Rockies Designate Yoan Aybar For Assignment
The Rockies have designated left-hander Yoan Aybar for assignment, per a team announcement. His spot on the 40-man roster will go to outfielder/third baseman Kris Bryant, whose seven-year contract with the Rox has now been officially announced.
Aybar got his start in the Red Sox system as an outfielder but didn’t hit much. That led Boston to try him out on the mound, beginning in 2018. After a decent showing that year, he had an impressive season in 2019. Over 56 2/3 innings at A-ball and High-A, his 4.61 ERA wasn’t great, nor was his 16.2% walk rate. However, he racked up strikeouts at a 27.7% rate, showing enough promise for the Red Sox to add him to their 40-man roster after that season.
After the minor leagues were canceled due to the pandemic in 2020, he was sent to Colorado in a minor trade. In Double-A last year, he still got decent strikeout numbers at a 23.7% rate, but the walks were still high at 14.7% and his ERA shot up to 6.22.
Despite that rough season, there are reasons he could draw interest from other clubs. He’s still just 24 and has one option year remaining. Given that he’s only really been committed to pitching for four years, with one of those being wiped out by the pandemic, it’s possible a team could believe that there’s still a quality pitcher there, after smoothing out some of the rough edges.
Rockies Sign Kris Bryant
The Rockies have made the free agent splash they’d been seeking, announcing on Friday that they’ve signed Kris Bryant to a seven-year contract. Bryant, a client of the Boras Corporation, is guaranteed $182MM on the contract and receives a full no-trade clause as part of the deal. He’ll reportedly receive a $7MM signing bonus and will be paid a $17MM salary this coming season. He’ll then earn $27MM in 2023-24 before earning at a $26MM annual rate from 2025-28.
Bryant will step in as the new face of a franchise that has traded away Nolan Arenado and seen Trevor Story hit free agency over the past two offseasons. It’s the largest free agent investment in franchise history, one that’ll tie the four-time All-Star to Denver through his age-36 season.
Coming into the offseason, few would’ve expected Colorado to make this kind of major splash. The Rockies have finished fourth in the NL West in each of the past three seasons, and they’re coming off a 74-87 showing. Some outsiders have called for Colorado to tear things down and commit to a full rebuild, but ownership and the front office have maintained they don’t view the team as being all that far from contention.
From the outset of the offseason, Colorado has reportedly been targeting a major offensive upgrade to their outfield mix. The Rockies reportedly checked in with players like Kyle Schwarber and Michael Conforto as well, but it became clear in recent days that Bryant was their desired target. Whether they’d spend at the level it took to land him was in question, but owner Dick Monfort has signed off on a seven-year deal with a $26MM average annual value to bring in one of the game’s most recognizable stars.
Bryant, of course, earned that acclaim during his days with the Cubs. The second overall pick in the 2013 draft, he immediately entered pro ball as one of the top prospects in the game. Bryant lived up to those expectations, tearing through the minors for a season and a half. The Cubs delayed his big league debut a few weeks into the 2015 season to push back his path to free agency, but he debuted in mid-April and hit the ground running as a star.
The University of San Diego product hit .275/.369/.488 with 26 homers in his first season, claiming the National League’s Rookie of the Year award. Bryant did strike out at a slightly alarming clip that year, but he significantly improved his contact rate during his second season. The star third baseman hit .292/.385/.554 in 2016, winning the NL MVP and helping the Cubs to a 103-win season and their first World Series title in 108 years.
Chicago never became the multi-year dynasty some fans had expected, but Bryant continued to excel on generally good teams for the next few seasons. He combined for a .284/.390/.511 mark between 2017-19, ranking 17th among position players in FanGraphs Wins Above Replacement over that stretch. Bryant seemed on the path towards a free agent megadeal, but his production plummeted in 2020. During that year’s shortened season, he posted a lowly .206/.293/.351 line over 34 games. What kind of production the Cubs could expect from him — as well as how his free agent market might ultimately shake out — seemed very much up in the air going into 2021.
Bryant didn’t regain his MVP form last season, but he did bounce back from his 2020 downturn. He hit .267/.358/.503 over 374 plate appearances on the North Side. That wasn’t enough to keep the Cubs from a June-July skid that took them out of postseason contention, and it became clear they were likely to move the impending free agent by July 30. Minutes before the trade deadline, the Cubs shipped Bryant to the Giants for prospects Alexander Canario and Caleb Kilian. That deal made Bryant ineligible to be tagged with a qualifying offer, so the Rockies won’t forfeit a draft pick to add him.
