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Pirates Provide Updates On Injured Pitchers

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Pirates director of sports medicine Todd Tomczyk provided reporters with an update on a trio of injured pitchers Wednesday, giving generally positive news on lefty Steven Brault and righties Jameson Taillon and Clay Holmes (Twitter link via The Athletic’s Rob Biertempfel).

Brault, who’ll turn 28 next week, is in the “advanced” stages of his rehab from a shoulder strain and should begin throwing in the next three to five days. The southpaw was shut down in Spring Training and was initially slated to be reevaluated two weeks after that date, but at last check he was three-plus weeks removed from the stoppage of his throwing program without much of an update. By the time he resumes throwing, Brault will have been sidelined for nearly two months. He’s functioned as both a starter and reliever for the Bucs over the past four seasons and should be an oft-used piece in both roles again if the 2020 season is able to get underway.

Taillon, meanwhile, resumed throwing after a “scheduled” break in his rehab process. The former No. 2 overall draft pick made good on his longstanding top prospect billing with a brilliant 2018 season (191 innings, 3.20 ERA, 3.46 FIP, 8.4 K/9, 2.2 BB/9) but struggled in 2019 before landing on the shelf and ultimately undergoing his second career Tommy John surgery. Taillon, who won’t pitch in 2020 regardless of the season’s structure, remains under Pirates control through the 2022 season.

As for Holmes, the fractured foot he sustained in Spring Training has now healed in full. He’s in the process of ramping his throwing program back up and is slated to throw on a slope before week’s end. The 27-year-old had a miserable season both in the big leagues and the minors in 2019, but his 2018 campaign in Triple-A featured 95 1/3 innings of 3.40 ERA ball with 9.4 K/9, 3.8 BB/9 and a whopping 60 percent ground-ball rate. Holmes is out of minor league options, so he’ll likely be a part of the roster whenever play picks back up, giving the club an option at the back of the rotation or perhaps in a long relief capacity.

Red Sox To Remove “Interim” Tag From Ron Roenicke’s Title

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The Red Sox will soon announce that they’re removing the “interim” tag from interim manager Ron Roenicke’s title, ESPN’s Buster Olney tweets. He’ll serve as the “permanent” manager for the 2020 season, assuming one is played.

It’s an expected move and one that’s largely a formality. At the time Roenicke was named Alex Cora’s replacement, multiple reports indicated that the organization would remove the “interim” qualifier if and when the league’s investigation cleared Roenicke of any wrongdoing in the 2018 sign-stealing allegations that had been brought for against the club. Today’s announcement from commissioner Rob Manfred, which punished only one current Red Sox employee, will now bring about that anticipated title modification.

[Related: MLB Announces Findings, Discipline Stemming From Red Sox Investigation]

Of course, Roenicke is still signed for only the 2020 season, and his future beyond that is unclear. He’d previously served as Cora’s bench coach, so if the organization opts to bring in a new skipper, it’s possible Roenicke could return to that role or move on altogether. Notably, there appears to be nothing (outside of what would figure to be enormously negative public relations pushback) standing in the way of the Red Sox simply re-hiring Cora for the 2021 season. His league-imposed ban only runs through the 2020 playoffs and Manfred made sure to emphasize that the punishment stemmed only from his wrongdoings while serving as the Astros’ bench coach in 2017 — not for anything he did with Boston.

Follow Pro Football Rumors For The Latest News And Rumblings On Tomorrow’s NFL Draft

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The NFL Draft kicks off tomorrow night. If you’re a football fan, it’s already appointment television. If you’re more of a casual NFL fan, you may want to tune in anyway. (Save the second watch of Tiger King for next week.)

To start your draft prep today and stay tuned for every pick, trade, and rumbling – visit ProFootballRumors.com and follow PFR on Twitter, @pfrumors.

Quarterback Joe Burrow – who threw for 60 touchdowns last year at LSU – is a mortal lock for the Bengals at No. 1. Beyond that, everything is up for grabs. The Redskins are reportedly listening to calls for the No. 2 pick, so they could conceivably be tempted enough to pass on a potential generational talent in Ohio State’s Chase Young. The Lions (No. 3) and Giants (No. 4) are also answering the phone, so this year’s top rookies could all be up for grabs.

