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Mike Trout, Anthony Rendon Healthy For Start Of Spring Training

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After injury-shortened 2021 seasons, two of the Angels’ biggest stars are healthy.  Mike Trout’s agent Craig Landis tells Mike DiGiovanna of The Los Angeles Times that Trout is “100 percent” ready to fully participate in Spring Training activities whenever the lockout ends, while a source familiar with Anthony Rendon’s recovery says the third baseman is also a “full-go” in the wake of surgery to correct a hip impingement.

Trout and Rendon combined for 84 games in 2021, and were in the same starting lineup together only 19 times.  Trout was at least still his superstar-level self before suffering a season-ending right calf strain on May 17, hitting .333/.466/.624 with eight home runs over what ended up being his only 146 plate appearances.  For Rendon, a series of nagging problems sent him to the injured list on multiple occasions and limited his production to only a .240/.329/.382 slash line over 249 PA.

The majority of Rendon’s injuries related to his left leg, though it was actually a right hip problem stemming from his rehab for a left hamstring injury that finally ended his season in August.  Rendon said during a radio interview in November that the timing of the surgery was intended so he could head into Spring Training with a clean bill of health, and that now appears to be the case, even if the lockout has delayed the entirety of the normal baseball calendar.

Trout’s calf strain was a source of constant frustration for the former MVP, the Angels, and baseball fans as a whole, as the outfielder was seemingly close to a return on multiple occasions except his calf never stopped feeling sore after Trout took part in baseball-related activities.  Trout and the team held out hope until September before officially shutting things down, again with an eye towards an early start on getting Trout fully healthy for the 2022 season.

Needless to say, the returns of Trout and Rendon in full health and with their usual levels of production could give the Angels one of the league’s most dangerous lineups.  Of course, pitching has long been the Angels’ biggest obstacle, but the team has re-signed closer Raisel Iglesias and also added Noah Syndergaard and Michael Lorenzen to the rotation mix, not to mention what other moves could be in store once the transactions freeze is lifted.

Four Owners Voted Against MLB’s Most Recent CBA Offer

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March 4: Angels owner Arte Moreno, D-backs owner Ken Kendrick, Reds owner Bob Castellini and Tigers owner Chris Ilitch were all opposed to proposing a $220MM CBT threshold, per Evan Drellich and Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic. Drellich and Rosenthal add that some concerned owners have pointed to the spending of the Dodgers and the Mets as reasons for trepidation with pushing the luxury tax threshold further north. Martino tweets, rather unsurprisingly, that the Mets and the Yankees are among the teams open to a “less punitive” CBT setup.

The Athletic report also indicates that the players were particularly irritated when MLB proposed counting the cost of player meals against the luxury tax. Whether that’s among the issues recently raised by Blue Jays righty Ross Stripling isn’t clear, but Stripling contended that the league “tried to sneak some shit past us” in the proposal’s “fine print” during the wee hours of Monday night/Tuesday morning negotiations. Health insurance and other player benefits already count toward the luxury tax under the terms of the prior CBA. League special assistant Glen Caplin called reports of MLB trying to include meal money within the CBT “grossly mischaracterized” as part of a statement included in Drellich’s article.

March 3: Major League Baseball’s most recent offer in collective bargaining proved unpalatable to the Players Association, which rejected it despite knowing the league was likely to follow by canceling some regular season games. Various members of union leadership described that as an easy decision, with the MLBPA particularly dissatisfied with the league’s proposals on the competitive balance tax thresholds and the amount of money that would be allotted for the pre-arbitration bonus pool.

While the union found the offer too slanted in favor of the league, some on the MLB side apparently viewed the proposal as going too far towards the players’ asks. Andy Martino of SNY reports that during a video call between all 30 ownership groups and MLB leadership, four owners voted against the terms of the league’s final offer to the union on Tuesday. MLB needs approval from 23 of the 30 ownership groups to agree to their end of a new CBA, so the league was able to proceed with its offer with the assent of the other 26 owners.

Obviously, the terms of that deal weren’t sufficient to get the union’s approval. Yet some of the owners who were on-board with the league’s proposal Tuesday are evidently hesitant to move any further in the players’ direction. Martino writes that the call “made it clear” that more owners would oppose any offer that pushes the base CBT threshold above the $220MM mark the league put forth. The MLBPA, meanwhile, proposed a $238MM base tax marker in 2022. Martino writes that the union refuses to entertain any offer with a 2022 tax threshold lower than $230MM.

