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How They Were Acquired: Arizona Diamondbacks Wild Card Roster

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Fresh off a 93-loss season, the Diamondbacks weren’t a popular pick to make a postseason run in 2017. However, a bounceback from the biggest free-agent signing in franchise history (Zack Greinke), better health from star center fielder A.J. Pollock and breakouts from Robbie Ray, Zack Godley and Jake Lamb (among others) helped propel the team to a 93-win season in 2017.

First-year Diamondbacks execs Mike Hazen (general manager), Amiel Sawdaye (assistant GM) and Jared Porter (assistant GM) as well as the rest of the D-backs’ front office made some changes to the roster’s composition in the offseason, most notably shipping Jean Segura and Mitch Haniger to the Mariners in the swap that netted them Taijuan Walker and Ketel Marte. They were again active at the non-waiver deadline, adding arguably the most impactful trade pickup of the summer in J.D. Martinez. But by and large this is a team that looks fairly similar to the unit that underachieved in 2016. Here’s how they all came together…

[Related: Arizona Diamondbacks Depth Chart and Payroll Outlook]

The Diamondbacks likely feel more of a sense of urgency than some other clubs with younger cores. Martinez is set to hit free agency this winter, while Pollock will hit the open market next offseason. Greinke rebounded brilliantly in 2017 but still figures to decline over the final four years of his massive six-year deal, and Goldschmidt is presently controlled only through 2019.

That’s not to say that the D-backs don’t have a nice core of young talent, however. Lamb, Ray, Godley, Drury, Peralta and Bradley are among the quality young players that Arizona can control for a minimum of three more seasons, and the team’s payroll could have room to grow, as the massive television contract the D-backs signed in 2015 kicked in last season and will gradually provide increasingly larger revenues over its 15- to 20-year term.

White Sox Outright Five Players

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The White Sox announced Wednesday that they’ve outrighted catcher Rob Brantly, outfielder Rymer Liriano, left-hander David Holmberg and righties Chris Volstad and Brad Goldberg off the 40-man roster, dropping their 40-man count to 33 in the process. Brantly, Liriano, Holmberg and Volstad will all become free agents, while Goldberg (who lacks the service time of the other players) will stick with the ChiSox as a non-roster player.

Both Brantly and Holmberg were in their second stints with the White Sox organization. Brantly appeared in 14 games with the Pale Hose in both 2015 and 2017. spending a year as a member of the Reds organization in the interim. He’s a career .230/.294/.333 hitter in parts of four big league seasons.

Holmberg, meanwhile, was a second-round pick by the ChiSox back in 2009 but was traded to the D-backs along with Daniel Hudson in exchange for Edwin Jackson before ever appearing in Chicago. He tossed 57 2/3 innings for them this year after returning on a minor league deal, though, working to a 4.67 ERA. That was the most significant experience the 25-year-old has had in the Majors to date. Holmberg has struggled in 119 2/3 big league innings, pitching to a 5.49 ERA with more walks (69) than strikeouts (66).

Liriano, once a top prospect in the Padres organization, came to the Sox via waivers but put up uninspiring numbers between both Triple-A and the Majors. Even with a paltry .740 OPS in 500 Triple-A plate appearances this season, the 26-year-old is a lifetime .286/.365/.453 hitter in parts of three Triple-A campaigns.

Volstad’s return to the Majors was somewhat remarkable, as the 31-year-old entered the year with just 10 1/3 MLB innings under his belt dating back to the 2012 season. He didn’t perform especially well in either Triple-A Charlotte or in 19 1/3 innings with the Sox, but he could aim for a similar minor league opportunity this winter.

Goldberg, 27, was the White Sox’ 10th-round pick back in 2013 and debuted in the Majors this year with unsightly results. In 12 innings he was shelled for 11 runs on 14 hits and 14 walks with just three strikeouts. He did post a 3.35 ERA with a much more palatable 47-to-22 K/BB ratio in 40 1/3 Triple-A frames, however.

