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Orioles Agree To One-Year Deal With Kyle Gibson

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TODAY: Gibson signed for one year and $10MM, Orioles GM Mike Elias told reporters (including The Baltimore Sun’s Nathan Ruiz and Roch Kubatko of MASNsports.com). The O’s continue to look for more veteran pitching, and “anyone who’s out there” on the market is a possibility.  This includes starters who have turned down qualifying offers.  In other Gibson news, the Blue Jays were also known to have interest in the right-hander, and The Athletic’s Dan Connolly reports that Gibson took Baltimore’s offer over an identical one-year, $10MM deal with Toronto.

DECEMBER 3: The Orioles have strengthened their rotation, with veteran starter Kyle Gibson agreeing to a one-year deal, according to Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic. The deal is pending a physical.

It’d been widely reported that the Orioles were in the market for starting pitching additions, and Gibson gives them a solid back-of-the-rotation arm. They’ve been linked to a number of other starting pitchers this off-season, and it certainly wouldn’t be a surprise if Gibson isn’t the only one joining the team this winter.

Gibson, 35, had a 5.05 ERA across 167 2/3 innings for the Phillies in 2022. Advanced metrics were a bit more favorable, and his FIP stood at 4.28. He did post the best walk rate of his career (6.7%), and while his strikeout numbers have never jumped off the page they were 1.5% better than his career rate of 18.6%.

Gibson was drafted by the Twins with the 22nd pick of the 2009 draft, and made his debut 2013. He struggled a bit initially, but soon settled in as a durable arm at the back of their rotation. He’d go on to make 188 starts across seven seasons for the Twins, peaking in 2018 when he made 32 starts for a 3.62 ERA, almost a full run below his average while in Minnesota.

After reaching free agency at the conclusion of the 2019 season, Gibson latched on with the Rangers on a three-year, $28MM deal. He struggled a bit in the pandemic-shortened season but straightened things out in 2021, pitching to a 2.87 ERA across 19 starts and turning himself into a valuable trade chip for the Rangers at the deadline that year.

Advanced metrics did have him ripe for regression that year, and he did drop off a bit after the Phillies acquired him, pitching to a 5.09 ERA the rest of the way in 2021.

His fastball sits in the low-90s, and he mixes that with a slider, curveball and changeup, as well as a cutter that’s been introduced in recent seasons. It’s the durability that Gibson is noted for though, and apart from his rookie year (and the pandemic season), he’s made at least 25 starts in the other eight full seasons.

He slots into a rotation that features Kyle Bradish, Dean Kremer, Tyler Wells and Austin Voth – none of whom have ever reached 25 starts in a big league season. Top pitching prospect Grayson Rodriguez is also likely to feature in 2023, but as a rookie they’ll be keeping a close eye on his workload.

From here, it seems likely the Orioles will pursue another addition to the rotation as they look to supplement their young roster. The likes of Jameson Taillon, Chris Bassitt and Taijuan Walker would all make sense for Baltimore, and while Gibson can certainly work as a valuable innings-eater, adding one of those names would give their rotation a bit more punch as they look to build off their promising 83-79 2022 season.

Thomas Eshelman Takes Coaching Job With Padres

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Right-hander Thomas Eshelman announced his retirement after eight professional seasons, and the former Orioles hurler is now moving into the coaching ranks as a pitching coach in the Padres organization.

“Officially on the other side of the fence,” the 28-year-old Eshelman wrote as part of his official statement on his Twitter feed.  “I’ve been blessed to be able to play the game I love for so long and I’m excited to share the things that I’ve learned and will continue to learn with the generations to come.”

The right-hander only appeared with the Orioles at the MLB level, posting a 5.77 ERA over 98 1/3 innings with Baltimore during the 2019-21 seasons.  However, Eshelman was a member of four different organizations during his career, beginning with the Astros when Houston selected him in the second round of the 2015 draft.  He only lasted a few months in Houston, as the Astros dealt Eshelman to the Phillies that offseason as part of a memorable seven-player deal.  That same swap saw Ken Giles land in Houston, while Vince Velasquez and former first overall pick Mark Appel were among the players who joined Eshelman in Philadelphia.

