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Injury/Rehab Notes: Steckenrider, Davis, Strickland, Middleton

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The Marlins placed righty Drew Steckenrider on the 10-day injured list due to inflammation in his right elbow last night, and Andre Fernandez of The Athletic tweets that the 28-year-old righty is undergoing further testing in Miami today. Entering the season, Steckenrider looked poised to hold down a significant role in the Miami relief corps. The offseason addition of Sergio Romo to the bullpen gave him some immediate competition for saves, but Steckenrider was in line for a prominent late-inning gig regardless of what inning he pitched most frequently. Through the first 99 1/3 innings of his big league career in 2017-18, Steckenrider posted a 3.35 ERA with 11.6 K/9, 4.1 BB/9 and 1.0 HR/9. Steckenrider, though, struggled through a rough second half last year and hasn’t looked right this season, pitching to a 6.28 ERA in 14 1/3 frames. After allowing seven homers all of last season and just 11 dating back to 2017, he’s served up six long balls already. His velocity has held up, and he isn’t necessarily having trouble throwing strikes (3.1 BB/9). However, Steckenrider is falling behind hitters more than he has in the past and seems to be struggling to locate within the zone.

Some more injury updates of note…

  • Slugger Khris Davis departed last night’s game due to “lingering effects from the left hip contusion he suffered on Sunday in Pittsburgh,” the Athletics announced. There’s no word on whether Davis will require any additional absence at this point, though he already sat out a pair of games with that issue before last night’s early exit. Last year’s home run leader is hitting .227/.306/.477 with 10 long balls on the season so far. His health status will be worth keeping an eye on, as his availability could directly impact Kendrys Morales’ place on the roster now that Matt Olson has returned from the injured list.
  • Mariners right-hander Hunter Strickland has been cleared to resume throwing, writes Ryan Divish of the Seattle Times. Strickland opened the season as the closer in Seattle and picked up a pair of saves with two perfect outings in his first two appearances. He was torched for three runs in his third appearance of the season, though, and landed on the injured list due to a strained lat that’ll sideline him more than two months when all is said and done. As Divish notes, Strickland had to restart his entire throwing program, so there’s no guarantee that he’ll be ready for activation when his 60-day minimum window is met on June 5. The Mariners have tried out Anthony Swarzak in the ninth inning with Strickland on the shelf, but he’s blown three of his past four save opportunities. Lefty Roenis Elias, too, has been in the mix for saves and has thrown more effectively.
  • Angels righty Keynan Middleton had a minor setback in his rehab from Tommy John surgery last week but has resumed throwing, general manager Billy Eppler told reporters yesterday (link via Mike DiGiovanna of the L.A. Times). Middleton ramped up his throwing a bit too aggressively and had to scale back his rehab for a week, but he’s still on track for a return for a midsummer return (late June or sometime in July). A healthy Middleton would only add to a relief corps that features plenty of quality arms even with Cody Allen struggling. Ty Buttrey has emerged as one of the American League’s most impressive young relievers, and he’s but one of four Halo relievers averaging at least 10.7 K/9 with a sub-3.00 ERA on the season. The flamethrowing Middleton averaged 96.7 mph on his heater and logged a 3.43 ERA with a 15 percent swinging-strike rate in 76 career innings before undergoing surgery last season.

Athletics Extend Khris Davis

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Oakland fans have cause to celebrate. The Athletics announced Thursday that they’ve extended designated hitter/outfielder Khris Davis through the 2021 season. Susan Slusser of the San Francisco Chronicle reports (via Twitter) that Davis will earn $16.75MM in each year of the contract, meaning he’ll take home $33.5MM in new money over the next two campaigns. Davis, an Octagon client, would have been eligible for free agency following the 2019 season.

“Oakland has been a special place for me since I arrived,” said Davis in a statement accompanying the announcement. “I love playing here in front of our fans, and my teammates make this feel like a family. I never hid the fact that I wanted to stay in Oakland because that is how I feel and I’m glad that I can continue to call the city of Oakland my baseball home. This team has a bright future, and I’m thrilled to be a part of it.”

