Going into this offseason, the writing seemed to be on the wall in Oakland. All of the rumors pointed to a big selloff, with any player approaching free agency expected to be traded for prospects. Though the club waited until after the lockout to pull the trigger, they eventually traded Matt Chapman, Matt Olson and Chris Bassitt within a week of the resumption of transactions. Sean Manaea would follow them out the door a couple of weeks later.
There were a few names that were mentioned in rumors who didn’t end up moving, with Frankie Montas being the most obvious trade candidate still wearing green and gold. He seems likely to be traded in the next two weeks, as long as his shoulder cooperates. There was also Ramon Laureano and Sean Murphy, though their extra years of control likely made them less of a priority for the Oakland brass. Plus, Laureano had the remainder of his suspension as a complicating factor.
Then there’s Lou Trivino, who emerged as the club’s closer last year, racking up 22 saves. He isn’t slated to reach free agency until after the 2024 season, meaning there was no rush for the A’s to trade him this winter. But given the volatility of relief pitchers, there would have been logic to cutting a deal in the offseason, even though there were a few years of club control remaining. Since a quick drop in performance can cause a reliever’s trade value to plummet in kind, it often makes sense to take the proverbial cash on the barrelhead.
The team has clearly had bigger fish to fry, however, working out those aforementioned trades and surely discussing Montas deals as we speak. But in that space between the offseason and today, Trivino has gone out and demonstrated the capricious nature of bullpen arms by having the worst season of his career, at least in terms of earned runs. The righty had a 3.70 career ERA coming into the season but has a mark almost double that for the year, currently sitting on a 6.59.
Despite that ugly ERA, there are other statistics that would suggest he has actually taken a step forward this season. His ground ball rate was 46.1% coming into the season but is at 49.4% this year. His 28.9% strikeout rate on the year is well above the 23.9% of prior seasons. His walk rate of 9.6% is slightly above league average, but better than his own previous mark of 10.9%.
More grounders, more strikeouts, fewer walks and yet his ERA has jumped by almost three full runs? The answer to the riddle seems to be contact. A look at Trivino’s Statcast page shows a bit of red for things like strikeouts and fastball velocity, but a bit of blue for hard hit percentage (27th percentile) and barrel percentage (33rd percentile). That certainly suggests that, despite the extra Ks, Trivino is getting hit harder when batters do make contact.
However, there’s actually not that much of a difference to previous seasons. His 8.5% barrel percentage on the year is just barely above the 7.8% he had last year and actually below the 10.5% rate of 2020. His 41.5% hard hit percentage is the highest he’s ever had, but not drastically higher than the 35.7% rate of his career overall. His 13.6% HR/FB rate is above the 10.8% rate of prior seasons, but again, by a reasonable margin. A major factor seems to be luck, as Trivino’s batting average on balls in play this year is a whopping .468, well above the league .285 league average for relievers this year and Trivino’s .275 mark coming into the season.
One potential explanation for the sudden burst in BABIP is Trivino’s sinker. Last year, it had an average exit velocity of 88.3 mph and a launch angle of four degrees, fairly expected numbers for a pitch often used to get ground balls. This year, the exit velocity has dropped to 85.3 mph and the launch angle even lower at -5 degrees. However, opponents are hitting .486 on the pitch this year compared to .329 last year.
Regardless of the cause, the advanced metrics all seem to indicate that Trivino has been better than his 6.59 ERA would indicate, much better in fact. He has a 3.01 SIERA on the season, a 3.81 xERA, 3.22 FIP and 2.99 xFIP. All of those numbers suggest that the baseball gods have been staunchly against Trivino this season and that he really has been his old self all along.
Baseball front offices are surely sophisticated enough to appreciate all of this and still see the value in Trivino as a pitcher. He has a very diverse arsenal as a reliever, with a five-pitch mix that allows him to be effective in various different scenarios. He’s making a modest $3MM salary this year and can be controlled for two more seasons beyond that via arbitration. Despite his unsightly ERA on the year, there’s still plenty to like, meaning any acquiring team should be happy to have him.
Image courtesy of USA Today Sports.
