Dodgers Showing Interest In Teoscar Hernandez
The Dodgers have expressed interest in Teoscar Hernández, reports Jorge Castillo of the Los Angeles Times (X link). General manager Brandon Gomes told reporters this afternoon that a corner outfielder was among the items on the team’s offseason checklist (relayed by Fabian Ardaya of the Athletic).
Hernández is one of the higher-upside bats on a market light on free agent hitting. A two-time Silver Slugger award winner, he hit .283/.333/.519 for the Blue Jays between 2020-22. He hits the open market on the heels of an underwhelming platform season, however. After an offseason trade to the Mariners, Hernández put together a .258/.305/.435 line across 678 trips to the plate.
He’s still a solid source of right-handed power, connecting on 26 home runs this past season. It was an atypically streaky offensive performance, as excellent showings in June and August were muted by below-average play in the other four months. Seattle made the somewhat surprising decision not to issue Hernández a qualifying offer. Mariners president of baseball operations Jerry Dipoto explained yesterday the club wanted to pivot in a more contact-oriented direction.
Even at his best, Hernández brings a lot of swing-and-miss. He fanned in 31.1% of his plate appearances this year and has gone down on strikes more than 28% of the time through the past four seasons. The profile is built more around power than strong on-base skills.
MLBTR nevertheless predicts Hernández to find a four-year pact that pays around $20MM annually, slotting him as the #12 free agent. He recently turned 31 and is arguably the #4 position player in the class behind Shohei Ohtani, Cody Bellinger and Matt Chapman. Hernández has a bat-first reputation but logged nearly 1200 right field innings with Seattle, grading as a league average corner outfield defender by Defensive Runs Saved and Outs Above Average.
Los Angeles can go in a number of directions on the position player front. They’re presently shorthanded in the corner outfield and designated hitter mix after Jason Heyward, J.D. Martinez and David Peralta reached free agency. L.A. will obviously be among the teams pursuing Ohtani and could look to bring Martinez and/or Heyward back depending on how the offseason progresses.
Mookie Betts showed the ability to play an effective second base in addition to his Gold Glove caliber outfield work. Gomes indicated the Dodgers would continue to get Betts into action at the keystone, noting that the club plans to give plenty of shortstop work to Gavin Lux. The 25-year-old infielder missed the entire season after tearing the ACL in his right knee during Spring Training. The Dodgers have glove-first veteran Miguel Rojas under contract but could kick him into a utility role if Lux steps into something approaching an everyday shortstop job.
Meanwhile, Gomes added that younger infielders Miguel Vargas and Michael Busch could find their way into the corner outfield (via Ardaya). They’ve each seen limited time in left field in the minors but are primarily second and third basemen. Neither player has hit well against MLB pitching in limited looks but they have accomplished offensive track records in Triple-A. Given the multi-positional flexibility throughout the roster, the Dodgers can go in a number of ways over the coming months.
Braves Planning To Increase Payroll
The Braves anticipate increasing their player payroll, president of baseball operations Alex Anthopoulos told reporters (including David O’Brien of the Athletic). Chairman Terry McGuirk echoed those sentiments, telling Justin Toscano of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution that “that ‘glideslope’ that we’re on, we will stay on” in reference to the organization raising payroll in three straight seasons.
Atlanta opened the 2023 campaign with a player payroll in the $203MM range, according to Cot’s Baseball Contracts. Their luxury tax figure — which is based on the combined average annual values of a team’s deals — was well higher, estimated around $250MM. The Braves clearly surpassed the $233MM base tax threshold and seem likely to do so again next year, when the first threshold rises to $237MM.
The Braves have around $165MM in guaranteed salaries for next season. Their arbitration class should add between $25MM and $30MM. That could put them within $15-20MM of last year’s season-opening mark before making further additions. Roster Resource projects their CBT number a hair below $237MM.
Even with some kind of uptick in spending, it seems unlikely the Braves would play near the top of the free agent market. That hasn’t been Anthopoulos’ preferred course of action anyhow. Atlanta has been far more aggressive on the trade and extension fronts than in adding free agents from other clubs.
With some measure of flexibility, however, they could be more active than in recent offseasons in sifting through the middle tier. Starting pitching could be the biggest priority. Atlanta has Spencer Strider, Max Fried and Charlie Morton to occupy the top three spots. The final two positions are less settled. Bryce Elder likely has the inside track on the #4 job but struggled down the stretch after an All-Star first half. Kyle Wright will miss the entire season after undergoing shoulder surgery.
AJ Smith-Shawver and prospect Hurston Waldrep are high-upside options who could compete for an early-season job. Anthopoulos said today that Huascar Ynoa is expected to be a full go for Spring Training after missing last season to Tommy John rehab (via Toscano). Jared Shuster, Dylan Dodd and Michael Soroka are depth options — although Soroka could be non-tendered — but it’d behoove the Braves to add another source of innings. Seth Lugo, Michael Wacha and Jack Flaherty are speculative free agent possibilities.
