Archives for 2016

Latest On Edwin Encarnacion, Blue Jays

By Jeff Todd | July 13, 2016 at 2:53pm CDT

Blue Jays slugger Edwin Encarnacion isn’t interested in discussing a new deal during the season, his agent Paul Kinzer tells Jon Heyman of Fan Rag Sports. Encarnacion is set to reach the open market at the conclusion of the 2016 campaign.

A team source tells Heyman that the organization has at least made “overtures” to re-start a dialogue with the 33-year-old star. But when asked if Toronto had made an in-season effort, Kinzer said the team had “not really” tried. (That could be interpreted, perhaps, as a denial of communications or a reflection of their nature and quality.)

That’s just fine for Encarnacion’s camp: as Kinzer says, he never intended to talk during the season after a bad experience with that approach earlier in his career. “He’s the most relaxed I’ve every seen him,” says Kinzer. “Why mess with the guy? He’s content. He’s happy.”

Indeed, after a sluggish start, Encarnacion has been on fire at the plate. His season line — .267/.358/.541 with 23 home runs over 387 plate appearances — is already back in line with the top-level offensive production he’s delivered in recent campaigns.

From the club’s perspective, president of baseball operations Mark Shapiro suggested to Heyman that the organization didn’t low-ball the veteran over the winter. (Specifically, he denied an apparent report that the Jays made an opening offer of one year and then moved it to two, both of which would fall well below Encarnacion’s seeming market placement.) Still, Heyman says that the perception continues that Jose Bautista remains a higher priority for Toronto.

While there no longer appears to be any possibility of an extension, that doesn’t mean the Jays won’t have any chance to retain Encarnacion. “This doesn’t mean Toronto’s out,” says Kinzer. “This as the plan all along. We were going to play this thing out.”

Quick Hits: CBA, Minor League Wages, MASN, Academies

By Jeff Todd | July 13, 2016 at 11:44am CDT

Ongoing collective bargaining talks between Major League Baseball and the player’s union have been civil and remain promising, but Tyler Kepner of the New York Times writes that there are still issues to iron out. International amateur intake, the qualifying offer system, and PEDs all pose thorny questions. And matters such as expansion of rosters, if not also teams, and a reduction of the regular-season schedule could also need sorting. The smart money remains on a peaceful process, it seems, as most areas of potential conflict are of fairly limited scope and the parties have worked together on several complicated matters of late.

An issue that has increasingly drawn attention is the wages owed to minor league ballplayers. Nathaniel Grow of Fangraphs takes a close look at the matter, including what to glean from recent comments from commissioner Rob Manfred and MLBPA chief Tony Clark.
The TV rights fees dispute between the Nationals and Orioles, which is centered around the Mid-Atlantic Sports Network, is still bound up in court, as Jeff Barker of the Baltimore Sun reports. The judge in the case has rejected the Nats’ request that another MLB arbitration proceeding be commenced, leaving more to battle over even before a new hearing is had on the underlying merits. Manfred still says that he believes a league-run panel will decide the matter, as Ronald Blum of the Associated Press reports (via the Washington Times).
We don’t often hear of top draft picks coming from the service academies, though Air Force righty Griffin Jax recently signed with the Twins after being taken in the third round. As Brent Briggeman of the Colorado Springs Gazette reports, rule changes could make players such as Jax more common. The two-year active-duty service requirement that applies to the academies can now be waived upon application, if an athlete has signed a professional sports contract.

Latest On Jason Groome, Red Sox

By charliewilmoth | July 13, 2016 at 10:18am CDT

TODAY: A deal is “getting closer” and “should get done,” a source tells Speier (via Twitter). That being said, a final number has yet to be arrived at between the two sides.

YESTERDAY, 5:33pm: Talks between the two sides are intensifying, per Jon Heyman and Robert Murray of FanRag Sports (Twitter link), but there’s no deal in place just yet.

10:55am: New Jersey high school lefty Jason Groome remains the highest-profile draftee who is yet unsigned, and there remains a gap between him and the Red Sox, as Alex Speier of the Boston Globe explains. Speier’s sources express optimism that the 12th overall pick will ultimately sign, but there are a number of moving parts involved.

Jon Heyman of Today’s Knuckleball reported yesterday that the Red Sox had offered Groome a $3.5MM bonus, higher than the pick value of $3,192,800 but significantly lower than the $5MM Heyman reported Groome could have gotten from the Padres had he lasted until the No. 24 pick. Now Speier writes that the Red Sox have gone a little over $3.5MM but are still short of his bonus demands. Groome could head to a Florida junior college and reenter the draft in a year if he deems the Sox’ bonus offers unsuitable.

