Yankees Will Shop Sonny Gray This Offseason
Sonny Gray‘s tenure with the Yankees hasn’t panned out nearly as well as the organization had hoped, and general manager Brian Cashman candidly told reporters Friday that he plans to explore trade scenarios this offseason (Twitter link via Newsday’s David Lennon). “We’re entering the winter open-minded to relocation,” Cashman said of Gray. “…It’s probably best to try somewhere else.”
It’s highly atypical to see a baseball executive display that level of candor when discussing a potential trade of a player, but the writing has been on the wall for quite some time now. Gray was dropped from the team’s rotation amid considerable struggles this summer, and the Yankees didn’t carry him on their postseason roster.
Acquired in a high-profile trade that sent Dustin Fowler, Jorge Mateo and James Kaprielian to the Athletics in July 2017, Gray gave the Yankees 65 1/3 innings of 3.72 ERA ball down the stretch that season. He was far more homer-prone than he’d been in Oakland — perhaps to be expected given the radical shift in his home park — but the 2018 season was an ugly one for Gray. In 130 1/3 innings this season, he posted a 4.90 ERA with a career-worst 3.94 BB/9 mark and a career-high eight hit batters.
To his credit, Gray notched an 8.49 K/9 mark, maintained the velocity on his fastball (93.3 mph average), generated a solid 10.1 percent swinging-strike rate and induced grounders at a characteristically strong 50 percent clip. Nearly all of his struggles were confined to pitching at Yankee Stadium, where he turned in a ghastly 6.98 ERA and allowed 11 home runs in 59 1/3 innings. When pitching away from the Bronx, Gray logged a strong 3.17 ERA and yielded just three homers in 71 innings of work.
That home/road disparity, paired with Gray’s track record and relative youth — he’ll turn 29 in November — should make him a popular buy-low candidate for teams looking to supplement their rotation. He’s only controlled for one more season and comes with a projected arbitration salary of $9.1MM (courtesy of MLBTR contributor Matt Swartz). However, Gray entered the 2018 season with a career 3.45 ERA and peripheral stats that largely backed up that mark. The former No. 18 overall draft pick was an All-Star in 2015 and finished third in American League Cy Young voting that season when he tossed 208 innings (his second consecutive 200-inning season) with a 2.73 ERA, 7.3 K/9 and 2.6 BB/9. He dealt with shoulder and forearm issues in 2016-17 but has avoided the disabled list in his time with the Yankees.
Marlins Outright Six Players
The Marlins announced Friday that right-handers Tyler Cloyd, James Needy and Javy Guerra, left-hander Chris O’Grady, infielder Christopher Bostick and outfielder Rafael Ortega have all been outrighted off the 40-man roster after clearing waivers (O’Grady was first reinstated from the 60-day DL).
Cloyd, 31, allowed 17 runs in 17 2/3 innings for the Fish in his largest slate of big league work since the 2013 campaign with the Phillies. The 32-year-old Guerra (33 on Halloween) was unable to repeat the success he had with the 2017 Marlins, as he was clobbered for a 5.55 ERA in 35 2/3 innings (albeit with a more encouraging 30-to-12 K/BB ratio). O’Grady pitched just seven innings in his second season with the Fish and has a 4.73 ERA with 38 strikeouts against 22 walks in 40 Major League innings. Needy, meanwhile, did not pitch in 2018 after a solid 2017 campaign and also missed the 2016 season due to injury.
As for the position players, the 25-year-old Bostick was acquired from the Pirates for cash in August but saw just 16 plate appearances in the Majors. He’s a .256/.360/.326 hitter in a tiny sample of 50 plate appearances as a big leaguer and a .275/.337/.391 hitter in 1189 Triple-A plate appearances. Ortega, 27, logged 143 plate appearances with the Marlins this season and batted .233/.287/.271. Like Bostick, he has limited MLB experience but a solid track record in Triple-A (.299/.368/.423).
Twins Outright Gregorio Petit
The Twins have outrighted infielder Gregorio Petit off the 40-man roster, per the Triple-A International League transactions page. He’ll likely become a free agent and seek another minor league deal this winter.
