Marlins, Gio Gonzalez Agree To Minor League Deal
8:00am: Gonzalez will earn $1MM if he makes the big league club, Chelsea Janes of the Washington Post reports (via Twitter).
7:25am: The Marlins have agreed to a minor league pact with veteran left-hander Gio Gonzalez, reports Craig Mish of the Miami Herald (via Twitter). The CAA client will head to Major League camp as a non-roster invitee.
It’s a homecoming for Gonzalez, a Miami area native who has spent more than a decade in the Majors since being drafted by the White Sox with the No. 38 overall pick back in 2004. Gonzalez was traded three times before making his MLB debut with the Athletics in 2008 but returned to the White Sox last offseason on a Major League deal and spent the shortened 2020 with his original organization.
The results were mixed, at best. Gonzalez was signed with the expectation that he could hold down the fifth spot in the rotation, but he made just four starts and eight relief appearances while posting a 4.83 ERA with his highest walk rate (12.4 percent) since 2009.
That was also the only truly sub-par season for Gonzalez since 2009, however. After breaking out with the 2010 A’s and making his first All-Star team in 2011, Gonzalez was traded to the Nationals and spent the next seven years as a rock-solid member of their rotation. He continued that steady production in a year-and-a-half stint with the Brewers from 2018-19 before signing in Milwaukee.
In that decade-long peak, the now-35-year-old Gonzalez racked up 1786 2/3 innings of 3.49 ERA ball (3.99 SIERA) with an above-average 47.3 percent grounder rate, a quality 22.5 percent strikeout rate and a 9.6 percent walk rate. Even though he was limited to 17 starts in 2019 due to some arm troubles, Gonzalez still averaged 30 starts and 179 innings per season during that time. And from 2010-18, his only injuries were a two-week IL stint for shoulder soreness in 2014 and a postseason high ankle sprain in 2018.
The Marlins have plenty of young pitching talent, but much of it is unproven, which gives Gonzalez a chance to win a rotation spot out of the gates. Sandy Alcantara and Pablo Lopez are clearly locked into places. Over the offseason, manager Don Mattingly suggested that to be true of righty Elieser Hernandez back in October as well. However, he was less committal when asked if top prospect Sixto Sanchez, who impressed in seven starts during his 2020 debut, would also be guaranteed a spot.
Even if that is indeed the top four the Marlins carry early in the year, the fifth spot is largely up for grabs. Lefties Trevor Rogers and Braxton Garrett both made their debuts in 2020, as did right-handers Nick Neidert, Jorge Guzman and Jordan Holloway (though the latter two only pitched a combined 1 1/3 Major League innings). Righty Edward Cabrera has been slowed in camp by nerve issue in his right biceps thus far (Twitter link via MLB.com’s Christina De Nicola), so he’s probably not in the Opening Day mix.
Several Players Awaiting Clarity On Minor League Option Status
In the minutes after we posted our annual list of out-of-options players earlier today, several readers pointed out players they believed to have been omitted. In following up with various team and agency sources around the league, it became clear that there’s some uncertainty as to how the 2020 season will impact some players’ number of minor league options.
Derrick Goold of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch explores the situation at greater length, reporting that Cardinals outfielder Justin Williams isn’t even sure whether he has a minor league option remaining. Neither, according to Goold, are the Cardinals themselves. Jeff Fletcher of the Orange County Register writes that the Angels are in a similar spot with right-hander Jaime Barria. Goold lists the Cubs’ Adbert Alzolay as another player currently in this state of limbo.
The reason? The commissioner’s office, the MLB Players Association and Major League teams still need to determine whether last year’s shortened slate of games counts as a full season under the league’s option structure. An arbiter is expected to make a final decision sometime this month, per Fletcher. Goold writes that a decision is expected “any time now,” adding that the Cardinals have been awaiting clarity for weeks.
By rule, players are given three option years after being selected to a team’s 40-man roster. Being optioned to the minor leagues, even if it’s out of Spring Training, counts as an option year — so long as the player spends 20 days down on the farm. Players are granted three option years, but there’s no limit to the number of times they can be optioned back and forth throughout the course of one of those individual option seasons.
It is possible for some players to be granted a fourth option year. This is most typical among players who have missed considerable time due to injury. Players who are on the 40-man roster and have exhausted those three minor league options before accruing five full seasons of play can be granted this exemption. A “full” season by that definition entails 90 or more days on an active Major League or Minor League roster (but not the injured list).
