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Dodgers Acquire Yonny Hernandez

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The A’s announced they have traded infielder Yonny Hernandez to the Dodgers for cash considerations. Hernandez was designated for assignment earlier this week.

Hernandez, 25 in May, is a low-power, high-contact player. He has 55 games of MLB experience, including 43 with the Rangers last year and 12 with the Diamondbacks in 2022. He has a tepid .198/.293/.228 batting line in that time, but his 9.8% walk rate and 18.6% strikeout rate are both better than league average.

He spent most of 2022 in the minors, getting into 71 Triple-A games. He hit .241/.349/.324 in that time, walking in 11.7% of his plate appearances while striking out just 15.8% of the time. He also stole 30 bases, along with two more in the big leagues, something that is quite common for him. With the new rules in 2023 that encourage base stealing, that part of his game could become more valuable.

Hernandez brings a fair bit of defensive versatility to the table, having played the three infield positions to the left of first base, as well as left and center field. He only has five minor league home runs in his career and none in the majors, but he has a good eye at the plate and can move around the field. He also still has a pair of option years remaining, allowing the Dodgers to keep him in the minors if they so choose.

The A’s claimed him off waivers from the Diamondbacks in November but designated him for assignment when they made their signings of Jace Peterson and Aledmys Díaz official. The Dodgers’ infield took a few hits in recent months when Trea Turner and Hanser Alberto hit free agency, they declined their club option on Justin Turner and non-tendered Edwin Ríos. Hernandez will give them a versatile depth option as they build out their roster for the coming season.

Cubs Sign Brad Boxberger

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5:03pm: The Cubs have officially announced the signing.

11:03am: Boxberger will be paid a $2MM salary for the 2023 season, and his contract contains a $5MM mutual option with an $800K buyout, MLBTR has learned.

10:31am: The Cubs have agreed to a one-year deal with free agent righty Brad Boxberger, reports ESPN’s Jeff Passan (Twitter thread). The Paragon Sports International client will be guaranteed $2.8MM on the deal.

Boxberger, 34, spent the past two seasons with the Brewers, who paid a $750K buyout on the veteran reliever rather than exercise a $3MM club option. At a combined $3.55MM between that buyout and the new Cubs deal, Boxberger will come out ahead and wind up earning more than if the Brewers had simply picked up the option.

Boxberger’s career looked to have hit a snag following a tough stretch in 2018-19 when he posted a combined 4.73 ERA and walked 13.8% of his opponents between the D-backs and Royals. That led to a minor league deal with the Marlins for the 2020 season, and he’s righted the ship nicely in the three years since. In that time, Boxberger carries a combined 3.13 ERA in 146 2/3 innings, and he’s piled up 57 holds and five saves along the way.

For the Brewers, Boxberger made 70 and 71 appearances across the past two seasons, pitching in 64 and 64 2/3 innings. He doesn’t have an overpowering fastball (93.1 mph average) but nonetheless managed a 31.2% strikeout rate in 2021 — although that mark dipped to a 25.4% in 2022 (still better than the league average). Boxberger relied heavily on called strikes over missed bats, however, as his 21.2% called-strike rate was the third-highest among 152 qualified relievers, while his 9.5% swinging-strike rate ranked as the 14th-lowest.

Given those trends, it’s fair to wonder whether further regression in terms of strikeout rate could be on the horizon, but even if that’s the case, Boxberger has been strong in terms of limiting hard contact over the past several seasons — particularly in 2022. Last year’s 86.4 mph average exit velocity (90th percentile) and 33.9% hard-hit rate (81st percentile) both ranked quite well among MLB pitchers, per Statcast.

The Cubs will be Boxberger’s seventh big league franchise, and he’ll slot into what was otherwise a generally inexperienced bullpen. Prior to this deal right-hander Rowan Wick was the only reliever on the Cubs’ roster who has even three years of Major League service time. With that in mind, it wouldn’t be a surprise for the Cubs to further pursue veteran additions, though if this signing and the Cubs’ recent history tells us anything, such additions could fall into a similar price range.

