MLBTR Chat Transcript
Click here to read a transcript of Friday’s chat with MLBTR’s Steve Adams.
Brewers Hire Rickie Weeks, Pedro Alvarez For Player Development Roles
The Brewers announced Friday that they’ve hired former big leaguers Rickie Weeks and Pedro Alvarez as new members of their player development staff. Both are being titled assistants to the player development staff, and Alvarez will also be an assistant to the baseball operations team.
Weeks, of course, was a longtime fan favorite with the Brewers, who selected him with the No. 2 overall pick in the 2003 draft. He somewhat remarkably made his big league debut later that same season, though he appeared in just seven games. Weeks didn’t return to the Majors in 2004, but by 2005 he’d emerged as Milwaukee’s primary second baseman.
From 2005-14, Weeks was the go-to option at second base for the Brew Crew, hitting a combined .249/.347/.425 with 148 home runs and 126 stolen bases along the way. He made the 2011 All-Star team, enjoyed three seasons of 20-plus home runs and also swiped 15 or more bags in five different seasons. Following his days in Milwaukee, Weeks had brief stints in Seattle, Arizona and Tampa Bay, but he hasn’t played at the MLB level since 2017. In all, Weeks batted .246/.344/.420 with 161 home runs and 132 steals through 5112 plate appearances spread across parts of 14 MLB seasons.
Five years after Weeks was the No. 2 overall pick in the draft, Alvarez found his name called in that exact same spot — albeit by the division-rival Pirates. Like Weeks, he was quick to the Majors, spending less than two years in the minors before debuting with the Bucs as a 23-year-old in 2010.
Known for his light-tower power, Alvarez looked to be one of the NL’s burgeoning young sluggers early in his career. Though strikeouts continually worked to suppress his batting average, Alvarez swatted 30 home runs in 2012 and followed that up with an NL-best 36 home runs in 2013 — his lone All-Star season. The vast majority of Alvarez’s playing career was spent in Pittsburgh, but he did spend parts of the 2016-18 seasons — his final three in the Majors — as a member of the Orioles. In parts of nine big league seasons, Alvarez hit .236/.310/.447 with 162 home runs.
The Reds Should Trade Or Extend Jesse Winker This Offseason
These days, when baseball fans talk about the Reds, the general topic seems to be trying to pin down which, if any, of their three reportedly available starting pitchers will be traded following the transactions freeze. It’s hardly a secret that the Reds at least entertained talks involving Sonny Gray, Luis Castillo and Tyler Mahle prior to the lockout. They also placed Wade Miley on waivers and traded Tucker Barnhart. Both looked to be financially driven moves, and GM Nick Krall erased any doubt that was the case when publicly declaring a need to “align payroll to our resources” early in the offseason.
Trade chatter on each of Gray, Castillo and Mahle followed — understandably so. All three are only controlled another two seasons. If ownership is mandating a payroll reduction even for just the 2022 season, there’s an argument to be made that the best course of action is to turn one or more of those highly coveted arms into some young talent who’ll help in 2023 and beyond. Gray is set to earn $10MM in 2022 and has a highly affordable $12MM club option for the 2023 season. Castillo and Mahle are arbitration-eligible and projected to earn $7.6MM and $5.6MM in 2022, respectively, by MLBTR contributor Matt Swartz.
If the Reds are open to dealing any of those three quality starters who are controlled through the 2023 season, however, why isn’t there more talk of Cincinnati listening to offers on left fielder Jesse Winker? Like that trio of arms, Winker is controlled only through the 2023 season and figures to see his price tag rise substantially. He’s projected to earn $6.8MM in 2022 and, if he continues hitting at his recent pace, he’ll likely see that figure rise beyond $10MM in 2023.
First and foremost, let’s get one thing straight: Winker’s offensive proficiency hasn’t gotten nearly the attention it deserves. A former No. 49 overall draft pick (2012) and consensus top-100 prospect from 2015 to 2017, Winker has hit from the moment he got to the big leagues. That’s not an exaggeration; he slashed .298/.375/.529 in 137 plate appearances as a rookie back in 2017, and the only time he’s posted a wRC+ under 127 was in 2019, when he was “only” 11 percent better than league average (111 wRC+).
