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.

2015 Playoffs: The New York Mets

Curtis Granderson had his best season since 2011, leading the Mets in Wins Above Replacement.
Photo Credit: Keith Allison

The Mets were a team that really flew under my radar this season.  When they faced the Reds in Late June, they had just fallen behind the Nationals for the division lead.  For their part, the Nationals seemed to be heating up, and were the heavy favorites to win the division in the preseason.  Therefore, this seemed like a classic case of an over-performing Mets team that was in the process of regressing back toward .500 where they seemed to belong.  I didn't expect that by late September, when the Reds faced them again, they would be at the top of their division and sailing into the playoffs.

And yet, as I write this, the Mets have finished off a talented (if under-performing) Los Angeles Dodgers team in the division team, and are currently up two games to none of the young and exciting Chicago Cubs, having toppled both Jon Lester and Jake Arietta.  They are the favorites to represent the National League in the World Series.  It's high time to take a look at this team: are they just on a good run, or is this a legitimate, championship-caliber ballclub?

The most impressive offering featured by the Mets is unquestionably their outstanding young starting pitching.  While I am crushed by the lack of a Bartolo Colon start, the trio of Jacob deGrom, Matt Harvey, and Noah Syndergaard is about as good as it gets among playoff teams.  They matched up to Clayton Kershaw and Zack Greinke very well, and seem set to carve up teams in what remains of the playoffs just as they've done all season.  The Mets are otherwise solid everywhere else: they hit pretty well, field pretty well, and have a solid bullpen backed by an excellent closer.  In short, they're a team that's really good at one important thing (starting), and a team that has managed to avoid having holes anywhere else.  That's a good recipe for success.

Position Players

Despite the completely avoidable and frustrating loss of Ruben Tejada, and the loss of Juan Uribe just before the playoffs began, the Mets look really solid top-to-bottom here.  David Wright came back just in time to mitigate the loss of Uribe, and Wilmer Flores, who began the season as the Mets' starting shortstop, hit just as well this year as Tejada while posting solid fielding numbers.  And the team still has depth: with the acquisition of Yoenis Cespedes, Michael Cuddyer has shifted into a platoon with Lucas Duda, whereas Juan Lagares offers a fielding-based platoon option with Michael Conforto in left field.

Otherwise, the Mets have gotten solid to above-average seasons from everyone involved.  It's really fun to see Curtis Granderson, a favorite of mine since his time with the Tigers, having a great season once again as a 34-year old.  And man, Yoenis Cespedes has been amazing.  The vast majority of his fielding totals come in left field rather than center field, but I've seen little to indicate that he can't be passable in center.  He has been a force with the stick since arriving in New York, but (thanks to fielding numbers) posted 4 of his 6.7 wins with the Tigers.  He's having a fantastic contract year, easily his best ever, slugging 35 home runs and seeing only very mild BABIP inflation that offsets the decline in his already-low walk rate.  I don't think I'd pay for more than 3.5ish wins for him as a free agent, and he's already 30 years old, but he's a tremendous source of right-handed power and quality fielding.

One shouldn't overlooked Michael Conforto, either.  The left-handed side of the Mets' outfield platoon posted 2.1 WAR after rising to the majors in his first full professional season.  There's but a lot of hype about Kyle Schwarber of the Cubs, and justly so.  But Conforto, just 22, has done nothing but hit since signing in last year's draft, and is a guy who could still contribute in a big way to the Mets' success this postseason.

One other mid-season addition, in the form of a return from injury, was Travis d'Arnaud.  d'Arnaud has long been a feature near the top of the catcher framing lists, and this year was no exception.  He also had an excellent season with the bat, finally getting his BABIP over the .280 mark for the first time in his MLB career, while slugging a very impressive 12 home runs in 268 PA's.  How incredible is the R.A. Dickey trade looking for the Mets, now that both Syndergaard and d'Arnaud have blossomed at the MLB level?

With the additions of Cespedes and Conforto, and the return of d'Arnaud, this offense is probably better now than they have been all year long.

