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Phillies Trade Adam Haseley To White Sox

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The White Sox and Phillies are in agreement on a deal sending outfielder Adam Haseley from Philadelphia to Chicago, reports Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic (Twitter link). Minor league right-hander McKinley Moore is headed to the Phillies in return, reports Todd Zolecki of MLB.com. Both teams have since announced the trade.

Adam Haseley | Jonathan Dyer-USA TODAY Sports

Haseley, 25, was the eighth overall pick in the 2017 draft but has yet to establish himself as a fixture in the Philadelphia outfield. The left-handed hitter is a career .272/.331/.398 hitter against right-handed pitching and has drawn mostly solid defensive marks at all three outfield positions (10 Defensive Runs Saved, 3.3 Ultimate Zone Rating, -1 Outs Above Average). He’ll give the Sox a nice glove and a lefty bat to pair with right-handed-hitting outfielders Eloy Jimenez, Luis Robert, Adam Engel and Andrew Vaughn.

The bulk of Haseley’s experience in the big leagues came in 2019, when he logged a career-high 67 games and 242 plate appearances. He’s played in just 49 games and tallied 113 plate appearances across the past two seasons while battling wrist and groin strains. Haseley also stepped away from baseball entirely for a month last April, citing personal reasons. He went just 4-for-21 in limited big league time and batted .233/.313/.325 in the minors last season.

Haseley has a pair of minor league option years remaining, so he’s not necessarily a lock to make Chicago’s Opening Day roster. However, with Vaughn nursing a hip injury that’ll shut him down for one to two weeks, the outfield picture might be a bit more open at the moment than it appeared just a few days ago. Haseley has just a year and 132 days of Major League service time, so he’s under club control with the White Sox through at least the 2026 season — provided he plays well enough to stick on the roster that long, of course.

Although Haseley wasn’t slated to start in the outfield for the Phillies, he looked to have a clear path to at least a part-time role — particularly with Odubel Herrera currently battling an oblique injury that’s expected to prevent him from being ready for Opening Day. Haseley and right-handed-hitting Matt Vierling appeared ticketed for a center field platoon, with Bryce Harper locked into right field and Kyle Schwarber and Nick Castellanos slated to split time between left field and DH (probably with the former seeing more time in the field than the latter). With Haseley now out of the picture, former No. 1 overall pick Mickey Moniak looks like the frontrunner to split time with Vierling early on — barring further player movement in the Philadelphia outfield mix.

Moore, 23, was the Sox’ 14th-round pick in 2019 out of the University of Arkansas at Little Rock. Listed at 6’6″ and 225 pounds, McKinley is a big, power-armed righty with an upper-90s heater and a slider that, per Baseball America, will look like a plus offering at times. Moore has fanned a huge 31.7% of his opponents in pro ball and also boasts a strong 51% grounder rate, but he’s walked far too many opponents (13.4%). He split the 2021 season between two Class-A affiliates, pitching to a 4.20 ERA through 40 2/3 innings.

Twins Sign Chris Archer

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The Twins are adding to the rotation via free agency, announcing agreement with Chris Archer on a one-year deal. The VC Sports Group client reportedly receives a $3.5MM guarantee, consisting of a $2.75MM base salary and a $750K buyout on a $10MM mutual option for the 2023 season. Archer’s 2022 salary can max out at $9.5MM based on starts and/or games with at least three innings pitched, presumably to give him credit for “relief” outings following an opener. To create 40-man roster space, Minnesota sent left-hander Lewis Thorpe outright to Triple-A St. Paul.

Archer has barely pitched over the past couple seasons due to injury. He missed all of the shortened 2020 campaign after undergoing surgery to correct thoracic outlet syndrome. Bought out by the Pirates after that season, he signed a one-year deal with the Rays but was limited to 19 1/3 innings during his second stint in Tampa Bay. The righty hit the injured list after just two appearances on account of forearm tightness. While it was initially hoped that’d be a brief stint, it kept him out of action until late August. He made four appearances late in the year upon returning, but issues with his left hip sent him back to the IL for a season-ending stay.

The lack of recent volume has been a new issue for Archer, who was a durable and highly productive arm early in his career. He exceeded 115 innings every year between 2013-19, including three consecutive 200-inning seasons with the Rays from 2015-17. Archer earned All-Star selections in two of those campaigns and picked up a fifth-place finish in AL Cy Young Award voting during a 2015 season in which he posted a 3.23 ERA and a 3.08 SIERA.

Archer was a top-of-the-rotation arm during his best days in Tampa, combining for a 3.66 ERA with a strong 26.7% strikeout rate between 2014-17. The Rays flipped him to the Pirates in advance of the 2018 trade deadline, a now-infamous deal that saw Pittsburgh part with Austin Meadows, Tyler Glasnow and Shane Baz to pick up three and a half years of club control over Archer. Unfortunately for the Bucs, that deal looked regrettable almost from the get-go. Archer’s production went backwards early in his Pittsburgh tenure, and the team didn’t get a single inning from him during the affordable 2020-21 club options that had made him such an appealing target at the time of the trade.

