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Brewers Sign Tommy Milone

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DEC. 15: Milone will receive a $1.25MM base salary plus incentives, on his non-guaranteed deal, tweets ESPN’s Jerry Crasnick. He can earn up to $2MM if he maxes out the incentives package, Jon Heyman of Fan Rag tweets.

DEC. 14: The Brewers announced on Wednesday that they’ve signed left-hander Tommy Milone to a one-year, Major League contract. His addition gives the team a full 40-man roster, though Milone did not receive a fully guaranteed contract, tweets Tom Haudricourt of the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel.

[Related: Updated Milwaukee Brewers Depth Chart]

Tommy Milone

Milone, 30 in February, was arbitration eligible this offseason but was outrighted by the Twins back in mid-October, thus sending him to the free-agent market earlier than had been forecast. He had been projected by MLBTR contributor Matt Swartz to take home $4.9MM in arbitration — a slight raise on last year’s $4.5MM salary.

A soft-tossing lefty (~87.5 mph average fastball), Milone posted solid numbers with the Nats, A’s and Twins through the first four-plus seasons of his career, delivering a 3.97 ERA with 6.5 K/9 against 2.2 BB/9 in 619 innings (106 starts, four relief appearances). However, he limped to a 5.71 ERA in 69 1/3 innings with Minnesota last year. Milone’s strikeout and walk rates remained similar to his previous marks, and he actually posted a career-best 45.7 percent ground-ball rate last year, but he also became enormously homer-prone. More than 21 percent of the balls put in the air against Milone turned into home runs, and his hard-contact rate skyrocketed while his infield-fly rate dipped from 15 percent to five percent.

Milone joins an already crowded Brewers rotation picture that currently features Junior Guerra, Matt Garza, Wily Peralta, Chase Anderson, Zach Davies and Jimmy Nelson. It’s possible, of course, that one of those names is ultimately moved this offseason — Guerra has drawn trade interest, and the Brewers would undoubtedly love to shed some of Garza’s remaining contract — though the addition of Milone at what figures to be a low-cost rate doesn’t exactly guarantee that such a move is forthcoming.

Milone did spend time in both the bullpen and the rotation with the Twins last season, so perhaps the Brewers simply envision him occupying a swingman role and functioning as somewhat of a safety net if the team either incurs an injury or does find a taker for one of its current rotation options. He also gives the team a left-handed option in the rotation that wasn’t otherwise present, as each of the six aforementioned starters throws right-handed. Brewers general manager David Stearns told reporters, including MLB.com’s Adam McCalvy (Twitter link), that Milone will compete for a rotation spot in Spring Training.

With four years and 113 days of Major League service time under his belt, Milone also gives the Brewers an arm that can be controlled beyond the 2017 campaign. In the event of a rebound, Milone would still fall a good bit shy of reaching six total years of service time, meaning the Brewers can control him through the 2018 season by way of arbitration should he prove worthy of such a commitment with a bounceback campaign next year.

Photo courtesy of USA Today Sports Images.

Brewers Acquire Jett Bandy

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3:38pm: The Brewers have announced the trade.

3:07pm: Righty Drew Gagnon is the other piece of the deal, Hudson Belinsky of Baseball America tweets. The 26-year-old spent most of 2016 at the Triple-A level with Milwaukee, converting mostly relief work after spending most of his prior professional career as a starter. He worked to a 5.56 ERA with 7.9 K/9 and 3.4 BB/9 over 55 innings at Colorado Springs.

2:53pm: The Brewers have agreed to a trade with the Angels to acquire catcher Jett Bandy, per Jeff Passan of Yahoo Sports (via Twitter). Heading back in return are fellow catcher Martin Maldonado and a minor-league pitcher, Joel Sherman of the New York Post tweets.

The 26-year-old Bandy has just one full season in the majors under his belt. He slashed .234/.281/.392 with eight long balls last year for the Halos over 231 plate appearances. Stat Corner rated him as an average framer, while Baseball Prospectus (subscription required) was slightly more bearish — though it gave him better marks as he came up through the system.

Maldonado, 30, is in his second year of arb eligibility. MLBTR and contributor Matt Swartz project him to earn $1.6MM. Functioning mostly in a reserve capacity behind former Milwaukee backstop Jonathan Lucroy, Maldonado has posted a .217/.299/.342 batting line in 1,094 plate appearances over the last six seasons.

