Headlines

Go To Pro Hockey Rumors
Go To Hoops Rumors

Archives for 2020

Optimism Building For 2020 MLB Season

By | at

It’s all but a foregone conclusion that fans won’t be in the seats if and when Major League Baseball holds its 2020 Opening Day. But most agree that some baseball — so long as it can be staged safely and responsibly in the midst of a global pandemic — is better than none.

There were several signs of promise today surrounding the outlook for a 2020 campaign of some kind. That’s not to say there’s a clear plan in place. Far from it, in fact. But it seems avenues are opening.

ESPN.com’s Jeff Passan discussed the situation at length, reporting that “nearly everyone along the decision-making continuum … has grown increasingly optimistic” of staging a season of some kind. That seems like a reasonably important broad-based sentiment, though we’re still quite a few steps away from hope converting into real, live ballgames.

Passan covers a lot of subjects in the piece, which is well worth a read. Just don’t expect any new direction in terms of how it’s all supposed to come together. That hasn’t been narrowed down in the least.

To some extent, the increased options that justify the optimism also make it hard to know what the 2020 season will look like. State and local officials will ultimately have final word on just what is possible. There’s some good news on that front also.

New York governor Andrew Cuomo indicated today that he sees a path to baseball being played in New York City this summer, as the Associated Press reports (via WTOP News). Of course, at the moment there’s no expectation that spectators would be on hand, but seeing games in Queens and the Bronx would nevertheless be an inspiring sight given the brutal toll of the coronavirus in the country’s biggest city.

It’s much the same situation in Chicago, home of another pair of MLB franchises, as Vinnie Duber of NBC Sports Chicago writes. Mayor Lori Lightfoot says that the city has contemplated the return of professional sports. While it’s nowhere near happening, she sounded a generally hopeful tone: “But can I envision a world where baseball might return to Chicago this summer? Yes. Is it likely to be without fans? Probably.”

Even if the logistics are lined up, there’s still the matter of getting the league and players on the same page. The sides drew up and signed a formal agreement, but immediately came to disagree on what it means for player salaries if games are staged without fans. The union says the late-March agreement establishes that players must be paid on a full pro rata basis for any games, regardless whether anybody paid to sit in the stands.

Passan provides some specific language that bears upon the assessment of that subject. Unfortunately, the clauses cited seemingly confirm that there’s some ambiguity in the contract on this point. As we explored recently, it’s bizarre to see a new and unnecessary layer of complication added through this oddly framed document, the interpretation of which could now become a major issue bearing upon the ability to resume play and labor relations more generally.

Posey & Perez(es) Lead 2021-22 Free Agent Catching Market

By | at

It’s an MLBTR tradition to maintain a list of not only the immediately pending group of free agents, but also those next in line. As part of the festivities, a certain number of folks fail to read the headline and prefatory language closely, thus prompting vehement protestations about players wrongly included or excluded.

To forestall that outcome to the extent possible, we just ran through the full 2020-21 free agent class on a position-by-position basis. (Catchers, first basemen, second basemen, shortstops, third basemen, corner outfielders, center fielders, designated hitters, starting pitchers, lefty relievers and righty relievers.) Please explore those lists for the players who’ll be on the open market after the 2020 season.

What follows is a list of certain players — specifically, catchers — who are presently slated to qualify for free agency after the 2021 season. We’ve already run through the amazing group of shortstops in that class. The backstops don’t feature that kind of unbounded earning power. It’s important also to understand that this list is far from exhaustive, in that many catchers set for free agency in 2020-21 will ultimately ink one-year deals that put them back on track to return to the open market post-2021.

