Diamondbacks Rumors

NL Notes: Kendrick, Diamondbacks, Fernandez

By charliewilmoth | March 1, 2014 at 3:03pm CDT

Kyle Kendrick of the Phillies is highly motivated as he prepares for free agency, Matt Gelb of the Inquirer writes. Gelb points to Jason Vargas, Scott Feldman and Ricky Nolasco — all of whom signed contracts worth at least $30MM — as potential comparables for Kendrick. "When similar guys close to your numbers sign those deals, that's a good thing," says Kendrick. Kendrick has never pitched more than 182 innings in a season, so 200 innings in 2014 would likely go a long way toward helping him strike gold on the free-agent market. Here's more from the National League.

The Diamondbacks' fate will be determined primarily by returning players like Paul Goldschmidt and Patrick Corbin, but their additions of Mark Trumbo, Bronson Arroyo and Addison Reed could be what finally gets them past .500, Nick Piecoro of AZCentral.com writes. The Diamondbacks are also likely to receive a contribution from top prospect Archie Bradley, although the addition of Arroyo should allow the team to give Bradley some extra minor-league time. Bradley, 21, pitched most of last season at Double-A Mobile.
Marlins pitcher Jose Fernandez tells the Miami Herald's Clark Spencer (via Twitter) that he will make $635K in 2014, a very significant raise for a pre-arbitration player. Earlier in the day, the Marlins announced that they had signed all of their 28 pre-arbitration-eligible players. Fernandez, of course, is following up a stellar first season in which he won the Rookie of the Year award and finished third in NL Cy Young voting.

Minor Moves: Steve Edlefsen, Todd Glaesmann

By Jeff Todd | February 28, 2014 at 5:16pm CDT

Here are today's minor moves:

The Dodgers have inked 28-year-old righty Steve Edlefsen to a minor league deal after holding a recent tryout, reports MLB.com's Ken Gurnick. Edlefsen had spent his entire career with the Giants, and saw 26 2/3 innings of MLB work between 2011-12, posting a 6.75 ERA in that span. He struggled last year at Triple-A, throwing 53 innings and allowing a 6.28 ERA as his walk-rate skyrocketed to 7.6 BB/9.
Minor league outfielder Todd Glaesmann of the Diamondbacks has been placed on the voluntary retired list, tweets Matt Eddy of Baseball America. A third round pick back in 2009, the 23-year-old Glaesmann was the player to be named later in the three-team deal that sent Heath Bell and Ryan Hanigan to the Rays, David Holmberg to the Reds, and Justin Choate to the Diamondbacks. Curiously, Arizona GM Kevin Towers said at the time of the deal that the PTBNL (who turned out to be Glaesmann) was the key personnel piece from his team's perspective, although money saved by moving Bell no doubt was a significant motivator.
Three players are suspended in DFA limbo, per MLBTR's DFA Tracker: Andy Parrino (Athletics), Chase D'Arnaud (Pirates), and Justin Sellers (Dodgers).

D’Backs Asking For Young Catcher In Exchange For Shortstop

By Steve Adams | February 27, 2014 at 2:08pm CDT

The Diamondbacks have a good deal of depth at shortstop, as they feel that both Didi Gregorius and Chris Owings are capable Major League shortstops. In addition, three more names on Baseball America's list of Top 30 Diamonsbacks prospects — Nick Ahmed, Sergio Alcantara and Jose Munoz — are shortstops. This has led to some speculation that the Diamondbacks could trade a shortstop in order to address other needs in the organization, and Marc Carig of Newsday now reports (via Twitter) that the Diamondbacks have targeted young catchers in discussing shortstop trades with the Mets.

However, Carig adds that the Mets aren't a good fit for a trade with the D-Backs. Arizona is said to be seeking a Travis d'Arnaud type of talent in exchange for one of their shortstops and doesn't deem fellow catcher Kevin Plawecki a good enough return. As such, the Mets and D-Backs haven't had recent trade discussions about Arizona's shorstops (Twitter links).

