NPB’s Orix Buffaloes Sign Cody Thomas
The Orix Buffaloes of Japan’s Nippon Professional Baseball announced the signing of outfielder Cody Thomas this week. The Octagon client became a minor league free agent at the end of the 2023 season.
An Oklahoma product, Thomas joined the professional ranks in 2016 as a Dodger draftee. Los Angeles traded him to the A’s shortly before Spring Training in 2021. Oakland added him to the 40-man roster after that season to keep him out of the Rule 5 draft. Thomas reached the big leagues the following September.
The A’s gave Thomas brief MLB looks in each of the past two years. He made 10 appearances in 2022. Oakland designated the left-handed hitter for assignment but kept him in the organization after he cleared outright waivers. He made it back to the big leagues in July and got into 19 more games. Between the two seasons, he hit .250/.308/.333 with one homer over 78 plate appearances.
Oakland again waived Thomas in late August, sending him to the open market at year’s end. Rather than take a minor league contract, the 29-year-old heads to Japan. The Buffaloes are surely intrigued by the .292/.356/.585 batting line which Thomas has managed in parts of three Triple-A campaigns. Even in a very favorable Pacific Coast League hitting environment, that’s an impressive showing against minor league arms. He’ll look to carry that over against NPB pitching and could reemerge on the MLB radar a year or two from now.
Anthony Kay To Sign With NPB’s Yokohama BayStars
Left-hander Anthony Kay is signing with the Yokohama BayStars of Japan’s Nippon Professional Baseball, reports Robert Murray of FanSided (X link). It’ll be the first overseas stint for the CAA client.
Kay, 29 in March, is a former first-round pick of the Mets. Traded to the Blue Jays as a prospect in the Marcus Stroman deal, he debuted with Toronto in 2019. That kicked off a stretch of five seasons with some amount of MLB action. His largest workload came in 2021, when he logged 33 2/3 innings of 5.61 ERA ball.
The UCONN product remained with the Jays through the 2022 season. He bounced around the league last year, going to three different teams on waivers. Kay opened the season with the Cubs and briefly landed with the Mets at year’s end. During the postseason, the A’s claimed him. Oakland cut him loose a couple weeks later without any game action, sending him to the open market.
Kay has yet to find much MLB success. He owns a 5.59 ERA through 85 1/3 innings, working mostly in a long relief capacity. Middling control has been the primary culprit. Kay has walked upwards of 12% of batters faced in his MLB career. He handed out free passes at a 13.6% clip during his big league work last season and walked a nearly identical 13.7% of opponents over 37 1/3 innings in Triple-A.
Strike-throwing issues notwithstanding, Kay represents an intriguing flier for an NPB team. His fastball has averaged just under 95 MPH during his time in the majors. He has a reasonable 22.4% strikeout percentage in his big league career and fanned more than 31% of opposing hitters in Triple-A a year ago.
That ability to miss bats would’ve enabled Kay to find a minor league contract if he wanted to remain in affiliated ball. The opportunity in Japan allows him to lock in a salary that is surely above what he’d have made in Triple-A. He’ll take that avenue instead. If he pitches well in NPB, he could reemerge as a target for major league teams a year or two from now.
Red Sox Promote Paul Toboni To Assistant GM
The Red Sox are promoting Paul Toboni to assistant general manager, as first reported by Chris Cotillo of MassLive. The 33-year-old had held the title of vice president of amateur scouting and player development.
Toboni was among the internal options whom the Sox considered in their search for a new front office leader after dismissing Chaim Bloom. He’d have had to jump a number of people on the organizational hierarchy to land that position, which always made him a long shot for the top job. Nevertheless, he lands a promotion a few months later under new chief baseball officer Craig Breslow.
Boston now has four assistant GMs: Toboni, Raquel Ferreira, Eddie Romero and Mike Groopman. Toboni moved quickly into the upper ranks of the organization. A collegiate infielder at Cal, he was hired by the Sox as a scout in 2015. By 2020, he’d been tabbed to orchestrate the club’s amateur drafts — a role he held through 2022.
While the Sox have a number of assistant general managers, they don’t have anyone currently holding the GM title. Breslow suggested at the time of his hiring as chief baseball officer that he wasn’t in a rush to tab a GM, who would serve as his top assistant in the front office.
