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Mets Sign Ervin Santana

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The Mets announced Friday that they’ve agreed to terms with right-hander Ervin Santana on a minor league contract. The deal is still pending a physical. Assuming he passes that test, he’d head to Port St. Lucie to begin building his arm strength back up.

Santana, 36, missed nearly all of the 2018 season after undergoing surgery to repair a tendon in his right middle finger just prior to Spring Training, and the Twins declined a $14MM option on him last November. He signed a minor league pact with the White Sox this offseason but was released after just three unsuccessful starts with the team.

Despite the poor showing in 2018-19, Santana was a consistently and perhaps quietly effective mainstay in the Twins’ rotation in the preceding three seasons. From 2015-17, he pitched to a 3.47 ERA with 7.2 K/9 against 2.7 BB/9 and even was named to the American League All-Star team in 2017. That year, he racked up 211 1/3 innings, tossed five complete games (three shutouts) and finished out the season with a strong 3.28 earned run average.

The Mets’ rotation hasn’t performed as well as hoped in 2019, and while no one would reasonably expect Santana to return to his 2017 levels, he could eventually push Jason Vargas for the fifth spot in the rotation. He’s gone more than a month without pitching since being cut loose by the ChiSox, so he’ll need some time to build up, though. If nothing else, he’ll eventually serve as a depth option in the event of an injury at the big league level. New York has been using Wilmer Font in that role but has received just 10 1/3 innings of 7.84 ERA ball in three starts since trading a low-level minor leaguer for him.

Corey Dickerson To Begin Rehab Assignment

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The Pirates have been without Corey Dickerson since April 4 due to a shoulder strain, but the outfielder is expected to begin a rehab assignment with Pittsburgh’s Triple-A affiliate this evening, per a team announcement.

It’s certainly welcome news for the Pirates, although the Pittsburgh outfield has been surprisingly productive even without Dickerson’s bat in the middle of the lineup. Melky Cabrera, signed to a minor league contract in the offseason, has given the Bucs a surprisingly strong .333/.370/.464 slash with three homers and nine doubles in 147 trips to the plate. In the other outfield corner, Gregory Polanco has turned in a similarly strong .278/.343/.522 slash and belted five long balls in 99 plate appearances since his own return from the injured list. Even rookie Bryan Reynolds has been brilliant since debuting earlier this season. In 89 plate appearances, the switch-hitter has a .321/.382/.568 slash with four homers and eight walks against 19 strikeouts.

If there’s been any weak spot in the outfield, it’s been in center, where Starling Marte has hit just .244/.275/.415 in 172 plate appearances. Marte is still hitting for power, playing solid defense and providing value on the basepaths, but he’s drawn only three walks all year. The decline in on-base skills hasn’t been accompanied by an uptick in strikeouts, but Marte’s apparent impatience at the dish, paired with some poor luck on balls in play, has weighed down his overall output.

It’s not clear how long Dickerson will need on his rehab assignment, but the strong production the Pirates have received in the corners suggests they won’t feel an urgency to rush him back. How he’ll fit into the lineup is a greater question. Dickerson, 30, slashed .300/.330/.474 in 533 plate appearances last season and will presumably be a prominent figure in the outfield once he’s at full strength. Cabrera seems likeliest for a reduced role, given that he’s playing on a minor league deal and his offense has slipped a bit over the past couple of weeks anyhow. Regardless of how the playing time shakes out, the Pirates will file it under the “good problem to have” category. Dickerson’s return will only deepen the outfield/bench mix for a Pirates club that, at 25-22, sits 3.5 games back in the NL Central and just one game back in the Wild Card race.

For Dickerson himself, a productive return will be of particular importance. He entered the season with five-plus years of Major League service time and is slated to become a free agent for the first time in his career this coming offseason.

Royals Assign Drew Storen To Double-A

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Drew Storen’s comeback bid took another step forward this week, as the Royals have assigned him to Double-A Northwest Arkansas, per Paul Boyd of the Northwest Arkansas Democrat-Gazette (Twitter link). Storen, who signed a minor league contract back in February, opened the season building up arm strength in extended Spring Training with the Royals.

