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Braves Decline Darren O’Day’s Option

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The Braves have turned down right-handed reliever Darren O’Day’s $3.5MM club option for 2021 in favor of a $500K buyout, Jon Heyman of MLB Network reports. O’Day is now the second notable reliever to have a team decline his option today, joining the Indians’ Brad Hand, who could earn $10MM in 2021 if another club acquires him.

While O’Day isn’t as noteworthy or expensive as Hand, it’s nonetheless surprising to see the Braves give him up. With the league coming off a pandemic-shortened season sans fans, though, these moves could be a sign of negative things to come for the players this winter. It seems relievers will face some economic adversity in free agency, but it’s possible the open market will prove to be disappointing for most or all players, regardless of position.

No matter how free agency does shake out across the league, O’Day currently looks like one of the most accomplished relievers on the open market. Despite averaging around 86 mph on his fastball throughout his career, O’Day has been highly effective with a handful of teams since he debuted in 2008. The longtime Oriole owns a 2.51 ERA/3.43 FIP with 9.36 K/9 and 2.47 BB/9 in 576 2/3 innings in the majors.

The Braves acquired O’Day from the O’s in the 2018 season, but his year had already ended on account of a hamstring issue. Anthony injury, this time to his forearm, kept O’Day out until September of last season, but he was able to end on a positive note with five strong innings. The Braves then re-signed O’Day to a guaranteed $2.5MM last winter, and he went on to deliver in 2020 with 16 1/3 innings of eight-hit, three-run ball, also notching 22 strikeouts against five walks. But that excellent performance was not enough to convince the Braves to keep O’Day around for what looked like a reasonable sum.

White Sox Name Tony La Russa Manager

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The White Sox announced today that Hall of Famer Tony La Russa is returning to the organization as their new manager for the 2021 season. La Russa has agreed to a multi-year deal, tweets Scott Merkin of MLB.com.

This is, of course, the second managerial stint for La Russa with the White Sox organization. His first began more than four decades ago in 1979 and ran through the 1986 season. While others were connected to the White Sox vacancy, most notably former Astros skipper A.J. Hinch, it appears that La Russa was owner Jerry Reinsdorf’s pick from the beginning. Indeed, ESPN’s Jeff Passan tweets that the move to hire La Russa was purely a “Reinsdorf decision” while noting that others in the organizations “have concerns” about La Russa’s ability (or lack thereof) to connect with the club’s young core.

It’s been nine full seasons since La Russa last managed at the MLB level, with the Cardinals, and the game has changed considerably since that time. Data from clubs’ analytics departments has increasingly made its way into in-game decision-making, often generating polarizing reaction from fans, and the sport as a whole has moved to embrace aggressive defensive shifts and pitching strategies that defy the conventional wisdom which permeated big league dugouts during La Russa’s last run.

Since that time, La Russa has remained involved in the game in a variety of roles, most notably serving as the Diamondbacks’ “chief baseball officer” from 2014-17 — a stint that is remembered more for his role in overseeing one of the more lopsided trades in recent memory than for the team’s performance in that time.

After moving on from skipper Rick Renteria, it was reported that the White Sox wanted an experienced manager with a winning pedigree, which prompted many onlookers to speculate about Hinch and former Red Sox manager Alex Cora. La Russa does fit the bill on a fundamental level, having spent 33 years a Major League manager during which time he’s posted a .536 winning percentage, taken home six pennants and won three World Series titles.

Still, to say this hiring bucks the industry trend at this point would be making a colossal understatement, and the decision to bring La Russa aboard has already generated a rather perplexed reaction from those within the game and pundits alike. La Russa will inherit a wildly talented core of young players that give him the foundation for a championship caliber club — Tim Anderson, Luis Robert, Eloy Jimenez, Yoan Moncada, Nick Madrial, Lucas Giolito, Dylan Cease and Dane Dunning among them — but the unconventional (by today’s standards) nature of his hire will also put him under a microscope as he strives to navigate that core to the World Series.

Indians Place Brad Hand On Outright Waivers

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In a rather stunning move, the Indians have placed closer Brad Hand on outright waivers, Zack Meisel of The Athletic reports (via Twitter). It’s a pure cost-cutting transaction from Cleveland, with the hope that another team places a claim on the left-hander, who has a $10MM club option on his current contract. Any club that claims Hand would be able to pick up that option and retain him for the 2021 season at that $10MM price.