There’s currently an $18MM gap on the luxury tax for 2022, and the parties are even more divided on the marker’s long-term future. The MLBPA has sought more rapid escalation of the threshold over the term of a potential CBA than the league has offered. Under the parties’ latest terms, the $18MM gap would rise to a $33MM divide by 2026 — the players were looking to set that year’s figure at $263MM, while MLB proposed $230MM for that season.

Martino’s report sheds some light on the challenges that remain for finding a mutually agreeable settlement on the CBT, which has proven perhaps the biggest sticking point in negotiations. The union has pursued a rapid expansion of the threshold, pointing to team spending habits suggesting the CBT has served as a de facto salary cap for clubs. Last season, five teams finished with CBT payrolls within $5MM of the $210MM base threshold. Two clubs, the Dodgers and Padres, pushed their CBT number above $210MM. Given the union’s longstanding opposition to any form of salary cap, it’s little surprise they’ve sought to dramatically increase the numbers this time around.

The league, meanwhile, has pursued the opposite initiative. MLB’s early CBA proposals included harsher penalties for tax payors, provisions that would’ve presumably made clubs even more reluctant to do so. It dropped the push for tougher penalties this week, but it hasn’t shown the appetite for the kind of higher thresholds the union seeks.

As MLBTR’s Tim Dierkes explored in December, the past two collective bargaining agreements have seen limited growth in the CBT thresholds. From the time of the tax’s introduction in 1997 through 2011, it wasn’t uncommon to see the CBT jump by more than 4% year over year. Since 2012, however, that growth has slowed considerably. The base CBT marker has moved from $178MM that year to $210MM last season, an average hike of less than 2% per year.

The league’s offer to move from $210MM to $220MM would represent a 4.8% year-over-year jump. MLB would presumably posit that’s a meaningful enough increase to be favorable to the players. However, it was followed by no movement on the tax in each of the following two years and minor increases in each of the two seasons thereafter. The union, meanwhile, seems intent on pulling in a more dramatic spike in the tax threshold to somewhat compensate for its slowed progression between 2012-21.

It’s not clear how many owners are inherently opposed to pushing that number beyond $220MM. Martino’s report hints at the conflicted interests that can arise among the ownership groups themselves. Presumably, some large-market clubs that are planning to exceed the CBT anyhow would be on-board with the union’s efforts to encourage penalty-free spending. Others could be anxious to draw a harder line, particularly with the league reportedly content to miss a month’s worth of regular season games in order to pressure the union to move in their direction.

If more than three of the owners who voted yes on MLB’s latest proposal are stringently opposed to going further, the league may be hard-pressed to find the votes to go past $220MM this year. That’d seemingly be unacceptable to the union. If there’s that kind of fundamental disagreement on the luxury tax, it’ll be essentially impossible for the sides to put a new CBA in place.

8 Post-Tommy John Pitchers Who’ll Impact Next Year’s Market

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We’ve grown accustomed to seeing headline after headline indicating that a pitcher is slated to undergo Tommy John surgery in today’s game. The procedure has become so commonplace, in fact, that it’s no longer surprising to see teams guarantee multi-year deals to rehabbing pitchers who’ll be sidelined for a full season of that contract as they work back from the injury. Such deals have produced varying levels of success in the past. Nathan Eovaldi’s two-year deal with the Rays worked out great; Drew Smyly didn’t pitch for the Cubs and posted a 6.24 after being traded to the Rangers.

Heading into the 2022 season, there are a handful of notable pitchers who were either signed under just that circumstance or are now playing for a contract on the heels of a Tommy John surgery that, hopefully, is more or less in the rearview mirror. A strong rebound will position any of this bunch either as a prominent member of next winter’s free-agent crop or, in some cases, to have a lucrative 2023 club option picked up. Here’s a look at a handful of Tommy John recoveries that could have a notable impact on next year’s market.

Starting Pitchers

Mike Clevinger: A marquee addition by the Padres at the 2020 trade deadline, Clevinger made only four regular-season starts and a one-inning postseason cameo before requiring Tommy John surgery in the 2020-21 offseason. San Diego, knowing he’d miss the entire 2021 season, signed him to a two-year, $11.5MM deal that paid him $2MM during his rehab season but will more heavily compensate him in 2022, now that he’s expected to be back to full strength. It was the second Tommy John procedure of Clevinger’s career, as he also had the surgery as a minor leaguer back in 2012.

