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Indians Reportedly Nearing Deal With Domingo Santana

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The Indians are reportedly closing in on a major league agreement with free-agent outfielder Domingo Santana, Paul Hoynes of cleveland.com relays. An announcement could take place sometime next week, but the deal’s pending a physical, according to Hoynes.

The Indians are in clear need of outfield help, but whether Santana will prove to be the solution is anyone’s guess. However, as recently as 2017 – a season he spent with the Brewers – Santana appeared to be a budding star. He slashed .278/.371/.505 with 30 home runs and 3.3 fWAR in 607 trips to the plate that year. Santana struggled the next season, though, and then the Brewers traded him to the Mariners in December 2018.

While Santana looked like an interesting pickup for rebuilding Seattle, he didn’t end up producing much in an M’s uniform. Although Santana’s season began well, a second-half elbow injury helped torpedo his numbers and limit him to an uninspiring .253/.329/.441 line with 21 homers in 507 PA. Worsening matters, Santana ranked as one of the game’s poorest outfielders, finishing with a minus-17 Defensive Runs Saved and a minus-16.1 Ultimate Zone Rating. His combination of so-so offense and disastrous defense held him to a replacement-level WAR output.

To Santana’s credit, he was a good defender as recently as 2018 (plus-6 DRS, plus-2.7 UZR). He’s also still just 27, and the Indians or any other team that signs Santana will be able to control him via arbitration through 2021. The Mariners could have done the same, but they elected to non-tender Santana in lieu of paying him a $4.4MM salary this year.

Should Santana join the Indians, he’d make for yet another flawed corner outfield possibility for the team. Aside from Jordan Luplow, whose solid production may have flown under the radar in 2019, there’s little in the way of clear answers for the club there. Franmil Reyes (perhaps like Santana) is probably better off as a designated hitter; Jake Bauers and Greg Allen offered subpar production last year; Tyler Naquin suffered a torn ACL in August and will miss some portion of 2020; and Bradley Zimmer barely played last season as a result of shoulder troubles.

Bruce Bochy To Serve As Special Advisor For Giants

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Longtime Giants manager Bruce Bochy will work as a special advisor for the club in 2020, according to president of baseball operations Farhan Zaidi (via Janie McCauley of the Associated Press).

The upcoming season will be the 14th in a row with the Giants for Bochy, a franchise icon who managed the team from 2007-19. The Giants won three World Series during that span, but Bochy stepped down from his managerial role after a third straight sub-.500 campaign last season. The team subsequently replaced him with ex-Phillies skipper Gabe Kapler.

The 64-year-old Bochy may have been able to land another managerial job this offseason, but he has instead decided to take a step back from that type of role. That doesn’t mean the potential Hall of Famer is done in the dugout, though. Bochy suggested back in October that he may only take a year off from managing, so he could be a popular name when teams are looking for skippers next offseason. For now, though, he’ll remain in the San Francisco organization.

AL Notes: Yankees, Angels, Indians, Twins, Rays

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The Yankees’ rotation took a serious shot Wednesday when it was announced that they’ll go without left-hander James Paxton for three to four months on account of back surgery. General manager Brian Cashman discussed the news with Joel Sherman of the New York Post, saying Paxton first complained of back discomfort in his final regular-season outing Sept. 27. That didn’t stop Paxton from making three playoff appearances, though, and Cashman noted surgery was a “last resort.” The timing of the procedure’s not ideal, but the Yankees didn’t want to rush into a decision, according to Cashman.

One of Paxton’s fellow Yankees lefties, J.A. Happ, was a trade candidate earlier this offseason, but Cashman revealed Paxton’s injury “certainly” played a part in the team’s decision to keep him. However, there was trade interest in Happ, Cashman told Sherman. “There was a lot of knocking on our door about it,” he said.