It’s been nearly 21 months since Storen set foot on a Major League mound. The longtime Nationals reliever spent the 2017 season with the Reds but made his final appearance on Sept. 1 that year, learning two weeks later that he would require Tommy John surgery. The timing of that procedure unsurprisingly wiped out his entire 2018 season and relegated interest in him to minor league offerings this past winter.

At his best, Storen sat near 95 mph with his fastball and demonstrated above-average swinging-strike, ground-ball and walk rates while serving as the Nationals’ closer. A former first-round draft pick, the now-31-year-old Storen owns a career 3.45 ERA with 99 saves, 8.5 K/9, 2.7 BB/9, 0.78 HR/9 and a 46.1 percent ground-ball rate. His results dropped off in 2016-17 in a pair of mediocre seasons split between the Blue Jays, Mariners and Reds, as his fastball experienced a precipitous decline (90.2 mph average in 2017).

It’ll be interesting to keep an eye on Storen’s progress and velocity as he begins to work at the minor league level. There’s ample space in the Kansas City bullpen should he either restore some of that lost life on his heater or simply demonstrate an ability to work with a diminished fastball. Despite strong showings from Scott Barlow, Jake Diekman and a revitalized Ian Kennedy, Royals relievers as a collective unit rank 25th in the Majors in ERA (4.98), 22nd in FIP (4.58) and 18th in xFIP (4.55).

Diamondbacks To Promote Kevin Cron

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The Diamondbacks are promoting corner infield prospect Kevin Cron to the Majors, reports John Gambadoro of 98.7 Arizona Sports (Twitter link). The Arizona Republic’s Nick Piecoro had previously reported that the move was “on the verge” of happening.

Kevin Cron | Mark J. Rebilas-USA TODAY Sports

Cron, 26, is the younger brother of Twins first baseman C.J. Cron. While he wasn’t a first-round pick like his older brother and didn’t even check in among the Top 30 prospects in Arizona’s system on the preseason rankings of MLB.com, Baseball America or Fangraphs, it’s become increasingly difficult to ignore the ludicrous numbers he’s posted with Triple-A Reno. It’s well known that the Pacific Coast League (Reno in particular) is a hitters’ haven, but belting 21 homers in 199 plate appearances is worthy of attention regardless of environment. Those 21 long balls lead all of Minor League Baseball.

The younger Cron brother has long been a productive hitter, but his offensive game has skyrocketed to new levels this season. Beyond the ridiculous home run count, he’s upped his walk rate from 8.2 percent in 2018 to 13.6 percent in 2019 while simultaneously cutting his strikeout rate from 22.8 percent to 16.6 percent. The result is a .339/.437/.800 batting line that looks like it was plucked straight out of a video game. Carrying that output over to the big league level, of course, is an entirely new task, but given the struggles that the Diamondbacks have had in scoring runs over the past couple of weeks, it’s understandable that they’ve decided to see if Cron is up to the challenge.

Arizona’s offense jumped out to a hot start in 2019, buoyed by strong early showings from Adam Jones, Christian Walker, Ketel Marte and others. Those three bats have fallen cold in recent weeks, however, as has the D-backs’ offense as a whole. Since racking up 26 runs in a three-game series in Colorado early in May, the Diamondbacks have scored 59 runs in 16 games — a much more pedestrian average of about 3.6 runs per contest. They’ve scored just 12 runs in total over the course of a current five-game losing streak that dropped them from possession of an NL Wild Card spot to a 2.5-game deficit in said race.

Cron can step in and give the struggling Walker (.148/.223/.259 in 60 PAs since that Colorado series) a breather at first base. He also has 600 innings of experience at third base, so he could slot in there on occasion and allow the versatile Eduardo Escobar to play shortstop or second base for a day — or simply give Escobar himself a break. The D-backs don’t have any interleague series on the schedule until June 7, but if Cron sticks on the roster they’ll have a DH spot to work with for a three-game set in Toronto that weekend as well.

Neil Ramirez Accepts Outright Assignment With Indians

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Reliever Neil Ramirez will remain in the Indians organization after he cleared outright waivers but accepted an assignment to Triple-A. The club announced the move.

Ramirez avoided arbitration with the Indians over the offseason, striking a $1MM deal. That contract helps explain why he would agree to stick around rather than heading out in search of a better opportunity. With more than three but less than five years of service, he can choose free agency but would have to give up the remaining guarantee to do so.

