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Omar Infante

AL Central Notes: Haley, Twins, Rondon, Infante, Tigers, Chisenhall

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Here’s the latest on some final roster decisions being made in the AL Central:

  • Rule 5 righty Justin Haley will crack the Twins’ Opening Day roster, as Mike Berardino of the St. Paul Pioneer-Press reported on Twitter and skipper Paul Molitor later confirmed. He and Michael Tonkin will round out the Minnesota pen to start the season. Though Haley allowed nine earned runs on 19 hits in his 16 1/3 frames this spring, he carried a 13:4 K/BB ratio and evidently showed enough to warrant a shot at holding a MLB roster spot for the full season.
  • The Twins will likely place infielder Ehire Adrianza on the DL to open the season, as Mike Berardino of the St. Paul Pioneer-Press tweets. He is dealing with an oblique issue. That injury may help the club resolve some of its final roster decisions; both Adrianza and fellow utility candidate Eduardo Escobar are out of options. Minnesota is expected to announce its remaining roster calls tomorrow.
  • Though he’s still going to be on the Opening Day roster, righty Bruce Rondon has shown diminished velocity this spring. Tigers manager Brad Ausmus said he has some concerns about the once-hyped reliever, as Anthony Fenech of the Detroit Free Press reports on Twitter. Rondon has issued six walks and allowed six earned runs over his 6 1/3 spring innings. Meanwhile, as MLB.com’s Jason Beck tweets, Ausmus confirmed that Matt Boyd will join the rotation to open the year, with Anibal Sanchez very likely heading to the pen, as was reported yesterday (though as noted below, there’s still some uncertainty in the staff).
  • Veteran infielder Omar Infante was among the Tigers’ camp cuts today, possibly setting him up to opt out from his deal next week, as Beck notes on Twitter. Infante showed well in camp, slashing .351/.368/.486, and Beck suggests it’s unlikely he’ll pass on an opportunity to test the open market if Detroit doesn’t change its mind about his roster placement. Ausmus did say, though, that he believes Infante would be willing to take a Triple-A assignment if he can’t find a major league job elsewhere, Evan Woodberry of MLive.com tweets.
  • The Tigers also sent out 31-year-old outfielder Alex Presley, despite the fact that he put up a ridiculous .452/.528/.839 batting line in camp. Ausmus says he told Presley to be prepared for a call-up at any time, though, as Woodberry tweets. Otherwise, Ausmus played things close to the vest, Woodberry writes, as the skipper declined to give clarity to the team’s intentions in the outfield. With Presley out of the picture, it seems that Tyler Collins and JaCoby Jones could share time in center while Mikie Mahtook and Steven Moya do the same to cover for the injured J.D. Martinez in right. But Ausmus seemingly hinted there could be some moves in the works that would change the complexion of the roster, so there’s still plenty of uncertainty.
  • The Indians will place Lonnie Chisenhall on the 10-day DL to open the year, MLB.com’s Jordan Bastian tweets. But the shoulder injury he suffered in a recent collision with the outfield wall doesn’t seem likely to keep him out for much more than the minimum. For the time being, at least, Abraham Almonte will take a spot on the active roster.

Tigers Sign Omar Infante, 13 Others To Minors Deals

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The Tigers have announced a barrage of minor-league signings, most notably including a reunion with former Detroit infielder Omar Infante. Other players receiving Spring Training invites include pitchers Ruben Alaniz, William Cuevas, Logan Kensing, Dustin Molleken, as well as catcher Miguel Gonzalez.

Infante, who’ll soon turn 35, enjoyed two prior runs in the Motor City. His most recent stint came in 2012-13, with a strong final season leading him to land a four-year deal with the Royals. Things didn’t go well in Kansas City, where Infante scuffled to a .238/.269/.328 batting line over 1,179 plate appearances. He was cut loose in the middle of last year, leaving the Royals still on the hook for his $8MM salary this season.

The team also reached agreement on minors deals without a non-roster invite with a variety of other players: pitchers Johan Belisario, Endrys Briceno, Jeff Ferrell, Santiago Garrido, and Arcenio Leon along with infielders Argenis Diaz and Gustavo Nunez.

