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Latest On Kenta Maeda

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2:13pm: The Dodgers are interested in Maeda and are maintaining contact with his representatives in advance of the January 8th deadline, Jon Morosi of FOX Sports tweets.

12:35pm: The deadline for an MLB team to sign Kenta Maeda is January 8th at 5pm ET/4pm CT, according to Jon Morosi of FOX Sports (on Twitter).  Meanwhile, MLBTR has learned that the Hiroshima Toyo Carp have set the release fee at $20MM, the maximum allowed by the agreement between MLB and NPB.  Any team willing to meet that $20MM asking price will have the right to negotiate with Maeda over the next couple of weeks.

The question now is, which teams will be making a serious run at Maeda?  We learned recently that the Red Sox will not submit a bid to negotiate with Maeda thanks to the mammoth deal given to David Price.  At the Winter Meetings, Giants GM Bobby Evans told MLBTR that his club had internal conversations about Maeda, but they’re almost certainly out on him after adding Jeff Samardzija and Johnny Cueto.  The Padres will not be in the mix, despite sending a number of club officials to Japan in November.  The Cardinals looked to be one possibility, but they’re probably not considering the Japanese star after inking Mike Leake to a five-year, $80MM deal.

The Dodgers would appear to be a solid fit for Maeda after losing Zack Greinke to free agency and tearing up their agreement with Hisashi Iwaukma.  They have been expected to be among the teams in the hunt for the right-hander, but there hasn’t been any definitive word on that as of late.

Maeda, 28 in April, is widely considered to be one of the best pitchers in Japan. He just wrapped up a season in which he pitched to a 2.09 ERA with 7.6 K/9 against 1.8 BB/9 across 206 1/3 innings, marking his sixth consecutive season with an earned run average of 2.60 or better. His excellent 2015 season netted Maeda his second Sawamura Award — Japan’s equivalent to the Cy Young Award. With his relative youth, dominant track record and, of course, lack of draft pick compensation, Maeda immediately becomes one of the more intriguing arms on the free-agent market.  MLBTR’s Tim Dierkes forecasted a five-year, $60MM deal for Maeda this winter.  When factoring in a release fee of $20MM, that amounts to an $80MM commitment overall.

Yankees Shopping Ivan Nova

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The Yankees have let opposing teams know that Ivan Nova is available via trade, according to George A. King III of the New York Post.  It’s not surprising that Nova is being made available after a rough 2015 and it’s also not surprising to hear that there isn’t great interest in him at this time.

“They are offering him out there, but I don’t know if there’s any takers,’’ an executive said of the right-hander.

It’s hard to envision a team giving up a ton for the 29-year-old since he’s a year away from free agency and coming off a season that was cut short by recovery from Tommy John surgery.  Nova logged just 94 innings with an unsightly 5.07 ERA, averaging just 6.0 K/9 against 3.2 BB/9 with a 49 percent ground-ball rate this past season. He did manage a 3.72 ERA through his first 58 innings before perhaps wearing down and yielding four or more runs in four of his final seven outings.

That season certainly didn’t bolster Nova’s trade stock, but a club could try and pounce if the Yankees are willing to lower the asking price enough.  Nova produced strong results in both 2011 and 2013 and projects to earn a not totally unreasonable $4.4MM salary in 2016.  In Nova’s peak season, 2013, he posted a 3.10 ERA with 7.5 K/9, 2.8 BB/9 and a 53.5 percent ground-ball rate in 139 1/3 innings of work.  It should also be noted that for all of his struggles, Nova averaged 93 mph on his fastball in 2015 — the same mark he averaged in 2013 and a bit faster than his 2011 average.

It remains to be seen what the Yankees will look to get in return for Nova at this stage of the offseason, but it was said that they were not willing to sell low back in November.

Orioles, Four Other Teams Interested In Mat Latos

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The Pirates, Royals, Orioles, Brewers, and Rays have checked in on free agent starter Mat Latos, according to Jerry Crasnick of ESPN.com (on Twitter).  Latos, he adds, is probably looking at one-year deal to re-establish his value.

One MLB official opined to Crasnick that Latos is “right up [Orioles GM] Dan Duquette’s alley,” (link).  One also has to imagine that Latos makes a lot of sense for the Pirates, who have built a reputation as a team that can help pitchers restore their value.  There have been questions about Latos’ makeup, Crasnick notes, but he also still has some upside at the age of 28.

All five of these teams are likely weighing Latos as a less costly commitment than many of the other top available starters at this juncture of the offseason.  Veteran Scott Kazmir figures to net a nice payday on a multi-year deal and the Royals, who are said to have interest, could pivot to a guy like Latos if Kazmir does not fit in their budget.  The other top hurlers left – Yovani Gallardo, Ian Kennedy, and Wei-Yin Chen – would all require draft pick compensation from teams.  Back in November, MLBTR’s Tim Dierkes predicted that Latos might get a one-year, $12MM deal and he pegged the Pirates as his landing spot.