Petit, 33, batted .246/.313/.279 with a pair of doubles and three steals in two stints with Minnesota this season, appearing in 26 games and tallying 67 trips to the plate. That marked his sixth season of big league experience, having previously appeared with the A’s, Angels, Astros and Yankees. In all, Petit is a career .249/.294/.343 hitter in 493 Major League plate appearances and a .267/.316/.366 hitter in an even 3700 Triple-A plate appearances. Most of his career has been spent as a shortstop, though he has over 2000 professional innings at second base and nearly 1500 innings at third base as well.
AL Notes: Salazar, Carrasco, Smoak, Didi
Indians righty Danny Salazar is slated to begin throwing next month, president of baseball operations Chris Antonetti tells MLB.com’s Jordan Bastian (Twitter link). At the moment, the club isn’t certain whether it’ll utilize the hurler as a starter or reliever, though it does sound as if the plan is to tender him a contract. Salazar will almost certainly command the same $5MM salary he did this year after sitting out all of 2018 with shoulder issues. That’s a decent bit of payroll to stake on a return to form, though Salazar has real upside on the mound and will also remain controllable for the 2020 season.
Here’s more from Cleveland and the rest of the American League …
- Speaking of payroll planning, the Indians will need to budget for a slight boost to the salary for fellow right-hander Carlos Carrasco. As Bastian notes on Twitter, the value on the club option in Carrasco’s extension rose by $750K (to $9.75MM) due to his fourth-place placement in the 2017 Cy Young voting. It’s not entirely clear from what’s known of Carrasco’s contract whether that prior voting performance also operates to boost the value of his 2020 option, which comes at a $9.5MM base price point.
- It’s also worth noting that the Blue Jays will have to open their wallets a bit wider to hang onto first baseman Justin Smoak. By virtue of topping 1,100 total plate appearances over the past two seasons, he has boosted his 2019 club option value from $6MM to $8MM. That still seems to be a reasonable rate of pay for a switch-hitter who has carried a .256/.353/.495 batting line and launched 63 home runs since the start of the 2017 campaign. Smoak could well profile as a trade candidate, depending upon how the Toronto front office decides to approach the offseason.
- Elsewhere in the AL East, the Yankees face a tough question on a player entering his final season of control. Joel Sherman of the New York Post argues that the team ought to strongly consider working out an extension with shortstop Didi Gregorius. Sherman wonders whether the recent Jean Segura contract (five years, $70MM plus option) might serve as a starting point in talks, rightly suggesting that it may well cost a bit more to lock up Gregorius. The 28-year-old is projected to earn $12.4MM in his final trip through arbitration and is a half-season closer to free agency than was Segura. He’s also fresh off of his best season, having posted a .268/.335/.494 slash with 27 home runs in 569 plate appearances. Outfielder Aaron Hicks and reliever Dellin Betances could also be considered for long-term deals, Sherman opines.
David Robertson To Be Self-Represented In Free Agency
In an interesting bit of free-agent news, Mark Feinsand of MLB.com tweets that veteran reliever David Robertson plans to represent himself in free agency this offseason.
The move comes as a surprise for the still-excellent hurler, who is wrapping up a four-year, $46MM contract. At the time, only Jonathan Papelbon and B.J. Ryan had secured larger guarantees as relievers. Even in the four years that have followed, only Aroldis Chapman, Kenley Jansen, Mark Melancon and Wade Davis have landed larger total guarantees.
There’s little in terms of recent precedent for players representing themselves in major negotiations. Huston Street was self-represented when he negotiated his final contract with the Angels, signing for two years and $18MM. Pirates closer Felipe Vazquez, meanwhile, reportedly may have negotiated the bulk of his extension with Pittsburgh himself; Vazquez switched representation on multiple occasions in the year preceding that deal, with one player rep telling MLBTR at the time that Vazquez had been with as many as four or five different agencies in the calendar year leading up to his extension.
Digression aside, the 33-year-old Robertson (34 next April) will head into free agency with yet another strong case for a multi-year deal. While he won’t reach the $46MM heights of his most recent contract given his age, Robertson is still fresh off a quality 3.23 ERA with 11.8 K/9, 3.4 BB/9, 0.9 HR/9 and a 45.3 percent ground-ball rate in 69 2/3 innings. He kept his ERA south of 3.50 and averaged at least 10.8 punchouts per nine innings in all four seasons of his expiring four-year pact, and his 2017 season — 1.84 ERA, 12.9 K/9, 3.0 BB/9, 2.57 FIP, 2.76 xFIP — was nothing short of outstanding.
