The erstwhile ace seems likely to be moved before the month is up. Should the Braves be interested?
With a commanding lead in the division race in mid-July, the 2019 Atlanta Braves find themselves in a position to be buyers at this season’s unitary Trade Deadline. Unlike recent history, which saw the Braves still building or making tentative, medium-term acquisitions, the Braves are pretty obvious upgrade-seekers at this point, whether those additions are meant to further lock in the team’s sky-high playoff odds, provide heft for the postseason, or more likely, both. To that end, the TC crew will be spending some of the run-up to the Trade Deadline profiling the most obvious targets for potential additions.
A small caveat here: I am under no pretensions, nor should you be either, that the Braves are going to go ahead and do the obvious thing. At this point, I personally would be more surprised if the Braves did acquire one of the obvious Trade Deadline targets than if they didn’t. The current Front Office, under Alex Anthopoulos, appears to operate in a fairly incognito capacity as far as telegraphing moves — and while Braves trades over the past 18 months or so don’t conjure players out of thin air, they also haven’t focused on the feeding frenzy for the “big names,” at least not so far. In other words: it’s very possible that whatever upgrades the Braves make over the next two weeks aren’t any of these names, and that’s okay. You don’t always want to zig when that’s the trade market’s watchword.
So, right, Madison Bumgarner. In the Venn diagram of: (1) on a bad team; (2) expiring contract; (3) at a position of need for most contenders, including the Braves, it seems pretty likely that he’s going to be wearing something other than a Giants cream-colored home jersey for the final two months of the year. Don’t take my word for it: Bumgarner is second on MLB Trade Rumors’ annual list of trade candidates for the current Deadline period. Let’s take a look.
What’s he done so far?
Despite seemingly being around forever, Bumgarner is actually going to be in his 20s up through this year’s Trade Deadline. (He turns 30 on August 1, so he might be celebrating that milestone along with the first trade of his career on the same day.) After two down years where he dealt with some sapping injuries, Bumgarner appears to have rebounded notably through the first half of 2019. A perenially-above average starter between 2010 and 2016, Bumgarner’s last two years have been a struggle of trying to work through decreased velocity and the corresponding tinkering needed to survive. But, good news for him and potential acquiring teams: Bumgarner seems to have figured out a path forward, at least so far.
Through 20 starts and 116 2⁄3 innings of work so far this year, Bumgarner has a pretty handy 91 ERA-, 92 FIP- and 90 xFIP-. The peripherals are all in alignment with his run prevention, and while his sub-four-runs-per-nine ERA estimators aren’t quite as sexy as all that given the spacious dimensions of his home park, there’s little doubt that he’s been at least reasonably effective. Bumgarner currently has 1.9 fWAR and 1.4 RA9-WAR; even if he takes a step backwards from here on out (as he’s projected to do by both Steamer and ZiPS), he will still likely end the year at around or above 2.5 WAR. If he continues along his current pace, he’ll be more like a three-plus-win pitcher, which is pretty good territory, something akin to a top-60 starter.
The secret to Bumgarner’s rediscovered success is hardly obscure. He was hurt, he threw less hard; he now appears to be healthier, and is throwing harder. After a fastball velocity slide of 1.5 to 2 mph between 2016 and 2018, he’s regained around 1 mph so far in 2019. As a result, he’s started to rely more on his four-seamer rather than overusing his curveball (highest four-seamer rate since 2016), and that’s helped him sequence his pitches to get more swings, less contact, and more whiffs. His 11.8 percent whiff rate so far this year is the second-highest of his career. and like many of his 2019 stats, the reversal of a recent multi-year trend in which pretty much everything declined.
The reality is, though, that the 2019 version of Bumgarner is still kind of an exercise in seeing what you want to see. The run prevention and peripherals look above average — bottom line, if you isolate the 150 pitchers with the most innings pitched as starters this year (i.e., one for every team’s five-man rotation), Bumgarner is 65th by ERA-, 59th by FIP-, and 49th by xFIP-. You can see a #2-type there (i.e., top 60), you can see a #3 there (i.e., top 90). You can do the same exercise by xwOBA, too, and he ends up being 91st, which is a little more pessimistic, but not necessarily any more predictive (probably less, honestly). Madison Bumgarner! He’s okay, maybe pretty good.
You can read more about his resurgence here: https://blogs.fangraphs.com/looking-for-vintage-madison-bumgarner/. Note that this piece was written in May, and since then, his run prevention has normalized to match his peripherals.
Is this a pure rental?
Pretty much, yes. Bumgarner is in the last year of his contract extension, and in the last club option year under that extension. He will be a free agent at season’s end.
It’s worth noting here that yes, it is possible that the acquiring team will sign him as an extension, perhaps as part of the trade negotiation. Bumgarner has a no-trade clause in his contract, on which he has placed the Braves. It is possible that he will only agree to waive said clause if the Braves pay him for future years — and with the bloodbath going on in free agency these days, especially for middle-tier players, you can see why he may be specifically inclined to do so. But, there’s no way to know whether or not this is a course of action that Bumgarner will take, and/or if his pursuers (at least the ones on his no-trade clause list) will acquiesce to this type of minor extortion. We’ll see.
Why is he going to be dealt?
Well, the Giants are going nowhere fast — they’re tied for the third-worst record and have the second-worst playoff odds in the National League. There’s no benefit to them keeping Madison Bumgarner, and he may actually accept a Qualifying Offer if given the opportunity, so the safer move seems to be to send him packing and get what you can in exchange.
