Dodgers, Robbie Erlin Agree To Minor League Deal
The Dodgers have signed veteran left-hander Robbie Erlin to a minor league contract, per Chris Hilburn-Trenkle of Baseball America. Erlin, a client of Apex Baseball, will presumably head to big league camp once it opens and give L.A. some depth both in the rotation and in the bullpen.
A veteran of seven big league seasons, Erlin spent the 2021 season pitching with the Nippon-Ham Fighters in Japan, where he appeared in 11 games and worked to a 3.32 ERA over the life of 38 innings. He whiffed 20.5% of his opponents there and posted a strong 6.8% walk rate in his brief time overseas, but he’ll now look to get back to the big leagues as a member of a former division rival.
Erlin, 31, spent the first six seasons of his big league career as a member of the Padres. Initially a third-round pick by the Rangers in 2009, he landed in San Diego by way of a trade for reliever Mike Adams, going on to ultimately appear in 106 games for the Friars from 2013-19. Thirty-eight of those appearances came out of the rotation, so he could be stretched out as starting depth for the Dodgers if they so choose. Alternatively, Erlin is no stranger to working in multi-inning relief stints, as evidenced by the 123 1/3 frames he’s racked up in 72 career bullpen outings.
Erlin produced a 4.57 ERA, a 19.1% strikeout rate and a terrific 4.7% walk rate in his 313 frames with the Padres, but his most recent action came with the Pirates and Braves in 2020. Things didn’t go particularly well in either stop for the southpaw that summer, however, as he was tagged for a combined 24 runs in 26 2/3 innings. Erlin did post a solid 25-to-7 K/BB ratio in that time, continuing his career-long trends of below-average strikeout rates but excellent walk rates. Erlin posted MLB’s lowest walk rate back in 2018 and has long had solid spin on his four-seamer and an above-average spin rate on his curveball.
Johnny Cueto Can Still Help A Rotation
If you were to sit down and make a list of the best pitchers in baseball from 2010-16, you’d be hard-pressed not to include Johnny Cueto in some capacity. The two-time All-Star finished among the top six in National League Cy Young voting three times in that stretch, including a runner-up finish to Clayton Kershaw in 2014. He received at least one down-ballot MVP vote in all three of those seasons as well. From 2010-16, Cueto turned in a 2.86 ERA, a 20.6% strikeout rate (at a time when that number was much more impressive than it is in 2022) and a terrific 6.2% walk rate. Cueto was viewed as a No. 1 or No. 2 starter, and rightly so. He ranked fourth out of 228 qualified starting pitchers in ERA during that time, and his 1294 2/3 innings were the 16th-most in baseball.
Given that context, it’s no surprise that Cueto hit the open market as one of the most in-demand free agents in the game following the 2015 season. He’d struggled a bit following his trade from Cincinnati to Kansas City, but Cueto’s final impression on the Royals was a two-hit, one-run complete game in Game 2 of the World Series, which the Royals won 7-1. Not a bad way to set out into free agency for the first time.
Cueto’s six-year, $132MM contract with the Giants made him the third-highest-paid pitcher of the 2015-16 offseason, trailing only David Price and Zack Greinke‘s pair of $200MM+ deals (and beating MLBTR’s expectations by a year in the process). For the first year of his contract, the signing looked quite strong. Cueto hurled 219 2/3 innings of 2.79 ERA ball, made the All-Star team, and enjoyed both Cy Young and MVP votes in his first year with San Francisco. The Giants’ “even-year” dynasty was cut short at three years (2010, 2012, 2014) — but not for any fault of Cueto’s. He made one appearance in the playoffs that winter and took a brutal complete-game loss that saw him allow just one run on three hits and no walks with 10 strikeouts against the eventual-champion Cubs.
