Marlins Designate Isan Diaz For Assignment
The Marlins have designated infielder Isan Diaz for assignment in order to open a spot on the 40-man roster for newly signed Jorge Soler, per a club announcement.
Diaz’s DFA largely closes the book on the blockbuster trade that sent Christian Yelich from Miami to Milwaukee. Diaz was one of four prospects received by the Marlins, joining outfielders Lewis Brinson and Monte Harrison and righty Jordan Yamamoto in the deal. Brinson, the most highly regarded of the bunch, was designated for assignment in November, became a free agent and inked a minor league deal with the Astros after the lockout. Miami designated Harrison for assignment just last week. Yamamoto was traded to the Mets for now-21-year-old infielder Federico Polanco last offseason. Polanco hit .236/.301/.324 in A-ball this past season.
A highly touted prospect himself at the time of that blockbuster Yelich trade, Diaz has received plenty of chances with the Fish but has simply yet to produce at the big league level. He’s logged time in each of the past three seasons, topping 200 plate appearances in both 2019 and 2021, but the 25-year-old has only a .185/.275/.287 batting line to show for his time at the MLB level. Diaz has played both second base (735 innings) and third base (278 inning) with the Marlins but has registered sub-par defensive marks at both positions.
For all his struggles in the big leagues, Diaz does have a solid 10.6% walk rate, albeit against a more concerning 27.8% strikeout rate. He’s also been consistently productive in the upper minors, evidenced by a career .272/.359/.514 with 34 home runs, 33 doubles and seven triples in 706 Triple-A plate appearances. Diaz has a minor league option year remaining, so perhaps a rebuilding club with some infield opportunities might consider taking a low-risk look. The Marlins will have a week to trade Diaz or place him on outright waivers, at which point any team would be able to claim him (based on reverse order of last year’s overall MLB standings).
Rockies Extend Ryan McMahon
The Rockies and infielder Ryan McMahon have agreed to terms on a six-year contract extension that will guarantee McMahon $70MM, tweets ESPN’s Jeff Passan. McMahon is represented by Wasserman.
Mark Feinsand of MLB.com reports the specific financial breakdown (on Twitter). McMahon will make $5MM this year, $9MM in 2023, successive $12MM salaries in 2024-25 and $16MM in each of 2026 and 2027. Should he finish in the top five in MVP voting in any of the next three years, he’d earn the right to opt out of the contract after the 2025 campaign. If he finishes in the top five in MVP voting in 2025, he’d have an opt-out possibility after 2026.
Prior to hammering out this new six-year pact, McMahon was arbitration-eligible for the second time in his career and projected by MLBTR contributor Matt Swartz to earn $5.5MM this coming season. The contract buys out his final two arbitration seasons and four would-be free-agent seasons. There’s no way of knowing exactly what McMahon would’ve earned in 2022-23 via arbitration, but using that projection and a rough estimate for the 2023 season, the contract is paying McMahon around $13-14MM per free-agent season. The terms fall roughly in line with some older deals we’ve seen for infielders with four-plus years of service time, including Brandon Belt (six years, $79MM) and Brandon Crawford (six years, $75MM — also negotiated by Wasserman).
McMahon, 27, had a the best season of his career both at the plate and with the glove in 2021. The former second-round pick batted .254/.331/.449 with 23 home runs, 32 doubles, a triple and six stolen bases (in eight attempts). Park-adjusted metrics like wRC+ (95) and OPS+ (98) both felt McMahon’s overall contributions with the bat were a bit south of league-average, but given the strength of his glovework, he still proved plenty valuable.
McMahon not only provided the Rockies with versatility, logging 368 innings at second base and 842 innings at third base — he did so while playing both positions at award-worthy levels. McMahon logged a whopping nine Defensive Runs Saved in just that tiny 368-inning sample at second base, and he racked up 13 DRS at the hot corner despite not playing a full slate of games there. Virtually any metric one might prefer agreed that McMahon was outstanding with the leather; he registered Ultimate Zone Ratings of 6.1 and 2.9 at third base and second base, respectively, while Statcast credited him for 10 outs above average at third base and another two at second.
