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Sorting Through The Athletics’ Rotation Options

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The A’s formally announced newly signed right-hander Shintaro Fujinami at a press conference last week, where general manager David Forst confirmed that Fujinami is indeed viewed as a starting pitcher. That’s the role he’s held in Japan’s Nippon Professional Baseball for the bulk of his career, so perhaps it’s not a surprise, but Fujinami is a hard-throwing righty with command issues, so there was a case to be made for putting him in the ’pen.

Beyond that, the simple fact is that even prior to signing Fujinami, the A’s had more rotation candidates than rotation spots. That’s not an especially common spot for a rebuilding club to find itself, but Oakland has zeroed in on bulk pitching acquisition over the course of its fire sale/teardown. The front office didn’t target exclusively pitchers, but the A’s nonetheless have as many as seven rotation candidates who’ve been acquired via trade within the past calendar year on the 40-man roster.

No team is going to rely on five starters to get through a season, and even getting through a year with “only” seven or eight starters is a luxury to which most teams cannot lay claim in the modern baseball landscape. That said, the A’s stand out as a team that might lean on 15 or more starting pitchers to get through the season, given the lack of established talent, the glut of nearly MLB-ready arms on the roster and the potential for an in-season trade involving just about any likely member of the rotation.

Let’s take a look at what the starting staff might look like…

The Locks

Cole Irvin, LHP: Not many trades that end up sending cash back to a player’s former team work out better than the acquisition of Irvin has for the A’s. It’s been nearly two years to the day since Oakland picked him up from the Phillies in exchange for cash, and he’s made 62 starts of 4.11 ERA ball with a well below-average 16.8% strikeout rate but a superb 5.2% walk rate.

With four years of club control remaining, it’d be a surprise if Irvin hasn’t at least generated some cursory trade interest this winter, although his glaring home/road splits might not help his cause much. Dating back to Opening Day 2021, the lefty owns a 3.44 ERA at home, where opponents have batted just .243/.288/.355 against him in nearly 800 plate appearances. In that same timeframe, Irvin’s road ERA is a more alarming 4.88, and opponents have pounced on him for a .285/.330/.491 slash.

Splits notwithstanding, Irvin is a perfectly viable fourth/fifth starter, but a team that plays its home games in a more hitter-friendly environment might be understandably dissuaded from giving up too much young talent to acquire him. That’s fine for the A’s for now, given Irvin’s remaining club control and the simple fact that they’ll need some dependability on the staff. If he’s pitching well come July, he’ll be a feasible trade candidate (particularly with an arbitration raise looming next offseason).

Paul Blackburn, RHP: It’s easy to call Blackburn, who made the 2022 All-Star team but finished the year with a 4.28 ERA, a token All-Star who was only chosen because every team needs a representative. Perhaps there’s some truth to that, too, but as I noted last summer, Blackburn was a plenty deserving selection and a fairly intriguing trade chip at one point. Through July 2, he’d pitched 87 innings of 2.90 ERA ball with three times as many strikeouts as walks (18.8% to 6.2%) and a strong 48.7% grounder rate. His .280 BABIP and 80.7% left-on-base rate pointed to some likely regression, but based on results alone, Blackburn was pretty good.

Things went off the rails almost immediately thereafter, however. Blackburn tried for several weeks to pitch through pain that’d arisen in his pitching hand, but he was shelled for 21 runs in a span of 14 1/3 innings. He eventually landed on the injured list due to that pain, and testing revealed that he’d torn the tendon sheath in his right middle finger. He was placed in a splint for up to eight weeks, and his season was over.

Time will tell whether Blackburn can replicate his production from the first three months of the 2022 season, but as long as he’s healthy, he’ll be given every opportunity to prove it was sustainable. Blackburn only has three seasons of club control remaining, so if he’s healthy and pitching well this summer, expect to hear his name pop up in rumors.

Newcomers Who’ll Be Given a Chance

Shintaro Fujinami, RHP: The former high school rival of Shohei Ohtani, Fujinami was once lauded as a prospect nearly as much as the current Angels phenom. Fujinami, 28, stepped right from his high school rotation into the rotation of Japan’s Hanshin Tigers, posting a 2.75 ERA in 137 2/3 innings as a rookie in Nippon Professional Baseball. He was a multi-time All-Star and budding phenom in his first four years in Japan, pitching to a sub-3.00 ERA each season. His career has come off the rails since that time, though, and Fujinami comes to Oakland as a hard-throwing but command-challenged project. At 6’6″, he’s armed with a fastball that can reach triple digits and a splitter and slider that have both, at times, made hitters look silly. He’s also been shuttled between the Tigers’ top team and minor league team in NPB for several seasons while displaying troubling walk rates and looking like a shell of the potential star he was early in his pro career.

Drew Rucinski, RHP: In the past five years, the now-34-year-old Rucinski went from nondescript, replacement-level MLB pitcher to a powerhouse workhorse for the KBO’s NC Dinos. Rucinski started 121 games dating back to 2019 and has posted an ERA between 3.17 and 2.93 each season. Along the way, he’s whiffed 21.5% of opposing batters, walked just 6.3% of them and posted a superhuman 66% ground-ball rate. The A’s signed Rucinski for a year and $3MM, with a 2024 club option valued at $5MM. If he can carry over any of that KBO form to the Coliseum, he’ll be a durable source of innings and a nice summer trade chip.

