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Mariners Sign Patrick Weigel To Minor League Deal

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The Mariners have signed Patrick Weigel to a minor league contract, according to Chris Hilburn-Trenkle of Baseball America. The right-hander had elected minor league free agency at the end of the season after being outrighted off the Brewers’ 40-man roster in August.

Weigel, now 27, is probably best known for his early-career days in the Braves’ farm system. A 7th-round draftee in 2015, he emerged as one of the more interesting young arms in the organization within a couple seasons. Weigel drew plaudits for a mid-high 90s fastball and a pair of quality breaking balls. Baseball America slotted him among the top ten prospects in the farm system after he dominated at Low-A in 2016, but he suffered a UCL tear that required Tommy John surgery the following season. He missed almost all of the 2018 campaign rehabbing.

While Weigel returned to post decent numbers in the high minors in 2019, he’s had a rough go of things the past couple years. He made his first MLB outing during the shortened 2020 campaign but spent the bulk of the year at the alternate training site. Atlanta traded Weigel to Milwaukee last April as part of a two-player package to bring in utilityman Orlando Arcia.

Weigel’s lone year with the Brew Crew didn’t go well. He averaged a solid 94.6 MPH on his fastball during his three big league appearances, but he only spent a bit more than a week on the active roster. The California native spent the rest of the year with Triple-A Nashville, where he worked almost exclusively as a reliever. Over 43 1/3 innings with the Sounds, he managed just a 7.27 ERA while struggling immensely with his control. Weigel walked an untenable 17.6% of batters faced at the minors’ top level last season, exacerbating strike-throwing problems he’s faced throughout his career.

It’s unlikely Weigel will ever have great command, but he’ll certainly need to throw more strikes than he did in 2021 if he’s to earn a spot on Seattle’s big league roster. It seems likely the M’s will give him a look in Spring Training to see if he can better harness the raw stuff that made him a solid prospect. Weigel was predominantly a starter up through 2019, but scouting reports had long suggested he might eventually have to move to the bullpen because of his questionable command. Given that he worked in relief last year, it seems likely the Mariners are eyeing him as a depth option for the ’pen.

MLB Offers $5MM Increase In Pre-Arbitration Bonus Pool In Latest CBA Proposal; League No Longer Pursuing Authority To Shrink Minor League Rosters

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7:24 pm: Drellich reports (on Twitter) that MLB is no longer pursuing the ability to reduce the sizes of minor league rosters, as it had previously been attempting. Jeff Passan of ESPN adds that while the league could try to shrink MiLB rosters unilaterally, they’re not planning to do so in either of the next two years.

Drellich also reports that the league’s latest proposal wouldn’t include a limit on the number of times teams could option a player to the minors in a given season. Previously, the league had offered a five-option-per-year cap, while the union had been seeking to set that mark at four seasons. The previous CBA did not contain any limit on the number of times a player could be optioned per year, although it generally limited players to being optioned in no more than three separate years.

6:01 pm: Only a week remains before Major League Baseball’s reported imposed deadline for a new collective bargaining agreement to be in place to avoid an interruption to the regular season. The league and Players Association are expected to meet more frequently on CBA issues over the coming days as the threat of losing games gets ever larger.

Today’s set of negotiations wrapped up this evening after the sides spent most of the afternoon reportedly discussing issues separately. After the league and union met for a little more than an hour, leadership on each side spent the bulk of the afternoon discussing things amongst themselves. The sides briefly reconvened at the end of the day before the meeting broke up (as chronicled in a tweet thread by Evan Drellich of the Athletic).

MLB had been “on the clock” after the MLBPA made the most recent core economics proposal last week. The league made its latest counteroffer today, which included small movement on issues like the bonus pool for pre-arbitration players and the draft lottery, Drellich reports (on Twitter). MLB offered to raise the bonus pool allotment to $20MM to be distributed a group of 30 players, a $5MM bump over its previous offers. That’s still well short of the amount sought by the Players Association, which increased its ask on the bonus pool to $115MM over a group of 150 players in its most recent offer. That still leaves a gap of $95MM between the two sides on the bonus pool, which hasn’t existed in previous agreements.

