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Rookie Radar: AL West

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The delayed start to the 2020 season will obviously have a wide range of massive effects on Major League Baseball. Among them: a totally different promotional timeline for some of the game’s most exciting young players. We will never know how things would’ve unfolded. And we don’t yet even know what the parameters are for an altered season. But there’s no doubting the impact.

Typically, opportunities open as rosters evolve over the course of a grueling, 162-game season. Some top prospects force their way up to the majors; others are called upon because a need arises. In a shorter campaign, there’ll be less attrition … though we may also see relaxed roster rules and changes to allocation of service time that could create opportunities.

Still, with more time to examine rosters and think about the state of the game, there’s an opportunity to stop and appreciate the young talent on the cusp of the majors. We’ll run through the most interesting prospects pressing for near-term MLB action, starting with the American League West:

Angels

There’s loads of excitement at the top of the farm. The Halos have one of the game’s very best overall prospects in Jo Adell. Perhaps their best chance of catching the Astros lies in Adell taking the league by storm and combining with Mike Trout and (a hopefully resurgent) Justin Upton to form one of the game’s best outfields. Another highly regarded young outfielder, Brandon Marsh, is also close. An elbow injury limited him this spring, but he’ll hopefully rehab through that while the game is on pause.

Otherwise, the Angels will certainly hope they get a significant contribution out of lefty Patrick Sandoval. The 23-year-old took some lumps last year but did put up a 13.5% swinging-strike rate in his first ten MLB outings.

Astros

The division’s dominant force enters the season facing a few questions in the MLB staff. Fortunately, there are a bunch of arms coming. Forrest Whitley still has immense upside despite a brutal 2019 season. He’ll be tasked with getting back on track in the upper minors. Having snuck past Whitley, Jose Urquidy will slot right back into the big league rotation. He’s not known for his high-powered arsenal, but he was highly effective late last year — even including a remarkable performance when pressed into postseason duties (one earned run, 12:2 K/BB in ten innings).

High-octane righty Bryan Abreu also got some playoff action after a strong relief showing late in the season. He could be a force in the pen. Fellow right-handers Christian Javier, Enoli Paredes, and Brandon Bielak are also on the rise.

Another well-regarded player who debuted in 2019 is third baseman Abraham Toro. He smashed minor-league pitching but didn’t thrive in a 25-game run in the majors. Toro had also struggled in Grapefruit League action this spring, but it’d be a surprise if he isn’t called upon at some point in 2020.

Athletics

There’s loads of talent ready to see action in Oakland. Lefties Jesus Luzardo and A.J. Puk recovered from injuries and hit the majors last year. They’ll draw loads of attention, and rightly so, but that’s just the start. Righties Daulton Jefferies and James Kaprielian could also push for their debuts.

There are names to watch on the position player side as well. The A’s have a bevy of youthful backstops who’ll be entrusted with holding down the catching duties. Sean Murphy put himself on everyone’s map last year. He could be joined by Austin Allen, but fellow young receiver Jonah Heim is also a factor. Infielders Sheldon Neuse will factor, though he hasn’t hit much this spring and didn’t impress in his 2019 debut. It remains to be seen how the club will handle the out-of-options Jorge Mateo with strong competition at second base. Outfielder Luis Barrera hasn’t yet debuted but earned a 40-man spot after a solid partial season at Double-A.

Mariners

On the pitching side, lefty Justus Sheffield has been on the map for some time and is in need of extended testing at the game’s highest level. Righty Justin Dunn had some struggles in his brief debut last year but is competing for a MLB job in camp. Recent first-rounder Logan Gilbert ran up to Double-A in his first professional season and now stands as a consensus top-100 prospect.

Several position players are sure to factor in the bigs as well. Recently extended first baseman Evan White is obviously slated for a big role. And the M’s may well go ahead and provide long looks to 24-year-old outfielders Jake Fraley and Kyle Lewis, each of whom cracked the bigs last year. The Seattle org will want to get a sense of their outlook. After all, there’s more talent coming up behind. It never seemed likely we’d see much-hyped outfield prospects Jarred Kelenic and Julio Rodriguez in 2020. With some or all of the minor-league season now gone, it’s even less likely.

Rangers

Most of the best-regarded Texas farmhands are still queuing up further down the system. But there are a few players vying for immediate playing time.

First and foremost, infielder/outfielder Nick Solak is almost sure to fit … well, somewhere. He has featured in the team’s planning all winter, even if the vision for where and how much he’d play has shifted as the Rangers pursued offseason additions. It’s plausible to imagine Solak appearing at first, second, third, and anywhere in the outfield as needs dictate.

Unless and until there’s an injury, the rotation doesn’t have any space. But lefty Joe Palumbo could be among the first names on call if a need arises, or he could slot into the pen. Righty DeMarcus Evans joined the 40-man after a lights-out 2019 season and seems likely to get a crack at the majors at some point.

How The Delayed Season Impacts The Angels

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As is the case with just about every team in the majors, the coronavirus-forced delay to the start of the season will have an effect on the Angels. It may be at least two or three months before we see any meaningful games, which isn’t necessarily horrible news for the Angels’ rotation. Last season, the organization’s fifth straight without a playoff berth and its fourth in a row with more losses than wins, the Halos’ starting staff was especially ineffective. The club’s starters ranked toward the bottom of the league in virtually every key statistic and didn’t have a single hurler amass 100 or more innings.

[RELATED: Angels Offseason In Review]

One important reason the Angels’ rotation had such difficulty in 2019? The absence of two-way star Shohei Ohtani, who could only DH – not pitch – after undergoing Tommy John surgery on his right elbow in October 2018. The hard-throwing Ohtani dazzled on the mound as a rookie that year, albeit over a mere 10 starts and 51 2/3 innings, with a 3.31 ERA/3.57 FIP and 10.97 K/9 and 3.83 BB/9. The Angels desperately needed that type of front-line production from someone last year, and perhaps Ohtani will be able to provide it over a larger sample of work this season. In a normal season, though, the Angels would have had to go at least several weeks before finding out whether Ohtani would be able to pick up where he left off as a pitcher two years ago.

