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Archives for December 2015

Padres’ Marcos Mateo Likely Headed To NPB’s Hanshin Tigers

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Padres right-hander Marcos Mateo took a physical for the Hanshin Tigers of Japana’s Nippon Professional Baseball today, reports Dennis Lin of the San Diego Union-Tribune (links to Twitter). If everything checks out, Mateo will likely sign a contract with Hanshin, who would presumably send cash to the Padres in exchange for releasing Mateo, Lin adds.

Mateo, a former Cubs prospect, saw 44 2/3 innings with Chicago from 2010-11 and didn’t play in the Major Leagues until last season with the Padres. With San Diego, Mateo pitched 27 innings with a 4.00 ERA and 33 strikeouts against eight unintentional walks. Over the past three years between Triple-A, the Dominican Winter League and the Padres, Mateo has been outstanding, averaging well over 10 strikeouts per nine innings and yielding a combined 2.53 ERA across that variety of leagues. Mateo is primarily a fly-ball pitcher — 34.8 percent ground-ball rate in 2015 — that averaged 94.2 mph on his fastball during his most recent stint with the Padres.

Subtracting Mateo from the roster will thin out what currently projects to be a crowded bullpen scene, particularly in terms of right-handed pitchers. In addition to Mateo, San Diego has righties Odrisamer Despaigne, Kevin Quackenbush, Nick Vincent, Brandon Maurer, Cesar Vargas, Cory Mazzoni and Jon Edwards. The club also has three right-handers — Luis Perdomo, Blake Smith and Josh Martin — that it selected in the Rule 5 Draft. While each might be an unlikely candidate to stick with the Padres, they’ll be in camp competing for jobs nonetheless, and if one name particularly intrigues the Padres, they’ll have to keep him on the roster or risk losing him to waivers before offering him back to his former team.

AL East Notes: Boggs, Yankees, Orioles, Anthopoulos, Jays

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The Red Sox announced yesterday that they will retire the No. 26 in honor of Wade Boggs on May 26 of the upcoming season. Boggs, now 57, spent the majority of his career donning a Red Sox uniform. The 2005 Hall of Fame inductee debuted as a rookie with the Sox back in 1982 and played there through 1992, hitting .338/.428/.462 and winning five batting titles (in a span of six years) in his 11 seasons with the club. He’ll join the likes of Ted Williams, Carl Yastrzemski, Carlton Fisk, Jim Rice, Johnny Pesky, Pedro Martinez, Bobby Doerr and Joe Cronin as part of Red Sox lore.

Here are some more notes from the AL East…

  • The Yankees are seeking an inexpensive rotation option, writes George A. King III of the New York Post. Per King, the club hopes to land a young starter via trade or add a rotation option on a minor league deal with an invite to Major League Spring Training. The Yankees, he adds, aren’t involved in the free-agent market at any position at this point. King notes that the Yankees continue to insist that Luis Severino, Aaron Judge, Greg Bird and Jorge Mateo aren’t available in trade, but adding a controllable arm to their rotation mix without parting with said prospects will be a difficult task. As such, it seems to me that adding some veteran arms on minor league deals is a likelier route. A pair of speculative names that would seem to me to be fits: Chad Billingsley and Wandy Rodriguez.
  • Eduardo A. Encina of the Baltimore Sun doesn’t believe that the Orioles will go beyond three years in their efforts to land a free-agent starting pitcher. While they’ve been connected to Yovani Gallardo and Scott Kazmir, both are seeking four-year pacts. Encina notes that Ubaldo Jimenez is the only free-agent starter the O’s have ever signed to a four-year deal. (Jon Morosi of FOX Sports tweets that the Orioles are still in the mix for both Gallardo and Kazmir, among other pitchers). Encina also notes that there’s nothing imminent on the Chris Davis front, and the Orioles remain unwilling to up their offer from the reported seven-year deal worth $150MM.
  • Former Blue Jays GM Alex Anthopoulos tells the Canadian Press that he expects to be working again next month. While Anthopoulos said there are media opportunities that have presented themselves, he will most likely take a job with a Major League team in some capacity. “I understand that I may not be a general manager again and I’m OK with that,” said Anthopoulos. “Now again, that’s what my perspective is today. And obviously deciding not to sign an extension, I had to be prepared for that. I just think that all of the decisions I’ve made in my life, I never chased the money. You try to do what ultimately you feel is going to satisfy you and fulfil you. As simple as it sounds — and maybe this is naive — but normally success will follow.”
  • MLB.com’s Gregor Chisholm breaks down the Blue Jays’ 11 out-of-options players, noting that many will be competing for jobs in Spring Training. Ezequiel Carrera, Brett Cecil, Jesse Chavez, Steve Delabar, R.A. Dickey, Josh Donaldson, Chad Jenkins, A.J. Jimenez, Josh Thole and Junior Lake are all out of options, Chisholm notes. While many of those names needn’t be the least bit concerned with their lack of options, that factor is much more impactful for the likes of Carrera, Jimenez and Lake. Both Carrera and Lake are at least fifth on the club’s outfield depth chart. Chisholm feels that it’s “only a matter of time” before Jimenez, once one of Toronto’s top prospects and a potential long-term piece behind the plate, is placed on waivers.

