Clay Buchholz - Is he worth the 2016 option?

[Bellhorn04]

Not particularly relevant. We knew he was elite in 2014, and we also knew two other things you are neglecting to mention, 1: Koji is our closer, 2: Koji is old. Lining Miller up behind Koji and grooming him to take over as closer was a sensible move, and one that was worth spreading some green to make happen. Once a pitcher breaks out like Miller did, they rarely go straight back into the toilet, usually it takes 2-3 years for the league to really get a handle on them again. It would have been a good use of money, and it would have precluded any need for the Kimbrel trade, if you think that was a bad idea.

 

Ultimately the Yankee thing is irrelevant. If we put up a competitive offer it's ultimately up to Miller. I'm not aware we did make that offer though, and that forced us to panic-buy Kimbrel later on when Koji predictably broke down (the only surprise was that he lasted as long as he did), which is stupid.

 

Well all your points are irrelevant too!

 

Just kidding.

 

As far as the money is concerned, though, what does 'competitive offer' mean? I'm pretty sure Miller was looking for the most he could get, plain and simple. It represented quite possibly the one big payday of his career. I'm guessing we would have gone as high as 4/40, but it's quite likely the Yanks would have stepped that up. And in any case you're talking about by far the most money ever paid to a reliever with one career save.

[Dojji]

Yeah but you're not paying relievers based on past value, but on what you think they will do in the future. If you're grooming him to take over when and as Koji breaks down, 4/40 isn't THAT much.

 

For some reason even as bats and starting arms double in value, people have their head stuck firmly in the past when it comes to relief contracts. That's silly. It's going to hurt you if other teams get over this bizarre holdup over actually paying relievers and you don't. Relief isn't the most valuable thing over the regular season, but we just saw how important a good bullpen can be in BOTH of the last 2 World Series. If Cleveland doesn't run out of gas in game 7, the story is about how great bullpens carried 2 otherwise unremarkable teams in a row, all the way through the postseason. When you can't afford to give up a game, a good bullpen is NOT optional.

 

I don't mind a little bit of contract control, but putting artificial barriers in the way of assembling the best bullpen available is just asinine. We're here to win, let Henry worry about the budget. Especially when the only other way around the problem you just made for yourself is to force trades that cost you prospects. We're one of the richest teams in baseball. If we want our share of wins, we need to be prepared to pay the price along ALL THREE of the critical vectors -- position players, rotation, AND BULLPEN.

 

Usually the only way to fix the bullpen without paying market rate is by paying talent -- which is frankly worse than "just money." See the Kimbrel trade as an obvious example. If you can solve a problem with just money but are so paranoid and timid about breaking convention vis-a-vis actually paying relief arms that you'd rather deal talent instead, on a franchise like the Red Sox, I'll tell you to your face that you're crazy and need to reexamine both your prejudices and your priorities.

Edited November 6, 2016 by Dojji

[moonslav59]

And yet in the same breath you guys lament that we lack elite relief.

 

Hello? If you want elite talent, pay for elite talent, and by that I mean meet the going market rate, not just what you feel you "should" pay. Lucchino thought Lester "should" be paid 4/70, look how well that worked out. W

 

Moonslav is right -- our parsimonious idea of what relievers "should" be paid, cost us a bill we had to pay in pure talent because we stiffed a guy over nothing but money. That's stupid, especially since we have lots of money.. We could have easily paid for Miller but wouldn't meet the price for Miller, and that meant we needed to panic-buy someone to cover the back end of the pen because we couldn't count on the aging Koji to cover our closer's role anymore. That's the price of being stingy with your bullpen expenses. And we're paying nearly as much for Kimbrel as we would have for Miller in pure cash, as well as the lost talent. And it's pure idiocy for a big market franchise to lose talent over crap like this.

 

if you don't want to pay what elite talent demands, don't complain that we don't have elite talent. That simple, folks. Revenue is up, and that means salaries are up. Adjust your expectations accordingly, or get used to everyone else having the best bullpen arms.

 

It would have been a wonderful thing to have signed Lester and Miller after trading them. I know it's getting old whining about spilt milk, but clearly we could have afforded both as we shortly afterwards paid more for Price and the "double whammy" Kimbrel.

 

Hopefully, we have learned a valuable lesson, but I hope we don't go too overboard to compensate for the mistakes. In my opinion, we had been doing a pretty good job evaluating our own talent and skillfully determined their value. Most of the vets we lost to free agency either declined by more than what the signed for, or we got draft picks in compensation that worked out well for us. The loss of Lester, Lackey and Miller and the return we got for them broke that trend.

