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Mets Reinstate David Wright From Disabled List

By Steve Adams | September 25, 2018 at 12:17pm CDT

The Mets announced today that they’ve formally reinstated team captain David Wright from the disabled list. Their plans were made clear earlier this month when announcing that Wright would return for the season’s final homestand and make one start (this coming Saturday), but today’s announcement makes it official that Wright is an active Major League player for the first time in more than two calendar years.

The final six games of the season, particularly Saturday’s contest, promise to bring out plenty of emotional moments in Queens, as Mets fans bid farewell to arguably the greatest player in franchise history. Wright’s career has been tragically cut short by a series of injuries, beginning with a spinal stenosis diagnosis in 2016 that preceded eventual neck and shoulder surgeries. In a tearful press conference addressing his future earlier this month, the venerable third baseman acknowledged that playing baseball had become “debilitating” for him and that doctors simply could not forecast his condition improving to the point where he could continue his playing career.

Tickets quickly sold out for the final start of Wright’s career, so he’ll have the opportunity to soak in moment in front of what should be a capacity crowd at Citi Field. The franchise icon and World Baseball Classic hero will head into his final weekend as a Major Leaguer with a career .296/.376/.491 batting line, 242 home runs, 196 stolen bases, 390 doubles, 26 triples, 949 runs scored and 970 runs batted in.

Wright, now 35 years of age, won’t formally retire following the season, and he’ll continue to be paid out the remaining $27MM on his contract while spending the 2019-20 seasons on the 60-day disabled list. The Mets’ insurance policy on his contract reportedly covers 75 percent of his salary, so they’ll only owe him a combined $6.75MM out of pocket over the life of those two seasons.

Phillies Notes: Santana, Franco, Hoskins, Eickhoff

By Steve Adams | September 25, 2018 at 9:33am CDT

The Phillies have started Carlos Santana at third base 10 times down the stretch and received a total of 70 innings of play from him there, and Jim Salisbury of NBC Sports Philadelphia explores the possibility of Santana shifting to the hot corner on a full-time basis in 2019. Doing so would allow the Phils to move Rhys Hoskins from left field back to first base, dramatically improving the outfield defense. Santana, 32, tells Salisbury that he’s open to the idea, while manager Gabe Kapler adds that it’s something the Phils will evaluate after the season. Philadelphia’s expected run at Manny Machado figures to have an impact on their left-side infield alignment, and Salisbury speculates that the team could again explore the trade market for Maikel Franco this offseason.

Defensive metrics have actually given a favorable review to Santana’s minuscule sample of innings, but it still seems unlikely that he’d turn in quality results over a full season. I’d add, however, that he’d be replacing another below-average defender in Franco; if the Phillies believe the difference between Franco and Santana at third base is more or less negligible, then they could overwhelmingly bolster the rest of their defense by moving Hoskins to first base in favor of an average or better defender in left.

More out of Philly…

Speaking of Hoskins, the 25-year-old chatted with The Athletic’s Matt Gelb about his recent decision to hire agent Scott Boras (subscription required). Part of the thinking, per Hoskins, was actually about his desire to improve his defense in the outfield. Gelb notes that Boras has 10 trainers and a pair of fitness facilities, which appealed to Hoskins as he seeks to improve his performance in the outfield. “There’s only so many different drills you can do,” said Hoskins. “Jump rope, ladder, whatever. But some guys just have a different way of communicating that or they focus on different things within the movement.” He added that he heard “nothing but good things” from the players he spoke to about using Boras’ trainers. Gelb writes that Boras has expressed an openness to discussing a contract extension for Hoskins this offseason, though historically his clients have typically not gone that route.
It’s been an injury-ruined season for Jerad Eickhoff, but Kapler told reporters that he’s a candidate to start one of the final games of the season after rejoining the team as a reliever earlier this month (link via Matt Breen the Philadelphia Daily News). Eickhoff met with numerous specialists to evaluate nerve damage that was leading to numbness in his hands this summer and, at one point when doctors were having a difficult time making a diagnosis, wondered whether his career could be in jeopardy. “I don’t know if there’s a guy that the clubhouse pulls more for than Jerad Eickhoff,” said Kapler. “I think he’s pretty deeply cared for and he worked his butt off to get back to this position.”

Giants Remove Bobby Evans From GM Role

By Steve Adams | September 24, 2018 at 7:50pm CDT

7:50pm: Baer said in a conference call tonight that the Giants will search for a new head of baseball operations, meaning Sabean will not be in charge of such decisions moving forward, either (Twitter link via Pavlovic). Baer also stated that the team expects Bochy to return as the manager in 2019 (Twitter link via Schulman).

