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Rays Sign Emilio Bonifacio

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The Rays have signed veteran utilityman Emilio Bonifacio to a minor-league deal, per a club announcement. He has received an invitation to participate in MLB camp this spring.

Bonifacio, 33, opened the 2018 season on the indy ball circuit and later joined the Brewers organization for a brief, late-season run. Ultimately, he failed to appear in the majors for the first time since way back in 2006. In the intervening eleven years, Bonifacio took 2,894 plate appearances at the game’s highest level, slashing a modest .256/.313/.333 along the way.

Obviously, all of those opportunities did not come because of Bonifacio’s bat. He has swiped 166 bags in the majors and provided highly graded overall baserunning, all while comfortably lining up all over the field. Bonifacio has spent the majority of his career at second base and center field, but also has ample experience at shortstop, third, and both corner outfield spots.

Making Sense Of The Whit Merrifield Extension

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It’s difficult sometimes to make sense of the extensions we hear about. Why is it that player A is earning so much more or less than player B? Sometimes it’s obvious; sometimes it’s not. In some cases, there are relatively unique, personal circumstances that help explain it — some of which may not even really become known publicly. In every case, the actual course of negotiations requires both sides to estimate market value at a point at which there are necessarily still key factors that are unknown. There’s plenty of variability based upon varying motivations of the particular team and player involved. Still, we like to think that market value underpins baseball contracts. Every deal is susceptible of examination from a value perspective.

Given all of that, it seems worth taking a closer look at the recently reported deal between the Royals and second baseman/center fielder Whit Merrifield. Despite two-straight All-Star seasons and an upward trajectory in his performance, he’s promised just $16.25MM over four years — less than the qualifying offer rate ($17.9MM) for a single season. He can boost that by a bit via escalators, but will also give away an option year at a $10.5MM salary. Even in the extension context, it seems like a bargain for a high-quality player who has immense versatility and a well-rounded skillset. So, how to make sense of this?

It all starts with his experience and age. Merrifield is still shy of three years of MLB service yet just recently hit his 30th birthday. Since he didn’t have enough service time to reach arbitration early as a Super Two qualifier, he was still a full season away from commanding more than the league minimum salary, with the inherent risks and limitations of the arb process to look forward to thereafter. Moreover, the recent trends in the aging curve have not been kind to elder statesmen.

Add to that the fact that Merrifield’s most notable skills — hitting for average, speed on the bases, and good and versatile glovework — are not particularly well-compensated in the arbitration process. To be sure, they do show up indirectly in earnings since the process pays players who see a lot of playing time. But power stats (homers and ribbies) have tended to pay best over time than the harder-to-quantify areas of the game. Even stolen bases, the counting stat in which Merrifield shines, aren’t considered major drivers.

Whatever one thinks of Merrifield’s particular outlook, in terms of skills and health, the overall situation was one in which his anticipated future earnings were rather limited. In arbitration, barring a huge power burst, he’d have profiled as a strong but hardly record-shattering player. And his hypothetical free agency was laden with risk. How might he look as a player four years in the future? Nobody knows, but odds are he won’t be quite in his prime, since his pre-existing arbitration control extended through his age-33 season.

Let’s dig into the numbers to see why this is the case.

First, looking at the forthcoming arb years, we can check in on some second basemen and other comps to learn about what Merrifield might have taken home had he elected to go year to year. As I’ve noted previously, DJ LeMahieu represents an interesting overall comp since he just wrapped up his own arbitration run. After starting with a $3.0MM salary, and posting one big offensive season during his arb years, he finished with a $16.3MM total — a near-exact (and perhaps not coincidental) match for what Merrifield will receive.

When I first proposed that comp last March, Merrifield had yet to post his excellent 2018 season. As things stand, it’s not hard to see a path to more than $16.25MM. Just how high Merrifield could have climbed would obviously have been dependent upon what he does in the season to come, but we can guess at some parameters.

