The Opener: Darwinzon, Mariners, Player Chat
With less than eight weeks remaining until Opening Day, here are three things we’ll be keeping an eye on around the baseball world throughout the day today:
1. Hernandez DFA comes due:
Lefty reliever Darwinzon Hernandez was designated for assignment by the Orioles last week, and the conclusion to that is expected sometime today. Hernandez was DFA’d to make room for Cole Irvin on the 40-man roster following his acquisition by Baltimore from the A’s. Hernandez was a rather successful reliever for the Red Sox from 2019-2021, posting a 3.66 ERA (131 ERA+) and 3.85 FIP over 78 2/3 innings, despite walking 17% of his opponents along the way. The lack of command caught up to him in 2022, however, as he walked 18% of his opponents, yielded four long balls and served up 16 runs in just 6 2/3 innings (21.60 ERA).
Those struggles led to the Red Sox DFA Hernandez earlier this offseason, at which point he was claimed off waivers by the Orioles, who now hope to pass Hernandez through waivers themselves. If Hernandez makes it through waivers, Baltimore will be able to assign him outright to Triple-A, where he can serve as bullpen depth for them in 2023.
2. Arbitration for Mariners, Hernandez looms:
Yesterday, the Mariners sorted out two of their three outstanding arbitration cases, with the club winning its arbitration case against righty reliever Diego Castillo in the afternoon before going on to ink utilityman Dylan Moore to a three-year extension in the evening. That leaves one unresolved arbitration case for Seattle, and it’s perhaps the most important one: right fielder Teoscar Hernandez, whom the Mariners acquired from the Blue Jays via trade earlier this offseason. Of players and clubs who exchanged arbitration figures this offseason, Hernandez and Seattle have the largest gap between their asks: $2MM, with Hernandez filing for $16MM and the Mariners countering at $14MM. Hernandez is set to become a free agent following the 2023 season.
3. MLBTR Player Chat today:
MLBTR is excited to continue our player live chat series by welcoming right-hander Scott Feldman, who pitched in 13 MLB seasons. The best years of his career came from 2013-2015, when he pitched to a 3.83 ERA (4.13 FIP) across 77 starts and 470 1/3 innings for the Cubs, Orioles, and Astros. In swapping uniforms from the Cubs to the Orioles ahead of the 2013 trade deadline, Feldman was packaged with Steve Clevenger in exchange for Pedro Strop and future NL Cy Young award winner Jake Arrieta. Overall, Feldman pitched to a 4.43 ERA with an identical 4.43 FIP across 1386 1/3 innings and suited up for the Rangers, Cubs, Orioles, Astros, and Reds throughout his time in the big leagues. Be sure to tune in at noon CST** today for Feldman’s live chat, where he will field questions from MLBTR readers!
**We initially mistakenly listed Scott’s chat at 10am CST. It will be held at noon CST. Apologies for the error.
Orioles To Decline Five-Year Lease Extension At Camden Yards, Seeking Longer-Term Agreement With Maryland Stadium Authority
The Orioles are passing on their opportunity to trigger a five-year extension of their lease at Camden Yards, reports Jeff Barker of the Baltimore Sun. According to Barker, the team is in search of “a longer-term, more comprehensive stadium agreement” with the Maryland Stadium Authority.
The Orioles’ lease at Camden Yards remains in effect through the end of the 2023 calendar year. The team faced a decision on whether to tack on additional five seasons to remain in their lease through 2028, a condition of a February 2021 extension agreement between the franchise and the MSA. Barker writes the club is optimistic about its chances of hammering out a longer deal, one which might include upgrades to the ballpark and potential development projects in the surrounding area.
That’s a hopeful indicator for fans in the area who might be apprehensive about the possibility of losing the franchise. Those worries won’t be officially quelled unless and until a new agreement is finalized, however. The sides now have 11 months to do so before the current agreement expires. Barker reports the organization is seeking a deal of 10-15 years in length and is hopeful to get something done by the All-Star Break. A recent Maryland law would allow the MSA to borrow up to $600MM for Orioles’ stadium upgrades (with a matching amount available for the NFL’s Ravens) but requires a longer-term deal than the five-year pact the O’s were deciding upon today, Barker notes.
The sides could still pivot to negotiate another short-term extension akin to the one agreed upon two years ago. That’d appear a fallback to their desired goal of a significantly longer commitment, one that’ll remain a key story for the franchise over the coming months.