The league also offered to make the first four picks of the amateur draft determined by lottery, a one-pick increase from its previous offers. The union has sought to have the top eight picks be determined by a lottery, which would include all of the previous season’s non-playoff teams (with their odds of landing each selection presumably weighted by that season’s record). The purpose of a lottery system, which has been implemented by each of the NBA and NHL, is to reduce the advantage for teams that finish near the bottom of the standings by declining to automatically grant them a shot at the draft’s top prospects and highest signing bonus pool allotments.

Those movements perhaps represent small progress towards an agreeable midpoint, but there was no change regarding one of the biggest topics of discussion. Drellich tweets that the league made no movement on its previous proposals regarding the competitive balance tax. Where the tax thresholds will be set and what penalties will be in place for exceeding them remain contentious issues. The league has proposed modest increases to the base tax threshold (up from $210MM to $214MM in 2022, ending at $222MM by the end of the CBA) paired with higher penalties for surpassing the thresholds than had been in place previously. The union, on the other hand, has pushed for the CBT to spike to $245MM next season en route to a $273MM mark five years from now; the MLBPA also remains staunchly opposed to heightened penalties for exceeding the CBT.

Both Michael Silverman of the Boston Globe and Tim Healey of Newsday hear that the MLBPA was disappointed by the league’s proposal, with the lack of movement on the CBT particularly underwhelming in the union’s view. Jesse Rogers of ESPN tweets that MLB is actually waiting for a new offer from the union on the tax. The union’s proposal last week didn’t move off its previous offers regarding the CBT, and Rogers hears MLB thus considers it the Players Association’s turn to make a move in that regard.

In addition to the luxury tax, things like the union’s push for earlier arbitration eligibility for some players and the league minimum salary need to be sorted out. That’s in addition to closing the gap on the amount of money to be made available in the pre-arbitration bonus pools and the draft lottery, on which the league budged a bit today. Much remains to be done, although it does seem the parties are more encouraged than they’d previously been by the tenor of today’s talks. James Wagner of the New York Times hears that both sides found extended in-person discussions “helpful,” while Ben Nicholson-Smith of Sportsnet called the conversation “wide-ranging.” Chelsea Janes of the Washington Post tweets that the sides are expected to resume negotiations tomorrow.

Johnny Cueto Can Still Help A Rotation

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If you were to sit down and make a list of the best pitchers in baseball from 2010-16, you’d be hard-pressed not to include Johnny Cueto in some capacity. The two-time All-Star finished among the top six in National League Cy Young voting three times in that stretch, including a runner-up finish to Clayton Kershaw in 2014. He received at least one down-ballot MVP vote in all three of those seasons as well. From 2010-16, Cueto turned in a 2.86 ERA, a 20.6% strikeout rate (at a time when that number was much more impressive than it is in 2022) and a terrific 6.2% walk rate. Cueto was viewed as a No. 1 or No. 2 starter, and rightly so. He ranked fourth out of 228 qualified starting pitchers in ERA during that time, and his 1294 2/3 innings were the 16th-most in baseball.

Given that context, it’s no surprise that Cueto hit the open market as one of the most in-demand free agents in the game following the 2015 season. He’d struggled a bit following his trade from Cincinnati to Kansas City, but Cueto’s final impression on the Royals was a two-hit, one-run complete game in Game 2 of the World Series, which the Royals won 7-1. Not a bad way to set out into free agency for the first time.

