Ed Ott Passes Away
The Pirates announced today that former major league catcher Ed Ott passed away today at the age of 72. “We are saddened by the loss of such a beloved member of the Pirates family,” said Pirates President Travis Williams in a statement. “Ed spent seven of his eight years in the Major Leagues with the Pirates and was a valued member of our World Series Championship team in 1979. It was great to see him last summer when he was in Pittsburgh to support former teammate Kent Tekulve at our Hall of Fame induction ceremony.”
Born in Muncy, Pennsylvania in 1951, Ott was part of both the football and wrestling teams at his local high school although he did not play baseball there on account of the school not having a baseball team. Instead, Ott participated in American Legion Baseball during the summers as a third baseman before being drafted in the 23rd round of the 1970 draft by the Pirates, at which point the club converted him from the infield to the outfield. Ott spent three seasons as an outfielder in the Pirates’ minor league system before the club once again asked him to change positions, this time moving him behind the plate.
While Ott had previously made his major league debut in 1974 as a bench bat with a brief two-game cameo in right field, he’d spend the next six seasons of his career as a catcher for the Pirates. After making just 10 trips to the plate across his first two big league seasons combined, Ott impressed in a 27 game stint as an emergency catcher behind injured backstops Manny Sanguillén and Duffy Dyer. While his playing time remained limited, Ott made the most of the opportunity by slashing .308/.349/.359, an above average slash for the era. That winter, the Pirates shipped Sanguillén to the A’s as compensation for hiring away manager Chuck Tanner, a deal that opened the door for Ott to take on primary catcing duties in the 1977 season.
In his first season as a major league regular, Ott performed well with a respectable .264/.334/.395 slash line in 347 trips to the plate across 104 games while spending 712 2/3 innings behind the plate. That combination of reliability behind the plate and roughly league average offense continued for the rest of Ott’s time with the Pirates, as he slashed .268/.316/.383 across the next three seasons while appearing in at least 112 games during each season. Ott is most famous for his role as a key piece on Pittsburgh’s 1979 team, which won 98 games before sweeping the Reds in the NLCS and being crowned World Series champions after beating the Orioles in a seven-game set. It’s the fifth and most recent championship in franchise history. Ott went 7-for-25 during that postseason, knocking in three runs during the World Series and scoring the game-winning run against Baltimore in Game 2.
Ott’s time in Pittsburgh came to an end following the 1980 season when he was traded to the then-California Angels alongside southpaw Mickey Mahler in exchange for All Star first baseman Jason Thompson. Ott appeared in 75 games for the Angels in 1981, though he batted just .217 with .545 OPS before undergoing surgery on his rotator cuff that winter, causing him to miss the 1982 campaign. Ott spent the next two seasons in the Angels’ minor league system before retiring in 1984. Following his playing career, Ott went on to serve as a minor league manager in the Pirates organization and a big league coach with the Astros and Tigers.
We at MLBTR join the rest of the baseball world in sending our condolences to Ott’s family, friends, loved ones, and former teammates and colleagues around the league.
Yankees Outright Jordan Groshans
The Yankees announced this afternoon that infielder Jordan Groshans has cleared waivers and been assigned outright to the club’s Triple-A roster. Groshans had been designated for assignment last week in order to make room for infielder/outfielder Jahmai Jones on the club’s 40-man roster after Jones was claimed off waivers from the Brewers.
Groshans, 24, joined the organization just before the start of Spring Training last month when the club claimed him off waivers from the Marlins. The infielder’s professional career kicked off when he was selected 12th overall by the Blue Jays in the 2018 draft, and he spent the next few seasons working his way up the minor league ladder in the organization as he blossomed into a consensus top-50 prospect in the sport. He ultimately would not make it to the big leagues in Toronto, however, as he was shipped to the Marlins at the 2022 trade deadline in exchange for relievers Anthony Bass and Zach Pop after struggling in his first taste of the Triple-A level.
The Marlins wasted little time in bringing Groshans up to the majors, giving him a 17-game cup of coffee in Miami down the stretch. He held his own while playing third base, though his slash line of .262/.308/.311 in 65 trips to the plate left something to be desired. While he remained in Miami throughout the 2023 season, Groshans did not make an appearance in the majors last year as he once again struggled at the plate in Triple-A. In 528 plate appearances across 125 games at the level last year, Groshans slashed a paltry .244/.339/.330 with just six home runs while splitting time between first and third base.
