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Quick Hits: Twins, Rays, Minor League CBA

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The Twins announced that they have hired Nick Paparesta to be the club’s head athletic trainer. Paparesta has spent the previous 12 years in the same role for the Athletics. Prior to that, he spent five years with the Rays and 11 years with Cleveland.

A new head athletic trainer usually wouldn’t be especially noteworthy, but there are a couple of reasons to think this could be an impactful move for Minnesota. Reporting on the vacancy last week, La Velle E. Neal III of the Minneapolis Star Tribune pointed out that there’s been a large amount of turnover in the club’s strength and conditioning departments, including having three different head trainers since 2016.

Also, the Twins were leading the AL Central for much of 2022 before a rash of injuries dragged them down to a 78-84 finish. While the training staff can’t be reasonably blamed for every health issue that pops up, any improvement in that department could have big ramifications for the club. If Paparesta can provide some stability to the department, it could help the Twins on the field, especially with a roster that features some players with injury concerns, such as Byron Buxton, Tyler Mahle, Jorge Polanco, Royce Lewis and others.

Some other notes from around the league…

  • The Tigers recently hired Rob Metzler to be their assistant general manager, plucking him from the Rays organization. Since Metzler had been working as senior director of amateur scouting for Tampa, that left them with a vacancy in their scouting department. The Rays turned inward to replace Metzler, as Marc Topkin of the Tampa Times reports that they promoted Chuck Ricci to director of amateur scouting. Ricci has spent the past nine seasons as national crosschecker for the Rays and has evidently impressed the organization enough to get a bump up the ladder. Additionally, David Hamlett was promoted to assistant director of amateur scouting. The Rays have earned a reputation for finding talented young players from various areas, something that is essential for their success as a franchise that typically doesn’t spend at high levels. Though the departure of Metzler will surely create challenges for them, the club will be hoping that Ricci and Hamlett can step up and fill the void.
  • In recent months, the Major League Baseball Players Association sought to represent minor league players in negotiations with the league, an effort that ultimately proved successful. The arrangement became official in mid-September, with an arbiter validating the organization efforts of the union and the league agreeing to recognize the MLBPA as the bargaining representatives for minor leaguers. It was reported around that time that minor leaguers would be negotiating a separate agreement to the one that affects major leaguers, and Evan Drellich of The Athletic reports that those talks have now begun. As the recent MLB CBA negotiations showed, these situations can drag on for months, so it’s unclear how long this agreement will take. It might also prove to be even more challenging since these are uncharted waters, with minor leaguers having never been unionized before. More details will surely emerge as the negotiations play out, but many minor league players have been vocal about dissatisfaction with various elements of their work environments, including housing and payment, among others.

Josh Reddick Planning To Retire After Stint In Australia

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Former Gold Glove outfielder Josh Reddick has decided to retire from Major League Baseball. The veteran told Mark Berman of Fox 26 and other reporters that he will stop pursuing a MLB career (Twitter link). Reddick announced in May he’d play for the Perth Heat during the 2022-23 Australian Baseball League season that starts in November. After that wraps up, he says, “that’ll be it for me.”

Originally picked by Boston in the 17th round of the 2006 draft, Reddick made his debut for the Red Sox in the July of 2009. He bounced between Boston and Triple-A Pawtucket before being traded to the Oakland A’s during the 2011-12 offseason. Reddick got his first opportunity to start on a MLB roster in 2012 and ran with it, posting a career high 32 home runs and 85 RBIs, earning a Gold Glove, and picking up a few MVP votes to go with it.

Reddick played three more full seasons for Oakland during which he accumulated a .747 OPS over 372 games. At the 2016 trade deadline, he and Rich Hill were flipped to the Dodgers in exchange for a package that included Frankie Montas, where he helped Los Angeles advance to the NLCS. The next offseason, Reddick reached free agency and signed a four-year deal with the Astros worth $52MM, where he made an immediate impact. He slashed .314/.363/.484 in his first season with the Astros, playing a huge role in Houston’s 2017 championship run.

Reddick spent three more full seasons with the Astros before joining the Diamondbacks on a one-year deal for 2021. After Arizona released him in early August, he spent three weeks at the Mets’ Triple-A Syracuse before being released.

