Jose Valverde Opts Out Of Deal With Padres
12:28pm: Valverde tells Dennis Lin of the San Diego Union Tribune (Twitter link) that his agent has informed him that a new deal may come quickly. Given the fact that Valverde opted out of his deal (as opposed to being released) and has pitched reasonably well this spring, it wouldn’t be surprising if he’s drawing interest from other clubs.
10:03am: Righty Jose Valverde has opted out of his deal with the Padres and will be given his release, MLB.com’s Corey Brock reports on Twitter. The 37-year-old was in camp on a minor league deal.
Valverde enjoyed a long stretch as a quality reliever who racked up a lot of saves. But his struggles over the past two years have been rather pronounced: over 40 innings, he owns a 5.63 ERA. Though the veteran still has a useful K:BB ratio in that stretch (9.5 K/9 against 3.6 BB/9), he has been exceedingly home run prone. Among the major ERA estimators, only SIERA values Valverde as an average or better reliever since 2013.
It seemed at one point that Valverde could be headed toward a job with the Pads. He has maintained quite a bit of fastball velocity into his later years, but reportedly was working into and above the mid-90s at times this spring. He allowed four earned runs in 8 2/3 spring innings, but fanned eight while walking only one batter.
Reds Outright Sam LeCure
11:00am: LeCure has cleared waivers but may still elect whether to decline the assignment, Fay tweets. Of course, doing so would mean giving up his guaranteed salary, and LeCure himself tweets that he is heading to the organization’s Triple-A affiliate in Louisville.
10:34am: The Reds have outrighted reliever Sam LeCure, John Fay of the Cincinnati Enquirer reports on Twitter. LeCure, 30, has not seen minor league action since a brief stint back in 2011.
Cincinnati has leaned heavily on LeCure’s right arm over the past four years. On average, he’s thrown 63 innings of 3.35 ERA ball in that span, averaging 8.8 K/9 against 3.3 BB/9. But those numbers all took a downturn last year, when LeCure struck out 7.6 and walked 3.8 batters per nine. His ERA fell below league average, with estimators backing that assessment.
LeCure was not able to secure a place in the pen despite a solid Cactus League stat line. He K’ed twelve and walked four over 8 1/3 innings, allowing three earned runs. The move is somewhat surprising given LeCure’s track record, but the club has apparently decided to go in another direction.
Though he loses his roster spot, LeCure will not go without his salary. He signed a two-year deal last year guaranteeing him $3.05MM, the majority of it coming in 2015. (In fact, LeCure’s guaranteed 2015 base salary of $1.85MM has increased to$1.9MM due to escalators.) Depending upon how much big league service time he ends up accruing this year — he enters the year with 4.072 years of service — LeCure will be eligible for one more season of arbitration before hitting the open market.
Pirates Acquire Hunter Morris From Brewers
The Pirates have acquired first baseman Hunter Morris from the Brewers in exchange for a player to be named later, the clubs announced. The 26-year-old had already been outrighted over the offseason.
Morris has spent most of his time at Triple-A over the last two seasons, slashing .260/.315/.453 and hitting 35 home runs in 902 plate appearances. He earned the organization’s minor league player of the year award back in 2012. A left-handed hitter, Morris will presumably land with the Bucs’ top affiliate.
Blue Jays Sign Felix Doubront
The Blue Jays have signed lefty Felix Doubront to a minor league deal, Ken Rosenthal of FOX Sports reports on Twitter. Doubront spent all of camp with the Cubs before he was released on Saturday.
Doubront agreed to a $1.925MM salary to avoid arbitration, but Chicago will pay him around $473K by cutting him loose before the season. He had a rough spring and lacked options, making it hard for Chicago to keep him.
For a Jays club that has been in need of pitching depth, Doubront represents a welcome and risk-free investment. The 27-year-old has certainly had his struggles at times, but has shown the ability to miss bats at the big league level even in a starting capacity. Presumably, he could ultimately see time in the rotation or pen for Toronto if he can prove his worth at Triple-A.