Starting Pitchers

Wow, right?  Between Jacob deGrom, Matt Harvey, and Noah Syndergaard, the Mets have three ptichers who all throw super-hard, post superb strikeout numbers, and do not walk anyone.  Their repertoires look pretty similar too, at least one the surface: hard fastballs, quality breaking stuff, and effective change-ups.  Oh, and the #4 starter, Steven Matz, is another 24-year old who throws 94 as a left-hander, while posting peripherals that were almost as good as the elite.  It amazes me that, on a per-inning basis, Matt Harvey arguably had the third-best season among this group.  And he's still throwing, despite his oh-so-controversial innings cap.

If you ask just about any general manager to describe the qualities of a dream rotation that you can build a club around, this would pretty much have to be it: young, hard-throwing, good command, and under team control for years to come.  What else can you say about them?  I just hope they can all stay healthy.

Bullpen

I didn't realize how good Jeurys Familia is.  He throws hard and avoids walks, yes.  But the most impressive thing is that he does that while simultaneously posting outstanding walk rates.  Here's a good insight into why from Eno Sarris last night:

Familia’s sinker is faster than 99% of the league’s sinkers, and still has more movement than 80% of the league’s sinkers.

— Eno Sarris (@enosarris) October 19, 2015

Sheesh.  He also throws an excellent slider that people can't hit:

I haven't heard him described as an "Elite Closer," but that's what he looks like to me.

The rest of the bullpen also looks pretty solid.  Tyler Clippard has never thrown super-hard, but has excellent classes and a ridiculous change-up that always induces a lot of whiffs.  He has always dealt with an extreme fly ball rate without giving up a ton of home runs, a trend that has continued this season.  Addison Reed seems somewhat diminished since he broke in with the White Sox, but at the same time he has patched what had been the biggest hole in his game: he used to be an extreme fly-ball pitcher, and now he's getting a respectable number of grounders.  Hansel Robles is the hard-thrower among their late-inning guys, and has been effective.  They don't have a huge lefty reliever, but Jon Niese has been used in that role this post-season with very good success.

This Mets team hasn't just gotten lucky.  They are a good team that has gotten better as the season has gone on, thanks to a few key acquisitions, young player promotions, and a few key players returning from injury.  It's hard not to look at this team and be impressed.  In my view, they match up very well against all the remaining playoff teams.  If they make it past the Cubs (still two games to go), they have the power right-handed pitching to handle the Blue Jays.  They have the roster depth to handle the Royals.  It could be a fun team to watch this month.

Scorekeeping: Reds at Mets, 4/4/14

Last night, I kept score.  The past few seasons, I've been using iScore, which is a great app.  But I've missed the aesthetic of pencil and paper, so I pulled out my trusty Rich Burk scorebook last night.

It was a good game.  I missed the first inning, but saw the rest.  The Reds' offensive frustrations continued, but it was fun to see Jay Bruce jack that third consecutive 87-mph fastball from John Lannon over the wall.  

Here are my scoresheets, though the magic if my iPhone camera.

Reds

Mets

Mets Series Preview

After losing a pair of close games to the Cardinals, while taking one of their own, the Reds take to the road to face off with the New York Mets this weekend.  The Mets, clearly, are not the team that the Cardinals are.  I've only loosely paid attention to what has been happening, but apparently the Mets are in the middle of a terrible ownership situation right now that is limiting their payroll (among other things).  Despite what looks like (on paper) a competent front office headed by Sandy Alderson, they haven't been able to post a winning season since 2008.  

And they don't look particularly likely to break that trend this season.  Their offense projects to be in the same ballpark as the Reds' (i.e. not great), but their pitching looks much worse.  Without Matt Harvey for at least most of the season, they are relying on a few solid mid-rotation guys to make it through.  The stats to the right show only the first two days of play, but clearly the early returns haven't been good.  They opened their season with a sweep by the Nationals.

Citi Field

Park Factor (Runs): 0.96

Home Runs PF (LHB/RHB): 1.01/1.05

A few years ago, the Mets opted to move the fences in at Citi Field in hopes that it would play a bit more "fair."  This was particularly dramatic in left field, which now features a very reasonable power alley in left-center (above I've overlaid it on GABP for comparison).  Furthermore, what used to be enormous fences in right field have at least been made more even.  Interestingly, while the overall park factor has continued to skew pretty strongly toward pitchers, the home run park factor has increased over the past two years to actually favor hitters.  All other offense events are repressed, however, and so this is still a great place to pitch.  The fences are pretty fair, but it's close to the water and, this time of year, is relatively cold.

