Reds Sign Nick Krall To Extension, Promote Him To President Of Baseball Operations
The Reds have locked in their front office leadership. The club announced they’ve promoted Nick Krall from general manager to president of baseball operations. He also receives a contract extension of undisclosed length, tweets C. Trent Rosecrans of the Athletic. Meanwhile, Brad Meador has been promoted from assistant GM to general manager, solidifying him as the #2 person in the front office hierarchy.
“Nick has a great baseball mind and has shown exceptional leadership in advancing every aspect of our baseball operations,” CEO Bob Castellini said in a statement. “Nick and his staff have earned our confidence, and these moves help ensure the positive momentum will continue across the organization.”
Krall has led baseball operations for three seasons. The 45-year-old took the reigns when former president Dick Williams stepped away at the end of the 2020 campaign. Krall already held the GM title at that point, though as is the case with many front offices around the game, that came with the #2 role in the front office. Williams’ resignation pushed Krall to the top while he retained the GM title.
While he’s only been leading baseball operations for a few seasons, Krall has spent two decades with the organization. He began working as a scout in the early 2000’s and secured a front office position within a few years. The Reds promoted him to GM under Williams in May 2018.
Krall took control of the front office at an inflection point for the franchise. Cincinnati had targeted 2020 to emerge from their last rebuild. They went a little above .500 in the shortened season and were swept in the first round. They hovered around league average for the entire ’21 campaign, missing out on the playoffs after holding a Wild Card spot into September. At that point, the organization slashed payroll, kicking off another rebuild.
Cincinnati’s 2022 campaign was disastrous. The Reds lost 100 games for the second time in franchise history. After another quiet offseason, they entered this year with middling expectations. Cincinnati has surprisingly been one of the sport’s most improved teams. Barring a sweep this weekend at the hands of the Cardinals, they’ll finish with a winning record. They’re still in playoff contention in the season’s final few days, although they’d likely need to sweep St. Louis and get some help from both the Marlins and Cubs to qualify.
Much of that turnaround is attributable to a youth movement involving players acquired during their 2021-22 sell-off. Spencer Steer and Christian Encarnacion-Strand came over from the Twins in the Tyler Mahle deal at last summer’s deadline, arguably Krall’s best move to date. Noelvi Marte, the headliner of the Luis Castillo trade, is holding his own at the major league level as a 21-year-old. Brandon Williamson has turned in back-of-the-rotation results since being acquired in the Jesse Winker/Eugenio Suárez deal.
Matt McLain and Andrew Abbott — two of Cincinnati’s first four selections in the 2021 draft — are among the best rookie performers in the National League. Hunter Greene and Nick Lodolo were selected while Williams was still leading the front office, though Krall was surely involved in those decisions as the #2 executive.
While there’s little question about the organization’s ability to stockpile young talent, it remains to be seen how effectively Krall and his staff can push the team to the next level. Cincinnati didn’t land the starting pitching they were seeking at this summer’s trade deadline. The likeliest outcome is that they’ll miss the playoffs for a third straight season. There’s plenty to like about the organization’s direction, making it unsurprising the Reds are committed to both Krall and fifth-year manager David Bell — who signed an extension running through 2026 in late July. They’ll no longer be a surprising upstart, however. Even if they fall shy of the postseason this year, next year’s club will have the highest expectations of Krall’s tenure atop baseball operations.
Meador, 48, has been atop the scouting and player development departments. He has been a member of the organization’s scouting group since 2009. Meador has surely played a key role in the selections of players like McLain, Abbott, Greene and Lodolo, as well as the signing of TJ Friedl as an undrafted free agent in 2016.
Promotions like this are fairly common in advance of the offseason. Teams typically grant employees permission to speak with other teams about job opportunities only if the other club is offering a higher position. By promoting Meador to GM, the Reds foreclose the possibility of losing him to another team that could’ve considered him as a candidate for the #2 job in their front office — presumably rewarding the longtime executive with a pay bump in the process.
Kiley McDaniel of ESPN first reported the promotions.
Zaidi: Giants Hopeful Of New Managerial Hire By Start Of Free Agency
The Giants made a significant change this afternoon, firing skipper Gabe Kapler as his fourth season at the helm was coming to a close. Bench coach Kai Correa will serve as the interim manager for the final series against the Dodgers.
President of baseball operations Farhan Zaidi spoke with reporters after Kapler’s dismissal. He indicated the front office’s preference is to have a new hire in place by the beginning of the free agent period (link via Susan Slusser of the San Francisco Chronicle). That starts five days after the conclusion of the World Series.
