Diamondbacks Name Ron Gardenhire Bench Coach
The D-backs announced today that they’ve hired former Twins manager Ron Gardenhire as their new bench coach. Rounding out Arizona’s new wave of coaches will be Tony Perezchica (third base), Mike Fetters (bullpen) and Robby Hammock (quality control).
Gardenhire will join the D-backs coaching staff and serve as top lieutenant for new manager Torey Lovullo, who was actually a candidate to replace Gardenhire in Minnesota prior to the hiring of Paul Molitor before the 2015 season. He’ll bring 13 year of managerial experience at the Major League level and another 11 years of Major League coaching experience to the Diamondbacks organization. This past season, Gardenhire served as a special assistant to GM Terry Ryan in the Twins organization, and prior to that he was a finalist in the Padres’ managerial hunt but lost out to Andy Green. He’ll have at least one familiar face on the D-backs roster, as the new job will reunite him with Chris Herrmann, who had somewhat of a breakout season in 2016 (in a limited role) after being traded from Minnesota to Arizona last winter.
Perezchica has spent 15 years in the D-backs organization and has most recently spent the past three years as Arizona’s minor league field coordinator. Fetters was the team’s quality control coach prior to moving up to bullpen coach, and he’ll be replaced by Hammock, who played for the Diamondbacks for parts of six seasons between 2003-11 and served as the manager for the team’s Double-A affiliate for the past two seasons.
Arizona also announced that hitting coach Dave Magadan, first base coach Dave McKay, pitching coach Mike Butcher and coach/interpreter Ariel Prieto will all return to the coaching staff in 2017. Magadan and Butcher are returning for their second seasons, while Prieto will be embarking on his third with the organization and McKay will be entering his fourth in 2017.
Marlins Sign Kyle Lobstein, Caleb Thielbar, Frank Garces To Minors Deals
The Marlins have added a trio of left-handed relievers to their depth chart by agreeing to minor league pacts with Kyle Lobstein, Caleb Thielbar and Frank Garces, as MLB.com’s Joe Frisaro writes. Miami has also picked up outfielder Moises Sierra and catcher Carlos Paulino on minors pacts. Each of the three lefties will come to Spring Training with the opportunity to join Hunter Cervenka and Jarlin Garcia as southpaw options on the 40-man roster.
[Related: Miami Marlins Depth Chart]
Lobstein, 27, spent the bulk of the 2016 season in the Pirates organization and totaled 25 innings with the Bucs across 14 relief appearances, pitching to a 3.96 ERA with a 15-to-12 K/BB ratio. Prior to this past season, he’d been up and down with the Tigers, providing rotation depth in the form of 17 starts between the 2014-15 seasons. Lobstein is a quintessential soft-tosser, having averaged just 87.2 mph on his heater in the Majors. That’s led to plenty of struggles against right-handed hitters, who have clobbered him at a .305/.363/.484 pace in the Majors. However, lefties have been continually befuddled by Lobstein, hitting just .209/.295/.284 against the former second-rounder (Rays, 2008).
Thielbar, meanwhile, joins the Fish out of the independent league St. Paul Saints. The 29-year-old (30 in January) Minnesota native pitched not only on the indy ball circuit in his home state but also spent parts of three seasons in the Twins’ bullpen. Thielbar had a brilliant rookie season back in 2013 when he posted a 1.76 ERA with 7.6 K/9 against 2.7 BB/9 across 46 innings. An extreme fly-ball pitcher, Thielbar took a step back in 2014 (3.40 ERA, 6.6 K/9, 3.0 BB/9 in 47 2/3 innings) and had a short-lived stint with Minnesota in 2015, tossing five innings and surrendering three runs. Thielbar’s averaged just a but over 89.3 mph on his fastball in his career and had success against both righties and lefties in his fairly limited time in the Majors.
Garces, 27 in January, last appeared in the Majors with the 2015 Padres. He has a 4.60 ERA in 47 big league innings and has averaged 7.7 K/9 against 4.4 BB/9 with a 34.5 percent ground-ball rate. He spent 2016 with San Diego’s Triple-A affiliate and logged a 4.41 ERA in 114 1/3 innings, making 18 starts and 19 relief appearances.
The 28-year-old Sierra spent parts of three seasons in the Majors with the Blue Jays and White Sox, hitting .243/.296/.383 with nine homers across 489 plate appearances. He spent the 2016 campaign with Miami’s Double-A affiliate and batted a robust .336/.414/.519 in 307 plate appearances, although he was obviously facing younger, less experienced competition for the most part.
