Free agent utilityman Josh Harrison fielded multiple offers from teams before the institution of the lockout, tweets Ben Nicholson-Smith of Sportsnet. As is to be expected given Harrison’s skillset, Nicholson-Smith suggests different clubs have indicated they’d deploy the 34-year-old in different roles depending on team need. This past season, he started games at six positions — second base, shortstop, third base and all three outfield spots, with the bulk of that work coming at second and third base.
Harrison is coming off a decent season split between the Nationals and A’s. The right-handed hitter posted a .279/.341/.400 line with eight home runs across 558 plate appearances, numbers that check in a touch above the league average by measure of wRC+. While he didn’t draw many walks or hit for much power, Harrison’s minuscule 13.4% strikeout rate enabled him to hit for a solid batting average. It’s worth noting, though, that the two-time All-Star’s production tailed off following the midseason trade that sent him to Oakland. After starting at a strong .294/.366/.434 clip across 359 plate appearances in Washington, Harrison hit only .254/.296/.341 over 199 trips to the dish in the Bay Area.
Some notes on other infield situations around the game:
- Mariners first baseman Evan White has fully recovered from the season-ending left hip surgery he underwent in mid-July and has begun some baseball activities, writes Ryan Divish of the Seattle Times. While a return to full health is an unequivocal positive, there’s still plenty of question about how productive White will be in 2022. After all, he’s already been supplanted on the depth chart by Ty France, who looks cemented as the regular first baseman following a .291/.368/.445 showing in 2021. White, who’s under contract through at least 2025 thanks to the pre-debut extension he signed in November 2019, owns only a .165/.235/.308 line across 306 career MLB plate appearances. The 25-year-old did win a Gold Glove award in 2020, but he’ll obviously need to be far more productive offensively to earn everyday playing time. Divish writes that some within the organization feel White could benefit from more time at Triple-A, and he does still have all three minor league option years remaining. He’s expected to see some outfield time in Spring Training to broaden his defensive versatility, although the bigger question figures to be his form at the plate once gameplay resumes.
- As part of a reader mailbag, Alec Lewis of the Athletic suggests the Royals could attempt to find a taker for Carlos Santana coming out of the lockout. That’d assuredly require some creativity — including cash, taking back an undesirable contract as part of the trade, including a prospect of note, etc. — given how Santana performed in 2021. The generally reliable veteran hit only .214/.319/.342 over 659 plate appearances, easily the worst production of his career. The switch-hitter continued to avoid strikeouts (15.5%) and draw plenty of walks (13.1%), but his results on contact cratered. Santana is guaranteed $10.5MM in 2022, the final season of a two-year deal. Kansas City has first base prospect Nick Pratto on the doorstep of the majors after combining for a .265/.385/.602 line between the minors’ top two levels. It wouldn’t be a surprise if Pratto eventually starts to see playing time at Santana’s expense even if Kansas City doesn’t find a way to pull off a trade this winter.
Santana had a massive 2nd half drop-off. Right before the All-Star break, he had an OPS over .800 and 15 home runs. Might be able to dump him on a 1B-needy team if you include a low-to-mid-tier prospect. He’s only getting paid $10.5 million for one season, which isn’t the biggest gamble on if he can repeat his first half numbers.
Great analysis.
Next step is for scouts and others to nose around and find out what caused the drop-off. Candidate teams will proceed from there.
Evan White is a perfect example of why teams take massive risks when they sign long term contracts with young players. Sure. Acuna, Albies, Franco and Tatis might have made more. Same with Roberts and Jimenez. They might have ended up needing hip surgery like Evan White at the same time. It’s a risk both sides have to take. Any player who is at least a year away from arbitration could be making the right decision by signing a contract that is below what some would project they might make several years later in free agency.
Tatis is the exact reason why they give out these contracts. Imagine if the Padres had given him 10 years for $100 million before he ever played a MLB game. Fans would give them nothing but hate, but they would have saved over 200% compared to what they paid him by letting him play a season and a half before locking him up.
“Tatis is the exact reason why they give out these contracts.”
The Tatis contract came well after any of “these contracts” with the exception of the brand newly signed Wander Franco contract. What you are saying makes no sense at all unless you have a TARDIS time machine like Dr. Who. Why did other teams give out “these contracts” based on Tatis before Tatis even got his? Do they have a time machine? Please explain. You are clearly confusing cause and effect. Tatis was the effect. Not the reason or the cause. The reason has to happen first. Tatis’ contract happened after.
Hammer, he’s talking in a general sense but I disagree as how many work out? odd are if it’s a once in a lifetime player, the player says no. Now look at Aaron Hicks. He was older but after one solid year with no injuries, the Yankees locked him up Had he stayed on the field, everyone would be talking how shrewd Cashman was. I realize his history but a big market team with pending cap problems tried to be creative and got burned. Long term deals at a young age to multiple players could handcuff many teams financially if you get it wrong. Look at each deal separately.
