Guardians Re-Sign Bryan Shaw
March 25: The Guardians have formally announced the signing. In a corresponding roster move, right-hander Cody Morris has been placed on the 60-day injured list.
MLB.com’s Mandy Bell tweets that Morris recently underwent an MRI, which revealed a strained teres major muscle. He’s been shut down entirely and will be reevaluated after a period of four to six weeks without throwing. Given the length of that shutdown, Morris wasn’t likely to be ready early in the 2022 season anyhow.
March 24: It’s a one-year, $3MM deal that contains an option for the 2023 season, tweets MLB Network’s Jon Heyman.
March 23: The Guardians have reached a deal to bring veteran right-hander Bryan Shaw back to Cleveland, Zack Meisel of The Athletic reports (via Twitter). Shaw made a league-leading 81 appearances in 2021 for Cleveland — his second stint with the organization. Shaw is repped by CAA Baseball.
A staple in the Cleveland bullpen from 2013-17, Shaw thrice led the league in appearances during that stretch and pitched to an overall 3.11 ERA through 358 2/3 innings of relief work. He reached free agency as one of the most durable and effective names on the market in the 2017-18 offseason, but a three-year deal with the Rockies quickly went south. Shaw was clobbered for a 5.61 ERA in 126 2/3 frames with the Rox, who released him in July 2020. He latched on with the Mariners for the 2020 campaign but was rocked for a dozen runs in six frames with Seattle.
A return to Cleveland on a minor league deal this past year didn’t come with high expectations following that ugly three-year stint, but Shaw generally righted the ship. In 77 1/3 inning of bullpen work, he notched a solid 3.49 ERA, picking up 20 holds and a pair of saves along the way. Shaw’s success wasn’t without its red flags, as his 21.3% strikeout rate was down about four percentage points from its peak and his 11.4% walk rate was the highest full-season mark of his 11-year big league career. Still, Shaw limited hard contact, suppressed homers and picked up swinging strikes at his best rates since the 2017 season.
Assuming he’s on the big league roster, the 34-year-old Shaw will become the elder statesman of Guardians bullpen that is packed with power arms but light on experience. Emmanuel Clase, James Karinchak and Anthony Gose can all pump 100mph fastballs with regularity, but Gose is the only member of the relief corps with even two years of MLB service time — and most of that came earlier in his career as an outfielder, before he made the switch to the mound.
Mike Fiers Signs With Mexican League’s Leones De Yucatan
Free-agent righty Mike Fiers has signed on with los Leones de Yucatan of the Mexican League, per an announcement from the team.
Fiers, 36, made just two starts in the big leagues last season, both coming with the A’s. A hip injury in Spring Training delayed his 2021 debut until late April, and Fiers returned for just two appearances before going back to the injured list with an elbow sprain that eventually proved to be a season-ender. During his 9 1/3 innings, he was tagged for eight runs on 15 hits and four walks with five strikeouts.
It wasn’t a good showing for the right-hander, clearly, but Fiers isn’t far removed from a sharp three-year run with the Tigers and A’s (2018-20) that saw him pitch to a combined 3.85 ERA through 415 2/3 innings. Fiers’ strikeout rate and velocity have continued to dip as he’s progressed toward his late 30s, but he’s maintained walk rates that are considerably better than league average and also induced plenty of harmless infield flies during that Detroit/Oakland run.
With a decent showing in Mexico, it’s possible Fiers will get another look with a big league team at some point in the 2022 season. The need for pitching is constant over the course of a given season, and in 1151 career innings at the big league level, Fiers has a 4.07 ERA with a 20.7% strikeout rate and a 7.0% walk rate.
Blue Jays, Rockies Swap Randal Grichuk For Raimel Tapia
3:32PM: Toronto will send Colorado $9,716,333, according to Rob Gillies of The Associated Press. Those payments are split up as $5,383,333 this season and $4,333,333 for the 2023 season.