This is how the 2021-22 catching market shapes up at this point (season-age for 2022; alphabetical order within category):

Top of the Class

  • Salvador Perez (32): One of the game’s true workhorses behind the dish, Perez missed the 2019 season with Tommy John surgery. But the respite could conceivably enhance his long-term outlook after averaging 138 games annually over the prior six seasons. Perez’s value is a matter of quite some disagreement. Baseball Prospectus catching grades don’t love his work behind the dish and he’s a roughly average hitter whose best attribute (power) may lead some to overrate his abilities on offense. Fangraphs values his total career contribution at an underwhelming 10 WAR. Per Baseball-Reference’s measures, which give far more credence to Perez’s efforts with the glove, it’s a far more robust 22.1 WAR.
  • Buster Posey (35): It’s tough to imagine the Giants will end up exercising a $22MM club option rather than allowing Posey to test the open market with a $3MM buyout on his way out. Posey is a historically important member of the San Francisco organization, but there’s hope his eventual replacement (Joey Bart) is already nearing the majors. More importantly, the decline has been precipitous for the once-great Posey. Long a well-above-average hitter, he drooped in 2018 and fell off a cliff last year, when he posted a .257/.320/.368 slash line. The good news here is that Posey remains a high-quality performer behind the dish. And he may have been unlucky at the plate; Statcast credits him with a .315 xwOBA but he managed only a .298 wOBA. Given the talent level, it’s too soon to rule out a late-career surge.

Other Regulars (based upon 2019 playing time)

  • Roberto Perez (33): If the Indians end up picking up their cheap option over Perez for 2021, he’d be on track to hit free agency in the ensuing winter. If he can keep up last year’s league-average offensive output, the defensive standout might have a run of success as a near-everyday option.
  • Wilson Ramos (34): Another player covered by a club option in 2021, Ramos is a bat-first backstop who seems destined for an eventual return to the American League for the later stage of his career. He graded poorly in the field in 2019, when he carried a big workload for the Mets, but he has historically fared rather well with the glove. Durability remains an ongoing issue as well.

Top Timeshare Candidates

  • Tucker Barnhart (31): The Reds will have to decide between a $7.5MM club option and $500K buyout. Barnhart is a solid performer behind the plate and could function well as a half-time player for some time to come. The switch-hitter has a palatable 90 wRC+ against right-handed pitching.
  • Travis d’Arnaud (33): A strong bounceback 2019 season earned d’Arnaud a two-year deal with the Braves. He isn’t likely to turn into a full everyday receiver, having only once topped four hundred plate appearances in a season.
  • Yan Gomes (34): While he’s a steady hand in the field, Gomes wasn’t able to match his solid 2018 offensive work in the 2019 season. The Nats still liked him well enough as a timeshare guy to offer a two-year pact.
  • Martin Maldonado (35): The bat is never going to be a strength, but Maldonado is a trusted hand. He keeps finding himself in demand at the trade deadline.
  • Manny Pina (34): Pina is a somewhat underappreciated contributor. He performs well with the mask on and doesn’t hurt too much on offense, where he’s a career 90 wRC+ performer.

Three Years Ago, The Padres Got An Elite Reliever For Nothing

By | at

We just passed the three-year anniversary of a transaction that looked inconsequential at the time but has since turned into one of the finest moves of Padres general manager A.J. Preller’s career.

On April 26, 2017, the Padres took a low-risk flier on reliever Kirby Yates via waivers. Yates had been with the Angels, but they and GM Billy Eppler designated him for assignment just a few days earlier. It was actually the second time that month that the Angels designated Yates, though no one took the bait the first time. That was understandable considering he never did much to stand out in the majors to that point, so you can’t really fault the Angels for cutting ties with him in light of that fact

As MLBTR’s Jeff Todd wrote when the Padres claimed the right-hander: “Yates, 30, only made it into one contest for the Halos this year. Over his 98 2/3 total MLB frames since the start of the 2014 season, he owns only a 5.38 ERA.” However, Jeff went on to add, “[Yates] has also generated 10.4 K/9 to go with 3.7 BB/9 in that span and showed career-best fastball velocity (94 mph) in his sole MLB appearance this year.”

And Yates, a 26th-round pick of the Red Sox in 2005, did put up excellent production at the minors’ highest level. Also a former member of the Yankees and Rays in MLB, he caught on with the Padres as the owner of a 2.26 ERA with 12.9 K/9 and 3.5 BB/9 over 135 2/3 innings in Triple-A. Little did the Padres or anyone else know Yates would soon go on to post even better numbers in San Diego.

