Reds Bolster Rotation by Adding Roark
The Cincinnati Reds have a strong collection of position players, but have remained near the bottom of the NL Central standings as they’ve struggled to develop pitching from within. It seemed likely that they’d add pitching either via trade or free agency this winter in an effort to compete before their core group of hitters begins to decline. After already adding a few minor pieces (Matt Bowman, Robby Scott), the Reds made their biggest splash of the winter so far by acquiring Tanner Roark from the Washington Nationals in exchange for 25-year-old relief prospect Tanner Rainey.
Roark has been a durable part of Washington’s rotation for six years and has thrown 180 or more innings in four of the last five seasons, only failing to do so in 2015 because he was relegated to the bullpen after Max Scherzer’s acquisition and because he was briefly on paternity leave. That quantity of innings drove mid-rotation WAR production during his tenure in D.C., though he has been declining in that regard (3.3 WAR in ’16, 2.5 in ’17, 1.9 in ’18) despite showing very little decline in stuff. Steamer and Depth Charts both project a continued gradual decline (1.5 WAR) in 2019, Roark’s final arbitration year before hitting free agency. Those projection systems assume Roark’s workload will scale back in his age-32 season, and they have him projected to make just 26 starts. Dan Szymborski’s ZiPS projections expect similar production.
| W | L | ERA | G | GS | IP | H | ER | HR | BB | SO | WAR | BABIP | ERA+ | FIP |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 10 | 10 | 4.60 | 27 | 26 | 154.7 | 155 | 79 | 24 | 52 | 131 | 1.3 | .290 | 92 | 4.63 |
For now, Roark probably slots into the no. 2 spot in the Reds rotation behind Luis Castillo. The Nationals should be able to back fill for Roark with some combination of Joe Ross, Erick Fedde, or perhaps a quick-moving Wil Crowe, to say nothing of what Washington may add via free agency.
For one year of Roark, the Reds sent relief prospect Tanner Rainey to Washington. Rainey has good stuff, with his fastball sitting in the 95-99 range and touching 100, and his upper-80s slider spinning in at an average of 2600 rpm, which is rare for a pitch of that velocity.
Each of those impact pitches theoretically give Rainey a shot to be a late-inning, high-leverage reliever, but his command, which is not great, might force him into a middle-relief role instead. The chance that one of Rainey or Jimmy Cordero — who is similarly talented and similarly flawed — figure things out and become a real late-inning option are pretty fair, and the Nationals have several years to polish Rainey’s talent. That Rainey is leaving a place that has struggled to develop pitching probably helps his chances of getting there.
Rainey was a 40 FV player on our recent Reds prospect list, ranking 18th. He was one of several hard-throwing Reds relief prospects in their mid-20s who are approaching the Majors. They’ve traded from a position of depth to acquire a player of great need, and the short window of team control over Roark would seem to indicate that they’re going to add more pitching in attempt to field a competitive team.
Eric Longenhagen is from Catasauqua, PA and currently lives in Tempe, AZ. He spent four years working for the Phillies Triple-A affiliate, two with Baseball Info Solutions and two contributing to prospect coverage at ESPN.com. Previous work can also be found at Sports On Earth, CrashburnAlley and Prospect Insider.
I like this move for both teams. The Reds get a guy with strong ground ball tendencies, durability, and potential upside while the Nationals get some bullpen depth and free up around $9 million that would otherwise go to Roark in arbitration while not really losing any overall roster strength.
Nats moved Roark for salary relief. I’d be surprised if we don’t see them turn around and spend that $10M on a different SP or a 2B in the next couple of days
Was shedding the 6 mil in salary Roark would have been owed that important to WAS?
I think it is more around shedding 9ish Million, and I think the Nats can replicate his production for some combination of 2-3 mil. I think any Free money for them is useful when trying to get below the tax threshold plus stay competitive on Harper.
What player can replicate Roark’s performance for $2-3m? And if this player exists, why didn’t the Reds just sign him instead?
The Nationals have next to no SP depth in their farm system. You now have two rotation spots available (after Scherzer, Strasburg and Corbin), which will be given to Joe Ross, who’s returning from an injury that kept him out for a full season and a half. He’s also never thrown more than 105 innings in a season. And the 5th roster spot is for Erick Fedde, who has looked rather unimpressive in the upper minors and in two MLB stints. (And this doesn’t even touch upon the fact that Strasburg will inevitably get injured at some point too)
If Ross gets injured again or Fedde continues to unimpress (either likelihood I would classify as rather high), who’s left? They just traded away their best AAA SP, Jefry Rodriguez. There’s Kyle McGowin and Austin Voth, who are non-prospects that are expected to contribute essentially replacement level production. And then there’s Wil Crowe, who still looks about a year away, but might surprise. That’s it. Any other pitching prospect is currently in A ball or lower. Seems a risky proposition for the Nats when they’re approaching the end of their window, and Roark is just the sort of pitcher you want to semi-competently eat innings when the trifecta of Scherzer-Strasburg-Corbin aren’t starting.
