- The White Sox, Red Sox and Rockies are all maintaining some level of interest in free-agent reliever Adam Ottavino, tweets Jon Morosi of MLB.com. As one of the top relievers on the market, the 33-year-old Ottavino should have no shortage of clubs inquiring about his services, though the asking price on top-end bullpen arms could prove prohibitive for some clubs. To this point, Jeurys Familia (three years, $30MM), Joe Kelly (three years, $25MM) and Andrew Miller (two years, $25MM) are among the relievers MLBTR ranked in Ottavino’s tier of free agency to have cashed in quite nicely. Given his 2.43 ERA, 2.74 FIP, 2.82 SIERA and 13.0 K/9 mark, Ottavino figures to have a fairly high ask, as well. The interest from each of the three teams listed by Morosi has been previously reported, and there are some issues with some of the fits. Adding Ottavino, for instance, could push the Red Sox back into the top tier of the luxury tax bracket. And the Rockies spent more than $100MM on their ’pen last winter, which could make them reluctant to add a fourth reliever on the type of multi-year contract Ottavino should ultimately command.
White Sox Rumors
Manny Machado Decision Will Wait Until 2019
Star free agent Manny Machado may have wrapped up his tour of several potential new teams, but that doesn’t mean he’ll rush into a decision. Per Jon Heyman of Fancred (Twitter link), the 26-year-old has informed the three teams he recently met with that he will not be putting pen to paper until the calendar flips.
Surely, Machado has plenty to think about and discuss after spending several hours with the White Sox, Yankees, and Phillies. He’ll also no doubt want to leave agent Dan Lozano ample time to negotiate up the offer prices — if not to reel in some other bidders as well.
There was a time when more of the free agent dealmaking was wrapped up earlier in the offseason. But with teams showing ample patience of late, it surely behooves players not to rush into things when the circumstances call for a slow-play. Plus, Machado and fellow free agent Bryce Harper find themselves in a rare spot as exceedingly youthful and accomplished open-market assets.
In any event, it seems we’ll have to wait a bit longer to find out where Machado is heading. And from all indications it’s still an open race. Over 35k MLBTR readers voted yesterday on his likeliest destination, with the Yankees easily taking the top spot but nevertheless failing to command a majority of the votes.
Latest On Manny Machado’s Market, Following Meeting With Phillies
Manny Machado completed a three-city tour of potential landing spots in Philadelphia today, where he met with the Phillies at Citizens Bank Park and was taken to dinner by several key members of the organization (links via MLB.com’s Todd Zolecki and Jim Salisbury of NBC Sports Philadelphia). Owner John Middleton, president Andy MacPhail, GM Matt Klentak, manager Gabe Kapler and several members of Kapler’s coaching staff were on hand to try to sway Machado toward coming to Philadelphia.
Machado, as one would expect, was vague when approached by the Philadelphia media and asked about his at Citizens Bank Park, telling reporters that the experience was “pretty awesome” and that he “learned a lot about the organization.”
The Phillies, Zolecki writes, prefer Machado to fellow free agent Bryce Harper. Salisbury indicates the same, portraying Harper as a more realistic target should the Phillies miss out on Machado. He adds that the Phils “seem willing” to outbid the Yankees and make the highest offer for Machado. Joel Sherman of the New York Post agrees, calling it a “near certainty” that the Phillies “and possibly even the White Sox” are willing to bid more on Machado than the Yankees. Per Zolecki, the Phils have maintained confidence that they can convince Machado to sign in Philadelphia despite the fact that they’d play him at third base while Machado’s preference remains to play shortstop. The Yankees, after all, will only have shortstop open for the first portion of the season before Didi Gregorius returns, and Fancred’s Jon Heyman again wrote Thursday afternoon that the organization “would love to keep” Gregorius beyond the 2019 season.
At this point, there’s no clear timeline on when Machado will reach a decision about his next team. The infielder himself told Zolecki and others that determining when to sign “is [his] agent’s job” and that he is “just enjoying the ride.” Yesterday did bring about a small flurry of free-agent activity — Trevor Cahill, Daniel Murphy, Joakim Soria and Anibal Sanchez all agreed to terms, while Andrew Miller is said to be close — but none of those deals will come close to approaching the magnitude of Machado’s eventual contract. With the holiday season at hand, there figures to be a lull in Hot Stove activity, so barring a quick decision on an already in-place offer, Machado’s free agency could well drag on into the New Year. There’s been no indication that any of the three teams with which he met this week has made its best and final offer — or any formal offer at all, for that matter.
