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West Notes: D’Backs, Padres, Sandoval

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When Dave Stewart transitioned from being a successful agent to becoming the GM of the Diamondbacks, he left his agency behind.  However, the firm – Sports Management Partners – stayed in the family, as Nick Piecoro of The Arizona Republic writes.  Initially, the plan was for former big-leaguer Dave Henderson to take over SMP, but the firm was left in limbo after his untimely passing, which led to Lonnie Murray taking on Stewart’s roster of clients.

Of course, there are obvious conflict of interest concerns, particularly with SMP clients Chris Herrmann and Enrique Burgos competing for roster spots in Arizona.  While the MLBPA has been aware of Murray managing SMP, the commissioner’s office apparently did not know Stewart’s wife was representing players until very recently.  For the full story, we highly recommend reading Piecoro’s article.

Here’s more from the West divisions:

  • The Padres reportedly sent a scout to watch Pablo Sandoval, but San Diego GM A.J. Preller downplayed the possibility of anything brewing with the Red Sox.  “Our pro scouts work really hard to look at all 30 clubs. … That’s the nature of what goes on,” Preller said (Twitter link via Dennis Lin of U-T San Diego).  In a twist that surprised many this month, Sandoval is currently competing with Travis Shaw for Boston’s third base job.
  • Yasmany Tomas got a $68.5MM deal when he signed with the Diamondbacks, but making the jump was still tough decision for the outfielder as he had to leave one of his children behind, USA Today’s Jorge L. Ortiz writes.  “Here you have everything, but in some ways you don’t have anything,’’ Tomas said. “There are times we may be at home and we’re down because we don’t have relatives or neighbors we can talk to and say, ‘Hey, let’s do this.’ In Cuba you always find people out, during the day or night. Money is not everything. You can have all the money in the world and not be happy.’’
  • The Rangers traded for Bryan Holaday on Tuesday night in a deal that should strengthen their catching situation behind Robinson Chirinos.  The Tigers got right-hander Myles Jaye and catcher Bobby Wilson in the deal.
  • On Tuesday night, the Angels acquired right-hander Chris Jones from the Orioles in exchange for minor league outfielder Natanael Delgado and infielder Erick Salcedo.

Diamondbacks Release Matt Reynolds

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The Diamondbacks announced that they have unconditionally released left-hander Matt Reynolds.

Reynolds, 31, agreed to an arbitration-avoiding deal with Arizona back in November which gave him a $675K salary for 2016.  He also could have added $25K to that sum with 55 appearances.  The southpaw spent the bulk of 2015 in Triple-A Reno where he pitched to a 5.58 ERA with 7.7 K/9 and 3.2 BB/9 across 50 innings.  He also spent the last five weeks of the season with Arizona where he allowed seven earned runs while striking out 18 batters with seven walks across 13 2/3 innings.

Back in November, MLBTR’s Steve Adams identified Reynolds as a potential non-tender candidate.  The D’Backs retained the reliever for less than his projected $800K arbitration salary, but his improved value apparently did not sell the team on keeping him.  Reynolds is a client of agent John Shinn, as shown in the MLBTR Agency Database.

Diamondbacks Release Sam LeCure, Wesley Wright

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The Diamondbacks have released relievers Sam LeCure and Wesley Wright after the decision was made that neither would make the active roster to open the year, the club announced.

LeCure, 31, was hoping to get back to his days of being a sturdy pen presence. The righty topped 300 innings between 2010-14 with the Reds, compiling a 3.53 ERA. While he had good results in the majors last season after spending most of the year at Triple-A, he’s continued to see a drop in his velocity and strikeouts per nine.

The left-handed Wright, who’s also 31, was in much the same situation, having thrown less innings but compiled comparable results to LeCure over the four seasons leading up to 2015. But he dealt with shoulder issues last year, limiting his availability significantly.

The veteran southpaw did have a solid spring, at least, allowing only two earned runs and posting eight strikeouts against three walks in 8 1/3 innings. That wasn’t the case for LeCure, who surrendered seven earned and managed only five K’s in his eight frames.

 

 

Diamondbacks Notes: Window, Goldschmidt, Pollock

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The Diamondbacks front office has repeatedly drawn flak for unusual trades and signings under GM Dave Stewart’s leadership. Club executives are unconcerned by the outside chatter, writes Joel Sherman of the New York Post. The most often critiqued moves include the trades for Shelby Miller (full post), Jean Segura (post), and the salary dump of Bronson Arroyo (post). Many industry observers believe Arizona received terrible value on their young talent in these swaps. Executive Tony La Russa views the deals an instance of zigging while the rest of the industry zags. La Russa may be correct to view prospects as over-appreciated these days but part of a successful “zig” involves taking advantage of market inefficiencies. Arizona has seemingly ignored the current market for prospects.

