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Latest On Shohei Ohtani

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Although they’re on the heels of yet another disappointing campaign, the Angels may be in position to make a significant splash on the pitching market this offseason. Whether or not that happens, though, it’s imperative for the club’s beleaguered starting staff to get a healthy Shohei Ohtani back in 2020. Ohtani, who didn’t pitch this year after undergoing Tommy John surgery last October, is progressing in his recovery from TJS and the left knee procedure he underwent last month, per Jeff Fletcher of the Orange County Register. The 25-year-old is currently throwing from 100 feet and on schedule to retake the mound toward the end of November, according to Fletcher.

The emergence of Ohtani in 2018, his first stateside season after coming over as a much-ballyhooed Japanese free agent, was one of the most encouraging developments in recent memory for the Angels. Not only did Ohtani star with the bat that year, but he further proved he was worth the free-agent fuss by posting front-end production when he was healthy enough to take the ball. He threw just 51 2/3 innings during a 10-start, injury-limited rookie campaign, but the right-handed hurler made those appearances count with an impressive 3.31 ERA/3.57 FIP, 10.97 K/9 and 3.83 BB/9.

Now, Ohtani’s fresh off another strong (albeit injury-shortened) season as a hitter. The hope is the lefty-swinging DH will continue to provide a solution at that position while enjoying a much healthier year as a pitcher in 2020. If Ohtani’s able to deliver a much larger chunk of innings next year, and if the Angels make some serious noise on the open market (Gerrit Cole? Stephen Strasburg?), it could go a long way toward a much-needed return to contention. The Halos are heading into a crucial offseason in which upgrading their pitching will be a must, regardless of whether general manager Billy Eppler, new skipper Joe Maddon & Co. are counting on substantial contributions from Ohtani.

Angels Owner Moreno Anticipates 2020 Payroll Increase

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Angels owner Arte Moreno is leaving little uncertainty as to his club’s offseason intentions, judging by comments made to reporters on Thursday. “Payroll will go up next year,” Moreno declared today, according to a tweet from Bill Shaikin of The Los Angeles Times (link).

After signing manager Joe Maddon to a fairly lucrative three-year, $12MM managerial contract, it appears that Moreno and executive Billy Eppler may have their eyes on a few of free agency’s big game targets. In fact, Moreno’s historical willingness to spend may have been a key benefit to the managing job that Maddon accepted: “Obviously, Arte’s never been worried about spending money,” Maddon told reporters last week when asked if the club’s past openness to big-dollar deals was a selling point in the skipper’s decision to come on board in Anaheim (hat tip to The Athletic’s Fabian Ardaya for that quote).

It remains to be seen how, exactly, the Angels will go about expanding a payroll that checked in at roughly $160MM in 2019. The name of Gerrit Cole has already been tied frequently to the Angels in recent weeks, as the pitcher’s Southern California roots and the club’s longstanding lack of pitching depth appear to make the two parties a logical fit. Trevor Cahill’s $9MM 2019 salary will come off the books this winter, and the club could also save $13MM in declining their club option on Kole Calhoun. If payroll will indeed exceed the $160MM, then the club should have some financial breathing room even after accounting for modest arbitration raises for players like Tommy La Stella and Andrew Heaney.

AL West Notes: Mariners, Maddon, Newhan, Andrus

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The Mariners will be looking for veteran pitching this winter, The Athletic’s Corey Brock writes, though they’ll be focusing on relatively inexpensive hurlers on one-year deals as the rebuilding team will give priority to its younger arms.  Tanner Roark, Andrew Cashner, or Tyson Ross are suggested as the types of pitcher (if not those names directly) the M’s could target as they look for experience and the ability to eat innings.

Evaluating how any pitcher will perform on a year-to-year basis is always an inexact science, of course, though Brock also notes that the Mariners and other teams will face an added wrinkle in this year’s offseason market — not knowing how the official MLB baseball could be adjusted in the wake of the home run onslaught that was the 2019 season.  Only three teams allowed more homers in 2019 than the Mariners, despite playing their home games in a relatively pitcher-friendly ballpark.

