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International Notes: Diamondbacks, La O, Gutierrez

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The D-backs made a minor international move today, as MLB.com’s Jesse Sanchez reports, signing 18-year-old Mexican right-hander Edgar Martinez for an undisclosed bonus. While the exact amount given to Martinez isn’t known, the signing bonus is required to come in at $300K or less, as the D-backs are barred from signing international amateurs for more than that figure during this signing period and the 2016-17 international signing period as a result of their spending in the 2014-15 signing period. The addition of Martinez could be a sign of things to come, Sanchez writes, as Arizona is making an effort to increase its presence in Mexico. The D-backs introduced three new employees at a press conference in Mexico last month with an eye toward acquiring more Mexican talent in the future. “We naturally want to have a presence down there, not only from a marketing standpoint, but from a scouting perspective,” CEO Derrick Hall explained to Sanchez. “For me, the priority is to find and develop a top talent from Mexico.”

A couple of more notes on some more prominent international free agents…

  • Free agent third baseman Luis Yander La O has signed with the Legacy Agency, tweets Sanchez. The 24-year-old, who is exempt from international bonus pools, is exploring the market and preparing for a possible showcase, Sanchez notes. MLB declared La O a free agent a month ago, and Baseball America’s Ben Badler has previously written that La O is nearly MLB-ready. La O doesn’t possess much power but had an extraordinarily low strikeout rate in Cuba (five percent) and is said to be an above-average defender at third base that can handle second base as well.
  • Sanchez also reported yesterday that right-hander Vladimir Gutierrez is also being repped by Legacy after signing on with the agency recently (Twitter link). Gutierrez is “on track” to host a showcase sometime next month, Sanchez adds. Gutierrez has been a free agent since last July, but there’s been very little talk about the talented right-hander since that time. When he was declared a free agent, Badler noted that some scouts preferred Gutierrez’s overall package to that of $16MM Dodgers right-hander Yadier Alvarez. The 20-year-old Gutierrez is subject to bonus pools and is currently the top-ranked unsigned amateur on Sanchez’s rankings at MLB.com (No. 2 overall). Sanchez notes that Gutierrez has a low-90s fastball and plus curveball in his scouting report.

NL Notes: McCutchen, Rockies, Morrow, D-Backs, Mattingly

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Pirates superstar Andrew McCutchen voiced his desire to spend his entire career in Pittsburgh yesterday, and on Tuesday general manager Neal Huntington told ESPN’s Jayson Stark that the Bucs would explore an extension for McCutchen at the “appropriate time,” though he declined to delve into specifics. Huntington explained that the Pirates would love to retain McCutchen for “an awfully long time,” though he noted that the remaining three years on McCutchen’s deal is a lengthy period of time in its own right. “At the same time, we do want to honor his interest,” the GM told Stark. “And at the appropriate time, in the appropriate way, we will look to see if there is a common financial ground that allows us to build a championship team around a given player. … Any team can basically afford any player. It’s just how do you afford championship-caliber players around that one player.” 

