Luis Avilan Retires
Reliever Luis Avilán has retired, reports Jon Heyman of the New York Post (X link). The Venezuela native pitched in parts of 10 big league seasons with seven teams.
Avilán began his career as an amateur signee with the Braves. He debuted with Atlanta in 2012 and pitched his first three-plus seasons there. Avilán allowed 2.00 earned runs per nine in 36 innings as a rookie and turned in his career season in the second year. He posted a 1.52 ERA through a personal-high 65 frames in 2013 and tacked on 2 2/3 scoreless in the postseason.
After another year and a half in the Atlanta bullpen, Avilán was moved to the Dodgers in a massive 13-player, three-team 2015 deadline deal that also sent Alex Wood to Los Angeles. Avilán spent two and a half years in Southern California. He saw postseason action in both 2015 and ’16 before pitching to a 2.93 ERA over 46 regular season innings in 2017.
Going into the following season, Avilán was involved in another three-team deal. This one — orchestrated between the White Sox, Dodgers and Royals — landed him in Chicago. He’d pitch for five teams over the next four seasons, suiting up with the White Sox, Phillies, both New York franchises and Nationals. His 2021 campaign with Washington was cut short after four outings by an elbow injury that required Tommy John surgery.
That ultimately brought his major league career to an end. Avilán re-signed with the Nats on a minor league deal last year, spending the bulk of the season in Triple-A. He was out of professional baseball entirely this past season and, at age 34, has decided to step away.
Avilán concludes with a 3.43 ERA in 354 major league innings. He recorded 319 strikeouts and kept the ball on the ground for just under half the batted balls he allowed. A situational lefty, he collected 85 holds while limiting same-handed batters to a .204/.279/.281 slash line through nearly 700 plate appearances. MLBTR congratulates Avilán on a decade-long run in the majors and sends our best wishes in his post-playing days.
Guardians Interview Clayton McCullough In Managerial Search
The Guardians have interviewed Dodgers first base coach Clayton McCullough as they search for a new manager, reports Paul Hoynes of Cleveland.com. He joins Giants bullpen/catching coach Craig Albernaz and Yankees bench coach Carlos Mendoza as known candidates to meet with Cleveland brass.
McCullough, 44 in December, has never managed at the major league level. He has seven years of managerial experience in the minors, however, working at the lower levels of the Blue Jays’ system between 2007-13. He signed with Los Angeles as a minor league field coordinator in 2015. The Dodgers added him to Dave Roberts’ staff at the start of the 2021 season.
Before his coaching days, McCullough spent some time in the Cleveland organization. An East Carolina product, he was selected by the Indians in the 22nd round of the 2002 draft as a catcher. He played 104 games over parts of four minor league seasons.
This isn’t the first time McCullough has drawn attention in a major league managerial search. He interviewed with the Mets during the 2021-22 offseason for the position that eventually went to Buck Showalter. McCullough was reportedly a finalist in the Royals’ hiring process last winter. Kansas City ultimately tabbed Matt Quatraro off the Rays’ coaching staff.
Cleveland is embarking on a managerial search for the first time in over a decade after Terry Francona stepped aside. While the three known interviewees are all from outside the organization, Hoynes lists a few internal candidates under consideration. The front office has considered minor league field coordinator John McDonald, hitting coach Chris Valaika, and player development director Rob Cerfolio as potential candidates, although it’s unclear which of that group will receive a formal interview. First base coach Sandy Alomar Jr. has already taken himself out of the running; according to Hoynes, third base coach Mike Sarbaugh has not been asked to interview.
St. Louis Cardinals Job Openings
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Twins Outright Andrew Stevenson, José De León
The Twins have outrighted right-hander José De León and outfielder Andrew Stevenson, per the transactions tracker at MLB.com. That indicates both players were removed from the 40-man roster after passing through waivers unclaimed.
Stevenson, 29, signed a minor league deal with the Twins in March and was selected to the roster in September. He had a strong performance in Triple-A, hitting .317/.394/.522 while stealing 44 bases. He got into 25 games at the big league level down the stretch but hit just .189/.250/.216 in those, though he did add another four steals.
Any of the 30 other clubs could have added Stevenson via a waiver claim but he’s out of options, meaning he would need an active roster spot going forward as well. It seems none of them were willing to do so and he passed through waivers unclaimed. Since he has been previously outrighted in his career, he has the right to reject this assignment and elect free agency. His strong season at the Triple-A level will surely be enough to get him another minor league deal this winter.
