Rockies Rumors

2017 Opt-Out Clause Update

By Steve Adams | May 22, 2017 at 7:39pm CDT

Recently, I took a quick look at all of the players with vesting options for the 2018 season, noting that many of the outcomes within will have significant ramifications for both the upcoming free-agent market and the future of those players’ respective teams. The implications are even greater for the eight players that have opt-out provisions of some type at the end of the current season. In some cases, the opt-out in question could either liberate that player’s team from more than $80MM in future commitments or saddle them with that same burdensome amount. (And, in most cases, if the player isn’t opting out, the remaining salary is indeed a burden, as the player either performed too poorly to opt out and/or got hurt.)

Here’s a look at the opt-out decisions that are looming at season’s end…

Justin Upton, Tigers: The disastrous start to Upton’s six-year, $132.5MM contract now looks like a distant memory. After struggling to a .228/.286/.369 batting line through his first three months in the Motor City, Upton has surged with a .255/.342/.535 slash and 31 home runs over his past 471 big league plate appearances. Strikeouts are still an issue for Upton, but he’s also walking more than ever (15 percent in 2017). He’s on pace to finish the season right around the 30-homer mark, and if he can do so with an OBP in the mid-.300s and respectable marks in left field — he’s currently at +4 DRS and +3.4 UZR — then the remaining four years and $88.5MM on his contract will pose an interesting decision for Upton, who is currently playing out his age-29 season.
Johnny Cueto, Giants: Cueto looked like an ace in his first year with San Francisco but has stumbled to a 4.50 ERA through his first 58 innings with the Giants in 2017. He’s still averaging better than eight punchouts per nine innings to go along with solid (but diminished) control. However, he’s seen his ground-ball rate plummet from 50 percent to 39 percent, and paired with the increase in walk rate (1.8 BB/9 to 2.5 BB/9), that has led to some issues. There’s still plenty of time for Cueto to get back on track, but the remaining four years and $84MM on his contract doesn’t look quite as easy to walk away from as it did just seven weeks ago. He’ll be 32 next season.
Masahiro Tanaka, Yankees: Cueto’s slow start looks Cy Young-worthy when juxtaposed with Tanaka, who has logged a ghastly 6.56 ERA through 48 innings in 2017. Like Cueto, Tanaka has seen his control take a step back, though his strikeout and ground-ball rates are consistent, and his velocity is fine. Tanaka’s average on balls in play is up, however, and his homer-to-flyball rate has skyrocketed from 12 percent to 24.5 percent. Given his age (29 in November), Tanaka would be a virtual lock to opt out of the remaining three years and $67MM on his contract with a good season. If he can’t overcome his home-run woes, however, he may instead opt for the substantial amount of guaranteed cash remaining on his deal.
Wei-Yin Chen, Marlins: Chen’s opt-out is perhaps the easiest to determine of any player on this list. Unfortunately for the Marlins, that’s due to the fact that he’s currently sidelined indefinitely due to arm troubles. Chen is on the disabled list with arm fatigue, though it’s been reported previously that he’d been pitching through a slight tear in his ulnar collateral ligament, which was sustained in 2016. Chen hasn’t pitched well as a Marlin even when healthy, and at this point it would take a quick recovery and a dominant finish for him to even consider opting out of the remaining three years and $52MM on his contract.
Ian Kennedy, Royals: Kennedy has logged a solid 3.74 ERA in 233 1/3 innings since signing a five-year deal with Kansas City, but he’s already in his age-32 season. His strikeout rate and control have taken a step back in 2017 as well, and he’s remained homer-prone despite pitching half his games at the spacious Kauffman Stadium. Kennedy turned in a very strong final four months in his last contract season — which helped him land this surprising contract in the first place — but it doesn’t seem likely that he’ll opt out of the remaining three years and $49MM on his current contract.
Greg Holland, Rockies: To be clear, Holland cannot technically opt out of his contract just yet. The one-year, $7MM contract that he signed with the Rox contained a $10MM mutual option that can vest as a $15MM player option if Holland finishes 30 games. At this juncture, though, it seems as if an injury is all that can stop Holland’s player option from vesting. He’s already finished 20 of the 30 games he needs, and he’s currently boasting a preposterous 0.96 ERA with a 26-to-6 K/BB ratio through 18 2/3 innings. Apparently, pitching at Coors Field suits Holland just fine, though if he keeps this up, it’s a foregone conclusion that he’ll turn down the one year and $15MM he’d receive for a second season at Coors and hit the market in search of a lucrative three- or four-year contract.
Matt Wieters, Nationals: The stagnant offseason market for Wieters’ services culminated in a two-year, $21MM contract with the Nats that offers Wieters the opportunity to test free agency once again next winter, if he wishes. To this point, it’s looking likely that Wieters will pass on that player option. His walks, hard-hit rate and BABIP are up, none of which has come at the expense of his strikeout rate. Wieters is hitting a solid .283/.358/.442 with four homers on the year. His caught-stealing rate is down (23 percent), and his framing remains questionable, but the improved offense makes it seem likely that, even if Wieters again struggles to find the strong multi-year deal he craves, a contract comparable to the one year and $10.5MM he can opt out of will once again be available on the open market.
Welington Castillo, Orioles: Castillo’s two-year, $13MM contract with the Orioles was a pleasant surprise for a player who had previously been locked into arbitration in Arizona before surprisingly being non-tendered. He’s off to a torrid .348/.375/.543 start to the season with four homers and six doubles through 96 plate appearances. There’s a fair bit of luck involved in that production, as evidenced by the 30-year-old’s .418 BABIP. But his strikeouts are down this season, and he’s thrown out a career-best 41 percent of attempted base thieves. His framing marks, while still below average, have improved on a per-pitch basis as well. His glove may prevent him from fully cashing in, but Castillo’s bat could make the remaining one year and $7MM on his contract easy enough to walk away from, assuming he’s healthy.

Rockies Release Stephen Cardullo

By Jeff Todd | May 19, 2017 at 7:47pm CDT

The Rockies have released outfielder/first baseman Stephen Cardullo, as Thomas Harding of MLB.com reports (Twitter links). But the sides are already in discussions on a new minor-league deal to bring Cardullo back into the fold.

Because Cardullo is out for a few months with a broken wrist, the organization has apparently worked out an arrangement with his reps. It’s not entirely clear why he couldn’t simply have been shifted to the 60-day DL, but clearly it sounds like something is being worked out that will be acceptable for all sides regardless.

Cardullo, 29, made a stunning run to the majors last year with Colorado. He had never played above the Rookie ball level before signing with the organization after a four-year indy ball run. But he excelled at Triple-A and soon found himself playing at the game’s highest level.

Though the Rox obviously like what he brings to the table — and the production has been good at Albuquerque — Cardullo hasn’t yet delivered much in his brief time in the majors. Over 91 total plate appearances over the past two years, he owns only a .190/.253/.321 batting line.

Bettis Completes Chemotherapy; Rox Injury Updates

By Steve Adams | May 17, 2017 at 9:53pm CDT

Rockies right-hander Chad Bettis shared some good news today, via Instagram, announcing that he’s wrapped up his final session of chemotherapy. Bettis has yet to pitch this season after learning in Spring Training that the testicular cancer for which he underwent surgery this offseason had unexpectedly spread. While it’s not clear when he’ll be ready to return to a big league mound, Bettis noted that he’s now “excited to move forward and start the process of getting back.” Best wishes to Chad in his continued recovery.

In other Rockies news, Patrick Saunders of the Denver Post writes that David Dahl, Tom Murphy and Trevor Story are all progressing toward a return to the lineup. Dahl is now cleared to take batting practice and will move to full baseball activities if that goes well. He’ll obviously require a notable minor league rehab stint before returning from a stress reaction in his ribcage, as he’s been out since early Spring Training. Murphy, meanwhile, has been throwing and is also nearing clearance to take “legit” batting practice, per manager Bud Black. And Story recently took ground-balls and is on the brink of baseball activities as well. After being shut down for a few days, Story tells Saunders that his ailing shoulder once again feels normal.

Jon Gray Return Slowed

By Jeff Todd | May 12, 2017 at 9:38pm CDT

Rockies staff ace Jon Gray is also taking longer than had been hoped, as Nick Groke of the Denver Post writes. Gray is still in a walking boot while his broken left foot heals, though the hope seems to be he’ll be ready to shed that soon. While Gray has been able to continue throwing, he’ll obviously need to boost his conditioning and ensure his foot is at full health before undertaking at least some kind of rehab assignment.

