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Odubel Herrera Unlikely To Be Ready For Opening Day

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Phillies center fielder Odúbel Herrera has a mild strain in his right oblique, manager Joe Girardi told reporters (including Alex Coffey of the Philadelphia Inquirer) this afternoon. He’s not expected to be ready for Opening Day, and Girardi suggested he could be sidelined for four-to-six weeks.

The Phils declined Herrera’s $11.5MM club option at the outset of the offseason, seemingly ending his seven-year run in the organization. Philadelphia circled back after the lockout, however, re-signing him on a $1.75MM pact. He entered camp as the favorite to reprise his role as the regular center fielder, but it seems the Phillies will need to look to alternatives in the early going.

Matt Vierling looks likely to get the first crack at the job, as Todd Zolecki of MLB.com wrote yesterday the 25-year-old would be the probable primary center fielder so long as Herrera was on the shelf. Vierling had a nice 34-game run to begin his big league career late last year, but his .248/.331/.359 line in 236 plate appearances with Triple-A Lehigh Valley casts some doubt on his ability to shoulder an everyday workload. Former top ten draftees Adam Haseley and Mickey Moniak are alternatives on the 40-man roster, but Girardi said the Phils haven’t given any consideration to playing Moniak in center. Haseley can handle the position defensively, but he limped to a .224/.282/.295 performance with Lehigh Valley last season.

One option not under consideration is kicking Bryce Harper over from right field to center. The reigning NL MVP has some experience up the middle, but Girardi told reporters yesterday (via Zolecki) the organization didn’t want to jeopardize his health by handing him that kind of defensive burden. Harper will stick in right field, and Girardi said today he viewed Kyle Schwarber as his primary left fielder (via Jayson Stark of the Athletic). Fellow offseason signee Nick Castellanos will spend the bulk of his time at designated hitter, relieving Schwarber or Harper in the corner outfield as needed.

Latest On Athletics’ Trade Possibilities

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7:39pm: Jon Heyman of the MLB Network tweets that rival teams don’t view it as an inevitability that the A’s trade either of Manaea or Montas. Heyman concurs Manaea seems likelier to find himself on the move than Montas but suggests it’s possible Oakland just carries both starters on its Opening Day roster.

2:39pm: It’s been a week since the Athletics’ last trade, which sent third baseman Matt Chapman to the Blue Jays in exchange for a package of four prospects. After the A’s shipped out Chris Bassitt, Matt Olson and Chapman within just a week of the lockout lifting, the expectation was that additional moves would follow.

That’s still likely to be the case, although the pace has slowed. Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic tweets that Oakland’s current focus is on finding a trade partner for lefty Sean Manaea. While the general expectation has been that both Manaea and right-hander Frankie Montas will be moved, Rosenthal suggests the A’s are still still “deciding how to proceed” with Montas.

It’s only logical that for the time being, moving Manaea is the team’s bigger priority. Not only is the 30-year-old Manaea the more expensive of the two arbitration-eligible hurlers — Manaea settled on a $9.75MM salary yesterday, compared to Montas’ $5.025MM settlement — he’s also set to reach free agency after the 2022 season. Montas, meanwhile, is controlled through 2023, so the A’s could conceivably open the season with him in the rotation and shop him at the summer trade deadline, when buyers may have more urgency than they do at the moment.

Of course, the other side of that equation is that there could also be a broader supply of arms available to pitching-hungry clubs in July. At present, Manaea and Montas are the two most available starters on a trade market that still has plenty of clubs looking for arms. The Twins, Royals, Yankees, White Sox, Rays and Tigers have all reportedly spoken to the A’s about potential deals in the past week or so, and other clubs have surely done so more quietly. Oakland’s bargaining power only increased when Reds GM Nick Krall publicly declared that he did not expect to trade either Luis Castillo or Tyler Mahle, both of whom had been drawing substantial trade interest themselves.

With Castillo and Mahle ostensibly off the market and few other teams dangling proven big league starters, the A’s have plenty of negotiating leverage. Fast forward to this July, and there may be teams with enhanced motivation to buy — but there will also unquestionably be more arms available in trade. Clubs with current designs on contending will fall out of the playoff picture and look to move short-term assets.