De León, 31, was once considered one of the best prospects in the league but has been repeatedly setback by injuries. He tossed 17 1/3 innings for the Twins this year but required Tommy John surgery in June. It was the second such procedure of his career, the first coming back in 2018. He spent the latter months of the 2023 campaign on the 60-day injured list and will likely miss most of the 2024 season as well.
The righty would have been eligible for arbitration for the first time this winter but the Twins have removed him from the roster instead and the 29 other clubs passed on the chance to grab him, which is understandable given that he won’t be able to provide much in the upcoming season. Since he has over three years of major league service time, he has the right to elect free agency. Based on his prospect pedigree, he should be able to land a minor league somewhere, perhaps of the two-year variety since his 2024 is up in the air right now.
Mets Place Six Players On Outright Waivers
The Mets have placed six players on outright waivers, per Anthony DiComo of MLB.com. They are left-hander Anthony Kay, right-hander Vinny Nittoli, catcher Michael Pérez, outfielder Rafael Ortega, and infielders Danny Mendick and Jonathan Araúz. This will open six spots on the club’s 40-man roster. As noted by DiComo, each player will have the right to elect free agency if they pass through waivers unclaimed.
Kay, 28, was only with the Mets a short time, coming over from the Cubs in mid-September via a waiver claim. Between the two clubs, he tossed 14 2/3 innings with a 6.14 earned run average. He was much better in the minors, with a 3.76 ERA in 40 2/3 Triple-A innings this year. He will be out of options next year.
Nittoli, 33 next month, was also a midseason acquisition from the Cubs. He opted out of his minor league deal and was flipped to the Mets for cash in early June. He spent most of the rest of the season on optional assignment, only making three appearances at the major league level. He tossed 42 2/3 Triple-A innings between the two organizations with an ERA of 4.64 in that time. He will also be out of options next year.
Pérez, 31, signed a minor league deal with the Mets in the offseason and was added to the roster in May. He got into three games in the big leagues this year, spending most of his time on optional assignment. He hit .204/.309/.352 in 70 Triple-A games, leading to a wRC+ of 66. He, too, will be out of options next year.
Mendick, 30, had an encouraging performance with the White Sox in 2022, hitting .289/.343/.443 for a wRC+ of 125. But that came in just 31 games since he tore the ACL in his left knee in June of that year. The Sox non-tendered him and the Mets decided to take a chance, signing him to a $1MM guarantee. He hit well in the minors this year, slashing .282/.369/.424 in Triple-A, but his 35 major league games resulted in a paltry line of .185/.232/.277.
Araúz, 25, was selected from the Orioles in the minor league portion of the Rule 5 draft. He was selected to the major league roster in August and got into 27 games but hit just .136/.203/.288 in those. His 100 games at the Triple-A level resulted in more palatable line of .239/.340/.415.
Ortega, 32, signed a minor league deal with the Mets in June and was added to the roster at the start of August. He hit .219/.341/.272 in 47 games as the season was winding down for a wRC+ of 83. He had a strong season with the Cubs in 2021, hitting .291/.360/.463, but his career line of .247/.324/.352 translates to a wRC+ of 89.
Most of these players were added to the club late in the year, after they traded away various players at the deadline and needed some fresh bodies to play out the string. None of them were key parts of the long-term plans and they have been removed from the roster in order to give the club some greater flexibility with the offseason set to begin shortly. If they clear waivers, they will become free agents and look to find minor league deals this winter.
Brewers Outright Eric Lauer
Left-hander Eric Lauer has passed through waivers unclaimed and been outrighted by the Brewers to Triple-A Nashville, per Todd Rosiak of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. Lauer has more than three years of service time, which gives him the right to reject this outright and elect free agency.
Lauer, now 28, once seemed like a solid part of the pitching staff in Milwaukee. Over 2021 and 2022, he tossed 277 1/3 innings for the Brewers with a 3.47 earned run average. He stuck out 23.8% of batters faced in that time while issuing walks at a 8.7% clip.
He and the club agreed to an arbitration salary of $5.075MM for 2023 and he opened the year in the club’s rotation. Unfortunately, he struggled to get on track this year, posting a 5.48 ERA through his first nine appearances. He landed on the injured list in late May due to an impingement in his non-throwing shoulder and the club optioned him to the minors once he was healthy enough to be activated. His 5.04 ERA in the minors this year wasn’t much better but he got recalled at the end of September to make an appearance after the club had already clinched the division. He allowed eight earned runs in four innings, ballooning his ERA for the season to 6.56.
