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Angels Claim Juan Graterol, Designate Blake Parker

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The Angels have claimed catcher Juan Graterol off waivers from the Diamondbacks, per a club announcement. The team designated righty Blake Parker for assignment to clear roster space.

Both Graterol and Parker have now changed hands multiple times over the winter. The former, a 27-year-old receiver who reached the majors for the first time in 2016, will return to the Angels — who lost him earlier in the offseason. Ironically, he lost his 40-man spot in Arizona to former Halos backstop Chris Iannetta.

Parker has seen even more movement, bouncing from the Yankees to the Angels to the Brewers and then back to Los Angeles. Clearly, the Halos will hope that he can be outrighted successfully, though there is obviously ongoing interest from other organizations as well.

Trade/Free Agent Rumors: Holland, Astros, Feliz, Saunders, Twins

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Former Royals closer Greg Holland is getting closer to selecting a new team and could make a decision within the next week, tweets Jim Bowden of ESPN and MLB Network Radio on SiriusXM. Holland has been said to be seeking a two-year guarantee with an opt-out after the first season as he looks to re-establish himself following Tommy John surgery late in the 2015 season. Roughly two-thirds of the league has been linked to Holland in some capacity, though it’s unlikely that the majority of teams would be comfortable with that type of contractual arrangement. The 30-year-old figures to draw interest from contenders and non-contenders alike so he’ll have to weigh not only the financial strength of the offers he receives but also the ability to pitch for contending club and the opportunity to compete for a ninth-inning job (which non-contending clubs may be more willing to offer right away than contenders).

Some more notes pertaining to the free-agent and trade markets…

  • The Astros haven’t given up on the notion of acquiring one of Sonny Gray, Jose Quintana or Chris Archer and remain in contact with the Athletics, White Sox and Rays, USA Today’s Bob Nightengale tweeted recently. The extreme asking prices on each starter makes it seem unlikely that Houston would be able to pry any of that trio loose. They’ve already balked at Chicago’s reported asking price of Francis Martes, Kyle Tucker and Joe Musgrove for Quintana, and MLB Network’s Peter Gammons tweets that he received a flat “No” when he asked one source if Gray could land in Houston. Archer, meanwhile, seems like an even longer shot to contend. The Rays have already moved one of their starters, trading Drew Smyly to the Mariners, and the remainder of their offseason dealings have been largely focused in improving the 2017 club.
  • While the Brewers and right-hander Neftali Feliz have yet to finalize an agreement, the two sides are still talking and working toward that goal, tweets MLB.com’s Adam McCalvy. Reports over the weekend suggested that the two sides could be moving toward a deal, though there’s been little news since. Feliz had a strong 2016 season with the division-rival Pirates (3.52 ERA, 10.2 K/9, 3.5 BB/9 in 53 2/3 innings) but finished the season on the shelf with a somewhat vague arm injury.
  • Both the Blue Jays and Orioles were “in” on Michael Saunders before the outfielder agreed to a one-year, $9MM with the Phillies (which includes an $11MM club option and escalators), tweets ESPN’s Jerry Crasnick. Per Crasnick, Saunders also drew some level of interest from the Brewers and the Diamondbacks as well, Crasnick adds, which is somewhat interesting given the fact that neither club has a clear on-paper need for an additional regular in the outfield.
  • Twins manager Paul Molitor tells La Velle E. Neal III of the Minneapolis Star Tribune that he’s hopeful the front office will add a veteran to the roster to help bring some experience to what is overall a young clubhouse. “I’ve talked to Thad and Derek about my opinions about adding, where we could, more experienced people who have the reputation of being influential in clubhouse culture as well as leadership,” said Molitor, “and a guy who can still play.” Neal speculates that an outfield bat would be the likeliest fit, noting that Minnesota is pretty well stocked in terms of infield options and DH types.

Diamondbacks, Gregor Blanco Agree To Minors Deal

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Longtime Giants outfielder Gregor Blanco has agreed to a minor league contract with an invitation to Major League Spring Training, Blanco’s agent, Wil Polidor, tells Manolo Hernandez of BeisbolPorGotas.com (Twitter link). SB Nation’s Chris Cotillo tweets that Blanco would receive a $1MM base salary upon making the Major League roster. He adds that the deal contains $2.7MM worth of incentives and an April 1 opt-out date.

