Marcus Stroman is Now a Met, for Some Reason
While it might not be a surprise that the Blue Jays’ Marcus Stroman is the first big-name player to be traded in advance of the coming July 31 deadline, the team on the other end of the transaction has raised some eyebrows. At 50-55, the Mets are running fourth in the National League East (11 1/2 games out of first place), and seventh in the NL Wild Card race (six games out). Acquiring the 28-year-old righty, who has one more year of club control remaining, in exchange for a pair of pitching prospects appears to be both a prelude to another deal involving a Mets starting pitcher and a signal that the team intends to contend next season rather than plunge itself into a more substantial rebuild. The alternative — that first-year general manager Brodie Van Wagenen is doubling down on a disappointing team whose playoff odds are just 11.2% (10.5% for the Wild Card) — well, that would be quite the four-dimensional chess move.
New York gets:
RHP Marcus Stroman
Cash considerations
Toronto gets:
LHP Anthony Kay
RHP Simeon Woods-Richardson
Stroman has pitched far better than his 6-11 won-loss record indicates. Entering Sunday, his 2.96 ERA ranks fifth in the AL, his 3.52 FIP sixth, his 2.9 WAR 10th. In a season where home runs are more common than ever before (1.38 per team per game), he owns the league’s third-lowest rate per nine innings (0.72), in part because he’s excelled at keeping the ball on the ground; his 56.3% groundball rate is the Junior Circuit’s highest.
The same qualities that make Stroman a useful pitcher, however, also limit his upside. At a time when sinkerball usage is at its lowest in the pitch-tracking era (since 2008) — just 14.7% of all pitches thrown, according to Pitch Info — Stroman’s 34.6% sinker rate is 12th among qualified starters in both leagues. When batters put his sinkers in play, they become groundballs 67.1% of the time, though they only generate a 5.5% swinging strike rate. Stroman’s overall swinging strike rate of 9.8% is 20th out of 34 AL qualifiers, while his 19.3% strikeout rate is 22nd, and his 12.5% strikeout-to-walk differential is 23rd.
The fact that Stroman doesn’t miss many bats is one reason why contenders in pursuit of name-brand rotation help might prefer the Indians’ Trevor Bauer (28.1% K rate, 3.49 ERA, 4.19 FIP), the Diamondbacks’ Robbie Ray (31.0% K rate, 3.95 ERA, 4.27 FIP), the Tigers’ Matthew Boyd (32.1% K rate, 4.07 ERA, 3.57 FIP), or the Mets’ own Noah Syndergaard (23.8%, 4.33 ERA, 3.64 FIP) or Zack Wheeler (25.9% K rate, 4.71 ERA, 3.64 FIP). Of course, some or even most of those pitchers may not wind up going anywhere before July 31 because their current teams aren’t letting them go for cheap and in some cases, still harbor contention hopes of their own. Of that group, only Wheeler — who incidentally made an acceptable but unspectacular return from a bout of shoulder impingement with a 5.1-inning, three-run start against the Pirates on Friday — is a pending free agent. The rest, like Stroman, have some years of club control remaining.
What’s more, Stroman’s contact-driven tendencies make him a particularly odd fit for the Mets, whose team defense has been, to put it politely, utterly atrocious. They’re second-to-last in the NL in defensive efficiency (.674) and dead last in the league in both UZR (-23.5) and DRS (-59). Via Craig Edwards’ forthcoming piece about Syndergaard, here’s a breakdown of the team’s infield defense covering this year and the past four seasons:
| SS/2B/3B UZR | Rank | SS/2B/3B DRS | Rank | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2016-2019 | -36.2 | 28 | -93 | 30 |
| 2019 | -13.6 | 30 | -24 | 27 |
Yikes.
One other concern regarding Stroman is durability. While the 5-foot-8, 180-pound righty reached the 200-inning plateau in both 2016 and ’17, this might be just the third year out of six in which he throws at least 150 innings, and the fourth out of six in which he reaches 3.0 WAR (he’s never topped 3.4). He was limited to four regular season starts in 2015 by a torn ACL, though he rehabbed in time to make three postseason starts. He spent 45 days on the disabled list last year with shoulder fatigue, a problem that no doubt contributed to his disappointing 5.54 ERA (but 3.91 FIP) in 102.1 innings.
Leaving aside the possibility that the Mets still think they have a shot at a playoff spot this year, their next move(s) with regards to the rotation should be of great interest. Via ESPN’s Jeff Passan, “The likelihood is strong they deal at least one of Wheeler and Noah Syndergaard. They’ve hijacked the market.”
The Mets are known to be shopping Syndergaard, who has two more years of club control remaining, and if they do deal him, they should receive a more substantial package than they surrendered to get Stroman. The New York Post’s Joel Sherman reported on Saturday that the team has let suitors know they’re seeking “a starter who can go into their rotation now — even if he is a No. 3-4 type — and a few top prospects.”
Such volume may be unattainable, particularly given that the 26-year-old righty hasn’t pitched anywhere close to his full capability; it’s worth noting that after placing 29th in our Trade Value series last year, Syndergaard slipped off of the list this year. Meanwhile, per the Athletic’s Ken Rosenthal, the Mets have explored signing Wheeler to an extension rather than trading him, though a team source told Passan that an extension is increasingly unlikely. A rotation with Jacob deGrom, Stroman, Steven Matz, and a starter fetched in the Syndergaard trade would still rate as a competitive one, particularly if they put the money they’re currently spending on Wheeler and Jason Vargas (who has an $8 million club option and $2 million buyout for 2020) into paying another starter.
On the Blue Jays’ side, dealing the popular Stroman has to be a blow to a fan base that had hopes of him playing the elder statesman into the Vladimir Guerrero Jr./Bo Bichette era. Despite the pitcher’s stated willingness to sign a long-term extension, Toronto doesn’t appear to have made a substantial effort to retain him, either this past winter or more recently. Via SNY’s Andy Martino, when the Jays were said to have told teams they were considering extending Stroman, the pitcher responded on Twitter, “That’s news to me. Lol.” The Toronto Star’s Gregor Chisholm chronicled the erosion of the team’s relationship with the pitcher.
As for the prospects heading to Toronto, the 24-year-old Kay and the 18-year-old Woods-Richardson ranked ninth and seventh respectively on the Mets’ prospect list in January, and were ninth and eighth in the system at the time they were dealt.
Kay, a 6-foot, 218-pound southpaw, is a potential No. 4 starter who will likely draw consideration for a spot in our Top 100 Prospects list this winter. A supplemental first-round pick in the 2016 draft — number 31 overall, 12 picks after Justin Dunn, who was traded to the Mariners in the Robinson Cano deal — Kay was so overworked at the University of Connecticut that he underwent Tommy John surgery in October of that year, and didn’t make his professional debut until 2018. Eric Longenhagen described the post-TJ version of Kay as “a lefty changeup monster with mediocre velocity.” His fastball has since ticked up, and now sits 90-94 mph while touching 96 (he sat 95-96 in his inning during the Futures Game). His once-dominant changeup has regressed somewhat, but still rates as a potentially above-average pitch (grades of 50/55), as does his two-plane breaking ball.
Kay began the year at Double-A Binghamtom, where he pitched to a 1.49 ERA and 2.72 FIP in 66.1 innings before moving up to Triple-A Syracuse, where he’s been cuffed for a 6.61 ERA and 6.23 FIP in 31.1 innings. The use of the major league ball in Triple-A this year, which has sent home run rates skyrocketing, appears to be a factor; he yielded 0.27 homers per nine at Binghamton but 2.01 per nine at Syracuse. More unsettlingly, his strikeout rate has plunged from 26.7% to 18.6% with the change in levels.
Woods-Richardson, who lists at 6-foot-3, 210 pounds, was the Mets’ second-round pick in the 2018 draft (48th overall) out of a Sugar Land, Texas high school. He’s athletic, with a fiery mound presence and a penchant for working so quickly that it makes batters uncomfortable, though scouts love it. His floor is as a high-leverage reliever, though he has the potential to be a mid-rotation starter. He’s spent this year pitching at A-level Columbia, where he’s struck out 29.9% of hitters while posting a 4.25 ERA and 2.55 FIP.
Prior to the draft, Woods-Richardson drew consideration as a power-hitting third-base prospect as well. Per Longenhagen, his frame has already matured, so he’s not as physically projectable as most other teens, which may cause him to be overrated by some teams. His vertically oriented release point makes it hard for him to work his fastball (which sits 91-94 and touches 96, with above-average life) east and west, though it enables him to change hitters’ eye levels with low breaking balls; he’s got a potential plus curveball, and above-average changeup. Concerns about command led several teams to consider him a future reliever, and his floor is that of a high-leverage one. A third impact pitch could help him reach that mid-rotation ceiling.
