There Are Two Things to Be Said About Brian Duensing
A little over a year ago, Brian Duensing signed a one-year contract with the Cubs worth $2 million. That’s hardly the kind of commitment that would break the Cubs’ bank, but it was still somewhat surprising that Duensing got such a guarantee, given that he was aging, and hadn’t been very good. He had thrown just 13.1 big-league innings in 2016, and that season he injured his elbow while moving a chair. It wouldn’t have been hard to see Duensing end up as a spring-training NRI. The Cubs, though, took a chance.
It worked out! Duensing had a good year. Appeared in 68 games. Did well. And now Duensing has re-signed, for two years and…$7 million. Compared to the previous contract, it’s more than double the commitment, I know, but it’s still modest, given what Duensing just did, and given what other free-agent relievers have signed for. This has been a slow-moving market, and there’s a strengthening conversation about how players aren’t getting their collective due. You might be tempted to point to Duensing’s deal as evidence.
Yet it doesn’t quite work. Duensing’s deal, it turns out, is rather evidence of something else.
I’m writing this with the full understanding that this is a whole post about a 34-year-old Brian Duensing. This isn’t what anyone was looking to think about this Wednesday. But as long as we have a few minutes — after all, you’re already here — let’s focus on those two years, and that $7 million. The two years is about what you’d expect, especially since Duensing is old, as baseball players go. But the $7 million? Seems like that’s discounted. And it turns out it seems that way because it is indeed a discount.
Duensing had deals for significantly more money elsewhere but liked the cubs experience so much he wanted to return. Can’t blame him. Chicago’s the best (in the summer)
— Jon Heyman (@JonHeyman) January 17, 2018
Most of the time, when we see terms, we only see the terms from the “winning” team. And, most of the time, the winning team is the team that offered the most money. Not so, in this case. I don’t know who else might’ve been involved, and I don’t know how much money might’ve been on the table, but Duensing ultimately opted for a pseudo-hometown discount. It speaks well to the culture the Cubs have developed, and it also says something about where Duensing has been. Though he hasn’t yet been a journeyman, he has the general profile. He could be a journeyman. And in 2016 he belonged to both the Royals and the Orioles. Duensing is the kind of player who might most value some manner of stability. The Cubs are a familiar ballclub, and Duensing will occupy a familiar role.
Furthermore, on top of that, it’s worth wondering whether Duensing might value the Cubs more because the Cubs squeezed more out of Duensing’s arm. It’s not just that the Cubs took that chance, going back 13 months. They also saw Duensing improve under their watch, at an age when the majority of players are in the midst of decline. Duensing wasn’t exactly a shutdown reliever in 2017, but he showed off a new skill. In one way, he got back to his old self. In another, he got a lot better.
Using our splits leaderboard, I selected left-handed relievers. Here are Duensing’s percentile rankings among them, in terms of K-BB% against left-handed hitters.
- 2011 – 2013: 53rd percentile
- 2014 – 2016: 7th
- 2017: 66th
Duensing just did pretty well against opponents on the same side. At the very least, you need for your lefties to be able to retire other lefties. Duensing bounced back, and perhaps then some. That’s promising, but now, here are his percentile rankings among lefty relievers, in terms of K-BB% against right-handed hitters.
- 2011 – 2013: 15th percentile
- 2014 – 2016: 11th
- 2017: 74th
That’s different. Against righties, Duensing didn’t return to some previous level of performance. Instead, he did something brand new. Previously, in a season, Duensing had never struck out 15% of the righties he faced. Last season, he struck out nearly a quarter of them. This isn’t like some kind of Craig Kimbrel level, but for the first time, Duensing looked like a lefty reliever who could be a threat against righties. That’s a new skillset, and it came along with a change in Duensing’s approach, rather unsurprisingly. I’ll borrow from Brooks Baseball. Here’s how Duensing has pitched to righties, over his career, in terms of average vertical pitch location.
Duensing just pitched righties lower than ever. Related to that, here are Duensing’s general pitch mixes.
Duensing has never had, and never will have, an overpowering fastball. Righties saw fewer fastballs than ever, and more breaking balls than ever — especially curveballs. Duensing leaned more heavily on his curve, in particular early in counts, in an effort to get ahead without a swing. Batters tend not to go after early curveballs, and Duensing used that to his advantage. Whether that was his idea or the Cubs’, I’m not sure, but I’d say the ends justify the means. Whatever it was, Duensing, at 34 years old, learned a new skill. It didn’t require him to do anything dramatically different, but rather just a simple adjustment to when he threw which pitches.
