In the 2024 offseason, Alex Anthopoulos turned Michael Soroka, Nicky Lopez, Jared Shuster, Braden Shewmake, and Riley Gowens into Aaron Bummer. Let’s see how that worked out in terms of fWAR:
- Michael Soroka: 0.4 fWAR
- Jared Shuster: 0.2 fWAR
- Nicky Lopez: 0.9 fWAR
- Riley Gowens: MiLB
- Braden Shewmake: -0.7 fWAR
Total: 0.8 fWAR
Aaron Bummer: 1.1 fWAR
Win.
Bummer was an essential piece to the 2024 season, filling in the middle innings and going multiple innings 12 times throughout the year, while carrying a 3.58 ERA for the season. While Bummer wasn’t elite, he was definitely good and played a huge role in keeping the Braves in games during the middle innings. Alex Anthopoulos must’ve enjoyed Bummer’s work, as he extended him 2 more years at $13MM total.
I would also wager that Aaron actually uses his last name a lot when looking at his results because, for some strange reason, his expected stats are always much better than his actual stats. For his career, Bummer has a 3.79 ERA while is expected stats are:
- FIP: 3.18
- xFIP: 3.18
It’s obvious that AA and his team believe in his skillset and, just maybe, 2025 is the year where expected results and actual results match.
The A’s signed Severino for 3/67MM, which I think is larger than any deal the Braves have ever given to a free agent pitcher. The A’s. Not saying I wanted Severino, but wow.
Flip? Is this the A’s new business model. Spend money to make money via flipping players?
Whether or not we get a free agent starting pitcher will depend on if the number of available starting pitchers exceeds the number of stupid teams.
Just sign Charlie and call it a day
Well, Adames is out. Starting to wonder if the real plan for the Braves this off season is to get under luxury tax threshold and chill.
Frankly, I would’ve been a little pissed if we failed to meet Dansby’s request for $120MM/6 and turned around and signed an older SS for longer and a way higher AAV. Adames has a lot of swing and miss and his defense will probably be a liability for the majority of that contract. I don’t know if we have a goal to get under the tax threshold or not, but whatever plan we have is not going to be to outbid everyone to pay for a 30-year-old’s decline.
Yea, I think the goal is becoming more apparent day by day, and that goal is not to improve the product on the field, but instead to improve the bottom line by getting under the luxury tax threshold. Hope I’m wrong, though I still think the Braves will put a competitive product on the field after some of our players bounce back from last year.
I can’t agree with you on this one, Ryan. Bummer’s WPA was -0.53. (His Clutch stat was even worse: -0.99.)
His Savant page is gorgeous, and I’m happy to agree with you that he may have gotten horrendously unlucky, but his results on the field were simply bad. I can’t ignore the evidence of my lyin’ eyes.
My word, that Soto deal. I wouldn’t choose to play for the Mets for 15 yrs, but yikes, that’s alot of money. I’d still rather have Acuna.
$765 M for 15 years… quite a nice neighborhood.
For that kind of money, a guy could afford to live in Manhattan and send his kids to private school.
15 years from now, I wonder how weird it’s gonna look that Soto is the 4th highest paid Met and he hasn’t played in 3 years. But right now, I doubt Cohen cares. Man, someone should do a cost per WAR projection on that deal.
The funniest part is that Boras still insisted on a 5 year opt out. Let’s say $10MM per WAR is now the standard. Achieving 76.5 WAR over the life of this contract, or 5.1 WAR per season, is not unlikely for a generational hitter. You’ll probably get more than halfway there in the next 5 seasons. The last 5 seasons of the deal will likely be significant overpays
We have a new thread.