In all, this looks to be a solid but unspectacular haul for the Blue Jays, who have gotten a pair of 45 Future Value prospects for an All-Star with one-plus year of club control remaining. There are no sure things with pitching prospects, and the Mets, whose farm system currently ranks 24th on THE BOARD, (which reflects the loss of Kay and Woods-Richardson) weren’t exactly waist-deep in them. Both rate as high risk, though with higher risk comes the potential for higher reward.
As for the Mets, it’s difficult to evaluate this move in a vacuum, since we don’t know which way they’ll go with Syndergaard, Wheeler, and the rest of their deadline plans. That Stroman’s strengths don’t align with those of the Mets — as currently constituted, at least — in terms of the quality of their defense does rate as a concern, as does the possibility that they’re in the midst of misreading the current landscape. Having said that, it’s selling Stroman short (no pun intended) to say that he won’t help the team. He’s a damn good pitcher who was quite popular in Toronto, one whose Long Island roots should make him a fan favorite in Queens.
Brooklyn-based Jay Jaffe is a senior writer for FanGraphs, the author of The Cooperstown Casebook (Thomas Dunne Books, 2017) and the creator of the JAWS (Jaffe WAR Score) metric for Hall of Fame analysis. He founded the Futility Infielder website (2001), was a columnist for Baseball Prospectus (2005-2012) and a contributing writer for Sports Illustrated (2012-2018). He has been a recurring guest on MLB Network and a member of the BBWAA since 2011, and a Hall of Fame voter since 2021. Follow him on BlueSky @jayjaffe.bsky.social.
With the 2.5 mil cash consideration they got I really think the Blue Jays got fleeced…
hey now they can afford to keep the lights on for night games.
Exactly. Everyone who seems baffled by the Mets making this move is missing the obvious. This was a crazy low price for Stroman and this trade makes sense for literally any and every team given such, except for the Blue Jays of course. I have no clue why they accepted such a terrible return but if they wanted to the Mets should be able to flip him for more than the gave up this off season or possibly even next year at the deadline if he maintains his performance.
To add to what jyjjy said, they have also now eliminated an alternative other teams could turn to if they don’t want to pay the price on Thor or Wheeler. Cornering the market so to speak
True, although it defeats the purpose of becoming sellers if the strategy also involves buying the competition. Generally, teams are either buyers or sellers, which means they’re either “going for it” or “rebuilding/retooling”. Not both at once. Unless there really is some 4-D strategy at play here that I’m not sophisticated enough to see, but given that this is the Mets we are talking about, I kind of doubt it.
To me the the game is about acquiring assets and they were able to acquire a nice asset somewhat cheaply. Whether you are rebuilding or not, any chance you get to get positive value coming your way you should take it in my opinion. And on top of that if it has the added benefit of potentially creating some scarcity and helps to drive up the cost of your other assets, then all the better. Is this what the Mets were going for? I somewhat doubt it. But I can see the logic in this move from my perspective.
Perfect headline.
It’s a stupid misleading headline, that is contradicted by the body of the article which discusses possible reasons and positives of trading for Stroman. Just an empty headed stupid shot at the Mets, when even the author knows better and says so, because the audience eats up stupid empty headed shots at the Mets.
It’s a team in the biggest media market in the world that is run like a third division part time mexican baseball team because the owners got caught up in a pyramid scheme and have to spend every nickel as fast as they earn it to pay a particularly pissed off mets fan in charge of getting that money back. They deserve every shot they get. At this point I expect Jeffy to get caught up in the Epstein deal as a funder. They seem like a mark for every two bit “hedge fund manager” in Manhattan.
I have no problem with the headline, but nothing you mention is relevant to this trade. No matter how you obviously feel about the Mets, this trade is a win for them.
Yeah remember when the Leones de Yucatan had the sixth highest MLB luxury tax assessment total of $193,000,000? (via Cots)
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/e/2PACX-1vRiCClxiYjkOyzMZaMCgPITvq4pmb0TFlmau1-O-ffwp1qEhm66q7Y-
Oh wait, that was the Mets. Never mind.
>>>> because the owners got caught up in a pyramid scheme and have to spend every nickel as fast as they earn it to pay a particularly pissed off mets fan in charge of getting that money back. They deserve every shot they get. <<<<
But your comment is underscoring my original objection, because it's another contentless bullshit post, barking comedy tropes about the Mets like a seal, and yet it's the highest upvoted comment in the thread.
Most of you people are doing lolMets comedy from 2012, and never updated your shit. The Mets spent roughly like $500 million on new contracts since 2017; you can take issue with individual moves, sure, but HERP DERP THEY BELONG IN DES MOINES AND NOT NEW YORK is just Dane Cook-level hack bullshit.
There's never any thought behind it, and even THIS ARTICLE argues (inside the body of the article) the merits of making this trade, but still takes a shot at them in the headline. Because they know a bunch of goofs will eat it up and it will get clicks (and here you are rolling along to prove them right).
Jeff Wilpon has logged on!
You, aka the guy who just said the Mets spend as much money as a third rate Mexican team in an independent league, responding to my post pointing out they have the 6th largest luxury tax hit in MLB:
“Hurr durr! Anyone who disagrees with my dumbass diarrhea I spew about the Mets delivered in a sewage tank time machine from 2011, must work for the Mets!”
Work for? Own. The employees are not nearly this, as it were, invested.
@Mookie Wilson –
Well Said!
@Dukewinslow
Ridiculous comment.
@3D
Spot on. If the Mets acquired God Almighty, they’d still get bashed.
They’d quickly flip him for Edwin Diaz.
>>>>They’d quickly flip him for Edwin Diaz.<<<<
Yeah, the Mets notoriously trade all their good prospects! Herp derp!
Which is why they totally don't have McNeil, Alonso, Conforto, Smith, Rosario, deGrom, Syndergaard, Matz, Wheeler and Lugo making up ~50% of their roster. Plus 3 top 100 prospects, even after trading for Cano and Diaz, none of whom were traded for Marcus Stroman.
Trash comments top to bottom
I’m pretty sure God has lost his prospect status.
Oh, I am currently having trouble resisting the temptation to make a joke about him being on the Injured List (wood-related injury) during the first month of every season…
I’m willing to believe that the Mets wouldn’t get bashed if they got Mike Trout.
I see Mike Trout as more of a Moses figure myself.
With a name like that, no way he’s parting the Red Sea.
What in the world is left to defend about the Mets? They run a team in the largest city in the country as if it’s in Des Moines, they hire random jack wagons with no experience to be their GM, they have a front office that is years behind the rest of the league, which, among other things doesn’t even scout every minor league level, they consistently mismanage injuries including Nimmo’s this year, they play everyone out of position and/or don’t understand the value of defense, they give up on players too early (see d’arnaud, kelenic, dunn), and for the second time this year their GM made a win now trade with a roster than anyone can see is not winning anything now. There’s almost no redeeming quality to this franchise except they sometimes fall ass backwards into cool players like Jeff McNeil (but not before they acquire a bunch of old guys to block him off of positions that he could reasonably play – looking at you Toddfather and Cano).
It’s an absolute clown show all around. There’s no blind “lolmetz” takes required here. There is ample evidence to back up the “lolmetz.” It’s even more sad than funny at this point, because it sucks that so many young players careers have been wrecked by their mismanagement and so many fans have to endure this garbage
Well, lets see what they do next. This trade screams that another one is coming.
“What in the world is left to defend about the Mets?”
Hey! I, for one, wish my team would sign a 30 year old mediocre quarterback and let him occupy a AAA roster spot instead of someone who has even the slightest chance of becoming an actual big leaguer.
Can you name anyone who should have occupied the roster spot that Tim Tebow occupied, or are you talking out of your ass?
I would probably start with a professional baseball player.
You’re getting way more heated and rude about this than is justified or healthy. Take a break.
So about this..
If the small market illusions are referring to how much money the Mets spend, it’s a little off base. 9th highest payroll in baseball this year, ahead of the Angels and Phillies. And while it’s fluctuated for the past decade or so, they’ve at least cracked a Top 5 payroll as recently as 2011 (and they stunk), which is more than they can say in Atlanta for one.
As for BVW, it certainly was an unorthodox hire, but I think some judge too quickly. His moves have, to say the least, varied in public and critical reaction.
On Jed Lowrie: “a nice little move” -Jay Jaffe
On the Diaz/Cano trade: “I’m not convinced it’s particularly lopsided on either end.” -Jeff Sullivan
On Wilsom Ramos: “a solid upgrade” -Jay Jaffe
Now, the problem is that the acquisitions haven’t varied as far as their results, but to be so critical of BVW at this point is the definition of hindsight bias. These were hardly objective disasters in the moment, and some were even largely regarded as plus moves.
