Rangers fans received news today regarding catcher and DH Mitch Garver, who was hit in the rib cage by a pitch from Astros right-hander Bryan Abreu during the sixth inning of Game 7 of the ALCS on Monday. Garver was removed for a pinch-hitter prior to what would have been his next trip to the plate in the eighth inning. Fortunately, however, the Rangers indicated yesterday that an MRI showed Garver’s rib cage had sustained no fractures. Of course, as noted by The Athletic’s Levi Weaver, it’s still possible that the incident could impact Garver during the World Series against the Diamondbacks even as he avoided serious injury.
Garver’s had a solid 2023 with the bat for Texas, though his injury history and lack of time behind the plate in 2023 make for an unusual platform season ahead of his first foray into free agency this November. After slashing .270/.370/.500 in 344 trips to the plate during the regular season, Garver has hit even better for the club in the postseason with a .294/.368/.529 line across 38 plate appearances, with two home runs, two doubles, and a strikeout rate of just 15.8%. If the Rangers don’t feel the need to afford him extra rest after his injury scare, Garver figures to factor into the club’s lineup regularly after drawing starts at DH during every game of the ALCS.
More from around the American League…
- Sticking with the Rangers, veteran right-hander Nathan Eovaldi has been a key cog in the club’s success this season. After posting a 3.63 ERA in 144 innings of work during the regular season, Eovaldi has posted quality starts all four times he’s taken the mound for Texas this postseason, with a 2.42 ERA and 26.9% strikeout rate in 26 innings of work. Eovaldi’s success with the Rangers this year prompted MassLive’s Chris Cotillo to look back at Eovaldi’s free agency last offseason, during which there was mutual interest in a reunion with the Red Sox. Cotillo notes that Boston offered the veteran righty a three-year, $51MM deal in early December, though after Eovaldi decided to hold out for a better offer, the club’s later signings of players like Kenley Jansen and Masataka Yoshida left Boston with a budget crunch later in the offseason. While the sides remained in contact until Eovaldi signed in Texas, Boston’s later offers were characterized by what Cotillo describes as “creative structures” thanks to a desire to stay under the luxury tax. Ultimately, Cotillo adds, the Red Sox pivoted to righty Corey Kluber, who posted a 7.04 ERA in 15 appearances this year, after Eovaldi landed with the Rangers on a two-year, $34MM deal.
- The Twins announced today (as relayed by The Athletic’s Dan Hayes) that outfielder and first baseman Alex Kirilloff avoided a potentially more invasive procedure on his right shoulder as Dr. Neal ElAttrache performed a cleanup procedure of the bursal sac in Kirilloff’s right shoulder today. The Twins had previously revealed that Kirilloff would require offseason shoulder surgery, though it was unclear how severe the procedure would be at the time of the announcement. Ultimately, today’s update appears to be positive news for Minnesota, as Kirilloff will reportedly focus on strengthening his shoulder and improving its range of motion “in the coming weeks” before progressing to his normal offseason routine. Kirilloff acted as the club’s primary first baseman when healthy this season, slashing a solid .270/.348/.445 in 319 trips to the plate across 88 games.
So, Boston actually offered more than the Rangers. It was Eovaldi’s preference to try and get more money.
Never mind, the years are different.
Am almost certain it came out earlier Bloom offered Eovaldi a 3-4y deal for same AAV he ended up with in Texas eventually, problem was what this story described.. Boston did not want to go over salary cap and had by then spent millions on Jensen, martin etc.
Looks like Eovaldi misread his market. He was not able to match or beat the Red Sox offer.
Misleading, by a LOT.
Then again, the writer is misleading you all as well.
Eovaldi was offered a 17m AAV deal by bloom. Eovaldi wanted to at least hear a few offers, and, when he check in with bloom BEFORE money was reallocate bloom pulled the offer for no good business reasons
If you doubt that, look at the transaction log and where bloom spread money around. The difference between kluber, who signed later, and eovaldi, was 7m.
Once you get past that, look at the variety of offers tendered followed by DFAs before ST which literally threw CBT money away for nothing at all, in typical bloom fashion.