Davis, 31, has been a source of immense power and stunning consistency since coming to the A’s by way of trade from the Brewers. There may be no more remarkable piece of trivia in baseball than the slugger finishing four consecutive seasons with a .247 batting average. Of course, while that number doesn’t stand out as particularly impressive, Davis offsets that average with respectable on-base skills and elite power; he’s a .247/.322/.539 hitter since being acquired by the Athletics (this season included) and averaged 44 homers per year in each of his three full seasons in green and gold.

It’s not particularly surprising to see the sides line up on a new deal, especially in this year of the extension. The A’s have proven willing to commit multiple seasons to a DH in the recent past. Though they came to regret the Billy Butler signing, the club has had a lengthy opportunity already to evaluate Davis in person. He has proven capable of putting the ball over the fence in one of the game’s least homer-friendly ballparks. And he’ll continue to earn at the same level he is in 2019, a salary that the club obviously feels it can manage even with its typically bottom-barrel payroll.

From Davis’s perspective, the market has been distinctly unfriendly to defensively limited sluggers. J.D. Martinez hit free agency with a better track record and at a much younger age than Davis would have, but settled for $110MM over five years. And that’s the very top of the market. The aging but highly accomplished Nelson Cruz settled for one year and $14MM this past winter. He took down four seasons and $57MM when he hit the market in 2014, but things have clearly changed since that time.

If there was an upside scenario for Davis in the 2019-20 market, it was probably embodied in Carlos Santana’s three-year, $60MM deal. Santana was a similar age to Davis; he lacked Davis’s power abilities but was a much bigger on-base threat. That contract came in higher than MLBTR predicted; it also quickly proved undesirable for the Phillies. Santana’s contract was one of several first base/DH accords to be swapped around the league this winter. Perhaps Davis could still have earned more on the open market, in AAV if not also years, but it’s understandable that he wasn’t anxious to test his luck.

Photo courtesy of USA Today Sports Images.

Spring Injuries: Davis, Palka, Mesa, Sandoval

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With Spring Training games underway, we’ll use this post to track some of the minor aches and pains as they flare up around the game…

  • A mild left calf strain has kept Khris Davis on the shelf for the beginning of Spring Training, per MLB.com’s Jane Lee. There’s not much cause for concern, but the A’s don’t want to rush Davis until he is back at full strength. He’s listed as day-to-day for now, though the issue has flared up a couple of times since the start of camp. Shutting down all baseball activity is the prudent move for Davis, who is of course a central piece for Oakland’s offense. The 31-year-old DH hit exactly .247 in each of the last four seasons, while his slugging has increased year-over-year, from .505 in 2015 to .524 in 2016 to .528 in 2017 to .549 last year. Davis is a key contributor in just about any scenarios that has the A’s challenging Houston for the AL West crown. 
  • White Sox right fielder Daniel Palka was pulled from a Spring Training game in the second inning today with left hamstring tightness, per Paul Sullivan of the Chicago Tribune. Palka was hitting cleanup for the White Sox, who lost their first two spring contests in a pair of split-squad games on Saturday. Palka became a fan favorite while slugging 27 home runs for the Southsiders as a 26-year-old rookie last year, but he’ll need to develop other parts of his game to survive Chicago’s rebuild. His overall slash line of .240/.294/.484 combined with subpar defense in the outfield corners leaves much to be desired. 
  • Highly-touted Cuban prospect Victor Victor Mesa left Sunday’s Spring Training game with a right hamstring strain, per Wells Dusenbury of the South Florida Sun Sentinel. The Marlins 22-year-old outfielder left the game after running out a grounder. He will return to Jupiter to be re-examined, though it would not appear to be a serious injury. He’s listed as day-to-day. Hamstring injuries can linger, of course, and the Marlins will want to be extra cautious with their prized acquisition as they prepare him for his first professional season stateside.  
  • Pablo Sandoval tweaked a side muscle, though it does not appear to be anything serious. The Giants will hold him back a day or two, but rest appears the only course of action as of now, per Henry Schulman of the SF Chronicle (via Twitter). Sandoval isn’t the player he once was, but he did rebound at least a little bit from his horror show days in Boston. Last season, Sandoval hit .248/.310/.417 across 252 plate appearances, which is production the Giants will take given their minimum salary commitment. 

