NL Notes: Lackey, D’Backs, Kimbrel, Colletti

MLBTR has learned the full details of the incentives clause negotiated last winter between the Cardinals and righty John Lackey. (Derrick Goold of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch has already reported major elements of the clause.) The provision calls for $400K payouts to Lackey for reaching each of five innings tallies. His first milestone was 100 innings, with successive markers every 25 innings thereafter. When Lackey reached 200 frames last night, he maxed out the bonus at a total of $2MM (on top of the league minimum salary that was already called for in his deal).

Here are some more notes from the National League:

• The Diamondbacks face several contract questions regarding pitchers even before considering outside additions, as Zach Buchanan of AZCentral Sports writes. Whether to tender Jeremy Hellickson and Jhoulys Chacin, exercise a club option over Josh Collmenter, and pursue a reunion with free agent-to-be David Hernandez are among the matters that Arizona will need to address. Chief baseball officer Tony La Russa discussed all four pitchers with Buchanan. Most interestingly, perhaps, is the situation regarding Chacin. La Russa says that he has “seen enough from Chacin” to know that he’d be “in the competition” for the club next year. The 27-year-old looked good at Triple-A this year and has put together three nice outings for Arizona. Because of his limited MLB time this year, he is arb-eligible. Chacin had agreed to a $5.5MM deal with the Rockies before he was released in the spring before signing successive minor league deals with the Indians and D’Backs. My guess would be that the club will look to work something out with him before the tender deadline.
• Padres closer Craig Kimbrel says it’s been a frustrating first season in San Diego, as Dennis Lin of the San Diego Union-Tribune reports. Kimbrel says that he expects the club to improve next year, citing the assembly of new faces as one factor that may have slowed down the Pads this year. Of course, as Lin writes, it’s certainly plausible to imagine a scenario where Kimbrel is dealt elsewhere to address other areas of needs or re-build the farm system.
• Former Dodgers GM Ned Colletti, who now works with the organization as an adviser, is “right in the middle of everything, but nowhere near anything,” Bill Plaschke of the Los Angeles Times writes. But as Plaschke points out, Colletti — who says it’s been “a different kind of year” — was responsible for bringing in many of the team’s key pieces. That includes not only players like Clayton Kershaw and Zach Grienke, but youngsters such as Joc Pederson and Corey Seager. All said, the piece suggests, Colletti’s nine-year tenure as the head of the organization’s baseball operations department was probably more successful than many have acknowledged.