Cueto’s six-year, $132MM contract with the Giants made him the third-highest-paid pitcher of the 2015-16 offseason, trailing only David Price and Zack Greinke’s pair of $200MM+ deals (and beating MLBTR’s expectations by a year in the process). For the first year of his contract, the signing looked quite strong. Cueto hurled 219 2/3 innings of 2.79 ERA ball, made the All-Star team, and enjoyed both Cy Young and MVP votes in his first year with San Francisco. The Giants’ “even-year” dynasty was cut short at three years (2010, 2012, 2014) — but not for any fault of Cueto’s. He made one appearance in the playoffs that winter and took a brutal complete-game loss that saw him allow just one run on three hits and no walks with 10 strikeouts against the eventual-champion Cubs.

Cueto missed a handful of starts in 2017 due to an ongoing blister issue and wasn’t at his best when healthy. His 4.52 ERA that year was his worst since his rookie campaign back in 2008, and it was a particularly poorly-timed slump, as Cueto could’ve opted out of the final four years of his contract and tested the market a second time, had he turned in another healthy season of Cy-caliber results. Ankle and elbow injuries wound up hobbling Cueto in 2018, and by August of that season, he was headed for Tommy John surgery. Cueto returned late in the 2019 season and tossed 16 pedestrian innings, and his work in the shortened 2020 campaign was the worst of his career (5.40 ERA, career-high walk rate).

Expectations for Cueto were light heading into the 2021 season, then, which made his rebound effort with the Giants something of a pleasant surprise. Cueto missed nearly a month with a lat strain and was on the IL for much of September with an elbow strain. The latter of those two injuries is particularly concerning, since we didn’t see much from Cueto after he hit the IL. He made a lone rehab appearance in the minors (1 2/3 innings) and pitched 2 1/3 innings of relief in the Majors on Sept. 30.

It’s not a great note on which to end a season, but Cueto’s 92 mph velocity in that final outing was right in line with what he’d done throughout the season. And, when he was healthy, Cueto was the best version of himself fans and opponents had seen in years. No, this wasn’t Cy Young runner-up Cueto, but it was a very serviceable version of the quirky right-hander, who slotted nicely into the fourth spot in a deep San Francisco rotation.

At 35 years old, Cueto wasn’t the fireballer he was earlier in his career, but his 91.9 mph average fastball velocity was the highest mark he’d posted since that outstanding 2016 campaign. His 6.1% walk rate was also his best mark since that ’16 effort, and Cueto’s 9.7% swinging-strike rate and 31.4% opponents’ chase rate were his best marks since 2017. Cueto’s average exit velocity, hard-hit rate and barrel rate were all better than the league average, and his walk rate was in the 81st percentile of MLB pitchers.

Cueto was much more effective through his first dozen starts of the season (3.63 ERA) than over his final nine appearances (4.72), but perhaps some late fatigue was to be expected. His first “full” season back from Tommy John surgery, after all, was the pandemic-shortened 2020 campaign. The 2021 season was the first time since 2017 that Cueto had started the season healthy in April and was still trying to pitch into August and September.

The end result of Cueto’s 2021 campaign was a respectable 4.08 ERA and peripherals that largely backed him up (4.05 FIP, 4.27 xFIP, 4.43 SIERA). It’s not necessarily a dominant profile, and projection systems are down on him by virtue of factoring in his ugly 2019-20 results in the wake of Tommy John surgery. ZiPS has him at 92 innings of 4.43 ERA ball. Steamer is more bullish in workload (144 innings) but much more bearish in results (5.05 ERA). You’re forgiven if you are not overly optimistic for Cueto’s outlook in 2022 and beyond. The past few years, taken as a whole, have not been great.

A team that’s more focused on Cueto’s 2021 characteristics — the increase in velocity over 2018-20, the upticks in swinging strikes and chases — might see things differently, however. Cueto shouldn’t be penciled in for a return to his halcyon days of 200-plus innings and 33 starts, but he did make all 12 of his starts in 2020 and was more healthy in 2021 than he’s been since undergoing Tommy John surgery. He’s not the complete-game threat and workhorse he once was, but Cueto averaged 5 1/3 innings per start in ’21 and had been averaging about 5 2/3 per outing up until the All-Star break. It’s not out of the question that he could bounce back a bit further and make 24 to 25 starts with average or better results. At his per-start output, that clocks in somewhere in the range of 130 to 140 innings.