In terms of starting point, Merrifield ought to end up with a case for much greater earning power than LeMahieu (.284/.329/.370, 15 home runs, 157 RBI, 1,901 plate appearances) and Joe Panik (.282/.345/.408, 29 home runs, 170 RBI, 1,818 plate appearances), who earned $3.45MM in his first arb year. The Dodgers’ Chris Taylor rode a breakout 2017 and solid 2018 follow-up to a first-year arb salary of $3.5MM. He’s sitting on 39 home runs and 152 RBI with a .262/.331/.435 batting line through 1490 plate appearances. Even if Merrifield isn’t able to push or top twenty long balls in 2019, he’d surely be on track to carry a much more impressive overall statistical baseline than Taylor. He already has more plate appearances (1,669) and RBI (167) and nearly as many long balls (33), with a full season left to improve upon those tallies.

On the other hand, it’s tough to foresee anything like the 34-dinger outburst and second-place MVP finish that allowed Javier Baez to achieve a $5.2MM first-year arb salary. In all likelihood, depending upon how things play out in 2018, Merrifield likely would have commanded an arb-1 salary somewhere between the numbers we’ve thrown out for consideration — say, in the realm of $3.75MM to $4.75MM.

A few other mid-arb players also help illustrate how things could have proceeded in the event that Merrifield would have kept producing throughout his arb years, quite apart from the starting point. Shortstop Marcus Semien entered arb with sixty home runs and near-average total productivity through just under two thousand plate appearances. He earned $3.125MM in his first year after an injury-limited platform season and bumped up to $5.9MM in 2019 salary after launching 15 long balls in 703 plate appearances. Scooter Gennett jumped from a $2.525MM starting point to $5.7MM and $9.775MM salaries, driven by a total of fifty dingers and robust overall productivity in his final two platform campaigns.

With good fortune and some continued improvement, Merrifield could have tracked those or even greater raises. In the best-case, reasonably realistic scenario — fully healthy seasons at the top of his prior power levels (~20 home runs annually) — he might have started at a $4.5MM level and taken home successive $3.5MM raises. That would have resulted in $24MM of total arbitration salary.

Of course, it’s imaginable that Merrifield’s performance, and/or intervening health issues, could deflect him from that sort of path. Joe Panik had set the stage for bigger earnings than that (despite suffering a major ballpark-related disadvantage vis-a-vis LeMahieu), but stumbled after taking down $3.45MM in his arb1 season. He settled for just $3.8MM for the coming campaign and has no hope of approaching LeMahieu’s overall earning level.

Obviously, any kind of significant injury would sap any player’s ability to command a raise. Since Merrifield is not even in arbitration yet, an ill-timed and significant injury (say, in camp this spring) could have been extremely damaging to his earning power. Even if things went well for a time, Merrifield would always have been vulnerable to injuries or downturns in performance. That’s the same for any player, but the risks were amplified (and the future free agent benefits diminished) by his age.

It bears emphasis that the risks still apply before Merrifield would reach arbitration, since he’s still a full season away. Don’t believe me about the variance in arb earnings? Here’s an illustration, using some big names. Francisco Lindor nearly set a first-year-eligible record when he agreed to a $10.55MM contract earlier this month. He has been healthier and more productive of late than the fellow star shortstop of the same service class to whom he’s often compared — Carlos Correa, who edged Lindor in the 2015 Rookie of the Year vote. The Astros star’s salary remains unresolved, but will fall between $4.25MM and $5MM. Despite piling up plate appearances at the outset of his career, Correa is now over five hundred shy of Lindor due to some injuries. Unsurprisingly, he has also fallen behind his contemporary in home runs and holds only a slight edge in runs batted in. Correa still holds a clear edge in overall, park-adjusted offensive productivity (128 wRC+ vs. 120 wRC+), and is still considered an elite talent, but took a down year at the wrong time. Lindor’s playing time and power ramped up in his platform years, allowing him to more than double Correa’s first-year arb earning power.