One problem, which you get to, is that they’ve devalued team defense and positional deployment. For a team whose strength should be its pitching, they have, for some reason, completely disregarded their defense up the middle, failing to bring in a defensively above average MI or CF who can also play as a regular bat. Cano actually looked like the closest thing to that since Jose Reyes. And, yes, they’ve actively blocked Jeff McNeil (imagine if they needed to get Lowrie regular ABs) under the guise that they could pass him as a corner outfielder, which wouldn’t be so bad if it didn’t also force them to push Michael Conforto (or Brandon Nimmo, theoretically) into CF regularly.
To say the Mets have been guilty of the incomprehensible, irresponsible and inept may be an understatement, but there is certainly blind bias at play against them, at least in public perception. In spite of all the “I” words, all the hasthags, all the giggles, this is still a franchise that appeared in the World Series less than five years ago. That’s more recently than all but five other franchises can claim, including their crosstown rivals. And they came really close to winning it, by the way.
Also in their defense, in an age where teams are viciously derided for “tanking”, the Mets have at least refused to do so, to the chagrin of at least some population of their fans.
Think of it this way. If I presented you blindly with ‘Franchise A’ as having done the following over the last five years:
-Averaged a top third payroll
-Averaged 81 wins
-Two playoff appearances
-One WS appearance
Would the response be, “Must be the #lolmetz!”?
@oozyalbies1
Nailed it.
Anyone else notice that 3D’s username changed to Mookie Wilson?
While I don’t agree with the time of your post, I do agree that it was a poor choice of headline. Brief application of brain matter can come up with reasons this happened.
Perhaps though it was just a poorly worded way of saying this was a surprise result.
The article is titled “for some reason” which he then tries to figure out. He didn’t title the article “for no reason.”
June 13th Fangraphs artice – Everyone Should Want Marcus Stroman, quote “Teams that are struggling this year but want to keep their window open, like the Cardinals, Red Sox, Angels, Nationals, Rockies, and Mets, should be involved.”
June 29th Fangraphs artice – Marcus Stroman is Now a Met, For Some Reason
I can see why some people are pointing out that it seems like Mets bashing. It is directly contradicting an article from the same site (different author), from two weeks ago.
Fangraphs is not like a political campaign where you want all of your spokespeople to have a consistent message. These two authors have different perspectives. When authors have the same perspective, they get accused of groupthink. When different, then they get accused of hypocrisy. I guess they just can’t win, much like the Mets.
Maybe they could talk to each other a bit, though.
Wtf why do you all think it is June 29th, it is not June 29th
Oh please. There are far more white knights like yourself on this site than people who are profusely and unreasonably negative.
One problem: it is not the month of June. The other article was 6 weeks ago, not 2 weeks ago. Situations change.
>>>The article is titled “for some reason” which he then tries to figure out. He didn’t title the article “for no reason.”<<<
Come on, you didn't just start reading and writing English last week, I'm assuming. "So and so did X for some reason" is a perjorative term that indicates, no, there is actually no reason, and this is stupid.
And yet, after that headline, the article itself goes on to explore, y'know, actual positive reasons the Mets may have done this.
And look at the replies here, there are a bunch of trained seals doing LOLMets comedy as a response to that headline and someone being critical of it, and all those comments are highly upvoted. So clearly it works, even in a more supposedly erudite corner of the Internet like Fangraphs comments, **even in the comments of a post basically defending a trade the Mets made**, or at least exploring it conceptually.
It's just a trash, hack meme at this point, there's rational discussion of the Mets, there's criticism that's certainly warranted, and then there's just being a dick.
I can get this stuff in dozens of places on the Internet if I want to melt my brain to fondue. I don't need it from Fangraphs which I turn to for some kind of slightly more erudite and less reactionary bullshit, both in the comments and the articles. 90% of this thread should be ashamed of themselves.
Wow, look at this guy, he knows the word erudite. He must be very erudite, because he used it twice. I hope everyone noticed.
Way to defend the Mets’ decisions by not defending the Mets’ decisions at all and just ad hominem attacking the people criticizing the Mets.
There’s a lot of articles on this site about the Mets that I just avoid reading because I can’t fucking stand the lolMets jokes. And then whenever a Mets fan complains in the comments they get downvoted. Do the writers just enjoy pissing off Mets fans?? Just give analysis, there’s a million other ways to try to be funny that doesn’t anger a fan base
the Mets piss people off, who make lolmets jokes, because in any other league (read: the NBA) the kind of brand damage the Wilpons inflict on the team in THE LARGEST MEDIA MARKET IN THE WORLD, let alone on the rest of the league, would simply not be tolerated. Frankly, baseball dances on the edge of the precipice with these pretty fake “funding operations with future sales” billionaires, and they are going to get burned. They barely escaped it with Hicks and Gillette or the McCourt debacle, but the Wilpons could very much run out of runway and it would be a disaster. It’s amazing to me the league hasn’t coordinated a sale.
“because in any other league (read: the NBA) ”
You’ve heard of the Knicks right?
the NBA has pushed three ownership groups out in the last decade for bad behavior- and only one clearly couldn’t afford their team. For Dolan’s faults, it doesn’t appear that he can’t afford to keep the lights on, whereas with the Mets the danger that a bridge loan gets weird with a rate change (like Hicks and Gillette, remember) and all of a sudden they can’t make payroll, and then a major market team is suddenly even more of an embarrassment than it already is… I can’t believe MLB believes that’s a risk they can afford to take.
The weird thing about all the complains about lolMets jokes is that mostly I see a ton of people in the comments praising this move, or just questioning why they would do this (which is hardly a lolMets joke).
There’s ample evidence that the organization is dysfunctional, but it’s not clear this particular trade is evidence of it.
Perhaps it was an accurately worded way of saying that there is absolutely no reason for the Mets to be trading prospects for someone who will be a free agent after next season.
I’m very confused by this whole criticism. It is not clear why exactly the Mets acquired Stroman, and what they plan on doing with him. Hence, “for some [as-yet-known] reason.” A critical headline would have been: “Marcus Stroman is Now A Met, for No Good Reason.”
Well, I guess we all know Brodie Van Wagenen’s Fangraphs handle now.
wonder if he dictates the posts to an intern
Is there any chance the Mets will flip Stroman this week? If not, what a waste for all parties.
I kind of feel bad for Stroman, at least as bad as one can feel for a guy making millions of dollars for playing a game. The dude is clearly a competitor, and he probably thought he was going to the Yankees or Twins or some other team that would be in the thick of the playoff race.
No need to feel bad for him.
He now gets to showcase himself in the biggest baseball market in the country while playing close to home, those are two pretty solid consolation prizes.
Feel like the reds could have used him to replace Roark next year. Pretty low acquisition cost all things considered. Well played by BVW.
This seems pretty straightforward no-lose for the Mets…if they keep Syndergaard for 2020 now they have a replacement in hand for Wheeler and can compete. If they trade him now at least they still have Stroman for 2020, plus whoever they get for Syndergaard. Kay is nice and all but isn’t so high on the prospect list of a team with a decent farm.
Also, Stroman apparently loves NY so who knows, maybe he sticks around. And if not and your 2020 falls through you can trade him next year! Barring the obvious (injury), I actually don’t see how the Mets come out losers in this.
What baffles me is that other teams must not have been so serious about Stroman.
This is the return package And the Jays kicked in money, and no one who is playing for 2019 was willing to beat it?
Well said. It may well be that the Blue Jays significantly overvalued both pitchers. Perhaps for whatever reason they see both as potential #2 starters. Otherwise it’s inexplicable.
Unrelated, but I thought your username was sogardlooking which, IMO, would have been awesome.
My thought here is that
1) the Jays didn’t want to trade intra-division
2) the Jays REALLY didn’t want to trade with the Yankees (the last few times they’ve made deals with the Yanks, it hasn’t turned out great for them)
3) Stroman said he wanted to go to NY
4) the Jays were irritated by him
5) sending him to the Mets is a good way to flip him the bird on the way out the door
I’d hope major league front offices are beyond that. Hope being the operative word there.
Check Stroman’s twitter. He grew up a Mets fan. He’s ecstatic about the trade.
While I sort of agree, he also is not going act disappointed imo
He threw a fit in the clubhouse after it…
“if they keep Syndergaard for 2020 now they have a replacement in hand for Wheeler and can compete”
But can they? Stroman for Wheeler doesn’t seem like the kind of upgrade that can dig a team out from a fourth place finish and a double-digit deficit in the standings. What other moves would the Mets have to pull off to be legitimate contenders in 2020?
up the middle defense…. which is part of any rumored deal for Syndergaard (Padres, apparently?)
I wonder if the Mets are going to end up with more bad D outfielders from the Padres?
Cespedes and Nimmo back, J.D. Davis at third, fewer starts for Cano. I actually like the offense and the rotation. Some improvements in the bullpen (trade Wheeler for those to get started!) and they’re in the thick of it.