The lineup is a lot more established. Left field is the lone vacancy after the team declined its option on Eddie Rosario. While a free agent pursuit of someone like Lourdes Gurriel Jr. or old friend Joc Pederson could be on the table, the Braves have a potential internal upside play. Atlanta has kept Vaughn Grissom in the middle infield, hoping the reps will allow his glove to catch up to his advanced bat. With Ozzie Albies and Orlando Arcia on the roster, there may not be a path to at-bats for Grissom on the infield.
Anthopoulos told reporters that the organization has given thought to getting Grissom experience in left field. If they put that into action during Spring Training, it’d give the right-handed hitter a clearer path to MLB work. Grissom spent most of this year in Triple-A, hitting .330/.419/.501 as a 22-year-old.
Red Sox Prioritizing Starting Pitching Help
The Red Sox are going into their first offseason with Craig Breslow as chief baseball officer and he is setting his sights on upgrading the club’s rotation, though he isn’t specifying exactly how many pitchers he plans on bringing in. “I think we need to be open-minded,” Breslow said, per Christopher Smith of MassLive. “Starting pitching is certainly a priority for us. But to kind of try and forecast exactly a number or anything kind of more specific than that probably doesn’t make sense.”
It’s not an especially surprising pursuit for the Sox, since the rotation was a weak spot for the club in 2023. Their starters as a whole put up an earned run average of 4.68 for the year, which placed them 22nd out of the 30 clubs in the league. There are some talented names on the roster but each has concerns around health or inconsistency or both, with Chris Sale, Nick Pivetta, Brayan Bello, Kutter Crawford, Tanner Houck and Garrett Whitlock the candidates for rotation jobs right now.
Sale hardly pitched from 2020 to 2022 due to various injuries. He was able to log 102 2/3 innings in 2023 but with an ERA of 4.30. Pivetta struggled enough to get bumped to the bullpen but finished in good form, whereas Bello was stronger in the first half but faded down the stretch. Crawford had a 4.04 ERA this year with good peripherals, though it’s unclear if that’s sustainable since he’s never been a highly-touted prospect. Houck has shown some potential, but injuries have continually kept him in the range of 100-120 innings. The same is largely true for Whitlock, though he hasn’t even reached 100 frames since 2018.
Though they theoretically have six options for five rotation spots, there are arguments for skepticism with each one. Breslow says that Houck and Whitlock will still be stretched out, per Alex Speier of the Boston Globe, but they could be pivoted back to the bullpen later. Both pitchers have had better results as relievers, with Houck having an ERA of 2.68 out of the ‘pen and Whitlock a 2.65 in his career, whereas they have starting ERAs of 4.17 and 4.76 respectively. That doesn’t necessarily mean they can’t be effective starters in the future, but it stands to reason that the club might not be willing to bank on them.
Smith adds that the club spoke to the representatives of free agent lefty Jordan Montgomery, though it might be best not to read too much into that. For one, Montgomery is represented by Scott Boras, who also reps a great number of other players. Secondly, Breslow tells Pete Abraham of the Boston Globe that it’s fair to assume they will talk to every agent who represents a starting pitcher and every team that could trade one.
It seems all options are on the table, including players who received a qualifying offer. “It’s a consideration like the host of other variables that you need to consider when you make a decision around these players,” Breslow says in Smith’s report. “So I think we need to look at the totality of the situation in order to figure out how much of a consequence it is for one over another.” Blake Snell, Sonny Gray and Aaron Nola were the three traditional starters to receive QOs, as well as two-way player Shohei Ohtani, who won’t pitch in 2024. Signing one of those players would require the Red Sox to forfeit their second-highest pick in the upcoming draft and $500K of international bonus pool money, but it sounds like that’s not off the table.
Elsewhere, it sounds like the club is leaning towards adding a right-handed hitter who can play second base, though they won’t be strictly limiting themselves in that search. “I think positional versatility helps,” Breslow said, per Jen McCaffrey of The Athletic. “I don’t think it makes a ton of sense to kind of typecast that to a right-handed bat who can only DH. But I think we have to be open-minded about the ways to improve the team. Given that we’re pretty left-handed, it makes sense to set our sights on somebody who can hit right-handed.”
The club’s lineup does indeed skew to the left side, with regular at-bats slated for players like Rafael Devers, Jarren Duran, Triston Casas, Masataka Yoshida and Alex Verdugo, though Breslow earlier admitted that Verdugo’s name has come up in trade talks. Some righty bats include Teoscar Hernández and Jorge Soler, though the Sox might be a better fit for a second baseman than an outfielder. The market is fairly limited there but Whit Merrifield and Amed Rosario are a couple of right-handed bats that likely won’t cost much. Speaking of Casas and Duran, who both finished the season on the injured list, Breslow provided updates on the progression of both players to Abraham. Casas has progressed to weight-bearing exercises in his recovery from turf toe surgery. Casas, who was hampered by shoulder inflammation, has healed and is now close to starting a hitting program.