After this news broke, the club issued a press release with quotes from Maryland Governor Wes Moore as well as O’s Chairman and CEO John Angelos. “When Camden Yards opened thirty years ago, the Baltimore Orioles revolutionized baseball and set the bar for the fan experience,” Moore says in the statement. “We share the commitment of the Orioles organization to ensuring that the team is playing in a world-class facility at Camden Yards for decades to come and are excited to advance our public-private partnership. We look forward to writing the next chapter of major league baseball in Maryland as we continue to make magic for fans and meaningful investment for communities across our state.”
“I am looking forward to continuing to collaborate with Governor Moore, his administration, and the Maryland Stadium Authority in order to bring to Baltimore the modern, sustainable, and electrifying sports and entertainment destination the State of Maryland deserves,” Angelos says in the same press release. “We greatly appreciate Governor Moore’s vision and commitment as we seize the tremendous opportunity to redefine the paradigm of what a Major League Baseball venue represents and thereby revitalize downtown Baltimore. It is my hope and expectation that, together with Governor Moore and the new members and new chairman of the MSA Board, we can again fully realize the potential of Camden Yards to serve as a catalyst for Baltimore’s second renaissance.”
The lease uncertainty comes at a time when the franchise’s ownership situation is the subject of controversy. Longtime O’s owner Peter Angelos is now 93 years old, and his sons Louis and John are embroiled in a legal battle. Louis Angelos has sued his brother and mother Georgia Angelos, alleging that John Angelos has blocked his mother’s wishes to sell the franchise and that John and Georgia have seized control of Peter Angelos’ assets in the Orioles and his law firm at Louis’ expense. Louis also implied that John Angelos could eventually attempt to move the franchise to Tennessee, something John Angelos has strongly denied.
John Angelos was part of a promotional event with Baltimore mayor Brandon Scott on Martin Luther King Jr. Day to announce the creation of a scholarship for local schools. Angelos, however, refused to entertain a question from Dan Connolly of the Athletic about the franchise’s ownership situation, bizarrely calling it “(an inappropriate) subject matter for this day” (video link provided by Paul Gessler of CBS Baltimore). He did reiterate, however, that “we’re not going anywhere.” Angelos expressed openness to showing Connolly and other reporters the organization’s financials and specifics of the ownership structure at another point. There’s no indication that process has been set up.
Falvey: Bullpen Upgrades “Not A Priority”
The Twins have been active this offseason, re-signing Carlos Correa while bringing in new faces such as Pablo López, Joey Gallo, Christian Vázquez, Michael A. Taylor and Kyle Farmer. Things have been relatively quiet in terms of the bullpen, however, and it doesn’t seem as though that’s going to change in the near future. The club’s president of baseball operations Derek Falvey tells Phil Miller of the Minneapolis Star Tribune that a significant bullpen addition it isn’t a pressing concern right now. “If we were to do anything at this point, it would likely be to add depth in the middle [innings],” Falvey said. “We’ll keep an open mind, but [relief pitching is] not a priority.”
Last year, the club’s relief corps was firmly in the middle of the pack. Their collective 3.84 ERA was tied for 15th among the 30 teams in the league, while their 3.85 FIP was 14th, their 3.79 xFIP 10th and their 3.50 SIERA ninth. That group also took a hit when deadline acquisition Michael Fulmer reached free agency, though he remains unsigned.
It seems Falvey and the other decision makers in Minnesota have a lot of faith in their internal options. Jorge López was acquired from the Orioles at the deadline last year but still has two remaining years of club control. “We did our bullpen shopping at the [trade] deadline last year by adding some depth, adding Jorge [López],” Falvey said. After many years of mediocre performance as a starter, López converted to a bullpen role full-time in 2022 to great results. In 44 appearances for the O’s, he posted a 1.68 ERA while getting grounders at a 60% clip, striking out 27.6% of batters faced and walking 8.7%. Unfortunately, he didn’t maintain that pace after the trade, with a 4.37 ERA, 53.7% grounder rate, 17.6% strikeout rate and 13.7% walk rate as a Twin.
López will be looking for a bounceback after that frustrating finish to his 2022 campaign, though the club also has other intriguing names in the mix that could step up. Jhoan Durán was primarily a starter in the minors but cracked the majors last year in a relief role and utterly dominated. He tossed 67 2/3 innings over 57 appearances with a 1.86 ERA, getting grounders at a 61% clip while striking out 33.5% of opponents and walking just 6% of them. “He adapted to a new role, at the highest level, faster than we could have hoped,” Falvey said.