For some context, Plawecki ranked fifth on BA's Top 30 Mets prospects heading into the 2014 season. BA calls him a safe bet to bat around .280 and hit somewhere in the range of a dozen homers at his peak level, and his bat is good enough to profile as a starting catcher, according to their scouting report. He has an average arm and is solid when it comes to blocking pitches, per BA.

The Diamondbacks currently have Miguel Montero installed as their everyday catcher, but the 30-year-old's offense slipped in 2013. After batting .283/.361/.457 from 2009-12, Montero slashed just .230/.318/.344 in 475 plate appearances last season. The decline was rapid and clearly unexpected, as it came in the first season of a five-year, $60MM extension that Montero inked in May 2012. He's set to earn $10MM this coming season, $12MM in 2015 and $14MM in 2016-17.

Quick Hits: D’Backs, Red Sox, Extensions, Rincon

By Mark Polishuk | February 27, 2014 at 12:30am CDT

Diamondbacks GM Kevin Towers says he hasn't had many trade talks about a shortstop given that Stephen Drew is still on the market, Nick Piecoro of the Arizona Republic reports. If Towers did feel compelled to move either Chris Owings, Didi Gregorius, Cliff Pennington or Nick Ahmed in "the right deal," Towers said that the team would likely target either a minor league pitcher who's close to the big leagues or a catcher. "Our biggest needs in our system are catching," Towers said. "If it’s the right, top-notch catching prospect. Someone we could have right behind Miggy [Miguel Montero]. More of an upper-level guy.” Of the teams known to be looking for shortstop help, the Yankees stand out as a possible trade partner, especially since New York is known to be shopping its catching depth.

Here's some more from around the majors…

Also from Piecoro, the Red Sox are "at least monitoring the shortstop market." The Sox currently aren't in negotiations with Stephen Drew, but it stands to reason they could still be looking for a cheaper infield option to back up Xander Bogaerts.
With more and more teams locking up their young stars to long-term extensions, SI.com's Tom Verducci writes that "what we are going to see is a further eroding of the free-agent market as a place of any kind of efficiency. Teams will continue to make bad deals on free agents because it mostly involves paying too long and too much for the decline years of star players."
Mike Trout is the most high-profile example yet of a team locking up its young superstar, and Verducci thinks that a seven-year extension (covering four of Trout's free agent years) could cost the Angels $204MM.
Juan Rincon is planning to work out for interested teams soon, CBSSports.com's Jon Heyman tweets. The 35-year-old righty posted a 4.03 ERA over 444 games (three of them starts) with the Twins, Indians, Tigers and Rockies from 2001-10, but hasn't appeared in the Majors since, spending the last three years with the Angels' Triple-A affiliate and for independent teams. In December, we heard Rincon was looking for a minor league deal that would allow him to mentor young pitchers and then eventually turn into a scouting job.
Tomo Ohka talks to the Toronto Star's Brad Lefton about adopting the knuckleball in order to save his career, and how he's hoping for one last crack at the Major Leagues with the Blue Jays.
Fangraphs' Wendy Thurm breaks down which teams spend the highest percentage of their payroll on their starting rotation, starting lineup, bullpen and bench, respectively.
The Astros (+18 WAR) and Red Sox (-16 WAR) project as the most- and least-improved teams in 2014, according to Fangraphs' Jeff Sullivan, who lists a top ten in each category. Of course, as Sullivan notes, these totals are respectively skewed by how poorly and how well the two clubs fared last season, as Sullivan still expects Boston to contend and Houston to be one of the league's lesser clubs.

NL West Notes: Quentin, Fried, Belt, Tulo, Owings

By Steve Adams | February 21, 2014 at 10:54am CDT

Carlos Quentin tells Kevin Acee of the San Diego Union-Tribune that at one point in the 2013 season, his injuries were nagging him to the point where he weighed retirement. The 31-year-old recalls thinking, "I can’t produce and do well, so I shouldn’t be out here." Quentin admitted to Acee that he wasn't honest last Spring when speaking about how healthy he was, but Acee notes the change in Quentin's demeanor this offseason as he told reporters that he wants to set a new career-high in games played this season.

