Archives for March 2022

Cardinals Sign Blake Parker To Minor League Deal

By Mark Polishuk | March 26, 2022 at 8:45am CDT

The Cardinals announced that right-hander Blake Parker has been signed to a minor league contract. Parker will receive an invitation to the Cards’ Major League spring camp.

This will mark the third straight winter with a minor league deal for Parker, though he has produced good bottom-line results in each of the last two seasons. With the Phillies in 2020, Parker had a 2.81 ERA in 16 innings during the abbreviated season, posting a 36.2% strikeout rate but also an unwieldy 13% walk rate. Both of those latter numbers dropped with Cleveland last year, as while Parker’s control improved with a 7.6% walk rate, he only managed a 20% strikeout rate. Still, Parker did have a 3.09 ERA over 43 2/3 frames out of the Indians’ bullpen.

With a 3.47 ERA over 345 1/3 career innings in the majors, Parker has been a solid relief option for the majority of his nine big league seasons. He struggled through a rough year in 2019, however, as a lack of control and an inability to keep the ball in the park led to some poor results with the Twins (after beginning the season as Minnesota’s closer) and Phillies.

The 36-year-old Parker will now look to again win himself another trip to the majors via the St. Louis bullpen. Zach McAllister and Kyle Ryan are two of the other experienced non-roster candidates vying for jobs, and the Cardinals also brought the likes of Drew VerHagen and Nick Wittgren into the fold on MLB contracts. Aaron Brooks was another minor league signing, but the Cards have already locked him into a guaranteed by adding him to their 40-man roster.

All in all, there are plenty of arms competing for jobs on a staff that is still adjusting to the news that Jack Flaherty and Alex Reyes will begin the season on the injured list. Reyes is out until at least late May and Flaherty’s timetable is less certain, thus creating ripple effects in both the rotation and the bullpen.

Padres Sign Trayce Thompson, Brandon Dixon To Minors Deals

By Anthony Franco and Mark Polishuk | March 26, 2022 at 8:26am CDT

The Padres recently signed outfielder Trayce Thompson and corner infielder/outfielder Brandon Dixon to minor league contracts, according to Chris Hilburn-Trenkle of Baseball America. It’s the first season in the organization for both players, who each have a few years of big league experience.

Thompson has played in a little more than 200 MLB games between four teams. He broke in with the White Sox in 2015, posting an excellent small-sample showing as a rookie. He was traded to the Dodgers as part of a three-team deal that offseason — one which, coincidentally, saw Los Angeles send Dixon to Cincinnati. He tallied a career-high 262 plate appearances with Los Angeles that season, hitting .225/.302/.436, but he saw only sporadic action over the next couple years.

After appearing in 27 games with L.A. in 2017, he bounced from the Yankees to the A’s and back to the White Sox via waivers and minor trade the following year. He spent the next couple seasons at Triple-A before resurfacing in the big leagues with the Cubs last September. Thompson only tallied 35 plate appearances with the North Siders last season, but he popped four homers and had a solid .233/.344/.492 showing in 88 games with Triple-A Iowa, where he played all three outfield positions.

Dixon has spent parts of three seasons in the big leagues. He debuted with the Reds in 2018, a few years after they acquired him in the aforementioned deal with Los Angeles. Cincinnati waived him that winter, and he landed with the Tigers, receiving a good chunk of MLB playing time during the 2019 season. Dixon hit .248/.290/.435 with 15 homers over 420 PA and 117 games with Detroit that year, but then appeared in only five big-league contests in 2020.

The next step was a move outside of North American ball entirely, as Dixon headed to Japan in 2021 to play with the Tohoku Rakuten Golden Eagles. Dixon roughly split his time between the Eagles and their top minor league affiliate, and struggled to only a .167/.268/.324 slash line in 123 PA for the Sendai-based team.

The two minor league deals give the Padres some additional depth options to choose from during Spring Training. While rumors continue to swirl about how San Diego could upgrade their outfield, Jurickson Profar remains the top option for left field at-bats, and Thompson has more defensive flexibility than another non-roster invitee in Nomar Mazara. Dixon has also spent a lot of his time as a corner outfielder, and brings added versatility due to his experience at first, second, and third base.

