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Closer Role Notes: Red Sox, Pirates, Marlins

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The notion of a closer’s role has evolved over the years, but there’s never been any doubt of the importance of a reliable late-inning relief strategy. While some organizations prefer more flexible arrangements, quite a few still utilize dedicated ninth-inning men. Settling on a closer isn’t just important to a team and to fantasy baseball gurus. It’s also a factor in a player’s trade and free agent status and — especially — to his potential arbitration earnings.

Here are some early notes on spring closer situations from around the game …

  • Red Sox manager Ron Roenicke made rather clear that he views Brandon Workman as the top closing option entering camp, as Chris Cotillo of MassLive.com tweets. The club isn’t making anything official just yet, but the comments from the just-minted skipper give him a strong presumption. That’s not too surprising: the 31-year-old Workman emerged as a premium pen arm last year, when he racked up 71 2/3 innings of 1.88 ERA ball with 13.1 K/9 and 5.7 BB/9. He does have some experience closing out games, having finished 16 Boston wins as part of a committee approach last year.
  • For the Pirates, there’ll be no waiting: new skipper Derek Shelton says Keone Kela will handle the ninth, as Adam Berry of MLB.com reports on Twitter. Kela’s time in Pittsburgh hasn’t exactly been smooth, but he’s undeniably talented enough to do the job and will now be challenged with added responsibility as the organization seeks to turn the page on a brutal 2019 season. There were numerous problems on and off the field for the Bucs. By far the most important was the arrest of closer Felipe Vazquez on charges so awful that it’s hard even to think of the matter from a baseball perspective. But the organization has obviously had to make decisions to account for that departure. There is plenty of incentive for Kela, who will be a free agent at season’s end. If things go better for the 26-year-old than for the remainder of the Pirates team, he could also feature as a significant mid-season trade piece.
  • The Marlins have set about compiling a new-look bullpen this winter. It seems it’ll be anchored by one of the club’s recent veteran additions. Manager Don Mattingly strongly suggested that Brandon Kintzler is the top choice to function as closer, Craig Mish of FNTSY Sports Radio tweets. The 35-year-old isn’t exactly a prototypical swing-and-miss, capital-C closer type. But he did turn in 57 frames of 2.68 ERA ball last year with a typically strong 54.7% groundball rate. And Kintzler has saved 49 games in his career.

Details On Mets’ Pursuit Of Mookie Betts

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Mookie Metts? It didn’t come to fruition, but the Mets did make an effort in December to acquire superstar outfielder Mookie Betts from Boston. The Red Sox ended up trading him to the Dodgers earlier this week.

One reason talks between the Mets and Red Sox broke down? The Mets weren’t open to moving infielder/outfielder Jeff McNeil for just a year of control over Betts, Joel Sherman of the New York Post reports (they also wouldn’t give him to the Indians for shortstop Francisco Lindor). However, the Red Sox regarded McNeil as “integral” to a potential trade package, according to Sherman. Understandably, the Mets weren’t going to part with the versatile, inexpensive 27-year-old after he was one of the majors’ most effective offensive players from 2018-19.

While the Mets weren’t willing to surrender McNeil for Betts, they did offer packages centered on outfielder Brandon Nimmo and infielder/outfielder J.D. Davis (quality, affordable players in their own right), per Sherman. Those deals also would have included one of the Mets’ infield prospects in either Andres Gimenez or Ronny Mauricio, two top-100 farmhands. It seems the Mets, reluctant to absorb all of Betts’ $27MM salary, also would have tried to include one of their highly paid, unwanted veterans in outfielder Yoenis Cespedes or infielder Jed Lowrie in order to somewhat offset the money they’d have taken on had a deal with Boston gone through.

Considering that getting under the $208MM luxury-tax threshold was one of the main causes for the Red Sox’s decision to unload Betts (and left-hander David Price with him), adding Cespedes or Lowrie wouldn’t have been palatable for them. They wound up accepting the Dodgers’ offer of outfielder Alex Verdugo and two prospects – infielder Jeter Downs and catcher Connor Wong – saving a total of $75MM in the process.

