The Indians addressed an obvious need Thursday, trading for the Padres' Brad Hand and Adam Cimber in exchange for prospect Francisco Mejia. What had been a strength last year - and not just merely as strength, but a huge advantage at 8.6 pitching fWAR, second only to the Yankees. This year that strength has been a glaring weakness, with Indians' bullpen checking in at -1.3 fWAR, worse than anyone other than the Royals. What happened here? The top four relievers for the Indians last year were Andrew Miller, Bryan Shaw, Cody Allen and Joe Smith. Miller has made two trips to the DL, pitching in only 17 games so far. That's a big domino to fall - losing his contributions from last year alone has cost the Indians slightly over two wins in WAR. Shaw is toiling (really toiling, unfortunately) for the Rockies, Allen has a 4.99 ERA and Smith is on the Astros. Last year's surprise contributors Nick Goody and Tyler Olson have respective ERA's of 6.94 and 7.50. Making matters worse, Danny Salazar hasn't thrown a pitch this year and Josh Tomlin has imploded both as a starter and as a reliever.
But enough about what's gone wrong in the Indians' bullpen. What does this trade do for them going forward? First, let's look at the closing situation for the Indians. Immediately after the trade, manager Terry Francona said that Allen will remain the closer and get the majority of their save chances, though Hand could get a few looks if the opposing lineup dictated it. Of course, Friday saw both Hand *and* Allen give up homers against the Rangers, to conspire to blow a lead. As far as bad outings go, Allen's was worse - he gave up two homers, along with an additional hit and a walk. Allen might be skating on thin ice. Meanwhile, Andrew Miller is on a rehab assignment to recover from his knee injury, but still might be a couple of weeks away. Hand is really difficult to put a value/ranking right now. He was so good with the Padres, but he's also clearly not the first choice to close, but still conceivably near to falling back into that role. I upgraded his projection Saturday night, and am currently only giving him three more saves, as I think Francona will want to stay loyal to Allen if at all possible.
Before we look into the Padres' closing situation, here's a gratuitous "Fast Times At Ridgemont High" clip featuring "Mr. Hand."
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Ok, so the Padres' closer situation in the short-term is pretty clear in the short-term. Kirby Yates will be the closer following the departure of Hand and Cimber, and he'll be set up by Craig Stammen and Phil Maton. The Padres are doing exactly what a team in their position should be doing - trading off short-term assets for the best return available, regardless of need. It's interesting that they traded away Ryan Buchter and Brandon Maurer last year, and their overall bullpen performance had improved this year. Hand and Cimber were great, but Yates also has been great. In a way he reminds me of Blake Parker - a late-bloomer who struggled to get to the majors, and struggle to stick in the majors with multiple clubs before increasing his velocity in his early 30's, seeing an explosion of his strikeout rate along with that velocity gain. Yates has added a splitter which he throws nearly 35% of the time, and that pitch has been especially effective against opposing hitters.
The Padres' return in this deal is Francisco Mejia, who is nominally still a catcher and at one point was rated by many as the top-rated catching prospect in the game. The problem is, he's not very good at being a catcher - his high rating stems from his offensive skills, not his defensive skills. The Indians toyed with the idea of him playing third base before experimenting with him in the outfield this year. With Triple-A Columbus this year, Mejia caught 41 games while playing 28 in the outfield. The Padres seem committed to keeping Mejia at catcher for now, but Austin Hedges is a superior defensive catcher and the team isn't yet ready to give up on him at the plate. I still could see a scenario where both get time behind the plate, but that set-up is going to be pretty fluid for a while. Still, I like what they did - they went after someone that was once considered a blue chip prospect, even if he didn't directly fill their most pressing need. This isn't a bad lesson for rebuilding teams to learn in your keeper leagues - you should go after the best talent, period, when you're dumping, instead of fixating on positions of need. They were able to get this sort of prospect because Hand has a reasonable contract through 2020, with a team option for 2021, plus Cimber will be under club control for five more years.
Personally, however, I'm bummed about this trade - I had Hand at $11 in an NL-only keeper league, and have a decent amount of uncertainty about his role in the next couple of weeks in my mixed leagues where I owned him. I'm holding him, however - there's still too much upside to allow someone else a windfall if he gets the job later. It does illustrate the difficulty of handicapping bullpens these next couple of weeks.