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Matt Barnes Elects Free Agency

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10:44am: The Nationals announced that Barnes has rejected an outright assignment in favor of free agency.

May 9, 10:17am: Barnes cleared outright waivers and has been assigned outright to the Nationals’ Triple-A affiliate in Rochester, per the team’s transaction log at MLB.com. He has enough service time to reject the assignment in favor of free agency, if he chooses.

May 7: The Nationals announced Tuesday they’ve designated right-hander Matt Barnes for assignment. His spot on the active roster will go to lefty Robert Garcia, who’s been reinstated from the 15-day injured list. The Nats’ 40-man roster is now at 39 players.

Barnes, 33, inked a minor league deal with Washington in the early portion of Spring Training. He made the Opening Day roster after throwing five scoreless innings in camp. The veteran reliever hasn’t carried that success into the regular season. Barnes has allowed 11 runs (10 earned) over 13 1/3 frames while working in low-leverage situations. His 8% swinging strike rate is well below both the league average and his career 12.3% mark.

It’s the second straight season in which Barnes has struggled to miss bats. He managed whiffs on a career-low 7.8% of his offerings en route to a 5.48 ERA in 21 1/3 innings with the Marlins last year. That season was cut short before the All-Star Break by a left hip injury that required surgery. Barnes’ velocity has yet to return to pre-surgery levels. His 91.4 MPH average fastball speed and 81.5 MPH curveball velocity are each down two ticks from where they sat in 2023.

Barnes was averaging around 95-96 MPH on his heater and in the mid-80s with his breaking ball during his best seasons with the Red Sox. That included four seasons of sub-4.00 ERA ball over a five-year stretch from 2017-21. Barnes routinely punched out more than 30% of opposing hitters during that run and held the closer role in Boston in 2021. He earned an All-Star nod that season and secured a two-year, $18.75MM extension that July.

A shoulder injury in 2022 and the aforementioned hip issue have prevented Barnes from recapturing that form in the two-plus years since then. The Nats will technically have five days to trade him, but it’s likelier he’ll be released. Barnes locked in a $2MM base salary when he made the Washington roster. If he goes unclaimed on waivers, the Nationals will be responsible for the bulk of that contract. Another team that subsequently signs him would owe the prorated portion of the $740K minimum for any time he spends on their MLB roster.

Nationals Select Eddie Rosario, Jesse Winker, Matt Barnes

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The Nationals announced this morning that they’ve selected the contracts of right-hander Matt Barnes, outfielder Eddie Rosario, and outfielder Jesse Winker. In corresponding moves, right-hander Mason Thompson and left-hander Jose A. Ferrer have been placed on the 60-day injured list. The club’s 40-man roster is now at capacity.

That Barnes made the roster is hardly a surprise. A veteran of ten major league seasons, the 33-year-old is coming off a down season with the Marlins that saw him struggle to a 5.48 despite a decent 4.15 FIP. Prior to his down 2023 campaign, however, Barnes had long been one of the more reliable late-inning relief arms in the game with the Red Sox. Barnes posted a 3.91 ERA with a 3.42 FIP from 2016 to 2022, striking out an excellent 31.3% of batters faced during that time while walking 11.3%. Those seven seasons saw the right-hander pick up 47 saves and 96 holds as a mainstay toward the back of the club’s bullpen. Barnes figures to receive another chance at a late-inning role in D.C. now that he’s made the team, where he’ll compete for high-leverage work with fellow veteran arms Hunter Harvey and Tanner Rainey ahead of closer Kyle Finnegan.

That both Rosario and Winker made the roster is somewhat more surprising. After all, both are defensively limited left-handed hitters who profile best as part of a platoon. That overlap didn’t deter the Nationals from rostering them both, however, and both outfielders certainly have a case to make the roster in isolation. Rosario has typically been a roughly average hitter throughout his career, as exemplified by him .255/.305/.450 with a wRC+ of exactly 100 in 142 games with the Braves last year. Those numbers are more or less in line with his career output of .268/.305/.460 (102 wRC+), though its worth noting that his career numbers are dragged down somewhat by a brutal 2022 season that saw him hit a paltry .212/.259/.328 while he battled vision problems. That issue appears to have been rectified by a laser eye procedure, however, and Rosario seems to be a good bet to produce average numbers as a regular in left field, even as his 23.6% strikeout rate last year is a far cry from the 16.5% figure he posted during his peak seasons with the Twins from 2017 to 2020.

As for Winker, the 30-year-old was among the more productive hitters in the league during his five-year tenure with the Reds, slashing an excellent .288/.385/.504 in 413 games from 2017-21, which included an All Star nod during the 2021 season. Winker was shipped to the Mariners ahead of the 2022 season, however, and took a step back at the plate during his time with the club as he hit a roughly league average .219/.344/.344 during his time with the club. Winker fell even further upon being traded to the Brewers prior to last year, as he struggled to a .199/.320/.247 slash line while battling neck injuries. While Winker doesn’t offer the same reliable production as Rosario, he could be the far more impactful bat if he can regain the form he enjoyed during his time with the Reds.

