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Giants Out Of Bidding For Yoshinobu Yamamoto

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9:06pm: Yamamoto could make his decision within the next 48 hours, tweets Mark Feinsand of MLB.com.

7:55pm: MLB.com’s Jon Morosi tweets that Yamamoto has at least one offer of $300MM or more in hand.

6:59pm: The Giants have been informed they’re out of the running for Yoshinobu Yamamoto, reports Alex Pavlovic of NBC Sports Bay Area (X link). While there’s no indication that Yamamoto has made his final decision, Pavlovic adds the Giants expect he’ll sign with the Dodgers or one of the New York clubs.

Andy Martino of SNY tweets that the Mets have not received any indication they’re out of the running. That’s also true of the Yankees, according to Jon Heyman of the New York Post (X link). Heyman indicates the Yankees have put a “significant bid” on the table.

Crossing San Francisco off the list technically leaves six known finalists. In addition to the Dodgers, Mets and Yankees, the Blue Jays, Phillies and Red Sox have been involved. Philadelphia has made an offer this week. That said, reports have cast the Phils, Jays, and (to a lesser extent) the Sox as longer shots.

Yamamoto has been weighing offers throughout the week. While he technically has until the evening of January 4 to sign, the expectation is that he won’t take things to the wire. That his camp is now in the process of whittling the field lends credence to the idea that a decision might not be far off.

The bidding seems as if it’ll surpass $250MM, before accounting for a posting fee owed to the Orix Buffaloes that could tack on another $45-50MM. That fee is in proportion to the contract size, calculated as 20% of the deal’s first $25MM, 17.5% of the next $25MM, and 15% of additional spending. That reflects Yamamoto’s atypical youth for a free agent pitcher (25) and his sheer dominance in Japan. Named NPB’s best pitcher three years running, he’s coming off a 1.21 ERA while striking out nearly 27% of opponents in 164 innings.

It’s a tough blow for the Giants, who come up short on another top-tier free agent. The Giants have missed on pursuits of Aaron Judge, Trea Turner and Shohei Ohtani within the past two offseasons alone, while their deal with Carlos Correa fell through because of the physical. Yamamoto will join that list. San Francisco did land KBO star Jung Hoo Lee on a six-year, $113MM pact — the largest deal of Farhan Zaidi’s tenure as baseball operations president — but they haven’t gotten a truly elite free agent in some time.

San Francisco still has plenty of spending capacity as they decide on their next steps. Roster Resource projects their 2024 spending around $158MM. That’s about $30MM below this year’s Opening Day figure. From a luxury tax perspective, they’re almost $45MM south of the base threshold. That opens the possibility for a run at any of the top remaining free agent talents. Blake Snell and Jordan Montgomery headline the rotation class, while Matt Chapman was on the radar earlier in the offseason. So was the top available hitter, Cody Bellinger, although the Lee signing seems to rule out a pursuit of another lefty-swinging center fielder.

Pirates Designate Andre Jackson For Assignment

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The Pirates are designating right-hander Andre Jackson for assignment, as first reported by Alex Stumpf of DK Pittsburgh Sports. Pittsburgh needed to create a 40-man roster spot after re-signing Andrew McCutchen yesterday. Jason Mackey of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reports (on X) that Jackson sought his release to pursue a deal with a team in Japan.

Pittsburgh acquired Jackson from the Dodgers in a minor trade in June. He’d been designated for assignment by Los Angeles leading up to that deal, which saw the Bucs send cash the other way. The 27-year-old started seven of 12 appearances down the stretch, his first rotation work at the major league level. Jackson turned in decent results, pitching to a 4.33 ERA across 43 2/3 innings. He struck hitters out at a solid 23% clip, although his 10.7% walk rate hinted at the control questions that have persisted for his entire career.

Jackson has long shown a combination of intriguing stuff and wobbly strike-throwing ability. He has pitched parts of three seasons at the MLB level, working to a 4.25 ERA through 82 2/3 frames. The Houston product has a less imposing 5.07 mark in 140 1/3 innings of work at the Triple-A level, where he has walked almost 15% of batters faced.

The control inconsistency meant that Jackson could have found himself on the roster bubble in 2024. This was his final minor league option season, so he’d have had to remain on Pittsburgh’s MLB team, be placed on waivers or traded. Given the chance that he’d have landed on the waiver wire, he apparently preferred to head to NPB and lock in some guaranteed money. He’ll technically land on waivers in the next few days but figures to go unclaimed and be released.

