Brewers Select Contract Of Tyrone Taylor
The Brewers announced today that they have selected the contract of outfielder Tyrone Taylor. With that move, and the departure of three free agents from the 40-man roster, the club has two roster spots to work with at present.
Once considered one of the Milwaukee organization’s very best prospects, owing primarily to his defensive profile, Taylor fell largely off the map as he struggled to reach base or hit for power with any real consistency. The 24-year-old was a second-round selection in the 2012 draft, so he has been eligible for the Rule 5 draft quite a few times, but has never drawn outside interest.
Taylor would have qualified for minor-league free agency in a few days had it not been for this move. Whether or not he’ll remain a part of the picture in Milwaukee isn’t clear, as Taylor could conceivably be utilized as trade bait, but the club obviously felt he had shown enough in 2018 to have real value.
Despite first reaching the Double-A level (albeit briefly) in 2014, Taylor did not touch the highest level of the minors until the just-completed campaign. Once there, he followed through on the burst of life he had shown in an injury-shortened 2017 effort, turning in 481 plate appearances of .278/.321/.504 hitting along with twenty long balls — his first double-digit homer tally.
NL Central Notes: Murphy, Brewers, Reds
While Daniel Murphy was largely viewed as a rental when the Cubs acquired him, president of baseball operations Theo Epstein hasn’t closed the door on retaining the veteran infielder, writes MLB.com’s Carrie Muskat. “I wouldn’t rule anything out,” said Epstein. “He did a lot to right our offense right after he got here and contribute while being asked to play a bigger role than we envisioned when we got him because of injuries and because of a lack of performance offensively and because of the schedule.” Murphy stumbled out of the gates in 2018 upon returning to the from offseason knee surgery, but he hit .322/.358/.502 from July through season’s end — including a .297/.329/.471 slash after the Nats traded him to the Cubs. Addison Russell‘s suspension has clouded the Cubs’ middle-infield picture, though Murphy’s defense at second base has graded out terribly over the past two seasons, which the Cubs will have to consider.
It seems plausible that some clubs will prefer Murphy as a first baseman rather than a second baseman, though the Cubs have Anthony Rizzo locked in at first, so they’d have to be convinced he can play second base on a fairly regular basis.
Here’s more from the division …
- New Reds skipper David Bell discussed his approach to the position, as Bobby Nightengale of the Cincinnati Enquirer writes. He acknowledges being relatively new to the application of analytics to the field, but says he has “gone through a process the last five years of asking a lot of questions, understanding the information, understanding how to utilize it and how to factor it into all decisions.” That experience will surely help Bell in his current role, in which he says he’ll be open to incorporating all manner of information. Indeed, he indicated that he finds it “a very exciting time in baseball” with whole new approaches to deploying rosters percolating around the game.
- The Brewers undeniably had a successful 2018 campaign, but it occurred despite of the struggles of righty Chase Anderson, who inked a short-term extension at the end of the prior season. As Todd Rosiak of the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel reports, Anderson wrapped up the current year saying he has plans to get back on track for 2019. GM David Stearns, meanwhile, says the organization expects the same. Anderson, who’ll soon turn 31, did finish with a solid 3.93 ERA in 158 innings. But ERA estimators including FIP (5.22), xFIP (4.79), and SIERA (4.68) were not impressed, and Anderson failed to sustain the slight but notable velocity bump from the season prior.
Brewers Announce Changes To Coaching Staff
The Brewers announced today that they will be seeking two new coaches, as Tom Haudricourt of the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel was among those to report (Twitter link). Hitting coach Darnell Coles decided to leave the organization, while bullpen coach Lee Tunell and head athletic trainer Dan Wright will not be asked back.
Unsurprisingly, manager Craig Counsell will be back for his third full season in the dugout. He’ll be looking for a pair of new lieutenants for the 2019 season and will also be working with a new head trainer, as the club has decided to move on from Dan Wright.
Coles, a long-time major-leaguer, had served as hitting coach since the 2015 season. The 56-year-old had previously worked in the Milwaukee farm system before joining the Tigers as assistant hitting coach. Current Brewers hitting coach Jason Lane is said to be a possible candidate to take over for Coles but will also be allowed to pursue jobs with other clubs.
As for Tunnell, he’ll move on after a long run as the club’s bullpen coach. A former big league hurler, he had stepped into the position in the middle of the 2012 season and held onto the job when Counsell took over for Ron Roenicke.
