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A’s Sign Jake Fishman, Deolis Guerra To Minor League Deals

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The A’s announced a number of non-roster invitations to Spring Training this afternoon. Among those invited to camp were relievers Jake Fishman and Deolis Guerra, indicating both recently joined the organization on minor league deals. Oakland also signed first baseman Kevin Cron.

Fishman reached the big leagues for the first time with the Marlins in 2022. The southpaw had a few separate stints with Miami and made seven appearances altogether. He tallied 11 innings, allowing five runs while striking out six and issuing three walks. The sinkerballer averaged only 87.5 MPH on his fastball and under 76 MPH on his slider, but he had a nice year in Triple-A.

Through 56 appearances with Miami’s top affiliate, Fishman posted a 2.25 ERA. He induced grounders at an excellent 54.2% clip and struck out a serviceable 23.1% of opponents. The Union College product walked 8.5% of batters faced in the minors, and he held same-handed hitters to an awful .191/.270/.270 line across 142 plate appearances in Triple-A. Despite that strong showing, he was outrighted off Miami’s 40-man roster at the end of the end of the season and qualified for free agency. Also a former member of the Blue Jays organization, Fishman will compete for a situational role similar to the one already held by Sam Moll in Oakland.

Guerra is a familiar face for Oakland fans. The 33-year-old was second on the team in relief innings in 2021, soaking up 65 2/3 frames across 53 outings. He had a solid if unremarkable year, posting a 4.11 ERA while putting up roughly average strikeout and walk rates (23% and 7.4%, respectively). A veteran journeyman who’d previously suited up for the Pirates, Angels, Brewers and Phillies at the MLB level, Guerra looked to have carved out a multi-year role in the Oakland bullpen.

That was thrown off track before the 2022 season even began, however. Guerra battled some elbow pain in Spring Training, and he underwent Tommy John surgery a week into the regular season. He spent the whole year on the injured list and was non-tendered at the end of the season. While the A’s weren’t prepared to carry him on the 40-man roster all winter after a lost season, they quickly brought him back with a chance to earn a spot yet again. Given the mid-April timing of his surgery, it’s unlikely Guerra will be ready to take the mound in exhibition play. He’ll presumably start the year on the minor league injured list and head to Triple-A Las Vegas after he completes his rehab and builds back to game shape.

Cron, 30 in February, played in 47 games with the Diamondbacks from 2019-20. The right-handed hitter didn’t perform well in that very limited look, but he has mashed at a .319/.405/.651 clip in just over 800 career Triple-A plate appearances (albeit in an extremely favorable environment in Reno). Those monster numbers earned Cron looks in both Japan and South Korea over the past two years, though he didn’t fare especially well at either stop. He hit .231/.270/.431 with NPB’s Hiroshima Carp in 2021 and posted a .222/.255/.420 mark through 259 trips to the plate with the KBO’s SSG Landers this year.

Also included in the list of non-roster invitees are outfielder Cody Thomas and infielder Ernie Clement. Both had been designated for assignment in recent days but apparently went unclaimed on waivers and remained in the organization on outright assignments. Thomas debuted with 10 MLB games this past season, while Clement hit .184/.243/.209 in 70 combined contests between the Guardians and A’s in 2022.

Oakland further announced that infielder Vimael Machín declined an outright assignment after going unclaimed on waivers. He’ll head to minor league free agency, as is his right as a player who has been outrighted multiple times in his career. The lefty-hitting infielder posted a .220/.300/.287 line with one homer through 253 plate appearances this past season. He hasn’t done much at the plate in parts of three big league campaigns. Owner of a far more impressive .307/.400/.468 line through parts of four Triple-A seasons, Machín figures to find a minor league opportunity elsewhere.

Mets Showing Trade Interest In Liam Hendriks

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The Mets are among the clubs that have contacted the White Sox regarding Liam Hendriks, reports Michael Mayer of Metsmerized (Twitter link). Reports emerged a couple weeks ago that Chicago had been discussing their star closer with other teams, though the identity of those clubs wasn’t clear.