Now, I am not a Mets fan. I also doubt the wisdom of being in an arms race against three teams that really are better set up for the future, but loud and clear since last off-season these guys don’t want to rebuild, and if that’s the mandate this is a good way to play it
Still counting on Cespedes? Plz that ship has sailed
“Cespedes… back.”
Yes, that’s probably the next part to break.
Surprised the Mets haven’t sued to get residuals from Ciara plagiarizing their injury report
JD Davis at third base? (emphasis on: at third base?)
The advanced metrics don’t hate JD at third. Easy to imagine he could be OK as a bat first 3B.
the rest of the Straight Shot would probably be better than Cano right now.
The Mets would need to extend Wheeler, keep Syndergaard, and significantly improve their OF defense by adding a real CFer, even if it’s a 4th OF type who pushes Nimmo and Conforto back to the corners. The Mets could actually contend with a rotation of deGrom, Syndergaard, Stroman, Wheeler, and Vargas / Matz / Gsellman, but they’d also have to vastly improve the bullpen and be willing to push Cano to the bench and install McNeil at 2B.
That’s, what, a 200m payroll? It’s not happening, but that’s how it would be done.
A strong 1-4 rotation to compensate for a mediocre batting order and weak but improved defense and an iffy bullpen.
it’s not a bad deal either at 200 million! That’s a good team in a tough division. The Mets don’t obviously have a way to pay that rate though
Gsellman’s not a starter anymore. He’s a mediocre reliever at best and hasn’t started a game since 2017. They’ve let guys like Chris Flexen, Walker Lockett, and Paul Sewald start over him…
I mean the Mets have plenty of flaws, but the most identifiable has been their bullpen. Obviously, using blown saves is an incredibly simplistic way to evaluate things, but they lead the majors in blown saves. If they had just league average, they’d be right in the thick of the division.
You are undervaluing how much the defense has had in creating those blown saves.
Mets relievers have given up 56 HR’s and walked 162 batters in 345 innings. What magicians would you like to put behind them to improve those numbers?
Familia was so great in the past too, I wonder what happened?
I just was looking at the team-level InsideEdge data. I grabbed, the median value for each bucket, the Mets value and the number of plays the Mets have for those buckets.
the Mets were below the median for all of them, but, what would an average game look like? For each bucket I did (League%-Mets%)*Plays/106gm:
90-100% -0.080 plays/game
60-90% -0.047
40-60% -0.034
10-40% -.136
1-10% -.012
So in total, we’re looking at just shy of one missed play for every three games. Given that Stroman would be looking at like 6-7 innings, not 9 for the most part, that actually knocks it down to one missed play per 4-5 games.
Am I severely misunderstanding InsideEdge or is the impact of the level of defensive ineptitude on the starting pitcher being way overblown?
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Just to attack it another way; the Mets are at -23.5 UZR. In 106 games, that is -0.20 runs per game and -0.15-0.17 runs per 6-7 IP.
Had Stroman given up an extra run every 6-7 starts, his 3.60 RA9 goes up to 3.80-3.90. Assuming his FIP (plus UER/9IP) is more representative of his RoS RA/9, then we’re looking at 4.35-4.45.
Ouch, that all sucks, but it also assumes that he was getting league average defense with the blue Jays. While the Mets are sitting at #28 in the Majors in UZR, the Blue Jays are only one spot ahead.
Given that, as far as defense goes, is there a good reason to expect something different than his FIP (or xFIP) going forward? Except that he’s going to the NL from the AL, which should lower it by a couple of tenths.
Going from Toronto with their 98 park factor (multi-year from baseball reference) to CitiField that comes in at 93 should help his unadjusted numbers a bit too.
But maybe it’s just my orange and blue tinted glasses…
Met’s bullpen is 26th in the league in combined WPA at -4.18. Not good, but a league average bullpen only gets them back 4 games, which still leaves them ahead of the Marlins and behind everyone else. The bullpen is a big part of their problem, and relievers are so unpredictable that they could have a great bullpen next year, but I don’t think that the bullpen and one starter are likely to be enough.
The Mets won’t be contending (not sure what ‘competing’ means here) next season.
Say they keep Syndergaard (very unlikely as Syndergaard is who Stroman is replacing). This is still a team heading for 77 wins in 2019, who going into 2020 lost a decent 3Bman, and is looking at worse projections for 2020 versus for 2019 for nearly every player on the roster.
Instead of being the player off a terrific year and on his way up, Nimmo projects for 1-2 wins in 2020. Instead of still owning real upside, Conforto has settled in as a 3 win corner guy the Mets won’t keep past next year. Diaz’s projections are shot, too–now he’s just a good reliever with good stuff who has had only one terrific year out of four.
As for Cano, he was a 3 WAR player with upside who now projects to, what, 1 WAR? And where do you put Familia? Meanwhile the chance of Kay coming up midseason and contributing is obviously gone. This is a team that with Stroman replacing Wheeler projects for a win total in the mid-70s for next year.
Even deGrom may not be pitching on the next good Mets team. His contract doesn’t appear to stretch that long.
2016 Diaz was not ‘terrific’? really?
I agree with the rest though, the Mets are a mess.
Really. Even Diaz’s one terrific season was just an average Craig Kimbrel year.
so in other words……….teerrrriiibbllllee!!! Diaz pitched pretty much like ‘only’ average Kimbrel in 2016 as well, btw.
If Stroman wanted to be a Met, the Mets would have been better off just waiting until after 2020 to sign him without giving up two prospects.
Sure, who cares about the next season and a half?
If you’re hungry now why not wait and buy that sandwich next week? On Sale!
I can’t decide whether this is a sign that it is a really terrible market to be a seller or the Blue Jays FO don’t know what they have in trades at the deadline. I like Woods Richardson a lot but he’s in A-ball, and there are a hundred things that could go wrong here…this is not a good haul for a guy who appeared to have a lot of interest. I find it amazing that none of the Yankees, Phillies, Twins, Brewers, or Astros were willing to top this, and maybe other teams too. I just don’t know if I believe it.
If this really was the best offer, then you have to wonder what on earth was going on with those other teams. I know that prospects are being prized more than ever, but there is a lot of present value in getting a starter for 1.5 years who can help you win now. The pendulum may have swung too far the other way. Maybe it’s just a bad time to be a seller. Even then, it’s hard to believe this was all they could get.
Most people seem to be focusing on why the Mets would do this, and I would agree it doesn’t make a lot of sense for them either. Why would they trade for Stroman, whose production this year is unlikely to make a difference, instead of a guy whose value is more future-oriented is beyond me. They really didn’t have to make a move now…they had all offseason to figure this out. But they also got so much value, I understand why they would want to pull the trigger on it. I just can’t figure out…why would they be more motivated than other teams? Were they?
This trade is just confusing on a bunch of different levels.
maybe make it where if you want a good starter- you almost have to deal with the Mets now.
This crossed my mind this morning. Now THAT would be 4-dimensional chess. I have no idea if it would work, though. My head tells me it wouldn’t, but my gut is still searching for some reason why this makes sense.
Except the Mets FO doesn’t even play checkers.
The most obvious first-pass reason: No one actually HAS to sell the farm to buy a SP at the trading deadline. If Van Wagenen’s very smart plan to corner the market falls apart if the market just waits him out, it’s not a very smart plan.
If the market waits him out, then I don’t think Van Wagenen will be the big loser here. After all, he’d be going into the last 2 months with a rotation of deGrom, Syndergaard, Stroman, Wheeler and Vargas (with Matz helping the bullpen). And he’d have a great top-3 going into next year (assuming other teams don’t make suitable offers for Syndergaard in the winter).
The biggest loser will be someone like the Yankees, who clearly need SP help but are being too stingy to go out and get it.
LOL right again, dammit
It will be interesting to see what the Mets do next.
It may be that Atkins needed to save face and end it quickly after being caught in a lie about contract extension for Stro. Blue Jays pulled the trigger too fast and got very mediocre returns.
Amazed the Jays couldn’t get more from, like, Atlanta (who I don’t think needs a starter unless it really is Syndergaard level) or the OTHER New York team.
The only thing I can think of here that makes this work is that the Jays have a better sense of what the Mets have than the Mets do.
Maybe the Jays went into this thinking they only move Stroman for a pitcher who could start for them next year. The GM did say something to the effect that pitching would be the priority…if you look at farm systems that could take a bunch of buyers out of it. Could they have artificially narrowed their market?
to me it seems like the Padres have the need, but have the pieces to get, well, more than Stroman. Rays too maybe. It might be a matter of Stroman’s value, than what the other contenders need.
I think it’s way more about, as Jay points out, Stroman is not really the type of pitcher teams value a ton. And they are probably right not too. When it comes to soft contact pitchers, it’s still kind of an unknown.
The simplest answer is that most teams don’t think Stroman is all that great. The media and some fans talk about Stroman like he’s an ace, but he’s not a 1 or 2 starter in most playoff teams’ rotations.