Meanwhile, although the Mets went big-game hunting for Betts, their outfield appears as if it’ll enter 2020 with mostly the same cast. That’s not necessarily a bad thing, even though none of the team’s current options can rival Betts. However, to their credit, McNeil, Nimmo, Davis, Michael Conforto and Dominic Smith all had good seasons a year ago. It’s anyone’s guess what the Mets will get from Cespedes after injuries shelved him for the vast majority of the prior three seasons, but he’s back on a reduced salary and has always produced when healthy.

MLBTR Video: Minor League Deals; Red Sox Name Roenicke Interim Manager; Cubs Still Talking Kris Bryant Trades

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Carlos Gonzalez, Jason Kipnis, and Trevor Cahill landed minor league deals, the Red Sox named Ron Roenicke interim manager and are discussing a deal with Kevin Pillar, and the Cubs are still discussing Kris Bryant trades. Jeff Todd has you covered in today’s video!

Red Sox, Pirates Among Teams Showing Interest In Kevin Pillar

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The market for free-agent outfielder Kevin Pillar is “heating up,” tweets MLB Network’s Jon Heyman, and the Red Sox and Pirates are among the clubs with interest in the 31-year-old.

Both Pittsburgh (Starling Marte) and Boston (Mookie Betts), of course, have completed trades shipping high-profile outfielders out of town. The Red Sox added an immediate option to step into Betts’ shoes, Alex Verdugo, but his acquisition gives the club three left-handed-hitting outfielders. Pairing Pillar with that trio would give the Sox an option at any of three outfield slots — and one who carries a respectable .281/.313/.453 career batting line against left-handed pitching. Notably, with Betts and David Price traded to the Dodgers, Red Sox ownership has accomplished its goal of dropping south of the luxury tax barrier; Boston is currently about $9.5MM shy of that $208MM cutoff point, per Roster Resource’s Jason Martinez.

The path to regular at-bats in Pittsburgh seems more direct for Pillar. Bryan Reynolds and Gregory Polanco are likely to roam two of the three outfield spots — likely the corners — and the Buccos’ other options are utilityman JT Riddle and reserve outfielder Guillermo Heredia. Prospect Jason Martin could eventually emerge as a spot, but he’s rehabbing from October surgery to repair a torn labrum in his left shoulder and could be limited early in the year.

Pillar hit a career-best 21 home runs in 2019 and notched his fifth straight season with 14 or more steals. His once-elite glovework now grades out closer to average, but he should be at least a serviceable option in center and could yet see a rebound in that regard. However, Pillar also drew a walk in only 2.8 percent of his plate appearances, leading to a .287 on-base percentage that was the fourth-worst among all qualified hitters. Overall, Pillar’s .259/.287/.432 slash was 15 percent worse than league average by measure of wRC+ and 11 percent below average per OPS+.

Those lackluster on-base skills, the diminished defensive ratings and a projected $9.7MM salary (via MLBTR contributor Matt Swartz) all surely played a role in the Giants’ decision to non-tender Pillar earlier in the offseason. He’s certainly in line to earn less than that projection at this point, but the veteran center fielder still seems like a candidate to land a Major League deal — be it in Boston, Pittsburgh or elsewhere.

Red Sox Name Ron Roenicke Interim Manager

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3:05pm: The Red Sox have now officially named Roenicke their interim manager, issuing a press release to announce the move. Speier tweets that the “interim” label will likely be shed as soon as MLB finishes its investigation into the 2018 Red Sox.

FEBRUARY 11, 12:32pm: The Red Sox are preparing to name Roenicke to the interim manager, Alex Speier of the Boston Globe reports on Twitter.

FEBRUARY 7, 10:57am: Adding another layer of intrigue, Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic tweets that the Red Sox also interviewed former Blue Jays manager John Gibbons earlier this week. Gibbons interviewed with the Astros before they hired Dusty Baker as well.

10:47am: The Red Sox issued the following statement in response to the report regarding Roenicke (Twitter link via MassLive.com’s Chris Cotillo): “Our managerial search is not yet completed. We will comment at the completion of the search.”

That, of course, doesn’t mean that Roenicke won’t ultimately be named manager, although it’s nevertheless notable that the team felt compelled to issue a statement without being prompted.

9:38am: The Red Sox are planning to name bench coach Ron Roenicke as manager, replacing the recently fired Alex Cora, the Boston Globe’s Peter Abraham reports (via Twitter). The Boston organization is waiting for the commissioner’s office to conclude its investigation into the team’s 2018 sign-stealing allegations before making a formal announcement, however.