In February of 2021, Reddick took his career to Mexico and spent a summer with the Acereros de Monclova, with whom he hit .293 in 28 games. Today, Reddick was on hand for Game 1 of the ALCS in Houston, where he told reporters he was “frustrated, upset” because he feels like he has “plenty of talent to be out there playing (in the majors).” He continued on to say that his time with the Acereros was his last attempt at returning to MLB. Reddick will be one of the biggest names to ever play in the ABL, where he’ll join a Heat team that includes two former MLB pitchers in Zac Reininger and Warwick Saupold.

In over 4879 Major League plate appearances across parts of thirteen big league seasons, Reddick slashed .262/.321/.426. He accumulated 24.7 bWAR, hit 146 home runs, drove in 575 and scored 597 times. He banked north of $66MM in career earnings, according to Baseball Reference. MLBTR congratulates Reddick on his lengthy, successful career and wishes him all the best in his retirement.

19 Players Elect Free Agency

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Players hit minor league free agency on a daily basis during the postseason, as opposed to major league free agents who hit free agency following the World Series when their contracts expire. On Thursday, MLBTR covered 15 players who elected minor league free agency, and we will continue to provide occasional updates as players continue to hit the open market, as noted on the MiLB.com transactions log.

If a player is not on their organization’s 40-man roster at the end of the season, he will hit minor league free agency as long as he has at least 3 years of MLB service time, been assigned outright more than once in his career, and/or has played in the minor leagues for parts of seven or more seasons. Everyone on today’s list is part of that group of players, and most will search for another minor league deal this offseason, though a few may manage to latch onto a major league club and secure a bench or bullpen spot entering the 2023 season.

Infielders:

Outfielders:

Pitchers:

15 Players Elect Free Agency

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As the postseason rolls along, players hit minor league free agency daily. It’s customary each offseason for dozens of players to hit the open market, separate from the players who reach MLB free agency at the end of the World Series based on the expiration of their contracts while having six-plus years of MLB service time.

Any player who is not on his team’s 40-man roster at season’s end but has three-plus years of MLB service, multiple career outright assignments and/or seven-plus seasons in the minor leagues has the right to elect free agency. Everyone in today’s group falls under that umbrella. The majority will take minor league deals over the winter, although one or two could find a big league deal as a bench piece or middle-inning reliever.

MLBTR covered 34 players who qualified for minor league free agency last week. We’ll periodically provide updates as plenty more hit the open market, as reflected on the MiLB.com transactions log.

Pitchers

Infielders

Outfielders

Billy Beane Discusses A’s Future

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Long-time fans of the Athletics are probably somewhat accustomed to the boom-and-bust cycle of the club by now, with the team oscillating between contenting and rebuilding throughout the 25-year period since Billy Beane took over as general manager. Although Beane was promoted to executive vice president of baseball operations in 2015 with David Forst taking over as GM, the cycle hasn’t stopped.

However, it’s possible that this up-and-down sequence is now in a deeper valley than ever before. After trading away just about every player making a meaningful salary in the past year, the club finished 2022 with a record of 60-102, their worst showing since losing 108 games in 1979. Financially, the club has stripped the payroll back about as close to zero as a team can get. As MLBTR’s Steve Adams laid out in his recent Offseason Outlook piece, the club has no guaranteed contracts and a small arbitration class, most of whom could plausibly be non-tendered or traded.

Still, the opinion of the front office seems to be that this is a road they’ve been down before. Forst and Beane both spoke to the media this week, with the San Francisco Chronicle’s Matt Kawahara and John Shea both reporting on some of the comments. “As long as I’ve been here and worked with Billy,” Forst says, “we’ve worked with what we’ve got, done our best to put the most competitive team we can out there,” before adding, “I don’t think this is any different from what we’ve dealt with at various times over the last 20-plus years.”

Forst and Beane seem to be aware that the poor results were due to decisions made above field level and aren’t falling at the feet of manager Mark Kotsay. This was his first year at the helm after Bob Melvin departed for the Padres a year ago. “He lost some great players and some critical players, and he handled it as well as you could expect, particularly given your first year,” Beane says of Kotsay’s performance in his first season on the job. It seems that Kotsay won’t be evaluated based on wins and losses for the time being, which makes sense.