With young outfielders Alex Call and Jacob Young having been optioned to Triple-A last night and manager Davey Martinez telling reporters (including Spencer Nusbaum of the Washington Post) that Stone Garrett will begin the season on the injured list, however, the club clearly feels comfortable entering the season with an outfield mix that will prominently feature both Rosario and Winker. With Lane Thomas and Victor Robles entrenched as regular options in right and center field, respectively, Winker and Rosario will join first baseman Joey Gallo as left-handed hitters in the club’s lineup with Joey Meneses serving as a right-handed complement to all three. Assuming Gallo will be afforded regular at bats at first base, that would leave at least one of Rosario or Winker to remain in the lineup against left-handed hitters. Given Winker’s abysmal .205/.321/.338 slash line against southpaws, it seems likely that the bulk of starts against lefties will go to Rosario, at least until Garrett returns from the injured list.

That Ferrer and Thompson will start the season on the 60-day IL is hardly a surprise. Thompson is rehabbing Tommy John surgery while Ferrer is dealing with a back strain that Martinez (as relayed by Nusbaum) has indicated will keep him from throwing for another 4-6 weeks.

31 Veterans With Opt-Out Opportunities Looming This Week

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One of the provisions in that 2022-26 collective bargaining agreement is uniform opt-out opportunities for Article XX(B) free agents on minor league deals. An Article XX(B) free agent is one with at least six years of service time who finished the previous season on a major league roster or injured list. Any such player who signs a minor league deal more than ten days prior to Opening Day can opt out of that deal at three points if they haven’t been added to the 40-man roster: five days before Opening Day, May 1 and June 1.

The first uniform opt-out date on this year’s calendar falls Friday at 1pm CT. Any player can trigger his out clause at that point, and the team will subsequently be given a 48-hour window to either add him to the roster or release him. With many clubs around the league dealing with spring injuries, some of these players should be able to find opportunities elsewhere if they can’t find it with their current organization. Their current clubs can prevent them from opting out by giving them a roster spot, but that may involve cutting someone else.

Angels: OF Jake Marisnick, LHP Drew Pomeranz

Marisnick, 33 this month, is a right-handed-hitting fourth outfielder with a plus glove and questionable bat. He can hold his own against right-handed pitching (career .237/.293/.417, 93 wRC+) but is typically overmatched by righties (.223/.274/.365, 74 wRC+). He’s having a huge spring, but the Angels already have Taylor Ward, Mike Trout, Mickey Moniak, Aaron Hicks and Jo Adell on the 40-man roster.

The 35-year-old Pomeranz was a good starter from 2016-17 and a dominant reliever from 2019-21, but he didn’t pitch in 2022-23 due to arm injuries. He’s pitched 6 2/3 innings with the Angels this spring with middling results.

Blue Jays: 3B/2B Eduardo Escobar, 1B Joey Votto

A poor season between the Mets and Angels last year set the stage for the 35-year-old Escobar to take a minor league deal. He’s long been a productive MLB hitter and even topped 30 homers back in 2019, but Escobar’s now in his mid-30s and struggling through an ugly spring while trying to win a spot in a crowded infield mix also featuring Isiah Kiner-Falefa, Santiago Espinal, Cavan Biggio, Ernie Clement and Davis Schneider.

Votto, 40, has been connected the Blue Jays seemingly forever due to his Canadian roots. He finally suited up for the Jays after agreeing to a minor league deal and homered in his first at-bat of camp. He’s had a lackluster showing at the plate in each of the past two MLB seasons, however.

Cubs: 1B/OF Garrett Cooper, RHP Carl Edwards Jr., OF David Peralta

An underrated hitter for years in Miami, Cooper slashed .274/.350/.444 in nearly 1300 plate appearances from 2019-22 before a poorly timed down showing in 2023’s walk year. He’s hitting quite well in spring training, and the Cubs don’t have a proven option at first base — though they’re understandably high on 26-year-old trade acquisition Michael Busch.

Edwards had a nice 2022 season with the Nats and posted a solid ERA in 2023 but did so with dismal K-BB numbers. He’s competing for a spot in an uncharacteristically crowded Cubs bullpen and could be squeezed out. The 32-year-old pitched for the Cubs from 2015-19, so Chicago brass knows him well. From 2022-23 in D.C., he posted a 3.07 ERA but a middling 20% strikeout rate against a 10.5% walk rate.

Peralta, 36, has a trio of hits and a walk in ten plate appearances this spring. He was an above-average hitter with the D-backs every season from 2017-20 but has been less consistent of late. He’s a left-handed hitter who’s long had glaring platoon splits and is limited to the outfield corners.

Diamondbacks: SS Elvis Andrus

Andrus is 35 but can still pick it at shortstop or second base. His once above-average speed has faded to the 30th percentile of MLB players, per Statcast, but his range at short remains excellent. Andrus hit .251/.304/.358 (81 wRC+) for the White Sox in 2023 and only has one year of above-average offense (2022) in the past six seasons.

Guardians: RHP Carlos Carrasco

Old friend Cookie Carrasco is fighting for the fifth spot in the Guardians’ rotation, and news of Gavin Williams’ season-opening stint on the injured list could further open the door for the 36-year-old (37 on Thursday) to make the team. Carrasco was torched for a 6.80 ERA with the 2023 Mets. He allowed 1.80 homers per nine frames through 90 innings, with alarming batted-ball metrics (91.5 mph average exit velocity, 48.2% hard-hit rate, 10.7% barrel rate). He was a solid mid-rotation arm as recently as 2022, when he tossed 152 innings of 3.97 ERA ball with sharp strikeout and walk rates.

