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Archives for July 2015

Outrighted To Triple-A: O’Sullivan, Wilson, Gorzelanny

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Here are today’s outright assignments from around the league…

  • The Phillies announced that right-hander Sean O’Sullivan has accepted an outright assignment to Triple-A Lehigh Valley. O’Sullivan was outrighted earlier this week after spending the bulk of the first half in the Phillies’s rotation. The 27-year-old has never enjoyed much success in the Majors, but he’s soaked up 302 1/3 innings with the Royals, Padres, Angels and Phillies from 2009-15, including 71 frames for the Phils in 2015. O’Sullivan worked to a 6.08 ERA this year. That number is clearly unappealing, but he did provide a serviceable 4.79 ERA through his first 10 starts before allowing six runs in each of his final three turns.
  • Infielder Josh Wilson accepted an outright assignment from the Tigers after being DFA earlier this week, writes MLive.com’s Chris Iott. The versatile veteran actually hit quite well in a small sample with Detroit this season but doesn’t have a track record of offensive success. Rather, he’s carved out a career through defensive versatility, as he’s logged significant innings at shortstop, second base and third base in addition to brief cameos in left field and at first base.

Earlier Updates

  • Left-hander Tom Gorzelanny has accepted an outright assignment from the Tigers after clearing waivers, tweets MLB.com’s Jason Beck. Gorzelanny was designated for assignment alongside Joba Chamberlain on Friday and had the right to elect free agency and retain what remained of his $1MM salary. Instead, he’ll work on a sidearm delivery at Triple-A Toledo, according to Beck. The veteran Gorzelanny posted a 6.38 ERA in 24 innings for Detroit this season.

Red Sox Acquire Ramses Rosario From Nationals

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The Nationals announced today that they’ve traded minor league right-hander Ramses Rosario to the Red Sox in exchange for the No. 66 international bonus slot. That slot is valued at $327,700, per Baseball America.

Rosario, 19, was signed by the Nats in the 2012-13 international signing period and has worked exclusively in the Dominican Summer League from 2013-15. He’s posted a combined 4.11 ERA in 72 1/3 innings across 34 games (31 relief appearances) in that time, averaging 6.2 K/9 against 3.4 BB/9. Rosario did not rank among Washington’s top prospects per Baseball America, MLB.com or Fangraphs.

The Nationals’ $1,985,400 international bonus pool (also per BA) was the second-smallest in the Majors this year. The additional $328K will allow boost that figure to $2.31MM, which is more than enough to give them some breathing room to reach additional agreements beyond Dominican outfielder Juan Soto, who reportedly has a $1.5MM bonus agreed upon with the team.

The Red Sox, on the other hand, are restricted from signing an international amateur for more than $300K after absolutely shattering last year’s budget to sign Cuban phenom Yoan Moncada, so it makes sense to see them trading their slots.

Astros GM Luhnow On Potential Bullpen Additions

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The Astros have had one of the better collective bullpens in all of baseball this season, but GM Jeff Luhnow tells Evan Drellich of the Houston Chronicle that he’ll still be on the lookout for a hard-throwing bullpen arm this month. “I think you can always use another good arm,” said Luhnow. “You look at the arms we have in the bullpen: we’ve got a sinker baller, a slider guy, different looks. Neshek is a funky guy. The one guy we’re probably missing is the flamethrower guy. …but those guys are hard to find. Certainly we’re going to keep our eyes open.”

Houston has received an excellent return on its offseason investment in Luke Gregerson, Pat Neshek and Joe Thatcher. The trio of veteran relievers have combined to deliver a 2.96 ERA in 82 innings of relief this year, and they’ve been complemented nicely by waiver claim Will Harris (0.93 ERA), left-hander Tony Sipp (3.19) and right-hander Josh Fields (2.57).

Given the success of the current group, it’s not all that surprising to see Luhnow categorize the addition of a hard-throwing reliever to be more of a luxury than a necessity. As Drellich notes, the answer could come from within as well. Both Lance McCullers and Vincent Velasquez average about 94.5 mph on their fastball and will have their innings monitored. The Astros plan to find a way to keep a way to keep McCullers available for a potential playoff push, Drellich writes, and Velasquez could also fit into the bullpen picture as well.

The first name that comes to mind when discussing hard-throwing trade candidates among relievers would be Aroldis Chapman, though the tone of Luhnow’s comments doesn’t seem to indicate that the team is gunning for a reliever of that caliber. Additional relief arms that are among the league-leaders in velocity (via Fangraphs’ leaderboards) and happen to be on non-contending clubs include Jake Diekman and Ken Giles of the Phillies, Bryan Morris and Sam Dyson of the Marlins, and Jeremy Jeffress of the Brewers.

