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Braves, Rangers, Yankees Interested In Matt Olson

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3:45pm: The Braves have also been in contact about Olson, MLB Network’s Jon Morosi tweets.  Atlanta’s interest in Olson also dates back to before the lockout, as the World Series champs were exploring a potential fallback plan for first base if Freddie Freeman signed elsewhere.

9:09am: The Yankees considered the Athletics’ asking price prior to the lockout far too high, tweets SNY’s Andy Martino, who adds that the Yanks made clear they would not include top shortstop prospect Anthony Volpe in a potential deal.

7:45am: The lockout is over, and in the coming days, the dam will break on a historic flood of transactions. Athletics first baseman Matt Olson headlines a deep class of trade targets and serves as the focal point of a prospective Athletics fire sale, which GM David Forst alluded to back in November when acknowledging that the team would have to listen to trade offers on the majority of its roster this winter. It’s already known that the Rangers and Yankees are among the teams with interest in Olson, but their efforts to acquire him can now resume in earnest.

Evan Grant of the Dallas Morning News reports that the Rangers planned to reach out to the A’s shortly after the lockout lifted to rekindle talks. Texas, however, would need to be confident in its ability to sign Olson to a contract extension before making a deal, per Grant. That’s sensible, as even after spending a half-billion dollars to sign Corey Seager and Marcus Semien, the Rangers are still a ways from contending. Olson is only controlled another two seasons, and if a playoff run in 2022 isn’t a legitimate possibility, then the prospect of really only having Olson for one year of earnest contention would make the sky-high prospect price perhaps unpalatable.

As for the Yankees, Newsday’s Erik Boland tweets that Olson is their preferred option for an upgrade at first base. The Yanks currently have Luke Voit (a trade candidate himself) and DJ LeMahieu as in-house options, but Voit is coming off an injury-marred season and doesn’t have nearly the same defensive prowess as Olson. LeMahieu is looking for a rebound at the plate himself and is better deployed as a second baseman or third baseman, where his glove carries more value. As we explored during the lockout, there are plenty of options for the Yankees, who have also been rumored to have varying degrees of interest in free agents Freddie Freeman and Anthony Rizzo.

With regard to the Rangers, it shouldn’t be assumed that they’ll be in on Freeman or Rizzo if they miss out on Olson. Grant characterizes Olson and lefty Clayton Kershaw as something of specialty targets for the Rangers, suggesting that if they’re not successful in acquiring one or both players, there may only be an additional $10-15MM in total spending for Texas this winter. Absent a deal for Olson, the Rangers would likely turn first base back over to Nathaniel Lowe, who had a solid year at the plate in 2021 (.264/.357/.415, 18 homers).

Texas and New York will be just two of a wide swath of teams interested in prying Olson away from Oakland. The Braves are known to have some interest as well but would probably only make a strike to acquire Olson if they know for certain that Freeman is headed elsewhere. Freeman, the 2020 NL MVP, has been linked to the Dodgers, Yankees, Blue Jays and even the Rays, who made him an offer before the lockout. The markets of the two star first basemen are inextricably linked, and with Freeman expected to act quickly in making a decision post-lockout, the market for Olson could soon gain some clarity.

While the A’s will be listening on more than just Olson — Matt Chapman, Frankie Montas, Sean Manaea, Chris Bassitt, Ramon Laureano and Lou Trivino could also be marketed — there’s little denying that Olson is the headliner of their options and, arguably, of the entire trade market. The 2021 All-Star and two-time Gold Glover belted a career-high 39 home runs last year while posting the best all-around production of his Major League tenure. Olson hit .271/.371/.540 and maintained a huge 13.1% walk rate while simultaneously cutting his once-problematic strikeout rate from 31.4% in 2020 all the way down to 16.8%. He’s projected by MLBTR contributor Matt Swartz to earn $12MM this coming season.

Rangers To Sign Martin Perez

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The Rangers have agreed to terms on a contract with free-agent lefty Martin Perez, reports FanSided’s Robert Murray (via Twitter). It’s a one-year, $4MM contract for Perez, MLB Network’s Jon Heyman adds. Perez, a client of Octagon, will return to the organization that originally signed and developed him. He made his big league debut with Texas in 2012 and spent the next seven seasons with the Rangers.

Perez, 31 next month, spent the 2019 season with the Twins and was with the Red Sox in 2020-21 before returning to Texas. In his three years away from his original club, the southpaw turned in 341 1/3 innings of 4.88 ERA ball with rather pedestrian strikeout (18.4%), walk (8.7%) and ground-ball (44.9%) rates. Boston declined a $6MM club option in favor of a $500K buyout on Perez after the 2021 season.

Once lauded as one of the sport’s premier pitching prospects, Perez has instead settled in as a back-of-the-rotation starter. Those 2019-21 rates represented a slight uptick over his career strikeout rate and a slight downgrade over his career ground-ball rate, but generally speaking, Perez’s output in three years away from Texas was roughly in line with his lifetime numbers at the big league level. He doesn’t necessarily work deep into starts, but Perez has avoided the injured list for the past three seasons, with the exception of a brief absence this past summer following a positive Covid-19 test. He’ll give the Rangers some needed stability at the back of a starting staff that was — and still is — in need of multiple arms.

