The Atlanta Braves announced the signing of southpaw Drew Smyly to a one-year, $11MM deal, per a team release (via Twitter). Smyly is represented by Frontline Athlete Management.
The 31-year-old Smyly has appeared in the Majors for the Tigers, Rays, Rangers, Phillies, and Giants, accumulating a 4.13 ERA/4.15 FIP across 188 games (111 starts) totaling 710 2/3 innings over seven years.
He also spent 2018 rehabbing from Tommy John surgery in the Chicago Cubs organization. The Cubs had signed Smyly to a two-year deal as he recovered, which kicked off a convoluted set of trades between the Cubs and Rangers. First, the Cubs acquired Cole Hamels from the Rangers in July of 2018. As part of that deal, the Rangers agreed to pay Hamels’ $6MM buyout if the Cubs chose not to pick up his $20MM option in 2019. Rather than pay the buyout, the Rangers took Smyly and his $7MM contract off the Cubs’ hands so that Chicago could afford Hamels’ option – which they did indeed execute.
Smyly, unfortunately, didn’t last the year in Texas. The Rangers released Smyly on June 25th after he stumbled to a 8.42 ERA in 51 1/3 innings. He would sign with the Phillies to finish 2019.
Smyly and Hamels again cross paths here, with Smyly presumably taking Hamels’ place in Atlanta after a year in which Hamels missed all but one start due to injury. If Hamels somehow ends up signing with the Giants (not inconceivable), their double-helical careers can continue to intertwine.
Smyly, meanwhile, looks like he might have finally returned to his early-career form – or better. The 31-year-old posted a 3.45 ERA across 26 1/3 innings in 2020 with 14.4 K/9 and 3.1 BB/9. He finished in the 89th percentile for Whiff% and 97th percentile for K%, per Statcast. His four-seamer also exhibited some out-of-character giddy-up, averaging 93.6 mph, a 2.5 mph jump from the year prior. As small a sample as that may be, it was enough for Smyly to parlay his one-year, $4MM deal with the Giants into a contract more than double in value with the Braves.
Smyly comes with a fair amount of injury risk, but the Braves know how to handle some injury uncertainty. They are coming off a season in which they experienced near total rotation turnover (while still managing to come within a game of winning the pennant). If Smyly can perform anywhere near his 2020 level – when he limited opposing hitters to a .198/.261/.297 line – the Braves will happily cash in on that upside. They do intend to place him into the rotation, per the Athletic’s David O’Brien (via Twitter).
The concern, beyond injury, is that Smyly might turn back into the pumpkin that logged a 6.24 ERA between the Rangers and Phillies in 2019. If you consider his time with the Rangers an aberration due to his recent recovery from Tommy John, however, Smyly’s combined ERA between the Phillies and Giants is a much more palatable 4.15 ERA over 89 innings. The Braves would take that kind of production in a rotation alongside Max Fried, Mike Soroka, Ian Anderson, and Kyle Wright.
So Braves won’t pay O’Day $3M, but will give Smyly $11M? What a joke!
I’m pretty sure the intention will be to have him as a starter
The point was the amount, not the position.
Well you’re comparing apples to oranges.
I don’t disagree the Braves are a joke for paying Smyly this much but your example still isn’t the best comparison.
That was my point.
Even so, MJ’s reply was valid because starters usually get paid more than relievers, making your comparison useless.
Seems you need everything spelled out.
If Braves are going to decline $3M for O’Day who has been a stellar reliever throughout his career, you would think they are in extreme cost cutting mode (presumably as are most clubs due to the shortened 2020 season). And yet, here they are spending an exorbitant $11M on Smyly.
8MM would not have gotten Smyly to sign. Hence the need for the extra three.
Is smyly to oday really apples to oranges? Maybe comparing smyly to a hitter is apples to oranges but smyly has been used as a long reliever and if the braves entire rotation is healthy he will probably be just that for braves. This is far from an “apples to oranges” analogy
Please explain your definition of stellar.
The amount is partly dependent on the position. A starter will always make more than a reliever.
Starters these days are the long-relief pitchers of yesteryear. Five innings and 100 pitches. Teams continue to pay more and more for fewer and fewer innings
Good luck keeping him healthy for a full year…something he’s done only once since 2014
$11M? Is that a misprint? He was predicted for one year and $5M
Predicted by MLBTR, who predicted 1/14 for Semien.
Biggest payday of his life, by a significant amount. Early in the cycle. Seems like there must be a missing piece of data here.
There will be those cases where MLBTR varies from your personal assessment, over or under. I’m not as high as some about Semien as others either, but I don’t necessarily judge them for having a different point of view. As they say, YMMV.
My only point is that whether or not you would pay him more, he’s gonna get a ton more than that. Just because someone pays more than the MLBTR prediction doesn’t make it a bad deal.
O’Day wasn’t willing to become a southpaw at this stage in his career.
Wow ….
26 IP gets you 11M
Thought the owners had $$$$
Problems????
Yep, sure seems like a lot of money for a guy like this!
Looking at his injury history should tell you that $11M is a lot to gamble…
To be fair, Atlanta is different than all other clubs bc they’re owned by a publicly traded company. So they’re spending what’s available to them from revenue generated by the team.
