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Archives for November 2019

Kevan Smith Changes Agencies

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Angels’ catcher Kevan Smith has changed agencies and will now be represented by Bryan Hamper of Fusion Sports Agency, MLBTR has learned. Smith, 31, entered the affiliated ranks as a seventh-round pick of the White Sox, with whom he spent the first eight seasons of his pro career. He made his way to the Angels via waivers after the 2018 season and totaled 211 plate appearances last year. Smith’s .251/.318/.393 line was strong for a catcher, although he hasn’t rated well as a pitch framer in his career.

Smith currently sits atop an uncertain catching mix in Anaheim. He’s eligible for arbitration for the first time this offseason. MLBTR’s Matt Swartz projects Smith to take home a $1.3MM salary. He’ll be eligible for arbitration twice more and is on track to reach free agency after 2022.

Smith’s change in representation will be reflected in MLBTR’s Agency Database, which contains agent info on thousands of Major League and Minor League players. If you see any errors or omissions within, please let us know: mlbtrdatabase@gmail.com.

Quick Hits: Mariners, Narvaez, Stewart, Padres, Pomeranz

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Shake off your tryptophan coma with a few quick bursts of baseball-related action…

  • The availability of catcher Omar Narvaez in trade talks can be directly linked to the Mariners’ recent extension with first base prospect Evan White, suggests Greg Johns of MLB.com (link). While that may seem like a logical leap at first glance, White’s forthcoming presence on the club’s major league roster should allow GM Jerry Dipoto to utilize Austin Nola as a backup catcher. Nola, a catcher by trade, was mostly used in combination with Daniel Vogelbach at first last season. Johns also notes that the club’s recent signing of Patrick Wisdom, though minor in nature, gives the club yet another option at first in the event of an injury to White. As explored earlier, the bat-first Narvaez should only look more appealing as a trade target as this offseason progresses; as of Friday, open market catchers Yasmani Grandal, Travis d’Arnaud, Tyler Flowers, and Yan Gomes have all been spoken for.
  • Carter Stewart’s foray into the Nippon Professional Baseball ranks is covered in a recent profile from Jim Halley of Baseball America, with several interesting notes on the youngster’s on-and-off-field adjustments in Japan. Beyond the obvious cultural adjustments that a nineteen-year-old American would face in moving to Japan, Matt Skrmetta, a scout with Stewart’s Fukuoka SoftBank Hawks, relays that the right-hander is currently adapting to the league’s more contact-oriented hitters.  For those who may not remember, the 6’6 Stewart was originally the 8th overall draft pick of the Braves in 2018, although a longstanding wrist injury led the club to only offer him a signing bonus at less than half of the pick’s $4.98MM slot value. The righty spurned that offer and spent a year pitching in the JuCo ranks before a lack of interest at the top of the 2019 draft led Fukuoka to come calling with an unprecedented long-term deal.
  • For the time being, the Padres are penciling in Drew Pomeranz and Kirby Yates as their back-end bullpen options, conveys The Athletic’s Dennis Lin in a recent mailbag. While there were Twitter rumblings this week that Pomeranz’s acquisition only made an offseason trade of Yates more likely, Lin notes that an extension with the 32-year-old Hawaiian is still an entirely plausible scenario. For what it’s worth, Pomeranz and Yates compiled 89.1 innings of a combined 1.41 ERA as relievers last year, potentially setting San Diego out with a thoroughly effective–if pricey–backend. MLBTR projects Yates to receive a $6.5MM award in a final pass through arb, while Pomeranz’s deal included an $8MM signing bonus in advance of a $4MM 2020 salary.

MLBTR Poll: Grading The Kyle Gibson Deal

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Wednesday’s reported agreement between Kyle Gibson and the Rangers to a three-year, $30MM deal will likely not go down as the most impactful free agent deal signed by a starting pitcher this offseason. Due to an assortment of early-career injuries, Gibson reached free agency relatively late, at 32 years of age, with the additional misfortune of doing so in the shadow of names like Gerrit Cole, Stephen Strasburg, and Zack Wheeler. While Gibson might not represent the flashiest name to find a new uniform this winter, his Texas signing represented part of an apparently ongoing talent acquisition strategy in Arlington.