Cueto missed a handful of starts in 2017 due to an ongoing blister issue and wasn’t at his best when healthy. His 4.52 ERA that year was his worst since his rookie campaign back in 2008, and it was a particularly poorly-timed slump, as Cueto could’ve opted out of the final four years of his contract and tested the market a second time, had he turned in another healthy season of Cy-caliber results. Ankle and elbow injuries wound up hobbling Cueto in 2018, and by August of that season, he was headed for Tommy John surgery. Cueto returned late in the 2019 season and tossed 16 pedestrian innings, and his work in the shortened 2020 campaign was the worst of his career (5.40 ERA, career-high walk rate).
Expectations for Cueto were light heading into the 2021 season, then, which made his rebound effort with the Giants something of a pleasant surprise. Cueto missed nearly a month with a lat strain and was on the IL for much of September with an elbow strain. The latter of those two injuries is particularly concerning, since we didn’t see much from Cueto after he hit the IL. He made a lone rehab appearance in the minors (1 2/3 innings) and pitched 2 1/3 innings of relief in the Majors on Sept. 30.
It’s not a great note on which to end a season, but Cueto’s 92 mph velocity in that final outing was right in line with what he’d done throughout the season. And, when he was healthy, Cueto was the best version of himself fans and opponents had seen in years. No, this wasn’t Cy Young runner-up Cueto, but it was a very serviceable version of the quirky right-hander, who slotted nicely into the fourth spot in a deep San Francisco rotation.
At 35 years old, Cueto wasn’t the fireballer he was earlier in his career, but his 91.9 mph average fastball velocity was the highest mark he’d posted since that outstanding 2016 campaign. His 6.1% walk rate was also his best mark since that ’16 effort, and Cueto’s 9.7% swinging-strike rate and 31.4% opponents’ chase rate were his best marks since 2017. Cueto’s average exit velocity, hard-hit rate and barrel rate were all better than the league average, and his walk rate was in the 81st percentile of MLB pitchers.
Cueto was much more effective through his first dozen starts of the season (3.63 ERA) than over his final nine appearances (4.72), but perhaps some late fatigue was to be expected. His first “full” season back from Tommy John surgery, after all, was the pandemic-shortened 2020 campaign. The 2021 season was the first time since 2017 that Cueto had started the season healthy in April and was still trying to pitch into August and September.
The end result of Cueto’s 2021 campaign was a respectable 4.08 ERA and peripherals that largely backed him up (4.05 FIP, 4.27 xFIP, 4.43 SIERA). It’s not necessarily a dominant profile, and projection systems are down on him by virtue of factoring in his ugly 2019-20 results in the wake of Tommy John surgery. ZiPS has him at 92 innings of 4.43 ERA ball. Steamer is more bullish in workload (144 innings) but much more bearish in results (5.05 ERA). You’re forgiven if you are not overly optimistic for Cueto’s outlook in 2022 and beyond. The past few years, taken as a whole, have not been great.
A team that’s more focused on Cueto’s 2021 characteristics — the increase in velocity over 2018-20, the upticks in swinging strikes and chases — might see things differently, however. Cueto shouldn’t be penciled in for a return to his halcyon days of 200-plus innings and 33 starts, but he did make all 12 of his starts in 2020 and was more healthy in 2021 than he’s been since undergoing Tommy John surgery. He’s not the complete-game threat and workhorse he once was, but Cueto averaged 5 1/3 innings per start in ’21 and had been averaging about 5 2/3 per outing up until the All-Star break. It’s not out of the question that he could bounce back a bit further and make 24 to 25 starts with average or better results. At his per-start output, that clocks in somewhere in the range of 130 to 140 innings.
Maybe 135 innings of low-4.00s ERA doesn’t jump up and excite fans, but for the right team, that’s plenty valuable. The prevailing, but often incorrect, mentality is that every team possesses some guys in Triple-A who could come up and fill that role. However, there were only 89 pitchers in MLB last season who pitched at least 80 innings and posted an ERA under 4.25 — about three per team, on average. Bulk sources of respectable innings don’t necessarily grow on trees.