Manny Machado Meets With Yankees
The Yankees met with Manny Machado earlier today at Yankee Stadium, writes Dan Martin of the New York Post. Machado and agent Dan Lozano arrived at Yankee Stadium and were greeted by a contingent consisting at least of GM Brian Cashman, manager Aaron Boone and veteran starter CC Sabathia, writes Martin, though other members of the organization were likely present. The meeting has been anticipated since weekend reports indicated that Machado would sit down for in-person visits with the White Sox, Yankees and Phillies this week. The face-to-face with the ChiSox came yesterday, and Machado is reportedly slated to meet with the Phillies tomorrow.
The meeting at Yankee Stadium lasted for roughly 90 minutes, though the Yankees’ courtship of Machado extended beyond that point. Fancred’s Jon Heyman tweets that the Yankees took Machado, his wife and Lozano out to dinner in Manhattan tonight as they continued to discuss the possibility of Machado signing in the Bronx. Some reports in recent days have indicated that Machado will sit down with a fourth club in the near future, and MLB.com’s Mark Feinsand suggested as much was possible once again earlier today. However, Heyman definitively states that the market for Machado, at present, consists of the White Sox, Yankees and Phillies with “no mysteries” in play.
Regardless, it’s becoming increasingly clear that the Yankees are a significant factor in the Machado auction. While Martin wrote in his column that “indications are they won’t invest $300 million over 10 years,” USA Today’s Bob Nightengale tweets that the Yankees are “enamored” and believe him to be the “perfect fit” for their franchise. Whether that means topping the White Sox, the Phillies and any “mystery” suitors that may or may not truly be in the mix is another question entirely, though.
Ultimately, managing general partner Hal Steinbrenner will have to give the go-ahead to offer what could end up a record-setting deal to bring Machado to the Yankees. Steinbrenner previously called Machado’s infamous “Johnny Hustle” comments “troubling” and flatly stated that such an attitude “ain’t going to sell where we play baseball.” Those comments, as well as Machado’s intentional kick of Brewers first baseman Jesus Aguilar, undoubtedly came up in today’s face-to-face meeting.
As Feinsand writes, it’s not fully clear whether Steinbrenner himself was present in today’s meetings, as his family is mourning the recent passing of his mother, Joan. However, Steinbrenner implied to Nightengale last month that Machado would be explaining those comments and actions to Cashman, whom ownership trusts to make that type of call. “But that’s really [GM Brian Cashman’s] job,” said Steinbrenner at the time. “If we’re interested in any player, to sit down with them face to face and ask him, ’Where did this come from? What was the context around the entire interview? Was there a point? How do you justify it?’ … That conversation will happen.”
Troy Tulowitzki Hosts Workout For MLB Clubs
At least 11 teams were on hand to watch Troy Tulowitzki work out earlier today, reports Tim Brown of Yahoo Sports. The Giants, Angels, Red Sox, Cubs, Padres, White Sox, Orioles, Yankees, Phillies, Tigers and Pirates were all represented at the showcase, Brown reports (as were other, unnamed teams), with some clubs even sending their top executives to get a first-hand look at the former Rockies star. Angels GM Billy Eppler was in attendance, per Brown, as were new Giants president of baseball ops Farhan Zaidi and manager Bruce Bochy.
Since being released by the Blue Jays last week — with two years and $38MM remaining on his contract — Tulowitzki has been separately connected to a handful of teams including the Pirates, the Yankees, the Cubs and the Giants. His agent, Paul Cohen, recently told Susan Slusser of the San Francisco Chronicle that Tulowitzki is open to playing second base or third base with a new team. Brown, notably, writes that the biggest appeal for Tulowitzki will be the promise of regular at-bats at one positions (as opposed to moving between those three spots in a utility role).
It doesn’t seem as though there’s any early favorite to add Tulowitzki, who’ll cost his new team only the Major League minimum of $555K next season. (Toronto is on the hook for the remainder of his salary.) At that price, it’s justifiable for virtually any team to take a look at Tulowitzki and see if he can rediscover some of the form that once made him one of the game’s premier players. While few would expect him to return to his 2013-14 levels of output, that type of performance is hardly necessary from someone whose new team will pay him the league minimum. Tulowitzki’s bat was at least league-average in both 2015 and 2016, so if he’s healthy there’s plenty of reason to believe he can at least be fairly productive at the dish. How he adjusts defensively after undergoing surgery on both heels last year could be a more pressing question — particularly if he’s also adjusting to a new position after spending his entire pro career at shortstop.