If $24MM of arbitration earnings represented a best-case scenario, then the downside was more or less unlimited. Obviously, it’s hard to imagine that Merrifield would be cut out of significant future earnings entirely, barring a truly catastrophic injury. But he’s still a full season away. And as Panik shows, it’s not hard to craft a scenario where the earnings come in well short of their anticipated trajectory. The risks are clear.

If there’s something potentially objectionable about this arrangement from Merrifield’s perspective, perhaps it’s the fact that he coughed up a free agent season. That’s where the Royals could find some real upside, since they’ll have a chance to hang onto Merrifield for only a one-year commitment, when he could in theory be in position to take down quite a bit more in free agency.

That said, just what kind of open-market earning scenarios is Merrifield really sacrificing (or, at least pushing back by one year)? It seems rather unlikely, even from four years out, that he’ll enter the 2023 season thinking he left an enormous amount of money on the table.

Take this comparison. We can all agree that Merrifield has had an outstanding pair of seasons. He’s sitting on a .296/.347/.449 cumulative slash with 31 home runs and 79 steals, with his other contributions leading to a cumulative valuation of 9.3 rWAR / 8.1 fWAR. Compare that to Jed Lowrie, who once had his own breakout season at 29 years of age. He was injured in the interim but turned things on more recently. Lowrie just hit the open market at a slightly more advanced age than Merrifield would have, sporting a two-year platform of .272/.356/.448 hitting with 37 home runs and 8.8 rWAR / 8.5 fWAR.

Lowrie’s free agent take? Two years and $20MM. That salary level is reflected in the one option year that Merrifield gave the team in his new deal, which is valued at $10.5MM — again, as with the LeMahieu arb comp, perhaps not coincidentally.

Even in a highly optimistic scenario, such as the Ben Zobrist bidding war, there’s a limit to what this sort of player can earn in free agency. Zobrist was a hot commodity entering his age-35 season, having a long track record of excellent offensive production (well outstripping Merrifield’s overall record to this point) and defensive versatility. He secured a four-year, $56MM contract.

All things considered, this seems to be rather a fair arrangement for both sides. It’s a deal that lets the team avoid a runaway arbitration salary, and perhaps gain another season of a respected veteran at a bit of a discount rate. But it’s hardly the Jose Ramirez contract — another deal involving a two-plus service class infielder who was coming off of a breakout campaign. Ramirez, of course, was just 24 years of age and was just beginning an ascendancy that has continued to levels that were perhaps not anticipated at the time. His deal conveyed a pair of valuable team options — for his age-30 and 31 seasons. The sort of upside present there just isn’t available in the Merrifield contract.

For a 30-year-old, non-slugging infielder/outfielder who is still less than three campaigns into his MLB career, this extension lands in a sensible realm in terms of both length and total guarantee. Upon sifting through some other recent contracts, it’s not hard to see how the sides landed where they did.

AL Central Notes: Romero, Dozier, White Sox

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Young Twins hurler Fernando Romero is one of several of the club’s pitchers who  could end up in a variety of roles when camp breaks, Phil Miller of the Star Tribune writes. While the rotation appears to be largely settled, perhaps it’s not out of the question that he could force his way into a job there — or, of course, take an opening if there’s an injury. Otherwise, Romero could certainly head back to Triple-A to continue developing and serve as depth. Most intriguingly, though, is the possibility that he’d stay with the MLB club as a reliever. While there’s an argument to be made that doing so now might make it less likely to capture his true upside, the Twins see several elements that make Romero a particularly interesting relief candidate. His prior injury history is one element; it also stands to reason that he’d thrive if allowed to focus on his two best pitches (fastball/slider) in shorter stints. The front office still seems to be contemplating the possibilities — closer competitor? multi-inning piggyback mate for Martin Perez? — with plans to wait and see how things look in Fort Myers.

