating away at the budget when guys are well past their prime
Staying 30th out of 30 teams in payroll doesn’t do a lot to excite the fans.
But winning 86 games does.
They won 5 games fewer than the Yankees with a payroll that’s $150 MM less.
Well we are already out of the 30th spot for 2018 so.
Great, and the off season is not over, looking at current payrolls means nothing for 2018, team’s payroll will change a lot from now until opening day. it won’t go up much in Milwaukee since no one wants to play there, nor will they be able to convince any player of value to play there.
But yet, no good free agents want to play there, wonder why? good luck with Gallardo.
So an 87 win team with all the young talent isn’t a decent destination? Not to mention in baseball if you’re a decent team and pay the guy the most money they will come. I’m pretty sure TB won’t jump the brewers once they continue their fire sale either.
Gallardo had a 1.6 ERA as a reliever last year. Might be able to show value in the pen.
You really don’t seem to understand free agency. Did you ever stop to think that if the brewers wanted to pay the 5yr/150M to get arietta they could AND he would sign that. There’s a difference between guys not wanting to play somewhere and not wanting to overpay a guy to play for you. Just ask big market teams like Boston and NY how the Price/A-Rod type signings went.
This signing almost guarantees Yo in the bullpen. Even without Nelson they will have Anderson, Davies, Guerra, Woodruff, Sutter, and now Chacin. Yo will start in the pen and spot start in injury situations.
didn’t he only pitch in 6 games of relief?
Small market team in Wisconsin. Or, huge market team in CA, FL, or NY. Which would you pick as a FA?
It depends what you are looking for as a free agent. small market millions spends just as well as large marker millions
#1 out of 30 doesn’t either.
Kershaw going nowhere. First off CK is NOT a free agent he can Opt out of his contract but he not a FA. Next the LAD will never let him go.
Next Milw will never get Harper or Macho they are too small a market to afford over a 1/4 Billion dollar signing.
Not hating but Keep it real
I agree and I am thrilled they won’t go after guys like that. Seeing a 10yr/300M contract that Harper will most likely get is crazy. He will be with it most of that contract but come 32-35 paying him 30M a season will be laughable
You’re preaching to the choir. As an Indians fan I’m getting the feeling that the Tribe’s winter budget is zero. So far CLE has picked up Michael Brantley’s option which doesn’t count as an acquisition, watched Santana sign elsewhere, watched Jay Bruce sail off into free agency, and made a handful of minor league moves. CLE didn’t even pick up anyone in the Rule V draft. Granted, they may be laying in the weeds waiting for prices to drop, but what if prices don’t drop?
There’s a lot more than those three becoming FAs next off-season. That’s why teams are waiting for FA prices to drop this year, to have enough to get one or two difference makers next year.
Chacin has always pitched better at home than on the road, regardless of where his home park was. As a Rockie, he was better in Coors than on the road. Not many guys can say that.
My guess is it’s as simple as sleeping better in his own bed and the travel wearing on him.. He’ll welcome it playing in a place where the trips are a lot shorter.
It’s almost like they’re human beings
Chacin’s road record was inflated by three road disasters.
His first start (Opening Day) he pitched 3-1/3 innings and gave up 9 runs. His fifth start he went 6 innings and gave up 7 earned runs. His tenth start, the worst of his career, he got two out and gave up 7 runs. That’s 23 earned runs in ten innings!
Take those innings and earned runs from his 13-10, 180-1/3 innings, 3.89 ERA, and he went 13-7 in 170-1/3 inning over 29 starts with an ERA of 2.91.
2yr/16M is completely fine if he can give us 30 starts, a 3.90 ERA and eat 175 innings.
Solid bottom of the rotation arm. Eat innings.
How bad is it that Davies and Hader both came from the Orioles in consecutive years. They’d be great upgraded to Baltimore right now. :(
The real question should be where is wade miley going to sign?
Still waiting for the daily update on MLBTR: Latest on Wade Miley
My bet is he’ll be back with the O’s. Ugh.
I think the Brewers are making some solid moves. Bringing back Gallardo and now signing
Chacin, shows they’re committed to compete in 2018. They’re also not depleting their farm to get better or burdening themselves by signing a guy like Arrieta to an albatross contract.
While Chacin and especially Gallardo, aren’t going to light the world on fire, they’re decent depth options for a pitching hungry team.
you think signing Gallardo and chacin show a commitment to compete??
yikes.
Yes it does. Every team needs a pitcher like Chacin, a durable innings eater who gives your team a chance to compete. Gallardo is depth and you can never have enough pitching. They easily could’ve stood pat but didn’t.
What makes it tough for some teams is their park handicaps them signing some players. whether it’s a pitchers or hitters park. Add to that, most free agents are over payed make it difficult for small markets and lower division teams when it comes to the best players.
All Brewers fans need to know is one name. David “deal maker” Stearns. Look at how many teams he has robbed since becoming the GM. He is a major reason the Astros won the WS this year.
We prefer to call him ‘Slingin’ Stearns’
That one works as well.
I think one of the keys is it’s a two-year deal. There’s a number of key players (Shaw, Santana, Nelson, Knebel) that will be hitting their second or third arbitration years in 2020.
There may be some pitchers that would be marginally better for the next two years, but when they’re asking for four years or more at twice the cost of Chacin, this seems like a good deal.
I would have to agree. Hopefully we have some of those pitching prospects ready from the system in two years also. All things considered 2yr/15M is a solid deal for a guy who will eat innings, win 10+ games and pitch to a 4.00 ERA or slightly lower.
Not sold on Stearns being a superstar and this doesn’t help.
What seriously? Have you looked at how quickly the Brewers have become competitive? Have you looked at recent farm system rankings? What are you expecting?
Solid innings guy. Ground ball pitcher in a homer friendly park. Hmm why don’t people like this deal? At the very worst it doesn’t have the third year of suppan wolf and graza and it’s for so much less money and, let’s say, excitement!? Ok
The Mets should of signed this guy
The guy had a career high number of starts, a career low WHIP, gave up 24 fewer hits than innings pitched (a rarity for Brewer free agent pitchers..in the past the lower-middle budget free agents have been lopsided in the other direction) and cost only $2 million more than Anthony Swarzak, who had only one successful major league season, recently signed for…what’s not to like?