Braves Release Omar Infante

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Before they two other, more significant middle infield moves today, the Braves cut ties with veteran Omar Infante, as David O’Brien of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported on Twitter. Atlanta went on to trade Erick Aybar, getting Mike Aviles and a prospect in return, and promoted top prospect Dansby Swanson.

Infante had signed on with Atlanta on a minor league deal about six weeks ago, following his release by the Royals. Kansas City is still paying the full $8MM owed to Infante this year, as well as a $2MM buyout on a 2017 option.

Since joining the Braves organization, the 34-year-old Infante has played in 27 games for Triple-A Gwinnett. Unfortunately, he has largely continued the same listless hitting that led K.C. to cut ties with him in the first place. Over 116 plate appearances at Triple-A, Infante carries a .209/.226/.300 batting line that is actually a fair bit worse than the .239/.279/.321 mark he owns in 149 trips to the plate this year in the majors.

Braves, Omar Infante Agree To Minor League Deal

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The Braves have agreed to a minor league contract with veteran infielder Omar Infante, tweets Jon Heyman of FanRag Sports. Infante was released by the Royals after being designated for assignment earlier this month.

Infante inked a four-year, $30.25MM contract with Kansas City prior to the 2014 season and on the heels of a solid run with the Marlins and Tigers from 2011-13. Infante slashed .288/.318/.414 in the three years leading up to his free agency and also contributed solid defense at second base, prompting the Royals to offer a substantial contract. However, in parts of three seasons with Kansas City, Infante batted a woeful .238/.269/.328 in 1179 plate appearances.

This will mark Infante’s second tenure with Atlanta. He spent 2008-10 seasons with the Braves after being traded from the Cubs (for whom he never actually played a game). Infante enjoyed a successful run with the Braves and even flirted with a batting title in 2010 before he was traded to Miami in the Dan Uggla deal and then back to Detroit in the Anibal Sanchez swap. In parts of 15 big league seasons, the 34-year-old Infante is a .271/.308/.387 hitter.

Royals Release Omar Infante

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JUNE 23: Infante has cleared release waivers and is now a free agent, tweets Flanagan.

JUNE 21: The Royals have requested unconditional release waivers on Infante, per Rustin Dodd of the Kansas City Star (Twitter link). Infante, of course, figures to clear waivers with ease, as no big league club would be keen on acquiring the remainder of his salary. Once he clears (in 48 hours), he’ll be free to sign with any Major League team, at which point that team would be on the hook for only the pro-rated portion of the league minimum. (That sum would be subtracted from what the Royals owe.)

JUNE 15: The Royals have designated second baseman Omar Infante for assignment, Jeffrey Flanagan of MLB.com tweets. His roster spot will go to lefty Brian Flynn.

Infante, 34, has been a major disappointment since signing as a free agent before the 2014 season. Kansas City still owes him the rest of a $7.75MM salary this year and another $10MM down the line, including a buyout of a 2018 option.

Technically, he could sill be claimed or traded, but both seem unlikely. Even a surprise swap would be quite unlikely to save K.C. much cash.

[RELATED: View the Royals’ new depth chart and projected lineup]

All told, Infante has provided the Royals with a .238/.269/.328 batting line with eight home runs and 11 stolen bases over 1,179 plate appearances. Though he’s been solid enough with the glove and on the bases, it hasn’t come close to making up for the offensive deficiencies. In the aggregate, he has played below replacement level.

That wasn’t the plan when the Royals added Infante, who had just wrapped up a solid 2013 campaign for the division-rival Tigers. Really, it’s a testament to how well the team has performed in the past two seasons that it was able to get by with his marginal contributions. While recent successes have moved the payroll up in the interim, Infante’s signing represented a rather significant commitment for the Royals at the time.

We’ve often discussed the possibility of the team pursuing an upgrade at second, but the final straw ultimately came from within. Surprising 27-year-old rookie Whit Merrifield supplanted Infante, with the presence of utilityman Christian Colon making him expendable.

