Archives for April 2017

Blue Jays Claim Ty Kelly From Mets

By Steve Adams | April 10, 2017 at 3:24pm CDT

The Blue Jays announced that they’ve claimed infielder Ty Kelly off waivers from the Mets. To clear a spot on the 40-man roster, the Jays transferred injured Rule 5 pick Glenn Sparkman from the 10-day DL to the 60-day DL.

Kelly, 28, made his MLB debut with New York last year and batted .241/.352/.345 in 71 plate appearances. A former 13th-round pick by the Orioles (2009), Kelly has spent most of his minor league career playing second base and third base, though he does have more than 1000 innings of experience in left field as well. The switch-hitter has a lifetime .275/.382/.383 batting line in 397 games and 1586 plate appearances at the Triple-A level.

The minor league veteran will serve as a depth option for the Blue Jays, who needn’t carry him on the Major League roster immediately, as he does have a minor league option remaining. Toronto second baseman Devon Travis has a history of injuries, and third baseman Josh Donaldson left Sunday’s game with a minor hamstring issue, though he’s already expressed confidence that he’ll be able to play in tomorrow’s game. Kelly nonetheless gives the Jays a bit of insurance against any significant injury around the infield and potentially in the corner outfield as well.

As for Sparkman, the 24-year-old suffered a broken thumb back in Spring Training during pitchers’ fielding practice and seemingly won’t be ready to get back on the mound before the onset of summer.

Nats Place Trea Turner On 10-Day DL, Recall Michael Taylor

By Steve Adams | April 10, 2017 at 2:40pm CDT

The Nationals announced today that they’ve placed shortstop Trea Turner on the 10-day disabled list and recalled outfielder Michael Taylor from Triple-A Syracuse to take his spot on the active roster. Turner suffered a hamstring strain on Saturday, and while manager Dusty Baker initially downplayed the severity of the issue, the Nats are apparently concerned enough to shut their young star down for a bit more than a week.

[Related: Updated Washington Nationals Depth Chart]

Turner, 23, is off to a sluggish .158/.158/.211 start to his season, and he’s punched out in seven of his 19 plate appearances. He’s still contributed positive value on the basepaths, swiping three bags on the young season. Turner entered the 2017 campaign with extremely high expectations after hitting an incredible .342/.370/.567 across 344 plate appearances last year in his rookie season, though he’ll be looking to deliver on that hype at a new position. After spending the bulk of his time in 2017 in center field, Turner was penciled in as the everyday shortstop in D.C. this offseason, as offseason pickup Adam Eaton slotted in as Baker’s everyday center fielder.

There’s no indication that Turner will miss significant time due to the injury, as Chelsea Janes of the Washington Post tweets that the move merely allows the team to proceed with caution. Mark Zuckerman of tweets a similar sentiment, noting that Baker said MLB’s shift to a 10-day minimum stint on the disabled list contributed to the move; the team may not have wanted to wait 15 days, Zuckerman writes, but the 10-day term was more manageable.

In Turner’s absence, veteran Stephen Drew and fellow youngster Wilmer Difo are options to serve at shortstop. Taylor isn’t likely to see much in the way of regular action, though Baker and the Nats could take advantage of his presence to get Eaton a day of early in the season if they wish.

Brewers Outright Michael Blazek

By Steve Adams | April 10, 2017 at 2:05pm CDT

Here are the day’s minor moves from around the league…

The Brewers announced that right-hander Michael Blazek, who was designated for assignment last week when they claimed Nick Franklin off waivers, has cleared waivers and been sent outright to Triple-A. The 28-year-old righty turned in a disappointing 5.66 ERA in 41 1/3 innings with the Brewers last year, but he’d previously been a reliable piece of the Milwaukee bullpen. In 55 2/3 innings for the Brew Crew in 2015, Blazek registered an excellent 2.43 ERA with 7.6 K/9, 2.9 BB/9 and a 47.4 percent ground-ball rate. Blazek’s home-run, ground-ball and walk rates all went backward last season, but he did maintain a healthy 93 mph average on his velocity. Pitching in Triple-A Colorado Springs will hardly be a cakewalk, but he’ll look to get back on track in that hitter-friendly setting and work his way back into the Brewers’ big league plans.

Poll: The Phillies’ Closer

By Steve Adams | April 10, 2017 at 1:34pm CDT

After Jeanmar Gomez suffered his second blown save of the season, the Phillies are already considering a change in the ninth inning, manager Pete Mackanin told reporters last night. To those who haven’t followed the situation closely, it may seem like a short leash for a player that save 37 games last season. But Gomez’s troubles date back considerably further than 2017 Opening Day; Gomez posted a dreadful 8.33 ERA following the All-Star break last season — including an even more unsightly 22 earned runs in his final 15 innings. Even when he was pitching effectively prior to that, the now-29-year-old Gomez’s 5.6 K/9 rate and 91.5 mph fastball weren’t the typical numbers one would expect from a high-leverage reliever.

