what would you guys be willing to part with for Edwin Diaz? https://nypost.com/2018/11/27/mariners-reliever-edwin-diaz-isnt-entirely-off-limits/
Read that and it is interesting. Some guys catch a pretty good second wind with a change of scenery especially to a contender and your hometown team as a kid. That’s not capturable analytically but can play a part. Honestly we just needed another innings eater and he could have done that and helped a lot with that towards the end of last season. We saw the pen way too often in the 5th and 6th.
Fangraphs had a similar article yesterday. Their take was.. He's not an ace, but he won't cost much to acquire.
Spoiler We know how good Madison Bumgarner has been. We know he’s been a world-beater, and that only one player has ever added as much to a team’s probability of winning championships. We know he’s thrown fire and snorted snot rockets and stomped around the mound with the best of them … in the past. However, to teams that are thinking about trading for the irascible lefty — and the rumors have him on the block — that’s a less important question than how good the pitcher is right now. In at least one part of the country, there’s an easy answer: he’s the best, dude. But across the industry, there’s no consensus about Bumgarner’s current talent level. That’s probably because, depending on how you break down a pitcher’s value, you get widely different numbers for the Giants ace. Results Since the start of the 2016 season, only seven pitchers have had a better ERA than Bumgarner. He did suffer a couple of high-profile injuries starting in 2017, but even if you use that season as a cutoff, only 14 pitchers have had a better ERA than Bumgarner. This is pretty surface-level stuff, though. Start digging in a bit and a different story starts to emerge. The simplest split we can check for any Giants pitcher are the home and away numbers. And since 2017 began, there’s a huge difference between what Bumgarner has done on the road versus what he’s done at home. Season IP K/9 BB/9 HR/9 ERA Home 116.2 8.0 2.2 0.8 2.39 Away 124.0 7.7 2.5 1.5 4.14 Away from home, Bumgarner strikes out fewer batters, walks more, gives up nearly twice as many home runs and has almost exactly a league-average ERA (4.15 last year). Of course, this is just 124 innings played in all sorts of parks; there’s a chance that trips to Colorado and Arizona (pre-humidor) are mucking this up. So it’s worth diving deeper. Peripherals Remember that list of top-10 ERAs since 2016 began? Let’s publish that here, along with some key peripherals. Bumgarner begins to stand out … in a bad way. Name IP K/9 BB/9 HR/9 WAR ERA Clayton Kershaw 485.1 9.8 1.3 0.9 14.7 2.26 Max Scherzer 649.2 11.8 2.2 1.1 19.1 2.67 Jacob deGrom 566.1 10.4 2.2 0.8 16.2 2.70 Corey Kluber 633.2 10.1 1.8 1.0 18.0 2.77 Chris Sale 599.0 11.7 1.8 0.9 19.2 2.85 Kyle Hendricks 528.2 7.7 2.2 0.9 10.1 2.86 Justin Verlander 647.2 10.6 2.3 1.2 16.1 2.97 Madison Bumgarner 467.1 8.9 2.3 1.1 7.9 3.02 Stephen Strasburg 453.0 10.8 2.6 0.9 11.9 3.22 Carlos Martinez 519.0 8.8 3.5 0.8 8.8 3.29 It’s nice to see Bumgarner on this list of the best pitchers in baseball. But now look at the other columns. He had the second-fewest innings pitched on this list. He had the third-lowest strikeout rate. His walk rate was middle of the pack. His homer rate was second worst. Add it all up and he had the worst WAR of the group. Of course, that’s a tautology in some respects — he’s worst in WAR because he was bad at the things that went into WAR. FanGraphs’ version really only considers strikeouts, walks, homers and popups because it’s agnostic about the ability of pitchers to control outcomes on balls in play. Other WAR formulas rate Bumgarner more highly because they consider balls in play more of a pitcher’s skill than FanGraphs does. Baseball-Reference has Bumgarner at 10.2 wins over this same time frame. Baseball Prospectus has a very granular approach that considers everything from the catcher to the umpire to the ballpark and the quality of opponents, and has Bumgarner at 10.6 wins since 2016 began. Hey, 10 WAR would make Bumgarner a top-20 type of pitcher, a back-end ace. Even FanGraphs’ number has him 34th, or a really good No. 2. Is his stuff the stuff of a borderline ace, though? Stuff Here’s a depressing chart. It’s depressing and I’m not sure it even captures the full essence of the decline of Bumgarner’s velocity. Not only has he gone from above-average velocity for a lefty to below average, but he’s really pushed that by dropping close to 91 mph on average in 2018. And the league has gotten faster around him as he’s gotten slower. How about this: In 2015, Bumgarner had the seventh-best fastball velocity for a lefty qualified starting pitcher. In 2018, he had the 13th worst. It’s also concerning that his maximum has dropped so much. He’s now working with less than 2 mph between