Red Sox Sign Yu Chang To Major League Contract
The Red Sox announced Thursday that they’ve signed infielder Yu Chang to a one-year contract. Chang’s Major League deal will place him on the 40-man roster, and Boston has placed injured shortstop Trevor Story, who’ll miss at least the first half of the season after undergoing an internal brace procedure on his right elbow, on the 60-day IL to create space. Chang will earn $850K on the deal, Chris Cotillo of MassLive.com reports.
Chang, 27, has seen major league action in each of the past four years, providing plenty of defensive versatility but struggling to do much at the plate. His career batting line currently sits at .213/.279/.360, production that’s 23% below league average by measure of wRC+. In that time, he’s played all four infield positions and generally been graded well at each of them.
Since Chang was out of options last year, he fell into a pit of being just intriguing enough for teams to give him a shot, but never quite providing enough to cement himself anywhere. He began the year with the Guardians but was designated for assignment and traded to the Pirates, before subsequently going to the Rays and Red Sox on waiver claims. Between those four clubs, he hit .208/.289/.315 for a wRC+ of 78.
Chang just nudged past three years of service time last year and qualified for arbitration for the first time. He was projected by MLBTR contributor Matt Swartz for a $900K salary but the Red Sox decided to non-tender him instead, though they’ve now brought him back at a slightly lower price point.
The infield picture in Boston has changed quite a bit since last year. Xander Bogaerts opted out of his contract and signed with the Padres and, as mentioned off the top, Story is going to miss significant time due to his injury. It seems the plan to cover for those losses to the middle infield is to bring Enrique Hernández in from center field to be the shortstop, with Adam Duvall signed to take over the vacated center field spot. Hernández has garnered some shortstop experience as part of the utility job he’s played for many years, but he’s never had an everyday role there. Adalberto Mondesí was acquired from the Royals to hopefully play a part of some kind, though he’s also hurt and might not be ready for Opening Day. That would seem to leave Christian Arroyo atop the second base depth chart for now. Enmanuel Valdez and David Hamilton could push for jobs since they’re on the 40-man, though neither has any big league experience thus far.
With all of those moving pieces, it makes sense to add someone like Chang who can be moved around as necessary. The corners are a bit more secure with Rafael Devers at third and Triston Casas at first, though Casas has just 27 games under his belt thus far and isn’t a sure thing to succeed this season. Chang could provide an emergency option there as well, though Bobby Dalbec could perhaps get another crack at the cold corner if Casas gets hurt or underperforms.
Chang should provide the Sox with the floor of being a competent defender at multiple positions, making him a solid bench piece to have. If he can make any progress offensively, that would be a nice bonus. If that does come to pass, he could be retained for another two seasons via arbitration and likely wouldn’t cost much given his low base salary this year.
Frankie Montas To Undergo Shoulder Surgery
Yankees right-hander Frankie Montas will undergo arthroscopic surgery on his shoulder on Feb. 21, manager Aaron Boone announced (Twitter links via Bryan Hoch of MLB.com and Joel Sherman of the New York Post). The best-case scenario for a return would be late in the 2023 season.
Montas was already known to be behind schedule heading into spring training, thanks to inflammation in his right shoulder that slowed his offseason progression. General manager Brian Cashman said three weeks ago, however, that the damage didn’t appear to be structural in nature. The GM added that more information would be gained once Montas began his throwing program. That was scheduled for late January, and it now seems clear that things didn’t go as smoothly as hoped.
The 29-year-old Montas (30 in March) was acquired from the A’s alongside righty reliever Lou Trivino last summer in a deadline deal sending prospects Ken Waldichuk, JP Sears, Luis Medina and Cooper Bowman back to Oakland. Things quickly went awry for the typically steady Montas, who yielded six runs in two of his first three appearances with the Yankees and ultimately wound up yielding four or more runs in eight Yankees starts before landing on the injured list.
Prior to coming over from the A’s, Montas had been excellent, pitching to a 3.30 ERA with above-average strikeout and walk rates over 291 2/3 innings dating back to Opening Day 2021. However, there was some concern about his shoulder even before the Yankees made the trade, as Montas left an early-July start after just one inning due to inflammation and didn’t pitch again for 18 days. He totaled eight innings and held his opponents to three runs in two return starts before being dealt to the Bronx.
