Mark Polishuk | MLB Trade Rumors

NL Notes: Benn, Mets, De La Cruz, Reds, Mitchell, Pirates

By Mark Polishuk | February 27, 2022 at 5:13pm CDT

The Mets have hired Elizabeth Benn as the team’s new director of baseball operations, according to multiple reports (including from SNY’s Andy Martino). Benn has been a member of the MLB central office since 2017, beginning as an intern and then working in the labor relations and baseball operations departments. The hiring makes Benn the highest-ranking female baseball ops official in the history of the Mets franchise, as Benn joins the increasingly long list of women hired for prominent front office and on-field jobs with Major League organizations.

Dodgers, Dave Roberts Discussing Extension

By Mark Polishuk | February 27, 2022 at 4:23pm CDT

TODAY: Roberts and the Dodgers are in talks, USA Today’s Bob Nightengale reports, with the intent to have a new contract finalized prior to the start of the season.

FEBRUARY 9: Longtime Dodgers manager Dave Roberts is entering the last season of his contract, though it seems like an extension isn’t far off, as both Roberts and president of baseball operations Andrew Friedman told The Athletic’s Andy McCullough. “It’ll get done,” Roberts said, while Friedman said that “Doc has been a big part of our past success and I look forward to him being a big part of future success as well.”

There hasn’t been any indication that L.A. was planning any sort of managerial change, as Roberts has done nothing but win over his six years as the team’s skipper. Roberts has led the Dodgers to a 542-329 record during those six years, a run that includes five NL West titles, three pennants, and the crowning achievement of the 2020 World Series championship.

With the lockout halting most baseball-related activities, Roberts has been given a bit more of an opportunity to relax and “reset” during his offseason, as he told McCullough. It could be that an extension might have been struck earlier in the winter, though Roberts noted that he didn’t get in touch with Friedman prior to the lockout, given that the front office was naturally very busy in trying to finish more pressing matters before all Major League transactional business was halted.

Roberts joined the Dodgers back in November 2015, initially signing a three-year contract that contained a club option for the 2019 season. Following the end of the 2018 campaign (and the Dodgers’ loss to the Red Sox in the World Series), Los Angeles exercised that club option to lock Roberts up for 2019, and then in December 2018 announced a new four-year pact with Roberts covering the 2019-22 seasons. With that timeline in mind, it isn’t surprising that L.A. is again working essentially a year in advance to prevent Roberts from any sort of lame-duck status.

Latest CBA Talks Lead To “Hostile” Meeting Between Players, Owners

By Mark Polishuk | February 26, 2022 at 11:21pm CDT

7:19PM: The MLBPA and the league have agreed to resume talks at noon CT on Sunday, according to multiple reports.

4:39PM: Today’s negotiating sessions between the league and the MLB Players Association have concluded for the day, after a pair of separate meetings between the two sides. After each group conferred privately for an extended period of time, MLBPA reps presented a new proposal to the owners during a 15-minute session. The ownership group then took time to mull over the offer before another meeting with the players that lasted roughly 45 minutes.

The union’s proposal was a “comprehensive” offer that addressed several core economic issues, according to ESPN’s Jeff Passan and Jesse Rogers (Twitter links). Perhaps most importantly in terms of finding common ground on a new collective bargaining agreement, the MLBPA is now “backing significantly off” some of its most noteworthy asks in previous offers. This includes changes to the players’ previous demands about the luxury tax, an expansion in Super Two eligibility, and cuts to the amount of revenue-sharing funds allocated to smaller-market teams.

Despite these concessions, the owners still “reacted badly” to the latest union offer, The Athletic’s Evan Drellich reports. This led to an “outraged” reaction from the players and a “hostile” tone in the second meeting between the two sides. As per Chelsea Janes of The Washington Post, the “players are currently considering walking away from the table” altogether, rather than take part in meetings that were slated for tomorrow and Monday.

As reported by ESPN’s Enrique Rojas (Spanish-language link) and The Associated Press, the MLBPA is now seeking to expand Super Two eligibility to 35% of all players who have between two and three years of service time. This represents a major decrease from the players’ previous ask of 75% of all players within that service-time window, and yet apparently it isn’t enough to change the owners’ stance. The league has been steadfast in refusing any expansion to the Super Two structure — in the last CBA, the top 22% of players with between two and three years of service time received an extra year of arbitration eligibility.

