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DJ LeMahieu To Reject Qualifying Offer

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As expected, DJ LeMahieu plans on rejecting the $18.9MM qualifying offer and testing the open market, per MLB.com’s Mark Feinsand (via Twitter). The deadline to make a decision is tomorrow at 5 ET.

Given that LeMahieu posted and MVP-type season in 2020, it’s no surprise that he’ll head to the open market seeking a multi-year deal. The two-time batting champ has now won a batting title in each league, and he’s primed to cash in for more than the two-years, $24MM that he made last time he was a free agent. The Yankees certainly got their money’s worth over the past two seasons, as LeMahieu slashed .336/.386/.536 with 36 home runs over 871 plate appearances.

Despite the expected for a depressed free agent market, LeMahieu figures to be one of the rare players who will be able to transcend the coronavirus-driven downturn. The 32-year-old not only brings a top-of-the-line bat, but he’s a versatile defensive player who would fit on most any roster. That he happens to get rave reviews for his character and clubhouse presence is only icing on the cake.

As for the rest of this year’s qualifying offer crop, MLB Insider Jon Heyman suggested on his Big Time Baseball podcast that Kevin Gausman is the only relative sure thing to accept his offer from the Giants. Heyman couldn’t quite decide on Marcus Stroman, though he at least thinks there’s a possibility that Stroman would accept. That seems unlikely, given his position as perhaps the top starting pitcher on the market, but a decision will be made by tomorrow evening.

AL East Notes: Shoemaker, Rays, Mets, Dominguez, O’s

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Right-hander Matt Shoemaker is drawing interest from multiple teams in free agency, MLB Network’s Jon Morosi tweets, including the Red Sox.  It’s probably safe to assume that pitching-needy Boston will be looking at several arms as it tries to rebuild the rotation, and Shoemaker is the kind of lower-cost veteran hurler that would offer some upside.

Shoemaker missed most of 2019 due to a torn ACL and then missed around a month of the 2020 season due to shoulder inflammation.  This led to only 57 1/3 total innings for Shoemaker over the last two seasons with the Blue Jays, though he had good numbers (a 3.14 ERA, 2.78 K/BB rate, and 7.8 K/9) when he was on the mound.  Shoemaker’s performance 2019 was significantly better than his 2020, however, as home run problems plagued him this past season.

More from around the AL East…

  • The Mets are looking for both a president of baseball operations and a general manager to work under Sandy Alderson, and Rays special assistant Bobby Heck has been mentioned as a potential candidate on the Mets’ radar.  However, the New York Post’s Mike Puma reports that despite those rumors about Heck being “in play for the top position, an industry source on Saturday indicated he likely won’t be the Mets’ choice.”  Whether this means Heck isn’t being considered for any sort of front office position with the Mets isn’t yet known.  (Specific wording may be a factor here, as if president of baseball ops is “the top position,” Heck could still be a GM candidate.)  Another interesting wrinkle is some potential animosity between new Mets owner Steve Cohen and Rays majority owner Stuart Sternberg, as Puma hears that Sternberg “isn’t particularly fond” of Cohen.  Of course, any possible discord doesn’t necessarily mean the two teams wouldn’t do any business, but Puma opines that it could be an obstacle if the Mets were to ask Sternberg for permission to speak with Rays GM Erik Neander.
  • Jasson Dominguez is the Yankees’ top prospect and one of the more intriguing young players in all of baseball, though the 17-year-old has yet to actually begin his professional career.  Inked to a $5.1MM bonus as the 2019-20 international signing window opened, Dominguez’s first year as a Yankee has been interrupted by the COVID-19 pandemic, and thus he has been mostly spent his time training and working out at a baseball academy in his native Dominican Republic.  “I expected to play my first professional season and get to experience what that felt like,” Dominguez told MLB.com’s Jesse Sanchez.  “I wanted to live the experience, but COVID changed everything….What I’ve learned, and what I think everyone in the world is learning, is how to adapt and live with what is happening.”
  • With five open spots on their 40-man roster, the Orioles have some room to maneuver before November 20, when they must set their 40-man in advance of December’s Rule 5 Draft.  The Baltimore Sun’s Nathan Ruiz looks at eight eligible prospects the O’s might be looking to protect in the draft, assuming the Orioles use all five open roster spots on their own players and not any external additions or minor leaguers they might themselves draft out of another team’s system.