Paulino, 27, returns to the organization that originally signed him out of the Dominican Republic. He’s spent time with the Pirates and Twins organizations since departing the Marlins and is a career .242/.305/.290 hitter in parts of four seasons at Triple-A.
John Fisher Replaces Lew Wolff As Athletics’ Managing Partner
Lew Wolff is stepping down as the managing partner of the Athletics and will sell the majority of his stake in the team to the remaining partners, reports Susan Slusser of the San Francisco Chronicle. Wolff will be chariman emeritus moving forth, per Slusser, and majority owner John Fisher will assume his previous role as the team’s managing partner.
Furthermore, Slusser reports that Michael Crowley will no longer serve as the team’s president and will become a senior advisor to the ownership group. Dave Kaval, president of Major League Soccer’s San Jose Earthquakes, will become the new team president in Oakland, according to Slusser.
“I want to thank Lew for his leadership over the last 11 years,” said Fisher in a press release formally announcing the ownership shakeup. “His initiative and love of the game of baseball brought my family to the A’s, and we would not be involved without him. Lew has given the organization all of his energy and experience for the last 11 years and I look forward to a new chapter in our working relationship and friendship. It is a privilege for me to steward the A’s at this important moment for the franchise.”
The exact ramifications that this transition will have on Oakland’s hunt for a new stadium remain to be seen, but Kaval briefly addressed the issue in a statement of his own: “Given my longstanding love of baseball and my experience building Avaya Stadium (the Earthquakes’ home stadium), I am enthusiastic to join the Athletics as the Club pursues a world-class ballpark in Oakland for the best fans in baseball.”
Marlins Targeting Kenley Jansen
The Marlins’ top target in free agency is not a starting pitcher, but rather right-hander Kenley Jansen, reports Jon Heyman of FanRag Sports. Recognizing the difficulty they’ll face in building out a rotation that is still reeling from the shocking death of Jose Fernandez — there are few options in free agency and Miami’s woeful farm system makes trades difficult — Miami could instead look to build out a “super pen” to help shorten games and prevent leads from escaping when their starters provide them. ESPN’s Jerry Crasnick wrote earlier this week that with few rotation options available to them, the Marlins could look to upgrade the back of the bullpen instead.
Obviously, the Marlins aren’t exactly frequent shoppers at the very top of the free-agent market, and the team’s perennially low payroll is a significant strike against their chances at landing Jansen this winter. However, Miami did spend $80MM to add left-hander Wei-Yin Chen last offseason, and while the results of that deal (in year one, anyway) weren’t what the team had hoped, their willingness to spend at that level was a departure from their most recent free-agent ventures. Jansen could very well match or exceed that $80MM sum — we at MLBTR pegged him for a five-year, $85MM deal this winter — but with Miami only one year removed from spending that type of money and forfeiting a draft pick to do so, it’s tough to definitively rule out an earnest pursuit.
Jansen, as Heyman notes, is plenty familiar with Miami skipper Don Mattingly from the pair’s days together in Los Angeles, and Miami’s proximity to his native Curacao could be another minor point in the Marlins’ favor. There’s probably some allure based on those factors, though it seems unlikely that Jansen would concede any type of significant discount based on familiarity or geography.
Miami already has a the makings of a terrific bullpen in 2017, with right-handers A.J. Ramos, Kyle Barraclough and David Phelps all having contributed ERAs of 2.85 or better to go along with impressive K/9 rates (14.0 for Barraclough, 11.8 for Phelps and 10.3 for Ramos). Phelps, of course, could conceivably move back into the rotation out of necessity, though the Marlins’ plans for him are seemingly undetermined at this point. Adding Jansen and his lifetime 2.20 ERA and 13.9 K/9 to that group, with or without Phelps, would make for an imposing group to finish out games for the Marlins, though it remains to be seen whether they’ll be comfortable spending at the assuredly record rate it’ll take to land Jansen.
Minor MLB Transactions: 11/17/16
Here are the day’s minor moves from around the league…
- The Cardinals have signed right-hander Kendry Flores and outfielder Todd Cunningham to minor league deals with invitations to Major League Spring Training, tweets MLB.com’s Jen Langosch. Flores, 25 next week, made one appearance with the Marlins in 2016 and has totaled 15 1/3 innings in Miami over the past two seasons, logging a 4.02 ERA with 10 strikeouts against seven walks (one intentional). He has a career 3.78 ERA with 7.0 K/9 against 3.2 BB/9 in 150 innings at the Triple-A level and has made 124 minor league starts, so he can give St. Louis some rotation depth with a bit of MLB experience. Cunningham, meanwhile, spent the 2016 season with the Angels but posted just a .438 OPS in 29 MLB plate appearances. The former Braves prospect, who will turn 28 in March, hasn’t hit much in the Majors but is a .274/.349/.368 hitter in parts of four Triple-A seasons and can play all three outfield positions.