From 2017-19, Winker batted a combined .285/.379/.466 with 30 home runs, an 11.9% walk rate and just a 15.2% strikeout rate in 855 plate appearances — and yet his efforts went largely unnoticed. Even the Reds themselves signed not one but two free-agent outfielders to lucrative multi-year deals after that stretch, bringing Nick Castellanos and Shogo Akiyama into the fold. It’s true that the left-handed-hitting Winker has some notable platoon splits and isn’t regarded as a great defender, but production like that should’ve seemingly entrenched him in the outfield mix — not left him fighting for at-bats alongside Aristides Aquino, Nick Senzel and others.
Good as Winker was from ’17-’19, it was the 2020 season where things really took off. Winker struck out more than in the past, causing his batting average to dip to .255, but his walk rate spiked to 15.3% and his power went through the roof. He slugged a dozen homers and hit seven doubles in just 184 plate appearances — all while posting a .289 ISO (slugging percentage minus batting average). In 2021, Winker not only sustained much of that power surge but managed to drop his strikeout rate from the 25.1% he showed in 2020 back down to a 15.5% clip that falls in line with his 2017-19 numbers. Essentially, that 2020 spike in punchouts looks like a small-sample blip at this point. He’s never whiffed at even an 18% clip in any of his four other big league campaigns.
Over the past two seasons, Winker has appeared in a total of 164 games and tallied 668 plate appearances. He’s slugged 36 homers, connected on 39 doubles and posted a mammoth .292/.392/.552 batting line in that time. Great American Ball Park is a friendly place for hitters, to be sure, but park-neutral metrics like wRC+ (147) and OPS+ (140) suggest he’s still been anywhere from 40 to 47 percent better than a league-average hitter.
There’s little sense in trying to sugar coat Winker’s numbers against lefties. They are, quite simply, bad. He’s hit .199/.314/.338 (78 wRC+) against southpaws over the past two seasons, which is actually an improvement over his early-career woes. He still takes his walks (12.4%), but he’s fanned in 21.2% of his plate appearances compared to just 15.1% against righties. Winker’s 52.8% ground-ball rate against lefties is also vastly higher than his 43.6% mark against righties. And beyond that, 14% of the fly-balls Winker hits against lefties have been infield flies, compared to just 6% against righties. The walk rate at least lets Winker post a passable OBP against southpaws, but the damage he does comes when holding the platoon advantage.
Even if Winker is “only” a platoon player, however, he’s a platoon player who is not just productive against righties — he’s one of the best hitters in baseball against righties. From 2020-21, the only two players in all of MLB who have outproduced Winker against righties (by measure of wRC+) are Juan Soto (185) and Bryce Harper (179). Winker’s mark of 169 leads stars like Freddie Freeman, Fernando Tatis Jr. and Vladimir Guerrero Jr. Statcast generally supports his production, too; he was in the 74th percentile or better this past season in terms of strikeout rate, walk rate, average exit velocity, hard-hit rate, barrel rate, chase rate, expected batting average, expected slugging percentage and expected wOBA.
Excellent as Winker’s rate production has been, detractors might point out that he’s yet to reach 500 plate appearances in a given season. He’s had stints on the injured list in four of his five MLB campaigns, only staying healthy for the entirety of the shortened 2020 schedule. None of his issues seems to have been recurring; his career IL stints have come on account of a 2017 left hip flexor strain, a 2018 right shoulder subluxation, a 2019 cervical strain in his neck and an intercostal strain that ended his 2021 campaign. Winker is expected to be full-go for the start of Spring Training, but he has yet to put together a full 162-game season.
Still, plenty of clubs around the league would look past that injury history based on Winker’s career track record at the plate. As for the glove, Winker isn’t a great left fielder, but the likely implementation of a DH in the National League helps to quiet any such concerns. Furthermore, it’s not as though he’s unplayable on the grass. He posted a minus-5 mark in Defensive Runs Saved through 831 innings in left this past season (in addition to -1.9 UZR and -8 Outs Above Average) but is only minus-7 in 1669 career innings.