Perez will join fellow offseason signee Jon Gray and right-hander Dane Dunning as one of the only three locks in the Texas rotation. Lefty Taylor Hearn could get another look, depending on other moves that are made, but he was hit hard in limited work out of the rotation while thriving in the bullpen this past season. Right-hander A.J. Alexy had a big year in the upper minors but a tepid 4.70 ERA in 23 big league frames. Prospects Spencer Howard and Glenn Otto, acquired at the trade deadline, both were hit hard in their brief MLB looks. Right-hander Yerry Rodriguez and southpaw Brock Burke are both on the 40-man roster but were both ineffective in Triple-A this past season.

Put another way, Perez figures to be one of multiple arms acquired by the Rangers, whether via free agency or trade. Texas has been strongly linked to hometown star Clayton Kershaw, and the general belief is that Kershaw will either return to the Dodgers this winter or sign with the Rangers to be close to his family. The Rangers are also known to be keenly interested in A’s first baseman Matt Olson, and Oakland has several arms who could be on the trade block alongside their All-Star first baseman (Sean Manaea, Chris Bassitt, Frankie Montas).

The Rangers’ hope is surely that 2021 No. 2 overall pick Jack Leiter and 2019 first-rounder Cole Winn — two of the sport’s most promising arms — will be able to factor into the big league rotation sooner than later. That may not be the case until 2023, however, so the veteran Perez will give them a bridge to those younger arms. His $4MM salary is a mere footnote in what’s been a massive offseason of spending for president of baseball operations Jon Daniels and general manager Chris Young. Texas has also signed Corey Seager (10 years, $325MM), Marcus Semien (seven years, $175MM), Gray (four years, $56MM) and Kole Calhoun (one year, $6.2MM), bumping their projected payroll to just under $134MM. That’s a notable increase from the past couple seasons but still a good bit shy of 2017’2 franchise-record $165MM payroll.

Rangers Notes: Patton, Hernandez, Engler

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Spencer Patton’s successful return to the Majors in 2021 flew somewhat under the radar, but the 34-year-old righty emerged as a key reliever for the Rangers, pitching to a 3.83 ERA with a 27.9% strikeout rate, an 8.7% walk rate and a 41.3% ground-ball rate in 42 1/3 innings of work. That came on the heels of a strong four-year run with the Yokohama DeNA BayStars in Japan and marked Patton’s first big league action since a 2016 run with the Cubs. Prior to this past season, Patton carried a 6.26 ERA in 54 2/3 big league frames.

He’s not yet arbitration eligible, but the contract Patton signed upon returning from Japan calls for him to earn a $1.5MM salary in the Majors this year, Evan Grant of the Dallas Morning News reports. It’s a split contract, so he’d earn at a different rate in the minors in the event Texas options him out. (Patton does have one minor league option remaining.) The Rangers may yet add to the bullpen after the lockout lifts, but Patton has likely solidified on the Rangers’ Opening Day roster, barring injury or something unforeseen in whatever iteration of Spring Training is pieced together. Patton, Joe Barlow, Brett Martin and Josh Sborz all look like they have the inside track on Opening Day bullpen jobs, and the Rangers will hope to get hard-throwing righties Jose Leclerc and Jonathan Hernandez back from Tommy John surgery before too long, as well.

Some more notes on the Rangers…

  • Speaking of Hernandez, the right-hander tweeted last week that he’s begun throwing off a mound for the first time since undergoing that Tommy John procedure. Hernandez sustained what was described as a “low-grade” tear of the ulnar collateral ligament in his right elbow early in 2021 Spring Training and was shut down for a four-week period of rest. Doctors seemingly didn’t see enough improvement following that shutdown, as he underwent surgery on April 12 of last year. The 25-year-old Hernandez had a big showing with Texas during the shortened 2020 season, pitching to a 2.90 ERA with a 24.8% strikeout rate, 6.7% walk rate and 45.7% grounder rate in 31 innings. Hernandez averaged 96.7 mph on his heater that summer and posted a strong 13.9% swinging-strike rate as well. He’s had trouble with command in the past, particularly in 2019 when he walked one of every six hitters he faced in his big league debut (16 2/3 innings). He pairs that power fastball with a plus slider, however, and if he can sustain the improved command he showed in 2020, he’d quickly emerge as a high-end bullpen piece for manager Chris Woodward.
  • One name who might’ve emerged in the bullpen mix, Scott Engler, won’t be pitching at all in 2022, tweets Jeff Wilson. The 25-year-old righty underwent Tommy John surgery on Monday this week, ruling him out of the team’s immediate plans. A 16th-round pick in 2016, Engler split the 2021 season between Double-A and Triple-A, pitching to a combined 3.71 ERA with a 28.2% strikeout rate, a 10.6% walk rate and a 48.5% ground-ball rate. FanGraphs’ Eric Longenhagen wrote last May that Engler has a plus splitter with so much drop that it can at times be mistaken for a curveball. The surgery figures to sideline Engler into the early stages of the 2023 season, but based on his upper-level experience and relative success, he could find himself in the bullpen mix next year.