1:57PM: Both clubs have officially announced the trade.
12:01PM: The Blue Jays and Rockies have agreed to a trade sending outfielder Randal Grichuk from Toronto to Colorado in exchange for outfielder Raimel Tapia, reports Mark Feinsand of MLB.com (via Twitter). The Jays will acquire infield prospect Adrian Pinto from the Rockies, and they’ll also send cash to Colorado to help cover Grichuk’s contract, Feinsand adds.
Grichuk, 30, has been viewed as a trade candidate for more than a year now as the Rockies have deepened their outfield mix and Grichuk’s performance has slipped. Signed to a five-year contract covering the 2019-23 seasons, Grichuk is still owed $9.33MM both this season and next, while Tapia and the Rox settled on a $3.95MM salary earlier this week. He’s arbitration-eligible and controlled through the 2023 season himself. The difference in salary between the two players clocks in at about $14.7MM.
Grichuk signed a five-year, $52MM contract back on April 2, 2019 — fresh off a 2018 season in which he’d batted .245/.301/.502 with what was then a career-high 25 home runs in 462 plate appearances. It was something of a head-scratching deal even at the time, as Grichuk’s perennial OBP struggles worked to offset his power and solid glovework in the outfield. That’s not to say he wasn’t a useful player, but the Jays already controlled Grichuk for two seasons and were effectively committing about $39-40MM on top of what he might’ve earned in arbitration to buy out his first three free-agent seasons.
Since putting pen to paper, Grichuk has posted a .242/.286/.448 batting line with 65 home runs in 1414 plate appearances. Among the 159 players with at least 1000 plate appearances in that three-year stretch, he ranks 158th in on-base percentage. To his credit, Grichuk curbed his strikeout rate from 26.4% in 2018 all the way down to 20.9% in 2021, but the gains in contact didn’t result in a better average and his walk rate dipped to a career-low 5.0%. It’s clear that there’s above-average pop in his bat, but defensive metrics have also soured on Grichuk’s work in center over the past couple seasons. Meanwhile, the Jays have signed George Springer and received breakouts from Lourdes Gurriel Jr. and Teoscar Hernandez since signing Grichuk to that long-term pact.
There were reports even while the lockout was still ongoing that Tapia could be on the move when transactions resumed. Adding Kris Bryant as the new primary left fielder surely only hastened the Rockies’ efforts to move Tapia, who’d previously occupied that position. Grichuk can serve as a primary center fielder or right fielder in Colorado, and he’ll bring the Rox quite a bit more power than Tapia ever offered — albeit at the expense of some speed, on-base percentage and (arguably) defensive value.
In Tapia, the Jays will get a much-needed lefty bat to help balance out an entirely right-handed outfield mix (and a generally right-leaning lineup overall). The 28-year-old has served as Colorado’s primary left fielder since 2019, logging a .282/.327/.394 slash line that appears solid on the surface but falls well shy of average after weighting for home park and league (79 wRC+). Tapia has strong bat-to-ball skills but an extreme ground-ball approach that has resulted in just 16 home runs through 1186 plate appearances since 2019. He can swipe a base when needed (37 steals with a 77.1% success rate across the past three seasons. Like Grichuk, he’s not one to take many walks (6.3% since ’19), but he’s also a tough strikeout, evidenced by last year’s career-best 13.1% mark.
Tapia has received solid marks in left field from metrics like Defensive Runs Saved (4), Ultimate Zone Rating (6.0) and Outs Above Average (7) since emerging as a regular in the lineup at Coors Field. He’s at least capable of playing center in a pinch, having logged 189 innings there in his career (15 this past season, none in 2020, 83 in 2019). Those ratings, plus his left-handed bat, make him a better fit for Toronto’s roster than the right-handed-hitting Grichuk was.