At last check about a month and a half ago, the 25-year-old Ohtani wasn’t going to be ready to return to the Angels’ rotation until the middle of May. Now, with the season having been pushed back, the Angels might be in position to get a full year from Ohtani the pitcher. That’s welcome news for a team that, despite its best efforts, was not able to pull in a high-end starter during the offseason.

The Angels’ staff also could be more likely to get a whole season (or something close to it) from righty Griffin Canning. His status is less certain than Ohtani’s, though. The 23-year-old received “biological injections” in his balky right elbow March 11, at which point it was reported more would be known on Canning’s status in three to four weeks. But if Canning emerges with a clean bill of health and can take the hill in 2020, it would be yet another boon for the Angels. He enjoyed a respectable debut showing last year, after all, tossing 90 1/3 frames of 4.58 ERA/4.37 FIP ball with 9.56 K/9 against 2.99 BB/9.

If the season opened when it was supposed to on March 26, it’s unclear whom the Angels would have relied on after Andrew Heaney, Julio Teheran and Dylan Bundy. Patrick Sandoval, Matt Andriese, Jaime Barria and Dillon Peters are the other starting possibilities on their 40-man roster. It’s fair to say there isn’t a ton of upside in that group, but getting Ohtani and Canning back would change that and give the Angels a better chance to vie for a playoff berth.

Elsewhere, the Angels are anticipating the MLB debut of Jo Adell – a hard-charging outfield prospect who ranks as one of the sport’s elite farmhands. The soon-to-be 21-year-old seemed like a sure thing to come up sometime this season, but will that change with a shortened schedule? Will the Angels decide Adell needs a good deal more seasoning at the Triple-A level, where he accrued 132 homer-less plate appearances last season? And what about service-time considerations? That’s something every team keeps an eye on with respect to its top prospects, but we don’t know how baseball will sort that out in a truncated campaign. And, of course, whether Adell does premiere in 2020 will have an impact on the Angels’ current right field choices, Brian Goodwin and David Fletcher chief among them.

Up in the front office, the executive who drafted Adell – general manager Billy Eppler – is entering a contract year. One has to wonder if a season of fewer than 162 games will affect his status. For example, if the Angels struggle, will owner Arte Moreno be more inclined to give Eppler the benefit of the doubt because of these strange circumstances? That’s just one of the intriguing questions the Angels are facing heading into what will be an unusual season of baseball (if we get one at all).

Extension Candidates: NL West

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We don’t really know whether or to what extent extension talks will continue during the coronavirus hiatus. But as I wrote recently, it seems reasonable to think they’ll be explored. Some may already have advanced nearly to completion before the global pandemic intervened.

While we may have to wait to learn who the targets are and see what deals get done, there’s a silver lining: more time for rampant speculation! Okay, we’re not going to speculate here; rather, we’ll tick through some interesting possibilities on paper. Remember, we’ve seen an increasing prevalence of deals with less-experienced players (even some without any MLB service) and with new player types (early-career relievers and utilitymen).

In the present MLB environment, value is king and the old forms are fading. We’ve already checked in on the NL East and NL Central. Here are some names to chew on from the NL West …

Diamondbacks

The Snakes have managed to control costs, compete, and build their farm system all at the same time. It’s a tricky balancing act to manage over any length of time. And extensions are a key component. Ketel Marte, Nick Ahmed, Eduardo Escobar, and David Peralta are already playing on extensions. There are some other candidates on the roster as well.

Several Arizona veterans are conceivable candidates, not that any seems particularly likely to agree to terms. Hurler Robbie Ray is heading into a walk year, but comes with a pretty wide risk/upside spread. Recently acquired outfielder Starling Marte is already 31 years of age, so the club probably won’t be in a rush to work out a new deal with two years of control remaining. Reliever Archie Bradley is also two years from the open market; an extension could make sense in his case. The team will be looking at a big arbitration bill next year if Bradley racks up saves, while he’d surely be open to eliminating some personal health/performance risk.

The younger class of players contains some rather intriguing possibilities. Catcher Carson Kelly and starter Luke Weaver are both entering their final pre-arbitration season (the former via Super Two status). Though 2019 trade deadline addition Zac Gallen isn’t even close to arbitration, it could be an opportune moment to get something done.

Dodgers

When the Dodgers acquired superstar outfielder Mookie Betts, they knew they were giving up significant value for just one season of performance. Now, with the season on hold, there’s newfound uncertainty for all involved — particularly given that it’s not even clear yet whether Betts will hit the open market as expected this coming fall. After a few happy weeks together this spring, could the sides take advantage of the lull to discuss a longer-term relationship?

There’s no evidence of that happening, but it’d be a potential coup for the Dodgers. It would also be extremely costly. No doubt the team is at least as intrigued by the idea of finding some savings by locking in superstar slugger Cody Bellinger. Trouble is, the 24-year-old just landed a whopping $11.5MM contract as a Super Two. His arbitration eligibility could easily set an overall record and he’ll expect a long-term deal to reflect that and pay at a premium rate for any future free-agent campaigns.

There was a time when Corey Seager would’ve seemed an obvious extension target, but his place in the team’s plans is uncertain after some injury-limited campaigns. More interesting at this point are some of the newest members of the L.A. roster. Backstop Will Smith and infielder Gavin Lux each carry huge promise and some MLB experience. Though the Dodgers haven’t led the league with aggressive early-career extensions, both of these players are sensible targets.

Giants

Yikes. It’s not a good sign to see a roster that lacks for extension candidates — unless, perhaps, many young players have already agreed to deals. In this case, the Giants have a combination of veterans playing out underperforming contracts and largely un-established younger players who don’t really seem in line for any long-term commitment.