Latest On Clayton Kershaw

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The baseball world’s focus continues to fixate on the MLB lockout and today’s MLB-imposed deadline, but whenever the lockout lifts, the ensuing flurry of free-agent and trade activity has the potential to be historic. One of the most notable names among the yet-unsigned players on the market is three-time Cy Young winner and 2014 NL MVP Clayton Kershaw, who became a free agent for the first time at season’s end. The prevailing wisdom since he hit the market has been that Kershaw would either return to the Dodgers or sign with the Rangers, as Kershaw’s Dallas home is a short drive from Arlington’s Globe Life Field.

Bob Nightengale of USA Today touched on that fact in his latest MLB notebook over the weekend, writing that a former teammate of Kershaw’s expects him to either sign with the Rangers or retire. That’s just one third party’s opinion, of course, and that identifier itself is rather vague. (“Former teammate” could range from Corey Seager to Ted Lilly, after all.) It’s perhaps an anecdotal note, but any clues as to the eventual decision of a future Hall of Famer (and any shreds of offseason normalcy) are of particular intrigue.

It’s already been a huge offseason for the Rangers, who’ve signed Seager, Marcus Semien, Jon Gray and Kole Calhoun as they shift gears from an abbreviated rebuild to a clear win-now approach. Despite doling out a more than a half-billion dollars in free agent contracts, however, the Rangers still ought to have the financial wherewithal to add Kershaw.

The Rangers are projected for a payroll of roughly $127MM, per Roster Resource’s Jason Martinez, and they have only $80.25MM in guaranteed 2023 contracts to consider. Texas ran a $165MM payroll as recently as 2017 and, from 2014-18, averaged a $146.5MM Opening Day payroll. Evan Grant of the Dallas Morning News suggested multiple times in recent weeks that a Kershaw match could be in the cards, though the implication in Grant’s latest mailbag piece was that Kershaw would be their final major free-agent expenditure if he did sign (likely at an annual salary north of $20MM).

All that said, while the possibility of Kershaw changing teams is a fascinating one on which to speculate, there’s been no firm indicator that he won’t return to the Dodgers. Kershaw himself appeared on the Dan Patrick Show earlier this month and spoke broadly about the allure of playing on a perennial contender, even if it came with the difficulty of enduring repeated playoff exits (YouTube link).

Kershaw didn’t do much to tip his hand, but he did note that for the Dodgers, “the World Series is the expectation” every year. Dodger fans hoping for a reunion will surely point out the obvious: that has not been the case for the Rangers. Of course, there are broader factors at play. Kershaw noted in that interview with Patrick that he and his wife welcomed their fourth child over the winter, and proximity to his young family will naturally play a major role in Kershaw’s decision.

It’s worth noting, too, that Kershaw certainly didn’t sound like a player who had retirement on his mind.

“We have to continue to prepare like we’re going to play,” Kershaw said when asked how the lockout impacts his preparation for the season. “…I’m continuing to prepare like we’re going to start on time, but each day it just seems like we’re getting further and further from that.”

Latest On Carlos Correa

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Going into the offseason, there were many parallels between the top two free agents, Carlos Correa and Corey Seager. Both were shortstops reaching free agency at the age of 27 and coming off excellent platform seasons. Seager, along with agent Scott Boras, secured a ten-year, $325MM contract from the Rangers prior to the lockout. Correa, however, did not sign before transactions were frozen and then hired the Boras corporation to represent him in January. Once the lockout is lifted, his continued search for a contract will be one of the top storylines to follow. Joel Sherman of the New York Post takes a look at some of the options, including the Dodgers, Yankees, Blue Jays, Tigers and Cubs, while Ken Rosenthal and Corey Brock of The Athletic, look into the fit with the Red Sox and Mariners, respectively.

The Dodgers, of course, had Seager as their shortstop in recent years and just saw him depart for the Rangers. The expectation has been that they were comfortable enough with that loss because they could rely on Trea Turner to take over at short. If the Dodgers were to then pivot to Correa, however, that would likely involve Turner moving over to second base, much like he did when he and Seager were on the roster together after he was acquired from the Nationals at last year’s trade deadline. Since Turner is just one year away from free agency, signing a long-term deal with Correa could be a way to proactively address the shortstop void one year before it’s absolutely necessary. This scenario seems to have been already considered by the Dodgers’ brass, as Sherman reports that they offered Seager a $275MM deal before he signed with the Rangers. However, he also notes that it might not be as simple as swapping Correa in for Seager, as Correa’s role in the Astros’ sign-stealing scandal might not go over so well with fans of the Dodgers, since they were defeated by that now-infamous team in the 2017 World Series.

