Lance Lynn Heads North to the South Side
Looking at the pitchers in the RosterResource Free Agent Tracker and sorting by projected WAR, we see 10 starters with a projection of at least two wins. The group is topped by Trevor Bauer and his 3.8 WAR projection and $100 million contract aspirations. Of the next nine pitchers, six have already signed contracts for next season. Two, Corey Kluber and James Paxton, come with significant injury concerns. That means that for teams in the market for solid production from a starting pitcher next season either need to pony up for Bauer, go after Masahiro Tanaka and his three projected wins, or look elsewhere. The White Sox opted for that last option yesterday when they traded for Lance Lynn, with Joel Sherman, Jeff Passan and Ken Rosenthal reporting on the players involved. Here’s the deal:
White Sox Receive:
- Lance Lynn
Rangers Receive:
- RHP Dane Dunning
- LHP Avery Weems
No matter the metric you use, Lynn has been one of the 10 best pitchers in baseball over the last two years. His 8.3 WAR here at FanGraphs puts him fifth while his 8.6 RA9-WAR is sixth. He’s second at Baseball-Reference with 9.8 WAR. He followed up a fifth-place finish in the 2019 AL Cy Young voting with a sixth-place spot this season. For those more inclined to traditional stats, he’s first in the majors in innings and sixth in strikeouts. For those using Statcast, his xwOBA over the last two seasons is .285 and ranks 15th among the 108 pitchers with at least 2,500 pitches thrown, right behind Walker Buehler, Hyun Jin Ryu, Mike Clevinger, and Charlie Morton, and just ahead of Noah Syndergaard, Shane Bieber, Zack Greinke, Clayton Kershaw, and Yu Darvish. Factoring in innings easily pushes Lynn into the top 10, if not the top five, of pitchers over the last two seasons.
Lynn has been good-bordering-on-great the last two years. A shellacking in his final start of the 2020 season sent his ERA and FIP way up, but in his previous three starts, he pitched seven innings in each with a 3.43 FIP and 2.14 ERA. Lynn looked like he might break out in 2015 after several above-average, innings-eating seasons, but injuries resulting in Tommy John surgery hurt his numbers that year and caused him to miss the 2016 season; in his final year heading towards free agency with the Cardinals, he struggled some. After a year of good peripherals but an ugly ERA between the Twins and Yankees, the Rangers signed him to a three-year deal for $30 million that’s turned into a bargain. Lynn used his sinker more selectively to limit damage while increasing the use of his cutter and four-seam fastball to generate more strikeouts. The results have been fantastic, and despite turning 34 next season, his 3.3 WAR projection is in the top 20 among pitchers. He will also be reunited with his first big league manager, as Lynn pitched out of the bullpen for the 2011 World Series title winner in St. Louis.
Whether you want to call Lynn or Lucas Giolito Chicago’s ace is immaterial. Together, they form one of the better duos in the game. Only eight teams have two pitchers projected for at least three wins next year. The move has other benefits. Sliding Dallas Keuchel down to a solid number three provides more depth, as there are a few question marks at the end of the rotation. Dylan Cease had an unusual season, and Michael Kopech opted out after missing 2019 with Tommy John surgery. Reynaldo López’s home, whether in the rotation or the bullpen, is still left to be determined. On paper, it puts the White Sox rotation in the top-half of baseball and with their incredibly promising position players, puts them roughly even with Cleveland (assuming the presence of Francisco Lindor) and Minnesota in the division. Lynn’s modest $8 million salary means the team’s payroll of around $110 million is still close to $30 million below last year’s projected payroll. An additional outfielder, plus more help in the rotation or bullpen, could make the White Sox favorites in the AL Central next year, and one of the best teams in the American League.
As for the Rangers, they receive a competent young starter in Dane Dunning. In seven starts last year, Dunning put up an ERA and FIP right around four, though his appearances were generally limited. He averaged under five innings per start and was fortunate to face the Royals twice along with getting starts against the Pirates, Tigers, Indians, and Cubs. The Twins were the only average offense Dunning faced all year. He uses low-90s four-seamers and two-seamers with a good slider and decent change. It’s a starter’s pitch mix and he’s now a year clear of Tommy John surgery, making him a cheap, solid back-end rotation option for the Rangers. It’s not the most enticing return for Texas, but he’s a long-term option for an organization thinking beyond 2021.
