Click here to read a transcript of Tuesday’s chat with MLBTR’s Steve Adams.
Phillies, Bryan Mitchell Agree To Minor League Deal
The Phillies have agreed to a minor league contract with free-agent righty Bryan Mitchell, reports Jayson Stark of The Athletic (via Twitter). He’ll presumably be invited to big league Spring Training.
Mitchell, 29, hasn’t appeared in the Majors since a disappointing stint with the Padres in 2018. The Friars effectively purchased Mitchell from the Yankees, agreeing to take on the remainder of Chase Headley’s four-year contract in order to land four years of control over Mitchell. The hope was that Mitchell could function as a viable fourth starter in San Diego, but he was hammered for a 5.42 ERA and an even uglier 5.89 SIERA with more walks (43) than strikeouts (38) in 73 innings of work. Headley, meanwhile, was released in mid-May after 60 plate appearances.
In 2019, Mitchell was dropped from the Padres’ 40-man roster prior to Opening Day. He didn’t fare well in Triple-A that year either, allowing more than a run per inning over 44 frames. Prior to that implosion in 2018-19, however, Mitchell had showed some promise. He carried a 3.18 ERA in just shy of 200 innings at the Triple-A level and had some decent big league outings, albeit without consistency (4.94 ERA through his first 98 1/3 MLB frames).
Mitchell latched on with the White Sox for the 2020 season but didn’t earn a promotion from their alternate site prior to being released in late August. Overall, he carries a 5.15 ERA and a nearly identical 5.20 SIERA in 171 1/3 big league innings. Mitchell doesn’t miss bats (13 percent strikeout rate) but does carry a 50 percent ground-ball rate. Philadelphia skipper Joe Girardi surely knows Mitchell well after managing him for parts of four seasons with the Yankees, which surely played a part in this match.
Phillies president of baseball operations Dave Dombrowski has spoken recently of bringing in some veteran rotation depth on non-roster deals, and Mitchell gives them one such player. It’s certainly possible that further additions along these lines will be made in the weeks to come as more experienced starters ultimately settle for lesser deals with Spring Training looming.
Cactus League Informs MLB Of Desire To Delay Start Of Spring Training
Less than a month before players are set to report to Spring Training, Arizona’s Cactus League has submitted a formal request to commissioner Rob Manfred asking that the start of Spring Training be delayed due to the Covid-19 infection rate in Maricopa County (Twitter link via Brahm Resnick of 12 News in Arizona). The Cactus League itself does not have the authority to delay the start of Spring Training, but its formal request figures to elicit a response from the commissioner’s office.
“Amid the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic, the Cactus League has formed a task force to ensure that our 10 spring training facilities are prepared to host the 2021 spring training season in a manner that is safe for all involved,” executive director Bridget Binsbacher wrote in a letter co-signed by nine other key members of the Cactus League. “We stand ready to work with you on the final preparation and outcome to begin the season. … But in the view of the current state of the pandemic in Maricopa County — with one of the nation’s highest infection rates — we believe it wise to delay the start of spring training to allow for the Covid-19 situation to improve here.”
The county’s appeal, however, doesn’t figure to have an effect on policy unless the players change their position – and on this issue they have been clear. In response to the letter from the Cactus League, the MLBPA released its own statement, reiterating their desire (and insistence) to start on time. “Although we have not received any communication directly, the MLBPA is aware of a letter that has been distributed today by the Cactus League Association,” the letter begins. It goes on to say, “The letter correctly notes that MLB does not have the ability to unilaterally make this decision.”
In negotiating the rules and conditions for the 2021 season, the MLBPA has been staunch in their desire to play a full season, which logistically necessitates a regularly-scheduled spring session under most if not all scenarios under consideration. For there to be any movement on the players’ part, owners and the league would have to account for the money that players would lose by delaying and truncating the season. This may be the players’ greatest point of leverage, and it’s not one they appear willing to compromise without considerable concessions on the league’s part. For what it’s worth, the NHL is currently active in Glendale with fans in the stands, notes Susan Slusser of the San Francisco Chronicle. Glendale was one of the cities to sign the letter sent to the league.