That same issue is present with another reported suitor, the Yankees, as they were felled by the Astros in the 2017 ALCS. But Yankees’ general manager Brian Cashman has previously stated that the reaction of the fans “is not going to enter my calculus right now.” Since Gleyber Torres was moved to second base last year, it was expected that the Yankees would be major players in this year’s shortstop market. However, they may be willing to eschew a big splash, preferring to target a short-term stopgap option to hold down the position until it’s taken over by one of their prospects, either Oswald Peraza or Anthony Volpe. It’s also possible that this is merely a posture for negotiating purposes and that the club may emerge as a genuine suitor for Correa. Jon Heyman of MLB Network tweets that they did check in with Correa prior to the lockout, but seemed to prefer Seager. Since Correa was reportedly looking for a contract slightly above what Seager eventually got, it may be difficult for a deal to come together.

The Blue Jays have less of an obvious need for Correa, given the presence of Bo Bichette at short. Sherman opines that the club could sign Correa and then bump Bichette to either second or third, but then downplays the possibility of them dishing out a contract nearing Correa’s asking price. Given the fact that they were reportedly in the mix for Seager prior to the lockout, the possibility can’t be ruled out entirely. The sign-stealing situation clearly isn’t an issue for the Jays, as they’ve already signed George Springer, Correa’s teammate in Houston. But even if they do have the payroll to make a big splash after the lockout, they may use it to make a run at Freddie Freeman instead.

The Tigers have long been considered a speculative fit for Correa, given the fact that their manager is A.J. Hinch, who previously managed Correa in Houston. However, they already made a big investment at shortstop when they signed Javier Baez prior to the lockout. Although Baez played some second base with the Mets last year in deference to Francisco Lindor and could theoretically do the same again, it still would be shocking to see them double down in such an aggressive fashion. Sherman also speculates that the Cubs could be a dark horse here. The club was primarily focused on tearing down last year, trading away most of the core pieces from their previous competitive window, including Baez, Kris Bryant and Anthony Rizzo. Since the offseason began, they have been surprisingly active in making additions, bringing on Marcus Stroman, Yan Gomes and Wade Miley. However, those players were all brought aboard with short-term commitments and pivoting to the type of lengthy deal that would be required to sign Correa seems unlikely at this stage.

As for the Red Sox, Rosenthal lays out a scenario where Correa takes over as their shortstop given that his defense is far superior to that of Xander Bogaerts, who could be shuffled over to second base. However, he also points out that, given the lockout-shortened Spring Training to come, there will be less time for Bogaerts to develop his skills at a new position than there would be in a more normal year, perhaps making the plan too awkward to implement successfully. After this season, Bogaerts can opt-out of the three years and $60MM that will be remaining on his contract, something that he seems likely to do if he has another healthy and productive season. Signing Correa now could be a way for Boston to preemptively replace Bogaerts, but as Rosenthal points out, the club hasn’t signed a free agent contract larger than $14MM since Chaim Bloom became the club’s chief baseball officer. Suddenly dropping $300MM on the table would be a huge departure in strategy. However, it’s exactly because of that avoidance of significant commitments that the club’s future payroll is fairly blank. If Bogaerts does indeed opt out after this season, that would leave Chris Sale as the only serious commitment on the books.

For the Mariners, Brock doesn’t believe it likely that there’s a match here. However, he points out that, if Correa is interested in going to Seattle, they have the money to make it happen. The club’s payroll for the year is currently around $87MM, in the estimation of Jason Martinez of Roster Resource. From 2015 to 2019, the club’s annual budget hovered in the $120-160MM range, per Cot’s Baseball Contracts. That leaves plenty of breathing room, if the club is willing to push up to those spending levels again in an attempt to build on last year’s 90-win campaign. The team’s president of baseball operations Jerry Dipoto previously stated that the club wouldn’t supplant J.P. Crawford as the team’s shortstop, but it’s hard to imagine that strategy is so etched in stone that they wouldn’t consider adding a talent like Correa if the stars aligned for them to do so.

Clearly, there are many ways Correa’s market could play out once the lockout ends. With the freezing of transactions and contract negotiations, we can’t really know the intentions of any of these parties until that ice breaks and dominos start falling again. Due to the compressed timeline that will eventually exist between the signing of a new CBA and the start of the season, this will all have to play out in an expedited fashion. And with Boras also representing many other high-profile free agents like Bryant, Nick Castellanos, Michael Conforto, Carlos Rodon and more, that figures to make the situation all the more frenzied.

Details On Last Summer's Eric Hosmer Talks With Padres

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The Padres and Rangers discussed first baseman Eric Hosmer in trade talks last summer, as part of broader pre-deadline negotiations that also reportedly involved Padres prospect Robert Hassell and then-Rangers slugger Joey Gallo.  It isn’t any secret that San Diego has been trying to get Hosmer’s contract off the books, though The Athletic’s Dennis Lin reports that Texas still wanted the Padres to cover the majority of the salary owed to Hosmer ($59MM from 2022-25).  The exact numbers involved in the proposed trade isn’t known, and obviously the inclusion of Gallo (paid $6.2MM last season and projected to earn $10.2MM in 2022) was a major factor in the financial elements of any deal.