If you squint hard enough, you could see Mauricio Dubon as a candidate if the team has really fallen in love since acquiring him last summer. But that’s probably unnecessarily aggressive. Otherwise, basically every conceivable possibility has too many areas of concern to warrant serious consideration. Perhaps the situation will look different this time next year — someone might step up with a big season; top prospects like Joey Bart or Heliot Ramos may turn into candidates for early-career extensions — but it’s hard to see much reason for talks at the moment.

Padres

The ideal outcome would be to secure the services of Fernando Tatis Jr. with a deal along the lines of the Braves’ pact with Ronald Acuna Jr.. The Friars will probably have to keep dreaming about that team-friendly arrangement, but there has been some reporting indicating the sides could hold talks. Tatis himself said in late February that nothing was cooking, but there’s every reason to keep a conversation going if there’s mutual interest. Righty Chris Paddack could certainly also be a candidate as well, though perhaps the added risks on the pitching side will keep the sides apart for the time being.

There are other younger players that could hold appeal in the right situation. On the position player side, Trent Grisham, Franchy Cordero, and Francisco Mejia could be considered. And among pitchers, you could easily see the merit of locking in Dinelson Lamet or Joey Lucchesi.

Oh, and the Friars do have one notable veteran in an obvious extension stance: closer Kirby Yates. There’s reason to believe the sides have some interest, but it’s not clear how likely it is a deal will come together. Yates is a late-emerging star reliever who’s two days from his 33rd birthday and one season away from free agency. His age limits his overall contractual upside, but he was absurdly dominant in 2019. It’s certainly possible to imagine both player and team seeing the sense in a deal.

Rockies

The Rox already have long-term control over German Marquez and Nolan Arenado. So … why not add Jon Gray and Trevor Story, making a strong core four over the long haul? Well, it’s not a simple situation for the Colorado organization. Trouble is, some brutal fortune in the free agent market has left little financial flexibility and a top-heavy roster. We can’t rule out deals for Gray and/or Story, but they’ll both cost a ton and would be hard to pull off — particularly given the ongoing drama with Arenado.

That’s not to say the Rockies couldn’t still look to other ways of achieving value. In particular, outfielders David Dahl and Sam Hilliard could be interesting targets. The former has had quite a few injuries and the latter has only spent about a month in the majors, but those factors might also drive down the price tag and with it the contractual upside. Otherwise, you could perhaps see some daylight for a deal with reliever Carlos Estevez if the Rox are fully sold on his 2019 showing. But the team already made a deal with its best reliever (Scott Oberg) and probably doesn’t need any more long-term bullpen entanglements.

How The Delayed Season Impacts The Phillies

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Last week, MLBTR’s Connor Byrne took a look at how the delayed start of the 2020 season will impact the Yankees. We’ll be running out a look at how all 30 clubs will be impacted in the days and weeks to come.  And since we’ve already tackled the Phillies’ Offseason in Review, let’s now turn to how this will impact their roster choices down the road.

First and foremost, left fielder Andrew McCutchen should have ample time to rehabilitate his knee. The 33-year-old tore his left ACL last year and was expected to be ready to join the Phillies’ lineup at some point in April. With the season pushed back until at least May 10 — quite likely longer than that — McCutchen should be good to go for the year’s first game, barring any sort of setback.

He may not be the MVP-caliber talent he once was, but McCutchen was an important part of the Philadelphia lineup all the same. In 59 games and 292 plate appearances, he posted a .256/.378/.457 batting line with 10 homers, 12 doubles and a triple. Cutch’s career-best 16.4 percent walk rate and sky-high OBP were badly missed on a team that posted a pedestrian .319 OBP on the whole. That mark tied them for 19th in MLB, and McCutchen’s primary replacement, Jay Bruce, had the fourth-worst OBP in the Majors at .261 (min. 300 plate appearances).

McCutchen’s likely inclusion on the Opening Day roster should impact the bench mix as well. His presence would push Bruce into a more limited role and likely mean that one of Nick Williams or Roman Quinn misses out on the 26-man roster. Given that Williams has a minor league option remaining and Quinn does not, it seems likeliest that Williams would be the odd man out. The Phils have explored trading Williams in the past, and one would imagine that with a full-strength outfield that possibility would be a bit likelier.

The composition of the bench is of extra note given the abnormally large slate of non-roster players in camp hoping to secure a backup job with the Phillies; Josh Harrison, Phil Gosselin, Neil Walker, Logan Forsythe and Ronald Torreyes are among the slew of infielders Philadelphia inked to minor league pacts this winter.

On the pitching side of things, the projected delay ought to give right-hander Tommy Hunter time to ramp up. He’s on the mend from 2019 elbow surgery and was expected to miss the first month of the year prior to the shutdown. Hunter’s health is far from a given after he missed nearly all of last year with a forearm injury, which is why he took a one-year, make-good deal that only promises him an $850K base salary. But when healthy, Hunter has turned in 69 1/3 innings of 3.50 ERA ball with the Phillies. Considering the overwhelming number of injuries that left the Philly bullpen in a state of disrepair a year ago, any healthy contributions from the veteran Hunter will be a most welcome addition.

As is the case with the bench, the Phillies have a deluge of veterans competing for bullpen jobs on non-roster deals. Francisco Liriano, Drew Storen, Bud Norris, Anthony Swarzak and Blake Parker were all invited to camp. A healthy Hunter leaves one less spot to win.

Things are less certain for two other relievers: Seranthony Dominguez and David Robertson. The former underwent an MRI after experiencing a setback in his recovery from last summer’s elbow troubles and acknowledged significant concern. With a poor enough diagnosis, he could miss the entire 2020 season regardless, but if non-surgical treatment is recommended, the delay could buy him time to rehab. Robertson, meanwhile, underwent Tommy John surgery last August. The club’s hope had been that the right-hander could return in the season’s second half, and if the season doesn’t get underway until the summer, he’d theoretically be available for a greater portion of the year.