Freddy Sanchez Officially Retires

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Former National League batting champion Freddy Sanchez officially retired from baseball on Monday, Jerry Crasnick of ESPN.com writes.  Sanchez has been out of the game for a while but he was considering a comeback in recent years.  Today’s news is probably more of a formality than anything; Sanchez’s name, after all, has not popped up on this site since February of 2013.

“I’m so thankful for what baseball [has] given me,” Sanchez told Crasnick through his agents. “I appreciate the opportunity the Red Sox, Pirates, and Giants gave me.”

Sanchez last played in 2011 with the Giants and played a little bit in their minor league system in 2012.  Unfortunately, however, injuries to his shoulder and back ultimately led him to hang ’em up.  Now, Sanchez has decided to retire for good and move on to other pursuits.

Sanchez, 38, made three All-Star teams over the course of his career.  His crowning personal achievement came in 2006 with the Pirates when he hit .344 and narrowly edged out Marlins slugger Miguel Cabrera for the NL batting crown.  In 2010, Sanchez captured a World Series ring with the Giants.  In parts of 10 big league seasons, Sanchez slashed .297/.335/.413.  According to Baseball-Reference, Sanchez earned upwards of $32MM over the course of his career.

Indians Sign Ross Detwiler To Minor League Deal

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4:50pm: Cleveland has announced the deal via press release.

4:20pm: The Indians and left-hander Ross Detwiler have agreed to a minor league contract, reports Jon Heyman of CBS Sports (links to Twitter). If he makes the club, Detwiler will earn a $1MM base salary, and his contract also contains an additional $1.5MM worth of incentives.

Detwiler, a client of CAA Sports, split last season between the Rangers and Braves but struggled at both stops. The former No. 6 overall draft pick had spent his entire career prior to 2015 with the Nationals, the organization that drafted him, compiling a 3.82 ERA with 5.4 K/9 and 2.9 BB/9 across 471 innings. Detwiler split his time fairly evenly between the bullpen and rotation with the Nationals — 69 starts, 63 relief appearances — but he started just seven games last season (all with the Braves). Home runs were Detwiler’s undoing in Texas, as he yielded nine of them in just 43 innings of work with the Rangers en route to a 7.12 ERA. Upon going to the Braves, the lefty displayed significant control problems — 15 unintentional walks in 15 1/3 innings — which have never been a problem for him in the past. Ultimately, a hamstring injury suffered in early September ended his season and his time with the Braves.

There weren’t many positive takeaways from the 2015 season for Detwiler, but the 29-year-od did hold lefties to a .660 OPS and has always been pretty effective against same-handed batters, yielding just a .233/.314/.301 batting line to such opponents. He’ll join fellow southpaws Joe Thatcher and Tom Gorzelanny as non-roster invites in Spring Training, hoping to edge out one or both as he seeks to land a big league roster spot. Unlike those two, however, Detwiler could conceivably battle for a rotation spot, although with Corey Kluber, Danny Salazar, Carlos Carrasco, Trevor Bauer, Cody Anderson and Josh Tomlin all ahead of him, that looks unlikely at this juncture.

