Tigers Don’t Expect Further Additions
The Tigers have added a few modestly priced veteran free agents to a team that lost 114 games and easily finished last in the majors a season ago. At this point, Detroit’s not expecting any more acquisitions before the season, general manager Al Avila suggested Thursday (via Cody Stavenhagen of The Athletic).
“I would say so,” Avila said when asked if Detroit’s Wednesday signing of outfielder Cameron Maybin would be its last notable pickup.
The Tigers have looked like speculative fits for outfielder Yasiel Puig, who’s still without a job, but it officially appears he’ll have to look elsewhere. Avila already shot down a potential Puig signing weeks ago. Now, between the reunion with the ex-Tiger Maybin and Avila’s comments, they can probably be scratched off Puig’s list of possible employers. They’re instead counting on Maybin, whom they reeled in for $1.5MM, to enjoy a second straight successful campaign and perhaps take on an everyday role, as Stavenhagen writes (subscription link).
The 32-year-old Maybin has bounced around since the Tigers took him 10th overall in the 2005 draft, enduring his share of ups and downs along the way. He had to settle for minor league deals with the Giants and Indians before last season, but an April trade to the Yankees may have revived his career. Maybin was an unsung hero on an injury-riddled New York club, as a more fly ball-oriented approach helped him to a .285/.364/.494 with 11 home runs in 269 plate appearances.
Maybin became the fifth veteran to join the Tigers on a one-year contract since last season ended. The club previously signed first baseman C.J. Cron, second baseman Jonathan Schoop, catcher Austin Romine and right-hander Ivan Nova. There may not be a world-beater in the bunch, but those stopgaps should at least make Detroit more competitive this season. And the team does have a few talented starters (some of whom aren’t yet in the majors but could be soon) who could combine to give the club a decent rotation. Matt Boyd, Spencer Turnbull and Daniel Norris are on hand at the MLB level; Michael Fulmer should make it back from Tommy John surgery in the summer; Nova’s an acceptable back-end innings-eater; and Casey Mize and Matt Manning are two of the top prospects in the game. With all of that said, the Tigers should be a tougher out in 2020.
Tigers Sign Cameron Maybin
1:11pm: The Tigers have announced the deal. In order to open a spot on the 40-man roster, righty Michael Fulmer was placed on the 60-day injured list. It was reported a couple months back that Fulmer, the former AL Rookie of the Year, was expected to be out until July, so the 60-day IL placement shouldn’t come as a surprise.
12:51pm: There is a deal in place with a $1.5MM salary, per Chris McCosky of the Detroit News (Twitter links). He can tack on another $1.3MM via incentives, Heyman tweets.
10:37am: The Tigers are nearing an agreement with veteran outfielder Cameron Maybin, according to Jon Heyman of MLB Network (via Twitter). Prospective contract terms aren’t yet known.
This’ll be Maybin’s third stint with the Detroit organization, which selected him in the first round of the 2005 draft. He broke into the majors with the club in 2007 before being dealt to the Marlins as part of the Miguel Cabrera deal. Maybin returned for a productive single-season run in 2016.
There have been ups and downs over the years, but Maybin makes his way back to the Motor City on the upswing. He was waiting and hoping with the Indians’ Triple-A affiliate last April when the injury-plagued Yankees came calling. Maybin ended up posting his best-ever season with the bat, slashing a hefty .285/.364/.494 with 11 home runs.
Maybin isn’t especially likely to repeat quite that output; he turned in consecutive 86 OPS+ finishes in the prior two seasons and rarely produced at better than the league-average rate. But he did shows some real changes in his batted-ball profile to support the improvement. Maybin’s barrel percentage vaulted to 10.2% from a prior high of 4.1%; he increased his launch angle to 11.1 degrees from a previous peak of 7.5. He also posted a career-best 88.8 mph average exit velocity and personal-high 16.9% HR/FB rate.
Even if there’s a step back offensively, Maybin figures to be a solid piece. He’s still fleet of foot, even if he won’t steal bases like he did in his youth, and capable of playing all three outfield positions. The Tigers certainly had a need for sturdy performers in an outfield unit that is filled with uncertainty. There’s also a good shot that Maybin will turn into a mid-season trade chip.
Minor MLB Transactions: 2/7/20
Here are the latest minor moves from around baseball…
- The Tigers have signed right-hander Chris Smith to a minor league contract, Robert Murray tweets. Smith was with the Tigers for a brief period last year, but he suffered an elbow injury in spring training and wound up needing Tommy John surgery. Detroit released him as a result, but he’s now back with the organization, and Murray notes that he should be ready to return by March or April. Now 31 years old, Smith has only thrown five major league innings (all with Toronto in 2017). The last time Smith pitched competitively, he threw 55 innings of 3.93 ERA/3.88 FIP ball with 10.64 K/9 and 3.44 BB/9 as a member of the Nationals’ Triple-A affiliate in 2018.