As for others in the mix that they’re encouraged by, Falvey had this to say: “We watched Griffin Jax develop into someone we can rely on. What Jovani Moran did the last month of the season, it’s something he can really build upon.” Jax also moved from a starter to a reliever in 2022, and while he didn’t match Durán’s results, he still did well. With 65 appearances last year, he finished the year with a 3.36 ERA, 47.3% ground ball rate, 26.9% strikeout rate and 6.9% walk rate. Moran, meanwhile, put up a 2.21 ERA in 40 2/3 innings, keeping the ball on the ground at a 48.9% pace, while striking out 32.9% of batters faced, though he did walk 11% of them.
Though Falvey admits they might still make a small addition, it seems they feel they already have the high-leverage arms they need. “We feel like we have the eighth and ninth innings covered,” he says. Other relievers likely to be in the club’s bullpen include Caleb Thielbar, Emilio Pagán, Jorge Alcalá and Trevor Megill.
The Dodgers’ Outfield Gambles
It’s been a fairly quiet offseason by Dodgers’ standards, as they have shied away from the top-of-the-market commitments they’ve embraced in prior years. Los Angeles re-signed Clayton Kershaw, brought in J.D. Martinez, Noah Syndergaard and Shelby Miller on one-year free agent pacts, and acquired Miguel Rojas from the Marlins to bolster their middle infield depth. They watched Trea Turner, Tyler Anderson, Andrew Heaney and Cody Bellinger depart.
While it’s still one of the sport’s strongest rosters top to bottom, the Dodgers have a few more question marks than they’ve had in recent years. That’s especially true in the outfield. Mookie Betts is a superstar; the two other positions are more up in the air. Bellinger was cut loose after two straight dismal offensive seasons, leaving a center field vacancy the organization hasn’t subsequently addressed.
Their relatively restrained winter was seemingly tied to a desire to dip under the $233MM luxury tax threshold. That would have reset their payor status and avoid the associated escalating penalties if/when they went back above that mark next offseason. The reduction of Trevor Bauer’s suspension put more than $22MM back onto the books and pushed them narrowly back above the threshold, which they doubled down on with the Rojas trade. Fabian Ardaya of the Athletic suggested as part of a reader mailbag last week the team no longer seems likely to try to limbo underneath the tax line.
That theoretically opens the potential for further spending, since the Dodgers’ projected $238MM CBT figure is quite a bit lower than those of their previous two seasons. There hasn’t been much indication Los Angeles plans to make any meaningful additions between now and Opening Day though. The Dodgers monitored the center field market earlier in the winter but have come up empty. That’s now virtually barren, aside from a potential trade for Minnesota’s Max Kepler (who’s more familiar with right field) or a long shot deal involving Pittsburgh’s Bryan Reynolds. The corner outfield market still has Jurickson Profar and depth types like Ben Gamel and David Peralta available in free agency and perhaps trade possibilities like Anthony Santander or Seth Brown. The Dodgers haven’t been publicly linked to anyone in that group.
If this is the outfield, the team will go into the season with more notable questions than they’ve had in the past couple years. Betts is still one of the top five players in the sport. His projected outfield mates all have talent but come with easy to spot downside. Let’s run through the group who could join Betts on the Dodger Stadium grass.
Taylor’s equally capable of playing the infield but seems ticketed for outfield work, particularly in the wake of the Rojas pickup. President of baseball operations Andrew Friedman told MLB Network Radio on SiriusXM over the weekend that was the plan. Freddie Freeman, rookie Miguel Vargas, Gavin Lux, Max Muncy and Rojas figure to cover the infield if everyone’s healthy, with J.D. Martinez manning designated hitter.
A year ago, Taylor playing everyday in left or center field would’ve been a perfectly comfortable solution. While it might play out that way, it’s no longer as safe a bet after he struggled in the first season of a new four-year deal. For the first time in his six seasons in Southern California, Taylor posted a below-average slash line. He hit .221/.304/.373 with 10 home runs across 454 plate appearances, missing around a month midseason with a foot fracture.
Taylor still drew a decent number of walks with a slightly above-average hard contact percentage, but his contact rate cratered. He struck out in over 35% of his plate appearances, the highest rate of any player with 450+ trips. It was a similar story on a per-pitch basis. Taylor made contact on only 62.1% of his swings, again the worst mark among hitters who logged as much playing time as he did.
One poor season doesn’t entirely negate the .265/.343/.461 line he managed between 2017-21. He’s certainly talented enough to play better than he did in 2022. Yet given last year’s struggles, the Dodgers may need a contingency plan in the event he again battles significant swing-and-miss concerns. That’s particularly true given the Dodgers’ questionable center field composition.
Thompson is probably going to get the first crack at that job with the team not making any additions. In one regard, the 31-year-old is in the opposite boat as Taylor. He had an incredible 2022 season that belied his lack of an established MLB track record before last year. That said, the main concern with Thompson is the same as it for L.A.’s presumptive left fielder: strikeouts.
