Draft Compensation For 8 Teams That Could Lose Qualified Free Agents
Eight teams issued qualifying offers this year to ten players, with the Nationals and Giants handing out two apiece. Teams issuing the $17.8MM offer must be comfortable with the receiving player accepting, as it isn’t possible to trade such a player (absent consent) until the middle of the season. But in most cases, the offer is given with the expectation it will be declined, thus allowing the issuing team to receive a compensatory draft selection if the player signs with a new club.
As with draft forfeitures, draft compensation is largely tied to the financial status of the team losing the player. And in 2019, seven of the eight teams that issued qualifying offers fall into the same bucket: teams that neither exceeded the luxury threshold nor received revenue-sharing benefits. This applies to the Astros, Nationals, Giants, Mets, Cardinals, White Sox and Braves. In such cases, the default compensation for losing a qualified free agent is applied.
In other words, if any of Gerrit Cole, Stephen Strasburg, Anthony Rendon, Madison Bumgarner, Will Smith, Zack Wheeler, Marcell Ozuna, Jose Abreu or Josh Donaldson signs with a new club, their former team will receive a compensatory pick between Competitive Balance Round B and Round 3 of the 2020 draft. Those selections would likely fall in the upper 70s and low 80s. Slot values in that range of the 2019 draft checked in between $730K and $700K. The Nationals and Giants, then, could add a pair of Top 100 picks and roughly $1.5MM worth of additional pool money each if they lose both of their qualified free agents.
The lone team that stands to gain a potential pick at the end of the first round would be the Twins, who issued a qualifying offer to Jake Odorizzi. Minnesota is a revenue-sharing recipient that did not exceed the luxury threshold, thus entitling the Twins to the highest level of free-agent compensation possible … if Odorizzi signs for a guaranteed $50MM or more. If Odorizzi’s total guarantees are $49.9MM or lower, the Twins would receive the same level of pick as the other seven teams who issued qualifying offers: between Competitive Balance Round B and Round 3.
Of course, if any of the players who received qualifying offers either accept the offer or re-sign with their 2019 clubs on a new multi-year deal, no draft compensation will be awarded to that team at all.
Eddie Rosario Changes Representation
Twins outfielder Eddie Rosario has changed agencies, Dan Hayes of The Athletic reports. Roc Nation Sports will represent Rosario going forward.
Rosario, who turned 28 in September, is one of many major leaguers fresh off a career-best season in the power department. Across 590 plate appearances, Rosario smashed 32 home runs, helping the Twins amass a record 307 as a team, and posted a .224 ISO – both personal highs for him since he debuted in 2015. At the same time, though, Rosario struggled more than ever to get on base. He ultimately slashed an uninspiring .276/.300/.500 owing in large part to an inability to draw walks.
While Rosario did strike out at a meager 14.6 percent clip this year, he collected free passes just 3.7 percent of the time. Considering his game’s largely predicated on putting the ball in play, the career-low .273 BABIP Rosario logged was especially deleterious. But if we’re to believe Statcast, Rosario wasn’t really the victim of poor luck in 2019. After all, there was almost no difference between his real weighted on-base average (.329) and his expected wOBA (.330).
Despite his flawed campaign, the counting stats Rosario has put up over the past few years have him in good position as he nears his second-last trip to arbitration. MLBTR contributor Matt Swartz projects Rosario will earn $8.9MM in 2020, though it’s up in the air whether the Twins will retain the three-time 20-home run hitter or attempt to move him in a trade.
Rosario’s change in representation will be reflected in MLBTR’s Agency Database, which contains agent info on thousands of Major League and Minor League players. If you see any errors or omissions within, please let us know: mlbtrdatabase@gmail.com.
Latest On Mets’ Coaching Staff
The Mets will be interviewing Jeremy Hefner for their pitching coach vacancy on Monday, the Athletic’s Marc Carig reports (subscription required). Hefner, currently the Twins’ assistant pitching coach, is a familiar name to Mets fans, as the right-hander tossed 224 1/3 innings for New York in 2012-13.
This 50-game stint comprised Hefner’s entire Major League tenure, as his career was derailed by a pair of Tommy John surgeries. After pitching in the Cardinals’ minor league system in 2016, he decided to hang up his cleats and pursue a post-playing career as an advance scout for Minnesota. After two years in that role, he became an assistant pitching coach for the Twins in 2019.
Hefner is only 33 years old, almost 49 full years younger than Phil Regan, who worked as the Mets’ interim pitching coach after Dave Eiland was fired in mid-June. Hefner’s youth and knowledge of analytics make him a “conduit” of a coach, in Carig’s words, able to relate to players as a virtual peer in terms of age and recent playing experience, which helps in presenting analytical information in an easily digestible fashion.
One veteran voice who won’t be in the Mets dugout is Terry Collins, as Mike Puma of the New York Post reports that the former manager isn’t a candidate to be the club’s new bench coach. There was speculation last week that Collins could serve as an experienced right hand to first-time manager Carlos Beltran, though Collins will instead remain in his current role as a special assistant within the Mets organization.