Certainly, the Mets aren’t the only team that’d be interested in prying Hendriks from Chicago. The 33-year-old is one of the sport’s top late-game weapons. Hendriks broke out with the A’s in 2019, tossing 85 frames with a 1.80 ERA to secure his first All-Star selection. He’d surely have earned another had there been a Midsummer Classic in 2020, as he finished ninth in AL Cy Young balloting during the abbreviated season thanks to a 1.78 mark through 25 1/3 frames.

After that season, the right-hander made the move to Chicago. Hendriks inked a $54MM guarantee with the White Sox, with Chicago gambling he’d maintain his late-career breakout form. He’s done just that, posting a 2.66 ERA over 127 frames with the Sox. After posting a 2.54 ERA in year one, he followed up with a 2.81 mark through 57 2/3 innings this past season. Hendriks earned All-Star selections in both seasons and struck out an excellent 36.2% of batters faced in 2022. He missed a few weeks in the middle of the year with a forearm strain — an alarming-sounding diagnosis for a pitcher — but he returned seemingly no worse for wear, striking out 35.4% of opponents while sitting north of 97 MPH on his heater in the second half.

Any contender looking for bullpen help could check in with Chicago general manager Rick Hahn. Hendriks would be an impact addition to the late innings for any club, and the Mets are no exception. New York has one of the handful of relievers who might be better than Hendriks to pitch the ninth inning after re-signing Edwin Díaz to a five-year free agent contract. They agreed to terms with Adam Ottavino on a two-year deal this afternoon, and they’ve also brought in David Robertson from outside the organization. The Mets don’t necessarily need more bullpen help, but they’ve shown no qualms about going after high-end talent no matter the cost.

That’s reflected in their astronomical spending, the likes of which MLB has never seen before. New York has a 2023 player payroll projected by Roster Resource around $351MM. Their luxury tax number sits around $363MM, a staggering $130MM higher than next year’s base tax threshold. That lines them up for a projected tax bill of $92.4MM, which would put their total player spending around $443.4MM.

Additional pickups would obviously add to that figure. Hendriks is guaranteed $14MM in 2023, and his contract contains a $15MM club option for the ’24 season. That comes with a matching $15MM buyout, which would be distributed in $1.5MM installments through 2033. That’d be a small benefit, but the only incentive for the White Sox not to exercise the option would be if Hendriks suffers an injury that takes him out of action for most or all of the 2024 campaign or has such a dramatic drop in performance his spot on the roster would be in jeopardy.

If Hendriks is traded, that option vests. Hendriks would then be guaranteed $29MM over the next two seasons. Matt Gelb of the Athletic has previously reported that under the new CBA, for luxury tax purposes, traded players on multi-year contracts see the average annual value of their deal recalculated at the time of the trade. In Hendriks’ case, he’d be pegged at $29MM over two years — a $14.5MM AAV for an acquiring team. If not traded, his deal counts for $18MM against the White Sox’s tax ledger in 2023, as it was technically a three-year, $54MM guarantee at signing.

For the Mets, taking on a $14.5MM AAV would come with an additional $13.05MM in taxes, as they’re taxed at a 90% clip on all future spending. Topping $27MM in actual money annually for a reliever is something virtually no other team would do, but New York seemingly can’t be counted out of any move at this point.

Of course, there’s no indication the Mets and White Sox have made much or any progress. To this point, the exercise is mostly theoretical. New York would face plenty of competition if the Sox commit to moving Hendriks, who’s better than any available free agent reliever. Chicago could certainly elect to hang onto him entirely, since they’re working to rebound from an 81-81 showing to compete in the AL Central. The White Sox agreed to terms with Andrew Benintendi on a five-year, $75MM deal last week. If his salaries are evenly distributed, that’d push their projected payroll to $193MM, which would be right in line with this past season’s franchise-record mark.

