In the wake of the Giants trade/dump of Matt Moore to the Rangers, speculation abounds that their next move will be to sign OF Jay Bruce. Is this a good idea? Let's break it down.
Jay Bruce is a former #12 overall draft pick by the Cincinnati Reds in 2015. He has had his ups and downs as a player but has been a reasonably reliable source of power hitting 277 HR's in 10 MLB seasons or 29 per 600 PA's. Bruce has been a 3-true outcomes type player with the dingers, fairly high walk rates, fairly high K rates and fairly low BA's. Defensively, he's been below average in ballparks with easier RF's to cover than AT&T Park. MLBTR predicts his contract will be for 3 years/$39 M. So, what are the pros and cons of the Giants signing Jay Bruce?
Pros:
1. He hits dingers. The Giants desperately need power in their lineup, especially HR power, and Bruce gives them that.
2. He is not intimidated by AT&T Park. Bruce has hit better in AT&T Park than most parks he has played in: .293/.357/.526, 6 2B, 7 HR, 130 PA for his career. So he might not come with the standard downgrade in park factors.
3. His contract, while not negligible if you believe MLBTR, won't break the bank or cripple the Giants payroll into the 2020's.
Cons:
1. Bruce's BA has been barely over the Mendoza Line as recently as 2015 and he has had just one season with an fWAR above 1.0 in the last 4. The risk of regression to well below 2.0 is high.
2. The Giants don't just need to upgrade power. They also need to upgrade OF defense and RF in AT&T Park is way more challenging than most. They really need a RF with CF speed to cover the Triples Alley. Bruce is a below average defender in RF even in more fielding friendly parks. He could move to LF but would he agree to that and how well would he play it? He has essentially never played LF.
3. The Giants have just given themselves a bit of breathing room on the CBT threshold. Bruce's contract would bump them right back up against it with all of the risk described in #1 and #2 above.
Summary: While I think there is a reasonable chance Bruce would give the Giants close to 30 dingers even playing half his games in AT&T Park, he comes with too much risk and would be a defensive liability in RF. I believe there are better ways for the Giants to allocate the small amount of payroll space they got from the Matt Moore deal. They should not sign Jay Bruce.
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I agree. No Bruce, no Martinez either in my opinion. Frazier for 3B and fill-in at 1B so that the Giants are protected if they trade Belt, say for Bradley Jr— this latter depends on how much trust they have in Arroyo to take over 3B if Frazier moves primarily to 1B. That leaves one OF position needed, and some time to see how likely Slater is to fill it. Pence/Span other OF.
ReplyDeleteOne more negative: Bruce hits lefthanded with a fairly extreme L-R split which only exacerbates the Giants problems with LH pitching.
ReplyDeleteSigning Bruce makes no sense unless they dump Span's salary. They're currently under the cap by $20 mil? As mentioned Bruce's salary alone might put them right up against it again. Will they even be able to make Frazier an competitive offer..
ReplyDeleteI was hoping that Evans could pull off a trade for a cheaper alternative like A Garcia, but Pavs said the deals they'll finalize next week is for Free agents which is a little disappointing.
I like your idea of trading MADBUM for multiple players, but not sure if Evans is bold enough to do it. Can't imagine Evans telling the media, "I'm not an idiot", like Sabean did when he traded Matt Williams, lol..
LG
No to Jay Bruce or any pricey FA.
ReplyDeleteSome trade scenarios I'd like them to explore:
Andrew McCuthchen for RF and Josh Harrison for 3B. Pirates seem to be looking to shed payroll and rebuild farm.
Derek Fisher for CF. Astros have a full OF and although Marwin Gonzalez's flexibility means Fisher isn't blocked I think he can be had for a package built around Aramis Garcia and Hunter Strickland.
Ian Happ for RF, Mike Montgomery SP - Cubs might be interested in a reunion with Jeff Samardzija. There's rumblings Montgomery isn't happy with his bullpen role. I think he can come close to Samardzija's value in 2018. Giants might have to kick in some money and prospects
Derek Fisher and Ian Happ are two young hitters I'm most bullish on for 2018. These are the type of guys you want to get in right now.
Bruce has been, mostly, a positive OFer in RF when he gets something within his catch radius. But he's not up to being a RFer in a big park like AT&T or Kaufmann.
ReplyDeleteWhat I don't like is that his BABIP is chronically low (.283 for his career). We're not talking bad-luck low. We're talking whatever he's doing as a hitter is sub-optimal at the MLB level. Not horribly sub-optimal by all means. But sub-optimal for a team, like the Giants, that needs to be able to create runs with more than power considering the power-constraints AT&T imposes.
So, as a LFer, he'd be better than the Morse signing all those years ago. But that'd mean we'd have three LFers and we'd have to do a salary dump somewhere else.
The reason why Bruce's BABIP is low is he is an extreme flyball hitter which is all the rage these days. It's why he hits so many HR's. The downside is flyballs are less likely to not get caught than groundballs so there tends to be an inverse correlation between HR's and BABIP.
DeleteAh. Thank you.
DeleteIn baseball years JB is just another "middle aged" flawed player. For the reasons already stated (esp. he will not put them over the top) I oppose a JB signing and if that transpires, alienated, I will not follow the team as closely as last year. The team needs to get younger and more athletic and not waste precious $$ on players past their prime (see Span, Pence, Cain, Rowand, maybe Melanacon who all signed big $ deals that expired when the player had little left in the tank).
ReplyDeleteI'm with you J - although if they are in last place May/June I'll bet there'll be a lot of July deadline deals which will be more fun to see who they can get for their #1 #2 and #3 starters, maybe even offload a lefty 1B while they're at it. I might just like to see how the A's get along in the ferocious looking AL West...
ReplyDeleteIshikawa was signed to be a hitting coach for one of the AZL Giants teams. Woah! When did the Grants add a second AZL team. Really cool and long overdue. Now they have more spots to play these prospects and new draftees. Did you remember hearing about this Doc?
ReplyDeletelink:
https://www.mlb.com/giants/news/san-francisco-giants-announce-2018-player-development-staff/c-263622118
Keep up the good work.
Clint in Anaheim Hills
IMO, it's a very good thing for the Giants to add a second Arizona rookie league team. Too many prospects who I think have a chance who just couldn't find playing time with must one team at that level
DeleteYeah, Bruce is not good, with many risks. I see any reported interest to be more of the Giants age-old "kicking the tires" contact that agents then feed to reporters to show that their player is in demand. I would compare this to when they contacted Sheffield to see if he would be willing to take a $10M contact (he eventually ended up with a $13M per year contract, to show how ridiculous that was); they probably lowballed him to see if he would bite, and presumably has already moved on.
ReplyDelete