Brewers extend Ashby

[markedman5]

No terms revealed……looks like they are just getting cost certainty but club options are obviously the key

 

[ReverendBrewmeister]

Locking in quality arms long term.
Now to get a Burnes extension done. 

[Brewcrew82]

So, basically a Freddy 2.0 situation. I like it. Ashby has as good of stuff as anybody on our staff other than maybe Burnes. Now, time for him to work on putting it all together. 

[markedman5]

Yeah the Burnes extension is going to just a bit more difficult………..

 

 

[Brock Beauchamp]

Nice! This was unexpected!

[Jopal78]

As a pitcher who was a later round pick and ticketed to the majors, he probably is happy to get some guaranteed cash up front. Brewers probably eek out an extra year of control and if he develops into a top of the rotation pitcher might have gotten a great deal. 

[stalton]

I would venture a guess a contact similar to Peralta's

[NBBrewFan]

Great News! I like his talent, just needs more consistency and avoiding the meltdown (especially with 2 outs in the bag).  If he can get his BB rate down we are looking at another excellent cost controlled starter for another 5 years.  What's not to like?

[clancyphile]

That Burnes isn't the one whose extension was announced?

[NBBrewFan]

1 hour ago, clancyphile said:

That Burnes isn't the one whose extension was announced?

Burnes isn't signing an extension.  He's already won a Cy Young and is one of, if not the best, starting pitcher in baseball and he will break some billionaires piggy bank when he hits FA.  The Brewers don't have the $$$.

[Brock Beauchamp]

7 minutes ago, NBBrewFan said:

Burnes isn't signing an extension.  He's already won a Cy Young and is one of, if not the best, starting pitcher in baseball and he will break some billionaires piggy bank when he hits FA.  The Brewers don't have the $$$.

Even if the Brewers could extend him, I don’t think it’s wise for any small or mid market team to spend that large a portion of their payroll on a pitcher. 

[markedman5]

 

[Brock Beauchamp]

46 minutes ago, markedman5 said:

 

Peanuts. The Brewers got a deal there. 

[CheeseheadInQC]

Love this. He's got a chance to be special.

[Lathund]

Very similar to the Peralta extension in structure, and circumstances. I don't know how hard the escalators are to reach, if it's innings based or awards-based. But even if they're easy to trigger, Ashby doesn't even have to be very good to be worth $46m over 7 years. And the worst case scenario is $5 years, $20m. Hardly crippling, and again doesn't need to do a whole lot to be well worth that. 

Ashby, like any inexperienced pitcher, has some issues to sort out like consistency and limiting walks a bit more etc. But the potential is huge; that combination of a very high ground ball rate *and* a ton of strikeouts is extremely rare and, depending on where those numbers level out, perhaps even completely unique. 

[sveumrules]

Building on the Freddy comparison a little, through his first 163 IP Peralta posted 113 ERA- | 93 FIP- | 100 xFIP- | 131 K%+ | 127 BB%+ splits. 

Since starting to put it together in 2020 Freddy is at 76 ERA- | 67 FIP- | 82 xFIP- | 145 K%+ | 105 BB%+ over 212 IP.

So far Ashby has thrown 100 IP with 109 ERA- | 93 FIP- | 79 xFIP- | 121 K%+ | 116 BB%+ splits, so not quite as many Ks/BBs as young Freddy but it looks like most of Aaron’s ERA/FIP gap can be attributed to a fluky high HR/FB rate through his first 100 IP based on that 79 xFIP-.

In terms of comps for Ashby’s high K/GB profile, here are the pitchers since 2021 with at least 100 IP and similar rates…

Ashby (121 K%+ | 133 GB%+), Clay Holmes (118 K%+ | 173 GB%+), Emmanuel Clase (119 K%+ | 156 GB%+), Lance McCullers (115 K%+ | 136 GB%+), Blake Treinen (119 K%+ | 129 GB%+), Luis Castillo (111 K%+ | 127 GB%+), Ryan Pressley (139 K%+ | 120 GB%+). 

Holmes/Clase’s GB%+ are in another stratosphere & Pressley Ks quite a bit more, but it’s easy to watch Ashby pitch and see how he could end up somewhere around McCullers/Castillo if he sticks in the rotation or fallback to a high leverage pen arm like Treinen depending how his command develops.

 

[monty57]

On 7/23/2022 at 9:31 PM, Brock Beauchamp said:

Peanuts. The Brewers got a deal there. 

And this is why the Brewers need to (and it looks like they are) offer extensions to all of their promising youngsters in their first year or two with the MLB club. Once players get to their arby years, teams are basically paying market price for the free agent years they're buying out. The Brewers can't afford to do that.

I'm fine if they miss every now and then and have to pay an underperformer a little too much money, as long as they can occasionally get an extra few years from a Lucroy/Peralta type player. As we saw with Lucroy, this also gives him a lot of trade value if they decide to trade him with a year or two left on the deal.

