Following Progress On International Draft, MLB Submits Full Counterproposal To MLBPA
12:28pm: The union has received MLB’s new counterproposal, tweets ESPN’s Marly Rivera.
10:43am: The Athletic’s Ken Rosenthal tweets that with the international draft and qualifying offer disagreements now resolved, the league is preparing to make a “full proposal” to the union. As of this writing, MLB had not yet countered the final proposal received by the MLBPA yesterday.
10:29am: Major League Baseball and the Major League Baseball Players Association have reached a provisional agreement regarding the international draft, reports ESPN’s Jeff Passan (Twitter thread). The two parties have set a July 25 deadline to determine the specifics of an international draft that would go into effect beginning in 2024. If a deal on the draft is reached by July 25, the qualifying offer system and the associated draft-pick compensation will be eliminated. If the two sides do not reach a deal on the draft, the qualifying offer system will remain in place — as will the current international amateur free agency structure.
While this is a step shy of an agreement to actually implement the draft itself, it’s nevertheless a major hurdle that has been cleared on the path to the ratification of a new collective bargaining agreement. Discord regarding the league’s desire to trade the elimination of the qualifying offer system for an international draft yesterday derailed talks and led to commissioner Rob Manfred further postponing Opening Day until April 14. The MLBPA’s final proposal to the league included a similar provision to the one agreed upon today, with a Nov. 15 deadline to agree to the draft instead of the newly proposed July 25 deadline.
With the theatrics surrounding the theoretical international draft’s implementation and the qualifying offer system now set to the side, it would appear, ostensibly, that the focus can shift back to the core economic issues that have been the crux of recent negotiations. While the international draft was framed as a sticking point yesterday and garnered a huge portion of the attention, there are still some gaps to bridge on key economic issues such as the competitive balance (luxury) tax thresholds, the newly proposed bonus pool for pre-arbitration players and, to a lesser extent on the league-minimum salary.
As of yesterday afternoon, the MLBPA had dropped its asks on the new CBT thresholds to $232MM in 2022, $235MM in 2023, $240MM in 2024, $245MM in 2025 and $250MM in 2026. The league’s prior proposal included proposed thresholds of $230MM, $232MM, $236MM, $240MM and $242MM over those respective years. In essence, the two parties face respective gaps of $2MM, $3MM, $4MM, $5MM and $8MM in that five-year span.
There’s a wider rift on the pre-arbitration bonus pool, with the union yesterday dropping its proposal to $65MM (presumably with the same $5MM annual increase previously sought). Ownership, meanwhile, has countered with a flat $40MM pool that will not increase at all over the CBA’s five-year term. That $25MM gap is sizable on the surface, though it does boil down to a matter of $833K per team — scarcely more than the new league-minimum salaries that will be going into place.
On that note, MLBTR’s Tim Dierkes reported yesterday that the MLBPA had dropped its proposed league-minimum salary to $710K — narrowing what was a $25K gap to just a $10K gap between MLB’s proposed minimum of $700K. Both parties have agreed that the minimum salary would rise by $70K over the five-year life of the CBA, so the difference at this point rests solely on that small difference in starting point. Of all the issues, this would seem to be far and away the simplest to bridge.
It’s hard not to be encouraged by progress surrounding what had emerged as a major roadblock, but optimism should still be tempered. The gaps on the CBT threshold and, particularly, the bonus pool for pre-arbitration players are still relatively prominent, and there’s no indication yet as to the extent to which MLB will move in its forthcoming proposal. It’s also eminently possible that additional hurdles will arise. Few foresaw the international draft playing such a prominent role prior to this week.
A pair of issues that shouldn’t serve as an obstacle, Dierkes further reports (via Twitter), are on-uniform advertising patches and the Athletics’ revenue-sharing status. Yesterday’s MLBPA proposal agreed to allowing advertising on player uniforms, and the union also agreed to reinstate the Athletics as a revenue-sharing recipient. Oakland did not receive revenue-sharing funds in 2021 or in 2020. They’d seen a reduced share in 2017-19, under the terms of the previous CBA — a penalty levied due to questions about whether the team had sufficiently invested those funds back into the on-field product and whether they’d made their best efforts to secure a new stadium.