It’s easy to imagine that with a full season of games at the hot corner in 2021 — Brendan Rodgers is expected to man second base, with free-agent signee Jose Iglesias taking the reins at shortstop and Kris Bryant playing primarily left field — McMahon might find himself taking home some hardware for that defensive excellence. He was a Gold Glove finalist in 2021 as it is, although the man standing in his way is a very familiar face: longtime teammate and five-time Platinum Glover Nolan Arenado, now with the Cardinals.
Like any long-term deal, the signing isn’t without its risks for the Rockies. While McMahon’s strong defense and solid walk rate (9.9% in 2021; 10% in his career) give him a high floor, the offensive gains made in 2021 will need to be sustained for the deal to pan out in Colorado’s favor.
McMahon buoyed his production by finally curtailing some pronounced strikeout issues that had dogged him throughout his MLB tenure. From 2017-20, McMahon whiffed in 30.8% of his plate appearances — including a career-worst 34.2% in 2020’s shortened slate of games. That rate fell to a much more manageable 24.7% in 2021. McMahon has always had power and a knack for making hard contact, so as long as he can keep the punchouts down, there’s good reason to believe he can continue to be a reasonably productive bat — at least against right-handed pitching. The lefty-swinging McMahon slashed just .229/.312/.353 against southpaws in 2021 (173 plate appearances) and is a career .239/.310/.433) hitter against same-handed opponents.
The Rockies underwent a front office shuffle early in the 2021 season, dismissing longtime general manager Jeff Bridich and elevating scouting director Bill Schmidt to the GM post on an interim basis. Rather than perform a search and look for external candidates, owner Dick Monfort instead dropped the “interim” tag from Schmidt’s title before the season even ended.
Schmidt, who’s been running the Rockies’ scouting department since 1999, quickly went to work ensuring that several members of the Colorado roster would remain in place. Trevor Story had seemingly made up his mind to move on before the year ended, and the Rox were unable to sway righty Jon Gray in extension talks. However, they’ve also succeeded in brokering long-term deals for Antonio Senzatela (five years, $55MM), catcher Elias Diaz (three years, $14MM) and now McMahon — in addition to re-signing first baseman C.J. Cron before he even reached the market (two years, $14.5MM). That group now joins the team’s marquee addition, Bryant, among a restructured Rockies core.
Cubs To Sign Steven Brault
March 21: Brault’s deal has been reworked as a minor league contract with a non-roster invite to Spring Training and a July opt-out opportunity, tweets Bastian. The veteran lefty is now dealing with an “injury setback” of some type, per Bastian — hence the restructured deal. He’d earn at a $1.5MM rate in the big leagues and can tack on up to $400K worth of incentives.
March 16, 11:30am: Brault is signing a Major League contract with the Cubs, tweets Jordan Bastian of MLB.com.
10:44am: The Cubs are close to a deal with free-agent lefty Steven Brault, tweets Robert Murray of FanSided. The longtime Pirates southpaw became a free agent earlier this offseason when Pittsburgh cut him loose just prior to the non-tender deadline. Brault is represented by Warner Sports Management.
Brault, 30 in April, has tallied 70 1/3 innings for the Pirates since 2020. He was occasionally deployed as an opener in the shortened 2020 season, though he did close out that year by allowing only one earned run over 16 innings across two starts. In March of 2021, Brault suffered a lat strain, pushing his season debut to August 4. In seven starts, he completed five innings only twice, with his velocity down 1.4 miles per hour from the prior year. The lat strain re-occured on September 10, ending his season and six-year career with the Pirates.
Brault’s career high in innings in an MLB season is 113 1/3, back in 2019. In his big league career, he’s generally struggled with walks and hasn’t missed bats. Brault was a two-way player at Regis University, and was drafted by the Orioles in the 11th round in 2013 and traded to the Pirates two years later. The athletic lefty managed to hit .333 in 50 plate appearances back in 2019, and which point the suggestion arose that he could occasionally pitch in in the outfield. If Brault is healthy, there could still be a potential back-end starter in there for the Cubs. They badly need the depth, especially with Adbert Alzolay starting the season on the IL.
Nationals Claim Hunter Harvey, Place Carter Kieboom On 60-Day Injured List
The Nationals have claimed right-hander Hunter Harvey off waivers from the Giants, per a club announcement. In order to open a spot on the 40-man roster, third baseman Carter Kieboom has been placed on the 60-day injured list with what the team has termed a right UCL sprain/flexor mass strain.
