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Blue Jays Sign Bo Bichette To Three-Year Deal To Avoid Arbitration

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FEBRUARY 10: The Associated Press reports the specific financial breakdown. Bichette receives a $3.25MM signing bonus and a $2.85MM salary for the upcoming season, bringing his 2023 payout to $6.1MM. He’ll make $11MM in 2024 and $16.5MM in ’25. If Bichette wins an MVP in either of the first two seasons, his salary would escalate by $2.25MM for any future seasons. Future salaries would escalate by $1.25MM for a second or third place finish and by $250K for a fourth or fifth place tally.

FEBRUARY 9: The Blue Jays announced Thursday evening that star shortstop Bo Bichette has signed a three-year contract to buy out his remaining seasons of arbitration eligibility. The deal will not affect the team’s window of club control by delaying his path to free agency. Bichette, a Vayner Sports client, will reportedly be guaranteed $33.6MM over the three seasons with escalators that could eventually bring the total to $40.65MM.

Bichette debuted in the second half of the 2019 campaign and has spent the past three years as Toronto’s everyday shortstop. He has produced against big league pitching from day one, breaking into the majors with a .311/.358/.571 showing through 46 games as a rookie. Bichette hasn’t quite maintained that kind of pace over a full season but has posted well above-average offensive marks in every year of his career.

He reached arbitration for the first time this winter after surpassing the three-year service threshold during the summer. Bichette was slated to carry a career .297/.340/.491 line with 69 home runs, 239 runs batted in and 46 stolen bases through 393 MLB games into that process. The 2022 campaign was right in line with his career marks, as he hit .290/.333/.469 with 24 longballs, 93 RBI and 13 steals (albeit in 21 attempts). He has led the American League in hits in each of the past two seasons and finished in the top 15 in AL MVP balloting in both years.

Financial terms of the contract remain unreported. Bichette’s camp had filed for a $7.5MM salary last month, with the Jays countering at $5MM. The $2.5MM gap tied that between the Astros and outfielder Kyle Tucker — who are themselves discussing a potential multi-year deal — for the largest discrepancy between a team and player this offseason. That’s a moot point now, as the three-year pact overrides that and ensures the Jays and Bichette won’t go to an arbitration hearing at any time.

Bichette turns 25 next month and is still slated to hit free agency after the 2025 season — when he’ll be entering his age-28 campaign. It’s unclear whether the sides plan to engage in discussions on a more significant long-term pact that would alter the Jays’ window of club control this spring. Toronto brass has predictably spoken of a desire to explore such arrangements with their top young players (generally assumed to be Bichette, Vladimir Guerrero Jr. and Alek Manoah) but isn’t facing pressing urgency to do so. Guerrero is also arbitration-eligible through 2025, while Manoah won’t reach arbitration until next offseason as a likely Super Two qualifier and isn’t going to hit free agency until after the 2027 campaign.

The Jays have now completed their arbitration work for the offseason. Bichette was the only of their 12 eligible players who didn’t agree to a deal prior to last month’s deadline for exchanging figures.

Ben Nicholson-Smith of Sportsnet first reported the Jays and Bichette had agreed to a multi-year deal to avoid arbitration and that a three-year pact had been under consideration. Joel Sherman of the New York Post confirmed the sides were in agreement on a three-year deal. Ken Rosenthal of the Athletic reported the guarantee and potential maximum value.

Padres Sign Yu Darvish To Extension

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Feb. 10: Darvish will be paid a $6MM signing bonus and receive a $24MM salary in 2023, tweets Jon Heyman of the New York Post. He’ll then be paid $15MM in 2024, $20MM in 2025, $15MM in 2026 and $14MM apiece in 2027-28. The contract also contains a full no-trade clause, and any Cy Young win in the contract’s first five seasons would boost his 2028 salary by $1MM.

Feb. 9: The Padres have locked up a second key member of the rotation for the long haul. San Diego announced a new six-year contract with right-hander Yu Darvish that’ll keep him in the fold through the 2028 season. The deal reportedly guarantees the Wasserman client $108MM overall. Since Darvish had already been under contract for $18MM for 2023, it’s five years and $90MM in new money.

It’s a remarkable contract when considering Darvish’s age, although at an average annual value of $18MM, Darvish hardly needs to perform like an ace in order to continue to justify the price tag. That’s the same AAV the Phillies committed to Taijuan Walker this offseason, for instance, and over the life of the new contract, the AAV for high-end pitching only figures to continue to increase. That said, any long-term deal running through a pitcher’s age-41 season — Darvish will turn 42 about six weeks before the contract ends — is obviously teeming with risk.

As things currently stand, however, Darvish remains among the game’s best starters. The right-hander’s age-35 campaign saw him pile up 194 2/3 innings of 3.10 ERA ball with strikeout and walk rates (25.6% and 4.8%) that were far better than league average (particularly the walk rate). Darvish’s 95 mph average fastball was actually the second-best mark of his career, and those 194 2/3 fames were the second-highest single-season total he’s logged since signing with the Rangers back in 2012.