Climbing back into contention from this nadir won’t be easy, especially without financial resources. The A’s have never been big spenders, with 2019’s Opening Day payroll of $92MM a franchise record. This year, however, they were barely half that, coming in at $48MM, according to figures from Cot’s Baseball Contracts. Beane tells Kawahara that next year’s payroll is “still in discussion.”

One thing impacting the club’s financial future is the ongoing uncertainty around the stadium situation. The club has been in negotiations with the city of Oakland for quite some time about an ambitious project at Howard Terminal. The club has long hoped to make progress on the $12 billion project this year, before upcoming municipal elections lead to a new mayor and change the face of the city’s council. However, Shea reports that it’s likely to get kicked down to the road until after the elections. If it doesn’t end up working out, the club has explored the possibility of following the example of the Raiders and moving to Las Vegas.

Regardless of the slow progression, Beane remains optimistic. “At some point, we will have a new stadium,” he says. “That’s what makes me feel good. I hope it’s within my tenure. But we will. I think the organization, the city deserve it, and it’ll happen.” Still, until there’s some progress, it seems the team will be in a sort or holding pattern. “The frustration from a team standpoint is, yeah, it would be nice to be at that point where we could have some continuity,” Beane added. “We don’t. And until we have a new venue, we’re not going to.”

Amid all that frustration, Beane doesn’t seem to have given any strong consideration to pursuing outside opportunities. About a year ago, the Mets obtained permission to speak to Beane about a position in their front office, though he withdrew himself from the running. Despite the uncertainty in other areas of the franchise, one thing that can seemingly be counted on is Beane’s presence. “If you project five years from now, I believe I will always have something to do with the A’s, until they don’t want me here,” Beane tells Shea. “What will continue no matter what, until they want to want to kick me out the door, is I will have some involvement and some association always with the A’s, is what I believe. I have no intention of ending that.”

Dustin Garneau Announces Retirement

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Former major league catcher Dustin Garneau took to Twitter this afternoon to announce his retirement. “Hanging them up. Thank you to everyone who had an impact on my career,” Garneau wrote. “To my wife for always being by my side through the ups and downs. To my agent (Marc Kligman) for always being there and making me a part of your family as well. And to my friends and family who were by my side.”

A 19th-round pick of the Rockies in the 2009 draft, Garneau reached the majors for the first time six years later. The Cal State Fullerton product broke into the big leagues just after his 28th birthday in August 2015. It marked the first of eight straight years in which he’d get to the highest level. Garneau was a prototypical depth catcher, never appearing in more than 41 MLB games in a season but donning six different uniforms along the way.

After two seasons in Colorado, Garneau bounced to the A’s on waivers. He’d find himself in the transactions logs fairly frequently thereafter, moving to the White Sox, Angels, back to the A’s and Astros through 2020. He returned to the Rockies on a minor league deal in 2021 but was dealt to the Tigers, with whom he spent the past couple seasons. That included eight games early this season, but he spent most of the year in Triple-A before reaching minor league free agency last week.

Altogether, Garneau appeared in 168 major league games. He hit .205/.285/.373 over 506 plate appearances, connecting on 15 home runs and 28 doubles. Six of those longballs came in a 20-game stint with Detroit in 2021. Over parts of eight Triple-A campaigns, the righty-swinging backstop was a .248/.329/.480 hitter. He played parts of 14 professional seasons. Best wishes to Garneau in all the best in his post-playing endeavors.

34 Players Become Free Agents

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The Wild Card round of the 2022 postseason begins today, but for the majority of teams and players, the offseason is now underway. With that will come plenty of roster formalities, including veteran players who’ve been outrighted off their respective teams’ rosters reaching minor league free agency. This week, there have been 34 such instances throughout the league, per the transactions log at MiLB.com.

None of these are a surprise, to be clear. Any player who is not on his team’s 40-man roster at season’s end but has three-plus years of Major League service time, multiple career outright assignments and/or seven-plus seasons in the minors has the right to elect free agency. Everyone in today’s group of players falls under that umbrella. The majority of the group will likely find minor league deals over the winter, although a few of the players in question could potentially find a big league deal as a bench piece or middle-inning reliever.