Latest On Khris Davis, Athletics

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Feb. 18: Despite Davis’ comments, Susan Slusser of the San Francisco Chronicle writes that the slugger isn’t likely to sign at quite such an affordable rate. A deal for Davis would likely need to reach three years and $45MM, she notes, pointing out that the potential addition of the designated hitter to the National League would only further boost Davis’ market value if it comes to fruition in the near future.

Ultimately, a contract for Davis is his own decision, of course, but it stands to reason that his representatives and the players’ union would strongly dissuade Davis from taking any sort of discount on an extension.

Feb. 17: Extension talks between Khris Davis and the A’s have been taking place for over a year, and the slugger reiterated to media members (including MLB.com’s Jane Lee) on Sunday that his desire is to remain in Oakland.  To this end, Davis is also willing to take a salary cut to make an extension happen, telling Lee that he would be willing to accept $10MM per year if the A’s were to extend through at least the 2021 season.

This would represent a pretty significant salary reduction for Davis, who is set to earn $16.5MM in 2019 after he and the Athletics avoided arbitration by settling on a contract in Davis’ final year of arb-eligibility.  Davis, however, recognized that his market could be limited in free agency next winter.  He’ll be 33 years old on Opening Day of the 2020 season, and he doesn’t offer a well-rounded game — beyond his power bat, Davis is a sub-standard baserunner and defender, and best suited for a DH spot at this stage in his career.  Though he has been a solidly above-average hitter overall (career 125 wRC+) thanks to his huge power, Davis also isn’t a big on-base threat or known to post a high batting average, as per his well-documented streak of four straight seasons with a .247 batting average.

“I don’t want to break the bank.  I want to be happy playing baseball.  I’m not trying to max out the dollars,” Davis said.  “$16 million, this is the top for me. I don’t want more than that. I’ll probably have to take a cut, and that’s fine, as long as I’m here.”

It’s an unusually public stance for a player to take, and perhaps one that Davis’ agent and/or the MLBPA might have concerns about given how the union is facing a league-wide slowdown on free agent salaries.  From Oakland’s perspective, the club may feel that it has enough leverage to perhaps avoid an extension whatsoever, taking the gamble that Davis might still be eager to re-sign at a discount after the season, even if he posts more big numbers.  Extending Davis even at a modest two-year deal for around $20MM through 2021 still carries some risk for the A’s now, as a lower-payroll team like the Athletics can hardly afford even a $10MM payroll albatross should Davis’ production fall off.

Still, in a vacuum, Davis’ comments aren’t too far removed from any highly-paid veteran player acknowledging that their next contract will be of lesser value, or a player who prioritizes a certain team or playing for a contender over a wider scope of free agent choices.  Davis’ home run totals have also allowed him to capture $32MM over his three arbitration years, so he is already more than secure financially.  As Susan Slusser of the San Francisco Chronicle noted earlier this winter, contract length “is far more important to Davis than the annual value of the contract,” and Davis told reporters today that he hopes to keep wearing an A’s jersey for “at least three more years.”