His production dipped a little bit in the Bay Area. Bryant hit .262/.344/.444 in 212 plate appearances in black and orange. Nevertheless, he hit the market coming off a productive .265/.353/.481 season line. Heading into his age-30 campaign with an MVP pedigree, he looked to have reemerged as one of the top prizes of this year’s class. MLBTR ranked Bryant as the winter’s #4 free agent in November, projecting him to receive a six-year, $160MM guarantee.
Bryant’s actual deal comes in above that mark, as he lands a seventh year and $22MM more, as well as the no-trade protection. Only Corey Seager, who got $325MM over ten years, has received a larger guarantee among free agents this winter. (Carlos Correa and Freddie Freeman still have an opportunity to surpass that mark). The loftiness of the investment perhaps suggests the Rox had to pay a premium to convince Bryant to join a club that’s not a clear immediate contender. For all of ownership’s and the front office’s confidence, Colorado still looks to have a weaker roster than those of the Dodgers, Giants and Padres in a loaded NL West.
There’s also the fact that Colorado’s last two position player superstars haven’t departed the organization on the best of terms. Arenado and the Rockies had a messy fall-out before they traded him to the Cardinals, with Arenado famously saying he’d felt “disrespected” by then-general manager Jeff Bridich. Story, meanwhile, said he was perplexed by the organization’s decision not to trade him at last summer’s deadline; there’s been no indication he’s considered re-signing since hitting the open market.
Bryant and the Rockies no doubt hope their long-term relationship will end more happily. It’s the biggest move yet made by first-year GM Bill Schmidt, who took over baseball operations when Bridich stepped down last April. There’s obviously plenty of risk in any kind of investment of this magnitude, and Bryant’s profile isn’t without some areas for concern.
As mentioned, his 2021 campaign — while a marked improvement over his 2020 numbers — wasn’t a return to peak level. Bryant’s 123 wRC+ was a personal low in any of his six career non-truncated seasons. By definition, that’s still strong work (23 percentage points above the league average offensive output) but it’s not the kind of production that’ll garner MVP support. And Bryant has never had the eye-popping batted ball metrics one might expect from a player who has had so much success.
His 88.2 MPH average exit velocity last season was right in line with the league mark. His average exit speed on balls hit in the air (91.4 MPH) was only a hair above average (90.9 MPH). Bryant fares better in metrics like hard contact rate (40% vs. 35.4% league mark) and barrel percentage (10.3% against a 6.6% league average), but both marks are more good than elite. He’s always drawn a fair share of walks and hasn’t been especially prone to strikeouts since his rookie year, but his peripherals have more closely aligned with a player who ranked 44th in wRC+ last season (out of 135 hitters with 500+ plate appearances) than with a superstar performer.
There’s no question manager Bud Black will pencil Bryant into the lineup on an everyday basis, although precisely where on the diamond remains to be seen. He has primarily played third base in his career, but Colorado has a Gold Glove caliber defender at the hot corner in Ryan McMahon. It seems likely that Bryant will spend the bulk of his time in the corner outfield, at least next season. He has generally rated as a competent defender in the corners, although he didn’t seem comfortable manning Oracle Park’s tricky right field during his couple months in San Francisco. Bryant has a little bit of experience in center field, but he’s never been a regular option there and would be miscast at that position in spacious Coors Field.
However the Rox plan to use him, they’ve made a hefty financial commitment to add some star power to the lineup. The specific financial breakdown has yet to be reported, but Jason Martinez of Roster Resource estimates that adding a $26MM salary to the books in 2022 would bring the Rox’s player commitments to around $141MM. That’s only a touch below 2019’s franchise-record $145MM Opening Day mark, leaving little room for further additions unless Monfort signs off on an uncharacteristic level of spending.
There’s enough uncertainty on the roster the Rockies would be ill-advised to rest on their laurels now. They’re clearly aiming to return to legitimate postseason contention, and areas like center field and the bullpen remain question marks. Colorado will have to continue to push forward — by expanding payroll beyond Monfort’s previous comfort level and/or dealing from a thin farm system for immediate help — if they’re to seriously make a run at hanging tough in the division. At the very least, though, the Rockies have signaled definitively as ever they view themselves as capable of taking on that kind of challenge — pulling off an agreement few would’ve seen coming sixth months ago.