Harvey is a former first-round pick and top prospect who once looked as if he’d be an important part of the Orioles’ long-term plans. His professional career has been thrown off track by injuries, though, as he landed on the minor league injured list in every season between 2014-18. That included a July 2016 Tommy John procedure that kept him to 31 1/3 cumulative innings between 2016-17.
Baltimore eventually moved Harvey to the bullpen in an attempt to keep him healthy, although that hasn’t yet manifested in better results in that regard. He missed the majority of last season recovering from oblique and lat strains. Between the injuries, Harvey has only managed to log 23 2/3 innings at the big league level.
Despite the questionable health record, the North Carolina native has continued to catch teams’ attention. San Francisco nabbed him off waivers from the Orioles in November, but they’ll lose him before he ever logs an inning in their uniform. It’s easy to see why Harvey hasn’t yet passed through the wire unclaimed, as he owns a 3.42 ERA while averaging north of 97 MPH on his heater in his limited big league time. If he can stay healthy — which is clearly no small caveat — it’s still easy to envision Harvey as a productive arm in the middle or late innings. He also has a minor league option year remaining, so the Nats can shuttle him between Washington and Triple-A Rochester for the rest of the year if they carry him on the 40-man roster.
Kieboom is a former first-rounder and top prospect himself. He has struggled to a .197/.304/.285 line over his first 414 MLB plate appearances, but the 24-year-old still seemed to have a path to regular playing time on a retooling Nationals club this year. Unfortunately, he recently sustained a forearm/elbow injury when throwing, and MLB.com’s Joe Trezza tweets that he’ll need to rest for at least six weeks before he can resume baseball activities.
It’s a tough setback for both Kieboom and the Nationals, as 2022 is shaping up as something of a make-or-break year for the young infielder. The Nats don’t look like a strong playoff contender this season, but they’re not about to embark on a rebuild with Juan Soto only under club control for three more seasons. Evaluating whether Kieboom could be part of the long-term core seemed like a key objective for the Washington front office, but that’ll be on hold for at least a couple months. With Kieboom out, Luis Garcia, veteran utilityman Ehire Adrianza and non-roster invitee Maikel Franco all seem to have an easier path to playing time at the hot corner early in the year.
Diamondbacks Claim Caleb Baragar
The D-backs have claimed left-hander Caleb Baragar off waivers from the Giants, per a club announcement. Arizona also confirmed its previously reported signing of Oliver Perez to a minor league contract.
Baragar remains in the NL West, as he’d spent his entire career to date with San Francisco. That includes stints in the big leagues in each of the past two seasons, over which time he’s combined for 45 1/3 innings in 49 games. The former ninth-round pick has an impressive 2.78 ERA in that time, but his underlying numbers haven’t supported that kind of run prevention. Baragar’s 18.8% strikeout rate is about five points below that of the league average reliever. He excelled at avoiding walks during his rookie campaign (5.7%), but last year’s 12.2% walk rate was much more problematic.
Walks and home runs proved a major problem for Baragar in Triple-A as well. He handed out free passes at an untenable 17.6% clip with the Giants’ top affiliate in Sacramento, allowing seven homers in 22 1/3 innings. That led to an 8.46 ERA at the minors’ top level, and San Francisco designated him for assignment last week.
The D-Backs will take a shot on the 27-year-old (28 next month) returning to form. Until last season, Baragar generally had a decent track record in the minors. He still has a pair of option years remaining, so Arizona can keep him with their top affiliate in Reno as needed. He joins Joe Mantiply, Kyle Nelson and swingman Caleb Smith as lefty relief options on the Arizona 40-man roster.
Twins Claim Jhon Romero, Place Randy Dobnak On 60-Day Injured List
The Twins announced Monday that they’ve claimed righty Jhon Romero off waivers from the Nationals and, in a corresponding move, placed right-hander Randy Dobnak on the 60-day injured list. Dobnak is still dealing with the effects of a strain in the middle finger on his pitching hand that he suffered last summer.