[KeithStone53151]

I think I found a fairly good breakeven point for the value of this contract not counting the options. Sean Manaea is in his last year of team control, and as a super 2 player made 23.1M over 5 seasons. I don't know if Ashby would be super 2, and generally you can expect contracts to slowly grow, but I think this is a pretty decent comp whereas if Ashby can outperform Manaea...then we got at least a decent deal. Manaea has a career 3.89 ERA and not counting 2022 has 12.4 WAR on baseball reference over 6 seasons which include COVID shortened 202 and I assume injury shortened 2019. When healthy, it seems he's roughly a 3 WAR pitcher. Of course the options add a ton of value as if he's even equal to Manaea, those are a no brainer to exercise. We can potentially get value out of the bullpen if Ashby doesn't make it as a starter, but it's hard to see getting 3 WAR and I can't see us exercising those options as a reliever unless he's Hader/Williams caliber out of the pen(which he very well could be).

If you look at this exclusively on paper, this seems pretty stupid. Ashby has a 4.56 ERA career to this point and -0.5 WAR. That said, his advanced metrics are very good as has been noted above...he certainly has the stuff to be right up there with Woodruff in the rotation(Burnes is on his own level). I feel like he's just a bit more consistency/command in the zone away from a serious breakout.

[rickh150]

2 hours ago, KeithStone53151 said:

I think I found a fairly good breakeven point for the value of this contract not counting the options. Sean Manaea is in his last year of team control, and as a super 2 player made 23.1M over 5 seasons. I don't know if Ashby would be super 2, and generally you can expect contracts to slowly grow, but I think this is a pretty decent comp whereas if Ashby can outperform Manaea...then we got at least a decent deal. Manaea has a career 3.89 ERA and not counting 2022 has 12.4 WAR on baseball reference over 6 seasons which include COVID shortened 202 and I assume injury shortened 2019. When healthy, it seems he's roughly a 3 WAR pitcher. Of course the options add a ton of value as if he's even equal to Manaea, those are a no brainer to exercise. We can potentially get value out of the bullpen if Ashby doesn't make it as a starter, but it's hard to see getting 3 WAR and I can't see us exercising those options as a reliever unless he's Hader/Williams caliber out of the pen(which he very well could be).

If you look at this exclusively on paper, this seems pretty stupid. Ashby has a 4.56 ERA career to this point and -0.5 WAR. That said, his advanced metrics are very good as has been noted above...he certainly has the stuff to be right up there with Woodruff in the rotation(Burnes is on his own level). I feel like he's just a bit more consistency/command in the zone away from a serious breakout.

I can see why Ashby is doing it too… hurts his arm, it could be over too. Brewers probably have an insurance policy that way too to cover themselves.

[monty57]

1 hour ago, rickh150 said:

I can see why Ashby is doing it too… hurts his arm, it could be over too. Brewers probably have an insurance policy that way too to cover themselves.

I don't know if things have changed, but I read an article a couple of years ago that stated that due to the cost of the insurance, most teams were only insuring the big, franchise-crippling contracts. I think this deal is probably small enough that the Brewers are willing to take the risk and eat the contract if Ashby gets injured or under-performs to the level that they let him go.

Because they know that Ashby is talented, the risk of this contract is pretty small for the team. Even if he under-performs, he wouldn't be that over-paid even if he ends up being a middle-reliever. Meanwhile, we know the risk of signing a big deal to a guy who is further along in his career. Even if Yelich turns into a solid .400 OBP lead-off guy, he's still going to be grossly overpaid through his extension.

Give me contracts like this any day, and plan an exit strategy over the years of team control for anyone who isn't willing to extend. 

[djoctagone]

 

 

[Brock Beauchamp]

By the way, I wrote this and would like feedback. I’m not a professional writer, I’m a tech guy. But I dabble. Thoughts and opinions on this? Be honest, I’m a big kid.

 

[CheeseheadInQC]

2 hours ago, Brock Beauchamp said:

By the way, I wrote this and would like feedback. I’m not a professional writer, I’m a tech guy. But I dabble. Thoughts and opinions on this? Be honest, I’m a big kid.

 

You're looking for feedback on the writing, I'm presuming? From what I've seen it is above average for someone not in a writing profession (and some that I've run across who are). The language in the section about the escalators could be tightened up to make it read more clearly and precisely, but otherwise a solid read.

[Brock Beauchamp]

8 hours ago, CheeseheadInQC said:

You're looking for feedback on the writing, I'm presuming? From what I've seen it is above average for someone not in a writing profession (and some that I've run across who are). The language in the section about the escalators could be tightened up to make it read more clearly and precisely, but otherwise a solid read.

Yeah, the escalator section... I was trying to edit it while fighting a chest cold and it vexed me. I ultimately threw up my hands and moved on.

[ClosetBrewerFan]

I agree it is well written.  Kudos to tech guys as I'm one of them.

As for the title, I assume you were going for a provocative title.  Obviously its not "No-risk".  He could blow out his arm and the Brewers would be stuck with the paying the whole contract, $20.5M spread out over multi-years is not a huge deal, but its not peanuts.  Presumably, the Brewers have insurance for this, but that costs money too, which is not included in the $20.5M.  He could also be completely ineffective, which I doubt the insurance would cover.  Look at Yelich.  He is not living up to his contract and I'm sure the insurance is not covering for the difference.

I'm on board though.  I think Ashby is worth the risk.  Buy low like they did with Freddy and hope he turns into a star they have on the cheap.  If not, try him in the bullpen.  His floor is pretty high.  His ceiling is even higher.  You want to lock-up long term these types of guys.