Quick Hits: Colon, Otani, Lincecum, Phillies, Royals

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In one of the best, most shocking moments of the season, Mets right-hander Bartolo Colon hit his first career home run Saturday night, a two-run shot off the Padres’ James Shields. It took Colon until the age of 42 to go yard, making him the oldest player in major league history to finally break through with a homer. The ball exited Colon’s bat at 97 mph and traveled 365 feet at pitcher-friendly Petco Park, according to Statcast (data and video courtesy of SI Wire). Colon savored the accomplishment by taking a 30-second trot around the bases. He also impersonated Babe Ruth on the mound by turning in a nice pitching performance, throwing 6 2/3 innings of three-run ball in a 6-3 win.

We won’t top that tonight, but here’s more from the sport:

  • Japanese right-hander Shohei Otani might be willing to leave his homeland for the majors if teams see him as both a pitcher and a hitter, tweets Jim Allen of Kyodo News. The 21-year-old Otani is in the midst of his third straight dominant season as a pitcher for the Hokkaido Nippon-Ham Fighters, and he’s on an early offensive tear with a .308/.362/.654 line in 58 plate appearances. Otani is a career .251/.306/,450 hitter with 23 home runs (including five this year) in 615 PAs. “He’s going to have to make a choice. Either way he’s going to be an All-Star-caliber player as a hitter or pitcher,” an American League scout told Nick Cafardo of the Boston Globe in February.
  • The Phillies were among the many teams with a scout in attendance at free agent righty Tim Lincecum’s showcase Friday, reports Matt Gelb of the Philadelphia Inquirer. At 31, Lincecum would become the elder statesman of the Phillies’ young rotation if he were to sign with them, though the club may have simply been doing its due diligence when it scouted the two-time Cy Young Award winner.
  • Omar Infante has gotten the vast majority of playing time for the Royals at second base this year, but his days as the everyday option there are winding down, writes Jeffrey Flanagan of MLB.com. “I’m just trying to find ways to keep him productive,” said manager Ned Yost. “Sometimes more recovery time makes him more productive. So playing him four days a week or three days a week or five days a week is better than seven days a week. His arm is shortening up and his range is shortening up.” After a stretch of solid production with multiple teams from 2009-13, Infante joined the Royals on a four-year, $30.25MM contract and immediately began a steep decline. In 1,126 plate appearances with Kansas City, Infante has hit a paltry .238/.269/.328 – including a .247/.284/.326 line in 96 PAs this season. Fellow Royals second baseman Christian Colon hasn’t been any better offensively in the early going, having slashed .250/.300/.286 in 30 PAs.

AL Central Notes: Perez, Infante, Indians, Anibal, Rodon

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Extension talks between the Royals and Salvador Perez are ongoing, writes Sam Mellinger of the Kansas City Star. According to Mellinger, the team has an openness to working something out that hasn’t necessarily been present in the past. For his part, Perez expressed to Mellinger a desire to follow the path of George Brett and Alex Gordon, spending his entire career in the Royals organization. Perez feels a sense of loyalty to the club that gave him the chance to break into the big leagues, but his agent, Rafa Nieves of the Beverly Hills Sports Council, explained to Mellinger that it’ll be hard to offer much of a discount. “He left so much on the table in his present deal,” said Nieves of the five-year, $7MM deal (with three club options) brokered by Perez’s former agents. “He can’t afford to leave a lot more on the table in his next deal. So that’s where we’re at.” Mellinger notes that a rival executive expressed some disbelief that a small-market club could be willing to renegotiate a contract that favors the club so heavily.

Indeed, Jeff Todd and I have noted multiple times on the MLBTR Podcast that there’s significant risk for the Royals, who control Perez through 2019 at a total of $16.75MM via those club options. Perez is one of the largest catchers in baseball, and considering his enormous workload behind the plate (137 games caught, on average, per season from 2013-15), locking in Perez’s 2020 salary four years in advance is a tremendous risk, as there’s no way of definitively knowing how his body will hold up.

