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Tigers Hire Ryan Garko As Vice President Of Player Development

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The Tigers have hired former big league first baseman Ryan Garko as their new vice president of player development, per a club announcement. He’d spent the past two seasons with the Angels’ coaching staff as an instant replay coordinator and working to integrate information from the club’s analytics department into the clubhouse and dugout.

Garko, 40, was the 78th overall draft pick by the Indians back in 2003 and spent parts of six seasons in the Majors, batting a combined .275/.347/.434 with 55 home runs, 75 doubles and three triples in 1752 plate appearances. He spent the 2011 season playing with the Samsung Lions of the Korea Baseball Organization, and since retiring he’s managed the Dodgers’ Double-A affiliate and coached in the college ranks at the University of the Pacific and at Stanford.

Garko’s hiring comes just a few weeks after some changes in the Tigers’ front office were announced. Former VP of player development Dave Littlefield, who has been with the club since 2014, moved into a new role as a special assignment scout. Littlefield, who was the Pirates’ general manager from 2001-07, has spent three decades working in baseball operations, dating back to his time as a scout with the Expos in 1991.

The Tigers also recently announced a pair of key front office promotions, as director of baseball ops and pro scouting Sam Menzin and senior director of baseball analytics Jay Sartori were both named vice president/assistant general manager. Menzin, 31, began his baseball career as an intern with the Tigers and had held his previous title for the past four seasons. Sartori, 42, has spent the past six years building and overseeing the Tigers’ analytics department. He’s previously served as the Nationals’ director of baseball operations and spent three years as an assistant general manager with the Blue Jays as well.

Cubs Select Jason Adam

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The Cubs have selected the contract of right-hander Jason Adam and will appoint him as the 29th man for today’s doubleheader, per a club announcement. Chicago also placed catcher Robinson Chirinos on the 10-day IL due to an oblique strain and recalled outfielder Greg Deichmann from Triple-A Iowa.

It’s a remarkable return for Adam, who suffered a gruesome injury with the Cubs’ Triple-A affiliate earlier in the season. The 30-year-old right-hander was shagging fly-balls in the outfield during batting practice and suffered an open dislocation and fracture of his ankle, which caused significant damage to multiple ligaments and tendons in his foot and ankle.

Adam told the Des Moines Register’s Tommy Birch back in June that he had thoughts of NFL quarterback Alex Smith’s career-altering injury and the harrowing sequence of surgeries and infection that followed. At one point, Adam feared he might lose his foot. Adam told Birch that he went into shock and that doctors had difficulty sedating him for surgery due to the excess of adrenaline his body produced in the wake of the injury. Birch’s story is well worth a full read for full context on the severity of Adam’s injury as well as quotes from Adam, teammates and coaches who were there at the time (note that there are some rather graphic details of the awful injury).

Incredibly, however, doctors told Adam after the surgery that he could be back on a mound by season’s end. The Cubs designated Adam for assignment and released him shortly after the surgery, as injured players cannot be placed on outright waivers and the team needed to open a 40-man roster spot. They re-signed Adam to a minor league deal a few weeks later, however, and he’s steadily been working his way back to the mound ever since.

Adam not only returned to pitching in minor league games earlier this month but has done so with quite strong results. It’s only five innings over five appearances, but he’s held opponents to one run on five hits and a walk with seven punchouts.

It could very well be a short-term return to the Majors for Adam, who struggled through 7 2/3 frames in the big leagues earlier in the year (seven runs on nine hits and six walks). That said, Adam was quietly very effective with the Blue Jays and Cubs from 2019-20, pitching a combined 35 1/3 innings with a 3.06 ERA. He fanned more than 36 percent of the hitters he faced with the Cubs in 2020, and while walks have been an issue for him, that ability to miss bats is genuinely intriguing. Time will tell whether he sticks on the 40-man roster, but the very fact that Adam is pitching at all, just four months after such a severe injury, is something of a triumph in and of itself.

