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Athletics Exercise Jed Lowrie’s Option, Add Mark Kotsay To Coaching Staff

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The A’s announced this afternoon that they’ve exercised their $6MM club option over second baseman Jed Lowrie and also added former Athletics outfielder Mark Kotsay to their staff as a quality control coach. Kotsay was also a part of Oakland’s coaching staff in 2016 when he served as a bench coach.

The option decision on Lowrie was an easy call after the 33-year-old hit .277/.360/.448 with 14 home runs and a career-high 49 doubles for the A’s this past season. While Lowrie has long stood out as a logical on-paper trade candidate, A’s execs Billy Beane and David Forst have stated that they envision Lowrie as the team’s Opening Day second baseman next year. Lowrie, then, would likely be leaned upon to stabilize the position until top prospect Franklin Barreto forced his way into a regular role on the Major League roster. As it stands, Barreto is almost certain to open the 2018 season in Triple-A, despite the fact that he did make his MLB debut earlier this season.

Kotsay took a leave of absence from the A’s back in June but will return to the staff in a new role, though the specifics of his responsibilities are rather nebulous. Per Oakland’s press release, Kotsay will assist manager Bob Melvin and the coaching staff “in all areas and will also consult with the front office in other facets of the organization. “

Miguel Sano To Undergo Leg Surgery

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The Twins announced today that slugger Miguel Sano will undergo surgery on his left leg on Nov. 13. Sano missed most of the final six weeks of the season after suffering a stress reaction in the leg upon fouling a ball into his shin. Though he returned to play in a few games at season’s end, he ultimately was not deemed healthy enough to be on the club’s roster for the AL Wild Card game. MLB.com’s Rhett Bollinger tweets that the surgery will insert a titanium rod into Sano’s leg and is expected to come with a six- to eight-week recovery timeline.

Sano, 24, belted 28 home runs and hit .264/.352/.507 through 483 plate appearances as Minnesota’s primary third baseman in 2017. Though he took steps forward in terms of average, on-base percentage and slugging percentage, strikeouts continue to be an issue for Sano, who whiffed in nearly 36 percent of his plate appearances this past season. He also walked at an 11.2 percent clip and has done in 12.3 percent of his big league plate appearances, so he should continue to post solid OBP marks even if the strikeouts persist.

The Twins will count on Sano to help anchor a lineup that will enter the 2018 season with much different expectations than the 2017 club carried. He joins Byron Buxton, Jose Berrios, Eddie Rosario, Jorge Polanco and Max Kepler as part of a young nucleus of Twins talent that is expected to make up the core of the team for the foreseeable future.

Mariners Decline Options On Iwakuma, Gallardo

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The Mariners announced on Thursday that they’ve declined their club options over right-handers Hisashi Iwakuma ($10MM) and Yovani Gallardo ($13MM). Their 40-man spots have gone to right-hander David Phelps and left-hander Drew Smyly, who have been reinstated from the 60-day disabled list.

Iwakuma, 37 in April, has spent his entire six-year MLB career with the Mariners.  Two years ago, he was on the verge of a free agent contract with the Dodgers before they backed out, resulting in Iwakuma returning to Seattle on a one-year deal with a vesting option.  The option for 2017 did vest, but the righty made only six starts this year before succumbing to a shoulder injury.  While the injury was not initially thought to be a season-ender, Iwakuma never made it back to a big league mound and wound up having arthroscopic shoulder surgery in September.  The procedure has at least a five-month recovery time and it appears he does plan to continue pitching.

Gallardo, a longtime Brewer, was traded by the Orioles to the Mariners in January for Seth Smith.  Gallardo failed to rebound from his ugly 2016 season, posting even worse numbers this year and earning a temporary bullpen banishment in June.  The 31-year-old righty managed only five quality starts in 22 tries.  Both Iwakuma and Gallardo may be relegated to minor league deals this winter.

According to Bob Dutton of The News Tribune in an October article, “The Mariners’ rotation next year, at this point, projects as James Paxton, Felix Hernandez, Mike Leake and two from a collection that includes Erasmo Ramirez, Ariel Miranda, Marco Gonzales and Andrew Moore.”  Dutton noted that the Mariners will be one of the many teams pursuing Shohei Otani, should he come over, but otherwise the team may not necessarily pursue a rotation upgrade.