Meanwhile, Rob Gronkowski is headed to Tampa Bay to rekindle his bromance with Tom Brady. Seven-time Redskins Pro Bowler Trent Williams could be the next superstar on the move.

That’s just a snapshot of what’s going on in the NFL right now. For the full scope of things, stay tuned to ProFootballRumors.com and follow PFR on Twitter, @pfrumors.

MLB Announces Findings Of Investigation Into 2018 Sign-Stealing Allegations Against Red Sox

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Major League Baseball has concluded its investigation into 2018 sign-stealing allegations against the Red Sox and imposed the following disciplinary measures:

  • The Red Sox are stripped of their second-round pick in the 2020 amateur draft
  • Red Sox advance scout/replay coordinator J.T. Watkins has been suspended without pay for the 2020 season and is prohibited from holding his previous role for the 2021 season
  • Former manager Alex Cora, fired by the Red Sox earlier this year, has been banned through the 2020 postseason — although only for his role in the Astros’ 2017 sign-stealing scandal.

Those penalties pale in comparison to what many felt was a light Astros punishment in response to their 2017 trash can scheme; Houston GM Jeff Luhnow and manager A.J. Hinch were both suspended one year (and subsequently fired by the team), while the organization was fined the maximum permissible $5MM and stripped of first- and second-round picks in each of the next two drafts.

Red Sox CEO Sam Kennedy issued the following statement via press release:

As an organization, we strive for 100% compliance with the rules. MLB’s investigation concluded that in isolated instances during the 2018 regular season, sign sequences were decoded through the use of live game video rather than through permissible means. MLB acknowledged the front office’s extensive efforts to communicate and enforce the rules and concluded that Alex Cora, the coaching staff, and most of the players did not engage in, nor were they aware of, any violations. Regardless, these rule violations are unacceptable. We apologize to our fans and Major League Baseball, and accept the Commissioner’s ruling.

The league announced the findings of what it terms an “exhaustive investigation into allegations of improper use of the video replay room.” Within, commissioner Rob Manfred offered the following breakdown of his findings:

  • “I find that J.T. Watkins, the Red Sox video replay system operator, on at least some occasions during the 2018 regular season, utilized the game feeds in the replay room, in violation of MLB regulations, to revise sign sequence information that he had permissibly provided to players prior to the game.
  • I find that unlike the Houston Astros’ 2017 conduct, in which players communicated to the batter from the dugout area in real time the precise type of pitch about to be thrown, Watkins’s conduct, by its very nature, was far more limited in scope and impact. The information was only relevant when the Red Sox had a runner on second base (which was 19.7% of plate appearances league-wide in 2018), and Watkins communicated sign sequences in a manner that indicated that he had decoded them from the in-game feed in only a small percentage of those occurrences.
  • I do not find that then-Manager Alex Cora, the Red Sox coaching staff, the Red Sox front office, or most of the players on the 2018 Red Sox knew or should have known that Watkins was utilizing in-game video to update the information that he had learned from his pregame analysis. Communication of these violations was episodic and isolated to Watkins and a limited number of Red Sox players only.
  • I find that the Red Sox front office consistently communicated MLB’s sign-stealing rules to non-player staff and made commendable efforts toward instilling a culture of compliance in their organization.”

Manfred goes on to emphasize that while he has previously granted players immunity in exchange for truthful testimony in both the Astros and Red Sox investigations, the findings of his Red Sox inquiry would not have led him to consider disciplining players anyhow (which surely would not have been the case with regard to the Astros). The loss of the draft pick, per the commissioner, stems from the fact that he still felt the organization should be held accountable for benefiting from data that was obtained improperly.

Manfred’s report on the investigation details that every player who spent time with the 2018 Red Sox was interviewed in some capacity and provided what were deemed truthful testimonies. A total of 65 witnesses were interviewed during the course of the investigation, and MLB’s department of investigations (DOI) reviewed “tens of thousands of emails, text messages, video clips and photographs,” per the report.