Manaea, the No. 34 overall draft pick back in 2013, is a rental for the 2022 season but a good one. He tied for 22nd in MLB with 179 1/3 innings pitched in a 2021 campaign that saw many clubs aggressively monitor pitcher workloads on the heels of the shortened 2020 schedule. Since returning from shoulder surgery late in the 2019 season, he’s tallied 263 innings of 3.73 ERA ball (3.64 FIP, 3.78 SIERA) with a solid 24.8% strikeout rate and an excellent 5.2% walk rate. As a Boras Corporation client who’s just a year from free agency, Manaea might not be a likely extension candidate for a new team, but he’d bolster nearly any of the other 29 rotations in Major League Baseball.

Montas and Manaea aren’t the only two trade candidates remaining on Oakland’s roster, however. Center fielder Ramon Laureano and reliever Lou Trivino have both been listed as possible trade chips. Laureano, in particular, has been a target for the Marlins at times this winter, according to Craig Mish and Barry Jackson of the Miami Herald. The Fish have made no secret of their desire to add a center fielder, and while their interest in Pittsburgh’s Bryan Reynolds is well-known by now, Mish and Jackson report that Miami actually had more serious negotiations with the A’s about Laureano than they did with Pittsburgh about Reynolds.

The two teams discussed myriad scenarios, one of which would’ve sent Laureano and a reliever to Miami. Outfield prospect JJ Bleday was of particular interest to the A’s, per the Herald report — although there surely would have been several other pieces going back to Oakland, particularly if the A’s were to include Trivino or another reliever in the deal. Those talks didn’t culminate in a deal, however, and the Marlins have since deepened their outfield mix with another corner option: Jorge Soler. It’s still feasible that they could rekindle talks, even if they’re presently dormant. Longtime Marlins beat writer Joe Frisaro wrote just this morning that the Fish haven’t closed the door on circling back to the trade market to make one more attempt at finding a new a center fielder.

As things stand, the A’s have just under $59MM on the books for the 2022 season. Their trades of Bassitt, Olson and Chapman have already netted them ten young players: right-hander J.T. Ginn, right-hander Adam Oller, center fielder Cristian Pache, catcher Shea Langeliers, right-hander Ryan Cusick, right-hander Joey Estes, right-hander Gunnar Hoglund, shortstop Kevin Smith, left-hander Zach Logue and left-hander Kirby Snead.

New York City Reportedly Set To Lift Vaccination Requirement For Professional Athletes

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New York City mayor Eric Adams will announce tomorrow that the municipality’s COVID-19 vaccination requirement for professional athletes will be lifted, according to a report from Sally Goldenberg of Politico. The news means that unvaccinated players on the Yankees and Mets — who were previously prohibited from playing in home games — will no longer be blocked from playing at Yankee Stadium or Citi Field, write Adrian Wojnarowski and Jeff Passan of ESPN.

ESPN writes that MLB officials had been in contact with the mayor’s office in recent days about the possibility of the Yankees and Mets being down some players for home games. League officials had maintained optimism the situation would eventually be resolved, but Wojnarowski and Passan report that the MLB Players Association had recently sent a memo to agents who represent players on those teams about the possible consequences they’d face for missing games on account of vaccination status.

As part of the new collective bargaining agreement, that includes lost service time and pay. That now only figures to be relevant in Toronto, as the Canadian government is preventing unvaccinated players from entering the country. That won’t have any impact on the Mets, but the Yankees are slated to play ten road games against the Blue Jays this season. Unvaccinated players are still prohibited from participating in those games and will be placed on the restricted list for those contests.

Dodgers Designate Matt Beaty For Assignment

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5:56pm: Beaty actually has one option remaining, manager Dave Roberts told reporters (including Fabian Ardaya of the Athletic).

3:23pm: The Dodgers announced this afternoon they’ve designated corner infielder/outfielder Matt Beaty for assignment. The move clears space on the 40-man roster for Hanser Alberto, whose previously-reported one-year deal has been made official.