Here’s more from around the AL West…

  • The Angels officially introduced new manager Joe Maddon at a press conference today, with the veteran skipper telling reporters (including MLB.com’s Rhett Bollinger) that he hopes to remain with the club beyond the length of his current three-year contract.  That deal, a three-year/$12MM pact, also includes a bonus clause that will be unlocked if the Angels win the World Series under Maddon’s watch, MLB Network’s Jon Heyman reports (Twitter link).  Should the Halos win a title, Maddon will earn an extra $1MM in each subsequent year of the deal.
  • David Newhan, manager of the Angels’ Double-A affiliate, isn’t expected return to the organization in 2020, Mike DiGiovanna of the Los Angeles Times reports (Twitter link).  Newhan spent the last three years working for the Angels, working as the minor league infield coordinator in 2017-18 before serving as Double-A Mobile’s skipper last season.
  • In regards to a reader question about potentially using Elvis Andrus to fill the Rangers’ hole at third base, MLB.com’s T.R. Sullivan highly doubts the team would consider such a move.  For one, moving Andrus would simply create another vacancy at shortstop, and there doesn’t seem to be any reason to move Andrus when he is still a defensive plus at his current position.  Though 2019 was Andrus’ first negative year (-6) in Defensive Runs Saved since 2016, he has long been considered an above-average fielder by the UZR/150 metric, including a 2.2 UZR/150 last season.

Pitchers Recently Electing Free Agency

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Since the conclusion of the regular season, a number of players have elected free agency. That right accrues to certain players who are outrighted off of a 40-man roster during or after the season — namely, those that have at least three years of MLB service and/or have previously been outrighted. Such players that accepted outright assignments during the season have the right to elect free agency instead at season’s end, provided they aren’t added back to the 40-man in the meantime.

We already rounded up the position players. Now, here are the pitchers that have recently taken to the open market, along with their now-former teams (via the International League and PCL transactions pages):

Free Agency Notes: Cole, Strasburg, Pitching

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Some of his teammates in Houston anticipate that Gerrit Cole will ultimately land with a California team next season, per ESPN’s Buster Olney. The Angels, in particular, are where many within the industry expect Cole to gravitate, given the proximity of Angel Stadium to his high school home. The is a story the Yankees have seen before, going back to their signing of CC Sabathia. They also had to entice Sabathia away from his California homeland by paying a premium in free agency. Of course, Sabathia hadn’t received much interest from the Dodgers, his desired team at the time, whereas it would not be surprising in the least to see the Angels – or another Golden State franchise – going hard after Cole. But he’s not the only potential free agent hurler being featured in this week’s World Series…

  • After Cole, Stephen Strasburg of the Nationals would be the most talented arm on the market. There’s a feeling within the industry, however, that he won’t get there, per MLB.com’s Mark Feinsand. Strasburg, remember, was the rare Scott Boras client to sign an early extension, and it could be that Boras will leverage Strasburg’s opt-out into a longer deal with the Nationals. For his part, Strasburg has shown no inclination to test foreign waters, and tacking a couple years and a couple million dollars to the 4 years, $100MM already owed him after 2019 certainly could be enough to keep him in DC. After his current playoff run, it’s hard to imagine Stras pitching in another uniform. Still, if the window opens, there are sure to be suitors come to call. 
  • There’s no telling how much the free agency of the above-noted hurlers could change the shape of the league. Look no further than this week’s World Series for evidence. The Astros and Nationals will face off starting tomorrow with rosters built around “imported” pitching, per MLB.com’s Jim Callis. The Astros brought in Cole, Justin Verlander, and Zack Greinke via trade, whereas the Nationals signed Max Scherzer, Patrick Corbin, and Anibal Sanchez in free agency. Whichever team wins four of the next seven games will add to a recent history of champions built around homegrown offense and supplemented pitching. The Cubs in 2016, Astros in 2017, and Red Sox in 2018 all boasted homegrown cores of position players and hired guns on the hill.

