Click here to read a transcript of Tuesday’s chat with MLBTR’s Steve Adams.
Archives for March 2018
Athletics Release Brandon Moss
The return of Brandon Moss to the Athletics has proven short-lived, as was anticipated from the time he was picked up in a trade with the Royals. Oakland announced today that Moss was released after being designated for assignment over the weekend.
Moss, 34, will cost the A’s around $5MM in total — costs that were absorbed in order to enable the team’s acquisition of southpaw Ryan Buchter. That could still be offset by any MLB earnings Moss takes home this year, though a new team will only need to pay him at the league minimum salary.
It’s not exactly a hospitable market setting for the veteran slugger to enter. Moss, whose offensive productivity has fallen off in recent years, will almost certainly be looking at a minor-league deal. Adam Lind just took a minors pact, after all, despite quality output at the plate in 2017.
For Moss, things just haven’t been the same since he was dealt away by the A’s following a productive three-season run from 2012 through 2014. He did hit well enough in 2016 to earn a $12MM deal from Kansas City, but stumbled to a .207/.279/.428 slash line in 401 plate appearances last year. While Moss still hit the ball out of the yard 22 times, that doesn’t really stand out in a league environment that has seen a significant rise in the frequency of the long ball.
Retirement Notes: Pelfrey, Capuano, Hinojosa
We’ll use this post to round up some recent news from a few veteran hurlers whose playing days appear to be at an end:
- Right-hander Mike Pelfrey appears to be moving on from his days on the mound, as Wayne Cavadi of NCAA.com reported recently (thanks to alert reader Alex Hudson for the tip). Pelfrey, who played at Wichita State University and is finishing up his degree there, has agreed to join the baseball coaching staff of another local school, Newman University. After a dozen years in the majors, the former ninth-overall pick says that teaching pitching was a natural progression. “After a couple of surgeries and I felt like the last couple of years that my abilities were declining, I got more into that mentor role,” says Pelfrey. Assuming this is indeed the end of the line, Pelfrey will finish his big-league run with 1,476 1/3 innings of 4.68 ERA pitching. After a long stretch with the Mets, the sinkerballer spent three seasons with the Twins before finishing things off with the Tigers and White Sox over the past two campaigns. The above-linked post features an extensive chat with Pelfrey and is well worth a look for those with interest in the big righty.
- It seems that another dozen-year big-league veteran, southpaw Chris Capuano, is in the same boat. In an interesting chat with Garry Brown of The Republican earlier this year, the southpaw indicated that he’s finished with his pitching career. Instead of continuing the grind, as had previously seemed possible, Capuano plans to pursue a master’s degree and perhaps ultimately work with the MLB Player’s Association in some capacity. Like Pelfrey, Capuano tossed over fourteen-hundred frames at the game’s highest level. Even as he battled through injuries and bounced between six organizations, Capuano was a model of stability on the mound. He compiled a solid lifetime 4.38 ERA and rarely strayed too far from that level of pitching. Capuano will no doubt be best remembered for his six seasons with the Brewers; the lefty found early-career success in Milwaukee and finished his playing career there in 2016.
- It seems that another former MLB hurler, Dalier Hinojosa, is also finished with his playing career, as he recently told Francys Romero of Ciber Cuba. Hinojosa, 32, long played for the Guantanamo entrant in Cuba’s Serie Nacional. He came to affiliated ball in 2014, reaching the majors in each of the next two seasons. While he only has thrown 35 2/3 MLB innings, most of them with the Phillies, Hinojosa will finish his brief MLB career with a shiny 1.51 ERA. Despite posting those solid numbers, bringing a fastball that sat at 94 mph, and getting swings and misses with about one out of every ten pitches, Hinojosa was outrighted by the Phillies after the end of the 2016 season and was later released. He did not appear in 2017 after shoulder issues arose.
Extension Candidate: Whit Merrifield
The Royals front office is in an interesting spot as it attempts to engineer a soft landing after multiple seasons of contention from a roster whose core is no longer fully intact. Despite the obvious challenges, GM Dayton Moore says he’s as optimistic as ever about the organization’s outlook.
Perhaps no single player embodies that hope and this team’s unique approach more than infielder Whit Merrifield, a late-bloomer who quietly became one of the team’s best players. Given their current stance, the Royals shouldn’t be opposed to considering long-term deals with key players. But is Merrifield a worthwhile target?
