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Newsstand

Astros Fielding Interest In Numerous Key Players, Including George Springer

By Jeff Todd | December 9, 2015 at 11:52am CDT

The Astros are fielding interest in several of their most enticing players, according to a report from Evan Drellich of the Houston Chronicle.

That includes top young outfielder George Springer, who Drellich says the club is “open to moving … if the haul is big enough.” Per MLB.com’s Brian McTaggart (via Twitter), though, Houston has not discussed Springer in any trades.

Houston has heard from teams looking at righties Vince Velasquez and Lance McCullers Jr., too, though the team is more willing to consider dealing the former. And the Cubs are among the clubs that have interest in Carlos Gomez, though Drellich says there’s a hesitancy to part with him.

In terms of possible targets, the Chronicle report notes that the ’Stros have discussed Carlos Carrasco with the Indians, as Zack Meisel of the Plain Dealer previously tweeted. He’d obviously require a significant return to acquire. And Houston is also talking with the Yankees about closer Andrew Miller.

All in all, it seems there are numerous possibilities in play for the Astros, with the report citing a focus on pitching. It would remain extremely surprising if a player like Springer is traded, but the fact that the team is willing to consider the possibility illustrates the potential for major asset shifting. It goes without saying, of course, that he’d only be parted with in a deal for a truly significant player.

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Chicago Cubs Cleveland Guardians Houston Astros New York Yankees Newsstand Andrew Miller Carlos Carrasco Carlos Gomez George Springer Lance McCullers Jr.

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Astros, Dodgers Discussing Andrew Miller With Yankees

By Jeff Todd | December 9, 2015 at 11:46am CDT

The Astros and Dodgers are showing interest in Yankees lefty Andrew Miller, Bob Nightengale of USA Today reports on Twitter. Those clubs have long seemed like possible fits, but the involvement of the latter is particularly notable given that the Dodgers had been lined up to acquire Aroldis Chapman from the Reds before his disturbing domestic violence allegations emerged.

Both Houston and L.A. were heavily involved in pursuing Miller last winter, with the Astros said to have made him the largest offer. But Miller chose New York, in part for family reasons, and signed a four-year, $36MM pact that includes equal, $9MM annual salaries.

Just one year into that contract, the remaining commitment looks quite appealing. Miller put up another outstanding season, throwing 61 2/3 frames of 2.04 ERA ball and racking up 14.6 K/9 against 2.9 BB/9. Those numbers are nearly exact matches for his breakout 2014 campaign, and there’s little question that he’d command an even larger commitment were he back on the open market this winter.

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Giants Sign Jeff Samardzija

By Mark Polishuk | December 9, 2015 at 10:55am CDT

DECEMBER 9: The Giants have officially announced the signing.

DECEMBER 5, 2:20pm: Samardzija’s contract breakdown is provided by Henry Schulman of the San Francisco Chronicle (Twitter links).  The righty will receive a $9MM salary in 2016 then $18MM in each of the next four years.  Samardzija gets a $3MM bonus immediately and then another $6MM in signing bonus money will be spread out over the last four years in equal $1.5MM installments.  The no-trade clause allows Samardzija to block deals to eight teams per year.

12:06pm: The Giants have agreed to sign right-hander Jeff Samardzija to a five-year deal, CSNBayArea.com’s Alex Pavlovic reports (Twitter link).  Samardzija will earn $90MM from the contract, according to Yahoo Sports’ Tim Brown (via Twitter).  The contract contains a limited no-trade clause (as per CBS Sports’ Jon Heyman) and is pending a physical.

With the Giants coming up short in the Zack Greinke sweepstakes, they pivoted towards another of the top remaining arms on the free agent market.  The Giants were known to be looking for pitching help this winter and they were connected to Greinke, David Price, Johnny Cueto, Jordan Zimmermann and former Giant Mike Leake in various rumors throughout the offseason.

Jeff Samardzija

It’s not out of the realm of possibility that the Giants add yet another top starter to the rotation, as was speculated in the wake of the Greinke signing.  FOX Sports’ Ken Rosenthal reports that the Giants are still interested in Leake and also like free agent Hisashi Iwakuma, so Samardzija could perhaps just be the first step in the team’s rotation upgrades.

