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Quick Hits: Narvaez, Gallo, Monfort, Tatis Jr., Mets

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Omar Narvaez signed a one-year, $8MM deal (with a $7MM player option for 2024) with the Mets just before Christmas, and Will Sammon of The Athletic shed a little more light on the market for the veteran backstop before he eventually wound up in New York. Sammon notes that the Giants strongly considered a move for Narvaez while the Twins, Tigers and Reds all had varying levels of interest.

The Giants have since inked Roberto Perez, the Reds are set with the trio of Tyler Stephenson, Curt Casali and Luke Maile while the Twins signed Christian Vazquez to the position. The Tigers are an interesting one though, as they’ve only added Triple-A backstop Donny Sands in a trade with the Phillies. They’re set to use some combination of Eric Haase, Jake Rogers and Sands in 2023 but it’s interesting to hear they were at least interested in a higher profile addition there this winter. If they do still look to add an external catcher, Gary Sanchez, Robinson Chirinos and Kevin Plawecki are the remaining notable catchers on the market.

Here’s some more bits and pieces from around baseball:

  • Joey Gallo could be set to see a bit of time at first base in 2023. As Aaron Gleeman of The Athletic noted in a recent mailbag, Gallo could well be the back up first baseman to Alex Kirilloff. That’s not to say Gallo will be on the bench, as the former Ranger, Yankee and Dodger will get plenty of reps in the outfield, but if Kirilloff’s struggles extend into 2023 the Twins could utilize Gallo a fair bit at the position. He rates well as a defender in the outfield, and has made just one appearance at first since 2018 but he’s also graded out solidly defensively at first in his time there.
  • Rockies owner Dick Monfort made headlines recently when he boldly stated he thought the Rockies could play .500 ball this season. That’d be a big ask in a competitive NL West, and the Rockies have done little to improve on their 68-94 record in 2022. Whatever record they wind up with this year, Monfort – in an interview with Patrick Saunders of the Denver Post – said they wouldn’t go down the rebuilding path: “I guess the connotation on rebuilding is you just get rid of everybody. You try to draft low, which we’re not [going to do]. We’re not trying to get the first pick. We’re not going to tank. We never have, never will,” Monfort said.
  • With the Padres adding Xander Bogaerts on a long-term deal and still having Manny Machado under contract for at least the next season, the left side of their infield appears set. Of course, that led to an expectation that Fernando Tatis Jr. would head to the outfield moving forward. That still looks to be the case, although the player didn’t commit to a position and said he’s been working out in both the infield and outfield this winter (via Jeff Sanders of the San Diego Tribune-Review). It’s been a challenging few seasons for Tatis, but he also added that he’s feeling “as close to 100%” as he’s been the past few seasons after dealing with wrist and shoulder injuries, and is expecting to be a full participant in spring training.
  • Sammon’s report in The Athletic also includes details on the Mets plans for Tylor Megill and David Peterson. Both players figure to be in and around the team at some stage over the course of the season, but Sammon reports that the team’s ideal scenario would be to have both players go to Triple-A to start the season and work as starters there, rather than starting the season in the big league bullpen. Of course, injuries in the spring could force one or both of them into rotation spots to begin the season anyway, but it seems the Mets are hoping to avoid using them in relief roles to begin the season.

Jake McGee Retires

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Longtime MLB reliever Jake McGee is retiring, he tells Marc Topkin of the Tampa Bay Times. The 36-year-old said he’ll return to Tropicana Field at some point next season to celebrate his time with the Rays’ organization.

“I feel like it’s kind of the right time,” McGee said. “I’d rather be at home with my family. I played 13 years. I won a World Series in ‘20. It’s about time to stop. I don’t want to grind it out and keep bouncing around and stuff like that.” He tells Topkin that a combination of ongoing knee issues and a desire to spend more time with his wife and their daughter contributed to his decision to step away at this point.

McGee entered the professional ranks nearly two decades ago. Drafted by the then-Devil Rays in the fifth round in 2004 out of a Nevada high school, he spent a few seasons climbing the minor league ladder as a starting pitcher. He thrice appeared among Baseball America’s top 100 prospect list, peaking at 15th heading into the 2008 season. While initial reports of a potential future as a top-of-the-rotation starter didn’t materialize — perhaps in part due to a 2008 Tommy John procedure — McGee took off upon moving to the bullpen in 2010.