6:50pm: The Giants announced the move and added that Evans will be “reassigned” to a new role with responsibilities that have yet to be determined. Giants CEO Larry Baer offered the following statement:

“I want to thank Bobby for his tireless work on behalf of the Giants. He played an important role in our team’s success throughout his tenure, which includes three World Series championships, four NL pennants and eight playoff appearances. We look forward to new leadership to continue our historic record of success.”

Sabean will not simply be reprising his role atop the team’s operations hierarchy, it seems, as the press release indicates that he’ll work with Baer to find a replacement for Evans.

“I take great pride in the longstanding continuity of our baseball department,” Sabean said in his own statement. “I want to express my thanks to Bobby for all he has given to the Giants over the past 25 years and for his countless contributions.”

6:15pm: Bobby Evans has been removed from his post as the Giants’ general manager, reports Henry Schulman of the San Francisco Chronicle. It’s not clear if Evans will remain with the organization in another capacity or look for an opportunity in a new organization, though Schulman adds that he’s expected to be offered another role within the Giants. Alex Pavlovic of NBC Sports Bay Area writes that the move is likely to be the first of many in a major front-office shakeup, though Schulman notes that executive vice president Brian Sabean and manager Bruce Bochy are likely to be retained.

Evans has spent more than two decades with the Giants and played an instrumental role in helping to construct the three rosters that won the 2010, 2012 and 2014 World Series during San Francisco’s “even-year” dynasty. At the time, Evans was the assistant general manager to then-GM Sabean, but in 2015 the organization promoted Sabean to executive vice president and bumped Evans up the chain of command another peg.

Things haven’t gone well since, as San Francisco has been burned by big-money free agent signings (Jeff Samardzija, Johnny Cueto, Mark Melancon) while struggling through a pair of losing seasons. The Giants won only 64 games last season but loaded up on veteran additions in the offseason with an eye toward contending in 2018. Trade acquisitions Andrew McCutchen and Evan Longoria didn’t help the offense in the manner that Evans & Co. had hoped, however. This year’s club did manage to hang around the periphery of contention longer than the 2017 iteration of the Giants — despite myriad injury issues, it should be noted — but ultimately plummeted out of the division race in catastrophic fashion by losing 11 consecutive games.

While the past couple seasons for the Giants have been miserable, Evans should have no trouble finding another opportunity with a different organization if he decides to move on from the Giants. He’s among the game’s most respected executives and would bring a wealth of experience to a new club. It’s worth noting that there is at least one other GM opening that’ll need to be filled, as the Mets are searching for a new head of baseball operations following Sandy Alderson’s departure from the team earlier this summer.

Astros Activate Lance McCullers Jr.

By Steve Adams | September 24, 2018 at 4:55pm CDT

The Astros announced that right-hander Lance McCullers Jr. has been reinstated from the disabled list. He’d been sidelined since Aug. 5 due to a right elbow injury, but he’ll be active for the season’s final handful of games and for the postseason. Houston also recalled lefty reliever Reymin Guduan for the final stretch of play.

[Related: Houston Astros depth chart]

McCullers, 24, was cruising to arguably the best season of his big league career but hit a rough patch in mid July that saw him surrender 14 runs on 18 hits and a dozen walks in a span of 17 2/3 innings before landing on the disabled list. He’s currently sporting a 3.93 ERA with 9.9 K/9 against 3.6 BB/9 through 126 innings. That’s the largest regular-season workload McCullers has tallied at the MLB level to this point in his career, though he tossed 137 innings last year when including his postseason work and a brief minor league rehab assignment. He also logged 155 2/3 innings between the Astros and Triple-A back in 2015.

McCullers will be available for the ’Stros in relief for the time being — a role in which he shined while closing out the final game of last season’s American League Championship Series. If McCullers is to remain in the ’pen for the Astros’ postseason endeavors, Houston can still lean on Justin Verlander, Gerrit Cole, Dallas Keuchel and Charlie Morton as rotation options.

As for the 26-year-old Guduan, he’ll give manager A.J. Hinch another southpaw option in matchup situations. He’s yet to find much in the way of big league success, but Guduan did notch a 3.74 ERA and average 13.5 strikeouts per nine innings pitched in 55 1/3 Triple-A frames this year — albeit against an unpalatable average of 5.2 walks per nine innings.