Here’s more from the American League…

  • Angels infielder Luis Rengifo appears to be on the verge of going to the Dodgers in a trade for outfielder Joc Pederson. It’s not the first time Rengifo’s name has come up in trade talks this offseason, though. Rengifo was part of the discussions between the Angels and Indians when the two teams were weighing a Corey Kluber swap back in December, per Paul Hoynes of cleveland.com. The two clubs couldn’t come to an agreement, and the Indians ended up trading Kluber to the Rangers a few days later.
  • Twins righty Jake Odorizzi decided to forgo free agency this offseason in favor of the team’s $17.8MM qualifying offer. Odorizzi may have done better on the open market – MLBTR predicted a three year, $51MM payday – but he doesn’t regret his choice to stick with Minnesota on a short-term deal. “Not a bit,” he told Phil Miller of the Star Tribune. “I made my decision based on the best knowledge we had at the time. Money started flying around pretty quick, and the market got pretty hot, but nobody predicted that.” Indeed, there has been far more money distributed in free agency than many anticipated when the offseason began. Odorizzi’s now left to hope the cash will continue flowing next winter if he gets to free agency, though Miller writes that he remains “open to” a long-term pact with the Twins.
  • Rays outfield prospect Josh Lowe underwent right shoulder debridement surgery in November and “likely” won’t return to action until late May, Marc Topkin of the Tampa Bay Times writes. The 22-year-old Lowe, a 2016 first-round pick and the younger brother of Rays first baseman Nate Lowe, ranks as the team’s 11th overall prospect at MLB.com. Josh Lowe enjoyed a strong season at the Double-A level last year, when he slashed .252/.341/.442 with 18 home runs and 30 stolen bases in 519 plate appearances.

4 Interesting Buy-Low Starters

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With spring training right around the corner, the time for teams to make meaningful additions to their rotations by way of free agency has likely passed. There are very few starters remaining on the open market, though there’s a possibility – albeit slight – that pitcher-needy clubs could strike it rich on buy-low candidates. There are at least a handful of somewhat intriguing names left, as you’ll see below…

Taijuan Walker, RHP:

  • It’s hard to believe Walker is still just 27 years old. He’s a former standout prospect with the Mariners who was a quality major league starter as recently as 2017, when he fired 157 1/3 innings of 3.49 ERA/4.04 FIP ball as a member of the Diamondbacks. Walker also averaged a hair under 94 mph on his fastball that year. He’s now stuck without a job after injuries cut him down over the previous two seasons. Walker underwent Tommy John surgery on his pitching elbow in April 2018, thereby limiting him to 13 innings that year, and couldn’t rally back last season on account of shoulder troubles. He wound up tossing just one inning, in the Diamondbacks’ regular-season finale. Since then, the D-backs have non-tendered Walker (in lieu of paying him around $5MM), and just the M’s and Twins have been linked to him. Walker recently held a workout for teams “in front of about 20 scouts,” according to Bob Nightengale of USA Today.

Matt Harvey, RHP:

  • Harvey’s still relatively young (31 in March), but it seems like ancient history when the ex-Met was one of the absolute best starters in the game. Various injuries have helped destroy his career since 2015, the Dark Knight’s most recent ace-like showing. Going back to 2016, Harvey ranks third from the bottom among all qualified starters in ERA (5.65). The 5.00 FIP he has put up in the same span doesn’t inspire much more confidence, nor does the dismal showing he had with the Angels last season before they deemed him and his $11MM contract such a poor investment that the starter-light club released him in late July. That said, Harvey still threw upward of 93 mph last season and isn’t far removed from logging decent production with the Reds in 2018.

Danny Salazar, RHP:

  • Salazar has been electrifying at times, and he recently turned 30, but the former Indian only threw a combined four innings (all last season) from 2018-19. Shoulder woes have been a key culprit in knocking Salazar’s career off the rails, and it’s rather alarming that his fastball averaged around 86 mph in last season’s one-game comeback after sitting around 95-96 in prior years. However, in fairness to Salazar, he was dealing with groin troubles in that contest; problem is that it went down as the latest injury in a career loaded with them.

Aaron Sanchez, RHP:

  • Sanchez looked like a budding star in 2016, during which the former Blue Jay notched 192 innings of 3.00 ERA/3.55 FIP ball and induced grounders at a 54.4 percent clip. Little did anyone know Sanchez’s effectiveness would fade so severely after that, owing in part to multiple injuries. Last season, which he divided between the Jays and Astros, Sanchez posted a woeful 5.89 ERA/5.25 FIP over 131 1/3 frames. Sanchez underwent shoulder surgery toward the end of September, so he’ll miss some portion of the upcoming campaign. The Astros non-tendered him as a result, as opposed to paying him approximately $5.6MM in arbitration. Sanchez is still young (27), though, and continued to average around 94 mph on his fastball last season.