Hammer, I’m agreeing with you. The possibility of what happened with Tatis is why you give a contract before they get a chance to prove their value. That’s the gamble. Why are you such a little b:tch all the time?
I’m not sure this is even discussion-worthy. To me, it is like investing in stock. If you invest at the IPO level, you take a bigger risk, but will get a big reward. If you wait until the stock is a near-certainty, you risk a lot less, but make very little.
To me, it all depends on your appetite for risk.
The reward is exponential for a team taking on the risk, but only because the teams possess the leverage in negotiations with minor league players and the service time rules in place… decade long $250million deals like Trout’s are what’s wrong with this sport…. Bryce Harper earned every penny of the $26mil he got this year, but his contract will be an albatross at age 37 and 38… ask Pujols, ask Cabrera, ask Cano
Yeah Dewey. That pending cap problem, when there’s no cap. Sure there’s a luxury tax threshold, but no cap in baseball. It amazes me how many people on this website talk about the nonexistent salary cap in baseball lol
@ mlb1225;
One can go to Yahoo Finance and track the daily performance of a security for free.
I have to believe that ML FO’s have been using software like that for decades that will do that for a player’s performance. It’s not difficult to program. When a turn about like this happens, it gives their analysts a point in time they can start with to determine what happened and why.
3 weeks into the lockout now. Normally this is the fun time of year with free agent signings and the occasional trade.
At $10.5 million Santana isn’t unmovable and even if the Royals have to pay half that’s not that bad. The DH in the NL would open a lot of possibilities for trades. If not, the Royals use Santana as the DH when Pratto is ready
He had a 79 OPS+ last year. How is that a DH? He was a 93 the year before. In what world does a team want a DH that can’t hit, let alone pay them 10 million?
Take a deeper look and you will see a better hitter than his OPS+ shows. His exit velos were good, hard hit rates still good, expected stats were better than his numbers. He is a better hitter than what he produced last year.
He’s a year older and his stats were bad enough that I’m going with results, not peripherals. Sometimes you are what your stat line says you are. 79 OPS+? No peripherals are gonna make that a good bet.
@ Cosmo2;
Year-long stats can be misleading if there has been major movement in either direction. In his case he’s 35 years-old with a lot of mileage on him. Doesn’t mean he can’t have a productive impact for a team in 2022.
This is the sort of veteran player that teams such as the Rays, Brewers, Giants and others look at film of in the off-season, and combine that with trying to find out if he was healthy and/or had any personal issues. If they see something in his approach or mechanics they think can be fixed, they’ll look to buy low.
Cosmos, I’m curious why your line is that means there is no way you could possibly be better the next year? No one has ever had a bad OPS+ and then bounced back before? Your thinking is pretty infantile.
Ok. Give me an example of someone who went from an OPS+ of under 100, then an OPS+ of under 90 and then rebounded to an OPS+ sufficient for an everyday DH after the age of 32. Seriously, you’ll have to dig pretty deep. Infantile? More like perfectly logical. I doubt you’ll even be able to cherry pick an anecdote that fits the situation. Go ahead and try. veteran players very rarely if ever bounce back from an OPS+ of 79 to become good hitters the next year. Try and find one.
Buster Posey literally did that this year, dog. Brandon Crawford did that last year and it carried over into this year as well. Happens pretty frequently.
Crawford I’ll give you but Posey doesn’t fit the parameters. It’s incredibly rare and stupid to count on. Counting on extreme outliers is never smart. (And “dog”, really?).
@chosmo2
other than this past year, he still gets on base.
He was more than serviceable the first half of 2021. the second half he bombed.
Given his first half and his peripherals, He is worth the moderate risk given the right price. Someone paying a bit of his salary and/or low talent cost…
Any team with a 1b/dh need should take a serious look. May not be a teams first choice though.
No team may want that, but it seems to be the situation KC is in. Just realize that that 79 OPS+ is what he did last year, and this years could well return to his norm. Or not.
His OPS+ the year before was 93. He’s 36. The chances are incredibly slim. We’re dealing with probability here, why bank on an outlier of outlier outcomes?
No one is “banking” on an outlier. They are taking a shot on an outlier. Why are you strawmanning other people’s positions?
Santana had arguably his worst season (before last year) in 2018 with the Phillies and proceeded to have arguably his best season the following year after being traded back to Cleveland. Santana could easily rebound next year in KC or somewhere else
I think the Yankees could use both Santana and Harrison. Harrison fits into the role Tyler wade used to have
Except Harrison doesn’t really play SS which is the Yanks biggest need. The 8 games he played at Short this season were the first games he has played there since 2014. Between LeMahieu/Torres/Urshela they have enough players to cover 2B/3B.