Rockies, Ty Blach Agree To Minor League Contract

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The Rockies are re-signing lefty Ty Blach to a minor league contract with a Spring Training invitation, reports MLBTR’s Steve Adams (on X). Blach turned down an opportunity in the Korea Baseball Organization to return for a third year with Colorado.

Geography surely plays a role in that decision, as Blach is a Denver native. He’s clearly comfortable with the Rox, as this marks a third straight offseason in which he has inked a minor league deal. Blach reached the majors early in each of the last two seasons. He logged 44 1/3 innings of 5.89 ERA ball in 2022 before tallying 78 frames — the third-highest workload of his career — last season. Blach allowed 5.54 earned runs per nine at the MLB level, leading Colorado to outright him from the 40-man roster at the beginning of the offseason.

The Rox will keep him around as a non-roster depth option. Blach doesn’t throw hard, averaging 89.3 MPH on his sinker this year. He has never missed many bats as a result, but the Creighton product has strong control. Blach has walked a little over 7% of opponents in his MLB career. He kept that to a 6.8% rate in the majors last season and handed out free passes to just 6% of batters faced at Triple-A Albuquerque. Blach posted a 4.40 ERA over 30 2/3 Triple-A innings, deceptively solid results in one of the toughest environments for pitchers in affiliated ball.

Now 33, Blach will look to earn a long relief or back-end rotation spot. Colorado only has three pitchers — Kyle Freeland, Cal Quantrill and Austin Gomber — who seem to have an inside track at a rotation spot. The front office will surely add more starting pitching options this offseason, but Blach’s ability to work multiple innings has gotten him extended run on Bud Black’s pitching staff two years running.

Reds, Hernan Perez Agree To Minor League Contract

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The Reds have signed infielder Hernán Pérez to a minor league deal, according to the transaction log at MLB.com. It isn’t clear whether the veteran utility player will get a look in Spring Training.

Pérez, 33 in March, spent part of the 2023 season in the Minnesota organization. He got into 32 games with Triple-A St. Paul, hitting .279/.351/.485 through 231 trips to the plate. That solid production in limited time — he also lost around two months to an undisclosed injury — wasn’t enough to crack a deep Twins infield. He returned to minor league free agency at season’s end.

The last time Pérez donned a big league uniform was in 2021. He appeared in 10 early-season contests with the Nationals before being outrighted off the roster. Pérez played the second half of that year in South Korea and has spent most of the last two seasons in Triple-A.

The Venezuela native reached the big leagues every season from 2012-21. The bulk of his MLB time came in Milwaukee between 2016-19, highlighted by 34 stolen bases with a .272/.302/.428 slash for the Brew Crew in 2016. While Pérez has been a strong baserunner and shown plenty of defensive flexibility throughout his MLB time, a very aggressive approach has resulted in middling offensive production. He’s a .250/.280/.382 hitter in a little more than 1800 big league plate appearances.

Cincinnati has plenty of infield depth, so it’s hard to see a path to an Opening Day roster spot. He’s likely to begin next season at Triple-A Louisville as experienced non-roster injury insurance.

Yankees, Nick Burdi Agree To Minor League Deal

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The Yankees have agreed to a minor league pact with hard-throwing right-hander Nick Burdi, reports Jack Curry of the YES Network. The Apex Baseball client will be in big league camp this spring.

Selected 46th overall out of Louisville by the Twins back in 2014, Burdi joined the professional ranks as a power-armed closer who could potentially have a fast track to the big leagues. He’d obliterated the opposition in college, posting a 1.79 ERA while fanning a comical 47% of his opponents during his NCAA career. He looked the part of a big league reliever following the draft, too, climbing to Double-A less than a year after being drafted and posting gaudy strikeout totals along the way.

As is the case with so many flamethrowing young arms, however, injuries intervened. A bone bruise in his upper arm wiped out most of Burdi’s 2016 season, and his 2017 campaign was cut short by Tommy John surgery. The Twins lost Burdi in the 2017 Rule 5 Draft — the Phillies selected him and immediately traded him to the Pirates — and he made his MLB debut with Pittsburgh late in the 2018 season.

Because he spent the bulk of the year on the injured list, Burdi’s Rule 5 designation carried over from the 2018 season into the 2019 season. He pitched just 8 2/3 innings before undergoing thoracic outlet surgery and missing the rest of the year. Burdi returned in 2020 but pitched just 2 1/3 MLB frames before hitting the injured list with an elbow issue that eventually resulted in his second career Tommy John surgery. Burdi finally returned to the mound with the Cubs organization in 2023, but as if the slate of arm injuries hadn’t been difficult enough, he also missed a substantial portion of the ’23 campaign after requiring an emergency appendectomy in late May.