Watkins, the employee on whom the entirety of the wrongdoing is blamed by commissioner Manfred, was an advance scout tasked with using video to decode signs before and after Red Sox games — a permissible act that falls within MLB’s guidelines on the implementation of technology within the game. However, he was also the team’s replay reviewer, responsible during games for coordinating with Cora on whether to challenge a call or not. The report notes that other clubs had that same setup, but an investigation into the Red Sox found that Watkins would, at times, alter pre-game sign sequencing information in the middle of an active game. While most players who were interviewed said they had no knowledge of any wrongdoing by Watkins, others acknowledged that they had suspicions after the data coming from Watkins changed over the course of a game.

Watkins, per Manfred, has “vehemently denied” any such practice, although clearly based on the punishment levied by the league, Manfred and the DOI felt sufficient evidence to the contrary was present. Moreover, the commissioner’s report highlights that Watkins was a “key participant” in the 2017 Apple Watch incident that led to a fine for the Red Sox and helped bring questions about improper use of technology to light on a national basis.

With regard to any potential postseason wrongdoing, Manfred adds that the commissioner’s office positioned “full-time, in-person monitors in replay rooms to prevent the improper use of video equipment.” Such measures were not in place throughout the regular season.

It’s not yet clear precisely why the investigation was so prolonged in the first place and perhaps never will be. Major League Baseball was initially planning to release its findings before the end of February. When the investigation lingered into March, the COVID-19 pandemic obviously and understandably took precedence, thus bringing about a delay of nearly two months that only seems to have heightened the general public reaction that the Boston organization escaped mostly unscathed. But the initial delay into March was never fully explained.

The loss of that second-round pick will give the Sox one less selection in an already shortened draft and dock $1,403,200 from Boston’s pool (the would-be value of that vacated second-rounder). Previously, they’d been slated to have a $6.514MM pool in the event of a five-round draft and a $7.482MM pool for a 10-round format. Put another way, they’ll lose anywhere from 18.8 percent to 21.6 percent of their 2020 draft budget due to the league’s ruling.

Unexplained within Manfred’s report is just why the punishment for Cora, who was called out as an architect of the trash-can-banging setup with the 2017 Astros, is lighter than those which were brought upon Luhnow and Hinch. Cora’s rank within the organization was lower, but his role in the team’s transgressions appears to have been much more integral. Yet Luhnow and Hinch were banned for one year, beginning Jan. 13, 2020 and running through Jan. 13 of 2021, while Cora is only barred through the end of postseason play in 2020. Technically, he could have a job in baseball again before the bans on Hinch and Luhnow have been lifted — despite a pivotal role in the Astros’ scandal and, if not a direct role in the Red Sox’ 2018 infractions, then some negligence or a lack of oversight that one would think should be deemed alarming.

Ultimately, the light punishment for the Sox boils down to the fact that Manfred and his charges are convinced that the wrongdoing was more limited in scope than that of the Astros and largely fell on the shoulders of one employee. Fans and onlookers will, of course, draw their own conclusions about the legitimacy of that finding the the pervasiveness (or lack thereof) of similar setups throughout the league. At this point, however, that’s all largely rendered moot; the commissioner’s punishment has been set, and the matter has been put to bed.

The Red Sox announced not long after Kennedy’s statement that they’ll host a conference call with reporters tonight at 7pm ET, at which point they’ll surely field additional questions on the investigation and its ramifications.

Ken Rosenthal and Evan Drellich of The Athletic first reported the findings of commissioner Manfred’s investigation, minutes prior to the official announcement.

