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Mets Sign Three To Minor League Deals

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The Mets have signed three right-handed relievers to minor league deals, according to their transactions tracker at MLB.com. Tommy Hunter, Sean Reid-Foley and Jimmy Yacabonis have joined the organization and will presumably be invited to major league Spring Training, though no formal announcement of that nature has been made.

Hunter is the oldest and most experienced of the bunch, as he’s currently 36 years old and has 494 MLB games under his belt. He has an even ERA of 4.00 thus far in his career, often succeeding with strong control. His career walk rate is 5.5%, well below this year’s MLB average for relievers of 9.1%. Outside of an injury-marred 2021, he’s never posted a rate higher than 6.9% in any single season. In 2022, he posted a 2.42 ERA but injuries limited him to just 22 1/3 innings. That’s been a recurring issue in recent years, as Hunter hasn’t reached 25 innings in a season since 2018.

Reid-Foley, 27, has pitched in the past five MLB seasons, the first three with the Blue Jays and the last three with the Mets. He came to New York from Toronto in the Steven Matz trade. He underwent Tommy John surgery in May and will miss at least part of the 2023 season. He was non-tendered by the Mets at the end of the season. He has a 4.66 ERA in 102 1/3 career innings, along with a 23.6% strikeout rate, 13.7% walk rate and 40.4% ground ball rate.

Yacabonis, 31 in March, put up an 8.36 ERA in 14 big league innings in 2022 but was much better in the minors. He tossed 33 2/3 innings down on the farm for various teams with a 3.21 ERA, 31.4% strikeout rate and 10.9% walk rate. He was outrighted by the Rays in November and elected free agency.

The Mets have a lot of work to do in rebuilding their bullpen as Adam Ottavino, Seth Lugo, Trevor Williams, Joely Rodriguez and Trevor May all hit free agency. Edwin Díaz was also in that group, though he was quickly re-signed. They will likely have more moves to come in bolstering the bullpen, but it’s understandable why they would look to add multiple depth options to the system.

Padres Offered Trea Turner $342MM Deal

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Dec. 6, 12:35pm: The Padres offered Turner a guarantee of $342MM, tweets Jon Heyman of the New York Post.

11:51am: The Padres’ offer to Turner was not only higher than the offer he accepted from Philadelphia but would have made Turner the highest-paid infielder in baseball, topping Francisco Lindor’s $341MM deal with the Mets, reports ESPN’s Buster Olney. The exact length of the contract, potential deferrals, etc. aren’t known at this time, but it’s a nevertheless jarring follow-up revelation in the wake of the Phillies’ deal with Turner. Lindor’s contract is currently the third-largest guarantee in Major League history.

While Kevin Acee of the San Diego Union-Tribune reported in the aftermath of the Padres’ failed bid that the team is no longer pursuing shortstops, Olney writes that the Padres have at least been in touch with Bogaerts, echoing a similar sentiment reported last night by Ken Rosenthal and Dennis Lin of The Athletic.

More broadly, Olney reports that the Padres are “very serious about trying to do all they can” to win the franchise’s first World Series, which raises the question as to whether San Diego might emerge as a legitimate entrant in the bidding for Aaron Judge, Carlos Rodon and other top remaining free agents.

Dec. 5: The Phillies made the biggest splash of the offseason to date, agreeing to terms on an 11-year deal with Trea Turner this afternoon. Once finalized, it’ll make the two-time All-Star the 10th player in MLB history to land a contract worth at least $300MM.

Massive as the contract was, it apparently wasn’t the highest offer the shortstop had on the table. Matt Gelb of the Athletic reports the Padres made an offer which topped the one Turner accepted from Philadelphia. Specifics of the proposal aren’t clear, but Gelb adds the gap was wide enough San Diego’s offer would’ve translated into more money even after adjusting for California’s higher state income tax rate than Pennsylvania’s.

