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Mike Soroka Throws Two Simulated Innings

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Mike Soroka threw two innings in “simulated game conditions” this morning, reports David O’Brien of the Athletic. That marks a key milestone in the 23-year-old’s recovery from the ruptured Achilles that ended his 2020 season last August. It remains unclear precisely when Soroka will be ready to pitch this year, although O’Brien notes there has been “widespread speculation” of a late April or early May return. Soroka has a 2.86 ERA/4.33 SIERA over his first 214 big league innings.

The latest on some other health situations around the National League:

  • Cardinals starter Miles Mikolas had been expected to throw a bullpen session today, but that’ll be pushed back to Wednesday, Derrick Goold of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch and Jeff Jones of the Belleville News-Democrat were among those to note. Manager Mike Shildt said the right-hander feels good but wouldn’t guarantee Mikolas will be ready for Opening Day. Mikolas missed the entire 2020 season after undergoing surgery to repair the flexor tendon in his forearm, but the current issue is a “creaky” shoulder, notes Zachary Silver of MLB.com.
  • Dodgers reliever Joe Kelly looks unlikely to be ready for Opening Day, per Mike DiGiovanna of the Los Angeles Times (Twitter link). The right-hander has been dealing with shoulder soreness, but he has been able to throw a few bullpen sessions recently, per Juan Toribio of MLB.com. The hard-throwing Kelly spent a month on the injured list last season with shoulder inflammation.
  • José Martínez has a “twisted left knee” after colliding with an umpire during today’s Spring Training contest, Anthony DiComo of MLB.com was among those to report. He’ll likely go for an MRI tomorrow. The Mets signed the 32-year-old Martínez this winter after he struggled through a down 2020 season split between the Rays and Cubs. A significant injury would be a blow to his chances of earning a backup first base/corner outfield role this spring.

COVID Notes: 3/4/21

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The latest on how the coronavirus is affecting Major League Baseball:

  • Braves left-hander Max Fried will not make his previously scheduled start Friday because he may have been exposed to COVID-19, Gabe Burns of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution tweets. Fried has not tested positive, but manager Brian Snitker said (via David O’Brien of The Athletic) that he’ll “lay low” for a couple of days. At least for now, it doesn’t seem Fried will miss much time. As long as he recovers in short order, Fried could be the Opening Day starter for the Braves, having starred last season with a 2.25 ERA in 56 innings.

Latest On Yoenis Cespedes

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Free-agent outfielder Yoenis Cespedes held a showcase in Florida that 11 teams attended on Tuesday, according to Ken Davidoff of the New York Post. The Yankees, White Sox, Brewers, Blue Jays, Tigers (one of Cespedes’ ex-teams), Padres, Rays, Reds, Marlins, Cubs and Braves were all on hand to watch Cespedes, per Davidoff.

As Davidoff notes, it’s interesting that the majority of clubs that scouted Cespedes are in the National League, which doesn’t appear likely to feature the designated hitter position in 2021. DH seems like the logical spot for Cespedes if he’s going to continue his career, as he hasn’t played the field since 2018, he’s aging (35), and he’s coming off four straight abbreviated seasons because of health issues. The two-time All-Star, most recently with the Mets, played in just 127 of a possible 546 regular-season contests from 2017-20.

Cespedes opted out of last season in August over COVID-19 concerns, but heel and ankle problems dogged him before then and helped make the four-year, $110MM guarantee he received from the Mets in November 2016 a disaster for the club. The two sides agreed to an amended contract in December 2019 that reduced Cespedes’ base salary from $29.5MM to $6MM, but New York didn’t get any bang for its buck out of that.

While Cespedes comes with question marks, he won’t land an expensive deal, which is one of the reasons so many clubs are considering him. When healthy, Cespedes has been a force at the plate, where he has batted .273/.327/.497 (124 wRC+) with 165 home runs in 3,490 trips. That track record could make him a worthwhile buy-low pickup for someone.