The Out-of-Options Arm Who’ll Make the Staff in Some Capacity

James Kaprielian, RHP: A former first-round pick of the Yankees who was sent to Oakland as part of the Sonny Gray trade, Kaprielian has been injured more often than he’s been healthy. He looked to be turning a corner over the past two seasons, logging a combined 4.16 ERA in 253 1/3 innings over the life of 50 games (47 of them starts). However, Kaprielian had shoulder surgery this offseason, and it’s not clear whether he’ll be ready to go for Opening Day. Manager Mark Kotsay said at the time of Kaprielian’s surgery that the organization expected him to be ready, but Shayna Rubin of the San Jose Mercury News recently suggested that the soon-to-be 29-year-old might miss time early in the year. (If that’s indeed the case, he’ll land on the IL alongside rotation hopeful Daulton Jefferies, who’ll miss all of 2023 after undergoing both thoracic outlet surgery and Tommy John surgery.) Kaprielian is out of minor league options, so whenever he’s healthy, he’ll be on the roster either as a starter or perhaps a multi-inning reliever — it’s a just a matter of when that time will be.

Candidates for the Remaining Rotation Innings

(Note: all players in this section have six-plus seasons of club control remaining)

Adrian Martinez, RHP (two remaining option years): One of two players acquired in the trade that sent Sean Manaea to San Diego, Martinez was roughed up for a 6.24 ERA in 57 2/3 innings in last year’s MLB debut. It’s a rough showing, to be sure, but his 20.5% strikeout rate and 7.3% walk rate both portend better production. Martinez’s 2.03 HR/9 mark was one of the highest in the game, and only four of the 344 pitchers who threw at least 50 innings in 2022 saw a larger percentage of their fly-balls become home runs than Martinez’s 19.7%. That HR/FB rate, in particular, is ripe for positive regression, even before considering the A’s spacious home park. Metrics like xFIP (4.11) and SIERA (4.16), which normalize HR/FB to league-average levels, feel that Martinez was vastly better than his basic earned run average.

Ken Waldichuk, LHP (three option years): A key piece in the trade sending Frankie Montas to the Bronx, Waldichuk held his own in a seven-start debut (4.93 ERA, 33-to-10 K/BB ratio in 34 2/3 innings). His final outing, featuring seven shutout frames against the Angels, was a particularly high note on which to finish. On top of those 34 2/3 MLB frames, Waldichuk logged 95 innings of 2.84 ERA ball between Double-A and Triple-A. He’s arguably the most highly regarded member of this bunch, and he should have multiple opportunities to win a rotation spot over the next 12 to 18 months in Oakland.

Kyle Muller, LHP (one option year): A 2016 second-round pick by the Braves (who traded him to Oakland in the Sean Murphy deal), Muller has at times been ranked among the sport’s 100 best prospects at various outlets, but his stock has dimmed a bit since that time. He’s managed just a 5.14 ERA in 49 MLB innings, but he spent the bulk of his 2022 season pitching to a 3.41 ERA in 134 1/3 Triple-A innings (23 starts). Muller punched out a hefty 29.3% of his opponents. Muller can reach the upper 90s with his heater, draws plus grades on his slider and now that he’s out of a more crowded rotation mix in Atlanta, should have a clear path to innings with the A’s. He’s out of options after the 2023 season, so it’s in Oakland’s best interest to give him a chance sooner than later.

JP Sears, LHP (two option years): Prior to Oakland’s dice rolls on Rucinski and Fujinami, Sears might’ve been a favorite to break camp in the rotation after pitching to a 3.86 ERA in 70 innings as a rookie last year. Acquired in the Montas trade along with Waldichuk, the 5’11” lefty has dominated Triple-A (2.32 ERA in 101 career innings), but a return to that level might be his most straightforward path to starter’s innings early in the season. Sears, who’ll turn 27 in a few weeks, isn’t the prototypical “prospect,” as he doesn’t throw especially hard and has relied more on plus command than overpowering stuff to find success in the minors. It’s a recipe that’s worked well for Oakland pitchers in the past, thanks to the Coliseum’s cavernous dimensions. Even if he doesn’t break camp on the roster, he’ll probably start a fair number of games for the A’s in 2023.

Freddy Tarnok, RHP (two option years): Another piece of Oakland’s return for Murphy, Tarnok has all of 44 2/3 innings above Double-A under his belt (including a tiny two-thirds of an inning MLB debut in 2022). That lack of upper minors experience, coupled with the breadth of options for the Athletics’ rotation, should probably ticket him for Triple-A work to start the season. Several scouting reports on the 6’3″ Tarnok suggest his ultimate home might be in the bullpen, where a fastball that can already reach 98 mph might play up further. He’s never reached 110 innings in a professional season, so in addition to getting some needed reps against Triple-A lineups, he’ll also be looking to build out his workload.

Luis Medina, RHP (one option year): Yet another piece of the Montas return, Medina pitched to a 3.38 ERA in 17 Double-A starts with the Yankees before being blown up for a calamitous 11.76 ERA in seven starts (20 2/3 innings) with the Athletics’ Double-A club. Command has long been an issue for Medina, but he took that concern to new heights with the A’s, walking 22 of the 114 batters he faced following the trade. FanGraphs lauds Medina’s plus breaking ball and elite arm strength, while Baseball America notes that his heater has reached 103 mph in the past. The huge command concerns could lead to a future in the bullpen. Medina isn’t likely to win a starting job early in the season, but the A’s can continue trying to refine his ability to locate the ball in hopes of hitting the jackpot on a starter with this type of repertoire. If not, a move to the ’pen could put him on a fast track to the Majors.

Adam Oller, RHP (two option years): The A’s picked up Oller as one of two arms in the trade sending Chris Bassitt to the Mets. Nineteen appearances later (14 starts), he has a 6.30 big league ERA under his belt with nearly as many walks (39) as strikeouts (46) in 74 1/3 innings. It wasn’t the start anyone hoped for, but Oller posted a solid 3.69 ERA in seven Triple-A starts. Oller always profiled as a potential back-of-the-rotation starter, and even the A’s massive home park couldn’t curtail the right-hander’s home run issues (2.06 HR/9). A bullpen role where he works multiple innings is feasible, as is a return to Triple-A Las Vegas.

