Matt Garza - Significant Trade Asset??

[Jose Cardenal1]

Maybe I am misreading Garza's contract details but if not Doug Melvin could be a genius for the structure.

 

The 5th year of the deal (2018) vests at $13 mill if certain thresholds are met. Unless the Brewers go to a 4 man rotation and Garza makes 39 starts, the 2018 will not vest. If the 5th year does not vest at $13 million then the team holds an option for 2018 at $5 million.

 

Now lets assume Garza bounces back to being a 3.80 - 4.00 ERA pitcher (remove his terrible July numbers and his ERA in 2016 was 3.58) and makes most or all of his starts during the first 1/2 of '17. There should be plenty of teams willing to part with good prospects to add a vet SP for the stretch run of 2017 and knowing that they could retain him for 2018 at a pittance of $5.

 

Granted there are some big "ifs" in Garza being a) healthy and b) effective but these are not pie in the sky hopes. Even if Garza has a similar 2017 as 2016 where he only makes 1/2 his starts and the results are uneven. I still see the low clearance price of $5 million for 2018 being coveted by enough teams to be able to trade him.

[pacopete4]

I think Garza threw the ball really well towards the end of last season. If we get that pitcher, consistently until July, there will be teams lining up to get him.

[MrTPlush]

Yah if he can pull together a sub 4.00 ERA then teams will be flocking to the Brewers. The Brewers will be willing to eat 2017 money and obviously 2018 will be very cheap at $5mil. Teams looking to save money or that can only afford a bargain option will want him pretty badly. Of course he needs to actually pitch good before we can plan on that situation.

[MadThinker88]

I'd rather deal Garza now then wait n hope for continued success.

 

We have seen him succeed and struggle during his time in Milwaukee. Therer is just as much chance he will regress as continuing to be a serviceable starter.

 

Both the Angels and Yankees ar looking for starting pitching for 2017. DS needs to figure out the best deal from those and close the deal.

[craigharmann]

Yes. The FA market for starters is awful. Garza used to be goodish. I'm all for whatever gets him out of Milwaukee. I didn't want him in the first place.

[MKE81]

Garza had a 3.72 ERA in his final 11 starts (2.65 in 9 of those). When he's been healthy he's been solid. If there's a good offer on the table before spring then take it. Otherwise wait for the deadline because if he's healthy someone will take him. But between Garza, Peralta, Nelson, Chase, Guerra, Davies someone should be gone before the season. Guerra is probably the easiest to move at this point as Davies isn't going anywhere.

[brewcrewdue80]

I've said from the beginning along with a few others here. His contract is Gold because of that option year. 5million or 1million regardless where he's at is desirable so long as he's healthy enough to pitch. Look at what Atlanta has done. Colon-12.5m, Dickey-8mil, even Jaime Garcia-12m. I'd take Garza over those 3 regardless of the numbers they've put up. The Cubs got paid for Garza's half season of AS pitching. We've got another year for him to represent that kind of skill for trade value rise outside of the dollar amount.

[JosephC]

Garza is a mediocre at best pitcher at this point of his career.

 

It's hard to get a feeling of his true value because the metrics vary so greatly depending on which source you use. Baseball Reference evaluated him at -1.7 WAR in 2015 and -0.3 WAR in 2016. Fangraphs has him as a 0.6 WAR player in 2015 and a 1.4 WAR in 2016. Personally I'd put him in negative territory in 2015 (hard to believe a 5.63 ERA and 1.57 WHIP could be anything over replacement value) and slightly positive in 2016. A couple of projections has put him at a 1.7 WAR for 2017 which is puzzling considering he hasn't pitched to that level since 2014 and will now be entering his age 33 season. I'd personally project him as a 0.5 WAR player and his contract is not a bargain if he's a 0.5 WAR player.

 

Garza's contract also had 2 million in deferred payments for each of the four guaranteed years of his contract. So the guaranteed money that still needs to be paid is 18.5 million. He gets paid 10.5 million in 2017 and then 2 million per season in 2018 through 2021. The five million dollar option would end up being part of a 2 year, 23.5 million dollar commitment and Garza would need to be a legitimate 3 WAR pitcher over those two seasons to make it a break even situation for the team trading for him.

 

Brewer's best bet is to hold onto him and hope he pitches way over his head through the first 3 months of 2016. Even then the Brewers would likely have to kick in a significant amount of money in a deal to cover part of the deferred payments. Currently I'd put Garza firmly in negative value territory. I'd be shocked if Stearns was able to dump this contract during the off-season.

[MKE81]

Garza is a mediocre at best pitcher at this point of his career.

