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Adam Ottavino To Decline Player Option

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Right-hander Adam Ottavino is going to decline his player option and return to free agency, reports Joel Sherman of The New York Post. The righty could have stayed with the Mets via a $6.75MM player option but will head to the open market instead.

Ottavino, who turns 38 this month, signed a two-year, $14.5MM deal with the Mets coming into 2023, with an opt-out opportunity after the first season. He made 66 appearances for the club this season with a 3.21 earned run average. His 23.8% strikeout rate was around league average and his 11.1% walk rate was on the high side, but he found success by keeping the ball on the ground. 56.3% of balls he allowed in play were grounders, significantly above the league rate of 42.5% for the year.

There may have been some good luck for Ottavino in there, as his .252 batting average on balls in play and 80.6% strand rate were both on the lucky side of average. His 4.52 FIP and 4.04 SIERA suggest he was fortunate to keep runs off the board the way that he did, but Ottavino’s got a strong track record going back years. He has a 3.42 ERA in 664 appearances dating back to 2010.

Today’s move comes as a surprise because, as recently as August, Ottavino was open about his intention to stay with the Mets. “I want to be here no matter what,” the New York native said at that time. “This is a good place for me. I love the organization. I love being able to play where I’m from.”

It’s unclear what made Ottavino change his mind, but it could be related to recent developments in the right-handed relief pitching market. Pierce Johnson and Joe Jiménez were going to be two of the top free agents this winter but they each re-signed with Atlanta before reaching the open market. Chad Green could have been another intriguing option but the Blue Jays picked up a two-year option to keep him in Toronto. Even Blake Treinen, who missed the entire 2023 season, had his option picked up by the Dodgers.

Free agency will still feature talented righties like Reynaldo López, Jordan Hicks, Robert Stephenson and others, but perhaps some of those names coming off the board early gave Ottavino and his reps a good feeling about returning to the open market and topping that $6.75MM figure.

Beyond the market changes, it seems the language of his contract played a part. Ottavino tells Sherman that $4MM of his 2024 salary was to be deferred. He was willing to take a smaller amount to return but with fewer deferrals and was also open to a two-year deal, but the Mets weren’t interested in either.

The Mets will now lose yet another arm from their bullpen. They traded away David Robertson and Dominic Leone prior to the deadline, though they will get Edwin Díaz back next year and picked up a club option on lefty Brooks Raley. Even though they might take a bit of a step back this winter relative to last year, they will likely add to the relief mix in the coming months.

Image courtesy of USA Today Sports.

Mets To Hire Carlos Mendoza As Manager

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The Mets have settled on their next manager, reportedly tabbing Yankees bench coach Carlos Mendoza to lead the club in 2024. Reports yesterday indicated that the club was on the verge of deciding their next manager. It’ll reportedly be a three-year deal that pays around $4.5MM total, while the Mets hold an option for the 2027 season.

Mendoza, 43, spent 13 seasons as an infielder in the minor leagues with the Giants and Yankees before joining the Yankees’ minor league coaching staff in 2009.  He last served as a manager at the minor league level in 2012, with the club’s Single-A affiliate in Charleston. From 2013 to 2017, Mendoza served as a roving defensive instructor in the Yankees’ organization before being promoted to the major league coaching staff prior to the 2018 season as an infield coach. He received his final promotion with the Yankees upon being named bench coach to manager Aaron Boone shortly after the 2019 season and has remained in that role for the past four years.

After 18 years with the Yankees organization, Mendoza now heads from the Bronx to Queens to take over for Buck Showalter as manager of the Mets. Mendoza will step into the role just as newly-minted president of baseball operations David Stearns steps into his own new role with the club after being hired for the role back in September.

The duo have inherited a Mets team coming off of a difficult season. After winning 101 games in 2022 and adding the likes of Justin Verlander, David Robertson, Kodai Senga, and Jose Quintana while committing more than $200MM to re-sign Edwin Diaz and Brandon Nimmo, the club fell well below expectations in 2023. Verlander, Robertson, and Max Scherzer were all traded away at the deadline as the Mets were rumored to begin looking toward 2025 for their return to contention. Ultimately, the club posted a 75-87 record in 2023, leaving them a whopping 29 games back of the Braves in the NL East and nine games out of the final NL Wild Card spot.

