Ross Stripling follows Alex Wooden to Oakland A’s in Bay Space swap

The Oakland-for-now Athletics had themselves a roster shuffle on Friday, bolstering their pitching workers by including right-hander Ross Stripling and formally asserting the addition of lefty Alex Wooden. Wooden joined the A’s on a one-year contract value $8.5 million (with one other million’s value of incentives) after three years with the Giants. Now Stripling, too, is headed east throughout the bay, in a deal sending minor league outfielder Jonah Cox west to San Francisco (To make room for the pair, Oakland outrighted lefty Francisco Pérez and designated infielder Jonah Bride for task).

Wooden and Stripling, who might need mentioned one thing like “It’s not goodbye; it’s so long” whereas packing up their lockers after the 2023 season, can be teammates for the fourth separate stint on three completely different California groups. They spent from 2016 to 2018 collectively on the Dodgers earlier than Wooden was dealt to the Reds, had been reunited again in Los Angeles for the beginning of the pandemic-shortened 2020 season till Stripling was traded to Toronto, after which signed almost an identical two-year, $25 million free agent contracts with San Francisco a yr aside from each other. Now, they’ll pair up once more in Oakland and determine to issue right into a beginning rotation that was value a league-worst mixed 1.8 WAR in final season.

Each pitchers had been out there at a modest price to the A’s after floundering of their solely yr along with the Giants. As Kyle Kishimoto wrote final week, Wooden struggled to get hitters to swing at unhealthy pitches and to overlook every time they did swing, falling to the thirteenth percentile in chase share and the seventeenth in whiff share. In consequence, he struck out quite a bit fewer hitters and walked an entire bunch extra. He additionally failed to remain wholesome, with strains in his left hamstring and decrease again sidelining him for the majority of two months, and by late July, he was relegated to bullpen work as a kind of piggybacker and lengthy reduction possibility. He pitched higher on this function, but it surely was removed from what he and the Giants had hoped for when he signed his deal earlier than the 2022 season. Nonetheless, Wooden brings 10 years of massive league service and a not-too-shabby 18.1 profession WAR to Oakland, the place he’ll attempt to proper the ship.

The going charge for a man you’re fairly positive you may slot into the beginning rotation, however uncertain fairly what you’ll get while you do, appears to be between about $7 million and $14 million this offseason, relying on elements like youth, well being, ceiling, and flooring. The still-young Jack Flaherty and Luis Severino had been on the excessive finish of that spectrum, with the not-so-young James Paxton on the opposite finish. At 33, coming off a pair of accidents, Wooden discovered himself towards the decrease finish at $8.5 million. Stripling, in the meantime, opted in for the second yr of his two-year, $25 million pact with the Giants earlier than they traded him. San Francisco will cowl $3.25 million of the $12.5 million he’s owed.

After a career-best 3.1-WAR season with the Blue Jays in 2022, Stripling struggled final spring, significantly with inducing swings exterior the strike zone, earlier than hitting the IL with a decrease again pressure for a month and returning to marginally extra success within the second half of his season. (These guys do all the things collectively.) Whereas Stripling stayed across the identical percentile vary in fastball velocity, exit velocity, whiff share, barrel charge, and groundball charge, his chase charge took a free fall from 34.5% (the 93rd percentile) in 2022 to 26.1% (the seventeenth) in 2023.

He felt the impression in that zone — after being value -6.2 runs on the 435 pitches he threw within the chase zone in 2022, he was value -14.0 on simply 311 pitches in 2023, a drop from -1.4 per 100 pitches to -4.5. That was the fourth-worst run worth per 100 pitches within the chase zone final season, after Connor Seabold, Alek Manoah, and … Alex Wooden.

However for Stripling, the difficulty didn’t cease there. He had been fairly sturdy over the center of the plate in 2022, limiting exhausting contact sufficient to be value 11.9 runs in 542 pitches, or 2.2 per 100. In 2023, it was the other: He was value -10.8 in 361 pitches, or -3.0 per 100. There’s lots that might have contributed to that — luck and random variation being on that record, too — however Stuff+ factors to some stuff degradation in his four-seamer and his changeup that might be regarding. In line with the pitch modeling system, Stripling’s Stuff+ for his four-seamer fell from 84 to 59, whereas his changeup fell from 117 to 94. These pitches had been hit exhausting in 2023 — opposing hitters posted a .374 wOBA towards the fastball and a .359 wOBA off the change.

It wasn’t all unhealthy for Stripling final yr. From June 28 to August 11, a 40-inning stretch between two IL stints, he made six begins and three reduction appearances, walked only one hitter and caught out 32. He posted a 3.38 ERA, 4.08 FIP, and three.50 xFIP over that stretch. After a tough outing on August 16, he returned to the IL for one more month.

It’s all the time value cautioning towards studying an excessive amount of into one season’s value of metrics, however Stuff+ is among the many most dependable metrics out there in small samples. If the stuff is the issue, that’s a tricky prognosis for a 34-year-old whose fastball velocity and spin are each within the backside quartile of the league. Nonetheless, Stripling joins Wooden because the veterans on an in any other case inexperienced beginning workers, with Paul Blackburn, JP Sears, and possibly Luis Medina rounding out the ultimate three spots. A lot of the projection techniques we host on FanGraphs have Stripling contributing someplace between 1.1 and 1.6 WAR to the A’s efforts — almost as a lot as your entire rotation mustered in 2023.

That have is a part of what makes this a wierd deal for San Francisco, whose beginning rotation options even much less tenure. The Giants have now traded each Anthony DeSclafani and Stripling, two of the three wholesome gamers on their roster with a longtime monitor file as a starter. After ace Logan Webb, and with Alex Cobb and Robbie Ray recovering from surgical procedures till midseason, the remainder of the rotation appears like latest free agent addition Jordan Hicks, who has pitched the majority of his profession in reduction, and a trio of 2023 rookies in Kyle Harrison, Keaton Winn, and Tristan Beck. These 4 have mixed for 23 big-league begins.

In return for Stripling, San Francisco acquired Cox, Oakland’s sixth-round decide from this previous yr’s draft who was taking part in for Oral Roberts College on the School World Sequence eight months in the past. Cox hit decently effectively between rookie-ball and Single-A Stockton after the draft final yr, stealing 20 bases in simply 35 video games. The 22-year-old wasn’t amongst Oakland’s prime prospects in our newest replace, from final yr, although he did slide in at no. 29 on Baseball America’s preseason prime 30.

The opposite a part of the worth proposition for the Giants is shedding most of Stripling’s payroll, although all of it feels just a little bit like letting a bunch of birds into your home to resolve your mouse downside — now you simply have a chicken downside. The Giants have just a little more cash to spend on filling holes — and one other gap to fill.