Marlins: C Curt Casali

The veteran Casali has batted .201/.311/.315 over the past three big league seasons — a 78 wRC+ in 503 plate appearances. The 35-year-old is off to a rough start in camp and is a long shot to unseat defensive-minded Nick Fortes or Christian Bethancourt, both of whom are already on the 40-man roster.

Mets: 1B/DH Ji Man Choi

From 2017-22, Choi hit .254/.363/.465 (130 wRC+) against right-handed pitching. He walked at a 14.4% clip when holding the platoon advantage and fanned at a higher-than-average but still-manageable 24.1% rate. Lefties have always had Choi’s number, however, and his overall production cratered in 2023 while he dealt with Achilles and ribcage injuries. He’s fighting for a bench spot in New York alongside DJ Stewart and others.

Nationals: RHP Matt Barnes, OF Eddie Rosario, OF Jesse Winker

Barnes was an All-Star closer with the Red Sox in 2021 and briefly one of the game’s most dominant relievers, fanning more than 40% of his opponents for the bulk of that season. He wore down beginning in August and hasn’t been the same since a hip injury. Barnes’ velocity and strikeouts were way down in 2023 before he underwent season-ending surgery. He should have a good chance to win a spot in a Nationals bullpen that has little established talent.

Rosario and Winker are both left-handed-hitting outfielders who are best deployed in left field — with Winker having a particularly shaky defensive reputation. Winker is the younger of the two at 30 years old (to Rosario’s 32). Winker was quietly one of the most productive hitters in baseball against right-handed pitching for much of his time in Cincinnati, but knee and neck surgery in October 2022 look to have taken their toll on him. Rosario was the far more productive hitter in 2023. There may not be room for both veterans on the Washington roster. Winker has been in camp longer and been more productive in their small samples.

Orioles: 2B Kolten Wong

The Orioles seem to bring in a veteran infielder coming off a down season almost every year. It’s Wong’s turn in 2023. The 33-year-old was one of the game’s worst hitters in ’23, slashing just .183/.256/.263 in 250 plate appearances between the Mariners and Dodgers. That was beyond out of character for Wong, who’d been an average or better hitter in five of the past six seasons. If the O’s don’t want to rush Jackson Holliday or Coby Mayo, Wong could win a spot on the roster — but he hasn’t hit that well in camp so far.

Pirates: RHP Chase Anderson

It’s been five years since Anderson’s last solid season in a big league rotation, but the well-liked veteran continues to get work each season. From 2020-23, he’s pitched to a 6.19 ERA in 192 MLB frames — including a 5.42 mark in 86 1/3 innings last year (mostly with the Rockies). Anderson doesn’t miss many bats, but he has good command and is having a nice spring with the Pirates. He’s competing with Luis Ortiz, Jared Jones, Roansy Contreras, Domingo German and others for one of two generally open rotation spots in Pittsburgh.

Rangers: INF Matt Duffy, RHP Shane Greene, RHP Jose Urena

A contact-oriented hitter who can play all over the infield, the 33-year-old Duffy faces an uphill battle with Josh Smith, Ezequiel Duran and Justin Foscue all on the 40-man roster ahead of him. Nathaniel Lowe will open the season on the injured list, but that’ll likely work to Jared Walsh’s benefit more than Duffy.

Greene, 35, is a former All-Star closer/setup man who peaked with the Tigers and Braves from 2017-20. He’s thrown just three innings in each of the past two MLB seasons but also turned in strong numbers with the Cubs in Triple-A last year.

The 32-year-old Urena made five dismal starts for the Rockies early in the 2023 season and five solid ones for the White Sox late in the season. He also pitched well for Chicago’s Triple-A affiliate. A solid arm for the Marlins in 2017-18, Urena has a 5.50 ERA in 350 1/3 MLB frames dating back to 2019. He’s had a nice spring and could be a depth piece for an injury-plagued Rangers rotation.

Rays: RHP Jake Odorizzi

Odorizzi signed last week and will look to get back on track after a shoulder injury cost him the 2023 season. With the exception of an injury-wrecked 2020 season, he’s been a dependable five-inning starter dating back to 2014 (3.98 ERA in 1216 innings). The Rays’ pitching staff is dealing with plenty of injuries, and Odorizzi should be an option for the Rays early in the season.

Red Sox: 1B C.J. Cron, RHP Michael Fulmer, C Roberto Perez, LHP Joely Rodriguez

Cron has four seasons of 25-plus homers under his belt and was consistently an above-average hitter from 2014-22. Injuries tanked his 2023 season, but he has a strong track record of hitting for power — with largely even platoon splits. He’d make a nice right-handed complement to Triston Casas and/or Masataka Yoshida at first base and designated hitter, providing some insurance against an injury to either.

Perez is an all-glove backup who’s never hit much outside the juiced ball season in 2019, when he popped 24 of his 55 career homers. The Sox figure to go with Reese McGuire and Connor Wong behind the plate, making him a long shot to land a roster spot.

Rodriguez signed a big league deal with the Red Sox prior to the 2023 season but only pitched 11 innings due to injury. He’s having a decent spring training — two runs on nine hits and three walks with nine strikeouts in seven innings — and has a good chance to win a spot in a patchwork Red Sox bullpen. If not, his ability to miss bats and pile up grounders would likely draw interest elsewhere.