Well smyly had a good year… when he played. Plus he’s a starter
Right, comparing o’day and smyly isn’t not fair. Right vs lefty, former power vs soft throwing side arm, age difference, starter vs pen… it doesn’t make sense. Plus I think o’day will ultimately sign for less than 3 mil and I think it will be with the Braves (unless I missed news that he signed elsewhere already). That said, I do agree 11 mil is a far overpay but it’s just a 1 year deal and he has been good enough in the past to justify this. So I get your frustration, but it’s not that big of a deal. It will be if spending too much on smyly prevents us from spending elsewhere…
How bout comparing Smyly to Robbie Ray?
It’s probably because they feel they can get Darren O’Day (or his production) for cheaper than 3M this winter.
O’Day sucks.
Sure, Smyly does too, but that’s irrelevant when ones a RP and ones a SP.
O’Day has only pitcher 41 inning total in the last 3 year and is 37 years old. He has been less available to pitch the last couple years than Smiley. Even $3 million is an over pay at this stage of O’Day’s career.
Smiley has thrown 140 innings over the last 2 years which is actually only 1 1/3 seasons, but like everyone has said already…..staters earn more and usually throw way more innings. $11 million is still an over pay!
@vtncsc
I really don’t understand why people like you comment on such matters when you’re so ill informed.
“O’Day sucks” you assert.
Is that the same Darren O”Day that has a career ERA of 2.51 over 13 years, a 1.02 whip, a 9.4 K9 – with the Braves it was 12.1K9. O’Day had an ERA of 1.10 with the Braves in 2020 and gave up 2 runs in 16.1 IP.(one of which was a HR) plus he stranded 7 of 10 runners he inherited.
Your assertion that O’Day sucks aptly demonstrates that you are clueless but you’re entitled to your flawed opinion that cannot be supported by any facts or statistics.
Have a nice day.
Crazy
I hope this is a joke. 11 million for Smyly??? He’s never even pulled in close to that before! SMH
This is a stupid move, they should have put more with it and signed Bauer then sign ozuna back or trade for Bryant that makes them a WS contender (if not a favorite)
First big signing of the of the year
If Smyly gets 11 mil then Morton will get 15 mil
It’s crazy how Rays didn’t take the option of Morton. Charlie Morton is a great pitcher. I really like the Rays, but it was a mistake by them. The Phillies should sign him.
Pretty furious the Braves didn’t even wait to see how the Morton situation played out.
There’s 0 excuse to sign Drew Smyly before Thanksgiving
True.
I don’t think signing Smyly precludes them from going after Morton (especially given his stated regional preference) unless I’m badly misreading their financial situation.
Smyly is more of a lottery ticket type signing, albeit kind of a pricey one.
I’m baffled by ATL’s financial outlook on 2021. Honestly. But I do know that AA doesn’t make a purchase like this unless it allows him to save in another area. How? Stay tuned.
Absolutely agree that signing Smyly doesn’t mean that it is suddenly impossible the braves also pursue Morton, ESPECIALLY after the injuries the Braves staff experienced in 2020.
Most definitely
morton didn’t have as good of numbers as smyly
Morton’s postseason numbers looked pretty good to me
In b4 small sample size. So are everyone’s 2020 season numbers relatively speaking
Smyly hasn’t been healthy his entire career…
Is there something I missed, how is this guy worth 11M?
good value imo, but doesnt scream of teams crying poor
“Crying poor” is defined as; to complain about being poor.
I’ve yet to see a team or owner do this.
Have they said revenue was down due to Covid? Yes!
Which is entirely reasonable & seems to simply be a matter of common sense. No fans + less games = lost income. Prettttttty straightforward stuff, bro.
I know you are probably just using hyperbole? But I’m so sick of seeing this saying. Especially because it is inaccurate.
Ya know?
I realize, “man, it sucks that teams made less money this year. That sure is having an effect on payroll & players” is not all that warm of a take. That being said, it’s also the case.
So.
i have no criticism for teams mentioning that they might want to spend less. really my issue is people that find it to be a big issue. players will get paid. no high quality talent is going unsigned unless they price themselves out of the market. (which is on them) my issue is people prematurely getting angry at a lack of spending that hasnt even happened yet and may not at all.
Fair enough, @darkside.
Valid point is valid.
The whole “crying poor” thing just sorta rankles me. I figured that since you tend towards reasonable & are one of the BlogFathers around here that I’d raise this with you directly.
To what end, I’m not exactly sure, man lol.
Except that owners have clearly and unequivocally cried poor as a reason for spending less, you might have a good point. Steinbrenner, for example, has come out and said that, specifically due to 2020 losses, he will seek to duck the luxury tax this year. He distinctly cried being poor as a reason for doing so already.
Whether or not owners are justified or to what extent they are/aren’t being honest about losses is a separate issue which is totally unanswerable due to the closed books. The point is that they definitively HAVE CRIED POOR, which is what you are trying to deny.
In an effort to be helpful, I posted the definition of that phrase above.
Must’ve been a waste of my time.
You’re using Hal Steinbrenner’s apparent consideration as an example of “crying poor”. Worthless example. He’s not. Far from it, actually.
He’s pointing out that *his* business suffered revenue losses. Which…I mean, c’mon man. Like I said on a different thread a monkey with an abacus could figure that out.
I get it, man.
It’s pretty much your schtick…storm the owner’s castles, down with capitalism, fight the power brother, etc, etc.
I guess it’s good as a HOTTAKE!, or whatever?
Does absolutely nothing towards a productive & accurate dialogue, however.
