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Archives for March 2020

AJ Reed Announces Retirement

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In news that slipped under the radar when it was announced, former top Astros prospect AJ Reed has announced his retirement. Chandler Rome of the Houston Chronicle highlights the decision and analyzes it from the perspective of his former organization.

Reed, a former second-round pick, was once considered one of the game’s premium hitting prospects. He showed an intriguing blend of power and patience on his way up the farm. Reed generally made loud contact and plenty of it, with hefty batting averages on balls in play and unconcerning strikeout rates.

When he debuted with the ’Stros in 2016, Reed seemed quite likely to hit in the majors. After all, he mashed at every level on his way there. The real question was whether he’d do so enough to be a highly valuable player, given his limitations on the field (first base only) and on the bases.

As it turns out, there was a bigger problem lurking. Reed’s strikeout rate had ticked up a bit at Triple-A in 2016. It exploded in the majors. As it turned out, he’d end up taking 199 total plate appearances at the game’s highest level, carrying a 14.2% swinging-strike rate and 35.7% strikeout rate. Reed’s power stroke never played, either. All told, his career batting line sits at an awful .149/.241/.234.

The Astros gave Reed lengthy stints at Triple-A in hopes he’d find his groove. While he was still an above-average hitter there in 2017 and 2018, the trajectory didn’t trend back up. Per Rome, “his weight and conditioning were often problems.” The Houston ultimately gave up hope last year after watching Reed struggle at the highest level of the minors.

Reed landed with the White Sox on a waiver claim, with the rebuilding organization hoping a change of scenery might help. Instead, he struck out in more than four of every ten plate appearances he took at the MLB and Triple-A levels. Reed was outrighted from the 40-man roster in August.

Despite the obvious difficulties, it remains a bit surprising to see Reed hang up his spikes at just 26 years of age. No doubt some organization would’ve been willing to invest resources in hopes of spurring a turnaround. Then again, it’s understandable that Reed would prefer to move on after experiencing such a frustrating turn of fortunes. MLBTR wishes him the best in his future pursuits.

Quick Hits: TJ Surgery, Thor, Verlander, Torres

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Even with medical facilities reeling from the coronavirus, there are still Tommy John surgeries taking place. Red Sox left-hander Chris Sale and Mets righty Noah Syndergaard have undergone the procedure in the past few days. However, famed orthopedist Dr. James Andrews, who’s known for performing the operation, has put a stop to it for the time being, Alex Speier of the Boston Globe relays. The Andrews Institute for Orthopaedics and Sports Medicine is located in Florida, where Gov. Ron DeSantis – as Speier writes – issued an executive order prohibiting “any medically unnecessary, non-urgent or non-emergency procedure or surgery which, if delayed, does not place a patient’s immediate health, safety or wellbeing at risk, or will, if delayed, not contribute to the worsening of a serious or life-threatening medical condition.” Syndergaard underwent TJS in the state last week, though he was not an Andrews patient.

  • It’s hard to believe, but Syndergaard could end up as a non-tender candidate next winter, as Buster Olney of ESPN observes. Syndergaard should be in line to make around $9.7MM next season (the same salary he’s slated for in 2020), but he’s going to miss a large portion of 2021 and, as Olney explains, teams may be in cost-cutting mode with revenues sure to decline because of the coronavirus. Those realities could lead to a non-tender or a trade for Syndergaard, so it’s possible he has already thrown his last pitch as a Met. Whether or not Syndergaard becomes a non-tender victim, one executive told Olney that there will likely be an increase in such cases next offseason. “I think you’ll see more non-tenders,” the exec said. “The guys with four-plus or five-plus [years of] service time.”
  • Astros ace and reigning AL Cy Young winner Justin Verlander seems to be making progress in his recovery from the right groin surgery he underwent on March 17. General manager James Click told Brian McTaggart of MLB.com: “The last I heard, everything’s going great and he’s ready to get back out there as soon as he possibly can. I haven’t heard anything bad. As far as I know, he’s right on schedule and he’s recovering very well.” That’s reassuring for the Astros, who – if there is a season – will count on Verlander and Zack Greinke to carry a rotation that lost Gerrit Cole and Wade Miley in free agency.
  • The Yankees aren’t known for doling out contract extensions, but if they’re going to lock up one of their own for the long haul, shortstop Gleyber Torres is a logical candidate. The 23-year-old enjoyed an especially impressive campaign in 2019, and he’s now entering his final season of pre-arbitration. That said, the Yankees are unlikely to try to extend Torres until they see how he fares as a full-time shortstop, George A. King III of the New York Post writes. While Torres has mostly played second base since his career began in 2018, he spent the majority of last season at short because now-Phillie Didi Gregorius sat out for a couple months while recovering from Tommy John surgery. Torres didn’t garner awful grades there, for what it’s worth, finishing with minus-1 Defensive Runs Saved, a minus-2.1 Ultimate Zone Rating and minus-3 Outs Above Average. Regardless of how adept Torres is in the field, it seems he’s someone the Yankees should want around at set prices for the foreseeable future. Even if that’s the case, though, there’s a leaguewide freeze on extension talks at the moment.

