Good Morning,
Today we will talk about Brad Hand and the reliever market, but we start with the news, and a quick note:
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⏰ Catch me up on what I missed over the weekend…
🤚OUT OF HAND: Free agent left-hander Brad Hand signed a one-year, $10.5 million contract with the Washington Nationals, despite the Mets making a competing offer for his services (much more in a bit).
🍎 MISSED AGAIN: The Mets also tried to sign veteran RHP Garrett Richards, before he agreed to a one-year, $10 million deal with the Red Sox on Saturday.
🧑🦱 BLAKE’S TAKE: This signing, like Corey Kluber's $11 million deal with the Yankees, illustrates a shallow starting pitching market where teams are paying top dollar for aging veterans and reclamation projects. If the Mets want to improve their staff, they could consider sidestepping the mediocre, overpriced starting pitching market by moving Seth Lugo to the rotation (until Noah Syndergaard returns from injury), and going big on multiple bullpen improvements, with quality options available — like Trevor Rosenthal, Alex Colome, Mark Melancon and Justin Wilson, all of whom we’ll discuss below. (More analysis on how Lugo’s versatility can help the team here.)
🗣 TREVOR BAUER: Mets fans spent much of the weekend debating the merits of signing Trevor Bauer after Ken Rosenthal reported the Mets interest in signing the free agent has “become more focused” in the wake of George Springer signing with Toronto.
TERM: Jon Heyman reports the Mets’ have interest on a “shorter deal.”
CHARACTER: As we highlighted in an earlier newsletter, Bauer has been accused on several occasions of harassment on social media.
KEN DAVIDOFF (NY POST): “The Mets remain interested in free agent starting pitcher Trevor Bauer, an industry source said, and they consequently are scrutinizing the not-shy Bauer’s voluminous work on social media. That work, for the Mets, should be a disqualification. The Mets must draw a line here.”
🗓 EXTENSION: As a passing comment in his recent report about Bauer, Ken Rosenthal wrote the Mets “appear likely” to extend Francisco Lindor with a contract worth more than $300 million.
🍎 EXPERIENCE: With the departure of Jared Porter, it’s possible the Mets will augment their front office to provide a mentor of sorts to assist Alderson and help mentor assistant GM Zack Scott, per Andy Martino. One possibility reported by Martino is former Angels GM and Yankees executive Billy Eppler.
🏥 COVID SCARE: Former Mets manager Davey Johnson was hospitalized due to COVID-19, but is now home and resting, per Jay Horwitz.
🍎 VACCINES: Plans to turn Citi Field into a giant COVID vaccine site this week could be on hold due to a local supply shortage, the NY Post reported on Sunday.
🧓 by Jeffrey Bellone
🎶 You can’t always get what you want 🎶
Mets fans are learning that Mick Jagger’s famous lyric from 1969 is quite appropriate for the 2020-21 offseason. After missing out on All-Star George Springer last week, news broke on Sunday — while Jets fans watched a quarterback drafted four picks after Jamal Adams advance to the Super Bowl — that reliever Brad Hand would be signing a one-year, $10.5 million deal with the Washington Nationals.
The left-hander who Sandy Alderson admitted he would have probably claimed off waivers had Steve Cohen been owner a few weeks sooner, apparently spurned a similar offer from the Mets to sign with the Nats.
There are a few different ways to look at this news, so let’s discuss a few possible reasons Hand will not be wearing blue and orange next season:
⓵ Brad Hand wants to be a closer, perhaps so he can increase his market value in 2022, while also playing for a team that trains near his home in the West Palm area, as Jon Heyman alluded to yesterday. Mets fans are one blown save away from throwing Edwin Díaz’ impressive 2020 numbers into the waste basket, but the path to recording the final 3 outs is less clear with the Mets than it would be in DC, where Hand will join a trio of relievers who fit nicely into set-up roles (Daniel Hudson, Tanner Rainey and Will Harris).
⓶ Looking at his underlying numbers, it’s possible the Mets came away concerned that Hand is due for a down year (more on this below), which is why they weren’t willing to pay above market value for his services. Given the same money, players will usually choose to play for the team that is the better fit. Perhaps the Mets didn’t feel like Hand was worth overpaying for.
⓷ The Mets’ front office is still feeling their way through the post-Jared Porter world order. While the ousted GM was only with the team for 37 days, a structure was in place to make free agent decisions. An abrupt ending could be impacting how the Mets acquiesce and execute around a new plan.
⓸ This will scare a lot of Mets fans: With the team currently about $32 million below the initial tax line, is it possible this is white smoke to indicate they are going all in on signing Trevor Bauer?
⓹ It could be some combination of all of these things, plus something I might not be thinking of while writing this newsletter from my couch and munching on some pretzels.
Earlier this month, I wrote about the concerns in Hand’s underlying numbers:
His four-seamer has dropped from a peak of 93.8 MPH in 2018 to 91.4 MPH in 2020. In each of the past two years his year-to-year drop in fastball velocity ranked in the top 15th percentile of qualified pitchers; that is he had one of the largest velo drops in baseball, two years in a row. As a result, one of his most used pitches is getting less swings and misses. His whiff percentage on his 4-seamer has gone from 27.1% two seasons ago to just 9.4% in his most recent campaign, and that number only got worse as 2020 progressed.
But there does appear to be something hidden in his slider that allows Hand to keep opposing hitters off balance despite the decline in his fastball velocity. While his slider has also lost some bite and spin over the past few seasons, it remains an effective offering that misses bats. I was interested in investigating how Hand has continued to find success despite some worrisome trends, but I will leave that for a Nats writer now.
Where do the Mets turn to next?