Darvish had Tommy John surgery back in March 2015, missing the entirety of that season and a substantial chunk of the 2016 campaign while recovering. His 2018 season with the Cubs, who originally signed him to the six-year $126MM deal on which he’d previously been playing, was limited to just 40 innings thanks to a triceps injury. Since that time, however, Darvish has been quite durable. He made all 12 of his starts during the shortened 2020 season, and in each of his past three 162-game seasons, he’s taken the hill at least 30 times.

The Padres had been set to lose both Darvish and Blake Snell to free agency following the 2023 season, with both heading into the final seasons of their respective contracts. Darvish, however, now looks likely to not only remain in San Diego but finish out his career as a member of the Padres under president of baseball operations A.J. Preller, who played a major role in signing Darvish when he was in the Rangers’ front office. Darvish joins San Diego native Joe Musgrove, who inked a five-year extension last summer, as the bedrock of the Padres’ rotation for the foreseeable future.

Keeping Darvish under contract is of particular benefit with the final two spots on the starting staff already going to relievers who’ll be making the shift to full-time starters in 2023: Nick Martinez and Seth Lugo. Both players have player options on their contracts for 2024, meaning if things go smoothly they’ll likely opt out of the contracts and test free agency on the heels of improved platform seasons. If the shift to starting roles don’t work out, then the Padres will obviously be seeking alternative options, be they in-house or external acquisitions. Either way, prior to the Darvish extension it was possible — if not downright likely — that San Diego would’ve entered the 2023-24 offseason in search of as many as four starting pitchers. That’s no longer the case.

Darvish carries extra importance from a long-term vantage point when considering the Padres’ dealings in recent years. Preller is among  the sport’s most aggressive executives on the trade market, and with the Friars in an all-out, win-at-all-costs blitz, they’ve shown little concern with dismantling their once-vaunted farm system as a means of bringing in Major League talent. Trades of names like MacKenzie Gore, Chris Paddack, Cal Quantrill and Luis Patino have depleted the organization’s pitching pipeline, while the general attrition (injuries and/or poor performances) from the remaining prospects like Ryan Weathers, Adrian Morejon and Pedro Avila leave the system without much immediate help on the horizon.

Beyond the sheer need for long-term help in the rotation, there’s surely an element of financial creativity at play here. Darvish’s preexisting six-year, $126MM contract came with a $21MM luxury hit (based on the contract’s AAV). Since this new deal is being tacked onto the end of that old contract, it effectively becomes an 11-year, $216MM deal. That comes with a reduced luxury hit of $19.64MM. It’s not a major savings, but the Padres were right up against the third tier of luxury penalization, so any newly created breathing room is quite welcome. Once crossing into that third luxury tier, a team is penalized not only in the form of steeper tax rates but also by having their top pick in the next year’s draft dropped by 10 places.

The Darvish extension puts some distance between the team and that particularly undesirable slap on the wrist. It also makes things slightly easier for Preller and his staff if they hope to remain under that tax level but still want to create some wiggle room for in-season acquisitions on the trade market.

The deal is also heavily front-loaded, with Darvish’s 2023 salary jumping from $18MM to $30MM. That leaves $78MM to be distributed over the final five years. That’s of particular note given changes in the recent collective bargaining agreement, which stipulate that upon being traded, only the remainder of a player’s contract counts toward the new team’s luxury tax. Previously, the tax hit would remain the same. In other words, a potential trade of Darvish down the road will come with a considerably lighter luxury hit for an acquiring team by virtue of the contract’s front-loaded nature. Of course, with the full no-trade protection he’s been granted, that could very well end up a moot point.

If the $273MM tax barrier remains a hard stopping point for the Padres once the season’s underway, that’ll likely require the Padres to convince a trade partner to include some money or take on a contract in return. Nonetheless, this extra bit of space could prove useful in accommodating more complementary additions like bullpen help or added bench depth. Alternatively, it could provide necessary space to eventually select the contract of a non-roster veteran with a salary of modest note — someone like reliever Craig Stammen or catcher Pedro Severino, for instance.

As we saw with the Padres’ 11-year signing of Xander Bogaerts — and their reported overtures toward Aaron Judge and Trea Turner — the team is clearly comfortable paying a player into his early 40s if it means lowering the overall luxury bill. All of those offers, Bogaerts and Darvish included, featured annual rates comfortably shy of where the players might have otherwise landed on a more conventional structure. Darvish’s newly added $90MM in guarantees, for instance, could perhaps have been obtained over a three- or certainly a four-year deal had he opted to play out the final season of his contract and return to free agency. Instead, he’ll effectively take three- or four-year money and spread it out over a five-year extension of his contract in order to remain with a contending team and a setting where he’s clearly comfortable.

Those benefits, in the end, are generally secondary. The Padres clearly had a desire to extend Darvish, and likely agreed upon the requisite dollars before determining the length of the contract and, thereby, the extent to which they could tamp down their tax bill. The end result is that Darvish and Musgrove will continue to form a formidable one-two punch in the years to come. And while paying Darvish in his age-40 and age-41 seasons might prove an untenable outcome, it also perhaps creates some present-day savings in terms of luxury taxes that will make those final years a bit easier to stomach.

AJ Cassavell and Mark Feinsand of MLB.com first reported Darvish and the Padres had agreed to a six-year, $108MM contract. Feinsand reported it was a front-loaded deal that contained a $30MM salary for 2023.

