Cleveland Gets Hand as Arm to Boost Bullpen

[Mike Sixel]

I don't know....these guys have 3+ years left between them. The CLE team likes their catchers, and there are some questions about Mejia's bat even.....

 

I think both teams did well here, considering their windows. It certainly is unlikely to help the Twins during the Sano/Buxton/Rosario window....

[Otto von Ballpark]

I think this is a good trade for the Twibs long term. Doesnt Cleveland have a few starting pitchers getting close to FA? Bauer, Carasco, and Kluber should be close and when they leave us when Cle goes downhill.

Bauer and Carrasco are controlled through 2020, and Kluber 2021.

 

Lindor through 2021, Clevinger through 2022, and Ramirez through 2023 too...

 

And now Hand through 2021.

[TheLeviathan]

That Padres farm system is ridiculous at this point.  At least in terms of top 100 specs.

[zenser]

Nice move for Cleveland but we just acquired Jeremy Hazelbaker.  Yeah, we got him.

[Mike Sixel]

Why do they need a 30 yo OF in AAA? 

[Monkeypaws]

I think both Cleveland and San Diego can be happy with this trade.

 

Hand is really coming into his own, 13.2 k/9 this season, hard to hit lefty with years left on a bargain contract. Fills a huge gaping need for a team with post-season aspirations. 

 

San Diego gets a blue chip prospect in Mejia around which they can build along with Tatis, Gore, Urias, etc.

 

Good baseball trade.

[jtkoupal]

 

Yeah, I've heard that too but I never thought it made much sense. Their rotation is locked up and their best hitters are young and controllable. They lose their bullpen, which should be the easiest part of the team to replace. Unless you're KC and your whole team revolves around your bullpen, you should be OK.

Things that could hold Cleveland back are: 1.) having to pay Lindor real money starting in '19. 2.) Big commitment to underperforming Kipnis. 3.)Encarnacion declining with age but still making big bucks. 4.) Brantley leaving leads to even more question marks in the outfield. 

 

They will still have to find more bullpen help in the offseason, but a rotation of Kluber, Carrasco, Bauer, Bieber, Clevinger, and possibly Danny Salazar is formidable. Hand and Cimber is a good start in the bullpen, too.

 

All things considered, I don't see why the Indians aren't the best in the Central for at least another year.

[jokin]

 

SD gave up a 3 1/2 years of a 28-year-old all-star reliever...a left handed one at that.  Plus a sweetener in Cimber.  I don't think that's low for Mejia...or at least I don't think it's surprisingly low.

 

Sorry, but RPs, as a general rule, are well-known for their "here today, gone tomorrow" career trajectories. (Like Matt Capps, for instance.)

[Mike Sixel]

 

Sorry, but RPs, as a general rule, are well-known for their "here today, gone tomorrow" career trajectories. (Like Matt Capps, for instance.)

 

https://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/how-well-do-good-relievers-hold-up/

 

[jkcarew]

Sorry, but RPs, as a general rule, are well-known for their "here today, gone tomorrow" career trajectories. (Like Matt Capps, for instance.)

I think it’s fair to say that Cleveland’s scouts don’t think Hand is Matt Capps. There are plenty of relievers that are perennially above average. Meanwhile Mejia is a sure thing? Not only did Cleveland get a real relief pitcher for 2019...exactly what they needed, and left-handed at that...but they have a very good shot at getting plenty of value from him for multiple additional years. They gave up a highly rated prospect who has never done anything in the majors and is currently OPS’ing 750 in AAA, but who has a very good chance of being much more valuable than Hand at some point down the road. That’s the definition of a typical deadline deal that could be good for both teams.

[Han Joelo]

 

https://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/how-well-do-good-relievers-hold-up/

Great link.  Thanks for sharing that.  

 

This trade did get me to thinking back to the Astros trade for Giles.  Not a deadline deal, but it was a trade for a reliever with years of control.  Really, apropos of nothing.  Just made me think of it--in the big picture, hasn't really made or broke Houston.  I guess the similarity is that they thought they were getting one of those "elite" guys who wouldn't drop off.

 

The Miller and Chapman trades of a couple years ago are good comps in terms of what there is to gain.  That Chapman trade still represents the worst of all worlds--Cubs got a WS (happy for the fans, but loved the idea of the long-suffering curse, and personally concerned they may have ushered in the End Times by breaking it, especially after selling out for Chapman) and the Yankees got Torres and then Chapman right back.

