I Wouldn’t Extend Tommy Hanson
July 11, 2012 at 8:08 am by Ben Duronio under Player Analysis
Bill Shanks wrote an article about how the Braves should go after Zack Greinke, and included in the post how the Braves should “no doubt they need to consider making an investment in Hanson sometime soon.”
Consider it, maybe they should, but I would certainly not advocate actually extending him at this point. Tommy Hanson is one of my favorite Braves and has been since his dominance in the minors, but there are just too many signs pointing in the wrong direction to warrant investing in him for the long term.
For one, the noted velocity drop is a concern. Can he be effective without having a 92-93 mph fastball? Absolutely, but not as effective as he would be if he had that type of velocity back. The only real injury Hanson has had was the shoulder injury that he suffered last year, so I am roughly as concerned about his injury history as I would be with any other starting pitcher.
I wouldn’t shy away from extending him just because he was injured and shut down last year. I would shy away from it because his rate stats are going the wrong way and at 25-years-old, that’s a big concern.
His ERA is a fine 3.71, but that’s not the most important factor in the world in these parts. His strikeout-to-walk ratio is the lowest of his career, including his rookie season when he was walking almost 9 percent of batters faced. Last year he struck out 26.3 percent of batters faced, the fifth highest in baseball with a minimum of 130 innings pitched. Now, the rate has dropped to 20.7 percent, putting him on the second page of qualified starters on FanGraphs (30 players per page).
His FIP, xFIP, and SIERA sit at 4.42/4.17/4.05, which signal that his ERA should likely be even higher than its current levels, which is already the worst of his career. I don’t see the need in rushing to sign him when he has three more years of control, even with them being arbitration years. See if this trend breaks and his rate stats come back down to ’10-’11 levels before even considering it, and even then he may not be worth the risk of tagging a multi-year deal on. The ability to non-tender, even though that is unlikely, is a valuable asset since his arbitration price will likely be high due to the performance he had in the first two and a half seasons of his career. Extending him now, or even in the next year, to a contract that extended beyond his arbitration years has much more risk than it does reward, in my opinion.
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I whole-heartedly agree. Why, at 25, is his velocity dropping? Is he taking a more cautious approach to avoid a relapse with his shoulder; is his shoulder actually preventing him from his full wind up; are the innings catching up with his strange throwing style (which seems to require a lot more arm speed to generate his velocity than most styles)? Or is it something I cannot come up with. Either way, there has to be a reason for it, and none of those reasons point to something good.
I agree that I would not buyout Hanson’s arbitration years. I would play the waiting game and take my chances. In 3 years he will be 28. At that time will his velocity and control still be in steady decline? Hard to tell. On the other hand, I would get out the dollars and get Bourn and McCann re-signed to long term deals. I would go 2-4 with Bourn and 4-7 with McCann. I would also go out in get Grienke, only if he was willing to sign a long term deal. No way would I deplete my farm system for a rental player.
As a long time Braves fan, yes, I suffered with their losing in the 1980′s, terrible terrible teams. I want to see winning continued. I would not even mind seeing Chipper come back as a part time player next year…
Go Braves!!
And IIRC, isn’t his agent Scott Boras? So any multi-year deal is likely to be more expensive than if he had anyone else. Tommy has always been a frustrating guy to watch because he seems to have everything needed to be an ace but…he’s just not. Even when he’s pitching well, it takes him too many pitches to get inferior hitters (and pitchers) out and we’re lucky if he goes 6.
Very true. Seems to me he gets 2 strikes and starts nibbling on the corners too much instead of going after the batter. This equals to more walks and higher pitch counts. Seems he doesn’t trust his stuff sometimes. Just my opinion…
I’d extend him for the right price. If it were 6-9mil/year range then yeah I would but with scott boras at the helm He’s probably gonna get a 15million contract some where.
An extension would more than likely be a horrible move, depending on the amount of course. I remember watching the 1st start of Tommy’s career against the Brewers and despite the results, he seemed to have that ‘it’ factor. I don’t have that sense anymore. Let him walk or eventually trade him unless he has a significant uptick in his numbers.
Now, if he were to grow out his beard and hair again I would extend him immediatly. Because how many grizzly bearded, long-haired gingers are there?
Unless his name is Stephen Strasburg, I don’t see why you would extend a pitcher with three years to go. Certainly not Hanson, who has been a (somewhat surprisingly) solid starter but really isn’t the same guy he was when he came up. One thing I think we can depend on, though, is that the Braves will not spend money unnecessarily.