Stearns On Brewers’ Offseason, Future Outlook
After a deflating coda to one of the most successful seasons in franchise history, Brewers GM David Stearns held court with the media yesterday to discuss the team’s position heading into the 2019 season. Though obviously disheartened with the club’s Game Seven performance at home last Saturday, the third-year boss sees little reason for pessimism in the near future.
“From an organizational perspective, I’m incredibly proud of how our organization presented itself throughout the season and particularly on a national stage in October,” Stearns said. “Another rewarding aspect is we genuinely believe we are set up to succeed going forward. We return the vast majority of the core of this team. We return that core for multiple years going forward.”
Indeed, the Brewers boast just three players – lefties Wade Miley and Gio Gonzalez, along with 37-year-old Curtis Granderson – who stand to hit free agency this offseason. With a glut of emerging rotation candidates, including Brandon Woodruff, Freddy Peralta, and Corbin Burnes, and regulars with lengthy track records entrenched at multiple positions, the 2019 Brewers figure to look strikingly similar to the current version.
“From a specific standpoint, a positional standpoint at the major-league level, we have the vast majority of our team returning,” said Stearns. “So, I don’t know that I would pinpoint a particular area or two that we see that absolutely must be addressed. But there are going to be opportunities to improve our team in the off-season, and we’re going to work hard to take advantage of those opportunities.”
Milwaukee will face difficult decisions with Joakim Soria and Mike Moustakas, over whom the club holds contract options for the upcoming season, and Jonathan Schoop, whose $10.1MM projected arbitration salary (per MLBTR’s Matt Swartz) is hardly congruent with his recent output. The Brewers hold a $10MM option over the 34-year-old Soria, who stands as one of the game’s few relievers able to sustain success for more than a decade – the two-time All-Star enjoyed one of his best seasons in 2018, posting his highest strikeout rate (11.13 K/9) in nine years and again limiting walks and homers at an elite rate. His 92.4 MPH average fastball sits in perfect harmony with his marks in the category over the last few years and again ranked as one of the league’s most effective, per FanGraphs’ pitch value ratings. He’s surely worth the figure, but might be a luxury item for the mid-market club already possessing of an elite back-end bullpen. Moustakas, 30, has a mutual option with the Crew for $15MM in ’19 and seems most likely to be cut loose – his presence, after all, would mean an unorthodox return to second base for the 6’4, 230 lb Travis Shaw, likely rendering Schoop – for whom the Brewers gave up a package that included Jonathan Villar, who easily outperformed Schoop last season, and highly regarded hurler Luis Ortiz – a platoon bat at best, if retained.
The only clear area of upgrade may be shortstop, where former top prospect Orlando Arcia sputtered to a dreadful 54 wRC+ and .235 xWOBA this season. Arcia’s defense, long seen as sufficient to overcome a hole-ridden swing, has received mostly ambivalent reviews in his three-year career thus far, with UZR (-5.3 total) being a bit more skeptical than DRS (+8). The Crew could turn to Schoop, though his mostly average marks at the keystone wouldn’t seem to portend well at a more demanding position, or pursue a trade, though the options, much like the free agent market at the position, are far from promising. Catcher could be another option, though Stephen Vogt hopes to be ready by Spring Training in his recovery from a shoulder tear. For bait, the club could look to deal from its a long-standing surplus in the outfield, where even former middle-of-the-order stalwarts Domingo Santana and Eric Thames struggled to find at-bats down the stretch.
In all, the Brewers project to have a ~$25MM payroll bump (to an estimated $115MM, per Roster Resource and MLBTR’s Jason Martinez) before the option decisions, so the team doesn’t figure to be major players in free agency, though Stearns certainly didn’t rule it out: “I certainly imagine that we are going to show up in spring training with a slightly different-looking roster than the one we have right now, perhaps in ways that we don’t envision.”
NL Notes: Schoop, Escobar, Diamondbacks, Kang, Pirates
The Brewers will have a tough call to make on Jonathan Schoop following the infielder’s struggles in 2018, and general manager David Stearns opted not to tip his hand when it comes to tendering a contract to the arbitration-eligible slugger (link via MLB.com’s Adam McCalvy). “That’s a discussion that we’re going to have to continue to have here over the next couple of weeks to a month,” said Stearns. “…He has had really impressive stretches throughout his career, and unfortunately for both him and us, we didn’t see one of those stretches when he was a Brewer. We’ll sit down to see if we can determine why, and then we’ll go forward.” Schoop, 27, was one of the game’s most productive infielders in 2017 but turned in an awful .233/.266/.416 slash through 501 plate appearances this year — including a brutal .202/.246/.331 slash with the Brewers. MLBTR contributor Matt Swartz projects him to earn a $10.1MM salary in 2019.
