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MLBTR Podcast: Mutiny In The MLBPA, Blake Snell Signs With The Giants And The Dylan Cease Trade

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The latest episode of the MLB Trade Rumors Podcast is now live on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and wherever you get your podcasts! Make sure you subscribe as well! You can also use the player at this link to listen, if you don’t use Spotify or Apple for podcasts.

This week, host Darragh McDonald is joined by Steve Adams of MLB Trade Rumors to discuss…

  • The recent news of the divide in the MLBPA (2:15)
  • The release of J.D. Davis and its impact on the MLBPA situation (8:45)
  • Recent collective bargaining agreement history and its relation to current MLBPA strife (11:30)
  • Giants sign Blake Snell (17:25)
  • Padres acquire Dylan Cease from the White Sox (23:15)

Plus, we answer your questions, including…

  • Will the Blue Jays make a run at Juan Soto when he hits free agency next year? (33:35)
  • I don’t understand some of the outfielder signings this offseason. How does Hunter Renfroe command $6.5MM when Adam Duvall only gets $3MM? Why would the Twins trade for Manuel Margot when they could have just re-signed Michael A. Taylor? Is there a logical explanation? Or did the Twins and Royals front offices just screw up? (39:45)
  • Do you think that Emmanuel Clase could be traded at the deadline if the Guardians out of it? If so, what do you think he’d fetch at full strength? (43:00)

Check out our past episodes!

The podcast intro and outro song “So Long” is provided courtesy of the band Showoff.  Check out their Facebook page here!

The Opener: Seoul Series, Rodriguez, Pitching Market

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With the regular season now officially underway, here are three things we’ll be keeping an eye on around the baseball world throughout the day today:

1. Yamamoto to debut in Game 2:

The first game of the regular season is still ongoing in Seoul, where Shohei Ohtani is making his Dodgers regular season debut and where left-hander Yuki Matsui has already made his MLB debut with the Padres. Game 2 of the series will once again begin at 5:05am CT tomorrow morning, and will be broadcasted nationally on ESPN in addition to streaming on MLB.TV. Game 2 of the series will begin with the MLB debut of right-hander Yoshinobu Yamamoto, who signed the largest contract for a pure starting pitcher ever back in December. In his debut, the 25-year-old phenom will take on veteran righty Joe Musgrove, who pitched to a strong 3.05 ERA last season despite being limited to just 17 starts by shoulder and toe injuries.

2. Rodriguez dealing with lat issue:

The Diamondbacks left yesterday’s game against the Cubs facing a major injury scare as left-hander Eduardo Rodriguez exited his start in discomfort after just one inning of work. As relayed by Alex Weiner of Arizona Sports, manager Torey Lovullo indicated to reporters after the game that Rodriguez had departed due to lat tightness. Lovullo initially indicated that his level of concern regarding Rodriguez’s health was “minimal,” though he acknowledged that the severity of the issue would become clearer today.

The reigning NL champions’ most noteworthy offseason addition, Rodriguez signed with the club on a four-year deal back in December on the heels of an excellent 2023 season with the Tigers that saw him pitch to a 3.30 ERA with a 3.66 FIP in 152 2/3 innings of work. Entering the 2024 season, Rodriguez figures to slot into the club’s rotation between right-handers Zac Gallen and Merrill Kelly, with Brandon Pfaadt and Ryne Nelson likely bringing up the rear. Should Rodriguez’s lat problem prove serious enough to a require a trip to the injured list to open the season, Arizona would likely turn to Tommy Henry or Bryce Jarvis to fill in for the southpaw in the club’s rotation.

3. Will the pitching market stay hot post-Snell?

Now that the Giants have announced their two-year deal with southpaw Blake Snell, the top remaining free agent starter is officially off the market. It’s the second major pitching in the past week, joined by San Diego pulling off a surprise blockbuster trade with the White Sox to land right-hander Dylan Cease. Left-hander Jordan Montgomery and right-handers Michael Lorenzen and Mike Clevinger are all still looking for teams. Rumors from earlier this month suggested that Montgomery was searching for a seven-year deal in free agency, while Lorenzen was searching for a two-year deal and Clevinger’s agent recently suggested his client was angling for a one-year pact.

Montgomery has long been tied to the Red Sox, while Lorenzen has been connected to the White Sox in the past and the club’s interest may have grown in the wake of the Cease deal. Meanwhile, the Yankees have been connected to both Montgomery and Lorenzen and are also known to be looking for starting pitching. The Astros are now indicating that they aren’t “actively pursuing” a rotation addition in spite of their recent pursuit of Snell, but it would hardly be a shock to see either them or the Marlins make a play for one of the remaining starters given the injury woes that have faced both clubs this spring.

Scott Boras, Harry Marino Discuss MLBPA Dispute

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Recent reporting has painted a picture of a divided MLBPA, where some players are pushing for deputy director Bruce Meyer to be replaced by Harry Marino. One of the charges coming from the pro-Marino camp are that Meyer and executive director Tony Clark are too aligned with agent Scott Boras. Evan Drellich of The Athletic spoke to Boras and Marino while also reporting on various other factors of the feud.

“If you have great ideas, and you want those ideas to be promulgated in a manner that is beneficial to the union and the players they represent, you go to Tony Clark with your plan,” Boras said. “You discuss it with him first, and the many lawyers in the union. If you have issues with the union and you want to be involved with the union, you take your ideas to them. You do not take them publicly, you do not create this coup d’etat and create really a disruption inside the union. If your goal is to help players, it should never be done this way.”