 

It's hard to get a feeling of his true value because the metrics vary so greatly depending on which source you use. Baseball Reference evaluated him at -1.7 WAR in 2015 and -0.3 WAR in 2016. Fangraphs has him as a 0.6 WAR player in 2015 and a 1.4 WAR in 2016. Personally I'd put him in negative territory in 2015 (hard to believe a 5.63 ERA and 1.57 WHIP could be anything over replacement value) and slightly positive in 2016. A couple of projections has put him at a 1.7 WAR for 2017 which is puzzling considering he hasn't pitched to that level since 2014 and will now be entering his age 33 season. I'd personally project him as a 0.5 WAR player and his contract is not a bargain if he's a 0.5 WAR player.

 

Garza's contract also had 2 million in deferred payments for each of the four guaranteed years of his contract. So the guaranteed money that still needs to be paid is 18.5 million. He gets paid 10.5 million in 2017 and then 2 million per season in 2018 through 2021. The five million dollar option would end up being part of a 2 year, 23.5 million dollar commitment and Garza would need to be a legitimate 3 WAR pitcher over those two seasons to make it a break even situation for the team trading for him.

 

Brewer's best bet is to hold onto him and hope he pitches way over his head through the first 3 months of 2016. Even then the Brewers would likely have to kick in a significant amount of money in a deal to cover part of the deferred payments. Currently I'd put Garza firmly in negative value territory. I'd be shocked if Stearns was able to dump this contract during the off-season.

Completely disagree. He was injured in 2015 and ended up being shut down the final 5wks. He had 26 starts with his final 4 being awful before being shut down, most likely due to injury. The first 22 he had a 4.8 ERA. Additionally, outside of one of those 22 starts (10ER) he posted a 4.24 ERA. His overall ERA needs some context.

 

2016 he missed a lot of time with that spring injury and his final 11 starts (of his 19 overall) he posted numbers in line with his entire career. 9 of those starts he had a 2.65 ERA. So, no, he's not a mediocre pitcher at best. When he's healthy he's solid. When he's injured he's terrible. And right now he's healthy and his final 11 starts proved it.

[pacopete4]

Calling Garza mediocre is just not a good judgement. When healthy he still is a very good pitcher and a guy you would want taking the ball every 5 days.

[adambr2]

Calling Garza mediocre is just not a good judgement. When healthy he still is a very good pitcher and a guy you would want taking the ball every 5 days.

 

'Very good' is definitely a stretch, even during those last 11 healthy starts his numbers were almost completely average for a starter.

 

Garza is a salary dump. Anyone expecting us to receive anything of significance for him, barring a real hot first half in 2017 and then a trade, is going to be very disappointed.

[adambr2]

Garza is a mediocre at best pitcher at this point of his career.

 

It's hard to get a feeling of his true value because the metrics vary so greatly depending on which source you use. Baseball Reference evaluated him at -1.7 WAR in 2015 and -0.3 WAR in 2016. Fangraphs has him as a 0.6 WAR player in 2015 and a 1.4 WAR in 2016. Personally I'd put him in negative territory in 2015 (hard to believe a 5.63 ERA and 1.57 WHIP could be anything over replacement value) and slightly positive in 2016. A couple of projections has put him at a 1.7 WAR for 2017 which is puzzling considering he hasn't pitched to that level since 2014 and will now be entering his age 33 season. I'd personally project him as a 0.5 WAR player and his contract is not a bargain if he's a 0.5 WAR player.

 

Garza's contract also had 2 million in deferred payments for each of the four guaranteed years of his contract. So the guaranteed money that still needs to be paid is 18.5 million. He gets paid 10.5 million in 2017 and then 2 million per season in 2018 through 2021. The five million dollar option would end up being part of a 2 year, 23.5 million dollar commitment and Garza would need to be a legitimate 3 WAR pitcher over those two seasons to make it a break even situation for the team trading for him.

 

Brewer's best bet is to hold onto him and hope he pitches way over his head through the first 3 months of 2016. Even then the Brewers would likely have to kick in a significant amount of money in a deal to cover part of the deferred payments. Currently I'd put Garza firmly in negative value territory. I'd be shocked if Stearns was able to dump this contract during the off-season.

Completely disagree. He was injured in 2015 and ended up being shut down the final 5wks. He had 26 starts with his final 4 being awful before being shut down, most likely due to injury. The first 22 he had a 4.8 ERA. Additionally, outside of one of those 22 starts (10ER) he posted a 4.24 ERA. His overall ERA needs some context.

 

2016 he missed a lot of time with that spring injury and his final 11 starts (of his 19 overall) he posted numbers in line with his entire career. 9 of those starts he had a 2.65 ERA.

 

Without looking it up, I'll bet I can make any regular starter on our team last year look great if I cherry pick the best 9 starts over an 11 start stretch .

 

EDIT: Ok, I looked one up just for fun. Chase Anderson had a 2.96 ERA in his last 11 starts. 2.37 if you just take his best 9 of those.

