I love Bruce types. They roll out 120 OPS+ seasons, season after season, and they whack in runs. I love the list of Comps, too...because most of those goes continued to whack for years....and had peaks, or near career peaks, atound the age of 30. There's lots of future value in a Bruce.
Seager + an arm (and a value added OF) might just get you in the ballpark, and you might well get something additional in return, I think. Cincy certainly needs a 3B and young arms. Erasmo would be just fine, thank you. Seager free's up cash for something else.
Am I reading Arroyo's contract right? Does Cincy owe him all of his $15M in deferrals next year if he's traded? If so, he may not get traded.
If a Bruce deal can be got, I'm all over it. He's Butler-lite, without the huge initial investment.
This is better than Hamilton, IMHO. He's not the player, mind you....but the risk is much lower. And you have an extra $10M freed up every year to buy something pretty. And Bruce is going to have his 130-140 year, at some point.
I'm a Seager fan, as you know. B-I-G! But he occupies a position where we are loaded with potential. We have guys would could conceivably turn out to be way better. If Romero isn't ready, platoon the position with Liddi and Franklin. Give Franklin all of Ryan's days off, too. LRod becomes a cheap utility guy in the IF...or get one for next to nothing.
Ackley, Franklin, Ryan, Liddi isn't a bad 4 to make 3 set up. If we bump Seager up to 120 next year (a decent improvement)), what are the chances that a Franklin/Liddi duo gets close to that? 100OPS is a lock, isn't it? 110 =2 to 1? What do you think?
Saunders, Bruce, Wells....plus Guti or Thames gives you OF choices...and a decent one, or better, at that.
Be bold on this one J-Z.
Make it so.
moe
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Talking points meaning, SSI doesn't claim to have this guy surrounded. We saw chatter and so we chittered.
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(1) Some people see major upside here. Here's a fangraphs article comparing Bruce and ... Giancarlo Stanton. In Bruce's comps list, at b-ref.com, are Darryl Strawberry, Reggie Jackson, and Jack Clark. You're talking about a 25-year-old who was a good ML player at age 21.
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(2) Bruce's PX (power index) is 150-160, legit 40-homer territory. He's a real big lefty, generates obvious torque, mostly with the upper body, and hit HR's in the majors at a young age. Though he looks visually different, his PX curve isn't all that different from Adam Dunn's.
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(3) Bruce is signed for a measly $11M x 5 years. He's been worth $21M, $15M and $11M the last three years; $15M per is probably a baseline going forward, and $20M more likely. And salaries will inflate quickly. So your "net profit" on Bruce is probably around $25-$50M -- he'll give you like $80-100M of performance for $54M.
Of course, if you don't have Bruce, you might have Stefen Romero (or Nick Franklin or Brad Miller or Vinnie Catricala or whoever) in the same position, giving you $80M of performance over those 5 years, for about $15M in salary.
The bottom line is, WAR is going to undersell Jay Bruce, because WAR undersells "hard" skills like 100 RBI with marginal defense and oversells "soft" skills like Chone Figgins'. Analysts are going to want to pay him for 3 WAR, but on a real team he's worth 4 to me, and could be in for some 5 seasons. In any case, he's a legit MOTO thumper and that's fiiiiiiiiivvvvvve looonnnnnnnng years he's locked up while salaries go bananas.
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(4) Jay Bruce's plate coverage is impressive. Bradley Woodrum does a great job, I think, showing that Bruce is comfortable getting to the low ball, and he hit a home run last year on a pitch 4 feet off the ground.
In the previous article we discussed some. Bruce's 150 K's last year might create the impression that he's a mess at the plate. Nay verily. He simply put the pedal to the metal. His HIT tool looks better than he gets credit for.
The EYE is related to the HIT tool and Bruce's pitch selection is very encouraging. For example, his 29% swing rate on balls outside the strike zone is better than the league average, impressive for a guy with a 150 PX and a weak EYE. His OOZ was better than Ryan Zimmerman, Carlos Beltran and Matt Holliday, much better than Ryan Braun, and almost as good as Buster Posey.
His swing % in the zone was 76%, wayyyyyy higher than league average - meaning that this is one dude who can tell a ball from a strike.
Baseball's about the strike zone, and Bruce sees the ball exceptionally well. Looks like he's headed UP, not DWN.
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(5) The Reds had a measly 90 OPS+ last year despite Votto, Bruce, and Ludwick. Stars & Scrubs isn't working for them right now. We don't mean, "the system is inappropriate for the Reds." We mean, "the Reds have somehow taken three excellent MOTO hitters and turned it into 669 runs." If the Reds have seen failure at the plate, who knows. Maybe they'd be interested in a Seager + Hitting Prospect + Erasmo type package for Bruce + ? We can easily imagine Jay-Z going for Bronson Arroyo as this year's Jeff Suppan.
As the second man in - the M's need two bonking OF's - Bruce would be exciting. He may have a string of 35 HR, 100 RBI seasons in him, and beyond that, a Justin Morneau-type MVP isn't out of the question.