Catcher could theoretically be another place to add but it sounds like the Sox feel good about Connor Wong there. “Very comfortable,” Breslow said about Wong. “We feel good about the catching situation. That’s not to say that we should be closed-minded about opportunities to improve the team. But I think we’re all really happy with him.” Wong got the bulk of the playing time in 2023 and hit just .235/.288/.385 but there were some encouraging defensive grades. It doesn’t sound like an addition here is totally off the table but the pitching is clearly a bigger focus.
Bryce Harper To Play First Base Going Forward
Phillies president of baseball operations Dave Dombrowski told reporters, including Pete Abraham of the Boston Globe, that Bryce Harper will play first base going forward. Chelsea Janes of The Washington Post adds that free agent Rhys Hoskins has been informed of the decision with the position player mix pretty set. Dombrowski added that the club sees Kyle Schwarber as its everyday designated hitter, per Todd Zolecki of MLB.com. Though Harper could conceivably split his time between first and the outfielder, Dombrowski says he wanted Harper to be “in a position where he would play one or the other,” per Scott Lauber of the Philadelphia Inquirer.
Harper, 31, had just two appearances at first base in the first decade of his career, but recent circumstances forced a change. In May of 2022, he was diagnosed with a torn ulnar collateral ligament in his right elbow. That meant he was unable to throw, though the issue didn’t prevent him from hitting. The Phils kept him in the designated hitter slot for the rest of that campaign as Harper’s excellence at the plate helped them reach the World Series.
After they were defeated by the Astros, Harper finally went under the knife, undergoing Tommy John surgery in November of last year. As he was working his way back to health, long-time first baseman Rhys Hoskins torn the ACL in his left knee during a Spring Training game, an ailment that eventually prevented him from appearing at any point in the 2023 season.
Harper went on to beat all projections for his post-surgery recovery and was able to be reinstated by early May, barely five months after his operation. He was limited to designated hitter duties initially but was eventually cleared to take the field. Since a first baseman is rarely required to throw at maximum effort, the club put him at that position as opposed to putting him back in his typical right field spot, which would have required more throws at maximum effort. The Phils used a combination of Alec Bohm, Darick Hall, Kody Clemens and Drew Ellis to cover the spot in the first half but that group largely ceded to Harper in the second half.
He made his first start at first base on July 21 and eventually made 36 appearances in total in the regular season, then stayed there for the club’s 13 playoff games. Advanced defensive metrics generally considered him to be around league average, though in a fairly small sample of work. Having Harper at that spot freed up the club to move Schwarber, who is considered a poor defender, from left field to DH on most nights. The Phils then split the outfield duties between Nick Castellanos, Brandon Marsh, Johan Rojas, Cristian Pache and Jake Cave.
After the season, it was an open question as to where Harper would be slotted going forward. By the time the 2024 campaign rolled around, he presumably would have been far enough from his surgery to head back to the grass. But with Schwarber and those five outfielders all still on the roster next year, that would have further crowded things out there, forcing the club to perhaps trade someone while also perhaps looking to external first base options.
But the club will stick with Harper at first, which doesn’t leave a space for Hoskins, who is now a free agent. It seems Dombrowski did him the courtesy of letting him know so that he can spend the winter looking elsewhere for his next gig. He hit 148 home runs for the Phillies from 2017 to 2022 but it seems his next homer will be hit in a different uniform. MLBTR recently ranked Hoskins #26 on our list of the Top 50 Free Agents, predicting a pillow contract of two years and $36MM.
This also could have ramifications for Bohm and the third base market. He hasn’t received strong grades for his glovework at the hot corner, which made the Phils a speculative fit to add a player there and move Bohm over to cover first, as he did when Hoskins and Harper were both unavailable. But if Harper is going to be implanted at first, it suggests the club feels fairly confident about Bohm at third. They could always sign someone like Matt Chapman and then make Bohm available in trades but the roster fit isn’t as clean with this development.
It would appear then that the club will be primarily focused on pitching for the rest of the winter, since the position player corps is considered to be in good shape. Aaron Nola is now a free agent and retaining him or finding someone else to replace him would seem to be the logical priority for the club in the months to come, though new developments can always change the calculus over the course of the offseason.
Angels Hire Ron Washington As Manager
The Angels have hired Braves third base coach Ron Washington to fill their managerial vacancy, reports Jon Heyman of The New York Post. He has signed a two-year contract with the club, per Bob Nightengale of USA Today. The Angels have now announced the hiring of Washington.