Acquired from the Tigers in a seemingly minor June trade, Thompson got into 80 games for L.A. down the stretch. He was given 255 plate appearances, his most in a big league campaign since 2016, and was one of the team’s most effective hitters. He put up a .256/.353/.507 line with 13 home runs. Thompson made hard contact on a massive 47% of his batted balls while walking at an excellent 12.7% clip. That kind of power and plate discipline are intriguing, though his 36.5% strikeout percentage was even higher than Taylor’s.
It wouldn’t matter that Thompson’s striking out at that rate if he’s reaching base and driving the ball the way he did last season. Whether he can maintain that kind of form over a full schedule is unclear. Thompson has never played more than 80 MLB games in a year and carried a career .208/.283/.405 line into last season. He’s shown the physical tools to impact a lineup at his best and enough swing-and-miss to result in an unplayable on-base percentage at his worst.
The 25-year-old Outman is probably the first man up in the event of an injury or performance struggles from Thompson. He played in four big league games last year but spent most of the season in the upper minors. It was a breakout year for the former 7th-round draftee. Between Double-A Tulsa and Triple-A Oklahoma City, Outman connected on 31 home runs and doubles apiece while posting a cumulative .294/.393/.586 slash in 559 plate appearances. He walked at a 12.5% clip while striking out 27.2% of the time.
Again, it’s an offensive profile driven by power and walks with concerning whiff totals. Outman is a good prospect, checking in 10th on Baseball America’s offseason write-up of a strong Dodgers’ system. The outlet praises Outman’s power and suggests he’s athletic enough to be an above-average center fielder. There’s a chance he’s an everyday player, though BA suggests he might be better suited in a role-playing or platoon capacity given his propensity for whiffs on breaking pitches. Even the latter outcome would be a great return on a 7th-round pick and a testament to Outman’s excellent minor league résumé but it raises concerns about his viability as an everyday player on a team with championship aspirations.
Overall Outlook
There are things to like about each of Taylor, Thompson and Outman. It’s certainly not an outfield devoid of upside. Yet it’s not as stable as the rest of the Dodgers’ roster or the outfields L.A. has run out in previous years. That’s reflective of Bellinger’s unexpected offensive collapse that led to his non-tender and the club’s comparatively modest offseason overall.
Barring a late-winter pickup, the onus may fall on skipper Dave Roberts to patch things together more than he’s needed in the past. A platoon of the lefty-swinging Outman and right-handed Thompson might suffice in center field. Vargas can play some left field on days when he’s not in the infield, and perhaps Martinez will log a little corner outfield work in addition to his DH reps.
Andy Pages is a quality power-hitting prospect who is already on the 40-man roster. He may still be a year away after a fine but unexceptional showing in Double-A. Michael Busch is another highly-regarded offensive player whose defensive questions at second base could push him to left field, but he’s barely played there as a professional. Jonny DeLuca is on the 40-man roster as a potential depth player. Veteran Bradley Zimmer will be in camp as a non-roster invitee and another minor league deal or two seems plausible.
There are plenty of players who could work their way into consideration. Outman, Pages, Busch and Vargas are highly-regarded prospects and highlight the kind of farm depth the Dodgers could leverage in trade midseason if the current group doesn’t pan out. While things are far from dire, the Dodgers look prepared to take more of a gamble in the outfield than they have in years past.
Mariners, Dylan Moore Agree to Three-Year Extension
The Mariners and infielder/outfielder Dylan Moore are in agreement on a three-year extension to avoid arbitration, reports Jeff Passan of ESPN. Moore will earn $8.875MM over the course of the pact, with escalators that could push his earnings beyond $9MM. There are no options in the deal. This deal buys out his two remaining arbitration seasons and one free agent year.
Moore, 30, has been a fixture of the Mariners for the past four seasons in a sort of Swiss army knife capacity, providing the club with a little bit of everything. He’s appeared in 381 games in that time, playing every position on the diamond except catcher, even including one inning on the mound in 2019. He’s probably stretched as a shortstop, since all three of Defensive Runs Saved, Outs Above Average and Ultimate Zone Rating all give him negative grades there, but they all like his work in the outfield and at second base, with his marks at other positions coming in around average.