Just this afternoon, Blanco had been linked to the Tigers, but it instead appears that he’ll remain in the NL West and compete for a backup job with the D-backs. Arizona is slated to deploy David Peralta, A.J. Pollock and Yasmany Tomas in the outfield. Jeremy Hazelbaker and Socrates Brito are among the fellow outfielders against whom Blanco will compete for a reserve job under new manager Torey Lovullo. While each is already on the 40-man roster, the veteran Blanco could certainly give him a run for that roster spot in Spring Training.

Blanco, who turned 32 last month, has spent the past five season in San Francisco. Though he struggled to a .224/.309/.311 batting line last season, he’s been a largely productive reserve outfielder with the Giants. From 2012-15, Blanco slashed .264/.343/.367 with 18 homers and 69 stolen bases across 1780 plate appearances while spending time at all three outfield spots. The bulk of his outfield work in the Majors has come in center field, where he’s graded out as a roughly average defender, but Blanco has more than 2000 innings in left field and another 900+ in right field as well.

Players Avoiding Arbitration: National League

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Quite frankly, there were too many arbitration agreements today to reasonably stuff into one post. So here’s a rundown of the National League players that have avoided arbitration on smaller deals (American League deals here). You can see all of the arbitration “action” thus far in a sortable, filterable format by checking out MLBTR’s 2017 Arbitration Tracker. All projections referenced in this post are courtesy of MLBTR contributor Matt Swartz:

  • Wily Peralta and Carlos Torres have agreed to one-year deals, according to the team’s Twitter account. Peralta will earn $4.275MM (compared to $4.4MM projection), per Heyman. Torres was projected to make $2MM, but will get slightly more at $2.175MM, per Chris Cotillo of SB Nation (via Twitter).
  • Reliever George Kontos gets $1.75MM from the Giants, Heyman tweets. He had projected at $1.7MM.
  • The Diamondbacks also reached agreement with lefty Patrick Corbin, righty Randall Delgado, and catcher Chris Herrmann, per Jack Magruder of Fan Rag (links to Twitter). Delgado gets $1.775MM and Herrmann receives $937,500. As for Corbin, he’ll take home $3.95MM, per Nick Piecoro of the Arizona Republic (via Twitter), which falls a bit shy of his $4.2MM projection.
  • Infielder Eduardo Nunez will receive $4.2MM from the Giants, per Jon Heyman of Fan Rag (via Twitter). San Francisco has also reached agreement with lefty Will Smith, per Henry Schulman of the San Francisco Chronicle (via Twitter). He’ll receive $2.5MM, just over his $2.3MM projection, Heyman tweets.
  • The Phillies settled at $4.2MM with righty Jeanmar Gomez, per Matt Gelb of the Philadelphia Inquirer (via Twitter). He falls just a big shy of his $4.6MM projection.
  • The Cardinals have announced arb deals with Trevor Rosenthal and Kevin Siegrist. Rosenthal receives $6.4MM, per Heyman (via Twitter), which is just $100K over his projection. Siegrist projected at $1.9MM, but his salary has yet to be reported.
  • Matt Harvey and Jacob deGrom have each avoided arbitration with the Mets. Harvey gets $5.125MM in his second arb year, per James Wagner of the New York Times (via Twitter). Meanwhile, deGrom will receive $4.05MM in his first trip through the arb process, per ESPNNewYork.com’s Adam Rubin (via Twitter). New York has also agreed with lefty Josh Edgin, Rubin tweets, though terms remain unreported.

Earlier Updates

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Diamondbacks Designate Juan Graterol

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The Diamondbacks have designated catcher Juan Graterol for assignment, per a team announcement. His roster spot will go to just-signed backstop Chris Iannetta, whose signing was also announced.

Graterol was just claimed off waivers from the Reds in a move that cost Peter O’Brien his roster spot. The 27-year-old has bounced around quite a bit already this winter.