Perhaps the most interesting scenario is what the implications could be for the rotation. As Scott Lauber of the Philadelphia Inquirer explored over the weekend, the delayed start to the season lessens the need for the Phillies to monitor the workload of prized pitching prospect Spencer Howard. Considered one of the game’s 40 best prospects by each of Baseball America, MLB.com, ESPN, FanGraphs and Baseball Prospectus, Howard totaled just 99 1/3 innings between the regular season and the Arizona Fall League in 2019.

General manager Matt Klentak has previously spoken about the need to make sure he has enough innings left in his arm to contribute down the stretch, and a shorter season should reduce his workload overall. That could also afford Howard fewer innings to develop in Double-A and Triple-A, but Howard ripped through Class-A Advanced en route to a Double-A promotion and found similar success there in 2019 (2.35 ERA, 38-to-9 K/BB ratio in 30 2/3 innings). He’ll surely open the season in the minors, but a similarly aggressive ascension in 2020 shouldn’t be ruled out.

Howard’s timeline to the big leagues will directly impact the bullpen composition and perhaps the very future in the organization for once-touted righties Vince Velasquez and Nick Pivetta. Both have a minor league option remaining, and it’s possible that both could yet emerge as viable pieces in the ’pen (or that injuries elsewhere in the rotation will keep one or both in a starting role). Howard’s emergence as a top-half-of-the-rotation complement to Aaron Nola is a best-case scenario for the organization as a whole, but that could still have a significant individual impact on pitchers like Pivetta, Velasquez, Ranger Suarez, Cole Irvin, Enyel De Los Santos and JoJo Romero.

MLBTR Originals: 3/16/20 – 3/22/20

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Even with the baseball world shut down, MLB Trade Rumors is still covering any breaking league and transaction news, while also exploring some other topics.  Here’s the roundup of the week’s original content from the MLBTR staff….

  • Jeff Todd profiled different topics every weekday on MLBTR’s YouTube series, with this week’s entries looking at such diverse topics as the Cubs’ quiet offseason, as well as some noteworthy disappointing free agent signings from Orioles, Cubs, and Yankees history.
  • The Offseason In Review series continued with entries on what the Mets, Angels, Red Sox, and Phillies all this winter.
  • Plenty of players are looking at the 2020 season as an opportunity to make up for shakier performances last year.  Connor Byrne cited nine NL Central pitchers, 10 NL West pitchers, and six NL West hitters all looking for better things this season.  Along those same lines, Steve Adams and Anthony Franco profiled some rebound candidates, as Steve looked at the Pirates’ Chris Archer while Anthony delved into newly-signed Giants righty Kevin Gausman.
  • With other league business on hold, could some teams and players take this extra time to work out contract extensions?  Jeff thinks it could potentially happen, and lists some extension candidates within both the NL Central and NL East.
  • All extensions carry risk, however, and Mark Polishuk looked back at a couple of major contracts that might serve as cautionary tales.  We just passed the ten-year anniversary of Joe Mauer’s precedent-setting extension with the Twins, while the Red Sox are only a year removed from their already-problematic extension with Chris Sale.
  • Speaking of looks back at the past, Connor revisited Andy Pettitte’s successful return from retirement to pitch for the 2012-13 Yankees.  Jeff also dove down the rabbit hole of alternate baseball realities to explore what might happened if the Cubs hadn’t signed Jason Heyward, and if Heyward had instead signed with one of four other teams who were reportedly part of his free agent market.
  • After missing all of the 2018 season due to Tommy John surgery, Padres right-hander Dinelson Lamet returned to action in 2019 and now could be a prime breakout candidate, Connor writes.
  • Are the Mets ready to make the postseason?  MLBTR readers were pretty split in our poll, though 54% of respondents felt the Amazins were indeed headed for the playoffs.
  • Over the coming weeks, we’ll look at how the extended delay to the 2020 season will impact specific teams.  Connor began the series by exploring how the injury-riddled Yankees suddenly have more time for their stars to get healthy.

Revisiting The Chris Sale Extension

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The Red Sox were as busy as any team during last spring’s extension flurry, inking a pair of star players to long-term deals that kept them out of the 2019-2020 free agent market.  One of the extensions was a six-year deal with Xander Bogaerts worth $120MM in guaranteed money, a contract that now looks like a pretty sound investment given how Bogaerts followed up a strong 2018 season with an even better 2019 campaign.

The other extension is already off to a rough start.  Chris Sale signed a five-year, $145MM pact covering the 2020-24 seasons, with a club/vesting option for the 2025 campaign worth at least $20MM.  After vastly outperforming his early-career extension with the White Sox (which ended up as a seven-year, $59MM deal once both option years were exercised), Sale now had a new deal that better reflected his status as one of the better pitchers over the last decade.

Exactly one year after that extension was signed, however, the deal looms as a significant misfire for the Red Sox on a couple of different levels.  The club announced on Thursday that Sale would be undergoing Tommy John surgery, which will keep him out of action for whatever becomes of the 2020 season and, in all likelihood, around half of the 2021 season.  The surgery comes on the heels of Sale being shut down last August due to elbow inflamation, and while a platelet-rich plasma injection and some months of rest looked to have the left-hander back on track earlier this winter, Sale was shut down again earlier this month after suffering a flexor strain.

In the short term, this means Boston loses its best pitcher for 2020.  It is a major blow to a rotation that was only okay in 2019, and already had lost David Price after the Sox traded the veteran southpaw and Mookie Betts to the Dodgers in February.  While Sale could conceivably get back to something close to his old form post-surgery and still pitch well over the rest of his contract, the Betts/Price trade plays a critical role in evaluating the big-picture impact of Sale’s extension.

As much as Red Sox ownership has tried to deny it, the luxury tax was clearly a major reason the team was willing to part ways with Betts and Price.  Between moving Betts’ $27.7MM salary and half of the $96MM remaining on Price’s deal, the Sox have gotten themselves under the $208MM Competitive Balance Tax threshold, with Roster Resource projecting a current tax number just shy of $196MM for the 2020 Red Sox.