He’s hit 35 home runs in his 1,073 plate appearances and also stolen 65 bases. His 30% strikeout rate is certainly on the high side, but he’s also drawn walks at a strong 10% rate and has a career batting line of .208/.317/.384. That production has amounted to a wRC+ of 100, indicating he’s been exactly league average at the plate for his career. That performance at the plate has been fairly inconsistent, with Moore hitting very well in 2020 but following it up with a rough showing the year after. His .255/.358/.496 batting line in the shortened season led to a 140 wRC+ but he hit just .181/.276/.334 in 2021 for a wRC+ of 74. It’s possible that a lot of bad luck was hounding him that year, as he had just a .229 batting average on balls in play, almost 100 points shy of the year prior. He put that misfortune behind him with a strong .224/.368/.385 line last year for a 126 wRC+.
Moore first qualified for arbitration a year ago and earned a salary of $1.35MM. For the upcoming season, he was projected to get a bump to $2MM by MLBTR contributor Matt Swartz but he and the club couldn’t come to an agreement prior to the filing deadline a few weeks ago. He submitted a figure of $2.25MM with the club filing at $1.9MM, though they’ve now agreed to a longer commitment instead of going to a hearing over that difference. Since he was a late bloomer, he didn’t make it to the big leagues until he was 26 and wasn’t slated to reach the open market until after his 32nd birthday, but he’s carved a role for himself in Seattle and found a way to lock in some sizeable earnings.
Moore underwent surgery in the offseason to address a core injury that he sustained at the end of last season. That procedure came with a 6-8 week recovery estimate, indicating Moore should be good to go for the upcoming season. Mariners president of baseball operations Jerry Dipoto recently revealed that Moore might be slightly behind his teammates when Spring Training begins, but it doesn’t seem as though the club has any significant concerns about Moore’s health, given their investment in him.
He might not have a direct path to regular playing time at the moment, but given his ability to play just about anywhere, he will surely find a way in there as injuries and underperformance will inevitably crop up somewhere. The regular infield alignment for the M’s will likely have Ty France at first, Kolten Wong at second, J.P. Crawford at shortstop and Eugenio Suarez at third. The outfield mix includes Julio Rodríguez in center, with Teoscar Hernández, AJ Pollock, Jarred Kelenic and Taylor Trammell candidates for time in the corners or as the designated hitter. Tommy La Stella, Sam Haggerty and Moore should all be on the roster as well, filling in at various spots as needed.
Cal Raleigh Underwent Offseason Thumb Surgery
Mariners catcher Cal Raleigh revealed in October that he had been playing through a broken thumb and a torn ligament in his left hand. At the time, it wasn’t known what course of action would be required in the offseason, but Adam Jude of The Seattle Times reports that Raleigh underwent surgery in the offseason. It’s unknown exactly when the procedure took place, but Ryan Divish of The Seattle Times reports that Raleigh caught a bullpen for Marco Gonzales yesterday in Arizona.
Raleigh, 26, made his debut in 2021 with a paltry .180/.223/.309 showing in 47 games. He was even worse at the start of 2022, hitting .083/.214/.208 a few weeks into the season when the club optioned him to the minors at the end of April. Just over a week later, Tom Murphy suffered a significant injury when he dislocated his shoulder, leading to Raleigh getting recalled back to the big league club.
From that point on, however, Raleigh seemed to find his power stroke in a big way. He hit 26 home runs between that recall in May and the end of the season, slashing .220/.289/.509 during that time. His 29.2% strikeout rate was certainly on the high side, but the power was enough for him to produce a 127 wRC+, indicating he was 27% better than the league average hitter in that stretch. The thumb injury reportedly occurred in early September but didn’t seem to dampen his output, as he hit seven homers in September, one in October and then another in the postseason.
He was also graded well on the other side of the ball, with 14 Defensive Runs Saved on the season, trailing only Jose Trevino and Adley Rutschman. Both FanGraphs and Baseball Prospectus gave him positive grades for his framing work as well. Those all-around contributions led to 4.2 wins above replacement, per the calculations of FanGraphs.
It’s unclear if the recovery from that surgery will impede his readiness for 2023 in any way, but the fact that he’s already catching bullpens suggests that he’s at least close to full health. That’s surely a good sign for the M’s, though they might be okay even if Raleigh were to need some down time. It was recently reported that Murphy is back to health after not returning from that shoulder dislocation last year.
That could give the Mariners two strong options behind the plate, as Murphy has been a great hitter when healthy. He launched 18 home runs in 2019 and hit .273/.324/.535 for a wRC+ of 126. A fractured metatarsal in his left foot wiped out his 2020 and he was subpar offensively in 2021, but he was on fire last year before the injury. He hit .303/.439/.455 for a wRC+ of 168 before hitting the injured list.