Other Recent Trade Acquisitions

J.T. Ginn, RHP: Ginn missed more than three months of the 2022 season with a forearm injury and was clobbered for a 6.11 ERA in 10 starts of Double-A ball when healthy. He came to the A’s alongside Oller in the Bassitt trade and, as a 2020 second-rounder, was the more highly regarded get for Oakland. He’s not on the 40-man roster yet and is still only 23, so there’s plenty of time for him to right the ship, but he’s not on the immediate rotation radar.

Ryan Cusick, RHP: The Braves’ top pick in 2021, Cusick was traded to Oakland in the Matt Olson swap. Like Ginn, he spent much of the season on the injured list (in his case, due to a rib fracture). Also like Ginn, he was hit hard in Double-A when healthy, yielding a 7.02 ERA in 41 frames. He’s not Rule 5-eligible until after the 2024 season, so there’s no rush.

Joey Estes, RHP: Acquired from the Braves alongside Cusick, Estes handled older competition in High-A reasonably well. His 4.55 ERA wasn’t especially eye-catching, but he whiffed 23.8% of his opponents against a strong 7.8% walk rate in 91 innings. Home runs were an issue, but that’s two straight years of nice K-BB numbers against older competition for Estes.

Gunnar Hoglund, RHP: Hoglund would’ve been a top-10 pick in 2021 had he not required Tommy John surgery during his junior year of college, but the Blue Jays still liked him enough to take him at No. 19 and the A’s still liked him enough to make him the headliner in the Matt Chapman deal. Hoglund only pitched eight innings late in the 2022 season as he worked back from that ligament replacement procedure, so he’s nowhere close to the big leagues. His development will be worth keeping an eye on, though. Lefty Zach Logue, acquired alongside Hoglund, has already been designated for assignment, claimed by the Tigers and then passed through waivers in Detroit. He surrendered a 6.79 ERA through 57 innings as a rookie last year and actually posted an even grislier 8.12 ERA in 78 2/3 Triple-A frames.

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Amazingly, even after all of their recent trades of star-caliber players, the organization’s lone entrant on Baseball America’s Top 100 list is catcher Tyler Soderstrom — who, unlike every single one of the names mentioned prior, was drafted by the A’s. Part of that is borne out of the Athletics’ penchant for prioritizing near-MLB players in trades (as opposed to further off, more highly touted prospects), but it’s still rather surprising to see.

Nevertheless, while the A’s aren’t going to win many games in 2023, they’re brimming with young arms who could eventually hold down spots in the rotation. Attrition rate among young pitchers is enormous, and many of these names will be lost to injury, shift to the bullpen, or pitch themselves off the roster entirely. For now, it’ll be fascinating to see how many of Oakland’s young arms can solidify themselves in the big leagues, because their ability to do so (or lack thereof) will be a driving factor in the latest rebuild phase.

Brewers Designate Jon Singleton For Assignment

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The Brewers have officially announced their signing of infielder/outfielder Brian Anderson, making that deal official. In a corresponding move, first baseman Jon Singleton has been designated for assignment, per Curt Hogg of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.

Singleton, 31, has had one of the more unique baseball journeys. Drafted by the Phillies in 2009, his strong work in the minors got him onto top prospects lists, jumping onto Baseball America’s top 100 in 2011. At that summer’s deadline, he was one of four players traded to the Astros in the deal that sent Hunter Pence to Philadelphia. Singleton continued to impress after switching teams, launching home runs and walking at very high rates for the next few seasons.

In June of 2014, just as he was to be promoted to the majors, he and the Astros agreed to a five-year, $10MM extension that also came with three club options. The club hoped for Singleton to be a staple of their lineup for years to come and locked him in at an affordable rate before he could increase his earning power. Unfortunately, the plan didn’t come to fruition. Singleton hit just .171/.290/.331 in 2014 and 2015. That led to a wRC+ of 81 indicating he was 19% below league average. He was kept in the minors for the next few seasons and released in May of 2018. At that time, Singleton had just been given his third suspension for a failed test for a drug of abuse. He would later go on to speak publicly with Adam McCalvy of MLB.com about his battle with marijuana addiction.

After getting let go by the Astros, Singleton sat out a few seasons, not playing official baseball anywhere from 2018 to 2020. He joined Diablos Rojos del México of the Mexican League for 2021 and impressed enough to get a minor league deal with the Brewers for 2022. He spent all of last year with the Triple-A Nashville Sounds and produced well overall. He struck out at a 27.7% clip but drew walks at an incredible 20.1% rate and popped 24 home runs. That led to a batting line of .219/.375/.434 and a wRC+ of 118, indicating he was 18% better than league average.

That wasn’t enough for Singleton to get called up during the season, but the Brewers did re-sign him to another minor league deal in October. A few weeks later, they were evidently concerned someone might take him in the Rule 5 draft and added him to the roster prior to the deadline. However, since that time, the club has been quite active despite a lack of splashy free agent signings. In addition to signing Anderson, the Brewers also signed Wade Miley and Blake Perkins and traded for William Contreras, Jesse Winker, Bryse Wilson, Javy Guerra, Payton Henry, Abraham Toro, Owen Miller, Janson Junk, Joel Payamps and Elvis Peguero, in addition to grabbing Gus Varland in the Rule 5 and Tyson Miller off waivers. All of those additions seem to have nudged Singleton out of his roster spot.

The club will now have one week to trade Singleton or pass him through waivers. In the latter scenario, Singleton has a previous career outright and could reject such an assignment in favor of electing free agency. For any club that needs first base help, Singleton could make for an intriguing flier as he’s coming off a strong campaign in the minors and still has less than a year of service time. However, he’s out of options and would need to hang onto a roster spot or else be designated for assignment again.

