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Nomar Mazara

AL Notes: Rays, Phillips, White Sox, Encarnación, Vaughn, Rodon, Gonzalez, Mazara

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The Rays and Astros have roster decisions to make before their 10am deadlines. Both teams plan on adding a pitcher for the ALCS. For the Rays, Josh Fleming, Jose Alvarado, Ryan Sherriff, or even Brent Honeywell look like the top candidates to join the roster, per Marc Topkin of the Tampa Bay Times. Brett Phillips, meanwhile, could be the odd man out now that Austin Meadows is back in the lineup. On the other hand, if the Rays choose to decide the roster spot by dance battle, Phillips should be safe. The former Royal and Brewer has appeared in four games this postseason, largely being used as a defensive replacement.

Now, lest we spend the entire evening on the postseason alone, let’s check in on a team that hopes to have these kinds of decisions to make in years to come…

  • The White Sox have some options pending after their most successful season in over a decade, and the Athletic’s James Fegan provides a rundown. One of the easier calls will be declining the $12MM club option on designated hitter Edwin Encarnación. It’s true that Encarnación didn’t exactly dazzle this year with a triple slash of .157/.250/.377, but more telling is GM Rick Hahn’s comment about #3 overall draft pick of the 2019 draft: Andrew Vaughn. Per Fegan, Hahn said, “Given his makeup and given his tools, it’s hard to look at him and rule him out of being able to help a team in the not too distant future.”
  • Like ships passing in the night, just as one #3 pick could soon embark on his White Sox career, another in Carlos Rodon could be nearing an end. The big lefty will be due at least a nominal raise on his $4.45MM contract, and there’s a decent chance that’s too rich given his inability to stay healthy. The White Sox will be looking for stability for their rotation now that their contention window has firmly opened. With that in mind, it’s likely they decline Gio Gonzalez’s $7MM option as well.
  • Perhaps the most surprising tidbit in the group is Fegan’s suggestion that Nomar Mazara is heading for a DFA. Not so shocking when considering his 42-game .228/.295/.294 line he put up across 194 plate appearances this year. But taking the long view, this certainly isn’t where the 25-year-old appeared to be heading when he made his debut in Texas as a 21-year-old.

White Sox Activate Nomar Mazara

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The White Sox announced Monday that they’ve activated right fielder Nomar Mazara for his season debut. In a pair of corresponding moves, catcher Yermin Mercedes was optioned to their alternate training site and right-hander Jimmy Lambert was placed on the 45-day injured list.

Mazara has yet to live up to the top prospect hype that surrounded his MLB debut with the Rangers, but he’s been a steady 20-homer producer with slightly above-average offense against right-handed pitching (career 103 wRC+). And while he’a already a four-year MLB veteran by virtue of his early call to the bigs in Arlington, his youth leaves the hope for some yet untapped upside at the dish.

As MLBTR’s George Miller explored a few months back, Mazara is quite impactful when hitting to the opposite field, by virtue of the fact that he elevates the ball with much greater regularity than when pulling the ball. Mazara’s number of pulled grounders are alarming and indeed have limited his output to this point in his career. However, he generally ranks above the league average in terms of average exit velocity, barrel rate, expected slugging percentage and a number of other Statcast metrics that portend some remaining upside. Mazara will likely be platooned with righty-hitting Adam Engel early in the season, per Daryl Van Schouwen of the Chicago Sun-Times, but there’s obvious potential for Mazara to work his way into a larger role.

Even if Mazara simply maintains the status quo, though, that’s not an entirely bad thing for the Sox. Granted, plugging in a slightly above-average bat to the lineup doesn’t sound like a huge boost, but in nine games this season, White Sox right fielders have turned in a putrid .167/.211/.333 slash. Mazara’s lifetime .271/.337/.462 line against right-handed opponents looks all the better when juxtaposed with that to-date production (or lack thereof) from Chicago right fielders. Engel’s career .253/.299/.390 slash against lefties isn’t great — though it is better than Mazara’s career levels — but that platoon arrangement should lead to some improvement for what has already been a strong White Sox lineup.