Offseason In Review: Miami Marlins
Miami tied its fortunes to star slugger Giancarlo Stanton, kicking off an incredibly busy offseason in which the organization announced its intentions to compete in 2015 and beyond.
Major League Signings
- 1B Michael Morse: two years, $16MM
- OF Ichiro Suzuki: one year, $2MM
- C Jeff Mathis: one year, $1.5MM (exercised option)
- Total spend: $19.5MM
Notable Minor League Signings
- David Adams, Reid Brignac, Tyler Colvin, Cole Gillespie, Reed Johnson, Don Kelly, Nick Masset, Vin Mazzaro, Pat Misch, Chris Narveson, Ryan Reid, Vinny Rottino, Scott Sizemore, Jhonatan Solano, Jordany Valdespin
Trades And Claims
- Acquired 2B Dee Gordon, SP Dan Haren, IF Miguel Rojas, PTBNL, $10MM from Dodgers in exchange for SP Andrew Heaney, IF/OF Enrique Hernandez, RP Chris Hatcher, C Austin Barnes
- Acquired SP Mat Latos from Reds in exchange for SP Anthony DeSclafani, C Chad Wallach
- Acquired IF/OF Martin Prado, SP/RP David Phelps, $6MM from Yankees in exchange for SP Nathan Eovaldi, 1B Garrett Jones, RP Domingo German
- Acquired SP Kendry Flores, RP Luis Castillo from Giants in exchange for 3B Casey McGehee
- Acquired RP Aaron Crow from Royals in exchange for SP Brian Flynn, RP Reid Redman
- Acquired SP/RP Andre Rienzo from White Sox in exchange for RP Dan Jennings
- Acquired cash from Pirates in exchange for RP Arquimedes Caminero
- Claimed RP Preston Claiborne from Yankees
- Claimed RP Andrew McKirahan from Cubs in Rule 5 draft
Extensions
- OF Giancarlo Stanton: thirteen years, $325MM plus club option; player can opt out after six years
- OF Christian Yelich: seven years, $47.57MM plus club option
- RP Mike Dunn: two years, $5.8MM
Notable Losses
- Barnes, Rob Brantly, Mark Canha, DeSclafani, Eovaldi, Flynn, Rafael Furcal, Kevin Gregg, Hatcher, Heaney, Hernandez, Jones, McGehee, Edgar Olmos, Brad Penny, Wallach
Needs Addressed
After a somewhat surprisingly promising 2014 campaign, many tabbed the Marlins as a team to watch heading in 2015. Expectations were that Miami would ramp up its competitive timeline somewhat and make a legitimate run at extending Giancarlo Stanton.
The Marlins did that and more by inking Stanton right off the bat, locking up outfield mate Christian Yelich in mid-March, and making a whole host of acquisitions in between. Fulfilling its assurances to Stanton, and using some — but not all — of the salary space that his back-loaded deal opened up, Miami methodically plugged holes all winter.
Michael Morse upgrades Garrett Jones at first for a reasonable price. Ichiro Suzuki provides a veteran fourth outfielder to go with the young trio of Stanton, Yelich, and Marcell Ozuna. Re-upping Jeff Mathis as the backup catcher is, perhaps, somewhat questionable given his anemic bat, but at least he’ll be cheap and offers the team rather a different skillset than does starter Jarrod Saltalamacchia.
The biggest move, surely, was the addition of speedy second baseman Dee Gordon. Miami is betting that 2014 was a breakout, not a brief uptick, for Gordon. It sacrificed a good bit of talent (and future flexibility) to do so: top pitching prospect Andrew Heaney, interesting utility man Enrique Hernandez, useful reliever Chris Hatcher, and solid catching/utility prospect Austin Barnes.
That deal also left the Fish with a free roll on veteran righty Dan Haren, who will be joined by fellow trade acquisition Mat Latos in an interesting but hard-to-predict rotation. Those two arms are more or less opposites at this point: Haren has been a workhorse of declining quality, while Latos has had injury questions but nothing but quality results when healthy. It took another young arm and catching prospect to add Latos to the mix. Miami was not even sure when it made the deal to add Haren whether he would pitch for the team — he was included, in large part, as a mechanism for the Dodgers to kick in $10MM cash — but his decision to do so provides useful stability at the back of the rotation.
