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Marlins Sign Victor Victor Mesa, Victor Mesa Jr.

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10:50am: Victor Victor’s bonus checks in at $5.25MM, while Victor Jr. received a $1MM bonus, per Sanchez (Twitter link).

Oct. 22, 9:55am: The Marlins have formally announced the signing of the Mesa brothers and will be streaming a press conference to introduce the pair at Marlins.com and also on Periscope.

Oct. 20, 2:48pm: Victor Victor is expected to receive a bonus in excess of $5MM, per MLB.com’s Jesse Sanchez on Twitter.

2:12pm: Jon Heyman of Fancred tweets that the Marlins have officially signed the brothers.  Terms of the deals have yet to be released.

1:15pm: Cuban outfield prospect Victor Victor Mesa and brother Victor Mesa Jr. are expected to sign with the Marlins at some point in the next few days, according to Jorge Ebro of El Nuevo Herald.  The news is certainly not official yet, but an unnamed source claims the brothers have passed physicals and will be introduced “imminently” at a Marlins Park press conference (at which Executive Director Derek Jeter and President of Baseball Operations Michael Hill are slated to attend) scheduled for 11 AM Monday.

Victor Victor, 22, was arguably the most coveted amateur free agent on the International market at current, and Ebro’s sources indicate that he’s expected to receive a bonus in excess of $4MM.  Mesa Jr., 17, is expected to receive a bonus “close to” $1MM, per the report.  Right-hander Sandy Gaston, oft mentioned in concert with his countrymen, appears to be headed elsewhere, per Ebro, though FanGraphs’ Kiley McDaniel tweets that “the belief” is that Miami could still find a way to fit him in their ~6.75MM bonus pool, too.

Victor Victor, the son of Cuban baseball luminary Victor Mesa, slashed .354/.399/.539 for Matanzas in his last full season of play (2016-2017, when he was just 20) in Cuba’s Serie Nacional.  Reports have indicated that he may need just minimal seasoning in the minors before getting his shot with the big club, with MLB.com taking particular note of his “outstanding” defense, plus throwing arm and running ability, and potential to hit at the top of a lineup.  The older Mesa starred in a recent showcase at his soon-to-be new home park, where he impressed scouts during a live batting practice session.  Mesa Jr.’s calling cards appear to be an above-average arm and plus contact ability, though at age 17, he certainly has plenty of projection remaining.

The addition of the Mesa brothers, particularly the elder of the two, is an important step in the Marlins’ ongoing rebuild of the organization under new ownership.  Last offseason’s trades of Giancarlo Stanton, Marcell Ozuna, Christian Yelich and Dee Gordon marked a clear retooling effort with a focus not only on shedding payroll but also adding a wave of young talent to the organization.  This latest pair of additions will only further the goal of creating a foundation of intriguing young players.  With most of its pool now exhausted, Miami will look to offseason trades and a favorable No. 4 overall selection in the 2019 draft as additional avenues to bolster its growing reservoir of prospects.

International Notes: Kikuchi, Gaston, Jimenez

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It’s already been reported in Japan that the Seibu Lions intend to post ace left-hander Yusei Kikuchi for Major League teams this offseason, but the pitcher himself said after his team was eliminated from the postseason that he has not yet made a firm decision (link via Jason Coskrey of the Japan Times). “Well, the season just ended,” Kikuchi said. “…Regarding the future, it’s not all up to me. I haven’t had a chance to talk with the team.” Kikuchi, 27, added that he needs to spend time with his family to ponder the decision before making any firm request. Coskrey writes that the Lions have publicly acknowledged that they would honor Kikuchi’s request if he ultimately wishes to be posted. Kikuchi turned in 163 2/3 innings of 3.08 ERA ball with 8.4 K/9 against 2.5 BB/9 for the Lions this season. In 1035 1/3 career innings in Japan, the three-time All-Star has a 2.81 ERA with 8.0 K/9 and 3.3 BB/9 — including a combined 2.58 ERA over the past four seasons.