In the months leading up to Turner’s free agency, there was a fair bit of speculation about whether geography would play a role in his decision. He’s a Florida native who went to college at North Carolina State. His wife Kristen is from New Jersey. Turner reportedly expressed a desire to remain on the East Coast when the Nationals traded him to the Dodgers at the 2021 deadline, and while he downplayed geographic preferences in free agency, there seems to have been some truth behind the rumblings he could prefer heading back across the country. Turner also rejoins longtime Washington teammate Bryce Harper and hitting coach Kevin Long in Philadelphia.

On the one hand, losing out on a star player even after making the highest offer has to be a tough blow for San Diego. Yet it also illustrates the possibility for the franchise to continue pushing chips in as they aggressively seek to augment one of the game’s more talented rosters. One could argue shortstop is more of a luxury buy for the Friars anyhow, with Fernando Tatis Jr., Ha-Seong Kim and Jake Cronenworth all on hand as middle infield options. Yet San Diego was willing to put forth one of the largest contracts in league history to try to add another star to the lineup.

San Diego has also been tied to Xander Bogaerts this offseason. That they were the high bidder on Turner doesn’t inherently mean they’ll top the market for Bogaerts instead, but it wouldn’t be a surprise if they pivot in that direction now that their primary target is off the board. The Padres have exceeded the luxury tax threshold in each of the past two seasons, and they’d have to do so again to add any of the star free agent shortstops. Roster Resource estimates their CBT ledger around $3MM below the base tax threshold of $233MM, and signing Turner for an average annual value around the $27.3MM he received would’ve pushed them into the second tier of penalization. That’d have involved a 50% tax on the first $20MM — an extra $10MM — and further taxes from that point forward, but it was apparently a bill owner Peter Seidler was content to foot for another star. How or if they reallocate that money, either in a pursuit of Bogaerts or in more directly addressing areas of need like first base and the corner outfield, remains to be seen.

As for the Phils, they now anticipate looking to the pitching market after adding to an already loaded position player core. Scott Lauber of the Philadelphia Inquirer tweets the middle of the rotation and back of the bullpen are target areas for the Phils, who now aren’t far off the base luxury tax tier themselves. President of baseball operations Dave Dombrowski told reporters this evening the club is looking for a setup-type reliever who could mix and match with Seranthony Domínguez, Connor Brogdon and José Alvarado at the end of games (via Alex Coffey of the Philadelphia Inquirer).

While the Phillies certainly aren’t taking their foot off the gas, Dombrowski downplayed the possibility of adding another player who’d rejected a qualifying offer. The Phils forfeited their second and fifth-highest picks in next year’s amateur draft plus $1MM in international signing bonus space for Turner, who’d turned down a QO with the Dodgers. They’d lose their third and sixth picks to sign another qualified free agent, and Dombrowski told Coffey and others the team doesn’t have “much appetite” for that kind of pick forfeiture.

Pirates Sign Jarlín García

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12:20pm: Mackey relays that the 2023 salary will be $2.5MM with the club option for 2024 valued at $3.25MM.

11:47am: The Pirates are close to a deal with left-hander Jarlín García, reports Mark Feinsand of MLB.com. It will apparently be a one-year deal with a club option. Jason Mackey of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette says the deal is done, pending a physical. The financials of the deal aren’t yet publicly known. The lefty is represented by Paul Kinzer.

García, 30 in January, has seen MLB action in each of the past six seasons, the first three with the Marlins and the last three with the Giants. He made 58 appearances for the Giants in 2022, logging 65 innings and finishing the year with a 3.74 ERA, 20.7% strikeout rate, 6.7% walk rate and 39.1% ground ball rate.

The Giants could have retained García for 2023 via arbitration, as he has between five and six years of MLB service time. MLBTR contributor Matt Swartz projected García for a salary of $2.4MM but the Giants instead opted to non-tender him and send him to the open market.