Terrible stats with decent advanced metrics? This has Bloom’s name all over it.
Frankie Montas, AA, this could move the needle for the Braves, What do you think?
Ian Anderson has been better his last couple of starts and Soroka is on his way back. The Braves don’t really need starting pitching.
He’s always been up and down for us. He’s basically a 7th inning type of reliever that has some good stretches where ups his game and performs like a quality set up man.
Watch Oakland play and they are weak defensively. It’s no wonder: they lost their defensive infield anchors in Chapman and Olson, both gold glovers. If Trivino’s FIP is 3.22, that tells you something about the Club.
Why does he throw the sinker in the first place if people hit 329 of it last year, clearly not working very well, I understand wanting multiple pitches but if it’s getting hit that hard and your a closer it seems like it’s got to be used very little.
Mk all for the Mets here
Sour Patch Lou.
First he’s sour
Then he’s sweet.
Then he will be gone from the A’s
As an A’s fan; no. He’s worse than his ERA.
As a non-A’s fan. No he is not. Read the article. This is about as textbook example as “bad luck” can get.
The article gives evidence to its assertion. Do YOU have any evidence or is your status as a fan supposed to be enough?
He does offer his middle initial as proof of his self seriousness.
So that’s why T.J. McFarland, J.A. Happ, J.P. Crawford, D.J. LeMahieu, A.J. Puk, C.J. Abrams, C.C. Sabathia, J.T. Brubaker, C.J. Cron, J.D. Davis, J.P. Feyereisen, J.D. Martinez, A.J. Minter and Josh H. Smith, all use their middle initials — because they’re “self serious”? As my good friend Johnny used to say: “I did not know that!”
I guess that applies to some other characters like Joe E. Brown, John C. Reilly, W.C. Fields, Michigan J. Frog and Wile E. Coyote.
Buncha stuck-ups.
And don’t get me started on that John R. Cash.
The evidence is he doesn’t have Chapman and Olson to bail him out anymore.
Like to see a golf pairing of this guy and Chi Chi
Those grounders find a way through when GG IFs aren’t there anymore!
So he’d be perfect on the Cardinals?
40 hits in 27 innings. I don’t think I want him coming in with men on base.
Did Frankie Montas write this post?
LOL I misread the article. Ignore…
Most of us ignore you anyway…
Coming from you, of all people!
Sure. Risk him in a high leverage situation in a big game – what could go wrong?
I never use ERA as a judge of relievers. Can be artificial high, if the reliever behind him gives up his run. Or it can be higher due to luck, such as an unsustainable strand rate.
Mariners own you Lou
texas and tampa owns him more than any other team.
Lou has always been terrible against left handed batters. He is no closer. Only way a manager can find value out of him put him in middle innings and only against RHB. I would be happy if some team took Lou off the A’s hands. Even send a gift basket to the club that takes him for free.
Looks like he got rocked for five runs (four earned) in 2/3 of an inning in his first game back off the COVID IL on May 3rd. Rusty maybe? It was his first game since April 16th. Accounts for 1/5 of the runs he’s given up this year.
After another miserable performance tonight, his ERA is 5.72 this year if you remove that game.
He’s been very streaky the past few seasons, even with a stellar defense. There’s a reason he has lost the closer role multiple times in Oakland.
Trivino hasn’t been good since the first half of 2018 (last year he was great in garbage time and horrible when it mattered). If the A’s get more than a 27-year-old A ball roster filler for him, the FO should win every executive of the year award. There are at least 250 pitchers in the Majors who are better than him.
The advanced metrics like him because he has a high K rate this year, but just watch him pitch. It’s more often than not just awful. You don’t come away from his bad outings thinking he just got unlucky.
The A’s are using him in high leverage situations because they’re tanking and Trivino gives them the best chance to lose.
But, hey, if out-of-town stupid gets the A’s a prospect for him, great. Let him be some other team’s problem.
Sorry, rethinking this article as Trivino is lifted in the 9th after giving up 2 runs.
Typical Trivino performance with the game on the line.
Sorry…still thinking about this article as Trivino gives up another home run in the 9th.