Brian O’Grady Signs With KBO’s Hanwha Eagles

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Brian O’Grady has signed with the Hanwha Eagles of the Korea Baseball Organization, tweets C. Trent Rosecrans of the Athletic. It’s a deal for up to $900K, with $700K in salary and $200K in incentives, according to Jeeho Yoo of Yonhap News (Twitter link).

O’Grady got brief looks in the big leagues each season from 2019-21. A former Reds draftee, he played in the Cincinnati system for a half-decade and earned an MLB debut with the Reds in ’19. O’Grady appeared in 28 contests for Cincinnati before being dealt to the Rays the following offseason. The lefty-hitting corner outfielder suited up just twice with Tampa Bay in the shortened 2020 campaign and was outrighted off the roster over the 2020-21 winter. He signed an MLB contract with the Padres and suited up a personal-high 32 times for the Friars the next season.

Between the three clubs, O’Grady managed just a .184/.283/.388 line in 114 MLB plate appearances. He’d hit at an excellent .284/.362/.551 clip through parts of three Triple-A campaigns, though, and that strong upper minors work caught the attention of evaluators in Japan. The Rutgers product inked a deal with the Seibu Lions in Nippon Professional Baseball last offseason. He tallied 465 trips to the plate but didn’t perform as the club had hoped offensively, putting up a .213/.312/.384 line with 15 home runs. O’Grady walked at a quality 11.6% clip but struck out in 27.7% of plate appearances for the Lions.

The Eagles will take a shot on a rebound season, betting on O’Grady’s power and plate discipline. His strong minor league track record gives reason for optimism as he heads to South Korea for the first time. The Philadelphia native turns 31 in May and could eventually look for a return to the affiliated ranks if he performs well in the KBO. For now, he’ll look to help an Eagles team that went just 46-96 this year to bounce back from a last-place finish.

The Pirates’ Potential Rotation Trade Chip

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Virtually all the attention on the Pirates’ trade possibilities this offseason has centered on All-Star outfielder Bryan Reynolds. Extension talks hit a snag, and Reynolds requested a trade. Pittsburgh has maintained they won’t move off their lofty asking price on the 27-year-old, who’s controllable for three more seasons. They seem open to offers but have at least signaled they won’t make a deal unless blown away by the package of young talent they’d receive.

Whether Reynolds gets dealt is one of the bigger remaining storylines of the offseason, but he’s certainly not the only player on the Pittsburgh roster who could attract attention. The Bucs have stockpiled a number of veterans on one-year commitments — Ji-Man Choi, Vince Velasquez and Austin Hedges among them — who could be midseason trade candidates. Star closer David Bednar would have a ton of appeal in the unlikely event the Pirates made him available. One player who has seemingly flown under the radar in rumors is JT Brubaker, but he seems the most plausible trade candidate in Pittsburgh’s rotation.

At first glance, it looks obvious why Brubaker hasn’t been the subject of much public trade speculation. He has pitched in three big league seasons and has a 4.99 ERA through 315 2/3 innings. The righty hasn’t posted an ERA better than this past season’s 4.69 mark in any of those years. Despite pitching his home games in a very favorable park, Brubaker hasn’t managed to keep runs off the board consistently. He’s not going to be a primary target for a win-now club that feels they’re a starter away from contention.

That said, teams will obviously look beyond a pitcher’s ERA in evaluating that player, and Brubaker has shown more promise than one might surmise with a cursory glance at his Baseball Reference page. ERA estimators like FIP and SIERA have viewed the Akron product more favorably than his ERA would suggest in all three of his big league campaigns. That’s a reflection of strikeout and walk numbers that’d look right in line with what one would expect from their fourth starter.

Brubaker has struck out 23-24% of opponents in all three seasons, while he’s kept his walk percentage in the 7-8% range. Over 144 innings in 2022, the former sixth-round draftee put up a 22.8% strikeout rate that was narrowly better than the 21.6% league average for starters. He walked 8.4% of batters faced, slightly higher than the 7.5% league mark. On a pitch-for-pitch basis, Brubaker also fared reasonably. He generated swinging strikes on 11.8% of his offerings, right in line with the rate from his prior two seasons. That’s a tick better than the 10.7% league figure.

