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White Sox Non-Tender Tyler Flowers

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The White Sox have non-tendered catcher Tyler Flowers and right-hander Jacob Turner, tweets Mark Gonzales of the Chicago Tribune. Cutting ties with Flowers is at least somewhat of a surprise, as many considered Flowers likely to at least find himself in a timeshare with newly signed Alex Avila. He’d been projected to earn $3.5MM by MLBTR contributor Matt Swartz, while Turner had been projected at $1MM.

Flowers, who turns 30 in January, is just a career .223/.289/.376 hitter across parts of seven seasons, but he’s produced offensively at a clip that is roughly average for catchers over the past two seasons (.240/.296/.378, 90 OPS+). He also delivered positive pitch-framing metrics in 2015 and has caught about 28 percent of attempted base-stealers over the past two seasons.

The departure of Flowers leaves Rob Brantly and Kevan Smith as the two other backstop options on the White Sox’ 40-man roster. I’d imagine that the departure of Flowers opens the White Sox up to possible trades for catching help or free-agent additions such as Michael McKenry and Dioner Navarro, as well as Wilin Rosario, who recently elected free agency.

Coaching Notes: McGwire, Henley, Magadan, Rowand

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Let’s catch up on the latest coaching signings as teams finalize their field staffs:

  • One-time superstar slugger Mark McGwire is set to join the Padres as the bench coach alongside new manager Andy Green, Jon Heyman of CBSSports.com recently reports. (Dennis Lin of the San Diego Union-Tribune first reported as a strong possibility.) McGwire has worked as a hitting coach with the Cardinals and Dodgers over the past six years. The 52-year-old’s ascension to a bench coach role suggests that a managerial opportunity might not be far off.
  • The Nationals have brought back Bobby Henley as the team’s third base coach, per a club announcement. Henley was set loose along with the rest of the staff (and manager Matt Williams) at the end of a disappointing 2015 campaign, but he’ll join hitting coach Rick Schu in reprising their roles. Most of skipper Dusty Baker’s staff is now set.
  • Dave Magadan has been announced as the Diamondbacks’ new hitting coach. A 16-year MLB veteran, Magadan has previously worked in the Padres, Red Sox, and Rangers organizations, most recently serving as the top batting instructor for Texas.
  • Former big leaguer Aaron Rowand will serve as a minor league outfield and baserunning instructor, the White Sox have announced. Rowand, 38, retired after the 2011 season. He’ll return to the place where he started his professional and MLB career.

Minor MLB Transactions: 11-25-15

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Here are the day’s minor moves:

  • The Rays released catcher J.P. Arencibia after recently designating him for assignment, per the team’s transactions page. Arencibia, 29, had an impressive 24-game run with Tampa Bay late in the season, but it wasn’t enough for the club to tender him a contract. He ought to get plenty of interest as a free agent from teams looking for major-league-capable receiving options.
  • Mariners lefty Danny Hultzen cleared outright waivers, the club announced. Though his talent has always been evident, Hultzen’s shoulder has not been willing. Despite going second overall in the 2011 draft, Hultzen has yet to tally 200 professional innings pitched.
  • Backstop Adrian Nieto tweets that he’s signed on with the Marlins. Nieto was a Rule 5 pick of the White Sox who stuck on the big league roster for all of 2014, but the switch-hitter didn’t hit much at the Double-A level last year and lost his roster spot in Chicago.
  • The Orioles announced a host of minor league signings today. Among the notable names are righties Pedro Beato and Todd Redmond, lefty Cesar Cabral, and catcher Audry Perez. The 29-year-old Beato has 93 1/3 innings of MLB experience under his belt, while Redmond was a regular part of the Blue Jays’ pen from 2013-14 before losing his job last year. Cabral and Perez both have much more limited MLB experience. They each return to the Baltimore organization after spending most of 2015 at Triple-A Norfolk.
  • The Blue Jays have signed lefty Scott Diamond to a minor league deal, Ben Nicholson-Smith of Sportsnet.ca reports.  The 29-year-old will receive a big league camp invite after tossing 150 1/3 solid Triple-A frames last year in the Rays organization.

