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Rockies Place Elias Diaz On Injured List

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The Rockies announced they’ve placed catcher Elias Díaz on the 10-day injured list, retroactive to June 11, due to a strained left calf. Colorado reinstated Nolan Jones from the IL in a corresponding transaction.

It’s not clear how long Díaz is expected to be out of action. His injury won’t have much of an effect on the standings with Colorado sitting at the bottom of the NL West. An extended absence could have some implications for the trade deadline, though. Díaz has played well enough to be a rather straightforward deadline trade candidate. Last year’s All-Star Game MVP is hitting .303/.352/.439 across 216 plate appearances.

Díaz is not likely to maintain a .350 batting average on balls in play. Yet he doesn’t need to hit .300 to be a capable hitter for teams looking to upgrade behind the plate. He’s performing well both at and away from Coors Field and has a modest 17.6% strikeout rate. Díaz has also fared well on the other side of the ball, throwing out 11 of 37 (29.7%) attempted basestealers. While pitch framing metrics have been down on his receiving skills for most of his career, Díaz has gotten plus grades in that regard in 2024.

The Rockies are paying Díaz a $6MM salary in the final season of a three-year extension. Unless Colorado extends him again in the next couple months, he’ll hit free agency next winter. Teams like the Cubs, Rays and Guardians could look for catching help around the deadline. The Phillies lost J.T. Realmuto for a month after he underwent meniscus surgery. Philadelphia doesn’t need to make a significant catching acquisition at the moment, but any kind of delay in Realmuto’s rehab process could change that calculus. The Rox wouldn’t get a huge trade return, but a healthy Díaz would be the best rental backstop available if the Blue Jays hold Danny Jansen.

Jacob Stallings, himself a possible deadline candidate for a contender that needs a backup catcher, will get the majority of the playing time with Díaz out. Colorado plans to use Hunter Goodman as their #2 option, tweets Patrick Lyons. Goodman only has one major league start behind the dish. He was a catcher at the University of Memphis and has started 73 games there in parts of four minor league campaigns. Questions about his glove have pushed him primarily to first base or the corner outfield.

Black: Rockies Could Be “More Active” On Summer Trade Market

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At 36-58, the Rockies sit at the bottom of the National League and have MLB’s third-worst record overall, leading only the A’s and Royals. While Colorado has developed a reputation for hanging onto potential trade candidates at the deadline instead of moving them at peak value, manager Bud Black said in an appearance on MLB Network Radio on SiriusXM today that the Rox will likely be more active in 2023 (audio link).

“I think there’s probably more potential this year,” Black told Power Alley hosts Jim Duquette and Mike Ferrin. “…This year is the year where, possibly, you could see more movement out of us. With the players that we have, and what we have going on in the second half of this year, and going into next year and the years beyond, it could make more sense to be a little bit more active.”

Unfortunately for the Rockies, a number of their would-be trade chips are on the injured list — many with serious injuries. German Marquez won’t pitch again this year after undergoing Tommy John surgery. He has a club option for next season, but that’ll likely be declined, as his recovery will span into next summer. Righty Antonio Senzatela is also set for Tommy John surgery, and lefty Kyle Freeland is on the IL with a subluxation in his non-throwing shoulder. Lefty reliever Brent Suter is a rental in the midst of a strong season, but he’s been out since late June with an oblique strain.

Others on the roster are sensible trade candidates from a contractual standpoint but aren’t performing well enough to maximize their value. Reliever Pierce Johnson is on a one-year, $5MM deal and is a natural candidate to change teams, but he’s also toting a grim 6.14 ERA and 13.2% walk rate. Daniel Bard, whom the Rockies extended in lieu of a trade last summer, has spent time on the injured list with anxiety issues. He’s seen a three mile per hour drop in velocity and has nearly as many walks as strikeouts in 32 2/3 innings. C.J. Cron and Jurickson Profar are both free agents at season’s end, but both have played below replacement level in 2023.

The Rox do have a handful of interesting names to peddle. Veterans Randal Grichuk and Brad Hand are both impending free agents at season’s end and could draw interest. Hand was enjoying a strong rebound season before being tagged for seven runs across three recent appearances, sending his ERA ballooning up to 4.99. He’s still an affordable lefty with a 26.1% strikeout rate. If the Rockies aren’t afraid of dealing controllable relievers — particularly a pair who are of the late-blooming variety — both Justin Lawrence and Jake Bird should generate interest.

