MLBTR’s Anthony Franco held a live chat today, exclusively for Front Office subscribers.
The White Sox are in agreement with Mike Clevinger on a minor league deal, reports Robert Murray of FanSided. The ACES client receives a non-roster invite to Spring Training.
Clevinger returns to Chicago for what’ll be a third straight season. He signed a $12MM deal with the Sox over the 2022-23 offseason. That was a generally successful pickup, as he turned in a 3.77 earned run average through 24 starts. That came with a below-average strikeout rate for a second consecutive season, leading to a quieter market last winter. Clevinger remained unsigned beyond Opening Day. He eventually returned to Chicago on a $4MM deal.
As a result of the late signing, the veteran righty agreed to start the season in the minors. That afforded him a few weeks to build his arm into game shape. The White Sox recalled him in early May. He took four turns through the rotation, allowing 13 runs (12 earned) across 16 frames. Elbow inflammation shelved him for a couple months. Clevinger was building back from that when the Sox announced in late July that he’d undergo season-ending surgery to address a disc issue in his neck.
The injury-plagued season limited Clevinger to minor league offers as he enters his age-34 campaign. He’s clearly comfortable with the White Sox, where there’s plenty of opportunity in the rotation. Chicago has added Martín Pérez and Bryse Wilson on one-year deals this offseason. No other starter on their 40-man roster has even reached one year of major league service. Clevinger joins Justin Dunn and Jonathan Heasley as non-roster invitees who have MLB experience.
The Mariners are in agreement with Rowdy Tellez on a minor league deal with an invite to MLB camp, reports Jon Heyman of the New York Post. Tellez is represented by Primo Sports Group.
It’s a rebound opportunity for the 29-year-old first baseman. Tellez signed with the Pirates last offseason on a $3.2MM free agent deal. He spent most of the season as Pittsburgh’s starting first baseman. He had an up-and-down year. Tellez limped to a .177/.239/.223 line through the first two months. He caught fire once the summer got underway. Tellez raked at a .310/.346/.533 clip between the start of June and the end of August. His numbers crashed back to earth in September, when he hit .116/.255/.209 across 51 plate appearances.
Pittsburgh released Tellez in late September. That controversially came just before he was set to reach his 425th plate appearance, which would have triggered a $200K bonus in his contract. While it’s likely that played a part in the team’s decision, Tellez’s late-season slump dropped his overall numbers back below replacement level. He finished the year with a .243/.299/.392 line with 13 homers across 421 trips to the plate.
Tellez has been a below-average hitter in three of the past four seasons. He carries a .229/.301/.417 slash in nearly 1700 plate appearances since the start of 2021. Tellez had mashed in small samples with the Blue Jays in 2018 and ’20, but he’s a career .234/.303/.436 hitter. He’s a subpar baserunner and defensive first baseman, which puts a lot of pressure on the bat.
Luke Raley will get most of the first base work against right-handed pitching. Mitch Garver and Mitch Haniger each figure to get designated hitter reps as they look to bounce back from rough seasons. Tellez doesn’t have much of a path to an Opening Day roster spot unless someone suffers an injury. He could open the season with Triple-A Tacoma if opportunities don’t arise during Spring Training.
The Pirates added to the back of their rotation this evening with the $5.25MM agreement with Andrew Heaney. Robert Murray of FanSided writes that the Bucs pivoted to Heaney after first making an unsuccessful push to bring Jose Quintana back.
According to Murray, the Pirates offered Quintana a stronger guarantee than the sum which they eventually agreed to pay Heaney. Quintana declined the offer. It’s not clear what kind of contract the 36-year-old southpaw is seeking. It’s unlikely that Pittsburgh would circle back after landing Heaney. Quintana and Kyle Gibson are the top two unsigned starting pitchers.
Quintana spent the first half of the 2022 season in Pittsburgh. He’d signed a $2MM deal as a buy-low free agent with a then-rebuilding Bucs club. The Pirates hit on the common hope for rebuilding teams of turning a low-cost free agent pickup into a midseason trade chip. Quintana turned in a 3.50 ERA across 20 starts in black and gold. The Bucs flipped him to the Cardinals alongside reliever Chris Stratton for righty Johan Oviedo and minor league first baseman Malcom Nuñez. Oviedo lost last season to Tommy John surgery but could find himself at the back of Derek Shelton’s starting staff this year.