Of course, it should be noted that in spite of those numbers, Gomez was a plenty serviceable ninth-inning option for the rebuilding Phillies in the first half last year. In 41 2/3 innings, he pitched to a 2.59 ERA, walked just 2.2 hitters per nine innings and logged a strong 53.1 percent ground-ball rate. And from 2013-15, Gomez posted a very nice 3.19 ERA in 217 1/3 innings in 143 appearances for the Phillies (including eight starts). Clearly, there’s a track record of success here, but the recent results are understandably concerning for the Phils.

If the Phillies do make a change, there are three reasonable alternatives already in the bullpen: right-handers Joaquin Benoit, Hector Neris and Edubray Ramos.

The 39-year-old Benoit has some experience pitching in the ninth, having collected 38 saves since the 2013 season began. Benoit has turned in six sub-3.00 ERA seasons in the past seven years while averaging an even 10 strikeouts per nine innings pitched in that time. Utilizing Benoit in the ninth inning would keep both Neris and Ramos from accruing saves early in their career as well, which could help to keep down their arbitration price tags. While it’s unlikely that that would be the sole factor in deciding to go with the most experienced option of the bunch, it could be perceived as an ancillary benefit for Phils decision-makers. Benoit is signed to a one-year deal, so the Phillies could use him in the ninth while a younger option gains a bit more experience, then look to trade Benoit this summer.

Neris might be the most logical option of the bunch, given his excellence in each of the past two seasons while serving in a late-inning role under Mackanin. The 27-year-old Neris has tallied 125 big league innings in his career to date, logging a collective 2.88 ERA with 10.7 K/9, 3.0 BB/9 and a 40.6 percent ground-ball rate. His 11.4 K/9 rate and average 94.1 mph fastball from 2016 were both career-bests, and last year’s 16.3 percent swinging-strike rate checked in at a solid 33rd out of 180 qualified relievers (h/t: Fangraphs). Neris has yet to even reach two years of big league service time, so if he steps into the ninth inning successfully, he could theoretically be locking down games for the Phillies through 2021.

Ramos, too, could be a long-term option for the Phils, though he comes with far and away the least experience of the bunch. The 24-year-old has just 43 2/3 innings of Major League work under his belt to date, during which he’s logged a 3.50 ERA with a 44-to-12 K/BB ratio. Ramos, who has averaged 95.1 mph on his heater in his young career, was even more dominant in the minors last season, recording a 1.16 ERA with a 41-to-4 K/BB ratio in 38 2/3 frames between Double-A and Triple-A. He’s controllable through the 2022 campaign, so like Neris, he could be viewed as a long-term closing option for the rebuilding Phillies, even if he admittedly seems like a long shot at present.

Even if nothing transpires today, a move seems very possible in the near future, barring a very quick turnaround from Gomez. All of that said, I’ll turn it over to everyone to weigh in (link to poll for Trade Rumors mobile app users)…

AL East Notes: Machado, Price, Barnes, Rasmus

By Steve Adams | April 10, 2017 at 11:53am CDT

Manny Machado’s capability to play shortstop could impact the Orioles in both the short- and long-term picture, writes Ken Rosenthal of FOX Sports. The 24-year-old Machado will hit the open market following the 2018 season, and he tells Rosenthal that he still thinks about playing his natural position of shortstop even though he’s spent the bulk of his career at third base (and become one of the best defensive third basemen in the game — if not of all-time). Asked about the thought of playing shortstop on a consistent basis, Machado replies: “I’m not going to lie. It’s always been there. … I played a little bit there (last year). That was fun. I trained this year to play there just in case anything happened.” Machado also acknowledges, though, that he’s experienced great success at third base, rhetorically asking, “So why change?”

As Rosenthal notes, the Orioles hold a $14MM option over J.J. Hardy at season’s end, and the ability to move Machado to short could impact their thinking. (Although the option would vest and become guaranteed if Hardy tallies 600 PAs.) Beyond that, though, Rosenthal wonders if Machado would be enticed by the opportunity to play shortstop on an everyday basis when he reaches free agency in the 2018-19 offseason, whether in Baltimore or elsewhere.