The southpaw made his big league debut as a September call-up that year, not long after his 24th birthday. He bounced on and off the MLB roster the following season and carved out a permanent bullpen role by 2012. McGee posted a sparkling 1.95 ERA with a massive 34.4% strikeout rate across 55 1/3 innings, kicking off a few seasons as one of the game’s best relief weapons.

Over a three-year stretch from 2012-14, McGee avoided the injured list and soaked up 189 1/3 frames of 2.61 ERA ball. His 31.9% strikeout percentage over that run ranked 13th among relievers with 100+ innings and only seven relievers had a larger gap between their strikeout and walk rates. While he never made an All-Star team, he was clearly among the sport’s top high-leverage arms.

The 2015 season was McGee’s final with the Rays. It proved a challenge, as he was delayed to start the year by offseason elbow surgery and tore the meniscus in his left knee late in the season. When healthy enough to take the mound, he had another excellent showing. McGee twirled 37 1/3 innings with a 2.41 ERA and 32.7% strikeout percentage.

With Tampa Bay coming off an 80-82 record and McGee two seasons from free agency, he became one of the following offseason’s more intriguing trade chips. The Rays eventually packaged him with then-prospect Germán Márquez to the Rockies for outfielder Corey Dickerson and minor league infielder Kevin Padlo. The deal paid particular dividends for Colorado with Márquez’s emergence into staff ace, but McGee himself had a solid run early in his time there.

After a disappointing 4.73 ERA showing during his first season as a Rockie, he bounced back to the tune of a 3.61 mark across 57 1/3 innings in 2017 — helping the team to a Wild Card berth. That’s no small feat in the sport’s most hitter-friendly home venue, and the Rox kept him around via free agency. He signed a three-year, $27MM deal over the 2017-18 offseason, part of a bullpen spending spree that also saw Colorado bring in Bryan Shaw and Wade Davis.

That didn’t pan out as the organization hoped. Each of Shaw, McGee and Davis struggled to varying degrees. Home runs became a particular issues in McGee’s case, as his heavy reliance on four-seam fastballs up in the strike zone lost effectiveness when his velocity dipped a couple ticks during the 2018-19 seasons. The Rockies released McGee two seasons into the contract, but he promptly kicked off a late-career renaissance with a pair of division rivals.

Signing with the Dodgers for the shortened 2020 campaign, McGee ranked fifth among qualified relievers with a 41.8% strikeout rate over 24 outings. He saw some action in both the Championship Series and the World Series, getting into one game during a Fall Classic against his original organization. The Dodgers defeated the Rays in six games to win the only championship of McGee’s career, though he was part of another very successful club in San Francisco the next season.

He inked a two-year, $7MM deal with the Giants. During the first season, he picked up mostly where he’d left off in L.A. McGee’s strikeouts fell back to 24.3%, but he was among the game’s stingiest at avoiding walks and posted a 2.72 ERA through 59 2/3 innings. He assumed the closing role for a good chunk of the year, saving 31 of San Francisco’s 107 wins. The Giants edged out the Dodgers in a tight NL West race but saw L.A. get their revenge in a five-game Division Series that October.

The 2022 season, which’ll prove to be McGee’s last, was a struggle. He was hit hard through 24 contests in San Francisco, leading to his release in July. The veteran caught on briefly with the Brewers and Nationals at points during the second half but didn’t find much success at either stop. His final outing came in early September before Washington released him.

While he didn’t punctuate things with a great season, McGee steps away with a very strong body of work. He pitched for six different clubs over a 13-year MLB career, posting a cumulative 3.71 ERA through 572 1/3 innings. He struck out 613 of the 2359 batters he faced, a strong 26% clip. McGee finished 182 contests and collected 79 saves while holding 141 more leads and was credited with 32 wins. He had five separate seasons with a sub-3.00 ERA and four years in which he fanned upwards of 30% of opponents. According to Baseball Reference, he collected more than $37MM in earnings along the way.

MLBTR congratulates McGee on an excellent run and wishes him the best in his post-playing days.

Image courtesy of USA Today Sports.

Dexter Fowler Announces Retirement

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Former All-Star center fielder and 2016 World Series champion Dexter Fowler announced via Instagram and Twitter this morning that he’s retiring after a 14-year Major League career. The 36-year-old offered the following statement:

“It’s here. I’m hanging up my cleats. From an 18-year-old draft pick in Colorado to a ’vet’ in Anaheim — there are a few things I will never forget. Getting THAT call to the big leagues in September 2008. Wow. My world was spinning. My first ’you’ve been traded to Houston’ heart pounding call.

