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Reds Acquire Jake Wong From Giants

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The Reds announced they’ve acquired minor league pitcher Jake Wong from the Giants. The deal completes a swap the teams orchestrated in the hours after the Rule 5 draft, when Cincinnati sent outfielder Blake Sabol to San Francisco.

Wong was a third-round pick of San Francisco out of Grand Canyon in 2018. His progression up the minor league ladder was delayed after the 2019 season, as the canceled minor league season wiped out his 2020. The Arizona native spent the following year on the minor league injured list, returning in 2022. He played this year at High-A Eugene, starting 17 of 25 appearances. In 97 2/3 innings, the righty pitched to a 4.52 ERA with a solid 25.3% strikeout rate and a slightly elevated 10.3% walk percentage.

Now 26 years old, Wong has still yet to reach the high minors. Given that lack of upper level experience, it’s not surprising he was left unprotected for and went unselected in this month’s Rule 5 draft. The Reds liked him enough to take a shot on him now that they need not dedicate him an active or 40-man roster spot. He’ll presumably start next year in Double-A or Triple-A and add some rotation depth to the organization.

Sabol has a much better chance of breaking camp in the big leagues. Cincinnati nabbed him out of the Pirates organization with the fourth pick in the Rule 5 draft. They presumably had worked out an understanding with the Giants — who didn’t select until 16th — that they’d flip him to San Francisco before making the pick, since the selections themselves cannot be traded. San Francisco will have to carry Sabol on the MLB roster or injured list all season or place him on waivers and, if he goes unclaimed, offer him back to Pittsburgh without requiring a 40-man spot.

Giants Have Been In Contact With Dansby Swanson

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The market for shortstop Dansby Swanson has begun to heat up, according to Russell Dorsey of Bally Sports. He lists the Dodgers, Giants, Twins, Cubs, Red Sox and Braves as teams with interest. Jon Morosi of MLB Network reports that the Giants have been in touch with Swanson’s representatives, but that it doesn’t appear any decision is imminent.

The Twins, Cubs, Red Sox and Braves have all previously been connected to Swanson this offseason, though the mentions of the Dodgers and Giants are new. This offseason featured a group of shortstops known as the “big four,” with Trea Turner already signed with the Phillies and Xander Bogaerts with the Padres. That leaves Carlos Correa and Swanson as the two of that group left for all those shortstop-needy teams.

Though Correa and Swanson are connected in the sense that they are the two surefire everyday shortstops remaining, there’s a significant difference between the two. Both have strong reputations for their glovework, though Correa’s overall body of work at the plate is stronger. At the start of the season, MLBTR predicted a nine-year, $288MM contract for Correa but a seven-year, $154MM deal for Swanson.

Most teams would surely prefer Correa in a vacuum but the price might be an issue. Both Turner and Bogaerts got at least three years longer than projected and each secured a larger overall guarantee as well. With that context, it wouldn’t be a surprise to see Correa and Swanson also end up getting deals larger than their projections.

The Giants were seen by many as the favorites for Correa after they made an offer in the $360MM range to Aaron Judge that he declined in order to return to the Yankees. However, it stands to reason that they would also reach out to Swanson and see if there’s a significant difference in the respective markets. Since the Judge non-signing, they’ve agreed to some smaller deals for Sean Manaea and Ross Stripling, bringing their 2023 payroll up to $164MM, per Roster Resource. It’s unclear how far they want to push spending this offseason, but they are still sitting on a competitive balance tax figure of $180MM, leaving them over $50MM of room before reaching the lowest luxury tax barrier of $233MM.

Giving Correa a salary in the $30MM range wouldn’t push them into the luxury tax on its own, but they do have other needs on the roster as well. They are reportedly still interested in retaining Carlos Rodón, who will also require a contract somewhere in the vicinity of $30MM on an annual basis. Adding both Rodón and Correa would start pushing them into luxury tax territory, whereas the dropdown to Swanson could lead to something closer to $20MM annually. If the CBT barrier is something they’re trying to avoid, then it’s possible the difference between a Correa and a Swanson deal could be significant for them.

For the Dodgers, they have lost their incumbent shortstop in Turner, who is now with the Phillies. The club is reportedly comfortable with moving Gavin Lux from second base to be their new shortstop, though it also makes sense for them to explore what else is available. However, they are apparently not pursuing Correa, given both his ties to the scandal-plagued 2017 Astros team that defeated the Dodgers in the World Series, as well as his high asking price. Perhaps Swanson is an attractive backup plan for the club, though they might also prefer to wait until they get clarity on the Trevor Bauer situation before making firm commitments. He is appealing his suspension and if he is successful in overturning it, the club’s CBT figure would jump from around $189MM to over $220MM. A decision is expected in the next month or so.