Mariners Agree To Minor League Deals With Kirby Snead, Jhonathan Diaz
The Mariners have signed left-handers Jhonathan Diaz and Kirby Snead to minor league contracts, according to Matt Eddy of Baseball America. Both pitchers come from AL West rivals who had outrighted them at the end of last season.
Diaz had spent the past few years with the Angels. The 27-year-old got to the majors every season from 2021-23 but hasn’t tallied more than four appearances in any year. He pitched seven innings over four games last September, allowing 11 runs (eight earned) with seven walks and four strikeouts.
A swing option, Diaz started eight of 38 appearances with Triple-A Salt Lake. He logged 87 innings of 4.55 ERA ball for the Bees. Diaz kept the ball on the ground at a solid 48% clip but had middling strikeout (21.5%) and walk (11.1%) numbers. He’ll likely open next season with the M’s top affiliate in Tacoma as multi-inning depth.
Snead, 29, is a more traditional lefty specialist. Originally a Blue Jays draftee, he made a brief MLB debut with Toronto in 2021. The Jays included him as the fourth piece in the Matt Chapman deal with the A’s the following offseason. Snead pitched 44 2/3 innings for Oakland in 2022, allowing a 5.84 ERA.
A shoulder strain cost him the first three months of the 2023 season. Upon his return, he got into 15 MLB games. Snead allowed seven runs (six earned) across 11 2/3 frames. He fanned nine and issued six walks. The Florida product had a tough run in a very hitter-friendly Triple-A setting. Pitching for the A’s top affiliate in Las Vegas, he was tagged for a 7.59 ERA in 21 2/3 innings. He walked over 14% of opposing hitters.
Snead’s results the past two years haven’t been encouraging, but he managed a 1.58 ERA in 40 Triple-A innings back in 2021. He held left-handed batters to a .141/.222/.203 showing in 73 plate appearances that season. The M’s will see if a change in environment can help him recapture something closer to that ’21 form.
L.A. District Attorney’s Office Will Not File Felony Charges Against Julio Urias; Case Referred For Misdemeanor Consideration
The Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office has determined not to file felony charges against free agent pitcher Julio Urías, reports Alden González of ESPN (X link). The investigation has been forwarded to the L.A. City Attorney’s Office to determine whether misdemeanor charges are warranted.
Urías, then a member of the Dodgers, was arrested and booked on a felony charge of “corporal injury on a spouse” on September 3. According to ESPN, police alleged in the arrest report that Urías was arrested after a physical altercation between a man and a woman following an MLS game. Law enforcement turned the case over to the District Attorney’s Office in mid-December.
Prosecutors have evidently determined not to proceed with the felony case. Whether misdemeanor charges are filed will determine if the criminal proceedings continue. The decision not to bring felony charges is not a declaration that no assault of any kind was committed. Jack Harris of the L.A. Times reports that the D.A.’s office’s charge evaluation worksheet claims that Urías “pushed his wife against a fence and pulled her by the hair or shoulders” but stated that “neither the Victim’s injuries nor the Defendant’s criminal history justify a felony filing.”
MLB will presumably wait on the resolution of the criminal matter before deciding whether discipline is warranted. The league can impose discipline even in the absence of criminal charges under the Joint Domestic Violence policy with the Players Association.
In 2019, MLB suspended Urías for 20 games after determining he violated the domestic violence policy at that time. (He was arrested on the 2019 incident but did not face criminal charges after the DA’s Office agreed to defer prosecution.) No player has yet been suspended twice for violations of the domestic violence policy.
Urías spent the remainder of the 2023 season on administrative leave. He became a free agent at the start of the offseason thanks to his six years of service time. He finished the year with a 4.60 ERA in 21 starts.
MLBTR Poll: Josh Hader’s Market
There’s no doubt Josh Hader is going to land the largest contract of any reliever this offseason. The more interesting question is whether he’ll establish a new high-water mark for bullpen arms.
Edwin Díaz became the first reliever to cross the nine-figure threshold. The right-hander re-signed with the Mets on a five-year, $102MM pact shortly before free agency opened during the 2022-23 offseason. (Deferrals reduced the contract’s valuation for luxury tax purposes to a little above $93MM.) That set a clear target for Hader’s camp.
Andy Martino of SNY wrote last week that teams engaged with Hader believe he’s shooting for that record. It makes for an interesting comparison between the two pitchers. Díaz was a year younger than Hader is now. The former was going into his age-29 season, while the latter turns 30 not long after Opening Day.