Braves Report Major Revenue Drop, Operating Losses In 2020

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Since the Braves are owned by the publicly-traded Liberty Media corporation, they are the only team in baseball required to disclose their finances, providing some insight into how the COVID-19 pandemic impacted business.  Liberty Media revealed the particulars on Friday (Tim Tucker of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution has the details), with the Braves accounting for an operating loss of $49MM before depreciation and amortization in 2020.  In terms of pure revenues, the club generated $178MM.

As one might expect, these numbers each represent a significant decline from the Braves’ financial picture just one year ago.  In 2019, the Braves generated $476MM in revenues and had a $54MM profit (before depreciation and amortization).  The Braves also added $115MM in debt thanks to construction costs in and around Truist Park and at their new Spring Training complex, bringing their total debt to $674MM at the end of 2020.

In an interview last October, commissioner Rob Manfred claimed that MLB’s 30 teams were facing a collective operating loss of roughly $2.8 to $3 billion in 2020.  Since each club’s financial situation obviously has a lot of individual differences, it’s hard to necessarily extrapolate Atlanta’s losses considering they are just one piece of a 30-team pie.  For example, Truist Park is the second-newest ballpark in the league, thus providing the Braves with a fresher revenue source than most other clubs.

As Fangraphs’ Craig Edwards wrote in December, however, the Braves are a pretty decent sample team to act as a barometer for the league as a whole “since Atlanta has a slightly better than average local television deal and ran a slightly higher than average payroll last season.”  Edwards estimated the Braves for roughly a $65MM operating loss in 2020, so the team actually bettered his analysis.  And given the $54MM profit in 2019, the Braves would still seem to be in the black over the two-year span.

It remains to be seen how the 2021 season will play out from a financial perspective since many teams will have either reduced or zero attendance for at least much of the year.  Many on the players’ side (such as MLBPA officials and agents like Scott Boras) have taken the stance that 2020-21 will end up being something of a relatively minor setback to Major League Baseball’s overall financial health, which runs counter to statements made by Manfred and some team owners about the sport’s alleged dire monetary losses.  Expect this debate to loom large throughout the season and beyond, as the two sides will face a very tense set of negotiations over a new Collective Bargaining Agreement — the current CBA expires in December.

Braves Outright Phil Pfeifer

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FEB. 26: Pfeifer has been outrighted to Triple-A Gwinnett, the Braves announced.

FEB. 23: The Braves announced Tuesday that they’ve designated left-hander Phil Pfeifer for assignment in order to open a spot on the 40-man roster for corner infielder Jake Lamb, whose non-guaranteed Major League deal is now official.

Atlanta picked up the now-28-year-old Pfeifer in a 2016 trade with the Dodgers and selected him to the 40-man roster in Nov. 2019 to protect him from that year’s Rule 5 Draft. He’s yet to make his Major League debut, though it’s possible he’d have been called upon had their been a full 162-game slate played in 2020.

Pfeifer was hit hard in his first go-around at Triple-A in 2018 and hasn’t gotten much of a chance to redeem himself at that level thanks to last year’s lack of a minor league season. He did post very strong numbers between Double-A and a quick 7 1/3-inning return to Triple-A in 2019, however. On the whole, he tossed 133 1/3 innings of 2.97 ERA ball between the two levels that season, adding in impressive strikeout (28.7) and walk (7.6) percentages.

Pfeifer has a pair of minor league options still remaining, so he could pique the interest of a club with more acute pitching needs. At 28, he’s a bit old to be considered a “prospect,” but outside of an ugly 40 innings of Triple-A work in 2018, the lefty has a strong minor league track record.

Braves Sign Terrance Gore To Minor League Deal

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The Braves have agreed to a minor league deal with outfielder Terrance Gore, as first indicated on the Triple-A transactions log at MLB.com. Gore is represented by the L. Warner Companies.

