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Rosenthal On Dodgers’ Search For Second Baseman

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The Dodgers have expanded their search for a second baseman, Ken Rosenthal of FOX Sports reports. Los Angeles remains engaged on longstanding targets Brian Dozier, Ian Kinsler, and Logan Forsythe, but appears to be looking elsewhere in the event that those players can’t be had at a palatable rate.

Among the players that could potentially be fits, per Rosenthal, are switch-hitters Jurickson Profar of the Rangers, Cesar Hernandez of the Phillies, and Wilmer Difo of the Nationals, though he notes that of that trio, Profar is the only one on whom the Dodgers have definitively inquired. All are young and controllable somewhat controllable — Profar through 2019, Hernandez through 2020 and Difo all the way through 2022. Only Hernandez, though, has put up a full and productive major league season.

Beyond those possibilities, Rosenthal says that there’s still some potential for a reunion with Chase Utley. Still, the club would rather find a hitter who swings from the right side. That would also appear to leave little room for interest in the other top remaining second-base-capable free agents.

Dave Cameron of Fangraphs recently suggested that the best fit on paper might be Javier Baez, with young pitching going to the Cubs in exchange. But that doesn’t seem particularly likely, as Cameron notes and Rosenthal also echoes.

All things considered, Rosenthal explains, Dozier might still be the likeliest target for the Dodgers. Though the club seemingly broke off its talks with the Twins recently, Rosenthal says that the door remains open to a deal. It’s imaginable that Los Angeles could line up with the Rays on Forsythe, but the biggest issue there seems to be that Tampa Bay doesn’t have a ready replacement.

Cubs Claim Dylan Floro

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The Cubs have claimed righty Dylan Floro off waivers from the Rays, per a club announcement. He had been designated for assignment recently by Tampa Bay.

Floro, 26, reached the bigs for the first time last year, working 15 innings over which he struck out 14 and walked five. He showed a 92.5 mph average heater and drew plenty of grounders, so there certainly seems to be some promise in his future.

Indeed, the control artist was quite good on the year at Triple-A, where he threw fifty frames of 2.88 ERA ball with 7.2 K/9 and 1.6 BB/9. Long a starter, Floro had converted to being a full-time reliever after struggling in his first attempt at the highest level of the minors in 2015.

Quick Hits: Heyward, Cubs, Tigers, Angels, WBC

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The Cubs won their first World Series in 108 years last season, but they did it without any major contributions at the plate from outfielder Jason Heyward. After signing an eight-year, $184MM deal with the Cubs last winter, the normally above-average hitter posted the worst offensive season of his career with a .230/.306/.325 line and seven home runs in 592 plate appearances. As a result, the 27-year-old has been working to restore his swing with Cubs hitting coach John Mallee and assistant hitting coach Eric Hinske this offseason, as Jesse Rogers of ESPN.com details. “It’s easier said than done trying to do it in season,” said Heyward. “The offseason allows you to slow things down and focus on all the little things.” Ideally, Heyward would like to return to the form he displayed in 2012 during a 27-homer campaign with the Braves. “He’s trying to mirror the swing he had then,” Mallee said. “Right now the path is not the same it was then. It’s not making a change. It’s getting him back to who he was.”

More from around the majors:

  • While Tigers general manager Al Avila is not under orders to decrease payroll, one major league executive told Nick Cafardo of the Boston Globe that the franchise is nonetheless aiming to do that. “The Tigers are a willing trade partner because they’re trying to get rid of payroll,” the executive commented. It’s possible Detroit’s alleged motivation to cut spending will lead to a trade involving second baseman Ian Kinsler, whom the Dodgers could target. “Kinsler is still a top player and he only has two years remaining on his deal,” observed the exec. The 34-year-old is due $11MM next season and, barring a $5MM buyout, another $10MM by way of a club option in 2018.
  • The 2016 season ended prematurely for Angels right-hander Matt Shoemaker, who exited a Sept. 4 start after taking a line drive to the head and didn’t pitch again. The damage from that liner, which came off Mariners third baseman Kyle Seager’s bat at 105 mph, forced Shoemaker to undergo surgery to repair a small skull fracture and stop the bleeding on his brain. Fortunately, Shoemaker hasn’t felt any ill effects this offseason, he told Jason Beck of MLB.com. “The nice thing is mentally, I think I’m in a good state where I don’t think about it,” Shoemaker said. “It’s like it’s just something that happened. I’m thankful the recovery has been great, able to be back and ready to go.” To help guard against another potentially disastrous injury in the future, Shoemaker is considering wearing protective headgear in 2017. “I know a lot of stuff is being developed. For me, everybody cares about how they look a little bit, but I don’t really care how the look is as much as the feel and the comfort,” he stated. “Like, when I’m pitching, I don’t want to think about it. So if that can be achieved with something, if something works, I’m willing to try it.”
  • Former major league hurlers Ryan Dempster and Eric Gagne are planning on pitching for their native Canada in this year’s World Baseball Classic, reports Shi Davidi of Sportsnet (Twitter links). “I was putting up some really good numbers in beer-league softball,” quipped the 39-year-old Dempster, who pitched to a 4.35 ERA in 579 appearances and 351 starts from 1998-2013. Gagne, 41, has been off the radar for much longer, as his last majors action came in 2008 with the Brewers. Of course, the ex-closer is best known for his work as a member of the Dodgers, with whom he converted a record 84 straight saves from 2002-04 and won the National League Cy Young in 2003.

