Minor MLB Transactions: 2/5/16
Here are the day’s minor moves:
- The Yankees added outfielder Jared Mitchell on a minor league pact, Matt Eddy of Baseball America tweets. Mitchell has been playing in the upper minors for quite some time after moving quickly upon being taken as the 23rd overall pick in the 2009 draft, but he’s yet to crack the majors. He spent most of last year with the Angels after breaking in with the White Sox, and owns a .213/.329/.338 batting line with 12 home runs and 10 stolen bases over 695 total plate appearances in parts of four seasons at Triple-A.
- Meanwhile, the division-rival Rays are evidently working on a new pitching angle after adding converted catcher Jeff Howell on a minor league deal, as Matt Eddy of Baseball America tweets (with an assist from Mick Reinhard of PennLive, on Twitter). He joins fellow knuckleballer Eddie Gamboa in the Tampa Bay organization, which has also recently added former big league knuckler Charlie Haeger to its instructional staff. Needless to say, it’ll be interesting to see how this apparent experiment pans out.
- The Rays also picked up righty Adam Reifer on a minors deal, per Eddy. The 29-year-old reliever owns a 4.35 ERA with 7.8 K/9 and 4.4 BB/9 over 176 total minor league frames.
Latest On Juan Uribe: Giants, Asking Price, Yankees
Veteran third baseman Juan Uribe remains available in free agent as the market for infielders has continued to move slowly. He’s been a consistently productive player since turning around his fading career in 2013, putting up a .281/.329/.432 slash while averaging about a dozen home runs over 400 plate appearances annually since that time. And while defensive metrics didn’t view him as a huge contributor with the glove last year, as they had in the two prior seasons, Uribe factors as a positive in the field. Of course, he’s also closing in on 37 years of age.
Here’s the latest:
- The Giants have had talks with Uribe’s camp, says Buster Olney of ESPN.com (Twitter link). San Francisco obviously doesn’t have a starting role available, but could conceivably use Uribe at third, second, and even first. But the asking price remains too steep for San Francisco’s liking, Olney says.
- As far as Uribe’s negotiating stance goes, Olney adds in another tweet that his reps are telling teams that they are willing to “discuss salaries at two different scales.” The ask would be higher if the team proposes to use him as a regular, as opposed to a bench piece. With the Indians said to be looking at Uribe as a fairly significant contributor, it isn’t clear exactly how this line of thinking will impact the ultimate results.
- The Yankees ought to consider making a play for Uribe to occupy the roster spot that might have gone to injured youngster Greg Bird, Joel Sherman of the New York Post suggests. New York hasn’t done so as of yet, Sherman notes, but ought to pursue a deal with the versatile defender. With Alex Rodriguez functioning as a bat-only player — a point which GM Brian Cashman made abundantly clear — Sherman suggests that flexibility is a higher need than another power hitter in the infield mix.
Free Agent Notes: Buehrle, Thornton, Mets, Torres
Today represents the forty-year anniversary of the advent of modern free agency, as Yahoo Sports’ Jeff Passan explores. The piece includes some interesting quotes from some of those involved at the time.
As the market marches forward this winter, here’s the latest:
- Free agent southpaw Mark Buehrle remains in a sort of holding pattern as he ponders retirement, Jerry Crasnick of ESPN.com reports on Twitter. The durable veteran is neither planning to sign for 2016 nor ruling out a “possible comeback down the road,” says Crasnick. That seems largely to confirm prior reports, but dangles the interesting possibility that Buehrle could take some time off and look to make a return in the future.
- Lefty reliever Matt Thornton is among the solid players still looking for a deal, and he joined MLB Network Radio on Sirius XM to discuss his status (links to Twitter). The hard-throwing southpaw is getting on in years, but says he’s “not a typical 38-year-old” — a proposition that’s hard to dispute given that he still throws a 93.5 mph average heater (though that’s off a bit from recent years). Though Thornton said it’s been a “slow” market, he isn’t looking to settle. “I’m not taking an invite,” he said. “I’m getting a Major League deal or I need to look at myself and decide if I need to walk away.”
- Mets GM Sandy Alderson addressed reporters today at the press conference to re-introduce Yoenis Cespedes. He says the club is done with major league signings for the winter, as Adam Rubin of ESPNNewYork.com tweets. That’s not too surprising, of course, as New York has already given out six MLB deals this winter.