It has been three years since Archer was a productive rotation member. He’s now 33 years old, and the mid-90s velocity he sported during his best days didn’t reappear in his brief return from TOS last year. Archer averaged only 92 MPH on his four-seam fastball after sitting in the 94-96 MPH range throughout his entire career previously.

The low-base, incentive-laden structure of the deal reflects both Archer’s decent upside and his three consecutive down seasons. If he stays healthy and cements himself in the rotation, he’ll have a chance to earn comparable salaries as back-end starters like Tyler Anderson and Andrew Heaney were guaranteed this winter. If he again struggles with injury, the club’s financial investment will be more minimal.

Archer figures to open the year at the back half of the Minnesota rotation. The Twins have made some major shakeups on the position player side, shipping out Mitch Garver and Josh Donaldson and bringing in Gary Sánchez and Gio Urshela via trade before shockingly landing the market’s top free agent, Carlos Correa. That reaffirmed the Twins were all-in on rebounding from last season’s 73-89 finish.

The rotation has arguably been the team’s biggest weakness all winter, though. Minnesota landed Sonny Gray in a deal with the Reds and picked up Dylan Bundy on a reclamation free agent deal not all that dissimilar from today’s pact with Archer. After trading José Berríos last summer and losing Kenta Maeda to Tommy John surgery, they came into the offseason arguably needing three new arms to join Bailey Ober and rookie Joe Ryan in the season-opening starting staff.

Archer becomes the third such outside addition, although neither he nor Bundy is anything near a sure bet to provide reliable production. Pitching alternatives have gotten limited this late in the offseason, however, particularly with the Reds taking Luis Castillo and Tyler Mahle off the trade block. A’s starters Sean Manaea and Frankie Montas looked like prime trade candidates, but the most recent reports suggest Oakland could carry both into the season. The free agent market had mostly thinned out as well, with Archer and Johnny Cueto representing the best remaining options.

The Twins move forward with Archer, who’ll presumably step into a season-opening starting five with Gray, Bundy, Ryan and Ober. Minnesota also has a trio of highly-regarded pitching prospects — Josh Winder, Jhoan Duran and Jordan Balazovic — who could factor into the mix as well. Aaron Gleeman of the Athletic wrote last week that Winder looked to be the first line of rotation reinforcements for the Twins, with Duran likelier to break into the bigs as a reliever. Given the recent injury histories of Bundy and Archer and the uncertainty of young arms like Ober and Ryan, it stands to reason Winder will get a look at some point early in the year.

Thorpe was a decently-regarded pitching prospect himself, but he hasn’t found a ton of big league success. The southpaw has tossed 59 1/3 innings in 24 outings as a swingman over the past three seasons, posting a 5.76 ERA. He was out of minor league option years, and the Twins have chosen to bump him from the 40-man roster rather than carry him on the big league club all year. Having already cleared outright waivers, the Australia native will remain in the organization without occupying a spot on the 40-man.

Jeff Passan of ESPN first reported the Twins and Archer had agreed to a $3.5MM deal that could max out at $9.5MM based on starts and/or three-inning appearances. Do-Hyoung Park of MLB.com reported the $10MM mutual option, which Passan reported contained a $750K buyout.

Image courtesy of USA Today Sports.

Diamondbacks Extend Ketel Marte

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MARCH 28: Jon Heyman of the MLB Network reports the full breakdown (on Twitter): Marte receives a $3MM signing bonus, followed by successive salaries of $11MM, $13MM, $16MM, $16MM and $14MM through 2027. The 2028 option is valued at $13MM and contains a $3MM buyout. If Marte finishes in the top three in MVP voting in any season, the following year’s salary would escalate by $3MM. A fourth through seventh place finish in MVP voting would increase the following season’s base by $2MM. The deal also contains other incentives based on plate appearances.

MARCH 27: The Diamondbacks and Ketel Marte are in agreement on a five-year, $76MM extension, per Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic. (Twitter links) Reports emerged yesterday that Marte and the club were discussing an extension, and it appears there is now a deal in place, pending a physical. Marte was already under club control through 2024, via a $8.4MM salary this year, followed by club options valued at $11MM in 2023 and $13MM in 2024. Per Rosenthal, those options are now guaranteed, but with different salary figures. The extension will run through the 2027 campaign, with Marte earning an additional $51MM. There is also a club option for 2028, per Nick Piecoro of The Arizona Republic, with escalators based on performance and health that could increase the value of the contract.  Bob Nightengale of USA Today reports that the extension guarantees Marte another $52MM, with his signing bonus and buyout bumping that to $56MM.

After a dismal 2021 season that saw just about everything go wrong and the club finish with a record of 52-110, speculation turned to Marte and whether the D-Backs would cash him in for a huge prospect haul. However, the club insisted they had no interest in tearing down their roster for rebuilding purposes, intending instead to continue trying to build a winning team around their current core. This extension solidifies that course of action, keeping Marte around through his age-33 season, with the option of potentially adding yet another yet after that.

