Rangers, Mets, Red Sox Reportedly Shift Focus Away From Pursuit Of Shohei Ohtani
Rumors about the state of Shohei Ohtani‘s market in free agency have been decidedly and deliberately scarce. Ohtani is said to prefer things to be kept quiet and close to the vest, and teams involved in the bidding surely don’t want to jeopardize their chances by being too forthcoming in terms of leaking information to the media. ESPN’s Jeff Passan pulls back the curtain a bit this morning, however, writing that at least three teams — the Rangers, Mets and Red Sox — have turned their attention to other players at this stage of the process. While each of the three were among Ohtani’s original group of suitors, it seems the trio has become pessimistic about their chances of closing a deal.
The Rangers’ ostensible exit from the Ohtani bidding dovetails with recent comments from general manager Chris Young, who just yesterday told reporters that he does not anticipate spending to the same extent he did in the past two offseasons. Texas dropped more than $500MM in the 2021-22 offseason when signing Corey Seager, Marcus Semien and Jon Gray. The Rangers spent more than $200MM last winter when adding Jacob deGrom, Nathan Eovaldi and Andrew Heaney. Whether the expectation for lesser spending is because they feel they’re out of the Ohtani bidding or vice versa, the end result seems to be an expectation and concession that the two-time AL MVP and longtime Rangers division rival will sign elsewhere.
As for the Mets, there was never any question whether they have the funds to pay Ohtani a contract that’s widely expected to eclipse $500MM by a comfortable margin. Owner Steve Cohen is the sport’s wealthiest and most aggressive owner. But there have long been questions about Ohtani’s desire to play in the New York spotlight and deal with the inherent media frenzy associated with that market. It should come as no surprise that the Mets (and likely the Yankees) nevertheless tried, but Passan’s report suggests those efforts have come up short. To that end, SNY’s Andy Martino reports that Ohtani’s countryman, Yoshinobu Yamamoto, is currently the Mets’ primary focus.
The Red Sox, meanwhile, are known to be seeking top-of-the-rotation help for the 2024 season, which doesn’t apply to Ohtani while he mends from elbow surgery. (Though he’d clearly be a factor in their 2025 rotation and beyond.) Prior reports have suggested that Boston’s focus, thus far, has been more on the trade market than on free agency. That doesn’t definitively mean that the Sox aren’t willing to spend lavishly on free agents this winter, but if their pursuit of immediate rotation help eventually leads them to free agency, it’d make for a particularly expensive offseason to pursue both Ohtani and one of the remaining top-end starters (e.g. Yamamoto, Blake Snell, Jordan Montgomery).
While those three clubs are out of the mix, Ohtani’s market does still include the likes of the Dodgers, Cubs, Blue Jays and Angels, per Passan. That’s not intended to be a comprehensive list of the remaining suitors, however. It stands to reason that other clubs could yet be in play. The Giants have long been linked to Ohtani, as have the Mariners — although Daniel Kramer of MLB.com reported a couple weeks ago suggested that the Mariners were unlikely to ultimately land him.
Shane Bieber Reportedly Open To Extension Following Potential Trade
Guardians righty Shane Bieber is one of the more prominent names on the offseason trade market, with the Cubs and Reds among the many teams to check in thus far. Bieber is slated to become a free agent next offseason and projected by MLBTR contributor Matt Swartz to earn $12.2MM this coming season, giving him the look of an affordable one-year rental for a team on the lookout for rotation upgrades. However, Jon Heyman of the New York Post writes that Bieber is at least open to the idea of signing an extension with a team that acquires him. Presumably, that’d mean he’s open to a long-term deal in Cleveland as well, although it’s not clear that the generally frugal Guardians would be amenable to that after already hammering out nine-figure extensions with Jose Ramirez and Andres Gimenez in recent years.
One could argue that it’s natural for Bieber to take this approach, given that he missed more than two months late in the 2023 season with elbow inflammation. He made it back to the mound and looked healthy in a pair of late-season starts, but he’s seen his velocity dip by about three miles per hour since its peak and has a number of red flags in his profile, including strikeout, walk, swinging-strike, chase and ground-ball rates that have all trended in the wrong direction. There’s some logic to taking the risk-averse approach and locking in a long-term deal this offseason.
On the other hand, it’s far more common for players to spurn extension overtures at this stage of their original club control window — particularly following a trade. Players often want to get a feel for their new organization (coaching staff, teammates, competitive outlook).
