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Phillies Managerial Search Reportedly In Final Stages

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After conducting interviews with Joe Girardi, Buck Showalter, and Dusty Baker last week, Phillies leadership is expected to welcome all three men back for follow-up interviews in the coming days, according to Matt Breen of the Philadelphia Inquirer (link). Breen characterizes the hiring process as being in the “final stages”, with no other candidates slated to interview for the club’s open manager job.

GM Matt Klentak and assistant GM Ned Rice are leading the search, though actively involved owner John Middleton and team prez Andy MacPhail are expected to have a “say” in the final decision. Breen points to next Thursday as a potential window for the team to announce its final decision, as that day will mark the first pause in the World Series schedule of play.

Yesterday, news came that Girardi had stepped down as Team USA’s manager, presumably to focus on the numerous MLB hiring processes in which he is currently involved. Philadelphia is looking for an experienced successor to Gabe Kapler, who was dismissed after two years at the helm on the heels of a disappointing 2019 campaign that left them in fourth place in the NL East.

Quick Hits: Maddon, Sasaki, Red Sox

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In an interesting bit of “what if” history, Scott Miller of Bleacher Report runs down the story of how new Angels manager Joe Maddon almost become the club’s skipper at the tail end of the ’90s (link). Apparently, former Angels GM Bill Bavasi identified Maddon back in 1996 as a potential future manager and hatched a plot to install the pitching mind as something of an heir apparent–assuming, of course, that Bavasi could secure the managerial services of Sparky Anderson to serve as Maddon’s mentor. The plan went awry, however, when Bavasi, then-team president Tony Tavares, and Anderson met for a fateful lunch. Apparently, Tavares was offput when Anderson, then 62, struggled to raise a soup spoon to his mouth with a steady hand, and the prez nixed the Anderson-Maddon succession plan immediately after the lunch date. The club later went with Terry Collins as manager (with Maddon serving as bench coach), with the club later going outside the org to hire Mike Scioscia after the ouster of Collins.

If Maddon is harboring any resentment over the way things worked out, he’s doing a good job of hiding it. “I couldn’t be more grateful, sincerely, for how things have worked out for me in my baseball career,” Maddon says in Miller’s article. “I’ve always been a big believer in not having anything happen to you before it’s time. In other words, I had to earn this opportunity, and I felt like I did by 2006.”

More news from around the diamond…

  • Japanese phenom Roki Sasaki was selected today in NPB’s amateur draft by the Chiba Lotte Marines, according to the Japan Times (link).  Sasaki, 18, was clocked at 101 mph during his time in high school, and many major league scouts were said to have an interest in luring the pitcher to the States. Had the youngster decided to forego the NPB draft, he could have signed with an MLB club in June; instead, he will report to the Marines under the guidance of Chibba Lotte captain and former MLB infielder Tadahito Iguchi. Iguchi, for one, is eager to have the firearmer in the fold. “He’s an extraordinary pitcher,” Iguchi said. “It’s scary to think how far he might go. He was the best player available and now it’s incumbent on us to nurture his potential.” Unlike the MLB Draft, every team in the NPB has an equal chance of landing the first overall pick; teams provide their first choice in secret to the league, and the player’s negotiating rights are decided by the drawing of lots. Some Japanese teams, including the Yomiuri Giants and the Fukuoka SoftBank Hawks, have refused in recent years to allow for the posting of players before they become nine-year veteran free agents. The Chiba Lotte org, meanwhile, has taken no such public stance, so it is not impossible to imagine Sasaki being posted for MLB clubs in the coming years.
  • Conversations surrounding the Red Sox bullpen continued for much of the 2019 season, as the club’s decision to forego the Craig Kimbrel market caused many fans to wonder about front office priorities. It’s rather kind then, for Jen McCaffery of The Athletic to offer some free bullpen scouting in her latest piece, in which she looks at a few outside acquisitions who might be a fit in a Boston uniform. Trade options (Brandon Kintzler) and impending free agents (Steve Cishek, Will Harris) are both bandied, with McCaffery wondering aloud if Boston’s new leadership might be inclined to keep Brandon Workman in the ninth inning role he handled for much of 2019. The Sox recorded a collective 4.40 relief ERA last season, 18th among major league teams.

