AL Notes: White Sox, Angels, Ward, Tigers, Greiner
The White Sox probably won’t make any more additions before Opening Day, general manager Rick Hahn told Daryl Van Schouwen of the Chicago Sun-Times. While Hahn cautioned the front office would never foreclose the possibility of another pickup, it seems they’re content with the group of players already in the organization. “We still have conversations outside to see if there’s a move that makes sense, but the far more likely result is the 26 we break with are from the group that’s in camp,” Hahn said.
Some more from the American League:
- Taylor Ward started at catcher in the Angels’ spring training contest this afternoon, notes Rhett Bollinger of MLB.com. A catcher at Fresno State, Ward moved to third base after the 2017 minor league season. He has also gotten time at the three other corner positions but hadn’t worked behind the plate since initially moving off catcher. It doesn’t seem Ward will get much playing time there in the regular season, Bollinger writes, but simply having the ability to pick up a few innings in emergency situations could help his case to win a utility role out of camp. Max Stassi, Kurt Suzuki and Anthony Bemboom are the current backstops on the Angels’ 40-man roster.
- Tigers catcher Grayson Greiner was hit in the face by a pitch in this afternoon’s spring training contest, Jason Beck of MLB.com was among those to relay. There is no current diagnosis on his status, but Greiner was able to walk off the field under his own power, as Keegan Matheson of MLB.com noted. Greiner is in competition with Jake Rogers and non-roster invitees Eric Haase and Dustin Garneau for the backup job behind Wilson Ramos.
Latest On Yoenis Cespedes
Free-agent outfielder Yoenis Cespedes held a showcase in Florida that 11 teams attended on Tuesday, according to Ken Davidoff of the New York Post. The Yankees, White Sox, Brewers, Blue Jays, Tigers (one of Cespedes’ ex-teams), Padres, Rays, Reds, Marlins, Cubs and Braves were all on hand to watch Cespedes, per Davidoff.
As Davidoff notes, it’s interesting that the majority of clubs that scouted Cespedes are in the National League, which doesn’t appear likely to feature the designated hitter position in 2021. DH seems like the logical spot for Cespedes if he’s going to continue his career, as he hasn’t played the field since 2018, he’s aging (35), and he’s coming off four straight abbreviated seasons because of health issues. The two-time All-Star, most recently with the Mets, played in just 127 of a possible 546 regular-season contests from 2017-20.
Cespedes opted out of last season in August over COVID-19 concerns, but heel and ankle problems dogged him before then and helped make the four-year, $110MM guarantee he received from the Mets in November 2016 a disaster for the club. The two sides agreed to an amended contract in December 2019 that reduced Cespedes’ base salary from $29.5MM to $6MM, but New York didn’t get any bang for its buck out of that.
While Cespedes comes with question marks, he won’t land an expensive deal, which is one of the reasons so many clubs are considering him. When healthy, Cespedes has been a force at the plate, where he has batted .273/.327/.497 (124 wRC+) with 165 home runs in 3,490 trips. That track record could make him a worthwhile buy-low pickup for someone.
Tigers Sign Drew Hutchison To Minors Deal
The Tigers announced the signing of right-hander Drew Hutchison to a minor-league contract. MLive.com’s Evan Woodbery (Twitter link) first reported the news yesterday. Hutchison will not report to Major League Spring Training, but he’ll give the Tigers an experienced arm to stash in Triple-A Toledo.
Hutchison spent the 2020 season in independent ball, after pitching for three different organizations (Angels, Twins, Yankees) at the Triple-A level in 2019. Best known for his time as an up-and-coming young starter with the Blue Jays, Hutchison has a 5.10 ERA and 20.6K% over 460 1/3 career innings in the majors, as he has yet to recapture the promise of his early career.
After debuting in 2012, Hutchison hit an immediate roadblock in the form of a Tommy John surgery that sidelined him for the entire 2013 season. He also didn’t pitch in the big leagues in 2017 before returning to toss 42 2/3 combined innings for the Phillies and Rangers in 2018, which marks his last appearance in MLB. Still only 30 years old, Hutchison will get to work out in a familiar locale — he is a native of Lakeland, Florida, where the Tigers hold their Spring Training camp.
