Coaching Notes: Giants, Rangers, Pirates
Here’s the latest coaching news from around the majors…
- The Giants have hired Antoan Richardson to coach first base, base runners and outfielders, according to Henry Schulman of the San Francisco Chronicle. Richardson previously worked as the Giants’ minor league outfield coordinator in 2019, and he’ll take over for Jose Alguacil in his new position. Now 36 years old, Richardson was a 35th-round pick of the Giants in 2005, though he never took a major league at-bat with the team. Richardson ultimately collected 21 MLB plate appearances as a Brave and Yankee in parts of two seasons, and he may be best known for scoring the winning run in Derek Jeter’s last AB at Yankee Stadium back in 2014.
- The Rangers are set to hire Doug Mathis as their bullpen coach, Evan Grant of the Dallas Morning News writes. He’ll take over for Oscar Marin, who served in the role last season and recently earned a promotion to become Pittsburgh’s pitching coach. The 36-year-old Mathis will now return to the Texas organization, which used a 13th-round pick on him in the 2005 draft. He wound up spending parts of three seasons (2008-10) in the majors, all with the Rangers, and concluded his professional pitching career in 2014. More recently, Mathis worked as Toronto’s Triple-A pitching coach in 2019.
- Glenn Sherlock has joined the Pirates’ coaching staff, Jason Mackey of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette tweets. He’ll assist with Pittsburgh’s catchers and the club’s run prevention efforts. Sherlock, 59, divided the previous three seasons as the Mets’ first and third base coaches. He spent 19 years as a coach with the Diamondbacks prior to that. Before his coaching career began, Sherlock was a catcher in the minors from 1983-89.
NL Notes: Cervelli, Carlson, Garcia, Musgrove
The latest from the National League…
- The Marlins are trying to work out a contract with catcher Francisco Cervelli, MLB Network’s Jon Heyman reports (Twitter link). Injuries have plagued Cervelli over the last several seasons, most notably (and seriously) a series of concussions. Cervelli was limited to only 48 games for the Pirates and Braves in 2019 due to concussion symptoms, yet it was as recently as 2018 that Cervelli hit .259/.378/.431 with 12 homers over 404 plate appearances for Pittsburgh. The 33-year-old backstop (notably, a former Yankees teammate of Marlins CEO Derek Jeter) would act as a veteran backup to Jorge Alfaro in Miami.
- Saturday’s trade between the Cardinals and Rangers that sent Adolis Garcia to Texas had roots at the Winter Meetings, Derrick Goold of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch writes, as the Cards were known to be shopping their surplus of right-handed hitting outfielders. With this “head start on talks” about Garcia, the Cardinals expected Texas or another club to step up with a suitable trade offer when Garcia was designated for assignment earlier this week. Moving Garcia eliminated one name from a still-crowded Cardinals outfield, so more moves could still be in the offing for St. Louis. One player who doesn’t seem likely to be moved is top prospect Dylan Carlson, as the Cardinals unsurprisingly “have had near zero interest in including” Carlson in any trade talks this winter.
- Though the demand for pitching continues to increase and the Pirates could be entering into something of a rebuild period under new GM Ben Cherington, right-hander Joe Musgrove might not be a trade candidate, ESPN.com’s Buster Olney writes (subscription required). “I seriously doubt [the Pirates] would talk about him. They may say they’d talk about him, but they’re not going to trade him,” a official on a rival team told Olney. Musgrove just turned 27 and is arbitration-eligible for only the first time, projected by MLBTR to earn $3.4MM. That’s a more than affordable price for the low-payroll Bucs, considering that Musgrove posted a 4.44 ERA, 4.03 K/BB rate, and 8.3 K/9 over 170 1/3 innings last season, and generated 5.5 fWAR in 2018-19. The Blue Jays are one team known to have discussed Musgrove in trade talks this winter, though those discussions reportedly amounted to little.