Angels Sign Justin Upton To Five-Year Contract

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After spending the past several weeks weighing an opt-out clause that would’ve allowed him to forgo the remaining four years and $88.5MM on his contract, Justin Upton has reached a compromise with the Angels. The Halos announced on Thursday that they’ve signed Upton to a new five-year contract that runs through the 2022 campaign, in essence extending his current deal by one year in exchange for tearing up the opt-out provision. Upton, a client of Reynolds Sports Management, will reportedly earn $106MM on the five-year deal, which contains a full no-trade clause.

Justin Upton | Orlando Ramirez-USA TODAY Sports

Upton’s deal can technically be viewed as a one-year, $17.5MM extension of his current contract, then, which brings the total value of the deal to $150.5MM over seven years. He’ll now reportedly earn $16MM in 2018, $18MM in 2019, $21MM in 2020, $23MM in 2021 and $28MM in 2022 on a contract that carries through his age-34 season.

[Related: Updated Los Angeles Angels payroll outlook and depth chart]

Los Angeles acquired Upton from the Tigers on Aug. 31 in exchange for pitching prospect Grayson Long and a player to be named later, hoping that Upton’s bat would help fuel a run at an American League Wild Card berth. While the Angels ultimately fell short of that goal, it was through no fault of Upton; in 115 plate appearances with the Angels, Upton nearly matched his OBP and slugging numbers with the Tigers, hitting .245/.357/.531 with seven homers in the season’s final month. Overall, he finished out the year with a .273/.361/.540 batting line, a career-high 35 homers and 14 steals.

Upton’s first year with the Tigers got off to a poor start, prompting many to question the initial six-year, $132MM contract before Upton righted the ship in Detroit about halfway through that 2016 campaign. Dating back to July 1 of last season, Upton has batted .270/.352/.548 with 58 home runs in 946 trips to the plate — good for a park- and league-adjusted wRC+ of 137. (In other words, his bat has bee about 37 percent better than that of a league-average hitter.)

Beyond his excellence at the plate, Upton turned in yet another solid year on the defensive end of the equation. Defensive Runs Saved pegged him at +8, while Ultimate Zone Rating had him at 2.1 runs above average. Statcast’s new Outs Above Average metric was a bit less bullish, grading him at -1 outs. Despite the variance in those respective metrics, the Angels can reasonably expect at least average defensive contributions from Upton next year in addition to strong offense and above-average baserunning.

For the Angels, left field was a clear need whether a deal with Upton was worked out or not. The Halos are lacking in upper-level bats that can be relied upon to contribute to a big league lineup, but Upton will now join Mike Trout and Kole Calhoun in the Angels’ outfield and in the heart of their order. Aging slugger Albert Pujols, of course, remains a fixture in the lineup as well, though the soon-to-be 38-year-old struggled through the worst season of his Hall of Fame career in 2017.

The Pujols commitment remains an onerous financial obligation, but the Angels now have Josh Hamilton’s massive contract off the books, which will effectively be replaced by the Upton deal. Upton’s contract , though, will come with a lesser luxury tax obligation — $21.2MM annually if the contract is viewed as a five-year, $106MM deal or $21.46MM if it’s viewed as seven years and $150.25MM. The Angels will also see both Ricky Nolasco and Huston Street come off the books this winter once their options are declined, further creating some payroll flexibility, both as it pertains to the luxury tax and the 2018 roster.

The backloaded nature of Upton’s new contract structure should allow the Angels to be a bit more aggressive in filling out their 2018 roster this winter. Between Upton, Trout, Pujols, Calhoun, Andrelton Simmons and Luis Valbuena, the Angels have about $105MM in guaranteed 2018 salary on the books. That figure will rise into the $128MM range after Garrett Richards, Matt Shoemaker, Tyler Skaggs, Andrew Heaney, Martin Maldonado, Blake Parker, Jose Alvarez, Cam Bedrosian and J.C.Ramirez are tendered contracts (and potentially more if C.J. Cron and Blake Wood are also tendered). That should leave the Angels with some spending money to address needs at second base and at an infield corner (whichever Valbuena does not play) in addition to stabilizing their injury-plagued pitching staff.

USA Today’s Bob Nightengale reported the total guarantee of the contract (Twitter link). ESPN’s Buster Olney tweeted the annual breakdown of the deal, and MLB.com’s Jon Morosi added that Upton received a no-trade clause.