As of this moment, the Pirates don’t have a single left-handed pitcher on their 40-man roster. That makes García a very sensible addition for the club. Like most southpaws, he fares better against batters that hit from left side. For his career, lefties have hit García to the tune of .206/.268/.338 while righties have a line of .235/.304/.428. The Pirates have been deep in rebuild territory for a few years now and don’t seem likely to suddenly jump into contention but García can potentially help them in multiple ways this year. He should give the club an option to tackle tough lefty hitters on opposing teams and will likely find himself in trade rumors at the deadline if he’s successful.

Yankees Sign Tommy Kahnle

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10:41am: There’s no option on the contract, tweets Joel Sherman of the New York Post, adding that Kahnle will be paid $5.75MM in each of the next two seasons.

10:32am: The Yankees have agreed to a two-year deal with free-agent reliever Tommy Kahnle, reports Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic (Twitter link). Kahnle, a client of the Ballengee Group, will be guaranteed a total of $11.5MM on the deal, tweets Jon Heyman of the New York Post. Kahnle was reported to be in “advanced” talks with multiple clubs earlier this morning, and Alex Speier of the Boston Globe tweets that the archrival Red Sox also made a two-year offer to the right-hander.

Tommy Kahnle

Kahnle, 33, returns to the same Yankees team that drafted him in 2010, lost him to the Rockies in the 2013 Rule 5 Draft, and eventually acquired him alongside David Robertson in a 2017 trade with the White Sox. Injuries, most notably 2020 Tommy John surgery, put an end to Kahnle’s time in the Bronx. He was waived at the end of the 2020 season, as he was arbitration-eligible that winter but expected to miss the entire 2021 season while rehabbing from that ligament replacement procedure.

The Dodgers subsequently inked Kahnle to a low-cost, two-year contract with an eye toward paying him to rehab in 2021 and enjoying a hopeful rebound campaign at a slightly higher rate in 2022. It didn’t work out quite as well as hoped, given that Kahnle was only able to return to the mound for 13 2/3 regular-season innings in 2022 — plus a pair of postseason frames in which he served up three runs.

Kahnle’s regular-season showing was plenty promising, however. He pitched to a sharp 2.84 ERA and fanned a gaudy 30.4% of his opponents against a strong 6.5% walk rate. Kahnle’s 95.6 mph average fastball was nowhere near its 98 mph peak, but the right-hander compensated by absolutely overloading on changeups; Kahnle threw his four-seamer at just a 23% clip against a mammoth 76.4% usage rate for his changeup.

The new-look pitch selection paid dividends in that small sample, resulting in a career-high 68% ground-ball rate and a massive 17.2% swinging-strike rate. Kahnle doesn’t boast the power sinker that the Yankees regularly tend to prefer — particularly among their relievers — but that enormous ground-ball rate certainly aligns with the Yankees’ recent penchant for loading up on relievers with considerable ground-ball rates.

At his best, Kahnle has been a high-quality setup option with a blazing fastball and swing-and-miss changeup that’s helped him neutralize lefties every bit as well as he’s handled righties. While that Tommy John surgery, a shoulder injury and a lengthy bout with forearm inflammation in 2022 have limited Kahnle’s time on the mound, he carries a solid 3.44 ERA over his past 188 1/3 big league innings, during which time he’s fanned nearly a third of his opponents.

Kahnle adds a big arm and another lofty ground-ball rate to a Yankees bullpen currently led by Clay Holmes, Jonathan Loaisiga, Wandy Peralta and Lou Trivino. New York has seen a significant portion of its bullpen — Aroldis Chapman, Zack Britton, Chad Green, Miguel Castro — reach free agency this winter, and they’re currently dealing with injuries to two of their top relievers. Deadline pickup Scott Effross is likely out for all of the 2023 season after undergoing Tommy John surgery in October, while righty Michael King is on the mend from an elbow fracture (though he could potentially be ready early next season).

