Cleveland Indians: A Jay Bruce Acquisition Makes Little Sense

Jay Bruce seems to be a poor fit for the Cleveland Indians

Just yesterday, news broke that Jay Bruce would be willing to waive his no-trade clause in a potential trade to a contender. With the Cleveland Indians being quite a contending team, some fans have suggested that the Tribe swing a deal for the slugger. Doing so would be a misstep on the part of the Cleveland Indians, as he seems to be a poor fit. 

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First, the outfield has become a surprise strength, as I noted just the other day. It is rated as one of the top-five outfields in the American League, and it is quite inexpensive. Jose Ramirez has rebounded to be a quality outfielder, and Rajai Davis has found the fountain of youth to have the best season of his career since 2009. Lonnie Chisenhall looks at home in right field, meaning that the biggest question marks are Michael Brantley’s return and Tyler Naquin’s sustainability.

This said, the Cleveland Indians should be looking to improve the team in any way they can, so perhaps a Jay Bruce acquisition would make some sense. In fact, his weighted on-base average, which measures total offensive output, would make him one of the better outfielders on the Tribe’s roster. Looking at wins above replacement, however, would make him an expendable backup.

How is such a great dichotomy possible?

For one, his defense has been absolutely atrocious. Through just 74 games, Bruce has managed to cost the Cincinnati Reds nine runs when compared to an average right fielder. FanGraphs puts his total fielding value at -13.5 runs, and that number drops even further when including the positional replacement factor so that we can compare his right field work to someone else’s catching work.

Given that his bat has only created just under ten runs more than the average player, the bulk of Bruce’s value comes through the replacement level adjustment. Simply put, Jay Bruce is such a liability in the outfield that it voids almost all of his value at the plate. Fortunately, projection models suggest that his defense will improve in the second half of the season, and this would make some sense given that he has been a historically bad, but not terrible, defender.

His defensive problems, however, run further than harming his baseball value; it also harms his financial value. His current fWAR of 0.2 puts his current value at $1.9 million, and ZiPS and Steamer put his future value at 0.7 wins above replacement or $5.5 million. Since the outfielder is making $12.5 million this year and we are almost half way through the season, he should have roughly $6.5 million remaining on his contract – a number that falls far short of his value to the Indians.

Given that most projection algorithms foresee the Indians’ outfield as something that will be a little better than average going forwards and Michael Brantley will hopefully return at some point, Jay Bruce might actually be a downgrade.

To make matters worse, the aforementioned value is assuming that he is replacing a replacement level outfielder. This, however, is simply not true. Bruce would be taking away at-bats from some mixture of the outfielders and displacing Lonnie Chisenhall from right field. Given that most projection algorithms foresee the Indians’ outfield as something that will be a little better than average going forwards and Michael Brantley will hopefully return at some point, Jay Bruce might actually be a downgrade. Considering that the Indians would actually have to give up prospects as well, acquiring Jay Bruce as an outfielder makes very little sense.

But what if the Indians traded for Jay Bruce to upgrade somewhere else? What if they removed the defensive problems by using him as a designated hitter? This is an interesting idea, but the Indians already have Carlos Santana as their everyday designated hitter. Theoretically, Jay Bruce could be an upgrade over the incumbent, so the Indians could trade Carlos Santana before acquiring Jay Bruce.

Personally, this feels like a bad idea, since Carlos Santana has been a part of the Indians for so long and it would require disturbing the clubhouse atmosphere. Players would probably be upset by losing a long-time member for a potential upgrade. Even the improvement seems dubious, as both ZiPS and Steamer feel that Santana will be the better player throughout the rest of the season.

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Even trying Jay Bruce at first base seems like a bad idea, especially since it would replace one of the Indians’ few right-handed bats with another lefty. Jay Bruce is a fine player, but he just does not fit on the Cleveland Indians. It seems that the Indians recognize this situation, as Jordan Bastian has reported that Indians General Manager Mike Chernoff has said that the Indians will explore “every avenue” for an upgrade, but Michael Brantley’s return could be the “highest-impact ‘acquisition’ we could make”. Bearing in mind all the risks of a player not adjusting to a new park combined with the financial and player costs required in completing a trade, a Jay Bruce acquisition makes no sense for the Cleveland Indians.