Time will tell just what the owners’ latest offer brings, but even tempered optimism is a welcome change from last night’s tenor. Whenever the two parties finally reach an agreement, the floodgates could well open in a hurry. Sports Illustrated’s Tom Verducci said in an appearance on MLB Network this morning that free agency could potentially reopen the same day that an agreement is reached, for instance (Twitter link via MLB Network’s Jon Morosi). And it’s worth noting, too, that The Athletic’s Jayson Stark tweeted this morning that the league still viewed a 162-game season as a possibility.
It’d be premature to say an agreement is nigh, but the breakthrough from yesterday’s most prominent roadblock is a breath of fresh air as an increasingly stagnant lockout reaches its 99th day.
Blue Jays Sign Greg Bird To Minor League Deal
The Blue Jays have signed first baseman Greg Bird to a minor league contract, tweets Keegan Matheson of MLB.com. It’s the second minor league pact of the morning for the Jays, who also inked right-hander Joe Biagini not long ago. Bird wasn’t on a 40-man roster last year and became a minor league free agent at season’s end, thus allowing him to sign a minor league contract even during the MLB lockout.
Now 29 years old, Bird at one point looked like a potential long-term option for the division-rival Yankees at first base. He burst onto the scene in 2015 with a .261/.343/.529 slash for the Yanks, swatting 11 homers and nine doubles in just 178 plate appearances. As a former fifth-round pick who’d posted consistently excellent offensive numbers throughout his minor league contract, Bird looked quite promising.
Injuries, however, completely derailed his time with the Yankees. A torn labrum in his shoulder required surgery that cost him the entire 2016 season. He again captured the intrigue of Yankees fans when he ripped eight home runs in during 2017 Spring Training, but Bird fouled a ball off his ankle at the end of camp and quite literally limped through the first month of the season before hitting the injured list and undergoing surgery. That procedure removed the “os trigonum” bone from his ailing ankle. He returned in late August and again hit well down the stretch (.253/.316/.579, eight homers in 98 plate appearances).
Bird and the Yankees hoped the injuries could be put behind him for the 2018 season, but by the end of Spring Training that year, it became clear that the ankle was still an issue. He underwent surgery to remove bone spurs from that same surgically repaired ankle — a third surgery in three years — and spent the first six weeks of the year on the injured list. When healthy, Bird didn’t resemble his once-productive form, posting just a .199/.286/.386 batting line in 311 plate appearances. His 2019 campaign didn’t go any better, as he developed plantar fasciitis in his other foot and ultimately missing the majority of the season. The Yankees cut him loose following that 2019 campaign.
Bird has since signed with the Rangers and Rockies organizations, most recently spending the 2021 season with Colorado’s Triple-A affiliate, where he posted a .267/.362/.532 batting line with 27 home runs in 461 plate appearances. That was “only” about 17 percent better than league average, after accounting for the hitter-friendly setting (117 wRC+), but it was encouraging to see Bird produce well and remain healthy enough to appear in 112 games.
The Jays are obviously set with Vladimir Guerrero Jr. at first base, and their deep outfield mix means they don’t necessarily have a need for a regular designated hitter. They’ve also been at least loosely connected to Freddie Freeman, and while that’s a long-shot fit, it’d only further reduce Bird’s chances of breaking through to the big league roster. That said, Bird is a perfectly sensible player to stash in Triple-A in the event of an injury, and if he hits well enough in Buffalo, the Jays can perhaps find a way to work his left-handed bat onto the roster in a part-time role.
Blue Jays Sign Joe Biagini To Minor League Deal
The Blue Jays have signed right-hander Joe Biagini to a minor league contract, tweets Jamie Campbell of Sportsnet. He’ll presumably be invited to big league camp whenever it can finally get underway.
