Twins Notes: Rotation, Ober, Arraez
The dust is still settling in the aftermath of the Twins’ big four-player trade with the Marlins this past week, as Luis Arraez was sent to Miami in exchange for right-hander Pablo Lopez and prospects Jose Salas and Byron Chourio. The move shook up Minnesota’s lineup and added yet another external arm to the Twins’ rotation.
As noted by Phil Miller of the Minneapolis Star Tribune, all five members of the projected starting five (Lopez, Tyler Mahle, Sonny Gray, Joe Ryan, and Kenta Maeda) were all acquired in trades over the last three years. Chris Paddack is currently recovering from Tommy John surgery but was also acquired in a trade with the Padres prior to last season, while Simeon Woods Richardson is another arm on the depth arm that came to the Twins as part of the deal that sent Jose Berrios to the Blue Jays at the 2021 trade deadline.
While it is somewhat unusual for a team to built its rotation entirely via the trade market, Twins chief baseball officer Derek Falvey was blunt in telling reporters (including Miller and Betsy Helfand of the St. Paul Pioneer Press) that, “I don’t care where [the starters] come from. We need really good starters and we need really good pitchers. Some of those are going to be free-agent signings, some of those are going to be trades, and some of those will also hopefully be from development. But the goal here is to continue to deepen the starting rotation and pitching staff however we can do it.”
Bailey Ober is a homegrown product, selected by the Twins in the twelfth round of the 2017 draft. The right-hander has pitched well in 148 1/3 innings and 31 starts over the last two seasons, though Lopez’s addition seemingly pushes Ober out of the rotation mix for now. Of course, rotations rarely stay healthy for an entire season, leaving opportunity for Ober or other pitchers like Woods Richardson, Josh Winder, Louie Varland, etc. to make some starts if one of the top five needs to visit the injured list.
There’s also a chance that the starting five becomes a starting six, as adopting a six-man rotation is “something we talk about a lot,” Falvey admitted. Minnesota’s depth gives the team the flexibility to shift to a six-man rotation if necessary, and “I will tell you that our hope right now is that we will go with five starters, and we feel like we have five good ones…but ultimately [we] have some depth behind it to make sure that we’re in a good place.” If everyone stays healthy and the Twins do end up with a surplus of starting candidates, Falvey described that potential scenario as “a great problem to have.”
The Lopez trade closes the book on Arraez’s tenure with the Twins, as the infielder went from being a fairly unknown prospect to being an All-Star, Silver Slugger winner, and AL batting champion in 2022. Arraez was already a strong performer in the three years prior to his big 2022 campaign, but his performance did dip a bit in an injury-shortened 2021 season. In the wake of that relative down year, Jim Souhan of the Minneapolis Star Tribune writes that the Twins had some talks with Arraez about a long-term extension, but Arraez turned the club down.
As a Super Two player, Arraez is eligible for four trips through the arbitration process, and he and the Twins avoided a hearing in Arraez’s first year of arb-eligibility by agreeing to a $2.125MM salary for the 2022 season. While the terms of Minnesota’s extension offer aren’t known, it is fair to guess that the Twins were looking for a deal that would’ve covered all four of those arbitration years, as well as at least one of Arraez’s free agent years. Signing such a contract would’ve locked in a nice guarantee for Arraez, and the first major payday of a career that began with a modest $40K bonus as an international signing.
But, Arraez opted to instead bet on himself to rebound from his 2021 season, and that self-confidence paid off nicely. Prior to the trade, Arraez and the Twins were headed to an arbitration hearing after not being able to reach a salary agreement before the arbitration figure-exchange deadline — Arraez is looking for a $6.1MM salary, while the Twins countered with $5MM. It seems possible that the Marlins might still go to a hearing with Arraez due to general front office principle, even if an arbitration hearing would be something of an awkward start to the relationship between the infielder and his new team.