After making his MLB debut in 2015 at the age of 21 and spending a couple of seasons in Seattle, Marte was acquired by Arizona alongside Taijuan Walker, in exchange for Mitch Haniger, Jean Segura and Zac Curtis. This was one of the first moves in the tenure of Mike Hazen, who had just been named the club’s general manager the month prior. Marte’s first season in the desert was a lackluster one, as he hit just .260/.345/.395, wRC+ of 89. Still, Hazen doubled down on his faith in Marte by signing him to a five-year, $24MM extension four years ago. That faith was quickly rewarded, as Marte had a much better campaign in 2018, hitting 14 home runs and slashing .260/.332/.437, wRC+ of 104. The next year, he was able to take his game to incredible new heights, launching 32 homers, stealing 10 bases and hitting .329/.389/.592. That amounted to a wRC+ of 149 and 7.0 fWAR, with Marte coming fourth in NL MVP voting.

Although his performance dipped in the pandemic-shortened 2020 season, he proved that to be a fluke with a 2021 that was much more like his previous season. He missed time with hamstring issues and only got into 90 games, but hit 14 home runs and slashed .318/.377/.532 for a wRC+ of 139 and 2.9 fWAR.

With Marte now firmly entrenched at the keystone for the foreseeable future, the club can focus on building a competitive roster around him. That won’t be an easy task, considering the situation in the division. Last year, the Dodgers and Giants each won over 100 games and should continue being strong teams going forward. The Padres underperformed last year but are still loaded with talent and could perform better this time around. The Rockies have had a rough go recently but have shown a willingness to spend in order to try and keep pace, as evidenced by the recent signing of Kris Bryant.

The Diamondbacks have many talented players under their control for multiple seasons, such as Daulton Varsho, Carson Kelly, Josh Rojas and Zac Gallen. They also have a well-regarded farm system, with prospects Geraldo Perdomo and Alek Thomas likely working their way into the mix soon, followed by Corbin Carroll and Jordan Lawlar down the road.

Payroll wise, there’s no reason the D-backs can’t be aggressive in the remaining years of this extension, as it is now the only money on the books beyond 2024. Even for the current campaign, their Opening Day payroll is only slated to come in around $93MM, per Jason Martinez of Roster Resource, with only $51MM committed for next year. Considering that they’ve gotten their payroll as high as $132MM in recent years, per Cot’s Baseball Contracts, there should be plenty of room for aggressive moves in the years to come.

Image courtesy of USA Today Sports.

Albert Pujols Planning To Retire After 2022 Season

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Albert Pujols is back with the Cardinals, and he’ll wrap up his career where it began. Speaking to reporters (including Derrick Goold of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch) at a press conference announcing his return to St. Louis, Pujols confirmed he’s planning to retire after the upcoming season. “This is it for me. This is my last run,” he told the group.

Pujols is headed into the 22nd season of a Hall of Fame career. He has spent a bit more than half that in Cardinal red, breaking into the big leagues with a Rookie of the Year-winning 2001 campaign. The slugging first baseman finished fourth in NL MVP voting his debut season, and he’d remain among the top five finishers in that balloting for all but one season in St. Louis ( a 2007 campaign in which he finished ninth).

During that run, Pujols claimed the MVP award on three separate occasions. He led MLB in OPS+ in four of the five seasons between 2006-10, claiming the Silver Slugger Award in each of the latter three years. Pujols went to the Midsummer Classic in nine of his first 11 seasons with the Cards and helped the club to a pair of World Series championships. Over his time in St. Louis, he posted an incredible .328/.420/.617 slash, averaging more than 40 home runs per season.

Of course, the second half of Pujols’ career wasn’t close to the otherworldly heights he reached during that time. Pujols posted above-average offensive numbers for each of his first five seasons in Orange County after signing a ten-year pact with the Angels during the 2011-12 offseason. He only put up excellent numbers during his first season with the Halos (.285/.343/.516 with 30 homers) as his batting average and on-base numbers sharply declined, although Pujols twice more eclipsed 30 longballs in Anaheim.

As his production continued to wane towards the end of that deal, the Angels released Pujols last May. He landed with the Dodgers and served as a righty platoon/bench bat before hitting the open market again this winter. In a full-circle moment, the 42-year-old agreed to head back to St. Louis for one final run last night.

Pujols has already racked up a laundry list of career accomplishments. His name dots the all-time leaderboards in most major categories. He’s 12th with 3,301 hits, and he’s just 18 knocks away from supplanting Paul Molitor in the top ten. Barring injury, he’s sure to get there this year. It’ll be harder — but not impossible — for Pujols to set another pair of achievements in the home run department. Already 5th all-time with 679 big flies, he needs 18 more to pass Alex Rodríguez for fourth-place and 21 homers to reach the 700-mark plateau. Pujols is 64 RBI from Babe Ruth for second-place in that category, and he has a chance to leapfrog both Willie Mays (38 away) and Stan Musial (92 away) on the total bases leaderboard.

Obviously, Pujols won’t shoulder the kind of workload he did early in his career. Paul Goldschmidt is the regular first baseman with the Cards, leaving the designated hitter role as the cleanest path to at-bats for Pujols. In recent seasons, he hasn’t hit well enough that a win-now St. Louis team will be committed to playing him everyday in that capacity, but he figures to pick up some pinch-hit work and starts against left-handed pitching. Cardinals fans will get an opportunity to watch Pujols chase those various milestones for a final six months, and he’ll go out alongside the two other players most synonymous with the past two decades of Cardinal baseball.