If that scenario were to come to pass, even a slightly more modest deal for Swanson would push them over the line into tax payor status. Since the club is reportedly considering dipping under the line to reset their status, that could be an issue. The CBT features escalating penalties for paying in consecutive seasons, meaning that the Dodgers could stay under the line in 2023 but go into 2024 as “first-time” payors.

Though he’s likely to secure a lesser contract than Correa, Swanson is no slouch. He hit 27 home runs in 2022 and produced an overall batting line of .277/.329/.447 for a wRC+ of 116. That was his first time being above-average at the plate over a full season, though it showed that he is capable of being an all-around contributor. He also stole 18 bases and posted excellent defensive marks, leading to 6.4 wins above replacement on the season, in the eyes of FanGraphs.

Giants Outright Miguel Yajure

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The Giants passed right-hander Miguel Yajure through outright waivers unclaimed and have assigned him to Triple-A Sacramento, tweets Alex Pavlovic of NBC Sports Bay Area. That removes him from the 40-man roster and opens a spot for right-hander Ross Stripling, whose two-year deal has been officially announced by the Giants.

San Francisco claimed Yajure off waivers from the Pirates just 11 days ago, and they’ll now be able to stash the 6’1″, 215-pound righty in the upper minors as a depth piece for either the rotation or the bullpen. The 24-year-old righty, originally signed as an amateur by the Yankees, went to Pittsburgh alongside Roansy Contreras as part of the package that sent Jameson Taillon from the Pirates to the Yankees.

Yajure has spent time in the Majors in each of the past three seasons but has yet to find much success, logging a 7.58 ERA in 46 1/3 MLB frames to date. Command has been a considerable obstacle, as he’s walked 13% of his opponents and been tagged for an average of 1.94 home runs per nine innings pitched. That said, Yajure isn’t all that far removed from ranking as one of the better pitching prospects in both the Yankees’ and Pirates’ systems, and he enjoyed a strong Triple-A showing with Pittsburgh in 2021 when he logged 43 2/3 innings of 3.09 ERA ball with a 23% strikeout rate and 7.5% walk rate.

Elbow and forearm injuries limited Yajure to just nine starts during that otherwise solid 2021 showing in Triple-A, however, and he returned with struggles not only in the big leagues but in Triple-A this past season as well (6.09 ERA in 54 2/3 innings). Now that he’s successfully been passed through waivers, Yajure can focus on getting healthy and rounding back into form with an organization that has developed a knack for maximizing output from its pitchers. The Giants are exceptionally deep in rotation options, with Logan Webb, Alex Wood, Alex Cobb, Anthony DeSclafani, Jakob Junis and newcomers Stripling and Sean Manaea, so at this point, Yajure is likelier to be viewed as bullpen depth than starting depth.

Giants Sign Ross Stripling

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1:05pm: The Giants announced the signing.

11:58am: The Giants have agreed to a two-year, $25MM contract with free-agent righty Ross Stripling, reports ESPN’s Jeff Passan (Twitter link). Stripling, a client of Excel Sports Management, will be able to opt out of the contract after the 2023 season. It’s the exact same set of terms the Giants used to reel in lefty Sean Manaea earlier this week.

The contract contains a $5MM signing bonus that’ll be paid out in equal $2.5MM installments — one in 2023 and one in 2024, per Joel Sherman of the New York Post (Twitter link). Stripling will also earn a $7.5MM salary this coming season before deciding whether to opt out of a $12.5MM salary for the 2024 campaign.

Stripling, 33, is surely a familiar face for Giants president of baseball operations Farhan Zaidi, whose time as Dodgers general manager overlapped with Stripling’s time in Los Angeles. The veteran righty has served as a swingman for much of his time in the Majors, often functioning as a sixth starter with the Dodgers or with the Blue Jays, who acquired him at the 2020 trade deadline.

The 2022 season, however, saw Stripling step into a full-time rotation role when the Jays lost lefty Hyun Jin Ryu to Tommy John surgery. Stripling proved to be a godsend, making 24 starts and pitching to a 2.92 ERA in 123 1/3 innings out of the rotation. That’s an average of just over five frames per start, but Stripling’s results were nothing short of excellent.