Jon Heyman of the MLB Network first reported Bryant was signing with the Rockies and the financial terms. Joel Sherman of the New York Post reported the no-trade protection. USA Today’s Bob Nightengale first reported the contract breakdown (Twitter link).
Image courtesy of USA Today Sports.
Latest On Rockies’ Outfield Search
The Rockies are known to be looking for outfield help, and Jorge Soler and Corey Dickerson are among the names under consideration, according to MLB.com’s Thomas Harding (Twitter links). Nearer the top of the free market, Harding notes that Colorado continues to be interested in Kris Bryant, though Joc Pederson is apparently behind “other targets” on the team’s list. Harding reported yesterday that the Rox were looking at Pederson.
Multiple teams were known to be looking into Soler, who is fresh off winning World Series MVP honors after a remarkable turn-around. Soler was hitting only .192/.288/.370 over 360 plate appearances with the Royals when he was traded to the Braves at the deadline, and Soler was then sparked to a .269/.358/.524 slash in his 242 PA for Atlanta during the regular season. Though a positive COVID-19 test kept him from most of the NLCS, Soler made up for it by posting a 1.191 OPS over 23 PA in the World Series, helping lead the Braves to the championship.
The idea of Soler’s power bat in Coors Field is surely tempting to a Rockies team that has been surprisingly lacking in consistent hitting over the last few years. As last season and even his 2020 campaign with the Royals would indicate, Soler is not exactly the picture of consistency himself, yet he isn’t far removed from a 2019 season that saw him lead the AL with 48 home runs.
Adding Soler to the outfield may also not be Colorado’s chief goal, as Soler has never been a defensive plus in right field. Theoretically, the Rockies could install Soler mostly at the new DH spot and only sparingly use him on the grass, while then acquiring another player as more of a regular outfield option.
Dickerson could potentially be a fit for such a role, even if the Rockies already have Charlie Blackmon and Raimel Tapia as left-handed hitting outfielders. While Dickerson is no longer the standout defender he was during his Gold Glove-winning 2018 season, he can at least play some center field and right field in a pinch, as well as his customary left field role.
The Rockies are very familiar with Dickerson, as he was an eighth-round pick for the team in 2010 and he spent his first three big league seasons in the purple pinstripes. Colorado dealt Dickerson to the Rays in January 2016 as part of what became a key trade in recent Rockies history, as German Marquez came to Denver as part of the return.
After posting a 118 wRC+/121 OPS+ and hitting .288/.329/.508 over 2701 PA from 2014-19, Dickerson’s production has been closer to league average over the last two seasons, though his bat did perk up after being dealt to the Blue Jays in June. Between a broken foot and some off-the-field personal tragedy, “the last two years really, really weighed on me,” Dickerson recently told Sportsnet’s Shi Davidi, though his brief stint with the Jays “lit my fire again.” Dickerson has also been employing a new training approach in the offseason to improve both his fielding and his hitting.
Outfield Market Rumors: Laureano, Castellanos, Soler, Pederson
While he isn’t drawing as many headlines as some of his teammates, Athletics outfielder Ramon Laureano is among the team’s more popular trade targets, per Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic. Interest in Laureano is only natural, given Oakland’s willingness to listen on virtually any player and the dearth of center-field options remaining in free agency. That said, Laureano’s trade candidacy is a bit muddier than that of teammates like Matt Chapman, Frankie Montas, Sean Manaea and Lou Trivino.
The 27-year-old Laureano is currently in the midst of an 80-game PED ban that still has 27 games left to serve. Prior to the suspension, Laureano was on pace to reach free agency following the 2024 season, but the service time he’ll miss due to this suspension now makes it appear likely that his path to free agency will be pushed back until after the 2025 campaign. With a potential four seasons of control over Laureano as opposed to three, the A’s may be less inclined to part ways with him — or at least to ask a higher price in return.
Since coming over from the Astros as a generally unheralded prospect in the 2017-18 offseason, Laureano has given the A’s 313 games and 1257 plate appearances of .263/.335/.465 production while playing strong defense around the outfield. He’s swatted 49 home runs and swiped 34 bases in that time as well.
