Phillies Claim Max Castillo, Designate Simon Muzziotti
The Phillies are set to claim right-hander Max Castillo off waivers from the Red Sox, reports Matt Gelb of The Athletic. Outfielder Simon Muzziotti will be designated for assignment in order to clear space on the 40-man roster.
Castillo, 24, will provide the Phillies with some optionable rotation depth. He’s pitched in the majors in each of the past two seasons between the Blue Jays and Royals, combining for a 5.43 ERA, 18.1% strikeout rate, 9.3% walk rate and 44.7% ground-ball rate in 59 2/3 innings. Castillo was one of two players the Royals received in the 2022 trade sending Whit Merrifield to Toronto, and Baseball America ranked him 18th among Kansas City farmhands heading into the 2023 season. He pitched a total of 136 1/3 innings between Triple-A (4.58 ERA) and the majors (4.43 ERA).
While he’s not a big-time power arm (93.2 mph average on his four-seamer), Castillo has above-average command and an above-average changeup that have generally helped him post solid minor league results. Scouting reports prior to his MLB debut pegged him as a potential fifth starter or swingman. In seven minor league seasons, Castillo has a 4.04 ERA, 21.3% strikeout rate and 6.8% walk rate.
The Phillies’ rotation depth beyond their top five starters has been an area of focus since the team re-signed Aaron Nola. President of baseball operations Dave Dombrowski spoke about the matter last month, noting that it’s been difficult to lure veterans on minor league deals, as the nature of the Philadelphia rotation doesn’t leave much opportunity for pitchers of that ilk to work their way into the mix. Zack Wheeler, Nola, Ranger Suarez and Taijuan Walker are all established veterans, and fifth starter Cristopher Sanchez posted a 3.44 ERA with a 24.2% strikeout rate and 4% walk rate in 99 1/3 innings last year.
Castillo joins left-hander Kolby Allard, who recently inked a split big league deal, as a newcomer to the 40-man roster who has can be optioned and thus provide some flexibility at the back of the rotation, should the need arise. As the season draws closer, it wouldn’t be a surprise to see the Phils land a veteran starter or two on a minor league deal with an eye toward further supplementing their depth. The Phils lost top prospect Andrew Painter to Tommy John surgery last summer, and prospects like Mick Abel and Griff McGarry have barely pitched above the Double-A level.
In order to beef up their starting pitching depth, the Phils will potentially whittle away at an already thin group of outfielders. Brandon Marsh, Johan Rojas and Nick Castellanos appear likely to roam the outfield on most days, with DH Kyle Schwarber also available for occasional left field work (probably on days when Castellanos gets a breather at DH). Reserve option Cristian Pache, Jake Cave and Edmundo Sosa are all ticketed for bench jobs to begin the season, but Muzziotti was the only minor league outfielder on the team’s 40-man roster. Just as the Phillies might look for rotation veterans willing to take non-roster deals and come to spring training, outfielders of that ilk could also be a priority in the next few weeks.
Some of that hinges on whether Muzziotti, 25, remains with the team. He went 1-for-7 in a very brief MLB debut in 2023 but had a solid .293/.358/.404 showing in the upper minors. Muzziotti smacked seven homers, swiped 26 bases, walked at an 8.6% rate and struck out in just 15.5% of his plate appearances at the Triple-A level. He has experience in all three outfield spots (though Baseball America suggests he’s best suited for corner work), and Muzziotti also has a minor league option remaining. Another team looking for outfield depth could well place a claim on waivers or look to swing a small trade to bring him aboard. The Phillies will have a week to attempt to trade Muzziotti or pass him through outright waivers.
Angels Acquire Guillermo Zuñiga, Designate Austin Warren
The Angels announced Wednesday that they’ve acquired right-hander Guillermo Zuñiga from the Cardinals, who’d previously designated him for assignment. Anaheim sent cash to St. Louis in the deal. To clear a spot on their own 40-man roster, the Halos designated righty Austin Warren for assignment.
Zuñiga, 25, made his big league debut with the Cards in 2023, tossing two innings and allowing a run on two hits and no walks with four strikeouts. That’s the only MLB experience of his career to date. After becoming a minor league free agent following the ’22 season, he inked a surprising Major League deal with the Cards but ultimately spent the bulk of his season in Triple-A Memphis, where he posted an unsightly 7.63 ERA in 30 2/3 innings.
