Headlines

Go To Pro Hockey Rumors
Go To Hoops Rumors

Newsstand

Red Sox Name Frank Wren Senior VP Of Baseball Operations

By | at

The Red Sox announced this afternoon that former Braves GM Frank Wren has been hired as the team’s senior vice president of baseball operations. Wren, 57, worked with president of baseball operations Dave Dombrowski previously in the Marlins and Expos organizations. He will add to the team’s new-look front office, which also features newly appointed general manager Mike Hazen, who was promoted yesterday after previously serving as the team’s assistant GM. Boston also announced that assistant director of player personnel Jared Banner has been promoted to director of player personnel.

Frank Wren

Wren was rumored to be a candidate to step in as the new Red Sox general manager immediately upon Dombrowski’s hiring, although Jon Heyman of CBS Sports reported last week that he may ultimately sign on with a title other than GM. That appears to be the case, though based on Wren’s title, one can imagine him playing a significant role in baseball operations decision-making.

Per the press release announcing the move, Wren“will serve as a talent evaluator and will assist Dombrowski in all aspects of baseball operations.” Based on that description, Wren will report directly to Dombrowski, though he’ll still be underneath Hazen in terms of organizational hierarchy. As Brian MacPherson of the Providence Journal tweets, it seems that Wren will be an aide but, unlike Hazen, won’t handle negotiations with agents or other teams.

The final years of Wren’s tenure as Braves general manager was marred by organizational missteps, as Atlanta made questionable free agent signings and extensions alike. Most notably, the signing of Melvin Upton Jr. and extensions for both Dan Uggla and Chris Johnson went south quickly. That’s not to say that none of the moves made with Wren in the GM chair panned out, of course; the acquisition of Justin Upton still looks to have been a win for the Braves, even if Upton has since been traded. Similarly, the Braves gave up little in the way of impact talent to acquire Michael Bourn and were rewarded with a season and a half of excellent play as well as draft compensation upon Bourn’s departure. (Here’s a full list of Wren’s transactions while serving as a GM, courtesy of the MLBTR Transaction Tracker.)

Nevertheless, the late missteps in Wren’s tenure outweighed the successes in the eyes of ownership, who replaced him with fellow veteran baseball ops exec John Hart. His new role with the Red Sox will be more limited, it seems, as he’ll serve primarily as a talent evaluator and will be based in Atlanta as opposed to in Boston, according to Peter Abraham of the Boston Globe and Sean McAdam of Comcast Sportsnet New England (Twitter links).

Photo courtesy of USA Today Sports Images.

Greg Holland Has “Significant” Tear In UCL; Tommy John Surgery Likely

By | at

4:08pm: Holland has a “significant” tear in his UCL, according to manager Ned Yost (via McCullough). Tommy John surgery is the likely course of action. Yost now believes Holland tore the ligament last August, meaning he pitched last September and the postseason as well as all of 2015 with a tear in the ligament. The Royals asked Holland to get his elbow checked out multiple times this season, McCullough adds, but he declined each time until last month.

3:55pm: Holland tells reporters, including McCullough (Twitter links) that an MRI taken earlier this month revealed ligament damage. He has, in fact, been battling discomfort since last August but did not want to undergo an MRI previously, as his desire was instead to pitch through the pain.

3:47pm: The Royals announced today that closer Greg Holland has been shut down for the season. Andy McCullough of the Kansas City Star reports that Dr. Neal ElAttrache will examine Holland’s elbow next week (Twitter links). Per McCullough, the possibility of Tommy John surgery is looming, but nothing will be known until next week.

Holland was recently removed from the closer’s role in favor of Wade Davis. The formerly dominant closer has seen his velocity dramatically decrease recently and has posted a dismal 5.50 ERA on 24 hits and 11 walks in 18 second-half innings. His decline and subsequent loss for the postseason is a huge blow to the Royals, who reached Game 7 of the World Series in 2014 based largely on the dominant performances of Holland, Davis and Kelvin Herrera. Holland’s departure from the bullpen mix makes GM Dayton Moore’s signing of Ryan Madson look like that much more of a coup, as the former Phillies closer has rebounded decisively after a three-year absence due to injury; Madson has a brilliant 2.31 ERA with 8.3 K/9 against just 1.9 BB/9 in 58 1/3 innings this season.

The injury to Holland will put the Royals in a precarious position this winter. Always a team on a tight budget, there were questions last winter about Kansas City’s ability to pay both Holland and Davis at relatively premium rates. Holland took home an $8.25MM salary via the arbitration process, and he’ll be arb-eligible for the third and final time this winter. That means that Holland, who recently hired Scott Boras as his new agent, could be in line for a salary near or in excess of $10MM in spite of his second half struggles.

