Dodgers Select Four Players
The Dodgers have selected catcher Diego Cartaya, infielder Michael Busch and outfielders Andy Pages and Jonny DeLuca to the 40-man roster, per a team announcement. That quartet is now protected from being taken in next month’s Rule 5 Draft.
It’s a notable group to join the 40-man roster. Cartaya, Busch and Pages, in particular, all rank among Baseball America’s top 100 prospects in the game, with Cartaya drawing a particularly impressive placement at No. 9 overall.
The 21-year-old Cartaya split his 2022 season between Class-A and High-A, where he was notably younger than the league average at both levels. The age gap didn’t deter him, however, as he turned in a combined .254/.389/.503 batting line with 22 home runs and doubles alike. Cartaya is considered a work in progress with the glove but boasts huge raw power and a keen eye at the plate, evidenced by a walk rate north of 14% in 2022.
Busch, meanwhile, is a second baseman who slugged 32 home runs, walked at an 11.5% clip and struck out in 26% of his plate appearances between Double-A and Triple-A in 2022. His combined .274/.365/.516 batting line shows plenty of promise, even though scouting reports question his overall defensive value. BA lists him 46th on its top 100.
Pages, ranked 72nd by BA, hit .236/.336/.468 in 132 games as a 21-year-old in Double-A, more than holding his own against more advanced pitching. He also fared well in the Arizona Fall League, batting .296/.398/.506 in his 98 plate appearances there. He swatted 26 home runs in Double-A this year and 31 in High-A a year ago, and BA notes that Pages has some of the best raw power of any prospect in baseball.
As for DeLuca, the 24-year-old doesn’t draw the same fanfare as today’s other three additions, but his .260/.347/.541 batting line, 25 homers, 22 doubles, five triples and 17 stolen bases were convincing enough for the Dodgers to protect him. DeLuca fanned in just 14.3% of his 119 plate appearances in Double-A this year, and while that’s a small sample from a late-in-the-year promotion, it likely tickets him for a return effort there to begin the 2023 season. With a strong showing, he could be in Triple-A before long, and a look in the Majors next season is certainly plausible now that he’s in the upper minors and on the 40-man.
12 Players Reject Qualifying Offers
Twelve of the 14 players who received qualifying offers have rejected those one-year, $19.65MM contracts in favor of testing the open market, tweets Mark Feinsand of MLB.com. Martin Perez and Joc Pederson are the only two who accepted a QO. Each of Aaron Judge, Trea Turner, Xander Bogaerts, Dansby Swanson, Jacob deGrom, Carlos Rodon, Brandon Nimmo, Willson Contreras, Anthony Rizzo, Chris Bassitt, Nathan Eovaldi and Tyler Anderson have rejected the deal. Anderson is already in agreement on a three-year contract with the Angels.
None of the news is all that surprising, aside from perhaps Anderson’s early multi-year strike with the Halos. Perez and Pederson were two of the three most likely candidates to take the QO. That the Giants tagged Pederson at all was a move few saw coming, and most believed he’d indeed take the QO once it was put forth.
None of Judge, Turner, Bogaerts, Swanson, deGrom, Rodon, Nimmo, Bassitt or Contreras likely gave much thought to the possibility. Eovaldi and Rizzo were more borderline candidates, but the latter quickly returns to the Yankees on a multi-year deal that’ll pay him around the QO rate over two guaranteed seasons. Eovaldi has yet to sign, but he’ll presumably continue to search for a longer-term contract after taking advantage of the five days to scour the market.
The clubs that saw a free agent decline a qualifying offer now stand to receive draft compensation if that player signs elsewhere. The value of the compensatory pick depends on a team’s status as a revenue sharing recipient and/or whether they paid the luxury tax in 2022. That’s also true of the draft choices and potentially international signing bonus space a team would have to forfeit to sign a qualified free agent from another team.
MLBTR’s Tim Dierkes broke down the forfeiture each team would have to surrender to sign a qualified free agent earlier this month. MLBTR’s Mark Polishuk looked at the compensation each club would receive if one of these players signed elsewhere.
A’s Select Lawrence Butler, Hogan Harris
The Athletics announced Tuesday that they’ve selected the contracts of outfielder Lawrence Butler and left-hander Hogan Harris. The pair of moves brings their 40-man roster count to 39 players.