It’ll be a reunion for the two parties, as Biagini made his big league debut with the 2016 Jays after being selected out of the Giants organization in the 2015 Rule 5 Draft. He turned in an outstanding rookie season in Toronto, tossing 67 2/3 innings of 3.06 ERA ball with an even better 2.95 FIP mark. A move to the rotation the following season proved to be a misstep, however, as Biagini was torched for a 5.73 ERA in 18 starts (as compared to a 4.16 mark in 31 2/3 innings of bullpen work that year). The experiment continued early in the 2018 season, but Biagini returned to the ‘pen after just four starts and struggled his way through the remainder of the season.
A return to the ‘pen as a full-time reliever in 2019 brought about much better results — albeit not quite to the extent of his excellent rookie campaign. In 50 innings of bullpen work with Toronto, the Biagini notched a 3.78 ERA with 50 strikeouts against 17 walks. The Jays, still in the final stages of a rebuilding effort, flipped Biagini to the Astros alongside righty Aaron Sanchez at the 2019 trade deadline — a deal that brought Derek Fisher back to Toronto.
That swap didn’t work out for either party, as Biagini wound up pitching just 19 innings for the ‘Stros over the next two seasons while serving up a staggering 22 runs. Sanchez quickly went down with a shoulder injury and only wound up pitching 18 2/3 frames in Houston himself. Fisher spent parts of two seasons in Toronto and batted just .177/.295/.395 before being cut loose.
Biagini spent the 2021 season in the Cubs organization, where they again worked him primarily as a starting pitcher with their Triple-A affiliate. In 91 2/3 frames, the right-hander posted a 5.50 ERA. He appeared in one big league game late in the season as a Covid replacement player for the Cubs, picking up a win after pitching three scoreless innings of relief. He was removed from the 40-man roster thereafter and, as such, eligible to sign a minor league deal even amid the ongoing lockout.
All told, Biagini has a 5.03 ERA in 331 1/3 big league innings, though his struggles as a starter skew the numbers a bit. Biagini has a lifetime 6.08 ERA out of the rotation compared to a more palatable (albeit pedestrian) 4.53 ERA as a reliever. He’s been better than average in terms of limiting hard contact and barreled balls, per Statcast, and Biagini also possesses elite spin rate on a curveball that has been an effective pitch for him — alongside a similarly strong changeup. He’s tried out a four-seamer, sinker and cut fastball throughout his big league career, and all three (particularly the sinker) have been hit hard.
Right-hander Jordan Romano has emerged as the clear top reliever in the Toronto bullpen, and he’ll be joined by returning names such as Trevor Richards, Adam Cimber and Tim Mayza — as well as offseason signee Yimi Garcia. The Jays are expected to continue seeking bullpen help after the lockout, but Biagini’s experience and familiarity with the organization could eventually earn him an opportunity if he shows well either in camp or in Triple-A.
Latest On Potential International Draft
1:00pm: Alden Gonzalez and Jeff Passan of ESPN add some further details (Twitter links). The top pick’s slot value is actually a slight bit higher than previously reported, landing at $5.5125MM. That’s due to MLB upping the size of each slot value from the weekend by a matter of five percent. Gonzalez notes that MLB is “flexible” on the $20K cap for undrafted free agents, though the extent to which the league is willing to bend isn’t totally clear.
Passan writes that rather than set the draft order based on record, teams would be broken up into “pods” which would rotate every year. Castrovince suggested a similar setup this weekend, writing that pods of six clubs would rotate through the draft order each year; in other words, Pod A would have selections one through six in a given year, then seven through twelve the following season, etc. Passan posits “pod” sizes of seven or eight teams rather than six (thus giving teams a crack at the top of the draft every fourth year rather than every fifth), but the general concept remains the same.
11:50am: Newsday’s Tim Healey tweets that under MLB’s proposal, the international draft would not go into effect until 2024. That’s surely vital for Latin American players, as some prominent figures have stressed that if implemented, the finer details should not be rushed.
