Mets Bet on Jay Bruce and His Revamped Approach
Hey, something happened!
It's Jan. 10, and Jay Bruce's $39M deal with the #Mets is the 2nd biggest guaranteed payout for any position player this offseason. Carlos Santana's $60M from the #Phillies is the largest. Zack Cozart is 3rd at $38M from the #Angels.
— Jerry Crasnick (@jcrasnick) January 11, 2018
Jay Bruce deal with #Mets is backloaded. Breakdown, per source: $10M this season, $14.5M in 2019, $14.5M in ‘20.
— Ken Rosenthal (@Ken_Rosenthal) January 11, 2018
Outfielder Jay Bruce has signed with the New York Mets, and FanGraphs readers nailed the terms, having collectively produced a median projection of three years and $39 million. [Give yourself a pat on the back!] Six of Dave’s top-20 free agents have now signed.
Notably, the ballots for those crowdsourced predictions were submitted before it was clear just how slowly the free-agent market would unfold. Since contracts signed after Jan. 1 tend to compare less favorably to the crowd’s projections, this contract should be considered a win for the Bruce camp, especially with the supply of sluggers available.
As noted here last week, Max Rieper of Royals Review found that, from 2013 to -17, free agents who signed before Jan. 1 received guaranteed dollars 4.6% below FanGraphs’ crowdsourced estimates. Free agents who signed after Jan. 1, meanwhile, received 25.3% less than FanGraphs’ estimates.
The Mets, presumably, are buying into Bruce’s fly-ball swing. As a club, they recorded the league’s second-lowest ground-ball rate last season.
Bruce has always been a fly-ball hitter, but he was more extreme last season, launching a career-best 36 home runs while posting a career-high 46.7% fly-ball rate. It makes sense the Mets would buy in, as they are familiar with Bruce, having rostered him last year before dealing him to the Indians. And really, Citi Field is the birthplace of the modern air-ball revolution.
Marlon Byrd transformed his batted-ball profile in New York. He passed along advice and the number of his private hitting instructor to Justin Turner, who has since spread the word in Los Angeles. Daniel Murphy re-invented himself in New York, too — as did Bruce. Former Mets hitting coach Kevin Long played a large role in this, too.
And it’s not just that Bruce puts the ball in the air; it’s where he puts the ball in the air. I spoke with Bruce for The Athletic after he was traded to Cleveland last season. Long and the Mets showed Bruce how much damage he did to the pull side and suggested he needed to hunt and drive more pitches in that direction.
Since 2007, only five major leaguers have converted a greater percentage of fly balls hit to their pull side into home runs than Bruce’s 40.9 percent mark: Miguel Cabrera, Nelson Cruz, Robinson Cano, Prince Fielder and Adam Dunn.
Long was asking Bruce to do more of what he did best: launch balls in the air to right-center field, his pull side. Long was asking Bruce to go against traditional teaching.
“All I heard my whole life was ‘Stay up the middle, hit [toward] the pitcher,’” Bruce said. “Now if I hit a [ground ball] up the middle I am out every single time. … My whole career I’ve heard ‘You have to use the whole field, you have to hit it the other way.’ The [Mets] said listen ‘Why don’t you do what you do best more often? Everything else is going to fall into place.’ It has been nothing but true.”
Bruce increased his fly-ball pull rate by 5% last season.
You can see that Bruce has been at his most productive when both his fly-ball rates have been at their highest:
Steamer thinks the Mets will be hard-pressed to squeeze surplus value out of the deal, but both Bruce’s 2017 season and his swing might very well be repeatable.
Steamer projects Bruce to post 23 home runs and a 106 wRC+ over 478 plate appearances. The result of that? Just 1.0 WAR. But projection systems might not capture the extent of Bruce’s swing and philosophical changes. Bruce’s new, more extreme approach could very well be repeatable.
Now, the Mets have to find a place for the swing.
Mets Nation was once upset that Bruce was blocking Michael Conforto early last season. And it’s not clear at the moment where Bruce will fit.
With Conforto’s shoulder still an unknown, Bruce supplies some outfield insurance. But the Mets also have Yoenis Cespedes, Juan Lagares, and Brandon Nimmo in the outfield. Perhaps Bruce can also be a hedge against struggles from Dominic Smith at first base.
For three years and $39 million, the Mets will find a place for Bruce’s fly balls.
A Cleveland native, FanGraphs writer Travis Sawchik is the author of the New York Times bestselling book, Big Data Baseball. He also contributes to The Athletic Cleveland, and has written for the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, among other outlets. Follow him on Twitter @Travis_Sawchik.