Mark Leiter Jr. Elects Free Agency

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Right-hander Mark Leiter Jr. has elected free agency, according to his transactions tracker at MLB.com. He had been designated for assignment and outrighted by the Cubs in recent days but had the right to reject the assignment by virtue of having been previously outrighted in his career.

Leiter, 32 in March, got some time in the majors in 2017 and 2018 with the Phillies and Blue Jays. He struggled in those seasons and was outrighted by the Blue Jays after the latter campaign. That proved to be an inopportune moment to lose his roster spot as he required Tommy John surgery in the spring of 2019. He then had to undergo the lengthy rehab process while not accruing any service time.

The Cubs signed him to a minor league deal prior to the 2022 campaign and he ended up having a pretty decent season after cracking the roster in April. He tossed 67 2/3 innings in the big leagues with a 3.99 ERA. He struck out 25.9% of the batters that came to the plate, walked 8.9% of them and got grounders on 48.9% of balls in play.

Despite those good results, he got squeezed off the roster, perhaps due to the fact that he burned his final option year in 2022. That means he would have to hang onto his spot all season long or else be designated for assignment, which the Cubs got out of the way early. All players who have a previous career outright have the right to reject outright assignments in favor of free agency, which Leiter has now done. None of the other 29 teams were willing to claim him off waivers, which suggests he’ll likely be limited to minor league deals. However, he can at least now seek out the organization that he thinks provides the best path back to the big leagues or is the best fit for some other reason. If he earns a roster spot at some point, he can be retained by a club for future seasons since he has between two and three years of MLB service time.

Orioles Still Exploring Rotation Additions

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Though the free-agent market has been largely picked over and the trade market is similarly thin on starting pitchers, Orioles general manager Mike Elias said in a weekend appearance on 105.7 FM The Fan that he still hopes to add another starter to his team (link via Nathan Ruiz of the Baltimore Sun). While Elias voiced confidence in his collection of young arms and the “upside and good variability” the group can bring to the table, there’s little getting around the issue that the Orioles’ projected rotation is light on MLB experience, to say the least.

Baltimore effectively swapped out 2022 innings leader Jordan Lyles for an older Kyle Gibson, declining a net $10MM decision on the former (buying out an $11MM option for $1MM) and then signing Gibson at that same $10MM price point. The widespread expectation at the time was that Gibson would be just one of multiple additions to the starting staff; Elias had spoken about a looming payroll increase and the O’s were (and still are) lacking in experienced complements.

That hasn’t played out, however. The Orioles have been tied to several starters over the course of the offseason, most notably including Jameson Taillon, but the team’s free-agent pursuits thus far have come up empty. Elias suggested that the O’s have “had some very close opportunities” with regard to the free-agent market but that those targets “just went in a different direction.” One rumored Orioles target, Michael Wacha, remains unsigned — though it’s not clear whether there have been recent, substantive talks. Given that he’s coming off a 3.32 ERA in 127 2/3 innings last year, Wacha seems likely to be hoping for a multi-year pact, which is something the Orioles haven’t given out to any free agent since Elias took over as general manager.

Behind Gibson, the Orioles’ only starters with even a year of MLB service time are lefties John Means and Bruce Zimmermann, plus righties Austin Voth, Tyler Wells, Dean Kremer and Spenser Watkins. Means won’t be back from Tommy John surgery until summer at the earliest, and Zimmermann carries a 5.65 ERA in 145 MLB frames. Wells and Kremer both posted low strikeout rates and strong walk rates in 20-plus starts for Baltimore in 2022, likely making them favorites for starting work in 2023. Voth was quietly very good after being picked up from the Nationals, pitching to a 2.94 ERA in 79 2/3 frames with Baltimore. Watkins had solid results for much of the season despite his own lack of missed bats, but he faded quite a bit down the stretch last year.

The O’s have several top-end prospects looming, with Grayson Rodriguez chief among them. The right-hander is considered one of the sport’s premier minor league arms, but he also missed much of the 2022 season with a lat strain. Rodriguez threw just 75 2/3 innings last year and has never reached 110 innings in a pro season. Southpaw DL Hall was used as a reliever in his big league debut and has had some prominent command struggles in the minors despite also missing bats at a prodigious rate. Elsewhere on the 40-man roster, righties Kyle Bradish and Mike Baumann and lefty Drew Rom represent additional candidates. Both Bradish and Baumann have already pitched in the Majors.

Generally speaking, it’s a thin group in terms of proven innings and workload. Adding another arm is sensible, though Elias alluded to the fact that the thin market for starters has created a growing focus on the trade market throughout the league. The Marlins no longer look all that likely to deal from the rotation after trading Pablo Lopez to the Twins — GM Kim Ng said it’d be difficult for Miami to move another starter now — and the market isn’t teeming with other options. The Mariners have a pair of possibilities in Chris Flexen and Marco Gonzales, and speculatively speaking, Elias was with the Astros front office while they were developing Adrian Houser, who looks like he’s been pushed out of a rotation job in Milwaukee. The Mets have reportedly been open to offers on Carlos Carrasco at times this winter, too, and there are surely other veteran arms quietly drawing various degrees of interest around the sport.

On the whole, it’s been a very quiet offseason for the Orioles, who’ve added a quartet of veterans on short-term. Gibson (one year, $10MM), Adam Frazier (one year, $8MM) and Mychal Givens (one year, $5MM) all signed as free agents, while the O’s acquired James McCann to back up Adley Rutschman behind the plate (taking on two years and $5MM of McCann’s remaining contract in the process). That gives the Orioles a projected $63MM payroll, per Roster Resource, which falls right in line with their end-of-season total in 2022.

That payroll projection runs counter to Elias’ August comments, wherein he indicated that the team’s plan was to “significantly escalate the payroll.” Elias said this past Friday that it’s been a “competitive winter” in terms of player acquisition, suggesting the O’s have had more irons in the fire but not yet pulled through additional signings/trades of note. He added that he and his staff remain focused on improving the roster between now and the start of spring training, though obviously the clock is ticking on that goal and many avenues to accomplish it have already been closed.