The latest on the Padres and the rest of the NL West below…

Dennis Lin of the Union-Tribune reports that Padres top prospect Max Fried has been shut down for at least two weeks due to soreness in the flexor-mass area of his left (pitching) elbow. GM Josh Byrnes said Fried initially felt the soreness when playing long-toss from 120 feet. "At this stage of his career, this time of year, we’re obviously gonna be careful and make sure he’s symptom-free before he gets going," Byrnes said. "There was still enough soreness in there that we’re gonna be conservative and make sure we knock it out."
Giants first baseman Brandon Belt told reporters, including MLB.com's Chris Haft, that receiving the biggest payday of his life — a $2.9MM contract to avoid arbitration two nights ago — was a "magical" moment. Belt added that he would be open to discussing a long-term deal to remain in San Francisco: "I think anybody would be open to a long-term extension, especially with this organization. It's a first-class organization."
Troy Tulowitzki knows that rumors will fly over the next year, as talk of the Yankees needing to replace Derek Jeter will likely connect him to the Bronx, writes Troy Renck of the Denver Post. Tulo, who has looked up to Jeter since his youth and wears No. 2 in the Yankee Captain's honor, tells Renck that he's used to trade rumors and will remain focused on helping the Rockies win games.
Chris Owings never let the Diamondbacks' acquisition of Didi Gregorius faze him last year, writes MLB.com's Steve Gilbert. Owings was thought of as the club's shortstop of the future when he was drafted in 2009 but looked to have been passed up by Gregorius at the time of last year's trade. Rather than dwell on it, Owings focused on his game and won the Triple-A Pacific Coast League's MVP Award, once again positioning himself a long-term answer for Arizona at short, writes Gilbert.

Diamondbacks Notes: Goldschmidt, Payroll, Arroyo

By Mark Polishuk | February 12, 2014 at 9:10pm CDT

The five-year, $32MM extension that Paul Goldschmidt signed last spring could now be "the most team-friendly [deal] in the game" in the wake of Goldschmidt's monster 2013 season, Nick Piecoro of the Arizona Republic writes. As Piecoro notes, the D'Backs saved themselves a lot of money by locking Goldschmidt up early, thus giving the club the financial flexibility to pursue the likes of Masahiro Tanaka and Shin-Soo Choo. Though Goldschmidt said he's satisfied with his contract, D'Backs CEO Derrick Hall said the team would be open adding more years to the contract beyond 2018, or reworking the deal entirely a few years down the road.

Here's some more from Arizona, all from Piecoro…

The 2014 payroll projects to be the highest in Diamondbacks history, and GM Kevin Towers admitted there is little room for error if the team doesn't play up to expectations. "It's a critical probably two or three years here just because you've got guys that are kind of in their early 30s with long-term contracts, and it's not a lot of flexibility, if it's not the right recipe, to change it up," Towers said. While a losing season could put Arizona in the red, however, Hall said that the team can stand to lose some money now since their upcoming new TV contract will bring in major new revenues. "That's going to be a game-changer," Hall said. "We can bite the bullet a little bit the next couple of years to get there."
If Bronson Arroyo is traded, Piecoro tweets, the $11MM team option in Arroyo's contract for the 2016 season increases to $13MM. The option would still cost Arroyo's team $4.5MM to be bought out.
Arroyo, Hall, Towers, Kirk Gibson and D'Backs managing general partner Ken Kendrick all took part in a press conference today to officially announce Arroyo's signing. Towers said the decision to sign Arroyo came together quickly, and Arroyo said he appreciated how direct the D'Backs were with him, as he felt his free agent process was "a joke" and a "cat-and-mouse game." (Arroyo expressed his displeasure with his free agent experience last month to ESPN's Jerry Crasnick.)
Arroyo said he had "one or two discussions" with the Reds about a return, though Cincinnati was only willing to offer a one-year deal that included a lot of deferred money.
Kendrick discussed several topics, such as the recent extensions given to Towers and Gibson, the payroll increase and Arizona's pursuit of Tanaka.