Furthermore, while Bieber might not command the type of deal he once looked destined for when he was taking home AL Cy Young honors in 2020, he’s still clearly a talented pitcher. The market for even third/fourth starters has progressed over the past couple years, too, evidenced by contracts like the four-year deals awarded to Taijuan Walker ($72MM) and Jameson Taillon ($68MM). Bieber is only 28 (29 in May) and would turn 30 in the first year of a theoretical free-agent deal (or extension). With any form of bounceback season in terms of health, if not performance, he’d have a case for at least a four-year deal.
It’s rare, although not unprecedented for teams to grant extension windows as a conditional element of a trade. Most recently, the Reds simultaneously acquired and extended Sonny Gray in a trade with the Yankees, although that was four years ago. More likely is a scenario where Bieber is simply traded to another club and the two parties spend the remainder of the offseason discussing a potential long-term deal.
Bieber’s openness to an extension might improve his trade value a bit, but one would imagine that openness would ultimately depend on where he’s traded. Using a pair of teams to which he’s already been connected, it’s easier to see a big-payroll team like the Cubs pony up on a long-term pact than it would be a smaller-payroll club like the Reds, who’ve shied away from long-term deals over the past few offseasons. Cincinnati did extend Hunter Greene, but was was a pre-arb deal that isn’t really comparable to Bieber when he’s at five-plus years of service.
While it’s interesting to hear that any prominent player who’s only a year from the open market is amenable to forgoing that right, it’s simultaneously difficult to imagine it happening. Bieber made only two starts in his return from that months-long stay on the injured list, which isn’t much for a new club to go off of when weighing whether to sign him for on a long-term arrangement. From Bieber’s vantage point, it’d be a surprise to see him sign for anything less than those aforementioned Taillon and Walker deals, given his track record. Prior to the 2023 season, he looked like a candidate for a $100MM+ deal in free agency.
The 2023 season tells another story, though. Bieber’s 3.80 ERA, 20.1% strikeout rate, 6.4% walk rate, 47.2% grounder rate, 91.6 mph average fastball and career-low swinging-strike and chase rates (10.5% and 30.6%) all have the look of a mid-rotation arm rather than an ace and are are all reasons to exercise caution. An uptick in velocity or reversal of course in some combination of those declining rate stats next season would go a long ways toward bolstering his stock. Perhaps Bieber and a new team (or the Guardians themselves) could find some kind of middle ground, but his recent injury troubles — he also missed two months with a shoulder strain in 2021 — and diminished performance might make it particularly difficult to find a middle ground.
Marlins Name John Mabry Hitting Coach, Hire Bill Mueller As Assistant Hitting Coach
Following the departure of hitting coach Brant Brown, who’s set to join the Mariners’ coaching staff, the Marlins have promoted assistant hitting coach John Mabry to lead hitting coach, reports Christina De Nicola of MLB.com. Miami has also hired former American League batting champion Bill Mueller as its new assistant hitting coach.
Mabry, 53, enters his second season on the Marlins’ coaching staff and his 12th year as a big league coach overall. A veteran of 14 Major League seasons who batted .263/.322/.405 from 1994-2007, Mabry joined the Cardinals’ coaching staff as an assistant hitting coach in 2012 and was later promoted to lead hitting coach in St. Louis as well — a role he held until the 2018 season. He also spent three years on the Royals’ staff prior to joining the Fish. He and Marlins skipper/2023 NL Manager of the Year Skip Schumaker were teammates with the Cards during Schumaker’s rookie season in 2005.
The 52-year-old Mueller will return to a big league dugout for the first time since 2018 — the final of his four seasons as Cardinals’ assistant hitting coach. He overlapped with Mabry throughout that entire tenure, so the two have plenty of familiarity with one another and a strong working relationship. More recently, Mueller worked with the Nationals’ player development department from 2022-23, and he’s also spent time as a special assistant and scout with the Dodgers in addition to a one-year run as the Cubs’ hitting coach in 2014. In parts of 11 seasons from 1996-2006, Mueller batted .291/.373/.425. He won a World Series with the 2004 Red Sox and won a Silver Slugger with Boston in 2003, when he hit .326/.398/.540 en route to that aforementioned AL batting crown.