Though Mendoza has now landed in Queens, the Mets were far from the only team interested in him as a potential managerial hire this offseason. The Guardians reportedly had Mendoza as a potential favorite to replace Terry Francona in Cleveland before ultimately giving the job to Stephen Vogt earlier today, while the Padres reportedly interviewed Mendoza to replace Bob Melvin in San Diego earlier this week.

Just as Mendoza had other opportunities potentially on the table outside of New York, he was hardly the only candidate for the managerial role with the Mets. The club reportedly spoke to the likes of A’s manager Mark Kotsay and Cubs bench coach Andy Green, but much of their attention this offseason has seemingly been directed towards longtime Brewers manager Craig Counsell, who was widely regarded as the club’s preferred candidate and a potential favorite for the position due to his long-standing relationship with Stearns before he ultimately decided on joining the Cubs in a surprise move this afternoon.

Jon Heyman and Joel Sherman of the New York Post first reported Mendoza’s hiring. Andy Martino of SNY reported the salary terms.

Image courtesy of USA Today Sports.

Craig Counsell To Depart Brewers For Club With Existing Manager

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Manager Craig Counsell is departing the Brewers but won’t be joining the Mets, as many had expected. Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic reports that he is joining an unidentified team that already has a manager in place.

It had been reported in recent weeks that Counsell had been drawing widespread interest, as his contract with the Brewers just expired after the 2023 season. He interviewed with the Guardians and Mets and garnered interest from the Astros, though a return to the Brewers seemed to still be possible. However, today has brought a series of surprising twists, with the Guardians hiring Stephen Vogt, the Mets bringing aboard Carlos Mendoza and Counsell apparently departing for some mystery club that doesn’t even have a current vacancy.

Shortly after this post was published, the mystery team was revealed to be the Cubs. Find more details in this post.

Michael Conforto Exercises Player Option With Giants

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Outfielder Michael Conforto has exercised his player option and will stay with the Giants for 2024, per Jon Heyman of The New York Post. Conforto could have opted out and become a free agent but will instead stay in San Francisco and make a salary of $18MM next year.

Conforto, 31 in June, signed a two-year, $36MM deal with the Giants coming into the 2023 season. He was allowed to opt out of the deal after the first season, so long as he took at least 350 trips to the plate in that initial campaign. He easily eclipsed that figure, getting to 470 PAs, but the quality of his work was only so-so. He hit 15 home runs on the year, well below his 30-per-year run from a few years ago. His .239/.334/.384 line amounted to a wRC+ of 100, indicating he was exactly league average.

The decision on whether or not to opt out was arguably borderline, despite the tepid season. This winter’s free agent market is considered to be light in terms of impact bats, which could have perhaps given Conforto a boost. He also demonstrated his health after missing the entire 2022 season, which was somewhat encouraging on its own. But on the other hand, there likely would not have been tons of momentum behind him if he decided to return to free agency.

Conforto had an incredibly strong run from 2017 to 2020, hitting 97 home runs in that time and slashing .265/.369/.495 for a wRC+ of 133. But his batting line dipped to .232/.344/.384 in 2021, with just 14 homers. That was an ill-timed down year, as it preceded Conforto’s free agency. He turned down a qualifying offer from the Mets in search of a more significant deal but ended up injuring his shoulder during that winter’s lockout. He eventually required surgery and missed the entire 2022 campaign.

The Giants took a shot on a post-surgery bounceback, though it didn’t quite work out. If he had returned to free agency, he would have had a hard time marketing himself. On the one hand, he has some very strong past results and is coming off a healthy campaign. But two of the past three years have featured fairly tepid offense, with a totally lost year in between. The shortened 2020 season obviously wasn’t his fault, but the fact remains that Conforto hasn’t been both healthy and clearly above average at the plate for a full season since 2019. Since he’s not considered an especially strong defender, that declining offense obviously hurts his earning power.

Conforto now slots into the outfield depth chart for the 2024 Giants, alongside Luis Matos, Mike Yastrzemski, Mitch Haniger and Austin Slater, with LaMonte Wade Jr., Heliot Ramos and Blake Sabol perhaps in the mix as well. The Giants are expected to be aggressive this winter, likely pursuing marquee free agents after missing out on players like Aaron Judge and Carlos Correa last winter. They have been speculatively tied to outfielders like Cody Bellinger and successfully pursuing such a player would further crowd this picture.

