2:55PM: Middleton’s deal will pay him $800K in guaranteed money, MLB Network’s Jon Heyman tweets, with some incentive bonuses also available.
12:06PM: The Mariners announced that right-hander Keynan Middleton has been signed to a Major League contract. To create roster room, outfielder Phillip Ervin has been designated for assignment.
The hard-throwing Middleton had a very promising rookie season in the Angels bullpen in 2017, though he was limited to only 25 1/3 total innings in 2018-19 due to Tommy John surgery. This past season, Middleton threw 12 innings over 13 appearances for Los Angeles, posting a 5.25 ERA, 1.83 K/BB rate, and 8.3 K/9.
According to Statcast, Middleton has consistently delivered very good fastball spin rates over his career, and his advanced metrics indicated that he was somewhat unlucky to post such a high ERA in 2020. Nonetheless, the Angels non-tendered Middleton on December 2 rather than pay a projected arbitration salary of roughly $1MM.
Seattle GM Jerry Dipoto was the Angels’ general manager when Middleton was drafted by the Halos back in 2013, and the two will now reunite on what Middleton described as his “home team” (he hails from Portland, Oregon) in the Mariners’ press release. Even with the guaranteed salary of a MLB deal, the Mariners are taking what is likely a low-cost flier to see if Middleton can regain his rookie form now that he is healthy, and under somewhat more normal circumstances than the unusual 2020 season.
Ervin was picked up on a waiver claim from the Reds in September, and he managed only a .622 OPS over 47 plate appearances in a Seattle uniform. That was still markedly better than his performance over his first 42 PA of the season with Cincinnati, as Ervin had only a .324 OPS. Prior to 2020, Ervin has delivered just about league-average offensive production as a part-timer with the Reds, hitting .262/.326/.438 over 571 PA from 2017-19.
Picked 27th overall in the 2013 draft, Ervin has some decent minor league numbers and can play all three outfield positions, so he would seem like a decent candidate to land elsewhere on a waiver claim. Ervin is out of minor league options, however.
I was a bit surprised the Angels let him go, although I’m guessing being arbitration-eligible contributed. He wasn’t good last year, but he was still working his way back from TJS. Could be a solid pickup if fully recovered.
Many of us fans don’t like him
Many maybe, but the majority did like him. Yes, his season was great but definitely a fan favorite.
Bad clubhouse guy
Were you ever in the clubhouse? Keynan had many friends in the clubhouse. You can actually see him having fun and conversations with the vets from your seats in the dugout. #fakenews
If you have a poor bull-pen, you shouldn’t shop from another’s poor pens cast offs. That’s Jerry!!
Jerry perusing the bottom of the free agent spreadsheet
Papielf: This is EXACTLY what a rebuilding franchise needs to do. Sign potentially high upside RP’s at a low cost. Especially coming off this trying season.
Where is this spreadsheet
I saw some M’s fans on their Lookout Landing site saying that they were wanting a move like this or Treinen. This and Montero are two good moves for their pen.
I’m a mariners fan and, I just wanted to say that u guys are having a great offseason so far and Jose corneil is nasty I saw him pitch and at only 17 I could see him being a better Jose leclerc
Thanks! I read that a lot of M’s fans hated giving up Corniell, I hope he turns into a good piece!
Unfortunately with so many prospects we were bound to give up a good one and I hope montero can return to 2019 but great trade and u still got another player
Where did you see him pitch? He hasn’t played stateside and the instructional league outings weren’t televised.
There were reports that Seattle was interested in both Treinen and Middleton. Though most fans were hoping (and believing) there would be several significant free agent signings, the focus has been rebound candidates.
Nothing wrong with that, I myself have firmly believed the focus in 2021 should still be development and preparation for 2022, but I think a lot of fans are a little bummed to see moves like these after hearing a lot of talk about possible contention from Seattle’s front office.
I like the move. The folks at LL were behind this from the time he was DFAd, mostly because he has flashed brilliance and is somewhat of a local (Portland native, I think).
Seattle’s bullpen has nowhere to go but up (they were the worst in the league), but it’s still a cast of misfits. So, I’m hoping for one more: Sean Doolittle. If they’re going to roll the dice, his experience and character alone could be beneficial. If he happens to return to form, even better.
It usually takes one and a half to two years for a pitcher to recover from TJS. Depends on when he had the surgery etc. Also how much real work did he put into getting back? These are perfect signings low risk high reward. Looking for what works for 2022.
As a mariner fan, I’m glad we are not making any significant money moves so far this winter. Next offseason is a different story tho. I really hope we spend next offseason.
With so many young guys on our roster rn we don’t have a whole lot of certainty about how good or how bad these players are. That’s why I hope we don’t spend until next offseason, after a (hopefully) full year.