his average fastball and his maximum fastball, less than half the average difference in the major leagues. And that’s meaningful because the closer you pitch to your maximum, the more stress you put on your elbow. One ramification of losing fastball velocity is that your swing rate goes down … on all your pitches, at least across the league. For Bumgarner, he went from having batters swing at 50 percent of his fastballs down to 40 percent, and he lost swings on his curveball, too. Without the swings, you lose the swing and miss. Bumgarner is getting half the whiffs on his fastball and has lost whiffs on his secondary pitches as well. He’s gone from above average on all three pitches to merely above average on the cutter. And there’s more, I’m sorry, Giants fans, but there is. The shape of his fastball has changed, too. One site has concluded that Bumgarner has started throwing a sinker. I’m not sure that’s the case. I think the shape of his fastball has just changed. Here’s the reasoning: yes, his four-seam fastball has lost, on average, nearly two inches of ride. It looks a little like a sinker in terms of vertical movement. But sinkers usually have fade — they usually move to the arm side. Bumgarner’s fastball has lost fade over the course of his career. Put it this way: ride is important if you have a four-seamer, fade is important if you have a two-seamer, and Bumgarner has below-average ride for a four-seamer and below-average fade for a two-seamer. The fastball is not a plus in terms of movement or velocity. And that change in movement has filtered down to his other pitches, too. The vertical difference between his curveball and fastball has lost nearly three inches. The vertical difference between his four-seamer and cutter/slider has lost an inch. These differences are meaningful when it comes to what makes a curveball good and what makes a slider good. And his ability to put the pitches where he wants to has deteriorated with injury. His command went from the top 25 percent in baseball in 2017 (by Command+) to above average in the same stat and only 20 pitchers suffered a larger drop in command. In the end, you have to consider a philosophical question when you consider stuff. What is stuff? To me, it’s a combination of velocity, movement and command. His velocity is down. His movement is down. His command is down. In the end, age comes for us all — Bumgarner came from such a lofty perch that he is still a good pitcher on the way down. And injury has played a role here. But let’s not overrate that role. None of the things listed here got any better late last season — not his vertical movement, his command or his velocity numbers. In fact, the difference between his average fastball and maximum fastball was down to 1 mph in his last few starts. And in all of this negativity, there’s hope, actually, for Bumgarner and Giants fans. There’s a chance that, because all of this stuff is visible to all of the front offices that are talking to the Giants, the return is not exciting for one year of the current Madison Bumgarner. That means he’ll be more valuable to the Giants than he will be to any other team and he’ll get to stay. And it becomes more likely that he’ll go into the Hall of Fame as a lifetime Giant. That’s a decent consolation prize compared to a boring old trade.[\spoiler]
I think Bumgarner is a fit if we have reasonable expectations. He can fill the veteran role Sanchez had last year.
Bowman says the early asking price for Kluber is Pache, Wright and Touki. Bowman says ATL won't do that. I think I would though, push came to shove.
I'd like to keep Touki as well, but the window is open now. 3 years of Kluber lets you really go for it.
I think the idea that the Giants won’t trade him because is value is depressed makes the assumption that if his value rises again - to top of the rotation levels - that they are going to pay him like that. If he bounces back and can command 5-7 years at 25mm/year the Giants have had a pretty bad run lately of paying top of market for guys who fall off a cliff. Are they going to roll that dice a third time? My point is, from the Giants perspective, if that’s the “good” outcome then you are in a position where you lose him for a comp pick rather than known talent today, even if it’s 65 cents on your perspective of a dollar. That aside. I would bet on Bumgarner having a resurgence, particularly close to home. He apparently catches the first flight to Charlotte to get to his farm the day after the Giants season ends every year. Like literally the next morning. He has never bought a house in SF. It’s anecdotal, but Verlander has shown that a change of scenery and motivation can make a difference. I also think Bum is enough of a competitor that he won’t let this be the way it ends for him. I would pay a small premium on his depressed stock vs. full value for a Kluber or whoever.