Some more notes from around the Senior Circuit…

  • Rockies GM Jeff Bridich declined to put a timeline on the Rockies’ path back to contention when meeting with reporters today, writes Patrick Saunders of the Denver Post. “Why limit ourselves?” Bridich asked rhetorically. “So if I were to come out and say something that’s pleasing to the ear of you, or a fan here or a fan there, and I say, ‘We’re not going to win for X.’ So what? What’s the point of doing that? It’s about people. It’s about process. … Why say something where it’s got to happen X number of months and years in the future, where really a lot of good things can happen this year?” The Rockies have certainly acted as if they believe they can win in 2016 this winter, and Bridich’s comments seem to imply they indeed hold that belief, even if it’s not necessarily an expectation.
  • Brandon Morrow tells Dennis Lin of the San Diego Union-Tribune that he probably could’ve secured a big league deal elsewhere this winter, as he had “soft offers” of Major League deals from other clubs, but he wanted to remain with the Padres and “wasn’t afraid” to take a minor league deal with an invite to camp. Morrow didn’t specify exactly what he meant with that explanation — verbal willingness by other teams to explore big league deals, perhaps — but he went on to explain to Lin that he thinks highly of San Diego’s training staff, team doctors and strength coaches. He also voiced an oft-overlooked aspect of remaining in one place (or in securing a multi-year deal): “I didn’t want to bounce around, I guess. It’s just the continuity; the doctors knew me since I was injured, obviously. … Going to a new spot, they’d only know what you tell them instead of having firsthand knowledge.” It’s easy to suggest that players should be comfortable on one-year deals, though Morrow’s comments serve as a reminder that there are benefits to the stability of remaining in one place.
  • Diamondbacks CEO Derrick Hall held court with the media on Tuesday and explained that the deferred money included in Zack Greinke’s stunning six-year contract isn’t the start of any sort of trend, writes Nick Piecoro of the Arizona Republic. “It’s not something that we’re going to start doing now,” said Hall of deferring money,” “but in this case we felt we needed to really bite the bullet on this one, with that window we talk about and our big glaring hole.” As Piecoro notes and as Hall implies in his later comments, the D-backs have previously run into problems by offering too many deferred payments and don’t want to start down that road once again.
  • The hiring of manager Don Mattingly already has Marlins players buzzing about the upcoming season, writes Clark Spencer of the Miami Herald. Mattingly held a closed-doors meeting with the team before the first full workout of Spring Training, and the new skipper wasted little time in getting his players on his side. “I went out to practice [Tuesday] like I wanted to eat the world,” Jose Fernandez told Spencer. Fellow right-hander Tom Koehler said that Mattingly’s address gave him “chills.” Mattingly spoke to Spencer after the speech and discussed the upcoming season, noting that he believes payroll to be a largely overblown component of successful teams, highlighting the Royals’ back-to-back World Series appearances.

A.J. Hinch Reflects On Time As D'Backs' Manager

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The differences between manager A.J. Hinch’s tenures with the Diamondbacks and Astros are a microcosm of changes within baseball as a whole, Ken Rosenthal of FOX Sports writes. In 2009, Hinch’s hiring in Arizona was received negatively within the injury, since Hinch had been a former player but had little further experience. Now, though, such hires are common — think of Mike Matheny of the Cardinals or Brad Ausmus of the Tigers, for example. After being fired, Hinch took a job in the Padres’ front office before Houston hired him. The path from the front office to managing is becoming increasingly common, as organizations increasingly appreciate the benefits of having a front office and a field staff that communicate well with one another.

Hinch’s time with Arizona didn’t go well, and he was fired after barely over a year. Rosenthal quotes not only Hinch but some of his former players suggesting that Hinch’s introduction to big-league managing didn’t always go smoothly. But given the way the managerial position has changed since then, perhaps Hinch and the team were, in some ways, ahead of the curve. “We were onto something then,” says Hinch of his time with the Diamondbacks. “It wasn’t accepted as freely as it is now. … My career didn’t really warrant acceptance in that regard. Some of these other guys had better playing careers. It became a touch easier for each guy progressively to take over a team. But if it wouldn’t have been for that first time, I don’t think I would have gotten this second chance.” Here’s more from the West divisions.

Mike Leake Had Strong Preference To Sign With D-Backs

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  • Cardinals right-hander Mike Leake spoke to FOX’s Ken Rosenthal about his free-agent experience. As Rosenthal writes, stories about Leake wanting to sign with the D-backs were indeed true, although one significant detail of his motivation for that desire was kept out at the time. Leake’s father fell off a roof while constructing a cabin in Montana this past offseason, leaving him paralyzed from the waist down, and playing in Arizona would have allowed Leake the opportunity to remain close to his father, Rosenthal writes. However, while both Leake and Diamondbacks GM Dave Stewart tell Rosenthal that a deal was close at one point during the winter, Stewart said talks eventually “just broke down” between the two sides. Leake, too, discussed his talks with the D-backs. “It got close. It just never came to fruition,” the right-hander explained. “I felt like there were some that wanted it and some that didn’t in the organization.” Leake said the Cardinals were “quiet at first” before coming on “strong” in their pursuit that ultimately landed him in St. Louis. Leake’s parents both supported his decision to sign with the Cardinals even if it meant creating some distance.

D-Backs Exercise Chip Hale’s 2017 Option

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8:07pm: Arizona has exercised its option over Hale for 2017, Jon Heyman reports (Twitter links). As things stand, though, there’s no new contract.

3:06pm: The Diamondbacks and manager Chip Hale have agreed to a contract extension that will run through “at least” the 2017 season, reports Jon Morosi of FOX Sports (on Twitter). Hale had been entering the final guaranteed season of a contract that included a club option for the 2017 season.