Chicago’s deal with Boxberger continues the team’s recent trend of prioritizing low-cost, one-year bullpen pickups rather than committing significant money to the bullpen. In the past three years, the Cubs have eschewed more prominent bullpen targets and and signed Mychal Givens ($5MM), David Robertson ($3.5MM), Daniel Norris ($1.75MM), Chris Martin ($2.5MM), Ryan Tepera ($800K), Brandon Workman ($3MM), Trevor Williams ($2.5MM), Dan Winkler ($750K) and Jonathan Holder ($750K) to one-year contracts. To the team’s credit, they’ve had some rather notable successes (Robertson, Martin, Tepera in particular), and even the deals that have missed haven’t really stung, given the relatively minimal nature of the guarantees.

On the other side of the coin, relying on one-year deals of this nature creates an annual need to patch together a bullpen in piecemeal fashion while simultaneously shining a light on some of the team’s struggles in developing bullpen arms who can be affordably controlled for years at a time. Righty Scott Effross was a notable exception, and the Cubs can hardly be faulted for flipping five years of control over him to the Yankees in a deadline trade for well-regarded prospect Hayden Wesneski, but in an ideal setting the Cubs wouldn’t need to set out into free agency in search of a handful of one-year bullpen stopgaps each winter.

Braves Unlikely To Trade Travis d’Arnaud

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Atlanta’s acquisition of catcher Sean Murphy in a three-team trade with the A’s and Brewers led to some speculation about the possibility of trading veteran Travis d’Arnaud, whom Murphy ousted as the starting catcher the moment he was acquired. However, David O’Brien of The Athletic writes that Braves president of baseball operations Alex Anthopoulos has been “adamant” that he has no intention of trading d’Arnaud, whom the team values as a veteran leader — beyond his contributions with the bat and behind the plate.

Heading into the 2023 season, then, it appears as though Murphy and d’Arnaud will hold a timeshare behind the plate, with the universal designated hitter giving the Braves the opportunity to get both catchers in the lineup at times. If the plan is to get d’Arnaud, who slashed .268/.319/.472 with a career-high 18 home runs, into the lineup as a DH with any degree of regularity, that could bode well for Chadwick Tromp’s chances of making the roster as a third catcher in 2023.

The 27-year-old Tromp (28 in March) is the only other catcher on Atlanta’s 40-man roster now that Manny Pina and William Contreras have been traded (in the Murphy deal), though he does have a pair of minor league options remaining. Alternatively, the Braves could bring in a more experienced backup or simply carry just Murphy and d’Arnaud and run the risk of losing their DH on days when both are in the lineup.

Looking beyond the 2023 season, the Braves have d’Arnaud under club control, albeit via an $8MM team option with no buyout. That’s the same salary d’Arnaud is earning in 2023, and while the Braves were comfortable acquiring Murphy and his projected $3.5MM salary at a time when d’Arnaud was already guaranteed $8MM, it’d be a different story to pick up that option, knowing Murphy will be in line for a raise and that d’Arnaud would in all likelihood be ticketed for a lesser role than at the time he signed his current contract.

Still, even if the Braves prefer to try to work out a lower price for the 2024 season (and possibly beyond), O’Brien tweets that the Braves want d’Arnaud to be “around [the] team long term.” He further adds that in the wake of Freddie Freeman’s departure, d’Arnaud and Dansby Swanson (who is, of course, a free agent himself at the moment) stepped into key leadership role. While dealing d’Arnaud would give the Braves some perhaps valuable breathing room between their currently projected $229.3MM luxury-tax ledger and the $233MM threshold for luxury penalization, that doesn’t appear to be an approach they’re considering.

Diamondbacks, Scott McGough Agree To Two-Year Deal

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4:32pm: Robert Murray of FanSided relays the terms. It will be two years and $6.25MM with a $4MM mutual option for 2025 that comes with a $750K buyout.

4:12pm: The Diamondbacks officially announced the move, with lefty Tyler Gilbert designated for assignment in a corresponding move.

3:14pm: The Diamondbacks have agreed to a two-year contract with right-hander Scott McGough, reports Nick Piecoro of the Arizona Republic. The former Marlins right-hander has spent the past four years pitching in Japan’s Nippon Professional Baseball, where he’s solidified himself as a quality late-inning reliever. The 33-year-old McGough, who also won a Silver Medal pitching for the United States in the Olympics, will now return to the Majors for the first time since 2015.