If he is posted, Kikuchi would be free of international spending restrictions and could negotiate with all 30 MLB clubs on a contract. The new posting system between MLB and NPB would require Kikuchi’s new team to pay a fee equal to 20 percent of his contract’s first $25MM, plus 17.5 percent of his next $25MM and 15 percent of anything beyond that (including incentives, option buyouts, etc.).

A few more notes on the international market…

  • The Marlins spent virtually all of their international bonus pool on brothers Victor Victor Mesa and Victor Mesa Jr., meaning right-hander Sandy Gaston almost certainly won’t be joining the Miami organization. Jorge Ebro of El Nuevo Herald reports that Gaston’s camp is seeking a bonus north of $2MM for the 17-year-old flamethrower, with both the Orioles and Rays listed as potential landing spots. Baltimore has a reported sum of near $6.5MM left to spend on international amateurs, while Tampa Bay’s remaining international pool is in the $3.5MM range at present.
  • The White Sox have signed infielder Enoy Jimenez, the 17-year-old younger brother of top prospect Eloy Jimenez, reports Ben Badler of Baseball America (via Twitter). Scouting information on the younger Jimenez brother is virtually nonexistent, though it should be noted that the White Sox are barred from spending more than $300K on any international amateur signing due to their pool-shattering $26MM agreement with Luis Robert from the 2016-17 signing period, meaning Enoy couldn’t have received an especially large bonus. That certainly doesn’t mean that Enoy isn’t without upside — many high-profile Latin American players sign for only a few thousand dollars — but whatever the exact amount of the bonus was, it undoubtedly falls well shy of the $2.8MM the Cubs paid to sign Eloy back in 2013.

NL Notes: Marlins, Machado, Rockies

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MLB.com’s Joe Frisaro tweeted today that the Marlins have announced a press conference for Monday at Marlins Park. No news yet as to the specifics, but with Derek Jeter and President of Baseball Ops Michael Hill planned to be in attendance, speculation is there will be news regarding the Mesa brothers. Still, it’s only speculation as of now, and we’ll have to wait for tomorrow’s press conference to confirm the specifics. Stay tuned.

In the meantime, a couple of other notes…

  • Fancred’s Jon Heyman talks to executives around the league about Manny Machado’s upcoming free agency and whether or not his recent antics will adversely affect his earning potential. Machado’s recent character issues trouble many around the league, but his on-field talent continues to speak for itself. One executive suggests the Phillies may be the only team willing to give Machado the monster payday many have expected, but at this stage any specific prediction remains speculative. People close to Machado have suggested he wants to return to the East Coast – specifically the Yankees – but it remains to be seen how exactly the market will shape up for the talented infielder.
  • Kyle Newman of the Denver Post suggests the Rockies could push right-handers Yency Almonte and DJ Johnson into bigger roles next season. Newman presuppose the departures of  Seunghwan Oh, back to Korea, and Adam Ottavino to free agency, but they’re interesting names to dig into regardless. Baseball America listed the 6’3” Almonte as the 8th best prospect in the Rockies system last season prior to his debut in June, while Johnson is an undrafted 29-year-old rookie having spent time in four organizations. Almonte was a starter in the minors, but a 97-98 mph fastball and power slider certainly play well late in games if that’s how the Rockies choose to deploy him. Johnson’s stuff isn’t as overpowering, but he nevertheless produced a gaudy 13.66 K/9 while pitching in Triple-A this season. That nearly doubles his strikeout rate of the previous two seasons, but he kept it up across 6.1 innings as a September callup (12.79 K/9). Neither Almonte nor Johnson are locks to take on major roles in the Rockies bullpen, but especially in a bullpen with quite a few overpriced, underperforming veterans already on the books, they represent valuable low-cost options that manager Bud Black may turn to in 2019.

Marlins Acquire International Pool Money From Astros

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12:49pm: The Marlins added $500K in spending capacity to their coffers in today’s swap, per MLB.com’s Mark Feinsand (via Twitter).

11:04am: The Marlins and Astros have officially struck a deal that will send yet more international bonus pool availability to the Miami organization, as MLB.com’s Joe Frisaro first reported (via Twitter). Houston will receive a pair of prospects — outfielder Adonis Giron and lefty Brayan De Paula — in the swap.

