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What Might A Max Scherzer Extension Look Like?

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The last time he tried to sort out a new contract with his existing team, things didn’t exactly work out as hoped. But that doesn’t mean it isn’t worth it for the Nationals to try … after all, Max Scherzer was once open to doing a contract with the Tigers. And when he addressed the topic this spring, Scherzer expressed some degree of openness … though he also indicated he has no interest in pushing the topic himself with two seasons remaining on his old free agent pact.

[MLBTR on YouTube: What If Max Scherzer Stayed A Tiger?]

It’s worth wondering whether a deal might actually make sense for both Scherzer and the Nationals. Committing in advance to a pitcher is always cause for some trepidation, all the more so at the prices and ages at issue here. But … well, let’s just say I won’t be the one to ask the famously intense hurler whether he’s still up to the rigors of the sport.

Scherzer has mostly been an exceptionally durable pitcher, though his decade-long string of 30+ starts finally ended in 2019. He ran into some ailments in the postseason and experienced minor health issues this spring. There’s not much cause for worry, but it’s still a reminder of baseball mortality. Many great players have run into late-career roadblocks relatively suddenly.

Let’s be honest, though: Scherzer is still one of the very best in the business. While he missed five starts last season, he still provided 172 1/3 innings of 2.92 ERA ball. And he turned in a league-leading, career-low 2.45 FIP by generating 12.7 K/9 against 1.7 BB/9. His 2.88 xFIP matches his lowest mark since coming to D.C. Scherzer posted a career-best 16.3% swinging-strike rate while maintaining a 95.2 mph average four-seamer — tied for a personal high.

If Scherzer isn’t the single best pitcher in baseball, it’s only because Jacob deGrom and Gerrit Cole have elevated their own games that much more. There is one other guy who deserves mention, though, when considering the very top starters over the past two seasons. Like Scherzer, this Justin Verlander fella has only increased his output since leaving the Tigers, where they both once starred … and he isn’t exactly a spring chicken.

Verlander represents the key comp when considering a potential Scherzer extension. His new deal — which was inked last spring and was to go into effect for the 2020 season — represents a highly relevant bit of contractual precedent. At two years and $66MM, the deal provides Verlander with eye-popping money at quite an advanced stage of his career: his age-37 and 38 seasons. You can easily argue that it’s still a reasonably team-friendly rate of pay.

That pact was entered just before the start of the 2019 season, which was to be Verlander’s walk year. There weren’t any performance-based discounts: He was coming off of a doozy of a campaign in which he racked up 214 innings of 2.52 ERA ball with dominant peripherals and rising swinging-strike numbers. But Verlander quite understandably couldn’t pry loose both a premium average annual value and an overly lengthy commitment from the Astros.

Like Verlander, Scherzer is slated to reach free agency ahead of his age-37 campaign. To be fair, though, the latter will hit the open market at a bit more advanced age than the former would’ve. Scherzer turned 35 late last July, so while 2020 is designated his age-35 season, he’s actually closer in age right now to where Verlander was (he had just turned 36) when he inked his deal. But Scherzer is two full seasons away from free agency, rather than one, as was JV.

You have to think the Nationals would jump at the opportunity to tack on two years to Scherzer’s deal at the Verlander rate. There was no indication that the Nats and Scherzer were going to reach agreement before Spring Training, so perhaps this is a conversation for the 2020-21 offseason. More will be known then, especially if the team gets to watch its staff co-ace work in a truncated 2020 campaign. There’s less risk committing later, of course. But leverage will also be lost in the meantime.

Honestly, it might be worth making a run at a deal once the contract freeze is lifted; perhaps there were even some talks beforehand that never reached the public eye. While agent Scott Boras isn’t fond of deals that keep his players from the open market, he has worked extensively with Nationals ownership — including on two massive contracts with the team’s other top starter, Stephen Strasburg, one of which was an extension. Sorting something out to keep Max in D.C. through the end of his career would not only mean locking in another part of the team’s highly paid, three-headed pitching monster (Patrick Corbin being the other), but might ensure that Scherzer becomes the first player to don a Nationals cap in Cooperstown. (He’s not a sure thing just yet, but isn’t far from locking down future admission.)