The feeling of bliss while hearing the words ’All-Star’. Never knew what it felt like to be that guy! Forever grateful. Soaking wet and freezing on the field with tears in my eyes after winning the World Series in Chicago. The comfort of calling St. Louis home and being a Red Bird. Today is one of those moments where you metaphorically step down from your throne with a standing ovation, a tip of the cap, and the world stops spinning. I’m mostly proud to look back at my career knowing that I played the game the right way and did my best to make a positive impact beyond the win.

Denver, Houston, Chicago, St. Louis and Anaheim. My family, friends, teammates and staff. Thank you for 14 years. I gave you my all.”

Fowler will go down as one of the best 14th-round picks in the sport’s history. (The only 14th-rounders with more career WAR are Dave Parker, Bob Welch, Rick Honeycutt and Keith Foulke, for those keeping score.) Selected out of Milton High School in Georgia back in 2004, Fowler was in the Majors four years later, enjoying a 13-game cup of coffee with the Rockies that year before cementing himself as a big leaguer the following season when he slashed .266/.363/.406 in 135 games and landed an eighth-place finish in National League Rookie of the Year voting.

Over the next eight years, Fowler averaged 541 plate appearances and 130 games per season, batting a combined .269/.368/.443 with the Rockies, Astros, Cubs and Cardinals. Twice traded along the way, Fowler went from Colorado to Houston and from Houston to Chicago before reaching free agency.

It originally looked as though Fowler’s stop in Chicago would last just one year. He slashed .250/.346/.411 in a career-high 156 games while tallying a career-best 690 plate appearances before setting out into free agency. Reports of an agreement with the Orioles emerged but were shot down by both parties, and Fowler kept quiet until stunning his teammates and the baseball world at large when he walked into Cubs spring training with a new one-year contract to return for a second season (Bally’s Kelly Crull tweeted video of Fowler’s stunning return at the time).

That twist of fate reinstalled Fowler atop the Cubs’ lineup — the same position in which he found himself eight months later when he became the only player to ever lead off Game 7 of the World Series with a home run. The 2016 season proved to be the best of Fowler’s career, as he batted .276/.393/.447, made his lone All-Star appearance, and hit .250/.280/.444 with three home runs and five doubles throughout a 17-game march to the Cubs’ curse-breaking World Series victory in Cleveland.

Fowler parlayed that outstanding season into a five-year, $82.5MM deal with the division-rival Cardinals, who enjoyed a strong first year from their new center fielder before injuries began to take their toll. Fowler appeared in just 271 games over the next three seasons of the deal — one of which was the shortened 2020 campaign — and batted a collective .218/.320/.370 in that time. The Cardinals traded him to the Angels in Feb. 2021, and Fowler suffered a torn ACL just seven games into the season with the Halos. He rehabbed the injury and latched on with the Blue Jays on a minor league pact prior to the 2022 season, but Fowler was granted his release after just three games in Triple-A.

All told, Fowler’s career will draw to a close with a lifetime .259/.358/.417 batting line, 127 home runs, 253 doubles, 82 triples, 149 stolen bases, 817 runs scored, 517 runs batted in and a total of 1306 hits. That batting line was seven percent better than league average, by measure of wRC+, and both FanGraphs and Baseball-Reference peg Fowler’s career at 19.5 wins above replacement — a total that surely would’ve been higher had it not been for the tear in his wrist, the fractured foot and the torn ACL that eventually combined to wear Fowler down in what would be his final seasons.

Fowler will be fondly remembered for his role in the Cubs’ historic 2016 World Series win — both his regular season production and his Game 7 long ball — and for the gregarious personality and charismatic smile he so frequently brandished throughout his career. Congrats to Fowler on a lengthy and productive career, and best wishes in whatever the next chapter holds. As Fowler himself said in his retirement announcements today: “Stay tuned for what’s next.”

Rockies Owner Dick Monfort Addresses 2023 Season, Padres, Off-Season

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The Rockies propped up the NL West division last year with a 64-98 record, their fourth-straight losing season and eleventh in the past 13 campaigns. Yet despite only modest additions this winter, owner Dick Monfort believes the team can play .500 ball this season.