Give Us Your Commenting System Feedback

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Last month, we rolled out a new commenting system at MLBTR for various reasons.  Yesterday, we implemented the great wpDiscuz plugin to add back some of the features you’ve been missing.  The following features were added:

  • Upvoting and downvoting
  • Ability to edit your own comments
  • Live update of new comments for logged-in users

How can we further improve the commenting system?  Please let us know in the comments of this post and we’ll get to work.

Anthopoulos Open To Dealing From Major League Roster

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Blue Jays general manager Alex Anthopoulos has been vocal about his desire to strengthen both his starting rotation and his bullpen prior to the trade deadline, and in a television appearance on Sportsnet’s Tim & Sid show, he expressed an openness to dealing from his big league roster to do so. Via Sportsnet’s Jeff Simmons, Anthopoulos said that while he’s reluctant to do so, it’s already been discussed with other teams:

“We’re looking to add and it’s hard to take away from the big-league club. I was on the phone with one team (prior to coming on the show) and I mentioned that we may need to be creative. As much as we don’t want to take away from the current 25, we bounced around some ideas and concepts. That’s not the path we want to go down but if we can’t seem to get what we want from a prospect standpoint we’ll need to open it up and be creative, similar to what Oakland and the Red Sox did last year with Jon Lester and (Yoenis) Cespedes. We’re open to doing something like that as well.”

On July 31 last season, the A’s acquired free-agents-to-be Lester and Jonny Gomes from the Red Sox in exchange for Cespedes and a Competitive Balance draft pick. That trade stunned many at the time, given the fact that Cespedes was a significant cog in the contending Athletics’ lineup, but it was certainly not the only trade in which a contending club traded away a notable big leaguer. The Tigers parted with both Austin Jackson and Drew Smyly in a three-team trade with the Mariners and Rays in order to acquire the services of David Price.

Such trades could be more commonplace in 2015, given the parity that exists throughout the game and particularly in the American League. However, when looking at the Blue Jays’ roster, they don’t necessarily have a player with one-and-a-half years of service time remaining (the amount of service that both Cespedes and Jackson had) that fits the exact mold of those two 2014 trades. While both Jose Bautista and Edwin Encarnacion have only a 2016 club option remaining on their deals, each also has 10-and-5 rights, meaning that both Bautista and Encarnacion must personally approve a trade to another team.

Dioner Navarro stands out to me as a name that could be moved to a team in need of a catching upgrade. Toronto could either replace him at DH internally or find a DH replacement via trade, as that would be easier to come by than a significant pitching upgrade. Productive part-timers like Danny Valencia, Chris Colabello and Justin Smoak could hold appeal to other clubs as well, though none of the aforementioned names would bring a significant return on his own.

One name that could draw some interest might be Kevin Pillar. The Jays do have an in-house candidate to replace him in center field in the form of Dalton Pompey, who was demoted earlier this year but has slashed .357/.416/.571 in his past 26 Double-A  contests. Pillar, though, is controllable through 2020, and he may be changing the perception that he’s a fourth outfielder. His five-plus years of control and elite glove might make him an unlikely candidate to go, but it’s easy to envision teams inquiring.

All of that, of course, is all highly speculative as opposed to anything that Anthopoulos has indicated through his comments. The Blue Jays also have a nice stable of near-MLB-ready talent to deal from in Pompey, Daniel Norris and Miguel Castro, to say nothing of high-upside prospects that are further down the line such as Jeff Hoffman and Max Pentecost.

For the time being, Anthpoulos said that he’s not close on any deals, but he’s “starting to talk a little bit more” with other clubs, calling the All-Star break “the earliest to get something done.” The Toronto GM also expressed a willingness to act quickly, stating: “In season though, timing is huge. Within two or three days or a week, someone’s value can skyrocket so if you have a chance to close (on a deal), you better do it fast.”

NL East Notes: Phillies, Pettibone, Niese, Miley, Allard

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Phillies GM Ruben Amaro said Tuesday that he’s not under any pressure to make to make a trade and won’t be forced into moving a player, writes Todd Zolecki of MLB.com. Zolecki notes that Amaro is very likely posturing, but the GM implied that the Phillies could wait until the offseason to move some of their pieces. “We’ve debated here internally about when is the greatest value of some of these players, a number of them,” said Amaro. “When does that player become the most valuable asset? Again, a lot of it depends on who’s going to step up, and who’s going to satisfy some of the things that we’re trying to do in a trade. If someone does, and we feel like it’s the right thing to do, we’ll do it.” Amaro did, however, say that he “would like to do something” on the trade market.