NL Notes: Donaldson, Braves, Mets, Arenado, Hernandez
A fourth guaranteed year has been said to be the lynchpin in any potential deal for third baseman Josh Donaldson this winter, leaving interested teams in a precarious spot as they play chicken with the veteran’s representatives. The Braves, in particular, could be in something of a no-mans-land if they miss out on Donaldson, as they would lose their incumbent starter and potentially see a league rival (Nationals, Dodgers) strengthen their lineup at the same time. As David O’Brien of The Athletic sees it, the team’s two recourses in the event of a Donaldson departure may be the exploration of trades for either Kris Bryant of the Cubs or Nolan Arenado of the Rockies—and neither of those options is entirely realistic in the writer’s eyes. For Bryant, his ongoing grievance with the Cubs adds a fair bit of uncertainty for any interested trade partner. While the Cubs are, as O’Brien puts it, “widely expected” to win that grievance hearing and maintain two years of control on Bryant, it’s not impossible that the tide could swing in Bryant’s favor and leave him with just one year left.
When it comes to Arenado, O’Brien seems merely skeptical that Atlanta would be willing to swallow a contract of that magnitude, considering that the $35MM annual salaries in Arenado’s deal would more than double the highest salary that Braves star Ronald Acuna will make in the final years of the eight-year, $100MM extension he signed in April. Then again, Donaldson has reportedly given the Braves the right of last refusal on any potential deal, so it may well be that Atlanta ends up viewing a four-year Donaldson deal as the most reasonable course of action. Given that Washington and Minnesota have reportedly made four-year offers already, this may be a case of a player waiting for his preferred team to blink.
More from around the NL…
- Joel Sherman of the New York Post sees no such obstacle standing in the way of an Arenado-Mets pairing. As Sherman notes, the team’s ability to save as much as $23.5MM in the Yoenis Cespedes adjustment may give them some crucial breathing room to entertain a truly franchise-altering blockbuster. Additionally, the club may be well served to counter the Yankees Gerrit Cole addition with a headline-grabbing move of their own, and Steve Cohen’s continued negotiations with the Sterling partners to become the majority owner of the Mets may offer them some added financial backbone in the near future. Still, a deal for Arenado would realistically cost the team not just payroll space, but also a talented young player of the Jeff McNeil variety—not exactly an easy price to pay in its own right.
- Nationals organizational outfielder Yadiel Hernandez will be extended an invite to big league Spring Training in recognition of his excellent 2019 season in Triple-A, reports Jesse Dougherty of The Washington Post. Dougherty adds that Hernandez will get at least a “small look” in camp, after a ’19 campaign in which the 32-year-old hit .323/.406/.604 with 33 home runs. It’s not exactly common to see 32-year-old rookies, but there does come a point where, juiced ball caveats aside, a player’s performance demands at least a trial run at the highest level. Plus, Hernandez did come over with a fair amount of recognition as an international signing out of Cuba in advance of the 2017 season. As things stand now, the champs will enter 2020 with Michael A. Taylor and Andrew Stevenson as bench outfielders.
AL Notes: Indians, Blue Jays, Farrell, Franco, Astros
It may be a white-knuckle weekend in the Cleveland area, as fans wait to see if submitted offers for cornerstone player Francisco Lindor prove to be sufficient for the Indians‘ front office. It’s already been an offseason of no small intrigue, with the Corey Kluber trade further redefining the direction of the Cleveland franchise. One more question for the team before camp breaks? What to do about their abundance of outfield options. As Paul Hoynes of the Cleveland Plain Dealer points out in a Saturday reader mailbag, the Kluber trade, in bringing back Delino DeShields, leaves the club with a whopping nine outfielders on their 40-man roster.
As a careful observer might note, that tally only stands if we consider the DH-bound Franmil Reyes as an outfielder, but it’s a gaggle of on-the-grass options to sort through nonetheless. While each of Greg Allen, Jake Bauers, Daniel Johnson, Jordan Luplow, Oscar Mercado, Tyler Naquin, Bradley Zimmer, and DeShields has merit, Hoynes is right in pointing out that Mercado may be the only clear-cut starter of the group. If one of Lindor or Mike Clevinger does ultimately end up on the move, perhaps it should come as little surprise if a more stable outfield option comes back the other way.