“We have a lot of talent, a lot of good things are going to happen, and I think they are going to start happening this year, and I think we can play .500 ball,” Monfort told a crowd at an event in Colorado (via the Denver Post).

It’s hard to see an obvious pathway to the Rockies finding 17 or more wins to get them over the .500 marker this year, particularly in a division with a number of strong teams. A lot of Monfort’s optimism came from the fact that the Rockies have four prospects – Ezequiel Tovar, Zac Veen, Adael Amador and Drew Romo – that feature in MLB Pipeline’s top-100. Tovar is likely the team’s starting shortstop this year, but it’d be a stretch to think any of the other three could be expected to make any meaningful impact in 2023. The team will also hope to have Kris Bryant available for more than the 42 games he appeared in last year, so there are some reasons to be a little more optimistic about the team than a year ago.

With that being said, it’s hard to see the Rockies making much of a dent in the competitive NL West. The Diamondbacks appear to be a team on the rise with an exciting crop of young players. The Giants missed out on a big signings but have made enough additions to think they’ll at least be somewhat competitive this year. The Dodgers again look like one of the best teams in the league, while the Padres have had another aggressive off-season and will be playing for a championship this season. That aggression from the Padres this winter, which saw them land Xander Bogaerts on a $280MM deal, drew comments from Monfort.

“What the Padres are doing, I don’t 100% agree with, though I know that our fans probably agree with it. We’ll see how it works out. I look at the Padres and they have a really talented team, but they have some holes, too. They’ve got three, maybe four starting pitchers, and then they’re sort of like us. They have [Joe] Musgrove, [Blake] Snell and [Yu] Darvish, so I don’t know. They have spent a lot of money and they will have to spend a lot more if they want to keep [outfielder] Juan Soto. But it does put a lot of pressure on you. Yes, it does.”

On the flipside, the Rockies have had a far quieter winter. They’ve re-signed Jose Urena to a $3.5MM deal, and brought in reliever Pierce Johnson on a $5MM pact. They also acquired young power-hitting outfielder Nolan Jones in a trade for infield prospect Juan Brito, as well as Brent Suter, Connor Seabold and Nick Mears via minor trades or the waiver wire. There was chatter about them potentially shifting infielder Brendan Rodgers for a starting pitcher, namely Miami’s Edward Cabrera, but it never eventuated. They were also heavily linked to the center field market earlier in the off-season, but no move materialized there either.

“We needed a true left-handed center fielder and [Brandon] Nimmo would have been great, but the (Mets) weren’t going to let him go. So we really didn’t address the center fielder situation. But we believe we have probably three legitimate center fielders coming up, and the one thing you don’t want to do is box yourself in. If [prospect Brenton] Doyle goes off, you want Doyle to be in center field. We didn’t really want to box somebody in. So we were really looking for a one-year guy,” Monfort said.

As things stand, it seems the Rockies will be largely running it back in 2023. They aren’t expected to make any significant moves for the remainder of the off-season, and as such it’s hard to see them finishing any higher than fourth in the division. The development of Tovar at shortstop could be an exciting story to follow this season, but it might be a year or two before the team’s other top prospects are ready to impact the major league roster and help push the Rockies back towards contention.

Read The Transcript Of Our Chat Hosted By Former MLB Catcher Michael McKenry

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Michael McKenry is next up in our MLB Player Chat series!  Michael was drafted by the Rockies as a catcher in the seventh round back in 2006 out of Middle Tennessee State University, after starring at Farragut High School in Knoxville.

Four years later, McKenry made his MLB debut with the Rockies.  Not long after, the Rockies traded him to the Red Sox for Daniel Turpen.  The Red Sox flipped McKenry to the Pirates a few months later.

As a rookie in 2011, McKenry led the Pirates in innings caught, pairing with Ryan Doumit.  He split duties the following year with Rod Barajas, and then worked behind Russell Martin on the 2013 Pirates.

McKenry had a two-home run game in 2013, victimizing the Reds’ Mat Latos and Jonathan Broxton in an April win at PNC Park.  A few months later McKenry had a four-hit game at Marlins Park.  That Bucs team won 94 games, ended the franchise’s 20-year losing streak, and emerged victorious in the Wild Card game against Johnny Cueto and the Reds.