Rebound Candidate: Kyle Freeland

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If you’re of the belief that a pitcher can’t thrive despite calling the hitters’ haven known as Coors Field home, think again. Rockies left-hander Kyle Freeland did so in 2018, a year in which he finished fourth in National League Cy Young voting. He pitched to an excellent 2.85 ERA/3.67 FIP across 202 1/3 innings that season, giving the Rockies and the rest of the baseball world the impression that the club, long starved for solid starting pitching, had a front-line one-two punch on its hands in him and German Marquez. While Marquez did continue to produce last year, Freeland declined to a dramatic extent – no doubt one of the reasons the Rockies went from a playoff team to a bottom feeder.

Things went so awry for Freeland in 2019 that he spent a sizable portion of the season in the minors. The Rockies demoted Freeland to Triple-A Albuquerque on May 31 and didn’t recall him until the middle of July. Freeland wasn’t remotely effective during his time last year in the minors, where he pitched to an 8.80 ERA with 8.5 K/9 and 4.9 BB/9 in 29 innings. He was better in the majors, but that’s not saying much. In fact, it’s hard to find a pitcher who went downhill faster from 2018 to last season than Freeland, who logged a 6.73 ERA/5.99 FIP across 104 1/3 frames as a Rockie.

So what happened? Home runs, for one. The HR bug bit many a pitcher during what was a historically power-happy season. Freeland didn’t elude the long ball, as his HR-to-fly ball rate climbed from 8.5 percent during his Cy Young-contending effort two years ago to 21.7 last season. And Freeland, whose typical fastball sits in the 92 mph range, has never been much for strikeouts, but that was especially the case in 2019. He struck out fewer than seven batters per nine and ranked 12th last among all starters who threw at least 100 innings in strikeout-walk percentage (8.5). The fastball betrayed Freeland, who – according to FanGraphs – dominated with that pitch during his dream ’18. Last season was a different story, though, as Freeland’s heater ranked near the basement of the league in efficacy.

To make matters worse, Freeland wasn’t any kind of Statcast favorite. Rather, he finished below average in just about all of its categories. To list a couple examples, his expected weighted on-base average rose by 62 points from the previous year, while his hard-hit rate jumped by almost 11 percent.

“I didn’t feel confident at all,” Freeland admitted to Shane Monaghan of 5280 Magazine in regards to 2019. “I was just hoping not to give up runs.”

Freeland has since adjusted his delivery, which he and the Rockies hope will do the trick.

“You aren’t going to see the long pause,” manager Bud Black told Monaghan. “It will be a free-flowing, momentum-building delivery.”

It’s quite possible we’ll never see the Cy Young-type version of Freeland again, though it may also be fair to give him the benefit of the doubt. The pedigree’s there (Freeland was the eighth overall pick in the 2014 draft), he’s still just 26 years old and even before his brilliant showing two seasons back, he fared well as a rookie in 2017. Nobody knows whether there will even be Major League Baseball this year, but if there is, Freeland will enter the campaign as one of the game’s most intriguing bounce-back candidates.

Photo courtesy of USA Today Sports Images.