White Sox Sign Alex Avila

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The White Sox announced that they have signed catcher Alex Avila to a one-year deal worth $2.5MM. Avila, who has spent his entire career with the Tigers, will remain in the AL Central and presumably pair with Tyler Flowers behind the plate for the Sox.

Alex Avila

Avila, 29 in January, has been with the Tigers since Detroit selected him in the fifth round of the 2008 draft. He’s a lifetime .242/.345/.397 hitter in 2445 Major League plate appearances, but his recent seasons haven’t been near as successful as that relatively productive line would suggest. Since 2013, Avila has batted .216/.326/.351, including a dismal .191/.339/.287 effort in the 2015 campaign.

Knee injuries and multiple concussions have sapped what was at one time a far more productive bat for Avila, who has been forced to begin spending some time at first base. It’s unlikely that the Sox view him as anything more than an emergency fill-in at first base with the roster’s present construction, however, as both Jose Abreu and Adam LaRoche would figure to be ahead of him on Chicago’s depth chart at that position.

More likely is that Avila will see the lion’s share of a platoon with Flowers, who has handled left-handed pitching considerably better than right-handed pitching over the past couple of seasons. Avila is a lifetime .251/.348/.423 hitter when holding the platoon advantage (with most of those at-bats coming at the pitcher-friendly Comerica Park), so if he can remain healthy, there’s the possibility for a productive and reasonably affordable platoon.

While Avila has drawn negative reviews for his pitch-framing efforts in each of the past two seasons, he was considerably above average in that regard from 2010-13. And, while his framing has seemingly declined, his throwing rebounded in 2014-15, as he caught 34 percent of attempted base thieves in each of those two seasons. Avila has been generally strong when it comes to gunning down runners, though he did struggle in 2013, catching runners at just a 17 percent clip. That appears to be little more than an aberration, however, as Avila has caught at least 30 percent of stolen base threats in five of seven seasons in the Majors and 27 percent or better in six of seven.

Photo courtesy of USA Today Sports Images.

White Sox Acquire Tommy Kahnle From Rockies

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The White Sox announced that they have acquired right-hander Tommy Kahnle from the Rockies in exchange for minor league right-hander Yency Almonte (Twitter link). Kahnle was designated for assignment by the Rockies last Friday in a series of moves to set the club’s roster in advance of the Rule 5 Draft.

Kahnle, who turned 26 in August, came to the Rockies from the Yankees organization by way of the Rule 5 Draft in 2013. He’s totaled 102 innings for the Rox over the past two years — his lone MLB experience — and posted a 4.41 ERA while averaging exactly one strikeout per inning to go along with a strong 49.4 percent ground-ball rate. Kahnle’s problem, however, has been a lack of control. Though he’s averaged 95 mph on his fastball in the Majors (95.9 mph in 2015), he’s averaged 5.2 walks per nine innings pitched and issued an alarming 27 unintentional walks in 33 1/3 innings this past season.

The 21-year-old Almonte came to the Sox as the player to be named later in the 2014 deal that sent Gordon Beckham to the Angels. Almonte spent the 2015 campaign pitching for Class-A Kannapolis and Class-A Advanced Winston-Salem, posting a combined 3.41 ERA with 7.2 K/9 against 2.5 BB/9 in 137 1/3 innings (22 starts; 24 total appearances). He didn’t rank among Chicago’s Top 30 prospects, per MLB.com.

