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Rangers, Joe McCarthy Agree To Minor League Deal

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Outfielder Joe McCarthy is signing a minor league deal with the Rangers, reports Robert Murray of FanSided (Twitter link). He’ll receive an invitation to big league Spring Training.

It’s the second consecutive offseason in which McCarthy and the Rangers lined up on a minor league pact. Texas granted him his release a couple weeks into this past season, paving the way for the University of Virginia product to sign with the Orix Buffaloes of Japan’s Nippon Professional Baseball. The lefty-hitting outfielder appeared in 59 games with the Buffaloes, hitting .225/.344/.343 with four home runs through 212 trips to the dish. Strikeouts proved problematic, as he punched out in 27.4% of his plate appearances.

While it wasn’t a great NPB stint, McCarthy is an accomplished Triple-A hitter. He posted a quality .306/.384/.542 mark in 74 games with the Giants top affiliate in Sacramento in 2021. That brought his career line at the top minor league level to .255/.355/.464. McCarthy has a robust 12.1% walk rate at the level, striking out 24.2% of the time in the process.

McCarthy, the older brother of Diamondbacks outfielder Jake McCarthy, has just four games of MLB experience. Those came with the Giants during the abbreviated 2020 season. He’ll look to carve out a longer big league look in his age-29 campaign. McCarthy is primarily a corner outfielder whose best position is left field, an area in which the Rangers are searching for upgrades. Texas surely won’t cease a pursuit of targets like Michael Conforto because they’ve added McCarthy, but the signing adds some extra depth at a questionable position while giving him an opportunity to compete for a roster spot next spring.

Latest On Michael Conforto’s Market

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The Rangers made Michael Conforto an offer over the summer and have maintained interest in the free-agent outfielder throughout the offseason, Evan Grant of the Dallas Morning News reports. That interest has led to recent talks with agent Scott Boras, who said earlier in the offseason that Conforto was eyeing a two-year contract with an opt-out opportunity after the first season.

Texas isn’t alone in courting Conforto. Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic reports that both the Blue Jays and Mets are still showing interest as well. (The Mets, of course, are the only team for which Conforto has ever played.) Patrick Saunders of the Denver Post adds (via Twitter) that the Rockies checked in but are not seen as a likely landing spot. Saunders lists the Cubs, Marlins and Rangers as teams more prominently involved in the Conforto bidding. Seattle and Houston were linked to Conforto earlier in the offseason, though the Astros’ reunion with Michael Brantley seemingly takes them out of the Conforto mix.

The Rangers are the most commonly cited suitor for Conforto, though that hardly ensures that he’ll be suiting up at Globe Life Field in 2023. Still, Texas has had a clear need for at least one outfielder all season but has thus far focused its free-agent and trade pursuits on pitchers. Conforto, 30 in March, would be a risky investment on a multi-year deal but would come with substantial upside; the former first-round pick posted a combined .265/.369/.495 batting line with 97 home runs, 86 doubles, three triples, a 12.7% walk rate and 24.4% strikeout rate in 1959 plate appearances from 2017-20.

Conforto’s platform year before reaching free agency, however, was disappointing. He followed that strong four-year run with a more pedestrian .232/.344/.384 batting line in his age-28 season in 2021. Conforto still rejected a qualifying offer from the Mets, banking on a team being willing to forfeit a draft pick based on the strength of his overall track record. That didn’t happen prior to last winter’s lockout, though, and Conforto went on to suffer an offseason shoulder injury that required surgery in the spring. Despite interest from the Astros and the apparent offer from the Rangers, Conforto did not sign over the summer, instead ostensibly preferring to wait for an offseason deal and a fully healthy return to baseball. (Had he played last summer, it’s believed he’d have been limited to designated hitter duties.)

Rosenthal suggests that some teams are concerned about Conforto’s throwing in the wake of that surgery, though he’s currently throwing from a distance of 150 feet. For the Rangers, Conforto could potentially slot into left field, given Adolis Garcia’s presence in right field. That might help to mitigate some concerns about his arm strength — if Texas even has any at the moment. Rangers left fielders were far and away the worst in MLB last season, batting a combined .186/.253/.255. Every one of those rate stats ranked dead-last in the Majors, as did the resulting 47 wRC+. Texas, incredibly, gave 13 different players a look in left field last season.

