Ryan Vogelsong To Retire As Member Of Giants
Veteran right-hander Ryan Vogelsong will formally retire as a member of the Giants this coming Sunday, the team announced via press release.
“We are so excited to honor Ryan and touched that as one of our home grown players his career will officially end where it all began for him,” said Giants GM Bobby Evans in a statement within the release. “Ryan’s journey in this game has been marked by highs and lows, successes and challenges, but through it all he has always been a person of great integrity, strong character and a fierce competitor. He is a World Series Champion and a forever Giant.”
The 40-year-old Vogelsong was in camp with the Twins back in Spring Training but didn’t make the big league club out of camp and hasn’t appeared in the Majors or minors during the 2017 regular season. While his final season the Majors came as a member of the Pirates — one of two big league teams for which Vogelsong ever played in parts of 12 big league campaigns — he’ll be most remembered as a San Francisco Giant.
Vogelsong was San Francisco’s fifth-round pick back in 1998 and ultimately went on to debut as a 22-year-old with the Giants back in 2000. He struggled through half of the 2001 season before being traded to the Pirates as part of that season’s Jason Schmidt trade. Vogelsong was ultimately unable to cement himself as a consistent member of the Pirates’ staff, and the Bucs cut him loose in 2006.
Vogelsong went on to spend parts of the next three seasons pitching in Japan’s Nippon Professional Baseball and found enough success to get a look with the Phillies and Angels at the Triple-A level in 2010. However, neither club saw fit to bring him to the Majors, setting the stage for an improbable rise to prominence as a member of the team that first gave Vogelsong a chance in that 1998 draft.
In the 2010-11 offseason, Vogelsong rejoined the Giants on a minor league deal, and while few would’ve expected him to even surface in the Majors, he took things one step further by establishing himself as a key member of the Giants’ rotation. Vogelsong returned to the Majors with a flourish, tossing 179 2/3 innings with a 2.71 ERA, 7.0 K/9 and 3.1 BB/9 en route to a few rogue Cy Young votes (11th place) and his lone All-Star nomination.
Vogelsong went on to play an instrumental role in the Giants’ 2012 and 2014 playoff rotations, and when all was said and done, his second tenure with the team resulted in 792 2/3 innings of 3.89 ERA ball with 7.1 K/9 and 3.1 BB/9 and two World Series rings.
All told, Vogelsong’s career will come to a close with a 61-75 record, a 4.48 ERA, 6.8 K/9 and 3.6 BB/9 over the life of 1190 Major League innings. Those numbers don’t include another 37 innings of 2.92 ERA with a 29-to-16 K/BB ratio for the Giants in the postseason. Vogelsong banked more than $20MM over the course of his 12-year playing career. Best wishes to him in his post-playing days.
Photo courtesy of USA Today Sports Images.
Jimmy Nelson Out For Season
7:32pm: If Nelson does require surgery, the procedure he’d undergo carries a success rate of better than 90 percent, Rosiak tweets.
12:46pm: The Brewers announced that Jimmy Nelson will miss the rest of the season with a right rotator cuff strain and a partial anterior labrum tear. General manager David Stearns said Saturday that it’s unclear whether Nelson will require surgery, according to Todd Rosiak of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel (on Twitter).
The premature end to Nelson’s year is a devastating development for the 73-68 Brewers, who trail the NL Central-leading Cubs by four games and sit three games back of the Rockies for the league’s last wild-card spot. The Brewers are currently in the midst of a three-game series against the Cubs and took the opener on Friday, 2-0, behind Nelson. The 28-year-old tossed five innings of four-hit, two-walk ball and added seven strikeouts, and he threw one of those frames with a labrum tear, Adam McCalvy of MLB.com tweets. Nelson suffered the injury on the base paths after hitting a fifth-inning single.
Like his team, Nelson has been a surprising success story this season. The emergent ace posted spectacular numbers across 175 1/3 innings and currently ranks fourth among major league starters in fWAR (4.9), ninth in strikeouts per nine innings (10.21), 10th in groundball rate (50.3 percent) and 15th in ERA (3.49). While Nelson’s brilliant work this year came at a near-minimum salary, his price tag will rise in the offseason. Nelson will take his first trip through arbitration, where the ERA, innings, strikeouts and 12-6 record he logged in 2017 should each help his cause.
