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Archives for January 2023

Reds Sign Alex Young, Richie Martin To Minor League Deals

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The Reds announced a pair of minor league deals today, one of them going to left-hander Alex Young and the other to infielder Richie Martin. Both players have received invitations to major league Spring Training.

Young, 29, was a second round pick of the Diamondbacks in the 2015 draft. He had a solid debut in the majors in 2019, throwing 83 1/3 innings with a 3.56 ERA. His 20.3% strikeout rate was below average but he limited walks to a 7.7% rate and got grounders at a 44.4% clip.

The next couple of seasons were a struggle, however, with the southpaw posting ERAs of 5.44 in 2020 and 6.58 the year after. The Diamondbacks put him on waivers in that latter campaign, with Young getting claimed by Cleveland. The Guardians then passed him through waivers in the offseason but he pitched well in the minors and got selected back to the roster in July. He only made one appearance for Cleveland before getting designated for assignment but the Giants liked him enough to send cash considerations to the Guards and put Young into 24 games.

Young got some good results with the Giants and finished the year with a 2.36 ERA over 26 2/3 innings. His 18.1% strikeout rate and 9.5% walk rate were both subpar but he got grounders at a strong 54.2% rate. Despite that performance, he was non-tendered by the Giants after the season.

Right now, the Reds have Reiver Sanmartin as their only lefty on the 40-man that’s projected to be in the bullpen. If Young can make his way onto the roster, he can provide them with some roster flexibility since he still has one option year remaining. He can also be retained for future seasons via arbitration since he has just under three years of MLB service time.

As for Martin, 28, he was a first round selection of the A’s in 2015. Prospect evaluators have long praised his defense, speed and athleticism but raised concerns about his work with the bat. The A’s weren’t satisfied enough with his progress to give him a roster spot after 2018, allowing the Orioles to nab him with the first pick in that year’s Rule 5 draft.

Martin stuck on the rebuilding O’s roster that year, allowing them to obtain full control over his rights. However, the concerns about his bat have come to fruition. Through 447 plate appearances in the majors thus far, he’s hit just .212/.261/.311 for a wRC+ of 50. He’s been better in the minors but still not very exciting. In 80 Triple-A games last year, he hit .250/.341/.380 for a wRC+ of 96, though he did steal 29 bases in that time. The O’s outrighted him off the roster in September and he elected free agency at season’s end.

For the Reds, there’s little harm in taking a flier and seeing if Martin can find another gear this year. They are currently set to send another glove-first option to their shortstop position in Kevin Newman. It’s expected that prospect Elly De La Cruz will eventually take over as the club’s shortstop of the future, though he’s only 21 and has yet to reach Triple-A. If Martin can take a step forward at the plate, there would be little preventing the Reds from giving him a shot in the big leagues. If he earns his way onto the roster, he still has one option year remaining and can be retained for a while via arbitration since he has between two and three years of major league service time.

Cubs Claim Julian Merryweather, Designate Manuel Rodríguez

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The Cubs have claimed right-hander Julian Merryweather off waivers from the Blue Jays, reports Meghan Montemurro of the Chicago Tribune. Merryweather had been designated for assignment by the Jays last week. In a corresponding move, fellow righty Manuel Rodríguez has been designated for assignment.

Merryweather, 31, was drafted by Cleveland but went to the Blue Jays in the 2018 trade that saw Josh Donaldson go the other way. He has pitched in each of the past three MLB seasons, flashing elite velocity on his fastball, which has averaged in the 96-98 mph range in each of those campaigns.

Despite that blazing speed, Merryweather hasn’t had good results so far. He struck out 27.3% of batters faced in 2020 but saw that number drop to 21.8% and 19.3% in the past two seasons. That coincided with an increase in his ERA, going from 4.15 to 4.85 and 6.75 in the most recent season. In addition to those struggles, health is an ongoing concern. Though he pitched over 40 innings in 2022, the previous four years each saw him fall short of 20 frames.

Merryweather’s been much better in the minors, such as pitching 14 1/3 scoreless innings at Triple-A last year with a 32.7% strikeout rate. However, he’s now out of options and the Cubs will have to keep him on their active roster or else send him into DFA limbo again. If they can help him turn his huge velocity into better results, they can keep him around for many seasons via arbitration since Merryweather has just over two years of MLB service time.

In adding one flamethrower, the Cubs are risking losing another. Rodríguez, 26, averaged 97.2 mph on his sinker in 2021 and 95.9 mph last year. But like Merryweather, he hasn’t turned that into punchouts, striking out just 17.1% of batters faced in 31 1/3 major league innings thus far. He has gotten ground balls at a solid 53.2% clip but has also given free passes to 15% of batters faced.