Yadier Molina has already announced plans to retire after this year himself. Adam Wainwright, who turns 41 in August, returned for a 17th season on a one-year deal over the offseason. There has been plenty of speculation over the past few seasons that Wainwright could soon step away himself, although he has yet to commit one way or the other. The three-time All-Star starter again demurred on his future this afternoon, telling reporters he’s “not crossing that bridge” at the moment (via John Denton of MLB.com).

To Wainwright’s credit, he has remained highly productive deep into his 30’s, showing even less of a drop-off in performance than either of his legendary teammates. All three players have been iconic members of the organization, and they’re now officially reunited for one last run. Whether Wainwright will join Molina and Pujols as outgoing stars remains to be seen, but the trio will be together this year in hopes of bringing a third World Series to St. Louis.

Cardinals Sign Albert Pujols

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Albert Pujols’ career has come full-circle, as the Cardinals announced Monday afternoon they’d agreed to a deal to bring him back to St. Louis. The MVP Sports Group client will reportedly be guaranteed $2.5MM. St. Louis will announce a corresponding 40-man roster move later this week.

Pujols, 42, spent the first 11 years of his career with the Cardinals, playing at an unfathomable level and enshrining himself as a future Hall of Famer. In that time, he hit 445 home runs and put up an incredible .328/.420/.617 for a wRC+ of 167. He was a key reason why the club was a continual competitor in that time, making the postseason in 7 of those 11 seasons and winning the World Series in 2006 and 2011.

Based on that otherworldly run of success, he was signed by the Angels to a ten-year, $254MM deal covering the 2012-2021 seasons. Pujols continued to hit at a level above the league average for the first five years of that deal, though a few notches below what he did as a Cardinal. From there, things only got worse, as he hit just .242/.291/.406 from 2017 to 2020, producing a wRC+ of just 84. After 24 games last year, with just a few months remaining on the contract, the Angels released him. Surprisingly, he was picked up by the Dodgers, who planned to limit the veteran slugger to a bench/platoon role, primarily facing lefties. The strategy worked out fine enough, as Pujols hit .254/.299/.460 as a Dodger, a wRC+ of 101.

The earlier report from Katie Woo of The Athletic indicated that the club was interested in bringing Pujols back for a reunion, but in a similar role to the one he had with the Dodgers last year. Now that the National League will have the designated hitter this year, it will be easier for the club to implement Pujols in this way, being used as a pinch hitter or in the DH slot, trying to limit his exposure to righties. Woo noted that that the club has traditionally shied away from platoon strategies in the past, but that new manager Oliver Marmol is planning on changing that. Paul Goldschmidt is firmly entrenched as the club’s regular first baseman, meaning Pujols will be in the mix for DH/pinch-hitting duties alongside Corey Dickerson, Lars Nootbaar and Juan Yepez.

For Yepez, he seemed poised to make the team after a tremendous year in the minors. Between Double-A and Triple-A last year, he hit .286/.383/.586, for a wRC+ of 154. Then there’s Nolan Gorman, who also spent last year between Double-A and Triple-A, hitting .279/.333/.481, wRC+ of 115. However, Woo reports that, given that Yepez is just 24 and Gorman doesn’t turn 22 until May, the club is considering a plan wherein they each spend a bit more time in the minors getting regular reps, waiting for an opportunity to open up as the season progresses.

While Yepez and Gorman will surely get their opportunities down the line, the narrative of the moment is that one of this generation’s greatest hitters is returning to where he started his career and flourished. He will also reunite with Yadier Molina and Adam Wainwright, long-time Cardinals who were alongside Pujols for his greatest seasons, including those two World Series championships.

Derrick Goold of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported Pujols and the Cardinals were finalizing a one-year deal. Katie Woo of the Athletic had first reported there was “growing interest” in the organization in bringing him back. Mark Feinsand of MLB.com reported the sides were in agreement on a one-year, $2.5MM deal.

Reds Sign Tommy Pham

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TODAY: The Reds have officially announced Pham’s signing.  Tejay Antone (who underwent Tommy John surgery in August) was placed on the 60-day injured list to create roster room.

March 24: Pham is guaranteed $7.5MM on the deal, coming in the form of a $6MM salary and a $1.5MM buyout on next year’s mutual option, Nightengale further reports.

March 23: The Reds are in agreement with outfielder Tommy Pham on a one-year deal, reports Bobby Nightengale of the Cincinnati Enquirer. The deal, which contains a mutual option for 2023, is pending a physical. Financial terms have not been disclosed. Pham is a client of Vayner Sports.

Pham was one of the game’s more underrated players early in his career with the Cardinals and Rays. Between 2017-19, the right-handed hitter posted a .284/.381/.475 line while averaging nearly 22 home runs and stolen bases apiece per season. Pham routinely posted high-end exit velocities and walk rates while making a decent amount of contact. A high ground-ball tendency kept him from emerging as an elite power threat, but he was a well-rounded and highly productive offensive player.

