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Cardinals Sign Matt Wieters

By Jeff Todd | February 28, 2019 at 8:48am CDT

FEB. 28: Wieters would earn $1.5MM in the majors and can opt out on March 22nd, per Mark Saxon of The Athletic (via Twitter).

FEB. 27: The signing has been announced. It includes an invitation to MLB camp.

FEB. 26: The Cardinals have agreed to a minor-league deal with veteran catcher Matt Wieters, per Derrick Goold of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch (via Twitter). Salary terms are not yet known.

While he held out in hopes of securing a MLB commitment, the 32-year-old Wieters will settle instead for a chance to serve as a backup to Yadier Molina. The competition is fairly limited. Francisco Pena seemingly held the edge at the outset of camp after re-joining the organization on a minors pact. Joe Hudson is the only other backstop in camp with MLB experience.

Wieters can still put the ball over the fence, and posted career-best plate discipline marks in 2018, but he has not been very productive with the bat of late. Since the start of the 2016 season, he’s producing at only a .235/.303/.376 rate through 1,200 trips to the plate. That’s a far cry from the .254/.317/.436 output that Wieters managed over the prior half-decade.

Wieters isn’t generally regarded as a high-quality overall defender at this stage of his career, and fares poorly in particular in pitch-framing metrics, but does still block, throw, and manage a staff well. It’s possible there’s still some hope that he’ll restore some of his lost luster with the bat, making this a nice low-risk move for the St. Louis organization.

For the Cards, the addition deepens the catching unit as Molina closes in on his 37th birthday and works to recover from an offseason knee procedure. The switch-hitting Wieters has historically performed better against right-handed pitching, as has Molina, but neither carries significant career platoon splits. If Wieters can beat out Pena for the job, he seems like a potentially solid mate for Molina.

Giants Discussing 10-Year Deal With Bryce Harper

By Jeff Todd | February 27, 2019 at 8:10pm CDT

8:10pm: ESPN’s Buster Olney tweets that the Dodgers’ interest in Harper is still “predicated on [a] short-term deal,” though he adds that the Giants are indeed in “heavy” on Harper.

1:26pm: All of the teams still engaged with Harper’s camp — including, presumably, the Dodgers and Phillies — have discussed contracts of at least one decade in length, per Henry Schulman of the San Francisco Chronicle (via Twitter).

1:16pm: The sides are discussing a ten-year deal, per Alex Pavlovic of NBC Sports Bay Area. Salary levels are not known, but Pavlovic says the Giants’ offer would “likely give Harper a chance at the record dollar figure he has been looking for.”

11:48am: The Giants met again yesterday with Bryce Harper, according to a report from Kerry Crowley of the Bay Area News Group. CEO Larry Baer and president of baseball operations made a return trek to Las Vegas.

This news is all the more notable given that the rival Dodgers have jumped into the mix on Harper. Having now met twice with Harper and agent Scott Boras, it seems the San Francisco organization remains a serious pursuer.

The Phillies are also continuing their efforts to land the prized free agent, who is surely hoping to spark a late bidding war. Philadelphia is reportedly willing to commit over $300MM in a deal, with one other (as-yet-unidentified) team perhaps also playing in that range.

There had been “optimism” that the Phils would work out a deal by this point, but more recent developments have kept the door open to other organizations. As a Vegas native, Harper may well prefer to land on the west coast, though that’s all still guesswork even at this late stage of the market proceedings.

It’s possible we’re seeing some final positioning here from the remaining suitors. Whether the last bidding is underway isn’t known, but there have been indications that Harper will make a call this week and it stands to reason that he’d prefer to get into camp sooner than later.

Rockies, Nolan Arenado Agree To Extension

By Steve Adams | February 26, 2019 at 7:08pm CDT

Nolan Arenado’s days as the face of the Rockies franchise will continue beyond the 2019 season. Arenado, who had been slated to reach free agency next winter, has instead inked an eight-year contract extension that adds seven years and $234MM in new commitments. The Wasserman client’s new contract reportedly contains an opt-out clause after the third season in 2021, which would allow him to become a free agent in advance of his age-31 campaign, as well as full no-trade protection.

The newly agreed upon contract will leave in place the one-year, $26MM contract to which Arenado had already agreed for 2019. He takes down $35MM annually over the next five seasons before receiving $32MM and $27MM salaries in the final two years.