Hader has been a little better from a run prevention perspective. In 388 2/3 career innings, he owns a 2.50 ERA. Díaz had a 2.93 mark over 399 1/3 frames entering free agency (which is still the case because he missed the 2023 season after injuring his knee celebrating a triumph in the World Baseball Classic). While Hader showed a willingness to work multiple innings early in his career, he made clear that he preferred to occupy a single-inning role in recent seasons. Their overall body of work is about the same, while their platform-year ERAs are quite similar.
Díaz allowed a 1.31 ERA over 62 innings in 2022; Hader surrendered 1.28 earned runs per nine through 56 1/3 frames a year ago. There’s very little difference between those two numbers, although Hader probably has the more impressive figure when placed in league context. The league average ERA for relievers jumped from 3.86 to 4.17, likely reflecting both a somewhat livelier ball and rule changes implemented over the 2022-23 offseason (i.e. shift limitations) designed to tilt the game more toward offense.
Of course, there’s far more to a pitcher’s performance than keeping runs off the board. That’s particularly true for relievers, whose numbers can be skewed greatly by one poor outing (or simply a subpar defense). Díaz is probably more dominant on a pitch-for-pitch basis. While Hader has the slight edge in career strikeout rate, his approximate 37% mark in each of the past two seasons are his lowest since his rookie year. That’s still an elite number, to be clear, but it’s well shy of the laughable 50.2% of hitters whom Díaz fanned in 2022.
Opponents swung through nearly a quarter of all pitches that Díaz threw in his platform year. Hader’s 15.6% swinging strike percentage from last season was “merely” excellent, the 18th-highest rate in MLB among pitchers with 50+ innings. Díaz’s mark not only led the majors in 2022, it was three percentage points clear of second-place Andrés Muñoz. Díaz also throws a bit harder. He averaged north of 99 MPH on his fastball and nearly 91 MPH on his slider. Hader’s 96 MPH fastball and 86 MPH slider are more conventional velocity figures, although they’ve each proven almost unhittable.
The Padres made Hader a qualifying offer. New York re-signed Díaz before the deadline to make the QO but surely would have done so if they hadn’t agreed to a long-term deal. The Mets knew that re-signing Díaz was waiving their ability to collect the draft compensation they’d have received if he departed, which was presumably factored into the contract price.
Unlike the Mets, San Diego seems content to take the compensatory pick. The Padres have cut payroll and suggested they’re not going to spend at the top of the market. There haven’t been many suitors to emerge publicly. The Orioles were linked to Hader early in the offseason. They signed Craig Kimbrel to a $13MM deal and now profile as a long shot for a top-of-the-market relief splash. Teams like the Yankees, Dodgers and Rangers have been mentioned as speculative fits but without firm ties. Joel Sherman of the New York Post suggested this morning the Mets weren’t likely to be in on Hader.
Hader is one of the three to five best relievers in the sport. His camp has surely received calls that have gone unreported. Yet it’s a little surprising there haven’t been more public revelations on his market.
How will things play out? Will Hader top Díaz and where will he end up?
Will Josh Hader Surpass A $102MM Guarantee?
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No. 59% (5,956)
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Yes. 41% (4,193)
Total votes: 10,149
Where Will Hader Sign?
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Dodgers 21% (2,568)
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Rangers 17% (2,143)
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Yankees 16% (1,980)
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Phillies 12% (1,559)
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Cubs 10% (1,212)
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Giants 7% (847)
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Blue Jays 5% (656)
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Other (specify in comments) 5% (587)
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Angels 4% (533)
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Orioles 3% (388)
Total votes: 12,473
Billy Gardner Passes Away
Former MLB infielder and manager Billy Gardner passed away last week at age 96, according to the Hall of Fame (X link). An obituary is available courtesy of The Day in Gardner’s hometown of New London, Connecticut.
Gardner, who was born in 1927, signed with the then-New York Giants out of high school. He played in their minor league ranks for almost a decade before reaching the majors in 1954. The right-handed hitter played sporadically at the MLB level from 1954-55, appearing in 121 games. He won a ring as a rookie when the Giants swept the Indians in the 1954 Fall Classic, although he didn’t make an appearance in the series. In April ’56, New York sold his contract to the Orioles. Gardner immediately stepped in as Baltimore’s starting second baseman.