Likewise, the league has refused any discussion of changes to the revenue-sharing structure. The union initially sought a $100MM cut in revenue-sharing funds, and later dropped that demand to $30MM. Today’s proposal altered that number further, as teams receiving revenue-sharing wouldn’t lose any money, but would still be incentivized to increase local revenue with the offer of extra money made available from MLB’s central fund. However, the owners are still not willing to budge whatsoever on the topic.

Discussions about the competitive balance tax have at least led to some back-and-forth negotiations, albeit without much progress. The players made a $2MM reduction for each of the second, third, and fourth years of luxury tax thresholds, breaking down the numbers as follows: a $245MM tax number in 2022, $250MM in 2023, $257MM in 2024, $264MM in 2025, and $273MM in 2026.

The league made only one change to its base tax thresholds, with a $1MM increase to the second year of the CBA. The owners’ proposed luxury tax thresholds are $214MM in 2022, $215MM in 2023, $216MM in 2024, $218MM in 2025, and $222MM in 2026.

In regards to the penalties for exceeding those thresholds, Major League Baseball again made only slight adjustments from its previous offer. In today’s proposal from the league, teams exceeding each of the three levels for the first time would pay a 45% tax on the overage of any dollar spent between $214MM-$234MM, a 62% tax on overages from $234MM-$254MM, and a 95% tax rate on the overage for anything spent beyond the $254MM mark. Previously, the league wanted respective tax rates of 50%, 75%, and 100% for each of the three thresholds.

These are obviously still sizeable jumps over the overage tax rates in the last CBA (20%, 32%, and 62.5%), and the league has compounded the penalty by asking that teams that surpass the second and third tiers lose draft picks. The MLBPA has been adamantly against the owners’ luxury tax asks, viewing the demands as essentially the creation of an unofficial salary cap.

As reported yesterday by Drellich and Ken Rosenthal, the league has been looking shorten the amount of time required before unilateral on-field rule changes can be imposed. The previous CBA had a one-year grace period between a league’s proposal and (whether the union agreed to the rule changes or not) the implementation of said new rules, though the owners are now looking for a grace period of only 45 days. The MLBPA has been resistant to this shorter window of time, and the league needs the players’ approval in the next CBA to agree to the owners’ ability to implement unilateral rule changes of any kind.

Returning to the issue of service time, the league has agreed that players who finish first or second in Rookie Of The Year voting will receive a full year of service time. (Derrick Goold of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch was among those to report the news.) This counts as a minor win for the players, even if the MLBPA has been looking at a WAR-based formula for multiple players who excel in their rookie seasons to receive service time. The league had been looking instead address the service-time manipulation issue by offering extra draft picks to teams who have players with top-three finishes in the ROY/MVP/Cy Young voting during their first three arbitration-eligible seasons.

If there is any other minor glimpse of good news from today’s meetings, one CBA issue has apparently been settled. The owners and players agreed to a new rule on minor league options, as USA Today’s Bob Nightengale reports that players can now be sent to the minor leagues a maximum of five times per season.

Unfortunately, progress has apparently been lost on the topic of a draft lottery. Reports from yesterday’s negotiating sessions indicated that the two sides were at least coming close to settling the exact number of teams involved in such a lottery, though the owners attempted to make a larger lottery (as per the MLBPA’s demands) contingent on the acceptance of a 14-team postseason. That same offer was floated by the league today and turned down by the players, who had previously expressed a willingness to expand the playoffs to 12 teams. Given the amount of extra revenue involved in extra postseason games, it isn’t surprising that the union isn’t willing to make such a major concession to the owners without tying it to an issue of greater import than the draft lottery.

Saturday’s sessions mark the sixth consecutive day of talks between the two sides, yet this increase in negotiations has yet to produce much in the way of concrete progress. MLB has stated that without a CBA in place by Monday, some regular-season games will have to be canceled, though the union has remained skeptical that the league truly sees February 28th as a firm deadline.

However, some Spring Training games have already been canceled, and it becomes increasingly unlikely that Opening Day will proceed as scheduled on March 31. If the hard feelings reportedly generated in today’s meetings actually do result in a breakdown in talks, it will only lead to more dismay and frustration among baseball fans who are more than ready for the lockout to be over.