- Although outsiders might think that Shane Farrell’s hiring as Toronto’s amateur scouting director was aided by his family ties, Ben Nicholson-Smith of Sportsnet shares that the hire “won’t likely be popular with Blue Jays fans”—in part because many club followers still bristle at the team’s decision to trade Shane’s father John to the rival Red Sox in 2012. Still, Nicholson-Smith shares that the younger Farrell was described as “very intelligent” and a “strong evaluator” by an unnamed NL scout. Then again, it’s not as if any claims of nepotism could have been entertained seriously, considering that the Cubs interviewed Farrell for their VP of Scouting opening just this offseason.
- The Royals‘ decision to pluck Maikel Franco off the wire wasn’t exactly made on a hunch. As Alex Lewis explores in a mailbag for The Athletic, Kansas City evaluators found “a few oddities in Franco’s swing from his more successful seasons (2016-18) to last season (2019) in a video study session”. Lewis shares that the club is “optimistic” that they can fix Franco’s issues–not exactly a ridiculous gambit considering his age (27) and early promise. Lewis also looks back at a story from The Athletic’s Matt Gelb, written around the time Franco was demoted in August, that noted certain adjustments the third baseman made to hit fewer balls on the ground may have been behind an infield popup rate of 23.7 percent at the time of his call-down.
- Recent reunions with Martin Maldonado and Joe Smith has inched the Houston Astros‘ projected payroll very close to the $228MM luxury tax threshold. They would avoid a repeater tax, though a 12% surtax comes with the $20MM overage (the base tax line is set at $208MM for 2020). Jason Martinez at Roster Resource pegs Houston’s luxury tax estimate at just over $137MM, well past that second line and fast approaching the third tax line of $248MM. Given that Houston previously indicated a desire to stay under even the $228MM line, they are probably done shopping for the winter, at the very least as far as position players are concerned, per The Athletic’s Jake Kaplan.
Central Notes: Reds, Miley, Cubs, Twins, Clippard
Wade Miley stood helplessly by as his Astros’ tenure crumbled behind a disastrous September. A rocky final month boiled over into his lone ALDS appearance, forcing Miley off the roster for the ALCS and World Series. The team supposed Miley was relying too much on his cutter and steering his changeup to the point of altering the arm action that makes the pitch effective. After the year was out, however, a former teammate reached out to alert Miley that glove position was tipping his pitches, per The Athletic’s Ken Rosenthal. That’s cold comfort for Astros’ fans, but those in Cincinnati can officially raise their expectations for the two-year, $15MM free agent signing. If the Miley that shows up to Great American Ballpark more closely resembles the guy who put up a 3.06 ERA through 156 innings prior to September (and if the offense rebounds), the Reds might finally live up to the dependable, high-quality performance the chamber of commerce had in mind when adopting the the nickname of the Blue Chip City.
- As much credit as Theo Epstein deserves for finally turning the Cubs into a winner, the blame falls at his feet as well for the current state of affairs. Something has clearly gone awry when the Cubs are so short of cash that they can’t even outbid the Brewers for low-cost free agents like lefty Alex Claudio, who signed for $1.75MM. The problem isn’t that the Cubs are cheap (they had the third-highest payroll last season), but Epstein hasn’t made the best use of their funds, per The Athletic’s Sahadev Sharma. With one of the highest budgets in baseball, Epstein ought to have enough resources to maintain a winner in Chicago – instead he’s bargain hunting for the second consecutive offseason.
- The Twins finally made good on a decade-long courtship of reliever Tyler Clippard when they signed him to a one-year, $2.75MM deal, per The Athletic’s Aaron Gleeman. He’s long been successful in this league, thanks largely to a north-south approach that’s come into fashion in recent seasons: a high-spin rising fastball set up by a splitter and changeup that move the opposite direction. The arsenal induces soft, airborne contact, especially against lefties. Besides being a reverse splits guy, he is also the rare pitcher who can be relied upon to consistently produce below-average batting average on balls in play. His career .239 BABIP is second-lowest all-time, Gleeman notes, and he’s only once let that number rise above .300, the average mark league-wide.