A few years ago, Latos seemed in line for a monster free agent deal upon hitting the market at age 28. However, injuries and other struggles have drastically changed things. In 2015, he battled minor injuries but showed promise in his 16 starts with the Marlins this year before joining the Dodgers via trade. Latos struggled in six outings for the Dodgers and earned his release, hooking on with the Angels in late September to make a few relief appearances.  In his 2015 stint with the Marlins, Latos pitched to a 4.48 ERA with 8.0 K/9 against 2.5 BB/9 over 88 1/3 innings.  His ERA wasn’t stellar, but advanced ERA estimators viewed him more as a mid-3.00 ERA contributor.

White Sox Have Interest In Alex Gordon

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The White Sox are showing interest in free agent Alex Gordon, sources tell Ken Rosenthal of FOX Sports (on Twitter).  Gordon has appeal for the White Sox since he’s already familiar with the AL Central, offers left-handed hitting, and solid defense.

However, it’s unclear whether the White Sox could pay Gordon enough to pry him away from the Royals (link).  To free up room on the payroll, the White Sox could conceivably move Melky Cabrera, Adam LaRoche, or Avisail Garcia, with their preference being to move LaRoche.  However, with Pedro Alvarez and Chris Carter available on the open market, Chicago might not find a strong market for those players.

In November, MLBTR’s Tim Dierkes projected a five-year, $105MM deal for Gordon.  Given the money that Gordon could command coupled with the draft pick compensation attached to him, it’s not surprising to see that he’s still without a deal as we head into Christmas.

Gordon missed nearly two months with a strained groin this season but enjoyed a characteristically strong overall campaign both at the plate and in the field. The lifetime Royal hit .271/.377.432 with 13 home runs and was seven runs above average in left field despite the layoff, according to both Defensive Runs Saved and Ultimate Zone Rating.

Cardinals, Mike Leake Nearing Agreement

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TUESDAY, 9:23am: It’s possible that a deal could be reached by the end of today, Jenifer Langosch of MLB.com tweets.  The deal with the Cardinals is expected to be in the five-year, $75MM range and could include an option, a source tells Chris Cotillo of SB Nation (on Twitter).

The Cardinals gave Leake a strong offer last week and have been waiting for a resolution, Jerry Crasnick of ESPN.com tweets.  Multiple sources also tell him that a deal is getting close.

8:50am: The Cardinals and Leake are close to agreement on a deal, Chris Cotillo of SB Nation tweets.

MONDAY, 10:45pm: Leake is aiming for a five-year deal, per Cotillo (Twitter link).

10:10pm: There’s a “growing belief” that free agent Mike Leake will be signing somewhere very soon, Chris Cotillo of SB Nation tweets. The Cardinals, he adds, appear to be a strong contender for his services.

MLBTR’s Steve Adams profiled Leake recently, explaining that his market appeal lies in a combination of age, health, the lack of a qualifying offer, and solid production.  Both Adams and MLBTR’s Tim Dierkes have predicted five-year, $80MM contract for Leake, placing him among the 15 or so free agents with the greatest expected earning power.

Recently, the Dodgers were mentioned as a possibility for Leake after their agreement with Hisashi Iwakuma was 86’d.  It’s not clear if the Astros have had substantive talks with Leake’s reps, but they do appear to be a fit for a veteran starter like Leake.  Leake reportedly was ready to give a hometown discount to the D’Backs, but Tony La Russa recently called that match “probably unlikely” to happen.  The Cardinals have been a logical landing spot for Leake all winter long, but some speculated that his asking price could be too rich for their blood.

In 2015, for the second consecutive year, Leake posted a 3.70 ERA.  That marks three straight seasons with a sub-3.75 ERA and at least 190 innings.  All but two months of those three years came while pitching his home games at an extremely hitter-friendly home venue: Cincinnati’s Great American Ball Park.  Leake was able to thrive in large part due to his excellent control (2.3 BB/9 for his career) and his strong ground-ball rate.  Leake’s 50.2 percent career mark in that regard is impressive, and it’s ticked upwards over the past two seasons, now siting closer to 53 percent.

Though he has just one season of 200-plus innings, Leake has been virtually injury free throughout his career.  He landed on the DL late in the 2010 season with right shoulder fatigue but avoided the DL for the next five years, until a hamstring injury sidelined him for about two weeks in August.  He dealt with some forearm tightness at season’s end, but it wasn’t serious and didn’t lead to major concern.

However, in an age where velocity and strikeouts are being emphasized more than ever, Leake doesn’t bring either to the table. His career-best K/9 rate is 2014’s 6.9, and he averaged just 5.6 K/9 in 2015. Leake has added some life to his fastball each year, but this season’s 90.9 mph average still rated below the 91.7 mph league average for starting pitchers.