Thing is: would Scherzer really be willing to settle for a two-year deal, even at a sum that tops Verlander by a bit? Or would he hold out for an even larger and/or longer deal? Cole just took home a $36MM AAV on his monster contract with the Yankees. Perhaps Mad Max — who has earned that appellation through unremitting competitiveness — would want to be paid at or above that level on an annual basis. Maybe he’d find it limiting to suggest he’s only worthy of a two-year extension. Scherzer certainly doesn’t seem like the type to settle for something fair and plan ahead for hanging up his spikes. Come to think of it, he may not be that interested in a deal at all. He’s obviously loaded already, so this wouldn’t be life-changing cash (not that it was for Verlander, needless to say). Scherzer might rather wait to return to free agency … unless, at least, the Nats proved willing to go absolutely wild with an offer to keep him without the need to top other bids. Could it take three guaranteed years? Four?!

It’s anyone’s guess what his personal view is, not to mention that of Boras, but it’s unlikely that it would make a ton of sense for the Nationals to over-commit. The team already placed a huge bet on Strasburg and will be paying Corbin major money through 2024, so there’s a lot of rotation cash on the books already. While Scherzer’s a living legend who’s arguably just as good now as ever before, the baseball reaper ultimately comes for all the great ones. The only risks are paying him a bit more or losing him free agency. Then again, with a pitcher as special Scherzer, the thought of a departure may be enough to spur the Nationals to enter completely new contractual terrain to forestall that possibility.

Photo courtesy of USA Today Sports Images.

Poll: Would You Watch KBO Broadcasts?

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This morning’s report that ESPN is in the midst of seemingly productive talks to acquire the broadcast rights for Korea Baseball Organization games was met with a widely positive response in comments both here and on social media, although the potential arrival of KBO coverage in North America wasn’t universally lauded. While many fans would welcome any form of competitive baseball on television and relish a chance to see some former big leaguers suiting up with regularity, others questioned the level of competition (relative to MLB) and the awkwardness of watching televised games without fans in the stands.

KBO games coming to ESPN — and/or other major sports networks elsewhere in the world — isn’t yet a certainty but would at least provide some real-life baseball to follow if such an arrangement did come to fruition (no disrespect to the Players’ League in MLB The Show intended). I was perhaps remiss not to include a formal poll in this morning’s post on the topic, so let’s conduct a more formal survey here (link to poll for Trade Rumors mobile app users):

Latest On Michael Conforto’s Oblique Injury

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Not long before the league shut down due to the ongoing pandemic, Mets right fielder Michael Conforto sustained an oblique strain that rendered him unlikely for Opening Day. The diagnosis came on March 11, just over two weeks from the since-postponed Opening Day, and the Mets didn’t provide a concrete timetable for Conforto’s expected return. The team still hasn’t put forth an official update on Conforto’s status — the indefinite delay to the season likely eliminated any urgency or obligation to do so — but the New York Post’s Mike Puma reports that Conforto is taking “regular” batting practice and appears to be largely back up to speed.

It’s been close to seven weeks since Conforto incurred what the club diagnosed as a Grade 1 strain of his right oblique. Grade 1 strains — the least severe on the scale — often sideline players for around a month or a bit more, although every injury situation is of course unique to the player in question. Still, it’s reasonable to expect based on his workout status and that historical context that Conforto would’ve been back up to speed by now. And it certainly stands to reason that whenever (or if) play is able to resume in 2020, that he’ll be ready to go for a second, abbreviated “spring” training camp.

The 27-year-old Conforto will be expected to play a pivotal role in the Mets’ offense, hitting in the heart of the order alongside the likes of reigning Rookie of the Year Pete Alonso, Jeff McNeil, J.D. Davis and a hopefully resurgent Robinson Cano. Conforto, the No. 10 overall pick in the 2014 draft, has solidified himself as the everyday right fielder and a well-above-average offensive contributor in parts of five seasons in Queens. He made his first All-Star team in 2017 and, over the past three years, has posted a combined .257/.363/.492 slash (129 wRC+, 131 OPS+) with 88 home runs, 74 doubles and three triples. He agreed to an $8MM salary this winter in his second trip through the arbitration process and remains under club control through the 2021 season.