Fulmer won’t pitch in 2024 after undergoing surgery last summer. His minor league deal is a two-year contract that stretches into 2025. The two sides knew this going into the arrangement and there’s no reason to expect he’ll opt out.

Royals: RHP Tyler Duffey

Duffey was a mainstay in the division-rival Twins’ bullpen and was a high-end setup option at his peak in 2019-21, posting a 2.89 ERA across 144 frames while fanning 29.8% of his opponents. His results slipped in 2022 as he lost some life on his fastball, and he pitched just two MLB frames with the Cubs in 2023. Duffey recently had a procedure to remove a cancerous mole from his shoulder that understandably halted his baseball activity for a bit. He’s hopeful he’ll pitch again this spring, and while the larger takeaway is relief that the melanoma was discovered and quickly treated, his track record could also give him a shot to crack the Royals’ bullpen early in the season.

White Sox: RHP Jesse Chavez, RHP Brad Keller, RHP Dominic Leone, 3B/1B Mike Moustakas, OF Kevin Pillar, RHP Bryan Shaw

Chavez, 40, has been excellent with the Braves in each of the past three seasons but struggled in stints with the Cubs and Angels. He’s having a tough spring with the White Sox but carries a 2.81 ERA in his past 137 2/3 MLB frames, spanning the 2021-23 seasons.

Keller has spent his entire big league career with the Royals but saw his time in Kansas City come to a rough ending. After a three-year run as a solid starter, Keller struggled in three subsequent seasons, culminating in an IL stint for symptoms indicative of thoracic outlet syndrome. He hasn’t pitched in an official spring game for the White Sox.

Leone struggled late in the 2023 season but has a cumulative 3.38 ERA in 157 innings over the past three seasons. He’s having a solid spring training, has late-inning experience, and seems like a decent bet to win a spot in a White Sox bullpen that’s been completely torn down since last summer.

Moustakas has turned in three straight below-average seasons at the plate and is struggling again with the White Sox in camp (.167/.268/.278 in 41 plate appearances). The Sox have Yoan Moncada and Andrew Vaughn at the corners, plus Gavin Sheets as a lefty-swinging first base option (and corner outfielder) off the bench. Moose seems like a long shot to make the club.

Pillar would give the Sox a right-handed complement to lefty-hitting corner outfielders Andrew Benintendi and Dominic Fletcher. He’s 35 and no longer the plus-plus defensive center fielder he once was but could give them some insurance for Luis Robert Jr. in center as well. He hit .228/.248/.416 with nine homers in 206 plate appearances for the Braves last year.

Shaw pitched 45 2/3 innings for the Sox last year and delivered a respectable 4.14 ERA in that time. His production has tailed off substantially since his days as a consistent setup presence in the Cleveland bullpen — evidenced by a 5.07 ERA over his past six seasons. He’s been tagged for a dozen earned runs in 7 1/3 spring frames but does have 10 strikeouts.

Nationals, Matt Barnes Agree To Minor League Deal

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Feb. 27: The Nationals and Barnes are in agreement on a minor league deal, reports Mark Zuckerman of MASNsports.com. The agreement is still pending a physical. Assuming that goes well, Barnes will report to big league camp as a non-roster invitee.

Feb. 26: Veteran right-hander Matt Barnes has “made good progress” towards a deal with the Nationals, reports Chris Cotillo of MassLive, though Cotillo cautions that the deal is not complete. Earlier today, Cotillo relayed that Barnes’ market was heating up with the Nats being one of the teams in the mix. The righty is a client of ISE Baseball. The Nationals have a full 40-man roster and would need to open a spot for Barnes — if the parties are discussing a guaranteed deal. That could easily be achieved by moving Stephen Strasburg to the 60-day injured list.

Barnes, 34 in June, is coming off a rough couple of years but looked like one of the most dominant relievers in the league prior to that. From 2016 to 2019, he had a stretch with the Red Sox where he looked like a solid but not elite reliever. Over those four seasons, he made 264 appearances for Boston with a 3.84 earned run average. His 32% strikeout rate was quite impressive and he kept 48.4% of balls in play on the ground but his 11.4% walk rate was on the high side.

In the shortened 2020 season, he had a bit of a blip, with his ERA jumping to 4.30. But in 2021, he turned things around in spectacular fashion. Through July 10, he had tossed 37 innings over the same number of appearances, allowing 2.68 runs per nine. He struck out a huge 44.6% of batters faced while giving out walks at just a 7.2% clip. He was just a few months from free agency but the Sox decided to lock him up, agreeing to a two-year extension with a guarantee of $18.75MM and a club option for 2024.

Unfortunately, things took a downward turn shortly after that deal was signed. His next seven appearances were scoreless but he hit a rough patch in early August. From the signing of extension to the end of the year, his ERA was 6.11. He then posted a 4.31 ERA in 2022, with subpar strikeout and walk rates of 19.3% and 11.9%, respectively. He was dealt to the Marlins prior to last year and put up a 5.48 ERA in 24 appearances. He went on the injured list in early June due to a left hip impingement and never returned, undergoing surgery in July. The Fish turned down his option at the end of the year and sent him to the open market.

“Looking back on it, I’m realizing now that the hip was such a limiting factor in my ability to get into my lower half, subconsciously knowing that it was there,” Barnes told Alex Speier of the Boston Globe last month. “The nature of the injury with the hip, it didn’t allow me to get over my front side and truly rotate and create power.” The right-hander averaged 95-98 miles per hour on his fastball through 2022 but then was down to 93.4 last year, perhaps backing up his assessment of his poor campaign in 2023.