- The Blue Jays have picked up lefty Brian Moran on a minors pact with an invitation to MLB spring training, per Shi Davidi of Sportsnet. The soft-tossing Moran, 31, made his major league debut last season with the Marlins, throwing 6 1/3 innings of three-run ball with 10 strikeouts and two walks. The majority of his work came at the Triple-A level, where he posted a 3.15 ERA/4.18 FIP with 11.55 K/9, 3.9 BB/9 and a 47.1 percent groundball rate. The Marlins designated him for assignment on Jan. 15.
Tigers Re-Sign Jordy Mercer
4:33PM: The Tigers have officially announced the signing.
2:35PM: The Tigers have brought back veteran shortstop Jordy Mercer on a new contract, MLB Network’s Jon Heyman reports (Twitter link). The deal is a minor league pact with an invitation to Detroit’s big league Spring Training camp, as per Anthony Fenech of the Detroit Free Press (via Twitter).
After signing a one-year, $5.25MM deal with the Tigers last winter, Mercer hit .270/.310/.438 over 271 plate appearances, despite missing much of the first half of the season with quad injuries. That roughly matches the .256/.316/.383 slash line Mercer posted over the first 2996 PA of his career from 2012-18 as a member of the Pirates, and he’ll now head back to the Motor City as a depth option.
Niko Goodrum is currently Detroit’s top choice at shortstop, though given Goodrum’s multi-positional versatility and the presence of both younger Willi Castro and now Mercer, the Tigers are arming themselves with some extra depth should they decide to again move Goodrum around the diamond. The 33-year-old Mercer gives the Tigers more veteran experience in that regard, as Castro has only 30 MLB games under his belt. Beyond just shortstop, Mercer could also back up elsewhere around the infield, as he has some experience as a first, second, and third baseman over his career.
Minor MLB Transactions: 1/27/20
The latest minor moves from around baseball…
- First baseman Kennys Vargas has agreed to a minor league contract with the Tigers, Jason Beck of MLB.com tweets. The deal does not include an invitation to major league spring training. The hulking Vargas will now join his second AL Central organization, having appeared in the majors with the Twins from 2014-17. He played for Ron Gardenhire, then the Twins’ manager and now the Tigers’ skipper, as a rookie. Vargas posted respectable offensive production at times in Minnesota, including in his first and third seasons, but owns a mediocre overall line of .252/.311/.437 with 35 home runs in 859 lifetime MLB plate appearances. The 29-year-old also hasn’t been great at the Triple-A level, where he has hit .244/.352/.436 and totaled 51 HRs over 1,297 PA, and he’s now coming off a rough 2019 campaign spent in Japan. As a member of the Chiba Lotte Marines, Vargas stumbled to a .179/.324/.274/ mark and managed just one homer in 102 trips to the plate.
Quick Hits: Franco, Rays, Goodrum, Red Sox
It was two years ago today that the Brewers made one of the biggest single-day splurges in recent baseball history, acquiring Christian Yelich from the Marlins for a four-prospect trade package, and also agreeing to sign Lorenzo Cain to a five-year, $80MM contract. (Cain’s deal wasn’t officially finalized until he passed a physical on January 26, 2018.) There surely aren’t any regrets in Milwaukee over that red-letter day, as the Brewers have reached the playoffs in each of the two subsequent seasons. Yelich has been nothing short of spectacular in a Brewers uniform, winning the 2018 NL MVP honors and finishing second in the MVP voting last season. It has been a bit more of a mixed bag for Cain, who enjoyed a tremendous 2018 campaign but then struggled through an injury-riddled 2019, though Cain finally won his first career Gold Glove last year after another outstanding defensive showing in center field.
The latest from around baseball…
- MLB Pipeline unveiled the latest edition of its top 100 prospects list today, with the Rays‘ Wander Franco receiving the nod as the game’s top minor leaguer. Franco’s long list of plaudits includes a rare 80 grade for his hitting, the highest possible mark on the 20-80 scouting scale. “If you were to build a hitter from scratch using all of the physical attributes and skills that have come to define great hitters, he’d probably end up looking something like Franco,” details Pipeline’s scouting report on the 18-year-old shortstop. The Rays placed six prospects on the top 100 list, the most of any team. The Dodgers’ Gavin Lux, White Sox outfielder Luis Robert, the Orioles’ Adley Rutschman, and the Padres’ MacKenzie Gore rounded out the rest of the top five. MLB.com’s Jonathan Mayo (who compiled the list along with colleagues Jim Callis and Mike Rosenbaum) details how the list was compiled, the new faces joining the top 100, the prospects from past lists who were omitted from this year’s ranking, and many more details.