There’s little questioning Clevinger’s talent, as the now-31-year-old righty was one of the most effective starters in all of baseball from 2017 until the time of his injury in 2020. In 489 1/3 innings over that stretch, Clevinger posted a 2.96 ERA while punching out 28% of his opponents against a 9% walk rate. Among big league pitchers with at least 400 innings thrown during that time, Clevinger ranked seventh in ERA and 14th in FIP (3.39). That said, he’s also only reached 130 innings in a big league season on one occasion, when he threw an even 200 frames in 2019.

That relatively limited workload, coupled with this being Clevinger’s second Tommy John procedure, will surely impact his free agency next winter to an extent. That said, a strong and healthy season out of the righty will still position him as one of the top arms on next winter’s market. Clevinger, teammate Joe Musgrove, Sean Manaea and Noah Syndergaard are among the more prominent free agents still in their early 30s next winter (to say nothing of older veterans with contract options or opt-outs, such as Jacob deGrom, Justin Verlander and Charlie Morton).

James Paxton: Paxton isn’t necessarily playing for a free-agent contract. He signed a complicated multi-year deal with the Red Sox that’ll pay him $6MM in 2022 before he can either trigger a $4MM player option or the team can exercise a pair of $13MM club options for the 2023-24 seasons. For luxury-tax purposes, that should be considered a two-year, $10MM deal, as the player option for 2023 is considered to be guaranteed money. Of course, there’s also the possibility that with a healthy season, the contract will effectively balloon to a contract that pays Paxton $32MM over a three-year term. The deal contains further incentives, as Paxton could boost those 2023-24 salaries by $250K apiece for reaching 12, 14, 16 and 18 starts.

It’s a heavily incentive-laden deal that speaks both to the considerable risk in signing Paxton and the considerable upside he’ll bring to Boston. A healthy Paxton is a high-quality big league starter, evidenced the career 3.50 ERA he carried into an injury-ruined 2020 season with the Yankees. Among the 149 big league starters to toss at least 200 innings from 2017-19, Paxton’s 30.1% strikeout rate ranked seventh, and his 7.3% walk rate was markedly better than league average. His 22.7 K-BB% was among the best in the game, as were his strong ratings in the eyes of fielding-independent metrics like FIP (3.26) and SIERA (3.45).

Since that 2019 season, however, Paxton has undergone back surgery, missed significant time with a forearm strain and eventually undergone Tommy John surgery. Earlier in his career, he’d dealt with lat, forearm and pectoral injuries, among a litany of smaller-scale issues.

There’s probably a scenario where Paxton pitches well enough to turn down his $4MM player option even if the Red Sox decline the effective two-year, $26MM option they hold over him. (We saw a comparable situation play out with Yusei Kikuchi earlier in the winter.) That said, the ideal scenario for Paxton and the Sox is that he pitches well enough to reestablish himself as a quality MLB hurler and boost those two club options to $14MM apiece in total value in the process.

Paxton underwent his Tommy John procedure in late April, so he’s not likely to be ready to help the Red Sox at the beginning of the season. By late May or June, however, he could represent a boost to a rotation that is not exactly shy of other injury concerns.

Justin Verlander: Even though he hasn’t pitched since undergoing Tommy John surgery, Verlander still got a hefty $25MM guarantee from the Astros — plus a conditional $25MM player option that kicks in if he reaches 130 innings pitched. The two-time Cy Young winner and former AL MVP has a track record that speaks for itself; when we last saw Verlander in a full, healthy season, he was edging then-teammate Gerrit Cole for the 2019 AL Cy Young Award.

Verlander has said in the past that he hopes to pitch into his 40s, and he has a good chance at doing so if he can bounce back this coming season. He’ll turn 39 later this week, and if he goes out and looks anything like he did from 2015-20 — 1010 innings, 2.94 ERA, 29.7% strikeout rate, 6% walk rate — Verlander will likely turn down that $25MM option, or at least leverage it into a new multi-year arrangement with the ’Stros. He was just promised a $25MM guarantee despite having thrown only six innings since Opening Day 2020, so there’s little reason to accept that he’d take a year and $25MM on the heels of a healthy return effort at Minute Maid Park.

Noah Syndergaard: Perhaps it’s not quite fair to label Syndergaard as a Tommy John rehabber; after all, he did make it back to the mound with the Mets late in the 2021 season — albeit for only two innings. That said, this is Thor’s first full season back from that ligament replacement procedure, and he’ll be pitching for a big contract next winter from the moment he suits up in Orange County. Signed by the Angels to a one-year, $21MM contract, Syndergaard will be pitching with a team other than the Mets for the first time in his big league career.

