It appears the Royals will have to trudge through 2019 without the face of their franchise, catcher Salvador Perez, who may need Tommy John surgery. While they’ve been connected to free-agent catcher Martin Maldonado in the wake of the Perez news, general manager Dayton Moore said Saturday he’d rather go forward with in-house options Cam Gallagher and Meibrys Viloria and pick up “depth” at the position than add another potential starter, Lynn Worthy of the Kansas City Star reports. It’s unclear whether that mindset would close the door on a Maldonado signing, however. Even though the 32-year-old Maldonado has accrued plenty of playing time in recent seasons, the defensively adept veteran may not be in position to hold out for a starting job at this juncture.
More from the game’s Central divisions…
- Tigers owner Christopher Ilitch suggested Saturday the team will attempt to extend general manager Al Avila before his contract runs out after the 2020 season, though discussions haven’t yet gotten underway, Jason Beck of MLB.com relays. Avila, the Tigers’ GM since 2015, is “doing an excellent job” overseeing the rebuilding franchise, said Ilitch, who also spoke highly of manager Ron Gardenhire as he enters his second season with the club. Beyond that, Ilitch hinted the club’s poised to become more active in free agency as its rebuild progresses, per Beck, which jibes with previous statements from Avila.
- Pirates outfielder Lonnie Chisenhall left the team’s game Saturday with “general lower extremity tightness,” according to Kevin Gorman of the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review. The severity is unknown, but it’s not particularly reassuring news after Chisenhall missed all but 29 games last year with the Indians while dealing with calf problems. The Pirates signed the 30-year-old Chisenhall to a $2.75MM guarantee in free agency, in part because starting outfielder Gregory Polanco will miss at least the beginning of the season after undergoing shoulder surgery last September.
- Cardinals reliever Brett Cecil will stay out of game action until late next week as he battles mechanical issues, Jenifer Langosch of MLB.com writes. Cecil and the Cardinals insist he’s physically fine, but the southpaw noticed in his Wednesday appearance that he was leaving the mound too early and didn’t have his left arm in the correct position when he came set, Langosch writes He’ll need to fix those issues to have any chance at rebounding from a dreadful 2018 in which he logged a 6.89 ERA with 5.23 K/9 and 6.89 BB/9 in 32 2/3 innings. Cecil’s now in the third season of a four-year, $30.5MM contract that hasn’t worked out as hoped for the Cardinals thus far.
Maybe this is Cecil’s body’s way of telling him to do things differently.
Cecil left the mound early last year too.
Besides the Pelfrey contract, I believe Avila has done an ok job. I don’t understand letting Alex Wilson walk & keeping Greene, I’m sure there’s more to the story than what I know though? I don’t particularly understand the Matt Moore or Tyson Ross signings either, let the young guys (Turnbull, Hall, & Funkhouser) show what the got. JMO
They offered the same contract to Alex Wilson that CLE did but Wilson wanted a chance to play in the playoffs
Ohh I didn’t know he was a free agent, thought he had a year left of arbitration?
Detroit nontendered him and he chose to be a free agent.
The Moore and Ross signings are just fillers until the prospects (Manning, Faedo, Perez, Burrows and Mize) are ready to go. If Ross and/or Moore pitch well enough they could possibly get a decent return at the trade deadline.
He traded Verlander to the Stros for a sack of peanuts
Correction: He trade Verlander and a bunch of cash to the Stros for a sack of peanuts.
I think it’s to early to be conclusive. Jake Rogers & Perez sound pretty highly touted, from what I’ve been reading.
He traded verlander from a rebuilding team where he will retire before the tigers are contending……. AND he got Daz Cameron(future starting CF) Jake Rodgers(future gold glove catcher) Franklin Perez(future #2 or 3 SP) not a bad deal if you ask me
not to discredit your point, but “future” simply means “yet to be determined”. the jury is still out on that trade. both sides of the argument should realize that.
But isn’t that what a rebuilding team wants out of a trade “future” prospects that have the potential to be good when the rest of the young talent they have are in their primes together
Them is some good peanuts!
Yes, but I guess some people don’t understand the concept of rebuilding.
I would not call Top 100 prospect, and two other prospects in the Tigers Top 10 to be a sack of peanuts. And had Perez not been injured most of last year, he would undoubtedly be a Top 20 prospect. Aliva’s trades have been spot on, the Tigers went from having one of the worst farm systems in the majors to one of the best, by any knowledgeable measure.
one of the best, by any knowledgeable measure.
Baseball America ranked them 15th.
I know they’re “the house band,” but looking at the track records over the past 10 years, and I think I’ll stick with MLB Pipeline (and BP and Keith Law) over BA, which often seems hyperbolic, listicle-like and relies on its silly “awards.” It no longer excels at rating young talent.
