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Rangers Reportedly Making “Aggressive” Push For Josh Donaldson

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The Rangers are making “an aggressive push” to strike an early deal with free-agent third baseman Josh Donaldson, Bob Nightengale of USA Today reports (on Twitter). Donaldson still hasn’t even had to give the Braves a formal decision on his $17.8MM qualifying offer — though he’ll surely reject it by tomorrow’s deadline. A deal of this significance in mid-November is of the utmost rarity in today’s free-agent climate. However, it’s worth pointing out that Donaldson signed his one-year deal with the Braves in late November last year, so there’s some precedent for him preferring a rather short stay on the open market.

Third base is a clear area of need for the Rangers, as young Nick Solak is likely the top option at the hot corner as things are currently constructed in Arlington. Texas certainly has the funds to reel in a free agent of Donaldson’s caliber after scaling back on payroll last winter; the Rangers have previously seen their payroll climb as high as $165MM on Opening Day 2017, but they currently project to check in around $115MM. As MLBTR’s Jeff Todd pointed out in previewing the Rangers’ offseason, a match between Donaldson and Texas seems perfectly plausible and would bear some similarity to the Rangers’ run with Adrian Beltre in his mid- to late-30s.

As we detailed at MLBTR this week, signing Donaldson on the heels of a qualifying offer would cost the Rangers their second-highest draft selection next summer as well as $500K of their 2020-21 international signing bonus. Donaldson, who hit .259/.371/.521 with 37 home runs and plus defense at third base with the Braves in 2019, ranked fifth on MLBTR’s list of the offseason’s Top 50 free agents (where we predicted a three-year, $75MM deal with Texas).

The Rangers flirted with Wild Card contention in 2019 before fading late in the season and have given every indication to this point that they plan to act aggressively in advance of their move into a new stadium in 2020. General manager and president of baseball operations Jon Daniels plainly stated this week that he intended to look into top-tier free agents, so an earnest pursuit of Donaldson could be the first of many such free-agent endeavors for Texas over the next several months.

Donaldson has already drawn interest from the Dodgers, Phillies, Nationals (who likely view him as a fallback to Anthony Rendon) and Braves in the early stages of free agency. The Braves, per MLB Network’s Jon Heyman (Twitter link), have been allowing Donaldson to shop around with other clubs before engaging in their own discussion of a multi-year pact.

Latest On Market Interest In Madison Bumgarner

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Though Madison Bumgarner did not hit the open market with as much fanfare as once seemed likely, he’s still a prominent part of the landscape for starting pitching. And it appears that strong early interest is coming together for the veteran lefty.

The Phillies have “checked in” on Bumgarner, per Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic (subscription link), who notes the potential interplay between the Phils and their division rivals from Atlanta. The Braves are known to be interested in the hurler, who grew up not far from Atlanta in Hickory, NC.

Those aren’t the only eastern seaboard teams considering Bumgarner. The Yankees also intend to reach out to MadBum’s reps, New York GM Brian Cashman tells John Shea of the San Francisco Chronicle.

Of course, Cashman has already made clear he’s interested in other, even bigger free agent fish. And he emphasized that point to Shea, stating that the Yanks will look at the full field.

That’s an important point to bear in mind more generally as we gauge early indications of market interest. With a market as full of good options as it is full of needy teams, we’re hearing of a lot of broad explorations on both sides of the balance. Teams are trying to get a sense of price tags. And there’s a balance for players and their agents as well. Most any pitcher would prefer to draw a nice run of early bidding to waiting around and hoping that demand remains strong. It’s better to be Nathan Eovaldi or Tyler Chatwood than Dallas Keuchel, generally speaking, as recent free agent experiences are concerned.

Bumgarner isn’t likely to be a market darling in the nature of Eovaldi or Chatwood. But neither is there reason to think he’ll end up facing the Keuchel conundrum. Bumgarner isn’t the monster he once was on the mound, and he now carries a notable injury history, but he just turned 30 years of age and was still capable of spinning 207 2/3 innings of 3.90 ball in 2019.