Erik Kratz Won’t Play in 2021

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Veteran catcher Erik Kratz announced that he won’t play in 2021, Robert Murray of Fansided relays.

“My next season will not be as a player, that’s for sure” Kratz told Murray. “I am deciding not to play.”

This could bring about the end of the playing career of the 40-year-old Kratz, who made his major league debut with the Pirates in 2010. Kratz has since been part of a slew of organizations, most recently the Yankees in 2020 – with whom he slashed an impressive .321/.367/.393 (113 wRC+ across 30 plate appearances. Kratz owns a less productive line of .209/.256/.355 (63 wRC+) with 31 HRs in 951 PA for his MLB career, but he has always been regarded as a quality teammate and a leader. That’s more than can be said for most 29th-round picks, which is when the Blue Jays drafted Kratz in 2002.

Six Players Extended Qualifying Offers

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Six players will be extended qualifying offers this winter, reports Mark Feinsand of MLB.com (Twitter link). Those players are:

None of the players issued the QO comes as a particular surprise. Bauer, LeMahieu, Realmuto and Springer were all easy calls for their respective teams. Each of that group will certainly reject the offer. Stroman and Gausman might’ve been tougher calls but had been reported previously.

More notable are the series of players who were not issued a QO. Astros outfielder Michael Brantley will hit the market unencumbered, as he did when he became a free agent two years ago. Oakland didn’t issue a QO to either of Marcus Semien or Liam Hendriks, while the Phillies and Angels decided against an offer for Didi Gregorius and Andrelton Simmons, respectively. The six players issued a qualifying offer is down from last offseason’s ten, which isn’t much of a surprise since this winter is expected to be particularly tough for players in the wake of teams’ pandemic-driven revenue losses.

The players issued the qualifying offer will now have ten days to weigh their options. Players who reject the offer and become free agents will cost their signing teams draft compensation (or the right to recoup draft compensation if they sign with their current team). Here is a full run-down of the qualifying offer rules this offseason.

Quick Hits: Nationals, Yankees, Mets

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The Washington Nationals are facing a host of changes after missing the playoffs in their title-defense campaign. They laid off a number of front office employees, including scouts and minor league coaches, while 15 players from their 40-man roster are now free agents, writes Jesse Dougherty of the Washington Post. The goal for the Nats remains as ever, building for the playoffs with a veteran-laden roster to support their young stars.

  • Dougherty notes a particular need for another heavy hitter in the middle of the order to help protect all-world outfielder Juan Soto. When World Series hero (and current free agent) Howie Kendrick went down with injury, the Nats didn’t have another bat capable of protecting Soto. An outfield corner spot seems the most likely place to find such a hitter, though they have a hole at first base as well, depending on the status of Mr. Nat  Ryan Zimmerman, who opted out in 2020. The rest of the infield is relatively set with Trea Turner manning shortstop, Carter Kieboom and Luis Garcia looking to establish themselves at third and second, and the duo of Starlin Castro and Josh Harrison providing the safety nets for those positions.
  • The Yankees’ thinking on slugger Giancarlo Stanton has not changed in the weeks following their postseason elimination. The front office expects Stanton to spend most of his time at designated hitter in order to give him the best chance of staying healthy, per Erik Boland of Newsday. Though they think Stanton capable of playing the outfield, they’re paying him $29MM in 2021 for his bat to be in the lineup. If he could give them innings in the field, it would certainly help from a roster construction perspective, but his value proposition remains dependent on his offensive production.
  • The Mets have shut down their minor league camps because of positive COVID-19 tests, per the Athletic’s Tim Britton (via Twitter). There were two positive tests, and further testing hasn’t revealed any further positives as of right now. These are the proper protocols for any positive tests. The Mets camp will wait a couple of days until they can confirm the containment of the virus.