Gore, 29, appeared in two games with the Dodgers in 2020 and played in 37 games with the Royals a year prior. He’s best known for the blistering speed that has made him such a valuable weapon off the bench for the Royals, Cubs and Dodgers during playoff drives and in the postseason itself.

Gore has appeared in 102 Major League games but has only 77 plate appearances due to his heavy use as a pinch-runner and defensive replacement. In that brief sample of work at the plate, he’s a .224/.325/.284 hitter. Despite the lack of plate appearances, he’s racked up 40 stolen bases in the big leagues and another five in postseason play (despite only having two actual playoff plate appearances to his name).

Gore won’t be in big league camp with the Braves, but he’ll give them some elite speed to stash in Triple-A, where he’s a career .213/.307/.269 hitter in 492 plate appearances. During that 2019 season, Statcast measured Gore’s average sprint speed at a whopping 29.9 feet per second, tying him for ninth-best among 568 Major Leaguers.

Braves Extend Brian Snitker

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The Braves announced this morning that they’ve signed manager Brian Snitker to a two-year contract extension through the 2023 season. The deal contains a club option for the 2024 season as well.

Brian Snitker | Charles LeClaire-USA TODAY Sports

“I am thrilled that Brian will continue to lead our club on the field and in the clubhouse,” Braves general manager Alex Anthopoulos said in a statement accompanying the announcement. “Three consecutive division titles speak to the impact of Brian and his staff, and we are pleased that he will continue to guide our club through 2023.”

It’s the second straight spring with an extension for Snitker, although today’s additional two years (and a club option for a third) makes for a stronger vote of confidence than last year’s one-year extension. That deal would’ve expired at season’s end. Snitker now not only sheds dreaded lame-duck status but picks up job security for multiple years.

Snitker, 65, is a Braves lifer who has spent more than four decades in the organization, including the past five as the big league skipper. Originally taking over midway through the 2016 season after the dismissal of Fredi Gonzalez, Snitker managed the club to a 72-90 showing in his first full season (2017) but has captured three consecutive division titles at the helm of a team that has played .578 ball during the regular season since 2018. The Braves are 222-162 during that time, and Snitker’s overall managerial record (in the Majors) stands at 353-317.

In his 40-plus years with the organization, Snitker has managed seven different minor league affiliates, had two different stints as the Major league bullpen coach (both in the 1980s) and served as the third base coach for both Gonzalez and Bobby Cox. He was voted National League Manager of the Year in 2018 and has since finished third and fourth, respectively, in subsequent Manager of the Year balloting.

Snitker’s Braves were bounced from the postseason in the first round both in 2018 and 2019, but he found postseason success in his third opportunity in 2020. The Braves swept both the Reds and the Marlins during the first two rounds of last year’s expanded postseason format before taking the eventual World Series Champion Dodgers to their limit in a seven-game National League Championship Series showdown.

Angels Acquire Jack Mayfield, Designate Robel Garcia

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The Angels announced Thursday that they’ve acquired infielder Jack Mayfield from the Braves in exchange for cash. Fellow infielder Robel Garcia was designated for assignment to open a 40-man roster spot. Atlanta designated Mayfield for assignment yesterday.

Mayfield, 30, is something of a familiar face for the Angels, as his lone big league experience has come over the past couple seasons with the division-rival Astros. He landed with Atlanta earlier in the offseason after being designated for assignment in Houston. New Angels general manager Perry Minasian previously worked with the Braves as an assistant GM under Alex Anthopoulos, so it seems likely that both Anthopoulos and Minasian were fans of Mayfield’s versatility and glovework during their time together in Atlanta.

The Astros gave Mayfield 112 Major League plate appearances across the past two seasons, but the resulting .170/.198/.283 batting line was obviously rather underwhelming. It’s a tiny sample of work, however, and Mayfield’s career .268/.325/.472 slash in parts of four Triple-A seasons (1224 plate appearances) creates some more reason for optimism.