 

MLBTR Poll: The Case Of Kevin Pillar

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In MLBTR’s recent projection of arbitration salaries for the 2020 season, Giants outfielder Kevin Pillar was penciled in to receive a $9.7MM salary award in his third and final trip through arbitration this offseason.

A cursory glance at Pillar’s stats would render this to be a reasonable projection–and an eminently manageable sum for Farhan Zaidi’s front office in San Francisco. After all, Pillar hit 21 home runs in 2019, after an early April trade from Toronto deposited the veteran Pillar into the Giants’ everyday lineup. Over 161 games, the outfielder would come to lead the team not just in homers, but also in RBIs, stolen bases, and runs scored, all while playing respectable defense in center and right field.

Then again, the operative word there was “cursory”–a deeper look at Pillar’s numbers indicate his effective value may not match his arbitrational value.

While Pillar did accrue some nice counting stats in 2019, his 2.8% walk rate in 2019 resulted in a ghastly .287 OBP. Weighted metrics suggest he was a squarely sub-average offensive performer overall (85 wRC+ in 645 plate appearances); then again, Pillar’s never been known as a plus performer at the plate, as his 86 career wRC+ would suggest. Though the California product does still offer excess value on the bases (6.0 Fangraphs BSR recording in 2019), it’s not as if the club can place a premium on his defense: his 0.3 UZR and -3 DRS marks last year were all-too-typical for an outfielder on the wrong side of the 30-year age marker.

Giving due credit to intangible considerations like veteran leadership and Pillar’s general reputation as a good teammate, Zaidi’s FO is ultimately looking at a slightly sub-par-hitting outfielder who, given a well-rounded game, slates as a roughly average regular. Just how much such a player is worth is, as always, a question of what the club’s recourse would be if they ultimately decided to go in another direction.

Looking to the free agent market, the Giants are unlikely to find an appealing host of options. Starling Marte figures to have his $11.5MM club option exercised, Brett Gardner doesn’t project as much of an upgrade from a performance or value standpoint, and, after that, the club will likely find a charming menagerie of former full-time players like Jon Jay, Billy Hamilton, and Juan Lagares. Not exactly a group to build a season-ticket sales pitch around.

On the trade front, Zaidi could enter the Mookie Betts sweepstakes–except for the fact that such a one-year move would hinge on the belief that the Giants are ready to contend in 2020, which would be hard to support after a 77-85 season. If the World Series-bound Nationals are intent on making marginal moves, it’s conceivable that a player like Michael A. Taylor could be pried away, but Taylor might be best suited for his current part-time, defense-and-speed role until he’s proven otherwise. Aside from that, “average” center fielders are not as plentiful as one might assume.

Then again, there is a third option, courtesy of Kerry Crowley of The Mercury News–San Francisco could try to hammer out an extension with a slightly lower AAV (link). Crowley suggests offering a one-year deal with a club option for 2021 totaling a potential $13MM-$15MM in value. This option, admittedly, does make some sense as a half-measure approach. The Giants, arguably the prestige org of the new millennium, could continue to run out a serviceable center fielder while it continues to try to identify the building blocks for its next championship team. No faded former starters, no overmatched prospects forced into full-time duty, no crippling long-term commitment.

So, on the balance, which route should Zaidi take this offseason in regard to the veteran Pillar? (Poll link for app users.)

AL Notes: Red Sox, ALCS

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Although Boston owner John Henry stated last month that the Red Sox were going to begin by “looking outward” in their search for a new GM/President, Rob Bradford of WEEI believes there is a “growing belief” around baseball that the club will ultimately hand the reins to an internal candidate (link). Although no sources are named in Bradford’s report, the silence surrounding Boston’s hiring search leads the writer to believe that the club may look inward in search of Dave Dombrowski’s successor. As Bradford points out, it’s possible that Henry’s comments were made with half a mind toward luring one of Mike Hazen, Theo Epstein, or Andrew Friedman to Beantown. Now that those potential candidates are staying put, it seems reasonable to wonder if ownership might be evaluating which of the four people currently running Boston’s baseball ops–Eddie Romero, Brian O’Halloran, Zack Scott and Raquel Ferreira–would be best suited for supreme leadership.