Matt Bowman Rejoins Yankees On Minors Contract
Matt Bowman is returning to the Yankees on a minor league contract for 2023, per his MLB.com transactions log.
And maybe he’ll finally actually be able to pitch for them at some level following numerous stops and starts related to an elbow injury that was repaired via Tommy John surgery back in September 2020. The 31-year-old right-hander hasn’t appeared in any MLB-affiliated games since 2019, when he had a solid run as a member of the Reds’ bullpen.
Originally drafted by the Mets in 2012, Bowman made his MLB debut with the Cardinals in 2016 and holds a career 4.02 ERA with 149 strikeouts in 181 1/3 big league innings. When healthy, he can be an effective soft-contact-inducing reliever courtesy of an arsenal that tends to generate a lot of vertical and horizontal movement. During that 2019 stint with Cincinnati, Bowman held opposing hitters to a .212 batting average and .622 OPS with runners in scoring position. His career groundball rate sits at 56.6 percent.
He is probably going to be ticketed for Triple-A Scranton/Wilkes-Barre out of Yankees camp, but Bowman can put himself in position for an in-season callup to the Bronx if his health simply cooperates.
Mariners Sign Mike Ford To Minor League Deal
Mike Ford is back with the Mariners on a minor league contract with an invitation to spring training, according to his MLB.com transactions log.
Ford played in 16 major league games with Seattle in 2022 while ultimately bouncing around between four different organizations — the Giants, Braves, and Angels being the other three. He took 149 total big league plate appearances and overall hit just .206/.302/.313 with three home runs and 40 strikeouts.
The now-30-year-old first baseman and DH burst onto the MLB scene with the Yankees in 2019 and posted a shiny .909 OPS, but he has struggled to a combined .570 OPS in 305 big league plate appearances since that promising debut campaign in the Bronx. Given his defensive limitations and age, the long-term outlook here isn’t exactly promising. Nor does the short-term outlook look good for him with A.J. Pollock, Tommy La Stella, and a large handful of better options vying for turns at DH in Seattle.
Ford has been part of the Mariners organization — Rule 5 drafted, let go, re-signed, let go, then re-signed again — a number of other times in the past. He will likely be returning as nothing more than a depth piece at spring camp for the M’s, who snapped the longest postseason drought in North American professional sports last season and are going to be aiming to chase down the reigning World Series-champion Astros in the AL West this year following yet another active winter piloted by hyperactive president of baseball operations Jerry Dipoto.
Injury Notes: Acuña, Clevinger, Rockies
Ronald Acuña Jr. had a relatively disappointing showing at the plate in 2022, coming off his season-ending right ACL tear in July 2021, but the dynamic three-time All-Star believes he will be back at full strength leading into 2023. “I’m feeling 100 percent and I’m ready to go back to normal, and I definitely don’t want to play DH anymore,” Acuña told Justin Toscano of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution on Saturday.
Acuña delivered a combined .925 OPS in his first 1,764 major league plate appearances between 2018-2021 before sinking to a .764 OPS in 533 plate appearances last year. He made 27 starts at DH for the Braves in 2022, after logging — or requiring? — only one total DH start across his entire four previous MLB seasons. In general, he’s averaged 38 home runs and 34 stolen bases for every 162 games played as a big leaguer. Last year: 15 homers, 29 steals in 119 games. As he moves further and further away from that knee injury, the reigning NL East champs should become all the more dangerous.
Acuña is going to DH in the Venezuelan Winter League finals, per Toscano, and he has also stated a desire to represent his native country in the Winter Baseball Classic. But the 25-year-old outfielder noted to David O’Brien of The Athletic that the Braves’ medical staff is unlikely to clear him to play in the upcoming WBC because it is more of a time and physical commitment than Winter League. Essentially, they just really want him to stay in camp.
