The Best Reliever on the Trade Market
We have arrived at the part of the season where teams start to identify themselves as buyers and sellers. In turn, we can start assessing which players are likely to be traded.
The San Francisco Giants are clearly sellers. Stuck in last place in the NL West, with one of the weakest farm systems in baseball, the Giants need an influx of young talent. Madison Bumgarner will almost certainly be traded, but come the end of the month, he shouldn’t be the only Giants lefty on the move.
Will Smith was once a failed starter for the Royals. The Brewers acquired him in exchange for Nori Aoki prior to the 2014 season, and quickly turned him into a successful reliever. He was traded to the Giants near the deadline in 2016, and after missing the entire 2017 season with Tommy John surgery, he came back as an even better reliever, maintaining his high whiff rates while throwing more strikes. Smith is now one of the top closers in the league, and contenders will be lining up for his services.
Several surface numbers — including his 40.9% strikeout rate and 6.1% walk rate – indicate that the lefty has pitched well this season. But perhaps nothing underscores the point like WPA. Relievers are often thrust into high-leverage situations without much room for error, and in that regard, Smith has starred:
| Pitcher | WPA |
|---|---|
| Will Smith | 3.10 |
| Josh Hader | 2.82 |
| Kirby Yates | 2.48 |
| Felipe Vazquez | 2.41 |
| Scott Oberg | 2.08 |
| John Gant | 2.01 |
| Taylor Rogers | 1.93 |
| Alex Colome | 1.70 |
| Shane Greene | 1.50 |
| Sergio Romo | 1.46 |
WPA isn’t designed to predict a player’s future success: It’s just a measure of how they have harmed or enhanced their team’s chances of winning. Still, it’s useful in evaluating relievers, as the context in which they are deployed shapes our understanding of their performance. By this measure, Smith has clearly thrived.
Quietly, Smith has been a pretty solid reliever for a few years now. In 2018, he posted career-low walk rate (7.1%) while striking out well over a hitter per inning. Back in the offseason, Jeff Sullivan examined Smith’s brilliance, concluding that his strong numbers and San Francisco’s needs made him an obvious trade candidate. This season, he’s been even better. Here’s how he ranks among major league relievers in several important categories:
| K% | BB% | K-BB% | FIP- | xFIP- | FIP |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 41.1 (4th) | 6.5% (37th least) | 34.7 (4th) | 49 (7th) | 47 (3rd) | 2.03 (5th) |
Smith’s rise from a good reliever to an elite one can be partly explained by a small shift in his pitch mix. Last year, Smith threw his slider 36% of the time, establishing it as his main go-to weapon. It induced a .129 wOBA and a .129 xwOBA. This season, it’s got even deadlier, good for a .120 wOBA and a .108 xwOBA, even as he’s thrown it more often (42.1%). To better illustrate his slider’s effectiveness, here are a couple of gifs for your viewing pleasure:
Smith will be a free agent this winter, and so he’s just a rental. That’s dings the potential return San Francisco’s brass can expect to receive, but Smith will still fetch some talent that could help the club long-term. To get an idea of how he could be valued, let’s compare his 2019 numbers to those of other relievers who were traded as half-season rentals in recent years.
| Pitcher | Year | K% | BB% | HR/9 IP | FIP | WPA | WAR |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Zack Britton | 2018 | 20.6% | 16.4% | 0.51 | 4.41 | -0.28 | 0.0 |
| Mark Melancon | 2016 | 23.3% | 5.5% | 0.43 | 2.67 | 1.83 | 0.9 |
| Addison Reed | 2017 | 24.0% | 3.0% | 1.10 | 3.16 | 2.30 | 0.9 |
| Will Smith | 2019 | 41.5% | 5.9% | 0.84 | 2.01 | 3.10 | 1.2 |
| Jeurys Familia | 2018 | 25.9% | 8.1% | 0.19 | 2.43 | 0.28 | 1.4 |
| Joakim Soria | 2018 | 29.1% | 6.9% | 0.43 | 2.27 | 0.46 | 1.4 |
| Anthony Swarzak | 2017 | 27.8% | 7.2% | 0.54 | 2.62 | 1.63 | 1.6 |
| Aroldis Chapman | 2016 | 37.9% | 6.1% | 0.51 | 1.72 | 2.09 | 1.7 |
Smith’s numbers look top-notch even when compared to this stellar group. One could make an argument that Smith has performed better this season than Aroldis Chapman at the time he was traded in 2016, though the Giants certainly won’t be acquiring a prospect of Gleyber Torres’s caliber.
As always, several teams pushing for the playoffs are in need of bullpen help. The following clubs in particular could really use Smith’s services:
| Team | Playoff Odds | Bullpen ERA | Bullpen FIP | Bullpen WAR |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Red Sox | 58.2% | 4.37 | 4.12 | 2.7 |
| Twins | 97.3% | 4.28 | 4.21 | 2.6 |
| Braves | 94.1% | 3.81 | 4.53 | 0.6 |
| Phillies | 24.2% | 4.79 | 4.99 | -0.1 |
| Nationals | 59.9% | 6.30 | 4.82 | 0.3 |
| Cubs | 78.9% | 3.99 | 4.42 | 0.8 |
| Dodgers | 100.0% | 4.26 | 4.32 | 1.4 |
While just about any contender could find a place for Smith, teams with deep bullpens — like the Rays, Brewers and Indians — will probably be looking to bolster other parts of their roster. In addition to the teams listed above, the Astros are also a potential partner. Houston’s relievers have pitched very well, but they don’t have a southpaw in their bullpen right now.