Tigers Sign Ben Taylor To Minor League Deal
The Tigers have signed right-hander Ben Taylor to a minor league contract, per a team announcement. The club also signed righty Cale Coshow, Evan Petzold of the Detroit Free Press tweets. Additionally, MLBTR has learned that yet another righty, Ricardo Pinto, is joining the organization.
Taylor threw 23 1/3 major league innings as a member of the Red Sox and Indians from 2017-18, in which he logged an ugly 5.40 ERA. But Taylor recorded a much more encouraging 3.94 SIERA and an above-average 24.8 percent strikeout rate during that time. The 28-year-old owns a 3.91 ERA in 126 2/3 Triple-A frames, but he struggled at that level with the Diamondbacks in 2019 and didn’t pitch professionally last season.
Coshow, also 28, is a former Yankees draft pick (13th round, 2013) who hasn’t gotten to the majors yet. He appeared in Triple-A in each season from 2017-19 and combined for a 4.89 ERA across 77 1/3 innings.
Pinto has a bit of experience in the bigs with the Phillies and Rays, with whom he posted a horrid 8.44 ERA with similarly woeful strikeout and walk percentages (15.8 and 11.9, respectively) in parts of two seasons and over 32 innings. The 27-year-old spent last season as a member of SK Wyverns in the Korea Baseball Organization, but he also had trouble keeping runs off the board there. While Pinto did amass 30 starts and 162 innings, opposing offenses lit him up for a 6.17 ERA.
Tigers To Sign Julio Teheran
The Tigers have agreed to a contract with free-agent right-hander Julio Teheran, per Jon Heyman of MLB Network. It’s a non-guaranteed deal, though Teheran will earn a $3MM base salary if he makes the Tigers’ roster. He could rake in another $1MM in incentives if he starts 20 games for the team.
The 30-year-old Teheran signed a $9MM guarantee with the Angels last winter, but the union proved to be disastrous for both sides. Teheran threw 31 1/3 innings with the Halos and ranked last among all pitchers who totaled at least 30 frames in ERA (10.05). He was also second from the bottom in K-BB percentage (2.7). Teheran did post a far better SIERA (5.59) than ERA, but that also checked in toward the bottom of the league. Likewise, Teheran’s career-worst 89.0 mph fastball velocity – down from his lifetime 90.7 – wound up in the basement of the majors.
Before he signed with the Angels, Teheran put together a solid run as a Brave from 2011-19. He looked like a potential front-end starter with the club early on before settling in as a mid-rotation type, and he soaked up plenty of innings for the club. In a stretch from 2013-19, Teheran threw no fewer than 174 2/3 innings in any individual season, and he combined for a 3.64 ERA/4.26 SIERA during that span.
Teheran could now get a shot to rebound in Detroit, which is known to have been looking for another veteran starter leading up to the season. They’ve shown interest in one of their former hurlers, free agent Rick Porcello, but the Teheran addition will “likely” rule out a reunion, Jason Beck of MLB.com tweets. That could leave Teheran to join Matthew Boyd, Spencer Turnbull, Michael Fulmer and Jose Urena in the Tigers’ season-opening starting staff, though prospects such as Casey Mize, Tarik Skubal and Matt Manning could also factor in this year.
Tigers, Rick Porcello Have Discussed Reunion
The Tigers have discussed a potential reunion with right-hander Rick Porcello, Jason Beck and Jon Morosi of MLB.com report (Twitter link), although the two sides are still “a ways apart.” Tigers general manager Al Avila said earlier this week that he was still looking for arms and that adding “at least one more starter would be ideal.”
It’s been a rough couple years for the now-32-year-old Porcello, who turned in an ERA north of 5.00 during his final year in Boston and again in 2020 after signing a deal with the Mets. Over his past 233 1/3 frames in the big leagues, Porcello carries an ugly 5.55 ERA.
That said, there’s also reason to think he should’ve fared better in 2020 than he did in 2019. Porcello halved his 2019 home run rate as a member of the Mets last year and also improved upon both his strikeout and walk percentages while allowing less hard contact than in 2019.