After two seasons of tax overages, getting under the CBT limit in 2020 would save the Red Sox millions in future tax payments, and theoretically allow them to spend past the threshold again as early as 2021 with only a minimal “first-timer” penalty attached.  As many Boston fans angrily noted over the winter, of course, trading Betts was a pretty extreme measure to achieve these luxury tax savings, and it’s a measure that could have well been avoided had the Red Sox not spent so much money elsewhere….for instance, on Sale’s extension.

Due to deferred money and the structure of the extension, Sale’s contract has a luxury tax number of $25.6MM per season from 2020-24.  Boston’s overall luxury tax payroll stood at roughly $236.3MM at the start of November, so subtracting Sale’s salary would have dropped their figure to $210.7MM, already within shouting distance of the $208MM threshold.  From that point it would’ve been much easier for chief baseball officer Chaim Bloom to make few more cuts and duck under the $208MM line without having to move Betts or Price.

Sale isn’t the only problematic salary on Boston’s payroll, of course, as the four-year, $68MM free agent deal Nathan Eovaldi signed last offseason is also looking questionable after Eovaldi’s injury-plagued 2019.  That said, the Red Sox were far from the only team who thought Eovaldi turned a corner in his breakout 2018 campaign, and they had to outbid the market to re-sign him.

In Sale’s case, the Sox didn’t necessarily have to pursue that extension, particularly given that a few red flags were already apparent.  Sale lost some effectiveness down the stretch in the 2017 season, and had an even shakier ending to his 2018, as shoulder problems limited him to just 17 regular-season innings after July 27 of that year.  The Red Sox were as judicious as possible in spacing out Sale’s appearances during the postseason, when he posted a 4.11 ERA over 15 1/3 innings en route to Boston’s World Series championship.

While Sale had been a very durable pitcher for the bulk of his career, seemingly running out of steam in consecutive seasons should probably have been enough to give the Red Sox some pause before guaranteeing him $145MM through his age 31-35 seasons.  As The Boston Globe’s Peter Abraham recently noted, the Sox may have been motivated to keep Sale out of a lingering regret over the Jon Lester situation from 2014, when the team was perhaps too rigid in extension talks prior to Lester’s final season under contract, which led to Lester being dealt to the Athletics at midseason and then going on deliver several more fine years after signing with the Cubs.

Abraham argues that waiting until after Sale’s final season could have been the more prudent decision for the Sox, as they would have had the added information of Sale’s 2019 numbers.  While the elbow injury was the biggest concern, Sale’s 36% hard-hit ball rate was the highest of his career, and his average fastball velocity dropped by 1.5 mph (to 93.2) from his 2018 speed.  Sale’s 2019 season was the worst of his ten-year MLB career, though given his high standards, a “bad” Chris Sale season was still very solid — a 4.40 ERA, 5.89 K/BB rate, 13.3 K/9 over 147 1/3 innings, and a wealth of advanced metrics (3.39 FIP, 2.93 xFIP, 3.00 SIERA) hinting that Sale’s 4.40 ERA was the result of some bad luck, such as a 1.47 HR/9 that far surpassed his previous career high.

Would this platform year have been enough to make Sale a big player in free agency?  We saw multiple top arms score larger-than-expected contracts this winter, though none of Gerrit Cole, Stephen Strasburg, Madison Bumgarner and company had a mid-August shutdown hanging over their heads.  It’s probably safe to assume that Sale would have still landed a pretty sizable multi-year contract if he had been a free agent, though that also assumes he would have tested the market at all.  His elbow injury could have led to Sale accepting a one-year, $17.8MM qualifying offer to remain in Boston, in the hopes that he’d return to better health in 2020 and deliver a prime season that would lead to a bigger deal in the 2020-21 offseason.

Adding another wrinkle to the mix, perhaps the Red Sox don’t even issue Sale a QO in this scenario out of a concern that he might accept it.  Boston’s approach to payroll seemed to shift radically from the start of the 2019 season to the end, as president of baseball operations Dave Dombrowski was fired and eventually replaced with Bloom, who was under that rather clumsily-issued edict to trim salaries.  In the wake of Sale’s 2019 season, perhaps the Red Sox would’ve been comfortable just letting Sale walk entirely, thus removing one more contractual concern from their books.

A major-market team like the Sox can weather a big contract not working out, but the franchise’s self-imposed desire to avoid the luxury tax suddenly puts many of the big deals of the Dombrowski era (the Sale extension, plus the signings of Price, Eovaldi, and maybe even J.D. Martinez considering the sheer dollars involved) under the radar.  This being said, blaming Dombrowski for Boston’s financial situation is unfair, as these nine-figure deals aren’t happening without the green light from ownership.

Sale’s extension is a prime example of how no transaction exists in a vacuum, as every signing/extension/trade/release/etc. is itself a response to some other move, and also sets off a chain reaction of other moves.  As Abraham pointed out, who knows if Red Sox ownership makes such a move if they had acted differently with Lester all those years ago, or if maybe Sale (or Price, or Eovaldi, or even Dombrowski) ends up in Boston whatsoever if the Sox had still had Lester in their rotation.  Unfortunately for Sale and the Red Sox, the second-guessing over the extension will continue at least until the southpaw can finally get back on the mound.

Rebound Candidate: Kevin Gausman

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While Kevin Gausman has never developed into the top-of-the-rotation starter many envisioned, he carved out a role as a solid innings eater in his first five MLB seasons. Between 2016-18, Gausman averaged 183.1 innings with a 4.07 ERA/4.30 FIP between the Orioles and Braves.

Then the wheels fell off in the first half of 2019. The righty started his first full season in Atlanta with a 6.21 ERA in 13 starts; he hit the shelf for a month-plus with plantar fasciitis in his right foot June 11. Gausman would make just three more starts for the Braves, who waived him in August. The non-contending Reds claimed him for the stretch run.