Although we’re coming up on nearly a decade since Burdi was drafted, he’s pitched just 15 1/3 innings in the Majors due to that stunning slate of injuries. The results haven’t been good, as he’s allowed 16 runs in that time. Burdi, however, has a 3.51 ERA in parts of six minor league seasons and has whiffed just shy of 33% of opponents in his professional career (big leagues and minors combined). His durability is an enormous question, of course, but his arm strength is not; in the tiny sample of three MLB innings with Chicago last year, Burdi averaged 98 mph on his heater and reached triple digits at times.

If he can remain healthy enough to emerge as an option for the Yankees, he still has all three minor league option years remaining, which would give New York plenty of flexibility in the ’pen. He has to be viewed as a long shot to remain healthy, given his track record of injuries, but Burdi still looks to have plenty of fire in his right arm and deserves credit for grinding through a grueling slate of injuries that would surely have been enough for many pitchers to call it quits.

MLB Announces Modifications To Pitch Clock, Other Rule Changes

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1:27pm: In a statement, Major League Baseball Players Association executive director Tony Clark announced that the players on the Competition Committee voted against today’s slate of changes.

“This afternoon, Player Representatives voted against the 2024 rule changes proposed by the Commissioner’s Office,” the statement reads. “As they made clear in the Competition Committee, Players strongly feel that, following last season’s profound changes to the fundamental rules of the game, immediate additional changes are unnecessary and offer no meaningful benefits to fans, Players, or the competition on the field. This season should be used to gather additional data and fully examine the health, safety and injury impacts of reduced recovery time; that is where our focus will be.”

1:15pm: Major League Baseball announced a slate of modifications to the game’s official rules, which have been approved by the MLB Competition Committee (comprised of six owners, four players and one umpire). Per the league’s press release, the changes are as follows:

  • Runner’s Lane: The Runner’s Lane will be widened to include the dirt area between the foul line and the infield grass. Widening the lane allows batters to take a more direct path to first base while retaining protection from interference.  The distance between the foul line and the infield grass will be between 18 and 24 inches in all parks, with some limited grace periods granted by MLB due to difficulty in modifying the field (e.g., synthetic turf field).
  • Pace of Game: MLB proposed minor changes to the Pace of Game Regulations to address an increase in game time as the season progressed – the average nine-inning game time increased seven minutes from April to September (five minutes after controlling for the number pitches, breaks, and runs scored).
    • Timing Between Pitches: Reduce time from 20 seconds to 18 seconds with runners on base. Pitchers began their deliveries with an average of 7.3 seconds remaining on the 20-second timer in 2023. Pitchers retain the ability to step off and re-set the Clock up to two times without penalty. Violations with runners on base were the least frequent (14% of all violations vs 32% of all pitches) in 2023. A universal 17-second Clock used for the final month of the Triple-A season did not increase violations with runners on base.
    • Batter Timeouts: Based on player feedback, MLB withdrew a proposal that would have required the home plate umpire to immediately reset the Pitch Clock after a batter called timeout.
    • Pitching Changes: If a new pitcher steps onto the warning track with less than 2:00 remaining on the inning break Clock, the Clock will reset to 2:00 rather than 2:15 as was the case in 2023. Inning breaks that contained a pitching change averaged 2 minutes and 35 seconds in 2023 (broadcasters are only guaranteed two minutes of commercial time).
    • Mound Visits: Mound visits will be reduced from five per game to four, and an extra mound visit will still be awarded for the ninth inning if the defensive team has zero remaining at the end of the eighth inning. Mound visits rank among fans’ least favorite events in baseball. Clubs averaged only 2.3 mound visits per game in 2023. Last season, 98% of games would not have exceeded a limit of four mound visits.  Umpires will also permit defensive players to signal for a mound visit without actually visiting the mound to further help improve pace of game.
    • Circumvention: The FTC (field timing coordinator) will now restart the timer after a dead ball (e.g., foul ball) when the pitcher has the ball and play is ready to resume. There will no longer be a requirement for the pitcher to be on the mound, removing the pitcher’s ability to delay the start of the timer by walking around the edge of the mound.
    • Pitcher Who Warms Up Must Face At Least One Hitter: A pitcher who is sent out to warm up for an inning must face at least one batter (in addition to any requirements under the Three-Batter Minimum rule). There were 24 instances this season where the pitcher that warmed up between innings was replaced before throwing a pitch (adding approximately three minutes of dead time per event). There were two such instances during the 2023 World Series.

Runner’s lane photo courtesy of Major League Baseball communications department.

