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Brett Baty To Undergo Thumb Surgery, Potentially Done For Season

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Mets infielder Brett Baty will undergo surgery tomorrow due to a torn UCL in his thumb, per Anthony DiComo of MLB.com. Baty is potentially done for the year, as the expected recovery time is five weeks, per Will Sammon of The Athletic. Sammon adds that outfielder Terrance Gore will also be joining the team. The Mets announced that Baty has been placed on the 10-day IL retroactive to August 29.

It’s an unfortunate blow to the Mets and for Baty, personally. The 22-year-old prospect was promoted to the big leagues just under two weeks ago. He has struggled in his first 42 plate appearances, slashing just .184/.244/.342 so far. However, it’s fairly standard for young players to take some time finding their footing in their first taste of major league action. Based on his 315/.410/.533 batting line in the minors this year, it would have been reasonable to expect him finding better results as he got more exposure to big league pitching.

However, that progression will now have to wait, as Baty will apparently be out of action for the next five weeks. Since there are five weeks remaining on the regular season schedule, it will be very difficult for him to return to action and contribute down the stretch. A lengthy postseason run would surely help his chances of coming back, but even in that scenario, the club would have to view him as a better option than the more established players available for those opportunities.

For the Mets, this will leave them shorthanded on the infield, as least temporarily. Luis Guillorme is on the injured list due to a groin injury, leaving them with Pete Alonso at first, Jeff McNeil at second, Eduardo Escobar at third and Francisco Lindor at shortstop. For the moment, the club doesn’t really have a player on their bench who can reasonably play the non-first-base infield positions. Earlier this year, outfielder Mark Canha played third base for the Mets in an emergency situation, something he hadn’t done since he 2016 with the A’s. It’s possible he may be in that position again, though perhaps not for long. Rosters expand from 26 to 28 tomorrow, which should allow the Mets to bring in reinforcements. Also, Guillorme doesn’t seem to be too far away from coming back. Tim Healey of Newsday relays word from manager Buck Showalter that Guillorme will begin a rehab assignment this weekend.

As for Gore, 31, he’s never been much of a hitter but has always found work due to his speed and defense. In 102 MLB games, he’s hit just .224/.325/.284 but has 40 stolen bases in that time. The Mets signed him to a minor league deal in June, with Gore hitting .241/.313/241 in Triple-A since then. The Mets should have plenty of options for the outfield grass, with Brandon Nimmo, Starling Marte, Tyler Naquin present alongside Canha, though Gore could jump up the depth chart if Canha is needed on the dirt. Otherwise, he should be available off the bench for pinch running and defensive replacement assignments.

Chris Flexen Triggers 2023 Vesting Option

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During tonight’s relief appearance against the Tigers, Mariners hurler Chris Flexen reached the innings threshold to vest an $8MM option for 2023. He’s officially under contract for next season.

Flexen initially signed with the Mariners over the 2020-21 offseason. Previously an up-and-down swingman with the Mets, the right-hander made the jump to South Korea in 2020. He spent a year with the Doosan Bears, working to a 3.01 ERA across 116 2/3 innings, before fielding major league interest that offseason. Flexen inked a two-year guarantee with a 2023 team option valued at $4MM.

The sides agreed to a vesting provision that would guarantee that option while doubling its price if Flexen hit either of two conditions: 150 innings pitched in 2022, or 300 combined innings between 2021-22. Last season, Flexen took 31 turns through the rotation and tossed 179 2/3 innings. That left him needing only 120 1/3 frames this year to hit the marker, and he surpassed that tonight. It has long been apparent Flexen would eventually hit the threshold, although he’d had to wait nearly two weeks between his most recent appearance on August 19 and tonight’s contest before recording the final out necessary to push it over the edge.

It’ll be a nice raise for Flexen, whose first two seasons in Seattle paid him an average of $2.375MM. That he’s now in line for easily the best payday of his career is a testament to his durability and typically solid work over his time in the Pacific Northwest. Flexen pitched to a 3.61 ERA last year, compensating for a modest 16.9% strikeout rate with stellar control and a decent 42.4% ground-ball percentage. He’d posted a 3.92 ERA over 21 turns through the rotation this season, putting up a nearly identical strikeout rate but seeing his walks and grounders each trend in the wrong direction. There’s nevertheless value in the stability Flexen brought taking the ball every fifth day, and his pitch-to-contact approach can be effective in a spacious home ballpark and in front of a Seattle defense that has been MLB’s 7th-best at turning balls in play into outs.

In the wake of their acquisition of Luis Castillo in a deadline blockbuster, the Mariners found themselves with a surplus in the rotation. Seattle already featured reigning AL Cy Young winner Robbie Ray and top young hurlers George Kirby and Logan Gilbert. The M’s decided to keep Marco Gonzales in the rotation’s fifth spot while kicking Flexen to the bullpen. He’s made just three appearances, all in low-leverage work, in three weeks since the move to relief.