Adding Kahnle’s two-year deal to the books bumps the Yankees to a projected $211MM payroll for the 2023 season and moves their luxury-tax payroll to a bit more than $227MM, per Roster Resource. That leaves the Yankees, who are still pursuing a reunion with Aaron Judge and expected to meet with Brandon Nimmo during this week’s Winter Meetings, less than $6MM from the first tier of luxury penalization. The Yankees went well over the tax line in 2022 and appear poised to do so again in 2023, with or without Judge.

Royals, Adalberto Mondesi Avoid Arbitration

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The Royals announced Tuesday that they’ve agreed to a one-year deal with infielder Adalberto Mondesi, thus avoiding arbitration. Lynn Worthy of the Kansas City Star reports that Mondesi will be paid $3.045MM in 2023.

Once viewed as one of the game’s top prospects and a potential foundational piece in Kansas City, Mondesi has instead become a perennially tantalizing talent who can’t stay healthy enough to capitalize on his prodigious tool set. The now-27-year-old Mondesi turned heads back in 2018, when in just 75 games and 291 plate appearances, he turned in a .276/.306/.498 slash with 14 home runs and 32 steals. He connected on nine homers and swiped 43 bags in just 102 games the following season.

Unfortunately for Mondesi and for the Royals, that 102-game showing in 2019 marks a career-high. Those 2018 and 2019 seasons are the only times that Mondesi has appeared in even 60 games in a year, though to his credit, he did play in 59 of Kansas City’s 60 games in 2020 — albeit with a diminished .256/.294/.416 batting line and a then-career-high 30% strikeout rate.

Mondesi has appeared in just 50 games over the past two seasons due to a pair of oblique strains, a hamstring strain and, most notably, a torn ACL he suffered after just 15 games in 2022. Mondesi also suffered a pair of subluxations in his left shoulder during the 2019 season and ultimately required surgery to address the issue. In addition, he’s spent time on the injured list due to an impingement in his other shoulder and to back and groin strains.

It’s a veritable laundry list of injuries for Mondesi, who made his MLB debut as a 20-year-old back in 2016 but has played in just 358 Major League games in his career. At his best, Mondesi possesses elite speed, above-average power and the ability to play a strong defensive shortstop, but his body hasn’t allowed him to showcase that skill set nearly as much as he, the Royals and MLB fans in general would prefer to see. That said, at a $3.045MM salary for next season, the risk for the Royals is minimal.

Despite the lack of games played, Mondesi has spent so much time on the Major League injured list that many will be surprised to read he’s in his final season of club control. With five years of service time under his belt, he’s on pace to reach free agency as a 28-year-old next winter. Obviously, he’ll have plenty of motivation to remain healthy, though even if Mondesi defied the odds and enjoyed a full, healthy season, any and all interested teams would be wary of his injury history on the open market.

Mondesi’s role with the 2023 Royals figures to be somewhat up in the air, given the defensive excellence of Nicky Lopez and the emergence of top prospect Bobby Witt Jr. All three players can play the shortstop position, but Kansas City moved Mondesi to third base late in the 2021 season with an eye toward Witt potentially taking over at shortstop. However, Witt wound up playing primarily third base in his rookie campaign last season. Any of the three players could ostensibly handle any of the three positions to the left of first base, so it’ll be up to new head of baseball ops J.J. Picollo and new manager Matt Quatraro to determine their preferred alignment between now and Opening Day.

Of course, all of that is putting the cart well before the horse. First and foremost, the Royals will focus on getting Mondesi healthy and keeping him healthy enough to play in a meaningful number of games for the them next season. Michael Massey, Nate Eaton, Samad Taylor and Maikel Garcia are all infield alternatives on the 40-man roster, should the Royals need to account for an injury to Mondesi or another infielder. It’s also possible that the Royals will add to their infield depth this offseason via either the trade or free-agent market.

Yankees Expected To Meet With Brandon Nimmo

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The Yankees are expected to meet with free-agent center fielder Brandon Nimmo this week, reports Jon Heyman of the New York Post. Nimmo is attending the Winter Meetings in San Diego in order to have this very type of face-to-face meeting.

