Twins, Trevor Plouffe Avoid Arbitration
The Twins and third baseman Trevor Plouffe have avoided an arbitration hearing by agreeing to a one-year deal worth $7.25MM, reports Jon Heyman (via Twitter). The former first-round pick and CAA Sports client had been projected by MLBTR contributor Matt Swartz to take home a $7.7MM salary in 2016 before filing for an $7.95MM sum. The team countered with a $7MM sum, meaning Plouffe’s ultimate salary will come in below the $7.475MM midpoint of those two figures.
Plouffe, 29, has somewhat quietly emerged as a strong contributor at third base over the past two seasons, during which time he’s batted .251/.317/.429 with 36 home runs for the Twins. While his offense performance dropped off between 2014 and 2015 (from a rate-stat perspective, anyhow), Plouffe appeared in a career-high 152 games and tallied a career-high 632 plate appearances in 2015, chipping in 22 homers and 86 RBIs — all of which factored into the $2.45MM raise he’ll receive over last year’s salary of $4.8MM. Formerly a shortstop that had to move off the position for defensive purposes, Plouffe has also turned himself into a solid to above-average defender at the hot corner, where he’s posted positive cumulative marks in Defensive Runs Saved (+5) and Ultimate Zone Rating (+8.4) across the past two seasons.
While many thought the team’s signing of Byung Ho Park would lead to a Plouffe trade by forcing Miguel Sano from DH to third base, the Twins plan to use Sano in the outfield and retain Plouffe at third base. It remains to be seen how the hulking Sano can handle the outfield (though his arm drew rave reviews from scouts), but for the time being, Plouffe figures to continue to serve as a key component of the Twins’ starting lineup in 2016. He’s under control through the 2017 season as a Super Two player, so he’ll be arbitration-eligible once more next offseason before qualifying for free agency. With Plouffe’s case resolved and Kevin Jepsen also signed to a one-year deal over the weekend, the Twins have now avoided arbitration with all six of their eligible players, as can be seen in MLBTR’s Arbitration Tracker.
Minor MLB Transactions: 1-25-16
Here today’s minor transactions from around the league, all coming courtesy of Baseball America’s Matt Eddy unless otherwise noted…
- Former Cubs right-hander Rafael Dolis, who spent the 2015 season with the Tigers‘ Triple-A affiliate and re-signed with Detroit after the season, has now been released to sign with the Hanshin Tigers of Nippon Professional Baseball in Japan. The 28-year-old Dolis posted a 4.61 ERA at the Triple-A level last season and hasn’t seen the Majors since 2013. Somewhat curiously, Dolis becomes the second pitcher this offseason to sign a minor league deal with Detroit only to be released to head to Japan. Righty Jake Brigham did the same last month in order to sign with the Rakuten Golden Eagles.
- The Royals signed former Twins/Tigers right-hander Lester Oliveros,. The hard-throwing 27-year-old was traded from Detroit to Minnesota in 2011’s Delmon Young swap. He missed a season due to Tommy John surgery but has generally pitched well in Triple-A when healthy, owning a 3.71 ERA with 11.2 K/9 against 3.5 BB/9 at that level. In the Majors, he has a 5.22 ERA in 29 1/3 innings, but he’s averaged nearly 94 mph on his fastball.
- The Rays have signed left-hander Adam Wilk to a minor league deal. The 28-year-old saw his first Major League action since 2012 last year when he threw two innings for the Angels. Wilk’s 6.49 ERA in 26 1/3 Major League innings isn’t impressive, but he’s a nice depth option for the club’s Triple-A rotation, having worked to a 4.14 ERA in 543 2/3 innings at that level. Wilk had similar numbers in the Korea Baseball Organization in 2013, posting a 4.12 ERA in 91 2/3 innings with the NC Dinos.
