Quick Hits: Early FA Offers, Padres, Labor Relations
Let’s round out the day’s coverage with a few interesting notes from around the game:
- Three prominent players have reportedly agreed to terms in recent days, all settling for much less in dollars and years than had been expected. Reports also suggest that those players could have had greater earnings had they taken offers available previously. Though agent Scott Boras says Mike Moustakas never received a multi-year contract offer before returning to the Royals, two sources tell Sam Mellinger of the Kansas City Star that the Angels dangled a three-year pact in the range of $45MM. Meanwhile, the Rockies are said to have offered slugger Carlos Gonzalez an extension in the realm of three years and $45MM this time last year, Bob Nightengale of USA Today reports on Twitter. And the Rox also were willing to go to three years, at a $21MM guarantee, to catcher Jonathan Lucroy earlier this winter, Nightengale adds on Twitter. (Lucroy is reportedly in agreement on a one-year deal with the Athletics, though terms are not yet known and the deal is not finalized.) Of course, in each case it’s easy to understand why the player in question might have elected against jumping at the reported opportunity at the point at which it was presented.
- In other news that’s largely of historical interest, Jon Heyman of Fan Rag provided some notes on the Padres‘ offseason efforts. The team was able to land Eric Hosmer after Kansas City was unable to earn ownership authorization for its initially reported, seven-year offer, Heyman reports. That seemingly helps explain why subsequent reports indicated that K.C. never went that high in the bidding. San Diego also “made a big play” for outfielder Christian Yelich before he was shipped from the Marlins to the Brewers, Heyman notes in his leaguewide rundown of information. Notably, the Pads effectively ended up adding an outfielder when they inked Hosmer, thus pushing Wil Myers back onto the grass.
- Some of the above information suggests, to an extent, that some players missed chances at bigger earnings, though perhaps it might only mean that others would have ended up enduring rough trips through free agency. And the reported offers are hardly overwhelming numbers for those players. Those interested in the broader subject of labor relations will certainly want to read this recent piece from Evan Drellich of NBC Sports Boston, who takes a long look at what the union could do to begin fighting back against some of the problems that have arisen from the players’ perspective under the current CBA. Meanwhile, J.J. Cooper of Baseball America also tackles the subject, arguing that the owners will need to be careful not to press their advantage too strongly. And union chief Tony Clark discussed some of the qualms with the Marlins, who are one of the teams facing a grievance from the MLBPA, as Clark Spencer of the Miami Herald reports.
NL Notes: Cubs, Gohara, Norris, Mets
The Cubs have a pair of former players entering their front office, per a club announcement. MLB veterans Chris Denorfia and Matt Murton have been named, respectively, as special assistant to the president/GM and baseball operations assistant. Denorfia, a ten-year big-leaguer, spent just one year in Chicago — his final campaign in the majors, 2015. Murton, meanwhile, broke into the majors with the Cubs but mostly found success abroad as a member of Japan’s Hanshin Tigers.
Here’s the latest from the National League:
- Braves southpaw Luiz Gohara is going to be shut down for at least two weeks after suffering an ankle sprain, as David O’Brien of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reports. Though it doesn’t seem as if there’s anything approaching long-term concern for the injury itself, there are implications. For one, there’s now little chance that Gohara will open the season in the rotation, as he has already been limited in camp. That means another pitcher — O’Brien suggests Max Fried or Scott Kazmir, though others are also certainly in the mix — will likely take that slot. When Gohara is back to health, moreover, he’ll presumably need to boost his conditioning along with getting his arm up to full speed. The big-bodied southpaw previously strained his groin in a camp workout and has long faced questions about his weight. Of course, that did not prevent him from an impressive five-start debut showing in 2017.
- The Cardinals have decided to put righty Bud Norris in the bullpen, Rick Hummel of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reports. That’s not terribly surprising, but the organization had at least been stretching him out as a starter to open camp. Norris showed some renewed vigor at times last year as a late-inning reliever and could be used in that capacity, though skipper Mike Matheny also did not rule out relying upon Norris for multiple innings in a swingman role. In other news from St. Louis, the club announced that outfielder Tyler O’Neill has been diagnosed with a hamstring strain. The severity is not known, but the the odds were already stacked against the well-regarded prospect cracking the Opening Day roster.
