Article: Gambling On The Relief Market: Simply Folly

[Otto von Ballpark]

And there's probably more adjustments one can make.

 

Gorzelanny started 10 games his first season in Milwaukee, and had only a 0.6 leverage index during his two years there, suggesting he was acquired to be a swingman or mop-up man rather than a set-up man.

 

Frankly, Burnett might skew toward Fujikawa-level gamble too, as he missed time due to elbow inflammation and had minor elbow surgery just before signing his contract, which was quite low considering his age and coming off a 1.5 bWAR season.

 

As noted previously, Affeldt was tremendous in the 2014 postseason for the Giants which was not included in his value estimate.  Affeldt was also part of the Giants defending World Series champion in 2012 when he signed this contract, and another Giants title in 2010, so his value was probably greater to San Francisco than anywhere else which probably inflated his contract. jorgenswest called him arguably the biggest value suck on this list, but I strongly suspect the Giants disagree.

Also, the analysis omitted the value from Soria's excellent option year (1.7 bWAR), and his two good to great trade returns during the life of the deal.

 

Simply put: we are nowhere near proving that an expected contender with a weak pen is better off avoiding the free agent set-up market.

Edited November 16, 2015 by spycake

[ThejacKmp]

 

Dave Cameron is not infallible, and not only did his quick analysis fail to note that FIP breaks at extremes (guys with high ERAs, exactly who we would expect around replacement level, often have much more favorable FIPs), he also assumed that 0 WAR = replacement level = whoever you can sign in any given offseason on minor league deals, without presenting any evidence to support that point.

 

Unfortunately, this "update" didn't address those problems and actually added some more, which I will note in another post.

 

 

International prospect signings are capped now, and the Twins have shown no indication that they will break that cap.  And even if they did, they wouldn't need to take $4-$5 mil annually from the MLB bullpen to do so.

 

And I think our "bevy of high upside arms" are just about as close to helping the MLB pen as they were a year ago (meaning, not that close).

 

No one is claiming Cameron is infallible – all anyone is saying is he’s a respected writer for a respected website so his conclusion bears some weight. We can disagree all you want about the exact definition of 0 WAR players but in the end, they’re not the kind of guys you want pitching for your team, certainly not on multiple year contracts. Who cares how high or low the FIP is?  All that does is highlight Cameron’s point – bullpen performance has incredible variance and is very difficult to predict making free agent contracts in the pen incredibly risky.

 

I really disagree about the farm system too. Jake Reed, JT Chargois, Alex Meyer and Nick Burdi are all exciting arms entering the upper levels of the Twins farm system. That doesn’t even count guys like Tonkin and Oliveros who should be competing for bullpen jobs this spring. Most of that first list likely won’t be on the opening day roster but they all have the potential to be forcing their way up onto the roster during the season, especially with the way a lot of them have been performing in the AFL. If you sign the 3/15 contracts you want to sign, those guys likely don’t get a shot. Most teams are loathe to cut bait on a struggling guy if he’s signed for the next few years –veteran pitchers with money on the books get a chance to ride things out. I’d hate to see cheap young guys blocked by an aging vet who is underperforming.

 

That’s the beauty of the one-year contracts and the minor league deals for fallen prospects. The Twins can evaluate them in spring training, see who sticks and it’s easy to cut bait if the farm system does well.  Why wouldn’t we want to maintain flexibility, especially since there is such high risk with longer contracts for relievers?

 

You make some nice points around this topic but they seem like nitpicking and don’t really address that the Twins are not in a place where they need those arms. With Jepsen, Perkins and perhaps two guys who don’t make the rotation, the Twins really only have 3 spots to fill. They don’t need to remake the entire pen, they just need to retool its back end. They have plenty of interesting internal options and can augment that with some low-risk flexible one-year deals and minor league contracts. A long term deal for a reliever runs a strong risk of being a waste of money that cripples flexibility and targets spending on an inefficient area where the Twins have strong internal candidates.

[Otto von Ballpark]

FIP is what is being used to define the 0 WAR players and the monetary valuations in this article, so it is fairly important here. In any case, FIP isn't even the biggest issue with this analysis, see my other posts above.

 

The Twins aren't in a place where they need bullpen arms? Did you see last season? How in the blazes could anyone conclude that? You really look at the 2015 season and say hey, we got Jepsen, let's just try this same thing again?

[Dr. Evil]

Not just last year. The past several years.

[ThejacKmp]

 

Going back and looking closely at the group, it appears there are lots of problems considering them and their contracts as comparables for a potential Twins bullpen signing.

