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Latest On Marlins’ Rotation Search

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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

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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.

More from the West divisions…

  • As Kenley Jansen hopes to get the opportunity to pitch in tonight’s All-Star Game, Andy McCullough of the L.A. Times looks a bit further into the future and writes that the Dodgers’ closer is in line for a record-setting payday relative to his relief-pitching peers. Multiple executives to whom McCullough has spoken consider Jonathan Papelbon’s current record — a four-year, $50MM contract — to be “the floor” for Jansen in the offseason. As McCullough notes, Jansen has better marks in ERA, WHIP, K/9 and K/BB ratio than either Papelbon or David Robertson had in their three-year platforms to free agency. We’re inclined to agree at MLBTR, as Tim Dierkes has noted throughout the year in his free-agent power rankings. Jansen has a legitimate case for five seasons on the free-agent market, and he shouldn’t have to sacrifice much in the way of average annual value to achieve that height. A guarantee in the vicinity of $70MM seems plausible for Jansen, who currently boasts a 1.16 ERA with 11.9 K/9 and 1.4 BB/9 in 38 2/3 innings.
  • Dodgers president of baseball ops Andrew Friedman tells McCullough that his “hope and expectation” is that Jansen will be wearing a Dodgers uniform for a long time. McCullough notes, in fact, that the Dodgers could pursue both Jansen and Aroldis Chapman this winter, though that comment comes in seemingly speculative fashion.
  • Drew Pomeranz, who just entered the All-Star Game in relief for the National League, wouldn’t have had a rotation job this spring at all if he hadn’t initiated a conversation with Padres manager Andy Green, writes MLB.com’s A.J. Cassavell. Pomeranz saw early in camp that he wasn’t in the same workout group with the team’s starting pitchers and made the bold move to go to his new manager and tell him that he’d been working on a third pitch and wanted a crack at the rotation. Pomeranz said that Green appreciated how straightforward he was and gave him a chance to earn that job. The rest, of course, is history, as Pomeranz is now the Padres’ best starter, having turned in a 2.47 ERA in just over 100 innings this season.
  • There’s been “no sign so far” that the Rockies and manager Walt Weiss are discussing an extension, per Nick Groke and Patrick Saunders of the Denver Post in their midseason Rockies podcast. Saunders notes that while Weiss is well-liked by his players overall, there are some within the clubhouse that wish he was a bit tougher and demanded more from his team. Weiss’ current contract runs through the end of the 2016 season. Groke is later joined by Benjamin Hochman from the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, and the two discuss the possibility of the Rockies and Cardinals matching up on a trade for Charlie Blackmon.

Tyler Flowers Out Six Weeks With Broken Hand

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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

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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

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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

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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.”

NL Notes: Lucroy, Bruce, Lodolo, Ramos

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All-Stars Jonathan Lucroy, Carlos Gonzalez and Jay Bruce spent their All-Star media day answering awkward questions about trade rumors, ESPN’s Jerry Crasnick writes. “Trade rumors?” said Lucroy to a reporter. “You’re the seventh person to ask me about that. But that’s OK. We’ll go over it again.” Bruce, meanwhile, was practical about the prospect of heading elsewhere. “It behooves [the Reds] to take a look into every situation where they can possibly improve the franchise,” he said. “I’m 29 and all of a sudden I’m not so young anymore. Every player that plays wants a chance to win a World Series, and I think the Reds are a couple of years away from being in that picture again.” Here’s more from the National League.