Angels Release Felix Pena

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The Angels have released right-hander Felix Pena, as indicated on the Triple-A transactions log at MiLB.com. The move concludes a four-year stint with the organization.

Pena was originally acquired out of the Cubs organization, coming over in an Oct. 2017 trade that sent cash back to Chicago. The now-31-year-old righty was a solid swingman for the Halos from 2018-20, pitching to a 4.34 ERA with a 23.6 percent strikeout rate and a strong 7.7 percent walk rate through 215 2/3 innings. He stepped up for numerous spot starts or short stints in the rotation as needed over that three-year run, making 24 total starts in addition to 42 relief appearances. Angels fans will undoubtedly remember Pena best for his seven innings of no-hit relief that closed out a combined no-hitter the day after teammate Tyler Skaggs’ untimely passing.

The 2021 season hasn’t gone particularly well for Pena either in the big leagues or in Triple-A Salt Lake. He started the year on the injured list due to a hamstring injury that cost five months, and he was clobbered for seven runs in 1 2/3 innings across his first two outings upon returning. Pena never found his footing after being optioned to Triple-A to try to right the ship. Through 68 1/3 innings in Salt Lake this season, Pena was rocked for an 8.03 ERA. His 18.8 percent strikeout rate and 8.6 percent walk rate there were both worse than his Major League levels from 2018-20, and he yielded an average of 1.84 homers per nine frames.

The Halos passed Pena through waivers unclaimed in mid-May, so today’s move doesn’t open a 40-man roster spot. As a player with three-plus years of Major League service who’d been outrighted off the 40-man roster, Pena would have become a free agent at season’s end anyhow, so today’s move just gives him a bit of a head start on gauging interest from other teams. He’ll likely have to settle for a minor league contract in free agency, but Pena posted sharp results as recently as 2020, when he worked to a 4.05 ERA and struck out more than a quarter of his opponents against a seven percent walk rate. Rough 2021 season notwithstanding, he should garner some interest this winter.

Avisail Garcia Reaches Mutual Option Threshold, Can Opt For Free Agency

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Avisail Garcia made three plate appearances in last night’s 10-2 Brewers loss to the Cardinals, giving the Milwaukee outfielder 492 PA for the season.  This is the exact number needed to turn the Brewers’ $12MM club option on Garcia for the 2022 campaign into a mutual option, and thus Garcia can now decide whether or not he wishes to remain with the Brewers or enter this winter’s free agent market.

Garcia initially came to Milwaukee via free agency in the 2019-20 offseason, as Garcia received a guaranteed $20MM over the 2019-20 seasons.  This broke down as a $500K signing bonus, $17.5MM in salary, and a $2MM buyout of that 2022 club option.  The club option turned into a mutual option if Garcia achieved either of two criteria — either 550 PA in 2021, or 1050 total PA over the 2020 and 2021 seasons.  Contractual thresholds in the shortened 2020 season were prorated, so Garcia’s 207 PA in 2020 were the equivalent of 558 PA in a normal season.  Now that the option has vested, Garcia’s buyout adjusts to $1.5MM (also based on plate appearances) should he decline his end of the mutual option.

MLBTR’s Anthony Franco outlined Garcia’s situation back on August 26, and not much has changed for the outfielder in the last four weeks.  Garcia has missed a few games due to back and hamstring soreness and hit a modest .212/.255/.500 over his last 55 plate appearances.  That said, Garcia has also homered in two of three games since a four-game absence due to back spasms, so it is possible he has turned the corner on his injury problems.

Another little hot streak over the Brewers’ final 10 games or (perhaps more importantly) during the postseason would only enhance what has already been a very solid year for the 30-year-old.  Garcia has hit .270/.337/.506 with a career-best 29 homers, which translates to a 121 wRC+ and 122 OPS+.  He has been making a lot of hard contact, and as per Statcast, Garcia might even be a little shortchanged in the production department — his .374 xwOBA is higher than his .356 wOBA.  Beyond the offensive side, Garcia has also been an excellent right fielder according to the UZR/150 (13.6) and Defensive Runs Saved (9) metrics, though he is rated as merely average by Outs Above Average.