I wouldn’t have had a problem with 2-year deals to solid relievers, or even a 3-year deal for a pitcher like Rosenthal. But there was little doubt there would be at least one rebound-candidate. Seattle now has 3 for the active roster alone.
But Servais stated today that they expect Muñoz in the fold in June. That’s good news and they may very well intend to give him every chance to seize the closer title. Maybe not right away, but in 2022?
It’s going to be fun to see where they do end up investing. Crawford’s 2021 will dictate whether or not they go after a start SS. I could still see them targeting Tetsuto Yamada for 2B, assuming he declines the 7-year offer the Swallows made a month or so ago and becomes an international free agent.
But I could easily see them targeting Conforto to DH and serve as a fourth/fifth outfielder, spending big on an arm like Syndergaard, and tightening up the bullpen further.
Honestly, this is the best thing we got this off-season
A real fan who is realistic and understands baseball as a business, knows this is a very good, most likely low cost, pick up. Jerry is not done, don’t think this is the last of the RP he is going to get this off-season. Nice pick up, but still work to do….
The Mariners will have a surprisingly good bullpen next year. Graveman and Middleton are solid 7th and 8th inning options.
M’s bullpen looking decent now. I don’t think anyone thinks it’ll be top 10 rn but the goal is to not be in the bottom 10 for this year.
Here here Houken to the Flouken! It is indeed….Montero, Graveman and Middleton are just a slight upgrade to B Shaw, Seth Frankoff, Yacabonis and Nestor Cortes eh? Haha Now, if we can add a top 10 FA RP like a Rosenthal, Treinen or Yates that BP could change some minds about it being in the top 10!
He was not good and he also got into Twitter arguments with angel fans
Hes a passionate guy who got pretty unlucky.. He loved being an Angel. Im a huge fan and believe this was the one mistake the Angels made in their bloodletting this year.
He’s the one guy with solid rebound potential who was let go. I wouldn’t say he loved being an Angel after some of the things he’s said about Angels fans on social media.
What are you talking about? Middleton literally had to delete his twitter account because he was tweeting about how Angels fans suck and how he might pitch better if “people actually showed up and cheered” and couldn’t handle the negative feedback and starting belittling fans.. He had a very poor attitude and was rude to many fans, Good riddance.
Siggson- if K Middleton is defined as not good I wonder how you’d describe the 2020 Seattle BP? We had 7 RP’s with FIP’s higher than 7.57, two pitchers had FIP’s higher than 14.00 while all of those 7 had ERA+ of 37 or lower. In comparison KM looks like an All-Star RP
Seriously, I will live with him arguing with angel fans.
I like Ervin to Rays. The guy can play, he needs a shot.
No way the Rays use a 40 man spot on Ervin. He’s a fringe ML guy at best.
Prior to 2020, he was a league-average hitter with a little bit of pop in his bat. His .212 BABIP last season (in just 47 PAs) is unsustainably low. He’ll regress to the mean, which equates to a much better 2021.
I don’t think the Rays—who currently may not have a spot for Brett Phillips—need Ervin, but I’d have to imagine someone gives him a shot.
Wait!!
So, after all that talk yesterday about small sample size being nonsense, you’re now citing SSS to defend Ervin!?
You can’t say that Montero had a history of high Hard-Hit% or low GB%, because he doesn’t and I already gave you those numbers. Those stats were only bad in 2020.–in a small sample.
But let’s take a harder look at Ervin…
He actually had 89 PA’s this year, his average EV matched his career average (a whopping 85.4), and he had exactly 3 extra base hits.
Like you said, he had been roughly a league-average hitter prior to 2020. He was worth 1 fWAR from 2018-2019; wRC+ of 94 and 102. But again, weak EV–well below league average (good for 316th among hitters with 80+ PAs last season). HardHit% in 2018 was a 34.6%, then dipped to 29.7% in 2019 and slipped further to 25% this year. Barrel% was 4.3 and 4.0 previously (he had zero barrels in 2020). And all of this came with 24+% K-rates each year.
So, is it possible that he was ‘lucky’ to be an average hitter the previous 2 years? Projections suggest he should rebound (they also suggest Montero should be solid), but if I were a gambling man, my money wouldn’t be on the guy trending downward 3 years straight.
The point I’m trying to make is that there is a better argument for Montero having a decent 2021 than there is for Ervin, especially when you look at trends from 2019 as well. So, I really don’t get the ranting you did last night, nor do I get the interest in Ervin.
Stevil- so you’re saying Ervin couldn’t catch up to a 4seam FB and was for all intents and purposes an OF version of Dee Gordon? I will not miss their bats in the lineup! No sir!