While Tapia may not be the star the Rockies envisioned when he ranked among the sport’s 50 best prospects in the 2016-17 offseason, he’s emerged as a solid defensive outfielder with better-than-average speed and bat-to-ball skills. The Jays will likely hope to coax some more fly-balls out of Tapia, thus generating some extra power, but even if his batted-ball profile remains unchanged, he can be a useful fourth outfielder for a club that is deep in slugging right-handed options.
As for the 19-year-old Pinto, he’ll give the Jays something of a prospect wild card to plug into the low levels of their farm system. Baseball America rated Pinto 19th in a fairly thin Rockies system this spring, labeling the 5’6″ second baseman as a “breakout candidate” who could take substantial steps forward as he moves from the Dominican Summer League to a full-season affiliate.
Pinto hit .360/.486/.543 in 224 DSL plate appearances last season, walking at a massive 17% clip against just an 8% strikeout rate while leading the league with 41 stolen bases. BA’s scouting report lauds his “outstanding” hand-eye coordination, advanced pitch recognition skills and plus-plus speed. Players of his size and stature will always have their share of skeptics, but the Jays probably feel better about paying Grichuk to play elsewhere if they’re viewing part of the transaction as an effective purchase of Pinto from the Rockies.
Diamondbacks Sign Zach Davies
March 24: The D-backs have announced the signing. In order to open a spot on the 40-man roster, Arizona placed right-hander J.B. Bukauskas on the 60-day injured list. Bukauskas suffered a Grade 2 teres major strain earlier this week and is expected to be sidelined for “months” with the injury.
March 22, 10:54am: Davies is guaranteed $1.75MM on the deal, tweets Nick Piecoro of the Arizona Republic. He’ll earn a $1.5MM base salary and is also guaranteed at least a $250K buyout on next year’s option. The contract allows him to earn an additional $2.5MM based on his number of games started. The 2023 option is a mutual option, Heyman reports.
8:58am: The D-backs have reached a one-year agreement with free-agent righty Zach Davies, reports MLB Network’s Jon Heyman (Twitter link). There’s also a 2023 option on the contract. Davies, a client of the Boras Corporation, can earn up to $4.5MM this year, per Heyman. Robert Murray of FanSided first tweeted that the two sides were close to a deal.
Davies, who turned 29 last month, was one of the younger free-agent starters on the market but also hit free agency in need of a rebound campaign after a lackluster 2021 showing with the Cubs. Acquired from San Diego in Chicago’s salary dump of Yu Darvish, Davies made 32 starts and covered 148 innings but did so while limping to a career-worst 5.78 ERA. Among the 129 pitchers with at least 100 innings last year, Davies’ 17.1% strikeout rate ranked 116th, while his 11.2% walk rate was the sixth-highest mark in that same set.
Just a year prior, during the shortened 2020 campaign, Davies had the finest season of his career. Obviously it wasn’t a full slate of 30-plus starts, but Davies nevertheless pitched 69 1/3 innings over a dozen appearances and turned in an outstanding 2.73 ERA with vastly superior strikeout (22.8%) and walk (6.9%) rates to those that he displayed in his lone year with the Cubs.
Davies has never missed bats at that 2020 level in any other season, which perhaps makes it something of a small-sample anomaly, but it should also be noted that he’s never struggled with his command like he did in 2021. To the contrary, prior to this past season’s surprising uptick in free passes, Davies offset his pedestrian strikeout rates and lack of velocity with strong command of the zone. From 2016-20, he walked just 6.7% of his opponents — a mark that tied him for 48th among 181 qualified pitchers.
In all likelihood, Davies’ true performance level lies somewhere between the extremes he posted in 2020 and 2021. He’s worked to a career 4.14 ERA with a 17.3% strikeout rate, a 7.8% walk rate and a 45.3% grounder rate in 831 2/3 innings between Milwaukee, San Diego and Chicago. Davies doesn’t miss many bats, given that his arsenal is headlined by a sinker that averages 88.2 mph, but he’s better than average when it comes to inducing weak contact. Outside of 2021, he hasn’t been particularly homer-prone in his career, either.