As is often the case for teams that push for a World Series in — in this case, successfully — there’s a dent to the future outlook. That frequently shows up in the form of lost prospects, missed opportunities to swap veterans for younger talent, and ongoing commitments to expensive, older veterans. In this case, Alex Gordon and Ian Kennedy stand out as underperforming contracts.
At the same time, the Kansas City organization does have some valuable deals on the books — namely, the extensions agreed to with lefty Danny Duffy and catcher Salvador Perez. There’s still potential for those agreements to sour, but at present they seem to represent appealing commitments. And they both run through 2021. It’s worth remembering, too, that the club pursued star first baseman Eric Hosmer. Though it’s clear the Royals will be increasingly attentive to drawing down salary commitments, they did not force deals for players such as Duffy, Perez, or even pending free-agent closer Kelvin Herrera this winter. While Kansas City did give up talent to move some salaries (see here and here), those swaps are nothing like the full-throated efforts we’ve seen some other clubs take after a downturn in fortunes.
Unlike some small-market organizations that find themselves in this general situation, then, the Royals do not appear to be pursuing a strip-down rebuild. The retention (to this point) of Herrera and the signing of Lucas Duda confirm that the club isn’t just punting in the hopes of securing favorable draft position. Trying to remain at least somewhat competitive while undergoing a roster transition comes with quite a different blend of risk and benefit from a “tanking” strategy — which brings us back around to Merrifield, who deserves some consideration as a potential extension target after compiling 3.9 rWAR and 3.1 fWAR in his first full MLB campaign.
In most cases, perhaps, a player who achieves that kind of value immediately upon reaching the majors would be a clear candidate for a long-term deal. Here, though, there’s no getting around the fact that Merrifield is already 29 years of age — older than Hosmer and just a smidge younger than Mike Moustakas. With just 1.101 years of MLB service to his credit, though, he won’t quality for arbitration until 2020 and can’t reach the open market until 2023, when he’ll be entering his age-34 season.
Given that they already control him until he’s 33, the Royals need not be in any rush to secure Merrifield for the long haul. At the same time, though, the club ought to have ample leverage, so perhaps we shouldn’t immediately dismiss the merits of exploring a deal. While picking up control over Merrifield’s earliest-possible free agent campaigns might be a nice feather in the cap, the potential value for the team lies mostly in locking in future salaries at an appealing rate while announcing the presence of a new core piece to go with Duffy and Perez.
Despite his late ascension to the majors, Merrifield showed good promise in a half-season of time in 2016, with decent hitting output along with high-end glovework and baserunning. Though he took a slight step back in the latter two areas on a rate basis last year, at least by the numbers we have to work with, Merrifield also took a step forward with the bat. His low walk rate (4.6% in 2017) means he’ll probably never be an OBP monster, but he made plenty of contact (14.0% strikeout rate), showed a sudden power outburst (19 home runs, .172 isolated slugging), and produced overall at about five percent better than league average. It doesn’t hurt that Merrifield can steal a bag, having recorded 34 swipes in his first full season in the big leagues.
There’s some risk here, to be sure. Merrifield needs to hit at a high average to maintain a palatable on-base percentage. And he’s no sure thing to keep up the power surge — he never maintained an ISO that high over a full minor-league season — though perhaps Merrifield is one of those players who has benefited from a bouncier baseball. As Eno Sarris of The Athletic recently explained (subscription link), history suggests that Merrifield likely won’t have more than a few more quality seasons before the aging curve catches him.
In the aggregate, though, there’s good reason to believe that Merrifield will at least continue to profile as an above-average regular for some time. His athleticism and background — he has plenty of professional time at second, third, and the corner outfield, and the team is trying him in center this spring — suggests he could move around the diamond as the team’s needs change, providing value even if he checks back into a reserve role.
Merrifield may not be a face-of-the-franchise type, but taking an opportunity to lock in value on a player of his ilk is just the kind of move that can pay dividends for an organization that is already thinking about how it will compile a winning roster in the near future. To be sure, it would be a somewhat novel contract to negotiate. While players with non-star profiles and equally thin track records (and service time tallies) have certainly agreed to terms in the past — e.g., Juan Lagares (4 years, $23MM) and pre-breakout Jose Altuve (4 years, $12.5MM) — they were significantly younger. Perhaps the Yan Gomes contract, a six-year, $23MM pact that included two options at the end, would be a closer fit, but even he was just 26 years of age at signing.