While Yates did not manage dominant run prevention figures during his first year as a Padre, he was quite serviceable, giving them 55 2/3 frames of 3.72 ERA/3.50 FIP pitching and fanning a jaw-dropping 14.07 batters per nine (compared to 3.07 BB/9). San Diego clearly had a useful hurler on its hands, and he took it up several notches from there.

Last year was especially incredible for Yates, who fired 60 2/3 innings of 1.19 ERA ball en route to his first All-Star nod and totaled 41 saves in 44 attempts. Yates did not win NL Reliever of the Year honors (that award went to the Brewers’ Josh Hader), but maybe he should have. After all, along with amassing the most saves in the game, he paced all relievers in ERA and FIP, and finished second in fWAR (3.4; only Athletics steal Liam Hendriks was better), third in K/BB ratio (7.77), and fifth in strikeouts per nine (14.98).

So how did Yates, now 33, become such a force? As he explained to AJ Cassavell of MLB.com in 2018, the introduction of a splitter to his repertoire was the turning point.

“The Angels didn’t want me to get away from the slider,” Yates told Cassavell. “I wasn’t necessarily going to get away from the slider, but I was trying to add a third pitch. When I got here, it was, ’We like your split, we want you to throw it more.'”

Yates leaned on the pitch better than 36 percent of the time in ’18 and upward of 41 percent last year. Hitters could only muster a pitiful .182 weighted on-base average/.203 expected wOBA against it in 2019, per Statcast. According to FanGraphs, it has been the most effective pitch of its kind among all relievers since Yates began throwing it. It goes to show that any player, even a scrapheap pickup in his early 30s, might just be one adjustment from stardom.

For Preller, Yates was his second relief addition via waivers to evolve into an all-world bullpen piece. One April earlier, he grabbed Brad Hand from the Marlins (more on that here), and the Padres sold high on him when they sent him to the Indians in 2018. Perhaps Yates will meet a similar fate, or maybe he has already thrown his last pitch as a Padre. He’s scheduled to become a free agent next winter, though the two sides have discussed an extension. No matter where Yates pitches going forward, there’s no doubt he has provided worlds of value to the Padres and put himself in line to cash in on a multiyear contract. Who could have expected that to happen when they scooped him up three years ago?

Photo courtesy of USA Today Sports Images.

What Might A Max Scherzer Extension Look Like?

By | at

The last time he tried to sort out a new contract with his existing team, things didn’t exactly work out as hoped. But that doesn’t mean it isn’t worth it for the Nationals to try … after all, Max Scherzer was once open to doing a contract with the Tigers. And when he addressed the topic this spring, Scherzer expressed some degree of openness … though he also indicated he has no interest in pushing the topic himself with two seasons remaining on his old free agent pact.

[MLBTR on YouTube: What If Max Scherzer Stayed A Tiger?]

It’s worth wondering whether a deal might actually make sense for both Scherzer and the Nationals. Committing in advance to a pitcher is always cause for some trepidation, all the more so at the prices and ages at issue here. But … well, let’s just say I won’t be the one to ask the famously intense hurler whether he’s still up to the rigors of the sport.

Scherzer has mostly been an exceptionally durable pitcher, though his decade-long string of 30+ starts finally ended in 2019. He ran into some ailments in the postseason and experienced minor health issues this spring. There’s not much cause for worry, but it’s still a reminder of baseball mortality. Many great players have run into late-career roadblocks relatively suddenly.

Let’s be honest, though: Scherzer is still one of the very best in the business. While he missed five starts last season, he still provided 172 1/3 innings of 2.92 ERA ball. And he turned in a league-leading, career-low 2.45 FIP by generating 12.7 K/9 against 1.7 BB/9. His 2.88 xFIP matches his lowest mark since coming to D.C. Scherzer posted a career-best 16.3% swinging-strike rate while maintaining a 95.2 mph average four-seamer — tied for a personal high.