Eshelman was traded to Baltimore in June 2019, which gave the right-hander his first crack at the majors.  Working mostly as a starter in the minors, Eshelman became a swingman with the O’s, getting some starts in the rotation and otherwise acting in a multi-inning relief role.  Eshelman was designated for assignment several times over his three years with the Orioles, and departed the team for good when he signed a minors deal with the Padres last winter.  In what ended up as his final pro season, Eshelman had 5.76 ERA over 114 combined innings with San Diego’s Double-A and Triple-A affiliates.

Eshelman hails from Carlsbad, California and played his college ball at Cal State-Fullerton.  As he noted in his Twitter statement, his “next journey in this game I love” will come with his “hometown team,” giving him an ideal environment to begin his coaching endeavors.  MLBTR congratulates Eshelman on his playing career and we wish him all the best in the coaching ranks.

Mets, Phillies, Cubs, Orioles Among Teams Pursuing Jameson Taillon

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Right-hander Jameson Taillon is one of the top names on the second tier of free-agent starting pitchers this winter, and MLB.com’s Mark Feinsand reports that the Mets, Phillies, Cubs and Orioles are among the teams pursuing him. The Mets were already known to have interest in Taillon, as SNY’s Andy Martino recently reported that they made a strong effort to close a deal with the right-hander last week. Martino noted that with Justin Verlander atop the Mets’ priority list, the Mets might not be inclined to beat the market for Taillon.

Any of the four teams in today’s report would represent a perfectly logical landing spot for Taillon, who did not receive a qualifying offer from the Yankees and thus can be signed without the forfeiture of any draft picks or international bonus space. There’s some injury risk, to be sure, as Taillon has twice undergone Tommy John surgery and heavy contracts for two-time Tommy John patients are fairly rare.

That said, however, Taillon has reestablished himself as a quality mid-rotation hurler since his 2021 return from that second ligament replacement operation. In two seasons with the Yankees, the former No. 2 overall draft pick and top prospect pitched to a combined 4.08 ERA with a 21.9% strikeout rate and a strong 5.7% walk rate. The Yankees carefully monitored his workload in his first post-surgery season in ’21, as Taillon averaged just shy of five innings per start in his 29 trips to the mound. However, he averaged better than 5 2/3 innings per start in 2022, improved his ERA, lowered his walk rate and upped his ground-ball rate.

It’s hardly a surprise that the Mets have been fairly aggressive in their early efforts to land Taillon, as they recently lost Jacob deGrom to the Rangers and also saw each of Chris Bassitt, Taijuan Walker and Trevor Williams reach free agency this winter. At the moment, Max Scherzer, Carlos Carrasco, David Peterson and Tylor Megill would comprise the top four spots in manager Buck Showalter’s rotation.

Even with a pronounced need in the rotation, the Mets are still projected by Roster Resource to carry a $234.7MM payroll — with a hearty $246.6MM of luxury obligations on hand at present. The Mets paid the luxury tax in 2022, so they’d be a second-time offender and thus face steeper penalties in 2023. They’re facing a 30% tax on the first $20MM over the tax line, plus 42% for the next $20MM, 75% for the next $20MM and 90% on any money spent thereafter.

The Phillies, too, are trending toward being a repeat luxury tax payor. Though they’re currently more than $40MM shy of the $233MM tax barrier, they’re known to be heavily interested in the high-end shortstops in free agency and are also looking into rotation help (hence the apparent Taillon interest). Taillon would slot into the rotation behind co-aces Aaron Nola and Zack Wheeler, joining Ranger Suarez and likely Bailey Falter to form the starting five in Philly. Prospects Andrew Painter, Mick Abel and Griff McGarry loom in the upper minors.

From a financial perspective, it’s different story for the Cubs and Orioles, neither of whom are anywhere near the luxury tax. Both clubs, however, are looking to add some win-now pieces after rebuilding efforts of varying extent. The Cubs have Marcus Stroman, Kyle Hendricks and Justin Steele locked into rotation spots in 2023, but the fourth and fifth spots remain more fluid. Keegan Thompson, Adrian Sampson and Hayden Wesneski are all candidates currently, but it seems likely Chicago will add at least one starting pitcher this winter.