Reds Sign Emilio Pagan
Dec. 1: The Reds have now formally announced the signing of Pagan.
Nov. 29: The Reds are reportedly in agreement with free agent reliever Emilio Pagan on a two-year, $16MM guarantee. The deal consists of matching $8MM salaries and allows Pagan, a client of the Ballengee Group, to opt out after next season. It’s a strong deal for the righty, as the contract contains incentives to boost the total further and could allow him to seek a larger contract next winter if he enjoys a good first year in Cincinnati. The agreement is still pending a physical.
Cincinnati relievers combined for a 4.11 ERA that ranked 15th in the Majors and a 4.48 FIP that ranked 23rd in 2023. In general, it’s a thin and unproven group. Closer Alexis Diaz gives the Reds one high-end arm, and lefty Sam Moll proved to be a quietly strong deadline pickup.
Beyond that, the Reds lacked established, healthy arms. Righty Tejay Antone has been one of the game’s top-performing bullpen arms when healthy, but he missed the entire 2022 season following Tommy John surgery and lasted just 5 2/3 innings in 2023 before departing a September game due to elbow discomfort that proved to be season-ending. Lucas Sims posted a stout 3.10 ERA with a strong strikeout rate in 2023 but also walked more than 15% of his opponents. Waiver pickup Ian Gibaut had a nice season (3.33 ERA), but that was the 30-year-old’s first extended run of MLB success.
Adding some stability makes sense, though the 32-year-old Pagan (33 in May) has something of a rollercoaster track record. In seven big league seasons, Pagan has pitched for five teams. At times, he’s looked the part of a bona fide late-inning force, such as his 2019 season when he saved 20 games for the Rays while logging a 2.31 ERA, 36% strikeout rate and 4.9% walk rate. At other times, Pagan has been far too hittable and displayed below-average command. From 2020-22 with the Padres and Twins, he logged a combined 4.61 ERA with a walk rate nearly double that of his excellent ’19 campaign.
Most recently, Pagan gave the 2023 Twins 69 1/3 innings of 2.99 ERA ball, fanning a solid 23.8% of his opponents against a better-than-average 7.7% walk rate. He averaged nearly 96 mph on his heater and continued career-long trends of inducing both swinging strikes and chases on pitches off the plate at above-average clips. However, Pagan’s rocky 2022 showing in Minnesota pushed him down the bullpen hierarchy; after struggling as a closer and setup man in ’22, he was used in the middle innings and lower-leverage spots this past season.
It’s at least a moderate surprise to see the Reds, in particular, wind up signing Pagan, given that the primary knock against him throughout his career has been a susceptibility to home runs. That doesn’t seem to pair well with Cincinnati’s homer-happy Great American Ball Park, although to Pagan’s credit, he averaged a career-low 0.65 homers per nine frames this past season.
Still, entering the 2023 campaign, Pagan had yielded an average of 1.74 homers per nine innings. Among the 1080 relief pitchers to throw at least 250 career innings since way back in the 1800s, that was the highest rate of any pitcher (hat tip to The Atheltic’s Aaron Gleeman for pointing that out back in 2022). Generally, relievers who give up home runs at such a lofty rate just haven’t stuck around long enough to compile a meaningful number of innings at the MLB level.
The Reds are surely confident in their ability to help Pagan continue his newfound ability to mitigate round-trippers, but if his prior home run tendencies return, his new home confines in Cincinnati would likely only shine a spotlight on that problematic history. If he can keep curtailing the long ball, however, he gives the Reds a hard-throwing righty with late-inning experience who could help serve as a bridge to Diaz at the end of the game. Pagan has fanned 28.1% of his career opponents against a sharp 7% walk rate, and he boasts a very strong 14.1% swinging-strike rate in exactly 400 MLB innings.
In terms of payroll, the Reds will have no problem fitting Pagan (or just about any free agent, for that matter) onto the books. Now that Joey Votto is a free agent, the Reds’ only guaranteed contracts had belonged to Hunter Greene and backup catcher Luke Maile, who’ll earn a combined $6MM in 2024. Add in MLBTR’s projected salaries for their six eligible players — one of whom, Jonathan India, is a trade candidate — and a host of pre-arb names to round out the club, and Roster Resource projects a payroll just south of $59MM after accounting for the Pagan deal. And with Maile on a one-year deal, Pagan and Greene are (at least for now) the only players on guaranteed deals for the 2025 campaign.
