The Royals Shouldn’t Sell Low on Yordano Ventura

The Houston Astros figure to be one of the better clubs in baseball this next season. They had a strong team last year and have added Carlos Beltran, Brian McCann, and Josh Reddick in the meantime. Presumably, that makes them a stronger team.

As for the pitching side, they don’t appear to be content yet. They have Dallas Keuchel at the front of the rotation. Lance McCullers is good, but had elbow problems last season. Collin McHugh is fine, Mike Fiers a little bit less fine. Charlie Morton and potentially Joe Musgrove also appear in the mix. The team could probably use one more good pitcher.

As such, it should come as no surprise that, according to Brian McTaggart of MLB.com, that the Astros have tried to trade for a starting pitcher. From McTaggart’s piece:

The Astros are trying to land a starting pitcher, but aren’t willing to trade Bregman. That has made things rather difficult. Among some of their targets are Jose Quintana, Jake Odorizzi, Chris Archer, Danny Duffy and Yordano Ventura. The team has the prospects to get a deal done and is likely to make a move at some point.

One of these things is not like the other. Here are those pitchers’ WAR totals from last season.

It would certainly appear from the data here as though Yordano Ventura isn’t particularly good. At the very least, you could say he had pretty forgettable season in terms of creating wins. He did incite a benches-clearing brawl earlier in the season — and, after multiple, similar incidents, it’s certainly possible he deserved more than the eight-game suspension he received for throwing at Manny Machado.

From a statistical standpoint, however, he produced one of the worst starts among all pitchers last season; by the end of the year, he’d recorded a poor 4.45 ERA (103 ERA-), an equally poor 4.59 FIP (109 FIP-), fewer strikeouts than usual, more walks than usual, and more home runs, too.

Based on his performance and declining peripherals, Ventura doesn’t appear — not at first glance, at least — like the sort of pitcher a contender would target in hopes of bolstering its rotation. It’s possible that Ventura’s poor season might not have been quite as bad as it seems, however. Over the last two seasons, Ventura has produced three months during which he was at or below replacement level. The first came in April 2015, on the heels of a 200-plus inning season that included a run to the World Series. Over Ventura’s last 21 starts of 2015, howeve, he was very good, putting up a 3.13 FIP on his way to another World Series run.

Then came the first two months of last season, during which he wasn’t good at all. From June through the rest of the season, though, Ventura was pretty good, putting up a league-average 4.19 FIP. His strikeout (19%) and walk (8%) numbers weren’t great, but they were decent, and he erased some concerns about velocity loss as the data from Brooks Baseball show:

Ventura is still just 25 years old and he certainly has room to improve. The table below documents Ventura’s pitch usage last season. Also included are the percentage of extra-base hits and home runs conceded by each pitch type. (Data from Brooks Baseball, once again.)

It seems, given his repertoire, that Yordano Ventura could be a strikeout pitcher who also induces a fair share of ground balls, a rare combination. His four-seam fastball isn’t very good at achieving those aims, however. Why he throws it with such frequency isn’t immediately apparent. It’s possible he feels that the four-seamer is the only pitch he can reliably command, meaning he’s likely to be throwing the pitch behind in the count when the hitter is looking for it. In that case, it’s reasonable to expect the pitch to perform a little bit worse than we might think based just on the velocity. He certainly shouldn’t abandon the four-seam fastball, but he might not need to throw it close to 50% of the time on the first pitch of an at-bat. The two-seamer might help him get swings and a few more quick outs.

While Ventura has already experienced success at points in his major-league career, he still just completed his age-25 season. It’s possible he’s still just learning how best to use his pitches in the big leagues. That promise — and not his 2016 performance — is what would make Ventura a trade target. His projections say he should be worth 2.6 WAR in 2017, so even the projections certainly see at least a return to his effective 2015 season. There’s certainly more potential there, but the other advantage Ventura has is his contract and the potential years of control.

Before the 2015 season, the Royals signed Ventura to a contract guaranteeing him just $23 million through the 2019 season, plus two $12 million options for 2020 and 2021. Let’s run through a quick hypothetical. Let’s say Ventura is never really more than an average pitcher, and let’s say sometime in the next five seasons, he loses an entire year due to some injury or another. That version of Ventura, the guy who is average for four seasons and misses another, would be worth around $75 million over the next five years. The Royals would only have to pay him around $45 million during that time with less than half of that amount guaranteed.

Some say Ventura might be destined for the bullpen; his stuff could certainly play well there. Even a move to relief, however, would still probably allow him to return value on his contract. There’s very little reason for the Royals to sell low on Ventura at this point. He could completely fail and their investment would be minimal. The outlook is questionable beyond this season for Kansas City given their impending free agents, but if they hope to contend after 2017, waiting for Yordano Ventura to fulfill his promise is one of the few chances the Royals have. He could help them this season as they go for it one more time. Unless some team offers a haul worth his considerable value, however, the Royals’ potential on-field return from Ventura outweighs any need to move him — even if he never approaches his potential.