[reillymcshane]

If Garza can play well to start 2017, he could easily be tradable at mid season. I think teams just need to believe he's righted the ship.

 

Peralta, Nelson, Davies, Guerra, Anderson, Garza. That's six starters to begin 2017. Odds are something happens to someone - like Garza getting hurt to start 2016. But I hope we Hader is ready by mid-season. Any of the six guys listed above - not just Garza - could be traded for the right price.

[JohnBriggs12]

Calling Garza mediocre is just not a good judgement. When healthy he still is a very good pitcher and a guy you would want taking the ball every 5 days.

 

'Very good' is definitely a stretch, even during those last 11 healthy starts his numbers were almost completely average for a starter.

 

Garza is a salary dump. Anyone expecting us to receive anything of significance for him, barring a real hot first half in 2017 and then a trade, is going to be very disappointed.

 

Agree. He could be moved this winter but realistically only in a swap of equally bad contracts. Maybe a team will buy into the possibility of his value going up and give a little more. If they do, the Brewers should take it and make some room for a young arm or two to compete for a rotation spot.

[MKE81]

Garza is a mediocre at best pitcher at this point of his career.

 

It's hard to get a feeling of his true value because the metrics vary so greatly depending on which source you use. Baseball Reference evaluated him at -1.7 WAR in 2015 and -0.3 WAR in 2016. Fangraphs has him as a 0.6 WAR player in 2015 and a 1.4 WAR in 2016. Personally I'd put him in negative territory in 2015 (hard to believe a 5.63 ERA and 1.57 WHIP could be anything over replacement value) and slightly positive in 2016. A couple of projections has put him at a 1.7 WAR for 2017 which is puzzling considering he hasn't pitched to that level since 2014 and will now be entering his age 33 season. I'd personally project him as a 0.5 WAR player and his contract is not a bargain if he's a 0.5 WAR player.

 

Garza's contract also had 2 million in deferred payments for each of the four guaranteed years of his contract. So the guaranteed money that still needs to be paid is 18.5 million. He gets paid 10.5 million in 2017 and then 2 million per season in 2018 through 2021. The five million dollar option would end up being part of a 2 year, 23.5 million dollar commitment and Garza would need to be a legitimate 3 WAR pitcher over those two seasons to make it a break even situation for the team trading for him.

 

Brewer's best bet is to hold onto him and hope he pitches way over his head through the first 3 months of 2016. Even then the Brewers would likely have to kick in a significant amount of money in a deal to cover part of the deferred payments. Currently I'd put Garza firmly in negative value territory. I'd be shocked if Stearns was able to dump this contract during the off-season.

Completely disagree. He was injured in 2015 and ended up being shut down the final 5wks. He had 26 starts with his final 4 being awful before being shut down, most likely due to injury. The first 22 he had a 4.8 ERA. Additionally, outside of one of those 22 starts (10ER) he posted a 4.24 ERA. His overall ERA needs some context.

 

2016 he missed a lot of time with that spring injury and his final 11 starts (of his 19 overall) he posted numbers in line with his entire career. 9 of those starts he had a 2.65 ERA.

 

Without looking it up, I'll bet I can make any regular starter on our team last year look great if I cherry pick the best 9 starts over an 11 start stretch .

 

EDIT: Ok, I looked one up just for fun. Chase Anderson had a 2.96 ERA in his last 11 starts. 2.37 if you just take his best 9 of those.

Genius response. You really got me there. Was Chase injured in ST missing the first 2.5 months of the season with barely any ramping up (unlike ST)? Now show me how Chase's numbers over his final 11 starts mirror his entire career. You can't

 

EDIT: chase had a 3.28 ERA over his final 16 starts. Take away 13 of those where he gave up runs and it was 0.00 (see what I did here?)

[brewerfan82]

Completely disagree. He was injured in 2015 and ended up being shut down the final 5wks. He had 26 starts with his final 4 being awful before being shut down, most likely due to injury. The first 22 he had a 4.8 ERA. Additionally, outside of one of those 22 starts (10ER) he posted a 4.24 ERA. His overall ERA needs some context.

 

2016 he missed a lot of time with that spring injury and his final 11 starts (of his 19 overall) he posted numbers in line with his entire career. 9 of those starts he had a 2.65 ERA.

 

Without looking it up, I'll bet I can make any regular starter on our team last year look great if I cherry pick the best 9 starts over an 11 start stretch .

 

EDIT: Ok, I looked one up just for fun. Chase Anderson had a 2.96 ERA in his last 11 starts. 2.37 if you just take his best 9 of those.

Genius response. You really got me there. Was Chase injured in ST missing the first 2.5 months of the season with barely any ramping up (unlike ST)? Now show me how Chase's numbers over his final 11 starts mirror his entire career. You can't

 

EDIT: chase had a 3.28 ERA over his final 16 starts. Take away 13 of those where he gave up runs and it was 0.00 (see what I did here?)