Arizona’s rotation is currently projected to include Madison Bumgarner, Zac Gallen, Luke Weaver, Merrill Kelly and perhaps non-roster invitee Dan Straily, who signed a minor league deal during the lockout after a solid two-year run in the Korea Baseball Organization. Gallen, however, is nursing some shoulder troubles at the moment, and Weaver has battled his own share of injury problems in recent years. Both Weaver and Kelly have also garnered trade interest at various points, though there’s no current indication the Snakes are weighing a move involving any member of their staff.
The signing of Davies could push Straily to a long-relief role or perhaps even to Triple-A Reno to begin the season, but teams are going to be cautious with their starters early in the season following a truncated Spring Training that did not give pitchers a full ramp-up period. It’s likely that there will be innings to go around for all six of those rotation candidates — to say nothing of upper-minors options like Tyler Gilbert, Corbin Martin, Humberto Mejia and Humberto Castellanos.
Reds, JT Riddle Agree To Minor League Deal
The Reds have agreed to a minor league contract with infielder JT Riddle, per Baseball America’s Chris Hilburn-Trenkle. The Meister Sports client will give Cincinnati some additional infield depth.
Riddle, 30, spent the 2021 season in the Twins organization and briefly appeared in four games as a replacement player while the Twins were set back by a Covid-19 positives early in the season. He went 2-for-6 in that tiny sample but spent the bulk of the year in Triple-A St. Paul, where he struggled to a .202/.269/.322 batting line in 350 trips to the plate.
That rough showing severely dragged down Riddle’s career marks in Triple-A, but he’s generally been a serviceable bat in the upper minors — one who can bring a good bit of versatility to the table. Although he’s spent the bulk of his professional career at shortstop (4504 innings), Riddle also has 898 innings at third base, 414 at second base and 306 in center field (420 in the outfield overall).
Even after managing to unload the remainder of Eugenio Suarez‘s contract in a trade that also sent Jesse Winker to the Mariners, the Reds have a pretty full slate in terms of starting infielders at the MLB level. Reigning Rookie of the Year Jonathan India is back at second base, while catcher-turned-utilityman-turned-shortstop Kyle Farmer has emerged as a starter at short in Cincinnati. Mike Moustakas will man the hot corner. Former No. 2 pick Nick Senzel, meanwhile, can play both the outfield and various infield spots, and the Reds also signed veteran Donovan Solano to a big league deal earlier this month.
Riddle brings some depth to the roster and could give them an option at shortstop in Triple-A while top prospect Jose Barrero mends from a broken hamate bone that required surgery which is expected to sideline him up to six weeks. Cincinnati also has infielders Max Schrock and Alejo Lopez on the 40-man roster, while veteran Brandon Drury was invited to big league camp just this week.
Rays Sign Luke Bard
Right-hander Luke Bard has agreed to a deal with the Rays, per Marc Topkin of the Tampa Bay Times (Twitter link). The team hasn’t announced the move, but Bard is in the clubhouse and has a locker set up. Rays broadcaster Neil Solondz adds that it’s a minor league contract for Bard, a client of ISE Baseball.
Bard, 31, is a former supplemental first-round pick (No. 42 by the Twins in 2012) who made his big league debut with the Angels back in 2018. He spent parts of the 2018-20 seasons in the Majors with the Halos, pitching to a combined 5.05 ERA with a 21.8% strikeout rate, a 6.5% walk rate and a 33.3% ground-ball rate in 46 appearances. Three of those were technically “starts,” though Bard served as an opener in each.
The younger brother of Rockies righty Daniel Bard, Luke was with the Angels again for the 2021 season but did not pitch either in the big leagues or in the minors. The younger Bard brother was slowed last spring by a hip injury that eventually required surgery and an eight-month recovery period.