NPB’s Orix Buffaloes Could Post Ace Yoshinobu Yamamoto Following 2023 Season

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There’s a “strong belief among MLB teams” that the Orix Buffaloes of Japan’s Nippon Professional Baseball will post ace Yoshinobu Yamamoto following the 2023 season, reports Joel Sherman of the New York Post. If that indeed comes to pass, he’d be the second high-profile player set to be posted from the top professional leagues in Asia next offseason; the Kiwoom Heroes of the Korea Baseball Organization are also expected to post reigning KBO MVP Jung Hoo Lee, as covered here last month.

Yamamoto will command more attention between the two. The 24-year-old Yamamoto is already a four-time NPB All-Star and has taken home both the Pacific League MVP Award and the Sawamura Award (Japan’s equivalent to MLB’s Cy Young Award) in each of the past two seasons. It’s not hard to see why.

Dating back to Opening Day 2021, Yamamoto has compiled a comical 1.54 ERA while striking out 27.7% of his opponents against a tiny 5.5% walk rate. He’s averaged better than 7 1/3 innings per start along the way, hurling 10 complete games and six shutouts, and only yielded an average of 0.30 home runs per nine innings pitched. One of those shutouts was a no-hitter this past June. In just shy of 800 career innings in NPB, Yamamoto possesses a 1.84 ERA that already looks inhuman on the surface and becomes all the more impressive when you factor in his age. He debuted as an 18-year-old back in 2017, and that season’s 2.35 ERA is the highest mark of his career.

Scouts to whom Sherman spoke raved about Yamamoto’s potential in the big leagues, touting a heater that sits mid-90s and reaches the upper-90s, a “plus-plus” (i.e. 70-grade) splitter, a “world class” curveball, a quick delivery to the plate and the athleticism to field his position well. One evaluator speaking to Sherman tabbed him a “full [scouting] grade” (on the 20-80 scale) ahead of right-hander Kodai Senga, who signed a five-year, $75MM deal with the Mets this offseason.

Brandon Tew of Sports Info Solutions took a deep dive into Yamamoto’s no-hitter back in June, profiling the right-hander’s “electric” arsenal, highlighting some of his pitch grips and release points while providing some general scouting insight into the tantalizing young righty. The Athletic’s Keith Law wrote back in December that Yamamoto “might be a No. 1 starter in MLB and doesn’t have any of the reliever concerns that Senga carries,” suggesting that he could more than double Senga’s guarantee when he’s eventually posted.

That all depends on health and performance in 2023, of course. Yamamoto has been healthy and dominant to this point in his career, but all players (pitchers, in particular) are one major injury away from changing their outlook. Any scouting report on Yamamoto will point out that his slight frame — he’s listed at 5’10” and 170 pounds — is of at least come concern to big league scouts. There’s simply very little track record for pitchers of this size both holding up physically with a starter’s workload and performing at an elite level. That’s not to say Yamamoto can’t be an exception, of course; the general consensus seems to be that he has a very good chance of doing just that.

Yamamoto is expected suit up for Team Japan in next month’s World Baseball Classic, just as Lee is likely to be on South Korea’s team. MLB fans looking ahead to next offseason might want to keep an extra-close eye on the pair and on the WBC in general, as the tournament provides North American fans some rare access to not only see foreign talents of this caliber, but also to see them against high-end opposition.

If Yamamoto is indeed posted for MLB teams, he’ll be subject to the NPB-MLB posting system, which grants all 30 teams equal rights to negotiate with the player but subjects the signing team to what, in the case of Yamamoto, could be a particularly steep posting fee. The MLB club that eventually signs Yamamoto would need to pay the Buffaloes a fee that is equal to 20% of the contract’s first $25MM, plus 17.5% of the next $25MM and 15% of any dollars committed thereafter.

On, say, a $150MM contract — a purely speculative number for the sake of this example, and one that could ultimately prove low — that’d come out to a $24.375MM posting fee that needs to be paid out to the Buffaloes in addition to the money guaranteed to Yamamoto. Any additional earnings that come via contractual mechanisms like performance incentives, club options, etc. would also be subject to that 15% once the money becomes guaranteed.

If the Buffaloes opt not to post Yamamoto next winter, they could do so again following the 2024 season as well. NPB players aren’t eligible for unrestricted free agency until they’ve compiled nine years of service time. Yamamoto, despite his youth, is entering his seventh season in NPB.

Royals Re-Sign Zack Greinke

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FEBRUARY 6: Heyman today provided more specifics of the incentives on Twitter. Greinke will get that $8.5MM guarantee, then $450K for getting to 90 innings pitched and every five innings thereafter up until 135. At 140 innings pitched, he gets a further $300K and keeps adding that amount at each five-inning interval until 185.

FEBRUARY 3: The Royals officially announced Greinke’s new deal.  According to Jon Heyman of the New York Post (Twitter link), Greinke will earn $8.5MM in guaranteed money, with up to $7.5MM more available in incentives.

JANUARY 30: The Royals have reached agreement on a one-year contract to bring back veteran starter Zack Greinke, according to Bob Fescoe of 610 Sports Radio in Kansas City. MLB.com’s Mark Feinsand hears that the deal will be worth $8-10MM in base salary, plus performance-based bonuses. Greinke is a client of Excel Sports Management.