Nationals Sign Tyler Clippard To Minors Contract

By Mark Polishuk | March 26, 2022 at 7:17am CDT

Tyler Clippard has returned to the Nationals organization, as The Washington Post’s Barry Svrluga reported that the Nats had a locker waiting for the veteran right-hander. The Post’s Jesse Dougherty confirmed that Clippard was indeed a non-roster invite to the club’s big league spring camp.

Clippard first pitched for Washington from 2008-14, a stint that solidified Clippard as a solid and sometimes elite bullpen arm. The righty posted a 2.68 ERA, 28.5% strikeout rate, and 9.8% walk rate over his 464 previous innings in a Nats uniform, twice reaching the NL All-Star team and operating as either a workhorse setup man or (in 2012) as a closer. The two sides parted ways in January 2015, when the Nationals traded Clippard to the A’s for Yunel Escobar.

That swap kicked off a nomadic stretch for Clippard, as he saw action with nine different teams from 2015-21. Despite the lack of stability, Clippard was still posting effective numbers, with a 3.47 ERA, 25.9% strikeout rate, and 9.0% walk rate in 376 1/3 frames in those seven seasons. There was a bit of a bump in home run rate (8.2% with Washington and 10.0% elsewhere), which isn’t a huge surprise given Clippard’s extreme fly-ball tendencies.

Never a high-velocity arm even in his prime years, Clippard has relied on soft contact and an excellent changeup as the keys to his success. Clippard’s strikeout totals have declined over the last four years, however, and his fastball averaged only 88.9 mph over 25 1/3 innings with the Diamondbacks in 2021.

Clippard got a late start late season, as a shoulder injury kept him from any big league action until July 21. Arizona declined their side of a $3.5MM mutual option for the 2022 season, thus sending Clippard into free agency entering his age-37 campaign.

Between the additions of Steve Cishek, Sean Doolittle, and now Clippard, the Nationals have bolstered their young relief corps with plenty of veteran experience. Given the amount of uncertainty in the D.C. bullpen, Clippard probably stands a pretty good chance of breaking camp with the team and even getting a crack at some high-leverage innings. It remains to be seen exactly how the Nats will line up their relievers in late-game situations, or whether or not manager Davey Martinez will go purely situational rather than have a set order for the seventh, eighth, or even ninth innings.

Latest On Michael Conforto

By Steve Adams | March 25, 2022 at 11:01pm CDT

Michael Conforto is the top free agent remaining on the market and the lone qualifying offer recipient who remains unsigned. We’re now less than two weeks from Opening Day, and it’s still difficult to glean just where Conforto might sign. And, as ESPN’s Buster Olney points out, Conforto will have a hard time following the path of some other QO recipients who waited things out and took a midseason deal. Dallas Keuchel, Kendrys Morales and Stephen Drew, for instance, all waited to sign until after the draft had passed, thus freeing them from the burden of draft-pick compensation. That tactic already caused a player to sit out two months of the season, but with the draft now pushed back to mid-July, it’s an even less palatable approach for Conforto to take.

There’s been some talk of a potential reunion with his old team, but Anthony DiComo of MLB.com reported yesterday evening that returning to the Mets is “extremely unlikely,” citing multiple sources close to the situation. With Starling Marte and Mark Canha joining Brandon Nimmo in the outfield, plus holdover infield/outfield bats like Dominic Smith and J.D. Davis still in the fold, at-bats for Conforto would be hard to come by — even with the designated hitter now in the National League.

Sportsnet’s Shi Davidi, meanwhile, writes that the Blue Jays have “checked in” on Conforto, though perhaps only as a means of due diligence. The Jays have been looking for left-handed hitting to help balance a right-leaning lineup, and yesterday’s trade with the Rockies, swapping outfielders Randal Grichuk and Raimel Tapia, was a step toward that end. There’s arguably still a fit for Conforto in Toronto, as the Jays could cycle him, Lourdes Gurriel Jr., George Springer and Teoscar Hernandez through the outfield and designated hitter spots in the lineup. However, GM Ross Atkins also threw some cold water on the idea of another big-ticket addition, telling reporters yesterday that it’s “getting harder for us to continue to add from a resource standpoint and from a flexibility standpoint” (Twitter link via TSN’s Scott Mitchell).