That could perhaps lead to Conforto or someone else being shopped around in trades. Conforto, Yastrzemski, Wade and Sabol all hit from the left side, as does Bellinger. For a platoon-loving club like the Giants, perhaps that’s too many lefties for one outfield, but it also depends on how the dominos fall this winter. Clubs would likely have some level of interest in taking a flier on Conforto given the market conditions, but the valuations from them might fluctuate based on whether they believe he’s capable of returning to his pre-2021 form.

For the Giants, keeping Conforto’s salary on the books means they are projected to have a payroll of $147MM, per Roster Resource. They have had payrolls around $200MM many times in the past and their competitive balance tax number is currently pegged at $170MM. The base threshold is going to be $237MM in 2024, giving them plenty of room before the luxury tax would become a concern.

Image courtesy of USA Today Sports.

Guardians Hire Stephen Vogt As Manager

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The Guardians have their next manager. Cleveland announced the hiring of longtime MLB catcher Stephen Vogt on Monday afternoon. It’s reportedly a three-year contract running through the 2026 season.

Vogt, who recently celebrated his 39th birthday, made his big league debut for the Rays in 2012. He went on to play for five more organizations over his ten seasons in the majors, including six years with the A’s. During his time in Oakland, Vogt slashed .246/.308/.406 good for a roughly league average wRC+ of 98 and was named an All Star in both 2015 and 2016. He also played for the Brewers, Diamondbacks, Giants, and Braves throughout his big league career. Upon retiring from playing following the 2022 season, Vogt was hired by the Mariners to act as a bullpen and quality control coach in Seattle.

Vogt will now step into the shoes of the recently-retired Terry Francona as Guardians manager. It’s a remarkable achievement for the former catcher, who moves into the role just one year removed from his time as a player. As quick an ascent to the managerial chair as Vogt has had, it’s hardly an unexpected one. Vogt publicly voiced his managerial aspirations while he was still a player back in 2020, and he has long been regarded as up to the task among those in the game. Bob Melvin, who managed Vogt in Oakland and has since moved from the Padres to the Giants, noted even as Vogt was first retiring from professional play that his long-time player “definitely has a future in managing” while adding that his value in the clubhouse during his playing career was “immeasurable.”

Such a strong endorsement from a well-respect big league manager surely gives the Guardians assurance that he’ll be able to lead their roster into an uncertain 2024 campaign. After making a surprise run to the playoffs in 2022, Cleveland faced regression from many of their young players and injuries to key members of their pitching staff as they wound up finishing third in a weak AL Central with a 76-86 record. As the club looks to rebound next season, president of baseball operations Chris Antonetti was particularly effusive in his praise of the longtime catcher in a statement today.

“We’re thrilled to welcome Stephen and his family to Northeast Ohio and to name him the next manager of the Cleveland Guardians,” Antonetti said in the statement, “Stephen earned a reputation as one of the best teammates in the game across his 16-year career as a player, and we’ve greatly enjoyed the opportunity to get to know him over the past several weeks. Stephen has thought critically about the type of leader and manager he wants to be. His deep care for others, his ability to build meaningful relationships with those around him, and his open-mindedness and curiosity make him an ideal fit to lead our club moving forward. We couldn’t be more excited to partner with Stephen.”

While the Guardians are clearly pleased to have Vogt in the fold, it’s worth noting that all indications have pointed to longtime Brewers manager Craig Counsell as the club’s top choice for the role. Counsell is a free agent for the first time since becoming Milwaukee’s manager midway through the 2015 campaign, and has received considerable interest from each of the Guardians, Mets, and Brewers already this offseason. While the thinking throughout the game has largely been that the Guardians were a distant third among the three in terms of likelihood to land Counsell, a Wisconsin native who had a strong working relationship with new Mets president of baseball operations David Stearns during their time in Milwaukee, Jon Heyman of the New York Post makes clear that Cleveland’s interest in Counsell was real, noting that the club made a “serious, sincere run” at hiring the 53-year-old.

Beyond the possibility of hiring Counsell, it seems that Cleveland’s preference in replacing Francona may have been a rookie manager. Setting aside Counsell, it seems that Yankee bench coach Carlos Mendoza was the runner-up for Cleveland’s managerial gig. The 43-year-old was reportedly a favorite for the role along with Vogt in the event that Counsell declined, and has also received interest from a variety of clubs with managerial vacancies this offseason including the Mets and Padres.