Here’s more from the AL Central…

  • Royals second baseman Omar Infante could miss some time early this spring as he recovers from offseason surgery that removed bone spurs from his right elbow, writes the Star’s Blair Kerkhoff. Infante is taking batting practice but isn’t throwing to bases at this point, per manager Ned Yost. As Kerkhoff notes, Infante will be in a battle for the regular second base job this offseason — far from the outcome for which the club had hoped when signing him to a four-year, $30.25MM deal. Infante lost the second base job to Ben Zobrist this past July and will have to beat out Christian Colon for the job in 2016. In his first two years with Kansas City, Infante has batted .238/.268/.329.
  • Young third baseman Giovanny Urshela could be ticketed for Triple-A in 2016 following the Indians’ agreement with Juan Uribe on a one-year deal, writes MLB.com’s Jordan Bastian. However, Urshela is currently in a holding pattern as Uribe works through visa issues that have delayed his arrival in the United States and, subsequently, his physical exam with Cleveland. Urshela batted just .225/.279/.330 in 288 plate appearances with Cleveland last season, but he drew strong marks for his glovework and has batted .275/.326/.473 in 514 PAs at the Triple-A level. Manager Terry Francona says he’s already spoken with Urshela about the way in which the Uribe deal could impact him, though Francona declined to get into specifics, as Uribe’s deal hasn’t been finalized.
  • Anibal Sanchez underwent an MRI this week after experiencing discomfort in his triceps during a mound session on Monday, writes MLB.com’s Jason Beck. However, the Tigers right-hander was relieved to learn that the MRI revealed only inflammation and that the injury isn’t tied to the rotator cuff issue that cost him the final seven weeks of the 2015 season. Various injuries have landed Sanchez on the DL in each of the past three seasons, Beck notes.
  • In searching for comparables for White Sox lefty Carlos Rodon, Jeff Sullivan of Fangraphs found that Rodon’s slider bears a striking resemblance to that of Clayton Kershaw in terms of velocity, horizontal movement and vertical movement. That, of course, doesn’t mean that Rodon is on the cusp of becoming the best pitcher in baseball, but it offers a glimpse into the upside that he carries if he can improve his fastball and changeup. Alternatively, Sullivan found that the entirety of Rodon’s arsenal looks very similar to that of Francisco Liriano when looking the pair’s arsenals through the lens of PITCHf/x values. Sullivan concludes that Liriano is a more accessible upside for Rodon if he can make improvements to his changeup in the coming season, noting that Rodon will serve as somewhat of an X-factor in what should be a tightly contested AL Central division.

AL Central Notes: Infante, Tigers, Indians

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The Royals aren’t yet set on Omar Infante at second base and could consider using Christian Colon in a starting role or as part of some sort of time-share, MLB.com’s Jeffrey Flanagan reports. “I don’t know if Omar, at this point, is going to play 162 games,” says Royals GM Dayton Moore. “I just know we’re going to put the best team out there each and every night, and I know Omar is capable of being that guy. But we like Christian Colon, too.” The first two years of Infante’s contract have been disappointing, and the Royals owe him $17.75MM over the next two. Last summer, Infante’s struggles were a key reason for the team’s acquisition of Ben Zobrist, who received a significant amount of playing time at second base down the stretch. Zobrist, of course, signed with the Cubs this winter. As disappointing as Infante has been, it’s possible the 26-year-old Colon won’t be an answer to the Royals’ second-base problems, either — Colon hit .281 and had a .353 on-base percentage at Triple-A Omaha last season, but with virtually no power. Here’s more from the AL Central.

  • The Tigers continue to look for outfielders and relievers, FOX Sports’ Ken Rosenthal and Jon Morosi report (via Twitter). They’re likely looking for “complementary pieces” rather than major acquisitions. The Tigers acquired Cameron Maybin and Francisco Rodriguez in November to bolster their outfield and bullpen, respectively; in December, they also added relievers Justin Wilson and Mark Lowe. The Tigers do still appear to be somewhat weak in the outfield and had been connected to Yoenis Cespedes this winter, although GM Al Avila has downplayed the possibility that the Tigers could sign Cespedes, and a report in late December indicated the Tigers had already made their key moves for the winter.
  • The opportunity to trade both Michael Bourn and Nick Swisher in a single trade was a one-time opportunity that the Indians had to seize, the Plain Dealer’s Paul Hoynes writes. Even though the Indians only acquired infielder Chris Johnson, who was later released, they saved a bit of money and cleared the roster spots of two players who merely would have been very expensive bench options.