This Date In Transactions History: Minor Signing, Major Impact

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It was on this date six years ago that the Dodgers made one of the greatest low-risk free-agent signings in recent memory. On Feb. 5, 2014, the club agreed to a minor league contract with third baseman Justin Turner, who has gone from afterthought to household name since he first donned a Dodgers uniform.

Now 35 years old, Turner was a seventh-round pick of the Reds in 2006 who took years and multiple uniforms to blossom into a quality major leaguer. Turner debuted with the Orioles in 2009, but he played almost exclusively with the Mets through 2013. While Turner didn’t exactly set the league on fire in New York, his offensive production did hover around the league-average mark.

During his 895-plate appearance run as a Met, Turner batted .265/.326/.370 (good for a 97 wRC+) while striking out just 13.1 percent of the time. Passable? Yes. But a lack of power helped cut down Turner, who hit a mere eight home runs and posted a weak .104 ISO as a member of the Mets. They wound up non-tendering him going into 2014, reportedly because they weren’t satisfied with the effort he put forth.

Turner’s power was dormant in New York (maybe his effort was, too), which is why he had to settle for a non-guaranteed deal to join the Dodgers. That pop has come to the surface in Los Angeles, though. Turner has eclipsed the .200 ISO mark in four straight seasons, though it took some time for him to become a legitimate power threat as a Dodger.

While Turner did hit an excellent .340/.404/.493 in 322 PA during his first season with the Dodgers, skepticism was warranted because that triple-slash line was buoyed by an unsustainable .404 batting average on balls in play. Indeed, Turner’s BABIP since then has fallen almost 100 points (he owns a .314 mark dating back to 2015). Nevertheless, the right-hander’s .297/.378/.508 line (139 wRC+) in 2,579 trips to the plate over the past half-decade helped make him one of the most valuable players in the game in that span, evidenced in part by a 21.9 fWAR that only 19 position players outdid from 2015-19. Turner also smacked 105 home runs during that stretch, and he did so while striking out in just 14.6 percent of PA.

Turner can attribute a large portion of his success in LA to help from Marlon Byrd, a former Orioles teammate, and a hitting coach named Doug Latta. As covered by Ben Lindbergh and Travis Sawchik in the book “The MVP Machine” (excerpt via Slate), Byrd and Latta were instrumental in getting Turner to take a more fly ball-oriented approach at the plate. Turner, his bank account and the Dodgers have all benefited from it.

Thanks to the breakout Turner enjoyed during his first couple years as a Dodger, they re-signed him to a four-year, $64MM deal entering 2017. Needless to say, that’s quite a step up from the minors pact he settled for upon first joining the team. For their part, the Dodgers have won the NL West in every season since Turner first signed with them and taken home a pair of pennants. Turner’s obviously not the sole reason they’ve been so dominant, but he has been one of their key contributors. He’s also a reminder not to discount anyone who signs a minor league contract. You never know when a breakout’s around the corner.

Photo courtesy of USA Today Sports Images.

Angels Working To Acquire Joc Pederson

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TODAY: The deal is expected to send righty Ross Stripling to the Halos and also involves other prospects going to the Dodgers, per Bob Nightengale of USA Today (via Twitter). It has yet to be finalized, though, and “a lot of moving parts” remain.

Stripling has quietly been an extremely effective MLB hurler over the years, turning in 387 career innings of 3.51 ERA ball with 8.8 K/9 and 2.1 BB/9. There have been some health issues at times, but the swingman has been quite good when available. He’s slated to earn $2.1MM this year with two more seasons of team control remaining thereafter.

YESTERDAY, 10:30pm: The Angels will also acquire outfielder Andy Pages, Kiley McDaniel of ESPN reports. The 19-year-old Pages slashed a phenomenal .298/.398/.651 with 19 home runs in 279 plate appearances at the rookie level last season. FanGraphs rated the Dominican Republic native as the Dodgers’ 29th-best prospect last May.

10:14pm: This trade will include more players, pending medical reviews, Passan tweets. The Angels will also get “a big league starter and a prospect,” while the Dodgers will pick up a prospect along with Rengifo, per Fabian Ardaya of The Athletic.