It’s a bit of a surprising move, as Beaty’s coming off an atypically good season for someone who now finds himself in DFA limbo. The left-handed hitter posted a .270/.363/.402 line with seven home runs in 234 plate appearances last year. He wasn’t a huge power threat, with just 12 extra-base hits and a .132 ISO (slugging minus batting average). Yet he made contact on an above-average 81.7% of his swings and drew walks at a roughly league average rate to post a quality batting average and on-base mark.

Beaty has tallied a bit less than one full season’s worth of playing time since debuting in the majors in 2019. He owns a .262/.333/.425 line in 556 career trips to the plate, overall offense that checks in a hair above par by measure of wRC+. He’s not regarded as a great defender anywhere on the diamond, but the 28-year-old has seen a fair bit of action at all four corner spots in L.A.

However, Beaty is out of minor league option years. The Dodgers had to choose between carrying him on the active roster all year or bumping him from the 40-man. They’ve taken the latter course of action. They’ll give the bench role to Alberto instead, seemingly prioritizing the greater defensive flexibility that comes along with him. Alberto isn’t as good a hitter as Beaty, but he’s a solid defensive second baseman who could be an option at shortstop in a pinch.

The Dodgers will have a week to trade Beaty or place him on waivers. Given his solid offensive track record in the big leagues, he could very well land with a team that’s not as deep as the Dodgers are on the position player side. Any acquiring team would also have to keep Beaty on the active roster or DFA him themselves, but it stands to reason he’d have a better chance of sticking as a bat-first utility option off the bench with another club.

Blue Jays Have Shown Interest In Brett Gardner

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The Blue Jays have reached out to show some interest in veteran outfielder Brett Gardner, tweets Newsday’s Erik Boland, although Boland adds that the 38-year-old Gardner is still hoping that the Yankees will make an offer for him to return. Joel Sherman of the New York Post hears similarly, writing that the Jays have checked in on Gardner but some clubs wonder whether he’d actually sign with a team other than the Yankees, given the history between the two parties.

Gardner hit .222/.327/.362 with 10 homers, 16 doubles and four triples while playing more center field than the Yankees probably would have hoped in 2021. Aaron Hicks’ injuries, however, pushed Gardner into a prominent share of time in center, where he logged 816 innings. That was just the second time since 2015 that Gardner had played even 40 games in center, and to his credit, he rated only a bit below average there. For a 38-year-old who’s become more accustomed to left field, it was about as solid a showing as could be expected.

Interest from the Jays makes some sense, given that their roster is exceptionally right-handed. Gardner hit just .213 against righties in 2021, but part of that was due to an abnormally low .243 average on balls in play against them. He walked in 13.9% of his plate appearances versus right-handed pitching against a 20.2% strikeout rate that clocks in below the league average.

Gardner is far from the hitter he once was, when he batted a combined .257/.338/.413 with 109 homers and 130 steals in 1024 games with the Yankees from 2013-19. With the Jays, however, he’d be viewed as a part-time player — a lefty bat off the bench whose primary role would be to offer some occasional breathers or injury insurance for right-handed outfield options like Lourdes Gurriel Jr., George Springer, Teoscar Hernandez and Randal Grichuk. He’d presumably be attainable on a one-year contract, but it’d be understandable if Gardner felt somewhat conflicted about leaving the only team he’s known after 14 big league seasons and 17 professional campaigns, dating back to his selection in the third round of the 2005 draft.

Reds Sign Hunter Strickland

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March 23: The Reds have announced the signing, which fills their 40-man roster. Strickland will earn $1.825MM in 2022, tweets MLB.com’s Mark Sheldon. He can also earn another $750K via performance incentives and would receive a $250K assignment bonus if traded.

March 22, 12:50pm: It’s a big league deal for Strickland, tweets Bobby Nightengale of the Cincinnati Enquirer.

8:16am: The two sides have agreed to a deal, tweets MLB Network’s Jon Heyman.

8:00am: The Reds are closing in on a deal with free-agent righty Hunter Strickland, tweets Robert Murray of FanSided. Strickland, a client of All Bases Covered, would give Cincinnati a veteran option to consider for what’s otherwise a largely inexperienced relief corps.