It was Gausman’s time in Cincinnati that offers the most hope for a rebound. With a full rotation, manager David Bell deployed him solely in short stints (14 relief appearances and one ’start’ as a two-inning opener). While he managed just a 4.03 ERA in that time, the now 29-year-old racked up an impressive 29:5 strikeout-to-walk ratio. Gausman’s midseason bullpen bump wasn’t at the level of someone like Drew Pomeranz’s, who struck out nearly half the batters he faced as a reliever and parlayed it into a four-year deal. It was, however, enough to remind us Gausman’s nowhere near as bad as he looked at the start of last season.

In fact, much of Gausman’s abysmal results in Atlanta can be chalked up to bad luck. Hitters put up an unsustainable .345 BABIP against him in his time as a starting pitcher. And those batted balls tended to fall in at the least opportune times. As a Brave in 2019, Gausman faced 53 batters with two outs and runners on base. He struck out 18 of them, but opponents hit .406 on balls in play in those spots. If just a handful of those batted balls had found defenders’ gloves, his ERA would’ve looked quite a bit better. Luck isn’t to blame for all of Gausman’s trouble in Atlanta. He did allow more hard, airborne contact than ever before, which is a bit worrisome. Nevertheless, it’s fair to point out things beyond his control contributed to his struggles.

The rotation-needy Giants signed up for a potential Gausman rebound this offseason. He’ll get another crack at cementing himself as a rotation piece at pitcher-friendly Oracle Park. He doesn’t throw as hard as he once did, but he still sits 94+ MPH on his fastball. That pairs with a knockout splitter that’s allowed him to handle left-handed hitters throughout his career. At the very least, he should be well-equipped for the three batter minimum if he ends up back in the bullpen at some point.

Surely, though, SF is hoping for a successful return to the rotation for the still-young hurler. Perhaps the organization can unlock further upside by coaxing a usable breaking ball. David O’Brien of the Athletic reported last summer Gausman had toyed with a curveball while rehabbing from the aforementioned injury, but he was almost exclusively fastball-splitter in the big leagues. Even a mere return to form would position Gausman well when he hits the open market next offseason. The Giants don’t appear likely to contend in 2020, so the righty could find himself changing uniforms for the third straight season.

Transaction Retrospection: Joe Mauer’s Extension

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Though negotiations between J.T. Realmuto and the Phillies are currently on hold, the idea of a contract extension between the two sides has been gestating for months.  As such, there has already been a lot of speculation about how a Realmuto deal (if one is reached) will shake up the pay scale of catcher contracts.  The latest reports indicated that Realmuto was looking for an extension that would pay him more guaranteed money than Buster Posey’s eight-year, $159MM extension with the Giants, which is the second-biggest deal ever given to a catcher.

The largest catcher contract in history?  That agreement came exactly ten years ago today, with the Twins making the official announcement a day later.  Minnesota had inked Joe Mauer, its star player and local hero, to an eight-year, $184MM extension that covered the 2011-18 season.  Not only was it was the largest deal ever signed by a catcher, but it was the fourth-largest contract in baseball history as of March 2010 — Mauer’s payday was topped only by Alex Rodriguez’s two mega-contracts with the Rangers and Yankees, and Derek Jeter’s ten-year, $189MM extension with New York.

Could Realmuto and his representatives try to top Mauer’s contract?  Even before the coronavirus pandemic added an extra layer of uncertainty over baseball and the world at large, it didn’t seem overly likely, though Realmuto’s camp had some interest in topping Mauer’s $23MM average annual value.  Like Mauer at the time of his extension, Realmuto is just a season away from free agency, but Realmuto recently turned 29 years old, while Mauer was only entering his age-27 season at time of his deal.

Plus, there’s also the fact that the Phillies would naturally be gunshy about signing a catcher to that large a contract given how things played out in Minnesota.  Unfortunately for both Mauer and the Twins, the fairytale story of the St. Paul native staying with his hometown team and leading them to a World Series title didn’t come to pass, as 2011-18 was a lean period the franchise.  After reaching the postseason six times between 2002-10, the Twins only had one playoff appearance and two winning seasons total over the course of Mauer’s extension.

That period also saw Mauer’s production decline, though some dropoff was inevitable given the high level of Mauer’s first seven MLB seasons.  From 2004-10, only six players topped Mauer’s 34.2 fWAR, as he developed into one of baseball’s best all-around players.  Those seven years saw Mauer hit .327/.407/.481 with 81 home runs over 3578 PA, while amassing a resume that includes four All-Star appearances, four Silver Slugger Awards, three Gold Gloves, three AL batting titles, and four top-eight finishes in AL MVP voting.

Mauer’s best season came directly before his extension, as he was named AL MVP after hitting .365/.444/.587 (leading the American League in all three categories) with 28 homers over 606 plate appearances.  As per Fangraphs, Mauer’s 2009 was tied for the fifth-best season ever for a catcher in terms of fWAR, with 8.4.

These numbers add context to the extension and perhaps serve as a bit of a reminder — Joe Mauer was an awesome player in his prime.  Just about any big-market team in the game would have happily given Mauer eight years and $184MM given the opportunity to extend him, and the fact that a smaller market club like the Twins also felt comfortable in taking the plunge speaks to Mauer’s value at the time.

Of course, the Twins faced unique pressure to retain Mauer given his roots, as the idea of a literal homegrown superstar leaving for another franchise would have been a particularly tough blow for Minnesota.  It should be noted that the Twins’ extension with Mauer was met with near-unanimous praise from both their own fans and the baseball world in general, with many comparing Mauer to the likes of Tony Gwynn, George Brett, or Cal Ripken Jr. as a one-team star who would define a franchise for a generation.  ESPN.com’s Buster Olney described the extension as “going to be viewed as a strong development for Major League Baseball, at a time when there are growing concerns about the disparity between teams like the Yankees and Red Sox, and teams that generate less revenue.”