If Scherzer isn’t the single best pitcher in baseball, it’s only because Jacob deGrom and Gerrit Cole have elevated their own games that much more. There is one other guy who deserves mention, though, when considering the very top starters over the past two seasons. Like Scherzer, this Justin Verlander fella has only increased his output since leaving the Tigers, where they both once starred … and he isn’t exactly a spring chicken.

Verlander represents the key comp when considering a potential Scherzer extension. His new deal — which was inked last spring and was to go into effect for the 2020 season — represents a highly relevant bit of contractual precedent. At two years and $66MM, the deal provides Verlander with eye-popping money at quite an advanced stage of his career: his age-37 and 38 seasons. You can easily argue that it’s still a reasonably team-friendly rate of pay.

That pact was entered just before the start of the 2019 season, which was to be Verlander’s walk year. There weren’t any performance-based discounts: He was coming off of a doozy of a campaign in which he racked up 214 innings of 2.52 ERA ball with dominant peripherals and rising swinging-strike numbers. But Verlander quite understandably couldn’t pry loose both a premium average annual value and an overly lengthy commitment from the Astros.

Like Verlander, Scherzer is slated to reach free agency ahead of his age-37 campaign. To be fair, though, the latter will hit the open market at a bit more advanced age than the former would’ve. Scherzer turned 35 late last July, so while 2020 is designated his age-35 season, he’s actually closer in age right now to where Verlander was (he had just turned 36) when he inked his deal. But Scherzer is two full seasons away from free agency, rather than one, as was JV.

You have to think the Nationals would jump at the opportunity to tack on two years to Scherzer’s deal at the Verlander rate. There was no indication that the Nats and Scherzer were going to reach agreement before Spring Training, so perhaps this is a conversation for the 2020-21 offseason. More will be known then, especially if the team gets to watch its staff co-ace work in a truncated 2020 campaign. There’s less risk committing later, of course. But leverage will also be lost in the meantime.

Honestly, it might be worth making a run at a deal once the contract freeze is lifted; perhaps there were even some talks beforehand that never reached the public eye. While agent Scott Boras isn’t fond of deals that keep his players from the open market, he has worked extensively with Nationals ownership — including on two massive contracts with the team’s other top starter, Stephen Strasburg, one of which was an extension. Sorting something out to keep Max in D.C. through the end of his career would not only mean locking in another part of the team’s highly paid, three-headed pitching monster (Patrick Corbin being the other), but might ensure that Scherzer becomes the first player to don a Nationals cap in Cooperstown. (He’s not a sure thing just yet, but isn’t far from locking down future admission.)

Thing is: would Scherzer really be willing to settle for a two-year deal, even at a sum that tops Verlander by a bit? Or would he hold out for an even larger and/or longer deal? Cole just took home a $36MM AAV on his monster contract with the Yankees. Perhaps Mad Max — who has earned that appellation through unremitting competitiveness — would want to be paid at or above that level on an annual basis. Maybe he’d find it limiting to suggest he’s only worthy of a two-year extension. Scherzer certainly doesn’t seem like the type to settle for something fair and plan ahead for hanging up his spikes. Come to think of it, he may not be that interested in a deal at all. He’s obviously loaded already, so this wouldn’t be life-changing cash (not that it was for Verlander, needless to say). Scherzer might rather wait to return to free agency … unless, at least, the Nats proved willing to go absolutely wild with an offer to keep him without the need to top other bids. Could it take three guaranteed years? Four?!

It’s anyone’s guess what his personal view is, not to mention that of Boras, but it’s unlikely that it would make a ton of sense for the Nationals to over-commit. The team already placed a huge bet on Strasburg and will be paying Corbin major money through 2024, so there’s a lot of rotation cash on the books already. While Scherzer’s a living legend who’s arguably just as good now as ever before, the baseball reaper ultimately comes for all the great ones. The only risks are paying him a bit more or losing him free agency. Then again, with a pitcher as special Scherzer, the thought of a departure may be enough to spur the Nationals to enter completely new contractual terrain to forestall that possibility.

