Reds cash out on Jay Bruce

In a move that had been anticipated for well over a year, the Reds finally traded Jay Bruce.  Unlike pretty much every other deal since the deadline last summer, it doesn't feel like the Reds messed up the timing on this one.  If the Reds weren't going to extend him--I was about 50/50 on whether that was a good idea to pursue--now was almost certainly the time to sell.  Following two sub-par offensive seasons, Bruce finally rebounded, and thus far has turned in his best offensive performance since his age-23 season.  There are questions about his defense, but those won't go away by the end of the year.  One big month-long slump, however, could sap a lot of his value.

We'll start with Bruce and then talk about the return he provided from the Mets.

Jay Bruce, 29-year old LHB Right Fielder

I don't think I can really do justice to Bruce here.  He was the greatest Reds prospect I've ever seen.  He was perfect in his 2008 debut.  He clinched the 2010 NL Central Championship.  Through it all, he was one of the most interesting, kind, and enjoyable players I've known in a Reds uniform.  It's hard to think that we've likely seen the last of him in a Reds uniform.  I'm going to be rooting like hell for him if he makes it into the playoffs.

Now, what did the Reds get in return?

Dilson Herrera, 22-year old RHB 2B

Herrera was an international free agent out of the Dominican Republic, Herrera somehow has managed to accumulate enough service time over the past two years to lose his "prospect" status, but he nevertheless has been hitting at the AAA/MLB level since he was a 20-year old.  He's still just 22.  Some eyebrows have been raised about his drop-off in performance at AAA this year, but to my eye he doesn't look much different.  His strikeout rate is up a sliver, maybe, but his ISO is the same and his walk rate is virtually the same.  The big difference is his BABIP, which is just .313 this year after clocking in at .369 last year.  Eric Longenhagen projects him as a 50 Hit/50 Power player, which is awfully nice for a second baseman.  His glove is apparently nothing special, even at second base, which makes me worry a little; if he turns out to be below-average, that puts a lot of pressure on his bat to provide value.

Still, you have a 22-year old with prospect pedigree with parts of two seasons at the major league level along with good power.  That's a nice piece, and seems a good return for a half-season of Jay Bruce to me.

Max Wotell, 19-year old LHP

Wotell was a 3rd-round pick in 2015, and has been used as a starter this year after pitching as a reliever last year.  Eric Longenhagen's scouting report on him cites good velocity (up to 94 mph) and a good breaking ball.  If he learns a change-up, he might be a starter.  If not, he could be a LOOGY arm.  He's barely thrown any innings yet, but at least he's striking guys out.  His walk rate was bad last year, but has been under control this year.  He's young; a lot could still happen with him, good and bad.  Thumbs up on him as an add-on.

Conclusions

This seems like a pretty good deal for the Reds.  I'm not sure where they'll put Herrera while they wait for the Brandon Phillips train to finally reach its final stop.  The astonishingly foolish relegation of Jose Peraza to the bench for almost two months provided that Bryan Price won't bench Phillips, even when he is injured.

But whatever.  The Reds should be in talent-acquisition mode, and that's exactly what this deal is about.  The Reds swapped a player who was likely at the peak of his near-term value (at least) for a guy or two who might help the next time.

It's a good deal, just not a fun one.  That's probably why it took me so long to write this.  I'll miss Jay Bruce.

Series Preview: Cleveland Indians Cross-Ohio Series - Lindor, Santana, and Salazar

Francisco Lindor.  Photo by Keith Allison

Having bid adieu to the Phillies for 2016, the Reds begin a strange cross-Ohio four-game series on Monday.  They will play the first two games in Cleveland, and then drive down I-71 to conclude the series with a pair of games in Cincinnati.  It's an interesting format that makes the series seem like its own little event.  I'm a fan.