Lauer could have been retained for 2024 via arbitration, with MLBTR contributor Matt Swartz projecting a slight raise to a salary of $5.2MM next year. But after his poor results in 2023 and the fact that he’ll be out of options next year, it seems the Brewers weren’t willing to have him back at that price point.
Assuming Lauer elects free agency, he will head to the open market and be free to pursue contracts will all 30 clubs. His frustrating 2023 season will obviously hurt him but he can point to his strong results in the two previous campaigns as he looks for his next gig.
Rockies Outright Ryan Rolison
The Rockies announced that left-hander Ryan Rolison has been outrighted off their major league roster, indicating he passed through waivers unclaimed. He will stick in the organization without occupying a spot on the 40-man roster.
Rolison, now 26, was the club’s first-round pick in the 2018 draft, getting selected 22nd overall. But he hasn’t been able to deliver much on that promise so far, mostly due to injuries. The minor leagues were wiped out by the pandemic in 2020 and Rolison was then limited to just 16 starts in 2021, missing over two months due to an appendectomy. Nonetheless, the Rockies added him to their 40-man roster in November of 2021 to prevent him from being selected in the Rule 5 draft.
In 2022, the Rockies placed Rolison on the 60-day injured list in April due to a shoulder strain and he missed that entire season, eventually undergoing surgery in June. Since he was on the major league injured list, he collected a full year of service time despite not making his major league debut. He wasn’t fully healthy at the start of the 2023 campaign and was on the 60-day injured list to begin the campaign, but was reinstated and optioned at the end of May. But shoulder issues quickly resurfaced and he was placed on the 60-day IL again in July, not returning to action in the second half. There’s no IL in the offseason, so Rolison was on the verge of needing to be added back to the roster, but the club has outrighted him instead.
The current state of his shoulder isn’t known but he only made four appearances in the minors this year, tossing just 11 innings. The combination of the pandemic year, the appendectomy and the shoulder issues has resulted in Rolison throwing just 82 2/3 over the past four years combined. Despite his pedigree as a former first-rounder, it’s not surprising that none of the 30 clubs is currently willing to give him a roster spot, given all the ongoing uncertainty around his health.
If he can get past the shoulder issues in the future, he should be able to earn his way back into the plans in Colorado. The Rockies have very little certainty on their pitching staff right now and could easily fit him back onto the roster if he shows any hope of getting back on track.
The Rockies are currently slated to start the offseason with a 40-man roster count of 35, though future transactions could obviously alter that.
Giants Interested In Bob Melvin As Manager
As recently-fired manager Gabe Kapler interviews for the top baseball operations job in Boston, the Giants have put their search for his replacement on hold temporarily, per The Athletic’s Andrew Baggarly. While the club still hopes to have a new manager in place by the time free agency opens next month, Baggarly notes that the club is waiting for clearance to interview a final set of candidates.
Chief among those potential candidates mentioned is Padres manager Bob Melvin. Melvin, 61, is under contract with the Padres for the 2024 season, meaning that San Diego would have to grant their division rival permission to interview their manager. As unlikely as such a scenario may seem on the surface, it’s well known around baseball that Melvin and president of baseball operations A.J. Preller have a contentious relationship and have been at odds throughout much of Melvin’s tenure with the organization, a wrinkle that could make the Padres more amenable to allow Melvin to interview for the role.
While the club indicated that both Preller and Melvin would return to the Padres in their current roles for the 2024 season earlier this month, Baggarly relays that Melvin is “expected” to be open to the opportunity to interview with the Giants, if granted permission to do so by the Padres. Melvin, of course, has significant ties to the Bay Area after managing the Oakland A’s for eleven seasons, from 2011 to 2021. During his tenure with the A’s, Melvin won the AL Manager of the Year award in both 2012 and 2018, while finishing in the top four on three other occasions with the club. The A’s ultimately had a combined record of 853-764 with Melvin at the helm, an impressive feat considering the club’s consistently low payroll numbers.