Looking Back at the 1992 Expansion Draft (Part 2)

By Chuck Wasserstrom | May 12, 2017 at 12:17pm CDT

This is the second of a three-part series looking back at the 1992 MLB Expansion Draft. Click here to read Part 1; click here to read Part 3.

It’s one of those sayings managers have when they address their players every spring: “Play for the name on the front of the jersey, not the back. And play for the other organizations out there. You never know who’s going to be watching you.”

While players might hear that speech but not really listen to it, that axiom tangibly meant something 25 seasons ago.

Two organizations – the Colorado Rockies and the Florida Marlins – were out there in force. Their scouts were doing their player evaluations at the major league and minor league levels. They were doing their homework. They were doing their prep work. They were looking for any reason to have interest in a player – or not have interest at all.

This is the 25th anniversary of the one full year that the Rockies and Marlins spent scouting and preparing for the November 17, 1992, Major League Baseball expansion draft – when the two organizations would be selecting players from the existing 26 major league clubs. A total of 72 players would be chosen – since 50 more major league jobs were becoming available for the 1993 season.

Hundreds of players were auditioning for major league jobs. The truth is … most did not realize it. And when their names were called on expansion draft day, they were stunned.

– – –

On paper, the Marlins and the Rockies had just under 14 months to get ready for the expansion draft – from the time their general managers were hired to the day they arrived in New York City for the initial building of their first big league rosters.

“I found the whole process to be exhilarating … that all the work we had accomplished was ready to move forward,” said Dave Dombrowski, the first general manager in Florida Marlins history. “Our goal was … you want to start an expansion team. You want to get players on board. But ultimately, you’re trying to build a world championship. We knew it would be a while down the road.

“But we were now in the position where finally you were going to have a chance to start adding some players – and all that work that had taken place would come to fruition. So I found it a very exciting time.”

While the Marlins went into the expansion draft knowing they had some money to spend, Colorado Rockies general manager Bob Gebhard and his organization were operating under a tight budget.

“We went into New York with our small group of people who we felt were going to help us make the right selections,” Gebhard said. “But the unknowns were who was going to be available – and could we afford them?

“We felt that we were going to draw some people in Denver. But one of the things the owners brought to my attention is they really thought we needed to win some ball games right away. We were competing in a football city, we were the new team in town, and we really needed to be competitive. We certainly didn’t want to lose 100 games that first year. So we were trying to pick carefully so that, No. 1, we had a team that was affordable, and No. 2, that we had a team that could compete in the 1993 season. We were trying to do both. It was difficult knowing that we didn’t have a lot of money to spend.”

– – –

How would the two teams be put together?

The rules were pretty simple – and pretty complex. All players in the 26 existing organizations were eligible to be drafted, except those with no prior major league experience who had less than three years of service if signed at age 19 or older – or less than four years of service if signed at age 18 or younger.

Cutting to the chase, any “under contract” player who had big league service time was in play if he wasn’t protected. From the minor league side, in layman’s terms, it all depended on when you were drafted – but the drafts of 1990, 1991 and 1992 were off limits. If you were a college kid selected in the 1989 draft with no big league time – you were eligible if an organization didn’t protect you. As an example, Trevor Hoffman, Cincinnati’s 11th-round pick that year, was not on the Reds’ protected list – leaving him available to be selected. If you were a high school kid chosen in the 1988 draft without major league experience (for instance, Yankees minor leaguer Carl Everett), or an undrafted young international player signed that year (the Cubs’ Pedro Castellano), you too were eligible if left unprotected.

What constituted a protected player? Major league teams were able to protect 15 players prior to the draft. Players with 10/5 rights (10 years of major league service, the last five with the same team) and players with no-trade clauses in their contracts had to be protected unless they waived those rights.

The procedure for the three-round expansion draft:

Before the draft, a coin flip determined which team selected first in the first round and second in rounds two and three – or second in the first round and first in rounds two and three. The Rockies won the coin flip and opted to choose first.
In the first round, the Rockies and the Marlins alternated turns, with each of the existing 26 teams losing one player. In theory, both teams were alternately selecting who they considered to be the 16th-best player on every other team’s roster. At the conclusion of the round, both Colorado and Florida would have selected 13 players each.
Prior to the second round, the existing National League teams were able to pull back an additional three players, while American League teams were able to protect four more. The second round proceeded in the same manner as the first, with each existing major league organization losing a second player. At this point, both expansion teams would have selected 26 players each.
Prior to the third round, the N.L. teams once again were able to protect three more players, while the A.L. teams were able to protect four. During the third round, 20 total players were selected – with each N.L. team losing one player and eight A.L. clubs losing a player. At the conclusion of the round, both the Marlins and the Rockies would have made 36 selections.

Not only were the Rockies and Marlins drafting players, they literally were playing a dice game. If you wanted a player from a specific team, and the other expansion club drafted a player from that club, then you likely lost out on an opportunity. You had to roll the dice when making your selections.

– – –

The Rockies’ trip to New York became eventful before the big event.

After his arrival in the Big Apple, Gebhard was able to engineer a franchise-shaking move before the team had any players on its roster.

“Jim Bronner, the agent for Andres Galarraga, called me and said, ‘I’ve got a first baseman for you.’ And he told me it was Andres,” Gebhard said. Galarraga, a veteran of seven seasons in Montreal and one in St. Louis, had an All-Star appearance, one Silver Slugger Award and two Gold Gloves on his resume. “I told him, ‘You know, I have a very limited budget. I’ve been told I have $8 million to spend on a 40-man roster, so I have to be careful who I make commitments to – because this would be a salary hit.’ So we negotiated a contract for $500,000.

“The day before the draft, we signed Andres Galarraga.”

The 32-year-old Galarraga would go on to hit a National League-best .370 in 1993 and become an early builder of the Rockies’ “Blake Street Bombers” identity that Don Baylor wanted to establish. Galarraga spent five years in a Rockies uniform – finishing in the N.L. Top 10 in Most Valuable Player voting four times.

A second aggressive right-handed offensive presence that Gebhard coveted was Dante Bichette – who had fallen out of favor in Milwaukee.

Gebhard also had an affinity for Milwaukee’s Darren Holmes, a right-handed reliever who had experienced some success in 1992 (2.55 ERA and 6 saves in 41 games) – but was not protected by the Brewers.

The question for Gebhard was … could he get both players? The Rockies believed that if they took one, the other would either be protected after the first round – or selected by the Marlins early in the second round.

“We decided we needed pitchers who could pitch in Denver, so we were going to take Darren Holmes early in the draft,” Gebhard said. “But we had also zeroed in on Dante Bichette. It was a little bit of a mystery how we could get him.”

As fate would have it, “the morning of the draft, I went downstairs for coffee and ran into (Milwaukee GM) Sal Bando,” Gebhard said. “We had some discussions, and then I asked him, ‘What are you looking for?’ He said he needed a left-handed DH, and I asked him if he had any interest in (Texas’ Kevin) Reimer. He said, ‘Absolutely.’ So I asked him, ‘What if we draft him, and after the first round, you pull Dante Bichette back so we didn’t lose him to Florida? We can announce the trade after the draft.’ And he said, ‘That’s a deal.’ That’s how we got Dante Bichette.

“All of a sudden we had the big first baseman in Galarraga and now we had Bichette. We had the makings of a middle of the lineup with two power hitters. The rest of it just sort of fell into place.”

Bichette went on to play seven years for the Rockies, going to the All-Star Game four times. Holmes showed he could keep the ball in the park, surrendering only 34 homers in 263 games during his five years in a Colorado uniform.

– – –

It was the afternoon of November 17, and the baseball industry had flocked to the New York Marriott Marquis – with all the lights shining from nearby Times Square – for the expansion draft.

The draft was televised by ESPN and took nearly seven hours to complete – as the teams were given four and a half minutes to make each selection. There was a 30-minute break between rounds.

“It was an unbelievable experience,” said Gary Hughes, Florida’s first scouting director. “Anybody who was anybody – from the media to the front office – was there. We flew up for it in (owner) Wayne Huizenga’s plane. The next morning, we were out of there. We had an early morning wakeup, which I don’t think was a wakeup; I don’t think we went to bed. It was wonderful; some of our guys and some of their guys together.”

