The Tigers and left-hander/persistent trade candidate Matthew Boyd agreed to a one-year deal to avoid arbitration on Friday, but Anthony Fenech of the Detroit Free Press suggests that the two sides could yet discuss a lengthier pact. While it’s unlikely that the Scott Boras-represented Boyd would sign away any free-agent years, the two sides could discuss a deal that’d lock in his remaining arbitration years. That would provide the Tigers with cost certainty and create the potential for a relative bargain in the event that Boyd puts it all together after showing flashes of dominance in 2019 but struggling with home runs (as many of his peers did this past season). For Boyd, it’d protect him against an injury or notable decline prior to hitting the open market in the 2022-23 offseason — when he’ll be heading into his age-32 season.
More from the division…
- Although the White Sox have largely displaced James McCann with the signings of Yasmani Grandal and Edwin Encarnacion, general manager Rick Hahn reiterated this weekend that he views McCann as a valuable member of the club (link via Madeline Kenney of the Chicago Sun-Times). “Having quality depth is a positive thing on good clubs, and it’s part of what makes good clubs able to withstand the unexpected,” said Hahn. “We view James as potentially playing a role on a championship club, and that hasn’t changed since the end of last season to today.” There’s been some speculation about McCann’s availability in trade talks, but ChiSox leadership has publicly maintained a desire to keep McCann on the roster. The 29-year-old’s .273/.328/.460 slash in 2019 was clearly strong on the whole, but it was fueled by a .359 average on balls in play. Beyond that, McCann wilted over the summer, hitting just .231/.285/.410 from July through season’s end. Most of that was due to an abysmal month of July — he rebounded to an extent in August and September — but the Sox clearly still saw room for an upgrade. At $5.4MM, he’s a bit of an expensive backup, but few clubs can boast that type of offensive potential from their reserve catcher and the Sox have the payroll space to make the situation work.
- The Twins added former Royals and Phillies pitching coach Bob McClure to their coaching staff, per a team announcement. He’ll serve as their new bullpen coach, replacing the departed Jeremy Hefner, whom the Mets hired as their new pitching coach. The 67-year-old McClure is twice as old as the man he’s replacing, but he’s familiar with the organization after spending time as a pitching advisor with the Twins over the past three seasons. The Twins also bumped assistant hitting coach Rudy Hernandez to the title of hitting coach. They’ll somewhat atypically have two coaches with that title — Edgar Varela is the other — as opposed to the more conventional arrangement of one lead coach and one assistant. Varela and Hernandez are stepping up following the departure of James Rowson, who took a job as the Marlins’ new “offensive coordinator.”
Wonder if they’re still in/going to get Donaldson anytime soon
Should know by now as a twins fan to not hold your breath
Lol
Tigers should wait to do anything on Boyd unless they actually get a good offer. (i.e. Marsh plus) dont buy that 1st half was real.
They should’ve moved Boyd when they had the chance in June/July (though maybe they tried and the return wasn’t even close to what they wanted). They’d be foolish to try to move him now. They won’t get much for him until he can prove the first half wasn’t a fluke.
marsh plus? haha!
No way.
Just remember some cant miss prospects from the past- Maine, Felipe Paulino, etc. In fact, that Astros 1b who got a deal before he saw a pitch too
Tigers should have traded Boyd before the deadline last year as that will most likely be his peak value unless he has another hot start this year, Most teams hung up after they heard the asking price. Tigers asked the Yankees for Gleybar, Avila is just bad at negotiating.
@RicoD
Wow, if their price for Boyd (with the Yanks) was Gleybar, I can see why they couldn’t move Boyd.
Please provide a source for that nonsense..
Whether it’s true or not I remember hearing the same thing
Live in Detroit area, and it was never rumored here. Maybe Yankees were putting out reasons why they werent trading for pitching. Doubt Tigers were demanding to acquire players with their FA clocks running. They may be willing to accept it, but likely not their first choice.
Marsh + would be a really weak return even for Boyd.
A bag of stale bagels would be an overpay for a soft-tossing pitcher like Boyd who had an ERA above 5.5 after the all star break, and an ERA of 6.11 for his last ten games. He’s just another overhyped prospect who never lived up to the predictions. He’s now on the down side of his unremarkable career.