TINSTAAP, but it’s kind of impressive how much young pitching talent the Reds have graduated to MLB over the past few seasons and how little of it proved to be even a competent back end starter. Organizational development problem, tough park, having several merely good prospect arms instead of one or two can’t miss types… I wonder how much to blame each of these factors, but it feels like a combination of all three here.
Yeah, this move makes little logical sense for either team. It looks like both were owner-driven. The Nationals ownership apparently decided $9-10M was too much to pay for Roark; I heard that Rizzo didn’t agree, but shipped him out anyway. Now the Nationals need both a #4 and a #5 starter. This move would have made more sense had they turned out and given that money to Morton or Lynn, but those guys are both gone now. They’re still potentially the best team in the division, but they are not in a position where they can give away pitching like that and expect to get into the playoffs. Maybe they sign Wade Miley or reunite with Gio Gonzalez, or maybe they buy that Anibal Sanchez is more or less back, or try for Trevor Cahill. If they plow that money into someone else, then it probably works out fine.
On the Reds side…this is basically the worst year they could decide to go for a bunch of one-year guys. The Cards are going for it, the Cubs are still good, the Brewers are still good, and the Pirates aren’t pushovers either. They have an incredible set of position players in the minors and under contract for a while…they don’t need to rush it. But apparently that’s what ownership wants.
Rainey is almost an afterthought in this trade, but despite the high bust potential, the last thing the Reds should be doing is trading away pitching prospects. He’s 25 and he keeps walking guys. Maybe if he just tones it down a little bit? He probably doesn’t have to throw 98 to get guys out, not with the spin rate on that breaking ball. I would have felt a lot better about this for the Reds if they weren’t trading from the weakest area in their team/system.
I’d hold your criticism until the offseason is over. This move on its own obviously doesn’t move the needle significantly for the Reds, but the Reds have also been in on Puig, Pollock, Keuchel, Realmuto, Gray, and others. If they execute on even a couple of the transactions they’re working on, they could very quickly go from a 78-79 win team to a legitimate wild card contender; and if that is indeed the case, then adding 1.5 WAR or so by adding Roark could be crucial in making the playoffs.
Meanwhile, the idea that any team should be unequivocally opposed to trading its 18th ranked prospect seems nonsensical, regardless of the team’s major-league needs. Any prospect at that level is more or less a lottery ticket that the team can’t count on to be an MLB-caliber player. To get a reliable if uninspiring innings-eater for that kind of return is commendable.
It’s not that a team should be opposed to trading an 18th ranked prospect. It’s just that trading *any* young talent for a one-year stopgap is a terrible idea for a team in the Reds’ position. Even after adding Roark, the Reds are clearly the worst team in the division right now. This is a terrible time to be making a playoff push. If they keep adding more pieces at the expense of their farm system and future flexibility, then the criticism remains the same. Now they’re a team five games under .500 instead of six. Adding Gray might make them three. Adding Keuchel on top of that might make them at .500. Adding Puig probably wins them another game on top of that. You have to add most (maybe all) of those pieces you mentioned for this team to make a playoff push in that division.
The whole thing is a totally unrealistic look at where the team is right now and underselling where they could be in 2 years if they just stay the course. What they’re doing is a terrible idea.
Reds starting pitching fails:
2018 – 5.02 ERA (25th), 838.2 IP (23rd)
2017 – 5.55 ERA (29th), 820 IP (30th)
2016 – 4.79 ERA (25th), 859 IP (30th)
Meanwhile, the offense is better than bad, it’s good! Better than PIT in 2018, an OPS point behind STL, and within 20 of MIL and CHC. Their bullpen is surprisingly strong and might perform better if the rotation can finally pick up a league average share of the total innings. They add Senzel by the end of April. I think they’re clearly not the best team in the division but it wouldn’t be surprising to see them finish second or third. They are not definitively the cellar of the NL Central, even right now, in December.
They traded a relief prospect they probably won’t need as the stagnant starter group joins their predecessors, like Garrett and Lorenzen, in the pen. I agree that it’s a year early to push in heavy chips, but it’s also a team that has been bad for a while, that has seen Votto produce 55 WAR with two postseason wins his entire career. You can’t rebuild it forever and there’s more in the pipeline. You can see ownership getting antsy and not wanting to lose almost 100 once again.
Since when does any internet commenter hold their criticism? It defeats the point of an article with a comment section.
