- The Braves will hire Alex Tamin as their director of major league operations, Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic tweets. Tamin was previously the Dodgers’ director of baseball operations, serving in the same front office as new Braves general manager Alex Anthopoulos. While with Los Angeles, Tamin “handled rules and transactions” and was “heavily involved” in advance scouting, according to Rosenthal, who adds that he’ll perform similar tasks in Atlanta.
Braves Rumors
Twins To Sign Yunior Severino
The Twins have reached agreement on a deal with former Braves prospect Yunior Severino, as MLB.com’s Jesse Sanchez was first to report on Twitter. Severino will receive a $2.5MM bonus, so long as his physical checks out.
Severino was one of the prospects that was stripped from the Atlanta organization for its international signing violations. Unlike the others, he’ll now receive more in bonus money than he did initially. (He’ll get to keep his initial $1.9MM payout, too.)
It seems the Twins will be dipping into next year’s pool money for the signing. The ad hoc rules put in place for this group of players allow for teams to use either their current pool or next year’s pool, but not both. Minnesota shipped out a big chunk of its remaining 2017-18 availability on Wednesday in a pair of deals (here and here), leaving insufficient funds to accommodate Severino.
Severino, a switch-hitting middle infielder who recently turned 18, slashed .286/.345/.444 in his 206 plate appearances in the Gulf Coast League in 2017. He’s known more for his bat, as that showing suggests, but seems to have quite some promise. Indeed, he’ll end up scoring a larger second signing bonus than did the more heralded Kevin Maitan, who signed recently with the Angels for $2.2MM.
Minor MLB Transactions: 12/6/17
We’ll track today’s minor moves in this post …
- The Braves have agreed to a minor-league pact with infielder Christian Colon, according to Robert Murray of Fan Rag. Assuming it is finalized and made official, Colon will presumably join the competition for a utility role in camp. The 28-year-old has not hit much at all in his two most recent MLB seasons, with the Royals and Marlins, but did slash .303/.361/.382 in his first 168 MLB plate appearances and owns a .290/.352/.391 batting line in his 1,465 trips to the plate at the Triple-A level. Colon has also graded solidly in the infield, where he has appeared at short, second, and third. Atlanta was in need of depth after non-tendering both Jace Peterson and Danny Santana, though the club does still have some notable, youthful middle-infield options on hand in Dansby Swanson, Ozzie Albies, and Johan Camargo.
Angels Agree To Terms With Kevin Maitan, Livan Soto
9:07pm: The Halos have also landed another former Braves shortstop, according to Baseball America’s Ben Badler. Youngster Livan Soto is also heading to the Los Angeles organization after striking a $850K deal. That’s nearly as much as his original $1MM bonus.
Soto isn’t even halfway into his his 18th year, so he’s particularly youthful. He struggled to a .225/.332/.254 slash in 208 plate appearances in the Gulf Coast League, but did draw 27 walks against 26 plate appearances. Despite the tepid output, BA’s J.J. Cooper wrote recently (subscription link) that scouts were generally pleased with what he has shown initially.
12:00pm: Jesse Sanchez of MLB.com reports that Maitan will receive a $2.2MM signing bonus (Twitter link). That’s more than the Halos have in available 2017-18 international funds, so it indeed seems that they’ll be paying Maitan with their 2018-19 bonus pool.
11:45am: The Angels have agreed to a deal with infield prospect Kevin Maitan, reports ESPN’s Buster Olney (via Twitter). The former Braves prospect was declared a free agent by commissioner Rob Manfred following his office’s investigations into Atlanta’s circumvention of rules on the international free agent market and in the domestic amateur draft.
The addition of Maitan will be a jolt to an Angels farm system that has long rated as one of the game’s worst but has steadily improved in recent seasons. The 17-year-old Maitan didn’t perform well in his first professional season, hitting just .241/.290/.340 in 176 plate appearances between the Rookie-level Gulf Coast League and Appalachian League.
The switch-hitting Maitan was still considered by some to be one of the game’s top overall prospects and should slot in at or near the top of his new organization’s prospect rankings. It would be misleading, though, to suggest that Maitan’s struggles didn’t hamper his value to some extent; Baseball America’s J.J. Cooper, for instance, tweets that he’s spoken to several scouts who wouldn’t rank Maitan among the game’s 100 best prospects at this juncture.
The Angels picked up $1.21MM of international spending money in a recent trade with the Braves in which they agreed to take on the entirety of Jim Johnson’s remaining salary from Atlanta. That gave the Halos a total of $1.315MM with which to work on the international front. GM Billy Eppler said at the time that that money was earmarked for Shohei Ohtani, but it’s critical to note that for the former Braves prospects deemed to be free agents, teams are allowed to dip into next year’s bonus pool as well.
In other words, the Halos could very well have committed a significant portion of their 2018-19 international pool to Maitan while still reserving the $1.315MM sum (and any other funds they can acquire) for their pursuit of Ohtani.
Phillies To Sign Abrahan Gutierrez
The Phillies have agreed to a deal with former Braves prospect Abrahan Gutierrez, according to Ben Badler of Baseball America. The young catcher will receive a $550K bonus.