Ron Roenicke | Mark J. Rebilas-USA TODAY Sports

That the Red Sox are planning to promote him seemingly suggests that the organization doesn’t believe Roenicke played a significant role in the club’s 2018 transgressions and won’t face discipline from the league; Roenicke was Cora’s bench coach that season — his first year on the job in Boston.

Roenicke, 63, played in parts of eight big league seasons from 1981-88 and also has 18 seasons as a Major League coach and five as a Major League manager on his resume. He served as the Brewers’ manager from 2011-15, although he was dismissed from that post just 25 games into his final season at the helm. (Milwaukee hired current skipper Craig Counsell to replace him.) Despite that ousting, it’s worth noting that Roenicke’s Brewers posted a winning record in three of his four full seasons as manager, including a 96-win effort in 2011 that saw the club last until Game 6 of the National League Championship Series.

With the league expected to formally conclude its investigation in the near future, an announcement on Roenicke may not be too far off. The dugout veteran will be stepping up into a delicate and tumultuous situation, so it’s not especially surprising to see the Red Sox opt for someone who both knows the players in the clubhouse and has experience working as a big league manager in the past. The Sox also reportedly interviewed Athletics quality control coach Mark Kotsay, D-backs bench coach Luis Urueta and their own third base coach Carlos Febles, but Roenicke is the lone known candidate who has previously run a Major League team at the field level. He’ll no doubt face some tough questions if and when he’s formally promoted, although the exact timing on conclusion of the league’s investigation obviously can’t be known.

The managerial change will be the latest step in what would’ve been an unfathomable shakeup just 16 months ago. The Red Sox, of course, won the 2018 World Series in Cora’s first season as a big league manager and in now-former president Dave Dombrowski’s third full year running the club’s baseball operations outfit. With a talented core of veterans and several key young talents emerging at the MLB level — Rafael Devers and Andrew Benintendi among them — the Sox appeared poised for another lengthy run as one of the game’s premier teams. Barely a year later, both Dombrowski and Cora are out, however, and the team is in the process of trading arguably its best player of the current generation in a poorly veiled ploy to duck under the luxury tax barrier. Former Rays senior vice president Chaim Bloom was brought in as the club’s chief baseball officer, and he’ll now work with Roenicke — at least for the 2020 season — in an effort to steer the Sox out of what has become one of the rockiest years in the franchise’s storied history.

Red Sox Sign Cesar Puello

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The Red Sox have added outfielder Cesar Puello on a minor-league deal, the team announced (h/t Alex Speier of the Boston Globe, on Twitter). He’s one of five new additions to the Boston non-roster invitation list — a group that also includes just-acquired prospects Jeter Downs and Connor Wong.

Puello has seen action in two MLB campaigns with four different clubs, appearing in just 61 total games. He had a bit of an outburst with the Angels when called up last year, turning in a huge dozen-game run, but nevertheless ended up being cut loose. Puello wasn’t able to keep things going when he landed with the Marlins.

In total, the 28-year-old carries a .239/.346/.346 slash line in his 186 MLB plate appearances. Once considered a prospect of some note, Puello has largely plied his trade in the upper minors of late. In 1,580 plate appearances at the Triple-A level, he owns a solid .292/.391/.446 batting line.

Eduardo Rodriguez’s Arbitration Hearing Set For Wednesday

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The Red Sox and left-hander Eduardo Rodriguez have an arbitration hearing set for this coming Wednesday, the pitcher himself revealed upon arriving to the team’s spring complex in Ft. Myers, Fla. (link via Chris Cotillo of MassLive.com). He’s filed for an $8.975MM salary, while the team countered at a proposed $8.3MM mark (as can be seen in MLBTR’s 2020 Arbitration Tracker).

Thus far in 2020, teams have toppled players by a 3-0 margin. The Braves bested Shane Greene early last week, and that was followed by arb victories for the Twins (over Jose Berrios) and for the Dodgers (over Joc Pederson). Rodriguez and his reps at Octagon will surely hope to halt that team-side momentum — assuming the two parties get to the hearing room. The Red Sox did negotiate a two-year, $10MM deal with Andrew Benintendi late last week, which will avoid arbitration for him both in 2020 and in 2021. A two-year arrangement with Rodriguez would buy out his final two seasons of club control, so that’d perhaps be a palatable alternative if the two sides can yet agree on a price point.