The other major bit of roster orchestration performed by president of baseball ops Michael Hill and GM Dan Jennings was designed to upgrade the team at third. Miami bought low on Martin Prado from the Yankees (who had already bought low on him from the Diamondbacks), in turn selling low on talented-but-unpolished pitcher Nate Eovaldi (who had come to Miami as the crown jewel of the Hanley Ramirez trade). In turn, the team had to move incumbent Casey McGehee, who had an excellent but questionably sustainable comeback in 2014 and will now look to repeat with the Giants.
A host of the other moves listed above filled in smaller gaps and provided the team with some options.
Questions Remaining
In the immediate term, the Fish look like a pretty complete club. The outfield is a reasonable choice as one of the three best outfits in the game, while the infield seems in much better shape than last year. To be sure, the new trio of Gordon, Prado, and Morse has its fair share of questions. But there is good reason to prefer that group to what it replaced, by a fair margin.
The biggest question, perhaps, is at short. Adeiny Hechavarria has struggled at the plate and is not well-loved by defensive metrics. But the team obviously feels good about him, since it explored an extension. Indeed, last year was his best at the plate, he is only entering his age-26 season, and Hech seems to have all the tools to be quite a good defender.
That being said, if the Marlins are contending and Hechavarria is not performing, the possibility of a deal for another option cannot be ruled out. Likewise, the catching position does not presently look to be a strength and could ultimately require a temporary patch while the club awaits J.T. Realmuto‘s final developmental steps. The club has some reasonable options lined up elsewhere on the diamond — players like Donovan Solano, Jeff Baker, Don Kelly, and Jordany Valdespin come to mind — but looks thinner at short and catcher.
It is fair to wonder, too, whether an injury or two could expose some fault lines in the rotation. It is somewhat remarkable, really, that all of Eovaldi, Heaney, DeSclafani, Brian Flynn, and Jacob Turner are gone from the rotation mix, taking a lot of potential innings with them. While second overall pick Tyler Kolek is the new top dog in the system, he remains years away (even as third choice Carlos Rodon nears a big league job with the White Sox).
To be sure, things look solid as camp winds to a close. Henderson Alvarez, Jarred Cosart, and Tom Koehler will presumably join Latos and Haren while the team awaits the mid-season return of precocious ace Jose Fernandez. But the rest of the depth chart includes a somewhat questionable mix of swingmen (Brad Hand, David Phelps) and untested prospects (Jose Urena, Justin Nicolino, Adam Conley).
There is depth and quality in the pen, led by late-inning arms Steve Cishek, A.J. Ramos, and Mike Dunn. For a second lefty, the club will go with the out-of-options Hand (after waiving Rule 5 pick Andrew McKirahan). The club went out and added Aaron Crow in hopes that he would bounce back in Miami, giving up Flynn to do so. But with Crow out with a torn UCL, the right-handed pen contingent will be drawn from the returning Bryan Morris and Carter Capps, offseason additions Phelps and Preston Claiborne, and veteran minor league free agents Nick Masset, Vin Mazzaro, Pat Misch, Chris Narveson, and Ryan Reid. We already know that the Fish attempted to bolster this group by pursuing Francisco Rodriguez; with Crow now gone (and a likely non-tender after the year), could they have a look at the still-unsigned Rafael Soriano or other veterans that have recently been set adrift?
Deal of Note
The prevailing notion entering the winter was that the Marlins had to do something to “prove” to Stanton that the franchise was serious about winning, enticing him to commit for the long haul as he entered his second (and second-to-last) season of arbitration eligibility. It was expected, perhaps, that a series of additions earlier in the offseason might, in part, set up a spring extension.
Instead, Miami put the horse before the cart by making a record-setting contract with Stanton its first order of business. His youth and essentially unmatched power (in today’s game) made a huge guarantee an obvious requirement of any deal. But the final structure still managed to shock the industry, in large part due to its remarkable 13-year term, sixth-year opt-out, and backloaded payout.