MLB Looking To Move Athletics Back To Revenue-Sharing Recipient Status

By Mark Polishuk | February 26, 2022 at 10:30pm CDT

The Athletics were singled out in something of a unique fashion in the last collective bargaining agreement, as their status as a revenue-sharing recipient was gradually phased out over the course of the five-year deal. Under the terms of the now-expired 2016-21 CBA, the Athletics’ normal take of revenue-sharing funds dropped to 75% in 2017, 50% in 2018, 25% in 2019, and then nothing for the CBA’s final two years.

As negotiations about the new CBA (slowly) continue between the owners and players, the league is now looking to once again reinstall the A’s as a recipient of revenue-sharing, MLB Trade Rumors’ Tim Dierkes reports (via Twitter). This appears to be one of the relatively few areas of common ground between the two sides, as the MLBPA is “willing to” restore the Athletics’ former status.

It remains to be seen exactly how baseball’s revenue-sharing system could be altered in the next CBA, though given the owners’ unwillingness to discuss any revenue-sharing changes whatsoever with the union, whatever changes are made could be pretty minor. It could be that Oakland’s shift back into the recipient category might stand as the biggest move in this area, as the A’s will now stand to make tens of millions of extra dollars each year.

Under the terms of the last CBA, 48% of each team’s local revenues were placed into a pool, then divided equally among all 30 teams. Since some teams’ local revenues are naturally much larger than others, this provided quite a windfall for smaller-market clubs. While the exact figures weren’t known, MLB.com’s Jane Lee wrote in December 2016 that the A’s received over $30MM in revenue-sharing funds in 2016.

This will have a wider impact on the other 29 teams, as the revenue-sharing teams will now be paying a slightly larger share of that revenue pot with the Athletics now removed from the sharers list. Likewise, the teams receiving funds will now also get a slightly lesser share of the pie, with the A’s joining the party. There was also the concept of the revenue-sharing rebate for larger-market teams in the last CBA (as explained by The Boston Globe’s Alex Speier) though it isn’t known if a similar mechanism might be in place for the next agreement.

The seemingly neverending saga of the Athletics’ quest for a new ballpark was the reason for their initial inclusion on the revenue-sharing list, and now the reason for their return. Despite the lack of revenue generated from the Coliseum, the A’s don’t exactly play in a “small market,” given the size of Oakland and the Bay Area market in general. As such, the decision was made to gradually remove the team from the group of revenue-sharers, though with over five years now gone, the Athletics are still not much closer to landing that long-desired new stadium.

Amidst much speculation about a potential move to Las Vegas, there has recently been more positive momentum towards a new ballpark in Oakland. The franchise’s longstanding concept of a new stadium in the Howard Terminal area was recently given a vote of confidence by Oakland’s City Council, which certified an environmental impact review on the project.

There are still more logistical hurdles to be jumped, however, and between those potential obstacles and the time necessary to actually build the ballpark and adjoining infrastructure, it is quite possible the A’s might not have their new stadium in place before the end of a hypothetical 2022-26 term of the next CBA. More will be known about the Athletics’ fate (whether in Oakland, Las Vegas, or elsewhere) in the next few years, so by the time the next CBA talks roll around, it would seem like the A’s would again be removed from the revenue-sharing recipient category if a new stadium project is indeed up and running.

In the interim, the A’s will reap the benefits of additional revenue. For Oakland fans wondering if this means the team will spend these new funds on player payroll, it’s worth remembering that Athletics weren’t big spenders in their previous era of receiving revenue-sharing money, so a sudden spending splurge probably isn’t likely. Since the A’s wouldn’t get any new funds until the end of the 2022 season anyway, it won’t do much to forestall the speculation that the A’s will be looking to cut payroll and move at least some of their higher-salaried players once the lockout is over.

From the MLBPA’s perspective, it was almost exactly four years ago today that the union filed a grievance against the Athletics, Rays, Pirates, and Marlins about how the teams were allocating the money collected via revenue-sharing, as receiving those funds wasn’t reflected in any boosts in player payroll. To that end, it might seem curious that the union would be okay with the A’s again joining the revenue-sharing list, though speculatively, there could be a bigger-picture tactic at play. As much as the league has claimed that any negotiations about revenue-sharing practices are a non-starter in CBA talks, the Athletics’ situation itself counts as a notable change in the revenue-sharing plan, which the MLBPA might perceive as a crack in the owners’ stonewall on the subject.

