The Guardians Continued Shopping of Zach Plesac
What might be driving the Guardians movement of Zach Plesac, and what they might get in return.
The Guardians rotation was roughly average in 2022, with Shane Bieber and Triston McKenzie anchoring the group (the two accounted for 8.5 of the Guardians 12 fWAR). Toss in Cal Quantrill, and the Guardians top three starters generated 10.7 of the rotations 12 fWAR generated. At first blush, a rotation that was this top-heavy shopping Zach Plesac is a bit surprising. However, starting in July, Jeff Passan reported that the team was most willing to listen on a deal for Plesac or Aaron Civale. Earlier this week, Ken Rosenthal noted the expectation that Plesac would be in play.
Why Plesac might be in play.
Setting aside his big league performance, Plesac does not put off awesome teammate vibes. Whether it was breaking COVD-19 protocols resulting in missed time, breaking his thumb while ripping off his shirt, or most recently, breaking his hand while punching the mound, Plesac has demonstrated a pattern of being unavailable due to petulant and chaotic behavior.
The Guardians are also about to experience a lot of upper-level opportunity friction. Cody Morris, Xzavion Curry and Hunter Gaddis all could compete for a spot in the starting rotation out of spring training. Top-100 prospects Daniel Espino, Gavin Williams, Logan Allen, and Tanner Bibee each pitched in AA or above in 2022 and are all knocking on the door to make their major league debut in 2023. While Espino possesses the highest ceiling of all of the organization’s pitching prospects, he will also be returning from a knee injury which gutted his 2022 campaign.
Why Plesac might be sought after.
Despite the sophomoric behavior noted above, starting pitching in Major League Baseball remains a real commodity, especially controllable starting pitching. Plesac is not eligible for free agency for another three years, and projects for just $3 million in arbitration for 2023. Cheap, controllable back end arms have value, particularly where another team believes it can unlock more from Plesac.
Plesac the pitcher.
Plesac’s best big league season was inarguably 2020, the season shortened to 60 games by COVD-19. Through that window, Plesac looked poised to be breaking out into a front of the rotation starting pitcher. However, over 445.1 big league innings, Plesac has been mostly average or below average with a 4.04 ERA and 4.50 FIP (fielding independent pitching which uses key pitcher inputs to evaluate on an ERA scale).
In a scenario where the baseball is not juiced, Plesac’s value is a bit more interesting. Plesac does not limit contact frequency (low strikeout rates), but he does limit walks which is a valuable input. There are arguments he may have inherent contact management skills, though I am not the one to make them (his 15th percentile barrel rates and awful xwOBA data suggests otherwise). Since the start of 2019, Plesac’s debut he is 95th out of 124 qualified starters in fWAR, and 69th in ERA.
Overall, Plesac is a thoroughly mediocre major league starting pitcher. However, mediocrity has value especially if you can be mediocre over 150 innings.
Plesac’s value.
One of the good places to start, blindly capitalistic as it may seem, is to evaluate projected production against expected salary to identify if there is surplus value.
Projected salary
2023: $3 million
2024: $5.5 million
2025: $9 million
(Note: projecting arbitration is not an exact science and performance impacts the 2024/2025 projections, this is just based on stable growth.) Over that same period, he probably projects for approximately ~3 WAR. (A roughly ~1 WAR starter.) If cost per win is approximately $8.5 million, that would be a roughly $25.5 million asset. However, cost per win is generally not linear, and can cost less at the bottom end. Therefore, you could project a surplus window of $6.5 million plus or minus $5 million.
With this sort of player, you would hope to net a 45+ position player or pitching prospect based on Craig Edwards valuation. For context, 45+ is generally a player projected as a fringe big league starter, or a player far away from the big leagues with tools to gamble on. For the Guardians, a player who did not need to be added to the 40-man roster is probably the optimal pursuit due to roster clog. The value to the team is generally reducing $1.5-2.5 million in team payroll for performance the team can easily replicate, freeing up 40-man space, and ideally adding a player they can develop.
Finally, there is a chance that teams are willing to overpay on pitching due to relative scarcity. The free agent market has top-end talent but is thin from a depth perspective. Perhaps, this is a market where the relative cheapness of Plesac increases his value to other teams when looking at the free agent market. However, it is most likely that any return for Plesac will be a solid prospect or two with distance from the big league roster, and for the Guardians, that might be optimal.