The Jays have signed LHP Yusei Kikuchi!
The Blue Jays have signed a three-year, $36 million deal with a starting pitcher who has put up a 4.97 ERA over three big league seasons in pitcher-friendly Seattle, and it’s actually kind of awesome.
So let’s talk about it!
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The Blue Jays have solidified their rotation and, perhaps more intriguingly, made themselves a little less reliant on Nate Pearson, by inking a three-year, $36 million deal with Yusei Kikuchi. A hard-throwing lefty whose results in MLB have never quite matched his stuff, Kikuchi was an All-Star for the Mariners in 2021, posting a 3.98 ERA over 98 1/3 innings in the first half before being undone by a second half swoon. But there is upside here. Though Kikuchi turns 31 in mid-June, projection systems like ZiPS and Steamer have him as a two-win pitcher over 150 or so innings, which is more than he’s produced in any of his three big league seasons (though the truncated 2020 campaign saw him reach 1.1 WAR per FanGraphs in just nine starts).
The velocity is good, the repertoire is deep, the whiff rates on both his four-seamer (30.3%) and his slider (31.2%) are good, the results just haven’t been there for him for some reason. But there’s a lot to like about him — especially as a fifth starter — not the least of which is this little nugget from his Baseball Savant page:
Does this mean Kikuchi is going to show up in Dunedin wearing distractingly tight pants? Presumably not (besides, non-roster invitee Gosuke Katoh is already wearing Robbie Ray’s old kecks). But does this mean Pete Walker, Matt Buschmann and the gang can work some miracles to get the best out of him? I mean… maybe! I certainly wouldn’t say no.
The idea that Walker can magically transform any pitcher into an ace overlooks a whole lot of cases where he couldn’t — Tanner Roark and Rafael Dolis say hi — but lately this Jays organization, as exemplified by Ray and Steven Matz last season and Taijuan Walker in 2020, has been very good at identifying pitchers that they can help become a whole lot more valuable than they were when first acquired. Kikuchi is a guy who I think a lot of people have identified as someone a smart team could get more out of. For example, Dan Syzmborski of FanGraphs wrote a piece just a few weeks ago suggesting the Giants give Kikuchi $65 million over three years — similar money to the four-year, $66 million option the Mariners declined at the end of last season (albeit much more than many thought he was going to get after he surprisingly walked away from a $13 million player option he was entitled to after the Mariners declined).
The Robbie Ray comparison isn’t just a quirk of Savant’s algorithm either. MLB Trade Rumors, in ranking him their number 34 free agent this winter, noted that Kikuchi surrendered a whole lot of hard contact last season, and mentioned Ray as an example of a guy who has been able to succeed in spite of that. He’s obviously not a carbon copy — Kikuchi doesn’t throw his slider nearly as much as Ray and it’s not nearly as hard (83 mph vs 89 mph), he mixes in far more changeups to right-handed hitters, has both a four-seam and a cut fastball that he throws, and he has never been nearly as prone to walking guys — but the parallels are hard not to get a little bit excited by.
Probably a better guy to compare Kikuchi to, however, is Steven Matz. Realistically, that’s who he’s here to replace, and considering that Matz got $44 million over four years from the Cardinals prior to the lockout, I think the Jays made out quite well here. That is, provided that Kikuchi can actually deliver on more of his promise than he was able to for the Mariners, though the ingredients for that certainly seem to be there.
Things can only go up from here — as attested to by the percentile rankings for 2021 on his Baseball Savant page (left). Perhaps unsurprisingly, these look rather similar to Ray’s (middle) and Matz’s (right) from 2020.
Work your magic, Pete!
And work your magic, Charlie, too. The Blue Jays’ manager is going to have an important job with this one, as Kikuchi is going to be a guy who needs to get frequent rest.
Kikuchi made just four starts on regular rest last season. Compare that to Robbie Ray, who did so 19 times. The Mariners made sure that he was getting an extra day very, very frequently, and yet he still faded down the stretch — to the point that Seattle, fighting for a playoff spot, gave Tyler Anderson a start on short rest on September 28, in what would have been Kikuchi’s turn in the rotation.