Each of Castillo, Ray, Gilbert, Kirby and Gonzales will return next season, and Flexen’s bump to long relief suggests he’s sixth on the rotation depth chart. Clubs go through more than five starting pitchers every year, but one could argue an $8MM salary is pricy for a sixth starter/swingman. Given Flexen’s solid results as a starter, there should be interest in Flexen from other teams with less rotation depth than Seattle has, making him a speculative offseason trade candidate. If Seattle were to keep him around, his salary would add to a 2023 payroll that’s grown with the Castillo trade and signing of Julio Rodríguez to a massive extension. Still, the M’s should have a fair bit of flexibility to bolster the roster.

Including Flexen’s salary, the Mariners have a bit more than $85MM in guaranteed commitments for 2023, in the estimation of Jason Martinez of Roster Resource. Castillo headlines an arbitration class that also includes Paul Sewald, Diego Castillo and Ty France (among others), which is likely to push their in-house commitments above nine figures before determining whether they want to make a run at re-signing Mitch Haniger. That’s not far off the approximate $104MM Opening Day player payroll this season. The franchise has spent north of $150MM in years past, though, and it seems likely they’ll continue to push payroll forward. The recent rebuild is firmly in the past, and the M’s have a good chance to snap their two-decade playoff drought this October (although they’d only host a first round playoff game if they finish as the highest-seeded Wild Card). Seattle is currently a half-game back of the Rays for the American League’s top Wild Card position.

How to proceed with Flexen (and how to manage the payroll more broadly) is a decision for president of baseball operations Jerry Dipoto and his staff to make this winter. With the trade deadline in the rearview mirror this summer, there’s no question Flexen will finish out this season in Seattle. He’ll remain on hand as a multi-inning relief option for manager Scott Servais with the ability to bounce back into the rotation if one of the club’s top five starters gets injured.

Diamondbacks Exercise 2023 Club Option On Torey Lovullo

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The Diamondbacks announced that they have exercised a club option for the 2023 season for manager Torey Lovullo. He will return for a seventh season as Arizona’s manager.

Signed prior to the 2017 season, Lovullo’s first year as bench boss in Arizona was a rousing success. The club went 93-69, defeating the Rockies in the National League Wild Card game, before falling to the Dodgers in the NLDS. That was the club’s first season finishing above the .500 mark since 2011. For that performance, Lovullo was awarded the Manager of the Year for the National League.

The sailing hasn’t been as smooth since, with the club slipping to 82-80 and 85-77 in the next two seasons. The pandemic-shortened 2020 campaign didn’t go very well, with the D-Backs going 25-35 in that small sample. Last year, however, just about everything went wrong and club fell to a dismal 52-110 record.

Despite that awful season, the club evidently didn’t believe Lovullo was to blame. They agreed to an extension with him in September of that year, just as his contract was about to expire. It wasn’t a tremendous show of faith, as it only covered the 2022 season with an option for 2023. However, 2022 has evidently gone well enough that the club will keep him around for at least one more campaign. Arizona’s 60-67 mark here in 2022 obviously isn’t amazing, but it’s still a huge turnaround compared to last year’s nightmare. There’s still over a month remaining on the schedule and they’ve already surpassed last year’s win total.

Although the club still believes enough in Lovullo to keep him around, it’s noteworthy that they merely picked up this option as opposed to announcing an extension. Most baseball teams generally prefer to not have a manager in “lame-duck” status, wherein they are in the final year of a contract with nothing in place for the future. There would still be time to come to another agreement about his contract in the offseason, though he is only in place through 2023 for now.

Next year, the club will surely be hoping to take yet another step forward after the improved results of this season. Arizona has debuted a handful of intriguing rookies this year, including Alek Thomas, Stone Garrett, Tommy Henry and Corbin Carroll, with Carroll being considered by some to be the best prospect in all of baseball. That bubbling up of young talent has an air of optimism floating around the club, despite lackluster results at the big league level recently. Those youngsters will join key team members like Christian Walker, Daulton Varsho, Ketel Marte, Josh Rojas, Zac Gallen, Merrill Kelly and Madison Bumgarner. The Arizona brass will be hopeful that Lovullo can steer that crew back into contention for the first time in years.

Nick Piecoro of the Arizona Republic tweeted the news before the official announcement.

Athletics To Promote Ken Waldichuk

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4:05pm: Martín Gallegos of MLB.com relays word from manager Mark Kotsay that Waldichuk will be starting Thursday’s game, making his major league debut.

1:10pm: The Athletics are planning on adding left-hander Ken Waldichuk to the team when rosters expand on September 1, tweets Matt Kawahara of the San Francisco Chronicle. The southpaw is not currently on the club’s 40-man roster, meaning they will have to make a corresponding move of some kind.

Waldichuk, 24, was a fifth-round draft pick of the Yankees in 2019 who came over to the A’s a month ago in the Frankie Montas trade. He pitched in ten rookie ball games after his draft selection, but then the pandemic canceled the minor leagues in 2020. Returning in 2021, he began the year in High-A and utterly dominated, throwing 30 2/3 scoreless innings over seven starts. He did walk 11.5% of batters faced, though was able to avoid damage by striking out an incredible 48.7% of those who stepped to the plate against him. Based on that showing, he was promoted to Double-A. Of course, he couldn’t possibly maintain that kind of performance but still fared well after jumping levels. He registered a 4.20 ERA in 16 appearances, with a 31.8% strikeout rate and 11.2% walk rate.