Winker is generally regarded as a better defender than either Castellanos or Kyle Schwarber, and most pundits expect both those players to command weighty contracts in free agency. Winker has been a better defender and better hitter than both over the past two seasons. There are surely teams that would rather part with prospects to acquire two years of Winker than pay annual salaries near (or in excess of) $20MM for Schwarber and Castellanos.
Frankly, any team that needs a left-handed bat and/or a boost in the outfield ought to be pounding on the Reds’ door in an effort to pry Winker away once the lockout lifts. He’s not without his flaws, but he’s an elite bat against right-handed pitching who can at least post a passable OBP against lefties. Winker won’t turn 29 until August, and while we can’t know his exact salary over the next two seasons, he’ll clock in at less than $20MM total.
All of that leads to the other side of the equation for the Reds. If they’re not going to trade Winker, now’s the time they should be mulling a multi-year extension with an eye toward making him a focal point of the lineup for years beyond his current slate of club control. By the time next spring rolls around, he’ll only be a year from free agency and may not be as amenable to negotiations — particularly not if he’s punched his ticket to another hefty arbitration raise with a strong 2022 season.
So, what might an extension cost? In terms of recent comparables, there haven’t been many outfielders to sign long-term deals when they’re sitting between four and five years of Major League service time. Randal Grichuk notched another four years and $47MM on top of what would’ve been a $5MM salary for his second arbitration year early in the 2019 season, but Winker has been a vastly more productive player. Adam Jones‘ six-year, $85.5MM deal is a decade old at this point.
Winker should command something in the $15-18MM range for his remaining two arbitration seasons. Tacking on three years beyond that would seem a reasonable target for the Reds, though given his age, Winker’s reps might advocate for a longer deal over one that sends him back to the market as a 33-year-old. Mid-range corner outfielders like Josh Reddick and Avisail Garcia have reached/topped $13MM annual salaries on four-year deals in recent years. Castellanos received a $16MM annual salary on his first deal with the Reds — the same AAV the Astros gave to a much older but nonetheless productive bat-first player, Michael Brantley. Winker’s production should put him closer to Castellanos territory than Reddick/Garcia territory.
These are all generalities, of course, but a five- or six-year deal that values Winker’s free-agent seasons in the $16MM vicinity doesn’t seem outlandish. After all, were he to go year-to-year and continue at his current pace, he’d hit the market in advance of his age-30 season and could justifiably seek an annual salary more in line with whatever Schwarber and Castellanos land post-lockout.
Ultimately, the Reds could opt for the conservative route, holding onto their left fielder and going year-to-year with Winker through the remainder of his arbitration eligibility. If they’re truly willing to listen to offers on their top three starters, though, there’s little sense in not doing the same with Winker — unless an extension is expected down the line. Based on the team’s spending habits since the close of the 2020 season, an extension would register as a surprise. Perhaps it’s a hard “no” from the Reds, but listening to offers on Gray, Castillo and Mahle while turning away interest in Winker would be an odd line to draw in the sand.
Orioles Expected To Pursue Catching, Pitching Depth After Lockout
There’s no end to the lockout in sight, but all 30 teams — even those who aren’t/weren’t planning to be overly active in free agency — will have to work at an accelerated pace coming out of the lockout. With that in mind, Roch Kubatko of MASNsports.com takes a look at what’s typically a busy month for the Orioles, who in recent years have been quite active in February. Beyond recapping some of the team’s February dealings in recent years, Kubatko suggests that the O’s are likely to pursue additional depth both behind the plate and in the starting rotation.
Baltimore has already added a pair of catchers on minor league deals this winter, signing both Anthony Bemboom and Jacob Nottingham (an Astros draftee during current Baltimore GM Mike Elias’ first season as scouting director in Houston). Elias “isn’t averse” to a big league deal for another catcher, per Kubatko, though what was already a thin market for veteran backstops has been largely picked over.