The Guardians have been an oft-cited fit for Conforto, due both to the team’s paltry $56MM payroll and a generally unproven mix of outfield options. General manager Mike Chernoff didn’t comment directly on Conforto or any other free agents this morning, but did say in an appearance on MLB Network Radio on SiriusXM that the front office is prioritizing its young players (Twitter link, with audio).

“One of the big challenges for us has been, how do we make sure we’re creating opportunities for those guys and not taking opportunity?” said Chernoff. “Not just signing a veteran guy that’s going to eat into some of the playing time that allows these guys to get their feet underneath them in the big leagues.”

MLB Network’s Jon Heyman suggests a new suitor in his latest podcast (Conforto talk around the 41-minute mark), calling the Rangers perhaps the likeliest team to jump on Conforto. Texas has already forfeited a second-round and third-round selection in order to sign Corey Seager and Marcus Semien, meaning the draft-pick cost of signing Conforto would be down to a fourth-rounder for them. That, however, would still run counter to prior reports on the Rangers’ spending plans; Evan Grant of the Dallas Morning News reported shortly after the lockout lifted that Texas viewed Matt Olson and Clayton Kershaw (both of whom they pursued but were unable to acquire) as special cases but otherwise did not plan to plan to spend significantly.

AL East Notes: Mancini, Means, JDM, Marwin

By Steve Adams | March 25, 2022 at 9:26pm CDT

The Orioles haven’t engaged either first baseman/designated hitter Trey Mancini or lefty John Means about a contract extension, reports Dan Connolly of The Athletic. Mancini is set to become a free agent at season’s end. Means is controlled through 2024.

It’s wholly unsurprising, as the Orioles haven’t had an appetite for any long-term investments during their ongoing rebuild. Even the one-year, $7MM deal they agreed to with right-hander Jordan Lyles prior to the lockout was seen as a surprise, as the O’s hadn’t previously given out more than a $3MM guarantee to any free agent since hiring general manager Mike Elias more than three years ago.

Still, as Connolly explores, the lack of an extension and the seemingly inevitable trade of Mancini — be it in the next couple weeks or this summer — will be a wildly unpopular move both among fans and in the clubhouse. Mancini, the 2021 Comeback Player of the Year, was already a fan favorite in Baltimore before overcoming stage-3 colon cancer and returning to the field with a generally productive 2021 season. He’s also entrenched as a clubhouse leader in Baltimore. The O’s will start spending money at some point once they’re ready to emerge from what’s now a four-year tanking effort, but at the moment they project to just a $64.5MM payroll — $23MM of which is dead money still owed to Chris Davis.

Rays Acquire Harold Ramirez From Cubs

By Anthony Franco | March 25, 2022 at 8:37pm CDT

The Rays have acquired outfielder Harold Ramírez from the Cubs in exchange for minor league infielder Esteban Quiroz, according to announcements from both teams. Tampa Bay announced they’ve placed reliever Nick Anderson on the 60-day injured list to open space for Ramírez on the 40-man roster.

The move brings Ramírez’s Chicago tenure to an end before he ever suited up for the team. The Cubs acquired the right-handed hitting outfielder from the Guardians in exchange for cash in late November. That came after Cleveland had designated him for assignment in advance of Rule 5 protection day, part of an overhaul of more than a quarter of the Guardians’ 40-man roster.

While Ramírez didn’t play in a game with the Cubs, he has logged a fair bit of MLB action over the past few seasons. A former Blue Jays’ farmhand, Ramírez debuted in the majors with the Marlins in 2019. He hit .276/.312/.416 in 119 games as a rookie, but he missed almost all of the following season after suffering a severe hamstring strain. Cleveland picked him up off waivers in February and gave him 361 plate appearances, and his .268/.305/.398 line wasn’t much different than his 2019 performance.

The 27-year-old Ramírez has a career .271/.308/.405 mark in a bit more than 800 plate appearances. He makes a fair amount of contact, leading to a solid batting average. Yet he’s paired that with a minuscule 4% walk rate and a below-average .134 ISO (slugging minus average). Ramírez’s 47.2% hard contact percentage and 91.3 MPH average exit velocity were more impressive than those bottom line power numbers might suggest, but he negated a good bit of that batted ball authority by putting more than half his balls in play on the ground.

