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A’s Acquire Chad Smith From Rockies

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The A’s have acquired righty Chad Smith from the Rockies, the team announced. Pitching prospect Jeff Criswell heads to Colorado in return. The A’s 40-man roster count is up to 38, while Colorado’s tally drops to 38.

Smith made his big league debut this past season. He was called upon 15 times in relief by Colorado skipper Bud Black, tossing 18 innings. Smith allowed 15 runs in that limited work. He had a slightly above-average 27.1% strikeout rate and a solid 11.6% swinging strike percentage, averaging 95.6 MPH on his sinker. Yet throwing strikes proved problematic, as he walked an untenable 17.6% of batters faced.

Originally a Marlins draftee, Smith has played parts of six seasons in the minors since coming out of Ole Miss in 2016. He’d spent the past two years at the upper levels of the Colorado organization, posting strong numbers for Triple-A Albuquerque in 2022. Smith worked to a 3.09 ERA in 35 innings for the Isotopes — a strong achievement in one of the more hitter-friendly environments in pro ball. He fanned over 29% of opponents while inducing ground-balls at a massive 60% clip in that time. Smith’s 8.1% walk rate there was solid, but he’s battled control problems in the minors earlier in his career.

The 27-year-old has less than one year of major league service time, and he still has two minor league options remaining. He’ll give the A’s an affordable depth option who could factor into the middle innings and/or pitch for Triple-A Las Vegas if he holds his spot on the 40-man roster.

In return, the Rockies add a 23-year-old arm to the farm system. Criswell was Oakland’s second-round draft choice in 2020 after three seasons at the University of Michigan. The right-hander briefly made it to Triple-A this past season, although he spent more of the year at High-A and in Double-A. Over three levels, he worked 118 1/3 innings of 4.03 ERA ball, striking out batters at a 23.8% clip against a 9% walk rate. The 6’4″ hurler was ranked the #16 prospect in a relatively shallow Oakland farm system by Baseball America midseason; he’ll be eligible for the Rule 5 draft at the end of next season if not added to the 40-man roster before then.

No Decision Yet On Aaron Judge

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4:35pm: Giants CEO Larry Baer says there’s currently “nothing to report” on the Judge situation (via Chelsea Janes of the Washington Post).

4:28pm: Heyman now says the Giants haven’t heard a decision on Judge (on Twitter). Andy Martino of SNY tweeted that as of 4:22pm CST, the Yankees were not informed they were out of the running.

4:26pm: Defending AL MVP Aaron Judge “appears headed” to the Giants, tweets Jon Heyman of the New York Post. San Francisco has reportedly offered Judge a deal in the $360MM range. To this point, however, it appears at least the Yankees still remain in the mix.

Wolfe: Senga Has Received Five-Plus Year Offers

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Star Japanese hurler Kodai Senga is one of the most intriguing entrants on this offseason’s free agent market. The right-hander is arguably the second-best pitcher remaining behind Carlos Rodón, and he’s already been tied to almost a third of the league in various reports.

Reflecting that wide interest, Senga’s agent Joel Wolfe told reporters at the Winter Meetings this afternoon his client has been offered deals of five and six years (via Kyle Glaser of Baseball America). Predictably, Wolfe didn’t divulge salary figures but suggested Senga’s prioritizing the opportunity to join a win-now club. Earlier in the offseason, Wolfe told Gordon Wittenmyer of NBC Sports Chicago the right-hander was hoping to land in a big market.

There’s certainly a risk in committing five or six seasons to a pitcher without any track record against big league hitters. At the same time, it’s not hard to understand how the bidding has apparently worked its way to that level. Senga has a fantastic track record at the highest level in Japan, working to a 2.59 ERA in parts of 11 NPB seasons. He’s coming off 144 frames of 1.94 ERA ball, striking out an above-average 27.5% of opponents. He walked batters at an average 8.6% clip.