Of course, it’s also true that the Cleveland organization helped Ramirez revive what had been a moribund career. He had bounced around quite a bit before settling in with the Indians and throwing 41 2/3 innings of 4.54 ERA ball last year.

Ramirez, who turns 30 on Saturday, struggled out of the gates in 2019. His home run issues from a year ago deepened, as he allowed five in 16 2/3 innings. He’s still producing a healthy 14.3% swinging-strike rate and working in the mid-nineties with his fastball, but clearly needs to tune things up if he’s to get back to being a productive MLB reliever.

Brewers Face Decision On Jimmy Nelson

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The Brewers are deciding how to proceed with righty Jimmy Nelson after he completed his fourth rehab appearance at Triple-A today. Skipper Craig Counsell has suggested the club would reach its decision on how to utilize Nelson after today’s outing, Tom Haudricourt of the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel notes on Twitter.

Nelson didn’t exactly finish with a bang. As Jerry Briggs of MiLB.com tweets, the rehabbing righty pitched fine until he was undone by a sloppy fifth inning. In total, Nelson has thrown 19 innings at Triple-A, allowing ten earned runs while compiling 22 strikeouts against nine walks. That certainly isn’t a dominant performance, but it’s encouraging to see that he has been generally effective against high-level competition.

It seems likely that Nelson will celebrate his upcoming thirtieth birthday in the majors. Though he still has time on his rehab clock — having begun his assignment on May 5th, his thirty days won’t expire until June 3rd — Counsell says the time has come for a decision after a long road back. The next pitch Nelson throws in the big leagues will be his first since late in the 2017 season, as he has been working back from labrum surgery since going down with injury late in what had been a stellar campaign.

Whether Nelson will work as a starter or reliever remains to be seen. The Milwaukee rotation isn’t desperate for reinforcement but also doesn’t have much in the way of roadblocks. Chase Anderson and Jhoulys Chacin appear to be most at risk among the current starters, but there are reasons also to keep both in a starting capacity.

In a sense, the decision seems to be more about Nelson than it is the rest of the staff. If the club thinks he’s back to anything approaching his former self and can handle a starter’s workload (even a reduced version thereof), then there’s little doubt the space can be found. Anderson hasn’t worked deep in games and could be moved back to a long relief capacity, joining a few other converted starters in an interesting bullpen mix.

Utilizing Nelson as a reliever would be something else entirely. Whether the lack of routine would be problematic is tough to guess, but he’d obviously be tasked with throwing fewer innings after a lengthy layoff.

No matter the initial decision, the Brewers will surely keep their options open over the course of the season and beyond. Nelson is earning $3.7MM this year with one final season of arbitration eligibility still to come thereafter.

10 Low-Cost MLB Deals Paying Dividends

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We’ve spent some time looking at one-year MLB deals recently, with separate posts checking in on the highest-paid position players, starters, and relievers. More often than not, the results have been underwhelming for those players. There’s still time for turnarounds, but we’re already one quarter of the way through the full duration of those contracts.

Scan a bit further down the list in terms of dollars promised, however, and you’ll find some more promising outcomes. Indeed, quite a few players earning relative peanuts on one-year MLB contracts are turning in downright excellent results. (Note: we’re talking about deals that were guaranteed at the time of signing, not minor-league contracts.)

Here are the ten most impressive, ordered from most to least expensive:

Avisail Garcia, Rays, $3.5MM: An under-the-radar aspect of the Rays strong opening to the season has been the bargain-basement score of Garcia, who has stung the ball early on. He’s humming along at a .283/.343/.507 clip with eight long balls and three steals through 166 plate appearances. Contact quality will probably always be king for Garcia, who isn’t especially strikeout prone but doesn’t walk much. What’s he doing differently? I’m not exactly sure, but he’s barreling the baseball far more (14.3%) than ever before and is underperforming against Statcast’s expectations (.360 wOBA vs. .385 xwOBA).