The Angels parted ways with manager Phil Nevin as the 2023 regular season was winding down and recent reporting suggested they were leaning towards an experienced manager to take the gig. Washington, 72 in April, surely fits the bill there. After his playing career ended, he quickly transitioned into a coaching role in the early ’90s, working for the Mets and Athletics.
He got his first managerial gig with the Rangers going into 2007. After a few middling seasons, the club broke out in 2010 and 2011. They won 90 and 96 games in those two seasons, respectively, going to the World Series both times. Though they didn’t win the title in either of those trips, those remained the only two World Series appearances in franchise history until the club finally won it all here in 2023.
The Rangers won 93 games in 2012 but lost the Wild Card game to the Orioles. Another 91 wins followed in 2013 but that left them just a single game out of the playoffs. Things took a sour turn in 2014, with the club falling in the standings. They would eventually finish 67-95 and in last place in the American League West, but Washington was already gone by then. He resigned in early September, citing an off-the-field matter, which he later admitted was an extramarital affair.
He has been in various coaching roles since that time, having joined the Athletics in May of 2015 and then Atlanta going into 2017. He has received interest from clubs with managerial vacancies over those years but this will now be his first gig as a bench boss since that eight-year stretch with the Rangers. His hiring appears to be part of a trend among some clubs who have opted for experienced managers of late. The Astros hired Dusty Baker going into 2020 when he was 70. The Rangers hired 67-year-old Bruce Bochy a year ago, just one season after the Mets hired 65-year-old Buck Showalter.
The latter was considered a candidate for this job with the Halos but it appears he lost out to Washington. The club seemed to cast a wide net, reportedly considering options like Benji Gil, Darin Erstad, Torii Hunter, Tim Salmon, Ron Roenicke, Gary DiSarcina, Ray Montgomery and perhaps others.
Washington will now take over a team that hasn’t had much success and it’s hard to tell what their path forward is at the moment. Despite having superstars Shohei Ohtani and Mike Trout on the club for the past six years, the Halos haven’t found any real on-field success in that time. Their last winning season was 2015, last playoff appearance was 2014 and last postseason victory was 2009. Now Ohtani is a free agent while Trout is 32 years old and has dealt with significant injury issues in recent years.
That makes it hard to gauge where they will go over the two years of this deal. Re-signing Ohtani is still on the table but it’s also possible he winds up somewhere else. Some have suggested the club should consider a rebuild in that scenario but it’s unclear if the club’s decision makers would agree with that assessment.
There should be more clarity in the months to come, but the Angels now have a skipper and can move on to figuring out those other unknowns. This hiring leaves three open manager positions around the league, with the Astros, Padres and Brewers still looking for a new bench boss for 2024. Meanwhile, Atlanta will have to find a new third base coach.
Image courtesy of USA Today Sports.
Breslow: Red Sox Receiving Trade Inquiries On Alex Verdugo
Newly minted Red Sox chief baseball officer Craig Breslow candidly acknowledged to reporters at the GM Meetings today that he’s already received trade interest in outfielder Alex Verdugo (via Pete Abraham of the Boston Globe). While there’s no indication that a deal is at all close, it’s nevertheless notable to hear a baseball operations leader willingly offer up that they’ve received trade interest in a player of note.
Verdugo stands as a logical offseason trade candidate for a few reasons. Boston fielded interest in the outfielder prior to the trade deadline but ultimately didn’t receive an offer to the now-former front office regime’s liking. The 27-year-old Verdugo is also entering his final season of club control and doing so at a time when Boston is at least relatively deep in outfield alternatives. Jarren Duran, Masataka Yoshida, Wilyer Abreu and top prospect Ceddanne Rafaela are all options to start in the outfield. Given the light free-agent market for hitters, Verdugo could hold some extra appeal to teams looking for bats. he turned in a solid .264/.324/.421 batting line this past season and is a .281/.338/.424 hitter in four seasons with the Sox.
While Verdugo was open about his desire to sign an extension with Boston over the summer, no deal materialized. To the contrary, his name actually surfaced in trade rumblings about a month later. While a swap didn’t come together, the juxtaposition was still notable. Verdugo also appeared to clash with skipper Alex Cora, to an extent, on multiple occasions; he was benched both in May and in August — first for not running out a grounder and secondly for a late arrival to the park.
Verdugo told The Athletic’s Jen McCaffrey in October that he had no hard feelings, hoped to remain in Boston, and attributed some of those mental lapses to dealing with family and personal issues away from the field. “I’m not here to read out my sob story, but at the end of the day, I am still a human,” he said at the time. “I’m still a person. When your family is affected, when your family’s not doing the best, it weighs on you.”