NL Notes: Moss, Arrieta, Rockies

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Brandon Moss lingers on the free agent market despite a relatively successful season with the Cardinals in 2016. According to ESPN’s David Schoenfield, that’s due not only to the logjam of 1B/OF sluggers still available via free agency, but to the fact that teams would increasingly prefer to find the next Brandon Moss than to sign the existing one at something close to market value. Moss’ own history is a data point in favor of this approach — he struggled for several years after his first taste of the big leagues before performing well as a cheap acquisition for the Athletics, giving the A’s much better value than they likely would have gotten with a big-name signing. Also, in the past several years the game has gotten younger as players have begun their decline phases at earlier ages, meaning that players at Moss’ current age (33) are less likely to be meaningful contributors. Here’s more from the National League.

  • Cubs ace Jake Arrieta doesn’t sound optimistic about his chances of receiving an extension in his last year before free agency eligibility, but his team still says it’s willing to try to negotiate one, Gordon Wittenmyer of the Chicago Sun-Times tweets. “Years and dollars are always complicated, but I’m sure we’ll take a stab at it,” president of baseball operations Theo Epstein told fans today. Arrieta and the Cubs avoided arbitration by agreeing to terms on a one-year, $15.6375MM deal on Friday.
  • The Rockies have been speculatively connected to various catchers this offseason (including, for example, Matt Wieters). But the team is comfortable with its young duo of Tony Wolters and Tom Murphy, Patrick Saunders of the Denver Post writes. “We are certainly monitoring the catching market, but we are extremely high and positive on the group that we have and we feel like there is a good, young core there,” says GM Jeff Bridich. Wolters entered the season with no big-league experience and a limited minor-league track record behind the plate, although he hit a reasonable .259/.327/.395 and received good marks for his framing. Murphy has played sparingly in the big leagues, but he batted .327/.361/.647 with 19 homers in 322 plate appearances in the admittedly hitter-friendly context of Triple-A Albuquerque last year.

Cubs Notes: Arrieta, David Ross, Tyson Ross

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Jake Arrieta’s agreement on a one-year, $15.6375MM deal this week suggests his time with the Cubs could be reaching its end, Bruce Levine of CBS Chicago writes. Arrieta is eligible for free agency at the end of the season, and his agent, Scott Boras, had previously said he and the Cubs would talk about an extension when the two sides discussed Arrieta’s 2017 salary this month. “The timeline is kind of coming to an end as far as as leading up to free agency,” Arrieta said yesterday. “I am here for one more year and I am going to enjoy every moment of it.” Still, he didn’t rule out the possibility that the two sides could still reach a deal. “If it happens, it happens. I don’t know where we stand. I really don’t. We do have some time to maybe work something out. If it doesn’t, I will become a free agent,” he said. Here’s more from out of Chicago.