According to scouting reports, Senga has a fastball that sits in the mid-upper 90’s and an excellent splitter that serves as his top secondary offering. Evaluators have raised some concerns about his breaking ball and the consistency of his strike-throwing effectiveness, but he bolsters a high-octane top two pitches and has a long track record of success at NPB’s highest level. Headed into his age-30 season, he’ll step right into an MLB rotation, with his signing team surely at least anticipating mid-rotation caliber production.

The starting pitching market has picked up in recent days, with Jacob deGrom, Justin Verlander, Zach Eflin and Andrew Heaney all coming off the board on multi-year deals. Beyond Rodón, Senga leads a group with Chris Bassitt, Nathan Eovaldi and Jameson Taillon as the next tier of free agent starters. Senga is the youngest of that group and figures to land the longest deal; it’s quite possible he’ll secure the largest guarantee as a result, even if his annual salaries may check in a bit below those of Bassitt and Eovaldi.

Entering the offseason, MLBTR predicted Senga to land a five-year, $75MM contract. He’s a true international free agent, so a signing team won’t owe any compensation to his former NPB club, the Fukuoka Softbank Hawks. The Blue Jays, Red Sox, Padres, Mets, Giants, Yankees and Mariners are among the teams that have been linked to him this offseason. Wolfe told reporters there are currently between a half-dozen and a dozen teams still involved in the market (via Glaser).

Diamondbacks Interested In Sean Murphy

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The Diamondbacks are the latest team linked to A’s catcher Sean Murphy, as Nick Piecoro of the Arizona Republic reports that the D’Backs and Athletics have had some talks about Murphy’s availability.

Back in October, Arizona general manager Mike Hazen suggested that catcher might be a target area for the D’Backs this winter, as part of the team’s broader plans to improve its offense.  Free agent Christian Vazquez is another backstop who has reportedly drawn from interest from the desert, while the D’Backs also made a lower-level depth move in claiming Ali Sanchez off waivers.

As Piecoro notes, the Diamondbacks have a starting catcher already in place in Carson Kelly.  However, Kelly has hit a modest .231/.318/.405 over his 1207 plate appearances and four seasons in Arizona, with a lot of that offense coming back in 2019.  Most recently, Kelly hasn’t really been able to get on track at the plate since suffering a wrist fracture in June 2021.

With Daulton Varsho moving from “catcher of the future” to outfielder of the Diamondbacks’ present, the catching depth is suddenly a little thin in Arizona, and acquiring Murphy would soundly resolve that issue.  The former All-Star is a solid offensive and defensive performer, and is under team control through the 2025 season.  Since the Athletics are firmly in rebuild mode, Murphy has been one of the top trade targets in all of baseball, with essentially every catching-needy team (i.e. the Cardinals, Cubs, White Sox, Guardians, Twins, Rays, Red Sox) all linked to his market.  Even the Braves had some interest despite their own catching depth, but they no longer appear to be pursuing Murphy’s services.

This widespread interest has given the A’s plenty of leverage in talks.  The Athletic’s Ken Rosenthal reports that Oakland is looking to add Major League players rather than prospects in exchange for Murphy, with these big league-ready players presumably being younger and cost-controlled rather than established veterans.

With this asking price in mind, the Diamondbacks could be a particularly good fit for a Murphy trade.  There has been plenty of speculation that the D’Backs might trade from their surplus of young outfielders, and while top prospect Corbin Carroll seems untouchable, any of Varsho, Alek Thomas, or Jake McCarthy could potentially be shopped to Oakland as part of a trade package.

If the D’Backs did land Murphy, they could themselves enter the catching market by shopping Kelly.  Teams who miss out on Murphy could still see Kelly as a possible upgrade, and naturally his trade cost would be far less than the Athletics’ asking price for Murphy.  Kelly is arbitration-controlled through the 2024 season, and is projected to earn $4.1MM via the arb process in 2023.

Nationals Have Had Discussions With Jordan Lyles

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Nationals president of baseball operations Mike Rizzo said yesterday that the club plans to pursue rotation upgrades and it’s possible they have some self-imposed urgency in that search. Talk Nats reports that Rizzo wants to have a pitcher locked in before the end of the Winter Meetings, which conclude tomorrow. On a related note, Jesse Dougherty of The Washington Post reports that the club has had discussions with free agent Jordan Lyles.