- One of those Mets signings left righty Carlos Torres without a roster spot, and he has drawn quite a lot of interest since he cleared waivers and hit the open market, NJ.com’s Brandon Kuty writes. The Yankees have reached out, as have several Asian clubs, per the report. Torres has been a sturdy pen presence in recent years despite tough results in 2015.
Minor MLB Transactions: 2-2-16
Here are the day’s minor signings and outright assignments from around the league…
- Right-hander Yoervis Medina has been outrighted to Triple-A Indianapolis, according to the Pirates‘ transactions page on their web site. Medina delivered strong results for the 2013-14 Mariners, pitching to a combined 2.81 ERA with 9.4 K/9, 4.9 BB/9 and a 53.5 percent ground-ball rate before taking a significant step backwards in 2015. This past season, he logged a 4.71 ERA with an unsightly 16-to-11 K/BB ratio in 21 innings for the Mariners and Cubs. Notably, his fastball velocity, which had averaged 94.8 mph in 2014, sat a full two miles per hour lower at 92.8 in 2015, and his ground-ball rate dipped to 36.8 percent.
- The Angels announced that they’ve signed outfielder Andrew Brown and right-hander Yunesky Maya to minor league contracts. Both players most recently appeared in the Korea Baseball Organization — Brown with the SK Wyverns and Maya with the Doosan Bears. Brown, 31, batted .261/.360/.496 with 28 homers in 539 plate appearances in a strong season with Doosan. He’d previously spent parts of the 2010-14 seasons in the Majors, batting a combined .220/.281/.390 between the Cardinals, Rockies and Mets. Maya, formerly a fairly high-profile international signee with the Nationals, struggled tremendously in the KBO, yielding 62 runs in 68 1/3 innings. He last appeared in the Majors in 2013, though he threw just a third of an inning that season. Prior to that, the Cuban righty posted a 5.52 ERA in 58 2/3 innings from 2010-11. Both players were invited to Major League Spring Training.
- Sticking with players coming back over from the KBO, Baseball America’s Matt Eddy reports that the Yankees have signed right-hander Tyler Cloyd and third baseman Deibinson Romero, who spent the past season with the Samsung Lions and Doosan Bears, respectively. Cloyd, a former Phillies farmhand, logged 159 2/3 innings with the Lions but also posted a 5.19 ERA in the KBO’s extremely hitter-friendly environment. Prior to his KBO stint, Cloyd spent the 2014 season with the Indians’ Triple-A affiliate and posted a 3.90 ERA with 6.4 K/9 against 1.7 BB/9 in 166 1/3 innings. The 29-year-old Romero is a former Twins farmhand that batted .253/.328/.449 with a dozen homers in 305 trips to the plate.
- The Tigers have signed Cuban shortstop Leonardo Laffita to a minor league deal with a $250K bonus, according to Eddy. The 24-year-old Laffita spent a bit of time in the Mexican League last season, where he batted .280/.345/.360 in 57 plate appearances. Within Eddy’s piece, BA’s Ben Badler weighs in on Laffita, noting that he’ll have to move to center field or second base. Laffita stood out for his speed, hand-eye coordination and bat speed, per Badler, but he’s a free swinger with questionable plate discipline.
- Veteran catcher Miguel Olivo has a minor league deal with the Giants, per Eddy. A lifetime .240/.275/.417 hitters in 3993 plate appearances at the Major League level, Olivo hasn’t appeared in the bigs since 2014, although the 37-year-old did bat .281/.347/.470 across 378 plate appearances in Mexico over the past year.
AL East Notes: Uribe, Yankees, Guthrie, O’s, Red Sox
While many Yankees fans have speculated on the possibility of Pedro Alvarez coming to the Bronx as a replacement for the injured Greg Bird (a notion with which I disagree, as Bird wasn’t projected to be on the 25-man roster barring a Mark Teixeira injury, and Alvarez is undoubtedly seeking fairly regular at-bats), Joel Sherman of the New York Post opines that the Yankees should instead make a play for Juan Uribe. Adding Uribe to the mix would allow the Yankees to use Chase Headley at first base in the event of an injury to Teixeira, with Uribe slotting in at the hot corner in his stead. Additionally, Uribe’s ability to still capably play second base could make him an option there as well, should Dustin Ackley prove to be an unsuitable backup from a defensive standpoint. As Sherman notes, however, there’s competition for Uribe’s services — namely in the form of the Indians, as ESPN’s Buster Olney mentioned earlier today. There does appear to be room for a veteran infield addition on the Yankees’ roster, although Uribe would make it difficult to envision Rob Refsnyder having any kind of regular role with the team in 2016.