There are basically two scenarios that could result in a delayed Spring Training. The first would be the local health crisis growing dire enough such that health officials mandate restrictions that conflict with the league’s ability to open camps. Considering the already-dire nature of the crisis at present, this isn’t considered a particularly likely outcome. The other possibility is the MLB and the MLBPA deciding together that a delay of camp is the proper course of action.
Pirates Sign Joe Hudson To Minor League Deal
The Pirates announced Monday that they’ve signed catcher Joe Hudson to a minor league contract and invited him to Major League Spring Training.
Hudson, 29, spent the 2020 season with the Mariners and appeared in nine big league games, going 3-for-17 with a pair of walks and five strikeouts in 20 trips to the plate. That marked Hudson’s third straight season with at least a taste of the Major Leagues, although both the nine games and 20 plate appearances were career-highs for the journeyman backstop. Overall, he’s a .167/.219/.200 hitter in a minuscule sample of 33 plate appearances.
Beyond his limited big league time, Hudson has logged 102 games at the Triple-A level, batting .249/.323/.411 with 13 homers, 14 doubles and a triple in 383 plate appearances. He’s thwarted a whopping 43 percent of the 505 stolen base attempts against him in the minors since being drafted by the Reds in the sixth round back in 2012, and Baseball Prospectus gives him generally strong marks both in terms of pitch framing and pitch blocking.
Jacob Stallings and Michael Perez are the only two catchers on Pittsburgh’s 40-man roster at the moment, and they lack an MLB-ready prospect behind the dish. Hudson joins fellow non-roster invitee Andrew Susac and 2017 fourth-rounder Jason Delay as depth options for the Bucs who could see action in Triple-A. Delay hasn’t played above Double-A yet and struggled there in 2019, hitting .234/.286/.398 in 67 games.
Latest On Universal DH, Expanded Playoffs
The Major League Baseball Players Association rejected the league’s most recent proposal to implement a universal designated hitter, The Athletic’s Ken Rosenthal reported this morning in a larger, broad-reaching look at the issues facing the two parties. MLB offered up a universal DH and a willingness to rule in favor of two players on a pair of service time grievances, per Rosenthal, but in exchange they sought an agreement on expanded playoffs, the implementation of a pitch clock and a Spring Training trial run with electronic strike zones, among other elements.
The lack of clarity on whether there will be a DH in the National League next season continues to serve as a major impediment for teams and for some free agents alike. Nelson Cruz and Marcell Ozuna, in particular, can’t fully get a grasp on their markets until they know whether the NL will carry a DH. Meanwhile, NL teams are left to build a lineup and a roster without knowing whether they’ll have a spot for an extra hitter.
The MLBPA clearly doesn’t view the addition of a designated hitter in the National League to be as advantageous to its side as the expansion of playoffs is to the league. That’s plenty understandable, given that most clubs no longer employ expensive, dedicated designated hitters and that the expansion of playoff teams would create far more revenue for the league than for its players.
Rosenthal notes that MLB’s latest offer included an extra $30MM or so to be divided up among players — up from $50MM in 2020’s expanded field — but team-side revenues would increase on a much greater basis. Under the traditional structure (i.e. pre-2020), players’ postseason shares are tied to gate revenue, while teams collect 100 percent of television revenues. Last year, in the absence of fans, players agreed to an expanded, 16-team playoff field that saw $50MM of television revenues divided among players.
From the players’ vantage point, postseason expansion is a double-edged sword. A greater chance to play in October could very well be appealing, but there are likely some who (like many fans) worry about “watering down” the field. Of greater concern is the manner in which postseason expansion could also impact free agency. The league would surely argue that increasing the field will motivate borderline clubs to spend more on the open market, thus making it a win for the players.
However, the opposite effect could also play out as well; if the bar to reach the postseason is lowered, some clubs won’t feel as compelled to spend for an extra couple of wins to push themselves over the top. The margin for error is much greater when nearly half (or even more than half) of the teams in the game qualify for postseason play than it is when only a third of clubs do. That’s especially true when at any given point, there are a handful of teams tanking and actively doing everything they can not to win games.