A few more items from the AL Central …

  • All indications are that the Royals believe they can rebound quickly from a down 2018 season and the loss of their prior slate of core players. That seems optimistic from the outside, but we certainly don’t know all that the club does about its own players. First/third baseman Hunter Dozier is one of several players who seems to have a big opportunity ahead of him, as John Sleezer of the Kansas City Star writes. Though he took his lumps in the big leagues last year, Dozier says he felt a change after he settled in at the game’s highest level. “Once things started clicking,” he says, “I got my confidence back and then it became a lot of fun again.” Of course, while Dozier did boost his performance later in the year, his .247/.287/.453 post-All-Star break slash line does highlight the biggest question facing him from an offseason perspective — i.e., whether he’ll consistently get on base. In the field, the team observed big strides, but it remains to be seen whether Dozier can handle third at even a roughly league-average level. He also graded as a very poor baserunner. Clearly, there’s plenty of risk in this profile, but the Royals still seem to have faith — or, at least, feel they need to use the coming season to see what they have in Dozier and a few other as-yet-unestablished players.
  • As the White Sox continue to chase Manny Machado, Mark Lazerus of The Athletic (subscription link) looks at what that has meant for some of the team’s existing infielders. Yolmer Sanchez and Tim Anderson, could stand to see their own situations disrupted — whether by a loss of playing time, a change of position, or perhaps even a trade. Both Sanchez and Anderson say they are in favor of anything that moves the club closer to putting a championship contender on the field, though the latter certainly did not sound particularly inclined to hand over his slot at shortstop. “I’m not just going to give him shortstop,” says Anderson of a hypothetical acquisition of Machado. “I’m not just going to bow to him. That’ my position. … It’s mine until somebody takes it.” Just what the team’s plans would be if they do secure Machado’s services aren’t clear. Many have wondered whether a promise to play him at short would be part of the bargain, though GM Rick Hahn did suggest the star has indicated he’ll defer to the team’s positional preferences. In any event, the first order of business is to get Manny (or perhaps another star) to sign on — an ongoing priority that Hahn has made no secret of.

J.T. Realmuto Trade Talks “Gaining Momentum”

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TODAY: The Marlins aren’t allowing teams to discuss an extension with Realmuto, MLB.com’s Joe Frisaro reports (Twitter link).  This would certainly seem to be an obstacle for the Padres, given Morosi’s earlier news.  Beyond the Padres and Dodgers, Frisaro also lists the Rays, Reds, Braves, and Astros as suitors in the Realmuto sweepstakes, and it’s still “hard to handicap who has [the] inside edge” at this point.

FRIDAY: Trade talks between the Marlins and rival organizations regarding backstop J.T. Realmuto are “gaining momentum,” according to Jon Heyman of Fancred (via Twitter). In particular, he adds, the Padres and Dodgers are “believed most prominent” in the current stage of talks.

Those NL West rivals have long been rumored to be in the hunt for a player who established himself as the game’s best receiver in 2018. With two affordable seasons of control remaining, Realmuto is one of the top prizes of the offseason. That has led other teams — even some with established catchers — to enter the fray as well. At this point, it’s not at all clear that any of the previously rumored interested parties are out of the picture entirely. Frankly, there’s still little reason to believe that any given team is a favorite after months of still-unresolved chatter.

It is interesting, though, to see that report of momentum coincide with this additional, new bit of information: The Padres are not just interested in acquiring Realmuto’s final arbitration-eligible seasons. Rather, per MLB.com’s Jon Morosi (Twitter link), the San Diego organization is “insisting on [a] window to negotiate [a] contract extension” if they are to line up on a deal with the Marlins.

Structuring a deal in such a manner holds obvious appeal for the Padres, who surely do not fully expect to contend in 2019. And that could enable the Fish to maximize their return; no doubt, the Padres’ loaded farm includes quite a few players of interest, with San Diego backstops Austin Hedges and Francisco Mejia also representing sensible targets. But it also comes with some risk for the Miami organization. After all, a failure of the extension talks would mean re-opening trade negotiations, possibly with diminished leverage.

It’s worth bearing in mind, of course, that we’ve been waiting all winter for a Realmuto deal to come into focus. Perhaps it finally will — there isn’t much of a window left before camp opens, after all — but this certainly isn’t the first time we’ve been told of a build-up in talks. (See here and here.)