In the event that Holland requires Tommy John surgery, he’d be an easy call to non-tender, although that would be a disappointing way to end the Royals tenure of such a key organizational figure. The real dilemma, however, will be what to do with Holland in the event that he does not require Tommy John or any form of major surgery. One would imagine that his trade value is down due to underperformance, salary and, now, injury. The Royals could roll the dice and tender him a contract, but this year’s $112MM payroll is a club record. For a team that typically has operated with a sub-$100MM payroll, paying a potentially damaged relief pitcher $10MM+ is a dicey proposal, so the prospect of a non-tender for Holland has to be considered even in the event that major surgery isn’t required.

Red Sox Name Mike Hazen GM

By | at

The Red Sox have filled their general manager vacancy from within, as the team announced today that assistant GM Mike Hazen will be promoted to the role of general manager to replace the departed Ben Cherington. Hazen, of course, will report to recently hired president of baseball operations Dave Dombrowski.

In his previous role as senior vice president/assistant GM, Hazen assisted Ben Cherington (who resigned upon Dombrowski’s hiring) in player acquisitions, player evaluation, contract negotiations, major league, and pro scouting, per the Red Sox. His time with the Red Sox dates back to the 2006 season when he was hired as the team’s director of player development. Before his time with the Sox, Hazen spent five years working in the Indians’ front office, focusing on player development and scouting. The Princeton grad played four years of college ball and was a 31st-round draft pick of the Padres in 1998. He played two minor league seasons before joining Cleveland’s scouting department.

“Over his 10 years with the Red Sox, Mike has proven to be an invaluable member of the baseball operations department,” said Dombrowski in a press release announcing the move. “We are thrilled to have him in this position and I’m excited to have him working with me on every aspect of baseball operations.” Executive vice president/COO Sam Kennedy calls this a “great day” for the Red Sox organization, adding: “Mike’s leadership, work ethic, and passion for the game are second to none.  His experience, combined with his local roots, make him the perfect choice to work alongside Dave as we head into 2016.”

The 39-year-old Hazen was one of many rumored candidates for the GM vacancy in Boston. Former Braves GM Frank Wren and former Rockies GM Dan O’Dowd both were mentioned as possibilities, with Wren believed at one point to be a particularly strong possibility. CBS Sports’ Jon Heyman recently reported, though, that it’s possible Wren could be hired to serve in a non-GM capacity. Boston is said to have recently interviewed Astros director of player development Quinton McCracken, and other names mentioned in the search included Yankees AGM Billy Eppler, D-Backs vice president De Jon Watson and former Angels GM Jerry Dipoto, who is currently working with the Sox in an advisory capacity. It’s unclear how, or if, the hiring of Hazen will impact Dipoto’s role with the club.

One would imagine that the hiring of Hazen bodes well for Boston’s chances at retaining a large number of the executives currently within the front office. It makes sense that Hazen, who comes with a good deal of front office experience and an obvious in-depth familiarity with the Sox’ farm system, would be selected to pair with Dombrowski atop Boston’s baseball operations pyramid.

Jon Heyman of CBS Sports first reported the promotion (via Twitter).

Yogi Berra Passes Away

By | at

It’s a sad day in the game of baseball, as reports late last night surfaced that one of the game’s all-time great players and personalities, Yogi Berra, has passed away. The Hall of Famer, three-time MVP and 10-time World Series Champion was 90 years old.

Berra spent parts of 19 seasons in the Major Leagues, debuting at 21 years of age in 1946 and would don Yankee pinstripes each season through 1963, also making a brief, four-game appearance with the Mets in 1965. An excellent defensive catcher (and eventually a plus defender in the outfield as well), Berra caught 49 percent of the baserunners that attempted to steal against him in his career and compiled a brilliant .285/.348/.482 batting line in 8359 big league plate appearances. He retired with 358 home runs, 1175 runs scored, 1430 RBIs and 704 walks against a minuscule 414 strikeouts in his career. Strikeouts, of course, were less common in that era than in today’s game, but Berra’s knack for putting the ball in play was nonetheless remarkable; he struck out just 12 times in 656 trips to the plate in 1950 and five times completed a season with more home runs than punchouts.

Berra would earn MVP honors in the 1951, 1954 and 1955 seasons, and he finished in the Top 5 of the award’s voting on five other occasions. He batted .274/.359/.452 in his illustrious postseason career, all of which contributed to the Yankees’ decision to retire his No. 8 alongside the rest of the legends of the franchise.