More on the Yankees and the rest of their division…
- In a second column, Sherman spoke to Yankees GM Brian Cashman and asked whether the delayed diagnoses in the injury cases of Teixeira and Bird led to any concerns about the team’s medical evaluation process. “We deal with two of the biggest and best hospitals in the world – New York Presbyterian and the Hospital for Special Surgery,” said Cashman. “Both of them were completely on top of this and both saw it the same way. There is no second-guessing involved. Both [hospitals] saw [Bird] last May, they saw him in October and they both saw him now. Nothing was missed.”
- As Spring Training draws nearer, it becomes increasingly likely that the Orioles will look internally to fill out their rotation, writes Eduardo A. Encina of the Baltimore Sun. Encina notes that a number of free agents remain as possibilities — Yovani Gallardo, Mat Latos and Tim Lincecum — but each comes with his own issues (draft pick compensation, character concerns and health, respectively). Encina hears that the Oriols have even considered a reunion with right-hander Jeremy Guthrie, although he characterizes that as an unlikely outcome. Encina goes on to profile the team’s top internal candidates for the back of the rotation, including Vance Worley, Mike Wright, Tyler Wilson and even Brian Matusz.
- CSN New England’s Sean McAdam suggests three offseason moves that the Red Sox should have made but didn’t as well as some offseason decisions that he feels the team would have been better off not making. An extension for Mookie Betts tops McAdam’s list of suggestions for moves that the team should have made (there is, of course, still time for that to play out), while banking on Hanley Ramirez to be their everyday first baseman is a misstep in McAdam’s mind. He also mentions obtaining a second left-handed reliever and taking advantage of a deep outfield market would have been wise for the BoSox.
Quick Hits: Yankees, Cardinals, Brewers, D-Backs
The Yankees don’t appear to have any inclination to go hunting for a big league replacement for injured first baseman Greg Bird, as Mark Feinsand of the New York Daily News tweets. “[Dustin] Ackley is the backup first baseman on the big-league level and we’ll explore replacing Bird for Scranton,” said Cashman. Needless to say, that quote doesn’t appear to put New York in the running for any of the better remaining free agent options.
Here are a few more stray notes from around the game:
- While the Cardinals have pursued outfield moves this winter, that doesn’t mean the team isn’t excited about its current group, MLB.com’s Jenifer Langosch writes. The lack of a major addition certainly opens the door to a full opportunity to younger options — Randal Grichuk and Stephen Piscotty, in particular. “You look at his progression through the Minor Leagues, and it was a perfect trend,” said GM John Mozeliak of Piscotty. “It was always getting better. There is a level of confidence that he’s the right guy to make the bet on.”
- The Fangraphs team has a few interesting looks at the recent five-player trade between the Brewers and Diamondbacks. Jeff Sullivan suggests that righty Chase Anderson delivers some sneaky value upside to Milwaukee. And Dave Cameron argues that Arizona might not have chosen the wisest route to upgrading its middle infield.
- The MLB.com prospect team rates the best tools among prospects. It’s no surprise that many of the leaderboards are dominated by the game’s very best overall young talents, but there are a few (somewhat) less-prominent players that took home top honors, too. Among them: Yankees shortstop Jorge Mateo (best speed) and righty Dillon Tate of the Rangers (top slider).
Yankees Claim Ronald Torreyes, Designate Lane Adams
The Yankees announced today that they’ve claimed infielder Ronald Torreyes off waivers from the Angels and designated outfielder Lane Adams for assignment in order to clear a spot for Torreyes on the 40-man roster. This marks the second time that the Yankees have acquired Torreyes, as they acquired him and lefty Tyler Olson from the Dodgers in exchange for cash considerations earlier this month.