Though he is somewhat limited with the bat, Maldonado has high-quality framing metrics. He’s mostly average in other areas of catching defense (per BP, subscription required), but certainly comes with a quality overall reputation behind the dish.

Minor MLB Transactions: 12/13/16

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Here are the latest minor moves:

  • Righty Ryan Webb has joined the Brewers on a minor-league deal, the team announced. He’ll come to MLB camp next spring in hopes of earning a spot in the Milwaukee pen. The 30-year-old allowed 10 earned runs on 27 hits in his 18 appearances last year with the Rays, but otherwise maintained the same sort of peripherals that have allowed him to compile nearly 400 innings of 3.43 ERA ball as a big leaguer.

Earlier Updates

  • The Red Sox have added third baseman Matt Dominguez on a minor-league deal, 1500ESPN’s Darren Wolfson reports on Twitter. Dominguez receives an invitation to MLB camp next spring. Still just 27, Dominguez had a short return to the majors last year with the Blue Jays but hasn’t seen substantial time at the game’s highest level since a disappointing 2014 campaign with the Astros. He posted a .269/.315/.421 batting line with 18 long balls at Triple-A last year with the Toronto organization.
  • Infielder Emmanuel Burriss is heading to the Nationals on a minors pact, Jon Heyman of Fan Rag tweets. He, too, gets a spring invite, Chelsea Janes of the Washington Post adds on Twitter. The 31-year-old is a D.C. native who spent the 2014 and 2015 seasons with the Nats organization, only briefly cracking the majors. He struggled in brief time in the bigs last year with the Phillies, and hit .263/.296/.309 over his 187 plate appearances at Triple-A.
  • Japan’s Orix Buffaloes have added three former major league hurlers, per Yahoo Japan (h/t NPB on Reddit, on Twitter). Lefty Phil Coke will join righties Matt West and Gonzalez Germen in Nippon Professional Baseball. West has the least major league experience of the bunch, but put up a 2.33 ERA with 7.4 K/9 and 1.6 BB/9 over 46 1/3 innings last year and only just turned 28. Coke, 34, is a hard-throwing southpaw who has spent a fair bit of time in the majors — and on the pages of MLBTR. He threw ten major league frames last year, continuing a streak of appearing in nine-straight MLB campaigns. The 29-year-old Germen had posted solid results upon arriving with the Rockies in the middle of the 2015 season, though his peripherals did not support the 3.86 ERA. He came back to earth in his 40 2/3 innings in 2016, posting a 5.31 ERA with 7.1 K/9 and 5.5 BB/9.

Brewers To Sign Ivan De Jesus

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The Brewers have agreed to a minor-league deal with infielder Ivan De Jesus Jr., according to Tom Haudricourt of the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel (via Twitter). The 29-year-old, a right-handed hitter, could conceivably battle for a utility role in cam.

After bouncing around the league, De Jesus found a home in Cincinnati in 2015. Over the past two years there, he has taken 465 plate appearances — by far his most extensive big league work. De Jesus also spent time in the majors briefly with the Dodgers and Red Sox in 2011-12. Though he played in over one hundred games last year with the Reds, and remained controllable at the league-minimum salary, Cinci bounced him from its 40-man roster and De Jesus took his free agency.

Despite his lengthy look, De Jesus hasn’t exactly impressed with the bat at the game’s highest level. In his pair of seasons with the Reds, he hit just .249/.311/.341 with five home runs — which is about 25% worse than a league-average hitter. Of course, De Jesus is valued much more for his defensive versatility. He spent time at short, second, third, and even first base and the corner outfield in Cincinnati.

Quick Hits: Lagares, Giants, Lopez, Romo, Holland, Cole

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No-trade protection (whether in the form of contract clauses or 10-and-5 rights) have long been a factor in deal-making.  MLB.com’s Anthony Castrovince chronicles some famous instances throughout baseball history of players blocking trades, and some current players mentioned on the rumor mill whose ability to be moved is complicated by their own full or partial no-trade clauses.  Here’s more from around baseball…

