Rays, Jake Smolinski Agree To Minor League Deal
The Rays are in agreement with free-agent outfielder Jake Smolinski on a minor league contract, tweets Chris Cotillo of MassLive.com. The Sosnick, Cobbe & Karon client will presumably be in Major League camp with Tampa Bay come Spring Training.
Smolinski was outrighted by the Athletics and became a minor league free agent earlier this offseason. He’d have been eligible for a modest raise over last season’s $775K base salary on the heels of a pair of seasons in which he saw limited action. Smolinski’s 2018 campaign was cut short by a blood clot in his left calf, and in his 41 plate appearances he hit just .128/171/.205. The former second-round pick did post a terrific .278/.372/.548 slash in Triple-A this season and is a career .227/.287/.357 hitter in the Majors. The right-handed-hitting Smolinski has experience at all three outfield spots and has handled lefties well throughout his big league tenure, batting .282/.351/.473 through 276 trips to the plate.
Tampa Bay isn’t lacking for outfield depth with Tommy Pham, Kevin Kiermaier, Mallex Smith and Austin Meadows all on the 40-man roster, to say nothing of utility option like Brandon Lowe and Daniel Robertson. But Smolinski will vie for a bench role that’d allow the organization to take advantage of that success he’s enjoyed against lefties. If he doesn’t make the roster, he’ll likely head to Durham as an upper-level depth option to be called upon in the event of an injury.
Blue Jays Hire Dave Hudgens As Bench Coach
The Blue Jays announced Wednesday that they’ve hired Astros hitting coach Dave Hudgens as manager Charlie Montoyo’s new bench coach. Hudgens, 62 next month, becomes the third member of Houston manager A.J. Hinch’s staff to be hired away by another organization since season’s end. Bullpen coach Doug White was recently named the Angels’ new pitching coach, and assistant hitting coach Jeff Albert took an offer from the Cardinals to become their new hitting coach.
Hudgens has plenty of experience on a big league coaching staff, having served as a hitting coach with the Athletics and Mets in addition to the ‘Stros. In total, he has 12 seasons as a big league hitting coach under his belt, though this will be his first stint as a Major League bench coach.
A former first baseman, Hudgens had a six-year minor league career and made a brief, six-game cameo in the Majors with the 1983 Athletics. In addition to his work as a hitting coach in the Majors, he’s worked as a minor league manager and roving hitting coordinator. He also spent six years as the Athletics’ assistant director of player development in the late 90s and early 2000s.
Dodgers Exercise Dave Roberts’ Option, Plan To Continue Negotiating Extension
The Dodgers have exercised their 2019 club option on manager Dave Roberts, president of baseball operations Andrew Friedman tells reporters (Twitter link via Bill Plunkett of the Orange County Register). The two sides have been discussing an extension since the 2018 season ended, and while they’ve yet to reach an agreement, talks on a multi-year deal will continue. Friedman adds that he expects a multi-year deal to be reached at some point.
Though there have been numerous reports pointing to a likely extension — Fancred’s Jon Heyman indicated yesterday that a four-year deal could be in the works — the Dodgers’ front office has had plenty of other issues with which to deal in the days since the World Series concluded. The team has already renegotiated David Freese’s contract to retain him for the 2019 season at a slightly lesser rate than his previous club option would’ve called for. More prominently, Dodgers brass hammered out a contract extension for ace Clayton Kershaw that guarantees him $93MM through the 2021 season.
Added to the pile of complications is the fact that the Dodgers have been in the process of sorting out how they’ll proceed without general manager Farhan Zaidi, who left the organization to become the president of baseball operations for the division-rival Giants. Meanwhile, third base coach Chris Woodward has been named the new manager of the Rangers, while minor league hitting coordinator Paco Figueroa is on his way to the Phillies, where he’ll serve as an outfield/baserunning coach.
The delay in lining up the terms of a new contract with Roberts, then, is somewhat understandable. And while some Dodgers fans will bristle at the notion of a new contract given Roberts’ affinity for platoon-based matchups and an adherence to limiting the number of times a starting pitcher is allowed to face an opposing lineup, the front office is clearly pleased with both the on-field results and the manner in which Roberts has managed a clubhouse filled with big personalities. Los Angeles has appeared in back-to-back World Series and won an NL West division title in each of Roberts’ seasons at the helm, and the Dodger staff has been largely successful in getting high-profile players to buy into functioning in reduced roles that are often dependent on matchups.
