Recapping Wednesday's Hot Stove Activity Across Baseball

By: Chris Larson 

It seems like Wednesdays could be the new day to circle on the calendar when it comes to the Hot Stove League this offseason. Last Wednesday, we saw the Milwaukee Brewers and San Diego Padres partake in a trade with one another, the Padres later inked free agent pitcher, Drew Pomeranz to a four-year deal, and the Texas Rangers agreed to a contract with free agent starter, Kyle Gibson.

Now, today we once again have seen plenty of activity around the league and the Hot Stove feels like it's starting to reach the boiling point for some of the offseason's biggest names - both on the trade and free agent markets. Most notably, the pitching market seems to be moving and it would not be a surprise to see another free agent starter or reliever ink a new deal with a new team prior to the start of next week's Winter Meetings in San Diego.

However, before we look ahead to that and try to project who will sign next or who might be traded next, let's recap what happened on the Hot Stove today across baseball.

1. The Atlanta Braves signed free agent starting pitcher, Cole Hamels to a one-year, $18 million dollar deal. 

The Atlanta Braves have been scouring the market for a veteran starting pitcher this offseason and were heavily linked to free agent starter, Madison Bumgarner. Unfortunately, Bumgarner is now expected to sign for at least $100 million dollars and wants a deal longer than what the Braves were willing to sign him to. Therefore, Atlanta had to pivot and arguably got a terrific veteran pickup with the signing of Cole Hamels. When he is healthy, Hamels is very effective, has the ability to provide plenty of veteran level leadership, and has the skillset necessary to be a mentor for the young stable of pitchers that the Atlanta Braves possess. According to reports, there was plenty of interest in Cole Hamels with as many as six different teams going after the veteran right-hander, but the Braves got very aggressive over the last 24 hours and were able to make a deal happen.

From an overall durability standpoint, Hamels did well last season. Hamels appeared in (27) games and posted a 3.81 ERA over 141.2 innings of work with a (4.09) Fielding Independent Percentage and a walks-per-9 rate of (3.56). Looking back at the fourteen seasons that Hamels has pitched at the major league level, that was the highest walks-per-9 rate and had the highest Opponent Batting Average Against (.255) since the 2009 regular season as well. Despite both of those things, Cole Hamels strikeouts-per-9 rate finished at (9.08) last year and that was the highest in five seasons. Therefore, the Atlanta Braves know that this signing is a risk and will be dependent on Hamels overall health and effectiveness, but they are willing to take a bet and hope that the veteran leadership and mentorship he provides the team helps to prove the high valuation of the deal.

On paper, Cole Hamels won't be the Atlanta Braves first or second best starting pitcher. Rather, he will likely slot in the three hole behind breakout ace from last season, Mike Soroka, and right-hander Mike Foltynewicz. With the addition of Hamels, the Braves are able to move everyone else back a slot with left-hander, Max Fried moving down to the number four slot most likely and an aggressive competition taking place for that final spot. The Braves have built up a tremendous amount of pitching depth over the last handful of years and have many different options for that spot including: left-hander Sean Newcomb and right-handers Bryse Wilson, Kyle Wright, and Touki Toussaint. On top of all of those options, you can't forget about the Atlanta Braves third ranked prospect either, RHP Ian Anderson who has the stuff to be a true frontline starting pitcher one day. Atlanta could ultimately decide to make him available this offseason for a top-tier trade piece like Cleveland Indians shortstop Francisco Lindor or Chicago Cubs third baseman Kris Bryant, but he could also be a pivotal component of their future as well.

2. Zack Wheeler agrees to a five-year, $118 million dollar deal with the Philadelphia Phillies.

After plenty of interest from a number of different teams around baseball including the: Los Angeles Angels, Minnesota Twins, Chicago White Sox, Cincinnati Reds, Texas Rangers, and to a lesser degree the New York Yankees, the Philadelphia Phillies were able to come to terms with Zack Wheeler this afternoon. Yesterday, MLB Network Insider Ken Rosenthal reported that Wheeler already had an offer of at least $100 million dollars in hand and there was plenty of assumption that Wheeler and his camp were going to hold out to see if any team exceeded that offer. Well, a team did and it happened to be the Phillies who many didn't expect to be the most aggressive pursuer of Wheeler. In addition, geography played a major factor in the decision according to a report by Ken Rosenthal, which stated that the Chicago White Sox offered more than $118 million dollars. However, being that Wheeler's wife is originally from New Jersey, that factored heavily into his final decision.