Hale, 51, initially signed a two-year deal with the Diamondbacks in what has been his first stint as a big league manager. Hale, a former utility infielder for the Twins and Dodgers from 1989-97, does have extensive experience on Major League coaching staffs, however, and had previously managed at the minor league level as well. Hale led the 2015 Diamondbacks to a 79-win season — a better outcome than many anticipated. The D-backs, in fact were within striking distance of the division lead as late into the season as Aug. 23, when the club sat five games out of first place.

Expectations will be wildly different for Hale as he enters his second season at the helm in Arizona. While few pegged them to even sniff the .500 mark last season, Arizona’s high-octane offseason included the signings of Zack Greinke and Tyler Clippard as well as a blockbuster trade for Shelby Miller. With Greinke and Miller atop the rotation and a full year of Patrick Corbin, who missed the beginning of the 2015 season recovering from 2014 Tommy John surgery, Arizona’s front office has placed pressure on its field staff and player personnel to deliver not only a winning club, but one that can contend for a postseason berth in what should be a competitive NL West division.

Minor MLB Transactions: 2/13/16

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Here are today’s minor moves from around the game:

  • The Diamondbacks have outrighted lefty Will Locante, Nick Piecoro of the Arizona Republic tweets. They designated Locante for assignment last week after he posted a 5.79 ERA, 8.1 K/9 and 7.3 BB/9 in 42 rough innings of relief for Double-A Mobile last year.
  • The Indians have announced that they’ve signed 34-year-old catcher Guillermo Quiroz to a minor-league deal with an invitation to Spring Training. The light-hitting Quiroz has played parts of ten seasons in the Majors, but in the 2015 regular season he only appeared with the Giants’ Triple-A affiliate in Sacramento, where he hit .247/.303/.292 in 99 plate appearances.
  • The Angels have signed catcher Lou Marson and righties Josh Zeid and Cody Satterwhite to minor-league deals, Baseball America’s Matt Eddy tweets. Marson, the former Indians backup, has played sparingly in the last several seasons due to injury. He has a lifetime .219/.309/.299 line in parts of six big-league seasons. The 28-year-old Zeid is perhaps best known as one of the pieces the Phillies sent the Astros in the 2011 Hunter Pence deal. He spent the 2015 season in the Tigers’ Triple-A bullpen, posting a 4.46 ERA, 7.5 K/9 and 5.0 BB/9. The 29-year-old Satterwhite pitched last season in a tough pitching environment at Triple-A Las Vegas, posting a 4.38 ERA, 8.9 K/9 and 3.6 BB/9 in 72 innings of relief.
  • The Blue Jays have re-signed lefty reliever Colt Hynes to a minor-league deal, Ben Nicholson-Smith of Sportsnet tweets. Hynes pitched in five games for the Jays last season. He also pitched 47 1/3 innings combined at Double-A and Triple-A, posting a 3.47 ERA, 7.3 K/9 and 3.5 BB/9.

NL West Notes: Sierra, Nomo, Rodney, Cashner, Clippard

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It’s been a month since the Dodgers reportedly struck an agreement with Cuban right-hander Yaisel Sierra, but the team has yet to announce the move. While Dodgers fans may be apprehensive about that silence, given what happened with Hisahshi Iwakuma earlier this offseason, Jon Heyman tweets that the Dodgers’ deal with Sierra remains “on track” with “only paperwork remaining.” Sierra was reportedly guaranteed between $30-35MM over a six-year term at the time of the agreement, and Heyman narrows the scope a bit, saying the final number will fall in the $30-31MM range.