Arenado is promised $260MM in total money over an eight-year term. Whether calculated cumulatively ($32.5MM annually) or in reference only to the seven new seasons ($33.4MM), the new contract establishes a new record annual salary for position players, topping Miguel Cabrera’s prior mark of $31MM. In terms of overall average annual salary (AAV), Arenado’s contract trails only Zack Greinke’s $34.4MM mark for the largest in MLB history. It’s the fourth-largest deal ever in terms of total guarantee, trailing only Giancarlo Stanton (13 years, $325MM), Manny Machado (10 years, $300MM) and Alex Rodriguez (10 years, $275MM).

Arenado, 28 in April, has won a Gold Glove in all six of his Major League seasons to date, pairing that hardware with Silver Sluggers in each of the past four seasons. He’s made four consecutive All-Star teams and finished in the top five of National League voting in three straight seasons. Over the past four years, Arenado has led the National League in home runs on three occasions and posted a combined .297/.358/.573 batting line with 158 homers, 159 doubles and 19 triples.

Detractors point to Arenado’s home/road splits in suggesting that his value is inflated by Coors Field, and while it’s surely true that he benefits from that hitter-friendly setting, he’s also slashed a robust .267/.329/.502 on the road over the past four years (with many of those games coming in pitchers’ parks in San Francisco, San Diego and Los Angeles). And park-neutral metrics like OPS+ (129) and wRC+ (127) feel that even after adjusting for his home park advantages, Arenado’s bat has been 27 to 29 percent better than that of a league-average hitter since 2015. By measure of wRC+, he’s among the game’s 35 best hitters in that four-year span and, when combined with his premier defense at the hot corner, he ranks inside the top 10 in overall wins above replacement among position players, per Fangraphs.

In all, there’s little denying Arenado’s place among the game’s legitimate superstars, and he carries perhaps more value to the Rockies than he would with any other organization given his existing connection with the fan base and within the Denver community. He’s nearly two years older than the current offseason’s two star free-agent bats, Bryce Harper and Manny Machado, so it’s not a surprise to see Arenado heading for a slightly shorter-term deal than either of his highly touted peers. But in terms of annual rate, the new contract already tops Machado’s annual salary and could potentially be higher than the AAV to which Harper will eventually agree.

Arenado is the second would-be 2019-20 free agent to take an extension rather than test an open market that has become increasingly slow for top-end talent. (Aaron Hicks signed a seven-year deal with the Yankees yesterday.) Had he hit the open market, it stands to reason that deep-pocketed teams like the Dodgers and particularly the Yankees would’ve made a push to land his services, but the presumptive top free agent on next year’s market will instead take his record-setting payday a year early in order to remain with the only organization he’s ever known.

For the Rockies, the new contract means that Arenado will play out at least the next three seasons alongside Trevor Story, cementing one of the game’s most productive left-side infield tandems for the foreseeable future. That duo’s presence likely means that uber-prospect Brendan Rodgers is ticketed for second base when he eventually does force his way up to the big league level. Should his future outlook stall for any reason, the Rox have plenty of other infield talent on the rise, most notably including Ryan McMahon and Garrett Hampson. Beyond that grouping, veteran Daniel Murphy signed a two-year contract to play first base this winter and will be entrenched in the heart of what should be a formidable batting order.

From a payroll vantage point, the Arenado contract will further push the Rox into franchise-record territory. The $137MM mark at which they opened the 2018 season was already an all-time high for the team, but Arenado’s new deal — depending on how the dollars are distributed — will likely bring Colorado’s Opening Day payroll beyond $155MM (as outlined by Roster Resource’s Jason Martinez). In terms of luxury taxation, the Rockies are still nearly $40MM shy of having anything to worry about in 2019, and their luxury tax ledger plummets to just north of $129MM next winter, which would place them nearly $80MM shy of incurring any penalties.

USA Today’s Bob Nightengale first reported that the Rockies had made a record-AAV offer to Arenado and added he annual breakdown on Twitter. ESPN’s Jeff Passan reported that the two sides were closing in on an eight-year deal worth more than $255MM with an opt-out (Twitter link). Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic reported the exact salary terms, while Joel Sherman of the New York Post first reported the agreement to be in place (Twitter links).

Cardinals To Extend Miles Mikolas

By Steve Adams | February 26, 2019 at 4:25pm CDT

4:25pm: Mikolas will receive a $5MM signing bonus and $15.75MM annual salaries, Bob Nightengale of USA Today tweets. The deal also includes $2MM in escalators and full no-trade protection, Heyman reports (Twitter links).