Gary Sanchez To Undergo Shoulder Surgery
Yankees catcher Gary Sanchez will undergo surgery on his left (non-throwing) shoulder this offseason, general manager Brian Cashman tells reporters at the GM Meetings in Carlsbad, Calif. (Twitter links via Lindsey Adler of The Athletic). The shoulder has bothered him since 2017 and been treated with cortisone shots in the past, but Sanchez aggravated it while working out in Tampa this past week.
The timeline for Sanchez’s recovery is about three months, and the current projection is that he’ll be ready for Opening Day. That timeline will push Sanchez’s recovery right up to the point at which pitchers and catchers are set to report to Spring Training. Any setbacks or delays, then, could call into question his availability for the beginning of the regular season. In the event that he’s not ready, however, Cashman indicated the team is comfortable with Austin Romine stepping up as the primary catcher early in the 2019 season (Twitter link via SNY’s Andy Martino).
Sanchez, who’ll turn 26 in December, endured multiple DL stints in 2018 for a different injury — a right groin strain that limited him to 89 games and 374 plate appearances in 2018. It seems safe to assume that the groin injury, paired with the now-known left shoulder troubles, played a significant role in the downturn in Sanchez’s prodigious offensive output. After hitting a combined .284/.354/.568 with 53 home runs and 32 doubles through 754 plate appearances between 2016-17, Sanchez slumped to a .186/.291/.406 slash line this past season.
MLBTR Chat Transcript: Diaz, Goldschmidt, Kimbrel, Realmuto, Segura
Click here to view the transcript for MLBTR Chat With Jason Martinez: November 7, 2018
Matt Holliday Intends To Play In 2019
On the heels of a productive late-season comeback with the Rockies in 2018, veteran outfielder/designated hitter Matt Holliday is aiming to suit up again for the 2019 season, tweets Joel Sherman of the New York Post.
Holliday, 39 in January, didn’t sign last offseason and waited just before the non-waiver trade deadline to sign a minor league contract to return to the Rockies. He joined the Rox for a September call-up and gave the club 65 plate appearances of quality overall offense. In that short time, Holliday hit .283/.415/.434 with two homers, two doubles and 12 walks against 18 strikeouts. He added a walk and another pair of hits, including a double, in nine postseason plate appearances.
Certainly, Holliday’s time as an elite corner outfielder looks to be in the rear-view mirror as he winds down a brilliant career which, to date, has spanned 15 years. His contact skills and power have faded since he was an annual lock for 25 to 35 home runs with the Rockies and Cardinals, but Holliday could still provide a team with some pop off the bench and take occasional reps in left field or at designated hitter. He also made 18 appearances at first base from 2016-17 with the Cards and Yankees, so he could perhaps be a reserve option there as well.
Generally speaking, aging corner bats haven’t fared well on the free-agent market in recent seasons, but Holliday and agent Scott Boras presumably won’t have a lofty asking price given the fact that the slugger sat out nearly all of the 2018 season. It’s not clear whether Holliday is open to signing another minor league deal and competing for a roster spot in Spring Training, but if he’s willing to do so, there could be multiple such opportunities.
AL West Rumors: Athletics, Marwin, Gurriel, Grandal, Ramos, Wakamatsu
The Athletics will boost their payroll in 2019, but general manager David Forst tells John Shea of the San Francisco Chronicle that there’s no set number following meetings with ownership. Oakland needs to address its rotation, second base and catcher situations, but Forst cautions that the A’s aren’t “going to shock anyone with huge deals.” Shea writes that while deals for Patrick Corbin and Dallas Keuchel won’t come together for the A’s, they’ll still be active in searching for upgrades. As for second base and catcher, the latter of the two is a more pressing urge for Oakland. Forst explains that the presence of Franklin Barreto as an MLB-ready option creates less urgency at second base than at catcher, where Sean Murphy, a fellow well-regarded prospect, is a bit further from the Majors.
More from the division…
- Astros GM Jeff Luhnow discussed his team’s options for replacing utlityman Marwin Gonzalez, as MLB.com’s Brian McTaggart covers. Moving Yuli Gurriel around the diamond could help the club make up for the loss of flexibility. Perhaps notably, Luhnow specifically references a “post-Marwin world,” which could be telling with regard to how the organization feels about its chances to retain its most versatile player. Meanwhile, says Luhnow, he’s “looking at different options to add more to our offense.” Adding a big stick certainly seems to make sense under that roster alignment, as the club would have flexibility to get a new player into the lineup at DH, first base, or the corner outfield.