In Stripling, the Giants will add a versatile arm who’s had success in multiple roles. He won’t overpower many hitters with a fastball that averaged just 91.9 mph, but Stripling offsets a below-average 20.7% strikeout rate with a solid 43.8% grounder rate and some of the best command in the Majors. This past season’s 3.7% walk rate was the third-lowest mark of any pitcher to throw at least 100 innings in 2022, and his 11% swinging-strike rate and 37.9% opponents’ chase rate at least suggest that there’s some strikeout upside even with the pedestrian velocity.

It bears mentioning that from 2020-21, Stripling logged an unsightly 5.14 ERA and 5.52 FIP in 150 2/3 innings between the Dodgers and Jays, due in no small part to a mammoth average of 2.2 homers per nine innings pitched. However, the long ball hasn’t been a prominent source of trouble for him outside those two seasons, and he registered a career-best 0.8 homer per nine frames this past season. Aside from that two-year rough patch, Stripling carries a sub-4.00 ERA in his other five MLB campaigns.

For the Giants, Stripling adds even more depth to an already strong group of potential starters. He joins the aforementioned Manaea as a complement to ace Logan Webb, lefty Alex Wood and righties Alex Cobb and Anthony DeSclafani. The Giants also enjoyed a nice rebound from swingman Jakob Junis in 2022, giving them at least seven rotation options on the big league roster.

It’s fair to wonder whether the addition of Stripling more formally removes the Giants from the bidding on free-agent ace Carlos Rodon, who opted out of the second year of his contract in San Francisco and has reportedly been seeking a deal of at least six to seven years in length this winter. Susan Slusser of the San Francisco Chronicle reported yesterday that the Giants remained in pursuit of Rodon even after agreeing to terms with Manaea, but Stripling further crowds the pitching staff.

Regardless of whether Rodon remains in the cards, the forthcoming additions of Manaea and Stripling position the Giants well in the event of injuries arising elsewhere on the starting staff. That’s critical for the Giants, given the health track records of several of their in-house options. DeSclafani tossed only 19 innings in 2022 due to a tendon injury in his ankle that ultimately required surgery. Wood and Cobb worked a mostly full slate of starts last year, but Cobb pitched just 158 innings from 2019-21 and Wood logged only 48 1/3 innings from 2019-20 due to shoulder and neck woes. Even Webb, who worked a team-high 192 1/3 innings in 2022, missed a few weeks in 2021 due to a shoulder strain.

After bringing Stripling into the fold, the Giants are up to a projected $157.6MM payroll for the upcoming season and a luxury-tax ledger just north of $180MM, per Roster Resource. They’re still more than $40MM south of their franchise-record $200.5MM Opening Day payroll and more than $50MM shy of the $233MM luxury-tax barrier. That type of payroll space sets the stage for another marquee addition, should the Giants find a deal to their liking. They’ve already added Manaea, Stripling and Mitch Haniger, in addition to retaining Joc Pederson on a qualifying offer, but the Giants have been linked to Rodon and are one of the primary suitors for free-agent shortstop Carlos Correa, so the Stripling pact surely isn’t their final move of the offseason.

Yankees Preparing To Make Formal Contract Offer To Carlos Rodon

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The Yankees are expected to put forth a contract offer to Carlos Rodón in the coming days, reports Jon Heyman of the New York Post. Heyman has suggested on a few occasions the Yankees have serious interest in the top free agent starter remaining, and putting a formal proposal on the table would mark a notable step in that pursuit.

Terms of the proposal aren’t clear, though Heyman reiterates that New York is reluctant to offer the seven-plus guaranteed seasons the southpaw and his representatives at the Boras Corporation reportedly seek. A seventh year is a lofty goal for Rodón’s camp, assuming they’re not banking in a notable dip on an annual basis to compensate for the longer term. That doesn’t appear to be the case, as Heyman writes they’re looking for a deal that tops $200MM in guarantees.

That’s rare territory, as only six pitchers have surpassed the $200MM mark. Gerrit Cole stands head and shoulders above the pack at $324MM over nine years, with the rest of the group checking in between $206.5MM and $245MM. Stephen Strasburg, David Price, Clayton Kershaw, Max Scherzer and Zack Greinke are the only other hurlers to reach that level. A handful of additional free agent pitchers (Kevin Brown, Mike Hampton, CC Sabathia and Barry Zito) have reached seven-plus years on deals under $200MM, but that’s itself a rare occurrence for a pitcher.

