Kirsten Schmitt
It’s been an interesting path across seven organizations since 2014 for Jhoulys Chacín, but he’s followed it to one of the best seasons of his career. He entered the week leading the Milwaukee Brewers in nearly every pitching category, including innings pitched (157), strikeouts (129) and ERA (3.61, best among Brewers with more than 65 innings). According to FanGraphs, only Josh Hader has been more valuable among Brewers pitchers this season. Last week, Matthew Leach of mlb.com listed Chacín as the Brewers’ most indispensable player. Despite all of this, he’s in line to take a pretty significant pay cut in 2019.
Despite a very good 2017 season in San Diego, Chacín was not highly sought after this past winter. The Brewers got what might have been one of the off-season’s best bargains when they signed him to a two-year, $15.5 million contract in December with no incentives and no options. Furthermore, they frontloaded the deal. Chacín received a $1.5 million signing bonus and an $8 million salary for 2018. That left just $6 million for him to receive next season.
Chacín and Ryan Braun are the only two 2018 Brewers that are under contract for 2019 and slated to receive less than they’re making this season (Braun’s salary drops from $20 million to $19 million). Across baseball, it’s very rare to see frontloaded contracts. Lorenzo Cain’s annual salary is set to increase each year in his recent five-year deal, for example, even though his production is likely to decrease as he ages.
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Mr. Durability
Chacín, however, likely has some time left before he begins to show his age as he’s only 30-years-old and has been a model of durability over the last two seasons. He’s made 60 starts since Opening Day 2017—second most in all of baseball (Justin Verlander has 61). Even moving from pitcher-friendly Petco Park in San Diego to Miller Park couldn’t dampen his statistics, as his ERA (3.89 to 3.61) and home run rate (0.9 per nine innings to 0.8) have both gone down despite making half his starts in an environment that favors hitters.
Furthermore, Chacín is the anchor of a Brewers pitching staff that features a fair number of question marks. Among the team’s veterans, Jimmy Nelson hasn’t pitched for Milwaukee at all this season, Zach Davies has struggled to overcome injury issues, Chase Anderson has shown some inconsistency and Junior Guerra is going to turn 34 in January. Behind them, the Brewers have yet to see how Corbin Burnes will handle a return from the bullpen to the starting rotation, Brandon Woodruff has yet to establish himself as a regular member of a starting staff, and Luis Ortiz and Jorge Lopez are both no longer in the organization.
Given all these factors and the fact that Chacín has been productive and seems happy in Milwaukee, it likely makes sense to approach him about a possible contract extension sometime soon. Tearing up the last year of his contract and replacing it with something along the lines of four years and $50 million would allow Chacín to remain in a place where he’s comfortable and give the Brewers an opportunity to keep him around through his age-34 season. A deal like this would mark something of a shift in recent practice for the Brewers, who currently do not have any pitchers on long-term contracts. Only Chacín, Chase Anderson and Matt Albers have guaranteed money for 2019 at this point.
The Brewers and their fans are all too familiar with the risk of long-term commitments to pitchers after Jeff Suppan, Randy Wolf and Matt Garza’s deals all ended poorly. They are, however, almost certainly going to feel some pressure to hit the market in search of pitching once again this winter. They could (and perhaps should) start by shopping at home and locking up their current ace for the long term.