12:55pm: The contract does not overwrite Mikolas’ 2019 salary but runs from 2020-23, per The Athetic’s Ken Rosenthal (on Twitter). That’ll give the Cardinals control of Mikolas through his age-34 season.

12:50pm: MLB Network’s Jon Heyman tweets that Mikolas will be guaranteed a hefty $68MM over a four-year term on his new contract. That deal lines up identically with the four-year pact inked by postseason hero Nathan Eovaldi with the Red Sox earlier this winter. The deal, Heyman adds, can reach a total of $70MM in value.

12:45pm: The Cardinals and right-hander Miles Mikolas have agreed to terms on a contract extension, reports Derrick Goold of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch (via Twitter). The two sides had expressed mutual interest in completing such an arrangement back in January. Mikolas is represented by Octagon.

This time one year ago, Cardinals fans were unsure what to think of Mikolas, the team’s primary rotation addition last winter. At the time, Mikolas was a 29-year-old who’d never established himself in the Majors but put himself firmly on MLB radars with a brilliant three-year run for the Yomiuri Giants of Japan’s Nippon Professional Baseball. Adding Mikolas on a two-year contract worth a guaranteed $15.5MM was met with a fair bit of skepticism.

Mikolas, however, proved his doubters wrong in emphatic fashion. In 32 starts for St. Louis, he totaled 200 2/3 innings with a pristine 2.83 ERA, 6.5 K/9, 1.3 BB/9, 0.72 HR/9 and a 49.3 percent ground-ball rate. Among qualified MLB starters, only Patrick Corbin and Jacob deGrom induced swings on pitches out of the strike zone at a higher clip than Mikolas’ brilliant 36.6 percent mark. Statcast pegged Mikolas in the 92nd and 90th percentiles, respectively, in terms of opponents’ exit velocity and hard contact allowed on a league-wide basis. Furthermore, no pitcher in baseball posted a better BB/9 mark than Mikolas, whose 3.28 FIP and 3.67 xFIP largely supported the notion that he was a quality big league starter.

Mikolas doesn’t need to replicate last season’s showing to the decimal point in order to justify the organization’s considerable expenditure — the value he provided was worth far more than $17MM last season — but he’ll need to settle in as a viable mid-rotation piece for the next few years in order to make good on the commitment. There’s little reason to doubt his ability to do so, however; as noted previously, virtually any metric agreed that Mikolas was a legitimate big league starter, and he finished the year as strongly as he started — if not more so.

For the Cardinals, locking up Mikolas now gives them some long-term solidity in a rotation that had previously stood to lose not only Mikolas but also Michael Wacha and Adam Wainwright at season’s end. Between those impending departures, ongoing concerns surrounding Carlos Martinez’s shoulder and the perennial lack of durability from wunderkind Alex Reyes, the Cardinals had a deceptively uncertain long-term outlook in terms of starting pitching. Mikolas will now team with Jack Flaherty in comprising the St. Louis rotation for years to come, and the organization certainly has hopes that some combination of Martinez, Reyes and Dakota Hudson can work to round out the starting staff in the foreseeable future.

With this deal in place, the Cardinals now have more than $101MM committed to their 2020 roster (assuming even distribution of the salary) — though that number will drop substantially in 2021 when the contracts of Yadier Molina, Matt Carpenter and Brett Cecil come off the books. The deal shouldn’t have any bearing on St. Louis’ 2019 payroll, which currently projects at just under $162MM — a slight increase over last year’s franchise-record Opening Day payroll of $159.7MM.

Indians Sign Hanley Ramirez To Minor League Deal

By Connor Byrne | February 26, 2019 at 10:37am CDT

Feb. 26: The Indians have formally announced the signing.

Feb. 24: Ramirez will earn $1MM in guaranteed salary if he makes Cleveland’s roster, Paul Hoynes of the Cleveland Plain Dealer tweets, with some more money available in incentives.

Feb. 23: The Indians have agreed to a minor league deal, pending a physical, with free-agent first baseman Hanley Ramirez, Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic reports.