In signing Samardzija, the Giants add a workhorse who has averaged 216 innings in each of the last three seasons.  This type of durability is sorely needed for a San Francisco rotation that has a lot of question marks behind ace Madison Bumgarner.  Jake Peavy was effective but limited by injuries in 2015, Matt Cain is coming off consecutive injury-shortened seasons and was very ineffective last year, and rookie Chris Heston is still something of an unknown quantity as he enters his sophomore year.  Even more depth could be added if the Giants indeed do land another starter, as Heston could conceivably take over the swingman role left by the non-tendered Yusmeiro Petit.

Of course, Samardzija himself isn’t a complete sure thing given that he’s coming off easily the worst of his four full seasons as a starting pitcher.  The righty posted a 4.96 ERA, 3.33 K/BB rate and 6.9 K/9 over 214 innings with the White Sox in 2015, allowing a league-high 29 homers and 118 earned runs.  That K/9 total was Samardzija’s lowest since 2010 and his grounder rate also plummeted to 39% after sitting at a very solid 49.2% in 2013-14.

The Giants clearly have faith that Samardzija can rebound in 2016 and beyond, however, and that he’ll return to his impressive 2012-14 form.  Samardzija turns 31 in January and has many fewer innings on his arm than most pitchers his age, thanks to extra years spent as a reliever and a relatively late start to his baseball career due to his stint as a star wide receiver for Notre Dame.  “The Shark” will also now be working in one of the game’s most pitcher-friendly stadiums (AT&T Park) and will have the Giants’ excellent defense behind him.  Samardzija’s 2015 numbers could be partially explained by the combination of the brutal White Sox defense, hitter-friendly U.S. Cellular Field and perhaps even just pitching in the American League, though the righty was excellent in his half-season with the A’s in 2014.

It may seem unusual that a pitcher coming off such a rough season would land a $90MM contract and yet MLBTR’s Tim Dierkes projected Samardzija for a five-year, $80MM deal (also correctly picking him to land with the Giants, to boot).  That extra $10MM bump may well have come due to the speed in which free agent aces are flying off the board.  With well-heeled teams like the Dodgers, Cardinals and Cubs still in need of pitching, it bodes well for Cueto, Leake, Wei-Yin Chen, Kenta Maeda and other remaining free agent starters that the supply of available arms is so quickly dwindling.

Since Samardzija rejected a qualifying offer from the White Sox, the Giants will have to give up their first-round draft pick (18th overall).  Chicago receives a compensation pick between the first and second rounds.

Photo courtesy of Kelvin Kuo/USA Today Sports Images

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Mariners Acquire Adam Lind

By Steve Adams | December 9, 2015 at 10:55am CDT

Another day, another trade for Mariners GM Jerry Dipoto. The Mariners and Brewers have announced a trade sending first baseman Adam Lind to Seattle in exchange for minor league right-handers Carlos Herrera, Freddy Peralta and Daniel Missaki.

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Following the trades of Mark Trumbo and Logan Morrison, the Mariners had a clear need for an upgrade at first base, and Lind should fill that void nicely. The 32-year-old is coming off a strong season with the Brewers in which he batted .277/.360/.460 with 20 home runs in 572 trips to the plate. Milwaukee made the easy call to exercise his $8MM club option this offseason, though the expectation has long been that the rebuilding Brewers would look to trade the final year of club control over Lind, who will be a free agent next winter.

That, of course, makes Lind a short-term upgrade for the Mariners, who will probably also look to add a platoon partner for him (although an in-house option like Jesus Montero could function well in that capacity). Lind batted just .221/.277/.298 against left-handed pitching in 2015 and was limited to 112 plate appearances against same-handed pitching, as his troubles in that regard are a known factor in his game. In parts of 10 seasons at the Major League level, Lind has batted just .213/.259/.327 against lefties. On the flip-side of that ugly split, however, is an impressive .293/.354/.509 batting line against right-handed pitching. Assuming a strict platoon deployment, Lind figures to give the Mariners a nice boost in on-base percentage at first base, and one can imagine a platoon of him and a righty with some notable pop — Mike Napoli, for instance, is a speculative fit with the Mariners — approximating or exceeding the power output that Trumbo would have delivered in a full-time capacity.

The acquisition gives new Mariners manager Scott Servais the option to run out a lineup that features Lind, Robinson Cano, Ketel Marte, Kyle Seager, Seth Smith, Leonys Martin and Nori Aoki against right-handed pitchers. Servais will have the option to deploy Montero (or a yet-unsigned platoon partner for Lind) and Franklin Gutierrez against left-handed pitching. The Mariners, of course, already have one of the game’s more potent right-handed bats in the form of Nelson Cruz.