A decade after the fact, that disparity certainly remains despite the large amount of new revenue (from TV contracts and online media) coming into the sport, as it still stands out as notable when a non-major market franchise makes a particularly big splurge to sign a free agent, acquire a big contract in a trade, or ink one of its own stars to an extension.  In the latter case, teams have become more and more proactive about extending their players earlier in their careers, well before they get even a year away from free agency as Mauer did.

From 2011-18, Mauer still provided above-average (113 wRC+, 114 OPS+) production by hitting .290/.372/.405 over 4382 plate appearances.  The problem was, however, that this production was less impressive coming from a first baseman than it would have been from a catcher.  Minnesota shifted Mauer out from behind the plate after the 2013 season due to a number of concussions and knee problems, and Mauer never played catcher again until his very last game, when he caught a single pitch in the ninth inning before being substituted out.

Mauer’s contract made him a particular target for criticism during the Twins’ struggles in the 10’s, which was an unfair burden given that Minnesota’s issues had much more to do with a number of trades and signings during the decade that provided far less return than the Mauer extension.  It’s easy to say in hindsight that the Twins erred in keeping Mauer, though that also makes the assumption that the club would have spent that extra $23MM per season on more canny roster upgrades….or that the Twins would have even stretched their payroll to that extent whatsoever.

Ten years later, the Mauer extension is perhaps best seen as a defensible investment that didn’t quite pan out.  Given the perfect storm of age, production, and added hometown value that went into the contract, it may yet be a while before another catcher tops it, with Realmuto’s potential new deal with Philadelphia standing as the closest challenger in years.

How The Delayed Season Impacts The Yankees

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One of today’s innumerable sad realities is that the coronavirus will shorten or, in a worst-case scenario, wipe out the 2020 Major League Baseball season. We’re all hoping the world will get back to normal as soon as possible, though the calendar could turn to June or July before MLB’s Opening Day rolls around. The only bright side for baseball is that will give injured players across the majors more time to heal and perhaps play a full season, however long it lasts. Few teams (if any) stand to benefit more from the delay than the reigning American League East champion Yankees, who entered the spring among the game’s World Series favorites but have suffered one key injury after another in recent weeks.

Before the sport was forced to shut down and put off its March 26 opener, there were serious questions about how the Yankees’ roster would look for Game 1. Their rotation took a pair of massive hits with injuries to their two best Gerrit Cole complements, Luis Severino and James Paxton. Even with a truncated season likely, there’s no shot we’ll see Severino in 2020. After all, the flamethrowing right-hander underwent Tommy John surgery less than a month ago. But the outlook is much more hopeful for the oft-injured Paxton, who had back surgery in the first week of February. Paxton’s not expected to take the hill again until May or June; under conventional circumstances, that would have meant missing at least a month-plus of the season. Now, if Paxton’s recovery stays on course, he could be in line for either a full slate of games or something close to it.

A whole year of Paxton would be a boon for New York, though a late start to the season won’t be fully positive for its rotation. Righty Domingo German’s set to miss the first 63 games of 2020 as a result of a domestic violence suspension. So, even if we see far fewer games than usual, he’ll probably have to serve out that entire ban. A reasonably healthy Yankees starting staff would still be in better shape than most, though, with Cole, Paxton, Masahiro Tanaka, J.A. Happ and Jordan Montgomery as their top five.

On the offensive side, the Yankees are facing a slew of injuries. That’s especially true for their outfield, which may have gone without any of Aaron Judge, Giancarlo Stanton and Aaron Hicks on a typical Opening Day. That’s a lot of firepower. Judge has been limited by upper body issues and even a collapsed lung for weeks, while a calf problem has slowed Stanton this spring. But the longer we’re deprived of baseball, the better the two sluggers’ chances are of being ready from the get-go. The same applies to Hicks, who underwent Tommy John surgery last October. The belief then was that Hicks would return to action in eight to 10 months. Should that timeline hold up, he may be able to debut sometime in June at the earliest.

The health of Judge, Stanton and Hicks will obviously affect other hitters on the Yankees’ roster. For instance, how much center field will Brett Gardner play if Hicks is around for most of the year? How much action will Stanton see at DH, and if he racks up a lot of time there, will it eat into at-bats for Miguel Andujar, Luke Voit and Mike Ford to a significant extent? Will Clint Frazier, who still has a minor league option remaining, begin the season as a reserve on the Yankees’ roster or as a starter in Triple-A Scranton/Wilkes-Barre?

It’s fair to say the health of the Yankees at the outset of the season could also impact the rest of the American League. The more high-end contributors return for them by Opening Day, the better the Yankees’ chances are of winning the AL East. That, of course, damages the hopes of division rivals in Tampa Bay, Boston and Toronto. And if the Yankees are healthy enough to position themselves to grab home-field advantage in the AL playoffs, it would bolster their odds of fending off the rest of the league and capturing their first pennant and maybe their first World Series since 2009.

Offseason In Review: Los Angeles Angels

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Expectations were that the Angels would make a splashy addition to their rotation during the offseason. That didn’t happen. They did, however, reel in premier position player Anthony Rendon and one of the game’s most respected managers in Joe Maddon. A decades-long Angels employee before he went on to manage the Rays and Cubs to great success, Maddon’s taking over for Brad Ausmus, who lasted just one season as the club’s skipper.

Major League Signings

Trades and Claims

Notable Minor League Signings

Notable Losses

Few teams possessed worse starting staffs than the Angels in 2019. They ranked dead last in fWAR (3.2) and second from the bottom in both ERA (5.64) and FIP (5.41). None of their starters even touched the 100-inning mark. The team endured an unthinkable tragedy when left-hander Tyler Skaggs passed away last July.