- After playing seven different defensive positions in 2019, it looks like the Tigers‘ Niko Goodrum is going to focus only on shortstop for the foreseeable future, Chris McCosky of The Detroit News writes. Goodrum came up in the minors as a shortstop, but he expanded his horizons in hopes that versatility would improve his chances of cracking the big leagues. That strategy worked out pretty well for the 28-year-old, who’s coming off a solid pair of seasons after the Tigers signed him to a minor league deal more than two years ago. While that versatility is still an asset, Detroit likes Goodrum best at shortstop at present, especially after an impressive defensive showing over 326 2/3 innings at short in 2019. While it’s tricky to make a definitive judgement based on such a small sample size, Goodrum received high grades over a range of defensive metrics (+3 Defensive Runs Saved, +8.6 UZR/150, and +6 Outs Above Average).
- Could this be Chaim Bloom’s only chance to hire a Red Sox manager? This is one of many points raised by the Boston Globe’s Peter Abraham while speculating about the club’s rather quiet managerial search. With a nod to how quickly the Sox parted ways with former front office heads Ben Cherington and Dave Dombrowski, Abraham writes that “given the lack of job security in his position, Bloom may only get one chance to hire a manager if he doesn’t get this right.” This leads Abraham to wonder if Bloom could make a hire from outside the organization, in order to put some type of personal stamp on a team that otherwise retained much of its front office staff after Dombrowski was fired.
Free Agent Spending By Team: American League
As we covered earlier this week, almost all of the prominent free agents in this year’s class have already exited the board. Because of that, we’ll see more and more minor league signings and fewer and fewer major league deals in the weeks leading up to the start of the regular season. This has been an aggressive offseason in terms of spending, though. To this point, which teams have handed out the most guaranteed money via the open market? We’ll examine both leagues, but let’s begin with the AL (reminder: This exercise excludes trades, club options, extensions, waiver claims and Rule 5 selections)…
Yankees: $336.5MM on two players (Gerrit Cole and Brett Gardner; top 50 MLBTR signings: two)
Angels: $260.85MM on three players (Anthony Rendon, Julio Teheran and Jason Castro; top 50 signings: three)
White Sox: $196.5MM on six players (Yasmani Grandal, Jose Abreu, Dallas Keuchel, Edwin Encarnacion, Steve Cishek and Gio Gonzalez; top 50 signings: five)
Twins: $151.8MM on eight players (Josh Donaldson, Michael Pineda, Jake Odorizzi, Homer Bailey, Sergio Romo, Alex Avila, Rich Hill and Tyler Clippard; top 50 signings: four)
Blue Jays: $114.35MM on four players (Hyun-Jin Ryu, Tanner Roark, Shun Yamaguchi and Travis Shaw; top 50 signings: two)
Rangers: $62.25MM on five players (Kyle Gibson, Jordan Lyles, Robinson Chirinos, Joely Rodriguez and Todd Frazier; top 50 signings: two)
Tigers: $17.8MM on four players (C.J. Cron, Jonathan Schoop, Austin Romine and Ivan Nova; top 50 signings: one)
Astros: $15.65MM on three players (Joe Smith, Martin Maldonado and Dustin Garneau; top 50 signings: zero)
Rays: $12MM on one player (Yoshitomo Tsutsugo; top 50 signings: zero)
Red Sox: $9.9MM on three players (Martin Perez, Jose Peraza and Kevin Plawecki; top 50 signings: zero)
Athletics: $7.5MM on one player (Jake Diekman; top 50 signings: zero)
Royals: $6.95MM on two players (Alex Gordon and Maikel Franco; top 50 signings: zero)
Indians: $6.25MM on one player (Cesar Hernandez; top 50 signings: zero)
Orioles: $3MM on one player (Jose Iglesias; top 50 signings: zero)
Mariners: $2.95MM on two players (Kendall Graveman and Carl Edwards Jr.; top 50 signings: zero)
Central Notes: Tigers, Boyd, Fulmer, Pirates, Walker
Let’s check in on a pair of teams from the game’s Central divisions…
- The Tigers and left-hander Matthew Boyd avoided arbitration with a one-year, $5.3MM agreement earlier this month. There was then speculation that the two sides would work out a long-term pact (at least one that would buy out Boyd’s three arb-eligible seasons), but the soon-to-be 29-year-old told Jason Beck of MLB.com and other reporters Thursday that no talks have occurred. “No, but that would be cool,” said Boyd, who went to add that his goal is “to win a championship here.” Boyd may be the Tigers’ most valuable trade chip, and he has been the subject of rumors for several months now, but the club wasn’t aggressively shopping him as of December’s Winter Meetings.
- More on the Tigers’ rotation from Beck, who passes along an update on righty Michael Fulmer‘s status as he continues to recover from the Tommy John surgery he underwent last March. The former AL Rookie of the Year is progressing well, as Beck writes that Fulmer’s “pain-free” and scheduled to begin throwing from 120 feet off flat ground next week. However, manager Ron Gardenhire noted Fulmer’s not slated to return to a major league mound until “deep into the summer.” The Tigers set a 15- to 16-month recovery timetable for Fulmer when he went under the knife, so he should be back sometime in June or July if all goes according to plan.