The 2023 season was an uneven one for Verdugo, who hit at an All-Star level for four months but endured woeful slumps in July (.151/.232/.247) and September (.178/.208/.301). The rest of his season was strong enough — June in particular — that he still finished out the year with roughly league-average offensive output, but it was still the least-productive full season of his big league career to date.
It’s common for incoming front office personnel to shake up the roster and to show less loyalty to players who might’ve been drafted, developed and/or acquired by the former regime. That’s worth bearing in mind as Breslow takes over; he’s not the one who acquired Verdugo from the Dodgers as part of the Mookie Betts/David Price blockbuster — that falls to Chaim Bloom.
MLBTR contributor Matt Swartz projects Verdugo to earn $9.2MM in his final season of arbitration eligibility — a perfectly reasonable price point for a solid, if not quite star-caliber outfielder. That’s all the more true in an offseason market where free agency is light on quality MLB hitters — particularly those who are anywhere near their physical prime. Were he a free agent right now, Verdugo would surely be a sought-after bat in position to land a multi-year deal. Being able to acquire him on a one-year pact in the $9-10MM range should hold broad appeal. That’s all the more true given Verdugo’s strong defensive ratings in right field this year.
Plenty of teams will be on the hunt for outfield help. The Guardians, Astros, Braves, White Sox, Marlins and archrival Yankees are among the teams likely in that camp (not that any have yet been tied specifically to Verdugo). Last month, MLBTR’s Nick Deeds took a look at some possible fits in the event that Verdugo were to hit the market.
Jorge Soler Drawing Interest From Multiple Clubs
Free agent outfielder/designated hitter Jorge Soler is drawing interest from “around 6 teams,” reports Francys Romero, adding that the Marlins are interested in bringing him back on a multi-year deal.
Soler, 32 in February, is coming off a strong year though his overall career is defined by inconsistency. In 2023, he hit 36 home runs in 137 games while walking in 11.4% of his plate appearances. His 24.3% strikeout rate was slightly above league average but a strong result relative to his own previous seasons. His overall batting line of .250/.341/.512 resulted in a wRC+ of 126. He did most of that damage from the DH slot, only taking the field in 32 games on the year.
That was the best form Soler had shown since late 2021. That year, he hit just .192/.288/.370 for the Royals but then was traded to Atlanta and got in a good groove. He hit .269/.358/.524 in the regular season after the deal and then .242/.342/.606 in the postseason, winning World Series MVP in the process. That led to a three-year, $36MM deal with the Marlins, with Soler able to opt out after each season.
The first year with Miami didn’t go well, with injuries limiting him to 72 games and a tepid line of .207/.295/.400. He declined his first opt-out chance and returned to the Marlins before getting on track with the aforementioned strong 2023 season. He triggered his second opt-out and is now free to sign with any club, with this year’s market generally light on impact bats. MLBTR’s list of the Top 50 Free Agents put Soler in the #16 slot with a prediction of three years and $45MM.
There would be risk in giving such a contract to a player like Soler with his oscillating results, but the market conditions should help him out and it’s unsurprising multiple clubs are interested. A return to Miami is sensible from their perspective since they could use his slugging ability. The club had a wRC+ of 94 in the season that just ended, which placed them just outside the bottom 10, and now face the possibility of losing their best power hitter in Soler.
Whether he’s a top priority would be a fair question to ask, however. Neither the shortstop nor catching position provided much for the Marlins in 2023 and those positions stand out as more important targets than corner outfield/designated hitter, where the club has Jesús Sánchez, Bryan De La Cruz and Avisaíl García. Roster Resource currently pegs the club’s payroll just under $100MM. Non-tendering a few players in their arbitration class such as Garrett Hampson and Jacob Stallings could knock that down a bit, but they would still be in range of last year’s payroll. Cot’s Baseball Contracts estimated their 2023 Opening Day payroll at $93MM, meaning the Marlins might need a sizeable increase to consider adding Soler, as well as finding solutions to their other weak spots.
Blue Jays Hope To Add Multiple Position Players This Offseason
Blue Jays general manager Ross Atkins spoke to the media at the GM Meetings in Scottsdale, Arizona, with Ben Nicholson-Smith of Sportsnet passing along some of his quotes. Atkins discussed many details but the overarching takeaway was that the Jays are looking to add position players, with Atkins saying it could be anywhere from one to four players but it would most likely be two or three.
That pursuit is understandable given the results from the season that just ended. Though the Jays qualified for the postseason, their strength was their pitching and defense. The club had a combined wRC+ of 107 at the plate during the regular season, which wasn’t terrible, putting them just inside the top 10 league-wide. But they scored just one run across two games against the Twins in the Wild Card round and then saw Matt Chapman, Brandon Belt, Whit Merrifield and Kevin Kiermaier become free agents, depriving the club of four regular members of the lineup.