The Indians have underperformed for the last several years.  Their last playoff appearance was 2013, despite perennially receiving rave reviews in the preseasons.  This year is no different, with many projection systems picking the Indians to win, or at least be within spitting distance of the AL Central crown.  In large part, these ratings are driven by their outstanding pitching staff, which is anchored by Corey Kluber, who is backed by Carlos Carrasco and Danny Salazar, along with a solid cast of supporting actors.  While Carrasco is currently on the shelf with a hamstring injury, their rotation, as a whole, has performed as expected so far.  The thing you'll also hear about them is how much better their fielding got in the second half last year.  Their UZR, at least, confirms this: they've been outstanding across the diamond.  In contrast, their offense has struggled a bit without Michael Brantley, and their bullpen hasn't been catching the world afire.  Nevertheless, despite the .500 record, they are still given a 62% chance at making the playoffs this year.  They're currently 5 games behind the White Sox, which, to me, look like an inferior team.

Position Players

This squad isn't quite up to full strength.  The superb Michael Brantley returned sooner than expected from injury, but compiled only 39 AB's before going back on the DL with shoulder inflammation.  They are also minus Lonnie Chisenhall, at least for the moment, who is on bereavement leave.  For the time being, however, they are running out former Red Marlon Byrd and Rajai Davis, a guy that I'm honestly surprised has not yet been a Redleg given the front office's attraction to speedy outfielders.  Jose Ramirez was previously a shortstop, but has been hitting remarkably well while roaming about the outfield.  His power is entirely doubles-based, but he makes excellent contact and, for now at least, is getting plenty of hits to fall in.

This will be my first time watching Francisco Lindor.  While he might not have the power of Carlos Correa, Lindor is already in the conversation for best shortstop in the American League.  That's driven by a good, contact-based approached, and excellent fielding.  I'm a big fan of several of the Indians' other players.  Carlos Santana isn't catching much these days, but he is one of those rare players who walks as often as he strikes out--and yet still has good power that makes him a fit in the heart of the order.  The Indians often hit him leadoff, which I love.  Yan Gomes is also a favorite; he's had a miserable season at the plate so far, but in the past has shown that he can hit, and usually is rated as excellent via the framing metrics.  Mike Napoli is looking like a good pick-up.  He offers a nice dose of right-handed power in the middle of the order, and didn't cost a ton to sign.

I'm kind of surprised to see Tucker Barnhart's fielding rated as negative at this point in the season.  Baseball Prospectus's framing metric, which is the best I know of, rates him as 6th-worst in the major leagues right now at -3 runs.  He's with some good catchers on that list, though; Salvador Perez is just one spot ahead of him.  Things can change.  Nevertheless, I have noticed that Tucker's arm hasn't seemed to have a lot of zip on it at times, and he's not always as mobile as I'd hoped when blocking pitches.  Of course, his pitchers might have something to do with the number of wild pitches he's allowed.  I'm probably just expecting too much of him, but I'd really like him to be a brilliant defensive catcher.  He's in line for a lot of playing time, but hopefully he won't get over-used.  I'd like to see him get a rest in day games, for example, and that hasn't always been happening.

Joey Votto didn't have a great series against Philadelphia, but he has himself almost back up to a league-average wRC+.  His BABIP is still low, and he still looks awkward at times, but he's hitting with a lot more power now than he did earlier in the season.  I don't know what to say about Jay Bruce's ever-declining UZR, but I reject it.  He might have missed a ball or two early on, and whiffed on that double today, but he still looks at least very solid to me in right field.

Probable Starters

The Reds will face an interesting set of pitchers in this series.  Danny Salazar has been pretty awesome.  He walks a lot of batters, but he's been inducing a ton of ground balls while striking just about everyone else out.  Cody Anderson and Josh Tomlin have yielded the exact same peripherals thus far, but with wildly different outcomes.  Anderson throws 94 mph, while Tomlin is a classic soft-tosser...who relies on his fastball more than any other starter in this series.  And finally, to cap off the series, we have the excellent Corey Kluber, who does everything right.