Somewhat strangely, the Yankees removed Torreyes from the 40-man roster by designating him for assignment in order to make room for Adams, who today was designated to clear space for Torreyes. The move looks curious on paper, of course, but the team’s hope may simply be that it is able to ultimately sneak one or both of Adams or Torreyes throughout outright waivers in order to keep him in the organization without committing a 40-man roster spot.
Torreyes has undergone one of the largest offseason whirlwinds in recent memory. In the past month alone, he’s been designated for assignment by the Dodgers, traded to the Yankees, designated for assignment by the Yankees, claimed by the Angels, designated for assignment by the Angels and now claimed by the Yankees. That, of course, is in addition to the fact that Torreyes began the 2015 season with Houston before being traded to the Blue Jays and later traded to the Dodgers. All told, he’s been a part of five organizations in the past eight and a half months alone. Torreyes has seen most of his professional defensive work come at second base, though he does have significant experience at shortstop (144 games) and third base (65 games) as well. He’s also seen a bit of time in the corner outfield. This past season, the 23-year-old batted .261/.308/.347 between Double-A and Triple-A in his time with the Astros, Blue Jays and Dodgers organizations.
The fleet-footed Adams, 26, reached Triple-A for the first time this past season, struggling through 37 games there on the heels of a strong Double-A campaign. Overall, the Oklahoma native batted a combined .281/.347/.445 with 16 homers and 31 stolen bases — his third consecutive season with 30 or more steals. Last winter, Baseball America rated him 15th among Royals farmhands, calling him a plus-plus runner and a plus defender with a fringe-average arm and a bit of pull power. Ultimately BA pegged him as a fourth outfielder.
Greg Bird Requires Shoulder Surgery, Will Miss 2016 Season
2:22pm: During an October check-up on Bird’s shoulder, two different doctors recommended against surgery, tweets Chad Jennings of the Journal News. However, the injury flared up in the past 10 days or so, he adds.
1:38pm: Though the season hasn’t even started, the Yankees have already been bitten by the injury bug in notable fashion, as Joel Sherman of the New York Post reports that top prospect Greg Bird will miss the 2016 season due to shoulder surgery (links to Twitter). Bird will undergo the procedure tomorrow for what has been diagnosed as a torn labrum, per Sherman. The Yankees have since confirmed Sherman’s report, announcing that Bird suffered a recurrence of a shoulder injury that he initially sustained in May of 2015 (although, clearly, he did not damage the shoulder to this extent the first time he suffered the injury).
While Bird didn’t necessarily have a clear path to at-bats on the Opening Day roster, he figured to serve, at the very least, as a highly valuable depth piece and perhaps the first line of defense in the event of an injury to either Mark Teixeira or Alex Rodriguez. Teixeira, in particular, was prone to injuries in 2015, which is the reason that Bird was even called upon to make what turned out to be an impressive rookie season. In 178 plate appearances, Bird batted .261/.343/.529 with 11 home runs.
Some might speculate that this makes the Yankees more likely to add a left-handed-hitting first base/DH option, and while that may make sense on a minor league deal, it’s tough to see the team now fitting an additional bat onto its 25-man roster when Bird wasn’t even expected to open the season there. In the event of an injury to Rodriguez, the team could simply move Carlos Beltran to DH and use Brett Gardner, Jacoby Ellsbury and the newly acquired Aaron Hicks in the outfield as well.
AL East Notes: Ramirez, Navarro, Rays, Cashman
Ramon Ramirez, an infield prospect in the Orioles system, died in a motorcycle accident on Saturday in the Dominican Republic. The 23-year-old Ramirez signed with the O’s in 2014 and played second, third and shortstop in 55 games at the Rookie League and low- and high-A ball levels over the last two seasons. “Our entire organization is deeply saddened by the sudden and tragic death of Ramon Ramirez. As a member of the Orioles organization, Ramon worked tirelessly to make the most of his opportunity to play professional baseball. Our thoughts are with his family, friends, teammates, and coaches as we mourn this unimaginable loss,” Orioles executive VP Dan Duquette said in a statement today. We at MLB Trade Rumors join the Orioles and the baseball world in expressing our condolences to Ramirez’s loved ones.