Marlins, Nats, Reds Interested In Bronson Arroyo
JAN. 25: MLB Network’s Peter Gammons reports that the Marlins, too, have interest in adding Arroyo as a veteran option in their rotation (Twitter link). Miami has been said to be seeking a veteran to add to the rotation even after signing Wei-Yin Chen to a five-year deal. To this point, they’ve been connected to names like Doug Fister, Cliff Lee, Tim Lincecum, Alfredo Simon and Kyle Lohse.
JAN. 24: The Nationals and Reds are interested in veteran starting pitcher Bronson Arroyo, tweets Ken Rosenthal of FOX Sports. We heard rumors earlier today that Arroyo had recently visited Cincinnati’s Great American Ball Park. As Rosenthal reminds us (via Twitter), Arroyo bounced around three teams last season – the Diamondbacks, Braves, and Dodgers – while recovering from Tommy John surgery.
The right-handed starter will turn 39 in one month. From 2004 through 2013, he was arguably the most durable pitcher in the game. Nobody made more starts than Arroyo over those 10 seasons (326 starts). Only CC Sabathia and Mark Buehrle threw more than his 2,074 innings. While never the most dominating pitcher in the league, Arroyo provided consistent value with a contact oriented, low-walk approach (career 5.81 K/9, 2.44 BB/9).
Cincinnati’s interest in Arroyo makes perfect sense. The club has a rotation chock full of unproven youngsters, giving Arroyo room to serve as a much needed veteran and inning-eater. The team also has plenty of experience with him – he pitched for the Reds from 2006 through 2013. In terms of opportunity for Arroyo and value to the Reds, there appears to be a strong fit.
Arroyo’s former manager Dusty Baker now manages the Nationals. The club would seemingly view Arroyo as depth. Tanner Roark and Joe Ross appear to have a claim on the final two rotation jobs, although neither pitcher is guaranteed to pitch well. Initially, Arroyo would likely have to compete with Yusmeiro Petit for a long relief role. In wooing Arroyo, the Nationals do have one major advantage over the Reds – they’re a contender.
Prospect Notes: Dodgers, Cuba, Reed
The Dodgers’ Triple-A squad made a remarkable 334 transactions last season with 84 different players appearing in a game, writes Bill Plunkett of Baseball America. Director of player development Gabe Kapler implied that the big league club will continue to make frequent use of their minor league rosters as a way to shuffle depth around. Such a strategy can be particularly useful with back-of-the-roster pitching like spot starters and over-taxed young relievers.
- Cuba’s Ciego De Avila club will represent the island nation in the upcoming Caribbean Series, writes Ben Badler of Baseball America. The tournament begins on February 1. International tournaments are a commonly used opportunity to defect and join the majors. The most notable players in attendance will be Yulieski Gourriel, his young brother Lourdes Gourriel, and Alfredo Despaigne. Badler calls Yulieski, 31, the top player in Cuba, citing a .494/.586/.861 line in 215 plate appearances. Lourdes better fits the role of prospect – he’s 22 with a .340/.400/.561 slash. Badler calls him one of Cuba’s top five players. Despaigne is the best Cuban slugger. He hit .258/.352/.462 in 409 plate appearances last season for Japan’s Chiba Lotte Marines. While those are the biggest names to watch, there’s no telling which, if any, players will defect.
- MLB.com’s Jim Callis has unveiled his first base prospect rankings with the Astros‘ A.J. Reed taking the top spot. Reed’s excellent first full season included some truly gaudy stats – 34 home runs, 113 runs, and 127 RBI. Callis notes that he still has to prove he can hit advanced left-handed pitching. Pirates prospect Josh Bell and Mets first baseman Dominic Smith are next up in Callis’ Top 10.
A’s Notes: Alvarez, Doolittle, Crisp, Parker
A’s starter Henderson Alvarez is unlikely to pitch for the team before May, according the GM David Forst (via ESPN). The 25-year-old is recovering from shoulder surgery. Oakland signed the right-hander to a one-year, $4.25MM guarantee with up to $1.6MM in incentives back in December. The Marlins had previously non-tendered Alvarez.