As Goold explains with regard to Williams, he fell shy of 90 days on an active roster in 2013, 2014 and 2019. His fifth “full” season would’ve been 2020 — you can see where this is going — but the season itself was not 90 days in length. Beyond the fact that the season itself was only 67 days long, players who were “optioned” weren’t sent to the minor leagues to compete in games but rather to alternate training sites to participate in simulated game settings against others in the organization.
Generally speaking, Major League clubs are keenly aware of the out-of-options players on other rosters, but it was clear in asking around today that there’s presently a disconnect because of last year’s shortened season. Even if you were to downplay the significance of one team not being clear on another team’s player, the reports from Goold and Fletcher underscore the confusion surrounding the issue.
It seems something of this nature should have been planned for during last year’s return-to-play negotiations, but as we saw with the months-long back-and-forth between MLB and the MLBPA, the March agreement under which the season was renewed had many issues that were not fully addressed. It’s not necessarily a surprise that 2021 option status wasn’t a major talking point up front, but it’s nonetheless a bit perplexing that an entire offseason has elapsed without a resolution. Minor league options — or a lack thereof — will be a considerably driving factor in spring roster moves around the game over the next four weeks.
Additional Details On Allegations Against Mickey Callaway Emerge
3:47pm: The Indians issued a statement in response to the report, saying (via Zack Meisel of The Athletic, on Twitter): “Our organization continues to actively cooperate with MLB on their investigation into Mickey Callaway. It is important we honor the confidentiality and integrity of that investigation. While we don’t believe the reporting to date reflects who we are as an organization, we will not comment further on the specifics of the matter. We remain committed to creating an inclusive work environment where everyone, regardless of gender, can feel safe and comfortable at all times. We will let our actions – not just our words – reflect our commitment.”
9:25am: As Major League Baseball’s investigation into harassment allegations against Angels pitching coach Mickey Callaway continues, new and even more troubling details about his behavior have surfaced in an additional report from Brittany Ghiroli, Katie Strang and Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic.
Not only have additional women come forward to reveal that Callaway made unwanted advances toward them, but The Athletic report details that the husband of a woman with whom Callaway was having a consensual, extramarital affair repeatedly contacted the Indians organization and Major League Baseball in 2017 about “pornographic material” sent to his wife.
The report contains quotes from a recorded conversation between the wife and a Cleveland-based attorney indicating that the issue had been presented to manager Terry Francona. The Athletic report also indicates that Cleveland president of baseball operations Chris Antonetti and general manager Mike Chernoff were both aware of the man’s complaint against Callaway. A league security official involved in the exchange is quoted, too. The husband also managed to contact the Mets in Aug. 2018 to make the same complaint with Callaway’s new organization. (That timing, notably, would mean his complaint was filed after Mets president Sandy Alderson had left the team to undergo treatment following a cancer diagnosis.)
Ghiroli, Strang and Rosenthal conducted 22 interviews over the past month in gathering information for the latest report, which strongly support the idea that Callaway’s behavior dates back to his days as a minor league pitching coach in the Indians’ system.
Also concerning are the suggestions that higher-ups in multiple organizations were willing to look the other way due to Callaway’s reputation as a strong pitching coach. A former Indians employee said Antonetti’s claim that there were no complaints regarding Callaway filed to him, human resources or other organizational leaders “hit me the wrong way” due to the widespread knowledge within the organization of Callaway’s behavior. Another called Callaway’s behavior the “worst-kept secret in the organization,” and both a current and former Mets employee made clear to The Athletic that several in the organization were aware of Callaway’s behavior.
Callaway himself was contacted for a quote on the story, wherein he acknowledged multiple “infidelities” but called much of the reporting around his actions “inaccurate” and pushed back against the idea that he has ever “[used] his position to harass or pressure a woman.”
The Athletic report should be read in its entirety in order to fully grasp not only the alarming and inappropriate nature of Callaway’s alleged behavior but also the mounting number of troubling indications that many around him were, to varying degrees, aware of the issue.
MLBTR Chat Transcript
Click here to read a transcript of Tuesday’s chat with MLBTR’s Steve Adams.
Cubs Designate Duane Underwood Jr. For Assignment
The Cubs announced Tuesday that they’ve designated right-hander Duane Underwood Jr. for assignment in order to open a spot on the 40-man roster for Ryan Tepera, whose previously reported one-year deal is now official.
Underwood, 26, was a second-round pick back in 2012 and has spent parts of the past three seasons in the Majors with Chicago. On the one hand, Underwood’s 5.20 ERA in that time is obviously an eyesore. On the other, Underwood has punched out 27.7 percent of his opponents against a strong 7.7 percent walk rate while averaging better than 94 mph on his heater. He whiffed a career-high 30.7 percent of opponents in 20 2/3 innings last year and also recorded a career-best 15 percent swinging-strike rate.