For the Nats, taking a flier on Barnes and hoping for a post-surgery bounceback would be a sensible gambit. The club has been deep in a rebuild for many years and isn’t expected to return to contention here in 2024. The projected standings at FanGraphs and the PECOTA standings at Baseball Prospectus both peg them to be the worst club in the National League East and one of the worst in the majors overall.

They currently project to have a bullpen featuring Kyle Finnegan, Hunter Harvey and Tanner Rainey, all of whom are set for free agency after 2025. Coming into the winter, they had almost no one else with a meaningful track record of big league success, leaving plenty of openings for other hurlers. They signed Dylan Floro to a one-year deal to stabilize the ’pen somewhat and perhaps turn himself into a trade chip. Signing Barnes would come with the same logic.

Given the long-term outlook of the club and the fungible nature of relievers, it wouldn’t be a surprise to see the Finnegan/Harvey/Rainey trio on the trading block this summer if they are throwing well. Even if someone like Floro or Barnes didn’t pitch well enough to net a huge deadline return, they might still need to step up and play a role to help the club get through end of the season. The Nats have also given non-roster deals to veterans like Derek Law, Richard Bleier, Jacob Barnes and Luis Perdomo.

Matt Barnes Throws For Scouts

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Former Red Sox closer Matt Barnes, who was traded to the Marlins prior to the 2023 season and wound up undergoing season-ending hip surgery in May, threw for big league scouts last week and could land a deal with a team before spring training for most teams commences next week, Alex Speier of the Boston Globe reports. Barnes is still building arm strength but was in the low 90s with his fastball.

An All-Star with the Red Sox in 2021, Barnes has experienced a sharp decline in recent years, at least in part to a hip issue that’s plagued him for some time. The right-hander saved 24 games for the ’21 Sox but had all two dozen in the books by August 4. At that point, Barnes was sporting a pristine 2.25 ERA with a dominant 42% strikeout rate against a strong 6.8% walk rate. He’d pitched like one of the best relievers in baseball, and Boston rewarded him over the summer in the form of a two-year, $18.75MM contract extension that kept him from reaching free agency at season’s end.

Barnes pitched well for the first month of that contract, but things went south quickly thereafter. Over his final 15 appearances, the right-hander was shelled for a 10.13 ERA with significantly worsened strikeout and walk rates (26.7% and 15%). Barnes had walked only 11 hitters and surrendered just four homers through his first 44 innings but doubled that home run total and issued nine more walks in those final 10 1/3 innings.

It was a miserable way to close out the season, but Barnes’ track record was strong enough that a rebound didn’t seem far-fetched. Even with that calamitous finish to the season, his overall numbers from 2017-21 were sound: 3.82 ERA, 38 saves, 76 holds, 34.8% strikeout rate, 11.1% walk rate.

To Barnes’ credit, he rebounded from that finish to at least some extent in 2022, pitching to a 4.31 ERA in 39 2/3 innings. However, his 19.3% strikeout rate was less than half what it had been during his overpowering four-month run in 2021, and his 11.9% walk rate was still a clear red flag. He wound up missing more than two months of that ’22 season due to shoulder inflammation, and over the winter, the Red Sox designated Barnes for assignment and flipped him to the Marlins in exchange for another bounceback bullpen candidate: lefty Richard Bleier.

The trade didn’t work out well for either party. Barnes pitched just 21 1/3 innings of 5.48 ERA ball with Miami, sitting at a career-worst 93.6 mph with his average fastball. His 20.2% strikeout rate was only marginally better than his ugly mark the year prior, and while he cut his walk rate to 10.1%, that was still well north of the league average. Barnes underwent femoral acetabular impingement surgery on his left hip in late July, and the Fish bought out a club option on the right-hander at season’s end.

Barnes spoke with Speier in a full column for the Globe, speaking about the frustration of not being able to live up to his own expectations for himself over the past couple years. “Looking back on it, I’m realizing now that the hip was such a limiting factor in my ability to get into my lower half, subconsciously knowing that it was there,” Barnes told Speier. “The nature of the injury with the hip, it didn’t allow me to get over my front side and truly rotate and create power.”

Time will tell whether Barnes can ever recapture the form he showed from Opening Day through early August in 2021, though with a shoulder injury and notable hip surgery separating present-day Barnes from that peak version, it feels like something of a long shot. But even if Barnes never gets back to fanning more than 40% of his opponents, there’s a middle ground where he can be an effective late-inning reliever. Just about every club in baseball is looking for low-cost, low-risk ways to beef up their bullpens this time of season. Barnes’ track record should hold appeal in that regard, though the ultimate price tag will come down to how he looks in bullpen sessions. Most clubs will likely want to bring him to camp on a non-roster deal, but a 40-man spot doesn’t seem out of the question if he looks promising enough in a workout for clubs.

The Top Unsigned Right-Handed Relievers

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Pitchers and catchers will be reporting to Spring Training in about two weeks but a slow offseason means there are still plenty of free agents out there. Over the past week, MLBTR has already taken a look at the remaining catchers, first basemen, second basemen, third basemen, shortstops, center fielders, corner outfielders, designated hitters,  starting pitchers and left-handed relievers. We’ll now wrap things up with a look at the right-handed relievers.