Greinke began his professional career with the Royals way back in 2002 as the No. 6 overall pick in that year’s MLB Draft. He made his big league debut in KC in 2004 and spent his first seven seasons there, highlighted by an AL Cy Young Award win in 2009. Following successful stints with the Brewers, Angels, Dodgers, Diamondbacks and Astros between 2011-2021, the eccentric right-hander returned to his old stomping grounds in 2022 and worked to a 3.68 ERA in 26 starts covering 137 innings.

His paltry 4.8 K/9 last year was a career-low and ranked as the worst K/9 of all 90 major league pitchers who logged at least 130 innings over the course of the 2022 regular season. But the 39-year-old showed terrific control (1.8 BB/9) and was generally able to induce more soft contact than hard contact to help pave over his diminished swing-and-miss stuff. Among the 585 total batters he faced during the 2022 campaign, Greinke surrendered only 14 home runs. That worked out to a 0.92 HR/9, putting him right around rising studs like Nestor Cortes, Logan Gilbert, Ranger Suarez and George Kirby.

Greinke can hopefully again serve as an innings-eater and clubhouse mentor for a Royals rotation that has undergone a few offseason changes but will still be relying on a lot of youth pushing forward. Brady Singer, 26, stands out as somebody who made significant gains in 2022, perhaps thanks in part to Greinke’s tutelage. Brad Keller, 27, and Daniel Lynch, 27, could use a similar type of molding.

Greinke figures to be named the Opening Day starter for the Royals in 2023, as he was last year. Singer and Keller project to fall in somewhere behind him, along with newcomers Jordan Lyles and Ryan Yarbrough. Kansas City finished 27th among all 30 teams in combined starter ERA (4.76) in 2022, despite Greinke’s contributions and Singer’s mini-breakout. KC’s combined starter K/9 of 6.9 ranked 28th.

Dodgers Sign Miguel Rojas To Contract Extension

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The Dodgers and infielder Miguel Rojas have agreed to a contract extension that will keep Rojas in Los Angeles through at least the 2024 season, according to Daniel Alvarez-Montes of El Extrabase (Twitter link and link to the Spanish-langugage full story).  Rojas was already set to earn $5MM in 2023, but this new deal reworks that money into a $3.5MM salary and a $1.5MM signing bonus.  Rojas will then earn another $5MM in 2024, and the Dodgers hold a $5MM club option on Rojas for 2025, with a $1MM buyout.

All told, it adds up to another $6MM in guaranteed money for the Beverly Hills Sports Council client.  Rojas had previously been playing on a two-year, $10MM deal signed when he was a member of the Marlins, and that extension covered the 2022 and 2023 seasons.

Breaking into the majors with the Dodgers in 2014, Rojas was dealt to the Marlins during the 2014-15 offseason and then established himself as a leader on and off the field in Miami.  Rojas moved from a utility role to regular duty as the Marlins’ shortstop, and his consistently strong defense provided value to club even if his offense was generally below average.  Rojas had a 91 wRC+ from 2015-21, but he dropped to a 73 wRC+ in 2022 on the heels of a .236/.283/.323 slash line over 507 plate appearances.

Wrist problems may have contributed to Rojas’ underwhelming season, as he underwent surgery on his wrist back in October.  Reports circulated last month that Rojas was also going to undergo another procedure, and the infielder told reporters (including the Orange County Register’s Bill Plunkett) today that he had a loose piece of bone removed from his right hand three weeks ago.  The surgeries won’t appear to have set Rojas back, as he is already hitting off a tee and has expressed interest in playing for his native Venezuela in the World Baseball Classic if healthy.

Despite the injuries and the 2022 numbers, the Dodgers still traded for Rojas in January, as L.A. dealt Jacob Amaya (a strong-fielding prospect with some questions about his bat) to Miami in the straight-up swap.  With Trea Turner now a Phillie and Gavin Lux slated to take over as the everyday shortstop, adding Rojas gives the Dodgers a capable veteran who can perhaps fill in at short if Lux has any trouble adjusting, and otherwise serve as depth around the infield.

The extension is a nice early birthday present for Rojas (who turns 34 later this month) and it also underscores the Dodgers’ belief that the veteran can be a key contributor to the roster.  Shorter-term extensions have been a favored tactic for president of baseball operations Andrew Friedman as of late, as Los Angeles also inked such players as Max Muncy, Blake Treinen, Daniel Hudson, and Austin Barnes to deals that give the Dodgers up to two years of extra control.  In the first three of those instances, the Dodgers made an early guarantee on a 2023 club option, and added another club option year to the back end of the contract.

Rojas’ deal is a little different since he was already under contract for 2023.  From a luxury tax perspective, the extension slightly raises Rojas’ tax number from $5MM to $5.5MM, which is the new average annual value of what is technically a two-year deal (since his 2023 salary was reworked) for accounting purposes.  While Los Angeles had soared over the Competitive Balance Tax threshold in each of the last two seasons, there was some thought that the club might look to duck under the line and reset its tax penalty status, with an eye towards going back into CBT territory next winter.  But, with the Dodgers now projected to be slightly over the $233MM threshold, Friedman said this week that the Dodgers were “doing all we can to win a championship this year,” rather than keep an eye on the tax bill by trading players.