Photo courtesy of USA Today Sports Images.

Poll: Would You Watch KBO Broadcasts?

By | at

This morning’s report that ESPN is in the midst of seemingly productive talks to acquire the broadcast rights for Korea Baseball Organization games was met with a widely positive response in comments both here and on social media, although the potential arrival of KBO coverage in North America wasn’t universally lauded. While many fans would welcome any form of competitive baseball on television and relish a chance to see some former big leaguers suiting up with regularity, others questioned the level of competition (relative to MLB) and the awkwardness of watching televised games without fans in the stands.

KBO games coming to ESPN — and/or other major sports networks elsewhere in the world — isn’t yet a certainty but would at least provide some real-life baseball to follow if such an arrangement did come to fruition (no disrespect to the Players’ League in MLB The Show intended). I was perhaps remiss not to include a formal poll in this morning’s post on the topic, so let’s conduct a more formal survey here (link to poll for Trade Rumors mobile app users):

Would you watch broadcasts of KBO games?
Yes, but only because there's no real alternative at the moment. 40.32% (4,410 votes)
I'd try a few games but can't see myself watching regularly. 27.09% (2,963 votes)
No, the lower quality of play and unfamiliar players don't interest me. 16.78% (1,835 votes)
I'd watch KBO games even if MLB were in full swing as well! 15.82% (1,730 votes)
Total Votes: 10,938

Latest On Michael Conforto’s Oblique Injury

By | at

Not long before the league shut down due to the ongoing pandemic, Mets right fielder Michael Conforto sustained an oblique strain that rendered him unlikely for Opening Day. The diagnosis came on March 11, just over two weeks from the since-postponed Opening Day, and the Mets didn’t provide a concrete timetable for Conforto’s expected return. The team still hasn’t put forth an official update on Conforto’s status — the indefinite delay to the season likely eliminated any urgency or obligation to do so — but the New York Post’s Mike Puma reports that Conforto is taking “regular” batting practice and appears to be largely back up to speed.

It’s been close to seven weeks since Conforto incurred what the club diagnosed as a Grade 1 strain of his right oblique. Grade 1 strains — the least severe on the scale — often sideline players for around a month or a bit more, although every injury situation is of course unique to the player in question. Still, it’s reasonable to expect based on his workout status and that historical context that Conforto would’ve been back up to speed by now. And it certainly stands to reason that whenever (or if) play is able to resume in 2020, that he’ll be ready to go for a second, abbreviated “spring” training camp.

The 27-year-old Conforto will be expected to play a pivotal role in the Mets’ offense, hitting in the heart of the order alongside the likes of reigning Rookie of the Year Pete Alonso, Jeff McNeil, J.D. Davis and a hopefully resurgent Robinson Cano. Conforto, the No. 10 overall pick in the 2014 draft, has solidified himself as the everyday right fielder and a well-above-average offensive contributor in parts of five seasons in Queens. He made his first All-Star team in 2017 and, over the past three years, has posted a combined .257/.363/.492 slash (129 wRC+, 131 OPS+) with 88 home runs, 74 doubles and three triples. He agreed to an $8MM salary this winter in his second trip through the arbitration process and remains under club control through the 2021 season.

ESPN Reportedly Nearing Agreement To Broadcast KBO Games

By | at

Less than a week after ESPN’s negotiations to acquire broadcast rights to Korea Baseball Organization games were reported to be all but dead, Jee-ho Yoo and Chang-yong Shin of South Korea’s Yonhap News Agency now report that a deal is nearing completion. Yoo reported last week that ESPN had sought to acquire broadcast rights from Korean counterpart Eclat without any up-front payment — ultimately offering only a percentage of revenue if broadcasts proved profitable — despite the increased production costs for Eclat.

Additional details remain sparse at this time, though the Yonhap duo adds that the deal being discussed would allow ESPN to broadcast multiple KBO contests per week. South Korea’s 10-team league is slated to begin its regular season on May 5 — a bit more than five weeks after the initially scheduled season opener on March 28. The KBO season will begin without fans, although MBC’s Daniel Kim tweets that the league is discussing a plan to gradually allow fans back into stadiums, beginning with a 20-25 percent capacity and incrementally increasing from there.