With the 3-batter minimum rule and an evolving emphasis to prioritize swing pitchers who can help limit starters from facing a lineup three times in a row, the LOOGY (not the kind you spit, but the one you use to get a tough lefty out late in a ballgame) is no longer a necessity. That said, having an entirely right-handed bullpen isn’t ideal either.
A good bullpen is like Sunday gravy, it’s the combination of ingredients that makes it work: sometimes you need a little more salt, sometimes you need a touch of oregeno. And depending on how you feel about names like Miguel Castro, whether it’s adding a righty or lefty, the back of the Mets’ bullpen needs the right spice to be complete.
Looking at who is left in free agency, New York is best suited adding the reliever(s) they think can get the most outs. What a novel concept! There’s no reason to bring back left-hander Justin Wilson simply because he’s a southpaw, if they think right-handers Alex Colomé or Trevor Rosenthal can perform better.
As you can see in the table below, Hand was clearly the best remaining option on the market, but there are several righties who can get left-handed hitters out.
Alex Colomé is one interesting option to consider. Surely, he’s looking for a closing role, similar to Hand, but with the White Sox (signing Liam Hendriks) and Nats (adding Hand) out of contention, his market is shrinking and teams could shy away from the 32-year-old, opening the door for the Mets to grab him on a reasonable deal. Similar to Hand, Colomé’s fastball has lost a lot of zip and his sparkling 0.81 ERA in 2020 could be fool’s gold, as the righty struggles to put batters away and doesn’t have pinpoint control.
However, in a much larger sample, Colomé has put up almost identical numbers against lefties as Hand has over the past two seasons, and he’s been better against righties. He also limits hard contact.
Mets fans can roll their eyes over the possibility of bringing back Tyler Clippard or Oliver Perez, but they are options to at least consider. Rosenthal’s splits in the table above are skewed by an awful 2019 season (following Tommy John surgery), but he traditionally has reverse splits as a righty who is better against lefties. If you can live with his sporadic control, he can still be effective. His projected WAR by Steamer is tied for the highest among the remaining free agent relievers who have proven to be effective against left-handers.
Which brings us back to Justin Wilson. Mets fans are familiar with what he can offer: over the past two seasons, he has pitched to a 2.91 ERA in 68 relief appearances. While he hasn’t always had the strongest splits against left-handed hitters, he handled them extremely well last season. His fastball velo was up a tick last year, and while he generated less swings and misses overall, his strikeout rate is still strong, and he induced softer contact on balls put in play.
Of course, the Mets could also explore the trade market to find an optimal solution (Blake has previously suggested the Mets could contact Milwaukee about a trade pairing CF Lorenzo Cain with a reliever). Losing Hand to the Nationals is disappointing, but good teams know how to pivot.
Should fans be disappointed in this offseason?
Steve Cohen was supposed to give Mets fans the right to receive anything they wanted in free agency. Or so many fans thought. But timing is everything, in negotiations, roster decisions, and public perception.
If the Mets had never traded for Francisco Lindor and Carlos Carrasco, and their interest had remained unreported, and instead, the team had signed George Springer and Brad Hand, the fanbase would be happy today, noting how ownership was able to cross off key items on their wish lists with the potential for more. Instead, the Mets added one of the game’s best players and a starter with top-of-the-rotation pedigree for a low cost, the potential to add more is still very much alive, and people are feeling upset because the players rumored to the team in the newspapers for months ended up signing someplace else.
But the offseason isn’t over. The Mets have plenty of resources (we estimate around $32 million worth) to acquire players who can fill out their remaining needs. And the lyrics from Mick Jagger’s closing song on the album more appropriately titled for the Wilpon/Madoff Mets (Let it Bleed) could turn out to be the theme of the offseason in a different way than I originally suggested:
🎶 You can’t always get what you want 🎶
🎶 But if you try some time, you might just find, you get what you need… 🎶
⚾️ The Yankees acquired starter Jameson Taillon to reunite with Gerrit Cole in New York. In exchange, they gave up four uninspiring prospects.
⚾️ Add the San Francisco Giants to the teams perhaps competing with the Mets for free agent centerfielder Jackie Bradley Jr., per the San Francisco Chronicle.
⚾️ Toronto has discussed a potential trade with the Cubs involving Kris Bryant and Kyle Hendricks, per Scott Mitchell of TSN.
🔗 Mets legends remember Hank Aaron, by Deesha Thosar, NY Daily News: “After we beat them in the 1969 playoffs, Hank met a scout from the Orioles and the scout said to him, ‘We shouldn’t have that much trouble with the Mets,’” Cleon Jones recounted Friday. “Hank told them to beware that if they weren’t on top of their game, they wouldn’t beat the Mets.”
🔗 Mets would be well-served by renewed commitment to baserunning, by Tim Ryder, MetsMerized Online: “Last season, per FanGraphs‘ baserunning metric BsR (an all-compassing stat that translates baserunning into a below-or-above-average runs-added metric), as a team, the Mets’ ranked 29th in baseball with -11.1 BsR.”
🔗 Don’t expect to see any players elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame this year, by Nathaniel Rakich, FiveThirtyEight: “You don’t need a statistical model to tell you a shutout is likely on Tuesday — but we have one anyway. Forecaster Jason Sardell’s model divides voters into groups based on the number of candidates they vote for, then extrapolates each candidate’s net gained or lost votes among public voters in each group to the group’s private voters in order to come up with the candidate’s projected final vote share. He also estimates the probability of each candidate’s election by accounting for sampling error in the tracker and other uncertainties. Sardell has been the most accurate Hall of Fame forecaster in the small community of Hall of Fame forecasters for two years running; here are his latest projections for Tuesday.”
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I'll say it again - The Mts are done shopping except for some fringe players. Also add, no matter what the numbers say by not getting Hand the Mets are stuck with Diaz. It is very hard to fathom they dont get the he absoutley stinks !