ESPN Reportedly Nearing Agreement To Broadcast KBO Games

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Less than a week after ESPN’s negotiations to acquire broadcast rights to Korea Baseball Organization games were reported to be all but dead, Jee-ho Yoo and Chang-yong Shin of South Korea’s Yonhap News Agency now report that a deal is nearing completion. Yoo reported last week that ESPN had sought to acquire broadcast rights from Korean counterpart Eclat without any up-front payment — ultimately offering only a percentage of revenue if broadcasts proved profitable — despite the increased production costs for Eclat.

Additional details remain sparse at this time, though the Yonhap duo adds that the deal being discussed would allow ESPN to broadcast multiple KBO contests per week. South Korea’s 10-team league is slated to begin its regular season on May 5 — a bit more than five weeks after the initially scheduled season opener on March 28. The KBO season will begin without fans, although MBC’s Daniel Kim tweets that the league is discussing a plan to gradually allow fans back into stadiums, beginning with a 20-25 percent capacity and incrementally increasing from there.

[Related — Poll: would you watch KBO broadcasts?]

Several health regulations will be in place for players and gameday personnel as well (multiple tests per player prior to games, no spitting allowed, players and personnel in masks throughout the stadium except on the field/in the dugout, gloves and masks for umpires, strong discouragement of handshakes and high-fives). A player showing symptoms of COVID-19 will be immediately be tested and quarantined, while his stadium would be subject to a 48-hour closure for cleaning. A positive test from a player wouldn’t necessarily shut down the league but would prompt an immediate meeting between owners, league officials and health experts about the potential stoppage of play.

There’s still no concrete plan for when Major League Baseball can attempt to resume play (or whether it definitively will). The lack of baseball and other professional sports has been an obvious enormous strain not only on ESPN but all sports media outlets throughout the world. ESPN’s interest in airing some KBO play, then, isn’t surprising — but it’s also not without risk. Some sports-starved fans will surely flock to any competitive play, but there’s no guarantee on the extent of fan interest, and advertisers could be wary paying a hefty rate for an untested product in the United States.

For baseball fans, though, it’s an easy win — creating a readily accessible means of viewing one of the world’s top professional leagues and even offering a chance to see a handful of former big leaguers suiting up overseas. MLBTR ran through more than 30 former Major Leaguers who are set to play out the 2020 season in the KBO last week.

Poll: Should MLB Adopt Tied Games In 2020? (Or Beyond?)

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We don’t know if any Major League Baseball games are going to be played in 2020, nor what tweaks we’ll see to the standard framework of a game if play does resume.  To recap some of the ideas have been publicly floated, teams could potentially end up playing the entire season at MLB stadiums and Spring Training parks in Arizona and Florida, regularly playing at least one doubleheader per week in order to fit as many games as possible into a truncated schedule.  We already heard last month that the league was planning to allow 29-man rosters for at least the start of a shortened season, and it could very well be the case that expanded rosters become the norm for any games played in 2020, owing again to the need to keep as many players fresh and healthy as possible for this sprint of a season.

The changes may extend to the on-field product itself.  Doubleheaders could be staged as two seven-inning games, rather than standard nine-inning contests.  Dodgers star Justin Turner recently proposed the idea that, instead of extra innings, teams would decide games in 2020 by having a Home Run Derby if the score was still deadlocked after a 10th inning.  As Jorge Castillo of the Los Angeles Times noted in that last link, an abbreviated season could also give MLB the opportunity to apply its automatic-baserunner experiment for extra innings (already used in the All-Star Game and World Baseball Classic) to regular season contests.

These are all interesting ideas, and frankly, no concept should be off the table given all the difficulties the league faces in trying to launch any kind of season while keeping players, team staff, and stadium personnel as safe and healthy as possible.  That said, the traditionalist baseball fan in me can’t help but be hesitant at alterations to the nature of the sport itself.  Something like an expanded roster isn’t an issue, but holding a seven-inning game or deciding an important regular season contest with a HR derby doesn’t seem quite right.

If limiting the time of games and the extra innings conundrum are going to be obstacles, The Athletic’s Brittany Ghiroli (subscription required) recently suggested a simple proposal — tie games.  Every regular season contest would end after nine innings, no matter the score.  As per one reader e-mail to Ghiroli, MLB would adopt a point system of awarding two points for a win, one point for a tie, and zero points for a loss.