Robertson’s 92.6 mph average fastball in 2018 was actually a slight bit better than it’s been in recent seasons, though he saw his opponents’ swinging-strike rate, chase rate and hard-contact rate all trend in the wrong direction. Even with those dips, though, there’s little reason to expect anything less than a two-year deal for Robertson at a time when relievers figure to be more coveted than ever before. And given Robertson’s uncanny durability — no fewer than 60 games and 60 2/3 innings pitched in a season since 2010 — teams may well view him as a less-volatile option than several of his peers.
Cubs Will Not Retain Chili Davis As Hitting Coach
The Cubs have announced that they have parted ways with hitting coach Chili Davis, as Mark Gonzales of the Chicago Tribune was among those to tweet. The long-time major leaguer lasted only one year on the job.
Last fall, the Cubbies brought Davis in along with several other new additions to the staff of manager Joe Maddon. He had served with the Red Sox before that field staff was broken up when the Sox fired skipper John Farrell.
It seems the Cubs have yet to make final determinations on other staff members. Maddon himself is entering the final year of his contract, of course. Despite some ongoing murmurs of internal friction, all indications are that he’ll remain in charge of the dugout for at least one more campaign. (See here and here.)
Marlins’ International Pool Nearly Even With Orioles Following Barraclough Trade
TODAY: The Marlins picked up $1MM of bonus availability in the swap with the Nats, per Spencer (via Twitter). The prior deal with the Reds brought in $750K, MLB.com’s Jesse Sanchez tweets, meaning that the Miami organization has just over $6MM in spending capacity to work with.
YESTERDAY: The Marlins and Orioles have long been considered the two front-runners to sign top prospect Victor Victor Mesa and his younger brother, Victor Mesa Jr., given the fact that they possess the two largest remaining international bonus pools. At the time of the showcase featuring the Mesa brothers and hard-throwing righty Sandy Gaston, a fellow Cuban prospect of intrigue, Baltimore was reported to have a $6.7MM pool to the Marlins’ $4.3MM allotment.
However, Clark Spencer of the Miami Herald reports (via Twitter) that following the weekend trade sending prospect Ryan Lillie to the Reds and this morning’s relatively stunning trade of Kyle Barraclough to the Nationals, the Marlins have “almost as much” international money as the Orioles. The specific amount that the Nationals sent to the Marlins in order to acquire the final three years of club control over Barraclough isn’t clear, but in order for the Marlins to be within striking distance, it’d have to be substantial.
Slot money must be traded in increments of at least $250K, per the collective bargaining agreement, so we know that following this past weekend’s trade of Lillie, the Marlins were up to at least $4.55MM in pool allotments. Based on that number and the fact that Spencer indicates the Marlins are still somewhat shy, it seems reasonable to deduce that the Nats couldn’t have sent more than $2MM to Miami.
Washington opened the 2018-19 signing period with a total pool of $4,983,500 but was also barred from spending more than $300K on any one signing as penalty for significant overages in previous signing periods. Per Baseball America’s Ben Badler, the Nats had already signed three players — Jeremy de la Rosa, Yeuri Amparov and Edwin Mercedes — for their maximum $300K, and the team had made another 15 signings, though the values of those additional signings is not clear.
The Marlins have reportedly been trying to sell the brothers Mesa and Gaston on their proximity to Cuba and the strong Latin American population in the Miami area. The Fish did host the showcase for the three prospects last week, and they reportedly had personalized lockers set up in the clubhouse to help the trio visualize the possibility of playing there in the future.
While the showcase was closed to the media, Kiley McDaniel and Eric Longenhagen of Fangraphs spoke to a number of scouts who were on hand and provided a breakdown of the overall opinions of the players involved. Victor Victor Mesa’s 60-yard dash time clocked in at 6.5 seconds, placing him at a 65 to 70 on the 20-80 scouting scale, per McDaniel and Longenhagen, who pegged a 50-grade (average) on his raw power. Their detailed report, which is free to read and features plenty of detail for those interested in the group, notes that Albert Almora‘s name came up as an oft-mentioned comp for the elder Mesa brother.