Of course, given that the Orioles are widely expected to give 2019 No. 1 overall draft pick Adley Rutschman his MLB debut at some point in the 2022 season, any catching additions would only be in the backup mold anyhow. Veterans such as Robinson Chirinos, Kurt Suzuki and Austin Romine are among the yet-unsigned backstops awaiting the lockout’s resolution, and any would ostensibly make sense as an early-season starter to hold the fort down until Rutschman debuts.
Rutschman, the No. 1 prospect in all of baseball according to both Baseball America and Keith Law of The Athletic, is fresh off a season in which he posted a combined .285/.397/.502 with 23 homers, 25 doubles and a pair of triples in 543 plate appearances between Double-A and Triple-A. The switch-hitter, who’s set to turn 24 this weekend, is arguably ready for a big league look right out of the gate, though most teams tend to delay the debuts of prospects of this caliber in order to secure an additional year of club control.
As currently constructed, the service time system would only require the O’s to keep Rutschman in Triple-A for just over two weeks in order to push his entry into the free-agent market back from the 2027-28 offseason to the 2028-29 offseason. It’s a natural call for a front office from a business standpoint, but the simplicity with which teams can delay a top prospect’s free agency is one of the many topics the MLBPA sought to discuss heading into labor negotiations this winter.
On the pitching side of things, the outlook is far more open. The O’s do still have a pair of highly touted top prospects — righty Grayson Rodriguez and lefty D.L. Hall — who could debut in 2022, but the current lack of depth could create opportunities. John Means and veteran Jordan Lyles, who agreed to a one-year deal just before the lockout, are locks for rotation gigs early in the season. Beyond that pair, Baltimore has already gotten looks at Dean Kremer, Bruce Zimmermann, Keegan Akin, Zac Lowther, Alexander Wells and (briefly) Mike Baumann in the big leagues. Prospect Kyle Bradish had a nice 2021 season between Double-A and Triple-A as well.
The O’s aren’t necessarily lacking options, which is likely why Kubatko suggests that any veteran additions at this point would likely be on minor league deals with non-roster invites to camp. The O’s have worked out such deals regularly in recent years (e.g. Matt Harvey, Wade LeBlanc, Tommy Milone), and at least one more addition along those same lines would further deepen the pool of rotation candidates and help to keep the team from overworking up-and-coming arms. Such signings can also net trade candidates at the deadline, and if the player in question has fewer than five years of MLB service (Jakob Junis, for example), there’s always the possibility of retaining them via arbitration next winter — should things go well.
There’s also plenty of fluidity in the infield, where the O’s are currently looking at some combination of Rougned Odor, Jahmai Jones, Ramon Urias, Kelvin Gutierrez, Rylan Bannon and Jorge Mateo to shoulder the load at second base, shortstop and third base. There’s ample room for a veteran addition here, but it’s worth noting that the largest deal for a free-agent position player under Elias has been Jose Iglesias‘ $3MM deal prior to the 2020 season. A large splash isn’t likely, even if the O’s are currently only projected for a payroll in the $60MM range.
Giants Agree To Minor League Deals With Luis Ortiz, Wei-Chieh Huang
The Giants have agreed to minor league contracts with free-agent right-handers Luis Ortiz and Wei-Chieh Huang, as indicated on the team’s official transactions log at MLB.com.
Both righties have a bit of big league experience, with Ortiz’s 2019 showing in Baltimore standing as the most recent. He’s tallied just 5 2/3 innings in the big leagues, all with the Orioles, and yielded eight runs on 11 hits and eight walks in that time. It’s not an especially impressive showing, but it’s a tiny sample of work for Ortiz, who notably ranked among the game’s top 100 prospects from 2016-17 in the estimation of Baseball America, Baseball Prospectus and MLB.com. He’s the second former top prospect added by the Giants in recent weeks, joining righty Jorge Guzman in that regard.
A former Rangers farmhand, Ortiz has been involved in a pair of notable trades — going from Texas to Milwaukee in the Jonathan Lucroy/Jeremy Jeffress deal before being flipped from Milwaukee to Baltimore as part of the return for Jonathan Schoop. At his prospect peak, Ortiz was praised for a mid-90s fastball, a plus slider and strong command, all of which gave him the upside of a mid-rotation starter.