No, he’s a #3 for me too. But a #3 starter is still a guy who pitches a lot in the playoffs. That has a lot of value, in addition to whatever you get out of him in the regular season. He’d be an upgrade to about ten teams’ playoff rotations (the only exceptions I can think of is Cleveland, the Dodgers, Nationals, the Rays (if everyone healthy, which they probably won’t be)and (maybe) the Astros. And for the buyers not mentioned, for some of them (Brewers, Cards, Phillies, A’s) he’d a be a very big upgrade.
Really? Most analytics have him 3-5 SP in the league, right? It’s laughable to say he wouldn’t help the Dodgers, whose starters all get pulled after 5 innings so they don’t go through the order three times. Stro has a huge repertoire of pitches and doesn’t need that protection. Unlike Bauer and Kershaw, he doesn’t melt under pressure. He’s the perfect antidote to power hitting teams, and that could be crucial in a playoff series.
So everyone has their own definitions of a #1 starter, #2 starter, etc. Eric and Kiley’s definitions are incredibly lofty–like, there’s only one, two, or three #1’s in the league at any given time. Mine are “the guys you need to put yourself in the best position in the playoffs. Heuristically, that comes out to:
#1: A guy you want starting the wild-card game. One of the best pitchers in the league. Utterly dominant. You have to win this game. A guy you project to be a 5-win pitcher. Scherzer, deGrom, Sale, Verlander (weird to put him up there after I thought he was on the way out 2-3 years ago). Severino was here before the injury woes. Probably only 5-10 of these guys out there.
#2: A guy you want pitching multiple times in any playoff series. Just a cut below #1. A 4-win pitcher. Berrios, Syndergaard, Paxton, Bauer.
#3: A guy you like starting in playoff games. A 3-win pitcher. Kyle Hendricks, Kyle Gibson, Joe Musgrove.
#4: A guy who, if he started in a playoff game, it wouldn’t be a disaster, but it’s far from ideal. A 2-win pitcher.
#5: A guy you need to get through the regular season, but you don’t need to start in the playoffs. A 1-win pitcher.
Stroman slots in as a guy who kind of straddles the #2/#3 definition here. He’s having a really good year, arguably his best ever, but he’s projected as a 3.5 win pitcher, both in terms of what he’s done in the past and what his projections say he’ll do going forward. He keeps the ball on the ground, so maybe you can bump him up a bit for that. I would definitely not put him above Walker Buehler or Clayton Kershaw, both of whom are pretty clear #2’s according to this (although Buehler has a shot at being a #1 and Kershaw was a #1 as recently as 2017).
the question is, if Stroman had more than a year of team control, would he be worth more than Snell?
No way is Stroman more valuable than Snell if Stroman had another year of control. I like Stroman and am skeptical about Snell is 1.5 years younger and a better pitcher (not this year, but in general he is).
I 100% agree here, and that’s why in hindsight this trade is pretty reasonable for anyone but the Mets.
The way I think about it is, if you rate Stroman, how would you rate him against other similar current talent level pitchers if they had the same contract situation? Going from there, you get into the actual contract situation, which only lowers his value IMO
The problem is also how much can you trust Stroman going forward. As Jay mentions in his article, Stroman relies on getting a ton of contact and that contact turning into outs at a high rate. This is not ideal for a few reasons, the main one being that we dont really know how much of this is skill and how much is something else (luck, defence etc) which makes projecting him going forward pretty difficult.
Stroman is basically a right handed Dallas Kuechel only with less of a track record. And we saw this offseason how much teams valued Keuchel. I think its entirely possible that, despite what he might be on paper, teams just dont regard Stroman all that highly. In fact this trade pretty much confirms that.
You may be right that teams are valuing him much lower, but I think that’s a mistake. Stroman is running a 3.53 FIP, and his groundball rate is high enough that his xFIP isn’t very high either. He’s in the Top 20 most valuable pitchers this year based on FIP (again, defense-independent) and is projected to be approximately a 3-win pitcher going forward. The groundball part of his game is a bonus if you have good infield defense like the A’s or Angels, but it shouldn’t be a negative for a team like the Twins, Brewers, Yankees, etc.
But if you don’t think any of that is all that sustainable (or you just have no idea if it’s sustainable) then you don’t really care, for lack of a better term.
Do people not think that the FIP or xFIP or ground ball rate are sustainable? Those are the things that seem most likely to be sustainable for any pitcher, and he basically always posts about 7.5 K’s per 9, about 2.5 BB’s per nine, and about a 60% ground ball rate. The biggest issue with Stroman is likely his health, since he isn’t that far away from the dreaded “injury-prone” label.
its sustainable as long as he continues to generate soft contact. The problem is that we dont really know if generating soft contact is an actual skill.
But soft contact should have nothing to do with xFIP, and should only come into play for home run rates for FIP.
Stromans xFIP is 4.06. Over a full run higher than his ERA. His SIERA is even worse at 4.40.
I’m not sure what exactly you are arguing here. Even his stats suggest he is benefiting from something and raise red flags about how sustainable this is.
Maybe I should be clearer–I think teams should pay for his projected value going forward (e.g., ZiPs, Steamer, but they have their own models), xFIP second, and groundball rate third.
That xFIP, though, doesn’t make a lot of sense outside of the home ballpark and run environment he’s in now–he’s #27 in xFIP- this year. That’s pretty good! And that’s about the level of production that I think is sustainable, and that teams should be paying for–more than what they did.
I bet gb rate sustainability is one of those things organizations strongly disagree on in measurement and prediction, which also means that there might be orgs that are better at figuring it out
if that is your criteria, there really are some strange players chosen to define your criteria. Not going to go all SSS here, but Syndergaard had some troubling lack of K’s late last year which has spilled over to this year. I am sure he is valued high, as there was a time when people thought he could be the #1 pitcher in all the land, and he is still relatively young. Paxton was great in 2017, but he hasn’t been super good this year, and the inability to throw strikes at his home ballpark is concerning. Musgrove is probably average.
I mean, he put up over 4 wins last year, he’s not that far off that pace this year, and the projections like him a lot. Paxton, historically, has been a beast when he pitches (that’s a big if, and the reason why he’s not a #1). Joe Musgrove seems to be pretty predictably putting up 2 wins in 2/3rds of a season. You can weight current production vs. past production vs. the projections differently and come up with different examples, I suppose.
One issue is that the number of pitchers who truly qualify for your def. of #1 or #2 is incredibly low right now, and projects to be as bad or worse next season. Most of the ones you mentioned are either injured or fading. This makes the low return for a “#3” SP in Stroman even more inexplicable.
just backing this up with all but one of the pitchers on the top trade value list were fangraphs proclaimed #3 starters except Buehler
I continue to find that scale for #1, #2, etc starter that Eric and Kiley use to be shocking. I thought I was pretty conservative, thinking that there were only 5-10 #1 pitchers at any given time, but Eric and Kiley’s argument that there were only 1-3 of them repeatedly blows my mind. At what point do we just re-classify all the #2’s as #1’s?
the criteria used on this here website aren’t useful. The #1 group isn’t big enough to be a meaningful category, the #2 group is the only group that seems appropriately sized, and the #3 group is totally useless predictively because the range of outcomes of the huge group of #3’s by the criteria is incredibly wide. There’s just massive heterogeneity of variance in there. My fix would be changing the criteria such that #1 guys are competing for HoF spots, but #2 guys are day one starters/likely game one starters for a playoff team, which oh by the way would include Blake Snell, and then you add like 8 levels to make it easier to say “yeah I think Mike Soroka can start a playoff game” and “Marcus Stroman has some value to a team” and “Dallas Keuchel will eat up innings in a playoff game” without them being at the same indistinguishable mass of #3 starter.
also, because who gives a crap about future HoF voters, it’s probably more useful to Front Offices to widen the #1 classification than it is to narrow it.
My own thought is that a #1 pitcher is the guy who’s good enough to be the number 1 starter on a contending team. Any other definition seems absurd to me.
You have a five man rotation, and number the pitchers 1-5 accordingly, the Orioles may not have a “true” number 1, because compared to most MLB teams, their staff is not good. But I’d say that if there aren’t at least 15 #1 pitchers in the league, then your definition is too strict.
Call some pitchers an “Ace” and insist there are only 2-3 of them if you like, but there are thirty teams, which means 30 pitchers who head a rotation, if you think that more than half of them are not #1 pitchers (which basically means a pitcher able to head a rotation), then your definition is off, because there are 30 rotations to fill, and a third of them will make the playoffs.
@sadtrombone Can you name the current #1 and #2 SPs by your def? They simply don’t exist with the frequency you are suggesting. This is huge change in the distribution of pitching talent from even 3-4 years ago.
There aren’t many, at least according to this definition. Only about 5-10 #1 pitchers, only about 10-20 #2’s. People can come to different names based on whether they weight current performance, past performance, or the projections more heavily; also whether they’re willing to extrapolate out to 200 innings (I generally think of everything being prorated out to 200 innings for pitchers or 600 PAs for batters).