While the Rangers stand as an obvious and perhaps the best fit for Conforto, his other reported suitors are all sensible landing spots, to varying degrees. The Blue Jays have a nearly all-right-handed lineup and have seen Lourdes Gurriel Jr.’s offensive contributions wane in recent seasons; Gurriel still hit for a strong .291 average in 2022, but his power vanished and his defensive grades have never been particularly strong. GM Ross Atkins said just yesterday that his focus was shifting to upgrading the offense — ideally by adding a lefty bat who could slot into the outfield. Conforto checks a lot of boxes for them. As with the Rangers, Conforto could likely slot into left field with Toronto, lessening potential concerns about his throwing arm.

The Mets, meanwhile, already have a crowded roster and a bloated payroll, but owner Steve Cohen and GM Billy Eppler seem undeterred by either of those factors. Conforto could factor into Buck Showalter’s lineup as a left fielder and designated hitter, perhaps pushing Daniel Vogelbach into more of a bench role than the platoon DH role for which he’s currently set. It might not be an especially clean fit, but the Mets perhaps feel they’d be a deeper and better team by adding Conforto, which could well bump Darin Ruf (who struggled following his acquisition over the summer) or high-priced catcher James McCann from the roster.

The Cubs’ outfield is largely set, with Ian Happ, Cody Bellinger and Seiya Suzuki lined up from left to right, but there’s plenty of opportunity for Conforto to join the mix and rotate through the outfield corners and designated hitter. Neither the Rockies nor Marlins are ideal fits, but it’s nevertheless notable that both have looked into a potential match with Conforto. Both teams need center fielders more than a corner outfielder, however. Colorado could push Randal Grichuk to center, but he’s generally graded out as a better defender in right field. Miami, meanwhile, already has a pair of corner outfielders — Avisail Garcia, Jorge Soler — in search of a rebound, though the latter figures to spend the bulk of his time at designated hitter in 2023.

Between a fair number of teams with interest and this offseason’s rash of free-agent deals that allow players to opt back into the market as early as next offseason, Conforto’s chances of reaching that goal of a multi-year deal with an opt-out seems attainable.

Marlins, Rangers Interested In Michael Conforto

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6:41pm: The Rangers are also involved in the Conforto market, reports Ken Rosenthal of the Athletic. Texas general manager Chris Young told reporters coming out of the Winter Meetings they were hoping to address left field, where rookies Bubba Thompson, Ezequiel Duran and Josh Smith look like the in-house favorites for playing time. That corner outfield vacancy makes Conforto a fairly obvious target, particularly with Andrew Benintendi’s five-year deal with the White Sox taking the top free agent left fielder off the board.

1:09pm: The Marlins have shown some interest in free agent outfielder Michael Conforto, reports Jon Heyman of the New York Post. Heyman also lists the Astros and Cubs, both of whom have been previously linked to the Boras Corporation client, as teams with interest.

Miami entered the offseason searching for offensive help. They’ve done essentially nothing thus far, with the only noteworthy move being the non-tender of Brian Anderson. The Marlins hit just .230/.294/.363 in 2022, finishing 27th in on-base percentage and 28th in slugging. Spacious Marlins Park hasn’t done their batters any favors, but Miami’s offense was one of the league’s worst even after accounting for home environment. By measure of wRC+, which adjusts for park, the Marlins were 12 percentage points worse than the average hitting team — the sixth-lowest mark in the league.

Most of the Miami offense underperformed, with second baseman Jazz Chisholm Jr. their only standout hitter. That gives general manager Kim Ng and her staff myriad positions they could look to address. The outfield, which Miami thought they’d fixed last offseason, posed particular problems. Avisaíl García fell flat with a career-worst .224/.266/.317 showing in the first season of a four-year free agent deal. Jorge Soler, inked to a three-year deal after a massive postseason showing in 2021, managed just a .207/.295/.400 mark with subpar defense in left field.

The Marlins gave extended auditions to young players Jesús Sánchez and Bryan De La Cruz. Neither ran away with an everyday job, with both reaching base at a sub-.300 clip. Sánchez and De La Cruz each showed interesting power potential, but they both struck out more often than average while walking at a subpar clip. Of that group, only Sánchez — who spent most of the season’s second half in Triple-A after being optioned — hits left-handed.

Bringing in a lefty-swinging outfielder makes plenty of sense, and Conforto’s one of the more interesting options available. The 29-year-old missed all of 2022 recovering from an offseason injury to his right shoulder that required surgery. He’s not expected to have any health limitations by next spring, but the lost year raises some questions about how he’ll respond after such a long layoff.