Here’s more injury-related notes out of Oakland:
- A’s closer Sean Doolittle says he’s healthy and ready for the 2016 season, writes John Shea of the San Francisco Chronicle. Doolittle missed most of the 2015 with a shoulder injury. In his absence, the A’s had one of the worst bullpens in the league. Doolittle is pleased with the additions the club has made – particularly Ryan Madson, John Axford, Lian Hendriks, and Marc Rzepczynski.
- Coco Crisp‘s availability in 2016 is unknown, per Shea. Injuries limited him to 44 games last season, and he’s only just now beginning to hit. The club will learn more about his availability in Spring Training.
- Also from Shea, manager Bob Melvin expects Jarrod Parker to be ready for spring action. Parker, once a prominent pitching prospect, has missed most of the last two seasons due to Tommy John surgery. He’s experienced success in the majors, including a career 3.68 ERA, 6.45 K/9, and 2.98 BB/9 in 384 innings.
- Two more starting pitchers who ended the season on the disabled list – Jesse Hahn and Kendall Graveman – are fully healthy, writes Joe Stiglich of CSN Bay Area. Hahn and Graveman were acquired in trades prior to the 2015 season. They will join a competitive battle for a rotation role behind ace Sonny Gray and free agent import Rich Hill.
Tigers Notes: VSL, Upton, Kinsler
The Tigers are one of the many teams to pull out of the Venezuelan Summer League, reports Chris McCosky of the Detroit News. Political instability in the region has caused the league to collapse. GM Al Avila said the Tigers would continue to maintain their Venezuelan baseball academy and will also participate in the winter-based Parallel League. Some clubs are adding a second Dominican team to develop their Latin prospects, but Detroit is planning to open a Gulf Coast League team instead.
Here’s more from the Tigers:
- Back in August, GM Al Avila restructured the front office to create a baseball analytics department, writes James Hawkins of the Detroit News. At the club’s recent TigerFest, Avila admitted the club didn’t previously have an analytics team. He specifically referenced Statcast, a relatively new technology that tracks nearly everything that occurs on a baseball field. Technology in the game has developed to the point that no team can ignore the importance of data researchers.
- Justin Upton may have made his first impression on scouts when he was just 13, writes Anthony Fenech of the Detroit Free Press. Upton happened to be hanging around a ball field where a group of college players needed a catcher. Upton had no experience behind the plate but fearless donned the tools of ignorance to catch much more physically mature pitchers. When older brother Melvin Upton hit the competitive circuit with players like Cameron Maybin, David Wright, and Ryan Zimmerman, the younger Upton tagged along.
- Second baseman Ian Kinsler has made maintaining his speed a priority, writes George Sipple of the Detroit Free Press. Kinsler doesn’t want to become a bat-only player (despite rumors of 15 more DH jobs on the horizon). As such, a focus on continuing to run quickly will help him to regularly produce for the Tigers.
Poll: Best $100MM+ Hitting Contract
Six weeks ago, Jeff Todd asked MLBTR readers which of the four nine-figure contracts given to pitchers this offseason was the best. 37.6% of you said you preferred Jordan Zimmermann‘s deal — the cheapest of the four.
Of course, Jeff couldn’t ask a similar question about contracts for hitters, because the only hitter to agree to a deal over $100MM to that point was Jason Heyward. The hitting market was slow in coming, but now, finally, there have been two other hitters to cross the nine-figure threshold.
Heyward’s deal was the most expensive, at $184MM, although deferrals reduce its present-day value to about $5MM less than that. The deal also contains an opt-out after 2018, and possibly another after 2019 if he stays healthy. He also receives full or limited no-trade protection throughout the contract. Heyward is, of course, highly talented and very young and athletic for a free agent, but in a poll following the announcement of the deal, most MLBTR readers thought the Cubs overpaid.
