Sonny Gray Is Now the Reds’ Problem to Solve
In 2016, the Reds’ rotation ranked last in the majors in WAR. The next year, they improved, sliding all the way up to 29th. This past season, they wound up in 26th, and over the combined three-year sample, we find the Reds in 30th place out of 30 teams, nearly a full six WAR behind the next-worst White Sox. It hasn’t been for lack of talent; it’s been for lack of execution, for lack of development. The Reds, at some point, decided they weren’t going to take it anymore. Earlier in this offseason, the rotation added Alex Wood. Earlier in this offseason, the rotation added Tanner Roark. And now we have a holiday three-team exchange, bringing just another starting arm to Cincinnati.
Reds
- GET:
- LOSE:
- Shed Long
- Supplemental draft pick (No. 36)
Yankees
- GET:
- Josh Stowers
- Supplemental draft pick (No. 36)
- LOSE:
- Sonny Gray
- Reiver Sanmartin
Mariners
- GET:
- Shed Long
- LOSE:
- Josh Stowers
Wood is going into his contract season. The same is true of Roark. The same is also true of outfield acquisition Yasiel Puig. The same is true of Matt Kemp. The same was true of Gray, but as a part of this trade, Gray and the Reds have agreed on a three-year extension, beginning in 2020 and worth $30.5 million. There’s a $12-million club option for 2023, and there are various salary escalators involved. The Reds are paying a high price here, but at least they’re doing it for a long-term player. And from the Yankees’ perspective, they knew it was going to get here eventually. Playing in New York, Gray just couldn’t succeed. Now it’s the Reds’ turn to work with the same puzzle pieces.
There’s an important lesson to learn here about leverage. Here’s Brian Cashman, talking about Sonny Gray last October:
“It hasn’t worked out thus far,” Cashman said after a long sigh about Gray, who has been a bust in the Bronx after the Yankees acquired him at the trade deadline in 2017. “I think he’s extremely talented. I think that we’ll enter the winter, unfortunately, open-minded to a relocation. I think to maximize his abilities, it would more likely be best somewhere else, but it comes down to the final decision of price in terms of trade acquisition of matching up with somebody. If we match up, then I think it’s probably best to try this somewhere else.”
The Yankees broadcast to the world their intention of trading Gray away. They made no secret of their belief Gray just wasn’t a good fit. It’s been suggested this crippled the Yankees’ leverage in negotiations, because would-be trade partners understood the Yankees didn’t want to keep Gray on the roster. But — and this is Negotiating 101 — leverage isn’t about what a player might mean to his current team. It’s about what a player might mean to somebody else. It’s about market demand for the player in question. Everyone knew the Yankees were going to trade Gray, but at that point, the suitors were left to compete with one another. The Yankees’ own evaluation of Gray was almost irrelevant. As was reported, Gray drew interest from anywhere between five and ten clubs, many of them looking at Gray as an immediate upgrade.
So the Yankees didn’t hurt themselves. They just needed at least two teams to get in the mix. The Yankees originally got Long, who is a real prospect. They swapped him for Stowers, who is also a real prospect. And they’re getting what’s currently the 36th overall draft pick next June, and that pick will turn into a real prospect. The past two years, Gray and Roark have both posted a K-BB% of 13%. Gray has allowed an expected wOBA of .317; Roark has allowed an expected wOBA of .315. Roark, as a contract-year player, was swapped for reliever prospect Tanner Rainey. The Yankees did better than Tanner Rainey.
But let’s look at this from the Cincinnati side. There is a question of philosophy here. Granted, this looks different now that Gray has inked an extension. The Reds didn’t just invest in another one-year player. But what we’ve seen from the Reds is a certain amount of aggressiveness. They’ve made a series of win-now decisions, despite being probably the fourth-best team in their own division. There’s some chance they might even be fifth. At the start of December, Kiley McDaniel and Eric Longenhagen posted their Reds prospect list. The No. 7 prospect is gone. The No. 8 prospect is gone. The No. 13 prospect is gone. And also gone now is that supplemental first-round draft pick.
The best prospects do remain. And the major-league roster is increasingly talented. This is just somewhat surprising timing for a push. Even with today’s better roster, the Reds still look like an NL Central underdog. I’m sure at least part of the thinking here is that the losing has gotten old. And, well, the losing has gotten old. You like to see a team that’s trying harder. You can’t say the Reds aren’t trying to drum up fan-base interest. Just recognize this isn’t all happening without a cost. The Reds have subtracted from their future to beef up the present, at a time when the present odds are still long. With Gray, at least, they might mold him into a better version of himself.
Here’s a portrait of Sonny Gray from the past two seasons:
What’s immediately clear is that Gray hasn’t thrown enough strikes. He has missed bats, and he has gotten grounders, so overall he’s profiled as something like a low No. 2, or a high No. 3. But, of course, there’s more to Gray than this. When he first came up, he looked like the ace of the A’s. Then he was traded to the Yankees. This past season did not go well — half of the time. Sonny Gray just couldn’t pitch in New York.