After that strong campaign, Waldichuk landed on Baseball America’s list of top 30 Yankee farmhands for the first time, coming in at #10 on the 2022 version. FanGraphs had placed Waldichuk at #53 in 2020 and #45 in 2021, but jumped him all the way up to #15 going into this season.

Here in 2022, the lefty’s stock has been rocketing even higher. He began the year back at Double-A and made six starts, putting up a stingy 1.26 ERA along with a 41.1% strikeout rate and 8.9% walk rate. He was bumped up to Triple-A and kept on rolling, registering a 3.59 ERA with a 34% strikeout rate and 11.2% walk rate. Since switching organizations in the trade, he’s made four more Triple-A starts with a 3.38 ERA, getting his walk rate all the way down to 3.8% while still striking out 26.6% of batters faced.

Based on another excellent season, he has been shooting up prospect lists. BA recently placed him #5 on their most recent update of Oakland prospects, while FanGraphs is even more bullish, placing him #1 in the organization and the 35th best prospect in the entire sport.

For the A’s, they have clearly been future-focused for almost a year now. Their offseason primarily revolved around trading away their best and most expensive players for prospects. That continued up to this year’s deadline, including the Montas deal that brought Waldichuk over. Tearing down the roster has unsurprisingly resulted in poor on-field results, with the club’s 48-81 record the worst in the American League. They have already been using their season to audition young players, with Waldichuk the latest to step onto the stage.

The club’s rotation mix is fairly wide open at the moment, especially with Paul Blackburn and Daulton Jefferies both done for the year due to injuries. 28-year-olds Cole Irvin and James Kaprielian are the most veteran of the bunch and should hold down two spots the rest of the way. The other starting options on hand are all rookies: JP Sears, Adam Oller, Adrian Martinez and Zach Logue. No one in that group has made more than 12 starts while Sears, who has made six starts, is the only one with an ERA under 5.00 so far. If Waldichuk can get results resembling his work in the minors, there’s little standing in the way of him earning a spot in next year’s rotation.

Image courtesy of USA Today Sports.

Astros To Promote Hunter Brown, Yainer Diaz

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The Astros are set to bring up two of their most talented young players in the coming days. Both Hunter Brown and Yainer Diaz are reportedly getting their first major league calls. Brown’s promotion is expected to come when active rosters expand from 26 to 28 players on Thursday, while the specific timing of Diaz’s call isn’t clear.

It’s a fantastic birthday present for Brown, who turned 24 today. A fifth-round pick out of Wayne State University in 2019, Brown has outperformed that relatively modest draft status. He struggled with his control late in his draft year, and his first full professional season was wiped out by the pandemic. The Detroit native began the 2021 campaign in Double-A and generally overpowered upper level hitters. He fanned 35% of opponents and induced ground-balls at a quality 47.7% clip to earn a midseason bump to Triple-A Sugar Land.

Brown returned to the Space Cowboys to open the 2022 campaign. He’s spent the whole year there, working 106 innings over 23 outings (14 starts). He’s posted a 2.55 ERA that is the lowest mark among the 50 Pacific Coast League hurlers with at least 60 frames. Brown has punched out an impressive 31.5% of batters faced and racked up grounders at a huge 54.2% clip. His 10.6% walk rate is a couple points higher than average, but the combination of strikeouts and grounders hints at the elite stuff he brandishes.

Baseball America recently placed Brown as the sport’s #40 overall minor league talent. BA credits the right-hander with a plus-plus fastball (a 70 on the scouting scale) that sits in the mid-90s and can reach 99 MPH. The outlet praises his plus low-80s curveball and suggests both his slider and changeup could be average MLB offerings. With that kind of arsenal, it’s little surprise Brown has racked up strikeouts in the minors, but evaluators raise questions about his strike-throwing consistency. Whether he’ll have good enough command to stick in an MLB rotation long-term remains to be seen, but it seems likelier the club will break him into the majors as a possible relief weapon for the stretch run.

Houston has a bit of uncertainty in the starting staff at the moment. Luis Garcia has struggled of late, while Justin Verlander is set to undergo an MRI after leaving yesterday’s start with calf discomfort. Even if Verlander requires an injured list stint — which hasn’t yet been determined — the club could work Cristian Javier back into a rotation with Framber Valdez, José Urquidy, Lance McCullers Jr. and Garcia. Brown’s ability to work with high-octane stuff for multiple innings could make him a key bullpen piece for manager Dusty Baker, and September could serve as an audition for a spot on the club’s postseason rosters.

Brown’s promotion is the headlining news for Houston, but Diaz’s call-up also marks a noteworthy transaction. A right-handed hitting catcher, Diaz was acquired from Cleveland in last summer’s deadline trade that sent Myles Straw for Phil Maton. Not generally regarded as a huge piece of the deal at the time, the native of the Dominican Republic played out the 2021 campaign in High-A. Despite a massive showing at the plate, he was left off the 40-man roster last winter and would’ve been available to other clubs had the Rule 5 draft not been canceled due to the lockout.

Remarkably, Diaz has gone from being left unprotected to one of the organization’s top prospects in a matter of months. BA placed him as the organization’s #2 farmhand on their midseason re-ranking of the system, while Eric Longenhagen of FanGraphs slotted him third among Houston’s minor leaguers last month. Both outlets praise his offensive upside, noting that he’s primarily a bat-first catcher. That’s been fully on display during what has been a breakout season in the upper levels.

