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Starling Marte

Starling Marte Fractures Left Pinkie

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Oct. 1: Marte saw a specialist today, who confirmed a fracture of the outfielder’s fifth metacarpal in his left hand, tweets Jordan McPherson of the Miami Herald. He’s been fitted for a protective brace and is undergoing treatment to reduce the swelling.

The fact that today’s scheduled tilt between the Marlins and Cubs has been postponed due to the weather in Chicago could play to the Marlins’ advantage, as that will give the Fish another day to help regain some mobility in Marte’s hand and reduce the swelling. It’s still not clear to what extent he’ll be available or whether he’ll eventually need to be replaced — squeezing a glove, catching a fly-ball and gripping a bat with a broken bone in one’s hand isn’t exactly easy — but the team has yet to make a roster move. At the very least, Marte could be a potential pinch-runner.

Sept. 30: The Marlins earned their first playoff win since 2003 on Wednesday with a 5-1 victory over the Cubs in Game 1 of the teams’ wild-card series, but Miami did not come out of it unscathed. Marlins center fielder Starling Marte exited in the ninth inning after taking a pitch off the left hand from Dan Winkler. It turns out that Marte suffered a fractured pinkie, per Craig Mish of Sports Grid. This could end Marte’s season, but the Marlins are hopeful he will return at some point, according to Mish.

Marte, whom the Marlins surprisingly acquired from the Diamondbacks before the Aug. 31 trade deadline, got off to a solid start in Arizona this year before his production fell in Miami. He posted an .827 OPS as a Diamondback and a .701 mark as a Marlin, leading to a .281/.340/.430 line with six home runs and 10 stolen bases in 250 plate appearances.

No matter how their season ends, the Marlins will have to decide how to proceed with Marte once the winter comes. The soon-to-be 32-year-old Marte has a $12.5MM club option or a $1MM buyout for 2021, the former Pirate’s last season of team control. It seems like a reasonable enough figure for the Marlins to put on their books in a year, but it’s worth noting the D-backs were reportedly leaning against exercising it before they traded Marte. If it’s severe enough (and there’s no indication it is), this injury could affect Miami’s plans.

Starling Marté, Jose Ureña Exit Game With Injuries

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5:05 pm: Ureña has a non-displaced ulna fracture in his right forearm, per Jose Frisaro of MLB.com. Ureña will miss the postseason.

4:15 pm: The Miami Marlins are headed to the postseason for the first time since 2003. As the second-place team in the NL East, they can finish no worse than the #6 seed. As things stands right now, the Marlins appear headed to a first-round match-up with the Cubs, whom they famously eliminated in 2003 to reach the World Series.

The Marlins overcame a lot this season to rebound from a 105-loss year in 2019, but there are more roadblocks to come. Starling Marté left today’s ballgame after being hit by a pitch, an injury the team has announced as a left ear contusion caused by the jostling of his helmet after being hit. It’s not clear at this time if Marte will miss time in the playoffs. Jose Ureña also left the game early after taking a line drive off his hand, notes ESPN’s Marly Rivera.

Losing Marte at this juncture would be a major blow for a resilient Marlins team. Upon his arrival in Miami, he instantly became the most recognizable player on this Marlins squad. The 31-year-old owns a triple slash of .282/.339/.432 between the Diamondbacks and Marlins this season. The Marlins would lean on a trio of youngsters to replace Marte in center should be miss time. Monte Harrison, Lewis Brinson, and Magneuris Sierra are all capable for manning the grass in center, though none of the three have established themselves at the plate.

As for Ureña, his status is not yet known. The Marlins planned to use him as a reliever in the wild card round, per MLB.com’s Joe Frisaro. Ureña has a 6.00 ERA through 4 starts since returning from the injured list. We’ll keep you updated on the status of both Marlins players as updates trickle in.