  • Of course, there’s more to it than just prospects. Since Arizona has to somehow beat the big payroll Dodgers, they have to pick their windows to contend, writes Nick Piecoro of the Arizona Republic. The team has a window over the next few years while Paul Goldschmidt and A.J. Pollock are exceptionally inexpensive and in their primes. The club believes they have enough middle infield depth, explaining their willingness to part with Dansby Swanson and Isan Diaz for major league upgrades. They also believe pitching prospect Touki Toussaint is four to five years from major league ready – outside of their current window.
  • DBacks executives compare Goldschmidt to former Cardinals star Albert Pujols, writes Scott Bordow of the Arizona Republic. Goldschmidt is coming off a vintage Pujolsian season with 33 home runs, 21 stolen bases, and a .321/.435/.570 slash. He also earned a Gold Glove award. La Russa, who managed Pujols, is among those to make the comparison.
  • Star outfielder Pollock remains questionable for Opening Day, writes Chris Gabel of MLB.com. Pollock has been held out of game action since March 8 due to right elbow soreness. The club may look to play him only in minor league contests for the remainder of Spring Training so they can backdate a potential stint on the disabled list.

Diamondbacks Won't Trade Middle Infield Depth

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Diamondbacks middle infielders Jean Segura, Nick Ahmed, and Chris Owings have all thrived offensively in Spring Training, as Ken Rosenthal of FOX Sports writes. On whether he’d move any of the three for help elsewhere, general manager Dave Stewart told Rosenthal, “Not going to happen. If you make a trade, you’re depleting your depth. One thing we have right now is three major-league middle infielders capable of playing — and in my opinion starting — for a lot of teams at a top level.” Stewart is quite bullish about the D-backs as a whole, saying, “When I look at our team, I don’t have any concerns whatsoever.” Click here to read a newly published, in-depth interview between Stewart and MLBTR contributor Brett Ballantini.

Diamondbacks Seek To Pursue New Ballpark

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Chase Field opened in 1998, the year of the Diamondbacks’ inception, and has long drawn praise from the baseball community. But if the D-backs have it their way, it may not be their home for much longer, as Craig Harris of the Arizona Republic reports.

In a letter to the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors, President and CEO Derrick Hall argued that there is no reasonable recourse for the club but to “pursue other stadium options.” The problem, from the club’s perspective, is that the Maricopa County Stadium District — the board-controlled entity that owns the park — has failed to honor its alleged obligation to account for upwards of $187MM in maintenance and repair costs through 2027.

Hall puts it in even more dramatic terms in a statement released by the club today. “This spiral is insurmountable,” he said, apparently  referring to the lack of funding for capital improvements, “and will result in a Chase Field that will no longer be a state-of-the-art facility as our agreement requires and may, in fact, become unsuitable for continued use. We cannot risk being put in that position.”

Even if that funding was available, however, the D-Backs say it wouldn’t make sense to use it towards the current, 18-year-old ballpark. Therefore, the team concludes in its letter, a new facility is necessary. While the organization says it strongly prefers to build in Phoenix, it also warns that it willing to “go elsewhere” to find an arrangement to its liking.

Of course, the contract at issue does not permit the team to pursue alternative stadium sites until 2024. While contending that the stadium district has ceded that right by breaching the contract, the club also requests authorization to explore alternatives — a request that has already been denied — under threat of pursuing court action.

Clearly, these maneuvers have set up a political and legal battle over the future home of the franchise. As Harris notes, the city’s hockey and basketball teams are also angling for new public commitments relating to their facilities, so there’s a broader picture at play here.

The Diamondbacks recently locked up a big new TV contract, ultimately dedicating over $200MM of that expected revenue flow to Zack Greinke. But new taxpayer-funded stadiums have long been another popular — yet highly controversial — means of boosting teams’ bottom lines yet further. The Braves’ shocking move out of downtown Atlanta provides a recent model, as Turner Field opened two years before Chase; the D-Backs’ letter calls that decision “economically efficient and responsible.”

Connor Byrne co-authored this post.

Joe Garagiola Passes Away

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Joe Garagiola passed away this morning, the Diamondbacks have announced. He was 90. He is survived by his wife, three children (including Joe Garagiola Jr., the former D-backs GM) and eight grandchildren. There will be a funeral in St. Louis, and a memorial service in Arizona.

