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Red Sox Rumors

East Notes: Denbo, Hicks/Ellsbury, Vlad Jr., Red Sox

By Jeff Todd | October 18, 2017 at 10:28pm CDT

Tim Healey of the Sun-Sentinel takes a look at Derek Jeter’s first hire in Miami: former Yankees executive Gary Denbo. The Marlins’ new player development and scouting guru is known for working hard to make something out of all of the players in farm system. His attention to detail and willingness to grind could pay dividends for a club that will need to grow quite a lot of talent to make up for what is initially projected to be quite a low payroll.

Here’s more from the eastern divisions:

  • Of course, sometimes finding value in players that didn’t quite pan out for other organizations can deliver huge dividends. That has been the case for the Yankees and Aaron Hicks, as Joel Sherman of the New York Post writes. Indeed, he seems now to have displaced Jacoby Ellsbury in center — so much so that Sherman expects the Yanks to “tell teams in the offseason to make their best offer on the veteran.” The article goes on to discuss what kind of trade situations might make sense for Ellsbury, who does have quite a bit of salary left to go as well as no-trade protection.
  • Top Blue Jays prospect Vladimir Guerrero Jr. is tackling some goals and having fun at the Dominican winter league, as Shi Davidi of Sportsnet.ca writes. In particular, the young phenom has been tasked with expanding his range and improving his footwork at the hot corner. It seems that Toronto is interested, too, in exposing Guerrero to the bright lights and relatively high stakes of playing against strong competition in his home nation.
  • After interviewing Ron Gardenhire today, the Red Sox are “still deciding” whether to sit down with any other candidates, president of baseball operations Dave Dombrowski informs Chad Jennings of the Boston Herald (via Twitter). Alex Cora and Brad Ausmus are the other two names under consideration at present. You can catch up on prior developments in the search right here.
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Boston Red Sox Miami Marlins New York Yankees Toronto Blue Jays Aaron Hicks Dave Dombrowski Jacoby Ellsbury Vladimir Guerrero Jr.

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Eduardo Rodriguez Undergoes Knee Surgery

By Jeff Todd | October 17, 2017 at 2:44pm CDT

Red Sox lefty Eduardo Rodriguez has undergone a significant knee surgery, per a team announcement. Specifically, he had a patellofemoral ligament reconstruction performed on his right knee. The joint has been a source of problems for Rodriguez for some time, though he was able to turn in a mostly complete 2017 season.

Per the announcement, it is expected that Rodriguez will not be able to resume pitching for around six months. That would put him on course to be ready by mid-April of next year, though of course he’ll need some time to build up into full game condition. Accordingly, it seems clear he won’t be available for the club for some time early in the 2018 campaign.

That will leave Boston looking for options to fill out the rotation at the start of the year, though perhaps the club will feel confident enough in Rodriguez’s return that it will be happy with a shorter-term fill-in. The Sox are also hoping that Steven Wright will be back at full strength, potentially providing another option to join a rotation that’ll feature Chris Sale, David Price, Rick Porcello, and Drew Pomeranz. But there’s now rather clearly some cause for the team to pursue added depth — if not even to go ahead and add a full-time starter if a reasonable opportunity arises.

Rodriguez, 24, has steadily provided Boston with good innings over the past three seasons — when he has been available. While he has yet to take more than 24 starts in a given campaign, and hasn’t yet taken a final step to producing dominant results, Rodriguez is quite a valuable asset and still seems capable of more.

In 2017, Rodriguez threw a personal high of 137 1/3 innings, working to a solid 4.19 ERA. While he recorded 9.8 K/9 against 3.3 BB/9, he also surrendered 1.25 home runs per nine. ERA estimators all landed in range of his actual results, but perhaps there’s still another gear for a pitcher who has steadily increased his swinging-strike rate (most recently, 11.6%) and managed to produce despite a series of lower-body issues. Surprisingly, he has maintained rather pronounced reverse platoon splits in the majors; beyond getting healthy, then, perhaps the biggest challenge Rodriguez faces is to find a way to tamp down on the .270/.338/.447 batting line that southpaw swingers have put up against him.

