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Archives for November 2021

Braves Exercise Brian Snitker’s 2024 Option

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The Braves announced Tuesday morning that they’ve exercised a club option for the 2024 season on manager Brian Snitker. He was already under contract through the 2023 campaign after signing an extension this past February, but he’s now on a guaranteed contract for the next three years.

Snitker celebrated his 66th birthday during the 2021 postseason and, not long after, celebrated the Braves’ first World Series victory in more than two decades. First named manager an interim basis during the 2016 season after Atlanta dismissed Fredi Gonzalez, Snitker quickly cemented himself in that role and shed the “interim” tag. He’s since proven himself to a pair of front-office regimes and signed a trio of short-term extensions under two different general managers. With today’s announcement, he won’t need to think about his next contract for at least a couple years.

The Braves went 72-90 in Snitker’s first full season on the job, in 2017. Since then, he’s guided the team not only to a winning record but to a division championship in each of the past four seasons. This year’s World Series roster may not have been the most talented group Snitker has ever overseen — star outfielder Ronald Acuna Jr. and righty Mike Soroka were both shelved due to injury — but that only makes the win all the more impressive.

Snitker has spent more than four decades in the Braves organization. During his time with the club, he’s managed seven different minor league affiliates in addition to a pair of stints as the Major League bullpen coach and a pair of stints as the MLB third base coach. He was named 2018 National League Manager of the Year in his second full season on the job, and he’s finished fourth or better in each of the three seasons since.

While the World Series victory was, in many ways, the culmination of a lifetime’s worth of work for Snitker, his focus will now shift to defending that World Series crown and bringing home another championship to Atlanta over the next three seasons.

Padres In Talks With Luis Garcia, Robert Suarez

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The Padres, eyeing upgrades in their bullpen, are in talks with a pair of somewhat under-the-radar options on the free-agent market. FanSided’s Robert Murray tweets that San Diego is in talks with righty Luis Garcia, while The Athletic’s Ken Rosenthal reports (also via Twitter) that the Friars are in serious discussions with right-hander Robert Suarez.

Garcia, 35 in January, had a resurgent with the Cardinals after joining the organization on a minor league deal over the summer. Through 33 1/3 innings, the former Phillies, Rangers and Angels hurler worked to a 3.24 ERA with a strong strikeout (25.2%), walk (5.9%) and ground-ball rates (45.7%) while quickly working his way up the ladder into high-leverage situations (11 holds, two saves).

While Garcia has had his share of success in the past, the 2021 version of the right-hander was the best yet. His 98.7 mph average fastball was a career-best, as were his 14.9% swinging-strike rate and that 25.2% strikeout rate. It’s still worth pointing out, however, that Garcia’s longstanding troubles against left-handed batters were as pronounced as ever in 2021. He overwhelmed opposing righties, holding them to a putrid .152/.190/.177 batting line in 84 plate appearances. However, lefties teed off at a .289/.353/.511 clip in 54 trips to the plate and tagged him for the only two long balls he yielded.

Suarez, 31 in March, is perhaps an unknown to many readers but is squarely on the radar of Major League clubs this winter. The Venezuelan-born righty has never pitched in the Majors but has spent several years in Japan’s Nippon Professional Baseball, splitting his time between the SoftBank Hawks (2016-19) and the Hanshin Tigers (2020-21). The righty has an outstanding track record in general but enjoyed a dominant campaign in 2021, pitching to a 1.16 ERA with a 25.3% strikeout rate and a microscopic 3.5% walk rate with 42 saves in 62 1/3 frames.

Cubs To Sign Yan Gomes

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Catcher Yan Gomes has agreed to a two-year, $13MM deal to join the Chicago Cubs, pending a physical. The contract contains a $6MM option for a third year, as well as $1MM in performance bonuses available each year based on games started. Gomes is a client of Jet Sports Management.

Gomes was on the free agent market two years ago and signed a two-year deal with the Nationals that came with a $10MM guarantee. After a decent showing over those two seasons, including a trade to Oakland at this year’s trade deadline, Gomes entered this year’s market as arguably the best backstop available. Over the past two campaigns, Gomes played 133 games, hitting 18 home runs and slashing .260/.306/.432. When combined with solid defensive numbers, he produced 1.8 fWAR in that time. Now the 34-year-old has beaten his previous contract by $3MM. He also beats MLBTR’s prediction that he would get the same $10MM guarantee as his last trip to free agency.

