The Dodgers and Padres are among the teams pursuing free agent righty Garrett Richards, with Jon Heyman of Fancred (via Twitter) reporting that both have made offers. The Los Angeles organization, in particular, is said to be “making a push” to keep the long-time Halos hurler in the region.
Richards has been derailed by elbow issues for some time now, recording only 138 2/3 total innings since the start of the 2016 season. While he was able to stave off Tommy John surgery for quite some time, he finally went under the knife last July and is expected to miss most or all of the 2019 season while recovering.
In all likelihood, then, the clubs pursuing Richards will be angling for some sort of multi-year arrangement. The current standard for this sort of situation is a two-year, $10MM pact. That’s what Drew Smyly (with the Cubs) and Michael Pineda (Twins) took home last year under similar circumstances, and it’s also what MLBTR predicted for Richards in our annual ranking of the top fifty free agents.
Of course, market forces could push the money or years in a different direction in this case. Richards is quite an accomplished pitcher, after all, having thrown 744 2/3 career MLB innings of 3.54 ERA ball. The high-velocity hurler is a consistent groundball producer (52.5% career GB rate) but has increasingly shown an ability to get whiffs (he has generated more than an eleven percent swinging-strike rate in each of the past four seasons and carries 9.6 K/9 in the past three).
It’s notable that these two California organizations are pushing for Richards, though he’d fit comfortably with any club that likes him and is interested in taking some financial risk for a potentially high-quality starter. There are some connections to the state that are worth noting: not only has Richards obviously spent his professional career to date in California, but he has family roots there as well. (He was born in the state, though spent most of his childhood in Oklahoma.)
Damn had him to the Rays. Eovaldi 2.0
I have him going to Padres
Same
I can’t remember any cases of a free agent signing a contract with a team when he was recovering from a major surgery and was very likely to miss the coming season. Anybody else recall a similar situation?
Pineda, Volquez, Eovaldi, Smyly etc. Is this a troll?
It’s a question. You are welcome to elaborate.
Pineda, Volquez, Eovaldi, Smyly etc.
It is rare but all of the above signed while recovering for a year. Typically the contracts are 2 years with low base salaries and lots of incentives for the second year.
Carter Capps
It’s not really rare it’s becoming the norm for a pending FA who gets TJ to do this.
Reading is fundamental !!
The article gave examples
There’s quite a few examples:
fangraphs.com/community/on-drew-smyly-michael-pine…
All of those guys were paid to rehab for the first season and the team gets rewarded the second year when they are healthy enough to pitch.
That is what they are going for with Richards
Fair enough, though since neither Smyly or Pineda have pitched in the majors since it’s clear those are speculative contracts.
That’s because they signed last off-season and used this year as recovery
Well obviously they didn’t, they should be ready for this year, it takes the first season to rehab and they play for the second season.
obviously
Why are people so damn mean in here? Does it make people feel better about themselves to be a compete jerk? Do they feel they need to humiliate someone else to show their knowledge. It’s just a baseball rumor app. No one here is a GM or in any real baseball position. Just have a conversation. Sorry if he asked a question you didn’t like.
those are just a few examples in like the past year, how you didn’t know about that makes it seem like a troll.
Dodgers make sense for Richards. Excellent track record for rehabbing pitchers with TJ surgery and have 3 starting pitchers who can become FA’s after 2019 (Hill, Wood, and Ryu)
It would be a nice pick up for the Padres but I have no faith they could get him healthy. Brandon Morrow and Mark Prior are the last two injury prone pitchers I recall giving múltiple years to and we got almost no innings out of either one.
Josh Johnson??
Preller would probably say he’s healthy and include him in a trade that would get reneged after physicals
But yet the Cards get a pass for hacking…(sigh)
Didn’t realize losing two draft picks and one of the guys responsible doing actual prison time counts as “getting a pass.”
Ugh, that would be really annoying if they sign Richards and it turns into another Josh Johnson situation. I think Richards has a better chance of coming back strong.
not in san diego he will be done,
Would like to see the Angels keep him in the fold. I’m sure his best friend Trout would, too.
But this is a business and it is hard to pay a guy who won’t play for you next year.
Don’t understand why the Angels don’t push to keep him in the organization. They’re just standing around while every other organization is making moves.
Richards.. is a good pitcher when healthy, the problem is his mechanics are violent and without significant change will more than likely result in another injury.
Mechanics aside the odds are still good……”A subsequent arm injury is common among pitchers who have had Tommy John surgery. More than half of Major League pitchers who underwent Tommy John surgery from 1999 to 2011 went on the Disabled List with an arm injury after returning from surgery. Another recent study from the American Sports Medicine Institute (ASMI) concluded that 19% of Tommy John patients will have a subsequent elbow surgery and 25% will have shoulder surgery.”
mlb.com/pitch-smart/tommy-john-faq
Why do the Padres keep signing players? They suck
To flip at the deadline for more prospects
If they didn’t sign players, how would they ever get better?
they won’t!
This would be a good low-risk, high reward signing for the Padres. He could be a veteran innings-eater on a young staff.
Wouldn’t be the Padres if they didn’t have a Tommy John pitcher signed for Spring Training so that they can write articles about how he’s “feeling strong” and “might be a candidate for the starting rotation” and then in his first Spring Training appearance he’ll hurt himself, spend the rest of the season rehabbing and eat about $3m in the process.
Yeah signing a guy like this has a lot of Josh Johnson vibes. I guess the one thing Richards has going for him is that he stayed relatively healthier before his TJ surgery, so he might be able to come back and be somewhat effective. It would be great to see him make a full recovery and be a mentor to the younger guys.
He is a really good fit for the Padres.
Padres should buy low on Shelby Miller. The Dbacks probably secretly hate him.
Why would dodgers go out and get another injury prone pitcher makes no sense why not go after thor.we need another front line starter.makes no sense to go after a other flunky
The Dodgers under Andrew Friedman have gone after value. An injured pitcher gets much less than they would so when they’re healthy the value return is greater. Richards would be similar to Keichel in earnings potential, maybe between him and Corbin. The Ray’s did this with Ramos and the only negative I see is having to roster them in the off-season. Ramos would have received a similar offer to what Grandal gets but because of his injury the Ray’s were able to spread his contract over two years. Red Sox, Yankees, Dodgers anyone close to the luxury cap should be interested.
Get him healthy and with Darren Balsley and the Padres have themselves a very nice option on their hands when he is healthy.
The Dodgers don’t need him as much as SD does, can see them ponying up some more money to top whatever deal LA might want to arrange.
I can’t believe the Angels are just giving up on Richards. He was the Ace a few years ago. We need pitching!
Atta boy Preller! Nice, hopefully the deal is in line with the similar cases the last few years ie:
( Eovoldi, Smyly, Pineda, Volquez, etc.)
-2 years/10 million range.
Now gotta get the gears moving on the Syndergaard deal.
I’m 1-5
the padres..,
welcome to the Dodgers, dude..