It’s a fairly similar story from a batted ball perspective. Brubaker’s 44% grounder rate is fine, marginally better than par. Even his pitches themselves seem almost exactly average. His sinker checked in at 93.1 MPH this past season, which is middle-of-the-pack. Brubaker’s mid-80s slider is the highlight of his arsenal, a quality swing-and-miss pitch he uses with frequency against same-handed hitters. That’s his go-to offering once he gets ahead in the count against righties, and it has been effective at finishing off opponents when he needs a strikeout.

While Brubaker’s strikeout/walk profile is solid, his run prevention has yet to match up. That’s not entirely poor luck, as he’s given up a decent amount of hard contact. Left-handed hitters have given him real trouble, which isn’t especially surprising for a sinker-slider specialist who doesn’t regularly feature a changeup in his arsenal. Brubaker doesn’t have a great weapon to stay off barrels against lefty hitters, and they hit him hard in 2022. Over 298 plate appearances, opposing southpaws put a .269/.339/.481 line. While Brubaker induced grounders on over half his batted balls against right-handed opponents, lefties got the ball in the air roughly 65% of the time. Despite facing 50 more right-handed hitters on the season, he allowed three more homers to left-handed batters.

That’s a legitimate concern, and that contact profile partially explains the gap between his 4.99 career ERA and the more favorable marks from FIP (4.43) and SIERA (4.04). Without finding a better weapon against lefties, he’ll probably underperform those estimators to some extent. That said, he’s likely due for some positive regression, even if it’s not all the way to the 4.04 mark SIERA would suggest. Brubaker finished in the bottom 20 starters in left-on-base rate this year, and more favorable sequencing of the baserunners he allows should naturally improve his ERA. If another team feels confident in their ability to tinker with his repertoire or improve his changeup to better handle southpaws, they could eye him as an interesting change-of-scenery play.

To be clear, Brubaker isn’t going to come anywhere close to attracting the attention Reynolds or Bednar would on the trade market. Yet there’s some appeal for clubs in securing average to slightly below-average innings at little financial cost. The market for mid-tier starting pitchers has been extremely strong. Players like Taijuan Walker and Jameson Taillon secured four-year deals with underlying marks not much better than Brubaker’s. Brubaker wouldn’t have commanded that kind of outlay as a free agent given his platoon/hard contact issues. Yet one could argue he’s better than Kyle Gibson, who landed a $10MM guarantee from the Orioles for his age-35 season, or Jordan Lyles, who has agreed to terms on a two-year, $17MM pact with the Royals.

Brubaker turned 29 in November, and he’s controllable for three more seasons. Entering his first year of arbitration eligibility, he’s projected by MLBTR contributor Matt Swartz for an even $2MM salary. He’s affordable enough for any team, and while that includes the Pirates, they don’t seem likely to take an arbitration-eligible starter off the table as they continue their rebuild. Pittsburgh GM Ben Cherington and his staff don’t need to make a deal, but Brubaker’s not the type of player they’d steadfastly refuse to entertain relinquishing.

The free agent rotation market has gained plenty of steam the past few weeks. There hasn’t been any movement on the trade front for starting pitching, although that figures to pick up with the number of free agent hurlers dwindling. Brubaker wouldn’t be as exciting an addition as landing Pablo López or Trevor Rogers from the Marlins, but he should be on teams’ radars as a fallback target later in the winter.

Image courtesy of USA Today Sports.

Pirates Designate Diego Castillo For Assignment

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The Pirates have designated infielder Diego Castillo for assignment, per their transactions tracker at MLB.com. The move opens a roster spot for catcher Austin Hedges, whose signing became official today.

Castillo, 25, was one of two players traded from the Yankees to the Pirates as part of the July 2021 trade that sent Clay Holmes to the Bronx. The other, Hoy Park, was designated for assignment in November, going to the Red Sox and then Braves in subsequent trades. That means today’s transaction could potentially wipe the Holmes return from Pittsburgh’s roster just a year and a half later, while Holmes has gone on to establish himself a key part of the Yankee bullpen.