It is not yet known how much spending capacity will flow to the Marlins in this deal. Per another Frisaro tweet, though, the Fish believe they’ve now got deeper pockets to work with than do the Orioles — the other primary competitor for the top international amateur talent left for bidding in the current signing period.

At last glance, the Marlins had moved past $6MM in pool space after yet another swap. The club needed to pick up over $2MM in funds to exceed the $6.7MM the Orioles were believed to be working with. Bonus pool availability — which sets a hard cap on spending — can only be dealt in $250K increments. Teams are limited to adding 75% of their starting allocation.

The remaining international market is widely said to offer three top prizes, all of whom evidently are objects of the Marlins’ and Orioles’ affections. Victor Victor Mesa is generally viewed as the best player available, with his younger brother Victor Mesa Jr. and righty Sandy Gaston also graded as intriguing young assets. Each member of this trio of Cubans is subject to international spending limitations.

Much like the other teams that have struck deals of late with the Marlins — the Nationals and Reds — the Astros weren’t able to put their existing international pool space to full use. By virtue of prior spending penalties, imposed under the prior rules regime, the Houston organization was barred from spending more than #400K on any given player.

The ’Stros, then, decided instead to use that availability to pick up a pair of youthful players — recent international signees themselves. The 17-year-old Giron spent the year with the Marlins’ Dominican Summer League entrant, slashing .255/.331/.362 in 275 plate appearances. He previously inked for $350K, with a reputedly intriguing bat. De Paula, 19, also appeared on the DSL roster for a second consecutive year, spinning 44 1/3 innings of 2.23 ERA ball with 9.1 K/9 against 2.4 BB/9.

Latest On Marlins' Front Office Moves

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  • In the latest Marlins organizational news, the team hired Adrian Lorenzo as a special assistant in scouting and baseball operations, the Boston Globe’s Alex Speier reports (via Twitter).  Lorenzo had previously been working as assistant director of international scouting for the Red Sox.  The Marlins also let go of pro scouting director Jim Cuthbert earlier this week, according to the Miami Herald’s Clark Spencer (Twitter link), ending Cuthbert’s three-year tenure with the franchise.
  • These changes and the recent overhaul of the Marlins’ coaching staff are just the latest in an extensive front office reshuffle since Derek Jeter and Bruce Sherman took over the team, and since Jeter hired Gary Denbo as Miami’s VP of player development and scouting.  While it isn’t unusual for new owners to put their personal stamp on a team, “people in baseball are just mystified by Denbo’s actions,” according to Nick Cafardo of the Boston Globe, and “morale in that organization, I’m told, is at an all-time low.”

Quick Hits: Yankees, Diamondbacks, Rangers, Orioles

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The Yankees were impressed enough with Aaron Boone’s first season at the helm to bring back his entire staff for 2019, tweets George A. King III of the New York Post. Boone made a number of changes to the staff after the 2017 season, promoting Marcus Thames to hitting coach and installing bench coach Josh Bard, third-base coach Phil Nevin and first-base coach Reggie Willits, among others. The 2018 coaching crew will get a chance to run it back after an impressive 100-win season and a second straight playoff appearance.

Here’s a couple other notes from around the MLB…

  • The Diamondbacks are replacing their natural playing surface with artificial turf in advance of the 2019 season. Arizona’s baseball operations staff conducted in-depth research, finding their new dual-fiber surface provides performance and health benefits previously unavailable. The retractable roof at Chase Field made it increasingly difficult to maintain consistent growing conditions for their natural surface. Arizona will join Tampa Bay and Toronto as the only franchises to utilize an artificial turf, though the Rangers are reportedly considering a similar surface for their new stadium. Evan Grant of the Dallas Morning News writes that Texas has yet to make a decision on the playing surface for the stadium set to open in 2020, but decision-makers within the organization will be closely monitoring the situation in Arizona.
  • Jon Meoli of the Baltimore Sun writes that there’s symbolic value to the Orioles’ attempts to woo top Cuban prospect Victor Victor Mesa, even if they can’t close the deal. Considering the Marlins’ recent push to collect international spending pool money and their cultural ties to Cuba, Miami is now widely considered the favorites to sign Victor Victor Mesa, though Mesa’s intentions are as of now unclear.
  • In a separate tweet, Meoli suggests that the Orioles summer trade of starting pitcher Kevin Gausman to the Braves was motivated by financial considerations. Though not initially presented as a primary concern, the trade cleared Gausman and Darren O’Day’s contracts from the Baltimore ledger in 2019 and beyond. Gausman has two more seasons of arbitration eligibility remaining after making $5.6MM in 2018. Darren O’Day has yet to pitch for the Braves, though he’ll likely have a role in their bullpen next season as he’s under contract for $9MM in 2019.