Conforto wasn’t even at his best before the surgery, as his 2021 campaign was his worst in a while. He hit .232/.344/.384 over 479 plate appearances for the division-rival Mets in 2021. That’d still be an upgrade over the production Miami received from any of their outfielders last season, but it’s well shy of the .265/.369/.495 cumulative line Conforto had posted from 2017-20.

With his value at a low ebb, Conforto is looking for a bounceback opportunity. Agent Scott Boras has suggested he expects Conforto land a multi-year guarantee this offseason, one that allows him to opt out and retest free agency at the end of the 2023 campaign. Boras reiterated that sentiment when speaking with Anthony DiComo of MLB.com yesterday (Twitter link). That’s a rather lofty goal for a player coming off a season lost to shoulder surgery, and it remains to be seen if a team is willing to guarantee him multiple years.

While Conforto’s bat would be a welcome addition to the Miami lineup, he’s not an ideal fit from a positional perspective. He hasn’t played a single inning of center field since 2019, and his early-career defensive metrics there were very poor. Conforto’s a solid defender in the corner outfield, but he’s even less likely to be an option up-the-middle after surgery on his throwing shoulder. Miami reportedly prefers to push Soler more fully into designated hitter work in 2023, so Conforto and García could take the corners. That’d require leaning on Sánchez, De La Cruz or JJ Bleday again in center field, where each player is probably miscast. Of course, with an already shallow center field market having been picked clean, the Marlins may no longer have a viable alternative to rolling out another mediocre defensive outfield.

The Astros have been tied to Conforto on a number of occasions this offseason, as they’re reportedly looking to install a left-handed bat into the corner outfield mix. The Cubs were previously linked to Conforto as well, although that was before they signed Cody Bellinger to play center field. That filled Chicago’s outfield, which already contained Seiya Suzuki and Ian Happ in the corners. The Cubs don’t have a great option at designated hitter, though, which is presumably where they’re eyeing Conforto at this point. Seattle and both New York franchises were also linked to the Oregon State product at points this offseason.

Miami’s facing some competition in the Conforto market, but he shouldn’t be unattainable from a financial perspective. Barry Jackson of the Miami Herald wrote in September that owner Bruce Sherman was willing to sign off on a fairly modest payroll bump, but they’ve yet to dip into free agency thus far. The Fish have reportedly put forth an offer to former Dodgers third baseman Justin Turner, who remains unsigned. Heyman writes Miami appears willing to make a two-year commitment to the 38-year-old, who’s coming off a .278/.350/.438 showing in Los Angeles.

Nationals Claim A.J. Alexy, Designate Lucius Fox

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The Nationals have claimed right-hander A.J. Alexy from the Rangers, per announcements from both teams. Alexy had been designated for assignment by the Rangers last week. The Nats designated shortstop Lucius Fox for assignment in a corresponding move.

Alexy, 25 in April, was a Dodgers draftee who came to the Rangers via the Yu Darvish trade in 2017. He subsequently moved his way up the minor league ranks, but missed much of 2019 due to injury and didn’t pitch at all in 2020 due to the pandemic wiping out the minors that year. Regardless, the Rangers liked him enough to add him to their 40-man roster prior to the Rule 5 draft in late 2020.

He got back on track with a nice season in 2021, splitting his time between Double-A and Triple-A. Over 65 innings on the farm in 10 starts and six relief appearances, he had a 1.66 ERA, 29.8% strikeout rate and 10.6% walk rate. That was enough to get him a promotion to the big leagues late in the year. In 2022, Alexy made four MLB appearances but was lit up for ERA of 11.57 in that small sample. He tossed 96 innings in Triple-A but posted a 5.91 ERA with a 23.6% strikeout rate and 12.8% walk rate.

The Rangers relied on many youngsters for their pitching staff in 2022 but are going in a different direction for 2023, acquiring Jake Odorizzi before signing both Jacob deGrom and Andrew Heaney. Those moves pushed Alexy down the depth chart and off the roster, with his DFA coming when they announced the Heaney signing.

For the Nats, they are deep in rebuild mode and can take fliers on young players like Alexy. He still has one option year remaining and has shown some quality results in the past. They can keep him in the minors in 2023 and see if he takes a step forward in his age-25 season.