Over the 2019-20 offseason, Tampa Bay traded Pham and Jake Cronenworth to the Padres in a deal that sent Hunter Renfroe and Xavier Edwards back to the Rays. While Pham was the headliner of the swap from the Friars’ perspective, Cronenworth proved to be the more valuable pickup. Pham struggled to a .211/.312/.312 mark during the shortened 2020 season, the only below-average offensive showing of his career. Last year’s .229/.340/.383 slash was a tick above average, by measure of wRC+, but it still came up well shy of his early-career numbers.

Pham, who didn’t emerge as a regular until his age-29 campaign, turned 34 earlier this month. It’s certainly possible his recent downturn is attributable to aging, but it’s worth noting he dealt with a few health issues in San Diego that probably also had a deleterious effect on his performance. Pham missed a month in 2020 after fracturing the hamate bone in his right hand, an injury that could certainly have sapped some of his power. Last offseason, he was the victim of a life-threatening stabbing attack that required 200 stitches to close a wound in his back.

Remarkably, Pham returned by Opening Day and didn’t spend any time on the injured list. Yet he was open about how the incident affected his offseason routine, and it’s possible he was never fully healthy in 2021. Pham actually performed much better in the first half of the year than he did in the second — he didn’t merely start slowly while recovering from the stabbing  — but it’d be understandable if he weren’t up to the physical grind of a 162-game season coming off the prior winter’s tribulations.

Pham’s dip in results has been attributable to what has happened on balls in play. Last season’s 13.9% walk rate remained excellent, while his 22.8% strikeout percentage is right in line with his career marks. Pham still made plenty of authoritative contact. His 47.6% hard contact rate and 94.9 MPH average exit velocity on balls hit in the air were both definitively better than average. The results didn’t align with those batted ball numbers, though, as Pham saw a career-low 13.5% of his fly balls clear the fences.

San Diego’s pitcher-friendly home ballpark didn’t seem to do the veteran outfielder any favors. Pham’s .412 weighted on-base average on fly balls was far outstripped by his .562 “expected” weighted on-base on those batted balls, per Statcast. A few more of those flies should clear the fences at the hitter-friendly Great American Ball Park, perhaps enabling Pham to post numbers closer to his career norms.

That makes him a sensible buy-low target, although the signing comes in the broader context of a strange offseason for the Reds. Much of the winter was focused on the club’s cost-cutting efforts. They parted ways with Wade Miley, Tucker Barnhart, Sonny Gray and Jesse Winker and seemingly made no effort to retain free agent Nick Castellanos. Those all thinned out a roster that was marginally above-average (83-79 with a +26 run differential) last season.

That’ll make it difficult to make a serious run at contention in 2022, but Cincinnati has made a few short-term moves in recent days. They acquired Mike Minor from the Royals and signed each of Donovan Solano, Colin Moran and Hunter Strickland, building out the margins of the roster. Pham may be the most impactful of those moves, but competing this year while slashing costs still looks to be a difficult needle for general manager Nick Krall and his staff to thread.

Pham figures to replace Winker as the primary left fielder. Jake Fraley, whom the Reds acquired from the Mariners in the Winker/Eugenio Suárez trade, is better suited for left but could see some action in center field. Tyler Naquin will probably move from center to right after rating poorly defensively, leaving Fraley, Nick Senzel and Shogo Akiyama as the options in center. That’s not an ideal group, but there weren’t many capable everyday center fielders available in free agency or trade this offseason. Pham isn’t a perfect positional fit, but installing his bat into the lineup should help an offense that lost two of last season’s top three hitters.

Image courtesy of USA Today Sports.

Dodgers Sign Dave Roberts To Three-Year Extension

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7:09pm: The team has officially announced the extension.

4;53pm: The Dodgers and manager Dave Roberts have agreed to a three-year extension, reports Jon Heyman of the MLB Network (Twitter link). He is now under contract through 2025.

This has seemed like an inevitability for some time. Reports emerged during the lockout that the team and skipper were motivated to get a new deal done before the start of the regular season. Roberts had been headed into the final year of his contract, and teams can be hesitant to avoid entering the season with a manager in a lame-duck situation.

That’s not to say Roberts’ job ever looked to be in jeopardy, even before news of extension negotiations was made public. Los Angeles hired the former 10-year MLB veteran to replace Don Mattingly over the 2015-16 offseason. It was Roberts’ first managerial gig, perhaps a risky proposition for a team that had won the NL West in each of the previous three seasons under Mattingly.

Despite his lack of experience, Roberts has guided Los Angeles’ consistently talented rosters to plenty of success. They won the division in each of his first five seasons at the helm, getting past the Division Series in three of those years. The Dodgers won back-to-back pennants between 2017-18 but dropped successive World Series against the Astros and Red Sox, respectively.

Like any manager, Roberts came under some fire from the fanbase for some of his pitching decisions in the postseason. Throughout his tenure, though, the front office maintained confidence in both his leadership of the clubhouse and his bullpen management when the lights were brightest. Dodgers brass clearly never believed Roberts’ postseason management was fatal to their chances of winning a title, and they were proven right in 2020. After an incredible 43-17 record in the shortened regular season, the Dodgers stormed through the postseason to claim their first World Series since 1988. That was in spite of that year’s unique playoff format, which required all teams to advance through four rounds (instead of the customary three) thanks to an expanded field.