As noted by our own Jeff Todd and Steve Adams, Gibson’s deal fit the mold of the organization’s recent signings of pitchers like Mike Minor and Lance Lynn. Those deals have worked out swimmingly for president of baseball operations Jon Daniels, with Minor and Lynn fronting a 2019 staff that helped lead Texas to a surprisingly solid 78-84 finish in 2019. Minor’s own spotty track record of health allowed Daniels to secure his services for a three-year, $28MM commitment prior to 2018; Lynn, fresh off of a disappointing 2018 following several years of solid performance, inked a three-year, $30MM accord with Texas prior to last season. In 2019, those economical signings provided Texas with a combined 418.2 innings of 3.63 ERA pitching.

Not one of these pitchers could be called a true reclamation project. Like Lynn and Minor, Gibson comes to the Dallas area with a few warts on his health report, some inconsistencies in performance, and a few flaws in his statistical profile; he also arrives with a fairly solid body of cumulative work and a few reasons to believe his best pitching may be yet ahead of him. While his early career Tommy John procedure goes a long way toward explaining his late entry to the free agency portal, Gibson’s made 25 or more starts in every season since 2014. Not every campaign has been brilliant, with an ERA exceeding 5.00 between 2016 and 2017, but the big righty was a sub-4.00 ERA starter in 2015 and 2018, while this past season saw him record career bests in K/9 and K/BB ratios (due, perhaps, to some measurable improvements in his repertoire). The Mizzou product won’t be confused with an ace, but he’s accumulated 5.2 fWAR over the past two seasons and could be called the archetype of a “back-of-the-rotation” arm. Meanwhile, Texas will roll out Gibson, Minor, and Lynn for a combined annual commitment of roughly $31MM next season–perhaps less than it will cost an acquiring team for one yearly serving of Cole.

Detractors of the deal, however, will point to a serving of Cole as having been an entirely realistic holiday season wish. After showing a willingness to sport a $160MM-plus Opening Day payroll in 2017, Texas ownership has since pared down OD payrolls bit-by-bit; 2020’s opening payroll, per Cot’s Baseball Contracts, is projected to fall at roughly $110MM as presently constructed. The Rangers, as you may have heard, are moving into a new ballpark in 2020, raising fanbase expectations in regard to on-field product. And as for that new stadium? Daniels will have to hope that Gibson can keep the ball within its confines, as the hurler’s 20.4% HR/FB rate from last season does not bode well for a pitcher performing in the dry Texas heat. If Gibson performs the way Minor and Lynn have as Rangers, this deal will look like another reasonable move in a market where reason can oftentimes lose out; if his struggles with the long ball lead to another up-and-down season, fans will likely wonder why the club didn’t aim higher in its search for starting pitching.

In your opinion, is the Gibson signing a shrewd continuation of a tried-and-true Texas trend or an underwhelming half-measure in light of 2020 expectations? (Poll link for app users)


Blue Jays Notes: Pitching, Pineda, Tsutsugo, Tellez

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The Blue Jays have been connected to several free agent starting pitchers this offseason, with club GM Ross Atkins voicing a desire to “add significantly” to a staff that, as presently constructed, is relatively short on proven arms. With free agent starters beginning to trickle off the board, Toronto’s course from here forward may become increasingly tricky to plot, as noted in an exploratory piece from Gregor Chisholm of the Toronto Star (link). Kyle Gibson, a starter in whom Toronto was said to have an interest, has signed a multi-year deal with the Rangers, while Jake Odorizzi, another reported target, opted to accept his qualifying offer from Minnesota. In Chisholm’s view, many of the remaining available options offer an unpalatable mix of red flags. Zack Wheeler is a “massive risk” in the writer’s view, while arms like Madison Bumgarner, Cole Hamels, and Hyun-Jin Ryu are unlikely due to either age or their “expected desires to play for a contender”. While Chisholm is justified in being doubtful of a truly earth-shattering free agent acquisition, given the club’s history in the open market, an observer might note that Atkins could be able to sell a veteran pitcher on a near-term return to contention in Toronto, given the club’s ample payroll space and trove of quality young players. After all, last offseason saw Manny Machado settle in with San Diego based partly on the club’s general organizational direction, and Jays youngsters like Bo Bichette, Vladimir Guerrero Jr., and Nate Pearson could all make for appealing future teammates to any of the market’s higher-end starters.