The results might not be pretty, but Zuñiga features a triple-digit heater and misses bats at a high level. Like so many pitchers who can approximate the eye-popping 99.4 mph average on Zuñiga’s fastball, however, he’s battled his share of command issues throughout his minor league tenure. Zuñiga walked 13.7% of his opponents in Triple-A last year and has issued a free pass to 10.6% of his minor league opponents.
Zuñiga still has a pair of minor league option years remaining, so the Angels will be able to move him freely between Anaheim and their Triple-A affiliate in Salt Lake this season and next — if he sticks on the team’s 40-man roster. Barring another DFA, he’ll head to big league camp with the Angels and vie for a spot in a massively overhauled bullpen that has added veterans Robert Stephenson, Matt Moore, Luis Garcia, Adam Cimber and Jose Cisnero on free agent deals this offseason.
As for the 28-year-old Warren, he’s spent time in the Angels’ bullpen in each of the past three seasons, compiling a total of 38 innings with a solid 3.55 earned run average. Most of his success came as a rookie in 2021, however, when he tossed 20 1/3 innings of 1.77 ERA ball. Since then, Warren has been tagged for 11 runs in 17 2/3 innings with just a 14.5% strikeout rate against a strong 6.6% walk rate.
Warren’s struggles began in 2022 and culminated with a stint on the injured list in 2023. By early May, the team revealed that he’d been diagnosed with a torn ligament in his pitching elbow and would require Tommy John surgery. As such, Warren is slated to miss the early portion of the 2024 campaign and may well have been ticketed for the 60-day injured list, were it not for today’s DFA.
The Angels will have a week to trade Warren or attempt to pass him through waivers. Any team looking to acquire him would have to do so knowing that Warren will likely be shelved into the summer at the earliest.
Marlins Claim Declan Cronin
The Marlins have claimed right-hander Declan Cronin off waivers from the Astros, reports Ari Alexander of KPRC-2 in Houston. He was designated for assignment last week. Miami hasn’t formally announced the claim and will need to open a spot on the 40-man roster to make the move official.
Cronin, 26, made his big league debut with the White Sox in 2023, yielding 11 runs in 11 innings. He’s a sinker-slider righty who averaged just under 94 mph on the former of those two offerings and posted big ground-ball rates both in the upper minors and in his limited MLB time. Cronin logged a 3.83 ERA in 51 2/3 Triple-A frames this past season, striking out 18.7% of his opponents against an 8.9% walk rate while sporting a 54.5% grounder rate.
While Cronin’s cup of coffee in the big leagues doesn’t stand out, his combination of lofty ground-ball rates and plus spin on his slider has piqued the interest of a few teams now. The ChiSox selected him to the roster this past summer, the Astros claimed him off waivers early last month, and the Marlins have now placed their own claim. Since the former 36th-round pick was just selected to a 40-man roster for the first time last summer, he still has multiple minor league option years remaining and, if he can establish himself as a viable MLB bullpen piece, is controllable for at least six more seasons.
Red Sox, Dalton Guthrie Agree To Minor League Deal
The Red Sox agreed to a minor league contract with infielder/outfielder Dalton Guthrie, per the transaction log at MiLB.com.
Guthrie has logged MLB time with the Phillies in each of the past two seasons, albeit in a quite limited role. The 28-year-old has tallied 28 plate appearances in each season while appearing in a combined total of 37 games. In that small sample, he’s batted .244/.393/.333 with a hefty 16.1% walk rate against a 25% strikeout rate.
Beyond a decent showing in limited MLB work, Guthrie touts a solid .289/.357/.434 slash in parts of three Triple-A seasons. He’s not a big power threat, with just 16 long balls in 856 plate appearances at that level, but he’s generally shown decent contact skills and provided a good bit of defensive versatility. Guthrie has played at least 582 innings at each of shortstop, second base, third base and center field, and he’s logged a combined 688 innings in the outfield corners (398 in right, 290 in left). The former Florida Gator was a sixth-round pick by the Phillies back in 2017.
