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Yankees, David Freitas Agree To Minor League Deal

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The Yankees have signed catcher David Freitas to a minor league contract, according to the MLB.com transactions tracker. Like others who have signed during the lockout, Freitas was eligible to sign a minors pact by virtue of the fact that he ended the season as a minor league free agent.

Freitas has appeared in parts of three MLB seasons, suiting up with the Braves, Mariners and Brewers between 2017-19. The right-handed hitting backstop has only amassed a .200/.268/.288 line with one home run over 143 plate appearances at the highest level. While Freitas’ big league production has been modest, he owns a much more impressive minor league track record. Over parts of eight seasons at Triple-A, the California native sports a .322/.401/.472 line.

That impressive minor league resume caught the attention of the Korea Baseball Organization’s Kiwoom Heroes, who signed Freitas for the 2021 campaign. His stint in South Korea didn’t go as planned, though, as he hit .259/.297/.394 over 148 trips to the plate before being waived in June. Freitas caught on with the Rays on a minor league deal down the stretch. He hit well in a brief showing with Triple-A Durham but didn’t get a big league call and elected free agency at the end of the year.

Presumably, Freitas will get an opportunity to compete for a big league role in Spring Training. The Yankees look likely to again turn the bulk of the playing time at catcher to Gary Sánchez after tendering him an arbitration contract. Kyle Higashioka is the favorite for reserve duties as the only other catcher on the 40-man roster. Freitas and fellow non-roster invitee Rob Brantly are presently slated to function as the top depth options behind Sánchez and Higashioka.

Yankees Finalize Coaching Staff

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The Yankees finalized their coaching staff this evening, announcing the group that’ll be assisting manager Aaron Boone. Bench coach Carlos Mendoza and pitching coach Matt Blake are each back for third seasons in their respective roles. As previously reported, Dillon Lawson takes over as hitting coach to replace Marcus Thames.

Perhaps of most interest, the Yankees announced they’ve added longtime big league third baseman Eric Chávez as an assistant hitting coach. The left-handed hitter appeared in 17 MLB seasons between 1998-2014, compiling a career .268/.342/.475 line that checked in 13 points above the league average by measure of wRC+. Chávez spent the 2011-12 seasons with the Yankees, but he’s best known for his run with the A’s. During his time in Oakland, he earned six consecutive Gold Glove awards from 2001-06. He also claimed a Silver Slugger in 2002, a season in which he hit .275/.348/.513 and earned a 14th-place finish in AL MVP balloting.

Chávez hung up his spikes in July 2014 and quickly jumped into his post-playing days in the Bronx. He accepted a role as a special assignment scout with the Yankees before making the jump to the Angels’ front office after the 2015 campaign. Chávez spent the next few seasons there — including an interim stint managing in Triple-A. The 44-year-old had been mentioned as a candidate for managerial searches in both Anaheim and Texas in years past, although this’ll be his first stint on an MLB coaching staff.

Joining Chávez as an assistant hitting coach is Casey Dykes. The 31-year-old was poached away from Indiana University after the 2019 season, part of a leaguewide trend for teams looking to the amateur ranks in search of coaching talent. Dykes spent the 2021 campaign coaching hitters with Triple-A Scranton/Wilkes-Barre but will now get a bump to the big league level.

In other new additions to the staff, the club confirmed the previously-reported hirings of former Mets’ manager Luis Rojas as third base/outfield coach and Desi Druschel as assistant pitching coach. Longtime minor league coach and field coordinator Travis Chapman gets a bump to the big league staff as first base/infield coach. New York also brought back bullpen coach Mike Harkey and quality control/catching coach Tanner Swanson in the same roles.

Latest On Jameson Taillon

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After undergoing ankle surgery on October 28, Jameson Taillon isn’t yet sure about his recovery timeline, the Yankees right-hander told The Athletic’s Lindsey Adler.  Taillon’s procedure fixed a torn longus tendon in his right ankle, and since this “is such a rare injury for pitchers,” Taillon said he doesn’t know exactly how his offseason rehab will play out.