[Related — Poll: would you watch KBO broadcasts?]

Several health regulations will be in place for players and gameday personnel as well (multiple tests per player prior to games, no spitting allowed, players and personnel in masks throughout the stadium except on the field/in the dugout, gloves and masks for umpires, strong discouragement of handshakes and high-fives). A player showing symptoms of COVID-19 will be immediately be tested and quarantined, while his stadium would be subject to a 48-hour closure for cleaning. A positive test from a player wouldn’t necessarily shut down the league but would prompt an immediate meeting between owners, league officials and health experts about the potential stoppage of play.

There’s still no concrete plan for when Major League Baseball can attempt to resume play (or whether it definitively will). The lack of baseball and other professional sports has been an obvious enormous strain not only on ESPN but all sports media outlets throughout the world. ESPN’s interest in airing some KBO play, then, isn’t surprising — but it’s also not without risk. Some sports-starved fans will surely flock to any competitive play, but there’s no guarantee on the extent of fan interest, and advertisers could be wary paying a hefty rate for an untested product in the United States.

For baseball fans, though, it’s an easy win — creating a readily accessible means of viewing one of the world’s top professional leagues and even offering a chance to see a handful of former big leaguers suiting up overseas. MLBTR ran through more than 30 former Major Leaguers who are set to play out the 2020 season in the KBO last week.

Poll: Should MLB Adopt Tied Games In 2020? (Or Beyond?)

By | at

We don’t know if any Major League Baseball games are going to be played in 2020, nor what tweaks we’ll see to the standard framework of a game if play does resume.  To recap some of the ideas have been publicly floated, teams could potentially end up playing the entire season at MLB stadiums and Spring Training parks in Arizona and Florida, regularly playing at least one doubleheader per week in order to fit as many games as possible into a truncated schedule.  We already heard last month that the league was planning to allow 29-man rosters for at least the start of a shortened season, and it could very well be the case that expanded rosters become the norm for any games played in 2020, owing again to the need to keep as many players fresh and healthy as possible for this sprint of a season.

The changes may extend to the on-field product itself.  Doubleheaders could be staged as two seven-inning games, rather than standard nine-inning contests.  Dodgers star Justin Turner recently proposed the idea that, instead of extra innings, teams would decide games in 2020 by having a Home Run Derby if the score was still deadlocked after a 10th inning.  As Jorge Castillo of the Los Angeles Times noted in that last link, an abbreviated season could also give MLB the opportunity to apply its automatic-baserunner experiment for extra innings (already used in the All-Star Game and World Baseball Classic) to regular season contests.

These are all interesting ideas, and frankly, no concept should be off the table given all the difficulties the league faces in trying to launch any kind of season while keeping players, team staff, and stadium personnel as safe and healthy as possible.  That said, the traditionalist baseball fan in me can’t help but be hesitant at alterations to the nature of the sport itself.  Something like an expanded roster isn’t an issue, but holding a seven-inning game or deciding an important regular season contest with a HR derby doesn’t seem quite right.

If limiting the time of games and the extra innings conundrum are going to be obstacles, The Athletic’s Brittany Ghiroli (subscription required) recently suggested a simple proposal — tie games.  Every regular season contest would end after nine innings, no matter the score.  As per one reader e-mail to Ghiroli, MLB would adopt a point system of awarding two points for a win, one point for a tie, and zero points for a loss.

It can definitely be argued that ending extra innings is much more of a fundamental shift in baseball’s nature than, say, putting an automatic runner on second base in the 10th inning onward.  After all, there’s definitely a romance to the idea of a game that always has a decisive winner.  Just about every baseball fan has at least one personal story of attending a marathon game until the very end, or showing up bleary-eyed at work the next day after staying up very late to watch their favorite team finish a West Coast game that went 14 innings.