Jake McGee Retires

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Longtime MLB reliever Jake McGee is retiring, he tells Marc Topkin of the Tampa Bay Times. The 36-year-old said he’ll return to Tropicana Field at some point next season to celebrate his time with the Rays’ organization.

“I feel like it’s kind of the right time,” McGee said. “I’d rather be at home with my family. I played 13 years. I won a World Series in ‘20. It’s about time to stop. I don’t want to grind it out and keep bouncing around and stuff like that.” He tells Topkin that a combination of ongoing knee issues and a desire to spend more time with his wife and their daughter contributed to his decision to step away at this point.

McGee entered the professional ranks nearly two decades ago. Drafted by the then-Devil Rays in the fifth round in 2004 out of a Nevada high school, he spent a few seasons climbing the minor league ladder as a starting pitcher. He thrice appeared among Baseball America’s top 100 prospect list, peaking at 15th heading into the 2008 season. While initial reports of a potential future as a top-of-the-rotation starter didn’t materialize — perhaps in part due to a 2008 Tommy John procedure — McGee took off upon moving to the bullpen in 2010.

The southpaw made his big league debut as a September call-up that year, not long after his 24th birthday. He bounced on and off the MLB roster the following season and carved out a permanent bullpen role by 2012. McGee posted a sparkling 1.95 ERA with a massive 34.4% strikeout rate across 55 1/3 innings, kicking off a few seasons as one of the game’s best relief weapons.

Over a three-year stretch from 2012-14, McGee avoided the injured list and soaked up 189 1/3 frames of 2.61 ERA ball. His 31.9% strikeout percentage over that run ranked 13th among relievers with 100+ innings and only seven relievers had a larger gap between their strikeout and walk rates. While he never made an All-Star team, he was clearly among the sport’s top high-leverage arms.

The 2015 season was McGee’s final with the Rays. It proved a challenge, as he was delayed to start the year by offseason elbow surgery and tore the meniscus in his left knee late in the season. When healthy enough to take the mound, he had another excellent showing. McGee twirled 37 1/3 innings with a 2.41 ERA and 32.7% strikeout percentage.

With Tampa Bay coming off an 80-82 record and McGee two seasons from free agency, he became one of the following offseason’s more intriguing trade chips. The Rays eventually packaged him with then-prospect Germán Márquez to the Rockies for outfielder Corey Dickerson and minor league infielder Kevin Padlo. The deal paid particular dividends for Colorado with Márquez’s emergence into staff ace, but McGee himself had a solid run early in his time there.

After a disappointing 4.73 ERA showing during his first season as a Rockie, he bounced back to the tune of a 3.61 mark across 57 1/3 innings in 2017 — helping the team to a Wild Card berth. That’s no small feat in the sport’s most hitter-friendly home venue, and the Rox kept him around via free agency. He signed a three-year, $27MM deal over the 2017-18 offseason, part of a bullpen spending spree that also saw Colorado bring in Bryan Shaw and Wade Davis.

That didn’t pan out as the organization hoped. Each of Shaw, McGee and Davis struggled to varying degrees. Home runs became a particular issues in McGee’s case, as his heavy reliance on four-seam fastballs up in the strike zone lost effectiveness when his velocity dipped a couple ticks during the 2018-19 seasons. The Rockies released McGee two seasons into the contract, but he promptly kicked off a late-career renaissance with a pair of division rivals.

Signing with the Dodgers for the shortened 2020 campaign, McGee ranked fifth among qualified relievers with a 41.8% strikeout rate over 24 outings. He saw some action in both the Championship Series and the World Series, getting into one game during a Fall Classic against his original organization. The Dodgers defeated the Rays in six games to win the only championship of McGee’s career, though he was part of another very successful club in San Francisco the next season.

He inked a two-year, $7MM deal with the Giants. During the first season, he picked up mostly where he’d left off in L.A. McGee’s strikeouts fell back to 24.3%, but he was among the game’s stingiest at avoiding walks and posted a 2.72 ERA through 59 2/3 innings. He assumed the closing role for a good chunk of the year, saving 31 of San Francisco’s 107 wins. The Giants edged out the Dodgers in a tight NL West race but saw L.A. get their revenge in a five-game Division Series that October.

The 2022 season, which’ll prove to be McGee’s last, was a struggle. He was hit hard through 24 contests in San Francisco, leading to his release in July. The veteran caught on briefly with the Brewers and Nationals at points during the second half but didn’t find much success at either stop. His final outing came in early September before Washington released him.

While he didn’t punctuate things with a great season, McGee steps away with a very strong body of work. He pitched for six different clubs over a 13-year MLB career, posting a cumulative 3.71 ERA through 572 1/3 innings. He struck out 613 of the 2359 batters he faced, a strong 26% clip. McGee finished 182 contests and collected 79 saves while holding 141 more leads and was credited with 32 wins. He had five separate seasons with a sub-3.00 ERA and four years in which he fanned upwards of 30% of opponents. According to Baseball Reference, he collected more than $37MM in earnings along the way.