Reds Re-Sign Derek Law To Minor League Deal

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The Reds announced Monday that they’ve re-signed right-handed reliever Derek Law to a minor league contract and invited him to big league camp this spring. Cincinnati non-tendered him back in November.

Law spent the final two months of the 2022 season with the Reds organization after spending much of the year with the Tigers’ Triple-A affiliate, where he’d pitched to a 3.23 ERA in 39 innings. The 32-year-old righty pitched to a 4.08 ERA with a 19% strikeout rate, 8.9% walk rate and 49.1% ground-ball rate in 17 2/3 innings for Cincinnati after being selected to the big league roster in August.

This past season was the sixth in which Law, a ninth-round pick by the Giants back in 2011, has spent time in the Majors. He debuted with a sensational 2.13 ERA, 23.4% strikeout rate, 4.2% walk rate and 50.3% grounder rate in 55 innings with the 2016 Giants, though he’s yet to replicate that standout performance in any of his subsequent MLB efforts. In 201 innings as a big leaguer, Law carries a 4.21 ERA with strikeout and walk rates that are a bit worse than league-average (21.9% and 9.8%, respectively).

Law’s 2022 season had at least one substantial change from his prior work, as he leaned on a newly implemented cutter as his primary pitch. Nearly half of Law’s pitches were cutters despite the fact that he’d never thrown the pitch during a Major League outing before the 2022 season. He’ll continue to hone that new offering in his return to the Reds, hoping to parlay that into another opportunity in the Cincinnati ’pen.

The Reds should have ample opportunity for Law and other non-roster invitees this spring. Alexis Diaz is locked in as the team’s closer, with righties Lucas Sims, Tejay Antone, Tony Santillan and Buck Farmer and lefty Reiver Sanmartin among the options behind him. However, both Santillan and Sanmartin posted ugly numbers on the season. Antone missed the entire 2022 campaign following Tommy John surgery, while Sims was limited to just 6 2/3 innings due to a back injury. Law will join names like Alex Young, Tayron Guerrero, Silvino Bracho and Alan Busenitz as non-roster invitees hoping to force their way into the big league bullpen picture.

Which Teams Make The Most Sense For Elvis Andrus?

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This offseason’s crop of free agents featured a clear top four in the shortstop category. Carlos Correa, Trea Turner, Xander Bogaerts and Dansby Swanson were all highly sought after and all ended up securing deals well into nine-figure territory. There was a steep drop to the fifth best option, Elvis Andrus. Though there were many teams who expressed interested in the “Big Four” that ended up missing out, none have made a pivot to Andrus as a backup plan thus far. With just three weeks remaining until Spring Training begins, Andrus is still unsigned.

The 34-year-old Andrus has 14 years of MLB experience, having debuted with the Rangers as a 20-year-old back in 2009. He spent many years with Texas, hitting at a below-average level but still proving to be a valuable player via his speed and defense. In the 11 seasons from 2009 to 2019, he hit just 73 home runs and walked in just 7.3% of his plate appearances, but he also struck out at just a 13.6% rate. His batting line in that time was .275/.331/.373 for a wRC+ of 86, indicating he was 14% below league average. However, he also stole 302 bases and also graded very well on the dirt. Defensive Runs Saved had him just a hair above average, but Ultimate Zone Rating gave him a score of 28.2, the fifth-highest among shortstops in that time. Outs Above Average, which was only introduced in 2016, graded him at plus-14, which was also fifth-best at the position. Despite the subpar batting, his 30.3 wins above replacement from FanGraphs was the second-most of all shortstops in that timeframe, trailing only Troy Tulowitzki.

Andrus had a down year in the shortened 2020 campaign and was traded to the A’s prior to 2021. He ended up having another typical season for him, hitting at a 74 wRC+ level but stealing 12 bases and getting some good grades for his work on the dirt. That led to him accumulating 1.6 fWAR on the year. In 2022, Andrus actually had a better season, despite being released by the A’s in the summer. That release seems to have been financially motivated, as Andrus had a slightly complicated finish to his contract. The 2022 season was the final guaranteed year of the extension he signed with the Rangers back in 2013. There was also a $15MM club option for 2023 but it would become a player option if Andrus was traded at some point and also logged 550 plate appearances in 2022.

Andrus was getting regular playing time with the rebuilding A’s and was well on his way to meeting that plate appearance threshold, but they instead released him in August. Andrus signed a new contract with the White Sox who needed a shortstop replacement for the injured Tim Anderson, eventually getting to 577 plate appearances on the year. Because he signed a new contract with the White Sox, the option was a moot point. He finished the year with a .249/.303/404 batting line and a wRC+ of 105. Thanks to his 18 steals and shortstop defense, he was worth 3.5 fWAR on the season between the two clubs.

Despite that solid platform year, Andrus lingers on the market. It’s probable that clubs are a bit skeptical of the 2022 output since Andrus hit .255/.302/.360 over the four prior seasons — but even that diminished version of Andrus was worth 4.3 fWAR in 419 games. Many teams still have shortstop deficiencies, and Andrus could also potentially help out teams that are weak at second base. He’s never played on the other side of the bag but expressed a willingness to do so last year with the White Sox when there was a possibility Anderson could return from the IL and retake the shortstop position. Despite the lack of experience at the position, many shortstops have found it easy to make the transition to second, which is considered a less-demanding spot.