Strickland, 33, split the 2021 season between three clubs, beginning the year with the Rays after signing a minor league deal and pitching well through 16 innings. Tampa Bay still felt comfortable trading him to the Angels for cash, and things quickly went south for Strickland in Anaheim, where he yielded nine runs (seven earned) in just 6 1/3 innings of work. The Halos designated him for assignment and traded him to the Brewers (again for cash).

Strickland quickly righted the ship in Milwaukee and remained in the Brewers’ bullpen for the duration of the season. He notched a tidy 1.73 ERA in 36 1/3 frames with the Brew Crew and added another 2 1/3 shutout frames in the NLDS. Overall, his regular season concluded with 58 2/3 innings of 2.61 ERA ball (4.19 FIP, 4.06 SIERA). Along the way, Strickland whiffed 24% of his opponents against a 9.1% walk rate and a 34.8% grounder rate. He was particularly deft when it came to suppressing hard contact, as Statcast ranked his 29.4% hard-hit rate in the 97th percentile of MLB pitchers and his 86.9 mph average exit velocity in the 84th percentile.

The Reds will be without top reliever Tejay Antone for most, if not all of the 2022 season after he underwent Tommy John surgery in late August last season. Meanwhile, projected closer Lucas Sims won’t be ready for Opening Day, as he’s currently healthy but behind schedule in camp after rehabbing some offseason back troubles. Lefty Amir Garrett was traded to the Royals in this month’s Mike Minor swap, and the Reds have seen both Michael Lorenzen (Angels) and Mychal Givens (Cubs) depart via free agency.

Cincinnati does still have at least a pair of veteran arms at the back of the ’pen, as former Yankees Luis Cessa and Justin Wilson, both acquired from New York last summer, are still with the club. Righty Jeff Hoffman, though, is the only other projected member of the bullpen with even a year of big league service time. (Hoffman has three-plus years but has still yet to truly solidify himself as a steady option.) Cincinnati does have a handful of more seasoned options in camp as non-roster players, including Buck Farmer, Kyle Zimmer and Trey Wingenter.

Cubs Designate Sergio Alcantara For Assignment

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The Cubs have designated infielder Sergio Alcantara for assignment, per a team announcement. His spot on the 40-man roster will go to veteran reliever Mychal Givens, whose previously reported one-year deal has now been formally announced by the team.

Claimed off waivers out of the Tigers organization in Feb. 2021, Alcantara wound up appearing in 89 games with Chicago — most of which came after the team had stripped down the roster with a July fire sale that saw Kris Bryant, Javier Baez and Anthony Rizzo traded (among others). The 25-year-old Alcantara logged 255 plate appearances with the Cubs but managed only a tepid .205/.303/.327 batting line during that stretch — his first extended look at the MLB level. He’d previously had a brief 10-game, 23-plate appearance cup of coffee with Detroit in 2020.

In addition to that lackluster showing in the big leagues, Alcantara owns a pedestrian .261/.340/.317 batting line in 822 plate appearances at the Double-A level. He did hit .305/.447/.451 in a small sample of 103 Triple-A plate appearances in 2021, but that’s an outlier relative to his overall body of work in the minors. Offense, however, has never Alcantara’s calling card anyhow. He’s regarded as a plus defensive player at shortstop who can also handle second base and third base. He’s also walked in 11.1% of his minor league plate appearances against a 17.1% strikeout rate, showing solid bat-to-ball skills and a good knowledge of the strike zone.

An above-average runner with a strong throwing arm and good defensive skills on the whole, Alcantara could potentially be of interest to clubs around the league as they evaluate bench options for the expanded 28-man roster early in the season. He has a minor league option year remaining as well, so he can provide some additional bench flexibility throughout the season. The Cubs will have a week to trade Alcantara or attempt to pass him through outright waivers.

Mariners To Sign Sergio Romo

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The Mariners have agreed to a deal with free-agent righty Sergio Romo, tweets Jesse Sanchez of MLB.com. It’s a big league deal that comes with a $2MM base salary, tweets Joel Sherman of the New York Post. The deal is pending a physical. Romo is represented by Meister Sports Management.