Athletics Notes: Ballpark, Coronavirus Impact

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There’s not much new to report on around the game, but there has been a bit of chatter relating to the Athletics, so we’ll round it up here …

  • In response to a reader question, Susan Slusser of the San Francisco Chronicle provides an initial assessment of the potential impact of the pandemic on the Athletics’ plans for a new ballpark. As she explains, it’s still far too soon to know how the outlook will change. But there’s little doubt the ambitious project — which has advanced through multiple tough stages and finally seemed on track to being realized — will face new hurdles and potential for delay or modification.
  • The A’s are of the few teams that haven’t yet decided how to handle non-team employees during the MLB shutdown. Per Slusser, via Twitter, the Oakland org hasn’t yet promised salaries through the end of May but also hasn’t decided against that course. It’s unclear at this point whether the Athletics will follow the majority of ballclubs that have guaranteed ongoing paychecks at least to that point of the year.
  • Perhaps this helps explain why the Mets snapped up Tim Tebow under then-GM Sandy Alderson? It turns out that when Alderson was running the Athletics, he tried to pull off an even bigger cross-sport stunner. Alderson tells ESPN.com’s Buster Olney (audio link) that he tried to keep Michael Jordan from joining the White Sox when the NBA legend decided to try his hand at baseball. To woo Jordan west, Alderson was willing to put him directly onto the A’s active roster. That likely would not have turned out terribly well from a baseball perspective, but it sure would’ve made the MJ saga even more interesting to follow at the time.
  • Oh, and one more development: Mark Canha — who is hoping to build off of a breakout 2019 season — is trying not to obliterate private property with his MacGyver’ed batting practice setup.

What In The Sam Hill(iard) Do The Rockies Have In The Outfield?

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If the Rockies are to come anywhere near meeting the expectations of ownership, they’re going to need a lot of things to break right in the near term. More than anything, the club requires a few high-quality supplemental players to emerge (or, in the case of some expensive veterans, re-emerge) to supplement an enviable set of stars.

We reflexively think about concerns with pitching when it comes to the Colorado organization, but the team’s bats have been an even greater problem in recent years. The recent Rox outfield has consisted of Charlie Blackmon and a revolving cast of mostly replacement-level bandmates.

As Blackmon ages gracefully — he’s a continuing threat at the plate but has faded badly in the field and on the bases — there’s a glaring need for new talent. Actually, hold that: there has been some talent. The club paid big for Ian Desmond. It gave more chances to Carlos Gonzalez and even got one final ride with Matt Holliday. Some well-regarded prospects such as Garrett Hampson and Raimel Tapia have filtered up. And of course we’ve seen what David Dahl can do … when healthy. What this team needs is honest-to-goodness, consistent, real-live production from someone other than Blackmon.

The Rockies have allocated all their available payroll. They let Mike Tauchman go to the Yankees (not that it wasn’t plenty understandable at the time). They’re badly in need of an emergence from within.

That’s just what the team got late in 2019 from unheralded newcomer Sam Hilliard. His emergence largely flew under the radar as the Rockies limped to the end of a brutally disappointing campaign. While it’s always worth caution when it comes to a 27-game sample, Hilliard was a legitimately exciting performer down the stretch. Could the Rockies have something here?

Hilliard was known as a two-way player for most of his amateur career. He emerged as an interesting position-player target in advance of the 2015 draft, but the Rockies were able to wait until the 15th round to nab him. Hilliard is big, strong, and swift.

The results have been mixed since Hilliard hit the pro ranks. He put up strong homer and steal tallies on his way up the farm system, but always did a fair bit of swinging and missing. Hilliard hit a bit of a wall in 2018 at Double-A. And though his Triple-A output in the ensuing season looked big on paper — 35 long balls, 22 steals, .262/.335/.558 slash — it translated to a fairly modest 107 wRC+ since it occurred in an exceedingly offensive-friendly environment.

When he took to the majors late in the year, there wasn’t much cause for over-excitement. But the 26-year-old delivered well beyond expectations, sending seven balls over the fence in 87 plate appearances while turning in a .273/.356/.649 output. That, too, took place in an explosive setting for bats, but it worked out to a healthy 138 wRC+ output at the dish.

Here’s the thing about Hilliard: prospect watchers still have tempered expectations, despite the big debut. But there are some reasons to believe he could keep producing at an above-average rate in the majors, all while providing value in the field and on the bases. It seems promising that Hilliard actually reduced his upper-minors strikeout rate upon reaching the majors (to a palatable 26.4%) while walking in over ten percent of his MLB plate appearances (above league average).