Gomes is a veteran of ten seasons between the Blue Jays, Guardians, Nationals and Athletics. His best showing came in 2013-2014 with Cleveland, where his combination of potent offence and excellent defence led to him producing 9.4 fWAR over those two seasons. He hit 32 home runs and slashed .284/.325/.476, adding up to a wRC+ of 121. He followed that up with a couple of rough seasons in 2015 and 2016, partially because of a serious shoulder injury, but has since bounced back to be a solid regular over the past five seasons.

Gomes joins a Cubs team that already has a starting catcher in the form of Willson Contreras, who was one of the few long-standing Cubs to survive the team’s recent fire sale. They sent most of the remaining household names from their 2016 World Series championship club out the door at the trade deadline this year, including Kris Bryant, Javier Baez and Anthony Rizzo, along with more recent additions to the club such as Craig Kimbrel and Ryan Tepera. Contreras, however, remains with the team, despite being just one season away from free agency.

The addition of Gomes seems to raise the specter of Contreras being the next guy out the door, and Contreras himself might even agree, as he tweeted a series of emojis showing a plane taking off and landing, perhaps implying that he is about to embark on a journey. Given the thin catching market, Contreras should be a hot commodity if he is indeed shopped around on the trade market. The 29-year-old, 30 in May, has been an above-average hitter in each of his six seasons so far, along with contributing on the defensive side of his game. In 621 career games, he has 95 home runs and has hit .259/.349/.458, for a wRC+ of 114 and 12.0 fWAR.

Craig Mish of SportsGrid first reported the two-year deal with a $13MM guarantee. Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic first relayed the $6MM option for a third year and the $1MM annual performance bonuses.

Image courtesy of USA Today Sports.

White Sox Sign Kendall Graveman

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The White Sox continued their aggressive approach to building a late-game relief corps, formally announcing on Tuesday the signing of righty Kendall Graveman to a three-year contract. The Sports One client will be guaranteed $24MM, the team announced.

Graveman spent the first few seasons of his career as a competent but unexciting back-of-the-rotation starter. A quality strike-thrower who induced plenty of ground-balls, Graveman ate a fair amount of innings during his 2015-18 run with the A’s. But he consistently ran one of the game’s lower strikeout rates, capping his overall upside.

That began to change in September 2020, when the Mariners bumped Graveman into short relief stints. The Alabama native took to his new role with aplomb, adding almost three miles per hour to his average fastball and performing quite well down the stretch. That was only a month’s worth of action, but it was enough to convince the M’s to bring Graveman back and install him in a full-time relief role in 2021.

Graveman was excellent this past season, kicking off the year with fourteen consecutive scoreless outings. He sustained his uptick in fastball velocity, averaging a career-best 96.2 MPH on the pitch. With that improved raw stuff came better results, as Graveman generated swinging strikes on a decent 10.7% of his offerings — his first season north of 8% in that regard. He struck out an above-average 27.5% of batters faced, all while maintaining his standout ability to keep the ball on the ground.

Dating back to his bullpen conversion, Graveman has tossed 66 innings of 2.05 ERA/3.17 FIP ball between Seattle and the Astros. He owns solid strikeout and walk rates (25.5% and 8.9%, respectively) in addition to a huge 54.9% grounder percentage. Opposing hitters have managed just a .181/.278/.256 line against him in that time, and Graveman has shown himself capable of thriving in both a traditional closer’s role and as a high-leverage middle innings type.

That level of dominance led MLBTR to project a three-year deal for Graveman entering the winter. The 30-year-old (31 next month) looks as if he’ll come in just a touch shy of MLBTR’s three-year, $27MM projection, but his deal falls right in line with the general area for high-quality setup types of recent offseasons. Will Harris ($24MM in 2019-20), Adam Ottavino ($27MM in 2018-19) and Joe Kelly ($25MM in 2018-19) have all landed three-year free agent deals right around this territory in recent offseasons.