Romero has five big league innings under his belt, all coming with Washington within the final couple weeks of last season. The 27-year-old showed a three-pitch mix, averaging 94.5 MPH on his four-seam with a slider and changeup that both checked in around 85 MPH. While his big league body of work was too limited on which to draw any meaningful conclusions, he did have an excellent season in the high minors.
The Colombia native split the year between Double-A Harrisburg and Triple-A Rochester, spending the bulk of the season at the lower level. He tossed 55 cumulative innings across 38 appearances, posting a 2.62 ERA with an excellent 30.5% strikeout percentage and a minuscule 4.9% walk rate. That earned him a late-season call with a Washington club that had a very thin relief corps by the end of the year. However, he didn’t stick on the Nats 40-man roster all winter, as they designated him for assignment last week upon finalizing their one-year deal with Nelson Cruz.
The Twins will take a low-risk dice roll on Romero on the heels of his strong minor league campaign. He still has all option years remaining, so Minnesota can stash him with Triple-A St. Paul for the foreseeable future so long as they keep him on their 40-man.
Dobnak posted quality numbers through his first two big league seasons, combining for a 3.12 ERA despite a subpar strikeout rate on account of excellent control and ground-ball numbers. Minnesota signed him to a five-year, $9.25MM extension last spring, but his 2021 season was a disaster. He was tagged for a 7.64 ERA in 50 2/3 innings. Dobnak spent most of the second half of the season on the injured list with the aforementioned finger strain, returning for one appearance in September before going back on the shelf.
The hope had been that Dobnak would bounce back this year, but the team shut him down over the weekend due to continued soreness in the area. There’s no clear timetable for his return, but he’ll miss at least the first two months of the season.
Cardinals Claim Packy Naughton
The Cardinals announced Monday that they’ve claimed left-hander Packy Naughton off waivers from the Angels. The Cards had one open spot on the 40-man roster, which is now full.
A ninth-round pick by the Reds back in 2017, Naughton was traded to the Halos in the Aug. 2020 trade that shipped outfielder Brian Goodwin to Cincinnati. Naughton made his big league debut in Anaheim last season and wound up pitching 22 2/3 innings with an unsightly 6.35 ERA and more walks (14) than strikeouts (12).
That said, the 25-year-old has a solid minor league track record, having compiled 431 2/3 innings of 3.77 ERA ball with a 21.2% strikeout rate, a 5.7% walk rate and 42.1% grounder rate. Naughton ranked in the middle tiers of both the Angels and Reds farm systems over the years, per Baseball America, who noted that despite lacking a power arsenal Naughton possessed the durability and feel for pitching to profile as a back-end starter.
Indeed, made 28 starts in both 2018 and in 2019, pitching to solid ERAs (4.03 in Class-A and 3.32 between Class-A Advanced and Double-A) with low walk rates and below-average strikeout numbers. For a Cardinals team that’s largely built around an elite defense, he’s a sensible depth pickup. That depth is all the more crucial right now with ace Jack Flaherty and fellow righty Alex Reyes both expected to begin the season on the injured list. Naughton isn’t any kind of favorite to open the year in the Cardinals’ rotation, but he’s a 25-year-old with a pair of option years remaining, so he gives the Cards some nice flexibility.
Diamondbacks Sign Oliver Perez To Minor League Deal
The D-backs have signed lefty Oliver Perez to a minor league contract, Perez himself tells Nick Piecoro of the Arizona Republic (Twitter thread). Perez is a client of the Boras Corporation.
The deal with Arizona represents a change of plans for the veteran Perez, who’d previously been slated to play with los Toros de Tijuana in the Mexican League for the upcoming season. Perez announced that he planned to retire after spending the season with the Toros, although that signing and the announcement by Perez came while the MLB lockout was still in place. For now, Perez will shift his focus and instead take aim at an incredible twentieth MLB season.
Perez, 40, has spent the past four seasons in Cleveland, where he’s pitched to a combined 2.57 ERA in 94 2/3 frames of relief work. Perez, however, only tossed 3 2/3 innings in the Majors last year. He spent the rest of the season pitching with that same Toros club for which he’d been planning to play while the lockout was still ongoing.