Maybe 135 innings of low-4.00s ERA doesn’t jump up and excite fans, but for the right team, that’s plenty valuable. The prevailing, but often incorrect, mentality is that every team possesses some guys in Triple-A who could come up and fill that role. However, there were only 89 pitchers in MLB last season who pitched at least 80 innings and posted an ERA under 4.25 — about three per team, on average. Bulk sources of respectable innings don’t necessarily grow on trees.

Clubs that already have solid options in the top four spots of their rotation could look to Cueto as a fairly affordable means of rounding things out. The Mets, Mariners, Blue Jays, Braves, Cubs and the incumbent Giants all fit that billing to varying extents. A team in need of filling out multiple rotation spots (e.g. Twins, Nationals, Rangers) might look for a bit more reliability, but perhaps even they’d see some merit in installing Cueto as a steadying presence while awaiting the arrival of some younger arms.

Regardless of Cueto’s eventual destination, it’s a bit surprising that he’s become something of a forgotten man this time around in free agency. There’s been nary a word about his market since the Giants opted for a $5MM buyout over a $22MM club option for the 2022 season. At a net $17MM, that option was never getting picked up, but Cueto had a decent rebound campaign in ’21 and probably ought to be getting a little more consideration as fans, pundits and teams alike consider the post-lockout market. He might not command more than a one-year deal, and that comes with serious bargain potential — relative to other names who’ve signed thus far, anyway.

Corey Kluber got $8MM from the Rays, and Cueto pitched as much in 2021 as Kluber has over the past three years combined. Jordan Lyles received a $7MM guarantee from the Orioles despite leading the Majors with 38 homers allowed last year and leading the Majors in earned runs allowed since 2020. Andrew Heaney got $8.5MM from the Dodgers. The Red Sox gave $7MM to Michael Wacha. This isn’t to disparage any of those deals individually. The teams paying those salaries are paying for varying levels of perceived upside, relative youth and/or bulk innings. However, it’s hard to see those figures and think Cueto won’t command something similar, if not better. And if he does clock in south of that range due to concerns over the late elbow issue, he has some significant bargain potential.

It seems silly to call a multi-time All-Star and former Cy Young candidate who just finished up a nine-figure deal “overlooked,” but Cueto hasn’t gotten much attention even in terms of pure free-agent speculation, despite the fact that he just turned in a pretty decent season overall.

Sign Up For The Free MLBTR Newsletter

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The MLB hot stove is on pause right now during the lockout, but once it ends the floodgates will open.  As we hope for progress this week, why not check out the free MLB Trade Rumors newsletter?  The newsletter is written by Cliff Corcoran, who has an extensive resume contributing to Sports Illustrated, The Athletic, Baseball Prospectus, and other outlets.  Cliff will take you through the highlights of the previous day, boiling down MLBTR’s posts into the essential stories.

This free newsletter comes out Monday through Friday in the morning.  To subscribe, simply click this link!

Twins, Elliot Soto Agree To Minor League Deal

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The Twins have agreed to a minor league contract with infielder Elliot Soto, as announced by Soto’s agent, Marc Kligman (Twitter link). He’s the latest minor league depth signing in the infield for the Twins, who have also picked up Tim Beckham and Daniel Robertson on minor league pacts over the past few weeks.

Soto, 32, has just three games at the MLB level to this point in his career — all with the 2020 Angels. He’s spent parts of six seasons in Triple-A, compiling a career .267/.342/.375 batting line there. He spent the 2021 season in the Dodgers organization, suiting up for 57 games with their Triple-A affiliate.

In addition to his time with both L.A. clubs, Soto has been with the Cubs (who drafted him out of Creighton in the 15th round back in 2010), the Marlins and the Rockies. He’s never been ranked among one of those organization’s top prospects, though Baseball America did label him as the best defensive infielder in the Cubs’ minor league system back in 2012.