Indians Notes: Marte, White Sox, Clevinger, Padres

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Before the Diamondbacks traded Starling Marte to the Marlins yesterday, “the Indians made a run at” acquiring the outfielder, The Athletic’s Ken Rosenthal reports (subscription required).  Marte would’ve been a enormous boost to Cleveland’s long-struggling outfield, and it is interesting to wonder what it would have cost the Tribe to land Marte.  Looking at what the D’Backs accepted from Miami, the Indians would have had to surrender a pitcher with some proven MLB-level ability (like Caleb Smith), another big-league ready young arm (like Humberto Mejia), and a lottery ticket of a long-term pitching prospect like Julio Frias.

Beyond the prospect cost, it’s fair to assume that Marte’s financial cost was also a factor for Cleveland — Marte has $1.71MM remaining this year, and a $12.5MM club option for the 2021 season.  Giving up a big prospect package and then declining Marte’s option wouldn’t have made much sense, and it isn’t yet clear what kind of payroll capacity the Tribe will have going into next season.

Some more Tribe notes…

  • Also from Rosenthal, he shares some details on the talks between Indians and White Sox about a possible Mike Clevinger trade.  The idea of a Clevinger trade to an AL Central rival seemed surprising at the time, and one Chicago official feels “the Indians used the Sox as a stalking horse, never intending to trade him within the division.”  The White Sox also denied that right-hander Michael Kopech was offered to Tribe as part of the Clevinger negotiations.
  • Clevinger wound up being traded to the Padres as part of a major deadline-day swap that saw the Indians acquire six players.  It was a trade born from a lot of “familiarity” between the two organizations, as president of baseball operations Chris Antonetti told MLB.com’s Mandy Bell and other reporters.  “We’ve spent a lot of time on their system….We have asked about all of these players in the past. Every one of them,” Antonetti said.  “I would comfortably say, at this point, we’ve had hundreds of iterations of deals with the Padres.”  Cleveland and San Diego have combined for five trades since July 2018.
  • In other Clevinger news, Terry Pluto of the Cleveland Plain Dealer reports that the right-hander turned down an extension offer from the Indians in the spring of 2019.  Terms and contract length weren’t revealed, though the deal would have almost assuredly gone beyond the four years of control the Tribe already held over Clevinger.  The righty was coming off an impressive 2018 season and heading into his age-28 campaign, so purely speculatively, I wonder if the Tribe’s offer was at least somewhat similar to the five-year, $38.5MM extension (with two club option years) reached with Corey Kluber prior to the 2015 season.  Kluber had a similar amount of service time and was coming off a better platform of a Cy Young Award-winning season, though he was also a year older than Clevinger would have been at the time of his hypothetical early-2019 extension.

Marlins Acquire Starling Marte For Caleb Smith, Humberto Mejia

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In a major deadline swap that no one could’ve foreseen a month ago, the Marlins announced Monday that they’ve acquired All-Star center fielder Starling Marte from the D-backs. Heading to Arizona are lefty Caleb Smith, right-hander Humberto Mejia and a player to be named later (reportedly Class-A lefty Julio Frias).

Starling Marte | Kelley L Cox-USA TODAY Sports

Not long before the trade was agreed upon, Joel Sherman of the New York Post reported that the D-backs throughout the day had been signaling to other teams that they don’t expect to pick up their $12.5MM club option on Starling Marte.

The aversion to picking up the option on Marte registers as a major surprise. It’s certainly not for any lack of production; Marte has been flat-out excellent in Arizona, hitting at a .311/.384/.443 clip with a pair of homers, eight doubles, a triple and five steals. His defense in center has graded out as +0.5, per Ultimate Zone Rating, and -2 per Defensive Runs Saved. Through 33 games, FanGraphs has Marte at 1.1 WAR, while Baseball-Reference has him at 0.9 — a pace that is roughly in line with Mate’s characteristic 3-4 WAR output.

Of course, the 2020 season has brought about some pressing revenue losses for all 30 clubs, and D-backs owner Ken Kendrick was among the most outspoken owners about the hardships faced by teams with fans unable to attend games. Kendrick pined for revenue sharing with players, placing the blame on them for the difficult negotiations and steadfastly expressing that owners would not green-light any scenario that saw games played into November.