The White Sox have invested heavily in their bullpen over the past twelve months, and today’s strike to land one of this winter’s top free agent relievers is the latest example in that trend. Chicago signed star closer Liam Hendriks to a four-year, $54MM deal last offseason, then traded for eight-time All-Star Craig Kimbrel at this summer’s deadline. Kimbrel struggled down the stretch after an otherworldly showing with the Cubs during the first half of the season. He remains with the White Sox after the club exercised a $16MM option on his services, but GM Rick Hahn has already acknowledged the possibility the Sox try to move Kimbrel this offseason.

Signing Graveman doesn’t necessitate a Kimbrel trade. There are plenty of high-leverage innings to go around, and one of Chicago’s best 2021 late-game options — Michael Kopech — is expected to compete for a rotation role in 2022. The Sox could still elect to roll into 2022 with a three-headed monster for manager Tony La Russa to deploy at the end of games. That said, the Graveman pick-up could give the front office enough confidence in the relief corps that they’re comfortable moving Kimbrel to address other areas of the roster, with second base and a corner outfield spot standing out as potential areas of need.

It’s also worth noting that Graveman’s deal could push the franchise into a level of spending with which they may not be comfortable. Chicago has never had a season-opening player payroll north of $130MM in franchise history, according to Cot’s Baseball Contracts. Jason Martinez of Roster Resource estimates they’ve already got around $168MM in 2022 commitments, though, even before accounting for Graveman’s forthcoming deal.

So while the Graveman addition need not force a Kimbrel trade from a roster perspective, adding that money to the White Sox’s already atypically packed ledger might foretell a money-saving deal of some kind. Moving Kimbrel’s $16MM salary elsewhere would seemingly be the most straightforward way to bring spending closer to the franchise’s previous levels, if owner Jerry Reinsdorf is intent on doing so.

MLB Network’s Jon Heyman first reported the agreement and the terms (Twitter links).

Image courtesy of USA TODAY Sports.

Orioles Release Brooks Kriske

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The Orioles have released right-handed pitcher Brooks Kriske, according to the MLB.com transactions tracker. Roch Kubatko of MASNsports.com reports that he could be interested in an opportunity with a foreign professional club.

Kriske, who turns 28 in February, was selected by the Yankees in the sixth round of the 2016 draft. He climbed his way up the ranks of the minors and eventually made his MLB debut in 2020. However, he’s been given very limited opportunities at the big league level thus far, only logging 15 innings in the past two seasons combined. He has an unsightly 14.40 ERA in that small sample, but has been much better in the minors.

At Triple-A this year, between the Yankees’ and Orioles’ systems, he threw 29 1/3 innings with an ERA of 3.68, along with a hefty strikeout rate of 37.4%, but a lofty walk rate of 12.2%. The Orioles claimed him on waivers from the Yankees in September, but he wasn’t able to hold onto his roster spot through the winter. He is still young and has an option year remaining, which could give him some appeal to other clubs as a depth signing.

The release of Kriske means Baltimore now has 39 players on their 40-man roster, allowing them to potentially use that open spot in the Rule 5 draft. The rebuilding Orioles have been quite active in recent Rule 5 drafts, making three selections in 2017, one in 2018 and then two selections in both 2019 and 2020. The draft is scheduled to take place December 9, but could be delayed by the lockout and transaction freeze that are expected to follow the expiration of the CBA on December 1.

Chris Taylor Drawing Widespread Interest

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Super utility player Chris Taylor is drawing interest from various teams and could sign in the coming days, according to MLB Network’s Jon Morosi (Twitter links). He lists the Dodgers, Blue Jays, Mariners, Angels and Nationals as teams that have been in recent contact with Taylor’s camp. The current CBA expires at 11:59pm ET on Wednesday, December 1, leading to a frenzy of transactions in recent days as teams are trying to tick items of their to-do lists before the lockout and transaction freeze that are expected to follow. Morosi says that Taylor could sign by Wednesday, potentially getting in just under the wire.