Fox, 25, was a high profile international signing of the Giants out of the Bahamas back in July of 2015, earning a $6MM bonus. Prospect evaluators considered him a gifted infielder with a distinct lack of power. That latter point has certainly proven to be true as Fox has never hit more than five home runs in any season since then. The Giants traded him to the Rays in the Evan Longoria deal but Tampa later flipped him to the Royals for Brett Phillips. He then went to the Orioles and Nationals on waiver claims. He made his MLB debut in 2022 but hit just .080/.115/.080 in 28 trips to the plate. In 216 minor league plate appearances, he hit .241/.321/.352 for a wRC+ of 81. The Nats will now have a week to trade him or pass him through waivers. He’s now out of options, meaning any team that acquires him would have to keep him on their active roster or else designate him for assignment again.

Anthony Franco of MLB Trade Rumors tweeted news of the Alexy claim prior to the official announcement.

Rangers Sign Andrew Heaney To Two-Year Deal

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Dec. 9: The Rangers have officially announced the signing. Levi Weaver of The Athletic provides some specifics on the contract. Heaney will make $12MM plus incentives in 2023 followed by $13MM plus incentives in 2024. If he opts out after the first year, he’ll collect a $500K payout.

Dec. 6, 7:42pm: Evan Grant of the Dallas Morning News reports that Heaney will earn $12.5MM in guaranteed money in 2023, with the ability to earn up to $5MM more in performance bonuses.

4:40pm: The Rangers have an agreement with free agent pitcher Andrew Heaney, pending a physical. It will be a two-year, $25MM deal with incentives that could take it up to $37MM. Heaney will be able to opt out of the deal after the first season. Heaney is represented by Icon Sports Management.

Heaney, 32 in June, has long been an enticing hurler due to his incredible ability to rack up strikeouts. Since the start of the 2016 season, his 27.2% strikeout rate is well above average and ranks 21st among all pitchers in the majors in that stretch, minimum 500 innings pitched.

However, despite banking all those Ks, there have also been concerns around Heaney. One is his tendency to get tattooed by the long ball too often. For his career, 16.1% of his fly balls have left the yard, which is certainly on the high side. League wide averages fluctuate in this department as the ball seems to be changing from year to year, but the average in 2022 was 11.4%. Even in the “juiced ball” season of 2019, the rate only got as high as 15.3%, still below Heaney’s career rate. Those home runs are a big reason why he has a career ERA of 4.56 despite all those punchouts. Another knock on Heaney is health, as he’s only once reached 130 innings in a single season. That’s been due to a number of factors, including Tommy John surgery in 2016 and various bouts of elbow inflammation since then.

For 2022, Heaney seemed to take a step forward performance wise, but without completely eliminating those concerning tendencies. The Dodgers signed him to a one-year, $8.5MM deal and then changed his pitch repertoire. His curveball and sinker were eliminated in favor of a new slider to pair with his four-seamer and the occasional changeup. The results were excellent as Heaney struck out an incredible 35.5% of batters faced, well beyond his own track record and second to only Spencer Strider among pitchers with at least 70 innings pitched on the year.

However, injuries were once again a problem, with Heaney making multiple trips to the IL due to shoulder issues throughout the year. In the end, he made 14 starts and two relief appearances, getting to 72 2/3 innings pitched for the whole season, with three more added in the playoffs. The long ball was still present as well, as he allowed 14 homers in that sample, leading to a HR/FB rate of 17.9%. Despite the massive strikeout rate, those home runs bumped his ERA up to 3.10.

Even with those concerns, MLBTR predicted that Heaney would get enough interest to land a three-year, $42MM deal, or $14MM per season. It’s possible that Heaney got a wide variety of creative contracts to address his high upside potential but also the big question marks. Chris Cotillo of MassLive reports that Heaney had nine different offers before agreeing to this Rangers deal, and recent reporting indicated he had three-year offers and was trying to get a fourth. The exact details of those other offers aren’t known, but Heaney has taken a deal with a solid $25MM guarantee, $12.5MM per year, but the possibility to earn much more.

For one thing, the opt-out after 2023 will give him the chance to return to the open market a year from now. If Heaney finally stays healthy and produces the elite results he’s clearly capable of, he could opt out and land himself a much larger contract at that point. There’s also the incentives in the deal, with the specifics not yet known, but that’s another avenue for Heaney to end up doing quite well for himself on the deal.