Garagiola grew up in St. Louis as a close friend of Yogi Berra, and both players made their big-league debuts as catchers in 1946 (when Garagiola played in the World Series as a rookie with the Cardinals). Garagiola played for parts of nine seasons in the big leagues, catching for the Cardinals, Pirates, Cubs and Giants before playing his last season in the big leagues in 1954. He batted .257/.354/.385 for his career.

Garagiola then went into broadcasting, first working for the Cardinals and then for NBC, where he worked alongside Vin Scully. He also served as a co-host on The Today Show, a guest host on The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson and as the host of a variety of game shows. After leaving NBC following the 1988 season, he broadcast for the Angels in 1990 before serving 15 years as a part-time broadcaster with the D-Backs. He received the Ford C. Frick award from the Baseball Hall Of Fame in 1991.

“Joe was so special to everyone at the D-backs and had an aura about him that you could feel the moment you met him,” says Diamondbacks president and CEO Derrick Hall. “Those of us who were lucky enough to know him personally were profoundly aware that the lovable personality that fans saw on TV was only surpassed by who he was in person and the way he treated everyone around him.”

Offseason In Review: Arizona Diamondbacks

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You can find all the published entries in our Offseason in Review series here.

The D-backs had perhaps the most surprising, aggressive offseason of any club in baseball in an effort to make a run at the NL West crown.

Major League Signings

Notable Minor League Signings

Trades and Claims

Extensions

Notable Losses

Needs Addressed

Entering the offseason, the rotation was known to be Arizona’s greatest need, but for financial reasons, the expectation was more that the D-backs would pursue second-tier arms like Kenta Maeda and Mike Leake than the names at the very top of the market. That, of course, changed in a matter of about 12 hours, which is reportedly the length of time it took the D-backs to sign Zack Greinke to a staggering six-year, $206.5MM contract after owner Ken Kendrick called his front office and gave the green light.

Zack Greinke

Unlike Greinke’s previous deal, this new contract doesn’t contain an opt-out. While a few million dollars of that sum is deferred, the Diamondbacks are paying Greinke more than $31MM annually, and the actual $34.4MM annual value of the deal (before deferrals) is the largest in Major League history. That represents a huge percentage of the spending capacity of an organization that has only once topped $100MM in Opening Day payroll. The Diamondbacks are betting that Greinke will not only age well, but continue to produce at an elite level — one near the collective 2.30 ERA that he posted over the life of his three years with the division-rival Dodgers. At the very least, they’re counting on him to perform over the life of the next three years, which is the amount of time for which the club controls standout center fielder A.J. Pollock and the team’s other blockbuster offseason addition: right-hander Shelby Miller.

In order to acquire three years of Miller, the D-backs parted with 2015 breakout Ender Inciarte, 2015 No. 1 overall draft pick Dansby Swanson and top prospect Aaron Blair. The price paid was astounding to most, and I’ll look at the Miller deal in full later in this review, but there’s little doubt that the D-backs have overwhelmingly improved upon the collection of starters with which they entered the 2015 season. Greinke, Miller and a full season of the excellent and underrated Patrick Corbin (who missed half of the ’15 campaign recovering from Tommy John surgery) give the club one of the more impressive rotation trios in the big leagues.

Joining that group will be right-hander Rubby De La Rosa and left-hander Robbie Ray. While De La Rosa hasn’t yet cemented himself as a high-quality big league starter, he proved durable last season by racking up 188 1/3 innings and carries further upside. (If nothing else, his velocity and dominance over right-handers suggests that he could be converted to a successful reliever if he continues posting upper-4.00 ERAs.) Ray, acquired in the three-team deal that sent Didi Gregorius to the Yankees, somewhat quietly delivered a strong season, posting a 3.52 ERA and solid peripheral stats in 127 1/3 innings. Although they traded a near-MLB-ready arm in Blair, the D-backs still have Archie Bradley and Braden Shipley on the cusp of the Major Leagues, so there’s depth beyond the starting five should a need arise.

The Diamondbacks have also long been connected to bullpen help — most notably, Aroldis Chapman — but they instead brought in the highly durable Tyler Clippard on a two-year deal late in the offseason. Clippard has been baseball’s iron man in the pen. Dating back to the 2009 season, his 524 1/3 lead all big league relievers, and it’s not even close. Luke Gregerson ranks second on that list but is 44 1/3 innings behind; essentially, Clippard has thrown two-thirds of a season’s worth of innings more than any other reliever since establishing himself in 2009.

