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Injury Notes: Pomeranz, Frazier, Ellsbury, Parra, Norris, Koehler

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Red Sox left-hander Drew Pomeranz exited today’s Grapefruit League start with tightness in his left forearm, though he told reporters after the game that he’s not concerned about the possibility of a serious injury (link via MassLive.com’s Jen McCaffrey). Obviously, caution is called for all the more at this stage of spring, so it’d be wise not to leap to any conclusions — particularly given Pomeranz’s comments. The 29-year-old, who is coming off of back-to-back seasons in which he posted a 3.32 ERA in over 170 frames, is a key piece of the Boston rotation. He’ll be further evaluated on Saturday.

Here’s the latest on the health front from around the game …

  • The division-rival Yankees are also facing some injury issues, as MLB.com’s Bryan Hoch was among those to report (Twitter links). Of particular concern is prospect Clint Frazier, who required an MRI because he is still not recovering as hoped from a concussion. Surely the organization will exercise quite a lot of caution with the talented young player. Meanwhile, fellow outfielder Jacoby Ellsbury has been diagnosed with a mild oblique strain. There’s no indication of just how limiting the injury will be — and for good reason, as oblique problems rarely seem to progress in a predictable manner. Fortunately for the Bronx Bombers, there are still four quality players ahead of this duo on the outfield depth chart.
  • Rockies outfielder Gerardo Parra, who is recovering from hamate surgery on his right hand, took batting practice on Friday, tweets Nick Groke of the Denver Post. He’s slated to face live pitching for the first time since the operation on Monday, and manager Bud Black estimated that Parra could be in a game in eight to nine days, which should still give him ample time to ramp up for the regular season. It remains to be seen just how the Rox will distribute playing time in the outfield, though Parra seems to be slated for rather extensive action so long as he remains on an upward trajectory.
  • An injury forced newly signed Cardinals right-hander Bud Norris out of today’s spot start, writes Rick Hummel of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. Norris, filling in for Carlos Martinez (who had a personal matter to attend to, per the report), exited due to hamstring spasms after allowing five runs in 2 1/3 innings of work. At this point, it’s not clear whether this issue is simply an early-spring blip or something that will cause some problems for the hurler, who recently inked a one-year, $3MM deal to join the St. Louis organization.
  • If there’s a hurler whose injury sparks some immediate cause for concern, it may be Dodgers righty Tom Koehler. It was announced he’d require an MRI on his shoulder not long after he was pulled in the middle of an inning, as MLB.com’s Ken Gurnick was among those to tweet. Shoulder bursitis caused problems for Koehler last year, when he struggled to a 6.69 ERA in 72 2/3 innings. The Dodgers have planned to move the long-time starter into a full-time relief role after promising him $2MM for the 2018 season.

Cardinals Beat Out Cubs For Miles Mikolas

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Cardinals Sign Jason Motte To Minor League Deal

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Feb. 19: Motte has passed his physical, as the Cardinals announced the signing this morning.

Feb. 16: The Cardinals have struck a minor-league pact with veteran reliever Jason Motte, per Derrick Goold of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch (via Twitter). The agreement is still pending a physical. Chris Cotillo of SB Nation first connected the sides on Twitter.

Motte, 35, rejoins his long-time organization after a three-year hiatus. The former Cards closer has spent time with the Cubs, Rockies, and Braves since the start of 2015.

There’s little question that Motte did not regain his prior form after missing all of 2013 for Tommy John surgery. The converted catcher had posted 192 1/3 innings of 2.43 ERA pitching over the prior three seasons at that point. Since, he has allowed 4.12 earned per nine over 137 2/3 innings, with 6.7 K/9 against 3.1 BB/9.

Motte once averaged about a 12 percent swinging-strike rate and roughly 97 mph heater. Since returning from surgery, Motte has declined precipitously in both regards. He generated whiffs at a marginal 7.6% rate last year and averaged 93.8 mph with his heater.

To be fair, Motte found a way to succeed despite managing only 6.0 K/9 against 4.4 BB/9 in his 40 2/3 innings in 2017. He ended the season with a 3.54 ERA, after all. But there’s little reason to believe that Motte will be able to replicate a .200 batting average on balls in play.

Padres Claim Rowan Wick

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The Padres have claimed right-hander Rowan Wick off waivers from the Cardinals, reports Dennis Lin of The Athletic (on Twitter). Derrick Goold of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch had first reported that Wick, who was designated for assignment when the Cards signed Bud Norris, had been claimed by an unknown team (Twitter link).