It’s worth noting, however, that the threat of a tie score adds its own level of drama to games.  As Ghiroli notes, it creates “a real emphasis on winning in nine innings, the drama unfolding over the final three outs because there is no more baseball.  Managers won’t have to save guys in the bullpen or think about who may be needed to play the field in the 10th.”

Postseason games, naturally, would still have as many extra innings as necessary to decide a winner.  But for the regular season, a tie game in baseball wouldn’t be any different than a tied football game or a tied soccer game, both of which are familiar concepts for sports fans.  While there may be some level of dissatisfaction in watching a game that ends without a clear winner, a tie has its own sort of “we’ll get ’em next time” feel that is particularly fitting for baseball, particularly since that proverbial “next time” could be the very next day.

Rather than limit draws to just a 2020 season, Ghiroli suggests that tied games could become a regular element of baseball going forward.  “We know viewership — on TV and at the game — drops the longer a game goes,” Ghiroli writes.  “We know baseball is constantly fighting the stigma of being long and boring.  We know, more than ever before, thanks to oodles of data that exhaustion increases the chances of injury and a game with its stars hurt suffers greatly.”  Adopting tie games wouldn’t be too much of an impact on the overall schedule; to use the 2019 regular season as an example, no team played more than 19 extra-inning games last year.

Let’s open it up to the MLBTR readership to get other views about both the idea of tie games or other late-game methods of deciding a winner, both in a 2020 season and beyond.  (Links to both Poll One and Poll Two for app users).

For just a shortened 2020 regular season, how would you like to see games decided?
Play as many extra innings as possible to determine a winner 53.99% (5,444 votes)
If score is tied after a 10th inning, call it a tie 21.30% (2,148 votes)
HR Derby, automatic runners on base in extra innings, or another method 14.80% (1,492 votes)
If score is tied after nine innings, call it a tie 9.92% (1,000 votes)
Total Votes: 10,084
For a 2021 season and beyond, how would you like to see games decided?
Play as many extra innings as possible to determine a winner 79.54% (6,355 votes)
If score is tied after a 10th inning, call it a tie 9.01% (720 votes)
HR Derby, automatic runners on base in extra innings, or another method 7.70% (615 votes)
If score is tied after nine innings, call it a tie 3.75% (300 votes)
Total Votes: 7,990

Revisiting The Braves’ Fleecing Of The D-Backs In The Shelby Miller Trade

By | at

In late 2015, the Braves drummed up quite a bidding war for right-handed pitcher Shelby Miller, who became one of the biggest names on that winter’s trade market. As a controllable, 25-year-old starter who had spent the last year toiling away on a Braves team that lost 95 games, he garnered interest from as many as 20 teams: what’s not to like? This was a player who could boost a team’s playoff chances not only for the coming year, but for the foreseeable future as well—and he was attainable. Unfortunately for the team that won that bidding war, the Arizona Diamondbacks, it gave way to one of the more lopsided trades in recent memory.

In its entirety, the five-player deal sent Miller and relief prospect Gabe Speier to the Diamondbacks, who in turn gave up Ender Inciarte, Dansby Swanson, and Aaron Blair to the Braves. Just about six months earlier, the D-Backs made Swanson, a 21-year-old shortstop from Vanderbilt, the first overall pick in the 2015 draft. For that hefty price, Arizona got their man.

Miller was coming off a year in which he notched an unsightly 6-17 W-L record, but that mark was wildly misaligned with his 3.02 ERA, which fell just outside the top 10 in the NL. He did that while tossing 205 1/3 innings in his first (and only) year in Atlanta, which acquired him as the centerpiece of the trade that sent Jason Heyward to the Cardinals.

But the D-Backs’ valuation of Miller proved to be severely misguided. In his first year in Arizona, he would go 3-12 and was credited with just 0.6 fWAR. And while you need to look just a year in the past for evidence that W-L records can be misleading, Miller couldn’t hang his hat on a good ERA this time around: his 6.15 ERA in 20 starts was the worst among NL starters with at least 100 IP. Despite the impressive run prevention numbers from 2015, Miller’s price tag portrayed him as a front-line starter when he was probably more accurately described as a mid-rotation arm.