Following his playing career, Berra returned to the game as a manager, spending parts of seven seasons guiding both the Yankees and Mets. Though he finished with an overall record that was four games south of .500, Berra captured a pennant with each franchise, winning the AL pennant with the Yankees in 1964 and the NL pennant with the Mets in 1973.

Despite all of the aforementioned accolades, though, Berra is equally, if not more revered due to his affable nature and paradoxically quotable nature. Berra was a font of quotes throughout his career — the New York Post has compiled 35 of his most memorable “Yogi-isms” in tribute to the Yankee icon — responsible for now-classic sayings such as, “It ain’t over till it’s over,” “Baseball is 90 percent mental. The other half is physical,” “It’s deja vu all over again,” and “You can observe a lot by watching.”

Berra served as an inspiration to multiple generations of fans and players alike, and he’ll be remembered as one of the game’s true treasures. Though the game will never see another character quite like Berra, he leaves behind a wealth of irreplaceable memories that will ensure his presence remains ingrained in the very fabric of the game for generations to come. We at MLBTR join those in mourning his passing and offer our condolences to his three sons, the rest of his family and friends as well as the countless people whose lives were impacted and bettered by one of the game’s all-time great personalities.

Korean Outfielder Ah-Seop Son Likely To Be Posted This Offseason

By | at

Korean outfielder Ah-seop Son plans to enter the posting system this winter in order to jump from the Korea Baseball Organization to Major League Baseball, reports Yahoo’s Jeff Passan. Son, a 27-year-old corner outfielder for KBO’s Lotte Giants, is being represented by agent Rick Thurman of the Beverly Hills Sports Council, per Passan.

The left-handed-hitting Son has batted .324/.412/.476 with 12 home runs and 11 stolen bases in 476 plate appearances this season, walking at a 13 percent clip while striking out in 19.5 percent of his plate appearances. Son has batted .306 or better for the past six seasons in KBO, posting a cumulative batting line of .330/.405/.471 that closely mirrors his overall production from the 2015 campaign.

Son will look to follow in the footsteps of Pirates infielder Jung Ho Kang, whose four-year, $11MM contract and $5MM posting fee have proved to be perhaps this past offseason’s greatest bargain. Of course, it’s somewhat understandable that interest in Kang was mixed, as he’s the first position player to make the jump from KBO to MLB. Many questioned whether or not his prodigious power would translate to the Majors or if it was simply a product of the KBO’s notoriously hitter-friendly league. While Kang’s power didn’t necessarily translate, he has, as Passan notes, certainly performed well enough that clubs may be less wary of taking on hitters from Korea’s top professional league.

Korean players are subject to the traditional posting system in which all 30 clubs must submit blind bids, with the team that submits the highest amount being given a 30-day window to then negotiate a contract. Should the team and Son’s representatives at BHSC fail to reach a deal, the posting fee would be returned to the MLB team that submitted the winning bid, and Son would return to KBO.

If a team is unable to work out a deal with Son, however, he could still find himself in the Majors eventually. KBO players become unrestricted free agents following their ninth full season, after which they’re free to negotiate with all 30 MLB clubs. For Son, that would come after the 2017 season. Though he’s technically appeared in parts of nine pro seasons, he didn’t earn enough service time in his first few years to become eligible until after 2017.

Phillies Extend Manager Pete Mackanin

By | at

The Phillies have extended the contract of manager Pete Mackanin through next season, according to a team announcement. Philadelphia will also add a club option for the 2017 campaign.

Aug 12, 2015; Phoenix, AZ, USA; Philadelphia Phillies interim manager Pete Mackanin against the Arizona Diamondbacks at Chase Field. Mandatory Credit: Mark J. Rebilas-USA TODAY Sports

Mackanin stepped in mid-year for the basement-dwelling Phils amidst significant organizational turmoil. When then-skipper Ryne Sandberg resigned in late June, Mackanin was given dugout duties on an interim basis. Not long thereafter, Philadelphia brought in new president Andy MacPhail and ultimately fired GM Ruben Amaro Jr.

While the general manager’s seat remains open, the Phillies apparently decided that they had seen enough positive results from Mackanin to keep him as the top uniformed personnel member. Philly is just 30-46 under Mackanin’s leadership, which isn’t much better than they were with Sandberg, but the team was never expected to contend and has also dealt with the loss of several more key veterans.

Of course, Philadelphia is less concerned with immediate results than it is with development at this stage, and Mackanin has overseen a fairly promising arrival of younger players. Having already helped to welcome key names such as Maikel Franco and Aaron Nola to the big leagues, Mackanin will be responsible for overseeing their continued maturation and the ongoing introduction of youthful talent onto the big league roster.