The 2013 season was cut short for McKenry by a knee injury, and the Pirates non-tendered him in December.  He inked a minor league deal to return to the Rockies and serve as Wilin Rosario’s backup in 2014.  In 192 plate appearances that year, McKenry batted a robust .315/.398/.512 – one of the finest batting lines featured by a catcher.

McKenry finished his MLB career with the Cardinals, snagging a couple last MLB plate appearances in 2016.  He also spent time in the Red Sox, Braves, Rangers, Brewers, and Rays organizations.  McKenry’s MLB career wrapped up with more than 2,000 innings behind the dish.  He paired up with Pirates standout pitchers such as Gerrit Cole, Francisco Liriano, Charlie Morton, and A.J. Burnett.

McKenry hit 29 home runs in his 953 career plate appearances, including shots off Johan Santana and Jonathan Papelbon.  He also had the pleasure of hitting a walkoff home run in the bottom of the 11th off the Mariners’ Mayckol Guaipe for the Rockies in 2015.  That same year, McKenry nabbed his lone career stolen base off Derek Norris.  The man nicknamed “The Fort” managed a fine wRC+ of 109 at the plate back in 2012, plus an excellent 140 mark in 2014.

Today at age 37, Michael serves as a pregame, postgame, and color analyst for the Pirates, as well as a speaker, mentor, and consultant.  You can follow him on Twitter @theFortMcKenry.

Michael was kind enough to volunteer some time to take questions about his career, the Pirates’ future, his work in the broadcast booth and quite a bit more in a chat with MLBTR readers today. You can read the transcript of his chat here.

If you’re a current or former MLB player, we’d love to have you for a chat with our readers!  It’s a great way to interact with fans for an hour (or longer, as Michael did today!), and you get to choose which questions you publish.  Click here to contact us.

Injury Notes: Acuña, Clevinger, Rockies

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Ronald Acuña Jr. had a relatively disappointing showing at the plate in 2022, coming off his season-ending right ACL tear in July 2021, but the dynamic three-time All-Star believes he will be back at full strength leading into 2023. “I’m feeling 100 percent and I’m ready to go back to normal, and I definitely don’t want to play DH anymore,” Acuña told Justin Toscano of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution on Saturday.

Acuña delivered a combined .925 OPS in his first 1,764 major league plate appearances between 2018-2021 before sinking to a .764 OPS in 533 plate appearances last year. He made 27 starts at DH for the Braves in 2022, after logging — or requiring? — only one total DH start across his entire four previous MLB seasons. In general, he’s averaged 38 home runs and 34 stolen bases for every 162 games played as a big leaguer. Last year: 15 homers, 29 steals in 119 games. As he moves further and further away from that knee injury, the reigning NL East champs should become all the more dangerous.

Acuña is going to DH in the Venezuelan Winter League finals, per Toscano, and he has also stated a desire to represent his native country in the Winter Baseball Classic. But the 25-year-old outfielder noted to David O’Brien of The Athletic that the Braves’ medical staff is unlikely to clear him to play in the upcoming WBC because it is more of a time and physical commitment than Winter League. Essentially, they just really want him to stay in camp.

  • Mike Clevinger signed a one-year, $12MM contract with the White Sox earlier this winter. Soon after, he received a platelet-rich plasma injection to aid in the healing of a knee injury that hampered him down the stretch with the Padres last season and led to a disappointing overall 4.33 ERA. With his knee on the mend, and his November 2020 Tommy John surgery fully in the rearview, the White Sox believe the 32-year-old right-hander can get back to being his old top-of-the-rotation self. “We broke down some biomechanics stuff after we signed him to kind of show him the differences,” pitching coach Ethan Katz told James Fegan of The Athletic. “Where he was different in all aspects of his delivery, which was probably in correlation to the knee … Now that he is healthy, he is working on it. His bullpens and the videos that I have seen, there’s been no kind of restrictions or anything that’s slowed him down from being able to be aggressive on that back leg.”
  • Ryan Rolison, the Rockies’ top selection in the 2018 MLB Draft and perhaps a big rotation piece for their future, is said to be 100 percent recovered from the left shoulder surgery that knocked his pro career off track last season. He did not pitch in MLB-affiliated ball at all in 2022 and ultimately went under the knife in June. “We are better than we were a year ago,” Rockies GM Bill Schmidt said to Patrick Saunders of the Denver Post in a recent chat, making note of Rolison’s rebounded health. “We have created some competition for some guys,” Schmidt added. “And, overall, our organizational depth is better.” Germán Márquez, Kyle Freeland, and José Ureña would seem to be locked into the top three rotation spots for Colorado. Rolison could perhaps battle with Austin Gomber and Connor Seabold at the back end. Peter Lambert (elbow) is also expected to be healthy heading into camp and might get another look for MLB starts at some point in 2023.