At the start of the offseason, MLBTR predicted a five-year, $140MM guarantee for Rodón. The free agent rotation market has generally been more robust than anticipated, and at least a six-year deal now seems very attainable for the two-time All-Star. Landing a seventh season at an annual salary below that projected $28MM — thereby decreasing the deal’s average annual value and lowering the luxury tax hit for a signing team — could be on the table. That’s been a common strategy this offseason, with Trea Turner, Xander Bogaerts and Brandon Nimmo all taking slight discounts on a per-year basis for very long deals with larger guarantees than forecasted. The best of both worlds for Rodón, of course, would be a seven-year term that doesn’t relinquish anything on an annual basis. It remains to be seen if a team will go to those lengths, with a seven-year pact requiring at least $28.57MM in annual salary to get to $200MM total.

Rodón is the only free agent ace still available. Jacob deGrom and Justin Verlander were the two free agent hurlers who could rival or best Rodón from a performance perspective. Their ages limited them to shorter deals (five and two years, respectively) than the one Rodón is seeking. At age 30, the former third overall draftee has arguably the best combination of performance track record and youth among this year’s class of hurlers. However, he’s not without some question marks as a player with a Tommy John surgery and a shoulder procedure on his injury history.

The North Carolina State product stayed healthy in 2022, tossing a career-high 178 innings of 2.88 ERA ball for the Giants. He was brilliant for a second straight season, striking out a third of opponents with solid control. On a rate basis, he’s one of the sport’s top pitchers, but he doesn’t have the workload track record of any pitcher who’d previously gotten to $200MM.

Cole, Strasburg, Price, Kershaw, Scherzer and Grienke had all had multiple seasons with 200+ innings pitched prior to inking their megadeals; Rodón has never gotten to that level. Workload for starting pitchers continues to dwindle, though, and it stands to reason teams will increasingly value per-inning performance while weighing workload volume less as expectations for pitcher roles change.

New York and the incumbent Giants have been tied to Rodón on a few occasions, and Heyman added the Cardinals as a team with interest over the weekend. The Rangers, Mets and Blue Jays were tied to him earlier in the offseason, but Texas later added Andrew Heaney to join deGrom while Toronto agreed to terms with Chris Bassitt this evening. The Mets landed each of Verlander, José Quintana and Kodai Senga. The Orioles, Red Sox and Twins have also been very loosely linked to Rodón in prior reports, although the extent of the interest of all three clubs isn’t clear.

Giants Continuing Rodon Pursuit Even After Manaea Deal

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The Giants’ agreement with lefty Sean Manaea appeared to give them a full rotation, but Susan Slusser of the San Francisco Chronicle reports that even after guaranteeing Manaea $25MM over the next two years (with an opt-out after year one), San Francisco remains engaged with Rodon and agent Scott Boras about a potential reunion.

Manaea, 31 in February, can join Logan Webb, Alex Wood, Alex Cobb and Anthony DeSclafani in comprising a prototypical five-man rotation, but there ought to be room for Rodon on the roster even with that quintet in place. That’s true both because Rodon is a clear upgrade over the majority (arguably all five) of those in-house arms, and also because the internal group comes with a fair bit of injury risk and health uncertainty.

DeSclafani, for instance, was limited to just 19 innings this past season, thanks to a tendon injury in his ankle that eventually required surgical repair. Each of Wood, Cobb and Webb made at least 26 starts, but Cobb and Wood also have lengthy injury histories. Cobb pitched just 158 total innings from 2019-21, owing to groin, back and wrist strains. Wood has made 26 starts in consecutive seasons now, but he pitched just 12 2/3 innings in 2020 and just 35 2/3 innings in 2019 due to back and shoulder injuries. Even Webb, who worked a team-high 192 1/3 innings in 2022, missed a few weeks in 2021 while battling a minor shoulder strain.

No team can be realistically expected to navigate an entire 162-game season with only five starters. While the Giants have some depth with swingman Jakob Junis and minor leaguers Sean Hjelle, Thomas Szapucki, Tristan Beck and Keaton Winn all on the 40-man roster, they also have ample payroll space to make a Rodon-sized splash and figure out the allotment of innings at a later date. Roster Resource projects a $151MM payroll for the upcoming season and a luxury-tax ledger that’s a bit higher ($168.3MM) but nowhere near the first tier of penalization, which begins at $233MM in 2023.