The White Sox acquired Mazara in December trade that sent minor league outfielder Steele Walker to the Rangers. Mazara is playing out the 2020 season on a one-year, $5.56MM contract (prorated to about $1.97MM) and is controllable through the 2021 season via the arbitration process.

Latest On Nomar Mazara

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White Sox outfielder Nomar Mazara has reported to the team’s alternate training site, Scott Merkin of MLB.com tweets. He has been on the injured list since July 22 for an undisclosed reason.

It’s not known when Mazara will make his 2020 debut, but it’s nonetheless nice to see that he’s making progress. When he is able to take the field for the White Sox, it’ll be the 25-year-old’s first appearance in their uniform. Chicago acquired the former standout prospect from Texas during the offseason in one of many notable winter White Sox transactions.

Of course, it’s anyone’s guess whether Mazara will prove to be a valuable part of the White Sox team. Mazara looked like a can’t-miss farmhand during his younger days, but he failed to post inspiring production as a member of the Rangers, with whom he batted .261/.320/.435 (92 wRC+) with 79 home runs in 2,189 plate appearances from 2016-19. By measure of wRC+, Mazara was never even a league-average hitter in any of his seasons in Texas.

Defensively, Mazara has earned unspectacular reviews in right field, where he has logged minus-17 DRS and a 0.0 UZR across 3,000-plus innings. Once he’s ready to return, though, Mazara figures to take over the position for the White Sox, who have turned to Nicky Delmonico there in the early going this season.

White Sox Place Nomar Mazara On Injured List

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3:15pm: The club has formally announced that Mazara is on the injured list and expected to miss the beginning of the season. An official reason for the placement was not given.

6:25am: The White Sox appear to be in need of an alternative plan in the outfield. They have placed Nomar Mazara on the 10-day injured list, according to their transactions page, though manager Rick Renteria insisted yesterday that a final decision on his availability had not yet been made.

Renteria did not give much in the way of detail, but did explain that Mazara has been “under the weather,” per Daryl Van Schouwen of the Chicago Sun-Times. That’s the same status that was provided a few days ago when Mazara’s absence was noted. It’s a bit of an ominous statement in the age of the coronavirus, since the league’s protocols could mandate a reasonably lengthy absence, though there’s no indication as of yet that covid is involved.

If indeed the team has made an IL placement — the transactions pages have been mistaken in the past — it’ll delay Mazara’s debut with the South Siders, who acquired him from the Rangers during December’s Winter Meetings. Mazara’s a former standout prospect who never matched the hype as a member of the Rangers, with whom he slashed an underwhelming .261/.320/.435 (92 wRC+) and racked up 79 home runs in 2,189 plate appearances from 2016-19.

Based upon his track record alone, there’s not much cause for lofty expectations. But Mazara is still just 25 years old and has long been considered a major talent. As MLBTR’s George Miller explained during the spring, it’s probably too soon to say he has maxed out his potential in the majors.

In a best-case scenario for the White Sox, Mazara will form an enviable outfield trio with Eloy Jimenez and Luis Robert as early as this year. As long as Mazara is on the shelf, though, Chicago may turn to some combination of Adam Engel and Leury Garcia in right field. The only other outfielders in the player pool with 40-man roster spots are Micker Adolfo, Luis Alexander Basabe, and Blake Rutherford, none of whom has yet reached the big leagues. Nicky Delmonico and Luis Gonzalez are non-roster options.