The most recent Fangraphs assessment of Hilliard’s outlook notes that “his ability to identify pitches he can drive is impressive in context, but well-executed pitches can get him out.” Indeed, he took Noah Syndergaard deep twice in one game … then launched against high-grade lefties Hyun-Jin Ryu and Josh Hader. Perhaps Hilliard’s demonstrated capacity can be expanded more consistently. Given his former focus on pitching, it’s said he’s still maturing as a hitter.

The Rockies sure could use a pleasant surprise from Hilliard. They could also stand to see Dahl on the field for the entire season. That might give the team an all-lefty group of regulars, along with Blackmon, with Hampson and Desmond supplementing from the right side. There’s at least one other near-term player with potential, too. Yonathan Daza is already on the 40-man and is seen as a prospect of some note. His 2019 debut went in the opposite direction of Hilliard’s, with Daza turning in a .206/.257/.237 slash over 105 plate appearances. But Daza had a big showing at Triple-A and has hit well this spring.

It probably wouldn’t be wise for the Rockies or their fans to expect too much from Hilliard and the rest of the outfield unit in 2020 and beyond. But it seems they can at least hope for something more.

Majority Of MLB Teams Commit To Paying Non-Player Employees Through May

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APRIL 22: The Yankees have also committed to paying employees through the end of May, Jon Heyman of MLB Network tweets.

APRIL 21: Three more teams have adopted a policy of payment through the end of May: the Angels (via Passan, on Twitter), Pirates (via Jon Heyman of MLB Network, on Twitter), and Rangers (per Evan Grant of the Dallas Morning News, via Twitter).

Additionally, the Rockies have adopted a more open-ended policy akin to that of the Tigers, per Britt Ghiroli and Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic (Twitter link).

APRIL 20:We’ve heard a trickle of information over recent weeks regarding MLB teams’ plans for non-player employees. That turned into a flood today, with news emerging on the plans of a majority of teams around the game.

While MLB commissioner Rob Manfred announced previously that uniform employee contracts would be suspended at the start of the month of May, thus freeing teams to make their own decisions on retaining personnel, we had already begun to see several clubs promise employment through the end of May. It’s now clear that a majority of clubs will reach that commitment, with ESPN.com’s Jeff Passan reporting the full list via Twitter.

These 17 teams will pay non-player employees through at least the end of May: the Astros, Blue Jays, Braves, Brewers, Cardinals, Cubs, Diamondbacks, Giants, Mariners, Marlins, Phillies, Reds, Red Sox, Rockies, Royals, Twins, and White Sox. Beyond that, there are no known assurances.

At least one team — the Tigers — appears to be going beyond that measure. Detroit owner Chris Ilitch announced today that the club has “no plays for lay-offs or furloughs of its employees.” While the organization did reserve the right to notify employees “if things change,” he said it’s “taking a longer term view.” (Via Chris McCosky of the Detroit News, on Twitter.)

The Padres have also announced plans that include longer-term assurances, albeit with some caveats, as Kevin Acee of the San Diego Union-Tribune writes. Baseball operations staffers are promised jobs through the end of October, though those earning more than $60K annually will take progressive pay cuts. Employees on the business side have been promised paychecks through mid-May.

That leaves eleven other teams whose plans aren’t yet accounted for. But it’s not as if the failure to grant assurances by this point ensures the opposite outcome, so the absence of news should not be taken as an indication that layoffs are certain for those remaining organizations.

 

2020-21 MLB Free Agent Class: Left-Handed Relievers

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In recent days, we’ve run through the most notable catchers, second basemen, shortstops, first basemen, third basemen, center fielders, and corner outfielders who are slated to reach the free-agent market once the offseason rolls around in several months. Now we’ll turn to the pitchers, beginning with southpaw relievers (players’ ages for the 2021 campaign are listed in parentheses).