- Kevin Plawecki could receive the lion’s share of the time behind the dish for the Mets, Tim Healey of Newsday writes. New skipper Mickey Callaway says it will often come down to platoon splits in deciding whether Plawecki or Travis d’Arnaud is behind the dish, with the former’s advantage against right-handed pitching perhaps leading to greater opportunities. Surely performance levels over the course of the season will weigh into the calculus, but Callaway clearly indicated that the organization is disinclined to match up their backstops with particular starters.
Junior Guerra Has Fourth Option Year
The Brewers have some more flexibility with righty Junior Guerra than had generally been realized, as MLB.com’s Adam McCalvy tweets. Milwaukee GM David Stearns says that the hurler has one option season remaining.
It seems that Guerra was granted an additional option season at some point in the past, though the details aren’t perectly clear. Players presumptively may only be optioned in three seasons, but in certain circumstances will be granted a fourth year. (Of course, whether or not it’s more beneficial to the player or his current team is not always immediately evident.)
Fourth options are given where a player misses all of an option year to due injury or has all three options burned before he has finished his fifth season as a professional. The latter provision seems to apply to Guerra’s unusual background. He appeared in the minors in 2006 and 2008 before reappearing in affiliated ball in 2015, kicking off a series of three campaigns in which he spent time on optional assignment.
In any event, the news means that the Brewers won’t be forced into a tough decision on Guerra’s status, either at the end of camp or during the season. Instead, the club can make its determination on whether and how he’ll be utilized in the majors based upon merit — along with a healthy consideration for the contract situations of other options.
Guerra, 33, struggled to a 5.12 ERA last year after a remarkable breakout effort in 2016. As the Brewers plot their staff for the season to come, he may or may not end up being seen as the best choice to take a rotation spot to open the year. With Wade Miley and Yovani Gallardo among the hurlers battling for jobs in camp, it’s certainly possible that Milwaukee will best be able to preserve its depth by holding Guerra in the minors to open the year.
At this point, the team’s course is hardly clear; indeed, there’s ample speculation about the possibility of acquiring another hurler altogether. But Guerra’s option year adds to the slate of possibilities for the Brewers front office.
Athletics Expect To Land Veteran Catcher
3:28pm: The Athletics are nearing agreement with Lucroy, per ESPN.com’s Jerry Crasnick (via Twitter).
3:14pm: The Athletics are pursuing a veteran catcher and expect to acquire one, per MLB.com’s Jane Lee (via Twitter). Specifically, the club anticipates either signing Jonathan Lucroy or acquiring Matt Wieters from the Nationals.
Lucroy remains one of the top remaining un-signed free agents. He entered the winter as the top-rated catcher available.
Needless to say, the latter possibility hints at the potential for lots of creative trade scenarios — especially given the long trade history between these organizations’ current front office leadership. The Nats owe Wieters a hefty $10.5MM salary after his poor 2017 season. At the same time, the team would surely only move him (and as much of the salary as it can) if it has an upgrade lined up.
Of course, it could be that the Nats would see Lucroy himself as a preferable option to Wieters, adding yet another potential dimension to the situation. Lucroy entered the winter emphasizing his desire to play for a competitor, after all. Washington has also long been tied to quality young Marlins receive J.T. Realmuto, though it’s not clear whether there has been any recent movement on that front.
At this point, though, the trade possibilities are all speculation.
Minor MLB Transactions: 3/9/18
Here are the day’s minor moves:
- UPDATED: After previously indicating the Tigers had agreed with righty Donovan Hand on a minor-league deal, Evan Drellich of NBC Sports Boston now tweets that the deal was only close to completion. Hand is still unsigned at this point. Now 31, he was a useful member of the Brewers staff in 2013 but hasn’t seen a significant MLB opportunity since. Hand pitched in the upper minors for the Mets last year, working to a 5.99 ERA with 5.9 K/9 and 2.6 BB/9 in 139 2/3 total frames.
Astros Return Rule 5 Pick Anthony Gose To Rangers
The Rangers announced today that they received Rule 5 pick Anthony Gose back from the Astros and assigned him to Triple-A Round Rock. He’ll join the Rangers in big league camp as a non-roster player. The Astros reportedly placed the left-hander/outfielder on outright waivers earlier this week.
Gose, a former big league outfielder, had been hoping to make a stacked Astros roster as a reliever. The former top outfield prospect converted to the mound last season after several years of difficulties at plate. Gose was a two-way star as an amateur but was drafted and developed solely as an outfielder. His arm strength from the outfield and his former pitching prowess have translated to the mound to an extent, as he’s reportedly been able to touch triple digits with his fastball.