Catcher Elias Diaz, a first-time All-Star in 2023, is perhaps the team’s most appealing trade candidate, as I explored at greater length last week. Diaz is signed affordably through next season, and it’s unlikely Colorado will be in contention by the time his three-year, $14.5MM deal expires at the end of the 2024 campaign. There’s been no indication the Rockies would entertain offers on third baseman Ryan McMahon — at least not yet — but he’s signed through the 2027 season and is again playing superlative hot corner defense with solid offensive contributions as well (albeit in spite of a career-worst 31% strikeout rate that is an obvious red flag).

There’s sure to be some degree of frustration among Rockies fans to hear these types of comments in 2023 — when the Rockies have their worst roster in years — rather than in recent non-contending seasons. The Rockies, for instance, declined to trade either Trevor Story or Jon Gray when both were in their final seasons of club control. They received a compensatory draft pick when Story declined a qualifying offer but chose not to even make a QO to Gray, losing him with no compensation. GM Bill Schmidt recently suggested to Patrick Saunders of the Denver Post that he simply didn’t receive “legitimate” offers.

It was a similar story last summer with Bard, who was in the middle of a dominant season and viewed as one of the top trade candidates on the market. Rather than trade the 37-year-old flamethrower a couple months ahead of him reaching the open market, Colorado inked him to a two-year, $19MM extension that has quickly gone south. The Rockies also held onto Cron at the ’21 deadline and later extended him on a two-year deal that looked good this time last summer. Again, however, they hung onto Cron and, as with Bard, have seen his trade value plummet.

Time will tell how aggressive the Rockies will be and how much interest the healthy players on their roster will draw. But it’s abundantly clear the team is in need of some changes. Colorado is 19th in the Majors with 411 runs scored and 24th with 89 total home runs. The Rockies rank 13th in MLB with a .253 batting average but are 22nd with a .313 OBP and 18th with a .403 slugging percentage.

The pitching has been even worse. Injuries have surely contributed, but the Rockies’ staff looked highly questionable even coming into the season. To this point, Colorado starters have baseball’s worst combined ERA (6.44), and their bullpen ranks 27th with a 4.81 mark. Colorado pitchers have MLB’s worst strikeout rate (18.3%) and fifth-highest walk rate (9.7%). Their 1.51 HR/9 mark is the worst in baseball as well.

The Rockies Should Make Their Catcher Available At The Trade Deadline

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There’s no secret to the fact that the Rockies enter the 2023 trade deadline in position to be sellers. General manager Bill Schmidt already told Patrick Saunders of the Denver Post last week that he’s received particularly high levels of interest in his veteran relievers. Within that same interview, Schmidt noted that he’d entertain offers on position players, but it would take a “legitimate” offer on someone like catcher Elias Diaz, who’s signed through the 2024 season, for the Rox to consider such a move.

It’s understandable for any baseball operations leader to take that stance. Any general manager or president of baseball ops is going to insist on a quality return — particularly for a player with multiple seasons of affordable control — unless ownership is simply mandating that they slash payroll. That’s clearly not the case in Colorado, where owner Dick Monfort annually broadcasts optimism about his team’s chances and is generally willing to spend (to varying extents) in free agency and via extensions for in-house players.

Diaz, 32, is a first-time All-Star this season, thanks largely to a .277/.328/.435 batting line. He’s smacked nine homers and added 15 doubles and a triple while walking at a 7.2% clip against a 21.3% strikeout rate. It’s not exactly elite production; wRC+ pegs him nine percent below average after weighting for his home park, and OPS+ has him four percent below average. However, relative to other catchers throughout the league, Diaz has been quite productive. The average catcher in 2023 is hitting .233/.300/.384. Even when adjusting for home park and league run-scoring environment, catchers have rated 13% worse than average at the plate, by measure of wRC+. In that regard, Diaz has been an above-average hitter relative to his position.