- Mike Clevinger signed a one-year, $12MM contract with the White Sox earlier this winter. Soon after, he received a platelet-rich plasma injection to aid in the healing of a knee injury that hampered him down the stretch with the Padres last season and led to a disappointing overall 4.33 ERA. With his knee on the mend, and his November 2020 Tommy John surgery fully in the rearview, the White Sox believe the 32-year-old right-hander can get back to being his old top-of-the-rotation self. “We broke down some biomechanics stuff after we signed him to kind of show him the differences,” pitching coach Ethan Katz told James Fegan of The Athletic. “Where he was different in all aspects of his delivery, which was probably in correlation to the knee … Now that he is healthy, he is working on it. His bullpens and the videos that I have seen, there’s been no kind of restrictions or anything that’s slowed him down from being able to be aggressive on that back leg.”
- Ryan Rolison, the Rockies’ top selection in the 2018 MLB Draft and perhaps a big rotation piece for their future, is said to be 100 percent recovered from the left shoulder surgery that knocked his pro career off track last season. He did not pitch in MLB-affiliated ball at all in 2022 and ultimately went under the knife in June. “We are better than we were a year ago,” Rockies GM Bill Schmidt said to Patrick Saunders of the Denver Post in a recent chat, making note of Rolison’s rebounded health. “We have created some competition for some guys,” Schmidt added. “And, overall, our organizational depth is better.” Germán Márquez, Kyle Freeland, and José Ureña would seem to be locked into the top three rotation spots for Colorado. Rolison could perhaps battle with Austin Gomber and Connor Seabold at the back end. Peter Lambert (elbow) is also expected to be healthy heading into camp and might get another look for MLB starts at some point in 2023.
Triston Casas Open To Extension Talks With Red Sox
Triston Casas, viewed as a future cornerstone at first base in Boston, spoke to WEEI.com’s Rob Bradford this weekend and expressed an openness to discussing a long-term contract extension with the Red Sox. Alas, those talks have not actually gotten underway in any form …
“No. None whatsoever,” Casas told Bradford. “I haven’t thought about it. Nobody has approached me about it. And my representatives have never even mentioned it to [Red Sox GM Chaim Bloom] or anyone in the front office. I’m just focused on playing this year and we’ll see where it goes. It it happens, it happens. I would love to stay in Boston the rest of my life. I love the city in the little taste I’ve got of it. I don’t know anywhere else and I don’t want to. We’ll see what happens in a couple of years. Hopefully we get something done, but if we don’t we’ll go from there.”
The idea here would be to secure Casas through all of his pre-arbitration and arbitration-eligible years and to likely also buy out at least a couple seasons of free agency. Bradford makes note of the “flurry of deals of seven-or-more years” that the Braves have pulled off with the likes of Spencer Strider, Michael Harris, Austin Riley, Ozzie Albies, and Ronald Acuna Jr.
Many of those extensions were — and are — viewed as extremely team-friendly around the industry. And there’s not a natural comparison between any of them and what the Red Sox might be looking to do with Casas. He has appeared in only 27 major league games up to this point and will still carry rookie status into the 2023 campaign. Albies, for example, signed his bargain seven-year, $35MM pact with Atlanta in April 2019, having already logged more than 215 games at baseball’s highest level. Ke’Bryan Hayes, the Pirates’ long-term hope at third base, inked an eight-year, $70MM pact with Pittsburgh last April, exactly 120 games into his MLB career.
Casas flashed good power in his initial taste of big league action down the stretch in 2022, clubbing five home runs with a .766 OPS over 95 plate appearances. Granted, his batting average came in at just .197. Before his promotion on September 4, the 23-year-old consensus top-35 prospect registered a .273/.382/.481 batting line in 317 plate appearances at Triple-A Worcester.
Maybe something can get going on the extension front when Casas arrives at Red Sox camp in the spring. Or the wait could be quite a bit longer than that. But the goal is to ensure that he does not slip away from the organization like Xander Bogaerts did or build up the kind of negotiating power of a Rafael Devers, who commanded ten years, $313.5MM in new money from the Sox earlier this month.