The fact that various teams are interested in Taylor’s services is no surprise, given his extreme defensive versatility. Over his career, Taylor has spent time at every position on the diamond except for catcher, pitcher and first base. In 2021, he appeared in at least eight games at six different positions, and more than 23 games at four different spots. He’s also been an above-average contributor on the offensive side of the game for five consecutive seasons now, by measure of wRC+. Over those five years, he has hit 78 home runs, stolen 50 bases and hit .265/.343/.461 for a wRC+ of 116. The combination of those factors makes it hard to imagine a team that wouldn’t be upgraded by adding Taylor to supplant the least-productive non-catcher in their lineup and slotting him into whatever position they happen to play.

Taking all this under consideration, as well as the fact that Taylor rejected a qualifying offer from the Dodgers, MLBTR predicted Taylor could earn himself a contract of four years and $64MM, AAV of $16MM. However, the free agent market has been quite robust so far, with the majority of players outearning their projections as teams seem to be rushing to get business done before this week’s expected lockout and subsequent transaction freeze. With that in mind, it wouldn’t be a surprise to see Taylor, 31, surpass that estimate, either in length or dollars.

The Dodgers are a fairly logical suitor, given that they’ve been utilizing Taylor’s skills for the past five-plus seasons. Although they still have one more season of Trea Turner, whom they acquired at the trade deadline, they’ve also just seen Corey Seager sign on with the Texas Rangers. At the moment, Gavin Lux would probably be pencilled in as the second baseman, but he also has positional versatility and could be bumped into a bench/utility role. In the outfield, Mookie Betts and AJ Pollock should have two spots accounted for, with Cody Bellinger likely taking up a third. But after Bellinger’s miserable 2021 campaign, adding Taylor could provide some insurance in case he can’t bounce back to his MVP-winning form from a couple years ago.

Just like the Dodgers, the Blue Jays have also just watched one of their best players depart for Texas, as Marcus Semien is now a Ranger as well. Bo Bichette and Vladimir Guerrero Jr. have two infield spots spoken for, with Cavan Biggio, Santiago Espinal and Breyvic Valera on hand as options for second or third base. Taylor could potentially take Semien’s spot and bump everyone else down on the depth chart.

The Mariners have already brought Adam Frazier into their infield mix this week, but seem determined to add more. Morosi lists Taylor, Kris Bryant and Javier Baez as infielders they are considering. Baez has since reportedly signed with the Tigers, but Taylor and Bryant both make sense as potential adds at third base, with Abraham Toro then platooning with Frazier at second. Taylor also started his career in Seattle before moving to the Dodgers, which would make for a nice homecoming story. The club has been aggressive in trying to build on a strong 2021 campaign, having also added Robbie Ray in recent days.

Just like Seattle, their division rivals in Anaheim have also been active in gearing up for 2022. They’ve added pitchers Noah Syndergaard, Michael Lorenzen and Aaron Loup, as well as acquiring infielder Tyler Wade from the Yankees. Taylor would be an upgrade over Wade or David Fletcher for the middle infield, as well as providing insurance for an outfield with a few unproven options, as youngsters Brandon Marsh and Jo Adell have shown promise but haven’t locked down jobs just yet.

The Nationals winning the bidding would be a surprise, given that they underwent a huge fire sale at the trade deadline and have been fairly inactive so far this offseason. But they seem determined to avoid a lengthy rebuild and will be aiming to return to contention while they still have the elite production of Juan Soto, whom they control for three more seasons. Other than Soto and Josh Bell, there’s almost no certainty in the team’s lineup, making it very easy for Taylor to be slotted in.

There’s one team that’s apparently not in the mix, however, as Chris Cotillo of MassLive reports that the Red Sox don’t seem to be heavily involved.

Pirates Sign Jerad Eickhoff

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The Pirates have signed right-hander Jerad Eickhoff to a minor league contract, according to his transactions log at MLB.com. He has been assigned to Triple-A Indianapolis.

Eickhoff was a capable back-of-the-rotation starter between 2016-17 with the Phillies, but he hasn’t pitched much over the past few seasons. The Indiana native logged 63 2/3 frames between 2018-19, then didn’t appear in the bigs during the shortened 2020 season. He bounced on and off the Mets’ big league roster a few times this year, ultimately working 19 2/3 innings over five outings.