How Nomar Mazara Can Reach His Potential With The White Sox

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One of the wild cards of the 2020 season will be the development of 25-year-old outfielder Nomar Mazara, who will look to finally break out, this time in a new environment. By now, Mazara has had four whole seasons to prove himself at the Major League level, and in 2019 he was largely the same player as he was when he debuted with the Rangers in 2016. Last year was critical for the marriage between Mazara and the Rangers; if Mazara were to establish himself as a building block for Texas, he needed to take the leap that the club has been expecting since it signed him in 2011 as an amateur. Unfortunately, that progress didn’t really come, and the Rangers dealt Mazara to the outfield-needy White Sox in December.

At 6’4″ and 215 lbs., Mazara looks the part of an MLB slugger: his frame alone is enough to convince spectators that he’s got superstar potential. He’s almost in the Giancarlo Stanton/Joey Gallo class of physicality, and his mammoth home runs lend credence to that comparison—Mazara hit the longest homer in MLB last year with a Statcast-measured 505-foot blast. When Mazara gets into one, your eyes light up at the thought of him mashing with regularity.

But the fact of the matter is that Mazara has yet to hit more than 20 homers in a season, and has in fact never put up a season of even 1.0 WAR by FanGraphs’ measure (Baseball-Reference agrees). It’s been frustrating for Rangers fans to follow his development, not because he’s been a bad player, but simply because they recognize he could be so much more.

While his average exit velocity of 89.1 mph only ranked in the 51st percentile last year, his hardest-hit balls tell a different story: his maximum exit velo, 114.6 mph, ranked number 41 among all MLB hitters. That’s something you might expect from a perennial 30-homer guy, not someone who’s plateaued at the 20-home run threshold. So what’s holding him back?

For one thing, his ceiling has thus far been limited by just average on-base skills: Mazara has never walked at a rate higher than 9% in a single season, meaning that his yearly on-base percentage has consistently hovered around .320, which is just about MLB-average. Even when he does tap into his prodigious power, that leaves him a step below the likes of Gallo or Stanton, who command enough respect from pitchers—and are disciplined enough—to generate above-average walk rates.

Last year, Mazara was at his most aggressive since entering the big leagues: he swung the bat more often at pitches both inside and outside the zone, and that change yielded mixed results. As you might expect, more swings means that he also missed more often than ever, though that didn’t adversely affect his strikeout rate. His walk rate was the lowest of his career, but the more assertive Mazara was able to post his best hard-hit and slugging numbers yet, though not by a huge margin.

But none of that looks to be the driving force behind Mazara’s stagnation; we’ve seen plenty of players put up big power numbers with subpar plate discipline. To this point in his career, the most frustrating part of Mazara’s game is the frequency with which he does damage. Mazara just hasn’t been able to get to that power as often as we’d like to see. And whether he reaches his ceiling in Chicago seems to hinge on one particularly troubling facet of his game, and that’s his inability to pull the ball in the air.

To preface: generally, pulling fly balls is an undeniably good thing, at least for players with the strength to swing for the fences: in 2019, MLB hitters posted a cumulative wRC+ on pulled grounders of -5. That’s really bad. 100 denotes average, so we’re talking about 105% below average. On the other hand, that number for pulled fly balls was an astronomical 403. So pulling the ball tends to be a profitable endeavor for MLB sluggers. That’s no surprise, and it’s the reason baseball has experienced a “fly ball revolution” in the last half-decade.

But Mazara has thus far been unable to take advantage of that revolution. When he pulls the ball, the results just haven’t been there simply because he hits the ball on the ground too often: in 2019, 66% of the balls Mazara hit to right field were grounders, by the far the least favorable outcome for a player of his stature. In essence, the best way to get extra-base hits—fly balls to the pull field—just haven’t been a significant weapon in Mazara’s arsenal. When he does pull the ball, he simply isn’t doing as much damage as he could be by elevating the ball. That’s been the case for his entire career, and frankly I think it’s the single biggest thing preventing Mazara from becoming an All-Star.