I’ll do my best, although I know this won’t satisfy everyone. Ones near the end of the list are probably people who could be swapped with those at the beginning of the next one, depending on how you weight different criteria.
#1: Scherzer, deGrom, Sale, Verlander, Cole, Bieber.
#2: Strasburg, Corbin, Greinke, Soroka, Nola, Paxton, Bauer, Syndergaard, Berrios, Buehler, Kershaw, Kluber, Giolito, Marquez, Woodruff, Snell.
Some pitchers, like Lance Lynn and Hyun-Jin Ryu are pretty difficult to classify, but they would probably slot in as #2s just because I think there’s real skepticism they can keep that up–but they’re also dominating. Carrasco would be #2 if he wasn’t battling leukemia. Morton is tough to classify, because he suddenly is pitching his best at an older age. Boyd and Wheeler have a decent argument for #2s, but I’m not sure; I’d like to see more of Clevinger and Glasnow.
I think the line between #1 and #2 here is kind of blurry (you could cut it off after Sale or after Corbin and I think you could argue it), but I think there’s a pretty big line between the Marquez/Woodruff/Snell types and the best #3’s (I’d include Stroman there).
MLB Last 6yrs (i.e. since Stro’s rookie year)
87era- (T-#32 of 192 qualified SP)
84fip- (T-#19 of 192 qualified SP)
84xfip- (T-#20 of 192 qualified SP)
This season
64era- (T-#12 of 153 SP IP leaders)
77fip- (T-#24 of 153 SP IP leaders)
88xfip- (T-#39 of 153 SP IP leaders)
Mark Shapiro organizations have a pretty good track record extracting prospects from other organizations. I’m inclined to give the Blue Jays the benefit of the doubt here and assume that these were just the guys they wanted.
Oddly, if something like this were the return for JA Happ last year, I think people would have been fairly happy.
However, given the sub-optimal return for just about all of the veteran resources sent out the door by this front office (whether because Rogers wouldn’t let them rebuild when those assets had more value or because for some reason they chose to prioritize low upside MLB-ready talent) they have minimal credit in Toronto.
Shapiro delivers nothing but classic business weasel-speak, which does not endear him to the fanbase, and he pronounces his own name wrong, on purpose, as a career-promotion strategy. A bunch of good draft picks (most high picks but Warmoth) and IFA signings haven’t been enough to mitigate the terrible on-field product he’s delivered for the past 2.5 seasons.
If Woods Richardson blows out his arm or otherwise disappoints, this FO might start to get nervous about its potential longevity some time late in 2020…
Jason Vargas is not likely to hit free agency. He’s got an $8 million team option for 2020 with a $3 million buy out.
$2 million buyout, but my bad on that one; I was working too quickly to check that.
The Mets are going to pretend he’s a #3 starter for 2020. They’ll pretend Matz is a #4 (Motto: “C’mon, he has to be good some time!”). God knows who they’ll pretend is a #5.
Francisco Liriano, come on down
Matz line has been a bit skewed by a couple of awful outings, especially a zero inning 6 ER start early in the year. he’s given up more than 3 ER’s only 3 times in 19 starts. he’s no great shakes, but he’s been a serviceable 4 this year, Vargas the number 5.
I actually hope the Mets roll with DeGrom, Syndergaard, Wheeler, Stroman and Matz next year and hope they can patch up some other holes more economically. Bullpens can be a crap shoot, and even though they haven’t fixed the bullpen after years of trying, bullpens and defense should ostensibly be a bit easier to fix than offense and starting pitching.
Until they change the rules for “qualifying” pitchers, it makes little sense to use what is an outdated model for what you’d reasonably expect from an average pitcher.
Heaven forbid, a team making a trade to get better and possibly back into the playoff hunt. No, we can’t have that. Only the division leaders can add to their teams. All other teams may as well mail it in for the last 60 games or so.
I dislike the industry’s table pounding about how every team the projections don’t like should mail it in (followed by bellyaching about parity, go figure), but if you think the Mets are still in it for this season I don’t know what to say
I don’t think Stroman is an isolated deal, it’s probably part of a flurry that will be over some time before Thursday. So it should be rated in that way. As far as whether the Mets are in it, they’re an extreme longshot, but Stroman isn’t here only for 2019 anyway, and if they can swing a Syndergaard or Wheeler deal for prospects AND not give away too much on the field this year for lesser prospects, why not do it and take your hail Mary at the Wild Card this season, and reload for 2020?
Because 2020 will also be a hail mary at the wild card.
Any chance Stroman is on the move again?
Because reloading for the short-term only is a proven recipe for mediocrity.
Maybe the Blue Jays are super high on the two pitchers they got, so while other offers may have made more sense to Internet ranking nerds like us, the opinions of their scouts won out.
Maybe cistulli has projected kay to become tom glavine:)
Woods Richardson, as an 18-year old dominating A-ball with plus stuff across the board, is a high-risk/high-reward prospect. This is either good or bad depending on your point of view.
Blue Jays have traded away most of the 2015-16 team with few arms to show for it. The only useful pitcher from another teams farm system are Tom Pannone, Hector Perez, who struggles to throw strikes, and Derek Low, who is still on the major league roster for some reason. They don’t seem gifted in the art of spotting pitching gems in other farm systems.
I dont think that is particularly fair. The failure rate for pitchers is so high that we use the phrase “there is no such thing as a pitching prospect”. Even when you are just straight up drafting a pitcher its tough to succeed. Throw in the extra caveats of having to negotiate with another team to give up one of theirs and its gets infinitely tougher.
Find me examples of teams consistently finding good pitching out of nowhere on another teams roster and I might be more inclined to believe you. Otherwise it seems the Jays are no better or worse than anyone else.
While many Met fans on Twitter bemoan this trade, I don’t think it’s terrible at all. Remember: There Is No Such Thing As A Pitching Prospect. You never know with these guys. Unlike in the Cano trade, the Mets didn’t move a first-round position player. This could work out really well if the Mets were to keep all three pitchers under discussion– Stroman, Thor, Wheeler– and invest this off-season in two-way players– or at least strong fielders– at shortstop and centerfield. For once, they need to support the starting rotation they are ostensibly built around. Someone in the front office needs to be looking at the big picture here, but this is the Mets we’re talking about.
I have no clue why the Blue Jays took this offer unless it really was the best they were getting.
As for the Mets, I have a sneaking suspicion this is about 2 things: 1) They know it will be cheaper to extend Stroman because he doesn’t have prototypical size or stuff (similar to how Kendricks will be). Syndergaard is going to want, and get, big bucks just because of his potential. 2) Brodie knows that he can’t rebuild right now or he’ll lose his job and is going all in for the next couple years.
the wildest freakin thing an MSNBC contributor threw out there was that they can’t commit to a rebuild because they need season ticket presales to fund operations. Which is, well, it’s a plausible model to explain what they do, but it’s pretty out there.
JUST AS OUT THERE, but something no one mentions in these cases, but Stroman comes from money. It’s a small thing but money may not matter too much? Maybe? Being in the right situation to win a ring might mean more.
I mean we’re talking pure hibberty jibberty speculation at this point, but in stroman’s case baseball wasn’t really his passion. So few players ever do it, but when you’re talking squirty million vs shirty million, the most important thing should really be where you’re gonna be the happiest.
Of course, that only seems obvious from the outside looking in.
Yeah, the Mets notoriously would never sign Syndergaard because they’re so cheap. That’s why Jacob deGrom is now pitching for the Boston Red Sox, because the Mets didn’t sign him to a 5 year, 9 figure extension. Oh wait.
My point was that they would rather have a guy 80% as good as Syndergaard (Stroman) at half the price.
this would make much more sense as a simple ‘going for it’ move if the Mets weren’t also talking about moving Syndergaard, Wheeler, and possibly Diaz. To be honest, there’s no franchise I would rather my favorite team trade with than the Mets.
They actually control the SP market right now. This works really well in board games & fantasy baseball so I’m really interested in what they do next.
Well if the Blue Jays are your favorite team you are unlikely to be happy with the results of this trade. In fact if you’re acquiring prospects you’re probably better off trading with the Padres or Braves. They have some available and worth acquiring.
I say good job Mets. They clearly made a good trade that gives them more options and more leverage.
– Six games out is unlikely, but not insurmountable with 2 months to play.
– They have the best pitching in baseball so far in the 2nd half, and just added Stroman to that.
– Their bullpen has begun to regress back to its acceptable projections, as opposed to being outright terrible.
– Even if they don’t make any more trades or make the playoffs, they have at the very least replaced Wheeler’s innings next year, and put themselves in any conversation with teams seeking a quality starter.
Not terrible for two 45 value prospects.
I miss Anthopolous.
