Gunnar Henderson Wins American League Rookie Of The Year Award
Orioles infielder Gunnar Henderson has won Rookie of the Year for the American League, per an announcement from the Baseball Writers Association of America. Tanner Bibee of the Guardians placed second while Triston Casas of the Red Sox placed third.
Henderson got to make his major league debut last year as a September call-up, just a couple of months after his 21st birthday. Despite his young age, he held himself incredibly well. His 25.8% strikeout rate was a bit above average, but he also drew walks at a 12.1% clip. His .259/.348/.440 batting line last year resulted in a 128 wRC+, indicating he was 28% above league average in that time. That call-up gave him a chance to get a taste of the majors while maintaining rookie status, since he didn’t get to 130 at-bat or 45 days on the roster.
The O’s came into 2023 looking to firmly stamp out their rebuild and make the postseason for the first time since 2016. Henderson’s first full season helped them do just that, as he hit 28 home runs and stole 10 bases. His walk rate dipped to 9%, though that was still above league average. His .259/.348/.440 batting line translated to a wRC+ of 123. He split his time between shortstop and third base, getting strong grades at both positions. FanGraphs considered him to be worth 4.6 wins above replacement while Baseball Reference had him at 6.2. The Orioles, meanwhile, won 101 games and took the top spot in the American League East.
The award is surely gratifying for Henderson and the O’s in and of itself, but there are other implications of this news. The new collective bargaining agreement contains measures designed to combat service time manipulation through the prospect promotion incentive, or PPI. Top-two Rookie of the Year finishers who were Top 100 prospects on at least two preseason lists at Baseball America, ESPN and MLB Pipeline are automatically credited with a full service year. That won’t apply to Henderson, who was up all year and earned a full service year regardless, though he was the #1 prospect on all three of those lists.
But players with PPI status can also earn extra draft picks for their clubs if they have less than 60 days of service time to start the season and earn a full service year the traditional way, as Henderson did, while also appearing on those preseason prospect lists. Players in that camp who finish in the top two in Rookie of the Year voting or top three in Cy Young or Most Valuable Player voting during their pre-arbitration seasons earn a bonus pick after the first round for their club. That means the O’s, who are already loaded with young talent, will get a valuable extra pick in next year’s draft.
Bibee and Casas also had strong seasons, but not enough to catch Henderson. The former made 25 starts for the Guards with a 2.98 earned run average, 24.1% strikeout rate and 7.7% walk rate. He wasn’t promoted until late April but will earn a full service year by getting second place in this voting. But since he didn’t get that service year the traditional way, the Guards won’t get a bonus draft pick. Casas hit 24 home runs and walked in 13.9% of his plate appearances, leading to a .263/.367/.490 batting line and 129 wRC+. He was in the majors all year, so the voting won’t impact him from a service time perspective, but he falls just shy of getting the Red Sox a bonus pick.
Henderson was a unanimous selection, per the full vote tally from the BBWAA, getting all 30 first-place votes. Bibee got 20 of the second-place votes while Casas got six. Other players receiving votes were Josh Jung of the Rangers, Yainer Diaz of the Astros, Masataka Yoshida of the Red Sox, Edouard Julien of the Twins and Anthony Volpe of the Yankees.
Image courtesy of USA Today Sports.
Wilking Rodríguez Elects Free Agency
The Cardinals have sent right-hander Wilking Rodríguez outright to Triple-A Memphis, per his transactions tracker at MLB.com, though Rodríguez has elected free agency. It wasn’t previously known that the Cards had removed him from the roster, so this opens a spot on their 40-man, which is now at 39.
Rodríguez, 34 in March, was selected from the Yankees in the 2022 Rule 5 draft. This was fairly unusual as most Rule 5 picks tend to be players in their early 20s who have yet to crack the big leagues. But Rodríguez actually made his major league debut back in 2014, tossing two innings for the Royals. He spent much of the intervening time away from affiliated ball, pitching for teams in Venezuela and Mexico.
The Yanks signed him to a minor league deal in August of 2022, surely intrigued by his 2.01 earned run average and 43.2% strikeout rate in Mexico that year, but the Cardinals plucked him away a few months later in the Rule 5. The righty opened the season on the injured list due to right shoulder soreness and underwent surgery in May. He stayed on the IL for the full season and collected a year of service time but never pitched in a regular season game for the Cards.