Interestingly, the same trend isn’t true of his hits to the opposite field: in fact, he hit the ball in the air much more often when going to left field (54.1 FB%, compared to just 23.9 GB%), and that translated to better results: Mazara posted a 139 wRC+ when going the other way, which is well above league average. His production on opposite field swings gives us a glimpse of what could be if he’s able to generate a similar batted-ball distribution to his pull field. And one figures those numbers would only get better when he pulls the ball, where it’s easier for hitters to get to their strength. He’s capable of elevating the ball, and good things happen when he does, but to this point he’s failed to do so when it’s most advantageous.

He’ll get the starting right field gig with the White Sox this summer, and while Chicagoans might have preferred their team to go after someone with a more solid track record, the fruits of acquiring Mazara might be sweeter than any other outfielder on the market. The South Siders have had success developing young players in recent years, and Mazara could fit right in with their burgeoning young core. So whatever the mechanical or mental source of the trend we described above, they’ll hope the player development staff can unlock what Texas couldn’t and tap into Mazara’s electric talent. That could make the difference between whether he merely tantalizes with his potential, or actualizes it.

Players Avoiding Arbitration: American League

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Entering the day, there were more than 150 players on the clock to exchange arbitration figures with their respective teams prior to a noon ET deadline. As one would expect, there’ll be an utter landslide of arbitration agreements in advance of that deadline. We already ran through some key facts and reminders on the arbitration process earlier this morning for those who are unfamiliar or simply need a refresher on one of MLB’s most complex idiosyncrasies, which will hopefully clear up many questions readers might have.

We’ll track the majority of the American League’s settlements in this post and split off a separate one for NL settlements as well. Note that all projections referenced come courtesy of MLBTR contributor Matt Swartz:

  • Newly acquired Angels righty Dylan Bundy receives a $5MM salary, per Jon Heyman of MLB Network (Twitter links). He had projected at a $5.7MM price tag. Teammate Hansel Robles gets $3.85MM, per Heyman, just shy of his $4MM projection.
  • The Yankees have worked out deals with all of their eligible players. The team has a hefty $8.5MM pact with Aaron Judge, per MLB.com’s Mark Feinsand (via Twitter). Backstop Gary Sanchez settled for $5MM, per Feinsand (via Twitter). The New York org will pay righty Luis Cessa $895K and Jonathan Holder $750K, Murray reports (Twitter links). Fellow reliever Tommy Kahnle will earn $2.65MM, per Jon Heyman of MLB Network (via Twitter). And star lefty James Paxton has settled at $12.5MM, Heyman adds via Twitter. Chad Green and Jordan Montgomery have also agreed to terms, the former at $1.275MM and the latter at $805K, per Heyman (Twitter links).
  • The Twins announced that they struck deals with Trevor May, Taylor Rogers, Eddie Rosario and Byron Buxton. Jon Heyman of MLB Network followed up with salary terms (all links to Twitter). May earns $2,205,000; Rogers takes home $4.45MM; Rosario lands at $7.75MM; and Buxton receives $3.075MM. While the first and last of those land rather close to the projected amount, Rogers got $550K more and Rosario got $1.15MM less than the calculators predicted.
  • Shortstop Carlos Correa settled with the Astros for $8MM, per MLB.com’s Brian McTaggart (via Twitter). Righty Brad Peacock lands at a $3.9MM salary, per Chandler Rome of the Houston Chronicle (Twitter link). The former went for more than his $7.4MM projection, while the latter ended up shy of the $4.6MM mark produced by the computers. The ’Stros also have agreed with closer Roberto Osuna as well, per an announcement. It’s a $10MM deal, slotting in just $200K shy of his projection, per Rome (via Twitter).
  • The Orioles have a deal with outfielder/first baseman Trey Mancini, Roch Kubatko of MASNsports.com tweets. It’s for $4.75MM, per Dan Connolly of The Athletic (via Twitter), well south of the $5.7MM projection.
  • Outfielder Jorge Soler has agreed to a $7.3MM deal with the Royals, MLB.com’s Jeffrey Flanagan tweets. That’s well off of the $11.2MM that MLBTR’s model projected, though it is likely that the cause of the gulf lies in the interpretation of the correct baseline to start from in building Soler’s salary. He’s in the 4+ service class but had been playing on the original deal he signed out of Cuba.
  • The Tigers have a deal in place with southpaw Matthew Boyd, per Anthony Fenech of the Detroit Free Press (via Twitter). It’ll pay him $5.3MM, per Chris McCosky of the Detroit News (Twitter link). That falls comfortably below the $6.4MM, suggesting that Boyd’s camp was concerned with the way his suboptimal ERA would play in the arb process. Fellow lefty starter Daniel Norris will earn $2.96MM, McCosky tweets.

