Marlins first baseman Jesus Aguilar, Angels outfielder Brian Goodwin and Astros utility player Aledmys Diaz have all won arbitration hearings against their respective teams, ESPN’s Jeff Passan reports (via Twitter). Aguilar will now earn $2.575MM in his first season with Miami, rather than the $2.325MM at which the club filed. Goodwin will be paid $2.2MM instead of the Angels’ $1.85MM submission. Diaz, meanwhile, will take home a $2.6MM salary instead of the flat $2MM filed by the Astros. Aguilar and Goodwin are repped by the MVP Sports Group, while Diaz is a client of Excel Sports.
Miami claimed the 29-year-old Aguilar off waivers from their fellow Floridians up in St. Petersburg, as the Rays weren’t keen on paying the slugger’s arb salary after picking him up in a July deal with the Brewers. Aguilar was an All-Star in 2018 when he broke out with a .274/.352/.539 slash and 35 home runs, but his offensive output scaled way back in ’19. He was hitting just .225/.320/.374 at the time the Brewers swapped him for righty Jake Faria, and while he improved a bit with Tampa Bay, his overall production this past season was nowhere near his 2017-18 levels.
That said, the Marlins clearly feels there’s significant rebound potential with Aguilar. He’s currently lined up to be the organization’s primary first baseman, and a return to form would make him a steal of a waiver claim. Aguilar is controlled through the 2022 season via arbitration, so he could be a multi-year piece in Miami if he rights the ship.
Speaking of savvy waiver claims, Goodwin was claimed by the Angels at the end of Spring Training last year after the Royals put him on release waivers. Despite being cut by a rebuilding club, Goodwin intrigued the Angels as a potential stopgap with Justin Upton sidelined. What they got instead was a very solid .262/.326/.470 slash that was accompanied by 17 home runs, 29 doubles and three triples. Goodwin was a near-regular in Anaheim last year, appearing in 136 games and taking a career-high 458 plate appearances. His output was strong enough that the Angels now view him as an important piece of the outfield puzzle. Like Aguilar, he’s controlled through 2022.
Diaz hit .271/.356/.467 in 247 plate appearances with the Astros in 2019. The versatile 29-year-old played primarily 140 innings at third base, 151 innings at second base and 161 innings at first base while also logging brief action at shortstop and in left field. Houston was Diaz’s third team in three seasons, but he’ll return to give new manager Dusty Baker some versatility off the bench and serve as a backup option for any of the team’s four regular infielders. He, too, is controlled through the 2022 season. Also of note — Chandler Rome of the Houston Chronicle observes that this, somewhat remarkably, is the sixth consecutive arbitration loss for the Astros organization (Twitter link).
Up until this point — as can be seen in MLBTR’s 2020 Arbitration Tracker — players had gone just 1-for-7 against teams in 2020 trials. Dodgers righty Pedro Baez was the lone player to topple his club in arbitration, while Jose Berrios, Shane Greene, Josh Hader, Joc Pederson, Eduardo Rodriguez and Tony Wolters had all come up short. The players have now evened things out a bit, as they’re suddenly 4-6 in this February’s arb proceedings. The hearings of Archie Bradley, J.T. Realmuto and Hector Neris are still pending results.
Diaz is a pretty nice utility man if he can stay healthy
I see some regression due to bangless nights in H-Town.
Trent Thornton is looking like a decent back of the rotation starter. Good trade for both I guess.
Yea if your regular trash can banger is injured Diaz can take over in a pinch.
ugh…goodwin is our right fielder thanks for the reminder
Until Jo Adell comes up…
Fletcher is going to be playing a lot in RF this year but why would you hate Goodwin? He was really good last year.
Hard to find a more Jekyll and Hyde example than his 2019.
In 3 separate months he posted an ops over 1.000. In the other 3 it was under .650. Depending on what months you happened to see him, he could either be one of the best or worst players you witnessed on the year.
fletcher should be a lock at 2b. besides, marsh may even come up sooner.
can the Angel’s put Fletcher in RF, LaStella at 2nd full time?? please !!:)
Since you asked nicely on MLB trade rumors they may just take that into consideration 🙂
fletcher is a master at 2b. which is more important. besides, outfield prospects are coming up soon enough.
Vizion… I couldn’t agree more.
The Angels have three top 100 prospects. All outfielders. Adell will be here soon. I would have loved Stripling, but Pederson was problematic.
If the PCL was a development league, I’d be more open to leaving quality prospects there. It’s a “joke” league, where young players can get into bad habits. Adell can’t stay there. Marsh can’t stay there.
That made Pederson problematic.
totally agree. i have wondered why the team move the aaa somewher close.
It’s the parks. Most of the parks are Coors Field. I live in a PCL town.