Among those prominent voices is Red Sox icon David Ortiz, who spoke passionately in a message to his countrymen from the Dominican Republic today (Twitter thread via ESPN’s Jeff Passan). Ortiz stressed the importance of the league and players working together to get the specifics of the draft right. Ortiz adds:
“Baseball is such a big thing in the Dominican. Baseball keeps kids off the streets. We don’t want that to walk away from us. We want it to get better. That’s my focus. Nothing else. We have the youth. People wanting to be me, Pedro, Pujols. We can’t let that go away. At the end of the day, I don’t want those kids to be affected by it. I already played baseball. I had a career. I care about the kids being treated right. I understand MLB wants to have control over everything they do, but you’re not going to change the system overnight. Baseball is one of the secret weapons of the Dominican economy. If you talk about a draft here in the states, you have choices. You can do football, basketball. … Dominican has baseball to make your way out. That’s it. You have to be careful.”
11:00am: The potential implementation of an international draft has become a focal point in collective bargaining between MLB and the Players Association as gaps elsewhere in negotiations begin to close. Sportsnet’s Ben Nicholson-Smith reported last night that the international draft is one of the largest remaining obstacles in talks. The league, reportedly, is seeking to trade an elimination of the qualifying offer system for the draft — a concept they’d already proposed in prior packages. Of course, everything in these package proposals is dependent on other factors, so the league now using the QO elimination as a “give” in exchange for the international draft likely just reflects the manner in which other elements of the proposals have ebbed and flowed.
In some new developments on the topic of the proposed international draft, Maria Torres and Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic report this morning that MLB’s latest proposal included a slot value of $5.5MM for the No. 1 overall pick (Twitter thread). That’s up slightly from the league’s weekend proposal, wherein MLB.com’s Anthony Castrovince reported that MLB was positing a potential $5.25MM slot value for the first pick of a 20-round draft. Slots would be hard-capped and picks could be traded, per Castrovince, as opposed to the soft-capped “recommended” slot values in the domestic draft, where picks cannot be traded (save for those awarded via the Competitive Balance Lottery). The newly proposed $5.5MM top overall slot value is still miles shy of the $8.415MM first overall slot value from this past summer’s domestic amateur draft; today’s $250K bump narrowly pushes the top international slot’s value past the No. 7 overall slot value from the 2021 amateur draft.
Major League Baseball’s pitch to the union is that the proposed slot values could generate as much as $23MM in additional spending on international amateurs in a given year, per Torres. She adds that the final 100 slots in the draft would be valued at a combined $3.3MM, whereas MLB has pointed out to the union that the bottom 100 bonuses in the past couple of signing periods have averaged about $1.78MM in total. Notably, that particular spin ignores that the “bottom 100 bonuses” in prior signing periods is not necessarily equivalent to the “bottom 100 slots” in an international draft where only a finite number of players (600) can be selected. Torres notes that undrafted international amateurs could still sign, but Rosenthal tweets that bonuses would be capped at $20K.
Regardless of specific permutations on the late rounds and undrafted amateurs, there’s still some considerable pushback against the concept from the players’ end of things — particularly among Latin American big leaguers. Padres shortstop Fernando Tatis Jr. has publicly pushed back, telling El Caribe (Twitter link):
“The International Draft is going to kill baseball in [Dominican Republic]. It’s going to affect us a lot, because there will be many young people who used to give them the opportunity to get a bonus and with the draft it will not be the same.”
ESPN’s Marly Rivera reports that many Latin American players share those concerns, adding that the general sentiment among Puerto Rican players is that their entry into the amateur draft has stunted the development of baseball on the whole. Astros catcher Martin Maldonado, originally drafted by the Angels out of Dr. Juan J. Nunez high school in Puerto Rico, tweeted this morning that he “agrees 100%” with the concerns raised by Tatis.
As Rivera further notes, MLB’s position on the international draft is that it will help to regulate some of the many improprieties that currently exist on the international market. It’s a poorly kept secret that verbal agreements between Major League teams and international amateurs are in place years before those players are eligible to sign on their 16th birthdays; Major League scouts are regularly evaluating players before they even reach their teenage years, and players can have verbal agreements with teams as early as 13 or 14 years of age. Additional concerns include steroid usage among baseball hopefuls during those critical formative years, as well as exploitative behavior from many “buscones” who arrange deals between teams and amateur players.