There are certainly some light shades of Ben Zobrist here, though it’s a stretch to draw any strong comparisons. As a quality player who can move around the diamond, Merrifield could be viewed as a much lesser version of the renowned utilityman, who commanded only a $18MM guarantee in an extension with the Rays back in 2010. Zobrist was 28 at the time but was already a Super Two. Of course, that deal was a ridiculous bargain; on the other hand, there’s nothing to suggest Merrifield will ever approach Zobrist in overall value.
In truth, the Zobrist pact is tough to use as a comp for any purposes because it was so unique. The same might hold for a hypothetical Merrifield extension. My own thought is that Merrifield’s age/service status ought to make him much more amenable to taking a discount on his anticipated future earnings while also leaving the Royals with less incentive to give value for the right to control any prospective free-agent campaigns than they would for a more youthful player. (To be clear, that’s all speculation based on my outside observation of the circumstances.) Perhaps, then, the sides could explore a contract that includes a relatively limited overall guarantee for most or all of Merrifield’s pre-arb and arb-eligible seasons, with a range of possible options scenarios to be considered.
At what price might this become attractive for the Royals? Merrifield is going to earn just over the league minimum for 2018 and 2019. His salary for the ensuing three campaigns will depend upon what he does in the meantime, of course, but there are some comps that give some idea of what Merrifield could earn if he continues playing at the same general level. Joe Panik just agreed to a $3.45MM first-year arb salary, for instance, while DJ LeMahieu started with $3.0MM and has taken down a total of $16.3MM in his three seasons of arbitration.
Even if we peg Merrifield’s anticipated earnings through 2022 in the realm of $16MM or so — give or take a few million – that doesn’t mean the Royals should be willing to spend that much on an extension. Pre-committing isn’t necessary unless there’s some benefit to the club, yet the rights to free-agent years won’t have that much value for an older, non-star performer. Perhaps the Royals would promise Merrifield something in the realm of his likely arb earnings if he agrees to very low prices on two option years. Or maybe the team will pursue a discount on the arb seasons if the contract includes an option or two at higher prices (such that they likely won’t be exercised unless Merrifield succeeds beyond expectations, in which case he’d be rewarded). The most interesting scenario, though, may be a deal that only locks the sides in through the first two seasons of arbitration while leaving team options for the third arb year, at a discounted rate, along with one or two would-be free-agent years. That might give the late bloomer the security he needs while affording the team an appropriate blend of protection and expected cost savings.
To reiterate: there’s no urgency here and likely not a huge amount of upside to be captured for K.C. But if this organization really does intend to remain competitive in the relatively near future while steadily building up a new core, it’ll require a whole lot of incremental moves that add value. Exploring a new deal with Merrifield offers just that sort of potential opportunity, but only in the right circumstances.
Photo courtesy of USA Today Sports Images.
Rangers Meeting With Julio Pablo Martinez
Now that Cuban outfielder Julio Pablo Martinez is officially able to sign, he’s meeting with the Rangers today to hammer out a deal, according to Ben Badler of Baseball America. It is believed that the sides will agree to a $2.8MM bonus.
Texas has been seen as the favorite to land Martinez for the past several weeks. Indeed, the Rangers have struck two trades — see here and here — to max out their possible international bonus pool assets. Having already spent a good bit of money over the past year or so, the Rangers have $2.8MM left and are expected to spend it all on Martinez.
While the Yankees and Marlins were also reportedly in pursuit of Martinez, all indications at this point are that he’s zeroed in on the Rangers. For Texas, the move will bring a high-quality prospect into the organization who may not be far from seeing the majors. Badler says that Martinez will jump right into BA’s top 100 prospects list. The 21-year-old is a left-handed hitter who is said to possess good power and speed.
Latest On Indians’ Rotation Plans
The Indians entered the offseason with enviable depth in their pitching staff, particularly among rotation hopefuls. While that led some to wonder whether trades might be considered, to this point the Cleveland organization has not shipped away pitching.
Midway through Spring Training, it seems the situation is beginning to resolve itself — at least as to how things will look when camp breaks. Paul Hoynes of the Plain Dealer has the latest on the defending AL Central champs.
Per Indians skipper Terry Francona, the current expectation is for Mike Clevinger to hold down a rotation spot to open the season. “He’s strong, and he should be able to be that innings-eater type pitcher,” says Francona.