  • Mets center fielder Juan Lagares suffered an injury while making a diving catch for his Dominican winter league team, ESPN’s Adam Rubin reports.  X-rays were negative, though Lagares will return to New York to be examined by team doctors.  Lagares has himself received some trade attention this offseason but New York wants to keep the slick-fielding but light-hitting outfielder in a backup role.
  • It doesn’t look like the Giants will be re-signing free agents Gregor Blanco, Santiago Casilla, Javier Lopez, Angel Pagan, Jake Peavy or Sergio Romo, CSNBayArea.com’s Alex Pavlovic writes.  Romo has received “at least a couple of offers” from other clubs, according to Giants sources.  Lopez is likely to retire unless he gets “a great offer” from an East Coast team so he can stay close to his home in Georgia.
  • GM David Stearns declined to say whether or not the Brewers were one of the teams Greg Holland personally met with at the Winter Meetings, MLB.com’s Adam McCalvy reports.  The Brewers did scout Holland’s showcase last month, however, so the Crew can be added to the long list of teams that have some degree of interest in Holland after his return from Tommy John surgery.  The Cubs, Dodgers, Yankees, Giants, Red Sox, Indians, Rays, Mariners, Nationals, Padres, Twins, Mets, Phillies, Tigers, Blue Jays and Royals are all known to have sent scouts to the showcase or have other been linked to Holland this winter.
  • Gerrit Cole tells MLB.com’s Adam Berry that he has yet to talk to the Pirates about his 2017 contract.  MLB Trade Rumors projects Cole to earn $4.2MM in his first time through the arbitration process following a season that saw him post a 3.88 ERA, 2.72 K/BB rate and 7.6 K/9 over 116 innings.  While the numbers are solid, they were also Cole’s worst in his four big league seasons, as he suffered through an injury-plagued year.  This performance dip and rather checkered health history could be reasons why the Pirates aren’t planning to discuss an extension with Cole and agent Scott Boras over the winter, though Cole said he is healthy and will begin his offseason throwing program on Monday.

Quick Hits: Otani, Red Sox, Brewers, Phillies

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The new collective bargaining agreement will significantly damage Japanese superstar Shohei Otani’s earning power if the 22-year-old immigrates to the majors before he turns 25, but that might not prevent him from coming to the big leagues prior to 2019. Hideki Kuriyama, Otani’s manager with the Nippon-Ham Fighters, said Thursday that he expects the right-handed ace/left-handed hitter to head to the majors next offseason (Twitter link via Jim Allen of Kyodo News). Otani will have to take a minor league deal if he signs with a major league team before he turns 25. That means he’d need to accrue six years of service time before becoming a major league free agent and having a real chance to cash in via the open market. As of last weekend, the Fighters were planning on posting Otani a year from now.

A couple more notes from around baseball:

  • The Red Sox and Brewers set the wheels in motion for Tuesday’s Travis Shaw/Tyler Thornburg trade at the general managers meetings in early November, writes Alex Speier of the Boston Globe in a highly detailed piece that’s worth a full read. Milwaukee GM David Stearns told Red Sox president Dave Dombrowski that the Brewers would want Shaw and more in return. “’I said, ‘Well, it would be something we’d be interested in talking about,'” Dombrowski recalled. Talks went dormant as the two sides awaited a new CBA, which Major League Baseball and the players’ union reached Nov. 30. Then, less than a week later at the winter meetings, the Red Sox agreed to send Shaw and two minor leaguers – shortstop Mauricio Dubon and right-hander Josh Pennington – to the Brewers for Thornburg.
  • The rebuilding Phillies might have another lean year or two ahead, but GM Matt Klentak expects their ever-growing core of young talent and the franchise’s spending ability to form a lethal mix soon. “One of the advantages that we have as a big market club is that we’ve been able to take advantage of the past couple of years to trade some key assets to get younger,” Klentak told Ryan Lawrence of PhillyVoice. “Another huge advantage we have is that we have a very dedicated ownership that we know will spend when the time is right.” That time might be two winters away, when free agency could feature such superstars as Bryce Harper, Manny Machado, Clayton Kershaw and Josh Donaldson.

Central Notes: Burton, Moncada, Brewers

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Former Twins and Reds reliever Jared Burton is attempting a comeback, LaVelle E. Neal III of the Star Tribune tweets. Burton last pitched in the Majors in 2014 and pitched 16 innings in the minors in 2015 before being suspended for 50 games to start the 2016 season after testing positive for the second time for a drug of abuse. He’s now 35. The righty has pitched parts of eight seasons in the big leagues, with a 3.44 ERA, 7.6 K/9 and 3.4 BB/9. Here’s more from the Central divisions.