Gutierrez was among the recent international signees who were stripped from the Braves as punishment for rules violations. He’s the third of the bunch to sign today, with Kevin Maitan joining the Angels and Yefri del Rosario signing on with the Royals.
With the move, the Phillies have added a player that was considered one of the better catching prospects from the 2016-17 July 2 class. The 18-year-old Venezuelan received a $3.53MM bonus from Atlanta; he’ll keep those funds while also earning his new payout to head to Philadelphia.
Gutierrez has not yet had much time at all to show his skills at the professional level, but he did appear in 35 Gulf Coast League games in 2017. Over 141 plate appearances, Gutierrez slashed .264/.319/.357. That’s not an impressive output, of course, but for a player of his age and experience the focus at this stage remains on skills and development.
John Coppolella Makes First Public Comments Since Ban From MLB
In his first public comments since being forced to resign as the Braves’ general manager and, eventually, permanently banned from Major League Baseball, John Coppolella issued a lengthy and apologetic statement to ESPN’s Jerry Crasnick. The 38-year-old says that he has been “disgraced and humbled” and that he and his family have been “devastated and embarrassed by the repercussions of my actions.”
“Throughout my 20-year baseball career my singular focus has been to help make my team more successful,” says Coppolella. “I am heartbroken that in this case my conduct has done the opposite for the Atlanta Braves organization. I accept full responsibility for my actions.”
Coppolella goes on to apologize to the Braves organization, the Commissioner’s office, his former colleagues and peers throughout the industry and to Braves fans everywhere for the damage caused by his actions.
Those actions, of course, included significant circumvention of collectively bargained rules pertaining to both international amateur free agency and the annual June amateur draft. Commissioner Rob Manfred announced that his office’s investigation revealed that the Braves inflated their contract to a foreign professional in the 2015-16 offseason and then funneled some of that money to five players that were signed as international amateurs as a means of circumventing the international bonus pool system.
Had Atlanta signed the five amateur prospects for those full amounts, they’d have been barred from signing any player in the next year’s class for more than $300K. Instead, the Braves were able to spend aggressively on the 2016-17 class — netting well regarded names like Kevin Maitan and Abrahan Gutierrez — both of whom (along with 11 others) has since been declared a free agent by the league. Atlanta also inflated the bonuses of six additional players as a means of enticing prospect Robert Puason’s agent to agree to a deal in the 2019-20 signing period and offered Korean prospect Ji-hwan Bae “extra-contractual compensation,” per Manfred’s statement. The commissioner also noted that the Braves offered “impermissible benefits” in the amateur draft as well.
“I have learned the lesson of a lifetime, as my mistakes have cost me my dream job and my future in the game that I love,” Coppolella says near the end of his statements. “I hope that other people, regardless of their profession, use this as a cautionary tale when making their own business decisions.”
Braves Seeking Utility Infielder For Bench
- The Braves are in the market for a veteran shortstop that can serve as a backup option at multiple positions, per David O’Brien of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. Atlanta has Dansby Swanson and Ozzie Albies penciled in up the middle and is comfortable using Johan Camargo at third base while prospect Austin Riley continues to develop, O’Brien notes. While Camargo himself could fill the role the Braves are seeking, they’d then need to add a third baseman, and O’Brien notes that the team doesn’t want to block Riley by working out a long-term deal with a free agent option.
- The catcher position remains a glaring need for the Nationals, writes Fangraphs’ Travis Sawchik, who opines that the team should aggressively pursue upgrades despite the fact that they’re already widely favored to win the division. The Nats have just one year of Bryce Harper guaranteed to them, and it’s anyone’s guess how long both Max Scherzer and Stephen Strasburg will continue pitching at elite levels. Matt Wieters’ dismal offense and poor framing were all the more apparent in the postseason, Sawchik observes, and that latter deficiency is particularly troublesome in the playoffs. Amid offseason reports that the Nats will be open to dealing Yasmani Grandal, Sawchik argues that he’s the perfect upgrade for the Nats due to his elite framing skills. It’d also be worthwhile to try to pry Tyler Flowers away from the Braves, he suggests, though intra-division trades are often more difficult to negotiate, and there’s been no indication that the Braves would make Flowers available.
Mariners, Giants, Padres, Rangers, Cubs, Angels Among Teams To Meet With Shohei Ohtani
11:40pm: The Angels are indeed one of the finalists, as per The Athletic’s Ken Rosenthal (via Twitter).
10:39pm: The Angels are thought by “multiple sources” to be one of the finalists, Yahoo Sports’ Jeff Passan tweets. The Tigers are out of the running, according to Anthony Fenech of the Detroit Free Press.
8:59pm: The Rangers and Cubs will both meet with Ohtani, Evan Grant of the Dallas Morning News reports (Twitter link), and they’re also the only two non-West Coast teams who appear to still be alive in the candidate process. The Rangers, Grant notes, have yet to comment on their status one way or the other.
7:22pm: The Nationals won’t be receiving a meeting, the Washington Post’s Chelsea Janes reports (Twitter link).