In all likelihood, Soto is ticketed for Triple-A work with the Twins. It’s unclear who’ll start the bulk of the Twins’ games at shortstop in 2022, as Andrelton Simmons became a free agent at season’s end and Minnesota seems quite content having shifted Jorge Polanco to the other side of the bag (where he had perhaps his finest season to date). The Twins’ rotation needs are their most glaring at the moment, but they’re still likely to make a free-agent addition or acquire some shortstop help on the trade market whenever transactions are again permitted.

Fantasy Baseball Chat With Brad Johnson

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Brad Johnson has been writing about fantasy baseball for more than a decade and has considerable experience in Roto, H2H, dynasty, DFS, and experimental formats.  As an expert in the field, Brad participates in the Tout Wars Draft and Hold format and was crowned the league’s winner in 2020. Brad’s writing experience includes RotoGraphs, NBC SportsEDGE, and right here at MLB Trade Rumors. He’s also presented at the First Pitch Arizona fantasy baseball conference.

We’ll be hosting fantasy baseball-focused chats with Brad every other Monday at noon CT between now and the beginning of the regular season (whenever that is), so mark your calendars for those and feel free to drop him some questions on Twitter @BaseballATeam as well.

Click here to join this week’s chat with Brad!

The Value Of The MLBPA’s Super Two Proposal

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In its most recent proposal, the Major League Baseball Players Association asked that 80% of players with at least two years of MLB service be considered arbitration eligible.  This is up from 22%, which has been the cutoff since 2013 when it was increased from 17%.  In the ongoing CBA negotiations, MLB has shown no interest in any change to the 22% figure.  The MLBPA started these CBA talks at a position of making all 2+ players eligible for arbitration, which had been the case from the inception of salary arbitration in 1973 up until 1985.

I thought it might be interesting to attempt to quantify the MLBPA’s request.  First, we should get an idea of how many additional players would be thrown into the arbitration system each year.  As I mentioned on Twitter last week, the 80% request, if in effect this offseason, would mean changing the current Super Two cutoff from 2.116 (two years and 116 days of MLB service) to 2.028.  Keep in mind that the Super Two cutoff is always a moving target.

By my count, under the 2.116 cutoff, 26 players currently qualify as Super Two this offseason, led by Vladimir Guerrero Jr., Austin Riley, and Bryan Reynolds.

Under a cutoff reduced to 2.028, 79 additional players would qualify as arbitration eligible.  I’ve listed them below along with projected arbitration salaries from Matt Swartz.  Note that our arbitration projection model sometimes spits out a number below the league minimum, in which case we set the projection equal to the minimum.  For this exercise, we’ll use a minimum salary of $700K.

To calculate how much additional money MLB teams would be paying under this system in 2022, I found the difference between the projected arbitration salary, and a hypothetical $700K minimum.  So, for example, Yordan Alvarez and Bo Bichette would gain the most, an additional $3.9MM each in ’22.  Note that it’s possible a few star players might make more than the league minimum even as a pre-arbitration player, like when Mookie Betts was renewed for $950K in 2017, but we aren’t modeling that in.

So, for these 79 additional Super Two players under the MLBPA’s proposal, we estimate that teams would pay an additional $72.4MM in 2022.

By itself, MLB might be willing to stomach something of that nature.  They’ve shown a willingness to put $15MM into a pre-arbitration bonus pool, and I assume they could be pushed up higher if the players drop their request to change Super Two eligibility.

But there’s the rub: MLB doesn’t want any additional players thrown into the arbitration system.  Doing so, particularly for star players, would increase that player’s total arbitration earnings by a significant amount, and also help push up the pay scale.

To illustrate this, we asked Matt Swartz to model out a couple of players who have been through the arbitration system already.