Here’s more from the NL West…

  • The Padres announced yesterday that they’ve hired former Major League right-hander Hideo Nomo as an advisor to their baseball operations staff. “We are proud to welcome Hideo to the Padres organization,” general manager A.J. Preller said in a statement announcing the move. “His career as a Major League pitcher speaks for itself. His expertise and passion for baseball will be a significant asset to the Padres and I look forward to having his input going forward.” Nomo will assist in the club’s player development process but also in expanding the Padres’ reach in the Pacific Rim, per the release. Nomo joins Moises Alou, Trevor Hoffman and Mark Loretta as former big leaguers that are now working with the Friars’ baseball ops department in some capacity.
  • Padres ninth-inning hopeful Fernando Rodney has been dealing with a hamstring strain of late, but Preller believes that he’ll be a full go for Spring Training, tweets Dennis Lin of the San Diego Union-Tribune. The Padres gave Rodney a $2MM guarantee, and he’s perhaps the favorite to win their closer’s role following the trades of Craig Kimbrel and Joaquin Benoit, plus the move of Brandon Maurer back to the rotation.
  • Another somewhat minor but potentially impactful Padres note comes from MLB.com’s Corey Brock (on Twitter), who notes that new manager Andy Green has asked right-hander Andrew Cashner to make some mechanical fixes, which Cashner has embraced. The goal of the tweaks is to regain some sink on Cashner’s two-seam fastball, per Brock. Cashner still maintained a very solid ground-ball rate in 2015 (47.4 percent), but that number is down from the 52.5 percent mark he registered in 2013. How well Cashner incorporates those fixes will be worth keeping an eye on, as the 29-year-old stands to enter next year’s free agent class as one of the most appealing arms on the market.
  • Tyler Clippard told the Arizona Republic’s Nick Piecoro that he was somewhat surprised by the lack of interest he received on the free-agent market this offseason but is happy to have landed with the D-backs, whom he identified as a team on the rise earlier this offseason. “I felt like I would have gotten more offers,” Clippard said. “I thought there was going to be a little more activity early on in the offseason.” Clippard voiced excitement over joining a team that has “[taken] the steps in the direction of becoming a championship organization,” referencing the club’s additions of Zack Greinke and Shelby Miller.

Diamondbacks, A.J. Pollock Agree To Two-Year Extension

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TODAY: Pollock will receive annual salaries of $3.5MM and $6.75MM, Ken Rosenthal of FOX Sports tweets.

YESTERDAY: The Diamondbacks have struck a two-year deal to avoid arbitration with outfielder A.J. Pollock, Steve Gilbert of MLB.com reports on Twitter. He’ll receive $10.25MM in the contract, Buster Olney of ESPN adds (Twitter link).

Aug 27, 2015; Phoenix, AZ, USA; Arizona Diamondbacks outfielder <a rel=

Pollock filed at $3.9MM, with the team countering at $3.65MM — both of which fell below his $4.3MM projection — so there wasn’t much room for movement on his 2016 salary. But Arizona may have saved a bit of cash on next year’s bill in order to help ease a settlement on this season’s payday.

And for Pollock, he won’t have to worry about injury or a performance decline sapping his earning power for 2017. Certainly, the new deal builds in a substantial raise for the burgeoning star. He’ll be promised a $3.25MM bump for the added season covered in the pact.

As a 3+ service-time player, Pollock will still have one year of arb eligibility remaining after his new deal is up. A longer-term arrangement still seems plausible for the 28-year-old, who cemented himself as the D-Backs’ center fielder with an excellent 2015 campaign. If nothing else, the major raise baked into the deal suggests that the team doesn’t expect him to fall off in the coming year.

Pollock’s signing puts a cap on a banner evening for two-year, arb-only extensions for prominent players. Josh Donaldson reportedly struck his own such arrangement with the Blue Jays, while J.D. Martinez did the same with the Tigers. In some cases, that can suggest that the sides were unable to work out something larger and settled for agreeing to terms on salaries on years already controlled. Of course, Pollock is younger than Donaldson and further from free agency than Martinez, so he remains a fairly plausible candidate to sell some free agent seasons to his current club.

Pollock turned heads in an injury-shortened 2014 in which he emerged as a premium player both at the plate and in the field. But many were waiting to see if he could repeat in a full season of action, and he delivered.

All told, Pollock contributed a .315/.367/.498 slash with 20 home runs and 39 steals over his 673 plate appearances in 2015. And he rated as one of the game’s most productive center fielders, too, significantly adding to his value. By any measure, he was one of the game’s best all-around players, and his 7.4 rWAR and 6.6 fWAR attest.

The move continues a busy offseason for Arizona, which recently added reliever Tyler Clippard to a pitching staff that was already set to gain starters Zack Greinke and Shelby Miller. While this latest contract won’t impact the organization’s roster for the coming season, or any future campaigns, it does represent another significant commitment.

Photo courtesy of USA Today Sports Images.

Diamondbacks Designate Will Locante

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The Diamondbacks have designated lefty Will Locante for assignment, per a team announcement. His 40-man spot will go to reliever Tyler Clippard.