MLBTR Poll: The Luis Robert Extension

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Super-talented, MLB-ready 22-year-olds don’t grow on trees. If you do happen upon one, what are the odds they perfectly fit your roster need and contention window? Viewed from that perspective, and accounting for the context of MLB player valuation, the $50MM risk the White Sox took on Luis Robert is a slam dunk.

Of course, all of that guaranteed cash is payable over a six-year term — the precise amount of time the club could’ve enjoyed him in the majors even without promising another dime. And it could’ve been nearly seven full seasons with a bit of service-time trickery. So, the South Siders are only gaining control over one or two seasons of would-be free agency. (Which is it? Depends upon one’s cynicism levels. And the as-yet-unknown question whether Robert will need to spend further time in the minors once he reaches the big leagues.)

Presuming the options are exercised, the deal maxes out at $88MM over eight campaigns. And that’s on top of the $26MM that the team spent just to lure Robert into the organization in the first place! Compare that to Mookie Betts, one of the game’s most productive younger players, who just secured a record-setting $27MM salary for his final trip through arbitration. The Red Sox and Dodgers got 6+ seasons of Betts for a total cost of about $60MM in salary.

Now, there’s inflation to consider. Betts’s earnings wouldn’t have been nearly that robust had he debuted six seasons earlier. If Robert can produce something like Betts, he’ll surely out-earn Mookie. And the White Sox are picking up one or two added seasons of control, which could be quite valuable. We know how much the Dodgers valued the chance to control Betts for just one season, even while paying him a big salary. Again: if Robert has a career path of that kind, then those option years will be an enormous boon to the White Sox.

The thing is, it’s not really reasonable to compare Robert to a guy like Betts. Can he perform to that level? Sure, he’s considered one of the very best prospects in all of baseball for a reason. But that’s hardly the likeliest outcome. Even putting aside the question of talent and production, there are numerous hiccups that can stall a player’s arbitration earning power. Carlos Correa is only earning $7.4MM in his second-to-last arb-eligible campaign — less than half of what contemporary Francisco Lindor will earn ($16.7MM). Rewind two years and these guys looked like a coin flip on value. As it turns out, Correa dealt with ill-timed injuries that significantly dented his ability to earn via arbitration.

Running the numbers, it’s hard to imagine you could really go much higher with an up-front guarantee for a pre-MLB player — at least, perhaps, unless the team was able to pick up yet more future control. The Robert contract, which tops the White Sox’ deal last year with Eloy Jimenez, included a pretty hefty premium to achieve cost certainty and some added control (along with, perhaps, the ability to promote him on Opening Day 2020 without concern for service time). That said, the White Sox have an excellent track record with extensions, having achieved big value in the past with players such as Chris Sale and Adam Eaton.

How do you view the deal? (Poll link for app users.)

Transaction Retrospection: Reds Rob Marlins

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We’re approaching the four-year anniversary of an under-the-radar Reds move that has paid and could continue to pay massive dividends for the franchise. On April 1, 2016, the Reds claimed right-hander Dan Straily off waivers from the Padres. At that point, Straily was coming off an up-and-down few years divided among the Athletics, Cubs and Astros, and he spent the vast majority of the 2015 campaign as part of Houston’s Triple-A affiliate. But the Straily pickup proved to be incredibly shrewd for Cincinnati, with which he overcame unimpressive underlying metrics to post a 3.76 ERA across a career-high 191 1/3 innings in 2016.

As a team, the Reds didn’t capitalize on Straily’s presence, winning a mere 68 games and finishing with more losses than wins for the third straight year. They still haven’t registered a .500 or better season since then, though the effect of taking a low-risk flier on Straily a few years back could be felt for a significant amount of time. After all, on the heels of his solid season as a Red, they flipped him to the Marlins in January 2017 in what’s arguably one of the biggest heists in recent baseball history.

In exchange for Straily, the Reds received three players – a pair of righties, Luis Castillo and Austin Brice, as well as outfield prospect Isaiah White. Brice didn’t amount to much in Cincinnati (he actually spent last season back with the Marlins and is now a member of the Red Sox organization), while the 23-year-old White hasn’t advanced past the Single-A level yet.