Teams in recent years have seemingly been moving away from having a clear starting catcher and a backup, preferring to have two backstops sharing the time somewhat equally. Having Raleigh and Murphy both healthy would be a great situation for the Mariners in that sense, especially with Murphy hitting right-handed and Raleigh being a switch-hitter. 24 of his homers last year came as a lefty, though he walked way more from the other side.
Should either of them need any help with the workload behind the plate, Cooper Hummel is also on the 40-man while Jacob Nottingham and Brian O’Keefe will be in camp as non-roster invitees.
Red Sox Notes: Barnes, Bleier, Paxton, Bello, Pivetta
The Red Sox made a change to their bullpen earlier this week, shipping out Matt Barnes to the Marlins for Richard Bleier. Boston reportedly paid down around $5.5MM to facilitate that deal, a testament to Barnes’ struggles since he signed a two-year, $18.75MM extension in July 2021.
That trade came a few days after the Sox had designated Barnes for assignment, a move that registered as a surprise even given the righty’s uneven past year and a half. The UCONN product had spent his entire career with the Red Sox since being drafted in the first round in 2011, and he indicated he was taken aback by the DFA.
“It was a complete blindside,” Barnes told reporters (including Chris Cotillo of MassLive) about being taken off the 40-man roster. While he indicated he doesn’t have any animosity about his time in Boston, Barnes also intimated he wasn’t enamored with his usage last season. By the second week of May, he was deployed mostly in low-leverage situations. Between May 6 and 30, he was called upon ten times. Seven of those contests saw the Sox either trailing late or leading a blowout contest, with Barnes relegated to mop-up work.
“We got to a point in the season where we were either blowing people out or losing a game and unfortunately for me, those are the games I was throwing at that point,” he said. “My workload in the games increased along with the amount of work I was doing to get back to what was normal for me. That’s when my shoulder flared up.” Barnes hit the injured list retroactive to May 31 with shoulder inflammation, an injury that kept him out of action until early August.
Of course, the lack of high-leverage work was in response to Barnes’ struggles. He’d been tagged for an 8.65 ERA in 10 appearances through May 5. That was on the heels of a 6.48 showing in the second half of 2021 that led the Sox to leave him off the playoff roster. He actually fared quite well to close out the 2022 campaign, posting a 1.66 ERA in 23 games to finish out the year. That wasn’t enough to grab a lasting 40-man spot over the winter, perhaps due to a still diminished 21.7% strikeout rate in that stretch.
Red Sox’s chief baseball officer Chaim Bloom discussed the Barnes DFA and subsequent trade on the Fenway Rundown podcast with Cotillo yesterday. Bloom noted that trading Barnes to Miami was “not something that we knew was going to happen at the time of the DFA,” suggesting the opportunity to make the trade arose after the reliever lost his roster spot. He pointed to Bleier’s propensity for weak contact and previous success in the AL East as a member of the Yankees and Orioles as reasons he was an appealing target for the front office.
Bleier adds a second left-hander to the Boston relief corps, joining offseason signee Joely Rodríguez. The Sox had a decent amount of turnover in that regard, waiving Darwinzon Hernández, trading Josh Taylor for Adalberto Mondesi, and seeing Matt Strahm depart via free agency. Boston has starting pitching prospects like Chris Murphy and Brandon Walter who could theoretically factor into that mix after securing 40-man roster spots.
James Paxton is another southpaw on the roster. He’s pitched just six MLB games over the past three seasons due to arm injuries. That’s raised some speculation about the possibility of the veteran seeing action in relief as a means of building his innings gradually. Bloom didn’t rule that out entirely, though he cautioned that might not be prudent for a pitcher who has started all 137 of his career big league outings.
“At the stage of his career that he’s at and having been through as much medically as he’s been through, adding the variable of asking him to do something he hasn’t really done is something we would have to think long and hard before doing,” Bloom told Cotillo. “That doesn’t rule it out, but you do have to factor that in.”
The Boston baseball operations leader also pushed back against the possibility of using young righty Brayan Bello out of the bullpen, pointing to his “ceiling of being a really good starting pitcher.” Bloom did note that Boston could “creatively” manage workloads early in the season but made clear the team still views Bello’s future as a starter. Jen McCaffrey of the Athletic writes there’s similarly no consideration of moving Nick Pivetta to the bullpen. Between that trio, Chris Sale, offseason signee Corey Kluber and the rotation conversion for Garrett Whitlock, it seems things are trending towards Tanner Houck sticking in relief for the upcoming season.