Jonathan Lucroy, Angels, $3.35MM: The venerable backstop had fallen on hard times over the past two seasons. It was most noticeable at the plate, where the long-productive hitter fell into a deep hole, but the former pitch-framing posterboy also stopped winning strikes for his pitchers. The bounceback has been a rare bright spot in Anaheim, as Lucroy is slashing .265/.326/.439 and once again earning strong marks for his receiving ability behind the dish.

Adam Jones, Diamondbacks, $3MM: The esteemed veteran was all but frozen out of the free agent market this winter until the D-Backs came along with a decent offer. Jones hasn’t exactly morphed into a star, but he’s providing strong offensive output in an everyday role. Through 202 plate appearances, he’s slashing .265/.323/.476 with nine dingers, which is a rather vintage performance at the dish. That sort of production played better back when Jones was capable of playing center, but it’s good value regardless for a player who’s also a plus in the clubhouse.

James McCann, White Sox, $2.5MM: Perhaps the biggest surprise on this list when you look only at the top-line numbers, the younger of the two catching McCanns has been utterly on fire to open the season. He’s slashing a heretofore unheard of .340/.381/.538 in 113 plate appearances. Yeah, yeah … it’s not full-time action. And the regression warning lights are flashing, with a .421 BABIP and -.061 x/wOBA imbalance. McCann is also not getting the ravest of reviews in the framing arena. Still, at this cost, there’s no cause whatsoever for complaint. Bonus: McCann is arb eligible this fall.

Jordan Lyles, Pirates, $2.05MM: Many Pirates fans rolled their eyes and scoffed at this signing, and not without reason. It’s nice to find great value, but was Lyles really a buy-low candidate or just a cheap fill-in piece for a team that should be spending more? He has been one of the most cost-efficient starters in baseball thus far, providing 45 2/3 frames of sub-2.00 ERA ball in eight starts. His peripherals (9.3 K/9, 3.2 BB/9, 43.0% GB%, 0.79 HR/9) don’t scream “ace,” but they do suggest he has been quite strong thus far. There’s good reason to think that Lyles has finally found himself after so many missed opportunities, with the Bucs benefiting.

Brian McCann, Braves, $2MM: The original behind-the-dish McCann hasn’t been flashy but has delivered everything the Braves hoped for when they brought him back to town. He’s producing right at the league average offensively through 92 plate appearances, grinding out tough at-bats by walking nearly as often as he’s striking out. The grizzled veteran is obviously valued as much or more for his ability to work with pitchers and nurture a youthful clubhouse as he is for his on-field contributions. It seems fair to say this is working out quite nicely thus far.

Neil Walker, Marlins, $2MM: If you look back at Walker’s career numbers, his rough 2018 season stands out as an outlier. Typically a steady producer at the plate, Walker looked like much the same hitter as ever but suffered from an unseasonably low .257 batting average on balls in play. This year, the BABIP gods have repaid him with a .363 mark, and his output has risen to a strong .290/.371/.427 level. Walker is helping hold down the fort for now in Miami but seems like a rather likely mid-season trade piece, as he ought to be able to help out a contending team as a multi-position infielder.

Blake Parker, Twins, $1.8MM: The Angels would take a do-over on their non-tender decision, as Parker has turned in 16 1/3 innings of 1.10 ERA ball for a bargain rate of pay. True, he’s carrying just 6.6 K/9 with 3.9 BB/9, but his strong 56.1% groundball rate is a nice base to work from. There’s really no reason to think that Parker will keep up the immaculate results, as he’s highly unlikely to carry a .195 BABIP and 96.2% strand rate all year long. Still, he has saved eight games for the streaking Twins and now seems to be a key part of the bullpen picture for a surefire postseason team. Parker is also eligible to be tendered a contract through arbitration one more time this fall.

Tim Beckham, Mariners, $1.75MM: It was a crafty move for M’s GM Jerry Dipoto to double down on the buy-low middle infielders. After acquiring J.P. Crawford, he grabbed a seat-warmer/bounceback piece in Beckham. That combination spread the bets and boosted the upside potential. It has been a hit so far, with Crawford hitting well at Triple-A and Beckham showing big thus far in the majors. Through 171 plate appearances, the former first overall pick owns a .259/.316/.506 slash with nine long balls. Regression may well be in store — Beckham is striking out at a 29.2% clip and hasn’t sustained prior breakouts — but it’s nice to have the production for the time being and he could still be flipped via trade or tendered for 2020.