The pushback from the union, presumably, is that these improprieties can be corrected without the implementation of an amateur draft. Major League Baseball has rules and regulations in place that are intended to bar early agreements of this nature. However, with the exception of former Braves GM John Coppolella being banned for circumventing those rules, punishments have been few and far between. Even after Coppolella’s ouster, early deals have continued. As Mike Axisa of CBS Sports explored recently, MLB could crack down on corruption on the international market by simply choosing to enforce its own typically ignored rules and regulations.
All that said, the draft system does figure to have some benefits for international amateurs. MLB’s current system is hard-capped, and while the draft wouldn’t change that, the simple fact that the combined value of the draft slots being proposed exceeds the combined value of the current international bonus pools means more money will go to those amateurs. Further, even though the league could likely cut down on corruption without implementing the draft, that does not change the fact that the draft ought to nevertheless curtail those early agreements. (Other forms of corruption, of course, will be more difficult to suppress.)
For the players, concerns surely remain about the potential stunting of baseball’s growth in the Dominican Republic, Venezuela, Panama, Colombia and other markets. It’s also a clear negative for a player not to be able to choose his first team and to not be able to negotiate more openly. The draft could potentially lead to fewer high-dollar deals for the market’s very best prospects — depending on the exact distribution of slot values.
Ultimately, given the manner in which the two sides have begun to move closer to an agreement on other elements of the deal, it seems hard to imagine the finer points of an international draft truly scuttling a deal. It’s clear there’s still work to be done, though, and much of it will center around this topic.
Rockies Fire Scott Van Lenten
The Rockies have fired director of research and development Scott Van Lenten just six months after hiring him away from the Nationals, reports Patrick Saunders of the Denver Post. Saunders cites “major disagreements” between Van Lenten and the club regarding what his role would be moving forward. Thomas Harding of MLB.com adds that assistant GM Zack Rosenthal will currently oversee the Rockies’ R&D department while the club looks for a replacement. Remarkably, Danielle Allentuck of the Denver Gazette reports that the Rockies’ R&D department now has only five employees — most of whom were hired by Van Lenten.
The Rockies championed Van Lenten as a pivotal hire who would be tasked with building out an analytics department that was sorely lacking and miles behind most teams throughout the league. His hiring, which came only a few months after owner Dick Monfort dismissed GM Jeff Bridich and promoted longtime scouting director Bill Schmidt to the post, was one of many steps that was framed as progress for the front office. Specifics on what prompted the relationship to go south so quickly haven’t yet come to light, but it’s worth pointing out that Van Lenten was sold on a very specific vision for his role at the time of his hiring.
“When the Rockies reached out and were interested in talking to me, I was excited but I wanted to make sure what I was getting into,” Van Lenten told Harding back in September. “I wanted to make sure they were going to provide the resources, make sure they were going to be supportive and have a real vision and are going to have the resources to do it the right way. They were very supportive.”
Apple, NBC Agree To Streaming Deals With Major League Baseball
March 9: In addition to their deal with Apple, MLB has also finalized a streaming rights deal with NBC Sports, reports Mike Ozanin of Forbes. NBC will purchase the rights to the Monday Night Baseball and Wednesday Night Baseball packages that ESPN did not include in its new deal with MLB. Those games will “mainly” be streamed on NBC’s Peacock streaming service, though specific broadcast details have not yet been announced by MLB or by NBC.
The pair of new streaming deals will pay MLB $115MM annually, Ozanin further reports. MLB’s deal with Apple is a seven-year contract that comes out to $85MM annually. The NBC/Peacock deal is shorter, clocking in at two years and $30MM in annual rights fees. It’s not yet expressly clear that the NBC deal will make those games exclusive to Peacock, but assuming that’s the case (as it is with Apple), the league would be subtracting somewhere around 100 total games (perhaps a bit more) from its MLB.tv package with this pair of new streaming deals.