The draft-day experience was “overwhelming” in the words of Hughes’ Colorado counterpart, Pat Daugherty. “No. 1, I’d never been to New York City,” said Daugherty. “Just the whole preparation of getting all of our stuff moved there. Seeing the draft room – how everything was set up. Getting to spend some time with Don Baylor, who was just hired as manager. It was very, very exciting.”

The game plans had seemingly been set. The Rockies were looking to acquire as much pitching as possible and were going to take a long look at the players they selected. The Marlins were open to drafting players to flip to other organizations.

“Leading up to the start of the draft, there were a lot of phone calls back-and-forth with general managers who wanted to make trades or make suggestions about who we should draft. Lots of phone calls,” Gebhard said. “And as David and I both talked about later, clubs that couldn’t make trades for certain players wanted to use us as a middle man to try to help them get the players they wanted. David did a little more of that than I did. It was an interesting time trying to piece it all together.

“Having been a pitcher myself and a pitching coach, I certainly knew how hard it was going to be to pitch in Denver – a mile above sea level. So we really tried to focus on drafting as many pitchers as we could – with the hopes that we’d get 11 or 12 out of that group.”

Dombrowski said that by the time the Marlins’ contingent landed in New York, most of their work was basically done.

“We had run some mock expansion drafts, where you could take a player … then withdraw and protect three or four more players,” he said. “We were in a situation where we knew we had to get the best available prospects, but we also had to get some big league players.”

As for how the trade aspect would work, “You couldn’t technically talk to somebody about names that were available on the list of another club,” Dombrowski said. “While we couldn’t mention a player’s name, it would be easy for somebody to say, for example, ‘If a left-handed pitcher from this organization was available, would you have interest in that guy?’ So it was easy to put that type of information out there. And teams would approach us … ‘Hey, we have a need for this. Is anybody on the list somebody we would have interest in?’”

– – –

With the two teams situated in their respective draft rooms at the Marriott Marquis, the first pieces of the puzzle for both organizations were about to be obtained.

Dombrowski remembers sitting in the Marlins’ war room with their draft boards – hidden from the outside world. “We had somebody on stage working directly with the commissioner’s office; we would let that person know who our next choice was. He would tell the commissioner’s office, and they would announce the selection.”

And the person notifying the commissioner’s office was Jim Hendry — the future Cubs general manager and former Creighton University baseball coach.

“I remember Hendry being down on the floor and bringing the names up to (N.L. president) Bill White,” Hughes said. “We were off in a different room, and Hendry was getting all the TV time. (Marlins scout) Orrin Freeman was kidding, but he said that all the people back in Omaha had to be thinking that Hendry was making all the choices himself.”

Having won the coin flip, Colorado went first, selecting David Nied from the Atlanta Braves. Nied had gone 3-0 as a September call-up, but the right-hander was tough for the Braves to protect; he was behind Tom Glavine, John Smoltz and Steve Avery on the team’s starting pitcher depth chart. Atlanta also had Pete Smith and Kent Mercker in the wings – and was just weeks away from adding Greg Maddux to its pitching arsenal.

“I’ll tell you, the other clubs did a great job in protecting their pitching staffs for the expansion draft, and we were fortunate enough to get David Nied as our No. 1 draft,” Gebhard said. “David (Dombrowski) told me later on that if we hadn’t taken him with our first pick, he would have.”

Nied, who threw the first pitch in Rockies history on Opening Day 1993, was sabotaged by injuries. He was limited to 16 starts in ’93, going 5-9 with a 5.17 ERA – while missing half the season with elbow inflammation. The following year, he was 9-7 with a 4.80 ERA in 22 starts during the strike-shortened campaign. He then missed the first three months of the 1995 season with a strained right elbow. Nied threw just 9 2/3 more big league innings – and was out of the game for good by the end of 1996.

“We thought we had one in David Nied,” said Baylor, the first manager in Rockies history. “I had gone on what Bob Gebhard had talked about pitching. We needed to find pitching. In Denver, the ball carries like crazy. I didn’t care if you grew the grass up to the grandstand; you needed to find pitchers who could keep the ball in the park.”

The Marlins – with their first-ever selection – then drafted outfielder Nigel Wilson from the Toronto Blue Jays. Wilson, a 23-year-old left-handed batter, was left unprotected by a Blue Jays club that won the 1992 World Series.

Coming off a strong Double-A campaign in which he batted .274 with 26 homers, Wilson was expected to become an early Marlins mainstay. But it didn’t happen.

Wilson had a so-so 1993 Triple-A campaign with Florida’s Edmonton affiliate before going 0-for-16 as a September recall. He spent a second year in Edmonton before being claimed off waivers by Cincinnati after the labor stoppage ended in April 1995. He saw brief additional big league action for the Reds (1995) and Cleveland (1996) before heading to Japan – where he finally displayed the predicted power (three 30-plus homer campaigns).

“I remember being in the room and we started looking at each draft selection … what are you going to be able to get … what you might want to go ahead and do … if you pick this one guy up, you can go ahead and trade him to another club to get somebody else,” recalled Rene Lachemann, Florida’s first manager. “I wasn’t involved in doing the final things, but there were talks on that. Dave was constantly talking to other general managers. So those things were going on.

“The thing that amazed me out of all it: The two No. 1 draft choices didn’t last very long. That was just amazing.”

The ebb-and-flow of the draft continued. Colorado selected third baseman Charlie Hayes from the Yankees. Florida selected right-handed pitcher Jose Martinez from the Mets. At No. 5, the Rockies selected Holmes – the first step necessary in officially acquiring Bichette from the Brewers. Then at No. 9, the Rockies picked Texas’ Kevin Reimer – and the handshake over coffee was all but done; the official announcement would come later that night.

In between those selections, Florida chose Trevor Hoffman, a right-hander pitching in the Cincinnati Reds’ minor league system. Hoffman spent the first three months of the 1993 season with the Marlins before being sent to San Diego in a deal that brought Gary Sheffield to South Florida.

“I give tremendous credit to Scott Reid because he scouted the Cincinnati organization,” Dombrowski said. “I remember one guy that they had who was available in the first round that everybody talked about was Chris Hammond – who ended up having a nice big league career; we traded for him the next spring. Hammond had already showed that he could pitch at the major league level, but Scott Reid said the guy we needed to take there was Trevor Hoffman. So in an expansion draft, you ended up drafting a Hall of Famer. Now I realize we traded him quickly, but we got Gary Sheffield in return. So it just tells you about the type of work that was done by our scouts.”

– – –

“Play for the other organizations out there. You never know who’s going to be watching you.”

With the No. 11 overall selection in the first round, the Rockies plucked 5-foot-9 second baseman Eric Young from the Los Angeles Dodgers.

Young had been a 43rd-round pick out of Rutgers in 1989 – as a 22-year-old late-round senior sign. He went to Rutgers on a football scholarship, and played both football and baseball there for four years. With that background, the fact that he managed to get to the majors in his fourth year is a story of its own. And then, just like that, he was taken in the expansion draft.

“We were coming off a 99-loss season, and I knew there were going to be changes – because the Dodgers were not used to losing 99 games,” Young said. Los Angeles had other young players it chose to protect in first baseman Eric Karros, shortstop Jose Offerman and catcher Carlos Hernandez. “I didn’t want to hear my name called, so I didn’t watch the draft on TV. If I got a phone call, then I knew something was going down. And then it happened.

“I have to tell you … the man that I had the best conversation with was (Los Angeles GM) Fred Claire – when he made the phone call to tell me that I had been picked in the expansion draft. I remember one thing he said to me, ‘Just always remember you’re not leaving on bad terms, and you never know about the possibility to come back. You’ll always have a chance to return to L.A.’ So basically when he said that, he was telling me, ‘Look, my hands were tied.’ He couldn’t protect me, but he knew my history and he knew how hard I worked to get there. The conversation was very positive. Right there, that gave me the inspiration to go and make a name for myself.

“I thought about this as, ‘This is a chance for me.’ We all realized that once we got there together, we were castaways, throwaways, or whatever you wanted to call us. But we had a lot to prove.

“The expansion draft was the best move of my career – not only as a player, but as a person. I grew up fast.”

After the Young selection, the Marlins followed by picking left-hander Greg Hibbard off the White Sox’s roster. Hibbard’s stay in Florida was extremely short-lived; in fact, he never left the Windy City. He was traded after the draft to the Cubs for infielders Alex Arias – who went on to spend five years with the Marlins – and Gary Scott.

