Matthew Boyd

[mlloyd10]

With the Tigers still in in rebuild mode and Boyd pitching good this year....Would the tigers be interested in moving him? He's only making 2.8mil this season and has 3 more years of Arb...

[Brew crew 92]

With the Tigers still in in rebuild mode and Boyd pitching good this year....Would the tigers be interested in moving him? He's only making 2.8mil this season and has 3 more years of Arb...

 

Goodness gracious no.

 

Avila would want Rasmussen Turang Ashby and Burnes.

[IIAY]

Article in The Athletic today by Robert Murray specifically highlights Boyd as someone the Brewers are keeping an eye on. Dubon and Ray are mentioned as possible targets.

 

https://theathletic.com/1040556/2019/06/21/would-the-brewers-trade-one-of-their-best-prospects-for-a-top-of-the-rotation-starter-you-better-believe-it/

 

Elite starting pitchers rarely become available. This year figures to be no different. Among the candidates to be dealt: Giants left-hander Madison Bumgarner, Blue Jays right-hander Marcus Stroman and Rangers left-hander Mike Minor. There’s little chatter among executives and agents that the Brewers are in on any of those. But they have been eyeballing Tigers left-hander Matthew Boyd.

 

Boyd, 28, presents much of what the Brewers covet: undeniable upside, and controllable cost. He won’t be a free agent until the end of 2022. He is having a breakout season in 2019, with a 3.35 ERA and a 112/17 strikeout-to-walk ratio in 88.2 innings, easily topping his previous career highs. Executives who have spoken to the Tigers say that it is possible they’ll deal Boyd – “I’d be surprised if he doesn’t move,” one high-ranking National League team official said – but with one requirement: if you want him, you will have to pay a premium.

 

The Brewers and Tigers do line up for a potential trade. Detroit’s farm system is starved of difference-making bats, with the club specifically needing upgrades at shortstop, among other positions.

[homer]

To get Boyd I'd pretty much be willing to part with anyone in the minors not named Hiura.

[Lathund]

I don't know much abouy Boyd beyond the stats so hard to say how much he'd be worth, but it's the type of signing (young-ish and controllable for several years but with some experience. And being a lefty doesn't hurt) that I'm willing to give up something for. Giving up "real" prospects for rentals doesn't appeal to me at all.

[trwi7]

Dubon and Ray are mentioned as possible targets.

 

Boy, that would be enough for us to finish 29th out of 29 in the bidding.

[trwi7]

To get Boyd I'd pretty much be willing to part with anyone in the minors not named Hiura.

 

You're parting with Hiura or you're not getting him.

[homer]

To get Boyd I'd pretty much be willing to part with anyone in the minors not named Hiura.

 

You're parting with Hiura or you're not getting him.

 

Darn.

[IntentionalHBP]

To get Boyd I'd pretty much be willing to part with anyone in the minors not named Hiura.

 

You're parting with Hiura or you're not getting him.

I didn’t know Boyd was a bonafide ace

[brooks_quichenick]

To get Boyd I'd pretty much be willing to part with anyone in the minors not named Hiura.

 

You're parting with Hiura or you're not getting him.

 

Didn't know we had a member of the Tigers Front Office posting here. Cool!

[trwi7]

Oh, you're right guys. The Tigers are just going to trade their 28 year old who's posted 7 WAR in his last 394 innings who has three more years of team control for guys like Ray and Dubon because they really like us.

[JosephC]

I agree with trwi7, if a deal is limited to minor leaguers than it's Hiura or nothing. I'd go as far as saying that if Stearns was to make a call, he better have one of these four names, Yelich, Hiura, Hader, Woodruff, pop out of his mouth within the first five sentences or else he's just wasting his time.

[HiAndTight]

Oh, you're right guys. The Tigers are just going to trade their 28 year old who's posted 7 WAR in his last 394 innings who has three more years of team control for guys like Ray and Dubon because they really like us.

 

 

You make an absolute statement that you cannot get him without Hiura and godforbid someone questions you're authority to speak in absolutes about what will and will NOT happen, you create a strawman argument and claim that everyone on here believes we're going to be able to get him for Dubon and Ray.

 

Who actually said that? Who actually said we'd get him for those two players? You do realize we have more than 3 players in our farm system?

 

Also, he's 28 and has produced 2.1 and 2.2 WAR the previous two years before his breakout year this year. He looks to me like Mike Fiers if he'd have put together a huge year in 2016 and been a few years younger He's extremely valuable and we'd have to give up a lot for him. But you DO NOT know if it's Hiura of nothing to get him. In fact, I REALLY doubt it's a top 15 prospect who's already shown he can hit big league pitching or NOTHING.