More news from the north country…

  • But what if Toronto’s front office does decide to eschew higher-priced free agent starters in favor of a few Black Friday bargains? That’s the question asked by Ben Nicholson-Smith of Sportsnet, who identifies three potential open-market additions who, for various reasons, may be willing to accept relatively marked-down deals. While Jordan Lyles and Wade Miley would each make for reasonable innings-eating inclusions into Toronto’s pitching corps, Nicholson-Smith tops his list of potential bargains with big righty Michael Pineda. By my own addition, it seems reasonable to conclude that Pineda could start garnering interest from clubs seeking value on their holiday shopping lists. Though some teams will surely be wary of a player who is slated to miss the first six weeks of 2020 due to a PED suspension, that pockmark on Pineda’s track record could theoretically help create a value proposition for an interested club; moreover, though Pineda’s bottom-line results in the bigs have largely been ho-hum–with a career 4.04 ERA in 800-plus innings with the Mariners, Yankees, and Twins–underlying metrics include a 3.67 career FIP and a career 4.47 K/BB ratio. With a four-seamer that dropped down to 92.5 mean mph in 2019, Pineda won’t be most imposing addition to a team’s front end, but he’s a known commodity who would certainly slot in well to a rotation like Toronto’s.
  • The Jays have been said to have interest in former NPB player and MLB hopeful Yoshitomo Tsutsugo, leading Kaitlyn McGrath of The Athletic to forecast his potential fit into the Toronto position player mix. Atkins recently cited Tsutsugo’s versatility as one of his key benefits, in reference to the fact that the 28-year-old has played the corner outfield, first, and third in recent seasons with the Yokohama DeNA BayStars. However, scouting reports on Tsutsugo’s defense have generally been damning with faint praise. Of Tsutsugo’s 2019 stint at third base, veteran NPB scribe Jim Allen says: “It’s not that he could play it OK, but it didn’t bother his offense at all.” This type of hedging leads McGrath to conclude that Tsutsugo’s ultimate destination in Toronto would likely be first base, with his patient, left-handed bat likely pushing Rowdy Tellez to the margins of the roster. Tsutsugo would likely happily receive calls for Toronto, due to his stated lack of preference for geographical location, but interested teams will only have until Dec. 19 to agree to terms to a deal that will pay a dependent release fee to his parent club in Yokohama.

 

2019 Non-Tender Candidates

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At the start of the offseason, 277 players were on 40-man rosters and eligible for arbitration. That number has been pared back substantially as all 30 teams have worked to trim the fringes of their rosters. For those who remain, the non-tender deadline is this coming Monday at 8pm ET. By that point, teams must inform arbitration-eligible players whether they will receive a (non-guaranteed) contract for the 2020 season, or else become free agents. Once a player is tendered a contract, the two sides will have another roughly two months to work out salaries before arbitration hearings kick off in February. Non-tendered players immediately become free agents who can sign with another team for any amount.

As we do each year at MLBTR, we’re providing a list of players whose teams could potentially elect not to tender them a contract, thus sending them into the free-agent pool earlier than expected. It should be emphasized that we’re not indicating that each of these players is likely to be non-tendered (though that’s certainly the case with some of them). Typically, we list any player for which we can envision at least a 10-20 percent chance of a non-tender.