Since mutual options are almost never triggered by both sides, it’s safe to assume Garcia will look to exercise his free agent rights unless he and the Brewers can work out an extension beforehand.  Between a big arbitration class and a lot of money already invested in the outfield, Milwaukee might prefer to seek out the proverbial next Avisail Garcia (i.e. another outfielder who could be signed for a mid-tier salary) rather than spend more on a player who hasn’t been very consistent over his 10 MLB seasons.

Should Garcia indeed decline the mutual option, the Brewers could also issue him a qualifying offer, so the team could obtain a compensatory draft pick if Garcia declined the QO and signed elsewhere.  Though the one-year QO will be in the neighborhood of $20MM, Garcia would most likely decline that one-year payday in search of a longer-term offer on the open market.

Tyler Naquin Expected To Miss Rest Of Regular Season

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Outfielder Tyler Naquin is expected to miss the remainder of the regular season, Reds manager David Bell tells Bobby Nightengale of the Cincinnati Enquirer.

This news is most unwelcome for the Reds, as Naquin has been a pleasant surprise for them this year. After being non-tendered by Cleveland in December, he latched on with the Reds on a minor league deal in February and then had a great spring, vaulting himself onto the Opening Day roster. Since then, he has gotten into 127 games for the Reds, hitting .270/.333/.477, good enough for a wRC+ of 111. Despite subpar defense, he’s still been worth 1.4 wins above replacement on the season, according to FanGraphs. Unfortunately, on September 11th, Naquin and teammate Jose Barrero collided while attempting to trying to catch a fly ball. Naquin came out of that game with bruised ribs and was eventually placed on the IL a few days later.

If Cincinnati were to go on a lengthy playoff run, Naquin’s chances of returning would surely improve, though that seems very unlikely at this point. The club has gone on an ill-timed slide here in September, with a record of 7-13 in the month so far. When combined with the incredible 12-game win streak of the Cardinals, the Reds are now 5 1/2 games out of a playoff spot with just over a week remaining in the season.

Longer term, the team will now have to decide whether to tender Naquin a contract for 2022. He will finish this season with just over five years’ service time and can be controlled for one more season via arbitration. Naquin played the 2020 season on a prorated $1.45MM salary and was let go by a Cleveland team that didn’t think he was worth an arbitration raise. Now Cincinnati is in a similar position, paying him $1.5MM for this year. However, Naquin was coming off a disastrous campaign in the shortened 2020 season, hitting .218/.248/.383, a wRC+ of 65.

The Reds are likely to see Nick Castellanos opt out of the last two years of his contract and return to free agency. That would leave Jesse Winker as the only lock for next year’s outfield, along with unproven options such as TJ Friedl, Max Schrock, Nick Senzel, Shogo Akiyama and Aristides Aquino. Keeping Naquin around for another season and giving him a modest arbitration raise could be a good way to provide the club some extra cover as they navigate the offseason outfield market.

Blue Jays Designate Jake Lamb For Assignment

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The Blue Jays have designated infielder Jake Lamb for assignment, according to a team announcement. His spot on the 40-man roster was needed for fellow infielder Breyvic Valera, who has been reinstated from the COVID-related IL. Additionally, left-handed pitcher Tayler Saucedo was optioned to Triple-A and right-handed pitcher Thomas Hatch recalled to take his place.

Lamb was picked up off waivers by the Blue Jays on September 3rd to help add some depth at third base in the wake of injuries to Cavan Biggio and Santiago Espinal. Since that time, he’s been sharing time at the hot corner with Valera. He hasn’t been able to help the Canadian birds too much, in a small sample of just 12 games, slashing .129/.256/.290, for a wRC+ of 49. Since Lamb was claimed after August 31st, he wouldn’t have been playoff eligible, and is also headed to free agency at the end of the season. Those factors, combined with the fact that Biggio and Espinal are both on rehab assignments and nearing returns, edged him out of Toronto’s plans.