Wick, 25, was drafted as a catcher and moved to the outfield before ultimately transitioning to the mound on a full-time basis in 2016. As one might expect, then, his body of work as a reliever in the minors is rather limited, but he’s shown some positive trends. This past season he split the year between the Gulf Coast League, Double-A and Triple-A, working to a combined 3.19 ERA with 42 strikeouts in 42 1/3 innings. Wick also issued 19 walks, hit two batters, balked twice and uncorked a pair of wild pitches, so he still seems somewhat raw on the mound.

The Padres aren’t strangers to the notion of trying to convert a position player into a pitcher, though, having gone through the process (albeit unsuccessfully) with former top catching prospect Christian Bethancourt in recent years. San Diego had an open spot on the 40-man roster, so a corresponding move from the Friars won’t be necessary to accommodate the addition of Wick.

Cardinals To Attend Tim Lincecum Showcase

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  • The Cardinals will have evaluators at Tim Lincecum’s showcase tomorrow, according to FanRag Sports’ Jon Heyman (Twitter link).  St. Louis will join at least 12 other teams in watching the former two-time Cy Young Award winner throw as he attempts a comeback after missing all over the 2017 season.

Cardinals Designate Rowan Wick For Assignment

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The Cardinals have designated righty Rowan Wick for assignment, the team announced and Derrick Goold of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch first reported (via Twitter). His 40-man spot will go to righty Bud Norris, whose previously reported signing is now official.

Wick has yet to pitch at the game’s highest level. The converted catcher/outfielder was added to the 40-man in advance of the Rule 5 draft in the winter of 2016, following his first full competitive season on the mound. He was also tabbed to participate in the World Baseball Classic with Team Canada.

Last season, Wick ended up spending most of his time in the upper minors as he worked to refine his new craft. While the hard-throwing righty was able to tamp down on the walk issues that plagued him in his first attempt at Double-A in 2016, he evidently did not show quite enough for the Cards to ensure they’d retain him entering camp. Wick ended the 2017 campaign with 42 1/3 innings of 3.19 ERA ball with 8.9 K/9 and 4.0 BB/9.

Cardinals, Bud Norris Agree To Terms

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12:55pm: Norris is guaranteed $3MM on the one-year term, and the contract contains “significant” incentives, Rosenthal tweets.

Interestingly, Derrick Goold of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reports that Norris will also be given the opportunity to start in the event that the Cardinals decide one or more of their younger arms need time in the minors early in the season. He adds that Norris is expected to join the team Wednesday, which would suggest that we’ll know the corresponding 40-man roster move within 48 hours or so.

9:50am: It’s a one-year, Major League contract for Norris, tweets SB Nation’s Chris Cotillo.

9:41am: The Cardinals are in agreement on a contract with free-agent righty Bud Norris, reports Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic (via Twitter). His contract is pending a physical.  Norris is represented by Wasserman.

Bud Norris | Patrick Gorski-USA TODAY Sports

It’s not yet clear whether Norris, 33 next month, signed a Major League or Minor League contract, though the latter is a possibility following a rough finish to what began as a strong 2017 season. The 4.21 ERA that Norris authored through 62 innings last season doesn’t look overly impressive, but he was somewhat quietly dominant through the season’s first half; in 36 1/3 innings prior to the All-Star break, Norris notched a 2.23 ERA that was backed by a 2.96 FIP and a 3.21 xFIP. In that time, the starter-turned-reliever averaged 11.6 K/9 against 3.5 BB/9 with a 47.6 percent ground-ball rate.

However, Norris missed time in late June and early July with a knee injury, and upon his return, his success quickly deteriorated. Then the Halos’ closer, Norris improbably served up a pair of grand slams (being charged for all four runs in each instance) within a span of six days, ballooning his ERA from 2.23 to 3.89. Things didn’t get any better for him in the month of August, and he again hit the disabled list late that month due to inflammation in the same problematic right knee. Overall, Norris perhaps quite literally limped to a 7.01 ERA following the All-Star break and watched his K/9 (9.5), BB/9 (4.6) and ground-ball rates (41.8 percent) all go in the wrong direction.

The Cardinals, though, could be heartened by the fact that Norris’ success out of the ’pen in the past couple of seasons has corresponded with a notable change in his pitch selection, as he’s largely abandoned his four-seam fastball in exchange for a cutter and sinker. If those changes and better health can allow him to sustain production more in line with last year’s first half than his nightmarish second half, then Norris could prove to be a bargain for a Cardinals team whose late-inning relief mix still looks to be rather unsettled.