Rodon was reported earlier in the offseason to be seeking a six-year deal worth more $30MM-plus on an annual basis, and Slusser more recently reported that he and Boras have been seeking at least seven years. What’s not clear is whether that shift in length of desired contract comes with a shift in the per-year asking price. We’ve seen teams this offseason increasingly show a willingness to stretch contracts to greater lengths as a means of tamping down AAV. Clubs had been moving away from longer-term, lower-AAV deals for some time — Bryce Harper being a notable exception — instead showing a preference for shorter-term deals at high annual values. That hasn’t been the case this winter, with Trea Turner, Xander Bogaerts, Brandon Nimmo and Jacob deGrom all signing lengthier deals than expected but at lesser annual rates of pay than their highest-paid peers at their respective positions.

Put more simply, if Rodon and Boras set out seeking $180-200MM in total guarantees this winter but were having difficulty finding that, it’s at least possible that the shift toward a deal of seven-plus years in length might be more about reaching that $180MM-plus benchmark than about now seeking seven years at $30MM-plus per season. A seven-year deal worth $185MM, as a purely speculative example, wouldn’t line up with the previously reported AAV target for Rodon but would ensure his place among the ten highest-compensated free agent pitchers in MLB history.

Of course, anything in that vicinity would still shatter most industry expectations heading into the offseason. Two months ago, the most common question regarding Rodon was if he’d done enough to secure a sixth guaranteed year or would need to “settle” for a five-year contract. While reports of Rodon pursuing six, seven or even more years at or near the $30MM AAV threshold don’t serve as a guarantee that he’ll eventually reach those heights, they still represent a departure from where his market was expected to land.

In many ways, that’s a microcosm of the free-agent market at large since the offseason ended. Teams have been willing to spend far more freely than in recent winters, as last March’s collective bargaining agreement assured five years of labor peace and also gave front offices and owners clarity on where the luxury-tax thresholds will sit for the foreseeable future.

Beyond Rodon, the Giants are also known to be keenly interested in shortstop Carlos Correa — their top target after missing on free-agent outfielder Aaron Judge. Whether they’re willing to pony up and make commitments to both Rodon and Correa isn’t clear, though it’d certainly register as a surprise, as that pairing could wind up costing something in the range of $450-500MM combined.

Giants Not Currently Considering Chris Bassitt

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TODAY: Bassitt isn’t currently in the Giants’ plans, as Slusser tweets that a pursuit of the right-hander is “not in the cards at the moment.”

DECEMBER 10: The Giants “appear to have interest in” free agent right-hander Chris Bassitt, Susan Slusser of the San Francisco Chronicle reports.  Checking in on Bassitt would track with the Giants’ general interest in starting pitching this winter, as they have also been linked to Carlos Rodon, Kodai Senga, Sean Manaea, and Shintaro Fujinami this winter, and plus Andrew Heaney before Heaney with the Rangers.

There haven’t been too many rumblings on Bassitt to date, though he entered the offseason as one of the top pitching options on the market.  MLBTR rated Bassitt as the fifth-best starter available this winter (and 13th overall on our Top 50 Free Agents list), and of the four pitchers placed ahead of Bassitt, only Rodon and Senga remain, while Jacob deGrom signed with the Rangers and Justin Verlander joined the Mets.

In signing Verlander and Jose Quintana, the Mets have already found rotation replacements for deGrom and Taijuan Walker.  Bassitt and the Mets had some mutual interest in a reunion before the offseason began, and given how aggressive New York has been in adding free agents and building payroll, it wouldn’t count as a surprise if the team splurged again to bring Bassitt back to Queens.

That said, recent reports suggest that the Mets don’t have interest in giving Bassitt anything more than three guaranteed years, and the right-hander is still looking for at least a four-year contract.  Bassitt’s desire for such a lengthy commitment might also be a reason why the pitching-needy Blue Jays have only limited interest for now.  The qualifying offer is also surely a factor, as Bassitt rejected the Mets’ QO, and thus any team who signs the righty will have to give up draft compensation.

The Mets and Blue Jays have been the only teams known to have any interest in Bassitt, but it’s probably fair to guess that several other teams in need of pitching have at least made some calls to Bassitt’s reps at Meister Sports Management.  After all, Bassitt did post a 3.42 ERA/3.75 SIERA over 181 2/3 innings with New York last season, with an above-average 6.6% walk rate, a career-best 48.8% grounder rate, and excellent hard-contact numbers.