A few more notes pertaining to the AL East…

Red Sox left-hander David Price threw a 20-pitch bullpen session today and came away from the workout feeling good, he told reporters (via Chad Jennings of the Boston Herald). The key for the former AL Cy Young winner, however, will be seeing how he feels tomorrow. Price has yet to pitch for the Sox this season after a forearm issue led to a scare during Spring Training and, prior to today, hadn’t thrown off a mound since Feb. 28, Jennings notes. Farrell said that if Price feels strong tomorrow, another mound session would be lined up for Wednesday. There’s still no definitive timeline when it comes to Price’s return, but Jennings notes that he won’t pitch in the Majors until at least May.
In a Red Sox bullpen that has quite a bit of uncertainty throughout its ranks, right-hander Matt Barnes has emerged as the primary setup option for closer Craig Kimbrel, writes Brian MacPherson of the Providence Journal. That could change, potentially, when Tyler Thornburg is ready to come off the disabled list, but Barnes’ early showing and the struggles of many of his teammates have him primed for a big role in the Boston ’pen. ““A guy that’s maybe a little bit more seasoned than some others in some of those big spots, he’s going to be a pivotal guy in our bullpen,” said Sox manager John Farrell to MacPherson. The 26-year-old Barnes averaged 9.6 K/9 against 4.2 BB/9 with a 45.6 percent ground-ball rate out of the bullpen last season, and he’s logged a 5-to-1 K/BB ratio through his first 3 2/3 shutout innings in 2017.
Marc Topkin of the Tampa Bay Times tweets that Colby Rasmus’ rehab assignment with the Rays’ Class-A Advanced affiliate in Charlotte is still on hold for a few more days, likely pushing the outfielder’s debut back until next week. Rasmus was involved in an outfield collision in Charlotte last Thursday, as Topkin reported, and while he remained in that game, the team is now proceeding rather cautiously. Topkin also suggests that speedster Mallex Smith will likely head to Triple-A Durham once Rasmus is healthy enough to rejoin the Major League roster. Rasmus, who signed a one-year, $5MM contract with Tampa Bay this winter, is recovering from offseason hip surgery.

Inside The Draft Room: The 2005 Red Sox

By Chuck Wasserstrom | April 10, 2017 at 10:38am CDT

Put on a scouting director hat and ask yourself this question: Do you want your team to do poorly so you can have the maximum number of opportunities to select a premium draft pick, or do you want your team to win – knowing all the supposed “top of the line” talent will already have been taken?

The question is purely rhetorical. For the person directing the draft and all the scouts out scouring for talent in the smallest of towns, the ring is the thing.

But that doesn’t mean you can’t win and have fun on the scouting side, too.

In 2004, the Boston Red Sox – down 3 games to 0 in the American League Championship Series against the New York Yankees – rallied to win their final eight postseason games in eliminating the Yankees and sweeping the St. Louis Cardinals. In the process, they won their first World Series since 1918.

On paper, if no free agents switched clubs, the Red Sox would have picked 28th overall in the ensuing 2005 amateur draft – with a second pick coming in at No. 58. But baseball isn’t played on paper. After the annual free agent signing frenzy, the world champs lost Orlando Cabrera, Derek Lowe and Pedro Martinez, and now – thanks to compensation selections and supplemental picks – found themselves with six draft choices from No. 23 to No. 57.

So … to the victors did go the spoils.

Oh, there’s just one thing. They were about to restock with a first-time scouting director.

– – –

In November 2002, Theo Epstein – just 28 years of age at the time – was named general manager of the Red Sox. Earlier that year, he had joined the organization as the assistant GM after coming over from the San Diego Padres.

During his time in San Diego, Epstein struck up a friendship with Jason McLeod, a former minor league pitcher who began his Padres career as a Community Relations intern in 1994 – before moving over to Stadium Operations that winter and to the Baseball Operations Department in the fall of 1995 (Epstein had joined the team earlier that year). McLeod’s time with the Padres later included three years as a minor league coach, a return to the front office as the assistant director of scouting and player development, and two years as an area scout in Southern California.

Epstein brought McLeod to Boston as an associate scouting director in the fall of 2003, assisting David Chadd. After the Red Sox won the 2004 Fall Classic, Chadd moved on to Detroit to become the Tigers’ vice president of amateur scouting – and McLeod was promoted into the scouting leadership position. Epstein wasn’t concerned about inserting his former Padres cohort into that role despite McLeod’s relative lack of experience in the draft room.

“Jason and I grew up together in the Padres organization,” Epstein said in an email, “so I knew he could really evaluate and was a great leader.

“It was a seamless transition because Jason had worked with us in 2004. The entire organization was focused on the draft with all the picks we had, and Jason did a great job as always leading the department. We had a lot of fun all scouting season and in the draft meetings.”

McLeod acknowledges that he didn’t have a boatload of experience from a draft-day perspective when he took over.

“In ’04, I was instilling and re-doing the processes of it,” McLeod says. “David was absolutely the scouting director; he was pounding it out on the road. But from the front office side of things, we were kind of co-directing that department that year.

“During my time in San Diego, I had sat in on many draft meetings, but I hadn’t been in the director’s seat or calling the shots or instituting processes or things like that until I got to Boston.”

The Red Sox had broken the curse. Now, just a few months later at their January scouting meetings, McLeod was presiding over the group and putting a game plan into place.