Quick Hits: Minority Stakes, Pirates, Angels

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On Wednesday, Bloomberg reported that MLB will now allow investment funds to take minority stakes in teams–a development which Ben Clemens dissects in a thoughtful piece for Fangraphs (link). The new policy is intended to address the fact that rising valuations of MLB franchises have made it increasingly difficult for limited partners (or minority owners, as they are often referred to) to find qualified buyers for their stakes when they feel the urge to sell. Essentially, as Clemens points out, it’s a rather tough proposition for a minority owner to find someone willing to pay upwards of $1BB just to own 49% or less of a team; the ability to have chief decision-making power over signings and team direction, in general, is likely a motivating factor in many franchise acquisitions. Allowing broader financial interests–which, though details on MLB’s new policy are sparse, could include pension funds, college endowments, or hedge funds–to purchase minority stakes should allow for current LPs to cash in on their franchise stakes more easily.

Clemens, however, foresees some problems in this road to greater liquidity. Primarily, investment funds are engineered to prioritize profit over all other considerations, with fiduciary duties to stakeholders and clients to secure maximum return on investments. Though professional sports franchises, too, care about maximizing profits, they are still, in the words of Clemens, “civic enterprises, competing for titles, and they care about winning for its own sake”. Potential conflicts of interest are obvious, but it is worth noting that there are already explicitly profit-motivated entities controlling major league teams, as seen with Liberty Media’s control over the Braves.

More notes from around the bigs with the sixth game of the ALCS underway…

  • The Pirates are one of just three MLB teams to generate a cumulatively negative WAR rating from the pitchers they have drafted and developed over the past eight seasons–a fact that Rob Biertempfel turns a sour eye to in his piece for The Athletic (link). While poor trades, signing, and development have all played a role in the recently thin state of Pittsburgh pitching, the amateur draft, in Biertempfel’s estimation, is the fountainhead of GM Neal Huntington’s trouble. As the writer points out, the Rule IV draft is of critical importance to “small market” clubs like the Pirates, but the team has struggled to locate impact talent there in the last several years. Biertempfel, in a ten-year overview of Pirate drafts from 2008 to 2017, illustrates that Huntington has made some regrettable missteps in his time in the Pittsburgh war room. Notably, the club selected pitcher Brooks Pounders of the second round of the 2009 draft while Dallas Keuchel and Patrick Corbin were still available, and in 2012 the club failed to draft a single pitcher who would ultimately appear in a Pirates uniform.
  • Like many other scribes in the baseball world, the San Francisco Chronicle’s Bruce Jenkins believes the Angels made the “perfect” managerial hire in bringing on Joe Maddon. As far as hot stove implications go, Jenkins speculates that the Maddon-led Angels will make an appealing destination for free agent Gerrit Cole and potential free agent Stephen Strasburg. Of course, the Angels may face some So Cal competition in the form of the Padres, who, if they decide to once again spend big on a free agent, could also offer comfortable confines for Cole (an Orange native) or Strasburg (a San Diego native).

Quick Hits: Maddon, Sasaki, Red Sox

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In an interesting bit of “what if” history, Scott Miller of Bleacher Report runs down the story of how new Angels manager Joe Maddon almost become the club’s skipper at the tail end of the ’90s (link). Apparently, former Angels GM Bill Bavasi identified Maddon back in 1996 as a potential future manager and hatched a plot to install the pitching mind as something of an heir apparent–assuming, of course, that Bavasi could secure the managerial services of Sparky Anderson to serve as Maddon’s mentor. The plan went awry, however, when Bavasi, then-team president Tony Tavares, and Anderson met for a fateful lunch. Apparently, Tavares was offput when Anderson, then 62, struggled to raise a soup spoon to his mouth with a steady hand, and the prez nixed the Anderson-Maddon succession plan immediately after the lunch date. The club later went with Terry Collins as manager (with Maddon serving as bench coach), with the club later going outside the org to hire Mike Scioscia after the ouster of Collins.

If Maddon is harboring any resentment over the way things worked out, he’s doing a good job of hiding it. “I couldn’t be more grateful, sincerely, for how things have worked out for me in my baseball career,” Maddon says in Miller’s article. “I’ve always been a big believer in not having anything happen to you before it’s time. In other words, I had to earn this opportunity, and I felt like I did by 2006.”