Beyond just the extra cash, the A’s may also benefit in another fashion from being a revenue-sharing recipient, depending on how the new CBA addresses free agent compensation. Under the last agreement, revenue-sharing recipients stood to land a compensatory draft pick directly after the first round if they had a free agent who rejected a qualifying offer and signed with another club for more than $50MM. While teams that lost certain free agents would still be eligible for a compensatory pick in the league’s new proposal, it remains to be seen exactly what the criteria would be for that compensation, or if revenue-sharing teams would be in line for a greater draft reward.

AL Notes: Glasnow, Astros, Kreidler, Canterino

By Mark Polishuk | February 26, 2022 at 8:47pm CDT

In the latest step of Tyler Glasnow’s recovery from Tommy John surgery, the Rays right-hander has started throwing, agent Joel Wolfe told Marc Topkin of The Tampa Bay Times. Glasnow underwent his surgery in early August, so while it’s very up in the air as to whether or not he’ll be able to make it back to action before the 2022 season is out, he is setting an in-season return as his goal. Beyond just his health, the other question concerning Glasnow is whether or not he’d be returning to the mound in a Rays uniform — projected for a $5.8MM salary this year, Glasnow has been widely speculated as a trade candidate for a Tampa club that is forever looking to manage its payroll.

Some other tidbits from around the American League…

“Position addition” is the name for the Astros’ process of experimenting with its most athletic prospects at various other positions, The Houston Chronicle’s Chandler Rome writes. Naturally, the more versatile a player is, the better his chances at reaching the majors in some kind of role. “It always depends on what the major league roster is going to look like in the future, but I think it just raises a lot of those guys’ floors,” Astros field coordinator Jason Bell said. “I think our guys have been fairly open to it…and I think a lot of times they think it’s fun.” Of the 23 position players in Houston’s minicamp, 12 are designated as part of an “infielder/outfielder” defensive grouping, working at positions both in the grass and on the dirt.
Tigers prospect Ryan Kreidler may know a few things about position changes, as the longtime shortstop saw Javier Baez suddenly emerge as a roadblock after Baez landed in the Motor City on a six-year, $140MM deal. While Baez can opt out of that contract after the 2023 season, Kreidler will likely be focusing on other positions in the interim — he has played a handful of games at third base and second base during his two minor league seasons. “I will do whatever the Tigers want me to do, whether it’s shortstop, shortstop and third base, or utility,” Kreidler told Chris McCosky of The Detroit News. “Whatever they deem me capable of doing I will do it to the best of my ability and just keep trucking…I think shortstops have the ability to play all over the field, that’s why continuing to take reps at shortstop is good for me.” After a strong performance at the plate in 2021, Kreidler drew the attention of prospect evaluators and other teams, and now looks like yet another promising young Detroit player on the cusp of the big leagues. Jonathan Schoop and Jeimer Candelario have second and third base spoken for, and are both also controlled through 2023, so a utility role might indeed be Kreidler’s best path to the Tigers’ active roster.
Elbow problems limited Matt Canterino to 23 innings in 2021, and between that abbreviated season and the canceled 2020 minor league campaign, the Twins prospect has tossed only 48 professional innings since being selected in the second round of the 2019 draft. Canterino came to Minnesota’s minicamp on a clean bill of health, he told Betsy Helfand of the St. Paul Pioneer Press, and he is now focused on staying on the field. “I can’t really worry too much about a shutdown period, like how my workload’s going to be managed, but I can do the things that I think are going to help me stay healthy in the long run,” Canterino said. The righty has looked tremendous when he has been able to pitch, posting a 1.13 ERA and a whopping 42.94% strikeout rate over his 48 innings (topping out at the high-A level).

Brett Gardner Planning To Play In 2022

By Mark Polishuk | February 26, 2022 at 4:10pm CDT

Brett Gardner indicated last October that he wanted to return to the Yankees for another season, and almost five months later, the free agent outfielder’s stance hasn’t changed. Joe Bick, Gardner’s agent, told The New York Post’s Joel Sherman that his client was still preparing to play in 2022, and “would obviously prefer to stay with the [Yankees] the entirety of his career.” It isn’t a Bronx-or-bust situation, however, as Bick said that Gardner is open to playing for another club.