Yankees, Luis Gonzalez Agree To Minor League Deal

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The Yankees and free agent outfielder Luis Gonzalez have agreed to a minor league contract, reports Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic. He’ll be in Major League camp this spring.

The 28-year-old Gonzalez has played in parts of three big league seasons between the White Sox and Giants, compiling a .253/.328/.368 batting line in 363 plate appearances. The 2017 third-round pick once rated as one of the better prospects in the ChiSox’ system, but he hasn’t yet found sustained success in the big leagues.

Gonzalez got out to a hot start in 2022, his first season with the Giants, after coming over from the Sox via waivers late in the 2021 season. Through June 21 of the 2022 season, Gonzalez was hitting .302/.361/.447 in 180 plate appearances, but a lower back strain shelved him for the next two and a half weeks. He was activated on July 9 but returned to the injured list with another back strain about six weeks later — this time missing the remainder of the season. Gonzalez may never have been fully healthy upon returning, as he batted only .204/.282/.270 in 170 trips to the plate between those two IL stints.

The back troubles persisted into the 2023 season, and Gonzalez eventually underwent surgery to repair a herniated disc. That procedure kept him out from mid-March through early July. He didn’t make it back to San Francisco’s big league roster but did suit up for 31 minor league games following the operation, during which he posted a .248/.350/.352 batting line in 123 trips to the plate.

The Yankees obviously have no room in the big league outfield after acquiring Juan Soto, Trent Grisham and Alex Verdugo in trades this offseason. Soto and Verdugo will flank Aaron Judge, who’ll be the team’s primary center fielder, while Grisham will give them a lefty-swinging fourth outfielder with a plus glove to come off the bench late in games. Like Grisham, Gonzalez is a lefty bat with experience at all three outfield slots. The Yankees have a trio of depth outfielders — Everson Pereira, Estevan Florial and recent waiver claim Oscar Gonzalez — all on the 40-man roster ahead of their new signing. Gonzalez seems likely to open the year in Triple-A Scranton Wilkes-Barre.

Jesus Aguilar To Sign With NPB’s Seibu Lions

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Veteran first baseman Jesus Aguilar is set to sign with the Seibu Lions of Japan’s Nippon Professional Baseball, reports Robert Murray of FanSided. The MVP Sports client has appeared in the Majors in each of the past ten seasons but will head overseas for the first time in his career.

Aguilar, 33, signed a one-year, $3MM deal with the A’s last offseason but struggled greatly through 36 games. In 115 plate appearances with Oakland, the burly slugger managed a tepid .221/.281/.385 slash with a 27% strikeout rate. It was a second consecutive lackluster campaign at the plate for Aguilar, and although he turned around a bit after signing with the Braves on a minor league deal, he never got a look in the big leagues with Atlanta. In 241 plate appearances with Triple-A Gwinnett, he hit .271/.373/.379 with a hefty 14.1% walk rate.

With the exception of a down season in 2019, Aguilar was a well above-average hitter from 2017-21. Even with a rough showing in ’19, his batting line over that five-year stretch checked in at .262/.338/.478, and he slugged 93 round-trippers along the way. Aguilar’s best year came with the Brewers in 2018, when he swatted a career-best 35 home runs and turned in a stout .274/.352/.539 batting line. The Lions will be hoping for that type of production, or something close to it, in signing the veteran slugger for the upcoming season.

Pirates, Jake Lamb Agree To Minor League Deal

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The Pirates have agreed to a minor league contract with veteran corner infielder Jake Lamb, reports Jason Mackey of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. The CAA client will head to big league camp this spring and compete for a roster spot.

Now 33 years old, Lamb is a veteran of 10 seasons at the Major League level — most of which came with the Diamondbacks. Earlier in his career, Lamb was a highly touted prospect who enjoyed a few seasons as the D-backs’ everyday third baseman, most notably slugging 59 home runs from 2016-17 combined. However, shoulder injuries have derailed his once-promising trajectory; Lamb underwent surgery to repair his rotator cuff in 2018 and has also dealt with a sprain of the AC joint in his problematic left shoulder.

The operation marked a clear turning point in his career. Prior to the injury and subsequent surgery, Lamb posted a .247/.332/.448 batting line (including a .248/.345/.498 showing in that 2016-17 peak, which included an All-Star nod). In 223 games post-surgery, Lamb is a .199/.306/.363 hitter.