Clubs that already have solid options in the top four spots of their rotation could look to Cueto as a fairly affordable means of rounding things out. The Mets, Mariners, Blue Jays, Braves, Cubs and the incumbent Giants all fit that billing to varying extents. A team in need of filling out multiple rotation spots (e.g. Twins, Nationals, Rangers) might look for a bit more reliability, but perhaps even they’d see some merit in installing Cueto as a steadying presence while awaiting the arrival of some younger arms.
Regardless of Cueto’s eventual destination, it’s a bit surprising that he’s become something of a forgotten man this time around in free agency. There’s been nary a word about his market since the Giants opted for a $5MM buyout over a $22MM club option for the 2022 season. At a net $17MM, that option was never getting picked up, but Cueto had a decent rebound campaign in ’21 and probably ought to be getting a little more consideration as fans, pundits and teams alike consider the post-lockout market. He might not command more than a one-year deal, and that comes with serious bargain potential — relative to other names who’ve signed thus far, anyway.
Corey Kluber got $8MM from the Rays, and Cueto pitched as much in 2021 as Kluber has over the past three years combined. Jordan Lyles received a $7MM guarantee from the Orioles despite leading the Majors with 38 homers allowed last year and leading the Majors in earned runs allowed since 2020. Andrew Heaney got $8.5MM from the Dodgers. The Red Sox gave $7MM to Michael Wacha. This isn’t to disparage any of those deals individually. The teams paying those salaries are paying for varying levels of perceived upside, relative youth and/or bulk innings. However, it’s hard to see those figures and think Cueto won’t command something similar, if not better. And if he does clock in south of that range due to concerns over the late elbow issue, he has some significant bargain potential.
It seems silly to call a multi-time All-Star and former Cy Young candidate who just finished up a nine-figure deal “overlooked,” but Cueto hasn’t gotten much attention even in terms of pure free-agent speculation, despite the fact that he just turned in a pretty decent season overall.
Twins, Elliot Soto Agree To Minor League Deal
The Twins have agreed to a minor league contract with infielder Elliot Soto, as announced by Soto’s agent, Marc Kligman (Twitter link). He’s the latest minor league depth signing in the infield for the Twins, who have also picked up Tim Beckham and Daniel Robertson on minor league pacts over the past few weeks.
Soto, 32, has just three games at the MLB level to this point in his career — all with the 2020 Angels. He’s spent parts of six seasons in Triple-A, compiling a career .267/.342/.375 batting line there. He spent the 2021 season in the Dodgers organization, suiting up for 57 games with their Triple-A affiliate.
In addition to his time with both L.A. clubs, Soto has been with the Cubs (who drafted him out of Creighton in the 15th round back in 2010), the Marlins and the Rockies. He’s never been ranked among one of those organization’s top prospects, though Baseball America did label him as the best defensive infielder in the Cubs’ minor league system back in 2012.
In all likelihood, Soto is ticketed for Triple-A work with the Twins. It’s unclear who’ll start the bulk of the Twins’ games at shortstop in 2022, as Andrelton Simmons became a free agent at season’s end and Minnesota seems quite content having shifted Jorge Polanco to the other side of the bag (where he had perhaps his finest season to date). The Twins’ rotation needs are their most glaring at the moment, but they’re still likely to make a free-agent addition or acquire some shortstop help on the trade market whenever transactions are again permitted.
Fantasy Baseball Chat With Brad Johnson
Brad Johnson has been writing about fantasy baseball for more than a decade and has considerable experience in Roto, H2H, dynasty, DFS, and experimental formats. As an expert in the field, Brad participates in the Tout Wars Draft and Hold format and was crowned the league’s winner in 2020. Brad’s writing experience includes RotoGraphs, NBC SportsEDGE, and right here at MLB Trade Rumors. He’s also presented at the First Pitch Arizona fantasy baseball conference.
We’ll be hosting fantasy baseball-focused chats with Brad every other Monday at noon CT between now and the beginning of the regular season (whenever that is), so mark your calendars for those and feel free to drop him some questions on Twitter @BaseballATeam as well.