Boston had an opening day salary payroll of $181.1m I’m case you were wondering, multiple eovaldi’s could have signed, kick kluber off the team, and STILL stay under the CBT limit for 2023
It’s not just the money ultimately spent that matters. We don’t know what other free agents the Red Sox were pursuing and what offers they had made to them after Eovaldi turned down the 3 year/$51M offer. Those offers, if any, would affect the offer to Eovaldi when he come back to talk to the Red Sox. We don’t know all the details.
Suit – all accounts say Bloom never pulled the offer to eovaldi until AFTER Eovaldi circled back to the team.
* there was no expiration attached to the original offer
* Nate never said ‘no’, the response to Bloom was let us think on it, we want to hear more from the market.
* look at the timeframes involved. It was around Nov 13 that it came out Boston extended a multi-year offer beyond the QO to Eovaldi. 6 weeks later, a deal was struck, physicals passed and Eovaldi was in a Rangers cap in Texas.
There’s a lot of spin in this article that is easily debunked by the reporting back as things unfolded, but not incorporated here. BoS looked even more inept as Nate first performed in the regular season, then the postseason, as Boston’s pitching languished and largely disappointed.
Here’s the facts Georgia the Red Sox opened with a close to 225 million payroll for Lux tax purposes. The only signing Boston made after Eovaldi signed was Kluber. It appears Eovaldi would of put them over the number at that point at least right up against it. They did do a couple of trades after that but those trades were basically a wash for lux tax purposes.
What we don’t know is when Eovaldi came back and wanted to sign the 3 year. 51 million contract. It would be nice to know when that took place exactly.
GA: If Eovaldi can think about the offer, Bloom can too. Bloom might have realized his original offer was above market value. You would bash Bloom for overpaying. Eovaldi’s future was not looking great at the end of the 2022 season where he missed a lot of time and only pitched 109.1 innings.
Not true bruin.
Eovaldi’s deal with Tex went official within the week Boston released Hosmer and ate his contract money, meaning, they could’ve hung a prospect with hosmer to move his money if they wanted.
Moving along though:
Eovaldi signed in Tex the 28th. Here’s where BOS handed money out after that:
(Omit Devers as you had to resolve arbitration)
Jan 6th – Justin Turner
Jan 11th – Devers extension (only include because delaying announcement mightve impacted cbt)
Jan 12th – kluber and settled with Josh Taylor
Jan 14th – settled with Arroyo, Brasier, Mcguire, pivetta. Verdugo
Jan 24th – took on mondesi’s salary from KC. Signed Duvall. DFA Barnes
Jan 30th – sent Barnes +CASH to Mia for Bleier, taking on all his salary
Then you had a handful of minor league FAs added sprinkled around, and, a pile of 1 yr deals settled with existing players to wrap up on Mar 10th.
Plenty of money thrown around afterwards, and plenty of chances to scrap together the savings. I’m not buying it.
Suit, if that we’re the case Bloom shouldve called and pulled the offer, no?
What I *think* happened is one of two things:
A) bloom had an ego trip and was insulted by a player circling back without tripping overhimself to jump at it from the start, or, and more likely;
B) when the player came back a couple weeks later bloom tried to cheap out, thinking he had the player over a barrel. That’s when reports of these restructured offers with deferred money and unfavorable terms got swapped in place of the original offer. So, nate said nope, Texas it is.
Now, as for Eovaldi being unable to beat the 3/51, he sort of did. It wasn’t a straight 2/34 deal.
The true terms of Nate’s TEX contract are this:
Each year of the contract has a bonus of $3 million if Eovaldi is able to pitch 160 innings. I am unsure if the postseason counts. This year he had 144ip regular, 26ip so far post season.
After the second year of the contract there is a player option. If Eovaldi pitches 300 innings combined in 2023 and 2024, then he can trigger a $20 million option for the 2025 season and has another $3 million in potential bonus money.
If he hits all those it’s a 3/63 contract, 12m more than BOS offered
GA: Offers are always subject to change. I would rather have $51M guaranteed than $34M guaranteed and a bunch of ifs.
Georgia your right on Turner sorry missed that one. The minor league contracts don’t amount to much so I don’t pay attention to those and only count if they get called up to the big club. They were already counting in there arb guys they weren’t going to dfa them so I don’t count those and the trades were even so don’t count those either but I missed the Turner good catch.