Gose pitched 10 2/3 innings in Class-A Advanced in the Rangers organization last season and posted a 14-to-6 K/BB ratio in that time. It’s possible that the Rangers will continue to give him a look on the mound, though the team’s exact plans for him remain unclear. Rangers EVP of communications John Blake referenced Gose as an outfielder/left-handed pitcher in announcing the move, so perhaps he’ll continue to work on both elements of his game.
White Sox Release Willy Garcia
The White Sox announced their second series of roster cuts this spring today, which included the release of outfielder Willy Garcia. The move opens up a second 40-man roster spot for the ChiSox, who previously had 39 players on the 40-man.
Chicago acquired Garcia, 25, off waivers from the Pirates last January, and he went on to make his MLB debut with the team in 2017 (at times appearing in an all-Garcia outfield which also consisted of Avisail Garcia and Leury Garcia). In 119 plate appearances with the Sox, Garcia hit .238/.305/.400 with three homers. His work in Triple-A was strong, as evidenced by a .286/.396/.473 slash — a notable step forward from a fairly dismal Triple-A campaign with the Buccos in 2016.
Garcia’s 2017 season was cut short by a broken jaw suffered in a collision with Yoan Moncada in late July, though he returned to appear in four games in late September. With Adam Engel, Nicky Delmonico, Ryan Cordell, Charlie Tilson and Daniel Palka all on the big league roster or in the upper minors (plus Avisail and Leury both still locks for the 25-man roster), Garcia faced a difficult path to resurfacing in the Majors this season.
Garcia had yet to take an at-bat this spring, as he’d been limited by a wrist injury, according to Daryl Van Schouwen of the Chicago Sun-Times.
Tigers Agree To Minor League Deal With Jarrod Saltalamacchia
The Tigers have agreed to a minor league contract with veteran catcher Jarrod Saltalamacchia, MLBTR has confirmed. MLB.com’s Jason Beck first tweeted that Saltalamacchia showed up at the Tigers’ Spring Training facility. Saltalamacchia is represented by ACES.
This will mark the second go-around with the Tigers for Saltalamacchia, as the switch-hitting veteran also spent the 2016 campaign in Detroit. Salty got off to a fast start in ’16, carrying an OPS north of .900 through the month of April and managing to keep that mark at a solid .776 through the end of June. However, his offensive output cratered from that point forth, as he hit just .128/.237/.231 in his final 139 plate appearances of the season.
Last year, Saltalamacchia spent time in the Blue Jays organization, appearing in 10 big league games and 33 games in Triple-A while struggling mightily at each level (.515 OPS in Triple-A). Those struggles continued into a stint in the Mexican Winter League. He’d been working out at the free-agent Spring Training camp at IMG Academy in Bradenton, Fla., prior to landing back with the Tigers.
Detroit has plenty of catching depth on hand at present, with James McCann slated to start and John Hicks in line to be his primary backup. Derek Norris has also been competing for that job on a non-roster deal in Spring Training and has performed quite well at the plate in limited action thus far. Fellow veteran Brayan Pena is also in Tigers camp, giving them yet another option (and another former Tiger) who could serve as depth in Triple-A.
It’s possible that one or both of Norris or Pena will ultimately land with another organization if he cannot crack the big league roster out of camp. In that instance, Saltalamacchia could occupy a spot in Triple-A Toledo to open the season. He could also simply use this opportunity with the Tigers as a means of giving other clubs a look at him for the next few weeks, at which point he, too, could land elsewhere.
Rough as the 2016-17 seasons were for Saltalamacchia, the 32-year-old is not that far removed from a relatively productive five-year run during which he slashed .237/.309/.434 with 75 homers in 1966 plate appearances. While those numbers are hardly eye-catching, they did translate to a 101 OPS+, or roughly average production when factoring in league and home park. Relative to other catchers, in particular, Saltalamacchia was a more than viable offensive option during that stretch.
Koji Uehara Signs With NPB’s Yomiuri Giants
After a terrific nine-year run in Major League Baseball, veteran reliever Koji Uehara has returned to the Yomiuri Giants of Japan’s Nippon Professional Baseball, the team announced (link via the Japan Times). Carlos Yamakazi of the Tokyo Sports Press had previously tweeted that Uehara would sign there and that the deal would be announced today.
