The Giants seemingly put a, ahem, cap, on their 2017-2018 offseason by signing veteran lefty reliever to a contract. Not much has been reported on the deets, but word from MLBTR is it is for more than 1 season and does not put the Giants over the CBT threshold. How about that? According to Fangraphs bio page, he earned about $5.6 M last year, so either he's taking a serious pay cut or the Giants were further from the CBT threshold than we thought, if it is true they stayed under it.
Most of Watson's career has been with the Pirates. Last year, he was traded to the Dodgers at the trade deadline after a rough first half and pitched well down the stretch for the Bad Guys. His overall line was 7-4, 3.38, 66.2 IP, 7.16 K/9, 2.70 BB/9, GB/FB= 1.62. His ERA for the first half was 3.86 going down to 2.67 in the second half. The scouting report in the MLBTR write up says he started using his 2-seam FB more and his slider less after the trade to the Dodgers and was more willing to work up in the zone, although his overall GB percentage was up for the season and was way up after his trade to the Dodgers. He pitched 7 innings in 11 postseason appearances with an ERA of 2.57. His FB tops out at about 94 MPH. His BAA is about even between L-R, but he is much stingier on long balls to lefty hitters than righties.
Watson provides early insurance against a late comeback by Will Smith and gives Bruce Bochy a double-barreled option from the left side after Smith does return. Whether there is room for a 3'rd bullpen lefty slot for Steve Okert, Josh Osich and DJ Snelton to fight over remains to be seen. The Giants veteran bullpen commitments now run 6 deep: Melancon, Dyson, Smith, Watson, Strickland and Gearrin. If the Giants go with the standard 5 man rotation and 7 man bullpen, that leaves just 1 bullpen slot and they need to fill that with a long relief/swingman person.
On paper this makes the Giants bullpen stronger, but Watson is 33 yo and his numbers have backed up over the last 2 seasons, the stretch run with the Dodgers notwithstanding. If that trend continues, it may be a disappointing acquisition for the Giants.
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i think osich and okert are now candidates to be dfa'd and released. osich is more likely be dfa'd right now.
ReplyDeleteDoc, you close with "... may be a disappointing acquisition for the Giants."
ReplyDeleteAll four "big name" acquisitions (not including Hundley and those signed to minor league contracts) come with that "warning" on their label!
That said, each fulfills an identified need for the Giants which needed addressing. It would be improbable to think that all four have better than their "average" season but to expect the average is not preposterous and would be OK, along with the rest of the roster -- just average seasons would be fine.
Expecting a "best season" for anyone over 30 is a bit much.
I was simply referring to some worrisome trends over the past two seasons, that's all.
Delete...but there's a bit more to that than simply saying ANY acquisition might be disappointing.
DeleteBig signing for the Giants to get a veteran lefty out of the pen. W Smith won't be ready till May 1. We've seen how well Bochy handled his bullpen when he had Affeldt and Lopez. That's great that Melancon helped persuade former Bucs teammate Watson to come to the Giants.
ReplyDeleteLG
Seems to be a 3 year/$7 M deal.
ReplyDeleteA vet (ie old) lefty reliever for 2.33 AAV seems like a deal. Especially, if Boch can pair him with another LOOGY to limit his innings/usage and keep him fresh.
DeleteIt is actually a complicated deal that Boras structured to utilize loopholes in the CBA that allows the Giants to sign Watson. The gist is that the loophole allows the AAV to include the third year in the divisor, even though the money in that year is not guaranteed; apparently it only counts the money in the first two years, then divide by three. I expect other teams to copy that structure to fit in players. In addition, performance escalators could easily boost his salary in 2019 so that he's making more than the $6M he got last season.
DeleteHe will earn $3MM in 2018 and $3.5MM in 2019 before considering a $2.5MM player option ($500K buyout) for 2020, per Bob Nightengale of USA Today, hence the range we saw in the news: $7M guaranteed, but up to $9M contract.
In addition, the contract is structured so that based on appearances levels being reached (easy levels if he is reasonably healthy) in 2018, that would boost his 2019 contract (i.e. not affect the 2018 CBT penalty threshold) greatly. The report is that it can get as high as $14M over two years and $21M over three years. So it looks like his 2019 contract can be boosted to as high as $11M, and his 2020 contract to as high as $7M.
Q: If Watson exactly replicates his 2017 season minus the postseason, will we look back on this as a positive acquisition?
ReplyDeleteYes, Watson should be a good acquisition if Bochy uses him in the setup role. He was the Bucs closer in 2017, where he struggled but pitched better with the Bums where he setup Jansen. He's clearly an upgrade over Osich, Okert, and maybe Blach if he's not the #5 starter.