Given that lack of power and his move to the infield corners last year, the Marlins decided to move on from Groshans last month upon acquiring infielder Jonah Bride in a cash deal with the A’s. That decisions ultimately led to Groshans returning to the AL East as a member of the Yankees, with whom he’ll remain as a non-roster depth option headed into the 2024 season. While Groshans has yet to flash the power typically necessary to thrive at the infield corners, he has experience at all four infield spots and could compete with the likes of Jones, Jeter Downs, Kevin Smith as the top option to fill in on the club’s bench this year in the event of an injury.
Giants’ Farhan Zaidi Discusses Pitching, Possible Further Major Acquisitions
With the Matt Chapman signing now official, Giants president of baseball operations Farhan Zaidi met with reporters (including NBC Sports Bay Area’s Alex Pavlovic and the San Francisco Chronicle’s Susan Slusser) on a Zoom call. In regards to the chance that more significant moves might still happen before Opening Day, Zaidi indicated that Chapman’s contract might mark the end of the Giants’ heavy lifting.
“I’ll say what I said last time we talked after we signed [Jorge] Soler — the offseason is really over as far as we’re concerned,” Zaidi said. “We’re more in in-season mode, which doesn’t mean you can’t make additions, but it’s a different dynamic because we’re really focused on the players that we have and how they’re all going to fit together.”
It was a little over two weeks ago that Zaidi also spoke with the media after Soler’s signing, when the PBO noted that “It’s a little bit more disruptive to add at this point. Anybody who’s a free agent, we’ve theoretically had three and a half months to figure out a deal and if it hasn’t happened yet, at some point organizationally, you just need to turn the page and focus on the players you have….At this point, the calendar makes any further additions unlikely.”
Of course, as Pavlovic observed, Chapman was then signed in the aftermath of those initial comments, so Zaidi’s statement today could and probably should be taken with some natural skepticism. Multiple reports surfaced yesterday that Blake Snell was still a target for San Francisco even in the aftermath of Chapman’s arrival, and Zaidi didn’t deny that talks had closed off on Snell or any other possible additions. “The easiest thing is to say we can’t rule it out,” Zaidi said. “We don’t have some planned sequence of moves here and don’t feel like anything is imminent there, but we’re going to continue to look for ways to improve the team.”
In the absence of any more newcomers, the Giants’ rotation continues to look like Logan Webb, converted reliever Jordan Hicks, and then a host of prospects with little to no Major League experience. The highly-touted Kyle Harrison (34 2/3 career big league innings) will be getting an extended look at a rotation job, Keaton Winn (42 1/3 career innings) projects as the fourth starter, and a whole host of pitchers could now get a shot at the fifth starter’s role since Tristan Beck will begin the season on the 60-day injured list.
Despite this lack of proven starting depth, Zaidi is excited to see what the in-house arms can do. “Our plan all along has been to give our young pitchers opportunities and to try to create a defense that would support them in their transition and that’s one of the reasons Matt was such a priority….We want to elevate our young pitchers. There’s uncertainty that comes from the fact that there’s a lack of familiarity. Young pitchers are definitionally not household names, but we think that the more they get a chance to prove themselves, you sort of have to take the leap with them at some point and this is something we’ve been planning for a couple of years, to get younger in our rotation and give these guys the opportunity to win jobs.”
Beyond just the prospects, Robbie Ray and Alex Cobb are expected to bolster the rotation when the two veterans return from the injured list. Ray’s recovery from Tommy John surgery will keep him out until at least midseason, and Cobb underwent hip surgery at the end of October and was given an estimated return timeline of roughly six months.
Cobb has already been working out in spring camp, and it seems as though the right-hander is on track to at least meet if not better that timeline. Zaidi said that Cobb is expected back “relatively soon in the year,” and Pavlovic noted that the Giants haven’t put Cobb on the 60-day injured list, which would rule him out until the end of May.