- There was at least some chance of a reunion between the Pirates and one of their ex-players, Pittsburgh native Neil Walker, before he signed a minor league deal with the in-state rival Phillies on Wednesday. Walker and Pirates GM Ben Cherington engaged in “some cursory conversations,” Jason Mackey of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette relays, but they didn’t make meaningful progress in those discussions. “We did talk a little bit, but it was pretty vague,” Walker said. “It sounded like Ben had a lot on his plate from the time he took over, and he just wasn’t able to commit a spot.” Walker had a productive run with the Pirates, Mets and Brewers from 2009-17, but his numbers dipped with the Yankees and Marlins during the previous two seasons. The 35-year-old doesn’t expect this to be his last season, though, and he left the door open for a possible return to the Bucs in 2021.
Avila: Tigers Could Still Add An Outfielder
The Tigers haven’t exactly been aggressive in free agency this winter, but they’ve still added a handful of veterans, including C.J. Cron, Jonathan Schoop, Ivan Nova and Austin Romine. They’ve yet to make an addition in the outfield, but general manager Al Avila said Thursday on the Tigers Caravan that doing so is a possibility (Twitter link via Anthony Fenech of the Detroit Free Press). Asked about Yasiel Puig, however, Avila indicated that the longtime Dodger is “not a priority” for the Detroit organization.
It stands to reason that after failing to come to terms on an extension with Nicholas Castellanos, who’s now seeking a lucrative multi-year deal in free agency, he won’t be a fit for the Tigers, either. That said, the market isn’t totally devoid of interesting options. Kevin Pillar, Steven Souza Jr. and Domingo Santana are among the yet-unsigned names who’ve had some recent success. Then again, MLB.com’s Jason Beck suggests that the organization might prefer a left-handed bat for some lineup balance, and the market for lefty hitters is a bit more sparse. Jarrod Dyson is available, and if the Tigers want to dial up a reunion tour, familiar names like Curtis Granderson and Matthew Joyce are still free agents.
For the rebuilding Tigers, though, spending on an outfielder probably isn’t a priority in the way that Schoop and Cron were, as they do have a handful of somewhat intriguing options in house already. The team’s 2017 Rule 5 pick, Victor Reyes, brushed off a terrible rookie season (as many Rule 5ers endure) to deliver a .304/.336/.431 slash in 292 plate appearances. Much of that was BABIP-driven, but it’s understandable that they’re interested in getting a longer look at a player they selected with the No. 1 pick in the aforementioned Rule 5 Draft.
Detroit also picked up outfielder Travis Demeritte in the trade that sent Shane Greene to Atlanta. He struggled mightily in his first 186 MLB plate appearances, but he also posted a monster season in Triple-A and only turned 25 at the end of the season. Former No. 34 overall pick Christin Stewart struggled in his own look in the Majors this year but has a solid track record in Triple-A himself and was impressive in a 2018 cup of coffee. In center, JaCoby Jones shook off a terrible start to the season to hit .258/.335/.483 in his final 70 games. Detroit also has prospect Daz Cameron in the wings at Triple-A, although he’ll need to bounce back from an ugly 2019 effort to get a look in the big leagues.
Obviously, if the Tigers were aiming to contend in 2020, this group wouldn’t be close to sufficient, but that’s not the organization’s aim. There’s surely some merit to bringing in a more experienced option in the spirit of competitiveness, though, and the Tigers have shown a past willingness to do so (e.g. Cron, Schoop, Tyson Ross, Josh Harrison, Matt Moore) while some other rebuilding clubs more staunchly eschew adding any free agents of note. Whether that leads to a deal can’t be known, but Avila at the very least noted that the team is “talking to some agents” (Twitter link via The Athletic’s Cody Stavenhagen), suggesting that the open market is a likelier path to an addition than the trade market.
Tigers Sign Hector Santiago
The Tigers have announced a minor-league deal with lefty Hector Santiago. He’ll receive an invitation to participate in MLB Spring Training.
Santiago had some rather productive campaigns earlier in his career. But at 32 years of age, he has settled into the existence of a journeying southpaw swingman.
Over the past three years, Santiago has transitioned from membership in a 5-man rotation to long relief duties. He carries only a 5.20 ERA in the 206 innings he has thrown during that span. Santiago has struck out 8.5 batters per nine over that time but has also handed out excessive numbers of walks (4.9 per nine) and home runs (1.7).
It’s tough to imagine Santiago having much of a shot at the Detroit rotation in camp. But he could challenge for a bullpen role or otherwise slot into the Triple-A staff to provide depth.