Diaz began the season in Double-A Corpus Christi. He hit .316/.367/.504 over 267 plate appearances, earning a bump to Sugar Land in late June. The 23-year-old has continued to mash, posting a .294/.342/.587 showing with 16 longballs in 219 trips to the dish. Diaz has only struck out in 16.3% of his plate appearances while posting a cumulative .306/.356/.542 line to earn his first crack at big league pitching. With Martín Maldonado and Christian Vázquez on hand, Baker doesn’t figure to pencil Diaz in behind the dish very often. He’s gotten some looks at first base and very briefly in the corner outfield this season, and he’ll add a bench bat with the ability to catch or work in around the corners as needed.

Each of Brown and Diaz would’ve been eligible for the Rule 5 this winter if not added to the 40-man roster. They were thus locks to be put on the roster at the end of the year at the latest, but Houston will take an early look at two of their top young players to see if they can potentially contribute to this year’s playoff team. Houston’s 40-man roster is full, so they’ll need to create a pair of vacancies there even with the upcoming expansion of the active roster.

Brian McTaggart of MLB.com reported Brown was being promoted. Mark Berman of Fox 26 was first to report Diaz’s promotion.

Image courtesy of USA Today Sports.

Kennedy: Red Sox Plan To Retain Chaim Bloom, Alex Cora

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The Red Sox have dropped seven of their past ten contests, knocking them four games under .500. At 62-66, they’re in last place in the American League East and seven games out of the AL’s final Wild Card spot. The Sox are very likely to miss the playoffs, and their -48 run differential betters only those of the Royals, Tigers and A’s in the American League.

That’s certainly not what the Sox anticipated heading into the season, and the struggles have predictably led to some speculation among the fanbase about the future of the organization’s leadership. Those questions apparently aren’t simmering within the Fenway Park offices, however. Boston’s CEO/president Sam Kennedy tells Ken Rosenthal of the Athletic the club has no plans to dismiss either chief baseball officer Chaim Bloom or manager Alex Cora this offseason.

“I am very comfortable saying Chaim and Alex will be back. And I am very comfortable saying there is a strong belief in the direction of the franchise from our ownership group,” Kennedy said. “That direction is continuing to build for the future, but also continuing to invest at the major-league level.”

Both Cora and Bloom remain under contract for at least another season. The Sox preemptively exercised their 2023-24 options on Cora’s services last November, keeping him in the fold for two years beyond this one. Bloom was hired to lead the front office over the 2019-20 offseason, making this his third season at the helm. Rosenthal now reports that contract was of no less than four years in length, so even barring an extension, the Red Sox can keep him around at least through the end of next season.

There wasn’t a whole lot of doubt that Boston would keep Cora atop the dugout steps. Originally hired in advance of the 2018 season, Cora led the Red Sox to a World Series title his first year at the helm. The club missed the playoffs in 2019, and Cora was dismissed that offseason when his role in the Astros’ 2017 sign-stealing scandal was made public. MLB suspended him for the entire 2020 campaign, but Boston promptly re-hired Cora once that ban was up. During the first season of his second stint, the club won 92 games and advanced to the ALCS. Even with this year’s losing record, the Sox have gone 346-268 under Cora’s stewardship.

The team’s results under Bloom have been more mixed. Boston went 24-36 and finished last in the AL East during the abbreviated 2020 schedule. As mentioned, they bounced back with a very successful season last year, but they’re now facing another possible last place finish. That’d be a second in Bloom’s three years leading the organization, and he wasn’t a part of the 2018 championship squad as Cora was.

As is the case with every baseball ops group, one can point to various hits and misses for Bloom’s front office. The club made some strong under-the-radar moves in the 2020-21 offseason that contributed to last year’s turnaround. The Sox signed Enrique Hernández to a two-year, $14MM deal and were rewarded with perhaps the best season of his career in 2021 before his production cratered this year. They plucked Garrett Whitlock from the Yankees in the Rule 5 draft and immediately watched him develop into one of the game’s top late-inning weapons. At the preceding trade deadline, Boston landed Nick Pivetta and Connor Seabold for relievers Brandon Workman and Heath Hembree. Pivetta’s performance has been up-and-down, but getting a roughly league average controllable starter for a pair of middle relievers is a strong outcome for the Boston front office.

Bloom and his group have placed an emphasis on building the minor league pipeline. They’ve seemed to take some steps forward in that regard. Shortly before Bloom was hired in 2019, Baseball America placed the Red Sox 22nd in their organizational talent rankings. Earlier this month, ESPN’s Kiley McDaniel slotted them 13th, with last year’s first-round pick Marcelo Mayer now regarded as one of the best prospects in the sport.

At the same time, there are plenty of recent moves that have drawn criticism. The decision to not re-sign Mookie Betts in 2020 likely falls at ownership’s feet more so than the front office’s, but none of the players involved in the return (Alex Verdugo, Jeter Downs and Connor Wong) have performed as well as the club would’ve hoped this season. Boston’s biggest free agent signee of the past three years, Trevor Story, has performed below his previous career level in the first year of a $140MM deal.