 

I hated the Kimbrel trade, but I'm confident he will return to top 3 to 5 closer status in 2017. I disliked the understandable signing of Price, but I'm confident he will be better than he was this year. We filled the two positions we needed last winter with the best available players. The price was very high... too high, even more so when you look at what we could have gotten Lester and Miller for, but we have what we have, and we have to look forward and try not to repeat the mistakes of our past.

 

[Bellhorn04]

Lest we forget, the Yankees are an even richer franchise than we are. It's generally been considered bad business practice to try to outbid them because the money will get so stupid. There seems to now be a belief that Hal is cracking down and they are being much more sensible, so you can actually outbid them. Maybe.

[Dojji]

I don't care if we outbid them, WE SHOULD HAVE AT LEAST BEEN IN THE BIDDING! We should have at least been close enough to the leading offer that if he decided to go for us, no one would be scratching their heads as to why. I heard no evidence that we even TRIED to bring Miller back. If he had Boston on his list that's freaking gross negligence, and a huge indictment of Cherington's limited thinking.

[moonslav59]

A few points about Miller:

 

1) 2014 was his breakout year. In 2012 and 2013 he was just a good reliever. In 2014 he became an excellent one. But that was the only excellent season of his career to that point.

 

I think 2013 was excellent. 1.19 WHIP and 11.4 K/9.

 

The big surprise with Miller has been the drop in his BB/9. From 2006 to 2013, his BB/9 was between 4.5 and 8.7. It was over 5.0 in 5 of his first 8 years. Then, suddenly in 2014, it dropped to 2.5. This year, it was 1.1.

 

One could argue that nobody could foresee that and offering more than $36M/4 would have been a huge gamble, but many of us wanted us to do that at the time, so it's not hindsight thinking.

 

2) Up until 2014 Miller was not a closer. He had 1 career save prior to 2015.

 

True.

 

3) We were bidding against the Yankees. It's kind of humorous to think that because they paid him 4/36, an offer of 4/40 by us would have 'gotten it done', as if the Yankees would have just turned tail and walked away.

 

I was surprised he went to a team looking to be in decline, instead of a team one year removed from a ring and with an excess of top young talent.

Edited November 6, 2016 by moonslav59

[Dojji]

Oh and a word about "bububububuuuuuut he wasn't a closer."

 

DON'T FREAKING CARE. There's no reason to care at all about that. Absolutely none. A closer is a valuable role within the bullpen but it isn't the only possible valuable role for a reliver or the only one worth opening a wallet for. If a guy wants to close, that's one thing, but if he doesn't care, if he's willing to play "fireman" and work the middle innings? GREAT. And that's exactly what Miller is. He's the perfect "fireman" and he played that role to perfection this year, especially this postseason, and in the process demonstrated exactly why you DO pay for a guy who can play that role, if you can get one.

 

And if more teams were willing to entertain that role and pay a fair price for it, you bet your last dollar more relivers would be willing to pitch it. "closers" want "saves" BECAUSE ultraconservative GM's won't pay beans for middle relief. The only thing they'll consistently pay for is "saves" and relievers know that. If you want more Millers, we need to ditch that way of thinking and pay for actual performance regardless of role. We do it everywhere else. Why is the bullpen different?.

 

So take that "not a closer" talk and put it some place dark and warm. It has less than nothing to do with the discussion about whether to pay for your bullpen in money or talent. And if that's the reason you chose "talent" rather than paying for an equivalent if not superior arm and keeping your minor league reserves intact, on a FREAKING BIG MARKET TEAM, there's no word for that that is not some kind of synonym of the word "idiot."

Edited November 6, 2016 by Dojji

[Bellhorn04]

I don't care if we outbid them, WE SHOULD HAVE AT LEAST BEEN IN THE BIDDING! We should have at least been close enough to the leading offer that if he decided to go for us, no one would be scratching their heads as to why. I heard no evidence that we even TRIED to bring Miller back. If he had Boston on his list that's freaking gross negligence, and a huge indictment of Cherington's limited thinking.

 

They offered him 4/32. That's been established, hasn't it? The Yanks went 4/36. We had to outbid that. It was an auction.

[moonslav59]

Not particularly relevant. We knew he was elite in 2014, and we also knew two other things you are neglecting to mention, 1: Koji is our closer, 2: Koji is old and could break down at any time (in fact he was heavily predicted to break down in midseason 2013). Lining Miller up behind Koji and grooming him to take over as closer was a sensible move, and one that was worth spreading some green to make happen. Once a pitcher breaks out like Miller did, they rarely go straight back into the toilet, usually it takes 2-3 years for the league to really get a handle on them again. It would have been a good use of money, and it would have precluded any need for the Kimbrel trade, if you think that was a bad idea.

 

Ultimately the Yankee thing is irrelevant. If we put up a competitive offer it's ultimately up to Miller. I'm not aware we did make that offer though, and that forced us to panic-buy Kimbrel later on when Koji predictably broke down (the only surprise was that he lasted as long as he did), which is stupid.