Toronto fans massive overrating of Anthopoulos is one of the more baffling things in baseball. He made as many bad trades as good (*cough* Syndergaard for Dickey *cough*) and the Jays basically treaded water for 90% of his tenure. Then he quit because he didn’t get his way.
Yet Jays fans treat him like he walks on water.
Not *all* Jays fans do that… AA was good at getting rid of what was useless (ie, Vernon Wells contract) but terrible at plenty of other things.
He definitely was a benefit to the team, though. Part of that love was the comparison of the “feeling” of the team when he took over from Riccardi, where the future was hopeless, inevitable, expensive and bad to… not that. He changed the fans hope, which is why there’s so many who were so happy with what he did. Remember that when you have a new GM, you’re directly comparing him to the old one, and when that old one was JP Riccardi (who was in year 8 of his 5 year plan), it’s easy to fall in love with a guy.
I’ve seen a few people on the Internet share this sentiment before. At least from this Toronto fan’s perspective, there was a ton of criticism of Anthopoulos leading up to the 2015 run. It’s also worth pointing out that he drafted Syndergaard, and I’d further challenge your notion that he quit “because he didn’t get his way.” He was offered a one-year contract after leading the team to the playoffs for the first time in a generation, and supposedly in one of their early meetings Shapiro criticized him for trading so many pitching prospects to do so.
Even if we accept your faulty premise, though, he led the team to the playoffs for the first time in a generation! As a Royals fan, I’d suspect you’d be sympathetic to fanbase’s inclination to “overrate” him as a result. He’s also a Canadian, and a guy who worked his way up from the mailroom to GM. There’s a lot to like in that story.
Criticize Anthopoulos’s record as a GM if you will, but to call Toronto fans’ appreciation of him “baffling” shows a real lack of critical thinking.
Well for starters I’m not really a Royals fan. I’m an Expos fan. Even if I was though, Dayton Moore is one of the most criticized and maligned GM’s in baseball (even by Royals fans) so you are barking up the worst possible tree there lol. I’am also Canadian too BTW so none of that homegrown stuff really flies either.
And I’m not talking about mere “appreciation”. That would be understandable. I’m talking about how many Jays fans irrationally flat out hate the current front office for no other reason than they are not Alex Anthopolous. They constantly criticize any move they make by comparing it to some hypothetical situation where AA would have made a better deal even though he made numerous bad trades himself. They go into comment sections 3 years later and post “I miss Anthopolous” as if the Jays were not a .500 team for most of his tenure and in the bottom 3rd in attendance.
Its such revisionist history its hilarious.
Ah, fair enough, apologies for assuming you were a Royals fan. I think the homegrown bit really does appeal to a lot of fans, though, even if it doesn’t to you or me.
I think there’s good reason to dislike the current front office regardless of one’s feelings about Anthopoulos (I was a fan, pretty obviously!), but the kind of behaviour you’re describing suggests you may just move in a less thoughtful circle of Jays fandom than I do.
Totally with you on this. He pushed the chips into the middle of the table on a .500 team and transformed them into a champion. He made some bad trades, sure, but also some AWESOME ones. Now he’s with the Braves and he is revered in Atlanta.
Meanwhile, the Jays have crashed, and continue to trade away assets for pennies on the dollar. The Jays have some good young position players; other teams do, too. Where are the excellent young arms? I’m not seeing a contender on the horizon. Check out the MLB top Blue Jay prospects. No pitching gems, just some suspects.
Every time Atkins makes another trade, the team’s talent pool shrinks.
AA’s record was pretty mixed in Toronto, but it’s also fair to say that the current front office team appears to have a commitment to mediocrity. I suspect he’s getting overrated simply because the current front office has a habit of trading pitchers at the deadline for suspect returns.
AA tried to win. He made some big mistakes but in the end built one of the best teams in franchise history, and the best in 2 decades at least. He left the new guys with some great prospects and only 2 medium-term contracts to worry about.
“smart” baseball fans love to mock him for not being a surplus-value fanatic, but they say the same about Dombo too.
as for his “tenure” he barely had one – Shapiro (4yrs) has already been in charge here almost as long as AA was (6yrs), inherited a much better team and much better prospects, hasn’t even finished a teardown yet, and seems years away from being competitive again.
“dealing the popular Stroman has to be a blow to a fan base that had hopes of him playing the elder statesman …”
Please cite sources. Pretty sure most Jays fans knew a trade was inevitable and aren’t that downtrodden. Also, is anyone worried about the loss of veteran presents he could give to hitting prospects?
I’m amused by the thought of “veteran presents”. It sounds like he’s handing his first glove down from generation to generation.
I thought the veteran present was customarily a Rolex?
Bizarre trade for everyone involved (and not involved).
1) Maybe this is the best the Jays can do but this is a trade that would have been available at the deadline. Why not wait 2 days and see if another team panics and offers more?
2) Why are the Mets trading for someone with only 1+ years left? Why are going all in when they are the 4th best team in their division? Why chase a GB pitcher when you have terrible IF defence?
3) The biggest issue I have is this…Why couldn’t contenders easily beat this deal? The level of prospect hoarding and refusal to trade prospects has become ridiculous. If you’re say, the Twins or the Braves, you have so many prospects you can flip and still have a great system and you have pitching issues. The Braves could have blown this deal out of the water and not given up a single top-5 prospect. The Twins could have easily gone better than this and still have a very good system. And the Yankees wouldn’t give up Garcia? I get it, hes a good looking pitching prospect, but you’re trying to win now and their pitching is struggling. It’s as if no team wants to go for it. Rebuilding teams should be hoarding prospects and teams going for it should be trading them. What are you saving your prospects for?
since when is trading 2 45 level pitching prospects “going all in”?
They were 2 of the Mets 5 or 6 best prospects. This is after trading 2 other top ones for Diaz/Cano. Trading 4 of your best 10 prospects in a year is definitely going “all in” .
FV > Org ranking. By your logic trading 35 FV players would be going all in as long as your system is so bad that they are in the top 5 in your org.
Neither of these guys are top prospects and Stroman also is not a rental (he is arb eligible next year). This is hardly going all in.
Going all in is literally only dependent on how many chips you have. Not how many chips you have relative to other teams, or how much those chips are worth in an absolute sense…
It’s a stupid pedantic point, but it’s technically accurate. I honestly don’t care what other people have if I’m short stack, I’m trying to get back in the game/put pressure on going all in.
And for the Mets, while this isn’t TECHNICALLY going all in, it’s pretty close. They don’t have a lot of fuel left to burn, basically. I’m sympathetic to the idea that this is the first move in a couple to build up some wiggle room in both payroll and prospects. Otherwise they’re going draft to draft to build up option value and that seems like a recipe for disaster.
Mets are basically in a short squeeze, which is how LTCM and others went down. Let’s see if other teams are smart enough to see it.
Except they arent playing poker they are running a major league baseball organization. So none of that really applies.
Going all in means you are sacrificing a large chunk of your future for short term success. The Jays trading Norris and Boyd for 2 months of David Price is going all in. The Royals emptying their system to rent Cueto and Zobrist is going all in.
The Mets have traded two guys who probably were not ever going to be a big part of the future for an above avg SP who they have control of for next year as well. This is by no means going all in.
they traded chips whose option value is considerably higher to them than to the jays. The value of the prospects is higher for the Mets because of restrictions on supply for the Mets that the Jays don’t have. The poker analogy is kind of crap because you do tend to get more chips every year. However, the marginal value of +45 FV prospects is higher for the Mets simply because they have less of them and prospects aren’t exactly a fungible asset. Because of that, local scarcity influences valuation- and maybe we should bake that into projections (and maybe people do, implicitly).
I’m not going to get into prescriptivism on idioms, just that a 45+ means different things to different teams because of option value and relative lack of liquidity.
How much is Stroman really projected to be worth his arb salary next season? This trade is not going to move the needle for anyone.
So if you only have $50 left at the poker table, is betting $50 “all in?”
Good article but the real article should have been why did nobody top the offer of two 45 pitching prospects when so many teams need pitching? The brewers and twins for example do need pitching and could have afforded that price tag. Even the Padres, they are not really in it but at this price they could have taken the gamble for 2020, their system is so full they need to consolidate at some point.
… or is it possible Atkins just got subpar return? It’s obvious to me that the deadline is a few days away, and the bidding can keep going up. It wouldn’t surprise me if the Mets flipped him again for a better return.
Yeah I doubt he didn’t talk to other teams. Reportedly he talked to the twins and demanded one of their top 2 (Lewis or kirilov) but the twins understably said no. But would atkins really have said no to larnach and graterol? I assume the twins said all of their top 4 are off limit.