Some more notes on the outfield market as a whole…
- In the hours after Derek Jeter left the Marlins, reports indicated that part of the rift that had grown between Jeter and principal owner Bruce Sherman stemmed from a shift in Sherman’s payroll expectations. Nick Castellanos, in particular, was a rumored target of Jeter, with MLB Network’s Jon Heyman suggesting that Jeter had been willing to green-light a five-year offer for the front office to put forward. While Sherman himself pushed back on those reports just this week and emphasized that the Marlins plan to spend money post-lockout, Barry Jackson of the Miami Herald tweets that the Marlins’ pursuit of Castellanos has indeed cooled off considerably. Ownership, according to Jackson, is no longer comfortable making that type of commitment to Castellanos. That said, Jackson emphasizes that the Castellanos shift is “not the main reason Jeter is gone” but rather one of many issues that contributed to the divide between Jeter and Sherman. Jackson writes that they’ve checked in with the reps for free agent corner outfielder Jorge Soler, who turned things around upon a midseason trade from the Royals to the Braves last season.
- The Guardians are among the teams with interest in free-agent outfielder Joc Pederson, tweets MLB.com’s Jon Morosi. Beyond center fielder Myles Straw, there’s little to no certainty in the Cleveland outfield. Highly-regarded prospect Steven Kwan appears ready for a look after a huge showing between Double-A and Triple-A last year, but he’s yet to actually make his MLB debut. Meanwhile, Bradley Zimmer and Oscar Mercado both turned in below-average performances at the plate. The Guardians seem all but certain to bring in some outfield help, and Pederson would make sense as a potential platoon pairing with Mercado, who batted .294/.381/.435 against lefties even in a down year overall.
- Thomas Harding of MLB.com tweets that the Rockies have also shown some interest in Joc Pederson. Colorado has been linked to bigger-ticket outfielders in their search for offensive help, although it seems Pederson’s at least on the radar as a possible fallback option. The past two seasons have been fairly disappointing for Pederson, who looked like a middle-of-the-order caliber bat (at least against right-handed pitching) during his early days with the Dodgers. Since the start of 2020, he’s a .227/.304/.416 hitter over 619 plate appearances.
Rockies To Sign Alex Colome
March 15: Colome is guaranteed $4.1MM on the contract, tweets MLB Network’s Jon Heyman.
March 12: The Rockies have agreed to a one-year deal with Alex Colome, ESPN’s Enrique Rojas reports (via Twitter). The contract will become official when Colome passes a physical. Colome is represented by the Wasserman Agency.
Daniel Bard and Carlos Estevez combined for 31 of the Rockies’ 33 total saves in 2021, though Colome’s more established track record as a closer could make him the top ninth-inning choice for the Rox next year. Bard and Estevez could be moved back into set-up roles, or manager Bud Black could simply take a committee approach with his closer’s role.
Colome is coming off something of an unusual season that saw him post a respectable 4.15 ERA over 65 innings with the Twins, despite a swath of unfavorable Statcast metrics. While Colome’s bottom-line numbers have generally been much better than his advanced metrics over his career, Minnesota still declined its end of a $5.5MM mutual option on Colome’s services for 2022, instead buying the reliever out for $1.25MM.
Apart from the 22 1/3-inning outlier of the shortened 2020 season, Colome has always posted below-average hard-hit ball rates over his career. While his whiff rate has remained above average, Colome’s strikeout rates have been mediocre since the start of the 2019 season, while his walk rates have hovered around the league average mark. A .211 BABIP was of great help to Colome during his 2019-20 seasons with the White Sox, as his 2.27 ERA was far below his 4.52 xFIP and 4.42 SIERA over those two years.
Generating grounders has become an increasingly large part of Colome’s gameplan as his strikeouts have been on the wane, and the 53.4% grounder rate he has posted over the last two seasons will be of great help at Coors Field. After spending all nine of his MLB seasons in the American League, the 33-year-old has only a single appearance at Coors Field over his 393 career games.
Rockies “Aggressively Pursuing” Kris Bryant
The Rockies are “aggressively pursuing” Kris Bryant, tweets Jon Heyman of the MLB Network. Nick Groke and Ken Rosenthal of the Athletic reported this afternoon (on Twitter) that Colorado’s interest in Bryant was continuing.
This isn’t the first time the Rox have been tied to Bryant. They were reported to have interest in his services just before the lockout, but today’s link between the two sides reinforces that the club is actively involved in the pursuit a few months later. The Rockies have been known to be searching for offense, with a big bat to add to the outfield the primary target.