 

The list was defined as "non-closers" but the two biggest contracts (League and Broxton) were both acquired as closers from their previous teams and both ostensibly held the closer position immediately after signing these contracts (League to open the 2013 season in LA, and Broxton in spring training that year as the Reds were trying Chapman as a starter again).

 

Also noted by others, Fujikawa was a Japenese closer with zero MLB experience.  The fact that he ultimately signed with a rebuilding MLB team and forfeited his closer position suggests he was a gamble more than an attempt to get a solid MLB set-up man.

 

Take these names off the list, and you drop $52 mil in salary obligations, and only lose ~$3 mil in Fangraphs value.  All of a sudden, free agent set up contracts don't seem like such an obviously bad bargain that they are not even worth their modest investment.

 

This is pretty dubious throughout.  Both League and Broxton fit Cameron’s profile of non-closers as both have been setup men shortly before and shortly after signing their deals.

 

Broxton signed a $4 million deal in the offseason of 2011-2012 with the Royals.  He closed for them in 2012 and then moved to Cincy at the deadline where he was a setup man who closed four games in mid-September when Chapman was getting some rest.  That offseason he signed the deal that Cameron is taking about, a 4 year $30 million deal.  He saved no games in 2013 (not sure where you got the Broxton was signed to close thing, the team played with it in spring training but named Chapman closer two weeks before the season started - it was never really in doubt, Chapman said he wanted to close and was resistant to starting) and had seven saves in 2014 while again filling in due to injury.  I don’t see how you exclude his contract, which has seen him shift to and from three teams while providing 1 WAR in three years.  He was a former closer but has served primarily as a set-up man since the traded deadline before he signed the contract.  If he’d been a true closer, he wouldn’t have resigned with the Reds where he clearly was going to have little-to-no chance to close.

 

Brandon League signed a 3 year/$22 million contract in 2013 with the Dodgers.  He’d already lost his closer job with the Mariners in 2012 and became closer for the Dodgers after the deadline by default after Jansen had an irregular heartbeat. He quickly lost the job back to Jansen the next year and has been a mediocre setup man ever since (-0.8 WAR so far, missed the entire 2015 season). Another guy it’s hard to call a true closer since he signed his deal with a team that did not offer him the closing job. Cameron is fine to include him.

 

As for Fujikawa, he was being paid $4.5 million a year.  That’s not a “gamble”, teams don’t just throw that kind of money at guys they don’t expect to be key members of the bullpen.  If you read articles from the time of the signing, his expected role was to set up Marmol, be the 8th inning guy.  Ten other teams made runs at Fujikawa, suggesting he was not some guy who could only latch on to a bottom feeder. He was a serious free agent signing who backfired and to suggest otherwise is preposterous. 

 

I don’t see how you can in good faith try to mess with the scale on this one by selectively excluding guys.  They were signed as setup men, none of them was given a sure-fire closer job.

 

[USAFChief]

 

No one is claiming Cameron is infallible – all anyone is saying is he’s a respected writer for a respected website so his conclusion bears some weight. We can disagree all you want about the exact definition of 0 WAR players but in the end, they’re not the kind of guys you want pitching for your team, certainly not on multiple year contracts. Who cares how high or low the FIP is?  All that does is highlight Cameron’s point – bullpen performance has incredible variance and is very difficult to predict making free agent contracts in the pen incredibly risky.

 

I really disagree about the farm system too. Jake Reed, JT Chargois, Alex Meyer and Nick Burdi are all exciting arms entering the upper levels of the Twins farm system. That doesn’t even count guys like Tonkin and Oliveros who should be competing for bullpen jobs this spring. Most of that first list likely won’t be on the opening day roster but they all have the potential to be forcing their way up onto the roster during the season, especially with the way a lot of them have been performing in the AFL. If you sign the 3/15 contracts you want to sign, those guys likely don’t get a shot. Most teams are loathe to cut bait on a struggling guy if he’s signed for the next few years –veteran pitchers with money on the books get a chance to ride things out. I’d hate to see cheap young guys blocked by an aging vet who is underperforming.

 

That’s the beauty of the one-year contracts and the minor league deals for fallen prospects. The Twins can evaluate them in spring training, see who sticks and it’s easy to cut bait if the farm system does well.  Why wouldn’t we want to maintain flexibility, especially since there is such high risk with longer contracts for relievers?