It can definitely be argued that ending extra innings is much more of a fundamental shift in baseball’s nature than, say, putting an automatic runner on second base in the 10th inning onward.  After all, there’s definitely a romance to the idea of a game that always has a decisive winner.  Just about every baseball fan has at least one personal story of attending a marathon game until the very end, or showing up bleary-eyed at work the next day after staying up very late to watch their favorite team finish a West Coast game that went 14 innings.

It’s worth noting, however, that the threat of a tie score adds its own level of drama to games.  As Ghiroli notes, it creates “a real emphasis on winning in nine innings, the drama unfolding over the final three outs because there is no more baseball.  Managers won’t have to save guys in the bullpen or think about who may be needed to play the field in the 10th.”

Postseason games, naturally, would still have as many extra innings as necessary to decide a winner.  But for the regular season, a tie game in baseball wouldn’t be any different than a tied football game or a tied soccer game, both of which are familiar concepts for sports fans.  While there may be some level of dissatisfaction in watching a game that ends without a clear winner, a tie has its own sort of “we’ll get ’em next time” feel that is particularly fitting for baseball, particularly since that proverbial “next time” could be the very next day.

Rather than limit draws to just a 2020 season, Ghiroli suggests that tied games could become a regular element of baseball going forward.  “We know viewership — on TV and at the game — drops the longer a game goes,” Ghiroli writes.  “We know baseball is constantly fighting the stigma of being long and boring.  We know, more than ever before, thanks to oodles of data that exhaustion increases the chances of injury and a game with its stars hurt suffers greatly.”  Adopting tie games wouldn’t be too much of an impact on the overall schedule; to use the 2019 regular season as an example, no team played more than 19 extra-inning games last year.

Let’s open it up to the MLBTR readership to get other views about both the idea of tie games or other late-game methods of deciding a winner, both in a 2020 season and beyond.  (Links to both Poll One and Poll Two for app users).

Revisiting The Braves’ Fleecing Of The D-Backs In The Shelby Miller Trade

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In late 2015, the Braves drummed up quite a bidding war for right-handed pitcher Shelby Miller, who became one of the biggest names on that winter’s trade market. As a controllable, 25-year-old starter who had spent the last year toiling away on a Braves team that lost 95 games, he garnered interest from as many as 20 teams: what’s not to like? This was a player who could boost a team’s playoff chances not only for the coming year, but for the foreseeable future as well—and he was attainable. Unfortunately for the team that won that bidding war, the Arizona Diamondbacks, it gave way to one of the more lopsided trades in recent memory.

In its entirety, the five-player deal sent Miller and relief prospect Gabe Speier to the Diamondbacks, who in turn gave up Ender Inciarte, Dansby Swanson, and Aaron Blair to the Braves. Just about six months earlier, the D-Backs made Swanson, a 21-year-old shortstop from Vanderbilt, the first overall pick in the 2015 draft. For that hefty price, Arizona got their man.

Miller was coming off a year in which he notched an unsightly 6-17 W-L record, but that mark was wildly misaligned with his 3.02 ERA, which fell just outside the top 10 in the NL. He did that while tossing 205 1/3 innings in his first (and only) year in Atlanta, which acquired him as the centerpiece of the trade that sent Jason Heyward to the Cardinals.

But the D-Backs’ valuation of Miller proved to be severely misguided. In his first year in Arizona, he would go 3-12 and was credited with just 0.6 fWAR. And while you need to look just a year in the past for evidence that W-L records can be misleading, Miller couldn’t hang his hat on a good ERA this time around: his 6.15 ERA in 20 starts was the worst among NL starters with at least 100 IP. Despite the impressive run prevention numbers from 2015, Miller’s price tag portrayed him as a front-line starter when he was probably more accurately described as a mid-rotation arm.