He would have his greatest success as a player over the next four seasons. In 1957, Gardner led the American League in plate appearances (718) and doubles (36). While his overall .262/.325/.356 batting line was a little worse than league average, his durability and defensive reputation earned him some down-ballot MVP votes. Gardner continued to play regularly in Baltimore through 1959. The O’s flipped him across town to the Washington Senators in 1960. Gardner tallied 649 plate appearances with a .257/.313/.363 slash.
That wound up being the franchise’s final season in D.C. During the 1960-61 offseason, the organization uprooted to Minnesota and rebranded as the Twins. Gardner was briefly part of the original Twins team and was traded to the Yankees for lefty Danny McDevitt midseason. It proved a fruitful trade for him personally, as he finished the year in the Bronx and collected a second World Series title. He made one appearance in what would ultimately be a five-game triumph over the Reds.
Gardner closed his playing career in Boston after being traded yet again. He finished with a .237/.292/.327 line over parts of 10 MLB seasons. He hit 41 homers and 159 doubles in a bit under 3900 trips to the plate. Gardner played more than 8000 innings on defense, with the vast majority of that time coming at the keystone.
The end of his playing days didn’t mark the finale of his baseball career. Gardner transitioned to coaching with the Red Sox after his playing career concluded. He worked his way to an MLB staff with the Expos before rejoining the Twins as a coach in 1981.
Within a couple months, he was tabbed as manager to replace Johnny Goryl. Gardner held the managerial role in Minneapolis for parts of five seasons. The team only got to .500 once (an 81-81 record in 1984) and he was dismissed midway through the ’85 campaign. He got one more managerial opportunity, leading the 1987 Royals to a 62-64 mark before being replaced by John Wathan. His teams finished with a 330-417 record (44.2% win percentage).
MLBTR sends our condolences to Gardner’s family, friends and loved ones.
Cardinals’ President Discusses Payroll Outlook
The Cardinals were among the offseason’s most aggressive teams early. St. Louis signed Sonny Gray, Kyle Gibson and Lance Lynn within the winter’s first couple weeks. That accomplished their goal of bringing in three veteran starters. Things have been quiet since November, as they’ve traded away Tyler O’Neill and swapped outfielder Richie Palacios for middle reliever Andrew Kittredge.
It seems St. Louis’ early flurry on the rotation front will represent the main part of their offseason activity. St. Louis president Bill DeWitt III tells John Denton of MLB.com the club doesn’t anticipate taking on much more payroll this offseason. While DeWitt left open the possibility for reinvesting in the MLB roster after subtracting some amount of money in trade, he implied they’re near the limit of their financial comfort zone.
“Look, I think we’re always open to improving our club within reason, but, you know, we’ve already made some big moves,” DeWitt told Denton. “With payroll, it has to be thought of in the context of the whole business with all the investments we’re making in other aspects of the product on the field. … So, we are making a pretty big push by raising payroll and having revenues somewhat challenged (a reference to the ongoing Diamond Sports Group bankruptcy that could impact their local broadcasting deal with Bally Sports Midwest). It’s actually quite a commitment. Now, is there a little more room there? It depends on the deal.”
That the Cardinals are near their spending target doesn’t come as a major surprise. Roster Resource projects the organization’s 2024 player payroll around $177MM. That’s almost exactly where they opened the 2023 campaign, per Cot’s Baseball Contracts. President of baseball operations John Mozeliak essentially declared at the outset of the offseason that the Cards would have a similar starting payroll in ’24 as they did a year ago.
It’s fair to wonder if the organization has done enough to get back to playoff competitiveness. Lynn is a rebound candidate after giving up 44 home runs. Gibson has been a reliable innings-eater but typically turns in back-of-the-rotation results. Gray should be a significant upgrade, but the Cardinals entered last season with Jordan Montgomery and still didn’t have nearly enough starting pitching.
As things stand, it looks as if they’ll open next year with a rotation comprising Gray, Miles Mikolas, Gibson, Lynn and Steven Matz. Young left-handers Zack Thompson and Matthew Liberatore could push Matz for a rotation spot. The Cardinals could still look for a lower-cost addition to the relief corps to deepen the group in front of Giovanny Gallegos, JoJo Romero and Ryan Helsley.
Possible Left-Handed Power Targets For Nationals
The Nationals haven’t made many notable acquisitions this offseason. They signed middle reliever Dylan Floro and former top prospect Nick Senzel to affordable one-year pacts and plucked infielder Nasim Nuñez from the Marlins in the Rule 5 draft. It’s not all that surprising that a still-rebuilding Washington team coming off a 71-91 showing hasn’t been aggressive, but GM Mike Rizzo had suggested at the Winter Meetings the team was open to a multi-year free agent pickup “in the right situation” (link via Mark Zuckerman of MASNsports.com).