Bard hasn’t had much success in the Majors, and his three Triple-A seasons have produced a 5.04 ERA that’s a near-identical match with his big league ERA. That said, he’s a fairly unsurprising Rays target all the same. Bard possesses off-the-chart spin rates on his four-seamer and, to a slightly lesser extent, on his slider. He led the Majors in four-seam spin rate during the 2019 season, but that didn’t translate to a gaudy swinging-strike rate or overall strikeout rate. The Rays surely have their own ideas on how to get the most out of Bard, who can be controlled through at least the 2025 season if he makes the roster and enjoys a late-blooming breakout.
Latest On Athletics’ Trade Possibilities
7:39pm: Jon Heyman of the MLB Network tweets that rival teams don’t view it as an inevitability that the A’s trade either of Manaea or Montas. Heyman concurs Manaea seems likelier to find himself on the move than Montas but suggests it’s possible Oakland just carries both starters on its Opening Day roster.
2:39pm: It’s been a week since the Athletics’ last trade, which sent third baseman Matt Chapman to the Blue Jays in exchange for a package of four prospects. After the A’s shipped out Chris Bassitt, Matt Olson and Chapman within just a week of the lockout lifting, the expectation was that additional moves would follow.
That’s still likely to be the case, although the pace has slowed. Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic tweets that Oakland’s current focus is on finding a trade partner for lefty Sean Manaea. While the general expectation has been that both Manaea and right-hander Frankie Montas will be moved, Rosenthal suggests the A’s are still still “deciding how to proceed” with Montas.
It’s only logical that for the time being, moving Manaea is the team’s bigger priority. Not only is the 30-year-old Manaea the more expensive of the two arbitration-eligible hurlers — Manaea settled on a $9.75MM salary yesterday, compared to Montas’ $5.025MM settlement — he’s also set to reach free agency after the 2022 season. Montas, meanwhile, is controlled through 2023, so the A’s could conceivably open the season with him in the rotation and shop him at the summer trade deadline, when buyers may have more urgency than they do at the moment.
Of course, the other side of that equation is that there could also be a broader supply of arms available to pitching-hungry clubs in July. At present, Manaea and Montas are the two most available starters on a trade market that still has plenty of clubs looking for arms. The Twins, Royals, Yankees, White Sox, Rays and Tigers have all reportedly spoken to the A’s about potential deals in the past week or so, and other clubs have surely done so more quietly. Oakland’s bargaining power only increased when Reds GM Nick Krall publicly declared that he did not expect to trade either Luis Castillo or Tyler Mahle, both of whom had been drawing substantial trade interest themselves.
With Castillo and Mahle ostensibly off the market and few other teams dangling proven big league starters, the A’s have plenty of negotiating leverage. Fast forward to this July, and there may be teams with enhanced motivation to buy — but there will also unquestionably be more arms available in trade. Clubs with current designs on contending will fall out of the playoff picture and look to move short-term assets.
Manaea, the No. 34 overall draft pick back in 2013, is a rental for the 2022 season but a good one. He tied for 22nd in MLB with 179 1/3 innings pitched in a 2021 campaign that saw many clubs aggressively monitor pitcher workloads on the heels of the shortened 2020 schedule. Since returning from shoulder surgery late in the 2019 season, he’s tallied 263 innings of 3.73 ERA ball (3.64 FIP, 3.78 SIERA) with a solid 24.8% strikeout rate and an excellent 5.2% walk rate. As a Boras Corporation client who’s just a year from free agency, Manaea might not be a likely extension candidate for a new team, but he’d bolster nearly any of the other 29 rotations in Major League Baseball.
Montas and Manaea aren’t the only two trade candidates remaining on Oakland’s roster, however. Center fielder Ramon Laureano and reliever Lou Trivino have both been listed as possible trade chips. Laureano, in particular, has been a target for the Marlins at times this winter, according to Craig Mish and Barry Jackson of the Miami Herald. The Fish have made no secret of their desire to add a center fielder, and while their interest in Pittsburgh’s Bryan Reynolds is well-known by now, Mish and Jackson report that Miami actually had more serious negotiations with the A’s about Laureano than they did with Pittsburgh about Reynolds.