  • The Cubs have announced that they’ve hired David Ross as a special assistant to baseball operations. The 39-year-old Ross, of course, retired as a player after a strong 2016 season capped with a World Series Game 7 homer, and he’s beloved in Chicago. (He carried the World Series trophy at the beginning of this weekend’s Cubs Convention yesterday.) He’s looking forward to his new role, which seems open-ended — MLB.com’s Carrie Muskat writes that Ross will contribute in a variety of roles, including scouting, development and front-office work. “I don’t even know what I’m doing,” Ross says. “I feel like there’s a hall-of-fame front office and a relationship with guys who I have a bond with. They offered to help me grow in my baseball knowledge and try to learn different aspects of what goes on in the organization. I’m really going to be listening.”
  • The Cubs recently lost out on Tyson Ross to the Rangers, but president of baseball operations Theo Epstein says the team still hopes to add starting pitching, as MLB.com’s Phil Rogers tweets. The Cubs “made it a difficult decision” for Ross, extending him an offer similar to the $6MM plus incentives he got from Texas, tweets CSN Chicago’s Patrick Mooney. Ross, formerly a top starter with the Padres, could have provided a strong back-end option for the Cubs provided he’d made a solid comeback from the shoulder troubles that cost him most of his 2016 season and resulted in surgery in October to relieve thoracic outlet syndrome.

Players Avoiding Arbitration: National League

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Quite frankly, there were too many arbitration agreements today to reasonably stuff into one post. So here’s a rundown of the National League players that have avoided arbitration on smaller deals (American League deals here). You can see all of the arbitration “action” thus far in a sortable, filterable format by checking out MLBTR’s 2017 Arbitration Tracker. All projections referenced in this post are courtesy of MLBTR contributor Matt Swartz:

  • Wily Peralta and Carlos Torres have agreed to one-year deals, according to the team’s Twitter account. Peralta will earn $4.275MM (compared to $4.4MM projection), per Heyman. Torres was projected to make $2MM, but will get slightly more at $2.175MM, per Chris Cotillo of SB Nation (via Twitter).
  • Reliever George Kontos gets $1.75MM from the Giants, Heyman tweets. He had projected at $1.7MM.
  • The Diamondbacks also reached agreement with lefty Patrick Corbin, righty Randall Delgado, and catcher Chris Herrmann, per Jack Magruder of Fan Rag (links to Twitter). Delgado gets $1.775MM and Herrmann receives $937,500. As for Corbin, he’ll take home $3.95MM, per Nick Piecoro of the Arizona Republic (via Twitter), which falls a bit shy of his $4.2MM projection.
  • Infielder Eduardo Nunez will receive $4.2MM from the Giants, per Jon Heyman of Fan Rag (via Twitter). San Francisco has also reached agreement with lefty Will Smith, per Henry Schulman of the San Francisco Chronicle (via Twitter). He’ll receive $2.5MM, just over his $2.3MM projection, Heyman tweets.
  • The Phillies settled at $4.2MM with righty Jeanmar Gomez, per Matt Gelb of the Philadelphia Inquirer (via Twitter). He falls just a big shy of his $4.6MM projection.
  • The Cardinals have announced arb deals with Trevor Rosenthal and Kevin Siegrist. Rosenthal receives $6.4MM, per Heyman (via Twitter), which is just $100K over his projection. Siegrist projected at $1.9MM, but his salary has yet to be reported.
  • Matt Harvey and Jacob deGrom have each avoided arbitration with the Mets. Harvey gets $5.125MM in his second arb year, per James Wagner of the New York Times (via Twitter). Meanwhile, deGrom will receive $4.05MM in his first trip through the arb process, per ESPNNewYork.com’s Adam Rubin (via Twitter). New York has also agreed with lefty Josh Edgin, Rubin tweets, though terms remain unreported.

Earlier Updates

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2017 Arbitration Filing Numbers

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MLBTR’s Arbitration Tracker is the place to go to see the arbitration contracts agreed upon thus far, as well as the figures exchanged between teams and players that were not able to reach agreement before today’s deadline to swap salary positions. Matt Swartz’s arbitration projections are available here.

After a busy day of dealmaking, 152 players (at last check) have reached agreement on arbitration salaries for the coming season. But 36 other tendered players have yet to reach reported agreements with their clubs. Of course, those players can still settle before their hearings (which will take place in early to mid-February). If the case goes to a hearing, the arbitrator must choose one side’s figures, rather than settling on a midpoint.

We’ve gathered the highest-stakes arbitration situations remaining — those where the player files for at least $4.5MM — in this post, but you can find them all in the tracker. We’ll update this list as the figures are reported:

Cubs Avoid Arbitration With Jake Arrieta

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The Cubs have agreed on a salary to avoid arbitration with star righty Jake Arrieta, per Jon Heyman of Fan Rag (via Twitter). He’ll receive $15.6375MM in his final trip through the arb process.