Whenever someone cites lopsided home/road splits, I’m inclined to ignore them as noise. I’m still not entirely sure what to do about Gray. But, at FanGraphs, we have splits going back to 2002. Since 2002, there have been 2,206 pitcher-seasons with at least 50 innings at home, and at least 50 innings on the road. Here are the biggest home-field disadvantages, according to K-BB% and FIP:
| Pitcher | Year | K-BB% Gap | Pitcher | Year | FIP Gap |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Sonny Gray | 2018 | -15.4% | Sonny Gray | 2018 | 3.32 |
| Oliver Perez | 2003 | -11.5% | Brian Burres | 2008 | 3.22 |
| Jason Jennings | 2004 | -10.4% | Kyle Kendrick | 2015 | 2.86 |
| Kyle Davies | 2009 | -10.2% | Kyle Davies | 2009 | 2.65 |
| Zack Greinke | 2016 | -10.2% | Shaun Marcum | 2007 | 2.54 |
| Jason Johnson | 2003 | -9.8% | Marco Estrada | 2013 | 2.52 |
| Colby Lewis | 2011 | -9.7% | Carl Pavano | 2002 | 2.50 |
| Carlos Carrasco | 2011 | -9.2% | Daniel Cabrera | 2008 | 2.48 |
| Francisco Liriano | 2014 | -8.9% | Homer Bailey | 2012 | 2.39 |
| Matt Moore | 2018 | -8.9% | Colby Lewis | 2011 | 2.31 |
Gray from last year also looks the worst by xFIP, which shouldn’t come as a surprise, but I didn’t want to make the table any bigger. We’ve seen players struggle before in certain ballparks, but Gray’s 2018 was something else entirely. Working in Yankee Stadium, he simply fell apart.
I think it means something that the Yankees apparently arrived at the same conclusion. I also think it’s important to understand you can’t just extrapolate Gray’s road numbers, were he to wear a different uniform. In a sense, Matt Harvey was a similar kind of gamble last season, when the Reds took him from the Mets. Pitching in Cincinnati, Harvey definitely improved, but he still wasn’t anything great. With Sonny Gray, after last year, there are no sure things.
Fueling the Reds’ optimism is that Gray was better outside of New York. Fueling the Reds’ optimism is that Gray still gets his fastball into the mid-90s, and he still throws that high-spin breaking ball. And fueling the Reds’ optimism is that now Gray is reunited with his college pitching coach, Derek Johnson. The two have a good relationship, and Johnson was able to help mold Gray into a first-round draft pick, way back when. On the other hand, that was way back when. It’s like the White Sox trying to lure Manny Machado with Jon Jay and Yonder Alonso. The hard work is going to be Gray’s to do.
If he finds what he’s lost in Cincinnati, this move will be a successful one. He’ll be part of an actual big-league rotation, attempting to pitch the Reds back into relevance. You can forgive me for still being somewhat skeptical. It was just last offseason the Cubs thought they were rescuing Tyler Chatwood from Colorado. Gray threw the same pitches with the Yankees, and he couldn’t find consistency. In terms of pitcher and player development, the Yankees have a better track record than the recent Reds do. The whole problem has been that the Reds have struggled to turn out their pitchers. And if Gray had some sort of New York-related psychological block, who’s to say that wouldn’t manifest now in some other form?
It’s a roll of the dice, absolutely, but at least Gray won’t tie up all that much future payroll. His extension is more or less what the Rangers gave to Lance Lynn. One might prefer to see the Reds give more chances to the young starter candidates they’ve already had in-house, but there are going to be starts available. There always are. Rotations are almost never five guys.
I should note that, in addition to Gray, the Reds are picking up Sanmartin. Sanmartin isn’t a great prospect, but he is an *interesting* prospect, being a 22-year-old southpaw who’s just barely gotten up to Double-A. Not only has Sanmartin generated grounders while consistently retiring opposing lefties — this past year, out of 1,830 pitchers in the minors with at least 50 innings, Sanmartin finished with the fourth-lowest walk rate. He’s a strike machine with a broadening repertoire, although it’s still likely that, if he has a big-league future, he’s working in relief.
As far as Shed Long is concerned, again, you can read about him in that December Reds prospect list. Long is a 23-year-old converted catcher who’s still trying to get better at second base, and given that he’s listed at 5’8, you wouldn’t expect Long’s swing to possess the thunder that it does. He’s stronger than his slugging percentage would suggest, and he also runs well, last year nabbing 19 bases. There’s a decent chance that Long will have to switch positions one day to the outfield, but for now, he becomes a rare Mariners middle-infield prospect. The Long-for-Stowers swap expanded this from a two-team trade to a three-team trade, and I think the Mariners part was motivated by 40-man roster concerns.
