Brewers Select Brad Boxberger
The Brewers announced Tuesday that they’ve selected the contract of veteran right-hander Brad Boxberger. He’ll join the club for their matchup against the Cubs and take the recently traded Orlando Arcia‘s spot on the active roster. Righty Justin Topa was transferred to the 60-day injured list to open a spot on the 40-man roster.
Boxberger, 32, is a veteran of nine big league seasons who has ample experience as both a closer and setup man. He spent the 2020 season setting up for Brandon Kintzler in Miami, pitching to a 3.00 ERA with a 22.8 percent strikeout rate and 10.1 percent walk rate. It’s been awhile since his peak at this point, but Boxberger posted a 2.94 ERA through his first 177 1/3 MLB frames from 2012-15 and led the American League with 41 saves for the 2015 Rays.
In the five seasons since that stretch, Boxberger’s entire body of work has been solid enough, but he’s lacked consistency on a year-over-year basis. He’ll look to continue last year’s success while hopefully putting a rocky Spring Training effort behind him; in nine spring frames with the Brewers, Boxberger was tagged for eight earned runs on 10 hits, although his 14-to-1 K/BB ratio was certainly more encouraging.
Brewers Trade Orlando Arcia To Braves
The Brewers and Braves have lined up on a rare, early-season trade involving three players on the teams’ respective 40-man rosters. The Brewers are sending infielder Orlando Arcia to the Braves in return for right-handed relievers Patrick Weigel and Chad Sobotka, per announcements from both teams. Weigel and Sobotka will report to the Brewers’ alternate training site.
While it’s a bit surprising to see a trade of any note taking place so early in the season, Arcia’s role with the Brewers has diminished in recent years. The hope at one point was that he’d be the long-term answer at short, but Luis Urias now looks to be the preferred option at that position for the Brew Crew. Arcia has also seen some time at third base this year, but Travis Shaw made the Brewers’ Opening Day roster and is expected to serve as the primary option at the hot corner.
Arcia is off to a 1-for-11 start to his 2021 season, but he turned in perhaps the best showing of his career last summer when he slashed .260/.317/.416 through 189 plate appearances. That said, it’s somewhat disappointing for that output to represent a career-best showing for Arcia, given that he once ranked among baseball’s top 10 overall prospects at both Baseball America and MLB.com. Arcia’s glove always gave him a decent floor, but his bat simply hasn’t come around as hoped. Through 1876 plate appearances at the big league level, he’s managed just a .244/.293/.364 batting line with 42 homers and 39 steals.
The Braves obviously don’t have a need for an everyday shortstop — Dansby Swanson has the position locked down — but Arcia gives them a utility option with a solid glove. He has 4250 career innings at shortstop, so it’s not a surprise that Atlanta would be comfortable sliding him over to either second base or third base.
Ehire Adrianza had been filling that role with the club, although there’s some uncertainty surrounding his status at the moment. Adrianza left the club to tend to a personal matter recently, and he was reportedly in the process of going through intake testing to return to the club. David O’Brien of The Athletic tweets that Adrianza is expected to return to the club by this weekend.
Arcia joins Adrianza, Johan Camargo and Pablo Sandoval as utility options off the bench for skipper Brian Snitker, although the Braves can’t carry that many backup infielders simultaneously. Both Arcia and Camargo have a minor league option remaining. Arcia is the more expensive of the two, with a $2MM salary to Camargo’s $1.36MM, and it would stand to reason that if the Braves are giving up some pitching to acquire him, he’d get the nod. At some point, the acquisition of Arcia could place the roster spot of one of the other backup infielders in jeopardy.
Depending on how things play out for Arcia in Atlanta, he could be an option for them not only in 2021 but in 2022. He currently has four-plus years of big league service, which means he’ll be controllable through the 2022 season via arbitration.
In exchange for Arcia, the Brewers will pick up a pair of optionable relievers — one of whom once rated as one of the better arms in a pitching-rich Braves system. The 26-year-old Weigel ranked ninth among Braves farmhands on Baseball America’s list back in 2017 and still checked in 14th this past offseason.
His career has been slowed by 2018 Tommy John surgery, but Weigel’s 2019 return from that procedure created some optimism. In 79 innings split between Double-A and Triple-A, the righty worked to a 2.73 ERA — albeit with less-encouraging strikeout and walk rates (21.6 percent and 12.5 percent, respectively). Weigel pitched in just one game with Atlanta last year, allowing a pair of runs in two-thirds of an inning. That’s his lone MLB appearance to date.