The Angels had no choice but to carry on without Skaggs, which meant trying to upgrade their rotation over the winter. They were connected to the top free-agent arms available (Gerrit Cole, Stephen Strasburg and Zack Wheeler) and high-end trade targets such as the Indians’ Corey Kluber and Carlos Carrasco. Ultimately, despite a reported $300MM offer to Cole, the Angels did not emerge with him or any of the other aforementioned starters. But they at least came away with a couple durable back-end types, trading for Dylan Bundy of the Orioles and signing ex-Brave Julio Teheran. They’re not flashy, but the two have shown an ability to competently chew up innings, which matters for a team that couldn’t find anyone to do that a season ago. Bundy has thrown 160-plus innings three seasons in a row, while Teheran has seven straight seasons of 170-plus frames under his belt.

Although Bundy and Teheran make for welcome additions, the Angels could still open the season with an underwhelming group of starters. Part of that depends on when the season actually begins, though, with the coronavirus perhaps delaying it until June or later. Had the year begun on time, the Angels would not have had either Shohei Ohtani or Griffin Canning among their starting options. As of early February, Ohtani – continuing to work back from the Tommy John surgery he underwent in October 2018 – was targeting a mid-May return to pitching. Canning received “biological injections” in his elbow two weeks ago, and his 2020 outlook isn’t clear at this point.

Even having just one of Ohtan or Canning (especially Ohtani) available when the season commences would change the complexion of the Angels’ rotation. Otherwise, they may not field a particularly appealing or deep unit after Bundy, Teheran and Andrew Heaney. The rest of their healthy 40-man possibilities include Matt Andriese, Jaime Barria, Patrick Sandoval, Dillon Peters and Jose Suarez. Andriese spent all of last season as a reliever in Arizona, where he struggled; Barria and Sandoval have promise, but neither had success in the majors in 2019; and Peters and Suarez posted brutal numbers.

Luckily for the Halos, their lineup has the potential to terrorize opposing pitchers. The floor was already reasonably high with the best player in the world, center fielder Mike Trout, as well as Ohtani leading the way. They’ll now be joined by Rendon, a superstar third baseman whom the Angels signed to a seven-year, $245MM contract after he helped the Nationals to a World Series title last season.

The Rendon acquisition came after the Angels rid themselves of pricey, oft-injured infielder Zack Cozart, whom they essentially had to bribe the Giants to take. Getting his $12MM-plus salary for this season off the books cost the Angels a quality prospect in shortstop Will Wilson, a first-round pick from last June whom the Halos had to send to San Francisco in order to convince the Giants to take Cozart.

The Cozart gamble didn’t work out for the Angels in the two years he was on the team, though there’s little reason to believe they won’t get at least some high-end seasons out of Rendon. The soon-to-be 30-year-old, by far the foremost position player on the winter’s open market, has consistently been among the elite performers in baseball since his first full season in 2014. Rendon’s the owner of four seasons of at least 6.0 fWAR, including a career-high 7.0 last year. He’ll now displace David Fletcher at third in Anaheim. While Fletcher held his own at the hot corner last season, he’s capable of playing all over the diamond (he can also handle second, short and both corner outfield positions). That versatility should continue to make Fletcher a valuable piece of the team’s roster.

The Angels received little value out of the catcher position last year, when Jonathan Lucroy, Kevan Smith, Dustin Garneau, Max Stassi and Anthony Bemboom combined for a dismal minus-0.6 fWAR. Stassi and Bemboom are still with the organization, but they’ll take a backseat to new starter Jason Castro. The $6.85MM deal the Angels handed Castro, a former Astro and Twin, looks eminently reasonable when you consider what he brings to the table. The 32-year-old Castro is an enormous asset in the pitch-framing department who, throughout his career, has thrown out a roughly average number of would-be base stealers and offered passable production for his position on the offensive side. Castro’s track record suggests that he’ll be a major upgrade over the backstops the Angels relied on a year ago.

Trout, Ohtani, Rendon, Fletcher and Castro make for over half of a promising core of regulars. There are some questions elsewhere, though. For instance, can normally big-hitting left fielder Justin Upton bounce back from an injury-marred season? The same applies to defensively brilliant shortstop Andrelton Simmons, who’s entering the last year of his contract. Meanwhile, it’s fair to wonder if first baseman Albert Pujols has anything at all left in the tank, and whether infielder Tommy La Stella and right fielder Brian Goodwin can follow up on their surprising showings from 2019. Goodwin may not be long for a starting job unless he absolutely tears it up, as the Angels have a stud prospect in soon-to-be 21-year-old Jo Adell breathing down his neck. The fact that Adell is charging toward the bigs is among the reasons the Angels bid goodbye to longtime starting right fielder Kole Calhoun over the winter, buying him out for $1MM in lieu of exercising a $14MM option. If the coronavirus doesn’t rob us of a 2020 season, Adell figures to make his much-anticipated debut this year.

Along with some iffiness in their position player cast, the Angels are facing a bit of uncertainty in their bullpen. Their relief corps last year was only a middle-of-the-pack bunch – albeit one with some intriguing choices in Hansel Robles, Ty Buttrey, Cam Bedrosian, Noe Ramirez and Keynan Middleton – and the team didn’t make any obvious improvements during the offseason. The Angels instead just made small moves such as claiming righty Mike Mayers from the Cardinals and grabbing lefty Ryan Buchter on a non-guaranteed deal. At the very least, Buchter could end up as a sneaky good signing. He has a history of strong run prevention, though the fact that he walked more hitters and yielded more home runs than ever last season forced him to settle for a minors pact.

2020 Season Outlook

On paper, it’s fair to say this is a better Angels roster than the 2019 version that spiraled to a 72-90 record and extended the franchise’s playoff drought to five years. Whether the Angels will turn into real playoff contenders this season is another matter, though, largely because it’s once again tough to bank on their rotation operating at a high level. Moreover, the Angels find themselves in a division with at least two likely playoff contenders (the Astros and Athletics) and a Rangers club that seemingly bettered itself over the winter. However, at a minimum, it would be a disappointment for the Angels not to surpass the .500 mark for the first time since 2015.

How would you grade the Angels’ offseason? (Poll link for app users)

Photo courtesy of USA Today Sports Images.

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