As for Avery Weems, he was an underslot senior sign out of Arizona in 2019 and received just a $10,000 bonus despite his selection in the sixth round. He dominated rookie-league ball in 2019, but hasn’t pitched against better competition as a professional. According to Eric Longenhagen, Weems throws in the low-90s with a sweeping breaking ball. He noted that Weems was “very similar to Josh Fleming, and those types of lateral movement fastball/breaking ball guys who don’t throw hard.” Longenhagen’s verdict: low-leverage long-relief type. Weems is a prospect, but not one projected to have a ton of success in the majors.
After two playoff appearances in 2015 and 2016, the Rangers slid down to a third-place finish in 2017, then stopped making meaningful additions to the team, instead opting for significant cuts to payroll in both 2018 and 2019. The team was unsuccessful with a middle of the road payroll last season and doesn’t currently have a bevy of young prospects set to take a leap anytime soon. They are now in year four of their teardown with little hope for the near future. Trading Lance Lynn is probably a necessary move to push the team forward, but an extension or trade for Joey Gallo should probably be next as the Rangers try to build a winner. The White Sox started rebuilding at roughly the same time after failing miserably to try to win with stars and no depth. They’ve hit on enough trades, draft picks, free agent signings, and their big international foray with Luis Robert to win in 2020 and they appear to be in good position to do so for the foreseeable future. These are two organizations going in different directions. The White Sox and Lance Lynn should benefit from Texas’ inability to build a winner over the last few seasons.
Craig Edwards can be found on twitter @craigjedwards.
It sounds like the Rangers wanted a young starting pitcher in the deal. The Padres could have offered more prospect value but none that are ready for MLB action outside of Patiño, Campusano, & Weathers, who would have been an overpay. Disappointed the Padres didn’t snag Lynn considering the modest price but if they didn’t have the MLB SP that the Rangers wanted, so be it.
Instead of spending 18MM + Dunning on Lynn & Eaton, not to mention additional bullpen spending, the White Sox should’ve picked the scrap heap and signed Dahl and given Colorado whatever it wanted for Jon Gray (rumored non-tender candidate), while keeping Dunning. Cease and especially Kopech have higher upside, but Dunning was the stable #4 type you need behind your TOR. Dahl & Eaton are similar and injury prone, with Dahl having higher upside, lower cost, more team control. Lynn is a Haas, but I think Jon Gray will bounce back and rate comparably at little to no trade capital.
With ~20MM, the WS could have signed Dahl, Wisler, Bradley, traded for Gray, and signed Carlos Santana-I know they are adamant about Vaughan coming up, but Santana could really help this team as a veteran and lengthen the lineup with his versatility & switch hitting.
Option A) Dane Dunning, Jon Gray, David Dahl, Archie Bradley, Matt Wisler, Carlos Santana–>20 MM
Option B) Lance Lynn, Adam Eaton –> 18MM
Eaton is a 7MM deal (with a team option so some level of buyout) and Lynn is a 8MM deal, so only 15 MM in total. Setting aside the idea of getting Grey for essentially nothing, he’ll still be paid next year, figure around 6MM. Santana is projected to get 8 MM or more, so in those two alone the contracts are a wash. Certainly trust Lynn more than Grey right now, might trust Santana more than Eaton as a bat but he won’t do anything to fill in the hole in RF.
I don’t think the 15MM they spent here is the extent of their budget for this offseason, and Wisler and Bradley would be good fits (Wisler is gone now of course). I hope there are more moves to come
Gray, Bradley, Wisler, and Santana all have no cross-over with either of these deals
I think Lance Lynn is really good, but the White Sox have a core of young, talented players that are going to be there for a while. Dane Dunning is a young, talented player who is under team control for a while. This is definitely good for Chicago in 2021. In 2022 and after, there’s a pretty good chance White Sox fans think Dunning is the one who got away. We’re talking about a guy who looks like a 3 to 4 win starter at his peak, and that peak might not be far away.
Before, Dunning was their third best pitcher (probably, although we don’t know much about what Kopech can or can’t do). Now it’s Keuchel. The #4 and #5 slots are unchanged. It definitely improves the playoff rotation, and over the course of a 100+ game season it does give them some more wins (probably). But the only way this is a good deal for the White Sox is (1) if they make a serious championship run in 2021 (possible, but not that likely) or (2) Dunning turns out to be a lemon (much more possible, thanks to injuries, but he looks pretty good). So which one do you think the White Sox are thinking about? I would guess #1 thanks to their 76 year old manager and 84 year old owner.