More news from around the diamond…

  • Japanese phenom Roki Sasaki was selected today in NPB’s amateur draft by the Chiba Lotte Marines, according to the Japan Times (link).  Sasaki, 18, was clocked at 101 mph during his time in high school, and many major league scouts were said to have an interest in luring the pitcher to the States. Had the youngster decided to forego the NPB draft, he could have signed with an MLB club in June; instead, he will report to the Marines under the guidance of Chibba Lotte captain and former MLB infielder Tadahito Iguchi. Iguchi, for one, is eager to have the firearmer in the fold. “He’s an extraordinary pitcher,” Iguchi said. “It’s scary to think how far he might go. He was the best player available and now it’s incumbent on us to nurture his potential.” Unlike the MLB Draft, every team in the NPB has an equal chance of landing the first overall pick; teams provide their first choice in secret to the league, and the player’s negotiating rights are decided by the drawing of lots. Some Japanese teams, including the Yomiuri Giants and the Fukuoka SoftBank Hawks, have refused in recent years to allow for the posting of players before they become nine-year veteran free agents. The Chiba Lotte org, meanwhile, has taken no such public stance, so it is not impossible to imagine Sasaki being posted for MLB clubs in the coming years.
  • Conversations surrounding the Red Sox bullpen continued for much of the 2019 season, as the club’s decision to forego the Craig Kimbrel market caused many fans to wonder about front office priorities. It’s rather kind then, for Jen McCaffery of The Athletic to offer some free bullpen scouting in her latest piece, in which she looks at a few outside acquisitions who might be a fit in a Boston uniform. Trade options (Brandon Kintzler) and impending free agents (Steve Cishek, Will Harris) are both bandied, with McCaffery wondering aloud if Boston’s new leadership might be inclined to keep Brandon Workman in the ninth inning role he handled for much of 2019. The Sox recorded a collective 4.40 relief ERA last season, 18th among major league teams.

 

MLBTR Poll: Joe Maddon’s Angels Tenure

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Setting aside his fill-in work with the Angels earlier in his career, Joe Maddon has managed 14 campaigns in the majors. His club has cracked at least 90 wins in nine of those seasons and reached the postseason eight times. Whatever one thinks about the influence of a manager on the win-loss column, Maddon has undeniably piloted many a high-flying aircraft.

Maddon oversaw two lean years with the Rays before leaping from 66 wins to 97 and helping to shape the team into a perennial contender. He was brought in somewhat later in the process with the Cubs. In Chicago, he was tasked with vaulting a club brimming with young talent — but coming off of five-straight fifth-place finishes — into a new stratosphere. In his first year, Maddon flipped a 73-89 record into 97-65.

There are similarities and differences in his new gig. Maddon’s marching orders are essentially the same: replicate those 31-win (Rays) and 24-win (Cubs) bounces with the Halos. It’ll take something nearly as dramatic to get the L.A. organization back into the postseason for the first time since 2014. The club limped to a 72-90 record in 2019 and has turned in four consecutive losing campaigns. In a stratified American League, it might take 95 or more wins to make the playoffs.

That’s not to say it’s deja vu all over again. Maddon’s new Halos team is already led by established superstars, including the game’s greatest player in Mike Trout, its most fascinating talent in Shohei Ohtani (who’ll be back on the bump in 2020), peerless defensive wizard Andrelton Simmons, and slugger Justin Upton. The L.A. organization figures to have some funds to work with this winter and has one of the game’s truly elite prospects (Jo Adell) waiting in the wings. To be sure, there are needs — all over the pitching staff and behind the dish, in particular — but there are also resources to work with and quite a lot of talent already in place.

There’ll also be expectations. Maddon is no stranger to those after five years in Chicago. But his charges fell shy in 2018 and especially 2019, the lone year in which the Maddon-led Cubs fell shy of the playoffs. Halos owner Arte Moreno is surely short on patience given what he has invested in this club. GM Billy Eppler is roster-managing for his job without a contract beyond 2020. And the clock is ticking on Trout’s twenties.