Brett Anderson, Athletics, $1.5MM: You have to tip your cap to Anderson, who’s still pushing to get to the mound despite a lengthy run of injury woes. He has been able to stay active this year, turning in ten starts and 54 1/3 badly needed innings for the pitching-starved A’s, who brought him back on a late-breaking deal. Anderson isn’t exactly shoving, with a 4.14 ERA and just 4.6 K/9 against 3.3 BB/9 along with a sturdy 51.9% groundball rate, but thus far he’s tamping down the long balls and doing just enough to succeed. Not convinced of the value? Just take a look at the return other teams have received on higher-priced, one-year starters.

Phillies Weighing Rotation Change

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As the Phillies seek to map out a pitching plan that keeps them on top of the National League East, they’re preparing for a rotation change. The team is presently deciding whether to return Nick Pivetta or Vince Velasquez to the starting five in time to take the ball next Tuesday, manager Gabe Kapler told reporters including Jim Salisbury of NBC Sports Philadelphia (via Twitter).

Both of those talented but uneven hurlers opened the year in the rotation, but the ground has shifted in the two months since. Pivetta was hit hard in four starts and ended up being optioned back down to figure things out. Velasquez has been shelved with a forearm strain for a few weeks.

In their absence, the Phillies brought in some new arms. Jerad Eickhoff came first; he has firmly laid claim to a job. The same can’t be said of Cole Irvin, who’ll now be bumped out of the group of five. Irvin was bombed in his third start of the year and is likely ticketed for a trip back to Triple-A on optional assignment.

In the aggregate, there’s one spot up for grabs. Pivetta’s claim to the role is simple: he has racked up fifty strikeouts and allowed just 22 hits in 37 Triple-A frames. The stuff is there. He’s also still not commanding the ball perfectly, as evidenced by his twenty walks in that same stretch against minor-league competition. Pivetta’s latest start wasn’t his sharpest effort, as Marc Narducci of the Philadelphia Inquirer reported.

Wandering command has also been an issue for Velasquez. He’s occasionally dominant but has never strung together an exceptional overall season. Velasquez owns a 3.86 ERA in 30 1/3 innings this year, but has been awfully homer- and walk-prone (with seven of the former and 15 of the latter).

Ultimately, both pitchers are sure to have an impact at the MLB level this year (presuming good health, at least). Perhaps both could ultimately be utilized in multi-inning roles other than those of a traditional starter, whether in tandem with one another or in concert with other pitchers. There are plenty of creative possibilities.

For the time being, the Phils need to figure out which pitcher can best help the team rack up the wins it needs to fend off the divisional competition, all while assessing how best the roster can be improved in the summer trade market. Unless Pivetta or Velazquez takes the job and runs with it, there could be more tinkering to come.

Ian Kennedy, The Reliever, Is Interesting

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When the Royals moved Ian Kennedy to the bullpen, it seemed to mark a rock-bottom moment for the right-hander’s value. Kennedy was owed a total of $33MM from 2019-20 after a two-year stretch in which he logged a 5.06 ERA and 5.17 FIP. He was being taken out of a rebuilding team’s rotation in favor of Homer Bailey, another veteran whose underperforming contract was being paid off by another team.

Fast forward a couple of months, and not much has gone right with the Royals’ pitching staff, but the Kennedy bullpen experiment has been nothing short of excellent. While teams still won’t be interested in his contract, they may have interest in acquiring Kennedy if the Royals are willing to pay down some of the salary.

It’s only 19 2/3 innings, but Kennedy has a 3.20 ERA with a 23-to-2 K/BB ratio and a 47 percent ground-ball rate out of the bullpen. His average fastball has jumped from 91.9 mph to 93.4 mph now that he’s working in short stints. Perhaps there’s reason to be skeptical of the strikeout rate given a lack of swinging strikes, but Kennedy is also among the league leaders in weak contact induced. Opponents are averaging just 84.7 mph in terms of exit velocity against him, and Statcast pegs his .266 expected weighted on-base average (xwOBA) in the 86th percentile league-wide.

