It may be a white-knuckle weekend in the Cleveland area, as fans wait to see if submitted offers for cornerstone player Francisco Lindor prove to be sufficient for the Indians’ front office. It’s already been an offseason of no small intrigue, with the Corey Kluber trade further redefining the direction of the Cleveland franchise. One more question for the team before camp breaks? What to do about their abundance of outfield options. As Paul Hoynes of the Cleveland Plain Dealer points out in a Saturday reader mailbag, the Kluber trade, in bringing back Delino DeShields, leaves the club with a whopping nine outfielders on their 40-man roster.
As a careful observer might note, that tally only stands if we consider the DH-bound Franmil Reyes as an outfielder, but it’s a gaggle of on-the-grass options to sort through nonetheless. While each of Greg Allen, Jake Bauers, Daniel Johnson, Jordan Luplow, Oscar Mercado, Tyler Naquin, Bradley Zimmer, and DeShields has merit, Hoynes is right in pointing out that Mercado may be the only clear-cut starter of the group. If one of Lindor or Mike Clevinger does ultimately end up on the move, perhaps it should come as little surprise if a more stable outfield option comes back the other way.
- Although outsiders might think that Shane Farrell’s hiring as Toronto’s amateur scouting director was aided by his family ties, Ben Nicholson-Smith of Sportsnet shares that the hire “won’t likely be popular with Blue Jays fans”—in part because many club followers still bristle at the team’s decision to trade Shane’s father John to the rival Red Sox in 2012. Still, Nicholson-Smith shares that the younger Farrell was described as “very intelligent” and a “strong evaluator” by an unnamed NL scout. Then again, it’s not as if any claims of nepotism could have been entertained seriously, considering that the Cubs interviewed Farrell for their VP of Scouting opening just this offseason.
- The Royals’ decision to pluck Maikel Franco off the wire wasn’t exactly made on a hunch. As Alex Lewis explores in a mailbag for The Athletic, Kansas City evaluators found “a few oddities in Franco’s swing from his more successful seasons (2016-18) to last season (2019) in a video study session”. Lewis shares that the club is “optimistic” that they can fix Franco’s issues–not exactly a ridiculous gambit considering his age (27) and early promise. Lewis also looks back at a story from The Athletic’s Matt Gelb, written around the time Franco was demoted in August, that noted certain adjustments the third baseman made to hit fewer balls on the ground may have been behind an infield popup rate of 23.7 percent at the time of his call-down.
- Recent reunions with Martin Maldonado and Joe Smith has inched the Houston Astros’ projected payroll very close to the $228MM luxury tax threshold. They would avoid a repeater tax, though a 12% surtax comes with the $20MM overage (the base tax line is set at $208MM for 2020). Jason Martinez at Roster Resource pegs Houston’s luxury tax estimate at just over $137MM, well past that second line and fast approaching the third tax line of $248MM. Given that Houston previously indicated a desire to stay under even the $228MM line, they are probably done shopping for the winter, at the very least as far as position players are concerned, per The Athletic’s Jake Kaplan.
ryjo34jones
I would love to see the Royals find a way to recover Franco’s former self. I’ve always viewed him as someone made in the same mold of Moose so maybe their approach to coaching him would have success as a precedent
PhilsPhan
As a Phillies fan, I hope that’s true. it was so infuriating to watch him because you saw all the potential, but he was never able to tap into it consistently. Good luck Maikel! I hope Royals see more contact and less helmets flying off onto that ground than we did!
whyhayzee
Cue the lame comments about the Astros cheating.
DarkSide830
no thanks…they’re all garbage anyway
davengmusic
As an Astros fan, this is good.
krillin89
Garbage cans. Get it right
ColossusOfClout
Effff the Astros!
sufferforsnakes
The Astros were so lame at cheating.
wordonthestreet
Explain how stating the Astros cheated is lame when they actually admitted it already to MLB!
Sounds like you are the “lame” one.
cygnus2112
Line drives at the K with the spacious gaps isn’t necessarily a bad thing.