A’s Sign Joe Wieland To Minor League Contract
Joe Wieland has agreed to a minor league deal with the Athletics, according to his MLB transactions log.
Wieland, 33, spent the 2022 season in the Rays’ minor league system after bouncing around for a handful of years between Nippon Professional Baseball, the Korea Baseball Organization, and the independent Constellation Energy League. A former top-100 prospect after being selected by the Rangers in the fourth round of the 2008 MLB Draft, he last appeared in a Major League Baseball game back in 2016 with the Mariners and currently carries a rough 6.32 ERA in 52 2/3 total MLB innings.
The journeyman right-hander will likely be nothing more than a depth piece for Oakland leading into the 2023 campaign, but he picked a favorable spot to perhaps get an opportunity to jump back into the bigs. In his time at Triple-A Durham last summer, Wieland worked to a 3.00 ERA with eight strikeouts across 12 frames.
Sal Bando Passes Away
Longtime former big leaguer and executive Sal Bando passed away yesterday at age 78. Bando played with the Athletics franchise from 1966-76 and then with the Brewers from 1977-81 before becoming Milwaukee’s general manager for the 1992-99 seasons.
As per Bando’s family, “It is with a heavy heart, the Bando family is sad to announce the passing of its beloved husband and father, Sal, who last night lost his battle with cancer that began over five years ago. Sandy, Sal’s wife of 54 years, and sons Sal Jr., Sonny and Stef, send their love to family, friends and fans who mourn the loss of a humble and faithful man.”
Bando was a sixth-round pick for the then-Kansas City Athletics in the 1965 draft, and he broke into the majors the next season. By 1968, Bando had become the starting third baseman for the A’s in their inaugural season in Oakland, and he quickly became a key member of a budding dynasty. From 1969-74, Bando hit .265/.376/.445 with 141 homers, and his 34.7 fWAR was the fifth-highest of any player in the majors. That six-year period saw Bando make four All-Star teams, finish in the top four of AL MVP voting on three occasions (including a second-place finish to teammate Vida Blue in 1971), and win three World Series rings as the A’s three-peated from 1972-74.
There was no shortage of controversy on and off the field for those Athletics clubs, and yet Bando was a rock of stability as the team’s captain. However, Bando had his own share of issues with A’s owner Charlie Finley, stemming from contract disputes and Bando’s increasing leadership role with the MLB Players Association. After the 1976 season, Bando left the A’s as a free agent to sign a five-year deal with the Brewers, beginning the next chapter of his career.
While Bando’s didn’t match his production from his Oakland heyday, he was still a contributor to a Brewers team that had four straight winning seasons from 1978-81, which included a postseason appearance in 1981. Bando was only a part-time player in 1981, and decided to retire after 16 MLB seasons in order to transition into a new role in the Brewers’ front office. Bando worked as a special assistant to general manager Harry Dalton from 1982 until Bando himself was named to the top job himself following the 1991 season. Unfortunately, Bando’s tenure as GM included only one winning season, and he resigned the job partway through the 1999 campaign.
We at MLBTR send our condolences to Bando’s family, friends, and teammates.
Make Or Break Year: Lourdes Gurriel Jr.
The Diamondbacks and Blue Jays combined on one of the winter’s biggest trades back in December, though for all of the attention the deal received, much more focus was (understandably) placed on the involvement of Daulton Varsho and Gabriel Moreno than on the fact that Lourdes Gurriel Jr. was now headed to Arizona. Varsho is a very promising young player and already an ace defender, while Moreno is arguably baseball’s best prospect — with all these future potential in mind, it isn’t necessarily surprising that Gurriel was something of an afterthought.