As for the Nelson-less Brewers, they’ll likely look to their minor league system for down-the-stretch rotation help, Stearns announced (via McCalvy, on Twitter). Candidates to come up include Triple-A right-hander Taylor Jungmann and Double-A righty Aaron Wilkerson, per McCalvy.
Nationals Promote Victor Robles
1:58pm: Washington has announced the move. Outfielders Rafael Bautista and Andrew Stevenson will accompany Robles to the majors after receiving some MLB time earlier, which will leave the club with an abundance of outfield possibilities over the next few weeks.
The Nats moved righty Erick Fedde to the 60-day DL to clear the needed roster space. Washington decided to give Robles a chance when Goodwin suffered a setback, Chelsea Janes of the Washington Post tweets.
1:20pm: In a surprise move, the Nationals will promote top outfield prospect Victor Robles, according to Jeff Passan of Yahoo Sports (via Twitter). He’ll require a 40-man roster spot when the move is formalized.
Robles, who’s still just twenty years of age, has yet to play above the Double-A level. But the Dominican native, who signed for only $225K back in 2013, is widely regarded as one of the game’s ten or so best overall prospects, with scouts widely praising his across-the-board gifts.
Certainly, Robles has done nothing this year to detract from that lofty status. He continued to produce after earning a promotion to the penultimate level of the minors after opening the year at High-A. Through 496 total plate appearances on the season, Robles carries a .300/.382/.493 batting line with ten home runs and 27 steals.
Notably, Robles did not need to be protected from the Rule 5 draft over the coming offseason, so he would not have needed a 40-man spot this winter. And the Nats have little need for an extra player over the final weeks of the season with a division title almost secured already, which hints at other motives.
The move seemingly suggests, rather, that Robles is expected to factor in the team’s plans for the near future. While it’d rate as a surprise were he to play his way onto the postseason roster this season, perhaps that can’t be ruled out. With Jayson Werth set to reach free agency at the end of the year, it’s also conceivable that Robles could stake a claim to a job for 2018.
Perhaps the likeliest scenario, though, would be for Robles to follow the path of Trea Turner, who returned to the minors to open the 2016 season after getting his first cup of coffee in 2015. Robles has spent most of his professional career in center field, making him an ideal fit for the near-future Nats roster. While the club will expect Adam Eaton to be fully healthy in 2018, he’s best utilized in a corner spot. Michael Taylor and Brian Goodwin could make for a solid platoon pairing in center if they can sustain some of the strides they’ve shown this year, so there shouldn’t be too much immediate pressure on Robles to prove himself a permanent fixture, but nobody would complain if the young phenom forces the team’s hand.
Cardinals Acquire Juan Nicasio
The Phillies announced that they have traded right-hander Juan Nicasio to the Cardinals in exchange for minor league infielder Eliezer Alvarez. Philadelphia had recently claimed Nicasio off outright waivers from the Pirates. Nicasio will give the Cardinals’ bullpen a boost, though since he’s been acquired after Aug. 31, he won’t be eligible for the postseason roster if St. Louis qualifies. Nicasio is a free agent after the season.
Nicasio’s time with the Phillies will last all of a week, bringing to a close one of the more puzzling sequences in recent August trade history. The Pirates were unable to pass Nicasio through revocable trade waivers last month, ultimately pulling him back off waivers and placing him on outright waivers and instead losing him to the Phillies, who had top waiver priority, for nothing other than salary relief that amounted to roughly $600K.
The move was confusing enough that Pittsburgh GM Neal Huntington felt the need to explain the team’s rationale to the media. Per Huntington, Nicasio was claimed by a “playoff-caliber” team on trade waivers — it’s not clear if that Cardinals were that club, though it’d make sense — and the Bucs opted to place him on outright waivers in hopes of getting him to an AL contender rather than helping a “direct competitor.” (Trade waivers are league-specific, whereas outright waiver priority ignores league and is solely determined in reverse order of MLB standings.)
Nicasio will ultimately end up with a direct competitor of the Pirates anyhow, though he won’t be able to pitch in the postseason. Moreover, the Phillies will make out extremely well in this deal, as Alvarez entered the season ranked 10th on Baseball America’s list of the Cardinals’ top 30 prospects. He currently ranks 19th among St. Louis farmhands in the eyes of Jim Callis and Jonathan Mayo of MLB.com. In essence, the Phillies were able to claim a Cardinals prospect off waivers, which ultimately cost them about $138K in terms of salary (the pro-rated portion of Nicasio’s week-long tenure with the team).