8:54pm: The Angels are set to acquire outfielder Joc Pederson from the Dodgers, Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic first reported. The Dodgers will get infielder Luis Rengifo in the deal, per Jeff Passan of ESPN.

This has been a wild night for the Dodgers, who previously struck an absolute blockbuster delivering former Red Sox superstar Mookie Betts and lefty David Price to LA. The Dodgers let go of outfielder Alex Verdugo in the deal and sent righty Kenta Maeda to the Twins in what will go down as one of the most memorable trades in recent baseball history.

This move’s quite an encore for the Dodgers, whose outfield has undergone massive changes in a small amount of time. Pederson and Verdugo were regulars last season, a 106-win campaign for the club, but now the unit’s fronted by two MVP winners in Betts and Cody Bellinger. There’s also the well-compensated A.J. Pollock and depth on hand in Chris Taylor, Enrique Hernandez and Matt Beaty.

To at least some extent, the Dodgers will miss the 27-year-old Pederson, who has been an easily above-average hitter since his first full season in 2015. Pederson’s now coming off a typically productive showing in 2019, when he slashed .249/.339/.538 with 3.0 fWAR and a a career-high 36 home runs in 514 plate appearances. If there’s one major knock on Pederson’s offense, it’s that the left-hander has struggled versus southpaws, who have held him to an awful .188/.263/.310 line during his time in the bigs.

Now a member of the Angels, Pederson will join yet another jam-packed outfield. The group’s headlined by center fielder Mike Trout, of course, with Justin Upton holding down left field. Brian Goodwin had been the projected starting right fielder before Tuesday, but he looked like a placeholder before the forthcoming promotion of elite prospect Jo Adell. Now, it’s unclear exactly how the Angels’ right field situation will shake out in 2020. Regardless, they’ll tack on approximately $8.5MM to their payroll for Pederson, who’s in his last year of arbitration eligibility. Landing him is the latest aggressive pickup in an offseason that previously saw the Angels add Anthony Rendon, Jason Castro, Julio Teheran and Dylan Bundy to a team that hasn’t made the playoffs since 2015.

In Rengifo, the Angels are giving up a 22-year-old fresh off a promising first season in the majors. The switch-hitter slashed .238/.321/.364 during a 406-plate appearance span in which he mostly lined up at second base. As recently as last February, FanGraphs ranked Rengifo as the Angels’ seventh-best prospect, giving him a chance to turn into a “regular second baseman.” That’ll be a difficult task now for Rengifo, who’s joining a loaded Dodgers team with Taylor, Hernandez, Max Muncy and Gavin Lux as second base possibilities. Rengifo does have two minor league options remaining, however, so it’s not majors or bust for him.

Photo courtesy of USA Today Sports Images.

Latest On Kris Bryant

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Kris Bryant’s long-running service-time grievance against the Cubs finally came to an end last week. Bryant lost the hearing, meaning he’ll remain under team control for two more years instead of one. As you’d expect, the players’ association isn’t enamored of the results. MLBPA executive director Tony Clark issued a statement on the matter Tuesday:

“The Players Association disagrees with the decision issued today in the Kris Bryant service-time grievance. While we respect the finality of that decision, we will continue to pursue any and all measures that incentivize competition, discourage service-time manipulation and ensure clubs field their best players. We applaud Kris’ courage and determination in challenging the Cubs’ actions and seeing the grievance through to the end.”

Although Bryant understandably fought the Cubs over team control after they delayed his rookie promotion, he said last week he harbors no ill will against the club. While there doesn’t seem to be bad blood between the two sides, that doesn’t mean Bryant will be a Cub for much longer. The Cubs have had a modest offseason after last year’s dud of a finish, and if they’re as focused as getting under the luxury tax as, say, the similarly deep-pocketed Red Sox (who traded Mookie Betts and David Price on Tuesday), Bryant might not stick around for much longer. Bryant has been the subject of trade speculation for months, after all, and the fact that the $18.6MM man is controllable for two years instead of one should only help his value on the market.

A 28-year-old former NL MVP, Bryant has a pair of suitors in the Nationals and Phillies, who have shown “at least exploratory interest” in him, per Bob Nightengale of USA Today. This isn’t the first time either team has been connected to the 28-year-old Bryant this offseason, though, and it’s unclear whether they’re more inclined to trade for him now that the third base market has all but emptied out in free agency. The Nationals re-signed Asdrubal Cabrera, who figures to hold the position down until prospect Carter Kieboom’s set to take the reins, while the Phillies have the versatile Scott Kingery as their projected starter and Alec Bohm waiting in the wings.