Draft Compensation For 8 Teams That Could Lose Qualified Free Agents

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Eight teams issued qualifying offers this year to ten players, with the Nationals and Giants handing out two apiece. Teams issuing the $17.8MM offer must be comfortable with the receiving player accepting, as it isn’t possible to trade such a player (absent consent) until the middle of the season. But in most cases, the offer is given with the expectation it will be declined, thus allowing the issuing team to receive a compensatory draft selection if the player signs with a new club.

As with draft forfeitures, draft compensation is largely tied to the financial status of the team losing the player. And in 2019, seven of the eight teams that issued qualifying offers fall into the same bucket: teams that neither exceeded the luxury threshold nor received revenue-sharing benefits. This applies to the Astros, Nationals, Giants, Mets, Cardinals, White Sox and Braves. In such cases, the default compensation for losing a qualified free agent is applied.

In other words, if any of Gerrit Cole, Stephen Strasburg, Anthony Rendon, Madison Bumgarner, Will Smith, Zack Wheeler, Marcell Ozuna, Jose Abreu or Josh Donaldson signs with a new club, their former team will receive a compensatory pick between Competitive Balance Round B and Round 3 of the 2020 draft. Those selections would likely fall in the upper 70s and low 80s. Slot values in that range of the 2019 draft checked in between $730K and $700K. The Nationals and Giants, then, could add a pair of Top 100 picks and roughly $1.5MM worth of additional pool money each if they lose both of their qualified free agents.

The lone team that stands to gain a potential pick at the end of the first round would be the Twins, who issued a qualifying offer to Jake Odorizzi. Minnesota is a revenue-sharing recipient that did not exceed the luxury threshold, thus entitling the Twins to the highest level of free-agent compensation possible … if Odorizzi signs for a guaranteed $50MM or more. If Odorizzi’s total guarantees are $49.9MM or lower, the Twins would receive the same level of pick as the other seven teams who issued qualifying offers: between Competitive Balance Round B and Round 3.

Of course, if any of the players who received qualifying offers either accept the offer or re-sign with their 2019 clubs on a new multi-year deal, no draft compensation will be awarded to that team at all.

Nationals Interested In Josh Donaldson

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At least six teams are showing early interest in star free agent Josh Donaldson, Mark Feinsand of MLB.com relays. The World Series champion Nationals are among the clubs eyeing the third baseman, as are the previously reported Rangers, Phillies and Braves, according to Feinsand.

As those who follow the game know, the Nationals have an even higher-profile free-agent third baseman in Anthony Rendon – hands down the best position player on the market. MLBTR forecasts Rendon will land a $235MM guarantee, which trounces Donaldson’s $75MM projection. Thanks in part to the age difference between the two, the soon-to-be 34-year-old Donaldson lacks the appeal of Rendon, 29, though the former nonetheless remains one of baseball’s most valuable players.

Donaldson, a onetime AL MVP, is coming off a 4.9-fWAR season in which he batted .259/.379/.521 with 37 home runs across 659 plate appearances. Atlanta signed the ex-Athletic and Blue Jay to a $23MM guarantee last winter after back-to-back injury-limited campaigns, and it proved to be a brilliant short-term gamble by the Braves. Of course, considering the Braves are one of Washington’s division rivals, the Nationals got plenty of up-close looks at Donaldson in 2019. Unsurprisingly, it seems the Nats came away impressed.

While the Nationals may view Donaldson as a legitimate possibility for their hot corner vacancy, odds are they’d prefer to re-sign Rendon. The big-market, high-spending club has two elite free agents in Rendon and right-hander Stephen Strasburg, and after a championship-winning season, it would be a surprise to see both exit. But if Rendon goes, the Nationals may well turn to the highly accomplished Donaldson as a much less expensive fallback option. Meantime, Donaldson has until Thursday to accept or reject the Braves’ $17.8MM qualifying offer. Turning it down looks like a formality.

Braves Re-Sign Darren O’Day

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The Braves have re-signed veteran reliever Darren O’Day, per a club announcement. He’ll receive a guarantee of $2.25MM in the contract, which covers the 2020 campaign and includes a $3.5MM club option for another season.