“There was a lot of excitement, obviously, coming off the World Series year,” he says. “For those of us in amateur scouting, we were just as excited knowing that we had two first-round picks and three sandwich picks. We felt that we were going to get a couple impact players with the volume of picks that we had. And coming out of the prior summer – after scouting the Cape, scouting the Team USA juniors – we knew that it was going to be a really good draft.

“We told our guys, ‘Let’s get after it and go crush it and find as much impact and upside as we can.’”

– – –

The top tier of the 2005 draft was considered to be very deep, and the results continue to speak for themselves.

Eight of the first 12 selections have appeared in the All-Star Game. Five of the first seven – Justin Upton, Alex Gordon, Ryan Zimmerman, Ryan Braun and Troy Tulowitzki – have career WAR above 25.0.

The Red Sox knew they had no chance of landing any of those five – or high school outfielders/future all-stars Andrew McCutchen and Jay Bruce, who went 11-12. But there was still a lot of talent out there to be had. Boston had the No. 23 and No. 26 selections in the first round – along with the Nos. 42, 45 and 47 slots in the supplemental round. The team’s second-round pick was No. 57 overall.

The key was to be prepared for anything and everything. Back in 2005, the draft was conducted via a conference call – and there was very little time between picks.

“At that time, we did a lot of mock drafts,” explains McLeod, who is now the Cubs’ senior vice president of scouting/player development. “We would run a mock draft where different scenarios were happening. I think at that time we maybe had 30 seconds before the next pick. So we ran a lot of simulations in the room. Theo liked to try to set up scenarios where … there were 12 of us in the room, and he’d set up scenarios and go worst case. I’m sitting there watching the board, and he’d set it up and say, ‘Now this guy and that guy are gone. Where are you going here?’ And he put you on a timeclock. We probably did that about five or six different times where we ran those simulations.

“We felt good about the information that we had. We felt good about the performance metrics we were looking at, and about how we had the board stacked. So at that point, let’s run the simulations. ‘Now, he’s gone. Now these two guys are gone.’ We also ran some where we knew there would be no way the board would fall that way, but if it all blew up, ‘Now where are you going? Why are you doing that?’ So you do those things prior to draft day. You trust the process and you trust the preparation.

“At the same time, just like every draft year … as the pick is getting close, there is some anxiety and anticipation that you feel. But again, you just trust your process. You do all the work to be prepared for every situation.”

– – –

By draft day, the Red Sox had narrowed their focus to three collegians for the No. 23 selection – Oregon State outfielder Jacoby Ellsbury, Arizona outfielder Trevor Crowe and Texas A&M shortstop Cliff Pennington.

“We spent so much time talking about those three players in particular, because we were really hopeful that one of them got to us,” McLeod said. “We spent an inordinate amount of time in the weeks leading up to the draft meetings on them. We kept stacking them and stacking them and talking about their strengths and weaknesses.

“The funny thing about Jacoby … that year, he had such a great year, and I saw four or five of his games – and he probably had his worst games when I was there. I actually took Theo to a game at the University of Washington when the Red Sox were in Seattle. Of course, Jacoby’s first two at-bats, he was 0-for-2 – and Theo was like, ‘Jason, you’re not allowed to watch his next at-bat. You’re bad luck. Please, turn around or something.’ So I literally turned around and heard the crack of the bat; I turned back and the ball was in the gap. Theo and I are standing down the third-base line, and I remember watching this kid round second turning on the afterburners as he’s coming into third. It was just something. You watch a lot of games and see a lot of fast guys, but then you see stuff that makes you say ‘Wow.’ That was one of those moments, just watching this guy fly around the bases. So I knew I wasn’t totally bad luck. I was in the ballpark. I didn’t see the contact, but at least I heard it.

“I literally saw him go 2-for-15 in a year that he hit over .400 and had an on-base of almost .500. But our scouts were so convicted on him – from the area guy (John Booher) to the regional guy (West Coast cross-checker Fred Peterson) to our national cross-checker (Dave Finley). They were all like, ‘This is our guy. This is it.’

“He was already doing the things that we were looking for … the ability to get on base … the fact that he was an outstanding athlete who was going to play in center field … he had a low K (strikeout) rate. My question was just going to be the strength. I remember seeing him in the Cape, and I was worried a little bit about how the ball was going to come off the bat.

“But there’s a really good story from that year. Oregon State was down at the University of San Diego, and it was one of the only days in the history of the University of San Diego that they actually had a rainout. San Diego’s coach, Rich Hill – who we had a really good relationship with – was gracious enough to let us work out Jacoby. So a couple of our scouts got to see him hit in the cage. Then they took him up to the Jenny Craig Pavilion, and there’s Jacoby Ellsbury throwing down gorilla dunks for our scouts – showing them his explosiveness and his athleticism. I wasn’t at that workout, but our cross-checker just called me and was blown away with the explosiveness in Jacoby’s body. He was like, ‘You will not believe what Jacoby just did.’

