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Yankees Trade Chance Adams To Royals

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1:20pm: The Yankees announced that they’ve acquired minor league shortstop Cristian Perez in exchange for Adams. The 21-year-old had a down season in his first year at Class-A Advanced in 2019, hitting .252/.290/.285 in 424 plate appearances.

Perez has never shown any semblance of power in the minors and doesn’t walk much. However, he’s consistently posted low strikeout rates and hit for a respectable average (career .263/.312/.319). Kiley McDaniel and Eric Longenhagen of FanGraphs called him an “instinctive defender with some feel to hit” in their write-up of the Royals’ farm system early in the 2019 season.

1:01pm: The Yankees and Royals have agreed to a deal that will send right-hander Chance Adams from New York to Kansas City, tweets MLB.com’s Mark Feinsand. Once rated as one of the organization’s best prospects, Adams was designated for assignment last week in order to open a roster spot for newly signed Gerrit Cole. The two teams have yet to formally announce the deal.

Adams, 25, has struggled to an 8.18 ERA in a small sample of 33 MLB innings but isn’t long removed from being considered one of baseball’s best pitching prospects. In the 2017-18 offseason, each of Baseball America, MLB.com ad Baseball Prospectus ranked Adams within the game’s top 100 overall prospects. At that point, he’d just wrapped up a season that saw him pitch to a 2.45 ERA with 8.1 K/9 against 3.5 BB/9 in 150 1/3 innings between Double-A and Triple-A.

Things haven’t gone smoothly for Adams since, as he’s posted a 4.72 ERA in nearly 200 Triple-A innings since that time (in addition to the aforementioned MLB struggles). Adams has seen his walk rate tick upward as his strikeout percentages have dipped considerably from his time in the low minors. However, he won’t turn 26 until next August and has a minor league option remaining, so there’s little harm in a rebuilding club like the Royals taking a speculative look in hopes of striking gold.

AL Notes: Indians, Blue Jays, Farrell, Franco, Astros

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It may be a white-knuckle weekend in the Cleveland area, as fans wait to see if submitted offers for cornerstone player Francisco Lindor prove to be sufficient for the Indians’ front office. It’s already been an offseason of no small intrigue, with the Corey Kluber trade further redefining the direction of the Cleveland franchise. One more question for the team before camp breaks? What to do about their abundance of outfield options. As Paul Hoynes of the Cleveland Plain Dealer points out in a Saturday reader mailbag, the Kluber trade, in bringing back Delino DeShields, leaves the club with a whopping nine outfielders on their 40-man roster.

As a careful observer might note, that tally only stands if we consider the DH-bound Franmil Reyes as an outfielder, but it’s a gaggle of on-the-grass options to sort through nonetheless. While each of Greg Allen, Jake Bauers, Daniel Johnson, Jordan Luplow, Oscar Mercado, Tyler Naquin, Bradley Zimmer, and DeShields has merit, Hoynes is right in pointing out that Mercado may be the only clear-cut starter of the group. If one of Lindor or Mike Clevinger does ultimately end up on the move, perhaps it should come as little surprise if a more stable outfield option comes back the other way.

  • Although outsiders might think that Shane Farrell’s hiring as Toronto’s amateur scouting director was aided by his family ties, Ben Nicholson-Smith of Sportsnet shares that the hire “won’t likely be popular with Blue Jays fans”—in part because many club followers still bristle at the team’s decision to trade Shane’s father John to the rival Red Sox in 2012. Still, Nicholson-Smith shares that the younger Farrell was described as “very intelligent” and a “strong evaluator” by an unnamed NL scout. Then again, it’s not as if any claims of nepotism could have been entertained seriously, considering that the Cubs interviewed Farrell for their VP of Scouting opening just this offseason.
  • The Royals’ decision to pluck Maikel Franco off the wire wasn’t exactly made on a hunch. As Alex Lewis explores in a mailbag for The Athletic, Kansas City evaluators found “a few oddities in Franco’s swing from his more successful seasons (2016-18) to last season (2019) in a video study session”. Lewis shares that the club is “optimistic” that they can fix Franco’s issues–not exactly a ridiculous gambit considering his age (27) and early promise. Lewis also looks back at a story from The Athletic’s Matt Gelb, written around the time Franco was demoted in August, that noted certain adjustments the third baseman made to hit fewer balls on the ground may have been behind an infield popup rate of 23.7 percent at the time of his call-down.
  • Recent reunions with Martin Maldonado and Joe Smith has inched the Houston Astros’ projected payroll very close to the $228MM luxury tax threshold. They would avoid a repeater tax, though a 12% surtax comes with the $20MM overage (the base tax line is set at $208MM for 2020). Jason Martinez at Roster Resource pegs Houston’s luxury tax estimate at just over $137MM, well past that second line and fast approaching the third tax line of $248MM. Given that Houston previously indicated a desire to stay under even the $228MM line, they are probably done shopping for the winter, at the very least as far as position players are concerned, per The Athletic’s Jake Kaplan.