Since Gallo ended up being traded to the Yankees at the deadline, it remains to be seen if the Padres could revisit a more streamlined version of a Hosmer trade with the Rangers once the lockout is over, with Hassell perhaps included as a sweetener to convince Texas to absorb a larger chunk of Hosmer’s salary.  Of course, the equation has now changed quite a bit for a Rangers team that has already added Corey Seager, Marcus Semien, and Jon Gray in a pre-lockout spending spree.  While the Rangers still have payroll space, they might prefer to spend on a player who can more readily help them contend in 2022.  Hosmer has been roughly a league-average hitter over his last four seasons, and Texas already has a left-handed hitting first baseman in Nathanial Lowe who might be a better candidate to out-perform Hosmer at the plate (and at a fraction of Hosmer’s price tag).

Rangers Top Prospect Josh Jung Undergoes Shoulder Surgery

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Rangers top prospect Josh Jung underwent surgery to repair a torn labrum in his left shoulder this morning, the team told reporters (Twitter link via Evan Grant of the Dallas Morning News). It’s expected to be about six months before he’s cleared to even begin serving as a designated hitter in games. Jung sustained the injury recently while lifting weights as part of his offseason training regimen. Texas had already shut him down, but the hope was that he could avoid surgery. After receiving additional medical opinions this week, however, surgery was deemed the necessary course of treatment.

It’s a brutal blow for the Rangers, who hoped last year could serve as the final full year of development for Jung. A big league debut at some point in 2022 was widely expected after the 2019 No. 8 overall pick laid waste to Double-A and Triple-A pitching in 2021. In 342 plate appearances between those two levels, Jung slashed a combined .326/.398/.592 with 19 home runs, 22 doubles, a triple, a 22.2% strikeout rate and a 9.1% walk rate.

There was some thought that with a big enough spring showing, Jung could even position himself as a candidate to break camp with the Rangers. Texas is clearly shifting from its prior rebuilding mode into a win-now mindset, as evidenced by their offseason signings of Corey Seager, Marcus Semien and Jon Gray. Jung is the overwhelming favorite to eventually slot in as the team’s everyday third baseman, and most scouting reports on the promising former Texas Tech star expect him to do just that. He ranked as the No. 26 prospect in MLB at Baseball America this winter, No. 31 at Baseball Prospectus and No. 19 at ESPN. The team at FanGraphs was most bullish on Jung, placing a 60 grade on him overall (on the 20-80 scale) and ranking him inside the sport’s 15 best farmhands.

Any coronation of Jung as the team’s everyday third baseman is now on hold for the majority of the 2022 season — if not until the 2023 campaign. With Jung now out of the picture for the foreseeable future, versatile defensive star Isiah Kiner-Falefa finds himself shifting from a super-utility role (and interesting trade candidate) to the team’s primary option at the hot corner.

The 26-year-old Kiner-Falefa is well equipped to handle such a role, as he proved in 2020 when he won a Gold Glove Award at third base. He moved to shortstop for the 2021 campaign and turned in another strong defensive showing, although the potential drop-off from Jung to Kiner-Falefa from an offensive standpoint is likely to be steep. Talented as he is with the glove, Kiner-Falefa is primarily a singles hitter who rarely walks. He’s posted a .273/.316/.361 batting line over the past two seasons, which is productive enough to provide value when combined with his defensive prowess, but Jung has quite a bit more power and is widely expected to be an impact performer on offense.

Offensive gap between the two notwithstanding, Kiner-Falefa is a solid option to have on hand. He had reportedly been of interest to the Yankees as a possible trade candidate prior to the lockout, but Jung’s injury surely dampens the possibility that the Rangers would consider parting with Kiner-Falefa. While they could, speculatively speaking, still move Kiner-Falefa if a compelling enough offer presents itself and follow that trade with a short-term free agent signing, the likelier scenario is that Kiner-Falefa will be manning the hot corner at Globe Life Field for the vast majority of the 2022 season. Should Seager or Semien find themselves out of the lineup, Kiner-Falefa could step in for either player, with 28-year-old Andy Ibanez providing some additional cover at second base and third base.

Rangers Prospect Josh Jung Shut Down Due To Shoulder Strain

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Feb. 21: Jung is expected to receive additional opinions this week, writes Evan Grant of the Dallas Morning News, who ominously adds that the injury could ultimately require surgery.

Feb. 18: The Rangers have shut down third base prospect Josh Jung after he strained the labrum in his left shoulder, the team informed reporters (including Levi Weaver of the Athletic). He incurred the injury while recently lifting weights as part of his preseason training program.

Texas didn’t announce a timetable for his return. He’s slated to undergo further evaluation next week, and it’s possible the injury will prove to be a minor setback. If the issue were to affect his readiness for the start of the season, though, it might delay his big league debut. Jung is widely expected to reach the majors this year after splitting the 2021 campaign between Double-A Frisco and Triple-A Round Rock. He raked at both stops, hitting .308/.366/.544 in Double-A before improving to a .348/.436/.652 showing at the minors’ top level.