Like Benintendi, Rodriguez has established himself as a key piece for the Red Sox. The soon-to-be 27-year-old Rodriguez may have even been Boston’s best starter in 2019, when he pitched to a 3.81 ERA/3.86 FIP with 9.43 K/9, 3.32 BB/9 and a 48.5 percent groundball rate across 203 1/3 innings. It was a breakthrough year for Rodriguez, who hadn’t amassed more than 137 1/3 frames in any season since the ex-Orioles farmhand made his MLB debut with the Red Sox in 2015.

Now that fellow southpaw David Price is no longer a member of Boston’s rotation, Rodriguez is all the more important to the team’s starting staff. However, that doesn’t mean he’ll come out on top in his arbitration hearing or earn a multiyear extension.

MLBTR Poll: How Good Are The Red Sox?

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The Mookie Betts trade saga finally reached an end Monday when the Red Sox announced a deal sending him and left-hander David Price to the Dodgers. Both players were instrumental in helping the Red Sox to their most recent World Series title in 2018, and Betts is on a short list of the game’s greatest players. But the Red Sox nonetheless moved on from the two, saving $75MM in the trade ($48MM on Price, $27MM on Betts) and getting back a trio of promising young players in outfielder Alex Verdugo, infielder Jeter Downs and catcher Connor Wong.

Needless to say, Boston’s hope is that Verdugo, Downs and Wong will emerge as long-term core pieces. In the here and now, though, only Verdugo figures to play a significant role. The 23-year-old had a solid rookie season in 2019 before injuries cut him down. Even if Verdugo stays healthy in 2020, he’s not going to make Red Sox fans forget about Betts. That’s not a knock on Verdugo – who has shown that he’s a quality major leaguer – but a compliment to Betts, a legitimate superstar.

Betts was among the driving forces for a position player group that finished fourth in the majors in runs and sixth in fWAR last year. To be sure, Betts didn’t do it all himself. There’s still incredible talent on hand in shortstop Xander Bogaerts, third baseman Rafael Devers and designated hitter J.D. Martinez. They should continue to make Boston’s offense a bear for enemy pitchers to deal with, while Verdugo, fellow outfielders Andrew Benintendi and Jackie Bradley Jr. (if he’s not dealt), and catcher Christian Vazquez look like fine complementary pieces. That said, there’s no doubt Boston’s offense would have looked better had Betts remained a part of it.

Just as the Red Sox’s position player group took at least a short-term hit in this trade, so did its rotation. Price may not have been the all-world ace the Red Sox expected when they signed him to a then-record $217MM contract entering 2016, but he’s still an above-average starter. While injuries held Price to 107 1/3 innings last season, he did log a useful 4.28 ERA/3.62 FIP with 10.73 K/9 and 2.68 BB/9. Price was undoubtedly a top three starter on a team whose rotation didn’t get much from anyone else but Eduardo Rodriguez and Chris Sale a season ago.

Rodriguez and Sale are still on the roster, but there aren’t any sure things backing them up in Boston’s staff. Nathan Eovaldi will try to rebound from a horrid season, and the team brought in the relatively inexpensive Martin Perez (a back-end starter) in free agency. It’s up in the air who will occupy the fifth spot in the Red Sox’s rotation behind that quartet. As for the club’s bullpen, which endured its share of scrutiny last year, there haven’t been any especially notable additions this winter.

The 2019 campaign didn’t go as planned for the Red Sox, who entered with title aspirations but ended up winning a disappointing 84 games. They’ve since let go of their manager, Alex Cora, as a result of a sign-stealing scandal, and now the face of their franchise and one of their most reliable starters are also gone. Cora hasn’t been replaced yet, but his successor will be stepping into a drastically different situation than the one he oversaw. The Betts- and Price-less Red Sox are still a talented team, though, and chief baseball officer Chaim Bloom said Monday that it’s still “realistic” to believe they’ll compete in 2020. Considering how their roster looks now, do you agree?

(Poll link for app users)

Red Sox Announce Deal Sending Mookie Betts, David Price To Dodgers

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The Red Sox have officially announced a long-awaited swap to send superstar outfielder Mookie Betts and starter David Price to the Dodgers.