Over in Baltimore, the O’s have already agreed to a one-year deal with Kyle Gibson, but Taillon would be more of a statement addition who’s viewed as a multi-year piece of the puzzle. Beyond Gibson, the O’s have Dean Kremer, Tyler Wells, Kyle Bradish, Austin Voth, Bruce Zimmermann, Spenser Watkins and Mike Baumann as options, to say nothing of top prospects Grayson Rodriguez and DL Hall. Baltimore also hopes to welcome lefty John Means back from Tommy John surgery later in the 2023 season.

There are surely plenty of other clubs who’ve held discussions with Taillon and his representatives at Excel Sports. That he’s one of the non-ace starters who’s still reasonably young — he’ll pitch all of next season at 31 — and won’t require any draft compensation could make interest sufficient enough to make him one of the first notable starters off the board. We ranked Taillon 14th on our annual Top 50 Free Agent list, predicting a four-year deal at $56MM

Free Agent Notes: deGrom, Braves, Taillon, Anderson, Gibson

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The five-year, $185MM deal between Jacob deGrom and the Rangers came together pretty quickly, and deGrom didn’t give the Mets a chance to counter the offer, ESPN’s Buster Olney writes.  This isn’t to say that the Mets would have countered, as they “had no intention of offering anything close to where the winning bid landed.”  While the Mets had some sense in November that deGrom might prefer to remain in New York if his offers were all in the same price range, Olney writes that some in the organization felt deGrom was starting to gradually distance himself from the Mets as the season went on.

There was also some mutual interest between deGrom and the Braves, relating back to an October report suggesting deGrom would ideally like to pitch closer to his home in Florida.  According to Olney, the Braves were recently looking into deGrom, but his desired price tag was too high for the team.

Here’s some more buzz from around the free agent market, on players both already signed and still available…

  • The Mets “made a serious run…hoping to close a deal” with Jameson Taillon last week, according to SNY’s Andy Martino.  New York was known to have interest in Taillon, and this increased push seemingly indicates that he is pretty high on the team’s list of targets.  That said, Martino thinks “it’s easy to see another team offering more than the Mets” for Taillon, as Justin Verlander is the Amazins’ top target and Carlos Rodon may be the backup plan.  Past reports indicate that the Mets are looking to acquire an ace (i.e. Verlander or Rodon) and then another starter from the next tier of the free agent pitching market, which includes Taillon and several other arms.
  • The Mariners had interest in trading for Brian Anderson during the 2021 season, The Seattle Times’ Ryan Divish reports, but the Marlins wanted too much in return.  With Anderson now a free agent, Divish wonders if Seattle might again look to add the third baseman/outfielder, who brings some multi-positional ability and perhaps some bounce-back potential.  Anderson has hit only .233/.322/.359 over 647 plate appearances and 165 games since the start of the 2021 season, with injuries limiting his playing time.  Miami opted to non-tender Anderson last month, rather than pay him a projected $5.2MM in arbitration salary.
  • Kyle Gibson agreed to a one-year deal with the Orioles, and The Athletic’s Ken Rosenthal reports that Gibson turned down a similar offer from an unknown team.  Baltimore’s offer was preferable to Gibson because of the Orioles’ strong infield defense, the more pitcher-friendly left-field dimensions at Camden Yards, and the chance to work with catcher Adley Rutschman.

Orioles Among 8-9 Teams Interested In Carlos Rodon

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Roughly eight or nine teams are known to have interest in Carlos Rodon, according to Jon Heyman of the New York Post (Twitter links).  Many of the suitors are already known, as past reports have indicated the Mets, Yankees, Giants, Twins, Dodgers, and Rangers have all checked in on Rodon’s market at different points this offseason.  However, Heyman also lists the Orioles as a new name in the mix for the left-hander’s services.