MLBTR congratulates McGee on an excellent run and wishes him the best in his post-playing days.

Image courtesy of USA Today Sports.

Orioles To Decline Five-Year Lease Extension At Camden Yards, Seeking Longer-Term Agreement With Maryland Stadium Authority

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The Orioles are passing on their opportunity to trigger a five-year extension of their lease at Camden Yards, reports Jeff Barker of the Baltimore Sun. According to Barker, the team is in search of “a longer-term, more comprehensive stadium agreement” with the Maryland Stadium Authority.

The Orioles’ lease at Camden Yards remains in effect through the end of the 2023 calendar year. The team faced a decision on whether to tack on additional five seasons to remain in their lease through 2028, a condition of a February 2021 extension agreement between the franchise and the MSA. Barker writes the club is optimistic about its chances of hammering out a longer deal, one which might include upgrades to the ballpark and potential development projects in the surrounding area.

That’s a hopeful indicator for fans in the area who might be apprehensive about the possibility of losing the franchise. Those worries won’t be officially quelled unless and until a new agreement is finalized, however. The sides now have 11 months to do so before the current agreement expires. Barker reports the organization is seeking a deal of 10-15 years in length and is hopeful to get something done by the All-Star Break. A recent Maryland law would allow the MSA to borrow up to $600MM for Orioles’ stadium upgrades (with a matching amount available for the NFL’s Ravens) but requires a longer-term deal than the five-year pact the O’s were deciding upon today, Barker notes.

The sides could still pivot to negotiate another short-term extension akin to the one agreed upon two years ago. That’d appear a fallback to their desired goal of a significantly longer commitment, one that’ll remain a key story for the franchise over the coming months.

After this news broke, the club issued a press release with quotes from Maryland Governor Wes Moore as well as O’s Chairman and CEO John Angelos. “When Camden Yards opened thirty years ago, the Baltimore Orioles revolutionized baseball and set the bar for the fan experience,” Moore says in the statement. “We share the commitment of the Orioles organization to ensuring that the team is playing in a world-class facility at Camden Yards for decades to come and are excited to advance our public-private partnership. We look forward to writing the next chapter of major league baseball in Maryland as we continue to make magic for fans and meaningful investment for communities across our state.”

“I am looking forward to continuing to collaborate with Governor Moore, his administration, and the Maryland Stadium Authority in order to bring to Baltimore the modern, sustainable, and electrifying sports and entertainment destination the State of Maryland deserves,” Angelos says in the same press release. “We greatly appreciate Governor Moore’s vision and commitment as we seize the tremendous opportunity to redefine the paradigm of what a Major League Baseball venue represents and thereby revitalize downtown Baltimore. It is my hope and expectation that, together with Governor Moore and the new members and new chairman of the MSA Board, we can again fully realize the potential of Camden Yards to serve as a catalyst for Baltimore’s second renaissance.”

The lease uncertainty comes at a time when the franchise’s ownership situation is the subject of controversy. Longtime O’s owner Peter Angelos is now 93 years old, and his sons Louis and John are embroiled in a legal battle. Louis Angelos has sued his brother and mother Georgia Angelos, alleging that John Angelos has blocked his mother’s wishes to sell the franchise and that John and Georgia have seized control of Peter Angelos’ assets in the Orioles and his law firm at Louis’ expense. Louis also implied that John Angelos could eventually attempt to move the franchise to Tennessee, something John Angelos has strongly denied.

John Angelos was part of a promotional event with Baltimore mayor Brandon Scott on Martin Luther King Jr. Day to announce the creation of a scholarship for local schools. Angelos, however, refused to entertain a question from Dan Connolly of the Athletic about the franchise’s ownership situation, bizarrely calling it “(an inappropriate) subject matter for this day” (video link provided by Paul Gessler of CBS Baltimore). He did reiterate, however, that “we’re not going anywhere.” Angelos expressed openness to showing Connolly and other reporters the organization’s financials and specifics of the ownership structure at another point. There’s no indication that process has been set up.

Mariners, Dylan Moore Agree to Three-Year Extension

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The Mariners and infielder/outfielder Dylan Moore are in agreement on a three-year extension to avoid arbitration, reports Jeff Passan of ESPN. Moore will earn $8.875MM over the course of the pact, with escalators that could push his earnings beyond $9MM. There are no options in the deal. This deal buys out his two remaining arbitration seasons and one free agent year.

Moore, 30, has been a fixture of the Mariners for the past four seasons in a sort of Swiss army knife capacity, providing the club with a little bit of everything. He’s appeared in 381 games in that time, playing every position on the diamond except catcher, even including one inning on the mound in 2019. He’s probably stretched as a shortstop, since all three of Defensive Runs Saved, Outs Above Average and Ultimate Zone Rating all give him negative grades there, but they all like his work in the outfield and at second base, with his marks at other positions coming in around average.