With top-ten finishes in AL Cy Young Award voting as a member of the Athletics in 2020-21, Bassitt is also from a one-year wonder, and he still projects as a solid starter heading into his age-34 season.  Just based on age alone, however, teams may be a little wary of going beyond a three-year deal, especially a Giants team that has traditionally looked to sign players (especially pitchers) to shorter-term contracts.  Under president of baseball operations Farhan Zaidi, San Francisco has yet to sign a player to a deal beyond three years.

That said, the Giants did make a concerted effort to sign Aaron Judge this winter, and naturally that contract would’ve gone well beyond three years.  Judge and Bassitt represent very different free agents, yet if San Francisco is getting more aggressive in its pursuits this offseason, it is possible the club might be willing to consider a four-year deal if it’ll clinch a Bassitt signing.

With Logan Webb as the ace, Bassitt could slide into the No. 2 starter role, ahead of Alex Cobb, Alex Wood, and Anthony DeSclafani.  Adding another starter would allow the Giants to move Jakob Junis back into the preferred role of swingman, and Bassitt in particular would bring durability.  DeSclafani is a bit of a wild card after spending much of the 2022 season on the injured list, and Wood also has a long injury history.  Signing Bassitt would probably take San Francisco out of the running for Rodon, but since Rodon also turned down a qualifying offer, the Giants would get a compensatory pick back if Rodon signed elsewhere, somewhat offsetting the penalty they’d incur for signing Bassitt.

Giants Made Offer To Brandon Nimmo

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It’ll come as little consolation to Giants fans, but the team did have an offer on the table for top remaining free agent outfielder Brandon Nimmo before he wound up re-signing with the Mets for eight years and $162MM, according to Mike Puma of the New York Post. As Puma notes, it appears that once owner Steve Cohen got personally involved, Nimmo’s return to the Mets materialized quickly. It’s not known what terms the Giants were offering Nimmo.

It’s the second-straight outfielder the Giants have missed out on, having aggressively pursued Aaron Judge before he ultimately return to New York on a nine-year, $360MM deal. They have added Mitch Haniger on a three-year, $43.5MM deal but from the outset of the off-season they’ve been strongly linked with the top free agents. They could still sign one, and they’re one of the teams (along with the Twins and Cubs, per the New York Post’s Jon Heyman) that are heavily rumored to be in on Carlos Correa.

The outfield has been an area of focus for president of baseball operations Farhan Zaidi this winter. Haniger’s addition bolsters their group, but Zaidi’s wanted two outfield signings. Now that they’ve missed out on the clear top two options available, it’ll be interesting to see whether they look for another outfielder, or go with a mix of Haniger, Austin Slater and Mike Yastrzemski and divert their resources to other options like Correa, or a starting pitcher.

If they do continue with their plans to add another outfielder, Andrew Benintendi is probably the top free agent available now. MLBTR predicted a four-year, $54MM deal for him, and given the Giants’ payroll space they could conceivably go after someone like that while still having space to pursue a long-term deal with Correa. They could also look to the trade market, and approach the Pirates about a deal to bring Bryan Reynolds back to the team that drafted him in 2016. While Reynolds is only due to make $6.75MM in 2023, he’s under club control for three more seasons and Pittsburgh looks to have a sky high asking price for him.

The Giants have a projected payroll of about $139MM as things stand, but they also have in the region of $60MM+ coming off the books at the end of next season. Given their payroll has stretched north of $200MM in recent seasons, they do have plenty of room to make a number of additions over the next season or two.

Diamondbacks Reportedly Showing Interest In Shintaro Fujinami

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The Diamondbacks have shown interest in Japanese pitcher Shintaro Fujinami, according to a report from Nikkan Sports (Japanese-language link). The report also lists the Giants and Red Sox as other teams in the mix but suggests Arizona is emerging as one of the favorites to work out a deal with the right-hander.

Fujinami was made available to major league clubs via the posting system on December 1. That opened a 45-day window for MLB teams to negotiate a contract with the 28-year-old. If Fujinami doesn’t sign with an MLB team by January 15, he’d remain a member of Nippon Professional Baseball’s Hanshin Tigers in 2023. Reports of MLB interest and perhaps an early frontrunner just over a week after the posting window opens would seem to bode well for his chances of making the jump to the majors.