“It’s a pretty universal trait that you want a manager who players want to play for, whether it’s young players and getting them motivated to get the most out of them or free agents who have heard your manager has a good reputation,” Zaidi told the S.F. beat. “I think that’s going to matter a lot.”
Zaidi did not indicate that Kapler’s presence as manager was harmful to the team’s free agent pursuits, to be clear. Yet he noted the club had decided to look for “new and different leadership in our clubhouse, a different dynamic there.” After making the call to move on from Kapler, it’s understandable they’d prefer to have a new manager in place as they try to sell the organization to upcoming free agent targets.
Over his five-year tenure leading baseball operations, Zaidi and his staff have come up short on multiple pursuits of top-of-the-market talents. They pursued Bryce Harper over the 2018-19 offseason but reportedly balked at the long-term offer he was seeking (and eventually found from Philadelphia). San Francisco made a run at Aaron Judge last winter but came up short when the defending MVP returned to the Yankees on a record-setting deal. They agreed to terms on a $350MM pact with Carlos Correa, only for that to fall through on the physical.
The Giants have been active in the middle tiers of free agency but haven’t signed a guarantee larger than the $44MM Carlos Rodon deal under Zaidi. With roughly $110MM in guaranteed money on the books for next season, San Francisco could try again to land a top-of-the-market player. They’ll surely be among the teams courting Shohei Ohtani, while Cody Bellinger could be a fallback target if Ohtani heads elsewhere. San Francisco had interest in Bellinger — with whom Zaidi is familiar from their time with the Dodgers — before he signed with the Cubs on a $17.5MM bounceback deal last offseason. After an excellent rebound campaign, Bellinger seems in line to top $200MM on his next free agent trip.
Giants Fire Gabe Kapler
The Giants have fired manager Gabe Kapler, according to a club announcement.
“After making this recommendation to ownership and receiving their approval, I met with Gabe today to inform him of our decision,” reads a statement from president of baseball operations Farhan Zaidi. “In his tenure as Giants manager, Gabe led our team through an unprecedented pandemic in 2020 and a franchise-record 107 wins and postseason berth in 2021. He has been dedicated and passionate in his efforts to improve the on-field performance of the San Francisco Giants and I have tremendous respect for him as a colleague and friend. On behalf of the Giants organization, we wish Gabe the best of luck in his future endeavors and thank him for his contributions over the last four years.”
Kapler was three games away from completing his fourth season at the helm for San Francisco. During his tenure, the team has gone 295-248 (.543), although much of that success came during a single winning campaign. In 2021, the Giants shocked the baseball world, going 107-55 and briefly dethroning the Dodgers atop the NL West. Kapler was named NL Manager of the Year; he subsequently signed an extension running through the 2024 campaign.
However, the Giants have gone 159-162 (.495) since, failing to make playoffs in each of the past two seasons. This year has been especially disappointing, as the team was firmly entrenched in the Wild Card race until mid-September. They have now lost ten of their last 13 and were officially eliminated from contention late on Tuesday night. This marks the second time Kapler has lost his job amid similar circumstances. He was fired by the Phillies in October 2019 following two straight seasons in which Philadelphia failed to make the playoffs. In both years, the Phillies were in the Wild Card conversation until a disappointing September collapse knocked them out of the race.
Not long ago, Giants chairman Greg Johnson expressed in no uncertain terms that Zaidi and Kapler would both be back with the team in 2024. More recently, however, Zaidi made some comments on KNBR radio that suggested Kapler might be on the hot seat after all.
When asked about Kapler’s job status, the executive answered, “I think we all just have to look at how we can improve across the board. That’s the personnel on the roster, that’s our culture in the clubhouse. … When you’re in do-or-die games like those games in Arizona, you want them to feel different. And I think we’re really going to have to ask ourselves if we were prepared to sort of elevate our level of focus and play for those games that really mattered down the stretch.”
Evidently, the Giants do not feel as if Kapler’s managerial style is conducive to a winning clubhouse atmosphere. This lines up with some recent comments from Giants ace Logan Webb, who told reporters on Monday (including Curtis Pashelka of The Mercury News), “We have to make some big changes in here to create that winning culture.”
There is little point in speculating about clubhouse atmosphere from outside, but as for the team’s on-field results, Kapler cannot be held responsible for all the Giants’ problems. As spring training began, the PECOTA projection system from Baseball Prospectus had San Francisco pegged for an 82-win season. FanGraphs Depth Charts projected 83 wins for the Giants on Opening Day. As things currently stand, the team is on pace to finish with 79 or 80 wins, and they could still win as many as 81. That’s well within the margin of error for a projection system. Thus, while the team’s performance in September has been disappointing, it’s hard to say they massively underperformed all year.