Marino also provided comment: “The players who sought me out want a union that represents the will of the majority. Scott Boras is rich because he makes — or used to make — the richest players in the game richer. That he is running to the defense of Tony Clark and Bruce Meyer this morning is genuinely alarming.”

It’s understandable why there is frustration among the players right now, as the offseason has clearly not been kind to them. Many notable free agents remained unsigned into Spring Training and some are even languishing on the open market right now. Various teams are claiming to be at their respective spending limits, often due to uncertainty around TV revenue or competitive balance tax concerns.

Players like Jordan Montgomery, J.D. Martinez, Michael Lorenzen, Brandon Belt, Donovan Solano, Tommy Pham, Robbie Grossman and many others are currently unattached. In recent weeks, players like Michael A. Taylor, Adam Duvall, Tim Anderson, Gio Urshela, Amed Rosario, Randal Grichuk and others have signed for $5MM or less. Players like Blake Snell, Cody Bellinger and Matt Chapman were predicted for nine-figure deals at the start of the offseason but had to recently pivot to short-term, opt-out laden pacts.

On top of that, the players seem to have been rankled by the peculiar situation involving J.D. Davis and the Giants. He and the club went to an arbitration hearing, which he won, as the arbiters awarded him a $6.9MM salary for this year instead of the $6.5MM figure the club sought. Arbitration salaries are guaranteed if the sides avoid a hearing but not if they go to one. After the Giants signed Chapman and no longer needed Davis as their third baseman, they released him, only owing him 30 days’ termination pay of $1.11MM. He later signed with the Athletics for a $2.5MM guarantee and $1MM of incentives. Even if he unlocks all those bonuses, he’s still wind up losing more than $2MM by this series of events.

Casey Mize, the Tigers’ MLBPA player rep, spoke to Drellich about the various issues causing the upset. “I think if you went around the room and asked, I think everybody would give you a different answer,” Mize said. “Coming off the heels of this free agency is a pretty glaring one. But there’s tons of details. You could look at the J.D. Davis situation. You could look at free agency. I think you could look at the taxes of the CBT (competitive balance tax) stuff. So many guys are going to give you different answers, whether it’s service time or whatever. I don’t want to get into details of what frustrates me or what I heard last night, but in general, we’re just looking for ways to get better. Those are discussions we have all the time, and yeah, we had one last night.”

Drellich reports that this winter’s frustration has “banded together some agents and players” who have had past dissatisfaction with the union but without being spurred into action until now. The earlier reporting had suggested there was a “strained” relationship between Marino and Meyer, and Drellich depicts a split in the MLBPA between a Marino camp and a Meyer camp. The report adds that the fates of Clark and Meyer are tied, so that both would depart the MLBPA if Marino has enough support to be put into a leadership position. A scenario where Marino effectively replaces Meyer and works alongside Clark is seen as unlikely at this point.

Though it’s plain to see why the players may not be thrilled with the developments of this offseason, it’s surprising from a distance to see such animosity bubbling out into the public, as this isn’t the first time the players have faced difficulties with the economics of baseball. The executive director of the MLBPA has historically been a lawyer or labor leader, but Clark became the first former player to hold the position in 2013. The 2016-21 collective bargaining agreement, this first of his tenure, was widely panned for being a poor result for the players. Meyer was brought aboard in 2018 to help negotiate the next CBA, bringing with him his three decades of experience working with the player unions of the NBA, NHL and NFL.

It was generally perceived that the players made some gains with the current CBA that came out of the 2021-22 lockout. The minimum salary went up from $570K to $700K in 2022, and would continue to have annual increases, set to be $740K in the upcoming season. A pre-arbitration bonus pool was created to get more money to younger players. Salaries for arbitration-eligible players, which were previously not guaranteed for any of them, became guaranteed for those that avoided a hearing. A draft lottery was implemented with the hope of disincentivizing tanking.

The competitive balance tax lines also moved up noticeably, with the base threshold going from $210MM in 2021 to $230MM in 2022, further increasing annually with that threshold at $237MM this year. The other two thresholds holds moved up by comparable amounts. Though the current CBA did feature the addition of the fourth line, whereas there had previously only been three.

Harry Marino, meanwhile, led the effort to unionize minor leaguers. The MLBPA eventually became the collective bargaining arm of minor league players, which led to the first ever CBA for minor leaguers. Marino left the MLBPA after that, with Drellich reporting that his relationship with Meyer “soured significantly” during their time working together on that, but Marino appears to have resurfaced as the attempts to push out Meyer and/or Clark have gained momentum.

The exact nature of those disagreements isn’t clear but it seems that the frustrating offseason has brought them back to the surface and divided the players corps. It appears Marino and those in his camp are accusing Clark and Meyer of being too aligned with Boras. This is a charge that has arisen before, with Meyer calling it “absurd” back in 2021.

Drellich points out that Boras was upset when the players accepted the current CBA, believing they should have held out for more, particularly in terms of pushing the CBT. Though he also adds that many other players and agents viewed things from the opposite side. Based on the wording of Marino’s statement above, it appears his argument stems from the accusation that the union focuses too much on the “richest” players to the harm of others.