Dealing Hunter Renfroe for Jackie Bradley Jr. and prospects David Hamilton and Alex Binelas over the winter added some talent to the middle tier of the farm system, but it marked a notable step down in a right field position that has gone on to give the team problems. The club’s faith in Bobby Dalbec at first base looks to have been misguided, and their handling of the trade deadline (acquiring Tommy Pham and Eric Hosmer while dealing away Christian Vázquez) reportedly sparked some confusion from the clubhouse and others within the organization.

Regardless of how one feels about the moves the Red Sox have made of late, the more relevant question is how Bloom and his group plan to move forward. Aside from the Story deal, the team has been quite cautious from a long-term spending perspective. Assuming Xander Bogaerts opts out of his contract, Boston will only have around $60MM in guaranteed money on the books for next year. Rafael Devers headlines an arbitration class that is likely to push the in-house spending to the $85MM – $90MM range, but there’ll still be plenty of space for a club that exceeded the $230MM luxury tax threshold this season.

The front office has consistently maintained they’d like to work out a long-term deal to retain Boagerts and to hammer out an extension with Devers. There’s no indication they’ve made progress to date in either case. Whether or not Bogaerts is brought back, the club will face plenty of turnover in the starting rotation, bullpen and the outfield. Unsurprisingly, it doesn’t seem there’s any thought of deliberately taking a step back in 2023, so there’ll need to be a fairly significant roster overhaul.

“Next year will be the 22nd season of the John Henry-Tom Werner-Mike Gordon Fenway Sports Group stewardship of this franchise,” Kennedy told Rosenthal of the ownership group. “Since we’ve been here, each and every year we have a goal of playing baseball in October. I do not see that changing. I see us continuing to invest across the entire organization, at the major-league level, throughout our baseball operations. This group is hungry for another World Series championship. … I know we’re in a tough spot right now. But we have a lot of flexibility going into this offseason. I’m really excited to see what we’re going to do with that flexibility and the resources we have.“

Diamondbacks Promote Corbin Carroll

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Aug. 29: The Diamondbacks have officially announced Carroll’s selection, with Luplow being optioned in a corresponding move.

Aug, 28: The Diamondbacks are planning on promoting outfield prospect Corbin Carroll for Monday’s game, reports Steve Gilbert of MLB.com. Carroll is not currently on the club’s 40-man roster, though they already have a vacancy there. A corresponding move will be required to get him onto the active roster.

This will be something of a belated birthday present for the youngster, who just turned 22 years old a week ago. Selected with the 16th overall pick in the 2019 draft, Carroll has been one of the most intriguing prospect in Arizona’s system ever since. Baseball America ranked him 5th in the organization and 90th in all of baseball in 2020, before Carroll jumped to Arizona’s #1 slot in 2021. He’s currently ranked 5th overall by BA, 3rd by FanGraphs, while ESPN and Keith Law of The Athletic consider him the best prospect in the sport.

The fact that Carroll is so highly regarded is hardly surprising, given his tremendous performance on the field thus far in his career. After being drafted in 2019, at just 18 years of age, he got into 42 games between rookie ball and low-A, hitting .299/.409/.487 in that span. The pandemic wiped out the minors in 2020, but Carroll reportedly continued to impress at the club’s alternate training site that year. 2021 was a mostly lost season, as Carroll tore the capsule of his non-throwing shoulder, ending his campaign after just seven games.

Corbin Carroll

However, Carroll has gotten right back on track here in 2022, showing no ill effects from the shoulder surgery he underwent last year. Through 58 Double-A games, he hit 16 home runs, stole 20 bases and walked in 14.8% of his plate appearances. His .313/.430/.643 batting line was 66% better than league average by measure of wRC+. He was promoted to Triple-A and has played 33 games there thus far, hitting seven more long balls, swiping 11 more bags and hitting .287/.408/.535, wRC+ of 135.

Defensively, Carroll has primarily played center field in the minors, though with some time in the corners as well. It’s unclear where the Diamondbacks intend to play Carroll in the majors, but they will have an embarrassment of young talent in the outfield either way. Alek Thomas, himself a highly regarded prospect coming into the year, was promoted in May and has been getting the lion’s share of playing time in center. He’s hit just .243/.294/.369 through his first 92 MLB games for an 84 wRC+, though his glovework has been highly rated across the board.

Beside Carroll and Thomas, the club has many options to fill out the remainder of its outfield picture. Daulton Varsho and Jake McCarthy are both having strong seasons as well and each comes with at least four years of club control beyond this one. Stone Garrett was also recently called up, having hit very well in a five-game showing so far. Jordan Luplow is also on hand due to his strong numbers against lefties. He’s slumped a bit in that regard this season but could be retained via arbitration for another two seasons if he still fits into Arizona’s plans. Assuming Carroll sticks with the big league club the rest of the season, he will earn just over a month of service time, putting him on track to reach free agency after the 2028 campaign, unless future optional assignments end up pushing that back.

It’s been a rough few years in the desert, with the D-Backs currently 59-67, likely to finish below .500 for a third straight season. However, they have already guaranteed themselves a record well ahead of last year’s 52-100 mark, with plenty of reasons to be excited about the future. Their stockpile of young, cheap and controllable outfield talent is perhaps the best reason to feel hopeful, with Carroll considered by many to be the most exciting of the bunch. Over the remaining few weeks of the schedule, the club will give him a chance to show his skills at the sport’s biggest stage and potentially lock down a place on the grass for years to come.