There will be several more waves of players of this ilk, and we’ll make note of them in bunches over the coming weeks as we await the launch of Major League free agency, when all unsigned players with at least six years of Major League service time will reach the open market. For now, here’s the first of what will likely be several waves of newly minted minor league free agents:

Catchers

Infielders

Outfielders

Pitchers

Athletics Notes: Kemp, Vogt, Irvin, Puk

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The 2022 season has been a disappointing one for A’s second baseman/outfielder Tony Kemp, who’s followed up last year’s .279/.382/.418 slash with a flimsy .235/.308/.335 output through a career-high 554 plate appearances. Kemp, due a raise on his $2.25MM salary in what will be his final trip through the arbitration process, seemingly acknowledged his status as a potential trade or non-tender candidate, telling Matt Kawahara of the San Francisco Chronicle that he hopes he’ll get the chance to rebound with Oakland next season.

“I want to be with this team,” Kemp said yesterday. “…going into my last year of arbitration I just think that being able to be part of this team would be something special.”

A’s skipper Mark Kotsay gave Kemp a vote of confidence, lauding the 30-year-old’s improved second-half play and touting him as a potential clubhouse leader for the 2023 team. Kemp, to his credit, is hitting .278/.343/.429 in the season’s second half, but the A’s have been focused on shedding payroll since last offseason began; time will tell whether Kemp becomes another step toward that end.

Kemp’s salary next season will by no means break the bank — likely falling shy of the $4MM range. As I noted when previewing Oakland’s upcoming offseason, the A’s don’t have a single dollar committed to next year’s roster at the moment, with Kemp, catcher Sean Murphy, outfielder Ramon Laureano, righty Paul Blackburn and perhaps lefties A.J. Puk and Cole Irvin (depending on this year’s Super Two cutoff) standing as the team’s notable arbitration-eligible players. (Murphy, who drew ample interest prior to the summer trade deadline, figures to generate plenty of interest again this offseason.)

One player who assuredly won’t be back — at least in a playing capacity — is veteran catcher Stephen Vogt, who announced late last month that he’d retire at season’s end. A ten-year veteran with a unique career arc and future managerial aspirations, Vogt seems far from done in with baseball as a whole. Whether the next steps for him are to pursue coaching/managing, front-office work or even a career in the broadcast booth remain to be determined, but the Chronicle’s John Shea spoke to Kotsay, GM David Forst and broadcaster Ken Korach about why Vogt would excel at any of the three.

Kotsay praised Vogt’s ability to have tough conversations with teammates — “telling guys things they need to hear, not things they want to hear” — and cited recent examples of Vogt doing just that. Beyond Kotsay’s own belief that Vogt has a future in managing, he noted to Shea that Brewers manager Craig Counsell, who managed Vogt in 2017, has remarked in the past that Vogt could eventually even be his successor in Milwaukee.

Forst, too, noted Vogt’s leadership traits and “ability to connect with everybody in the clubhouse,” adding that such traits are also important on the front-office side of the game. Forst compared Vogt’s skill set to that of former A’s outfielder and current Phillies general manager Sam Fuld, adding that Vogt will quite likely “be good at whatever he chooses to do.”

The 28-year-old Irvin name-checked Vogt after yesterday’s game, telling reporters that he’s “learned a lot” from Vogt, specifically with regard to his preparation for each start (link via Martin Gallegos of MLB.com). Irvin’s six shutout innings Tuesday dropped his ERA back under 4.00 — a personal goal of his after he’d struggled through a rough patch over the past month or so. The lefty voiced pride in making 30-plus starts in consecutive seasons and, after finishing this year with a career-high 181 innings, noted that reaching 200 frames will be a goal in 2023.

At this point, any A’s player with some success and a potential arbitration salary will draw his share of trade speculation, but Kotsay spoke glowingly of Irvin’s increased role as a leader on the pitching staff and spoke of him as an important piece to the 2023 roster: “I’m looking forward to seeing him again next year.”

Oakland’s acquisition of Irvin didn’t garner much attention at the time, but sending cash to the Phillies following the left-hander’s DFA in late January of 2021 has proven to be one of the best quiet acquisitions the A’s have made in recent years. Over the past two seasons, Irvin has started 62 games and pitched to a combined 4.11 ERA in 359 1/3 innings. The 2022 season saw Irvin make slight improvements in his strikeout rate, walk rate, swinging-strike rate, called-strike rate and opponents’ chase rate over last year’s levels.