Butler, 22, spent the bulk of the season in High-A where he slashed .270/.357/.468 with a 12% walk rate and a 31.5% strikeout rate. Baseball America tabs him 15th among Oakland farmhands, lauding his 70-grade raw power (on the 20-80 scale) and penchant for top-of-the-scale exit velocities. He also boasts plus speed, per their report, but has a tendency to swing and miss even though he’ll also draw plenty of walks. Butler is an outfielder for now but has also garnered some experience at first base.
Harris, 26 next month, isn’t considered among the organization’s top-ranked prospects but put himself on the map with a promising showing across three levels in 2022. The 6’3″, 230-pound southpaw didn’t pitch in 2020 due to the canceled minor league season and missed all of 2021 recovering from Tommy John surgery.
However, he returned with a sub-2.00 ERA and a 35.8% strikeout rate in 43 1/3 innings between High-A and Double-A before getting torched for a 6.35 ERA in 28 1/3 innings late in the season in a very hitter-friendly Triple-A Las Vegas setting. Walks were an issue even at those lower levels, but Harris’ success in Double-A and ability to miss bats from the left side might’ve made him an appealing Rule 5 target even with questions about his ability to consistently locate the ball.
Mariners Select Four Players
The Mariners announced Tuesday that they’ve selected the contract of righties Prelander Berroa and Isaiah Campbell and outfielders Cade Marlowe and Jonatan Clase. All four are now on the 40-man roster and protected from being selected in next month’s Rule 5 Draft. The quartet of additions fills Seattle’s 40-man roster for the time being.
Each of Berroa (13), Clase (15) and Marlowe (21) rank within the organization’s top 30 prospects, per Baseball America. Mariners president of baseball operations had already confirmed last week that Berroa would be selected to the 40-man roster, though the other additions had not been made public.
Berroa, 22, was acquired from the Giants in a deal that sent infielder Donovan Walton to San Francisco. The Dominican-born righty split the year between the High-A affiliates of the Giants and Mariners before topping out with Seattle’s Double-A club later in the year. In a combined 100 2/3 innings, Berroa posted a 2.86 ERA with a gaudy 36.5% strikeout rate but also a problematic 15.3% walk rate.
Clase, just 20, draws 80-grade reviews for his speed and is considered a potential above-average or better defender in center field. He spent the year in Class-A, hitting .267/.373/.463 with a hearty 13% walk rate but also a more suspect 26.7% strikeout rate. While earlier scouting reports on him suggested he lacked power, Clase smacked 13 home runs in 499 plate appearances and posted a .196 ISO (slugging minus batting average) this season, showing more pop than some might have expected.
Marlowe posted an impressive .287/.377/.487 slash with 23 home runs and a whopping 42 steals in 578 plate appearances between Double-A and Triple-A this season. It was an impressive enough showing that he was on the taxi squad and under consideration to make his Major League debut during the playoffs for the Mariners in 2022. The Mariners are expected to add some veteran outfielders this offseason, but Marlowe will be among the options if the team needs to tap into its depth in the event of an injury early in 2023.
Campbell, 25, was the Mariners’ second-round pick in 2019. The 6’4″, 230-pound righty tallied 21 saves and posted a pristine 1.57 ERA with a 33% strikeout rate against a 6.7% walk rate in 46 innings between High-A and Double-A this year.
It’s possible, though not a given, that the Mariners will have further moves in the hours ahead. Seattle is reportedly active on the trade market as teams look to set their rosters in advance of the deadline to protect players from the Rule 5 Draft. Seattle is reportedly open to dealing Jesse Winker on the heels of a disappointing season, and they’ve been receiving interest in fifth-starter candidates Chris Flexen and Marco Gonzales since the offseason began.
Willson Contreras To Decline Qualifying Offer
Catcher Willson Contreras will reject the Cubs’ qualifying offer and instead test the open market this winter, ESPN’s Jesse Rogers tweets. The Cubs, who surprisingly did not trade Contreras at the deadline — a deal sending him to Houston was reportedly nixed by Astros ownership — made the easy call to instead make the one-year, $19.65MM qualifying offer to their longtime catcher. Contreras always appeared overwhelmingly likely to decline the offer. He’ll now seek a multi-year deal in free agency.