Image courtesy of USA Today Sports.

MLBPA Taking First Steps Toward Unionizing Minor League Players

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In what could mark a monumental change for minor league players and for Major League Baseball alike, the Major League Baseball Players Association sent authorization cards to all minor league players late Sunday evening, wherein the minor leaguers were asked to vote on designating the MLBPA as their collective bargaining representatives. ESPN’s Joon Lee first reported that the cards had been sent out, and MLBPA executive director Tony Clark later confirmed to ESPN that the initial steps had been taken by the MLBPA. Evan Drellich of The Athletic has also taken a lengthy look at the matter. The MLBPA has since formally announced, via press release, an effort to unionize minor league players.

In the event that 30% of minor leaguers sign their authorization cards, the cards will be presented to the National Labor Relations Board as a means of displaying the substantial interest in unionization. At that point, an election would be held among minor league players. If a requisite 50% of those who vote do so in favor of the MLBPA becoming the collective bargaining arm of minor league players, the NLRB would subsequently require Major League Baseball to recognize the union. That election would be subject to the NLRB’s administrative process and could take months to advance, however.

In an email to player agents, Clark cited “poverty wages, oppressive reserve rules, discipline without due process, ever expanding off-season obligations, appropriation of intellectual property, substandard attention to player health and safety, and a chronic lack of respect for minor leaguers as a whole” as key factors for minor league players to consider when deciding whether to provide their authorization.

Clark’s email also included various financial data on recent minor league revenues, including an $864MM gross revenue from the 2019 season (prior to the Covid-19 pandemic); the recent sale of a majority stake in the Sacramento River Cats (the Giants’ Triple-A club) and their stadium for more than $90MM; and the fact that the majority of minor leagues salaries, ranging from $4800 annually in Rookie ball to about $15,400 annually in Triple-A, check in shy of the poverty line, as defined by the federal government (Twitter link via Drellich). Those salary figures are in direct contrast to MLB commissioner Rob Manfred’s recent assertion that he “rejects” the notion “that minor league players are not paid a living wage.”

Unionizing the minor leagues would be a massive undertaking for the MLBPA, which until this point has only represented the roughly 1200 players who are on Major League 40-man rosters at a given time. Expanding the union’s ranks to include the minor leagues would add more than four times that many members to the existing group. While it may also seem to present potential conflicts of interest between established players and the fledgling newcomers, an MLBPA official tells MLBTR that the union’s executive board voted “overwhelmingly” in favor of inviting minor leaguers and received no opposition on the matter. Furthermore, the proposed unionization efforts would give minor leaguers their own separate bargaining unit under the MLBPA umbrella, and any minor league CBA would be negotiated independently of the Major League CBA that was completed earlier this year.

The steps toward unionization come on the heels of a class action settlement that saw Major League Baseball pay out $185MM to more than 20,000 players, stemming from a dispute as to whether those players should be compensated for Spring Training. Major League Baseball’s antitrust exemption is also once again under a microscope, as bipartisan members of the Senate Judiciary Committee in late June called for a need to reexamine that now-century-old ruling.

Major League Baseball has taken steps in recent years to improve conditions for minor leaguers, most notably requiring teams to provide housing for their minor league players. Of course, many of those changes came only after MLB gutted the minor leagues, eliminating 42 minor league clubs in the 2020-21 offseason.

The MLBPA has been working in conjunction with Advocates For Minor Leaguers, an advocacy group whose mission statement cites a need to establish “fair pay and equitable treatment” for minor league players. “The game of baseball will be better for everyone when minor leaguers have a seat at the table,” Advocates executive director Harry Marino told ESPN.

As part of the joint initiative between the MLBPA and Advocates for Minor Leaguers, Clark and Marino announced this morning that “Each member of the Advocates for Minor Leaguers staff has resigned to take on a new role working for the MLBPA.”

“Minor Leaguers represent our game’s future and deserve wages and working conditions that befit elite athletes who entertain millions of baseball fans nationwide,” Clark said in Monday morning’s statement. “They’re an important part of our fraternity and we want to help them achieve their goals both on and off the field.”

Marlins Release Jesus Aguilar

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TODAY: Aguilar cleared waivers and has been released, as per the Marlins’ MLB.com transactions page.

AUGUST 26: The Marlins have designated first baseman Jesus Aguilar for assignment, general manager Kim Ng announced to reporters (Twitter link via Jordan McPherson of the Miami Herald). All-Star Garrett Cooper is back from the injured list in a corresponding move.

Now that the trade deadline has passed, the only course of action for the Marlins will be to place Aguilar, 32, on waivers and hope that another club claims him. Given the $7.5MM guarantee on the struggling Aguilar’s 2022 contract, however, that appears quite unlikely. While Aguilar’s deal does carry a mutual option for the 2023 campaign, mutual options are rarely exercised, so teams will look at him as a pure rental.