The first is Francisco Lindor.  Lindor went through arbitration three times, earning salaries of $10.55MM in 2019, $17.5MM in 2020, and $22.3MM in 2021, for a total of $50.35MM.  Under the MLBPA’s proposal, Lindor would have been arbitration eligible four times.  This means he would have earned a lot more than the $623,200 he did in 2018 – 10.7 times as much, in our estimation.  Here’s how our model saw a Lindor who went to arbitration four times, keeping his actual statistics the same:

  • 2018: $623,200 -> $6.7MM
  • 2019: $10.55MM -> $14.9MM
  • 2020: $17.5MM -> $20.7MM
  • 2021: $22.3MM -> $23.4MM
  • Total: $50,973,200 -> $65.7MM
  • Difference: $14,726,800

Our other example is Josh Bell.  He’s also set to go through arbitration three times, earning $4.8MM in 2020, $6.35MM in 2021, and a projected $10MM in 2022 for a total of $21.15MM.  Here’s how that might have played out had he gone through arbitration four times:

  • 2019: $587K -> $2.8MM
  • 2020: $4.8MM -> $8.1MM
  • 2021: $6.35MM -> $9.6MM
  • 2022: 10MM (projected) -> $13.2MM
  • Total: $21,737,000 -> $33.7MM
  • Difference: $11,963,000

The Pirates traded Bell in December 2020, knowing he was set to get a bump from $4.8MM to $6.35MM.  MLB might argue that the Pirates would have traded Bell a year earlier if he was slated to jump from $2.8MM to $8.1MM.  They might say that not only would expanding Super Two be bad for their pocketbooks, it’d be bad for “competitive balance.”  I imagine the MLBPA would argue that the Pirates could have afforded Bell in either scenario.

There’s also the chance that shifting the arbitration pay scale a year earlier for a good number of players would simply result in them getting non-tendered a year earlier and hitting the free agent market.  If you look at the list of 79 players above, you can be assured that many of them will not make it all the way through arbitration even if they earn the league minimum in 2022.

Looking at a player like Bell, if he was coming off a poor 2020 season and was set to earn $9.6MM instead of $6.35MM, he might have simply been non-tendered.  As we’ve seen with an example like Kyle Schwarber, this is not necessarily a bad scenario for the player, since Schwarber earned more in free agency than he was projected to get in arbitration, and he’s set to parlay a strong bounceback year into a good multiyear contract.

If you wanted to model out the MLBPA’s 80% request further, you’d have to retroactively apply it to all the players who would’ve been affected and see how much money moves toward the players in that scenario.  But it’d be impossible to guess who would’ve been non-tendered when, so it’s not an exact science.  At any rate, we may learn this week whether MLB truly has any willingness to move off the 22% Super Two cutoff, even if it’s not to 80%.

Rangers Prospect Josh Jung Shut Down Due To Shoulder Strain

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Feb. 21: Jung is expected to receive additional opinions this week, writes Evan Grant of the Dallas Morning News, who ominously adds that the injury could ultimately require surgery.

Feb. 18: The Rangers have shut down third base prospect Josh Jung after he strained the labrum in his left shoulder, the team informed reporters (including Levi Weaver of the Athletic). He incurred the injury while recently lifting weights as part of his preseason training program.

Texas didn’t announce a timetable for his return. He’s slated to undergo further evaluation next week, and it’s possible the injury will prove to be a minor setback. If the issue were to affect his readiness for the start of the season, though, it might delay his big league debut. Jung is widely expected to reach the majors this year after splitting the 2021 campaign between Double-A Frisco and Triple-A Round Rock. He raked at both stops, hitting .308/.366/.544 in Double-A before improving to a .348/.436/.652 showing at the minors’ top level.

Those numbers may have been inflated a touch by a smaller sample, as he was limited to 342 cumulative plate appearances after a stress fracture in his foot delayed his season debut until mid-June. Nevertheless, the right-handed hitter impressed enough in the summer’s final few months to cement his place among the game’s top prospects. The eighth overall pick in 2019 out of Texas Tech (where his brother Jace currently stars), Jung has always hit when healthy. Baseball America rated him among the game’s top 30 prospects this winter, writing that his hit/power combination gives him a chance to be a middle-of-the-order bat.

