Joe D had an interesting exchange on Twitter today with SNY personality Sal Licata. Licata is like me in that he wants the Mets to go after not only a big bat, but the biggest ones on the market. Here is the exchange:
Since the media attention surrounding Braun’s suspension died down in 2013, he has faded into relative obscurity. He is no longer given the attention of a star, but he is still a very productive player. Joe makes a very good case for Braun as opposed to Tulowitzki. Both are very expensive, somewhat risky sluggers, but other than that, they are pretty different. Let’s take a closer look at the 2011 NL MVP’s production, contract situation and injury history…
Braun is no longer the seven-win player he once was, but he would still be a welcome addition to the Mets lineup. So far this season, Braun has a 125 wRC+ with a .264/.335/.503 slash line and 13 home runs. He also has eight doubles and six stolen bases.
The 125 wRC+ would be second on the Mets this year. Lucas Duda currently owns a 145 wRC+ while Ruben Tejada sits second at 114. Barun’s 13 homers would be first on the team. Simply put, he would be a significant middle of the order threat, which the Mets, of course, desperately need.
Braun’s has seen a significant dip in production the last two seasons, especially when it comes to his power. He has been battling a nerve issue in his right hand, which, mechanically, can explain the loss of power, as Beyond the Box Score’s Stuart Wallace explained in an excellent piece last year:
From a hitting perspective, the top hand is what provides the power of the swing and is also the hand that essentially delivers the bat to the right spot for contact with a pitch, accelerating the bat to the point of contact and in the process, allowing for the shortest swing path. With Braun’s thumb injury arising from the right hand (the top hand for a right-handed hitter), it isn’t any surprise that while his contact rates are in line with career averages, his chase rates are higher than usual—2014 sees him at a 10.9% swinging strike rate—coinciding with his power numbers all but sapped.
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In particular, Braun has had problems with generating any power from inside pitches, with a lack of proprioceptive input from the top hand thumb playing a large role in this. Given the sensory issues, Braun’s default action is to squeeze too hard on the bat, with the aforementioned intrinsic muscles overtaxed and the thenar eminence of the right thumb subjected to excessive forces that have led to blistering. This over-tight grip on the bat has also hindered his usually quick, smooth, compact swing path to all pitches, but is especially apparent on those on the inside half of the plate. As such, what contact he makes with inside offerings will be hit to the opposite field, with little power put behind the swing; a propensity to roll over balls he pulls can also be seen when the injury is at peak aggravation.
After last season, Braun had an experimental procedure done on the nerve — which is at the base of the thumb — in which the nerve was exposed to subzero temperatures. It was a far less risky option than simply removing the nerve, but, as Tom Haudricourt reported in the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel in March, it has provided Braun with some relief:
On Oct. 2, at the Kerlan-Jobe Clinic in Los Angeles, Vernon B. Williams introduced subzero temperatures into the damaged nerve at the base of the thumb with a needle. Braun experienced almost immediate relief, a good sign.
A better omen was that the thumb continued to feel good throughout the winter, even as Braun ramped up his workouts with batting practice sessions. Of course, it could go south again at any time but the hope is it will remain asymptomatic, allowing the five-time all-star to return to the production that saw him average 34 homers, 107 RBI and a .313 batting average from 2007-’12.
“It’s been a while since I’ve felt as good as I do now,” Braun proclaimed after arriving at camp. “Everything has gone as well as I could have hoped. I’m excited about it. Hopefully, the next few weeks will be the same, and we can stop talking about it at some point in the future.”
This injury decreases bat speed and, as Wallace would go on to write, makes Braun especially vulnerable to faster pitches as he loses the quick, compact swing that made him such a great hitter. Take a look at how Braun fared against hard, breaking, and offspeed pitches in 2012, one of his best hitting seasons:
As you can see, against the hard stuff, braun had prodigious power. A .295 ISO is elite. However, compare that to how he fared against hard pitches last season:
Here, you see Braun capitalizing on offspeed pitches, but unable to generate as much power against some of the faster pitches.
Braun will likely have to continue treatment for the rest of his career on this nerve injury, but bat speed and power against some of the faster pitches will be indicators of how well Braun is dealing with the injury and how well the treatment is working. Take a look at this year’s numbers:
When you look at his zone profiles, you can see how Braun was also able to capitalize on inside pitches in 2012:
Compare that to last season, where you see an obvious dip in power on inside pitches, and even a dip against pitches down the middle of the plate:
This season, the sample size is obviously very small, but there is some sign of progress for Braun:
While this probably isn’t a big enough sample size to make any definitive conclusions, Braun’s power returning like this is a good sign. He may not (yet) be up to the 150-160 wRC+ that he used to put up, but his ISO of .239 is back up near his career .243 mark.
Some fans will point towards the down numbers and see a player who is finally off performance-enhancing drugs and is thus declining, but this issue can explain away some of that. Remember, Braun is only 31 years old. He is still well within the prime of his career. If he can manage this issue, he can still be a fantastic hitter for many years.
At the same time, despite this injury, Braun is still probably a better bet to stay healthy over the long run than Troy Tulowitzki, who has only had three seasons of 130 or more games in his entire career. Braun, on the other hand, before being suspended in 2013, had put together five consecutive seasons of 150 or more games played. Besides the nerve injury, he’s otherwise been very durable.
The next issue, of course, is actually making a deal for Braun. Braun is in the last year of his first extension, making $13 million this season. Next year, he begins a five-year, $105 million contract with a mutual option for a sixth year. This deal takes him through the 2020 season, when he would be 36 years old.
It’s difficult to speculate how much Braun will cost in prospects when he is owed so much money because a lot of it depends on how much salary each side is willing to eat. It’s still unclear how the Brewers plan to unload their stars. They may be willing to eat some money to get more talented prospects (which the Mets certainly have) or they may want to start fresh and force the acquiring team to pay Braun’s entire salary through 2020.
Either way, he is still probably going to be cheaper than Tulowitzki in terms of both prospects and salary obligations, although you obviously won’t get Tulowitzki’s higher upside at an offense-starved position.
Braun is, at minimum, an interesting target for the Mets, and would fit in pretty well. He can play either left field or right field, although he has been a mixed bag at both positions.
This would mean Curtis Granderson and Michael Cuddyer would platoon in either left or right, allowing the Mets to get the best out of both of them. Granderson is hitting .249/.356/.408 against righties this season and has a career .267/.354/.499 line against them. Against lefties in his career (since his 2015 sample against them is just too small), Cuddyer has a .290/.379/.500 line, with an OPS about 100 points higher than against righties.
Joe is right in that it strengthens the bench as well, allowing the other to be a power-hitting bat off the bench when not starting. Both are certainly expensive bench players, but it’s too late to do anything about that now. Terry Collins and Sandy Alderson might as well try to make the most out of what they have.
With the Brewers looking more and more each day like they are going to sell and the Mets not only in need of power hitting but also holding some pretty valuable prospects, Sandy Alderson should certainly look at Braun as the trade deadline approaches.
Pitch and zone data courtesy of Brooks Baseball.