The Orioles’ Chris Davis received somewhat less than Heyward, at $161MM and with very significant deferrals. He gets a partial no-trade clause but does not receive an opt-out. Davis is over three years older than Heyward and his skill set isn’t nearly as well rounded, which could lead to reasonable questions about how he’ll age over the life of the deal. Davis’ power is, however, second to none.
Justin Upton‘s $132.75MM contract with the Tigers is the most recent of the three. Upton gets an opt-out after 2017, as well as limited no-trade protection. He’s between Heyward and Upton in age. He doesn’t have Heyward’s defensive or baserunning value, and he doesn’t have Davis’ power either, but he’s blossomed into a reliable offensive threat, and his deal is a considerably smaller commitment than Heyward’s, at least.
Davis’ deal might be the riskiest of the three, given his age and issues with strikeouts. But one could argue that there’s more upside in Davis’ deal, too, given that he does not have an opt-out. What you think about the Heyward deal likely depends to some degree on how you weight defense in your assessment of a player’s value (and in your assessment of how he’ll age). Upton’s skill set is perhaps the easiest of the three to grasp — he’s a good, consistent power hitter who gets on base and plays decent defense in an outfield corner. He hasn’t yet blossomed into the MVP-type player he looked like he might be when he was a prospect, although he’s young enough that we might not have seen the best of him yet.
So which of these contracts is the best bet?
Quick Hits: Cars, Opt-Outs, DH
Here are MLBTR, we routinely toss around dollar figures in the tens or hundreds of millions in reference to players’ salaries. It’s rare, though, that we get as clear a glimpse into what those tens or hundreds of millions can actually buy as we do in this look at MLB players’ cars, courtesy of Tim Rohan of the New York Times. Specifically, Rohan profiles Alex Vega, who owns a custom car shop in the Miami area. Vega frequently works with baseball players during the offseason, because, he says, “Spring training is when business gets the craziest because everybody wants to show up with something new. I’m already getting calls. I’m already preparing cars.” For example, Rohan notes that Pablo Sandoval recently entered the shop hoping to buy a 2016 Rolls Royce Ghost; he left behind a customized Porsche that he had bought just two years before, only driving it for just over 15,000 miles. The quiz accompanying the article — in which the reader is asked to match the car to the star who bought it — is amusing. Here’s more from around the league.
- This offseason has seen the proliferation of opt-out clauses in long-term contracts, Tim Britton of the Providence Journal writes. Opt-out clauses were so rare in the past that the industry doesn’t have much concrete experience with what their results will be (although, I’ll note, it would be easy to study how opt-outs might have worked in past contracts by imagining what players might have done had they had opt-outs after, say, a year, or two years). The obvious conclusion is that opt-outs are a lose-lose for teams, who should theoretically lose productive players as they opt out while being stuck with the ones who don’t produce. But it might not be so simple, as Red Sox president of baseball operations Dave Dombrowski points out. “There may be other cases where somebody opts out and after a year — I’m not going to say this is going to happen but I’ll use it as an example — after a year something happens to him and he’s not pitching as well, and [a team says], ‘See? That was a benefit to us,'” he says. “So we really haven’t reached that second step yet.”
- It’s looking more and more likely that the designated hitter will be implemented in the NL as well as in the AL, Jared Diamond of the Wall Street Journal writes. The players’ association has long supported the change, and taking bats out of pitchers’ hands will help create more runs in an increasingly offense-starved playing environment. Also, Diamond points out that pitchers are hitting even worse than they used to, posting four of their five lowest season OPS marks since 1974 in the last four years.
Central Notes: Arroyo, Indians, Twins, Hawkins
Free agent starter Bronson Arroyo was recently at Great American Ballpark, John Fay of the Cincinnati Enquirer tweets. Robert Murray of Baseball Essential also recently reported that Arroyo threw for the Reds in Cincinnati. These reports, while somewhat circumstantial, point toward a possible reunion between Arroyo and the team for which he pitched from 2006 through 2013. Previous reports had suggested that the Reds were among the teams that had interest in the right-hander, although much would depend on Arroyo’s recovery from Tommy John surgery. The 38-year-old last pitched in the big leagues in June 2014, when he was with the Diamondbacks. Here’s more from the Central divisions.