Top of the Class

  • Sean Doolittle (34): There’s no denying the 2019 downturn for a pitcher that had been among the game’s most dominant relievers for several years beforehand. His swinging-strike rate moved from 16.8% in the prior season down to 12.1%; his ERA shot up from 1.60 to 4.05. But most of the rough outings took place in the month of August, while Doolittle battled through a knee injury that ultimately forced him to the injured list. He returned to perform well late in the season and in the Nats’ World Series run (2 earned runs on 6 hits with 8:1 K/BB in 10 1/3 innings).
  • Brad Hand (31): The Indians closer would surely be the top southpaw on this year’s class, but he’s not going to make it to market unless he has a disappointing season. With a typical campaign, the club is sure to pick up its $10MM club option rather than paying a $1MM buyout — though we could still see Hand moved via trade in that event.

Solid Setup Options

  • Jose Alvarez (32): Not much jumps off the page here. Fielding-independent pitching metrics have never much loved Alvarez and were especially unimpressed in 2019 (4.21 FIP, 4.14 xFIP, 4.17 SIERA). He has never struck out more than a batter per inning or generated dominant groundball numbers. But Alvarez has kept turning in good outcomes. In 122 innings over the past two seasons, he carries a 3.02 ERA.
  • Andrew Chafin (31): Chafin could be the top setup option available this fall. He’s relatively youthful in comparison to the alternatives and has rather consistently gotten the job done in recent seasons. Last year, Chafin jumped to a career-best 11.6 K/9, though he also saw his groundball rate drop below 50% for the first time (42.9%) and allowed more than a home run per inning after permitting nary a long ball in 77 appearances in the prior season. Regardless, the results have been good.
  • Oliver Perez (39): The late-career renaissance has been something to see, but how long can it last? Perez owns a dominant 2.84 ERA with 11.2 K/9 and 2.3 BB/9 since the start of the 2018 campaign. But that was compiled over only 73 frames in 117 appearances. Right-handed hitters beat up on him last year, though that hasn’t been the case historically.
  • Tony Watson (36): We were very surprised to see Watson pick up his player option to return to the Giants rather than returning to the open market last fall. He has been so solid for so long that we felt teams would overlook his 2019 struggles, which were driven largely by a jump in home-run rate. He still maintained a typical 12.7% swinging-strike rate, 5.2% walk rate, and 93.5 mph average fastball velocity. And though he is no longer elite at limiting hard contact, as he once was, Wilson was still tough to square up (84th percentile hard-hit percentage; 79th percentile exit velocity).
  • Justin Wilson (33): Based upon the most basic 2019 results, Wilson is the top of the class: he worked to a 2.54 ERA. But that output came in only 39 innings and his peripherals — while solid — didn’t quite support it. Wilson gets strikeouts and groundballs, but his strikeout rate has dropped in each of the past two seasons. And he has continued to hand out too many free passes, averaging 5.2 per nine since the start of the 2017 campaign. Still, it wouldn’t be surprising if Wilson emerges as one of the most-pursued arms in this group.

Looking for a Bounceback

  • Brett Cecil (34): He’ll need to get back on the mound after a lost 2019 season and then make up for a brutal showing in the season prior, but perhaps there’s still hope.
  • Jake McGee (34): There have always been a lot of ups and downs for McGee, who’s likely to be paid a $2MM buyout in favor of a $9MM club option unless he really bounces back strong in 2020. He did manage a 4.35 ERA last year at Coors Field, but that was probably fortunate. McGee was tagged for 2.4 homers per nine while logging a pedestrian 7.6 K/9 — well off his career peak.
  • Andrew Miller (36): And that brings us to the final, and most interesting, name on this list. Once one of the game’s ultimate late-inning weapons, Miller has now turned in two-straight marginal seasons. He coughed up 1.8 long balls per nine innings last year while working to a 4.45 ERA over 54 2/3 frames. Miller’s velocity has dropped below 93 mph for the first time since he was moved to the bullpen, and he has settled in with a ~13% swinging-strike rate after topping out much higher. He still managed 11.5 K/9 in 2019, but that came with 4.5 BB/9 and the aforementioned dingers. If Miller is able to return to something like his former self, the Cards could pick up a $12MM club option rather than paying a $2.5MM buyout. That’d take a major turn of events, but it can’t be ruled out for a guy with Miller’s pedigree.