Extension Candidate: Dylan Cease
A few weeks back, White Sox pitcher Dylan Cease was speaking with members of the media, including Scott Merkin of MLB.com. Cease indicated that he would be open to a long-term deal with the Sox but that there were no ongoing extension talks he was aware of. “I would always be open to something that’s a fair, good deal,” he said.
It’s possible the sides have started the talks in the weeks since that statement was made. Whether negotiations are taking place or not, there would be good reasons for the Sox to try. For one thing, Cease has emerged as one of the better pitchers in the league. Over the past two seasons, he’s made 64 starts and tossed 349 2/3 innings with a 3.01 ERA. His 10% walk rate in that time is a bit above average, but he paired that with a 31.1% strikeout rate. That ERA was the 11th-best among all qualified starters in that time and the strikeout rate was fourth, trailing only Gerrit Cole, Corbin Burnes and Max Scherzer.
Keeping that ace-level performance around is obviously appealing in a vacuum, but it would also make sense for a club with little long-term certainty in their rotation. Lucas Giolito is currently slated to reach free agency after the upcoming season. Lance Lynn is also in the last guaranteed year of his contract. The club has an $18MM option over his services for 2024 with a $1MM buyout, but it’s not a lock to be picked up. Lynn is about to turn 36 and missed a few months last year due to knee surgery. He’ll have to stay healthy and effective in 2023 for the Sox to want him back at that price point for his age-37 campaign. Michael Kopech can be controlled via arbitration through 2025 but his own injury issues and opting out of 2020 have limited him to just 203 career innings since debuting in 2018, making him a bit tough to project right now. Mike Clevinger is on a one-year deal and is under investigation after domestic violence allegations were made against him.
There’s also not an obvious wave of talent coming from the farm to replace those guys in the immediate future. The club’s system isn’t terribly well regarded overall, with Baseball America recently ranking them 24th in the league, MLB.com 26th and FanGraphs 27th. Most of their top prospects are position players while many of the starters on the prospect lists are young and likely a few years away from making it to the majors.
That doesn’t necessarily create urgency around locking up Cease, since he’s still under club control for the upcoming season and two more, set to reach free agency after 2025. However, he is starting to increase his earning power. He reached arbitration for the first time this winter and agreed with the club on a $5.7MM salary for 2023, with further raises to come in the two following seasons. As players approach the open market, it usually takes more money to convince them to spurn that opportunity in favor of sticking with their current club. That might be especially true in the case of Cease, since he also got some extra financial security from the new collective bargaining agreement. The CBA that was just agreed to in March featured a new $50MM bonus pool to be dispersed to the best pre-arbitration players in the league each season. In the inaugural year of that new feature, Cease was the player who got the biggest piece of that pie, getting just under $2.5MM.
As mentioned, Cease is three years from the open market. He just turned 27 in December, meaning he’ll be a free agent between his age-29 and age-30 seasons. The most recent comparison for a player in this position who signed an extension into his free agent years is Sandy Alcantara. In November 2021, he and the Marlins agreed to a five-year, $56MM extension with a club option for a sixth season. He was also in between three and four years of service time, though he was one year younger than Cease is now, having just turned 26. That deal was somewhat similar to one signed about three years earlier when Aaron Nola and the Phillies agreed to a four-year, $45MM extension with a club option. Nola was just 25 at the time but about to turn 26 in the early parts of the 2019 campaign.
Nola had posted a 2.89 ERA over 380 1/3 innings in the previous two seasons. His 26.8% strikeout rate was below what Cease has done recently but his 7% walk rate was much better and his 50.2% ground ball rate much stronger than Cease’s 36.1%. Over 2019-21, Alcantara posted a 3.48 ERA over 445 innings, striking out 21.2% of batters faced while walking 7.9% and getting grounders at a 48.9% clip. He was worth 7.4 fWAR in those two-plus seasons, while Nola was worth 10 fWAR in 2017-18. Cease has been in a similar range recently, with 8.9 fWAR accrued in the past two years.
Getting an extension done with Cease in the next month or two would likely require a similar deal to what Alcantara and Nola got, but the price would quickly jump if the Sox wait. Jacob deGrom signed an extension with the Mets when he was between four and five years of service time. That was a four-year deal with a $120.5MM guarantee, which was on top of the $17MM salary he had already agreed to for 2019. deGrom was on another planet in terms of performance, having just produced 9.0 fWAR in 2018, but it shows how quickly earning power ramps up. For guys between five and six years of service time, recent deals include the five-year, $100MM deal for Joe Musgrove, seven years and $131MM for José Berríos, and five years and $85MM for Lance McCullers Jr.