Now entering his age-43 season, Uehara began his professional career with the Yomiuri organization nearly two decades ago. Uehara spent 10 seasons with the Giants, making 205 starts and another 71 relief appearances as he worked to a 3.01 ERA with 8.0 K/9, 1.2 BB/9, 112 wins, nine shutouts and 33 saves before making the jump to Major League Baseball after the 2008 season.
Uehara initially landed with the Orioles on a two-year deal prior to the 2009 season and turned in a solid but injury-shortened season as a starter. He moved to the bullpen full-time the following season and never looked back, establishing himself as one of the more effective relievers in all of baseball for much of the next decade.
From 2010-15, Uehara was something of a perennially underappreciated star. The righty twice posted a sub-2.00 ERA in that six-year stretch and averaged better than 10 strikeouts per nine innings each season along the way. Overall, Uehara logged a stellar 2.08 ERA between the Orioles, Rangers and Red Sox in that time, and his K/BB numbers were particularly astonishing over that dominant stretch: 11.4 K/9 against 1.2 BB/9.
Perhaps his crowning individual achievement, though, was being named the 2013 ALCS MVP with the eventual World Champion Red Sox. Uehara’s postseason career featured 18 innings of 3.00 ERA ball with a 21-to-2 K/BB ratio, and he was utterly dominant in that 2013 League Championship Series, tossing six shutout innings with just four hits allowed, no walks and nine strikeouts against the Tigers.
Uehara was still effective in 2016-17 and still posted quality K/BB numbers, but he became more homer-prone in the two most recent seasons, averaging 1.5 homers per nine innings pitched between the Red Sox and his lone season with the Cubs (2017). The righty had been holding out hope for a big league opportunity and at one point said he was weighing retirement if such an offer did not materialize. However, Uehara recently indicated that he still had the passion and competitive drive pulling him toward the playing field and reconsidered interest from several Japanese clubs.
“There is only one thing for me to do, and that is to play my heart out,” said Uehara upon signing with the Giants (via the aforementioned Japan Times report). “Other Japanese clubs showed interest, but the Giants were the team whose approach was enthusiastic, and I am grateful.”
It seems likely that this reunion could spell the end of Uehara’s time in Major League Baseball, and if that’s he case he can look back with pride at what was an outstanding career in North America. In 480 2/3 innings, Uehara delivered a 2.66 ERA with 10.7 K/9, 1.5 BB/9, 1.12 HR/9, 22 wins and 95 saves. Baseball-Reference pegged him at 13.8 WAR in his career, while Fangraphs’ RA9-WAR largely concurred at 13.7. In all, he earned just north of $50MM in his MLB playing career.
Latest On Jose Bautista
We haven’t heard much this winter on veteran slugger Jose Bautista, who is one of several prominent players still without plans for the 2018 season. But the 37-year-old made clear today that he still intends to play somewhere in the coming campaign.
Earlier today, Jon Heyman of Fan Rag suggested that Bautista could retire despite having been presented with multiple MLB offers. The problem, per Heyman, was with the salary levels proposed.
But that’s not quite the case, Bautista tells Jeff Passan of Yahoo Sports. In his interview, Bautista indicated that he has guaranteed MLB offers on table. It seems, then, that he’s either still weighing the options or waiting for a more appealing choice to come along.
Money won’t be the determining factor, Bautista suggests. “Right now I’m just considering my options, and it depends on two criteria,” he says. “That’s winning and making sure that my family’s in a good situation.”
The takeaway here seems to be that the former Blue Jays star is likely to suit up somewhere — and soon, presumably, with the season less than three weeks away. But there’s no real indication of where that might be. He is said to be interested in playing for the Rays, though the team’s interest isn’t clear, while the Marlins are reportedly interested in inking a new home run threat. Otherwise, though, there really hasn’t been any chatter surrounding the six-time All-Star.
The difficulty for Bautista begins, of course, with the fact that he is coming off of a miserable 2017 campaign. He managed to hit 23 home runs in his 686 plate appearances, but slashed just .203/.308/.366 on the year. His combination of a 12.2% walk rate and 24.8% strikeout rate would look solid enough for most players, but represents a marked deterioration for a player who long took as many or more free passes than strikeouts.
It doesn’t help that there are so many other older, defensively limited hitters still floating around. Among the remaining free agents are Matt Holliday, Jayson Werth, Melky Cabrera, Brandon Moss, Andre Ethier, Seth Smith, and Franklin Gutierrez.