More notes from the NL East to kick off Wednesday morning…

  • Phillies right-hander Jonathan Pettibone may need another surgery, writes the Philadelphia Inquirer’s Jake Kaplan. The 24-year-old Pettibone is currently rehabbing from right shoulder surgery, but Amaro told reporters yesterday that he had to shut down a simulated game at the team’s spring complex in Clearwater early. The loss of Pettibone has been a notable one for a Phillies team that is thin on upper-level rotation depth; Pettibone tossed 100 1/3 innings of 4.04 ERA ball in his rookie season back in 2013.
  • Jon Niese has posted stellar results of late, but Andy Martino of the New York Daily News writes that a run of six straight starts has done little to restore the trade value of the Mets lefty. “It changes nothing for me,” an NL exec told Martino. “Stuff has gotten lighter every year. The Mets are going to tell everyone it’s as good as ever to keep trade value high.” A second evaluator told Martino, “I would assume GMs wouldn’t overreact to recent performance, and would consider the long term picture along with health and the financial commitment.” Niese’s hot streak — he has a 2.41 ERA over his past six starts — came up in yesterday’s MLBTR Chat, though I offered a similar take; six starts does little to override a history of shoulder issues, and Niese’s secondary stats haven’t been as impressive as his ERA in that time anyhow.
  • Many reports this offseason noted that the Marlins were interested in, if not close to acquiring Wade Miley prior to the Diamondbacks stepping back and eventually accepting another offer from the Red Sox. The Boston Globe’s Alex Speier spoke with GM-turned-manager Dan Jennings about his club’s interest in Miley: “We had conversations. The closeness, I don’t want to say, but we definitely had conversations,” said Jennings. One source indicated to Speier that the Marlins thought the deal was nearly complete before Boston swooped in.
  • The Braves continue to work toward a deal with No. 14 overall pick Kolby Allard, assistant GM John Coppolella tells David O’Brien of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. “We’re still going through the process, and we’re very hopeful that we can sign Kolby,” said Coppolella. “You would’ve like to have had him signed earlier, but you understand that it’s a process. I wouldn’t say there’s a holdup on his end or our end, we just haven’t reached the finish line yet.” O’Brien recently reported that there’s a “legit chance” that the Braves won’t ink Allard. He notes that there’s been some speculation that adviser Casey Close of Excel Sports has been seeking a bonus more in line with where Allard would’ve been drafted had a back injury not dropped his stock a bit. As I noted at the time of O’Brien’s initial report, the Braves can offer Allard about $3.462MM (which is $626K over slot) without incurring the loss of a pick.

Rays Designate Everett Teaford For Assignment

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The Rays told reporters, including Roger Mooney of the Tampa Tribune, that they have designated left-handed reliever Everett Teaford for assignment following the second game of today’s double-header (Twitter link). Right-hander Andrew Bellatti has been reinstated from the disabled list in his place.

Teaford, 31, joined the Rays over the weekend when his contract was selected from Triple-A Durham. He pitched in both games of today’s twin bill, firing 1 1/3 scoreless innings and allowing just one hit. Overall this season — his first with Tampa Bay — he’s allowed one run in 5 2/3 innings.

The rest of Teaford’s U.S. career has come with the Royals organization, where he posted a 4.25 ERA with 5.3 K/9 and 3.0 BB/9 in 106 big league innings from 2011-13. The former 12th-round pick also has experience overseas, as he spent the 2014 campaign pitching for the LG Twins of the Korea Baseball Organization. Teaford logged a 5.24 ERA with 7.7 K/9 against 4.6 BB/9 in the hitter-friendly KBO.

Rangers To Sign Cuban Free Agent Andy Ibanez

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The Rangers have agreed to a deal with Cuban infielder Andy Ibanez, Jeff Wilson of the Forth Worth Star-Telegram reports on Twitter. Last we checked in, the 22-year-old had changed his representation to Relativity Baseball.

Ibanez’s deal with Texas is worth $1.6MM, reports MLB.com’s Jesse Sanchez (via Twitter). That figure means that the Rangers have spent $4.2MM of the roughly $4.5MM they have to spend after acquiring the aforementioned bonus slots.  Texas recently added to its international pool via trade, and it could well be that the club was lining itself up to add Ibanez, who is subject to the international signing restrictions.

Ibanez has been available for some time, but was somewhat surprisingly slow to sign. Generally credited as a solid all-around player who lacks any outstanding tools, Ibanez has long been expected to command a significant bonus, as Ben Badler of Baseball America wrote some time back. Ibanez put up back-to-back .800+ OPS years in his two most recent campaigns in Serie Nacional.