“If you looked at his performance, all the makeup we got on him, the fact that we felt that he was going to be ultra-disruptive on the bases … we thought he was going to be a shutdown center fielder. All of that aligned with someone that we absolutely wanted to bring into the organization. That’s why we liked Pennington. That’s why we liked Crowe. They were all these dynamic athletes that played in the middle of the field.”

Crowe went No. 14 to Cleveland. Pennington was chosen at No. 21 by Oakland. The Marlins, drafting after the Athletics and before the Red Sox, selected high school second baseman Aaron Thompson – and Ellsbury was Boston-bound.

McLeod literally had about 30 seconds to breathe. Houston was on the clock (selecting Brian Bogusevic), then came Minnesota (Matt Garza). It was now time to make another decision.

– – –

In the days and weeks leading up to the draft, there had been a lot of discussion in the Red Sox draft room – oftentimes heated – about hard-throwing Angelina College right-hander Clay Buchholz.

“Clay was someone I had to have,” McLeod says. “I was just in love with the ability and the athleticism.”

As has been documented, Buchholz was pitching for a community college team in Lufkin, Texas, for a reason.

“It’s out there … when he was at McNeese State, he and his friend did a stupid thing. They broke into a school and stole some computers from a computer lab,” McLeod recalls. “Obviously, we had to dig deep into (A) what happened here and (B) is this something that’s going to be problematic going forward.

“Clay was very upfront when we talked to him about it. Jimmy Robinson, the area scout, did a tremendous job on the background and getting to the bottom of that story – and getting to know the player himself. I met with Clay in Texas. Theo and I had a big discussion with him in Boston at our pre-draft workout. We had a long conversation with him out in the bullpen during batting practice one day and talked about it. ‘What’s important to you? How do you want to be remembered by your family when you’re done playing this game?’ We hit him with some pretty personal questions.

“Let’s put it this way … I made it very evident that he was someone I had to have in that draft. There were some arguments in there. There was a time when Theo definitely challenged my conviction on the player, and we had a pretty heated debate about it in the room. Theo, in so many words, said ‘Jase, this is your first year running a draft as a scouting director solo. Are you going to put your name on this guy?’ I stood up and said, ‘Yes, I am.’

“At the end of the day, we were obviously aware of his past. It wasn’t ideal, but I personally felt confident enough to push for him in the first round. I can tell you we didn’t make his selection with any ‘Hold your breath, let’s hope this kid doesn’t get into trouble’ thoughts. We genuinely felt like he made a mistake and atoned for it.”

Ultimately, putting a first-round tag on Buchholz was a little too rich for Boston’s collective taste to select him at No. 26. That – and the fact that a reliever the team thought should have gone off the board much earlier was sliding.

St. John’s University closer Craig Hansen had dominated Big East Conference competition that spring, striking out 85 batters in 64 1/3 innings and recording 14 saves. McLeod thought a team that wanted a quick-to-the-majors reliever that could potentially pitch in the back end of games relatively soon would have jumped on him.

“We didn’t think Hansen was going to be there, because coming off the Cape that prior summer and going into the year, he was just so dominant,” McLeod said. “He wasn’t a priority type coverage guy for us, because we thought somebody else would grab him before pick 23.”

While Hansen was available, he was not an option for the Red Sox at No. 23; that pick was earmarked for a college hitter. The last-second conversation at No. 26 reverted to Buchholz.

“The bigger discussion for me on the Hansen selection was … we had done a lot of work on Buchholz, and I thought the Dodgers were going to take him at 40,” McLeod says. “I knew Logan White liked him. I knew he was there to see his last start. My fear was that we were going to miss him. I just had to leave that draft with Buchholz. He was the gut-feel guy who I really wanted.

“So there were some discussions about him at 26. That would have been a stretch for the rest of the room and for a lot of our guys, but that’s just how much conviction I had in Clay’s ability. And then the conversation obviously went back to Hansen – a big, college, ‘get there quick’ guy. We knew what he was and we knew he had power stuff. So the decision was made to take Craig. We took him – and he got to the big leagues later that year.”

Although he did pitch in four games for Boston that summer, Hansen struggled as a major leaguer, seeing action in 95 games for the Red Sox and Pirates. He saw his last minor league action in 2012. “Unfortunately for us and for Craig, he didn’t have the career that we all thought he would,” says McLeod. (Boston did still get some value from that selection, as Hansen was part of a three-team blockbuster that netted outfielder Jason Bay, who had one and a half outstanding seasons with the Sox.)

With Hansen on board, all McLeod could do was wait impatiently for Los Angeles to make its supplemental round selection.

“I sat there and held my breath,” he remembers fondly. “I know now, having talked to other teams over the years, it was basically us and the Dodgers that were in on Clay. Logan White is a good friend – and obviously his track record is pretty stellar with the draft, and we’ve had fun talking about Clay over the years. But we sent one cross-checker to this tournament in south Texas, and I think it was the opening day of the college conference tournaments – and Logan happened to be there. It says a lot when the scouting director, instead of being at the SEC tourney or day one of the Big 12, is seeing a junior college guy down in Nowhere, Texas.