A serious offseason agenda will await whoever ultimately lands the job in Boston. The club has a stated goal of limboing under the CBT “luxury tax” line–an initiative that should prove mighty tough with both big contracts (David Price, Chris Sale) and forthcoming arb raises (Mookie Betts) on the 2020 ledger.

In other news from the American League…

  • Mother Nature gave baseball an unscheduled rest day on Wednesday when she decided to pour vociferous showers along the East Coast–could she also have handed the Astros a competitive advantage in the ALCS? This is one question explored by Chandler Rome of the Houston Chronicle, who notes that the pause in the action has allowed manager AJ Hinch to skip Wednesday’s planned Jose Urquidy-plus-bullpen game (link). Instead, the ’Stros will skip straight to a Justin Verlander/Zack Greinke 1-2 combo for games 4 and 5. “As soon as we can use our best pitchers, the better for us,” Hinch told reporters via teleconference. “It was an easy decision.” The rain delay will force both teams to play the next four games without delay (if games 6 and 7 prove necessary). This state of affairs figures to favor Houston, considering that their rotation makes them slightly less bullpen-reliant than New York. Of course, October is where the unexpected so often comes to pass, so it’s important to remember that Rome’s forecast is exactly that.

 

Hernan Perez Elects Free Agency

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Veteran infielder Hernan Perez has elected for free agency, choosing to forego an outright assignment from the Brewers.

Perez, 28, was designated for assignment and outrighted previously this summer, although he ultimately hung around the Milwaukee farm and was subsequently selected for the active roster again in September. Formerly a quasi-regular in Milwaukee, Perez was limited to just 246 plate appearances in the majors this year, finishing the season with a .228/.262/.379 line (62 wRC+). Though he’s recorded a sub-par 73 wRC+ across 1800+ MLB plate appearances, Perez did flash some tantalizing speed back in 2016, when he swiped 34 bags in 123 games for the Brew Crew.

The versatile Perez is almost certain to latch on somewhere for 2020, as he offers one of the most flexible gloves in the game. Even in limited duty in 2019, the Venezuelan logged time at every single spot on the diamond, save for catcher. Milwaukee’s 40-man roster count now sits at 39.

Angels Considering Mike Butcher For Pitching Coach Role

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Mike DiGiovanna of the Los Angeles Times reports that the Angels are considering Mike Butcher for the club’s open pitching coach position (link).

Butcher, who pitched for four seasons with the then-California Angels from 1992 to 1995, has served as a pitching coach for the last fourteen seasons in the major leagues. Recently dismissed after a four-year run in the Arizona dugout, Butcher previously held stints with the Rays in 2006 and with Anaheim’s club from 2007 to 2015–so Butcher’s hire would represent something of a homecoming.

Of course, that stop in Tampa coincided with Joe Maddon’s time there, so it would be apropos for the Angels to welcome back two former franchise members with a working familiarity with one another. LA’s previous pitching coach, Doug White, was fired after the org helped manager Brad Ausmus to the door at September’s end. Maddon will also be in search of a new bench coach in the coming months.

Reds Claim Josh Smith, Designate Juan Graterol For Assignment

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4:45 pm: The Marlins have announced Smith’s claim, with an addendum indicating that Miami has also outrighted catcher Tyler Heineman and righty Hector Noesi to the Triple-A New Orleans roster. This puts Miami’s 40-man roster count at 37.

2:47 pm: The Reds have claimed pitcher Josh Smith off of waivers from the Marlins, according to a tweet from C. Trent Rosecrans of The Athletic (link). In a corresponding move, Cincinnati has designated catcher Juan Graterol for assignment.

The Marlins had claimed the left-handed Smith off of waivers from the Indians on Sept 14, making his time in the Miami organization exceedingly brief. Occasionally referred to as “Josh D. Smith” in order to avoid confusion, the lefty is a soft-tossing reliever with a largely fastball/slider dependent repertoire.  The 30-year-old played in both the Pirates and Red Sox organizations before making his big league debut with Cleveland in 2019; he ultimately made 14 appearances between the Indian and Marlin pens, logging a 6.39 ERA (4.32 FIP) in a small sample of 12.2 innings. Amir Garrett is the only lefty on-hand in the Cincinnati bullpen, so Smith could be a relatively no-cost flier for a club looking to broaden its mix-and-match capabilities.