Indians Release Chris Johnson

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The Indians have released Chris Johnson, per the club’s transactions page at MLB.com.  Johnson was designated for assignment earlier this month.

Johnson, 31, has a career slash line of .280/.316/.411 across seven big league seasons. He first arrived in Atlanta prior to the 2013 season as a part of the Justin Upton deal.  This year, he was shipped to the Indians in a waiver trade that saw Michael Bourn,Nick Swisher, and cash considerations go to the Braves.

Johnson signed a three-year, $23.5MM contract prior to the 2014 season. Then 29 years old, Johnson was coming off a career year in which he batted .321/.358/.457 with 12 homers. However, much of that production was the result of a .394 batting average on balls in play, and his overall numbers have come back down to Earth as his BABIP regressed to his career norm.  He hasn’t looked like an ~$8MM player as of late, but he could be a useful platoon bat given his success against lefties.

With Johnson out of DFA limbo, there are now only five players left hanging, according to the DFA Tracker: Rey Navarro (Orioles), Yoervis Medina (Cubs), Danny Reynolds (Dodgers), Johnny Monell (Mets), and Josmil Pinto (Padres).

Latest On Kenta Maeda

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2:13pm: The Dodgers are interested in Maeda and are maintaining contact with his representatives in advance of the January 8th deadline, Jon Morosi of FOX Sports tweets.

12:35pm: The deadline for an MLB team to sign Kenta Maeda is January 8th at 5pm ET/4pm CT, according to Jon Morosi of FOX Sports (on Twitter).  Meanwhile, MLBTR has learned that the Hiroshima Toyo Carp have set the release fee at $20MM, the maximum allowed by the agreement between MLB and NPB.  Any team willing to meet that $20MM asking price will have the right to negotiate with Maeda over the next couple of weeks.

The question now is, which teams will be making a serious run at Maeda?  We learned recently that the Red Sox will not submit a bid to negotiate with Maeda thanks to the mammoth deal given to David Price.  At the Winter Meetings, Giants GM Bobby Evans told MLBTR that his club had internal conversations about Maeda, but they’re almost certainly out on him after adding Jeff Samardzija and Johnny Cueto.  The Padres will not be in the mix, despite sending a number of club officials to Japan in November.  The Cardinals looked to be one possibility, but they’re probably not considering the Japanese star after inking Mike Leake to a five-year, $80MM deal.

The Dodgers would appear to be a solid fit for Maeda after losing Zack Greinke to free agency and tearing up their agreement with Hisashi Iwaukma.  They have been expected to be among the teams in the hunt for the right-hander, but there hasn’t been any definitive word on that as of late.

Maeda, 28 in April, is widely considered to be one of the best pitchers in Japan. He just wrapped up a season in which he pitched to a 2.09 ERA with 7.6 K/9 against 1.8 BB/9 across 206 1/3 innings, marking his sixth consecutive season with an earned run average of 2.60 or better. His excellent 2015 season netted Maeda his second Sawamura Award — Japan’s equivalent to the Cy Young Award. With his relative youth, dominant track record and, of course, lack of draft pick compensation, Maeda immediately becomes one of the more intriguing arms on the free-agent market.  MLBTR’s Tim Dierkes forecasted a five-year, $60MM deal for Maeda this winter.  When factoring in a release fee of $20MM, that amounts to an $80MM commitment overall.

Yankees Shopping Ivan Nova

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The Yankees have let opposing teams know that Ivan Nova is available via trade, according to George A. King III of the New York Post.  It’s not surprising that Nova is being made available after a rough 2015 and it’s also not surprising to hear that there isn’t great interest in him at this time.

“They are offering him out there, but I don’t know if there’s any takers,’’ an executive said of the right-hander.