What’s this mess about it’s more like the Barves land LeBron than Bryce? I have to think that LeBron athleticism would be a huge boon for us.
Not sure what to think. Nola was great but I’m not sure how much was attributed to Kranitz and Eflin has shown promise. Worst case scenario we get pretty good scouting reports for a divisional rival.
I just can’t get on board with dealing Pache, Riley, or Contreras. We signed stop-gap veterans for the latter two. Plus, we bitch and moan about Ender and by all accounts Pache would be a first-division defender today. More importantly, we don’t exactly have a ton of minor league positional depth outside of those three and Waters. I’m fine with giving away any of our young arms for an established arm but for me the buck stops there.
Would rather try and deal 2 top arms (outside of Touki) and 1 lower guy like Allard than give up Pache or Waters. Not sure on Riley
http://outfieldflyrule.com/2018/11/29/atlanta-braves-top-50-prospects-2019-1-10/ Top 10 prospects here, they went all the way to Top 50 if you're interested. Pretty great insight with stats and projections
Best move of the offseason. AJC Exclusive: Changes coming to Braves’ broadcast team Francoeur becomes lead TV analyst; Simpson moved mostly to radio 7 minutes ago The Braves will juggle the lineup in their broadcast booths for next season. The biggest change is that former Braves outfielder Jeff Francoeur will replace veteran broadcaster Joe Simpson as the lead analyst on the Fox Sports South and Fox Sports Southeast telecasts of games. Simpson, a member of the Braves Hall of Fame, will remain part of the broadcast team for a 28th season, shifting to radio for a large number of games and also working a limited number on TV. Simpson said he was “surprised” by the extent of the change. “I had proposed cutting back, but my proposal was a lot different than theirs,” Simpson said. “I was suggesting maybe cutting back to like 120 TV games, hoping to fill in the rest with some radio. But they’ve cut me back to 20 or 30 TV games with the rest being radio, so that came as a surprise.” Fox Sports South/Southeast general manager Jeff Genthner and Braves CEO Derek Schiller described the change as a joint decision by the network and the team. Genthner said Francoeur will work about 100 TV games, “plus or minus 10 games.” Former Braves pitcher Tom Glavine also will work an increased number of games as an analyst, Genthner said. Chip Caray will remain the TV play-by-play announcer. On radio, the Braves plan a four-man rotation featuring voices familiar to the team’s fans: Jim Powell, Simpson, Don Sutton and Ben Ingram. The plan is to have two of them in the booth per game, Schiller said.
I dunno. He's not the most progressive/analytical guy around, but I enjoyed him quite a bit on the radio broadcasts and whenever he pitched in on the TV side.
Yea I like him, but he's certainly a meat head former player. Didn't he challenge Urena to a fight on air last year?
I actually thought I’d hate Frenchy but I don’t. He’s like a big dumb lovable jock. Very different from Joe IMO
every single time I see/hear JF, for about 2 seconds im sad that he never became mike trout, cause that first season I was all in same with JHey
Also think there's a chance Jim Powell can reign Joe in a bit. Chip just encouraged him and egged him on.
Harper has been a 4 win player once in the last three years. A healthy Donaldson will easily be worth 3 wins. Fangraphs projects him at 4 and only playing 130 games. If Machado has another monster year, yea he's better.
we only have Donaldson for less than 11 more months. We will be facing Machado/Harper "allegedly" for 6-8 more years and probably longer than that. They won't be signing one year deals
If Donaldson gives us the 1.3 WAR with the offensive production that Harper had last year with 249/393/889 with the league lead in walks and 34 homers I will be amazed
Obviously. Just saying I think we are still better this year with the addition of Donaldson. That's subjext to change in the future and maybe as soon as this offseason depending on other additions.
This 100%. I wish they had made Glavine the main guy. My guess is Glavine was first choice but has better things to do than travel the country with Chip for 9 months.