Position Players

I'm going to stick with projections this year, but will add a couple of columns showing 2014 data on the left of this table.  But at this point, with only two games' of data available, I didn't think it was worth the effort.

Some brief comments on the Cardinals series: 

Billy Hamilton seems to have struggled, but hit a couple of balls fairly hard.  It seemed like the Cardinals were cheating pretty badly on him when he was trying to bunt, so I think he's going to have to prove that he can actually hit the ball with modest authority before teams start to play their infielders in the dirt (rather than on the infield grass).  I do hope he can have a good game early on with the Mets so that we can all stop focusing on his o-fer

Joey Votto has been great these last two games, and it was terrific to see Todd Frazier break out with a big game.  Frazier currently has reached 10% of his 2014 home run total in 2% of the games. :)

This team's roster seems to be in a state of flux.  One of their excellent off-season signings, Chris Young, is on the disabled list with a quadriceps strain.  You also have some flux between Daniel Murphy, Eric Young Jr., and Andrew Brown between the second base and the left field job.  And there is the ongoing position dispute between Lucas Duda and Ike Davis.  

You can squint and see a solid offensive team, here.  David Wright is still a Stud, and Curtis Granderson, while perhaps more of a complementary player now, still has the potential to be a threat.  Both Duda and Davis have some offensive talent.  There are also a lot of weak performers in their lineup right now, at least on the offensive side of things.  Most nights, they're going to have to rely on the heart of their order for any offense they will get.

On defense, they have a brilliant centerfielder in Juan Lagares, but that's offset largely by Murphy posing as a second baseman.  Lagares probably fields well enough to earn his keep as a league-average player, but it's hard to hide him when so many of the others in the lineup can't hit either.

Rotations

Bartolo Colon is fascinating.  Despite not having any velocity, the guy relies almost entirely on fastballs (four-seam, sinker, and cutter) and yet has somehow resurrected his career as a solid mid-rotation starter.  He turns 41 next month.  How does he do it?  Basically, he doesn't walk guys.  He doesn't strike anyone out either, and gets average groundball rates.  But it's enough.  He must paint the corners constantly.  The fact that he can get by with a repertoire like that gives me some hope that Tony Cingrani can keep doing what he's doing with his fastball.

Zack Wheeler is the other interesting name here to me.  He's a solid prospect (if he still counts as a prospect?) who logged 100 innings in 17 starts last season for the Mets.  He walks too many guys right now.  But the projections think he'll elevate his strikeout rate enough to be respectable.  He throws hard.  I'm wondering if the lack of a change-up or split against opposite-handed batters could be an issue vs. the Reds' lefthanders.

Dillon Gee had a very nice season for the Mets last year, but his peripherals didn't quite match his ERA...and hence the projections' skepticism.  I don't know much about Jenrry Mejia, but a glance at his FG page indicates that he's never thrown many innings before, often splitting time between starting and relieving in the minors.

The weakness of the Reds' injury-beleaguered pen showed its head in the game on Thursday.  Nick Christiani managed to get the job done, but Trevor Bell couldn't pull off the same trick.  Those guys wouldn't be pitching, and perhaps might not even be on the roster, if this bullpen is healthy.  I don't have a lot of faith in either of them, and can only hope that Marshall, Chapman, and even Broxton can get back soon.

The Mets' pen doesn't look particularly impressive.  It's kind of the place where old pitchers go.  I'd honestly forgotten that Jose Valverde ended up here, and Kyle Farnsworth (remember that year he had with the Rays not long ago?) and John Lannan seem to be hanging on here.  While the Reds' top 3 surviving pitchers are probably better than anyone the Mets have, the Mets probably have them beat in depth.  The good news is that no game vs. the Mets is ever really out of reach, because this pen is vulnerable.

The Mets look like a bad team.  Like any team in baseball, though, they can win any given series because it's baseball.  Still, I'm hoping for a nice rebound for the Reds against this weaker opponent, which will hopefully give them some momentum as they head back to face the Cardinals once again in their home opener.