Twins Front Office Discusses Spending Plans

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It seems the Twins are preparing for a light spending year, as Phil Miller of the Star Tribune writes, in spite of an apparent opportunity to challenge in the game’s weakest overall division. That seems to have led to some less-than-compelling efforts at selling the approach to fans. 

“The best moves are made not when you’re trying to open the window to contend, but when the window is wide open,” GM Thad Levine says. “We’re very eagerly waiting for this window to be opened, and when it is, we plan on striking.”

Meanwhile, president of baseball operations Derek Falvey cited a desire to “invest appropriately for the right years” and to “make sure we are getting the best years” when it comes to paying for talent.

To be frank, these statements are a bit befuddling. The logic is circular, to the extent it’s discernible at all. How is it, exactly, that one knows when the window has been opened, to borrow Levine’s passively-framed metaphor? Not just past performance, of course; after all, Falvey decries free agency, which “historically, is sometimes more focused on the past.” Instead, he says, “I want to pay for what’s coming in the future.” So, do the Twins foresee success?“You need to invest in the group that you have,” he says, “and I feel really good about ours.” Despite that assessment, here we are, evidently waiting for that window to be opened.

Somewhat ironically, there’s a risk here for the Twins that, by the time the window is opened (whatever it is that entails), it’ll slam back shut rather quickly. For one thing, as Falvey himself explained, low-budget teams oversee “a lot of variation … in terms of performance” since they are reliant upon less-proven talent year after year. So, perhaps, a one-year performance boost can’t even necessarily be relied upon (as the Twins well know from recent experience) in deciding when to push the pedal down. How, then, do you know when to get aggressive?

For another, the Twins’ would-be “core” group isn’t all that fresh-faced. Virtually all of the club’s key players are already in arbitration or will qualify for it next fall. Four of the team’s five starters will be free agents at season’s end. Even if there are some promising developments from still-controllable players, it could become awfully expensive to build around them before they themselves reach top-end arb salaries and then free agency.

The Minnesota front office duo found itself on more comfortable ground when emphasizing the more affirmative aspects of the plan. It seems there’s quite a premium being place on flexibility. That aspect of the explanation makes greater intuitive sense. Levine suggests that the club’s “unusual abundance of variance and volatility” — a characterization with which I’d generally agree — leaves some real upside on the table. If things break right, he says, the club has the assets needed “to make adjustments to this team pretty quickly.”

The plan, then, seems to be for the organization to see whether Byron Buxton, Miguel Sano, Max Kepler, and others will force the issue — with pending free agent bounceback candidates like Jonathan Schoop, Michael Pineda, Jake Odorizzi, Martin Perez, Blake Parker, and Addison Reed also representing major wild cards. Is things shake out, and the Indians stumble, then a deadline buy is always possible. If not, the Twins can trade the short-term pieces that are performing and look ahead to a future in which the organization has literally no salaries on the books.

That all makes sense enough, but it’s still surely rather frustrating for some fans. As Miller notes, the club is presently on track to carry a payroll that would stay below $100MM. That would seem to leave a fair bit of coin on the table when compared to recent spending levels — and leave the team short of maximizing its immediate opportunity (even account for possible mid-season swaps). Levine says the Twins want to strike when the moment is right; Falvey says they need to invest in the future. There’s an argument to be made that paying or trading for some relatively youthful, quality contributors now would be the perfect way to bet on the team’s talent without jeopardizing the future.

Astros Owner Jim Crane On Keuchel, Marwin, Free Agency

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Astros owner Jim Crane gave some interesting comments today regarding his organization’s remaining plans for the winter and the state of the market at large, as MLB.com’s Alyson Footer of MLB.com reports on Twitter. It’s tough to tell the degree of interest, but Crane certainly seemed to indicate that the organization has some realistic inclination to bring back one or more of its recent players who remain available on the open market.