Of course, that’s just one season. Diaz’s offense has been a roller coaster throughout his career, peaking with a .286/.339/.452 slash (114 wRC+) in a much more pitcher-friendly Pittsburgh setting back in 2018 but at times bottoming out as it did just last year, when he hit .228/.281/.368 despite playing half his games at Coors Field. He’s had some good fortune on balls in play this year, with a .327 BABIP that’s about 50 points higher than the career .274 mark he carried into the season. There’s no major uptick in quality of contact that’s driven that change, either; Diaz averaged 88.4 mph off the bat in 2022 with a 39.3% hard-hit rate and is at 88.3 mph and 40.1% in those respective areas this year. It’s possible his bat will take a step back in the season’s second half, although even if it does, it shouldn’t wilt to last year’s surprisingly anemic levels.

Defensively, Diaz is a bit of a mixed bag. Framing metrics have universally panned Diaz’s work over the past two seasons, but he was above-average as recently as 2021. In terms of pitch blocking and throwing, Diaz is one of the game’s best. Dating back to 2021, he ranks eighth among all big league catchers in Statcast’s new Blocks Above Average metric, trailing only a handful of elite defenders (Austin Hedges, Sean Murphy, Jose Trevino, Jacob Stallings, J.T. Realmuto, Yan Gomes, Adley Rutschman).

It’s a similar story with Diaz’s throwing; he regularly boasts better-than-average pop times, and as recently as 2021 he paced the NL with a gaudy 42% caught-stealing rate. He’s at 29% this year, which is far better than it would’ve sounded in previous years, as the new rule changes in 2023 have contributed to a league-wide drop in caught-stealing numbers. The league average typically sat around 25% in seasons past, but it’s down to 20% this year. Statcast pegs Diaz as third-best in MLB with its Caught-Stealing Above Average metric (which strives to gauge throws on a case-by-case basis rather than treating all stolen base scenarios as equal).

There’s also Diaz’s contract to consider. He signed a three-year, $14.5MM extension with the Rockies a couple years ago, buying out his final arbitration season and first two free-agent years. He’s in the second year of that contract right now, earning a reasonable $5.5MM salary with a $6MM salary owed to him in 2024. It’s an affordable enough contract that any club could stomach it.

Relative to open-market prices, Diaz’s annual salary lines up with the type of money that steady mid-30s veterans or younger bounceback options might typically find. For context, Omar Narvaez signed a two-year, $15MM contract with an opt-out/player option this offseason despite having a down year in 2022. Mike Zunino signed a one-year, $6MM deal while seeking a rebound in Cleveland. The previously mentioned Hedges commanded a $5MM guarantee due solely to his defense. Diaz may not be an unmitigated bargain, but he’s at the very least a fairly priced backup — arguably one with some surplus value on his deal.

In general, it’s been a poor year for catchers throughout the league. Only 11 teams have received a wRC+ mark better than Diaz’s 91 from their catchers in 2023. Contenders and playoff hopefuls like the Rays, Astros, Reds, Marlins, Padres and Guardians have all received awful offensive production behind the plate. Speculatively speaking, Diaz could make sense for any of the bunch. That doesn’t mean they’ll all have interest, of course, but there ought to be a market for the veteran.

The Rockies, meanwhile, once again find themselves without a viable path to the postseason. Schmidt has voiced an understandable desire to add pitching to his system, and it stands to reason that there are clubs who might be willing to part with some arms in order to pry loose a catcher who could help not just for the current postseason push but also solidify the position next year. Colorado’s top catching prospect, Drew Romo, isn’t having a particularly strong season in Double-A this year but could conceivably be up in 2024 nonetheless. In the meantime, there’s little harm for a last-place club to let a journeyman like current backup Austin Wynns soak up the majority of starts in the season’s final couple months. He’s a sound defender who posted decent offensive production as recently as 2022. As far as 2024 is concerned, the Rox could always sign a veteran to a one-year deal this winter if need be.

Schmidt has pushed back against the notion of tearing everything down and trotting a Triple-A team out, citing the game’s integrity. That’s a commendable tack, and it provides some context for the type of offers he’d need to part with Diaz and other veterans. Diaz won’t simply be given away for the best offer, nor should he. It also bears pointing out that midseason trades of catchers can be difficult to pull off; acquiring a backstop in the midst of a playoff push and asking him to learn a new pitching staff on the fly is no easy task.