The Yankees tendered a contract to Montas this offseason and avoided arbitration by agreeing to a one-year deal worth $7.5MM for the coming season. He’s slated to become a free agent in the offseason, making the forthcoming surgery an even more sizable blow both to the team and to the player himself. The Yankees won’t get much more than those eight shaky starts out of Montas now, and Montas himself will at best have a few weeks of late-inning work under his belt before heading into free agency for the first time.
With Montas out of the rotation picture and lefty Nestor Cortes dealing with a Grade 2 hamstring strain that’ll jeopardize his availability for Opening Day, the Yankees’ rotation looks much more top-heavy than it did a few weeks ago. Gerrit Cole and offseason signee Carlos Rodon form a powerhouse one-two punch, and they’ll be followed by Luis Severino, who’ll be looking for his first fully healthy season since 2018.
Right-hander Domingo German is the favorite to step into Montas’ spot in the rotation at the moment, but if Cortes also needs to miss time, the outlook of that fifth spot becomes a bit murkier. Candidates on the 40-man roster include Clarke Schmidt, Deivi Garcia, Jhony Brito, Randy Vasquez and Matt Krook. It’s at least possible that the Yankees will look outside the organization, but they’ve been unwilling to cross the fourth and final luxury-tax barrier and currently sit less than $1MM shy of that mark, per Roster Resource.
Tigers Have Shown Interest In Will Smith
The Tigers have shown some interest in free-agent reliever Will Smith, per Evan Petzold of the Detroit Free Press. However, the left-hander has also received interest from multiple clubs that expect to contend for postseason berths in 2023, Petzold adds, which makes them an unlikely landing spot unless they significantly outbid any other suitors.
The 2022 campaign was a tale of two seasons with Smith, who posted a 4.38 ERA and 12.3% walk rate in 37 innings with the Braves before being traded to the Astros for Jake Odorizzi and immediately turning things around. In 22 frames with Houston, Smith worked to a 3.27 ERA (2.66 FIP, 2.83 SIERA) with a 26.7% strikeout rate — an uptick on his 24% mark in Atlanta — and a 4.4% walk rate that was miles below his bloated rate with the Braves. I noted back in January that the Astros upped Smith’s reliance on his slider and four-seamer at the expense of his curveball and also made some alterations to both his horizontal and vertical release points.
The results were impressive, although the Astros didn’t use him in the postseason. Smith wasn’t on the ALDS or ALCS roster and didn’t pitch in the World Series upon being added. And, as encouraging as his turnaround was, the ‘Stros unsurprisingly weren’t heartened enough to exercise a weighty $13MM option (which came with a $1MM buyout).
Smith is now one of the few unsigned, clearly big-league caliber relievers remaining on the free-agent market. He won’t match the three-year, $40MM contract he received from the Braves in the 2019-20 offseason, but it stands to reason that his strong finish in Houston and his track record ought to land him a big league deal somewhere.
Dating back to 2013, the now-33-year-old Smith carries a 3.26 ERA with an excellent 31.5% strikeout rate against a 9% walk rate. He’s tallied 91 saves and 106 holds in that time, frequently operating as a high-leverage reliever with the Brewers, Giants and Braves. His time with Atlanta didn’t go as well as hoped, although it’s worth noting that was dominant during the team’s postseason run in 2021, firing 11 shutout innings as the Braves secured a World Series victory.
With a non-contending club like the Tigers, the opportunity would exist for Smith to even work his way into the closer’s role. There’s no established option in that spot for the time being, and at the very least, Smith would seem likely to find himself in a high-leverage role — be it as a setup man or ninth-inning specialist. Right now, Tyler Alexander looks like the Tigers’ lone lefty in the bullpen, though Chasen Shreve, Jace Fry and Miguel Del Pozo are all in big league camp as non-roster invitees this spring.
There hasn’t been much chatter about Smith’s market — or lack thereof — this offseason. Left-handed bullpen help has remained the one area of free agency with some actual depth for interested clubs, and the fact that so many southpaws lingered so long into the offseason figures to create some potential bargains. The D-backs scooped up Andrew Chafin on a one-year deal with a club option over the weekend, but the likes of Smith, Matt Moore, Zack Britton and Brad Hand all remain available. Britton just worked out for six clubs today, and the Twins have reportedly shown some interest in Hand. There’s likely some degree of overlap in the markets for the remaining lefties, and now that pitchers and catchers are beginning to report, it’s possible there’s an increased sense of urgency among the remaining unsigned free agents to find a job for the upcoming season.
