LHP Patrick Corbin is widely regarded as the top FA pitcher in this year's class, and he's coming off a great season for the D'Backs. He's also relatively young for a FA at age 29. The Yankees are reportedly hot on his trail and they have money to spend. He gonna get paid! Let's break it down:
Performance: Corbin made 33 starts for the D'Backs totaling 200 IP with a 3.15 ERA, the best of his MLB career by a fairly wide margin. His career ERA is 3.91. His K/9 took a huge jump from 8.45 to 11.07 while his BB/9 has dropped over the past 3 seasons from 3.82 to 2.89 to 2.16. The numbers do not look flukey as the ERA comes with a FIP of 2.47 and an xFIP of 2.61. It should be noted, however, that his numbers in prior years do not come anywhere near his 2018 performance.
Stuff: When Corbin entered the league in 2012, he had a standard 3-pitch mix throwing his FB 70% with 15% slider and 15% changeup. Over the years, the FB use has trended down while the slider use has trended up. In 2018, he threw the FB 49% and the slider 41%. He also ditched his changeup for a curveball defying the notion that a LHP has to have a changeup to keep LH hitters honest. He remains a groundball heavy pitcher with a GB/FB of 1.79. Red Flag: Avg. FB velocity dropped from 92.4 to 90.8 in 2018.
Intangibles: I don't know of any personality or clubhouse issues with Corbin. He seemed to be particularly tough on the Giants(who wasn't, I guess) with a 2.27 ERA. The Yankees have a particularly need for LH SP's to protect that short porch in RF. Think about it. All great Yankee teams have had great LH SP's from Whitey Ford to Ron Guidry to Andy Pettite.
Summary: Someone is going to overpay for Patrick Corbin and his career year. That someone is likely to be the Yankees. He has several "Red Flags" which would make me stay away: 1. Coming off a career year. 2. Drop in FB velocity. 3. Dependence on the slider. I say you live by the slider, you die by the slider. The Giants should just stay away.
Prediction: Signs with the Yankees for 5 years/$90 M, maybe more.
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I think, for starting pitching, Sonny Gray makes the most sense. The Yankees want to unload him and he could be had cheaply.
ReplyDelete....and wasn't Curt Young his pitching coach in Oakland?
DeleteI believe he was. And the Giants and Yankees have been friendly trading partners of late.
DeleteAnother reason to think twice is he had TJ surgery in 2014.
ReplyDeleteLG
Hasn’t everyone had TJS?
DeleteSonny Gray is a nice bounce back candidate but I'm sure he'll get a lot of interest from teams thinking the same.
ReplyDeleteSince Giants are not going full rebuild, they need to do all they can to get to league average offense and hope for good health in starting pitching and all around solid bullpen to get them to 88-89 wins for shot at WC.
Various ways to get to league average:
Superstar route: Giants have almost no chance of signing Harper or Machado. How about shooting for the moon for Paul Goldschmidt? Maybe if you wave enough controllable years in front of Hazen he might bite: whatever combination among Steven Duggar, Austin Slater, Chris Shaw, Joe Panik, Jacob Gonzalez, Jalen Miller for one year of Goldschmidt? You can always trade him at the deadline and try to get a better package of younger prospects.
Taking on bad contracts route: There are a bunch of combinations out there but how about taking on Shin Soo Choo's 2 years of $21 mil and Jurickson Profar for a combination of Hunter Strickland, Ray Black, Melvin Adon, Alex Canario, Sandro Fabian, etc.
Free agency: the only one that interests me is A.J. Pollock. Doc thinks around 5/75? He might be able to get Lorenzo Cain's 5/80. Might be too many years but again, he can probably be flipped if the team flounders before the trade deadline.
Trade: Young players blocked or performed under expectation include Domingo Santana, Ian Happ, Dereck Fisher
Fantasy scenario: Sign A.J. Pollock for 5/75, trade for Paul Goldschmidt and Shin Soo Choo and Jurickson Profar.
Lineup:
CF A.J. Pollock
RF Shin Soo Choo (L)
1B Paul Goldschmidt
LF Brandon Belt (L)
C Buster Posey
SS Brandon Crawford (L)
3B Evan Longoria
2B Jurickson Profar (S)
This lineup should be better than league average. Anyway, will be interesting to see what path the new GM takes.
Wouldn't mind any of these: Chaim Bloom, Matt Arnold, or Jason McLeod.