Those numbers may have been inflated a touch by a smaller sample, as he was limited to 342 cumulative plate appearances after a stress fracture in his foot delayed his season debut until mid-June. Nevertheless, the right-handed hitter impressed enough in the summer’s final few months to cement his place among the game’s top prospects. The eighth overall pick in 2019 out of Texas Tech (where his brother Jace currently stars), Jung has always hit when healthy. Baseball America rated him among the game’s top 30 prospects this winter, writing that his hit/power combination gives him a chance to be a middle-of-the-order bat.

Jung isn’t regarded as a superlative defender at the hot corner, but evaluators generally believe he could be anywhere from serviceable to solid there. Between those glowing scouting reviews and his high minors performance, the 24-year-old looks likely to get an everyday crack in Arlington at some point in the near future. Jung’s looming arrival — coupled with the free agent spending spree that landed Marcus Semien and Corey Seager — has contributed to some speculation Texas could make infielder Isiah Kiner-Falefa available in trade after the lockout.

Without a definitive timetable on Jung, it’s too early to tell whether his injury will affect the front office’s plans for when the transactions freeze concludes. Obviously, it’s also not clear precisely when the MLB season will begin. (Jung is not on the 40-man roster, so he’s not subject to the lockout). Even if the injury lingers past the scheduled start date of the major league season, it’s possible the lockout will carry on long enough that the injury won’t affect his MLB timetable anyhow. Much about the situation remains uncertain, but the Rangers figure to play things very cautiously with one of the most talented young players in the organization.

Could The Rangers Add Another Outfielder?

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  • While the Rangers are likely to give Adolis Garcia the starting nod in center field again in 2022, Evan Grant of the Dallas Morning News suggests that there’s enough uncertainty that the club could pursue additional depth in the outfield. Seiya Suzuki has been connected to Texas, of course, but even absent a big splash like Suzuki or Michael Conforto, smaller-scale outfield additions seem plausible. Specifically, someone capable of playing center and also handling left field would be of intrigue, Grant notes. Garcia got out to a blistering start but cratered with a .219/.266/.386 slash from July 1 onward (334 plate appearances). Meanwhile, backup option Eli White is recovering from elbow surgery, while top prospect Leodys Taveras has yet to hit in the big leagues. Over in left field, Willie Calhoun has not yet proven himself capable of consistently hitting MLB pitching or remaining healthy. Speculatively, names like Kevin Pillar, Jake Marisnick and Jarrod Dyson could all fit the billing described by Grant, though there’s little reason to discount the possibility of Texas making a bigger splash, given their pre-lockout levels of aggression.

8 Post-Tommy John Pitchers Who’ll Impact Next Year’s Market

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We’ve grown accustomed to seeing headline after headline indicating that a pitcher is slated to undergo Tommy John surgery in today’s game. The procedure has become so commonplace, in fact, that it’s no longer surprising to see teams guarantee multi-year deals to rehabbing pitchers who’ll be sidelined for a full season of that contract as they work back from the injury. Such deals have produced varying levels of success in the past. Nathan Eovaldi’s two-year deal with the Rays worked out great; Drew Smyly didn’t pitch for the Cubs and posted a 6.24 after being traded to the Rangers.

Heading into the 2022 season, there are a handful of notable pitchers who were either signed under just that circumstance or are now playing for a contract on the heels of a Tommy John surgery that, hopefully, is more or less in the rearview mirror. A strong rebound will position any of this bunch either as a prominent member of next winter’s free-agent crop or, in some cases, to have a lucrative 2023 club option picked up. Here’s a look at a handful of Tommy John recoveries that could have a notable impact on next year’s market.

Starting Pitchers

Mike Clevinger: A marquee addition by the Padres at the 2020 trade deadline, Clevinger made only four regular-season starts and a one-inning postseason cameo before requiring Tommy John surgery in the 2020-21 offseason. San Diego, knowing he’d miss the entire 2021 season, signed him to a two-year, $11.5MM deal that paid him $2MM during his rehab season but will more heavily compensate him in 2022, now that he’s expected to be back to full strength. It was the second Tommy John procedure of Clevinger’s career, as he also had the surgery as a minor leaguer back in 2012.

There’s little questioning Clevinger’s talent, as the now-31-year-old righty was one of the most effective starters in all of baseball from 2017 until the time of his injury in 2020. In 489 1/3 innings over that stretch, Clevinger posted a 2.96 ERA while punching out 28% of his opponents against a 9% walk rate. Among big league pitchers with at least 400 innings thrown during that time, Clevinger ranked seventh in ERA and 14th in FIP (3.39). That said, he’s also only reached 130 innings in a big league season on one occasion, when he threw an even 200 frames in 2019.

That relatively limited workload, coupled with this being Clevinger’s second Tommy John procedure, will surely impact his free agency next winter to an extent. That said, a strong and healthy season out of the righty will still position him as one of the top arms on next winter’s market. Clevinger, teammate Joe Musgrove, Sean Manaea and Noah Syndergaard are among the more prominent free agents still in their early 30s next winter (to say nothing of older veterans with contract options or opt-outs, such as Jacob deGrom, Justin Verlander and Charlie Morton).