“We have a rough timeline of when I can start really playing catch, which would be sometime in like mid to late January,” Taillon said.  “But even the doctor was kind of like, ’You guys are the pitching experts.’  A typical offseason throwing progression would be like six to eight weeks of playing catch and then four weeks of bullpens.  So basically everything I’m doing is kind of a month behind, but I’m not really sure where that will leave us at the end.”

In the event that the “month behind” projection is accurate, Taillon would seem likely to miss some games at the start of the season, as he’d need some extra work to make up for the lost Spring Training time.  As he noted, however, everything seems quite fluid at this point, so it still be several weeks before Taillon or the Yankees know when exactly the righty might be ready to pitch.

The lockout prevents Taillon from communicating with team personnel, and “the Yankees’ strength department wrote out a program for me, but they don’t get to see me every day, so that side of it is kind of weird.”  That said, Taillon said he is continuing his recovery at New York’s Hospital for Special Surgery, and has already been out of a walking boot for around 10 days.

Taillon also observed that his own past injury history has already made him quite familiar with rehab processes in general.  A right flexor tendon strain and a subsequent Tommy John surgery sidelined for all of 2020, and limited him to only 37 1/3 innings in 2019.  This was the second TJ surgery of Taillon’s career, and he also missed time in 2017 recovering from surgery for testicular cancer.

With this in mind, it was no small feat that Taillon was able to toss 144 1/3 innings for the Yankees last season, marking the second-highest workload of his five MLB seasons.  Taillon posted a 4.30 ERA/4.33 SIERA with an above-average 7.3% walk rate and some impressive spin rates on his fastball and curve, though his fastball velocity was slightly down (to 94mph) from the 95mph he averaged from 2016-18.  His hard-contact numbers were also down, and the result was ultimately what Taillon described as a “very up and down” season, as “it felt like my hot streak was really hot and my cold streak was really cold, which really isn’t like me.”

He remained healthy until his ankle issue arose in early September, though after a three-week absence, Taillon was able to return from the injured list and make two more appearances in key late-season games.  Over a pair of abbreviated starts, Taillon allowed one earned run in 5 2/3 IP, helping New York to two critical victories.

The Yankees are no strangers to pitching injuries, and while the club obviously hopes Taillon is ready sooner rather than later, the Bronx Bombers have some rotation depth on hand.  Beyond ace Gerrit Cole, Jordan Montgomery, Nestor Cortes Jr., Luis Severino, and Domingo German are lined up for starts, swingman Michael King can help in both the rotation and the bullpen, and youngsters Luis Gil, Clarke Schmidt, and Deivi Garcia are all waiting in the wings.  The Yankees could also certainly still add to this group via trades or free agents once the lockout is over, and made one noteworthy push for a starter already this winter, reportedly offering Justin Verlander a one-year, $25MM deal before Verlander re-signed with the Astros.

Yankees, Jimmy Cordero Agree To Minor League Deal

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The Yankees are in agreement on a minor league deal with reliever Jimmy Cordero, reports Jon Heyman of the MLB Network (Twitter link). The 30-year-old is eligible to sign a minors pact by virtue of the fact that he was outrighted off the White Sox’s 40-man roster at the end of the season.

Cordero has appeared in parts of three big league seasons. He broke in with the Nationals in 2018 and also appeared with the Blue Jays and White Sox over the next couple years. Cordero pitched to a 2.75 ERA across 36 innings with Chicago in 2019, but he struggled in each of the two surrounding seasons. The right-hander missed the entire 2021 campaign recovering from a March Tommy John surgery. Given that TJS typically requires around 14 months of recovery time, it seems likely Cordero will be ready to return to game action at some point within the first couple months of next season.

Over his big league career, the native of the Dominican Republic owns a 4.55 ERA over 83 frames of relief. Cordero has only punched out 17.9% of batters faced, but the sinkerballer has induced grounders on a lofty 54.7% of balls in play against him. That’s on the strength of a fastball that has averaged north of 97 MPH in the past and checked in at 96.6 MPH during his most recent action in 2020.