Ortiz dealt with elbow and forearm troubles early in his pro career, however, and he’s only reached 100 innings in a single season (when he threw 102 between Double-A, Triple-A and Baltimore). He returned to the Rangers on a minor league deal for the 2021 season and worked primarily out of the bullpen in Triple-A Round Rock, where he posted a 4.60 ERA, a 23.4% strikeout rate and a 9.0% walk rate in 43 innings. Ortiz is still just 26 and has had solid results up through the Double-A level, but it’s been a rough go of it for him both in Triple-A and in the Majors.
Huang, 28, reached the bigs with Texas back in 2018 — albeit only for a brief 5 2/3-inning look. He held opponents to a pair of earned runs but also surrendered eight hits and five walks during that short-lived stint. Wang wasn’t with a Major League player pool in 2020, when there was no minor league season, and he didn’t pitch in affiliated ball last year either. However, he’s rattled off three perfect innings in the Dominican Winter League this year, fanning five hitters along the way. He’ll join the Giants org with a career 3.37 minor league ERA in addition to a strong 28.2% strikeout rate and an 8.7% walk rate.
White Sox Hire Nicky Delmonico As Minor League Hitting Coach
Former White Sox outfielder/designated hitter Nicky Delmonico has rejoined the organization — but not as a player. The ChiSox announced this morning that the 29-year-old Delmonico will be the new hitting coach for their Class-A Advanced affiliate. Delmonico hadn’t made a formal announcement of his retirement, but it seems as though at least for now, he’s moving to another phase of the game.
A sixth-round pick by the Orioles back in 2011, Delmonico was traded to the Brewers in a 2013 swap that sent Francisco Rodriguez to Baltimore. After that K-Rod trade, Delmonico spent a couple seasons in the Brewers organization but never advanced beyond Class-A Advanced before being cut loose. He latched on as a minor league free agent with the White Sox the following offseason and righted the ship with solid showings at Double-A and Triple-A in 2015-16.
By 2017, Delmonico had been called up for his big league debut, turning some heads with a .262/.373/.482 showing through 166 plate appearances as a 25-year-old rookie. He’d spend parts of the next three seasons with the South Siders but was never able to recapture that rookie form. On the whole, Delmonico logged 574 plate appearances in the Majors and batted .224/.312/.384 with 18 home runs, 17 doubles and five triples. Delmonico was a better hitter in the upper minors, slashing .274/.342/.487 in parts of three Double-A seasons and .259/.342/.421 in parts of five Triple-A seasons.
Delmonico is the latest recent big leaguer to join the ChiSox’ minor league coaching ranks. The Sox hired Danny Farquhar as their Class-A Advanced pitching coach for the 2021 season and named former big league corner infielder Chris Johnson their Triple-A hitting coach in Dec. 2020. Former ChiSox infielder Chris Getz, meanwhile, heads up the team’s player development department and was elevated to assistant GM a year ago.
MLB Names Omar Minaya Consultant For Amateur Scouting Initiatives
Major League Baseball announced this morning that former Expos and Mets general manager Omar Minaya has been named a league consultant who’ll focus on amateur scouting initiatives. According to the press release, Minaya will “advise MLB’s Baseball Operations Department regarding both domestic and international scouting initiatives” and “represent MLB with key stakeholders across amateur baseball and at industry events.”
“Omar is a highly respected figure across our sport who will help shape our future initiatives in the amateur space,” commissioner Rob Manfred said in a statement within today’s press release. “We are pleased that he will provide his scouting expertise and experience as a senior executive with multiple MLB Clubs. We welcome Omar and look forward to his contributions.”
Minaya, 63, broke into baseball operations as a scout with the Rangers in the mid-1980s. Most notably, he served as GM in Montreal from 2002-04 before rejoining the Mets (where he’d been an assistant GM) as their general manager from 2004-10. From there, he’d go on to work as a senior vice president of baseball operations with the Padres and eventually as a senior advisor to MLBPA executive director Tony Clark. Most recently, Minaya has again been working with the Mets — first as a special assistant to Sandy Alderson and then in an ambassadorship role.