Gaston, meanwhile, hit 97 mph and showed better feel for his secondary offerings. The younger Mesa brother checked in a bit slower on the 60-yard dash (6.9 seconds) but had an above-average throwing arm and an above-average hit tool. Notably, McDaniel and Longenhagen write that they feel the Marlins are the favorites to land Victor Victor Mesa, which would likely make them the favorites to land Mesa Jr., as the two are said to be considered a package deal.
Jordan Zimmermann, Christin Stewart Undergo Core Muscle Surgeries
The Tigers announced today that righty Jordan Zimmermann and outfielder Christin Stewart underwent surgeries to repair core muscle injuries. Both players are expected to be at full health for the start of camp.
In the case of Zimmermann, the news comes on the heels of another disappointing campaign in Detroit. The 32-year-old now carries a 5.24 ERA in his 396 2/3 innings since signing on with the club in advance of the 2016 campaign.
To be fair, Zimmermann did make some strides after a brutal 2017 showing. His swinging-strike rate jumped to 9.1%, the second-highest level in his career, though he continued to shed velocity. Zimmermann also posted a career-low 35.0% groundball rate and career-high 15.7% HR/FB rate, and ended the year with a 4.52 ERA, so there’s obviously still work to do.
Ultimately, the surgery represents another ding to a pitcher who simply hasn’t performed as hoped. With $50MM still owed over the two seasons to come, he wasn’t likely to be dealt regardless. But his situation is worth watching more closely now that his full no-trade protection has reverted to a partial no-trade clause. (He can block trades to all but ten teams.)
As for Stewart, a 2015 first-rounder who cracked the majors for the first time in 2018, the procedure won’t change the outlook in an appreciable manner. He impressed in a brief run at the big leagues, posting a .267/.375/.417 slash with two home runs and a strong 13:10 K/BB ratio over 72 plate appearances. Having posted big offensive numbers at each minor-league stop along the way, Stewart has likely earned a presumption of a big-league job in 2019.
MLBTR Chat Transcript: Bryant, Big Contracts, Phils, Braves
Click here to read a transcript of today’s chat with host Jeff Todd.
Nick Senzel To Undergo Elbow Surgery, Miss Arizona Fall League
Reds top prospect Nick Senzel lost much of the 2018 season due to injury, and it seems another health issue will cost him an opportunity to play in the Arizona Fall League. Senzel tells Bobby Nightengale of the Cincinnati Enquirer that he’ll undergo surgery to remove two bone spurs from his left (non-throwing) elbow and be sidelined for up to six weeks as a result.
It’s the latest setback for Senzel in a year that has featured all too much unwelcome injury trouble. The former No. 2 overall draft pick (2016) was out for nearly half the 2018 season owing to vertigo symptoms and a fractured finger that required surgical repair earlier this summer. On the plus side, Senzel still expects to be ready to go when Spring Training rolls around.
Still, Senzel’s absence from the AFL isn’t without consequence. With Eugenio Suarez now locked up as the Reds’ long-term third baseman following last spring’s seven-year extension, and Scooter Gennett possibly in line for an extension of his own, the Reds have shifted Senzel from the infield to the outfield. Senzel got some outfield work during instructional league play, and there’s general optimism that he’s athletic enough to handle the outfield; farm director Shawn Pender told C. Trent Rosecrans of The Athletic yesterday (Twitter link), “I don’t think there’s a position on the field he couldn’t play.”
Nonetheless, the AFL would’ve given Senzel the opportunity to accrue some valuable outfield experience in advance of Spring Training 2019. “…I wanted to get out in the outfield and do some reps,” Senzel tells Nightengale. “That was the plan to play in the Fall League. I couldn’t further risk more injury because I knew my elbow has been bothering me for the last 10 months. I played through it for as long as I could. “
To his credit, the 23-year-old Senzel didn’t play like someone whose swing was hampered by elbow pain. He raked at a .310/.378/.509 clip through 193 plate appearances in his first exposure to Triple-A earlier this season, despite the fact that he was facing considerably older competition. That marked a followup from Senzel’s terrific age-22 season in 2017, during which he hit a combined .321/.391/.514 while splitting the year between Class-A Advanced and Double-A.
Given his offensive upside, it’s not surprising to see Senzel’s name included in most top 10 overall prospect rankings from around the industry. The upcoming procedure will deprive him of some outfield experience, potentially delaying his path to the big leagues, but it still seems likely that he’ll have the opportunity to impact the Reds at the Major League level in 2019.