Nah. It’s really only two parks that have this massive issue and most of the others still have high offensive number put in. There is also the line factor of San Antonio that is the fairs park in the pcl and still should be in AA. Hodgetown on the other hand, should be in the pcl with their numbers
Lowtalkers1, which two parks.
lowtalker From a googled mid season article.
Looking at AAA, International vs. PCL, here are the # of hitters in each league hitting:
.300+
INT: 13
PCL: 43
.330+.
INT: 3
PCL: 17
15+ HR
INT: 3
PCL: 13
Pitchers…
3.65 ERA or less
INT: 16
PCL: 1
Hot Dry Climate, Altitude of Parks. Just compare the numbers to the IL. Same talent. Completely different stats.
lowtalker, one last note.
The elevation of Anaheim is 157 ft above sea level.
The elevation of Salt Lake City 4,226 ft above sea level.
He would have to mean Albuquerque and Salt Lake for elevations. Others, including places like El Paso, Las Vegas, Reno, Fresno, etc, have mixtures of elevations and climates which inflate their numbers. Very few parks have pitcher tendencies, and those teams play so many games on the road that it doesnt show completely. PCL is a hitters dream – which makes it so scary when guys do look bad.
Just to add, there is no moisture in the air in this parks. Very dry conditions.
Reno is a high desert with an elevation of 4,505 ft above sea level.
Vegas is a desert It’s much easier to hit there than in Arizona before the Humidor.
El Paso is only 3740 above sea level. But Hot Dry Climate.
In the summer, Fresno is a hot dry climate.
It’s not really a place you want to develop players.
Maybe step back a bit. Marsh hasn’t played in AAA yet, Adell only had 126 ABs there (and wash’t so spectacular) and Adams was a top 100 in some sites, not all, and barely played above low A.. Pederson fit the Angels fine for 2020 especially as a lefty bat they are quite short of. And he wasn’t a long range asset. If the Angels hope to compete this season they could have done far worse.
The PCL might have its issues, but saying all prospects should simply jump it is a gross overstatement. Salt Lake may be a misleading place to play, but hitting for no power there was a bit of a concern – I guess your argument with Adell’s high K rate there might be he may have sold out for power, but with 0 HRs it wasn’t a good trade.
I expect good things out of Adell but I can’t say he’s absolutely ready for the show yet. or that Marsh is very close either. .
“Adell only had 126 ABs there (and wash’t so spectacular)”
Understatement of the the comments. He was atrocious, looking completely over matched
As far as Marsh, we will likely forever be looking for injuries, sadly
The Arizona fall league is more important than the PCL.
But it doesn’t matter that he may not be ready. Once he was moved to the PCL there was no going back. We talked about the parks, we talked about it not being a development league.
Once the Angels moved him up, they made their bed. About Marsh, there is a reason he’s not in the PCL. It because he can grow more in AA.
Great prospects who stay in the PCL for more than two or three hundred ABs are a lot more suspects than prospects. The Angels can’t keep Adell in the PCL.
AZFL isnt more important than AAA. AZFL is a meaningless league where you could be going up against 17 year old kids and guys with no professional baseball experience in their life. Few pitchers especially have much of a repertoire down there. It’s a casual show off league where you could be facing guys who barely know what they’re doing
As Bud Black says
“From my viewpoint and being down there for years and talking to coaches and managers, there isn’t a lot of strategy or organizational philosophy being taught. It’s more of a ‘Let’s go play. Show your talent.’”
So facing young kids that may have no idea what they are doing still and are down there just showing off and having fun – no, not that doesnt say much. But facing almost exclusively MLB capable players in AAA – now THAT is an indication of where your talent lay
No trying to be an ass.. but just confirming you know that LAA stands for Los Angeles Angels and not Los Angeles Anaheim. Just trying to figure out your name. …. Good comment tho!
Please not.
Adell up by the End of April. Marsh acts as replacement outfielder in case of injury. Goodwin Temporary player.
LaStella gets a lot of time at first. Fletcher is the starting second baseman.
CAangels – as stated, Fletcher is a star at 2b so it would be a step backwards to remove him. LaStella will see a lot of 1b time to relieve Pujols. Goodwin does fine in RF and with Adell on the near horizon, it’s not an issue anyway if Goodwin underwhelms. Our depth in all areas is better than it’s been in years.
I like Goodwin. He’s been a fine outfielder for us with a surprisingly decent bat.
me too. he may not be an all star or gold glove winner but he plays hard and with a smile.
Vixionaire,
Go look at outs above average. Because Goodwin goes back so well, he might have been the best defensive LF in baseball.
And a LHB on a heavily RHB team.
Geo… Why does that matter? I would think being heavy LH hitting team would be a problem, not heavy RH hitting team.