Don’t forget Duvall’s 7m as well.
Between. Turner (8.3m but 9.3m cbt different due to bonus, not counting buyout), Duvall (7m), Kluber (10m), then paying taylor ($1m) before assuming Mondesi (3.05m), paying Barnes (5.62m to MIA, 8m+deal), paying Brasier (2m).
Then, you’ve got to add how they handled Devers’ extension. Being an overpay aside, because they announced it prior to start of the season it kinda screwed the CBT pool for 23 while not helping much on 24-33. His lux tax number should’ve been 17.5m for this year. Because they announced his extension early, instead of waiting literally a couple more months, it jumped to $29.3m needlessly. That extra 12m was worth more this year than saving 1.5m per year during the extension.
That’s 47.5 in CBT salary handed out after eovaldi signed, and, the team still had room under the cap beyond that.
Money allocated is money allocated. I agree not to count the ARB money, as that was spent already, EXCEPT for players you ditched before ST even started. If you’re handing out $$$ then ditch the players and the money before ST started, that means you didn’t actually look at your roster before tendering a contract to begin with.
Bruin1012 – Nate moved to a less toxic organization. He just lost Bogey and JD after losing Mookie, Benny, Vazquez, JBJ and Price. Even if he wasn’t close to all of his team mates, it was clear what Bloom wanted and it makes perfect sense to jump off the ship before it goes under.
Nate is in a better place now and he didn’t even have to die to get there!!
Win or lose in the WS, he coming back to a stacked team who will add deGrom at some point next year and return a healthy Scherzer.
Where would you rather be? His leaving was a no brainer when it was clear JD and Bogey were not being recruited back to the Red Sox.
The fun was gone, the place was a shambles and the new team had far more talent, far better management and far more loyal and better ownership. ABSOLUTE NO BRAINER.!!
Actually buddy !!! Hosmer money went too SD payroll the redsox had him for the minimal league contract ..
“there was no expiration attached to the original offer”
How do you know that?
———–
“we want to hear more from the market”
How do you know that?
———–
What does the timeframe thing mean? Why is that conclusive of anything?
Bostonsports85 – Hosmer’s cost vs the CAP was $1.75MM. Not quite a minimal league contract but he didn’t prevent us from picking up a player we needed.
KD: That makes no sense if “the sides remained in contact until Eovaldi signed in Texas” as the article says. You don’t stay in contact with a place you don’t want to be.
R Smith: it’s conclusive of nothing. It’s speculation and conjecture to support a narrative.
According to MLB.com
“Boston will only have to pay him the minimum.:
mlb.com/news/eric-hosmer-red-sox-trade
I’m not so sure about that he preffered Texas. They offered more money in the end after Eovaldi waited for more. It’s that simple.
One less year but no state taxes. It will work out fine for Nate who likely will be extended by Texas. The man found himself in Boston and is a beast in the playoffs.
He definitely excelled in Boston but he did have a good track record before if I recall.
Judgement Day1 day ago
He definitely excelled in Boston
————————
He definitely did not. He pitched for us for two months after the trade, the strike year, and three other regular seasons. He won 26 games. Almost incredibly, in all that time, he never had a season with more than 6 wins.
But it is like the light goes on when he is in the playoffs. He knocked the Yankees out in 2021, and helped knock them out in 2018.
I think the point was that the Red Sox offer involved a lot of deferred money. At lear that is the gist I get when the agent talks about “creative structures.”
Going 2/$34 and going to free agency again a year earlier will likely turn out better than going 3/$51 if a whole bunch of that $51 is deferred.
Agreed, but it looks like the original 3 year/$51M offer had no deferred money.
In Seager/Bauer – I don’t believe the money mattered. The ship was sinking and his friends were being discarded, there was little motivation to stay on a .500 team going nowhere.
Boche is well respected. Young showed he had the ability to fill a roster with star playes. These are all things Boston couldn’t offer him regardless of the money.
KD: I doubt Eovaldi saw it that way as the article says “the sides remained in contact until Eovaldi signed in Texas”. You don’t stay in touch with a place you don’t like.