In more concrete terms, it’s not as if Kapler had a star-studded roster to work with. After Webb and closer Camilo Doval, the Giants don’t have many impact players. LaMonte Wade Jr., Mike Yastrzemski, Wilmer Flores, Joc Pederson, Thairo Estrada, and Michael Conforto are all solid contributors, but not exactly the players you picture at the heart of the order for a postseason club. Meanwhile, the rotation has been a sea of uncertainty behind Webb and Alex Cobb all year long.
Nevertheless, the Giants have decided to move on from Kapler, and they wasted no time in doing so. As Susan Slusser of the San Francisco Chronicle suggests, the question of whether or not Kapler would keep his job might have become too distracting, to a point where the team saw no reason to wait until the end of the year to make a change.
Susan Slusser was the first to report that Kapler had been relieved of his duties.
D-Backs Release Zach Davies
The Diamondbacks have released veteran righty Zach Davies, per the transaction log at MLB.com. That was expected after the Snakes designated him for assignment on Wednesday.
Davies spent two years in Arizona. He turned in a 4.09 ERA through 27 starts last season after signing a $1.5MM free agent deal coming out of the lockout. While that came with middling strikeout and walk numbers, he provided stable enough innings out of the fifth spot in the rotation on a generally young pitching staff.
That secured him a raise when he re-signed with the Snakes in January. Davies landed a $5MM guarantee taking the form of a $4.7MM salary and a $300K buyout on a mutual option for 2024. He tacked on another $950K in incentives and added $200K to the option buyout by topping 16 starts, meaning he’ll collect $6.15MM overall. Arizona will remain on the hook for the buyout once he officially clears release waivers.
Davies will likely be limited to minor league offers this winter. The 30-year-old is coming off a career-worst season, allowing exactly seven earned runs per nine through 82 1/3 frames. His 19.1% strikeout rate is actually his best mark since 2020, though it’s still a few points below league average. The nine-year MLB veteran walked just over 10% of batters faced while allowing hard contact on an elevated 42.4% of batted balls.
Rangers Place Jon Gray On Injured List
The Rangers placed starter Jon Gray on the 15-day injured list, retroactive to September 28, with forearm tightness. Jake Latz is up from Triple-A to take the open spot on the active roster.
Gray left his start in Anaheim on Monday with the injury. It’ll take him out of consideration for the first two rounds of the playoffs. Texas is one win away from securing a playoff berth. They’re up two games on the Astros for the AL West lead with three to play. Even after last night’s walk-off loss in Seattle, they remain the favorite to take the division — which would lock in a bye past the Wild Card series.
Texas would have to make it to the ALCS for Gray to be a potential factor. The 15 days rules him out until October 13, which would be the fifth game of a Division Series. The Rangers could technically reinstate Gray if they’re playing in a decisive Game 5, though that’d require an injury to another player and presumably be too risky for the club even if it were feasible.
It’s not clear if Gray would’ve been in the playoff rotation even were he healthy. Jordan Montgomery would very likely get the first game. Nathan Eovaldi and Dane Dunning could fill the rest of a three-man rotation. Gray has been a consistent presence throughout the season, yet his production has tailed off. He has a 5.32 ERA since the All-Star Break and is allowing over six earned runs per nine this month.
Gray joins Max Scherzer as injured Rangers’ starters hoping for a potential return deep into a postseason run. Scherzer has been sidelined by a terse major strain for the past few weeks.
Brewers Select Caleb Boushley, DFA Julio Teheran Amid Flurry Of Roster Moves
The Brewers have selected the contract of right-handed pitcher Caleb Boushley, the team announced. To make room on the roster, Julio Teheran has been designated for assignment. In addition, the team has swapped out one lefty for another, optioning Ethan Small and recalling Clayton Andrews in his place. Lastly, the Brewers also placed right-hander Trevor Megill on the restricted list.
Boushley will be making his MLB debut, just two days ahead of his 30th birthday. Selected by the Padres in the 33rd round of the 2017 draft, he played in the Padres system throughout the first five years of his professional career. He joined the Brewers organization ahead of the 2022 season and pitched well for the Triple-A Nashville Sounds, starting 25 games and posting an ERA of 3.25. The righty hasn’t performed quite so well this year, pitching to a 5.11 ERA in 29 games (26 starts). Still, he has evidently done enough to earn a call to the show after seven years in the minor leagues. It seems unlikely the Brewers are considering Boushley for a spot on the postseason roster, and with the NL Central crown already locked up, they might just be giving the career minor leaguer a long-awaited cup of coffee with the big league squad.