Tommy Kahnle Elects Free Agency

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Right-hander Tommy Kahnle declined an outright assignment from the Yankees and instead chose to become a free agent, the team announced.

After undergoing Tommy John surgery in August, Kahnle will miss most and quite possibly all of the 2021 season, making him a logical non-tender candidate.  Headed into his third trip through the arbitration process, Kahnle was projected to earn $2.7MM, or a minimal raise on his $2.65MM salary from 2020 given that he pitched a single inning this season.

In electing to become a free agent, Kahnle will now look for a change of scenery in a new organization and see if he can land a two-year commitment — as per the usual model for TJ recovery cases, Kahnle would earn a minimum salary in the first year of the contract and then a larger salary in the second year when he is expected to actually pitch.  Finding such a contract in this troubled free agent market could be a challenge, though Kahnle has delivered enough results on the mound that a club might be convinced to take what should still be a relatively inexpensive plunge.

The 31-year-old righty has a 3.82 ERA, 2.61 K/BB rate, 46.6% grounder rate, and 11.2 K/9 over 227 2/3 career relief innings with the Yankees, White Sox, and Rockies.  Though injuries plagued him in 2018, Kahnle has shown that he can be a bullpen workhorse when healthy, tossing 62 2/3 innings over 69 appearances in 2017 and 61 1/3 innings over 72 appearances in 2019.

Red Sox, Alex Cora Have Been In Contact

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A reunion between the Red Sox and Alex Cora may be in the offing. After a year away from the team because of a suspension, their former manager is a candidate to return in the same role. The Red Sox have been in contact with Cora, Alex Speier of the Boston Globe reports.

The Red Sox have already interviewed seven other candidates, as shown on MLBTR’s Managerial Search Tracker. Pirates bench coach Don Kelly and Yankees bench coach Carlos Mendoza have received second interviews, according to Speier, who adds that Cubs third base coach Will Venable and Twins bench coach Mike Bell are no longer under consideration. Diamondbacks bench coach Luis Urueta is also out of the mix, Chris Cotillo of MassLive.com tweets. Among known candidates, that leaves Cora up against Kelly, Mendoza, Marlins bench coach James Rowson and Padres associate manager Skip Schumaker. However, Speier writes that there are other names under consideration.

No one from the Kelly-Mendoza-Rowson-Schumaker group has managed in the majors, so they certainly can’t match Cora’s accomplishments in the role. Cora managed the Red Sox to a 192-132 record from 2018-19, guiding the team to a World Series in the first of those seasons. But the Red Sox parted with Cora last offseason after Major League Baseball suspended him for a year because of the Astros’ 2017 sign-stealing scandal. Cora was the Astros’ bench coach that season.

Yankees Decline J.A. Happ’s Option

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The Yankees have unsurprisingly declined their $17MM club option on left-hander J.A. Happ, reports Mark Feinsand of MLB.com (Twitter link). The option did not come with a buyout figure, so the Yankees will simply allow Happ to hit free agency.

This has seemed the way Happ’s time in the Bronx would come to an end for a while. His contract, signed in December 2018 and containing a two-year, $34MM guarantee, came with a 2021 club option that would’ve vested had Happ started 27 games or thrown 165 innings in 2020. Prorated to ten starts and/or 62 innings during the shortened season, the southpaw was held to nine starts totaling 49.1 innings last year. That proved to be a source of frustration for Happ, who suggested the Yankees were deliberately curtailing his workload to keep the option from vesting. Whether or not that was the case, he did indeed come up short of those marks and will hit the open market.

To his credit, Happ was actually pretty productive in 2020. He pitched to a 3.47 ERA over those nine starts, albeit with some reasons to question his ability to continue to prevent runs at that level. Happ benefited from a .223 opponents batting average on balls in play and stranded a lofty 81.3% of the baserunners he allowed. A few more batted balls finding grass and less timely sequencing would have pushed that ERA closer to his 4.57 fielding independent pitching mark.