  • Phil Maton: Acquired from Cleveland in the 2021 Myles Straw trade, Maton has quietly been very effective over the past two years. Since the start of 2022, he has made 135 appearances for the Astros with a 3.42 earned run average. His 26.5% strikeout rate in that time is a few ticks above league average while his 8.8% walk rate is right around par. He’s been excellent at limiting hard contact, as seen on his Statcast page. His 23.5% hard hit rate last year was actually the best in the majors among qualified pitchers, while his average exit velocity was in the top five. In 2022, he was in the top 10 in both those categories as well. He missed the 2022 postseason due to injury but made six scoreless appearances for the Astros in last year’s playoffs. He has received reported interest this offseason from teams like the Phillies, Yankees and Cardinals.
  • Ryne Stanek: Another former Astro, Stanek has made 186 appearances over the past three years with a 2.90 ERA. He has struck out 27% of batters faced but also given out walks at a 12.2% clip. That strikeout rate fell to 23.9% in 2023, but he also cut his walk rate to 9.9%, a career low for him. He has reportedly received interest from the Cubs, Red Sox and Mets this winter.
  • Ryan Brasier: The 2023 season was inconsistent for Brasier, a reflection of his career overall. After a stint in Japan, he returned to North America with the Red Sox in 2018, posting a 1.60 ERA. From there, his season-by-season ERA went to 4.85, 3.96, 1.50, 5.78 and then 3.02 in the most recent campaign. That 2023 ERA involved a 7.29 mark with the Red Sox and then a tiny 0.70 figure with the Dodgers. When combining his time with both of those clubs last year, his peripherals ended up pretty close to his career numbers. He struck out 23.5% of batters faced and gave out walks to 8% of them last year, near his career rates of 24.1% and 7.4%. Since he finished the year on such a strong note, he has received a fair amount of interest this winter, with clubs like the Cardinals, Dodgers, Angels, Cubs, Orioles, Rangers and Yankees connected to him at various points.
  • Jesse Chavez: Though he’s now 40 years old, Chavez doesn’t seem to be slowing down. He made 36 appearances for Atlanta last year with a 1.56 ERA. He surely had a bit of help from the baseball gods there, with a .273 batting average on balls in play and 81.2% strand rate, but the peripherals were still strong. He struck out 27.1% of batters faced, walked 8.3% and kept 51.7% of balls in play on the ground. His 3.05 FIP and 3.35 SIERA were much higher than his ERA but still represent solid work. He missed about three months of last season after being hit in the leg by a comebacker but was back on the mound before the end of the year.
  • Liam Hendriks: If Hendriks were healthy right now, he would be on the top of this list. He cemented himself as one of the best closers in baseball a few years ago and racked up 115 saves over the past five seasons. He has a 2.32 ERA since the start of 2019, having struck out 38.3% of batters faced while walking just 5.1% of them. Unfortunately, 2023 was an incredibly challenging year for the right-hander, as he first had to undergo treatment for non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma. After winning that battle and returning to the mound, he required Tommy John surgery in early August. Since the rehab for that procedure generally goes beyond one year, it’s questionable whether he will be able to pitch at all in the upcoming campaign, though he has said he’s targeting a return around the trade deadline. He can likely find a two-year deal somewhere, with the signing club understanding that they will have a better shot of getting return on their investment in 2025.

Honorable mentions: Jay Jackson, Brad Boxberger, Shintaro Fujinami, Derek Law, Mark Melancon, Matt Barnes

Quick Hits: Int’l Signings, Cooper, Correa, Barnes

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Earlier this week, reporter Nathanael Pérez Neró of Diario Libre reported that Major League Baseball voided over 50 official and unofficial agreements between teams and international prospects.  In a follow-up piece for The Athletic, Evan Drellich and Ken Rosenthal wrote that the league is trying to again crack down on a spate of suspected age and identity fraud cases within the international signing circuit, as some Dominican Republic-based trainers (known as buscones, who scout and help develop future prospects) have figured out how to work around a past set of guidelines established around 15 years ago.

International prospects can only be officially signed at age 16, yet is widely known that teams line up these deals sometimes multiple years ahead of a prospect’s eligibility period, which can lead to some paperwork confusion (at best) or outright fraud as worst.  In several of the 50-odd scuttled agreements, teams including the Astros, Athletics, Mets, Red Sox, Royals, Twins, and Yankees learned that they were scouting or had agreements to sign prospects who were years older than their reported ages, including some who were lined up for hefty bonuses in future int’l signing windows.

More from around baseball as we start a new week….