Long is now a member of the Mariners’ 40-man roster. But Stowers doesn’t yet have to be on the Yankees’ 40-man roster. In other words, the Yankees are adding a prospect without having to bump somebody else from the 40-man. While Kiley and Eric see Stowers as the slightly inferior prospect here, Stowers is also still 21, and there’s value in his not having to be rostered. Stowers was a second-round pick in the last draft, and he had a successful pro debut in the low minors. He swings from the right side and plays center field, and could well have a future as a regular. The current evaluation is that he’s more of a hitter than a slugger. If he can stay in the middle of the grass, that’ll play on a regular basis.
This has gone on incredibly long. To try to just summarize it in a paragraph: The Reds are trying to push into contention. Toward that end, they’ve committed to a pitcher coming off a roller-coaster season. The Yankees shared with the world that they didn’t think Gray could pitch in New York, but that didn’t hurt their leverage in talks, because other suitors still saw the same upside. The Reds are hoping they can tap into it, yet it’s far from a sure thing, and they’ve borrowed from their future to place this bet. Maybe Gray, along with Joey Votto and Luis Castillo and Eugenio Suarez and the others, will keep the Reds relevant into August and September. That would validate the direction they’ve steered. The Yankees ultimately made a pretty easy decision. So did the Mariners. The Reds are taking the big risk. And as we all know, fortune favors the bold, some of the time.
Jeff made Lookout Landing a thing, but he does not still write there about the Mariners. He does write here, sometimes about the Mariners, but usually not.
Nice summary from both teams’ perspective.
The Reds lead owner declared a while back that the club would “get the pitching” and “have a record payroll” before the off-season is over.
Perhaps just a coincidence, but might have something to do with the “win now” moves of the Reds. (Quote marks intended because that SP rotation requires a lot of squinting to see it in the playoffs.)
They got pitching, but not anyone to front that rotation. What they got are a bunch of back of the rotation starters. Roark, Wood, and Gray are #4 and #5 starters. Descalfini and Castillo are not top of the rotation starters either. What they have ended up with is 5 guys that are no better than a #3. I don’t think that it will help them compete in the NL Central. I expect to see them follow the Padres in stinking it up after making “big moves” in the offseason.
Reds are coming off their worst attendance since 1984, that’s pushing a lot of these moves.
As Jeff implies, Shed Long is an overpay for Sonny Gray, and I see Gray as a 2.5 win pitcher (I only see Roark as a 1.5 win pitcher). The biggest win here though seems to have been achieved by the Mariners who receive an FV50 in Long for only an FV35+ in Stowers. Maybe McDongenhagen will recalibrate their ratings on these two?
I don’t see that implication at all. In fact, if you read the linked Kiley McDaniel tweet (in the only para on Long) he wraps up Stowers as
Given the error bounds on FV for low-minors guys, that sounds like a pretty even trade, particularly when you factor in the 40-man concerns.
While a 40 and a 50 could be considered “within the error bands,” that only because we are so bad at predicting prospects. That’s a major difference in expected outcomes. You would never want to trade a 50 for a 40, ever. I think it’s pretty clear that the Yankees see Long as less than that, Stowers as more, or both.
Exactly. Why bother assigning 35/40/45 etc. if the numbers have no precision at all?
I actually really like what the Reds are doing – they’ve rebuilt the rotation with 3 guys who not only have upside, but also some recent success, all of whom they bought pretty low on. They didn’t give up any of their big prospects, and don’t have any long term commitments (except for Gray, whose extension I’m pretty indifferent about since it came at a relatively low price).
Top to bottom, this is a good and deep offensive team – they were average (8th in runs scored and OPS) last year, and are adding Puig, Senzel, a full season of Winker, presumably more power from Votto, and (for what it’s worth) Kemp..
The bullpen’s solid as well, and one might expect to see one or two of the young guys who will be bounced from the rotation emerge as serious threats as relievers.
If everything breaks right (particularly with the rotation), you can squint hard enough and see them sneaking into the playoffs (easier said than done in the NL central of course). If not, they can trade the guys who will be free agents next offseason (or if one or two really succeed, make some QOs and net a high draft pick or two).
I’m usually in favor of a full tear-down, but this is the way you can give it a serious shot without much future impact if it doesn’t work out.
Tanner Roark has recent success, but upside? No, Tanner Roark does not offer upside. He offers competence. Sweet, sweet competence.
Sorry, I don’t mean upside in that he’ll get much better – just that based on his peripherals he could be better than his last 2 years’ ERAs.
If you expect any pitcher to go to GABP and get better you are not paying attention.
Yeah i love the puig, woods trade.
They gave up two decent prospects but as they are rentals they get back two comp picks (or trade return if the season falters) that should be almost equivalent to what they gave up.
Also traded two sunk costs in kemp for bailey with kemp at least being a (very expensive) good bench bat and 4th of while bailey is likely totally done.
The gray trade is a lot more expensive of course with a 50 and the 36 pick which could be another 40-45.
But gray is 29 and projects to be a solid 3 starter with some upside (but also risk) so that is not a terrible costs here.