“For four decades, scouting has been a true passion of mine,” Minaya said in a statement of his own. “It is an honor for me to assist Major League Baseball to ensure the scouting industry remains the lifeblood of this game. As baseball evolves, scouting has changed, and I’m excited to be part of how the industry moves forward in scouting players.”
Kumar Rocker Could Pitch In Independent League Before Re-Entering MLB Draft
Right-hander Kumar Rocker, whom the Mets selected with the No. 10 overall pick last summer but ultimately did not sign, is now mulling the idea of pitching with an independent team before re-entering the 2022 draft, Vanderbilt coach Tim Corbin tells Aria Gerson of The Tennessean.
Prior to the 2021 college season, Rocker and teammate Jack Leiter were both among the many names rumored to be in consideration for the No. 1 overall selection in the draft. He instead “fell” to the tenth overall selection — Louisville catcher Henry Davis went first overall to the Pirates; Leiter went second to the Rangers — and within hours of the draft was expected finalize an over-slot agreement with the Mets. Rocker’s No. 10 slot came with a value of more than $4.7MM, but the Mets were said to be preparing to sign the righty for a $6MM bonus that was more commensurate with his potential top-of-the-draft status.
However, as the signing deadline approached weeks later, the reports emerged that the Mets had elbow concerns following Rocker’s physical. A contract was never finalized, and Rocker went unsigned. Then-general manager Zack Scott stated after the fact that failing to reach a deal was “clearly not the outcome we had hoped for,” adding that the team “wish[ed] Kumar nothing but success moving forward.” Rocker’s advisor, Scott Boras, issued his own statement at the time, wherein he declared that “independent medical review by multiple prominent baseball orthopedic surgeons” had proven Rocker to be healthy. The Mets received the No. 11 pick in the 2022 draft as compensation for not signing Rocker.
Whatever triggered the Mets’ concern, it hasn’t resulted in any major physical setbacks for Rocker since the draft. There’s no indication that surgery was ever required, and Corbin tells Gerson that Rocker, who did not return to pitch for the Commodores in his senior season, “looks as good as he’s ever looked” and appears to be in good health.
Rocker’s path to reentering the draft would be uncommon but not unheard of. Back in 2005, after right-hander Luke Hochevar controversially chose not sign with the Dodgers following his No. 40 selection, he went on to pitch for the Fort Worth Cats of the independent American Association in the spring of 2006. The Royals selected Hochevar with the No. 1 overall pick in 2006.
A similar scenario unfolded with right-hander Aaron Crow, who did not sign with the Nationals after being selected ninth overall in 2008. Crow signed with the Fort Worth Cats and was selected 12th overall by Kansas City in 2009. Back in 1997, outfielder J.D. Drew followed the indie ball path after choosing not to sign with the Phillies. More recently, righty Carter Stewart signed a six-year contract worth more than $7MM with the SoftBank Hawks in Japan after failing to come to an agreement with the Braves, who’d selected him at No. 8 overall in 2018. As with Rocker, medical concerns following the player’s physical derailed talks between Atlanta and Stewart.
It’s anyone’s guess how the entire gambit will work out for Rocker — if he even pitches on the independent circuit at all this season. That will largely depend on his performance and even more so on his health. So long as Rocker’s stuff looks similar to his Vandy days, he should still be viewed as a first-round talent. The 6’5″, 245-pound righty was dominant with the Commodores in 2021, after all, pitching to a 2.73 ERA with 179 strikeouts and 39 walks through 122 innings (36.5% strikeout rate, 7.9% walk rate). Scouting reports on Rocker credit him with a plus fastball that can reach the upper-90s, a plus-plus slider (70 on the 20-80 scale) and an average or better changeup.
Julio Borbon Joins Twins’ Player Development Staff
Former big league outfielder Julio Borbon, who’s been coaching and managing in the Yankees’ minor league system since his retirement, announced this week that he’s accepted a new position on the Twins’ player development staff (Twitter link). He’ll serve as the team’s new assistant coordinator of player development as he takes the next step in his post-playing career within the game.