 

Well said. My guess is that with equal offers, Miller would have chosen Boston over NYY.

[moonslav59]

Lest we forget, the Yankees are an even richer franchise than we are. It's generally been considered bad business practice to try to outbid them because the money will get so stupid. There seems to now be a belief that Hal is cracking down and they are being much more sensible, so you can actually outbid them. Maybe.

 

There were other RP'ers out there for NY to overpay that year.

[Eddy Ballgame]

I don't care if we outbid them, WE SHOULD HAVE AT LEAST BEEN IN THE BIDDING! We should have at least been close enough to the leading offer that if he decided to go for us, no one would be scratching their heads as to why. I heard no evidence that we even TRIED to bring Miller back. If he had Boston on his list that's freaking gross negligence, and a huge indictment of Cherington's limited thinking.

 

The Sox offered Miller 4/32. Miller mentions in this article that Sox made competitive offer. Miller is a big Union guy and he was clearly taking the most lucrative deal.

 

https://www.google.com/amp/nesn.com/2015/03/andrew-miller-boston-red-sox-made-an-impressive-offer-in-free-agency/amp/?client=safari

[Bellhorn04]

A few points about Miller:

 

1) 2014 was his breakout year. In 2012 and 2013 he was just a good reliever. In 2014 he became an excellent one. But that was the only excellent season of his career to that point.

 

I think 2013 was excellent. 1.19 WHIP and 11.4 K/9.

 

No, that was 2012.

 

In 2013 his WHIP went up to 1.37, which is lousy, and he missed the last half of the season. That illustrates some of the risk factors.

[Bellhorn04]

There were other RP'ers out there for NY to overpay that year.

 

Regardless, it's very presumptuous to claim the Yanks would just walk away from a guy they obviously wanted. Things haven't changed that much.

[Dojji]

They offered him 4/32. That's been established, hasn't it? The Yanks went 4/36. We had to outbid that. It was an auction.

 

THen we should have outbid it and let Miller know we'd match. Judging by his performance this postseason anything short of about 4/50 wouldn't have been a complete overpay.

[Dojji]

The Sox offered Miller 4/32. Miller mentions in this article that Sox made competitive offer. Miller is a big Union guy and he was clearly taking the most lucrative deal.

 

https://www.google.com/amp/nesn.com/2015/03/andrew-miller-boston-red-sox-made-an-impressive-offer-in-free-agency/amp/?client=safari

 

And we couldn't do better than 8M a year. Why? Because "You don't overpay for middle relief." More stupid, hidebound thinking based firmly in a long-gone era where all relievers were starter rejects rather than specialists.

 

Apparently this "conventional wisdom" holds true even if you need to groom a closer of the future, Miller was clearly one of the best available options, and you are one of the richest teams in baseball and could EASILY afford it.

 

This decision left a hole that we had to panic-buy Kimbrel to fill. That decision cost us 4 prospects over $1M/year for an elite relief talent-- pocket change for this franchise. And it forced us into acquiring an even more expensive reliever so it didn't save us a dime. -- in fact the decision not to acquire Miller cost us 4 prospects and an extra 2-3 million over the next 3 years above and beyond what he would have been paid if we matched NYY's offer "Idiotic" is the only word in my vocabulary that comes close on this one. A GM needs to look ahead better than that.

Edited November 6, 2016 by Dojji

[Bellhorn04]

THen we should have outbid it and let Miller know we'd match. Judging by his performance this postseason anything short of about 4/50 wouldn't have been a complete overpay.

 

Yeah, but that's some serious 20/20 hindsight. Miller has turned out to be better than anyone was expecting, really.

[Dojji]

It's not that much hindsight really, it just depended on him to continue to show the progress he'd already made. It's not like he had to be what he became for NYY/CLE to justify a hefty contract.

[Kimmi]

See that's stupid, because it's an example of limited thinking. Saying that there's no situations that you'd spend big money on relief just means you're not creative enough to imagine situations where elite relief is important enough to pay big money for. After this last postseason, and especially Cleveland's campaign through that postseason... let's just say I can think of a few.

 

Worse, these uncreative policy decisions have an opportunity cost that is usually recoverable in the very short term only by shedding prospects. Those innings are going to be pitched, they'd better be pitched by someone good. If you "only" get 1-2 good arms out of your "scattershot grab bag" strategy, you're going to be bleeding talent to replace relievers with better pitchers you could have paid nothing but money for in the offseason. That has consequences for a team that wants to build a more or less permanently winning team. If spending money in the offseason stops you from spending talent in the season to accomplish the same damn thing, then it's a good use of money even if it is the dreaded "big contract for a reliever."