Reds Outright Asher Wojciechowski, Alejandro Chacin, Nick Travieso

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The Reds announced that they’ve outrighted right-handers Asher Wojciechowski, Alejandro Chacin and Nick Travieso off the 40-man roster after each of the three cleared waivers. Cincinnati also announced that righty Luke Farrell failed to clear waivers and was claimed by the division-rival Cubs. The cuts drop Cincinnati’s 40-man roster to a total of 36 players.

Wojciechowski, 28, logged the most time with the Reds this season, soaking up 62 1/3 innings for an injury-marred Reds staff that was one of the worst collective units in all of baseball. In his 25 appearances (eight of them starts), Wojciechowski was hit hard, logging a 6.50 earned run average. While his 9.2 K/9 and 2.7 BB/9 marks were solid, Wojciechowski was one of the more extreme fly-ball pitchers in baseball, inducing grounders at just a 29.1 percent clip as compared to a 51.1 percent fly-ball rate. While the 15.1 percent of Wojciechowski’s fly-balls that turned into homers is certainly an above-average rate, it’s not exorbitant by 2017 standards (league average was 13.7 percent). However, the sheer volume of fly-balls surrendered by Wojciechowski led to far too many long balls.

Chacin, 24, only pitched six innings for the Reds after having his contract selected in late August. The 24-year-old did post a 2.60 ERA through 69 1/3 innings of Triple-A ball this year, though, averaging 8.2 K/9 against 3.5 BB/9 with a 42.1 percent ground-ball clip in Louisville. That solid but not dominant performance apparently wasn’t enough to get him a look on another club’s 40-man roster, though, and he’ll now be able to explore other opportunities in minor league free agency.

The outright of Travieso is an unfortunate outcome for a player whom the Reds selected with the 14th overall pick of the 2012 draft. Travieso entered the year as a candidate to make his MLB debut at some point in 2017, but as Zach Buchanan of the Cincinnati Enquirer reported back in June, he required shoulder surgery that will sideline him for nine months. Travieso didn’t throw a pitch in the minors this year, though he did log a 3.84 ERA in 117 1/3 innings in Double-A as a 22-year-old last season.

Cubs Claim Luke Farrell From Reds, Designate Felix Pena

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The Cubs announced Wednesday that they’ve claimed right-hander Luke Farrell off waivers from the Reds and designated righty Felix Pena for assignment in order to clear a spot on the 40-man roster.

Farrell, whose father manages the Boston Red Sox, made his big league debut with the Royals in 2017 but has bounced from Kansas City to the Dodgers to the Reds to the Cubs in minor trades and waiver claims over the past several months. His lone outing in Kansas City produced nightmarish results (five runs on seven hits and three walks in 2 2/3 innings), but he enjoyed better success in a larger sample with Cincinnati. In 10 1/3 innings as a Red, he allowed three runs on just five hits, though he also walked seven in that time. Overall, Farrell’s first taste of the big leagues resulted in a 5.54 ERA and a 9-to-10 K/BB ratio in 13 innings.

Farrell has, however, produced solid Triple-A results in 2016-17, working to a combined 3.83 ERA with 8.5 K/9, 3.5 BB/9 and roughly a 36 percent ground-ball rate in 199 2/3 innings. He has a pair of minor league options remaining beyond this season, so if the Cubs choose to keep him on the roster this winter, they could option him to Triple-A Iowa next spring without first exposing him to waivers. Alternatively, the Cubs could try to pass Farrell through waivers themselves in hopes of retaining his arm as a depth piece without the need of committing a 40-man roster spot.

The 27-year-old Pena, meanwhile, averaged 93.4 mph on his heater in 34 1/3 innings with the Cubs this year. He also averaged a hearty 9.7 K/9 against a more troublesome 4.7 BB/9 and a sub-par 34.7 percent ground-ball rate en route to a 5.24 earned run average.

Rangers Pick Up Jeff Banister’s 2019 Option

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The Rangers announced that they have exercised their club option over manager Jeff Banister for the 2019 season. He was already under contract for next season.

Banister originally signed in advance of the 2015 season. He had agreed to a deal last winter in which the club picked up an original 2018 option and added a new option for the following season. This time around, it seems, no new option year was tacked on at the end. Nonetheless, he’ll head into the 2018 campaign with more job security as he looks to get the Rangers back to the postseason after coming up short in a 78-84 season in 2017 — the first losing season in his three-year tenure in Arlington.