A strong finish in St. Louis positioned Quintana much more strongly for his return to the market. He landed a two-year, $26MM guarantee from the Mets over the 2022-23 offseason. It turned out to be a good investment on New York’s part. While he missed a good chunk of the ’23 season, Quintana was a key rotation piece last year. He fired 170 1/3 frames of 3.75 ERA ball. He chipped in another 14 1/3 innings of 3.14 ERA ball in the postseason — including six scoreless in a winner-take-all Game 3 against Milwaukee in the Wild Card series.
Effective as Quintana was last year, the Mets haven’t seemed eager to bring him back. The New York Post’s Mike Puma reported shortly after the Frankie Montas injury that the Mets hadn’t reciprocated the veteran lefty’s eagerness for a reunion. Francys Romero suggested yesterday that the Mets, Padres and Rangers could show interest. The Padres have already added Nick Pivetta and Kyle Hart to the back of their rotation. The Rangers seem unlikely to seriously pursue Quintana unless they first offload salary in a trade, as they’re projected within $6MM of the luxury tax threshold. The Post’s Jon Heyman wrote this evening that the Mets have “limited” interest in Quintana because of concerns about his underlying numbers.
That’s presumably mostly about his lack of swing-and-miss. Quintana posted an 18.8% strikeout rate in consecutive seasons. He generated swinging strikes on only 8.5% of his offerings last year. It’s the third consecutive year in which Quintana succeeded despite middling whiff rates. He’s a quality strike-thrower who got grounders at a solid 47.4% clip and has rattled off a trio of consecutive sub-4.00 ERA showings.
Former major league reliever Scott Sauerbeck has passed away, the Pirates announced on Thursday morning. He was 53.
Sauerbeck was a Cincinnati native who attended Miami University in Ohio. The Mets selected him in the 23rd round of the 1994 draft. Sauerbeck pitched four years in the New York system. They lost him to the Pirates in the ’98 Rule 5 draft. The 6’3″ southpaw would spend the majority of his career in Pittsburgh.
As a rookie, Sauerbeck fired 67 2/3 innings with an even 2.00 earned run average. He tossed a career-high 75 2/3 frames the following season, posting a 4.04 ERA. He struggled in ’01 but rebounded with arguably his best season the year after that. Sauerbeck pitched to a 2.30 ERA across 62 2/3 innings while striking out nearly 28% of opposing hitters.
Pittsburgh dealt Sauerbeck to the Red Sox at the ’03 trade deadline. While he struggled down the stretch in Boston, the deal allowed him to pitch in the postseason for the only time. He made one appearance in that year’s ALCS loss to the Yankees. Sauerbeck missed the following season to injury. He concluded his career with brief stints in Cleveland and Oakland.
Over parts of seven seasons, Sauerbeck pitched to a 3.82 ERA. He recorded 20 wins, struck out 389 hitters, and finished 98 games. MLBTR sends our condolences to his family, loved ones, former teammates and friends.
Major League Baseball and ESPN each opted out of their broadcasting contract covering the 2026-28 seasons. Barring a renegotiation, the upcoming season will be the final year of their partnership. Evan Drellich and Andrew Marchand of The Athletic reported the news before either MLB or ESPN announced it.
MLB released a statement reading in part:
“We have had a long and mutually beneficial partnership with ESPN that dates back to its first MLB game in 1990. Unfortunately in recent years, we have seen ESPN scale back their baseball coverage and investment in a way that is not consistent with the sport’s appeal or performance on their platform.
Given that MLB provides strong viewership, valuable demographics, and the exclusive right to cover unique events like the Home Run Derby, ESPN’s demand to reduce rights fees is simply unacceptable. As a result, we have mutually agreed to terminate our agreement. … The positive energy around the sport has also led to significant interest from both traditional media companies and streaming services who would like to obtain rights to MLB games. We will be exploring those opportunities for a new agreement which would start in the 2026 season following the conclusion of ESPN’s agreement at the end of this year.”
ESPN said in a statement of its own that it “applied the same discipline and fiscal responsibility that has built ESPN’s industry-leading live events portfolio. … As we have been throughout the process, we remain open to exploring new ways to serve MLB fans across our platforms beyond 2025.”
Clearly, the contract’s collapse stems from a disagreement on rights fees. Drellich and Marchand write that ESPN would have paid roughly $550MM annually had it not triggered an opt-out by March 1. The broadcast company sought to renegotiate, pointing to the much lower fees paid by Apple and Roku on its own deals. Apple pays $85MM annually for a pair of Friday night games that are carried on Apple TV+. Roku is paying $10MM per season for the right to broadcast one game on Sunday mornings.