You act like he gave away the franchise. The Tigers only had control of him for a month and a half. If you believe the Tigers could have re-signed him for a price that made sense for a re-building team, and that Verlander would have accepted those terms and been willing to play for a last place team, then you might have a point,depending on how those prospects turn out.
But surely you don’t believe re-signing Verlander was possible or prudent.
Pelfrey? Avila also signed Jordan Zimmerman. The Mercer deal looks particularly bad too, when considering what Iglesies signed for in Cincinnati.
Zimmerman sounded more like a Mr. I signing, than an Avila to me. That was the year he said he doesn’t care about money he just wants a WS. In his defense, Zimmerman was an absolute stud for the Nats.
I was excited for Zimmerman when he was signed. No one could have predicted how Zim has been since the signing. Mercer is just a filler signing.
Aside from the Pelfrey deal, Avila also gets an F for Mike Lowe signing and the trade return for JD Martinez.
Yeah, the return for JDM would be my biggest complaint against Avila. Regardless what anyone says about the market at the time, it is inexcusable, he should have either held out for more, or just received the compensatory pick..
Due to their being over the cap, the compensatory pick would have been at the end of the fourth round. What he received was better than that.
… and double secret probation for signing Mike Aviles.
You’ve got to read between the lines. Iglesias was reportedly seen as a selfish player, and a showboat, and you don’t want vets acting like primadonnas and eating into the culture and morale of the team. You want grinders to set a good example, instead. As far as nontendering Wilson, the Tigers now have some good young righthanded arms either knocking on the door or trying to make their mark. Between Jimenez, VerHagen, Alcantara, Garrett and Houston, and you don’t need to drop $5 million on a 7th inning guy.
I agree with you on the bullpen, but I disagree with you on Iggy. When he first arrived, he was a hotdog, but he settled down. I would have liked them to sign Galvez, who took a similar contract to Mercer, but put up better numbers than Iggy. Detroit seemed to take the first SS who accepted their price, instead of waiting out the market. I think they may have been telling each that they would be promoting a young SS at some point, and that may have limited the interest. I see Castro arriving this year.
Pelfry was an odd signing, for sure. Obviously, the result of poor scouting. Zimmerman has just had a string of back luck injuries, his neck, his back, a right shoulder impingement, a lat injury, a core muscle tear. At least the neck and back had been dogging him throughout 2016 and 2017.
Moore and Rods were signed to limit the younger pitchers innings, and hopefully they’d perform well enough to bring back a prospect or two at the deadline. That’s really the only reasons they were brought in.
Other then that, the only other thing I can think of is to help share their respective experiences as veterans in the league, with their younger teammates..
Personally, I thought both pick-ups were good buy-low candidates.
Agree, Moore and Ross could eat some innings and allow Tigers for develops arms way Tampa develop arms, in limited bullpen action. I hope Tiger team can sneak some fun baseball this year because last few years has been losing and listless.
Cecil has been a total bust.
you cant tell me the Royals are gonna roll with Gallagher rather then a rental like Maldo. They have plenty of payroll flexibility and could flip him at the deadline.
We could but the point of letting Gallagher play is to allow him to get better. We are in full rebuild right now and we need to develop our prospects.
Full rebuild means hold the prospects down until you are ready to bring them all up at once or within 2 years. Not to bring them up and let them play so one is ready to walk just as the next is ready to flourish.
Rebuild is to allow all the prospects to play and develop. to see what they have and what they dont have. so when they are ready to contend again they know what to go after players like ohearn, Dozier, soler, Phillip’s, and half of our pitching staff.
Couldn’t agree more
Let the kids play and see what they got. I was disappointed when they signed Billy Hamilton and Terrance Gore. Would of rather watch the kids play.
Pirates never seem to catch a break.
and so it begins with ChisenDL…
Disappointed but not surprised, when you go after bargains you have to expect this.
The old saying, you get what you pay for, still holds true.
Regarding the Tigers, why not bring your best prospects up to get seasoned in the big league vs. bringing in Vets to play 1 year? Wouldn’t that be valuable, break them in, get them ready? Thoughts?
Couldn’t agree more! They always talk about the ‘big 4’( Faedo,Manning,Perez,Mize)what about these other mid 20 year old triple a guys? Get them up here!
They can come up and pitch long relief. Plenty of room on roster. Greene is closing but he needs friends for bullpen fill. Develop arms like Tampa does.
I just want great baseball, so would like for seeing Tigers to move Castellsnos to Rockies for Ian Desmond and great prospects.
Name the prospects, because Desmond would be a bench piece on the Tigers, and does nothing to get my attention.