Also doesn’t back the whole mantra of players whining incessantly about not getting paid and possible collusion nonsense.
To be fair, I haven’t heard that either.
I hope *both* sides wake the heck up. Baseball is fading in popularity. I know it’s merely anecdotal but, my son & his friends could care less about baseball. And, these are jocks that all play 2 or 3 sports, man.
This doesn’t (like so many things, man) need to be such a polarizing issue. I think it’s ok to recognize that the owners did – indeed – lose a *lot* of revenue. I can also see players wanting to get paid commensurate to their abilities & realizing that may not happen this year.
Those can both be true.
Ducky, I have said for a while that baseball is the worst marketed sport, and what you said is yet another example. People my age don’t like baseball because of 1.) How hard it is to find, and 2.) They don’t market the players.
I saw a commercial for Thursday Night Football and it said “Russel Wilson and the Seahawks take on Kyler Murray and the Cardinals!” as the commercial went on they showed highlights of each player they named with good music behind it, and it was great. I’ll probably watch that game too.
Baseball on the other hand has commercials like this: “Wake up Saturday morning for the Brewers vs Cubs.”. No player marketing or anything, just team v team. If I saw an MLB commercial that said “Joey Gallo and the Rangers take on Bregman and the Stros’ as the fight for the Silver Boot continues Saturday Night!” I’d love to watch that game because it sounds exciting.
Baseball is a great sport, but it’s like putting excellent bubble gum in a black and white rapper that said GUM in big block letters. I’d be more inclined to buy another brand that had better marketing rather than GUM.
I believe the problem is entirely created by the disconnect and distrust created by the closed books. Players have always been skeptical of owners claims of profits and losses. That problem has just migrated into the covid timespace.
As for the lack of interest in baseball, I believe a large part of that is 3-4 hour duration of the game. People will play a computer/gaming console game for 3-4 hours because they are actively engaged. Because they are actively engaged. It’s like a movie. They will gladly passively watch a movie for 2 hours. But 3 hours is basically unbearable. Duration for a passive activity is the issue. IMHO.
To be fair Mo, I don’t think teenagers really care about the owners of a sport opening their books for all to see. That is a problem, but I was referring to what Ducky said above about his son not liking baseball. I’m close to the age of his son, so I added insight on that front.
The idea of “duration of game” misses the point. People will binge-watch documentary series and movies that aren’t exactly “action-packed” (i.e. The Hobbit).
Not everything is going to appeal to everyone. And baseball insisting on catering to a group of people who don’t want to watch and won’t watch is only hurting the game and driving away fans who WILL watch.
I’m not a traditionalist, and I think some changes are good and necessary. But the idea of rushing the game along to cater to an invisible crowd is odd.
Baseball needs to understand their market, work on marketing what they have better, and just play the games.
Yeah, Ranger29, I was responding to two different points and didn’t make it clear:
1) The divide in money complaints of the owners and players, which I am saying is due to the lack trust created by closed books.
2) The loss in public interest, which I’m saying is influenced by the duration of the game.
“But the idea of rushing the game along to cater to an invisible crowd is odd.”
Except that these people make up the majority people at the stadium you might have a point. People who go to one, two, three games a year. People who eat in the restaurant during the game. People who can’t be bothered watching the game on TV. People who sit on the edge of their seats from pitch to pitch do not fill the stadiums. Casual fans do. Corporate “fans” out for a free, comped night of entertainment do. And the game is simply not compelling enough to get them to watch even just one or a few games on TV each season. And this same problem effects the development of new casual fans. Hardcore fans need to tune into the needs of casual fans because the future of the sport depends on them. Today’s casual fans are partly where tomorrow’s hardcore fans come from.
The problem is that every solution creates another problem that people whine about.
If the game moves too fast, then there’s not enough offense… after all, no one enjoys a 1-0 game. WE WANT HOME RUNS!
Too many home runs and too much offense, the game goes really long.
Shorten the commercial breaks, and the TV networks can’t afford to put the games on television.
No money from TV networks means that more teams have less money, and it makes the game more unwatchable.
Aside from some things they’ve tried and failed at (i.e. batters box rule, pitch clock ideas, etc.), there’s just not a way to turn baseball into a 2-hour affair without artificially creating a new game entirely.
And for what it’s worth, there’s zero guarantee that any of these changes will suddenly attract hordes of new fans. If anything, it pushes away the existing fans baseball already has, and now they are at a greater deficit than they were when they tried to solve the problem of a dwindling fanbase.
Rangers 29.
What’s up, man?
I think you are definitely on to something, & I appreciate the take. When pressed, my son says, “because it’s boring”.
But I think you raise a really valid point. You bring up a possible solution, too. That’s tight.
My son & his friends are much more fans of players than they are fans of teams. They all had no problem jumping off the Warriors bandwagon. They just turned their allegiances to players that they like.
The NFL & NBA have done a great job marketing their *players*. MLB not so much. I mean…I’d struggle to pick Mike Trout out a lineup! Now I know Trout is a pretty reserved guy & doesn’t seem to care a whole lot about his “legacy” or game, or whatever. But that’s not right.
My son is a Seahawks fan, btw.
“I believe the problem is entirely created by the disconnect and distrust created by the closed books.”
Well, we know one person who doesn’t have teenage kids around the house lol.
Trust me on this, Mo. That is not even in the list of; Top 50 Reasons Kids Don’t Like Baseball Anymore.