Twins Announce Baseball Operations Promotions
On the heels of a successful season, the Twins have announced several promotions within their baseball operations department. Daniel Adler and Jeremy Zoll each ascend to the rank of assistant general manager, while Alex Hassan will serve as director of player development and Jeremy Raadt will become the director of baseball systems.
The highest levels of Twins baseball operations are unchanged, so far as is known. Chief baseball officer Derek Falvey and senior VP/GM Thad Levine sit at the top of the food chain, with VP/assistant GM Rob Antony and VP of player personnel Mike Radcliffe still also on the masthead.
Both Adler and Zoll arrived at the Minnesota organization in the fall of 2017, one year after Falvey and Levine took the helm in the front office. The former will run the club’s “Baseball Research and Development staff,” per the announcement, along with playing “a key role in the areas of arbitration, roster construction, athletic performance, player acquisition, and player development.” Zoll will focus his efforts on “player development and player performance efforts throughout the system and its academies, while also having heavy involvement in team operation at the major league level.”
Hassan is a familiar name in these parts. Though he ultimately appeared in only three MLB contests, recording one lone hit, Hassan took a tour of 40-man rosters around the league by way of waiver claims in 2014-15. He’s still just 31 years of age. Hassan will take over the Twins’ player development efforts just a few years after wrapping up his own playing career after the 2016 season.
As for Raadt, he’s a longtime Twins employee whose expertise lies in the technological realm. Per the club, his role requires, among other things, “the incorporation of new technologies, while working closely with front office executives, analysts, scouts, trainers and coaches to assimilate their feedback and direction in the Twins’ baseball system.”
Minor MLB Transactions: 11/6/19
We’ll track today’s minor moves — some of the first of this nascent offseason — in this post…
- The Twins‘ Triple-A affiliate announced the re-signing of catcher Tomas Telis and right-hander Jonathan Cheshire on minor league contracts. Telis, 28, appeared in the Majors each year from 2014-18, hitting a combined .230/.267/.298 in 267 plate appearances between the Marlins and Rangers. He’s a much more accomplished Triple-A hitter, though, and like many minor leaguers, he posted his best numbers ever in 2019’s heightened offensive environment in Triple-A. In 327 plate appearances with the Rochester Red Wings, Telis hit .330/.364/.490 with eight homers and 21 doubles. Cheshire, 25 this month, joined the Twins in August after struggling with the Blue Jays but showing well with the Somerset Patriots of the independent Atlantic League. Upon signing with the Twins, he tossed 13 2/3 shutout innings with a 14-to-4 K/BB ratio (one walk being intentional). The former 36th-round pick (Jays, 2017) will get another look in the upper levels of the Twins’ system on the heels of that impressive performance.
10 Players Receive Qualifying Offers
It appears that ten players have received qualifying offers this year. Bob Nightengale of USA Today rounds up the full slate of players on Twitter, some of whom were already reported and covered on this site.
This year’s qualifying offer value is $17.8MM for a one-year term. Players issued the offer will have ten days to assess their options. Should a player reject the offer and fail to work out a deal with their existing team, he will enter the market carrying the requirement that a signing team sacrifice draft compensation. (While the former team would not stand to lose a pick, it would not gain a compensatory pick if it re-signs that player.) Click here for a full rundown of the QO rules.
This represents a bounce back up in the number of players to receive a qualifying offer. Last year was a record-low of seven, with other offseasons ranging from nine (2012, 2017) all the way up to twenty offers (2015).
Here are the ten players:
- Jose Abreu, 1B, White Sox
- Madison Bumgarner, SP, Giants
- Gerrit Cole, SP, Astros
- Josh Donaldson, 3B, Braves
- Jake Odorizzi, SP, Twins
- Marcell Ozuna, OF, Cardinals
- Anthony Rendon, 3B, Nationals
- Will Smith, RP, Giants
- Stephen Strasburg, SP, Nationals
- Zack Wheeler, SP, Mets
There are a few notable players that were eligible for the QO but did not receive it. Those players will hit the open market free and clear of draft compensation. Didi Gregorius of the Yankees and Cole Hamels of the Cubs were perhaps the leading possibilities beyond those that received the offer. J.D. Martinez would surely have received one from the Red Sox had he opted out of his deal; Aroldis Chapman was also certain to get a QO had he not agreed to a new contract. Quite a few other prominent free agents were ineligible because they were traded during the 2019 season and/or had previously received a qualifying offer.
Twins Outright Kohl Stewart
The Twins have outrighted righty Kohl Stewart, per a team announcement. The club also confirmed a host of other, more significant transactions that had previously been reported.
Stewart has elected free agency, officially bringing an end to a seven-year tenure with the Minnesota organization. Now 25 years of age, he landed with the club as the fourth overall pick of the 2013 draft.
Though he drew top prospect grades for some time after being drafted, Stewart ran into trouble in the upper minors. He did ultimately crack the majors but hasn’t shown much ability to get swings and misses from MLB hitters. In 62 total frames, he carries a 4.79 ERA with 4.9 K/9 and 3.8 BB/9.