That big league showing didn’t go well, as Eickhoff surrendered 24 runs, including a staggering nine homers, with 13 strikeouts and 10 walks in that limited time. His production with the club’s Triple-A affiliate in Syracuse was more respectable, as he posted a 4.86 ERA with solid strikeout and walk rates (23.9% and 6.1%, respectively), although he also struggled with the longball at the minors’ top level.

Yankees Release Chris Gittens; Gittens Expected To Pursue NPB Opportunity

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The Yankees have released Chris Gittens, according to the MLB.com transactions tracker. Lindsey Adler of the Athletic reports (on Twitter) that the hulking first baseman is likely to pursue an opportunity with a team in Japan’s Nippon Professional Baseball. The move opens a spot on New York’s 40-man roster, which now sits at 39.

This kind of move isn’t uncommon for players on the fringes of a 40-man roster. Teams in South Korea or Japan are often willing to put forth a loftier guaranteed salary than players like Gittens would receive shuttling between the majors and Triple-A. Assuming he’s indeed signing with an NPB club, Gittens is likely to find himself in a more financially stable situation than he’d have been in with the Yankees.

Gittens, 28 in February, earned his first brief big league look this past season. He only tallied 44 MLB plate appearances and didn’t perform especially well, but he had an otherworldly year with their top affiliate in Scranton/Wilkes-Barre. Over 184 trips to the plate at the minors’ top level, the right-handed hitter mashed at a .301/.440/.644 clip with 14 homers. Given that dominant run against high level pitching, it’s easy to understand why he caught the attention of evaluators in foreign pro leagues.

It’s not out of the question Gittens makes a return to the U.S. over the coming seasons. Eric Thames, Merrill Kelly, Miles Mikolas and Josh Lindblom are a few fairly recent examples of former big leaguers who raised their stocks with strong showings in Asian professional leagues. Those players all returned to the U.S. on guaranteed big league deals later in their careers. That’s not to say it’s a given every one-time major leaguer will have that kind of success, but it’s also not out of the realm of possibility Gittens follows a similar path.

MLB Reportedly Proposes 14-Team Playoff Field In Collective Bargaining Negotiations

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Major League Baseball has proposed expanding the postseason field to fourteen teams in collective bargaining discussions with the Players Association, reports Jesse Rogers of ESPN. That’s hardly a surprise, as Commissioner Rob Manfred has publicly advocated for expanding the playoffs (reportedly preferring a 14-team setup) going back to last year, when the league and MLBPA agreed to a 16-team playoff during the shortened 2020 season.

Under the proposed format, the top seed in each league would receive a bye — as is the case with the NFL’s current structure. However, Rogers adds that MLB’s proposal would allow the other two division winners in each league to choose which Wild Card team they’d prefer to face in the first round, which would take the form of a three-game series. The division winner with the second-best record in each league would have its pick of any of the four Wild Card clubs in its league; the final division winner would pick to face one of the other three Wild Card teams; the two Wild Card teams remaining would face one another.

The league has long been expected to prioritize an expanded playoff field in collective bargaining talks. An increased number of postseason games comes with an associated uptick in gate and television revenue, an obvious appeal for ownership groups. The effects for players could be more mixed. While some players could stand to benefit from increased playoff shares, Rogers notes that the MLBPA is concerned that an expanded playoff field could reduce the incentive for teams to aggressively try to bolster their roster.

A broader playoff field increases every team’s odds of getting into the postseason, and front offices may find the greater odds a disincentive to upgrading their roster via free agency or trade. Small-sample postseason series have an inherent high level of randomness. It seems the fear among some on the players’ side is that teams could be satisfied to build a slightly above-average roster (which would stand a much greater chance of making the postseason in a 14-team field than under the current 10-team system) and hope that a hot streak can carry them deep into the playoffs.

MLB, on the other hand, contends that the first-round bye would offer such a significant advantage to the teams with the best record in each league that very good clubs would remain motivated to improve. Meanwhile, the expanded field could offer a greater incentive for teams with mediocre rosters to add short-term impact, since the proposal would significantly increase those teams’ chances of getting to the postseason at all.