The addition of Lind continues what has been one of the most active offseasons for any GM in recent memory, as Jerry Dipoto has wildly reshaped the Seattle roster in his first three months on the job. In addition to trading Trumbo and Morrison, Dipoto has also shipped out Brad Miller, Danny Farquhar, Tom Wilhelmsen, Carson Smith and multiple prospects in order to bring in Martin, Nate Karns, Wade Miley, Joaquin Benoit, Steve Clevenger, Anthony Bass, Luis Sardinas and Evan Scribner. Additionally, he’s re-signed Gutierrez and signed other free agents such as Aoki, Chris Iannetta and Justin De Fratus as he looks to reshape a roster that won a disappointing 76 games in 2015.

As for the Brewers, they’ll receive a trio of young arms that didn’t rank in the Mariners’ top 30 prospect on MLB.com’s end-of-season rankings, although each is exceptionally young and has a good bit of time to rise up the prospect ranks in Milwaukee.

Peralta, 19, did rank as Seattle’s No. 24 prospect in the eyes of Baseball America one winter ago. He spent his second season with the team’s Rookie-level affiliate in Arizona this season, and while he logged an uninspiring 4.11 ERA in 57 innings, he also posted an electric 67-to-8 K/BB ratio while spending most of his time (nine of 11 appearances) as a starting pitcher.

Seattle only signed Herrera, 18, in July of 2014. BA’s Ben Badler wrote at the time that Herrera’s fastball was topping out at 90 mph as a 16-year-old, but his projectable 6’3″, 170-pound frame gave reason to believe that more velocity would come as he filled out. He also noted that Herrera had a 72-74 mph curve ball in his arsenal. Herrera debuted in the Dominican Summer League this past season, pitching to a 3.26 ERA with 73 strikeouts against just 13 walks in 80 innings.

Missaki, 19, is a Brazilian-born right-hander who, as Tom Haudricourt of the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel tweets, underwent Tommy John surgery back in May. Despite his young age, Missaki opened the season in the Class-A Midwest League and looked impressive in six starts, pitching to a 3.41 ERA with a 34-to-5 K/BB ratio in 34 1/3 innings against markedly older competition. He’ll presumably be ready to take the mound this summer and could see some more action at Class-A upon a return to health.

The three prospects acquired here demonstrate that new Brewers GM David Stearns is committed to restocking the farm and won’t be shy about moving Major League assets for players that are years away from contributing in the Majors. Each of the pitchers acquired has displayed impressive control for a young pitcher, which could be a point of emphasis in future trades as the Brewers look to return to prominence in an absolutely stacked National League Central Division.

Ken Rosenthal and Jon Morosi of FOX Sports initially reported that the Mariners were pursuing Lind and making progress in talks. Jon Heyman of CBS Sports reported that the deal was in place (Twitter link). Jim Bowden of ESPN and MLB Network Radio on SiriusXM said the Brewers would get three minor leaguers (links to Twitter). Joel Sherman of the New York Post tweeted that all three were pitchers.

Photo courtesy of USA Today Sports Images.

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Sign Up For Our Free Weekly Newsletter

By Tim Dierkes | December 9, 2015 at 8:55am CDT

Thousands of people are reading the free MLBTR Newsletter each week; why not give it a try? We’ll deliver an exclusive article to your inbox – no strings attached! I’ll be weighing in on deals, rumors, and all the hot stove-related topics MLBTR has been known for since I launched the site a decade ago. These articles will be exclusive to MLBTR Newsletter subscribers and will not appear on the website. I may also provide occasional updates on what’s next for MLBTR. It’s completely free. This week’s newsletter focuses on the Cubs’ signing of Ben Zobrist and trade of Starlin Castro here at the Winter Meetings in Nashville.

I’ll be honored if you give us your email address and join the thousands of MLBTR readers already enjoying the Newsletter. We will never sell your email address or market anything to the mailing list, and you can unsubscribe easily. Those of you viewing this post in our app can use this link.

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Diamondbacks Acquire Shelby Miller

By Steve Adams | December 9, 2015 at 8:04am CDT

WEDNESDAY: The teams have officially announced the deal.