ESPN’s television package was much more robust. The network carried the Sunday night game each week of the regular season (the only game in that time slot), the Home Run Derby, and the Wild Card round of the playoffs. That’s far more valuable than Apple’s pair of non-exclusive Friday night games or Roku’s Sunday morning slot. It’s not clear how far ESPN wanted to cut fees on a new deal, but that wasn’t of interest to the league.
Drellich and Marchand relay a memo that MLB commissioner Rob Manfred sent to the league’s owners explaining the decision. In addition to differentiating between ESPN’s package and those of Apple and Roku, Manfred wrote that MLB has “not been pleased with the minimal coverage that MLB has received on ESPN’s platforms over the past several years outside of the actual live game coverage.” The commissioner wrote that he did “not think it’s beneficial for us to accept a smaller deal to remain on a shrinking platform.”
Manfred indicated that MLB has begun discussions with other platforms. ESPN had carried Sunday Night Baseball since 1990 and the Home Run Derby since ’93. The current contract was negotiated in 2021.
The Mariners spent most of the offseason looking to address the infield. They eventually made a pair of relatively small free agent pickups. Donovan Solano was brought in as a right-handed platoon partner for Luke Raley at first base. Seattle surprisingly re-signed last year’s second baseman Jorge Polanco after the worst season of his career. The M’s are attributing that dip mostly to knee issues that required postseason surgery.
Polanco is moving to third base. That’s an effort to reduce how much he’ll move laterally to hopefully put less stress on his knees. The Mariners needed to do something at third base. Josh Rojas, who’d provided very little offensively after the first month of last season, was non-tendered. Polanco’s return will hopefully provide a boost at the hot corner, but it leaves second base open. There’ll likely be a camp battle between a veteran utilityman, a couple players with limited big league experience, and perhaps one of the organization’s top prospects.
A six-year major league veteran, Moore has easily the most experience of anyone in the competition. He has been a productive role player for Seattle. Moore typically plays in over 100 games per season while bouncing around the diamond. He takes a lot of walks and brings some right-handed pop, but his batting averages have hovered around the Mendoza line. He’s a career .206/.316/.384 hitter. He posted a .201/.320/.367 line with 10 homers and 32 stolen bases across a career-high 441 plate appearances last year.
Park-adjusted metrics like wRC+ and OPS+ had his overall offensive output right around league average — a reflection of how difficult it is to hit at T-Mobile Park. Moore’s splits are stark. He hit .249/.362/.478 away from Seattle but mustered only a .144/.269/.234 slash line at home. He was also far better against left-handed pitching. Moore hit .229/.352/.410 when he held the platoon advantage, compared to a .183/.299/.339 mark against righties.
Daniel Kramer of MLB.com wrote last night that Moore was the frontrunner for the starting job, though the M’s haven’t made a final decision. The 32-year-old has never had one settled position. He played all four infield spots and in left field last year. Moore has logged over 100 career innings at every position aside from catcher. He’s miscast at shortstop and in center field but plays solid defense everywhere else. Both Defensive Runs Saved and Statcast have credited him as an above-average defender in his nearly 1100 career innings at the keystone.
Bliss, 25, is a former second-round pick by Arizona whom the Mariners acquired in the Paul Sewald trade. He’s coming off a strong year at Triple-A Tacoma. The Auburn product hit .269/.377/.456 with 12 homers and 50 stolen bases (albeit with 13 times caught stealing) over 93 games. He drew walks at an excellent 14.1% clip against an average 22.4% strikeout rate. The Mariners called him up in late May.
Over his first 33 MLB contests, the righty-swinging Bliss hit .222/.290/.397. He hit a couple homers and swiped five bases, but he had a tough time making contact. Bliss struck out in 22 of his 71 plate appearances (a 31% rate) with a huge 16.5% swinging strike rate. That was a small sample in his first look at MLB pitching, so some struggles are to be expected, but the M’s optioned him back to Triple-A for the final two months of the season.
Listed at 5’7″ and 165 pounds, Bliss isn’t going to be a prototypical slugger. His average exit velocity and hard contact rate at both the Triple-A and MLB levels were solid, though. He has more power than it might seem at first glance. He’s a good athlete with decent strike zone discipline. The biggest question is whether the bat-to-ball skills will develop enough to make him a regular.
While Moore provides a ton of defensive flexibility, Bliss has a more limited profile. He played exclusively second base in the majors. Bliss has played on the left side of the infield (mostly shortstop) in the minors, but his arm strength is a question. He’s fast enough that the Mariners could eventually get him some work in the outfield, though his professional experience there consists of two minor league games in left field. Bliss still has a pair of options, so he’s likelier to end up back in Triple-A if he doesn’t win the second base job.