Latest On Travis Shaw

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The Royals made a notable move at third base Thursday when they agreed to sign former Phillie Maikel Franco to a deal worth just under $3MM in guaranteed money. It turns out the Royals’ decision at the hot corner came down to Franco and Travis Shaw, as Jeffrey Flanagan of MLB.com tweets. But Franco’s “younger with more upside (and more cost-efficient),” notes Flanagan, which helped lead the rebuilding Royals to go in his direction.

Kansas City’s betting on a revival from the 27-year-old Franco, a former high-end prospect whose career began with a flourish but has fallen apart over the past few past seasons. Shaw, whom the Brewers non-tendered at the outset of this month, may have been even worse than Franco last season. However, Shaw has been the more successful of the two in recent years, and he’s confident he’ll return to his top form in 2020.

“Never been more motivated,” Shaw told reporter Robert Murray via text. “Can’t wait for 2020 to start. Someone is gonna get lucky.”

Shaw, set to turn 30 next April, was terrific during a two-year stretch from 2017-18. He combined for 7.1 fWAR on the strength of a .258/.347/.497 line with 63 home runs in 1,193 plate appearances during that span. Unfortunately for the Brewers and Shaw, though, his production collapsed last season – a year in which he hit a horrific .157/.281/.270 with seven HRs and minus-0.8 fWAR over 270 trips to the plate. The Brewers moved on as a result, even though they had no obvious third base solution with Mike Moustakas then a free agent (and now a member of the division-rival Reds), and it’s difficult to blame them for not wanting to pay a projected $4.7MM in arbitration in light of Shaw’s 2019 production.

Now, although Shaw’s most recent output was downright bad, it’s anyone’s guess how he’ll fare in free agency. Viable third base options on the open market have shrunk since the offseason commenced, with Josh Donaldson the lone clear-cut starter left. Teams that don’t sign Donaldson (or have little to no chance of reeling in the soon-to-be high-paid star) could turn to Shaw and hope for a bounce-back campaign.

Royals To Sign Maikel Franco

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The Royals have reached agreement on a one-year deal with third baseman Maikel Franco, MLB.com’s Jon Heyman reports (via Twitter).  MLB.com’s Jesse Sanchez reported earlier today that Kansas City “emerged as the favorite” among the teams vying for the infielder, and a deal could be coming shortly.  Franco will earn $2.95MM in guaranteed money, with another $1.05MM available in incentives, as per Heyman.  Franco is a client of the Octagon agency.

Once considered one of the game’s better prospects, Franco burst onto the scene by posting an .840 OPS over 335 PA for the Phillies in 2015, seemingly staking his claim to being Philadelphia’s third baseman of the future.  That hot start only led to intermittent success over the next four seasons, however, as Franco hit .247/.299/.427 with 88 homers over 2146 plate appearances from 2016-19.

With the Phillies impatient to return to contention and upgrade their third base situation, they parted ways with Franco this winter, non-tendering him rather than keep him on the roster.  Franco was projected to receive a $6.7MM arbitration salary in what would have been his third trip through the arb process.  He’ll now get less than half of that in Kansas City, though with the opportunity for some decent incentive bonuses and (more importantly) the chance to re-establish himself as a legitimate everyday player at the big league level.

The Nationals and Rangers were two other clubs known to have interest in Franco after he became a free agent, though since the Royals aren’t likely to be in contention this season, Franco will get a longer look than he would for other teams who might give him a shorter leash.