Orioles Select John Means

By Steve Adams | September 24, 2018 at 3:07pm CDT

The Orioles announced Monday that they’ve selected the contract of left-hander John Means from Triple-A Norfolk. In order to open a spot on the 40-man roster, Baltimore recalled outfielder Austin Hays and placed him on the Major League 60-day disabled list. Hays underwent ankle surgery earlier this month.

Means, 25, split the 2018 season between Double-A (46 innings) and Triple-A (111 1/3 innings), working to a combined 3.72 ERA with with 7.4 K/9 against just 1.8 BB/9. He’s not considered to be among the organization’s top prospects, but he’d have been Rule 5 eligible this offseason after a solid season in the upper minors. Given the thin state of the team’s pitching depth, the Orioles likely would’ve added him to the 40-man roster this winter anyhow.

[Related: Baltimore Orioles depth chart]

Means has worked almost exclusively as a starter throughout his career since being selected in the 11th round of the 2014 draft, and he’ll quite likely be in the mix for a spot on the big league roster next spring. At present, Dylan Bundy, Alex Cobb and Andrew Cashner are the three locks for rotation spots in 2018, health permitting, with Means, Josh Rogers, Luis Ortiz, David Hess, Jimmy Yacabonis and Yefry Ramirez among the names who’ll vie for additional opportunities. It’s also possible that Means could eventually be looked at as a potential bullpen piece; he held left-handed opponents to an awful .209/.246/.312 line in 2018 but yielded a .295/.331/.423 slash to opposing righties.

Latest On Dan Duquette, Buck Showalter

By Steve Adams and Jeff Todd | September 21, 2018 at 5:03pm CDT

The Orioles are expected to move on from longtime manager Buck Showalter following the 2018 season, tweets Bob Nightengale of USA Today. That meshes with yesterday’s report from Fancred’s Jon Heyman, which called Showalter “likely” to be replaced.

Nightengale adds that general manager Dan Duquette is expected to receive an extension. It seems ownership was impressed by his handling of the team’s trade-deadline sell-off, which launched a full-blown rebuilding effort that had been contemplated — but not ultimately pursued — over the winter.

If the reports prove accurate, Showalter would be at least the second manager not asked back for the coming season; the Rangers announced earlier this afternoon that they’ve fired Jeff Banister and will be searching for a replacement following the season. Showalter has been the Orioles’ skipper since taking over partway through the 2010 season, helping the team to three postseason berths — including an AL East division title in 2014. Baltimore steamrolled the Tigers in a clean sweep of the ALDS that season before being knocked out of the ALCS by the Royals.

As for Duquette, he’s been with the O’s since the 2011 season and helped to orchestrate those postseason appearances, though his fingerprints are also on this season’s all-time franchise-worst record. To be fair to Duquette, he has seemingly been hamstrung by ownership at times, as Peter Angelos reportedly had little interest in investing on the international amateur free agent market and was also said to be instrumental in bringing back Chris Davis on what could now be considered the worst contract in the sport.

Duquette, if extended, will be tasked with helping to oversee a rebuild not only of the club’s roster but also the team’s entire baseball operations department. Baltimore has lagged behind other teams in terms of international scouting, the implementation of analytics, the use of technology in player evaluation and more. Following this summer’s trade of franchise icon Manny Machado, Duquette vowed that the organization would invest in those areas as it embarked on its rebuilding process.

It’s worth emphasizing, of course, that nothing is yet set in stone. As Dan Connolly wrote yesterday at The Athletic (subscription link), “decisiveness has never been the strong suit at the top of the Orioles’ food chain.” The only aspect of the future that’s all but certain at this point, he wrote, is that Orioles VP Brady Anderson will continue to “remain in a position of influence.” Connolly ran through the possible permutations of outcomes involving Showalter and Duquette, guessing that both of those long-time leaders would end up on the move but noting the ongoing uncertainty.

Beyond that, Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic tweets that the O’s have made a pair of additions to the pro scouting department, hiring veteran evaluators Doug Witt and Rich Amaral. Witt, the brother of former big league pitcher Bobby Witt, is also the uncle of Bobby Witt Jr. — a potential top selection in the 2019 draft. Amaral, a former teammate of Anderson’s, will be a special assignment scout on both the pro and amateur side as well as a baserunning instructor, tweets Roch Kubatko of MASNsports.com. If those hires offer any clues as to the broader organizational direction, it’s not strictly clear just what they suggest.

Rangers Fire Jeff Banister

By Steve Adams | September 21, 2018 at 1:00pm CDT

1:00pm: The Rangers have announced that Banister has been relieved of his duties. Wakamatsu will finish out the season as the interim manager.