Cleveland’s the first team for the 35-year-old Ramirez since Boston unceremoniously released him last June 1. Ramirez drew little reported interest after the Red Sox cut ties with him, owing to back-to-back seasons of subpar production at the plate and an inability to add value in the field or on the base paths. Formerly a superstar with the Marlins and a quality player with the Dodgers, Ramirez combined to hit a meager .245/.318/.421 (91 wRC+) with 29 home runs and minus-0.7 fWAR in 748 plate appearances from 2017-18.

Ramirez was an easily above-average hitter as recently as 2016, but that was his lone productive year with the Red Sox, who signed him to a four-year, $88MM deal prior to 2015. The contract was a bust for Boston, with which Ramirez contributed a microscopic 0.9 fWAR over 1,798 PAs. He also left much to be desired in left field and at first base during his Red Sox tenure, though he did earn playable marks from Defensive Runs Saved and Ultimate Zone Rating at the latter position in a combined 358 innings from 2017-18.

There was obviously considerable risk for the Red Sox when they signed Ramirez, whereas the Indians are buying low on him now and hoping to land a solid contributor for a nominal fee. It’s possible the right-handed Ramirez will catch on with the Indians in a first base/designated hitter platoon, as their projected starter at the former spot – Jake Bauers – is a lefty. Bauers struggled versus same-handed hurlers in 2018, but Ramirez pulverized southpaws last year and owns a lifetime .896 OPS against them.

Phillies’ Offer To Harper Reportedly Worth More Than $300 Million

By Steve Adams | February 26, 2019 at 8:22am CDT

The Phillies have put forth an offer to free-agent outfielder Bryce Harper that would guarantee him more than $300MM, reports MLB Network’s Jon Heyman (via Twitter). That would indicate a willingness to top Manny Machado’s record-setting $300MM free-agent deal with the Padres. It’s not clear if Philadelphia’s offer is also greater than Giancarlo Stanton’s overall record $325MM contract.

Heyman suggests that there’s at least one other club that has expressed a willingness to top $300MM to sign Harper, which would be a surprising new development at this stage in his free agency. While the Nationals offered Harper an extremely deferred $300MM back in late September, there have been no recent indications that any of the remaining Harper suitors would come close to that mark

As of yesterday, the Dodgers and Giants were said to be the only two teams still in the mix for Harper, and both were said to be pursuing him on shorter-term contracts with sizable average annual values. The presence of another $300MM+ offer, if accurate, would represent a considerable change of heart for either of those California-based clubs (or the presence of another team involved in the bidding). Joel Sherman of the New York Post explored the situation yesterday, noting that the Dodgers appear willing to offer Harper a record-setting annual value — “at least $35 million a year, perhaps closer to $40 million” — but only over four or, at absolute most, five years. Sherman writes that he spoke to one person involved who “insisted not to undersell the Giants,” as well.

Over the weekend, the Phillies were optimistic of completing a 10-year deal with Harper by yesterday — an outcome that clearly didn’t happen and was likely impacted by the Dodgers’ Sunday-evening meeting with Harper in Las Vegas. Harper still expects to finally make his decision this week, per USA Today’s Bob Nightengale, bringing to an end an exhausting saga and likely resulting in at least one type of contractual record.

Bryce Harper Expected To Make Decision This Week

By Steve Adams | February 25, 2019 at 12:35pm CDT

12:35pm: Harper’s decision is expected to come this week, Bob Nightengale of USA Today writes. At the moment, the only three teams in the mix for him are the Phillies, Dodgers and Giants.

10:00am: The Dodgers’ interest in Harper is still on a shorter-term pact, tweets Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic. Harper and agent Scott Boras are still eyeing a long-term deal. Mark Feisand of MLB.com tweets that the Phillies are the only team currently negotiating a “true” long-term deal with Harper and agent Boras. The Giants, like the Dodgers, are still only interested at shorter terms than the 10-year offer Philadelphia is reportedly willing to put on the table.

7:38am: The Dodgers have jumped back into the Bryce Harper bidding and held a meeting with him as recently as last night, Jesse Sanchez of MLB.com reports (via Twitter). Dodgers officials, including manager Dave Roberts, were seen in Las Vegas to meet with Harper. Per Jeff Passan and Ramona Shelburne of ESPN (Twitter links), the Dodgers re-engaged with Harper’s camp two weeks ago, although at the time, they were still hoping to secure Harper on a shorter-term pact. Harper, however, has been seeking at least a 10-year deal and has not budged from that thinking, Passan notes.