The two teams discussed myriad scenarios, one of which would’ve sent Laureano and a reliever to Miami. Outfield prospect JJ Bleday was of particular interest to the A’s, per the Herald report — although there surely would have been several other pieces going back to Oakland, particularly if the A’s were to include Trivino or another reliever in the deal. Those talks didn’t culminate in a deal, however, and the Marlins have since deepened their outfield mix with another corner option: Jorge Soler. It’s still feasible that they could rekindle talks, even if they’re presently dormant. Longtime Marlins beat writer Joe Frisaro wrote just this morning that the Fish haven’t closed the door on circling back to the trade market to make one more attempt at finding a new a center fielder.
As things stand, the A’s have just under $59MM on the books for the 2022 season. Their trades of Bassitt, Olson and Chapman have already netted them ten young players: right-hander J.T. Ginn, right-hander Adam Oller, center fielder Cristian Pache, catcher Shea Langeliers, right-hander Ryan Cusick, right-hander Joey Estes, right-hander Gunnar Hoglund, shortstop Kevin Smith, left-hander Zach Logue and left-hander Kirby Snead.
Blue Jays Have Shown Interest In Brett Gardner
The Blue Jays have reached out to show some interest in veteran outfielder Brett Gardner, tweets Newsday’s Erik Boland, although Boland adds that the 38-year-old Gardner is still hoping that the Yankees will make an offer for him to return. Joel Sherman of the New York Post hears similarly, writing that the Jays have checked in on Gardner but some clubs wonder whether he’d actually sign with a team other than the Yankees, given the history between the two parties.
Gardner hit .222/.327/.362 with 10 homers, 16 doubles and four triples while playing more center field than the Yankees probably would have hoped in 2021. Aaron Hicks‘ injuries, however, pushed Gardner into a prominent share of time in center, where he logged 816 innings. That was just the second time since 2015 that Gardner had played even 40 games in center, and to his credit, he rated only a bit below average there. For a 38-year-old who’s become more accustomed to left field, it was about as solid a showing as could be expected.
Interest from the Jays makes some sense, given that their roster is exceptionally right-handed. Gardner hit just .213 against righties in 2021, but part of that was due to an abnormally low .243 average on balls in play against them. He walked in 13.9% of his plate appearances versus right-handed pitching against a 20.2% strikeout rate that clocks in below the league average.
Gardner is far from the hitter he once was, when he batted a combined .257/.338/.413 with 109 homers and 130 steals in 1024 games with the Yankees from 2013-19. With the Jays, however, he’d be viewed as a part-time player — a lefty bat off the bench whose primary role would be to offer some occasional breathers or injury insurance for right-handed outfield options like Lourdes Gurriel Jr., George Springer, Teoscar Hernandez and Randal Grichuk. He’d presumably be attainable on a one-year contract, but it’d be understandable if Gardner felt somewhat conflicted about leaving the only team he’s known after 14 big league seasons and 17 professional campaigns, dating back to his selection in the third round of the 2005 draft.
Reds Sign Hunter Strickland
March 23: The Reds have announced the signing, which fills their 40-man roster. Strickland will earn $1.825MM in 2022, tweets MLB.com’s Mark Sheldon. He can also earn another $750K via performance incentives and would receive a $250K assignment bonus if traded.
March 22, 12:50pm: It’s a big league deal for Strickland, tweets Bobby Nightengale of the Cincinnati Enquirer.
8:16am: The two sides have agreed to a deal, tweets MLB Network’s Jon Heyman.
8:00am: The Reds are closing in on a deal with free-agent righty Hunter Strickland, tweets Robert Murray of FanSided. Strickland, a client of All Bases Covered, would give Cincinnati a veteran option to consider for what’s otherwise a largely inexperienced relief corps.
