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Angels Sign Cesar Valdez To Minor League Contract

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The Angels have signed right-hander Cesar Valdez to a minor league deal, ESPN’s Enrique Rojas reports (Twitter link).  Valdez receives an invitation to the Angels’ big league Spring Training camp, and he will receive a guaranteed $950K if he makes the active roster.

The veteran righty is back in Anaheim after also signing a minors deal with the Halos last offseason.  Valdez only made a single appearance at the MLB level, and was then designated for assignment and subsequently outrighted off the 40-man roster.  Pitching much of the season at Triple-A Salt Lake, Valdez had a 3.94 ERA, 21% strikeout rate, and a very strong 3.8% walk rate over 146 1/3 innings, all as a starter.

Though Valdez just got onto that one game with the Angels, it was enough to make it five career MLB seasons for the 37-year-old.  He made his debut way back in 2010 with 20 innings for the Diamondbacks, next surfaced in the majors in 2017 with the A’s and Blue Jays, and then didn’t appear in the big leagues again until working out of the Orioles’ bullpen in 2020.

Valdez’s odd career arc (that also includes stops in the Mexican League and the Chinese Professional Baseball League) has seen him move back and forth several times between starter and relief roles, but it would appear he’ll head to the Angels’ camp as rotation depth.  Never much of a strikeout pitcher throughout his career, Valdez has relied on grounders to generate outs, and he has a 49.1% groundball rate over his 112 career innings at the Major League level.

Latest On Cardinals’ Free Agent Targets

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The Cardinals have yet to have much engagement with the offseason’s top-tier free agents, according to Derrick Goold of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.  This relates to both starting pitchers and position players, as in regards to the top of the shortstop market, the Cards “have remained on the outskirts of the shortstop discussions, staying aware but not plunging in,” Goold writes.

This isn’t to say the the Cardinals aren’t active, as the team is focusing on its need behind the plate.  Cards officials will be meeting with the agents for Willson Contreras and Christian Vazquez, and such other free agent catchers as Omar Narvaez and Mike Zunino have also been explored by the team, as well as trade candidates like the Athletics’ Sean Murphy or any of the Blue Jays’ three backstops.

Catcher is the most pressing need for the Cardinals, so it isn’t surprising that the team might be looking to get its catching situation settled before moving onto other targets.  With Adam Wainwright re-sigining and Nolan Arenado passing on his opt-out clause, St. Louis had two major bits of business settled before the offseason even officially began, perhaps giving the team some extra flexibility to proceed a bit more slowly on other matters.

Signing Contreras would certainly count as a headline-grabbing move, as the longtime Cubs catcher is projected to land a four-year, $84MM deal, and would also cost draft pick compensation since he rejected Chicago’s qualifying offer.  $84MM would count as the second-biggest contract the Cardinals have ever given to a free agent, behind only Matt Holliday’s $120MM deal from the 2009-10 offseason.  That deal was also a re-signing, as Holliday had become a familiar quantity to the Cardinals after spending the last two-plus months of the 2009 season in a St. Louis uniform.

In short, making a big free agent splash usually isn’t the preferred strategy of Cards president of baseball operations John Mozeliak.  This obviously doesn’t rule out Contreras altogether, but it might make St. Louis more open to trade talks with the A’s or Jays in the catching search.  That said, signing Contreras for just money and a draft pick might be preferable to giving up a big trade package for Murphy, Alejandro Kirk, or Gabriel Moreno.

On the pitching side, the Cardinals are known to be looking at re-signing with Jose Quintana.  For the bullpen, the Cards are targeting high-strikeout relievers — as Goold notes, the team is looking to add more swing-and-miss after finishing near the bottom of the league in strikeout percentage.  St. Louis is looking at pitching options both in North America and overseas.

Cubs Interested In Dansby Swanson

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The Cubs are among the teams with interest in shortstop Dansby Swanson, according to Jon Morosi of MLB Network (Twitter link).  Chicago has been known to have interest in the free agent shortstop market, though Carlos Correa and Xander Bogaerts were the shortstops more linked to the Cubs.