While there has not been any firm indication that the Dodgers are now willing to put forth a decade-long offer (or longer), the meeting is nonetheless quite notable at this juncture in Harper’s free-agent saga. Over the weekend, Phillies owner John Middleton also visited Harper in his home city, and reports at the time indicated that there was optimism surrounding the possibility of finalizing a 10-year deal with Harper as soon as tonight. That could still prove to true, but the question for many onlookers had been whether the Phillies were bidding against themselves. That no longer appears to be the case, as the Vegas meeting between the Dodgers and Harper suggests a rather sincere level of interest on their end.

Los Angeles has already added one big-ticket outfield item this winter, signing A.J. Pollock to a four-year deal worth $55MM, and bringing Harper aboard would give them a new right fielder to go along with their new-look center fielder. It’d also muddy the outfield mix a bit, leaving only one spot with Joc Pederson and Cody Bellinger in need of at-bats there. Bellinger could also see time at first base, of course, although that would come at the cost of playing time for 2018 breakout slugger Max Muncy.

That said, the Dodgers are never ones to shy away from cultivating extreme levels of depth, and bringing Harper into the fold would create an extraordinarily deep mix of offensive options for Roberts. Of course, the Dodgers have also reportedly explored deals involving Pederson this winter as well, and signing Harper could also prove to be a harbinger for the trade of another outfielder.

The Dodgers already traded away Yasiel Puig, Matt Kemp and Alex Wood in what looked at the time to be a trade that opened both roster space and luxury tax breathing room for a possible Harper addition, but the only notable signing they’ve made since that swap was Pollock’s four-year pact. Adding Harper would definitively skyrocket the Dodgers into luxury tax territory, as they’re already only about $4MM shy of that threshold, per Jason Martinez of Roster Resource.

Rockies Extend Bud Black

By Steve Adams | February 25, 2019 at 10:45am CDT

10:45am: The Rockies have announced the extension.

10:32am: The Rockies and manager Bud Black have agreed to a three-year contract extension that runs through the 2022 season, Patrick Saunders of the Denver Post reports. Black’s original three-year pact with Colorado ran spanned the 2017-19 seasons and included a 2020 club option.

Black, 61, enjoyed a 15-year playing career as a pitcher (primarily for the Royals, Giants and Indians) and spent nearly nine years as the manager of his now-division-rival Padres from 2007-15. After being dismissed in San Diego, Black was in a front-runner for the Nationals’ managerial post before the team’s offers to him were reported to be exceptionally low for a veteran manager. He instead spent a year as a senior advisor in the Angels’ front office before being hired by the Rockies in the 2016-17 offseason.

Black’s first two years with the Rockies have been a success, as he’s overseen a 178-147 record and made a pair of postseason appearances via Wild Card berths. While the Rockies were ousted by the Diamondbacks in the 2017 National League Wild Card Game, they topped the Cubs in the 2018 Wild Card and moved onto the National League Division Series. Their World Series aspirations were cut short in a decisive sweep at the hands of the Brewers, however. He’s finished third in National League Manager of the Year voting in each of his two seasons in Colorado.

Rockies pitchers have taken a step forward under Black, and while he surely isn’t the sole reason for that, Black’s 15-year pitching career and seven-year run as a highly respected pitching coach with the Angels surely is of benefit to a young Rockies pitching staff. With this new deal in place, that young pitching staff will have some continuity as it continues to make strides in pitching at the game’s most hitter-friendly venue. Continued success for Black, too, could eventually push his career managerial record north of .500; it currently sits at 649-713 after managing some underwhelming Padres rosters during some of the leanest seasons in that franchise’s history.

Yankees Extend Aaron Hicks

By Steve Adams | February 25, 2019 at 8:30am CDT

Aaron Hicks won’t be testing the open market next winter after all. The Yankees announced on Monday that they’ve signed Hicks, a client of CAA Baseball, to a seven-year contract extension that supersedes his previous one-year, $6MM contract for the 2019 campaign. The new pact will reportedly guarantee Hicks $70MM and come with a club option for an eighth season, meaning Hicks is now controlled by the Yankees through his age-35 season.

Hicks will reportedly receive a $2MM signing bonus in addition to a $6MM salary in 2019 before earning $10.5MM annually from 2020-23 and $9.5MM in 2024-25. The club option is said to be valued at $12.5MM (with a $1MM buyout), and while Hicks doesn’t have any no-trade protection on the deal, he’d receive a $1MM assignment bonus upon being traded.