Under MLB’s previous deals with ESPN, FOX and TBS, the league pulled in an average of $1.55 billion in annual television rights between the regular season and the playoffs. Their newest batch of contracts with those providers, plus the recent additions of Apple and NBC, give MLB a 26% increase in television and streaming revenue — up to an average of $1.96 billion each year, according to Ozanin. That comes out to about $65MM per club, before factoring in each team’s local/regional broadcast contracts.
March 8: Major League Baseball and Apple announced Tuesday that they have agreed to a streaming deal that will see two Friday night games streamed exclusively on Apple TV+ each week, beginning with the 2022 season. “Friday Night Baseball” will feature live pregame and postgame shows and will be available in the U.S., Canada, Australia, Brazil, Japan, Mexico, Puerto Rico, South Korea and the United Kingdom. Apple TV+ will also offer a program called “MLB Big Inning” to U.S. viewers, which the press release describes as a “live show featuring highlights and look-ins airing every weeknight during the regular season.”
The new service will allow fans to watch “marquee” games each Friday which will be “free from local broadcast restrictions.” Fans who are frustrated by the blackout issues that have served as a persistent source of consternation for MLB.tv users will surely welcome an alternative — particularly those who are already subscribe to Apple TV+.
However, the Friday Night Baseball deal now removes two games per week from that same MLB.tv package, given that today’s press release from Apple emphasizes the exclusivity of those Friday night broadcasts. That’s sure to raise the ire of MLB.tv users who do not have an active Apple TV+ subscription, as they’ll now be required to sign up for an additional monthly service if they wish to catch those Friday night contests. Today’s press release indicates that “for a limited time,” Friday Night Baseball will be accessible without a subscription but offers no further detail.
Of course, it’s only natural to see Major League Baseball continue to push into the streaming space, as they’ve done in recent years with live-game broadcasts on YouTube and Facebook. Other such deals will surely follow, particularly given how prominent this model is becoming throughout all of professional sports. Amazon Prime began streaming Thursday Night Football games in recent years, for instance, while other services like Peacock, Hulu and Paramount+ have increasingly begun to offer exclusive live sports streams as part of their models. There’s considerable profit to be gained by expanding streaming partnerships in this fashion, even if it comes at the expense of MLB watering down its longstanding MLB.tv offerings.
“Apple is the ideal partner to bring ‘Friday Night Baseball’ to fans around the world,” MLB chief revenue officer Noah Garden said in a statement within today’s press release. “Following milestones like the launch of At Bat on day one of the App Store in 2008 to the integration of Apple technology in ballparks across the country, this robust new game package is the perfect next collaboration in our long history of offering quality and innovative content to our fans. With national availability and international reach, MLB on Apple TV+ offers an exciting new platform to fans that allows a wider audience to connect with the game.”
Phillies To Sign Aaron Barrett, John Andreoli To Minor League Deals
The Phillies are expected to finalize minor league contracts with righty Aaron Barrett and outfielder John Andreoli in the near future, per MLB.com’s Todd Zolecki (Twitter link). Neither deal has been formally announced just yet, though the Barrett indicated on Twitter that he has indeed reached a deal with the Phils.
Barrett, 34, has spent his entire professional career in the Nationals organization prior to inking this deal. The former ninth-round pick was well on his way to solidifying himself as a quality big league reliever in 2014-15, pitching 70 innings of 3.47 ERA ball with a 28.3% strikeout rate and a 9.1% walk rate out of the Nats’ bullpen over that pair of seasons. That’s a strong strikeout rate even by today’s standards, but it was all the more impressive in 2014-15,when the leaguewide rate was about three percentage points lower than present levels.
The 2016 season was a lost one for Barrett, however, as he missed the year after undergoing Tommy John surgery (and having bone spurs removed from his elbow as well). After nearly a year of rehabbing the injury, Barrett suffered a far more gruesome injury in 2017, when he broke the humerus bone in his right arm in a rehab appearance with the Nats’ Triple-A club. Chelsea Janes of the Washington Post detailed the scene and the surgery required to repair that injury, which renowned surgeon Dr. James Andrews likened to a traumatic injury more akin to one sustained in a severe car crash.
