Cleveland Indians Should Acquire Boone Logan

Boone Logan could prove a valuable upgrade to the bullpen

The Cleveland Indians’ bullpen has been a bit of a problem this year.  While its collective earned run average of 3.28 puts it as the seventh best in baseball, ERA estimators view it as being a lot more average.  This is a bullpen that is fairly good at preventing runners from reaching base but routinely lucks out with unsustainable batted ball rates.  A closer inspection yields a glaring fact: some of the relievers have pitched terribly and others simply should not be in the major leagues.

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Take Bryan Shaw for example.  Formerly a mainstay of the ‘pen’s backend, he currently has an ERA up around five and a FIP above that mark.  Most of this damage came in March and April, and it would be easy to chalk this up to an abnormally high home run to fly ball ratio.  This said the right-hander has also allowed more hard contact than ever before.  It is probably worth leaving Shaw in the bullpen, but the Cleveland Indians could probably do without some of the other relievers.

One such player is Tom Gorzelanny.  Soon to be 34 years old, he first reached the major leagues as a starting pitcher for the Pittsburgh Pirates back in 2005.  Since then he has shown flashed of promise but an inability to be anything better than average.  He eventually moved to the bullpen with the Washington Nationals in 2012, and he has seen some better success there.

This said he posted a 5.95 earned run average last season, with advanced metrics feeling just as pessimistic about his work.  Even worse, ZiPS and Steamer, both projection algorithms, feel that he will not be much better this season.  The real reason why he is in the major leagues is because the Cleveland Indians lack many other left-handed relief options.

Since the Indians have so few good lefty relievers, it is time for an upgrade.  Just a few years ago the Tribe found themselves in the same predicament, they acquired Marc Rzepczynski from the St. Louis Cardinals.  At the time, he was a lefty specialist who had had prior success but was coming off a rough season.

The Cleveland Indians certainly could follow this model again in 2016; but given that they are in the lead of the division crown race rather than the Wild Card hunt, it seems logical that the team might swing for a better pitcher.  It is possible that the Indians could acquire a half-season rental for a similar price since Rzepczynski had just entered arbitration when the Tribe landed his services. 

So, let’s try looking for a left-handed reliever on a losing team who will be a free agent at the end of the season.  This is a bit of an odd query to run, so I had to do a bit of guessing and checking here.  The primary tool I used was MLB Trade Rumors’ list of players who will be free agents after the season.  Then I simply loaded up the relevant player pages on FanGraphs and found the player I felt best fit the bill.

Lo and behold, Boone Logan rises as the perfect trade target for the Cleveland Indians.  A member of the Colorado Rockies, who are currently 12 games out of first place in the National League West, Logan should be available for acquisition.  He is currently in the final year of a three-year deal and earning $6.2 million this season, meaning that the Indians should be able to afford the money remaining on his contract.

Logan is enjoying a resurgence this season after fumbling for the prior two years.  His 3.15 ERA is actually worse than advanced metrics would suggest, and he is striking out batters at a career-high rate of 12.15 per nine innings.  To add to this mix, opponents have batted a measly .181 against him, and these statistics come along with both a normal batting average on balls in play and a normal left on-base percentage.  Interestingly enough, his velocity is up a bit this season as well.

Now, it may seem like he could be pitching himself out of the Indians’ league, and that is a possibility.  His performance in 2014 and 2015, however, should help counteract this fact.  Over those two seasons, he was worse than a replacement level player and allowed 36 earned runs over 70.1 innings.  Advanced metrics gave conflicting reviews about his work, but the traditional statistics were quite ugly.

Before joining the Rockies, he had four successful seasons as a part of the New York Yankee’s bullpen.  He posted ERAs and FIPs better than the league averages all four years, and he consistently struck out batters at an impressive rate.  The only real knock on his work was the amount of walks he allowed, but his impressive ability to prevent batters from getting hits minimized the risk.

Given that Logan is a good pitcher who should be on the market, the real question is how much he will cost.  He spent a bit of time on the disabled list with inflammation in his left shoulder, so that might affect his value.  The market for relief pitchers has been pretty lucrative recently, but it seems doubtful that the Rockies would expect a top prospect in return.  Given that they will probably not extend a qualifying offer to the left-hander, they probably would be happy to get some value out of him before the trade deadline.

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Odds are that the Indians could probably give up a mid-level prospect with moderate upside to get a deal done.  Any trade probably would not happen for a week or two, as the Rockies may want to be certain that they will not be making a late resurgence, but it definitely could get done.  It makes sense for both teams – the Indians need value now and the Rockies need it in a few years.