Jung isn’t regarded as a superlative defender at the hot corner, but evaluators generally believe he could be anywhere from serviceable to solid there. Between those glowing scouting reviews and his high minors performance, the 24-year-old looks likely to get an everyday crack in Arlington at some point in the near future. Jung’s looming arrival — coupled with the free agent spending spree that landed Marcus Semien and Corey Seager — has contributed to some speculation Texas could make infielder Isiah Kiner-Falefa available in trade after the lockout.

Without a definitive timetable on Jung, it’s too early to tell whether his injury will affect the front office’s plans for when the transactions freeze concludes. Obviously, it’s also not clear precisely when the MLB season will begin. (Jung is not on the 40-man roster, so he’s not subject to the lockout). Even if the injury lingers past the scheduled start date of the major league season, it’s possible the lockout will carry on long enough that the injury won’t affect his MLB timetable anyhow. Much about the situation remains uncertain, but the Rangers figure to play things very cautiously with one of the most talented young players in the organization.

Reds, Zack Godley Agree To Minor League Deal

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The Reds have agreed to a minor league contract with veteran right-hander Zack Godley, reports Charlie Goldsmith of the Cincinnati Enquirer (via Twitter). The team has not yet announced the deal, although the Sports Pro Services client will presumably be in big league camp whenever it’s up and running.

Godley, 31, was a regular on the D-backs’ staff from 2015-19, peaking with a 155 innings of 3.37 ERA ball during the 2017 season. From 2017-18, he was a consistent member of the Arizona rotation, compiling 333 1/3 innings of 4.10 ERA ball with a 24.7% strikeout rate, a 9.4% walk rate and a 51.6% grounder rate. He averaged just shy of six frames per outing in that time and looked to have more or less laid claim to a spot in the Diamondbacks’ rotation.

A disastrous 2019 season, however, saw Godley designated for assignment late in the year. After posting an ERA north of 6.00 in 76 fames with Arizona, Godley landed in Toronto and had a nice run out of the bullpen to close out the season. He’s since had brief stints with the Red Sox and Brewers, though his time in Boston was derailed by a flexor strain. He appeared in just two games with Milwaukee last season, allowing six runs in 3 1/3 innings.

Godley has a 4.92 ERA in 568 2/3 innings, though fielding-independent metrics are generally a bit more bullish (4.29 SIERA, 4.34 FIP). He also carries a career 3.85 ERA in 159 innings of Triple-A ball.

The Reds’ current rotation doesn’t offer a lot of opportunity beyond a potential shot at the fifth spot — not with Luis Castillo, Sonny Gray, Tyler Mahle and Vladimir Gutierrez all staking claim to starting jobs. However, Cincinnati is widely expected to listen to trade offers on each of Gray, Castillo and Mahle after GM Nick Krall spoke of a need to “align our payroll to our resources” early in the offseason. The Reds reportedly engaged in trade talks surrounding all three prior to the lockout (although it seems quite unlikely that the entire trio would be moved).

Even if a spot or two does open up in the Cincinnati rotation, Godley would face plenty of competition. Lefty Reiver Sanmartin had a big year in Double-A/Triple-A and fared well in his MLB debut late in 2021. Right-hander Riley O’Brien had a decent showing in Triple-A last year himself and is already on the 40-man roster. Top prospects Hunter Greene and Nick Lodolo are expected to have a chance at making their big league debuts this coming year as well, and the Reds have invited Ben Lively, Connor Overton and Brandon Bailey to Spring Training as well (although Bailey is still recovering from last February’s Tommy John surgery).

Who’s Blocking Alek Thomas?

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In the second round of the 2018 MLB draft, the Diamondbacks selected Alek Thomas, an outfielder from Mount Carmel High School in Chicago. Just 18 years old at the time, Thomas played 56 rookie ball games that year, 28 each on two different teams, hitting .333/.395/.463, wRC+ of 133, with a walk rate of 8.9% and strikeout rate of just 13.7%.