Bullpens

Cody Allen was superb last year.  This year, he's declined in velocity, and with that decline has come a drop in strikeouts and a huge increase in his walk rate.  He's been pretty shaky thus far, but is still being placed in high-leverage situations.  Bryan Shaw has also struggled.  Fortunately, the Indians have gotten decent outcomes out of the rest of their pen.  Probably the most dominant has been Joba Chamberlain, who has been superb in his first year with Cleveland.

The Misery of Jay Bruce

I hadn't looked at FanGraphs' Cincinnati Reds team page lately.  Too painful.  But I popped over there tonight to have a look.  After momentary smiles at what Devin Mesoraco and Todd Frazier have managed this year, and a nod of "yeah, pretty solid" at Billy Hamilton, I found myself scanning through the rest of the numbers with predictable dismay.  I knew it would be bad, and hence my need to stay away until now.  But it is a story of despair and agony.  Cozart's .259 wOBA.  Phillips' injury-shortened season with rate states still down from last year's disappointment.  Votto's 272 PA's.

As I scanned, though, I realized that I was missing Jay Bruce.  I looked again, and couldn't find him.  Finally, I realized that he was on page 2.  Jay Bruce.  -11.7 offensive runs vs. average.  -16 runs in the field by UZR.  -1.3 WAR.  

To call it the worst season of Bruce's career is a massive understatement.  Bruce has always been at least "solid."  This year, he hasn't just been average or disappointing.  He's been disastrous.  With the exception of his base-stealing totals (I haven't looked, but I'm guessing that was from earlier this year?), everything in his line has shown decline.  Walk rates are down.  Strikeout rates are up.  OBP is down.  ISO is down.  BABIP is down.  HR/FB is down.  It goes further:

Bruce's ground ball rate is WAY up.  His fly ball rate is down.  His line drive rate is down.  Bruce has become a groundball machine, which prevents his power from helping him do anything productive...and hence the low ISO.

Earlier this season, he was talking about trying to improve his approach, becoming more selective and looking for his pitch to hit.  His plate discipline profile doesn't match that anymore:

This year, Bruce has swing at more pitches outside the zone, and fewer pitches in the zone, thanany year of his career.  His overall swing rate is down, but that's mostly because pitchers aren't throwing the ball in the zone as often as they did in 2013--if he'll swing out of the zone, they don't have to challenge him.  He's making contact at a decent rate, but it's clearly not hard contact; he's hitting the ball into the ground.

Pitchers aren't throwing that much differently to him.  

A few more fastballs (by pitchf/x, that increase is mostly two-seamer fastballs).  A few more change-ups.  Fewer sliders.  It looks to me like pitchers just aren't as concerned about him this year.  One of the classic ways to get Bruce out was to bury a slider down and in on him, but it's as if pitchers no longer have to rely on that pitch to get through the at-bat.

Earlier this season, I wrote about how Bruce was going to the opposite field more often in 2013.  This year, well:

It's pretty tough for me to say without some summary statistics, but it looks like more of a pull-oriented distribution this year.  For one thing, while he had a nice number of home runs scattered between center field and left field in 2013, every single one of his home runs this year was to his pull side.  Similarly, his ground ball outs (purple) to the infield are all clustered to the pull side.  In the outfield, I'm not sure that I see a specific pattern, and looking only at ground balls, line drives, or fly balls didn't really help (not shown here).  

::sigh::  There's no insight here from me (as usual).  It's been a miserable season, and I certainly don't see anything here that I can identify as something that Bruce needs to do to get better.  He just needs to get better at everything.  My hope is that a big part of the problem has been his leg injury, as Bryan Price has alluded to several times this month.  With an offseason to heal, hopefully Bruce can be in line for comeback player of the year honors in 2015.  If he doesn't I don't see a way to expect much improvement from the Reds' offense...even if they are able to bring in some help.  