Reds, Zack Godley Agree To Minor League Deal
The Reds have agreed to a minor league contract with veteran right-hander Zack Godley, reports Charlie Goldsmith of the Cincinnati Enquirer (via Twitter). The team has not yet announced the deal, although the Sports Pro Services client will presumably be in big league camp whenever it’s up and running.
Godley, 31, was a regular on the D-backs’ staff from 2015-19, peaking with a 155 innings of 3.37 ERA ball during the 2017 season. From 2017-18, he was a consistent member of the Arizona rotation, compiling 333 1/3 innings of 4.10 ERA ball with a 24.7% strikeout rate, a 9.4% walk rate and a 51.6% grounder rate. He averaged just shy of six frames per outing in that time and looked to have more or less laid claim to a spot in the Diamondbacks’ rotation.
A disastrous 2019 season, however, saw Godley designated for assignment late in the year. After posting an ERA north of 6.00 in 76 fames with Arizona, Godley landed in Toronto and had a nice run out of the bullpen to close out the season. He’s since had brief stints with the Red Sox and Brewers, though his time in Boston was derailed by a flexor strain. He appeared in just two games with Milwaukee last season, allowing six runs in 3 1/3 innings.
Godley has a 4.92 ERA in 568 2/3 innings, though fielding-independent metrics are generally a bit more bullish (4.29 SIERA, 4.34 FIP). He also carries a career 3.85 ERA in 159 innings of Triple-A ball.
The Reds’ current rotation doesn’t offer a lot of opportunity beyond a potential shot at the fifth spot — not with Luis Castillo, Sonny Gray, Tyler Mahle and Vladimir Gutierrez all staking claim to starting jobs. However, Cincinnati is widely expected to listen to trade offers on each of Gray, Castillo and Mahle after GM Nick Krall spoke of a need to “align our payroll to our resources” early in the offseason. The Reds reportedly engaged in trade talks surrounding all three prior to the lockout (although it seems quite unlikely that the entire trio would be moved).
Even if a spot or two does open up in the Cincinnati rotation, Godley would face plenty of competition. Lefty Reiver Sanmartin had a big year in Double-A/Triple-A and fared well in his MLB debut late in 2021. Right-hander Riley O’Brien had a decent showing in Triple-A last year himself and is already on the 40-man roster. Top prospects Hunter Greene and Nick Lodolo are expected to have a chance at making their big league debuts this coming year as well, and the Reds have invited Ben Lively, Connor Overton and Brandon Bailey to Spring Training as well (although Bailey is still recovering from last February’s Tommy John surgery).
MLB: Spring Training Games Postponed Until At Least March 5
Major League Baseball announced Friday that Spring Training games will not begin until at least March 5. A delay to the start of Spring Training was a foregone conclusion amid the ongoing labor strife between the league and the players association, but today’s announcement now makes the delayed schedule official.
“We regret that, without a collective bargaining agreement in place, we must postpone the start of Spring Training games until no earlier than Saturday, March 5th,” MLB said in a statement. “All 30 clubs are unified in their strong desire to bring players back to the field and fans back to the stands. The Clubs have adopted a uniform policy that provides an option for full refunds for fans who have purchased tickets from the Clubs to any Spring Training games that are not taking place.”
There’s no clear timetable for when the two parties might reach a resolution. Headway of any kind has been nonexistent to this point, with yesterday’s meeting between MLB and the MLBPA reportedly lasting just 15 minutes. The league confirmed in today’s statement, however, that the parties will be back at the table on Monday and expect to negotiate daily throughout the week.
“We are committed to reaching an agreement that is fair to each side,” MLB’s statement reads. “On Monday, members of the owners’ bargaining committee will join an in-person meeting with the Players Association and remain every day next week to negotiate and work hard towards starting the season on time.”
Daily meetings between the two sides next week would be the closest thing to urgency displayed since the lockout was implemented on Dec. 2. Commissioner Rob Manfred described the lockout as a means of “jumpstarting” negotiations, but the league then waited more than six weeks to send a counteroffer to the union. In total, since the lockout was implemented more than 11 weeks ago, the two parties have had a reported six in-person meetings. Meeting on a daily basis next week nearly doubles that total.