In 2019, he got bumped up to A-ball, playing 91 games and hitting .312/.393/.479. His walk and strikeout rates were 10.7% and 17.9%, culminating in a 153 wRC+. He got promoted to High-A that year and struggled a bit, which isn’t terribly surprising given that he was more than three years younger than the average age for that level. But it was also a small sample of just 23 games.

The pandemic wiped out the 2020 season but didn’t slow Thomas down at all. In 2021, he started his season in Double-A and played 72 games there, hitting ten home runs and stealing eight bases. Along with a walk rate of 11.2% and strikeout rate of 19.8%, he hit .283/.374/.507 for a wRC+ of 134. He got promoted to Triple-A and took his game up another notch. Despite his walk and strikeout rates slipping to 9% and 20.5%, he hit eight home runs in just 34 games, adding five steals, finishing with a line of .369/.434/.658, wRC+ of 168. Thomas is now considered one of the top prospects in the game, with Baseball America ranking him #32, MLB Pipeline #40 and FanGraphs #23.

Thomas, 22 years old in April, has little left to prove in the minors, having now shown himself capable of playing well at the top parts of the D-Backs’ system. One thing standing in his way is the fact that he’s not on the team’s 40-man roster yet, since he’s still a year away from Rule 5 eligibility. Furthermore, as with all top prospects nearing MLB readiness at this time of year, there’s the possibility that they won’t get promoted until they are held back long enough for the club to gain an extra year of control over them. Though there’s also the possibility that the service time rules change, as they are currently being negotiated as part of the next CBA.

Thomas has played all three outfield positions throughout his minor league career, but more in center than the corners. FanGraphs, however, sees him as more of a left fielder in the long term. Even with that move to a less-demanding defensive position, they still view him as a future above-average regular.

At the big league level, the outfield picture for the Diamondbacks is quite murky at the moment. David Peralta is likely to continue as the team’s primarily left fielder, though this is the final year of his extension and he turns 35 in August. He also had a mediocre season at the plate last season, putting up a wRC+ of just 93, his lowest in years. Taking all that into consideration, he might not be a part of the long-term picture.

The attempts to turn Ketel Marte into a center fielder didn’t really work out and he seems poised to return to full-time second base work going forward. Daulton Varsho is a baseball oddity, capable of switching between outfield and catching duties. He was behind the plate for 41 games last year but also saw time on the grass in 54 contests. He hasn’t fully established himself as an MLB hitter just yet, but is just 25 years old and has an excellent minor league track record. Pavin Smith is in a similar position to Varsho, hitting just below league average in his MLB time thus far. But he just turned 26 and has carried himself well in the minors. Josh VanMeter is in the picture but mostly as a bench/utility option. Jordan Luplow came over from the Rays in a trade just before the lockout. He’s likely to be primarily used in a platoon capacity, given his excellent career numbers against lefties and the fact that Peralta, Varsho and Smith all hit from the left side. Thomas is also a lefty, but actually hit southpaws better than righties last year. (1.073 OPS versus lefties and .909 against righties.) Cooper Hummel was added to the 40-man roster in November but has yet to make his MLB debut. Jake McCarthy and Stuart Fairchild are also on the roster, but each has less than 25 games of MLB experience. There’s also another highly-touted outfield prospect in Corbin Carroll, though he’s only reached High-A so far.

In short, there are a lot of options written in pencil, but none in ink. The Diamondbacks had a nightmare season in 2021, going 52-110, tied with the Orioles for the worst record in the majors. They share a division with strong teams like the Dodgers and Giants. The Padres have a decent chance of being much better this year than last. The Rockies plan on spending some money and competing this year. Arizona will need a lot of things to go right if they’re going to bridge the gap with their competitors, including Thomas, and a few of these other names, cementing themselves as mainstays in the outfield.

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