Boyd wasn’t even a hyped prospect. Try again
You dont know anything about baseball if you believe that, like, grow up, loser. Get some perspective. ANY pitcher who walks 50 and K’s 238 in 185 IP is BORDERLINE ELITE.
What an shockingly bad take, did you hit your head this morning?
LOL, sorry but you can’t rewrite history. Try again.
You need to get out more. Boyd’s K to BB ratio was around 7 before the all star break. It dropped to about 3 after the break. That’s elite garbage. Keep that loser. Nobody else wants him.
They’re not getting Marsh, period. Especially given Boyd’s horrendous second half last year. The Tigers overplayed their hand. They should have traded Marsh last spring.
Cry about it some more. Hey everyone, I think Boyd might have actually stolen OtisSnord’s girlfriend in high school!!!
Aww, how cute. Sorry little boy, but it’s the Tigers who are crying, since they’re stuck with a washout pitcher that nobody wants. Awww, so sad little boy.
There is a good chance the White Sox are going to either move McCann or Collins during the trade deadline. That all depends on how Collins plays from the beginning of the season to the trade deadline.
McCann is on a 1 year and Collins best tool right now is hitting, Tighten up his defense this year and let him play some 1B, He either becomes a very good asset at the trade deadline or a bench replacement for McCann and a LH bat for Abreu.
Collins is the one who will most likely back up Grandal from 2021 and until his contract is up. This year is going to be a learning experience for Collins since Castillo and his bad contract blocked him from getting playing time in 2019. People forget Collins caught for Cease in AA and AAA.
I’d tread a little cautiously about how valuable Collins is. He hasn’t shown any ability yet, at the MLB level. To me, he is way overhyped – same as the Chisox did with Carson Fulmer.
The Chisox farm system, with Robert and Kopech at the major league level, is now in the bottom 10, in baseball.
After a brief, unsuccessful MLB call up and debut,, Collins was told by the White Sox to work on being more aggressive and to do a better job covering the outer half of the plate and was sent back to AAA.. Collins made adjustments and hit .323/..441/..631, 170 wRC+ from mid July until the end of August when he was called back up. The final month of the season he hit a respectable .233/.343/.417, 102 wRC+. So, there is definitely something there.
White Sox have a bottom 10 system without Robert and Kopech? Maybe after also graduating Eloy and Cease in 2019. Dane Dunning was a top 100 prospect before his injury and is back for 2020. Andrew Vaughn and Nick Madrigal are top 50 prospects. You will soon learn the names of Jonathan Stiever and promising teenagers Matthew Thompson, Andrew Dalquist, Bryan Ramos, James Beard and Benyamin Bailey. Yolbert Sanchez could play SS defensively at the MLB level now. Tyler Johnson, Ian Hamilton, Codi Heuer and if Burdi comes back from injury all have the ability to not only be late inning, high leverage relievers.
Every organization has ‘promising teenagers’, and Madrigal could also become Ronald Torreyes.
Collins has had one partial season at the mlb level. Lots of room and time to grow and improve. Nobody expects him to be a superstar but as young and healthy as he is along with the talent surrounding him, I think he’ll do just fine.
A catcher that bats left handed with some pop…are always an asset and play in the major leagues a long time.
Dogbone – Torreyes put up pedestrian numbers in AA and AAA. Madrigal just destroyed those levels. Another team would want Madrigal in a trade because they rightly value him highly and believe he will be a good MLB player. Pretending all prospects are worthless and should be traded for MLB talent is a bad strategy.
Doesn’t matter if he can hit. Collins is terrible behind the plate right now. Worse than even Narvaez.
He also doesn’t hit LHP well enough to warrant a position on a roster that has a ton of DH-types.
They need to send him to AAA, not only to work on hitting LHP, but to work significantly on his receiving skills.
The poor catching skills of Collins, Mercedes and Zavala are why McCann at this point has to stay on the active roster. He can at least look passable as a catcher. The organization’s depth at the position as a whole is pretty weak.
With the roster they have, he doesn’t need to hit LHP at all to be an asset. They were a top 10 offense vs lefties (107 wRC+) last year and bottom 10 vs righties (88 wRC+).
That being said, hopefully the new acquisitions help balance that out. Grandal hit righties well last year (114 wRC+; 138 vs lefties), and Encarnacion hit them even better (121 wRC+; 152 vs lefties). Either way, this team is setup to mash against lefties again, with or without Collins.