Barrett missed the 2018 season recovering from that surgery but never gave up on his goal of returning to the big leagues. The emotional video of Double-A manager Matt LeCroy informing Barrett that he was going back to the Majors in 2019 went viral (and is still a must-watch for baseball fans who did not see at the time), and Barrett’s similarly emotional return to the mound (video link) was one of the better moments along the way during Washington’s Cinderella run to the 2019 World Series title.
While he’s still only pitched four big league innings since making it back to the show in 2019, Barrett had a strong 2021 season in the minors with the Nats. He again spent considerable time on the injured list but posted a 2.13 ERA through 38 innings across three levels when healthy.
As for the 31-year-old Andreoli, he’s appeared in two big league seasons, seeing time with the Orioles and Mariners in 2018 before a brief seven-game stint with the Padres in 2021. He only has 74 big league plate appearances, during which he’s batted .224/.284/.269. Those have come in scattered and inconsistent fashion, however, and Andreoli has a track record of posting big on-base percentages in the upper minors, as evidenced by a career .258/.373/.414 slash in more than 2600 Triple-A plate appearances. He’s walked in 14.8% of his plate appearances in Triple-A — albeit against a 26% strikeout rate. Andreoli has more than 2000 innings of professional experience at all three outfield positions: 3127 in left field, 2546 in center and 2130 in right.
Codi Heuer Undergoes Tommy John Surgery
Cubs reliever Codi Heuer underwent Tommy John surgery recently, reports Gordon Wittenmyer of NBC Sports Chicago. Heuer himself revealed that he’d undergone what looked to be a major arm procedure on Instagram earlier today. He’ll now be sidelined for the 2022 season.
Because Heuer is on the 40-man roster, he’s been restricted from working out with the Cubs or speaking to the team’s medical staff. As such, the injury occurred at a workout that was not supervised by the team and, presumably, the surgery was recommended by third-party medical experts as well. He’ll begin the rehab process without the assistance of the Cubs’ medical staff, though he’ll obviously be able to work with team doctors and trainers once the lockout is finally lifted.
Heuer, 25, was acquired from the White Sox alongside Nick Madrigal in the crosstown July trade that sent Craig Kimbrel to the South Side. The 2018 sixth-round pick had a dominant debut campaign in 2020, pitching to a 1.52 ERA with a 27.2% strikeout rate, a 9.8% walk rate and a 50% grounder rate in 23 2/3 innings of relief. His results slipped in 2021, however, as he slumped to an ERA north of 5.00 in his first 38 2/3 innings prior to that trade. Heuer’s struggles perhaps contributed to the ChiSox’ desire to acquire Kimbrel — a move that ultimately proved regrettable from the White Sox’ vantage point. Kimbrel struggled enormously following the swap, and he’s widely reported to be a trade candidate whenever the lockout lifts.
While the 2022 season will now be a lost one for Heuer, he can still be a prominent piece of the Cubs’ long-term relief corps. He’ll be controllable for three more seasons beyond the 2022 campaign and, if he’s able to pitch closer to his 2020 form than his 2021 upon returning, ought to be a candidate for high-leverage work before long. Heuer averaged 97.8 mph on his fastball as a rookie and posted a strong 14.4% swinging-strike rate that season.
Heuer’s velocity dipped a bit in ’21 and his fastball was hit quite a bit harder as a result — but opponents have been been embarrassingly feeble against Heuer’s offspeed offerings. Fifty-eight times so far in his young career, Heuer has ended a plate appearance while throwing a slider. He’s picked up 21 strikeouts in that time, and opponents have batted just .125/.171/.167 against the pitch. It’s been a similar story with his changeup; in 57 plate appearances ending on that pitch, opponents fanned 23 times and posted a .155/.219/.155 batting line. The slider has generated a 21.5% swinging-strike rate, while the changeup is even better at 26.6%.
With Heuer now out for the upcoming season, Rowan Wick becomes the even heavier favorite to pick up saves in the Cubs’ bullpen. They’ll quite likely be in the market for some additional bullpen help once the lockout ends, as Heuer, Wick and lefty Brad Wieck were the only three members of the currently projected relief corps who have even topped one year of Major League service time. Non-roster invitees like Jonathan Holder, Eric Yardley and Kevin McCarthy will all vie for bullpen jobs, but there’s a pretty clear need for some more established veteran arms to help piece the staff together.