- The Rangers announced this week that they’ve signed right-hander Allen Webster to a minors deal and invited him to Spring Training. Webster, 27 in February, was a big-time prospect with the Dodgers and Red Sox but never found his footing in the Majors. He went from L.A. to Boston in the Adrian Gonzalez/Carl Crawford blockbuster and then from Boston to Arizona alongside Rubby De La Rosa in exchange for Wade Miley. Through 120 1/3 Major League innings, Webster has a 6.13 ERA and a 76-to-66 K/BB ratio. He spent last season with Samsung Lions in the Korea Baseball Organization and didn’t fare much better, posting a 5.70 ERA in 12 starts.
- Left-hander Evan Grills has agreed to a minor league deal with the Rockies, reports Ben Nicholson-Smith of Sportsnet (on Twitter). The Canadian-born southpaw has spent his entire career in the Astros organization to date and pitched at three levels in 2016 (Class-A Advanced, Double-A and Triple-A), working to a combined 3.71 ERA with 6.6 K/9 against 1.5 BB/9 in 135 2/3 innings.
Coaching Notes: Cora, Redmond, Sherlock
Here’s the latest on coaching changes around the majors:
- Former big league infielder Alex Cora will take over the Astros‘ vacant bench coach position, as Ken Rosenthal of FOX Sports first reported on Twitter. Long noted as a potential future MLB manager, Cora will return to uniform alongside Houston skipper A.J. Hinch. Since his 14-year major league career ended in 2011, Cora has served as an ESPN analyst and worked for Puerto Rico’s national team; he is the general manager of the team’s 2017 World Baseball Classic entrant. Hinch spoke of his new bench coach’s potential to provide “impact an entire roster of players,” as Jake Kaplan of the Houston Chronicle reports. Cora will take over for Trey Hillman, who left the Astros to manage in the KBO.
- The Rockies have hired Mike Redmond as bench coach, per a team announcement. He’ll be a top lieutenant to new skipper Bud Black. The 45-year-old, a long-time major league catcher, managed the Marlins from the 2013 season through early in the 2015 campaign. Redmond will join Black in attempting to steer Colorado back to a winning record. The organization has signaled that it’ll boost its payroll and seems intent on competing after a relatively hopeful 2016 season.
- Glenn Sherlock has joined the Mets as their new third base coach, replacing Tim Teufel, the club announced. Tuefel will be re-assigned if he chooses to stick with the organization. As for Sherlock, he’ll not only wave runners home but will be tasked with working with the Mets’ catchers. He has long worked with the Diamondbacks in a variety of coaching capacities. A former minor league backstop, Sherlock will be looked to as a key figure in the development of Travis d’Arnaud and Kevin Plawecki. That pair of touted catchers has yet to deliver consistently at the major league level, and their continued growth figures to be an important factor for the Mets in 2017 and beyond.
Market Notes: Braves, Nats, Sale, S-Rod, Hernandez, Santana, Rosario
The Braves are “aggressively swapping offers” with other organizations for starters, according to ESPN.com’s Buster Olney (Twitter link). Atlanta has been rumored to have inquired on basically all of the quality, young, controllable arms that might be available, and it seems that the organization is serious about pursuing a major strike. One such pitcher, of course, is White Sox lefty Chris Sale, who has also reportedly been asked about by the Braves’ division rivals to the north. Adding a starting pitcher isn’t exactly a priority for the Nationals, at least from the perspective of need, but Barry Svrluga of the Washington Post argues that the team ought to push hard for Sale. By Svrluga’s reckoning, the team has the prospect arsenal needed to get something done; after another postseason disappointment, he says, adding another ace could get the team over the hump.
Here are a few more notes on the developing market:
- There are five teams in on free agent utilityman Sean Rodriguez, reports Chris Cotillo of SB Nation (via Twitter). One is the Pirates, who have said they’re interested in a reunion, and the Dodgers are also intrigued, per Robert Murray of Fan Rag. MLBTR rated Rodriguez as the 35th-best free agent available after his productive 2016 campaign.
- We’ve heard discussion about the possibility of the Phillies dealing Cesar Hernandez, particularly after the team acquired second-base-capable Howie Kendrick, and CSNPhilly.com’s Corey Seidman takes a look at his possible trade market. His productive 2016 and cheap control make him an interesting option for other organizations, though the question remains whether he can sustain his breakout. Seidman discusses some players who could hold appeal to Philadelphia, suggesting that the club would be most interested in a major league return.