Home runs have been Underwood’s undoing, as he’s been tagged for eight round-trippers in just 36 1/3 big league innings (2.0 HR/9). That’s likely due in large part to a four-seamer that doesn’t miss bats at a prolific rate and has well below-average spin. Underwood decreased the usage of that four-seamer in 2020 and instead leaned into his curveball and particularly his changeup at career-high rates. The latter pitch was particularly encouraging, as evidenced by a huge 53.2 percent whiff rate from opponents.
At the end of the day, however, the results simply weren’t there for Underwood. He yielded four homers on that four-seamer, and opponents batted .342/.395/.712 on plate appearances ending in his heater. Still, the spike in changeup usage and the success he had with that pitch could pique the interest of another team. Underwood did give up one big fly on the changeup, but overall opponents batted just .190/.227/.381 on plate appearances ending in that pitch.
Underwood doesn’t have minor league options remaining, so he’d need to break camp with another club or else once again be designated for assignment. The Cubs have a week to trade him or attempt to pass him through outright waivers. If he goes unclaimed on waivers, he could return to Major League camp as a non-roster invitee to Spring Training.
Latest On Jake Odorizzi
While the 2021 season is slated to begin just a month from now, free-agent righty Jake Odorizzi is “thought” to be willing to wait further into Spring Training for the right offer rather than drop his asking price now, tweets MLB Network’s Jon Heyman. Odorizzi has reportedly been seeking a three-year deal that will pay him in the $13-15MM range annually.
As Heyman notes, there’s some precedent for this type of approach working out for the pitcher. Kyle Lohse netted a three-year, $33MM deal with the Brewers late in Spring Training 2013, and Alex Cobb landed a four-year deal worth $57MM with the Orioles late in Spring Training 2018. Jake Arrieta also agreed to a three-year deal midway through Spring Training back in 2018, landing a $75MM guarantee with the Phillies.
Of course, that Lohse deal is now eight years old, and Cobb’s contract was broadly considered to be a surprise. It’s tough to base expectations on that trio of solid deals, as we’ve seen at least as many pitchers have to alter their expectations and take a one-year pact in recent years: Ervin Santana with the Braves, Lance Lynn with the Twins and Dallas Keuchel‘s midseason deal with the Braves are among the examples.
None of that is to say that Odorizzi’s quest for a multi-year deal is unreasonable. His reported asking price falls roughly in line with what we expected him to sign back at the beginning of the offseason, and he’s a more desirable free agent than either Lohse or Cobb was at the time of those late multi-year deals referenced by Heyman. Odorizzi stood out as one of the best free-agent starters on the 2020-21 market — arguably the second-best behind Trevor Bauer (particularly once Marcus Stroman and Kevin Gausman accepted qualifying offers).
It’s been a very tough winter for the non-Bauer tier of free-agent starters, however. Only three have landed multi-year pacts: a two-year, $18MM deal for Mike Minor with the Royals; a three-year, $23MM deal for Taijuan Walker with the Mets (announced as a two-year deal with a player option); and a two-year, $4.75MM deal for KBO returnee Chris Flexen with the Mariners. Bauer, Charlie Morton, Corey Kluber and Drew Smyly are the only four starters to receive annual values exceeding $10MM, and of that group, only Bauer did so on a multi-year deal.
Major League teams have been reluctant to spend for much of the winter. Some clubs that have spent money (Twins, Red Sox, Nationals) have been primarily willing to do so on one-year deals.
Circumstances could certainly change, and that could be what Odorizzi and his representatives are hoping for at this point. An untimely injury on a contending club’s pitching staff could create a need and jumpstart his market, and it’s possible that as teams get better ideas about the number of fans they’ll be able to welcome to the park in 2021, owners could green-light some late expenditures that weren’t previously expected.
Odorizzi was limited to just 13 2/3 innings last season, which has surely hindered his market, although his camp can rightly point to the fact that none of those health issues were arm-related. He missed the first few weeks of the season with an intercostal (ribcage) strain and quickly went back on the IL when he was struck in the chest by a comeback liner upon his return. He later dealt with a blister that forced him back on the shelf.
Odorizzi is by no means an ace, but prior to last year’s slate of rather fluky injuries, he was a durable mid-rotation cog. He averaged better than 30 starts per season from 2014-19 and worked to a combined 3.88 ERA (4.08 FIP, 4.19 SIERA) with above-average strikeout and walk rates (23 percent and 8.2 percent, respectively) through more than 1000 innings. In a vacuum, he’d be an improvement for nearly any starting staff in the game, but the disconnect between his asking price and the market’s offerings apparently continues to linger.