Castillo was a contact-over-power guy for the beginnings of his professional career, striking out around 10% of the time in the lower levels of the minors but rarely putting the ball over the fence. 2021 seemed to be a breakout for him, as he hit 19 home runs between the systems of the Yankees and Pirates, finishing the year with a combined slash line of .278/.355/.487 and a wRC+ of 128.

He was selected to Pittsburgh’s 40-man roster in November of last year but couldn’t carry his positive developments forward. He got into 96 games at the big league level in 2022 and hit 11 home runs, but he also struck out in 26.5% of his plate appearances while walking just 4.9% of the time. He finished the season with a batting line of .206/.251/.382, production that was 27% below average, as evidenced by his 73 wRC+. He also got into 35 Triple-A games but the results were only marginally better. It seems the Bucs saw enough to feel it was time to move on.

They will now have one week to trade him or pass him through waivers. It’s possible that Castillo could garner some interest from other clubs, despite his disappointing season. He’s still young and has a couple of option years remaining. He’s also played all four infield positions and a bit of right field, meaning he could provide clubs with a versatile depth piece even if his bat doesn’t turn around.

Orioles Unlikely To Sign Trey Mancini

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As free agents are coming off the board, former Oriole Trey Mancini is one of the few players left on the open market that’s a viable everyday contributor. However, it doesn’t seem like a return to Baltimore is in the cards, according to report from Dan Connolly of The Athletic. He says that the club made some initial contact with him but that little progress was made.

Mancini has been with the Orioles for much of his career thus far, having been drafted by them in 2013 and sticking with the club until a deadline trade to the Astros in 2022. He debuted in 2016 but cemented himself as an everyday player at a time when the club’s fans had little to get excited about. From 2017 to 2021, the Orioles finished last in the American League East in all four full seasons and finished fourth in the shortened 2020 campaign. But in the first three of those years, Mancini hit at least 24 home runs and hit a combined .275/.334/.480 for a wRC+ of 114, indicating he was 14% better than league average over that stretch.

A battle with colon cancer wiped out his 2020 season, but Mancini provided a feel-good story in 2021, returning to play 147 games and hit another 21 home runs. He finished that season with a batting line of .255/.326/.432, 105 wRC+. He got out to a strong start in 2022, hitting .268/.347/.404 for a wRC+ of 116. He was then flipped to the Astros at the deadline and wilted down the stretch. He hit just .176/.258/.364 as an Astro in the regular season, and followed that up with a dreary .048/.125/.048 line over 24 postseason plate appearances. That wasn’t the best way for Mancini to enter free agency for the first time, but his larger track record is still solid. He has a career wRC+ of 111 and the ability to play above-average first base defense, in addition to the occasional trip to an outfield corner.

Though many fans in Baltimore would surely be excited by Mancini’s return, there are reasons for the club to not have too much interest. They already have a right-handed hitting first baseman in Ryan Mountcastle, who still is under club control for another four years. The roster is also crowded elsewhere, which likely means the club wants to keep the designated hitter slot open to be used based on how other situations play out. Mountcastle, Jorge Mateo, Gunnar Henderson, Ramón Urías and Adam Frazier are lined up to handle the infield positions in some combination, with Lewin Díaz and Terrin Vavra candidates for bench jobs. They also have infield prospects on the way in the form of Joey Ortiz, Jordan Westburg, Coby Mayo and Connor Norby. In the outfield, they have Cedric Mullins, Austin Hays, Anthony Santander and Kyle Stowers, with prospect Colton Cowser likely to debut at some point in 2023. Given all of those young options, it would be a bit tough to slot Mancini into the picture without blocking some of their up-and-coming players.