The 30-year-old Graterol first came up to the bigs with the Angels in 2016, but he’s never really been given an extended look in the majors. Across parts of three seasons, he’s received just 129 plate appearances at the game’s highest level, logging a meek .218/.227/.266 line with zero home runs. He spent most of 2019 at Triple-A in the Reds organization, logging a .249/.301/.325 slash through 226 plate appearances.

Quick Hits: Girardi, Signs, Angels

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For those in the mood for a game of “connect the dots”, today’s news regarding the USA Baseball national team should put your pencils to the ready. Joe Girardi, previously the USA team’s manager, has officially stepped down in advance of the “Premier 12” Olympic qualifier, according to this tweet from Pete Abraham of The Boston Globe (Twitter link). Scott Brosius, longtime Yankee and a two-time Olympic gold medalist in his own right, will manage the American side moving forward.

While those obsessed with the sport of Olympic baseball will find this to be a cataclysmic development, the rest of us will feel inclined to view this announcement in light of its implications on the MLB managerial market. While Girardi himself has not issued a statement regarding his decision to step down from USA duties, it might be inferred that he could be prepping to accept a job as skipper of a big league club. Girardi, who has not managed in the bigs since his contract with the Yankees expired in 2017, has recently interviewed for the Cubs, Mets, and Phillies openings. Keep track of all managerial maneuverings with MLBTR’s Managerial Search Tracker.

More news from around the game on this eerily baseball-free Wednesday…

  • From the “unwritten rules” department: according to SNY’s Andy Martino, the Yankees dugout was incensed during the course of Game 1, when several Astros players were heard whistling in advance of certain pitches on Saturday night. “I would consider whistling a tired act that goes beyond what is acceptable,” an unnamed major league executive told Martino. “If the Astros or anyone else was doing it, it would be considered a break in the unwritten rules. I have not been part of any team that used a whistle from the dugout for pitch type or location.” Of course, sign stealing is a time-honored part of baseball gamesmanship that has taken many different forms over the past few centuries; recently, MLB has even considered the implementation of on-field earpieces for pitchers and catchers, according to some 2018 reportage on the part of Evan Drellich of NBC Sports Boston.
  • In our recent poll “Executives Under Pressure”, MLBTR readers voted on which club GM they thought would most be feeling the pressure in 2020 to put out a winning club–or else. Angels GM Billy Eppler placed third in the polling (behind Neal Huntington of the Pirates and Matt Klentak of the Phillies), with 11.81% of readers positing that LA’s fifth-year GM will likely be maneuvering to keep his job this offseason. In the view of The Athletic’s Ken Rosenthal, today’s hiring of Joe Maddon to the club’s manager seat might be further evidence toward Eppler’s occupational insecurity (link). “From every indication, owner Arte Moreno drove the hiring of Maddon, and by doing so, undercut his GM,” writes Rosenthal. Eppler will be tasked with several challenges heading into this winter, including the reinforcement of a pitching staff recently decimated by injuries and the loss of hurler Tyler Skaggs.

Quick Hits: Mendoza, Ross, Martin, Zimmer

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Though broadcast entertainment politics usually fall far outside of the MLBTR purview, the current conversations surrounding ESPN’s “Sunday Night Baseball” program could have minor implications for a few front offices around baseball. As explained by Andrew Marchand of the New York Post, two analysts involved with that ESPN broadcast team–namely, Jessica Mendoza and David Ross–faced some conflict of interest issues this season due to their ties to MLB front offices (link). Mendoza, who is an adviser to Mets GM Brodie Van Wagenen, and Ross, who works with the Cubs, were barred from entering the Dodgers clubhouse during media availability before games in 2019. It is unclear if other clubs also denied the two clubhouse access.