One of the more interesting wild cards in this year’s pitching market, Fujinami has already played parts of 10 seasons at Japan’s top level. A highly-regarded amateur talent a decade ago, he made his NPB debut at age 18 in 2013. Fujinami started with an excellent 2.75 ERA over 137 2/3 innings as a rookie, seemingly positioning him as a core piece of the Tigers future. By 2015, he’d posted a 2.40 ERA with 221 strikeouts through 199 innings in his age-21 season. Fujinami also performed well in 2016 but saw his production start to drop off by the ’17 campaign.

Increasingly, the 6’6″ righty battled control problems. That erratic strike-throwing led the Tigers to shuttle him back-and-forth between NPB and their minor league affiliate frequently through 2019. He spent the majority of his time at Japan’s top level in 2020-21 but posted respective ERA’s of 4.01 and 5.21. Fujinami again split his 2022 campaign between NPB and the minors, only throwing 66 2/3 innings at the highest level.

To his credit, he found more success in that relatively limited look than he has in a while. Fujinami managed a 3.38 ERA through 16 appearances. He struck out a strong 23.6% of opponents and importantly only doled out free passes to 7.6% of batters faced. Fujinami’s only a season removed from an untenable 16.8% walk rate in 2021, but he at least flashed more consistent strike-throwing ability this year. He’s long had an arsenal that intrigues scouts, with a fastball that usually sits in the mid-90’s and has topped triple-digits in the past.

The erratic strike-throwing track record could point towards Fujinami being a better fit for the bullpen, but he has an extensive workload as a starter in Japan. Each of the Diamondbacks, Giants and Red Sox could stand to use additional arms in both the rotation and relief unit, making Fujinami an interesting upside possibility for any of that group.

If he does sign with a major league team, the club would owe a fee to the Tigers under the MLB – NPB posting agreement. That’s tied to the size of the contract itself, with the MLB team owing the NPB club 20% of the contract’s first $25MM, 17.5% of the next $25MM and 15% of any dollars thereafter. It’d be a major surprise if an MLB deal for Fujinami topped $25MM, so the posting fee is likely to end up at 20% of the contract value.

Carlos Rodón Seeking Seven-Year Deal

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The Yankees are one of many teams known to be interested in lefty Carlos Rodón, but Jon Heyman of The New York Post reports that they would prefer to limit him to a four- or five-year deal. That might be a problem, since Susan Slusser of the San Francisco Chronicle reports that Rodón is looking for at least seven years. Reporter Marino Pepén says the Red Sox are interested, though the extent of interest isn’t clear.

Just a few days ago, it had been reported that Rodón was seeking a six-year deal, but there may be good reasons why he’s upped his ask. The free-agent market has been broadly aggressive, with many of the top free agents going well beyond expectations in terms of contract length.

In recent offseasons, teams have generally cut off guarantees to position players in their age-37 seasons, but Aaron Judge got a nine-year deal taking him through age-39. Trea Turner and Xander Bogaerts each landed 11-year deals that run into their 40s. Brandon Nimmo will be paid through age 38 with the Mets. Pitchers, meanwhile, have struggled to land guarantees beyond their age-36 season (with older veterans like Max Scherzer and Justin Verlander standing as exceptions for obvious reasons), but Jacob deGrom signed through age 39 in Texas. The length of all those deals is generally rooted in lowering the luxury-tax hit, though, and Rodon’s ostensibly new goal of seven-plus years could be a matter of falling in line with that broader market trend.

DeGrom and Rodón are somewhat analogous, though not the exact same. Both are extremely talented pitchers with some injury concerns in recent years. DeGrom is arguably the best pitcher alive when healthy but missed over an entire year from mid-2021 to mid-2022 due to forearm and scapula injuries.

Rodón is much younger, as he will turn 30 years old tomorrow. Injuries limited him to just over 40 combined innings in 2019 and 2020 and the concern was high enough that the White Sox actually non-tendered him after that. There were enough red flags that he had to settle for a one-year, $3MM deal to return to the Sox. He’s been on a straight upward trajectory since.

Rodón tossed 132 2/3 innings in 2021 with a 2.37 ERA and excellent 34.6% strikeout rate. He seemed to run out of gas down the stretch, leaving some lingering health concerns as he returned to free agency. He didn’t get a qualifying offer and had to “settle” for a two-year, $44MM deal with the Giants, though one that gave him a chance to opt-out after the first campaign. He pushed further away from the injury worries by making 31 starts and logging 178 frames with a 2.88 ERA and 33.4% strikeout rate. He made the easy decision to opt out and also reject a qualifying offer from the Giants.