“It’s not a good thing being a free agent right now,” Davis said. “I’m already 31. I don’t know if I’m too old. There’s a lot of things that run through my head.“

Quick Hits: Prospects, Grandal, Twins, Davis, A’s

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Vladimir Guerrero Jr. sits atop Baseball America’s annual preseason edition of its Top 100 Prospect rankings.  Guerrero had already moved into the #1 position in BA’s midseason rankings last summer after Shohei Ohtani and Ronald Acuna (the top two players in last spring’s top 100) gained enough big league playing time to lose their prospect status.  Guerrero is expected to make his long-awaited debut in the Blue Jays’ lineup at some point early in the 2019 season.  Fernando Tatis Jr., Eloy Jimenez, Wander Franco, and Forrest Whitley round out the top five.

Here’s more from around the baseball world…

  • Before signing a one-year deal with the Brewers worth $18.25MM in guaranteed money, Yasmani Grandal received multi-year offers from the Angels, Twins, and White Sox, The Athletic’s Robert Murray reports (subscription required).  These offers were in addition to the four-year deal reportedly floated by the Mets for Grandal, which he turned down.  As Grandal explained, taking the longer-term offers would’ve meant setting what he felt was a bad precedent for free agent catching contracts.  “One of my responsibilities as a player is also to respect the guys going through this process before me like Brian McCann, Russell Martin, Yadier Molina…These are guys who have established a market and pay levels for a particular tier of catchers like myself,” Grandal said.  “I felt l would be doing a disservice taking some of the deals that were offered even though they were slightly more long term.  I wanted to keep the line moving and set a bar for the younger guys coming up.  In hopes of them following our footsteps….hopefully, they know what they are worth and would go ahead and get paid what they’re worth.”  Grandal can technically achieve a second year on his Brewers deal, a mutual option for 2020 worth $16MM, though it seems unlikely that both he and the team would agree to enact their respective sides of that option.
  • The Twins’ offer to Grandal was worth around $13MM per season, 1500 ESPN’s Darren Wolfson tweets, though talks between the two parties “never gained traction.”  To use Grandal’s cited examples, $13MM is less in average annual value than McCann, Martin, and Molina each received in long-term deals from the Yankees, Blue Jays, and Cardinals, respectively.  (In fact, Molina averaged more than $13MM per year in each of his last two extensions with St. Louis.)  While time will tell if Grandal made the right move in turning down more long-term security, he clearly feels comfortable in betting on himself for a big 2019 season, while still picking up a nice one-year payday on a contending team.  The Twins’ pursuit of Grandal is interesting in light of recent comments from Derek Falvey and Thad Levine about the team’s rather conservative approach to spending this offseason, though obviously Minnesota (like any club) would be interested in larger multi-year deals if it felt it was getting something of a below-market price.
  • Athletics GM David Forst suggests that the door is still open to a long-term deal with slugger Khris Davis after the sides lined up on a 2019 contract for his final season of arbitration eligibility.  As Forst told John Shea of the San Francisco Chronicle and other reporters, the two sides have “continued that conversation” and could keep negotiating after Opening Day, if Davis is willing.  It had seemed possible that the need to hammer out an arb figure would drive talks, but with that already settled (at a hefty $16.5MM), any future-oriented agreement will simply have to reflect a difficult valuation case.  Davis is one of the game’s power bats, of course, but he’ll also be 32 on Opening Day 2020 and he doesn’t add value with the glove.

Athletics, Khris Davis Avoid Arbitration

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Khris Davis and the Athletics have reached an agreement on a one-year deal worth $16.5MM, tweets Jon Heyman of Fancred. Davis had previously been projected by MLBTR contributor Matt Swartz to receive $18.1MM. Davis, 31, is entering his final season of arbitration eligibility before he may enter free agency next winter. Davis enjoyed a career year in 2018, slugging a Major League-leading 48 home runs and serving as a catalyst for a surprising A’s team that won 97 games and earned a trip to the AL Wild Card game.