The Red Sox have a bonus pool just shy of $7MM (an amount they could stretch to about $7.35MM without losing one or more future draft picks) and have already committed just $2.2MM of that. But they have not signed fourth-rounder Bobby Dalbec, whose pick value is just over $500K, or fifth-rounder Mike Shawaryn, whose pick value is around $375K. If they’re unable to sign Groome, they could also have interest in signing 11th-rounder Nick Quintana, a well-regarded high school infielder who is committed to Arizona.

Another dynamic in play, according to Speier, is that Groome hasn’t yet taken a physical in advance of Friday’s deadline. All things considered, though, the Red Sox will surely be highly motivated to sign him — a big lefty with good velocity and and a terrific curve would be a strong addition to any farm system.

MLBTR Poll: Best Low-Cost Acquisitions

By Jeff Todd | July 13, 2016 at 8:57am CDT

Some moves pan out; others don’t. And then there are those whose importance turns out to be of an entirely different magnitude than had been anticipated. We’ll look at that latter category here.

Among the many great first-half performers, there are many heralded veterans and rising youngsters who were widely expected to do just what they’ve done. But there are also some surprisingly valuable assets who were added for a relative pittance over the winter. Steve Adams already recently covered beneficial minor-league signings, but here are a few who were acquired in other ways:

David Freese, INF, Pirates — He’s a well-known player, but that doesn’t mean that anybody was expecting this kind of production (.291/.373/.472 over 287 plate appearances). At just $3MM on a one-year term, that late-spring signing is already a certifiable bargain.
Leonys Martin, OF, Mariners — Seattle has benefited from Martin’s good glovework, wheels, and solid bat — which has produced a surprising double-digit homer tally. Better still, the club now has both Martin and the key piece that it originally gave up to get him (reliever Tom Wilhelmsen).
Jonathan Villar, SS, Brewers — David Stearns went from Houston to Milwaukee, and it didn’t take long for him to bring a few former ’Stros with him. Villar, picked up in a minor trade, has been perhaps the best get of all with above-average hitting and big-time speed on the bases driving his value.
Drew Pomeranz, SP, Padres — When we’re comfortably discussing a player as one of the best starting pitching assets at the deadline, it’s safe to say his organization did well to acquire him just months prior for a package of Yonder Alonso and Marc Rzepczynski.
Dan Straily, SP, Reds — Passed around multiple times at the end of camp, Straily has settled in as a useful arm in Cincinnati. He’s still not going to provide exciting results, but one hundred frames of 4.35 ERA pitching has value.
Brad Hand, RP, Padres — At the cost of a waiver claim and a 40-man spot, Hand has delivered a 3.10 ERA over 49 1/3 frames. Even better, he’s jumped to a career-best 10.9 K/9, suggesting he may have found another gear upon moving to the pen full-time.
Dan Otero, RP, Indians — Acquired for cash by Cleveland, Otero is another player who bounced around over the winter. All he has done is post a 1.27 ERA with 8.7 K/9 and 2.0 BB/9 over 35 1/3 strong frames.

From this list, which has been the best bargain? (Link for mobile app users.)

Latest On Marlins’ Rotation Search

By Steve Adams | July 12, 2016 at 11:06pm CDT

The Marlins have been linked to rotation upgrades for the majority of the summer, and Barry Jackson of the Miami Herald adds Rich Hill’s name to the list of potential targets for the Fish. Additionally, Jackson notes that the Marlins continue to show interest in Tampa Bay right-hander Jake Odorizzi and San Diego lefty Drew Pomeranz.

Of course, as Jackson notes (and has pointed out in the past), the Marlins are thin on enticing trade chips due to a lack of impact prospects in the farm system. Miami’s prospect depth took a further hit a couple of weeks ago when the club picked up Fernando Rodney in a trade that sent promising Class-A right-hander Chris Paddack to the Padres.

While Hill certainly doesn’t have a lengthy track record of health or the type of dominance he’s displayed since last September, he’s arguably the top rental pitcher on this summer’s trade market and should command a rather strong return. He’s pitched to a 2.25 ERA with 10.7 K/9, 3.3 BB/9 and a 50 percent ground-ball rate in 76 innings. He did miss the month of June with a strained groin, and he’s already pitched more Major League innings in 2016 than he did in 2013-15 combined. However, given his strong performance and modest $6MM salary — to say nothing of a report from FOX’s Ken Rosenthal that Hill could potentially be extended by a new club — Hill is a lock to draw widespread interest. That’s not great news for the Marlins, who would likely have a tough time topping the offers of rivals with considerably deeper farm systems.

Jackson writes that in the absence of a trade to acquire a starting pitcher, the club could turn to right-hander Jarred Cosart, who was formerly one of the top prospects in baseball and was hoped to become a key piece of the Miami rotation. Instead, Cosart has persistently struggled in the Major Leagues and was demoted to Triple-A earlier this season. He spent a month on the minor league DL with an oblique strain and has pitched to a combined 4.02 ERA with 5.7 K/9 against 4.0 BB/9 in 47 innings between Triple-A and a brief rehab stint in the organization’s lower levels this year.