- Speaking of the Astros, catching is another obvious area to address. The club has some level of interest in Yasmani Grandal, according to MLB.com’s Jon Morosi (via Twitter), with the Mets also showing early signs of intrigue. As the top catcher on the free-agent market, Grandal will garner interest from a wide slate of teams. At present, the Astros’ top internal option behind the dish is Max Stassi.
- Veteran catcher Wilson Ramos is of interest to the Angels, according to Maria Torres of the Los Angeles Times, with at least four other teams also in pursuit early. The fit for the bat-first backstop is perhaps not as clean in Los Angeles as it might be for some other clubs, as most of the Halos’ DH plate appearances seem already to be spoken for with Shohei Ohtani and Albert Pujols figuring to garner significant playing time in that capacity. Given Ramos’ durability issues, he’d be a more logical fit for an American League club with plenty of DH at-bats available, though he’ll certainly draw interest from clubs lacking in DH time and from National League clubs as well.
- Don Wakamatsu, who spent the 2018 season as the Rangers‘ bench coach before assuming the role of interim manager late in the season, will return to the organization in 2019, tweets T.R. Sullivan of MLB.com. Wakamatsu interviewed for the managerial opening that eventually went to Dodgers third base coach Chris Woodward, but he’ll return to the 2019 staff despite being passed over for the job in the end.
Minor MLB Transactions: 11/7/18
Interested in learning about the players that have just reached the open market as minor-league free agents? There are quite a few, and Matt Eddy of Baseball America lists them all.
Here are some notable recent minor transactions from around the game:
- First baseman Ike Davis has decided to wrap up his playing career, according to Ken Davidoff of the New York Post (Twitter link). The 31-year-old had most recently attempted to revitalize his career by moving to the mound, drawing some positive initial reviews from the Dodgers. He ended up only making a few rookie ball appearances, though, so obviously the transition did not work out. Ultimately, Davis will be remembered for his time in a Mets uniform. The former first round pick showed plenty of promise early in his career, but a lower leg injury and bout with valley fever in 2011 seemingly sidetracked him. Davis ultimately compiled a .239/.332/.414 slash line with 81 home runs in 2,392 trips to the plate at the game’s highest level.
- Padres righty Kazuhisa Makita was outrighted after clearing waivers, per MLB.com’s AJ Cassavell (via Twitter). That’s no surprise, in light of his $1.9MM salary for the coming season. Makita could yet emerge as a useful asset for the Pads, as he showed an ability to generate both swings and misses and quite a few infield flies at the MLB level. Unfortunately, the Japanese hurler was also tagged for seven home runs and a 5.40 ERA in 35 innings in his debut big league campaign.
Rick Ankiel Undergoes Elbow Surgery, Still Plans To Attempt Comeback
Former pitcher-turned-outfielder Rick Ankiel, who has been working toward a return to the mound, will be delayed in his effort after undergoing elbow surgery. As Derrick Goold of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reports, a procedure was performed to fix damage to Ankiel’s ulnar collateral ligament.
Since Ankiel avoided a full-blown UCL replacement, he won’t require a year-or-more rehabilitation timetable. Still, he’ll be sidelined for quite a while. Per Goold, the estimate is that he’ll be ready to go by the middle of the 2019 season.
Despite the setback, the 39-year-old will not give up on his effort to make yet another stirring comeback. Ankiel had been working out at the Cardinals’ spring facility and clearly has the full support of the organization. President of baseball operations John Mozeliak says that the club remains interested in discussing a contract when Ankiel is ready to resume his march back toward the majors.
Kennys Vargas Signs With Chiba Lotte Marines
Japan’s Chiba Lotte Marines announced that they have agreed to a one-year deal with first baseman Kennys Vargas (h/t YakyuDB.com). The burly switch-hitter is said to be earning approximately $1.5MM in the pact. Vargas is a client of Rep 1 Baseball.
Still just 28 years of age, Vargas failed to crack the big leagues in 2018 after seeing at least some action in each of the prior four campaigns. He bounced around the waiver wire at the outset of the season but spent most of the year off of the 40-man roster, playing at Triple-A Rochester. The Twins organization which had employed him since 2009, recently released Vargas, who’d have qualified for minor-league free agency unless he was added back to the MLB roster.
Vargas did not turn in his most useful campaign in the upper minors in 2018. In the past, though, he has at times put up intriguing numbers. At his best, Vargas blends an excellent eye at the plate with good power, though his raw strength has never really shone through with eye-popping slugging numbers. In 859 MLB plate appearances, he owns a .252/.311/.437 slash with 35 long balls.