12:42pm: The Rangers will not bring manager Jeff Banister back for a fifth season in 2019, reports Evan Grant of the Dallas Morning News. Banister is under contract for next season, but he’ll earn his reported $950K salary while someone else takes the helm for the Rangers, it seems. Grant notes that Banister will not finish out the season, and bench coach Don Wakamatsu will likely serve as the interim skipper.

It’s a jarring fall for Banister, the 2015 American League Manager of the Year. He guided the Rangers to a pair of winning records and a consecutive American League Division Series appearances in 2015-16 — his first two at the helm of a Major League organization. The 2017 Rangers disappointed but hung around in the race until September, ultimately finishing at 78-84. The Rangers have ensured a worse record than that in 2018 with 88 losses already in the books.

Certainly, it’d be unfair to place the entirety of the 2018 team’s failures on Banister’s shoulders. He was scarcely afforded a rotation to work with as the Rangers performed a series of half-measures last offseason, declining to enter a definitive rebuild but also paring back payroll and signing a series of stopgaps for the rotation. Texas came out of the gates strong with a three-year deal for Mike Minor to return to a starting role, but that was paired with low-cost additions of Doug Fister, Matt Moore and Bartolo Colon. Moore, perhaps, could’ve been considered an upside play, but pairing that unit with Minor and the returning Cole Hamels never looked like anywhere near enough to have a realistic shot at contending in 2018.

That said, the Fort Worth Star-Telegram’s Jeff Wilson reported in a detailed column yesterday that Banister’s communication skills with his players had come under fire recently, with pitchers sometimes not knowing when their next start would be while some position players would find themselves in the lineup having previously been assured a day off. Texas also burned through several closers very quickly under Banister’s watch, with Shawn Tolleson flaming out in 2016 after being used on five consecutive days to close out the 2015 regular season. Sam Dyson, another bullpen workhorse under Banister, had dismal 2017 results after a heavy workload in 2016, though he’s since bounced back in San Francisco.

Wakamatsu, Grant further tweets, figures to become a candidate to take over the club on a full-time basis in 2019 and beyond. That said, the Rangers will surely interview candidates from outside the organization as they look for a developmentally-inclined skipper to help them through some degree of a rebuilding process. It’s not clear whether the Rangers will retain any of the current coaching staff, though the fact that Wakamatsu will be considered as a replacement bodes well for his chances of returning in some capacity.

Royals Reportedly Set For Payroll Reduction In 2019

By Steve Adams | September 21, 2018 at 12:04pm CDT

The Royals entered the 2018 season with a payroll of roughly $122MM — their fourth straight season with a $100MM-plus payroll — but Fancred’s Jon Heyman writes in his latest notes column that the team is expected to pare that figure back by as much as $30-35MM for the 2019 campaign.

Scaling back the payroll isn’t exactly a shock for a club that has been working to rebuild its farm system, though the cut described by Heyman would be a fairly substantial downturn in on-field spending. Unlike the Marlins, though, who slashed payroll to similar levels this past offseason, the Royals won’t have to orchestrate any type of fire sale to do so. They already saved money by trading impending free agents like Kelvin Herrera, Mike Moustakas and Jon Jay prior to the non-waiver trade deadline (plus Lucas Duda and Drew Butera in August). The Royals are also paying Travis Wood, Joakim Soria and Brandon Moss in 2018 as part of previous trades to shed each of those contracts; all of those obligations will be off the books come 2019.

[Related: Kansas City Royals depth chart]

After all those subtractions, the Royals have about $69.5MM on the books for the 2019 season by way of guaranteed contracts for Alex Gordon, Ian Kennedy, Danny Duffy, Salvador Perez and Jorge Soler. They’ll have several arbitration cases in the form of Brandon Maurer, Nate Karns, Brian Flynn, Cheslor Cuthbert, Jesse Hahn and Paulo Orlando, though some (if not most) of that group could be non-tendered this winter.

It’s unlikely that the Kansas City front office will be able to find a taker for any of the team’s most onerous financial commitments (Kennedy, Gordon), and it seems equally unlikely that the team would sell low on Duffy or Perez coming off lackluster seasons. Perez’s power numbers remain quite strong, but he’s turned in a career-worst .270 OBP to date — third worst among qualified MLB hitters. Duffy, meanwhile, posted a 4.88 ERA through 155 innings in a season that was marred by shoulder issues.