The 30-year-old Contreras will head into free agency on the heels of his fourth career season of 20-plus homers and 20-plus doubles. The three-time All-Star and 2016 World Series champion slashed .243/.346/.466 in what seems likely to be his final season as a member of the Cubs. Chicago had multiple opportunities to extend Contreras over the years, with the player himself publicly expressing his desire to stay along the way. It never appeared that the team made a strong effort to sign Contreras for the long haul, however, and with veteran Yan Gomes signed through 2023, the Cubs have at least one alternative option (though there’s a good chance they add another via free agency or trade).
Contreras’ defense has become something of a talking point going back to the trade deadline, though some of that talk is perhaps overblown. It’s generally rare for starting catchers to change hands at the deadline, as learning an entirely new staff on the fly and in the middle of a postseason push is a difficult task for any backstop. That concern, of course, won’t exist with a free-agent signing, as Contreras will have an entire offseason and Spring Training to familiarize himself with a new team’s staff.
In terms of actual defensive metrics, Contreras boasts a 30% caught-stealing rate that’s comfortably above league average and is regarded as having one of the best throwing arms of any catcher in the game. Statcast credits him for the 11th-best poptime of any catcher in baseball and also feels that his framing has been average or slightly above over the past three seasons. Defensive Runs Saved pegged him at -1 in 2022 but credited him with a +8 mark just one year prior. It’s fair to say that Contreras isn’t an elite defensive backstop, and over the course of a multi-year deal that stretches into his mid-30s, he may spend additional time at DH or another position, such as first base. None of that means he’s a defensive liability in the short term, however.
Because Contreras rejected a QO, any team that signs him will have to forfeit at least one draft pick. Luxury-paying clubs will forfeit their second- and fifth-highest selections in next year’s draft and will see their international bonus pool reduced by $1MM. Teams that were neither luxury tax payors nor revenue-sharing recipients will surrender their second-highest pick and see their international pool reduced by $500K. Revenue-sharing recipients would “only” have to surrender their third-highest pick. The Cubs, as a team that neither paid the luxury tax nor received revenue sharing, would receive a compensatory pick between Competitive Balance Round B and Round 3 in next year’s draft (typically in the No. 75 overall range).
Royals Announce Several Roster Moves
The Royals announced Tuesday that they’ve designated lefty Jake Brentz, right-hander Nate Webb and first baseman/outfielder Brent Rooker for assignment. Their roster spots will go to right-hander Alec Marsh, catcher Freddy Fermin and outfielder Diego Hernandez, each of whom has been selected to the 40-man roster in advance of tonight’s deadline to protect players from the Rule 5 Draft.
Kansas City also announced a one-year deal with non-tender candidate Ryan O’Hearn, avoiding arbitration and ostensibly locking him into a roster spot for the 2023 season. Lynn Worthy of the Kansas City Star reports that O’Hearn will be guaranteed $1.4MM and can earn another $250K of bonuses. O’Hearn was paid $1.3MM in 2022 and is controllable through the 2024 season via arbitration.
Brentz, 28, had a nice rookie season with the Royals in 2021 when he pitched to a 3.66 ERA with a 27.3% strikeout rate in 64 innings of relief. A 13.3% walk rate always served as a red flag, but as a bat-missing lefty with an average fastball of 97 mph and a 49% ground-ball rate, Brentz showed plenty of promise. His 2022 season was unfortunately blown up by injury, however. Brent tossed just 5 1/3 innings with a woeful 9-to-11 K/BB ratio and a 23.63 ERA (14 earned runs) before undergoing surgery to repair a torn UCL in his pitching elbow. That procedure, performed in late June, ended his season.
Webb, 25, was limited to just 33 1/3 innings across three minor league levels this season, struggling at each stop and spending more than two and a half months on the injured list. Although he was healthy to finish out the season, Webb concluded his 2022 campaign with a combined 9.99 ERA and 39-to-27 K/BB ratio in those 33 1/3 frames.
Rooker, acquired on Aug. 2 in a trade that sent backup catcher Cam Gallagher to the Padres, appeared in only 14 games with the Royals and went 4-for-25 with four walks and a double. Drafted by the division-rival Twins with the No. 35 overall pick back in 2017, Rooker was a bat-first prospect touted for his plus raw power but has managed just a .200/.289/.379 batting line in 270 Major League plate appearances. He’s a career .274/.387/.590 hitter in parts of three Triple-A seasons, so it’s possible another club will take a look on waivers or in a minor trade — particularly since he still has a minor league option year remaining.
