What To Do About Rzepczynski & Shaw

While the Indians entire roster could be set going into 2015 by simply keeping all those currently under contract around, this is likely not the greatest way to improve the team for another attempt at winning the World Series. Two players in interesting situations this off-season are Marc Rzepczynski and Bryan Shaw. Both pitchers are entering arbitration (Rzepczynski his second year, Shaw his first), giving them the same set of possibilities of all such players, to be traded, extended, signed or to actually go to arbitration. The final option is one that the Indians have avoided almost entirely in the past 30 years, with the exception of two cases (Vinnie Pestano and Josh Tomlin) in 2014.

The Indians have an incredibly strong bullpen going into 2015 with Cody Allen expecting to begin his first full year as closer, Kyle Crockett entering his first full season in the Majors and Scott Atchison going into his 35th. Assuming the Indians will keep a seven or eight man bullpen, the members will likely be the five pitchers listed already along with two or three of Nick Hagadone, C.C. Lee, Zach McAllister and Josh Tomlin. Waiting below will be Nick Maronde, Scott Barnes, Bryan Price and the newly reacquired Tyler Cloyd in addition to many other near MLB ready minor league starters and relievers. The point of this is, the Indians bullpen is its deepest asset on the field and that Shaw and Rzepczynski could be expendable.

To start, there is the situation with the situational lefties. While this has been a difficulty for the Tribe since Rafael Perez left, the Indians now have three solid options and will likely enter 2015 with at least two. Crockett and Hagadone are the other options and based on their late appearances in 2014, all three would be equally acceptable in the role. This is not to say that Rzepczynski isn’t the best option, but if the Indians thought they could move him for something better, they would still be fine in this category.

If the Indians needed more reasoning to trade Rzepczynski, it may be on the chart above. While he is still the best option against almost any left handed hitter, he is the absolute worst option still on the roster against right handers. While Terry Francona likes to carry a large bullpen, he still tends to allow a match up man to pitch to an opposite handed hitter between two like sided batters. With this trait, both Crockett and Hagadone have been successful enough, but Rzepczynski was been plain awful. On the season, Rzepczynski only pitched to twenty more left handers than right handers (108 and 88), showing that he already isn’t being used at his most efficient level. This is not to say that he has no value and in fact, a 28 year old LOOGY with two more years under team control would be coveted by many teams. The $1.9M he is expected to win in arbitration this year (according to MLB Trade Rumors) isn’t too much for the Indians to afford, although it is about four times the salary of Crockett. With all that under consideration, the Indians would be best off low balling Rzepczynski with a contract offer early on, then trading him if he doesn’t accept, allowing another team to deal with the arbitration process.

On to the right handed half of the Indians late inning relief solution, the situation is very different. Despite blowing a couple huge games late in the season, Shaw was still the Indians second best right handed reliever behind Allen (as shown on the chart above). Assuming five or six members of the 2015 relief corps will be right handed, the Indians do not appear as deep. After the big three, McAllister had success in the short term (much like Carlos Carrasco did earlier in the year), but the only other two pitchers with significant relief innings, Lee and Tomlin, did not. When aligning the bullpen for 2015, Allen is the obvious closer, but if Shaw was not there, it would be hard to find both an eight and seventh inning man.

In addition to the lack of depth, Shaw is in a more team friendly contract situation. In just his first year of arbitration, he is expected to make nearer $1.5M and as one of the premier relievers in the American League, that is a steal. While Rzepczynski is set to become a free agent in 2017, Shaw is under team control through that season and is two years younger. In addition, as a non-specialist, Shaw can be expected to pitch about twice as many innings as Rzepczynski while making half a million less. While there is no reason to overpay for the following season of Shaw, the Indians would be well served to come to some kind of single year agreement prior to arbitration next March.

One option that wasn’t discussed was the idea of a long term contract. While some team will give a reliever a long deal every once in awhile, it is generally to free agents, not to players already under team control. This is because relievers are the most fickle of baseball players, seeing extreme highs and lows from one year to the next. It is hard to assume any reliever will continue his success for as many as five consecutive seasons and Shaw is already under control for that long (from 2013-2017). While Shaw could continue being a successful reliever all the way through his 30’s, that is a risk the Indians will just have to take.

The Indians would be well served to sit pat and hold on to both late inning relievers for 2015, but this just shows there is another option. While they are not quite deep enough to trade both, moving Rzepczynski should be considered a real option if any trade opportunities arise. Especially considering how unpredictable relievers can be, it is very possible that he would be the third best left hander on the roster in 2015 and he will unquestionably be the most expensive.