It wasn’t that long ago that Gurriel was himself a sought-after young talent, when he defected from Cuba in 2016 and signed a seven-year, $22MM deal with Toronto later that year. He made his MLB debut in April 2018 at age 24 and has since carved out a solid career for himself over five seasons in the Show, yet in some ways, Gurriel has been hampered by those initial high expectations. Though Gurriel has been much better than many prospects (both international and from the domestic draft) over the years who carried a lot more hype, having “only” a solid career to date has perhaps been a little underwhelming considering how good Gurriel has looked when he has been in top form.
Gurriel’s .285/.329/.468 slash line and 68 homers over 1864 career MLB plate appearances translates to a 115 wRC+, well above the league average. He has consistently delivered good (and in 2020, elite) hard-hit ball rates, and his barrel rates were similarly pretty consistent before plummeting downwards in 2022. While Gurriel doesn’t walk much, his strikeout and whiff rates have steadily improved over the last four seasons, with Gurriel topping out in the 78th percentile of all hitters in K% and in the 71st percentile in whiff rate last year.
With all this in mind, however, Gurriel has amassed only 6.2 fWAR over his 468 big league games. For comparison’s sake, Varsho has 7.1 fWAR over 283 games and 1022 PA, with 4.6 fWAR coming in the 2022 season alone. Defense accounts for much of Varsho’s advantage, as Gurriel has been roughly an average left fielder since the start of the 2019 season, when factoring in all of the public defensive metrics. Defensive Runs Saved (+4) likes Gurriel’s outfield work, while UZR/150 (-2.7) and especially Outs Above Average (-16) have been a lot less impressed. It is worth noting, however, that Gurriel was a finalist for the AL left field Gold Glove in both 2020 and 2021, somewhat in defiance of the mixed reviews from the metrics.
Glovework has been an element of Gurriel’s big league career from the start, as the Blue Jays initially hoped he could be a shortstop prospect or at least a second baseman, but he struggled badly as an infielder. Fortunately for both Gurriel and the Jays, a position change to left field allowed him to settle in both as a defender and at the plate, even if it limited Gurriel’s overall value in the long term. As he heads into his age-29 season, Gurriel has only moderate defensive utility as a passable left fielder and as a part-time first baseman, though his solid arm strength suggests that he might be an option in right field (a position he has never played in the majors).
Looking at Gurriel’s batting statistics, his good overall numbers smooth over a lot of streakiness at the plate. The outfielder is prone to extreme hot and cold stretches, with injuries sometimes factoring into that variance. Just in 2022, Gurriel had a .601 OPS over his first 154 plate appearances, then posted a .901 OPS in his next 241 PA, then slumped to a .554 OPS in his final 98 PA prior to a hamstring injury that prematurely ended his season in early September.
While that roller-coaster of a season evened out to 114 wRC+ in 493 PA, Gurriel’s sudden lack of power was a concern, as his .108 Isolated Power total was far below the .209 ISO he had previously posted during his career. Again, injuries might have been a reason, as Gurriel dealt with a wrist problem during the season that eventually required surgery in October, and he is expected to be ready for his first Spring Training with the D’Backs.
It all adds up to a career that has been both inconsistent, yet somewhat predictably inconsistent at the same time. The Diamondbacks have a reasonable expectation of what a healthy Gurriel can deliver as a floor, with hopes that his ceiling might reach higher in a new environment. Gurriel could also benefit to some extent if the D’Backs use their left-handed hitting outfielders (i.e. Alek Thomas, Jake McCarthy, Dominic Fletcher) to provide some shield against right-handed pitching, though Gurriel’s career splits are pretty even.
2023 is the final season of Gurriel’s initial seven-year contract, and a clause in the deal makes him automatically eligible for free agency next winter even though Gurriel will be short of six years of MLB service time. The outfielder will be 30 on Opening Day 2024, so he can still offer some prime years to an interesting team on the open market, but much will be determined by how Gurriel performs this season in Arizona.