DeleteLG
Yes, as long as he doesn't close.
DeleteIf G's get to PS and Watson duplicates 2017 PS, 2016 will become the anomaly.
Yes, for a number of reasons. First of all, any manager today needs a lefty they can rely on in their bullpen. For the last two seasons, Bochy has not really had such a lefty. Osich and Okert showed some signs of success, but mostly he didn't have a lefty.
DeleteSecond of all, Smith being out to May is just an estimate. Somebody estimated opening day originally, at worse one week. And there was no setback mentioned either! So, what if there is a setback? Watson covers Smith being out by taking Smith's role.
Third of all, Smith's return from TJS is not a fait accompli. While many come back, and some do even better, Smith might not return to his prior performance level. The good news on that is that he was so good that even if he returns at, say, 80% of before, that's still good, just not great. But without Watson, there is the risk that we again don't have a reliable lefty in the bullpen.
Fourthly, having Watson to rely on in the bullpen means that the Giants would not be forced to consider Blach in the bullpen only. Our need for a lefty was that dire. Blach can know focus more on starting, and finding whatever was missing in those latter starts where he was pummeled.
Lastly, if Smith comes back as a reliable enough lefty, he teams up with Watson, giving Bochy the ability to mix and match, LRL, when necessary, while giving him the ability to throw both of them out there for a full inning, when possible.
I agree with you DrB: good addition to the bullpen, but not without risks. Thanks for pointing out the MLBTR info on why he improved with the Dodgers. Odd that the Pirates, hailed by the Saber crowd for their analytics, did not catch onto that before trading him, whereas LAD did.
ReplyDeleteLooking at before/after, Pirates/Dodgers, his BABIP was a horrendous .340 with the Pirates, with a .824 OPS overall, great .250 BABIP with the Dodgers, .607 OPS. His career BABIP is .265, for reference.
To your point, he has definitely gone down, with his walk rate rising to 2.7 BB/9, after three seasons of 1.8 BB/9. Hard to tell what the influence was, you probably know catchers better than I do since you follow the league, so I'll throw these numbers out and see what you think, based on what you might know about the catcher's defense.
Watson had really low BB/9 with Russell Martin as C, 1.7 BB/9, low BABIP as well, 2.07 ERA. He threw to Chris Stewart (SF!) from 2014 to 2016, SSS, but had ERAs of 1.37, 2.30, and 9.82, and his BB/9 were elevated with him even in good 2014 season, about 2.5 BB/9, and his K/BB were lower too, but not that much. He was with Francisco Cervelli from 2015 to 2017, great ERA in 2015/16 of 1.87/1.89 but then bad 4.50 ERA in 2017 His K/BB fell from 3.38 to 2.92 to 2.10, as his BB/9 rose from 2.45 to 2.84 to 3.00. His BABIP jumped around: .247 to .204 to .337, so for me, felt like 2017 was revert to mean vs. 2016's low BABIP. He did poorly but still better with Grandal behind the plate, did very well with Elias Diaz and Austin Barnes, very low BB/9, very high K/9, but all SSS.
Looking at pitch framing, seems to be part of the answer. Russell Martin was good in 2013 and 2014, Cervelli good in 2015, along with Stewart then as well. But Cervelli and Stewart went down drastically in 2016, and Cervelli/Diaz were even worse in 2017. But Grandal has been one of better framers in years past and was good again for LAD in 2017, and Austin Barnes was pretty good for LAD as well.
That would appear to bode well for Watson in SF with Posey, one of the best framers since they started tracking this stat. However, Posey in 2017 had a very bad season framing, basically 2-2.5 wins less than he did previously, he was very average, for whatever reason.
Thirties, early, is where decline comes. Cervelli started going down at age 30, and was bad last season at 32. Posey was age 30 last season. Russell Martin started declining at age 32 season, Yadier Molina at age 31. He at least improved some, not to elite status anymore, but good for seasons 32-33, but went negative in 34 season.
Tyler Flowers is still great at age 31 (but he's only been catching full time for four seasons, Posey for 7 mostly full seasons). Grandal was 28 last season, Barnes 27.
Another factor: somehow the framing has been becoming less and less effective. In 2013, 8 were at 14.9+, 10 at 10+. In 2014, 7 were at 15+, 14 at 10+. In 2015, 3 were at 15+, 11 at 10+. In 2016, 3 were at 15+, 5 were at 10+. In 2017, 3 were at 15+ and 10+ (i.e. nobody 10-15). Looking at the per game numbers, seem like there are a lot of catchers still get the strike calls, but most were not playing full-time.
Plus, Hundley was pretty bad at it in 2017.