AL West Notes: Davis, Astros, Gomez
Athletics slugger Khris Davis had his arbitration hearing yesterday, as Jon Heyman of FanRag Sports first tweeted, and the results should become known later today. The 29-year-old Davis was somewhat quietly a nice addition for the A’s, hitting .247/.307/.524 with a career-best 42 home runs in 610 trips to the plate. Oakland submitted a $4.65MM figure in arbitration, while Davis’ camp was seeking $5MM (as is shown in MLBTR’s Arbitration Tracker). While the difference in figures seems largely trivial to most fans, there’s obviously a notable difference to Davis both this year and moving forward, as a higher 2017 mark will bode better for future arbitration raises. For those interested in the team side of the matter, I spoke to multiple GMs and assistant GMs about arbitration from the team angle a couple of years ago.
A couple more notes on the AL West…
- Jake Kaplan of the Houston Chronicle reports that the Astros have set hearing dates for their remaining three arbitration cases. Collin McHugh, who filed for a $3.85MM salary and was met with a $3.35MM counter from the team, is set to go to a trial on Feb. 10. Utility infielder Marwin Gonzalez ($4.2MM vs. $3.25MM) has a hearing set for Feb. 14. Setup man Will Harris ($2.3MM vs. $1.95MM), meanwhile, is slated for a hearing on Feb. 17. MLB.com’s Brian McTaggart writes that the Astros still expect to avoid a hearing with at least one of those players.
- Rangers center fielder Carlos Gomez brought assistant hitting coach Justin Mashore to his home in the Dominican Republic for a one-week refresher on the alterations the Rangers made to his swing this past August, writes Gerry Fraley of the Dallas Morning News. Mashore and Texas hitting coach Anthony Iapoce both worked with Gomez to balance out his swing in an effort to see pitches a bit longer and to cut down on some of the wild hacks he’s been prone to taking at various points in his career (especially in his time with Houston). After hitting .221/.277/.342 in parts of two seasons in Houston, Gomez came to life with a .284/.362/.543 batting line and eight homers in 33 games with the Rangers late last season. The 31-year-old Gomez re-signed with Texas on a one-year, $11.5MM contract earlier this offseason in hopes of replicating that production over the course of a full season and re-entering the market next winter with a much stronger platform.
Nationals Sign Joe Nathan, Matt Albers
FEB. 1, 12:50am: Albers’ contract comes with a $1.15MM base salary and up to $600K worth of incentives, MLBTR has learned (Twitter links). He’ll take home $75K for reaching 25 and 30 appearances, an additional $100K for reaching 35 and 40 appearances, and an extra $125K for his 45th and 50th appearances. Albers also has opt-out dates on March 27 and June 1.
JAN. 31, 10:15pm: Nathan’s contract has a March 24 opt-out date, Heyman further reports (Twitter link)
1:26pm: The Nationals have announced minor-league deals with veteran righties Joe Nathan and Matt Albers. Both will receive invitations to MLB camp. Nathan can earn a $1.25MM salary if he cracks the roster, per Jon Heyman of Fan Rag (Twitter links), with incentives that could push the value past $3MM. Albers’ contract terms have yet to be reported.
It’s tempting to wonder whether the 42-year-old Nathan might factor into the Nats’ still-open closer’s role, though the lack of a 40-man spot suggests that’s not exactly an expected outcome. He does bring 377 career saves with him to D.C., but missed the vast bulk of the past two seasons after requiring Tommy John surgery early in 2015.
Nathan did, however, return to the big league hill last year, striking out nine and walking four batters without giving up a run over 6 1/3 innings. It was a brief sample, but he generated a healthy 14.4% swinging-strike rate and averaged 91.3 mph on his four-seamer.
Last we saw Nathan over a full season, he scuffled to a 4.81 ERA for the Tigers back in 2014. But he turned in an outstanding campaign just one year prior, when he gave the Rangers 64 2/3 innings of 1.39 ERA pitching with 10.2 K/9 against 3.1 BB/9.
There have been some ups and downs of late for Albers, too. Now 34, he was knocked around last year, posting a 6.31 ERA with 5.3 K/9 and 3.3 BB/9 for the White Sox. Before that, however, Albers was quite effective for a rather lengthy stretch; between 2012 and 2015, he spun 170 2/3 frames of 2.32 ERA ball.
Though ERA estimators didn’t quite support those numbers, they did view him as a solid pen arm. Despite a subpar whiff rate, Albers has long generated lots of grounders with his oft-used sinker.
[Related: Updated Nationals’ Depth Chart]
These veteran hurlers figure to compete for spots in the Nationals’ 2017 pen, but Washington’s pen mix is still in some flux. Though Nathan and Albers figure to boost the depth while providing competition, an undeniable need, it remains to be seen what the organization will do about the ninth inning.