TUESDAY: After more than a week of rampant speculation, the Shelby Miller blockbuster that many anticipated has arrived. The Braves on Tuesday reportedly agreed to send Miller and left-handed relief prospect Gabe Speier to the Diamondbacks in exchange for outfielder Ender Inciarte, right-handed pitching prospect Aaron Blair and shortstop prospect Dansby Swanson, the latter of whom was the No. 1 overall pick in the 2015 draft back in June.

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Miller, 25, has been one of the hottest commodities on the trade market for the past seven to 10 days. The D-backs will control him for at least three seasons via the arbitration process — he’s projected by MLBTR contributor Matt Swartz to earn just under $5MM next season — and he’ll give Arizona another potent arm to pair with Patrick Corbin and newly signed ace Zack Greinke atop a dramatically improved rotation.

As many as 20 teams reportedly checked in on Miller, who will ultimately spend just one year in Atlanta after being the main piece received in last winter’s Jason Heyward blockbuster with the Cardinals. The former first-round pick and top 10 prospect enjoyed a strong season in 2015 with the Braves, compiling a 3.02 ERA with 7.5 K/9, 3.2 BB/9 and a career-best 47.7 percent ground-ball rate in a career-high 205 2/3 innings. It should be noted, though, that Miller’s dominant overall numbers are propped up, to some extent, by an unsustainable 1.48 ERA through his first 10 starts. While Miller was still very solid after that stretch — he logged a 3.77 ERA with a 122-to-55 K/BB ratio across his final 138 1/3 frames — fielding-independent-pitching metrics peg him as more of a mid- to upper-3.00s ERA type of pitcher. Whether he looks more like the front-line arm he appeared to be in 2015 or the steady mid-rotation arm those metrics peg him to be, Miller unequivocally has value, but the Diamondbacks have indeed paid a steep price to acquire his services.

Inciarte (pictured below) is the Major League ready piece of the deal for Atlanta. He’ll bring five years of club control to the Braves and can immediately slot into center field there, although he also has extensive experience at both corner positions. Inciarte, 25, was largely unheralded as a prospect but has batted a combined .292/.329/.386 in his first two Major League seasons, including a stellar .303/.338/.408 line in 2015. Inciarte is an elite defender at any of the three outfield spots; he’s amassed 52 Defensive Runs Saved in just 1972 innings at the Major League level or, if you prefer, +33.7 runs, per Ultimate Zone Rating. While he lacks much in the way of power and may see his surface-level rate stats decline by moving away from the hitters’ haven that is Phoenix’s Chase Field, Inciarte will help the Braves’ chances both in 2016 and into the next planned phase of the team’s status as contenders.

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Swanson, 22 in February, is barely six months removed from being the first overall pick in the 2015 draft. A shortstop out of Vanderbilt, Swanson spent the summer playing with Arizona’s short-season Class-A affiliate in Hillsboro, where he batted .289/.394/.482 in 22 games/99 plate appearances. His inclusion significantly enhances the deal for Atlanta, who recently parted ways with shortstop Andrelton Simmons. While Swanson won’t be ready to jump to the Majors in 2016 — at least not early on — he gives the Braves a potential Simmons replacement at some point in the 2017 or 2018 season and joins 18-year-old (19 in January) Ozhaino Albies as an elite shortstop prospect rising through the ranks of the Atlanta farm system.

MLB.com rated Swanson as the No. 10 prospect in all of Major League Baseball at the end of the season, and Swanson unsurprisingly ranked as the organization’s top prospect according to both that outlet and Baseball America. BA’s scouting report noted that Swanson has no weaknesses in his toolkit, calling him a prototypical No. 2 hitter that has 15-homer pop with plus speed and a future as a solid, if not above-average defender at shortstop. MLB.com notes that most scouts think he can stick at shortstop, adding that he has off-the-charts makeup and could be in the Majors by 2018. As a bonus for the Braves, Swanson’s Georgia roots — he attended high school in Marietta — figure to make him popular with the Atlanta fanbase.

Blair, 23, is a little more than two years removed from being a first-rounder himself (albeit, a compensatory first-round pick). Arizona selected him 36th overall in 2003, and he currently ranks 61st on MLB.com’s Top 100. BA rated him as the D-backs’ No. 2 prospect, trailing only the aforementioned Swanson. The Marshall University product split the 2015 season between Double-A and Triple-A, pitching to a combined 2.92 ERA with 6.7 K/9 against 2.8 BB/9. BA notes that he has a 91-95 mph heater with heavy sink that generates plenty of grounders in addition to a curveball that misses bats and a changeup that he uses to pitch to contact. MLB.com and BA both agree that Blair is nearly big league ready and should debut in 2016, with both calling him a potential mid-rotation starter.