Ramírez adds an affordable option to the Tampa Bay outfield. He’ll play the 2022 campaign on just a $728K salary and is controllable via arbitration through 2025. The Rays could keep him around as a long-term piece, but he’s also out of minor league option years. That means Tampa Bay must either carry him on the active roster all season or DFA him themselves.

Whether Ramírez sticks long-term could be determined by what the Rays have planned for the coming weeks. The outfield is already pretty crowded, with Randy Arozarena, Kevin Kiermaier and Manuel Margot lined up as the projected starting group. Austin Meadows will see some time in the corners and at designated hitter, while the out-of-options Brett Phillips and top prospect Josh Lowe figure to be in the mix. It may be tough to carry both Phillips and Ramírez in depth capacities all season, but the former is a better defensive option off the bench. Ramírez has some experience in center field but is better suited for the corners.

Of course, it’s possible the Rays deal from the outfield logjam before the season. Meadows, in particular, has been floated in trade rumors since the lockout was lifted. The front office isn’t going to be pressured to deal one of their regulars because they picked up Ramírez in a minor trade, but today’s deal could be a preemptive move to bolster the outfield depth in case another swap on the horizon.

From the Cubs’ perspective, the pair of Ramírez trades essentially amounts to picking up Quiroz for cash. Despite never having appeared in the majors, Quiroz is actually a few years older than Ramírez. At 30 years old, the lefty-hitting infielder isn’t a prototypical prospect. Yet he has a long track record of performing well in both the Mexican League and in the high minors, one that has caught the attention of a handful of clubs.

Originally signed by the Red Sox out of Mexico, Quiroz was dealt to the Padres for Colten Brewer over the 2018-19 offseason. Tampa Bay picked him up in March 2020 as the player to be named later in the Tommy Pham, Jake Cronenworth, Hunter Renfroe deal. Listed at 5’6″, 199 pounds, he doesn’t have overwhelming physical tools. Yet Quiroz owns a .270/.391/.534 line in his Triple-A career, including a .268/.401/.526 mark with the Rays’ top affiliate in Durham last season. Quiroz won’t occupy a spot on the Cubs 40-man roster; he’ll presumably head to Triple-A Iowa and keep trying to earn an MLB debut.

Anderson’s placement on the 60-day IL was a formality whenever the Rays needed a roster spot. The righty underwent a UCL brace procedure last October that was always expected to keep him out of action past the All-Star Break.

MLB Tightening Crackdown On Foreign Substances

By Anthony Franco | March 25, 2022 at 7:20pm CDT

Major League Baseball’s efforts to root out pitchers’ usage of foreign substances was one of the biggest stories in the sport last summer. Beginning in early June, the league made clear that it was planning to crack down on grip enhancers, concerned pitchers were using sticky stuff to enhance the quality of their raw arsenals as opposed to merely trying to improve their control.

That decision wasn’t without backlash. Rays ace Tyler Glasnow claimed the timing of the midseason enforcement contributed to an injury that eventually required Tommy John surgery. Phillies manager Joe Girardi and then-Nationals star Max Scherzer had an on-field squabble after Girardi asked for umpires to check Scherzer. A pair of pitchers — Héctor Santiago and Caleb Smith — were suspended for ten games apiece.

However, the foreign substance controversy mostly faded from public view after the first few weeks of its enforcement. Umpires continued to examine pitchers’ hats, gloves and belts frequently, but Smith was the only pitcher to fail a substance check in the second half of the season.

Tom Verducci of Sports Illustrated reports that MLB sent a memo to teams today informing them that foreign substance inspections will become more rigorous this season. Beginning with Spring Training contests this weekend, umpires will check pitchers’ hands directly, according to the memo. They may also continue to examine players’ equipment. Starting pitchers will be checked between random innings, while every reliever will be inspected at least once, as was the case last season.

Verducci obtains a copy of the memo, quoting MLB senior vice president of baseball operations Michael Hill as saying “If an umpire’s inspection reveals that the pitcher’s hand is unquestionably sticky or shows unmistakable signs of the presence of a foreign substance, the umpire will conclude that the pitcher was applying a foreign substance to the baseball for the purpose of gaining an unfair competitive advantage.” As was the case last season, that’d lead to an automatic ejection and suspension.