Manny Machado Meeting With White Sox Today
Manny Machado will meet with the White Sox today, tweets Bob Nightengale of USA Today — the first of what is reported to be at least three in-person meetings with teams this week. Previous reports have indicated that Machado is slated to meet with the Yankees on Wednesday and with the Phillies on Thursday. There’d been previous talk of a fourth meeting as well, though it’s not clear at present which team that is or if that meeting will indeed take place. It’s worth mentioning again that over the weekend, ESPN’s Buster Olney reported that a “well-placed source” indicated to him that the White Sox weren’t interested in signing either Machado or Bryce Harper to a record-setting contract. Olney called Chicago’s interest “more measured and modest than frenzied.”
We’ll keep track of today’s Machado rumblings here…
- Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic writes in his latest notes column (subscription required) that several execs throughout the league are of the belief that the Yankees “want” to trade Miguel Andujar, which would pave the way for Machado to be the team’s long-term third baseman. Machado would be able to step into shortstop in Didi Gregorius’ absence early in the season before ultimately sliding over to third base — the better of his two defensive positions. It’s no secret that Andujar rated as one of the worst defensive players at any position in all of baseball last winter, and while Newsday’s Erik Boland wrote this weekend that the AL Rookie of the Year runner-up is already hard at work on his defense this offseason, trade rumors surrounding the 23-year-old persist. If moved, Andujar would surely net MLB-caliber help in return rather than simply further adding to the Yankees’ already enviable farm system.
Eloy Jimenez Dealing With Quad Injury
A date has been set for the previously reported Manny Machado-Yankees summit. He’ll head to New York to meet with the team on Wednesday, George A. King III of the New York Post relays. It’s reportedly one of four visits the superstar infielder will make around the league in the coming days. He’ll also sit down with the White Sox, Phillies and a mystery team. [UPDATE: Machado will meet with the Phils on Thursday, Jim Salisbury of NBC Sports Philadelphia reports. The White Sox meeting is likely to take place “early in the week,” as per Fancred’s Jon Heyman, which would seemingly place it on Monday or Tuesday ahead of Machado’s trip to New York.] Machado’s meeting with the Yankees may give him an opportunity to clear the air with owner Hal Steinbrenner, who said last month it would be “essential” for the 26-year-old to explain his well-documented “Johnny Hustle” comments to GM Brian Cashman.
- White Sox uber-prospect Eloy Jimenez has been playing in the Dominican Winter League, but Chicago will probably shut the outfielder down until spring training because of a quad injury, Bruce Levine of 670 The Score tweets. Jimenez would have been done with winter ball in another week anyway, Levine notes, so this doesn’t seem like a particularly serious issue. As such, the 22-year-old Jimenez remains on track to make his much-anticipated big league debut sometime in 2019.
Olney: ChiSox Aren't Prepared To Give Record Deal To Harper Or Machado
- Free-agent superstars Bryce Harper and Manny Machado may be primed to sign record-setting contracts this offseason, but it doesn’t appear either will get such a deal from the White Sox or Yankees. While the White Sox are known to be in the running for both players, their pursuit is less “frenzied” than it is “measured and modest,” writes ESPN’s Buster Olney (subscription required), who hears they’re not prepared to ink either Harper or Machado to a record pact. The Yankees, meanwhile, have been more connected to Machado than Harper. According to George A. King III of the New York Post, the Yankees’ interest in Machado is legitimate, but it’s not so ardent that they’re willing to hand him a 10-year, $300MM deal.
Reactions To And Effects Of The Yonder Alonso Trade
The late-night Friday move that sent 1B/DH Yonder Alonso to Chicago’s south side was a deal typically reserved for transaction marginalia. Because of the headliner’s relationship with star free-agent SS/3B Manny Machado, though (the two are brothers-in-law), and Cleveland’s offseason status as a veritable repository for top-end available arms, the trade has implications that range further than most of its ilk.
Here’s the latest from the Upper Midwest …
- Per WSCR-AM’s Bruce Levine, Machado will meet with the White Sox next week. Whether or not the opportunity to play with Alonso will hold sway is unknown, but GM Rick Hahn made serious effort, in a post-trade assembly with reporters, to redirect swirling conjecture back to Alonso: “Fundamentally this is a baseball deal,” Hahn said. “We like how Yonder fits in between the lines and in the clubhouse and helps further what we’re trying to accomplish in 2019 and beyond. The potential ancillary benefits to it in terms of his relationships with others really can’t be part of pulling the trigger in making the decision to acquire a big league player…” It should be noted, too, that purported White Sox target Yasmani Grandal, Havana-born and Miami-bred like Alonso, played with the 1B/DH at the University of Miami, in the Cincinnati Red farm system, and with the San Diego Padres from 2012-’14.