As surprising as the fact that the D-backs are moving on from Marte is the fact that the Marlins are the team that will acquire him. Miami entered the season expected to be a cellar-dwelling outfit in the NL East, and those expectations only grew when more than half their active roster was sidelined by a team-wide Covid-19 outbreak. But Miami has continued to persevere, hovering around the .500 mark and now sitting in a tie for a postseason bid in the National League. Some exciting young players, Sixto Sanchez perhaps chief among them, have made their big league debuts in 2020, as other young talents like Pablo Lopez have taken substantial steps forward.

Miami’s move to add Marte comes in simultaneous conjuncture with another trade shipping the versatile Jonathan Villar to the Blue Jays. Marte will now step into his roster spot while making up for some of the speed lost with the Villar trade (and more overall offensive output). He’ll cost the Marlins an additional $1.71MM in 2020 — the remainder of this year’s prorated $11.5MM salary — and they’ll surely be picking up that $12.5MM option, given the price they paid to acquire him.

Moving forward, that’ll position the Marlins to trot out an outfield with Corey Dickerson in left field, Marte in center and some combination of Harold Ramirez, Monte Harrison, Lewis Brinson, Jesus Sanchez, Garrett Cooper or an outside addition to patrol right field. Alternatively, the Fish could push Brian Anderson back to right field and pursue a new third base option, though their abundance of in-house outfield options makes that seem less likely. Assuming that the options on both Marte and Brandon Kintzler are picked up, the Marlins will have $35.85MM on the 2021 books before arbitration raises to Anderson, Jorge Alfaro, Jesus Aguilar, Ryne Stanek and Yimi Garcia, among others.

The 29-year-old Smith, controlled through 2023, has missed bats in droves since being acquired from the Yankees prior to the 2018 season (259 punchouts in 233 2/3 innings). He’s also been plagued by injuries in that time, though, including a brutal Grade 3 lat strain in 2018 and a hip injury that cost him just shy of a month last year. Smith was placed on the injured list earlier this month after the Marlins’ Covid-19 outbreak and has pitched just three innings so far. He looked rusty, issuing six free passes in that time. Overall, he has a 4.39 ERA and 10.0 K/9 against 3.8 BB/9 in his time with Miami.

But Smith also fits the modus operandi we frequently see under general manager Mike Hazen in Arizona. Rather than moving Marte for well-regarded but unproven prospects, he’s instead added a big league arm who can step immediately onto the roster and help this year and for years to come. Smith, in many ways, gives the Snakes a replacement for the recently traded Robbie Ray — one who bears some stark similarities to Ray, as a high-strikeout lefty with occasional control difficulties.

Also able to provide help in the very near future will be the 23-year-old Mejia, who made his big league debut earlier this season. He’s allowed six earned runs on 13 hits and six walks with 11 strikeouts in eight MLB innings. His promotion to the big leagues was in some ways necessitated by the aforementioned outbreak, as he’d yet to even pitch at Double-A when he was promoted. The Diamondbacks may well want to get Mejia some additional development time before bringing him to Chase Field, but he’s already on the 40-man roster and has gotten his feet wet in the bigs, so he’s a viable option anytime moving forward.

As for Frias, he’ll give Arizona a 22-year-old southpaw who shined as a 21-year-old in short-season Class-A last year, when he pitched to a 2.83 ERA with a 73-to-23 K/BB ratio in 70 innings. Frias isn’t considered among the Marlins’ best prospects, but Miami has a relatively deep system after years of rebuilding moves. FanGraphs called Frias a “low-slot lefty” whose heater touches 97 mph but who has battled poor command at times. He’s a much further-off piece, but any club would welcome the opportunity to add a power-armed, left-handed lottery ticket.

SportsGrid’s Craig Mish broke the news that the two sides were close to a deal (Twitter link). Joel Sherman of the New York Post reported (on Twitter) that a deal had been reached. MLB Network’s Jon Heyman, MLB.com’s Mark Feinsand and The Athletic’s Ken Rosenthal reported various aspects of the return (all Twitter links).