They’ve also been linked to Kyle Schwarber and Michael Conforto (although later reports threw some cold water on the possibility of Conforto winding up in Denver). Thomas Harding of MLB.com tweets that Schwarber and Conforto remain in play as possible alternatives if Colorado doesn’t get a deal with Bryant done.
The Rockies making a run at any one of those three outfielders might seem a bit counterintuitive, as Colorado’s coming off a 74-87 showing. For better or worse, ownership and the front office have maintained they’re trying to contend in 2022, in spite of losing Trevor Story and Jon Gray from an already below-average team. They’ve signed José Iglesias and Chad Kuhl to replace those respective players positionally, but those aren’t high-impact solutions. Bryant, needless to say, would be a much more notable and costly splash.
Colorado should have some payroll flexibility to accommodate a noteworthy free agent signing. Jason Martinez of Roster Resource currently estimates their 2022 commitments around $112MM, including projections for arbitration-eligible players. That’s already above last season’s Opening Day mark but well shy of the franchise-record $145MM figure from 2019. COO Greg Feasel said earlier this offseason that the Rox would push their player expenditures back towards that 2019 number over the coming two seasons.
Rockies To Sign Chad Kuhl
The Rockies are in agreement with right-hander Chad Kuhl, reports Thomas Harding of MLB.com (Twitter link). It’s a major league contract for the former Pirate, tweets Nick Groke of the Athletic. The ACES client receives a $3MM guarantee with additional possible incentives, reports Mark Feinsand of MLB.com (Twitter link).
Kuhl had spent his entire career in Pittsburgh after being selected in the ninth round in 2013. He made the big leagues in June 2016 and posted decent numbers over the next season and a half. He pitched to a 4.20 ERA in 70 2/3 innings as a rookie, then worked to a 4.35 mark over 157 1/3 frames the following year. Kuhl’s strikeout and walk numbers were both a tick worse than the respective league averages, but he sat in the mid-90s with his fastball and generally did a solid job avoiding damaging contact.
The 2018 season was a disappointment, though. Despite a slight career high in strikeout rate (21.7%), his rate of home runs and barreled balls allowed skyrocketed. The University of Delaware product managed a 4.55 ERA in 85 innings before landing on the injured list with a UCL issue in his elbow. He eventually required Tommy John surgery that cost him the rest of that campaign and all of 2019.
Kuhl returned for the shortened 2020 season, putting up a 4.27 ERA even though his walk rate jumped to an unpalatable 14.2%. Those strike-throwing troubles mostly persisted last season, when he dished out free passes at a 12% clip. Kuhl struggled as a starter through July, then missed three weeks battling COVID-19. Upon returning, the Bucs moved him into the bullpen. He finished the season with a personal-worst 4.82 ERA over 80 1/3 frames in 28 appearances (14 of them starts). The Pirates non-tendered him in November, ending his five-plus year run in the Steel City.
Since returning from the Tommy John procedure, Kuhl’s performance has been a bit below average. It’s a low-cost dice roll for the Rockies, who watched Jon Gray depart in free agency before the lockout. While Kuhl’s results haven’t been great of late, his velocity has essentially returned to its former levels. He averaged a bit north of 94 MPH on both his four-seam and sinker last season, and his slider has been a decent swing-and-miss offering over the course of his career.
Germán Márquez, Kyle Freeland, Austin Gomber and Antonio Senzatela are all returning, but the fifth spot in the rotation has been an open question. Kuhl now joins Peter Lambert and former first-rounder Ryan Rolison in that mix, and the Rox are sure to require some outings beyond their top quintet (as all teams do throughout the course of a 162-game season). If Kuhl ultimately wound up back in the bullpen, he could serve as an important option for skipper Bud Black against right-handed opponents. He’s held righties to a tepid .253/.327/.392 mark in his career, but his inconsistent changeup has contributed to a massive .269/.363/.491 slash allowed to lefty-swinging batters.
In order to finalize Kuhl’s signing, the Rockies will need to make a 40-man roster move. Groke tweets that’s likely to be the placement of reliever Scott Oberg on the 60-day injured list. Oberg, a productive high-leverage reliever between 2018-19, hasn’t pitched in three years on account of persistent issues with blood clots in his arm. He underwent the latest in a long line of surgeries to address the issue last November.