Young, 21, was Seattle’s first-round pick in 2022. He has ranked among Baseball America’s Top 100 overall prospects in all three professional seasons. Young has primarily played shortstop in the minors, but he started 37 games at second base with Double-A Arkansas last season. Barring injury to J.P. Crawford, Young figures to break into the majors as a second baseman.
Could that be as soon as Opening Day? President of baseball operations Jerry Dipoto has left the door open. “We are open to the idea that if any of our young players — if we feel like they have the ability to impact us in a meaningful way — show us that this is their time, we’re just going to let them run,” Dipoto said (via Kramer).
Young is coming off a strong Double-A season. He hit .271/.369/.390 with a robust 12.1% walk rate and a modest 15.8% strikeout percentage. While he only hit nine homers, he has an advanced hit tool and plate discipline. BA credits him as a potential plus hitter with fringe power who could play an above-average second base.
The lefty hitter has no Triple-A experience. The conventional path would be for him to begin the season in Tacoma with an eye towards a midseason promotion. That’s the likeliest outcome, but a big performance in Spring Training might accelerate the timeline.
Rivas, a switch-hitter, is likelier to wind up as a depth infielder than a regular. He reached the majors last year for the first time as a 26-year-old, hitting .233/.333/.274 in 43 games. Rivas posted big numbers in Triple-A. He turned in a .296/.441/.424 slash behind a massive 20.7% walk rate. He’ll work plenty of free passes but has limited power. Rivas can play shortstop and is better suited as a utility player. With two minor league options, he’ll likely bounce on and off the active roster.
Seattle acquired the 29-year-old Mastrobuoni in a DFA trade with the Cubs last month. He’s a .219/.279/.263 hitter over parts of three seasons. He’s unlikely to play regularly but could get occasional work around the infield if he holds onto his 40-man roster spot. He still has an option remaining.
Feb. 20: Macko underwent arthroscopic knee surgery this morning, manager John Schneider announced to the Jays’ beat (via Shi Davidi of SportsNet). The team is not yet putting forth a formal timetable on his expected recovery.
Feb. 17: Blue Jays pitching prospect Adam Macko is likely headed for surgery to repair a meniscus tear in his left knee, manager John Schneider told reporters (including Hazel Mae). The 24-year-old southpaw came out of a recent bullpen session with knee discomfort.
Macko has been on Toronto’s 40-man roster for the past year. The Jays acquired the former seventh-round pick from the Mariners in the Teoscar Hernández trade. Toronto selected his contract last offseason so as not to lose him in the Rule 5 draft. He spent most of the ’24 season at Double-A New Hampshire. Macko posted a 4.87 ERA across 87 1/3 innings. His 26.4% strikeout rate and tolerable 8.8% walk percentage were more impressive than the run prevention mark.
The Jays promoted Macko to Triple-A at the end of last season. He only pitched three innings there and is likely headed back to begin this season. He should be in the mix for a major league call midseason, though this could set his promotion timetable back. A meniscus repair is unlikely to cost him the whole year but would certainly call for a season-opening injured list stint.
Toronto could eventually place Macko on the 60-day injured list if they want to open a spot on the 40-man roster. Doing so would start his service clock and require paying him a prorated $760K major league minimum salary for however long he was on the IL.
Brenton Doyle has been one of the brightest spots amidst a terrible two-year run for the Rockies. The former fourth-round pick has emerged as a quality everyday center fielder. Doyle has won Gold Gloves in each of his first two MLB seasons. The defense was the only value he provided as a rookie, as he was arguably the league's worst regular hitter in 2023. He took a huge step forward in his sophomore season to break out as a quality all-around contributor.
Doyle hit .260/.317/.446 with 23 home runs across 603 plate appearances last season. That's essentially league average offense according to park-adjusted metrics that account for Coors Field. That's a major leap from his .203/.250/.343 showing as a rookie. Doyle would be an All-Star caliber player if he can simply maintain league average production at the plate. He leads all outfielders in Statcast's Outs Above Average since making his debut. Only Daulton Varsho has more Defensive Runs Saved. Doyle is probably a top three defensive outfielder in the game. He went 30-35 on stolen base attempts last year.
Last season's offensive strides came with a real change in process. The right-handed hitter had a markedly improved plate discipline profile. He cut his strikeout rate by almost 10 percentage points. After fanning 35% of the time during his rookie season, he struck out at a 25.4% clip last year. He chased fewer pitches off the plate and increased his walk rate by a couple points. Among players with 400+ plate appearances in each season, only Red Sox's catcher Connor Wong had a bigger improvement in his strikeout rate. No one took a more significant step forward than Doyle in making contact on a per-pitch basis.