To answer your question, I imagine he’ll play RF, with Lagares in CF, and Cespedes in LF. When Conforto returns, they’ll likely have to decide between Smith and Lagares of who is more deserving of playing time. They could decide to move Bruce to 1B, or they could just plug in Conforto for Lagares in CF.
Why does putting “Mets Bet on” in front of any statement automatically make you less confident about it?
Because their dealings with Madoff and Bobby Bonilla will not stop being funny for at least another 17 years.
My https line is “Jay Bruce is fine and so is his contract” but the headline is “Mets Bet on Jay Bruce and His Revamped Approach. The first statement is one showing confidence and the headline is one showing a fair amount of doubt. I know Travis wrote the article, but did he change the headline?
I wonder why Steamer would only project him at 111 games and 478 ABs? Over the last 8 years he’s played a minimum of 137 games and 545 ABs every season. And a minimum of 146 games and 573 ABs all but one season. Projecting him at 550 ABs seems more likely. That would put him at approximately 28 HR and 83 RBI. Not sure where that would put him from a WAR standpoint but I would imagine that’s closer to a 2 WAR player.
Bruce should be durable enough for more games, but will he have the playing time with Cespedes, Lagares, Nimmo, and Smith all on the roster, plus Conforto coming back?
Out of those five guys, he’d be 3rd on the depth chart, behind Cespedes and Conforto. So he’ll always have a spot either in RF or 1B, depending on whether you prefer Lagares or Smith.
The better questions is what the Mets will do with Lagares. He is guaranteed a decent amount of money for someone who probably won’t be a starter on the Mets in the next three seasons. I wouldn’t be surprised if he is included in a trade.
Yeah, I have to agree. I feel kind of bad for Lagares, who (IMO at least) really ought to be at least a platoon starter if not a basically full-time glove-first CF, but it doesn’t look like the Mets have any interest in giving him that playing time. He ought to be dealt just for his own sake.
It’s hard to say but I just don’t understand why the Mets would give him $13M if they weren’t planning on giving him a full-time role. The verdict is still out on Nimo and Smith. If either of them break-out, I think finding playing time for Bruce could be problematic but if they continue to play as they have, I don’t think that’s enough to give them regular starts over Bruce.
I believe the reasoning is that he will get the playing time of a full time player, but it’ll largely be spread out between RF and 1B.
It’s pretty easy to get Bruce to about 350 PA’s even if everyone else is healthy and effective. With multiple other OF’s able to play center, figure 40 or so starts just from giving 10 or so rest games to starting OF’s and the starter at 1B. There are also 10 interleague games played in AL parks with the DH. Even in a season with relatively good health for starters, figure another 15 to 20 games due to DL stints of some sort between the OF and 1B. That gets to 65 or 70 starts, which is over 250 PA’s. Add another 80 or 90 PA’s as a pinch hitter, and that’s around 350 PA’s just as a fourth outfielder, backup first baseman, and pinch hitter. The number can clearly go up from there depending on injuries or lack effectiveness of other players.
Also, with current major league payrolls, 3/$39 really isn’t that big of a free agent contract.
Bruce had 617 PAs last year, but 186 PAs were against lefties against whom he hit .222/.285/.433 (88 wRC+). 2013 was the last season that he put up at least 90 wRC+ against LHP.
You do not want to give Jay Bruce 550 PAs if you can help it, and those ABs against lefties do not help his WAR. (Although, if you hide him against lefties well, he should have better offensive numbers than his projections)
This is a good point but the problem is, Bruce may sadly be the Mets best option against lefties. Between Nimmo, Smith and Lagares, none of them make a good platoon mate as all of them have struggled against lefties. Granted, we are dealing with a SSS, especially at the pro-level, but all of them have produced considerably worse verse lefties. Here are their career MLB splits v lefties:
Nimmo – 57 wRC+, .548 OPS
Smith – 25 wRC+, .437 OPS
Lagares – 61 wRC+, .604 OPS
Bruce – 90 wRC+, .712 OPS
Where are you getting those numbers? When I go to his player page, Lagares has a career split of 98 wRC+ (.714 OPS) against lefties, and he’s an elite defensive player regardless of which pitcher is on the other team.
Oops, looks like I only grabbed Lagares 2017 splits verse lefties. The career numbers for Lagares do help his case a little better and no doubt he is an elite defender, but I still think he would be a far cry from an ideal platoon mate. Steamers projects him for 81 wRC+, .681 OPS in 2018. My guess is Bruce will play full-time verse righties and about 50% verse lefties.