It remains to be seen how things play out under this contract, of course, but it ensures Stanton will make an astronomical sum even if he is injured or experiences a severe production decline. Though Miami seems quite likely to achieve excellent value if Stanton opts out, there is some frightening downside. (And the deal makes all the more clear how well the Angels did to lock up the historically-excellent Mike Trout without having to dangle a seven-year player option on the deal’s back side.)
Overview
Stanton’s new contract kicked off an offseason of ever-cresting promise which culminated in the long-term signing of Yelich. Expectations are high, the Fish are a confident bunch, and the organization seems out to regain the trust of its fans. But expectations can be dangerous, as Miami knows all too well, and a postseason berth seems far from a certainty.
Then there’s the fact that Miami has sacrificed a good deal of its upper minor league talent in the last eight months. Indeed, five of the team’s six best prospects entering 2014 (per Baseball America) have since been traded. Many other, lesser-regarded young players have also seen their departure. Re-acquiring top-level prospect talent while rebuilding system depth — all while facing increasing arbitration costs and demands for spending at the big league level — will pose a significant challenge.
This is where the biggest long-term questions factor in: will the team’s on-field performance and popularity enable it to draw and earn, and will owner Jeffrey Loria continue to approve payroll increases? Needless to say, all of these questions are interconnected and remain impossible to predict at this stage.
As for the present season, the most interesting thing about the Fish may not be what they did, but what they might have done. The team was in on K-Rod, James Shields, and Hector Olivera, and will enter the year with the league’s lowest payroll. Miami was fairly aggressive at last year’s trade deadline; if it is in the hunt this year, there could be some fireworks yet to come.
Photo courtesy of USA Today Sports Images.
Extension Notes: Duda, Harvey, Cueto, Price
The Mets are reportedly set to lock into all of the arbitration-eligible seasons of center fielder Juan Lagares while adding control over another year via club option. But that is not the only possible extension scenario ongoing in New York and elsewhere.
Here’s the latest:
- Mets GM Sandy Alderson acknowledged that the club has had conversations with both Lagares and first baseman Lucas Duda, as Mike Vorkunov of the Star-Ledger reports (Twitter links). He explained the team’s process as akin to that which led it to sign deals in the past with players like David Wright, Jose Reyes, and Jon Niese, calling Lagares and Duda “select individuals who we think have real upside.” A new pact for the power-hitting, arb-eligible Duda will likely cost the Mets a fair bit more than the $23MM the team reportedly committed to Lagares.
- For his part, Duda indicated that he is hopeful of getting a deal done before the presumptive deadline of Opening Day, Mike Puma of the New York Post tweets. His agents are still working with the New York front office.
- Arguably the Mets‘ best player, starter Matt Harvey, tells Puma (Twitter links) that he and agent Scott Boras have not been approached to discuss a deal. Of course, that could be due in large part to the fact that Harvey appears to be in a particularly unlikely extension spot: a Boras-represented ace with nearly-unlimited upside who is preparing to enter his arbitration years after missing a season due to Tommy John surgery. When asked whether he would try to get something done with Harvey, Alderson said that the question was “too far afield for me.” Needless to say, it does not appear that there is anything in the works here.
- The Reds have made “no progress” on a deal with ace Johnny Cueto, Jon Morosi of FOX Sports reports on Twitter. That is really not surprising, given that Cincinnati appears to have a lack of future payroll flexibility and Cueto a rather substantial earning potential as a free agent.