The stretch of division championships came to an end last year, although that wasn’t a reflection of any lack of team success. The 106-win Dodgers were narrowly edged out by a 107-win campaign from their archrivals in San Francisco. Nevertheless, they took down the Cardinals in the final NL Wild Card Game, then beat the Giants in the NLDS. Los Angeles lost to the Braves in the NLCS, but it marked another season as one of the league’s most successful teams overall.

Los Angeles has made the playoffs in all six seasons of Roberts’ tenure, the only team in MLB to do so. They’re 542-329 in regular season play in that time, winning more than 57% of their games. Roberts has certainly had the fortune of overseeing one of baseball’s most talented clubs on an annual basis, but there’s little questioning the organization’s run of success. The front office and ownership seem happy with his work behind-the-scenes, and he’s now slated to stick atop the dugout through 2025.

If Roberts remains Dodgers’ manager through the term of his new deal, he’ll reach a full decade in the position. Only three skippers — Hall of Famers Walter Alston, Tommy Lasorda and Wilbert Robinson — have reached the ten-year milestone in franchise history. That trio and another Hall of Famer, Leo Durocher, are the only skippers to lead the Dodgers to more wins than Roberts has in the past six years.

Image courtesy of USA Today Sports.

Andrew Miller Announces Retirement

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Veteran reliever Andrew Miller is retiring after 16 Major League seasons, Derrick Goold of The St. Louis Post-Dispatch reports.  In a text to Goold, Miller looked back on his career and gave to those who helped him along the way:

“The list of people who took me aside, put their arm around me, made me laugh when I needed to, or taught me something is endless.  It’s safe to say I would have been faced with the next chapter much earlier on if it weren’t for them. As someone who thought their career was practically over in 2010, to be able to experience everything I did along the way is incredible.  You shouldn’t ever hear complaints from me.  It was a heck of a run.”

After being selected as the sixth overall pick of the 2006 draft, Miller was initially seen as a cornerstone piece of the Tigers’ future before he became part of one of the biggest trades in Detroit’s franchise history.  Miller was one of six players dealt from the Tigers to the Marlins in exchange for Miguel Cabrera and Dontrelle Willis in December 2007, though after three injury-plagued seasons in South Beach, the Marlins also parted ways with the left-hander.

Miller was dealt to the Red Sox in the 2010-11 offseason, and after more struggles in 2011, Miller became a full-time reliever in 2012 and essentially never looked back.  The southpaw became one of baseball’s top relief pitchers, working in a variety of different roles depending on his team’s needs.  Whether as a closer, set-up man, multi-inning workhorse, or lefty specialist, Miller became a valuable bullpen weapon in any capacity.

As flexible bullpens have become more and more prominent in recent years, it is also very easy to point to Miller as a trailblazer.  As Cardinals teammate Adam Wainwright simply put it, Miller “changed the game and he kind of took that relief role back to when it first started, guys who could do two, three innings – and he was the guy who did it in the postseason.”

From 2013-17, Miller was next to unhittable, posting a 1.82 ERA, 41.1% strikeout rate, and 7.4% walk rate over 291 2/3 innings with the Red Sox, Orioles, Yankees, and Indians.  That tremendous stretch saw Miller named to two AL All-Star teams, and receive top-10 Cy Young placements in both the 2015 and 2016 seasons.

Miller received a World Series ring for his contributions to Boston’s 2013 championship team, even if injuries kept him participating in the postseason.  However, as Wainwright noted, Miller was at his best in baseball’s biggest spotlight.  Miller retires with a tiny 0.93 ERA over 38 2/3 innings in the playoffs, even winning 2016 ALCS MVP honors with Cleveland in 2016.  That particular season saw Miller help carry an injury-riddled Cleveland pitching staff to within an inch of a World Series, falling to the Cubs in extra innings in Game Seven.

“He kind of revolutionized all of it – your best pitcher doesn’t have to be your starter or your closer,” Cardinals pitching coach Mike Maddux said.  “And he was the best pitcher on multiple staffs.  What he did in the postseason to help his team was groundbreaking.  I don’t think anybody really duplicated what he’s done – as far as throwing multiple innings in the hairy innings, whenever they are.”

Miller’s success was reflected in his free agent value, as he landed a four-year, $36MM deal from the Yankees in the 2014-15 offseason.  Hitting the open market again following the 2018 campaign, Miller signed a two-year, $25MM contract with the Cardinals that became a three-year, $37MM pact when he pitched enough innings in 2020 to trigger a vesting option.

Injuries began to hamper Miller later in his career, and both his velocity and his overall performance took a step back over his three years in St. Louis.  Miller had only a 4.34 ERA over 103 2/3 regular-season innings in a Cards uniform, but again remained effective come October.  Over seven postseason games and 5 2/3 innings with the Cardinals, Miller didn’t allow a single run.

If anything, Miller drew even more respect from teammates and peers off the field, due to his work with the MLB Players Association.  A longtime team union rep and a member of the MLBPA executive board, Miller was one of the most prominent and outspoken voices representing the players’ causes both during his career, and particularly this offseason during the lockout.  While Miller will never himself play under the terms of the 2022-26 Collective Bargaining Agreement, it will stand as something of a legacy for his contributions to players both present and future.