Position players aren’t subject to foreign substance inspections, but they would also be ejected and suspended if found to be harboring sticky stuff for pitchers. Verudcci writes that the league is tightening inspections in response to a fear that pitchers began carrying foreign substances on areas of their body besides their hat, belt and glove late last season. He notes that leaguewide fastball and slider spin rates and velocity-adjusted spin rates starting to trend upwards late in the year (albeit not to pre-enforcement levels) after falling dramatically in the immediate aftermath of the crackdown. Directly examining the pitcher’s hand should theoretically make it harder to skirt the substance checks and curtail whatever portion of that increase was due to pitcher subversion of the sticky stuff ban.

There remains the possibility that foreign substance checks won’t need to be as prevalent at some point in the future. MLB began to test pre-tacked baseballs in the minors late last season. In November, commissioner Rob Manfred told reporters the pre-tacked ball could be put in circulation during regular season action at some point in 2022.

Dodgers Sign Dave Roberts To Three-Year Extension

By Anthony Franco | March 25, 2022 at 7:09pm CDT

7:09pm: The team has officially announced the extension.

4;53pm: The Dodgers and manager Dave Roberts have agreed to a three-year extension, reports Jon Heyman of the MLB Network (Twitter link). He is now under contract through 2025.

This has seemed like an inevitability for some time. Reports emerged during the lockout that the team and skipper were motivated to get a new deal done before the start of the regular season. Roberts had been headed into the final year of his contract, and teams can be hesitant to avoid entering the season with a manager in a lame-duck situation.

That’s not to say Roberts’ job ever looked to be in jeopardy, even before news of extension negotiations was made public. Los Angeles hired the former 10-year MLB veteran to replace Don Mattingly over the 2015-16 offseason. It was Roberts’ first managerial gig, perhaps a risky proposition for a team that had won the NL West in each of the previous three seasons under Mattingly.

Despite his lack of experience, Roberts has guided Los Angeles’ consistently talented rosters to plenty of success. They won the division in each of his first five seasons at the helm, getting past the Division Series in three of those years. The Dodgers won back-to-back pennants between 2017-18 but dropped successive World Series against the Astros and Red Sox, respectively.

Like any manager, Roberts came under some fire from the fanbase for some of his pitching decisions in the postseason. Throughout his tenure, though, the front office maintained confidence in both his leadership of the clubhouse and his bullpen management when the lights were brightest. Dodgers brass clearly never believed Roberts’ postseason management was fatal to their chances of winning a title, and they were proven right in 2020. After an incredible 43-17 record in the shortened regular season, the Dodgers stormed through the postseason to claim their first World Series since 1988. That was in spite of that year’s unique playoff format, which required all teams to advance through four rounds (instead of the customary three) thanks to an expanded field.

The stretch of division championships came to an end last year, although that wasn’t a reflection of any lack of team success. The 106-win Dodgers were narrowly edged out by a 107-win campaign from their archrivals in San Francisco. Nevertheless, they took down the Cardinals in the final NL Wild Card Game, then beat the Giants in the NLDS. Los Angeles lost to the Braves in the NLCS, but it marked another season as one of the league’s most successful teams overall.

Los Angeles has made the playoffs in all six seasons of Roberts’ tenure, the only team in MLB to do so. They’re 542-329 in regular season play in that time, winning more than 57% of their games. Roberts has certainly had the fortune of overseeing one of baseball’s most talented clubs on an annual basis, but there’s little questioning the organization’s run of success. The front office and ownership seem happy with his work behind-the-scenes, and he’s now slated to stick atop the dugout through 2025.

If Roberts remains Dodgers’ manager through the term of his new deal, he’ll reach a full decade in the position. Only three skippers — Hall of Famers Walter Alston, Tommy Lasorda and Wilbert Robinson — have reached the ten-year milestone in franchise history. That trio and another Hall of Famer, Leo Durocher, are the only skippers to lead the Dodgers to more wins than Roberts has in the past six years.

Image courtesy of USA Today Sports.