[jkcarew]

One thing that has come up briefly in comments above...

 

It is very likely that one of the things in play with this deal is that Cleveland no longer likes Mejia as a major-league catcher. And that SD scouts presumably feel differently...or at least think he has a chance to grow into it.

 

After having played exclusively catcher for his first 5 year in the Cleveland system, they sent him to the fall league last year to play exclusively 3rd...and then this year, were quite obviously trying to see if they could turn him into an outfielder. Meanwhile they persisted with a catcher on the major-league squad that can’t hit at all (the number 2 catcher in their case (: )

[Otto von Ballpark]

Sorry, but RPs, as a general rule, are well-known for their "here today, gone tomorrow" career trajectories. (Like Matt Capps, for instance.)

FWIW, Matt Capps was quite up-and-down before we acquired him (Washington only got him after he was non-tendered the previous winter, after all), while Hand has been extremely consistent since moving the pen. Hand was also a multi-inning reliever pretty recently, not just a one-inning closer like Capps, which could be big for a team following the Miller postseason model.

[gunnarthor]

 

FWIW, Matt Capps was quite up-and-down before we acquired him (Washington only got him after he was non-tendered the previous winter, after all), while Hand has been extremely consistent since moving the pen. Hand was also a multi-inning reliever pretty recently, not just a one-inning closer like Capps, which could be big for a team following the Miller postseason model.

I'm not sure that's all that fair. Hand was a failed starter picked up off of waivers to pitch in the most generous pitcher's park in baseball and he's taken off. I think it's fair to wonder how he'll play outside the NL. Capps was 26 when we acquired him and had pitched more games and had more WAR than Hand did. Capps had pitched well in 4 out of the 5 seasons (including his half season with WAS) before we obtained him, generating positive WAR in each season. 

[Otto von Ballpark]

 

I'm not sure that's all that fair. Hand was a failed starter picked up off of waivers to pitch in the most generous pitcher's park in baseball and he's taken off. I think it's fair to wonder how he'll play outside the NL. Capps was 26 when we acquired him and had pitched more games and had more WAR than Hand did. Capps had pitched well in 4 out of the 5 seasons (including his half season with WAS) before we obtained him, generating positive WAR in each season. 

What's not fair? If the context is fluctuation of reliever performance, Capps was definitely coming off an awful 2009 season prior to us acquiring him in July 2010. Hand was once a failed starter, true, but he has no such blemish on his reliever resume yet.

 

Like I said, Hand has been extremely consistent since moving to the pen.

 

Hand ERA FIP xFIP

2016: 2.92 3.07 3.34

2017: 2.16 3.03 2.90

2018: 3.05 3.17 2.88

 

Compared to Capps, the year before we acquired him:

 

Capps ERA FIP xFIP

2009: 5.80 4.90 4.30

 

And the 3 years before that (2006-2008), Capps' xFIP was 3.89-4.15 each year, suggesting his periodic success was largely being driven by favorable fluctuations in his HR rate.

 

Obviously there's no guarantee with Hand, but I think it's fair to project him as more consistent in the near future than Capps circa 2010.

 

FWIW, B-Ref has Petco trending toward neutral park factor. In Hand's 3 seasons there, it's been 95-98-98 (after averaging 90-91 for the first 10 years of its existence). His divisional road parks also look no worse than collectively neutral (SF and LA vs. ARI and COL).

 

League effects are probably going to be pretty minor for a modern relief pitcher -- Hand has only faced 1 pitcher at the plate in each of the last 2 seasons (same as Capps at the time of his trade).

[puckstopper1]

 

That theory about the outsized value of catching prospects is about to be severely tested.

 

Makes me think CLE "thinks" they know something no one else knows about Mejia?

 

Either that or SD must have the same talent scout that the Nats used to pluck Ramos from the Twins for MadCapps?

 

Let me start by agreeing that Washington got the better of the Ramos/Capps deal in the long run.  

 

But let me also claim that the Ramos/Capps deal was not as bad of a deal as most make it out to be (and still make it out to be) at the time it was made.  Here is why.

 

1) The Twins has an MVP/Gold Glove/All-Star /Batting Champion catcher playing ahead in Ramos at the time of the trade.  On top of that, Ramos had not proven he could stay healthy (and BTW still can't).

 

2) Matt Capps was an All-Star reliever in 2010, and he had another year on left on his contract, so he was not just a rental.  And he did deliver in 2010 for the Twins.  He was 2-0 with a 2.00 ERA and 16 saves for the Twins and helped them win a division title (Remember those?  Neither do I  ).