It matters (a great deal) to *you*. A high schooler? Bro…
Ducky,
“I believe the problem is entirely created by the disconnect and distrust created by the closed books.”
I guess you missed my above clarification on this point as it also created confusion with another commenter. This point made in the quote above was NOT about what’s happening to the fanbase, such as your son. I realize most fans, especially casual ones, could care less about the economics of the sport. My point about the fanbase was in the second paragraph.
With that point, which you quoted above, I was responding in my first paragraph to posts made by you and another commenter which raise the issue/debate about owner’s complaining about revenues and players complaining about incomes. To that I said:
“I believe the problem is entirely created by the disconnect and distrust created by the closed books.”
I stand by that. And, bro, an insult is hardly appropriate.
“It matters (a great deal) to *you*”
You were responding to my remark about the divide between owners on lost revenues and players on lost income. I suggested the problem was exacerbated by closed books, which creates distrust. You tried to snidely suggest in the above quote that this was my personal concern. Well, you have commented 10 times about your support for owners in these comment threads for every 1 remark I have made on the subject in general. So I would say it matters (a great deal more) to *you*. If we’re being honest.
If you categorize that as an insult, there certainly is a *lot* of “disconnect” in play. I went out of my way to soften that take.
I mean, originally, the words “that is easily the stupidest thing I’ve heard today” sprang to mind. But see, now *that* would have been an insult, bro.
I guess the “confusion” stemmed from us – ya know – reading what you typed?
So.
Look. You can walk it back all you want. Whatever. You do you. But expecting that all of us are going to suddenly forget how to read is probably unrealistic, uh?
There were two paragraphs in my original comment. One was clearly about owners and players and money. It even says: “Players have always been skeptical of owners claims of profits and losses.” That paragraph says NOTHING about fans. NOTHING. YOU interjected fans (your teenage son) into that paragraph.
The second paragraph talks about fans and the duration of the game. This is the one where comments about your son’s interest might actually relate.
I’m not walking what I said back, as you snidely (again) suggest. I’m clarifying what was already said. And you can’t even take that graciously. Just another, bigger insult. A real mensch.
^ ^ ^
kicks rocks / continues to post long winded “explanations” / feels insulted
Says the man-child who can’t accept a simple explanation without yet one more insult.
/ continues kicking rocks /
/ pauses to shake fist /
/ mutters, “ooooh, that dang Ducky” /
/ mutters “I’m really *not* a sensitive Sally, damnit” /
/ kicks rocks further /
More childish insults. And now insulting girls, too. Thinking he’s clever. Teenager clever. Still having trouble with slashes and asterisks as punctuation, spacing and paragraphs.
Lol
Now see I’d think calling someone a “man-child” would actually quality as a “childish” insult. Not to mention the weird jab over grammar. That was pretty lame. Gotta admit it, man.
I see that the irony is lost on you, however. 🙂
Anyway, good hunting, bro.
Just let it go, Jesus Christ. I haven’t looked at this thread in hours, but apparently y’all have. Miscommunication has caused 4 hours of arguing lol.
Man-child is an insult. You insult me enough I will dish it back. Yeah and the punctuation and formatting was a jab back at the flurry of jabs you were sending my way.
Fact is, I provided a very good, clear, concise explanation in three short paragraphs. You could easily have said, “oh, I see your point.” You went out of your way to choose not to see the obvious point while proceeding to insult me for even trying to communicate.
You know, I do generally appreciate your comments here on MLBTR and have felt some camaraderie on the NYY thing. But I have noticed you can dip into insulting people over very little, as you did here. And that’s unfortunate, because, as I said, mostly you’re a very worthwhile contributor, a positive force.
Anyway, I’ll put it behind me. Hope you can do the same. For the greater good!
Well…I mean, it’s not like that’s all I was doing, or whatever. & as you can probably tell from my responses my heart wasn’t really in it after awhile.
But.
Yeah, man. You’re right, man. I didn’t need to continue. I’ll admit it.
So I’m a single parent. My son’s mother hasn’t been in his life very much since before he was a year old.
As such, I’ve talked to him about all kinds of things. Ya know?
Definitely a lot of trivial kinda stuff; “when will you be done with practice?”, or “how are you guys getting home?”. Things like that.
But sometimes, man, we’ll talk about Big Stuff. Earlier this year he was struggling with all the things he couldn’t do. His tennis season was cancelled. There would be no football camps this summer. Or pickup hoops. He missed going to school. Hell, I’ve been straight bribing him for years to stay in chess club & he was lamenting the absence of *that* lol.
A lot of what it came down to was he was missing that outside validation. Ya know? We talked a lot about establishing your own self worth from within.
Cool stuff. & not the easiest thing to do.
What I’m getting at is this. You have carte blanche to insult me whenever, bro. You can call me a man-child, man-boy, man-goat, man-giraffe…pfffft. Go bananas. For real.
I’m not sure if you remember RAB or not. But that was the first place I ever engaged in any kind of social media, or whatever. That was a huge crew of savvy, insightful, sharp witted, sharp tongued, New Effin Yorkers.
I guess I sorta take my “style” from there. It’s probably not for everyone. But you’ll notice that I never resort to out & out name calling.
& I put it behind me hours ago, bro.
Peace.
&, of course, good hunting.