Jon Heyman of the New York Post reported the Reds had expressed interest in Pagan. Mark Feinsand of MLB.com first reported the Reds and Pagan had agreed to a two-year deal. Ken Rosenthal of the Athletic first reported the $16MM guarantee and the opt-out possibility. Joel Sherman of the New York Post reported the even salary breakdown.
Mets Claim Cooper Hummel
The Mets have claimed catcher/outfielder Cooper Hummel off waivers from the Mariners, reports Jeff Passan of ESPN. Seattle had not previously announced that Hummel was being removed from the 40-man roster. The Mets now have 32 players on their 40-man roster, while the Mariners are down to 39.
The waiver claim comes just over a year after the Mariners acquired Hummel from the D-backs in a straight-up swap for former Rookie of the Year Kyle Lewis. That deal didn’t pay dividends for either party, as Lewis missed significant time with injuries before being non-tendered, while Hummel spent the bulk of his lone season with the Mariners organization in Triple-A.
Hummel appeared in just 10 big league games and tallied 26 plate appearances as a Mariner. Between that and a brief MLB debut with Arizona in 2022, he’s a .166/.264/.286 hitter in 227 trips to the plate. That said, Hummel enjoyed a strong year with Triple-A Tacoma in 2023, batting .262/.409/.435 with a mammoth 18% walk rate against a 23.3% strikeout rate. He also offers unusual defensive versatility, evidenced by more than 1800 career innings in left field, 1054 innings behind the plate, 508 innings at first base and 296 innings in right field. Hummel has a minor league option remaining as well, so he can be stashed in Syracuse without needing to first pass through waivers.
The 29-year-old Hummel was an 18th-round draft pick of the Brewers back in 2016, when current Mets president of baseball operations David Stearns was running baseball operations in Milwaukee. Stearns traded Hummel to the D-backs in a 2021 swap that netted infielder Eduardo Escobar, and he’s now reacquired the versatile catcher/outfielder as one of his first transactions with his new club.
It’s another in a growing series of small-scale depth pickups. Stearns has added Hummel, and infielder Zack Short via waivers while signing free agents Luis Severino, Joey Wendle and Austin Adams to one-year Major League contracts (a nonguaranteed split deal, in the case of Adams). He’s also inked righties Cole Sulser and Kyle Crick to minor league deals this week.
Many Mets fans had visions of larger dealings when owner Steve Cohen finally landed Stearns after years of coveting the former Milwaukee baseball operations leader and have instead voiced frustration at depth moves such as this one. However, the offseason is a marathon and the majority of the major names on the free agent and trade markets alike remain available. Beyond that, the Mets had a whopping 12 vacancies on the 40-man roster not long ago and have been burned by a lack of depth on the pitching front in recent years. The headline-grabbing moves for Mets fans figure to surface as the offseason wears on, but Stearns’ Brewers were also known for aggressively operating around the margins of the 40-man roster and that tendency will likely carry over to his still-nascent tenure in Queens.
Athletics’ Ken Waldichuk Rehabbing From Flexor Strain, UCL Sprain
The Athletics announced Friday that left-hander Ken Waldichuk has quietly been going through a non-surgical rehab process after being diagnosed with a strained left flexor tendon and sprained ulnar collateral ligament in his left elbow. Waldichuk experienced discomfort in his final appearance of the 2023 season, according to the team.
“Waldichuk opted for conservative treatment of this injury, leading to a Tenex procedure with Dr. Steve Yoon on Oct. 17 and a follow-up [platelet-rich plasma] injection to the flexor tendon on Oct. 24,” the team announced in a statement. “Waldichuk is currently in physical therapy; his timeline for returning to throwing remains TBD.”
The Tenex procedure which Waldichuk underwent is rare but not unheard of among pitchers. Veteran right-hander Collin McHugh had the same treatment in the 2019-20 offseason. He wound up not pitching that year, opting out of the pandemic-shortened campaign and citing that he hadn’t recovered from his offseason procedure as well as hoped. Of course, every injury situation is different, and the fact that McHugh didn’t return in 2020 is hardly an indication that Waldichuk will face similar problems. Furthermore, McHugh returned to the mound in 2021 without undergoing further treatment and has been healthy since. Over the past three seasons, he’s compiled 192 innings with a strong 2.77 earned run average.