Diamondbacks Sign Bronson Arroyo

By Jeff Todd | February 12, 2014 at 9:52am CDT

The Diamondbacks have been connected to multiple starting pitchers on both the free agent and trade markets this offseason, but it took until early February for the team to reel one in. The team today announced the signing of Bronson Arroyo to a two-year deal with a club option for the 2016 season. Arroyo is reportedly guaranteed $23.5MM in total. He will earn $9.5MM each in 2014 and 2015, and the club has a $11MM option for 2016 that comes with a $4.5MM buyout.

The length and total money in the deal comes in right under the prediction of MLBTR's Tim Dierkes. As Dierkes explained in his profile of Arroyo, the soon-to-be 37-year-old starter's high-floor/low-ceiling profile — combined with his age — made two years and $24MM a good target. Though Arroyo spent much of the off-season looking to add a third guarantee year, he ended up settling in just under the two-year, $26.5MM deal inked last year by Ryan Dempster with the Red Sox.

Arroyo, a client of Terry Bross and Turn 2 Sports Management, has been as consistent and durable a starter as the game has seen in recent years. Since 2004, Arroyo has logged at least 32 starts, logging at least 199 innings in all but the first of those campaigns. His cumulative ERA over that time is 4.10, a mark that he bested in each of the last two seasons (3.74 and 3.79 earned per nine, respectively).

Arroyo succeeds despite offering an 87 mph fastball, which he delivers in less than half of his pitches. He throws three varieties of off-speed pitches: slider, curve, and change. Though Arroyo does not strike out many batters, having hovered in the low-to-mid 5.0 K/9 range in recent seasons, neither does Arroyo hand out free passes. With just 1.2 and 1.4 BB/9 in the last two years, he has maintained a K:BB ratio of better than 3.6 over 2012-13, among the best in baseball. His biggest issue, perhaps, is a tendency to allow the long ball well above the league-average rate, though that is due in some part to spending his last eight years pitching in the homer-prone Great American Ball Park.

Arizona bolsters an already-deep rotation with the signing, which likely means that prized prospect Archie Bradley will not start the year with the big club. Arroyo joins Patrick Corbin, Brandon McCarthy, Wade Miley, Trevor Cahill, and Randall Delgado in the rotation mix.

Despite a fairly busy season on the pages of MLBTR, the Diamondbacks actually had inked just one guaranteed MLB deal (Eric Chavez, one year, $3.5MM) prior to landing Arroyo. Arizona apparently beat out two other clubs to sign the veteran, as the Dodgers and Orioles were also named as finalists for his services. The club had serious interest in adding young, unproven Japanese ace Masahiro Tanaka, but instead ends up adding quite a different type of arm in Arroyo.

John Gambadoro of Arizona Sports 98.7 first reported the deal on Twitter. Jerry Crasnick of ESPN.com first reported the length and option year (Twitter links). ESPN.com's Buster Olney first reported the financial terms (via Twitter). FOX Sports' Ken Rosenthal first tweeted that Arroyo had passed his physical.

Photo courtesy of USA Today Sports Images.

NL West Notes: Padres, Benoit, Belt, Arroyo, Bradley

By Jeff Todd | February 10, 2014 at 11:15pm CDT

Padres fans got some welcome news this evening, as it was announced that Time Warner Cable will begin airing Padres games for the coming season, MLB.com's Corey Brock tweets. As Wendy Thurm of Fangraphs has explained, the failure of Time Warner (and, at the time, AT&T U-verse and DISH Network) to agree to the Fox Sports San Diego subscriber fee not only left many fans without access to games, but put a significant dent in the Friars' expected annual payout. Here's more from San Diego and the rest of the NL West:

When the Padres inked reliever Joaquin Benoit to a two-year, $14MM deal earlier in the off-season, it raised an immediate question whether he or incumbent Huston Street would close. As Jeff Sanders of the San Diego Union-Tribune writes, both back-end arms are content with the situation and their roles. "[Street] is going to shut the door," said Benoit, "and I'm going to try to give him as many games with leads as I can." For his part, Street — whose deal includes a $7MM club option for 2015 — says that he understands the business side of things and hopes only for success for his new teammate. "It's a smart move on the Padres' part," he said. "It gives them options for 2015. It gives them options if I go down. It gives them options if I struggle."
After a breakout campaign last year put him in position for a nice payday as a Super Two, Giants first baseman Brandon Belt has yet to reach agreement with his club on a price for his 2014 season. The sides' filing figures ($3.6MM against $2.05MM) are the furthest apart in relative terms among remaining arbitration cases. As Henry Schulman of the San Francisco Chronicle reports, however, it remains likely that a hearing will be avoided, as team and player both recently expressed an expectation that a settlement will be forthcoming.
Despite adding another rotation arm in Bronson Arroyo, Diamondbacks GM Kevin Towers says that top prospect Archie Bradley can still earn a starting spot out of camp, reports FOX Sports Arizona's Jack Magruder. "We want to get out of the gate quick," said Towers. "I've said from the beginning, with Archie, it's not about trying to save a year, save money. We need to win games. If he's ready coming out of the spring and we're a better ballclub with Archie being in it, he's going to be there." Putting the 21-year-old on the MLB roster for Opening Day would mean giving up the ability to extend team control for an extra season, but Towers' statement indicates that is still a real possibility. (On the other hand, given that factor and Bradley's limited seasoning, it will probably be a tall order for him to unseat one of the expected five as a practical matter.) Fellow righty Randall Delgado would likely join the bullpen if he does not earn a turn in the rotation, said Towers, since he is out of options.
The Arroyo signing has earned mixed reviews; as MLBTR's Charlie Wilmoth opined, for example, the $23.5MM guarantee that he received is a debatable investment in a market that promised Paul Maholm just $1.5MM. One under-the-radar issue with Arroyo, argues Dave Cameron of Fangraphs, is that his pronounced struggles against lefties have been masked somewhat by pitching in a division (the National League Central) that has not featured the volume of left-handed bats to take full advantage of the platoon split. In particular, Cameron says, should the Diamondbacks reach the post-season, Arroyo's achilles heel could significantly impair his usefulness to his new club.

Paul Maholm And The Starting Pitching Market

By charliewilmoth | February 9, 2014 at 11:30pm CDT

The free-agent market for starting pitching has been slow to develop this offseason, but now that Masahiro Tanaka has chosen a team, signings are trickling in. Two recent NL West contracts demonstrate how uncertain that market can be. The Diamondbacks agreed to terms with Bronson Arroyo on a two-year, $23.5MM deal that includes an option for 2016, and the Dodgers signed Paul Maholm for one year and $1.5MM guaranteed, with the chance to make up to $5MM more in incentives.

There are clear differences between the two pitchers — Arroyo is a righty and Maholm is a lefty, and Arroyo has been the more durable of the two. That's a trend that might not persist, given that Arroyo is five years older than Maholm. But Maholm did miss a start in September due to elbow soreness (although an MRI revealed no structural trouble) and he pitched 49 fewer innings than Arroyo last year.

Arroyo and Maholm aren't that different, however. They're both low-upside, pitch-to-contact types who give their teams decent chances of winning as mid-rotation or back-of-the-rotation starters. And statistically, they're reasonably similar.

Arroyo

Year	K/9	BB/9	fWAR
2011	4.9	2.0	-1.5
2012	5.8	1.6	2.4
2013	5.5	1.5	0.8

Maholm

Year	K/9	BB/9	fWAR
2011	5.4	2.8	1.7
2012	6.8	2.5	2.2
2013	6.2	2.8	0.7

One could actually make the case that, over the past three seasons, Maholm has been better than Arroyo. As Fangraphs' David Cameron noted yesterday (via Twitter), Maholm appears to be quite a bargain in comparison. (I made a similar observation at my own blog.)

