Transaction Analysis: Reevaluation of Relievers | Baseball prospectus

Translated by Carlos Marcano

The Atlanta Braves are signing RHP Robert Suárez to a three-year deal worth $45 million.

It’s hard not to think about money. The numbers are big, especially because fads come and go, and the latest craze is teams giving relievers — even guys in their mid-30s — three years. A three-year contract for a reliever is in many ways similar to a six-year contract for any other player: you give it not because you have high expectations for how it will end, but because that’s what it takes to get those first two years, and you’ve decided that the first two years are worth it. They’re probably worth it.

Because of all these multi-year deals, it is difficult not to compare them. Specifically, it’s hard not to compare Suarez to Iglesias, the closer, who earns slightly more on an annual basis ($16 million) and much less in total salary (also $16 million), despite being only a year older. The other obvious point of comparison is Devin Williamswho signed a three-year contract worth $51 million, but after deducting deferred payments, it turns out to be about the same payout.

Almost everyone had Williams above Suarez in their free agent rankings, including us, even though the latter led the League in games saved and had a better year overall. Except of course according to the DRA.

But there’s one final reason why it’s hard not to look at this contract in terms of dollar signs, and that’s because it’s hard to look at it any other way. Suárez has had an extremely successful second act in the United States after honing his craft at NPB, to the point that it’s difficult to say or feel much about him. It’s like pausing to realize that your dishwasher isn’t broken, or that it’s been five years since the last time you sprained your ankle.

He’s an easy pitcher to take for granted, especially since the process is so simple: The league is hitting .219/.302/.327 against pitches at 90 mph or faster, so he fills the zone with pitches at 90 mph or faster. (This undermines Suarez a bit; the league hit .189/.243/.293 against him.)

If all goes well, Suárez will take over from Iglesias as primary closer in 2027; In the meantime, he is happy to help the team in a setup role. It will also give the Braves a chance to future-proof their investment by making adjustments to their arsenal. Similar to the case of Kenley Jansenthe former Padre started showing a bit more imbalance in 2025 depending on the hitter’s hand (platoon split), and the cause of that was his changeup, not his fastball. He throws it a third of the time against lefties, regardless of number, and last year they didn’t let him fool them, hitting the ball for a .457 slugging percentage and swinging far less than in previous years.

By choosing their moments with him instead of assigning him to whatever the ninth inning brings, Atlanta can experiment to find out if this is just a one-season relief pitch or an indication that a change is needed. But these are small things. The important thing is just the money, and the difficulty of adapting to a new market standard for the position, just when we were ready, with a collective bargaining agreement (CBA) looming, to adapt in the other direction.

The Braves are better now in the short term; Whether that entails opportunity costs down the road, Atlanta Braves Holdings, Inc. will decide. decide at a later date. I’m sure they have a suggestion box on the wall somewhere if you want to give them your opinion.

Toronto Blue Jays sign right-handed pitcher Tyler Rogers for a three-year contract worth $37 million with a conditional option for a fourth year.

Baseball is an imitative sport, to the extent that imitation can easily be associated with success. If something isn’t worth copying, how good can it be?

When Hoet Wilhelm taught him that Wilbur Wood knuckleball said to him in the early 1970s (and I’m paraphrasing): You can’t do this halfway. If you’re going to throw this stupid pitch that absolutely shouldn’t work, you need to commit to it. Throw it 90% of the time or don’t throw it at all. Too many of these guys who turn to fists do so out of desperation, the last gasp before they start selling insurance. But by then it’s too late. It requires the same amount of practice, repetition, and time as regular pitching, which is why no one does it. You have to close yourself off to those other people who could be you.

He probably didn’t say all that, at least not in those words. There were almost certainly many more curse words.

But the fact is that we, as fans, tend to see these extreme cases, the knuckleballers, the one-shot guys and the subs, as some kind of natural evolution, and we think that everyone has an equal chance of mutating into them if they get to a point where they would like to. And they don’t, so it must not be worth it? Even for the greats, it’s a sad compromise for something that could have been even better, a negative that we never have to try.

I myself am guilty. When we started organizing our Top 50 free agents, I had Rogers at the bottom of the list, below all the proven closers. (I wasn’t the only one). We argued, and I moved him up, then we went to someone else, and I moved the guy down below Rogers until he moved up to 40th. Then we ran out of time and he came just behind Seranthony Dominguez.

That was a mistake. At this point I’m wondering if on reflection I should have been closer to 30, and even then I think I would have preferred this to some of the big names.

It’s been six years. Six years of underarm throwing – not just underarm, but two underarm throws total – and always, always in the strike zone. (Not only is his 64.8% zone rate first among all pitchers with at least 70 innings last year, but the gap between him and second is as wide as between second and 50th.) It’s a novelty, a one-hit wonder band that refuses to die, refuses to lose its charm.

And not only does it not stop working, it doesn’t even take a break, thanks to the lower stress on the mechanics. He has never been on the disabled list at the big league level, and as of 2020, he has thrown 37⅓ more innings – half a full extra season – than any other reliever in baseball. You hardly need to describe Rogers as a pitcher; If you’ve seen it even once, you can close your eyes and visualize it, imagining the dirt particles rising as you drag your knuckles against the hill.

Of course, the nice thing about betting against someone in baseball is that you are never wrong in the long run. Rogers turns 35 this week, and if his option is activated (he appeared in 110 games from 2027-28 or 60 in 2028 alone, numbers he has surpassed in each of the last five years), he will see free agency at age 39. Then Quisenberrythe obvious parallel here, became scarce at age 35, as more and more of that contact translated into hits each year. We’ll never know how hard those ground balls were against ‘Quiz,’ but we know Rogers’ numbers; His average exit speed is 135.8 km/h, in the 99th percentile.

Rogers demands work. It requires you to turn off your brain, not all of it, but that little cynical part that whispers that nothing else can last. It’s already taken. Instead of wondering why everyone doesn’t pitch like him, accept that they can’t, that everyone tries and fails in backyards and city parks, right off camera.

And then, instead of expecting it to fail so you can feel smart, you can expect that conditional option to activate so you can be lucky enough to witness it.