Dodgers Notes: Paxton, Muncy, Cartaya, Frasso
James Paxton threw 96 innings with the Red Sox last season, marking his return to somewhat regular action after injuries limited him to 21 2/3 big league frames in 2020-21 and no innings at all in 2022. Paxton’s comeback year was then basically two seasons in one — the excellent 2.76 ERA he posted over his first 56 innings, followed by an ugly 6.98 ERA in his final 40 innings of work.
As Paxton tells Mike DiGiovanna of the Los Angeles Times, “I felt like I kind of reached a point where my body was just a little burned out. I didn’t have much left in the tank.” Paxton kept pushing since the Red Sox were still on the fringes of the playoff race, and struggled in particular once he was moved to a regular turn of four days’ rest between starts.
“Early in the season, I had a lot of extra rest, and then we went to a shorter leash. Coming off a surgery and that much time off, I wasn’t conditioned for that,” Paxton said. “If you start off going [every five days] your body gets accustomed to that, whereas if you go six all the time, that’s what your body gets accustomed to. We’re creatures of habit.”
Despite the rough finish to his season, Paxton still landed $7MM from the Dodgers on a one-year free agent contract, even if that $7MM total dropped from an initial $11MM guarantee due to some concerns the team had about his overall health. The 35-year-old lefty is hopeful that getting some innings under his belt last season will better help him manage the length of the 2024 campaign, plus L.A. will deploy “somewhat of a six-man rotation,” according to assistant pitching coach Connor McGuinness. The idea is to keep all of the Dodgers’ hurlers fresh and healthy, plus some other reinforcements in Clayton Kershaw and Dustin May could join the pitching mix after the middle of the season.
Whereas Paxton’s 2023 season was basically divided in two, Max Muncy‘s year was a bit more of a roller-coaster before he finished a pretty typical year of production. The infielder hit .212/.333/.475 over 579 plate appearances while matching his career high of 36 home runs, translating to a 118 wRC+. Los Angeles was impressed enough to sign Muncy to a new contract extension, guaranteeing him $24MM through 2025 while also tacking a $10MM club option on his services for 2026.
Muncy’s recipe of homers, walks, low averages, and high strikeouts is pretty set, but as he enters his age-33 season, Muncy feels he has more to offer as a defensive player. He told reporters (including Bill Plunkett of the Orange County Register) that his offseason regiment included cutting 15 pounds and focusing more on flexibility training.
“It was just making sure my feet move a little bit more, and getting the knees healthy. Last year, I had a little trouble with just not staying down on the ball,” Muncy said. “I was coming up out of my fielding stance and everything. And when you’re doing that, it’s hard to read the hops and I kept putting myself in bad positions last year with bad hops….So the focus was just making sure that my feet stay moving. Just allowing myself to read the ball and make moves on it.”
There’s basically nowhere to go but up for Muncy defensively, as the public defensive metrics (-7 Outs Above Average, -3 Defensive Runs Saved, -14.8 UZR/150) were unanimously unimpressed with his third base glovework in 2023. The move to more or less a full-time third base role has come as the Dodgers have brought superstar talent into Muncy’s other positions — Shohei Ohtani is now locked in at DH, Freddie Freeman at first base, and Mookie Betts is now moving into everyday second base duty.
“I’ve been very open about how I want to stay here for the rest of my career….So if I want to play here, I need to make sure I’m in the field, and the best way to do that is just put myself in a good spot,” Muncy said.
In other Dodgers news, GM Brandon Gomes told Plunkett and other reporters that catching prospect Diego Cartaya has been dealing with a back problem but the “full expectation” is that Cartaya will be set for the start of the Double-A season. Back problems have bothered Cartaya in the past, and the last thing the catcher needs is an injury setback as he looks to bounce back from a difficult season. A top-20 prospect in the sport heading into the 2023 campaign, Cartaya hit only .189/.278/.379 over 403 PA at Double-A last season, dropping his stock as a potential catcher of the future.
Nick Frasso is another top-100 prospect looking at a lost year, as he was already expected to miss the 2024 season after undergoing shoulder surgery back in November. Gomes added that Frasso also had a “clean-up” surgery on his right hip labrum, though it doesn’t appear as though this second procedure will impact the right-hander’s timeline. If all goes well, Gomes thinks Frasso will be able to pitch in the Arizona Fall League.