Reds did a good job trying to get better and really if everything goes wrong they can trade a lot of guys way again like preller did after his all in move a couple years ago.
I think that the Reds got excellent value with the Puig/Woods trade in the abstract, but I strongly disagree with your valuation of Shed Long and the comp pick relative to Downs and Gray. Jeter Downs has about the same likelihood of being a league-average bat as Shed Long, has a much better chance of sticking at 2nd base, and doesn’t need 40-man protection. Meanwhile, Josiah Gray is a real sleeper because he’s a position-player convert.
Eric and Kiley clearly disagree with me on this, and they know more than me, but Shed Long is one of the players where their grades don’t make sense, and I think that it’s easier to reconcile that argument now that we’ve seen him in a 1:1 swap for a 35+.
Yeah don’t quite get the grade either.
He does have pop for his size and can take a walk but the K rate while not being super high isn’t low for an average power below average glove 2b with a maxed out body.
Maybe he hits enough but if he doesn’t he isn’t really a good utility fit either.
The risk in this strategy was seen by the Jays last year with Donaldson. They planned on moving him if they weren’t competitive, but they weren’t likely to be competitive if he was hurt or underperforming, both of which ended up happening. If the Reds aren’t doing well, part of the reason why might be that Roark/Wood are either injured or ineffective, at which point they won’t be able to trade the pending FAs.
I like seeing teams go for it under the right circumstances, but it’s not a guarantee they can flip the pitchers for assets at the deadline if the team struggles.
So I’m not that bothered by the concept of trading minor leaguers for veteran pitching; in fact, it’s a good move for the team. But the main concern I have is that with the Wood and Roark deals, they’ve put themselves further away from figuring out the rotation for 2020. Their 2020 rotation looks like Castillo, Gray, DeSclafani (if he can stay healthy), and then some combination of Mahle/Romano/Reed/Mella/Santillan/Gutierrez. Now, few of them have a particularly good chance of being the answer by themselves, but it would have been nice to know if any of the first four were the answer going into next year. In particular, I think the team is perhaps not giving Cody Reed a fair shot.
I think the obvious retort to this is that “all four of those guys are going to get starts anyway because of the inevitable injuries” but there’s a difference between giving guys a shot and giving them some spot starts. The other obvious retort is “the Reds don’t believe in any of those guys” which is probably true, but perhaps a little unfair to Reed and Mella. And if that’s true and they don’t believe in those guys, then it would have been smarter to target a back-end starter who would be around for another year or two instead.
Cubs fan here, but kudos to the Reds for trying. If they fail at the deadline, they have a great number of chips now, much greater than before because they probably were not going to trade young talent anyhow. If they have a competitive year, but don’t make it, that’s not bad either because they have been stagnant for too long. Good moves from this perspective.
Wonder what it would take for the Reds to free Jon Gray from Colorado? (Obviously a bit more than it took to get Sonny Gray.)
Collect all the Grays, and then relocate to Louisville!
Excellent idea. I’d prefer Providence, though, simply on the grounds that the Red Sox are about to dump on it. Or if you really want nostalgia, how about Homestead?
An all-honky team playing as the Grays in Homestead … what a twisted tribute that would be to one of the great teams in baseball history.
If you look at the wrc+ numbers from last year and projections for this Reds offense they are really good. Team wrc+ would be north of 101. The staff projections, marcels and fangraphs combined have an era in the 4.15 area with gray. This would make for about 780 runs scored and 720 given up, for a Pythagorean record of 87 wins. Reds FO said more moves to come.
Please take a look at the dh projections for the reds. No need to project so much of lorenzen (has never happened before)and no schebler or Puig dh ab’s yields almost 1 less war. Not complaining just pointing out what seems to clearly lower the reds projections compared to pirates and others. Also, i believe Romano, Stephenson, lorenzen projections need to be based on being almost exclusively bullpen pitchers.
101 is basically average. That is what the Reds are, about average on offense. They were 17th in wRC+ at 95 last season. 5% below average. They were 14th in wOBA. With the addition of Puig they got marginally better on offense.
Their current starting 5 pitchers would have ranked 21st in ERA last season with a 4.35 ERA if they were all on one team.
The Reds made a big splash that will result in maybe a half dozen more wins and then Puig, Kemp, Wood, and Roark will leave in FA and they are right back where they started from.
101 is better than average in the NL because there is no DH (wRC+ is normalized to non pitchers hitting)
Lasy year only two NL teams were at 101 or better (dodgers and nats, cubs third at 100), league average was 94.
Cubs, dodgers and nats should be better offensively then them next year
This is a very optimistic take on a team that had a -123 run differential last year and Steamer still projects for a negative run differential next year, even with Gray.
You might ask why, and the answer is: Defense. Defense is often considered less important than pitching and hitting, and that’s probably true, but it still is a factor. And the Reds are going to be bad. They have one league-average defender in Votto and one above-average one in Barnhart, and then every single other player is projected to be below-average defensively. And that is probably justified.