“I have an appreciation for what he did for the entire game of baseball,” Wainwright said of Miller’s MLBPA work.  “As many hours as that guy put in for the union over these past few years is kind of staggering.  He may retire and that means this whole offseason he still spent 16 hours on the phone a day, for us, for who’s next – that means a lot.”

The 36-year-old Miller will retire with a career 4.03 ERA, 27.1% strikeout rate, 979 strikeouts, 10.6% walk rate, 63 saves, and 141 holds over his 829 innings with seven different Major League teams.  We at MLB Trade Rumors congratulate Miller on a great career, and we wish him all the best in retirement.

For the last word on Miller’s career, the lefty himself sums things up as part of his text message….

“I feel very fortunate that my career worked out the way that it did. Of course there were tough stretches, injuries, and times of doubt.  I also won’t deny that I can find myself in moments of wondering what if this or that had happened differently, could it have somehow been better?  I’m usually pretty quick to be able to step back though and see how lucky I have been.  The hard times were necessary for me to grow and to be able to appreciate the highs along the way.  Ultimately, I was able to play for many great franchises, wear historic uniforms, and play in some amazing ballparks.  I made some of the best friends I will ever have in life through the game.  I was able to work with the union and see the good it can do for players while learning so much about the game.”

Angels Sign Max Stassi To Extension

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The Angels announced this evening they’ve signed catcher Max Stassi to a three-year, $17.5MM extension. The veteran backstop will earn $3MM in 2022, and $7MM apiece in 2023-24. The deal also contains a $7.5MM club option for the 2025 campaign that comes with a $500K buyout. Stassi is a Wasserman client.

The deal buys out up to three free agent years, as Stassi had been set to hit the open market after this season. He and the team had already agreed to a $3MM salary for the upcoming season. That figure remains in place, with the club tacking on $14.5MM in new money to keep him under club control through 2025.

Stassi has appeared in each of the last nine big league seasons, but he didn’t play in more than 15 games in any of the first five years. The righty-hitting backstop had never even tallied 300 plate appearances in a season until last year, as he’d spent his early days as a depth catcher with the division-rival Astros.

The Angels picked up Stassi in a seemingly minor deadline deal with Houston in 2019. He didn’t do much in 20 games with the Halos down the stretch that season, but he’s enjoyed a late-career breakout over the past two years. Stassi mashed at a .278/.352/.533 clip during the shortened 2020 schedule, rapping nine extra-base hits in 105 plate appearances. There’s little doubt the limited sample inflated his numbers that year, but Stassi continued to perform well over his largest body of work last season.

In 2021, Stassi appeared in 87 games and picked up 319 trips to the plate. He hit .241/.326/.426 with 13 homers, showing solid power and drawing a fair number of walks. Stassi struck out in an alarming 31.7% of his plate appearances, but the combination of pop and patience were more than adequate for a catcher. By measure of wRC+, Stassi’s production lined up exactly with that of a league average hitter. League average offense isn’t easy to find at the most demanding position at the diamond, with catchers overall posting a .229/.305/.391 mark last season.

Stassi pretty clearly wielded an above-average bat for a backstop, and he also rated well in the eyes of Statcast’s pitch framing metrics. Baseball Savant pegged him as six runs above average as a framer last season, his fourth straight year garnering positive marks in that regard. He didn’t do well to control the running game, throwing out only 15.4% of attempted base-stealers (against a 24.3% league average). Stassi had fared a bit better in that regard in years past, however, and the Angels are clearly comfortable in both his receiving ability and ability to handle a pitching staff over the coming seasons.

Because he didn’t establish himself as a regular until nearly a decade into his big league career, Stassi wasn’t going to hit free agency until after his age-31 season. That always figured to cap his long-term market upside, but the two years and $14.5MM in guarantees for his first couple free agent seasons is in line with the recent going rate for capable but not elite #1 catchers. The Braves signed Travis d’Arnaud to a two-year, $16MM extension last August; the Cubs added Yan Gomes for two years and $13MM just before the lockout.

d’Arnaud and Gomes were the top options in a free agent catching class that was short on #1 options this winter. Next year’s crop looks stronger, with Mike Zunino, Willson Contreras, Gary Sánchez and Omar Narváez among a handful of players set to hit the market. Rather than stick in that fairly deep class, Stassi will stick around in Orange County for at least the next couple years.

The Angels re-signed Kurt Suzuki this winter, and he’ll serve as Stassi’s back-up for the upcoming campaign. The extension won’t affect the Angels’ books for the upcoming season, given that it doesn’t change his price tag from the previously agreed upon $3MM arbitration settlement. Los Angeles is still set to open this season with a franchise-record payroll in the $188MM range. The extension brings their 2023 estimated player commitments up to around $119MM, in the estimation of Jason Martinez of Roster Resource.

Image courtesy of USA Today Sports.

Blue Jays, Rockies Swap Randal Grichuk For Raimel Tapia

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3:32PM: Toronto will send Colorado $9,716,333, according to Rob Gillies of The Associated Press.  Those payments are split up as $5,383,333 this season and $4,333,333 for the 2023 season.