In addition to Miller, the D-backs will receive the 20-year-old Speier, who spent this past season pitching at Class-A, where he recorded a 2.86 ERA with 7.4 K/9 against 2.5 BB/9 in 44 innings of relief work. Speier, a 19th-round pick in 2013, is already plenty familiar with being traded. He was originally selected by Boston but traded to the Tigers a year ago (almost to the day) alongside Yoenis Cespedes in exchange for Rick Porcello. Detroit shipped him to Atlanta a couple of weeks ago in the Cameron Maybin trade, and he’s now on the move for the third time in less than three full years as a pro.

By making this trade, the Diamondbacks have exhibited their clear desire to win now. The presence of Greinke, Corbin and Miller atop their rotation gives Arizona arguably the best rotation in the National League West, but the price they’ve paid is sizable. Perhaps more notably, it continues to display that GM Dave Stewart, VP De Jon Watson and chief baseball office Tony La Russa value draft picks in a considerably different manner than a number of their baseball ops peers around the league. Arizona forfeited its 2016 first-round pick in order to sign Greinke and has now traded the 2015 top pick (Swanson) in addition to its 2014 first-rounder, Touki Toussaint, in a deal that many felt amounted to a salary dump to rid themselves of Bronson Arroyo’s contract. With this recent string of moves, the D-backs have moved three of their past four highest draft picks and foregone the right to pick 13th in next year’s draft.

Of course, Arizona will now have an impressive rotation trio to support MVP candidate Paul Goldschmidt and the underrated A.J. Pollock, who will now probably share the outfield with David Peralta and Yasmany Tomas with Inciarte in Atlanta. The D-backs are aggressively branding the 2016 as an “evolutionary” year, and the moves they’ve made bear out the fact that the coming seasons will carry significantly greater expectations than the team has had in quite some time.

For the Braves, the move further adds to the ever-growing stockpile of young talent that president of baseball operations John Hart and GM John Coppolella have accumulated over the past calendar year. While the loss of Miller undeniably hurts the club’s pitching staff, one could potentially make the argument that the addition of Inciarte to the 2016 roster offsets much of the value the team is losing by subtracting Miller’s highly talented arm from the roster. And, adding a pair of high-impact prospects, one of whom (Blair) could make an impact as soon as 2016, further accelerates the rebuilding effort to align with the club’s stated desire of contending in 2017 — the first season of the newly constructed SunTrust Park.

The huge stockpile of minor league talent and the shedding of sizable financial commitments — Miller could potentially earn $8-9MM in 2017 depending on his 2016 results — will position Atlanta to be aggressive on both the trade and free-agent front. The Braves, after all, have just $46MM committed to four players in 2017 and only three that will be eligible for arbitration (none of whom should command anything close to a prohibitive salary).

Ken Rosenthal of FOX Sports first reported that Miller was going to Arizona (Twitter link). Joel Sherman of the New York Post added that Inciarte and others were going to Atlanta (also on Twitter). The Arizona Republic’s Nick Piecoro reported that Swanson and Blair were in the deal (Twitter link).  Steve Gilbert of MLB.com reported that Speier would also go to Arizona.

Photos courtesy of USA Today Sports Images.

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Arizona Diamondbacks Atlanta Braves Newsstand Transactions Aaron Blair Dansby Swanson Ender Inciarte Shelby Miller

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Yankees To Acquire Starlin Castro For Adam Warren, Brendan Ryan

By Steve Adams | December 8, 2015 at 7:10pm CDT

The Yankees and Cubs have agreed to a trade that will send Starlin Castro to New York, pending medical reviews.  The deal will also see right-hander Adam Warren and Brendan Ryan (listed as a player to be named later) heading to the Cubs.

Castro, 26 in March, is a three-time All-Star that struggled mightily for much of the 2015 campaign but had a strong finish to the season and an even better showing in the playoffs. Overall, Castro batted .265/.296/.375 last season, marking the second time in the past three seasons in which he’s delivered a well-below average output on offense. However, the 2014 campaign was excellent, as Castro batted .292/.339/.438 with 14 home runs. The Yankees will be counting on Castro to look more like his 2014 and the late-2015 versions of himself over the course of the next four seasons that remain on his contract.

