Tribe Targets: Justin Masterson

If Chris Antonetti’s career could be described in one term it would be bargain shopper. Since becoming the Indians’ GM, Antonetti has been scouring the free agent market and making deals at every turn in an effort to make the Indians the best possible team at the lowest possible price. One of these decisions came back in the Spring of 2014 when Justin Masterson made a contract offer to the Indians of about $40M for three seasons. Based on similar contracts signed at the same time, Masterson was set to earn closer to $100M on the open free agent market, but with many talented young starters waiting in line, Antonetti declined his offer, ultimately trading the former Indians ace prior to the July deadline.

The logic behind the trade was that the Indians were unwilling to give Masterson a qualifying offer of near $15 for a single year and the trade brought back at least some value. Even in July, the thinking was still that Masterson would get a multi-year deal and the Indians would never bring him back in 2015. Things have since changed.

Masterson would make just six starts with the Cardinals, allowing five runs in four of those and four runs in another. After losing two games in a row to end August (including three home runs and ten total runs allowed in 7.1 innings), Masterson was demoted to the bullpen and ultimately left off the St. Louis play-off roster. Now, Masterson was clearly not worth a $15M qualifying offer and the Cardinals have since allowing him to reach free agency with the Indians being one AAA outfielder richer.

All of a sudden, the rumors have started back up about Masterson returning to Cleveland. In addition, the Royals, Twins, Red Sox, Braves, Cubs and Giants have all at least inquired about the 29 year old starter. The Indians are so interested in adding pitching depth that they have been rumored to be considering the return of Ubaldo Jimenez and since they are incredibly unlikely to offer a top pitcher like Max Scherzer an offer (or even a mid-level pitcher like Ervin Santana), it appears the Indians will again be shopping at the one million dollar store. Unfortunately for Justin Masterson, he has just been thrown into that clearance bin.

There are a few concerns when considering bringing Masterson back into the rotation. The first would be to determine whether and how much of his struggles in 2014 were a direct result of his knee injury, the second is how cheap and how short of a contract would he be willing to accept. As far as the injury, separating regression to the mean from a drop in talent, aging and injury is one of the hardest things to do when considering statistics. With just one aspect, a prediction would still be widely variable, but would be significantly easier to make. With multiple variables, it is almost impossible to see how much of the down slide will continue (from aging), bounce back (from a regression) or improve (from injury).

For an example of regression versus a decline in talent, take a look at the chart to the right. These are Masterson’s single season numbers from his rookie year in 2008 through the past season. While ERA is widely variable based on a variety of factors, such as defense, weather, etc, FIP (Fielding Independent Pitching) tends to be more stable (his range in FIP is 1.41 compared to 2.72 in ERA). Because of this, regression is more visible in ERA while actual talent in FIP. Looking at Masterson’s last three healthy seasons (2011 through 2013), his ERA again fluctuates much more wildly than his FIP. While in 2012, he was almost a full run worse than the two years surrounding, he was not as bad as his ERA would have you believe and the same was true in 2014. Considering the injury and that he is still under 30, there is good reason to believe that in 2015 Masterson’s FIP will return to near 4.00 and his ERA could drop about two runs with it.

Delving deeper into the actual injury, the Indians never gave out many details of its exact nature. It was obvious that Masterson played with the injury (officially called knee inflammation) for at least a month before hitting the disabled list, then was almost immediately activated by the Cardinals after the trade, leaving little time to heal. Since this is not an arm injury, there is a decent chance that all he needed was some rest. After rehabbing and resting in the off-season, Masterson could very well be as good as he was in 2013 during the 2015 season. Of course, depending on the nature of the injury, this could turn into one of those nagging knee problems that never truly goes away and Masterson could pitch like he did from May 13th through July 7th (49 IP, 7.16 ERA) for the rest of his career.

Masterson obviously feels that the former will be the case rather than the latter as he is currently looking for a one or two year deal to prove himself before going after that elusive long term contract once again. This is what makes him an interesting option for the Indians. While T.J. House proved to be a solid fifth starter this year, the Indians could still use more pitching depth and if Masterson was able to return to his 2013 status with a single year deal of under $5M, he would be an incredible asset. the best part of the situation would be that if House, Zach McAllister or Josh Tomlin proved so great they couldn’t be kept out of the rotation, Masterson could potentially be dealt again at the trading deadline again. Assuming the more likely case of at least one Indians starter getting hurt and another seeing major regression (most likely House or Carlos Carrasco), the Indians could keep Masterson and make a more legitimate run at winning the American League Central in 2015. If Masterson actually played up to his ability, the Indians could even make him a qualifying offer that he could decline, netting the Indians another first round pick in 2016.

While the plethora of suitors makes Masterson unlikely to sign for a super low deal, like those given to Ryan Raburn, Scott Atchison, Aaron Harang and others in recent years, if he would be willing to come back to Cleveland for a discounted single year deal, Antonetti would be worse off for not listening. Of course, since he was right the last time Masterson brought an offer to the Indians, we’ll have to assume that he will do the right thing again this time around.