On the other hand, maybe you want to take your shot at Michael Saunders doing a Jay Bruce ... from CF.
Cheers,
Dr D
Comments
Seager + Erasmo for Bruce? Thanks, but no thanks. I'm staying miles away from that one. I don't think we're at the point where we should be giving away two good players with 6 years of control left for one good player with 3 years of control left. In fact, I don't think any team is ever at that point. EDIT: Moe was talking about the Reds' payroll, not ours. Ignore the bit in brackets. My bad. [Seager frees up cash for something else? Seager's making the minimum, and Bruce isn't. That deal does the opposite of freeing up cash for something else, it creates two holes to fill one while adding 10M in payroll obligation.] I mean, you said it right there: you expect Seager at 120 wRC+ next season, and you think Bruce is going to roll out 120 wRC+ seasons. Why would trade 5 years of our 120 wRC+ third baseman AND 6 years of our 2-3 WAR SP for 3 years of a 120 wRC+ left fielder, knowing that offense is more valuable at third base than in left field? What would the Reds even do with Seager, with Frazier at 3B and Phillips at 2B?
If Bruce can be gotten, sure, but can Bruce be gotten for parts we'll give up? The Reds probably only want major league talent, not prospects; they're in win now mode. They don't have an outfield logjam like the Cardinals do. Why would they trade Bruce, unless the team getting Bruce were also getting ripped off at the major league level? I don't think they would.
And I wouldn't call 3B "loaded with potential", not by a long shot. Franklin's never played 3B and probably isn't ready to start at the major league level next year. Romero flat out isn't ready to start at the major league level next year. Catricala had an awful year, and is only now starting to turn it around in the AFL. Liddi has huge contact problems, strikes out a third of the time, and hasn't ever hit for an extended period in the majors. 100 OPS+ from next year's 3Bmen minus Seager is as far from a lock as you can possibly get, and the free agent market is terribad.
In SSI terms... PROPS to Bruce, as a legitimate offensive weapon. SLOPS to the asking price.
b-ref.com gives 4 years with a Gordon-like 5th year club option at a piddling $13 mills.
Generally speaking I agree 13 that we want to be careful trading Pineda and Fister for a guy's three arb years. Looks like Bruce is as club-friendly as Gordon, though ... looks like your Gordon idea except shifting the all-round Gordon package into a focus on what happens in the batter's box...
Not saying he's the prime computation, but him or Alex Gordon, that would be a whale of a discussion :- )
Thirteen,
Seager acquisition frees up Cincy cash. Wasn't clear enough, was I? Sorry.
And I tried not to undersell Seager's possible next year performance. He could hit 120. He could stay at 110. I like the guy, so I certainly wasn't going to predict he's a 90 OPS guy going forward.
All the same, he's not Bruce at the plate. As well, we don't have 2 or 3 Bruce's hanging around. We may have 2 or 3 Seagers in the hopper. B-Ref Comps are certainly not the end all of projecting future hitting ability, but they are a place to start. Seager's Comps currently include guys like Rick Schu, Darnell Coles and Bill Sudakis, all guys I remember. Not a masher in the bunch.
Bruce's include Reggie Jackson, Willie Horton, and Jack Clark. A better pedigree, I think...but admittedly an imperfect process.
But if I can give up Seager and Erasmo to get what will likely be the 5 most productive years of Bruce's career, well then I'm going there. That would be a safer bet than Hamilton, with less upside certainly. It would also be a less costly deal than Gordon's.
Bruce will have a couple of 135 years in the next 5, or he should have if we look at historical comparisons. Those 135's would look nice in Mariner colors.
We're assuming a deal is coming, I think. I like relative safe ones, without giving away the franchise. Seager and Erasmo are nice. But they are guys who have potentially better guys immediately behind them.
We don't have a Bruce, unless it is named Saunders. Nothing wrong with having two of those guys.
moe
moe
But it's the years, not the performance, that make me say that. In fact, I'd argue that in any given year of Gordon's contract you're likely to get better value from him than from Bruce. I don't buy the idea that Bruce is just Gordon with better offensive skills to make up for worse defense; in fact, I don't think Bruce is even a better hitter.
If we buy into the last two years of data:
Gordon gets you 20 HR, 5 3B, 50 2B, 70 BB and 140 K over a full season. That's a ~130 wRC+.
Bruce gets you 35 HR, 3 3B, 30 2B, 70 BB and 160 K. That's a ~120 wRC+.
Now, Gordon's 28 and Bruce is 25, so that's plus for Bruce in that he's less likely to decline. But 25 is the widely-accepted power peak, so we're probably not ever expecting Bruce to be a 40 HR guy. And you can argue that Gordon's BABIP has been high the last two years, and it has, but he also hits a boatload of line drives. And then you have to take into account that Bruce's only year over 120 wRC+, he had a .334 BABIP... I don't think Bruce really has all that much offensive upside left.