For the Cardinals, Nicasio immediately becomes one of their best relievers. Through 61 1/3 innings, Nicasio has averaged 8.95 K/9, 2.64 BB/9 and a 46.9 percent ground-ball rate en route to an excellent 2.79 ERA. The 31-year-old has averaged a career-best 95.4 mph on his heater in 2017 and is sporting a 10.7 percent swinging-strike rate that would rank third among current St. Louis relievers (not including the injured Trevor Rosenthal, who led the team’s bullpen in that regard).
Alvarez, 23 next month, has spent the season with St. Louis’ Double-A affiliate, hitting .247/.321/.382 with four homers and eight steals (in 11 tries). Those numbers don’t immediately stand out, though it’s worth noting that Alvarez skipped Class-A Advanced entirely and was considerably younger than the league average in Double-A.
Callis and Mayo note in their free scouting report that Alvarez has a line-drive approach with a knack for making hard contact and could eventually grow into more power. He’s an above-average runner and could profile as a regular at second base down the line if everything breaks right for him. Alvarez was added to the Cardinals’ 40-man roster last winter to protect him from the Rule 5 Draft, so he’ll go onto the Phillies’ 40-man roster and fill the spot that was vacated by trading Nicasio.
Photo courtesy of USA Today Sports Images.
Angels Activate Garrett Richards, Designate Mike Morin, Vicente Campos
The Angels announced that they’ve activated right-hander Garrett Richards from the 60-day disabled list and selected the contract of right-hander Deolis Guerra from Triple-A Salt Lake prior to tonight’s game. To clear room on the 40-man roster, right-handers Mike Morin and Vicente Campos have been designated for assignment.
In 2014-15, Richards looked like an emergent ace on the Angels’ staff, but injuries have wrecked his past two seasons. Richards tossed just 34 1/3 innings last season, as he was limited by a partial tear of the ulnar collateral ligament in his right elbow. However, he did not opt for Tommy John surgery, as most victims of UCL tears do, instead opting for stem cell treatment that allowed him to avoid going under the knife.
This year, though, a nerve issue in his right biceps cropped up in April, sending Richards back to the disabled list once again. The 29-year-old has made just one appearance for the Angels all season and will look to finish out the year on a strong note to provide some hope that he can be healthy in 2018.
Morin, 26, had a terrific rookie campaign back in 2014 but has logged a 5.38 ERA in 105 1/3 innings since that promising debut season. Morin hasn’t had much trouble missing bats in the Majors, but his strikeout rate has dropped in the minors in recent years. He’s averaged just 5.7 K/9 in 39 1/3 innings in Triple-A this year, though he’s also posted a strong 1.6 BB/9 rate and notched a very solid 3.20 ERA there.
Campos, 25, has an 8.22 ERA through 23 innings across three minor league levels this season. The Halos picked him up off waivers from the D-backs last offseason, knowing that he was facing an eight-month recovery from a fractured forearm that required surgery last September. Campos received a bit of fanfare as a prospect with the Yankees last year before being traded to the D-backs in exchange for Tyler Clippard. In 503 minor league innings, he has a 3.80 ERA with 8.1 K/9 against 2.5 BB/9.
The 28-year-old Guerra will be making his second appearance on the Angels’ 40-man roster. He was outrighted earlier this year but remained in the organization after clearing waivers. Guerra notched a 3.21 ERA with 6.1 K/9 and 1.2 BB/9 in 53 1/3 innings with the Angels last year and recorded a brilliant 1.98 ERA with a 41-to-8 K/BB ratio in 41 Triple-A frames after this season’s outright assignment.
Pirates Announce Extensions Of Neal Huntington, Clint Hurdle
The Pirates have announced matching, four-year extensions for both GM Neal Huntington and manager Clint Hurdle. Both are now under contract through the 2021 season; salary terms are unreported.
Hurdle’s deal was reported yesterday, though Huntington’s situation remained unclear. As we covered at the time, both of these key organizational figures were entering an offseason of uncertainty, with the Bucs possessing team options for the 2018 campaign.
Rather than simply taking the one year already contemplated in their prior contracts, Pirates president Frank Coonelly decided to reward both Huntington and Hurdle with yet greater commitments, calling each “selfless leaders who have made us a far stronger organization, both on and off the field.” Both had previously worked for one or three-year terms.