Colorado followed by drafting second baseman Jody Reed from Boston; he was subsequently traded to the Los Angeles Dodgers for reliever Rudy Seanez.

With the 18th selection, Florida chose catcher Eric Helfand from Oakland. As soon as the expansion draft was completed, Helfand was traded back to the Athletics – along with pitcher Scott Baker (selected from St. Louis in the third round) – for shortstop Walt Weiss. The 1988 A.L. Rookie of the Year was on Oakland’s original protection list.

“I had a rough ending to my time in Oakland,” Weiss said. “I had a career-threatening injury in 1991, and then I didn’t play again until the middle of ’92. I had dealt with a lot of injury problems, and to be honest with you, I was kind of looking for a fresh start.

“I knew the managers in both places. I had played with Don Baylor in Oakland, and Rene Lachemann was on our coaching staff in Oakland. So I was looking forward to moving on that expansion draft day. Obviously, I wasn’t in the draft, but I got traded in what was a pre-arranged deal.

“Believe it or not, even though I went from one of the better teams in the game to an expansion team, it was kind of what I needed at the time. I felt like I needed to re-establish myself.”

While Weiss eventually went from Florida to Colorado – and later was a Rockies manager – Joe Girardi went from Colorado to a future Marlins managerial position. Girardi was selected by the Rockies from the Chicago Cubs.

Growing up in Peoria, Ill., a town around 165 miles southwest of Chicago, Girardi always envisioned himself playing at Wrigley Field for the Cubs. The vision became reality in 1989 when he was the club’s Opening Day catcher.

After spending the 1990 season as the Cubs’ starting backstop, he was limited to just 21 games in 1991 with a lower back injury. He came back in 1992 to split catching duties with Rick Wilkins – who had a lot of left-handed power. Girardi wasn’t looking over his shoulder at the possibility of being selected in the expansion draft, but he realized he might not be protected.

“I always dreamed that I would play for the Cubs, and I don’t think there was a dream of me really playing anywhere else,” said Girardi, who is now in his 10th year at the helm of the New York Yankees. “The thought is, when you sign with a team, you’re going to be there forever. But I quickly learned that’s not necessarily the business, and what you imagine as a kid is not always true as an adult.”

Girardi sat in front of the TV that day, watching ESPN and waiting to hear if his name was called. And with the 19th overall selection, the Rockies chose Girardi to be their first starting catcher. He found that out via phone call just seconds before everyone else.

“Honestly, I thought I was going to end up in Miami,” he said. “I should have thought about it. I lived on Aspen Drive (in the northern suburbs of Chicago). It was like the writing was on the wall where I was going. So that was kind of interesting.

“It turned out to be a great experience for me. I had a wonderful time in Colorado.”

Florida then followed with the expected/unexpected selection of California Angels closer Bryan Harvey at No. 20.

It was a known that the Marlins had interest in him. The big question was: would the expansion team take a chance on a highly compensated reliever with a checkered medical history?

“Once we had the (protected) lists, we knew at that point that Bryan Harvey was going to be available,” Dombrowski said. “It gave us a chance to start digging up medical information on him and start making some phone calls to people we knew and respected that might give us the type of background that we needed to make sure that if we took him, that he would be healthy.”

“I remember the questions, ‘Why did you take Bryan Harvey?’ He was coming off an injury,” Lachemann said. “The Angels didn’t protect him; they probably figured, ‘Why would anybody take a closer?’ We took a closer thinking that anytime we’d have a really good chance to win a game, we didn’t want to blow it. We knew we might only have a chance to win 60 games – so we better have somebody at the end who could save them. He ended up saving 45 games that year.”

With their next selection (No. 22 overall), Florida selected the player who would later be known as “Mr. Marlin.”

Jeff Conine was Kansas City’s 58th-round pick out of UCLA in 1987 – where he was a pitcher. He managed to get a cup of coffee as a position player in his third pro year, then got another cup two years later. Being selected in the expansion draft completely caught him off guard.

“Frankly, at the time, it was a little disheartening,” Conine recalled. “I was drafted by the Royals and made it all the way through their system, and I kind of had planned on making a career in Kansas City. The night before the draft, a friend called me and said, ‘I heard you were unprotected for the draft tomorrow.’ And I’m like, ‘Really?’ So I went to my agent’s office to watch the draft, and sure enough, Florida took me.

“I was having a real good year in Triple-A for the Royals when I got called up at the end of ’92, and I thought I was in their plans. It really didn’t occur to me that I might not even be there a couple months later.

“After it sunk in, I immediately thought … now, I’m going to get a chance to play and probably start. And it’s going to be my job to lose, basically. It was exciting to be part of a brand new franchise from the ground floor in a new market with new fans. That disappointment really turned to excitement pretty quickly.

“Looking back, I don’t know what would have happened if I stayed with the Royals. They had Wally Joyner over at first base for a couple more years. I don’t know if I would have made the starting lineup in the outfield; it’s hard to say. Given this opportunity, I worked hard and took advantage of it – and made myself stay in that lineup. As they say, ‘It’s hard to get to the big leagues, but it’s tougher to stay.’ And I worked hard to stay there.”

As the day went on, players who later became household names continued to get selected. Colorado picked future longtime Rockies pitchers Armando Reynoso (from Atlanta), Steve Reed (from San Francisco), Curtis Leskanic (from Minnesota) and a little-known third baseman from Atlanta. “We kind of just stumbled onto Vinny Castilla,” Baylor said.

Meanwhile, Florida’s selections included outfielder Carl Everett (from the Yankees), starters Jack Armstrong (from Cleveland) and David Weathers (from Toronto), and reliever Cris Carpenter (from St. Louis).

Florida also selected reliever Tom Edens midway through the second round (from Minnesota), then sent him to Houston for pitchers Hector Carrasco and Brian Griffiths. After opening the third round with the selection of starter Danny Jackson (from Pittsburgh), the Marlins then peddled the southpaw to Philadelphia for pitchers Joel Adamson and Matt Whisenant.

On the day/night of the expansion draft, Dombrowski traded away five of his selections. By the end of 1993, an additional six members of his expansion draft class had been traded away.

Click here to read Part 1; click here to read Part 3.

– – –

Chuck Wasserstrom spent 25 years in the Chicago Cubs’ front office – 16 in Media Relations and nine in Baseball Operations. Now a freelance writer, his behind-the-scenes stories of his time in a big league front office can be found on www.chuckblogerstrom.com.

Minor MLB Transactions: 5/11/17

By Jeff Todd | May 11, 2017 at 7:01pm CDT

We’ll track the day’s minor moves right here…

Former big league right-hander Barry Enright, who has been pitching for the Padres’ Double-A affiliate, was traded to the Rockies in a minor swap, according to the Pacific Coast League transactions page. (Enright himself confirmed the move on Twitter). The 31-year-old hasn’t appeared in the Major since a 2013 stint with the Angels, though he’s pitched with various Triple-A clubs and in the Mexican League since that time. Enright owns a career 5.57 ERA in 148 2/3 Major League innings and a 4.86 ERA across parts of nine minor league seasons.
The Mariners have signed infielder Danny Muno to a minor league deal and assigned them to their Triple-A affiliate in Tacoma, according to Rainiers broadcaster Mike Curto (Twitter link). Muno, 28, got a brief taste of the Majors with the Mets in 2015 (32 plate appearances) but hasn’t returned to the big leagues since. He opened the 2017 season with the Southern Maryland Blue Crabs of the independent Atlantic League, where he posted a .744 OPS through 13 games. Muno doesn’t have much power but has a history of getting on base in Triple-A, where he’s logged a .257/.363/.377 batting line in parts of three seasons. He’ll bring some defensive versatility to the Mariners’ Triple-A club, as he’s well-versed at second base, shortstop and third base.

Earlier Moves

The Mariners have purchased the contract of righty Tyler Cloyd from the Somerset Patriots, the indy ball club announced. Cloyd had been throwing quite well, racking up 16 strikeouts over a dozen frames while allowing just two earned runs on eight hits and three walks. Soon to turn 30, Cloyd had struggled in two seasons of work with the Phillies and then bounced around in recent years. He returned from a stint with Korea’s Samsung Lions to join the Yankees last year on a minors deal, but missed the bulk of the season due to injury after a promising start. Over 440 2/3 total Triple-A innings, Cloyd owns a 3.49 ERA with 6.6 K/9 against 2.1 BB/9.