The MLBPA has an executive board that consists of 72 members and it was reported earlier today that 38 of those are major leaguers and 34 are minor leaguers. This report from Drellich specially mentions Jack Flaherty, Lucas Giolito and Ian Happ as players that are both on the board and also Marino supporters.

How Marino would do things differently to the Clark/Meyer leadership is unclear. Per Drellich, Marino’s supporters have been circulating a PowerPoint presentation consisting of eight slides. The full details of this aren’t clear but it apparently questions some of the MLBPA’s own spending decisions, in addition to the recent CBA negotiations.

Supporters of the Clark/Meyer camp, on the other hand, are pointing to track record. Meyer, as mentioned, has three decades of experience working with player unions in other sports. He has only been with the MLBPA since 2018 but has already gone toe-to-toe with MLB commissioner Rob Manfred and deputy commissioner Dan Halem, enduring a lockout that lasted more than three months and saw the players make some of the aforementioned gains. The Davis situation, though understandably frustrating, was possible with all arbitration-eligible players until this current CBA. While the new deal didn’t close that loop completely, it at least made arbitration salaries guaranteed for those who avoid a hearing. The CBT impacting league spending is also understandably annoying, but those thresholds moved up considerably with this CBA.

Marino, meanwhile, is just 33 years old and has far less on his résumé. Drellich relays that MLB found Meyer difficult to deal with and would be happy to see him go, something his defenders point to as a positive. As Drellich also points out, the league is naturally happy with any discord between the players as it will only help them in negotiating future CBAs.

Per today’s reporting, it seems the outcome is a binary, where the union will either stay the course with Clark/Meyer or make a significant pivot by going with a largely unknown quantity in Marino, a decision that could have ramifications for the players for years to come. The current CBA runs through the 2026 season.

Offseason In Review: Chicago White Sox

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In his first offseason as White Sox GM, Chris Getz made four key trades and a series of small free agent deals as the team enters another rebuilding phase.

Major League Signings

2024 spending: $20.8MM
Total spending: $30.05MM

Options Exercised

  • None

Trades and Claims

Notable Minor League Signings

Extensions

  • None

Notable Losses

Back in October, I was skeptical of White Sox owner Jerry Reinsdorf saying, “We want to get better as fast as we possibly can,” as part of the justification for hiring internal GM candidate Chris Getz without conducting outside interviews.  It was just too tall of an order for a team that lacked talent and has an owner averse to big free agent contracts.  Based on the moves Getz ended up making in his first offseason as GM, a quick turnaround and 2024 contention were never actually the goals.

Given Liam Hendriks’ August Tommy John surgery, the White Sox chose to decline his $15MM option for 2024, instead triggering a buyout in the same amount that will be paid out over the next decade.  The club also declined their $14MM club option on Tim Anderson, paying a $1MM buyout after finding no takers via trade.  This outcome was unsurprising after Anderson’s abysmal 2023.  The White Sox opted for a cheap defensive-minded veteran replacement at shortstop, signing free agent Paul DeJong in November.  Anderson’s eight-year White Sox career officially ended when he inked a $5MM deal with the Marlins in February.

Though Getz chose to retain manager Pedro Grifol, the Sox did turn over the coaching staff early in the offseason, bringing in Marcus Thames as hitting coach and also adding Grady Sizemore, Drew Butera, Matt Wise, and Jason Bourgeois.  Getz also dropped this memorable line to the media: “I don’t like our team.”

Getz would go on to back up that statement by giving the White Sox a major makeover.  The first strike happened in mid-November, with reliever Aaron Bummer getting shipped to Atlanta for a five-player package.  Taking advantage of Chicago’s lack of depth, four of the five players acquired were on the 40-man roster.  It was a whole lot of players the Braves didn’t need.  The biggest name, Mike Soroka, may have otherwise wound up non-tendered.  But as a $3MM flier for a threadbare White Sox rotation, Soroka fits.  Shuster provides another backend rotation candidate; he’ll start the season at Triple-A.  Given that Bummer was coming off a 6.79 ERA and rebuilding teams don’t have much need for decently-compensated relievers anyway, sending him off for depth pieces was a solid first trade for Getz.

The White Sox’s biggest free agent offseason expenditure came during the Winter Meetings with the signing of Erick Fedde.  The former Nationals top prospect, now 31, rejuvenated his career in South Korea in 2023.  Now he’s a key part of Chicago’s rotation.  The Fedde signing seems like a reasonable play for innings, with a hint of upside for a sub-4.00 ERA season.  This is very much a Rotation of Opportunity in 2024.  Perhaps nothing demonstrates that better than Garrett Crochet getting the Opening Day nod.  As James Fegan noted at Sox Machine, Crochet has 73 big league innings to his name, “it’s his first time back in [the starting pitcher] routine since essentially his sophomore year of college, and Tommy John surgery rehab and a shoulder strain didn’t make 2023 a typical platform year from the bullpen.”

A veteran backup catcher was on Getz’s shopping list this winter, given the inexperience of Korey Lee and Edgar Quero.  He found one in another deal with the Braves, who were serving as a way station for Max Stassi.  The White Sox are only on the hook for $740K of Stassi’s $7MM salary this year, so he makes for a low-risk addition.  Several weeks later, the White Sox inked Martin Maldonado to a one-year deal, possibly stifling an opportunity for Lee or Quero assuming Stassi sticks.  Logically, if one of the young catchers seems ready this summer, one or both veterans will be traded.

