The Mets as expected brought back reliever Jerry Blevins, signing him to a one-year, $4 million deal. Blevins was extremely effective for the Mets last year, as he retired all 15 batters he faced, 14 of them lefty swingers.
Of course, no one is going to go an entire year with a .000 BABIP nor are they going to have the platoon advantage 93% of the time.
Year-in, year-out Randy Choate faces the fewest amount of batters without the platoon advantage among those who pitch the entire season. Last year, Choate faced 117 batters and had the platoon advantage 94 times, or 80% of the time. Of course, Choate pitched just 27.1 innings, despite being on the roster the entire season.
Can a player be worth $4 million pitching 30-something innings a year?
FanGraphs’ dollar values showed Choate being worth $800,000 last year, when he had a 3.95 ERA and a 1.24 WHIP. Choate also had a 0.62 WPA, which is a very solid total for the very few innings he pitched. WPA is the stat that portrays the lefty specialist in the best possible light.
If Blevins could match Choate’s 2015 WPA, he’d probably be worth his 2016 contract. Blevins’ career-high WPA is the 1.73 mark he posted in 2012 but that season was an extreme outlier. His next best mark in the category is last year’s 0.49 mark.
Terry Collins is very good about getting his lefty reliever to face an abundance of lefty batters. He’s generally been in the 60% range with his primary LOOGY. Since there are more righty than lefty batters in MLB, it’s quite the feat to get your LOOGY to have the platoon advantage that often over an entire season.
Can Collins find even more lefty batters for Blevins? Can the new LOOGY hold his own on those occasions when he does have to face a RHB? Right now, those are the $4 million questions.
Yeah this is more than I had expected him to sign for. A good bit more. Guess we know where that Cuddyer money went?…
He has the potential to be worth $4 mil, if used correctly, like in 2012-13 where he was a solid contributor for about 60 innings.
Of course, i don’t expect TC and co to use him except as a LOOGY, in which 4 mil is too much to pay for a novelty.
I find the LOOGY market really odd. GMs are willing to pay big bucks for them in FA, but they are almost all unwillingly to give up any sort of decent prospect or player for them in trades (Alderson trading Mdd for Blevins might be one of the few exceptions).
For example, last winter the Twins gave Neal Cotts 1 year 3 mil. Yet, at the trade deadline, they were unable to flip him for anything even though he was in the midst of a pretty solid season. Zach Duke was solid in 2014 and the Brewers were going nowhere, yet they weren’t able to flip him for anything. He ended up signing a 3 year 15 mil deal in the offseason though. Oliver Perez had a nice first half last year, signed a 2 yr 7 mil deal this offseason, yet the best the Dbacks could get for him at the trade deadline was a crappy looking pitching prospect in the rookie leagues…
On the same token, overpaid veterans like Aramis Ramirez and Shane Victorino were able to fetch pieces that could possibly be 25th guys on the roster, and even the Mets gave up some nice pitching prospect for bench guys in Uribe and Johnson.
Excellent points in regards to the offseason and midseason valuations of this class of pitcher.
Blevins was actually quite good against RHB in both ’12 and ’13. But in ’14 they posted an .821 OPS against him.
Another clear failure of the farm system. The idea, the plan, is to produce these guys at low cost, in-house. Was it “Leathersich or Bust?” Four million for a loogy — coming off two arm injuries — seems a little crazy given the team needs. I would have much preferred Sipp, who can pitch to everybody.
But, oh well. This group really, really believes in “mix and match” and the importance of the loogy with an unshakeable faith. So if that’s the given, then I suppose they might as well import a decent one, since they are going to feature that role no matter who fills it.
Funny, the absence of a loogy was not my takeaway from the post season. I didn’t watch the Mets lose the WS and think, “If only we had a lefty one-out guy.” In fact, it didn’t seem to matter at all. I missed a quality late-inning guy, that’s for sure.
I guess shopping is expensive in these times. I wish I had more confidence in his health.
It sure wasn’t my takeaway, either.
Unfortunately, I think this is the classic case of a leopard (Alderson) not changing its spots.
As to Blevins, specifically, I don’t worry about his health. Sometimes bad stuff just happens. I worry more about his numbers when he doesn’t have an elevated strand rate.
LOOGY’s are disruptive to a bullpen as noted on this site by many fine articles written supporting that arguement. Blevins is an improvement to the bullpen as a player and my hope is that he is used more than a LOOGY. Apparently $4m is the market rate for his services and he fills the Mets need and budget for an established LH relief pitcher. Centerfield is the next need that should to be addressed.
Well said, Metsense. And I wouldn’t have that bad feeling if I trusted the organization — and ownership — to adequately address those needs.
By my count, they need 4 players:
1) CF. Span to replace Lagares, or just a guy to platoon w/ Juan.
2) The Cuddyer Role: Ideally a RH bat who can back up 1B and the corner outfield spots. We have three LH hitters at those positions, and a RH bat would be a huge help.
3) Late inning, quality arm for the bullpen.
4) #5 starter. Maybe they can solve this in-house, or late in the Spring.
Plus, a solid Plan B for 3B. I think Tejada is ST insurance, who sticks around in the event of injury, and is traded or released before Opening Day (saves over 1 million). I don’t see his value on the bench, especially if Flores is super sub.
Cespedes Fills 2 boxes!
Interesting that Blevins lifetime stats show reasonable effectiveness versus both RH and LH….. but a short review of usage in 2015 was almost exclusively versus Lefties–Granted, limited innings.
I cant predict usage, but I want to stick up for the concept that every bench and bullpen guy should not be an MLB Minimum “Hopeful”…. we should want big leaguers on the roster—and they get paid. It’s a good sign that Management is now willing to do that in several areas. I say this without endorsement of every single guy they choose.
I like the signing….I think he will contribute.