Of course, Clevinger did a good deal more than eat innings last year. 2017 was a breakout effort for a pitcher who entered the season with just 53 MLB frames under his belt. Over 121 2/3 innings, including 21 starts, he posted a 3.11 ERA with 10.1 K/9 and 4.4 BB/9.
Suffice to say, such a campaign would secure most hurlers a starting job for the ensuing season. For the pitching-rich Indians, though, there are quite a lot of other arms to consider.
At the onset of the offseason, the biggest question surrounded enigmatic righty Danny Salazar, who has long dealt premium stuff but suffered from injury and performance lapses. He wasn’t traded, but now there’s a shoulder injury to worry about. Though it’s possible Salazar will return to pitching off of a mound in a few days, says Francona, the pitcher is “not going to be ready” for the start of the season.
That news more or less sews up a spot for Clevinger, though this organization still has some pitching decisions to make. As Hoynes writes, the club is still waiting to see how the competition plays out between Josh Tomlin and Ryan Merritt. The former has struggled with long balls in recent years but remains an elite control artist, while the latter — who is also more notable for limiting the free pass than for strikeouts — has produced good results in very limited MLB action.
In addition to deciding the outcome of that battle, the Indians will be making some interesting bullpen decisions. Tomlin or Merritt could join the relief unit, but they’ll be contending with a long list of possibilities, including quite a lot of non-roster invitees (as shown in this Indians depth chart). All told, there’s still a good bit of potential roster intrigue in Cleveland.
The Lack Of A Market For Neil Walker Doesn’t Make Sense
At this point, there’s little point in expounding upon what an odd offseason it’s been for Major League free agents. Relievers got paid handsomely, the devaluation of bat-first corner players is more apparent than ever, and nearly 20 percent of MLBTR’s Top 50 free agents remain unsigned on March 5. Readers can choose whichever of the myriad explanations that’ve been presented this winter they prefer — the new CBA makes losing too appealing, Scott Boras’ waiting game, younger front offices valuing players near-identically, players overvaluing themselves — but the fact remains that it’s jarring to see so many quality names on the market.
Chief among the surprising eye-opening reports that have surfaced regarding the remaining free agents, at least in my view, is Neil Walker is being offered minor league contracts.
As many predicted earlier this winter, there have been some significant bargains in recent weeks — Carlos Gomez at $4MM to the Rays, Eduardo Nunez to the Red Sox at $8MM total (over two years with a player option) and Logan Morrison to the Twins at $6.5MM (plus a vesting option) — but those players were all at least rewarded with big league contracts and millions in guaranteed dollars. The notion of Neil Walker having to settle for a minor league contract seems utterly baffling.
To be sure, he was hurt by a lack of teams seeking starting second basemen, but we’ve probably never seen a player with Walker’s track record have to take a non-guaranteed deal at just 32 years of age.
Track Record
Let’s be clear — Walker isn’t a star. He’s an above-average hitter on a yearly basis that has been generally below average in the eyes of defensive metrics for the better part of the past eight seasons. His glove isn’t a killer at second, but it rarely adds to his value, at least from a purely statistical standpoint.
Walker has been remarkably consistent at the plate since establishing himself as a big league regular. Generally speaking, I don’t think citing career numbers is especially worthwhile when it comes to free agents; what a player did at age 24 isn’t really indicative of what he’s going to do in his 30s. But Walker’s level of consistency is fairly remarkable and is of some note.
He’s hit between 12 and 23 homers per season, walked between 7.3 percent and 9.1 percent in every year but 2017 (when he jumped to 12.3 percent), and he’s never struck out at even a 20 percent clip. By measure of OPS+ and wRC+, he’s been 14 to 15 percent better than the league-average hitter over those eight years, and he’s never had a single season come in anywhere worse than six percent above-average.
Clearly, I’m not the only one flabbergasted by the fact that Walker is seemingly struggling to find a big league offer; MLB.com’s Mike Petriello published a column on this exact same scenario earlier today. (Naturally, I was already well into this look at Walker’s perplexingly bleak market.) As Petriello points out, Walker is one of just six hitters in all of baseball from 2010-17 to post an OPS+ of 105 or better and 12-plus homers per season. The other five? Giancarlo Stanton, Justin Upton, Robinson Cano, Adrian Beltre and Edwin Encarnacion. Not bad company.