Col_chestbridge
The Indians OF is actually pretty simple:
CF: Mercado, who might shift to LF for DeShields some times
One corner: Allen platoons with Luplow (Allen has terrible splits despite being a switch hitter, he basically is a LHH)
Other corner: Reyes or Jake Bauers, with DeShields subbing in either in late game situations (defense) or on days where Bauers/Reyes/Carlos Santana are being rested.
Johnson starts in AAA until he’s past the service time consideration/super 2 cutoff
Zimmer starts in AAA because the club thinks he needs to “make up at bats” for missing last year and not going to fall league
Naquin is on the DL until midseason
Midseason, all 3 of Naquin, Johnson and Zimmer will be called upon as guys either get hurt or play their way out of playing time.
dynamite drop in monty
That’s anemic.
Vandals Took The Handles
The Indians do what the Rays do – they only have a small number of regular position players, mostly they rotate guys game by game.
With Santana, Lindor, and Rameriz in the infield (they’ll sign a 2B via free agency – he may be an everyday player as well), and Perez behind the plate, the Indians have to get maximum productivity from their OF. So guys like Bauer, Mercado, the CF’s, Naquin, and Luplow are not only changed from game to game, they’re also changed in-game. Francona is a master at this, and gets decent productivity from cheap OF’s.
It’s not just the Indians and Rays. Most small market (and some mid-market) teams can’t afford to pay 8 full-time starting position players anymore (i.e. core payers), as salaries have risen to levels that are unaffordable for most teams. The Brewers have been doing this successfully as well for years. Heck, even the Cardinals did it last year with their OF’s and won the NLC.
About time publications such as MLBTR and fans begin to accept what has been standard practice for years, and cover it accordingly.
debubba
I think they go out and get Dickerson and platoon him with Luplow. That would be an amazing platoon and Dickerson will be relatively cheap. From there, you find takers for Allen, Bauers and Zimmerman. This will be young players (A level) but at least you can stockpile.
Badacidtrip69
All great points. Fowler’s contract in STL makes him hard to sit. He’s paid as a core member but without the infield production (not that it’s horrible). They were also paying Ozuna higher than average so i’m not so sure the parallel is there but I get where you’re trying to go. StL has a lot of minor league / budding OF options (Bader, Arozarena, J Martinez, Edman, O’Neill, Yairo Munoz, Lane Thomas etc) can’t play them all, could potentially line up nicely in a trade with Cle. Mercado is your example already, was high in stl but blocked for years.
Matt Galvin
Bauers can also play 1B.
sufferforsnakes
Definitely better there than the outfield. In fact, he should never play outfield. Can’t judge the ball well, and constantly screwed up balls off the wall, allowing runners to take extra bases.
jbigz12
He’s going to have to get a lot better at hitting the baseball to play anywhere. That bat definitely doesn’t play at 1B.
dynamite drop in monty
Enjoy sack lunch
cdav45
Luplow is platooning with someone in LF. Mercado is playing CF. Reyes will be playing some RF. How much will be determined by his offseason work, or lack thereof. Those are 3 things we can be fairly certain of. Outside of that who in the hell knows how this OF will shake out.
Buhnersideburns
“the younger Farrell was described as “very intelligent” and a “strong evaluator” by an unnamed NL scout“…….Hmmm…. Isn’t John Farrell now a scout with the Reds?
jimmertee
Lol.
It sounds like he’ll be a good addition to the Jays.
The only issue will Shapiro and Atkins give him the support he needs and get out of the way so he can do a good job.
bigdaddyt
Cubs interviewed him for VP of scouting not director of amateur scouting. Which is higher position cause if the jays position is higher and he didn’t get the lower position with the cubs then us jays fans have reason to be angry with this kind of decision just look at the minisota wild and the nepotism that went on there. Was part of why their gm was fired, us jays fans can only dream that could happen here
Chief Wahoo Lives
Hopefully Reyes only plays a very small handful of games in the outfield for the Indians. He needs to be primarily a DH.
Dad
Who thinks this much about the likely outfield splits with 58 days till spring training ( give or take a few hours)