For what it’s worth, I do think that there is room to quibble with Steamer’s projections. I suspect they’re shooting high on Peraza and low on Suarez and Gennett. That probably gets them to .500, with some upside if Castillo or Winker break out or Votto’s decline was partially a fluke (downsides, of course, are also possible).
I hope it works out for everyone. It’s a difficult trade to analyze, and there’s no doubt that the Yankees would have love a do-over when they traded for Gray in the first place. I’ve never liked the phrase “can’t pitch in New York” because there are plenty of cities with demanding fanbases. Let’s see what happens here–but don’t count out the $7.5M yankees are going to save either.
“demanding fanbases” ? Do you think he sucked at home because people were expecting more of him? Or is it possible that pitching in NY got inside his head and he couldn’t handle it? The data suggests the latter.
That RF wall is rather close to home plate, also. I bet Gray is thrilled to get out of there. Unfortunately, Great American Ballpark isn’t a cakewalk either.
I’ve been a Yankees fan for a very long time, and, it’s true, that some people get traded here or sign here and just fall flat. Pavano, Javier Vasquez, AJ Burnett. Maybe it’s bad luck, maybe it’s the stadium, maybe it’s just because. Pavano was sixth in CYA voting the year before he signed. Vasquez had 6.1 WAR the year before they traded for him. Who know what goes on inside some pitcher’s heads?
Right, but it’s not because of fan expectations. After all, in those cases as well as Gray no one was really expecting him to be another David Cone, just be the good pitcher he had been. And it’s not like he was booed mercilessly right from the start. His performance on the road shows he can still pitch. But his K/BB ratio strongly suggests it’s a mental issue.
The Yankees got more than then they gave up.
Fowler and Long are roughly equivalent.
Given how Kaprealien and Mateo have done since the trade, I’d take two million dollars in draft money over them any day of the week.
Sure they dealt Long for Stowers, evidently they like Stowers more. But in terms of what they got for Gray and what they gave up, they won the trade.
You also have to factor in the negative production Gray put up, plus opportunity costs. That is what makes this a negative.
This is *easily* the best deal the Reds have swung this offseason, and it’s not even close. Sonny Gray put up over 1.5 wins in his supposedly terrible year in 2018, and he has the upside of a #2. The stuff is still there, and he was more or less a #3 in 2017. And he’s a ground-ball machine in a homer-happy park (although admittedly, a lot of his fly balls have gone for home runs). But the most important part, by far, is that unlike every other deal they’ve done, they locked him up long-term at a very reasonable price. They locked in a guy for four years at a rate comparable to what Anibal Sanchez is getting AAV from the Nationals, except that unlike Anibal Sanchez he has a shot to be a guy who pitches towards the front of the rotation. The length of the deal is very important, because this team is still likely not much better (or any better) than a .500 team in 2019; their window comes open after that. And all they had to give up for that was Shed Long (who is likely overrated as a prospect) and a comp pick. It’s a win-now, win-later move.
As for the Yankees, they must see something in Stower that we don’t, because while he had a pretty good run in A-, pretty much every team had a shot at Stower and passed. Eric and Kiley seem to think he’s a left fielder, but he’s been introduced as a center fielder. I’ll be interested to hear more about him, but I think the main story is that he’s a 35+ (maybe a 40?) who was exchanged one-for-one for Shed Long (billed as 50), which suggests Long isn’t worth all that much. He needs to be on the 40 man, he’s not young for his level, his defense is a mess and he may need to move to left field, and his offensive production is only a little above average. That is absolutely the kind of guy you should be willing to move.
I don’t think it’s fair to say every team had a shot at Stowers and passed, because he wasn’t likely a top 50 talent on anyone’s board. Nobody was going to burn a first round selection or a high second round pick on him, but that doesn’t mean he wasn’t liked.
I think Jeff accurately described this as more of a 40-man issue for New York. I don’t think this says anything negatively about Long. I question whether or not he can be a regular, but he could have considerable value as a utility player with left-handed pop from the bench.
The yankees moved two guys off the 40 man (plus Gray’s salary) and got a real prospect who doesn’t need rostering just yet. That’s a decent bit of added flexibility.
I guess I question, who would you want more on your 40-man roster, Tyler Wade or Shed Long?
Personally, I’d take Long any day. I’d also take him over Stowers. But I’m not in the meetings or CC’d in Cashman’s emails, so who knows.
I wonder about this too, because a team that feels the need to sign DJ LeMahieu is probably not a team that thinks Tyler Wade is worth keeping around as infield depth.
Wade is optional depth–ready-now depth, something that Long isn’t.
LeMahieu isn’t depth. He is a a starting, regular second basemen.
Long hasn’t even seen AAA yet.