During his walk season last year with the New York Mets, Wheeler put up a 3.96 ERA over 195.1 innings of work. Many of the pitching repertoire metrics for Wheeler remained consistent last year compared to previous seasons, but the one noticeable difference was that that he did throw his changeup more last year compared to in 2018. In 2018, Wheeler threw his changeup approximately (4.2%) of the time, but in 2019 that percentage doubled to (8.6%) with an average velocity of (88.8) MPH. Furthermore, another noticeable difference for Wheeler comparing the 2018 and 2019 regular seasons was the drop in the usage of his split-finger. During 2018, Wheeler threw that pitch (7.2%) of the time, but that percentage dropped to (2.4%) last year. Given that Wheeler will be staying in the National League East, it will be interesting to see if he deploys the same pitch repertoire that he did with the New York Mets or if the Philadelphia Phillies elect to switch it up.

Looking at the Philadelphia Phillies, Zack Wheeler will slot in behind Philadelphia Phillies ace, Aaron Nola. At the moment, the interesting thing is that the Phillies possess an entirely right-handed dominant starting rotation, but there's a lot of indications that they could be aggressive pursuers for the aforementioned, Madison Bumgarner in free agency. If Philadelphia were to sign Bumgarner, they would probably have to invest a significant amount of money on top of the money invested for Wheeler, but there is now more payroll flexibility to do so following the non-tender moves Philadelphia made this past week. Prior to making those moves, the Phillies had about ($28) million dollars to spend before they would have reached the ($208) luxury tax threshold for the 2020 season. However, after non-tendering second baseman Caesar Hernandez and third baseman Maikel Franco, the Phillies added an additional ($16+) million dollars to their payroll to go towards this signing and other moves that could happen over the remainder of the offseason.

3. RHP Dylan Bundy was traded to the Los Angeles Angels in exchange of four minor league pitching prospects. 

With the amount of teams that are looking for starting pitching help this offseason, it was almost a conclusion that Baltimore Orioles right-handed starting pitcher, Dylan Bundy could be traded. After all, there's only so many effective options available on the open market in free agency and some teams including the Los Angeles Angels, have a need to add at least two, if not three starting pitchers this offseason. As mentioned on here, in a perfect world the Angels would acquire three impact arms this offseason with two of them coming in free agency and the other coming via the trade market. Well, this is that impact arm that came to the Angels via the trade market, but it's certainly one that comes with some risk. However, it's also an acquisition that could pay off big dividends and give the Angels a durable, effective option for the next two seasons.

Bundy, who will be 28 years of age by the time Opening Day rolls around next year, was highly regarded in the Baltimore Orioles from the time the organization drafted him with the fourth pick during the first round of the 2011 Amateur Draft. Unfortunately, he didn't necessarily live up to the high expectations that the Orioles had for him, but given that he is only 28 there is some promise that he could have some impact left in the tank and could excel with the right team in the right environment. After all, Bundy's ERA over the last four seasons has been over 4.00, but he's been very durable over that time period pitching in at least (25) games each season. Last year, Bundy concluded the season with a 4.79 ERA over 161.2 innings of work with a (.297) Batting Average on Balls In Play and an overall Home Run-To-Fastball ratio of (16.4%). With that being said, Bundy posted the highest Groundball Rate of his big league career last season (41.5%) and had the lowest Hard Hit Rate (31.2%) dating back to the 2016 regular season. What will be interesting to see is if the Los Angeles Angels promote Dylan Bundy to throw his cutter again which is something that hasn't been a part of his pitch repertoire since the 2012 season. During that season, Bundy relied on his cutter (13.8%) of the time so it's definitely possible that the Angels encourage him to throw it again.

In exchange of Dylan Bundy, the Baltimore Orioles received four minor league pitching prospects. The main prospect that headlined the deal is 24-year old, Issac Mattson. Mattson wasn't ranked in the Angels Top 30 prospect list, but he was selected during the nineteenth round of the 2017 Amateur Draft and did really well at the Triple-A level last season posting a 2.33 ERA over 73.1 innings. Next in the deal was Kyle Bradish, a pitching prospect that was selected during the fourth round of the 2018 Amateur Draft and comes with a some cautionary signs. However, many scouts mention that they like his four-pitch mix that he has and believes that his delivery can be very deceptive on opposing hitters. Finally, the last two pieces going back to Baltimore were two college pitchers in right-handers Zach Peek and Kyle Brnovich. Both Peek and Brnovich have the potential to make a big impact in the Orioles organization moving forward, but as is the case with any college level pitcher, there is risk involved as well. Despite that though, the Orioles did a great job of extracting value out of Dylan Bundy on the trade market and really adding some potential impact pitching pieces to the equation for the future.