Diamondbacks Sign Elvis Andrus To Minors Contract
The Diamondbacks announced that infielder Elvis Andrus has been signed to a minor league contract. Andrus receives an invitation to Arizona’s big league Spring Training camp.
Andrus joins Kevin Newman as a veteran non-roster signing battling for a backup role on the Diamondbacks’ roster. Geraldo Perdomo has already been tapped as the everyday shortstop for at least the beginning of the season, and Andrus and Newman can both play shortstop, which perhaps provides some kind of edge for one of them to beat out Emmanuel Rivera or Jace Peterson for a bench job.
Few players in the sport today have as much shortstop experience as Andrus, who has logged 17010 innings at the position over his 15 Major League seasons. Andrus had never played a position other than shortstop prior to last season, when he logged 404 innings at his usual position but also 499 2/3 innings at second base and 27 frames at third base when playing for the White Sox.
An excellent defender back in his prime with the Rangers, Andrus’ public defensive metrics have had some variance over the years, though he can still handle the glove well enough to get by in a backup capacity. The Outs Above Average metric has almost always been very favorable about his work as a shortstop and second baseman, the Defensive Runs Saved metric has been generally down on Andrus’ glovework, and UZR/150 is about somewhere in the middle. The 2023 season saw Andrus post +4 OAA, +0.2 UZR/150, and -2 DRS at shortstop, and +2 OAA, -1.6 UZR/150, 0 DRS as a second baseman.
Andrus’ output at the plate has been inconsistent at best during his career, and he hit .251/.304/.358 over 406 plate appearances in 2023 for a subpar 81 wRC+. This isn’t far off his career .269/.325/.370 mark and 86 wRC+, though it is safe to guess that the D’Backs are focusing more on Andrus’ defensive value ahead of what he can add at the plate.
It isn’t necessarily a surprise that the 35-year-old Andrus couldn’t find a guaranteed deal coming off an underwhelming season, though this does mark the first minor league deal of his career. Andrus’ past top prospect status painted him as a cornerstone for the Rangers, who signed him to a pair of extensions — a three-year, $14.4MM pact covering the 2012-14 seasons, and then a big eight-year, $120MM deal for the 2015-22 seasons. Even after that mega-deal expired, Andrus still landed a $3MM guarantee from the White Sox last winter.
MLBTR Chat Transcript
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Giants Sign Matt Chapman
MARCH 3: The Giants officially announced Chapman’s signing and the terms, with the additional detail that the contract includes a mutual option covering the 2027 season.
Chapman will receive a $2MM signing bonus and a $16MM salary in 2024, plus a $2MM buyout on the $17MM player option for 2025. If the third baseman remains in his contract through the 2025 season, he’ll have an $18MM player option for 2026 with a $3MM buyout attached. Should he remain in his contract through those three seasons, Chapman and the Giants will share a $20MM mutual option for the 2027 season, with a $1MM buyout if either party declines their side of the option.
MARCH 1: Matt Chapman is headed back to the Bay Area. The four-time Gold Glove winner has reportedly agreed to terms with the Giants on a three-year, $54MM guarantee. The Boras Corporation client can opt out after each of the next two seasons.
He’ll make $20MM this season, followed by successive $18MM and $16MM player options. The contract has an $18MM average annual value for competitive balance tax purposes. San Francisco will need to make a 40-man roster move once the deal is finalized.
Chapman, 31 next month, reunites with Giants president of baseball operations Farhan Zaidi and manager Bob Melvin. He’s familiar with both from his early days with the A’s. Chapman was a first-round pick by Oakland in 2014 and debuted three years later. He stepped in as one of the sport’s best all-around players.
The Cal State Fullerton product put up a .255/.336/.503 batting line through his first three and a half seasons. He paired that with the best third base defense in the American League. Chapman finished among the top 10 in AL MVP balloting in 2018 and ’19, securing Gold Glove honors in both years.
Chapman’s 2020 season was cut short by a labrum tear in his right hip. He underwent surgery that September, shutting him down for the year. While it wasn’t clear at the time, that injury has proven to be something of a turning point in his career. His offensive production hasn’t been the same since he made his return.