Story Placed On 10-Day DL

By Steve Adams | May 11, 2017 at 5:44pm CDT

The Rockies have placed shortstop Trevor Story on the 10-day DL due to a strained left shoulder, as Patrick Saunders of the Denver Post reports. Story initially suffered the injury two nights ago in at-bat against the Cubs, though his struggles at the plate have been an ongoing issue since Opening Day. Story took Major League Baseball by storm in 2016 when he hit 27 homers through just 415 plate appearances as a rookie, though a torn ligament in his thumb cut his season short in early August. It’s possible that there are some lingering effects of that issue, as Story has batted a woeful .180/.289/.396 with a 37.5 percent strikeout rate through his first 33 games in 2017.

Looking Back At The 1992 Expansion Draft (Part 1)

By Chuck Wasserstrom | May 11, 2017 at 11:02am CDT

This is the first of a three-part series looking back at the 1992 MLB Expansion Draft. Click here to read Part 2; click here to read Part 3.

Times were much different when Dave Dombrowski began his baseball career.

The year was 1978, and Dombrowski – a recent graduate of Western Michigan University – had just started working for the Chicago White Sox as a scouting and player development assistant. He arrived in the majors only one year after the Seattle Mariners and Toronto Blue Jays joined the American League as baseball’s 25^th and 26^th teams.

Dombrowski quickly caught the eye of legendary general manager Roland Hemond, who became a mentor to him. After just four years with the White Sox, Dombrowski was promoted to assistant general manager – at the age of 25.

It was the first step in the many staircases Dombrowski wanted to climb in the game.

“I remember at that time in my life, there were certain things that I would have liked to have experienced during my career,” said Dombrowski, who is now the president of baseball operations for the Boston Red Sox. “The thought process for me was … if I ever had the opportunity to be a general manager, it was something I really wanted to do. And of course, I wanted to be on a club that won a world championship and be in a position where you could put together a very successful organization for an extended time.

“But one of the things that was always intriguing to me was to be with an expansion club and to run an expansion club. I thought the opportunity to start a franchise from the very beginning would be one of the most challenging and exciting situations that you could partake in.”

Dombrowski’s baseball career – which has also included serving as the general manager of the Montreal Expos and the GM and president of both the Florida Marlins and Detroit Tigers – would grant him the opportunity to be a part of a championship team and to build an organization from Day One.

Bob Gebhard also would get that chance – and literally was a part of both scenarios at the same time.

“I had accepted the job as the general manager of the Rockies, and one of the deals was I could stay with the Twins until the finish of their season. And that involved some advance scouting for the Twins and the rollercoaster ride through the World Series,” said Gebhard, who was named the first GM in Colorado’s history September 24, 1991, after serving as Minnesota’s assistant general manager. “We win, and (Twins GM) Andy MacPhail asked me to stay and be in the victory parade through downtown Minneapolis and St. Paul. So I did that, then got on a plane and flew to Denver to start this whole thing with the Rockies. It was an exciting few days and something that was a thrill of a lifetime – to have the opportunity to start from scratch and build what you hope is going to be a world championship team.

“I remember getting picked up at the airport in Denver. I went downtown to our temporary rented offices. I went to my office, and I looked on my desk – and there were two paper clips there. I looked at them and said, ‘What in the hell have I just done?’ I left a well-oiled world championship team, and here I am with two paper clips on my desk.

“It’s something I remember, because it was the start of putting it all together. David (Dombrowski) and I were both experiencing it. We had two different directives from our owners as to how to do this. So we both went about putting our teams together to play in 1993.”

– – –

First off, a quick history lesson.

There was a day and age when expansion clubs were expected to need a long time to cultivate and mature – since expansion was still a relatively new concept within the sport.

Major League Baseball had held firm at two eight-team leagues from 1903 through 1960. When the Dodgers and Giants moved from New York to California in 1958, though, there was talk of a rival league moving into cities that didn’t have major league teams. It forced MLB’s hand, and the decision was made to expand.

The American League went first, adding the Los Angeles Angels and the Washington Senators for the 1961 season (the original Senators became the Minnesota Twins in 1961; the newer version of the Senators became the Texas Rangers in 1972). The National League then added two clubs for the 1962 campaign – the Houston Colt .45s (now known as the Astros) and the New York Mets.

The next round of expansion took place in 1969, with two teams added to each league. The San Diego Padres and the Montreal Expos (now the Washington Nationals) entered the N.L., while the A.L’s new franchises were the Kansas City Royals and the Seattle Pilots (now the Milwaukee Brewers).

In 1977, the Blue Jays and Mariners began play. The sport remained at 26 teams until the summer of 1991, when MLB approved bids from groups in Denver and Miami to expand into those markets for the 1993 season (Arizona and Tampa Bay later were added as expansion teams in 1998).

During baseball’s earlier forays into expansion, there were no “Get Rich Quick” schemes. In the 1960s, there were no free agents who could come over and help a club. Even when the Blue Jays and Mariners set up shop, free agency was still in its infancy stages.

It was expected that new teams would need plenty of time in putting together sustained success. For instance:

The expansion Senators lost 100-plus games in each of their first four years and didn’t cross the .500 mark until 1969.
The Angels went from 70-91 in their expansion year to an impressive 86-76 mark in Year No. 2, but didn’t make the playoffs for the first time until 1979.
The Colt .45s lost 96 games in each of their first three seasons – and 97 after changing their name to the Astros in 1965. They didn’t have their first winning season until 1972.
The Mets went 40-120 as a first-year team and lost at least 100 games in five of their first six years. Of course, that meant nothing when they won the World Series in 1969.

Hopefully, you’re getting the picture. It’s one thing to put together an expansion team for year one; it’s another thing to expect immediate gratification.

– – –

When Gebhard arrived in Denver, he had already started putting together some of the front office pieces; he knew he was coming into a situation in which he’d have a lean staff. Coming from Minnesota, he was used to that approach.

“Our ownership at the time was John Antonucci – who was the president and the CEO. He just said that we didn’t have money coming in and wouldn’t until we got closer to Opening Day in 1993, so just hire people as you absolutely need them,” Gebhard said. “The first thing I did right out of the chute was hire Randy Smith and Pat Daugherty. Pat was going to be the scouting director, and Randy was going to be the assistant GM.”

Smith, the son of longtime baseball executive Tal Smith, later served as general manager of the San Diego Padres and Detroit Tigers. Daugherty came over from the Montreal Expos, where he had been a scouting supervisor. Others who joined the small front office mix early on included Paul Egins (as an assistant to Daugherty) and former Mariners GM Dick Balderson, who was hired as the Rockies’ first director of player development.

“Pat Daugherty was actually in Denver at the time I got there because I was still doing work for the Twins,” Gebhard said. “When I arrived in town, his first question to me was: ‘What’s my budget to hire scouts?’

“I, in turn, went to our owner, and Mr. Antonucci told me we had a $300,000 budget for our scouting salaries. So I told Pat, and he immediately put together a list of names of people he had run into that he knew. Some were assistant coaches. Some were bird dogs. Various people.”

Daugherty had already been in the game for 20 years with Montreal prior to the start of his Rockies career.

“I remember the day … I arrived in Denver on October 15, 1991,” said Daugherty – who never left. He retired from the Rockies after the 2014 season and still makes Denver his home. “It was an exciting time, but I always told people it was something unique and great to go through – but I wouldn’t want to go through it again. It was a little bit nerve-racking.

“It was overwhelming. Where do you start? Obviously, you have to hire some personnel. We were going to get ready for the draft in what – four months? So the first thing was trying to put a staff together. I can remember Geb telling me, ‘You have $300,000 to hire a scouting staff.’ It didn’t take long for me to figure out you weren’t going to get very many people for $300,000. We ended up with 10 full-time guys. I hired a kid named Pat Jones, who is now working for Kansas City as a special assistant to Dayton Moore. I hired him for $1,000 and expenses just to cover Florida for us. So we started out with a small group – and basically an inexperienced group. For about half of them, it was their first year as scouts. Ironically, some of those kids are still with the Rockies to this day.”