He had a better showing for the White Sox earlier in the season, when he slashed .212/.321/.389 over 43 games, a wRC+ of 99. But even that wasn’t good enough to hold onto a roster spot, as the Pale Hose opted to give that playing time to Romy Gonzalez instead. Lamb had two excellent campaigns for the Diamondbacks in 2016 and 2017, hitting .248/.345/.498, production that was 12% better than league average, according to wRC+. However, after undergoing shoulder surgery in 2018, he hasn’t been able to reach that same level of production, although his walk rate is still good. From 2019 to the present, his line is .193/.309/.358, wRC+ of 81. He’ll now see if any team is intrigued enough to give him some at-bats down the stretch, though any team doing so wouldn’t be able to use him in the postseason.

As for Valera, he’s back after just a single day on the IL. It was a precautionary placement on account of a family member testing positive. Since he’s back so quickly, it can be assumed that he himself did not test positive. In 36 games with the Jays this year, the switch-hitter has a line of .253/.308/.361, for a wRC+ of 81.

Giants Sign John Nogowski To Two-Year Minors Contract

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The Giants have signed first baseman John Nogowski to a minor league contract that runs through the 2022 season, NBC Sports Bay Area’s Jessica Kleinschmidt reports (Twitter links).  Nogowski wasn’t on the open market for very long, as he was only released by the Pirates three days ago.

After making his MLB debut with a one-game cup of coffee with the Cardinals in 2020, Nogowski played in 19 more games with St. Louis this year before the Cards dealt him to Pittsburgh in July.  Nogowski posted an 1.074 OPS over his first 53 plate appearances with his new team, but he fell back to earth after that tremendous start, and finished with a .677 OPS over his 123 PA in a Pirates uniform.  For the season as a whole, Nogowski has hit .233/.301/.310 with one home run over 143 PA.

Nogowski is no stranger to the Bay Area, as he spent his first three pro seasons in the Athletics’ organization after being selected in the 34th round of the 2014 draft.  The 28-year-old has posted some solid numbers over his minor league career, particularly in terms of on-base percentage — Nogowski’s .269/.388/.423 slash line over 680 PA at the Triple-A level is a bit better than his overall career numbers as a minor leaguer.

Given the Giants’ knack for revitalizing hitters, it might not be surprising to see Nogowski translate those minor league numbers into production at the big league level.  Albeit in the small sample size of 147 PA in the majors, Nogowski has a very high 87.8% contact rate, so there is some interesting potential if Nogowski is able to improve the quality of that contact.

Nogowski has primarily been a first baseman during his career but has played a few games in the outfield, giving him a bit of the positional flexibility that the Giants prefer.  Looking at San Francisco’s right-handed hitting bench options, Nogowski can provide depth if Donovan Solano leaves in free agency, or if the Giants wanted to move on from arbitration-eligibles like Austin Slater or Darin Ruf (though Ruf in particular has had an excellent season).  While the Giants have a number of quality bench or platoon players, the club might be looking to stockpile even more depth should the National League adopt the DH for 2022 and beyond.

Angels Select AJ Ramos

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The Angels announced they’ve selected veteran reliever AJ Ramos to the big league roster and recalled bullpen mate James Hoyt from Triple-A Salt Lake. José Marte and Sam Selman were optioned to clear active roster space. Los Angeles also reinstated rookie southpaw Reid Detmers from the COVID-19 injured list and optioned him to Salt Lake.

Selecting Ramos and activating Detmers required opening a pair of spots on the 40-man roster. To do so, the Angels transferred Justin Upton and Dylan Bundy from the 10-day to the 60-day injured list.