Irvin will head into the offseason with two years, 120 days (2.120) of Major League service time. That’ll put him right on the Super Two bubble, potentially setting him up for four trips through the arbitration process, rather than the standard three. The Super Two cutoffs over the last three seasons have been 2.116, 2.125 and 2.115, respectively, so Irvin would’ve made the cut in two of the three seasons. The 27-year-old Puk, who’s saved four games and piled up 20 holds while pitching to a 3.12 ERA in 66 1/3 innings of relief, is in a similar boat with 2.124 years of service time.

Athletics Select Nate Mondou

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The Athletics announced that they have placed infielder Vimael Machín on the paternity list and selected infielder Nate Mondou from Triple-A Las Vegas.

Mondou, 27, has spent his entire professional career with the A’s thus far, having been selected by them in the 13th round of the 2016 draft. After that draft, he began in the lower levels of the club’s system and fared well. Over 2016 and 2017, he hit .290/.370/.375 in 186 games between rookie ball, A-ball and High-A, striking out in just 17.1% of plate appearances while walking in 10.5% of them.

Though he’s never been a highly-touted prospect, his performance up to that time got him a mention on the 2018 FanGraphs list of top Oakland farmhands. Carson Cistulli highlighted Mondou as “Cistulli’s Guy,” a slot reserved for a prospect that was perhaps a hidden gem. Cistulli noted Mondou’s lack of power but gave a compliment his bat-to-ball skills.

Mondou reached Double-A in 2018 but struggled there that year and in 2019, producing a .250/.344/.323 batting line at that level. After the minor league seasons were canceled due to the pandemic in 2020, Mondou got a bump to Triple-A in 2021 and has generally continued to fare well in that low-power way of his. Over the past two years, he’s hit just 15 home runs in 192 games in the hitter-friendly Pacific Coast League but has walked in 10.6% of his plate appearances while striking out in just 17% of them. That’s led to a Triple-A batting line of .283/.373/.431 and a wRC+ of 104, or 4% better than league average.

Defensively, Mondou has spent most of his time at second base while also seeing some action at third base, shortstop, left field and one mound appearance. The A’s have traded away or released most of their established players in the last year, leaving them with a whole bunch of rookies scattered all over their roster. The infield is no exception, as Nick Allen, Jonah Bride, Dermis Garcia and Jordan Diaz are all in the mix, none of whom having ever cracked the big leagues before this season. Mondou will get a very brief chance to showcase his skills before the offseason begins, though he has a full slate of options and could act as a depth piece for the A’s for the foreseeable future.

Hector Lopez Passes Away

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Former major league infielder/outfielder Héctor López has passed away at the age of 93, according to a report from Julia Kreuz of MLB.com (Twitter link). A two-time World Series champion, López played in parts of 11 major league seasons.

A native of Panama, López began his professional career in 1952. He played three years in the Athletics farm system before reaching the big leagues in May 1955. That marked the first of four-plus seasons with the franchise back when it played in Kansas City. López saw most of his early action at third base, but he also logged time at second base, shortstop and in center field. He was a solid hitter immediately, hitting at least .273 in each of his first three MLB seasons and getting into double digits in homers for five straight years.

Over his time with the A’s, López hit .278/.337/.433 with 67 longballs and 99 doubles. The Yankees acquired him midway through the ’59 campaign, and he spent the second half of his career in the Bronx. López topped 100 games in six of the next seven seasons, increasingly seeing more time in the corner outfield later in his career. López often shared an outfield with Mickey Mantle and Roger Maris in the early 1960’s, contributing to a team that claimed five consecutive pennants between 1960-64. New York won back-to-back titles in 1961-62, with López collecting a homer and a triple in four games during the former season’s World Series.

Over parts of eight years in pinstripes, López hit .262/.324/.399 with 69 homers. He finished with the Yankees in 1966. After playing two more minor league seasons but failing to return to the majors, he retired. López finished his playing career with a .269/.330/.415 line in 1450 big league games. He collected 1251 hits, 136 home runs, drove in 591 runs and scored 623 times. Once his playing time wrapped up, he kicked off lengthy career as a minor league manager. He worked in affiliated ball for a few decades and managed the Panamanian team at the 2009 World Baseball Classic.

MLBTR sends our condolences to López’s family, friends, former teammates and loved ones.

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