The fact that the Nats are interested in starting pitchers is hardly shocking, given the uncertainty they have in that part of their roster. Stephen Strasburg has pitched just over 30 innings over the past three seasons combined and still isn’t sure what he can do in the future. Patrick Corbin still has two seasons remaining on his contract but has seen his ERA climb in four straight years, ending up at 6.31 in 2022. Apart from those two, the other rotation options are limited in experience and have concerns with either their health or performance. Josiah Gray has a 5.17 ERA through 219 1/3 career innings. Cade Cavalli made one MLB start before shoulder inflammation ended his 2022. MacKenzie Gore used to be the top pitching prospect in the sport but lost his command over 2020 and 2021. He got back on track in 2022 but then missed the second half of the season due to elbow inflammation.

Adding a stable veteran like Lyles into the mix would be plenty sensible, as that’s essentially the same role he just played in Baltimore in 2022. The rebuilding O’s had a similarly unclear rotation and signed Lyles to a one-year, $7MM guarantee with a club option for 2023. Lyles ended up making 32 starts for the club, absorbing 179 innings. His 4.42 ERA and 18.6% strikeout rate weren’t elite, but he limited walks to a 6.7% rate.

Those results are roughly in line with the numbers Lyles, now 32, has put up over his 12-year career. The O’s could have retained him for another season via a club option valued at $11MM but instead opted for the $1MM buyout, returning him to the open market. Most of the win-now teams will be focused on the starters with larger upside, with Jacob deGrom and Justin Verlander already off the board and Carlos Rodón seeming to have abundant interest. Back-end options like Lyles could wait around and see if those contenders will circle back to them later in the offseason, but some of them will also get some early interest. The O’s have already signed Kyle Gibson, effectively replacing Lyles as the veteran innings eater on the team. Meanwhile, the Rockies have re-signed José Ureña, the Tigers have added Matt Boyd and the Pirates have added Vince Velasquez. If the Nats like Lyles as their target for the stable vet, it’s possible for a deal to come together quickly.

Blue Jays Notes: Senga, Bassitt, Taillon, Reyes, Brantley, Gallo

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The Blue Jays are exploring several roster upgrades, with Sportsnet’s Ben Nicholson-Smith reporting that the club has interest in such players as Kodai Senga, Jameson Taillon, Alex Reyes, and Michael Brantley.  “There doesn’t appear to be traction…at the moment” between the Jays and Chris Bassitt, though the right-hander is another free agent hurler at least under consideration for the team.

Starting pitching is Toronto’s clearest need, and as one agent told Sportsnet’s Shi Davidi, the Blue Jays are “all over the pitching market” right now.  To this end, it is fair to speculate that the Jays have at least checked in on basically every available arm, which has been the team’s strategy for the previous three offseasons.  Davidi adds that the Jays also “have some degree of interest” in Carlos Rodon, Nathan Eovaldi, and their own incumbent free agent in Ross Stripling.  Past reports have indicated that the Jays have extended an offer to Andrew Heaney, and they were interested in Kyle Gibson (before Gibson rejected Toronto’s one-year, $10MM offer to sign an identical deal with the Orioles), and even Justin Verlander, before Verlander joined the Mets.

Alek Manoah and Kevin Gausman have solidified the front end of the Blue Jays’ rotation, but there is a lot of uncertainty afterwards, given how Jose Berrios and especially Yusei Kikuchi struggled in 2022.  There isn’t necessarily a guarantee that Kikuchi will even get a clear shot at a starting role, since he could at best be competing with Mitch White for the fifth starter’s job, or perhaps even be relegated to the bullpen if the Jays end up acquiring two new starters this winter.

As noted by both Nicholson-Smith and Davidi, the fact that the Jays were considering getting into Verlander’s market (even on a short-term deal) is another sign of how aggressive the team is willing to be, and perhaps a sign of how far they’ll stretch the payroll.  Bigger spending may be somewhat inevitable given the rising costs involved in the pitching market this offseason, though it might be a reach to see the Blue Jays spend what it will take to sign Rodon or perhaps even Senga, considering how the Japanese ace is drawing a lot of attention from multiple teams.  Speculatively, the Jays’ relative lack of interest in Bassitt could have to do with Bassitt’s desire for at least four guaranteed years, which may be a tall order for a pitcher heading into his age-34 season.