Here’s more from the NL…
- The Diamondbacks‘ surprising new deal with versatile infielder Eduardo Escobar opens a plethora of options for the organization this offseason, The Athletic’s Zach Buchanan writes in an expansive look at the team’s options (subscription link). The move first and foremost indicates that the Snakes aren’t gearing up for a complete rebuild, but it does allow the team the freedom to shift some pieces around. Jake Lamb could head to first base in the event of an oft-speculated Paul Goldschmidt deal, Buchanan notes, or Escobar could find regular work at shortstop should Nick Ahmed be moved. If the team doesn’t subtract any pieces, he could even play second base in place of Ketel Marte, whom Buchanan reports has been discussed internally as a center field option. General manager Mike Hazen, who discusses the move at length in the column, made clear that Escobar will be in line for regular at-bats next season, even if the exact plan will obviously dependent on the remainder of the offseason. The 29-year-old Escobar hit .268/.327/.444 with the D-backs following a trade from the Twins and slashed .272/.334/.489 with 23 homers, 48 doubles and three triples on the season as a whole.
- While the Pirates haven’t given a firm indication as to whether they’ll exercise Jung Ho Kang‘s $5.5MM club option for the 2019 season, MLB.com’s Adam Berry takes a look at the situation and suggests it’s quite possible that Kang will return for another season. General manager Neal Huntington recently suggested that the team and Kang may need to find a middle ground rather than bringing him back at the full $5.5MM value of the option — implying that the Pirates could pay a $250K buyout and bring Kang back at a lower guaranteed base salary. Berry also notes that it’s unlikely the team will move on from Colin Moran despite mixed results in his first season with Pittsburgh, citing a strong finish and defensive improvements over the course of the season (in addition to the fact that the Buccos acquired him as a key piece in the Gerrit Cole trade not even a year ago).
Minor MLB Transactions: 10/23/18
Rounding up the minor moves from around the baseball world…
- Brewers minor leaguers RHP Alec Asher, LHP Mike Zagurski and IF Nick Franklin elected free agency, the team’s development department announced today. The 27-year-old Franklin – a former first-round pick of the Mariners – is the biggest name of the three, though his .214/.285/.359 career line illustrates his struggles at the big-league level. Asher is a former 23rd-round pick of the Giants who appeared in two games for the Brewers this season without giving up a run. Zagurksi is now 35-years-old and last saw significant time in the majors when he appeared in 45 games for the Diamondbacks in 2012, pitching to a 5.54 ERA across 37.1 innings. Zagurski and Franklin spent all of 2018 in the Brewers’ system, whereas Asher split the year between the Triple-A clubs of the Brewers and Dodgers.
- The Arizona Diamondbacks signed right-hander Shane Watson to a two-year minor-league deal, per Baseball America’s Matt Eddy (via Twitter). The now-25-year-old Watson was drafted 40th overall in the 2012 draft by the Philadelphia Phillies, and last played for a major-league affiliated club in 2017 with the Double-A Reading Phillies.
Quick Hits: Roberts, Brewers, Harvey
Some rumblings from around baseball as we get ready for the World Series to begin on Tuesday…
- The Dodgers‘ club option on Dave Roberts for 2019 is worth $1.1MM, according to USA Today’s Bob Nightengale (Twitter link). The full financial terms of Roberts’ three-year contract aren’t known, though the manager is set to earn a nice payday should the club exercise its option as expected. It is somewhat unusual that the Dodgers haven’t already locked Roberts up on a longer-term deal, though one would think that an extension is even more of an obvious bit of offseason business now that Roberts had led the team to its second consecutive World Series appearance.
- The emergence of Brandon Woodruff and Corbin Burnes in the postseason gives the Brewers two more potential options in what could be a very interesting pitching rotation next season, JR Radcliffe of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel writes. Woodruff and Burnes were multi-inning relief weapons out of Milwaukee’s pen, with Woodruff starting a bullpen game in Game One of the NLDS and the unofficial starter for Game Five of the NLCS (when Wade Miley‘s “start” lasted just one batter in a bit of trickery on the Brewers’ part). With Woodruff and Burnes likely to be stretched out in Spring Training, they could add depth to a Milwaukee staff that has Jhoulys Chacin as the only sure thing, with Zach Davies, Freddy Peralta, Chase Anderson, Junior Guerra, and potentially a healthy Jimmy Nelson also in the mix.