Marlins Have Shown Interest In Archie Bradley, Starling Marte

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1:21pm: The Marlins are also interested in Arizona center fielder Starling Marte, tweets Heyman. Like Bradley, he’s controlled through 2021 and would give the Fish an upgrade this year and next. Numerous clubs figure to have interest in Marte, should the D-backs ultimately move him, although as Heyman rightly notes, Miami has plenty of young pitching to offer. And it’s worth noting, at least tangentially, that the two sides lined up on last year’s Zac Gallen-for-Jazz Chisholm swap.

9:50am: The Marlins are reportedly getting calls asking about their own closer, but they’re more focused on adding to the ’pen than subtracting and have reached out to the D-backs on closer Archie Bradley, tweets MLB.com’s Joe Frisaro. The Diamondbacks have fallen into a miserable slump and, at 14-21, could very well sell off some shorter-term pieces in advance of today’s 3pm CT trade deadline. They’re said to be open to offers for Bradley.

Bradley, 28, is in his second season as Arizona’s primary closing option and has been a quality member of the ’pen for the past four years now. The former No. 7 overall pick was long one of the game’s most highly regarded pitching prospects, but he struggled in 34 big league starts before finding a home in the D-backs’ relief corp. Dating back to 2017, Bradley has pitched to a strong 2.98 ERA and 3.17 FIP with averages of 10.1 strikeouts, 3.2 walks and 0.7 homers per nine innings (despite pitching in a hitter-friendly home park).

Controlled through the 2021 season, Bradley agreed to a $4.1MM salary in arbitration this past winter. That’s been prorated to about $1.48MM in this year’s shortened schedule, and roughly $617K of that sum remains to be paid out. He’ll be eligible for arbitration once more this winter.

Frisaro notes that the Fish have expressed interest in “many” relievers around the league as they look to take advantage of a surprising start to the season and the emergence of some well-regarded youngsters who have helped thrust them into contention in a lackluster NL East division. Miami is just 14-15 on the season, but that’s good for a second-place tie in the East. And with the National League as a whole playing at pretty substandard levels — only four of the 15 teams have a winning record — there’s ample opportunity for some surprise clubs to find themselves in this year’s expanded playoff field.

Starling Marte, Archie Bradley Drawing Trade Interest

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10:58PM: The Diamondbacks informed teams earlier this month that they were open to discussing almost anyone on the roster, the Arizona Republic’s Nick Piecoro reports.  Ketel Marte, Zac Gallen, and Christian Walker were among the club’s few untouchables.

6:14PM: With a 1-10 record over their last 11 games, the Diamondbacks are listening to offers heading into the trade deadline.  The Snakes are “open” to discussing such major names as Starling Marte and Archie Bradley, according to The Athletic’s Ken Rosenthal (Twitter link).  In a longer subscription-only notes post, Rosenthal reports that the Astros have shown interest in Bradley, while the New York Post’s Joel Sherman reports that the Yankees have “checked in” on Marte’s availability.

While the Yankees are loaded with outfielders on paper, injuries to Aaron Judge and Giancarlo Stanton have thinned the depth, and Aaron Hicks just left today’s game with a potential injury to his leg.  Marte would presumably immediately take over as the everyday center fielder, with Brett Gardner, Mike Tauchman, Clint Frazier, and Hicks if he’s healthy all handling corner outfield (and maybe DH alongside Mike Ford) duties until Judge and Stanton return.

Marte would also provide New York with potential longer-term help, as his contract contains a $12.5MM club option ($1MM buyout) for the 2021 season.  Barring something unforeseen, the Yankees would surely exercise that option rather than let Marte leave for nothing, though they could potentially pick up Marte’s option and then flip him in another trade.  Or, having Marte around to provide All-Star level production for at least one year could make the Yankees more open to moving Tauchman or Frazier in a deal this winter.  (Assuming, hypothetically, that neither would be included as part of a Marte trade with Arizona in the first place.)  Adding yet another outfielder with control could also spell the end of Gardner’s long tenure in the Bronx, as Gardner will himself be a free agent this winter if the Yankees decline their $10MM option on his services for 2021.