 

You make some nice points around this topic but they seem like nitpicking and don’t really address that the Twins are not in a place where they need those arms. With Jepsen, Perkins and perhaps two guys who don’t make the rotation, the Twins really only have 3 spots to fill. They don’t need to remake the entire pen, they just need to retool its back end. They have plenty of interesting internal options and can augment that with some low-risk flexible one-year deals and minor league contracts. A long term deal for a reliever runs a strong risk of being a waste of money that cripples flexibility and targets spending on an inefficient area where the Twins have strong internal candidates.

That statement assumes, among other things:

 

  -- Jepsen and Perkins will be healthy and productive.  All year.

 

  -- The "two guys who don't make the rotation" are still here, in the pen, and are productive.

 

  -- The Twins will have a seven man pen, only a seven man pen, and it'll be the same seven men through the entire season.

 

Nobody is saying it's a good idea to fill 8 or 9 bullpen spots with FA's, particularly those on the expensive side.

 

But "don't sign FA relievers" isn't realistic either.  Nor is "don't sign FA relievers who cost some money."

 

A deep, dependable and dominant bullpen isn't something that can come entirely from the minor leagues.  Bullpens are at least 7 deep these days, sometimes 8.  And you can't count on the same 7 or 8 to last the season, so realistically having 10 or more on hand should be the goal.  I don't think any minor league system can be expected to continually cough up quality arms to fill those spots.  Bodies?  Sure.  But not quality bodies.  Same with digging through the FA scrap heap, hoping something sticks.  That might yield a temporarily adequate guy on occasion, but usually just means you're stuck with a bullpen piece you don't want on the mound, and you're looking for help by June.

 

When--or if--those minor league arms force their way into the discussion, they'll get their shot.  If they don't, it's only because the arms in the big leagues are getting the job done, which is a good thing.  

[Otto von Ballpark]

I am all for being critical of specific FA arms at specific prices, but the general ban on FA multiyear reliever deals for the 2016 Twins advocated by this article is pretty off base, in my opinion. The Twins pen was so shaky, with so many question marks even at the top, with such little progress from our bullpen prospects in 2015, that the Twins absolutely can't afford to pass on the market on principle.

[ThejacKmp]

 

ThejacKmp: Cameron's article had nothing to do with Broxton or League, it is was from several years prior. Given you also didn't seem to understand the relationship between FIP, fWAR, and the dollar valuations, I suggest maybe you sit out this defense, my questions are really for the author of this article on Twins Daily, jorgenswest. I feel you and I are just mucking things up.

 

I have a clear understanding of FIP and a working understanding of fWAR and dollar valuations (they’re not very complicated and you come across as really really patronizing BTW) but that’s not what you and I were talking about, that’s what you were talking about with other people.  I was talking to you narrowly about the depth of the Twins farm system, other ways to spend that money and the bogus way you were trying to exclude certain players. None of that involved FIP or fWAR so I didn’t engage on that level.

 

Silencing those who disagree with you is the tool of the despot but I’ll bow out. Someday you can have a discussion with yourself and guarantee everyone will agree with you.

[Otto von Ballpark]

I have a clear understanding of FIP and a working understanding of fWAR and dollar valuations (they’re not very complicated and you come across as really really patronizing BTW) but that’s not what you and I were talking about, that’s what you were talking about with other people. I was talking to you narrowly about the depth of the Twins farm system, other ways to spend that money and the bogus way you were trying to exclude certain players. None of that involved FIP or fWAR so I didn’t engage on that level.

 

Silencing those who disagree with you is the tool of the despot but I’ll bow out. Someday you can have a discussion with yourself and guarantee everyone will agree with you.

Not trying to silence you, but you were repeatedly attributing things to Cameron that were not his (Cameron had no "non-closer" criteria, Broxton "signed the deal that Cameron is taking about" but Broxton isn't part of Cameron's article), I was frankly confused by that and I didn't want to hijack the thread to try to figure out what was going on. Looks like you were confusing the original Cameron article with jorgenswest's own data here? Like I said, I just didn't quite know what you were saying. Edited November 16, 2015 by spycake

[Otto von Ballpark]

My point about Broxton and League is that the signing clubs were considering them as possible closers. They probably bid higher and more aggressively for them with that understanding.

 

I haven't seen any relief FA suggested for the Twins with a Broxton or League level contract, so I don't think it is really fair to use those deals as comparables when considering how much money we would be risking.

[Otto von Ballpark]

 

bullpen performance has incredible variance and is very difficult to predict making free agent contracts in the pen incredibly risky.

Compared to what?  Again, neither Cameron nor jorgenswest offer any point of comparison.  By definition, it's pretty hard to think of a single 3/15 or so contract as being risky, much less incredibly risky. How many teams regret signing the relievers referenced in this article?  How many of them even remember signing those relievers?