Zack Britton Working Out For Six Teams Today
Former All-Star closer Zack Britton is hosting a workout for six interested clubs today, tweets Jon Heyman of the New York Post. Anthony DiComo of MLB.com reports that the Mets are one of the six teams in attendance. Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic adds that the Angels, Giants, Dodgers, Cubs and Rangers were also in attendance. The Angels, in particular, have been linked to Britton in recent weeks. Evan Petzold of the Detroit Free Press, meanwhile, writes that the Tigers have had interest in Britton, though it doesn’t seem they attended today’s showcase.
It’s the second time the 35-year-old Britton has thrown for teams this offseason, though the first was more of a leaguewide showcase. That took place back in mid-January, and it stands to reason that today’s workout will offer his most interested suitors a chance to get another look at him as he gears up for a potential signing. That Britton would offer multiple showcases to interested teams isn’t necessarily a surprise, given that he pitched just two-thirds of an inning in 2022 and only 18 1/3 frames in 2021.
Once one of the game’s elite relievers, Britton has seen his star fade in his mid-30s as injuries have begun to take their toll. The lefty had his elbow scoped in March 2021, which cost him the first two months of that season. He returned in June but quickly went down with a hamstring strain that sidelined him another few weeks. The return from that balky hamstring proved similarly short-lived, as an elbow strain again sent him to the injured list.
In Sept. 2021, Britton underwent surgery to address that second elbow issue. The hope was that, like the arthroscopic procedure in March, removing some bone spurs would alleviate the issue. Instead, surgeons determined that Britton’s ulnar collateral ligament had suffered enough damage that a Tommy John surgery was required. He missed almost all of the 2022 season but did make an improbable late-September return. However, that amounted to just three games, during which time Britton walked six of nine batters faced before going back to the injured list yet again. He averaged 92.8 mph on his fastball in that time — nowhere close to the 94.9 mph he averaged during his last healthy season in 2020 (and even further from the 96.9 mph on his sinker at its peak).
That peak, of course, was one for the ages. From 2014-20, Britton notched a superhuman 1.84 ERA in 367 1/3 frames. He punched out 24% of his opponents against a 9.2% walk rate in that time, and Britton’s 76.2% ground-ball rate over that period cemented him as the best ground-ball pitcher since 2002, when batted-ball data of that nature began being carefully tracked. Britton posted a laughable 80% ground-ball rate in 2016 and was at 79.1% in 2015 and 77.2% in 2019 — the three highest single-season marks ever posted by a qualified pitcher.
Whether he can get back to that form in his mid-30s is an open question. Given his diminished velocity and recent elbow woes, it seems like a long shot. But, given that Britton isn’t likely to command more than an incentive-laden deal with a low base salary, there’s plenty of sense in taking a low-cost risk, given the obvious talent and track record of dominance.
Diamondbacks Designate Tyler Holton For Assignment
The D-backs announced Wednesday that they’ve designated lefty Tyler Holton for assignment in order to open a spot on the roster for fellow southpaw Andrew Chafin, whose one-year deal to return to Arizona has now become official.
Holton, 26, made his big league debut with the Snakes in 2022, yielding three runs on eight hits and a pair of walks with six strikeouts in nine innings of work. The 2018 ninth-rounder spent the remainder of the season in Triple-A Reno, where he worked to a 4.43 ERA with a 23.5% strikeout rate against a 9.3% walk rate in 44 2/3 innings (22 relief appearances, two starts).
The 2022 season as a whole represented a sizable turnaround for Holton, who split the 2021 campaign between Double-A and Triple-A, combining for a 6.72 ERA in that time. There was some promise under the hood even amid those ugly bottom-line results, however, as Holton fanned 26.5% of his opponents against a solid 6.5% walk rate.