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Boston Red Sox Newsstand Eduardo Rodriguez

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Hanley Ramirez Undergoes Shoulder Surgery

By Jeff Todd | October 17, 2017 at 2:43pm CDT

2:43pm: Ramirez underwent an arthrocopy and debridement. It is not expected to prevent him from being ready for a full 2018 campaign.

12:50pm: Details remain unknown, but Evan Drellich of NBC Sports Boston tweets that it’s believed to be a “relatively minor” surgery.

12:06pm: Red Sox first baseman/DH Hanley Ramirez underwent surgery today on his left shoulder, he announced. The details of the procedure, which comes as something of a surprise, are not yet known.

Shoulder issues plagued Ramirez throughout the season, but he had not previously given any indication that he was set to go under the knife, as Rob Bradford of WEEI.com notes on Twitter. And president of baseball operations Dave Dombrowski said less than a week ago that he was not aware of any players who’d need surgery. (Of course, it was later announced that lefty Robby Scott underwent a procedure that very day.)

Ramirez, who’ll turn 34 in December, is owed $22MM next year. If he takes at least 497 plate appearances and passes a physical, he’d also trigger a $22MM vesting option for the 2019 campaign, though odds are the club won’t allow that to happen unless Ramirez is playing well enough that the extra year doesn’t seem like a burden.

Boston will hope that Ramirez can bounce back from another rough season. He was productive in 2016, but otherwise has given the organization below-average offensive work since joining the organization before the ’15 campaign.

This year, Ramirez managed only a .242/.320/.429 slash with 23 home runs over 553 trips to the plate. He did not show significant erosion in plate discipline, with a typical 9.2% walk rate and a slightly elevated 21.0% strikeout rate. And perhaps there’s some hope that a reversal in fortune on batted balls will help Ramirez make up lost ground. After all, he managed only a .272 BABIP, well below his career .322 measure, despite a batted-ball mix that mostly mirrors those of recent seasons.

Ramirez was signed for his bat, and perhaps it can still come alive with a healthy shoulder. If not, he won’t hold much function for the Red Sox. Though he once ran well, Ramirez racked up -5.3 runs on the bases in 2017 by Fangraphs’ BsR measure. And at this point, the former shortstop is only an option at DH or first base. He wasn’t able to play the field much at all this year due to the shoulder problem, but perhaps there’ll be greater availability in the future.

Regardless of Ramirez’s availability, the Red Sox will likely look for more pop over the offseason to come. But HanRam’s outlook matters, too. If he’s healthy and capable of lining up at first base, perhaps the team would have greater positional flexibility in adding a bat. At this point, though, it seems likely that the Boston organization will assume it needs to add a player capable of playing first in 2018. Indeed, it’s even possible to imagine pursuit of multiple hitters, depending upon the post-surgical prognosis.

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Boston Red Sox Newsstand Hanley Ramirez

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AL East Notes: Sox Payroll, Chili, Yanks’ Rotation, McKinney, O’s

By Jeff Todd | October 17, 2017 at 2:29pm CDT

Whatever the Red Sox may prefer, the odds are that the organization will again go over the luxury tax line in 2018, Alex Speier of the Boston Globe explains. Indeed, with a hefty arbitration class set to land on top of an already robust set of guaranteed contracts, the team will enter the offseason without much hope of improving unless it’s willing to exceed the $197MM luxury tax line. Of course, the club reset its luxury tax status by staying under the 2017 mark, which reduces the penalty for going back over (but would also begin a new climb upward in the escalating tax scheme).

Here’s more from the AL East:

  • As the Red Sox continue looking into candidates for the team’s open managerial position, the team is allowing its coaches to look into their own alternatives. Well-regarded hitting coach Chili Davis is set to visit with the Padres, per Evan Drellich of NBC Sports Boston (Twitter links). San Diego parted ways with hitting coach Alan Zinter, leaving the club looking at alternatives. Of course, it’s still also possible that a new Boston manager would prefer to keep Davis or certain other members of the staff, but the staff is now free to make its own decisions at this stage.
  • Joel Sherman of the New York Post posits a scenario in which the Yankees can obtain quite a strong rotation next year without any massive new investments. Of course, doing so would depend not only upon achieving some notable strokes of good market luck but also upon the organization getting the best versions of some pitchers that have had their ups and downs. Most interestingly, Sherman says the “general sense” is that Masahiro Tanaka will not opt out of the three years and $67MM left on his deal. While that’s hardly cheap and still carries obvious risk, it seems like an appealing price tag for a pitcher of his pedigree, given his late-season rebound. Sherman’s most optimistic version of a 2018 staff also includes Shohei Otani, whose destination is anyone’s guess at this stage. All things considered, though, the Yanks’ roation situation does seem much better than might have been anticipated entering the year, due largely to the surge of Luis Severino and emergence of Jordan Montgomery.
  • Meanwhile, the Yankees are trying prospect Billy McKinney out at first base in the Arizona Fall League, Bill Mitchell writes for Baseball America, though he’ll also continue primarily to be an outfielder. As Mitchell notes, McKinney showed better than ever after finally reaching the Triple-A level midway through the 2017 season. The 23-year-old slashed .306/.336/.541 with ten home runs in his 224 plate appearances there, though he also walked just four percent of the time (well below his usual rate) and carried a .353 batting average on balls in play that likely reflects both good contact and some fortune. It’ll be interesting to see when and how McKinney is utilized at the MLB level, but he could factor into the team’s depth considerations for the season to come or potentially be dangled as a trade candidate.
  • Though the Orioles will obviously need to bring in some new players if they hope for a return to contention, Roch Kubatko of MASNsports writes that the team also must receive improvements from within if it hopes to compete. Consistent production from key players was elusive in 2017, which failed to create a base of output sufficient to maintain a winning record. Even with expectations of some bounceback performances, though, the roster will surely be in need of supplementation; MLBTR’s Mark Polishuk recently broke down the possibilities.
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The Red Sox’ Managerial Search

By Mark Polishuk | October 17, 2017 at 1:36pm CDT

After back-to-back early postseason exits in the ALDS, the Red Sox decided to part ways with manager John Farrell.  There was already speculation before the dismissal that Farrell was on the hot seat, and the rumor mill has only picked up speed now that Boston’s search has officially begun.  President of baseball operations Dave Dombrowski will now have his first opportunity to personally hire a manager since joining the Red Sox in the summer of 2015.

As we’ve done with the Tigers, Mets, and Phillies, we’ll begin to house all of the managerial chatter for the Red Sox in one place and update accordingly as candidates either further their case or are removed from consideration. Here’s where Boston’s search stands, at present:

Latest Updates

  • The club is expected to conduct a second round of interviews before making any offers of employment, per Evan Drellich of NBC Sports Boston (via Twitter). There’s a sense inside the organization, though, that Cora is the front-runner, Drellich further writes. ESPN.com’s Buster Olney (Twitter link) hears that both Cora and Ausmus are “at the center of conversations,” with expectations being that it won’t take long to name a new manager.

Will Interview/Have Interviewed

  • Recently departed Tigers skipper Brad Ausmus has interviewed for the position, as Chad Jennings of the Boston Herald reported on Twitter and we covered further in another post.
  • Astros bench coach Alex Cora is expected to interview with the Sox on Sunday, Dan Shaughnessy of the Boston Globe reports.  He’s Boston’s top candidate for the job, per Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic (on Twitter). Cora is also expected to interview for the Tigers and Mets openings.  Though Cora is still in the midst of his first coaching stint on a big league staff, the 41-year-old has long been considered a promising managerial candidate, previously receiving interviews for openings with the Diamondbacks, Marlins, Nationals and Padres in recent years.  Cora enjoyed a 14-year career in the big leagues (including a stint with the Red Sox from 2005-08) before moving on to work as an analyst for ESPN and ESPN Deportes, and as a general manager in the Puerto Rican Baseball League.
  • The Red Sox have requested the Diamondbacks’ permission to interview bench coach Ron Gardenhire, Rosenthal tweets; he’s expected to chat with the team later this week, per Pete Abraham of the Boston Globe (via Twitter). The former Twins manager is one of the “final three” candidates for the job, according to Charley Walters of the St. Paul Pioneer Press (via Twitter)