Abreu really taking full advantage of that delayed suspension
(Yes likely unintentional, just oddly humorous)
I’ve had an inflated bursa sac before. A few weeks of keeping the arm immobile as much as possible got the issue to cure. Sounds like there must have been some frayed tissue. Just item number 1,357 for Kirilloff. Crazy to see his joints fraying and body cartilage totally worn out at age 25.
This 25 year old is putting more stress on his joints then we mortals could dream of, unless of course you work construction or doing farm labor.
However, i agree with the opinion that surgery seems a bit extreme in this case. Sometimes i think these guys get terrible medical advice and it ruins their career.
I did a lot of hard manual labor jobs at and before his age and didn’t have my joints wear out, but as a pathetic sewer slime of a mortal, I should better know my place and certainly not think myself worthy of mentioning in the same sentence as a god like Alex Kirilloff.
I’ll try to just stick to comparing gods with other gods. In respect to the other gods, it’s surprising to see a deity’s body failing them in the manner in which Kami-Sama Kirilloff has experienced.
Eovaldi was a playoff stud and the Red Sox let him go… sad.
Tomato – There were actually some people who didn’t want Nate or JD back, they said they were both finished …. too “old”.
I won’t miss the last 4 years of them praising everything Bloom did or didn’t do. He had far more misses than hits.
Typical isn’t it Fever and has gotten worse, if anything since winning the 4WS the last 20 years.
How can such a small area be so back biting and 2nd guessing, media especially and for such a long period of time? Everything sports related (which will refer to) is under a microscope.
Blamed what termed to myself next generation dirtbags like Shaugnessy the longest for muck raking, but it goes a lot deeper than that.
But, Fever, Bloom DID offer Eovaldi a similar contract according to this article. It was Eovaldi’s choice to delay it. For that I can’t blame Bloom. He may have made the wrong decisions but it’s not like it was an intentional miss on this one.
Can’t say the same about JD but Turner replaced him and wasn’t much better or worse overall.
The Red Sox offered 3 year – $51,000,000, and Eovaldi did not sign. He signed for 2 year – $34,000,000 with the Rangers. I would not call that ‘letting him go’ !
They can not MAKE HIM SIGN, and their offer was better.
Get your fact straight.
The guy who is really coming out smelling like a rose is Jordan Montgomery. I can’t even fathom how many millions that he has added to his free-agent value during the playoffs. Hope that he signs with Texas…seems like a good fit.
I keep thinking the Red Sox will go after Montgomery.
All – It’s hard to imagine Texas not extending him, especially if they win the WS and add deGrom to the staff and a healthy Scherzer in 2024
Just depends on whether or not Ray Davis is willing to keep the checkbook wide open. Texas is projected to have less than $20 million available before they’re in luxury tax territory based on their current roster and projected arbitration salaries. If Heaney exercises his opt out then that opens up some more, but I don’t know how likely that is.
KD: You may be right, but time will tell. I imagine Montgomery will go to the highest bidder. This is probably the best opportunity of his career to cash in.
Yeah, I mean who are doubt the Rangers, with all their playoff success, and multiple World Series rings, give me a break in Nelson Cruz
Reading this comment makes me wonder if this is one of the Astros players.
Here are the top 25 paid SPs in 2023:
How many of the top 20 are more valuable than Nate?
2023 Starting Pitcher Salary Rankings
Justin Verlander HOU SP 40 R $43,333,333
Max Scherzer TEX SP 38 R $43,333,333
Gerrit Cole NYY SP 32 R $36,000,000
Stephen Strasburg WSH SP 34 R $35,000,000
Shohei Ohtani LAA SP/DH 28 R $30,000,000
Jacob deGrom TEX SP 35 R $30,000,000
Chris Sale BOS SP 34 L $27,500,000
Marcus Stroman CHC SP 32 R $25,000,000
Yu Darvish SD SP 36 R $25,000,000
Zack Wheeler PHI SP 33 R $24,500,000
Patrick Corbin WSH SP 33 L $24,416,666
Carlos Rodon NYY SP 30 L $22,833,333
Robbie Ray SEA SP 31 L $21,000,000
Kevin Gausman TOR SP 32 R $21,000,000
Miles Mikolas STL SP 34 R $20,416,666
Charlie Morton ATL SP 39 R $20,000,000
Clayton Kershaw LAD SP 35 L $20,000,000
Joe Musgrove SD SP 30 R $20,000,000
Hyun-Jin Ryu TOR SP 36 L $20,000,000
Chris Bassitt TOR SP 34 R $19,000,000
Nathan Eovaldi TEX SP 33 R $18,600,000
Lance Lynn LAD SP 36 R $18,500,000
Adam Wainwright STL SP 41 R $18,500,000
Taijuan Walker PHI SP 30 R $18,000,000
Blake Snell SD SP 30 L $16,600,000
I apologize because these are cash flow not AAV so their actual cost against the CAP might be slightly different. Nate was $17MM against the CAP but received $18.6MM in cash in 2023
Most of the pitchers at the top of the list provided bad returns. Ohtani, Wheeler and several others gave their teams their money’s worth.