Also forgot about Mazara. He’d be ideal to platoon against righties.
I wouldn’t expect Collins to be traded b/c the White Sox FO values him significantly higher than the rest of the league. If he makes the ML roster, he will be set up to fail this season. The Sox have two far superior catchers on the roster that he should never see time over. Hahn knows there is no PT or position for him but has suggested Collins could be the 26th man b/c “Collins can potentially play multiple other positions.” Certainly he didn’t have a straight face when uttering those words. Every other organization appears to view him as a platoon DH. The Sox need to park him in AAA and hope he just mashes and move him to another AL team when you can get something of value (this season or next), if he is on the ML roster he will see limited action, struggle and any prospect shine that might remain will be gone.
Boyd hitting decline. Who’d figure on that?
Everyone besides the Tigers and their fanboys saw that coming
Boyd has potential but sucks…not worth an asking price unless he probes otherwise.
If Boyd dominates up until the end of July, you might see a good offer.
MLB has to get rid of the fake ball. It’s a stupid and embarrassing way to alter performance.
It will be interesting interesting to see who
regresses if they go
back to the old ball…..
If I was the tigers I would attach Faedo or Burrows with Boyd to try and max out the return of a hitting prospect. The tigers have plenty young arms they can easily shed one to get a return of a near mlb ready position player. Like trade Boyd and Faedo to the angles for Marsh and a lottery ticket prospect
The Angels hang up on that one. They probably already have.
Boyd has been overhyped for years. He’s simply not that good. He certainly isn’t worth 3.5 war in my opinion. I get the leagues offensive explosion, but he was in the weakest division. It’d only be worse for him if he was in the West or East.
Boyd had 238 SO’s in 184 innings last season. Swing and miss pitchers are premium, and comes as a left handed bonus. “Simply not that good” doesn’t apply to Boyd.
Yes it does. He can’t prevent runs. Peripherals are all well and good, but a pitchers job is to keep the other team from scoring. Boyd doesn’t do that, regardless of how many batters he strikes out.
snotrocket
By some measures, Tigers had THE worst defense in MLB. Put a half decent fielding team behind him, those “peripherals” will look a lot better next to that k-rate
Agreed. Their manager was trying to make as many utility players as possible. The Tigers used a multitude of players at 2b,3b, and SS and CF. Its extremely hard to be consistent defensively why you’re being bounced from position to position.
At some point, have to stop making excuses. K’s have gone up across the league, so I’m not sure how that’s relevant if he keeps allowing people to score. He’s been in the league several years and has never had an era south of four. He’s getting close to 30, so he’s basically as good as he’s ever going to be.
Perhaps the Tigers coaching staff, the ones that state how to pitch to hitters can take some blame. That has a lot to do with runs given up also.
ERA=Earned Run Average. EARNED runs. Base runners that get on and runs that score due to defensive ineptitude are not included.
The Mets tried that same excuse of “bad defense” last year to try to explain why Syndergaard was having a bad year. Hoping to still get big value in a trade. Like somehow their terrible defense killed Syndergaard, yet it didn’t keep DeGrom from winning his second straight CY. GM’s don’t fall for that.
FIP= Fielding INDEPENDENT Pitching of defense, baserunning etc
You are confusing the two.
“FIP= Fielding INDEPENDENT Pitching of defense, baserunning etc”
When they take all the infielders and outfielders out of baseball, that’ll be much more important. But until then, fielders are an asset.
Take a look at Verlanders numbers from 2013-17. Not super, but things changed in Houston.
And Boyd only is scheduled to make 5.3mil next season and is under team control for 2 years after that. So he is an option for every team in the league not just the ones with high payrolls or money to spend.
Chris Archer is 10th all-time in K’s per 9 innings. Who cares if Boyd strikes out a lot of guys. Boyd can’t get enough outs to justify the asking price Avila has.
@antibelt If not for back to back starts vs the team who broke the HR record, Boyd’s ERA would be a lot better, but his xFIP shows who he really was anyway. But you probably dont have the capacity to understand any kind of stats if you think WAR is opinion-based, lol
Did you graduate high school y/n?
xFIP shows the potential of what they can be. At the end of the day, a pitchers job is to not allow runs. Boyd is not capable of doing that. How do you not get that? Are you a Boyd and defending your family member? If Boyd was worth anything, another team like the Angels would have paid up by now. No takers. Now get a grip strikefour
Give Boyd a 4 year extension, and keep him where he’s wanted. No need to argue, win-win for everyone!