Per Meisel, the Indians had planned to decline the option, which would’ve required paying a $1MM buyout. They’ll decline it if he goes unclaimed. However, Cleveland would stand to save that $1MM if another team makes a claim, which seems possible given Hand’s excellent 2020 season and generally strong track record.

Hand, 30, led the American League with 16 saves this year and posted a 22-to-4 K/BB ratio with a 2.05 ERA over the life of 22 innings. He had a few hiccups in the ninth inning early on, but Hand’s overall results fall right in line with his All-Star track record. Since being unearthed by the Padres on a waiver claim back in 2016, Hand owns a 2.70 ERA with 12.2 K/9, 3.0 BB/9 and 0.87 HR/9.

Waiver priority at this juncture is based on reverse order of the league-wide standings. That’d give the Pirates, Rangers, Tigers, Red Sox, D-backs, Orioles, Nationals, Mets, Rockies and Angels first crack at Hand, in that order. Most of those clubs are rebuilding or cutting costs themselves, but it’s feasible that a team like the Red Sox, Nats, Mets or Angels could place a claim with an eye toward contending in 2021.

Frankly, revenue losses notwithstanding, it’s arguable that any club should welcome the chance to bring Hand into the fold. There’s not a team that wouldn’t be bettered by adding a pitcher of this caliber to its relief corps, and the one-year, $10MM price point would be considered a bargain under normal market circumstances.

Of course, the absence of fans in 2020 has created what most expect to be a brutal market for free agents as clubs take drastic measures to cut payroll. As such, some clubs will surely pass on claiming Hand — maybe in hopes that he’ll go unclaimed and be available on a multi-year deal at a lower annual rate — but it’s hard to imagine that a hopeful contender won’t jump at the opportunity to acquire an elite bullpen price on a one-year term.

As for the Indians, this removes  doubt about the club’s offseason direction. It’s long been expected that they’ll continue last winter’s efforts to pare back payroll, although not in such egregious fashion. The move to place Hand on waivers only seems to further the likelihood that Cleveland will trade superstar shortstop Francisco Lindor, whose salary could approach or exceed $20MM in his final trip through the arbitration process. That much has looked likely since owner Paul Dolan infamously told fans to “enjoy him” a few years back, but it now feels more inevitable than ever before.

Looking more broadly at the market as a whole, it’ll be of greater concern for free agents — relievers, in particular — across the game if Hand somehow passes through waivers unclaimed. If no club is willing to take on Hand at a one-year, $10MM term (or if he survives all the way to the Dodgers, who are last in waiver priority), that will speak volumes about market expectations in the months to come.

Mariners Re-Sign Kendall Graveman

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11:42am: Graveman’s deal comes with a $1.25MM base salary and another $2.5MM worth of incentives, per USA Today’s Bob Nightengale (Twitter link). That will give him the opportunity to earn a bit more than the $3.5MM he’d have taken home had the Mariners picked up his option.

11:35am: That was quick. Just one day after declining their $3.5MM club option on Kendall Graveman, the Mariners announced that they’ve re-signed the right-hander to a new one-year, Major League contract for the 2021 season. It’s surely at a lesser rate than that $3.5MM price point, but the Sports One Management client looks as though he’ll be locked in as a member of the team’s bullpen again next season.

Graveman, 29, returned to the Majors in 2020 after missing most of 2018 and all of 2019 due to Tommy John surgery. The initial hope was that he’d be a member of the team’s six-man rotation, but Graveman spent much of the year on the injured list due to a neck injury and returned to the club in September as a reliever.

The results upon his return were encouraging, however, as Graveman averaged a career-best 96.4 mph on his sinker and held opponents to four runs on six hits and three walks with five strikeouts in 10 innings. Three of those runs came in one particularly rough outing, but Graveman allowed just one run in the rest of his bullpen outings combined. He also sported a hefty 55.4 percent ground-ball rate in that time, giving further cause for optimism about his potential as a reliever over the course of a full season.