  • Pirates Comp Round A pick Nick Lodolo looks likeliest to be the highest unsigned pick in this year’s draft, MLB.com’s Jim Callis tweets. Lodolo, a lanky high school lefty from California, has a commitment to TCU. Via MLB.com’s draft signing and bonus tracker, three picks above Lodolo remain unsigned — seventh overall pick Braxton Garrett (Marlins), 12th overall pick Jason Groome (Red Sox) and No. 31 pick Anthony Kay (Mets).
  • Part of Nationals All-Star Wilson Ramos’ breakout this year might be due to the LASIK surgery he had last offseason, but Ramos also cites his offseason training, writes Mark Zuckerman of MASN. Significantly, Ramos was able to train in the US with his family last winter. The Nationals front office helped Ramos acquire visas for several members of his family, and Ramos was able to spend the offseason free from worry about himself or his family being in the midst of the instability of his native Venezuela (where Ramos himself was kidnapped several years ago). “The other offseasons, as soon as the season would finish, I would go back to Venezuela, try to spend time with my family. And the resources down there are obviously not the same as we have here,” says Ramos. “[H]aving them here, I’m able to do both, work and focus on my job at hand as well as enjoy time with my family, which has made a big difference. I just feel more relaxed and more comfortable having them around.”

Red Sox Notes: Ziegler, Clark, Trade Market

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New Red Sox reliever Brad Ziegler is a throwback to former Royals submariner Dan Quisenberry, ESPN’s Keith Law writes (subscription only). Like Quisenberry, Ziegler has been an effective closer for years despite not having elite velocity or throwing overhand. He can be a good eighth-inning option for the team, or he can work multi-inning stretches. Law characterizes the Diamondbacks’ return in the deal as being good enough, given that Ziegler is 36 and will be a free agent at season’s end — second baseman Luis Alejandro Basabe runs well and has good plate discipline, and Jose Almonte’s fastball might not be good enough for him to start in the long run. Here’s more on the Red Sox.

  • With negotiations for a new collective bargaining agreement looming, MLB Players Association head Tony Clark recently offered his take on a few key labor-related issues, via Evan Drellich of the Boston Herald. In the wake of the Red Sox being punished for circumventing rules governing international amateur prospect bonuses (resulting in several players’ deals with the team being voided), Clark describes both international and domestic baseball prospect development as “the wild, wild west.” He names domestic amateur travel baseball — which he describes as both costly and time-consuming — as one problem. As Drellich notes, amateurs and minor-leaguers are not part of the players union, but they are affected by collective bargaining. “With respect to these young players, to say we are concerned about how they were treated, is an understatement,” says Clark. “So suffice it to say from start to finish we have been and continued to be engaged on everything that’s going on.”
  • The Sox did well to hang on to All-Stars Mookie Betts, Jackie Bradley and Xander Bogaerts, Peter Gammons writes. The team held onto all three despite some fans’ insistence the team make a big trade for a pitcher, and they’ve been key to the team’s resurgence this season. Of course, the Red Sox still have a need for starting pitching, partially because not enough of their prospects have developed into good back-end options. This time, though, the trade market is heavy on pitchers who don’t qualify as aces, which means that there likely won’t be much question of whether the Red Sox hold onto top prospects like Andrew Benintendi.

Latest On Jay Bruce

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With the Aug. 1 trade deadline closing in, Reds right fielder Jay Bruce is “a bit surprised” to still be in Cincinnati, he told FanRag Sports’ Jon Heyman, who writes that the 29-year-old would likely waive his limited no-trade clause to play for a contender.

“What I want most is the chance to play in a World Series,” said Bruce, who can block trades to the Yankees, Red Sox, Athletics, Rays, Marlins, Twins, Indians and Diamondbacks, Heyman reported last month.

Of that group, only the Red Sox, Marlins and Indians are above .500. Boston and Miami are on the hunt for pitching more than an outfielder, though, per Heyman, who expects Bruce would waive his no-trade clause to remain in Ohio with the Indians despite recently adding them to his no list.

“I’m not ruling anything out,” Bruce stated. “But I think it would be shortsighted to rule out a team that wanted me and has a chance to win. I’d likely have to at least strong consider it.”