The right-handed hitter stumbled to a career-worst .210/.314/.403 line in 2021. The A’s dealt him to the Blue Jays the following offseason. Chapman’s offensive production ticked up slightly in Toronto, but he hasn’t found his 2018-19 form outside of a scorching April last year.
After a .229/.324/.433 showing in 2022, Chapman entered his platform season looking to reestablish himself as a middle-of-the-order force. He began the year as the hottest hitter on the planet. Chapman mashed at a .384/.465/.687 clip through the end of April. While he’d cut his strikeout rate to a 22.8% mark in the season’s first month, his whiffs spiked as the summer approached. A dismal May kicked off what proved to be a disappointing finish to his Jays tenure.
Over his final 467 plate appearances, Chapman hit .205/.298/.361 with a strikeout rate near 30%. By the second half, he was often hitting in the bottom third of the lineup. The Jays briefly sent him to the injured list in late August for a sprain of the middle finger on his right hand. It’s possible that had an adverse effect on his offense, but the biggest concern is that he didn’t sustain the strides in contact rate he had seemed to make early on.
That presented a tough evaluation for teams as he hit the open market for the first time. Even if he’s no longer an MVP-caliber player, Chapman is still an above-average regular. He has drawn walks in more than 10% of his plate appearances in each of the last three seasons. He connected on 27 homers in both 2021 and ’22. That dipped to 17 longballs a year ago, yet that’s not a reflection of a drop in his contact quality.
Chapman actually hit the ball harder than ever last season, averaging 93.5 MPH in exit velocity. He made hard contact (defined as 95+ MPH) on 56.4% of batted balls. That was the highest rate for any qualified hitter in the majors, narrowly ahead of impact bats like former teammate Matt Olson, Juan Soto, Ronald Acuña Jr., Rafael Devers and Shohei Ohtani.
He remains an asset on the other side of the ball. Chapman’s defensive grades aren’t quite as eye-popping as they were early in his career, but he’s still a plus at third base. Both Statcast and Defensive Runs Saved have rated him as an above-average defender in every season of his career. That includes an estimated three runs better than par by Statcast and an excellent +12 mark from DRS over more than 1200 innings last season.
Infield defense was an issue for the Giants, particularly on the left side. San Francisco led longtime shortstop Brandon Crawford walk in free agency. They’re set to turn that position to 22-year-old Marco Luciano. Incumbent third baseman J.D. Davis drew mixed reviews from defensive metrics last season. There’s no question that Chapman will be an upgrade on that side of the ball. While there had been some speculation the Giants could consider kicking Chapman up the defensive spectrum to shortstop, Susan Slusser of the San Francisco Chronicle reports that he’ll stick at the hot corner at Oracle Park.
San Francisco has targeted Chapman throughout the offseason, having been tied to him as early as the middle of November. They were content to wait out the market as he was one of a handful of top free agents who lingered well into Spring Training.
A $54MM guarantee certainly isn’t what his camp had in mind at the beginning of the offseason. Chapman had reportedly declined a 10-year, $150MM extension offer from the A’s back in 2019. He also reportedly passed on an offer from Toronto that would’ve topped $100MM at some point before he got to free agency. Whatever asking price he had set at the beginning of the winter wasn’t met. As with fellow Boras Corporation client Cody Bellinger, Chapman turned to a short-term deal that gives him the chance to get back to the market next offseason instead.
He was one of seven players to receive and decline a qualifying offer in November. The QO would have been valued at $20.325MM, a hair above what he now stands to make next season. This contract structure is certainly preferable to taking the qualifying offer — there’s added security built in via the player options in case he struggles or suffers an injury — but the end result could be similar. The likeliest outcome is that he collects a $20MM salary in 2024 and retests the market next winter.
It remains to be seen if it would treat him more kindly the next time around. He’d be entering his age-32 season with a profile that is heavily dependent on defense. Chapman won’t be eligible for another qualifying offer — players can’t receive that more than once in their careers, per the CBA — but he’s unlikely to be the clear top free agent at the position, as he was this winter. Alex Bregman headlines next year’s third base class, which will also include Davis.