Baltimore has already made one notable rotation move in signing Kyle Gibson to a one-year deal earlier today.  Needless to say, signing Rodon would take a much heftier financial commitment, and the first major acquisition of the Orioles’ post-rebuild era.  Though past reports suggested that the O’s were wary of shopping at the very top of the pitching market, Rodon might represent something of a bridge between the “top tier” and “secondary tier,” depending on how one would define such players.

Entering his age-30 season, Rodon is considerably younger than either Justin Verlander or Jacob deGrom, so Rodon might make more sense for a young Baltimore team that appears to be just entering its competitive window.  As Orioles GM Mike Elias noted last month, the club has “got a lot of interesting starters.  But they’re not guys who have a track record of being front-end-of-the-rotation starters.” 

Baltimore hopes at least one or two of their young arms can eventually develop into being ace-level pitchers, but waiting on that development might not be too helpful for a team that wants to win in 2023.  Gibson has had some quality seasons and was an All-Star just in 2021, but he struggled in his time with the Phillies, and he is more of a veteran innings-eater than a true frontline pitcher.

In other Rodon news, Heyman writes that Texas is still in on the southpaw even after already signing deGrom to a five-year, $185MM deal yesterday.  As expected, the Rangers have put a heavy emphasis on rotation upgrades this winter, between signing deGrom, re-signing Martin Perez, and acquiring Jake Odorizzi from the Braves.  That trio joins Jon Gray and Dane Dunning in the projected starting five, but the Rangers have been so aggressive over the last two offseasons that it wouldn’t be all that surprising to see them also sign Rodon.  In this case, one of Dunning or Odorizzi could become a depth starter or swingman, or potentially even a trade chip.

Both the Mets and Yankees have been linked to Rodon and Verlander, with Heyman tweeting that the two New York teams seem to have differing top choices.  Rodon seems to be the Yankees’ chief target, while Verlander seems like the Mets’ preferred option.

Orioles Met With Noah Syndergaard

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As the Orioles search for additions to their rotation, Joel Sherman of the New York Post reports that they had a Zoom call with Noah Syndergaard yesterday. Syndergaard is a free agent after playing out the past season with the Angels and Phillies.

It’s been widely reported that the Orioles have been searching for starting pitching, but avoiding the very top of the free agent class, so it makes sense that Syndergaard would have appeal to them.

Syndergaard, 30, turned in a 3.94 ERA across 134 2/3 innings in 2022, his first full year back from 2020 Tommy John surgery. He started his one-year, $21MM deal with the Angels but was dealt to the Phillies at the deadline. The former Met’s fastball was well down from his pre-surgery days, as it dropped around five miles an hour to sit at 94.5 mph in 2022, while his slider that once sat at 93.1 mph dropped to 85.1. As a result, his strikeout rate fell considerably (16.8 % vs 24.5% in 2019).

Today’s version of Syndergaard might not be the overpowering one that earned the nickname ’Thor’ at the Mets, but it still amounts to a very valuable pitcher, and he’s still young enough that perhaps he can claw back some of that lost velocity in 2023. To that end, ESPN’s Jeff Passan recently wrote that Syndergaard has been taking an analytic approach to his offseason work, training at Driveline and Tread Athletics. MLBTR predicted Syndergaard would receive a three-year, $36MM deal this winter.

The Orioles currently have some combination of Dean Kremer, Austin Voth, Tyler Wells, Kyle Bradish and top prospect Grayson Rodriguez penciled into their rotation. It’s a young group with plenty of question marks, so it certainly makes sense that they’d look to bump one or two of those names in favor of an external veteran addition or two.

Whether or not Syndergaard winds up in Baltimore, it seems almost certain that they’ll have a few names in their pitching ranks. The Orioles are looking to build from a promising 83-79 season in 2022, and the rotation is an area of focus. Should they miss on Syndergaard, the likes of Taijuan Walker, Jameson Taillon and Chris Bassitt could all have appeal.