- Morosi also tweets that he does not expect any pending free agents to reach long-term deals barring a surprise, massive offer from the Tigers to David Price, and it is hard to disagree with that assessment. That being said, Price made clear yesterday that he is not putting any timeline on talks about a new deal, as MLB.com’s Jason Beck reports. Price also gave some hints as to his mindset, seemingly indicating that Detroit knows his demands and will have to decide whether to meet them. “It wouldn’t be something that would linger on,” he said. “These guys, they know what they want to do, and so do I. So if we get to that point, then I think once it gets going, it would go quickly. If it doesn’t happen, then it just wouldnât happen. It’s not something that we’d revisit every two weeks. I’m sure the Tigers would rather it be either we can get it done or we can’t and leave it alone. We’ll see how everything starts shaking out.” Price added that he does not necessarily see recent deals for top starting pitchers as setting the salary range that should apply to his next deal: “I guess you could say that, but that’s not my thought behind it.”
Jarred Cosart Says He Did Not Bet On Baseball
Marlins starter Jarred Cosart briefly addressed the league’s inquiry into a still-obscure, gambling-related issue, telling Manny Navarro of the Miami Herald: “I never have, never will bet on baseball.”
That statement certainly indicates that Cosart does not believe he did anything that would trigger discipline, at least not pursuant to Rule 21(d), which prohibits gambling on baseball games. Cosart added that he hopes the league will wrap up its investigation by Opening Day, which of course is only days away.
Cosart declined comment otherwise. “That’s the only statement I can come out with right now,” he said. “I’m letting MLB security [handle the rest]. They’ve investigated my Twitter. I had to speak to some people from their offices last week, but I’m in a good position on it, I’m confident. Like I said, it’s kind of just in the commissioners hands now and we’ll see what he does with it.”
Michael Matuella To Undergo Tommy John Surgery
Top draft prospect Michael Matuella, a Duke University righty, has torn his ulnar collateral ligament and will undergo Tommy John surgery, Keith Law of ESPN.com reports on Twitter. He had been tabbed as a possible first overall pick.
Matuella joins last year’s number one choice, Brady Aiken, as premium amateur arms requiring UCL replacements this offseason. The news has put a significant damper on a draft class that was already receiving less-than-stellar reviews.
Of course, we have seen some added willingness on the part of teams to take risks on players coming off of a TJ procedure. As Baseball America’s J.J. Cooper notes, last year’s draft included two prominent first-round choices who received big bonuses despite the surgery: Jeff Hoffman, who went 9th overall to the Blue Jays, and Erick Fedde, who went at 18 to the Nationals. And we have seen significant guarantees given to still-rehabbing pitchers, with the Royals along inking Luke Hochevar and Kris Medlen.
But there is little doubt that the added risk will have an impact on the earning capacity of Matuella. Cooper does note on Twitter that at least some clubs actually have greater long-term concern with back issues for the right-hander. BA’s John Manuel and Hudson Belinsky further discussed Matuella’s draft status in an interesting piece.
Royals Re-Sign Rafael Furcal
The Royals have re-signed infielder Rafael Furcal, Andy McCullough of the Kansas City Star reports on Twitter. Furcal was released by Kansas City yesterday.
It appears that the move was designed to get Furcal in camp when he signed initially while preventing the Royals from being obligated to him for a $100K Article XX(B) retention bonus. Furcal does not appear on the list of Article XX(B) free agents I compiled recently, because he signed after that list was posted, but he did in fact qualify for free agency pursuant to that provision and therefore was entitled to its built-in protections.
Clayton Richard Declines To Opt Out From Pirates Deal
Lefty Clayton Richard decided to allow his opt-out clause to expire yesterday, despite the fact that he was not added to the Pirates’ 40-man roster, Tim Williams of Pirates Prospects reports. Richard’s opt-out was negotiated into his deal; he is not an Article XX(B) free agent and thus lacks the automatic protection provided by that status.
Richard said that he is not sure if and when he can opt out in the future, but noted that his representatives were set to discuss his contract with GM Neal Huntington. The 31-year-old has been effective in spring — he allowed 3 earned runs over 8 2/3 innings, striking out seven and walking two — and likely would have drawn interest elsewhere. Instead, he’ll provide a potentially useful depth option for Pittsburgh.
“I’m still here, Richard tells Williams. “We just thought it would be best to stay here and work some stuff out. I’ve had such a good experience with everyone here. We’re going in the right direction. It seems like the right move to stay here and keep on making that progress.”