The Giants surrender their second-highest pick in the upcoming draft (#51 overall) and $500K in international signing bonus space to add a player who had declined the QO. The Jays were one of eight teams that paid the luxury tax last season, so their compensation is minimal. They’ll get an extra draft choice after the fourth round, roughly 136th overall.
It’s a bigger penalty for the Giants than it is compensation for Toronto. It’s one the Giants are nevertheless happy to pay to get Chapman at a price well below what they could have expected coming into the offseason. (MLBTR predicted he’d receive six-year, $150MM pact at the start of the winter.) The contract pushes their 2024 player payroll to roughly $183MM, as calculated by RosterResource. They’re around $231MM in luxury tax obligations, keeping them $6MM shy of next year’s threshold.
If they want to avoid the CBT, that wouldn’t leave a ton of room for in-season acquisitions. It’s possible they’re comfortable exceeding the threshold for the first time since 2017. San Francisco has been tied to Blake Snell (and to a much lesser extent) Jordan Montgomery. They’re still in clear need of rotation help, particularly after expected #5 starter Tristan Beck underwent surgery on Friday to address an aneurysm.
Forfeiting a draft choice to sign Chapman to a contract that allows him to opt out after one season is the clearest win-now move of San Francisco’s offseason. They’ve also brought in Jung Hoo Lee to take center field, Jorge Soler at designated hitter, and signed Jordan Hicks to a four-year pact to transition to the rotation. Revamping the lineup to that extent without adding more certainty behind Logan Webb, Hicks, and rookie Kyle Harrison seems unlikely.
Davis is set for a $6.9MM salary in his final season of arbitration and just lost his spot in the starting lineup. Soler and Wilmer Flores are ahead of him as right-handed hitters who’ll factor in at DH at first base, respectively. Flipping Davis to a team that needs third base help before Opening Day could clear spending room for the Giants and seems the best outcome for him personally. There’s very likely more to come at Oracle Park in the next three weeks.
Jon Heyman of the New York Post first reported the agreement, opt-outs, and salary breakdown. Image courtesy of USA Today Sports.
Giants Place Tristan Beck On 60-Day Injured List
TODAY: The Giants placed Beck on the 60-day injured list, to create 40-man roster space for the team’s acquisition of Matt Chapman.
MARCH 1: Giants right-hander Tristan Beck told reporters, including Andrew Baggarly of The Athletic, that he will undergo vascular surgery on Monday at Stanford to address the aneurysm in his upper right arm. He won’t have a timetable for his return until after going under the knife.
Earlier this week, it was reported that Beck was dealing with some discomfort in his throwing arm, which was eventually diagnosed as an aneurysm. It seems a decision has been made that surgical intervention is necessary. Although the timetable won’t be clear until next week when the procedure has been completed, this further creates uncertainty in the San Francisco rotation, which already stood out as a weak part of the roster.
Right-hander Alex Cobb underwent hip surgery last year and will begin the season on the injured list. Trade acquisition Robbie Ray is recovering from UCL/flexor tendon surgery and won’t be back until the All-Star break at the earliest.
The Giants have long known about both of those situations but nonetheless came into camp with a rotation consisting of Logan Webb and a series of unknowns. Jordan Hicks will be looking to move from a relief role to a starting role, something he has never done before. Webb and Hicks were likely to be joined by youngsters like Kyle Harrison, Keaton Winn and Beck. All three of those guys have shown promise but none of that trio has more than 85 innings in the bigs.
For a club planning to contend, that’s a lot of rotation uncertainty, which has become more questionable in recent weeks. Winn was dealing with some elbow soreness last week and although he could still be ready for Opening Day, there’s at least a bit of murkiness there. The latest developments with Beck only compound the concerns around the club’s rotation depth.
If the Giants decide they need to add to this group, there are still options available in free agency. Blake Snell and Jordan Montgomery are still out there and the Giants have reportedly expressed interest in both, though a deal has clearly not come together to this point. The club has generally avoided spending on pitching, with the four-year deal for Hicks being the longest since Farhan Zaidi became president of baseball operations in November of 2018, as shown on MLBTR’s Contract Tracker. The $44MM guarantee for Hicks also matches Carlos Rodón‘s two-year deal for the largest guarantee the club has given a pitcher in that time. If the club wants to avoid a huge deal for Snell or Montgomery, they could also pivot to someone more affordable like Michael Lorenzen, Eric Lauer or Jake Odorizzi.
