Oakland A’s signs Trevor Rosenthal for a one-year, $ 11 million contract

After all, Oakland A’s are paying for a newer one.

The A’s lost All-Star Liam Hendriks to the free agency during the off-season, and it looked like they could replace him on the inside. Instead, on the second day of spring training, they found a new star to take on the role.

A’s free agent Trevor Rosenthal signed a $ 11 million one-year contract, reports insider Jon Heyman on Thursday. Part of the money is delayed beyond 2021, adds ESPN’s Jeff Passan. Update: The deferral amounts to US $ 3 million in 2021 and 2022 and US $ 5 million in 2023, by The Athletic’s unrelated Ken Rosenthal.

Right-handed Rosenthal was one of the best relievers in last season’s championships and has a track record to support him.

From 2012 to 15, he was brilliant for the Cardinals, including a series of monstrous playoffs in 2012-13 that totaled 20 goalless entries with 33 eliminations. He made 45 saves in 2014 and, in 2015, increased to 48 saves while winning votes for Cy Young and MVP. He took a step back in the next two years, but it was still good, and overall for St. Louis he converted 89% of his chances of saving / holding (123 saves, 45 retentions, 20 lost).

Rosenthal, 2012-17 STL: 2.99 ERA, 325 ip, 435 Ks, 143 BB, 17 HR, 2.60 FIP

However, that success was interrupted by Tommy John’s surgery in 2017, which cost him the entire following season. When he returned to the mount in 2019, for the Nationals and Tigers, he couldn’t find the plate at all, walking or hitting 30 of the 86 hitters he faced in 15 frames and posting an ERA of 13.50.

He had to settle for a minor league deal last winter to rehabilitate himself, but he recovered in an important way for the Royals. They negotiated it with the Fathers in the middle of the season, and their overall numbers were eye-popping.

Rosenthal, 2020: 1.90 ERA, 23⅔ ip, 38 Ks, 8 BB, 2 HR, 2.22 FIP, 0.210 xwOBA

This xwOBA Statcast is even better than Hendriks’ last year, and is ranked among the top five game-breakers. Only Devin Williams launched more shots with a lower mark.

Rosenthal also added 11 saves and a one-stroke wait; his added probability of victory was fourth among MLB substitutes; and his swing rate of 16.5% was the record of his career and one of the best scores in the majors. Hendriks beat him in all three statistics, as well as ERA and FIP, but that’s as close as you can get to replacing what AL Reliever of the Year provided Oakland last summer.

In terms of things, entering the 31-year season, Rosenthal still has all the speed of 158 km / h that he carried throughout his career. He uses that heat about two-thirds of the time, and last year was the second hardest four-seater quickball among relievers at 97.9 mph (by a tenth of a tick behind Josh Staumont) and peaked at 160.1 mph.

Its main secondary is the slider, and it also occasionally mixes the shift and weight. Here’s a look at the contrast.

And from the scout’s point of view.

He can handle hitters on both sides of the board and, in fact, lefties have an even lower OPS against him than righties in his career.

A’s bullpen is suddenly full, not just of bodies, but of talent. Rosenthal joins All-MLB team finalist Jake Diekman, free agent signings Yusmeiro Petit and Sergio Romo, commercial acquisitions Adam Kolarek and Nik Turley and the remaining JB Wendelken, Lou Trivino, Burch Smith and Jordan Weems, among others. The group may be even better than last year’s unit, which was arguably the best of the main ones.

Analyze

This is the biggest addition to the A’s off-season. In this case, this was not clear in the amount of the salary, which is now the second highest in the team.

Rosenthal is a star. He is not an optimistic candidate who can recover and perhaps do well in a low-cost business. He already did that last year. He is restored as a star now.

This does not mean that there is no risk. There is always risk with any reliever, and this has its share. There is already a Tommy John surgery on his record, and his recovery included a case of yips that was bad for Jurickson Profar At Second Base, Rick Ankiel Maybe you should try the bad Outfield. He got over it, but it still happened, really recently. It’s just that you don’t need imagine what it would be like if he came back to the top.

I don’t normally like to pay a lot of money for appeasers, but if you’re going to do that, at least make it as good as Rosenthal. And make a one-year deal, which is. I would have been excited enough about the bullpen as it was yesterday, but now, wow. We’ll go into more of the full analysis in a future post, but this pen is somehow better than last year’s, even without Hendriks.

There is always a chance that it will go wrong and turn into a waste of money. It often seems so when A’s try out expensive zippers instead of making them do-it-yourself style with ordinary household items. But that bet in itself is refreshing, because at least the A’s have finally spent some money.

At this point, after getting Fiers, Petit, Romo, Moreland and the part of Rosenthal’s salary due this year, they must have gone beyond any money they received from the Rangers in the Elvis Andrus trade. After not spending a dime all winter, they are having a troubled off-season, just fully in mid-February. While the length of the late shopping spree is a surprise, A’s have always said they were waiting for business at the end of the market.

Meanwhile, even though his highly criticized offer to Marcus Semien was postponed, it included a few initial millions (even before Andrus’ exchange), and Rosenthal is not signing any more than they offered his old shortstop. If your question is why they would give that kind of money to Rosenthal, but not to Semien, the answer is that they tried, but Semien refused (and rightly so, because someone else gave him so much more).

Oakland outdid themselves in the end, after months of looking like it wasn’t doing enough to capitalize on the moment of its containment window. They are definitely not betting on 2021, after all. They still need things to work out, like any team in any year, but the A’s are in it to win.