Interest in Nimmo isn’t necessarily indicative of any pessimism regarding the Yanks’ ongoing efforts to re-sign Aaron Judge. Heyman writes that the team is hoping to secure two outfielders this winter, and while Judge and Nimmo represent the two most expensive options on the market, they also represent the top two talents. It’s only natural that losing Judge would theoretically increase New York’s urgency to then lure Nimmo away from their crosstown rivals, but interest in one does not strictly depend on the other’s situation.

Nimmo, who’ll turn 30 near the end of Spring Training, is a sensible target for the Yankees, regardless of Judge’s eventual decision. The Yankees’ seven-year extension for center fielder Aaron Hicks has proven to be a misstep, as Hicks has been oft-injured throughout the life of the deal and has seen his defensive ratings in center decline. The 2022 season actually marked the first time that Judge has played primarily center field, and his shift to center was borne largely out of injuries and poor performance from Hicks. The Yankees could have turned things over to young Estevan Florial for a larger look, but despite a solid showing in Triple-A, the team gave Florial just 35 big league plate appearances, during which time he went 3-for-31 with 13 strikeouts.

Adding Nimmo would give the Yankees a clear-cut everyday option in center, where his defensive ratings have improved considerably over the past two seasons in the estimation of Defensive Runs Saved (1), Ultimate Zone Rating (2.5) and Outs Above Average (9).The former No. 13 overall draft pick would also give the Yankees a high-OBP, relatively low-strikeout option to bat atop or near the top of the order, and the appeal of taking any left-handed hitter and allowing him to reap the benefits of Yankee Stadium’s short right-field porch has obvious allure.

Over the past three seasons, Nimmo has turned in a collective .280/.384/.443 batting line with 32 home runs, 55 doubles, 13 triples, an impressive 12.3% walk rate and a lower-than-average 18.5% strikeout rate. He’s been 38% better than a league-average offensive player in that span, by measure of wRC+, due largely to his elire on-base skills. Of the 342 players to tally at least 500 plate appearances since 2020, only six have reached base at a higher rate than Nimmo: Juan Soto, Freddie Freeman, Bryce Harper, Judge, Mike Trout and Paul Goldschmidt.

Injuries have been the primary knock on Nimmo throughout his career, as he’d only played in 100 games one time entering the 2022 season (though he did appear in 55 of 60 contests during the shortened 2020 campaign). He enjoyed his healthiest season to date in 2022, however, logging a career-high 151 games. The injury history on Nimmo is long, as he’s missed time with knee, foot, neck, hamstring and finger injuries in addition to a partially collapsed lung in 2017. For all those injuries, he’s only been on the 60-day IL once in his career, when he missed 104 days due to a neck injury in 2019.

Checkered health history notwithstanding, it’s an extraordinarily thin market for center fielders this winter, with Nimmo standing as the only true everyday option who’s coming off a strong season (assuming one still considers Judge more of a right fielder). Nimmo has been an excellent offensive player, a solid defender and, in recent seasons, more durable on the whole, appearing in just shy of 78% of possible games dating back to 2020. The general expectation is that he’ll secure a nine-figure contract — perhaps even one that pushes to six years in length.

Pairing Nimmo and Judge could very well tack $60MM or more in luxury-tax obligations onto the Yankees’ 2023 ledger, which currently sits at a projected $222.2MM, per Roster Resource. A Judge/Nimmo pairing would skyrocket the Yankees from a bit shy of the luxury tax all the way to the third tier of penalization and place them within arm’s reach of the newly implemented fourth tier, which kicks in at $293MM this coming season. Of course, that number could be whittled down by finding a taker for Hicks or Josh Donaldson on the trade market (though the Yankees would surely have to pay down some of their remaining commitments), or perhaps by shopping any of the team’s pricier arbitration-eligible players (e.g. Gleyber Torres, Isiah Kiner-Falefa).