That presents an interesting evaluation. The bullish case is that it demonstrates Doyle's capacity to make offensive adjustments, perhaps hinting at an even higher ceiling as he enters his third season against big league pitching. On the other hand, it's fair to wonder if last year's improvement is entirely sustainable. Players don't always progress linearly. Doyle's numbers tailed off in the second half, especially in September. He still made far more contact late last season than he had as a rookie, but his .234/.274/.407 line coming out of the All-Star Break is far below the .276/.343/.471 mark he carried into it.
Even amidst their rebuild, the Rockies have prioritized locking up players they consider key pieces. They've had mixed results on that front. The Antonio Senzatela and Kyle Freeland extensions haven't panned out. Ryan McMahon's production has been up-and-down. Last spring's $63MM investment in Ezequiel Tovar looks like the best of the bunch, as the 23-year-old shortstop had a strong second full season in the majors.
Is Doyle next in line? Patrick Saunders of the Denver Post wrote a couple weeks ago that Colorado has had some internal conversations about the possibility. What kind of prices could the team and Doyle's camp at the Ballengee Group discuss?
The Angels enter camp with an opening in center field for the first time in more than a decade. Mike Trout is moving to right field to reduce his defensive workload and hopefully keep him healthy. That leaves a camp battle for the center field vacancy.
Center field will primarily be filled by the Mickey Moniak/Jo Adell pairing. They’d projected as the right field tandem had Trout stayed up the middle. Moniak has been the primary fill-in when Trout has gone on the injured list in recent seasons. Adell only has 15 major league starts in center, but he told reporters (including Jeff Fletcher of the Orange County Register) that he’s excited about the opportunity to cover more ground.
Manager Ron Washington said this week that utilityman Luis Rengifo and non-roster invitee Tim Anderson will take some center field reps in camp as well (link via Rhett Bollinger of MLB.com). That’s primarily a means of expanding their versatility rather than an indication that they’re in the mix for regular work on the grass. Anderson has been exclusively a middle infielder, primarily a shortstop, during his professional career. Rengifo has logged a few hundred innings in the corner outfield. His center field experience consists of 22 innings over four games in 2023.
Asked about how they’ll divvy up playing time, Washington indicated that it’ll mostly fall to Moniak and Adell but wouldn’t necessarily be a strict platoon. “I think we’ll just see. We know both of them can play it. And we’re going to really get a good look at Adell down here this spring, where he gets more reps out there. We know Moniak can play it, so we’ll just keep going in Spring Training and see where it shakes out,” the veteran skipper said (via Bollinger).
The lefty-hitting Moniak would get the bulk of playing time if they ran with a simple platoon. He’s probably the best defensive outfielder on the roster and has nearly 1500 career innings in center field. He’s coming off a subpar .219/.266/.380 offensive showing, though. Moniak has a .272 on-base percentage in 908 career plate appearances. The righty-hitting Adell has similar on-base concerns. He’s a career .211/.268/.381 hitter in more than 1000 trips to the plate. Adell popped 20 homers last season but did so with a .280 OBP that landed in the bottom 15 among players with at least 400 PAs.
Rengifo has a much stronger offensive track record. The switch-hitter put up a .300/.347/.417 slash with six homers and 24 stolen bases in 78 games last season. A wrist injury required season-ending surgery in early August, but that marked Rengifo’s second straight impressive year on a rate basis. The bat will keep him in the lineup. The Halos have never really settled on his defensive home, bouncing him around the infield.
Washington told Bollinger and other reporters that he considers third base to be Rengifo’s best position, but free agent signee Yoán Moncada is going to get a lot of run there. Rengifo projects as the season-opening second baseman, but it might not be long before Christian Moore pushes for that job.
Last year’s eighth overall pick, Moore is a bat-first second baseman who hit 34 homers during his draft year at Tennessee. He raked at a .347/.400/.584 clip in 25 games between High-A and Double-A after the draft. While Moore is unlikely to break camp with that little professional experience, the Angels have pushed their top college draftees extremely quickly. Nolan Schanuel was up within a couple months of being drafted. Zach Neto debuted midway through April the year after his selection.
If Moore follows a similar timeline, Rengifo’s center field work this spring could be significant. Depending on Moncada’s performance, third base and center field would be the easiest places to move Rengifo to open the keystone midseason. Rengifo is making $5.95MM for his final arbitration year. He’d be one of the Halos’ better deadline trade chips if they don’t stick in the playoff race.
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