After 14 seasons in the pinstripes, Gardner is still putting up respectable numbers even as he approaches his age-38 season. Gardner was a 1.4 fWAR player over 140 games and 461 plate appearances last year, with his strong baserunning and decent left field/center field glovework offsetting a below-average (90 OPS+, 93 wRC+) slash line of .222/.327/.362. Gardner retained his good eye at the plate, finishing in the 92nd percentile of all players in walk rate. On the down side, Gardner delivered his sixth consecutive season of subpar hard-contact numbers, finishing well below the league average in hard-hit ball percentage, barrels, and barrel percentage.

As Sherman notes, most of Gardner’s offensive struggles took place early in the season, and before the league-mandated crackdown on doctored baseballs. Gardner had only a .507 OPS over his first 137 plate appearances last season, and then a much more solid .768 OPS over his final 324 PA.

It is also possible that Gardner might have been more productive if the Yankees had more flexibility in choosing when to deploy the veteran. Instead, Gardner ended up playing in 140 games due to a variety of injuries to other New York outfielders. While the Yankees figure to make some kind of move to their current outfield mix, they could simply opt to bring back a known quantity in Gardner, either alongside a more notable addition or maybe as the veteran complement to a younger outfielder (i.e. Estevan Florial) the Yankees hope can break out as a capable big leaguer.

The Bronx Bombers have re-signed Gardner to one-year contracts in each of the last three winters. His one-year, $12.5MM deal for the 2020 season carried a 2021 club option that was declined, and his most recent contract (a one-year, $5.15MM pact) had a twin option. Gardner had the first choice of whether or not to accept a $2.3MM player option for 2022, and if declined, the Yankees could then decide on a $7.15MM club option with a $1.15MM buyout. Both Gardner and the team declined the options, sending Gardner to the open market once again.

If Gardner did indeed look elsewhere for his next deal, he’ll face a lot of competition in the post-lockout signing frenzy. Teams may prefer younger (and cheaper) outfield depth options than a 38-year-old, though on the flip side, some clubs might appreciate the chance to get an experienced veteran into their clubhouse. The Phillies and Marlins have each been speculatively mentioned as potential fits for Gardner, as both teams have needs in the outfield and Gardner has longstanding ties to Phillies manager Joe Girardi and Marlins CEO Derek Jeter from their time together in New York.

“No Substantive Progress” Between League, MLBPA In Today’s Labor Talks

By Mark Polishuk | February 24, 2022 at 10:59pm CDT

The owners and players held their fourth consecutive day of meetings as the two sides continue to try and work out a new collective bargaining agreement, yet once again, “no substantial progress” came from the session, according to The Athletic’s Evan Drellich (Twitter links). Representatives from the league and the MLB Players Association are scheduled to meet again tomorrow.

As outlined by Drellich and The Washington Post’s Chelsea Janes, the union made two minor concessions based on past proposals. Whereas the MLBPA had sought to give an extra year of service time to 29 players considered to be victims of service time manipulation over the last five years, the union dropped that number to 20 players today.

The other new wrinkle related to the concept of a draft lottery to decide the first several picks of the amateur draft. The league offered a lottery covering the first four picks while the union wanted the lottery to cover the first seven picks, and today’s MLBPA proposal retained that seven-pick concept. However, the union altered its proposal to remove punishment for teams who had consecutive losing seasons. It “had been a league concern that [the] system would punish teams that were just bad and not tanking,” Janes writes.