Kennedy has dropped his changeup entirely in favor of a four-seam/curveball/cutter arsenal that has proven to be more effective than his prior pitch mix. While his curve has never been a source of many whiffs, Kennedy is suddenly sporting a 17.7 percent swinging-strike rate on the pitch — up substantially from the roughly nine percent mark he posted in the three prior seasons. He’s altered his release point on his curve and picked up more movement than he’s seen in recent seasons, which has not only led to misses but also quite a few more ground-balls (55 percent). Kennedy’s curve hasn’t generated great results yet (both the homers hit against him this season have come on the pitch) but the .444 average on balls in play opponents have recorded against that offering figures to regress.

Prior to Opening Day, Kennedy would’ve been the type of arm one would expect to receive a minor league contract and a Spring Training invite in a free-agent setting, but he now looks more like a reliever who’d command a reasonably significant big league deal. If he can sustain this output or even improve upon it, he could even be the type of pitcher who’d command a two-year pact in a theoretical open market. He doesn’t have the track record for clubs to look at him as a David Robertson/Andrew Miller type that’d make $11-12MM per year, but we’ve seen quite a few two-year deals in the $4-7MM annual salary range in recent offseasons — even for pitchers who don’t have lengthy track records (e.g. Jesse Chavez, Brandon Kintzler, Anthony Swarzak).

It’s suddenly not crazy to think that in a couple months’ time, teams could view Kennedy as reliever worth paying $5-7MM per season. Some teams may already be starting to think that way. If the Royals were willing to pay down $10-11MM of next season’s $16.5MM salary (and the prorated equivalent of that sum for the remainder of the 2019 campaign), Kennedy could suddenly be movable. Being movable is different than having much in the way of positive trade value, but the very fact that it appears possible is a nice, somewhat unexpected development for Kansas City.

And if the Royals were willing to pay down even more of that sum, perhaps they could pry a decent return out of the whole deal. No team is going to give up anything of value just for the right to pay Kennedy at what could be the high end of his market value, no matter how well he throws between now and July 31. If the Royals pay him down to the point where he’s only owed a couple million dollars in 2019 and 2020, though, surplus value could be created.

There has already been a bit of chatter involving Kennedy, though there’s no indication of actual trade talks. Recent suggestions of some type of deal involving Dominic Smith don’t make any sense to me, even if Smith is blocked by Pete Alonso in New York. But if Kennedy can sustain his bullpen renaissance — and the numbers suggest that he can — then the Royals can score some salary relief and maybe even a mid-range prospect or two this summer. This outcome isn’t what they were anticipating when they signed Kennedy, but it’s about as good as they could’ve hoped for when they moved him to the ’pen.

Yoenis Cespedes Undergoes Season-Ending Surgery

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The Mets announced Thursday that Yoenis Cespedes underwent surgery and is expected to miss the remainder of the 2019 season. Cespedes recently suffered multiple fractures in his right ankle after falling at his ranch in Port St. Lucie, Fla. Presumably, today’s procedure was tied to that injury, although the Mets’ press release did not specify anything beyond the simple fact that Cespedes had surgery.

Cespedes was never a lock to contribute to the Mets this season anyhow after undergoing surgery to alleviate calcification in both of his heels in 2018. The latter of those two surgeries was performed early in the offseason, and neither Cespedes nor the Mets had put a firm timeline on his recovery. This new injury renders any speculation about his recovery from heel surgery moot.

Now 33 years of age, Cespedes has only played in 119 games for the Mets since re-signing a four-year, $110MM contract in free agency. That deal wasn’t viewed as any sort of albatross at the time — Cespedes was coming off a .282/.348/.554 showing in 792 prior plate appearances with the Mets from 2015-16 — but injuries have turned the deal into a regrettable one. Cespedes has unquestionably been excellent when on the field in 2017-18, hitting .282/.343/.525 with 26 homers, but the Mets will get just 478 plate appearances out of him in the first three seasons of that nine-figure contract. It’s reportedly insured to an extent, so they won’t be out the full $29MM he’s owed in 2019, but it’s nevertheless an awful outcome for the club.

In an ideal world, Cespedes would be healthy and ready to go for Spring Training 2020, but the Mets didn’t offer any update on a potential timeline for his return. He’s owed $29.5MM next season in the final year of his contract.

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