“We’ve got a couple guys that were here last year that are a possibility to be back here [this] year,” said Crane. “We hope that happens.” He went on to specifically cite southpaw Dallas Keuchel and utilityman Marwin Gonzalez, both of whom are among the most-accomplished players who have yet to find new teams. Calling both Keuchel and Gonzalez “great players and great for the franchise,” Crane suggested there was at least a chance still of a reunion.  “Maybe something will work out there,” he said, “who knows?”

It’s certainly arguable that both of those outgoing free agents still make sense on the roster. Between Keuchel and Charlie Morton, the Astros saw a lot of innings walk out the door. While there are options on hand to fill them, pursuit of another starter has long seemed sensible. It’s a bit of a tougher match with Gonzalez, particularly now that the Houston front office has acquired a potential replacement piece in Aledmys Diaz, but perhaps he’d still be of interest at the right price.

The club also bid adieu to several other veterans this winter, a few of whom have already signed elsewhere (including Morton). Backstop Martin Maldonado, southpaw reliever Tony Sipp, and DH Evan Gattis, however, all remain available after wrapping up their contracts with the ’Stros. Among them, Sipp seems to represent the most sensible roster fit, though there’s no reason to think at this point that he’s a particular target.

However things shake out on Keuchel and Gonzalez, Crane’s comments didn’t admit of much of an opening for the team to pursue free agent market’s two biggest stars — or much of an appetite for any true blockbuster contracts in the future. Stating that the market is “a little bottled up” due to the ongoing presence of Bryce Harper and Manny Machado, Crane went on to offer some revealing thoughts on the state of the hot stove economy and his own organization’s theoretical leanings.

“I think that teams are very focused on value,” said Crane of the business-wide approach to free agency. “I don’t know that you’ll see many more ten-year deals in this business anymore because the analytics are so good and a lot of those deals never work.”

The notion of value as an overriding concern — increasingly treated as something of an actuarial assessment of risk — is hardly a novel concept. But it’s interesting to see an owner not only come forward with that viewpoint, but to characterize it as an industry-wide phenomenon and acknowledge a particular practical ramification of such an approach.

Beyond those somewhat eyebrow-raising aspects of Crane’s comment, it’s also an interesting point to consider. It’s certainly possible to imagine decade-long deals that make sense, particularly for especially youthful players, even if it’s to be expected that the bulk of the on-field performance contributions will be reaped in such a contract’s earlier seasons. Beyond that, nobody really needed analytics to tell them of the concerns with guaranteeing so much money for so many years to one necessarily aging, potentially injured player. After all, the teams that have done so in the past did not tack on years and dollars because they preferred to; they simply did what it took to get the player in an open bidding situation.

Such elite players remain highly prized, of course, but the still-deepening analytical revolution — which has both recognized and helped usher in an influx of cheaply-acquired, increasingly well-prepared, league-minimum-earning players along with a youthened aging curve — has pointed to cheaper ways to maximize roster output while highlighting the financial risks of clogging future payrolls. The resulting reductions in demand have made it increasingly difficult for free agents to squeeze extra guaranteed seasons from clubs.

It’ll be interesting to see how things transpire this winter, with a pair of obvious candidates for extremely lengthy deals still waiting to sign them. While the Astros evidently will not be dabbling in such corners of the market, they’ll still be working to improve the roster in other ways — perhaps even by looking at the second tier of remaining free agents, which includes Keuchel, Gonzales, and others. “Every day we’re looking at opportunities,” says Crane.

MLBPA Hires Jerry Crasnick

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Long-time journalist Jerry Crasnick has an intriguing new gig, with the Major League Baseball Players Association announcing his hiring. He’ll serve as senior advisor for player, agent, and media relations, working alongside just-promoted director of communications Chris Dahl.

It came as a major surprise last year when Crasnick’s tenure with ESPN was brought to a close. He was a fixture in the baseball reporting community and had enjoyed a productive, a 15-year run at the sports media giant. Over the years, Crasnick provided a trove of insightful hot stove journalism; he also reported quite a few items that were cited on this website.