Santana does have 7 HR’s in 114 AB’s at Yankees Stadium and would probably cost very little in prospect capitol and Cashman could probably get the Royals to cover a large part of his salary. For Cashman it’s win/win
To me, Evan White is the puzzle.
I don’t imagine he will ever hit MLB pitching. But what do I know?
I think he won’t unless he starts playing every day and gets some really good and timely coaching.
So maybe Triple A is the best place for White.
White jumped from AA to MLB in 2020. 2020 and 2021 were wasted seasons for him due to Covid and injury. He needs an extended stay in Tacoma to regain his confidence and his swing. He is still young.
Agree re White in AAA if for nothing else to gain confidence. Unless I read it wrong (it happens ) White has only had 297 major league at bats. He definitely needs more time. Kelenic has had 337 and he started finding his groove in September this year. I think Ty is our 1st baseman and Evan could give him rest. Maybe the OF could work for him. I honestly hoped we’d start from scratch with hitting coaches but we didn’t. Time will tell
The same thing with Kingery. It feels like both Seattle and the Phillies felt the need to promote these players, because they were paying them major league salaries, and service time. Kingery had a very poor K/W in AAA. White looked better, but a 92/29 K/W in AA, at age 23, is kind of weak, even with the power.
IMO, you keep him in AAA until he gets that K/W under 2/1.
Santana could really do better just with an expected babip increase to about .265-.270 vs the .227 he posted last year. His power numbers could potentially go up as well as his hard hit rate was solid enough to suggest positive regression going forwards.
I’m glad Evan White is making a good recovery. I hope they give him a season in AAA, rather than than try to rely on him at a time when they’re trying to break the playoff drought. His bat needs to catch up with his glove.
He was definitely not ready for prime time, but they felt compelled to keep playing him once he signed a MLB contract.
Hopefully they use the injury and surgery as an opportunity to send him back to AAA and get his swing and likely head straightened out. Continual failure for someone who has only known success can create doubt even in the best of athletes.
Why would they need to use the injury and surgery as the opportunity to send him back in AAA? His .165 average and constant taking of fastballs down the middle isn’t enough to warrant a demotion is what you’re saying? He’ll start the season at AAA and not once will the injury or surgery be on his mind as the reason for it. The reason for it is because he can’t hit his way out of a wet paper bag
dougdeb@hotmail.com. Throw all numbers aside. Playing in a much bigger stadium than most. In the sweltering heat and humidity starting around July it’s easy to understand how Santanas numbers took a nose dive. The K is a great stadium. But aging players find it difficult to deal with the heat and humidity.
Always like Josh Harrison. He was a ST invite by the Phillies a few years back, but they let him walk. Went on to play pretty well for the Nats. Fact is, two other infielders (Howie Kendrick and Asdrubel Cabrera) who played for the Phillies and were jettisoned, ended up with the Nats and did pretty well with them.
Carlos Santana was a bad signing by the Phillies ( 3 years/$60 million) from the get go. Just another black mark on Matt Klentak’s report card. Don’t understand why Klentak is still drawing a paycheck in Philly.
I agree on both. One of my good friends is a Nats fan, and J-HA is apparently well-regarded both inside and outside the clubhouse. I think he’d be a good addition for a team wanting to transition from a rebuild to a win scenario, with young players.
And no one understood the Santana signing. The Phillies tried to rush the rebuild and it blew up on them. They’ve been struggling ever since. And the idea that Hoskins could play LF might’ve been a little far afield.
Harrison was a ‘spark plug’ in Pittsburgh. last time i saw him play, he wasn’t what he was in Pittsburgh but well worth being on someone’s 25man playing everyday somewhere.
There were a lot of doubts (by others not me) about his defense when he was utility but once he was playing one position mostly every day he became rather good. Same thing happened to Adam Frazier others saying he had poor defense but once he played second base everyday became a gold glove candidate multiple years.
point is, keep his bat in the lineup. He might not do much above league average but the spark plug might turn a game around. If you can give him one position to play but if not don’t knock him too much for his defense.
Harrison is a perfect fit for the Angels. Reminds me a bit of Howie Kendrick. Harrison and Fletcher can man up the middle and switch roles as needed.
$10.5 million for 2022 isn’t that bad, imho. Especially considering Santana’s track record, ‘21 not withstanding. Now, had Santana been making $15-20 million per & especially had it been for more than just ‘22, then it’d be a bad contract & hard to dump. I think someone will take Santana, eventually, if KC was determined enough. It may not be until someone’s 1B gets hurt towards the end of ST though.