I think that it’s likely we’re underrating Stowers, and at least at this point he seems like a savvy pick at the back of the 2nd round. But the problem is that there are very few teams who don’t have 40-man issues at this point. The Mariners are one of the rare teams where it doesn’t matter (along with Orioles and Rangers and KC), because of their lack of upper-level depth and poor chances of contending this year, that isn’t facing a crunch. The 40-man issue is becoming a much bigger issue for a lot of teams, to the point where it’s more of an issue of player value than one specific to the team. For a guy who doesn’t look like a regular at 2nd and who isn’t major league ready, a 40-man roster spot is pretty rich for over half the teams in the league.
I don’t disagree. But if the 40 wasn’t an issue, it would be interesting if this deal still happened.
Almost every team had a shot at Mike Trout and passed. Every team had multiple shots at Pujols and passed. Plenty of players have done great after being drafted in the second round.
Almost every team had a shot at Stowers…in June. The only thing that has changed is an above-average stint in short-season A-ball. What you are stating is true, but not very relevant after only two months of minor league baseball.
As a Yanks fan, I don’t regret trading for Gray, it was the right move at the time.
This return feels a little light given my expectations of a pick, a 45/50 prospect, and some other player. I’m probably just being greedy though.
I actually really like Stowers over Long. The 15% walk rate + 20 SBs at a 83% success rate is very intriguing (albeit at low A). However, you wonder if by signing Octavino the Yanks handcuffed themselves with the 40 man roster crunch.
octavino will probably be his nickname after he strikes out betts, beni and jdm in a row on 11 pitches in the 7th inning of an alds game.
I think that would have to be the 8th. Or possibly you’re missing five other Boston schlubs.
I had the same thought at first – I thought “octo” as in “eight” rather than “October” which I think was the intended dad joke.
Love the Mariners’ end of this — it’s a good argument for that trademark wheeling and dealing when you can insert yourself into a deal that’s basically between two other teams, and come out with a useful MLB-ready player for “helping out” someone else’s roster crunch.
I wouldn’t call him MLB-ready, which is part of his problem for a team like the Yankees. But I do think the Mariners could reap the benefits of this; even though Long is kind of overrated (because he’s not a lock to stick at 2nd), he’s far closer to the majors than Stowers and he fits the timeline of “rebuild value for Dee Gordon, trade him” pretty well. So he fits what the Mariners are doing.
View happy wheels
The Reds are yet another team that looks to be setting an all-time high for club payroll this year.
I rather would like to see Sanmartin tried as a starter. It’s possible that he won’t cut it, but the profile of ‘strike-throwing late-blooming lefty with middling stuff ‘ did once describe Jose Quintana– also with the Yankees before breaking out. Sanmartin wasn’t bad last year, I’d try stretching him out.
Not sure I understand the Qualifying Offer rules, but might Cincinnati’s inclusion of the draft pick be in part motivated by their desire to worsen the draft pick they would have to forfeit if they signed Keuchel or Pollock?
For whatever it’s worth: part of the Reds’ willingness to put Long in any deal is the makeup of the organization. Yes, Long is #7 on the prospect list, but as a second baseman, he’s in the same position as Senzel and India (#5), both of whom are being asked to move off of third base with Suarez locked up for the next six years. Long was simply buried.
I suppose the question becomes ‘could the Reds have gotten more for Long than Gray?’ And that’s a good question to ask. But Long has been rumored to be a candidate to go for most of the offseason, because he’s simply worth less to Cincinnati than he is to teams like the Mariners.
I keep thinking about how odd this must be for Sonny Gray. All off-season he hears how the Yankees don’t really want him and are trying to trade him. Then, as soon as a trade partner is found, the Reds want to give him a 3yr extension. How many guys get chased out of town and then instantly rewarded with an extension? And I totally understand it from both the Reds and Yankees perspective. Just really weird.
How odd must it have been for Sonny Gray when he could pitch like an ace on the road, but he just couldn’t seem to do anything right at Yankee Stadium?
Also, whether it’s weird or not, is that Gray and NY just agreed on a one-year, $7.5-million deal not too long ago. Obviously that was to avoid arbitration, but had he gone through arbitration, would he have gotten that much money??
He was actually projected closer to 9 I believe.
Out of the frying pan and into the fire for Gray. GABP is a launching pad with no peer. It was 14% easier to hit a HR in GABP than Coors Field last season. Since he always stinks at home, I can’t wait to see his home ERA next season. 7.00? 7.50? It’s not going to be pretty.
This seems like a very good move for the Reds. They seem to lack any ability to develop pitching in part because they play in a launching pad. But they have a strong infield. So go out and acquire Veteran ground ball pitchers makes sense. If the offense is strong enough they should win some cause the rotation looks easily capable of being near to or at league average. The offense should be much better than average. Although no one can be sold on the projected Cf.
The Reds’ infield defense is, contrary to popular opinion, not good at all. But it is likely going to be close to playable, which is more than you can say about the outfield. They better hope Good Defense Puig shows up and not the below-average version we saw last year.