Nimmo rejected a $19.65MM qualifying offer from the Mets and would thus cost the Yankees, who paid the luxury tax in 2022, their second- and fifth-highest selections in next summer’s draft, as well as a $1MM reduction in the size of their 2023 bonus pool for international amateur free agents. In addition to the Yankees, he’s been linked to the Mariners, Blue Jays, Giants, Rays and incumbent Mets.

Red Sox Making Push To Sign Tommy Kahnle

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9:34am: The Red Sox are one of multiple teams in “advanced talks” with Kahnle, who is expected to make a final decision on where he’ll sign as soon as today, Alex Speier of the Boston Globe reports.

2:45am: The Red Sox are making a push to sign reliever Tommy Kahnle, and there’s a chance a deal comes together soon, per Chris Cotillo of MassLive. Cotillo does note that other teams remain in the mix for the former Dodgers reliever.

Kahnle, 33, pitched 12 2/3 innings for the Dodgers in 2022 to a 2.84 ERA, striking out 30.4% of batters and walking 6.5%. He did struggle a little bit with the long ball, but the small sample size makes it hard to read too much into that. It was Kahnle’s first season back from 2020 Tommy John surgery, but after making his Dodgers debut in May he went on the IL with right forearm inflammation and didn’t return until September.

Kahnle was drafted by the Yankees in the fifth round of the 2010 draft, but the Rockies picked him in the 2013 Rule 5 draft. He wound up performing as a solid reliever for the Rockies, pitching to a 4.41 ERA in 102 innings over two seasons in Colorado before he was traded to the White Sox.

His career took off in Chicago as he blossomed into dominant relief arm. In parts of two seasons there, he pitched to a 2.56 ERA across 63 1/3 innings. 2017 was particularly dominant, as he struck out batters at a ridiculous 42.6% rate. That prompted the Yankees to acquire him with Todd Frazier and David Robertson at the 2017 deadline, and he became a valuable member of the Yankees’ bullpen, pitching to a 2.70 ERA down the stretch in New York.

He struggled mightily in 2018, dealing with shoulder tendinitis early in the season. While he return in late-May, a surge in walks saw him limp to a 6.56 ERA that year. He bounced back in 2019 though, tossing 61 1/3 innings of 3.67 ERA ball.

While there’s a history of injuries and some inconsistency there, there’s also no doubting the talent and late-inning stuff of Kahnle when fit and firing. As Alex Speier earlier noted, Kahnle has had many suitors this winter. The Red Sox, however, have been vocal about their interest in upgrading the roster, and chief baseball officer Chaim Bloom has spoken of looking to add as many as nine players this winter.

The bullpen has already been a focus for them, with the team inking Joely Rodriguez to a one-year, $2MM deal and Chris Martin to a two-year, $17.5MM pact. The possible addition of Kahnle would give them another strong option as Bloom looks to bolster the bullpen ahead of the 2023 season.

The Opener: Top Free Agent Logjam, Cardinals, Draft Lottery

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With the Winter Meetings fully underway, here are three things we’ll be keeping an eye on throughout the day today:

1. Will the logjam at the top of the market loosen?

Even after Trea Turner and Justin Verlander came off the board, much of the top of the free-agent market could hinge on Aaron Judge. With the full attention of two major-market teams on Judge — the Yankees and Giants — some players at the top of the market may not sign until the reigning AL MVP has made a decision. Carlos Rodon, for example, has received interest from both the Yankees and Giants. It would be reasonable for him to want to wait until Judge makes a decision, in case missing out on Judge puts additional pressure on the losing bidder to get a deal done with him. Brandon Nimmo, the second-best outfielder on the market, is in a similar position. While Turner signed ahead of Judge, it’s certainly possible that the rest of the shortstop market could be held up by Judge, too. The Giants are known to have interest in Carlos Correa, and the Yankees could conceivably pivot to the shortstop market should Judge depart. That could also gum things up for the Twins, who are aggressive in their attempts to retain Correa but could pivot to Xander Bogaerts if Correa leaves. The Cubs, meanwhile, have been connected to each of Correa, Bogaerts and Dansby Swanson, with rumors yesterday even suggesting they could try and lure two of the three remaining shortstops to Wrigley. Though not as frequently connected to the shortstops as Chicago, the Cardinals have been mentioned as a potential suitor (for Swanson in particular), and the Dodgers could potentially look to replace Turner now that he’s agreed to join the Phillies.