“The Yankees are believed to not want to add much, if any salary,” Sherman writes, which could be a complicating factor in a potential Marte trade.  The veteran is earning the prorated portion of an original $11.5MM salary, and is owed a little under $2MM for the remainder of the 2020 campaign.

It was a little more than seven months ago that Marte was part of another major swap, coming to the D’Backs from the Pirates in a trade that Arizona thought would bolster the lineup of a potential contender.  While Marte has done his part (entering today with a .322/.396/.458 slash line over 134 PA), the Diamondbacks as a whole have underachieved, leading to the team’s pivot to being deadline sellers.

The Astros were already known to be looking at Robbie Ray as a potential addition, and now have apparently cast their eyes towards another arm in Bradley.  Like Marte, Bradley is also controlled through 2021, as Bradley has one more year of arbitration eligibility and should be due for a nice raise on his $4.1MM salary for 2020.  The Astros could see Bradley as a boost to both their 2020 and 2021 teams, as Roberto Osuna’s uncertain injury situation might yet lead to Osuna missing 2021 due to Tommy John surgery.

The righty has performed well as Arizona’s closer, posting a 3.60 ERA, 10.8 K/9, and 4.00 K/BB rate over 10 innings entering today’s play.  While Bradley hasn’t surrendered any homers, Statcast indicates that Bradley has enjoyed some good luck (a .318 wOBA that is far beneath his .418 xwOBA) considering all the hard contact he allows.

Latest On Diamondbacks, COVID-19

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The Diamondbacks have been among the teams who have been most impacted by COVID-19 cases, with multiple players testing positive over the last few weeks.  That list added another name today, as manager Torey Lovullo told reporters (including The Athletic’s Zach Buchanan) that another player on the D’Backs 40-man roster has tested positive.

It remains to be seen if that player’s identity will become public knowledge, given the league policies against revealing COVID-19 cases unless the player gives his consent.  We have already learned that Silvino Bracho, Seth Beer, Junior Guerra, and Kole Calhoun are among the D’Backs players who tested positive, and the good news is that the latter three players have since tested negative and are at Summer Camp.  (Bracho’s status is unknown, though he wasn’t expected to be in camp anyway after being placed on the 60-day injured list following a setback in his recovery from Tommy John surgery.)

Calhoun discussed his return with Nick Piecoro of the Arizona Republic and other reporters, saying he was mostly asymptomatic — perhaps due to some hypochondria, as Piecoro writes that Calhoun “believes that at one point he managed to trick himself into thinking there was something wrong with his sense of smell.”  The lack of symptoms underlined Calhoun’s confusion about his health, as he received alternating results on a number of different COVID-19 tests.

Before posting the two negative tests required by MLB protocols to return to camp, Calhoun said his previous tests went “positive, negative, positive, negative, positive, negative….[The doctor] said at the end of an infection they’re finding some people who still show up positive.  It’s a matter of the sample that they get and did the virus attach itself to those cells.”

While circumstances like Calhoun’s are rather rare, it still underlines the difficulty that Major League Baseball (and society at large) will have in properly determining whether or not individuals are completely free and clear of the virus, given all that is still unknown about COVID-19.  As it pertains to the 2020 season, the nightmare scenario would be for a player to deliver a multiple negative test results but still be an asymptomatic carrier, thus running the risk of unknowingly infecting numerous teammates, coaches, and opponents.

In terms of being ready for the start of the season, Calhoun said “I don’t feel like I’m too far behind,” so there’s a chance he could line up as Arizona’s right fielder on Opening Day.  Calhoun signed a two-year, $16MM free agent deal with the Diamondbacks over the winter, though he’ll only receive a prorated portion of the $6MM salary he was originally slated to receive in 2020.