It’s a hefty price to pay, particularly considering the fact that Syndergaard had rejected an $18.4MM qualifying offer, but his career to date is all the evidence needed to suggest that at his best, Syndergaard is plenty worth that gamble. He’s never walked more than 6.1% of his opponents in a given season and has never failed to strike out a batter per inning. Few pitchers can match Syndergaard’s blend of pure velocity, missed bats and impeccable command, and he manages all that while still turning in a ground-ball rate that’s well higher than the league average.

Syndergaard has always felt like he’s one step away from solidifying himself as a bona fide ace, and as Robbie Ray showed in winning the AL Cy Young Award this season, one dominant season for a player with this type of track record can result in a nine-figure payday if things break right. The market has already proven to value Syndergaard at more than $20MM per year, and given that he’d be 30 years old in 2023, it’s not hyperbole to suggest that he’s pitching for a $100MM contract this season.

Luis Severino: As with Syndergaard, Severino may not quite fit the criteria for this list. The 27-year-old (28 later this week, on the same day Verlander turns 39) returned to give the Yankees six innings out of the bullpen late in the 2021 season, and his protracted absence from the team’s pitching staff cannot be solely attributed to Tommy John surgery. Severino has also battled groin, shoulder and lat injuries along the way. That said, Severino really hasn’t pitched since undergoing Tommy John surgery in Feb. 2020, and it’s that operation that is the primary reason for his absence over the past two seasons.

Severino isn’t yet slated to hit the open market at season’s end — at least not before the Yankees make a call on a $15MM club option or a $2.75MM buyout. The resulting $12.25MM net decision would be a straightforward one for general manager Brian Cashman if Severino at all looks like his former self. From 2017-18, Severino gave the Yankees 384 2/3 innings of 3.18 ERA ball with outstanding strikeout and walk rates, prompting the team to sign him to a four-year contract extension that promised him $40MM.

That deal looked like a bargain for the team at the time but has since gone south, due largely to repeated injury woes. Severino made a combined 63 regular-season starts for the Yankees in 2017-18, looking every bit like a foundational piece to the pitching staff, but he’s combined for just 25 starts and another 18 relief appearances in the five seasons surrounding that brilliant run.

With a big season in 2022, Severino could still see that $15MM option picked up, and if he can remain healthy into 2023, he’d hit the open market heading into his age-30 season. There’s a long way to go before that scenario becomes reality, however.

Relievers

Tommy Kahnle: Signed by the Dodgers to a two-year, $4.75MM contract last offseason, Kahnle was never expected to contribute in 2021 — hence the backloaded nature of his contract, which will pay him $3.45MM in 2022. The hard-throwing righty only managed one inning for the 2020 Yankees, meaning this coming season will be the first since 2019 in which he’ll potentially pitch anything resembling a full workload.

The 32-year-old Kahnle has been inconsistent but has dominated more often than he’s struggled. From 2016-20, he logged a combined 3.48 ERA, 32.9% strikeout rate and 9.9% walk rate while averaging 97.1 mph on his heater. That includes a disastrous but also fluky-looking 2018 campaign in which he was tattooed for a 6.56 ERA in 23 1/3 frames. From 2016-20, Kahnle’s 32.9% strikeout rate ranks 17th among the 155 relievers to have thrown at least 150 innings, while his 15.9% swinging-strike rate is tied for sixth.

Kahnle’s Tommy John surgery came way back on Aug. 5, 2020, so there should be no restrictions on him by the time the season gets underway. He’ll be heading into his age-33 season next winter, and a return to his vintage form should position him as one of the top relievers on a free-agent market that is lacking in big-name right-handed relievers.

Ken Giles: Like Kahnle, Giles was signed by the Mariners — two years, $7MM — knowing full well that he would not pitch in 2021. Unlike Kahnle, his contract includes a club option for the 2023 season, which is valued at $9.5MM (with a $500K buyout).

Many of the same superlatives that apply to Kahnle apply even more so to Giles. His 18% swinging-strike rate, for instance, tops Kahnle and sits third among the 155 relievers who totaled at least 150 frames from 2016-20. His 3.33 ERA in that time is a bit more toward the middle of the pack, but Giles misses bats, induces chases outside the zone and throws as hard as nearly any reliever in the sport. He’s had a pair of 4.00-something ERAs sprinkled in amid a series of pristine marks throughout his big league career. Those two blemishes have coincided with spikes in his average on balls in play and dips in his strand rate.