In January, news came that Reinsdorf is seeking a new stadium for the White Sox in the South Loop.  Everything so far has been standard: a request for over a billion dollars in public money, promises of an economic boom around a new stadium, questionable reasoning about why the current stadium won’t work, and a vague threat that the team could be moved.  All of this is outside the scope of our Offseason In Review series, but the ballpark situation figures to hang over the team for the foreseeable future.

In February, Getz added Dominic Fletcher in a trade with the Diamondbacks, hopefully filling the Sox’s long-standing right field vacancy in the process.  Fletcher, 26, hit well in limited action as a rookie with Arizona last year.  Coming into the 2023 season, Baseball America rated Fletcher as a 40-grade prospect with a strong glove and a “line-drive swing with average bat speed.”  Projection systems suggest Fletcher’s bat is not currently MLB-caliber, despite his brief success in ’23.  Still, the bar is astoundingly low here, as the White Sox haven’t had their primary right fielder post a 1-WAR season since Avisail Garcia in 2017.  Fletcher may have the right field job out of the gate, though minor league signing Kevin Pillar will likely be lurking as his potential platoon partner or backup.

The Fletcher addition fits with Getz’s stated goal of improving the team’s defense.  Aside from Fletcher, the Sox have improved up the middle with DeJong, Nicky Lopez, and Maldonado.  Groundballers like Fedde and Soroka should appreciate that, and defense is generally much cheaper on the market than offense.  Of course, a tradeoff has been made, as offensive expectations for Fletcher, DeJong, Lopez, and Maldonado are quite low.

On the same day as the Fletcher trade, Getz dealt his best reliever, Gregory Santos, to the Mariners for Prelander Berroa, Zach DeLoach, and the #69 pick in this year’s draft.  The two prospects project as a potential setup man and a fourth outfielder if things go well, and the draft pick will further boost organizational depth.  With dim prospects in the short-term, trading away relievers for quality prospects is usually a good move.  DeLoach may not have the ideal arm for right field, but as a 25-year-old who played 138 games at Triple-A last year, he could push Fletcher for playing time this year.

Of course, those departures leave the White Sox with one of the game’s shakiest-looking bullpens.  New additions Steven Wilson, John Brebbia, and Tim Hill will see high-leverage work.  The idea of Michael Kopech in the rotation seems to have been abandoned, and the once-highly-regarded righty will try to find success in relief.

Dylan Cease was the undercurrent of Getz’s entire offeason.  With two years of control remaining, Cease was seemingly shopped all winter.  Getz waited out the acquisitions of Aaron Nola, Sonny Gray, Eduardo Rodriguez, Tyler Glasnow, Yoshinobu Yamamoto, Lucas Giolito, Chris Sale, Shota Imanaga, Marcus Stroman, and Corbin Burnes, all pitchers who had crossover with Cease’s market.  Blake Snell didn’t reach an agreement until March 18th, and as of this writing Jordan Montgomery remains available.  The Dodgers, Braves, Cardinals, Reds, Yankees, Mets, Mariners, Orioles, and Rangers were linked to Cease at various points, but it was the Padres who swooped in to make a late deal on March 13th.

As I wrote in my subscriber-only mailbag last week, comparing the trade to the handful of rare precedents, I like the deal for the White Sox.  Aside from Wilson, something of a throw-in, Getz acquired three prospects graded 50 or 55 for Cease.  Looking at deals made for James Paxton, Joe Musgrove, and Gerrit Cole, teams generally fell short of that return.

Without Cease, the White Sox rotation has the potential to be awful.  RosterResource currently projects Crochet, Fedde, Soroka, Chris Flexen, and Nick Nastrini as the starting five.  Drew Thorpe, perhaps the key piece in the Cease trade, has a great opportunity here, but did not help his short-term chances with yesterday’s spring training outing.  The projected White Sox rotation has produced exactly two good Major League seasons to date: Soroka’s 4-WAR effort in 2019, and Flexen’s 3-WAR 2021.

Trading Cease is something of a concession the White Sox are not going to be good in 2024 or 2025.  They’re projected to win 66 games this year, and it’s hard to see them leaping into contention in ’25.  Luis Robert may be at peak value coming off a healthy 5-WAR season, and he’s controlled through 2027.  A case could be made that if his performance is largely irrelevant on bad teams in ’24 and ’25, and the team might just be turning the corner in ’26, the optimal move is to cash him in now for the maximum return.  But the White Sox probably don’t see their timeline that way, and keeping Robert simply as a reason to watch the team is defensible.

Should the White Sox be taking advantage of their low payroll this year to try to add prospect capital?  In a mailbag earlier this month, I explored the concept of sign-and-flips by non-contending teams, and we found success stories to be pretty rare in practice.  As Anthony Franco put it, “If the guy was any good, he wasn’t signing a low-base MLB deal with a non-contender.”  So you might suggest the White Sox should’ve landed one-year free agents like Teoscar Hernandez or Luis Severino with a mind toward flipping them, but those players might not have been interested.

Overall, this was a good first offseason for Getz, who traded three of his more marketable players aside from Robert and got respectable returns.  It’s likely he’ll continue to listen on Eloy Jimenez and would trade Yoan Moncada if he has any kind of resurgence.  As far as the season ahead, it’s going to be ugly.