As things stand, Luke Gregerson could well head into the year as the closer, though St. Louis also picked up righty Dominic Leone from the Blue Jays in the Randal Grichuk trade, and lefty Tyler Lyons had a breakout year as a high-leverage reliever last season. Any from that mix could conceivably find his way into the ninth inning in 2018, as could righty Alex Reyes when he returns from Tommy John surgery (even though the organization views him as a starter long term).

Photo courtesy of USA Today Sports Images.

Matt Carpenter's Shoulder Feels "Normal"

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  • The right shoulder issues that Cardinals infielder Matt Carpenter played through last season are no longer hampering him, he tells Derrick Goold of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. “It’s not in the back of mind, like it was, not at all,” he said. “It’s not limiting me in any way. I can go out and do whatever. It is as if everything is normal.” Carpenter’s shoulder made it a challenge for him to swing a bat in 2017, yet he still managed to amass 622 plate appearances and slash a terrific .241/.384/.451. Although, Carpenter’s production did drop off from 2015-16, a 1,231-PA run in which he batted .271/.372/.505.

Latest On Market For Lance Lynn

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Free agent hurler Lance Lynn has received interest from “seven or eight teams,” according to a report from Derrick Goold of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. His former team, the Cardinals, is not one of them.

Lynn, of course, declined a qualifying offer from St. Louis at the start the offseason. It seems the club is now content to allow him to leave, knowing that it’ll receive a draft choice after the Competitive Balance Round B selections so long as Lynn signs before this year’s draft.

Clearly, Lynn is worthy of punting some draft compensation. But while the CBA’s new qualifying offer rules have generally put that matter on the back burner, parting with draft value is still a factor in any free agent case. (MLBTR has run down what draft picks each team would need to sacrifice to sign a qualified free agent such as Lynn.)

As we’ve noted of late, Lynn has had a quiet offseason but remains an easy-to-visualize fit with quite a few organizations. Among the teams showing some level of interest, per Goold, are the Brewers and Cubs — two teams that are plenty familiar with Lynn from his lengthy stint with the Cardinals. The article also rounds up reported interest from other quarters, mentioning the Orioles, Twins, Nationals, and Mets as plausible suitors. Indeed, a run through MLBTR’s log of posts involving Lynn shows no shortage of possibilities.

Lynn himself discussed the situation with Goold, though he declined to get into specifics on teams. You’ll want to read the entire piece, as it’s loaded with interesting information and discussion, but generally Lynn suggests he feels comfortable preparing as normal despite his lack of a contract. “I haven’t missed anything,” he said. “There’s nothing really to worry about — at this moment.”

Goold also examines Lynn’s value against prior open-market players, suggesting the Tigers’ signing of Jordan Zimmermann — five years and $110MM, with strong no-trade protection — as a comp. While there’s certainly an argument to be made for that kind of analogy given Lynn’s bottom-line results, the view of MLBTR’s Tim Dierkes — as explained first in the MLBTR Top 50 Free Agents list and expanded upon in his free agent profile of Lynn — is that the veteran righty isn’t quite in that stratosphere, due in large part to concerns with the peripherals. MLBTR has pegged Lynn for a four-year deal in the $14MM or $15MM annual range, citing a variety of teams as plausible fits on paper.

In large part, the overall market picture remains much the same as it was when Dierkes set out to evaluate things before the action got underway. Just how Lynn’s situation will shake out, though, is even more difficult to predict now than it was then. The overall tenor of Lynn’s comments, and Goold’s reporting, suggests that this free agent case is not particularly close to resolution.

Should Cardinals Consider Pursuing Lance Lynn?

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  • Of course, other organizations are arguably in a similar position with regard to Lynn. Even taking a pessimistic view of his future, he profiles as a quality back-end starter that would upgrade just about every rotation in baseball. Ben Frederickson of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch argued recently that the Cardinals ought to be ready to grab Lynn — at least, if he can be had for a cheaper-than-expected contract. A similar sentiment has been batted around by Mets writers. (See, e.g., this post from John Harper of the New York Daily News and this Twitter exchange between MLB.com’s Anthony DiComo and Jared Diamond of the Wall Street Journal.) No doubt an argument for the pursuit of Lynn could also be constructed for quite a few other teams, which is the sort of reasoning that supports at least some reason to believe that he and other mid-level free agents can still find significant contracts.
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