Somewhat surprised he moved quickly to a 1-year deal, but apparently they weren’t getting positive signals from the Giants yet on a 2 or 3-year deal. It does force Zaidi to move onward now to other targets.
Apparently Giants are pursuing Jake Odorizzi instead of retaining Smyly, seems like Farhan wants to go for another Gausman type bounce back candidate.
Good point; we’ll see how much it will cost Zaidi, and whether they are willing to outbid his other suitors.
I don’t know about starters, but I like my eggs Odorizzi.
crickets
Well I am officially not going to go 50 for 50 on the free agent predictions.
You can still edit…
Solid pitcher when healthy, unfortunately he couldn’t stay healthy with the Giants last season when they needed him most.
He hasn’t been able to stay healthy his entire career. Huge red flags that the Braves seemed to ignore…
When you have as much good young SP as the Braves, 11M on a 1-year-deal isn’t that much of gamble.
The Braves are getting insane surplus value from, Soroka, Fried, Anderson Wilson, Wright, Smyly’s money is inconsequential, really
There’s a very decent chance the Braves really wanted to get the potential and just overpaid to force Smyly’s hand. When you’re only 87M in guaranteed contracts + arbitration estimates, you can afford to do that.
I thought it said $1 mil at first, had to do a double take. Seems like quite a bit for a guy that’s oft injured in recent years
$11 million? Huh?
I had Giants… now I have Braves…
Huge overpay by the Braves.
I thought it said $1 million and thought that’s a bargain. $11mil is an overpay regardless if Braves are desperate or not. Stroman isn’t even worth $18mil, and apparently Morton isn’t worth $15 mil.
Maybe it’s a typo? I hope?!?!?
It’s official. The economic market in baseball is an absolute mystery to everyone after this. This guy was almost out of baseball and the Braves just handed him 11 million for a completely unknown reason.
almost out of baseball? i think that’s a reach.
Ummmm….reach? Based on what? The guy has been trash since 2015 and his ERA has been over the 5 mark since then. The 26 innings of baseball he pitched this year has been the only success the guy has seen in 5 years. What about his numbers exactly tells you that this guy deserves to be anywhere near an MLB mound? Forget about the 11 million for a second, this guy shouldnt even be on an MLB mound based on his cumulative numbers over the course of FIVE YEARS. 11 million is just insult to stupidity,
prior to being injured he really wasnt that bad and he only was able to retake the mound last year. by the end of the year he was looking fairly good again. if Venters wasnt out of baseball after years away, how was Smyly (who was picked up by four new teams between 2018 and 2019, so you know there was interest in taking a shot on him) even close?
I thought he was guaranteed to stay in SF ????????
You’re right, that seemed to be the conventional wisdom, but he went with a team that’s much more likely to be in the postseason next year, and got a decent sum as well.
conventional wisdom based on what?
That was probably true until the Braves gave him an insane amount of money
jimthegoat:
“I thought he was guaranteed to stay in SF ????????”
“@mrnatewalter said that Smyly would almost certainly be back…
How do you equate “almost certain” with guaranteed”?”
“He’s probably going to extend/re-sign” was y’all’s excuse for not trading him. Well he didn’t.
Repeat after me: non-contender must always trade all their rentals.
Nice dodge from the point.
this was the same thing with Gausman. a guy says they like the place and suddenly the fans cant see them leaving. JT hinted at preferring to stay in Philly over NY, does that mean he’s a lock to stick around?
No one remotely suggested that Smyly or Gausman were “guaranteed” or “locks” to re-sign with the Giants.
I even went back and looked at those articles. No one said it was a given. But based on the comments they made, it stood to reason that they want to be back.
Obviously, the Braves gave them a lot more money than the Giants were going to.
Jim is being ridiculous and has some bizarre vendetta with Giants fans and with one Giants fan in particular. It’s becoming pathetic.
That is a surprising number, especially considering the loss of revenue and such. Signings like these will only fuel MLBPA’s distrust of the team’s financial picture.
Now the Robbie Ray signing doesn’t look so bad now hey?
Give it Anthopolous—he definitely has a type.
His off-season starts with “show me a list of players in their 30’s that are hoping to capitalize on a bounce-back year.”
It’s been a viable strategy for him, though.
AA moves fast early in the offseason once again.
Talk about resurrecting a career. He went from a flyer with the Rangers, to the Phillies, to the Giants, managed to build value with the Giants in a short season, and then signed for 11 mil. Good for him.
Too much too quickly. A few $$ more and maybe get Morton!
A few more dollars and they may not be able to afford a clean up hitter, we don’t know. The #4 hitter is the biggest need. I’d sooner have Smyly & Ozuna than Morton & Riley hitting 4th. Let’s judge it in it’s totality.
If they get Ozuna then you’ll have a point. Otherwise they’ve just overpaid for a sketchy pitcher when they could have had a much better pitcher for a $2-$5 million more (Morton).
That’s fair. If they don’t add a legitimate #4 hitter by off-season’s end I’m going to be crushing AA for this deal alongside a lot of other Braves fan. I just think it’s too early to be climbing the ledge.
Makes sense.
Another thing I wanted to add was this: Smyly had HUGE jumps in everything strikeouts in 2020. With that being said, and how iffy he has been as a starter in the past, I think it would be a terrific closer for a team, but he won’t be in Atlanta.
The Cubs once paid Smyly 6M to not pitch for them while he was rehabbing, then traded him as he was getting ready to pitch. Ahh, those were the days – when the Cubs had money to spend..