With all of $4.25MM in free agent spending committed to Floro and Senzel, there should still be financial room at Rizzo’s disposal. That doesn’t guarantee they’ll hand out any kind of significant deal, particularly with a lack of great options in the middle tiers of free agency. Yet it’d be a surprise if the Nationals were finished with their offseason activity. One area where some kind of addition seems likely: a left-handed bat.
Both the Talk Nats blog and MLB.com’s Jessica Camerato suggested in late December that Washington was looking to bring in left-handed power. The Nats’ best lefty or switch-hitting bats — CJ Abrams, Keibert Ruiz, Luis García and Jake Alu — all have middling pop. Only the Guardians had a lower ISO (slugging minus batting average) against right-handed pitching in 2023. Acquiring a lefty power source makes plenty of sense.
It’s hard to see Washington spending at the level it’d take to land Cody Bellinger. Even though he’s young enough to be a veteran cornerstone for a team that could more realistically seek to compete by 2025, the Nationals have a pair of top center field prospects in James Wood and Dylan Crews. They’re also still faced with the MASN rights uncertainty and on the hook for significant money to Patrick Corbin, Stephen Strasburg and Max Scherzer’s deferrals in the short term. It’s probably not the right time for a top-of-the-market splash.
We’ll look a few tiers down. Where might that search lead Rizzo and company?
Free Agency
- Brandon Belt: Belt, even going into his age-36 season, should command the loftiest guarantee of the players in this group. He’s coming off a very strong offensive showing for the Blue Jays. He hit 19 homers and walked more than 15% of the time he stepped to the plate, leading to a .254/.369/.490 line through 404 plate appearances. Favorable matchups played a role in that strong rate production; Toronto limited him to 39 PA’s against left-handed pitching. Washington could deploy him similarly at designated hitter and/or first base, where only Joey Meneses (coming off a league average offensive showing) stands in the way.
- Joc Pederson: The Blue Jays are the only club publicly tied to Pederson this winter. He’s coming off a middling season in which he hit .235/.348/.416 with 15 homers through 425 plate appearances for the Giants. That’s not huge power production at first glance, but Pederson has five 20+ homer seasons on his résumé (four with at least 25 longballs). He made hard contact — an exit velocity of at least 95 MPH — on more than half his batted balls last season, a top 15 rate in the majors. Pederson is a limited player. He’s best served as a DH and is mostly limited to facing right-handed pitching. He still has life in the bat, though, even if last year’s results were underwhelming.
- Eddie Rosario: There hasn’t been any public chatter on Rosario since the Braves declined a $9MM option at the start of the offseason. He should command a one-year deal at a salary that’s not too far below that rate. Rosario is coming off a reasonably effective year. He hit 21 homers with a .255/.305/.450 line in 516 trips to the plate. That was the fourth time in his career that he surpassed 20 longballs. Rosario is mostly limited to left field but rated reasonably well with the glove last year. His performance varies wildly within seasons, but he tends to produce roughly league average numbers by the end.
- Joey Gallo: Gallo hit 21 homers in just 332 plate appearances a season ago. The flaw in his game, huge swing-and-miss rates, has only magnified in recent seasons. Gallo hasn’t hit above the Mendoza line since 2019. He’s hitting .168 with a .290 on-base percentage in 742 plate appearances over the last two campaigns. There are a lot of uncompetitive at-bats. Few players fit the profile of a “left-handed power bat” quite like Gallo, though.
Trade Possibilities
It’s tougher to identify great fits on the trade market in the absence of many clear rebuilding teams. The Nationals could theoretically take a bigger swing at a player with an extended control window (e.g. Alec Burleson, Jesús Sánchez). That’s not an easy task to pull off, particularly since Washington is probably reluctant to part with significant prospect talent. There are a few veteran bats who’d make some sense as speculative trade candidates for a lesser return.
- Josh Bell: Bell had a productive stint over his year and a half in Washington from 2021-22. He hit .278/.363/.483 in just over 1000 plate appearances before being included in the Juan Soto trade. Bell has changed uniforms twice more since that deadline blockbuster, signing with the Guardians before being flipped to the Marlins last summer. The switch-hitting first baseman struggled in Cleveland (.233/.318/.383) but generally turned things around in South Florida (.270/.338/.480). That reasonably strong finish wasn’t enough for Bell to forego a $16.5MM player option for the upcoming season. It stands to reason the Fish would be happy to get out from under the bulk of that deal if the Nationals were interested in a reunion.