Holton has regularly posted strong strikeout and walk rates and a solid 45.2% ground-ball rate in parts of three minor league seasons. He’s also generally avoided the long ball, even when pitching in hitter-friendly settings like Reno. Since he was just selected to the MLB roster last year, he has a pair of minor league options remaining. All of that could hold appeal to other clubs either on waivers or via a small trade, but Holton has never been considered among the D-backs’ very best prospects and doesn’t have the type of power arsenal teams so frequently covet, averaging just 90.5 mph on his heater in this past season’s brief MLB debut.
The D-backs will have a week to trade Holton, attempt to pass him through outright waivers or release him.
Rockies Sign Manager Bud Black To One-Year Extension
The Rockies have signed manager Bud Black to a one-year extension through the 2024 season, Black himself announced at Rockies camp this morning (Twitter link via Danielle Allentuck of the Denver Gazette).
The 2023 season will be the seventh at the Rockies’ helm for the 65-year-old Black, who’s thus far compiled a 417-453 record in that role. That losing mark is many ways reflective of persistently sub-par rosters that Black has been handed in recent years, though not for lack of trying. The Rockies have extended various players they’ve deemed core contributors — German Marquez, Antonio Senzatela, Kyle Freeland, Ryan McMahon among them — and as recently as last offseason put down a hefty $182MM investment in outfielder Kris Bryant as they’ve sought to put a contending team on the field.
That said, the Rox have also not only traded Nolan Arenado away but paid $50MM of his salary in order to facilitate that swap with the Cardinals, and they’ve at times sat out the free-agent market almost entirely (this season included). Colorado has endured four straight losing seasons and turned over the GM’s chair from Jeff Bridich to longtime scouting director Bill Schmidt, while also seeing an exodus in the assistant GM ranks and some turmoil in analytics department that’s among the smallest in the league.
Along the way, owner Dick Monfort has steadfastly refused to embark on any sort of rebuild, and even short-term “sell” moves at the deadline have been passed over. The Rockies, for instance, opted not to trade either Trevor Story or Jon Gray when both were impending free agents and the Rox were out of contention. Story walked and netted the Rockies a draft pick after rejecting a qualifying offer. Colorado did not extend a QO to Gray, essentially agreeing to let the former No. 3 overall pick leave with no compensation. Last summer, when closer Daniel Bard would’ve been one of the market’s most sought-after arms, the Rockies instead extended him on a two-year, $19MM contract. They took a similar approach with first baseman C.J. Cron the summer prior.
The commitment to fielding a winning club is commendable, but the decision-making behind those good intentions has often proven faulty. Schmidt is only entering his second full season as the team’s general manager, and he’ll surely have a fair bit of leash with regards to his autonomy in the baseball ops department.
Extending Black through the 2024 season assures hat the veteran skipper won’t play out the 2023 season under dreaded lame-duck status. It’ll also provide some further continuity and stability as Schmidt looks to turn the team’s fortunes and get the Rockies at least back to a respectable level of play. Monfort’s proclamation of a 94-win season prior to the 2020 campaign (before it was learned that the schedule would need to be shortened) drew plenty of criticism, and even his recent, more-measured suggestion that his club could play .500 ball this season has drawn similar scrutiny.
It’ll be incumbent upon Black to maximize the results from what looks like another flawed roster in 2023; the Rockies went into the offseason with the goal of acquiring a center fielder but came up empty in those pursuits, and the team’s already shaky rotation and bullpen went largely unaddressed as well. Colorado’s farm system has improved in recent years, but they’ll need some impactful contributions from the minor league ranks to right the ship. Black, entering his 16th season as a Major League manager, has plenty of experience in working to harness the young talent of up-and-coming prospects, but the Rockies will need to work some magic to avoid a fifth consecutive season finishing either fourth or fifth in the NL West.
Reds Sign Daniel Norris To Minor League Deal
The Reds announced Wednesday that they’ve signed left-handed reliever Daniel Norris to a minor league contract and invited him to big league camp. The Excel Sports client will vie for a job in the Cincinnati bullpen this spring.
Norris, 29, split the 2021-22 seasons between the Tigers, Brewers and Cubs, struggling to a combined 5.68 ERA through 115 2/3 innings across the three clubs. It’s a far cry from his excellent showing with the Tigers during the shortened 2020 campaign, when he pitched to a 3.25 ERA with a 24.1% strikeout rate against a 6% walk rate through 27 2/3 frames.