The Royals could organically scale back payroll by as much as $50MM, though it seems reasonable to expect that they’ll invest some funds in second- and third-tier free-agent pickups. They’re not likely to contend next season even with the rampant mediocrity that permeates the AL Central, but GM Dayton Moore has been candid about his desire to improve the on-field product sooner rather than later. To that end, Moore and his staff prioritized near-MLB assets in many of their trades over the past calendar year, landing players like Brett Phillips, Jorge Lopez, Heath Fillmyer, Trevor Oaks and Jerry Vasto. The Royals were also aggressive in the Rule 5 Draft (Brad Keller, Burch Smith) and picked up cast-offs with MLB experience from other organizations (Brian Goodwin, Ben Lively) over the summer.

Adding some low-cost veterans on short-term deals could help to field a more competitive product than the one the Royals trotted out for much of 2018 — and a full season of Adalberto Mondesi won’t hurt, either. Such investments could also present the opportunity to further stock the farm with some upper-level talent prior to the 2019 non-waiver deadline (as was the case with last winter’s Moustakas reunion, which ultimately netted both Phillips and Lopez).

Mets Notes: Flores, Smith, Wheeler

By Steve Adams | September 21, 2018 at 10:15am CDT

The Mets announced to reporters yesterday that they’ve shut down infielder Wilmer Flores for the remainder of the season after he was diagnosed with early onset arthritis in both knees (links via Newsday’s Anthony Rieber and MLB.com’s Anthony DiComo). It’s a curious diagnosis for a player who has yet to celebrate his 28th birthday, though Flores suggested that he doesn’t believe the issue will have a significant impact on his immediate future. For the time being, he received an injection in each knee with the hope that it’ll curtail the symptoms he’s been feeling.

Asked about how the dual knee issues could impact Flores’ future with the team, manager Mickey Callaway was noncommittal. “I think that really depends on what the rest of our team looks like,” said Callaway. “He can definitely obviously fill in, and start, and swing the bat well and play good enough defense. … We’ll just have to see what the makeup of our team looks like next year.” Flores is arbitration-eligible for the final time this winter and hit .267/.319/.417 in 429 plate appearances.

AL Central Notes: Fulmer, Twins, Mondesi, O’Hearn

By Steve Adams and Jeff Todd | September 20, 2018 at 9:39pm CDT

Anthony Fenech of the Detroit Free Press examines the aftermath of a brutal season for Tigers right-hander Michael Fulmer. The results are hard to deny. As Fenech puts it, Fulmer has gone “from being the most important trade piece of the Tigers’ rebuild … to a missed opportunity.” Of course, there were reasons that the team elected not to move off of the big price tag it placed on the young hurler, as Fenech explores while noting it’d be unfair to use hindsight to say the Tigers “should” have traded Fulmer sooner. As things stand, it seems the Detroit organization will pay Fulmer his arbitration salary for 2019 (as a Super Two) and hope he can regain his standing. After all, he’s still controlled for four full seasons, and a vintage first half or even a strong full season would likely serve to quickly rebuild some of Fulmer’s stock.

Elsewhere in the AL Central…

Jake Depue of 1500 ESPN takes a look at some of the 40-man roster decisions the Twins will have to make in advance of the Rule 5 Draft this offseason. Nick Gordon stands out at the most obvious minor leaguer in need of protection, but the Twins will also need to clear roster space for names like outfielder LaMonte Wade, infielder Luis Arraez and relievers Jake Reed and Tyler Jay, among others. However, with four free agents (Ervin Santana, Logan Forsythe, Matt Belisle, Chris Gimenez) and several non-tender/outright candidates on the fringes of the roster at present, Minnesota should have a fair bit of flexibility as that early offseason deadline approaches.
Both Adalberto Mondesi and Ryan O’Hearn have been impressing with the Royals lately, Jesse Newell of the Kansas City Star writes. Mondesi, in particular, is the focus of the column, with manager Ned Yost and quality control coach Pedro Grifol (via Yost) weighing in on the improvements in the second-generation infielder’s improvements. “I just think he’s really, really talented,” Yost said of Mondesi, noting that the organization is pleased and feels he’s improved in “all phases of his game.” Mondesi has indeed been a bright spot in a bleak Kansas City season — MLBTR’s Jeff Todd just recently listed him as the primary silver lining for the Royals — as he’s shown a promising blend of speed, power and defense. Mondesi, who homered again tonight, is now hitting .290/.316/.496 with 11 homers, 26 steals and quality defensive marks at both shortstop (+2 DRS, +2 UZR) and second base (+3 DRS, +1.7 UZR). O’Hearn may not have garnered as much attention, but the 25-year-old first baseman is sporting a ridiculous .272/.372/.632 slash and 11 homers through his first 145 MLB plate appearances (albeit while showing some enormous platoon splits in that small sample).

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