Some Toronto fans were surprised that the Blue Jays had to include both Moreno and Gurriel to pry Varsho away from the D’Backs, yet that could reflect what relatively modest trade value Gurriel had around the league, even for a player owed only $5.4MM in 2023. Even from the Diamondbacks’ perspective, while Gurriel’s inclusion was a factor in finally getting the trade over the finish line, the still-existing outfield surplus within the organization means that Arizona probably sees Gurriel as a one-year rental. If the D’Backs are again out of contention by the trade deadline, Gurriel might be a prime candidate to be shipped elsewhere.
If Gurriel matches only his 2021-22 numbers, a two-year free agent deal might be his max, and a lot of teams might not be willing to go beyond one guaranteed year. As we’ve seen this offseason, teams are willing to pay big for superstars, or pay big (either in free agent dollars or in trade return) for younger players with potential to break out. Clubs are less willing to open their wallets for “just” solid production, thus leaving Gurriel in danger of being squeezed in the market unless he has a quality platform season.
Gurriel could point to older brother Yuli as an example of how later-career production runs in the family. However, the younger Gurriel will likely need to stay healthy and (perhaps significantly) out-perform his past Toronto production in order to really capitalize on his upcoming trip to the open market.
AL East Notes: Guerrero, Sale, Rays
Vladimir Guerrero Jr. and the Blue Jays “haven’t had the conversations yet” this winter about a multi-year extension, the slugger tells Sportsnet’s Shi Davidi and other reporters. Guerrero didn’t sound overly concerned about the lack of talks, saying “I’m going to stay focused on working hard and let my team take care of that.” The idea of a long-term deal between Guerrero and the Jays has been a topic essentially since Guerrero arrived in the majors as baseball’s top prospect, and though the first baseman is heading into his fifth MLB season, the clock isn’t yet ticking too loudly on Guerrero’s team control. Toronto still has arbitration control over Guerrero through the 2025 season, and the two sides already worked out a contract for Guerrero for 2023, as he’ll earn $14.5MM for the coming year.
With Guerrero set to become a free agent prior to his age-27 season, this relatively early entry into the market likely means a particularly large payday is awaiting the first baseman — whether from another team, or in the form of an extension from the Blue Jays to lock Guerrero up as the face of the franchise. As Davidi notes, the massive longer-term contracts handed out this winter undoubtedly caught the attention of both the Jays and Guerrero’s representatives, and now both sides may have a better view of what it might cost the Blue Jays to retain Guerrero’s services. Since most extension talks usually don’t begin until deeper into Spring Training, it will be interesting to watch if Guerrero and the Jays have any substantive negotiations, or if any real progress is made towards an extension.
More from the AL East…
- After three injury-riddled seasons, Chris Sale told reporters (including The Boston Globe’s Peter Abraham) that he is “very, very excited” about being healthy and heading for his first normal Spring Training since 2019. Between a Tommy John surgery, a fractured rib, and fractures to his finger and wrist, Sale has pitched only 48 1/3 Major League innings since the start of the 2020 season, which was also the first season of a five-year, $145MM contract extension Sale had signed with the Red Sox the year prior. Given the lack of return on this extension, Sale feels “I owe my teammates the starting pitcher they thought they were going to get. I owe the front office the starting pitcher they paid for. I owe the fans performances they’re paying to come and see.” Looking for a silver lining to his injury woes, Sale noted “that’s three years of [pitching] that’s not on my arm” as he enters his age-34 season. “That’s not going on the odometer. I’ve kept myself in really good physical shape. My arm’s feeling good. I don’t have any hesitation going forward with pitching.”