Over the past year, Guthrie has begun to bounce around the league. The Phils selected his contract in September of 2022 but designated him for assignment last June when they needed to open a roster spot for Darick Hall‘s return from the 60-day IL. Guthrie was traded to the Giants for cash, designated for assignment three weeks later, and then claimed off waivers by the Braves a week after that. He didn’t appear in a big league game with Atlanta, who designated him for assignment at the trade deadline and succeeded in passing him through waivers. Guthrie elected minor league free agency at season’s end.
Guthrie will add a right-handed bat to the Red Sox’ bench competition, and his experience playing just about anywhere on the diamond could serve him well as he tries to work his way back to the big leagues. Bench options currently on Boston’s 40-man roster include Enmanuel Valdez, Rob Refsnyder, Pablo Reyes, Bobby Dalbec and David Hamilton.
MLBTR Chat Transcript
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Twins Outright Ryan Jensen
Right-hander Ryan Jensen went unclaimed on waivers after being designated for assignment by the Twins, tweets Dan Hayes of The Athletic. He’ll remain in the organization but has been sent outright to Triple-A St. Paul and is no longer on the 40-man roster. Jensen will be in big league camp as a non-roster invitee this spring.
The Twins have to be pleased with the manner in which the Jensen sequence played out. Minnesota claimed the former first-rounder off waivers from Miami last month but designated him for assignment last week in order to claim another righty reliever who’d been DFA’ed: Daniel Duarte. Jensen had bounced from the Cubs to the Mariners to the Marlins via waivers since his original DFA back in August, but the Twins succeeded in passing him through waivers and will now be able to retain him as Triple-A depth.
Now 26 years old, Jensen was the No. 27 overall pick in the 2019 draft. In 2023, he split the year between Double-A and Triple-A, working to a combined 5.32 earned run average in 64 1/3 innings of work. He operated primarily out of the bullpen, his first season doing so after spending the first few years of his career as a starting pitcher. He sports an overall 4.42 ERA with an above-average 26% strikeout rate and ugly 14.5% walk rate in his minor league career.
Jensen has a mid-90s heater, plus ground-ball rates, above-average strikeout rates and a pair of minor league options remaining. If the Twins can get him to rein in his command troubles, he has the makings of a quality reliever, but that’s a significant “if” based on how his career has panned out thus far.
Taylor Ward Wins Arbitration Hearing Against Angels
Outfielder Taylor Ward has won his arbitration hearing against the Angels and will earn the $4.8MM salary figure he submitted for the 2024 season rather than the team’s $4.3MM figure, per Jon Heyman of the New York Post. Ward is represented by Wasserman.
Ward, now 30, was a first-round pick of the Angels back in 2015 but it took him a while to establish himself at the big league level. By the end of the 2020 season, he had appeared in 94 games scattered across three different campaigns, hitting .214/.283/.351 in that time. In 2021, he showed some positive momentum, hitting eight home runs in 65 games at the big league level and slashing .250/.332/.438 for a wRC+ of 110.
That earned him some regular run in 2022 and he initially made the most of it, seeming like one of the best hitters on the planet for a time. Through May 20, he had hit nine home runs in 131 plate appearances and was slashing .370/.481/.713 for a wRC+ of 235. But it was at that time that he suffered a “stinger” in a wall collision and his performance dipped, though he still finished the season at .281/.360/.473 line for a wRC+ of 137.
Last year, he was performing at a solid level, though beneath his breakout 2022 season. He was hitting .253/.335/.421 for a wRC+ of 107 when, in late July, he was hit in the face by a pitch from Alek Manoah of the Blue Jays. Ward suffered facial fractures and required a trip to the injured list, from which he was not able to return, undergoing surgery while away.
He first qualified for arbitration after 2022 as a Super Two player. He and the Halos avoided arb by agreeing to a $2.75MM salary for the 2023 season. MLBTR contributor Matt Swartz projected Ward for a bump to $4.5MM in 2024. The two sides couldn’t come to an agreement prior to the filing deadline and ended up submitting numbers pretty close to that projection, just a few hundred thousand on either side. But the arbiters aren’t allow to pick a middle ground and decided to go with the number from Ward’s camp, giving him the slightly higher raise.