Once regarded as one of the top prospects in all of baseball, Norris was the headline piece in the 2015 trade that also sent Matthew Boyd and Jairo Labourt from the Blue Jays to the Tigers in return for then-ace David Price. Norris showed promise at varying points with Detroit — 3.55 ERA in 129 1/3 innings from 2015-16 — but was also slowed by health troubles, most notably including a frightening bout with thyroid cancer.
All told, Norris carries a 4.71 ERA in 569 2/3 innings at the MLB level. He’s punched out 21.6% of his opponents overall but has piled up strikeouts at an above-average 24.8% clip over the past three seasons. Conversely, he has a solid 8.6% walk rate in his career but has seen that mark creep up to 10.7% over the past three years.
The Cincinnati bullpen recently lost one of its most talented relievers, Tejay Antone, for as much as half the season following a flexor strain that required a platelet-rich plasma injection. Alexis Diaz is locked in as the closer, while Lucas Sims and Buck Farmer are virtual locks in the setup corps. At the moment, Reiver Sanmartin is the lone lefty reliever on the 40-man roster, but he’s coming off 57 innings with a 6.32 ERA, a poor 18.4% strikeout rate and a bloated 11.3% walk rate. Sanmartin was solid against lefties but walked nearly as many righties (12.1%) as he struck out (12.9%) while yielding a jarring .324/.404/.529 slash against them.
Norris will join Alex Young as one of two veteran non-roster lefties vying for a spot in manager David Bell‘s bullpen, so he ought to have a decent chance at winning a job if he pitches well this spring.
A’s Sign Drew Steckenrider To Minor League Deal
Right-handed reliever Drew Steckenrider is in camp with the Athletics as a non-roster invitee to spring training, tweets Matt Kawahara of the San Francisco Chronicle. Athletics Farm first tweeted the news a couple days ago.
Steckenrider, 32, has spent the past two seasons with the Mariners, thriving as a key member of the bullpen in 2021 but struggling in 2022 to the extent that he was outrighted from the team’s 40-man roster. The 2021 campaign saw Steckenrider pitch to a pristine 2.00 ERA, albeit with below-average strikeout, swinging-strike and ground-ball rates of 21.7%, 8.6% and 37.4%, respectively. He offset some of those flaws with a sharp 6.4% walk rate, but Steckenrider also benefited from a .257 average on balls in play and a tiny 6.6% homer-to-flyball rate — both well south of his career marks. Add in an alarming opponents’ average exit velocity of 90.7 mph, and some regression looked inevitable.
However, the magnitude of that regression nevertheless was still rather surprising. Steckenrider was rocked for nine runs on 21 hits and five walks in just 14 1/3 innings at the big league level. The resulting 5.65 ERA led the Mariners to option Steckenrider in late May and, perhaps more surprisingly, designate him for assignment the following month when the team needed a 40-man roster spot. Steckenrider’s $3.1MM salary understandably passed through waivers unclaimed, but the Mariners never game him another look down the stretch, thanks in part to a deep and talented relief corps that posted a combined 3.16 ERA in the season’s second half.
Had Steckenrider returned to form in Triple-A, perhaps he might’ve still garnered another look back in the big leagues. However, the veteran righty yielded a tepid 4.62 ERA in 25 1/3 frames. Even if one wanted to chalk some of that up to the excessively hitter-friendly nature of the Pacific Coast League, Steckenrider posted an uncharacteristic 13.8% walk rate in his time at Tacoma, which couldn’t have inspired much confidence that he’d rebound with a return to the big leagues.
Rocky as last season was, Steckenrider comes to the A’s as a 32-year-old with a career 3.27 ERA in 195 2/3 innings at the big league level. His strikeout rate has consistently declined from his early days with the Marlins — he punched out a gaudy 35.8% of opponents in 34 2/3 innings as a rookie — but his command has also steadily improved.
Oakland’s bullpen is teeming with uncertainty, giving Steckenrider ample opportunity to seize a spot. Trevor May, signed to a one-year $7MM contract, is a lock for late-inning work, and the out-of-options Domingo Acevedo is all but assured a spot as well. Beyond that pairing, there’s any number of ways the A’s could proceed. Each of Zach Jackson, Dany Jimenez and Sam Moll could have an inside track based on their 2022 ERAs, but each also posted a bloated walk rate that points to regression — and all three have minor league options remaining, as well.