If not Cosart, the Marlins have veteran righty Jeremy Guthrie pitching for their Triple-A affiliate, though he’s struggled with the Padres’ Triple-A affiliate this season and has surrendered 15 runs in 15 innings with the Marlins’ Triple-A affiliate. Jose Urena and Justin Nicolino are other rotation options, as can be seen on their depth chart. For the time being, the Marlins have Jose Fernandez, Wei-Yin Chen, Adam Conley and Tom Koehler lined up to make their first four starts out of the break. Miami doesn’t have the luxury of an off-day next Monday, which would’ve allowed the team to skip the fifth spot in its rotation and extended the club’s window to pursue outside additions.

West Notes: Bregman, Jansen, Pomeranz, Rockies

By Steve Adams | July 12, 2016 at 8:46pm CDT

The Astros are “expected to call up top prospect Alex Bregman as early as this weekend,” reports Jim Bowden of ESPN and MLB Network Radio on SiriusXM (Twitter link). Bregman, selected with the No. 2 overall pick in the 2015 draft, has obliterated minor league pitching all season long and recently moved up to Triple-A without missing a beat. The 22-year-old is hitting .389/.421/.889 with five homers in eight Triple-A games and a combined .309/.416/.603 with 19 home runs between Double-A and Triple-A this season. The 22-year-old is a natural shortstop but has been playing third base as of late. As MLBTR’s Jason Martinez speculated yesterday in his latest Knocking Down The Door installment, Bregman could slot into third base for the Astros, with Luis Valbuena shifting across the diamond to first base and A.J. Reed moving into a platoon at DH with Evan Gattis. If he does indeed get the call this coming weekend, Bregman would be the first first-rounder from last year’s draft to make his MLB debut and could provide a jolt in the arm of an Astros club that has surged back into both the Wild Card and AL West race.

Tyler Flowers Out Six Weeks With Broken Hand

By Steve Adams | July 12, 2016 at 4:43pm CDT

Braves catcher Tyler Flowers has been diagnosed with a fractured left hand, Jon Heyman of FanRag Sports first reported. While Heyman lists his projected absence at four to six weeks, MLB.com’s Mark Bowman lists a more pessimistic timeline (via Twitter), suggesting that Flowers will miss “at least” six weeks but may not be able to return until September. Over the weekend, Flowers aggravated a previous injury that was sustained when he was hit by a pitch from A.J. Ramos. Bowman wrote yesterday that Flowers underwent an MRI, though the team has yet to announce the results.

According to Bowman, the Braves are likely to promote veteran backstop Anthony Recker to fill Flowers’ spot on the roster (Twitter link). The MLB.com scribe wrote yesterday that Recker has been on the temporarily inactive list with a non-health issue, but it would seem that is behind him now. Recker, who is no stranger to the NL East due to his time with the division-rival Mets, is hitting .244/.348/.421 in 230 plate appearances between the Triple-A affiliates for the Braves and Indians this season. Fellow veteran Blake Lalli would be the likeliest alternative to Recker, though he’s having a considerably less productive season. Whoever gets the call will pair behind the plate with A.J. Pierzynski, who has been unable to replicate last season’s above-average production, instead struggling to a .205/.227/.250 batting line in his age-39 campaign.

The loss of Flowers not only deprives the Braves of a player that has been far and away the most productive catcher on the big league roster but also all but eliminates the possibility of a Flowers trade prior to the Aug. 1 non-waiver deadline. While Flowers hasn’t been an oft-mentioned trade candidate, the Braves have been largely open for business over the past couple of years, and Flowers is enjoying a career-year at the plate while playing on a highly affordable two-year pact. As a short-term piece with a .253/.343/.425 batting line at a premium position on a rebuilding club, trade interest in Flowers certainly wouldn’t have been a stretch of the imagination.

Of course, the Braves may simply have preferred to hang onto him for the duration of the season anyhow. The team is aiming for a considerably better season in 2017, and there’s no immediate replacement for him waiting in the wings in the upper levels of the minor leagues. He’s earning $2MM this season and is owed $3MM in 2017 before his team must make a call on a $4MM club option for the 2018 season (which comes with a $300K buyout). He’s struggled quite a bit with stolen bases this season, catching just two of 37 attempted thieves, but he continues to grade out as one of the best pitch-framing backstops in the game, per Baseball Prospectus.