McGough has just 6 2/3 innings of Major League experience, during which he yielded seven runs on a dozen hits and four walks with four strikeouts. However, he’s now spent four seasons with NPB’s Yakult Swallows, logging a combined 2.94 ERA with a 26% strikeout rate against a 7.6% walk rate. The 2022 season was his finest in Japan, as McGough notched personal bests in ERA (2.35), saves (38) and walk rate (6%). He’s also upped his strikeout rate over the past two seasons in NPB, jumping from 21% in 2019 to 26% in 2020 before peaking at a combined 28.5% from 2021-22 — his first two seasons as a full-time closer.

It’s not the first time the D-backs have tapped into the NPB and KBO markets to find relatively inexpensive pitching help. Arizona got two strong years out of righty Yoshihisa Hirano, who’d been the closer for NPB’s Orix Buffaloes, back in 2018-19. Even more impactfully, the Snakes been leaning on right-hander Merrill Kelly as a fixture in their rotation for the past four seasons after signing him on the heels of a strong run with the Korea Baseball Organization’s SK Wyverns (now known as the SSG Landers).

McGough, a 2011 fifth-rounder of the Dodgers who was traded to Miami in the 2012 Hanley Ramirez swap, averaged 94 mph with his heater in 2022 and upped the usage of his splitter to a 30.3% clip as well, tweets Sung Min Kim (previously of FanGraphs and The Athletic). The D-backs view McGough as a possible late-inning option in the ’pen, Piecoro writes. He’ll join holdovers Mark Melancon, Joe Mantiply, Kevin Ginkel and fellow offseason signee Miguel Castro in manager Torey Lovullo’s bullpen.

Diamondbacks Designate Tyler Gilbert For Assignment

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The Diamondbacks have officially announced their signing of right-hander Scott McGough, with left-hander Tyler Gilbert designated for assignment in a corresponding move.

Gilbert, 29 next week, was first selected to the big leagues in August of 2021. Incredibly, he threw a no-hitter in his first ever major league start, becoming the fourth player in MLB history to do so. He finished that season with 40 innings pitched over six starts and three relief appearances, posting a 3.15 ERA, despite a meager 15.9% strikeout rate.

He took a step back in 2022, tossing 34 1/3 innings with a 5.24 ERA and an even lower strikeout rate of 13.7%. He was frequently optioned to the minors, tossing 44 innings in Triple-A with a 7.57 ERA. He was placed on the injured list in late July due to an elbow sprain and never returned.

The Diamondbacks will now have a week to trade Gilbert or pass him through waivers. He still has two option years remaining and less than a year of service time, which perhaps could give him some appeal for a team looking to add depth that they can stash in the minors.

Orioles Sign Adam Frazier To One-Year Deal

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The Orioles and infielder/outfielder Adam Frazier are in agreement on a one-year, $8MM contract, reports Jon Heyman of The New York Post. The O’s subsequently announced the signing.

It’s a belated birthday present for Frazier, who turned 31 years old yesterday. The veteran spent the first five years of his career with the Pirates but has bounced to the Padres and Mariners over the past couple of seasons. One of his most attractive traits is his defensive versatility, as he’s played all three outfield positions as well as the three infield positions to the left of first base.

Though he might be a bit stretched at shortstop or in center, he generally gets solid grades for his work at the corners and at second. All three of Defensive Runs Saved, Ultimate Zone Rating and Outs Above Average give him positive numbers for his career at second and in left, while DRS and UZR also favor his work in right field. At second base, where he’s spent the vast majority of his time, he’s tallied 15 DRS, 1.5 from UZR and 11 OAA.

Offensively, his track record is a bit inconsistent. In his five seasons with Pittsburgh from 2016 to 2020, he was above-average in two of them, by measure of wRC+. In another two seasons, his 97 wRC+ was just below the 100 average. In the shortened 2020 season, he was down to 79. At the end of those five campaigns, his batting line was .273/.336/.413, amounting to a wRC+ of 99, just a hair under league average. Still, he was able to produce 6.8 wins above replacement due to his defensive contributions, according to FanGraphs.

