Major League Baseball’s collective bargaining agreement contains a provision that allows certain free agents who are signed to minor league contracts to receive a $100K retention bonus if they are not on the team’s 25-man roster or the Major League disabled list five days prior to the season.
Free agents who qualify for this distinction are those who have at least six years of Major League service time and had a Major League contract expire at the end of the previous season, but signed a minor league deal ten or more days prior to Opening Day.
The deadline for teams to decide on these players is today at 11am central time. By the deadline, teams with these players in camp need to decide whether to:
- Add the player to their 25-man roster or Major League disabled list (or agree to do so in writing).
- Grant the player his outright release from the minor league contract so that he may pursue opportunities with other teams.
- Pay the player a $100K retention bonus to keep him in the organization beyond the deadline and send him to the minors.
Here’s the latest news from around the league on Article XX(B) signees and their roster statuses with their respective teams (newest updates on top):
- Matt Thornton has been told that he’ll break camp with the Padres, according to Dennis Lin of the San Diego Union-Tribune (via Twitter). The veteran southpaw signed fairly late in camp after failing to find a big league deal, ultimately reaching a minor league pact that will pay him $1.6MM at the MLB level. He can also take home up to $1.9MM in incentives depending upon how many appearances he makes.
Earlier Updates
- Outfielder Ryan Raburn will be added to the Rockies’ 40-man roster, Nick Groke of the Denver Post clarifies (Twitter links). He figures to play an important part-time role on the club, which features three left-handed outfielders in its regular lineup.
- The Braves have announced that outfielder Jeff Francoeur has made the Opening Day roster, with the team purchasing his contract. He’ll play a reserve role in his return to Atlanta, where he once featured as one of the most exciting young players in baseball.
- The Padres appear set to pay Brandon Morrow the $100K retention bonus to remain with the organization, Dennis Lin of the San Diego Union-Tribune tweets. Morrow, 31, still needs to stretch out after getting a late start this spring.
- The Nationals have officially added righty Matt Belisle to the club’s 40-man roster and will be active on Opening Day, the team announced. He represents a somewhat surprising victor in the pen battle, and his addition seemingly leaves the organization with just one open job to give to minor league free agent lefty Sean Burnett or optionable righties Trevor Gott and Blake Treinen.
- Veteran outfielder Matt Joyce has made the Pirates’ Opening Day roster and will be added to the 40-man, GM Neal Huntington told reporters including Bill Brink of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette (via Twitter). He had a forgettable 2015, but put up strong numbers in camp.
- Likewise, the Indians announced yesterday that southpaw Tom Gorzelanny will remain in the organization in the minor league system. He’ll be due a $100K bonus for the privilege.
This post originally incorrectly listed Alex Torres as an Article XX(B) free agent.
Thinking Joyce made the 25 man due to Marte and Polonco dinged up. If both were healthy, they prob would have paid him the 100k to go to AAA as insurance. Good move with 2 guys dinged.
Don’t think that is the case at all.
Joyce gets the 1 last bench spot only because he hits from the left side.
Polanco and Marte are being held out just as a pre caution, as both have said, they would play if it was the regular season.
Pirates don’t have any LH bench options other than when Jaso isn’t in the lineup, I think Joyce made the team the day he signed.
Figueroa bats left as well. Not sure what they will do with him now but may have him on the bench as well. He has been playing infield and outfield so he is an option as well. Not as much power option but more position flexibility than Joyce. Talk in Pittsburgh is that Hurdle and FO like Figueroa,
Joyce pretty much would have had to go hitless in the spring to not make the team. I don’t have the roster numbers in front of me, but they are likely choosing between Florimon and Figueroa for one spot: Florimon is out of options but might get through waivers again; Figueroa has an option. Jason Rogers also has an option left.
Alex Torres wasn’t a XXB free agent and therefore isn’t due a retention bonus.
Correct, have to have more than 6 years of service and finish previous year on an active mlb roster or disabled list. Torres has less than 3 years of service and didn’t finish the year on an active roster either.
Great, now I can wear my Francoeur jersey again
too bad it’ll have the wrong number on it. kidding
glad to see another step toward Coppy/Hart fixing all the mistakes Wren made over the years.