On the whole, Giles is a power arm who can pile up strikeouts in droves. He’s a sometimes forgotten piece of the puzzle when looking at the 2022 Mariners and their hopes of contending, but he’ll join a deep bullpen mix that also features Diego Castillo, 2021 breakout closer Paul Sewald, former Marlins stopped Drew Steckenrider (who enjoyed a tremendous rebound in 2021) and the underappreciated Casey Sadler, who notched a 0.67 ERA in 40 1/3 innings last year.

A healthy Giles would very likely see that $9.5MM club option for the 2023 season picked up, and at his best, he’s a bargain at that price. If Giles is pitching well but things go south for the Mariners, teams will come calling at the trade deadline. Of course, the Mariners are hoping to be squarely in the postseason mix, and they’re likely not done with their offseason shopping just yet.

Jose Leclerc: Armed with a fastball in the mid to upper 90s, Leclerc’s ability to return to form (or his lack thereof) will have major implications for the Rangers moving forward. His four-year, $14.75MM contract extension includes a $6MM club option for the 2023 season and a $6.25MM option for the 2024 season. A rebound effort makes that 2023 option a no-brainer for the Rangers to pick up as they hope to ride a hyper-aggressive offseason into their next competitive window.

Leclerc, 28, has fanned just shy of a third of the hitters he’s faced so far in his big league career and has only allowed a dozen homers in 189 Major League innings (0.57 HR/9). His 14.9% walk rate is far too high, but he looked to be making considerable strides in that department in 2019 when he posted a sub-2.00 ERA, a 38.1% strikeout rate and an 11.2% walk rate. He’ll be a highly intriguing lottery ticket on next year’s market if he pitches poorly enough that the Rangers buy that option out (or if they do so on the heels of another injury). If he rebounds, he’ll be a bargain piece of an on-the-rise Rangers club in 2023-24.

Ohtani: “No (Extension) Talks Yet” With Angels

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Shohei Ohtani is coming off an MVP-winning season, the kind of showing Angels fans dreamed of when he chose to sign in Anaheim during his highly-publicized posting process over the 2017-18 offseason. It’s widely expected the Angels will try to work out a long-term deal with the two-way star, but those discussions didn’t get underway prior to the lockout.

Ohtani tells Sam Blum of the Athletic (via an interpreter) the team and his representatives at CAA Baseball have had “no talks yet” regarding an extension. Last October, the 27-year-old expressed openness to a long-term deal. He didn’t go into detail regarding the chances of eventually signing an extension when speaking with Blum, instead noting that he’s “in the second year of my two-year deal coming up this season” and “just trying to complete that last year of the two-year contract.”

As Ohtani noted, he signed a two-year contract last February that guaranteed him a total of $8.5MM to avoid arbitration through 2022. He’ll make $5.5MM this year and is scheduled to go through arbitration a final time before reaching free agency two seasons from now. Ohtani would be entering his age-29 season during his trip to the open market. That’s relatively young for a free agent, setting him up for a megadeal if he stays healthy and continues to perform at an elite level.

The parameters of a potential Ohtani extension are essentially impossible to predict. There are, of course, no contractual precedents for players with his skillset. Ohtani’s coming off a .257/.372/.592 showing with 46 home runs and 26 stolen bases. That overall offensive output checked in 52 percentage points above the league average by measure of wRC+, the fifth-highest mark among 135 batters with 500 or more plate appearances. While he didn’t perform particularly well in the abbreviated 2020 season, Ohtani has a wRC+ of 120 or better in his other three big league campaigns.

In addition to that middle-of-the-order offense, Ohtani has flashed at least middle-of-the-rotation upside. He’s worked 183 2/3 innings across 35 MLB starts, posting a 3.53 ERA/3.75 SIERA with a very strong 29.2% strikeout rate, albeit with an elevated 9.7% walk percentage. The majority of those frames came last season, when he put up a 3.18 ERA in 23 starts. He averaged north of 95 MPH on his fastball, backed up by an elite swing-and-miss secondary offering in his high-80s split.

Given Ohtani’s unique ability to produce at a high-end level on both sides of the ball, it stands to reason the Angels would love to keep him in the fold beyond the next couple seasons. The team does already have a pair of long-term investments in star position players on the books. Mike Trout is slated to make a bit north of $37MM annually through 2030, while Anthony Rendon will earn over $38MM per season from 2024 through 2026 under the terms of his backloaded deal. The Angels also owe Raisel Iglesias $16MM in both 2024 and 2025, while David Fletcher will make at least $14MM combined between 2024 and 2025.

Between those commitments, the Angels already have around $100MM guaranteed in the first two seasons of what are currently slated to be Ohtani’s free agent years. Anaheim set a franchise record with an outlay in the $182MM range to start last season. An Ohtani extension would probably require owner Arte Moreno to stretch his longer-term payrolls a bit further if the front office is to have the requisite payroll flexibility to supplement a Trout – Ohtani – Rendon core group.