“When the Dodgers were about to announce their pick, I literally was like, ‘They’re going to take Buchholz. They’re going to take Buchholz’ (laughing). And then they took Luke Hochevar.”

After Atlanta drafted high school left-hander Beau Jones at No. 41, McLeod got his guy.

“There was a big exhale … relief. Anyone who worked with me at the time would echo the sentiment,” he says. “As a scouting director, he was the guy I had to have in that draft.”

Fast forward to two years later, and Buchholz threw a no-hitter in his second major league start.

Rewind to draft day, and McLeod had about 60 seconds until his next pick at No. 45.

“We had stacked the board with some college hitters that we liked, so I was already feeling confident about our next pick,” recalls McLeod. “There were a few guys we really liked: Jed Lowrie (Stanford) … Stephen Head, a kid from Ole Miss … Chase Headley (Tennessee). I knew we were getting one of those guys.”

Sure enough, the Cardinals and Marlins picked pitchers.

“Jed Lowrie fell right into our laps – a guy who played the middle of the field with that kind of performance in college. Nowadays, he’d never get to No. 45. For us, it was a no-brainer. This kid was coming off a sophomore year where he almost won the Triple Crown in the Pac 10. He had a little bit of a down junior year, which allowed him to slide down into that selection for us.”

Then, two picks later, the Red Sox went the prep route, selecting Michael Bowden – a pitcher out of Waubonsie Valley High School in Aurora, Ill.

“Michael Bowden was a kid that we spent a lot of time with,” McLeod says. “He was one of those guys we got a lot of looks at. Our area scout was ultra-convinced on the makeup of the kid. We got to know him pretty well … the way he competed … blue collar … all of that.

“We really thought we got a mid-rotation guy with that selection. And the way his career started, we were really pumped. He was a workhorse, he threw a ton of strikes, and he had great stuff. After his first couple of years, we were like, ‘Wow, we got a really good pick here.’ In 2008 at Double-A, he sat on a low 2.30 ERA with a 25 percent punch rate. We thought this guy was going to sit in the middle of our rotation for a long time. He had a decent Triple-A year when we moved him up, he got to the big leagues, but he kind of plateaued out. He never had the career that we thought he would.”

Bowden saw action in parts of six big league seasons with the Red Sox and Cubs, appearing in 103 games from 2008-2013.

The flurry of activity concluded a little while later with Boston’s second-round pick – the No. 57 overall selection. And the rationale behind the player chosen – Jonathan Egan, a catcher out of Cross Creek (Ga.) High School – still bothers McLeod.

“I think every scouting director … if you would change things and do them over, we all would. This is one that sticks out with me,” McLeod admits. “We liked Jon Egan quite a bit. I was shooting for upside. We thought this kid had tremendous power. We thought he’d be able to catch. And when you went to watch him, it was a really beautiful swing.

“But what I regret here is that there was another college player sitting there right in our lap. There was a lot of discussion in the room that we should consider him, but my thought process was, ‘We just took Jed Lowrie. That was the safe college guy who performed. Let’s really shoot for some upside here.’ So we ended up passing on Chase Headley and took Egan. That’s one of those that I still to this day look back at. My reasoning did not go with the process. I was shooting for upside when we had Headley sitting right there for us on top of our board.”

Egan played three minor league seasons, peaking at Class-A Greenville in the South Atlantic League. Headley, who went to the Padres at No. 66, entered this year having been a major league starting third baseman since 2008.

While Headley was a miss for McLeod, Pedro Alvarez was the one who got away. A 14th-round pick out of Horace Mann High School in New York, Alvarez opted to bypass the Red Sox’s offer and go to Vanderbilt – and later was the second overall pick in the 2008 draft (by Pittsburgh).

“Missing out on him, we didn’t like that taste – especially seeing what he became,” McLeod says of Alvarez – who entered this year with 153 homers during his seven-year big league career. “It made us want to be even more aggressive going forward in trying to sign those types of players.

“We really loved the kid’s power. We loved the bat speed. He came to our workout that year and really put on a show. We made a serious run at him. I was on the phone a lot with the kid, trying to get him signed.

“Under the old system, the day they show up for class, they’re done. So I’m on the phone with him that morning, and I made a significant offer. Remember, this was the 14th round, and we already had spent a ton of money on the guys at the top. We had our last conversation, and he said, ‘Sorry, Mr. McLeod, I’m here at school now – and I’m getting ready to go to class.’ So we don’t sign him.”

McLeod later found out that Derek Johnson – who was Vanderbilt’s pitching coach at the time and now the Milwaukee Brewers’ pitching coach – was standing next to Alvarez when the prized freshman was having his final conversation with the Red Sox. Johnson was the Cubs’ minor league pitching coordinator in 2013-2015, and his boss was McLeod.