Detractors may worry about his platoon splits, as Walker faceplanted against lefties to the tune of a .214/.313/.298 slash in 2017. That line, however, came in a sample of just 84 plate appearances. Walker batted .330/.391/.610 in 110 PAs against lefties a year prior, and he’s logged a below-average but passable .264/.325/.366 slash (91 wRC+) when facing southpaws in his career. Coupled with a 122 wRC+ against righties, whom he faces more often, Walker’s overall bat is plenty valuable.
Walker does come with some injury concerns, but his medical history isn’t as daunting as the six DL trips he’s experienced in the past eight years might suggest at first glance. His 2016 back surgery and a partially torn hamstring in 2017 combine with his age (32) to create some doubt, but earlier career DL stints were caused by an appendectomy, a lacerated finger that required stitches after being spiked and a two-week absence due to soreness in his right side. His back, the largest potential red flag, didn’t keep him out of action at all in 2017.
Injury risk and minor platoon issues notwithstanding, Walker is a 32-year-old old, consistently above-average offensive performer who hits from both sides of the plate and can pass at three different positions.
Weak Market at Second Base
Walker is hardly the only free agent to struggle to find a decent offer this winter, and in his case, the reasons are perhaps easier to see than most. There simply weren’t that many clubs in the market for an everyday second baseman heading into the offseason.
The Angels had a clear need but filled that void by trading for Ian Kinsler. Walker told Billy Witz of the New York Times last week that he had some talks with the Yankees, but they ultimately acquired Brandon Drury instead. The Marlins saw a void created when they dealt Dee Gordon to Seattle, but they took on the rest of Starlin Castro’s contract in the Giancarlo Stanton swap. The Red Sox filled their short-term hole created by Dustin Pedroia’s knee surgery with Eduardo Nunez. The Blue Jays didn’t have a clear starting gig and also turned to the trade market for depth (Yangervis Solarte, Aledmys Diaz).
There are a few remaining spots where Walker could step into the mix and function as an everyday second baseman, but more and more it seems like he’s a potential bargain add for a contender (or hopeful contender) who could still provide plenty of value by bouncing between second base, third base and first base. He doesn’t have loads of experience at the infield corners in recent years, but he played more than 3000 minor league innings at the hot corner and saw time at both places in the Majors last season. As a switch-hitter with some defensive flexibility and enough bat to potentially spend some time at DH, Walker seems like he’d provide quite a lot of value as a bench player that could still vie for 400+ plate appearances as he rotates around the diamond.
Potential Everyday Fits
There aren’t too many teams throughout the league where Walker is going to push out an incumbent option at second base, but a return to the Brewers certainly makes sense. Milwaukee was discouraged enough with the combination of Jonathan Villar, Eric Sogard and Hernan Perez in 2017 to go out and trade for Walker in August. He hit well there, and the team is now carrying that same trio atop its depth chart in a 2018 season where it hopes to contend. If 2016 Villar shows up, that’s a much better option than Walker. However, Villar’s strikeout problems are glaring, and he was never going to repeat 2016’s .373 BABIP.
The Tigers could simply push Dixon Machado into a utility role and give Walker everyday at-bats at second base with the hope of flipping him to a contender whose second baseman is injured this summer. He probably wouldn’t net a huge prospect return this summer given the lack of offseason demand, but Machado could get regular at-bats at shortstop later in the year once Jose Iglesias is (presumably) traded.
Turning to the D-backs, Chris Owings has never hit all that much in the Majors; his best season, by OPS+ and wRC+, came in 2014 when he was five to nine percent below average, depending on your preferred metric. Walker’s worst seasons at the plate have come when he’s “only” been about six percent better than average. Owings has also spent considerable time on the disabled list (more than Walker) in three of the past four seasons. The younger player could bounce around the diamond as a true super-utility player anyhow; even if he finally makes good on the pedigree he showed as a minor leaguer, a platoon of Walker and Jake Lamb at third base would help to mitigate Lamb’s struggles against lefties. The Snakes would need to cut ties with third catcher Chris Herrmann or fellow infielder Daniel Descalso to make the fit really work, but Walker would serve as an easily identifiable upgrade. Their payroll may be tight, but this team was coming up with scenarios to squeeze J.D. Martinez onto the books just two weeks ago.