Nevertheless, the 38-year-old has been plenty durable the past few seasons and offered solid production at the back of teams’ rotations. His age limits his earning power (he might be capped at one-year offers), but Happ profiles as a solid candidate to bolster some team’s rotation depth.

Yankees Decline Brett Gardner’s Option

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The Yankees have declined their $10MM club option on outfielder Brett Gardner, reports Jon Heyman of MLB Network (Twitter link). He’ll instead receive a $2.5MM buyout. The Yankees have interest in bringing the 37-year-old back to the Bronx, Heyman adds, but it’ll have to come at a cheaper rate than his option price. Given the buyout figure, the Yankees opted against bringing Gardner back on what amounts to a $7.5MM decision.

The longest-tenured Yankee player, Gardner has been in the organization since they selected him in the third round of the 2005 draft. He has gone on to a long, very productive career as a high-OBP hitter with a little bit of pop who plays excellent defense in left field. Gardner reinvented himself as something of a slugger in 2019, when he hit .251/.325/.503 with 28 home runs over 550 plate appearances. That strong season prompted the Yankees to guarantee him $12.5MM on a one-year deal with this option last offseason.

Gardner was still fairly productive in the abbreviated 2020 season, hitting .223/.354/.392 with five home runs over 158 plate appearances. His power took a step back from its 2019 heights, but Gardner’s .169 ISO (slugging percentage minus batting average) was still solid. His strikeout and whiff rates were each at career-high levels, but both remained lower than league average. And the ever-patient Gardner drew a boatload of walks to prop up his on-base numbers.

That said, the Yankees declining the option isn’t much of a surprise. A few teams have already declined options that would typically seem reasonable on the heels of massive revenue losses due to a season with no fans. The New York organization itself seems likely to scale back payroll this winter. With Aaron Judge, Giancarlo Stanton, Aaron Hicks and Clint Frazier in the fold already, the Yankees aren’t hurting for outfield help, although it’s arguable Gardner’s left-handed bat fits well in the Yankees’ righty-heavy lineup.

It’s hard to imagine Gardner in anything other than a Yankee uniform, and the door seemingly remains open to a return. But he’s now free to explore his options with all thirty clubs. At his age, it’s doubtful anyone will see Gardner as an everyday center fielder, but he’s still capable of playing up the middle when needed and should be above-average in left. Plenty of teams figure to have interest in Gardner as a short-term upgrade, at least as the strong side of a platoon arrangement.

Yankees Pick Up Zack Britton’s Option

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The Yankees have exercised reliever Zack Britton’s option, thereby keeping the left-hander under contract for the next two years, Andy Martino of SNY reports. The team had been facing a decision over whether to pick up a $14MM option for 2022. Had the Yankees declined it, Britton would have had the chance to opt out of his contract immediately and become a free agent.

Prior to Thursday, it would have been hard to imagine the Yankees turning down Britton’s option. But things then took a dire turn for other veteran relievers, evidenced by the Indians placing Brad Hand on outright waivers and the Braves declining the option for Darren O’Day. Hand has a $10MM option for 2020, so someone could still pick him up for that sum, but the Braves decided against paying O’Day $3.5MM. On paper, those look like reasonable salaries for Hand and O’Day.

Likewise, $14MM in ’22 comes off as acceptable for Britton, a former Oriole who has continued to serve as a quality late-game option since the Yankees acquired him from their division rivals late in 2018. Britton was effective enough in his first taste of action with the Yankees that they re-signed him to this deal – a three-year, $39MM guarantee that will turn into a four-year, $53MM pact. The move has worked out for both sides, as the 32-year-old has used a ridiculous 76.3 percent groundball rate to post a 2.14 ERA/3.62 FIP in 105 1/3 innings as a Yankee. Based on this news, Britton will continue to be a key part of their bullpen going forward.

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