I'm pretty sure that was exactly his point...

[adambr2]

Genius response. You really got me there. Was Chase injured in ST missing the first 2.5 months of the season with barely any ramping up (unlike ST)? Now show me how Chase's numbers over his final 11 starts mirror his entire career. You can't

 

EDIT: chase had a 3.28 ERA over his final 16 starts. Take away 13 of those where he gave up runs and it was 0.00 (see what I did here?)

 

Not really sure why you felt that the snide, sarcastic response was necessary. The point I was making, the only point, was to illustrate that most starters can look pretty good if you take a favorable sample, not to mention pulling an even more favorable sample from that first sample.

 

Chase Anderson had zero to do with it other than simply being used as Exhibit A to illustrate my original point. I never was saying 'Chase Anderson is better than Matt Garza because of sample X.'

 

You have to take the bad with the good in determining trade value, and Garza's good stretch over the end of 2016 and career track record isn't enough to overcome his overall struggles the last 2 years, his recent injuries, and his relatively expensive 2017 salary in making him an asset that a team would be willing to give up anything of real value for.

[adambr2]

I'm pretty sure that was exactly his point...

 

Yep, you said it better than me in a lot less words.

[A Swing and A Drive]

It's inspiring how Brewer fans are so optimistic and love taking "the glass is half FULL!" approach to evaluating our players and trade assets.

 

 

 

 

 

As far as Garza goes, not only is the glass half empty, but there is a leak in the glass and it's draining fast.

 

I'd do a back-flip if a team gave ANYTHING of value for the water that's left in THAT glass.

[LouisEly]

It's about context, specifically the current market. Rich Hill, who had a great year last year but is 37, has 9.8 career bWAR, and only twice in his career has ever started 20 games in a season, just set the bar at 3/$48M.

 

Garza, who just turned 33, has a career 14.1 bWAR, and has started 20 games in a season seven times, is due $12.5M this year and likely $5M next year, for a total of $17.5M for two years.

 

Average starting pitching, and risky above average starting pitching, is expensive.

[adambr2]

It's about context, specifically the current market. Rich Hill, who had a great year last year but is 37, has 9.8 career bWAR, and only twice in his career has ever started 20 games in a season, just set the bar at 3/$48M.

 

Garza, who just turned 33, has a career 14.1 bWAR, and has started 20 games in a season seven times, is due $12.5M this year and likely $5M next year, for a total of $17.5M for two years.

 

Average starting pitching, and risky above average starting pitching, is expensive.

 

Rich Hill got 48M because he's coming off an extremely good season, Garza is not.

 

Career numbers matter but with the career projectory of these two, it's much more about 'What have you done for me lately?'

 

The concerns about his age, health and career workload are certainly legitimate and I would bet it's much more likely than not that the Dodgers end up regretting this deal.

[endaround]

It's about context, specifically the current market. Rich Hill, who had a great year last year but is 37, has 9.8 career bWAR, and only twice in his career has ever started 20 games in a season, just set the bar at 3/$48M.

 

Garza, who just turned 33, has a career 14.1 bWAR, and has started 20 games in a season seven times, is due $12.5M this year and likely $5M next year, for a total of $17.5M for two years.

 

Average starting pitching, and risky above average starting pitching, is expensive.

 

Rich Hill got 48M because he's coming off an extremely good season, Garza is not.

 

Career numbers matter but with the career projectory of these two, it's much more about 'What have you done for me lately?'

 

The concerns about his age, health and career workload are certainly legitimate and I would bet it's much more likely than not that the Dodgers end up regretting this deal.

 

But Volquez (also 33) just got a 2 year $22 million deal. Garza was a better pitcher last year (over a shorter span). Garza had a Fip- of 101, and average for a starter is really good, making him a low 2 high 3 type. Offense is back up, a 4.50 ERA is average again.

[adambr2]

Volquez had a very nice 2015 though, so it's easier to look at his 2016 as an aberration, Garza is now coming off of an okay year following a terrible year.

 

I am not saying Garza couldn't possibly get 2/22 in this market, I'm just saying he has relatively no trade value.

[adambr2]

Good article explaining the math behind why Garza's contract is one of baseball's worst.

 

http://teamstre.am/2o22BgS

[Jose Cardenal1]

Boilerplate article based on the beginning of the contract. Yes it is a terrible contract that everyone would love to go back in time and not do. But to focus on the past at this point is stupid. I can think of a whole lot of contracts out there with a ton of money yet to be paid that I would rather not have. The fact that Garza could (COULD, not likely, COULD) perform decently this year makes the 5th year a possible asset. A first half like Garza's second half last year and he is very movable.