Players don’t hire Boras so that they can sign team-friendly extensions…
I think that shoulder injury has turned him into a solid starter, when he could have been an ace.
I think you’re right on the money with your comment, Chris.
I almost wish that he would have just had surgery to get his shoulder right so he could come back at 100%, rather than pitch the rest of his career at reduced effectiveness.
Totally agree with this piece. And I’m happy to see it here, because to be honest, I thought there was a lot of Hanson homerism around these parts for a long time. Maybe that was the old days. Beachy definitely better than Hanson now and more upside too.
PS: save all money for a Bourn contract!
I wouldn’t extend Strasburg or Hanson. Both have an “all-arm” (my term) throwing motion, which seems likely to injure them at a higher rate than a “normal” pitcher…
I agree. Watch his head sometime. It jerks back violently at the end of his motion, because he’s stopping his arm, rather than letting it slow down with a smooth follow-through. That causes stress on the shoulder.
I just happen to totally disagree with this. I see the points being made and the arguments against signing Hanson to a long-term contract but I also happen to notice that he’s the ace of our staff right now. I think if we agreed to a long-term contract right now that it would provide even more confidence in Hanson and the rest of the organization and i’ve been around baseball long enough to know that confidence is a huge factor at any level. He’s the ace of this staff and we need to treat him like one!
I don’t consider anyone on the Braves staff to be an ace at the moment. Both Hudson and Hanson are both solid, but hardly considered aces at any definition of the word.
Long-term contracts are definitely going to be expensive, and if he does somehow take less money, it would probably come with firing Scott Boras.
Even if he is our “ace of staff” (debatable), that’s no reason to extend him. Just because he’s the best starting pitcher we have now doesn’t mean he is worthy of a big contract. Should the Rockies be looking to extend Juan Nicasio, because he’s arguably the “ace” of their shit heap staff? Pretty obviously not. Same deal with Tommy–he’s either worth it or not worth it based on how he stacks up against the league, not on how he stacks up against other Braves pitchers.
Remember a month ago Neither Hanson nor Hudson would have been anywhere close to being called the ace of the staff, Beachy was until he injured himself the ace of the staff, and everyone else has been a bit of a toss up on if you can expect a solid start all season long. Hanson is a solid starting pitcher no doubt about it but he is a tad inconsistent, and as stated in the article he is losing something in his pitching maybe its only a temporary thing but if it is something more long term you do not want to be the team holding that contract, plus any money we don’t pay him we can use towards hopefully keeping Bourn around a while longer.
If we went the “pamper the ace” logic, we could’ve signed massive deals with three or four different pitchers in the last calendar year alone. Which, of course, would be disaster.
Money decisions need to be made by reference to the value of the player, not his rank in the pecking order.
I think if he were to sign for the right price, like Rocky said, I would not be against it. However, I do not see a point in doing it right now when he has 3 years of control left.
I agree on waiting on Hanson rather than extending him soon. The more interesting question is whether the Braves should trade him this offseason. I bet Wren is regretting not pulling the trigger on trading Jurrjens last winter. It might be better to trade Tommy this winter assuming he pitches decently the rest of the year rather than waiting and seeing him decline in value like Jair.
Well if JJ can continue to pitch as effectively as he has been since coming back from the minors, Wren can not regret it too much.
He would still regret it…
This begs the question: Is it better to have 5 really good starters who aren’t dominant, or have a couple of ace pitchers and some inconsistent starters? I always found the contrast between the Phillies rotation and Atlanta’s rotation interesting.
I think you have to have it to where you can operate under your own constraints. Philly has the highest payroll in the NL so they can operate with 2 or 3 dominant aces and still have money for others but Atlanta does not have those same monetary freedoms so they typically can only budget for 5 really good guys.
I understand, but if you could afford to go with either approach, which would you take?
5 good starters. Helps the bullpen and consistently gives you chances to win.
Would that still hold true in the bizarro world of playoff baseball? The format seems to favor those teams with an ace or two.
I’d definitely take the rotation with the aces. You could always make trades to replace the inconsistent starters, but it would take a lot more to acquire even one ace let alone two.
FW should have sold high on JJ at last years all star break, and on Venters this past winter
Venters was a no brainer keeper – signs pointed to moderate regression, but the man still has a freak of a sinker.
[...] always wanted to write about Tommy Hanson and his mechanics. I feel it goes along well with Ben’s recent piece on a Hanson [...]