Marlins Outright Six Players

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The Marlins announced Friday that right-handers Tyler Cloyd, James Needy and Javy Guerra, left-hander Chris O’Grady, infielder Christopher Bostick and outfielder Rafael Ortega have all been outrighted off the 40-man roster after clearing waivers (O’Grady was first reinstated from the 60-day DL).

Cloyd, 31, allowed 17 runs in 17 2/3 innings for the Fish in his largest slate of big league work since the 2013 campaign with the Phillies. The 32-year-old Guerra (33 on Halloween) was unable to repeat the success he had with the 2017 Marlins, as he was clobbered for a 5.55 ERA in 35 2/3 innings (albeit with a more encouraging 30-to-12 K/BB ratio). O’Grady pitched just seven innings in his second season with the Fish and has a 4.73 ERA with 38 strikeouts against 22 walks in 40 Major League innings. Needy, meanwhile, did not pitch in 2018 after a solid 2017 campaign and also missed the 2016 season due to injury.

As for the position players, the 25-year-old Bostick was acquired from the Pirates for cash in August but saw just 16 plate appearances in the Majors. He’s a .256/.360/.326 hitter in a tiny sample of 50 plate appearances as a big leaguer and a .275/.337/.391 hitter in 1189 Triple-A plate appearances. Ortega, 27, logged 143 plate appearances with the Marlins this season and batted .233/.287/.271. Like Bostick, he has limited MLB experience but a solid track record in Triple-A (.299/.368/.423).

Marlins’ International Pool Nearly Even With Orioles Following Barraclough Trade

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TODAY: The Marlins picked up $1MM of bonus availability in the swap with the Nats, per Spencer (via Twitter). The prior deal with the Reds brought in $750K, MLB.com’s Jesse Sanchez tweets, meaning that the Miami organization has just over $6MM in spending capacity to work with.

YESTERDAY: The Marlins and Orioles have long been considered the two front-runners to sign top prospect Victor Victor Mesa and his younger brother, Victor Mesa Jr., given the fact that they possess the two largest remaining international bonus pools. At the time of the showcase featuring the Mesa brothers and hard-throwing righty Sandy Gaston, a fellow Cuban prospect of intrigue, Baltimore was reported to have a $6.7MM pool to the Marlins’ $4.3MM allotment.

However, Clark Spencer of the Miami Herald reports (via Twitter) that following the weekend trade sending prospect Ryan Lillie to the Reds and this morning’s relatively stunning trade of Kyle Barraclough to the Nationals, the Marlins have “almost as much” international money as the Orioles. The specific amount that the Nationals sent to the Marlins in order to acquire the final three years of club control over Barraclough isn’t clear, but in order for the Marlins to be within striking distance, it’d have to be substantial.

Slot money must be traded in increments of at least $250K, per the collective bargaining agreement, so we know that following this past weekend’s trade of Lillie, the Marlins were up to at least $4.55MM in pool allotments. Based on that number and the fact that Spencer indicates the Marlins are still somewhat shy, it seems reasonable to deduce that the Nats couldn’t have sent more than $2MM to Miami.

Washington opened the 2018-19 signing period with a total pool of $4,983,500 but was also barred from spending more than $300K on any one signing as penalty for significant overages in previous signing periods. Per Baseball America’s Ben Badler, the Nats had already signed three players — Jeremy de la Rosa, Yeuri Amparov and Edwin Mercedes — for their maximum $300K, and the team had made another 15 signings, though the values of those additional signings is not clear.