In 2021, he bounced back by hitting .324/.388/.448 in 98 games with the Bucs, amounting to a wRC+ of 127. The Pirates flipped him to the Padres at the deadline but he wilted down the stretch. He hit .267/.327/.335 with San Diego for a wRC+ of 86. The Friars then traded him to the Mariners prior to 2022, but his struggles continued. As a Mariner, he hit .238/.301/.311 for a wRC+ of 81.

Despite that inconsistent track record at the plate, Frazier is a solid fit for a Baltimore team that is still trying to chart its path forward. They have a number of infielders and outfielders who are still trying to get accustomed to the major leagues or have not yet made it to the show. Jorge Mateo had a solid defensive season at shortstop but didn’t hit much and struck out in 27.6% of his plate appearances. Gunnar Henderson had a solid debut in 2022 and seems to be ticketed for third base duty, though he’s also played second and shortstop. Ramón Urías had also been a solid contributor, even winning a Gold Glove at third base this year, though Henderson’s arrival seems to have bumped him into a utility role. Terrin Vavra could also be in the mix for a bench/utility job. Infield prospects like Joey Ortiz, Jordan Westburg and Coby Mayo could get to the big leagues in 2023 and further crowd the picture.

The O’s could conceivably platoon the left-handed hitting Frazier with the right-handed Urías at second base, though both players could also move to other positions if Baltimore wants to give some extended playing time to a young prospect. If Frazier’s bat bounces back or he’s simply getting squeezed out by other players, they could trade him at the deadline given his one-year deal.

The Orioles took a huge step forward in 2022, winning 83 games after five straight dismal seasons. Nonetheless, it seems like 2023 will be another evaluation season, as the club still has many young prospects who need to either make their major league debuts or continue acclimating to the big leagues. Frazier has the ability to slot in wherever he’s needed, giving the club a reliable defender who also has a chance to contribute with the bat. Whether the club can truly compete in 2023 or not, Frazier is likely to be a serviceable addition.

This is the second signing of the offseason for the O’s, as they also signed Kyle Gibson for a one-year, $10MM deal. Since both are one-year contracts, the club continues to have no commitments on the books for 2024, as they have completely avoided multi-year deals in recent years. The last time they signed a free agent to a deal longer than a single season was with Alex Cobb back in 2018. Roster Resource calculates their payroll as now just under $60MM, which is already a sizeable increase over last year’s $44MM figure, per Cot’s Baseball Contracts.

Image courtesy of USA Today Sports.

Red Sox Designate Jeter Downs For Assignment

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The Red Sox have officially announced their signing of outfielder Masataka Yoshida. To create space on the 40-man roster, infielder Jeter Downs was designated for assignment.

Downs, 24, is perhaps best known as one of the key pieces of the trade that sent Mookie Betts and David Price to the Dodgers in February of 2020. Downs went to the Red Sox alongside Alex Verdugo and Connor Wong. At the time, Downs was a highly-touted prospect, featuring on the back end of Baseball America’s top 100 list in both 2020 and 2021.

Unfortunately, his stock has completely nosedived in the past two years. After the pandemic wiped out the minor leagues in 2020, Downs spent 2021 in Triple-A, getting into 99 games on the year. His power and speed were still evident, as he hit 14 home runs and stole 18 bases. However, he struck out in 32.3% of his plate appearances and finished with a batting line of .190/.272/.333 for a wRC+ of 62.

2022 was an improvement but only slightly. His strikeout rate dropped but was still quite high at 29.6%. He added another 16 homers and swiped 18 more bags, but his batting line of .197/.316/.412 added up to a 95 wRC+. He also got into 14 MLB games but hit just .154/.171/.256 in that small sample, striking out in 51.2% of his trips to the plate.

Despite making him a key piece of a franchise-altering trade, it seems the club has run out of patience with him. They will now have a week to trade him or put him on waivers. Despite the rough results in the past two seasons, it seems likely that some team would take a flier on him. He’s still only 24, was a top prospect less than two years ago and has two option years remaining. He also brings defensive versatility, having primarily played shortstop but also some second and third base.

For the Boston fans, trading away an elite talent like Betts was always going to be a bitter pill to swallow, but it seems to be getting worse with age. While Betts helped the Dodgers win the 2020 World Series, Verdugo seems to have settled in as an adequate but unexciting outfielder. Wong has yet to establish himself at the big league level and Downs is now potentially leaving the organization on a low note.

