Never Get in a Land War in Asia. And Never Get Into a Bidding War for a Bullpen Arm
Why the Astros Let Kendall Graveman Sign Elsewhere, and Where the Bullpen Stands Now.
You fell victim to one of the two classic blunders! The most famous is never get involved in a land war in Asia but only slightly less well known is this: never go in against a Sicilian when DEATH is on the line! HAHAHAHAHAHAHA *
The rule is well know both to those who have played the game Risk and those who have watched The Princess Bride. Never get involved in a land war in Asia.
A similar rule applies to bullpen arms—never get into a bidding war for a free agent reliever. And while the logic behind not getting into a land war in Asia is complicated, the logic behind not getting into a bidding war for a free agent reliever is much more straight forward—you can always find another one with similar value for less cost.
On Tuesday, news leaked that Kendall Graveman had signed a 3 year/$24 million free agent contract with the White Sox.
The $8 million per year value of the contract is not surprising to me, and I don’t think that kept the Astros from matching the White Sox offer. But what surprised me was the 3 year length of the contract. It’s a large multi-year commitment to a player who is going to pitch 60-70 innings each year.
And I think that is what kept the Astros from matching the White Sox offer. And it’s a decision that I can live with as an Astro fan. Graveman had an excellent 2021 in his first season in the bullpen, and he was a reliable set-up man for Ryan Pressly. But just as the Astros were able to acquire Graveman at the trade deadline for a player who was surplus value for the Astros, so can the Astros acquire another reliever for less cost than Graveman.
I’ll address some of the implications of the the Graveman signing in the rest of this post.
The Size of the Graveman Contract
Graveman’s contract is relatively large for a reliever. According to Spotrac, it is tied for the 12th largest “active”1 reliever contract with Will Harris, who also left the Astros to sign a 3 year/$24 million free agent contract.
The list of relievers who have signed for similar or greater amounts than Graveman is a mixed bag. The White Sox signed Liam Hendriks this off-season ($54M/3 ), and he pitched great for them. They also acquired Craig Kimbrel at the trade deadline ($43M/3), and he didn’t (most expect the Sox to trade Kimbrel this off-season). Pitchers like Kenley Jansen ($80M/5) have pitched great; some like Will Smith ($40M/3) have pitched fine, and other like Adam Ottovino ($27M/3), Andrew Miller ($25M/2) and Jeurys Familia ($30M/3) have not provided good value to their teams. Multiyear contracts to relievers are a crapshoot.
With that in mind, it’s worthwhile to compare the Astros strategy with relievers in the last year to that of the White Sox. The White Sox have now acquired 3 top-end relief pitchers in the last 12 months, signing Hendriks and Graveman to big contracts, and trading their starting second baseman (though injured) and a young reliever for Kimbrel. That’s a lot of commitment to a land war in Asia, or to the back end of their bullpen.
The Astros front office have made different choices about how to deal with the back end of their bullpen. There is a financial commitment to Ryan Pressly and the team did sign Pedro Baez to a two-year contact ($12.5M). But to shore up their bullpen at the trade deadline, the Astros traded players who were blocked at the major league level and a major leaguer who thought they was worse than their reserve options. It’s much less of a commitment of resources, though it does require the Astros to renew their search for bullpen options more frequently than the White Sox.
The Rest of the Free Agent Market
At the moment, Roster Resource lists the Astros major league bullpen as Ryan Pressly, Ryne Stanek, Phil Maton, Cristian Javier, Blake Taylor, Pedro Baez, Rafael Montero, and Jake Odorizzi. That’s fine, but the Astros could use an upgrade, especially since Javier and Odorizzi will be needed to start games to cover injuries in the rotation.
With the current payroll estimated at $26 million below the luxury tax threshold, there is room to add a bullpen arm on a short-term contract. The chart below is the list of free agent relief pitchers who had a fWAR of 1.0 or greater last season. Two are now taken (Aaron Loup signed with the Angels earlier this week), but there are several candidates here who could work to join the Astros bullpen next season.
I do not expect the Astros to sign one of these pitchers until after the lockout ends. The Astros could benefit by letting the market come to them and avoiding a bidding war. And I’ll note Collin McHugh’s place on the list. I’d love to see him in an Astros uniform…again.
The Need for Bullpen Development
The Astros have an excellent reputation for developing pitching, as seen by the rotation centered around homegrown players like Lance McCullers, Framber Valdez, Jose Urquidy, Luis Garcia, and Cristian Javier. But those development successes have not reached the bullpen.
In recent years, the Astros have promoted Josh James, Bryan Abreu and Enoli Parades, among others, to the major league bullpen. And none have developed into a reliable bullpen option. Among young relievers, only Blake Taylor was on the playoff roster in the bullpen (I’m considering Javier a starter still).
The need to trade for bullpen arms at the 2021 deadline was driven by many factors. But the inability of these other young bullpen arms to develop into reliable major league options forced the hand of the front office. The Astros could really use any of these arms mentioned in the paragraph above, or Shawn Dubin or Jonathan Bermudez, two potential bullpen arms who were added to the 40 man roster last week, to develop this season and be useful options in the 2022 playoffs.
Phil Maton
In mid-September, I wrote that “So far, [Phil] Maton's career as an Astro is middling. He has posted numbers near league average in a number of different categories. In October, I wrote that Maton had been an “excellent performer…out of the bullpen” and that he’d been “nails in the postseason” due to his high spin breaking pitch.
This article, written by Brian Menendez at Baseball Prospectus, identified some of the changes that Maton had made over his career. Since the trade to Houston, Maton has shelved his cutter and increased usage of his slider. He has also “added nearly three inches of sweep to his slider and an inch of sweep to his curveball,” which allows him “to get better separation on his pitches.”
Maton’s improvement was a big key for the Astros bullpen, especially in the American League Championship Series. The 2022 Astros will need the Maton from the postseason, not the Maton from the regular season.
Spotrac includes contracts that have just expired, like Kenley Jansen’s in its list, along with those which have just gone into effect, like Aaron Loup’s.