How would you grade the White Sox's offseason?
C 30.09% (860 votes)
D 24.74% (707 votes)
F 21.45% (613 votes)
B 19.31% (552 votes)
A 4.41% (126 votes)
Total Votes: 2,858

 

Brandon Williamson To Begin Season On Injured List

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Reds starter Brandon Williamson will begin the season on the 15-day injured list, manager David Bell informed the Cincinnati beat on Tuesday (relayed by Charlie Goldsmith of the Cincinnati Enquirer). The left-hander departed his Spring Training start over the weekend with shoulder soreness.

There’s no indication it’s expected to be a long-term issue, but the team didn’t provide a timeline for his return. Williamson held a spot in the Reds rotation for much of last season. He started 23 games and worked 117 innings as a rookie. After being hit hard through his first eight starts, Williamson settled in as a decent back-of-the-rotation contributor. He finished his debut campaign with a 4.46 ERA, a respectable figure for a rookie pitching in one of the league’s most hitter-friendly home environments.

That came with middling peripherals, but the TCU product still had a shot of securing a season-opening rotation spot if he were healthy. With Williamson on the shelf, Bell said that fellow lefty Andrew Abbott will get a starting job. The Reds had previously been noncommittal on that, even though Abbott had a strong rookie campaign. Over 21 starts, he worked to a 3.87 ERA while punching out 26.1% of opposing hitters. The overall numbers were impressive, but Abbott’s production fell off dramatically down the stretch. He carried a 2.35 ERA into August before allowing more than six earned runs per nine in each of the final two months.

Abbott rounds out a season-opening rotation that’ll be fronted by offseason pickup Frankie Montas. The Reds announced that the hard-throwing righty will get the nod on Opening Day for his team debut. He’ll be followed in some order by Hunter Greene, Graham Ashcraft, fellow free agent signee Nick Martinez, and Abbott. Martinez has plenty of experience as both a starter and reliever. He’ll take at least one turn through the rotation but would be an option to move back to the bullpen once Nick Lodolo is ready for his season debut. The Reds have targeted the second week of April for the left-hander, who lost most of the 2023 season to a stress fracture in his left tibia.

Cincinnati was hit with bigger injury news over the weekend, as center fielder TJ Friedl was diagnosed with a fracture in his right wrist. He’ll be out for quite some time. At this stage of the offseason, there aren’t any MLB-caliber center fielders still available in free agency. Mark Sheldon of MLB.com writes that the Reds seem likely to turn to the combination of Will Benson and Stuart Fairchild to cover center field if they can’t find help outside the organization.

As a left-handed hitter, Benson would be in position for the stronger side of a possible platoon arrangement. The Reds kept him away from southpaws last season, limiting him to 44 plate appearances. Benson was excellent when put in favorable platoon situations. He hit .297/.389/.549 in a little under 300 trips versus righty pitching. That kind of production was always going to warrant a lot of play in the Cincinnati outfield. The bigger question is whether he’s capable of handling an up-the-middle position. Benson only has 88 major league innings in center field. Statcast and Defensive Runs Saved have each graded him as a roughly neutral defender in the corners.

Fairchild appeared in 97 games a year ago, hitting .228/.321/.388. He’s out of minor league options and was already set to break camp, but the Friedl injury pushes him into a more important fourth outfield role. The 28-year-old has posted roughly average offensive numbers against pitchers of either handedness in his major league career. He owns a more impressive .275/.371/.507 slash line over parts of three Triple-A campaigns.

Brown: Astros “Not Actively” Pursuing Starting Pitching

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There was a time late last week when it seemed as if Blake Snell might become an Astro. On Friday evening, reports emerged that Houston was making a push for the defending NL Cy Young winner. Ultimately, the team balked at paying upwards of $30MM per season, and Snell signed a $62MM guarnatee with the Giants. Bob Nightengale of USA Today reports that the Astros’ offer was for two years at less than $50MM.

Houston general manager Dana Brown now tells Chandler Rome of the Athletic that while the front office won’t rule out adding a starter, they’re “not actively doing anything” on that front. Brown made similar comments about the team’s comfort with the rotation before their late effort to land Snell, so that doesn’t rule out a move. At the same time, the GM suggested Snell was something of a unique case.

“It’s a different guy. If we have a bunch of guys that are similar to the other guys that are available, why go after them? Why pay more money for the same production? We feel like if we get Snell, that’s a huge piece, so you have to be on the market for a guy that’s a huge piece like that,” Brown said. “But the other guys that are available, they compare to all of our guys that we have depth with. I wouldn’t want to pay more money and we (already) got a guy right around the minimum or a little bit more. That wouldn’t be smart.”

That’s not really true of Jordan Montgomery, who is coming off a 3.20 ERA and has allowed fewer than four earned runs per nine in each of the past three seasons. Still, there hasn’t been any indication that Houston has had substantive interest in the southpaw at any point this offseason. It’s more debatable whether they’d get an upgrade from any of the other unsigned starting pitchers, a group led by Michael Lorenzen and Mike Clevinger. Yet even if someone like Lorenzen isn’t a marked improvement over Houston’s in-house starters, there’d be some merit to bringing in another pitcher to cover against early-season injuries.

The Astros entered camp knowing that Luis Garcia and Lance McCullers Jr. wouldn’t be factors until midway through the season. Justin Verlander is a couple weeks behind schedule due to shoulder soreness and will start the year on the injured list. That’s now also true of José Urquidy, who was diagnosed with a muscle strain in his forearm yesterday.