Preliminary Candidates (Interview Status Unknown)

  • In addition to Ausmus, Indians first base coach Sandy Alomar Jr., Dodgers bench coach Bob Geren, Giants hitting coach Hensley Meulens have all been mentioned as likely or speculative candidates by several reporters (including Peter Abraham of the Boston Globe, NBCSports.com’s Evan Drellich and the Boston Herald’s Chad Jennings).  Ausmus may be a particular name to watch, as Dombrowski hired him as Detroit’s manager after the 2013 season and (according to Peter Gammons) Ausmus delivered a very strong performance when interviewing for Boston’s last managerial opening in the 2012-13 offseason.

Not in the Mix/No Longer in Consideration

  • Current members of the Red Sox coaching staff have been told that they are free to look for jobs outside the organization.  When asked if an internal candidate could be hired, Dombrowski said “most likely not, but I’m not going to say for sure not.”  This would more or less seem to rule out names like bench coach Gary DiSarcina, hitting coach Chili Davis or third base coach Brian Butterfield, who have all been linked to previous managerial openings in the past.
  • Dombrowski also expressed a preference for candidates with past managerial or coaching experience on a Major League staff, so longtime Red Sox catcher and current Dombrowski special assistant Jason Varitek doesn’t seem to be in the running.
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Boston Red Sox Alex Cora Bob Geren Brad Ausmus Jason Varitek Ron Gardenhire Sandy Alomar Jr.

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Brad Ausmus Interviews With Red Sox, Is Not Interested In Mets

By Jeff Todd | October 16, 2017 at 4:51pm CDT

Since losing his job as the Tigers skipper  a few weeks back, Brad Ausmus has drawn quite a lot of interest from other organizations looking to replace outgoing managers. Ausmus interviewed today with the Red Sox, per Chad Jennings of the Boston Herald (via Twitter), but has pulled out of the running for the Mets’ job, according to Jon Heyman of Fan Rag.

Boston recently announced that it would move on from manager John Farrell, opening one of the game’s premium posts. President of baseball operations Dave Dombrowski hired Ausmus to his former job in Detroit, leading to immediate speculation about a possible match.

While some believe that others are more likely to earn the position — Alex Cora, in particular, has drawn plenty of attention — there’s obvious reason to suspect that Ausmus will be strongly considered. We have been tracking the early-stage developments in Boston’s search right here.

As for the Mets’ job, it’s interesting to hear that Ausmus has pulled out of the hunt before meeting with the organization or landing elsewhere. New York was said to have real interest in Ausmus, and certainly has a talent-laden roster in spite of an undeniably rough 2017 campaign. Of course, we don’t know just what considerations Ausmus is bringing to bear on the situation; as Heyman notes, he does have particular ties to the broader area surrounding Boston, though New York is the next closest MLB city to that particular region (and is even closer to Ausmus’s hometown of New Haven, Connecticut).

In any event, that leaves New York considering a variety of alternatives. One other notable former MLB skipper that won’t be under consideration, it seems, is former White Sox manager Robin Ventura. He “does not appear to have a strong interest” in the Mets’ job, per Heyman’s report, despite being mentioned as a possible candidate previously. The team’s other candidates (including Cora) are covered in this omnibus post on the search for a Terry Collins replacement.

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East Notes: Yankees, Sox, Nats, Orioles

By Connor Byrne | October 15, 2017 at 4:52pm CDT

With the Yankees intent on getting under the $197MM luxury tax threshold in 2018, Joel Sherman of the New York Post wonders if they’ll shop relievers Dellin Betances and Adam Warren in the offseason. While the two, especially Betances, are high-end bullpen options, the Yankees may not want to spend the projected $7.5MM on the pair given that their relief corps would still be loaded without one or both. Aroldis Chapman, David Robertson, Chad Green and Tommy Kahnle will stick around next season, and all four of them are currently ahead of Betances and Warren in the Yankees’ late-game pecking order. Both Betances and Warren are likely to file for larger arbitration requests than their projected figures, Sherman notes, which could be especially interesting in the former’s case. After all, the relationship between Betances and the Yankees took a sour turn during the arbitration process last winter.