Minor MLB Transactions: 12/21/19
A couple minor moves from around the sport…
- The Twins have signed infielder Wilfredo Tovar to a minor league contract, per an announcement from Nate Rowan, the director of communications for their Triple-A team in Rochester. The Minnesota organization’s already familiar to Tovar, who spent 2016 in Rochester, though he didn’t play a game for the Twins that year. Tovar has also garnered minor league experience with the Mets, Cardinals and Angels. The 28-year-old has picked up 110 plate appearances in the majors (including 88 with the Angels last season), but he owns an unimposing .188/.241/.238 line without a home run in the bigs. While Tovar has also put up below-average offensive marks in the minors, he is known as a quality defender.
- The Mets outrighted hurler Stephen Nogosek to Triple-A Syracuse after he cleared waivers, Anthony DiComo of MLB.com tweets. The club designated him for assignment earlier this week. The right-handed Nogosek, who will turn 25 next month, joined the Mets as part of the package they received from the Red Sox for reliever Addison Reed in 2017. Nogosek reached the Triple-A and major league levels for the first time in 2019. Although he logged encouraging results in Syracuse, evidenced by a 1.15 ERA with 8.62 K/9 over 31 1/3 innings, he walked almost four batters per nine and was the beneficiary of a 2.6 home run-to-fly-ball rate that looks out of whack in light of his 37.5 groundball mark. Nogosek wasn’t nearly as successful in a 6 2/3-inning cup of coffee as a member of the Mets, with whom he yielded eight earned runs.
NL Notes: Donaldson, Braves, Cubs, Bryant, Pirates, Reds
Third baseman Josh Donaldson, the No. 1 free agent left on the board, continues to contemplate his future. The Nationals, Twins, Dodgers and Braves (with whom he thrived in 2019) look like the front-runners for his services. All things being equal, though, it appears Donaldson would prefer to stay in Atlanta. The “belief” is Donaldson’s camp has promised the Braves he’ll let them make a final offer before he signs anywhere else, David O’Brien of The Athletic reports (subscription link). The problem, as O’Brien notes, is that the Braves may not want to give Donaldson, 34, four guaranteed years. Meanwhile, Washington and Minnesota are reportedly open to doing so.
More from the National League…
- The Cubs’ Kris Bryant could be a trade target for Atlanta if it doesn’t re-sign Donaldson, though it’s still unclear how much more team control the former has left. Bryant filed a grievance over service time against the Cubs, whose decision to delay the now-star’s promotion in 2015 earned them an extra year of control. That grievance was heard back in October, and briefs were due Friday, but arbitrator Mark Irvings’ ruling won’t arrive until sometime after Jan. 1, Evan Drellich of The Athletic tweets. For now, Bryant’s under control for two more years, but that figure will drop to one if he unexpectedly wins his grievance. The 27-year-old has been featured in trade rumors, but at least until the league knows how much more control Bryant has, it’s highly unlikely he’ll go anywhere.
- Rookie Pirates manager Derek Shelton has chosen Tarrik Brock as his first base coach, according to Jason Mackey of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. This will be the second go-around as a major league 1B coach for Brock, who worked in that role for the Padres in 2016. He went on to serve as the Dodgers’ minor league outfield and baserunning coordinator from 2017-19. Now 45, Brock’s a former outfielder who saw brief MLB action in 2000 with the Cubs.
- The Reds hired Joe Mather as assistant hitting coach earlier this week, per C. Trent Rosecrans of The Athletic. The 37-year-old Mather – who, like Brock, is an ex-outfielder – spent last season as the Diamondbacks’ minor league field and hitting coordinator. He’ll now work alongside new Reds hitting coach Alan Zinter.