Sobotka, 27, has displayed a knack for missing bats but has also battled control issues in parts of three seasons with the Braves. The righty boasts a fastball that averages better than 96 mph and a career 28.8 percent strikeout rate through 47 big league innings, but he’s also walked 14.2 percent of his opponents and plunked three more.
The trade gives the Brewers some flexibility on the pitching staff in a season where most teams figure to need it more than ever before, but it also closes the book on one of the organization’s most promising farmhands in recent memory. They’ll now turn the reins over to Urias, a former top prospect himself, in hopes of better results. While Urias himself hasn’t had any real big league success yet, he’s more than three years younger than Arcia and has a vastly better track record in Triple-A, where he’s put together a .305/.403/.511 line in 867 plate appearances.
MLB Network’s Jon Heyman first reported that the Brewers were in talks to trade Arcia. FanSided’s Robert Murray reported that a deal with an unknown club had been reached. The Athletic’s Ken Rosenthal reported that the Braves were acquiring Arcia, and MLB.com’s Mark Bowman reported that Weigel and Sobotka were headed to the Brewers.
Nationals Set Opening Day Roster
After having their first four games postponed due to positive Covid-19 tests within the organization, the Nationals have announced their roster for today’s season opener. Four Nationals players are said to have tested positive, with several more in the organization being deemed close contacts who are also going through protocol. Tuesday’s announcement was accompanied by a dizzying series of roster moves, which included placing catchers Yan Gomes and Alex Avila; left-handers Patrick Corbin, Brad Hand and Jon Lester; infielders Josh Harrison and Jordy Mercer; first baseman Josh Bell; and outfielder Kyle Schwarber on the Covid-19 related injured list. Right-hander Will Harris was also placed on the 10-day injured list after his recent procedure to address a blood clot.
In a sequence of corresponding roster moves, the Nats recalled catcher Tres Barrera; right-handers Ryne Harper and Kyle McGowin; infielders Carter Kieboom and Luis Garcia; lefty Sam Clay; and outfielder Yadiel Hernandez from their alternate training site. Washington also selected the contracts of veteran catcher Jonathan Lucroy and outfielder Cody Wilson. Wilson was specifically designated as a “replacement player,” indicating that he can be removed from the 40-man roster and sent back to the minors without clearing waivers as the affected Nationals players are cleared to return to the roster.
Notably, the Nationals’ Opening Day roster includes shortstop Trea Turner — a welcome development after Turner was absent from yesterday’s workout with the team. Manager Dave Martinez tells reporters that Turner was not cleared to be on the field yesterday (Twitter link via the Washington Post’s Jesse Dougherty), so it seems he cleared protocols this morning. Turner will be joined in the Opening Day infield by Ryan Zimmerman, Hernan Perez (at second) and Starlin Castro (at third). The Nats will give Andrew Stevenson the nod in left field alongside Victor Robles and Juan Soto, while Lucroy draws the start behind the plate, catching Max Scherzer.
The Nationals will make up yesterday’s postponed contest against the Braves in a doubleheader tomorrow. It’s not yet clear when they’ll make up their three postponed games against the Mets, although given that they’re division rivals, the remainder of this season’s schedule will provide ample opportunity for those games to be played.
Latest On Anthony Rizzo, Javier Baez
The Cubs entered Spring Training hopeful of securing long-term contracts with multiple pending free agents but weren’t able to come to terms with any of Anthony Rizzo, Javier Baez or Kris Bryant. Fans in Chicago are holding out hope that some of the team’s 2016 core can be retained, but Rizzo gave little reason for optimism today when appearing on the Kap & Hood show on ESPN 1000 radio (Twitter link via Gordon Wittenmyer of NBC Sports Chicago).
Rizzo, who already indicated that he was “at peace” with the lack of progress just prior to Opening Day, said that he feels the Cubs have had a “fair” opportunity to get a deal done both in 2021 and in years past, but nothing has come together.
“I don’t see any reason for us to listen,” the first baseman said in response to the Cubs’ recent efforts. Obviously, a sizable increase in years and/or dollars would surely change that thinking, but the team’s reported initial offer — five years and $70MM, per The Athletic — didn’t get the ball rolling.
The 32-year-old Rizzo has already inked one club-friendly deal in the past and delivered considerable surplus value to the Cubs over the life of that contract. For some context, Chicago’s reported offer of $70MM clocked in at just north of half the five-year, $130MM commitment the Cardinals made to Paul Goldschmidt for what will be the same block of his career (his age-32 through age-36 seasons).