On the other hand, Castillo has become a gem – a hurler the Marlins no doubt rue trading at all, let alone for someone who was an unspectacular performer in their uniform. Straily was a Marlin from 2017-18, both losing seasons for the club, and pitched to a 4.20 ERA during that 304-inning span. The Marlins wound up releasing him heading into last season, which proved to be a disastrous year in the Orioles org for Straily. He’s now with the Lotte Giants of the Korea Baseball Organization.

Meanwhile, Castillo has morphed into an electrifying major league starter. After a respectable first two seasons in Cincy, the heat-throwing Castillo truly came into his own in 2019. The 27-year-old pitched to a 3.40 ERA/3.70 FIP with 10.67 K/9 and 3.73 BB/9 across a a personal-best 190 2/3 frames. Along the way, Castillo ranked second among all qualified starters in groundball percentage (55.2) and fourth in swinging-strike percentage (15.9), placing him between Cy Young winners Justin Verlander and Jacob deGrom. And Statcast loved Castillo’s work, ranking him near the top of the league in several important categories.

The fact that Castillo has evolved into such a standout isn’t wholly surprising. Remember, when the Marlins parted with Castillo, he was regarded as one of their handful of best prospects. Baseball America posited then that Castillo, who was coming off a season of stellar production at the High-A and Double-A levels, had mid-rotation potential. Nevertheless, despite his upside, it was the second time the Marlins had agreed to part with Castillo. They previously tried to send him to the Padres in a notable July 2016 trade, but they got him back after fellow righty Colin Rea’s medicals proved problematic. Had the Castillo aspect of that deal gone through, it also would have blown up in Miami’s face.

It seems fair to say that the Marlins did not properly value Castillo while he was with the organization. The Reds are profiting from that right now. In Cincinnati, Castillo currently finds himself as an integral piece of a quality starting rotation that could help the Reds push for a playoff berth this year (if there is a season). Castillo still has another pre-arbitration campaign left and the Reds have the ability to control him through 2023, making him all the more appealing. If the Reds are going to return to prominence in the near future, there’s a good chance that the Castillo trade will have something to do with it.

Photo courtesy of USA Today Sports Images.

Seranthony Dominguez Considering Tommy John Recommendation

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Phillies reliever Seranthony Dominguez has battled elbow problems for some time now, so this doesn’t come as much of a surprise. Still, it’s disappointing to learn that doctors have recommended he undergo Tommy John surgery, according to Scott Lauber of the Philadelphia Inquirer.

Dominguez is still weighing his options at the moment. There’s some uncertainty in the underlying test results, it seems, so Dominguez is holding out hope that rest and rehabilitation will offer an alternative path back. Per Lauber, the right-hander plans to pursue further testing once a second Spring Training begins.

Even if Dominguez had a change of heart, it may be tough for him to get the work done at this point. He’s back home in the Dominican Republic and travel isn’t exactly straightforward. And scheduling a non-essential procedure such as TJS during the coronavirus pandemic may or may not be possible. (Several pitchers have managed, though circumstances are changing daily.)

The ulnar collateral ligament has long proved problematic for the 25-year-old. He tried a PRP treatment and rehabilitation course last year but ultimately made only 27 appearances and didn’t return to action after hitting the injured list in early June. While he showed some promise this spring, Dominguez ultimately suffered a setback. The postponement of the 2020 season leaves additional time for further rehab efforts, though it’s fair to wonder whether he’ll finally be able to get over the hump without an invasive treatment.

College Baseball Players Granted Additional Year Of NCAA Eligibility

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The National Collegiate Athletic Association has decided to grant a universal extra year of eligibility to all spring sports athletics, Nicole Auerback of The Athletic reports on Twitter. Designed to deal with the cancellation of baseball and other spring seasons, the decision has major implications for the MLB amateur draft this year and beyond.

You may recall that the recent MLB-MLBPA agreement to deal with the coronavirus included provisions involving the draft. Commissioner Rob Manfred now has authority to limit the 2020 draft to as few as five rounds, with $20K bonus caps on undrafted players. That’s far less in cash and opportunity than is typically handed out in a given year for amateur intake.