At the end of the day, there’s a substantial disconnect between the extent to which the league and the union feel the universal DH will benefit players. The MLBPA knows that playoff expansion, and the associated revenues, is a massive bargaining chip to leverage in current talks and in the looming talks for a new CBA. That seems too large a concession to make in exchange for the universal DH — particularly because the commissioner’s office also wants a DH implemented in the National League.
Rob Manfred has continually sought to increase in-game action, and considering the fact that pitchers posted a combined .128/.160/.162 batting line with a 44 percent strikeout rate in 2019, swapping them out for a competent hitter would help with that goal. Of course, many traditionalists abhor the very notion of the designated hitter and are overwhelmingly against its implementation in the National League, but at this point it feels like an inevitability — whether that implementation comes in 2021 or in 2022.
As labor lawyer Eugene Freedman (who recently chatted with MLBTR’s Tim Dierkes about the CBA) points out on Twitter, the very framing of this scenario as a negotiation is somewhat misleading. The two sides already have an agreement in place in the form of the 2016-21 CBA, and the union is under no obligation to renegotiate that agreement simply because the league is now making a push for an expanded postseason format.
The MLBPA’s latest rejection doesn’t mean that the two sides won’t eventually agree to something, of course. The league is obviously very motivated to expand the upcoming postseason field and grow its postseason revenues, so perhaps they’ll put together a more enticing offer. We saw in 2020 that the two sides are willing to come back to the table at the last minute, as 2020’s expanded postseason format was agreed upon about three hours prior to the first pitch being thrown on Opening Day.
Yankees Trade Adam Ottavino To Red Sox
1:15pm: The teams have announced the trade.
11:45am: In an ultra-rare swap between AL East rivals, the Yankees have reportedly traded right-hander Adam Ottavino to the Red Sox in exchange for cash or a player to be named later. Boston will receive Ottavino and minor league right-hander Frank German from the Yankees in a move that amounts to a salary dump for the Yanks and the purchase of pitching prospect and a bullpen rebound candidate for the Red Sox.
After acquiring Jameson Taillon from the Pirates and agreeing to terms with DJ LeMahieu and Corey Kluber, the Yankees found themselves with roughly one million dollars separating them from the tax threshold, per Roster Resource’s Jason Martinez. Ottavino came with a $9MM luxury hit by virtue of the three-year, $27MM free-agent deal he signed two years ago, and the Yankees will now shave the bulk of that sum from their luxury obligations. ESPN’s Buster Olney reports that they’re sending $850K to the Red Sox as part of the deal, so the Yankees are freeing up $8.15MM of luxury breathing room.
That space will prove vital, given ownership’s apparent mandate that the front office stay under the tax threshold. The Yankees have recently spoken to Brett Gardner’s camp about a reunion, and the club could yet be in the hunt for affordable rotation depth even after adding Kluber and Taillon. Both are coming off injury-ruined 2020 seasons, after all, and the rest of the team’s rotation comes with similar workload concerns.
The trade between the two teams is the first in six and a half years, when they swapped Stephen Drew and Kelly Johnson in 2014. MLB.com’s Mark Feinsand points out that this is only the second trade that Yankees GM Brian Cashman has ever made with his organization’s top rival.
While finances are the clear driving factor in this trade, it’s unlikely the Yankees would’ve made the move had Ottavino not struggled through a dismal showing in last year’s shortened season. The 35-year-old appeared in 24 games but totaled just 18 1/3 innings of work, yielding a dozen runs on 20 hits and nine walks with 25 punchouts in that time. Ottavino’s 5.89 ERA was his highest since debuting as a rookie with the Cardinals back in 2010, although fielding-independent metrics were more bullish on his work (3.52 FIP, 3.62 SIERA).