Red Sox Sign Masataka Yoshida To Five-Year Deal

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December 15: The Red Sox have officially announced the signing, designating infielder Jeter Downs for assignment in a corresponding move. Chris Cotillo of MassLive provides the breakdown of Yoshida’s deal, with features a $3MM signing bonus, $15MM salary in 2023 and $18MM salary in each subsequent season.

December 7: The Red Sox have made a big addition to their lineup, agreeing to terms with outfielder Masataka Yoshida. It’s reportedly a five-year, $90MM guarantee, and the deal does not contain any option provisions or opt-out clauses. The Japanese star had just been made available via the posting system this week, but the Sox struck quickly with a record-setting contract offer.

Yoshida lands the loftiest guarantee of any position player making the jump from Nippon Professional Baseball to the majors. The record was just set last spring by Seiya Suzuki, who inked a five-year, $85MM deal with the Cubs. Perhaps not coincidentally, Yoshida will edge past that by a million dollars annually.

It’s a massive gamble for the Red Sox, but one they’re prepared to take to add much-needed outfield help. Yoshida has been one of the more accomplished hitters in Japan for the past few seasons. He’s appeared in NPB for the last seven years and carries a career .327/.421/.539 line. The left-handed hitter has reached base in more than 40% of his plate appearances in each of the past six seasons, and he topped a 1.000 OPS for the first time in 2022. Yoshida hit .335/.447/.561 through 508 trips to the dish this year.

The 29-year-old has shown exceptional bat-to-ball skills in Japan, walking more often than he’s struck out for four straight years. This past season’s marks were especially impressive, as he had nearly twice as many free passes as punchouts. Yoshida walked at a massive 15.7% clip while fanning in only 8.1% of his plate appearances. He surely won’t be expected to maintain rates quite that impressive in MLB, where the quality of pitchers’ repertoires is more consistent. Yet the Red Sox are confident he’ll carry over much of that elite on-base ability, presumably as a top-of-the-lineup option for skipper Alex Cora.

The plate discipline is Yoshida’s primary attribute, but he also brings a fair bit of extra-base pop. Despite being listed at just 5’8″, he’s topped 21 home runs in four of the last five years, and he’s collected over 20 doubles five years running. He’s never reached 30 longballs in a season, although he’s consistently been a threat for 20+ homers in Japan.

Suzuki had a stronger track record from a power perspective, twice topping 30 homers and blasting 38 during his final NPB season. Suzuki didn’t have Yoshida’s elite plate discipline metrics, though, posting roughly equal strikeout and walk numbers for his final two years. Yoshida brings a different profile than Suzuki will, but the Red Sox are clearly of the opinion he’ll immediately step in as an above-average offensive performer at the MLB level. Suzuki, for what it’s worth, did immediately find success — hitting .262/.332/.433 in his first season in Chicago.

Yoshida will have to perform at the plate to be productive, as he doesn’t offer much defensive value. He’s generally viewed as a left field-only player at the MLB level. That had been a key area of need for Boston, which entered today with Jarren Duran atop the depth chart. The former top prospect has only a .219/.269/.354 line in 335 MLB plate appearances over the past two years. He’ll be bumped into fourth outfield duty or back to Triple-A Worcester, and it stands to reason the Sox could at least consider the possibility of dealing Duran to add MLB help elsewhere on the roster.

Boston’s investment goes beyond the contract value, as they’ll also owe compensation to the Orix Buffaloes. Under the MLB – NPB agreement, an MLB team that signs a player who’d been posted owes a fee to the player’s former NPB team. That’s dependent on the value of the contract itself, with the posting fee coming out to 20% of the contract’s first $25MM, 17.5% of the next $25MM and 15% of any additional dollars. On a $90MM guarantee, that comes out to a $15.375MM payment to the Buffaloes. Overall, the Red Sox’s investment tallies $105.375MM.

The specific financial breakdown has yet to be reported. An even distribution of $18MM annually would bring the Sox’s estimated 2023 payroll commitments around $175MM, per Roster Resource. The $18MM average annual value brings the team’s luxury tax commitments to around $195MM. They’re still well shy of the $233MM base tax threshold and their estimated $207MM Opening Day payroll from this past season.