Brian Duensing still isn’t a closer. Brian Duensing still isn’t some All-Star setup guy. But what the Cubs could have here is a lefty reliever who can pitch effectively to hitters on both sides. That means that Duensing doesn’t have to just be a specialist, and last year, on several occasions, the Cubs had Duensing work multiple innings. You could argue that could make him somewhat redundant with Mike Montgomery, but it’s not as if the Cubs couldn’t use them both. And if Montgomery ever ends up starting, well, Duensing is an available bullpen replacement. You can never have too many useful relievers.
It’s not common for a pitcher to achieve a new and better profile at the age of 34. It’s also not common for a free agent to re-sign while turning down significantly more money. It’s by no means unheard of, but it’s still a rarity, and it can only say good things about the Duensing/Cubs relationship. Not only can the Cubs offer Duensing something he already knows — it was with the Cubs that Duensing managed to flourish. Sure, he might’ve been able to take those skills somewhere else, but, in the end, why jeopardize a good thing? It’s just money. Duensing’ll get more than enough of it.
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.
Who is the most interesting major-leaguer you haven’t yet written about?
I’d also like to know the least interesting.
It’s the Interesting Number Paradox.
On one hand, I get if I’m already going to be a millionaire I might prefer to be in a functional work environment instead of maxing out the salary. Maybe he also wants to win and doesn’t want to sign with the Phillies.
On the other hand, since you can be traded without your consent in MLB there’s a chance he might be elsewhere anyway. Plus, I am sure I could always find a good use for an extra half-million or so (after taxes).
I see both sides here.
Your second hand actually is similar to your first hand since the chances of a reliever being traded is significantly reduced by signing with the Cubs, a team that is extremely likely to make it to the playoffs for the next two seasons.
Pretty sure nobody who’s spent any time in Chicago in the summer thinks it’s “the best”.
Good move for the Cubs. Bring back a valuable pen piece who can maybe pitch high leverage innings, don’t spend too much, meaning they can still get a high end SP.
Pretty sure Jon Heyman is talking about the culture and vibe at Wrigley in the summer–not the actual city
Lol, oops. Definitely thought he was talking about the weather…
Currently in Illinois, can confirm I thought he meant weather, cause winter definitely sucks
Chicago summers are nice. Don’t even try to tell me that New York City summers are better, and definitely not Houston summers.
God no. All 3 of those cities are wayyyyy too humid in the summer. SoCal summers, my dude.
Chicago summers are not very humid. Generally east coast and southern summers are terrible because of humidity. San Francisco summers are pretty awful because they are cold. San Diego and LA are great all year round, but Chicago has good summers. On par with Denver summers.
“Chicago summers are not very humid.”
Whether factually true or not, most Chicagoans, including me, complain about the summer humidity.
At least those places have summer. Cleveland has two seasons, road construction and angry midges.
As a ride or die Houstonian, I can say with complete honesty that nobody can seriously say that Houston summers are better than Chicago summers.
Hell, the summer weather here sucks so bad we pioneered a way to play and watch baseball in air-conditioning.
Remember in the 2016 playoffs when Buck Showalter brought in Duensing instead of Zach Britton? Those were good times.
I wonder how often players take less for location and we don’t really hear about it. In mid-season Kenley Jansen was a bit more explicitly honest that he passed up a larger offer (by a few $M) from the Nationals to return to LA, I wonder if it doesn’t happen a bit more often than we think around the margins (those few $M, not half the contract value like Duensing)
The biggest one that I can think of is Justin Turner of the Dodgers. He re-upped with the hometown team (and his hometown too, incidentally) for, what was it, $62-million or something like that? He never did test the open market, but estimates had him at $100-million +.
64 million over 4 years. huge, huge steal.
Yeah, but we have no documented or even anecdotal evidence that he got a better offer, which is the case in a lot of situations where you could deduce that might have happened. In fact, the market for JT was suspiciously quiet.
And that was exactly my point, we rarely get the information needed to determine that’s what happened.
Yeah, location and stability have to play a role in the decision making process, I would think.
The journeymen probably get pretty sick of new co-workers and a new city every single year. I can see how you’d turn down a 10% raise to not deal with that if you like where you are.
Is there reporting that Duensing turned down half the contract value that he could have had elsewhere? I don’t see that in this article, and 2 / $14 seems high both as the amount that a team would offer Duensing and as a difference that Duensing would turn down.
I take “significantly” to mean percentage difference versus this contract, as in Duensing turning down something like 2 / $8 million elsewhere.
I could see myself turning down 20% more to live at a beach house and play baseball in SoCal.
Is that you, Shohei?
cool