Transcript Of Our Chat With Former Two-Time MLB All-Star Shea Hillenbrand

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Drafted in the tenth round in 1996 by the Red Sox out of Mesa Community College, Shea Hillenbrand made his MLB debut for Boston in 2001 at the age of 25.  In his sophomore season with the Red Sox, Hillenbrand hit .293/.330/.459 with 18 home runs and 83 RBI, starting for the AL All-Star team at third base.  He finished 10th in the AL in hits in ’02 and sixth in doubles.

In May of ’03, Hillenbrand was traded to the Diamondbacks for reliever Byung-Hyun Kim.  Not long after that, he hit three home runs in a game against the Rockies.  Hillenbrand hit .310/.348/.464 with 15 home runs and 80 RBI the following year for the D’Backs, with his batting average ranking 13th in the NL.

Dealt to Toronto after the ’04 season, Hillenbrand hit .291/.343/.449 with 18 home runs and 82 RBI en route to his second All-Star nod.  Hillenbrand managed to lead the AL by being hit by a pitch 22 times in ’05 as well.  He’d go on to play with the Giants, Angels, and Dodgers.

Hillenbrand wound up with a fine .284 batting average over the course of his career.  His 108 home runs included shots off Mike Mussina, Mariano Rivera, Zack Greinke, and Jake Peavy.

Today, we were proud to host a live chat with Shea.  Click here to read the transcript!  Shea was honest and forthcoming and the chat is well worth reading.  And be sure to check out his website, Your All-Star Life, here.  Shea is also on Instagram @shea_hillenbrand.

If you’re a former or current MLB player and you’d like to do a one-hour chat on MLBTR, reach out to us through our contact form!  It’s a fun and easy hour where you choose which questions to answer, and we’ve had great success with Chipper Jones, Paul Sewald, Chad Cordero, and many others.

Angels, Daniel Ponce De Leon Agree To Minor League Deal

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The Angels have agreed to a minor league contract with right-hander Daniel Ponce de Leon, per the team’s official transactions log. Because the former Cardinals swingman was released in September and did not return to a big league roster before season’s end, he qualified as a minor league free agent who can sign during the lockout. Ponce de Leon is repped by Paragon Sports.

Now 30 years old, Ponce de Leon had a promising start to his big league career, turning in a 3.31 ERA with a 24.8% strikeout rate, 11.6% walk rate and 40.7% ground-ball rate through his first 81 2/3 frames with the Cards from 2018-19. The free passes were a bit too frequent, but Ponce de Leon combated that trend with a penchant for inducing weak contact (87.2 mph exit velocity and 27.6% hard-hit rate, via Statcast).

Things took a turn for the worse in 2020, however. Ponce de Leon saw a big uptick in strikeouts (31.5%) but also saw his walk rate balloon to 14%. He was also torched for eight home runs in 32 2/3 innings that season — the same combined number he’d yielded through his first 81 2/3 career innings. He was unable to right the ship in 2021, as the pronounced increase in hard-hit balls by his opponents continued — all while his strikeout rate plummeted to a career-worst 15.4%.

All told, Ponce de Leon has followed up that promising 2018-19 showing with 66 innings of 5.59 ERA ball. He’s fanned 22.9% of opponents against a 14% walk rate and allowed 1.77 homers per nine innings pitched across the past two seasons. The right-hander’s average fastball still clocks in at 93.4 mph — the same mark at which it’s landed in each of his four MLB seasons — and he has a sterling track record in Triple-A. Through 218 2/3 innings at that level, Ponce de Leon carries a 2.39 ERA with a 230-to-114 K/BB ratio. Free passes have always been something of an issue, but he’ll give the Angels some depth both in the rotation and in the bullpen.

With the Angels, Ponce de Leon won’t be considered a candidate to crack the rotation unless there are multiple injuries that decimate the team’s depth. He’s behind Shohei Ohtani, Noah Syndergaard, Patrick Sandoval, Michael Lorenzen, Jose Suarez, Jaime Barria, Reid Detmers, Griffin Canning and several other starting candidates on the depth chart. That said, it’s certainly possible that with a strong showing this spring, he could crack the roster as a long reliever/swingman — similar to the role he held for the past four seasons in St. Louis. He’s out of minor league options, so if Ponce de Leon is added to the 40-man roster at any point, he’d need to be exposed to waivers before he could potentially be sent back to Triple-A.