As other clubs plot roster turnover for the winter, the Braves have acted quickly to retain several pieces at the outset of the market. Backstop Tyler Flowers and Nick Markakis were already signed to new deals to remain in Atlanta for one more season, and they’ll now be joined by O’Day for a total outlay of just over $10MM in 2020 payroll.

O’Day, who recently celebrated his 37th birthday, was acquired at the 2018 trade deadline but didn’t appear with the Braves until September of 2019. He dealt with hamstring and forearm issues after coming over from the Orioles.

Though the Braves received only a brief look at the veteran reliever late in the season, he obviously impressed. O’Day was included on the postseason roster and appeared in four of the team’s NLDS contests. All told, he allowed just one earned run in 7 1/3 innings while compiling eight strikeouts against one free pass and four base hits.

O’Day averaged less than 87 mph with his fastball upon his return, though that’s actually only a tick lower than his career average. The sidearming hurler didn’t have any trouble getting swings and misses in that short sample, with an 18.0% swinging-strike rate in his 5 1/3 regular season frames. His full-season career-high in that metric is 14.8%, back in 2015.

It’s a fairly low-cost bet for the Braves, who’ll add O’Day to a high-leverage mix that already features Mark Melancon — another veteran hurler with exceptional command who has had stretches of dominance followed by some recent rough patches. It’d be too much to hope for these experienced righties to return to the levels of dominance they posted a few years back, but there’s good reason to believe there’s gas left in both tanks.

While fans may pine for a dominant closer, it may be that the Braves now consider their bullpen fully accounted for. The organization can tender Shane Greene and hope for a bounceback, while crossing its fingers that Luke Jackson can make the results match his newly eye-popping peripherals. Grant Dayton reemerged late to join Sean Newcomb as options from the left side. And there’s a laundry list of less-established hurlers that have seen recent MLB action and/or impressed of late in the upper minors.

Photo courtesy of USA Today Sports Images.

Braves Reportedly Prioritizing Madison Bumgarner

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Now that the offseason has begun, we’re likely in for several weeks of rumors centering on longtime Giants left-hander and current free agent Madison Bumgarner. Let’s get the ball rolling in earnest: Atlanta has “made Bumgarner a priority and planned to quickly communicate that to the left-hander,” Alex Pavlovic of NBC Sports California reports. If Bumgarner doesn’t re-sign with the Giants, the Braves are the front-runners for his services, according to Pavlovic.

For now, Bumgarner has until Nov. 14 to decide whether to accept the $17.8MM qualifying offer the Giants gave him earlier this week. But rejecting it looks like a formality for the 30-year-old Bumgarner, who MLBTR projects will land a four-year, $72MM contract on the open market. Whether the numbers are exact remains to be seen, but Bumgarner’s surely in line for a substantial payday, so the main question is whether San Francisco will be the team that hands it to him.

The Giants are the lone club Bumgarner has known since they selected him 10th overall in the 2007 draft. Although he has since turned into a decorated hurler who has helped the Giants to three championships, there hasn’t been any indication that the team has seriously pursued a contract extension. The Giants did elect against selling off Bumgarner prior to the July 31 trade deadline, but it’s possible they would have gone another way had it not been for an improbable midsummer surge. The team ultimately faded after its torrid July stretch, finishing 77-85, and now it could lose Bumgarner for nothing more than draft-pick compensation if he rejects its QO and heads elsewhere.

In the event Bumgarner does leave the Giants, Atlanta looks like a reasonable fit on paper for the North Carolina native. With Dallas Keuchel now on the free-agent market, the Braves are known to be looking for at least one capable veteran starter to complement Mike Soroka, Max Fried and Mike Foltynewicz. And Bumgarner, unlike Gerrit Cole or Stephen Strasburg (the top two starters available), wouldn’t cost a bank-breaking amount or force the Braves to make an extraordinarily long-term commitment. Of course, there’s an obvious reason for that: Bumgarner, despite his past accomplishments, isn’t nearly as good as Cole or Strasburg at this point. While he was a front-line starter during his younger days, Bumgarner now looks more like a quality mid-rotation arm.