Control has never been a strong point for Ottavino, but he dropped his walk rate from 13.8 percent in 2017-19 to 10.6 percent last year. It’s easy to call his ERA a result of a sky-high .375 average on ball in play, but Ottavino’s struggles appeared to be more than a function of simple bad luck. In spite of his improved control, the right-hander’s strikeout rate dipped a bit (31.5 percent to 29.4 percent), and Ottavino yielded hard contact at a career-high rate (90.6 mph average exit velocity; 50 percent hard-hit rate). Ottavino was a high-quality reliever as recently as 2018-19 between the Rockies and Yankees, however, when he logged a combined 2.19 ERA and 33.8 percent strikeout rate through 144 innings of work.
Boston surely hopes that Ottavino will return to form, but the Sox are also using available payroll flexibility to add a pitcher who isn’t viewed as being too far from MLB-ready. The 23-year-old German was a fourth-round pick out of college and a late riser on draft boards in 2018, as Eric Longenhagen wrote last year at FanGraphs. German added muscle to a projectable frame between his junior and senior years of college and saw his velocity spike late in the 2018 NCAA season. He’s continued to add velocity in pro ball, per Longenhagen, though there are concerns about his secondary offerings. MLB.com previously ranked German 24th among Yankees prospects, so he’ll settle somewhere into the middle tiers of the Red Sox’ rankings now.
In many ways underscores, this unexpected trade speaks to how both clubs view Boston’s chances of competing in 2021. If the Red Sox genuinely expected to compete for a division title, would they help the Yankees by giving them further payroll space to operate underneath the tax threshold? And if the Yankees viewed the Red Sox as a threat, would they risk sending a talented reliever — albeit one in need of a rebound — to their nemesis? The optics of a revitalized Ottavino playing a key role in a Red Sox bullpen that marches to the postseason would be brutal for the Yankees.
That’s not to write off the Red Sox entirely, of course. There’s still a very talented core group of players in Boston, but the team’s chances of contending in 2021 are largely dependent on a number of unknown elements breaking their way. The Sox don’t yet know how Chris Sale will look in his return from Tommy John surgery, for instance, nor are they certain what they can expect from Eduardo Rodriguez after he missed the 2020 season due to Covid-19 and a subsequent myocarditis diagnosis. Key lineup pieces like J.D. Martinez and Andrew Benintendi are in search of their own rebounds after downturns in 2020, and the Sox lack proven options at first base, in the back of the rotation and the back of the bullpen. Ottavino merely adds another question mark to that lengthy list.
Lindsey Adler of The Athletic first reported (via Twitter) that Ottavino had been traded to Boston. The New York Post’s Joel Sherman added details on the other elements of the swap.
Yankees Have Resumed Discussions With Brett Gardner
The Yankees recently “rekindled” their discussions about a reunion with outfielder Brett Gardner, per Jack Curry of the YES Network (Twitter link), who adds that he expects a deal to eventually be reached. ESPN’s Buster Olney noted last week that the Yankees still hoped to bring Gardner back.
New York still hasn’t formally announced DJ LeMahieu’s reported six-year, $90MM contract, but between that signing, Corey Kluber’s $11MM agreement (also not yet formally announced) and this weekend’s acquisition of right-hander Jameson Taillon, the Yanks are quite close to the $210MM luxury tax barrier. A reunion with Gardner probably wouldn’t cost more than a few million dollars, however, and the club seems likely to be able to find a way to stay south of the threshold if that indeed remains an ownership goal.
The 37-year-old Gardner has spent his entire 13-year Major League career with the Yankees. In 2020, he put together a .223/.354/.392 batting line. That .223 mark was a career-low batting average, due in part to a career-high 22.2 percent strikeout rate, but Gardner’s results in last year’s short sample weren’t all bad. His 16.5 percent walk rate was a career-high by a wide margin, and Statcast also credited Gardner with career-best marks in hard-hit rate (36.5 percent), average exit velocity (89.2 mph) and barreled balls (5.2 percent). Gardner’s 76 percent contact rate was the lowest of his career, but he also chased pitches outside the strike zone at his lowest rate since 2010 and, as a result, made better contact when he did put the the bat on the ball.