2. Will the Cardinals find their catcher?

Yesterday, St. Louis president of baseball operations John Mozeliak told reporters that the team hopes to have a new starting catcher by the end of the Winter Meetings tomorrow. The Cardinals have been connected to A’s catcher Sean Murphy, as well as free agents such as Willson Contreras and Christian Vazquez. The Cards are sure to have competition on all of these fronts, however. Murphy is being pursued by the Rays and Guardians, among other teams, while Contreras has been linked to the Astros repeatedly, with manager Dusty Baker noting the team’s interest. Vazquez, meanwhile, is known to have more than half a dozen suitors and may pursue a pact for as many as four years this offseason. Should St. Louis miss on these options, they could pivot to free-agent catchers in the next tier, such as Mike Zunino and Omar Narvaez, or they could swing a trade with the Blue Jays, who are open to dealing a catcher with three on their roster: Danny Jansen, Alejandro Kirk, and Gabriel Moreno (with Jansen the most oft-rumored name to be available).

3. The MLB Draft Lottery is tonight.

In addition to the usual hot stove rumblings that accompany the Winter Meetings, at 7:30pm CT this evening, the inaugural MLB draft lottery will be held, where the top six spots in the 2023 MLB draft will be decided. The Nationals, A’s, Pirates, Reds, and Royals each have at least a 10% chance of landing the top pick in the draft, but every team that missed the postseason in 2022 has a chance, however small, to pick first in next year’s draft. Looking at the larger lottery as a whole shows that Washington, Oakland, and Pittsburgh have an 81% chance to pick somewhere in the top six, while the Brewers, the team with the best record to miss the postseason, have just a 2.1% chance to pick in the top six. Be sure to check in here at MLBTR throughout the day today for all the latest coverage and analysis of the Winter Meetings. You can also download our free Trade Rumors app on iOS or on Android and set up notifications for your favorite teams or any players of particular interest!

Padres Unlikely To Pursue Other Shortstops After Missing Out On Trea Turner

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The Padres’ bid to sign Trea Turner —  which reportedly included a larger offer than he accepted in Philadelphia, even after accounting for California’s higher income tax — caught plenty of fans and pundits off-guard. The Padres already have Fernando Tatis Jr., Ha-Seong Kim, Manny Machado and Jake Cronenworth as options in the infield, and San Diego also has a pair of $300MM players on the roster in Machado and Tatis (though the former could opt out following the 2023 season).

There’s been speculation (here included) about whether Padres president of baseball operations A.J. Preller will pivot and look into the remaining All-Star shortstops in free agency, but Kevin Acee of the San Diego Union-Tribune reports that Turner was viewed as a special case and that the Padres were singularly interested in him, rather than adding another shortstop to the mix. As such, it’s unlikely that the Friars will pursue any of Carlos Correa, Xander Bogaerts or Dansby Swanson in the wake of being spurned by Turner. The Athletic’s Dennis Lin does write that the Padres have checked in with Bogaerts this offseason, but Lin adds that Turner was the team’s “clear” preference. MLB.com’s AJ Cassavell adds that the Padres have not spoken to Kim or Cronenworth about a position change at this time.

Preller acknowledged the team’s interest in Turner and the disappointment in not landing him when speaking with Acee and others on the San Diego beat Monday evening. Part of Turner’s appeal, as Preller explained, was his athleticism and experience playing positions other than shortstop, which the Friars believed could create some more flexible lineup choices.