Earlier Settlements

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White Sox Acquire Nomar Mazara

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12:15am: Both teams have announced the trade.

11:05 pm: The Rangers and White Sox have agreed on a trade that will send outfielder Nomar Mazara to Chicago, Evan Grant of the Dallas Morning News reports. Outfielder Steele Walker is going to Texas in return, per MLB.com’s TR Sullivan (via Twitter).

This move represents a bet on Mazara’s long-lauded talent for the South Siders, who’ll hope he can finally break out at the plate after languishing just shy of league average to this point of his career. Mazara is just 24 years of age but is already in his second-to-last season of arbitration eligibility. MLBTR projects a $5.7MM salary.

Mazara has received ample opportunity ever since breaking into the bigs in his age-21 campaign. But through more than two thousand plate appearances at the game’s highest level, he’s hitting just .261/.320/.435 with a steady diet of ~20 home run seasons. That’s certainly not what you’d like to see out of a corner outfielder who isn’t a standout in the field. Mazara has yet to reach 2 WAR for his career. If you’re looking for evidence that Mazara is about to hit his stride, his power did jump in 2019, with a .469 SLG and .200 ISO both career highs. As he approaches his age-25 seasons, there’s certainly time for another developmental leap.

The Chicago organization has announced its intentions to press towards contention in 2020, upping the stakes for this move. Mazara will presumably be asked to handle the lion’s share of the time in right field, joining Eloy Jimenez as a corner outfield regular. No doubt the front office has visions of a breakout, youthful trio emerging when Luis Robert is deemed ready to man center field. Leury Garcia could hold down center to open the season and then step back into a reserve role.

As for the 23-year-old Walker, he’s a recent second-round pick who reached the High-A level last year with the Chicago organization. The former Oklahoma University star slashed .269/.346/.426 in 441 plate appearances for Winston-Salem in 2019. Walker is viewed as a high-quality hitting prospect who has a shot at sticking up the middle. He’s generally considered one of the ten best prospects in a strong White Sox farm. Walker will begin the season in Double-A, per John Blake, the Rangers’ Executive VP of Communications.

Photo courtesy of USA Today Sports Images.

Rangers Exploring Outfield Trades, Pursuing Chirinos Reunion

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8:58pm: The Cardinals are also in the mix for Mazara, Jeff Wilson of the Fort Worth Star-Telegram reports. That jibes with their goal of acquiring a lefty-hitting outfielder.

6:17pm: The White Sox are “working hard to land” Mazara, as Jim Bowden of SiriusXM first reported. As for Chirinos, the Astros, Tigers, Rays and Pirates join the Rangers in the market for him, Jon Heyman of MLB Network tweets.

1:04pm: The Rangers have remained busy on the market, with MLB.com’s TR Sullivan reporting that the club is active on multiple fronts (Twitter links). While it stands to reason that the team is still considering moves in the rotation, the attention now is on the position player side after several notable pitching additions.

It has long seemed likely that the Rangers would explore possible swaps involving its existing outfielders. But the team now appears to be engaged in a somewhat dedicated manner. Sullivan says the intention is to “move one of their extra left-handed hitting outfielders,” with Nomar Mazara, Willie Calhoun, and Shin-Soo Choo named as possibilities.