Obviously this question involves considerations that go well beyond Maddon’s managerial acumen. But his hiring begins a consequential epoch for an organization that has endured disappointment as well as recent tragedy. Maddon will be a high-profile franchise face. He’ll start out with a three-year deal at a $12MM price tag — a significant commitment, but not quite the five-year, $25MM pact that drew him to Chicago.

So … how do you think it’ll turn out? (Poll link for app users.)

Angels Considering Mike Butcher For Pitching Coach Role

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Mike DiGiovanna of the Los Angeles Times reports that the Angels are considering Mike Butcher for the club’s open pitching coach position (link).

Butcher, who pitched for four seasons with the then-California Angels from 1992 to 1995, has served as a pitching coach for the last fourteen seasons in the major leagues. Recently dismissed after a four-year run in the Arizona dugout, Butcher previously held stints with the Rays in 2006 and with Anaheim’s club from 2007 to 2015–so Butcher’s hire would represent something of a homecoming.

Of course, that stop in Tampa coincided with Joe Maddon’s time there, so it would be apropos for the Angels to welcome back two former franchise members with a working familiarity with one another. LA’s previous pitching coach, Doug White, was fired after the org helped manager Brad Ausmus to the door at September’s end. Maddon will also be in search of a new bench coach in the coming months.

Quick Hits: Girardi, Signs, Angels

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For those in the mood for a game of “connect the dots”, today’s news regarding the USA Baseball national team should put your pencils to the ready. Joe Girardi, previously the USA team’s manager, has officially stepped down in advance of the “Premier 12” Olympic qualifier, according to this tweet from Pete Abraham of The Boston Globe (Twitter link). Scott Brosius, longtime Yankee and a two-time Olympic gold medalist in his own right, will manage the American side moving forward.

While those obsessed with the sport of Olympic baseball will find this to be a cataclysmic development, the rest of us will feel inclined to view this announcement in light of its implications on the MLB managerial market. While Girardi himself has not issued a statement regarding his decision to step down from USA duties, it might be inferred that he could be prepping to accept a job as skipper of a big league club. Girardi, who has not managed in the bigs since his contract with the Yankees expired in 2017, has recently interviewed for the Cubs, Mets, and Phillies openings. Keep track of all managerial maneuverings with MLBTR’s Managerial Search Tracker.

More news from around the game on this eerily baseball-free Wednesday…

  • From the “unwritten rules” department: according to SNY’s Andy Martino, the Yankees dugout was incensed during the course of Game 1, when several Astros players were heard whistling in advance of certain pitches on Saturday night. “I would consider whistling a tired act that goes beyond what is acceptable,” an unnamed major league executive told Martino. “If the Astros or anyone else was doing it, it would be considered a break in the unwritten rules. I have not been part of any team that used a whistle from the dugout for pitch type or location.” Of course, sign stealing is a time-honored part of baseball gamesmanship that has taken many different forms over the past few centuries; recently, MLB has even considered the implementation of on-field earpieces for pitchers and catchers, according to some 2018 reportage on the part of Evan Drellich of NBC Sports Boston.
  • In our recent poll “Executives Under Pressure”, MLBTR readers voted on which club GM they thought would most be feeling the pressure in 2020 to put out a winning club–or else. Angels GM Billy Eppler placed third in the polling (behind Neal Huntington of the Pirates and Matt Klentak of the Phillies), with 11.81% of readers positing that LA’s fifth-year GM will likely be maneuvering to keep his job this offseason. In the view of The Athletic’s Ken Rosenthal, today’s hiring of Joe Maddon to the club’s manager seat might be further evidence toward Eppler’s occupational insecurity (link). “From every indication, owner Arte Moreno drove the hiring of Maddon, and by doing so, undercut his GM,” writes Rosenthal. Eppler will be tasked with several challenges heading into this winter, including the reinforcement of a pitching staff recently decimated by injuries and the loss of hurler Tyler Skaggs.
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