Reyes represents another kind of pitching addition, as the former top prospect is an intriguing bounce-back candidate who would fit on a lot of teams.  That said, Reyes also carries plenty of risk given his long injury history, including a shoulder surgery that kept him from pitching whatsoever in 2022.  It will be interesting to see how Reyes’ market materializes, as the Blue Jays and other teams will naturally be weighing the injury concerns, but the sheer amount of interest could still lead to a decent payday for the right-hander.

Beyond the pitching market, the Jays are also looking for left-handed hitting outfielders.  A gap in the outfield emerged after Toronto dealt Teoscar Hernandez to the Mariners, and a lefty swinger could help add balance to a largely right-handed Blue Jays lineup.  Brantley is one possibility, and while he is a player the Jays reportedly came very close to signing in the 2020-21 offseason, health questions also surround Brantley’s market.  Shoulder problems that eventually required surgery limited Brantley to only 64 games last season, and he has missed a lot of time earlier in his career with other injury woes.

Such names as Brandon Nimmo and Cody Bellinger have also been linked to the Jays’ outfield search this winter, and agent Scott Boras told Nicholson-Smith and Hazel Mae (Twitter link) that Toronto indeed had interest in both of his clients.  Boras also said the Blue Jays had interest in another client in Joey Gallo, another left-handed hitter.

Gallo is coming off a thoroughly rough 2022 season, hitting only .160/.280/.357 with 19 homers over 410 plate appearances with the Yankees and Dodgers.  Gallo’s “three true outcomes” style will always limit his offensive productivity to some extent, yet he is only entering his age-29 season, and Gallo’s strikeouts haven’t stopped him from posting some big offensive numbers in the past.  As recently as 2021, Gallo posted a 4.2 fWAR season, and his ability to play a decent center field would also be of interest to a Jays team that would ideally like to give George Springer more time in a corner outfield spot.

With Gallo, Bellinger, and probably Brantley all in line to receive one-year bounce-back types of contracts, the Jays could be planning to address the outfield with just a shorter-term addition, and then focus on a longer-term addition for the rotation.  The Blue Jays appear to be open to all possibilities, however, and their pursuit of free agents is also obviously impacted by what they might do on the trade market, especially with their catching depth being in high demand.

Rangers Have Met With Carlos Rodon Since Signing Jacob deGrom

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One year after shocking baseball by signing both Marcus Semien and Corey Seager for a combined half-billion dollar, the Rangers appear to at least be considering a similar double dip into the deep end of the free-agent pool. Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic reports that the Rangers met with Carlos Rodon just one day after signing Jacob deGrom to a hefty five-year, $185MM contract.

With deGrom in Texas and Justin Verlander having agreed to terms with the Mets, Rodon is the lone free-agent ace left on the board. He’s reportedly been seeking a six-year deal worth more than $30MM annually — a weighty sum for a pitcher with a lengthy injury history that includes both shoulder surgery and Tommy John surgery.

That said, Rodon has left little doubt in recent years that he’s among the sport’s most talented pitchers. After signing a $3MM pillow contract with the White Sox in the 2020-21 offseason, he at last made good on the expectations associated with his name dating back to his No. 3 overall selection in the draft. Through the first four months of the 2021 season, Rodon was arguably the best pitcher in baseball and looked like the clear front-runner for the American League Cy Young Award.

Shoulder fatigue limited Rodon to just 28 innings in the season’s final two months, however, and when he did pitch down the stretch in 2021, it was often with reduced velocity. The White Sox were apparently wary enough that they declined to put forth a qualifying offer, and Rodon inked a two-year, $44MM deal with the Giants that allowed him to opt back into the open market if he reached 110 innings on the season.