Make no mistake, the Jays are making a gamble with this deal. But they do have the luxury of having some very solid options as their sixth starter, which will allow them to keep both Kikuchi and Hyun Jin Ryu as fresh as possible. Ross Stripling has now been officially bumped from the rotation back into a swingman role. Nate Pearson, provided he doesn’t end up in Cleveland, still (correctly) has designs on being a starter and should be available for a whole ton of relief innings and/or spot starts this year. Thomas Hatch is much better than he showed in 2021 and ideally will have a bounce-back season. And if not, there’s still Anthony Kay, Zach Logue, Bowden Francis, Joe Biagini (theoretically, now that he’s back in the organization on a minor league deal announced this week), José De León (a non-roster invitee with big league starting experience and the ability to generate strikeouts, if not literally anything else), and maybe even eventually Joey Murray (who will hopefully return to full health after a lost season in 2021, and has been “spared” the chance to wind up in another organization via the Rule 5 draft, which will not take place this year because of the lockout).
Yes, those names got decidedly less sexy as the list went on, but we’re talking about guys way down the pecking order, behind José Berríos, Kevin Gausman, Alek Manoah, Ryu, and now Kikuchi at the top. That’s a rotation right there! And some depth to make it all work!
In this regard, the Blue Jays have come a long way in a very short amount of time.
They’re also just a collection of straight-up fun baseball players. Kikuchi may be a bit of a project, and three-years and $36 million may be a hefty price to pay for that — though it should be noted the deal is front-loaded, with Kikuchi getting $16 million this season and $10 million in each of the following two, making it a little easier to take a hit down the road if it doesn’t work out, with the added bonus of keeping some dollars free for the big extensions the Jays will obviously try to get Vladimir Guerrero Jr. and Bo Bichette signed to in the coming years (if not weeks or months) — but, for my money, a lefty throwing 95 who can strike guys out and doesn’t issue a ton of walks is a hell of a number five starter.
Also worth noting is the fact that the Jays have been able to help guys add velocity in recent years. Ray’s fastball averaged 92.5 mph with the Diamondbacks in 2019, and was up to 94.6 with the Jays last year. Kikuchi did make some pretty significant gains after his first MLB season back in 2019 (he went from averaging 92.6 to over 95 in each of the last two season), so maybe there isn’t much more room for improvement there, but that’s another reason to maybe be optimistic.
The most beautiful thing about it, though, is that the Jays are so good that they can take this risk. Three years and $36 million for a player who gets hit hard and just hasn’t lived up to his potential yet would have felt mighty iffy a couple years ago, when a guy on a deal like this would have been looked to as an anchor on this club as they were trying to take the next step — Tanner Roark once again says hi — but on the 2021 Blue Jays? As their fifth starter? It’s exactly the kind of thing they ought to be doing. And with a guy whose stuff is good enough to become another Matz if the tweaks hit right.
It’s a funny thing that an organization turning a hard-thrower who was walking the league into a literal Cy Young winner does for confidence in them, eh?
Now go out and get an infielder! (Please, for the love of god, not Jonathan Villar1.)
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A word on Jonathan Villar. I don’t like this rumour, and I don’t think there are many Jays fans who will feel much different. Villar was abysmal of the 22 games he played with this team back in 2020, producing a wRC+ of just 36 while seeming mistake-prone in the field and on the bases (though he did steal seven bases without getting caught). I don’t need a replay of that, nor do I want to talk myself into once again believing his 4 WAR 2019 season might have been real. Say no to Jonathan Villar! HOWEVER, had those 22 games not happened, or if they had happened elsewhere, I think we’d be able to look at this idea differently. He’s a switch hitter, about league average for his career, he has speed, and he has defensive versatility. He’s not great at anything, but he’s good enough at enough things to be useful. He’d be a nice bench bat for a contending team, and not a bad addition should someone like Cavan Biggio or Santiago Espinal be moved in trade. But if the plan would be to give second and third base to some combo of Biggio, Espinal, Villar, and Kevin Smith, that’s bad! No thank you! Absolutely not! Have seen that movie already!
A Kikuchi-coup. I'm tickled.
I do like the Kikuchi signing and think he could be sneaky good, however, the tweet about the 2020 rotation is a good reminder of best laid plans and what not.
We now know how it ended but I recall going into that year and there was a lot of optimism that they had put together a decent pitching staff. Roark, Anderson and Yamaguchi came in with at least a little bit of mojo.
Again, I like the Kikuchi deal, but maybe a good reminder (for myself as much as anyone) that something will go wrong. One of the starters will get hurt or disappoint...or something, and soon enough we'll all pretend like the excitement we had for Player X never really happened.