Not only is Davis’s contract notable because of its overall dollar value but also because the salary comes in significantly below the figure projected for Davis earlier in the winter. For an Athletics team that entered 2018 with the Majors’ lowest payroll, the $1.6MM difference between Davis’s actual and projected salary certainly holds some importance. In a competitive American League, the Athletics still find themselves seeking out free agents to bolster an injury-battered pitching staff; indeed, the club, which has garnered a reputation as savvy market shoppers, will have an additional $1.6MM at their disposal compared to initial projections. While that money alone won’t buy one of the big names still without a contract, it will grant Oakland some invaluable flexibility as the team seeks to make a second consecutive postseason appearance.

Athletics Notes: Davis, Murray, Martin, Rule 5 Draft

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Some items out of Oakland….

  • The A’s aren’t expected to revisit extension negotiations with Khris Davis until later in the offseason, though the two sides will surely talk prior to the January 11 deadline for exchanging arbitration figures.  Davis is projected to earn $18.1MM in 2019, his final year before free agency, though Susan Slusser of the San Francisco Chronicle points out that Oakland stands a decent chance of retaining Davis for 2020 via the qualifying offer.  A longer-term deal still could be attractive for the Athletics, however, as a way of saving themselves some money in overall average annual value.  A source tells Slusser that the length of an extension “is far more important to Davis than the annual value of the contract,” as Davis surely would like some long-term security given how the free agent market has somewhat harshly treated bat-first players over the last two years.
  • Heisman Trophy winner and A’s draft pick Kyler Murray pointed towards the Athletics as his future destination, telling reporters (including KFOR.com’s Dylan Buckingham) Wednesday that, “As of right now, I’m going to play baseball. That’s about it.”  Murray had given some recent indications that he could reconsider an NFL career in the wake of his star performance as Oklahoma’s quarterback this season, though yesterday’s statement would seem to indicate that he is ultimately preparing to join the Athletics’ farm system once his collegiate career is over.  Scott Boras, Murray’s agent, also more or less said as much when speaking to MLB.com’s Jane Lee and other media members Wednesday at the Winter Meetings.  “When you win the Heisman Trophy, you are going to have a lot of information come to you and be looked at,” Boras said. “All I know is Kyler has a tremendous opportunity to be a great baseball player. He knows that, and I think that opportunity is already in place. He has every intention to be in Spring Training and advance that interest.”  Murray was the ninth overall pick of the 2018 draft, and his A’s contract (which included a $4.66MM bonus) allowed him to play football for Oklahoma this season.
  • In a preview of today’s Rule 5 Draft, J.J. Cooper of Baseball America writes that A’s shortstop prospect Richie Martin is rumored as the Orioles’ choice as the draft’s first overall pick.  Oakland picked Martin 20th overall in the 2015 amateur draft, and after dealing with knee problems during his first three pro seasons, Martin broke out to hit .300/.368/.439 over 509 plate appearances for Double-A Midland in 2018.  The Athletics couldn’t find room for him on the 40-man roster, however, and now the team stands a good chance of losing Martin in the Rule 5 Draft, be it the Orioles or another interested club.  Any team that takes Murray must keep him on their Major League roster for the entire 2019 season, or else offer him back to the A’s for $50K.  Cooper’s piece is well worth a full read for a look at some of the intriguing young players who could be Rule 5 picks today at 11am CT.

Arbitration Breakdown: Khris Davis

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Over the last few days, I have been discussing some of the higher profile upcoming arbitration cases. I rely partly on my arbitration model, developed exclusively for MLB Trade Rumors, but will also break out some interesting comparables and determine where the model might be wrong. 2019 arbitration projections are available right here.

Khris Davis enters his third year of arbitration under somewhat familiar conditions—with a .247 average (matching his exact batting average in each season from 2015 through 2017) and at least 40 home runs in his platform season. Coincidences aside, my model sees him getting his biggest raise ever, a $7.6MM bump, good for an $18.1MM salary projection. Last year, he got a $5.5MM raise from his initial $5MM salary in his first year of arbitration.

With career highs of 48 home runs and 123 runs batted in, it is pretty logical that Davis is projected to get his biggest raise yet. On top of that, the same type of performance in the third year of arbitration eligibility is typically associated with a larger raise than it would in the second year of eligibility.