Bumgarner’s on the market fresh off a 207 2/3-inning season (his seventh year of 200-plus frames) in which he pitched to a matching 3.90 ERA/FIP with 8.8 K/9, 1.86 BB/9 and a career-low 35.8 percent groundball rate. For the most part, those numbers look closer to good than spectacular, though they’d still be welcome in just about anyone’s rotation – including the Braves’.

MLBPA Launches Investigation Of Comments From Braves GM Alex Anthopoulos

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9:50pm: Anthopoulos has issued a statement (via the Braves, on Twitter), saying: “In advance of the General Managers meetings, I called around to Clubs to explore the possibility of potential off-season trades. At no time during any of these calls was there discussion of individual free agents or the Braves’ intentions with respect to the free agent market. To the extent I indicated otherwise during my media availability on Monday, I misspoke and apologize for any confusion.”

5:40pm: Tony Clark, executive director of the Major League Baseball Players Association, announced Wednesday that the MLBPA has launched an investigation looking into recent comments from Braves general manager Alex Anthopoulos. Specifically, the union took umbrage with the following comment Anthopoulos made during a recent conference call with Atlanta beat writers (link via The Athletic’s David O’Brien):

Every day you get more information. And we’ve had time to connect with 27 of the clubs — obviously the Astros and (Nationals) being in the World Series, they were tied up — but we had a chance to get a sense of what the other clubs are going to look to do in free agency, who might be available in trades.

The MLBPA’s issue stems from Anthopoulos’ acknowledgment of getting a feel for how other clubs plan to act in free agency. With regard to sharing intel in free agency, the collective bargaining agreement states: “Players shall not act in concert with other Players, and Clubs shall not act in concert with other Clubs.” In a press release, Clark expressed extreme displeasure with Anthopoulos’ assertion and offered the following response:

The statements made by Braves GM Alex Anthopoulos call into question the integrity of the entire free-agent system. The clear description of Club coordination is egregious, and we have launched an immediate investigation looking into the matter.

It’s the latest chapter in a saga that has seen tension between labor and management mount at an alarming rate. Clark and the Union have previously asked the league to investigate whether low-payroll clubs have appropriately utilized their revenue-sharing resources — the Pirates and Marlins, specifically — as multiple agents (including agent-turned-Mets-GM Brodie Van Wagenen) have spoken of “coordinated” efforts on the part of owners to scale back salaries at the Major League level. Clark has also accused MLB teams of a “race to the bottom,” and more recently raised issue with teams’ early assertions that they’ll face payroll constraints despite the continual increase in franchise values. (The Royals and Marlins have recently sold for $1 billion and $1.2 billion.)

There’s been no shortage of speculation surrounding a potential labor stoppage at the expiration of the current collective bargaining agreement (in 2021). The extent of the unrest has prompted the league and the union to begin negotiations for the next CBA much earlier than they’d normally have begun such discussions, but today’s statement from Clark only underscores the chasm that currently exists between the two sides.

Braves Not Ruling Out Re-Signing Julio Teheran

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Although the Braves bought out right-hander Julio Teheran’s 2020 option on Monday, that doesn’t necessarily mean the two sides’ longstanding union is over. General manager Alex Anthopoulos indicated after letting Teheran go that he hasn’t slammed the door on signing the hurler to a new contract, per David O’Brien of The Athletic (subscription link).

“We’ll continue to stay in contact with him,” Anthopoulos said. “Obviously, he’ll have a chance now to test the market and talk to other teams. But I think there’s an openness on both sides to continue the relationship. So, we’ll see where that leads.”

While Teheran’s no longer the front-end starter he looked like earlier in his career, the two-time All-Star has at least been a productive source of innings throughout his MLB tenure. Teheran just turned in his seventh straight season with no fewer than 30 starts (33) or 170-plus frames (174 2/3). He pitched to an above-average 3.81 ERA along the way, but as has typically been the case, ERA indicators such as FIP (4.66), xFIP (5.26) and SIERA (5.11) were far less bullish. Teheran did strike out a career-high 8.35 batters per nine, but he also walked 4.28, continued to induce grounders at a less-than-stellar clip (39 percent), and saw his average fastball velocity drop to a personal-low 89.7 mph. Those are just some of the red flags that may have scared off the Braves, who turned down paying Teheran $12MM for next season in favor of a $1MM buyout.