A woeful Mets defense didn’t do him any favors, however, as reflected in his opponents’ .373 average on balls in play. That’s nearly 70 points higher than his career mark, and while some of it is attributable to allowing more line drives, the porous defense undoubtedly played at least some role. Fielding-independent metrics like SIERA (4.45) and xFIP (4.38) pegged Porcello’s 2020 campaign more in the mid-4.00s range that he’s lived throughout the bulk of his career.
Porcello also remained durable in Queens, making a dozen starts and soaking up 59 innings even as he struggled through those poor results. He hasn’t been on the injured list since missing three weeks with a triceps strain late in the 2015 season, so at the very least he could be expected to give the Tigers some bulk innings during a season in which they’ll likely be extra-cautious with the workloads of vaunted young arms like Casey Mize, Tarik Skubal and Matt Manning.
At the moment, the Tigers have lefty Matthew Boyd and right-handers Spencer Turnbull, Michael Fulmer and Jose Urena locked into spots in the 2021 rotation. Skubal, Mize, Manning, Daniel Norris and non-roster arms like Derek Holland and Erasmo Ramirez will all be vying for opportunities in the rotation. Avila noted this week that the club could roll out with a six-man rotation in 2021 (link via Evan Petzold of the Detroit Free Press), so there could be multiple starting jobs up for grabs.
It’s an important year for the Tigers’ lengthy rebuilding effort, as they’ll want to get a chance to evaluate Mize, Skubal, Manning and others from their improved farm system at the MLB level. At the same time, there’s a fine line to walk; the Tigers surely don’t want to get to a point where injuries elsewhere on the roster force them to be overly reliant on that group to turn over the rotation, thus potentially inflating their workloads. Adding Porcello, who spent six seasons as a Tiger and won a Cy Young Award with the Red Sox in 2016, to help manage workloads and mentor younger starters has some appeal to the club.
From a payroll vantage point, the Tigers can clearly afford just about anyone they want. Their offseason investments to date have been a two-year, $10MM deal for Robbie Grossman and one-year deals for Jonathan Schoop ($4.5MM), Urena ($3.25MM), Wilson Ramos ($2MM) and Nomar Mazara ($1.75MM). Their current payroll sits at about $82MM — more than $110MM shy of its peak levels in 2016-17. That’s not likely to go up much in 2021, but they could still spend on a couple more veterans in the Porcello mode as they await a return to more prominently playing in the free-agent market next winter and beyond.
Tigers Sign Wily Peralta To Minors Deal
The Tigers have signed right-hander Wily Peralta to a minor league contract with an invitation to big league camp, Jon Heyman of MLB Network tweets. The deal comes with a $1.5MM base salary and up to $300K in incentives.
This is the first we’ve heard about Peralta in quite some time, as he didn’t surface in any rumors after the Royals released him in July 2019. He has not been part of any major league organization since then, though he’ll now get a chance to compete for a spot in the Tigers’ bullpen, Jason Beck of MLB.com tweets.
Peralta, who will turn 32 in May, has spent the majority of his career as a starter between Milwaukee and Kansas City, but all of his outings as a Royal came as a reliever. From 2012-19, Peralta amassed 120 starts and 779 1/3 innings across 211 appearances and pitched to a 4.52 ERA/4.39 SIERA with underwhelming strikeout and walk percentages (16.9 and 8.8), though he did put up an impressive 50.7 percent groundball rate.
Red Sox Claim John Schreiber, Place Chris Sale On 60-Day IL
The Red Sox announced this afternoon that they’ve claimed righty John Schreiber off waivers from the Tigers and placed left-hander Chris Sale on the 60-day injured list to open a 40-man roster spot. The Sale move shouldn’t come as a shock, given that he underwent Tommy John surgery on March 30 last year. It was reported last month that his rehab was expected to come near the back end of the typical 12-15 month recovery time. He’ll likely be an option for the Sox sometime early this summer.