Overall, Banister’s Rangers have performed well since he took the helm three years ago. The 53-year-old Banister helped Texas to an 88-74 record in his first season as a Major League manager, winning 2015 American League Manager of the Year honors in the process. The 2016 Rangers took another step forward with a 95-67 mark, capturing their second AL West crown in as many years under Banister. All told, Texas is 261-225 under his watch.

While the majority of Banister’s coaching staff will remain intact, the Rangers did shuffle up the staff a bit; bullpen coach Brad Holman will not have his 2018 club option exercised and won’t return to the organization next season. He’ll be replaced by Rangers first base coach Hector Ortiz, who will serve as both bullpen coach and catching instructor next season. Texas, it seems, will be on the lookout for a new first base coach to join Banister’s staff in the coming weeks, as no replacement for Ortiz was announced. The Rangers did announce that pitching coach Doug Brocail, third base coach Tony Beasley, bench coach Steve Buechele, hitting coach Anthony Iapoce and assistant hitting coach Justin Mashore will all return to the team in 2018.

Cardinals Interested In Japanese Closer Yoshihisa Hirano

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Intent on fortifying their bullpen for the 2018 season, the Cardinals have interest in Japanese closer Yoshihisa Hirano, reports Derrick Goold of the St. Louis Post Dispatch.

Set to turn 34 years of age next March, Hirano has long been a dominant closer in Japan, amassing 143 saves with a 2.62 ERA, 9.4 K/9 and 2.4 BB/9 through 271 1/3 innings from 2013-17. Hirano started his career in the Buffaloes’ rotation, and like many starters who struggle early in their career eventually found new life as a member of the Orix bullpen. Since shifting to a relief role full time in 2010, he owns a 2.32 ERA and a 564-to-123 K/BB ratio in 515 1/3 innings, although this season’s 7.5 K/9 mark was his lowest since becoming a full-time reliever.

Hirano easily exceeds the age and experience limitations to qualify as a professional under Major League Baseball’s collective bargaining agreement, meaning he won’t be subject to international bonus pools. He’s also spent 11 seasons pitching professionally in Japan (all with the Buffaloes), giving him the requisite service time in Nippon Professional Baseball to qualify as a free agent that is exempt from the posting system. In other words, Hirano is free to sign with any professional club on the planet for any amount this offseason.

The Cardinals are no stranger to dipping into the international market to bolster their relief corps, having done so two offseasons ago when signing right-hander Seung-hwan Oh. Certainly, their level of interest figures to be preliminary at this stage. The NPB season is still in progress over in Japan, and the Cardinals have no way of knowing exactly what type of contract Hirano will be seeking, nor do they know how he’ll fit in alongside the asking prices of the upcoming winter’s crop of free-agent relievers. Given his success in the Orix bullpen over the past several seasons, however, Hirano will be a name worth remembering as the offseason wears on and teams explore all possible avenues to deepen their pitching staffs.

Other teams figure to at least kick the tires on Hirano this offseason, as they’ve had no shortage of opportunities to scout the righty over his lengthy NPB career. C. Trent Rosecrans of the Cincinnati Enquirer doesn’t explicitly state that the Reds have interest in Hirano, though he does note (Twitter link) that GM Dick Williams’ most recent trip to Japan was likely for the purposes of scouting more than just Shohei Otani, specifically listing Hirano as an example of another player that Williams could have been evaluating.

Julio Teheran Switches Agencies

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Braves right-hander Julio Teheran has changed representation and is now a Wasserman client, Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic reports (via Twitter).

Set to turn 27 in January, Teheran is coming off the worst full season of his professional career by most statistical measures. While he continued to demonstrate durability with his fifth straight season of 185 or more innings, Teheran saw his strikeout, walk and home-run rates all trend in the wrong direction. In 188 1/3 innings, he averaged 7.2 K/9 against 3.4 BB/9 with an ugly 1.48 HR/9 mark en route to a 4.49 ERA. That ERA was the highest of his career, and metrics like FIP (4.95), xFIP (4.96) and SIERA (4.89) actually painted an even more troublesome picture.