Still, with so many other teams keen on landing a top-tier shortstop, it isn’t surprising that the Cubs have at least considered every member of the “big four” — Swanson, Bogaerts, Correa, and Trea Turner.  Bogaerts and Correa have stood out from the pack since the Cubs have reportedly had interest in Correa for years, while Bogaerts’ ties to Cubs president of baseball operations Jed Hoyer string back to Hoyer’s days in the Red Sox organization.

That said, Swanson naturally has plenty of appeal to any team looking for an upgrade at shortstop.  The former first overall pick is coming off the best of his seven MLB seasons, as Swanson had a career-high 6.4 fWAR over 696 plate appearances and the full 162 games with the Braves.  Swanson’s contributions came on both offense (.277/.329/.447 with 25 homers and 18 steals) and defense, with his first career Gold Glove and a range of above-average marks from public defensive metrics.

Swanson turns 29 in February, so he is still young enough to be a long-term piece for a Cubs team that might have a few too many roster holes to be a full-fledged contender in 2023, though it depends on how aggressive Chicago plans to be this winter.  Like Bogaerts and Turner, Swanson comes at the extra price of draft pick compensation, since all of these three shortstops rejected a qualifying offer (Correa was ineligible for a QO after receiving one last winter).  Swanson is the second-youngest of the big four shortstops, though he is generally seen as the member of the group who has the smallest price tag, comparatively speaking.  MLBTR projected him for a seven-year, $154MM deal, which still ranks fifth on our top 50 free agents list — Swanson was ranked behind only Aaron Judge and the other three shortstops.

It stands to reason that pretty much every team (i.e. the Phillies, Giants, Orioles, Padres, Red Sox) looking into any of the top shortstops might have some interest in other members of the group, a la the Cubs.  That said, the Braves have been the only team known to have a direct interest in Swanson himself, and if Swanson did sign elsewhere, Atlanta isn’t likely to look to Correa, Turner, or Bogaerts as a replacement.

Royals Hire Zach Bove As Assistant Pitching Coach

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Zach Bove is the latest new face on the Royals’ coaching staff, as Sports Illustrated’s Pat Ragazzo (Twitter link) reports that Bove is leaving the Twins’ staff to become Kansas City’s new assistant pitching coach.  Bove has been in Minnesota for the last four seasons, working in the assistant pitching coordinator role in 2022.

It marks another Royals hire from inside the AL Central, as K.C. just named Brian Sweeney (formerly the Guardians’ bullpen coach) as the team’s new pitching coach earlier this week.  Beyond these hirings, the Royals also named Matt Quatraro as their new manager and Paul Hoover is the new bench coach, with both men coming from the Rays organization.  Additionally, longtime former Giants coach José Alguacil is coming aboard as the Royals’ new infield coach.

Bove is one of several pitching coaches and coordinators around baseball who came to the majors from the college ranks, as Bove was a pitching coach at the College of Central Florida for seven years before he joined the Twins.  With more of a new-school, analytical approach, Bove brings some different perspectives towards the Royals’ stated goal of helping bring their younger pitchers along at the MLB level.  Brady Singer pitched well in 2022, but with Daniel Lynch, Kris Bubic, and Jackson Kowar all struggling, the Royals haven’t gotten nearly the expected results from the pitchers they thought would be the backbone of the team’s latest rebuild.

Aaron Judge “Increasingly Likely” To Land A Nine-Year Contract

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It seems as though teams interested in signing Aaron Judge will have to commit to the slugger for the rest of his 30’s, as The Athletic’s Ken Rosenthal reports that “it appears increasingly likely” that Judge will land nine guaranteed years in his next contract.

It isn’t known if Judge is necessarily prioritizing contract length or a record-setting average annual value, but the reigning MVP might very well have the leverage for both.  Mike Trout’s current deal with the Angels is the benchmark ($36MM) in terms of average annual value for position players, so if Judge was looking to top Trout’s record, it would take nine years and more than $324MM.