Goodwin is a perfect 4th outfielder and that’s what he’ll be once one of Adell or Marsh is promoted. Fletcher in the outfield would waste his dynamic second base defense.
But I could see a Goodwin/Trout/Fletcher outfield late in games as Upton’s defense was bad before knee surgery and isn’t likely to improve much.
Upton wasn’t a bad outfielder before Surgery, he was a mediocre outfielder before surgery. He was on par with Brantley, who is also a mediocre outfielder.
In 2018 He was -2% success rate. Joc Pederson -3%. Brantley -2%. Soto -3% 2019 Acuna -3%, Braun -4%, Tommy Pham -5%. just to give you an idea.
Goodwin +4%. He was won of the best LF baseball.
Negative dWAR every year but one per BB-ref. I’m not saying his Manny Ramirez out there, but he takes some bad routes and makes some weak throws.
We have better stats than that. Every ball is measured. Hang time is measured. Ground covered is measured. Velocity of the ball is measured. Starting position is measured.
We know how good people. We don’t have to rely on obsolete stats.
Search for Outs Above Average. I believes it’s baseball savant.
dWAR (Defensive Wins Above Replacement) is not an obsolete stat, and we do not really have better numbers to compare with than it.
Goodwin has had 5 stops. His dWAR those stays are -0.2, -0.8, -0.2, -0.1 and -0.2. So no, he is not a good fielder.
Fangraphs is slightly more generous, at least giving him a positive Defensive value for his limited time in KC in 2018, but again have him as a poor fielder everywhere else.
I tend to fall into habits with stats. And I couldn’t agree more about the PCL.
I was really hoping the Angels would move to Sacramento or Fresno when the AAA musical chairs thing happened a few years ago. The insane altitude in Salt Lake is horrible for pitcher development in particular. How can you possibly improve your breaking pitches in air so thin pitches don’t break?
I have to disagree with you darkstar61
When EVERYTHING is measured. It’s obsolete. We are not guessing anymore. We know.
The position where a player starts is measured. Where the ball lands is measured. The hang time is measured. The velocity is measured. How well other players make the exact same play is tabulated. Not a similar play, the same play. Every play is measured.
dWAR attempts to measure average outcomes vs a stat that actually measures outcomes. It’s a stat whose time has gone. There are way better stats out there.
Keith Hernandez’s CAREER dWAR is 0.6. I can’t make my point any more clearly than using Keith Hernandez as an example.
This is like the message board equivalent of the double Spider-Man meme.
The stat you are trying to use is merely trying to perfect range factor. It penalizes heavy for not catching balls it doesnt actually expect you to even catch tho, so if you have very few such balls hit your way (as is the case with Goodwin in 2019) then you will be rewarded heavily. It also counts in quarters of points, but oddly rounds to solid numbers – you can see loss or gains of solid numbers not because you lost/earned them, but because the system is set up poorly. Lastly it has no tracking of arms or runners allowed to advance, it is solely, poorly counting range.
Despite this, even they say Goodwin has been a 0 to negative fielder until this past season. So even with its flaws, it still doesn’t support your argument
Upton is lazy at best at the plate and in the field based on what I’ve seen. I’ve never understood the love affair with him. He’s a career .266 hitter = average-ish. But stats are one thing. I compared highlight videos on youtube of Upton and Calhoun. Calhoun leaves his feet to dive for balls all over right field. Upton’s main highlights include him catching fly balls at the wall and hitting dingers. To me, he looks confused when the ball is hit to him.
I’m an Upton fan but I agree he appears a tad lazy out there. He was even a good glove finalist in 2017.
Listen to what Maddon is saying: Fletcher is the new Chone. He will Zobrist all over the field.
Chone Figgins best years are when he played 3rd and they kept him there.
Diaz during arbitration hearing: “I’ll let it slip that you guys wore buzzers last year.”
Astros, in Mayor Quimby voice: “Dear God, give him what he wants.”
If the Astros wore buzzers, wouldn’t that mean that Torres wore a buzzer? Since the same twitter account that accused Altuve of wearing a buzzer, actually accused Torres of wearing one too. If any team should hope the buzzer accusations are false, it’s the Yankees. Because if it is proven that the Astros wore buzzers, guess who gets investigated next. And once the Yankees get investigated who knows what all they find.
Astros negotiating team: “Diaz couldn’t hit even WITH our garbage can. He should earn the lesser.”
Watching him in Toronto I’d say that’s accurate. Diaz needs Jobu to come and take fear from bats on the curve ball.
Neither could Max Stassi and now the Angels are stuck with him.
Manfred should let us undo that trade, which I never liked.
That would make Aguilar the Round Mound of Rebound if he bounced back in a meaningful way. Call me doubtful…. he weighs like 275 pounds.