He’s hit 35 home runs in his 1,073 plate appearances and also stolen 65 bases. His 30% strikeout rate is certainly on the high side, but he’s also drawn walks at a strong 10% rate and has a career batting line of .208/.317/.384. That production has amounted to a wRC+ of 100, indicating he’s been exactly league average at the plate for his career. That performance at the plate has been fairly inconsistent, with Moore hitting very well in 2020 but following it up with a rough showing the year after. His .255/.358/.496 batting line in the shortened season led to a 140 wRC+ but he hit just .181/.276/.334 in 2021 for a wRC+ of 74. It’s possible that a lot of bad luck was hounding him that year, as he had just a .229 batting average on balls in play, almost 100 points shy of the year prior. He put that misfortune behind him with a strong .224/.368/.385 line last year for a 126 wRC+.

Moore first qualified for arbitration a year ago and earned a salary of $1.35MM. For the upcoming season, he was projected to get a bump to $2MM by MLBTR contributor Matt Swartz but he and the club couldn’t come to an agreement prior to the filing deadline a few weeks ago. He submitted a figure of $2.25MM with the club filing at $1.9MM, though they’ve now agreed to a longer commitment instead of going to a hearing over that difference. Since he was a late bloomer, he didn’t make it to the big leagues until he was 26 and wasn’t slated to reach the open market until after his 32nd birthday, but he’s carved a role for himself in Seattle and found a way to lock in some sizeable earnings.

Moore underwent surgery in the offseason to address a core injury that he sustained at the end of last season. That procedure came with a 6-8 week recovery estimate, indicating Moore should be good to go for the upcoming season. Mariners president of baseball operations Jerry Dipoto recently revealed that Moore might be slightly behind his teammates when Spring Training begins, but it doesn’t seem as though the club has any significant concerns about Moore’s health, given their investment in him.

He might not have a direct path to regular playing time at the moment, but given his ability to play just about anywhere, he will surely find a way in there as injuries and underperformance will inevitably crop up somewhere. The regular infield alignment for the M’s will likely have Ty France at first, Kolten Wong at second, J.P. Crawford at shortstop and Eugenio Suarez at third. The outfield mix includes Julio Rodríguez in center, with Teoscar Hernández, AJ Pollock, Jarred Kelenic and Taylor Trammell candidates for time in the corners or as the designated hitter. Tommy La Stella, Sam Haggerty and Moore should all be on the roster as well, filling in at various spots as needed.

Blue Jays Sign Chad Green

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The Blue Jays have signed right-hander Chad Green to a deal that will reportedly guarantee him $8.5MM over two years. He will make $2.25MM in 2023 and then Jays will then have the option of triggering a $27MM option for the next three years, with up to $1MM in bonuses. If they decline, Green’s player option for 2024 will be for $6.25MM with $2MM in bonuses. If he declines that, the Jays can trigger a two-year, $21MM option with $1MM in bonuses. Since player options are considered guaranteed, the $8.5MM figure comes from the 2023 salary and 2024 player option. Green is a Frontline client.

Green, 32 in May, has been serving as a quality reliever for the Yankees for the past seven seasons but was sidelined in May of last year and underwent Tommy John surgery shortly thereafter. This deal provides both parties with a bit security for the future. If Green comes back healthy and looks like his old self, the Jays can get some long-term value out of their investment by keeping him around for future seasons. If Green should suffer some kind of setback or struggle to get back on track in his return, he will at least be able to lock in some salary for 2024.

An 11th round draft pick of the Tigers in 2013, Green and Luis Cessa went to the Yankees in the December 2015 trade that sent Justin Wilson to Detroit. He was primarily a starter at that time and made his MLB debut in 2016 in a swing capacity. That was essentially the end of his time as a true starter, as the Yanks converted him to relief on a full-time basis. He did make one start in 2017 and 15 in 2019, but those were of the “opener” variety, none of them longer than two innings.

Since making that transition, he has somewhat quietly been one of the most effective relievers in the league. Over the past six major league seasons, he’s pitched 338 innings over 260 total appearances with a 2.96 ERA, striking out 33.4% of batters faced while walking just 6.1%. Among relievers to throw over 300 innings in that stretch, he ranks fourth in strikeout rate, trailing only elite guys Josh Hader, Edwin Díaz and Liam Hendriks and coming in ahead of Kenley Jansen and Ryan Pressly. Green was never given the closer’s role due to the presence of Aroldis Chapman, tallying just 11 saves in his career so far, but he does have 52 holds.

The Tommy John surgery was quite poorly timed for Green, as he was just a few months away from qualifying for free agency. He would have been one of the top relievers this offseason if not for that. However, if he can return to the mound and post results similar to those already on his track record, he’ll still wind up with a nice payday. After making $2.25MM this year, if he Jays pick up that three-year option, he’ll get to $29.25MM in earnings. That’ll be just a bit shy of some other deals for notable relievers this offseason, such as the $32MM for Jansen, $33MM for Taylor Rogers and $34.5MM for Rafael Montero.

For the Jays, this won’t affect their bullpen immediately but it will potentially give them a boost at some point later this year. They will likely have Jordan Romano in the closer’s role, with other high-leverage jobs going to pitchers like Yimi García, Erik Swanson, Anthony Bass and Tim Mayza. Once Green is able to return, he will jump into the mix with that group. The Jays will now have two pitchers potentially bolstering their staff midway through the upcoming campaign, as Hyun Jin Ryu also underwent TJS last year and is targeting a return around the All-Star break.