Rockies Sign Jose Iglesias
The Rockies have signed shortstop Jose Iglesias to a one-year contract, MLB.com’s Mark Feinsand reports (via Twitter). Univision’s Mike Rodriguez tweeted earlier tonight that Iglesias and the Rox were close to reaching a deal, and later noted that Iglesias will earn $5MM. Iglesias is represented by MVP Sports Group.
As Nick Groke of The Athletic notes, the Rockies signing Iglesias to play shortstop means “the door is shut on the Trevor Story era.” Story picked up the mantle as Colorado’s regular shortstop from Troy Tulowitzki in 2016, finishing fourth in the Rookie of the Year voting and garnering MVP votes in each of the 2018-20 seasons. The Rockies extended the $18.4MM qualifying offer to Story in November, and he remains a free agent. The Iglesias signing also solidifies former third overall draft pick Brendan Rodgers as the team’s second baseman.
Iglesias, 32, has played for the Red Sox, Tigers, Reds, Orioles, and Angels in his 10-year MLB career. Iglesias signed with the Red Sox as a slick-fielding shortstop out of Cuba back in 2009. On his way to a second place Rookie of the Year finish in 2013, Iglesias was traded to the Tigers in a three-team deal at the July deadline. Stress fractures in both of his legs kept him out for the entire 2014 season, but Iglesias went on to make his lone All-Star Game in 2015 and served as the Tigers’ shortstop for four seasons.
Iglesias joined the Reds on a surprising minor league deal in late February of 2019, ultimately serving as the club’s starter at shortstop. He joined the Orioles as a free agent in January 2020, posting an uncharacteristic 160 wRC+ in 150 plate appearances. That led Baltimore to pick up Iglesias’ $3.5MM club option for 2021, though they traded him to the Angels for a pair of minor leaguers a month later. Iglesias took the bulk of the Angels’ innings at shortstop in 2021, yet was released in September. He came home to the Red Sox on a big league deal and hit well in his brief time there, though he was ineligible for the club’s postseason roster.
With a career 87 wRC+ at the plate, defense is Iglesias’ calling card. His Statcast Outs Above Average metrics dating back to 2016 have generally been above average. Iglesias’ Defensive Runs Saved metrics have been erratic, and he struggled in Ultimate Zone Rating in ’21.
Iglesias has endured what you might call a lack of respect from the game in the most recent years of his solid career, from the minor league deal with the Reds to the release by the Angels. Nonetheless, he’s served as his team’s primary shortstop in every season dating back to 2015, and just signed the largest contract of his big league career since coming over from Cuba. The post-lockout free agent market has quickly provided homes for the few non-star free agent players who tallied 500+ innings at shortstop in 2021, with the Cubs signing Andrelton Simmons to a $4MM deal yesterday and the Astros adding Niko Goodrum on a $2.1MM pact today. Story and Carlos Correa, with much higher expected price tags and qualifying offers attached, have yet to sign.
For the Rockies, Iglesias will help bridge the gap to their top shortstop prospect, 20-year-old Ezequiel Tovar. Baseball America ranked the Venezuelan ninth among Rockies prospects, explaining, “Tovar still has several years of growth ahead of him, but he’s talented enough defensively to eventually be the Rockies’ starting shortstop.” Having gone with an affordable light-hitting veteran option for 2022 in Iglesias, the Rockies figure to fill their stated goal of adding offense via the outfield.
Rockies Sign Scott Schebler To Minors Deal
The Rockies have signed outfielder Scott Schebler to a minor league deal, according to The Athletic’s Ken Rosenthal (via Twitter). Schebler will receive an invitation to Colorado’s big league spring camp.
Schebler, 31, has seen his MLB time dwindle since popping 30 home runs for the 2017 Reds. He remained a solid contributor in the club’s 2018 outfield despite battling through multiple IL stints. Schebler opened 2019 as the Reds’ starting center fielder, but was optioned to Triple-A by May. He didn’t end up returning to the show that year, and was eventually designated for assignment in July 2020. He was shipped to the Braves in a trade, but quickly bumped off Atlanta’s 40-man roster as well.
After signing an offseason minor league deal with the Angels, Schebler had his contract selected in mid-April of 2021. He spent the season going on and off the Angels’ 40-man roster, picking up only 34 big league plate appearances. In 285 Triple-A plate appearances, Schebler posted a 70 wRC+.