If no serious offers present themselves for Diaz, so be it. The Rockies can always listen in the offseason or hope for better results on a team scale in 2024. However, the Rox also have a history of hanging onto players who appear to be obvious trade candidates, either extending them (e.g Daniel Bard, C.J. Cron, arguably Diaz himself) or simply letting them walk in free agency (e.g Jon Gray, Trevor Story). Schmidt contended to Saunders that he simply didn’t receive “legitimate” offers for players like Gray and Story, and that’s certainly possible. Story, in particular, at least netted the Rox a draft pick after rejecting a qualifying offer.

Diaz won’t be a QO candidate post-’24, however, and his trade value is very arguably at its apex. He’s a first-time All-Star with strong throwing/blocking skills, enough offense for his position and an affordable contract. This summer is the best time to extract a quality return for him. Colorado shouldn’t simply trade him for a handful of magic beans, but setting too high an asking price and holding onto him runs the risk of again losing a quality player for little to no return at a time when the organization as a whole is hungry for quality minor league talent.

Schmidt: Rockies’ Relievers Drawing Trade Interest

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The Rockies enter deadline season at the bottom of the NL West. They’re positioned to listen to trade offers on veteran players, particularly those whose contracts are expiring at season’s end.

General manager Bill Schmidt discussed the team’s outlook with Patrick Saunders of the Denver Post in a piece Rockies’ fans will want to read in full. The baseball operations leader told Saunders the club is getting the most interest in some of its veteran relievers. Schmidt declined to specify which players. However, Saunders reports that left-hander Brent Suter is drawing the most attention, with righty Pierce Johnson and southpaw Brad Hand also generating some interest.

All three players are fairly straightforward trade candidates. Jon Heyman of the New York Post wrote last week the Rox were taking offers on their impending free agents. Johnson and Suter are ticketed for free agency. Hand is controllable via $7MM club option, but that price point might be a bit beyond Colorado’s comfort zone. If the Rockies did trade him, that provision would convert to a mutual option.

Suter, claimed off waivers from the Brewers last offseason, is playing this season on a $3MM arbitration salary. The 33-year-old carries an excellent 2.81 ERA across 41 2/3 innings. He’s only striking out 19.2% of batters faced on a modest 8.4% swinging strike percentage. Yet he’s long shown excellent control and an ability to stay off barrels, allowing him to keep his ERA below 4.00 in each of the last four seasons.

His trade candidacy could be complicated by his health with less than a month until the August 1 deadline. Suter is currently on the 15-day injured list after straining his left oblique in late June. It’s unclear how long he’ll be out of action, although Saunders writes that he completed a 20-pitch bullpen session yesterday.

Of course, the Rockies have shown a willingness to operate outside the norm for deadline sellers. Colorado has resisted trading some impending free agents in past seasons when they’ve been well out of contention. Players like C.J. Cron, Elias Díaz and Daniel Bard were signed to multi-year extensions. Trevor Story and Jon Gray walked in free agency, with no compensation in Gray’s case since Colorado declined to make a qualifying offer.

Schmidt suggested the organization would take a similar approach this summer. “We are going to listen on guys, but people have to remember that teams have to want your players, too. … You’re not going to run out a Triple-A team out there — for the integrity of the game,” he told Saunders. “But if there is interest in our players and we think it’s a good decision for our organization, long-term, then we will make considerations.” He said the club would ideally bring back minor league pitching in deadline deals; Colorado’s one move thus far saw them ship out Mike Moustakas for High-A righty Connor Van Scoyoc.

It’s possible the Rockies retain Suter even if he’s healthy enough to draw continued interest at the end of the month. Schmidt implied they could look into an extension, saying he “could see him, going forward in the next year or two, giving us veteran experience in our bullpen.”

The GM also expressed openness to listening on the team’s veteran position players, although Saunders unsurprisingly suggests there’s been less interest in the bulk of that group. Cron, Randal Grichuk and Jurickson Profar are all impending free agents. None has played especially well in 2023. Cron and Grichuk missed notable chunks of time with early-season injuries; Profar has been healthy but stumbled to a .246/.328/.382 line despite playing in the sport’s most hitter-friendly home venue.

Charlie Blackmon is also in the final season of his deal. He has never seemed a particularly plausible trade candidate for myriad reasons. The veteran has full no-trade rights as a career-long Rockie with over 10 years of MLB service. He’s making $15MM this year and is likely to be on the injured list into August after suffering a right hand fracture last month. Demand figures to be minimal, but Schmidt said he’d discuss potential trade scenarios with Blackmon if they arose. The GM noted there’s interest on the club’s part in bringing him back for a 14th season if Blackmon wants to continue playing.