Photo courtesy of USA Today Sports Images.

The MLB Offseason Begins

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The 2017 season came to a conclusion last night when the Astros closed out a Game 7 victory over the Dodgers, officially (and remarkably) making Sports Illustrated’s famous 2014 prediction a reality. Houston’s aggressive rebuilding tactics led to the selections of George Springer (No. 11), Carlos Correa (No. 1), Lance McCullers (No. 41) and Alex Bregman (No. 2) near the top of their respective drafts, while the team’s front office, scouting department and player development staff deserve praise for compiling a roster that is rife with hidden gems.

Dallas Keuchel, a seventh-round pick in ’09, blossomed into one of baseball’s best starters over the past few years in Houston. Waiver claims like Collin McHugh and Will Harris have cemented themselves as big leaguers. Marwin Gonzalez, a Rule 5 pick out of the Cubs organization, was one of the game’s most versatile and most valuable players in 2017. Some raised an eyebrow at last winter’s two-year deal for Charlie Morton after he made just four starts in 2016, but he capped a terrific season with a heroic four-inning relief appearance in Game 7, clinching the first World Series in franchise history.

American League MVP candidate Jose Altuve came to the Astros as an unheralded international signing that received a mere $15K bonus back in 2007. And, of course, general manager Jeff Luhnow and his staff deserve credit for their dramatic, last-minute acquisition of Justin Verlander, who looked better than ever for the Astros down the stretch and took home ALCS MVP honors with 16 innings of one-run ball.

While congratulations are in order for the Astros, the front office won’t spend too much time celebrating. Like baseball’s other 29 teams, they’ll look ahead to the 2018 season (and beyond) with visions of a future World Series Championship firmly in their sights. Here are some of the key dates of the MLB offseason, which kicks off today…

  • Nov. 2: Commencement of a five-day, exclusive negotiation window that teams have with their own free agents. (Also, MLBTR’s Top 50 Free Agent rankings with predictions!)
  • Nov. 4: Deadline for players with opt-out clauses (e.g. Justin Upton, Masahiro Tanaka) to exercise those provisions.
  • Nov. 6: The deadline for MLB clubs to formally issue one-year qualifying offers (valued at $17.4MM this offseason, as reported by MLBTR) to free agents is 5:00pm ET. Those players will have 10 days to weigh the offers and can negotiate with other clubs during that 10-day window. After that 5pm deadline, all free agents are eligible to begin negotiating with other teams.
  • Nov. 13-16: General Managers’ meetings take place in Orlando, Fla.
  • Nov. 20: Deadline for teams to set their 40-man rosters in advance of the Rule 5 Draft.
  • Dec. 1: Deadline to tender contracts to arbitration-eligible players.
  • Dec. 10-14: MLB’s annual Winter Meetings take place in Orlando, Fla.
  • Dec. 14: The Rule 5 Draft is held on the final day of the Winter Meetings.
  • Jan. 13: Arbitration exchange day — the date on which teams and players must exchange filing numbers for arbitration. Hearings, if necessary, typically begin in early February.
  • Mar. 29: Opening Day! Baseball is back.

Names like J.D. Martinez, Yu Darvish, Jake Arrieta, Eric Hosmer, Mike Moustakas headline the 2017-18 class of MLB free agents. We’ll be running our Top 50 Free Agent rankings, which will include contract projections and predictions as to where each of the 50 will sign, later this afternoon.

The offseason figures to, as always, bring plenty of action on the trade front as well (tip of the cap to Jerry Dipoto). At the forefront of this winter’s trade talks, of course, will be Giancarlo Stanton. Several other names will be bandied about the rumor mill as well, though, with players like Ian Kinsler, Jose Abreu, Dee Gordon, Brad Hand and many others standing out as offseason trade candidates.

MLBTR readers can bookmark our new and improved Free Agent Tracker as a useful offseason resource. It can be filtered by position, team, signing status, handedness, qualifying offers, and contract years, amounts, and options. We’ll be updating that and our list of free agents throughout the offseason as the free-agent landscape begins to take shape.

You can also follow along with MLBTR’s Offseason Outlook series to get a feel for the decisions that each of the league’s 30 teams will face over the winter and some of the routes they could take to Opening Day 2018. We at MLBTR look forward to another active offseason of hot stove coverage and hope you’ll follow along with us throughout the process!