With so many contending teams needing to beef up their bullpens, Smith will attract plenty of calls to the Giants front office. That’s a good news for San Francisco: the more suitors, the better their leverage. The odds are that, come August, Smith is going to make someone else’s bullpen happier. We just don’t know who, and for what return, quite yet.
Sung-Min Kim writes for River Ave. Blues, and has written for MLB.com, The Washington Post, Baseball America and VICE Sports. Besides baseball writing, he is also passionate about photojournalism and radio broadcasting. Follow him on Twitter @sung_minkim.
Article idea: Discussion of impactful non-closer relievers that might be available at the deadline.
Not everyone needs a closer. WAS, LAD, and CHC have closers but gaping holes in middle relief. They might rather pay lower prices for LOOGYs and setup men and stay out of the Will Smith bidding
One team’s “closer” is another team’s high-leverage guy they maximize instead of calling him a closer?
Absolutely happens. But you’re still paying closer prices for that, and not everyone wants to do that.
Unfortunately, since FG is going down the crapper with their hiring of sub-par fluff writers to replace the talent they lost to MLB teams, the author didn’t take the time to go all the way with the article and analyze the returns for those BP rentals.
So I guess that’s up to us. Here are the FVs of the players at the time of the trade (as best I could determine):
Zack Britton 2018 – Dillon Tate 40+, Josh Rogers 40, Cody Carroll 40
Mark Melancon 2016 – Felipe Vazquez (probably a 45 as a potential impact BP arm with some MLB IP), Taylor Hearn 40
Addison Reed 2017 – Gerson Bautista 40, Jamie Callahan 40, and Stephen Nogosek NA
Jeurys Familia 2018 – Will Toffey 40, Bobby Wahl 40, $1M international pool money
Joakim Soria 2018 – Kodi Medeiros 40, Wilber Perez NA (young arm from the DSL)
Anthony Swarzak 2017 – Ryan Cordell 45
Aroldis Chapman 2016 – Gleyber Torres 60, Adam Warren NA (MLB arm), Billy McKinney 40, Rashad Crawford NA
The Chapman insanity aside, we see these top rental BP arms seem to cost 2-3 40s, with maybe a 45 in there to push the package over the top.
Aside from Torres and Vasquez, that sure does look like a whole lot of “why is this even worth it.”
You make the trade since a reliever is normally the tip of the iceberg of what you are dealing.
A great reliever is worth only 2-3 WAR in a year. After the deadline you are lucky to get enough innings out of one to milk 1 WAR the rest of the season out of them. That is a converted dollar value of only 5-7 million. A future utility infielder is easily worth that much. Most of the rebuilding teams opted for a group of high upside arms instead. Only 1 of the 3 guys you get in return for one of these guys needs to turn into a mediocre middle reliever for the trade to be a net gain. If one manages to become a 5th starter who can eat some innings, you are way ahead in the trade.
I want to note; i may have over estimated what a good reliever can generate- 8 releivers were at 2 war or more last year (Smith being 8th with 2).
So a reasonable expected FWAR for a releiver traded at the deadline is lower than 1 WAR, it is likely in the .5 range (since the trade deadline is not the dead middle of the season, and a more realistic expectation for a releiver is 1.5 war on the year- where the 21st releiver was last year- Robertson).
This is realistic reaturns for .5 FWAR for the rest of the season. I think it is actually more than one would expect but releivers generally have a higher dollar amount per WAR (since you are rostering several, and everything a high leverage releiver does is during impact innings)
Also the acquiring team is paying for the playoff leverage, which generally has no value to the selling team.
Did you read the author’s bio??
Given that he has written for some pretty reputable sites, I’m almost certain he could care less whether or not you feel that he went ‘all the way’.
And then you Google a bunch of trades and copy them down in a comments section to show how …. thorough? or smart you are??
This is why site managers always tell writers to stay out of the comment section… lol
I didn’t think about returns when reading the article because it focused on a player that can make one of the contenders better down the stretch and perhaps postseason. Speculating on the return, whether it be a 40FV or 45FV or whatever is fairly meaningless to probably most fans. Not even most Giants fans likely know the difference or care beyond “they got something of value for Will Smith” when the trade inevitably happens.
if nothing else, i thoroughly enjoyed watching the second gif, particularly how the trajectory of the pitch nearly matches the slanted chalk behind the backstop.
Will Smith might be the best reliever on the trade market, but the case actually has to be made, and Ken Giles will have something to say about that, with a FIP of barely over 1.00 and bettering Smith in almost every category mentioned in the article.
It’s a poor job to contend Smith is the best reliever available and never even mention Giles.
Whether or not Smith is better than Giles he should be cheaper as he’s a rental and Giles has 1 arb year left. If I’m a contender I’d rather pay the lower price for Smith.
What does “37th least” even mean? Can you just give percentile rankings next time?
It means — as the title of the table clearly states — it is the 37th lowest BB% among all qualified relievers. Generically, you should know that there are going to be a lot of relievers meeting the qualified IP mark. Given that a ~6% BB rate can be generally well-recognized as very good, you can realize that 37th is a relatively low rank.
For the record, there are currently 174 RP who meet the qualified IP mark:
https://www.fangraphs.com/leaders.aspx?pos=all&stats=rel&lg=all&qual=y&type=8&season=2019&month=0&season1=2019&ind=0&team=0&rost=0&age=0&filter=&players=0&startdate=2019-01-01&enddate=2019-12-31
Im a Braves fan but I really hope philly picks him up.
Gotta figure the Yankees will be in on him, as well. Given the dearth of effectiveness across pitching staffs this season, there isn’t a team in the league that couldn’t use more help wherever they can get it.
They’ve noted through the press that they won’t trade Clint Frazier for a rental, but maybe they’d trade him for two (along with other pieces, of course).