  • The Red Sox have some level of interest in first baseman Garrett Cooper, with MassLive.com’s Chris Cotillo (links to X) describing Cooper as a backup plan if the Sox can’t re-sign Adam Duvall.  Cooper has some right field experience but has played only first base and DH over the last two seasons, so Duvall is perhaps the better fit as a right-handed hitter who could complement any of Boston’s lefty-swinging outfield options.  Known for his solid production as a member of the Miami lineup, Cooper’s slash line dipped to .251/.304/.419 over 457 plate appearances with the Marlins and Padres in 2023
  • Coming off a down year that involved an ongoing battle with plantar fasciitis in his left foot, Carlos Correa is feeling fully recovered, as the Twins shortstop told the Minneapolis Star Tribune’s Gavin Dorsey and other reporters.  Correa got an early start to his usual offseason work due to both his effort to entirely rehab his foot, and to make changes to his swing mechanics.  It is a marked difference from last offseason, when Correa’s unusual free agent situation and concerns about a past ankle injury resulted in his taking about a month off to prevent any further injuries to impact his market.  As a result, Correa said “coming into spring training, I didn’t feel like I was prepared….This year, I do feel ready.”
  • Free agent reliever Matt Barnes is planning to throw for scouts next week, MLB Network’s Jon Morosi reports (X link).  Barnes entered the market in November when the Marlins spent $2.25MM to buy out Barnes’ $9MM club option for 2024 — an expected move, considering Barnes had a 5.48 ERA over 21 1/3 innings before his season was cut short by hip surgery.  An All-Star as recently as 2021, Barnes usually posted numbers in the Red Sox bullpen from 2016-21, but injuries and inconsistency have cropped up over the last few years.

Marlins Decline Club Options On Johnny Cueto, Matt Barnes

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As expected, the Marlins won’t be picking up their club options on two pitchers.  The New York Post’s Jon Heyman reports that Johnny Cueto’s $10.5MM option will be bought out for $2.5MM, and Daniel Alvarez-Montes of El Extrabase reports that Matt Barnes’ $9MM option will be bought out for $2.25MM.  (Both links to X.)

Cueto signed a one-year contract worth $8.5MM in guaranteed money last winter, as the Marlins saw the veteran righty as a way to add some experience and depth to an overall young rotation.  Unfortunately, the gambit didn’t pay off, as Cueto posted a 6.02 ERA while tossing only 52 1/3 innings over 13 appearances.  Right biceps tightness sent Cueto to the injured list for over the half the season, and he had a 15-day IL stint due to a viral infection at the end of August.

2024 will be Cueto’s 17th Major League season and his age-38 season, though there hasn’t been any indication that the right-hander is considering retirement.  He’ll probably have to settle for a minor league deal in the wake of his underwhelming year in Miami, but teams are forever in need of pitching, and Cueto will likely get another look to see if he has anything left in the tank.  As recently as 2022, Cueto had a 3.35 ERA in 158 1/3 innings with the White Sox, so a return to that form might be possible if he can just stay healthy.

Injuries also ruined Barnes’ season, as his 2023 campaign was prematurely ended by a hip surgery in July.  Barnes struggled to a 5.48 ERA in 21 1/3 innings prior to that IL trip.  Though a .348 BABIP and 4.35 SIERA indicated that Barnes was somewhat unlucky, he posted a below-average strikeout rate for the second consecutive season.

Between Barnes’ hip surgery, a shoulder injury in 2022, and generally a lot of up-and-down performance over the last three seasons, it was a pretty easy call for the Marlins to decline the option.  Miami acquired Barnes in a trade with the Red Sox last offseason, and Barnes’ two-year, $18.75MM deal was initially signed with the Sox back in July 2021.  Since Boston covered a good chunk of Barnes’ 2023 salary, it was a relatively risk-free move for the Marlins, especially since Richard Bleier (who went to the Sox in the trade) also didn’t pitch well last year.

Marlins Acquire David Robertson

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The Mets and Marlins pulled off a late-night divisional swap on Thursday. Miami acquired veteran reliever David Robertson in exchange for low minors prospects Marco Vargas and Ronald Hernandez. The Fish transferred Matt Barnes to the 60-day injured list to clear a 40-man roster spot.

Robertson was one of the top rental relievers on the trade market for the second straight summer. The Cubs flipped the right-hander to the Phillies at last year’s deadline, bringing back pitching prospect Ben Brown. Robertson helped Philadelphia’s run to a pennant in 2022; he’ll hope for a similar late-season push in Miami.

Signed to a one-year, $10MM free agent deal over the offseason, the former All-Star was supposed to assume a key setup role in Queens. Edwin Díaz’s freak knee injury pushed Robertson into the ninth inning unexpectedly. While much of the New York roster has underperformed, the 15-year MLB veteran had a very strong few months in Flushing.

Robertson owns a 2.05 ERA across 44 innings. He’s well on his way to what’d be the sixth sub-3.00 showing of his career. He’s striking out just under 28% of opposing hitters while generating whiffs on a quality 13.1% of his offerings. Robertson’s command had been spotty in 2022 — perhaps a reflection of rust after injuries cost him the bulk of the 2019-21 seasons — but he’s dialed the strike-throwing back in this season. Robertson has walked only 7.6% of batters faced.

He’s 14-17 in save opportunities and has picked up an additional seven holds. Robertson has dominated right and left-handed hitters alike this season and brings a rare consistency for a single-inning reliever. He’ll take on a key high-leverage role for the Fish, likely taking over closing duties. Left-handers Tanner Scott and A.J. Puk are also in the late innings. Miami’s bullpen was a bit thinner on right-handed options, so they’ll bring in Robertson one day after a swap of change-of-scenery relievers sent Dylan Floro to Minnesota for Jorge López.

The intra-division swap serves as a reminder of how disappointing the Mets’ 2023 campaign has been. New York, coming off a 101-win season and running the highest payroll in MLB history, entered the year with championship aspirations. Miami was viewed more as an upstart, a team with plenty of young talent that faced an uphill battle to finish higher than fourth in their division.