Braves love them some one year make-good deals. So far they’ve had a pretty good record too, but that’s bound to regress to the mean. Only so many Marcell Ozunas out there.
Hole Camels says hi
Dude has thrown a combined 136 innings since 2016. This seems like a dramatic overpay to me. No way he’s a 30+ start guy this year even if he is effective.
That’s $4m more than the highest amount he’s ever made in his career.
so? he’s also thown all 140.1 (you didnt even get the number right) in the past few years, despite not even being on a 40 man roster all of 2019 and 2020 being shortened. i get he has durability issues, but the 0 games in two years really skews those numbers a bit.
I don’t get this he only made 4 million last year and was hurt ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Does the free agent contest drop today?
Lol never mind just had to scroll down a few more posts 😉
Head scratching signing for sure.
Wow. Seems like a huge overpay. Smyly is a #4 or #5 starter. As a braves fan in just in a loss for words at the moment. They weren’t going to give oday 3 million? Who was a reliever that had a sub 2 ERA and about a 12k per 9 strikeout ratio but can afford to give Drew Smyly 11 million? Hope it works out but I’m just confused. Hopefully this isn’t the only starter the braves get. But anyway AA strikes fast again. He knows what he wants and gets it early
I’d actually be fine if they didn’t add any more SP. They only really needed a 4th or 5th starter. Address the four hole now. That should be the priority.
The 11m is steep, but that’s the nature of the beast with single year deals. You overpay a bit to not be locked in long-term. With the young arms coming it’s the correct play for the rotation.
The next move they need to do is trade Ender to the Cubs for Kimbrel. If they have to throw in Touki. Don’t know why King Felix wouldn’t sign a deal around spring training if everything gets back to normal.
*Scott Boras and James Paxton like this post*
Smyly is $11-mil when Robbie Ray is $8-mil.
Although the comments are true; this is an AA overpay. Not his first.
Maybe it’s a 2 year deal with an option?
5 starts makes a journeyman get 11 million? Wonder which signing falls flat on their face first. Gausman or Smyly.
10 starts got Gausman almost twice that with a QO.
They should have never extended Gausman the QO. At the time they made the offer it was basically a foregone conclusion that he would accept it. Huge mistake by the Giants there.
Gausman is a much better pitcher.
He wasn’t for ATL.
This is a bigger mystery than why the Braves took all of Melancon’s contract in that trade.
They only gave up Dan Winkler and prospect Tristan Beck for a proven closer with control. He pitched well while in ATL and if you’re looking for a silver-lining, his 2020 salary was depressed by C19 (if that is one). Their scouts see something in these guys that we don’t, and usually turns out well for ATL.
They doggone well better put out the bucks for Ozuna if they’re throwing 11m around for a ?.
I actually got this one right to bad we got 4 days to edit and everyone will get this right
Disappointing for the Giants but the smart move. Smyly hasn’t thrown over 200 IP in his career ever and when you’re paying a starter over $10M a year he needs to give you innings.
That said, he showed in his bried stint with SF that he can rack up some K’s. Even if the Giants had used him as a 5 IP starter he was worth a 2 year $20M deal. Giants need to start offering more 2 year deals and take on more risk.
Let the record show that I literally JUST picked Smyly to the Braves on my top 50 prediction entry before seeing this. There goes my competitive advantage!
Maybe the Braves are trying to inflate the market here for other teams LOL. 11 million is an insane amount of money for this type of player.
Wow. $11M! I guess Realmuto and Bauer are going to get crazy money after all.
Despite my initial shock and confusion at $11M, the bottom line is, the Braves have another quality starter.
What’s weird about this to me is the money here indicates that they view him as a starter.
I feel like he’d do better in a Drew Pomeranz type conversion to relief and he’d have a better chance of sustaining success. I almost think a lower AAV two-year relief job offer would have been a better long term play, but $11M for a single must have looked like a huge opportunity to cash in.
He pitched well as a starter last year (when healthy).
He also only threw 21 innings last year as a starter. The most in one outing was 5. With his durability concerns, he’s probably not going to be a guy you get 150+ innings out of in a full year.
He had an uptick in velocity and abandoned his change up so now he has a 1-2 punch with the cutter and curveball. The trajectory he is following is typically more of a relief pitcher formula for success rather than a SP (increased velocity, throw a smaller variety of pitches to focus on best offerings). Not saying he won’t have success as a SP, I just think he’d be in a better long term position to succeed as a set-up man.
Definitely a bit high, but generally short term deals are overpays so it’s probably fine. The key here is this money for Smyly better not cost us in signing other players, otherwise this will be a bad deal. Meaning, if you can’t allocate more funds to restock the bullpen or maybe bring back Ozuna because of this contract, then this is a bad deal. I’m happy with this so long as we go out and get another vet to throw in the rotation to compete.
Smyly will disappoint in Atlanta, high altitude, and small park compared to San Fransico Smyly era 5+ in 2021 when on the field..
This team just doesn’t care!
Doesn’t bode well for my squad. If Smyly is $11 million then what will Odorizzi, Tanaka, and the other better options land?
Yikes! $11M for a guy that hasn’t had a good full year since 2014?
Smyly showed a huge change and looked like he was different pitcher completely last season. So I can understand the gamble.
11M seems like an awful lot, though.
Good for Drew Smyly, I guess.