The move firmly declared Arizona GM Dave Stewart’s intent to contend in the immediate future. Acquiring Miller came on the heels of the Zack Greinke free-agent signing, which gave the D-Backs a formidable rotation of Greinke, Miller, Robbie Ray, and Patrick Corbin. Add that to an offense anchored by Paul Goldschmidt and A.J. Pollock, and it’s not hard to see how Arizona perceived a path to the postseason. However, they would win just 69 games in 2016 and essentially wound up as a re-imagination of the previous year’s Padres, a team that likewise went all in only to fall flat.

Even in the immediate aftermath of the deal, many viewed the deal as a vast overpay on the Diamondbacks’ part. But that negative public perception apparently didn’t bother the club, which was dead-set on vaulting itself into the playoff picture after winning 79 games the year before. It’s an admirable approach, no doubt, to try to capitalize on the coincidence of Paul Goldschmidt’s prime with the big-money signing of Greinke. But in this case, the price just didn’t match the prize. Of course, as we know now, the team would have to wait a year—and install a new front office regime—before they broke into the 2017 postseason as a Wild Card team.

At the time, Swanson was one of the first draftees (and first number one choice) to be traded under a new rule that allowed teams to deal drafted players after the World Series in the year of their selection. He is one of three first overall selections to have been traded before debuting with the team that drafted him. As MLBTR’s Steve Adams noted in his summation of the trade at the time, Swanson was the latest in a series of moves that illustrated the Arizona regime’s apparent devaluation of draft picks: by trading Swanson, signing Greinke (and therefore surrendering their 2016 top pick), and trading Touki Toussaint, the team had effectively missed out on three consecutive years of first-round selections.

Swanson was heralded as the shortstop of the future for Atlanta, which had just recently shipped Andrelton Simmons to the Angels. And although Swanson maybe hasn’t been the superstar that we expect from a No. 1 overall draft pick, he’s been a good MLB shortstop and showed us glimpses of another gear last year, when he had his best offensive season thanks to improved power output. If that upward trend is to be believed and he can provide even slightly above-average offensive numbers, Swanson can really solidify himself as a building block in Atlanta, thanks to his solid defense at a key position. Check out the growth in Swanson’s hard-hit rate and expected hitting stats from 2018 to 2019, courtesy of Baseball Savant.

Inciarte, meanwhile, wound up being a surprisingly important piece of the deal for the Braves. He won the Gold Glove Award for NL center fielders in each of his first three years in Atlanta, ultimately serving as a nice transitional piece between losing years in 2014-2017 and the contending teams of today. And while he’s seen his role with the Braves diminish over the last couple of years, he proved to be a pretty solid acquisition for a team that lacked quality Major League talent outside of Freddie Freeman. He was a fine guy to pencil into center field every day while the franchise cultivated a core of young players.

Neither Blair nor Speier wound up contributing much to the teams that acquired them: Speier made his MLB debut last year with the Royals, who got him in exchange for Jon Jay, and Blair hasn’t appeared in the Majors since 2017. He was a former first-round pick himself, but failed to put things together when he got his chance with the Braves in 2016.

All told, the combination of Inciarte, Swanson, and Blair has thus far produced 13.1 fWAR for the Braves, with more likely to come from Swanson and, to a lesser extent, Inciarte. For the Diamondbacks, Miller and Speier produced a meager 0.7 fWAR. Miller lasted just three years in Arizona, appearing in only 29 games and pitching 139 innings for the team.

Last year, he got a chance with the Rangers and toggled between the bullpen and the starting rotation, but the change of scenery didn’t seem to help his fortunes. He tossed 44 innings of 8.59-ERA ball, striking out just 30 batters. In January of this year, he earned himself a minor-league deal with the Brewers, and was expected to begin the season with the team’s Triple-A affiliate.

Quick Hits: Ohtani, 1994-95 Strike, Baseball Coverage

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Some injury and coronavirus news from around the baseball world:

  • Shohei Ohtani has progressed to throwing bullpen sessions around twice per week, Angels’ GM Billy Eppler tells MLB Network Radio on SiriusXM (Twitter link). He’s throwing approximately 35 pitches per session at “80-85%” effort level, Eppler adds. Under normal circumstances, Ohtani would be nearing readiness to face live hitters in some capacity next month, Eppler says, but that’s obviously made difficult by social distancing requirements. The two-way star was estimated to need until mid-May to return to an MLB mound; assuming his rehab continues without a setback, he figures to be ready if the 2020 season resumes.
  • MLB’s most recent long-term shutdown came twenty-five years ago, when a labor dispute resulted in the cancellation of the 1994 World Series and a delayed start to the following season. With that in mind, Sportsnet’s Shi Davidi, Ben Nicholson-Smith and Arden Zwelling revisited the mid-90’s strike. A number of former players, including Shawn Green and Aaron Sele, spoke about the challenges of staying mentally and physically prepared without a specific return date in sight. Sele and former MLB manager Bob Boone also noted the injury risks for players, especially pitchers, of ramping up quickly once the season was set to return. The whole piece is worth a read for those interested in the challenges current players could face if the 2020 season is able to resume.
  • The coronavirus has dealt a blow to small businesses of all sorts in recent months. Baseball websites like this one are no exception. Peter Abraham of the Boston Globe spoke with MLBTR founder Tim Dierkes and Baseball Reference founder Sean Forman about the challenges facing each site. With MLB on hiatus and transactions prohibited, baseball-related web traffic and advertising revenue have predictably taken a corresponding step back.  As you’ve seen here in April, we’ve ramped up our original articles to fill the content void.  For more on the state of MLBTR, check out Tim’s post from earlier this month.

How The Royals Acquired The AL Home Run Champ

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Two of last season’s top three home run hitters were originally acquired in trade. NL champ Pete Alonso was drafted and developed by the Mets, but NL runner up Eugenio Suárez and AL leader Jorge Soler were plucked from other organizations early in their MLB careers. MLBTR’s Connor Byrne just looked back at the Reds’ brilliant acquisition of Suárez. It only seems fair to give the Soler trade its due.

Soler was a known commodity long before he signed a pro contract. His name appeared on MLBTR pages more than thirty times before he finally agreed with the Cubs as a twenty-year old international amateur in 2012. He immediately found himself on top prospect lists and quickly tore through the minors, making his MLB debut a little over two years after signing.

Despite an exceptional debut, Soler never quite established himself amidst a crowded outfield mix on the North Side. In 765 cumulative plate appearances from 2014-16, he hit .258/.328/.434 (106 wRC+) with 27 home runs. It was passable production, but not enough to consistently crack a lineup with Dexter Fowler, Jason Heyward, Albert Almora, and Kyle Schwarber on hand, to say nothing of infielders like Kris Bryant and Ben Zobrist capable of manning the grass. Even with Fowler departing as a free agent, the Cubs’ outfield looked like an area of surplus. (It hasn’t really borne out that way, but it looked like a strong group at the time). That made Soler a reasonable trade candidate for a team looking to defend a World Series title.

That offseason, the Cubs and Royals indeed lined up on a deal. With their own competitive window soon to close, K.C. acquired the 24-year-old slugger for contract-year reliever Wade Davis. It was perfectly understandable from the Chicago organization’s perspective. Aroldis Chapman was to sign elsewhere just a day later. The bullpen looked like the relative weak spot on a win-now club. As MLBTR’s Steve Adams pointed out at the time of the deal, Davis had some red flags (injuries and a slight velocity loss), but he was fresh off an utterly dominant three-year run in Kansas City.

Indeed, the Cubs mostly got what they bargained for from Davis. He did regress a bit in 2017, as Steve suggested he might. But Davis was still quite good in Chicago, working to a 2.30 ERA/3.38 FIP in 58.2 innings. The Cubs lost to the Dodgers in the NLCS, but that was the fault of their offense, not Davis. The right-hander has fallen apart since signing with the Rockies after that 2017 season, but the immediate returns on the deal were positive for the Cubs. That wasn’t the case for the Royals.

Soler spent the first month of that season on the injured list with a strained oblique. When he returned in May, he was dreadful, hitting .164/.292/.273 and earning a demotion to Triple-A. Soler did hit well in the minors, but 2017 was undoubtedly a disappointment. He seemed to reestablish himself in 2018, hitting well until suffering a season-ending toe fracture in June. Everything clicked in 2019, though.