Mets Select Blake Taylor, Claim Stephen Gonsalves
The Mets have announced the addition of two left-handed hurlers to their 40-man roster. Blake Taylor‘s contract was selected from Triple-A while the club claimed Stephen Gonsalves off waivers from the Twins.
Taylor, 24, has been a member of the Mets organization for more than a decade. The 2013 second-round pick of the Pirates joined New York in the teams’ 2014 swap centering on Ike Davis. Taylor was a somewhat highly touted prospect during his draft class, of course, though he hasn’t climbed above the Triple-A level yet. He did dominate in Double-A ball this year, though, as the left-hander posted a 1.85 ERA/2.61 FIP with 10.38 K/9, 2.77 BB/9 and a 50.5 percent groundball rate in 39 innings.
It hasn’t been long since Gonsalves, 25, was a top 100 prospect, and now the southpaw’s days with the Twins are over after a lengthy run as a member of the organization. Gonsalves had been with Minnesota since it grabbed him in the fourth round of the 2013 draft. However, control problems have haunted Gonsalves in recent years, especially during his only taste of the majors in 2018, and he barely pitched at all this season. Elbow and forearm problems limited Gonsalves to a total of 13 innings among three different minor league levels in 2019, but the Mets will nonetheless take a chance on the once-promising hurler.
Twins To Decline Option On Martin Perez
The Twins will decline their option over southpaw Martin Perez, according to Darren Wolfson of 1500 ESPN (via Twitter). He’ll receive a $500K buyout on his way out the door.
Coming into the season, there was some buzz about Perez, who had been showing improved velocity and an intriguing new cutter — both of which contributed to the Twins’ decision to give him a somewhat surprising MLB deal. While those new tweaks served him well in the early stages of the season, it seems the league quickly adjusted to the changes he’d made.
Perez had moments at times in 2019 — he shut the Astros out over eight innings on May 1 and followed that with seven scoreless frames in Toronto — but he was never consistently effective enough to warrant the $7.5MM price tag of the option year. In fact, following that brilliant pair of scoreless outings, Perez’s results mirrored the form that led to him being jettisoned by the Rangers. Over his final 24 starts of the season, he pitched to a sky-high 5.88 ERA with an ugly 96-to-51 K/BB ratio and 21 home runs allowed in 124 innings. He finished the season with a 5.12 ERA and averages of 7.4 K/9 and 3.5 BB/9 through 165 1/3 innings.
Lefties who average 94.1 mph on their heater in a starting role don’t grow on trees, and Perez regularly demonstrates above-average ground-ball tendencies as well. He’s still just 28 years old, too, so teams will continue to be intrigued not just by his raw abilities but by his youth relative to other freely available pitchers. He’ll head into the open market looking for another opportunity elsewhere and quite likely find a number of clubs with interest — though he may have to accept a lesser base or even a minor league contract.
Twins To Issue Qualifying Offer To Jake Odorizzi
The Twins will issue a qualifying offer to righty Jake Odorizzi, Jim Duquette of MLB Network Radio on Sirius XM reports (Twitter link). This year’s qualifying offer value is $17.8MM.
While not unexpected, this move sets the stage for an interesting decision for Odorizzi. He’ll have ten days to weigh his options, during which time he can negotiate with the Twins. Odorizzi and his reps at Excel can also chat with other organizations that have interest, helping them to gauge the marketplace, though any deal with another organization would need to await final resolution of the QO.
The Minnesota organization would obviously be glad to see Odorizzi return for a one-year commitment, even at that hefty price point. After all, they could lose not only Odorizzi but also Michael Pineda, Kyle Gibson and Martin Perez to free agency, leaving them with a huge offseason undertaking on the starting staff. If he hits the open market instead of accepting, the Twins will stand to recoup draft compensation if Odorizzi signs elsewhere. They’d receive a choice after the second round — unless Odorizzi secures more than $50MM in guaranteed money, in which case it’d be after the first round. Meanwhile, signing teams will modify their offers (or withhold them altogether) to account for the loss of their own draft capital.
Odorizzi, who’ll turn 30 next March, quietly built himself a strong case as a qualifying offer recipient. The right-hander has long been a durable and generally useful rotation cog, but some mechanical adjustments led to increased velocity in 2019, and his focus on working at the top of the zone helped to up his strikeout levels. When all was said and done, Odorizzi had compiled 159 innings of 3.51 ERA ball with an even better 3.36 FIP. The righty averaged a career-best 10.1 K/9 against 3.0 BB/9, and his 0.9 HR/9 mark was particularly impressive for a fly-ball pitcher, considering the 2019 juiced ball.
The top of this year’s pitching market features bona fide aces Gerrit Cole and Stephen Strasburg, while Zack Wheeler and Madison Bumgarner are both in the next tier of arms. There’s an argument for Odorizzi to at least approach that second tier, but at the very least, he’s among the more appealing arms in the market’s third tier.