Minor MLB Transactions: 11/23/15

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Here are the day’s minor signings from around the league…

  • Infielder Steve Tolleson is headed to the Orioles on a minor league deal, Eduardo Encina of the Baltimore Sun reports on Twitter. Tolleson will receive an invitation to major league camp. The 32-year-old owns a .245/.299/.372 slash in 363 career plate appearances in the bigs.
  • Shortstop Hak-Ju Lee is joining the Giants on a minor league deal, Matt Eddy reported as part of a slew of signings. (See his Twitter feed for these and more.) Formerly a top prospect with the Rays, the 25-year-old suffered a serious knee injury and has not hit much since at the Triple-A level. Among other deals, San Francisco also brought back lefty Ricky Romero, per Eddy.
  • The Diamondbacks have added righty Kyle Drabek on a minors deal, according to Eddy. He joins outfielder Kyle Jensen and third baseman Carlos Rivero as Arizona minor league free agent signees. Once one of the game’s best-regarded pitching prospects with the Blue Jays, the 27-year-old Drabek did not live up to his promise in Toronto. But he did toss a solid 137 1/3 innings last year at Triple-A for the White Sox, working to a 3.47 ERA with 5.5 K/9 against 3.5 BB/9.
  • The White Sox have signed righty Phillippe Aumont to a minor league pact, Josh Norris of Baseball America tweets. The former Phillies prospect lost his 40-man roster spot last year. He did put up a 3.14 ERA after moving back into the rotation at Triple-A, but continued to demonstrate serious control problems with 6.8 BB/9.

Earlier Transactions

  • The Blue Jays have signed first baseman Casey Kotchman, second baseman David Adams and shortstop Jiovanni Mier to minor league contract with invitations to Major League Spring Training, writes Ben Nicholson-Smith of Sportsnet. The 32-year-old Kotchman comes with far and away the most big league experience, having served as an everyday first baseman (or close to it) with the Angels, Braves, Red Sox, Mariners, Rays and Indians from 2007-12. However, Kotchman hasn’t appeared in the Majors since 2013 and hasn’t experienced much in the way of success since his career year with the 2011 Rays. He’s a lifetime .260/.326/.385 hitter in the Majors. Adams, meanwhile, was once a promising second base prospect with the Yankees but never received a consistent chance in the Majors (in part, due to injuries). The now-28-year-old did receive 152 PAs in New York in 2013 but batted just .193/.252/.286 in that short stint. Mier, meanwhile, is a former first-round pick and top 100 prospect, but his bat has never really come around. He’s now 25 years of age and is a career .239/.333/.340 hitter in the minors.

Free Agent Starter Notes: Price, Zimmermann, Buehrle

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Here are some items about some notable pitchers on the open market…

  • David Price and Jordan Zimmermann have both been cited as Cubs targets this winter, and ESPN Chicago’s Jesse Rogers looks at the pros and cons for signing each starter for the Northsiders.
  • A reunion between Mark Buehrle and the White Sox is probably unlikely, MLB.com’s Scott Merkin writes as part of a reader mailbag, since adding Buehrle would give the Sox five left-handers in the rotation.  It isn’t yet clear if Buehrle plans to pitch in 2016 but at least 10 teams have shown interest if he did come back for another season.
  • Colby Lewis underwent meniscus surgery after the season and will have a checkup on his progress around Thanksgiving, MLB.com’s T.R. Sullivan reports.  The Rangers are interested in re-signing Lewis but they’ll wait to see the results of the checkup before they revisit negotiations.
  • The Rangers have been aggressive in checking out the trade and free agent markets for a pitching upgrade, but Sullivan notes that the most expensive pitchers (i.e. Price, Zack Greinke) aren’t being targeted.  Beyond finding a new starter, the biggest help to the Texas rotation will be if Yu Darvish, Martin Perez, Derek Holland are all healthy next season.

Added To The 40-Man Roster: Friday

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Tonight at 8:00pm ET is the deadline for teams to add players to their 40-man roster and thereby protect them from this year’s Rule 5 Draft. In other words: there will be a significant amount of 40-man roster moves made over the course of the next 13 or so hours. Six clubs already made moves to protect prospects from the Rule 5 yesterday, and each of the remaining 24 clubs should make moves today as well.

In brief: players drafted/signed at 18 years of age or younger must be added to the 40-man roster within five years of signing or be exposed to the Rule 5 Draft. Players drafted/signed at 19 or older must be added within four years. Those interested in all of the specifics can refer to articles from MLB.com’s Jonathan Mayo and J.J. Cooper of Baseball America. Perhaps of greater interest is that Mayo lists all of the prospects from MLB.com’s Top 100 list and from their organizational Top 30 lists that much be protected in advance of tonight’s deadline, while Cooper provides brief write-ups on each player that has been protected (and will continue to do so as additions are made).