Not only did Rodon reach 110 innings, but he did so while again putting himself onto the periphery of the Cy Young race. The lefty tossed a career-high 178 innings with a 2.88 ERA, held his velocity late into the season and averaged better than 5 2/3 innings per start as a member of the Giants. He led the National League in strikeouts and, since Opening Day 2021, leads all Major League pitchers (min. 200 innings) with a 33.9% strikeout rate. Rodon has done all that while pitching to a combined ERA of 2.67 with similarly excellent marks in FIP (2.42) and SIERA (2.88).

Onlookers may wonder just how the Rangers could even consider continuing to spend so aggressively in such a short period of time — particularly when so many teams have been averse to paying the luxury tax in recent seasons. The increased luxury tax thresholds in the 2022-26 collective bargaining agreement surely play a role, as the first-tier threshold has climbed from $210MM in 2021 to $233MM this coming season.

The luxury tax, however, isn’t a major issue for the Rangers — at least not yet. Roster Resource projects that they currently have about $192.4MM of luxury obligations, meaning even signing Rodon at a $30MM AAV would still leave them with more than $10MM of breathing room from the first tier of penalization. It’s also worth noting that the penalty for first-time offenders is rather tepid — relatively speaking. The Rangers would owe a 20% tax on the first $20MM by which they exceed the $233MM threshold and a 30% tax on the next $20MM. Even shattering the luxury barrier by a means of $40MM would give the Rangers $10MM in penalties — about the price of signing a back-of-the-rotation starter in the current market.

Of course, signing Rodon would squarely set the Rangers up for a potential long-term status as a luxury payor. The combination of deGrom, Seager, Semien and Jon Gray amounts to $107.5MM on its own, and tacking on $30MM+ for Rodon would get Texas nearly 60% of the way to luxury territory even as far out as the 2024 campaign — and that’s not even including arbitration-eligible players and pre-arb players to round out the roster.

Texas, however, is enjoying the fruits of a newly constructed stadium that drew more than two million fans in 2022 and can surely anticipate that number will climb in 2023, with deGrom (at the very least) now on board. Ownership from all 30 clubs is also perhaps a bit more willing to spend after the league sold off its remaining 15% stake in BAMTech to Disney for $900MM, the spoils of which were divided among teams. Meanwhile, lucrative streaming deals with Apple and NBC/Peacock have only further bolstered revenues for the league’s 30 teams. Heading into the 2022 season, national television and streaming rights afforded all 30 teams approximately $65MM in revenue before factoring in local television deals, attendance, concessions and other sources of revenue.

Giants’ Offer To Aaron Judge Reportedly “In The Neighborhood” Of $360MM

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The Giants’ offer to reigning American League MVP Aaron Judge is “believed to be [in the] $360MM neighborhood,” reports Jon Heyman of the New York Post. The number of years on the contract aren’t clear, though recent reports have suggested Judge could push for a nine-year deal. That would put the potential average annual value on San Francisco’s offer in the $40MM ballpark, or perhaps in the $36MM range if they were comfortable extending the offer to a decade in length in order to mitigate some of the AAV and luxury tax concerns.

San Francisco has long been seen as the primary threat to sign Judge away from the Yankees, given their increasing urgency to field a winner, the team’s wide-open payroll outlook and Judge’s fandom of the team as a child growing up in Northern California. Judge has met with both teams in the past week, and outside of some loose connections to the Dodgers, there’s been no concrete reports of other teams involved in the mix.

That hardly means Judge only has two suitors, of course. Coming off a 62-homer, .311/.425/.686 season that netted him his first MVP win, it stands to reason that the majority of teams would at least inquire about the possibility of a deal. However, given the heights to which his market appears to be soaring, most clubs would surely balk at making a competitive offer.

Still, today’s revelation that the Padres offered Trea Turner a $342MM deal that would’ve given him the third-largest guarantee in MLB history — only to be rebuffed in favor of the Phillies — has at least served as evidence that another team is willing to spend at the very top end of the free agent market (albeit on a different player). There’s been no firm link between the Padres and Judge just yet, but with San Diego eyeing the corner outfield market and having displayed a willingness to commit an unprecedented third $300MM+ contract, it’s easy enough to speculate that the Friars could emerge as a viable third entrant in the bidding.