While forearm strains can be precursors to more serious injuries, Urquidy provided reporters with a positive update this afternoon. The righty said that multiple evaluations indicated his UCL was fully intact and that imaging mainly revealed muscular inflammation in his forearm (link via Brian McTaggart of MLB.com). Urquidy expressed his hope he could begin a throwing program within 10-14 days.

That won’t keep him off the injured list but addresses any fear the team might’ve had about Urquidy possibly needing surgery. Brown told Rome that the Astros expect Urquidy will be out of action for a little more than a month all told. Houston’s season-opening starting staff should be led by Framber Valdez, Cristian Javier, Hunter Brown and J.P. France. Right-handers Brandon Bielak and Ronel Blanco are the top options for the #5 role if the Astros don’t go outside the organization.

Dodgers Place Four Pitchers On Injured List

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The Dodgers finalized their roster for the Seoul Series this evening. Los Angeles didn’t make any 40-man transactions but did place four pitchers on the 10-day injured list: Walker Buehler, Emmet Sheehan, Brusdar Graterol and Blake Treinen.

None of those is all that unexpected. The Dodgers announced early in camp that they’d start Buehler on the IL so as not to push him too quickly after missing last season working back from his second Tommy John procedure. The team announced Sheehan’s injury as forearm inflammation. That’s a little surprising at first glance, considering they’d previously said he was dealing with shoulder discomfort. Fortunately, Fabian Ardaya of the Athletic reports (on X) that this isn’t a new injury and Sheehan is throwing to hitters.

Graterol and Treinen were each banged up in spring. Graterol has been delayed by hip tightness and inflammation in his throwing shoulder. The Dodgers announced the latter injury as the reason for the IL placement. Treinen suffered a bruised lung when he was hit by a comebacker in a Spring Training game on March 9.

None of the injuries seem all that serious, as the Dodgers appear to be playing things cautiously with this series. The placements could afford an opportunity for righty Landon Knack to make his major league debut. He’ll get a spot in the season-opening bullpen after the Dodgers selected his contract over the winter.

Knack, 26, was a senior sign out of East Tennessee State in 2020. The former second-round pick has posted strong numbers in his minor league career. He turned in a 2.51 ERA over 22 starts between the top two minor league levels last season.

Of course, L.A.’s more anticipated first big league outing will come on Thursday. Yoshinobu Yamamoto is tabbed to start the second game of the season opposite Joe Musgrove. It’ll be Yu Darvish and Tyler Glasnow kicking things off on Wednesday.

Padres Select Jackson Merrill, Tyler Wade

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The Padres announced their active roster for the upcoming Seoul Series against the Dodgers. As was previously reported, San Diego officially selected the contracts of prospects Jackson Merrill and Graham Pauley. The Friars also added minor league signee Tyler Wade to their 40-man roster, which is up to 39 players.

San Diego placed a trio of players on the injured list. Infielder Tucupita Marcano landed on the 10-day IL. He tore his ACL last August and is nowhere near ready. Pitchers Luis Patiño and Glenn Otto each went on the 15-day injured list. Otto has a teres major strain in his throwing shoulder; Patiño is battling elbow inflammation. San Diego also optioned reliever Woo-Suk Go to Triple-A El Paso. He won’t be on the roster for the team’s series in his home country after allowing six runs in 4 1/3 innings this spring.

Merrill, 20, will open the year as San Diego’s starting center fielder. The top prospect earned that assignment with a .351/.400/.595 showing in 13 Spring Training contests. Merrill hit .277/.326/.444 with 15 homers in 511 plate appearances between High-A and Double-A a season ago. That’s impressive production given his youth, and Merrill was regarded as one of the better pure hitters in the minors.

There’s nevertheless plenty of risk with the move. Merrill didn’t log a single inning in center field in his minor league career and has yet to play above Double-A. San Diego hasn’t been afraid of aggressively promoting its top minor league talents in recent years. Merrill should slot between Fernando Tatis Jr. and Jurickson Profar in the Opening Day lineup. San Diego is still looking into the possibility of a left field upgrade, as they were reportedly in contact with Tommy Pham over the weekend.

Wade, 29, gets back to the majors for what’ll be the eighth straight season. The lefty-hitting utilityman has primarily worked off the bench over his career with the Yankees, Angels and A’s. He appeared in 26 games with Oakland last season, hitting .255/.309/.314. Wade has a middling .217/.293/.300 batting line in just over 700 major league plate appearances.

He earned a season-opening roster spot with an impressive showing this spring. Wade hit .294/.351/.471 over 14 exhibition contests. The Padres aren’t counting on him to make much of an impact offensively, but he provides a speed and defense element off the bench. Wade can play virtually anywhere aside from catcher. He’ll offer a complement to Pauley at third base and Merrill in center field late in games. Wade is out of options, so now that he secured a 40-man spot, the Padres would need to expose him to waivers if they wanted to take him off the major league roster.

Rule 5 pick Stephen Kolek nabbed a spot in the Opening Day bullpen. He should soon get an opportunity to make his major league debut, perhaps against the team that drafted him. Kolek was an 11th-round pick of the Dodgers in 2018. L.A. dealt him to the Mariners for cash early in the 2021 campaign. Kolek turned in a 3.76 ERA over 69 1/3 innings of relief between the top two minor league levels last season. He tossed 5 2/3 scoreless frames this spring, albeit with four walks.