 

Turang, Grisham, Rasmussen and Ray...that wouldn't do it because there's no Keston Hiura? We've got no clue, so lets not pretend we do.

[HiAndTight]

To get Boyd I'd pretty much be willing to part with anyone in the minors not named Hiura.

 

You're parting with Hiura or you're not getting him.

I didn’t know Boyd was a bonafide ace

 

 

Because he's not. ERA's of 4.39 and 5.27 the past two years, xFIP near 5, he's starting to get expensive, and he's seen a big jump in his K rate.

 

And if he was a guy who threw in the mid to upper 90's and had made an adjustment to his mechanics that helped him improve his command or something that accounted for the big first half, you'd have a better case to argue that he was a bonadfide ace. But he's more like a Mike Fiers who's having a breakout year at about the same time Mike Fiers had one, but better.

 

He's certainly got a lot of value, but we're not talking about Walker Buehler here. He's 28, throws in the low 90's and is having a great year.

[JohnBriggs12]

The old adage was that left handed pitchers take longer to develop. I don't know how true that is. I think it goes back to the days of Sandy Koufax. Boyd's WHIP went from 1.556 in 2017 to 1.157 in 2018. So it's not like his 2019 came out of nowhere. Detroit's still a few years away at best. If Tigers want to take a Shaw or Aguilar or both thinking if they turn it around, plus an arm like Anderson to fill in they could be added to prospect package. I think Brewers would have to include a Supak or Peralta, Ray and at least one or two lower level prospects with upside.

[JosephC]

While Boyd seems to have blossomed into a very good pitcher, I really wouldn't be interested in trading for him based on the history. 4.74 xFIP in 2016, 5.01 xFIP in 2017, 4.72 xFIP in 2018. But I don't see any "luck stat" which is helping Boyd's performance this year, he is boasting a 6+ K/BB ratio and almost every peripheral I can find supports the idea that he is pitching at a "very good to great" level this year. About the only thing to knock him on is that he's surrendered 1.3 HR/9, but that number doesn't seem that out of line when playing with a juiced baseball.

 

Pro-rate what he's done so far this year over a full season, and he's a 5.85 bWAR/fWAR player. He's never pitched like this before, so let's add this number to the previous two years and take the average of 2017-2019, and he comes out as a 3.2 bWAR/fWAR player. So let's say Boyd is a 3.2 bWAR/fWAR player, which is probably a pretty fair number. That would make him a 1.7 WAR value for the rest of this year, 3.2 WAR for 2020 and 2021, and then let's knock off 0.5 WAR for age decline (will be his age 31 season) and assess him as a 2.7 WAR player for 2022. That makes him worth 10.8 WAR over the remainder of his team controlled years. I've gone back and checked the numbers for some former Super Two pitchers. The one that sticks out the most is Bauer, but Boyd hasn't posted the ERAs that Bauer has. Maybe the best comparable in terms of overall effectiveness would be Stroman, so I've taken Stroman's salaries and adjusted them up a bit to account for inflation. When doing so I came up with 1.4 million for the remainder of this year, 4.25 million in 2020, 7.25 million in 2021 and 9 million in 2022. Total salary would be 21.9 million. So 10.8 WAR * 9 million = 97.2 million - 21.9 million = 75.3 million in surplus value.

 

Turang has emerged as the second best Brewer prospect and I would put a prospect surplus value on him at 20.9 million. Ray I would put at 17.1 million (and probably dropping fast). Lutz...Fangraphs still has him really high but outside of that...still pretty average OBP and OPS in MiLB this season (may be playing at a level higher than he should be?)...I'd guess the average MLB club would put a surplus value on him at around 10 million. Dubon = 6.3 million. Zack Brown...despite the poor statistics this year...I'd still guess 8 million on him. Ashby & Feliciano...making strong runs at top 300 status...currently both at 5.5 million but with a bullet.

 

So just doing the numbers, I don't see Boyd as a possibility without Hiura.

 

On the flip side, if I was Detroit, I'd be super motivated to move him. Tigers have seemed to take another step backward this season. MiLB pitching looks pretty good for them. And I'd still be thinking about Michael Fulmer. They had the chance to probably get a real good return for him but held and now he has no value at all. But one has to take the numbers into consideration to make sure value is achieved. I would be very motivated to sell Boyd and would go well below the surplus value number of 75, but would have a real issue with dropping that number below 60. Even at that discount, Brewers would have to surrender Turang (20.9), Ray (17.1), Lutz (10), Brown (8) OR Dubon (6.3) and Ashby (5.5) OR Feliciano (5.5) to hit the 60 million in prospect surplus value plateau...and that would be with the Tigers selling low IMO. So could it be done without Hiura...maybe. But if getting it done without Hiura is a long shot, and even if possible, is likely going to clean out the #2-#9 range of the farm system.