Rogers notes that the expanded playoff proposal has been on the table for months, but he reports that MLB recently put forward a new suggestion: a lottery for the top three amateur draft choices. Rather than setting the draft order as the inverse of the league standings — as is the current setup — this proposal would introduce a weighted system that injects more randomness into the process. Teams with the worst records would still have a greater chance of securing higher picks, but any non-playoff team would have a chance at a top three selection.

That offer is in response to players’ concerns that the current system rewards teams that orchestrate long-term rebuilds with perennially high draft choices. Of course, it’s not entirely clear that a weighted lottery would serve as much of a disincentive for tanking, since teams would still have higher probabilities of top picks with worse records.

Rogers’ colleague at ESPN, Jeff Passan, shed some further light on CBA talks this afternoon. Passan reports that the league recently offered a slight raise over the luxury tax thresholds set in the 2016-21 CBA. That’s a turnaround from the league’s earlier efforts to tie a lowered tax threshold to a soft salary floor, an offer the MLBPA rejected. It’s not clear how high the league is willing to set the thresholds, though, and Passan adds that the league’s willingness to raise them might come with associated stiffer penalties for exceeding them. Unsurprisingly, the MLBPA expressed concern that’d counterbalance high-spending teams’ willingness to surpass those thresholds.

Passan further reports that MLB has expressed openness to a “minimal” bump on the league minimum salary, which sat at $570.5K in 2021. MLB’s offer also included the introduction of the designated hitter to the National League, an on-field alteration widely expected to ultimately be put into place. Passan offers an in-depth breakdown of the labor dynamics that is well worth a full read for those interested in the topic.

The current CBA expires on Wednesday at 11:59 pm EST. It’s widely expected that the league will lock out the players if no deal is agreed upon at that point, a move that would come with an accompanying freeze on major league transactions. (Players who were not on a major league roster last season could still sign minor league contracts with clubs, Passan notes). Jon Heyman of the MLB Network tweeted this afternoon that while there’s been “incremental” progress between the two sides of late, there’s “basically no hope” of a deal getting done within the next 48 hours. That reality has been reflected in the flurry of free agent activity we’ve seen in recent days, as many players and teams have been highly motivated to lock in deals before the expected MLB transaction prohibition.

Phillies Interested In Corey Knebel, Kyle Schwarber

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The Phillies have “serious interest” in free agent reliever Corey Knebel, report Ken Rosenthal and Jayson Stark of the Athletic (on Twitter). Jim Salisbury of NBC Sports Philadelphia adds that the club is “making progress” in discussions with the right-hander and his representatives at Excel Sports Management.

The Dodgers acquired the former All-Star closer from the Brewers last offseason. Knebel missed a good chunk of the year on account of a right lat strain, but he was very effective when healthy enough to pitch. He tossed 25 2/3 innings over 27 appearances, working to a 2.45 ERA with a strong 29.7% strikeout percentage and an average 8.9% walk rate. Knebel also induced ground-balls at a solid 45.9% clip.

It was an all-around strong bounceback showing for the 30-year-old, who was limited to just 13 1/3 ineffective innings between 2019-20 on account of an elbow injury that required Tommy John surgery. Perhaps most encouragingly, his average fastball velocity bounced back to 96.3 MPH after dipping to 94.3 MPH during his immediate return from TJS in 2020. Not coincidentally, his swinging strike rate rebounded from 7.2% to a 12.7% clip that’s only a touch below where Knebel worked during his peak seasons.

Were the Phillies to come to an agreement with Knebel, he’d be a key addition to a bullpen that stands out as one of the weaker areas on the roster. The outfield might be the other area of greatest need, and Salisbury adds that Philadelphia has interest in free agent corner outfielder Kyle Schwarber. After a down 2020, the former fourth overall pick rebounded to mash at a .266/.374/.554 clip across 471 plate appearances between the Nationals and Red Sox.

A run at Schwarber would be far more expensive than a pursuit of Knebel, of course. MLBTR forecasts a two-year, $18MM deal for Knebel, while Schwarber’s projected deal checks in at four years and $70MM. Schwarber, who was ineligible to be tagged with a qualifying offer by virtue of a midseason trade from Washington to Boston, has again been linked to both of his 2021 clubs as a free agent. The division-rival Marlins have also been floated as a possibility as they try to rebuild their own outfield.

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