A 26th round pick by the Dodgers back in 2010 out of Des Moines Area Community College in Boone, Iowa, nothing has been handed to Schebler in his seven-year Major League career. He showed legitimate pop in his time with the Reds before injuries hit, and he’ll look to earn playing time in a currently-unsettled Rockies outfield where Connor Joe, Sam Hilliard, and Raimel Tapia are projected as starters.
Latest On Michael Conforto’s Market
4:10PM: Conforto is “not a top priority” for the Rockies, Patrick Saunders of The Denver Post reports, though the club has some level of interest.
1:52PM: Michael Conforto‘s market continues to grow, as the Diamondbacks “were among the teams showing the most interest in Conforto before the lockout,” The New York Post’s Mike Puma writes. The Marlins had also been previously linked to Conforto, and Joe Frisaro of Man On Second tweets that Conforto remains on Miami’s list of outfield targets.
Such clubs as the Padres, Rockies, and Yankees have also been reported as suitors for Conforto’s services, with his market thus far representing an interesting cross-section of contenders and teams who struggled in 2021. The D’Backs are coming off a 110-loss season, while the Marlins followed up an appearance in the expanded 2020 playoff bracket with a 95-loss campaign last year.
This wide range of interested clubs could reflect Conforto’s status coming off a subpar (by his standards) .232/.344/.384 season over 479 plate appearances with the Mets. While Conforto rejected the Mets’ qualifying offer, speculation persists that Conforto might look for a shorter-term contract that would allow him to re-test free agency next winter. Since Conforto surely feels he’ll hit better in 2022, he naturally wouldn’t want to short-change himself by signing a longer-term contract now that is reflective of his 2021 numbers.
Even if Conforto is “looking for big free agent pay day,” as Frisaro puts it, he could still land a healthy salary on a one-year deal, which opens the door for many teams as possible fits. Clubs that may be wary of a longer-term commitment to Conforto (or not keen on longer-term commitments in general) could certainly be more open to a one-year arrangement, since a Conforto that returns to his 2015-20 form is a major addition to any lineup.
Though Arizona would seemingly be closer to a rebuild than a true push for contention next season, the D’Backs haven’t been willing to entirely blow things up, as the team still has some interesting core pieces as well as some younger players hoped to be on the verge of a breakout. To this end, the Snakes signed Mark Melancon to a two-year, $14MM deal prior to the lockout, and president/CEO Derrick Hall said yesterday that the Diamondbacks were looking to add some offense.
Hall said he “could easily” see a scenario where Arizona spends $17MM to push the projected 2022 payroll up to the $110MM range. Since Conforto would certainly want to at least top the cost of the qualifying offer ($18.4MM) on any one-year deal, he’d cost more than $17MM, thus putting him at the high end of the Diamondbacks’ possible spending range. Plus, if that hypothetical $17MM represents all the front office would have to spend on remaining needs, it is quite possible the D’Backs would prefer to spread that money around to several players rather than splurge on Conforto alone.
Conforto’s rejection of the QO could represent an obstacle for both the Diamondbacks and the Marlins, as either team would have to give up their third-highest pick in the 2022 draft as compensation for signing the outfielder. Surrendering such a notable pick for what might be a short-term deal is a hefty price to pay for an Arizona team that isn’t really in position to contend in 2022.
Likewise, the Marlins had also been wary about QO free agents when making their winter moves, but Miami has been more clear about its intent to challenge for a postseason berth next season. The Marlins have already signed Avisail Garcia and traded for both Jacob Stallings and Joey Wendle, and the Fish have also been reportedly chasing such big-ticket trade candidates as the Pirates’ Bryan Reynolds.
Just how much more the Marlins are willing to spend on upgrades, however, is still an unknown. Derek Jeter‘s surprising departure as the team’s CEO was (according to some accounts) due to a change in ownership’s approach to spending heading into the 2022 campaign. Prior to the lockout, the Jeter-led Marlins were in talks with Nick Castellanos on a contract of longer than five years, according to MLB Network’s Jon Heyman (Twitter link), though only time will tell if such major expenditures are still on the Marlins’ radar now that the lockout is over.
Naturally, the Marlins can still improve their team without spending a ton of money — the Stallings and Wendle trades are evidence of that, and Miami has a lot of young pitching depth that could bring back a cost-controlled talent like Reynolds in a further swap. Conforto might also represent an interesting middle ground for the team, if he was indeed open to only a one-year contract. Miami could take the one-year payroll boost to add Conforto, look to benefit from a possible rebound year from the former All-Star, and then watch him depart in free agency next winter.