Ramos is in the majors for the first time this season. He’s best known for his early-career days with the Marlins, with whom he began his big league career in 2012. The right-hander was electric from essentially the outset of his career, ascending to the closer’s role within a couple seasons and earning an All-Star nod in 2016. Over his first four-plus MLB seasons, Ramos posted a 2.66 ERA/3.15 FIP across 287 2/3 innings of relief.

Halfway through the 2017 season, Miami traded Ramos to the division-rival Mets. He had a decent year but fell off a bit from his previous pace. Ramos struggled badly through the first couple months of 2018 before it was revealed he’d suffered a labrum tear in his shoulder that necessitated surgery.

That procedure kept Ramos out of action for more than two calendar years. He began a comeback attempt in 2020 and landed successive minor league deals with the Dodgers and Cubs. While neither of those stops resulted in a major league opportunity, Ramos did get back to the bigs late in the year with the Rockies. He made three appearances with Colorado last September, his first MLB action in 28 months, and signed a minor league deal with the Angels over the offseason.

Ramos has spent the entire season with Salt Lake. The 35-year-old has avoided the injured list and logged 53 innings over 42 outings, pitching to a 5.26 ERA in a very hitter-friendly environment. Ramos has been extremely fly ball prone and has issued a few too many walks, but he’s continued to miss plenty of bats. He’s punched out 31% of opposing hitters on the strength of a big 15.4% swinging strike rate, and the Angels will give him a late chance to demonstrate his form against big league opponents.

As with last season’s stint in Colorado, it’s possible Ramos’ stay with the Angels will be quite brief. He’s scheduled to hit free agency again at the end of the season. The late-season look will allow him to showcase his current caliber of stuff before he reaches the open market.

The IL transfers officially bring Upton’s and Bundy’s seasons to a close. It was a third consecutive down year for Upton, who hit .211/.296/.409 with seventeen homers over 362 plate appearances. His campaign ends prematurely because of a right lumbar strain.

Upton will return to Anaheim next season on a $28MM salary, the final year of his deal. The Angels have youngsters Jo Adell and Brandon Marsh at the big league level, and Mike Trout is expected back at full strength. It’s possible Upton’s role is curtailed a bit moving forward, although he still brings enough right-handed pop to contribute in a part-time capacity.

It’s an especially disappointing end for Bundy, who expressed confidence two weeks ago that he’d make it back to the mound before the end of the year. Instead, his final five weeks will be wiped out by a shoulder strain. It ends a season in which Bundy threw 90 2/3 innings of 6.08 ERA ball, a massive drop-off from a 2020 season in which he picked up some down-ballot Cy Young support.

The career-worst showing couldn’t have come at a worse time for Bundy, who’ll hit free agency for the first time this winter. It’s possible the 28-year-old will be limited to a one-year deal in an attempt to rebuild his value before re-testing the market during the 2022-23 offseason.

Cardinals Release Daniel Ponce De Leon

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SEPTEMBER 23: The Cardinals announced Thursday that Ponce de Leon has been granted his release. He’ll be free to explore opportunities elsewhere.

SEPTEMBER 22: Ponce de Leon cleared waivers and has been assigned outright to Triple-A Memphis, the Cardinals announced Wednesday. He’ll remain in the organization but is no longer on the 40-man roster.

SEPTEMBER 20: The Cardinals announced Monday that they’ve designated right-hander Daniel Ponce de Leon for assignment. His spot on the roster will go to lefty Brandon Waddell, who has been recalled from Triple-A Memphis.

Ponce de Leon, 29, got out to a nice start in his big league career with the Cards. From 2018-19, the former ninth-round pick tallied 81 2/3 frames with a 3.31 ERA, a solid 24.8 percent strikeout rate and an 11.6 percent walk rate. The free passes were too frequent, of course, but Ponce de Leon generally functioned as a useful swingman in St. Louis over those two seasons. He appeared in 24 games and split his time evenly between the bullpen and the rotation: a dozen appearances each. He had a bit more success out of the ’pen, but Ponce de Leon was quite solid in both roles.