- Seth Brown: A’s GM David Forst indicated at the beginning of the offseason that he didn’t expect to trade Brown. That’s presumably more about Oakland feeling that other teams won’t meet their ask than an indication they wouldn’t consider offers on a 31-year-old platoon player. Brown is a career .237/.305/.471 hitter against right-handed pitching. He can play first base or the corner outfield and is under arbitration control for three seasons. MLBTR contributor Matt Swartz forecasts him for a $2.4MM salary.
- Mike Yastrzemski: Yastrzemski is projected for a $7.3MM salary in his second-to-last arbitration season. He hit 15 homers in 381 plate appearances a year ago, running a .233/.330/.445 line overall. The Giants aren’t likely to urgently shop Yastrzemski, but the singing of Jung Hoo Lee pushes him from center field to the corner opposite Michael Conforto. Trading Mitch Haniger paved the way for a Lee, Conforto, Yastrzemski outfield supplemented by righty-hitting Austin Slater, but the Giants also have Luis Matos, Wade Meckler and Heliot Ramos as options on the grass.
Minor League Deal Candidates
Each of these players has turned in above-average offense from the left side in their careers. None hit free agency under great circumstances. Choi had an injury-plagued 2023 campaign that kept him to 39 games without much production. The other four players were either non-tendered or elected free agency after an outright.
Meadows has missed most of the past two seasons attending to anxiety; it is unclear if he’ll be in position to return next year. Ford and Vogelbach are largely limited to DH, while Walsh hasn’t been the same since he was diagnosed with thoracic outlet syndrome in 2022. None of these players are likely to be Washington’s top acquisition, but they’d be viable depth targets if the Nats wanted a second lefty bat on a minor league or low-cost MLB pact.
Brent Suter Drawing Some Rotation Interest
Eight teams are involved in the market for free agent pitcher Brent Suter, reports Robert Murray of FanSided. Murray adds that a few of those clubs have told the left-hander’s camp they’d be interested in stretching him back out as a starter.
Suter has worked in relief for the last five years. His only consistent rotation run came in 2017-18 when he combined to make 32 starts in 42 outings for the Brewers. Suter had generally solid results over that stretch. He posted a 4.09 ERA while holding opponents to a .259/.300/.429 slash in 165 innings as a starter. Milwaukee nevertheless kicked him into relief as they continued developing starters with higher upside than the soft-tossing Suter provided.
The Harvard product has quietly turned in consistently strong numbers in relief as well. He has topped 60 innings while allowing between three and four earned runs per nine in each of the last three seasons. That’s despite hitter-friendly home environments. After pitching parts of seven years in Milwaukee, he was claimed off waivers by the Rockies last offseason.
Suter didn’t have any issues acclimating to Coors Field. He turned in a 3.38 ERA in 69 1/3 innings. As has always been the case, he did so without missing many bats. Suter struck out 18.8% of batters on a modest 9.3% swinging strike rate. He did a solid job avoiding walks and keeping the ball on the ground. Suter also proved one of the toughest pitchers for opponents to square up, a skill he has shown throughout his career.
The 34-year-old clearly has the ability to be a successful reliever. There’d be more of a leap of faith in projecting him as a starter. However, as Murray points out, Suter has effectively handled hitters from either side of the dish. Since the start of 2021, he has held right-handed batters to a .250/.309/.376 slash in 586 plate appearances. Lefties own a .236/.321/.399 mark over 291 trips. That should keep opponents from stacking a lineup with right-handed bats if Suter were tabbed as a starter. He also has the command to hold up for multiple innings and a traditional four-pitch mix (four-seam, sinker, changeup, slider).
A few former relievers have gotten chances to start as free agents. Michael Lorenzen made that jump two years ago. Seth Lugo had a very good season out of the rotation with the Padres, positioning him for a three-year pact with Kansas City in a return trip to free agency this offseason. The Braves are considering that possibility with Reynaldo López. Perhaps Suter will get a chance to join that group, although he doesn’t throw nearly as hard as any of that trio. There haven’t been any teams publicly linked to him in free agency. Colorado held onto him despite interest at the trade deadline, in part because Rox GM Bill Schmidt noted in July the team had interest in an extension.