“We were swapping stories about Pedro Alvarez after (Johnson) joined the Cubs, and he says to me, ‘I walked him to class to make sure he got there and that no Red Sox employees were jumping out of the bushes trying to sign him.’”

Looking back at his first draft, McLeod talked about the need to be aggressive and wanting players who could provide impact and upside.

“We knew having all those picks early … we had the ability to diversify the portfolio, so to speak, where you could take some high-impact riskier high school kids, college performers that you felt really good about with athletic upside, and a junior college guy like Clay Buchholz,” McLeod says.

“As history has borne out, it’s probably one of the best drafts of all-time. I’m not talking about the Red Sox. That ’05 draft class was ridiculous in the first round.”

– – –

Chuck Wasserstrom spent 25 years in the Chicago Cubs’ front office – 16 in Media Relations and nine in Baseball Operations. Now a freelance writer, his behind-the-scenes stories of his time in a big league front office can be found on www.chuckblogerstrom.com.

Tigers Option Bruce Rondon, Select Contract Of Joe Jimenez

By Steve Adams | April 10, 2017 at 9:19am CDT

The Tigers have optioned right-hander Bruce Rondon to Triple-A Toledo and selected the contract of highly touted relief prospect Joe Jimenez, the team announced Monday morning. The Tigers have three open spots on the 40-man roster, there’s no corresponding move necessary to bring Jimenez to the Majors.

It’s been a brutal start to the season for the 26-year-old Rondon, who has made three appearances but recorded just four outs. Rondon has been roughed up for six runs on four hits and three walks with just one strikeout in this season’s brief sample. With Rondon in Toledo to get back on track, left-hander Justin Wilson will become the team’s primary setup option to closer Francisco Rodriguez, manager Brad Ausmus tells reporters (Twitter link via MLB.com’s Jason Beck).

Rondon has been heralded as a potential closer in Detroit, and the fanfare he’s received is understandable. Though he’s never put everything together in the Majors, the right-hander has averaged 98 mph on his fastball and punched out 10.4 hitters per nine innings pitched in his Major League career (97 1/3 innings). That said, Rondon’s brief career has been marred by inconsistency as well as a 2015 incident in which the Tigers sent him home early for the year due to his “effort level.” Last season looked to be a turning point for Rondon, as he logged a 1.80 ERA with a 33-to-9 K/BB ratio across his final 25 innings, but he’ll now again look to rediscover his top form in the minors.

As for Jimenez, the 22-year-old will head to the Majors and make his MLB debut the first time that Ausmus calls him into a game. There’s no doubt that the Puerto Rican righty earned his promotion; in 53 2/3 innings across Class-A Advanced, Double-A and Triple-A last season, Jimenez logged a ridiculous 1.51 ERA with 13.1 K/9, 2.9 BB/9 and a 34.3 percent ground-ball rate. He rated between fourth and sixth among Tigers farmhands according to Baseball Prospectus (subscription required), MLB.com, ESPN’s Keith Law (subscription required) and Fangraphs’ Eric Longenhagen.

Jimenez is touted as a potential closer and a definite candidate for a high-leverage relief role, thanks to a 70-grade fastball and an impressive slider. Law notes that both his command and slider took steps forward in 2016, which bodes well for his long-term outlook.

Quick Hits: Cubs, Arrieta, Heyward, Draft, Yankees, Phillies

By Connor Byrne | April 9, 2017 at 10:15pm CDT

Cubs right-hander Jake Arrieta handled the Brewers on Sunday in a seven-inning, 10-strikeout showing, after which he downplayed concerns about his diminished velocity. “Where I’m at now in my career, I don’t worry about it, because I know that I’m smart enough to work around that,” Arrieta told reporters, including Patrick Mooney of CSN Chicago. “The velocity’s still good enough to get it by guys and to do certain things in certain situations with it.” The 31-year-old is clearly confident in his current stuff, but he does expect to regain his lost velocity. “When the 95-to-97 comes back, it’s going to be tough for teams. And it still is,” declared Arrieta, who has posted sterling numbers through two starts this year as he continues to make his case for a massive contract. Arrieta stands as arguably the majors’ top soon-to-be free agent.

Braves Sign Jason Motte To Minor League Deal

By Connor Byrne | April 9, 2017 at 8:51pm CDT

The Braves have signed reliever Jason Motte to a minor league contract, tweets David O’Brien of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. Motte is likely to report to Triple-A Gwinnett on Monday.

The 34-year-old Motte came available when the Rockies released him Wednesday, which was not the outcome they had envisioned when signing him to a two-year, $10MM contract in December 2015. Motte battled a rotator cuff injury and a dip in velocity in in his lone season in Colorado. Thanks in part to those issues, Motte posted a 4.94 ERA and a 20.7 percent home run-to-fly ball ratio across 23 2/3 innings. However, he did log solid strikeout and walk rates per nine (9.13 and 3.04, respectively). The right-hander was at his best with the Cardinals from 2010-12, when he pitched to a 2.43 ERA with 9.5 K/9 and 2.39 BB/9 across 192 1/3 frames, but he hasn’t approached those numbers since.