Waldichuk, 25, came to the A’s from the Yankees prior to the 2022 trade deadline as part of the return package for right-handers Frankie Montas and Lou Trivino. The hope was that he’d provide Oakland with a largely MLB-ready starting pitcher to help replenish a staff that had been thinned out by injuries and trades during the team’s latest rebuild. Waldichuk has struggled throughout his time in Oakland, however.
A 2019 fifth-round pick, Waldichuk made his MLB debut with the A’s in 2022, starting seven games down the stretch and turning in a pedestrian 4.93 ERA — albeit with solid strikeout and walk rates of 22.6% and 6.8%. The 2023 season was another story entirely, as Waldichuk’s struggles eventually led the team to move him to the bullpen. The southpaw returned to the rotation around the All-Star break and pitched decently down as a starter in the second half, logging a 4.04 ERA with a 21.8% strikeout rate and 9.2% walk rate. His overall 2023 numbers were still unsightly (5.36 ERA, 20.7% strikeout rate, 11.1% walk rate, 1.53 HR/9), but Waldichuk ended the season on a relatively high note and looked to have turned a corner.
The revelation of a notable arm injury throws a wrench into his near-term outlook, however. Waldichuk had been one of the leading candidates to pitch out of the Athletics’ rotation next year, joining Paul Blackburn, JP Sears and prospect Mason Miller in that regard. Other candidates include Luis Medina, Adrian Martinez, Freddy Tarnok, Joey Estes and Osvaldo Bido, though the Oakland rotation mix on the whole is generally comprised of unproven arms. Sears and Blackburm are the only two who’ve had even a full season of average or better results, and Blackburn could be traded this offseason given that he only has two years of club control remaining.
Waldichuk’s injury is a blow to the group and to his broader development as a big league starter, though even if he winds up missing significant time he could still be a part of the Athletics’ long-term plans. The lefty has one-plus year of Major League service time, so he can be controlled another five years. He also still has all three minor league option years intact, although since the injury occurred while pitching in a big league game, he’d very likely be placed on the MLB injured list to begin the year (if an IL placement proves necessary), during which he’d earn service time as well.
Twins Re-Sign Jovani Moran, Ronny Henriquez To Minor League Deals
The Twins have re-signed relievers Jovani Moran and Ronny Henriquez to minor league contracts, per the team’s transaction log at MLB.com. Both were non-tendered a few weeks ago. The left-handed Moran is expected to miss the 2024 season after undergoing Tommy John surgery following the ’23 campaign. Henriquez, acquired from the Rangers as part of 2022’s Mitch Garver trade, battled elbow trouble and struggled in 37 Triple-A appearances this past season.
Both pitchers were non-tendered despite being several years from arbitration eligibility. However, the non-tender deadline gives teams the unique opportunity to immediately remove a player from the 40-man roster without needing to pass him through waivers, so the Twins used that chance to clear up some space while retaining hope for this type of minor league re-signing.
Moran, 26, has been a heavily used option for manager Rocco Baldelli over the past two seasons, at times looking like a potential setup man — he logged a 2.21 ERA, 32.9% strikeout rate and 11% walk rate in 40 1/3 innings in 2022 — but also battling inconsistencies stemming from his below-average command. He picked up nine holds for the Twins this past season but struggled to a 5.31 ERA with a diminished 26.1% strikeout rate and an alarming 14.7% walk rate.
Moran looked to have righted the ship, to an extent, after a shaky start to the year before a brutal stretch in July that saw him yield nine runs on seven hits and seven walks in what proved to be his final seven innings of the season. He was placed on the injured list with an always-ominous forearm strain, ultimately going under the knife a couple months later. He’ll miss the 2024 season and look to get back into the mix for a roster spot in 2025.
The 23-year-old Henriquez made his big league debut with the Twins in 2022 and impressed with 11 2/3 innings of 2.31 ERA ball. He fanned 18% of his opponents against a 6% walk rate and kept the ball on the ground at a healthy 52.8% clip while averaging 93.2 mph on his heater. He ranked 19th among Twins prospects at FanGraphs and 23rd at Baseball America before this past season’s elbow troubles derailed his year. Henriquez had multiple IL stints due to elbow inflammation and ultimately pitched to an unsightly 5.64 ERA in 57 Triple-A frames. He’ll likely open the season back in Triple-A St. Paul as a depth option.