It should also be noted that some of these non-tender candidates will be traded in the next few days rather than simply cut loose. Some could also be claimed by another team on waivers. Orioles second baseman Jonathan Villar, for instance, is currently on outright waivers and may land with another team. Other borderline candidates may be presented with an offer that is notably lower than their projected salary and could accept the “take it or leave it” ultimatum rather than being non-tendered.

Onto the list, with salary projections (included in parentheses below) coming courtesy of MLBTR contributor Matt Swartz.

Position Players

Tim Beckham, INF, Mariners ($3MM — Beckham still has 32 games remaining on an 80-game PED suspension)
C.J. Cron, 1B, Twins ($7.7MM)
Charlie Culberson, INF/OF, Braves ($1.8MM)
Cheslor Cuthbert, 3B, Royals ($1.8MM)
Elias Diaz, C, Pirates ($1.4MM)
Wilmer Difo, INF, Nationals ($1.2MM)
Brandon Drury, INF/OF, Blue Jays ($2.5MM)
Maikel Franco, 3B, Phillies ($5.7MM)
Erik Gonzalez, INF, Pirates ($800K)
Cesar Hernandez, 2B, Phillies ($11.8MM)
Caleb Joseph, C, D-backs ($1.2MM)
Jake Lamb, 1B/3B, D-backs ($5MM)
Luke Maile, C, Blue Jays ($800K)
Sandy Leon, C, Red Sox ($2.8MM)
John Ryan Murphy, C, Braves ($1.2MM)
Jose Peraza, INF, Reds ($3.6MM)
Josh Phegley, C, Athletics ($2.2MM)
Chad Pinder, INF/OF, Athletics ($1.8MM)
Kevin Pillar, CF, Giants ($9.7MM)
Jurickson Profar, INF, Athletics ($5.8MM)
Joey Rickard, OF, Giants ($1.1MM)
Addison Russell, 2B/SS, Cubs ($5.1MM)
Tyler Saladino, 2B/SS, Brewers ($1MM)
Domingo Santana, OF/DH, Mariners ($4.4MM)
Travis Shaw, 3B/1B, Brewers ($4.7MM)
Steven Souza Jr., OF, D-backs ($4.125MM)
Tony Wolters, C, Rockies ($2MM)

Starters

Tyler Anderson, LHP, Giants ($2.625MM)
Kevin Gausman, RHP, Reds ($10.6MM)
Aaron Sanchez, RHP, Astros ($5.6MM — Sanchez is recovering from shoulder surgery that’ll sideline him into 2020)
Jose Urena, RHP, Marlins ($4MM)

Relievers

Scott Alexander, LHP, Dodgers ($1MM)
Adam Conley, LHP, Marlins ($1.6MM)
Chris Devenski, RHP, Astros ($2MM)
Yimi Garcia, RHP, Dodgers ($1.1MM)
Javy Guerra, RHP, Nationals ($1.3MM)
Koda Glover, RHP, Nationals ($700K)
Derek Law, RHP, Blue Jays ($1.3M)
Chaz Roe, RHP, Rays ($2.2MM)
Hunter Strickland, RHP, Nationals ($1.9MM)
Blake Treinen, RHP, Athletics ($7.8MM)

Diamondbacks Sign Stephen Vogt

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Nov. 29: Vogt will be paid $2.5MM in 2020 and has a $500K buyout of a $3MM option for the 2021 campaign, Nick Piecoro of the Arizona Republic reports. That option can trigger automatically depending on playing time, and the contract contains escalators (based on games started) that would boost Vogt’s salary in 2021.

Nov. 26: The Diamondbacks made a low-cost strike on the free-agent market, adding catcher Stephen Vogt on a one-year contract, the team announced Tuesday evening. The deal will reportedly promise Vogt a total of $3MM, and it also contains a vesting option for the 2021 season. Vogt is represented by All Bases Covered Sports Management.

Stephen Vogt | Sergio Estrada-USA TODAY Sports

Vogt, 35, feared his career could be over following a 2018 shoulder surgery with the Brewers, but he landed with the Giants on a minor league pact and proved himself with a quietly strong rebound season. In 280 plate appearances spread over the life of 99 games, the former All-Star hit .263/.314/.490 with 10 home runs.

