Tag: Alex Bregman

Trade: Marshall Law | Bomb Squad

Francisco Lindor names his favorite players growing up | Sporting News

 

 

Marshall Law Trades:
Francisco Lindor

Bomb Squad Trades:
Alex Bregman
George Kirby

 

(Obligatory trash can joke.)Look, Bregman took a step back – I know it, you know it. His BABIP dropped almost 30 points, but even then, BABIP wasn’t a big part of Bregman’s game anyways (in 2018 and 2019, his BABIP was below .300). The slugging percentage dropping by 140 points is scary, and the .451 slugging was the lowest of his career. But there are some encouraging steps, in that his swinging strike percentage was still below five percent, his contact rate still sat over 85 percent, and his exit velocity still sat at his career average. All of that, plus a manageable $40 salary and the fact he will play the obligatory amount to get SS eligibility (thank you, Carlos Correa!), makes him a smart buy-low to me. Oh, AND George Kirby? A power arm that throws strikes? He doesn’t walk anyone. Literally – he didn’t walk anyone in 2019. He’s not a Top 100 prospect, but you know how you just see a guy making the majors? That’s Kirby. The other stuff is still a little behind, but he could get himself to Seattle in part of an interesting rebuild quickly. Getting Lindor when you have Carlos Correa and Adalberto Mondesi, flawed as they are is an…interesting approach. In those three players alone, Bomb Squad now has over $180. Meanwhile, the third base options are… Maikel Franco? Hanser Alberto? The more I see this, the less I get it. But okay, let’s say he can trade Carlos Correa, he has Lindor now, and the counting stats are great (30 HR from 2017-2019), but there are SOME worrying pieces as the swinging strikes are going up and the barrels are going down. Still, I give him a 2020 Pass too, because this year was wacky (his Slugging fell by more than 100 points though, for what it’s worth). Who wins? I’ll take Marshall in this one, if only because the trading pieces in HIS positional surplus (Moncada, Urshela) would be better than Bomb’s surplus (Correa, Mondesi) should either one choose to trade them. Plus, adding players and losing some salary is a win-win to me.

-Kyle HTCP

 

What’s Going On Down in the Minors?

We are getting close to the Super Two deadline, which FanGraphs explains here.  That means that teams will start calling up some of their more talented prospects from the minor leagues.  I went and got all the stats from MILB.com from all AA and AAA leagues and used our scoring system to calculate which players were having the best seasons.  I then downloaded the list of all players from Fantrax to see which of these players were owned and by who (whom?).

Starting Pitchers

There are 46 pitchers with at least 300 points scored between AA/AA compared to 39 MLB pitchers. Beach Bum (Daniel Mengden, Zach Eflin, Josh Hader -67th pick in rookie draft) and Long Ball to LF (Jameson Taillon – 28th, Chad Kuhl, Joe Musgrove – 69th) each had three minor league pitchers make the list

Teams With 2

Teams With 1

Musgrove, Mengden, Herrera, Jason Wheeler, Ben Lively and Aaron Wilkerson have been impressive in both AA and AAA.

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Batters

Making 300 points the cutoff again, I found 34 hitters in the Minor Leagues compared to 57 in the Majors. TBD owns four of the top 36 bats – Peter O’Brien, Tyler O’Neill – 187th, Willy Adames – 115th and Matt Chapman – 130th.

Teams With 2

Teams With 1

Healy, Mancini, Nicky Delmonico, David Washington, Hunter Dozier and Mike Yastrzemski have had success in both AA and AAA this year.

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Trade: TBD | The Wilfred Brimley Fighting Diabeetuses

TBD sends: UT Miguel Sano ($48), 1B Eric Hosmer ($25), SS Alex Bregman (ML), SP Jorge Lopez ($5) and SP Edinson Volquez ($7)
The Wilfred Brimley Fighting Diabeetuses send: SP Madison Bumgarner ($81), SP Tanner Roark ($2), RP Dellin Betances ($14), 3B Matt Chapman (ML) and $4 in 2017 Auction Dollars

Jordan’s thoughts: Wow. I’m not sure where to begin and before I sleep on it I’ll write a few hundred words.

Okay so lets switch our strengths for weaknesses and see what happens? I honestly do not know what to think of this. So it wasn’t a secret that the Diabeetuses not only lacked insulin charges, they lacked starting pitching depth, right? So they send off three more pitchers, because you know, fuck them. They get back a stud hitter, a good hitter, a potentially exciting prospect, a wish and a floppy arm.

Alright…

On the other side, let’s give you a whole pitching staff. Sure. Bummy is outstanding, not really a lot to mention there. Roark if he sticks in the rotation, is fine. Betances should be fine. Some auction cash, a prospect, whatever.

I will take a stab at why this deal got done. WBFD had these aces they spent pretty money on, but no hitters. TBD had these pretty hitters but no pitching. Lets switch some. Okay. Done. I guess they both have a more balanced team going forward. That’s fine.

The simulator here suggests that neither really hurt or improved themselves. I guess that is a win-win. Trading holes is what I have been known to call this kind of transaction. If each participant feels comfortable covering the new holes they created, great.

I love this trade because it is exciting. There are so many pieces moving back and forth. I do not understand this trade, and I think I am okay with that.

Andrew’s thoughts: As Jordan mentioned, strengths were traded for strengths here.

I believe that before trades of any kind, the Diabeetuses had a bottom-3 offense and a top-3 pitching staff. Maybe it wasn’t that extreme, but you get the point. Following the trade, WBFD has maybe a bottom-6 offense and a significantly worse pitching staff? Hopefully my math is wrong. WBFD has added some keepable pieces and spread salaries around a good deal, which is awesome. Except you don’t know if this team is any good yet, so maybe you don’t want to keep all these pieces together? And maybe the team was competitive as a top-heavy unit? WBFD has also now spent $8 of 2017 auction cash already, which maybe ends up being irrelevant, but could be a hurdle if the plan is to go young and keep your squad in tact. Their trades have gotten them way under budget but as I’ve mentioned before, getting under budget for 2017 before the first pitch of 2016 isn’t necessarily advantageous.

If Carlos Martinez takes a step forward into ace territory (this might be more likely than not) then the blow of losing Bumgarner and Jake Arrieta is softened.

I think TBD, who was known to have been shopping Troy Tulowitzki for pitching, did the smart thing and instead put a young, affordable hitter on the block. I love Tulo, but at his salary and with his injury history, he’s just not worth a Bumgarner type guy. Miguel Sano, clearly, is capable of fetching that.

TBD’s offense is largely unaffected. It’s technically worse because Sano and Hosmer are gone, but I’m not sure it’s noticeably worse. The pitching is way better with Bumgarner at the top, but there’s still work to be done. On weeks where Bumgarner starts just once, you’ve still got to fill six starts from Phil Hughes, Jimmy Nelson, Andrew Heaney… meh. Someone there will take a leap and become a viable SP2, but there will be a lot of spin-around-with-your-head-on-a-baseball-bat-and-then-throw-a-dart choices going on here.

I’m inclined to prefer the Bumgarner side as a short term play, but WBFD probably has an edge if you’re looking to the future. Bregman is valuable, right? This one is even as I see it.