Starling Marte was also at Arizona’s camp on Friday, after missing the previous four days for an undisclosed reason.  Amidst coronavirus speculation, Marte told Buchanan and other reporters that the absence was due to “waiting for results” from a test, and Marte was cleared to participate once those results finally arrived.

Three Teams Who’ve Yet To Win Their Division

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It is somewhat amazing that there are three National League teams – one each for the West, East, and Central – that have yet to win their division.

Make no mistake, the American League has its share of heartbreak. The Mariners have yet to return to the playoffs after their 116-win season in 2001. The Rangers are far away as ever from capturing their first World Series after the so-close-you-can-taste-it near-misses of 2010 and 2011. Fans of the Astros and Red Sox have suffered different brands of heartbreak after the legitimacy of their recent winners was called into question. 

But in the National League, the Rockies, Marlins, and Pirates have never won their respective divisions.

Granted, the Pirates were crowned champs of the National League East 9 times, including a three-peat for Jim Leyland’s clubs from 1990 to 1992 and a title-winner way back in 1979 – but since they moved to the NL Central in 1994: goose eggs. That’s a 26-year-run without a divisional crown, a mark of futility eclipsed only by the Rockies and Marlins. Colorado and Florida both entered the league in 1993, and neither has landed the top spot in their division in the 27 seasons since. 

Back in the junior circuit, every team in the AL East has won since 2010 (Tampa Bay). In the Central, the White Sox have the longest drought (11 seasons), going back to their first-place finish in 2008. Everyone in the AL West has taken their turn at the top since 2012 – except the Mariners, of course, who won the division in 2001 and 1997.

But each division in the National League has its slow-and-steady competitor, so let’s take a quick look at each.

Colorado Rockies

Of these three clubs, the Rockies’ reputation took the fewest hits over the last 27 years. The Blake Street Bombers hold a particular place in baseball lore, and there’s a general sense of “unfortunate circumstances” around the Rox because of the thin air in Colorado. The impossibility of housing a winning pitching staff at Coors Field is baseball cliche now, but that doesn’t make the challenge any less potent.

Here’s what I wrote of Colorado in their Offseason In Review post back in March: “Colorado pitching, after all, has proven one of the more frustrating team-building challenges in the major leagues. The Sisyphean task of constructing even a league-average pitching staff at Coors Field persists year-after-year. Over the course of their 27-season history, the Rockies posted a league-average or better team ERA just three times (2010, 2009, 2007). In 2010, Jim Tracy’s 83-win squad finished with an exactly-league-average ERA, but those other two seasons — 2009, 2007 — happen to be two of the only three seasons in which the Rockies won 90 games in their history.”

Adding to the task at hand for Colorado, there’s at least a possibility that ownership believes this team is better than it is. They lost 91 games last year and have exhibited zero financial flexibility. If they end up losing close to 90 games again (or the equivalent in whatever kind of season is played in 2020), then the Rockies are still probably in the decline phase, not yet having rebooted into a full-blown rebuild. Rebuilds, of course, are time-intensive when done right, and very time-intensive when rushed.

The Rockies have made the postseason a handful of times, and they won the pennant in 2007, but they’re caught in no-man’s-land now. The Dodgers have won the division 7 years running, and Walker Buehler, Cody Bellinger, and company have plenty left in the tank. The Padres’ stable of young arms makes them one of the more intriguing up-and-coming teams in the league, and the Diamondbacks continue to impress with their ability to retool on the fly. After coming within a play-in game of taking the crown from the Dodgers in 2018, the Rockies might have missed their best shot.

Miami Marlins

The Marlins entered the league at a tough time to be a member of the NL East. The Atlanta Braves held a hammerlock on the division, taking the crown every season from 1995 until 2005 (they were in the NL West before that). To their credit, the Marlins made themselves into a competitive squad pretty quick, making the playoffs as a wild card in 1997, just their fifth season of existence. The organization made its name the year after, however, in selling off the pieces of their World Series winner and cratering into a 108-loss squad. After that horrid 1998 season, it took the Marlins five more years to get back to the playoffs again, at which point it was second-verse-same-as-the-first. They didn’t sink quite so fast or quite so far the second time around, but they also haven’t recovered (no playoff appearances since 2003).