Paul Hoynes of Cleveland.com first reported the Guardians were hiring Vogt. Jeff Passan of ESPN reported it would be a three-year deal.

Blue Jays Exercise Two-Year Club Option On Chad Green

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The Blue Jays announced this morning that the club has exercised its two-year club option on the services of veteran right-hander Chad Green. Green will now earn $21MM total across the 2024 and 2025 seasons. Green signed an unusual contract with Toronto this past offseason that afforded the club a three-year, $27MM team option, which if declined would offer Green a one-year, $6.5MM player option. If both of those options were declined, the Blue Jays would then have a final two-year, $21MM option. Evidently, the first club option and Green’s player option were both declined before Toronto picked up the two-year option.

Green, 32, missed most of the 2022 and ’23 campaigns while rehabbing from Tommy John surgery. A look at Green’s basic run prevention stats would indicate that the right-hander struggled in his return to action in 2023, given his 5.25 ERA that was 17% worse than league average. That doesn’t tell the whole story, however, as Green pitched just twelve innings with Toronto this year and had excellent peripheral stats. He struck out a whopping 30.8% of batters faced while walking just 7.7% with one home run allowed, giving him a much more palatable 2.67 FIP.

That sort of performance is much more in line with Green’s career numbers. After an uneven rookie season where he was used primarily as a starter in 2016, Green became one of the most reliable set-up men in the game from 2017-2022, as he posted a 2.96 ERA (147 ERA+) with a 3.01 FIP and a 33.4% strikeout rate. Impressive as those numbers are, they’re actually somewhat bogged down by a brief return to starting in 2019. Over the course of his entire career, Green sports a sterling 2.88 ERA across 338 innings out of the bullpen. That’s the sixth-best figure among all relievers with at least 300 innings of work since Green’s debut in 2016, surpassed only by Josh Hader, Kenley Jansen, Raisel Iglesias, Blake Treinen, and Aroldis Chapman.

Of course, it’s an open question whether or not Green can reach those heights again in his age-33 and -34 campaigns. After all, Green heads into his mid-thirties coming off a lengthy rehab from surgery. While his velocity did not appear to be impacted during his brief run in the majors this year, it’s hard to say what sort of impact the surgery could have on him over a full season. Between his age, the fact that he hasn’t pitched a full season since 2021, and the volatility of relievers in general, there’s a fair bit of risk in offering Green a two-year, $21MM guarantee even as the righty clearly has the potential to be among the better relievers in baseball.

Given that combination of risk and potentially significant reward, the two-year $21MM pact seems like a reasonable price point for both sides of the arrangement. The interesting structure of the contract left MLBTR readers divided in a recent poll, with each of those four possible outcomes (Green hitting free agency and each of the three potential options being picked up) receiving between 20% and 30% of the total vote. That being said, with the Toronto bullpen scheduled to lose Jordan Hicks and Jay Jackson to free agency this offseason, retaining Green gives the club a quality set-up man to pair with Erik Swanson in front of closer Jordan Romano in 2024.

Marlins Officially Hire Rays GM Peter Bendix As President Of Baseball Operations

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TODAY: The Marlins have officially announced Bendix’s hire. Principal owner Bruce Sherman spoke glowingly of Bendix in a press release, saying that “Peter is an established industry leader with an extensive skillset and deep experience that will continue the momentum we have made on the Major League level, while also strategic building the foundation for sustained success.”

Nov 5: The Marlins are set to hire Rays general manager Peter Bendix as the club’s next head of baseball operations, according to The Athletic’s Ken Rosenthal and Andy McCullough (links to X).  Rosenthal reported earlier tonight that Bendix was Miami’s “leading candidate” for the job, and Bendix has informed some Rays co-workers that he will be leaving for the Marlins job.

Bendix would become the latest in a long line of Tampa Bay executives hired away by other teams.  Andrew Friedman (Dodgers), Chaim Bloom (Red Sox), Matt Arnold (Brewers), and James Click (Astros) all got rival front office jobs due in part to the Rays’ consistent ability to draft and develop talent, all while fielding competitive teams on small player payrolls.  Other organizational attempts to replicate the Rays’ success has been somewhat mixed, though obviously Friedman and Click both won World Series titles with their teams.