Davis’ case obviously hinges on his power numbers, which is certainly a fortunate skill to possess when it comes to arbitration; power is the skill the arbitration system favors most heavily. Looking for appropriate comparables for Davis is going to require looking for other players who have had significant tallies of the right counting stats, so we should restrict our search to prominent sluggers.

Somewhat surprisingly, in the past decade, only one player has hit 40 home runs going into his third year of arbitration: Todd Frazier, two years ago. Frazier only hit .225 that year and fell just short of 100 RBIs with 98. Davis hit eight more home runs than Frazier did, too. Putting that together, we get an absolute floor of the $3.75MM raise from Frazier’s case.

Even if we soften the home run requirement to 35 and require 100 RBIs, we only get one player in the past five years: Charlie Blackmon, last year. He got a $6.7MM raise for hitting .331 with 37 home runs and 104 runs batted in. There was some debate last year about whether that was enough of a raise, with some rival agents taking shots through the media claiming he should have gotten more. If applied back to Blackmon’s case, the current iteration model does project his 2017 season to support a larger raise of $7.8 million. That also means that the model slightly prefers that season, with its lofty batting average but lesser power stats, to the one just turned in by Davis. All things considered, Blackmon seems like a pretty solid overall comparable, one that either side in the Davis case could argue off of.

It is difficult to come up with other comparables in recent years, but if Davis and the A’s go further back, they might want to look for someone who led the league in home runs like Davis did going into his third year of arbitration. That would be Matt Kemp, who got a $5.05 million raise for his .324/39/126 season in 2011. That is obviously very stale, but it makes it plausible that Davis could get a similar kind of raise with inflation, although his batting average was obviously worse.

With so few plausible comparables, it is difficult to know what Davis could command. In such situations, I would lean towards the model, especially without much evidence that the number was too high or too low. Regardless, in the current era with so many home runs being hit league wide, it will be interesting to see how this affects future cases for guys like Davis who hit so many home runs. Of course, we may not get to see a one-year settlement. The relationship seems to be working for both sides and all involved surely remain mindful of the open market’s devaluation of sluggers, so it would not be surprising to see a multi-year agreement of some kind.

A’s Notes: Davis, Melvin, Lucroy, Lowrie, Kelley

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After falling short in the AL wild card game, the Athletics are looking ahead to what they hope is another year of contention in 2019.  Baseball operations executive VP Billy Beane and general manager David Forst met with reporters (including Susan Slusser of the San Francisco Chronicle and NBCSports.com’s Ben Ross) today to discuss some pressing matters as the A’s enter the offseason…