That isn’t far off MLBTR’s projection of an eight-year, $332MM deal for Judge, which works out to a $41.5MM AAV.  If Judge is only looking to top Trout’s average salary whatsoever (rather than by a $5.5MM amount), technically a $332MM deal over nine years would do it.  But, it could be that Judge wants to move the goalposts significantly forward for future star free agents.

Going into a ninth guaranteed season (which would be Judge’s age-39 year) might not have much appeal to teams if they’re not getting much or any break on the AAV.  That said, Judge is perhaps a unique enough case that any of his big-market suitors might not mind the extra year — if a team is already willing to pay Judge in the $36MM range for his age-38 season, the ninth year might be seen as the cost of doing business.

If a ninth guaranteed season is now the going rate to sign Judge, it could put the Dodgers out of the running. “The Dodgers are believed to want Judge only on a short-term, high-dollar deal,” Rosenthal writes, which matches the club’s general strategy in pursuing any free agents.  This isn’t to say that L.A. doesn’t abandon that strategy in certain circumstances, as it was just last winter that Freddie Freeman (heading into his age-32 season) was inked a six-year, $162MM deal.  But, with Judge in position to at least double Freeman’s total salary, he might not be a fit for a Dodger team that could devote its resources towards acquiring other star players.

The Dodgers, Giants, and Yankees are the teams publicly linked to Judge’s market, and Rosenthal reports that some other teams have at least checked in on Judge, though it isn’t known if any of these mystery suitors are making a serious push.  Last week, reports suggested that New York had made Judge an offer in the range of eight years and $300MM, and the Yankees weren’t viewing that as a final offer.  Adding a ninth guaranteed season at the same AAV would result in a nine-year, $337.5MM offer.

Shaun Anderson Signs With KBO’s Kia Tigers

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NOVEMBER 29: The Tigers have finalized an agreement with Anderson on a one-year deal that guarantees him $700K (h/t to Ji-heon Bae). He’ll receive a $100K signing bonus on top of a $600K salary, and the deal contains $300K in potential incentives. Anderson is represented by Wasserman.

NOVEMBER 26: The Kia Tigers of the Korea Baseball Organization are in talks with free agent right-hander Shaun Anderson, according to Ji-heon Bae of Sports Chunchu (hat tip to MyKBO.net’s Dan Kurtz).

The 28-year-old Anderson has pitched in the last four Major League seasons, though his participation in the 2022 campaign was limited to a single inning of work with the Blue Jays.  The remainder of Anderson’s year was spent at Triple-A Buffalo, where he posted a 3.58 ERA, 20.6% strikeout rate, and 8.7% walk rate over 88 innings.  Anderson started 15 of 36 appearances, though some of those “starts” were as an opener.

Originally a third-round pick for the Red Sox in the 2016 draft, Anderson has bounced around quite a bit during his pro career, and he has already pitched for five different teams over his four MLB seasons.  After spending the 2019-20 seasons with the Giants, Anderson took the mound for the Twins, Orioles, and Padres in 2021, before his one-game cup of coffee with Toronto last year.  The right-hander was also briefly part of the Rangers organization for some of the 2021 campaign.

Anderson hasn’t had much success at the MLB level, posting a 5.84 ERA over 135 2/3 career innings.  He has a more solid track record in the minors (3.72 ERA in 416 2/3 frames) but he has never been a big strikeout pitcher, and Anderson’s grounder rates have also tailed off after topping the 50% threshold earlier in his career.

Multi-inning relief work might have been Anderson’s best way of finding a niche to stay on a big league roster, but he’ll now head to South Korea to try and revive his fortunes as a starting pitcher.  Former Major Leaguers Thomas Pannone and Sean Nolin pitched with the Kia Tigers in 2022, but Bae writes that the Tigers might not retain either hurler as they look to overhaul their rotation.

SSG Landers Close To Signing Kirk McCarty

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Left-hander Kirk McCarty is close to signing with the KBO League’s SSG Landers, according to a report from Ilgan Sports (hat tip to reporter Sung Min Kim).  A deal will become official once McCarty passes a physical.