The Cubs will now have a week to trade Rodríguez or pass him through waivers. He still has one option year remaining and just over a year of service time. Given his youth and potent velocity, he could find interest from other clubs that are looking for some pitching depth.

Marlins Have Been In Contact With Yuli Gurriel

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The Marlins have been in contact with free agent first baseman Yuli Gurriel, according to Barry Jackson and Craig Mish of the Miami Herald and Alejandro Villegas of 5 Reasons Sports.

Gurriel, 39 in June, has spent his entire MLB career with the Astros thus far. He signed with them out of Cuba in 2016, a five-year deal that covered the 2016-2020 period. After a brief showing in the first year of that deal, Gurriel established himself as an above-average regular in the three subsequent seasons. From 2017 through 2019, he walked in just 4.7% of his trips to the plate but he also only struck out 10.9% of the time. He hit 62 home runs and produced an overall batting line of .296/.333/.486. His 119 wRC+ in that time indicates he was 19% better than league average.

The past three years have been far less consistent, however. Gurriel slumped badly in the shortened 2020 season, hitting just .232/.274/.384 for a wRC+ of 76. Nonetheless, the Astros had enough faith in him that they gave him a one-year extension with a club option for 2022. He bounced back in a huge way, winning the American League batting title in 2021 by hitting .319 and producing a 132 wRC+. The club triggered their club option for 2022 but saw Gurriel slump again, hitting .242/.288/.360, 86 wRC+, though he did catch fire in the postseason and hit .347/.360/.490. His market has been quiet so far this offseason, with the only reported interest coming from the Astros, though that was before they signed José Abreu.

The Fish don’t strictly need to add a first baseman since they already have Garrett Cooper lined up for that position. He’s been an above-average hitter in each of the past four seasons but is frequently injured, having yet to reach 120 games in any season of his career. Acquiring Gurriel would give them some extra cover or allow the club to monitor the workloads of the two players. Both players are right-handed but Cooper has reverse splits, meaning some platooning is possible. He has a 119 wRC+ against righties for his career but a 113 against lefties. It was even more pronounced in 2022, with a 79 against southpaws and a 125 otherwise.

There’s also the possibility of the duo taking some time at designated hitter, though that it somewhat complicated by the presence of Jorge Soler. The outfielder missed significant time in 2022 due to back spasms and reports have indicated he’ll likely get the bulk of his playing time in the DH slot next year.

All this makes Gurriel a slightly awkward fit on the roster but his inconsistent track record in recent years and advancing age probably mean he won’t cost much. That surely makes him appealing to a fairly low-spending Marlins club. The payroll is currently around $103MM, per the calculations of Roster Resource. That’s fairly modest by MLB standards but the club has only once gone higher than that, according to Cot’s Baseball Contracts, which was back in 2017 under the previous ownership group. Last year, they opened the season with just $79MM on the books.

Whatever the cost, adding Gurriel would be another attempt for the club to add some more offense to its tepid lineup, which produced a wRC+ of 88 last year, placing them 25th out of the 30 teams in the league. They’ve already signed Jean Segura as part of that effort and have also been trying to trade from their rotation surplus for quite some time, though a deal still hasn’t come together.

Mariners Claim J.B. Bukauskas, Designate Alberto Rodriguez

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The Mariners announced that they have claimed right-hander J.B. Bukauskas off waivers from the Diamondbacks. In a corresponding move, outfielder Alberto Rodriguez has been designated for assignment. Bukauskas was designated for assignment last week when the D-Backs re-signed Zach Davies.

Bukauskas, 26, was a first round draft pick of the Astros in 2017 and he landed on top prospect lists shortly thereafter. However, many evaluators predicted his inability to consistently throw strikes would lead to a bullpen move down the line. Those predictions proved to be fairly astute as Bukauskas moved up the minor league ladder and struggled with walks. In 85 2/3 innings for Houston’s Double-A affiliate in 2019, he walked 14.2% of batters faced and posted a 5.25 ERA.

The Diamondbacks acquired Bukauskas alongside three other players when they traded Zack Greinke to Houston and have since had him spend most of his time as a reliever. His control has certainly improved in that time but injuries have limited him to a small workload. In 2021, he only pitched 30 innings between the majors and the minors due to a strain in his throwing elbow. Last year, a Grade 2 strain in the teres major muscle in his shoulder put him on the injured list from the start of the year until July. The D-Backs kept him on the farm once he was healthy, but he fared well there. He posted a 2.42 ERA in 22 1/3 innings while striking out 25.3% of batters faced and walking just 4.6% of them. Most of that work came in the Pacific Coast League as well, which has a reputation for being quite hitter-friendly.