Red Sox Exercise Options On Chris Sale, Craig Kimbrel

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The Red Sox announced this morning that they’ve formally exercised their 2018 club options over ace Chris Sale and closer Craig Kimbrel. Sale will earn $12.5MM in 2018, while Kimbrel will be paid $13MM.

Additionally, the Sox announced that they’ve outrighted left-hander Robbie Ross Jr. and infielder Josh Rutledge, each of who has elected free agency. Boston has also selected the contracts of outfielder Bryce Brentz and left-hander Williams Jerez from Triple-A Pawtucket.

The option decisions on Sale and Kimbrel were among the easiest in all of baseball. The pair finished out the season as two of the most valuable players on the Red Sox and two of the best in all of baseball in their respective roles. Sale led the American League with 214 1/3 innings and a remarkable 308 strikeouts (12.9 K/9), pitching to a stellar 2.90 earned run average along the way. Kimbrel, meanwhile, posted a 1.43 ERA with 35 saves in 69 innings and struck out a staggering 49.6 percent of the batters he faced (16.4 K/9). Sale’s contract includes a $13MM option for the 2019 season as well, while Kimbrel will be a free agent for the first time next winter.

Ross, 28, was limited to just 15 innings between the Majors and Triple-A this season due to a back injury that ultimately required surgical repair. Prior to that, however, he was a quality setup man in Boston, pitching to a 3.57 ERA with 8.5 K/9, 3.3 BB/9 and a 49.4 percent ground-ball rate in 116 innings in 2015-16. Lefties hit just .200/.302/.297 against Ross in that time, while righties hit him at a .260/.333/.388 clip. Ross would’ve been eligible for arbitration this offseason after earning $1.825MM in 2017. He’s expected to be healthy for Spring Training and could make for an affordable and experienced option for a team seeking left-handed bullpen help.

Rutledge, also 28, logged 118 plate appearances in 2017 — his third year with Boston. He’s seen very limited action with the Sox dating back to 2015, though, hitting just .252/.319/.313 in 259 plate appearances across those three seasons. The versatile Rutledge can handle second base, third base and shortstop, and he even saw 13 innings at first base for the Sox in 2017. He’ll likely land a minor league pact somewhere this offseason and compete for a bench role in Spring Training.

Red Sox Hire Tony La Russa As Vice President, Special Assistant

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NOV. 2: The Red Sox have formally announced the addition of La Russa to their baseball operations department. Per the team’s release, La Russa “will assist Dombrowski in all areas of baseball operations, including player development and consultation with the major and minor league coaching staffs.”

NOV. 1: The Red Sox are set to add Hall of Fame manager Tony La Russa to their organization, according to a report from Chad Jennings and Michael Silverman of the Boston Herald. La Russa just wrapped up a stint with the Diamondbacks, which he began as “chief baseball officer” and ended as “chief baseball analyst” after a front office shakeup.

We’ll likely know more soon, as the Herald reports an announcement could come tomorrow. What is clear is that La Russa will not be wearing a uniform. Jennings and Silverman say that he’s not slated to take a role on the staff of incoming skipper Alex Cora.

La Russa, who is now 73 years of age, instead seems slated to join a front office that’s helmed by Dave Dombrowski. (The two go way back, Jon Heyman of Fan Rag notes on Twitter.) It seems likely that La Russa will function in some kind of senior advisory capacity rather than taking up a spot with everyday duties in the chain of command, though that’s just speculation at this stage.

Boston has failed to make its way out of the divisional round in each of the past two postseasons, despite capturing consecutive AL East crowns. In the aftermath, skipper John Farrell lost his job and was ultimately replaced by Cora — who’ll be a rookie manager but is currently experiencing a deep run in his job as the Astros bench coach. It’s not entirely clear whether La Russa will have any role in helping to mentor Cora, but his vast experience will surely be drawn on as the organization looks both to repeat its divisional title and advance further into the playoffs.

Giants To Name Alonzo Powell Hitting Coach

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The Giants are set to hire Astr0s assistant hitting coach Alonzo Powell as their new hitting coach, reports Evan Drellich of CSN New England (via Twitter). Powell will step into the role that was vacated amid last week’s shuffle of the coaching staff in San Francisco. He’ll take over for Hensley Meulens, who shifted to the team’s bench coach role. Longtime bench coach Ron Wotus was moved to the role of third base coach.