Fans, of course, have rightly expressed considerable frustration with the lack of progress and, perhaps even more confounding, the lack of actual negotiating between the two parties. The delay to the beginning of the spring schedule is the clearest indicator yet of a legitimate possibility that regular-season games will be lost to the discord. Manfred last week called the potential for lost regular-season games a “disastrous outcome for the industry” before expressing optimism that Opening Day would take place on March 31, as scheduled.
Manfred added that the league would “ideally” like to get in a four-week Spring Training, though the chances of that appear slim. An agreement would likely need to be reached at some point next week, which would then give teams and players a week (or a bit more) to report to camp and gear up for games beginning on or around the March 5 date cited in today’s announcement. Even that would leave clubs with a bit shy of four weeks of exhibition games, but a March 5 kickoff for Cactus League and Grapefruit League play would ultimately “only” result in about a week’s worth of lost spring contests. Spring Training games had been scheduled to commence on Feb. 26. Pitchers and catchers were scheduled to begin reporting to camp this week.
The MLBPA issued the following statement in response to the league’s announcement:
“MLB announced today that it ‘must’ postpone the start of spring training games. This is false. Nothing requires the league to delay the start of spring training, much like nothing required the league’s decision to implement the lockout in the first place. Despite these decisions by the league, Players remain committed to the negotiating process.”
Mets Add Danny Barnes To Major League Coaching Staff
The Mets have hired former Blue Jays right-hander Danny Barnes as an assistant coach on the Major League staff, manager Buck Showalter announced to reporters Friday (Twitter link via Anthony DiComo of MLB.com). Barnes, 32, will have a broad-reaching role in the newly created coaching position, Showalter added.
“He’s played in the big leagues, knows his way around the major league locker room,” Showalter said (link via Danny Abriano of SNY). “…We didn’t get too titled up. … He can do a little bit of everything.”
A 35th-round draft pick of the Blue Jays back in 2010, Barnes reached the Majors in 2016, tossing 13 2/3 innings while yielding six runs on 14 hits and five walks with 14 punchouts. He was a regular member of the Toronto the following season — his lone full year at the MLB level. Barnes racked up 66 innings of 3.55 ERA ball and finished off 13 games for the ’17 Jays, but the pendulum swung in the other direction in 2018. In 41 frames that season, Barnes was clobbered for a 5.71 ERA as his strikeout, walk and hard-contact rates all went in the wrong direction.
Barnes became a free agent following the 2019 season and had been set to join the Orioles for the 2020 campaign, but the pandemic-driven shutdown left him in limbo. Barnes wasn’t included in Baltimore’s 60-man player pool during the shortened season and became a free agent again last winter, at which point he signed on with the Long Island Ducks of the independent Atlantic League. Barnes tossed 16 1/3 solid frames for the Ducks in 2021, but it seems he’ll now transition into the next phase of his baseball career.
In parts of three big league seasons, Barnes logged 120 2/3 innings with a 4.33 ERA, and he managed a 2.69 ERA in 344 2/3 frames over the course of ten seasons in the minors. He’ll join a Mets coaching staff that already includes a handful of former big leaguers. Jeremy Hefner is slated to return as the team’s pitching coach in 2022 and the Mets tabbed Eric Chavez as their new hitting coach recently as well. Former infielder Joey Cora (third base coach) and outfielder Wayne Kirby (first base coach), both of whom last appeared in the bigs in 1998, were also both hired to the staff over the winter.
Oakland City Council Certifies Environmental Review Of A’s Stadium Plan
The A’s took another positive step in their quest to build a new stadium in Oakland this week, as Sarah Ravani of the San Francisco Chronicle reports that the Oakland City Council voted (six to two) to certify a 3500-page environmental impact review of their Howard Terminal ballpark project.