Padres Select Graham Pauley

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Infield prospect Graham Pauley made the Padres’ Opening Day roster, reports Dennis Lin of the Athletic (X link). San Diego will need to formally select his contract. They have multiple vacancies on the 40-man roster to do so.

Pauley will join Jackson Merrill in making his major league debut, perhaps as soon as tomorrow morning. Like Merrill, he’ll make the jump directly from Double-A. Pauley is in his second full season as a professional. The Padres selected him in the 13th round of the 2022 draft. That looks like an excellent find, as the Duke product quickly hit his way to the majors.

A left-handed batter, Pauley raked across three minor league levels a year ago. He started with a .309/.422/.465 slash with as many walks as strikeouts over 62 games in Low-A. While he didn’t maintain that pristine strikeout and walk profile upon a bump to High-A, his power numbers exploded after his move to the Midwest League. He popped 16 home runs in just 45 games to earn another promotion to Double-A. Pauley continued to impress, closing the season with a .321/.375/.556 slash in 20 contests.

Overall, Pauley finished his first full minor league schedule with an excellent .308/.393/.539 line in 551 plate appearances. He ripped 32 doubles, five triples and 23 homers. As a college draftee, he should acquit himself well against low minors pitching, but his production was so strong that it put him firmly on the prospect radar. Baseball America and The Athletic’s Keith Law each ranked him 11th among San Diego prospects this winter, praising his advanced offensive ability. Eric Longenhagen of FanGraphs slotted Pauley sixth in the system in January — he’d be up to fourth after the inclusion of Drew Thorpe and Jairo Iriarte in the Dylan Cease trade — and similarly praised his overall offensive aptitude.

The 23-year-old picked up where he’d left off this spring, hitting .314/.400/.486 with five walks and nine strikeouts in 40 trips to the dish. He convinced the front office of his readiness to take on major league pitching. Prospect evaluators are less enamored of Pauley’s defense, with reviews on his glove ranging from average to well below. Pauley is primarily a third baseman but has limited experience at second base and in the corner outfield.

He should get run early in the season at the hot corner. Manny Machado is expected to work as a designated hitter early in the year as he continues to build back after undergoing elbow surgery last October. Pauley should step in as the primary third baseman, with Eguy Rosario and Tyler Wade on hand as potentially superior defensive options late in games.

Giants Sign Blake Snell

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The Giants have made another Spring Training strike. San Francisco has officially announced the signing of Blake Snell on a two-year, $62MM contract that allows him to opt out after the upcoming season. The Boras Corporation client will receive a $15MM salary in 2024 and has a $17MM signing bonus that will not be paid until January 2026. Snell will receive the bonus even if he opts out, so that decision essentially amounts to a $30MM player option for the ’25 season. If Snell does not opt out, half of his salary for the second season would be deferred until 2027.

San Francisco adds the defending NL Cy Young winner to the top of a staff that also includes last year’s runner-up, Logan Webb. A two-year deal certainly isn’t what Snell had in mind at the beginning of the winter. The 31-year-old hit free agency coming off an otherworldly finish to the 2023 campaign. Snell’s platform season actually started shakily, as he allowed 15 runs over his first 23 frames. From the start of May onward, he was the best pitcher in the majors. Snell allowed only 1.78 earned runs per nine through 27 starts and 157 innings after April.

Despite the tough first month, the southpaw finished the year with an MLB-best 2.25 ERA across 180 frames. He punched out 31.5% of opposing hitters, a mark surpassed by only Spencer Strider and Tyler Glasnow among pitchers with at least 100 innings. No other starter missed more bats on a per-swing basis. Opponents made contact on just 64.2% of their swings against Snell, narrowly better than Strider’s 64.3% figure for the lowest rate in the majors.

As a result, Snell cruised to the second Cy Young of his career. He received 28 of 30 first-place votes. He’d won the American League Cy Young as a member of the Rays five seasons earlier behind an AL-leading 1.89 ERA over 31 starts. He joined Max Scherzer, Clayton Kershaw, Justin Verlander and Jacob deGrom as active pitchers with multiple Cy Young wins.

The 2018 and ’23 seasons are, rather remarkably, the only seasons in which Snell has appeared on Cy Young ballots. That points to some amount of inconsistency over the course of his career, which is mostly attributable to scattershot control. Snell has walked nearly 11% of batters faced over his seven-plus big league seasons. Last season’s 13.3% walk percentage was the highest rate of his career. Snell led the majors with 99 free passes, the first pitcher to do so in a Cy Young-winning campaign in more than 60 years.

Snell has never been a bad pitcher, but the inconsistent strike-throwing has kept him from turning in ace production on an annual basis. He posted an ERA ranging from 3.24 to 4.29 in the four seasons between his award-winning campaigns. While Snell fanned over 30% of opposing hitters every year, working deep counts kept him from logging massive workloads. He has averaged a little less than 5 1/3 innings per start over the course of his career. He reached the 180-inning mark in each of his Cy Young campaigns but didn’t surpass 130 frames in any other season.

It seems the market didn’t value Snell as a clear-cut ace despite the strength of his platform year. The only other publicly reported offer which he received was a six-year, $150MM proposal from the Yankees back in January. When Snell didn’t accept, New York inked Marcus Stroman to a two-year deal. USA Today’s Bob Nightengale tweets that the Yankees took their offer off the table last month and declined to reengage over the weekend.

