It sure is a lucrative time to be a big-league reliever.
“Absolutely,” Rockies left-hander Jake McGee said, flashing a wide grin. “Almost all of the signings so far have been relievers. … We are right in the middle of a great trend.”
McGee had 27 million reasons to smile. On Friday, he finalized a three-year, $27 million deal to return to Colorado. The contract includes a club option for the fourth year with a $2 million buyout for McGee.
Sturdy right-hander Bryan Shaw also signed with the Rockies on Friday, also inking a three-year, $27 million deal.
The moral of the story? Mamas don’t let your babies grow up to be cowboys — or NFL running backs for that matter — raise them to be big-league relievers.
Entering the weekend, none of the 11 free agents on the market who hit at least 25 home runs in 2017 had signed a contract, but relievers had gone like hotcakes, even though not all of them are closers.
The trend of placing a call to the bullpen and taking the ball out of the starter’s hand relatively early in the game continues unabated.
“Everybody looks or talks about the eighth and ninth innings, but we have said it for a long time now (that) there are a lot of games that are won in the fifth through the seventh,” Tampa Bay manager Kevin Cash said at the winter meetings. “The last three outs of the game have always been shown to be tough to come by and get. But three outs are three outs, and we got to find guys that are very capable of consistently having success in those middle innings.”
The big news at the winter meetings — after the official coronations of two-way Japanese player Shohei Ohtani with the Angels and slugger Giancarlo Stanton’s trade to the Yankees, that is — was the money being showered on relievers. Hard-throwing right-hander Brandon Morrow, a journeyman at 33, signed a two-year, $21 million contract with the Chicago Cubs that could be worth as much as $30 million over three years if his 2020 option is exercised.
Tommy Hunter got two years and $18 million from Philadelphia, while former Rockies starter Juan Nicasio inked a two-year, $17 million deal with Seattle. The Phillies also landed Pat Neshek for two years and $16.3 million, while World Series champion Houston beefed up it’s bullpen by adding Joe Smith for two years and $15 million.
Minnesota, a surprise team that improved from 103 losses in 2016 to 85 wins and a wild-card berth in 2017, headed into the offseason knowing that it had to restock its bullpen.
“”I think the emphasis on the last nine outs has grown, not just the back end, and we need to figure that out,” Twins manager Paul Molitor said last Wednesday.
A short time later came word that the Twins had landed veteran right-hander Fernando Rodney. The contract was finalized Friday, with Rodney getting a one-year deal worth $4.5 million, with incentives making the deal worth as much as $6 million. But here’s the rub: Rodney turns 41 on March 18 and is entering his 16th major-league season.
No matter, baseball’s latest fad has taken root in the ‘pen.
“The last few years, the teams that have deep bullpens — the Astros, Royals, Yankees, us in Cleveland — they all had deep bullpens,” Shaw said. “The starters don’t need to go seven or eight innings anymore. They can go five or six innings, and then the rest of us can come in and throw an inning-and-a-third here, or an inning-and-a third there. It’s definitely a trend.”
So is giving big money to prime-time relievers.
Last winter was a banner year for free-agent closers, with Aroldis Chapman signing with the Yankees for five years and $86 million, Kenley Jansen getting five years and $80 million with the Dodgers and Mark Melancon signing a four-year, $62 million contract with San Francisco. They were the three richest contracts for relief pitchers in history.
Former Rockies closer Greg Holland and former Cubs closer Wade Davis remain on the market this winter, and while they might not land contracts as rich as say, Melancon’s, they’re going to be paid very well.
But there is a risk involved in signing relievers to big money. Melancon spent much of his inaugural season with the Giants on the disabled list before undergoing surgery to repair chronic compression of a muscle in his right forearm. He finished 1-2 with a 4.50 ERA over 30 innings in 32 appearances and notched only 11 saves.
Moreover, as longtime Sports Illustrated baseball guru Tom Verducci wrote during the winter meetings, signing late-game, non-closers to big contracts has backfired.
“After the 2015 season, teams handed out multiyear deals to 14 non-closer relievers at the cost of $197 million, or about $5.8 million per pitcher per season,” Verducci noted. “In just two years, 13 of those 14 pitchers have either been hurt, pitched poorly (ERA+ worse than 100) or are no longer with the same team. Only one of the 14 pitchers has pitched effectively for his signing club for two years: Joakim Soria of the Royals.”
ERA+, by the way, is a statistic that adjusts a pitcher’s ERA according to the pitcher’s ballpark, with 100 being the league average.
The Rockies made the playoffs in 2017 for the first time in eight years, thanks in large part to a much-improved bullpen. Clearly, the club believes that a deep corps of relievers is central to its success. Last year, they gave lefty Mike Dunn a three-year, $19 million deal, which at the time was the largest free-agent deal they had ever given a reliever. Holland ended up making $15 million after he reached the incentive clauses in his contract.
Now Colorado has upped the ante with the contracts given to Shaw and McGee. And it’s still conceivable that the Rockies could sign either Holland or Davis, which would mean an even richer investment in their bullpen.
“The bullpen is an important piece, but I think it’s a little big broader than that,” general manager Jeff Bridich said. “There has been a lot of time and energy spent on pitching and defense, with the idea of how can we put this team in the best position to maximize what we do on the mound and what we do behind them.”
Bridich’s idea is to stock the bullpen with high-priced arms, as well as utilize up-and-coming relievers such as Scott Oberg and Carlos Estevez. Bridich believes that more talent and depth in the ‘pen means less wear and tear on arms.
“The goal is to try and build a deep and reliable ‘pen where guys can play off each other,” Bridich said. “It doesn’t have to be the same guy to where we feel like we are rolling out the same people night in and night out.
“The goal is that the load is shared and the responsibilities are shared. And hopefully we are going to be as good as we can possibly be as a bullpen.”