AL Notes: Hall Of Fame, Infante, Rays

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Baseball writers should stop acting as “moral gatekeepers” for the Hall Of Fame, an indignant Buster Olney of ESPN writes (Insider-only). Specifically, he says, they should stop invoking the character clause, and the many cases of writers switching their votes on players with PED histories suggests that they aren’t applying the character clause consistently anyway. Also, he says, there’s no way to truly know who in the PED era actually used (and to what extent) and who didn’t, and writers shouldn’t act as arbiters of history, keeping top players out of the Hall while playing the role of “traffic cops of history.” Most flagrant is the case of Astros slugger Jeff Bagwell, who some commentators have dismissed due to PED concerns despite a total lack of evidence that he actually used them. Here are more quick notes on the American League.

  • Royals infielder Omar Infante had surgery on his elbow in November, Jon Morosi of FOX Sports writes. Infante is expected to be healthy for Spring Training. The Royals think the surgery will help Infante with the shoulder troubles that bothered him last season, in which he played in 124 games and hit a horrific .220/.234/.318. (Infante also had back and oblique issues, and suffered a groin strain.) As Morosi notes, Infante will likely get the opportunity to win the Royals’ second-base job again next season.
  • The Rays incurred relatively heavy losses in the Rule 5 Draft in 2015, Marc Topkin writes for Baseball America. The Phillies took outfielder Tyler Goeddel with the first overall pick, marking the second consectuive year the top player selected in the Rule 5 came from the Rays organization. (The Diamondbacks took catcher Oscar Hernandez with the first pick in 2014.) And the Rays lost another outfielder, Joey Rickard, with the eighth pick. The Rays did protect five players, including top prospect Blake Snell, from the draft. “Their ceilings in our mind weren’t as high as the five guys we protected and that’s what it comes down to,” Rays farm director Mitch Lukevics says of Goeddel and Rickard. “We have 40 spots, and someone is 41, someone is 42, someone is 43.”

Royals Notes: Kazmir, Infante, Gordon

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Here’s a look at the World Champions:

  • The Royals are among the many teams with interest in Scott Kazmir, Jon Heyman of CBSSports.com tweets.  Kazmir met with the Astros last week to explore the possibility of a return to Houston, but it remains to be seen whether that reunion will take place.  The soon-to-be 32-year-old has thrown 373 1/3 innings of 3.33 ERA ball with 7.7 K/9 against 2.6 BB/9 and he’s maintained his average fastball velocity at about 91.5 mph.  On the flip side, Kazmir’s advanced metrics (3.98 FIP, 4.14 xFIP, 4.10 SIERA) weren’t as impressive and he struggled to a 6.52 ERA over the months of September and October.
  • The Royals are once again open to moving second baseman Omar Infante, Andy McCullough of the Kansas City Star tweets.  Of course, it could be tough for the Royals to find a decent haul for Infante given his age and contract.  Roughly two years ago, the Royals signed Infante to a four-year deal for more than $30MM plus incentives with a $10MM team option for 2018.
  • Royals GM Dayton Moore says that his front office is only monitoring the Alex Gordon situation for now, as Jeffrey Flanagan of MLB.com writes.  When asked if Gordon is even within their financial reach, Moore said, “I don’t know. We’ll see. I don’t know the answer to that. I don’t know because I don’t know what [the asking price] will ultimately be. We’re still in the market for an outfield bat. But we also know this: If we do nothing in the outfield, we’ll still be very good defensively at the corner outfield — we’ll have speed and upside with Jarrod Dyson, Paulo Orlando and Brett Eibner and Reymond Fuentes. Jose Martinez isn’t the defender those guys are but has offense. We’ll see.”
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