For Seattle, re-signing Graveman is its first noteworthy order of business in what should be an active winter for its relief corps. After the Mariners’ bullpen finished 2020 last in the AL in ERA and fWAR, general manager Jerry Dipoto declared the M’s would try to add three to four relievers in the offseason.

Astros Place Roberto Osuna On Outright Waivers

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The Astros have placed right-hander Roberto Osuna on outright waivers, reports Jake Kaplan of The Athletic (Twitter link). The right-hander missed most of the 2020 season with an elbow injury and was initially recommended to undergo Tommy John surgery, although a second opinion caused him to attempt to rehab the injury without surgery. Osuna was projected by MLBTR contributor Matt Swartz to repeat his $10MM salary in his final trip through arbitration, and his salary and injury have made an obvious non-tender candidate. That’s what this move effectively boils down to.

Given Osuna’s injury, projected salary and prior suspension under Major League Baseball’s domestic violence policy, it’s all but a lock that he’ll clear waivers and become a free agent.

Still just 25 years of age, Osuna pitched only 4 1/3 innings in 2020 before landing on the injured list with what proved to be a season-ending elbow ailment. He’s been consistently excellent every season he’s been on the mound — career 2.74 ERA, 9.9 K/9, 1.6 BB/9 — but Osuna also served 75-game suspension in 2018 after his girlfriend filed domestic violence charges against him. Osuna eventually agreed to a peace bond in Canada, which resulted in the charges being dropped.

Per the Canadian Department of Justice’s web site, peace bonds are generally used when “an individual (the defendant) appears likely to commit a criminal offence, but there are no reasonable grounds to believe that an offence has actually been committed.” The Canadian Department of Justice further specifies  that peace bonds are obtainable by “any person who fears that another person may injure them, their spouse or common-law partner, or a child, or may damage their property.”

All of that will be factored into any future negotiations between Osuna and a new team once he reaches the market, although Osuna’s own track record shows that teams will look past allegations of abuse and assault in order to acquire a productive Major Leaguer. The Astros embarrassingly walked back their own “zero tolerance” policy for domestic abuse in order to acquire Osuna at a lower cost in the middle of his suspension, and we’ve seen other teams pay premium prices to sign players who’ve served suspensions under the domestic violence policy (most notably the Yankees with Aroldis Chapman).

The most immediate determining factor in Osuna’s next destination will be the health of his right elbow (or lack thereof). He began a throwing program about a month after initially being shut down, but he’ll have a ways to go before he’s ready to rejoin a bullpen.

Marlins Exercise Club Option On Starling Marte

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TODAY: The Marlins have officially exercised Marte’s option, according to The Associated Press.

OCTOBER 18: During a conference call with reporters (including Barry Jackson of the Miami Herald) to discuss the departure of president of baseball operations Michael Hill, Marlins CEO Derek Jeter noted that the club is planning to exercise its $12.5MM club option on outfielder Starling Marte for the 2021 season.  The option contained a $1MM buyout.

Miami acquired Marte in a trade deadline blockbuster with the Diamondbacks that sent southpaw Caleb Smith, right-hander Humberto Mejia and minor league left-hander Julio Frias to Arizona.  Given the substantial trade return, it always seemed pretty likely that the Marlins would pick up Marte’s option rather than see him only as a rental player for the rest of 2020.

Still, with all of the economic uncertainty around baseball, there are only a few contract options that could be seen as 100 percent sure things this winter.  It is also noteworthy that the Marlins are the team making this decision, given their history of low payrolls.  Marte immediately becomes their highest-paid player and a symbol that the rebuilding in Miami could be coming to an end, even though if it’s probably safe to assume that the Marlins won’t be going on a spending spree just yet.

Marte’s first month in a Marlins uniform had mixed results, as he only hit .245/.286/.415 in 112 regular-season plate appearances.  The Fish did end up reaching the postseason, however, and Marte went 2-for-4 in the Marlins’ Game 1 victory over the Cubs in the wild card series.  Unfortunately for Marte, he was also hit by a pitch and suffered a hand fracture, sidelining him for the rest of the postseason.