How pessimistic should we be?  Well, Bruce's ZIPS projection entering the season was for him to hit .254/.329/.485 with a .344 wOBA.  His updated projection?  .240/.312/.444 with a .328 wOBA.  According to the algorithm, there's still reason to expect him to be a solid hitter.  That's encouraging, despite how bad he's been this year.  But that's a far less intimidating line than he projected to be before his struggles this year.

...I'm not even going to talk about his fielding.  I'm just hoping that's short term injury + fielding stat volatility.  The key word there is hoping.

Jay Bruce Changed His Approach Last Year

Photo credit: Trev Stair

On the heels of yesterday's (rather inconclusive ) post about Matt Adams, I decided to take a closer look at Jay Bruce's career splits.  My main question was how much a batter's splits on how often they hit balls to left, right, and center vary over their career.  I choose the left-handed Bruce because most teams employ the split against him, as he's known as a pull hitter.  He also talks about the importance of using the entire field in interviews, so it's something he's apparently working on.  Here he is, for example, talking about Devin Mesoraco:

"He understands that staying to the big part of the field and really taking what the pitcher gives him is something that's going to beneficial for him," said Jay Bruce. "It's not so much a feast-or-famine thing when you're cutting down the area of the field you use."

First, here are the percent of batted balls that Bruce hit to left, right, and center field (courtesy of FanGraphs):

2014's sample size is insanely low.  I almost didn't include it, but it does provide some insight into why Bruce has struggled so far this year.  In terms of any future prediction, however, I'm ignoring it.

For most of Bruce's career, he's been pretty constant, with a slight trend toward more balls hit to center field and fewer hit to left (his opposite field).  Last year, however, he made a pretty dramatic change.  He hit far fewer balls to his pull side, and far more to left and center field.  In other words, as he referenced, he was using the entire field, not just right field.  It may be a coincidence, but last year he posted the second-highest BABIP of his career (0.322; career 0.294).

Enter Blake Murphy's article this morning.  He reported that:
1) Balls thrown to the outside of the plate are hit to the opposite field more often, and:
2) Pull hitters often hit balls in the air to the opposite field, not on the ground, negating the concern with pitching lefties outside when deploying the infield shift.

So, I went to Baseball Savant to compare Bruce's 2012 and 2013 seasons.  First, here are all of his ground balls and line drives between the two seasons:

Jay Bruce: Line Drives & Ground Balls in 2012 & 2013

The increase in balls hit to left field last season is pretty dramatic--even after we eliminate all of his fly balls.  Bruce was definitely hitting more balls to his opposite field last year.

Now, let's look at what he did on pitches inside and outside.  Here is Bruce on balls thrown to him on the inside half of the plate (zones 3, 6, 9, 12, & 14 at Baseball Savant).

Jay Bruce - Line Drives & Ground Balls on Inside Pitches

Not a big difference.  Pitch Bruce inside and he'll try to pull the ball.  That's more or less what would be expected, because he's a power hitter.

Ok, now, what if you pitch him outside?

Jay Bruce - Ground Balls & Line Drives on Outside Pitches

Wow.  In 2012, if you pitched Bruce outside, he often (usually?) would still hit it to his pull side.  In 2013, however, he started going the other way with the pitch far more often.  And look at the results: he got 75 hits on balls on the outside half of the plate last season, including six home runs (3 were opposite-field).  If you're spraying the ball all over the field, you become far tougher to defend, and you're likely to pick up more hits.

Despite his success, it is worth noting that of his hits to left field in 2013, only eight were on ground balls (and one of those was an infield hit).  All the rest were on line drives, which may or may not be defendable by infielders.  And, as you can see, he's just not making outs on ground balls to third, either (probably because teams are usually shifting on him).  Therefore, if I'm defending Jay Bruce, it makes sense to play your outfield "honest," but you can probably still deploy the shift against him and succeed most of the time.

Now, so far this year, Bruce is struggling.  When he's making contact, he's hitting almost everything to right field.  If he can get back to what he did in 2013 and use the entire field, especially on outside pitches, he stands to see him performance increase.  That's something I'll be watching to see him do in the coming month.