The Padres Possess the Andrew Miller Backup Plan

We’re soon to see the Yankees trade away at least one dominant left-handed reliever in Aroldis Chapman, and it’s very possible they deal away a second dominant left-handed reliever in Andrew Miller, as long as someone is willing to pony up for those extra years of control. Plenty of teams will try to get Miller — the Indians, Rangers, Cubs, and Nationals have all been linked — but a maximum of one can actually obtain him. It might be none. And even then, there’s only one Chapman. Point being, a couple teams are going to be left out of the dominant-lefty-reliever sweepstakes, and forced to drop down a tier.

The Cubs got out ahead of the curve and acquired Mike Montgomery from the Mariners yesterday. This doesn’t mean they won’t still pursue Chapman or Miller, but they’ve at least covered one base. Montgomery’s an interesting case, because he’s still relatively unproven, but he’s lately been fantastic, and he comes with multiple years of cheap control. If you buy Montgomery’s recent performance, he’s essentially a really poor man’s Miller, in that he’s an effective lefty who’s also not a rental. Montgomery netted Seattle an interesting prospect in Dan Vogelbach, sort of helping set the market for this next tier of Chapman/Miller backup plans. Other clubs with similar assets to Montgomery ought to have had their ears perk up. Which brings us to the San Diego Padres, and Ryan Buchter.

We just recently saw the Padres trade away a good, cheap, controllable, left-handed pitcher in Drew Pomeranz in order to get even younger. The Padres are a rebuilding club, and rebuilding clubs love good, cheap, controllable arms, and so on the surface, Pomeranz wasn’t the most obvious trade chip. But Pomeranz comes with some risk in the way of uncertainty, and the Padres are far enough way that he had more value to another club both in the present and in the short-term future. The Padres saw an opportunity to gain some longer-term value, and they pulled the trigger.

Buchter, like Pomeranz, has recently been excellent, after less recently being something of an afterthought. Pomeranz is 27, and the Padres were already his fourth organization. Buchter is 29, and the Padres are his fifth organization. And Buchter, like Pomeranz, comes with risk in the way of uncertainty, as this level at which he’s currently performing is both exceeding expectations and mostly unproven.

Speaking of which, we should address that performance. I don’t blame you if this is the first time you’ve ever even heard of Buchter; it hasn’t been long for me, either. He was a 33rd-round draft pick, and his last three organizations acquired him on minor-league deals.

Prior status aside, Buchter’s struck out more than one-third of all the major-league batters he’s faced in his life. His strikeout rate falls just outside the top 10 of qualified relievers this year. His ERA is 2.36 and the FIP is 2.72. For an even more nuanced look, his DRA-, among the 229 pitchers with at least 40 innings thrown this year, ranks just within the top 10. Buchter’s been undeniably great.

He’s also been uniquely fascinating. See, Buchter’s an extreme kind of pitcher. Like, for example, he’s thrown his four-seam fastball more than eight out of 10 times. That’s an extreme rate of usage, for an extreme pitch. By now, you’re familiar with the concept of “rise” on a four-seam fastball. More often than not, it’s a good thing to have. Buchter’s got it in spades. Looking at the 87 pitchers who’ve recorded at least 500 four-seam fastballs thrown this year, only Marco Estrada, Chris Young, Clayton Kershaw and Drew Smyly have more average rise on their four-seam fastball than Buchter.

You know rise as the reason why guys like Estrada and Young can survive with below-average velocity. Buchter isn’t that; Buchter’s got velocity, too. His rising fastball sits 94 and touches 96. This is a fact that probably sounds more impressive than it actually is, but it’s a fact nonetheless: the only pitcher in baseball with more rise on their four-seam fastball and more velocity than Ryan Buchter is Clayton Kershaw.

Knowing that, maybe the results aren’t surprising. Nearly 30% of swings against Buchter’s fastball have gone for whiffs, topped only by Rich Hill and Danny Duffy:

One-quarter of all balls in play against it have gone for pop ups, the highest in baseball:

Hitters struggle to make contact against Bucther, and when they do, it’s gone in the air without much authority. That’s the other way in which Buchter is uniquely fascinating: he owns baseball’s lowest ground-ball rate. Typically, that might be viewed as more of a negative than a positive, especially when paired with Buchter’s (alarmingly?) high walk rate. But Buchter’s extreme fastball has limited damage on air balls. Buchter’s air balls rank in the 90th percentile in suppressing exit velocity, and in the 96th percentile in terms of suppressing distance. You can think of it this way, in simple terms: there’s two types of fly balls. There’s the type that go in the air because they were left up in the zone and which more often result in damage, and there’s the type that go in the air because they were intended to, that more often result in discomfort. Buchter’s in the latter category.

The walks are a concern, definitely. There’s a reason why Buchter’s bounced around for so long. The walk rate’s almost always been north of 10%. But, what with all the strikeouts and weak air balls, he’s survived this year, and consider that, in more than 50 innings in the PCL last year, Buchter had a walk rate north of 10%, struck out roughly a third of all batters, didn’t allow a single home run and ran an ERA below 2.00. The PCL is where balls go to fly and pitchers go to die, and this same formula worked in one of the toughest pitching environments. This formula’s been working for several years now.

The last thing: since Buchter mostly throws the fastball, he doesn’t suffer much of a platoon split. Or at least, he hasn’t yet. He’s faced 40 more righties than lefties this season, and he’s held them to a .285 wOBA.

For what it’s worth, between his recent dominant performances in hitter-friendly minor-league environments and what he’s done in San Diego this year, the projections forecast him to produce the same ERA as guys like Jason Grilli, Zach Duke and Jeremy Jeffress, and the same FIP as Darren O’Day, Hansel Robles and Alex Colome. Buchter was never really on the map, until he was. He’s now seen as at least a quality major-league arm, and he’s recently been one of baseball’s very best relievers. And he’s likely worth more to your contending club than he is to the San Diego Padres. Andrew Miller is still the prize. Miss out on him? Crazy as it sounds, why not give Ryan Buchter a try?