Rick Hahn thinks rostering 6 Designated Hitters is “quality depth”.
I still buy that McCann has value on this team in 2020 in working with the pitchers along with Grandal. His bat will almost certainly regress to career norms because that’s who he is, but he’s still more valuable to the team than Collins is likely to be. I don’t know who you think all the other DH’s are, though. EE is a legit DH. Grandal is a legit C. Abreu is not a great defender at 1B, but that’s where he has a strong preference to play and lots of guys can’t make the switch to just being a DH, so he’s locked in there.
Defensive metrics place DH as the current best position for Collins, McCann, Jimenez, Mazara, EE and Abreu.
Where Abreu prefers to play or how difficult it is to transition is immaterial. Hahn gave that ridiculous extension to a DH.
Jimenez and Mazara will need to take huge steps forward if this is to be the playoff team Hahn claims he’s built.
Until that happens, he’s calling 6 DHs “quality depth”.
Oh, I get it. Below *average* = only cut out for DH in your mind. Then sure, 6 DHs, but by that logic, the average AL team would be expected to trot out 5 DH’s a game (4 that are above average defenders, 4 that are below average, and, of course, the DH). And it matters a lot where a player prefers to play. Frank Thomas wasn’t a great defender, but wanted to play 1st. The Sox tried to make him a DH and his hitting suffered so much that his overall value went down. If you would rather have a Frank Thomas hitting .275/.394/.505 as a DH as opposed to a Frank Thomas hitting .337/.453/.625 despite his defensive limitations, you don’t really know baseball.
Are you kidding?
Frank Thomas looks worse as a DH because he took over the position after age 30, and after injuries made him an even worse defender. And he made the move more than willingly.
That is a very weak argument.
Either Collins or McCann has to be moved, and the sooner the better. I’d prefer they moved Collins, as teams may still buy his upside and the years of cost-control are a plus to the return value, but Grandal’s locked in at C most days, Abreu at 1st, and EE at DH. They could send Collins back to AAA, but they have Mercedes and Zavala, who have a better chance to stick behind the plate, waiting to come up next year after McCann leaves in FA.
No team buys Collins.
Teams don’t target players based on 3 year old scouting reports and one BABIP fueld month at AA.
Zavala has no bat.
Mercedes is a worse defender than Collins.
Collins has little value unless he becomes a serviceable catcher. The league has plenty of LH bats that can’t field. And he has no position or point on the roster as currently constructed.
They need to send him back to AAA for the season and pray he figures it out.
Zavala needs to be taken off the 40-man roster. He is barely passable as a catcher defensively and can’t hit.
Keeping McCann is the best thing for the team, what if Grandal gets hurt? Grandal already has seen time at 1B too, and the teams with the deepest benches are the ones who go to the postseason. White Sox should not only keep McCann, but use him often. There’s room for all.
At this point, I’d guess Collins learns more about catching from McCann and his long time mentor Grandal than he would catching regularly at AAA. With a 26 man roster, carrying 3 catchers doesn’t really create a problem especially when two of them can hit from the left side of the plate. Last season the Sox got below average, indeed, below replacement level production, from CF, RF and DH and they were a decidedly right-handed order. . Whatever the defensive shortcomings of Collins and Mazara, their presence, along with that of Robert and Encarnacion, means the 2020 Sox should enjoy increased production from those positions and they will have better options against tough right-handed pitching.. Current the team has 5 catchers on the 40 man roster. Eventually, some move will be made; but, I see no urgency.
“Hello, I’m Bob McClure. You may remember me from such MLB jobs as Royals’ pitching coach, and Phillies’ pitching coach…”
Respect ✊
RIP Phil Hartman
Wait, a Sox comment thread with no comments mentioning the Cubs? Wtf
McCann may be the preferred personal catcher for multiple pitchers on ChiSox staff. Having a quality backup & a team leader is very valuable to a young squad & to keeping Yasmani fresh. If we’re in the hunt come July, McCann’s not going anywhere. The return in a trade for him won’t be worthwhile anyway. If he matches his 2019 offensive output in 2020 albeit in a reduced role, i could see Hahn extending him 2 more yrs.