Atkins went on to address the free agent market, which is generally considered light on impact position players beyond Shohei Ohtani and Cody Bellinger, though the GM doesn’t necessarily view it that way. He said that “there are some really compelling players” available beyond the top of the market but they could also look to the trade market since they “still have the depth to trade from.”
Infield is likely to be a focus for the club, since Chapman was an everyday player at third base, while Merrifield split his time between second and the outfield and Belt played a bit of first base when he wasn’t the designated hitter. The Jays have plenty of infielders on the roster but, outside of shortstop Bo Bichette and first baseman Vladimir Guerrero Jr., many of them are unproven at the big league level or are perhaps better suited to a bench/utility role.
Davis Schneider, Cavan Biggio, Santiago Espinal, Spencer Horwitz, Ernie Clement, Otto López, Orelvis Martinez, Addison Barger and Leo Jimenez are all infielders on the 40-man roster but it’s unclear if the Jays want to rely on anyone in that group to step up and replace those that are departing. That is perhaps why Atkins gave the wide swath of possibilities for this winter.
Free agency features some potential solutions, such as Gio Urshela or Amed Rosario, though bringing Chapman back still seems to be on the table. Jon Heyman of The New York Post reports that Chapman is at the GM Meetings and has met with multiple teams, including the Jays. Chapman is coming off an uneven season but is still going to be one of the top free agents available this winter. He recently took the #7 spot on MLBTR’s list of the Top 50 Free Agents for this offseason, with a prediction of $150MM over six years.
Another option would be corner infielder Jeimer Candelario, who came in #13 on that MLBTR list with a prediction of $70MM over four years. Shi Davidi of Sportsnet reports that the Jays met with Candelario’s reps at the GM meetings, indicating they are open to him as a Chapman replacement. Candelario looked to be establishing himself as an everyday player in Detroit not too long ago, hitting .278/.356/.458 over 2020 and 2021 for a wRC+ of 124. But he then endured a nightmare season in 2022 and got non-tendered. Splitting 2023 between the Nationals and Cubs, he got back on track with a .251/.336/.471 line and 117 wRC+. He’s generally been regarded as a passable but subpar defender in that time.
It’s also possible the Jays go another direction and lump multiple younger players together in a trade for an established major leaguer. That’s how they acquired Chapman in the first place, sending four less-established players to the A’s in March of 2022. Given the aforementioned glut of infielders, it’s possible the Jays could look to do something like that again.
On the trade front, Nicholson-Smith reports that third baseman Eugenio Suárez of the Mariners is one of the players they are interested in. It’s unknown if Seattle has openness to such a deal, but it seems possible. Mariners president of baseball operations Jerry Dipoto said yesterday that the club is looking to reduce the amount of strikeouts in the lineup and moving on from Suárez would certainly help in that department. Each of the past five seasons has ended with his strikeout rate near 30%, when the league average is usually in the 22-23% range.
That hasn’t stopped him from being a useful hitter, but with year-to-year inconsistency. While his strikeout rate has been steadily high in those five recent campaigns, the power and batting average have oscillated. That has resulted in two season with a wRC+ of 130, a couple close to league average and one way down at 85. On defense, he’s generally considered passable at third, though Outs Above Average loved his 2023 season. That metric considered him to be league average over the 2018-2022 period but gave him +11 in 2023. He has one year left on his contract with a club option for 2025. He’s set to make a salary of $11MM in the upcoming campaign with the option valued at $15MM and coming with a $2MM buyout.
Another option that the Jays are open to is first baseman Joey Votto, who is now a free agent for the first time in his career after the Reds declined their 2024 club option. He has been a speculative fit for the Jays going back many years since he grew up in Etobicoke, which was amalgamated into Toronto in 1998. “Incredible player, remarkable career,” Atkins said of Votto. “They’re just massive impact in the community if he were to be a Toronto Blue Jay. So definitely something that we would have to consider if that was something he wanted to pursue.” Though he added that Votto’s reputation would lead to him finding interest outside of his stomping grounds. “Incredible reputation, really dynamic personality, really bright (person) that I know our team would embrace,” Atkins said. “But I think that’s the case for probably 15 teams.”
Despite Votto’s incredible career, he’s not coming into free agency on a high note, having hit .204/.317/.394 over the past two seasons with a shoulder surgery in between those campaigns. It’s a somewhat similar scenario to Belt, who joined the Jays after a poor 2022 campaign that was ended by knee surgery. But Belt was going into his age-35 season when he was signed whereas Votto is now 40. Both are left-handed hitters at first base and the designated hitter spot, so it’s possible Votto could be viewed as a Belt replacement, but the Jays might have less faith in a post-surgery bounceback from Votto given the age disparity.