1) Replenish farm system (check)
2) Bring back top scouts (check)
3) Value others opinions again (Cox, Chipper, Smoltz, Glavine, etc.)
4) Value the draft and go with best talent available, as opposed to drafting the player who you think will be avg in bigs but closer to reaching the bigs
5) Be creative with money and not afraid to dump players who provide zero value (Swisher, Johnson, trading for Touissant/Arroyo). Wren just liked to give out bad contracts.
Here’s to the Braves season. It may be rocky, but at least it will be fun to see fan favorites who deserve to be on the roster and talented prospects come up and get their first taste of the show.
copella and hart have already taken out several bad contracts in arroyo and swisher, over 20mil which could have be spent to sign a free agent or two.
Coppy and Hart did not sign Swisher. They acquired Swisher in a bad contract swap with Cleveland. They saved money overall. And the Arroyo deal was to buy Toussaint, which is a highly regarded move by the Braves.
These moves did not prevent them from signing free agents.
Hope the best for Toussaint – he needs to do well to make that one worthwhile. Gosselin – who gets no respect – is another Brave who will flourish with new coaching and his make up which is good.
lol, what a silly post, Wren was forced to draft for value by JS who would not allow any above slot signings due to his being on the committee to redo the draft slot system.
Wren built a team that made the playoffs fairly often, the fact that our moronic manager always found ways to screw up is not his fault. I expect that you will find that Wren, while not perfect, did a damn good job in at;anta.
IMO, the problem with the Braves is JS and Cox and Hart. Old school guys who refuse to adapt to the new game, the new stats and the new way to rank player performance. The game has passed them by, hopefully Coppy is immune to their POV and works it his way.
Finally someone who gets it. My gosh. The Atlanta fanbase has taken a nosedive over the past few seasons lol.
I think they would blame Wren for all the issues facing America if the radio stations in Atlanta told them to.
Wren is very old school as well. The only one out of that group that isn’t is Coppy.
I wouldn’t say Wren did a damn good job, but I think he did relatively okay in his tenure. A big part of his negatives were the product of some horrible luck with risky decisions that went worse than anyone could have predicted (Uggla, Chris Johnson and B.J. Upton being the lion share of that). But good luck or bad still ends up on the resume. And he did rub some personnel the wrong way.
I will agree though that JS is a big problem. He avoids the criticism because of his history with the team. He’s probably the biggest reason why the team puts too much faith in Cox. And Cox is likely the biggest reason why the Braves still have not changed managers.
The Braves have needed an organizational overhaul from top to bottom for a while now. Coppy at least is looking like a step in the right direction.
Not a fan of Wren but this “our moronic manager” is spot on. It would take pages to list the moronic things he has done – and a couple years with no-brainer teams. He had Venters, Eric O’ and Kimbrell and overused them so badly they were shot by the end of the year. But there are so many stories like that.
I’ll never get why he lets players tell him if they are going to play – his favorites can. Freddie F couldn’t see for almost two weeks and it was painfully obvious he was not right – but they kept him out there because he said he wanted to play. Every player “wants” to play! He even was missing balls in the infield. He later admitted he couldn’t see the ball well in the field during that spell. Get that? – he admitted he couldn’t see – any idiot could tell he was not right – swinging at balls in the dirt and muffing grounders and Fredi G takes his orders from his “good” and “favorite” players so he “ran him out there.”.
Some of these Braves traded away will do great with coaching and a manager. Simmons is listening to LAA veterans and iirc, he went 3-3 the game after hitting a homerun! You can find the video at MLB LAA page. All the talk about him not hitting is BS – he just needs coaching.
Last year we were going for a record number of “clubhouse guys” – as you say no one blames Fredi G for the clubhouse environment – yet Joe Maddon is often credited with helping his clubhouse environment. Fredi is a nice guy, just not a major league manager.
We have two speedsters waiting in the wings and Davey Lopes ends up coaching for Wash? We have no one who can coach a base stealer that I am aware of…if one’s in the org they haven’t shown their face with the big club.
Anyway, they interviewed Cory Gearrin during the SF game last night. He has changed approach on the mound and he looks good. Asked why he chose SF when he was a FA – he said they have the smarts and then the kicker – he made a major point of saying Bruce Bochy was the best at using his bullpen! Of course he’d say that, he knows having worked under the worst in the business.