Arizona’s need for a backstop isn’t necessarily acute, but Vogt’s left-handed bat will pair nicely with the up-and-coming Carson Kelly, who hits from the opposite side of the dish — and does so quite well (.356/.462/.667 versus lefties in 2019). Vogt will also give the 25-year-old Kelly another veteran mentor under whom to study, replacing fellow free agent Alex Avila, who remains unsigned but now appears destined to land elsewhere.

The D-backs also have veteran catcher Caleb Joseph on the 40-man roster as a third option, and given the fact that they’ve previously carried three catchers at a time even with a 25-man roster, it seems plausible that they’ll do so again now that rosters are set to expand to 26 players for the 2020 season. Alternatively, Vogt’s acquisition could also spell the end of Joseph’s time with the Arizona organization. He’s arbitration-eligible this winter and projected to receive a $1.2MM salary, which the club may feel too steep to pay a third catcher who falls behind both Kelly and Vogt on the depth chart.

ESPN’s Jeff Passan first reported the agreement (via Twitter). Joel Sherman of the New York Post (Twitter link) and Zach Buchanan of The Athletic (Twitter links) added details on the financial structure.

Justin Bour To Sign With NPB’s Hanshin Tigers

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Free agent first baseman Justin Bour has reached an agreement with the Hanshin Tigers of Japan’s Nippon Professional Baseball, Tigers GM Osamu Tanimoto tells the Japan Times. Bour had been outrighted by the Angels at season’s end and elected free agency.

The 31-year-old Bour signed a one-year, $2.5MM deal with the Halos last winter but turned in a career-worst .172/.259/.364 batting line in his short time with the organization. He continued to display above-average walk tendencies (10 percent in 2019; 11.2 percent career) and also showed above-average power (.192 ISO), but Bour’s 30.6 percent strikeout rate this past season was far and away the highest of his career. Ultimately, he played in just 52 games as an Angel and tallied 170 plate appearances.

Bour will head to Japan as a career .253/.337/.457 hitter with 92 home runs, 71 doubles and a pair of triples in 1950 Major League plate appearance — most of which came with the Marlins. He’s never handled left-handed pitching particularly well (.215/.302/.324), but he owns a stout .262/.345/.490 career batting line against right-handed pitching.

Starling Marte Open To Being Traded To Contending Team

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With the Pirates coming off a disappointing season and new general manager Ben Cherington now in charge of the organization, there has been wide speculation that a rebuild could be coming in Pittsburgh.  This would naturally make Starling Marte into a trade candidate, and the center fielder indicated in a conversation with Hector Gomez of Deportivo Z 101 (Twitter links) that he wants to be play for a winning team in 2020, in Pittsburgh or elsewhere.

The Pirates “have the power to decide about my future,” Marte said.  “If it was for me I will leave for a team that is ready to compete right now on a World Series and that’s not our case.”  When asked specifically about the Mets, who have a need in center field and have already reportedly shown interest in Marte’s services, Marte said that “it will be an honor to play with them,” since New York is more poised to contend next season.

It should be noted that these comments fall short of any actual trade request; needless to say, virtually every player would prefer to player for a contender, all things considered.  Marte doesn’t appear to have any hard feelings about the Pirates or his situation, noting that “if it [a trade] doesn’t happen, I will keep working hard and giving my team all I have.”

Marte is under team control for the next two seasons, earning $11.5MM in 2020 and possibly $12.5MM via a club option for 2021 (with a $1MM buyout).  This counts as pricey by the Pirates’ standards, especially for a team that may be retooling.  The newly-hired Cherington has yet to give any firm indication about the Bucs’ next direction, and given how it often takes a new GM some weeks or months to fully adjust to a new position (meeting with internal personnel, making new hires, etc.), decisions about Marte, Josh Bell, Gregory Polanco, or other potential trade chips might not be made until later in the offseason.