Teheran did pitch better away from the newly constructed and homer-friendly SunTrust Park, though the discrepancy between his performance wasn’t quite as large as his 5.86 home ERA and 3.14 road ERA would suggest at first glance. His K/BB numbers and batted-ball profile were all relatively similar, but he enjoyed an unsustainable 83.7 percent strand rate on the road that helped to buoy his bottom-line run prevention numbers. On the plus side, Teheran is nowhere near the top of the leaderboard for average exit velocity or number of 95+ mph balls yielded, as measured by Statcast, so perhaps there’s some hope for better fortune with the long ball in 2018 and beyond.

He’ll have plenty of time to work on reestablishing himself as a quality mid-rotation piece moving ahead, as Teheran is still under contract through at least the 2019 season thanks to the six-year, $32.4MM contract he inked prior to the 2014 campaign. He’s slated to earn $8MM in 2018 and $11MM in 2019, and that contract contains a $12MM option ($1MM buyout) for the 2020 season as well. Even if the Braves — or a team to which he’s theoretically traded — exercise the option, Teheran would still hit the open market as a 29-year-old on the brink of his age-30 campaign.

His switch in representation has been noted in MLBTR’s Agency Database, which contains agent information on more than 2,500 Major League and Minor League players. If you come across any errors or omissions in the database, let us know via email: mlbtrdatabase@gmail.com.

Quick Hits: Dusty, Upton, Giants, Mets, Eiland

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Dusty Baker’s contract is up after the Nationals’ postseason run is over, though his future as manager isn’t contingent on a first-round playoff victory, Chelsea Janes of the Washington Post writes as part of a reader mailbag piece (with fellow Post scribe Jorge Castillo).  Nats ownership likes Baker and wants him to keep managing if he’s still willing and able, though an extension hasn’t been worked out since that just isn’t how the Lerner family handles business with managers.  Baker told Janes and other reporters today that he was informed that “we’re gonna wait til after the season” to discuss a possible new deal.

Here’s more from around baseball as the Yankees are off to the ALDS…

  • It is “increasingly likely” that Justin Upton will choose to opt out of the remaining four years and $88.5MM remaining on his contract, a source tells MLB.com’s Jon Paul Morosi.  Upton’s outstanding 2017 season gives him a strong case to look for a larger deal in free agency this winter, though opting out doesn’t necessarily mean he’ll leave the Angels.  Morosi notes that Upton could use the opt-out clause as a way to leverage an extension from the Halos, as C.C. Sabathia did with the Yankees six years ago.
  • Power and outfield defense are both needs for the Giants this winter, though as team executives told reporters (including Henry Schulman of the San Francisco Chronicle and MLB.com’s Jonathan Hawthorne) today, the team won’t sacrifice the latter for the sake of the former.  “We don’t want to get too far away from our game,” GM Bobby Evans said.  “We’re a pitching and defense team.  If we compromise too much in the area of power and give up to much defensively, that can hurt us as much as the benefit of adding the power.”  A younger and more athletic outfield seems like a priority, and Schulman feels this might rule out a run at 31-year-old free agent Lorenzo Cain.  In my view, Cain’s excellent glove would seem to make a good fit for the Giants, though his defensive metrics did decline (from great to “merely” quite good) in 2017.
  • The Giants will look to add at all three outfield positions, as incumbent outfielders Denard Span and Hunter Pence could be in line for position changes.  Span, according to manager Bruce Bochy, is “all in” about moving from center to left field.  This wouldn’t seem to leave much room for Pence to move from right field, though Schulman suggests that Span and Pence could both share a position.  That would be a very expensive solution considering that Span and Pence will combine to earn $30.5MM in 2018, though since both also have notable injury histories, a time-share could help keep both players healthy.
  • Outgoing Royals pitching coach Dave Eiland looks like a candidate for the Mets’ own pitching coach vacancy, Mike Puma of the New York Post tweets.  Eiland has spent the last six years with the Royals and has some prior experience in the Big Apple, serving as the Yankees’ pitching coach from 2008-10.