The M’s have decided to take a shot on Bukauskas to see if they can be the ones to benefit from a breakout. The righty still has an option year remaining, allowing them to keep him in the minors until he’s needed with the big league club. He also has just over a year of service time and can be kept around for the foreseeable future as long as he holds a spot on the 40-man.

In order to take a chance on Bukauskas, the M’s are risking losing the 22-year-old Rodriguez. An amateur signing of the Blue Jays, he was traded to the Mariners as part of the 2020 deal that sent Taijuan Walker to the Jays. In 2021, he hit .289/.379/.470 between Single-A and High-A, a strong enough showing to get him added to the 40-man roster ahead of the Rule 5 draft. Last year, he went back to High-A and still hit fairly well. His .261/.336/.396 showing was good enough for a 106 wRC+, or 6% above league average. However, he struck out in 26.2% of his plate appearances and only stole six bases after going well into double digits in previous seasons.

The Mariners will now have a week to trade Rodriguez or pass him through waivers. Though his 2022 season wasn’t ideal, he’s still a young and talented outfielder who has a couple of option years remaining. As recently as midway through 2022, Baseball America still considered him one of the club’s top 30 prospects.

Orioles Outright Lewin Díaz

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The Orioles announced that first baseman Lewin Díaz has cleared outright waivers and been outrighted to Triple-A Norfolk. He will stick in the organization but without taking up a roster spot.

This move will finally bring some semblance of stability to a wild offseason for Díaz, who recently turned 26. He began the offseason with the Marlins but was designated for assignment in November. He was claimed off waivers by the Pirates but they then designated him a week later. The Orioles claimed him in early December but only kept him on the roster for another three weeks, giving him his third DFA in the span of about a month. He was traded to the Braves for cash, though they gave him his fourth DFA of the winter about a week after that. The Orioles claimed him a second time in early January and then designated him once more last week, though Díaz has finally passed through unclaimed this time. Though Díaz would have probably liked to have held a roster spot, he now at least knows which team’s Spring Training camp he’ll be reporting to next month.

The O’s have seemingly been hellbent on stashing some left-handed non-roster depth this winter. They acquired Ryan O’Hearn from the Royals for cash considerations and later passed him through waivers and have now got Díaz through as well. Both those players will seemingly be battling each other for the right to get back onto the roster at some point when injuries or underperformance from other players make it necessary. For now, the club will be going into the season with right-handed hitting Ryan Mountcastle as the primary option at first base, with the designated hitter role likely going to Anthony Santander or one of the other outfielders.

Díaz has been somewhat inconsistent in his career thus far, with his strengths making him just appealing enough to get interest from multiple clubs around the league but his weaknesses preventing him from clinging to a roster spot for long. On the strong side, he’s an excellent defender at first base. In 112 big league games thus far, he’s registered 16 Defensive Runs Saved and nine Outs Above Average, while Ultimate Zone Rating has given him a 3.4. He’s also hit very well in the minors over the past couple of seasons. In 156 Triple-A games in 2021 and 2022, he’s hit 39 home runs and produced a batting line of .250/.325/.504 for a wRC+ of 115.

Unfortunately, he hasn’t been able to come close to that in the majors thus far. Through 343 plate appearances in the big leagues, he’s hit 13 home runs but walked at a paltry 5.5% rate and slashed .181/.227/.340 for a wRC+ of 54. He’s also now out of options, meaning he provides less roster flexibility going forward.

Those factors have all combined to send Díaz on the strange ordeal he’s endured over the past few months. Several teams have been enticed by his glove and strong minor league offense, but his major league track record has continually squeezed him off rosters. After months of being passed around, the next steps are much more clear. He’ll report to the O’s and try to get back to the big leagues, either for Opening Day or at some point as the season goes along.

Nationals Outright Andrés Machado

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The Nationals announced that right-hander Andrés Machado has cleared outright waivers and been outrighted to Triple-A Rochester. He was designated for assignment last week when the club signed outfielder Corey Dickerson.

Machado, 30 in April, tossed 59 1/3 innings for the Nats last year with a 3.34 ERA. Despite those solid results, there were reasons for the Nats to be bearish. Machado’s 17.6% strikeout rate and 10% walk rate were both worse than league average, with a .267 batting average on balls in play helping him keep runs off the board. The opposite was true in the minors, as a .375 BABIP led to a 5.82 ERA in 17 Triple-A innings.

Beyond the work on the mound, Machado is also now out of options. The Nats optioned him seven times over the past couple of seasons, clearly valuing his ability to move on and off the roster as needed. That was no longer going to be possible this year, giving him a little less hold on a spot at the fringe of the roster.