LHP Andrés Munoz who came over in the Padres deal for Austin Nola, once threw 104 mph pitch in a minor league game. Hopefully he’ll be a nice addition to the back end of the bullpen once mid season rolls around next year. Well done JeDi.
Yes everyone said he was a throw in and yes he had tommy John but AMAZING pickup and only 22
throw in? who said that?
SD coaches and scouts suggested they expect him to be the biggest prize of that trade .
Not France, not Trammell, not Torrens…. Munõz. And it’s easy to understand why. He has the same kind of electric stuff Diaz has, but with better command and control.
If only…. one day we could look back on this Nola trade and know EXACTLY how Baltimore fans felt about the Adam Jones trade. A reverse Bedard trade!
If the Kelenic and Nola trades both work out well you can bet HalosheavenJJ and friends will still be trashing Jerry Dipoto another 5 years from now!
He is 21 years old right now and he’s also a RHP
My mistake. I don’t know why I thought he was a lefty.
Key is a solid reliever and I think the Angels will regret letting him go (especially since he ended up in Sea). Ironic that they officially lost Key today (high velocity reliever) and signed Claudio (one of the softest tossers in baseball).
“ on what Middleton described as his “home team” (he hails from Portland, Oregon) in the Mariners’ press release.”
Shots fired future Portland franchise.
Portland cannot support a ML team and there is no reason to add one there. This isn’t soccer or basketball. Politics alone would keep a team away as they’d never agree to build a stadium.
Portland is part of the M’s territorial rights. They will not relinquish the 2nd biggest TV market and MLB cannot force them to give up those rights. Portland getting a MLB team is just a pipe dream.
Is Vancouver, BC not in Seattle’s TV market? I’d imagine they would be the second largest.
Portland would still be a big loss for Seattle either way.
Vancouver is not part of the M’s territory, While the games are available, the team has no exclusive rights. If a team wanted to relocated to Vancouver it would be free to do so.
Good move for a team that needs bullpen help.
Really good bounceback potential. He’s far enough away from injury to be back fully healthy and ideally won’t be put into super high leverage situations early. He seems like a guy who tried too hard too often, trying to aim and be perfect rather than just let his great stuff play.
The only thing about the Angels pitching staff that has been consistent is that they are all inconsistent. Middleton showed promise and fell off. Same with Bedrosian and many other pitchers we’ve gone through. I appreciate Manasian ending the trend of “maybe this guy will have a bounce back year”. At some point you have to realize that the good season many of these guys had was the exception. We have held on way too long to some of them waiting for them to repeat their good season performance. Manasian did right by ditching half of the BP. He just needs to make the right selections to replace them. Iglesias was a good start.
Good luck to Middleton in Seattle.
Does T-Mobile Park get loud? Asking for an old friend…
Now this is the type of comment I want to see.
Another solid move by Jerry. Seattle is quietly building a nice team in the AL West. They should be relevant by 2023 at the latest provided they continue to add to their pitching staff.
Things have gone terribly wrong if they aren’t even relevant by 2023.
Nice quote from Middleton.
twitter.com/RyanDivish/status/1339280449663725568
Another swing and miss by A’s front office. Should have been all over Middleton at that salary.
Sorry, I don’t agree with most of the posts praising this signing and the Montero trade. Apparently, Jerry Dipoto has a penchant for relief pitchers who have had Tommy John surgery with high walk rates:
Keynan Middleton: career 3.8 BB/9
Rafael Montero: career 4.6 BB/9
Kendall Graveman: career 2.7 BB/9
Not what you’re looking for out of a bullpen. These are not small sample sizes, and their walk rates were bad after the TJ surgery as well.
So is this the “market inefficiency” that he is trying to exploit? If the M’s are serious about trying to compete in the weakened AL West in 2021, they need relievers with good track records, not reclamation projects. There are better names for the pen he could sign that wouldn’t break the bank, like Jeremy Jeffress, Shane Greene, Archie Bradley, etc. Instead, we could be looking at a Philly-type bullpen that makes the starters shudder when the doors open.
Jeremy Jeffress and Archie Bradley have career walk rates of 3.7 per nine innings.
Good catch on the walk rates on Jeffress and Bradley. However, neither had TJ surgery. It was the combo I was trying to highlight.
Who cares if they had TJS? If they’re healthy and effective, what does it matter?
Graveman has 2.7 as a starter. Not bad considering.
Bradley will sign for more than what Middleton and Montero combined will be paid this year, likely double. I would love to add him to the roster.
But these two are low cost with upside additions, if they don’t pan out not a lot of $ sunk.
Relief pitchers usually have higher walk rates than starters.