Interestingly, Franco’s addition would seemingly hint at a position switch for Hunter Dozier, who played 100 of his 139 games at the hot corner last season.  MLB.com’s Jeffrey Flanagan tweets that Dozier will move to right field, with Whit Merrifield moving to center field.  That would also seem to indicate that Jorge Soler is primed to spend much of his time as a DH next year, though Dozier also has experience playing first base.  (There’s also the possibility of a Soler trade, though the most recent reports suggest the Royals are more likely to hang onto Soler.)  Dozier was bound to remain a regular part of Kansas City’s lineup in the wake of his impressive 2019 season, though since he didn’t exhibit much glovework at third base, the Royals could now shift Dozier around between first base, right field, and DH.

Royals Re-Sign Humberto Arteaga, Erick Mejia

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The Royals have re-signed infielder Humberto Arteaga and outfielder/infielder Erick Mejia to minor league contracts, the team announced.

Both players have quickly returned to the Royals two weeks after the club non-tendered them. The two debuted in the majors last season, but the 25-year-old Arteaga garnered more experience. Arteaga totaled 135 plate appearances, but he batted a nonthreatening .197/.258/.230 without a home run during that span and managed minus-0.7 fWAR along the way. The light-hitting Arteaga didn’t pack much of a punch over 302 PA in Triple-A ball, either, as he slashed .299/.333/.394 with five HRs and 11 stolen bases.

Mejia, whom the Royals acquired from the Dodgers in a 2018 three-way trade, went to the plate 27 times at the big league level in 2019 and hit .227/.333/.273. Like Arteaga, the 25-year-old Mejia also produced at a below-average rate in Triple-A ball, where he put up a .271/.339/.382 line and logged seven long balls with 19 steals over 556 PA.

Royals Sign Braden Shipley

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The Royals announced Tuesday that they’ve signed right-hander Braden Shipley to a minor league contract. The former first-rounder and top prospect will presumably be in Major League Spring Training as a non-roster invitee. MLB.com’s Jeffrey Flanagan tweets that he’ll make $600K if he cracks the MLB roster.

Now 28 years old, Shipley was the 15th overall pick by the D-backs in the 2013 draft and ranked among baseball’s 100 best prospects in each of his first three pro seasons, per Baseball America, MLB.com and Baseball Prospectus. But after strong showings up through the Double-A level, Shipley’s strikeout rate began to deteriorate while his walks increased. He received big league looks from the Diamondbacks each season from 2016-18 but scuffled in each showing, ultimately compiling a 5.49 ERA with 5.8 K/9, 4.1 BB/9, 1.71 HR/9 and a 42.9 percent ground-ball rate through an even 100 innings in the big leagues.

Shipley has worked both as a starter and a reliever during his pro career, showing greater velocity and swinging-strike tendencies when working out of the bullpen. He’ll give the Kansas City organization some depth in either role and will likely head to Triple-A Omaha to begin the season if he doesn’t crack the roster.

AL Notes: Mariners, Seager, Orioles, Davis, Matheny

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Seattle Times beat writer Ryan Divish cites a source close to the situation in saying that there is a “small chance but definitely a chance” that the Mariners deal Kyle Seager this offseason (link).  Any time a club does anything short of unequivocally ruling out a player as “untouchable”, it means a trade is a possibility — not as if we would be inclined to believe that anyone on the Mariners roster is untouchable from the unsentimental hand of GM Jerry Dipoto, least of all a well-compensated, past-30 player like Seager.  We heard this week that multiple clubs were in on the third sacker, although his $15MM club option for 2022 would convert to a player option if he’s traded. Seager could be open to amending that clause, perhaps in an effort to play for a contending team in 2020, but Seattle vet is still due $37MM over the next two seasons. Seager launched 23 home runs in Seattle’s difficult hitting environment last year while slashing .239/.321/.468 (110 wRC+), which is generally in line with career averages for the 32-year-old.