The Yankees have seemingly placed a priority on adding grounder specialists in constructing their bullpen of late — Darren O’Day, Joely Rodríguez, Clay Holmes and Wandy Peralta all fit that bill — and Cordero comes with a similar skillset. Whenever he’s healthy, he’ll try to pitch his way into the middle innings mix in the Bronx.

Yankees, Ender Inciarte Agree To Minor League Deal

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The Yankees have a minor league deal in place with center fielder Ender Inciarte, according to the team’s transactions log at MLB.com (hat tip: Lindsey Adler of The Athletic, on Twitter). Their transaction log also indicates that right-hander Vinny Nittoli, outfielder Blake Perkins and infielder Wilkerman Garcia have signed minor league deals (or, in Garcia’s care, re-signed). Inciarte was able to sign a minor league deal because he did not finish the 2021 season on a team’s 40-man roster or 60-day injured list.

Inciarte is the most recognizable name of the bunch — a former All-Star center fielder and three-time Gold Glove winner with the Braves. Acquired by Atlanta alongside Dansby Swanson in the heist that sent Shelby Miller to the D-backs, Inciarte was outstanding in his first three seasons with the Braves, hitting at a .287/.342/.391 clip with elite defense and plus speed that provided plenty of value on the basepaths. His 2016 season was impressive enough that the Braves wasted little time in inking him to a five-year, $30.525MM contract extension that bought out all four of his arbitration years — Inciarte was a Super Two player — and one free-agent year, with an option for a second.

Unfortunately for both Inciarte and the Braves, by the midway point of the contract, things turned south — though not necessarily through any fault of Inciarte. While he largely replicated his 2016 production in 2017-18, Inciarte went down with a lumbar strain early in the 2019 season and missed more than two months while nursing that back injury. He returned from the IL in mid-July but was back on the shelf less than a month later, this time owing to a hamstring injury that kept him out for the final six weeks of the season.

Inciarte’s bat cratered in the 2020 season, and he didn’t rebound much in 2021 before another hamstring injury cropped up. Atlanta eventually designated him for assignment and released him this past summer, in what was the final year of that five-year extension. While Inciarte latched on with the Reds on a minor league pact, he didn’t return to the Majors last season. On the whole, since that strong run from 2016-18, Inciarte owns a meager .223/.306/.338 batting line through 450 trips to the plate at the MLB level.

The Yankees’ outfield mix is already rather crowded, with Joey Gallo, Aaron Hicks, Aaron Judge and Giancarlo Stanton all locked into outfield/designated hitter time next season. It’s not certain whether Brett Gardner will return to the Bronx once again, but if he signs elsewhere or calls it a career, that’d greatly improve Inciarte’s odds of breaking camp with the Yankees and earning an Opening Day roster spot.

As for Nittoli, the 31-year-old righty made his MLB debut this past season after an eight-year odyssey that included stops in Seattle (where he was a 25th-round pick), the then-independent St. Paul Saints (now a Twins affiliate), the Blue Jays and the D-backs. Nittoli found his was back to the Mariners in minor league free agency last season, and while his call to the Majors was exceedingly brief — just one game and one inning — it nevertheless marked the type of feel-good story of hard work paying off that so many sports fans love to see.

Nittoli returned to the Saints after being cut loose by the Mariners, this time as a member of the Twins’ Triple-A affiliate rather than a team in the independent American Association. He did not, however, end up pitching in the big leagues with Minnesota. Nittoli was quite home run prone in 2021, leading to a bloated 5.05 ERA in Triple-A, but he also posted an outstanding 51-to-10 K/BB ratio in 41 innings. Overall, he carries a career 4.61 minor league ERA with a 25.2% strikeout rate and a 7.3% walk rate.

Perkins, 25, was one of three players sent from the Nationals to the Royals in 2018’s Kelvin Gutierrez trade. The former second-round pick (2015) never really found his footing in the Royals organization and became a free agent after a 2021 season that saw him hit .202/.319/.332 in 280 Double-A plate appearances.