Literally 220 relievers that threw at least 10 innings last season had a BB/9 of 2.70 or higher, 211 of which had higher BB/9’s than Graveman (10-way tie for 2.70).
But let’s take this further….
142 relievers had a BB/9 of 3.8 or higher.
87 had a BB/9 of 4.6 or higher.
And you might be surprised who had some those numbers….
Devin Williams; 3.0. (ROY!)
James Karinchak; 5.33
Edwin Diaz, 4.91
Trevor Rosenthal; 3.04
Point is, BB/9 isn’t a great way to judge a reliever, and it’s worth noting that Seattle is targeting guys they believe they can fix (with a variety of flags/issues). They’ve been good at that for a few years now, so it’s hard to fault them for giving it another go.
Well said, Stevil.
You can always count on learning something from Stevil’s comments. He always brings good insight and knowledge to a conversation. I enjoy reading every one of his comments.
Sam Delaplane, Wyatt Mills, and Andrés Munoz who Dipoto traded for and drafted for should all be available soon. Lets see what we have in them before the dust settles. Might be able to find another Edwin Diaz gem and save you some money. In the mean time. The new youth core of Kelenic, Gilbert, and Raleigh have not arrived yet. We have time before we need to go out and spend high dollars for an elite bullpen arm(s).
The 2 FA RP’s signed -Graveman and Middleton, their 2021 combined salary is just under $2.25 Million. We obviously wont know the true value from the pieces traded for R Montero for quite a few years but all in all Dipoto looks to have collected 3 intriguing power arms in the BP for very little money/value indeed. We not only have time but we should also still have plenty of money for that elite RP. Crossing my fingers its Rosenthal or one of the other top 10 FA RP’s.
I’m with you Hoping! Hoping for Sean Doolittle, maybe Archie Bradley… a good lefty would be nice. Rosenthal would be great! There are some pretty decent options available.
They now have some 30ish pen arms. For the next move I’d like to see Dipoto sign a veteran SP like Garrett Richards to help the younger starters.
That would be a great addition. M’s have an incredible amount of bullpen arms now, we just don’t know the exact quality of most of them rn. Can’t wait to watch em develop in ‘21
I hope the Orioles give Ervin a shot. We could use the OF depth. Looking at his numbers he did play okay
He played really solid defense for the M’s last year in the corners.
Bad clubhouse guy
This is a good move for the Mariners. I am of the belief that a team should never overspend on relief pitchers because they are so unpredictable from year to year. You can put together a bullpen with these kinds of acquisitions and a lot of the time, a couple of these guys end up pitching really well. If that happens with Middleton, the Mariners can flip him at the deadline for a decent prospect and continue adding for the rebuild.
Exactly! They can do the same (flip) Graveman and Montero at the deadline if their season goes wrong
Meh. It’s a gambler’s way of building a bullpen. The real problem with it, is some of these types will succeed, while other will fail miserably. It takes some losses to realize who is who. Winning teams don’t have 15-20 games to gamble with… but when you’re not trying to win, I guess it’s “smart.”
There will be MANY RPs to sign for $800k or less this year. The trick is picking the right one, the one who performs. You don’t get credit for picking a generically cheap contract.
Dipoto has a very long list the past 4 years of these types of pitchers whose initial acquisition was praised as shrewd, but the actual performance was lacking.
The Mariners ARE trying to win this year, the Montero trade and the Graveman-Middleton contracts are upgrades on anyone we signed in 2019 and 2020. I also don’t think Dipoto is finished building his pen this year. It’s unfair to compare the last 4 years because the teams priorities were so different in 19’ and 20.’
I don’t think the M’s are using a philosophy of buying these 3 RP’s with the intention of flipping them. Nor would I agree with that philosophy if they did. However if the 2021 team doesn’t have a winning record they have still have an option of at least trying to get some type of value in return.
I’m not following your logic on -“winning teams don’t have 15-20 games to gamble with…” considering the 2019 Nationals were still able to win the WS by playing poorly all the way through May 23. I’m sure you remember they were famously 19-31 at that point. You obviously don’t want to gamble (finding out who’s your best RP) through 50 games but surely MLB FO’s know you can still turn things around if you have a losing record at the end of April.
Right on. If a few things can fall into place for the M’s, they could well surprise a lot of people. My six cylinders are 1) a revamped and improved bullpen, 2) positive rookie contributions from Kelenic and Gilbert, 3) continued good play from Lewis and Moore, 4) increased offense from Crawford and White, 5) seeing Ty France in the batting order most days, and 6) a healthy Murphy able to contribute as he did prior to the foot injury. I view all those things as “why not?” Barring injuries, I think the rotation and defense will be fine.