Last year was Graterol’s first in the majors, though he appeared in just nine games with the Angels. Playing at Triple-A for most of the year, he slashed .300/.340/.370 with just two home runs — but also only 27 strikeouts — in 246 plate appearances.

Though he makes lots of contact, Graterol has rarely been very productive with the bat in hand. But he’s regarded as a solid presence behind the dish. The Venezuelan native has gunned down would-be base stealers in 38% of their attempts and draws average pitch-framing ratings.

Diamondbacks To Sign Chris Iannetta

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6:10pm: Iannetta will receive $1.5MM on a one-year term, per Nick Piecoro of the Arizona Republic (via Twitter).

4:10pm: The Diamondbacks have agreed to a deal with catcher Chris Iannetta, per Jon Heyman of Fan Rag (via Twitter). Terms are not known at this time.

Arizona had already signed veteran receiver Jeff Mathis, presumably to pair with Chris Herrmann behind the dish. Instead, perhaps, Herrmann will continue in a broader utility role, as he did last year.

[RELATED: Updated Diamondbacks Depth Chart]

The 33-year-old Iannetta hasn’t hit much recently, but was a high-quality OBP threat over the 2012-14 campaigns. If he can bounce back in the BABIP department, perhaps he’ll return to being a solid offensive force. There are also questions behind the dish, where Iannetta has wavered in pitch-framing ratings. He emerged as a top-quality framer in 2015, but fell back to receiving poor ratings last year.

2017 Arbitration Filing Numbers

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MLBTR’s Arbitration Tracker is the place to go to see the arbitration contracts agreed upon thus far, as well as the figures exchanged between teams and players that were not able to reach agreement before today’s deadline to swap salary positions. Matt Swartz’s arbitration projections are available here.

After a busy day of dealmaking, 152 players (at last check) have reached agreement on arbitration salaries for the coming season. But 36 other tendered players have yet to reach reported agreements with their clubs. Of course, those players can still settle before their hearings (which will take place in early to mid-February). If the case goes to a hearing, the arbitrator must choose one side’s figures, rather than settling on a midpoint.

We’ve gathered the highest-stakes arbitration situations remaining — those where the player files for at least $4.5MM — in this post, but you can find them all in the tracker. We’ll update this list as the figures are reported:

Diamondbacks, J.J. Hoover Agree To Minor League Deal

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The D-backs and right-hander J.J. Hoover have agreed to a minor league contract, per SB Nation’s Chris Cotillo (Twitter links). The Ballengee Group client will be invited to Major League Spring Training and has a $900K base salary on his deal. He can also earn up to $425K worth of incentives.

Hoover, 29, opened the season as the favorite for the ninth-inning gig in Cincinnati last year, but he quickly fell out of favor after a rough start. Hoover blew his first save opp of the season and was tagged for 16 earned runs over his next 8 1/3 innings before being optioned to Triple-A Louisville. Hoover looked to have righted the ship a bit upon returning in mid-June, but he stumbled yet again and was optioned a second time before ultimately being outrighted off the 40-man roster. All told, Hoover rounded out the year with a 13.50 ERA in 18 1/3 innings.

While that number is obviously jarring, Hoover did have a nice track record with the Reds before his troublesome 2016 campaign, and he pitched well in his time at Triple-A Louisville. Hoover logged a 3.52 ERA and a 50-to-11 K/BB ratio in 38 1/3 minor league innings this year. And, prior to 2016, he’d notched a 3.34 ERA with 9.1 K/9 against 4.1 BB/9 in 223 2/3 career innings with Cincinnati.

Hoover will join a crowded but unsettled bullpen mix with the D-backs and compete for a job in Spring Training. If he wins a spot in the ’pen and rebounds from his disastrous 2016 results, the Snakes will be able to control him through the 2019 season via the arbitration process.