A total of $38MM remains on the seven-year, $60MM contract extension Castro signed three years ago. With the Yankees, he will, presumably, step in as the everyday second baseman for the foreseeable future. His addition calls into question what the Yanks will do with incumbent second basemen Dustin Ackley and Rob Refsnyder, who had previously been slated to platoon in 2016. While one could remain on the roster as a utility option, it’s tough to envision the club keeping both players and Castro on the active roster next year.

Warren, 28, will give the Cubs a right-hander that was one of the more valuable swingmen in the game last season. The former fourth-round pick appeared in 43 games for the Yankees, making 17 starts and 26 relief appearances en route to a career-high 131 1/3 innings. In that time, Warren posted a 3.29 ERA with 7.1 K/9, 2.7 BB/9 and a 45.2 percent ground-ball rate. Those numbers are more or less commensurate with the production he delivered from 2013-14 while working almost exclusively out of the bullpen (101 relief appearances, two starts) and can be a reasonable expectation for him going forward. (If anything, one could perhaps forecast slightly better results due to the move to the National League.) He can be controlled for another three years in arbitration.

Ryan, 34 in March, exercised his $1MM player option this offseason. Ryan has not been terribly productive since coming to New York, taking just 289 plate appearances and compiling a poor .201/.244/.271 batting line over his three years with the team. Still, he is valued most for his glove and he can contribute at second base and in other infield roles.

Joel Sherman of the New York Post (on Twitter) and ESPN’s Buster Olney (on Twitter) first reported that Castro was New York-bound.  YES Network’s Jack Curry (Twitter link) reported that Adam Warren and a PTBNL were going to the Cubs.   Jon Heyman of CBS Sports tweeted that the PTBNL was Brendan Ryan.  Photo courtesy of USA Today Sports Images.

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Chicago Cubs New York Yankees Newsstand Transactions Adam Warren Brendan Ryan Starlin Castro

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Cubs To Sign Ben Zobrist

By Steve Adams | December 8, 2015 at 6:55pm CDT

Ben Zobrist’s free agency has reached its long-awaited conclusion as the veteran elected to join an exciting, young Cubs roster. He’ll reportedly receive a four-year, $56MM contract that comes with full no-trade protection in the first three years and an eight-team no-trade list in year four.

The deal will reunite the utilityman with former Rays manager Joe Maddon, who now runs the dugout in Chicago. Zobrist, who is represented by Octagon, will take home a $2MM signing bonus, $10MM in 2016, $16MM in both 2017 and 2018, then $12MM in 2019.

The addition of Zobrist creates a number of logjams on the Chicago roster, as his best positions — corner outfield and second base — are currently occupied by a combination of Kyle Schwarber, Jorge Soler, Javier Baez and Starlin Castro. Then again, the Cubs are said to be discussing a trade of Castro to the Yankees,* which would potentially free up second base and move Baez into a super-utility role (provided he isn’t traded himself).

Zobrist, 35 next May, is coming off a season in which he batted a combined .276/.359/.450 in 535 plate appearances between Oakland and Kansas City. The switch-hitter handled both right-handed pitchers and left-handed pitchers well and delivered arguably his best offensive season in the past three years despite splitting most of his time between the pitcher-friendly O.Co Coliseum and Kauffman Stadium.

Defensive metrics were down on Zobrist this season, though one has to wonder whether or not knee surgery that he underwent early in the year sapped his range and led to the uncharacteristically low ratings placed upon his glove by Defensive Runs Saved and Ultimate Zone Rating. Zobrist has typically graded out as a well-above-average defender in the outfield corners and at second base, and he also comes with big league experience at shortstop, third base and first base. That defensive versatility is one of the reasons that he was such a hot commodity on this winter’s free-agent market, with upwards of a dozen clubs connected to him at various times.

Zobrist was long tied to the Mets, Giants, Braves and Nationals, but the Cubs re-emerged as an apparent suitor in media reports earlier this afternoon. Zobrist’s priorities were said to be a winning team and a team that is relatively close to his Nashville home, and the Cubs check both of those boxes.

*Editor’s Note: A trade sending Castro to New York was reported later in the same evening.