Given that Snell ultimately settled for a two-year guarantee at a marginally higher annual rate, there’s a strong argument that his camp erred in not accepting New York’s offer. At the very least, he’s taking more risk in going with a short-term pact for the chance to retest the market next winter. Still, it’s not all that surprising he didn’t jump on a $150MM guarantee.

That’s well below the seven-year, $172MM deal which Aaron Nola secured from the Phillies earlier this offseason. It’s also shy of the six-year, $162MM pact that Carlos Rodón landed from New York a year ago. Snell and Rodón are broadly similar pitchers — power lefties with questions about their ability to consistently log huge innings totals — but the former was coming off a better year than Rodón posted in 2022.

It’s possible Snell received similar or better offers from other teams that went unreported. In any case, he clearly didn’t find the kind of long-term pact that he envisioned. That seemed increasingly unlikely the longer he remained unsigned. The incumbent Padres were never a factor as they sliced payroll this winter. Teams like the Mets and Red Sox jumped out of the market fairly quickly. As the offseason dragged along, more teams downplayed the possibility of making a top-of-the-market splash. Beyond the Yankees, Snell reportedly drew interest from the Angels. The Astros were a late entrant last week before balking at an annual commitment above $30MM.

Snell joins fellow Boras Corporation clients Cody Bellinger and Matt Chapman in settling for guarantees well below what most people expected entering the offseason. They’ll all have the ability to retest free agency next winter. Bellinger and Chapman inked three-year deals with opt-outs after 2024 and ’25. Jordan Montgomery, the last unsigned member of the so-called “Boras four,” has reportedly continued to hold out in search of a long-term deal. With a week and a half until Opening Day, it remains to be seen if he’ll be able to find anything close to that.

It’s yet another huge free agent strike for the Giants, who have attacked the late stages of free agency with a vengeance. After a few offseasons of missing out on their top targets, San Francisco has successfully slow-played this year’s market. Since the beginning of Spring Training, they’ve added Jorge Soler, Chapman and Snell. Soler’s three-year, $42MM deal was around pre-offseason expectations. The latter two contracts were well below what the Giants could’ve envisioned in November.

Snell puts the finishing touch on a winter that also saw San Francisco shell out $113MM for KBO star Jung Hoo Lee and $44MM for reliever turned starter Jordan Hicks. The Giants also pulled off a major trade with the Mariners that sent Mitch Haniger and Anthony DeSclafani to Seattle for rehabbing starter Robbie Ray. The 2021 AL Cy Young winner won’t be a factor until around the All-Star Break, but he could eventually add another high-ceiling arm to the rotation.

It’s still a potentially top-heavy group, but there’s now a ton of upside. Snell and Webb should form an excellent 1-2 punch. Top prospect Kyle Harrison will occupy the #3 role. Giving Hicks a starting job despite his injury history and below-average control is a gamble, but his power arsenal at least makes that an intriguing flier. Veteran righty Alex Cobb could be back from last fall’s hip surgery by May. Prospects Keaton Winn and Mason Black are back-of-the-rotation depth options early in the year.

Snell’s late signing date could have him a bit behind schedule. He has been throwing and reportedly tossed four simulated innings in front of scouts last week. There’s not a ton of time to build rapport with catcher Patrick Bailey before Opening Day, but that shouldn’t be an issue too deep into the season. Snell is at least plenty familiar with manager Bob Melvin, his skipper for the last two years with the Padres.

San Francisco’s late-offseason aggressiveness has pushed them into luxury tax territory for the first time since 2017. While the delayed payment of the signing bonus reduces the team’s commitment in the short term, the $31MM average annual value is the relevant number for tax purposes. RosterResource calculates the club’s competitive balance tax number right around the $257MM line that marks the second tier of penalization. For teams that didn’t pay the tax the preceding season, the fees are fairly modest. In contrast to the Yankees (who would’ve been taxed at a 110% rate as a third-time payor that is in the top bracket), the Giants are only hit with a 20% fee on spending between $237MM and $257MM.

The Snell deal comes with a roughly $4MM tax bill. They’ll be taxed at a 32% clip for future spending up to the $277MM mark with escalating fees thereafter. While it’s likely this marks their last major investment of the winter, they’re surely hopeful of being in a position to add at the trade deadline.

Snell declined a qualifying offer from the Padres. The Giants already forfeited their second-round pick and $500K of international bonus pool space to add Chapman. They’ll lose their third-rounder (#87 overall) and another $500K from their international bonus pool for Snell. San Diego paid the CBT a year ago, so they’re limited to the lowest compensation for losing a qualified free agent: a selection after the fourth round. The Padres received the #135 pick for losing Josh Hader and will now get another selection in that range.

Paying the CBT and parting with draft capital are costs the Giants are happy to pay to get Chapman and Snell on short-term deals. San Francisco was comfortable with similar contract structures for Rodón and Michael Conforto in previous offseasons. Both players could walk next offseason for nothing — they’re ineligible to receive another qualifying offer in their careers — but that’s a risk worth taking to continue loading up in a division full of star talent with four legitimate threats to make the playoffs.

Jon Heyman of the New York Post first reported Snell and the Giants agreed to a two-year, $62MM deal with an opt-out. Susan Slusser of the San Francisco Chronicle reported the signing bonus and salary breakdown.

Image courtesy of USA Today Sports.

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