More notes from around the AL…

  • Orioles GM Mike Elias said on Saturday that the club likes the collegiate pitching at the top of the 2020 first-year player draft, as reported by Roch Kubatko of MASN Sports (link). Of course, Baltimore has the second-overall pick in that draft, so the club has a realistic shot at landing their choice of arms among Emerson Hancock (Georgia), Asa Lacy (Texas A&M), Cole Wilcox (Georgia), or Reid Detmers (Louisville). Arizona State’s Spencer Torkelson is widely believed to be the top player available in next year’s draft, but the Tigers will have the first crack at his burly bat.
  • Elias doesn’t sound overly stressed about the team’s remaining commitment to embattled slugger Chris Davis, saying in a fan Q&A–with Zachary Silver of MLB.com present–that the team will “work with [Davis] throughout the season“. While that doesn’t give an exact plan in regard to the team’s on-field usage of Davis moving forward, it certainly feels like a further reduction in playing time could be in the works. Davis got into just 105 games last season, logging a second consecutive season well below the Mendoza line (.179/.276/.326 overall). For what it’s worth, Elias also said that he doesn’t take Davis’ remaining three years “lightly” and that Davis remains an asset to the Orioles’ fan community.
  • Sports Management Worldwide is, according to its website, a sports agency and private for-profit sports management training institution based in Portland, Oregon; it was also the recent site of instruction for new Royals manager Mike Matheny, as profiled in a piece by Joe Lemire of Sport Techie. Matheny was often criticized for his strategic management during his time as skipper for the Cardinals, so this summer saw him buff up on his analytics via an SMM course primarily catered toward individuals “trying to break into the sports industry or boost themselves beyond an entry-level job”. The courses taken this summer are said to have covered nearly all aspects of the use of data in baseball, including arbitration forecasts, defensive valuations, and in-game preparation. “How can I stay relevant? How can I see what’s next? How can I provide our players any kind of edge to what’s on the horizon?” Matheny said in reference to his motivation for taking SMM courses. “We’re in a new era in baseball. Players are understanding the data and the information more. They’re hungrier for it than ever before and more open to it than ever before.” While some will snark at Matheny’s educational endeavor, it seems laudable that the 49-year-old Matheny–a man of no small professional accomplishment–would take pains to ensure that he’s adapting to a world increasingly impacted by data and evolving technologies.

Royals Re-Sign Jesse Hahn

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The Royals have announced a deal with righty Jesse Hahn to bring him back, as Jeffrey Flanagan of MLB.com first reported (Twitter link). Hahn is slated to receive a $600K salary with $200K in available incentives.

Hahn had been non-tendered by the Kansas City organization. He was projected to earn $900K via arbitration. Evidently, the sides just needed a while longer to sort out a price tag.

It has been quite some time since Hahn, now 30, was last effective in the majors, His career got off to a stellar start in 2014-15, but he has struggled with health and performance lapses ever since.

Hahn worked his way back from a second Tommy John surgery last year with the Kansas City organization, making it back up to the majors late in the year. While it’s hard to gauge much of anything from the limited action, it seems quite promising that Hahn sat at 95 mph with his fastball.

NL West Rumors: Padres, Marte, D-backs, MadBum, Rox, Marquez

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Continuing an active winter in the San Diego outfield, the Padres have joined the race to acquire Pirates center fielder Starling Marte, Jon Heyman of MLB Network reports. The Padres have already shuffled around their outfield quite a bit this offseason, having added two players (Tommy Pham and Trent Grisham) and subtracted another (Hunter Renfroe). They could get rid of at least one more if a team takes Wil Myers off their hands. The Padres at least tried to pawn Myers off on his first professional team – the Royals – in the clubs’ talks centering on utilityman Whit Merrifield, but KC didn’t bite, according to Scott Miller of Bleacher Report.

More rumblings from the NL West…

  • The Diamondbacks “floated” a proposal to Madison Bumgarner that would have promised him something in the realm of $70MM, per Nick Piecoro of the Arizona Republic. That falls in line with MLBTR’s $72MM prediction (over four years) for Bumgarner, but the highly accomplished 30-year-old has his eyes fixed on a much richer contract. The longtime Giant’s reportedly aiming for a payday in the $100MM range.
  • Teams have inquired about Rockies right-hander German Marquez, but they haven’t shown any willingness to trade him, Bob Nightengale of USA Today tweets. It’s neither surprising that other teams covet the strikeout-heavy Marquez nor that the Rockies want to keep him. Before last season, they signed the 24-year-old to a club-friendly extension – one that will see him earn a guaranteed $40.5MM from 2020-23 (including a $2.5MM buyout in ’24).
  • Back in late September, the Padres and lights-out closer Kirby Yates were reportedly discussing an extension. No new deal has come together since, but it appears the two sides will at least make an effort to hammer something out. In regards to a potential extension, Yates told Jeff Sanders of the San Diego Union-Tribune: “I’m always interested. It’s not up to me. When you get to that point, you have the discussions.” Likewise, the Padres are open to it. The club will “start talking to Kirby about his situation for next year” later this offseason, general manager A.J. Preller revealed. The 32-year-old Yates has just one remaining season of arbitration control, in which he’s projected to earn a bargain salary of $6.5MM.
  • The Diamondbacks were already known to have interest free-agent center fielder Shogo Akiyama, and GM Mike Hazen revealed they met with the Japanese standout on Tuesday, per Piecoro.  The Cubs also met with Akiyama’s representatives.