- Orioles pitching prospect Hunter Harvey will begin another throwing program in December, MASNsports.com’s Roch Kubatko writes. Chosen 22nd overall by the O’s in the 2013 draft, Harvey has tossed only 176 2/3 innings over his five pro seasons due to a number of arm problems, including Tommy John surgery in 2016. This past season saw Harvey sidelined with shoulder, forearm, and elbow issues that limited him to 32 1/3 frames for Double-A Bowie. The right-hander doesn’t turn 24 until December, and the Orioles are still hopeful that Harvey can develop into a solid Major League pitcher if he can shake the injury bug.
Central Notes: Schoop, Davidson, Cardinals
Second baseman Jonathan Schoop has endured a dreadful couple months since the Brewers acquired him from the Orioles at the July 31 non-waiver trade deadline. Nevertheless, considering what the the Brewers gave up for Schoop, they’re “unlikely” to non-tender him in the offseason, Tom Haudricourt of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel tweets. Schoop’s projected to earn $10.1MM in his final trip through arbitration, and that salary figures to help weigh down the 27-year-old’s trade value if Milwaukee tries to move him. Schoop was one of the game’s best second basemen in 2017, but his numbers dipped in the first half of this season with the Orioles and have gone in the tank in Milwaukee, with which he batted .202/.246/.331 in 134 regular-season plate appearances. And while the Brewers will advance to the World Series if they win Game 7 of the NLCS on Saturday, Schoop hasn’t been a factor in their playoff run, having gone hitless in seven at-bats. Unsurprisingly, Schoop’s not in the starting lineup for the Brewers’ series-deciding game against the Dodgers.
A bit more from the majors’ Central divisions…
- Fresh off his second straight 20-home run season, one which featured unspectacular overall production (104 wRC+) across 496 plate appearances, White Sox DH/corner infielder Matt Davidson would like to do more pitching in 2019. Davidson, who chipped in three scoreless innings of one-hit ball as a reliever in 2018, will spend the offseason working to become a legitimate two-way player, Bruce Levine of 670 The Score reports. The White Sox have okayed Davidson’s plan and will be able to monitor his progress in the offseason, given that he lives close to their Arizona-based complex, according to Levine. Davidson was a high school pitcher, notes Levine, who writes that Chicago’s coaching staff sees “decent movement” in his 92 mph fastball. Should Davidson achieve his goal, the soon-to-be 28-year-old would work out of the bullpen – albeit not in high-leverage situations – as a way to help keep the team’s conventional relievers fresh, per Levine.
- Derrick Goold of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported earlier this month that the Cardinals would seek left-handed relief help in the offseason. President of baseball operations John Mozeliak confirmed as much this week, saying (via Jenifer Langosch of MLB.com): “When you’re looking at last year versus this year, I do feel like we’re looking at more depth than we had a year ago at this time. I also recognize that I think the biggest Achilles’ [heel] right now in our bullpen is the left side.” The Cardinals shuffled through numerous southpaw relief options during the season, but none inspired much confidence, as Langosch details; moreover, they don’t seem to have a dominant lefty under control going into 2019, Langosch points out. Notably, MLBTR’s Jeff Todd took a look at the lefty relief market for the upcoming offseason earlier this week. That piece should be of particular interest to Cardinals fans in light of Mozeliak’s comments.
Zach Davies Replaces Gio Gonzalez On Brewers’ NLCS Roster
The Brewers announced this morning that they’ve replaced left-hander Gio Gonzalez on their NLCS roster following yesterday’s ankle injury; righty Zach Davis will take his place. The move renders Gonzalez, a pending free agent, ineligible to pitch in the World Series should Milwaukee advance, as players removed from the roster mid-series are automatically ruled ineligible for the following round of postseason play.
Gonzalez suffered a high ankle sprain in the second inning of last night’s game against the Dodgers when fielding an infield single off the bat of Yasiel Puig (video link via MLB.com). His short start forced skipper Craig Counsell to go to his bullpen early, which proved to be all the more significant in a game that would go 12 innings and deplete the bullpen for each team. Adding Davies to the mix, then, will give the Brewers a fresh arm while simultaneously ending Gonzalez’s season.