The Rays’ track record is undoubtedly of interest to Marlins owner Bruce Sherman, who reportedly hasn’t been happy with how his team has been developing its younger talent.  These concerns led to Sherman’s plan of installing a new head of baseball operations above general manager Kim Ng, which resulted in Ng declining her end of a mutual option on her contract for the 2024 season.  It isn’t known if Bendix or any other candidates were already being targeted by Sherman prior to Ng’s departure, yet naturally Ng balked at the idea of suddenly being demoted after the Marlins reached the playoffs last season.  Rosenthal reports that Bloom was also on the Marlins’ radar, but the former Red Sox chief baseball officer declined to be a candidate for the Miami job.

This will be Bendix’s first time in full command of a front office, as Erik Neander is Tampa’s president of baseball operations, and former PBO Matt Silverman is now the team president.  Bendix has been a member of the Rays organization since starting as an intern in 2009, and worked his way up the ladder through multiple roles in the research and development department.  The 38-year-old Bendix earned a VP title in 2019 as the team’s director of baseball development, and was promoted to general manager just under two years ago.

Sherman’s purchase of the Marlins franchise in 2017 has led to quite a bit of front office turnover in that limited timeframe.  Michael Hill was kept on as the president of baseball operations, though CEO Derek Jeter was known to be making the bigger-picture baseball decisions as the team was going through a rebuild.  Ng was hired to be the GM when Hill’s contract was up after the 2020 season, but the picture was shaken up again when Jeter himself left prior to the 2022 campaign.

Jeter’s public statement that “the vision for the future of the franchise is different than the one I signed up to lead” only led to more questions, and some reports suggested that Jeter wasn’t pleased with Sherman’s apparent desire to spend less on payroll, though that was apparently far from the only issue between the two.  The Marlins have increased spending to some extent under Ng, up to a $92.5MM Opening Day payroll in 2023 that still ranked 23rd of 30 teams.

However, even with the Marlins securing a wild card berth this past season, Sherman still wasn’t satisfied.  The hiring of Bendix now provides a full break from the Jeter era, and in theory makes it seem as if the Marlins will try to emulate Tampa Bay’s strategy of perpetual contention with modest spending.  This doesn’t mean that Sherman couldn’t green-light higher levels of spending than the Rays are accustomed to, yet it also doesn’t seem like the Marlins will exactly be approaching the luxury tax any time soon.

Adopting “the Rays’ plan” is far easier said that done, of course, and the next step will be seeing exactly how the Marlins will operate under Bendix in 2024.  Sandy Alcantara will miss all of next season after undergoing Tommy John surgery, Jorge Soler is a free agent after opting out of his contract, and it can be argued that Miami’s 2023 club might have gotten to the postseason due more to good fortune than to championship pedigree.  The Marlins were outscored by a 723-666 margin, but enjoyed a whopping 33-14 record in one-run games.

As much as Miami fans would be exasperated at seeing another step back or some sort of rebuild, Bendix could be given perhaps at least a season to remake the team in his image, if restocking the farm system is a larger priority for Sherman than another playoff push.  Or, since the Fish already have a good deal of talent in place, Bendix might try to hit the ground running by trying to compete and add some prospect depth at the same time.

From the Rays’ perspective, they’ll have to again fill a hole in their front office.  Assistant GMs Chanda Lawdermilk, Will Cousins, and Carlos Rodriguez stand out as natural candidates to be promoted to the full general manager job as Neander’s new No. 2, though any number of candidates might emerge for a franchise that likes to promote from within.

Giants To Exercise Club Option On Alex Cobb; Sean Manaea Opts Out Of Contract

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The Giants intend to exercise their $10MM club option on Alex Cobb’s services for the 2024 season, according to Jon Heyman of the New York Post (X link).  In another notable Giants pitching development, Andrew Baggarly of The Athletic reports (via X) that Sean Manaea has elected to opt out of the final year of his contract, foregoing a $12.5MM salary to test free agency.

It was widely expected that Cobb’s option would be picked up, though a possible wrench was thrown into the mix with last week’s news that Cobb was undergoing hip surgery.  Though Cobb might not be able to return to a big league mound until May at the earliest, the Giants decided that the $8MM net decision (Cobb’s option contained a $2MM buyout) was still worth the investment.  Obviously the surgery was no surprise to the team, as Cobb has battled hip problems for much of the season and had his year officially ended by a 15-day injured list placement in late September.