Strickland, 33, split the 2021 season between three clubs, beginning the year with the Rays after signing a minor league deal and pitching well through 16 innings. Tampa Bay still felt comfortable trading him to the Angels for cash, and things quickly went south for Strickland in Anaheim, where he yielded nine runs (seven earned) in just 6 1/3 innings of work. The Halos designated him for assignment and traded him to the Brewers (again for cash).
Strickland quickly righted the ship in Milwaukee and remained in the Brewers’ bullpen for the duration of the season. He notched a tidy 1.73 ERA in 36 1/3 frames with the Brew Crew and added another 2 1/3 shutout frames in the NLDS. Overall, his regular season concluded with 58 2/3 innings of 2.61 ERA ball (4.19 FIP, 4.06 SIERA). Along the way, Strickland whiffed 24% of his opponents against a 9.1% walk rate and a 34.8% grounder rate. He was particularly deft when it came to suppressing hard contact, as Statcast ranked his 29.4% hard-hit rate in the 97th percentile of MLB pitchers and his 86.9 mph average exit velocity in the 84th percentile.
The Reds will be without top reliever Tejay Antone for most, if not all of the 2022 season after he underwent Tommy John surgery in late August last season. Meanwhile, projected closer Lucas Sims won’t be ready for Opening Day, as he’s currently healthy but behind schedule in camp after rehabbing some offseason back troubles. Lefty Amir Garrett was traded to the Royals in this month’s Mike Minor swap, and the Reds have seen both Michael Lorenzen (Angels) and Mychal Givens (Cubs) depart via free agency.
Cincinnati does still have at least a pair of veteran arms at the back of the ‘pen, as former Yankees Luis Cessa and Justin Wilson, both acquired from New York last summer, are still with the club. Righty Jeff Hoffman, though, is the only other projected member of the bullpen with even a year of big league service time. (Hoffman has three-plus years but has still yet to truly solidify himself as a steady option.) Cincinnati does have a handful of more seasoned options in camp as non-roster players, including Buck Farmer, Kyle Zimmer and Trey Wingenter.
Cubs Designate Sergio Alcantara For Assignment
The Cubs have designated infielder Sergio Alcantara for assignment, per a team announcement. His spot on the 40-man roster will go to veteran reliever Mychal Givens, whose previously reported one-year deal has now been formally announced by the team.
Claimed off waivers out of the Tigers organization in Feb. 2021, Alcantara wound up appearing in 89 games with Chicago — most of which came after the team had stripped down the roster with a July fire sale that saw Kris Bryant, Javier Baez and Anthony Rizzo traded (among others). The 25-year-old Alcantara logged 255 plate appearances with the Cubs but managed only a tepid .205/.303/.327 batting line during that stretch — his first extended look at the MLB level. He’d previously had a brief 10-game, 23-plate appearance cup of coffee with Detroit in 2020.
In addition to that lackluster showing in the big leagues, Alcantara owns a pedestrian .261/.340/.317 batting line in 822 plate appearances at the Double-A level. He did hit .305/.447/.451 in a small sample of 103 Triple-A plate appearances in 2021, but that’s an outlier relative to his overall body of work in the minors. Offense, however, has never Alcantara’s calling card anyhow. He’s regarded as a plus defensive player at shortstop who can also handle second base and third base. He’s also walked in 11.1% of his minor league plate appearances against a 17.1% strikeout rate, showing solid bat-to-ball skills and a good knowledge of the strike zone.
An above-average runner with a strong throwing arm and good defensive skills on the whole, Alcantara could potentially be of interest to clubs around the league as they evaluate bench options for the expanded 28-man roster early in the season. He has a minor league option year remaining as well, so he can provide some additional bench flexibility throughout the season. The Cubs will have a week to trade Alcantara or attempt to pass him through outright waivers.