Of course, Goldschmidt was coming off a brilliant run with the D-backs at that point and had slashed .290/.389/.533 in his final season prior to being traded to St. Louis; Rizzo’s .222/.342/.414 slash in last year’s shortened season was his least-productive showing since 2013. It’s understandable both that Rizzo would feel the offer to be well below market and that the Cubs may be a bit cautious with their long-term overture after a down year in 2020. As things stand, the disconnect between the two sides seems prohibitive, although president of baseball operations Jed Hoyer said last week that he remains “confident” an accord will eventually be reached.
As for Baez, he’s not speaking in such definitive terms. The shortstop told reporters after yesterday’s game that his representatives and the Cubs continue to talk, though his personal focus is on the field at this point (links via Russell Dorsey of the Chicago Sun-Times and Jordan Bastian of MLB.com).
Baez was, however, happy to discuss Francisco Lindor‘s recent extension with the Mets and the manner in which it benefited next year’s class of shortstops. The 28-year-old called the Lindor contract “huge” for other shortstops in the game — next year’s class of free agents in particular. (Baez, Corey Seager, Trevor Story, Carlos Correa and Marcus Semien will all hit the market next winter.) “No one was going to get more than Lindor, and you’ve got to be honest about it,” Baez said. “[But] he opens doors for other people.”
Like Rizzo, Baez is attempting to put an uncharacteristically poor 2020 season in the rearview mirror. The former NL MVP runner-up batted just .203/.238/.360 through 235 plate appearances last year, but he’s not far removed from a .286/.321/.544 showing from 2018-19. Baez connected on his first homer of the season yesterday and has swiped a pair of bases already after stealing just three bags in 2020.
However, Hoyer made clear that a fast start to the year for any of their players won’t necessarily change the calculus in the team’s offers. Said Hoyer (via Dorsey): “These guys have long track records, and how a guy’s hitting in April — positively or negatively — is not going to impact our perception of that player’s value.”
MLB Moves All-Star Game Out Of Atlanta; Colorado To Host
APRIL 5, 9:00pm: Colorado will indeed host the game, per Joel Sherman of the New York Post.
8:26pm: Coors Field in Colorado is expected to host this year’s All-Star Game, Buster Olney of ESPN tweets.
APRIL 2, 2:55pm: The Braves issued their own statement on the matter:
“The Atlanta Braves are deeply disappointed by the decision of Major League Baseball to move its’ 2021 All-Star Game.
“This was neither our decision, nor our recommendation and we are saddened that the fans will not be able to see this event in our city. The Braves organization will continue to stress the importance of equal voting opportunities and we had hoped our city could use this event as a platform to enhance the discussion. Our City has always been known as a uniter in divided times and we will miss the opportunity to address issues that are important to our community.
Unfortunately, businesses, employees and fans in Georgia are the victims of this decision. We will continue to support the community legacy projects which have been planned and are in process.”
1:58pm: Major League Baseball Commissioner Rob Manfred announced Friday that the league will relocate the All-Star Game and 2021 Amateur Draft, which had been set to take place in Atlanta, Ga.
“Over the last week, we have engaged in thoughtful conversations with Clubs, former and current players, the Players Association, and The Players Alliance, among others, to listen to their views,” Manfred said in a statement announcing the decision.
“I have decided that the best way to demonstrate our values as a sport is by relocating this year’s All-Star Game and MLB Draft. Major League Baseball fundamentally supports voting rights for all Americans and opposes restrictions to the ballot box. In 2020, MLB became the first professional sports league to join the non-partisan Civic Alliance to help build a future in which everyone participates in shaping the United States. We proudly used our platform to encourage baseball fans and communities throughout our country to perform their civic duty and actively participate in the voting process. Fair access to voting continues to have our game’s unwavering support.
“We will continue with our plans to celebrate the memory of Hank Aaron during this season’s All-Star festivities. In addition, MLB’s planned investments to support local communities in Atlanta as part of our All-Star Legacy Projects will move forward. We are finalizing a new host city and details about these events will be announced shortly.”
Rockies Outright Jairo Diaz
APRIL 5: Diaz has cleared waivers and been outrighted to their alternate site, the Rockies announced.
APRIL 1: The Rockies have designated right-handed reliever Jairo Diaz for assignment, per a club announcement. His spot on the roster goes to fellow right-hander Jhoulys Chacin, whose previously reported one-year deal with the Rox has now been confirmed by the club.