I have no idea what the Reds are doing. Gray has very little surplus value and a straight up trade should have brought back a lesser prospect than Long never mind also a pretty high pick. On a larger scale though, where are the Reds in the division? They won 67 games last year. They were 15.5 games behind the 4th place team in the division. They were 23 games back of the second wildcard spot. Does adding Kemp, Gray, Roark, Wood, and Puig bridge that gap? Maybe one or two teams falter ahead of them, but there is way too much talent and way too many teams ahead of them to make short-term moves make sense. It seems like the teams pushing their chips in are not the ones that should be. (Pirates trading for Archer, Cleveland selling off, etc…)
It wasn’t a straight up trade. The Yankees also traded their right to sign Gray to an extension, which the Reds did before the trade was made. And when you sign a player to an extension it is unlikely you will be able to get surplus value on his contract. Otherwise, the player is giving some sort of a discount. Are there other methods the Reds can use to strengthen their rotation the same amount over the next 3 or 4 years that would cost them less? They probably believe there’s a chance Gray could become an ace again, as well. Anyway, I don’t agree that teams should only ever do one of either be a favorite to win the world series or not care how competitive of a team they put on the field.
They won 67 but were already projected to win 76-77 before the trades since Steamer sees their young players (Senzel, Winker) “arriving” in 2019. So already stuck in the middle, why not give up a couple prospects (an FV45+ and an FV50) to get to an 81-82 win projection? It’s not a massive, farm-depleting bet. The Reds still have a good system.
The Pirates’ trade for Archer seems like a challenge-/change-of-scenery trade since Glasnow & Meadows probably weren’t going to progress in Pit. (Giving up Baz too, ouch!) Cleveland has only traded Gomes and allowed Brantley to walk. They still enjoy an 11-game projection advantage over the Twins. This is how they have to operate in a small market like Cleveland.
I more or less agree with you about Roark, Wood, and Puig, and where the Reds are in the division–they’re probably a .500 team with this unit, whereas before they were quite a bit further back. And also about Pittsburgh and Cleveland.
But–the Gray trade is the one move that makes sense. The upside on the extension is enormous if he returns to being a mid-rotation starter, and even better if he returns to being a #2. The downside is that he’s slightly overpaid. And he fits their contention window, which likely happens in 2020 when Senzel has some experience under his belt, and continues when Trammell hits the majors.
Another great write-up, breaking down an acquisition, by Sullivan. So simple, yet so informative. I come to this site every time their’s a transaction, as I always leave knowing exactly why each team did what they did due to Jeff’s writings.
Thanks for all you do, including all the work on Effictively Wild (the best baseball podcast around!).
Really appreciate the bit about leverage, Jeff. There is a very vocal contingent of Yankees fans that insist Cashman massively screwed up by saying the Yankees don’t want Gray anymore. It’s been incredibly frustrating: there’s no reasoning with them, and it’s gone on for months. The “Negotiating 101” bit was downright cathartic.
If it’s 1v1 negotiation that would be a big deal, but when 5 or more teams start bidding against each other I doubt it should make much of a difference. Put yourself in their positions. Would you not try to outbid the currently leading bid because you know the Yankees are almost certainly going to go through with the trade this offseason? Such knowledge wouldn’t change how far I was willing to go because my evaluation of his value to my organization, and that of what my organization is giving up, are independent of the knowledge that the Yankees have more or less committed to making a deal. So I am not sure what the mechanism would be for such knowledge to negatively affect the return the Yankees get if 5+ teams really did have serious interest in Gray.
While Gray shouldn’t really move the needle drastically for the Reds, this is yet another appropriate improvement to their starting-rotation. It’s becoming slim pickings out on the market now, as the only remaining free-agent worth going after looks like Keuchel and his request of a $20MM AAV type contract.
Cincy isn’t going to win the Central, but with their additions on offense, and atleast an attempt to actually have a competent pitching staff, this team will win more ballgames than they did in 2018.
Stowers for long is interesting.
According to kiley and eric long is not “slightly superior” but superior by a lot (35+ vs 50).
Stowers has upside and probably is more of a 40 but still according to the dollar value articles a 40 hitter is worth 3m and a 50 hitter 20m.
Either the Yankees value stowers a lot differently internally than K&E do or they but a premium on the “minor league control years” (long needs to be protected).
I think it’s safe to say the Yankees value Stowers a lot differently than whoever made that FanGraphs projection did at the time it was made and I also think it’s safe to say the Yankees took a much deeper look at both Stowers and Long than they did.
Btw isn’t it weird Gray’s K-BB is so much worse at home. You would expect more homers and a higher ERA at home but why would the park affect what happens pre contact?
NY isn’t high like coors either so movement shouldn’t be affected? Is it mental? Or random variation?
A logical causation for park impacting K-BB is that a pitcher nibbles – perhaps especially early in the count – after giving up a bunch of HR’s. He therefore falls behind in the count leading to fewer K’s and more BB’s.