 

No, it's not stupid. It's a sound philosophy that tends to work better than throwing big money at a reliever. It's a philosophy that works for both the short and the long term.

 

And no one said that there are no situations in which they'd spend big on relievers. The possibility is always there, though I would say there would probably be a better option for the overall improvement of the team.

[Kimmi]

And we couldn't do better than 8M a year. Why? Because "You don't overpay for middle relief." More stupid, hidebound thinking based firmly in a long-gone era where all relievers were starter rejects rather than specialists.

 

Apparently this "conventional wisdom" holds true even if you need to groom a closer of the future, Miller was clearly one of the best available options, and you are one of the richest teams in baseball and could EASILY afford it.

 

This decision left a hole that we had to panic-buy Kimbrel to fill. That decision cost us 4 prospects over $1M/year for an elite relief talent-- pocket change for this franchise. And it forced us into acquiring an even more expensive reliever so it didn't save us a dime. -- in fact the decision not to acquire Miller cost us 4 prospects and an extra 2-3 million over the next 3 years above and beyond what he would have been paid if we matched NYY's offer "Idiotic" is the only word in my vocabulary that comes close on this one. A GM needs to look ahead better than that.

 

Relievers may be specialists, but they are still largely failed starters. Is Miller not a starter reject? The fact of the matter is, you can usually find a closer or other relief pitcher to give you nearly the same or better value as a high priced reliever at a fraction of the cost.

[Kimmi]

It's not that much hindsight really, it just depended on him to continue to show the progress he'd already made. It's not like he had to be what he became for NYY/CLE to justify a hefty contract.

 

Yeah, it really is hindsight.

[moonslav59]

No, that was 2012.

 

In 2013 his WHIP went up to 1.37, which is lousy, and he missed the last half of the season. That illustrates some of the risk factors.

 

Yeah, I meant to say 2012.

 

Thanks for the correction.

[Bellhorn04]

There's no question that the current version of Andrew Miller is a very valuable commodity. He had a 3.9 bWAR this year and a 2.9 fWAR. When you combine his lights-out numbers with his ability to pitch more than an inning at a time, that's definitely a weapon.

[Slasher9]

THen we should have outbid it and let Miller know we'd match. Judging by his performance this postseason anything short of about 4/50 wouldn't have been a complete overpay.

 

we dont have unlimited budget. who does his contract replace?

also, do you think having him at $50MM makes a difference with how our postseason played out this year or our last place finish in 2015?

 

Kimbrell was a double pay. it was reason #83 for me DD is no Theo.

[Slasher9]

and when it mattered most:

2.1IP / 4H / 2ER

[mvp 78]

There's no question that the current version of Andrew Miller is a very valuable commodity. He had a 3.9 bWAR this year and a 2.9 fWAR. When you combine his lights-out numbers with his ability to pitch more than an inning at a time, that's definitely a weapon.

 

And there's no way to determine if this is the version that sticks around. His player stock has been a roller coaster and he's at a peak now.

 

I don't believe anyone on here foresaw him turning into this beast.

[Dojji]

and when it mattered most:

2.1IP / 4H / 2ER

 

After being ridden like a rented mule for the entire postseason, yes he ran out of gas at the last second. He was basically replacing 2 different starters for an entire month. The amazing thing about that performance isn't that his arm blew up, it's that his arm didn't blow up much earlier.

[Bellhorn04]

And there's no way to determine if this is the version that sticks around. His player stock has been a roller coaster and he's at a peak now.

 

I don't believe anyone on here foresaw him turning into this beast.

 

It'll be interesting to see how he does next year after pitching so many innings this year.

[Bellhorn04]

After being ridden like a rented mule for the entire postseason, yes he ran out of gas at the last second. He was basically replacing 2 different starters for an entire month. The amazing thing about that performance isn't that his arm blew up, it's that his arm didn't blow up much earlier.

 

I agree. And I don't blame Tito for overusing him, either. He did what he had to do with Carrasco and Salazar gone, and he almost made it pay off in a title.

[S5Dewey]

There was some chatter a while back about how some managers - and Tito's name was at the forefront - have changed the way the game is played. This may be another instance of it, using your best reliever in the highest leverage situations regardless of the inning. This is something Bill James has been saying for years. It'll be interesting to see if this catches on in 2017.

[harmony]

How does the $13.5 million Clay Buchholz option compare with that of Jason Hammel, whose $12 million option for 2017 has been declined by the Chicago Cubs?

 

The 32-year-old Buchholz has been valued at 5.3 fWAR in 423 innings over the past three seasons, including 0.5 fWAR in 139.1 innings this year.

 

Hammel, who is two years older than Buchholz, has been valued at 5.6 fWAR in 513.2 innings over the past three seasons, including 1.5 fWAR in 166.2 innings this year.