Bryan Reynolds Still Open To Extension With Pirates
Pirates center fielder Bryan Reynolds reported to camp early, arriving at the Pirates’ spring facility in Bradenton, Fla. today, a few days ahead of the Feb. 20 mandatory report date for non-pitchers and catchers. In meeting with the Pirates beat, Reynolds acknowledged the offseason trade request, stating that “nothing’s really changed from that front” but adding that he’s “been pretty open the past few years that my No. 1 choice would be to sign an extension in Pittsburgh” (Twitter links via The Athletic’s Rob Biertempfel and Jason Mackey of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette). Reynolds added that he’s simply seeking a “fair” deal for both parties.
Earlier this month, Jon Heyman of the New York Post reported that the Pirates had put forth a six-year, $76MM offer as their most recent bid to keep Reynolds on a long-term deal. Mackey reported in January that the two sides were around $50MM apart in their talks. Reynolds didn’t offer specifics this morning but acknowledged that reporting on the situation has been generally on the mark. “Pretty much everything out there has been fairly accurate,” the outfielder said (via Mackey).
All indications from Reynolds are that the situation remains unchanged. Nevertheless, it’s of some note that the 2021 All-Star not only specified that the bridge hasn’t been burned but added that a deal to keep him in Pittsburgh remains his hope. Pittsburgh general manager Ben Cherington has maintained since Reynolds’ trade request became public that his own hope — and the goal of the organization at large — is the keep Reynolds long term. Whether ownership will greenlight a substantial increase in the offer and whether Reynolds would be willing to come down on his own asking price in a compromise will be determined over the next several weeks, in all likelihood.
The “fair” deal mentioned by Reynolds is, of course, a subjective term — but there’s some relevant context to consider. Pittsburgh’s offer to Reynolds has at least one recent service time comp: newly acquired Braves catcher Sean Murphy, who signed a six-year, $73MM extension earlier in the offseason. However, while both players have between three and four years of MLB service, it’s a flawed comparison for many reasons. Murphy was arbitration-eligible for the first time and projected by MLBTR contributor Matt Swartz to earn a relatively modest $3.5MM salary. Reynolds is a Super Two player who’ll be arb-eligible four times as a result; he already signed a two-year, $13.5MM contract covering his first two arb seasons last April — a sum that easily tops what Murphy would have earned going year-to-year in arbitration.
Even before Reynolds agreed to that two-year deal, Swartz had projected him for a $4.5MM salary in his first trip through the process. His two-year deal inherently values his second arbitration year somewhere around $9MM, then. Given that starting point and a pair of remaining trips through the process, Reynolds’ final two arb seasons will likely exceed $30MM on their own.
Viewed through that lens, if the Pirates’ offer began in 2024 (as Reynolds is already signed for 2023), it’d be valuing the player’s first four free-agent seasons somewhere around $42-46MM in total; Reynolds’ reported asking price more than doubles the annual value on those free-agent seasons. Even if the team’s proposed offer overwrote Reynolds’ 2023 salary, it’d “only” be promising him five years and $69.25MM in new money. Again, with his 2024-25 seasons likely topping $30MM on their own, that’d be a roughly $35-39MM value on three free-agent seasons.
Until the situation is resolved one way or another, trade rumblings surrounding Reynolds will abound. There’s no urgency for the Bucs to move him, as he can’t become a free agent until the completion of the 2025 season. The rebuilding Buccos hope to be contending by that point. However, the closer they allow Reynolds to get to free agency, the more the asking price figures to increase. A trade prior to the season seems unlikely at this point, but it’s possible teams could make a renewed push to acquire him over the summer.
Interest in Reynolds has understandably been heavy, both before and after his trade request. The Yankees, Rangers, Red Sox, Padres, Rockies and Marlins are just a few of the teams that have expressed interest in Reynolds, a 28-year-old switch-hitter with a career .281/.361/.481 batting line, 74 home runs, 97 doubles and 18 triples in 2014 big league plate appearances since his 2019 MLB debut.
MLBTR Chat Transcript
Click here to read a transcript of today’s chat with MLBTR’s Steve Adams.