Locante, 26, scuffled to a 5.79 ERA in 42 innings at the Double-A level last year. While he’s shown big strikeout ability in the low minors, he’s also struggled with his command, and that was never more true than in 2015. Locante ended the season with 8.1 K/9 against 7.3 BB/9.

D-Backs Sign Tyler Clippard

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The D-backs have officially signed right-hander Tyler Clippard to a two-year, $12.25MM contract, as first reported by Ken Rosenthal of FOX Sports (on Twitter). Clippard is represented by Excel Sports Management. Rosenthal further tweets that the deal is official (though the team has not announced the move just yet) and will give Clippard a $4MM signing bonus plus salaries of $4.1MM and $4.15MM in the next two seasons, respectively. Nick Piecoro of the Arizona Republic reported earlier today that the two sides had made progress on a deal, and ESPN’s Jerry Crasnick later added that an agreement was close.

Tyler Clippard

Clippard, 31 on Sunday, will join Brad Ziegler, Daniel Hudson, Andrew Chafin, Randall Delgado and Josh Collmenter at the back of the Arizona bullpen, leaving the team with one unsettled spot. With Chafin representing the only lefty in that mix, it’s possible that Matt Reynolds or non-roster invitee Wesley Wright would have the inside track on that final spot, though GM Dave Stewart has mentioned several other relievers by name recently. Among those listed by Stewart were Silvino Bracho, Enrique Burgos, Jake Barrett, Cody Hall, Sam LeCure, Dominic Leone and Evan Marshall — each of whom is right-handed.

Ziegler, who admirably stepped into the closer’s role last offseason when Addison Reed lost his handle on the ninth inning, will remain the D-backs’ closer, according to the Arizona Republic’s Nick Piecoro (on Twitter). Clippard, then, will join Hudson (who has shown excellent velocity as a setup option since returning from his second Tommy John surgery) as a setup man at the back of the ’pen. Clippard does have 53 career saves and spent the early portion of the 2015 campaign as Oakland’s closer before being traded to the Mets, and it seems reasonable to expect that he’d be the first line of defense should Ziegler falter.

The addition of Clippard, in some ways, mirrors the D-backs’ previous acquisition of Reed in that both are notorious fly-ball pitchers. The Diamondbacks wound up trading Reed to the Mets in what amounted to a salary dump after Reed posted a 6.36 ERA at the homer-friendly Chase Field over the course of his 18 months with the club, making the decision to replace him with an even more extreme fly-ball pitcher puzzling. Clippard is coming off the second-highest fly-ball rate of his career and will be pitching in what is the most hitter-friendly environment he’s called home (with the exception of his brief call-up at Yankee Stadium in 2007). Last season, Clippard’s 60.6 percent fly-ball rate was easily the highest in baseball, and he also saw his strikeout and walk rates also trend backwards (8.1 K/9, 3.9 BB/9) while his velocity dipped for a third consecutive year.

All that said, Clippard again delivered outstanding bottom-line results between the Athletics and the Mets in 2015, totaling a 2.92 ERA in 71 innings. He also rattled off his sixth consecutive season with at least 70 innings pitched and continued his remarkable track record of durability in the bullpen. Dating back to the 2009 season, Clippard’s 464 1/3 innings are the most by any reliever in baseball by more than 50 innings, meaning he’s essentially thrown an extra season’s worth of innings than anyone else in that time. While there’s undoubtedly some concern that the workload has taken a toll on his arm and the effects began to manifest last season, his consistency and durability is virtually unparalleled by any of his peers in the league.

Stewart said just last Thursday that the team had “nothing going on” in terms of trade talk and free-agent pursuits just last Thursday, though he changed course less than 24 hours later and expressed an interest in reaching out to Clippard’s representatives. The Diamondbacks saved about $4MM in the trade that sent Aaron Hill, Chase Anderson and Isan Diaz to the Brewers in exchange for Jean Segura and Tyler Wagner, and that sum was essentially reallocated to function as Clippard’s signing bonus (or, if you prefer, his 2016 salary). By my calculation, the Clippard signing should put the D-backs around $95MM in terms of Opening Day payroll (including players at or near the league minimum), which is shy of their record $112MM Opening Day mark from 2014 but higher than the $86MM and $83MM marks from 2015 and 2013, respectively.

Photo courtesy of USA Today Sports Images.

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