That said, the Marlins have begun to see the light from their decade-plus in limbo. MLBTR’s own Mark Polishuk wrapped up the Marlins offseason back in March with this: “It’s a sign of progress, however, that the scorched-earth phase of the rebuild seems to be over.  Villar, Kintzler, or other veterans on short-term deals could well end up being moved at the trade deadline, but it doesn’t seem like younger talent is on the move…Miami seems ready to find out if the young players it already has in the fold could end up being part of that next Marlins winner, and it will be intriguing to see which of the pitchers and position players take that next step in 2020.”

The current era of Marlins baseball is best known for shepherding the likes of Giancarlo Stanton, Christian Yelich, and Marcell Ozuna out of town prior to the 2018 season. But they’re also a unique entrant on this mini-list because they won not just one, but two World Series titles over this span. Derek Jeter now helms the organization, and though they don’t have that face-of-the-franchise type player soaking up their spotlight, they’ve become increasingly competitive. Heading into whichever season of baseball comes next, they’ll have a decent collection of starting pitchers to keep them in games – with a smaller host of position player prospects nearing the majors. Whether they have that franchise-changing talent in the upper ranks is unclear. Business might not yet be booming in Miami, but it’s better. 

Pittsburgh Pirates

As stated above, it’s a bit unfair for the Pirates to be lumped in with the expansion clubs from the nineties, as they do have a history of success in the major leagues. They have 9 division crowns, 7 World Series appearances, and 5 World Series banners. But that’s all ancient history.

Since moving to the NL Central in 1994, the Pirates are a firm contender for the most moribund franchise in the sport. The departure of Barry Bonds after the 1992 season put an unfortunate face on their decline – much in the way that Babe Ruth’s departure doomed Boston baseball for so long – but there has been ample time to rebound from those back-to-back game 7 losses to Atlanta in 1991 and 1992.

In the time since the Pirates’ primary distinction is claiming the title for the longest streak of losing seasons in North American sports history. Forget about division titles. The Pirates weren’t able to finish over .500 one time from 1993 to 2012.

Pittsburgh fans finally had something to cheer for in 2013 when Clint Hurdle’s club broke through with 94 wins and a wild card berth. They even won that first playoff game against the division rival Cincinnati Reds and pushed another rival – the Cardinals – to five games in the NLDS. The club followed its star outfield of Andrew McCutchen, Starling Marte, and Gregory Polanco to two more wild card berths in the following two seasons. Unfortunately, they were unable to get more than one playoff game in either of those years.

After finishing over .500 again in 2018, last season brought on a complete reset. Most of the organizations’ management turned over, and the remaining faces of those competitive clubs – Hurdle, Marte – were also sent packing. The organization is now in the hands of GM Ben Cherington, but they’re facing a complete philosophical overhaul. While they have talent, they’re not an easy club to put a timeline on returning to contention. Not until they put together a pitching staff with a more effective (and less pugilistic) philosophy. The division isn’t dominated by one team like the current AL West, but the Cardinals build a winner year after year, and the Cubs and Brewers aren’t far off in terms of their recent consistency.

Looking ahead, a shortened season in 2020 could open the window for a bizarre sort of division champ. All hope is not lost. On the whole, however, I don’t think there are a lot of pundits who would pick any of the Rockies, Marlins, or Pirates to breakthrough next season. Still, it’s bound to happen one day, right? All three teams will work to end their respective droughts, and in the meantime, thank goodness for the wild card.

(Poll link for app users.)

(Poll link for app users.)