  • Landing a big bat, adding depth in their rotation and middle infield, and finding another setup man could be on the Red Sox’s offseason to-do list, Chad Jennings of the Boston Herald writes. Regarding Boston’s power-needy offense, which we touched on earlier today, Jennings lists impending free agents J.D. Martinez, Justin Upton, Eric Hosmer, Mike Moustakas and Jay Bruce as possible fits.
  • The Nationals’ playoff trip this year ended in more disappointment for the franchise, but manager Dusty Baker’s return still looks likely, Chelsea Janes of the Washington Post. The future of Baker, who doesn’t have a contract for next year, is one of the biggest offseason questions facing the Nationals, opines Janes. In terms of their roster, the Nats will have to make decisions on whether to re-sign impending free agent outfielder Jayson Werth, whether to upgrade behind the plate and in the rotation, and how to assemble their bench, Janes adds.
  • The Orioles’ coaches will see their contracts run out at the end of the month, but the team still hasn’t made a final decision on Buck Showalter’s staff for next season, according to Roch Kubatko of MASNsports.com. If Showalter has his way, all of his assistants – including beleaguered pitching coach Roger McDowell – will return, per Kubatko. However, general manager Dan Duquette didn’t rule out changes when speaking to reporters on the final day of the season. “All those things with the coaches and the staffing, all those things need to be addressed, and I think you have to look carefully at them when you don’t have a strong year and see if there are some adjustments that you can make,” Duquette said.
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Baltimore Orioles Boston Red Sox New York Yankees Washington Nationals Adam Warren Dellin Betances

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Poll: Improving Boston’s Offense

By Connor Byrne | October 15, 2017 at 10:34am CDT

From an offensive standpoint, the Red Sox didn’t thrive in Year 1 of the post-David Ortiz era. While Boston finished 93-69 and won its second straight American League East title in 2017, the club wasn’t the hitting juggernaut it had been throughout Ortiz’s tenure from 2003-16. The Red Sox led the majors in runs scored six times during that 14-year span, including in 2016, and only landed outside the majors’ top 10 in runs and FanGraphs’ wRC+ metric one time apiece – in 2014, when they placed 18th and 25th in those categories.

This year’s Red Sox, whom Houston dismissed from the playoffs in a four-game ALDS, did cross the plate the 10th-most times in the league, but they fell to 22nd in wRC+ after the Ortiz-led outfit ranked first last season. The majority of the Red Sox’s regulars posted mediocre numbers at the plate, and according to Statcast’s xwOBA metric (via Baseball Savant), the only ones who outperformed their results were Mitch Moreland and Hanley Ramirez.

An Ortiz-esque thumper obviously would have been of use to the Red Sox this year, and it’s possible president of baseball operations Dave Dombrowski will attempt to find one in the offseason. That said, the vast majority of Boston’s position player group already looks settled for next year. Outfielders Mookie Betts and Andrew Benintendi, third baseman Rafael Devers, shortstop Xander Bogaerts, second baseman Dustin Pedroia and Ortiz’s DH successor, Ramirez, are locks. Sure, the Red Sox could stand to improve offensively behind the plate, where catchers Christian Vazquez and Sandy Leon combined to rank a below-average 19th out of the majors’ 30 teams in wRC+, but each offered significant value in the pitch-framing department (per Baseball Prospectus). And with Jonathan Lucroy having fallen off in 2017, there don’t appear to be any surefire upgrades set to hit free agency next month.

J.D. Martinez

While the aforementioned players are good bets to return to Boston next year, the status of center fielder Jackie Bradley Jr. looks less certain. The Red Sox could trade the 27-year-old Bradley, who’s controllable for three more seasons, move Benintendi from left to center and reel in an offensive force such as J.D. Martinez or Justin Upton via free agency to join Beninendi and Betts in the grass. Martinez and Upton (if he opts out of his contract with the Angels) will come at much higher prices than Bradley, who will earn around $6MM in 2018, but the righty-swingers would likely mash at Fenway Park. And it’s worth noting that Dombrowski has already acquired Martinez in the past. When he was the Tigers’ general manager in 2014, Dombrowski took a flyer on the then-struggling Martinez.