Even with various qualities he could bring to a club, the market for Andrus has seemingly been quiet. The primary public link has been to the Red Sox, in the wake of Trevor Story requiring internal brace surgery on his elbow. Given that the club also lost Bogaerts to the Padres, they are now doubly lacking in the middle infield. Since then, they’ve signed Adam Duvall to hopefully be their everyday center fielder, thus moving Enrique Hernández to shortstop. Hernandez has only ever had part-time work at the position but recently expressed his excitement about a lengthier stint there, appearing on NESN during the club’s Winter Weekend festivities. With Christian Arroyo playing second base, it’s possible the Sox consider themselves set, but Duvall has never been a full-time center fielder and the same goes for Hernandez at short. That’s risky enough as it is, but one injury suddenly makes the situation look even worse. Adding Andrus and moving Hernandez to second or center field would improve the depth significantly. Jon Morosi of MLB Network recently suggested the Sox would like to bring Andrus aboard as a non-roster invitee, but it would register as a surprise if he couldn’t get a modest major league deal elsewhere, given his decent floor and solid year in 2022. The Sox are still more than $15MM shy of the luxury tax, per Roster Resource, and could still fit a modest deal on the books without pushing against it.

There are plenty of other logical suitors. The Diamondbacks currently have Nick Ahmed lined up to be their primary shortstop. Like Andrus, he’s a strong defender who doesn’t hit much, but he’s also been dealing with shoulder problems for years. Those shoulder troubles put him under the knife last year and he was only able to get into 17 games. Geraldo Perdomo was pushed into regular duty to cover for Ahmed but had a poor season on both sides of the ball. The club has an excellent second baseman in Ketel Marte but he’s been battling lingering hamstring issues for the past couple of seasons. A reliable veteran middle infielder would make plenty of sense for the Snakes.

A return to the White Sox would also make sense, even though Anderson should be back in the shortstop position. The second base spot is less clear, with Josh Harrison a free agent and Danny Mendick having signed with the Mets. Romy González, Leury García, Lenyn Sosa and non-roster invitee Hanser Alberto are some of the options that will be in camp next month, though none of those options are particularly inspiring. Andrus already said he’d be willing to play second next to Anderson and perhaps that would be a better option for the Sox than anything else currently on hand.

The Angels seem set to go into the year without a clear-cut shortstop. Luis Rengifo, David Fletcher and Gio Urshela are all possibilities, though none of them are really perfect. All three of them are multi-positional players that have spent much more time at other spots on the diamond. Fletcher probably has the strongest defensive argument to get the job, since he’s been graded a bit above average by all three of DRS, UZR and OAA for his career. However, he’s provided very little at the plate outside of the shortened 2020 season. Also, with Anthony Rendon and Jared Walsh coming off injury-marred campaigns, the Halos have question marks at both corner infield spots. Brandon Drury and Urshela can help out, but there’s still sense in further bolstering the depth.

The Marlins have been busy on the trade market lately, sending shortstop Miguel Rojas to the Dodgers and acquiring Luis Arraez in a trade sending Pablo Lopez to the Twins. Their current plans seems to be to move Jazz Chisholm Jr. to center field, leaving them with an infield of Jean Segura at third, Joey Wendle at shortstop, Arraez at second base and Garrett Cooper at first. They’ve been recently connected to first baseman Yuli Gurriel, with Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic reporting that Gurriel could play some second or third base. That’s a risky plan since he’ll turn 39 in June and hasn’t seen meaningful time at either of those positions since 2019. He’s also coming off a pretty poor year at the plate. The club is already taking a big risk on defense by having a center fielder with no experience there and two left-side infield positions manned by players who have spent much more time elsewhere. Arraez has plenty of second base experience but was graded poorly there, and the Twins bumped him to first base before trading him to Miami. Perhaps adding Andrus and moving Wendle back to a utility role would be a more elegant solution than the Gurriel option.

The Astros have Jeremy Peña and Jose Altuve up the middle and certainly don’t need help there. However, they lost their backup/utility option Aledmys Díaz to the A’s in free agency. They could replace him in-house with Mauricio Dubón and David Hensley, but Dubón had a poor year at the plate in 2022 and Hensley has been more of a utility player than a regular at shortstop. The Astros are probably fine if everyone is healthy, but an injury to Peña could make the depth start to feel a little shaky.

The Braves have lost Swanson to the Cubs but haven’t done anything to replace him. It seems the plan is to install 22-year-old Vaughn Grissom in the position and hope he can handle it. There’s risk in that plan as he has just 41 games of MLB experience, including just 10 innings at short. He has much more experience at the position in the minors, but many prospect evaluators have suggested he’s stretched at that spot and should move to second, third or the outfield. Should the Grissom experiment fail, the club’s best backup plan right now is Orlando Arcia. He has lots of shortstop experience with the Brewers but doesn’t hit much and eventually got moved into a utility role.

The Rockies had José Iglesias as their shortstop last year, but he is now a free agent. They seem ready to hand the reins over to prospect Ezequiel Tovar, who made his MLB debut last year. However, he’s still just 21 years old, has played just 80 games above the High-A level and only 14 of those above Double-A. Should he struggle in his first real taste of the majors, their backup plan would be to turn to Alan Trejo or Cole Tucker, neither of whom having much major league success of their own.

There’s also the wild card that is the World Baseball Classic, which takes place in March. Dozens of major league players will be ramping up quicker than they would in a normal spring and diving into competitive action. That creates the possibility that someone will sustain an injury that creates a new opening for Andrus. Some of the middle infielders that are set to participate in the WBC include Francisco Lindor, Jeff McNeil, Andrés Giménez and many more.

What do you think? Where do you think Andrus winds up? Have your say in the poll below.

(poll link for app users)

Read The Transcript Of Our Chat With Knuckleballer Mickey Jannis

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MLB player chats are back!  Last year, MLBTR readers chatted with 13 different former and current MLB players, and it was a blast.  This year, we’ve got more than 25 on tap.  If you’re a former or current MLB player, we’d love to host you for a chat!  It’s a great time, and you get to choose which questions you publish and answer.  Click here to contact us.