I think at best Dunning is a #4 SP, and for the 2021-2022 seasons the Sox have the following guys as SPs who will be ready to give about the same or slightly better or slightly worse than Dunning: Cease, Reynaldo, Jimmy Lambert, and Jonathan Stiever. Then starting in 2024, maybe one of young SPs is close to ready with Thompson, Dahlquist, Kelly, or Vela. If Lynn is only a one year rental, I understand the feel of watching Dunning pitch for the Rangers in 2022 and think “we let him get away.” But if the Sox are as good as most think they are, I’d think the Sox will keep on chasing another SP in FA or via trade who is a lot better than Dunning for the offseason of 2021-2022.
Saying Dunning looks like a 3 to 4 win starter at his peak is a stretch. Eric had a 45 FV on him. I feel like you are overreacting to 7 starts where 5 of them were against KC, DET, CLE, and PIT and he only completed 5 innings three times
A 6th game vs the Cubs, another bottom-10 offense. Also averaged under 5 ip/gs
Let’s see what Eric puts on him now when his series comes out, but keep in mind, even KC, DET, CLE, and PIT’s offenses are far better than anything you would see at AAA. He’ll need to build up innings after missing all of 2019 and only pitching a bit in 2020, since he had Tommy John. But if he can get up to 150 innings–which I think is certainly possible in a couple of years–I think he gets there, because pitchers’ stuff tend to be better another year removed from TJ.
I’d be pretty surprised if Dunning isn’t a 50. A 55 is 2.6-3.4 wins, which is what I’d peg him as.
Dunning showed enough to warrant expectations being raised to a point where he could easily be a solid middle of the rotation piece. I thought the Rangers got the best of this deal because it is almost a certainty that Dunning will provide many more WAR than Lynn between now and the end of both of their careers. Even without another player thrown in the deal looked good straight up. One of the things I will be following in 2021 is the comparative performances of Dunning and Mize. Mize may still turn out to be a stud but Dunning was far better in 2020.
I actually think Dunning and Mize are good comparisons, because Dunning is a bit underrated and Mize is a bit overrated. I think they’re both 55s, and will give you some 2-3 win seasons and some 3-4 win seasons. Of course, with pitchers you you never really know, thanks to injuries.
I’ve long been of the mind that Mize was a good shot to be a mid-rotation guy, maybe a bit more than that, but that Matt Manning went from a probably middle reliever to a probable starter (and potential ace) sometime near the end of 2018. I’m not sure how I feel about that now that Manning is reporting “arm soreness” but regardless, I think Manning has a much better chance of being the next big thing for the Tigers than Mize. Kind of like Kopech vs. Dunning was before Tommy John wrecked both of them.
Lmfao a certainty that Dunning will provide more WAR than Lynn between now and the end of their careers? I will literally bet you money that Lynn puts up more war, even without odds. Do you realize that Lynn has put up more WAR over the last 2 seasons (even without last years 4-5ish pace) by both fangraphs and bref then Dunnings 80% outcome for his ENTIRE CAREER. People here don’t seem to like Lance Lynn , and I don’t really get it, but ok. He is a front of the rotation ace. That is it. There are no qualifiers for this statement, it is simply true. If there are 30 aces in baseball he is an ace. If there are 10 in baseball, he is still an ace. I think it is the lack of sexy stuff, and his appearance, and insistence on throwing fastballs every damn pitch, but to me anywhere after deGrom, Cole, Bauer, Nola, Scherzer his name would fit without looking too out of place. Some guys might have peaks that are higher than Lynn (Castillo, Gio, Darvish, and maybe 20 other guys) but part of being an ace is being able to throw a lot of innings that are better than what the replacement options offer, with very little variation. Lynn got tagged his last game of the season for 9 earned, but if he hadn’t he might have finished 2nd in Cy Young voting. By my count he has been one of the most reliable pitchers in the entire MLB. He has given you IP, and only 7x has given up more than 4 runs in the last 2 years, so he does a good job in keeping his team in the game. Being able to be good enough that your team is a 3 run homerun away from a win at your worst, and still giving your team 6 is more valuable than war realizes due to rest/long relief pitchers generally being shitty starters.