Garcia, 23, has spent his whole career in the Yankees organization and batted .234/.288/.318 in the low minors. He spent the 2021 season on the minor league 60-day injured list and hasn’t played in a game setting since 2019, when he spent the bulk of his time in Class-A Advanced.

Brewers Have Had Previous Interest In Luke Voit

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Joel Sherman of the New York Post took a look at the Yankees’ offseason and speculated about various paths they could take once the lockout is completed. One scenario that he contemplates would involve the club acquiring Lorenzo Cain from the Brewers to act as insurance for oft-injured center fielder Aaron Hicks. Sherman then parenthetically remarks that “Milwaukee has had interest in Voit previously,” referring, of course, to first baseman Luke Voit.

It isn’t specified exactly when this interest occurred, but Voit would make for an interesting fit on the Brewers roster currently. After acquiring Rowdy Tellez from the Blue Jays in July, the hulking lefty got most of the playing time at first base for the remainder of the season. With Voit being right-handed, they could make for an interesting platoon pair, but neither player has pronounced splits over their respective careers. Voit has hit .264/.344/.516 against lefties, for a wRC+ of 130. Against righties, he’s hit .268/.362/.508, wRC+ of 134. In 2021, he also had an even wRC+ of 111 against both lefties and righties. Tellez has hit lefties at a rate of .264/.314/.441, wRC+ of 98 for his career. Versus righties, his line is .241/.305/.470, wRC+ of 101.

It’s possible that the Brewers were interested in Voit before acquiring Tellez and that the presence of Rowdy lessens their desire to bring in Voit. However, Voit would be an upgrade over Tellez, as long as he’s healthy. Also, with the designated hitter expected to come to the National League next year, it would be easy enough for the Brewers to have both players in the lineup on a regular basis, especially with the ongoing strikeout issues of  Keston Hiura and recent non-tender of Daniel Vogelbach.

The Brewers have been looking to add some offensive pop this offseason to complement their excellent pitching staff. They’ve already added Hunter Renfroe, but also lost Avisail Garcia and Eduardo Escobar. Voit is certainly capable of adding some slug to any lineup, as he led the majors in homers during the shortened 2020 season. However, injuries limited him to just 68 games in 2021. The Yankees acquired Anthony Rizzo for the stretch run and have since been connected in rumors to other first basemen, such as Freddie Freeman and Matt Olson, perhaps indicating that they would be open to moving on from Voit. He comes with three years of club control and is projected to earn a salary around $5.4MM next year. It will be his second of four arbitration seasons, as a Super Two player.

Yankees Re-Sign Rob Brantly To Minor League Deal

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The Yankees have re-signed catcher Rob Brantly to a minor league contract, tweets Joel Sherman of the New York Post. Presumably, the Lagardere Sports client will also be in Major League camp when Spring Training commences.

Brantly, 32, spent most of the 2021 season with the Yankees’ Triple-A affiliate but did appear in six big league games, during which time he went 3-for-20 with a double and four strikeouts. He tallied 264 plate appearances in Triple-A Scranton/Wilkes-Barre, batting .289/.379/.456 with nine homers, nine doubles and a triple.

The well-traveled Brantly has spent time with 10 organizations and seen Major League action with five of them: the Marlins, White Sox, Phillies, Giants and Yankees. He’s never topped 243 plate appearances in a Major League season, however, and hasn’t logged more than 36 big league plate appearances since way back in 2013. Overall, Brantly owns a .224/.287/.324 batting line in 453 trips to the plate as a big leaguer.

Brantly has seen far more action and been much productive in Triple-A, where he carries a lifetime .266/.319/.395 in parts of nine seasons (2171 plate appearances). He’s eligible to sign a minor league deal during the lockout by virtue of the fact that he didn’t finish out the 2021 season on a 40-man roster or the Major League injured list.

Though there was a good bit of public debate on among fans and pundits alike, the Yankees opted to tender a contract to Gary Sanchez, positioning him to reprise his role as the primary backstop. Kyle Higashioka is in line to back Sanchez up, but the Yankees don’t have a third catcher on their 40-man roster and thus were in need of some depth.