The NCAA decision provides an important counterweight to the huge loss of player leverage that comes with MLB’s crisis-driven modification of the typical draft. Having the ability to return to school and reenter the ensuing year’s draft may not be the preferred option for all players, but at least there’s now a realistic choice. Were it not for the grant of additional eligibility, college juniors would’ve faced an unenviable, binary choice: take what a MLB team offers now or enter the 2021 draft as a senior without any leverage to speak of. The best senior players now have newfound leverage they never would’ve had otherwise.

This decision was anticipated in advance of the MLB-MLBPA agreement; no doubt those negotiations took it into account. At the time the spring sports eligibility expansion was first floated, though, it wasn’t clear whether it would apply automatically to all players.

With far less money being spent in the 2020 draft, and the cash that is promised deferred, we’re likely to see quite a different outcome than would’ve taken place otherwise. Many collegians that would’ve ended up in the professional ranks will now stick with their universities — potentially taking spots on the depth charts from incoming freshmen. Perhaps some graduating high schoolers will be more apt to turn pro, though they’ll also be presented with the same limited earning opportunities.

GM Trade History: Rick Hahn

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It’s not always fair to judge baseball operations leaders for free agent signings.  In many cases, the biggest contracts are negotiated to varying extents by ownership.  The same can hold true of major extensions.  It’s just tough to know from the outside.

There’s obviously involvement from above in trade scenarios as well.  But, when it comes to exchanging rights to some players for others, it stands to reason the role of the general manager is all the more clear.

In any event, for what it’s worth, it seemed an opportune moment to take a look back at the trade track records of some of the general managers around the game.  After covering the Diamondbacks’ Mike Hazen, former Astros GM Jeff Luhnow, the Brewers’ David Stearns, the Angels’ Billy Eppler and the Rockies’ Jeff Bridich, let’s venture to the South Side of Chicago and evaluate Rick Hahn of the White Sox. Here’s a look at Hahn’s deals since he was promoted prior to the 2013 campaign (in chronological order and excluding minor deals; full details at transaction link.)

2013 Season

2013-14 Offseason

2014 Season

2014-15 Offseason

2015-16 Offseason

2016 Season

2016-17 Offseason

2017 Season

2017-18 Offseason

2018 Season

2018-19 Offseason

2019 Season

2019-20 Offseason

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What do you think of Hahn’s trade history? (Poll link for app users)

Luxury Tax Status Will Not Reset If 2020 Season Is Cancelled

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While Major League Baseball and the MLB Players Association have officially reached a deal on a temporary re-working of the collective bargaining agreement, the details are still filtering out. One key element of the coronavirus alteration is the role of the competitive balance (“luxury”) tax.

The CBT has played a notable role in structuring roster decisionmaking in recent years. Even those organizations willing to pay it from time to time have sought to avoid doing so in consecutive seasons. Repeat offenders pay heavier rates on their overages. Big-spending teams have come to recognize that dipping back under the bar to reset the luxury tax rate can make for massive savings.

We have learned some details of the modified system (see here and here), including the fact that there’s no CBT obligation if a season isn’t played. (Otherwise, it’ll be handled on a pro-rated basis.) But that doesn’t mean that, in the unfortunate event of a cancelled season, every team would start with a clean slate in the 2020-21 offseason. Instead, per Alex Speier of the Boston Globe (Twitter link), the pre-2020 CBT status would carry forward.

This news is directly pertinent to the three teams that incurred a luxury tax penalty in 2019: the Red Sox, Yankees, and Cubs. In the event of a season cancellation, they’d all head into the 2021 season without a reset. That could have major implications for the Boston and Chicago organizations, in particular.

While the Yankees were planning to blow past the $208MM luxury tax line regardless, the Red Sox and Cubs were not. The Boston club — a two-time repeat payer of the luxury tax — had already moved below the 2020 mark and was clearly planning on a reset. The Cubs were sitting just above the threshold when Spring Training was suspended. Calculation depends upon the contracts added or removed during the course of the season, so the Cubs expected to have a chance to reevaluate as the campaign progressed.

This bit of news may not end up mattering. If the 2020 season is played, the Red Sox will get their reset and the Cubs will still have a chance to adjust their payroll to dip under the luxury threshold — so long as there’s an opportunity to make trades, at least. Then again, the calculus would be quite a bit different than originally anticipated in a short-season format without a typical trade deadline period.

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