[OldHeidelberg]

It sounds like we should have Davies on the block

[JosephC]

Boyd is on track for a 5.85 bWAR/fWAR season and Davies is on track for a 2.9 bWAR/fWAR season. So Davies is roughly half what Boyd is, just looking at one season's value. Add in Davies puny strikeout rate, and his value doesn't exactly play up on the market (see Dallas Keuchel).

 

Just as a side note, it would be interesting to see if Detroit would actually desire Davies to backfill the spot opened by Boyd's departure. Maybe Boyd for Davies/Turang/Lutz/Ashby. I don't think there is any possibility of this, but it's kind of fun to just start plugging in names to see what crazy possibilities might be out there. And even though, but just about every measure, Boyd would be an upgrade over Davies...I'm still not sure if adding Boyd really helps the Brewers all that much if you end up deleting one of the team's more reliable starters in the same deal (along with including 3 of the team's ten best prospects).

[OldHeidelberg]

fWAR doesn't like pitchers like Davies very much, I think it's flawed in that regard so I look to bWAR for a more accurate picture for him. Davies has 7.1 bWAR in 538 IP while Boyd has 6.1 in 554. I don't think for a second Davies is worthy of talk of guys like Yelich, Hiura, Hader, Woodruff and I don't think Boyd is either. The K rate this season is impressive but I don't think a players value swings that much in 3 months. We will see if he is dealt, I agree it will take more than Ray and Dubon but I doubt they land an elite prospect for him, he is not an ace. I do enjoy your player value posts, keep them coming.

 

Edit: Well I just checked and Davies has 7.1 career FWAR as well, maybe not as flawed as I thought. Boyd has 7.4

[trwi7]

Who actually said that? Who actually said we'd get him for those two players? You do realize we have more than 3 players in our farm system?

 

Literally the article in the first couple of posts which you would've realized had you not been so mad about me thinking that a couple of mediocre at best prospects would be enough for a guy who's nearly produced 3 WAR already with 3 more years of control.

[phnxcrew]

If people are really thinking this guy is a game-changer for us it’s just wrong. He has a half season being good. Aguilar wouldn’t have netted us hiura + last year and neither will boyd. Please no.

[IIAY]

Who actually said that? Who actually said we'd get him for those two players? You do realize we have more than 3 players in our farm system?

 

Literally the article in the first couple of posts which you would've realized had you not been so mad about me thinking that a couple of mediocre at best prospects would be enough for a guy who's nearly produced 3 WAR already with 3 more years of control.

 

I apologize if my post lead to confusion that a Boyd for Dubon/Ray trade was proposed as that certainly was NOT described in the article. I tried to adhere to forum rules regarding posting content from $$ articles by grabbing what I felt was the most pertinent section. It said that Detroit would be looking for bats and then spoke specifically of Dubon and Ray as possible targets that align with Detroit's needs. Here is another quote from the article that indicates that Hiura isn't headed anywhere other than Milwaukee:

 

The Brewers have the prospect capital to make most deals. Besides Hiura, who debuted last month and hit .281/.333/.531 with five home runs and nine RBI before getting bumped back to San Antonio, no player within the farm system is untouchable.

[umphrey]

We have a depth problem in our farm system that makes these deals really hard to get done. To me I think it is Hiura or nothing because no one really wants Ray or Dubon. Posters here don’t even really want Ray or Dubon and it’s obvious. Maybe we can make a deal with Turang but he’s a stretch as a headliner and we don’t have interesting throw in pieces, not without adding someone like Woodruff anyway.

[adambr2]

Am I wrong to think if Boyd is worth that much, then Woodruff should be worth even more? The breakout numbers for each are very, very similar this year. Woodruff is younger, has more club control and had better numbers coming into 2019.

 

I'm not suggesting trading Woodruff, just speaking in terms of valuation.

[Brew crew 92]

Am I wrong to think if Boyd is worth that much, then Woodruff should be worth even more? The breakout numbers for each are very, very similar this year. Woodruff is younger, has more club control and had better numbers coming into 2019.

 

I'm not suggesting trading Woodruff, just speaking in terms of valuation.

 

 

You are so not wrong, there might be a more valuable pitcher out there, I just can’t think of who it might be.