In the outfield, the Jays could look for a center fielder to replace Kiermaier though Daulton Varsho is also a capable center fielder, which could allow them to add in a corner. But Jon Morosi of MLB.com reports they are showing interest in free agent Michael A. Taylor. He’s a similar player to Kiermaier as both are considered excellent defensive center fielders but with lesser reputations on offense. Taylor hit 21 home runs in 2023 but his 6.7% walk rate and 33.5% strikeout rate were both worse than league average, resulting in a 96 wRC+. The defensive metrics have continued to be excellent though, as they have all throughout his career.
Though the lineup figures to be the primary concern, there is some uncertainty on the pitching staff. Four rotation spots should be spoken for with Kevin Gausman, José Berríos, Chris Bassitt and Yusei Kikuchi all under contract and set to return in 2024, though the free agency of Hyun Jin Ryu leaves one spot open. That could go to Alek Manoah, who was excellent in 2021 and 2022, but 2023 was a different story. He posted a 5.87 ERA and was optioned to the minors multiple times as the relationship between him and the club appeared to sour. Perhaps there is some hope of getting back on track next year, as Atkins tells Keegan Matheson of MLB.com “I do feel like he has earned, already, the right to have a strong leg up” for that spot. Manoah may have some competition, as the Jays recently added Mitch White back to their roster, while prospect Ricky Tiedemann reached Triple-A in 2023.
Davidi adds that the Jays are interested in Japanese hurler Yoshinobu Yamamoto, with Atkins having gone to Japan to scout him three times this past year. They surely won’t be alone in that pursuit since Yamamoto is only 25 years old and has been one of the best pitchers in Japan for years, leading MLBTR to predict a contract of $225MM over nine years. Whether the club would upgrade their relatively strong rotation while having clear needs in the lineup is something that was asked of Atkins. “I feel like we will have the opportunity to present those types of significant adds or acquisitions to ownership. We’ve been given so much support that I wouldn’t say that that is unrealistic to do both.”
The club’s president/CEO Mark Shapiro previously stated that he expects next year’s payroll to be similar to this year’s, though they are already close on that front. Cot’s Baseball Contracts pegged their Opening Day payroll at $210MM in 2023 and now Roster Resource has them slated for $205MM next year. That includes projected salaries for arbitration-eligible players, but even a couple of non-tenders would only drop them down a bit below $200MM. Though if the competitive balance tax is the larger concern, there should be more wiggle room. RR estimates the club got to $246MM in terms of CBT in 2023 but is only at $216MM at the moment, with a few non-tenders likely to knock that down some.
Elsewhere in Blue Jays’ notes, they announced that Carlos Febles will be their third base coach next year, replacing Luis Rivera. It was reported last month that Rivera is retiring after 11 years in that gig for Toronto. Febles has been part of the Red Sox’ organization for the past two decades, serving as that club’s third base coach since 2018.
Guardians, Adam Oller Agree To Minor League Deal
The Guardians have agreed to a minor league contract with right-hander Adam Oller, reports Ari Alexander of Houston’s KPRC-2. The Gaeta Sports client will receive an invitation to Major League spring training and reunite with former teammate and new Cleveland skipper Stephen Vogt with this deal.
Oller, 29, was traded from the Mets to the A’s alongside prospect J.T. Ginn in the 2021-22 offseason trade that sent Chris Bassitt from Oakland to Queens. He spent parts of two seasons with the A’s and logged 94 innings between their rotation and bullpen, but Oller was hit hard in that time. Big league opponents turned in a .294/.378/.556 batting line against Oller in spite of his pitcher-friendly home environs, and by the time Oakland designated him for assignment, he’d been roughed up for a 7.09 ERA. The right-hander has fanned 13.5% of his opponents against an 11.6% walk rate.
Major League struggles notwithstanding, Oller was sharp at the Triple-A level both in 2021 with the Mets (2.45 ERA in 44 innings) and in 2022 with the A’s (3.69 ERA in 31 1/3 innings). He struggled with the top affiliates of both the A’s and Mariners (who claimed him from Oakland) during the most recent campaign, but Oller’s overall minor league track record has the look of a potential depth starter or swingman if he can shake off a tough ’23 campaign.
The Guardians’ pitching staff experienced an enormous amount of turnover in 2023, but Cleveland’s nearly unrivaled ability to churn out quality arms remained on display. A series of injuries and poor performances led the Guards to call up top prospects Tanner Bibee, Logan Allen and Gavin Williams for each pitcher’s big league debut, and all three hit the ground running. That trio looks like the focal point of the rotation moving forward.
Cleveland surely hopes that impressive young righty Triston McKenzie will be back to full strength to join them after a teres major strain and a UCL sprain shortened his season. Former AL Cy Young winner Shane Bieber has another year of club control remaining, but he was limited by injuries as well and has been floated as a potential offseason trade candidate with just one year to go before he reaches the open market. Cal Quantrill, who struggled immensely in 2023, is also still under club control, while depth options like Xzavion Curry, Joey Cantillo and Hunter Gaddis are all on the 40-man roster, too.