Four months later, the Marlins are buying from the Mets. Miami held a Wild Card spot for the bulk of the season. They’ve hit a cold spell, dropping nine of their last 11. They now find themselves outside the playoff picture but only marginally, as they’re half a game behind Cincinnati for the National League’s last postseason spot.

With a real chance to make the playoffs in a 162-game schedule for the first time in two decades, the Fish will deal from the low minors to add immediate MLB help. Now that they’ve fortified the bullpen, general manager Kim Ng and her staff could try to bolster the position player group in the coming days. They’ve been tied to infielders like Tim Anderson and Jeimer Candelario in recent days.

Miami appears to have some financial breathing room. Marlins’ owner Bruce Sherman implied as much a few weeks ago, and they’ll put that into practice by taking on the roughly $3.55MM owed to Robertson through season’s end. The Mets haven’t been shy about potentially paying down contracts to facilitate a better prospect return. That apparently wasn’t necessary in Miami’s case. Roster Resource had calculated the Marlins’ payroll around $103.6MM before the deal; it’ll jump past $107MM at this point.

The cash savings for the Mets will go beyond what Miami assumes in salary. Any money which New York offloads would also come with a 90% savings in luxury taxes which the club had been set to pay. The Mets save around $3.2MM in taxes and approximately $6.7MM overall.

More meaningfully, the organization adds a pair of intriguing low level talents. Vargas, 18, is a left-handed hitting infielder out of Mexico. He’d ranked 20th among Miami prospects at Baseball America coming into the season, though BA’s Josh Norris tweets that he was rising up the ranks after impressing evaluators in the complex league this summer.

The outlet’s preseason report praised Vargas’ bat-t0-ball skills and suggested he’s likely to fit best defensively at second base. Eric Longenhagen of FanGraphs ranked him ninth in the Marlins’ system at the end of May, similarly praising his hit tool. Vargas has a .283/.457/.442 line with nearly twice as many walks as strikeouts in 33 games this year.

Hernandez, 19, is a switch-hitting backstop from Venezuela. He’s repeating the level at the complex league but raking at a .298/.464/.452 clip over 31 games. FanGraphs ranked him 24th in the Miami system, crediting his advanced hit tool and above-average arm strength. There’s ample variability in targeting players this young, but each of Vargas and Hernandez seems to have a shot at being an everyday player down the line if they develop as hoped.

That’ll be little consolation for the Mets in the short term. Moving Robertson confirms their increasingly obvious place as deadline sellers. Other potential free agents like Tommy Pham, Carlos Carrasco and Mark Canha (whose contract contains a ’24 club option) could follow Robertson out the door. The Mets may not have the appetite for a larger-scale rebuild, but their place in the standings this year has gotten too hard to ignore.

Ken Rosenthal of the Athletic first reported the Marlins were acquiring Robertson. Rosenthal and Will Sammon first reported the Mets were receiving two minor league hitters in return. Jon Heyman of the New York Post was first with the return of Vargas and Hernandez. The Post’s Joel Sherman confirmed the Marlins were taking on all of Robertson’s remaining money.

Image courtesy of USA Today Sports.

Matt Barnes To Undergo Hip Surgery

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Marlins reliever Matt Barnes will undergo femoral acetabular impingement surgery on his left hip at the end of the month, Jordan McPherson of the Miami Herald relays (on Twitter). He won’t be cleared to begin running or throwing for three months, so his season is almost certainly over.

The surgery also quite likely puts an end to Barnes’ tenure with Miami. Acquired in a trade that sent lefty Richard Bleier to the Red Sox, the former Boston closer was seen as a buy-low candidate by a Marlins club looking for high-leverage arms in the offseason. Barnes was an All-Star in 2021 and looked headed for a significant payday in free agency when he instead signed a two-year extension to remain in Boston. Things almost immediately went south after he put pen to paper on that $18.75MM deal. In the season’s final six weeks, he was rocked for a dozen runs in just 11 2/3 innings.

The Sox hoped Barnes would bounce back the following season, but things didn’t play out that way. A shoulder injury cost Barnes more than two months of the season, and while his 4.31 ERA when healthy was at least respectable, it’s a far cry from what the Sox hoped for when signing him to that two-year pact. Beyond that, Barnes’ 95.2 mph average fastball and 19.3% strikeout rate were both career-lows — a far cry from the 97 mph he averaged at his peak and the 37.8% strikeout rate he posted in 2021.

In Miami, Barnes pitched 21 1/3 but was tagged for a 5.48 ERA in that time. This year’s 93.6 mph average fastball is a career-low by a wide margin of 1.6 mph. His 7.7% swinging-strike rate is one of the lowest marks among relievers and about half the 14.9% he recorded at his best. The revelation of an injury hardly came as a major surprise given those stark declines, and it’s fair to wonder whether Barnes was ever pitching at 100% this season or whether he was simply trying to gut through the injury.

There’s an $8MM club option for the 2024 season on Barnes’ contract, and although the $2.25MM buyout effectively makes it a net $5.75MM decision, it’s still extremely unlikely the Marlins would pick that third year up. Given the extent of Barnes’ struggles in recent years and now the onset of a notable surgery, he’ll likely be bought out and head to free agency, where he’ll either be a candidate for a low-cost, incentive-laden one-year contract or perhaps even a minor league deal. The status of his recovery will play a large role in determining his earning power, and it obviously can’t be known at this time precisely how it’ll all play out.

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