The White Sox have done some notable extensions in recent years, but of a different flavor to these. They extended Tim Anderson, Luis Robert, Eloy Jiménez and Yoán Moncada not too long ago, but those were all position players who were still in their pre-arbitration years or yet to even debut in the majors. Their most notable recent extensions for pitchers have gone to Aaron Bummer, who is a reliever and was still in his pre-arbitration seasons then, and Lynn, who was a couple of months from free agency but 34 years old at the time.
Of all those extensions, the highest guarantee was the $70MM that went to Moncada back in March 2020. It’s possible they could get something done with Cease now and stay under that line, but waiting another year would push them beyond that comfort zone as long as Cease has another healthy and effective season. The club’s long-term payroll is fairly open, with Yasmani Grandal also set to reach free agency after this year alongside Giolito and perhaps Lynn. By 2025, the only players guaranteed salaries are Robert and Andrew Benintendi, though there will be club options for Moncada, Jiménez and Bummer to be considered. Taking all that into account, perhaps it’s time for the Sox to pick up the phone and start talking to Cease, if they haven’t already.
Mariners Win Arbitration Case Against Diego Castillo
The Mariners have won their arbitration case with reliever Diego Castillo, reports Mark Feinsand of MLB.com (Twitter link). He’ll be paid at the team’s filing rate of $2.95MM rather than his camp’s requested $3.225MM figure.
Castillo has played a season and a half in the Pacific Northwest. Acquired from the Rays at the 2021 trade deadline, he’s provided the M’s with 76 1/3 innings of 3.42 ERA ball. That includes a 3.64 mark over 54 1/3 frames last season, with the big righty striking out a solid 23.9% of opponents against a slightly elevated 9.9% walk percentage. That’s not quite the level he’d managed during his best seasons in Tampa Bay but has still made him a solid high-leverage option for manager Scott Servais.
He’ll again take on some key innings as part of what should be another strong Seattle relief unit. Andrés Muñoz, Paul Sewald, Penn Murfee and Matt Brash are among the other righties who could log key work. The M’s don’t have an established left-hander in the group — offseason waiver claims Tayler Saucedo and Gabe Speier are the only two lefty relievers on the 40-man roster — but the unit was nevertheless among the league’s top ten in both ERA and strikeout percentage last season.
Castillo has between four and five years of MLB service time. He’ll be eligible for arbitration again next winter before qualifying for free agency over the 2024-25 offseason, at which point he’ll be entering his age-31 season. Seattle still has pending arbitration hearings with Teoscar Hernández and Dylan Moore.
Mariners, Kyle Tyler Agree To Minor League Contract
The Mariners are signing reliever Kyle Tyler to a minor league deal, MLBTR has learned. The Nello Gamberdino client hit free agency last summer after being released by the Giants.
Tyler’s name frequented the MLBTR pages last offseason. The right-hander bounced around to a number of teams in rapid succession, essentially serving as the 41st man on a handful of clubs’ rosters. A career-long member of the Angels through the lockout, he lost his 40-man spot with Anaheim during Spring Training. Within a few weeks, he’d go to the Red Sox, Padres, back to the Angels and then back to the Padres via waivers.
While Tyler held a 40-man spot in San Diego into early June, he was again designated for assignment at that point. He finally cleared waivers and was outrighted to Triple-A. The Padres re-selected him onto the roster within a few days, then waived him again a couple weeks thereafter. Tyler cleared and became a minor league free agent (as was his right after a second career outright assignment) and signed a non-roster deal with the Giants. He made only four Triple-A appearances in the San Francisco organization before being released.
It was a circuitous route, one Tyler acknowledged at the time wasn’t a particularly pleasant experience. The 26-year-old got into just two MLB games last year, both with San Diego. He spent the majority of the season with the Friars’ top affiliate in El Paso, posting a 4.98 ERA through 21 2/3 innings of relief. He struck out 29% of batters faced with an excellent 58.7% grounder percentage for the Chihuahuas, though he also walked over 20% of opponents.
The free passes were uncharacteristic, as Tyler had never previously walked more than 8.6% of batters faced at a minor league stop. Prospect evaluators had pointed to his above-average control in pegging him as a potential depth starter, though he’s settled into a relief role for the past couple seasons.
Tyler joins Taylor Williams, Casey Sadler, Riley O’Brien and José Rodríguez as righty relievers with MLB experience who’ll serve as non-roster depth options for the Mariners. The M’s have a very deep bullpen that isn’t likely to afford many early opportunities to that group. Tyler will likely start the year at Triple-A Tacoma and try to vie for a midseason job. He still has two option years remaining, so the M’s could shuttle him between Seattle and Tacoma if he secures a 40-man roster spot.