The Braves, yet another NL East team, are in questionable shape at the hot corner, where they look prepared to roll with Johan Camargo and Austin Riley in the wake of Josh Donaldson’s exit in free agency. Nevertheless, the Braves have not been discussing Bryant with the Cubs, according to Jon Heyman of MLB Network, so it continues to look unlikely that he’ll end up in Atlanta.

Minor MLB Transactions: 2/4/20

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Checking in on the latest minor moves from around baseball…

  • The Red Sox have signed third baseman Ryder Jones to a minor league contract, Robert Murray tweets. Boston’s the second MLB organization for the 25-year-old Jones, a 2013 second-round pick of San Francisco who was with the Giants through last season. Jones saw some action in the majors from 2017-18, but he struggled mightily over 172 plate appearances (.184/.250/.316) and barely played at all in the minors last season after suffering a dislocated knee in September 2018. Jones does own a solid .287/.352/.471 line with 24 home runs in 756 PA in Triple-A ball, though.

Latest On Boston’s Managerial Opening

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The Red Sox don’t have a manager at the moment, but the person who lands the job will oversee a much different roster than the one previous skipper Alex Cora worked with in 2019. There’s no more Mookie Betts or David Price, both traded to the Dodgers on Tuesday. Nevertheless, the Red Sox have been working to find a replacement for Cora since his ouster a couple weeks ago.

Athletics quality control coach Mark Kotsay is among those to interview for the position, but it doesn’t appear he’ll get it. Kotsay’s out of the running for the job, Susan Slusser of the San Francisco Chronicle reports. Along with Kotsay and Diamondbacks bench coach Luis Urueta (previously reported), the Red Sox have discussed their managerial role with two in-house possibilities in third base coach Carlos Febles and bench coach Ron Roenicke, per Chris Cotillo of MassLive.com.

The 43-year-old Febles, a former Royals second baseman, has been a coach with the Red Sox organization since 2007. The majority of his work has come at the minor league level, but he joined the MLB staff as a third base coach in advance of the 2018 season. Roenicke, meanwhile, has significant managerial experience under his belt at the sport’s highest level. Now 63, Roenicke oversaw the Brewers in parts of five seasons from 2011-15, during which they went 342-331 with one playoff appearance.

There are “likely” more names on Boston’s radar, Cotillo writes, though it’s safe to say that individual will be inheriting a worse roster than the team had entering Tuesday. The Red Sox acquired a pair of quality building blocks in outfielder Alex Verdugo and hard-throwing right-hander Brusdar Graterol, but it’ll be hard to make up for the losses of Betts and Price in the near term.

Phillies Sign Anthony Swarzak

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The Phillies have signed right-handed reliever Anthony Swarzak to a minor league contract, Bob Nightengale of USA Today tweets. The deal includes an invitation to major league spring training and a $1.5MM salary if Swarzak makes the Phillies’ roster. The pact also features $1.25MM in incentives.

Philly’s the latest of many stops for the 34-year-old Swarzak, who has both shined and struggled since he entered the majors with the Twins in 2009. While Swarzak starred with the White Sox and Brewers as recently as 2017, his career has gone off the rails with the Mets, Mariners and Braves since then.

Swarzak posted a 4.56 ERA with a far more disastrous 5.71 FIP in 51 1/3 innings between Seattle and Atlanta last season, also logging 8.78 K/9 with 4.56 BB/9. It was the second straight year Swarzak had difficulty limiting walks, which is a new trend for a hurler who has issued fewer than three free passes per nine over his 641-inning tenure in the majors. Home runs have also been a significant problem of late for Swarzak, who yielded them on better than 20 percent of fly balls in each of the previous two years.

Despite his recent troubles, there’s little harm from the Phillies’ standpoint in taking a risk-free flier on Swarzak. The club’s bullpen was a mediocre unit in 2019, and the Phils haven’t aggressively upgraded that part of their roster since then. Should Swarzak make the team, he’ll reunite with manager Joe Girardi, whom he played under when the two were with the Yankees in 2016.

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