And as much as what happens at the plate is important, we can't just ignore the defense, and Gordon is the clearly superior defensive outfielder, to the point that it's not really close. Faster, too; more stolen bases and more first-to-thirds. Baserunning metrics are pretty good and we can safely say that Gordon is the better runner. Fielding metrics are sketchier, but just going off of the eye test and their defensive reputations (throwing out the defensive data, which we shouldn't do automatically) Gordon is the better fielder. He's also got the desirable positional flexibility that the Mariners want.
So he's better at hitting, he's better at running, and he's better at fielding, and he plays more positions. The other guy's got two more years of team control, and he's younger, so he's more valuable, but it's a close-run thing. In an actual trade, I'll take Bruce. In any given year, or in a redraft fantasy league, Gordon please.
BBREF is a great site with a lot of great information, but I'm not sure that the player comp lists are part of that great information. Mike Trout's player comps include such luminaries as Ben Paschal, Fred Nicholson, Pete Scott, Len Koenecke, Roy Carlyle, and Andy Dirks. Giancarlo Stanton has Mike Morse, Chris Davis and Seth Smith. Just because some of the guys on Bruce's list had 135 OPS+ seasons around age 27 doesn't mean Bruce will, just like the decline of several guys on Swisher's list doesn't mean Swisher must necessarily faceplant. You could read it as a warning sign, but I don't think we can attribute too much weight to the player comps in our discussion.
I like our third base prospects less than our outfield "prospects", which is kind of sad. Seems to me that Wells, Carp, and Thames are each more likely to become regular contributing major leaguers than Liddi or Catricala. Franklin hasn't played 3B. And Romero's all well and good, but he's not a major league player yet, not by a long shot. Put it this way... I don't think the upgrade from Wells to Bruce, as a COF in 2013, is as big as the gap between Seager and Liddi. And that's ignoring the loss of Erasmo, who's a pretty valuable piece in his own right. I don't think that Seager has potentially better guys behind him, unless Alex suddenly fixes all of his strikeout issues. And even if he did--it's "potential". Erasmo and Seager are major league proven, to some extent. The guys I suggested dealing for Gordon are still just prospects, and while they're great prospects, there's a lot that can go wrong with prospects. Seager's probably more valuable than Franklin, and while Erasmo's not Paxton in terms of trade valuable he's pretty close after 2H 2012. If the packages sound similar, remember I was deliberately giving KC $1.50 on the dollar for Gordon.
Bruce is safer than Hamilton, to be sure, but you're actually giving up more value to get him. If you buy into the 5M/WAR theory, which is a rough approximation but is still useful, Seager was worth $18M in 2012 all on his own. Hamilton figures to get ~$22M/year. Are we counting on Ramirez to be no better than Blake Beavan? Because that's what it would take, to make those payouts even, given that Seager's contract is conveniently just as long as Hamilton's would be. I'm OK with paying Hamilton-level resources to get the higher-floor lower-ceiling in Bruce, but Seager and Ramirez seems excessive to me. Anyways, it's all academic, since the Reds have no spot on the diamond for Seager, being set all around the infield as they are. So you're probably talking Saunders... who's our only shot at getting a Bruce, anyways.
Todd Frasier slipped my mind. The Reds will probably happily trot him out to 3B next year. You are right.
All the same. I'll swap Erasmo and Seager for Bruce, if it could be done. Less than likely, I admit.
moe
No worries here about forgetting Frazier; I did it with the Royals, Miller and Myers. Don't wanna be the angry guy, yelling at the commenters just trying to give ideas. Hope we're cool.
Movin' right along... man, that Miami trade was SOMETHING, wasn't it?
all-out firesale by Miami?
I'm not entirely sure...Buehrle and Reyes were signed last year, and Johnson was coming up on free agency soon. They pretty much filled their left side of the infield with this move, and picked up a couple of arms as well.
I agree with the reaction by the 'net (and Giancarlo Stanton, by the way, expressing his displeasure via twitter) in general. But really...I don't know for sure. It's easy to fall in with the Loria=evil crowd...but this might not be exactly what it appears. I do the same basic thing in my baseball simulators all the time when the FA market is better than what I already have.
Still, Loria has done this three times now...at least to some extent. Gotta give Miami/Florida credit for those two titles, though...
You don't come across as trying to pick fights. Just as passionate about your ideas.
The whole idea of what comps to trust... sounds like an easy couple URL's for Dr D :- ) ... no you certainly can't "trust" b-ref.com comps, or BP comps, or any comps. Except mine. :- ) Comps lists here are suggestive, a way to perhaps organize your thinking to move forward, not the end of a discussion...
Seager and Erasmo doesn't work, but looking at their roster and needs (starting pitching and more starters) there's another way it could match up. If we traded Wilhelmsen with Erasmo it could free up Chapman to start and they get 2 more starters out of the trade and shift while lowering their payroll. Almost sounds like it would be worth more than Bruce.
Either way I would prefer Bruce not be the best bat picked up this offseason. He is my favorite single target, all things considered, but would love to see a masher brought in as well.