Sergio Romo | D. Ross Cameron-USA TODAY Sports

The 39-year-old Romo spent the 2021 campaign with the division-rival A’s, where he posted a 4.67 ERA with a 23.2% strikeout rate against an 8.1% walk rate. It marked a downturn both in terms of ERA and strikeout rate for the 14-year big league veteran, but Romo continued to be among the game’s best in terms of limiting hard contact. His 84.9 mph average exit velocity ranked in the 98th percentile of big league pitchers, and Romo’s 23.3% opponents’ hard-hit rate was the best in the Majors.

A soft-tossing, sidearming slider specialist, Romo has long flummoxed right-handed opponents and kept lefties in check more effectively than most sidearm righties. He wasn’t quite as dominant against either in ’21 as he has been in prior seasons, but neither managed much to do much damage against him overall. Right-handed opponents posted a .240/.290/.420 batting line, while lefties hit .235/.330/.376 — both good for a .305 wOBA.

Romo’s spike in ERA this past season was due, at least in part, to an uncharacteristic dip in strand rate; after leaving 77% of runners on base throughout his career (and 78% in 2020 with Minnesota), Romo saw that rate drop to 69.3%. He also put himself at a disadvantage by throwing a first-pitch strike at just a 59.8% clip — the third-lowest mark of his career. If Romo can get ahead more frequently and maintain his outstanding levels of weak contact, that problematic strand rate will quite likely regress toward his career levels.

The Seattle bullpen was already strong, following a breakout from Paul Sewald and a resurgence from fellow righty Drew Steckenrider. The Mariners will also get both Ken Giles and Andres Munoz back from Tommy John surgery, giving them a pair of power arms capable of reaching triple-digit readings on the radar gun. Righty Diego Castillo was closing games in Tampa Bay before being acquired at last year’s trade deadline, and the club was surely encouraged by the progress made from starter-turned-reliever Erik Swanson.

That said, the Mariners also lost a key arm in recent days when right-hander Casey Sadler underwent a shoulder procedure that will cost him the entire 2022 season. Sadler, 31, posted a comical 0.67 ERA in 40 1/3 innings last year, and while he would never have been expected to replicate that level of dominance, he was surely viewed as a vital member of manager Scott Servais’ bullpen. Romo gives the M’s a veteran replacement for Sadler — one who’ll provide quite a different look than some of his new power-armed teammates. Going from Romo’s 85-86 mph “fastball” to triple-digit heaters from Giles or Munoz in the late stages of a game won’t be an easy transition for opponents.

With Romo on board, the Mariners’ projected payroll ticks up to about $106MM — its highest point since 2019 but still miles shy of the franchise-record $158MM. It’s still possible they’ll boost that total a bit further with another free-agent pickup — though the market has been largely picked over by now — or via a trade acquisition, though much of the team’s heavy lifting appears complete this winter. The M’s were known to be eyeing an experienced option to round out the rotation and have yet to make such an addition, however, and there’s always some room for even further bullpen depth to be added — particularly with expanded 28-man rosters to begin the season.

Red Sox Designate Jeisson Rosario For Assignment

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The Red Sox announced this morning that they’ve designated outfield Jeisson Rosario for assignment in order to open a spot on the roster for Trevor Story, whose six-year contract is now official.

Rosario, 22, was acquired from the Padres in 2020 alongside infield prospect Hudson Potts in the trade that sent Mitch Moreland to San Diego. Both Rosario and Potts have now been designated for assignment on consecutive days, though, as Potts lost his 40-man spot yesterday when Boston claimed righty Kyle Tyler off waivers from the Angels.

The fleet-footed Rosario has yet to make his big league debut or even reach the Triple-A level. He spent the 2021 campaign with the Sox’ Double-A affiliate, where he posted a .232/.335/.307 batting line with three home runs, 15 doubles, a triple and a strong 12.3% walk rate against a troubling 27.9% strikeout rate. Scouting reports tout his speed, glovework in center and ability to draw walks, but Rosario is lacking in power and has notable concerns about his hit tool. He’ll be traded or placed on outright waivers within the next week.

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