  • The A’s have had “some preliminary conversations” with Khris Davis’ representatives about a contract extension, Beane said.  The two sides have already touched base about an extension multiple times this year, initially a one-year deal to cover Davis’ final year of arbitration eligibility in 2019, and then talks of a multi-year agreement over the summer.  After a league-best 48 homers, Davis is due for a big arbitration raise over his $10.5MM salary from 2018, and any sort of pricey extension is pretty rare for the low-payroll Athletics.  Still, Beane did say last year that the team was looking to identify and extend players it felt were cornerstones, and Davis’ consistent power production has certainly been a big boost to the Oakland lineup.
  • A contract extension for manager Bob Melvin is likely coming by early next week.  “Bob is one of the best in the game and he’s perfect for us.  The idea is he’s here for a long time and for the rest of his career,” Beane said.  The two sides were expected to meet after the season to discuss a new deal, and it appears as though negotiations will wrap up in quick fashion.  Oakland has a 634-599 record and four postseason appearances over Melvin’s eight seasons as manager, and this year’s 97-win campaign certainly made Melvin deserving of a longer commitment beyond the end of the 2019 season, when his current deal expires.  The length of Melvin’s next contract will be of interest, given that Slusser reported over the summer about rumblings that the trio of Melvin, Beane, and Forst might not stay together beyond 2019 — Melvin’s deal could give a hint about Beane and/or Forst’s future.
  • The A’s figure to have interest in re-signing Jonathan Lucroy, with Slusser feeling that Lucroy would be looking for a two-year deal but the team would prefer another one-year contract.  Prospect Sean Murphy looks to be the catcher of the future, though “Sean’s got all of three games at Triple-A, so it’s hard to say where he starts 2019,” Forst said.  Murphy hit .288/.358/.498 over 289 PA at Double-A this season, though his season was shortened by a broken hamate bone.  Until Murphy gets more seasoning, Lucroy would be a logical choice as a veteran bridge, and finding that multi-year free agent deal could be difficult for Lucroy given that he was forced to settle for a one-year pact in free agency last offseason and is now coming off a much weaker year at the plate.  In a separate piece yesterday, Slusser reported that there hadn’t yet been any talks between Lucroy and the Athletics.
  • Free agent second baseman Jed Lowrie reiterated that he wants to stay with the A’s, saying he has “made it abundantly clear” to all parties.  Oakland had interest in an extension back in July, so there certainly appears to be some momentum on both sides to work out a new deal.  Lowrie turns 35 in April, though a multi-year appears to be in order after back-to-back impressive seasons — the veteran hit .272/.356/.448 with 37 homers and 86 doubles in 1325 PA since the start of the 2017 campaign.
  • In an appearance on the A’s Plus podcast with Slusser back in August, reliever Shawn Kelley hinted that “it’s possible” 2018 could be his last season.  “I’ve told a lot of my close friends [and] my family, that it would take something pretty either convenient location-wise or something that maybe I couldn’t turn down to probably get me to come back to another Spring Training,” Kelley said.  That would seemingly put a return to the A’s in question, as the Kelley family’s offseason home is in Chattanooga (far removed from Oakland or the Athletics’ Spring Training camp in Mesa, Arizona), though his feelings could have changed since the time the podcast was released.  Arm issues could be one reason for Kelley’s decision, as he has two Tommy John surgeries on his record and joked that “my elbow is about 85 [years old], it feels like some days.”  Performance-wise, the 34-year-old Kelley is still pitching at a high level, bouncing back from an injury-shortened 2017 to post a 2.94 ERA, 9.2 K/9, and 4.55 K/BB rate over 49 innings for the Nationals and A’s this season, though he also missed two weeks to the DL with an ulnar nerve problem.

Athletics, Khris Davis Discussing Possible Extension

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The Athletics are holding extension talks with slugger Khris Davis, according to Susan Slusser of the San Francisco Chronicle. Per the report, “numerous talks” have already taken place between the Oakland brass and Octagon agent Lou Nero.

Despite the evident mutual interest, Slusser indicates that it’s far from clear whether anything will get done. The length of a potential contract is an obvious stumbling block. By her reckoning, Davis’s camp might only bite at a three-year guarantee, but that feels steep from the organization’s perspective.

Davis, 30, is under arbitration control for another season. He’s earning $10.5MM for 2018 and will surely command another healthy raise. After all, Davis is threatening to register more than forty home runs and one hundred runs batted in for the third-straight season.

Those counting stats may not play quite as well in free agency as they once did. But that doesn’t mean that Davis’s bat wouldn’t be seen as a valuable asset. He has been a steady producer since landing in Oakland, with a .245/.322/.521 cumulative slash (127 OPS+) through 1,595 plate appearances. While his overall utility is greatly diminished by a lack of defensive and baserunning ability, Davis would hold appeal to other American League clubs.

All things considered, it’s an interesting situation. The sides reportedly weighed an arb-only deal earlier this season, but that never came to fruition. It’s possible that a multi-year scenario would better suit all sides, though there’s also good reason to expect that the club will be wary of making too great a commitment. For Davis, he says he’s “keeping an open mind” but will mostly trust his agent.

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