There are varying ways to interpret that durability, of course. MLBTR’s Jeff Todd and I discussed the deal this offseason on our podcast, with Jeff viewing the deal as a solid value and a sensible move given the organization’s other acquisitions. I’m more skeptical, particularly in light of last year’s results. While Clippard delivered an excellent 2.92 ERA in his age-30 season, his strikeout rate, walk rate, swinging-strike rate and velocity all trended in the wrong direction, and he posted a 21.2 percent ground-ball rate. If the innings have begun to catch up to Clippard and/or he posts a fly-ball rate near 60 percent at the homer-friendly Chase Field, the return on Arizona’s investment could be marginal. The D-backs were already burned once by acquiring an extreme fly-ball reliever in Addison Reed, and Clippard is an even more pronounced fly-ball arm. If, on the other hand, last year was an anomaly and Clippard pitches more like his 2010-14 self, the Diamondbacks will have deepened their ’pen at a very reasonable price.

Continued analysis after the break …

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Minor MLB Transactions: 3/20/16

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Here are today’s minor moves from around baseball, with the newest transactions at the top of the post…

  • The White Sox acquired right-hander Brandon Sinnery from the Diamondbacks in exchange for cash, Colleen Kane of the Chicago Tribune reports (via Twitter).  Sinnery will report to the Sox minor league camp.  The righty went undrafted out of the University of Michigan but signed with the D’Backs in 2013 after a season of independent ball.  Sinnery has a 4.09 ERA, 2.77 K/BB rate and 5.9 K/9 in 477 1/3 innings, starting 78 of his 80 career games in Arizona’s system.

Quick Hits: Chacin, Morneau, Wright, Fowler, Cardinals

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Jhoulys Chacin has pitched well for the Braves in his Spring Training outings and, perhaps most importantly for the righty, his troublesome shoulder is feeling good.  “When I signed, my mindset was just to come to Spring Training as strong as I could be and to just pitch the only way I know how to pitch….I just want to go through all of this year and the rest of my career with my shoulder strong,” Chacin tells MLB.com’s Mark Bowman.  It would be a nice bargain for Atlanta if Chacin returned to the form he showed when he was a healthy and productive member of the Rockies staff, as Chacin is only signed to a minor league deal.  Here’s some more from around baseball…

  • “Nothing has materialized” for Justin Morneau this offseason, Nick Cafardo of the Boston Globe writes, though the veteran first baseman isn’t announcing his retirement.  Morneau said in November that he was adamant about continuing his career after working to come back from concussion and neck issues, though those same injuries limited him to just 49 games in 2015.  Health questions notwithstanding, Morneau did hit .316/.363/.487 with 20 homers in 732 PA over the last two seasons and he won the NL batting title in 2014, so it’s rather surprising that his market has been almost entirely quiet.  The Indians were the only club known to have interest and they went with Mike Napoli instead due to Napoli’s right-handed bat.  Morneau is the last member of MLBTR’s Top 50 Free Agents still looking for a new team.
  • Also from Cafardo, he notes that Red Sox right-hander Steven Wright is out of options and “a few teams are watching Wright’s camp with great anticipation.”  Wright, a knuckleballer, could still make Boston’s big league roster as a reliever or possibly as the team’s fifth starter if Eduardo Rodriguez is not healthy to start the year.
  • Dexter Fowler spoke to Peter Gammons of GammonsDaily.com about the surprising turn of events that saw the outfielder re-sign with the Cubs.  Despite media reports that had Fowler all but officially signed with the Orioles, Fowler said he and Baltimore “never really were close” to an agreement.  “They wanted me to pay them what they said the draft choice I was costing them was valued at.  They wanted me to pay them for the pick.  So we said, OK, then give me an opt-out after one year, and they said that’s something they won’t do,” Fowler said.  Casey Close, Fowler’s agent, also commented on the situation last month and had some harsh words for both the Orioles and the media.
  • Also from Gammons, he notes that it isn’t the Cardinals’ style to make rash moves, so the club is likely to be cautious in gauging their response to Jhonny Peralta’s injury absence.  St. Louis was linked to Diamondbacks shortstop Nick Ahmed earlier today, though Gammons thinks Arizona wouldn’t settle for anything less than a top minor leaguer like righty Luke Weaver (ranked by Baseball America as the Cards’ fourth-best prospect).
  • Matthew Bowman is “more likely than not” to make the Cardinals’ Opening Day roster as a reliever, Adam Rubin of ESPN.com writes.  Bowman was plucked off of the Mets’ roster in December’s Rule 5 draft.  The 24-year-old has pitched mostly as a starter in his minor league career and it would be somewhat of a surprise to see him pass several veteran options to lock down a bullpen job.  As a Rule 5 pick, of course, Bowman has to stay on the St. Louis 25-man roster all season or else be offered back to the Mets.
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