There’s still about $1.6MM left to be paid out on the contract of Aguilar, plus a $200K buyout on that option. It’s hard to imagine a contending club dropping $1.8MM to claim a player who is hitting just .236/.286/.388 on the season as a whole — including a dismal .188/.246/.347 slash since the All-Star break. The overwhelming likelihood is that Aguilar will clear waivers and become a free agent — whether by being released or rejecting an outright assignment.

At that point, Aguilar would be free to sign a new contract with any team, and the new team would only owe him the prorated league minimum for any time spent on the MLB roster. The mutual option would no longer be a consideration, as he’ll have been released from the contract containing that clause. Aguilar would be postseason-eligible for a new club as long as he is signed (or, far less likely, claimed) prior to Sept. 1.

While a team isn’t likely to take a chance on Aguilar at the cost of his remaining salary, it stands to reason that several clubs would hold interest in signing him at the prorated league minimum. Aguilar hasn’t been himself in 2022, but as recently as 2020-21 he gave Miami a combined 726 plate appearances of .265/.336/.458 production, smacking 30 home runs and 33 doubles with an 18.3% strikeout rate against a solid 9.5% walk rate.

Aguilar doesn’t carry a significant platoon split, so at his best, he’s an above-average, everyday slugger with 30-homer pop … he just hasn’t been close to his best in 2022. His 23.2% strikeout rate is the highest it’s been since 2018, and Aguilar has seen his average exit velocity (87.7 mph) and hard-hit rate (35.4%) dip to career-worst levels in 2022.

Aguilar has generally graded out as a solid defender at first base, but he’s seen his typically solid grades take a step back in 2022, clocking in at -4 Defensive Runs Saved, a -1.4 Ultimate Zone Rating and zero Outs Above Average. He’s limited to first or designated hitter for the most part, with the lone exception being a few emergency appearances across the diamond at the hot corner over the years (27 career innings, including five in 2022).

Assuming Aguilar indeed clears waivers, teams in need of some offensive help at first base or designated hitter — or just a right-handed bat off the bench — could take a low-cost look in hopes of turning his season around. For the Marlins, they’ll use the remainder of the year to give a larger look to Lewin Diaz, who once ranked among the organization’s top prospects but has seen his stock tumble in recent seasons. The aforementioned Cooper also figures to see additional time in the lineup.

Mariners Sign Julio Rodriguez To Extension

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The Mariners have locked up one of the sport’s brightest young stars on a record-setting contract, announcing late Friday night they’ve signed Rookie of the Year candidate Julio Rodriguez to an extension. The deal, which begins this season, guarantees him $210MM over 12 years and contains both player and club options that can extend the length of the contract and push the total value as high as $470MM. Rodriguez, an Octagon client, also reportedly receives a full no-trade clause.

It is one of the more complex contracts agreed upon in major league history. According to reports from ESPN’s Jeff Passan and Ken Rosenthal of the Athletic, Rodriguez will make $120MM through 2029. Per Rosenthal, that takes the form of a $15MM signing bonus to be paid up front, with $105MM to be distributed between 2023-29. After the contract’s seventh year (2028), the Mariners must decide whether to effectively re-extend Rodriguez for either eight or ten years, with the size and value of that long-term “club option” dependent on how Rodriguez finishes in MVP voting.

At minimum, Seattle will be deciding on whether to extend the contract by eight years and another $200MM. That figure could escalate as follows, depending on Rodriguez’s finishes in MVP balloting over the next seven years:

  • $240MM over eight years with two or three top ten finishes
  • $260MM over eight years with four top ten finishes
  • $280MM over eight years if he wins an MVP and finishes in the top five once more or finishes in the top five of MVP balloting on three occasions
  • $350MM over ten years if he wins two MVP awards or finishes among the top five in balloting on four occasions

In the event Rodriguez hits that highest threshold and the Mariners exercise the option, the contract would max out at 18 years and $470MM in total value.

If the Mariners do not exercise their multi-year option after Year 7, Rodriguez will have a five-year, $90MM player option he can exercise after Year 8 of the contract. (That option value could escalate as high as $125.5MM based on his finishes in Silver Slugger voting and All-Star appearances). That $90MM figure is considered guaranteed money, as is the case with all player options. Between the $120MM he’ll be paid over the next eight seasons and the $90MM base value of the player option, Rodriguez’s guarantee lands at the aforementioned $210MM. There is, of course, a scenario where the Mariners do not pick up their 8- to 10-year “club option,” and Rodriguez also declines his five-year “player option,” which would then allow him to reach free agency after collecting $120MM over eight years, when he’ll be heading into his age-30 campaign.

Rodriguez, 21, broke camp with the Mariners this season and, after a rough couple of weeks to begin the year, burst into immediate stardom and has established himself as one of the frontrunners for Rookie of the Year honors. He’s currently hitting .269/.328/.471 with 20 home runs, 19 doubles, three triples and 23 steals (in 29 tries) — plus above-average defensive contributions in center field.

Those numbers are at least slightly skewed by a poor start to the year in which Rodriguez batted .136/.208/.159 with a 45% strikeout rate. Dating back to April 22, Rodriguez has mashed at a .285/.342/.508 clip. That production is about 46% better than league average after weighting for park and league, by measure of wRC+, which places him in a three-way tie with Alex Bregman and the also recently-extended Austin Riley for 12th-best among qualified Major League hitters. Rodriguez also ranks 13th in the Majors in both average exit velocity (92 mph) and hard-hit rate (49.6%) in that time, and his 14.9% barrel rate is MLB’s ninth-best mark.