Some news from around the AL East…
- The Orioles‘ acquisition of first baseman/outfielder Efren Navarro adds some depth and gives Baltimore some roster flexibility, MASNsports.com’s Roch Kubatko writes. With Navarro now in the mix as a first base backup behind Chris Davis, the O’s could use young first basemen Christian Walker or Trey Mancini as trade chips. Since Navarro is a well-regarded defender at first, Kubatko also wonders if Davis could see more time in the outfield. Davis said he’s “always open to doing whatever it takes to win,” though noted that he’s much more comfortable in right field than left.
- Now that the Rays have traded Jake McGee, their next move could be to acquire a replacement setup man, Marc Topkin of the Tampa Bay Times writes. Alex Colome and Xavier Cedeno form a righty-lefty setup combo at the moment, though Topkin thinks the Rays could sign another veteran bullpen option (though not a big name like Tyler Clippard) or potentially trade for a reliever by dealing from their outfield surplus. Brandon Guyer or Desmond Jennings could be trade chips in that scenario, Topkin opines, though interested teams may need to see that Jennings is healthy in Spring Training following his injury-plagued 2015 season. The Rays still aren’t generating any trade buzz on James Loney, despite their willingness to cover part of his salary.
- The only team yet to sign a Major League free agent this offseason has been, of all teams, the Yankees. While GM Brian Cashman tells Anthony McCarron of the New York Daily News that the club “explored all avenues” to upgrade the roster, the Bronx Bombers have been much more focused on trades rather than free agent signings over the last two offseasons. This winter, such major names as Aroldis Chapman, Starlin Castro and Aaron Hicks joined the team. “There’s a lot of different ways to climb the mountain. This winter took us to trades. We spent money, but it was acquiring contracts through trades. We’ve traded talent from our system to do that,” Cashman said.
- There’s little question that Blue Jays fans want Jose Bautista to sign an extension, as evidenced by a very pro-Bautista response at a recent “Pitch Talks” speaker series event in Toronto. FOX Sports’ Ken Rosenthal, one of the speakers at the event, used the response to illustrate the sometimes stark difference in perspective between fans and front offices. While there are solid baseball reasons to keep Bautista (as outlined by Sportsnet’s Arden Zwelling at the event), general front office logic would dictate that extending a veteran slugger past his age-35 season isn’t necessarily a wise move. While many fans understand this reasoning, that doesn’t stop the more general sentiment amongst the fanbase that the Jays should keep a player who has been such a huge star for the franchise. I outlined the tricky situation the Jays face with Bautista in an Extension Candidate entry last November.
Andruw Jones Likely To Retire
Veteran outfielder Andruw Jones says he will soon announce his retirement, Cory McCartney of FOX Sports South tweets. In November, Jones had reportedly been hoping to sign with an MLB team, but it appears likely he’ll hang up his cleats instead.
It’s been awhile since Jones has played in the Majors, of course — he last appeared in the big leagues with the Yankees in 2012. After that, he played two seasons with Rakuten in Japan. He did not play last season.
The MLB team with which Jones will be most strongly associated, of course, is the Braves, for whom he played from 1996 through 2007, joining Chipper Jones, John Smoltz, Tom Glavine and Greg Maddux in a group of elite players on a long string of highly successful Braves teams. (As Sports Illustrated’s Jay Jaffe tweets, Andruw and Chipper will both be eligible for the Hall of Fame in 2018.)
After emerging as a consensus top prospect in the Braves’ farm system, Andruw debuted with Atlanta at the tender age of 19 and soon became one of baseball’s top outfielders, creating tremendous value with both his outstanding defense and his power. Beginning in 1998, Jones won ten straight Gold Gloves for his work in center field. He also quickly became a serious home run threat, hitting 26 or more homers in nine straight seasons and peaking with a remarkable 51-homer performance in 2005, when he finished second in NL MVP balloting.
After the 2007 season, when he was still just 30, he left Atlanta and began an itinerant phase of his career, playing for the Dodgers, Rangers and White Sox before heading to the Bronx for two seasons. He declined steeply in his early thirties as his ability to hit for average rapidly diminished, although he did hit well in his two seasons in Japan.
Jones finishes his 17-season big-league career with a .254/.337/.486 line, 434 career homers and five All-Star appearances. Via Baseball Reference, his career Defensive WAR of 24.1 ranks 20th all-time. He made upwards of $130MM in his baseball career.
Photo courtesy of USA Today Sports Images.