At this point, the veteran Perez’s track record largely speaks for itself. After a roller-coaster run as a starting pitcher from 2002-10, Perez moved to the bullpen with the 2012 Mariners and embarked on what has essentially amounted to a second career as a reliever. Working for a long time as the quintessential lefty specialist, Perez has made 489 relief appearances and totaled 350 innings of 3.42 ERA ball since that 2012 campaign began.
The implementation of the three-batter minimum wasn’t a great development for pitchers with specialized skill sets of this nature, but Perez had no trouble getting right-handed opponents out in 2020. It was an admittedly short sample, and his career numbers tell another story, but Perez held righties to a .229/.342/.286 slash in 41 plate appearances that year and was similarly effective in another dozen tries last year.
Reds, Brandon Drury Agree To Deal
Another day, another new sighting in the Reds’ clubhouse. Bobby Nightengale of the Cincinnati Enquirer tweets that veteran infielder/outfielder Brandon Drury has a locker with the Reds, signaling that the two parties have agreed to terms. Presumably, a deal with the Wasserman client will formally be announced once he passes a physical.
Drury, 29, spent the 2021 season with the Mets organization, appearing in 51 games at the big league level but primarily serving as a bench player. He logged just 88 plate appearances across those 51 contests and posted a strong .274/.307/.476 batting line with four homers and five doubles.
That was far and away Drury’s most productive showing in the past several seasons. The former 13th-round pick looked on his way to solidifying himself as a solid big league hitter with some defensive versatility back in 2016, when he hit .282/.329/.458 with 16 homers and 31 doubles in 499 plate appearances with the D-backs. He followed that with a solid enough .267/.317/.447 output in 2017, but Drury’s bat went dormant from 2018-20, when he mustered only a .205/.254/.346 triple slash through a combined 582 plate appearances.
Drury has played all over the diamond in the big leagues, although his most frequent positions have been second base (1264 innings) and third base (1082 innings). He’s also logged more than 400 innings in both outfield corners in addition to 139 innings at first base and 57 frames at shortstop.
The Reds are largely set at second base and third base, with reigning NL Rookie of the Year Jonathan India and veteran Mike Moustakas, respectively. Cincinnati also inked Donovan Solano to a one-year deal last week, and he can fill in at second, third and shortstop as needed. The outfield is a bit less certain following the trade of Jesse Winker, but the Reds still have Jake Fraley, Nick Senzel, Tyler Naquin, Shogo Akiyama and Aristides Aquino on the big league roster. That doesn’t leave a ton of room for Drury to win a roster spot — assuming this is a minor league deal, which seems likely — but injuries or further transactions could always open up playing time.
Padres, Thomas Eshelman Agree To Minor League Deal
The Padres and righty Thomas Eshelman have agreed to a minor league deal, tweets MLB Network’s Jon Heyman. It’s a homecoming of sorts for the 27-year-old, who grew up just north of San Diego in Carlsbad. Eshelman, a client of the Ballengee Group, will vie a roster spot in camp and give the Friars some upper-level pitching depth if he doesn’t make the squad.
A second-round pick by the Astros out of Cal State Fullerton back in 2015, Eshelman went from Houston to Philadelphia as part of a trade package for Ken Giles in 2015. The Phillies flipped him to the Orioles in a 2019 deal that sent international bonus allotments back to Philadelphia.
Eshelman made his big league debut with the O’s in 2019, and he’s appeared in each of the past three seasons with Baltimore. While he’s picked up 98 1/3 innings of experience in the Majors, the righty has yet to find much success, pitching to a 5.77 ERA with an 11.3% strikeout rate, a 6.9% walk rate and a 34.1% ground-ball rate. Eshelman does have a more palatable 4.43 ERA in parts of four Triple-A seasons (355 2/3 innings), where he’s logged a 16.7% strikeout rate and a 4.8% walk rate.
The Padres are loaded with rotation options, with Joe Musgrove, Yu Darvish, Mike Clevinger, Blake Snell, Nick Martinez, Chris Paddack, Ryan Weathers, Reiss Knehr, Pedro Avila, MacKenzie Gore and Adrian Martinez all on the 40-man roster. Given that depth, it’ll likely be tough for Eshelman to work his way onto the roster in the limited time remaining in camp, but he can still give San Diego some extra depth in Triple-A El Paso.