Leake has owned right-handed hitters over the past two seasons, but he’s had less success against lefties, and that’s been a trend throughout his career. He’s yielded a .274/.324/.444 batting line to lefties throughout his big league tenure. Some of that should be taken with a grain of salt, as those numbers aren’t park-adjusted, but that’s still the rough equivalent of Evan Longoria’s 2015 batting line — hardly an ideal result.

NL Central Notes: Melancon, Cardinals, Leake

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Free agent starter Mike Leake could be on the verge of signing somewhere soon.  The Cardinals are believed to be a leading suitor for him, though it’s not clear if that will be his landing spot this winter.  So far, we’ve seen multiple logical destinations for Leake fall out of the picture for various reasons.

Leake reportedly would have given the D’Backs a sizable discount in order to pitch close to home in Arizona, but Tony La Russa called that match “probably unlikely” to happen after the Shelby Miller acquisition.  The Giants could have moved to retain Leake, but that’s no longer a real possibility after signing two high-priced free agent starters.  At this stage of free agency, the Cardinals certainly appear to be one of the best fits for the 28-year-old.

Here’s today’s look at the NL Central:

  • Could the Pirates still move Mark Melancon this winter?  Adam Berry of MLB.com asked Pirates GM Neal Huntington about what the Charlie Morton trade means for Melancon’s future in Pittsburgh.  “We’ve never had to trade Mark,” Huntington replied. “It’s always been [a question of] if we’re better with him with us, or if we think it’s a better move for the organization to move him elsewhere, and that still applies.”  In short, Berry feels that the Bucs are likely to keep Melancon, though they won’t say no if they’re blown away with the perfect offer.
  • The free agent market has shifted to a tier including the likes of Mike Leake, Scott Kazmir, Yovani Gallardo, Ian Kennedy, and Wei-Yin Chen, but the Cardinals are only really interested in the first two because of their aversion to giving up a draft pick, as Rick Hummel of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch writes.  Between Leake and Kazmir, the Cards are probably more interested in Leake.  Leake is younger, has proven himself to be a strong pitcher in the NL, and has been one of the best hitting pitchers in the league as well.  Leake batted quite well early in his career, and while he had his worst season at the plate in 2015, he’s an overall .212/.235/.310 hitter in the Majors.  That’s obviously not good, relative to the rest of the league, but it’s not bad for a pitcher.
  • Do the Cardinals really need to sign a pitcher to anything more than a one-year deal given the arms they already have in-house?  Jenifer Langosch of MLB.com says the Cardinals feel that you can never have too much pitching and therefore they are not ruling out a multi-year deal for a strong starter.  The Cardinals could find themselves with a pitching logjam in 2017 thanks, in part, to Lance Lynn’s return, but the Cards are also aware that Lynn and Jaime Garcia will be free agents after that season.  It might make sense for the Cardinals to deal with a bit of a logjam in ’17 in order to have options beyond that campaign.

 

Rosenthal On Kazmir, A’s, Fernandez, Dodgers

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Re-signing Alex Gordon would help the Royals hedge against other stars possible leaving in the future, but that commitment could also take away the money needed to keep them, Ken Rosenthal of FOX Sports writes.  Five notable members of the defending World Champs – Eric Hosmer, Mike Moustakas, Alcides Escobar, Lorenzo Cain, and Wade Davis – can hit the open market after the 2017 season.  All five can be costly for KC and that is certainly a consideration for the club as they weigh the Gordon situation.

Here’s more from Rosenthal’s column:

  • The A’s one-year, $4.25MM deal with Henderson Alvarez takes them out of the mix for free agent Scott Kazmir, sources tell Rosenthal.  Alvarez will now compete for a spot in Oakland’s rotation with right-handers Jesse Hahn and Jarrod Parker and left-hander Sean Manaea.  On Monday, USA Today’s Bob Nightengale identified the A’s as a finalist for Kazmir alongside the Royals, Orioles, Cardinals, Nationals, and Astros.  Kazmir, 32 in January, recorded a 3.33 ERA with 7.7 K/9 against 2.6 BB/9 and a 43.4 percent ground-ball rate from 2014-15 — the duration of a two-year, $22MM contract initially signed with Oakland.
  • The Dodgers are staying in touch with the Marlins on Jose Fernandez, but it’s still hard to see a deal taking place, Rosenthal writes.  Unfortunately for the Dodgers and other teams after the young ace, the Marlins’ expectations for a return packing only got higher after the Shelby Miller trade, sources tell Rosenthal.  Of course, that’s saying a lot since the bar has been set high all winter.  high expectations from the start.  Conversely, teams are concerned about how many innings Fernandez will pitch in 2016 and beyond. “Makes it hard to price it correctly for both sides,” one source with knowledge of the Dodgers/Marlins talks said.  For his career, Fernandez has posted a 2.40 ERA with 10.5 K/9, 2.7 BB/9 and a 44.6 percent ground-ball rate.  There’s little question that he’s one of the game’s most effective starters, with his low cost and youth making him one of the most intriguing assets in baseball.
  • The Padres sent several club officials to Japan in November, but they won’t be a serious player for right-hander Kenta Maeda, sources tell Rosenthal.  The Padres went to Japan in order to “introduce themselves in a market where they previously had only a minimal presence,” Rosenthal writes, but apparently they were not gunning hard for the Hiroshima Carp star.