  • Both the White Sox and Red Sox organizations believe new top prospect Yoan Moncada can be an impact player, Colleen Kane of the Chicago Tribune writes. He’ll still have work to do, however, as his first taste of big-league action late last year (during which he struck out 12 times in 20 plate appearances) showed. “They were coming down, finishing him off underneath the hands down and in,” says White Sox manager Rick Renteria. “He’s a 21-year-old man who has not seen that type of bite coming from pitchers, and it’s probably changing the lane in which he’s looking for that particular type of slider, where he has to get it out and away.” Kane also reports that after learning the White Sox had acquired Moncada, Jose Abreu sent Moncada a congratulatory text message. The two played together in Cuba with Cienfuegos in 2012, when Moncada was 17.
  • The Brewers lost Miguel Diaz as the top overall pick in the Rule 5 Draft on Thursday, as Minnesota selected Diaz and then traded him to San Diego. Diaz appeared to be a good prospect, but GM David Stearns says the organization left him unprotected because of his lack of experience, as Tom Haudricourt of the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel writes. The 22-year-old Diaz had elbow surgery in 2015 and only pitched his first full minor-league season in 2016, when he posted a 3.71 ERA, 8.7 K/9 and 2.8 BB/9 in 94 2/3 innings for Class A Wisconsin. “He’s never pitched above the Midwest League. It’s very unusual for guys to be able to make that jump,” says Stearns. “We have to be prepared for that but it would be the exception to the norm if someone is able to make that jump successfully and contribute at the Major League level.” Of course, a Rule 5 pick doesn’t have to succeed for his original team to lose him. Before Stearns joined the Brewers organization, the team selected Wei-Chung Wang, a pitcher who had even less minor-league experience than Diaz now does, in the 2013 Rule 5 Draft. Wang pitched poorly in the Majors in 2014 and hasn’t yet returned to the big leagues, but the Brewers did manage to keep him.

Phil Bickford Receives 50-Game Suspension For Drug Of Abuse

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Brewers righty Phil Bickford has been hit with a 50-game suspension after testing positive for a drug of abuse for the second time, as Bill Shaikin of the Los Angeles Times tweets. Bickford reportedly tested positive for marijuana before being drafted in 2015. Players on 40-man rosters are not at risk of suspension for marijuana use, but Bickford is not on Milwaukee’s big-league roster.

Bickford, 21, has long been seen as a high-quality pitching prospect. He has maintained double-digit strikeout-per-nine tallies throughout his minor league career since heading to the Giants with the 18th overall selection. (Bickford was also previously taken tenth overall by the Blue Jays in 2013, but did not sign at the time.)

The suspension won’t have an impact on Milwaukee’s immediate plans, as Bickford has yet to reach the upper minors. But it will have at least some impact on his developmental timeline, which certainly rates as a disappointment for the organization. The Brewers added Bickford from the Giants along with catcher Andrew Susac in the trade that sent lefty Will Smith to San Francisco at the trade deadline.

Bickford delivers a big four-seam fastball, diving two-seamer, promising slider, and developing change, MLB.com’s prospect team explained in ranking him the fifth-best talent on the Brewers farm. There are still some who think he’ll end up in a major league pen, but regardless the expectation remains that he’ll make an impact. Last year, working at the Class A and High-A level, Bickford threw 120 innings of 2.92 ERA ball with 10.1 K/9 against 3.2 BB/9.

Padres To Acquire Rule 5 Picks Miguel Diaz, Luis Torrens

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TODAY: Cincinnati will pick up infielder Josh VanMeter from the Padres in the trade for Torrens, per club announcements. The 21-year-old struggled after a promotion to Double-A last year, but earned that bump up with a strong .267/.355/.443 batting line over 401 High-A plate appearances. Notably, he ended up hitting 14 total home runs in 2016 — a rather significant tally for a player who had hit just three total long balls as a professional coming into the year.

YESTERDAY: The Padres will acquire the top two Rule 5 Draft picks, righty Miguel Diaz (in a trade with the Twins) and catcher Luis Torrens (in a trade with the Reds), MLB.com’s Jonathan Mayo writes (Twitter links). (Baseball America’s J.J. Cooper tweeted that the Reds would trade Torrens to San Diego.) The Padres already had the third Rule 5 pick and used it to select infielder Allen Cordoba, so it appears they’ve ended up with the first three Rule 5 picks.