Borbon, 36 next month, thanked the Yankees for “[providing] me with the right culture and structure to start my coaching career.” He originally joined the Yankees organization for the 2019 season and has since served as a defensive/baserunning coach before moving up to manage the Yankees’ Florida Coast League affiliate in 2021. Borbon, who spent the bulk of his playing days with the Rangers, is likely quite familiar with Twins general manager Thad Levine, who was an assistant general manager in Texas during Borbon’s time there.
Borbon spent parts of five seasons playing in the Majors, logging time with the Rangers, Cubs and Orioles along the way. In 294 games and 878 plate appearances, he posted a .273/.318/.347 batting line with eight homers, 19 doubles, eight triples and 47 stolen bases. Best known for his speed and ability to play all three outfield positions, Borbon also compiled a .294/.345/.384 batting line in parts of nine minor league seasons before retiring as a player after a 2018 campaign spent on the independent circuit.
Cardinals Sign Aaron Brooks To Minor League Deal
The Cardinals announced Monday that they’ve signed righty Aaron Brooks to a minor league deal. The Paragon Sports International client received a non-roster invitation to Major League Spring Training. He was eligible to sign a minor league during the lockout by virtue of the fact that he was a minor league free agent returning from a stint overseas.
Brooks, 31, is a veteran of four big league seasons but has spent the 2020-21 seasons in the Korea Baseball Organization, where he’s notched a tidy 2.79 ERA in 229 1/3 innings for the Kia Tigers. While Brooks hasn’t missed many bats pitching overseas — he posted a rather pedestrian 20.1% strikeout rate — he’s demonstrated excellent command and posted practically inhuman ground-ball rates. Brooks has walked just 4.4% of his opponents in the KBO, and it’s hard to think of a much better team to take advantage of his outrageous 78.4% ground-ball rate than the defensively stout Cardinals.
This past season, St. Louis had a staggering five Gold Glove winners, including three in the infield: first baseman Paul Goldschmidt, second baseman Tommy Edman and third baseman Nolan Arenado. Shortstop Paul DeJong had a rough season offensively that cost him some reps in the infield as the Cards looked to get more offense into the lineup, but DeJong is regarded as a standout defender himself — evidenced by last year’s plus-6 Defensive Runs Saved and a career plus-36 mark in 4366 innings at the position.
Royals, A’s and Orioles fans may remember Brooks for his big league work across those three franchises. A ninth-round pick by Kansas City back in 2011, he made his MLB debut with K.C. in 2014-15 but was traded to the A’s alongside Sean Manaea in the swap that brought Ben Zobrist to the 2015 World Series champion Royals.
The A’s wound up trading Brooks to the Cubs in exchange for Chris Coghlan back in 2016, setting off a sequence of scenery changes for Brooks over the next several years. He went from Chicago to Milwaukee via waivers, and the Brewers traded him back to Oakland in exchange for cash. Brooks’ second stint with the A’s lasted about a half season, as the Orioles claimed him on waivers the following summer and, after the 2019 campaign, released him to allow him to pursue his KBO opportunity.
While making the rounds on the trade/waiver circuit, Brooks appeared in 47 big league games and tallied 170 2/3 frames with an uninspiring 6.49 ERA. He was never much of a ground-ball pitcher during his prior stints in the big leagues, so it seems he’s done some work to reinvent his approach on the mound while pitching in South Korea. If he’s able to replicate that KBO success in Triple-A, it’s likely the Cardinals will find a way to get him onto the big league roster in 2022.
The Cards already have a full rotation, but adding some depth along these lines was a clear need. Jack Flaherty, Adam Wainwright, Dakota Hudson, Miles Mikolas and offseason signee Steven Matz are set to occupy the top five spots in the St. Louis rotation, but a lack of starting depth nearly sunk the 2021 Cards when they saw their entire rotation outside of Wainwright hit the IL by June. Brooks joins in-house options like Jake Woodford, Johan Oviedo, T.J. Zeuch and Angel Rondon on the depth chart, and the Cards are surely also hopeful that prospects Matthew Liberatore and Zack Thompson can reach the Majors in 2022.