Regardless of my pro Lynn stance when it is all said and done if fangraphs is still around and Jaffe is still writing for them, there will be a Lance Lynn HOF article and they will come to the same conclusion that they came to with a lot of pitchers: A lot better than we remember him, but not hall of fame worthy.
Dunning is a 25 (almost 26) year old pitcher projected to put up 2.4 WAR next year. Lynn is a 33 year old pitcher projected to put up 3.3 WAR next year. While it’s far from a certainty Dunning will provide more WAR going forward than Lynn, I think it’s definitely reasonable to expect him to just based on where in their careers the two pitchers are at.
That being said, I do like this trade for both teams. Lynn is supremely underrated and is clearly better than Dunning now, and this White Sox team is ready to make some noise.
ZiPs has a much wider gap between them.
That said, I don’t really see the point in arguing about the entire rest of their careers. The proper comparison isn’t over the rest of their careers, it’s over the remaining years of team control. Lance Lynn could pitch for another 3 years after this and still potentially be very good and make it really hard for Dunning to catch up, but that’s not very relevant to the trade.
Assuming health which is always problematic, it stands to reason that Dunning will pitch about 10 more years whereas Lynn will have about about three. Assuming Dunning is what he appears to be that should get him about 25-30 WAR. I do not see Lynn turning into Pedro during his remaining years in the majors.
So Mize (the guy who faced the Sox twice, Minnesota 3 times, the Cubs and Indians) didn’t pitch as well as Dunning (the guy who faced the Royals twice, Detroit, Pittsburgh, Minnesota, and Cleveland)? Gee, I can’t imagine why that would be…
This is clearly a short term move with Lynn turning 34 and only under contract for a year, but they have other options for 2022 and beyond that may be just as good as Dunning like Crochett and Kelly, although Kelly may be a few years away.
I liked Dunning and he overperformed expectations (against weak hitting usually) last year, but the lack of SP depth really showed down the stretch when they lost the division and against Oakland in the short playoffs. I think if they knew what they had in Kopech (or even Cease) they don’t make this deal, but I think they feel they have a real shot in 2021 and don’t want to blow it because they only have 2 starters they can count on.
So I think you’re right, but I don’t think “depth” is the right way to characterize this. Lynn will almost certainly give more innings than Dunning because Dunning is young and needs to build up slowly and Lynn looks like he can (at the minimum!) eat innings, but even then we’re talking about 50-75 extra innings, most likely. If what you want is innings, Jose Quintana, JA Happ, and Taijuan Walker are right there, waiting for you to call. And you still have Dunning in that scenario.
Where this stands out is marginal total value in 2021. Lance Lynn is probably a 4-win pitcher, maybe even as much as 5 wins, over 200 innings. Dane Dunning could be 3 wins, but more likely 2, over 200 innings, and he could realistically be limited to 125 innings. We’re talking about a swing of 2-3.5 wins here. And Lynn is a much more sure bet for the playoff rotation. Those guys are valuable.
This… seems like an underwhelming return for Lynn.
Would be surprised if the Rangers did not have far better options were they to trade him earlier.
There are real future costs to delaying your rebuilding.
Ken Rosenthal is reporting that, during the 2020 season, Lance Lynn considered opting-out under the COVID protocol if we was traded to a team that was not on “his list.” So, the Rangers were not free to shop him in a truly open trade market.
If they had traded him last offseason, I’m sure they would have. Two years of team control, coming off a year where he got down-ballot Cy Young votes, with a reasonable salary. Zack Wheeler got $118M over five years, and at least one other team was offering him that much too (the White Sox, actually) and Lynn was pretty clearly better in 2019, and ZiPs projected him to be better than Wheeler in 2020 too (4.1 to 3).
That said, I do sort of understand where the Rangers were coming from. They had a brand new ballpark and wanted to get people out. They were talking about trading for Arenado. Obviously no part of their plan worked. But as far as plans go, “have a decent team for the opening of a brand-new ballpark” is a lot more defensible than any other team that needs to rebuild.
“Have a decent team for the opening of a brand-new ballpark” is a defensible strategy.
“Have a bad team and be in denial in the hopes of lucking out to be decent” is not.
Fangraphs gave Rangers ~5% chance of making the playoffs pre-Covid in 2020.
Feels like a fairly light return, but Texas has had success with pitchers recently. You don’t have to squint that hard to see them turning both Dunning and Weems into quality big league arms. Still, seems light given Lynn’s pay and recent success. I guess 1 year left of control dictated that.