 

 

I really disagree about the farm system too. Jake Reed, JT Chargois, Alex Meyer and Nick Burdi are all exciting arms entering the upper levels of the Twins farm system. That doesn’t even count guys like Tonkin and Oliveros who should be competing for bullpen jobs this spring. 

All of those guys were in the upper levels of our system in 2015 too, and took a step backward.  Shouldn't that be a lesson to count on them less than we did entering 2015?  Chargois has an excuse that he was coming back from injury, but he alone isn't that great at the moment, and the other guys don't have any such excuse.

 

Oliveros is a minor league free agent now.  I guess that's the type of guy you want to bring in?  Maybe re-sign Boyer if he was willing to take the one-year Stauffer deal?  Seems to me that will be more likely to repeat 2015 than improve upon it.

 

How much better would the 2015 Twins pen have been if we had ponied up for Gregerson or Neshek?  And it's not an either-or thing, the Astros signed those guys, found a waiver claim in Will Harris, called up a young guy like Velasquez, etc.  Twins can do that do.  I just think finding at least one guy in FA gives you better odds at filling out a competent pen.  If it turns out that our young guys are demanding a promotion by performance, and Perkins and Jepsen are fully healthy and effective, and May isn't needed in the rotation, and the Harden/Madson injury flier actually makes good, and Mark Lowe or whomever is healthy on a 2/12 or 3/15 FA deal, that will be a good problem to have, and no, I don't see the 2/12 or 3/15 as notably hurting us or reducing our flexibility.

Edited November 16, 2015 by spycake

[ScrapTheNickname]

 

There's really no way to know how a reliever will perform when signed. Tony Sipp could get 3 years and $21 million (or so), and he was pretty non-good for 5 years in the big leagues before becoming terrific last year... Which is real? There are a million examples of this over time. 

Actually Sipp has been very good the past two seasons. In 2014: WHIP of 0.888 with 11.2 Ks  and 3.0 BB per 9.

 

It would appear that he has figured it out, and he's only 32, and he's a lefty. I might sign him to a 3-year-deal.

 

What do you think, Seth?

 

[i wrote my comment before I read that others had responded to you ... 1) Nevermind, or 2) Mind.

Edited November 16, 2015 by ScrapTheNickname

[Kwak]

The Twins swim in the shallow waters of free agents.  Anybody they sign (like Stauffer last year) is expected to be the "low-risk, leauge-average" RP.  The premise of the article concerned the "higher-cost, higher-expectancy" RP.  The price for a top RP was just defined by Boston in the Kimbrel trade--and the Twins won't even consider paying that price.  The trade-off is cycling through the 6-10 possibilities in the Twins minor-league system (~$0.5MM/year) or spending the $1-3MM/year to buy a security blanket from the dumpster.  Management loves to boast about their system--until they have to put it on the field.  I say it's time to find out who belongs--and who doesn't belong--and mediocre free agents don't belong anymore!  The 90-loss demon has been slain, it's time to build for 90+ wins rather than 80+ wins.

[Otto von Ballpark]

That makes some sense, Kwak, but 2/12 or 3/15 FA deal is pretty low risk too, and might save us from scrambling to find another Jepsen available and give up talent for him at the trade deadline.

[Blackjack]

The Twins have a lot of starters, I'd like to see them keep May in the pen another year. He'd go a looooong ways in solving their bullpen problems.  Once some of the big contracts expire, he can get another shot at starting. Right now the Twins need him in the pen.

[Mike Sixel]

 

The Twins have a lot of starters, I'd like to see them keep May in the pen another year. He'd go a looooong ways in solving their bullpen problems.  Once some of the big contracts expire, he can get another shot at starting. Right now the Twins need him in the pen.

 

disagree.....180 innings vs 60 innings....not even an argument imo. Should Kershaw move to the bullpen? May is one of their 5 best pitchers, imo, and should be a starter. He won't be......

[Blackjack]

 

disagree.....180 innings vs 60 innings....not even an argument imo. Should Kershaw move to the bullpen? May is one of their 5 best pitchers, imo, and should be a starter. He won't be......

 

You are probably right in the long run but in the short term we know that May can be effective in the pen and Twins have a big need in the pen. Can any of the others - Nolasco, Hughes, Gibson, Santana - make the transition?? We don't know.  Leave them where they are comfortable, if they fail, you still have Berrios.  Duffey has jumped ahead of May in my opinion.