Financially, this nudges the Jays slightly farther into luxury tax territory. Roster Resource now pegs their competitive balance tax figure at $246MM, about $13MM beyond the $233MM threshold. As a first-time payor in the lowest tax bracket, the club is subject to a 20% tax on its overages, currently just over $2.5MM.

Michael Marino of Fantrax first reported the Jays and Green were in agreement. Shi Davidi of Sportsnet for had the $8.5MM guarantee and presence of options for 2025 and 2026, as well as later adding the breakdown of the options (Twitter links). Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic first added the complex option framework and that Green passed his physical (Twitter links).

Rays Extend Yandy Diaz

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Jan. 31: The Rays have formally announced their extension with Diaz. Marc Topkin of the Tampa Bay Times tweets that Diaz will be paid $6MM in 2023, $8MM in 2024 and $10MM in 2025. There’s a $12MM option for a fourth season, which does not contain a buyout.

Jan. 28: The Rays and infielder Yandy Diaz are close to finalizing a contract extension, MLB.com’s Mark Feinsand reports (Twitter link).  The deal is a three-year, $24MM pact that contains a club option for the 2026, according to Feinsand and his MLB.com colleague Juan Toribio (via Twitter). Diaz is represented by ACES.

The extension would cover Diaz’s final two years of arbitration control and at least one of his free agent-eligible seasons.  Diaz and the Rays were slated for an arbitration hearing to determine his 2023 salary after not reaching an agreement by the filing deadline — Diaz was looking for $6.3MM and the club countered with $5.5MM.

Instead, it now looks like Diaz will be the third hearing-bound Tampa Bay player to sign an extension this week.  Jeffrey Springs signed a four-year, $31MM extension on Wednesday, while Pete Fairbanks agreed to a deal worth $12MM over three guaranteed years on Friday.  An arb hearing is usually the result when the two sides don’t agree on a one-year salary prior to the figure-exchange deadline, yet clubs often try to pursue multi-year deals as something of a loophole around the self-imposed “file and trial” strategy deployed by most of the league.

Diaz, Springs, and Fairbanks were three of seven Rays players that didn’t agree to terms by the deadline, and even the remaining group of four (Harold Ramirez, Colin Poche, Ryan Thompson, Jason Adam) still represents an unusually large number of players to be headed for hearings.  It certainly wouldn’t be surprising to see the Rays work out at least one more extension before hearings start taking place in the coming weeks.

For Diaz, the new contract locks in some long-term security and the first major payday for a player who turned 31 last August.  Beginning his career in his native Cuba, Diaz was twice arrested before finally defecting on his third attempt, and then signed with Cleveland for a $300K bonus.  Diaz didn’t make his MLB debut until 2017, when he was already 25 years old.

Back in December 2018, a headline-grabbing three-team trade between the Rays, Indians, and Mariners saw Diaz head from Cleveland to Tampa as part of the five-player swap.  The Rays had interest in Diaz’s ability to make contact and draw walks, and those skills have certainly translated as Diaz’s career has progressed.  Since the start of the 2020 season, Diaz ranks sixth among all qualified hitters in walk rate (13.7%) and ninth in strikeout rate (13.1%).

Diaz hit .266/.359/.418 over his first three seasons with the Rays, good for a solid 117 wRC+ over 1026 plate appearances.  However, Diaz took the production up a level last season, posting a 146 wRC+ while hitting .296/.401/.423 with nine home runs over 558 PA, and finishing with elite percentiles in several major Statcast categories.  For a right-handed batter, Diaz’s career numbers against left-handed pitchers had been relatively modest heading into 2022, but last year he crushed southpaws to the tune of an .892 OPS over 145 PA.

One flaw in Diaz’s performance was a lack of glovework, as public defensive metrics have indicated that he has been well below average over 1282 1/3 innings as a third baseman over the last two seasons.  This stands out even more on a defense-conscious club like Tampa Bay, though the Rays might ideally look to use Diaz more often as a first baseman in 2023 or over the course of the longer-term deal.

In the big picture, locking up Diaz seems like a shrewd move for Tampa.  While a 146 wRC+ is a high-water mark for Diaz, there wasn’t much (apart from a spike in hard-hit ball rate) to suggest that his 2022 numbers were a departure from his prior career numbers, so it’s reasonable for the Rays to expect roughly similar production going forward over the life of Diaz’s deal.

Perhaps the most intriguing element is that the Rays have now extended a 31-year-old player, as it is fairly common for the team to shop players as they get increasingly expensive.  There hadn’t been any real trade buzz surrounding Diaz, however, and thus the Rays have now locked up three members of their infield (Diaz, Wander Franco, and Brandon Lowe) though possibly the 2026 season, depending on the status of club options for Diaz and Lowe.  Of course, the Rays could still end up shopping Diaz, Lowe, or conceivably even Franco down the road, especially if the club continues to generate quality infield prospects from its minor league pipeline.

Between the yet-unknown specifics of Diaz’s contract numbers and the unresolved arbitration cases, the Rays are likely to match or exceed their previous franchise high for payroll, even if their overall spending is still quite modest by league-wide standards.  Tampa Bay’s Opening Day payroll last season was approximately $83.86MM, and Roster Resource currently (without a Diaz extension involved) projects the Rays for around $76.86MM on the books in 2023.

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