Now that he’s on the free-agent market, Teheran – who still has one more season left in his 20s – has a chance to score an overall larger guarantee than the one the Braves rejected. MLBTR regards Teheran as one of a few starters who could secure a pact in the $18MM range over two years.

Anthopoulos’ words aside, it obviously looks doubtful Atlanta will end up as the team to hand Teheran his next deal. The Braves instead appear poised to redirect some of what would have been Teheran’s money in an effort to reel in a bigger fish, as they’ll go after “a front-line starter” to join the returning trio of Mike Soroka, Max Fried and Mike Foltynewicz, O’Brien writes.

Gerrit Cole or Stephen Strasburg are hands down the top unsigned starters in the sport, but both seem like unrealistic targets for Atlanta. Zack Wheeler, Madison Bumgarner, Hyun-Jin Ryu, Jake Odorizzi, Dallas Keuchel (a Brave in 2019) and Cole Hamels are among the best of the rest, and no one there will rival Cole or Strasburg in earning power. However, it’s up for debate how many of them are legitimate rotation headliners at this point. The Braves could also explore the trade market, where the Tigers’ Matthew Boyd (an ATL target over the summer) and the Indians’ Corey Kluber are among those who may be rumor mill regulars this winter.

10 Players Receive Qualifying Offers

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It appears that ten players have received qualifying offers this year. Bob Nightengale of USA Today rounds up the full slate of players on Twitter, some of whom were already reported and covered on this site.

This year’s qualifying offer value is $17.8MM for a one-year term. Players issued the offer will have ten days to assess their options. Should a player reject the offer and fail to work out a deal with their existing team, he will enter the market carrying the requirement that a signing team sacrifice draft compensation. (While the former team would not stand to lose a pick, it would not gain a compensatory pick if it re-signs that player.) Click here for a full rundown of the QO rules.

This represents a bounce back up in the number of players to receive a qualifying offer. Last year was a record-low of seven, with other offseasons ranging from nine (2012, 2017) all the way up to twenty offers (2015).

Here are the ten players:

There are a few notable players that were eligible for the QO but did not receive it. Those players will hit the open market free and clear of draft compensation. Didi Gregorius of the Yankees and Cole Hamels of the Cubs were perhaps the leading possibilities beyond those that received the offer. J.D. Martinez would surely have received one from the Red Sox had he opted out of his deal; Aroldis Chapman was also certain to get a QO had he not agreed to a new contract. Quite a few other prominent free agents were ineligible because they were traded during the 2019 season and/or had previously received a qualifying offer.

Braves Decline Options Over Teheran, Hamilton; Issue Qualifying Offer To Josh Donaldson

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The Braves announced today that they have declined options over righty Julio Teheran and center fielder Billy Hamilton. In other news, the club made a qualifying offer to third baseman Josh Donaldson.

In Teheran’s case — the most interesting one of the three — the club will pay a $1MM buyout rather than picking up the option at $12MM. It isn’t entirely surprising to see that the Braves are ready to move on from the long-time rotation stalwart, but it had been possible to imagine the team exercising the option and then trading him.

Teheran has never been the ace that some once expected him to be. But he has generally been quite effective, with a 3.67 lifetime ERA and sub-4.00 marks in each of the past two campaigns. And Teheran has been freakishly durable, scarcely missing a single outing and averaging 191 innings since his first full season in 2013.

It’s debatable just how much interest Teheran will draw on the open market. But it’s plenty possible to imagine teams considering multi-year offers. Beyond his excellent health record, Teheran is still just 28 years of age.

As for Hamilton, claimed off waivers in August, there was never any chance his mutual option would be exercised by the team at a $7.5MM price tag. He’ll take a $1MM buyout with him as he goes back onto the open market.

It was equally obvious that Donaldson would receive the $17.8MM qualifying offer at $17.8MM. The Braves paid him more than that for one season already and got everything they bargained for. There’s no question Donaldson will turn down the offer and take to free agency.

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