Rockies Sign Harold Castro To Minor League Deal

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The Rockies have landed infielder Harold Castro on a minor league deal, MLBTR can confirm. The move was first reported by Efrain Zavarce of IVC Networks. The deal comes with an invite to major league spring training. Castro is represented by the MAS+ Agency.

Castro, 29, put up a .271/.300/.381 line with seven home runs over 443 plate appearances for the Tigers last year, good for a wRC+ of 94, or a bit below league average. Castro is a utility player in every sense of the word, and appeared at every position bar catcher and right field in 2022. The bulk of that work was logged in the infield, with a fairly even split around the four positions.

Originally signed by the Tigers back in 2011 out of Venezuela, Castro had spent his entire career with the organization. He debuted with a ten plate appearance cup of coffee in 2018, and went on to appear in 351 games for the Tigers over the next five seasons, putting up a combined .284/.309/.377 line with 15 home runs in that time.

Castro should compete for a bench spot in spring, and would seem to have a decent chance of making the roster. Elehuris Montero can cover the corner infield spots, but the Rockies don’t currently have a clear backup for rookie shortstop Ezequiel Tovar.

Rockies Not Anticipating Significant Roster Move For Remainder Of Offseason

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It has been a quiet offseason in Denver. The Rockies have made a few depth acquisitions, primarily on the pitching staff. They re-signed José Ureña to a $3.5MM deal and brought in reliever Pierce Johnson on a $5MM contract. Brent Suter, Connor Seabold and Nick Mears were added via minor trade or waiver claims. The most significant move of the offseason was the surprising acquisition of young left-handed power hitter Nolan Jones for infield prospect Juan Brito back in November.

Despite their lack of free agent activity, it seems the club is mostly content to carry the roster as it stands into Spring Training. General manager Bill Schmidt told Patrick Saunders of the Denver Post this afternoon the group was mostly set (Twitter link). Schmidt added the club would continue to explore potential pitching acquisitions and ways to bolster the depth more broadly, but it seems any further moves will be fairly minor.

That might be disheartening for the Colorado fanbase with the club coming off a 68-94 season, though it wasn’t unforeseeable. Last offseason’s Kris Bryant deal and the club’s series of recent extensions for players like Antonio Senzatela, Kyle Freeland, Ryan McMahon and Elias Díaz added significant money to the payroll. Colorado entered the offseason with a player payroll at franchise-record levels after accounting for the additional $21MM they”ll owe the Cardinals as part of the Nolan Arenado trade.

With that financial situation, it’s not too surprising the organization mostly sat out free agency. The Rox showed some interest in adding to the starting five and/or bringing in a lefty-hitting outfielder (particularly a center fielder) but seemed eventually priced out of both markets. Perhaps the front office will eventually add a depth arm for the back of the rotation — particularly with Senzatela starting the season on the injured list after tearing his ACL late last summer — but the notable outfield pickup no longer seems to be in the cards.

At the same time, the franchise has again steadfastly refused to entertain any kind of rebuild. For the past few years, Colorado ownership and the front office have maintained faith they have the nucleus of a viable contender and have shown no interest in tearing things down. Reports last month suggested the Rockies were in touch with the Marlins about potentially swapping out second baseman Brendan Rodgers for an immediate MLB starter in Edward Cabrera. Jon Heyman of the New York Post reported last night that Colorado eventually backed away from that framework.

Without any kind of notable overhaul, it’s difficult to imagine the Rockies finishing any higher than fourth in the NL West during the upcoming season. Colorado has seen some positive developments in the farm system though. The Rockies had four players place on Baseball America’s top 100 prospects this week. Shortstop Ezequiel Tovar got a cup of coffee in the majors last fall and looks likely to be the primary shortstop this year. Outfielder Zac Veen, catcher Drew Romo and middle infielder Adael Amador are each further away but could at least be in the mix in the upper minors.

Red Sox Trade Connor Seabold To Rockies

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11:47am: The Rockies have announced the trade.