The Yankees’ outfield figures to be filled on a regular basis by Aaron Judge, Aaron Hicks and Clint Frazier, with primary designated hitter Giancarlo Stanton cycling into the corners at times as well. New York has lefty-hitting Mike Tauchman on the 40-man roster as well, and he’s out of minor league options, so he’ll need to break the Opening Day roster or else be designated for assignment or traded elsewhere. Taucman, though, hit .242/.342/.305 in 111 plate appearances last year, showing none of the pop he displayed in a breakout 2019 campaign.
Astros Sign Jason Castro
TODAY: The contract breaks down as a $2MM signing bonus, then $2.5MM salaries in both 2021 and 2022, Chandler Rome of the Houston Chronicle reports (Twitter link). For every 10 games played as a catcher next season, Castro will add another $250K to his 2022 salary.
JAN. 22: The Astros have announced the signing.
JAN. 21, 8:42am: USA Today’s Bob Nightengale tweets that the contract will guarantee Castro a total of $7MM. Castro can earn up to an additional $2MM based on time spent behind the plate in 2021, tweets ESPN’s Jeff Passan.
8:25am: Chandler Rome of the Houston Chronicle reports that Castro’s contract is actually a two-year deal.
8:01am: The Astros have agreed to a one-year contract with free-agent backstop Jason Castro, Ken Rosenthal and Jake Kaplan of The Athletic report (via Twitter). The ISE Baseball client’s contract is pending a physical.
The two sides were originally reported to be in talks late in December, but those negotiations slowed as Castro continued to survey the market. Along the way, the Cubs and the Tigers (managed by Castro’s former skipper, A.J. Hinch) emerged as potential alternatives. Now, however, a physical is all that stands in the way between Castro and a return to the organization that originally selected him with the No. 10 overall draft pick out of Stanford back in 2008.
Castro, 33, has been away from the Astros for four seasons — most of that time spent with the Twins organization. Minnesota signed Castro to a three-year, $24.5MM contract after the 2017 season due largely to his superlative pitch-framing skills and his knack for drawing walks at the plate. He had a solid 2017 season as the Twins’ primary backstop but missed nearly all of the 2018 campaign due to meniscus surgery. He returned in 2019 to have another productive year while splitting time evenly with breakout catcher Mitch Garver.
That strong showing from Garver in ’19 likely convinced the Twins they could move on, and Castro landed in Anaheim on a one-year deal with the Angels. He struggled at the plate in a tiny sample of 92 plate appearances between the Angels and the Padres, who acquired him prior to the Aug. 31 trade deadline this past summer.
All in all, Castro has batted .224/.322/.389 in 848 plate appearances since leaving the Astros — numbers that fall roughly in line with his career .230/.312/.390 batting line. He’s unlikely to ever hit for a high average due to his strikeout tendencies, but Castro has a career 10.1 percent walk rate (11.7 percent over the past four years) and has a bit of pop in his bat (.164 ISO, 26 homers, 43 doubles from 2017-20).
Defensive aptitude has been the driving factor behind Castro’s value in the market, though he’s been closer to average with the glove as he’s moved into his mid-30s and had to deal with the effects of that 2018 knee surgery. Castro has been just about average in terms of throwing out base thieves in the four years since leaving Houston, but his framing numbers have dropped off a bit, more recently, he’s struggled with regard to blocking pitches in the dirt. Of course, it’s also possible that as he further distances himself from that knee operation, he’ll regain some of his prior form.
In his return to Houston, Castro figures to pair with the right-handed-hitting Martin Maldonado behind the dish, giving manager Dusty Baker the opportunity to play matchups with a pair of solid defenders. Kaplan tweets that a straight platoon isn’t likely — Maldonado will start more often — although at least from an offensive standpoint, such an idea wouldn’t be a bad one. Castro is a career .195/.262/.291 hitter against lefties but a much-improved .242/.328/.421 hitter against righties. Maldonado, meanwhile, carries a 33-point gap in his OPS against lefties over righties (and a nine-point gap in his wRC+). He’s just a .213/.288/.353 career hitter against righties.