I think that a home/road split such as “first pitch zone percentage” is one good way of testing if this hypothesis is at least plausible. I don’t think that Fangraphs has that split available, however. (I can’t readily figure out a way to look at it with the split tool.)
We can see from Gray’s splits page at Fangraphs that he gave up a lot more HR’s at Yankees Stadium than on the road in 2018: 1.67 HR/9 at home compared to 0.38 HR/9 in away games. I don’t believe that split alone tells us much, though, because simply pitching behind in the count more – which logically ought be the case if he’s walking more hitters and striking out fewer hitters – is going to correlate with more HR’s allowed.
In short, there’s a plausible reason for it, but I think it’s difficult to establish causation.
Sonny is a head case who over thinks his pitch sequences. His biggest impediment is between his ears and his self confidence took a big hit pitching for the Yankees and dealing with the NYC media. Good luck to the Reds in turning him around and revitalizing his career. He has the stuff to be successful.
Seattle not only needs infield prospects, they need LHH’s. Stowers was behind Lewis, Bishop, and Rodriguez in the pecking order, and Seattle still has Santana and Haniger, all of which are right-handed hitting outfielders. White, their likely future first baseman, is also a RHH.
Stowers was expendable for Seattle. I had wondered if they could swap Stowers for Canvan Biggio. In the end, Seattle still got a lefty-hitting infielder for Stowers.
With this move, the CIN starting 5 has a combined WAR projection of exactly 10.0. That’s about as league average as you can get. They’ve gone from abysmal to mediocre, which is a terrific improvement!
That bullpen tho…
You must defeat Shed Long to stand a chance.
This is now the second this winter where the Mariners have used roster flexibility to make an upgrade. First time was trading Ben Gamer (on the 40-man, but with a remaining option year) for Domingo Santana. Now this trade.
Seems to me that this is a logical outcome of the increasing valuation that teams place on having young, controllable talent over veterans. Teams are now more likely to keep those young players in the system instead of using them as collateral to obtain veterans. But that makes roster crunches more likely.
Great trade for the Reds. First Long is over-rated. He is limited defensively. He repeated AA at 23 and still was average at best (.765 OPS). The Reds extended Gray when they did not extend Roark or Wood. I think Johnson (Reds pitching coach and former manager of Gray) sees something here he likes or they would not have extended him.
–
The Reds offense must be under-rated by many here. Joey Votto will be better this year. The OF will be much better. Winker is about to break out I think. Hopefully Schebler can stay healthy. Puig is a major step backward but offensively he is a huge improvement over Hamilton. Puig is also in a contract year and he strikes me as an under-performer unless there is incentive. Contract year is huge incentive and I think Puig will be everything people thought he would be after his rookie season.
The Reds SP is not great. But Derek Johnson made Wade Miley (2.57 ERA last year) and Gio Gonzalez (2.15 ERA in 5 September starts for Milwaukee) look like Cy Young candidates. Seems like he already has a plan for Gray. Luis Castillo had a 2.45 ERA and a WHIP of 0.97 after the break last year. I could see Castillo as an ace with Wood and Gray as solid #2 or #3.
Finally why is the Reds SP so inferior to that of the Cubs or Brewers?
Hopefully the Reds are not done. They still have $10 million available for 2019. If they get Realmuto they become favorites in the Central. If they don’t they are in the mix and maybe the miracles Derek Johnson completed in Milwaukee last summer will repeat themselves in Cincinnati in 2019.
Almost every team that made the playoffs in 2018 had 2 starting pitchers in the 2.0 or better WAR category. The Reds have Castillo who at 1.9 for 2018, might edge into 2.0 WAR for 2019. Unfortunately, Gray, Roark, Wood, Ramano, Desclafani, Mahle and whoever else is not projected to be in the 2.0 WAR area for 2019. If the Reds are serious about getting to the post-season, there has to be two 2.0 or better guys at the top of the rotation. So far, the team is trying to make it look good, but further examination reveals that they are not close.
Steamer projects Wood to have a 1.9 WAR and he put up a 2.6 in 18 and a 3.5 in 17.
I don’t think we need to get hung up on Gray’s Home/Away splits. Awful with New York, not particularly terrible with Oakland. It’s fair to say that, for whatever reason, he didn’t enjoy pitching in New York, and it’s fair to say that Cincinnati is not the easiest NL stadium for a pitcher.
But, how about this? Nobody yet has asked whether he’s a good pitcher against NL teams. And there’s a good reason for that. He’s pitched roughly 80 innings against them, which is a small sample over five years.
In 5.1 innings with NYY he posted a FIP of 5.6. (I’m guessing these were in the Bronx.) For the rest, he’s posted something between 2.10 and 4.21 in any given year.
I’m using FIP as the best guess we have, and I fully accept the problem with small samples. But maybe the Reds do, too. Maybe they see a low-risk, high-ceiling, 29 year old starting pitcher going cheap here.
YS3 got in his head. Problem solved