Hicks, 29, has quietly emerged as one of the game’s more underrated players over the past couple of seasons. The former first-rounder, acquired in a lopsided deal that sent catcher John Ryan Murphy to the Twins, struggled in his first season with the Yankees but has since hit .255/.368/.470 with 42 home runs, 36 doubles, three triples and 21 stolen bases in 942 plate appearances. Hicks has generally graded out as a quality defensive center fielder in his career at the MLB level and provides plenty of value on the basepaths beyond his raw stolen base totals, as well.

Over the past two seasons, only five players in baseball (min. 900 plate appearances) have drawn walks at a higher clip than Hicks’ 15 percent mark, and his 18.9 percent strikeout rate in that time checks in below the league average. His 21.5 percent chase rate on pitches outside the strike zone in that time is tied with teammate Brett Gardner for the ninth-lowest in baseball in that same span.

For the Yankees, the agreement with Hicks locks them into a long-term mix featuring sluggers Giancarlo Stanton (signed through 2027) and Aaron Judge (controlled through 2022) for the foreseeable future. That trio will be joined by Gardner in 2019 and, if healthy, by Jacoby Ellsbury, who is signed through 2020. Outfield prospect Clint Frazier, meanwhile, looms in the upper minors. Fellow prospect Estevan Florial is likely still two years from being a factor in the Majors.

Because Hicks was already signed for the 2019 season at a $6MM rate, today’s agreement is effectively a six-year, $64MM extension. For luxury tax purposes, though, it’ll be treated as a seven-year deal that comes with a $10MM annual luxury hit. The Yankees were already over the luxury tax line, albeit in the lowest penalty tier after resetting their tax right by dipping under the threshold last season. The Hicks contract adds another $4MM to their luxury ledger for the season, which will cost them an additional $800K in penalties.

Not many position players sign an extension by the time they reach five-plus years of service and are within a year free agency, making Hicks’ case somewhat of a rarity. But, as shown in MLBTR’s Extension Tracker, Charlie Blackmon does stand out as one recent player to have done so, although as a more established hitter, he received a larger sum over a shorter term than Hicks secured with today’s agreement. Prior to that pair, the last position player in this service class to ink an extension of five or more years was Andre Ethier back in 2012.

By signing the deal, Hicks will forgo what has become an increasingly shaky free-agent market for players. Unlike the others who have recently signed extensions, however, Hicks could’ve tested the market as soon as next winter. It’s certainly possible that with another big season at the plate, he’d have been poised to top the money afforded to him by this contract — certainly on an average annual value basis. However, he’ll instead sacrifice a bit of that long-term earning power in exchange for the security of an immediate payday. It’s fair to wonder if other 2019-20 free agents will look at recent market trends and do the same over the next several weeks. Given the slow pace of free agency and the disappointing deals that many middle-tier free agents have taken over the past two seasons, Hicks could be the first of multiple would-be free agents to go this route.

Jack Curry of the YES Network first reported the extension and the terms of the deal (on Twitter). Marc Carig of The Athletic tweeted that there was an option for an eighth season, and Joel Sherman of the New York Post reported the contract breakdown (Twitter links).

Twins Sign Marwin Gonzalez

By Steve Adams | February 25, 2019 at 7:57am CDT

The Twins have announced the signing of free-agent infielder/outfielder Marwin Gonzalez. Gonzalez, who is represented by the Boras Corporation, receives a two-year, $21MM deal that will pay him $12MM in 2019 and $9MM in 2020.

Gonzalez, 30 in March, emerged as one of MLB’s most versatile utility pieces over the past two seasons and played a major role in bringing the Astros to the 2017 World Series. The switch-hitter’s terrific .303/.377/.530 batting line that year regressed to .247/.324/.409 in 2018, though it’s worth noting that his 2018 results were weighed down by a sluggish start. Gonzalez carried a .612 OPS into June but rebounded to the tune of a .266/.343/.462 slash over the final four months, during which time he clubbed 12 of his 16 home runs. Overall, he’s posted a healthy .274/.349/.467 line with 39 homers, 59 doubles and three triples over his past 1067 plate appearances.