Manfred On Athletics, MLB Diversity, Minor League Wages, Schedule, Kang

By charliewilmoth | July 12, 2016 at 2:40pm CDT

MLB commissioner Rob Manfred had a wide-ranging conversation with reporters today in San Diego. Here’s a little of what he had to say, via Bill Shaikin of the Los Angeles Times (Twitter links: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8), Bleacher Report’s Scott Miller (1 2 3), David O’Brien of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution (1) and John Shea of the San Francisco Chronicle.

Manfred lists the number of African-American players (currently 8%, although he says 20% of recent first-round draft picks have been African-American) as a significant concern. “This is an economic imperative for us,” he says, noting that, as the US becomes increasingly diverse, MLB must strive for diversity as well. On a somewhat related note, Manfred also said that the lack of a Latino manager in the game right now was “glaring.”
MLB will not consider expanding until the Rays and Athletics get their stadium issues resolved, Manfred says. Manfred sounds determined to keep a team in Oakland, however. “I am committed to Oakland as a major league site,” he says. If the A’s were to depart, “we would be looking backwards and saying we made a mistake.” He adds that he thinks the Oakland market will be increasingly appealing going forward. “I think the growth in that area, the way the growth has moved up into San Francisco, I think Oakland is more likely than not to be a better market five years from now than it is today,” he says.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, Manfred said he was confident that labor talks this offseason would not result in a strike or lockout.
Of the current clamor to raise wages for minor league players (which has included a class-action lawsuit brought by former minor leaguers), Manfred says, “Excessive regulation could have a really dramatic impact on the size of minor league baseball,” seemingly suggesting that increased wages might result in the folding of some minor league teams.
It sounds like Manfred expects some form of draft pick compensation for free agents to continue into the next Collective Bargaining Agreement — he says owners would be making a “major concession” if draft-pick compensation were to be dropped.
It sounds like Manfred did not come out in support of an international draft today quite as strongly as he has in the past, but he did say MLB needs “a more transparent operating system in the international player acquisition process.”
Manfred admits that the current 162-game schedule is tough on players, and says players and owners are currently discussing ways to reduce the difficulty of the season by optimizing game times and improving teams’ travel schedules. Of the possibility of reducing the number of games, however, he says, “You want to work less, generally you get paid less.”
The league has not received enough information from law enforcement to decide whether Pirates third baseman Jung Ho Kang, who has been accused of sexual assault, should be placed on administrative leave.

Brewers Claim Rob Scahill From Pirates

By charliewilmoth | July 12, 2016 at 1:20pm CDT

The Brewers have announced that they’ve claimed righty reliever Rob Scahill from the Pirates and optioned him to Triple-A Colorado Springs. The Bucs designated Scahill for assignment when they claimed Eric Fryer from the Cardinals last week.

The 29-year-old Scahill has spent the season bouncing back and forth between Pittsburgh and Triple-A Indianapolis. He’s generally had good big-league results in two seasons with the Pirates, with a 3.26 ERA, but he’s posted somewhat underwhelming peripherals (7.1 K/9, 4.2 BB/9). Previously, he’d appeared in parts of three seasons with the Rockies. The Brewers probably liked that Scahill entered the season with less than two full years of service time, however, and that he can still be optioned back and forth to the minors.

Coppolella On Snitker, Teheran, Norris, Pitching

By charliewilmoth | July 12, 2016 at 11:58am CDT

Here’s the latest from Braves GM John Coppolella, via the first part of a Q+A with Mark Bradley of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

Brian Snitker is a serious candidate to shed his interim manager tag and take the job on a more permanent basis, but Coppolella indicates the team will look to outside candidates as well.
Coppolella says flatly that the Braves aren’t trading Julio Teheran, who, of course, has been the subject of months of rumors and discussion. As we’ve noted elsewhere in these pages, Teheran is controllable through 2020, so the Braves could conceivably hang onto him as a veteran anchor for their rotation, even though his fine season and the relatively limited number of good starting pitchers available would also make him a strong trade chip this summer.
The recent spate of injuries to pitchers — both within the Braves organization and elsewhere — itself demonstrates why the Braves emphasized pitching so much in their current rebuild, Coppolella says. He notes, though, that part of the Braves’ strategy was a function of opportunity. The organization’s core of young pitching now includes Ian Anderson, who the team selected with the third overall draft pick last month even though they already had lots of young pitching. “There’s so much attrition associated with pitching that you truly can never have enough talent or depth when it comes to arms,” Coppolella says. “It’s great the Cubs built around bats, but that’s what was available to them in the draft. There was no Kris Bryant or Kyle Schwarber in the draft this year.”
The Braves’ trade of Bud Norris late last month was motivated in part by a desire to beat the trade-deadline rush and get as much as possible for a player who would be a rental for his new team, Coppolella confirms. “It was difficult to trade Bud, but knowing he was a free agent after the season was the overriding factor,” says Coppolella. “Bud was pitching terrific and the Dodgers made us an offer that we felt compelled us to make that move at that time.”

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