Orioles To Sign Franchy Cordero

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The Orioles are in agreement with first baseman/outfielder Franchy Cordero, reports Robert Murray of FanSided. It will be a one-year split contract that will pay Cordero $1.35MM in the majors and $450K in the minors. The O’s announced it as a minor league deal, meaning Cordero will have to earn his way onto the 40-man roster.

Cordero, 28, has spent parts of the past six seasons in the majors, splitting his time between the Padres, Royals and Red Sox. He has long tantalized teams with his elite tools, including his speed and huge exit velocities. However, his propensity for strikeouts has limited his overall effectiveness. In 227 big league games thus far in his career, Cordero has hit 21 home runs but also struck out in 34.8% of his plate appearances. His overall batting line is currently .221/.290/.386 for a wRC+ of 83.

In 2022, he was with the Red Sox, being frequently optioned to the minors throughout the year. In 84 games with Boston, he hit .219/.300/.397, but he mashed in 31 Triple-A games to the tune of .325/.397/.590. The O’s will surely be hoping Cordero can find some way of bringing those huge results up to the majors at some point this season. The club has been reportedly looking for left-handed hitters who can pair with the right-handed-hitting Ryan Mountcastle at first base. To that end, they claimed Lewin Diaz off waivers from the Pirates today and have now added Cordero into the mix. He can also play a bit of outfield but hasn’t graded out especially well there.

The O’s have shown a willingness to get creative in trying to retain depth. They recently signed similar split deals with catcher Anthony Bemboom and outfielder Jake Cave and then placed both players on waivers. Bemboom cleared and could have rejected his outright assignment but decided to accept, presumably because the minor league portion of his split deal was attractive enough that he didn’t want to leave it on the table. Players with previous career outrights can reject outright assignments but they need to have five years of MLB service time to both reject and retain their salaries. Unfortunately, it didn’t work out in the case of Cave, as he was claimed by the Phillies today. If Cordero does earn his way back onto the roster, he would also have to be exposed to waivers if they want to send him back down since he’s out of options.

Orioles Outright Daz Cameron

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The Orioles announced that outfielder Daz Cameron has cleared outright waivers and been assigned to Triple-A Norfolk.

Cameron, 26 in January, was just claimed off waivers from the Tigers a few weeks ago. He was the 37th overall pick in 2015, taken by the Astros when Baltimore’s general manager Mike Elias was working for Houston.

As a prospect, Cameron was expected to have a solid floor thanks to his speed and defense but with development needed at the plate. The Tigers decided to take a chance on that profile by acquiring Cameron in the 2017 Justin Verlander trade. Unfortunately, the bat hasn’t taken the necessary step forward. In 73 MLB games thus far, he’s hit just .201/.266/.330 with a Triple-A line that’s only slightly better at .236/.324/.398.

Despite those tepid results, Cameron is still young and could be a nice piece for the O’s. Even without a huge development with the bat, his speed and defense could make him a candidate for fourth outfielder duty. Since he was out of options, he wasn’t going to be able to be shuttled back and forth between the majors and minors next year, but the Orioles can now keep him as depth without him taking up a roster spot.

Phillies Claim Jake Cave

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The Phillies have claimed outfielder Jake Cave off waivers from the Orioles, per announcements from both teams. The addition of Cave brings Philadelphia’s 40-man roster to a total of 38 players.

Cave, who’ll turn 30 on Sunday, never suited up in a game for the Orioles. Baltimore had claimed him off waivers from the Twins earlier this season and apparently tried to sneak him through waivers themselves in hopes of keeping him without allocating a 40-man roster spot to the longtime Twins backup.

Cave has appeared in parts of five big league seasons, all coming with the Twins, who acquired him from the Yankees in a 2018 trade that sent Luis Gil to New York. Cave was an outstanding fourth outfielder for the Twins in 2018-19, appearing in 163 games, taking 537 plate appearances and batting .262/.329/.466 with 21 homers, 27 doubles and four triples.

In 2020, Cave’s production fell off, however, and he’s never regained his form. Over the past three seasons, he’s turned in a tepid .206/.252/.352 batting line while punching out in 32.4% of his plate appearances. As is so often the case, injuries are at least partly to blame for the downturn in production; Cave landed on the injured list with a fracture in his lower back in May of 2021 and missed multiple months as a result of the injury.