Trey Hillman To Join Angels’ Player Development Staff

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Veteran coach and manager Trey Hillman, who left the Marlins organization earlier this offseason, is set to join the Angels as a member of their player development staff, Andy McCullough of The Athletic reports (via Twitter). He served as the third base coach and infield coach in Miami this past season.

The 59-year-old Hillman will bring a wide breadth of experience to his latest role within the sport. Hillman spent parts of three seasons as a minor league infielder in the mid-1980s before transitioning to a scouting and minor league coaching career. Over the next three-plus decades, he’d go on to work as a bench coach, third base coach and first base coach with the Dodgers, Astros and Marlins. He’s also held front office roles with the Yankees and the Rangers, where he served as the team’s director of player development.

Major League fans might remember Hillman best for his time as Royals skipper from 2008-10 — a stretch of three lean seasons that preceded the team’s rise to prominence under successor Ned Yost. The Royals, however, are hardly the lone managerial stop on Hillman’s lengthy résumé. In addition to several years managing in the Yankees’ minor league ranks, Hillman has managed — and won championships — in both Nippon Professional Baseball and the Korea Baseball Organization. Hillman managed the Nippon-Ham Fighters in Japan from 2003-07 and won a Japan Series title in 2006. He also skippered the KBO’s SK Wyverns (now the SSG Landers) from 2017-18, capturing a Korean Series title in the second of those two campaigns.

That stint with the Wyverns made Hillman the only person to ever manage in each of Major League Baseball, Nippon Professional Baseball and the Korea Baseball Organization. The Halos will be the ninth organization for which he’s worked in a career that is approaching four decades in professional baseball.

Angels Sign Magneuris Sierra, Kyle Barraclough To Minors Deals

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The Angels have signed outfielder Magneuris Sierra and right-hander Kyle Barraclough to minor league contracts, according to Baseball America’s Chris Hilburn-Trenkle.  Both players are eligible to be signed during the lockout since they entered the offseason as minor league free agents.

A veteran of five MLB seasons, 2021 saw Sierra receive his most playing time as a major leaguer, as he made 225 plate appearances over 123 games with the Marlins.  However, Sierra hit only .230/.281/.268, which roughly matched his slash line over his 315 previous career PA with St. Louis and Miami from 2017-20.

Though consistent hitting was hard to come by even in the minors for Sierra, he was still a well-regarded prospect based on his defensive ability alone, with Baseball Prospectus ranking him as the 56th-best minor leaguer in the game prior to the 2018 season.  Sierra came to the Marlins as part of the four-player prospect package the Cardinals sent to the Marlins for Marcell Ozuna back in the 2017-18 offseason, and while he did indeed show some solid glovework at all three outfield positions in his limited big league playing time, the Marlins outrighted him off their 40-man roster at the end of the 2021 campaign.

Sierra will now get an opportunity to earn a backup outfield job in Anaheim, or at least serve as minor league outfield depth at the Angels’ Triple-A affiliate.  Sierra will be joined by a former Marlins teammate in Barraclough, as the two were both on Miami’s roster in 2018 — which was also essentially Barraclough’s last effective year as a big league reliever.  The righty had a very solid 3.21 ERA and 29.8% strikeout rate over 218 2/3 innings from 2015-18 working out of Miami’s bullpen, if with the warning sign of a 14.3% walk rate.

Since the Marlins traded Barraclough to the Nationals in October 2018, however, he has managed only a 5.59 ERA over 46 2/3 frames, thanks in large part to a big spike in home runs allowed.  The past three seasons have been Barraclough pitch at the big league level with the Nats, Giants, and Twins, and he also was briefly a member of the Yankees and Padres organizations on minor league deals.  With the Angels in constant need of pitching help, there would seemingly be a path for Barraclough to win a job in their bullpen if he can show some improvement during Spring Training.

Ty Buttrey Looking To Resume MLB Career

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After stepping away from baseball last April, former Angels right-hander Ty Buttrey said during a Twitter Spaces conversation tonight that he wanted to return to playing (hat tip to Jeff Fletcher of the Southern California News Group).  Buttrey has remained on the Angels’ restricted list for the last nine-plus months.

A fourth-round pick for the Red Sox in the 2012 draft, Buttrey was dealt to Anaheim as part of the July 2018 trade that sent Ian Kinsler to Boston.  The trade led to Buttrey making his big league debut, and he emerged as a solid member of the L.A. bullpen in 2018-19, posting a 3.86 ERA and 27.4% strikeout rate in 88 2/3 innings of those two seasons.