Royals Sign Brad Peacock
12:00pm: The Royals have now formally announced the signing.
11:39am: The Royals have signed right-hander Brad Peacock to a minor league contract, per their transactions log at MLB.com. The former Astros hurler was eligible to sign during the lockout because he wasn’t on a 40-man roster at season’s end, though he did briefly pitch with the Red Sox in 2021.
Now 34 years old, Peacock has spent the bulk of his career in Houston, appearing in parts of eight seasons as an Astro. He was a particularly versatile and vital member of the pitching staff from 2016-19, when he amassed 320 1/3 innings of 3.48 ERA ball and split his time between the rotation and bullpen — pitching quite well in both roles. Unfortunately for both Peacock and the Astros, shoulder and neck injuries derailed his 2019-20 seasons. Peacock ultimately underwent shoulder surgery in October 2020 after he’d been limited to just 2 1/3 innings that season.
Peacock signed on with Cleveland last offseason and was traded to Boston in late August (a post-deadline deal made possible by the fact that he’d been on a minor league contract and had not been on the 40-man roster at any point prior). He made two appearances as a replacement player following a Covid-19 outbreak on the Red Sox and was tagged for nine runs in 5 1/3 innings before being returned to Triple-A (and removed from the 40-man roster). Things didn’t go much better for Peacock in Triple-A, as he combined for an 8.00 ERA in 36 innings between his two stops.
There’s obviously a good bit of work to do for Peacock to reestablish himself, but it’s easy to see why a team would take a flier on an arm of his caliber. At his peak, in 2018, Peacock punched out a dominant 35.3% of his opponents against just a 7.4% walk rate. He’s absolutely overwhelmed right-handed opponents throughout his career, yielding an awful .199/.280/.338 batting line in those situations. Lefties have generally been a problem for Peacock (career .265/.349/.480), as has turning a lineup over for a third time. That said, if his shoulder and neck are healed up from his 2019-20 woes, he could prove a similarly successful minor league reclamation project to Trevor Rosenthal and Greg Holland from the 2020 Royals.
As things stand, there are already a few spots spoken for in the K.C. bullpen. Scott Barlow, Josh Staumont, Jake Brentz and Domingo Tapia all likely have spots locked down. Well-traveled righty Joel Payamps had a solid showing in 2021 and is also out of minor league options, which could give him the inside track on a fifth spot. Gabe Speier and Dylan Coleman were strong in small showings but will likely have to earn a spot in Spring Training (whatever form that takes). At the very least, there appears to be an opening for a veteran swingman — a role with which Peacock is quite familiar.
MLB Launches Fund For Spring Training Workers Impacted By Canceled Games
Major League Baseball announced Tuesday that it has launched a $1MM fund to help support Spring Training workers who have been impacted by the cancellation of Grapefruit League and Cactus League games. Funds will be issued by clubs based on individual need, and will be available to part-time and seasonal workers, including concession workers, grounds crew, security, clubhouse operators, general ballpark operators and game operators.
“We know that our sport is facing a challenging time as we work toward a new collective bargaining agreement,” commissioner Rob Manfred said in a statement announcing the fund. “Regrettably, the people who make Spring Training a first-class experience for our fans have been affected through no fault of their own. As an institution, Major League Baseball and our Clubs remain committed to supporting our most vulnerable staff. We hope this fund will alleviate some of the financial concerns they have faced due to missed Grapefruit and Cactus League games this spring.”
MLB’s press release indicates that an additional fund will be established for seasonal and part-time employees who will be impacted by the potential loss of regular-season games as well. The MLBPA established a $1MM fund last Friday to support stadium workers who will be impacted by the cancellation of regular-season games.
The league and the union are set to continue negotiations today. Major League Baseball has characterized today as yet another deadline, suggesting that a 162-game season cannot be played if no deal is reached Tuesday.