Cave was arbitration-eligible this offseason, but the Orioles proactively signed him to a split Major League contract for the 2023 season. That contract, which contains different rates of pay for time in the Majors versus time in Triple-A, was surely signed by the Orioles with an eye toward getting Cave through waivers and keeping him as a depth piece. The O’s opted for the same tactic with catcher Anthony Bemboom and had success with it, passing him through waivers mere weeks after agreeing to terms on a 2023 contract. It (clearly) did not work that way in the case of Cave.

The general idea behind such a move is seemingly to offer slightly larger rates of pay that both discourage other teams from claiming depth options the Orioles value and hope to stash in the upper minors and to also encourage those players to accept outright assignments. Both Bemboom and Cave have previously been outrighted and thus are thus able to refuse outright assignments, but the larger rates of pay on the split deal serve as incentive to instead accept the outright. (Since neither player has five years of Major League service, refusing the outright assignment in favor of free agency would mean forfeiting any money owed to them on that split deal, and a new contract with a new team would likely come at a lower rate.)

Instead, for Cave, things will work out even better, as he’ll land on a team that perhaps has greater designs on carrying him on its MLB roster. He’s capable of playing all three outfield spots, has some power and will give the team a potential late-game defensive option in lieu of sluggers Kyle Schwarber and Nick Castellanos when both are in the lineup and starting in the outfield corners. It’s possible the Phillies will try to pass Cave through waivers themselves or designate him for assignment if they acquire someone they deem to be a better option as a backup outfielder, but for now, Cave appears likely to occupy a spot on manager Rob Thomson’s bench in 2023.

Orioles Claim Lewin Diaz

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The Orioles have claimed first baseman Lewin Diaz off waivers from the Pirates, reports Craig Mish of SportsGrid and the Miami Herald (Twitter link).

Diaz, 26, was a fairly high-profile amateur signing by the Twins back in 2013, inking a $1.4MM bonus and headlining their 2013-14 international free agency class. He ranked among Minnesota’s top prospects for several years due to his power potential and a plus glove at first base, but the Twins flipped him to Miami in a 2019 trade that netted them veteran reliever Sergio Romo and pitching prospect Chris Vallimont.

With the Marlins, Diaz elevated his profile early on before scuffling through parts of three Major League auditions. He’s logged big league time each season since 2020 but produced only a .181/.227/.340 batting line with a 28.9% strikeout rate against just a 5.5% walk rate. Despite his 6’4″ frame and considerable raw power potential, Diaz hasn’t yet hit the ball with much authority in the Majors; he does have 13 home runs in 343 plate appearances, but Diaz’s average exit velocity (88.1 mph), barrel rate (8%) and hard-hit rate (32.6%) are all pedestrian, at best. He’s also been quite prone to pop-ups, with more of his fly-balls (14.4%) registering as infield flies than as home runs (11.7%).

That said, Diaz only just turned 26 years old and has at least one demonstrably excellent skill that’ll play at the Major League level: his glove. He’s only logged 753 Major League innings at first base but still has eye-popping totals in Defensive Runs Saved (16) and Outs Above Average (9). The offensive profile is still quite clearly a work in progress, but Diaz is a .250/.325/.504 hitter in two Triple-A seasons.

The Orioles have been looking for a left-handed bat who can play some first base and perhaps in the outfield corners, per MASNsports.com’s Roch Kubatko. Diaz won’t help in the latter regard, but he’ll give them a lefty bat who can spend some time at first base — if he makes it to Spring Training on the 40-man roster, that is. He’s already been jettisoned from a pair of teams so far this offseason, and it’s possible the O’s consider him a temporary safety net while they continue to hunt for a more established option (as was seemingly the case with the Pirates, who designated Diaz for assignment after signing Carlos Santana).

Diaz is out of minor league options, so he’ll either have to make a team’s Opening Day roster next year or eventually be passed through waivers unclaimed, at which point that team could then stash him Triple-A without committing a 40-man roster spot.

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