Heyman suggests that even with the Giants’ enormous offer, many in the industry still believe the Yankees to be the favorites. The Yankees, for their part, of course continue to hope that Judge will re-sign and spend his career in the Bronx, although recently extended general manager Brian Cashman told reporters last night that agent Page Odle has not given the Yankees any assurances that they’ll be afforded the opportunity to match or exceed an offer from another team before Judge accepts (link via Bryan Hoch of MLB.com).

The Giants have approximately $133MM in salary committed to next year’s books and are a projected $91MM shy of the first tier of luxury-tax penalization, so an AAV for Judge in the upper $30MMs or even reaching $40MM wouldn’t put them anywhere close to the tax line. Judge did reject the Yankees’ qualifying offer, however, so he’d cost the Giants their second-highest pick in next summer’s draft and also trigger a $500K reduction in their spending capacity on international amateur free agents.

Andrew Heaney Has Three-Year Offers, Wants Fourth Year

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1:16PM: The Giants and Rangers are also involved in Heaney’s market, Heyman tweets.

12:23AM: Free agent starter Andrew Heaney has multiple three-year offers on the table, but is looking for a contract that adds a fourth year, according to Jon Heyman of the New York Post. The only known team to have made an offer thus far is a previously reported offer from the Blue Jays, per SportsNet’s Ben Nicholson-Smith, although it’s not known if that was a three-year deal.

Heaney has been drawing widespread interest in free agency with as many as ten teams showing interest, including the incumbent Dodgers (via Fabian Ardaya of The Athletic), aforementioned Blue Jays, as well as the Mets, Red Sox and others.

Although shoulder issues limited the left hander’s participation in the Dodgers’ season, he was very impressive when he did make it onto the mound, tossing 75 innings of 3.10 ERA ball. A new slider allowed him to punch out batters at a staggering 35.5% rate while walking them just 6.1% of the time. The long ball was still an issue, but there’s plenty there to suggest Heaney can be an incredibly effective starting pitcher moving forward, and clearly a number of major league teams think the same.

MLBTR predicted a three-year, $42MM deal for Heaney, and it’s probably not surprising that it appears teams are a bit hesitant to stretch to a fourth year. As mentioned, he missed three months this season with shoulder problems, while he’s also undergone Tommy John surgery in 2016 and landed on the IL twice in 2018 and ’19 with elbow inflammation.

There’s certainly some question marks over Heaney’s durability, as well as how his newfound success during ’22 with the Dodgers would translate to a new team, but a full season’s worth of Heaney’s output this year would give a new team a dominant, top-of-the-rotation arm, so there’s enormous upside there for teams as well.

NPB Posting Window Expanded From 30 To 45 Days

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The posting system that allows players to move from Japan’s Nippon Professional Baseball to the major leagues has been expanded from 30 days to 45 days, according to Mark Feinsand of MLB.com.

If a player in Japan wants to pursue a contract with an MLB club, the NPB team can “post” the player. In the past, this opened up a 30-day window where the player and his representatives could negotiate with all 30 major league teams. If they didn’t find a contract to their liking, the player would return to their NPB club. If they did find a deal, the signing team would also owe money to the NPB team, on top of what they pay the player. The amount of that fee would be relative to the size of the contract given, with 20% of the contract’s first $25MM, 17.5% of the next $25MM and 15% of any dollars thereafter.

It seems that this system is all still in place, just with the window being extended from 30 days to 45 days. This year, this will impact at least two players: Masataka Yoshida and Shintaro Fujinami. It’s also perhaps worth pointing out that this will not impact another NPB player in Kodai Senga, as he has accrued enough service time to become a proper free agent that is not subject to the posting system. Yoshida’s window will reportedly start tomorrow and go until January 20. Fujinami was posted on December 1, meaning his window should be closing around January 15.

Assuming this is a permanent change and not a temporary exception, it will also have a bearing on all future NPB players who are posted in the future.

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