The Marlins have reportedly been trying to sell the brothers Mesa and Gaston on their proximity to Cuba and the strong Latin American population in the Miami area. The Fish did host the showcase for the three prospects last week, and they reportedly had personalized lockers set up in the clubhouse to help the trio visualize the possibility of playing there in the future.

While the showcase was closed to the media, Kiley McDaniel and Eric Longenhagen of Fangraphs spoke to a number of scouts who were on hand and provided a breakdown of the overall opinions of the players involved. Victor Victor Mesa’s 60-yard dash time clocked in at 6.5 seconds, placing him at a 65 to 70 on the 20-80 scouting scale, per McDaniel and Longenhagen, who pegged a 50-grade (average) on his raw power. Their detailed report, which is free to read and features plenty of detail for those interested in the group, notes that Albert Almora’s name came up as an oft-mentioned comp for the elder Mesa brother.

Gaston, meanwhile, hit 97 mph and showed better feel for his secondary offerings. The younger Mesa brother checked in a bit slower on the 60-yard dash (6.9 seconds) but had an above-average throwing arm and an above-average hit tool. Notably, McDaniel and Longenhagen write that they feel the Marlins are the favorites to land Victor Victor Mesa, which would likely make them the favorites to land Mesa Jr., as the two are said to be considered a package deal.

Nationals Acquire Kyle Barraclough

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The Nationals announced that they have acquired reliever Kyle Barraclough in a trade with the Marlins. $1MM of international bonus availability will head to Miami in the swap, Clark Spencer of the Miami Herald reports (via Twitter).

This transaction comes as a surprise, though the timing may well be explained by the Marlins’ well-known efforts to land top Cuban prospect Victor Victor Mesa. This’ll pad the team’s bonus coffers as it pursues Mesa — also a reputed target of the Orioles — and other talented amateur players who hail from outside of North America.

For the Nats, meanwhile, the move slots in a high-powered relief arm at a palatable price. The club was barred from spending more than $300K on the current international market regardless. And Barraclough projects to earn only $1.9MM in his first trip through arbitration.

Of course, there’s a reason that Barraclough was available for a return that doesn’t really sting his new club. The 28-year-old continued to show big velocity and swing-and-miss stuff in 2018 — he owns a career rate of 11.5 strikeouts per nine — but he continued to deal with major control problems and his results plummeted over the course of the season.

Indeed, after he held 170 opposing hitters to a putrid .126/.254/.217 slash to open the season, the next 75 to step in the box against Barraclough battered him to the tune of a .367/.486/.667 batting line. It’s hard to know just what went wrong, though some release-point issues seem to correlate with changes in the movement of his arsenal. This all occurred in the same general mid-season timeframe as Barraclough’s dip in effectiveness and trip to the DL for a shoulder impingement.

For the Nats, then, this move injects a rather volatile piece into the bullpen. There’s certainly some upside, though; indeed, Barraclough has delivered 218 2/3 innings of 3.21 ERA ball in his career despite the fact that he has consistently issued more than five free passes per nine innings. If he pans out, he’ll also be controllable for two additional seasons.

Surely, the Marlins hoped not long ago that they’d be able to get more for a controllable power arm with high-leverage experience. Unfortunately, though, they ultimately decided to cash him in at a moment when there was an opportunity to take a more future-oriented risk. In some regards, that’s not so different from the reasoning that brought Barraclough to Miami in the first place, when he was picked up in a mid-season deal that sent then-struggling closer Steve Cishek to the Cardinals.

Photo courtesy of USA Today Sports Images.

Marlins, Mattingly Have Yet To Discuss New Contract

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  • Even as the Marlins make some changes to their coaching staff, they haven’t given indication that they’ll replace skipper Don Mattingly in his post. That said, Bob Nightengale of USA Today tweets that there hasn’t been any effort on the part of the team to extend Mattingly’s contract, which is entering its final season. It’s certainly possible that’ll still come to pass, though it would hardly be surprising if the club preferred instead to maintain the status quo.
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