“The Phillies are pleased that Pete has accepted the position of manager for the 2016 season,” MacPhail said in a statement. “We believe that Pete is the best fit for the role. Since assuming the interim manager position in June, Pete has developed an excellent rapport with our players and has also connected well with the media and our fans. Equally as important is his eagerness to take on the challenge of rebuilding the team and further developing our players. We look forward to his contributions.”

Mackanin is a veteran baseball man, but this will be his first non-interim managerial stint. He has previously spent time as a stop-gap skipper for the Pirates and Reds. Before his more recent turn as the Phillies’ third base coach, Mackanin was the team’s bench coach over 2009-12.

Photo courtesy of USA Today Sports Images

Billy Hamilton To Undergo Shoulder Surgery

By | at

Reds center fielder Billy Hamilton will undergo right shoulder surgery on Friday, C. Trent Rosecrans of the Cincinnati Enquirer reports (Twitter links). Needless to say, he’ll miss the rest of the season, though his long-term outlook is of greater importance at this stage.

Hamilton is expected to be able to recover in time for a full spring, according to GM Walt Jocketty. “There’s no structural damage,” he said, “but we think [the surgery] will help and [Hamilton will] be 100% and ready to go before Spring Training.”

Hamilton has been dealing with a sprained capsule since mid-August, as MLB.com’s Mark Sheldon recently explained. He was activated from the DL recently, but the problem flared back up. There was apparently some consideration given to simply using Hamilton as a pinch runner over the final weeks of the season, but obviously both team and player decided it was preferable to go the surgical route now.

This season was not what the 25-year-old hoped for even before the shoulder problem arose. The noted speed demon was just productive enough at the plate last year to allow his baserunning and defense to carry his value.

But while Hamilton has improved with his legs this year — he was caught in just eight of 65 stolen base attempts after being nabbed 23 times in 2014 — his numbers at the plate plummeted. All told, he owns a .226/.274/.289 slash in 454 plate appearances on the season.

It appears that Hamilton has every hope of a normal spring, which is certainly good news. But any lost development opportunities could be problematic, as there’s plenty on the line for him next season. Hamilton will enter the 2016 campaign with 2.028 years of service on his clock, making it an arbitration platform year. And Cincinnati will be looking to assess whether he’s a long-term solution in center.

Latest On Yadier Molina, Adam Wainwright Injuries

By | at

After undergoing an MRI, Yadier Molina has been diagnosed with a slightly torn ligament in his left thumb that will sideline him for an indefinite period of time, tweets the St. Louis Post-Dispatch’s Derrick Goold. Cardinals GM John Mozeliak is “cautiously optimistic” that Molina will return for the playoffs, though, according to a tweet from USA Today’s Bob Nightengale, and he’s not the only injured star that could make a postseason appearance; ace Adam Wainwright could rejoin the club in a relief capacity for October, according to Goold. Wainwright has been cleared for baseball activities.

Molina’s injury was the reason for the Cardinals’ DFA of first baseman Xavier Scruggs — as a 40-man move was required in order to recall a replacement catcher. As MLB.com’s Jenifer Langosch writes, Molina sustained the injury on a swipe tag of Anthony Rizzo on a game-saving outfield assist from Jason Heyward yesterday.

The 33-year-old Molina has had a down season, hitting just .270/.310/.350 with four home runs. He’s still been excellent at controlling the running game, however, preventing 41 percent of stolen base attempts against him. He’s also drawn positive reviews for his pitch-framing skills once again, saving 5.7 runs above average per StatCorner.com and 7.4 runs per Baseball Prospectus. Even if his bat hasn’t lived up to his standards this season, the potential loss of his defense and familiarity with the pitching staff would be a huge blow for the Cardinals in the postseason should he be unable to return. He’ll be re-evaluated in five to seven days.

On the flip side of the coin, the potential return of Wainwright would be a somewhat unexpected boost to an already dangerous club (though as Nightengale tweets, Wainwright never once believed himself to be done for the season). Wainwright tossed 25 excellent innings for the Cardinals to open the season, but the longtime St. Louis ace ruptured his Achilles tendon midway through his fourth start of the season.

Goold reported yesterday that Wainwright would meet with doctors today in order to see if he could pitch this year, and while he clearly won’t have time to build up to a starter’s workload, adding that caliber of arm to the bullpen would be a boon for the Cardinals who, of course, are plenty familiar with the impact Wainwright can have on a postseason from the bullpen. Wainwright fired 9 2/3 shutout relief innings with a 15-to-2 K/BB ratio as a 24-year-old rookie in 2006, striking out Carlos Beltran to seal the NLCS and Brandon Inge to lock down the World Series.