11:28am: The Rockies have acquired right-hander Connor Seabold from the Red Sox in exchange for a player to be named later or cash, reports Mark Feinsand of MLB.com (via Twitter). Boston designated Seabold for assignment last week when finalizing their deal with free-agent starter Corey Kluber. The Rockies had an open spot on the 40-man roster, so a corresponding transaction won’t be required.

Seabold, 26, was a mildly surprising DFA by the Red Sox, if only due to his recent status as one of the organization’s more promising pitching prospects. There are pronounced durability concerns about the right-hander, however, due in no small part to elbow trouble in 2021 and a forearm strain in 2022. Seabold has just 364 professional innings since being drafted back in 2017 — that modest total coming despite his status as a starting pitcher.

As far as his Major League work is concerned, Seabold has yet to find success. He’s tallied just 21 1/3 innings in the Majors, all with the Red Sox, and he’s been tagged for 25 runs in that time. Things have gone more smoothly in Triple-A, where Seabold pitched well as recently as this past season: 86 1/3 innings, 3.32 ERA, 24.7% strikeout rate, 5.3% walk rate.

Despite concerns about his ability to stay on the field and a shaky MLB performance to date, Seabold is more or less a big league-ready arm who’ll give the Rockies some depth on the pitching staff, if not a player who could legitimately vie for a starting job this spring. Colorado’s rotation will be without Antonio Senzatela to begin the season, due to the righty’s ACL tear late last year, and the staff has little certainty beyond righty German Marquez and lefty Kyle Freeland (both of whom are looking for a rebound performance anyhow). Jose Urena, Ryan Feltner and Austin Gomber are the ostensible front-runners, but each posted an ERA north of 5.00 in 2022.

Seabold also has a minor league option year remaining, so if he doesn’t win a job out of camp, he can still be sent to the minors without first needing to clear waivers.

Kris Bryant Expected To Be Healthy For Spring Training

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Despite being limited to 42 games due to a lower back strain and left foot plantar fasciitis, Rockies’ outfielder Kris Bryant has proclaimed himself 100% ready for baseball, reports Patrick Saunders of The Denver Post. Saunders adds that Bryant does not anticipate any restrictions when he reports to Salt River Fields for Spring Training. Manager Bud Black added to Bryant’s confident statement, saying that Bryant is “encouraged that he’ll be exactly where he needs to be a month from now.”

Bryant reportedly began ramping up his rehab shortly after the season ended, and has not experienced any setbacks with his back or foot. Nevertheless, plantar fasciitis is a particularly tricky injury, with recurrence common due in part to the limited blood flow around the heel and the constant use of one’s foot. A recent example of the impact of plantar fasciitis is slugger Albert Pujols, who missed part of the 2013 season after experiencing continued pain caused by his plantar fasciitis. However, Pujols’ decision to rest did not fully heal this issue, and the three-time MVP was forced to undergo surgery in late 2016 in an attempt to ease his ailment.

When discussing his injury, Bryant told reporters that he believes that he might have contributed to his plantar fasciitis while recovering from his back injury, compensating for his decreased power by overworking his lower body. Nevertheless, Bryant added that he is working with Scott Pensivy, a Las Vegas-based physical therapist who has previously worked with NBA players and Bryant himself, to correct the issue and reduce future setbacks. Bryant added that he’s had “no hiccups and no setbacks” and that he’s, “completely moved in the right direction.”

Bryant’s positive assertion is a welcome site for the Rockies, who struggled to a 68-94 record without him during the 2022 season. Bryant started the 2022 season slashing a weak .281/.339/.351, before he was placed on the injured list, missing the majority of May and June. He returned with a bang in July, hitting .341/.411/.612 in 95 plate appearances before injuries forced the end of his season. Outside of Bryant’s limited performance, Colorado’s offense struggled. No Colorado player (minimum 150 plate appearances) finished the season with a higher average, on-base percentage, or slugging percentage than Bryant. Additionally, only All-Star C.J. Cron finished the year with a slugging percentage greater than .435 (minimum 150 plate appearances), despite playing in one of the most hitter-friendly stadiums. In addition to the threat of Bryant’s bat, Black hopes that Bryant’s “presence will be felt by the opposing pitcher,” which will help “all our guys.” Bryant signed a seven-year, $182MM contract with Colorado before the 2022 season, the largest free agent contract in franchise history, that will keep him with the club through the 2028 season.

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