Giants, Scott Kazmir Agree To Minor League Deal
FEB 27: Kazmir’s deal is official and he will report to spring training, per Kerry Crowley of the Bay Area News Group (via Twitter).
FEB 23: Comeback season is upon us, it seems. The Giants have agreed to a minor league contract with left-hander Scott Kazmir, reports ESPN’s Buster Olney. He’ll be invited to Major League Spring Training. Kazmir will earn a $600K base salary if he makes the Giants, Susan Slusser of the San Francisco Chronicle tweets. His deal doesn’t include any opt-out dates.
It’s been nearly five years since Kazmir, now 37, pitched in the Majors with the Dodgers. Current San Francisco president of baseball operations Farhan Zaidi was serving as general manager under president Andrew Friedman in Los Angeles at that point, and he was also an assistant GM in the Athletics’ front office in 2013 when Oakland inked Kazmir to a two-year deal.
There’s some obvious history between Zaidi and Kazmir, who at one point was one of the game’s brightest young starters. Kazmir broke out with the Rays in 2005, drawing Rookie of the Year votes that season and going on to make a pair of All-Star teams with Tampa Bay, where he posted a 3.51 ERA and a 25.1 percent strikeout rate from 2005-2008 (back when the league-average strikeout percentage was just 17 percent).
Injuries looked to have derailed Kazmir’s career after a disastrous stint with the Angels. He recorded just five outs in the Majors from 2011-12 and looked to be in danger of washing out entirely before even celebrating his 30th birthday. But Kazmir parlayed a minor league deal with the Indians — not unlike the one he’s now signing with the Giants — into a strong rebound campaign in 2013. He rewarded the A’s with an All-Star season in ’14 and a strong first half in ’15 before being traded to the Astros. Injuries again waylaid Kazmir in the second and third seasons of his three-year pact with the Dodgers, and he hasn’t been on a big league mound since Sept. 2016.
Overall, Kazmir owns a lifetime 4.01 ERA that, remarkably, is an exact match with both his FIP and his SIERA. He’s fanned 22.2 percent of his opponents at the MLB level against a 9.4 percent walk rate. Those numbers come across as that of a third or fourth starter, but Kazmir has shown on multiple occasions that when he’s at his best, he’s a good deal better than that.
Whether he has anything left in the tank remains to be seen, but Olney notes that Kazmir hit 92-93 mph in recent bullpen sessions. He’s never been a particularly hard thrower, so that velocity aligns nicely with Kazmir’s peak years. Even during his All-Star campaigns in 2006, 2008 and 2014, Kazmir averaged just north of 91 mph on his heater.
There’s no harm in the Giants taking a look this spring to see if Kazmir has another rebound in him — even if this comeback seems all the more improbable given his age and his considerably longer layoff from pitching in the Majors. He’ll add another intriguing, high-upside arm to a Giants staff that has rolled the dice on Aaron Sanchez, Alex Wood and Anthony DeSclafani on Major League deals.
Braves Outright Phil Pfeifer
FEB. 26: Pfeifer has been outrighted to Triple-A Gwinnett, the Braves announced.
FEB. 23: The Braves announced Tuesday that they’ve designated left-hander Phil Pfeifer for assignment in order to open a spot on the 40-man roster for corner infielder Jake Lamb, whose non-guaranteed Major League deal is now official.
Atlanta picked up the now-28-year-old Pfeifer in a 2016 trade with the Dodgers and selected him to the 40-man roster in Nov. 2019 to protect him from that year’s Rule 5 Draft. He’s yet to make his Major League debut, though it’s possible he’d have been called upon had their been a full 162-game slate played in 2020.
Pfeifer was hit hard in his first go-around at Triple-A in 2018 and hasn’t gotten much of a chance to redeem himself at that level thanks to last year’s lack of a minor league season. He did post very strong numbers between Double-A and a quick 7 1/3-inning return to Triple-A in 2019, however. On the whole, he tossed 133 1/3 innings of 2.97 ERA ball between the two levels that season, adding in impressive strikeout (28.7) and walk (7.6) percentages.
Pfeifer has a pair of minor league options still remaining, so he could pique the interest of a club with more acute pitching needs. At 28, he’s a bit old to be considered a “prospect,” but outside of an ugly 40 innings of Triple-A work in 2018, the lefty has a strong minor league track record.