Phillies Among Teams Showing Interest In Sonny Gray
The Phillies are among the teams with interest in free agent right-hander Sonny Gray, tweets Jon Morosi of MLB.com. The Phils have obvious interest in retaining their own top free agent starter, Aaron Nola, and would become a more aggressive suitor for Gray if Nola ultimately lands elsewhere, per the report. As Morosi further points out, there’s a natural Phillies/Gray connection, as Philadelphia pitching coach Caleb Cotham worked with Gray in Cincinnati and was also a college teammate of Gray at Vanderbilt. Beyond that, while Gray’s relatively brief stint with the Yankees didn’t go well, it’s perhaps worth pointing out that his more successful 2017 output in the Bronx overlapped with current Phillies manager Rob Thomson’s final year as bench coach there.
Gray, who turned 34 yesterday, just wrapped up one of the best seasons of his career, tossing 184 frames of 2.79 ERA ball for the AL Central-winning Twins. Gray added a sharp five innings of shutout ball in the AL Wild Card round, pushing the Twins to a series victory over the Blue Jays, though he faltered against the Astros in the ALDS when he allowed four runs in the first inning of his start there (before recovering, to an extent, to last four innings on the day). He’s already been named an AL Cy Young finalist, although it’s widely expected that he’ll be a runner-up to frontrunner Gerrit Cole for the award.
Minnesota extended a qualifying offer to Gray, though given his track record and a top-three finish in AL Cy Young voting, he’s all but a lock to turn that down in favor of testing the open market. Gray previously and candidly acknowledged that “money is not the ultimate factor for me” in free agency and professed his affinity for pitching in the Twin Cities, but it’d nevertheless be a shock to see him accept that one-year offer when a lucrative multi-year deal awaits him in free agency. Chris Bassitt, who inked a three-year, $63MM deal with Toronto after rejecting a qualifying offer at the same age last offseason, represents something of a floor for Gray in free agency.
While some teams balk at signing free agents who’ve rejected qualifying offers — doing so requires forfeitures in the draft and international free agency — the Phillies don’t fall into that camp. Philadelphia owner John Middleton has been willing to accept that burden on a near-annual basis, in fact. The Phils have forfeited draft picks and international money to sign each of Trea Turner, Nick Castellanos, Bryce Harper and Jake Arrieta. And while they technically didn’t forfeit a pick to sign J.T. Realmuto, they’d have received a comp pick had he left the team to sign elsewhere, but the Phils re-upped with him on a five-year pact.
Given that history, there’s little reason to think the Phillies wouldn’t be willing to take a similar approach with Gray. It’s not clear whether they’d wait for Nola to actually commit to another team before pursuing alternatives, but president of baseball operations Dave Dombrowski is known for generally acting quickly and rather decisively on the market. If the Phils get the sense that the Nola bidding will extend beyond their comfort zone, it’s at least feasible they could pivot to an alternative plan before he actually signs a contract — be that alternative Gray or one of the many other veteran starters on the market (e.g. Eduardo Rodriguez, Jordan Montgomery, Blake Snell).
The Phillies currently have a projected payroll around $214MM, per Roster Resource, which is a ways shy of last year’s $245MM mark. Signing Gray, retaining Nola or adding any of the prominent free-agent alternatives would likely thrust the Phils right back into luxury tax territory, but they were willing to cross that bridge in each of the past two seasons.
Whether it’s Nola, Gray or another outside acquisition, the Phillies are all but guaranteed to bring in some rotation help this winter. As it stands, their rotation group consists of Zack Wheeler, Ranger Suarez, Taijuan Walker and Cristopher Sanchez. Top prospects Mick Abel and Griff McGarry aren’t all that far from MLB readiness, but a team with World Series aspirations will surely seek more certainty than that. Fellow top prospect Andrew Painter underwent Tommy John surgery in July, removing him as a near-term option. Nick Nelson, Dylan Covey and recent waiver claim Josh Fleming are all depth candidates, but it’s clear that someone more stable will be brought in.
As with any report of this nature, it bears emphasizing that Gray very likely is not the sole alternative to Nola the Phillies will consider. In all likelihood, Dombrowski, GM Sam Fuld and the rest of the front office will engage with the representatives for all top-tier and mid-tier starters, both to gauge expectations and to have contingencies in place if their preferred plans of attack don’t pan out. But Gray does at least have some personal ties to members of the Phillies’ staff, and the team has shown a repeated willingness to spend at high levels to sign qualified free agents in addition to a willingness to incur luxury tax penalties.
All of that context is important in their rotation pursuits. Philadelphia will likely be tied to Montgomery and others as well before too long, and they’ll surely be prominent players through the bulk, if not the entirety, of Nola’s own foray into the open market.