Machado will now stick in the organization and serve as depth but without occupying a roster spot. Players with more than three years of MLB service time can reject an outright assignment and elect free agency, but Machado is still shy of the two-year mark.

Red Sox Among Teams Interested In Adam Duvall

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The Red Sox are among the teams pursuing free-agent outfielder Adam Duvall, as first reported by Chris Henrique of Beyond the Monster. MassLive.com’s Chris Cotillo tweets that a resolution on Duvall’s free agency, be it him signing with the Sox or another club, could come as soon as this week. The Red Sox, Cotillo adds, view Duvall as “plenty capable” of playing center field.

Slotting Duvall into the center field mix alongside left-handed-hitting Jarren Duran would allow Boston to shift Enrique Hernandez back to the middle infield, in the wake of Trevor Story’s recent elbow surgery. Duvall doesn’t have pronounced platoon splits — he draws slightly more walks against lefties but hits for similar power and has an identical .230 average against lefties and righties — so it’s possible that he could even be thrust into center field on a regular basis, if the Sox are comfortable with the defensive component of that fit.

Duvall, 34, has elite defensive grades in left field in his career but has just 593 innings in center field — most of which came with the Braves over the past two seasons. He’s fared well there, too, logging four Defensive Runs Saved and five Outs Above Average in that limited time.

With the bat, Duvall has clear plus power, but he’s never gotten on base much and has also grown increasingly strikeout-prone in recent years (30.4% over the past four seasons). His 2022 season was cut short by a torn tendon sheath in his wrist, leaving him with an ugly .213/.276/.401 batting line and a dozen homers in 315 trips to the plate. Duvall smashed 38 home runs as recently as 2021, but that was accompanied by his typical blend of low average and OBP marks; in 555 plate appearances for Atlanta in ’21, Duvall hit .228/.281/.491.

That’s par for course for Duvall, a career .230/.289/.465 hitter who has thrice topped 30 home runs in a given season and also has a 2021 Gold Glove Award under his belt. If he’s back to full strength last year’s season-ending wrist surgery, he could give the Red Sox a much-needed right-handed bat in a lineup where only Hernandez, Justin Turner and Christian Arroyo project for regular reps. Bench options like Bobby Dalbec and Rob Refsnyder could give Boston some additional righty bats on days they face a left-handed starter.

Red Sox chief baseball officer Chaim Bloom said last week that following Story’s injury, he’d likely seek multiple up-the-middle additions to the lineup. Duvall, assuming he plays center field, could fit that billing, but the Sox would likely still have other additions in store. Boston was also connected to former Rangers, A’s and White Sox infielder Elvis Andrus over the weekend. Boston currently projects to have a payroll of about $183.5MM next season and has a bit more than $209MM in luxury-tax obligations on the books — both of which are well shy of last year’s totals.

Red Sox Trade Connor Seabold To Rockies

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11:47am: The Rockies have announced the trade.

11:28am: The Rockies have acquired right-hander Connor Seabold from the Red Sox in exchange for a player to be named later or cash, reports Mark Feinsand of MLB.com (via Twitter). Boston designated Seabold for assignment last week when finalizing their deal with free-agent starter Corey Kluber. The Rockies had an open spot on the 40-man roster, so a corresponding transaction won’t be required.

Seabold, 26, was a mildly surprising DFA by the Red Sox, if only due to his recent status as one of the organization’s more promising pitching prospects. There are pronounced durability concerns about the right-hander, however, due in no small part to elbow trouble in 2021 and a forearm strain in 2022. Seabold has just 364 professional innings since being drafted back in 2017 — that modest total coming despite his status as a starting pitcher.

As far as his Major League work is concerned, Seabold has yet to find success. He’s tallied just 21 1/3 innings in the Majors, all with the Red Sox, and he’s been tagged for 25 runs in that time. Things have gone more smoothly in Triple-A, where Seabold pitched well as recently as this past season: 86 1/3 innings, 3.32 ERA, 24.7% strikeout rate, 5.3% walk rate.

Despite concerns about his ability to stay on the field and a shaky MLB performance to date, Seabold is more or less a big league-ready arm who’ll give the Rockies some depth on the pitching staff, if not a player who could legitimately vie for a starting job this spring. Colorado’s rotation will be without Antonio Senzatela to begin the season, due to the righty’s ACL tear late last year, and the staff has little certainty beyond righty German Marquez and lefty Kyle Freeland (both of whom are looking for a rebound performance anyhow). Jose Urena, Ryan Feltner and Austin Gomber are the ostensible front-runners, but each posted an ERA north of 5.00 in 2022.