MLBTR has learned more specifics regarding the union’s proposal for the draft lottery, which would take effect in 2023. All non-playoff teams would be included in the lottery. The odds of landing the first pick would be weighted by inverse order of the previous season’s standings as follows (assuming a 12-team playoff, as the MLBPA has proposed thus far):

Team 1: 15% (the team with the worst record in baseball)
Team 2: 15% (the team with the second-worst record in baseball)
Team 3: 15%
Team 4: 12.5%
Team 5: 10%
Team 6: 8%
Team 7: 6.5%
Team 8: 5%
Team 9: 3.25%
Team 10: 2.25%
Team 11: 1.5%
Team 12: 1.25%
Team 13: 1.12%
Team 14: 1%
Team 15: 0.88%
Team 16: 0.75%
Team 17: 0.625%
Team 18: 0.375%

The MLBPA is also proposing competitiveness adjustments. Revenue sharing payors that finish in the bottom eight in winning percentage in each of the two previous seasons or in the bottom 12 in each of the three previous seasons would pick no earlier than 10th. Additionally, any team that does not receive revenue sharing that finishes in the bottom 12 in each of the four or more previous seasons would have their pick moved to #18.

Also, beginning with the 2024 draft, any revenue sharing recipient finishing in the bottom eight in each of the three previous seasons would pick no earlier than 10th. Any such club in the bottom eight in each of the four or more previous seasons would have their pick moved to #18.

The union also made a slight modification in its efforts to grant rookies bonus service time based on performance, as Drellich first reported (via Twitter). Under the MLBPA’s proposal, infielders/catchers/DH’s who finish in the top five at their position in their respective leagues in WAR would receive a full year of service, while outfielders, starting pitchers and relievers who finish among their league’s top fifteen in WAR would as well. That’s a slight reduction from the union’s previous ask, which would’ve granted a full year of service for infielders/catchers/DH’s who finished among the top seven and outfielders/pitchers who finished among the top twenty.

The union is still pursuing a full year of service for top five finishers in Rookie of the Year balloting, all-MLB placement and a top three placement in Reliever of the Year voting. MLB has thus far been opposed to the idea of players “earning” service time, instead offering teams additional draft choices for promoting high-performing players at the start of the season.

Bigger-picture CBA topics (such as the luxury tax thresholds, minimum salary increases, salary arbitration eligibility, etc.) still remain up in the air, with today’s talks apparently yielding no movement on any of these issues. As has become a regular feature of these talks, both sides left a negotiating session feeling frustrated. According to Michael Silverman of The Boston Globe, the “players [are] upset with how far apart sides remain,” and “MLB negotiators told union they have run out of ideas and that owners are upset with players.”

February 28 remains Major League Baseball’s stated deadline for reaching a new CBA, or else the league has said it will start canceling games from the regular-season schedule. As Janes notes, “the union doesn’t exactly agree to [February 28] as a deadline,” so it remains to be seen whether any urgency will finally be shown by either side in tomorrow’s session, or in any talks that might be scheduled for the weekend or Monday. Considering the huge differences of opinion that remain between the league and the MLBPA, it is hard to believe that an entire new collective bargaining agreement could even be close to settled by Monday, let alone a fully agreement reached.

AL Notes: Rangers, Hosmer, Royals, Wells

By Mark Polishuk | February 24, 2022 at 3:12pm CDT

The Padres and Rangers discussed first baseman Eric Hosmer in trade talks last summer, as part of broader pre-deadline negotiations that also reportedly involved Padres prospect Robert Hassell and then-Rangers slugger Joey Gallo. It isn’t any secret that San Diego has been trying to get Hosmer’s contract off the books, though The Athletic’s Dennis Lin reports that Texas still wanted the Padres to cover the majority of the salary owed to Hosmer ($59MM from 2022-25). The exact numbers involved in the proposed trade isn’t known, and obviously the inclusion of Gallo (paid $6.2MM last season and projected to earn $10.2MM in 2022) was a major factor in the financial elements of any deal.

Since Gallo ended up being traded to the Yankees at the deadline, it remains to be seen if the Padres could revisit a more streamlined version of a Hosmer trade with the Rangers once the lockout is over, with Hassell perhaps included as a sweetener to convince Texas to absorb a larger chunk of Hosmer’s salary. Of course, the equation has now changed quite a bit for a Rangers team that has already added Corey Seager, Marcus Semien, and Jon Gray in a pre-lockout spending spree. While the Rangers still have payroll space, they might prefer to spend on a player who can more readily help them contend in 2022. Hosmer has been roughly a league-average hitter over his last four seasons, and Texas already has a left-handed hitting first baseman in Nathanial Lowe who might be a better candidate to out-perform Hosmer at the plate (and at a fraction of Hosmer’s price tag).