Brantly could be just one of multiple eventual additions in that regard, but for now he looks like the top alternative if Sanchez or Higashioka goes down with an injury during the 2022 season. Of course, all of that assumes the Yankees opt to stick with the status quo behind the plate rather than further pursue alternate scenarios once the transaction freeze has been lifted.

Mets To Interview Buck Showalter

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The Mets are scheduled to interview Buck Showalter tomorrow as part of their managerial search, reports Jon Heyman of the MLB Network (Twitter link). That’s hardly a surprise, as Showalter was reported to be on New York’s radar last week. Perhaps of more interest is that Heyman adds that some around the industry see Showalter as the favorite, although he notes that other candidates are expected to sit down in the coming days.

Few around the game can match Showalter’s experience and credentials. He landed his first big league managerial job with the Yankees nearly three decades ago. Showalter spent the 1992-95 campaigns in the Bronx and went on to log stints leading the D-Backs from (1998-2000), the Rangers (2003-06) and the Orioles (2010-18).

Now 65, Showalter is a three-time Manager of the Year award winner, claiming that honor in each of 1994, 2004 and 2014. He’s overseen five playoff clubs (including three division winners), leading the 2014 Orioles to the AL Championship Series. Baltimore posted a winning record in five of his first seven seasons at the helm, but the club nosedived in 2017, leading to the complete rebuild from which the organization still has yet to emerge. That’s not entirely or even primarily the fault of Showalter, but the O’s nevertheless dismissed him after the 2018 campaign. He hasn’t managed since, yet he’s continued to express openness to a return to the dugout.

Showalter will become the fourth known interviewee with the Mets. New York has also spoken or scheduled interviews with Rays’ bench coach Matt Quatraro, former Tigers’ and Angels’ skipper Brad Ausmus and Dodgers’ bench coach Bob Geren. Ausmus and Geren both have prior MLB managing experience, but neither has as extensive a resume as Showalter.

The latter’s long list of accomplishments figures to hold some weight in the clubhouse, and Pat Ragazzo of Sports Illustrated reports (on Twitter) that newly-signed ace Max Scherzer has indicated to the club he’d prefer Showalter land the position. It’s not clear the front office will place much or any stock into the reported preferences of individual players, but Scherzer is certainly an important figure in the organization both from an on-field and locker room perspective.

Interestingly, the Mets aren’t the only New York team to consider a pursuit of Showalter this offseason. Heyman adds that the Yankees kicked around the possibility of making a run at bringing him back earlier in the winter. That ultimately proved not to be, as the Yankees decided to stick with incumbent skipper Aaron Boone, signing him to a three-year extension in mid-October.

Yankees Sign Jose Peraza To Minor League Deal

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Catching up on a minor league signing that flew under our radar last month, the Yankees signed infielder Jose Peraza to a minor league deal, per the transaction tracker at MLB.com.

Peraza was a highly-touted prospect in the early stages of his career, showing up on a few top 100 lists in 2015 and 2016, which led to him being acquired in a couple of notable trades. He went from Atlanta to Los Angeles as one of the 13 players involved in a massive deal between the Dodgers, Braves and Marlins, a trade which also involved Mat Latos, Alex Wood and Bronson Arroyo, just to name a few. After a seven-game cup of coffee with the Dodgers, he then went to the Reds as part of the three-team deal that sent Todd Frazier to the White Sox.

Peraza’s prospect status was largely based on his speed and bat-to-ball skills, with teams hoping he would eventually mature, both physically and as a hitter. He doesn’t strike out much, as evidenced by his 13.1% career rate, but he also only walks at a 4.1% rate for his career. Combined with a lack of power, that’s led to a meager career slash line of .266/.306/.372, wRC+ of 78. He has 79 stolen bases but hasn’t reached double digits in that department since 2018.