Tommy Stokke of FanRag Sports tweeted that Zobrist would sign with the Cubs. Ken Rosenthal of FOX Sports tweeted the contract terms. Jon Heyman of CBS Sports and the New York Post’s Ken Davidoff reported details of the no-trade provision and annual breakdown.

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Jose Fernandez Rumors: 12-8-2015

By Jeff Todd | December 8, 2015 at 4:03pm CDT

We’ve heard persistent rumors that the Marlins could still be willing to listen to trade offers for star righty Jose Fernandez, even if the asking price is incredibly steep. Though president of baseball operations Michael Hill said yesterday that Fernandez is “not available,” the rumors have carried over into the second day of the Winter Meetings.

Here’s the latest:

  • The Dodgers have discussed trying to involve a third team in trade talks for Fernandez, according to Rosenthal (Twitter link).

Earlier Updates

  • Marlins owner Jeffrey Loria says there’s “nothing I am thinking about doing at the moment” with Fernandez, Ken Rosenthal of FOX Sports tweets.
  • Yankees sources tell Joel Sherman of the New York Post (Twitter links) that the team never offered Severino and isn’t interested in doing so. The club has not held “substantive talks” on Fernandez, per the report.
  • About a dozen clubs have inquired on Fernandez, MLB.com’s Joe Frisaro reports (Twitter links). The Dodgers appear to be the best match, he says, if they’d part with Seager, Urias, and more. Needless to say, that’s a big “if.” The Yankees were willing to give up their best young arm, Luis Severino, per the report, but Frisaro adds that it doesn’t seem New York has enough to give for Fernandez even if it included first baseman Greg Bird.
  • The Giants have also had conversations with Miami about Fernandez, Jon Heyman of CBSSports.com reports. Meanwhile, the Dodgers appear unwilling to involve Corey Seager in any deal but could consider including top pitching prospect Julio Urias in a package.
  • Miami appears to be engaging in discussions on Fernandez more to gauge his future value than to structure a deal right now, Clark Spencer of the Miami Herald writes.
  • A rival executive tells Ken Rosenthal of FOX Sports (Twitter link) that Miami still does not seem terribly willing to part with Fernandez. “They haven’t proposed anything reasonable enough to make people think they want to deal,” said the anonymous source.
  • A source tells Evan Drellich of the Houston Chronicle (via Twitter) that the Astros aren’t the “mystery team” pursuing Fernandez.
  • There’s a mystery team entering the picture on Fernandez with a “very strong” bid, ESPN.com’s Jayson Stark reports. Sources with “other clubs” tell Stark that the Astros are believed to be the shadowy pursuer. Stark also adds that a deal increasingly seems plausible, with Miami possibly holding off on pursing a Marcell Ozuna deal while the team explores the addition of an outfielder through a trade of Fernandez.
  • As Stark notes in the story, he previously reported that the Dodgers, Diamondbacks, and Yankees have at least contacted the Marlins regarding Fernandez, though Arizona is said to have dropped out of the picture.
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Houston Astros Miami Marlins Newsstand San Francisco Giants Jose Fernandez

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Latest On Rangers And Prince Fielder

By Jeff Todd | December 8, 2015 at 3:02pm CDT

3:01pm: Texas is not “shopping” Fielder, GM Jon Daniels says, as Jeff Wilson of the Fort Worth Star-Telegram (Twitter links). And a source tells Wilson that the club hasn’t had “any conversations” regarding the veteran slugger.

12:25pm: The Rangers are “surveying” rival teams to gauge the market’s interest in “picking up [the] bulk” of the contract of first baseman Prince Fielder, Evan Grant of the Dallas Morning News reports on Twitter. But Texas does not appear to be receiving much indication that there’s much likelihood of finding a match.

With the Tigers carrying $30MM of the remaining burden on Fielder, he’s owed an additional $90MM by the Rangers through 2020. That’s not a monumental obligation for a player of his ability, and there seem to be plenty of teams looking for bats, but it’s not clear what Texas would be looking for in structuring a deal.

Fielder, 31, had a bounceback season for the Rangers last year. He ended the campaign with a .305/.378/.463 slash and 24 home runs after dealing with back issues in 2014. But that’s still a far cry from the huge stats he put up earlier in his career, and Fielder fell off rather noticeably in the second half.

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Newsstand Texas Rangers Prince Fielder

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