If they don’t look to external additions, then the internal candidates to step up and take a rotation job would include Sean Hjelle, Kai-Wei Teng, Daulton Jefferies and Spencer Howard. Hjelle had an ERA of 6.00 in Triple-A last year and a mark of 6.52 working out of the big league bullpen. Teng has yet to make his major league debut. Jefferies has lost most of the past two years due to undergoing both thoracic outlet syndrome surgery in June of 2022 and then Tommy John surgery that September. Howard has a 7.20 ERA in his major league career and has a 5.01 ERA in the minors over the past two years.
Giants Still Interested In Blake Snell
The Giants made another major addition yesterday with the signing of Matt Chapman, and might not yet be done with their March shopping. Both Susan Slusser of the San Francisco Chronicle and Alex Pavlovic of NBC Sports Bay Area report that Blake Snell remains a target for the club, as the Giants continue to have a pressing need in the rotation.
Chapman’s deal contains two opt-out clauses, but in its full form is a three-year, $54MM guarantee. That puts San Francisco’s payroll at just over $183MM (as per RosterResource’s projections) and, more importantly, its luxury tax figure at roughly $230.5MM — only slightly below the $237MM Competitive Balance Tax threshold. Even if Snell were to also accept a shorter-term contract laden with opt-outs, his salary would obviously send the Giants sailing over that first tax tier and closer to the secondary tier of $257MM.
The Giants haven’t exceeded the CBT line since 2017, yet given the team’s high-profile bids for star free agents (i.e. Carlos Correa, Aaron Judge, Shohei Ohtani, Yoshinobu Yamamoto) in recent years, the tax threshold is hardly viewed as a barrier to spending. If Snell and his representatives at the Boras Corporation are open to a shorter-term deal deal akin to Chapman’s, the idea that San Francisco could sign both players for perhaps something close to the total number projected for just one of the duo at the start of the offseason would count as a valuable bargain, and seemingly well worth what might be a temporary tax hit. Michael Conforto‘s contract is off the books after next season, Chapman could opt out, and Snell could opt out as well in this scenario.
Signing Snell would come at an additional cost to the Giants than just money, since both Snell and Chapman rejected qualifying offers. Signing Chapman cost San Francisco its second-highest pick (the 51st overall selection) in the 2024 draft as well as $500K in international signing pool money, and signing Snell would cost the Giants another $500K from their pool, plus their third-highest pick in the upcoming draft. While every draft pick is valued, giving up a second pick might again be seen as an acceptable loss for the Giants if it means landing Snell, either at a relative discount price or simply because the team is sorely in need of pitching help.
The rotation appeared to be a priority heading into the offseason, yet the Giants addressed the situation in a somewhat uncertain fashion by signing Jordan Hicks and acquiring Robbie Ray from the Mariners. Hicks has worked primarily as a reliever over his Major League career, and Ray will be out until around midseason as he continues to recover from Tommy John surgery. Since Alex Cobb will be sidelined until May at the earliest due to his own recovery from hip surgery, the Giants were seemingly prepared to roll with a rotation of ace Logan Webb, Hicks, and a group of rookies headlined by star prospect Kyle Harrison until Cobb and Ray were ready to return.
However, those plans took a hit with yesterday’s news that Tristan Beck will be undergoing surgery to correct an aneurysm in his upper right arm. Keaton Winn looks to be on track for Opening Day after a bout of nerve-related elbow discomfort, but these injuries have only highlighted the unsteady nature of San Francisco’s pitching plans. An argument can clearly be made that adding another starter would greatly help the situation, whether more of a stopgap veteran like Michael Lorenzen or Mike Clevinger, or a front-of-the-rotation type like Jordan Montgomery or Snell.
Even though Snell won his second career Cy Young Award in 2023, questions have persisted about Snell’s viability as a long-term investment. He has averaged just over 124 innings per season during his eight years in the big leagues, and he has pitched into the eighth inning in only five of his 191 career starts. Snell has also been prone to giving up a lot of hard contact at times, and his walk rates have been decidedly below average for his entire career.