Hoping the best for Stroman. The whole bad defensive team adding a fairly defense-dependent pitcher thing is weird
I wonder if scouts aren’t underrating Richardson’s command just a little. His walk rate is quite low anyway. (Although SALLY league Walk rates a bit lower overall too)
I think we’re maybe overlooking the possibility that the Mets extend him. Wishful thinking that is, expecting the Mets to operate like a team in NY, but Stroman is a Long Islander, so maybe that’ll play when it comes to contract negotiations. If that is part of their endgame, then that’s good, but as it stands now, i don’t get it either
Stroman’s not so good that it won’t matter how much they pay. Overpaying because the Mets get nervous and hampering payroll flexibility as a result, such as it is, would basically be the most Mets thing ever
It’s certainly possible that the Mets are misreading the current landscape of the market, as mentioned at the end of this article. Stranger things have happened. But on the other hand, I would think that they have more insight into the market than any other team since they’ve had 2 of the top 3-4 SPs on the market for the last few weeks – including the very best SP.
Most teams might have three data points to go on. They know what the Mets want for Syndergaard/Wheeler, what the Giants want for Bumgarner, and what the Blue Jays want for Stroman. They have no clue what other teams are offering, or if they’re particularly close to a deal.
The Mets, on the other hand, have insight into offers from a dozen or so teams. And their offers are for a pitcher with multiple years of control, as well as a pitcher that will be a pure rental. They literally know more about what offers are out there than any other team in baseball. So maybe they’re hearing offers for Syndergaard and Wheeler on one side, and hearing what the Jays want for Stroman on the other side, and they realized the two sides just don’t line up? This seems like something Billy Beane would have done 20 years ago and been praised for.
Or maybe the offers for Syndergaard and Wheeler have been equally underwhelming, and the Mets realized it was just a great time to be a buyer. I’ve bought plenty of things I don’t need simply because the price was too low to pass up. And let’s face it – despite the odd fit from the Mets’ perspective, I haven’t seen one analyst suggest that the Jays netted a solid return for Stroman.
I’m interested to see how it all plays out though.
I wrote about this basically as soon as it began leaking online, and my opinion hadn’t really changed:
Why?
Just… why to everything about this trade.
Why are the Mets making this trade when they are dead and buried for this season?
Why are the Mets acquiring another starting pitcher?
Why are they acquiring a groundball pitcher when they have arguably the worst defense in baseball?
Why are the Jays trading 1.5 years of a #2/3 pitcher for two 45 guys ranked in the 150-200 range?
Why wasn’t there a better offer out there from one of the actual contending teams?
Why even trade Stroman if this was the best return?
Why trade him ahead of the deadline for such a light return?
If SWR was the secondary piece here I’d consider it a solid deal. As the headliner… I just don’t get it. How is it possible that 1.5 years of a solid #2/3 pitcher, who is currently performing like a #1, is only worth this? People who know a lot more than me about prospects and the baseball market are calling this a good, not great, return, so I guess I’m under-valuing the two pitchers the Jays are getting, but this seems like the type of return I’d expect for a rental.
Oh yeah, and finding out the Jays are sending some money along with this? I mean it’s not my money, and it’s not like the Blue Jays are short on cash, so who cares, but it just… looks bad. It adds this weird dimension to the trade. It’s like in addition to getting a very soft return, they’re actually paying the Mets to take Stroman.
Maybe it says more about the poverty stricken Mets that they would want $2.5M paid on an already crazy bargain level contact, but it makes for bad optics for the Jays side.
This is what happens when two very bad orgs collide.
Why has no one suggested the obvious here? Cistulli has clearly identified two aces-in-waiting that we sheep cannot appreciate.
OK but then why not get more than these two undervalued gems? This would make sense only if the Mets and Blue Jays are the only two parties who appreciate their potential.
Is it Simeon Woods-Richardson or Simeon Woods Richardson? BB-ref implies the latter, as if Woods is his middle name and not part of a hyphenated last name.
He’s the John Ford Griffin of the new generation.
ha nvm (edited)
Very interesting the Jays got so seemingly little back given their rumored asking prices. I guess the rumors were (as usual) all false.
I expect that when teams say they want Gleyber Torres for Marcus Stroman that they’re just posturing. Deivi Garcia doesn’t seem unreasonable, although that depends a bit on whether you see him as the 20-year old who ripped up AA or a small guy who got great results because AA hitters can’t hit a plus curveball. Have we heard anything else concrete?
It is odd. They sell to a team that can only use him in 2020, rather than waiting until the off-season and shopping him to 29 teams who could use him in 2020? That makes very little sense to me.
I’m hesitant to give the Mets credit for anything because they never seem to be pursuing a long-term plan. But….the tear it down–trade for prospects–make the playoffs–repeat formula is well known and has become a bore for fans. The management frontier is figuring out a way to be perpetually competitive– so far only the Yankees, Red Sox and maybe Dodgers have figured that out. At least the Mets seem to trying to join that club, even if it ultimately backfires.
I don’t know about the Red Sox. They’re running the largest payroll in baseball, they have the worst farm system and they’re currently the second (or third, if Glasnow and Snell end up being fine) best team in their division. They’re a very strong team, but it is very, very easy to see them being bad in two years, which is something I can’t envision for the Yankees, Dodgers or Astros.
But the Red Sox have been a good team for the majority of the last 15 years, with several WS titles. Just because they *could* be bad a couple years from now, that doesn’t mean they don’t fit into the aforementioned club.
The Redsox have Devers, Betts, Bogaerts, Sale, Price, Benintendi, Vázquez and a farm system that’s trending upwards. I’d be very surprised if they were bad in two years. I mean they had 3 guys (Devers, Bogaerts, Betts) make the top 30 franchise player list. They’re in a pretty good spot.
The Mets won this on many fronts. Anyone selling a top starter can now see that the return is minimal so he froze the market. The blue jays got a really crap return.
They bought incredible flexibility which should allow them to maximize their return. They can sit and hold. They can extend some or all of their key pitchers. They can immediately flip one two or three pitchers and the beauty of that is that they have pitchers for each need which means they will be having tons of meaningful conversations.
My bet is that Mets hold ‘me and see whether they can add a bullpen piece or two and turn the season around. Cards and brewers are fatally flawed. The giants just wanted to stay together so their players will regress on July 31st at 11:59. Mets could go on a run and sneak in the wild card
nope
Here’s to hoping that history repeats itself. Miss you Dave
https://blogs.fangraphs.com/a-remarkable-30-days-in-queens/
“He’s a damn good pitcher who was quite popular in Toronto, one whose Long Island roots should make him a fan favorite in Queens.”
When his ERA is 5.75 because the infield has the range of three bobbleheads and a bronze statue to be named later, I can assure you he will be enemy #1 on the radio talk shows and will be booed so loudly that it can be heard from the Bronx. New York sports fans sentimentality lasts for about a month before they expect results.
MLB Last 6yrs (i.e. since Stro’s rookie year)
87era- (T-#32 of 192 qualified SP)
84fip- (T-#19 of 192 qualified SP)
84xfip- (T-#20 of 192 qualified SP)
This season
64era- (T-#12 of 153 SP IP leaders)
77fip- (T-#24 of 153 SP IP leaders)
88xfip- (T-#39 of 153 SP IP leaders)
Toronto made this trade because they thought it was the best offer out there and they didn’t want to be the team without a seat in this July 31-ending game of musical chairs. This may say more about the market for Stroman’s type of pitcher than it does speak of some colossal failure by Toronto
Well. That didn’t take long.
Given that the Mets just dealt away Vargas, even the pretense they’re going for it has evaporated. That deal, a salary dump just to save 2m, means the move of their worst starter in Matz over the past three years, to the pen, where he actually had a chance to be useful, was reversed. It means their rotation depth is gone. It also means given how bad the Phillies rotation is, that the Mets have actually improved a division and wildcard rival more than they’ve improved themselves.
Put another way, if your overall plan as the Mets FO was to contend in 2019, would you have dealt Vargas? And would you have dealt him in order to save 2m?
The way he’s pitched in a Mets uniform, I really can’t imagine any Mets fan wanting to “go for it” with Vargas on the team rather than without him.
Of you’re the Blue Jays, why not hold out for a better offer — even if it means waiting until the offseason?
If you’re the Mets, you technically got a good deal, but you can’t even use your asset for ~30% of his contract lifespan. Why would you not flip him to someone who can actually use him in 2019?
If you’re Stroman, no financial harm, but it’s a wasted year in terms of being both healthy and on a contender.
This is a very rare case of a negative-sum trade.
Maybe I’m giving the Mets front office too much credit (or maybe just the benefit of the doubt), but here’s my take:
Interesting move by the Metsies trading for Stroman.
I don’t think they are going to trade Syndergaard. I think they said they wanted to trade him so that every other team in baseball will call up asking for him (and tell them what’s available), and then they can say no and offer Wheeler instead. Pretty slick, actually.
If they play their cards right, they may wind up having done the equivalent of trading Wheeler for Stroman (who still has another arbitration year left). I’d be impressed.