Even if the Padres are out of the mix (or, at best, on the periphery) for the remaining shortstops, the strong bid for Turner is still plenty notable. It underscores that even with a star-studded roster and a payroll that many expected to be reaching its maximum levels, Padres ownership is willing to spend at levels commensurate with the sport’s very biggest financial powers. The Padres paid the luxury tax in 2022, have a projected $210MM bottom-line payroll in 2023 and a projected $230MM in luxury-tax obligations, per Roster Resource, but were apparently still content to put down a $300MM+ offer on Turner.

That doesn’t necessarily mean that San Diego will pivot and dive headlong into the bidding for Aaron Judge, but it also at least opens the door for speculation about such top-of-the-market pursuits. Preller spoke of a corner bat and a starting pitcher as his top needs. Acee suggests that San Diego has looked into reunions with Josh Bell and Brandon Drury in addition to the recently non-tendered Dominic Smith, illustrating the  vast breadth of possibilities the team is considering with Turner now in Philadelphia.

Dodgers, Rays Interested In Andrew McCutchen

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The Dodgers and Rays are among the teams with interest in free agent outfielder/designated hitter Andrew McCutchen, tweets ESPN’s Buster Olney. As Olney points out, McCutchen could very well topple a couple of career milestones in 2023, as he’s 52 hits shy of 2000 and 13 long balls away from the 300 mark.

McCutchen, 36, spent the 2022 season with the Brewers, for whom he slashed at a .237/.316/.384 pace through 580 trips to the plate. It was an uneven season for the 2013 NL MVP, as he stumbled out of the gates with a poor two-month stretch before catching fire in June and ultimately wilting again in the season’s final seven to eight weeks.

McCutchen’s run early in the summer at least showed that there’s still life in his bat — inconsistent as the production may be. The endpoints here are arbitrary, and any player can look better when focusing only on his hottest stretch of the season, but for a period of 262 plate appearances beginning on June 5, McCutchen mashed at a .288/.370/.498 pace, slugging 11 homers and 15 doubles along the way. Of course, it’s only fair to also point out that said hot streak was preceded by an absolutely frigid spell in which he collected just one hit in a span of 39 trips to the plate.

The peaks and valleys of McCutchen’s 2022 season resulted in a 98 wRC+ and 99 OPS+, suggesting that he was just barely shy of average at the plate for the season as a whole. Part of the downturn in production for McCutchen, who batted a combined .237/.343/.444 as a Phillie from 2019-21 (109 wRC+), was that his longstanding production against southpaws evaporated in 2022. McCutchen is career .300 hitter with a .936 OPS and 154 wRC+ against lefties, even including last year’s struggles, but this past season’s .221/.303/.434 slash when holding the platoon advantage was miles shy of his career standard.

On the defensive side of the coin, McCutchen played just 434 innings in the outfield, most coming in left — although the Brewers gave him 13 innings in center and 153 in right. Defensive Runs Saved (4), Ultimate Zone Rating (1.8) and Outs Above Average (0) all thought he was at least serviceable, if not a net positive in his limited work with the glove. However, McCutchen spent 82 games as Milwaukee’s designated hitter, too. It’s possible another team would view him as a viable option to log a larger workload in the outfield, but a return to his days of pllaying 1300-1400 innings in the outfield seems like a reach, given his age and recent usage.

In Los Angeles, McCutchen could give the Dodgers a right-handed complement to lefty-swinging 25-year-old James Outman, who had a huge season in the upper minors and also impressed in a tiny MLB debut (16 plate appearances). Tampa Bay is more set in the outfield but could still use McCutchen as a right-handed option off the bench, mixing him in for occasional work in the outfield corners and at designated hitter. It’s worth noting that McCutchen is a native of Fort Meade, Fla. and attended Fort Meade High School — about 75 miles from the Rays’ Tropicana Field.

McCutchen played the 2022 season on a one-year, $8.5MM contract, and it seems quite likely that he’ll be ticketed for another one-year deal wherever he lands — be it with the Dodgers, Rays or another team.

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