Today’s chat guest, pitcher Mickey Jannis, is a study in perseverance.  Mickey was drafted by the Rays in the 44th round out of California State University, Bakersfield – a draft round that doesn’t even exist anymore.  By 2012 he found himself in independent ball, at which point he converted to a knuckleball pitcher.  After grinding it out for four years with teams like the Lake Erie Crushers, Bridgeport Bluefish, and Southern Maryland Blue Crabs, Jannis managed to land a minor league deal with the Mets.

Jannis honed his craft for three years in the Mets organization, reaching Triple-A.  He then inked a deal with the Orioles, only to see the minor league season cancelled in 2020.  Jannis stuck with the O’s, and was rewarded with his lone big league opportunity to date in 2021.  On June 23rd, 2021 at Camden Yards, Jannis entered the losing side of a 6-0 game against the heart of the Astros’ order.  His first opponent was the dangerous Yordan Alvarez, and Jannis caught him looking.  Though Jannis was not able to make it through the rest of the outing unscathed, he’d made it to the big leagues as a 33-year-old rookie knuckleballer after 12 years of minor league baseball.

19 months later, Jannis remains the last knuckleballer to pitch in the Major Leagues.  The knuckleball is a lonely road and often a last resort for a pitcher, but this spinless wonder has given us multiple Hall of Famers and All-Stars.  The most recent major success with the pitch was R.A. Dickey, who won the NL Cy Young award in 2012 and pitched successfully through 2017, his age-42 season.

MLB teams haven’t cracked the code on the knuckleball, and most seemingly have not figured out a way to teach the pitch.  Who knows, maybe the pendulum will swing and the lowest possible spin rate will become the new market inefficiency.  For Mickey Jannis’ sake, we’d love to see it.  As Mickey puts it, he’s “currently working out for teams, trying to keep the knuckleball alive!”  You can follow him on Twitter and Instagram @mickeyjannis.

Today, Mickey answered questions from MLBTR readers for over an hour.  Click here to read the transcript.

Red Sox, Ryan Sherriff Agree To Minor League Deal

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Left-hander Ryan Sherriff announced over the weekend that he’s signed with the Red Sox (Twitter link). Presumably, it’s a minor league deal for the southpaw that’ll give him a chance to compete for a job during spring training.

Sherriff, 32, has pitched in parts of four Major League seasons, most recently with the Rays in 2021. He sports a career 3.65 ERA with an 18.7% strikeout rate, 8.8% walk rate and 56% ground-ball rate in 44 1/3 innings at the MLB level. He originally reached the Majors with the 2017 Cardinals and pitched quite well during his debut (3.14 ERA, 15-to-4 K/BB ratio in 14 1/3 innings). However, Sherriff suffered an elbow injury in 2018 that required Tommy John surgery, which wiped out the remainder of his 2018 season.

The Cardinals released Sherriff after that surgery-shortened campaign, at which point he latched on with the Rays on a minor league contract. He made it back to a minor league mound for seven innings in 2019, remained with the organization into the shortened 2020 season, and was back in the big leagues that summer, when he tossed 9 2/3 shutout innings (albeit with only two strikeouts). Sherriff tossed two shutout innings for the Rays in that year’s World Series against the Dodgers.

Sherriff’s 2021 season, however, didn’t prove as fruitful. He pitched just 14 2/3 big league innings and was rocked for 11 runs (nine earned) on 14 hits and nine walks. He struck out 16 batters along the way but also plunked four hitters. He pitched well enough in Triple-A that the Phillies claimed him off waivers after the Rays designated him for assignment, but Sherriff spent the majority of his 2022 season with the Phillies on the injured list due to a shoulder strain.

Though injuries have slowed his career at various junctures, Sherriff boasts a 3.11 ERA in 170 2/3 Triple-A innings and a 3.65 mark in 44 1/3 MLB frames. He’s not a flamethrower (92.3 mph average sinker in 2021) and has below-average strikeout rates, but Sherriff has been a ground-ball machine who’s had success at every level when healthy enough to take the mound.

Joely Rodriguez and Josh Taylor are the Red Sox’ two primary lefty options in the bullpen. There’s not a great deal of depth beyond that pair, so Sherriff could be a viable option at some point if he’s back to full strength.

The Opener: Signings, Gurriel, Player Chat

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With just three weeks left until pitchers and catchers report to Spring Training, here are three things we’ll be keeping an eye on around the baseball world throughout the day today:

1. Signings to be made official:

According to Pete Abraham of the Boston Globe, the Red Sox are expected to make their one-year deal with outfielder Adam Duvall official early this week. That’s far from the only signing that could be made official in the coming days, however. Aroldis Chapman’s one-year contract with the Royals could also be made official after being agreed to late last week. Brian Anderson’s one-year pact with the Brewers and Nelson Cruz’s one-year agreement with the Padres are other deals still waiting to be made official; Cruz’s pact, in particular, was reportedly agreed to almost two weeks ago with no official announcement as of yet. All four clubs have full 40-man rosters, so a corresponding move will be necessary in all three cases to make room for the club’s newest acquisition.

2. Is a Gurriel signing immiment?

Reports over the weekend indicated that the market for first baseman and 2022 World Series champion Yuli Gurriel could be heating up, with the Marlins and Twins among the teams interested. Miami, in particular, was said to be “moving toward a deal” with Gurriel, per Mark Feinsand and Brian McTaggart of MLB.com Both clubs make for interesting fits for Gurriel. In Minnesota, a veteran right-handed complement to first base youngster Alex Kirilloff makes sense, whereas in Miami, Gurriel could provide an additional option in a first base/DH mix that already includes Garrett Cooper and Jorge Soler. According to The Athletic’s Ken Rosenthal, it’s also possible that Gurriel could spend time at both second and third base for the Marlins, should he sign there.