Here are today’s additions to the 40-man roster. You can check out Baseball America’s coverage to learn more about the individual players listed below …

Earlier Updates

White Sox Taking Offers On Avisail Garcia

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The White Sox have informed other teams that they are open to trading right fielder Avisail Garcia, Dan Hayes of CSNChicago.com reports. Moving Gracia is just one option the team is considering, per the report, but Chicago has been fielding offers over the course of November.

While the club insists that it continues to believe in Garcia’s upside, says Hayes, it is confident in relying on Trayce Thompson as a replacement option. Both players come with their share of risk and reward, of course, and both are just 24 years of age.

The impetus to consider a Garcia trade comes in large part from the fact that the Sox have multiple areas of need elsewhere. Hayes writes that the club could be focused, in particular, on improving the left side of the infield, and may find it necessary to  utilize Garcia “to sweeten a deal to return major league talent.” That would imply, of course, that he could be packaged in a multi-player swap, rather than sold off for a prospect return.

Other clubs will certainly be intrigued by the possibility of rolling the dice on Garcia’s talent, as he’s a former top-100 talent who has at least shown the ability to produce at a league-average rate at a young age. While his defensive issues also limit his value, it’s possible to imagine that Garcia could be a useful part in the right trade. And Garcia comes with four seasons of control, though it won’t necessarily be cheap, as MLBTR projects that he’ll earn $2.3MM this year as a Super Two.

Minor MLB Transactions: 11/19/2015

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Time to catch up on some of the minor moves that have hit the books over the last several days …

  • The White Sox have signed outfielder Scott Hairston to a minor league deal, Ken Rosenthal of FOX Sports reports on Twitter. Hairston, 35, sat out the 2015 season but figures to have a chance at cracking a Chicago roster that appears to be in need of several position players. The eleven-year MLB veteran owns a lifetime .242/.296/.442 slash with 106 home runs, with most of that damage coming against left-handed pitching.
  • Righty Jim Miller signed a minor league pact with the Brewers, MLB.com’s Adam McCalvy reports. He won’t receive an invite to major league camp, per McCalvy, but chose Milwaukee over three other interested teams because of his relationship with assistant GM Matt Arnold (who just came over from the Rays). The 33-year-old has never played in the big leagues with Tampa Bay, but put up good numbers at Triple-A for the organization last year. Miller has thrown 67 1/3 MLB innings over parts of five seasons, most of them coming in a productive 2012 with the Athletics.
  • Infielder Hernan Perez has also signed on to return to the Brewers, per the MLB.com transactions page. The 24-year-old got an extended look with Milwaukee last year, slashing .270/.281/.365 over 238 plate appearances, but lost his roster spot and elected free agency earlier this fall.
  • The Angels have inked lefty Lucas Luetge to a minor league deal with a spring invite, MLB.com’s Alden Gonzalez reports on Twitter. Luetge, 28, provides a potential southpaw pen piece for the Halos. He’s spent parts of each of the last four seasons in the majors, but his innings have dropped in every year. All told, Luetge owns a 4.35 ERA with 7.5 K/9 against 4.8 BB/9 in the bigs.
  • There are five new non-roster invitees heading to Phillies camp, per a club announcement. Infielders Emmanuel Burriss and Ryan Jackson have both joined Philadelphia, as have righties Frank Herrmann, Chris Leroux, and Reinier Roibal. The infielders both come with MLB experience and could represent utility options for the rebuilding club. As for the pitchers, Herrmann and Leroux are both looking for a return to the bigs after having previously spent time in major league pens. And Roibal is a 26-year-old Cuban who put up good numbers — 1.64 ERA, 8.7 K/9 vs. 1.8 BB/9 — at the High-A and Double-A levels last year in the Phillies organization.
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