Prior to his tenure in Oakland, Melvin served as manager of the Mariners from 2003-04 and managed the Diamondbacks for five seasons, from 2005-09. Melvin won NL Manager of the Year in 2007 with Arizona, making him one of just eight managers in the history of the award to win in both leagues. For his managerial career, Melvin’s record is 1517-1425, good for a winning percentage of .516.
Melvin is far from the only candidate the Giants are looking into as they search for their next manager, of course. Baggarly notes that former Giants hitting coach Donnie Ecker, who is currently the offensive coordinator for the Rangers, is another name the Giants are currently waiting on with the Rangers still in the midst of a postseason push, while Mariners bullpen and quality control coach Stephen Vogt is already known to have interviewed for the role. San Francisco has also interviewed several internal candidates, including interim manager Kai Correa and assistant coach Alyssa Nakken, who became the first known woman to interview for a big league managerial job.
Red Sox Interview Gabe Kapler In GM Search; Kim Ng Declines Interview
12:11pm: Cotillo and Sean McAdam of MassLive have now reported that Ng has declined to interview for Boston’s baseball operations vacancy, despite what the pair describe as strong interest in Ng from the Red Sox. Ng’s reasons for declining the interview are not yet known.
11:45am: In their ongoing search for Chaim Bloom’s replacement as head of baseball operations in Boston, the Red Sox have interviewed another external candidate, per Alex Speier of the Boston Globe: former Phillies and Giants manager Gabe Kapler.
Kapler, 48, is something of an unorthodox candidate to take the top baseball operations job for the Red Sox. Though he has previous front office experience as director of player development for the Dodgers from 2014-2017, most of his baseball experience has come on the field and in the dugout; he was a player in the major leagues for six different teams across twelve seasons before serving as manager of the Phillies from 2018-2019 before being replaced by Joe Girardi. From there, he was promptly hired to replace Bruce Bochy in San Francisco, and managed there for four seasons before being fired just before the end of the 2023 campaign.
That being said, Kapler has plenty of ties to Boston. His major league playing career saw him play parts of four seasons for the Red Sox, including 136 games during the club’s curse-breaking 2004 season that saw them win the World Series for the first time since 1918. After initially retiring following the 2006 season, Kapler took a job as the manager of Boston’s High-A affiliate in Greenville for the 2007 season before making a comeback as a big league player from 2008-2010.
What’s more, Kapler is a fairly well-respected and decorated big league manager. Though his teams have made the postseason just once during his six seasons in the dugout, his teams have never significantly under-performed preseason expectations, and during his Giants tenure the club typically outperformed their projections. Most notable of those over-performances, of course, was San Francisco’s 107-win 2021 campaign that saw Kapler win the NL Manager of the Year award in a nearly unanimous vote. PECOTA’s projections that season gave San Francisco a projected win total of just 75, while Fangraphs projected the club to win 76. The club also outperformed it’s projections in 2020 and 2022, though not to the same staggering degree as in 2021.
Kapler is hardly the only external candidate the Red Sox are currently discussing, as Cubs assistant GM Craig Breslow, Twins GM Thad Levine, and former Pirates GM Neal Huntington are among the other candidates that have interviewed for the top job in Boston, along with internal candidates such as assistant GMs Eddie Romero and Paul Groopman. Per MassLive’s Chris Cotillo, Kapler is reportedly something of a long shot to ultimately land the top job in Boston. Speier previously described Breslow as a “leading candidate” for the position as the club heads into the next phase of their search.
Cotillo adds that Kapler is believed to be interested in both on-field and front office roles as he seeks his next job after departing San Francisco. Though he’s seemingly only interviewed to run the baseball operations department in Boston at this point, there’s certainly nothing preventing Kapler from returning to the Red Sox organization in another capacity should the club decide to go in another direction for their top job.
The Red Sox have seen a number of high-profile candidates decline to interview for the position, including former Astros GM James Click and former Marlins president Michael Hill. Another high profile candidate who has been rumored for the position is former Marlins GM Kim Ng, who recently declined her end of a mutual option with Miami after ownership decided to pick up their side of the option rather than offer Ng an extension while looking to hire a president of baseball operations above her. While her departure from Miami seemingly opened the door to her joining the Red Sox, Cotillo cautions that multiple sources recently “threw cold water” on the idea of Ng matching up with Boston.
Offseason Chat Transcript: Tampa Bay Rays
In conjunction with the recent offseason outlook, MLBTR’s Darragh McDonald held a Rays-specific chat. Click here to read the transcript.