With the June amateur draft just eight months away and limited information at his fingertips, Daugherty was woefully playing catch-up. Consider this was the fall of 1991; using the internet to obtain information and data was hit-or-miss. Laptop computers were new in the scouting world. Smartphones were a thing of the future.

“We were far behind,” Daugherty said. “With the new young kids that we had who had never scouted, and they had no follow lists – a list of players they would have been following from the year before – so they were starting from scratch.

“Basically, what I told those kids was that we were going to go off the Major League Scouting Bureau reports. A lot of guys were against the Bureau, but they were a lifesaver for me. At least it gave our young guys who had never scouted a heads-up on some of the kids that were in their area. Of course, I did have some guys who had some experience and had scouted before. But trying to get coverage with 10 guys, and we basically didn’t have any cross-checkers – so it was hairy to start with.

“I was new at being a scouting director, and I think that added to the confusion. We were all kind of flying blindly.”

After Daugherty hired his 10 scouts and knew he needed more help, “he came to me and asked for some additional money,” Gebhard recalled. “He had a 24-hour window to hire Herb Hippauf away from Montreal. Herb was an older scout who would mentor our younger scouts.”

“Geb did get me the extra $55,000 over that $300,000 to hire Herb Hippauf – God bless him – who has since passed on,” Daugherty said. “He was a veteran guy, and I hired him primarily to cross-check – and more importantly – to spend some time with our young scouts. To try to get them on-board with the computers and filling out reports and all those things we take for granted when we’ve been in the game for a while.

“It was kind of ironic, as I was working for Gary Hughes as a scouting supervisor in the state of Florida while Gary was in Montreal as the scouting director. And then we ended up with the expansion clubs as scouting directors with the opposite teams.”

While there was some irony there, there also was the actuality that the Marlins had more dollars and manpower to work with than the Rockies did – and Dombrowski hired a full staff almost immediately.

– – –

Dombrowski was let go by the White Sox in 1986 and quickly went to Montreal as the Expos’ player development director. In July 1988, he was named the team’s general manager.

After three-plus years in that role with the Expos – and after an ownership change – he was recruited to serve in a similar capacity with the Marlins. He was officially named Florida’s GM on September 19, 1991 – and brought a bunch of high-ranking baseball heavyweights with him from Quebec to South Florida.

One of those heading south was veteran scouting director Gary Hughes. During his time in Montreal, Hughes’ staff was responsible for discovering, among others, Marquis Grissom, Cliff Floyd, Mark Grudzielanek, Ugueth Urbina and Delino DeShields – and the Expos were named Baseball America’s Organization of the Year in 1988 and 1990.

“We were able to get a pretty good head start on a lot of things because we were allowed to bring a lot of people over from Montreal,” Hughes said. “I think there were 12 people who were brought over before MLB said ‘Timeout. Stop.’

“After Dave left, Dan Duquette had taken over in Montreal – and he had come over from Milwaukee a couple years before that. He had his own people that he wanted to bring in, and he didn’t stop anybody from leaving who wanted to leave. Finally, MLB said ‘Wait a minute.’ Guys also left from Montreal to go to Colorado – like Pat Daugherty and (scout) Bert Holt.

“We brought a lot of guys over from Montreal, but then we picked up a lot of other very good people – like Jax Robertson, who was the scouting director in Detroit. I told him, ‘Jax, you’re going to have way more fun coming over here than you will as the scouting director there. I want you to come here to be one of our cross-checkers.’ At first, he said he couldn’t do it.

“A little later that day, I was told by Dave (Dombrowski) that Carl Barger, our president, said ‘No more scouts. We’ve got plenty.’ David asked me, ‘Are you OK with that? Do you have enough?’ And I said, ‘Yeah, we’re fine.’

“So later on that night, Jax phoned me. He said, ‘You know, I’ve been thinking about what you’ve said. I think you’re right. I’m going to come over. I’m excited.’ And I laughed and said, ‘That’s great.’ The next thing he said was, ‘I’m already starting to clean out my desk.’

“The next day we had some meetings, and I went in and told Dave, ‘You know, when I said that I was through, I lied.’ I told him the Jax story, and Dave said, ‘Oh, we gotta have him.’

“So we talked to Carl. Dave was making his pitch for Jax and said that he was the best in the business. Carl pointed at me and said, ‘I thought you told me he was.’ We got Jax. He was just one of many that we brought in.”

Dombrowski talked about the unique challenges of putting together a scouting staff from scratch – both at the amateur and the professional level. What was his thought process as he put that first scouting staff together?

“That’s a great question,” he said, “and it’s not easily answered, for the simple fact that … of course, you would say you want to get the best scouts that you possibly could. People who could evaluate talent at its best. People who were good evaluators of professional talent – not only at the major league level, but at the minor league level. That could be separate from people who were involved with scouting amateurs. But when you say that, you also have to realize that not everybody is available at that time.

“Other organizations have scouts under contract, so you have to be in a position where you go out and try to hire the best people who are available. A lot of times, it’s a situation where there were regime changes. Maybe there were people whose contracts had run out, and they were looking for new opportunities. But really getting the best personnel that would be devoted to helping you build an organization and evaluate talent for an expansion draft was really what we were looking to do.

“There were people we asked about that weren’t granted permission, which was understandable; it’s an organization’s right. But the people we did talk to … everybody was interested in joining the club and felt it was exciting to start from the very beginning. It was something … to be in a position where you can build an organization from Day One and have input into that.”

– – –

While the Marlins had a large enough staff to separately scout for the June amateur draft and the November expansion draft, the Rockies were grinding it out with their skeleton staff.

“It was a challenging time,” Daugherty admitted. “I know it was a challenging time for some of those young kids. They were all baseball-oriented, because they had all been college assistants. It wasn’t like they weren’t around the game or totally out of the loop in so far as the game goes. But it’s quite a switch from looking at a potential college kid to looking at a potential professional player. It’s an adjustment for all of us.”

During their first two years in existence, the Rockies and Marlins were slotted in the 27th and 28th spots in the first round – so both teams were missing out on the supposed premium picks at the top of the draft. In 1992, the Rockies picked 27th; the Marlins drafted out of that spot in 1993.

Despite their many limitations, the Rockies selected 10 players in the 1992 amateur draft who would go on to see major league time – including first-round right-handed pitcher John Burke, 11th-round pick Craig Counsell (1,624 big league games), 14th-round pick Juan Acevedo (367 big league mound appearances) and 25th-round selection Quinton McCracken (999 games). In addition, second-round selection Mark Thompson and seventh-round pick Jason Bates saw action for Colorado in the 1995 Division Series – as the Rockies went to the postseason in just their third season of existence.

“Most of those guys were not household names, but to get some time in the major leagues is an accomplishment in itself,” said Daugherty. “I was extremely proud when we put that first team together in Bend, Oregon, out of that ’92 draft. I can remember what a relief and what pride I had when I looked at those kids and what we had. To see all of them in a Rockies uniform was really exciting and rewarding.

“Then to follow those kids through their Northwest League schedule – although I wasn’t there all that much – and for them to go on and play in the league championship. Those were big days for a scouting director.”

While all the amateur draft work was being done, Gebhard brought in Larry Bearnarth – Montreal’s former pitching coach – to help in preparation for the expansion draft.

“During the first half, he covered the National League and I covered the American League,” Gebhard said. “I also was involved with the amateur stuff, going to see top players that Pat felt we might have a chance to draft. At the All-Star break, we switched; I went to the National League and Larry went to the American League.

“All of my reports were hand-written. All of Larry’s were hand-written. We came up with a code where we were trying to identify the players that might be helpful to our expansion club immediately and those that would be a part of the future. What role would they play? Were they a No. 1 or No. 2 starter? Were they a closer? Were they regulars? Were they utility players? We tried to put that together as best we could.

“Once the amateur draft was over, we then took those 11 scouts we had and assigned them certain organizations to scout so we would be better prepared for the expansion draft.”

When did he sleep? “Not very often.”

The Marlins, meanwhile, took a high-risk, high-reward attitude to their first amateur draft. At the end of the day, so to speak, they went 1-for-2 after a promising start.

“The feeling was that there was no way in the world that Charles Johnson would get to us – and there was no way Charles would sign with us,” Hughes said of the 28^th overall selection – who would go on to become a two-time All Star and a four-time Gold Glove Award winner. “Charles was an all-American. It was an Olympic year, too. He was on the Olympic team, which meant that he wasn’t going to sign easily – and he couldn’t sign right away.