Boston’s certainly not done, and it’s possible they finalize another major contract in the coming days. Reports this morning suggest there’s growing momentum between the Sox and Xander Bogaerts, lending some optimism they could retain the four-time All-Star. Beyond the middle infield, areas like catcher and the back of the rotation stand out as potential targets for chief baseball officer Chaim Bloom and his staff moving forward.

Yoshida’s signing subtracts another outfielder from the open market. Brandon Nimmo is the top player remaining, while Andrew Benintendi, Jurickson Profar and Michael Conforto are options at lower tiers. Teams like the Yankees, Blue Jays and Mariners reportedly had interest in Yoshida. All three have been searching for solutions in the corner outfield and will have to look elsewhere if they’re to land a lefty-swinging outfielder.

Jeff Passan of ESPN was first to report the Red Sox and Yoshida had agreed to a five-year deal worth north of $85MM. Jon Heyman of the New York Post was first to peg the guarantee at $90MM. Alex Speier of the Boston Globe reported the deal contained no options or opt-out clauses.

Image courtesy of USA Today Sports.

Giants, Curt Casali Have Discussed Reunion

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The Giants have made big splashes to their infield and outfield this offseason with the signing of Carlos Correa and Mitch Haniger. They upgraded their rotation by signing Sean Manaea and Ross Stripling. One thing still on the to-do list is addressing their catching corps, with Susan Slusser of the San Francisco Chronicle reporting the club has been in contact with Curt Casali about him returning to the club.

When Buster Posey retired after the 2021 season, it was hoped that prospect Joey Bart could step up and take over as the club’s everyday backstop. Unfortunately, that hasn’t come to fruition just yet. At the plate, he’s got some power but undercuts his value with strikeouts. He’s been punched out in 38% of his plate appearances thus far in his career and has a batting line of .215/.296/.364 for a wRC+ of 90. He was also given negative marks by Defensive Runs Saved and FanGraphs’ framing metric in 2022. As Slusser notes in her piece, Bart was nudged out of working with either Carlos Rodón or Logan Webb down the stretch last year.

Veteran Austin Wynns, who is still on the roster, ended up getting into 57 games behind the plate for the club last year. His defensive numbers were around league average, better than Bart, but he’s unlikely to provide much with the bat. The 32-year-old has a career batting line of .231/.275/.337 for a wRC+ of 68. There’s a third catcher on the 40-man roster in Blake Sabol. The Giants just acquired him from the Reds, who grabbed him from the Pirates in the Rule 5 draft. He has great batting numbers in the minors but no major league experience. He also plays the outfield, making him perhaps best suited for a third catcher/utility role.

Given those options, it’s unsurprising that the club would be open to finding more certainty behind the plate. They were connected to both Sean Murphy and Christian Vázquez in recent weeks, but those players are each now off the board, having been traded to Atlanta and signed with Minnesota, respectively.

Casali, 34, is a perfectly serviceable big league catcher, though he’s never really been a club’s primary option. Though he has 462 career games played, he’s never tallied more than 84 in any individual season. He’s generally been a strong defender behind the plate, having tallied 16 Defensive Runs Saved in his career and a slightly above-average mark in terms of framing. He’s not a liability at the plate either, with a career batting line of .223/.316/.392. That amounts to a wRC+ of 92, which is 8% below league average overall but roughly average for a catcher. His 27.8% strikeout rate is definitely on the high side but he also has drawn walks at a strong 10.7% rate. The Giants are surely familiar with him as he played for them in 2021 and the first half of 2022, getting dealt to the Mariners at the deadline.

Casali would be a perfectly defensible addition, but the Giants will have other options. The trade market is now headlined by the Blue Jays and their trio of backstops: Danny Jansen, Alejandro Kirk and Gabriel Moreno. The free agent market doesn’t have many super exciting options now that Vázquez and Willson Contreras have signed, with Austin Hedges, Roberto Pérez, Omar Narváez and Gary Sánchez some of those still out there.

None of these options are likely to break the bank from a financial perspective. Roster Resource currently pegs the Giants’ payroll at $190MM and their CBT figure at $206MM. They are getting near their franchise high payroll of $201MM, per Cot’s Baseball Contracts, though that was back in 2018. They also have plenty of room under the luxury tax, though if they succeed in their continued attempts to retain Rodón, that would significantly change the picture.

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