For the Rangers, this is the latest in a series of moves that has completely remade their rotation. Just about a month ago, their on-paper starting group consisted of Jon Gray and a bunch question marks. Since then, they’ve re-signed Martín Pérez, acquired Jake Odorizzi from Atlanta, signed arguably the best pitcher on the planet in Jacob deGrom and have now added Heaney into the mix. In a way, the Heaney deal is an echo of the deGrom deal, as both pitchers have excellent stuff when healthy but have injury concerns. deGrom is in another league compared to Heaney, but they are similar high-risk upside plays for the Rangers.

The collective moves also are something of a mirror to what the club did a year ago. Tired of rebuilding and looking for a return to contention, the Rangers spent aggressively to land two of the top middle infielders in available in Corey Seager and Marcus Semien. Those two players didn’t immediately turn around the fortunes of the franchise, as the Rangers went 68-94 in 2022. That was largely due to a poor rotation that, as mentioned, they have completely remade in the past month. The club’s starters posted a collective 4.63 ERA that was 25th among the 30 teams in baseball. But with deGrom, Heaney and Odorizzi in the fold, their odds of moving up the list in that category are quite strong.

Financially, this deal pushes the club’s payroll up to $182MM and their competitive balance tax figure up to $204MM, per Roster Resource. The club seems poised to blow well past their previous spending levels, as their highest Opening Day payroll in the past was $165MM back in 2017, per Cot’s Baseball Contracts. It’s unclear how much more spending the club plans to do, but they still have almost $30MM of wiggle room before reaching the $233MM luxury tax threshold for 2023.

Evan Grant of the Dallas Morning News first reported the sides were nearing a deal. Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic reported that an agreement was in place, pending a physical. Jon Heyman of The New York Post reported the two-year structure with an opt-out. Joel Sherman of the New York Post first had the $25MM guarantee plus incentives. Alden González of ESPN first added the $37MM post-incentives figure.

Rangers Designate A.J. Alexy For Assignment

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The Rangers announced their signing of left-hander Andrew Heaney, making it official. To make room on their 40-man roster, they designated right-hander A.J. Alexy for assignment. Additionally, the club announced that they have re-signed catcher David Garcia, left-hander Lucas Jacobsen and right-hander Nick Snyder to minor league deals.

Alexy, 25 in April, was a Dodgers draftee who came to the Rangers via the Yu Darvish trade in 2017. He subsequently moved his way up the minor league ranks, but missed much of 2019 due to injury and didn’t pitch at all in 2020 due to the pandemic wiping out the minors that year. Regardless, the Rangers liked him enough to add him to their 40-man roster prior to the Rule 5 draft in late 2020.

He got back on track with a nice season in 2021, splitting his time between Double-A and Triple-A. Over 65 innings on the farm in 10 starts and six relief appearances, he had a 1.66 ERA, 29.8% strikeout rate and 10.6% walk rate. That was enough to get him a promotion to the big leagues late in the year. In 2022, Alexy made four MLB appearances but was torched for an ERA of 11.57. He tossed 96 innings in Triple-A but posted a 5.91 ERA with a 23.6% strikeout rate and 12.8% walk rate.

The Rangers have been aggressively upgrading their pitching staff this offseason, re-signing Martin Perez and trading for Jake Odorizzi before signing Jacob deGrom and Heaney. All those additions have pushed their other options down the depth chart and it seems that Alexy has been nudged out of their plans. It’s possible that he could garner interest from other clubs, as he’s still quite young and has shown flashes of quality in the past. He also still has an option remaining so he wouldn’t even require a spot on an active roster. The Rangers will have one week to work out a trade, place him on waivers or release him.

As for the three minor league signees, Garcia was selected to the club’s 40-man roster at the same time as Alexy but has yet to play at even the Triple-A level. Jacobsen has yet to crack a 40-man roster. Snyder has very brief MLB experience, tossing 4 2/3 innings over the past couple of seasons. He tossed 38 Triple-A innings in 2022 with a 4.97 ERA with a 30.9% strikeout rate but a 10.9% walk rate.

Young: Rangers Still Exploring Rotation, Left Field Markets

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Since the 2022 season drew to a close, the Rangers have acquired or re-signed four starting pitchers, beginning with Martin Perez’s acceptance of a $19.65MM qualifying offer and following with a trade for Jake Odorizzi (and $10MM to help cover the bulk of his $12.5MM salary). Subsequent signings of two-time Cy Young winner Jacob deGrom (five years, $185MM) and left-hander Andrew Heaney (two years, $25MM with an opt-out and a heavy slate of incentives) followed over the past week. That quartet can now join last winter’s top rotation signee, Jon Gray, in rounding out the rotation.