Bumgarner is owed $12 million in total this season, or about $4 million for the final two months of the year. The Giants could easily eat that amount for a cash-strapped team in order to get a marginally better prospect haul, as well — his salary isn’t an impediment.
Why do the Braves need him?
Well, “need” is a strong word. As is going to be the case for all of these trade targets, the Braves don’t “need” anything. They have the majors’ fifth-best record and fourth-best playoff odds, without any of these guys, and with a series of potential contributors (Ender Inciarte, Mike Foltynewicz, Kevin Gausman, etc.) on the shelf or otherwise unavailable due to injury and/or ineffectiveness. The Braves don’t “need” Madison Bumgarner.
And yet, the Braves’ pitching staff currently ranks 20th in fWAR and 14th in RA9-WAR. The rotation, more specifically, is 19th in fWAR and 15th in RA9-WAR. Three Braves starters so far have a better ERA-, but only two (Mike Soroka and Max Fried) have better FIP- and xFIP- marks. Only Soroka and Dallas Keuchel are projected to have better run prevention going forward. Bumgarner may not be a huge upgrade, but he’s still an upgrade — just, and this probably can’t be emphasized enough, a fairly modest one. (My guess is that, at most, he adds one win over two months over whatever assortment of arms would otherwise take his starts.)
Why might he be a poor fit?
Well, the reality is that the Braves have options, and not just a handful. Beyond current de facto fifth starter Bryse Wilson, the Braves can also return Sean Newcomb, Mike Foltynewicz or Kevin Gausman to the rotation. There are also other lurking candidates, such as Kyle Wright and Touki Toussaint, should the powers that be (Front Office, baseball gods, or otherwise) decide that something has clicked for any one of them. The Braves don’t “need” Bumgarner, and he doesn’t really add much in terms of depth, either.
One other, minutiae-laden reason why Bumgarner is a marginally-worse fit for this club: looking forward to a short playoff series, the Braves already have two lefties (Keuchel, Fried) that will likely draw starts. They probably won’t relegate Soroka out of the playoff rotation no matter what. As a result, even a very lefty-susceptible opposing lineup is already going to see two Braves southpaws, and adding Bumgarner doesn’t diversify this much. Further, if the opposing lineup mashes lefties, Bumgarner doesn’t allow you to hide Keuchel or Fried in lieu of a right-handed starter, either. This barely matters, in the end, but it is kind of hanging out there.
What will the likely cost be?
Look, I know there have been a lot of frankly outlandish proposals circulating about what it might take to land Bumgarner from the Giants. They’re silly. Sure, the bidding for his services might become so frenzied that some poor team endures the winner’s curse and pays up for him a price well beyond his value, but let’s hope that isn’t the Braves. It shouldn’t be, per the lack of need detailed above.
Bumgarner’s remaining surplus value is modest. Assuming no money changes hands in the trade, and assuming an aggressive 1.4 wins of value accumulated by him through the end of the year, Bumgarner’s peak-end surplus value is probably something around $10 million (i.e., 1.4 x $8M to $9M per win, less his pro-rated $4M salary). The handy dandy Baseball Trade Values site (https://www.baseballtradevalues.com/players/7775/) estimates his value at somewhere between $9 million and $14 million, with a median figure around $12 million.
This value is something akin to a 45+ FV (future value) position player prospect and a few throw-ins, or a couple of 45+ FV pitching prospects. (See here: https://blogs.fangraphs.com/putting-a-dollar-value-on-prospects-outside-the-top-100/; also see here and realize that all 50 FV prospects or higher are worth far more than Bumgarner’s sub-$15 million surplus value: https://blogs.fangraphs.com/an-update-to-prospect-valuation/.)
If that seems weirdly low and not evidence-based to you given Bumgarner’s supposed stature, one only has to look back at recent Trade Deadline activity to see that this is right in line with what’s actually happened.
2018 Trade Deadline, pure rental starters
- Lance Lynn (0.8 fWAR at the time of the trade, i.e., much worse than Bumgarner) fetched Tyler Austin (40 FV position player) and Luis Rijo (40 FV pitcher).
- J.A. Happ (1.9 fWAR at the time of the trade, i.e., basically Bumgarner) fetched Brandon Drury (replacement-level-type utility guy) and Billy McKinney (40/45 FV position player).
- Nathan Eovaldi (0.7 fWAR at the time of trade with injury risk and history, overall not dissimilar expectations than Bumgarner for the final two months of the year) fetched Jalen Beeks (45 FV major league-ready pitcher).
2017 Trade Deadline, pure rental starters
- Yu Darvish (high-powered 2.8 fWAR at the time of the trade, i.e., much better than Bumgarner) fetched Willie Calhoun (50 FV bat without a position) and two 40ish or below pseudo-prospects.
(not included: fringy starter rentals like Jaime Garcia and Jeremy Hellickson, which fetched even less).
So, there you go — recent history doesn’t really show anything other than pretty mediocre returns for pure rental starters. Yes, Darvish got somewhat more, but Darvish was much better at the time of the trade. You could also refer to this: https://blogs.fangraphs.com/madison-bumgarner-wont-fetch-the-giants-that-much/ — this was written by Jeff Sullivan in the offseason, and it therefore features the countervailing ideas of more months of control over Bumgarner (value higher before than now) but a worse expected performance given that his bounceback hadn’t yet occurred (value lower before than now). In the end, though, the conclusion is the same — no, a hefty package with good prospects isn’t necessary to secure two months of Bumgarner’s services. That’s not the landscape anymore. If somehow that’s where the bidding goes, the Braves should bow out in no uncertain terms. There are other pitchers to acquire out there, should the Braves decide they even need to go that far in the first place.
Leave a Reply