That’s a highly varied group of players. Mazara is a mid-arbitration player that hasn’t turned the corner in the majors but remains quite youthful. Calhoun hasn’t had the same degree of opportunity (and hasn’t logged as much service) but showed well with the bat last year. He’s also still a question mark defensively, as is the aging Choo, who can still hit but isn’t worth the remainder of his big contract.

The Rangers are said to be chatting with the Diamondbacks about some of these players; the clubs were connected last night regarding Mazara. Evidently talks between the Rangers and Marlins didn’t advance. Craig Mish of MLB Network Radio tweets that the Fish were turned off by the asking price for Mazara, a former top prospect.

Meanwhile, there’s “mutual interest” in a new deal with backstop Robinson Chirinos. That’s rather an interesting development, considering the Texas organization surprisingly declined its option over him last fall. The replacement plan fell apart, as MLBTR’s Connor Byrne explored, while Chirinos flourished with the cross-state Astros.

The 35-year-old Chirinos and the Rangers are amply familiar with one another, as he played with the team for six seasons. It seems the sides carry no ill will over the way things ended. The catching market has moved rather swiftly to this point, leaving Chirinos and Jason Castro as the top available options.

Diamondbacks Notes: Haniger, Mazara, Akiyama, Bullpen

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“The Diamondbacks are said to have interest in both” Mitch Haniger and Nomar Mazara, Nick Piecoro of the Arizona Republic writes.  Either player would address Arizona’s need for a right fielder, and though the D’Backs would be taking something of a risk either both are coming off disappointing 2019 seasons.  Haniger didn’t play after June 6 due to a ruptured testicle, and even in the 283 plate appearances prior to his injury was already delivering less production than during his impressive 2017-18 campaigns.  Mazara has been a steadily subpar offensive performer (92 wRC+, 93 OPS+) over his four career seasons with the Rangers, hitting .261/.320/.435 with 79 homers over 2189 PA and generating only 1.7 total fWAR.

That said, both offer upside for interested trade partners.  Mazara is a former top prospect and he has hit right-handed pitching decently well, which Piecoro notes is an area of need for the D’Backs.  Haniger, of course, is a known quantity in Arizona — he broke into the big leagues with the Snakes and then was dealt to the Mariners as part of the November 2016 trade that brought Ketel Marte to the desert.  Mazara has two remaining years of arbitration eligibility, while Haniger is arb-eligible for the first time this winter (and at a projected $3MM price tag, so his rough 2019 season also lowered his ceiling for future arbitration earnings).  While Seattle is at least open to discussing Haniger in trades, GM Jerry Dipoto still highly values Haniger, so a deal wouldn’t come easily for the Diamondbacks.  It would seem that Mazara would be the more available of the two options, as Texas has been rumored to be looking to deal from its surplus of left-handed hitting outfielders.

Here’s more from Arizona…

  • In terms of what the D’Backs might give up for Haniger, Mazara, or any other veteran upgrades, GM Mike Hazen indicated that his team is “willing to” part with some “good minor league players.”  Piecoro suggests that the team wouldn’t be likely to trade its very top prospects, but would be open to dealing youngsters “from the next tier down” in the rankings.  It is perhaps noteworthy that the three names Piecoro cites as “the players [the Diamondbacks] view as their best prospects” are Daulton Varsho, Geraldo Perdomo, and Corbin Carroll, whereas two other prospects (Alek Thomas and Kristian Robinson) occupy the top two spots on MLB Pipeline’s ranking of Arizona’s top 30 minor leaguers, though Piecoro said “perhaps others” are also in the team’s internal top tier.
  • Beyond right field, the Diamondbacks are also on the lookout for center field help.  While Marte played both center field and second base last year, Hazen told The Athletic’s Zach Buchanan (Twitter link) and other reporters that he would prefer to land a center fielder to lighten the load on Marte.  Shogo Akiyama has been mentioned as a potential target for the D’Backs, though Hazen said that he hasn’t yet met with the Japanese center fielder and doesn’t have meetings scheduled for the future.
  • Hazen told Piecoro and other reporters that after signing Junior Guerra, the D’Backs are still looking for “one more” reliever.  Archie Bradley pitched well enough in the closer role last year that a new reliever doesn’t necessarily require closing experience to be considered, though Hazen said that a reliever that could be used “toward the back end [of the bullpen] would be ideal.”