You expect him to get .9 WAR in an additional 72 AB? That’d be a historic stretch, to go from 478 and 1.1 WAR to 550 and 2 WAR.
Maybe Cespedes-Conforto-Bruce vs RHP and Cespedes-Lagares-Conforto vs LHP?
Last three years combined, Lagares has a 7 point edge in wRC+ vs LHP and is the better defensive player, so maybe in a platoon, you eek out a little extra value?
The graph doesn’t seem to really show any change in approach?
The graph only the captured the FB% increase, but Bruce’s pulled FB% did increase by 5% last season https://www.fangraphs.com/splitstool.aspx?playerid=9892&position=OF&splitArr=12,13,78&strgroup=season&type=3&startDate=all&endDate=all&filter=
Add Moose to Bruce !!
Alderson: “We hear you! This is what the fans at Citi Field have been saying all season long”
“Notably, the ballots for those crowdsourced predictions were submitted before it was clear just how slowly the free-agent market would unfold. Since contracts signed after Jan. 1 tend to compare less favorably to the crowd’s projections …”
The problem I have with that line of reasoning is that it’s dubious to assume that “signing after January 1” means the same in a free agent market where relatively few signings occurred early on the calendar. In other words, I think that the observed effect of overall less favorable contracts signed by players after January 1 could very well be driven by the order of signings, not the date on the calendar. What presumably happens most years is that some players, especially non-premium players, are stuck with relatively soft demand for their services after other teams have come to terms with other free agents, both filling holes and using up a lot of their budgeted payroll room. It’s a different dynamic when teams haven’t signed that many free agents.
Exactly!
Date is irrelevant. It is essentially a proxy for changes in supply and demand, with demand theoretically decreasing with time…but when demand doesn’t change from November to December to January because no one has signed, it is no longer a proxy for that dynamic.
I bet you get a much tighter relationship when you use something like # of FAs signed or dollars spent or number of positions with projected production below 1 WAR.
Chalk up this one as another sign that “slow to develop free agent market” need not mean “lowball free agent salaries relative to what we expected”.
Bruce’s contract matched the crowdsourced prediction, which was also the prediction at MLB Trade Rumors. Bruce’s actual contract is somewhat above Dave Cameron’s prediction (2 / $32) in terms of guaranteed dollars.
I wouldn’t call it revamped approach,he just went from flyball heavy to full ryan schimpf (albeit with more pop so they actually go out):).
They mets have been maybe the top elevating team of the statcast era (with the As). Usually teams like the astros and cubs get credited for their progressive approach but it was the mets, As and to some degre the rays clearly leading the field.
But because they didn’t win they didn’t get as much attention.
It als might be getting harder to separate with launch angle as more teams do this.
Agree with everything there except calling their approach progressive.
The 2015 Mets hit a ton of flyballs and HRs and scored more than the NL average, en route to the pennant. The next 2 years brought “progressively” more flyballs and HRs, but below-average scoring.
It figures that the Mets would sign a corner outfielder to a mid-sized 3 or 4 year contract. Why did I expect anything different this time?
The Mets are weird.
Jeromy Burnitz
Jason Bay
Jay Bruce
… weird, right ?
Definitely Weird.
Next you’re going to tell me that the Mets’ outfield decisions connect Lincoln and Kennedy somehow, right?
Well John Booth shot Lincoln ( weird ), but Rafael Cruz ?? Oh well …
Cuddyer… Granderson…
Just to point out — min 1000 career AB, here are the most common initials in MLB history:
55 JB
53 JM
45 JC
42 BB
40 BH
38 JH
38 DM
36 BM
35 JS
35 JG
…
Since 1993 the Mets have given five JBs 100+ AB… but the Marlins have 8 if them!
Not a bad move. Maybe a slight overpay, but, gives them 5-6 guys for 4 spots, which on the face of it appears to be not needed. However, you have performance questions on Smith & Nimmo, Conforto coming off shoulder surgery, Cespedes is coming off an injury prone year, Lagares probably doesn’t hit enough to be a regular.
One of those moves that will look better once the inevitable injuries/performance issues occur & now they’re not stuck running out some AAAA guy for an extended period when that happens. 3 of the 6 guys are on league minimum deals for at least a few more years & Lagares is “only” at $6.5M this year & $9M next year, so it’s not like they have huge $$ invested in OF/1B.
The biggest loser in this signing will likely be Nimmo (who had a 112 OPS+ last season) and was slated to start in center.
Also Smith gets a much shorter leash @ 1B, as Bruce can slide to 1B once Conforto comes back.
The biggest loser is Mets fans who have to endure these incredibly dull signings year after year.