Yermin Mercedes To Undergo Hand Surgery

By Anthony Franco | March 25, 2022 at 5:08pm CDT

White Sox designated hitter Yermín Mercedes recently suffered a fractured hamate bone in his left hand, the club announced. He’ll undergo surgery next week and is expected to miss six-to-eight weeks.

Mercedes, owner of just one MLB plate appearance heading into last season, emerged as an April sensation in 2021. He hit .415/.455/.659 in the season’s first month, offense that translated to a 204 wRC+ that trailed only those of Mike Trout, J.D. Martinez and Vladimir Guerrero Jr. among qualified hitters. The rookie was never going to keep up anything like that kind of production, but few would’ve predicted the struggles he’d have.

From May 1 onwards, Mercedes posted only a .196/.264/.272 line, hitting just a pair of home runs in 174 plate appearances. The Sox optioned him to Triple-A Charlotte at the start of July. Mercedes’ production with the Knights was fine, as he hit .275/.318/.464 in 59 games. Yet he drew more attention for an Instagram post in which he said he was stepping away from baseball, only to reverse course and return to the club a day later.

After that incident, Mercedes played out the rest of the year in Charlotte. He didn’t get another big league look, but he has maintained his spot on the White Sox’s 40-man roster. The 29-year-old is entering his final minor league option year, meaning the Sox can shuttle him back and forth between Chicago and Charlotte this season as needed.

He’ll first need to recover from a procedure that’s seemingly in line to cost him around two months. It wouldn’t be a surprise if the Sox place him on the 60-day injured list in the event that a 40-man roster spot is needed to accommodate some other move.

Cardinals Select Aaron Brooks, Place Alex Reyes On 60-Day Injured List

By Anthony Franco | March 25, 2022 at 4:12pm CDT

The Cardinals have selected right-hander Aaron Brooks to the 40-man roster, the team informed reporters (including Derrick Goold of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch). He’ll break camp with the club. To clear roster space, righty Alex Reyes has been placed on the 60-day injured list.

St. Louis signed Brooks to a minor league deal in late January. The 31-year-old had spent the prior two seasons in the Korea Baseball Organization, working out of the Kia Tigers’ rotation. He pitched to a 2.50 ERA in 151 1/3 innings his first year, leading the Tigers to bring him back for another season. Brooks only made 13 starts and tallied 78 frames last season, but he posted a solid 3.35 ERA in that time.

Brooks only struck 20.1% of opposing hitters over that two-year stretch. Yet he virtually never handed out free passes, walking just 4.4% of batters faced. Of most interest to the Cardinals, he induced grounders on more than three quarters of the balls put in play against him in both his KBO seasons. St. Louis has perhaps the game’s top collection of infield defenders (Paul Goldschmidt, Tommy Edman, Paul DeJong and Nolan Arenado), and they’d set out this offseason to target pitchers capable of playing to that strength.

They identified Brooks, despite his 6.49 ERA in 170 2/3 career big league innings. The former ninth-round pick suited up with each of the Royals, A’s and Orioles before heading to South Korea but never found much success. The Cards clearly believe he’s capable of performing better with a strong defense behind him, and he can factor into either the rotation or the bullpen for first-year skipper Oli Marmol. St. Louis will be without Jack Flaherty to open the year, giving Brooks a shot to compete for the final rotation spot behind Adam Wainwright, Steven Matz, Dakota Hudson and Miles Mikolas.

It was also already known they’d be without Reyes in the early going, and he’s now officially going to miss at least the first two months of the season. The hard-throwing reliever received a stem cell injection in his shoulder last week and wasn’t expected to be available until late May or early June. Today’s IL placement rules him out until at least the second week of June.

In addition to the Brooks/Reyes news, St. Louis announced they’ve signed utilityman Cory Spangenberg to a minor league deal. The 31-year-old appeared in every big league season between 2014-19, spending the bulk of that time with the Padres. Like Brooks, he’s coming back to the U.S. after a two-year stint in an Asian league — in his case, Japan’s Nippon Professional Baseball.

Spangenberg, a left-handed hitter, has a fair bit of experience at each of second base, third base and left field. He owns a .256/.315/.389 line in just under 1400 MLB plate appearances. He combined for a .257/.330/.463 mark in two seasons with the Seibu Lions and will add some versatile depth to the high minors of the St. Louis system.

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