“I remember sending Jim Hendry, who was then scouting for us, to the College World Series – which we did every year after that because of this – and told him to stay close to Johnson. ‘There’s something telling me we have some chance to get him.’ Sure enough, we got him. There was a November signing date for Olympic players only. Charles and his representative, Mr. Boras, ended up taking it down to the last second.”

It was the second time Johnson was a No. 1 pick. The Expos – and scouting director Hughes – had selected him 10th overall in the 1989 draft.

In the second round, Hughes drafted a right-handed pitcher out of Stanford named John Lynch – who went to nine NFL Pro Bowls and is now the general manager of the San Francisco 49ers.

“John Lynch was good athlete with a real good arm. He was not going to play any more football; he was going to play baseball,” Hughes said. “All that changed when Bill Walsh went back to Stanford. First, Dennis Green left Stanford to coach for the Minnesota Vikings. That left an opening for Walsh to come back – and Bill coming back was the reason John went back to football. John said to me, ‘I remember telling you I wasn’t going to play – and I wasn’t – but with the changes … I’ve always wanted to play for Bill Walsh.’ There was nothing I could do to stop him, so off he went. The rest is history.”

Hughes laughed when he talked about the way he communicated with his scouts in an era before e-mail and cell phones were in vogue.

“That whole year, the way we communicated was voicemail on an office phone line,” he recalled. “When you look back, how could we have gotten through without that? I was given a phone right after the (amateur) draft … one of those boots that you walked around with that passed for a cell phone. I carried that on me for about a month after the draft when we were signing players – so people could get ahold of me at any time. It literally looked like a shoe.

“We had rules … you had to check your voicemail at least twice a day. As the draft was getting closer, it was something like every couple hours. And it was really important to know what hotel a scout was in on the road, and his room, so you could track him down.”

– – –

While the Rockies went with the “all hands on deck” method in terms of scouting for the expansion draft, the Marlins went all out from a manpower standpoint.

Dombrowski wasn’t just planning for 1993. He was looking at it from both a short-term and long-term perspective.

“There’s a lot involved in what we did to prepare for that first season,” Dombrowski said. “Basically, we wanted to have a representative team on the field – but it really didn’t make a great deal of difference to us if we won 64 games or 68 games or 72 games or whatever it would be. We were building for the long run.

“I had started in September 1991 as the first person in Baseball Operations. I then hired people quickly after that. The reality is we started scouting winter ball at that point when people came on board. And then, in turn, we started the next spring training and all through that year.

“The type of players we were trying to identify were players who had the most upside in the long-term. It didn’t matter if it was a positional player or a pitcher or what position they played. We were really just trying to identify people that could be part of our future.”

Both the Marlins and the Rockies would be selecting 36 players in the expansion draft. All 36 would automatically be placed on each team’s 40-man major league roster. Major league rules came into play, too. For instance, did a player have options remaining?

So there was a lot of work behind the scenes in identifying players worth pursuing.

“If you took 30 prospects in the expansion draft … well, that wouldn’t do you any good,” Dombrowski said, “because everybody you drafted had to be put on your major league roster. So you were in a position where you still had to put 25 of those 40 players on your in-season roster. But you still wanted to get the best young prospects that you could.

“Of course, organizations were able to protect their 15 top players. They were in a position where they had that choice themselves. So you weren’t going to get somebody’s top prospect by any means. You also knew in your own mind you were building for the long-term. If you could take players that in turn could be traded, that would also be helpful to you at some point. All of a sudden, if someone was involved in a pennant race in the middle of a season, you might be able to trade somebody and be in a position where you can accumulate more young players to help you for the future.

“It took a lot of work from people digging up background, looking up old press clips. Just gathering information anywhere you could. Basically, we had members of the organization that were assigned clubs … for example, we had someone assigned to the National League West, or the American League East, and the individuals that were assigned there were in a position where they had the responsibility to gather information however they could. And then we had people in our front office who would read newspapers and try to gather information, looking for any background as far as injuries and off-field issues. You tried to gather information any way you could and keep a file on that.”

– – –

In retrospect, it’s hard to fathom that the timespan from when the two organizations hired their respective general managers – with no additional staff in place – to the day of the 1992 expansion draft was less than 14 months.

Before either team finalized draft plans, though, both GMs took a timeout to conduct managerial searches.

Florida concluded its pursuit first. On October 23, Rene Lachemann was named the Marlins’ first-ever manager. He interviewed with Dombrowski during the playoffs and was hired during the World Series.

Lachemann had previous managerial experience with Seattle (1981-1983) and Milwaukee (1984).

“My first year managing in Seattle, we were basically an expansion club; it was just a few years later than that, but a lot of it was a similar-type thing,” Lachemann said. “When I went in to interview with Dave Dombrowski and the rest of the people who were there, I was very impressed with the scouts that they had. They had gone out and got people like Gary Hughes, these top scouts in baseball. I felt that what they were going to go ahead and do – and they had been looking at players for a year – it was a situation I felt good about.

“It’s one thing in baseball … you can never get too hubris about it. I was there with Oakland and Boston, and in a period of five years, I had been to four World Series.

“I was able to bring my brother Marcel over there to be my pitching coach. That might have been one of the reasons I was able to get the job.”

Meanwhile, four days later, the Rockies announced the hiring of their own manager. Gebhard had taken a different route, selecting a first-time manager to run the club.

“One of my goals was to try and get a manager hired as soon as the regular season was over, because I wanted his input in our selections for the expansion draft,” he said. “So during that last month of the season, besides scouting, I was bearing down on who I might want to bring in for interviews to be the manager. I narrowed it down to about 35 names, then down to about 10, then eventually down to four. Out of that process, we hired Don Baylor.”

Baylor had spent 19 seasons as a big league player – earning A.L. Most Valuable Player honors in 1979 – and was on three World Series clubs (Boston 1986, Minnesota 1987), Oakland 1988).

At his introductory press conference with the local media, Baylor was quoted as saying: “I don’t know who wrote that rule that you have to lose 100 games if you’re an expansion team. We’re going to change the thinking of being an expansion team.”

Baylor didn’t just say it … he meant it. “I remember telling the players in spring training, ‘If I have to suit up and get out there, we’re not going to lose 100 games.’ It wasn’t going to happen,” he said.

With a manager in place, “we now were able to get everyone together to start talking about the draft,” Gebhard said. “We sat in a big conference room in downtown Denver and went through every team and every name and categorized it in about every way that you could.”

As Baylor recalled, “There were a bunch of names out there that were available. Who were we going to draft? Who were we thinking about obtaining? Being in that room, that was a history lesson as far as what players were available.

“I was looking for a different type of player. One that I thought would fit … maybe not my personality, but what I wanted for the Rockies. It was a new team coming in.

“I remember sitting in that room and just listening. These guys were so adamant about certain players that they could get. It was pretty intimidating – if you get intimidated. I had played in the World Series; that was intimidating enough. But when you’re trying to build your own team … that was a lot different than being a player. All of a sudden you have to go on the other side and evaluate players. It was different, really different.”

The Marlins, meanwhile, basically sequestered themselves in a Ft. Lauderdale hotel.

“In the fall of ’92, we all sat down together,” said Dombrowski, who then rattled off some of the scouts. “Frank Wren, Gary Hughes, Jim Hendry, Ken Kravec, Scott Reid. Cookie Rojas was there. John Young was there. Dick Egan was another one who was with us. I have to be careful, because I know I’m going to miss some people. It was an exceptional group of individuals that were put together for the organization.

“These people were prepared – they had their recommendations, they had worked hard – to start discussing players. It finally gave the scouts a chance to make their presentations. It was very similar, I would think, to an amateur scouting perspective of preparing for the draft, but you didn’t have this very often from the professional level … to be in a position where you scout all year long, you accumulate information, and you sit down and you make up your list for the draft. Well, that’s what we did for the expansion draft.

“It was really an exhilarating time. We made sure we spent plenty of time to do it. There were long days, but they were fun days. We wanted to make sure that they were fun but business-like. It was a time for people in the organization to mesh together and spend a lot of time together. In addition to that, we wanted to make sure that we put enough overall time in for this so that you didn’t tire your people out on a particular day. You were making such big decisions as you moved forward. You wanted to work and work hard, but also not get to the point where people were just out of gas – where you didn’t get their best thought processes as the day went on.”