“We’ve never been this far in terms of making our vision for the waterfront ballpark for the A’s a reality,” A’s president Dave Kaval said following the council vote. “There is still a lot of work to be done. This is an important accomplishment and an important milestone to reach.”
The ballpark’s construction is part of a broader-reaching, $12 billion mixed-use development plan that also includes the construction of ample housing, office space, retail space and hotels in the surrounding area. If eventually approved, the new stadium would give the A’s a waterfront home with a capacity to host roughly 35,000 fans on a nightly basis. It would also finally move the team from the Oakland Coliseum — the last vestige of the once-popular multi-sport facilities that have been phased out across not only Major League Baseball but the majority of North American professional sports.
The city council’s certification of the Howard Terminal EIR was not without its detractors. Ravani writes that concerned citizens and the two councilmembers who voted against certification raised questions about the extent to which the review investigated affordable housing, the impact on port functions, traffic ramifications in the surrounding neighborhoods, the removal of toxic waste, and railroad safety regarding the nearby tracks.
It’s worth emphasizing that the EIR’s certification is just one step toward the project’s ultimate approval. The city will still need to approve the final terms of the project, and an exact timeline toward any such vote remains unclear. Annie Sciacca of the San Jose Mercury News writes that the City of Oakland and the Athletics still need to complete negotiations on key economic principals of the plan, including — among other critical elements — who will fund the infrastructure and how substantial a portion of the proposed housing units will be designated affordable housing. Those negotiations could take months, as could subsequent studies (e.g. a deeper dive into traffic management) that are now slated to follow the EIR. Nevertheless, the A’s and Oakland mayor Libby Schaaf — a proponent of the deal — have touted the EIR certification as a notable victory.
“Tonight’s vote by the City Council was a historic moment for Oakland’s future,” Schaaf said following the vote. “The companion resolution by Councilmembers Bas, Kaplan and Kalb ensures that all Oaklanders will benefit from the proposed waterfront ballpark district, and that a world-class development with 18 acres of new public parks, 3,000 units of housing – including new affordable housing – will get built with the most sustainable and highest environmental standards on our waterfront.
“Tonight’s action is more than a milestone – it’s a giant leap forward in our shared mission to create a regional destination that gives back our waterfront to the public, connects a new vibrant neighborhood to our downtown and provides tens of thousands good union jobs for our residents – and it does it all while keeping our beloved A’s rooted in Oakland.”
Nationals, Logan Verrett Agree To Minor League Deal
The Nationals are in agreement on a minor league contract with right-hander Logan Verrett, per the team’s official transactions log. He’ll add some additional depth both in the rotation and the bullpen this coming season.
Verrett, 31, has spent parts of three seasons in the Majors, appearing with the Rangers, Mets and Orioles between the 2015-17 seasons. He’s totaled 150 innings at the sport’s top level, working to a 4.62 ERA with a 17.7% strikeout rate, a 9.5% walk rate and a 43.7% ground-ball rate. He also spent the 2018 season with the KBO’s NC Dinos, where he made 29 starts but struggled with a 5.28 ERA in 155 frames.
Most recently, Verrett was with the Mariners’ Triple-A affiliate in 2021, pitching 114 innings of 4.74 ERA ball while showing outstanding command (3.4% walk rate) and a below-average strikeout rate (18.6%). He’s had issues keeping the ball in the yard in the Majors (1.50 HR/9), and that was again an issue for Verrett in Tacoma last season (1.82 HR/9), but that standout walk rate was his lowest since 2012 — his first professional season after being taken by the Mets in the third round of that summer’s draft.
Verrett has appeared in parts of five Triple-A seasons and has a 4.51 ERA through 412 2/3 innings in what has typically been a very hitter-friendly setting. The Nats have plenty of need for some upper-level depth, as their current rotation is lacking in certainty. Stephen Strasburg and Patrick Corbin give them a pair of high-priced, high-profile arms in need of a bounceback in 2022 (Strasburg health-wise, Corbin performance-wise).
