Cleveland Guardians ADD Connor Brogdon to Pen, Looking for HIDDEN UPSIDE #clevelandguardians

Cleveland Guardians ADD Connor Brogdon to Pen, Looking for HIDDEN UPSIDE #clevelandguardians

Guardians have their first external addition of the offseason. It comes in an area we’ve talked a lot about on the podcast so far, and that is the bullpen. The Guardians are adding soon to be 31-year-old Connor Brogden, who pitched last year with the Los Angeles Angels. Spent a little bit of time with the Phillies, a little bit of time with the Dodgers as well. Not particularly good last year statistically wise with the Angels, pitching 43 games. RA was kind of high. Uh what Cleveland is looking at here though is going to be his extension. It’s over 6 feet or 6 in of extension or it is 6 feet. For reference, Kaden Smith is around seven. Hunter Gatis is in the high sixes as well. So, he fits in very well with that mold. Something we know Cleveland likes. He can get his fast 97 98. Averages 96. And he’s got a really good change up, too. Uh, in terms of movement and even location, it’s the pitch he relies on most. He’s very 50/50 when it comes to fast ball and change ups. And again, you look at the surface numbers, you’ll say he gets hit hard. the RA is not good. And that’s all true. And I’m not sitting here saying that that Connor Brockton’s a great reliever and this is some huge ad. It’s not. This is really a depth piece for your bullpen. It’s going to be a guy who’s starting off as your sixth inning guy, maybe in the Jake Junis mold. But Stuff Plus models, which kind of rates for velocity, spin, movement, um, all those kind of things for pitches. It strips everything else out. Stuff plus uh is is an average scale of 100. So 100 is good. Anything below is bad. Anything above is good. Stuff plus he’s above average with the fast ball. Way above average with the change up and he’s a 99 with the cutter, so he’s close to average. Stuff plus loves kind of Brogden stuff. Early in his career, he had a higher arm angle. It’s kind of dropped recently as well. I wonder if Cleveland sees some adjustments they can make. I think that’s what the case is here. Cleveland sees adjustments they can make with Brogden to make him uh a better reliever overall. This is more of a project. He’s not going to be a guy that comes in and wows you and and becomes a big part of the bullpen, but he’s a guy that comes in uh with some tweaks for Cleveland to make. And I I trust Cleveland to make those tweaks. I I don’t think they’d sign him if they didn’t think there was an advantage here for them to exploit and uh use him as a valuable reliever. They get club control with him this year and next year at 900K. So, he’s a cheap option. Doesn’t have options to the miners, but overall, there are some things to work with here. And I I trust Cleveland’s ability here to work with someone like this. There are traits there. Um we’ll hear more about it, I assume, over the winter meetings. We’ll talk more about it on tomorrow’s Lockdown Guardians. Make sure you’re there.