 

May will get his chance, eventually, probably when some contracts expire.

[Kwak]

 

disagree.....180 innings vs 60 innings....not even an argument imo. Should Kershaw move to the bullpen? May is one of their 5 best pitchers, imo, and should be a starter. He won't be......

Let's compare May's starting pitcher statistics in 2015 with the other Twins starters in 2015--Santana, Gibson, Duffey, Milhone, and for good measure Pelfrey and Nolasco--and May isn't top 5.  Then add Berrios and you are just beating the same dead horse.  Fact is, May is a younger, cheaper, Pelfrey clone--who you have worn-out you keyboard proclaiming that he (Pelfrey) belongs in relief.  Which is where May actually should be (and I am convinced where Ryan will assign him).

[Mike Sixel]

Oh, I agree, May will be in the bullpen w/o major changes to the roster. I don't agree that he wouldn't be one of the five best starters next year. By the logic of "he wasn't great his rookie year, therefore he's not good", Gibson would not be on this roster right now. And Viola would never have made it. Sometimes guys get better, I think May is one of those guys. 

[Otto von Ballpark]

I went to the 2013 MLBTR Free Agent Tracker, and out of 74 non-Mariano relievers listed who didn't sign multi year deals that winter (basically everybody on the market other than the guys jorgenswest highlighted in this article), only 16 pitched even 1 relief inning at replacement level (0+ bWAR) in 2013 for an MLB club that signed them that offseason.

 

By comparison, 17 of the 27 contract seasons for those multi-year relievers met that (admittedly low) criteria.

 

The most non-multi-year relievers on that list signed by a single team that winter was 5.  On average, only one of those would meet that low criteria, perhaps wasting multiple roster spots and evaluation opportunities in the process.

 

Only 38 innings per season average for the multi-year relievers, over the life of their deals?  Try 14 relief IP on average for the rest of the market.

 

Based on this data, I see no reason why a team with a weak pen but realistic plans to contend should completely shun the multi-year FA relief market over $4-$5 mil annually, especially when successful examples of this team's single-year FA reliever strategy seemto be limited to 2 guys (Burton and Boyer) over a four-season span.

[Otto von Ballpark]

 

The Twins success rate with those guys is no worse than the success rate in Cameron's study or the 2013 group.

This is where I think a lot of the disagreement lies.  I think you are vastly overrating the success of the Twins recent strategies in bullpen building -- perhaps not realizing the span of time that their few success stories have covered?

 

Going back over rosters and spring training invites, here are the FA bullpen candidates the Twins brought in from outside the organization since TR took over again in 2011.

 

2012
Jason Bulger
Jared Burton
Casey Fien

Jeff Gray (technically a waiver claim, but I will include him anyway because we love him )
Esmerling Vásquez
Matt Maloney
Luis Perdomo

 

2013

Rich Harden (not sure if he should count as a starter, since he never pitched)

Rafael Perez
Bryan Augenstein

Shairon Martis (technically purchased the previous summer)
Virgil Vasquez
Tim Wood
Mike O'Connor

 

2014
Aaron Thompson
Matt Hoffman
Yohan Pino
Matt Guerrier
Mark Hamburger

 

2015

Blaine Boyer

Tim Stauffer

 

Obviously the star of this group is Fien, who not only has been an acceptable arm, but was also controllable for a bunch of pre-arb seasons at the time of signing.  Burton was solid too, but controllable for fewer years and not as cheaply (since he was already arb eligible and only 2 years from FA).  Both of those signings were almost 4 years ago already.

 

Outside of that, Gray and Boyer are the only ones who survived the MLB season, and of course Gray was terrible and Boyer is now a FA again.

 

Over 4 years, that's not a record that suggests bullpen improvement is more likely by this method than a multi-year FA deal in 2016.

Edited November 17, 2015 by spycake

[diehardtwinsfan]

Burton wasn't bad in 2012.  Most of these guys didn't pitch much, which is a good thing.  It goes back to the premise.  Just go grab a bunch of these arms and throw them against a wall to see what sticks.

[Otto von Ballpark]

 

Burton wasn't bad in 2012.  Most of these guys didn't pitch much, which is a good thing.  It goes back to the premise.  Just go grab a bunch of these arms and throw them against a wall to see what sticks.

I noted that Burton was good, as well as Fien.  But those two, plus Boyer, are about the only successes of this strategy for the Twins over the past 4 years.  The idea that we should employ that strategy only, to the exclusion of multi-year reliever deals, with an iffy pen entering an expected contention year, is a stretch.