This really doesn’t make sense considering the forecast is so poor due to the owner’s losses.
Fans are insufferable. People can look at this and breathe a sigh of relief that the franchise doesn’t seem completely handicapped financially…or they can throw a tantrum that they spent money on him and not O’Day (who they can still sign). It’s a lose lose.
O’Day and Smyly are unrelated, IMO. I think they just overpaid.
I wouldn’t pay $11m for Smyly in a regular market, much less one that’s saturated with players, marred by revenue loss and shrouded in uncertainty for the upcoming season
The need for a veteran starter is not shrouded in uncertainty in any season. Could they have saved 5-6 mil? It’s very possible. Then again, they could have paid at least 5-6 mil more for one season of Charlie Morton and lessen their chances of resigning Ozuna and/or extending Freddie. They just spent 18 mil on Cole Hamels for a non existent season and people think this is an albatross.
Well, thank God you are not the GM of the Braves, who have won the NL East for 3 straight years. And, where have your Phillies finished?
Maybe the Smiley signing works out, maybe not. But, either way AA has earned the right to make bold moves over the past couple of offseasons. I trust AA and his scouts, but this one made me scratch my head.
To answer your question about where the Phillies have finished, they finished 4th in 2019 with Drew Smyly on their roster. Haha. I don’t blame Smyly at all, and I like the guy, but 11M seems baffling. Surely they could have got him for less.
oh yeah. buncha sharks. nothing is good enough. spend nothing and you are cheap. spend a lot and you’re dumb. cant win.
I’m not the type of person to get shock , but I’m shock how much it is $11 million base salary.. Maybe a goal base would be find he only got $ 4 million last season and seven million the season before .
2 years $11 million would make cents . But it’s not my money, I don’t even have 11 dollars .
$11M would make a lot of cents.
This much is correct.
Lol I take everything as a joke
Massive overpay!
That’s $417,726.81 per inning he pitched last year.
David Robertson: Hold my beer
Cole Hamels: No. Hold my beer.
Corey Kluber: Pathetic
how much is that prorated?
What is their hurry?
This is AA’s MO. Jump on some key guys early to help set the market and have the upper hand in negotiations which could lead to value pick-ups later down the road. No one knows how much AA is working with.
I wouldn’t say/call Smyly a key guy.
You wouldn’t, but you don’t have the full picture, and frankly, like the rest of us, you have no idea what the market is, what their 2021 budget looks like, how they’re planning on utilizing Smyly or how they look to address other needs. Obviously this is a key signing to be so much, so early on. Let’s see how it plays out.
Rather have signed no one and got freemen extended. 11m what an overpay. Morton even for 15 mil would be a better option because of the post season experience.
Or even odorizzi
I think the Braves just wanted a veteran. I would have like to have seen Anibal Sanchez though.
Anibal’s probably finished after the year he had
I would like to see Atlanta send Ender to the Chicago Cubs for Kimbrel.
Two things people are ignoring. No one knows what kind of other offers he had. So if he’s the target for the Braves, and other teams have offered something in the range of $10M, the Braves have to offer more if they want the guy.
The other thing is the shortage of SPs. Other teams might very well have been offering something close to $10M because they know they have to overpay to sign one of the few guys available. Overpaying for a guy is still better than plugging an inferior pitcher in to that hole in the rotation.
I just think they jumped the gun a little fast. We don’t know who they have talked to either. They may have talked to every available pitcher and this was their best option to sign one. I’m not saying the 11 million is bad, maybe he is the only one that would take a 1-year deal.
XXX:
Maybe, but sometimes being cautious winds up losing the guy to another team. There is no doubt in my mind that this is an overpay, but I think a lot of SPs are going to get overpaid given the market.
Smyly’s FB jumped from 90 mph to 93.8 guiding him to a strikeout rate in the 97th percentile and a whiff rate in the 89th percentile. His FiP and xFiP both rated among the best (min: 5 starts or more). His ERA should fall closer to his FiP with a better defense behind him, but they’re taking a chance his strikeout rates are similar. Taking a gamble.
RunDMC:
You make a lot of good points, and yes they’re taking a gamble, but isn’t every FA signage a gamble? And it is only a one year deal, so the gamble is somewhat minimized.
Agreed, also when you take into account I wouldn’t be surprised they came out a higher number to keep it to only 1 year (reports were that Smyly was looking for 3) which would keep it off future books, further minimizing the risk, and possibly in anticipation of a pandemic shortened season that would, by all accounts, take the salary down further, respective to the number of games played. Like another poster said previously, he’s a gamble ATL is in the luxury of taking because their rotation cost pennies on the dollar.
People also forget that the Braves carry a comical amount of surplus value within their young SP core. Max Fried is the only one arbitration eligible on that rotation.
If Fried makes the projected 3.5M that Spotrac gives him in 2020, the Braves will be paying around 17M for 6 SP (Smyly, Fried, Soroka, Anderson, Wilson, Wright).
Signing Drew Smyly for 11M and hoping that 2020 was a legit season is a luxury you get when you have such great, young SP like the Braves.
Excellent points about the Braves surplus of young/inexpensive SP, which gives AA some flexibility.
No one was offering Smyly $10M this early. This is a strange overpay, and I’m a Smyly fan.