Marlins To Hire Gabe Kapler As Assistant General Manager
The Marlins have reached an agreement to hire former Phillies and Giants manager Gabe Kapler as an assistant general manager under new president of baseball operations Peter Bendix, reports Craig Mish of SportsGrid and the Miami Herald. San Francisco dismissed Kapler following the 2023 season, hiring future Hall of Famer Bob Melvin in his place. Mish adds that Kapler has been looking for a new challenge in baseball operations since being let go by the Giants and was also in the running to become the Red Sox’ head of baseball operations before they ultimately hired another former big leaguer, Craig Breslow.
This won’t be the first foray into baseball operations for Kapler, who served as the Dodgers’ farm director prior to being named manager of the Phillies. He’s spent the past six seasons as a manager, compiling a 456-411 record between San Francisco (2020-23) and Philadelphia (2018-19) and won NL Manager of the Year honors in 2021. He’ll now return to the other side of the game, with a primary focus on player development within the Marlins’ system, per Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic. The Marlins don’t have a general manager, with the aforementioned Bendix holding the title of president and heading up baseball ops. But Kapler will join Oz Ocampo, Brian Chattin and Daniel Greenlee as the team’s fourth executive to hold the title of assistant GM.
It’s not the only recent baseball ops hire made by Bendix, who replaced GM Kim Ng after she declined her end of a 2024 mutual option (reportedly because ownership wanted to hire a president of baseball ops to overtake her on the front office hierarchy). Evan Grant of the Dallas Morning News reported earlier this week that Miami hired now-former Rangers assistant director of baseball operations Vinesh Kanthan as their new director of baseball operations.
Changes in the Miami front office figure to continue over the next year, as it’s common for newly hired baseball operations executives to bring in their own team — at times at the expense of holdovers within the department. Bendix and his staff will look to build on the success of the 2023 club, which reached the playoffs for the first time (in 162-game season) since the organization’s 2003 World Series-winning season.
Guardians Open To Offers On Emmanuel Clase
The Guardians are open to offers on All-Star closer Emmanuel Clase and willing to trade him for the right offer, ESPN’s Jeff Passan reports. Even if the club is merely performing its due diligence, it’s a fairly surprising development, given the overwhelmingly club-friendly contract to which the 25-year-old (26 in March) righty is signed.
Early in the 2022 season, Cleveland inked Clase to a five-year, $20MM contract extension that included affordable $10MM club options for the 2027-28 seasons (each with a $2MM buyout). He’s entering the third season of that deal, slated to earn $2.5MM this coming season, $4.5MM the following year and $6MM in 2026.
It’s worth pointing out that Clase is well on his way to boosting the value of both those club options. The contract allows him to increase the value of each by another $3MM based on appearances, innings pitched and awards in the first five years of the deal. Clase has already secured a $500K bump for both options by winning the Mariano Rivera Reliever of the Year Award in 2022. He’ll earn $500K bumps on both options for reaching 200 innings or games pitched (he’s at 145 innings and 152 games presently) and see another $500K tacked onto each option upon reaching 250 innings or games pitched. If he reaches 300 innings or games pitched over the life of the deal, he’ll boost the value of each option by another $1MM. In all, the options can top out at a still-very-reasonable $13MM apiece, and Clase would take home another $1MM assignment bonus if traded.
Even if Clase maxes out all of those remaining escalators, he can be controlled for up to five more seasons at a maximum of $40MM. That’s a bargain rate for a flamethrowing righty who has been one of the top relievers in the American League throughout much of his tenure in Cleveland.
That said, there are some red flags that merit mention. Clase hasn’t lost much life on his signature cutter, which still averaged better than 99 mph in 2023, but he posted a career-low 21.2% swinging-strike rate and saw his walk rate (5.3%), ground-ball rate (55%), swinging-strike rate (13.3%), opponents’ chase rate (35.1%), average exit velocity (88.4 mph) and hard-hit rate (37.6%) all trend in the wrong direction over his 2022 levels. Granted, most of those numbers are still excellent, but Clase’s 3.22 ERA doesn’t look nearly as dominant as the combined 1.33 he posted in 2021-22 — and he blew more saves (12) in 2023 than he did in his entire career prior to this season (9).