The Reds will receive a player to be named and cash from the Padres. The Twins will receive a player to be named or cash, LaVelle E. Neal III of the Star Tribune tweets, and they’ll also get Rule 5 pick Justin Haley, who the Padres had previously acquired from the Angels. Diaz and Torrens were previously with the Brewers and Yankees, respectively. Haley had been with the Red Sox.

That’s all incredibly confusing, so here’s a different way of representing where each player went this morning:

Diaz: Brewers –> Twins –> Padres
Torrens: Yankees –> Reds –> Padres
Haley: Red Sox –> Angels –> Padres –> Twins

The 22-year-old Diaz ranked 21st on MLB.com’s list of the Brewers’ top prospects. He throws in the mid-90s from a three-quarters arm slot, and he has the makings of a good slider, according to MLB.com. He’s a bit small, at 6’1″ and 175 pounds, and he’s had elbow trouble in the past. He fared well for Class A Wisconsin in 2016, however, with a 3.71 ERA, 8.7 K/9 and 2.8 BB/9 in 94 2/3 innings.

Torrens, 20, ranked as the Yankees’ 17th-best prospect. The Yankees signed him out of Venezuela for $1.3MM in 2012. He hasn’t hit much, batting .250/.350/.337 in the lower levels in 2016, and his experience is limited, due to shoulder troubles that cost him much of 2014 and all of 2015, but MLB.com praises his work behind the plate. He seems hard-pressed to stick in the Majors all season, but perhaps it’s not out of the question he could make the Padres out of Spring Training as Austin Hedges’ backup.

From Miller To Fenway: Tyler Thornburg Chats With Burke Badenhop

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burkeheadshotBurke Badenhop has thrown over 500 major league innings over eight seasons. He has been traded four times, signed as a free agent, and called more than a dozen Major League and minor league clubhouses home. We are thrilled to have Burke bring some of that unique perspective to MLB Trade Rumors.

This post is a part of MLBTR Player’s Perspective Series.

The Red Sox were the talk of the Winter Meetings yesterday after swinging a deal for superstar Chris Sale. Quickly lost in the shuffle, however, was a shrewd deal that Dave Dombrowski and Co. made earlier that morning to acquire righty Tyler Thornburg from the Brewers.

I know Tyler pretty well. We were Brewers teammates in 2013, share the same agents, and have even been off-season catch partners. To top it all off, the last reliever to have been traded from Milwaukee to Boston was … me! I caught up with Tyler a day after the trade to talk about his old club, his new club and a variety of things in-between.

Apr 6, 2014; Boston, MA, USA; Milwaukee Brewers relief pitcher Tyler Thornburg (30) signs an autograph prior to a game against the Boston Red Sox at Fenway Park. Mandatory Credit: Bob DeChiara-USA TODAY Sports

BB: Obviously big news with Boston yesterday … can you believe they traded for Chris Sale?!

TT: [Laughing] No, I think I had actually maybe just gotten off the phone with some of the Boston media and happened to look at Twitter and see that. And then later on in the day, Mitch Moreland. It was definitely a pretty interesting day for them.

Did you have any notion that a trade was a possibility, being on a Brewers club that’s kind of rebuilding? Did you think this might happen, and how’d you find out?

I was definitely pretty surprised. I always felt like there was a chance that if the right offer came along, they would definitely pull the trigger. But I slept in, ended up rolling over, grabbing my phone, and had a ton of missed calls and texts, and kind of figured something had happened. So I just opened up my phone and saw a couple of messages saying “Red Sox,” and kind of figured it out from there.

Who was the first official person you heard from?

Honestly, all the text messages. And then I had a text message from David Stearns telling me to call him when I got this, so I made that my first call. But the first incoming was Dave Dombrowski and John Farrell.

As someone who has been traded four times before, and the most recent reliever prior to you to be traded from Milwaukee to Boston … it’s kind of an interesting call to get, right?

It really is. Especially going from such a small-market team to a pretty big one. So it’s definitely a huge jump in that regard.

What year were you drafted, Thorny?

’10

So Milwaukee’s all you’ve ever known … what did it feel like when you realized that Boston was the place you ended up going?

It’s definitely going to be weird with Boston as far as [being] used to the Arizona Spring Training and things in Milwaukee. I knew how everything worked, knew exactly what to expect. …

I actually thought about if I were to get traded a couple times, and there weren’t many teams that I was actually relatively excited about going to. Nobody really wants to get traded too much, especially when they’re comfortable where they are. But I’d definitely say the Red Sox were pretty high up on that list as far as being excited to go to that team.

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