1:57PM: Both clubs have officially announced the trade.

12:01PM: The Blue Jays and Rockies have agreed to a trade sending outfielder Randal Grichuk from Toronto to Colorado in exchange for outfielder Raimel Tapia, reports Mark Feinsand of MLB.com (via Twitter). The Jays will acquire infield prospect Adrian Pinto from the Rockies, and they’ll also send cash to Colorado to help cover Grichuk’s contract, Feinsand adds.

Grichuk, 30, has been viewed as a trade candidate for more than a year now as the Rockies have deepened their outfield mix and Grichuk’s performance has slipped. Signed to a five-year contract covering the 2019-23 seasons, Grichuk is still owed $9.33MM both this season and next, while Tapia and the Rox settled on a $3.95MM salary earlier this week. He’s arbitration-eligible and controlled through the 2023 season himself. The difference in salary between the two players clocks in at about $14.7MM.

Randal Grichuk | David Banks-USA TODAY Sports

Grichuk signed a five-year, $52MM contract back on April 2, 2019 — fresh off a 2018 season in which he’d batted .245/.301/.502 with what was then a career-high 25 home runs in 462 plate appearances. It was something of a head-scratching deal even at the time, as Grichuk’s perennial OBP struggles worked to offset his power and solid glovework in the outfield. That’s not to say he wasn’t a useful player, but the Jays already controlled Grichuk for two seasons and were effectively committing about $39-40MM on top of what he might’ve earned in arbitration to buy out his first three free-agent seasons.

Since putting pen to paper, Grichuk has posted a .242/.286/.448 batting line with 65 home runs in 1414 plate appearances. Among the 159 players with at least 1000 plate appearances in that three-year stretch, he ranks 158th in on-base percentage. To his credit, Grichuk curbed his strikeout rate from 26.4% in 2018 all the way down to 20.9% in 2021, but the gains in contact didn’t result in a better average and his walk rate dipped to a career-low 5.0%. It’s clear that there’s above-average pop in his bat, but defensive metrics have also soured on Grichuk’s work in center over the past couple seasons. Meanwhile, the Jays have signed George Springer and received breakouts from Lourdes Gurriel Jr. and Teoscar Hernandez since signing Grichuk to that long-term pact.

There were reports even while the lockout was still ongoing that Tapia could be on the move when transactions resumed. Adding Kris Bryant as the new primary left fielder surely only hastened the Rockies’ efforts to move Tapia, who’d previously occupied that position. Grichuk can serve as a primary center fielder or right fielder in Colorado, and he’ll bring the Rox quite a bit more power than Tapia ever offered — albeit at the expense of some speed, on-base percentage and (arguably) defensive value.

Raimel Tapia | Richard Mackson-USA TODAY Sports

In Tapia, the Jays will get a much-needed lefty bat to help balance out an entirely right-handed outfield mix (and a generally right-leaning lineup overall). The 28-year-old has served as Colorado’s primary left fielder since 2019, logging a .282/.327/.394  slash line that appears solid on the surface but falls well shy of average after weighting for home park and league (79 wRC+). Tapia has strong bat-to-ball skills but an extreme ground-ball approach that has resulted in just 16 home runs through 1186 plate appearances since 2019. He can swipe a base when needed (37 steals with a 77.1% success rate across the past three seasons. Like Grichuk, he’s not one to take many walks (6.3% since ’19), but he’s also a tough strikeout, evidenced by last year’s career-best 13.1% mark.

Tapia has received solid marks in left field from metrics like Defensive Runs Saved (4), Ultimate Zone Rating (6.0) and Outs Above Average (7) since emerging as a regular in the lineup at Coors Field. He’s at least capable of playing center in a pinch, having logged 189 innings there in his career (15 this past season, none in 2020, 83 in 2019). Those ratings, plus his left-handed bat, make him a better fit for Toronto’s roster than the right-handed-hitting Grichuk was.

While Tapia may not be the star the Rockies envisioned when he ranked among the sport’s 50 best prospects in the 2016-17 offseason, he’s emerged as a solid defensive outfielder with better-than-average speed and bat-to-ball skills. The Jays will likely hope to coax some more fly-balls out of Tapia, thus generating some extra power, but even if his batted-ball profile remains unchanged, he can be a useful fourth outfielder for a club that is deep in slugging right-handed options.

As for the 19-year-old Pinto, he’ll give the Jays something of a prospect wild card to plug into the low levels of their farm system. Baseball America rated Pinto 19th in a fairly thin Rockies system this spring, labeling the 5’6″ second baseman as a “breakout candidate” who could take substantial steps forward as he moves from the Dominican Summer League to a full-season affiliate.

Pinto hit .360/.486/.543 in 224 DSL plate appearances last season, walking at a massive 17% clip against just an 8% strikeout rate while leading the league with 41 stolen bases. BA’s scouting report lauds his “outstanding” hand-eye coordination, advanced pitch recognition skills and plus-plus speed. Players of his size and stature will always have their share of skeptics, but the Jays probably feel better about paying Grichuk to play elsewhere if they’re viewing part of the transaction as an effective purchase of Pinto from the Rockies.

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