Ward will be eligible for two more passes through the arb system before he’s slated for free agency after 2026. The Angels had two arb cases this year but it was reported last week that they defeated left-hander José Suarez. With Ward’s case now complete, their arb class is fully settled.
Austin Hays Wins Arbitration Hearing Against Orioles
Outfielder Austin Hays has won his arbitration hearing against the Orioles, reports Jon Heyman of the New York Post. He’ll earn the $6.3MM figure his camp submitted this coming season rather than the $5.85MM salary for which the team filed. Hays is represented by the MAS+ Agency.
Hays, 28, has been a part of the Orioles’ organization since being drafted in 2016. He received a few proverbial cups of coffee to start his major league career but has established himself as a solid regular in the past three years. Going back to the start of the 2021 campaign, he’s appeared in 420 games for the O’s. His 6% walk rate is subpar but he’s limited strikeouts to a 21.6% clip while hitting 54 home runs. His combined .261/.313/.439 batting line translates to a wRC+ of 108, indicating he’s been 8% better than the league average hitter.
Defensively, Hays is a capable center fielder but doesn’t get to play there often thanks to the presence of Cedric Mullins. Most of his work has come in left field, where Outs Above Average is not too fond of his work, but Ultimate Zone Rating and Defensive Runs Saved both consider him to be strong there. FanGraphs has considered him to be worth about two wins above replacement annually in that time, though Baseball Reference is a bit more bullish, with the latter using DRS as opposed to OAA.
He first qualified for arbitration last winter, with he and he club avoiding arb by agreeing to a salary of $3.2MM. Going into this winter, MLBTR contributor Matt Swartz projected him for a bump to $6.1MM in 2024. He and the club couldn’t agree prior to the filing deadline and both sides submitted figures pretty close to that projection. In the end, the arbiters sided with the player’s camp, so he’ll get a slightly higher bump.
He’ll be eligible for arbitration again in 2025 before he’s slated for free agency. It’s possible that the club’s outfield picture will change a lot between now and then. Anthony Santander is in his final season before hitting the open market, but the club’s loaded farm system has already seen young players like Colton Cowser, Heston Kjerstad and Kyle Stowers make their major league debuts. Mullins is on the same arb schedule as Hays, slated for one more pass before free agency after 2025.
The O’s initially had five players without an agreement in place after the filing deadline, though they later avoided arbitration with Danny Coulombe and Cionel Pérez. Now that the Hays case is solved, they have two more decisions to come on Ryan O’Hearn and Jacob Webb. O’Heard filed at $3.8MM and the club at $3.2MM while Webb filed at $2.4MM to the club’s $2.2MM.
Marlins Have Shown Interest In Gio Urshela
The Marlins are among the teams to express interest in free agent infielder Gio Urshela, reports Jon Morosi of MLB Network. Both the Yankees and Mets were reported to have interest as well earlier in the offseason. Miami is known to be exploring the free agent market for infield help, with other reported targets including Tim Anderson, Amed Rosario, Nick Ahmed and Adalberto Mondesi.
Unlike that quarter, the 32-year-old Urshela offers only minimal experience at shortstop — the likeliest place on the diamond if he signs in Miami. The Marlins have Jake Burger and Josh Bell lined up at the infield corners, with Luis Arraez penciled in at second base. The Fish could potentially utilize Burger at designated hitter more often (or move him to first base with Bell taking DH reps) in order to free up some time at the hot corner for Urshela, but finding help at shortstop has been a priority for Miami this winter.
Urshela has played some shortstop in his career, including 71 innings with the Angels this past season. He’s logged a total of 359 frames at the position overall (plus another 276 in the minors) but has been primarily a third baseman — a position at which he’s logged more than 12,000 innings between the big leagues and the minors.
While there might be some questions about Urshela’s fit as a primary shortstop, there’s little doubt in his ability to hit. Dating back to a 2019 breakout with the Yankees, Urshela carries a .291/.335/.452 batting line in 1871 trips to the plate. He’s struck out at an 18.9% clip overall in that time but improved his bat-to-ball skills over the past two seasons between Anaheim and Minnesota; since Opening Day 2022 he’s fanned in just 16.9% of his plate appearances.