Most importantly, Soler stayed healthy last season, playing in all 162 games. He increased his hard contact rate to a career-high 46.7% and dropped his infield fly ball rate to a career-low 8.8%. He made the most contact of his career and continued to draw walks at a hefty clip (10.8%). All told, Soler’s .265/.354/.569 slash (136 wRC+) placed him in the top 20 qualified hitters leaguewide. Even at pitcher-friendly Kauffman Stadium, Soler paced the Junior Circuit in home runs with 48. Statcast data supported the breakout, as Soler finished in the 95th percentile or better in average exit velocity, hard contact rate and expected weighted on-base average. Even as a mediocre defensive outfielder who’s best suited for DH work, that’s plenty productive. Soler was worth nearly four wins above replacement last season, per both Fangraphs and Baseball Reference.

The Royals are no doubt thrilled with the acquisition of Soler at this point. He’s finally emerged as the middle-of-the-order force many expected. Steve Adams explored the possibility of the sides lining up on an extension in September. Controlled through 2021, Soler could alternatively be a key trade chip for the rebuilding club if the sides can’t reach a long-term agreement.

Quick Hits: Hamilton, Feierabend, Draft, Lannan

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The Major League career of former first baseman/outfielder Mark Hamilton consisted of 47 games with the Cardinals in 2010-11, a brief stint that netted Hamilton a World Series ring for his role in the Cards’ 2011 championship squad.  After being released by the Braves in July 2014, Hamilton stuck to his vow to go to medical school if he wasn’t a big league regular by his 30th birthday, and ESPN.com’s Alden Gonzalez writes that Hamilton is set to officially begin his medical career in June at two New York hospitals “at the epicenter of the coronavirus pandemic.”  Though Hamilton is trained in interventional radiology, the early days of his six-year residency program will inevitably be focused on helping treat coronavirus patients.  While the pandemic has “been very eye-opening,”  Hamilton said, “I wanted to go into medicine because I really enjoyed caring for people. I enjoy being able to help others when they’re in their darkest hour, when they need somebody to both support them from a medical side and an emotional side. And I’m definitely going to be able to do that in my first year.”

Some more from around baseball…

  • Left-hander Ryan Feierabend signed with the Uni-President Lions of the Chinese Professional Baseball League during the offseason, so Feierabend his fellow CPBL peers have gotten their season underway in Taiwan while the rest of the baseball world is still on pause, The Toronto Star’s Gregor Chisholm writes.  Since Taiwan quickly enacted measures against COVID-19, the outbreak has been severely limited on the island, thus allowing for businesses, schools, and other larger public gatherings to continue to operate, albeit under safety restrictions.  CPBL games, for instance, are being played without fans in attendance.  Given how matters seem to be somewhat under control in Taiwan, Feierabend said he “would feel more comfortable” if his wife and children were in Taiwan rather than in the United States, both for safety reasons and simply so the family could be together.  “It’s a sacrifice being away…Having to deal with that while the pandemic is going on, it’s definitely stressful,” Feierabend said, praising his wife Sarah for being “the rock of our family.”
  • Arizona State’s Spencer Torkelson would be the first pick of this year’s amateur draft if MLB.com’s Jim Callis held the reins in the Tigers’ front office.  (Detroit has the first overall selection.)  Callis is a fan of Torkelson’s power potential, calling him “one of the biggest impact college bats in recent years” and saying he might deliver seasons in the range of 35 homers and a .280 average on a regular basis in the majors.  Vanderbilt outfielder/third baseman Austin Martin is a close second for Callis, and unsurprisingly, Torkelson and Martin also occupy the top two spots on MLB Pipeline’s list of the top 150 draft prospects.
  • The Blue Jays have made mental performance a major aspect of their player development system at both the Major League and minor league levels, with eight-year MLB veteran John Lannan was hired as the newest member of the six-person mental performance department this past January.  As The Athletic’s John Lott (subscription required) writes, Lannan went back to school to study sports psychology after retiring in August 2017, and realized the subject matter was instantly relatable to the modern player.  “Once I was going into all these deep dives into sports psychology, it just brought to mind a lot of situations throughout my career, where it started to make sense why I might have felt the way I felt and what I could have probably done about it if I’d known more about the subject,” Lannan said.  Lott outlines the Jays front office’s philosophy about the benefits of mental performance, and how the department’s role has now evolved with players stuck at home waiting out the pandemic.

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