Seabold also has a minor league option year remaining, so if he doesn’t win a job out of camp, he can still be sent to the minors without first needing to clear waivers.

Cardinals Among Teams To Inquire On Marlins’ Starters

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The Cardinals and Marlins have held “at least preliminary” discussions regarding Miami’s bevy of young starters, Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic reports. Rosenthal suggests that St. Louis is a nice fit for Pablo Lopez, although on paper, it’s easy enough to make a case for just about any of the Marlins’ available starters as a fit in St. Louis. Each of Lopez, Jesus Luzardo, Trevor Rogers and Edward Cabrera has seen his name surface in trade chatter recently. Miami, however, doesn’t seem to have any plans to deal ace Sandy Alcantara, whom the Cardinals actually traded to the Fish alongside Zac Gallen in the deal that sent Marcell Ozuna from Miami to St. Louis.

The Cardinals have a solid-looking rotation on the surface, with each of Jordan Montgomery, Miles Mikolas, Adam Wainwright, Steven Matz and Jack Flaherty likely to slot into the starting five. Depth options behind the group include Dakota Hudson, Jake Woodford, Matthew Liberatore, Zack Thompson and Andre Pallante, although the latter two did well in a bullpen setting in 2022. Further down the line are prospects Gordon Graceffo, Michael McGreevy and Tink Hence, although none of that group is on the 40-man roster just yet.

All that said, however, the Cards could lose nearly their entire rotation after the season. Wainwright is set to retire, while each of Mikolas, Montgomery and Flaherty are free agents next winter. Only Matz, whose four-year contract covers the 2022-25 seasons, is signed or controlled beyond the current season.

In that sense, there’s good reason for the Cards to pursue a starter who can be controlled through at least the 2024 season. There’s surely some internal hope that someone like Liberatore, Graceffo or McGreevy can step up and seize a rotation spot when an opportunity inevitably presents itself this season, but that’s a lot to bank on. And, even if that happens, the Cards would still be looking at multiple rotation spots they need to fill next offseason — perhaps as many as three.

Lopez, 27 in March, has a 3.52 ERA over his past 340 big league innings and is arbitration-eligible through the 2024 campaign. Luzardo, even younger at 25, enjoyed a nice bounceback year in 2022 when he notched a 3.32 ERA and 30% strikeout rate, but a forearm injury limited him to just 100 1/3 innings. He’s under team control through 2026. That’s the same amount of club control as the 25-year-old Rogers, a 2021 Rookie of the Year finalist who stumbled to a 5.47 ERA in 107 frames in 2022, his second full MLB campaign. The 24-year-old Cabrera, meanwhile, has six full years of club control remaining and notched a 3.01 ERA in 71 2/3 innings in 2022.

None of that bunch is expensive, with Lopez’s $5.45MM salary leading the way. Finances shouldn’t play a major consideration for the Cardinals anyhow; they’re on pace to roughly match last year’s $163MM payroll, and president of baseball ops John Mozeliak had previously indicated the ability to increase payroll. From Miami’s vantage point, their projected $103MM payroll would be the second-highest mark in club history.

The Marlins are known to be seeking improvements to their lineup and have been prioritizing center field and catcher dating back to last offseason. Miami swung a trade for Pittsburgh catcher Jacob Stallings prior to the 2022 season but saw the former Gold Glove winner turn in a disappointing .233/.292/.292 batting line while his typically high-end defensive grades also cratered. Center field remains an unaddressed need, and Miami again appears likely to take someone better suited for a corner (Bryan De La Cruz) and hope for the best this season.

The Cardinals, meanwhile, are deep in outfielders with Tyler O’Neill, Dylan Carlson and Lars Nootbaar likely lined up left-to-right at the MLB level. (Rosenthal suggests that of the bunch, Nootbaar is the least likely to change hands.) Top prospect Jordan Walker, who’s likely all but off limits in trade talks, looms behind that group. Alec Burleson, meanwhile, has already gotten some MLB experience, and fellow outfielder Moises Gomez posted big numbers in the upper minors. Behind the plate, the Cards have well-regarded catching prospect Ivan Herrera, who doesn’t exactly have a clear path to a regular role now that Willson Contreras has been signed to a five-year deal.

Certainly, the Cards and Marlins seem to have aligning needs that could lead to a trade, but there’s also no indication that talks are particularly heated. Miami has likely discussed its available starters with more than half the league, given the dearth of viable big league options elsewhere on the trade market. Even the Cards and Marlins themselves don’t know whether a deal will ultimately come together at this juncture, but it’s nevertheless of some note that the two parties have at least held some surface-level talks.

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