- Lefty Johan Santana may not be done yet, Cotillo adds on Twitter. He’s planning on winter ball in Venezuela in hopes that he can land an opportunity with a major league organization. This certainly isn’t the first time that Santana, now 37, has had a crack at a return, but his prior efforts have all been thwarted by injury. The two-time Cy Young winner has not seen major league action since 2012.
- Free agent slugger Wilin Rosario is still hopeful of landing with a major league club after spending a year in Korea, Cotillo tweets, but he’s not committed to playing in North America. A return to the KBO could also be a consideration, per the report. Rosario, 27, may no longer be an option behind the dish, but his power should intrigue regardless. Over 532 plate appearances last year with the Hanwha Eagles, he posted a .321/.367/.593 batting line with 33 long balls, though of course the KBO is a notably friendly league for hitters.
Latest On Yoenis Cespedes, Mets
At least three other organizations are currently showing interest in wooing outfielder Yoenis Cespedes away from the Mets, per Mike Puma of the New York Post (via Twitter). With four suitors (including New York) presently in the hunt, Cespedes’s representatives believe he could reach a deal by early December.
That would represent a much quicker end to the open-market experience than Cespedes experienced last year, when he did not re-sign with the Mets until late January. But this time around, he’s the consensus top-available free agent with lesser competition and another superstar campaign under his belt. While there aren’t a lot of teams that make for perfect fits, the expectation remains that Cespedes will draw some concerted bidding that drives his price north of $100MM.
The Mets have made no secret of the fact that they are interested in a reunion with a player who had a huge role in generating two consecutive postseason appearances. It remains to be seen whether New York will be willing to go to a length and total value that it prefers not to in order to bring him back, but it’s also possible that the price tag won’t go out of the team’s comfort zone.
In an appearance on 710 WOR (audio link), GM Sandy Alderson suggested that it’s all still very much up in the air how things will turn out with Cespedes. The club is “in one sense in a better position” than it was last winter, he noted, since Cespedes is “much more familiar” with the organization. The 31-year-old has personally indicated his interest in returning to the Mets, said Alderson, and there has been extensive communication with his agent.
Among other topics, Alderson also chatted about the alternatives in the event Cespedes heads elsewhere. He suggested there are other “significant” right-handed hitters who could conceivably be pursued, noting Jose Bautista as one of several free agents and possible trade targets who may be available. There are also “complementary piece[s]” who could be had; Alderson noted Steve Pearce as an example of a player who’d at least hypothetically offer another option. It’s still an open question for the team, said the veteran executive, whether it’s truly necessary to add another right-handed-hitting outfielder given the team’s other lineup options.
Max Scherzer, Rick Porcello Win Cy Young Awards
Max Scherzer of the Nationals and Rick Porcello of the Red Sox have won the Cy Young Awards in their respective leagues, the Baseball Writers Association of America announced tonight.
That’s the second time the 32-year-old has taken home the hardware, though his prior award came in the American League (in 2013, with the Tigers). Scherzer led the N.L. with 228 1/3 innings, twenty wins, and a 0.968 WHIP. He ended the year with 2.96 ERA with 11.2 K/9 against 2.2 BB/9.
That showing was good enough to beat out Cubs hurlers Jon Lester and Kyle Hendricks — who finished second and third, respectively. Scherzer ended up with 25 of the 30 first-place votes, reflecting a strong consensus, but in truth it was a widespread field full of worthwhile contenders. That includes the absurdly dominant Clayton Kershaw, who probably would have run away with the award had he not missed a dozen starts due to injury, and the dearly departed Jose Fernandez, who garnered down-ballot consideration after a dominant season that ended in tragedy.
Porcello’s win came over fellow finalists Justin Verlander of the Tigers and Corey Kluber of the Indians. All were worthy contenders in a year in which nobody put up a truly dominant year. The best A.L. pitchers on a rate basis was reliever Zach Britton, who managed a fourth-place finish despite the innings limitations inherent to his job.
The vote came with its share of controversy. Verlander received 14 of the 30 available first-place votes, but narrowly missed the award when he was left off of two ballots altogether. The 33-year-old threw 227 2/3 innings of 3.04 ERA ball, with 10.0 K/9 against 2.3 BB/9, whereas Porcello racked up 223 frames of 3.15 ERA pitching on the back of 7.6 K/9 and 1.3 BB/9. The difference, perhaps, was that the ultimate victor managed a sparkling 22-4 win-loss record, whereas Verlander carried a less notable 16-and-9 mark.
MLBTR Chat Transcript
Click here to view MLBTR Chat Transcript With Jason Martinez: November 16, 2016