As for Dominic Smith, I saw quite a bit of his debut and what I saw was a fat toad who would be no better than a league average player if he were signed by the Long Island Ducks. No hit tool, no power, absolutely nothing to offer a MLB team.
Smith is a 22 year old who hit over his last two seasons in the upper minors (130 wRC+ or better in AAA in 2017 and AA in 2016) but apparently wasn’t ready for the majors last year.
I can understand why a team with legitimate playoff aspirations in 2018 wants to have options beyond counting on Smith in 2018, but this comment is beyond harsh and uses dubious logic. In this case, a “dull signing” looks to make quite a lot of sense to throw another useful player into the mix as short-term insurance but not block players like Smith, Conforto, and Nimmo over the longer-term.
OK, but let’s be fair, Smith’s time in the majors last year was a pretty severe test of anyone’s ability to retain faith in a minor-league stat line or a projection and not the evidence of their own eyes. He looked completely lost most of the time and I’m not sure I’d be including a spot for him in my long-term plans if I were running the team.
If you were running a team, and I were running a team, I’d be happy to take off your hands (for some modest trade return) all the 22 year old players with solid minor league stat lines and prospect rankings who look lost in their first 180 PA stint in the majors. I feel very confident that I’d come out way ahead if I could acquire a portfolio of at least 4 to 5 such players.
Oh, for goodness’ sake. Sure, I would probably say the same thing in the abstract, but I also have watched **this specific 22-year-old** play some extremely unconvincing baseball. That doesn’t mean nothing. It is also evidence. There is not a portfolio of Dom Smiths, there is only one.
I saw what you saw. But do you remember Anthony Rizzo’s rookie year? He was far worse than Smith, roughly the same age and playing time. I don’t have high hopes for Smith, but 183 PAs is not enough to judge him.
Hey everyone–just remember, Smith is likely to fail because he is a prospect. That’s what prospects do. They fail.
That said, this is an argument for amassing an army of prospects/other young guys and not for trading them away the moment they struggle. I would definitely try and buy low on Smith, not because I think he’s likely to succeed but because I want as many shots as possible. If I’m a team like the Royals, or Rays, or any team without a long-term first baseman and little chance of winning a championship I want him.
Shocked that Jay does not want to try to play baseball in October.
Maybe he wanted to make sure he’s playing baseball in March?
The Mets should have signed Dave Cameron instead
Pretty baffling signing considering the Mets’ positions of need are, pretty much, all the other ones, but the price is reasonable enough that it’s hard to hate it much. Bruce’s revamped approach seemed to pay dividends in a Mets uniform and he can get some more starts by playing, as he does, an acceptably-mediocre 1B (apologies to Keith Hernandez, who I’m sure just ordered a case of Tums shipped directly to the SNY booth for April delivery).
Hey now, I actually think Wilmer Flores has a good shot of being a decent 2B for them.
But yes, aside from 2B and corner outfield, they need someone basically at every position.
They should be fine in the outfield (Ces, Conforto, Bruce, Lagares, Nimmo is very good imo). Cabrera is starter-level quality, his WAR was dragged down by some fluky base-running numbers. With some BABIP regression d’Arnaud also looks like a quality catcher. 1B, SS, and 2B/3B are definitely question marks, though.
Seems like they’re going to give the SS job to Rosario, which leaves 2B/3B and 1B.
At 1B I think the idea is that Smith has the job to start the season. If he falters, you move Bruce to 1B when Conforto comes back.
At 2B/3B I’m pretty sure they plan on adding from outside of the organization. Frazier, Walker, Harrison, and Lowrie all make sense as potential options. Flores becomes a utility player.
I just want to point out that you basically picked the glass-half-full for at least two players explicitly (Cabrera, d’Arnaud) and another set implicitly (that Lagares can hit, that Nimmo can field, that Bruce can play first, that Rosario will improve enough in year two to be good). Bruce can probably play first, I’ll give you that one, but all the other players are just as likely to do as badly or worse as they are to improve on last year.
I wonder if they would consider making Flores a super utility player and giving him some starts in the outfield as well. He’s already played every position in the infield. Flores excels against lefties (career 123 wRC+, .838 OPs) and struggles against righties, although he was decent last year. The opposite is true of Bruce, Smith, Nimmo and Lagares. Obviously he’s already capable of platooning at 1B but if he could be used in the OF, that would be a nice plus, especially while Conforto is out.
If you closely watched Wilmer play SS or 3B for a week, I don’t think you’d want to do that again, ever. He should play 2B, where his sketchy arm is most tolerable, and he’s actually okay on the DP pivot.