Known as much for his defensive versatility as anything else — agent Scott Boras dubbed him “Swiss G” early in the offseason — Gonzalez logged 150-plus innings at first base, second base, shortstop and in left field last year. He’s logged significant innings at all four infield spots over the past two seasons and has tallied more than 1000 innings in left field as well. He’s drawn plus marks for that work in left (+7 Defensive Runs Saved, +5.5 Ultimate Zone Rating, +2 Outs Above Average) and has generally drawn solid marks for his glovework at first base, second base and third base in recent years (with defensive metrics being less fond of his defense at shortstop).

While Gonzalez won’t be in line to man one singular position on a regular basis, it’s likely that the Twins will mix him into the lineup on a near-regular basis over the next couple of seasons. He’ll provide the club with a high-quality means of keeping first baseman C.J. Cron, second baseman Jonathan Schoop, shortstop Jorge Polanco and third baseman Miguel Sano fresh. Gonzalez also seems likely to log some time in the outfield, and given that all three of Minnesota’s current outfielders — Eddie Rosario, Byron Buxton and Max Kepler — can play all three outfield slots, Gonzalez could be the first in line to get some outfield work when any of that trio is out of the lineup. In short, he’ll provide rookie manager Rocco Baldelli with an enormous amount of flexibility when mapping out his daily lineups. And, with Schoop a free agent at season’t end, Marwin could potentially give the Twins a regular option in 2020 if prospect Nick Gordon doesn’t adequately rebuild his stock this year.

The addition of Gonzalez will cost one of Ehire Adrianza or Willians Astudillo a spot on the active roster and potentially puts Adrianza’s spot on the 40-man roster in jeopardy. Like Gonzalez, Adrianza is a switch-hitting utility piece who played all over the infield and in left field last year, though his bat has never approached Gonzalez’s 2017-18 levels. Minnesota also has Ronald Torreyes on the 40-man roster under a non-guaranteed, split contract, though Torreyes has one minor league option remaining.

Entering the offseason, MLBTR pegged Gonzalez as a candidate to receive a four-year contract (at a lower annual rate of $9MM) given the fact that his versatility figured to create no shortage of demand throughout the league. Many pundits at the time — myself included — were surprised that Houston didn’t issue a $17.9MM qualifying offer to Gonzalez; while that’d be a huge price to pay for one season of his services, the thinking at the time was that he’d comfortably out-earn that sum on a three- or four-year pact, thus making him a safe bet to reject the deal and net the Astros a compensatory draft pick. In retrospect, the Astros’ decision not to do so looks quite prudent.

From a broader perspective, Gonzalez’s contract is in some ways indicative of the changing market landscape that has served as a source of consternation for both players and agents this winter. While his $10.5MM annual salary is quite large for a super-utility player, to be sure, Gonzalez’s ultimate guarantee was for half the length and under 40 percent of the total dollars the Cubs pledged to Ben Zobrist as he entered his age-35 season just three years ago. While Zobrist was a more established hitter and predicting that type of money for Gonzalez seemed overly aggressive even at the outset of free agency, few would’ve predicted such great disparity between their contracts. Gonzalez is roughly a half decade younger than Zobrist was at the time of his deal, after all.

While Gonzalez’s contract falls shy of what virtually any publication predicted for him entering the winter, that $10.5MM annual value is nonetheless robust, and he’ll have the chance to re-enter free agency at a relatively youthful age. A four-term deal at that point will be even less likely, but he’d certainly be a candidate to receive another strong annual value on a two- or possibly three-year pact if he maintains his recent level of production.

For the Twins, Gonzalez will join offseason newcomers Schoop, Cron and Nelson Cruz to a revamped lineup that figures to be more productive than it was in 2018. If the Twins are able to coax bounceback seasons out of some combination of Schoop, Byron Buxton and Miguel Sano, their offense will be among the more formidable groups in the American League. The team’s pitching staff could certainly use further augmentation, and it’s worth noting that a pair of prominent free-agent arms — Dallas Keuchel and Craig Kimbrel — remain unsigned. The extent to which the Twins are interested in either at present isn’t known, though they’ve at least been linked to Kimbrel in the past month.

Whether they ultimately come to terms with either (or acquire another pitching upgrade), it’s clear that Minnesota at least has the financial means to do so. The Twins’ payroll will still be shy of last year’s $128MM Opening Day mark, and they have fewer than $25MM committed to the 2020 roster.

Jon Heyman of MLB Network (Twitter links) first had the deal and some contract terms. ESPN’s Jeff Passan reports (via Twitter) had the years and dollars. Dan Hayes of The Athletic first connected the two sides.

Photo courtesy of USA Today Sports Images.

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