3. MLBTR Player Chat

We regularly host chats with members of our writing team here at MLBTR, but this week we’ll be rebooting our Player Chat series. In the past, we’ve had names like Dan Straily, Jonny Gomes, Tyler Danish, Paul Sewald and Christian Colon (among others) host chats with our readers. We’ve got a wide range of guests set up this time around, ranging from players who only had a brief cup of coffee in the Majors but long grinds through the minors, to some who logged upwards of ten years of MLB service. Today’s chat will feature a special appearance by former knuckleballer Mickey Jannis. Jannis played professional baseball for twelve seasons, including eight seasons in the minor leagues, and made the big leagues with the Orioles in 2021. Jannis also played in Australia and Venezuela throughout his career. Tune in at 10am CST for Jannis’s live chat.

Brian Cashman Discusses Yankees’ Injuries, Offseason

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Yankees GM Brian Cashman was a guest on the latest edition of The Front Office with Jim Bowden and Jim Duquette on MLB Network Radio on SiriusXM, and discussed a number of topics related to the Bronx Bombers’ offseason.  Perhaps most notably, some more moves could still potentially take place, as Cashman said the team would still like to add a left-handed hitting outfielder “to balance us out” in the left field mix.

While the Yankees have a noticeably right-handed heavy roster, left field is actually one of the only positions that already has some balance, between switch-hitters Aaron Hicks and Oswaldo Cabrera, plus the left-handed hitting Estevan Florial.  However, New York might prefer to move Cabrera all around the diamond rather than commit him to a fuller-time role in left field, Florial is still an untested commodity at the MLB level, and rumors continue to swirl that the Yankees are trying to trade Hicks and at least some of the $30.5MM remaining on his contract.

Cashman cited the Hicks/Cabrera/Florial trio as the team’s “default” for left field in lieu of any other moves, and noted that the Yankees are intrigued by what they see from their in-house options.  Cashman said that Hicks “is fully recovered now” from the knee injury suffered in Game 5 of the ALDS, which kept Hicks from participating in the ALCS against the Astros.

In other health news, Cashman shared some details on Frankie Montas, following last week’s news that shoulder inflammation would keep Montas sidelined through the first month of the season.  Montas is only set to begin his normal offseason throwing program this coming week, and thus he’ll need more time to fully ramp up.  The right-hander visited Dr. Neal ElAttrache two weeks ago, Cashman said, and the silver lining is that Montas’ shoulder problem doesn’t appear to be structural.  “All the diagnostic testing shows a thumbs up….and we’ll know a lot more as the throwing program commences,” Cashman said.

With Montas now sidelined for at least part of the season, the Bombers’ acquisition of Carlos Rodon has become even more important, as the starting staff might not miss a beat with Rodon joining Gerrit Cole and Nestor Cortes at the front end of the rotation.  Cashman revealed that the Yankees first tried to acquire Rodon from the Giants prior to the trade deadline, and though the club “had our conversations with San Francisco” about a possible deal, the Giants opted to keep Rodon because they felt they still had a shot at both reaching the playoffs and re-signing the left-hander this winter.

As it happened, the Giants finished 81-81 and missed the postseason, and Rodon departed for the Bronx on a six-year, $162MM contract.  Even with the Yankees focused on Aaron Judge, Cashman said the team “stayed in touch with [agent] Scott Boras and Rodon,” and the GM felt the Yankees were helped because “I know that this is the place [Rodon] wanted to be.”

Rodon’s interest in wearing the pinstripes was a boost to a club whose entire offseason was more or less put on hold while Judge made his decision.  Even amidst the fast-moving nature of this winter’s free agent market, “thankfully there were things on the board still after [Judge re-signed], since we weren’t sure what was going to be in play,” Cashman noted.  Once Judge had officially agreed to return to New York, “ultimately we were able to pivot” to also land Rodon.

There was certainly some risk involved in the process of making such a priority of Judge, as “certainly no team wants that scenario where you put all your eggs in that basket and then the basket comes up with goose eggs,” Cashman said.  Still, the front office had little choice but to wait for Judge’s decision, especially since the AL MVP and his camp gave seemingly little information about which way he was leaning, despite Judge’s public declaration that he preferred to remain with the Yankees.

“I felt like for a long time we were flying blind,” Cashman said.  “Normally you kind of get a feel for where things are at, and if you can come to the right number, or you get the numbers whispered….My speculative thought on [Judge’s] end was that he earned the right to free agency and he was going to go through that process in a very methodical, deliberate way.”

“In terms of negotiation, that waiting game….at times, it was difficult.”

Fortunately for Cashman, the Yankees, and the Bronx fans, Judge chose to re-sign for a nine-year, $360MM deal, and he’ll remain as the centerpiece of New York’s lineup.  In terms of another returning face, “hopefully we have pure health on DJ LeMahieu’s side,” Cashman noted, “since he was a huge part that we lost last year, really the last two years with two separate injuries.”

A sports hernia kept LeMahieu from participating in the 2021 postseason, while a ligament issue in his right foot/toe area sidelined him for last year’s playoffs.  It wasn’t entirely clear whether or not LeMahieu would ultimately need surgery to correct the problem, and while Cashman didn’t firmly provide an update on the infielder’s status one way or the other, the lack of news could be a good omen that LeMahieu’s efforts to rehab the injury without surgery are working.

If LeMahieu is healthy, Cashman described his role as an infielder who can play every day while bouncing around the infield, playing first base, second base, and third base.  Breaking down the starting infield, Cashman cited Anthony Rizzo at first base, Gleyber Torres at second base, Josh Donaldson at third base, and Isiah Kiner-Falefa competing with star prospects Oswald Peraza and Anthony Volpe for the shortstop job.  Naturally there still might be some flux in this plan, depending on LeMahieu’s health and the fact that Donaldson is also reportedly a player the Yankees are trying to unload in order to save some payroll space.

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