Brewers Name David Stearns General Manager

By | at

1:15pm: The Brewers have announced Stearns at a press conference (you can follow along the live video stream of the conference here).

SEPT. 21, 9:43am: Stearns will be introduced as the new general manager today at 1pm CT, tweets MLB.com’s Adam McCalvy.

SEPT. 20: The Brewers are expected to name Astros assistant GM David Stearns as their new GM, Ken Rosenthal of FOX Sports tweets.  Stearns will indeed be the next GM in Milwaukee, Brian McTaggart of MLB.com tweets, and he adds that a formal announcement will come on Monday.

David Stearns

Stearns, 30, will now become the youngest GM in baseball.  He is, in fact, younger than seven players on the Brewers’ current roster (Ryan Braun, Matt Garza, Kyle Lohse, Adam Lind, Nevin Ashley, Francisco Rodriguez and Cesar Jimenez).  As an assistant GM in Houston, he was tasked with assisting GM Jeff Luhnow in “all baseball operations capacities including player evaluations, player transactions, and contract negotiations,” per his site bio.  The Harvard grad served as the director of baseball operations for the Indians in 2011/12 and has previously worked in the baseball operations departments of the Mets and Pirates.

Stearns is “adored by his colleagues,” Jeff Passan of Yahoo Sports tweets.  Despite his academic background, Passan notes that he is “far from an all-analytics guy.”

In August, it was announced that longtime Brewers GM Doug Melvin would move to an advisory position within the organization.  Melvin, 63, became Milwaukee’s general manager nearly 13 years ago and prior to that spent eight years as GM of the Rangers. He was the GM in Texas for the team’s first three postseason appearances and helped to construct a pair of playoff teams during his Brewers tenure as well, including a 96-win team that made it to Game 6 of the NLCS against the Cardinals in 2011.

The Brewers have conducted an exhaustive search to fill their GM vacancy, but it seems that they have found their man before the official end to the season.  The team was known to be focusing on candidates who were both younger and had an analytics background.  Rays VP of baseball operations Chaim Bloom, Pirates director of player development Tyrone Brooks, A’s assistant GM Dan Kantrovitz and the Brewers’ own scouting director Ray Montgomery were all names linked to Milwaukee’s GM opening.

Photo courtesy of the Brewers media relations department.

MLB Shortens Signing Timeline For Cuban Players

By | at

TODAY: The league has granted exemptions to a dozen total players, according to MLB.com’s Jesse Sanchez (links to Twitter). All of those situations have been resolved on a “case-by-case basis,” he says, and the same will hold true of any applications received in the future.

YESTERDAY: The MLB commissioner’s office declared today that young Cuban ballplayers Jonatan Machado and Omar Estevez are free agents with eligibility to sign as part of this year’s July 2 class, as Ben Badler of Baseball America reports. In addition to speeding the signing of these two players, Badler explains, the decision could have wide-ranging ramifications for the international market.

Previously, the league had strictly enforced its general requirement that players seeking to sign as part of a given July 2 class register with the league by May 15 of the year in which they would become eligible to sign. While the collective bargaining agreement provides room for exceptions in cases of “compelling justification” for missing that deadline, the commissioner’s office has never before utilized that provision — even for players claiming as an excuse the fact that they were forced to defect from Cuba.

That policy now appears to have been changed. The memo explaining the decision said that both youngsters had missed the deadline for this signing period “due to no fault of their own,” triggering the “compelling justification” standard and making them eligible to sign beginning in mid-October of this year.

Badler breaks things down in detail, explaining that there are other top players who now can — at least in theory — move up their signing timetable on the same grounds. With more talent potentially shifting into the current year’s July 2 group, that opens new opportunities for those clubs that have already committed to busting their budgets and incurring future signing bonus limitations.

The Cubs, Dodgers, Giants, and Royals all face two-year bans on bonuses of $300K or more, with the Blue Jays set to serve a one-year limitation period. Those teams would have been precluded from chasing Cuban ballplayers who were forced to wait until July 2, 2016 to sign, but would be able to ink them (while incurring a 100% overage penalty) if they receive exemptions from the registration requirement.

As Badler further explains, the move could lead to a more rapid exodus of talent from Cuba, as players — and, more importantly, the handlers and other characters involved in the shadowy defection process — seek to take advantage. This news seemingly constitutes one significant step in the changing treatment of Cuban ballplayers. Obviously, it’s tied closely to the still-developing opening of relations between the United States and its island neighbor.

Show all

MLB Trade Rumors is not affiliated with Major League Baseball, MLB or MLB.com

Do not Sell or Share My Personal Information

hide arrows scroll to top