Assuming no long-term effects from the injured hand, Marte will be ready to roll as Miami’s everyday center fielder in 2021.  The 32-year-old hit a combined .281/.340/.430 over 250 PA with the D’Backs and Marlins last season, and has been a consistently steady performer over his nine-year career, spent entirely in Pittsburgh prior to the 2020 campaign.

Marte’s original six-year, $31MM extension with the Pirates signed in 2014 contained club options for both 2020 and 2021, so with both options exercised, that contract will end up as an eight-year, $53MM pact.  Marte forfeited roughly $2.4MM of that sum during his 80-game suspension for a positive PED test in 2017, and the shortened 2020 season reduced Marte’s salary from $11.5MM to a little under $4.26MM.

Rob Manfred Discusses MLB’s Revenue Losses

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Talk of revenue losses throughout the sport has been prominent since the outset of the Covid-19 pandemic, but commissioner Rob Manfred put some more concrete numbers on the concept this week. In an interview with Barry M. Bloom for Sportico, Manfred claimed that the league’s 30 teams have amassed a collective $8.3 billion in debt and will post anywhere from $2.8 to $3.0 billion in combined operational losses.

Manfred’s comments come at a time when many clubs throughout the league have made sweeping layoffs to both business-side and baseball operations employees. The Athletic’s Alex Coffey reported last week that the A’s, for instance, are preparing to lay off upwards of 150 employees who were furloughed throughout much of the 2020 season. They’re far from the only club making such broad-ranging cuts, although Oakland certainly figures to be on the more extreme end of the spectrum.

Evan Drellich of The Athletic wrote yesterday that a league official claimed Major League Baseball’s EBITDA — earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization — showed a loss of $2.7 billion but also noted that with the league’s books closed, such numbers can’t be independently verified. A league official claimed to Drellich, perhaps more dubiously, that even under normal conditions the league would have expected $10 billion in revenue against $10.2 billion of expenses — a rather eye-opening and frankly questionable assertion when considering last year’s widely reported $10.7 billion of revenue for MLB.

In that sense, the claims put forth by Manfred and the unnamed league official(s) who spoke to Drellich on the condition of anonymity call back to the ugly standoff between MLB and the MLBPA during return-to-play negotiations, wherein the players repeatedly called for ownership to open its books and provide quantitative evidence of the extent of the damage they were facing. Detractors will surely question the veracity of the league’s figures, which Drellich notes do not account for “ancillary” revenue streams like stakes in regional sports networks.

Regardless, there’s no doubting that revenue losses felt by clubs in the absence of fans is enormous. The job cuts throughout the sport are but one way for ownership to soften the blow, but the most direct means of correcting course for owners is expected to be via club payroll. For months we’ve heard expectations of a bloated group of non-tendered players and a tepid market for free agents. To that end, Bloom notes that some club executives have already signaled that they won’t be able to commit salary to players this winter.

Some clubs will surely still spend money. The purported $2.8 to $3 billion in operating losses isn’t necessarily divided evenly among the league’s 30 clubs, and tolerance for loss varies from owner to owner (or ownership group to ownership group). Still, on a macro level it’s wise to anticipate large-scale reductions in team payrolls.

Most concerning for players, remaining club employees and the health of the sport is the potential for additional revenue losses in 2021. While the obvious hope is that fans will be back in the park for a full 162-game slate next season, that’s wholly dependent on the status of the coronavirus and the associated public health guidelines in place. To this point there’s no clear timeline on when a vaccine will be produced, approved, scaled and distributed such that clubs could expect business as usual. And while Manfred has previously taken an optimistic tone on that front, he struck a different chord in speaking with Bloom this week.

“[I]t’s going to be difficult for the industry to weather another year where we don’t have fans in the ballpark and have other limitations on how much we can’t play and how we can play,” Manfred told Bloom. “…It’s absolutely certain, I know, that we’re going to have to have conversations with the MLBPA about what 2021 is going to look like. It’s difficult to foresee a situation right now where everything’s just normal.”

Josh James Out 6-8 Months After Undergoing Hip Surgery

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Astros reliever Josh James underwent surgery to repair a labral tear in his left hip, per Chandler Rome of the Houston Chronicle (via Twitter). The recovery period for James is expected to be somewhere from 6 to 8 months, which means he is likely to miss the beginning of 2021.