Others have noted the huge disparity between Maholm's contract and that of Jason Vargas, who received four years and $32MM from the Royals earlier this winter. Like Maholm, Vargas is a 31-year-old, pitch-to-contact lefty. Vargas has produced 4.5 WAR over the last three seasons, compared to 4.6 for Maholm.

The common thread here may be the perception that Arroyo and Vargas are more likely to give their new teams 200 innings. (Vargas only pitched 150 last season after missing time due to a blood clot, but he threw at least 201 in both 2011 and 2012.) If that's the case, however, the market seems to be overreacting. In theory, a team could easily get two Maholm-type fragile pitchers and hope for them to combine for 250 or so decent innings, rather than paying Arroyo or Vargas many times more. A team would have to clear an extra spot on its roster that way, but that seems like a small matter compared to the savings in dollars.

In fact, in a way, this seems to be what the Dodgers are doing — they'll have Clayton Kershaw, Zack Greinke, Hyun-Jin Ryu and Dan Haren for the first four spots, and then Maholm, Josh Beckett and Chad Billingsley will soak up the remaining innings. (Beckett and Billingsley are both returning from injury.) If Arroyo posts 200 innings, that's surely useful, but given that his innings aren't the highest quality, a team should be able to compensate for reduced back-of-the-rotation certainty with greater depth.

Among Arroyo, Vargas and Maholm, Maholm is probably the outlier. MLBTR's Tim Dierkes' projection for Arroyo's contract was almost exactly on the money, while Maholm's contract, at least the guaranteed portion, falls well short of Dierkes' projected one year and $7MM. Perhaps teams are simply extremely concerned about Maholm's elbow. (In fact, that seems at least somewhat likely, given Maholm's apparent openness to pitching in relief. One would think a pitcher of his caliber would be able to find a sure starting job somewhere.)

If not, though, Maholm's deal doesn't bode well for a pitcher like lefty free agent Chris Capuano. Capuano's value has been similar to Vargas or Maholm the past three seasons (with 4.8 total fWAR), but he only pitched 105 2/3 innings last year due to a series of injuries, and he has two Tommy John surgeries in his past. Given Capuano's tendency to pitch reasonably strong innings when healthy, though, he could give his next team great value. Maholm's contract could be a bargain for the Dodgers, and the team that picks up Capuano could be in line for a bargain as well.

Quick Hits: Tanaka, Goldschmidt, Mattingly

By charliewilmoth | February 9, 2014 at 10:40pm CDT

The Diamondbacks didn't ultimately land Masahiro Tanaka, but the club feels that Paul Goldschmidt significantly helped their pursuit of the Japanese ace, Jules Tompkins of ArizonaSports.com reports. When the Diamondbacks met with Tanaka, they brought Goldschmidt along. "It was very interesting to watch the interaction between Tanaka and Goldy, it was very clear — even though the language barrier was there — that Tanaka was impressed that he was there," says Diamondbacks executive Ken Kendrick. "And he asked him several questions through the interpreter about our club and about Arizona." Here are more notes from around baseball.

Dodgers manager Don Mattingly appreciates the confidence the organization showed in giving him a three-year contract, writes MLB.com's Barry M. Bloom. "The organization has shown confidence," Mattingly says. "I think it says that to fans, it says that to me and more importantly it says that to the players. It lets them know that we feel like this guy can do the job." Mattingly notes that one thing his contract doesn't give him is security — compared to the Dodgers' enormous payroll, Mattingly's contract is "a drop in the bucket," so if they feel the need to fire him, the contract likely won't constrain them.
In addition to the obvious cultural differences, Tanaka will have to adjust to a number of other factors as he prepares for his debut with the Yankees, Anthony McCarron of New York Daily News writes. That includes the size of the ball and the textures of the mounds, as well as more power-centric opposing lineups.

« Previous Page

Load More Posts

Show all

Headlines

Diamondbacks Rumors

Navigation

MLBTR INFO

Connect