Cobb signed with San Francisco in November 2021 on what is now a three-year, $28MM deal with the option exercised.  The results have been more than solid, as Cobb has a 3.80 ERA over 301 innings for the Giants, and he was even an All-Star this past season.  His strikeout rate, barrel rate, and total barrels declined sharply from 2022 to 2023, though Cobb also improved his walk rate and his fastball velocity from season to season.  Cobb also has a 59.4% grounder rate across the last two seasons, and a .327 BABIP indicates that his numbers might’ve been better if it wasn’t for the Giants’ subpar infield defense.

Injuries have also been a factor, as Cobb has been on the IL four separate times during his Giants tenure.  That said, Cobb still brought some durability to the rotation since he and Logan Webb were the only two starters San Francisco used in a normal starting role for much of the 2023 season.  The Giants addressed the other rotation spots in a number of ways, ranging for actual starts, piggyback-style pitcher usage, or an opener/bulk pitcher mix.

Manaea was one of the many Giants pitchers used in this fashion, as he started only 10 of his 37 appearances.  However, Manaea often found himself in a bulk pitcher or piggyback role, and he finished with 117 2/3 innings pitched while posting a 4.44 ERA and an above-average 25.7% strikeout rate.  It was a pretty decent course-correction for Manaea after some early struggles cost him a full rotation job, and it was a good bounce-back after a down year with the Padres in 2022.

Despite that down year, Manaea landed a two-year, $25MM deal with the Giants last winter, with the opt-out built into the contract so Manaea could quickly re-enter the market if he had a better platform year.  While not a hands-down breakout year on paper, the left-hander should be able to find another multi-year deal heading into his age-32 season, likely with a team that wants him in a full-time starting role.

Heading into 2024, San Francisco’s rotation consists of Webb, Cobb (when healthy), DeSclafani (if healthy), Stripling (who passed on his own opt-out opportunity), and Kyle Harrison, with Tristan Beck, Jakob Junis, and Keaton Winn on hand as depth options.  The Giants might well use at least one rotation spot for another mix-and-match assortment of pitchers, but the club is known to be looking for pitchers to bring more stability to the starting five.  Yoshinobu Yamamoto is known to be on the Giants’ radar, and depending on how aggressive the team plans to be, any number of top free agent or trade options could be explored.

Cubs Exercise Club Options On Kyle Hendricks, Yan Gomes

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The Cubs have exercised their $16.5MM club option on the services of veteran right-hander Kyle Hendricks, per Jesse Rogers of ESPN. Hendricks, the club’s longest-tenured player, is now set to return in 2024 for his 11th season with the major league team and his 13th season as a member of the Cubs organization as a whole. Rogers also reports that the club has picked up their $6MM club option on veteran catcher Yan Gomes, who will return for his third season in Chicago.

Chicago’s decision to retain Hendricks is hardly a surprise, given comments earlier this fall from both president of baseball operations Jed Hoyer and club chairman Tom Ricketts that indicated Hendricks would return to the Cubs in 2024. The decision was likely made even simpler by veteran right-hander Marcus Stroman’s decision to opt out of the final year of his contract and return to the open market. By keeping Hendricks in the fold, the Cubs have a proven veteran starter to pair with Justin Steele and Jameson Taillon in the club’s rotation next season with youngsters like Jordan Wicks, Javier Assad, Hayden Wesneski, and perhaps even top pitching prospect Cade Horton all also in the mix for starts next season.

Of course, the most important factor in Hendricks’s option being picked up was the veteran righty’s strong bounceback campaign in 2023. The soft-tossing righty was among the most effective starters in all of baseball for the first seven seasons of his career with a sterling 3.12 ERA and 3.53 FIP across 175 games. Among the 68 pitchers who threw at least 700 total innings between 2014 and 2020, Hendricks’s ERA ranks 7th. Unfortunately, Hendricks’s performance took a turn for the worse over the next two seasons; he posted a 4.78 ERA and 4.87 FIP across 48 starts those two seasons before being shut down last summer due to a shoulder capsule injury.