Despite Dombrowski’s familiarity with Martinez, it’s possible the Red Sox will elect to stick with Bradley. Although he had a subpar year offensively, batting just .245/.323/.402 in 541 plate appearances, he was an easily above-average hitter the previous two seasons. Further, even if he doesn’t revisit his 2015-16 levels with the bat, Bradley’s still capable of providing surplus value in other ways. In fact, Bradley ranked third at his position in Defensive Runs Saved (nine) and seventh in Ultimate Zone Rating (4.2) in 2017. He also fared nicely on the bases, placing 11th in FanGraphs’ BsR metric. So, even in a down 2017, Bradley was still part of the overall solution for the Sox.

It’s up in the air whether Boston will have a new outfield alignment next year, whereas change at first base looks highly likely. Moreland is probably going to leave as a free agent, and the Red Sox don’t seem to have a ready-made replacement on hand. Prospect Sam Travis, 24, is fresh off an uninspiring year at Triple-A Pawtucket, where he hit for almost no power across 342 PAs (six home runs, .105 ISO), and didn’t distinguish himself during an 83-PA major league debut in Boston. The Red Sox would be hard pressed to count on him, then, which could point them toward free agency or the trade market for a first baseman.

Free agents-to-be Eric Hosmer, Carlos Santana, Logan Morrison, Jay Bruce and Yonder Alonso all had successful offensive seasons in 2017 and could land on Boston’s radar. On the other hand, Dombrowski has never been shy about making deals and is only a year removed from swinging a blockbuster with the rebuilding White Sox, who have a star first baseman and potential trade candidate in Jose Abreu. The soon-to-be 31-year-old Abreu and his two remaining seasons of team control would warrant a quality haul, but the right-handed slugger and Fenway Park would make for an enticing match.

Whether the Red Sox make a play for Abreu or another high-profile hitter over the winter, it does seem fair to expect an offensive upgrade to come in some form. What do you think Dombrowski will do?

(Poll link for App users)

Will the Red Sox make any major offseason moves to improve their offense?
Yes 88.29% (5,524 votes)
No 11.71% (733 votes)
Total Votes: 6,257

Photo courtesy of USA Today Sports Images.

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East Notes: Nats, Tillman, Red Sox, Marlins

By Connor Byrne and Jeff Todd | October 14, 2017 at 6:21pm CDT

We haven’t yet heard a full breakdown of the Nationals’ offseason plans following the club’s hard-to-fathom postseason exit on Thursday night. But president of baseball operations Mike Rizzo has shared some preliminary thoughts on the team’s latest NLDS disaster, as MLB.com’s Mark Feinsand reports. Despite the obvious disappointment, Rizzo suggests there’s not much to be done beyond continuing to “just keep getting there, keep giving ourselves opportunities” in the postseason. He cited a quality core both “on the current club” and “in the farm system to supplement us,” which certainly has been reflected in the regular season results. So, how can the Nats respond to the loss? “Keep grinding, keep building, keep getting quality people in here. We’re going to be fine here in Washington,” Rizzo says.

More from the East Coast:

  • With a 7.84 ERA and minus-1.o fWAR across 93 innings, right-hander Chris Tillman was among the worst pitchers in baseball this year, but Roch Kubatko of MASNsports.com doesn’t sense that the Orioles have moved on from the free agent-to-be. Both sides are comfortable with each other, Kubatko writes, which could lead to Tillman staying with the starter-needy Orioles on a one-year deal in an effort to rebuild his value. Tillman gave Baltimore’s rotation respectable production from 2012-16, but the shoulder issues he dealt with toward the end of last year disrupted his offseason routine and likely played some part in his difficult 2017. A more typical winter and spring could make Tillman a bounce-back candidate next year, then.
  • It’s not particularly likely that the Red Sox will bring back any of their impending free agents, Jen McCaffrey of MassLive.com suggests. Out of Eduardo Nunez, Mitch Moreland, Chris Young, Doug Fister, Fernando Abad, Addison Reed, Rajai Davis and Blaine Boyer, it seems Boston is most interested in re-signing Nunez, but McCaffrey points out that he may be able to land more playing time someplace else. Should the Red Sox re-up Nunez, it could be a sign that they’re concerned about second baseman Dustin Pedroia’s health, McCaffrey observes. The 34-year-old Pedroia went on the disabled list twice because of knee issues in 2017 and only appeared in 105 games – down from 154 the previous season.
  • New Marlins part-owner Derek Jeter has already made some decisions contrary to predecessor Jeffrey Loria’s advice, Jon Heyman of FanRag writes. Specifically, Loria would have retained four executives Jeter’s group fired – assistant general manager Mike Berger, vice president of player development Marc Delpiano, VP of pitching development Jim Benedict and VP of player personnel Jeff McAvoy – and parted with scouting director Stan Meek, whom Jeter kept. Jeter and majority owner Bruce Sherman will have to pay the axed execs between $6.5MM and $9MM, Heyman adds.
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Cafardo’s Latest: V-Mart, Bradley, Hickey, Farrell, Phillies

By Mark Polishuk | October 14, 2017 at 3:34pm CDT

The chances of Victor Martinez continuing his career may be “touch and go” in the aftermath of heart-related health issues in 2017, Nick Cafardo of the Boston Globe writes.  The Tigers slugger twice suffered irregular heartbeats, the second of which led to chronic ablation surgery in early September that prematurely ended his season.  Martinez has one year and $18MM remaining on his original four-year contract with the Tigers, and he turns 39 years old in December, so retirement could potentially not be far away for the veteran.  That said, the top priority is Martinez’s health, and everyone around baseball is pulling for Martinez to both make a full recovery and be able to end his career on his own terms, whether after the 2018 season or beyond.

Here’s more from Cafardo’s weekly notes column…

  • Jackie Bradley Jr. could be a big commodity on the trade market, as Cafardo opines that the Red Sox could deal Bradley, move Andrew Benintendi to center field and then sign J.D. Martinez to play left field.  Boston’s “need for power is so critical,” Cafardo writes, that the Sox may have to take the hit on defense, not to mention the payroll hit of dealing Bradley (controlled via arbitration through the 2020 season) and spending big on Martinez.  Cafardo also noted Martinez as a potential Boston target in his column last week, citing the past relationship between Martinez and Dave Dombrowski from their time together in Detroit.  The Giants, Phillies, Royals and Braves are all listed as potential suitors if the Red Sox did shop Bradley, and several more teams would certainly check in on the 27-year-old.  Bradley took a step backwards at the plate this season, though he posted above-average hitting numbers in 2015-16 and is one of the game’s better defensive players.
  • Jim Hickey has drawn a lot of attention for pitching coach vacancies around the sport, though Cafardo writes that some around the game consider Hickey to be a potential managerial candidate.  He speculates that “the Mets could take a long look” at Hickey, or potentially the Red Sox as they look to replace another former pitching coach-turned-manager in John Farrell.
  • Speaking of Farrell, he could emerge as a contender for one of the open managerial vacancies around the game, or even with the Nationals if they choose to move on from Dusty Baker.  One AL executive feels the Nats “would be looking at strongly” if they did make a change in the dugout, though the exec also feels Farrell may take a season away from the game to both increase his job options and perhaps just to take a break from the grind.
  • While discussing teams looking for managers, Cafardo makes the interesting comment that “the Phillies still have their sights on” Orioles skipper Buck Showalter.  Once Pete Mackanin was reassigned from the manager’s job in Philadelphia, there was some initial speculation about the Phils targeting Showalter given his ties to Andy MacPhail and Matt Klentak.  Since then, however, the Phillies have seemingly moved onto other candidates, plus there’s the obvious obstacle of Showalter still being under contract to the Orioles for one more season.
  • Speaking of the Phillies job, Cafardo also notes that Red Sox bench coach Gary DiSarcina’s name has come up as a possible candidate.  DiSarcina worked for the Angels as a coach and front office assistant during Klentak’s stint with the club as an assistant GM.  The longtime former Angels infielder has several years of experience in a variety of front office, coaching and minor league managerial roles with the Halos and Red Sox.
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