The Astros have hoped James would take a step forward in his development for a couple of seasons now, but he struggled more than ever in 2020, particularly with his command. He remained a big piece of the bullpen into the postseason, however, when manager Dusty Baker called his number once in the ALDS and twice in the ALCS against the Rays. James managed two scoreless innings in the middle performance, but he was hit with a blown save in each of his other two outings. He gave up 4 earned runs on 5 hits (2 home runs) in 4 innings total.

During the regular season, James saw game action 13 times, including two starts, logging a 7.27 ERA/7.06 FIP across 17 1/3 innings with 10.9 K/9 to 8.8 BB/9. His four-seamer was down a tick to an average of 96.3 mph, though it wasn’t far enough off his career norms to cause concern for the 27-year-old.

Liam Hendriks, Devin Williams Win Reliever Of The Year Awards

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Liam Hendriks of the Oakland Athletics and Devin Williams of the Milwaukee Brewers have won the Reliever of the Year Award in their respective leagues, per MLB.com (via Twitter).

Hendriks takes home the Mariano Rivera American League Reliever Of Year Award after saving 14 games in 24 appearances with a 1.78 ERA/1.14 FIP and 13.1 K/9 to 1.1 BB/9 across 25 1/3 innings. It was the second consecutive stellar campaign for the native Australian. He posted a  1.80 ERA/1.87 FIP in 75 games (85 innings) while notching 25 saves in 2019. In the postseason, he impressed with a scoreless 3-inning outing with the season on the line in game three of the ALDS against Houston. Unfortunately, it would be his final appearance of the year, as Oakland would bow out of the postseason tourney in the next game.

Hendriks becomes the first A’s player to win the award, which replaced the Rolaids Relief Award in 2014. It’s particularly good timing for Hendriks, as the 2019 All-Star heads into free agency this winter at the pinnacle of his career.

Williams takes the Trevor Hoffman National League Reliever Of The Year Award from his teammate Josh Hader, who won the previous two seasons. It’s quite the achievement for the unheralded rookie, who rode his trademark change-up to a 0.33 ERA/0.86 FIP in 27 innings across 22 games with an absurd 17.7 K/9 to 3.0 BB/9 in 2020. The 26-year-old unfortunately missed the playoffs due to right shoulder soreness. He’ll be one of the more interesting cases to track next season, assuming a return to the standard 162-game season.

Nationals Re-Sign Josh Harrison

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The Nationals announced Thursday that they’ve re-signed infielder/outfielder Josh Harrison. It’s a one-year deal for the MSM Sports client. The deal starts with a $1MM base salary. Incentives beginning at 200 plate appearances could add as much as $250K to the total, per Jesse Dougherty of the Washington Post (via Twitter).

Harrison was a two-time All-Star with the Pirates before entering this nomadic phase of his career, bouncing between the Tigers, Phillies, and Nats over the past two seasons. Harrison joined the Nats early in 2020 after the Phillies cut him loose before Opening Day. He quickly became a favorite of the coaching staff  in DC for his versatility and clubhouse presence. Once Starlin Castro broke his wrist, Harrison’s responsibilities turned from veteran cheerleader to concrete on-field contributor. The 33-year-old slashed .278/.352/.418 across 91 plate appearances while splitting his time between second, third, and the outfield corners.

For the Nats, they secure someone that they view as a key piece of their bench in 2021 – a player with a skill set they highly value – at a very reasonable price. Harrison will provide  security in backing up Castro, Luis Garcia, and Carter Kieboom between second and third, while also serving as a fifth outfielder of sorts. The Nats are potentially losing Asdrubal Cabrera from their infield mix and Adam Eaton from the outfield, and while they likely don’t want to promise those at-bats to Harrison, he does provide depth all around the diamond, which has been an area of need for the Nats in recent seasons.

Harrison fits the mold of a “Davey Martinez guy,” as a veteran with a positive attitude in the mold of Gerardo Parra, Kurt Suzuki, or Cabrera. Per MLB.com’s Jessica Camerato (via Twitter), Martinez said: “He’s fun to be around. He understands the game. He’s a true constant every single day. You never have to tell him to be ready. He’s always ready, no matter what. … For me, that’s what you want on this team. He fits in.”

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