Davies, 25, missed a good chunk of the 2018 season due to a rotator cuff issue in his right shoulder, but he returned to the Brewers in September and posted a 3.91 ERA and an 18-to-4 K/BB ratio in 23 innings down the stretch. His overall numbers in ’18 aren’t much to look at, but Davies entered the year with a career 3.91 ERA in 388 2/3 innings with 6.6 K/9 against 2.5 BB/9 after being acquired from the Orioles in a 2015 trade that sent Gerardo Parra to Baltimore as a deadline rental.
The 33-year-old Gonzalez will reach free agency for the first time in his career this offseason. He’ll head into the open market coming off 171 innings of 4.21 ERA ball in the regular season, during which he averaged 7.8 K/9, 4.2 BB/9 and 0.89 HR/9 to go along with a 45.3 percent ground-ball rate. It’s the second pedestrian ERA for Gonzalez in the past three seasons, though his 2017 season was terrific in that regard (2.96), and his 2016 ERA (4.57) was heavily skewed by an uncharacteristic dip in strand rate.
Gonzalez has a solid track record over the years and was a fixture in the Nationals’ rotation for seven years after coming over in a trade from the Athletics. He’s lost about a mile off his average fastball since 2016 and turned in the worst full-season walk rate of his career in 2018 — neither of which figure to do his free-agent stock any favors. But Gonzalez has generally been a durable and dependable rotation piece since 2010, averaging 31.4 starts per season along the way. He’s only fallen shy of 30 starts once in that time (27 starts in 2014) and has posted solid run-prevention numbers with a knack for missing bats and limiting home runs.
Gonzalez’s swinging-strike and chase rates both improved substantially with the Brewers, albeit in a small sample of 25 1/3 innings, which could give interested parties some optimism in free agency this winter. At worst, the veteran southpaw should be viewed as a dependable source of 30+ starts, and if a team feels his 2018 control issues can be corrected (and/or that his improvement with the Brewers is sustainable), he could be seen as a step above that in terms of value.
NL West Notes: Dodgers, Braun, Rockies, Padres
With the Dodgers and Brewers facing off in the NLCS, MLB.com’s Adam McCalvy looks back to 2016 at the potential blockbuster deal between the two clubs that would’ve sent Ryan Braun to Los Angeles. The rebuilding Brew Crew were exploring ways to get Braun’s big contract off the books, and the Dodgers were a natural trade partner, given their large payroll and the fact that they were one of six teams that Braun (a Southern California native) didn’t have on his no-trade list. The most oft-cited version of the trade would’ve been Braun dealt to L.A. with Yasiel Puig, Brandon McCarthy, and two prospects going to the Brewers. According to multiple sources, McCalvy reports that the Dodgers walked away from talks within the last half-hour before the August 31st deadline.
Imagining Braun as a Dodger (and, not to be overlooked, Puig as a Brewer) makes for a very interesting alternate-reality scenario, especially given the domino effect that that trade would’ve created on the Brewers’ and Dodgers’ subsequent moves over the last two seasons. The deal will particularly loom large should either Braun or Puig end up being a deciding factor in the final three-plus games of the NLCS.
Some more from the NL West…
- The Rockies head into the offseason with a lot of position player questions, Patrick Saunders of the Denver Post writes, perhaps most notably at second base and in the outfield, as DJ LeMahieu, Gerardo Parra, and Carlos Gonzalez are all free agents. The Rockies might want to move on to younger outfield options than Parra or Gonzalez, while “there’s no indication Colorado will attempt to re-sign” LeMahieu, which could open the door for prospects Garrett Hampson or Brendan Rodgers at the keystone. The team needs to upgrade its middling offense in general, with catcher being another position of need in that regard. Due to Jake McGee‘s struggles, Saunders also predicts the Rockies will have to add another left-handed reliever to the bullpen.
- With the Padres facing some tough decisions about 40-man roster placements in advance of December’s Rule 5 draft, Kevin Acee of the San Diego Union-Tribune breaks down the current players on the roster and the several minor league candidates to see who is likeliest to make the eventual 40-man slate. Quite a bit of this conjecture is up in the air, of course, as Acee notes that “there is almost no player the Padres wouldn’t at least consider in trade offerings,” so even the Major League roster could look quite different by the time the Rule 5 draft rolls around.
- If you feel like weighing in on a question about one of the NL West’s biggest stars, vote in this MLBTR Poll about whether or not the Diamondbacks will trade Paul Goldschmidt this offseason.