Quick Hits: Astros Investigation, Minor Leagues, Manfred, Rangers

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As part of an organized probe into Houston’s alleged use of technology to steal signs, investigators under the direction of commissioner Rob Manfred met with “15-20” Astros personnel this past week, according to Tom Verducci of Sports Illustrated. Members of the club’s 2017 coaching staff, including manager A.J. Hinch, were among those to interview with investigators, with a source familiar with the investigation telling Verducci that Mike Fiers’ description of the club’s sign-stealing operation has proven accurate. According to Verducci’s report, the scheme–which is said to have relied upon a center-field camera, dugout televisions, and trashcans to signal forthcoming pitches to club hitters–was used for a period of “about three months” in 2017, but investigators are still trying to determine whether the club deployed this system during the playoffs.

A separate investigation is looking into a directive from a Houston front office employee, Kevin Goldstein, to club scouts that suggested the use of cameras to surveil opposing dugouts in 2017. As Verducci’s piece notes, these investigations could have a wide-ranging impact on the broader role of technology in today’s game, where laptops, monitors, and cameras are omnipresent in team clubhouses and video rooms.

A few other items of note from around the game…

  • Speaking of the commissioner, Manfred spoke with reporters Thursday at the owner’s meetings in Arlington, with several interesting comments on the league’s proposed reorganization of Minor League Baseball, as relayed by Baseball America’s Kyle Glaser. As Manfred tells it, the league’s overture toward the contraction of 42 minor league affiliates was made in response to four key problems plaguing their system–namely, poor facilities, long travel times, low pay, and a lack of realistic opportunity for many players to make the majors. Manfred doesn’t take kindly to the response issued by minor league officials to the league’s suggested plan–which reportedly would include not only contraction but also the creation of a “dream league” for undrafted players–but he still feels bullish about the ability of both parties to conclude a new working arrangement. “But at the end of the day Minor League Baseball needs to make an agreement with us and I’m sure we probably will make an agreement at some point,” said Manfred. MiLB President Pat O’Conner may not take as rosy of an outlook to this ongoing process, with his recent comments conveying suspicion in regard to the league’s plan. In quotes relayed by The Athletic’s Evan Drellich on Oct 19, O’Conner characterized the plan as a “death sentence” for the 42 teams affected, while also suggesting that the league’s proposed restructuring represents an attempt by MLB to exert more control over the minor leagues.
  • Meanwhile, also in Texas, an offseason event allowed Evan Grant of the Dallas Morning News to speak with several Rangers players, including Taylor Hearn and Nomar Mazara (Twitter links). Hearn, who just wrapped an injury-wrecked 2019 that included an inflamed UCL and a fracture underneath his elbow, told Grant that he threw four bullpens in October, followed by a few weeks of rest. Hearn has resumed his throwing program and should be ready to prep for 2020. The 25-year-old lefty appeared in just four minor league games this season, also making his MLB debut in an April 25 start that lasted one-third of an inning. As for Mazara, club officials apparently told the 24-year-old during his 2019 exit interview that he should prepare to play some first base next season. Mazara told Grant that he is prepared to do some work at first, but he is still expected to be used primarily as an outfielder moving forward. Mazara has generally graded out as a slightly below-average defensive option on the grass, recording -2.7 UZR and -4 DRS figures in right field last season. The Rangers have been connected to outfielder Marcell Ozuna this winter, while trade rumors connected Mazara’s name to several teams in advance of this past season’s July 31 trade deadline.
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