VonPurpleHayes:
You have no idea whatsoever what other team, or teams, were offering, or if it was in the $10M range or not. Neither do, I but the $11M overpay makes a lot more sense in that context then the Braves offering $11M in a vacuum does. It also makes sense compared to the $8M Robbie Ray got.
lets not forget these early offseason deals tend to be a bit more in the overpay range, but no one’s jumping on a midpack guy this time in the offseason unless there is serious competition for his services. AA is no idiot – id be willing to guarantee someone else offered $10 or was going to (which isnt out of the realm of reason in my mind if he can stay healthy)
$11M for Smyly is steep even in the best of economic times. I don’t know what AA sees that nobody else does. Smyly has arguably been fool’s gold his entire career which is why he’s bounced around so much. I don’t see how any team can count on this guy for anything other than IL stints.
I doubted the Braves when they signed Josh Donaldson and Marcell Ozuna to one year, higher priced deals and both turned out to be bargins for the production they got out of both of them. I’m not going to be so quick to judge this move.
Like when the Rangers started their string of 3 for 30 deals that everyone doubted until they each became Cy Young caliber guys. Hopefully the same happens with Kyle Gibson too.
Nice pickup but a gross overpay
So uh, can I change my MLBTR FA prediction…
Decent, but, risky pickup for short term help, but definitely an overpay.
Will the braves now be setting the market? This certainly should make better pitchers ask for more, right?
Smyly at 11 million certainly makes Ray at 8 million look better. Oh what I would do to be a left handed pitcher. Teams just love handing out money to these guys.
Ray’s BB/9 are just so bad it really limits his ability to excel by going deeper into games when combined with all the pitches from K’s. I really would love to know have the scout’s notes on Smyly – his K/BB ratio is encouraging though in a limited sample size. Did he visit Driveline?
Is this going to be a pro rated 11 mill?
Because the season will be cut short due to covid 19?
It wouldn’t surprise me to see a bunch of players signing 1-year deals at higher AAV in order to maximize dollars in the event of a shortened season.
you still run the same risk of losing money over the long term though. why would you want to then ink a deal that may provide less AAV over the 1 year then one that might provide more over the term if the other years dont get prorated unless you are already looking for a bounce back deal?
On the bright side, he’ll likely be better than Tommy Milone.
Smyley was up and coming prospect with Tigers that had yet to establish himself when Rays thought enough to give up David Price in his prime for him. (Like when giving up Shmoltz back in the day).
Then injuries, now he’s back. Bold move by Braves but could very well pay off.
11 million?! What in the blue hell?
AA picks up Donaldson in 2019 for $24MM. Crowd chants, “Overpay!” AA fails to resign Donaldson in 2020 for similar AAV. Crowd chants, “Cheapskate!” AA signs Ozuna in 2020 for $18MM. Crowd chants, “Overpay!” If AA doesn’t sign Ozuna in 2021 for a similar AAV, crowd will chant, “Cheapskate!” AA signs Smyley in 2021 for $11MM. Crowd chants, “Overpay!” At this point, wouldn’t it be logical to trust AA, not the crowd?
Nice summary and conclusion, WouldSettle…
They paid 18 million for Hamels. You’re also comparing position players to pitchers.
And the crowd chanted, “Great signing!” I think we can consider that a miss on both sides. 🙂
Not for starting pitching. Doesn’t have a good track record.
I don’t hate the signing but at that cost? Asinine
At this rate, Kluber will get a one year, $20M deal with incentives!
so where did all the “one year deals are never bad” people now?
Kluber will get less guaranteed. The situation is the opposite. Kluber, a few years older, and a lot of mileage coming off injury-plagued seasons (and multiple Cy Youngs) needs to prove himself. Is he healthy? Has he thrown for scouts? Smyly basically auditioned during the 2020 season and looked better than he ever has. His K-rate was better than any pro league he’s ever been in (MiLB included). Is it sustainable? ATL obviously saw something they thought was sustainable (K/BB rate). IF Kluber came back and showed ANY IP anywhere close to that and was throwing off the mound with similar velo pain-free, I’d have no doubt his option would have been picked up by TEX.
One year deals are always better than multi-year deals. The Braves would much prefer to have Smyly at 1/11M than at 2/16M.
You’ll always pay a little more AAV for a 1-year deal, simply for the benefit of not being locked into a deal if the player gets hurt or doesn’t meet expectations.
Could the Braves have gotten Smyly cheaper? Perhaps.
But as I’ve said on here, they are getting insane Surplus value out of the rest of their starting pitching, 11M isn’t even a factor. For their 5 other MLB ready starters, the Braves will probably pay a combined 5-6M, and most of that is tied up in arbitration costs for Max Fried.
Smyly’s potential, and what he was able to do in San Francisco, albeit a small sample size, is intriguing to a lot of teams. If Smyly waited it out, there’s a very real chance he got more money, and likely a multi-year deal. Personally, I think he left money on the table to go to Atlanta.
This is a great deal for Atlanta.
I LOVE the Smyly deal! Great fit! He’s a vet that has been in winning organizations and when healthy has shown the abilities of being a #2 or #3 starter on a good team. If healthy i bet he outplays his 11 million dollar price tag
AA obsession with signing guys from the lowly Giants has gotten out of hand. His is way to buddy buddy with the GM over there. This 11 million is a lot when it could have been saved to use towards resigning Ozuna. Wow I usually support AA but I don’t see it here
I do think signing-wise, it’s little low than what he wanted. But, good signing.