Solid as his career has been since becoming a big league regular, Urshela is also something of a rebound candidate. His power output with the Angels was curiously low to begin the 2023 season, with just two home runs and a paltry .075 ISO (slugging minus batting average) through mid-June. He never got much of a chance to rebound after suffering a pelvic fracture on June 15 of last season. Urshela didn’t require surgery but was on crutches in the aftermath of the injury and wound up missing the remainder of the season as it healed.
The Marlins are the only team in MLB that hasn’t signed a free agent to a major league contract this offseason. Urshela, presumably, would change that. Despite his status as a veteran looking to bounce back from a notable (and uncommon) injury, his track record is strong enough that he ought to command a big league deal, if not a two-year pact. The Marlins currently project for a $97MM payroll, per Roster Resource, which is about $13MM shy of where they wrapped up the 2023 season.
A more precise payroll figure will come into clearer focus once the club resolves arbitration scenarios with its two most expensive candidates. Both Arraez and closer Tanner Scott exchanged arb figures with the team after failing to come to terms on an agreement last month. Arraez submitted a $12MM request against the team’s $10.6MM filing, while Scott’s camp is seeking a $5.7MM salary against the Marlins’ $5.15MM submission.
Arnold: Brewers “Open To More Conversations” Following Burnes Trade
Last night’s trade of Corbin Burnes took baseball by surprise. With spring training less than two weeks away and the Brewers having just spent $34MM to sign Rhys Hoskins for the next two seasons, the general expectation had been that the team planned to hold onto top stars like Burnes, Willy Adames and Devin Williams, despite the trio inching closer to free agency. (Burnes and Adames are free agents next winter, Williams after the 2025 season.) The Orioles, however, clearly came through with an offer that Milwaukee general manager felt he couldn’t turn down, and in the wake of the trade Arnold acknowledged that he’s “certainly open to more conversations” and “wouldn’t shut any conversations down at this point in the offseason” (link via Adam McCalvy of MLB.com).
That’s a far cry from a declaration that the Brewers are open for business, but both Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic and Mark Feinsand of MLB.com report that Williams, in particular, is also a possibility to move. Rosenthal writes that the Brewers have already “entertained” the possibility of moving the star righty.
Williams, 29, is among the game’s most dominant relievers. Over the past four seasons, he’s logged a 1.75 ERA while striking out a staggering 40.5% of his opponents. Williams’ 11.9% walk rate is well above the league average, but his prodigious strikeout ability, strong 49.5% ground-ball rate and knack for inducing weak contact (85.1 mph average exit velocity, 28.2% hard-hit rate) have all combined to help him mitigate that shaky command.
Excellent as he’s been, Williams isn’t the prototypical power-armed closer we see so often in today’s game. That’s not to suggest he’s a soft-tosser, but he doesn’t brandish the triple-digit heater that’s become increasingly common in modern baseball. Williams averaged 94.2 mph on his fastball in 2023 — an exact match with the league average for relievers — and sits at 94.8 mph dating back to 2020. However, Williams has one of the game’s best pitches, an 80-grade changeup nicknamed the “airbender.” Nearly a quarter of the changeups Williams has thrown in his career (23.1%) have generated a swinging strike. Opponents have batted just .137 and slugged only .199 against the pitch in his career.
Beyond his sheer dominance, Williams is eminently affordable. He agreed to a one-year, $7.25MM deal last month and tacked on a $10.5MM club option for the 2025 campaign, thus avoiding the need for an arbitration hearing this year or next. The value of that club option will likely increase based on some escalators that are baked into the contract. Pitching in 52 games would bump the option value by $200K, while reaching 57 and 62 appearances would add $250K each, plus another $300K for 66 games (which would establish a new career-high, topping 2022’s 65 games). Even if Williams unlocks that full $1MM worth of escalators, an $11.5MM option on a reliever of this caliber would still be a clear bargain.
It should be noted and emphasized that there’s no indication Milwaukee is aggressively shopping Williams or anyone else on the roster. This, however, is the manner in which the Brewers (and Arnold’s former organization, the Rays) have continually operated: maintain an openness on star players as their club control dwindles — particularly those who are likely beyond the organization’s comfort level in terms of asking price on an extension.