NL East Notes: Bumgarner, Ryu, Cespedes, Nationals, Phillies
The Braves weren’t willing to go beyond a three-year contract for Madison Bumgarner, and “it seems highly doubtful” they would go to four years for Hyun-Jin Ryu, MLB.com’s Mark Bowman writes. Atlanta’s interest in Ryu is something of a new development, but Bowman feels it could be more due diligence on the Braves’ part than anything else, in case Ryu’s market shifts within the two- to three-year range. Multiple teams have been linked to Ryu this offseason, though it remains unclear whether any club will be willing to stretch to four years for a hurler who will be 33 years old on Opening Day and possesses a lengthy injury history.
The latest from around the NL East…
- Could Yoenis Cespedes be a trade chip? A deal seems unlikely, but MLB.com’s Anthony DiComo reports that the Mets have received some trade interest in the outfielder in the wake of last week’s news that Cespedes’ salary has been reduced to less than $10MM, though with significant incentives that could make it worth $20MM (assuming Cespedes gets on the field at all in 2020, of course). Cespedes has a full no-trade clause, though DiComo speculates that Cespedes might welcome a change of scenery to a team that could offer him DH at-bats, or just to get away from “a team that successfully filed a grievance against him.” It could be that rival teams are open to absorbing Cespedes’ contract as a method of acquiring some younger talent from New York, similar to how the Giants recently took Zack Cozart‘s salary off the Angels’ hands in order to land shortstop prospect Will Wilson, or how the Mets themselves are trying to attach a younger player to Jeurys Familia or Jed Lowrie in a trade.
- The Nationals‘ fifth starter competition is examined by Sam Fortier of the Washington Post, who reports that Erick Fedde has a minor league option remaining. This might not bode well for Fedde’s chances, as the Nats could send him down to Triple-A in favor of Austin Voth or Joe Ross, who are both out of options. That’s assuming, of course, that D.C. ends up going forward with one of these three in-house arms as the fifth starter. Fortier notes that the team was seemingly satisfied with this same trio last winter before signing Jeremy Hellickson prior to Spring Training, so it isn’t out of the question that the World Series champs could pursue another low-cost veteran before the offseason is out.
- We haven’t heard much about David Phelps about this offseason, but Bob Brookover of the Philadelphia Inquirer feels the right-hander would be a good (and relatively inexpensive) addition to the Phillies bullpen. After missing all of 2018 due to Tommy John surgery, Phelps had a solid comeback year in 2019, posting a 3.41 ERA, 2.12 K/BB rate, and 9.4 K/9 over 34 1/3 innings for the Cubs and Blue Jays. Phelps pitched under Phils manager Joe Girardi with the Yankees in 2012-14, and when asked about the reliever at the Winter Meetings, Girardi praised Phelps’ versatility, game preparation skills, and good numbers against both right-handed and left-handed batters.
Angels Notes: Payroll, Ryu, Keuchel, Ohtani
Let’s check in on the Halos, who made one of the biggest splashes of the offseason last week with the signing of superstar third baseman Anthony Rendon to a seven-year, $245MM contract…
- The Angels made their send notable rotation pickup of the offseason Thursday, agreeing to sign right-hander Julio Teheran to a one-year, $9MM guarantee. Teheran and the previously acquired Dylan Bundy should help improve the Angels’ starting staff in 2020, but the team still hasn’t added a much-needed front-line hurler this offseason. But now that Teheran, Bundy and Rendon are in the fold, does the club have the financial flexibility to reel in yet another rotation upgrade? Perhaps. As Jeff Fletcher of the Southern California News Group observes, the Angels currently have an actual payroll around $170MM and a luxury-tax outlay in the $181MM range – $27MM below the threshold. The former figure would be a franchise-record amount for the Angels, though owner Arte Moreno has indicated the team’s payroll would rise in 2020. It’s just unclear what his limit is.