 

NL Central Notes: Pirates, Reynolds, Newman, Cardinals, Goldschmidt, Flaherty

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The Pirates are more likely than not to land outside the playoff picture in 2020, but they’ve not given up the notion of wreaking some havoc on the NL Central this year. To do so, however, Bryan Reynolds and Kevin Newman will need to avoid the dreaded sophomore slump, writes Jason Mackey of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. True enough, Reynolds and Newman came out the gate strong in 2019, posting 3.2 fWAR and 2.4 fWAR, respectively. And yet, teaming their rookie duo with Josh Bell’s breakout bat still only amounted to the 20th-ranked offense by runs scored (758 runs), 19th by wRC+ (92). Beyond these three, the other two Pirates rounding out their top-5 by wRC+ in 2019 now play for different teams (Starling Marte, Corey Dickerson), and the sixth is a pitcher (Steven Brault). Immediately upon the close of 2019, the Pirates had planned to give Brault a go as a two-way player, but with new leadership up and down the organization, it’s unclear what his role will be. Regardless, Jarrod Dyson is the biggest addition made the to position player group this winter. Reynolds and Newman are core pieces of this lineup, and the good news is this: if they do slump in their sophomore seasons, they should have enough leash to find their way back. Let’s jump from the bottom of the NL Central to the top and check in with the reigning divisional champs…

  • As Spring Training games kick off (weather permitting), hitters around the league are putting their offseason swing adjustments to the test. Paul Goldschmidt, Harrison Bader, and Matt Carpenter of the Cardinals will all be deploying tweaked swings to some degree as they seek the kind of offensive consistency that eluded the trio last year, per Derrick Goold of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. Goldy was the most successful of the three, but his fortunes at the plate sunk and fell seemingly on a monthly basis, and he never quite settled into the type of season to which he is accustomed. A .260 BA was his lowest mark since 2012 by almost thirty points, and while his power remained decidedly above average, it did drop from the astronomical heights of the couple seasons prior. Still, even in a down year, Goldy produced 16% more offense than average. Any substantive regression to his career norms should be enough to raise Goldy’s stock back to the level of franchise cornerstone where the Cardinals expected him to be when they acquired him for three players and a pick last winter.
  • Unsurprisingly, Cardinals manager Mike Shildt wasted no time in naming Jack Flaherty their opening day starter, tweets Goold. Flaherty drove the Cardinals second half push to 91 wins and their first divisional crown since 2015. Who follows Flaherty in the rotation is a more compelling question for those in Cardinals camp this spring. There are no shortage of options, from rotation holdovers like Dakota Hudson and Miles Mikolas, to former ace Carlos Martinez, to newcomer Kwang-Hyun Kim. Adam Wainwright will be somewhere in the rotation after a rejuvenating 14-10 season in which he posted a 4.19 ERA/4.36 FIP across 31 starts. The bridge from Flaherty to Wainwright (to Chris Carpenter to Matt Morris) is a tangible reminder of the Cardinals’ institutional success. 2007, Wainright’s first season as a starter, remains the only losing season the Cards have suffered this century (they went 78-84 and finished in third place).

Rep 1 Agency Acquires Peter E. Greenberg And Associates

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Rep 1 Baseball has agreed to acquire Peter E. Greenberg and Associates, making it one of the largest agencies in the game. It now has over 60 major league clients on its roster and more than 150 in the minors.

Rep 1 already counted Edwin Encarnacion, Rafael Devers, Luis Severino, Dee Gordon and Eloy Jimenez among its high-profile players before this acquisition, as reflected in MLBTR’s Agency Database. It will now add the likes of Ronald Acuna Jr., Starling Marte and Gio Urshela, among other familiar names in the bigs.

It’s been an active past year on the contract front for several of the aforementioned players. Encarnacion signed a one-year, $12MM deal with the White Sox this offseason. He’s now teammates with Jimenez, whom the White Sox last March inked to a then-record contract for a player with no MLB service time (six years, $43MM). The Yankees’ Severino (four years, $40MM) and the Braves’ Acuna (eight years, $100MM) also joined in on the 2019 extension bonanza. Devers, who had a star-caliber 2019 with the Red Sox, could be next, but the 22-year-old still has one more season left before he’s even eligible for arbitration.

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