Diaz, 29, was a pleasant surprise for the 2019 Rockies, tossing 57 2/3 innings of 4.53 ERA ball — good for a 113 ERA+ at Coors Field in the juiced-ball season — out of the Colorado bullpen that year. Along the way, he turned in strong strikeout (25.7 percent), walk (7.8 percent) and ground-ball (49.4) rates, creating some optimism that he could be a piece for them moving forward.
That wasn’t the case in 2020, however, as Diaz was tagged for 17 earned runs in 20 innings of work. His average heater plummeted from 97.1 mph to 95.4 mph, and his strikeout rate fell to 16.4 percent while his walk rate ballooned to 13.2 percent. It was a brutal season all-around for Diaz, and Spring Training didn’t go any better; he surrendered 11 runs on 17 hits (four homers) and four walks in 9 2/3 frames. The fact that he was out of minor league options left the Rockies with little choice but to designate him for assignment. They’ll now have a week to trade Diaz, attempt to pass him through outright waivers or release him.
Blue Jays Outright Reese McGuire, Breyvic Valera
TODAY: McGuire and Valera have both cleared DFA waivers and been outrighted to the Blue Jays’ alternate training site, as per a team announcement.
APRIL 1: The Blue Jays announced Thursday morning that catcher Reese McGuire and infielder Breyvic Valera have been designated for assignment. Their roster spots will go to infielder Joe Panik and lefty Tim Mayza, whose contracts have formally been selected.
McGuire, 26, was the 14th overall pick by the Pirates back in 2013 and came to the Jays by way of the 2016 Francisco Liriano trade. The longtime top prospect hit well in 2018-19 (.297/.343/.539, seven homers in 138 plate appearances) before his bat fell off a cliff in 2020 (.073/.073/.146 in 45 plate appearances). That downturn in production, a bizarre and troubling Feb. 2020 arrest, and the breakout of fellow catcher Alejandro Kirk all combined to spell the end of McGuire’s days on Toronto’s 40-man roster.
Valera, meanwhile, has bounced around the league via the waiver wire for the past couple seasons. The Jays have claimed the versatile switch-hitter twice in that time, but he’s still only appeared in five games with the club. The 29-year-old Valera is a career .223/.294/.298 hitter in a small sample of 138 plate appearances, but he carries a much more appealing .302/.374/.442 line through 1550 plate appearances at the Triple-A level.
The Jays told Panik that he’d made the roster last week, marking the second straight season that he’s cracked their big league club after inking a minor league pact in the offseason. Mayza, 29, pitched 104 innings with the Jays from 2017-19 but missed the 2020 season due to Tommy John surgery that he underwent in Sept. 2019. He’s healthy now and rattled off 6 2/3 shutout innings during Spring Training, yielding just one hit and two walks with six punchouts along the way.
Latest On Nationals’ Covid-19 Testing
TODAY: The Nationals have no new positive cases from their latest round of testing, per the Athletic’s Britt Ghiroli (via Twitter). The Nationals continue to work towards hosting the Braves on Monday, but no official announcement has yet been made.
4:55pm: Three Nationals players have tested positive, and the Nats are awaiting another test from a player that is likely positive, Rizzo told Britt Ghiroli of The Athletic and other reporters (Twitter link). Rizzo said one of those players has a fever, but the rest are asymptomatic. The entire team is now self-quarantining, Nightengale tweets. It’s unclear whether the Nats and Mets will play at all this weekend.
10:45am: Despite a previously scheduled off-day on Friday, the Nats and Mets will not make up their game tomorrow, tweets Olney. Joel Sherman of the New York Post hears the same, adding that the league prefers to exercise extreme caution, particularly given that the additional early off-days in the schedule and the two teams’ geographic proximity makes it easier to reschedule the opener.
USA Today’s Bob Nightengale tweets that the Nats are awaiting official confirmation from a follow-up test, but initial results from the latest wave of tests did reveal a second positive among their players.
10:15am: Tonight’s season-opening contest between the Nationals and the Mets has been postponed due to Covid-19 related issues, ESPN’s Buster Olney reports (Twitter link). The Nats were known to be down five players as of yesterday, due to one positive test from a player and five close contacts (four players, one staffer).
Nats general manager Mike Rizzo said yesterday that his club was expecting to make a series of corresponding roster moves and play as scheduled. That, apparently, will not be the case. ESPN’s Jeff Passan tweets that there are concerns about “at least one more” positive test among the Nationals this morning.