- Signing either lefty Hyun-Jin Ryu or fellow southpaw Dallas Keuchel would put yet another significant dent in the Angels’ payroll. No matter, the team appears to be in on both hurlers. The Angels and agent Scott Boras (who also represents Rendon) have had “multiple conversations” about Ryu and Keuchel, Maria Torres of the Los Angeles Times writes. However, Torres notes that a deal with the Angels isn’t imminent for either pitcher. Ryu (three years, $54MM) and Keuchel (three/39) are MLBTR’s highest-rated remaining pitchers in terms of potential earning power.
- Regardless of how many moves the Angels make this winter, there may not be a more important development in 2020 than getting two-way star Shohei Ohtani back to full health. The right-hander/designated hitter was unable to pitch at all last season after undergoing Tommy John surgery in October 2018. Fortunately, though, the 25-year-old Ohtani has fully recovered from that serious procedure, Fletcher relays (Twitter links). Looking ahead to 2020, Ohtani only figures to pitch once a week, which aligns with the schedule he grew accustomed to in Japan before immigrating to the United States.
AL East Notes: Panik, Tsutsugo, Roark, Abad, Holmes
The Yankees have had discussions about signing second baseman Joe Panik, ESPN.com’s Buster Olney tweets, as New York continues to look for ways to both add infield depth and add left-handed balance to a lineup that is loaded with righty swingers. Panik is a left-handed bat, though he is coming off a pair of subpar years at the plate — the veteran has only a .249/.311/.334 slash line over 883 plate appearances since the start of the 2018 season. These struggles prompted the Giants to part ways with their longtime second baseman last summer, though Panik hit better after catching on with the Mets for 39 games in 2019. The 29-year-old Panik also has the bonus of being a native New Yorker, born in Yonkers and a product of St. John’s University.
With Gleyber Torres likely to shift from second base to shortstop, the keystone could be occupied by DJ LeMahieu if the Yankees don’t prefer to use LeMahieu primarily as a first baseman. Tyler Wade and Thairo Estrada are the top in-house options for the utility infield or part-time second base jobs if LeMahieu is indeed slated mostly for first base work, though the Yankees could prefer to be as flexible as possible with LeMahieu based on matchups. In this sense, Panik’s lack of defensive versatility could be a detriment to his chances at a Yankees deal; Panik has played all but one of his 682 MLB games as a second baseman, with the lone exception being one game at first base for San Francisco in 2018.
Here’s more from around the AL East…
- The Rays‘ two-year, $12MM contract with Yoshitomo Tsutsugo wasn’t the highest offer received by the outfielder, though the team’s strong courtship of the Japanese slugger eventually convinced him to come to Florida, Marc Topkin of the Tampa Bay Times writes. The Rays were the first team to contact Tsutsugo after he was posted by Yokohama, they provided him with a thorough 20-page booklet about the club and the Tampa area, and a six-person crew that included manager Kevin Cash and GM Erik Neander visited Tsutsugo in person prior to the Winter Meetings, while Tsutsugo was working out in Los Angeles. All of the wooing paid off for the Rays, who now welcome a player with 185 homers over his last six seasons in Nippon Professional Baseball.
- The Blue Jays made a similar big push to land Tanner Roark, as the right-hander told reporters (including Kaitlyn McGrath of The Athletic) that Toronto was the first team to get in contact with his representatives as free agency opened. “They knew what they wanted, and they wanted me and it’s exciting to have someone want you like that,” Roark said. Pitching coach Pete Walker also told McGrath that he and Roark “just seemed to hit it off” during a 25-minute phone call. Roark ended up inking a two-year, $24MM deal with the Jays, and is looking forward to being a veteran leader within Toronto’s young clubhouse.
- The Orioles had several conversations with Fernando Abad before the left-hander signed with the Nationals, MASNsports.com’s Roch Kubatko reports. With Abad now off the board, the O’s will continue to look for low-cost experience for their bullpen.
- Also from Kubatko, the Orioles have hired Darren Holmes as their new bullpen coach. Holmes worked in the same role with the Rockies for the previous five seasons. A veteran of 13 MLB seasons, Holmes’ playing career included a brief five-game stint as a member of the Orioles in 2000.