- Per MLB.com’s Anthony Castrovince and Mandy Bell, the “key to the deal,” from Cleveland’s perspective, was the ability to clear the entirety of Alonso’s $9MM salary for ’18 (he also has a $9MM, 2020 option that vests if he accrues 526 plate appearances in ’19) off the books. Speculatively, though Alonso’s mostly-league-average bat, over the course of his career, likely wasn’t sought-after on the trade market, Cleveland may have seen a slight bump in the return quality if it was willing to eat most of the remaining cash on Alonso’s deal.
- With the aforementioned savings in the White Sox deal, plus the approximately $9MM slashed in the Carlos Santana/Edwin Encarnacion swap, the Indians appear to have drastically increased their 2019 payroll space. Fancred’s Jon Heyman relays the good news for Tribe fans, tweeting that both Corey Kluber and Trevor Bauer are now “more likely to stay.” The Indians could, though, look to aggressively upgrade a barren-looking outfield by using the newfound space and dealing one of the two aces, though enthusiasm behind the latter strategy has seemed diffident from the start.
- Daryl Van Schouwen of the Chicago Sun-Times writes that the deal “doesn’t necessarily indicate” the club is now looking to move 1B/DH Jose Abreu. Abreu, 31, projects to earn $16MM in arbitration this season, and has seen his surplus value slide considerably in recent seasons. Still, Steamer projects the slugger to post a robust .280/.339/.495 (125 wRC+) line in ’19, and his presence could still be coveted by a team becoming increasingly desperate for a middle-of-the-lineup presence.
White Sox Acquire Yonder Alonso
Dec 15: Both the White Sox and Indians have announced the deal (Twitter links).
Dec 14: The White Sox have reportedly struck a deal with the Indians to acquire first baseman Yonder Alonso. The match first arose on the WatchStadium Twitter account, with Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic also now reporting an agreement on Twitter. Outfielder Alex Call will go to Cleveland in return, per Bob Nightengale of USA Today (Twitter links), with the Chicago org taking over all of Alonso’s remaining contract obligations.
Needless to say, the gears are turning when it comes to first base/DH sluggers, with the Indians, Mariners, Rays, and now the White Sox at the center of the action. Alonso’s spot on the Cleveland roster came into question with the club’s recent 3-team deal, which brought Carlos Santana and Jake Bauers to the organization.
The addition of Alonso also dovetails with some of the Chicago club’s other major pursuits. Certainly, adding a veteran hitter on a short-term deal goes along with the recent moves to pick up Ivan Nova and Alex Colome. Those additions help the near-term outlook and assist with the recruiting of bigger free-agent fish. Alonso, particularly, is of note, as he’s the brother in law of reputed White Sox target Manny Machado.
Alonso, 31, signed with the Indians last winter on a two-year pact that includes a club option. He’ll play on a $8MM salary in 2019, with a $9MM vesting/club option (or $1MM buyout) thereafter. Notably, that option vests if Alonso compiles 1,100 plate appearances over the two guaranteed seasons of the contract; after reaching 574 last year, he’s now 526 shy of locking in more money for 2021.
The first (and now only) season Alonso spent in Cleveland did not go quite as hoped. He had broken out in 2017 with a monster .266/.365/.501 slash and 28 home runs — quite a power burst for a player who had never before finished a MLB campaign with double-digit longballs. Though he put the ball over the fence 23 times in 2018, Alonso was unable to maintain the on-base percentage that had previously been his calling card as a hitter.
The White Sox will gamble that Alonso can return to something more like his 2017 output. To do so, he’ll need to reverse slides in his walk rate (13.1% to 8.9%) and isolated power (.235 to .171). Alonso put the ball in the air nearly as much as he had in his ’17 effort, but nearly doubled his number of infield flies (8.3% to 14.5%) and made an increasing amount of soft contact (13.2% to 19.8%).
Whether Alonso can make the necessary adjustments remains to be seen. It stands to reason that he’ll appear most frequently against right-handed pitching, as he carries yawning platoon splits. Presumably, the Sox will allow Alonso to share time at first base with Jose Abreu, who’ll be in the lineup every day regardless. It’d make sense to utilize another right-handed hitter when a lefty is on the bump.
For the Indians, this is all about tweaking the financials and roster to match up with other demands. By the reckoning of MLB.com’s Anthony Castrovince (Twitter link), the Cleveland organization has pared back its 2019 payroll by something like $18MM with its recent slate of moves (particularly the above-noted deal, in which Edwin Encarncion was dealt away, and the decision to part with catcher Yan Gomes). There are still needs to be met on the roster, but now there’s additional flexibility to work with. Plus, as Castrovince notes, the Indians have now greatly reduced the pressures that had led them to consider dealing a top pitcher. While that possibility cannot be ruled out, perhaps the Indians will not be forced into settling for less than a compelling return.
Photo courtesy of USA Today Sports Images.