The names of the player or players who tested positive aren’t known, although some of the roster moves that had been planned by the Nationals had come to light. The Washington Post’s Jesse Dougherty reported last night that outfielder Yadiel Hernandez, infielder Luis Garcia and lefty Sam Clay were all ticketed for the Majors (Twitter links), while FanSided’s Robert Murray added that catcher Tres Barrera was in line to be added to the big league club as well.
Under the league’s 2021 health and safety protocols, an individual who tests positive is subject to a 10-day quarantine period, while close contacts are subject to seven-day quarantines. The first positive test for the Nationals came Monday morning, although the result wasn’t learned by the club until early Wednesday.
Sixto Sanchez Dealing With Mild Shoulder Inflammation
April 2, 3:05pm: Sanchez has mild inflammation in the back of his shoulder and will rest for a few days, De Nicola tweets. The Marlins don’t have a timetable for his return, but it should be a slow process, per Mish (Twitter link).
10:50am: Sanchez will undergo an MRI, tweets Craig Mish of the Miami Herald.
April 1: Prized Marlins righty Sixto Sanchez cut his most recent throwing session short due to what the Marlins termed “slight discomfort” in his right shoulder, tweets Jordan McPherson of the Miami Herald. He’ll be evaluated over the coming days as the Marlins determine a course of action. MLB.com’s Christina De Nicola adds that Sanchez had been slated to throw around five “innings” and 75 pitches in a simulated game but cut things short after just the second frame, at which point he informed the team of the discomfort.
While the decision is being tabbed as a precaution at the moment, there’s some obvious concerning when any pitcher complains of shoulder pain. Sanchez was optioned to the the Marlins alternate site earlier this week, but that decision was only made because he was behind in his throwing after being in Covid-19 protocol earlier in camp. He’d thrown just eight innings during Grapefruit League play, and the Marlins hoped to get him built back up at their alternate site, with an eye toward a mid-month debut in the rotation. The shoulder issue, however, could obviously impact that timeline.
Sanchez made his big league debut in 2020 and impressed through seven starts, pitching to a 3.46 ERA with a 20.9 percent strikeout rate, a 7.0 percent walk rate and a massive 58.0 percent ground-ball rate. He’s considered one of the 10 to 20 best prospects in all of baseball and is viewed by the Marlins as a future linchpin of the rotation. He accrued 103 days of Major League service time in 2020, so there’s no real service-related benefit for the Marlins keeping him down at this time; he’d need to be in the minors through late July in order for his path to free agency to be pushed back another year.
MLB Informs Teams 2021 Draft Will Be 20 Rounds
Major League Baseball has settled on a 20-round draft for the 2021 season, J.J. Cooper of Baseball America reports. That outcome has long seemed likely, as it is the minimum number of rounds required in the 2020 agreement between MLB and the MLBPA. While it’s obviously a step up from last year’s five-round event, the 20-round length still clocks in at half the length of the standard 40-round draft.
This year’s draft was already set to look quite a bit different. For starters, it’s been known for months that the event will be moved back to July. Major League Baseball also announced back in November the formation of the MLB Draft League — a six-team showcase league that will offer some of the country’s top amateurs the opportunity to compete against one another in the weeks leading up to the draft. There’s also been talk of an NFL-style combine of sorts, which would give clubs more up to date medical information on potential draftees. Pushing the draft back until after the College World Series and state high school tournament completions also avoids injury risk for top talent after the draft.
Baseball America’s Carlos Collazo, meanwhile, has a full breakdown of each team’s league-allotted bonus pool for this year’s draft. The Pirates, picking first overall, lead the way at $14.394MM. The Tigers check in with the second-largest pool at $14.253MM and stand as the only other team north of $13MM. The Astros, who had their first- and second-round picks stripped as part of the organization’s punishment stemming from the 2017 sign-stealing scandal, have just a $2.94MM bonus pool. As Collazo observes, the individual slot values of the first 22 picks in the draft are all greater than Houston’s entire bonus pool. The Astros do not have a selection until the 87th overall pick.
On that note, it’s worth reminding that the assigned slot values for selections in the top 10 rounds have not progressed from 2020 — another element to which the union agreed in last year’s negotiations with ownership. That means the top slot will again be valued at $8,415,300, and values will gradually descend from there. There are no slot values after the tenth round, as usual. Teams can spend up to $125K per pick in Rounds 11 through 20 without any money counting against their pool. Any dollars over that mark will count against a team’s pool. Undrafted players can again become free agents who are free to sign with any club, but those bonuses are capped at $20K apiece.