Aside from the Tribe, the defending World Series champion Royals and other playoff hopefuls – the Blue Jays and perhaps the Giants and Nationals (previous report via FOX Sports’ Ken Rosenthal) – could try to augment their outfields and-or first base situations by the deadline. That might put them in the market for Bruce, who has rebounded from back-to-back subpar offensive seasons to post a .267/.315/.538 line with 18 home runs in 343 trips to the plate this year.

Bruce’s strong output at the plate over the first few months of the 2016 campaign earned him his third career All-Star selection, though advanced fielding metrics like Ultimate Zone Rating and Defensive Runs Saved are heavily down on his work in right. Because of that, fWAR grades Bruce as a replacement-level player this year. But it’s up for debate how much of a defensive liability Bruce actually is, as FanGraphs’ August Fagerstrom detailed last week.

The way teams assess his defense could certainly impact the trade value of Bruce, who’s on a $12.5MM salary for the remainder of this season and is controllable by way of a $13MM club option next year.

“I’m interested to see what happens,” said Bruce, who’s no stranger to potential deals after the Blue Jays nearly acquired him from the Reds over the winter.

Quick Hits: Groome, Red Sox, Lucroy, Chapman

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With Friday’s deadline to sign 2016 amateur draft picks creeping up, the Red Sox and first-round selection Jason Groome are in a dispute over how much the left-hander is worth, reports Jon Heyman of Today’s Knuckleball. Boston is currently offering Groome $3.5MM – which is $372K more than the 12th overall selection’s $3,192,800 slot value – according to Heyman, who adds that the 17-year-old had a pre-draft agreement with the Padres to sign for $5MM had he fallen to them at No. 24. The Red Sox have in the neighborhood of $400K remaining in their pool and could up their offer to Groome, Heyman notes, and he expects the two to eventually reach a deal.

More from Boston and a few other major league destinations:

  • An unusually high number of scouts (18) recently took in a Class-A Rookie League Game for the Rangers, leading FOX Sports’ Ken Rosenthal to wonder if a trade is on the way. Specifically, the Rangers and Brewers could match up in a deal for catcher Jonathan Lucroy, Rosenthal suggests, with a scout informing him that Milwaukee has been observing Texas’ system. Brewers general manager David Stearns has not been averse to acquiring teenage prospects in the past, writes Rosenthal, who lists 17-year-old outfielder Leody Taveras and 18-year-old shortstop Anderson Tejada as a couple of the Rangers’ top Arizona League players. The Rangers have drawn connections since the offseason to Lucroy, an All-Star backstop who’s signed for cheap through next season.
  • Prior to his late-season major league breakout last year, Red Sox center fielder Jackie Bradley Jr. garnered the attention of several GMs while he was thriving in the minors, according to agent Scott Boras. “I had six different general managers calling me, because he was just killing the ball in Triple-A,” Boras said (via Jason Mastrodonato of the Boston Herald). Boras added that he doesn’t ask GMs to trade his clients, so he didn’t request a deal out of Boston for Bradley – who has been outstanding for the Red Sox since last August. The 26-year-old earned his first All-Star trip this season on the strength of a .296/.378/.548 batting line with 14 home runs in 344 trips to the plate. In addition to his prowess with the bat, Bradley has been among the majors’ premier base runners this year, as FanGraphs shows.
  • The Yankees’ playoffs odds at FanGraphs sit at a measly 7.5 percent, which Joel Sherman of the New York Post cites while arguing that it would be “terrible business” for the .500 team to retain lefty closer Aroldis Chapman past the Aug. 1 trade deadline. With World Series contenders like the Cubs, Rangers and Nationals looking to augment their bullpens, Sherman believes the Yankees are in prime position to orchestrate a bidding war for Chapman, whom they acquired from the Reds for an underwhelming group of prospects over the winter. Chapman was then dealing with a troubling domestic violence incident off the field, but he served a month-long suspension to begin the year and has continued dominating on the mound since. Even if the Yankees do trade Chapman, that wouldn’t preclude them from making a push to re-sign the pending free agent in the offseason, Sherman points out.

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