Powell will join the Giants organization after helping guide the Astros offense that was far and away the most potent in Major League Baseball. Houston led all of baseball with 896 runs scored, was tied for an MLB-best .282 batting average, and also paced the Majors with a .346 on-base percentage and a .478 slugging percentage. Their 238 home runs trailed only the Yankees for the MLB lead.

The 52-year-old Powell has been Houston’s assistant hitting coach since the 2015 season and previously held that same role with the Padres from 2012-15. He served as the Mariners’ hitting coach on an interim basis for part of the 2010 season as well and has been coaching and managing at the minor league level dating back to 2002.

The job with the Giants will serve as a homecoming for Powell — a San Francisco native whose professional playing career began in the Giants organization back in 1983. He reached the Majors in both the 1987 and 1991 seasons, but Powell’s greatest success as a player came in 1992-97, when he starred for the Chunichi Dragons of Japan’s Nippon Professional Baseball. In parts of seven NPB seasons, Powell raked at a .313/.371/.510 clip.

Negotiation Impasse Could Jeopardize Shohei Otani Posting

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Despite a variety of roadblocks, it has become widely assumed that Japanese star Shohei Otani would transition to the majors over the coming offseason. That possibility could now be in jeopardy, Joel Sherman of the New York Post reports, owing to a dispute regarding the nature of the transfer rules that would govern the transaction.

Under the preexisting rules regime, Otani would have been made available to any Major League Baseball team willing to pay the maximum $20MM transfer fee. While MLB’s restrictive new international spending rules severely limited his potential earning capacity, he appears to be at peace with taking less now rather than waiting until he is old enough not to have his bonus capped.

Trouble is, the posting deal between MLB and Nippon Professional Baseball just expired, leading to negotiations on a new agreement. Per Sherman, the approach contemplated was to allow the NPB team to receive a payout tied to the value of the contract(something in the realm of 15 to 20 percent of the total guarantee).

In the case of Otani, of course, that would have meant a drastic reduction of the money flowing to his current club, the Nippon Ham Fighters. While MLB would be willing to allow Otani to sign under the preexisting rules, per Sherman, that attempt at a compromise has run afoul of the MLB player’s union.

While the MLBPA does not count Otani as a member, and wouldn’t even do so upon his signing (since it’ll be a minor-league deal), it does have a stake here since the issue is subject to collective bargaining. According to Sherman, the union is concerned with the possibility that Otani will end up taking home a bonus significantly less than the value paid to the Fighters.

Ultimately, it seems that there’s still room for talks to sort things out. Sherman does not suggest that the union is interested in spoiling the transfer, for example; to the contrary, he says it is attempting to work with Otani. (That effort, he notes, has been complicated by the fact that Otani is still utilizing a Japanese lawyer and has yet to choose a MLBPA-certified agent.)

Even if things eventually get sorted, the news is quite notable. With the World Series wrapping up tonight, the open market will be fired up tomorrow. Teams shopping for starting pitching will begin negotiating in earnest, unsure of whether Otani will actually come — and, if so, exactly what he’s looking for in choosing a team. All things considered, the Otani situation is about as big a wild card on the market as could be imagined.

Blue Jays Outright Bo Schultz, Cesar Valdez, Darrell Ceciliani

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The Blue Jays have announced some roster trimming moves. Right-handers Bo Schultz and Cesar Valdez were outrighted along with outfielder Darrell Ceciliani.

Schultz, 32, underwent Tommy John surgery late in camp, so he’s unlikely to be ready to participate fully in Spring Training. That said, he ought to have a chance of pitching for much of the 2018 season. Schultz, who owns a 4.54 ERA over 67 1/3 career MLB frames could either sign early or wait and put on a showcase once he’s ready.

Valdez, who’s also 32, has sparse MLB experience but has functioned as a depth swingman option. He has pitched well at Triple-A over the past two seasons since returning from a few years in the Mexican League.

As for Ceciliani, the 27-year-old has spent the past two seasons in the Toronto organization but hasn’t earned much time in the majors. A shoulder injury kept him out for much of the 2017 season, and Ceciliani struggled badly (.156/.198/.169) in the 81 plate appearances he was able to take at Triple-A.

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