Díaz might be the most interesting Colorado trade candidate on the position player side. Schmidt tells Saunders he’s willing to listen to “legitimate” offers on the first-time All-Star, who’s amidst arguably the best season of his career. The 32-year-old backstop is hitting .279/.331/.442 with nine homers through 296 trips to the dish. He’s making $5.5MM this season and under contract for $6MM next year. Given that extra season of club control, it seems Colorado is prepared to hold to a high asking price on the veteran.

MLB Announces 2023 All-Star Rosters

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The starters for the 2023 All-Star Game were already announced earlier this week, and today the league revealed the reserve selections and the pitching staffs for the National League and American League teams.  Fan balloting determined the game’s starters, while the reserves and pitchers were picked by a combination of the player ballot and selections from the league office.

This won’t be the final list of players involved, as some more substitutions will be announced later for players who are injured or who have opted not to participate.  Every team must have at least one player represented at the Midsummer Classic, and the starting pitchers for the game will be announced on July 10.

Of note, Shohei Ohtani will be in the game as both a DH and as a pitcher for the third consecutive season.  The Braves led all teams with eight All-Stars, while the Rangers weren’t far behind with six players chosen.  This year’s All-Star Game takes place in Seattle on July 11.

National League

American League

Rockies Sign Jorge Alfaro To Minor League Deal

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The Rockies have signed catcher Jorge Alfaro to a minor league deal, according to his transactions tracker at MLB.com. He’s been assigned to the Triple-A Albuquerque Isotopes.

It’s sort of a birthday present for Alfaro, who turns 30 on Sunday. He began the season on a minor league deal with the Red Sox and was assigned to Triple-A Worcester, where he put up an excellent line of .320/.366/.520 through 43 games. That production amounted to a 119 wRC+, indicating he was 19% better than league average.

He had the ability to opt out of that contract on June 1 and July 1 and exercised the first of those opt-outs, hardly a surprise given his hot start to the year. The Red Sox could have prevented Alfaro from getting away by giving him a spot on their roster but decided to stick with their tandem of Reese McGuire and Connor Wong, allowing Alfaro to return to the open market.

Alfaro now finds a new home with the Rockies, an organization that has some question marks in its catching corps. Elias Díaz is the club’s primary backstop and he is having a solid season, hitting .299/.355/.459 for a wRC+ of 107. He’s also been worth three Defensive Runs Saved on defense. However, he was removed from today’s game after he was hit in the mask by a foul ball. “We were cautionary taking him out, based on a blow last night and that one today,” manager Bud Black told Patrick Lyons of DNVR. “I think it made sense to take him out. (Trainer Keith Duggar) is confident that he’s going to be fine. We’ll see how he is tomorrow.”

The club’s backup is Austin Wynns, who is hitting just .190/.255/.238 this year for a wRC+ of 28. Brian Serven is on the 40-man roster and currently on optional assignment with Albuquerque, though he’s hitting just .260/.289/.438 at that level for a 64 wRC+ and had a line of .130/.130/.174 in the majors earlier this year.

The Rockies will now add Alfaro into the mix amid those other options. Once a top 100 prospect, Alfaro hasn’t quite clicked in the majors despite continually crushing in the minors. He’s hit .256/.305/.396 in his major league career for a wRC+ of 89 and also received subpar marks for his defensive work.

If Alfaro can get back up to the majors, the timing will potentially be important for his future status. He currently has five years and 83 days of major league service time. Since a new “year” flips over at 172 days, he is currently 89 days shy of the six-year mark that comes with automatic free agency. If he were called up in the middle of July or later and finally had his long-awaited breakout, he would come up short of that mark and could be retained by the Rockies via arbitration for another season. It’s also possible that his new deal contains opt-outs similar to his deal with the Red Sox, though that’s not publicly known at this time.

Each MLB Team’s Players On WBC Rosters

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The World Baseball Classic is returning this year, the first time since 2017. The quadrennial event was supposed to take place in 2021 but was scuttled by the pandemic, now returning after a six-year absence. Rosters for the tournament were announced today and those can be found at this link. Here is a breakdown of which players from each MLB team are set to take participate. Quick caveat that this list is fluid and might be changed as more information becomes available.