Apparently Williams Perez is not liked by Fredi G. even though WP should be talked about a lot as possible 4th or 5th guy but he hasn’t been from the get go. Folty has one good outing and “he’s back and on a faster track than we thought.’ (Till his last start).
So, after not pitching for like 12 days, WP (with a 1.29 era in the limited spring use) is brought into relieve the guy who should be relieving him. WP wobbles in his first inning and then settles ok. Since Fredi is dying for WP’s arm to die in the bullpen, he brings him again tonight! No appearance for 12 days then two in a row. He should have started every appearance this spring until he showed he couldn’t do it. It was just last year when FG used him to start two games and relieve in another one all in 5 days.
I’ve given my wife a head’s up. If I hear Fredi G say one time this year, “We try to get them out there in a spot where they can perform their best!” I will throw up on the TV.
I am not saying that WP will be in the rotation in a year or two – there is too much potential talent coming up – but he was given no respect in Atlanta this spring.
Kind of like Arodys Vizcaíno – why on earth is the closer role not his to lose – not his to win. Grilli lost his spot and Arodys did the job – reward him don’t knock him down. If I thought FG was just trying to get some good old competition going maybe – but FG couldn’t motivate a sloth. He manages like he is scared. How about all those shifts last year!
According to Buster Olney, Wren paid 20 million more for BJ Upton than anyone else was offering. That hurt.
oh and btw, Francoeur is awful, hasn’t been above replacement level but 3 times in his entire career. IMO, there were better options for the same money out there who can actually play baseball.
While Frenchy had a decent spring it’s still pretty obvious that he made the team mostly as a PR move to more casual fans. It’s a low cost signing to put a few butts in the seats (and take some of the sting away from what is sure to be a bad season), since he still is weirdly popular in Atlanta.
“better options for the same money”
What happened to Cunningham? Is he doing better with better coaching somewhere else this year?
Press Release | 1:36 PM ET
Prior to this afternoon’s game vs. the Texas Rangers, the Chicago White Sox announced the following five roster moves:
· Optioned INF Matt Davidson, INF Leury Garcia, RHP Tommy Kahnle and INF Carlos Sanchez to Class AAA Charlotte;
· Reassigned OF Jason Coats to Minor League camp.
Following the moves, the White Sox have 31 players remaining in Major League camp: 15 pitchers, three catchers, seven infielders and six outfielders.
Not surprised about Matt Davidson. He offers little versatility as a bench player because he can only play 3B or DH. With four regular OF’s already guaranteed spots on the Sox 25-man opening roster (Melky Cabrera, Adam Eaton, Austin Jackson, Avisail Garcia) with one likely to be the DH when not playing in the field that particular day (Cabrera or Garcia), Davidson pretty much would be a backup at 3B to Todd Frazier and a PH. It’s better that he gets regular AB’s at AAA to see if the changes made in his swing by hitting coach Todd Steverson this spring translates to better production at Charlotte before he is considered for a promotion to the White Sox roster.
Imo, the option of Carlos Sanchez to AAA was the bigger surprise. Unlike Davidson, Sanchez is versatile with the ability to play 2B, SS and 3B and also be available to PH or PR off the bench. His biggest role on the Sox would have been as the primary reserve infielder twice a week when Tyler Saladino starts for 37 year old Jimmy Rollins at SS AND also would have been a good late defensive sub for Brett Lawrie since the latter is still a question mark defensively at 2B. Lawrie is very athletic but has played 3B significantly more in his 5 year MLB career than 2B. Theoretically, Saladino would be an option to also play 2B late in games, but he has primarily been a SS in his minor league career and as a 3B with the White Sox. He doesn’t offer the experience and “smooth” glove at 2B that Sanchez demonstrated with the White Sox last season.
Like Davidson, Sanchez also had a great spring at the plate. The White Sox may have had an ulterior motive in demoting Sanchez to Charlotte. He will now be a fine defensive double play partner at 2B to pair with the clubs #2 prospect, SS Tim Anderson who will be making his AAA debut there this season. Anderson biggest remaining question mark is his defensive acumen at SS. With Sanchez as the regular at 2B, his play at SS may also get a boost.
Why is Belisle such a surprise? He was really good for the Cardinals last year until he missed most of the second half with an injury.