With the move, Crasnick will take up a role at the MLBPA at quite an interesting time for the union and its members. Effectively addressing the suboptimal developments in the sphere of player compensation will obviously require more than new collective bargaining ideas and willpower at the negotiating table. It’ll also mean laying the groundwork for leverage by performing nuanced public relations work.

MLBTR offers a tip of the cap to Jerry for all his outstanding reporting over the years and wishes him well in his new pursuit.

Cubs To Sign George Kontos

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The Cubs have agreed to a minor-league deal with reliever George Kontos, according to Bruce Levine of 670TheScore.com (via Twitter). The deal comes with an invitation to participate in spring camp as a non-roster player.

Kontos, 33, has a long track record of getting results at the MLB level, though he has rarely flashed truly convincing peripherals. It’s hard to argue with 357 frames of 3.10 ERA pitching in the bigs. At the same time, with an underwhelming combination of 6.7 K/9, 2.9 BB/9, and a 43.7% groundball rate for his career, Kontos carries only a 3.82 FIP, 4.00 xFIP, and 3.76 SIERA.

Generating light contact has been the name of the game for Kontos, who has held opposing hitters to a .265 batting average on balls in play for his career. Despite the unremarkable strikeout totals, he has also carried a strong 11.7% lifetime swinging-strike rate. Most intriguing of all was a 2017 bump in that statistic to an elite 16.4% level, though Kontos did not carry that with him into the ensuing campaign. He ultimately matched his career-worst ERA last year, allowing 4.39 earned runs per nine over 26 2/3 innings while bouncing between three teams.

All said, there’s plenty to like in securing Kontos on a minor-league deal. At worst, he represents a quality depth option to have on hand. And that past whiff rate does still tantalize, particularly since (as Levine notes) Kontos has shown an uptick in his velocity in workouts this winter. His typically low-nineties heater had trended down a bit in 2018.

Rays To Sign Casey Sadler

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The Rays have agreed to a minors deal with righty Casey Sadler. John Dreker of Pirates Prospects first reported the news in December (via Twitter). The pact includes an invitation to participate in MLB Spring Training.

For a Tampa Bay club that has increasingly utilized quite a volume of different pitchers throughout the season, depth is paramount. Sadler, 28, will present the organization with another swingman piece to consider for a multi-inning relief role.

While he has seen MLB action in three campaigns, Sadler remains an out away from his 20th frame at the game’s highest level. He spent all of 2018 at Triple-A with the Pirates organization, which originally drafted him in the 25th round in 2010. In 77 innings for Indianapolis, Sadler worked to a 3.39 ERA with 7.1 K/9 and 3.0 BB/9.

Jose Reyes Hopes To Play In 2019

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Veteran infielder Jose Reyes is planning to play the 2019 season, Anthony Rieber of Newsday reports on Twitter. When last we checked in, Reyes had indicated uncertainty as to whether he’d continue his playing career.

The question remains whether Reyes will receive an appealing opportunity. His on-field decline is certainly part of the picture. But Reyes will likely find it especially hard to get another chance given that he was arrested and charged with attacking his wife in 2015. While the charges were ultimately dropped when she decided not to testify, Reyes has acknowledged making a “terrible mistake” and was suspended under the league’s domestic violence policy.

That terribly unfortunate event ultimately set the stage for Reyes to return to the Mets, where he has played for the past three seasons. While he certainly did not rediscover his prior All-Star form, Reyes was an effective player for the organization in the first two years of the deal. He struggled last year, however, with a career-worst .189/.260/.320 batting line in 251 plate appearances.

Under the circumstances, it’s all but impossible to imagine the 35-year-old securing a 40-man roster spot. Some organizations may decide not to consider hiring him at all. Still, there’s little doubt that the switch-hitter remains worthy of a non-roster contract from an on-field perspective, so it would not be surprising to see him catch on somewhere if he’s willing to take a minor-league deal.

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