Let’s hope the Breslow can land two SPs this off season so Boston can climb the ladder within the division by not finishing as a .500 team like the last four years. The DD 104 games over .500 mark would be a nice one to break!!.
Eovaldi typically pitches about 20 games a year and pitches, say, 120 innings. He’s got a career line of 4.10 ERA, 3.83 FIP, 3.93 xFIP. He’s a solid #3 pitcher if he was healthy all year, but he only pitches 50-75% of the year between injuries.
At 120 innings, he’d be about a 2 WAR pitcher. maybe 2.5 in a full season.
Eovaldi will also be entering his age 34 season so on a full open market, given his extensive injury history, 2 years $28MM or so?
Anyway, about 75-80% of the pitchers on that list would be better than Eovaldi. Most of the guys not better are injured.
Eovaldi is never healthy all year as you’ve said and if anything the amount he pitches will head south of 50% as time goes on
martras – 77 starts in the last 3 years for Eovaldi so almost 26 per season. 32, 25 and 20. So your facts about his starts are inaccurate.
Career numbers aren’t relevant Since the shortened COVID season his ERA has been 3.75 and 3.87 in Boston and 3.63 in Texas. His WHIP was 1.19, 1.235 and 1..139 in Texas. The better numbers in Texas are directly related to the better pitching coaches.
No offense but FIP and xFIP are estimations based on erroneous information that can’t retroactively be applied to a specific pitcher because it’s a general assumption not a fact.
So the injury crap is just that… crap. WAR also is an estimation based on many faulty assumptions being retroactively applied to numbers and the assumptions may or may not apply.. WAR is bogus in this discussion since it varies based on who calculates it. It’s not a fact.
Your two year $28MM suggests you shouldn’t quit your day job. Did you even play the game?
75-80% is vague. I specified the pitchers but you threw BS back as your response. Do the work. Name the specific pitchers and their current cost. That will make your 2 yrs for $28MM look that much more ridiculous.
Clearly, you are a fan of Statcast, Fangraphs or both and haven’t really learned the enormous shortcomings in their estimates. Next time, it would be just as effective to tell me your neighbor doesn’t like him that much. It would be difficult to argue with because the only fact is your neighbor’s opinion just like your response was filled with opinions created from faulty formulas.
His actual stats are all that matter because they are the only facts. All the miscellaneous opinions from baseball services duping the public into thinking their data applies to specific individuals is worthless.
TF – You beat me to it again! Play the game? I don’t think he even WATCHES the game, he just buries himself in the pretty numbers on Fangraphs.
Nate is the last of the true workhorses, when he starts a game he expects to go at least 7. Sure he’s had some injury issues this season and in a few past seasons …. which pitcher hasn’t?
And it cracks me up how he claims Nate is more injury prone than most starting pitchers. This year he’s thrown 170 innings and is showing no signs of slowing down.
In all MLB there’s only about 40 pitchers who have thrown more innings this year.
Scherzer, Strasburg, Ohtani, deGrom, Sale, Stroman, Darvish, Rodon, Ray, Morton, Kershaw, Musgrove, Ryu, Wainwright all threw far less innings than Nate.
Love watching Nate prove the clowns wrong year after year!
this played out argument. Eovaldi has been more than a little injury prone both last year and especially over his entire career.He missed over a month and 7 starts. Eovaldi has averaged 22 starts over his career. He did pitch 25 this season so above his career average.