Some fans will find some cause for consternation in the timing of the move. After all, the Bucs are again failing to play to expectations after a 2013-15 run of success that reinvigorated hopes and fan interest. And the club has drawn fairly persistent accusations of being unwilling to spend when necessary. Most recently, hackles raised with the club’s curious move at the end of August to dump the salary of quality reliever Juan Nicasio. (At least as public perceptions go, it probably doesn’t help that Nicasio was claimed by the cross-state-rival Phillies, who had even less reason to pay his salary at this stage of the year.)
Still, it’s hard not to credit the work of the Huntington-Hurdle duo. The former came over from the Indians organization in advance of the 2008 season; while it took some time, and awaited the arrival of Hurdle a few years later, the club finally broke its long-running losing streak. Utilizing creative methods worthy of a book, Huntington’s front office — with Hurdle chipping in from the clubhouse and dugout — managed to field a roster that won 280 and lost 206 games from 2013 through 2015.
While those teams never advanced in the postseason, and things haven’t gone as well since, that doesn’t necessarily fall entirely on the shoulders of the GM and manager. The team’s exciting trio of outfielders was seen as perhaps the game’s best entering 2016; for a variety of reasons, they’ve combined to put up just 12 WAR over the last two years. Unlike some other organizations that have emerged in recent seasons, too, the Bucs have continued to carry less than $100MM in Opening Day payroll.
While the team has just not quite gotten enough from a variety of spots on the roster, Huntington has done well in acquiring and re-signing Ivan Nova, getting Felipe Rivero for pending free agent Mark Melancon, and acquiring and then extending the solid David Freese (who has been especially important with the unexpected loss of Jung Ho Kang). Every recent move hasn’t been a winner — the signings of Daniel Hudson and Ryan Vogelsong, for example — though perhaps the most strident complaints have been about opportunities that may have been missed owing mostly to payroll constraints.
All told, the current roster still holds plenty of talented players on appealing contracts. But some of the organization’s biggest stars — McCutchen and Gerrit Cole, in particular — are nearing free-agent eligibility, posing major questions (fraught with complicated baseball and public relations elements) to the front office and ownership group. How the Bucs will navigate the potentially turbulent waters remains to be seen, but the helmsmen will remain the same — albeit now with significant contractual protection to weather any short-term disappointments.
Photo courtesy of USA Today Sports Images.
Dodgers To Promote Walker Buehler
The Dodgers will promote top pitching prospect Walker Buehler for his first taste of the majors on Wednesday, manager Dave Roberts told reporters including J.P. Hoornstra of the Southern California News Group (Twitter link). Los Angeles will need to open a 40-man spot to make the addition.
Buehler, 23, starred at Vanderbilt before the Dodgers took him with the 24th overall pick of the 2015 draft. He underwent Tommy John surgery just after becoming a professional, but has steadily raised his stock since finally taking the hill late last year.
Prospect analysts were already excited by Buehler before the 2017 season, as he entered some top-100 lists despite a track record that went just five innings deep. Buehler has rewarded that and then some so far in his first full campaign as a pro.
Buehler opened the year at the High-A level, but quickly earned a promotion after overwhelming the competition there. He then turned in 11 quality starts at Double-A, recording a 3.49 ERA with 11.8 K/9 and 2.8 BB/9.
By the time Buehler was nearing a move to the highest level of the minors, he was streaking up the mid-season prospect charts. Baseball America listed him 17th among all prospects leaguewide, with ESPN.com’s Keith Law tabbing him the 11th-best pre-MLB player.
Los Angeles has slowed things down a bit as Buehler nears one hundred frames on the season. He has moved to a relief role at Oklahoma City — where he hasn’t been quite as dominant — and will remain in the pen upon reaching the majors.
Whether or not this stint will be more than an opportunity for Buehler to dip his toes in the water remains to be seen, though it’s perhaps not inconceivable that the talented youngster could force his way into postseason roster consideration. Regardless, now that he’s taking up residence on the 40-man roster, it’s clear that he’ll factor into the team’s pitching plans for 2018 (and well beyond). Since he’ll only pick up about 25 days of service, Los Angeles will still be able to manage his accumulation of service time moving forward to the extent that the club wishes to delay his entry into arbitration and free agency.
Pirates Agree To New Contract With Clint Hurdle
The Pirates have reached agreement on a four-year extension with skipper Clint Hurdle, according to a report from Bill Brink of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. Hurdle, 60, will now be under contract through 2021.