Rehabbing from that shoulder injury left Hendricks unavailable to open the 2023 campaign, but he looked rejuvenated upon his return in late May. In 24 starts for the Cubs this season, Hendricks was able to provide a steady, veteran presence in the middle of the club’s rotation with a 3.74 ERA and 3.81 FIP in 137 innings of work. Though Hendricks struck out just 16.1% of batters faced- a low mark even by his soft-tossing standards- he made up for it by walking a microscopic 4.7% of batters faced while generating groundballs at a 46.3% clip. Altogether, Hendricks’s performance and the rising prices of pitching on the free agent market in recent years seems to have made picking up the 2024 option on his services a fairly easy decision for the Cubs.

As for Gomes, the 36-year-old veteran rebounded in a big way from a down year offensively in 2022. After slashing just .235/.260/.365 in 293 trips to the plate while serving as the club’s primary backup to Willson Contreras behind the plate last year, Gomes stepped into the role of Chicago’s primary catcher after Contreras departed for the Cardinals in free agency. Gomes took to the role quite well, slashing a respectable .267/.315/.408 in 419 trips to the plate, good for a 95 wRC+ that ranked 26th among the 69 catchers who had at least 100 trips to the plate in the majors this year.

In addition to his solid bat for the position, Gomes has generally been well-regarded as a catcher defensively throughout his career. Though his framing marks slipped somewhat in 2023 from where they had been in previous years, Gomes ranked in the 81st percentile for Blocks Above Average behind the plate and the 66th percentile for CS Above Average in 2023. Given his solid performance both at and behind the plate in 2023, it’s hardly a surprise that the Cubs would retain Gomes for a third season behind the plate, though it’s possible he’ll end up in more of a timeshare with youngster Miguel Amaya in 2024 after Amaya showed flashes of being a potential regular behind the plate in 53 games in the majors this year.

Braves Expected To Decline Club Option On Eddie Rosario

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The Braves are expected to decline their $9MM club option on the services of outfielder Eddie Rosario, per Jon Heyman of The New York Post. Heyman notes that the decision is a “close call” and that nothing is officially yet, but that the expectation is that Atlanta will officially decline their option “by tomorrow”, the typical deadline for option decisions.

Rosario, 32, slashed .255/.305/.450 in 2023 for the Braves, a line that was exactly league average by measure of wRC+. Even combined with solid defensive metrics in left field this year (+3 by both OAA and DRS), that performance was only good for 1.4 fWAR across 142 games in 2023. Despite the meager production, 2023 actually represented a significant rebound for Rosario, who was nothing short of brutal in 2022 with a .212/.259/.328 (62 wRC+) slash line in 270 trips to the plate surrounding a procedure to correct vision issues in his right eye.

Though the eye surgery sparked optimism that Rosario would be able to rebound in a more significant way, that did not come to pass in 2023. Rosario is now three seasons removed from a four-year stretch with the Twins where he hit 96 home runs in 483 games and slashed a strong .281/.317/.493 that was 12% better than league average by measure of wRC+. At the time, Rosario’s combination of 25-homer power and a strikeout rate that consistently hovered around 15% made him an attractive offensive option, even as he was limited to left field defensively.

Now, however, Rosario is coming off a brutal stretch of three seasons that’s seen him produce below average numbers offensively (91 wRC+) with a strikeout rate of 21% and just 40 home runs in 333 games. Given his recent production, Atlanta’s decision to move on from Rosario and reallocate his $9MM salary elsewhere is a perfectly understandable choice, even as he leaves behind a major hole in the club’s lineup in left field. Rosario still seems likely to find interest in his services from other clubs this offseason on the heels of a 21-homer campaign, though perhaps not at a $9MM guarantee.

Filling that hole in left field figures to be a major focus of the coming offseason for the Braves. While there’s been some discussion of youngster Vaughn Grissom as a potential option to get starts in left next year, his lack of experience at the position and unproven bat at the big league level seem likely to push the Braves to explore other options. Speculatively speaking, Red Sox outfielder Alex Verdugo is a known trade candidate who MLBTR’s Matt Swartz projects for a salary of $9.2MM in his final trip through arbitration. That could make him a clean fit for the club’s roster and financial needs, but the coming free agent class is littered with potential options, headlined by Teoscar Hernandez but also features the likes of Michael Brantley and Tommy Pham as well as former Braves Adam Duvall and Jason Heyward.

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