The move firmly declared Arizona GM Dave Stewart’s intent to contend in the immediate future. Acquiring Miller came on the heels of the Zack Greinke free-agent signing, which gave the D-Backs a formidable rotation of Greinke, Miller, Robbie Ray, and Patrick Corbin. Add that to an offense anchored by Paul Goldschmidt and A.J. Pollock, and it’s not hard to see how Arizona perceived a path to the postseason. However, they would win just 69 games in 2016 and essentially wound up as a re-imagination of the previous year’s Padres, a team that likewise went all in only to fall flat.

Even in the immediate aftermath of the deal, many viewed the deal as a vast overpay on the Diamondbacks’ part. But that negative public perception apparently didn’t bother the club, which was dead-set on vaulting itself into the playoff picture after winning 79 games the year before. It’s an admirable approach, no doubt, to try to capitalize on the coincidence of Paul Goldschmidt’s prime with the big-money signing of Greinke. But in this case, the price just didn’t match the prize. Of course, as we know now, the team would have to wait a year—and install a new front office regime—before they broke into the 2017 postseason as a Wild Card team.

At the time, Swanson was one of the first draftees (and first number one choice) to be traded under a new rule that allowed teams to deal drafted players after the World Series in the year of their selection. He is one of three first overall selections to have been traded before debuting with the team that drafted him. As MLBTR’s Steve Adams noted in his summation of the trade at the time, Swanson was the latest in a series of moves that illustrated the Arizona regime’s apparent devaluation of draft picks: by trading Swanson, signing Greinke (and therefore surrendering their 2016 top pick), and trading Touki Toussaint, the team had effectively missed out on three consecutive years of first-round selections.

Swanson was heralded as the shortstop of the future for Atlanta, which had just recently shipped Andrelton Simmons to the Angels. And although Swanson maybe hasn’t been the superstar that we expect from a No. 1 overall draft pick, he’s been a good MLB shortstop and showed us glimpses of another gear last year, when he had his best offensive season thanks to improved power output. If that upward trend is to be believed and he can provide even slightly above-average offensive numbers, Swanson can really solidify himself as a building block in Atlanta, thanks to his solid defense at a key position. Check out the growth in Swanson’s hard-hit rate and expected hitting stats from 2018 to 2019, courtesy of Baseball Savant.

Inciarte, meanwhile, wound up being a surprisingly important piece of the deal for the Braves. He won the Gold Glove Award for NL center fielders in each of his first three years in Atlanta, ultimately serving as a nice transitional piece between losing years in 2014-2017 and the contending teams of today. And while he’s seen his role with the Braves diminish over the last couple of years, he proved to be a pretty solid acquisition for a team that lacked quality Major League talent outside of Freddie Freeman. He was a fine guy to pencil into center field every day while the franchise cultivated a core of young players.

Neither Blair nor Speier wound up contributing much to the teams that acquired them: Speier made his MLB debut last year with the Royals, who got him in exchange for Jon Jay, and Blair hasn’t appeared in the Majors since 2017. He was a former first-round pick himself, but failed to put things together when he got his chance with the Braves in 2016.

All told, the combination of Inciarte, Swanson, and Blair has thus far produced 13.1 fWAR for the Braves, with more likely to come from Swanson and, to a lesser extent, Inciarte. For the Diamondbacks, Miller and Speier produced a meager 0.7 fWAR. Miller lasted just three years in Arizona, appearing in only 29 games and pitching 139 innings for the team.

Last year, he got a chance with the Rangers and toggled between the bullpen and the starting rotation, but the change of scenery didn’t seem to help his fortunes. He tossed 44 innings of 8.59-ERA ball, striking out just 30 batters. In January of this year, he earned himself a minor-league deal with the Brewers, and was expected to begin the season with the team’s Triple-A affiliate.

MLB Trade Rumors is not affiliated with Major League Baseball, MLB or MLB.com

Do not Sell or Share My Personal Information

hide arrows scroll to top