Without further ado…

Angels

Astros

Athletics

Blue Jays

Braves

Brewers

Cardinals

Cubs

Diamondbacks

Dodgers

Giants

Guardians

Marlins

Mariners

Mets

Nationals

Orioles

Padres

Phillies

Pirates

Rangers

Rays

Red Sox

Reds

Rockies

Royals

Tigers

Twins

White Sox

Yankees

Rockies Designate Jordan Sheffield For Assignment

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The Rockies announced they’ve designated reliever Jordan Sheffield for assignment. The move frees a spot on the 40-man roster for outfielder Wynton Bernard, whose previously-reported contract selection has been made official. Colorado placed center fielder Yonathan Daza (separated left shoulder) and catcher Elias Díaz (left wrist sprain) on the 10-day injured list, recalling Dom Nuñez to take Díaz’s spot behind the dish.

Sheffield, a former supplemental first-round pick of the Dodgers, landed in Colorado over the 2020-21 offseason via the Rule 5 draft. He spent all of last season in the majors, as required for a team to retain a Rule 5 pick’s rights. Sheffield worked as a low-leverage arm for skipper Bud Black, pitching to a 3.38 ERA across 29 1/3 innings. His strikeout and walk rates (17.2% and 11.2%, respectively) didn’t align with that quality run prevention. Nevertheless, Sheffield averaged 96.4 MPH with top-of-the-scale raw spin on his four-seam fastball, making him an interesting long-term relief option for the Rox.

Things have fallen apart during the Vanderbilt product’s second year in the organization. He’s made only two big league appearances, with his fastball velocity sitting at a diminished 93.7 MPH. He’s been blasted over 21 appearances with Triple-A Albuquerque, posting an 11.21 ERA with just a 16.3% strikeout rate and a huge 19.6% walk percentage. He’s also surrendered eight home runs in only 17 2/3 innings.

The Rockies will place Sheffield on waivers over the next few days. He’s never previously been outrighted, meaning the organization could keep him around without requiring a 40-man roster spot if he goes unclaimed. That seems likely, given the extent of his struggles in Triple-A this season.

Rockies Sign Elias Diaz To Three-Year Extension

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The Rockies are keeping their catcher around beyond next season, announcing a three-year extension with Elias Díaz. The deal buys out his final year of arbitration-eligibility and first two years of free agency. Díaz will reportedly be guaranteed $14.5MM over its entirety, with the specific salary breakdown yet to be reported.

It’s a nice birthday present for the MAS+ Agency client, who turned 31 yesterday. Díaz has spent the past two seasons in Denver, starting the majority of the team’s games behind the dish in 2021. He’s coming off a nice season, hitting .246/.310/.464 with 18 home runs across 371 plate appearances. Those bottom line results are inflated somewhat by playing his home games at Coors Field, but it’s decent production even after factoring in that favorable environment. By measure of wRC+ — which includes a park adjustment — Díaz’s hitting was about three percentage points better than that of the league average catcher.

That’s one of the better showings of his career. The right-handed hitting backstop entered the 2021 campaign with just a .248/.300/.355 mark across 888 plate appearances between the Pirates and Colorado. He made similar strides on the other side of the ball, rating as an above-average pitch framer (per Statcast) this past season for the first time in his five-year tenure. While he’s drawn mixed reviews as a receiver over the course of his career, he’s consistently done a strong job shutting down the running game. Díaz has cut down 30.4% of attempted base-stealers as a big leaguer, a mark that’s a few percentage points north of the league average in that time.

The Rockies clearly believe Díaz’s numbers this past season better reflect his true talent, and they’ll place a fairly modest bet he can continue to be a capable #1 catcher over the coming years. MLBTR contributor Matt Swartz had projected Díaz to land a 2022 salary in the $2.6MM range if he’d proceeded through arbitration. Essentially, the Rockies are tacking on around $12MM in additional money to buy themselves two more years of team control. That’s a bit below the $16MM the Braves guaranteed Travis d’Arnaud on a two-year extension in August (although d’Arnaud’s deal also contained a 2024 club option).

The Rox shouldn’t have much difficulty fitting Díaz’s deal on the books. Colorado entered today with a projected payroll in the $104MM range, in the estimation of Jason Martinez of Roster Resource. That’s right in line with their 2021 season-opening tally, but they only have around $56MM in guaranteed 2023 commitments at the moment, per Cot’s Baseball Contracts. With the Rockies planning to increase payroll over the coming two seasons, this extension shouldn’t serve as much of an impediment to future additions.