Or so it would seem. Rangers general manager Chris Young told reporters that even after that frenzied slate of additions, he’s still on the lookout for more starting pitching talent (link via MLB.com’s Kennedi Landry). Young stopped short of declaring that he intends to continue playing at the top of the rotation market but referenced the timeless adage of never having “too much” pitching in vowing to continue his efforts to improve the club.

Texas is hardly without any depth beyond that top five. Right-hander Dane Dunning, in fact, could potentially be squeezed out of the starting mix despite giving the Rangers 271 quite serviceable innings over the past two seasons: 4.48 ERA, 4.23 FIP, 21.2% strikeout rate, 8.9% walk rate, 53.6% ground-ball rate, 1.10 HR/9. Dunning has a pair of minor league option years remaining.

Picking up some additional depth, even if it’s on minor league deals, would better position the Rangers to get through a 162-game marathon. And, as they’ve shown repeatedly in the past two offseasons, they probably shouldn’t be ruled out on a more impactful splash. To that end, it’s worth reminding that the Rangersreportedly met with Carlos Rodon even after signing deGrom — although that meeting came before signing Heaney.

More directly, Young plainly stated a desire to explore the market for left fielders. He also expressed confidence in both his catching corps and infield mix. The Rangers will look to Mitch Garver, Jonah Heim and Sam Huff as options behind the dish in 2023, while the infield features Nathaniel Lowe at first base, Marcus Semien at second and Corey Seager at shortstop. Top prospect Josh Jung is the heir-apparent at third base, but the Rangers have fellow prospects Ezequiel Duran and Josh Smith, plus utilitymen Brad Miller and Mark Mathias as depth options.

In left field, things are far less certain. Adolis Garcia is the clear everyday option in right, and Leody Taveras at least provides a glove-first option in center. Left is more problematic, with options including the aforementioned Smith, Bubba Thompson and Eli White.

Smith has spent more time on the infield in his minor league career but was a prospect of note and had a big season  in the upper minors before struggling in his MLB debut. Thompson has 80-grade speed but needed a .389 BABIP just to get to a .265/.302/.312 batting line (77 wRC+) in 181 plate appearances in his own debut this season. With a 30.9% strikeout rate and that excessively good fortune on balls in play, his bat is likely to regress from an already troubling starting point. White’s glove gives him a chance at being a solid fourth outfielder, but he’s a career .185/.260/.296 hitter in 389 MLB plate appearances.

It’s not a great market for corner outfielders in free agency, as the bulk of the available names are either coming off injury-shortened seasons (Michael Conforto, Michael Brantley, Andrew Benintendi) or are simply in search of a rebound after a disappointing performance (AJ Pollock, Tommy Pham, David Peralta, Stephen Piscotty, old friend Joey Gallo). The trade market could offer a broad range of alternatives. The D-backs have been listening to offers on several outfielders (e.g. Jake McCarthy, Alek Thomas), while the Twins (Max Kepler), Orioles (Anthony Santander) and Pirates (Bryan Reynolds) all have potential trade candidates of varying quality in the outfield.

Even after the Rangers’ spending spree over the past two offseasons, they’re still a projected $29MM from the luxury-tax threshold. Their projected $181MM Opening Day payroll would be a franchise-record mark, but “only” by a margin of about $15MM. The extent to which ownership will continue to green-light payroll increases can’t be known, but the Rangers are committed to spending their way back into contention in the AL West, so there’s little point in taking their foot off the gas now.

2022 Rule 5 Draft Results

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The 2022 Rule 5 draft will begin at 4pm Central time today at the Winter Meetings in San Diego. This will be the first time since 2019 that the meetings will be held in person, as the 2020 edition was virtual because of the pandemic and the 2021 draft was cancelled entirely due to the lockout.

As a refresher, the Rule 5 draft is a way for players potentially talented enough for the big leagues but blocked by their current clubs to find opportunities elsewhere. Any players that were 18 and under at the time of their original signing and were signed in 2018 or earlier, and any players 19 or older and signed in 2019 or earlier, who are not on a club’s 40-man roster are eligible to be selected in the Rule 5 draft.