McCarty made his Major League debut in 2022, posting a 4.54 ERA over 37 2/3 innings for the Guardians.  Eleven of McCarty’s 13 appearances came out of the bullpen, and he started getting some Triple-A usage as a multi-inning reliever after spending much of his pro career as a starter.  Over his 425 1/3 innings in the minors, McCarty has a 4.30 ERA, 22.9% strikeout rate, and 7.26% walk rate.

These types of numbers were enough to give McCarty his first crack in the big leagues, but ultimately made him a little expendable in the pitching-deep Guardians farm system.  McCarty was actually designated for assignment in July and claimed off waivers by the Orioles, but he pitched just one game with Baltimore’s Triple-A affiliate before he was DFA’ed again, and re-claimed by Cleveland.  Prior to the 40-man roster deadline earlier this month, the Guards designated McCarty again and released him.

McCarty was a seventh-round pick for Cleveland in the 2017 draft, and he has spent his entire career in the organization apart from that one-week sojourn in the Orioles’ system.  The move to the Korea Baseball Organization presents a whole new chapter for the 27-year-old, and perhaps a chance for McCarty to more firmly re-establish himself as a starting pitcher.  Due to his lack of strikeouts, McCarty doesn’t really fit most MLB teams’ preferred model for a starter or a reliever, though he does have some quality spin rates on both his fastball and curveball.

Red Sox Promote Ramon Vazquez To Bench Coach

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Red Sox first base coach Ramon Vazquez is getting a new assignment, as reporter Edwin Hernandez Jr. tweets that Vazquez will take over from Will Venable as Boston’s new bench coach.  Venable joined the Rangers earlier this month to take an associate manager role under Bruce Bochy.

The 46-year-old Vazquez has been a member of Boston’s coaching staff since 2018, first working as a statistical analysis coordinator and then moving into a role as a quality control coach.  Vazquez saw some fill-in work as the first base coach in 2021 before taking over the job entirely for the 2022 season.

Before joining the Red Sox, Vazquez worked as a coach on the Padres’ staff in 2017, and previously as a coach in the Astros’ farm system.  Fans may remember Vazquez from his lengthy and well-traveled playing career, as he suited up for six different MLB teams (including the Red Sox) from 2001-09.  In an interesting tidbit, Vazquez and Alex Cora were actually traded for each other back in July 2005, with Vazquez going to Cleveland and Cora going to the Red Sox — this started Cora’s history in Boston, which has continued into his current role as the team’s manager.

NPB’s Yokohama BayStars To Sign J.B. Wendelken

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The Yokohama BayStars have signed right-hander J.B. Wendelken, the New York Post’s Jon Heyman reports (Twitter link).  The contract is a one-year deal with an option for 2024, and Wendelken can earn up to $3.05MM, including incentives.

Wendleken elected free agency after the season, ending a stint with the Diamondbacks that began in August 2021 when Arizona claimed him off waivers from the A’s.  The Diamondbacks agreed to an arbitration-avoiding one-year, $835K deal with Wendelken last winter, but he posted only a 5.29 ERA over 29 innings in 2022.  Arizona designated the righty for assignment in July and then outrighted him off the 40-man roster, with Wendelken then spending the remainder of the season at Triple-A Reno.

Beginning his career in Oakland, Wendelken had a solid 2.30 ERA over 74 1/3 relief innings from 2018-20, though his 3.74 SIERA was perhaps more reflective of his overall work.  Wendelken benefited from a very low .218 BABIP in those three seasons, but his fortune changed with a .310 BABIP in 2021 and a dropoff in his strikeout rate.  The right-hander has only a 19% strikeout rate and a unimpressive 11.4% walk rate over 72 2/3 innings since the start of the 2021 season, as well as a 4.71 ERA.

With this recent performance, Wendelken might have been hard-pressed to find anything beyond than a minor league deal with an MLB team this winter, so he has instead opted for some guaranteed money and a fresh start in Japan.  Wendelken’s Triple-A numbers are worth noting, as he had a strong 2.63 ERA, 35.1% strikeout rate, and 9.6% walk rate over the small sample size of 24 innings with Reno.  This provides some hope that Wendelken can perhaps get on track with the BayStars, and either continue in NPB or perhaps eventually explore a return to North American baseball.

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