The Royals again opted against non-tendering the now-29-year-old O’Hearn, despite the fact that four full seasons have elapsed since his productive rookie effort in 2018. Since hitting .262/.353/.597 in 170 plate appearances as a 24-year-old rookie, the lefty-swinging O’Hearn has managed only a .211/.282/.351 slash in 901 plate appearances. Even with a pair of younger, highly touted first base prospects in Vinnie Pasquantino and Nick Pratto needing playing time next season, though, Kansas City will continue to hope O’Hearn can eventually recapture that rookie form and factor into the first base/DH mix.
Mariners Discussing Jesse Winker In Trade Talks
The Mariners are in active trade discussions as today’s 5pm CT deadline to set rosters prior to next month’s Rule 5 Draft looms, and they’re showing a willingness to move left fielder/designated hitter Jesse Winker, reports Jon Morosi of MLB.com (via Twitter). As has been expected for some time now, the M’s have also discussed potential trades involving fifth starter candidates Chris Flexen and Marco Gonzales, Morosi further adds, though the team has not yet engaged in a scenario where Winker and one of those pitchers would be moved in the same package.
Moving on from Winker would be selling low on a player whom the Mariners acquired last offseason, hoping at the time that Winker could be a key middle-of-the-lineup fixture. In the two seasons prior to that trade, Winker was one of the game’s three best hitters against right-handed pitching, trailing only Juan Soto and Bryce Harper in terms of wRC+. He posted a Herculean .321/.417/.619 batting line in 509 plate appearances against right-handed pitching, and while his production against fellow lefties was nowhere near that level, he still walked at a 12% clip against them, resulting in a .314 OBP. His .199 average and .338 slugging against lefties were dismal, but at the very least, Winker could get on base at a near-average clip in when in disadvantageous platoon matchups.
What followed in 2022, however, was the worst season of Winker’s career by nearly any measure. He did walk at a career-best 15.4% clip as a Mariner, but the 29-year-old’s .219/.344/.344 batting line was generally underwhelming — especially considering he was acquired in hopes of providing some left-handed power to the lineup. Winker’s .125 ISO (slugging percentage minus batting average) was the lowest mark of his career. And, while he’s never been considered a plus defender in the outfield, Winker’s defensive ratings across the board in 2022 were career-worsts (-16 Defensive Runs Saved, -7.2 Ultimate Zone Rating, -10 Outs Above Average).
Poor 2022 season notwithstanding, Winker has a strong track record at the plate and could be viewed by other clubs as a decent candidate to rebound. In his five seasons with the Reds, dating back to his 2017 debut, Winker turned in a collective .288/.385/.504 batting line — about 32% better than the average hitter after weighting for his home park and league.
Winker is also rather affordable. He’s entering what would have been his final arbitration season but is already signed for $8.25MM, having agreed to a two-year, $14.5MM contract with the Mariners just last season. If he’s able to approach anything close to his Reds form in 2023, that’ll be an eminently reasonable price to pay.
It bears mentioning that there could be other factors at play as the Mariners field interest in Winker. In an October appearance on 710 AM Seattle Sports’ Brock and Salk Show, Ryan Divish of the Seattle Times laid out, in detail, the manner in which Winker fell out of favor within the Mariners clubhouse over the course of the season. (Mike Axisa of CBS Sports transcribed the meat of Divish’s segment, for those interested in the full scope of the comments.) Add in the fact that president of baseball operations Jerry Dipoto has already spoken publicly about his desire to add at least one, if not two outfielders to his team this winter, and there’s plenty of reason to believe the Mariners’ outfield mix will look different in 2023 (though AL Rookie of the Year Julio Rodriguez is an obvious lock to return).
Of course, the trade that brought Winker to Seattle wasn’t all bad — far from it. In order to acquire Winker, Seattle gave up pitching prospect Brandon Williamson, outfielder Jake Fraley and righty Justin Dunn and took on a notable portion of a contract the Reds were seeking to escape … that of Eugenio Suarez. It’s a move the Mariners may not have made had they believed Suarez was beyond hope after a rough 2020-21 showing in Cincinnati, but he bounced back to an even greater extent than most optimists could’ve forecast.