The clubs will draft in reverse order of the 2022 standings, with no club obligated to make a selection when it’s their turn. If they do make a pick, they will have to pay $100K to the team they select from. The selected players must stay on the active roster (or injured list) for the entire 2023 season or else be placed on waivers. If they clear waivers, they must be offered back to their original team. They cannot be optioned to the minors. The most recent edition in 2020 saw some notable names move around, such as Akil Baddoo going from the Twins to the Tigers while Garrett Whitlock went from the Yankees to the Red Sox.

This post will be updated with the results as they come in…

First Round

1. Nationals: RHP Thad Ward (Red Sox) (hat tip to Jonathan Mayo of MLB.com)
2. A’s: 1B Ryan Noda (Dodgers)
3. Pirates: LHP Jose Hernandez (Dodgers)
4. Reds: OF Blake Sabol (Pirates); Reds later traded Sabol to Giants for cash or a player to be named later
5. Royals: pass
6. Tigers: RHP Mason Englert (Rangers)
7. Rangers: pass
8. Rockies: RHP Kevin Kelly (Guardians); Rockies later traded Kelly to Rays for cash considerations
9. Marlins: RHP Nic Enright (Guardians)
10. Angels: pass
11. D-backs: pass
12. Cubs: pass
13. Twins: pass
14. Red Sox: pass
15. White Sox: RHP Nick Avila (Giants)
16. Giants: pass
17. Orioles: RHP Andrew Politi (Red Sox)
18. Brewers: RHP Gus Varland (Dodgers)
19. Rays: pass
20. Phillies: RHP Noah Song (Red Sox)
21. Padres: LHP Jose Lopez (Rays)
22. Mariners: RHP Chris Clarke (Cubs)
23. Guardians: pass
24. Blue Jays: pass
25. Cardinals:RHP Wilking Rodriguez (Yankees)
26. Yankees: pass
27. Mets: RHP Zach Greene (Yankees)
27. Braves: pass
29. Astros: pass
30. Dodgers: pass

Second Round

  • All teams passed

The minor league phase of the Rule 5 draft also occurred this afternoon. Those players will not go onto the selecting teams’ 40-man roster. A few former major leaguers changed uniforms. They include Hector Perez from Baltimore to the Rays, Josh Palacios from the Nationals to the Pirates, Jared Oliva from the Pirates to the Angels, Nick Burdi from the Padres to the Cubs, Peter Solomon from the Pirates to the D-Backs and Jonathan Arauz from the Orioles to the Mets.

Pirates Win #1 Overall Pick In Draft Lottery

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The inaugural MLB draft lottery was conducted at the Winter Meetings this evening. The Pirates were awarded the first overall pick, followed by the Nationals and Tigers. Here is the first round:

  1. Pirates
  2. Nationals
  3. Tigers
  4. Rangers
  5. Twins
  6. A’s
  7. Reds
  8. Royals
  9. Rockies
  10. Marlins
  11. Angels
  12. Diamondbacks
  13. Cubs
  14. Red Sox
  15. White Sox
  16. Giants
  17. Orioles
  18. Brewers
  19. Rays
  20. Blue Jays
  21. Cardinals
  22. Mets
  23. Mariners
  24. Guardians
  25. Braves
  26. Dodgers
  27. Padres
  28. Yankees
  29. Phillies
  30. Astros

In previous years, the draft order was fixed in inverse order of the regular season standings. As part of the Players Association’s efforts to reduce the incentive for non-competitive teams to lose games, the latest collective bargaining agreement introduced a lottery to determine the top six overall selections. A team’s odds of landing a higher pick are still weighted in favor of the clubs with the worst records, although the three worst teams all had identical chances of landing the top selection. All 18 non-playoff teams were technically in the running for any of the top six picks, albeit with increasingly diminished odds for the clubs with better records. The 12 playoff teams were ordered depending on their postseason finishes, with a team’s revenue sharing status separating teams that were eliminated in the same round.

This year, the Nationals, A’s and Pirates all had the best chance of securing the #1 overall selection. Each club had a 16.5% probability. The Reds (13.25%) and Royals (10%) rounded out the top five as the only other teams with a 10% chance or better of securing the top pick. Other than Pittsburgh, the Twins were the biggest beneficiary of the new system, drawing into the top five despite having the 13th-worst record. The Royals fell outside the top ten despite finishing fifth from the bottom in the standings, while Oakland falls from second-worst to sixth.

The lottery only comes into play for the first round of the draft. From the second round onwards, pick order is determined in inverse order of the prior season’s standings, aside from compensatory and competitive balance selections.