While his recent track record in the big leagues is generally underwhelming, Lamb still hits the ball quite hard when putting it in play (90.6 mph average exit velocity, 44.7% hard-hit rate since 2019). That’s a notable caveat for Lamb, however, given an ugly 28% strikeout rate dating back to 2018. Still, he’s posted outstanding numbers at the Triple-A level both in 2023 (.289/.420/.454) and in 2022 (.290/.395/.537), and the pact in question carries no real risk for the Pirates.

If Lamb has a strong showing in spring training, he could make the club as a left-handed bat off the bench — one with ample experience at both infield corners and a bit of work in the outfield corners as well. If not, he’ll likely open the year in Indianapolis as Triple-A depth, where he could be an option to join the big league roster in the event of an injury to third baseman Ke’Bryan Hayes or first baseman Rowdy Tellez.

KBO’s Doosan Bears Sign Three Former Big Leaguers

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The Doosan Bears of the Korea Baseball Organization announced Thursday that they’ve signed a trio of former Major Leaguers (English language link via Jee-ho Yoo of South Korea’s Yonhap News Agency). Right-hander Raul Alcantara, left-hander Brandon Waddell and outfielder Henry Ramos all signed one-year contracts for the 2024 campaign. Alcantara and Waddell are returning after pitching for the Bears in 2023 as well. They’ll be guaranteed $1.3MM and $1MM, respectively. Ramos, who spent the 2023 season with the Reds organization but played for the KBO’s KT Wiz in 2022, is entering his first season with the Bears and will be guaranteed $600K. All three players receive six-figure incentive packages that can boost their earnings as well: $200K for Alcantara, $130K for Waddell and $100K for Ramos.

The 31-year-old Alcantara has steadily raised his profile since heading overseas to sign with the KBO’s KT Wiz in 2019. This will be his sixth season in Asia; after spending the 2019 season with the Wiz and the 2020 season with the Bears, he spent the next two years with the Hanshin Tigers of Japan’s Nippon Professional Baseball. Alcantara returned to the Bears for the 2023 season and will now embark on his third season with them and fourth overall in the KBO.

Although he was never a top-100 prospect, Alcantara at one point landed as highly as fourth among Oakland farmhands on Baseball America’s ranking of their system. The A’s had acquired him and Josh Reddick from the Red Sox as part of the package sending Andrew Bailey to Boston. In parts of two big league seasons, he logged a 7.19 ERA in 46 1/3 frames.

Alcantara has found new life overseas, winning the KBO’s Choi Dong Won Award (their Cy Young equivalent) with the Bears in 2020 and parlaying that into his two-year run in NPB. Overall, he’s posted a 3.04 ERA in 563 1/3 innings, working out of the rotation between the Wiz and the Bears. The Tigers used him primarily out of the bullpen in NPB, where he logged a 3.96 ERA in 96 1/3 frames. It’s not the typical arc, but Alcantara has carved out a lucrative career for himself pitching in Asia’s top leagues; this new contract figures to push his career earnings between NPB and the KBO north of $5MM.

Similarly, Waddell was never a top-tier pitching prospect but is a former fifth-rounder out of Virginia who was once considered a fairly promising arm in the Pirates’ system. The now-29-year-old southpaw pitched in parts of two MLB seasons with four clubs (Pirates, Twins, Orioles, Cardinals), allowing eight runs in 12 2/3 innings.

Waddell has spent the past two seasons pitching overseas between the Bears and the Rakuten Monkeys of Taiwan’s Chinese Professional Baseball League. In 18 starts for the Bears this past season, he posted a pristine 2.49 ERA with a 23.4% strikeout rate, 7% walk rate and 70.4% grounder rate. Overall, Waddell owns a 3.30 ERA in 70 CPBL innings and a 2.92 ERA in 169 2/3 innings of KBO action. Now entering a third year pitching professionally in Asia, Waddell has established himself as a seven-figure pitcher and ought to continue garnering opportunities overseas, so long as he stays healthy. At 29 years old, he’s also still young enough for a potential MLB comeback if he continues to thrive in South Korea.

As for Ramos, he’ll head back to Korea after a brief 2023 big league run in Cincinnati. The 31-year-old outfielder (32 in April) appeared in 23 games as a Red and slashed .243/.349/.311 in 86 plate appearances. Ramos is a .226/.312/.306 hitter in 141 trips to the plate as a big leaguer, but he’s mashed at a .301/.362/.485 clip in parts of six Triple-A seasons, adding 55 home runs, 93 doubles, 11 triples and 27 steals over the life of 1700 plate appearances.

Ramos would have been looking at a minor league deal had he remained in North American ball, but he’ll now have the opportunity for everyday at-bats in a league where he’ll earn just shy of the MLB minimum over a full season — while also potentially positioning himself for a raise in the future.

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