As Hughes recalled, “David was all inclusive. We had so many people. If you come up with the right type of player for the Marlins, let’s get him. He wanted everybody to speak. He wanted everybody’s opinion. He felt we had good people in the room and they were experienced, and I don’t think anybody wanted to do anything to stop anyone from voicing an opinion. There was no preconceived notion of what type of player we should be looking for.”

– – –

Major league teams were able to protect 15 players prior to the draft. In theory, in the first round of the expansion draft, both the Marlins and the Rockies would alternate in selecting who they considered to be the 16th best player on every other team’s roster.

About a week prior to the draft, the commissioner’s office provided the two teams the confidential listing of the players that each team had protected.

“Once we had that list, we started taking names off our board,” Gebhard said. “There was a mandate from major league baseball that these lists remain confidential … agents, media, nobody was supposed to get those names. Me and John McHale Jr. (who by then had become the Rockies’ vice president of baseball operations) were the only two people who looked at those lists on our side.”

The Marlins scoured the lists to see who was obtainable – and what potential wheeling-and-dealing angles might be available for them to pursue.

“When we got the actual 15-man protection list, it was easy for us to sort of sit back and say, ‘OK, this is the top-rated guy in each organization.’ And we worked off those lists,” Dombrowski said. “We were ready to go, and we were prepared to move forward.”

Both teams loaded up boxes of information and headed to the Marriott Marquis in New York City. The 1992 expansion draft was about to become a reality.

Click here to read Part 2; click here to read Part 3.

– – –

2018 Vesting Options Update

By Steve Adams | May 9, 2017 at 8:26am CDT

Each year, the free-agent class is impacted by the performance of players with vesting options (as is the financial future of players with said provisions in their contract). For those unfamiliar with the option, a vesting option is typically (though not always) a club option that can automatically trigger based on the player’s health and/or performance. Meeting pre-determined criteria for games played, innings pitched and plate appearances are the most common ways of triggering a vesting option. Some also require that a player avoid the DL at the end of the season and/or for a certain number of games over the course of the year.

Here’s a look at all of the 2018 player options that can automatically trigger based on the players’ 2017 performance…

Matt Cain: The 2017 campaign is the final season of a six-year, $127.5MM extension that Cain signed with the Giants on April 2, 2012. Prior to that point, Cain had been one of the most durable and efficient starters in the NL, but injuries have completely derailed Cain’s career since that 2012 season. Cain hasn’t thrown more than 90 1/3 innings since 2013, and so far he’s delivered just a 4.64 ERA in 455 1/3 innings over the five extra years of control the Giants bought out. If he can reach 200 innings this season and is not on the disabled list due to elbow or shoulder troubles to end the year, his $21.5MM club option would become guaranteed. However, he’s averaging fewer than 5 1/3 innings per start in 2017, and his previous health woes make that decidedly unlikely. His option comes with a $7.5MM buyout, which seems like an inevitable outcome.
Andre Ethier: Ethier batted .273/.351/.429 through the first three seasons of his five-year, $85MM extension (including particularly strong efforts in 2013 and 2015), but he played in just 16 games last season and has been on the disabled list for the entire 2017 season (herniated disk in his lower back). His $17.5MM club option would automatically vest with 550 plate appearances this season, but that’s obviously not going to happen, so he’ll receive a $2.5MM buyout instead.
Matt Garza: Garza’s four-year, $50MM contract with the Brewers contained one of the more convoluted vesting options in recent memory. Injury concerns surrounding Garza allowed the club to land a team option valued at a base of just $5MM. However, had Garza made 110 starts over the contract’s four years, pitched 115 innings in 2017 and avoided the DL at the end of the 2017 season, the option would’ve become guaranteed at $13MM. On the other side of the coin, the Brewers would’ve been able to pick it up at just $1MM had Garza missed 130 or more days during any single season of the contract. Neither of those scenarios will play out at this point, though. All of that is a long-winded way of saying that Garza’s option won’t be vesting at $13MM and will come at a potentially reasonable rate of $5MM.
Gio Gonzalez: Gonzalez’s five-year, $42MM extension came with a $12MM club option for the 2017 season (which was exercised) and a $12MM club/vesting option for the 2018 campaign. If the left-hander reaches 180 innings this season, he’ll be locked in at $12MM next season. For a player as durable as Gonzalez, who averaged 31 starts per year from 2010-16, that seems simple enough. But, Gonzalez has had difficulty working deep into games and has not crossed the 180-inning threshold since 2013. This season, though, he’s already racked up 44 1/3 innings through seven starts — an average of about 6 1/3 frames per outing. He’d need only 29 starts at that pace to trigger the option. And even if he doesn’t sustain that innings pace, if he can avoid the DL and average even 5 1/3 to 5 2/3 innings per start for the rest of the year, he’d accrue enough innings to guarantee that option. Of course, if Gonzalez delivers anything close to the 3.57 ERA he’s turned in through parts of six seasons as a National, the team will likely pick up the option even if it doesn’t vest.
J.J. Hardy: Hardy decided to forgo the open market at the end of the 2014 season, instead re-upping with Orioles in early October on a three-year, $40MM deal. His contract comes with a $14MM club option ($2MM buyout) that could automatically vest in the event that Hardy reaches 600 plate appearances this season. Hardy, however, has reached that total just twice in six previous seasons with the Orioles, and he’s hitting a mere .196/.232/.252 through his first 113 plate appearances in 2017. Based on his recent health track record, it could be considered unlikely that he stays healthy enough to trigger the option. But if he does remain healthy and doesn’t turn things around at the plate, the O’s won’t have a hard time justifying a reduction in playing time to prevent the option from vesting.
Greg Holland: Holland signed a one-year, $7MM deal with a mutual option for the 2018 season, though so long as he remains healthy it’s effectively a two-year, $22MM contract with a player option/opt-out provision. Holland’s $10MM mutual option becomes a $15MM player option if he appears in 50 total games or finishes 30 games in 2017. He’s come out of the gate roaring as a dominant closer in Colorado, just as he was in Kansas City. Holland has already finished 14 games, meaning he needs just 16 more to trigger that player option and secure the right to re-enter the open market. An injury seems like the only thing that will stand in Holland’s way, as he’s currently sporting a 1.29 ERA with a 17-to-5 K/BB ratio, a career-best 51.6 percent ground-ball rate and a 93.9 mph average fastball through his first 14 innings.
Hisashi Iwakuma: After injury concerns stemming from Iwakuma’s physical caused the Dodgers to back out of a reported three-year, $45MM agreement in the 2015-16 offseason, Iwakuma instead returned to the Mariners on a one-year deal with a pair of vesting options. Iwakuma needed 162 innings to trigger his 2017 option, and he needed either 162 innings in 2017 or 324 innings between 2016-17 to trigger his $10MM option for the 2018 season. The 36-year-old racked up 199 innings last year, meaning he now needs just 125 innings in 2017, though he must also avoid the disabled list at season’s end as well. Iwakuma has barely averaged five innings per outing (31 through six starts), but he also needs just 94 more innings this year for that option to kick in.
Ricky Nolasco: Nolasco’s option isn’t a standard vesting option, but his $13MM club option would become a player option with 400 innings pitched between 2016-17. The 34-year-old logged 197 2/3 innings last year, meaning he’d need 202 1/3 innings in 2017 in order to convert his option. That’s a total that Nolasco has reached only twice in his career, and he’s not on pace to approach that number through his first seven starts of the season. If Nolasco were to make the same number of starts as last season (32), he’d need to average nearly 6 2/3 innings per outing for the rest of the season to reach that level. If he ties his career-high with 33 starts, he’d need to average 6 1/3 frames through season’s end. It’s technically possible that Nolasco does end up with a $13MM player option, but the likelier scenario is that the Halos will choose between a $13MM club option and a $1MM buyout. (Thanks to MLBTR commenters paytoplay and jdobson1822 for pointing out Nolasco’s option.)

Cot’s Contracts was used in the creation of this post.

Rockies Outright Cristhian Adames

By Jeff Todd | May 5, 2017 at 11:38pm CDT

The Rockies have outrighted infielder Cristhian Adames after he cleared waivers, the team announced. Also a DFA casualty, Adames will take up residence at Albuquerque. The 25-year-old saw 121 games of action last year for Colorado, but was used minimally in the early going of the current season, failing to record a hit in 14 plate appearances.

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