$1.6MM is quite an attractive price for Ibanez. Badler is on record with the view that Ibanez is a better prospect than $8MM man Roberto Baldoquin, who cost the Angels double that to sign (with penalties included) along with the sacrifice of future signing opportunities.

Amaro Discusses Utley’s Role Upon Return

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Chase Utley has been on the disabled list for the Phillies for about two weeks and may not be activated until late July or even August. Upon his return, there might not be regular at-bats for him the former franchise cornerstone, GM Ruben Amaro Jr. told reporters (including Jim Salisbury of CSNPhilly.com). Asked if Utley is still the team’s starting second baseman, Amaro candidly replied: “Not for me he’s not. Cesar Hernandez is our best second baseman. I would assume that Cesar would be our second baseman. I think that’s fair.”

That news carries more significance than it would for most veteran players being surpassed by a younger option, because Utley has a vesting option on his contract that is based on plate appearances. As things stand right now, Utley is just shy of halfway to the required 500 plate appearances he’d need for a $15MM vesting option to trigger. His 249 plate appearances have been accumulated in 65 games, and there was a chance that Utley could have reached 500 PAs with a late July return. Amaro did mention that Utley could see some time at first base, but it seems that Hernandez’s strong play at second base will prevent Utley’s option from vesting.

Details surrounding Utley’s option are somewhat nebulous, but if it does not vest, the option will be a club option valued at somewhere between $5MM and $11MM based on the number of days that Utley spent on the disabled list in 2015. That will leave the Phillies with an interesting choice; they’ll be tasked with deciding whether or not to bring back a player that has been one of the faces of the franchise for the better part of a decade at somewhat of a discounted rate or buy him out for $2MM.

Of course, Utley’s play to this point hasn’t been up to his standards, nor has it been worth even $5MM. The six-time All-Star has batted just .179/.257/.275 with four homers in his 249 plate appearances this season. His defense, as one would expect of a 36-year-old with a history of knee issues, has declined as well.

Hernandez, on the other hand, entered play today hitting .302/.385/.385 with a homer and a perfect 12-for-12 in stolen base chances. Defensive metrics are down on his work at second base, and he’s also benefited from a lofty .363 BABIP. Still, Hernandez’s baserunning prowess, keen eye at the plate and excellent contact skills give the Phillies reason to be intrigued by the 25-year-old beyond the financial implications of the decision.

Astros, 11th-Round Pick Sandoval Agree To $900K Bonus

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The Astros have agreed to a $900K bonus with 11th-round pick Patrick Sandoval, reports Jim Callis of MLB.com (on Twitter). Sandoval, a high school left-hander out of California, is receiving an enormous bonus for a player selected this late in the draft. Under the current rules, bonuses for players drafted after the 10th round do not count toward a team’s draft pool so long as they are $100K or less. In other words, the Astros are taking an $800K hit to their bonus pool with this bonus.

Houston has, to this point, spent $17,040,000 of its $17,289,200 bonus pool (per MLB.com), so the Sandoval signing will put them over their limit. However, teams are allowed to exceed their draft pool by less than five percent without forfeiting future picks. The $249K remaining in the team’s pool plus the maximum $863K overage means that Houston is still about $313K shy of incurring the loss of a first-round pick in the 2016 draft.

Sandoval’s bonus, then, results in a $550,800 overage on the Astros’ behalf. That overage will be taxed at 75 percent, meaning Houston is paying $413,100 in luxury taxes to acquire Sandoval. In essence, his $900K bonus will actually cost the club $1.313MM.

In Sandoval, the Astros are acquiring a player who ranked as the 135th prospect in this year’s draft, per Fangraphs’ Kiley McDaniel. Callis and MLB.com colleague Jonathan Mayo ranked Sandoval 139th, while the Baseball America staff ranked Sandoval 392nd among draft prospects.

Callis and Mayo call him an athletic, projectable left-hander who sits in the 88-90 range with his fastball but touches 91 and 92 mph at times. Per their scouting report, Sandoval flashes an “absolute hammer of a curve,” but the pitch is inconsistent. BA notes that his arm action can get a bit long, leading to issues repeating his delivery and, therefore, with his control. However, those issues diminished in his senior year of high school, they add.

The Astros have a pair of tough-to-sign player remaining unsigned in their post-10th-round crop in the form of prep righty Luken Baker (Texas) and prep righty Cole Sands (Florida), but Callis feels that the $313K they have remaining before incurring draft pick forfeiture won’t be enough to entice either player to forgo his commitment to college (Twitter link). The max that either player could be offered is $413,660.

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