If he’s not back to Baltimore, then Mancini will have to look for his next opportunity elsewhere. He was connected to the Cubs about two weeks ago, with Jon Heyman of The New York Post reiterating that connection earlier today. For the Cubs or any other club looking for first base upgrades, José Abreu, Josh Bell and Anthony Rizzo are off the board, but Mancini, Yuli Gurriel, Brandon Belt, Luke Voit and others are still available.

Nationals, Tanner Rainey Avoid Arbitration

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3:47pm: Rainey’s deal is worth $1.5MM, per Andrew Golden of The Washington Post.

3:45pm: The Nationals announced that they have agreed to terms on a one-year major league contract with right-hander Tanner Rainey, avoiding arbitration. The financial elements of the deal have not been reported yet.

Rainey, who turns 30 this weekend, was acquired from the Reds prior to the 2019 season and has since established himself as one of the club’s better relievers. Over the past four seasons, he’s made 139 appearances with a 4.42 ERA, though that number is inflated by a ghastly 7.39 showing in 2021. He’s kept his ERA under 4.00 in the other three seasons of that timeframe. He has walked 14.6% of batters faced over those four seasons, which is certainly quite high, but he’s also struck out an excellent 32.4% of them.

Rainey was showing positive signs in the control department in 2022, as his walk rate was down to 10.2%, his lowest such mark in a full season. Unfortunately, his progress was halted by a UCL sprain this summer, which led to Tommy John surgery in August. He will therefore miss most or perhaps even all of the 2023 season while rehabbing.

Rainey first reached arbitration eligibility one year ago as a Super Two player. He and the Nats agreed to a salary of $860K for 2022. MLBTR contributor Matt Swartz projected him for a raise to $1.5MM in his second of four arbitration years. Though it’s possible he’ll miss the majority of the next season, the Nats will be able to retain him via arbitration for two seasons after that.

Nationals Sign Erasmo Ramirez To One-Year Deal

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December 20: The Nats have made it official, announcing the deal today. Ramirez will earn a base salary of $1MM, reports Andrew Golden of The Washington Post, though there are a further $1MM in incentives available.

December 15: The Nationals and free-agent righty Erasmo Ramirez are working to finalize a one-year, Major League contract, tweets Jesse Dougherty of the Washington Post. Jon Heyman of the New York Post first reported the talks and indicated that Ramirez’s contract will contain bonuses that can push his salary north of $2MM, suggesting that the base salary is a ways south of that sum. Ramirez is represented by Mato Sports Management.

The well-traveled Ramirez has bounced around the league in journeyman fashion over the past half decade but will now spend consecutive seasons with the same team for the first time since 2017-18. Ramirez originally joined the Nationals, his fifth team in five years, on a minor league deal last March but quickly emerged as an important long reliever just a few weeks into the season. The veteran righty appeared in 60 games for Washington, tallying 86 1/3 innings of 2.92 ERA ball. His outings were regularly in low-leverage, long relief situations — often with the games already out of hand — but Ramirez’s results were still strong.

Last year’s 93.9 mph average fastball was a career-best mark for the 32-year-old Ramirez, as was his minimal 4.0% walk rate. The increased velocity and improve command still only resulted in a below-average 17.6% strikeout rate, but Ramirez kept the ball in the yard for the most part (1.15 HR/9) and did a decent job avoiding hard contact (88.7 mph exit velocity, 4.9% barrel rate, 35.7% hard-hit rate). For a journeyman addition on a minor league contract, the Ramirez deal worked out about as well as the Nationals could’ve realistically hoped.

He’ll now return to a bullpen that was quietly a solid group for Washington in 2022, ranking 15th in the Majors with a 3.84 ERA. Ramirez won’t supplant any of Kyle Finnegan, Carl Edwards Jr., Hunter Harvey or top Rule 5 Draft pick Thad Ward in Dave Martinez’s bullpen, but there are enough journeymen and unproven options that it shouldn’t be that difficult to clear out a spot in the ’pen. The Nats will have to make a corresponding 40-man move to accommodate Ramirez’s return.