Secondly this season he pitched only 144 innings. He was 68th in the majors in IP this year so there were 68 players that threw more innings than him not 40.. Lastly Morton and Scherzer threw more innings this year then Nate.. The rest of that group included two guys who retired during the year and one who probably should have and the rest were around the 130-135 so within 10-15 iP f.
Workhorses are not injury prone. They take the ball every 5 days and consistently do so not just for one season but for their career. Availability matters. That has been his issue and disqualifies him from being a workhorse.
Arguments built on hyperbole and in this cases misleading statements are not strong arguments.
correction: 67 players with more IP and the list of players also includes guys who had TJ surgery and missed the year to be fair.
@trollfree – Eovaldi isn’t that great of a pitcher. Not sure why you want to die on this molehill, but okay. He’s a 2.0-2.5 WAR pitcher in a full year. Fangraphs (theoretical results) is actually a little more bullish on him than Baseball Reference (real results).
Eovaldi sits just a tick behind all-world staff ace superstar, Kyle Gibson, in WAR over the past 5 years. Gibson’s working on a 1 year $10MM deal right now. Eovaldi had a career year in 2021. Outside of that, he’s been a pedestrian or worse starting pitcher over the past 7 years, outperformed by legendary Kyle Gibson in 6 of 7 of those years.
As I glanced down your copy/paste list which you spent exactly 0 time researching or putting any thought into, here are the names that pop out as better than Eovaldi for the price, for what I would have expected to be their 2023 performances.
Justin Verlander HOU SP 40 R $43,333,333
Max Scherzer TEX SP 38 R $43,333,333
Gerrit Cole NYY SP 32 R $36,000,000
Shohei Ohtani LAA SP/DH 28 R $30,000,000
Jacob deGrom TEX SP 35 R $30,000,000
Carlos Rodon NYY SP 30 L $22,833,333
Marcus Stroman CHC SP 32 R $25,000,000
Yu Darvish SD SP 36 R $25,000,000
Zack Wheeler PHI SP 33 R $24,500,000
Robbie Ray SEA SP 31 L $21,000,000
Kevin Gausman TOR SP 32 R $21,000,000
Miles Mikolas STL SP 34 R $20,416,666
Charlie Morton ATL SP 39 R $20,000,000
Clayton Kershaw LAD SP 35 L $20,000,000
Joe Musgrove SD SP 30 R $20,000,000
Chris Bassitt TOR SP 34 R $19,000,000
Blake Snell SD SP 30 L $16,600,000
Nathan Eovaldi TEX SP 33 R $18,600,000 (this one you didn’t even remove for your copy/paste)
These are the pitchers, where I’d rather have Eovaldi.
Stephen Strasburg WSH SP 34 R $35,000,000
Chris Sale BOS SP 34 L $27,500,000
Patrick Corbin WSH SP 33 L $24,416,666
Hyun-Jin Ryu TOR SP 36 L $20,000,000
Adam Wainwright STL SP 41 R $18,500,000
Taijuan Walker PHI SP 30 R $18,000,000
Lance Lynn LAD SP 36 R $18,500,000
Your name is a bit ironic since all you did here was literally troll away. Copy paste a list trying to pass it off as actually doing some research or putting some thought behind it, then asking other people to do all the research to prove your copy/paste was misleading at best.
Final count? 17 better. 7 worse. 71% better, 29% worse. My initial estimate of 75-80% was a little high.
Hey Dusty Baker retired!!! Do you think we could send Cora to Houston for a half bucket of baseballs?
Not sure, but, why not send Cora WITH a half bucket of baseballs and a case of batteries of altuve’s buzzer, and just ask for $1 back?
GA = Best response this week!!! Can’t stop laughing.
I don’t care about the Rangers or the Diamondbacks, but I am rooting for Eovaldi. One of my favorite players in the game today.
The tax rate is cheaper in Texas than Massachusetts. That might have been a reason why Eovaldi chose Texas over Boston.
lol
AL34 – Very true. As I prepare to move back into the Boston area from Texas I am realizing how much of a difference it makes!!
I still think without his old buddies, having to play for Cora and Bloom, taking much less money would have made sense to move to Texas, especially knowing deGrom was coming.
If he stays healthy,He could be good enough to pitch until he is 40.He seems to have not been totally healthy or he might have led the Sox to more playoff spots?If he really is as good as he was this year.