A Mariners-Yankees Blockbuster That Busted

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If we go back eight years to January 2012, we’ll find a huge trade centering on two players who looked to be among the premier young building blocks in Major League Baseball at the time. The Mariners sent right-hander Michael Pineda and fellow righty Vicente Campos to the Yankees for catcher Jesus Montero and RHP Hector Noesi. As it turned out, though, the swap didn’t go according to plan for either side.

Pineda was the most proven major leaguer in the trade when it happened, and that hasn’t changed. Then 22 years old, he debuted in the majors in 2011 and fired 171 innings of 3.74 ERA/3.42 FIP ball with 9.11 K/9 and 2.89 BB/9 to serve as one of the majors’ top rookies. But that All-Star season wasn’t enough for the Mariners to keep Pineda. Instead, desperate for a big hitter to build around, they shipped Pineda to New York in an attempt to bolster their offense.

It was easy to dream on Montero when the trade occurred. He was a 22-year-old who was once grouped with the likes of Mike Trout and Bryce Harper and considered among the top-notch prospects in baseball. And Montero terrorized opposing pitchers during his first major league stint late in the 2011 season, hitting .328/.406/.590 with four home runs in 69 plate appearances (perhaps you remember the first two homers of his career). Expectations then mounted that Montero would hold his own in the majors, whether with the Yankees or someone else, but that didn’t happen.

Instead, as a member of the Mariners from 2012-15, Montero stumbled to an overall .247/.285/.383 line with 24 homers in 796 plate appearances. The big-bodied Montero was never an ideal fit for the catcher position, where he logged just 735 innings as a Mariner and accounted for minus-20 Defensive Runs Saved. Clearly not the savior they thought he’d be, the Mariners cut ties with Montero heading into the 2016 season. Montero has since spent time in the Blue Jays’ and Orioles’ system, not to mention stints in Mexico and Venezuela, but he has not appeared in the majors since his Seattle tenure concluded.

It’s still hard to believe Montero flamed out so quickly. After all, at the time of the trade, Yankees general manager Brian Cashman compared Montero to two of the greatest players of the past few decades, saying: “To me, Montero is Mike Piazza. He’s Miguel Cabrera.”

Not so much. New York didn’t lose out on another Piazza or Cabrera, and it did come out on the better side of the trade, but that’s not really saying a lot. Pineda missed what would have been his first season with the Yankees as a result of the April 2012 right labrum surgery he underwent. He also sat out the next season, but he did pitch to a solid 4.16 ERA/3.65 FIP with 9.09 K/9 and 1.8 BB/9 across 509 innings and 89 starts in pinstripes from 2014-17. Not bad at all, but Pineda underwent yet another surgery – Tommy John – in the last of those seasons and never took the hill for the Yankees again. His career’s still going, though, as he performed well enough for the Twins in 2019 to convince them to re-sign him to a two-year, $20MM guarantee last offeason.

Almost a decade after the fact, Pineda’s the lone quality big leaguer left from this trade. Noesi hasn’t amounted to much in the majors so far – he even spent time in Korea – and settled for a minors deal with the Pirates last December. But at least Noesi has actually pitched in MLB on a fairly consistent basis. The same can’t be said for Campos, a once-impressive prospect whom injuries have helped ruin. Now 27, Campos is a free agent who most recently pitched in the Mexican League last season. He totaled 5 2/3 frames as a Diamondback in 2016, but that’s the extent of his big league work.

On one hand, credit goes to the Yankees for getting more out of this trade than the Mariners. On the other, it’s fair to call it a disappointment for the two clubs, both of which thought they were getting at least one long-term cornerstone apiece. The Montero and Noesi tenures in Seattle didn’t work out at all. Pineda had his moments as a Yankee, but they were too few in number, and Campos didn’t come close to realizing his potential. In light of Pineda’s decent contributions as a Yankee, you can’t call this trade a complete disaster, but it certainly didn’t live up to the hype.

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