Things took a downward turn in 2020, when he limped to a 4.96 ERA in 32 2/3 frames, and the 2021 season has gone largely off the rails for the righty. So far, Ponce de Leon has pitched 33 1/3 innings and been tagged for a dismal 6.21 ERA. His 15.2 percent strikeout rate is far and away the lowest of his career, and his 13.9 percent strikeout rate is right in line with last season’s career-worst mark of 14.0 percent. Ponce de Leon is generating fewer swinging strikes than ever before, and the 89.1 mph average exit velocity he’s allowed is a career-high mark.

The Cardinals will place Ponce de Leon on outright waivers or release him within the next couple of days. It’s possible that given his 2018-19 success, another club in need of some depth would  take a speculative look via waiver claim. However, Ponce de Leon is also out of minor league options, so any club that picks him up won’t have the luxury of sending him to the minors unless they can successfully pass him through waivers themselves.

MLB To Test Pre-Tacked Baseball In Triple-A

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Major League Baseball will introduce a pre-tacked baseball at certain Triple-A games for the minor league season’s final week and a half, reports Kyle Glaser of Baseball America. The new ball won’t be in effect at all games at the minors’ top level, as MLB executive vice president of baseball operations Morgan Sword tells Glaser there’s not yet enough supply to support a wide rollout.

It’s a bit surprising to see the experimental ball introduced at such a late stage of the season. The pre-tacked ball being tested in games did seem to be an inevitability at some point, though. Last month, Hannah Keyser of Yahoo! Sports reported that MLB had sent a prototype of a pre-tacked ball to certain big league players for feedback.

That experimentation comes on the heels of the league’s crackdown on pitchers’ usage of foreign substances. That was motivated primarily by a desire to police the most egregious offenders, pitchers who’d used extremely sticky substances to improve the quality of their raw stuff. However, MLB announced they’d legislate out all non-rosin sticky stuff — even substances more generally considered acceptable, like a sunscreen/rosin combination — to make enforcement more feasible for umpires. The league expressed an openness at the time to potential pre-tacked baseballs that would improve pitchers’ grips without meaningfully, artificially enhancing pitch movement. Three months later, they’ve found a product they deem suitable for in-game evaluation.

The pre-tacked baseball — which involves more than the traditional process of rubbing down the ball with mud — will be a change to the affiliated ranks. It’s not a new concept, though. Certain foreign leagues like Japan’s NPB and South Korea’s KBO have used pre-tacked balls for years, and a few players from the U.S. National Team have gone on record in support of the pre-tacked balls used in this summer’s Tokyo Olympics. (KBO and NPB rules call for slightly different specifications regarding the ball than do MLB regulations, so MLB’s pre-tacked prototype will not be the exact same as those foreign leagues’ balls). MLB itself experimented with a pre-tacked baseball in Spring Training 2019 but scrapped the project after receiving negative feedback.

With less than two weeks remaining in the Triple-A season and the pre-tacked ball not yet going into effect at all those games, there won’t be much time for the league to collect data this year. Still, the introduction of the new ball into competitive affiliated game at all is notable, and it’s safe to presume MLB will continue to solicit player feedback and monitor the results in future seasons before considering introducing it at the big league level.

Potential modification of the ball is only one of a few changes with which MLB has experimented in the minor leagues. MLB introduced rules changes at various levels entering the season. The bases were expanded slightly at Triple-A; defensive shifting was limited at Double-A. An electronic strike zone, limits on pick-offs and a 15-second pitch clock were put into place at different levels of the low minors.

Most of those measures will remain under evaluation, as Glaser separately reports that MLB plans to test those rules at this year’s Arizona Fall League. While MLB purposefully distributed those rules changes throughout various levels of the minors to evaluate their impact in isolation, combining them in the AFL is designed to gauge whether there will be any holistic effects. Glaser’s post on the Fall League changes is worth a read in full for those interested, as is this article by Jayson Stark of the Athletic from last week about the pitch clock’s influence on play in the Low-A West league this season.

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