- Seven Rays players are slated for arbitration hearings, which is (as per MLB.com) is the third-highest number of hearings for any team in the history of the arb process. President of baseball operations Erik Neander felt the lack of agreement in negotiations with the seven prior to the arbitration filing deadline were “much more about the uniqueness of several players’ career paths leading to a bit of a more challenging experience for both parties to find common ground,” the executive told Marc Topkin of the Tampa Bay Times. “But I very much believe that everyone worked to find it — we just didn’t quite get there.” As Topkin notes, the differences between the Rays’ submitted salary figures and the seven players’ figures work out to only $2.85MM in total. That said, it doesn’t seem likely that any deals will be worked out before the sides present their cases to an arbiter, unless a player signs a multi-year contract. [RELATED: the full list of the 33 players who are heading for arbitration hearings]
Marlins Explored Trades For Mets’ Brett Baty
The Marlins spent much of the season looking for ways to convert their surplus of starting pitchers into some help at the plate, and that quest might have ended this week when the Fish dealt Pablo Lopez to the Twins as part of a four-player swap that sent Luis Arraez to Miami. Before that move, however, Mets third base prospect Brett Baty was one of the other names on Miami’s radar, and the New York Post’s Jon Heyman reports that the Marlins were willing to offer either Jesus Luzardo or Edward Cabrera in return.
Reports earlier this month indicated that the Marlins had also talked to the Mets about Eduardo Escobar, when New York seemingly had an agreement in place with Carlos Correa. Had the Correa contract been finalized, an Escobar deal to the Marlins might’ve been been more viable, but the Mets naturally opted to hang onto Escobar once the club had some issues with Correa’s physical. Heyman writes that the Marlins’ interest in Baty existed “both before and after the Mets’ Carlos Correa deal fell through,” and it is probably safe to assume that the Mets’ willingness to move Baty also diminished in the aftermath of the Correa situation.
While there seems to be no financial limit on the Mets’ desire to upgrade their roster, Steve Cohen’s splashy dives into free agency have been related to the club’s desire to hang onto its minor league depth. While New York has moved some top young players in trades during Cohen’s two-plus years as owner, the Mets haven’t been willing to entirely clean out the farm system for proven veterans. As such, players like Baty, Francisco Alvarez, Mark Vientos, Ronny Mauricio, and prospects further away from the majors have remained in New York’s organization.
Since Correa is no longer in the picture and the 34-year-old Escobar is entering his last year under contract, Baty may once again be the Amazins’ third baseman of the future, or even present if he starts to take on a larger role in 2023. Baty made his MLB debut last season and could potentially be deployed in a platoon with Escobar this year, or might see some action in left field. As Baty recently told MLB.com’s Anthony DiComo, he would’ve been happy to switch positions in the event of a Correa signing, saying “I just want to be in the big leagues helping a team win.” Baty also said he feels “stronger than ever” in the wake of the thumb surgery that prematurely ended his 2022 season, and though he has been fully healed since November, Baty will be heading to Spring Training early to make up for lost prep time.
With Baty looking like a key figure in the Mets’ future plans, it would’ve taken quite a trade haul to get the team to change its mind about trading the third baseman….a haul akin to, say, a controllable and talented young pitcher like Luzardo or Cabrera. Such a trade may no longer be on the table in the wake of the Arraez move, but it would’ve been a fascinating swap of young talents, especially with the added wrinkle of the Mets and Marlins being division rivals. Either Luzardo or Cabrera would’ve added youth and long-term control to a veteran Mets rotation that currently has only one pitcher (Kodai Senga) locked up beyond the 2024 season. Carlos Carrasco is entering the last year of his contract, while Max Scherzer, Justin Verlander, and Jose Quintana are all only guaranteed through the 2024 campaign (though Verlander has a vesting option for 2025).
Had the Marlins successfully landed Baty, their roster moves of the last few weeks would’ve naturally been quite different, and the Arraez trade likely doesn’t happen. In this scenario, Baty likely becomes the new everyday third baseman, while Jean Segura would’ve played second base rather than the hot corner. This would’ve still opened the door for Jazz Chisholm Jr. to be moved to center field, as the Marlins are seeing if the All-Star second baseman’s speed and arm can translate to success as an outfielder.