Nationals Designate Gerardo Carrillo, Outright Lucius Fox

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The Nationals have made their signing of right-hander Erasmo Ramirez official, announcing the move today. In a corresponding move, fellow righty Gerardo Carrillo was designated for assignment. Additionally, infielder Lucius Fox cleared waivers and was outrighted to Triple-A.

Carrillo, 24, began his professional career with the Dodgers but went to the Nats as part of the blockbuster deal that sent Max Scherzer and Trea Turner to the Dodgers at the trade deadline in 2021. Prior to the deal, he had been placed at the back end of Baseball America’s list of top 30 Dodger prospects for three straight years beginning in 2019. He had showed enough promise that the Dodgers added him to their 40-man roster after the 2020 season.

The major knock on Carrillo has been his lack of control and that has continued to be true after moving to his new organization. He has yet to reach Triple-A but has double-digit walk rates at High-A and Double-A. In 2022, he made a few appearances in April but went on the injured list and didn’t return until July. That limited him to just 21 appearances on the season as a whole, including a rehab assignment, with Carrillo posting a 6.94 ERA in that time. He struck out a solid 24.3% of batters faced but walked 11.3% of them. The Nats will now have a week to trade him or pass him through waivers.

As for Fox, 25, he was once a well-regarded glove-first prospect with the Giants but his power hasn’t developed as hoped. He was traded to the Rays and Royals, subsequently going to the Orioles and Nationals on waiver claims. He made his MLB debut in 2022 but hit just .080/.115/.080 in 28 trips to the plate. In 216 minor league plate appearances for the year, he hit .241/.321/.352 for a wRC+ of 81. He was designated for assignment last week but will now stick with the organization without occupying a roster spot.

Pirates Sign Austin Hedges

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December 20: The Pirates have officially announced the signing.

December 17: The Pirates have agreed to a one-year deal with free agent catcher Austin Hedges, according to The New York Post’s Jon Heyman (Twitter link).  Hedges, a client of the Boras Corporation, will receive $5MM.

Catcher was a position of need for the Bucs this winter, and they’ve now reinforced things behind the plate in re-signing Tyler Heineman to a minors deal yesterday, and now landing Hedges for what will likely be the bulk of the playing time.  Jason Delay or possibly Endy Rodriguez (the only other catcher on Pittsburgh’s 40-man roster) could also compete with Heineman for the backup job, and it’s possible former first overall pick Henry Davis might get his first taste of the majors in 2023.  Davis made his Double-A debut with 31 games last season and will move onto Triple-A this coming year, but the Pirates are naturally not going to do anything to rush one of their top prospects.

Last offseason, the Pirates signed Roberto Perez to a one-year, $5MM deal, only to have Perez’s season ended by hamstring surgery after only 21 games.  Now, the Bucs have signed Perez’s former Cleveland teammate Hedges to another $5MM pact in order to again add some veteran stability to the catching position.

Hedges came to the Guardians as part of the big nine-player swap between Cleveland and San Diego at the 2020 trade deadline, and immediately joined forces with Perez as the team’s regular catching tandem.  The Guardians have long focused on defense over offense from the catcher’s spot, with Hedges in particular reflecting that tactic.  Since Hedges debuted in the majors in 2015, his 54 wRC+ is the lowest of any player in baseball (minimum 2000 plate appearances).

With the glove, however, Hedges is one of baseball’s best.  He rates a +75 from the Defensive Runs Saved metric, and both Fangraphs and Statcast have considered him an elite-level pitch-framer as recently as 2019, though his framing numbers are more above-average over the last three seasons than at the very top of the class.  Hedges has thrown out 102 of the 338 (30.18%) baserunners who have attempted to steal on him during his career.

Hedges will look to continue this work with a Pirates rotation that is still relatively short on MLB experience, though Pittsburgh just added a more veteran arm in Vince Velasquez.  The Pirates have been actively picking up lower-cost veteran talent this offseason, signing Hedges, Velasquez, Carlos Santana, and Jarlin Garcia to one-year deals in free agency, while also picking up Ji-Man Choi in a trade from the Rays.

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