 

So at the time of the trade, the Twins traded a prospect back-up catcher who was not projected to play much in Minnesota for an All-Star closer who had another year left on his contract.  Sounds like a pretty good deal to me.

 

Unfortunately a year later Capps arm fell off and Mauer got concussed ( ) to a point where he could no longer catch, but who could have predicted that?  Short of both these unforeseen things happening, people wouldn't keep dredging up the Ramos/Capps deal on this board...

[Otto von Ballpark]

 

1) The Twins has an MVP/Gold Glove/All-Star /Batting Champion catcher playing ahead in Ramos at the time of the trade.  On top of that, Ramos had not proven he could stay healthy (and BTW still can't).

 

2) Matt Capps was an All-Star reliever in 2010, and he had another year on left on his contract, so he was not just a rental.  And he did deliver in 2010 for the Twins.  He was 2-0 with a 2.00 ERA and 16 saves for the Twins and helped them win a division title (Remember those?  Neither do I  ).

1) We had zero depth at catcher beyond Ramos. Next up was Drew Butera. You can't do that at the position of catcher, where your backup needs to start ~20% of the time even when your starter is healthy. See what happened in 2011 as soon as Mauer went on the DL? We almost immediately had to start flinging guys like Steve Holm onto the roster, it was embarrassing, and it was a direct result of considering Ramos expendable.

 

Plus we just committed a ton to Mauer and probably should have been looking to protect him a bit more behind the plate. Thome was a part-time player at DH and we just lost Morneau to injury that summer too, so we had some openings to re-configure his playing time.

 

As for Ramos, he really didn't have a durability problem at the time. He was on the minor league DL one season, I think (2009). Next DL trip wasn't until 2012. He was playing winter ball too.

 

2) Capps was good in 2010, but we didn't need him to win the division. Our bullpen was fine. As expected, Capps was a complete non-factor in the postseason too. We really should have been in "go big or go home" mode -- either pay the big price for Cliff Lee, or stick to cheap augmentation like Brian Fuentes (who we basically acquired for free in August). Giving up part of the price for Lee, for a small augmentation in Capps, really made no sense.

 

As for the extra year of control for Capps, we had to pay Capps over $7 mil for it. Guerrier and Crain both signed for 3/12 and 3/13 that offseason, respectively. We still had Nathan under contract for 2011 too (and indeed he tried to open the season at closer, although that didn't last long). Fuentes signed as a free agent for $5 mil, Jon Rauch for $3.75 mil, etc. Capps at over $7 mil was not good value.

 

I don't mean to exaggerate -- Capps wasn't worthless, and it's not the worst deal of all time or anything -- but it was definitely not a smart move.

[Vanimal46]

Steve Holm is a real person that played professional baseball for the Twins?

[twins_89]

The Indians look like they have decided to try to close the gap with the other AL playoff teams. Unfortunately, this means the odds of the Twins catching them in the standings went from long shot to virtually no chance.

[ashbury]

Unfortunately a year later Capps arm fell off and Mauer got concussed ( ) to a point where he could no longer catch, but who could have predicted that?  Short of both these unforeseen things happening, people wouldn't keep dredging up the Ramos/Capps deal on this board...

 

I don't mean to exaggerate -- Capps wasn't worthless, and it's not the worst deal of all time or anything -- but it was definitely not a smart move.

 

Moderator's note: Recognizing no intent to harm, I'll nevertheless point out that this evergreen topic has the potential to overwhelm any thread where it is raised, and ask that the tangent be taken to a separate thread of its own if anyone really wants to pursue it further.

[Otto von Ballpark]

From Fangraphs: How Well Do Good Relievers Hold Up?

 

https://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/how-well-do-good-relievers-hold-up/

 

"Relievers do look the least reliable in the table, but just not by very much. Relievers get worse, but so do starters and hitters."

[Mike Sixel]

From Fangraphs: How Well Do Good Relievers Hold Up?

 

https://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/how-well-do-good-relievers-hold-up/

 

"Relievers do look the least reliable in the table, but just not by very much. Relievers get worse, but so do starters and hitters."

Literally posted a few posts up....

[Otto von Ballpark]

Literally posted a few posts up....

Dang! Missed it... was busy re-enacting the Ramos-Capps debates of 2010...

 

In fairness, I was just catching up at Fangraphs, saw this article, and thought of this thread. Great minds think alike! Some just a bit slower...