MLBTR’s model had projected Arrieta to earn $16.8MM, but as MLBTR contributor Matt Swartz explained recently, it seemed likelier that he’d land closer to the $16MM level when analyzing comps. The deal exceeds the $15.525MM contract reached by Max Scherzer and the Tigers before the 2014 season, though unsurprisingly Arrieta comes nowhere near the year-over-year raise achieved that year by Scherzer.

It remains unclear whether Chicago will be able to work out a longer-term arrangement with the talented righty, who is now 30 years of age. He didn’t come anywhere near repeating his 2015 Cy Young campaign in his most recent season, but Arrieta still turned in a productive year. Over 197 1/3 innings, he pitched to a 3.10 ERA with 8.7 K/9 and 3.5 BB/9.

Greg Holland Seeks Two-Year Deal With Opt-Out

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Free-agent righty Greg Holland is arguably the highest-upside reliever left on the open market, and Jon Heyman of Fan Rag provides some notable updates on his situation. The 31-year-old is in a somewhat unusual spot as a free agent, in that he brings a sparkling track record but is also seeking to return from a long layoff due to Tommy John surgery.

Given his health situation and also the evident interest around the league, Holland seeks a two-year deal that would allow him to opt out after the first season, according to Heyman. That’s the same structure that Brian Wilson landed with the Dodgers before the 2014 season, though he had made it back to the hill late in the prior campaign.

In Holland’s case, there’s perhaps greater uncertainty, but also greater upside. He took a step back in his most recent action, in 2015, but that may well have been due to the elbow issues that led to his surgery. Over the prior four campaigns, Holland was one of the game’s very best relievers, as he compiled 256 1/3 innings of 1.86 ERA pitching with 12.6 K/9 against 3.2 BB/9.

There’s interest in Holland’s proposed two-year arrangement, per the report. Among the teams still pursuing him are the Dodgers, Nationals, Rockies, Brewers, Reds, and Rays. While the Cubs showed prior interest, it’s not clear whether they are still in. And the Royals have also indicated a desire to bring back their former closer, though it seems that the team’s payroll situation may not allow for a competitive bid.

That group of organizations would presumably offer Holland a variety of possible roles. The Nationals, Rockies, Brewers, Reds, and Royals (if they’re involved) could all promise him first dibs on closing roles, while the Dodgers and perhaps the Cubs are more likely to view the veteran as a setup man. Tampa Bay, perhaps, might be most interested in the event that it strikes a deal for incumbent closer Alex Colome. Whether and to what extent the chance to take hold of the ninth is an important factor in Holland’s decisionmaking is not immediately clear.

Minor MLB Transactions: 1/9/17

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Some minor moves from around baseball to kick off the week…

  • KBO’s Lotte Giants have re-signed left-hander Brooks Raley and signed second baseman/third baseman Andy Burns out of the Blue Jays organization, per Jee-ho Yoo of Korea’s Yonhap News Agency. Raley will receive $850K to return for his third season, while Burns will be venturing overseas for the first time in his career. Raley, 28, pitched 38 1/3 innings with the Cubs from 2012-13 and spent time in the Twins and Angels organizations after being claimed off waivers following that stint. Raley has turned in a 4.06 ERA while averaging 175 innings, 7.0 K/9 and 2.7 BB/9 in the past two seasons with Lotte. As for Burns, the 26-year-old made his MLB debut last season but tallied just seven plate appearances in Toronto. He’s a career .263/.320/.363 hitter in 237 contests at the Triple-A level.
  • The Pirates announced a list of non-roster invites this morning, which includes former Rockies catcher Jackson Williams. The 30-year-old saw brief action with the Rox from 2014-15 (30 plate appearances) and has batted .232/.303/.356 in just over 1200 Triple-A plate appearances. He’s halted 36 percent of stolen base attempts against him in his minor league career and draws average to slightly below-average marks in terms of pitch framing, per Baseball Prospectus.
  • Former Cardinals/White Sox right-hander Maikel Cleto has signed a minors pact with the Cubs, as his representatives at Jackson Management Group noted, on Twitter. The hard-throwing 27-year-old’s last MLB work came with the ChiSox in 2014 and resulted in a 4.60 ERA with 9.8 K/9 against an unsightly 7.1 BB/9. Cleto averaged 97.1 mph on his fastball that year and doesn’t have difficulty missing bats (10.1 K/9 in his Triple-A career), but walks have been a persistent issue for him in the Majors and in the minors. He split the 2016 season between the Mexican League and the Braves organization. In 21 innings with Atlanta’s Triple-A affiliate, he posted a 2.14 ERA with 31 strikeouts against 13 walks.
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