With the Astros, Mayfield  served as a right-handed-hitting backup at second base, shortstop and third base, grading well defensively at each position. He also still has minor league options remaining, making him a possible Triple-A stash for an Angels club that looks quite strong defensively with Anthony Rendon, Jose Iglesias and David Fletcher lined up around the infield.

Garcia, 27, has gone from the Cubs to the Reds to the Mets to the Angels on waivers since last summer. He’s an interesting story, having washed out of affiliated ball for about four years before resurfacing with a pro club in Italy back in 2019. He caught the Cubs’ attention while playing in Europe and, after signing a minor league deal with Chicago, skyrocketed through their system while showing light-tower power but a huge susceptibility to strikeouts.

In 98 minor league games with the Cubs in ’19, Garcia posted a monstrous .284/.369/.586 slash with 27 home runs in 388 plate appearances. The power was clear to see, and it earned him a ticket to the big leagues just months after he’d been playing in Italy. The Cubs gave him 80 plate appearances at the MLB level, and he punched out in 35 of them, highlighting his contact issues. However, while Garcia only hit .208 with a .275 on-base percentage, he also slugged .500 on the strength of five homers, two doubles and two triples in that brief 80-plate appearance cup of coffee.

The fact that he’s been passed around the league this much already shows that many clubs are intrigued by the power but wary enough of the strikeouts that they can’t commit to a lasting 40-man spot. He does have minor league options remaining, so it’s possible he’ll land with yet another club after his latest DFA. The Angels have a week to trade him or try to pass him through outright waivers.

Braves Designate Jack Mayfield For Assignment

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The Braves announced that they’ve designated infielder Jack Mayfield for assignment in order to open a roster spot for their previously reported waiver claim of outfielder Guillermo Heredia from the Mets.

The 30-year-old Mayfield was claimed off waivers from the Astros organization earlier in the winter despite a shaky track record at the MLB level. In 112 plate appearances as a big leaguer, Mayfield has batted .170/.198/.283.

That said, Mayfield also carries a more robust .268/.325/.472 slash through 1224 plate appearances in Triple-A, and he’s a versatile defender with minor league options remaining. He’s graded out well in limited samples of work at second base, shortstop and third base, making him a potential bench piece or Triple-A stash for another club if they have the 40-man roster flexibility to take him on.

The Braves will have a week to trade Mayfield or attempt to pass him through outright waivers. If he does go unclaimed, he could be retained by the Braves and return to camp as a non-roster invitee.

Braves Claim Guillermo Heredia

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The Braves have claimed outfielder Guillermo Heredia off waivers from the Mets, Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic reports (Twitter link). New York had designated the 30-year-old for assignment over the weekend. By claiming Heredia, the Braves will become responsible for the entirety of the $1MM salary that he’d previously agreed upon in order to avoid an arbitration hearing with the Mets.

Heredia has spent parts of the past five seasons in the Major Leagues — mostly with the Mariners. Seattle traded him to Tampa Bay for the 2019 season, after which he was non-tendered and subsequently signed with the Pirates. The Mets claimed Heredia off waivers themselves back in August after a lackluster showing in Pittsburgh, and he went on to appear in seven games before season’s end.

Overall, Heredia slashed just .212/.278/.394 in 36 plate appearances between the two clubs. It was a small sample, to be sure, but Heredia’s prior work in the big leagues doesn’t give much more reason for optimism at the plate. He’s a career .239/.316/.344 batter in 1137 plate appearances across those four teams.

Heredia, however, is capable of playing all three outfield positions, has a minor league option remaining and does have a respectable line against left-handed pitching: .274/.337/.397. His right-handed bat will give the Braves some depth and a possible bench bat, though his skill set is somewhat similar to fellow recent waiver claim Phil Ervin. With Marcell Ozuna, Ronald Acuna Jr., Cristian Pache and Ender Inciarte all ahead of him on the depth chart, it seems likelier that he’ll be ticketed for Triple-A Gwinnett to begin the season than for Atlanta’s 26-man roster.

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