James Paxton: Paxton isn’t necessarily playing for a free-agent contract. He signed a complicated multi-year deal with the Red Sox that’ll pay him $6MM in 2022 before he can either trigger a $4MM player option or the team can exercise a pair of $13MM club options for the 2023-24 seasons. For luxury-tax purposes, that should be considered a two-year, $10MM deal, as the player option for 2023 is considered to be guaranteed money. Of course, there’s also the possibility that with a healthy season, the contract will effectively balloon to a contract that pays Paxton $32MM over a three-year term. The deal contains further incentives, as Paxton could boost those 2023-24 salaries by $250K apiece for reaching 12, 14, 16 and 18 starts.

It’s a heavily incentive-laden deal that speaks both to the considerable risk in signing Paxton and the considerable upside he’ll bring to Boston. A healthy Paxton is a high-quality big league starter, evidenced the career 3.50 ERA he carried into an injury-ruined 2020 season with the Yankees. Among the 149 big league starters to toss at least 200 innings from 2017-19, Paxton’s 30.1% strikeout rate ranked seventh, and his 7.3% walk rate was markedly better than league average. His 22.7 K-BB% was among the best in the game, as were his strong ratings in the eyes of fielding-independent metrics like FIP (3.26) and SIERA (3.45).

Since that 2019 season, however, Paxton has undergone back surgery, missed significant time with a forearm strain and eventually undergone Tommy John surgery. Earlier in his career, he’d dealt with lat, forearm and pectoral injuries, among a litany of smaller-scale issues.

There’s probably a scenario where Paxton pitches well enough to turn down his $4MM player option even if the Red Sox decline the effective two-year, $26MM option they hold over him. (We saw a comparable situation play out with Yusei Kikuchi earlier in the winter.) That said, the ideal scenario for Paxton and the Sox is that he pitches well enough to reestablish himself as a quality MLB hurler and boost those two club options to $14MM apiece in total value in the process.

Paxton underwent his Tommy John procedure in late April, so he’s not likely to be ready to help the Red Sox at the beginning of the season. By late May or June, however, he could represent a boost to a rotation that is not exactly shy of other injury concerns.

Justin Verlander: Even though he hasn’t pitched since undergoing Tommy John surgery, Verlander still got a hefty $25MM guarantee from the Astros — plus a conditional $25MM player option that kicks in if he reaches 130 innings pitched. The two-time Cy Young winner and former AL MVP has a track record that speaks for itself; when we last saw Verlander in a full, healthy season, he was edging then-teammate Gerrit Cole for the 2019 AL Cy Young Award.

Verlander has said in the past that he hopes to pitch into his 40s, and he has a good chance at doing so if he can bounce back this coming season. He’ll turn 39 later this week, and if he goes out and looks anything like he did from 2015-20 — 1010 innings, 2.94 ERA, 29.7% strikeout rate, 6% walk rate — Verlander will likely turn down that $25MM option, or at least leverage it into a new multi-year arrangement with the ’Stros. He was just promised a $25MM guarantee despite having thrown only six innings since Opening Day 2020, so there’s little reason to accept that he’d take a year and $25MM on the heels of a healthy return effort at Minute Maid Park.

Noah Syndergaard: Perhaps it’s not quite fair to label Syndergaard as a Tommy John rehabber; after all, he did make it back to the mound with the Mets late in the 2021 season — albeit for only two innings. That said, this is Thor’s first full season back from that ligament replacement procedure, and he’ll be pitching for a big contract next winter from the moment he suits up in Orange County. Signed by the Angels to a one-year, $21MM contract, Syndergaard will be pitching with a team other than the Mets for the first time in his big league career.

It’s a hefty price to pay, particularly considering the fact that Syndergaard had rejected an $18.4MM qualifying offer, but his career to date is all the evidence needed to suggest that at his best, Syndergaard is plenty worth that gamble. He’s never walked more than 6.1% of his opponents in a given season and has never failed to strike out a batter per inning. Few pitchers can match Syndergaard’s blend of pure velocity, missed bats and impeccable command, and he manages all that while still turning in a ground-ball rate that’s well higher than the league average.

Syndergaard has always felt like he’s one step away from solidifying himself as a bona fide ace, and as Robbie Ray showed in winning the AL Cy Young Award this season, one dominant season for a player with this type of track record can result in a nine-figure payday if things break right. The market has already proven to value Syndergaard at more than $20MM per year, and given that he’d be 30 years old in 2023, it’s not hyperbole to suggest that he’s pitching for a $100MM contract this season.

Luis Severino: As with Syndergaard, Severino may not quite fit the criteria for this list. The 27-year-old (28 later this week, on the same day Verlander turns 39) returned to give the Yankees six innings out of the bullpen late in the 2021 season, and his protracted absence from the team’s pitching staff cannot be solely attributed to Tommy John surgery. Severino has also battled groin, shoulder and lat injuries along the way. That said, Severino really hasn’t pitched since undergoing Tommy John surgery in Feb. 2020, and it’s that operation that is the primary reason for his absence over the past two seasons.