Add in the fact that he’s done all of this at 21 years of age and after skipping the Triple-A level entirely, and his rookie season becomes all the more remarkable. Given that youth and lack of upper-minors seasoning, it’s quite possible that even though Rodriguez already ranks among the game’s best hitters, we’ve yet to see the best he has to offer.

From a defensive standpoint, Rodriguez has more than held his own in center field this season, turning in positive marks in Defensive Runs Saved (2), Ultimate Zone Rating (0.3) and Outs Above Average (5). Many scouting reports penned before his MLB debut suggested that as Rodriguez ages and continues to fill out, he could be destined for a corner outfield slot, but given his 70- or even 80-grade raw power and the solid work he’s flashed in center this season, he’ll have both the bat and likely the defensive chops to be an above-average contributor in right or left field.

The $210MM guarantee will give Rodriguez the record for largest contract ever signed by a player with under a year of Major League service time. That distinction currently belongs to Rays shortstop Wander Franco, who inked an 11-year, $182MM extension last November.

Rodriguez will topple that mark with ease, although it’s not an apples-to-apples comparison. Franco wasn’t promoted until midseason and inked his deal in the winter, when the Rays had six full seasons of club control left over him. Because Rodriguez made the Opening Day roster, he’ll get a full year of service in 2022 and would “only” have had five additional years of club control remaining. In that respect, he could technically be considered more of a one-plus player (between one and two years of service time), although even when viewing the contract through that lens, it’s still a record-setting agreement; Ke’Bryan Hayes’ $70MM extension in Pittsburgh was the previous record for a player with between one and two years of service.

Regardless of which service bracket one thinks more aptly applies to Rodriguez, this new deal now stands as the largest contract ever promised to a player with fewer than two years of Major League service time. In that aspect, Rodriguez and the Major League Baseball Players Association are surely pleased to see the precedent for young, superstar extensions moved even further forward.

All that said, there’s still potential for the contract to be quite favorable for the Mariners. Rodriguez would’ve likely earned near the league minimum in salary over the next two seasons (plus any payouts from the newly collectively bargained bonus pool for pre-arbitration players). A player with his upside and early dominance would likely have done quite well in arbitration, and while we can never know exactly how much he might’ve earned through that process, arbitration is generally based on precedent. Looking for recent comparables, Mookie Betts secured $57.5MM for his three arbitration seasons. If we put Rodriguez into that broad vicinity, his remaining five years of club control might have netted him somewhere in the range of $60MM — perhaps a few million more if he’d taken home an MVP Award and/or pushed the Betts precedent a bit further.

Rodriguez will be paid $15MM on average over the next eight seasons, with at least two free agent seasons bought out. That obviously pales in comparison to what he could’ve earned on the open market had he gone year-to-year and hit the free-agent market in advance of his age-27 season, and the Mariners will have an opportunity to keep him from hitting free agency at any point in his prime. That risk-reward tradeoff is the nature of early contract extensions, of course. There’s obviously ample risk of injury or downturn in performance for Rodriguez, all of which is baked into the relative discount rate for those open-market seasons.

From a team payroll vantage point, there’s ample room for Seattle to make a commitment of this nature. A significant portion of the team’s recent rebuild was dedicated to clearing long-term clutter from the books — e.g., the Robinson Cano trade — and the team’s long-term commitments are now rather minimal. Left-hander Robbie Ray is signed through the 2026 season, as is shortstop J.P. Crawford, but they’ll combine for just $37MM at that point. That would’ve only been Rodriguez’s fifth big league season, so the salaries on his contract will not quite have escalated to their maximum levels.

Looking more short-term, the books are also still accommodating. The Mariners, who’ll see veterans Mitch Haniger and Adam Frazier reach free agency at season’s end, had just over $63MM in guaranteed money on the 2023 payroll prior to this contract. That number doesn’t include an $8MM option for righty Chris Flexen, nor does it include a handful of arbitration raises: Luis Castillo (earning $7.35MM this season), Diego Castillo ($2.315MM), Paul Sewald ($1.735MM), Ty France (pre-arb) and Erik Swanson (pre-arb).

It’s a momentous day in Mariners history, one that firmly drives home the organization’s “win-now” mentality as it inches toward a postseason berth that would smash a two-decade playoff drought — currently the longest in major North American professional sports. There’s risk for both parties, but the contract is a continuation of the ever-growing trend of extending young stars at nine-figure rates that guarantee a player’s entire prime. The contract also locks Rodriguez down as the new face of Mariners baseball for the next decade-plus, ensuring them a charismatic, marketable star around whom to both build the roster and sell the product to the fanbase.

Jesse Sanchez of MLB.com first reported that the two sides were nearing an extension worth more than $200MM guaranteed and as much as $450MM in total value. ESPN’s Jeff Passan reported the contract length and exact guarantee. USA Today’s Bob Nightengale reported the agreement was in place. Passan and  provided specifics on the financials. Rosenthal also reported the deal contained a full no-trade clause.

Image courtesy of USA Today Sports.

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