Marlins Notes: Jeter, Sherman, Special Assistants

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New Marlins owners Bruce Sherman and Derek Jeter held their introductory meeting with media today, discussing their vision for the team.  Here are some highlights from their comments, as per a transcript by Tim Healey of the South Florida Sun Sentinel…

  • Meetings have yet to take place with president of baseball operations Michael Hill about the offseason’s direction, though “we do have to rebuild the organization,” Jeter said.  “It starts with player development, scouting.  We have to be strong in those areas, because if you’re going to have a sustainable organization over time, you need that pipeline of young players that can come in.  So we’re going to focus on everything.  We’re going to build it from the top down, bottom up, however you want to say it.”
  • This would seem to imply that the Marlins and their fans could be in for more trades of veterans and payroll-cutting, though Jeter stopped short of confirming such moves were coming, as per his upcoming discussions with the baseball operations department.  “And look, the best way I can put it is, I don’t like the word ‘teardown.’  Moving forward, there’s going to be at times unpopular decisions that we make on behalf of the organization,” Jeter said.  “Just understand that every decision we make is for the betterment of this organization. We have that in mind.  The word teardown and rebuild — yeah, we are rebuilding a franchise.  But I think a lot of times people associate those words with losing.  You never go into a situation and the message is that ‘We’re going to lose.’ “
  • In other Marlins news, Jeter personally contacted recently fired long-time team special assistants Jeff Conine, Andre Dawson, Jack McKeon and Tony Perez to say he’d be interested in keeping them on for unspecified roles with the organization, FanRag Sports’ Jon Heyman reports.  No reason was reportedly given for Jeter’s change of heart, or why each of the men was initially told they were dismissed almost two weeks ago.  Outgoing Marlins president David Samson was asked by Jeter to inform the four of their dismissal, though Heyman confirms that Jeter’s initial instruction was clear about the firings, so it wasn’t simply a case of miscommunication between Jeter and Samson.  It isn’t yet known how many, if any, of the four are willing to return.

GM Ross Atkins On Blue Jays’ Offseason Needs

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Blue Jays general manager Ross Atkins met with reporters (including Sportsnet.ca’s Ben Nicholson-Smith and MLB.com’s Gregor Chisholm) today to discuss his team’s season and how the Jays plan to move forward going into the winter.  Some highlights…

  • The Jays will be “open to trades” and “open to any possible way we can make our team better,” Atkins said, stressing the need for added depth and versatility.  The GM reiterated that the Jays aren’t looking to trade from their Major League roster unless they find a deal that improves the big league team.
  • The Blue Jays want to “add one impact arm and one impact position player for sure,” though Atkins wasn’t necessarily sure that the position player would play right field, which is the only clear opening in the lineup.  Teoscar Hernandez has “certainly earned the right” to compete for the everyday right field job in the wake of an impressive September.  The “impact arm” also could be either a starter or a relief pitcher.
  • Lack of team speed “is a clear issue for us,” though one that Atkins admitted is “really hard to [address] in free agency” given that most of the available veterans are generally on the older side and lacking in quickness.
  • Middle infield is an area of concern, as “we can’t rely that we will have an absolutely healthy Troy Tulowitzki and Devon Travis for the entire year, and we need to build depth around them.”  Injuries limited Tulowitzki and Travis to just 116 games combined last year, and both players have exhibited a lack of durability over the last few seasons.
  • Atkins confirmed that the Jays will not be exercising their end of Jose Bautista’s mutual option for 2018.  (Sportsnet.ca’s Shi Davidi recently reported that Bautista was informed of the team’s decision a few weeks ago.)  It is “very unlikely,” Atkins said, that Bautista will return to the Jays even on a smaller deal in 2018, though the door isn’t closed on the longtime slugger eventually returning to the franchise.  “When he comes back here, he will be celebrated in a very strong way,” Atkins said.
  • No changes are coming to the coaching staff, and there weren’t any strong rumblings about a possible managerial change, Atkins confirmed that John Gibbons would also return to the dugout.  “I feel strongly that he’s a part of our solution, and I love going to work with him every day,” Atkins said about the manager.

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