Houston may not generate huge offensive output from its pair of backstops. That’s true of most clubs throughout the league, however, and most pairings don’t have the sound defensive track records that both Castro and Maldonado possess. Besides — catchers, on the whole, have been about 10 to 15 percent worse than a league-average hitter over the past four years, so the ’Stros can certainly live with the level of offense provided by Castro and Maldonado if both play defense at their typically steady levels.
Nationals Re-Sign Ryan Zimmerman
TODAY: The Nats officially announced Zimmerman’s return. USA Today’s Bob Nightengale tweets that Zimmerman’s contract contains a full no-trade clause.
JANUARY 22: The Nationals are bringing back longtime cornerstone Ryan Zimmerman on a one-year deal worth $1MM, reports USA Today’s Bob Nightengale (Twitter link). Zimmerman opted out of the 2020 season but said last month that he hoped to play again in 2021. The Washington Post’s Barry Svrluga adds that Zimmerman’s deal is still pending a physical and carries incentives to boost his that affordable base salary. Zimmerman is a client of CAA Sports.
Zimmerman, who turned 36 in September, has been a member of the Nats organization since they took him fourth overall in the 2005 draft. He was the first pick the franchise made after relocating from Montreal, and Zimmerman has certainly lived up to the selection. Zimmerman debuted in his draft year and has since put together a .279/.343/.475 line with 270 home runs in 7129 plate appearances. The former third baseman (who’s now a first baseman) also has a pair of All-Star nods on his resume and was part of the Nationals’ only World Series-winning team in 2019.
At present, there’s no path to everyday at-bats for “Mr. National,” given the team’s December acquisition of Josh Bell and the current lack of a universal designated hitter. Zimmerman, though, could certainly form a platoon with the switch-hitting Bell, who has historically been much better from the left side of the dish. Bell is a career .271/.360/.485 hitter as a lefty but just a .232/.315/.410 batter from the right side of the dish. Zimmerman, meanwhile, has clobbered lefties throughout his 15-year MLB career: .311/.390/.527.
That said, many still expect that MLB and the MLBPA will agree to keep the designated hitter in the National League between now and Opening Day, which would obviously open up more at-bats for Zimmerman, be it as a DH himself or at first base while the defensively challenged Bell slides into the DH spot.
Cubs Sign Austin Romine
TODAY: The Cubs have officially announced the signing.
JANUARY 22, 10:31am: Romine’s deal comes with a $1.5MM guarantee, tweets Gordon Wittenmyer of NBC Sports Chicago.
10:00am: The Cubs have agreed to a one-year contract with free-agent catcher Austin Romine, reports MLB.com’s Mark Feinsand (Twitter link). The deal is still pending a physical.
Romine, 32, gives the Cubs an experienced backup option to Willson Contreras, replacing Victor Caratini, who was traded to the Padres as part of the Yu Darvish deal. Romine spent the 2020 season in Detroit — his first professional season anywhere outside the Yankees organization — but managed just a .238/.259/.323 batting line in 135 trips to the dish.
The longtime Yankees backup has never provided much in the way of offense, evidenced by a lifetime .239/.278/.361 slash through 1251 plate appearances. He did turn in a more impressive .281/.310/.439 output during his final year with the Yankees, but that production looks more like an outlier than the start of a new norm for Romine.
Defensively, Romine has generally been regarded as an above-average pitch framer, though his numbers have dipped over the past couple seasons. His career 23 percent caught-stealing rate is south of the roughly 27 percent league average, although Romine reached as high as 30 percent in that regard as recently as 2019. Baseball Prospectus typically rates him as average or better at blocking balls in the dirt.
Romine is standard-fare backup catcher who’ll give the Cubs an experienced option that allows promising youngster Miguel Amaya to open the season in the minor leagues. Should the team still move Contreras, which they’re reportedly open to doing, they’ll need to bring in another catcher, however — one with more upside and the potential to serve as a regular option.
With Romine in the fold, the Cubs’ payroll climbs, modestly, to about $145MM. They’re nowhere near the $200MM+ marks they carried over the past couple seasons (prior to prorating, of course, in 2020), but ownership’s mandate to scale back payroll has been readily apparent for quite some time now.