Flexibility when it comes to moving short-term players with one to two years of club control is a driving factor in how the Brewers have remained competitive regularly despite perennially ranking in the bottom half of the league in terms of payroll. The trade of Josh Hader at the 2022 deadline netted the Brewers left-hander Robert Gasser (one of their current top pitching prospects) and outfielder Esteury Ruiz, who was subsequently flipped for William Contreras, who won a Silver Slugger as Milwaukee’s starting catcher last season. Hader himself came to Milwaukee alongside Adrian Houser in a trade sending Carlos Gomez to Houston. Right-hander Freddy Peralta, now the Brewers’ top starter, was acquired as a 19-year-old in a trade sending first baseman Adam Lind to Seattle. The list goes on.
Any trade involving Williams will surely require a steep asking price — arguably a comparable or even greater return than Burnes commanded, given his extra year of club control and more affordable contract status. And Williams, like Burnes, figures to be a qualifying offer candidate once he’s able to reach free agency, meaning a new team would know that so long as he remains healthy, there’ll be some draft pick compensation to help recoup the value surrendered in order to acquire him in the first place.
It stands to reason that with Burnes out the door and at least a willingness to listen on Williams, the Brewers have similar thoughts on Adames. The 28-year-old broke out almost immediately after being traded from Tampa Bay to Milwaukee in 2021, when the Brewers sent righties Drew Rasmussen and J.P. Feyereisen to the Rays in exchange for Adames and righty Trevor Richards.
In two and a half seasons as a Brewer, Adames has slashed .242/.319/.454 with 75 homers, 86 doubles and a pair of triples in 1668 plate appearances — all while playing strong defense at a premium position. He’s walked at a 10% clip against a 26% strikeout rate and established himself as a power threat who can hit anywhere in the order, evidenced by 2022’s 31-homer showing. Adames has turned in 17 Defensive Runs Saved and 26 Outs Above Average in the past two seasons alone. He’ll earn a reasonable $12.25MM in 2024 before becoming a free agent ahead of his age-29 season.
As with Burnes, Adames will be a slam-dunk qualifying offer candidate next season. He’s extremely likely to receive and reject a QO, and he’d surely sign a contract worth more than $50MM in total with his next team. That’d give Milwaukee a compensatory pick at the end of the first round of the 2025 draft. Any trade offers would need to eclipse that value — and likely by a strong margin.
That said, the acquisition of Joey Ortiz in the Burnes trade makes it easier for the Brewers to listen to offers. Ortiz himself is a shortstop — and an MLB-ready one at that. He struggled in a tiny sample during last year’s MLB debut (34 plate appearances, .212/.206/.242) but is an accomplished upper-minors hitter who’s considered a good defender at shortstop. The 25-year-old Ortiz spent the bulk of the 2023 season in Triple-A Norfolk, where he slashed .321/.378/.507. That marked his second stint in Norfolk, as he also finished out the 2022 season there and hit well in a sample of 115 plate appearances. Overall, in 504 trips to the plate at Triple-A, Ortiz is a .327/.383/.521 hitter with 13 homers, 37 doubles, six triples and 17 steals.
Of course, as a plus defender at shortstop, Ortiz is more than capable of breaking into the big leagues as an everyday second baseman or third baseman. He and Adames can absolutely coexist on Milwaukee’s roster, and Ortiz could easily slide over to shortstop in 2025 if the team hangs onto Adames for the upcoming season. The Brewers surely don’t feel they need to trade Adames, but as Arnold strongly implied, he also won’t be turning anyone away on principle, either.
That willingness to listen could set the stage for another splashy trade or even two between now and Opening Day, but this isn’t an A’s-esque situation where the Brewers will be selling everything that’s not nailed down. Burnes commanded a pair of immediate big leaguers who both have six years of club control remaining. Any trades of Williams, Adames and/or anyone else on the roster would presumably need to afford similar near-term help.
The Brewers’ recent signing of Hoskins and focus on MLB-ready talent even in trading away their ace highlights the fact that this isn’t a team punting on 2024. Rather, they’re trying to thread the needle of remaining competitive on an annual basis without needing to undergo the exact type of teardown that Burnes’ new team underwent for a half decade prior to emerging as a powerhouse in the AL East. Teams will undoubtedly check back in on Williams, Adames and others in the wake of the Burnes blockbuster, but further trades aren’t necessarily a given.