Behind that duo is top prospect Josiah Gray, who was acquired in the Max Scherzer/Trea Turner blockbuster last summer. Right-hander Joe Ross is a solid option if healthy, but his 2021 season ended with a slight UCL tear in August (which did not require surgery). Swingmen Erick Fedde and Austin Voth, 2021 minor league signee Josh Rogers, 35-year-old journeyman Paolo Espino and prospect Joan Adon are among the next options up on the 40-man roster, while Jefry Rodriguez gives them another somewhat experienced non-roster invitee to camp. The Nats surely hope that 2020 first-rounder and top prospect Cade Cavalli will be ready sooner than later, but the 23-year-old struggled in six Triple-A starts late last year after breezing through Class-A Advanced and Double-A.
An Under-The-Radar Free Agent Option For Teams Seeking Rotation Help
The 2021-22 free agent market was highlighted by a historically talented group of shortstops, an unusually deep collection of starting pitchers and a good deal of power bats at the outfield and infield corners. This winter’s collection of free agents is the strongest in recent memory and quite likely the strongest we’ll see for a good while. Look ahead to the 2022-23 class, and while there are certainly a few star names, it pales in comparison to this year’s group.
With any deep free agent class, there are bound to be some names who slip through the cracks or simply don’t draw much in the way of appreciation or attention. We try to minimize this each offseason when ranking our Top 50 free agents and putting forth contract predictions, highlighting a handful of “honorable mentions” who seem likely to secure decent free-agent deals even though we’ve left them sitting outside the top 50. Even still, there’s usually a name or two we wind up wishing we’d considered more closely.
Of the non-top-50, non-honorable-mention free agents in this year’s class, former Cardinals lefty Kwang Hyun Kim fits that bill for me. A combination of age, lack of velocity and lack of bulk innings made us feel comfortable leaving him off the Top 50, but taking a retrospective look at his numbers, I’m not so sure that should’ve been the case. I’ve been asked a few times in recent chats here on MLBTR whether Kim was contemplating a return to the Korea Baseball Organization in light of the MLB lockout. My understanding is that he fully intends to continue on in the Majors and sign with a big league club whenever the transaction freeze lifts.
A very surface-level glance at Kim reveals a solid set of numbers. He’s pitched in 145 2/3 Major League innings, notched a 2.97 earned run average and kept the ball on the ground at a 48.1% clip. Kim doesn’t boast elite command, but his 8.4% walk rate is a bit better than the league-average 8.7%. He’s well below average in terms of strikeout rate (17.2% versus the league-average 23.2%), but the bottom-line results are there.
Had he remained healthier and worked a full season of innings, Kim would likely have a bit more buzz. That didn’t happen, however. He missed a portion of Spring Training and the first three weeks of the season due to a back injury — an issue that sent him to the injured list for another 10-day spell in mid-June. Kim later spent another two and a half weeks on the injured list owing to some elbow inflammation. It proved minor, but the Cardinals picked up a pair of veterans at the deadline (J.A. Happ and Jon Lester) and welcomed back several other injured starters while Kim was on the mend. He did not make a minor league rehab start despite pitching just once over a month-long period, and the Cards moved him to the bullpen when activating him in late August.
The other red flags on Kim were an 89.4 mph fastball and a sub-par strikeout rate led to questionable fielding-independent pitching marks; metrics like FIP (4.34), xERA (4.48), xFIP (4.70) and SIERA (4.85) all pegged Kim as more of a mid-4.00s type of pitcher. The sub-3.00 ERA he’s posted was clearly aided by an elite Cardinals defense, but he also created some of his own luck by limiting hard contact, keeping the ball on the ground and inducing pop-ups at an above-average rate.
Kim rates comfortably above average in terms of average exit velocity, hard-hit percentage and barrel percentage. He also has a penchant for surprising hitters, as his 18% called-strike rate tied him with names like Walker Buehler, Charlie Morton and Steven Matz for the 30th-best mark among the 145 starting pitchers who’ve pitched at least 100 innings since 2020. It’s not an elite figure, but possessing the command and deception needed to freeze opponents does help Kim to offset a below-average swinging-strike rate, to an extent.
