M’s Acquire Ex-Yankee RP Nick Rumbelow in Annoying Trade
The world is awash in outrage, and I don’t want to add to it. Nor do I want to draw any false equivalence between annoying back-of-the-40-man trades and something that really deserves an intemperate response. However mad you can be about trading some low-minors lottery tickets, that’s how mad I am right now. It’s not really about the players involved; Nick Rumbelow may turn out fine. But this is the latest example in a very worrying trend.
Last year, the M’s famously went through 40 pitchers last year, a product not only of injuries (though they clearly contributed), but also of a particular style of roster management. That’s easier to see when you look at AAA Tacoma’s roster, where the Rainiers used an astonishing 52 pitchers in 2017. How can that be when other teams lost more time and/or more pitchers to the DL? Because the M’s, under GM Jerry Dipoto, crank through the bottom of their 40-man roster like no other team.
Because of baseball’s roster rules, these spots at the back end of the 40-man can often be pretty tenuous. Teams roster players to protect them from the Rule 5 draft, for example, but then they may get outrighted or DFA’d once another transaction comes over the transom. Teams with a productive farm system *need* each of those 40 spots, while teams without many prospects might use the waiver wire to fill out the roster instead. The M’s are firmly in the second camp, and thus it’s not a huge shock that they used the 40-man on minor trades and waiver claims. Used well, a team can use these back-end roster spots to build up some depth, especially in the bulllpen. The problem isn’t that the M’s acquire guys like Nick Rumbelow, a one-time prospect who came back strong from Tommy John surgery last year. The problem is that they both pay for the privilege in talent AND then quickly drop guys from the 40-man. The M’s can’t get the most out of any of these live arms, because their hyperactive roster strategy means they can’t actually develop anyone.
Last August, the M’s made a minor deal, trading a couple of lower-level prospects in Anthony Misiewicz and Luis Rengifo to the Rays for C Mike Marjama and RP Ryan Garton. Garton needed a 40-man spot, and eventually pitched a handful of innings down the stretch for Seattle. Garton throws 93+ – nothing overwhelming – with lots of vertical ‘rise,’ has a high-spin curve and an interesting cutter. I don’t want to oversell this; Garton was just outrighted off the roster in October, meaning he cleared waivers. The problem, to me, is that Nick Rumbelow looks an awful lot like Garton. Rumbelow throws 93+ with arrow straight movement and plenty of rise. Seriously, Rumbelow averaged 10.52″ of rise in his 2015 cup of coffee while Garton was at 10.42″ last year. Rumbelow’s slurvy curveball is actually a *low* spin pitch, but his big secondary pitch is a change-up that gets a bit more drop than Garton’s. It’s nothing incredible, movement wise, but it’s helped his K rate against minor league lefties, for what that’s worth.
Rumbelow missed essentially all of 2016 rehabbing his elbow, and only really pitched for half of 2017. To be fair, he put up the best results of his career, limiting hits like never before and inducing some grounders. Dipoto said he thought Marco Gonzales was simply *better* after coming back from TJ, and this may be another case. He may throw the ball better still in 2018 as his surgery fades in the rear view. But he’s 26, and was released by the Yankees not that long ago. Given the Yankee bullpen, he was a marginal roster guy, though of course they added him to their 40-man a few weeks ago. He’s a longshot, but he’s not worthless and may develop in the system. The problem is that the M’s haven’t shown that they have the patience required to actually develop players like this.
James Pazos was solid early on but faded down the stretch. Ryan Garton was intriguing (uh, to me, at least), but if he pitches in Seattle again, he’ll bump Rumbelow or the next Rumbelow from the roster. Meanwhile, all of these moves churn through guys the M’s have drafted and spent some time developing. Rumbelow cost the M’s two low-level pitchers, 2017 draft pick and K-rate king JP Sears and 2016 J2 signing Juan Then. Sears was a blog favorite for putting up video game strikeout numbers in Everett and Clinton. A senior sign out of the Citadel, Sears wasn’t exactly a lock to make the majors. With a 90 MPH fastball, I think a bunch of evaluators might have seen him as a trick-pitch guy, though you simply can’t argue with the results. A longshot like Sears has to open eyes to get a shot, and, well, he opened some eyes. Juan Then was the M’s third-biggest J2 bonus, but put up solid numbers in the M’s Dominican League team while the #1 prospect the M’s signed struggled mightily (he slugged .185) and the #2 prospect was sent off in the Ryon Healy deal. On its own, you wouldn’t bat an eye at two really-far-from-the-majors kids going for a big league ready on-the-40-man player. But the M’s have traded minor league pitchers for Pazos, Garton, Rumbelow, Arquimedes Caminero, Evan Scribner, David Phelps, Shae Simmons, etc. Meanwhile, they’ve been just as active on the waiver wire, bringing in guys like Blake Parker, Evan Marshall, Ryan Weber and a bunch more we’ve all forgotten. Each of THESE moves often bumps someone else off the roster.
There’s nothing wrong with trading prospects to fill big league needs; the last M’s FO failed in part because of their *reluctance* to do so. But what have the M’s really gained in all of this churn? In order to kick the tires on a long list of pitchers, the M’s have essentially ceded the development role in AAA AND traded away a minor league team’s worth of low-minors pitchers. They’ve gotten essentially replacement-level production out of it, though of course guys like Simmons and Phelps are clearly better than that (when healthy). If Dipoto had some special eye for relief talent, that’d be one thing. Outside of Nick Vincent, a cast off from San Diego, the M’s have actually done better with home-grown relievers like Emilio Pagan than they have with trade acquisitions like Chase de Jong or Pazos.
So much of Dipoto’s “buy low” approach depends on a strong player development group that can help correct mechanical issues or improve strength/range of movement. So much of Dipoto’s roster strategy makes that development mission impossible. The M’s bullpen coach Mike Hampton quit midway through 2017. Tacoma operated like an independent league team. The M’s ran through 40+ pitchers. This trade makes me think we’re going to do it all again next year.
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Maybe Jerry keeps forgetting to refill his Ritalin…
Yet another player from the scratch-and-dent sale bin. At this point I’m not sure what the objective is with all the churn; the roster as constructed doesn’t look good enough to contend but we keep trading potential for peripheral pieces.
FWIW… a couple Yankee scouts have been quoted that they are more excited about Juan Then than Sears. Apparently Then is already touching 94 with movement at 17, and they expect him to gain 3 to 5 mph more as he fills out with muscle and age. Plus, with Then’s above average control & command, he has a decent chance of becoming a mid rotation starter.
Not a bad return for a marginal roster player they needed to get rid of to clear roster space.
All 3 trades irritate me. Healy goes against the “C the Z” philosophy, Vieira has closing potential, and Rumbelow should have been acquirable for cash or a less interesting prospect, yet alone 2 intriguing prospects.
It wouldn’t surprise me if Seattle’s back in the market for a first baseman by the deadline, which would mean trading more from the farm.
Agreed on the 3 trades.
On Vieira, he got the M’s $500K in Int’l draft money. The Yankees traded away two 26 year old prospects that they probably were not going to keep on their 40 man any way to the Marlins for a promising A Ball relief pitcher who does not need to be on the 40 man AND $250K in Int’l draft money.
Further, MLB GAVE EACH TEAM $200K in additional draft money due to the Braves prospects being released, so there are probably a lot more teams with Int’l draft money that can fleece Dipoto now.