Royals Notes: Perez, First Base, Holland, Trades

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After missing all of 2019, Kansas City Royals catcher Salvador Perez will see extended stretches of time at first base in 2020, per The Athletic’s Alec Lewis (via Twitter). Perez underwent Tommy John surgery, and the Royals are willing to be cautious with their catcher as they ease him back in behind the plate. New manager Mike Matheny can certainly commiserate, having spent so many years behind the dish himself.

By Opening Day, Perez may be the last bastion of their title team. Danny Duffy remains, and there’s still a chance that Alex Gordon returns, but if Gordon retires or signs elsewhere, Perez would be the last remaining every day piece of their back-to-back pennant winning teams. Especially now that manager Ned Yost has passed the torch to Matheny, Perez represents an important daily reminder as the bridge to a successful era of Royals baseball.

Simply from a scorebook standpoint, a catcher with a strong defensive reputation who annually hits 20 home runs like Perez is extremely valuable, though poor baserunning and an extremely low walk rate have somewhat mitigated the plus sides of Perez’s game. Regardless, priority one will be avoiding another lost season like 2019. Besides, neither first base nor catcher is a position of real strength for the Royals sans Perez. As with Perez’s counterpart in the 2014 World Series Buster Posey, time at first base should ease the physical toll on Perez’s knees, arm, and back as he prepares to enter his thirties in early May. It may be that this move will be what allows Perez to maintain his influence behind the dish for longer, if not with the workload of his younger years.

As Perez returns to service, there’s some chatter about another member of the title team returning. MLB.com’s Jeffrey Flanagan asked Dayton Moore about the possibility of a Greg Holland signing, to which Moore expressed some optimism. Granted, it would have been a bizarre jab for Moore to outright reject Flanagan’s postulating, but Holland does fit the mold of a free agent the Royals could afford and who might have some interest in playing in Kansas City.

Holland, 34, came out the chute hot last season as the Diamondbacks closer, but he was released after 40 appearances and a 4.54 ERA/4.76 FIP. Thus continued the late-career trend of hot-and-cold for Holland, who simply couldn’t find the strike zone with consistency. He can still miss bats (10.3 K/9), but 6.1 BB/9 and 6 wild pitches led to 5 blown saves and his eventual removal from the closer’s role in Arizona despite 17 successful conversions.

Once released, he signed on with the Nationals, for whom he’d put together a masterful 24 games with a 0.84 ERA at the end of 2018. He didn’t give up a single earned run in 9 innings for the Nats’ Double-A affiliate, but he did not find his way back to the big leagues.

As for the rest of the Royals roster, Moore doesn’t foresee much movement on the big league front. Whit Merrifield, Jorge Soler, and Adalberto Mondesi are parts of their core and the Royals have no intention of breaking them up, per Lynn Worthy of the Kansas City Star. There is excitement internally about the return of Perez and even Duffy gets a shoutout from Moore as having the potential to get better in the latter years of his contract. Though that’s not typically the arc for pitchers on the backside of thirty, it would not be wholly unprecedented. Duffy’s last two seasons have been largely forgettable as he’s put together 285 2/3 innings of 4.63 ERA baseball (4.74 FIP) while making roughly 25 starts per season.

Beyond those core performers, the Royals believe in the growth potential of infielder Nicky Lopez as well as first baseman Ryan O’Hearn. Both players struggled mightily in 2019. Lopez, 24, hit an underwhelming .240/.276/.325 in 402 player appearances, and O’Hearn, 25, wasn’t much better at .195/.281/.369. For players with at least 350 plate appearances, O’Hearn’s 69 wRC+ ranked 5th from the bottom in the American League, while Lopez came in dead last at 56 wRC+, two points behind Chris Davis’ mark of 58 wRC+.

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