AL Notes: Royals, Boone, Yankees, Tigers, Hernandez

By Mark Polishuk | February 20, 2022 at 8:45pm CDT

Many of the Royals’ best pitching prospects are returning from injury-shortened seasons, yet as MLB.com’s Anne Rogers writes, most of these young arms are back at the club’s minor league camp in good health. The most prominent of these names is Asa Lacy, the fourth overall pick of the 2020 draft and a consensus top-40 prospect heading into the 2021 season, though Lacy’s stock has dropped a bit after a rough debut year.

The left-hander posted a 5.19 ERA over 52 innings in high-A ball, with a strong 33.3% strikeout rate but also a garish 17.3% walk rate. Discomfort in his throwing shoulder sidelined Lacy for a good chunk of the season, though he felt well enough to pitch 7 2/3 more frames during Arizona Fall League action, with mixed results. Lacy delivered a 2.35 ERA and 15 strikeouts over that smaller sample size, but still issued six walks. It isn’t uncommon for players (even those without injury concerns) to have some trouble adjusting to their first taste of minor league ball, and both Lacy and the Royals are hopeful this was just a bump in the road of Lacy’s development.

Some other items from around the American League…

The Yankees and manager Aaron Boone are still looking at candidates to become the club’s third hitting coach, Joel Sherman of The New York Post writes. When last we heard of the Yankees’ search, the Bronx Bombers were hoping to land a former MLB player in the role — neither hitting coach Dillon Lawson and assistant hitting coach Casey Dykes played pro ball. (Eric Chavez was initially hired for the job but then headed crosstown to become the Mets’ new hitting coach.) How close the Yankees might be to finding that new coach is unknown, as Sherman indicated that a hire could come this week, or the team might just stick with two hitting coaches if they can’t find a good fit for that third position. The hitting coach search is just of several topics broached within a wide-ranging interview with Boone about the manager’s tenure in the Bronx, the challenges of the lockout, and keeping the staff prepared for what might be a rushed Spring Training.
Wilkel Hernandez threw his first bullpen session at the Tigers’ minor league minicamp Sunday, Evan Petzold of The Detroit Fress Press writes. The right-handed prospect hasn’t pitched since 2019 due to the canceled 2020 minor league season and then Tommy John surgery in October 2020. Even despite this missed time, Hernandez (who turns 23 in April) still has four years of pro experience, after joining the Angels as an international signing in 2015. Hernandez came to Detroit’s organization in December 2017, as one of two minors pitchers acquired from the Angels in exchange for Ian Kinsler.

Red Sox Sign Tyler Danish To Minors Deal

By Mark Polishuk | February 20, 2022 at 6:00pm CDT

The Red Sox have signed right-hander Tyler Danish to a minor league contract, Tim Dierkes of MLB Trade Rumors reports (Twitter link). The contract contains an invitation to Boston’s big league Spring Training camp.

Danish recently took part in a chat with MLBTR readers, discussing his career and some of the ins and outs of being a professional ballplayer. As Tim wrote at the time, Danish “expects to sign with an MLB team within the next week or so,” and that deal has now come about with the Red Sox. Since Danish was a minor league free agent, the lockout didn’t prohibit him from signing.

A second-round pick for the White Sox in the 2013 draft, Danish posted a 4.85 ERA over 13 innings for Chicago, pitching in parts of the 2016-18 seasons. This represents his only big league experience, as subsequent minor league contracts with the Mariners (prior to the 2019 season) and Angels (last May) didn’t result in another call to the Show. In between those stints in affiliated ball, Danish also pitched for teams in the independent Atlantic League and American Association.

As Danish noted during his chat, he “kinda broke my whole delivery down and almost rebuilt it from the ground up” in 2020, resulting in some interesting numbers during his season in the Angels’ farm system. Mostly a grounder-specialist for the bulk of his career, Danish still posted a 47.1% grounder rate over 60 1/3 innings with Triple-A Salt Lake in 2021, but he also had a strong 25.8% strikeout rate.

Danish also improved his control, though became a little more susceptible to the long ball, with nine home runs allowed over those 60 1/3 frames. He’ll now get a chance to catch on with the Red Sox in Spring Training, with seemingly a decent chance at winning a job given the unsettled nature of the Boston bullpen.

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