AL Central Notes: Brantley, Encarnacion, O’Brien, Tigers

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After missing nearly the entire 2016 season due to shoulder surgery and undergoing a second shoulder operation in August, Michael Brantley began some non-contact swinging drills over the holidays, per MLB.com’s Jordan Bastian. Indians president of baseball operations Chris Antonetti has maintained this offseason that Brantley is in the team’s plans to be the Opening Day left fielder in 2017, Bastian continues, although it’s worth noting that Cleveland offered similar optimism last offseason, penciling Brantley in for a late April/early May return. While Brantley did indeed make his season debut in that window, he was limited to just 11 games all season and didn’t produce when on the field. The amount that Brantley will be able to contribute in 2017 will be crucial for Cleveland, although the Indians will get a nice boost to the lineup in the form of Edwin Encarnacion. Cleveland announced tonight that they’ll host a press conference tomorrow at 10:15am ET “regarding a potential new member of the organization,” thus indicating that Encarnacion passed today’s physical.

More from the AL Central…

  • New Royals acquisition Peter O’Brien will head to Spring Training and compete for at-bats as the team’s designated hitter, general manager Dayton Moore tells MLB.com’s Jeffrey Flanagan. Moore added that the Royals’ front office has long held some level of interest in O’Brien and has tried to deal for him in the past without success. However, as Flanagan points out, O’Brien has minor league options remaining and as such could serve as a depth option at Triple-A. Cheslor Cuthbert, on the other hand, is out of minor league options and might not have a better path to regular playing time than the team’s DH slot, which could give him the inside track. Kansas City will also use its DH slot to rest some position players, including Mike Moustakas, who is returning from an ACL tear.
  • FanRag’s Jack Magruder writes that O’Brien has gone from virtually untouchable in the Diamondbacks’ eyes to expendable in the eyes of the new Arizona regime. Both the Royals and Mariners expressed some interest in O’Brien at last year’s trade deadline, per Magruder, but talks never progressed beyond the preliminary stage in either case.
  • Though it looked like the Tigers would move at least one veteran, if not more, earlier this offseason, MLB.com’s Jon Morosi writes that there’s now a strong chance that Detroit will open the season with a nearly unchanged roster. Ownership never mandated a payroll reduction from GM Al Avila, Morosi continues, so the general manager was only ever going to move players like J.D. Martinez and Ian Kinsler if a team offered an enticing package of near-MLB-ready talent, but those types of scenarios never surfaced. The Tigers could still move short-term veterans like Martinez and Kinsler this summer if they’re not contending, of course. Morosi does note that right-hander Jordan Zimmermann is throwing from 180 feet and expects to be ready for the start of Spring Training. A return to form for last year’s $110MM signing would go a long way toward the Tigers making a run in 2017.

Diamondbacks Bring Lawsuit To Enable New Stadium Effort

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As part of their ongoing efforts to secure the construction of a new ballpark, the Diamondbacks have brought suit against Maricopa County, according to multiple reports (including this one from Brahm Resnik of KPNX). The municipality owns the D-Backs’ current home, Chase Field.

While the taxpayer-funded Chase Field only opened in 1998, and the lease runs through the 2028 season, the Diamondbacks are apparently seeking to cash in by constructing a new facility. The Braves and Rangers have recently pursued similar strategies, departing still-recent homes for freshly funded parks. Though the club says it prefers to stay in the Phoenix area, it also suggested recently that it would be willing to “go elsewhere” if the offers aren’t to its liking.

To abandon the lease at this stage will require the D-Backs to overcome a contract clause forbidding them from pursuing a new park until 2024. Because the county has allegedly failed to abide by its contractual facility maintenance and repair obligations, the team contends, that provision should not be enforced. The action will seek a declaration to that effect, it seems, rather than money damages.

Both sides issued competing statements. Diamondbacks owner Ken Kendrick says it is “extremely unfortunate” that his club was “forced” to filing suit. He went on to assert that there was “no other option” to pursue in fulfilling what he calls “a promise to our fans … to provide the best experience in all of baseball in a safe and welcoming environment.”

Meanwhile, Clint Hickman, the chairman of the county board, countered that the team seemingly “just wants a new stadium now,” noting that it did not pursue an opportunity over the summer that involved a potential outside acquirer of Chase Field. “Saying the facility is in disrepair is outrageous,” he added, citing the fact that the stadium district authority “has spent millions during the off-season on concrete and steel work that keeps the stadium safe and looking great for each baseball season.”

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