As for Teheran, this marks an unceremonious end to his mini-comeback season. The two-time All-Star had not played a regular role for an MLB club since 2020. He spent most of the 2021 campaign on the injured list and then split his time in 2022 between the Atlantic League and the Mexican League.
The 32-year-old looked excellent through his first six appearances with Milwaukee, posting a 1.53 ERA and averaging nearly six innings per start. However, he struggled through his next four outings before landing on the injured list and missing the next eight weeks of the season. Teheran returned in mid-September as a long reliever, and while he looked capable, giving up just two earned runs in nine innings of work, it was far from a guarantee that the Brewers would find a spot for him on the postseason roster.
Small was recalled on Wednesday and threw a single scoreless inning against the Cardinals. It was a substantial improvement over his last big league appearance back in May, when he gave up five runs on nine hits in three innings of mop-up work against the Giants. Nonetheless, the Brewers have decided to replace him with Andrews, another 26-year-old lefty with limited major league experience. Andrews made his MLB debut in July and has thrown a grand total of 1 2/3 big league innings, giving up eight earned runs on eight hits. Both pitchers have much better numbers at Triple-A, although Andrews was especially dominant over the final two months of the minor league season, pitching to a 2.12 ERA in August and September.
The Brewers have three southpaws higher up on the depth chart (Hoby Milner, Wade Miley, and Andrew Chafin), so it’s unlikely they’re auditioning Andrews for a postseason role. More likely, they’re just taking stock of the various arms in the organization over the final days of the regular season.
Finally, while the restricted list can sound ominous, Megill is simply spending an extra day with his wife and newborn baby, having maxed out his three days on the paternity list. He is expected back tomorrow, Craig Counsell told reporters (including Curt Hogg of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel).
Tigers To Hire Miguel Cabrera As Special Assistant Following 2023 Season
Miguel Cabrera will remain in Detroit following his retirement when the 2023 season comes to a close, as the Tigers announced today that Cabrera will take on a role in the front office as a special assistant to president of baseball operations Scott Harris. Cabrera had previously indicated that 2023 would be the final season of his career last year.
As noted by Evan Petzold of the Detroit Free Press, Tigers chairman Chris Ilitch spoke glowingly of the future Hall of Famer in a statement. “My father (longtime Tigers owner Mike Ilitch) was incredibly fond of Miggy and made sure he was a Tiger for the remainder of his playing career. We’re thrilled to extend our relationship into the next chapter of his life,” Ilitch said, “While it may be the end of an era, it’s a new beginning as Miguel will continue to pass along his baseball wisdom, culture-shaping values, and mentorship to the next generation of Tigers players, who can aspire to the level of greatness that Miguel has achieved.”
In conversation with reporters (including Chris McCosky of The Detroit News), Cabrera made his new role in the organization sound like a perfect fit. “I want to stay with this team and help doing something. I don’t want to coach, but I want to be around,” Cabrera said, “[The club’s young players] are growing right now. They’re maturing and next year, these guys are going to be better. Bring in like two more hitters, someone to help Tork and Greene and Carp.”
The move into Detroit’s front office comes at the end of a long an illustrious career in the majors for the 40-year-old. Cabrera was a star practically from the minute he debuted with the then-Florida Marlins in 2003, earning All Star nods in four of his five seasons with the club. After being traded to the Tigers in 2008, Cabrera found another gear even by his own lofty standards. He paced the AL in batting average and on-base percentage four times each between 2010 and 2015, a run of six seasons that saw him slash an unbelievable .333/.418/.586 en route to two MVP awards, a Triple Crown, six All Star appearances, and four silver sluggers.
With three games remaining in his sensational career, Cabrera currently sports a career slash line of .306/.382/.519 with 3,170 hits, 624 doubles, and 511 home runs. He’ll end his career with twelve All Star appearances, two MVP awards, a World Series championship, four batting titles, and a World Series ring from the Marlins’ championship run during his rookie season. As things stand, he’s 17th on the all-time hits leaderboard, tied for 25th on the all-time home runs leaderboard with Mel Ott, and tied with Hank Aaron on the all-time doubles leaderboard for his career.
Nationals Activate Tanner Rainey From 60-Day IL
The Nationals announced this afternoon that the club has activated right-hander Tanner Rainey from the 60-day injured list. In corresponding moves, left-hander Robert Garcia was placed on the paternity list, opening up a spot on the club’s active roster, while catcher Riley Adams was transferred to the 60-day IL to clear space on the 40-man roster.