This represents the lengthiest commitment the club has made to Hurdle, who has been at the dugout helm since 2011. He originally signed a three-year contract, then added a year and an option, then inked a three-year extension with another option season. That last deal left the club with the right to keep Hurdle around for 2018; instead, though, the organization elected to strike a lengthier pact.
When Pittsburgh initially hired Hurdle, who had previously managed the Rockies, the organization had yet to post a winning season since way back in 1992. That did not change right away, but Hurdle and GM Neal Huntington helped oversee a return to prominence beginning in 2013.
The Bucs ran off an impressive 280-206 record from 2013 through 2015, though somehow the club never managed to take a division crown in a competitive NL Central. Unfortunately, too, Pittsburgh fizzled in all three trips to the postseason.
Since that time, the Pirates have faltered. After a disappointing 2016 campaign, the team has again fallen shy of expectations — though it’s tough to find much cause to blame Hurdle for the notable roster absences the club has dealt with.
What’s not yet known is whether Hurdle will continue to partner with GM Neal Huntington. Pittsburgh can also retain Huntington through a 2018 club option. At this time, there’s no real indication as to how that situation will play out.
Phillies To Promote J.P. Crawford
The Phillies will promote long-time top shortstop prospect J.P. Crawford, Tom Housenick of The Morning Call reports on Twitter. He will need a 40-man roster spot before he can be called up.
Crawford, 22, has been viewed as one of the game’s elite prospects for the past two or three years. While evaluators mostly forgave a less-than-inspiring run at Triple-A in 2016, though, they began to raise questions about Crawford’s outlook as he struggled there again this year.
On mid-season ranking lists, Crawford plummeted. He currently rates 60th on MLB.com’s listing and 92nd on Baseball America’s, while missing on a spot amongst the top fifty prospects named over the summer by ESPN.com’s Keith Law.
The change of heart seemingly motivated the former 16th overall draft pick, as Matt Gelb of the Philadelphia Inquirer wrote recently. Indeed, Crawford has been on a tear of late. In sixty games since the start of July, he’s slashing .284/.383/.533 with a dozen home runs. It’s especially promising to see the power coming for a player who is most known for his glovework and on-base/contact ability.
Philadelphia will hope that Crawford can maintain that momentum with him to the majors. It’ll be interesting to see how he’s utilized upon his arrival. Freddy Galvis has moved around of late, opening some daylight at shortstop, though Crawford himself has spent some time appearing at other positions. Ultimately, the organization surely hopes that Crawford will take over everyday duties at short, so he’ll likely have an opportunity to stake a claim that job at some point.
Reds Exercise Bryan Price’s 2018 Option
Sept. 4: Price confirmed to reporters today that his 2018 option has been exercised by the team (Twitter links via MLB.com’s Mark Sheldon). “It’s a good thing, I think, for all of us because we’d like to see this thing through to the other side,” said the skipper.
Sept. 2: Manager Bryan Price will remain at the helm of the Reds in 2018, C. Trent Rosecrans of the Cincinnati Enquirer reports. Thanks to a clause in the contract Price signed last year, the Reds were required to inform him by Saturday whether they’d exercise his 2018 club option. However, the team actually assured him in July that he’d return, per Rosecrans, who adds that Price’s entire coaching staff will likely be invited back.
Next season will be the ninth in Cincinnati for Price, who served as predecessor Dusty Baker’s pitching coach from 2010-13 before taking over as the club’s manager. The Reds have gone just 276-355 in three-plus seasons under Price, haven’t won more than 76 games in an individual year during his reign and rank among the majors’ worst teams in 2017 with a 58-77 mark. That isn’t to suggest Price has been at fault, though, as the Reds are in the midst of a rebuild and have been devoid of pitching during his tenure. This year’s Reds entered Saturday last in the sport in ERA (5.29) and pitching fWAR (2.5). To put the latter figure in perspective, 34 big league starters and four relievers have posted an equal or better fWAR than the combined total of the 29 pitchers the Reds have used in 2017.
Given their woes on the mound, it’s no surprise that the Reds are toward the bottom of the standings yet again. There have been some bright spots this year, however, including the continued brilliance of first baseman Joey Votto and breakouts from young starter Luis Castillo, relief ace Raisel Iglesias and third baseman Eugenio Suarez.
The performance of a manager is difficult to quantify, meaning it’s unclear how much the 55-year-old Price has positively or negatively impacted any of the Reds’ players. Regardless, he and his staff have shown enough to general manager Dick Williams to warrant at least another year in the dugout.