After hitting .199 /.293/.440 with the Reds in 2020-21, Suarez logged a resurgent .236/.332/.459 batting line with 31 home runs, 24 doubles, a pair of triples and roughly average defense at the hot corner. Both Baseball-Reference and FanGraphs pegged his 2022 season around four wins above replacement, and Suarez remains signed for another two years and $24MM (plus a club option for the 2025 campaign).
Mets To Hire Jeff Albert
The Mets are set to name former Cardinals hitting coach Jeff Albert as their new director of hitting, SNY’s Andy Martino reports. He’ll presumably work in close tandem with hitting coach Eric Chavez and assistant hitting coach Jeremy Barnes. The team hasn’t made a formal announcement and given an exact description of the newly created position, but the team’s recent hire of Eric Jagers to serve as director of pitching likely sheds some light on Albert’s role. Jagers is expected to oversee the Mets’ minor league pitchers while also working closely with pitching coach Jeremy Hefner.
The 41-year-old Albert joins the Mets on the heels of a four-year stretch as the Cardinals’ hitting coach. He left the St. Louis organization after the season of his own volition. Cards president of baseball ops John Mozeliak said at his season-ending press conference that he’d been planning to offer Albert a contract, and Derrick Goold of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch tweets that the plan had been to offer Albert a multi-year extension. Albert instead chose to pursue new opportunities, and the Cardinals subsequently promoted assistant hitting coach Turner Ward to Albert’s vacated position of hitting coach.
While Albert drew his share of criticism from Cardinals fans during some offensive struggles, the Cardinals’ composite offensive output in 2022 was quite strong. The team ranked ninth in the Majors in home runs (197), fifth in runs scored (772), tenth in batting average (.252), fourth in on-base percentage (.325) and seventh in slugging percentage (.420).
Obviously, not all of that can be simply attributed to Albert’s influence alone. But Albert, who has also spent time as the Astros’ hitting coach and minor league hitting coordinator, remains a highly respected coach and hitting instructor — and the new appointment to a prominent role within the Mets organization does nothing to change that perception.
Cubs Release Jason Heyward
The Cubs announced Monday that outfielder Jason Heyward has officially been granted his unconditional release. President of baseball operations Jed Hoyer announced in August that the team would release Heyward in the offseason. Heyward is still owed $22MM next year under the terms of his eight-year, $184MM contract, which covered the 2016-23 seasons.
After a lengthy rebuild where the Cubs finished last in the NL Central for five straight years from 2010 to 2014, they finally turned the corner in 2015. Their 97 victories only resulted in a third place finish in the NL Central and a Wild Card berth, though they were able to defeat the two teams that finished ahead of them in the postseason, getting by the Pirates in the WC game and then the Cardinals in the NLDS. They were then swept by the Mets in the NLCS but it was clear that the rebuild was over and it was time to contend.
As such, the 2015-16 offseason was a busy one for the club. They gave $56MM to Ben Zobrist, $32MM to John Lackey and a few one-year deals, but their big strike was Heyward. He and the club agreed to an eight-year, $184MM deal that afforded him potential opt-outs after 2018 and 2019. Those chances to opt out were especially significant given Heyward’s young age, as he was only going into his age-26 season at the time. It was a huge investment for the Cubs at a crucial time in the history of the franchise, but Heyward had proven himself to be an all-around contributor. His defense was excellent and he had hit at an above-average level, in addition to stealing over 20 bases three time in his career already.
Unfortunately, Heyward’s production slumped immediately. After hitting .293/.359/.439 with the Cardinals in 2015, he produced a batting line of .230/.306/.325 in 2016. While the former line amounted to a wRC+ of 121, or 21% above league average, his first year as a Cub resulted in a wRC+ of just 72, or 28% below league average. In spite of the down year from Heyward, the Cubs went 103-58, winning the Central by 17 1/2 games over the Cardinals. Heyward’s bat was even worse in the playoffs, as he hit just .104/.140/.167. Regardless, the Cubs went on to break their century-old curse by winning the World Series. Despite Heyward’s poor on-field results, he supposedly contributed by rousing the club’s spirits with a rain delay speech in Game 7 against Cleveland, though Cub fans can debate among themselves how much credit he deserves for that.