Angels To Sign Jesse Chavez
The Angels have agreed to a minor league contract with free-agent right-hander Jesse Chavez, reports Jon Heyman of MLB Network (Twitter links). He’ll join their Major League camp once the deal is official and once he goes through intake protocols.
It’s the second Angels stint for Chavez, who struggled as a member of the Halos back in 2017 (138 innings, 5.35 ERA). He went on to rebound with the Rangers and Cubs the following season, parlaying that strong showing into a two-year pact to return to Texas.
The 37-year-old Chavez is a well-traveled and experienced arm who has pitched both as a starting pitcher, a long reliever and a late-inning/high-leverage reliever. After bouncing between the Pirates, Royals, Braves and Blue Jays early in his career, Chavez found himself with the 2013 A’s and has been a steady presence on MLB rosters since that time.
Dating back to that 2013 season, the righty has piled up 755 2/3 frames of 4.18 ERA ball with a matching 4.18 FIP and a 3.87 SIERA. Along the way, he’s started 77 games and made 248 relief appearances while posting a solid 21.4 percent strikeout rate and a strong 7.1 percent walk rate. The 2020 season was a rough one, as Chavez yielded 13 runs in 17 innings of work, but his overall track record is that of a versatile arm who’ll help deepen the Angels’ rotation and bullpen mixes.
Kelvin Herrera Announces Retirement
Two-time All-Star and 2015 World Series champion Kelvin Herrera announced today, via Twitter, that he is retiring after spending parts of 10 seasons in the Major Leagues.
“I want to thank everyone who has been a part of my career, starting with the Kansas City Royals organization who believed in this kid from Tenares, Dominican Republic and gave him a chance to do something meaningful with his life,” Herrera wrote in his announcement. “From ownership, to the Front Office, the staff, my teammates and last but not least, the fans, I owe you guys everything.”
Herrera goes on to thank both the Nationals and White Sox organizations for welcoming him as well. For the time being, Herrera says he plans to focus on his family and the next chapter of his life.
It’ll no doubt surprise some readers to see that Herrera is still just 31 years old. He’s been around the Majors for a decade due to the Royals calling on him for his Major League debut at just 21 years of age.
Herrera pitched in just two games late in that 2011 season, but the right-hander was an immediate success in 2012 — his first full season at the MLB level. In 84 1/3 innings, he worked to a pristine 2.35 ERA with 19 holds, three saves and a heater that averaged a blistering 98.5 mph. In a normal year, that overwhelming success would’ve no doubt garnered Rookie of the Year consideration, but 2012 happened to also be the rookie season for Mike Trout, Yoenis Cespedes and Yu Darvish, who commanded nearly every top-three vote on the ballot that year.
Even without any Rookie of the Year love, Herrera had established himself as a dominant late-inning arm in short order, and that’s the exact role he’d over the next half decade as a steady presence at the back of some elite Kansas City bullpens. From 2012-16, Herrera pitched 354 1/3 regular-season innings with the Royals and notched a collective 2.57 ERA with 106 holds and 17 saves.
The bullpen was in many ways the backbone of the Royals’ back-to-back World Series runs in 2014-15, and Herrera joined teammates Wade Davis, Greg Holland and (in 2015) Ryan Madson in forming a juggernaut late-inning group that gave opposing lineups absolute fits. Each of Herrera, Davis and Holland posted ERAs south of 1.50 and appeared in at least 65 games during the 2014 season. Herrera was as untouchable during the postseason as he was in the regular season, combining for 28 2/3 innings of 1.26 ERA ball in his playoff career.
With the Royals out of contention during Herrera’s final year of club control in 2018, they made the decision to trade him to the Nationals for a package of young players including Kelvin Gutierrez, Blake Perkins and Yohanse Morel. Herrera was injured for part of his time with the Nats, going down with a Lisfranc tear in his foot, but he gave them 18 1/3 innings of 4.34 ERA ball before reaching free agency and signing a two-year pact with the White Sox. Things didn’t pan out in Chicago, as Herrera was tagged for 39 runs in just 53 2/3 innings across his two seasons there.
Herrera’s peak was brief but absolutely dominant, and he’ll go down in Royals lore as an absolutely vital member of a bullpen that fueled a baseball renaissance in Kansas City and brought home the club’s first title in three decades. He’ll hang up the spikes with a career 3.21 ERA, 119 holds, 61 saves and 510 strikeouts in 513 2/3 innings of regular-season work — plus the aforementioned sterling postseason track record. Best wishes to Herrera and his family in whatever the future holds.