Mark Feinsand of MLB.com first reported the Rockies and Díaz had agreed on a three-year extension. Thomas Harding of MLB.com reported the $14.5MM guarantee.

Image courtesy of USA TODAY Sports.

Players Avoiding Arbitration: 12/1/20

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With the non-tender deadline on the horizon tomorrow, expect quite a few players to agree to contracts for the 2021 season, avoiding arbitration in advance. In many (but not all) cases, these deals — referred to as “pre-tender” deals because they fall prior to the deadline — will fall shy of expectations and projections. Teams will sometimes present borderline non-tender candidates with a “take it or leave it” style offer which will be accepted for fear of being non-tendered and sent out into an uncertain market. Speculatively, such deals could increase in 2020 due to the economic uncertainty sweeping through the game, although there are also widespread expectations of record non-tender numbers.

You can track all of the arbitration and non-tender activity here, and we’ll also run through today’s smaller-scale pre-tender deals in this post.  You can also check out Matt Swartz’s arbitration salary projections here.

Latest Agreements

  • Athletics second baseman Tony Kemp will get $1.05MM over one year, Susan Slusser of the San Francisco Chronicle relays.
  • The Rockies announced that they have re-signed righty Jairo Diaz to a one-year pact. It’s worth $1.1MM, Feinsand tweets.
  • The Phillies and righty reliever Seranthony Dominguez have a one-year, $727,500 deal, according to Feinsand. Dominguez underwent Tommy John surgery at the end of June, so he might not pitch at all in 2021.
  • The Athletics and utility player Chad Pinder reached a one-year, $2.275MM deal, per Nightengale. Pinder has two seasons of team control left.
  • The Orioles and catcher Pedro Severino agreed to a one-year deal worth $1.825MM, MLB.com’s Mark Feinsand reports (Twitter link).  There was some speculation that Severino could be a non-tender candidate, though he has posted pretty decent numbers over two seasons as Baltimore’s primary catcher.  Severino is controllable through the 2023 season.
  • The Nationals and right-hander Joe Ross agreed to a one-year, $1.5MM contract, USA Today’s Bob Nightengale tweets.  This is a match of the salary Ross and the Nats had agreed on for the 2020 season, but Ross decided to opt out back in June.  This was Ross’ third year of arbitration eligibility, and is now expected to return and compete for a job in Washington’s rotation in 2021.
  • The Royals agreed to one-year deals with righties Jesse Hahn and Jakob Junis and outfielder Franchy Cordero, according to Feinsand and USA Today’s Bob Nightengale (Twitter links).  Hahn signed for $1.75MM in guaranteed money with another $350K available in incentives.  Junis will rake in $1.7MM. Cordero will earn $800K in his first arbitration-eligible year.

Earlier Agreements

  • The Athletics and righty Burch Smith agreed to a one-year deal worth $705K, USA Today’s Bob Nightengale tweets.  The 30-year-old Smith allowed three runs on seven hits and a walk with 13 strikeouts in 12 2/3 frames with the A’s in 2020. That was a solid showing for Smith to carry into his first trip through the arb process, though he carried a career 6.57 ERA in 135 1/3 frames into the 2020 season. The A’s can control Smith through 2023.
  • The Rockies agreed to a one-year, $1.2MM deal with catcher Elias Diaz, per Nightengale (Twitter link). The contract contains another $300K in available incentives.  The 30-year-old looked like a clear non-tender candidate after posting an ugly .235/.288/.353 slash with lackluster framing marks and just a 1-for-8 effort in throwing out base thieves, but the Rockies must remain hopeful he can return to his 2018 level of performance. Diaz is controllable through the 2022 season via arbitration.
  • Right-hander Jacob Barnes and the Mets agreed to a one-year deal worth $750K, Nightengale tweets. Barnes, claimed off waivers back in October, was a quality reliever in Milwaukee from 2016-18 but has seen his results crater over the past two seasons. From 2019-20, he’s posted a 6.75 ERA over 50 2/3 innings. Barnes has averaged 10 strikeouts per nine frames in that time but also averaged 4.6 walks and 1.42 homers as well. Barnes is controllable through 2022.
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