The Braves’ bullpen entered Sunday with a 4.86 ERA and a 5.02 FIP in 16 2/3 innings, and relievers Arodys Vizcaino, Jim Johnson and Jose Ramirez then combined to allow four late-game runs in a 6-5 loss to the Pirates. Barring a turnaround from the unit, Motte could conceivably get back to the majors with Atlanta this year, though the organization does have another well-known option in Triple-A in fellow minor league signing David Hernandez.

Latest On Shohei Otani

By Jeff Todd | April 9, 2017 at 7:58pm CDT

SUNDAY: On whether he’ll immigrate to the majors in the offseason, Otani told 60 Minutes that “nothing is for certain,” but it doesn’t seem as if the international spending limits in the CBA will deter him. “Personally, I don’t care how much I get paid or how much less I get paid because of this,” Otani stated in regards to the changes in the system. The Fighters, meanwhile, do plan to post Otani, and their manager, Hideki Kuriyama, is fine with that. “For our team, we’re all for him going to the States,” said Kuriyama. “Yeah, as a manager, it’s going to hurt. It’s tough that way. But more than that, I want him to succeed.”

FRIDAY: Japanese superstar Shohei Otani is already familiar to readers of MLBTR; he is generally regarded as the best pitcher in the world who isn’t working in the majors. He’s also a highly productive slugger in Japan’s Nippon Professional Baseball league. And he’s just 22 years old. (For comparison’s sake, both Yu Darvish and Masahiro Tanaka came to the majors in advance of their age-25 seasons.)

It has long been wondered just when he’ll make it over to the majors, but rule changes have conspired to gum up that possible transition. First came the application of a $20MM cap on posting fees, which reduces the incentive for NPB clubs to make players available before their control rights are set to expire. Then, the latest iteration of the CBA put hard caps on teams’ capacity to spend on international players who are under 25 years of age, thus precluding the possibility of Otani commanding a bonus befitting his ability until the 2019 season.

Despite those barriers, there are indications now that Otani could nevertheless attempt a move to the majors as soon as next season. As Jon Wertheim of Sports Illustrated writes, executives with Otani’s current team, the Nippon Ham Fighters, are preparing to lose their all-everything performer after this season. Importantly, per the report, Otani also intends to request potential MLB suitors commit to allowing him both to pitch and to hit.

Notably, also, “multiple sources” suggest to Wertheim that Otani’s still-undetermined representatives may be able to find ways to sweeten any arrangement. Though he’d nominally be forced to slog through MLB’s typical control process, perhaps he would be able to negotiate some sort of provision that enables him to reach the open market before he reaches six years of service. Other international players have been able to negotiate such provisions; Nori Aoki and Yoenis Cespedes come to mind as examples, though neither of those players was subject to the same rules regime as Otani will be.

While the up-front guarantee would be a pittance of what he’d earn on the open market, or even as a typical posted player, that may not prove as much of a barrier as had been thought. In an interview with 60 Minutes that is set to air on Sunday, Otani reputedly states that he hopes to move to the big leagues after the current season, as Bob Nightengale of USA Today tweets.

Wertheim’s piece, which is well worth a full read, details Otani’s background. As he notes, the phenom considered bypassing the NPB altogether to join a big league team. The Fighters landed him, in part, by promising to make him a two-way player. Part of that bargain, the piece suggests, was that the club would not protest when Otani decided it was time to cross the Pacific.

To say the deal worked well for Otani’s current team would be an understatement. Last year, he slashed a ridiculous .322/.416/.588 and swatted 22 home runs in 382 plate appearances while also posting a 1.86 ERA with 11.2 K/9 and 2.9 BB/9 over 140 frames. And by the picture painted by Wertheim, Otani is a model teammate with a modest personality and full dedication to his craft(s).

Just how Otani’s otherworldly Japanese statistics will translate to the majors is open to some debate. He would surely be viewed as a notable potential big leaguer for his bat, but is most prized for his arm. As Wertheim notes, an American League organization would seem to offer the most ready route to fulfilling Otani’s intentions, since he could stride to the plate without being forced to play the field on days he’s not pitching. Whether he’s intent on spending time in the outfield, too, isn’t clear.

Plenty of time will pass before anything is formalized, and much could change in the meantime. Should Otani become available, however, it would likely make for an unprecedented effort by major league organizations to woo him. That’s due not only to his unusual dual capabilities (and wishes), but also his young age and the unique circumstances of the rules limiting what he can be paid. Literally every team in the game would have cause to pursue him vigorously, particularly if the financial commitment is as meager as it seemingly must be.

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