In terms of platoon splits, Kim — like most lefties — is more susceptible to right-handed opponents than lefties. That said, it hasn’t been a glaring deficiency. Lefties have posted a putrid .164/.263/.224 slash against him in 133 plate appearances, while righties are at a relatively tepid .248/.310/.397 output. Kim has only fanned a tiny 14.6% of right-handed opponents against a hefty 26.3% of the lefties he’s faced, but his walk rate, ground-ball rate and pop-up rate are all actually much better against right-handed opponents.
Some clubs may be intrigued by Kim as a reliever, given that he’s dominated opponents the first trip through a batting order, yielding a lowly .192/.260/.314 batting line the first time facing a hitter on a given day. That spikes to .290/.354/.425 the second time through a lineup, which is an obvious concern. Then again, Kim’s opponents have hit just .184/.253/.316 in 83 plate appearances when facing him for a third time, so it’s not as though he’s incapable of turning a lineup over with any success. Realistically, that third-time-through-the-order split would likely regress in a larger sample, but it’s also fair to wonder whether that second-time split might improve with more opportunities.
So, to this point, Kim has been primarily a five-inning starter — he’s completed six frames in just eight of his 28 starts — with below-average strikeout capabilities but solid command and a knack for inducing weak contact. He’s struggled a bit the second time through the order, due in no small part to a notable drop in strikeout rate in such settings, but there’s at least some reason to believe he could improve upon that when looking at his third-time splits.
It’s not necessarily an exciting package that teams should be falling over to sign, but the other reason I’ve come to expect we’ll have been light on Kim’s market is simply by looking at how the market has valued other arms this winter. Jordan Lyles can be relied upon for some bulk innings, but his results (5.60 ERA), batted-ball profile and other peripherals are all more questionable than those of Kim. He still signed for a $7MM guarantee. Michael Wacha matched that guarantee despite a third straight sub-par season. Steven Matz and Nick Martinez both beat expectations with four-year contracts — the latter being a particular surprise. The Cubs had the No. 7 waiver priority this offseason and pounced to claim Wade Miley at a year and $10MM. Miley provides more innings, but he’s two years older and, over the past few seasons, looks an awful lot like Kim on a per-inning basis.
Put more simply, it’s been a bull market for starting pitching help, and while Kim’s soft-tossing, weak-contact specialist profile isn’t necessarily a sexy one in the eyes of modern front offices, he’s managed to succeed with it to this point in his career. A team looking for a fairly steady fourth or fifth starter could do much worse than plugging in Kim for five to six innings every fifth day, and if I were reconsidering the remaining free agents on the market, I’d probably peg him for a two-year deal when the lockout lifts. Perhaps that simply won’t be in the cards — the middle class of free agents could be squeezed into some lackluster contract terms — but if he’s available on a one-year deal, it’d be a steal for the signing team.
The number of clubs still needing arms will work in the favor of Kim and other remaining free agents. The Mets still need a fifth starter, and the Mariners and Tigers are also on the hunt in that market. The Twins, Nationals and Rangers all have multiple rotation spots they’ll yet need to fill. The A’s might have a pair of starting jobs to fill, depending on their trade activity. The price tag on Kim shouldn’t be prohibitive one way or another, and the demand should get him a decent deal when all is said and done.
Admittedly, this a lengthier look than I’d normally take at a fourth starter type whose best-case scenario feels like a two-year deal. FanGraphs’ Ben Clemens predicted two years and $20MM back in November, and even after digging into Kim, I think I’m slightly lower than that figure. Still, for a pitcher who’s generated very little fanfare, Kim has a strong track record of results and, based on those first-trip-through-the-order splits, could at worst be deployed as a quality multi-inning reliever. He’ll likely prioritize a team with a clear rotation opening, which dampens the possibility of a Cardinals reunion, but there’s solid value to be had here.