The strikeouts dropped off to just a 16.1% rate in 2020, however, as Buttrey struggled to a 5.81 ERA over 26 1/3 frames.  The diminished K% was just one of several subpar Statcast metrics on Buttrey’s record, though he was far from the only player to struggle amidst the unusual circumstances of the abbreviated 2020 season.  The Halos were expecting Buttrey to rebound last year, but instead, the 28-year-old wanted to leave the grind of big league life.

“I couldn’t help but notice that my love and passion for this game had started to diminish.“,” Buttrey explained as part of a an Instagram post about his decision.  Simply making it as a professional ballplayer seemed enough for Buttrey, who said “I completely lost the drive to continue doing something that I didn’t love because in my mind, I already accomplished it.  It was never my dream to make it to the Hall of Fame, win a World Series, or become an All-Star.  In my head, I accomplished what I wanted, to prove people wrong and accomplish something extremely hard.”

Angels manager Joe Maddon told MLB.com’s Rhett Bollinger and other reporters last spring that Buttrey informed the team of his decision prior to the team optioning the righty to the minors at the end of Spring Training.  Going by Maddon’s statements of support, the door would seemingly be open for Buttrey to return to the Angels once the lockout is over, and the team could get a look at him in camp before deciding on any next move.

Coaching Notes: Dodgers, Yankees, Angels, Mets, Reds, Rangers

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  • The Mets were considering Dodgers first base coach Clayton McCullough for bench coach after he impressed in his managerial interview with New York, but a hiring doesn’t seem likely to come to fruition. Jon Heyman of the MLB Network tweets that New York brass doesn’t believe McCullough would leave Los Angeles for a coaching position elsewhere. Instead, it seems he’s lined up to return for a second season on Dave Roberts’ staff. Deesha Thosar of the New York Daily News reported yesterday that the Mets were looking into a potential “headline-grabbing hire” for bench coach.
  • The Mets already made a notable coaching move this morning, tabbing longtime big league third baseman Eric Chávez as hitting coach. Chávez had accepted a position as one of two Yankees assistant hitting coaches just a few weeks ago, leaving the Bronx club with an unanticipated vacancy on staff. Lindsey Adler of the Athletic reports (on Twitter) that the Yankees do plan to replace Chávez this offseason. That aligns with general manager Brian Cashman’s stated wish to enter the season with three hitting instructors on staff. Dillon Lawson is slated to be the team’s lead hitting coach, with Casey Dykes lined up for an assistant role.
  • Though the club has confirmed that Ray Montgomery will make the unusual transition from front office to bench coach on Joe Maddon’s staff, the Angels have not yet announced assignments for either former bench coach Mike Gallego (who will remain on the staff) or newcomers Phil Nevin, Benji Gil, and Bill Haselman (per Jeff Fletcher of the Orange County Register). This may be due to the club’s pursuit of Adam Eaton for its staff should he choose to retire — which, given that he remains an active member of the MLBPA, cannot be completed during the lockout.
  • The Mets announced their full slate of minor league coaches Thursday, including new managers at all four affiliates: former Cubs farmhand Kevin Boles at Triple-A Syracuse; journeyman infielder Reid Brignac at Double-A Binghamton; former Expos, Red Sox, and (briefly) Mets shortstop Luis Rivera at High-A Brooklyn; and former Mets catching instructor Robbie Robinson at Low-A St. Lucie. A full list of Mets minor league coaches, compiled by SNY contributor Jacob Resnick, can be found here.
  • The Reds have hired sixteen-year big-league veteran Juan Samuel as a minor league hitting instructor, per Jon Heyman of MLB Network, though his precise role has not yet been announced. Since retiring, the three-time All-Star has held a number of positions, including as a major league base coach and, briefly, as interim manager of the Orioles following the 2010 mid-season firing of Dave Trembley. In addition to his long and productive playing career, Samuel is remembered as the Mets’ return in the 1989 deal that sent Lenny Dykstra and Roger McDowell, cornerstones of the 1986 World Series champs, to the Phillies.
  • The Rangers announced two members of their 2022 big-league coaching staff, including the promotion of former journeyman catcher, advanced scout, and so-called “coordinator of run prevention” Brett Hayes to bullpen coach and the hiring of former Jays farmhand and Dodgers minor league hitting instructor Seth Conner as assistant hitting coach. Both will join Chris Woodward’s staff for a season the Rangers hope will represent a major step forward in the rebuilding process following the club’s recent big-ticket signings of Corey Seager, Marcus Semien, and Jon Gray.
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