Manipulating their service time is my guess. They seem to want to wait until 2021 to compete. What’s so precise about that year is that aside from Cabrera’s monster contract they will have all other deals off the books.
It could also be that they are letting them develop at their own pace. It does no good to call up a starter before they have managed near 150 innings in a year. Why start their clock if they are not ready?
#1 they’re not ready #2 service time service time service time!!! When that window of contention finally opens you want it to stay open for as long as possible
Can we all agree that TradeRumors needs a new picture of Al Avila? He looks like he took a crap on his neighbors porch and he’s waiting for their reaction.
I think Al Avila is doing a good job. He was saddled with an extremely high payroll. The Jordan Zimmermann and Justin Upton signings were influenced more by Mike Illich. He seemed to have learned from the Mark Lowe and Mike Pelfrey blunders. The returns on JD Martinez were just too extremely young. He’s not donating Nicholas Castellanos.
It’s crazy that Prince Fielder is still getting 6 mil a year from the Tigers,
& another $9m from Texas. However you look at it, Tigs received some excellent years out of Kinsler.
I don’t know how much I’d trust Melky Cabrera to fill in that OF spot until Chissenhall is healthy, or in worst case scenario, Polanco is healthy. Don’t understand why they don’t just go after Adam Jones or Denard Span.
Nutting likes to look at his bank balance every morning with his coffee.
Or considering that Stallings is your backup catcher until Diaz is back & Cervelli is always hurt, why you didn’t sign Wieters, who got a minor League deal
Wieters?!??!?????
You think that’s any type of solution?
Because Melky is league min, duh.
time for Frank Schwindel to break the catcher’s mitt back out. here’s his chance.
“Don’t understand why…”
$$$, that’s why.
Pgh ownership is all about maximizing their annual MLB subsidy while feigning competitiveness.
MLB economics are broken: 15+ franchises are incentivized to tread water & fill out the schedule each season, nothing more. MLB needs a relegation/promotion system & real revenue sharing, otherwise it’s just an 8-10 team league that allows the other 15+ non-competitive owners to fleece fans (their reward… so long as they don’t rock the boat).
Agree with much of this except promotion/relegation and I’m a huge soccer fan. Fortunately p/r is simply not in the DNA of US sports and would find no traction if inserted there now.
Thanks to mpoweror, I don’t have to type as much! Already been said…
That’s what the Pirates get dumpster diving. Sure Lonnie is a good player, but he is never on the field they should expect this.
cecil’s isn’t mechanical, it’s a head case
It’s time to get rid of Cecil. Let’s take the fault it was a bad signing and just release him.
Maybe Cecil can leave the team soon too. He is not what we need, another year of getting lit up. Get Kimbrel in camp soon and make the bullpen tougher.
The signing of then free agent Cecil was Probably one of the worst contracts ever given by the Cardinals. Money is the only thing that’s kept him on the 25 man roster. There’s been absolutely nothing positive about any of his outings since he was signed. He’s a cancer on the team and should be replaced by Tommy Layne.
Kimbrell would be a better replacement for Cecil. However, the Cardinals won’t spend the money.
The fact that the Tigers may extend Avila is potentially the most depressing thing I’ve read all year. Avila’s been in full “rebuild” for a few years now, and the Tigers’ farm system is still only typically ranked in the middle of the pack. Furthermore, outside of trading his son and Wilson for Candelario, Avila’s not really shown an aptitude for getting anything in trades — especially when he traded Kinsler, Upton, and JDM. But on the bright side, the Tigers have what, about 30 light hitting middle infielders in the farm now?
For blowing a huge hole in the rotation by trading away Verlander, the Tigers got very little – Daz Cameron may end up being a 4th outfielder, and Perez is still a lottery ticket (as is Mize, Faedo, etc.) and the only guy from the farm that looks like a major leaguer – is Christin Stewart, and he looks perhaps like a left handed Castellanos – all bat, no glove.
Also, I saw the comments about Avila signing Perlfrey. Did you guys forget he also signed Mike Aviles?
Sigh…. This Tigers rebuild is going to take a decade or more.
I don’t believe there’s any positive reasons at all to extend him right now either. I think he should complete his term, and then be evaluated from his 2016 on forward signings & trades. I don’t think the Mike Avilés, minor league minimum signing should decipher his job. Albeit, I would love to poach some of the gm/scouts/player development from TB, Houston,&/or Cleveland. 🙂
I honestly believe whatever he does with Castellanos will make or break his job.
Jake Rogers will be a starting catcher, it’s not an if. Cameron’s upside right now is another Austin Jackson, his floor is a fourth outfielder. Perez is much more than a lottery ticket, his floor is a #5 starter or a power reliever at worst, barring injury. His ceiling is a #1 starter.