The fact that Rodón is now reasonably seeking a seven-year deal is nothing short of remarkable, given where he was just two years ago. It’s also not surprising that he’s looking to strike while the iron is hot, given the ups and downs he’s had in his career. Still, contracts of this length for free agent pitchers are quite rare. Gerrit Cole got nine years but with a much stronger record of health than Rodón. Prior to that deal, he had made at least 19 starts for seven straight seasons and at least 32 in the previous three. Kenta Maeda got eight years when coming over from Japan, but that was a unique situation. Maeda was going into his age-28 season but had some health concerns, leading the Dodgers to give him a modest $25MM guarantee spread out over eight years but with $10MM in incentives available each year that Maeda could trigger by staying healthy.

There are a handful of aces that have gotten to seven years, including Max Scherzer, David Price, Stephen Strasburg, CC Sabathia and Masahiro Tanaka, the latter of whom was only 25 at the time and is hardly a similar situation. Strasburg had dealt with some injuries but was coming off a World Series MVP performance that pushed his bidding up. The others in that group, similar to Cole, had fairly solid records of health and durability. As great as Rodón has been for the past two seasons, any seven-year deal would generally be rarefied air for a pitcher.

Now, with this offseason’s trend of utilizing longer contracts to tamp down AAV (and, thusly, luxury-tax penalties), it seems more plausible than before that Rodón might indeed command seven-plus years. Initial reports indicated that he was seeking six years with a $30MM+ annual salary. If Rodón and agent Scott Boras are fixated more on the contract’s total than on its length, then spreading that, say, $175-200MM goal out over a period of seven, eight or even nine years would greatly reduce the potential luxury penalties for whichever team signs him. That’s more a concern if he signs with a major-market club that regularly finds itself in luxury peril (e.g. Yankees, Red Sox) than if he were to sign with one of his reported suitors that has never held much of an appetite for the luxury tax (e.g. Twins, Orioles).

The Yankees are clearly willing to spend, as they just gave Judge a record-breaking $360MM guarantee. How much they want to continue spending, however, is an open question. Roster Resource currently pegs the club’s payroll for next season at $250MM with a competitive balance tax figure of $266MM. That already places them beyond last year’s Opening Day payroll of $246MM, per Cot’s Baseball Contracts, and beyond the second tier of luxury tax penalization. The tiers begin at $233MM next year and go up in $20MM increments to $293MM. Adding $25-30MM for Rodón would push them near or above that top penalty threshold.

The club doesn’t strictly need an elite starter like Rodón, but he would certainly be an upgrade for any rotation in the game. The Yanks currently have Cole, Luis Severino, Nestor Cortes and Frankie Montas for four spots with solid options for the last spot including Domingo Germán and Clarke Schmidt. That’s a solid group, but Montas and Severino both have some recent injuries that make them question marks going into next season, so there would be plenty of sense in adding another arm and pushing some guys down the depth chart. The question will be whether the Yanks would prefer paying the price for an ace like Rodón as opposed to turning to mid-rotation options like Chris Bassitt or Sean Manaea.

If Rodón indeed is open to seven or more years in order to obtain the contract total he’s eyeing, that would be an interesting situation for the Yankees to ponder. They already have expensive contracts for Cole and Judge on the books for the next six and nine years, respectively. Giancarlo Stanton has five years left with a $25MM club option for 2028 with a $10MM buyout. Adding a lengthy deal for Rodón would likely mean their 2028 payroll would already be well beyond $100MM.

The Red Sox, on the other hand, have plenty of space before thinking about the tax. Roster Resource currently has their payroll at $172MM and their CBT figure at $192MM. That leaves them about $40MM away from the lowest threshold, meaning they could add Rodón with room to spare. There would be plenty of sense in adding to their rotation given all the question marks they have there. Nick Pivetta is probably the only solid member of their group right now, as Chris Sale and James Paxton have hardly pitched in the past three years. Brayan Bello and Garrett Whitlock are penciled into two spots, though they are young and only have 20 MLB starts between them. They also have other areas worth addressing on the roster, such as catcher and figuring out how to deal with the departure of Bogaerts from their infield. Long-term, they have Story and Masataka Yoshida locked in for the next five seasons but nothing guaranteed for 2028.

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