Heyward continued to provide quality outfield defense for years to come but his bat never really properly recovered. Since joining the Cubs, the only season in which he was above-average at the plate, according to wRC+, was the pandemic-shortened 2020 campaign. Based on that diminished performance, he never seemed a threat to trigger his opt-outs and thus stayed on with the Cubs. Over the length of the deal, the team eventually entered another rebuilding period and traded away most of their core performers from the curse-breaking years. After the brief 2020 resurgence, Heyward’s offense plummeted yet again over 2021 and 2022. With the club gradually filling out the roster with younger players that they hope to form the next competitive core, they decided it was time to move on. Heyward was on the IL due to a knee injury in August when Hoyer announced that he would be released in the offseason, which has now indeed come to pass.
Heyward will now become a free agent again, available to sign with any team in the league. Despite his poor track record in recent seasons, he could attract interest as a no-risk candidate. The Cubs will be on the hook for the $22MM remaining on his deal, meaning that any signing club would only have to pay him the league minimum, with that amount being subtracted from what the Cubs pay. Despite his extended time a big leaguer, he’s still just 33 years old.
The legacy of Heyward’s time with the Cubs is already divisive among the club’s fans and will surely continue to do so. There’s no disputing the fact that Heyward was never the superstar that the Cubs paid him to be. Some will wonder about what could have been if those resources were committed to a different player. Others will take the “Flags Fly Forever” approach and point to the World Series title as all they need to declare the deal a success. Either way, today’s move is another symbolic move towards a new era of Cubs baseball. With various trades over the years, the recent free agency of Willson Contreras and now Heyward’s release, Kyle Hendricks is left as the last member of that championship core who’s still on the roster.
Image courtesy of USA Today Sports.
Athletics Outright Daulton Jefferies
The Athletics announced Monday that right-hander Daulton Jefferies has been outrighted to Triple-A Las Vegas. That indicates that Jefferies, who underwent Tommy John surgery in September and thoracic outlet surgery in June, had already been passed through waivers unclaimed.
Jefferies, 27, was the No. 37 overall draft pick out of Cal Berkeley back in 2016. He ranked among the organization’s top prospects throughout the entirety of his minor league tenure, making his Major League debut with a pair of innings during the pandemic-shortened 2020 season and also logging 15 solid innings during the 2021 campaign. Jefferies ranked as high as the Athletics’ No. 3 prospect in 2021, per Baseball America, whose scouting report on the righty lauded his plus changeup and plus command.
The 2022 season looked to be a major opportunity for Jefferies to establish himself in Oakland. The A’s shipped out veteran starters Sean Manaea and Chris Bassitt as part of last offseason’s fire sale, and while Frankie Montas remained on the roster to begin the season, the widespread expectation that he’d eventually be traded as well indeed came to pass. Jefferies was among several younger options the A’s were hoping to evaluate as potential long-term fits on the starting staff, but injuries intervened.
Jefferies made just eight starts in 2022, yielding an ugly 5.72 ERA in 39 1/3 innings. This year’s 92.8 mph average fastball velocity was down a full two miles per hour from his 2020 debut, and by the end of May, he’d been diagnosed with symptoms suggesting thoracic outlet syndrome.
The combination of TOS and Tommy John surgery is a brutal one for any pitcher but is particularly ominous when the two operations are performed in such rapid succession. Matt Harvey is perhaps the most prominent recent example of a pitcher to undergo both operations, and while he resurfaced to produce some seasons as an innings eater, he quite obviously never returned to the peak form he showed early in his career. Every pitcher’s recovery is different, of course, and Jefferies could yet enjoy a recovery and carve out a nice career for himself. A return the mound will have to wait until the 2024 season at the earliest, however, which left little doubt that the A’s would eventually pass the righty through waivers.
Jefferies will spend the entire 2023 season rehabbing from the pair of surgeries, which means by the time the 2024 season rolls around, he’ll have had roughly 19 months to rehabilitate from the two operations. He’ll face an uphill climb to get back into consideration for a spot on the big league pitching staff, but the current rebuild in Oakland suggests that the A’s might still have plenty of open spots and opportunities for Jefferies even a couple years into the process.