After four years in Cincinnati, Peraza spent the past couple seasons as a bench/utility player for the Red Sox in 2020 and Mets in 2021. His 2021 slash line was .204/.266/.380 over 154 plate appearances. Despite the fact that he hasn’t put it all together yet, Peraza is still only 27 years old, turning 28 in April. The Yankees have let some of their depth infield options depart in recent weeks, sending Tyler Wade to the Angels and releasing Rougned Odor, who eventually landed with the Orioles. Peraza could be a candidate to fill a similar to role to those players, bouncing around to different positions, as needed. He’s gotten most of his major league playing time at second base and shortstop, but has also seen some limited action at third base and all three outfield positions.

Yankees, Blue Jays, Red Sox Reportedly Most Aggressive Suitors For Seiya Suzuki

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On November 22, Seiya Suzuki was posted by the Hiroshima Carp of Japan’s Nippon Professional Baseball, freeing him up to negotiate with all 30 MLB teams for 30 days. However, it was reported that the recent implementation of a lockout that has led to a transaction freeze has also frozen Suzuki’s 30-day clock. That means that, at the conclusion of the lockout, he will still have around 20 days to work out a deal with an MLB team. At that point, there’s a decent chance of Suzuki winding up in the AL East, according to a report from Sean McAdam of Boston Sports Journal. “One major league source reports the Yankees, Blue Jays and Red Sox have been the most aggressive in pursuit of Suzuki,” McAdam writes.

The fact that Suzuki is garnering interest is not surprising, given his talents. Suzuki came in 20th on MLBTR’s list of Top 50 Free Agents and was predicted to get a contract of $55MM over five years. The 27-year-old seems capable of stepping right into the middle of an MLB lineup, while also providing solid right field defence. Over nine seasons in the NPB, he has hit .315/.414/.570, with that production only growing over time.

The Red Sox make for a fairly logical landing spot, especially when considering the recent trade of Hunter Renfroe. Suzuki could potentially fill the right field vacancy left by Renfroe, with Verdugo manning left field and center field covered by some combination of Jarren Duran, Enrique Hernandez or Jackie Bradley Jr., who was part of the return in the Renfroe deal. That trade seemed to be about adding defence by subtracting offence, but the addition of Suzuki could be a way of replacing that lost offence. Kyle Schwarber, who was acquired by the Red Sox last year and would be a logical Renfroe replacement for 2022, is reportedly looking for a three-year, $60MM deal, meaning Suzuki could potentially be about half as costly on an annual basis, if MLBTR’s prediction is correct.

The fit with the Yankees is a bit less smooth, given that they have a number of outfield options already on hand. On paper, the outfield consists of Joey Gallo in left, Aaron Hicks in center and Aaron Judge in right, with designated hitter Giancarlo Stanton available for the occasional appearance on the grass and prospect Estevan Florial on hand as depth. However, they may be reluctant to rely on Hicks as an everyday option, given that he’s now 32 years old and has dealt with injury setbacks in recent years, including only playing 32 games in 2021. Although he did play 54 of the team’s 60 games in the shortened 2020 season, his last significant action over a full season was 137 games in 2018. Judge, Gallo and Suzuki all have seen limited action in center field, making it at least possible for the club to have all three across the outfield at times. However, none of them are really considered an everyday option at the position, making it something of an awkward arrangement over a full season.

Similar to the Yankees, the Blue Jays also seem to have their outfield accounted for on paper, with George Springer, Teoscar Hernandez, Lourdes Gurriel Jr. and Randal Grichuk all pencilled in. However, it was recently reported that the Jays had discussions with the Brewers about a trade centered around Grichuk and Bradley Jr., before the latter was traded to the Red Sox last week. It would appear the club is open to moving on from Grichuk and coming up with a different outfield arrangement. The Blue Jays had a potent offence in 2021 but have since lost Marcus Semien to the Rangers, perhaps motivating them to look to Suzuki as a way to replace Semien’s bat. That would still leave them with a weakened infield, however, as the departure of Semien leaves the club with Cavan Biggio and Santiago Espinal pencilled into second and third base.

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