Severino isn’t yet slated to hit the open market at season’s end — at least not before the Yankees make a call on a $15MM club option or a $2.75MM buyout. The resulting $12.25MM net decision would be a straightforward one for general manager Brian Cashman if Severino at all looks like his former self. From 2017-18, Severino gave the Yankees 384 2/3 innings of 3.18 ERA ball with outstanding strikeout and walk rates, prompting the team to sign him to a four-year contract extension that promised him $40MM.

That deal looked like a bargain for the team at the time but has since gone south, due largely to repeated injury woes. Severino made a combined 63 regular-season starts for the Yankees in 2017-18, looking every bit like a foundational piece to the pitching staff, but he’s combined for just 25 starts and another 18 relief appearances in the five seasons surrounding that brilliant run.

With a big season in 2022, Severino could still see that $15MM option picked up, and if he can remain healthy into 2023, he’d hit the open market heading into his age-30 season. There’s a long way to go before that scenario becomes reality, however.

Relievers

Tommy Kahnle: Signed by the Dodgers to a two-year, $4.75MM contract last offseason, Kahnle was never expected to contribute in 2021 — hence the backloaded nature of his contract, which will pay him $3.45MM in 2022. The hard-throwing righty only managed one inning for the 2020 Yankees, meaning this coming season will be the first since 2019 in which he’ll potentially pitch anything resembling a full workload.

The 32-year-old Kahnle has been inconsistent but has dominated more often than he’s struggled. From 2016-20, he logged a combined 3.48 ERA, 32.9% strikeout rate and 9.9% walk rate while averaging 97.1 mph on his heater. That includes a disastrous but also fluky-looking 2018 campaign in which he was tattooed for a 6.56 ERA in 23 1/3 frames. From 2016-20, Kahnle’s 32.9% strikeout rate ranks 17th among the 155 relievers to have thrown at least 150 innings, while his 15.9% swinging-strike rate is tied for sixth.

Kahnle’s Tommy John surgery came way back on Aug. 5, 2020, so there should be no restrictions on him by the time the season gets underway. He’ll be heading into his age-33 season next winter, and a return to his vintage form should position him as one of the top relievers on a free-agent market that is lacking in big-name right-handed relievers.

Ken Giles: Like Kahnle, Giles was signed by the Mariners — two years, $7MM — knowing full well that he would not pitch in 2021. Unlike Kahnle, his contract includes a club option for the 2023 season, which is valued at $9.5MM (with a $500K buyout).

Many of the same superlatives that apply to Kahnle apply even more so to Giles. His 18% swinging-strike rate, for instance, tops Kahnle and sits third among the 155 relievers who totaled at least 150 frames from 2016-20. His 3.33 ERA in that time is a bit more toward the middle of the pack, but Giles misses bats, induces chases outside the zone and throws as hard as nearly any reliever in the sport. He’s had a pair of 4.00-something ERAs sprinkled in amid a series of pristine marks throughout his big league career. Those two blemishes have coincided with spikes in his average on balls in play and dips in his strand rate.

On the whole, Giles is a power arm who can pile up strikeouts in droves. He’s a sometimes forgotten piece of the puzzle when looking at the 2022 Mariners and their hopes of contending, but he’ll join a deep bullpen mix that also features Diego Castillo, 2021 breakout closer Paul Sewald, former Marlins stopped Drew Steckenrider (who enjoyed a tremendous rebound in 2021) and the underappreciated Casey Sadler, who notched a 0.67 ERA in 40 1/3 innings last year.

A healthy Giles would very likely see that $9.5MM club option for the 2023 season picked up, and at his best, he’s a bargain at that price. If Giles is pitching well but things go south for the Mariners, teams will come calling at the trade deadline. Of course, the Mariners are hoping to be squarely in the postseason mix, and they’re likely not done with their offseason shopping just yet.

Jose Leclerc: Armed with a fastball in the mid to upper 90s, Leclerc’s ability to return to form (or his lack thereof) will have major implications for the Rangers moving forward. His four-year, $14.75MM contract extension includes a $6MM club option for the 2023 season and a $6.25MM option for the 2024 season. A rebound effort makes that 2023 option a no-brainer for the Rangers to pick up as they hope to ride a hyper-aggressive offseason into their next competitive window.

Leclerc, 28, has fanned just shy of a third of the hitters he’s faced so far in his big league career and has only allowed a dozen homers in 189 Major League innings (0.57 HR/9). His 14.9% walk rate is far too high, but he looked to be making considerable strides in that department in 2019 when he posted a sub-2.00 ERA, a 38.1% strikeout rate and an 11.2% walk rate. He’ll be a highly intriguing lottery ticket on next year’s market if he pitches poorly enough that the Rangers buy that option out (or if they do so on the heels of another injury). If he rebounds, he’ll be a bargain piece of an on-the-rise Rangers club in 2023-24.

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