The Boston organization will pay down half of Price’s $96MM remaining contractual obligations. In return, the Sox will acquire outfielder Alex Verdugo, infield prospect Jeter Downs, and minor-league catcher Connor Wong.

New Red Sox chief baseball officer Chaim Bloom announced the blockbuster, saying that “it’s reasonable to expect we’re going to be worse without” Betts and Price. (Alex Speier of the Boston Globe is among those covering the presser on Twitter.) That’s stating the obvious. At the same time, Bloom says he anticipates a competitive roster that can realistically compete.

So, why do the deal? Not long ago, Bloom says, he expected to keep Betts for 2020. But “teams stepped forward” with increased offers over the course of the offseason. The ultimate package achieved constitutes a “major step forward” for the Boston organization’s future, in Bloom’s view.

You may recall that an initial formulation of this deal included young righty Brusdar Graterol, with supposed health issues said to have scuttled that arrangement. Bloom didn’t talk about that directly, but did deny that fan reaction had any role in the implosion of the earlier trade structure. Graterol is now ticketed for the Dodgers in a separate but related swap.

The deal wasn’t just driven by the Red Sox’ desire to dip below the competitive balance tax line, Bloom said. In fact, as the Globe’s Peter Abraham characterizes his comments on Twitter, Bloom would’ve been open to dealing away the franchise cornerstone in the interest of long-term sustainability even had the club not needed to do so to reset their luxury obligations. That’s a notable and somewhat startling statement from the top baseball ops exec of one of the game’s blue-chip teams regarding his organization’s approach to competition and roster-building — particularly given that Bloom emphasized that he still sees this as a winning roster.

NL Notes: Dodgers, Cubs, Giants

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The Mookie Betts trade is in the books, but now that Joc Pederson is no longer headed to the Angels, the Dodgers will have to sort out their 40-man roster, tweets Bill Plunkett of the Orange County Register. The Dodgers have 42 players on their 40-man roster at present. Finding a new trade partner for Pederson and/or Ross Stripling might be the most obvious answer, but the Dodgers may prefer not to rush a transaction of that magnitude. Speculatively speaking, Tyler White could find himself on the chopping block, with Kyle Garlick, Zach McKinstry and Edwin Rios other non-established big leaguers whom the Dodgers may need to consider moving or exposing to waivers. While we wait for the final confirmation of this deal to go through, let’s check in elsewhere around the National League…

  • Theo Epstein saw the writing was on the wall long before the Cubs’ current financial strictures so severely limited their transactional flexibility, per Gordon Wittenmyer of the Chicago Sun Times. Epstein references a pattern – the Cubs, Astros, Red Sox – of teams reckoning with their young stars graduating into the arbitration process. After years of supporting homegrown cores with free agent additions in efforts to win a World Series, the Red Sox, Astros and Cubs, for differing reasons, have entered new phases. Sure enough, the Astros had to let Gerrit Cole walk in free agency, the Red Sox just shipped Mookie Betts to the Dodgers, and the Cubs are said to have been shopping Kris Bryant for most of the winter. Of course, the Cubs haven’t yet moved their young stars, but their value has declined. Epstein and company are stuck choosing between trading the stars from the cursebreaking Cubs at lower than peak value and watching them depreciate into a mediocre ballclub. Of course, there’s always the possibility of a bounceback for this Cubs core, but even a return to prominence in the NL Central would not provide the answers Epstein needs when it comes to the futures of Anthony Rizzo, Kris Bryant, Javier Baez, Willson Contreras, Kyle Schwarber and company.
  • The Giants have extended a non-roster spring training invitation to catcher Ricardo Genoves, per Kerry Crowley of the Bay Area News Group. Given the timing, it’s safe to assume Genoves inclusion in the spring cohort comes as a result of the injury that will keep Aramis Garcia out for most of next season. That said, his inclusion is more about gaining a learning experience, and he’s not actually in the running for the Giants’ backup catching spot, per The Athletic’s Andrew Baggarly. Still, it seems a good opportunity for the 20-year-old Venezuelan backstop, and perhaps one that will put him on the radar of league officials league-wide. He was signed by the Giants at the open of the international signing period in 2015, but he tapped into real power at the dish for the first time this past season. Genoves managed a .265/.335/.469 line with 9 home runs in 51 games with Salem-Keizer of the Northwest League and Augusta in Low-A. 
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