The Rays, right now, are hoping for a Brad Miller rebound at second base or for Joey Wendle to seize the position, but Walker’s consistency should hold some level of appeal. If he can be had on a bargain one-year deal similar to their pact with Carlos Gomez, then either shifting Miller to a utility role or just paying him the 30 days’ termination pay to which he’d be entitled upon being released from his non-guaranteed arbitration deal would upgrade the team. Walker would give Tampa Bay some added protection if Matt Duffy’s ongoing injury troubles persist as well. The Rays don’t seem likely to spend much, though, and perhaps they don’t love the idea of a player with recent back and hamstring injuries roaming the turf at Tropicana Field for 81 games next season.
The Royals reportedly offered Walker a minor league deal, which he unsurprisingly rejected. But there’s a clear fit with Kansas City, as the Royals are already toying with the idea of moving Whit Merrifield to center field to create some space for Adalberto Mondesi. The Royals could use Walker at second base, as insurance for Cheslor Cuthbert at third and as a potential platoon bat with Lucas Duda at first. GM Dayton Moore, though, has repeatedly spoken about the importance of the “economic” component of any signing, and Kansas City’s minor league offer indicates they aren’t comfortable offering much.
Super Utility Fits
The Angels are currently projected to break camp with light-hitting Kaleb Cowart on the bench as a utility option and Luis Valbuena as at least a part-time first baseman along with Albert Pujols. Walker would be a significant upgrade over Cowart, and the fact that he can’t cover shortstop in the event of an Andrelton Simmons injury isn’t a big deal when the Halos could just slide Zack Cozart over to shortstop, thus opening third for Walker or Valbuena.
Walker reportedly “intrigues” the Orioles, and they’re in a similar spot to the Angels. There’s no clear utility infielder in Baltimore at the moment, and if an injury to Manny Machado occurs, the O’s can slide Tim Beckham from third to short and place Walker at the hot corner. Baltimore has been pining for a left-handed bat for much of the offseason, and as previously noted, Walker’s bat against righties is perennially productive.
The Phillies aren’t ready to give up on Maikel Franco just yet, but they don’t need to be in order to clear room for Walker. The Phils are set to carry Tommy Joseph on their bench despite his defensive limitations and his skill set’s redundancies with Rhys Hoskins and Carlos Santana on the roster. Walker could back up Franco, Cesar Hernandez and Santana around the infield, and if Franco’s struggles persist, he could potentially assume a larger role at third.
Atlanta added some depth at second and third base with today’s pickup of Ryan Schimpf, but Schimpf has options remaining or could be cut loose himself. The Braves feel that Austin Riley isn’t far from Major League readiness, but Walker could pair with Johan Camargo to help bridge the gap; Camargo did all of his damage against left-handed pitching last year and could pair nicely in a platoon role with Walker at third. Walker would also give them an insurance policy against either Ozzie Albies or Dansby Swanson struggling, as if either ultimately needed to be optioned to the minors, Walker could man second with either Albies or Swanson handling shortstop.
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Earlier this offseason, when we were doing preliminary discussions for our Top 50 free agent rankings, Tim Dierkes, Jeff Todd, Jason Martinez and myself spent a bit of time discussing whether it made more sense to project three years or two years for Walker. My initial instinct was three, but we ultimately agreed on two years given Walker’s age, recent injuries and the general lack of teams expected to be looking for second basemen.
At this point, I’d be stunned to see Walker land a two-year contract even though nothing has really changed with regard to his skill set or the value he could bring to a club. The seeming lack of interest reminds me of the 2015-16 offseason, in which MLBTR projected a comparable two-year, $20MM deal for David Freese based on his track record as a fairly consistent, average player. We even had one top executive suggest to us that winter that Freese would land a deal in the three-year, $30MM range.
In the end, Freese’s market never really materialized, and he took a one-year deal with Pittsburgh worth $3MM. Walker’s track record and consistency top the consistency Freese carried into his own free agency, but it seems plausible that he could be facing a similarly modest commitment. If that’s the case, some team will be adding a bargain before Opening Day.
Astros Place Anthony Gose On Outright Waivers
The Astros have placed lefty Anthony Gose on outright waivers, per Jake Kaplan of The Athletic (Twitter link). That will ultimately open a 40-man spot, though it’s not clear whether the organization has immediate plans for utilizing it.
Gose was taken in the Rule 5 draft back in December, meaning any claiming team would need to retain him on the active roster for all of 2018 in order to keep him permanently. Given his prior MLB experience as an outfielder, he would be arbitration-eligible after the season were that to occur.