- The Indians were smart to sign Corey Kluber and Carlos Carrasco to long-term deals before this offseason, Paul Hoynes of Cleveland.com writes. This winter has seen a number of what Hoynes implies are exorbitantly expensive pitching contracts, from the top end of the market (Johnny Cueto) to the upper middle (Jeff Samardzija, $90MM; Ian Kennedy, $70MM) to the lower middle (Mike Pelfrey, $16MM). Meanwhile, Kluber is controlled through 2021 at $14MM or less per season, and Carrasco through 2020 at $9.5MM or less per season. Of course, as Hoynes notes, Kluber and Carrasco weren’t free to negotiate with other teams when they signed those contracts. And, obviously, the Indians aren’t the only team signing top young pitchers to long-term deals. But both contracts delay their recipients’ free agency by up to three years, and when contrasted with the prices of free-agent pitching, they do contribute to a compelling case for locking up talented youngsters early.
- Former Twins pitchers LaTroy Hawkins and Rick Aguilera are likely to join the team to help work with pitchers in Spring Training, Charley Walters of the Pioneer Press tweets. Hawkins spent the first nine seasons of his career with the Twins. The reliever had a strong season with the Rockies and Blue Jays in 2015, but he’s now retired, having announced prior to the season that he intended it to be his last. Aguilera spent parts of 11 seasons with the Twins and last pitched in the big leagues in 2000. The three-time All Star was elected to the Twins Hall of Fame in 2008.
Josh Reddick Ready To Talk Extension With Athletics
Outfielder Josh Reddick is ready to discuss an extension with the Athletics, John Hickey of the Bay Area News Group tweets. John Shea of the San Francisco Chronicle further clarifies that there have not been any discussions to this point, and if the two sides do talk deal, Reddick does not want those discussions to continue into the season (Twitter links).
In October, Billy Beane told the media that he saw Reddick as a potential extension candidate. “Josh is a good player and he’s still young,” Beane told reporters, including the Chronicle’s Susan Slusser. “We’ve always liked having him here. Talented guy, does everything well. … We’re all very pleased with the year Josh had.”
Via Hickey, it sounds like Reddick wanted to settle his arbitration case before discussing a longer-term deal. Last week, Reddick and the A’s reached a $6.575MM deal for 2016, Reddick’s last season before free agency. That would mean a Reddick extension would begin with that as a starting point.
Beyond that, it’s hard to say what the parameters of a deal beyond that might be, although one player who signed a recent extension in a somewhat similar situation was the Yankees’ Brett Gardner. Gardner’s $52MM deal came before the 2014 season, when he was a year short of free agency, and covered 2015 through 2018. Gardner and Reddick have somewhat different profiles — Gardner was a bit older at the time of his extension than the soon-to-be-29-year-old Reddick is now, and he drew much of his value from his speed, his on-base percentage and his ability to play center field rather than his power. But the two players were, or are, both prime-age outfielders who are consistently valuable despite never having been superstars.
Of course, it’s unclear whether the cost-conscious Athletics would be willing to commit to a deal of that scope for Reddick. And given Reddick’s youth, the weakness of next year’s free agent market, ballooning salaries for free agents, and the increasing prevalence of player-friendly opt-outs, Reddick’s camp could also ask for a contract with a significantly different structure.
In any case, it’s easy to understand why the A’s would hope to keep Reddick at this point. He’s coming off perhaps his best offensive season to date (.272/.333/.449), and his play was a highlight of the Athletics’ otherwise disappointing 2015. Thanks to his home-run power, his solid defense, and dramatic improvements in his strikeout rate over the past several seasons, he has maintained his value well in his four years with the A’s, and given his age, there’s reason to think he could continue to do so.