6:58pm: The Braves are out, ESPN.com’s Jerry Crasnick reports (via Twitter).
6:50pm: The Padres will receive a meeting with Ohtani, FanRag Sports’ Jon Heyman reports (Twitter links). The Dodgers are also thought to still be active in the Ohtani sweepstakes though Heyman doesn’t have confirmation; regardless, the Dodgers aren’t thought to be favorites to land Ohtani.
6:38pm: The Rays, Cardinals and White Sox are out, according to the Tampa Bay Times’ Marc Topkin, Derrick Goold of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch and USA Today’s Bob Nightengale (all Twitter links).
6:15pm: The Diamondbacks won’t receive a meeting, Ken Rosenthal tweets.
6:12pm: The Blue Jays, Pirates, and Brewers are all out, as respectively reported by Sportsnet.ca’s Shi Davidi, MLB.com’s Adam Berry, and the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel’s Tom Haudricourt (all Twitter links).
5:48pm: The Mets are also out, as per Joel Sherman of the New York Post (Twitter link).
5:38pm: Ohtani’s list is “heavy” on West Coast teams, Mike Berardino of the St. Paul Pioneer Press reports, though the Cubs may still be involved. Not every west-based team is included, however, as The Athletic’s Ken Rosenthal tweets that the A’s aren’t involved.
5:28pm: The Red Sox are also out of the running, president of baseball ops Dave Dombrowski told Peter Abraham of the Boston Globe. The Twins also won’t be getting a meeting with Ohtani, Heyman tweets.
5:16pm: The Giants and Mariners are among the teams that will receive meetings with Shohei Ohtani and his representatives next week, Yahoo Sports’ Jeff Passan reports (Twitter link). It isn’t known who the other finalists are in the Ohtani sweepstakes, though the Yankees are one of the teams that didn’t make the cut, as Yankees GM Brian Cashman told reporters (including NJ.com’s Brendan Kuty and MLB.com’s Bryan Hoch).
According to Cashman, Ohtani seems to be leaning towards West Coast teams in smaller markets. This ties to a report from FanRag Sports’ Jon Heyman saying that Ohtani’s reps are informing teams that the two-way star would prefer to play in a smaller market.
The news adds another fascinating layer to the Ohtani sweepstakes, which was already one of the more intriguing free agent pursuits in recent memory. Given the seeming lack of immediate financial motive that inspired Ohtani’s move to Major League Baseball, it opened the door for every team in baseball (regardless of market or payroll size) to make a push for the 23-year-old. There had been speculation that Ohtani might look to avoid playing in a larger market, so this apparent confirmation creates a realistic possibility that he will land with a team that wouldn’t normally be considered a favorite to land such a coveted free agent.
Of course, San Francisco isn’t exactly a small market, though Ohtani wouldn’t necessarily be the center of attention on a club with such established stars as Buster Posey and Madison Bumgarner (and maybe even Giancarlo Stanton in the near future). Playing for an NL team, however, would force Ohtani into a pinch-hitting or even a part-time outfield role for the at-bats he seeks in his attempt to be a two-way player in the big leagues. The Mariners do have such a DH spot available (in a timeshare with Nelson Cruz), and were considered to be a contender for Ohtani given their long history of Japanese players.
The Yankees also have had several significant Japanese players on their past and current rosters, and were widely seen as one of the major favorites for Ohtani’s services from a financial (in terms of available international bonus money) and positional (openings at DH and in the rotation) standpoint, not to mention their international fame and their young core of talent ready to make a World Series push. With Ohtani now out of the picture, the Yankees could move to signing more pitching depth — a reunion with C.C. Sabathia has been widely speculated as a possibility — or a veteran bat to serve as designated hitter, if the club doesn’t just rotate its DH days to find plate appearances for everyone on the current roster.
Braves Monitoring Shortstop Market
- The Braves have, somewhat surprisingly, “checked around about shortstops,” ESPN.com’s Buster Olney reports (ESPN Insider subscription required). Dansby Swanson is seen as the team’s shortstop of the future, though he struggled in his first full MLB season and was even briefly demoted back to Triple-A last summer. A short-term addition could used by Atlanta to give Swanson more development time; Olney outlines the lack of teams looking for shortstops this winter, so the Braves could have a wide choice of the market.
Gordon Blakeley To Meet With Braves Ownership
As a result of the Braves’ transgressions on the foreign market from 2015-17, former international scouting director and special assistant Gordon Blakeley lost his job in October and received a one-year ban from Major League Baseball last month. Now, Blakeley is preparing to meet with members of the team’s ownership group, Liberty Media, on Dec. 14 to discuss those violations, David O’Brien of the Atlanta Journal Constitution reports. Blakeley contends that there were high-ranking Braves officials aware of what he and permanently banned ex-GM John Coppollela were doing, per O’Brien, and it seems he’s set to name names in his meeting with ownership. To this point, MLB has punished Blakeley, Coppolella and the team itself, which the league stripped of 13 prospects the prior regime signed. Former president John Hart has dodged discipline from MLB thus far, but he’s now out of the Atlanta organization.