While the draft order is official, there’s obviously plenty of uncertainty as to which players will be at the top of the class. Baseball America updated its preliminary top 100 draft prospects in October, slotting LSU right fielder Dylan Crews, Tennessee right-hander Chase Dollander and Ole Miss shortstop Jacob Gonzalez among the most talented prospects. There’ll be plenty of movement once the amateur baseball circuit kicks back off next spring.

Rangers Have Met With Carlos Rodon Since Signing Jacob deGrom

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One year after shocking baseball by signing both Marcus Semien and Corey Seager for a combined half-billion dollar, the Rangers appear to at least be considering a similar double dip into the deep end of the free-agent pool. Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic reports that the Rangers met with Carlos Rodon just one day after signing Jacob deGrom to a hefty five-year, $185MM contract.

With deGrom in Texas and Justin Verlander having agreed to terms with the Mets, Rodon is the lone free-agent ace left on the board. He’s reportedly been seeking a six-year deal worth more than $30MM annually — a weighty sum for a pitcher with a lengthy injury history that includes both shoulder surgery and Tommy John surgery.

That said, Rodon has left little doubt in recent years that he’s among the sport’s most talented pitchers. After signing a $3MM pillow contract with the White Sox in the 2020-21 offseason, he at last made good on the expectations associated with his name dating back to his No. 3 overall selection in the draft. Through the first four months of the 2021 season, Rodon was arguably the best pitcher in baseball and looked like the clear front-runner for the American League Cy Young Award.

Shoulder fatigue limited Rodon to just 28 innings in the season’s final two months, however, and when he did pitch down the stretch in 2021, it was often with reduced velocity. The White Sox were apparently wary enough that they declined to put forth a qualifying offer, and Rodon inked a two-year, $44MM deal with the Giants that allowed him to opt back into the open market if he reached 110 innings on the season.

Not only did Rodon reach 110 innings, but he did so while again putting himself onto the periphery of the Cy Young race. The lefty tossed a career-high 178 innings with a 2.88 ERA, held his velocity late into the season and averaged better than 5 2/3 innings per start as a member of the Giants. He led the National League in strikeouts and, since Opening Day 2021, leads all Major League pitchers (min. 200 innings) with a 33.9% strikeout rate. Rodon has done all that while pitching to a combined ERA of 2.67 with similarly excellent marks in FIP (2.42) and SIERA (2.88).

Onlookers may wonder just how the Rangers could even consider continuing to spend so aggressively in such a short period of time — particularly when so many teams have been averse to paying the luxury tax in recent seasons. The increased luxury tax thresholds in the 2022-26 collective bargaining agreement surely play a role, as the first-tier threshold has climbed from $210MM in 2021 to $233MM this coming season.

The luxury tax, however, isn’t a major issue for the Rangers — at least not yet. Roster Resource projects that they currently have about $192.4MM of luxury obligations, meaning even signing Rodon at a $30MM AAV would still leave them with more than $10MM of breathing room from the first tier of penalization. It’s also worth noting that the penalty for first-time offenders is rather tepid — relatively speaking. The Rangers would owe a 20% tax on the first $20MM by which they exceed the $233MM threshold and a 30% tax on the next $20MM. Even shattering the luxury barrier by a means of $40MM would give the Rangers $10MM in penalties — about the price of signing a back-of-the-rotation starter in the current market.

Of course, signing Rodon would squarely set the Rangers up for a potential long-term status as a luxury payor. The combination of deGrom, Seager, Semien and Jon Gray amounts to $107.5MM on its own, and tacking on $30MM+ for Rodon would get Texas nearly 60% of the way to luxury territory even as far out as the 2024 campaign — and that’s not even including arbitration-eligible players and pre-arb players to round out the roster.

Texas, however, is enjoying the fruits of a newly constructed stadium that drew more than two million fans in 2022 and can surely anticipate that number will climb in 2023, with deGrom (at the very least) now on board. Ownership from all 30 clubs is also perhaps a bit more willing to spend after the league sold off its remaining 15% stake in BAMTech to Disney for $900MM, the spoils of which were divided among teams. Meanwhile, lucrative streaming deals with Apple and NBC/Peacock have only further bolstered revenues for the league’s 30 teams. Heading into the 2022 season, national television and streaming rights afforded all 30 teams approximately $65MM in revenue before factoring in local television deals, attendance, concessions and other sources of revenue.

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