While it’s never good to see any pitcher begin to trend in the wrong direction, the 2023 version of Clase was still excellent — and the price tag on his contract is still well shy of what he’d earn if he were on the open market at present. Bullpen help is always in demand, but trading a reliever of this caliber with five years of affordable contractual control remaining is virtually unprecedented.
The Phillies traded five years of Ken Giles to the Astros back in 2015, though Giles was a pre-arbitration player with 115 career innings under his belt to that point; Clase is more established. The Mariners traded four years of Edwin Diaz to the Mets but did so largely as a means of shedding the remainder of Robinson Cano‘s contract. Both trade packages netted former top-six overall draft picks (Mark Appel, Jarred Kelenic) in addition, plus at least one other top prospect/young big leaguer of note (Vince Velasquez, Justin Dunn) and other near-MLB pitchers. None of those names from those trade returns have gone onto MLB stardom, but at the time of those swaps they were highly touted young talents. Clase could arguably command an even larger haul, potentially netting the Guardians multiple top-100 prospects and/or young MLB-ready players.
It should of course be emphasized that Clase is far from a sure thing to move. Because of the massive amount of remaining control on his contract and his eminently affordable salary — even for a low-payroll club like the Guardians — the Cleveland front office might simply opt to hold onto him. The Guards project for a $94MM payroll in 2024, per Roster Resource, which is only a $5MM jump from last year’s Opening Day mark and about $40MM shy of their franchise-record mark of $134MM.
There’s no financial urgency to deal Clase, especially since that $94MM mark figures to drop if Cleveland ultimately moves Shane Bieber — a far likelier trade candidate given his projected $12.2MM salary (via MLBTR contributor Matt Swartz) and his status as a free agent at the end of the 2024 campaign. Cleveland has previously traded Corey Kluber, Carlos Carrasco, Trevor Bauer and Mike Clevinger all before those players reached the open market, and if they continue that pattern, Bieber will be on the move between now and Opening Day. The Cubs and Reds are among the teams with interest, although the 2020 AL Cy Young winner has surely commanded a broader array of inquiries than just those two teams.
NPB’s Hanshin Tigers Sign Javy Guerra, Re-Sign Sheldon Neuse
The Hanshin Tigers of Japan’s Nippon Professional Baseball announced this week that they’ve signed right-hander Javy Guerra for the 2024 season (Japanese language link via Yahoo Japan). Hanshin has also re-signed infielder Sheldon Neuse and right-hander Jeremy Beasley, per the team’s web site. It’ll be the second season with the Tigers for both former big leaguers and Guerra’s first overseas.
Guerra, 28, once ranked as one of the top prospects in all of baseball while rising through the Red Sox and Padres systems as a shortstop. After struggling at the plate as he climbed the minor league ladder, however, he moved to the mound and has now appeared in each of the past five big league seasons, splitting time between the Padres, Rays and Brewers. Guerra is one of the game’s hardest throwers, averaging 98 mph on his heater and at times climbing into triple digits, but he’s battled significant command issues that have hampered his results.
In 63 MLB innings, Guerra has walked 14.3% of his opponents. He hasn’t balanced that out with the type of gaudy strikeout rate one might imagine either, setting down just 15% of his opponents on strikes. The poor command of his power repertoire has contributed to an ugly 6.43 ERA in the big leagues, but Guerra sports a career 2.87 ERA, 28% strikeout rate and far more palatable 9.6% walk rate in 78 1/3 Triple-A innings across two seasons. He’ll look to match that form more closely with the Tigers. And, at 28 years of age, if Guerra can harness his power arsenal in NPB and improve his command, he’s young enough to parlay this stint into a big league return down the road.
As for Neuse, he’ll be a familiar name for fans of the A’s, Dodgers and perhaps the Nationals (who selected him in the second round of the 2016 draft and traded him to Oakland alongside Jesus Luzardo for both Ryan Madson and Sean Doolittle). The now-28-year-old infielder hit .212/.262/.296 in parts of three seasons between Oakland and Los Angeles (420 plate appearances) and turned in a .240/.295/.328 batting line with Hanshin last season.
As for Beasley, the 28-year-old pitched 24 2/3 innings of 5.84 ERA ball between the D-backs and Blue Jays from 2020-22. He tossed 41 innings for the Tigers’ top-level club in 2023 (plus 44 innings with their minor league squad) and handled himself quite nicely, logging a 2.20 ERA with a 25.3% strikeout rate and 7.6% walk rate in that time.