It’s hard to envision a team giving up a ton for the 29-year-old since he’s a year away from free agency and coming off a season that was cut short by recovery from Tommy John surgery.  Nova logged just 94 innings with an unsightly 5.07 ERA, averaging just 6.0 K/9 against 3.2 BB/9 with a 49 percent ground-ball rate this past season. He did manage a 3.72 ERA through his first 58 innings before perhaps wearing down and yielding four or more runs in four of his final seven outings.

That season certainly didn’t bolster Nova’s trade stock, but a club could try and pounce if the Yankees are willing to lower the asking price enough.  Nova produced strong results in both 2011 and 2013 and projects to earn a not totally unreasonable $4.4MM salary in 2016.  In Nova’s peak season, 2013, he posted a 3.10 ERA with 7.5 K/9, 2.8 BB/9 and a 53.5 percent ground-ball rate in 139 1/3 innings of work.  It should also be noted that for all of his struggles, Nova averaged 93 mph on his fastball in 2015 — the same mark he averaged in 2013 and a bit faster than his 2011 average.

It remains to be seen what the Yankees will look to get in return for Nova at this stage of the offseason, but it was said that they were not willing to sell low back in November.

Orioles, Four Other Teams Interested In Mat Latos

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The Pirates, Royals, Orioles, Brewers, and Rays have checked in on free agent starter Mat Latos, according to Jerry Crasnick of ESPN.com (on Twitter).  Latos, he adds, is probably looking at one-year deal to re-establish his value.

One MLB official opined to Crasnick that Latos is “right up [Orioles GM] Dan Duquette’s alley,” (link).  One also has to imagine that Latos makes a lot of sense for the Pirates, who have built a reputation as a team that can help pitchers restore their value.  There have been questions about Latos’ makeup, Crasnick notes, but he also still has some upside at the age of 28.

All five of these teams are likely weighing Latos as a less costly commitment than many of the other top available starters at this juncture of the offseason.  Veteran Scott Kazmir figures to net a nice payday on a multi-year deal and the Royals, who are said to have interest, could pivot to a guy like Latos if Kazmir does not fit in their budget.  The other top hurlers left – Yovani Gallardo, Ian Kennedy, and Wei-Yin Chen – would all require draft pick compensation from teams.  Back in November, MLBTR’s Tim Dierkes predicted that Latos might get a one-year, $12MM deal and he pegged the Pirates as his landing spot.

A few years ago, Latos seemed in line for a monster free agent deal upon hitting the market at age 28. However, injuries and other struggles have drastically changed things. In 2015, he battled minor injuries but showed promise in his 16 starts with the Marlins this year before joining the Dodgers via trade. Latos struggled in six outings for the Dodgers and earned his release, hooking on with the Angels in late September to make a few relief appearances.  In his 2015 stint with the Marlins, Latos pitched to a 4.48 ERA with 8.0 K/9 against 2.5 BB/9 over 88 1/3 innings.  His ERA wasn’t stellar, but advanced ERA estimators viewed him more as a mid-3.00 ERA contributor.

White Sox Have Interest In Alex Gordon

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The White Sox are showing interest in free agent Alex Gordon, sources tell Ken Rosenthal of FOX Sports (on Twitter).  Gordon has appeal for the White Sox since he’s already familiar with the AL Central, offers left-handed hitting, and solid defense.

However, it’s unclear whether the White Sox could pay Gordon enough to pry him away from the Royals (link).  To free up room on the payroll, the White Sox could conceivably move Melky Cabrera, Adam LaRoche, or Avisail Garcia, with their preference being to move LaRoche.  However, with Pedro Alvarez and Chris Carter available on the open market, Chicago might not find a strong market for those players.

In November, MLBTR’s Tim Dierkes projected a five-year, $105MM deal for Gordon.  Given the money that Gordon could command coupled with the draft pick compensation attached to him, it’s not surprising to see that he’s still without a deal as we head into Christmas.

Gordon missed nearly two months with a strained groin this season but enjoyed a characteristically strong overall campaign both at the plate and in the field. The lifetime Royal hit .271/.377.432 with 13 home runs and was seven runs above average in left field despite the layoff, according to both Defensive Runs Saved and Ultimate Zone Rating.

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