Royals Showing Interest In Gerardo Parra

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The Royals continue to be among the teams showing interest in free agent outfielder Gerardo Parra, sources tell Jon Paul Morosi of FOX Sports (on Twitter).  It has been suggested in the past that Parra could be a Plan B for the Royals in the event that they could not retain Alex Gordon.

If the Royals want to sign Parra, it stands to reason that they’ll have to make a considerable multi-year commitment to him.  Earlier this month it was reported that Parra had multiple three-year offers in hand but he was holding out in an effort to land a four-year deal.  At the age of 28 (29 in May), a four-year deal is not an unreasonable request.

Parra slashed .291/.328/.452 in 2015 and he boasts a strong reputation as a defensive outfielder, though it should be noted that his fielding statistics took a big step backward last season.  Parra made his name when he put up an outstanding defensive campaign with the D’Backs back in 2013.  Moving into a full-time role, he graded out as one of the game’s premium outfielders according to both UZR and Defensive Runs Saved . But last season’s metrics were more of the average variety, and Parra was decidedly in the red in 2015.

Parra’s struggles against left-handed pitching prevent him from being a regular, but many have figured that he could still get a strong payday as something between a regular and a fourth outfielder.  Earlier this offseason, MLBTR’s Tim Dierkes pegged Parra for a three-year, $27MM deal.  Back in August, MLBTR’s Jeff Todd brought up names like comps include Melky Cabrera (three years, $42MM), Nick Markakis (four years, $44MM), Shane Victorino (three years, $39MM), and Angel Pagan (four years, $40MM) as potentially useful comps.  However, his weak play in the final 55 games of the season with the Orioles have probably depressed his value somewhat.

Giants GM Bobby Evans On Left Field, Bullpen

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Last week, the Giants surprised many when they inked starter Johnny Cueto to a six-year, $130MM deal.  Now that the rotation has been bolstered, GM Bobby Evans says that he’s moving on to addressing the team’s left field situation.

“I given our commitments in pitching, I think now is a good time to look at left field and versatility there has value for us,” Evans told MLB Network Radio (audio link).   “We look at [Gregor] Blanco and, he’s been our starting left fielder in the World Series and our starting center fielder in the 2014 World Series so we don’t want to dismiss his ability to help us for a ton of at-bats and a ton of games but if we could put him more in a fourth outfield spot, we feel like we would be stronger.”

When discussing the possibility of further additions this winter, Evans pointed out that the team still has “flexibility” to spend, even after the significant contracts given to Cueto and Jeff Samardzija.  The GM says that the Giants will be open to exploring both the free agent market and the trade market for ways to make the team better, but it doesn’t sound as though the bullpen will be among their top priorities.

“You always want to find a way to get better in the bullpen, [but] I think it’s the one area of the farm system that’s most ready to help us,” said Evans.  “We saw that in [Hunter] Strickland and Josh Osich.  Osich, in many ways, replaces Jeremy Affeldt in the fact that he can pitch to both lefties and righties and pitch in any point in the game.  But, with that said, we’re at least going to keep our antennas up.  It’s not where I want to spend my next dollar, necessarily, because we have depth in the minor leagues, but I recognize that you win with a good bullpen and we need to make sure we’re strong there.”

Ultimately, we shouldn’t expect to see the Giants make a run at a higher-priced free agent reliever such as Tyler Clippard.  By the same token, after dropping big bucks on a pair of free agents already this winter, it’s safe to say that the Giants aren’t going to get involved on an expensive left fielder like Justin Upton, unless his market takes a surprising and drastic nosedive.

Central Notes: Phillips, Reds, Pirates

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While a deal involving Brandon Phillips between the Reds and Nationals appears unlikely, it is not officially dead, according to MLB.com’s Mark Sheldon.  As of right now, both teams will wait and see if Phillips changes his mind and consents to the deal, but Washington could wind up taking care of its second base situation differently in the interim.

The two sides appeared to have a deal worked out last week, but Phillips reportedly wanted an extension as a condition of his approval of the trade.  Since he’s already owed $27MM over the next two seasons, the Nats weren’t eager to meet those demands.  As a player with 10-and-5 rights, the ball is in Phillips’ court on that matter.

Here’s more out of the Central divisions:

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