If Gose clears waivers, he’ll be offered back to the Rangers, who had signed him to a minors deal last fall. The Texas organization took a low-risk shot despite the fact that Gose had only previously thrown 10 2/3 High-A innings, over which he allowed nine earned runs and six walks but also recorded 14 strikeouts.
Despite the limited track record, the 27-year-old Gose has shown a powerful throwing arm on the hill and could also bring value on the bases and in the outfield. But it seems his interesting time in Astros camp did not make the desired impression. Gose failed to record an out in his only Grapefruit League appearance, issuing walks to all three hitters he faced.
Minor MLB Transactions: 3/5/18
Here are Monday’s minor moves from around the league…
- The D-backs announced that they’ve signed veteran catcher Anthony Recker to a minor league contract and invited him to big league camp in Spring Training. The 34-year-old Recker is a career .199/.283/.348 hitters in parts of seven big league seasons and has spent the bulk of the past two years with the Braves, appearing in 39 games at the Major League level. The Diamondbacks organization is well-stocked with catching depth as it is, having Alex Avila, Jeff Mathis and Chris Herrmann on the big league roster plus and John Ryan Murphy on the 40-man roster as well. Josh Thole is also in camp with the D-backs on a minor league deal. Both Herrmann and Murphy are out of minor league options, though, so it’s possible that either could find himself in another organization before the end of camp.
Braves Acquire Ryan Schimpf, Outright Josh Ravin
The Braves announced on Monday that they’ve acquired infielder Ryan Schimpf from the Rays in exchange for a player to be named later or cash. To clear a spot on the 40-man roster, Atlanta placed right-hander Josh Ravin on outright waivers. He’s already cleared waivers and been sent outright to Triple-A Gwinnett, per the team.
Schimpf, 29, is perhaps the current poster boy for three-true-outcomes hitters, as 52.7 percent of his 527 career plate appearances have ended in either a home run (34), walk (69) or strikeout (175). Remarkably, his 34 career home runs are more than the 28 singles he’s amassed in the Majors. In all, he’s walked at a 13.1 percent clip in the big leagues and struck out in 33.2 percent of his trips to the plate. He’s a .195/.317/.492 hitter in those 527 PAs.
Setting aside Schimpf’s extraordinarily unique offensive stat line, he’ll bring to the Braves another option to slot in at the hot corner early in the year as Atlanta awaits the emergence of prospect Austin Riley. Schimpf has a couple of minor league options remaining, so he needn’t be exposed to waivers at the end of camp if the Braves don’t want to bring him north to open the season.
Presently, Johan Camargo figures to be the primary third baseman for manager Brian Snitker, though Camargo’s ultimate role seems likely to be one of a utility infielder. While the 24-year-old Camargo hit .299/.331/.452 last season, he did so with the aid of a gaudy .364 average on balls in play and just a 4.7 percent walk rate. Given his below-average hard-contact rate and above-average infield fly rate, Camargo looks exceedingly unlikely to support a BABIP near that level and, barring a significant improvement in his walk rate, will likely see his average and OBP come down by a fair margin in 2018.
In theory, Schimpf and Camargo could actually make an interesting platoon. While Camargo is a switch-hitter, he posted a putrid .254/.287/.349 slash against right-handed pitching last year but a terrific .403/.434/.694 slash against lefties. The same BABIP caveats that apply to Camargo’s overall season are even more true of his work against southpaws (.481 BABIP in 76 PAs), but he’s generally been a better hitter against lefties than righties throughout his minor league career.
Schimpf, meanwhile, has hit just .205 against righties but paired that with a .329 OBP and a .537 slugging percentage, giving him a stunning .303 isolated power mark against righties in his brief big league career. He’s also capable of playing second base, so he could hold down a bench spot and serve as a late-inning power option in addition to his work as a potential platoon partner for Camargo, if the Braves are so inclined.
As for the 30-year-old Ravin, he totaled just 16 2/3 innings out of the Dodgers’ bullpen in 2017 before being acquired by the Braves (whose new GM, Alex Anthopoulos, had previously been in the L.A. front office) in a minor offseason swap. Ravin struggled to a 6.48 ERA in that small sample, though he did punch out 19 hitters and average better than 96 mph on his heater in that time. His Triple-A work in 2017 was much better, as he logged a 4.33 ERA and averaged a hefty 14 strikeouts per nine innings, albeit against 4.8 walks per nine. Ravin’s career has been slowed in recent years by a 2016 car accident as well as an 80-game PED suspension that same year.