I agree. Let’s say that if Roark hit FA, he’d get somewhere around the Lance Lynn deal – $10M a year. So CIN is saving just $1M vs. signing a comparable free agent. The Reds selling a 40FV prospect for a million bucks doesn’t really make sense with their window. And the Nationals opening up a hole at a time when they had a (very slightly) under market option already in place is a bit weird, too.
Washington must be really high on their internal options, and the Reds must feel they can flip Roark in August for the same amount they paid for him. I guess.
I think that’s the point of this deal — that the Reds don’t have to go 3 years on Roark as the Rangers did on Lynn. Kind of like the White Sox trading a 19 yo flier for Nova the other day. Lynn > Roark > Nova and the prices seem to reflect that. The Reds have 3 rotation spots to fill and as Ryan21 says they’re in on Keuchel and Gray and maybe Kluber or Bauer, so if Roark slots in at #5, it’s fine. No need to have a multi-year commitment to a 5th starter.
Yeah, and that move was also bad. There’s no need to make any commitment at all (much less $10M and a prospect, however minor they are) to anyone who won’t be on the roster in 2020 when you’re in that spot on the win curve. Teams like the Reds and the White Sox need to start thinking about guys who had some prospect hype but are struggling in MLB (some of whom are even already on their teams), or guys stuck at AAA or on the 40-man bubble.
Fair point, though the Reds are projected by Steamer and Depth Charts to be a 77-78 win team and the White Sox are only around 69-70 (and that’s with Eloy Jimenez). That’s before Harper and Machado sign with the White Sox, of course.
The White Sox did this last year with Dan Palka, whose counting stats may be better than his WAR, but perhaps you’re overestimating the # of broken prospects and minor league FA’s that can be 2-win players.
I know you’re not a fan of the Reds adding to get to a 83-ish win projection in the tough NL Central, but I think another benefit of this trade is to drive down the Yankees’ ridiculous asking price of Trammel, an FV 55, for Gray. Gray is at MOST worth an FV45.
Dan had a really good point about this when talking about the Omar Narváez trade:
“One thing I ride rebuilding teams for is when they don’t utilize roster spots to learn something useful about players, and there are things to learn when it comes to Narváez.”
On the whole, I think the White Sox got decent value for Narváez, and they can probably flip Colome for at least that much if they need to, so it’s not a big deal. But rebuilding teams should be taking chances on as many reclamation projects as they can. Nearly all of them will fail. But for those that don’t, you’ve learned something interesting. I would have rather they traded for Jefry Rodriguez (who went to Cleveland in the Gomes trade) than Roark. Or AJ Cole, or Austin Voth. Or from other teams, Jarlin Garcia, Luke Farrell, or (my personal favorite) Jeff Hoffman. Most of those guys wouldn’t be available for Rainey, but I bet at least one (or someone like him) would be.
Are the Rox making Jeff Hoffman available? I really like him too. Don’t know much about Cole or Voth but it took Yan Gomes to get Jefry Rodriguez. The White Sox don’t have any one like that to trade. I don’t think the Reds have redundant major league guys to trade either.
Omar Narvaez is not that and the White Sox have nothing more to learn on him. Rick Hahn is a believer that catcher framing can be taught more easily than hitting, so if anyone would like Narvaez’s .820+ OPS in 2018, it’s Hahn. So that even Hahn was motivated to move him, Narvaez’s framing must be so bad that it’s hurting development of the WSox’s young pitchers. The only way I make sense of getting Colome was that the WSox plan to flip him at the ASB since there are comparable relievers at comparable salaries available on the FA market and they probably wouldn’t sign as flip candidates. I would have preferred getting one of the guys you’re talking about but Narvaez doesn’t return that. Colome won’t either.
Here’s the question: Is it better to win one extra game in 2018, or to have a 20% chance you have a real, major league-reliever for six years? It would seem based on where they are on the win curve, the Nationals would prefer that extra win while the Reds would prefer the possible reliever. But both teams are acting the opposite direction; the Nationals need to find a way to get those wins back, and who cares if the Reds win one extra game in 2018? This is a deal that makes no sense for anybody.
“have a 20% chance you have a real, major league-reliever for six years”
I think this is an overstatement.
For this to me true, you would have to believe that there is a 20% chance that Rainey is a good RP for all 6 years. There is almost no chance that he becomes a a good RP for all six years. The average 40 P has a present-day value of 0.1 WAR, which is pretty close to value-less.
The 20% chance that he turns into a serviceable RP is that he bounces around from the Reds to the the minors to Rule 5 to 3 other teams before he finally puts it all together for a year or two and then his arm falls off.
The only question for the Reds is whether the $9M could be better spent, including saving it for 2019 or 2020.
It depends how you define “good”. If he can (at minimum) be in the range between what Amir Garrett and David Hernandez did last year for most (say, 5 out of 6) of his team control years, yeah, I think there’s a 20% chance of that.