If the Mets are set on Marte, they have some room to be patient, as the club does have Michael Conforto and Brandon Nimmo available as center field options if a proper full-time center fielder can’t be found.  Beyond just New York, other teams could be content to play the waiting game if the Pirates need time to decide on Marte, given the lack of clear-cut options in the center field free agent market.

NL East Notes: Harrison, Braves, Nationals

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Josh Harrison received interest from multiple teams before signing his minor league deal with the Phillies yesterday, and MLB Network’s Jon Heyman reports (Twitter link) that the Mets were the runners-up in the race for the veteran infielder.  Given that Cesar Hernandez has been widely tabbed as a non-tender candidate, Harrison would seemingly have a smoother path to possible playing time at second base in Philadelphia, whereas Robinson Cano, Jeff McNeil, and Jed Lowrie could all be ahead of Harrison on the depth chart in Queens.  Despite the seeming glut of infield talent, it isn’t surprising that the Mets were on the lookout for more depth given that Cano battled both injuries and a downturn in performance in 2019, while Lowrie spent most of the year on the injured list.

More from around the NL East….

  • While the Braves have been the winter’s busiest team thus far, their “offseason will rise/fall on [Josh] Donaldson’s decision,” Mark Bradley of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution opines.  Missing out on Donaldson would leave the team with a big hole in the lineup, and one that couldn’t be entirely filled by another third base addition like Mike Moustakas.  As Bradley puts it, “Moustakas is a good player. Donaldson and [Anthony] Rendon are great players.”  This take is perhaps rather dismissive of Moustakas’ abilities, as while Donaldson is the better player, there is some upside to inking a lesser third base option — for instance, Atlanta could sign Moustakas and a starting pitcher for the same price it would take to land just Donaldson.  While it remains to be seen if Donaldson will be re-signed, Bradley notes that the Braves’ early flurry of signings has quieted some critics who felt the team wasn’t prepared to spend to reinforce its NL East-winning roster.
  • The Braves’ quick pace wasn’t by design, however, as GM Alex Anthopoulos tells The Athletic’s Jayson Stark (subscription required).  “I’m not in a position to forecast what the rest of our offseason is going to look like because what we’ve done so far was really just circumstance.  It just happened to come together the way it did,” Anthopoulos said, noting that the deals with Chris Martin, Darren O’Day, Nick Markakis, and Tyler Flowers were aided by the fact that all four players were already with Atlanta in 2019.  As a result, Stark writes that fans might be disappointed if they think Atlanta’s moves or the White Sox moving quickly to sign Yasmani Grandal could signal a busier hot stove season for all 30 teams rather than the slow-moving winters of the last two years.
  • Relief pitching looks to be a clear need for the Nationals this offseason…or is it?  As Jesse Dougherty of the Washington Post observes, the Nats’ early acquisitions of Trevor Rosenthal and Kyle Barraclough last winter ended up as disasters, and the club ended up more or less entirely remaking their bullpen by season’s end.  With this in mind, the Nationals might aim lower in picking up any new relievers this offseason because, since relief pitching performance is so hard to predict from year to year, the club might prefer to save such acquisitions for closer to the trade deadline.  GM Mike Rizzo “prefers to assess relievers in-season, with fresh data and video to parse through,” Dougherty writes.

Minor MLB Transactions: 11/28/19

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The latest minor league moves from around baseball…

  • The Twins have agreed to a minor league deal with left-hander Mitch Horacek, reporter Robert Murray tweets.  A ninth-round pick for the Orioles in the 2013 draft, Horacek has a 4.21 ERA, 8.9 K/9, and 2.97 K/BB rate over 658 2/3 career minor league innings, with the last two seasons spent in Colorado’s farm system.  Horacek has worked exclusively as a reliever for the last three years and he got his first taste of Triple-A ball in 2019, though he posted a disastrous 18.75 ERA over 12 frames for Albuquerque of the Pacific Coast League.  The 27-year-old did deliver much better numbers at the Double-A level, however, and Minnesota could be betting that Horacek performs better in a less homer-happy environment than the PCL.

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