This doesn’t seem to be the profile that would match Farhan Zaidi’s preferred model for pitching contracts, as the Giants president of baseball operations has long been hesitant about signing pitchers to particularly lengthy commitments. A shorter-term deal with opt-outs might solve that issue, and Snell is reportedly open to considering such offers, though it remains to be seen if there might still be enough late interest for the left-hander to score a more lucrative deal. The Yankees and Angels have been linked to Snell’s market, and other suitors could potentially emerge if another injury situation develops during Spring Training.
AL Notes: Royals, Astros, McKay
The Royals are entering the 2024 season with elevated expectations after the club spent more than $100MM in free agency this winter on top of a massive 11-year extension for franchise shortstop Bobby Witt Jr. With that influx of free agent talent comes increased competition for spots on the club’s Opening Day roster. That excess of talent is particularly clear in the outfield, where manager Matt Quatraro recently indicated to reporters (including MLB.com’s Anne Rogers) that the club’s logjam is likely to result in the club carrying five outfielders on its roster to open the 2024 campaign.
Kansas City signed veteran outfield Hunter Renfroe to be the club’s regular right fielder, and Rogers suggests that glove-first center fielder and former top catching prospect MJ Melendez are the favorites to receive regular playing time on the grass alongside him. That leaves two spots on the bench available for a group that includes Drew Waters, Nelson Velazquez, and Dairon Blanco. A former top prospect in the Braves farm system, Waters was shipped to the Royals midseason back in 2022 and has since slashed a decent .231/.306/.402 in 130 games with the club. Velazquez, meanwhile, joined the club at last year’s trade deadline in a deal with the Cubs and displayed prodigious power down the stretch with 14 home runs in just 40 games. Blanco, 31 next month, is by far the oldest of the trio but performed well in a part-time role last season, going 24-for-29 on the basepaths while slashing .258/.324/.452 in 69 games that saw him spend time in all three outfield spots.
With the club expecting to carry five outfielders on the roster to open the season, that significantly limits the paths to an Opening Day roster spot for other bench options. Veterans Adam Frazier and Garrett Hampson both signed major league deals this past winter and appear locked into utility roles on the bench, and with Melendez now a full-time outfielder the Royals will have to enter the season with Freddy Fermin on the roster as the backup to veteran backstop Salvador Perez. That would seemingly leave little room on the club’s roster for Nick Pratto, the club’s first-round pick in the 2017 draft and a former top prospect. The first baseman has 144 big league games under his belt but has yet to establish himself in the majors, slashing just .216/.295/.364 in a combined 527 trips to the plate during that time.
More from around the American League…
- Astros manager Joe Espada announced to reporters (including MLB.com’s Brian McTaggart) that right-handers Justin Verlander and J.P. France will throw bullpen sessions tomorrow. Espada indicated last week that Verlander’s next bullpen would determine not only whether or not he would then progress to live hitting but also his readiness for Opening Day. If Verlander begins the season on the shelf, it’s possible his spot in the rotation could go to France, assuming that the 28-year-old avoids an injured list stint of his own. The righty impressed with a 3.83 ERA in 136 1/3 innings of work with the big league club last year, almost entirely out of the starting rotation. Should Verlander be healthy enough to make his Opening Day start, France would likely be left to compete for the fifth spot in the club’s rotation with the likes of Ronel Blanco and Brandon Bielak.
- Rays southpaw Brendan McKay made his first professional appearance since undergoing Tommy John surgery late in the 2022 season today, and Marc Topkin of the Tampa Bay Times spoke to the lefty following the appearance. Per Topkin, McKay expressed satisfaction with his progress, indicating that his curveball is “getting better” while his fastball, which Topkin adds sat at 90 while touching 91, is “in a good spot” to gain more velocity going forward. McKay typically sat at 94 with his heater when he last pitched in the majors in 2019, though the former top prospect and fourth-overall pick of the 2017 draft has dealt with both Tommy John surgery and Thoracic Outlet Syndrome since then. Once a consensus top-30 prospect in the sport, it’s easy to imagine McKay impacting the club’s pitching staff at some point this season if he can remain healthy.