The move sets Rainey, 30, up for his 2023 season debut. The right-hander underwent Tommy John surgery last August and has been working his way back ever since, but prior to his injury had posted solid numbers out of the Washington bullpen in 2022 with a 3.30 ERA and 4.18 FIP while racking up 12 saves in 30 innings of work. Since being traded from Cincinnati to the Nationals prior to the 2019 season, Rainey has largely been a quality bullpen arm. While his 4.42 ERA (97 ERA+) and 4.54 FIP as a National leave something to be desired, the mediocre career numbers can be attributed entirely to a brutal 2021 campaign that saw Rainey post a ghastly 7.39 ERA and 5.63 FIP in 38 appearances. Across his other three years in the majors with the Nationals, he’s posted ERAs below 4.00.
That being said, Rainey’s strong results in 2019, 2020, and 2022 hide serious control issues. He’s walked a whopping 15.5% of batters faced in his big league career, with figures north of 10% in every season except for the shortened 2020 campaign. Rainey also runs into further trouble as a flyball pitcher (career 36.1% groundball rate) who allows home runs at an elevated rate, with 17.2% of his fly balls allowed leaving the yard throughout his career. Fortunately, Rainey manages to make up for his lackluster walk rates and home run suppression numbers with tantalizing raw stuff, as demonstrated by his career strikeout rate of 31.2%, including an eye-popping 42.7% figure in 20 1/3 innings of work during the shortened 2020 campaign.
Given the fact that Washington can control Rainey via arbitration through the end of the 2025 season, it’s hardly a surprise that the club would want to see Rainey in action before the offseason as they look to decide whether or not to tend him a contract, which could include a slight raise over this year’s $1.5MM salary. Given Rainey’s past success and high strikeout totals, the right-hander should have a chance to factor into the club’s late inning mix next season if he remains with the club throughout the offseason.
As for Garcia, the rookie southpaw’s placement on the paternity list likely brings his season to an end. The 27-year-old had a solid debut campaign split between the Marlins and the Nationals this year, with a 3.66 ERA, 3.54 FIP, and a 26.6% strikeout rate in 32 innings of work. Adams’s season ended in hamate surgery earlier this month, so the move to the 60-day IL is nothing more than procedural for the young catcher, who slashed an impressive .273/.331/.476 in 44 games in the majors this year.
Offseason Chat Transcript: St. Louis Cardinals
MLBTR is holding live chats specific to each of the 30 teams as the offseason nears. In conjunction with the offseason outlook for the Cardinals, Anthony Franco held a Cardinals-centric chat. Click here to view the transcript.
Details From Orioles’ Stadium Agreement
After yesterday’s announcement by the Orioles and Maryland Governor Wes Moore indicated that Moore and Orioles chairman John Angelos had reached a deal to keep the Orioles at Camden Yards for another 30 years, the details of the agreement released today paint a less certain picture of the agreement. As noted by Jeff Barker of The Baltimore Sun, the agreement isn’t a new lease. Rather, it’s a “memorandum of understanding” that the Orioles will remain at Camden Yards for the next 30 years, with Barker adding that the agreement is legally non-binding.
Per Barker, Governor Moore’s office indicated that, in addition to the long-term lease not yet being complete, an extension of the current lease “for at least a year or two” may be necessary because the sides have not yet agreed upon the deal’s final terms. As the Orioles note in their press release, the memorandum includes a 99-year agreement that gives the Orioles to invest private capital into developing the area around Camden Yards, including the warehouse and Camden Station. Barker adds that the Orioles figure to pay $94MM to the state over the length of the agreement.
Andy Kostka of The Baltimore Banner notes that the terms of the memorandum, which he describes as “an agreement on some issues and a promise to continue working toward a long-term lease,” stipulate that the Orioles would no longer pay rent to use the ballpark, and in exchange would take over the costs of upkeep for the stadium, which are currently the responsibility of the state of Maryland. Kostka adds that the sides still expect to have a lease signed before the current deal expires on December 31, though many of the details of the agreement are still being worked out, including oversight of the aforementioned development prospect, which will include both the Maryland Stadium Authority and the Orioles.
Today’s announcement that no lease has been signed is something of a surprise, given the club’s announcement of a deal during last night’s win over the Red Sox that saw the Orioles clinch their first AL East title since 2014. That being said, the memorandum signed by both sides of the negotiations represents what should be an important milestone toward getting a deal completed in advance of the club’s current lease expiring at the end of the 2023 calendar year. The state of Maryland, Angelos, and MLB commissioner Rob Manfred have all routinely emphasized that there is no risk of the Orioles departing Baltimore, even as negotiations regarding the club’s lease at Camden Yards have dragged towards the eleventh hour of the current deal.