ESPN is currently considering changes to its Sunday night booth, per Marchand. Though Alex Rodriguez is expected back, Mendoza and play-by-play announcer Matt Vasgersian are projected to have around a “70%” of returning to the weekly national broadcast for 2020. Whether or not Mendoza’s ties to the Mets are the cause of her current up-in-the-air status with the network is not clear, but it will be worth monitoring if she and Ross will be able to return to the program in a similar toe-the-line situation next year–or if the two will be forced to choose between their on-air or front office gigs.

More items of note from around baseball…

  • Jon Meoli of the Baltimore Sun took a statistically inclined look at the 2019 season of Orioles Rule V pick Richie Martin (link). As you might expect for a Rule V pick, Martin’s full-season slash line was pretty unsightly at .208/.260/.322, but Meoli points to a few positives in his month-over-month progress. In particular, Martin cut his strikeout rate by nearly 14% from the first to the second half; the infielder also showed less of a reliance on pulling the ball following the All-Star break. Hitting coach Don Long and assistant hitting coach Howie Clark took pains to simplify Martin’s swing over the course of the year, which will, hopefully, lead to Martin finally capturing the potential that Oakland saw in him when it selected him 20th overall in the 2015 amateur draft.
  • Bradley Zimmer of the Indians was politely asked by management to pursue at-bats in winter ball this offseason, but, after grinding through a five-and-a-half month rehab process tied to shoulder surgery, the outfielder wasn’t exactly thrilled at the idea. While the club was concerned that Zimmer, 26, had missed about a season-and-a-half due to various injuries, Zimmer felt an offseason spent at home would serve him better in preparation for 2020. This organization-player dialectic is profiled in a piece from Paul Hoynes of Cleveland.com, who concludes that Zimmer will open next season in the minors in search of those lost at-bats (link). It’s an interesting look at the ways in which clubs and players often have to work together to manage and alter expectations due to injury, with the management of mental health and personal/family considerations also playing a factor. Then again, is it possible Zimmer is simply banking on forcing his way into the Cleveland lineup with a hot spring? Though it seems a lifetime ago that Zimmer burst onto the scene with a 1.6 fWAR output in just 332 plate appearances back in 2017, it stands to reason that a strong showing in March might spur the club to shuffle him into the deck above in-house options like Greg Allen or Jake Bauers.

 

AL Notes: Cole, Edwin

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In less than three hours, Astros ace Gerrit Cole will take the field at Yankee Stadium in the hopes of securing his team a 2-1 lead over New York in the ALCS. Judging from quotes made to Scott Miller of Bleacher Report, his teammates are likely to be feeling mighty confident when Cole toes the rubber. “When you have Gerrit Cole on the mound, we win,” Houston manager AJ Hinch told Miller. “We have. We’ve kind of proven that.” Not wrong. Cole, 29, hasn’t lost a decision since May 22 (a date which preceded the Stanley Cup Finals, for reference) and is coming off a Divisional Series performance that saw him strike out 25 of the 54 Rays batters he faced. His success has been so tremendous that even his fellow Astros have begun to muse on just how much money the UCLA product might be in line to receive in free agency this winter. “I think everybody’s looking at that across baseball,” said outfielder Josh Reddick. “Harper money? Machado money? It’s going to be interesting.”

As Fangraphs’ Jay Jaffe points out, only four hurlers–Rick Sutcliffe, Mark Davis, Greg Maddux, and Roger Clemens–have earned a Cy Young award in the season preceding their free agency. Cole is widely expected to become the fifth.

  • The Blue Jays may be headed for brighter days next year, now that youngsters like Vladimir Guerrero Jr., Cavan Biggio, and Bo Bichette have arrived on the scene. Could veteran–and franchise icon–Edwin Encarnacion be a steadying presence for that young nucleus in 2020? Kaitlyn McGrath of The Athletic takes a long look at Encarnacion’s fit as a potential Toronto addition, opining that the hulking slugger could be a more-than-viable replacement for the likely-to-depart Justin Smoak. Encarnacion’s steady power (104 home runs since 2017) and on-base skills (13.0% walk rate in same time frame) would certainly help boost Toronto’s young lineup, although, as McGrath notes, GM Ross Atkins previously said the club might prioritize a first base addition that “can play other positions as well“. Encarnacion, who will be 37 at the start of spring training, has a $20MM club option with New York for 2020, although he figures to have his $5MM buyout exercised.

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