Schreiber, 27 next month, has pitched 28 2/3 innings with Detroit over the past two seasons but has not fared well, logging a 6.28 ERA in that time. Other metrics are more bullish on the former 15th-round pick, however, thanks largely to an above-average 25.6 percent strikeout rate and a very manageable 6.2 percent walk rate. The sidearm-slinging Schreiber has a career 1.99 ERA in four minor league seasons, including a 2.28 mark in 59 1/3 innings at Triple-A.
Schreiber doesn’t throw particularly hard, as is common with sidearmers, but he’s been a thorn in the side of hitters throughout his minor league tenure — righties in particular. Right-handed opponents posted a laughable .192/.270/.311 slash against him in 2019. Beyond that, Schreiber has multiple minor league option years remaining, giving the Red Sox both depth and flexibility with their bullpen should they choose to keep him on the 40-man roster.
Pitching Notes: Odorizzi, Paxton, Mets, Red Sox, Tigers
Jake Odorizzi is the top name left from MLBTR’s Top 50 free agent rankings, and it’s still not clear which (if any) team will meet the right-hander’s reported multi-year asking price. Derrick Goold of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch writes in his latest Q&A with readers that the Cardinals’ interest in Odorizzi is legitimate but not aggressive. Goold likens the Cards’ interest to their interest in Kyle Lohse more than a decade ago, when Lohse signed a one-year deal during Spring Training 2008 at a much lower rate than he’d initially sought in free agency. Of course, other teams would surely jump into the mix were Odorizzi to eventually settle for a one-year pact, and there’s no indication yet he plans to do so.
- James Paxton is headed back to the Mariners on a one-year deal worth $8.5MM, but he drew interest from numerous other clubs before landing that deal. The Mets offered Paxton $6MM in guarantees, tweets Mike Puma of the New York Post, and Ryan Divish of the Seattle Times writes that the M’s at one point expected the lefty to be out of their price range because of how impressive he looked during an offseason showcase. However, Divish adds that Paxton also had a desire to return to a Seattle setting where he’d previously felt comfortable and had success.
- The Red Sox were among the teams in attendance for free-agent righty Chaz Roe‘s bullpen session over the weekend, Chris Cotillo of MassLive.com tweets. The 34-year-old reliever spent the previous three-plus seasons in Tampa Bay and is familiar with Red Sox chief baseball officer Chaim Bloom, who used to be a Rays executive. Roe threw only 9 1/3 innings in 2020, but he was overall a solid bullpen option as a member of the Rays, with whom he pitched to a 3.54 ERA/3.73 SIERA in 119 1/3 frames.
- The Tigers added Jose Urena to their rotation mix earlier in the offseason, but they might not be done yet. “We’re definitely looking for more pitching as we speak. I think at least one more starter would be ideal,” general manager Al Avila said Tuesday (via Evan Woodbery of MLive.com).The right-handed Urena was mostly a starter as a Marlin from 2015-20, but he could wind up in a bullpen role with the Tigers, Avila noted. For now, Urena’s a candidate to join Matthew Boyd, Spencer Turnbull and Michael Fulmer in Detroit’s starting staff. Tarik Skubal, Casey Mize, Matt Manning, Daniel Norris and Tyler Alexander are also among in-house possibilities to rack up starts this year.
Minor MLB Transactions: 2/15/2021
Some minor league moves from around the sport…
- Former Tigers infielder Dawel Lugo will play 2021 with the expansion Mariachis of Guadalajara of the Mexican League, per Evan Woodbery of the MLive Media Group (via Twitter). The 26-year-old Lugo spent time in each of the past three seasons on the Tigers’ roster, though with just 11 plate appearances in 2020. In all, Lugo owns a .236/.270/.358 batting line, 61 wRC+, over 400 plate appearances with a 20.0 percent strikeout rate and 4.0 percent career walk rate. Lugo was signed back in 2011 by the Blue Jays as an amateur free agent out of the Dominican Republic. He was sent from Toronto to the Diamondbacks for Cliff Pennington in 2015 and then on to Detroit as part of 2017’s J.D. Martinez deal. He ranked among his organization’s top-30 prospect by Baseball America in every season from 2013 to 2019 except for 2016. Most recently, he was the Tigers’ No. 17 prospect before the 2019 season as a versatile, contact-oriented infielder with some potential for doubles power.