It is important to note that the average 0.1 WAR reflects that…the 80% chance he never makes it at all or has negative value, and the 20% chance he does well. On average, guys like Rainey are zeros. That’s not an argument for giving them away! That’s an argument for stockpiling them so that you get one out of the mix!
Is that worth more than winning one extra game in 2018? Yeah, I’d say so. You have to keep enough prospects so that some of them pan out.
Putting aside the small chance that the stars align and the Reds actually sneak into the wild card race, you have to consider the ~20% chance that Rourke puts together a 2-3 WAR pace and the Reds flip him for another Rainey-like lottery ticket in July?
Rourke did reach 2+ fWAR in 4 of the last 5 years. By bWAR Rourke has gone 2018->14: 3.0, 1.2, 5.6(!), 0.6, 4.8.
I’m not arguing this a heist or anything, but it is defendable.
As others have stated, the context is important here. First Roark is effectively replacing Bailey in the rotation, and therefore, he is improving the team’s win total by much more than 1 win (unless you are confident that one of the Reds quad-A starters can provide positive value, but you shouldn’t be confident in that). Second, this move isn’t happening in a vacuum or at the end of an inactive off-season. We’re smack dab in the middle of the off-season and the Reds will acquire more starting pitching. And even if it’s just another average starter (like Trevor Cahill), it will be an improvement. A rotation of Castillo, Desclafani, Roark, Cahill, and the one Reds young starter that separates himself in the spring (Mahle, Romano, Reed, Stephenson, or Sims) is much better than their rotation at the beginning of 2018: Castillo, Mahle, Romano, Bailey, Finnegan.
Looking forward to the other shoe dropping for Nats. Fedde, Ross, and Crowe aren’t high probability enough to fill two spots for a playoff season. Now they need a number four or five pitcher. Can they get that for $9 mil. Rizzo has in the past, but they already had one…
No idea if they’ve been rumored as in on him or not, but this feels like the perfect spot for Sonny Gray to be exiled to.
It worked for Harvey, tough park and all.
Ed Whitson syndrome.
What no one has pointed out is that Roark is a below-average starting pitcher (xFIP of 4.17, 4.17, 4.14 and 4.42 over the past 4 years). I suspect the Nats know that and wanted to trade him now before his value declines even more while saving money they can use elsewhere. Don’t expect much from him with the Reds at age 32, as the ballpark will further diminish his numbers.
It’s just strange to trade away a player that is a position of need for the Nats. The money saved on Roark will go to replacing Roark.
And if his value is currently a 40 FV prospect, then he essentially has no value to depreciate anyway.
Personalities matter.
They might see it as addition by subtraction.
Doesn’t always work but it works often enough.
Is Roark considered to be a bad actor in the clubhouse?
Not at all. Everyone likes him. This is purely a salary move for the Nats
he’s been disgruntled in the past – Chelsea Janes, Nationals (now former) WaPo beat writer, just acknowledged that his relationship with the organization hasn’t been perfect by any means on a podcast with other Nats beat writers.
“I think there has been tension between Tanner and the Nats for a long time.”
No one else on the pod seemed to disagree.
That’s because he isn’t. He is well within one standard deviation of the league average era of 4.12. That means that he is in all purposes average. Trading him without replacing his 180 league average innings is really dumb. Let’s hope they sign two guys with a hope of getting 180 average innings. It’s unlikely they can do that with one guy available in FA.
Sorry to see him go.
This is an interesting deal. I think I like it for both sides, I think. Though I am a little curious if the Reds think they are actual competitors next season after a move like this? Or if they plan to make some more big splashes?
Oh, they’re definitely going to make a run at fourth place in the division, just you wait and see.
I’m just not sure who else they add that would make them legit contenders. Right now, even with Roark, they won’t compete for 4th lol
Was going to comment on Roark’s HR rate and playing in Cinci but was surprised to see both parks have the same park factor.
Rotoworld pointed out that this is the first Tanner-for-Tanner trade in MLB history. So. There’s that!
Last offseason, their was hysteria about half the league tanking and not even trying which led to the collusion conspiracy with free agency. Now we have every team other than the Mariners, Dbacks and Marlins going for it and hysteria in the opposite direction.
Great observation. I bet the Brewers have giant regrets about daring to challenge a “super team” (that didn’t make the postseason) instead of punting for another three years, which sometimes turns into five or more.
Yes! And this “contention window” idea is fine but its not exact. Geez, they filled a hole and its only a 1 yr deal, for the type of prospect they can get right back if they want to trade Roark in July (assuming he ain’t broken). If they can make a couple more moves you don’t have to squint to see some possibilities for contention. Yes they will need a few breaks but they have some good pieces too and you can’t stay in rebuild forever waiting for your competition to backslide. Sometimes you have to hit the gas and try to pass. Good for Cincy.