Players selected in the Rule 5 draft cannot be optioned to the minors and have to stay on a club’s active roster or injured list for the full season. They need at least 90 days on the active roster in order to shed those Rule 5 restrictions, so Rodríguez would have carried his Rule 5 status into next season. It seems the Cards weren’t willing to keep him on the roster for now and have cut him loose. Tomorrow is the deadline to add players to 40-man rosters for the next Rule 5, so the Cards likely have some of their own prospects in mind that they want to use the roster spot on.
When Rule 5 picks are cut from the roster, they have to be offered back to their original club. Per Derrick Goold of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, the Yanks declined, which allowed Rodríguez to be outrighted. But since he has a previous career outright, he has the right to elect free agency, which he has done. It’s possible he returns to the Cards in some non-roster capacity as Goold reports they are interested in bringing him back.
Brewers Select Jeferson Quero, Bradley Blalock
The Brewers announced to reporters, including Adam McCalvy of MLB.com, that they have selected catcher Jeferson Quero and right-hander Bradley Blalock to the 40-man roster. Tomorrow is the deadline to select players eligible for the Rule 5 draft in order to protect them from being selected. The 40-man roster count is now at 36.
Quero, 21, was an international signing out of Venezuela, getting a $200K bonus in 2019. The minor leagues were canceled in 2020 but Quero has since made up for lost time by going through Rookie ball, Single-A, High-A and Double-A.
He spent all of 2023 with the Double-A Biloxi Shuckers, getting into 90 contests for that club. He walked in 10% of his plate appearances while also limited his strikeouts to a 17.8% rate, hitting 16 home runs and stealing five bases. His .262/.339/.440 batting line translated to a wRC+ of 107, indicating he was seven percent above league average.
Quero is considered an excellent defensive catcher, so that ability to also provide some offense makes him a very exciting prospect. He’s currently ranked #29 in the entire league by Baseball America and #32 at MLB Pipeline. Back in July, Keith Law of The Athletic had him up in the #11 slot. Given that lofty reputation, it’s unsurprising that the Brewers didn’t want to risk losing him in the Rule 5 draft. It will be hard for him to get regular playing time at the major league level with William Contreras taking the bulk of it, so Quero will likely head to Triple-A next year and continue to develop towards his eventual debut. The Brewers don’t have any other catchers on the 40-man roster at present but could sign a veteran backup in the offseason.
Blalock, 23 on Christmas, was a 32nd round pick of the Red Sox in 2019 but came to the Brewers a few months back in the Luis Urías trade. He wasn’t able to pitch very much between his draft and this past year since the minors were canceled in 2020 and he missed all of 2022 while rehabbing from Tommy John surgery. In 2023, he was able to make 15 minor league starts between the two clubs with a 2.82 earned run average. In his 67 innings, he struck out 27.7% of opponents while issuing walks at a 7.4% clip.
The righty has yet to reach Double-A but it seems the Brewers were nonetheless concerned that he could get picked up in the Rule 5. For now, he’ll add some long-term starting depth as he looks to take the next steps towards his major league debut. BA currently has him as the #24 prospect in the system while FanGraphs has him at #15.
Blue Jays Hire DeMarlo Hale As Associate Manager
The Blue Jays announced that they have hired DeMarlo Hale as associate manager, working under manager John Schneider.
It’s a homecoming for Hale, 62, who was with the Jays as bench coach from 2013 to 2018. He then went to the Atlanta organization for the 2019 and 2020 seasons, working the first year in the minors and then joining the major league coaching staff in the second.
For the past three seasons, Hale has been the bench coach for the Guardians, working under Terry Francona. That has occasionally given Hale managerial opportunities on an interim basis, as Francona has had to step away at times due to health issues.
The Guardians are making some shifts to their staff this year, which will be their first without Francona in quite some time. He is stepping aside and the club hired Stephen Vogt to take his place, with Craig Albernaz also coming aboard as major league field coordinator. Zack Meisel of The Athletic reported last week that Hale was still deciding whether or not to return to Cleveland but it appears he will make the return trip to Toronto.
The Jays have also been doing some shuffling on their staff. Don Mattingly was the bench coach in 2023 and will continue in that role next year, though the club recently added “offensive coordinator” to his title. It isn’t exactly clear what Hale’s associate manager title will cover, but it’s possible some of Mattingly’s bench coach duties might fall to Hale if Mattingly is going to be doing some hitting coach-type stuff. Mattingly is also a candidate for the open managerial vacancy in Milwaukee, so perhaps Hale gives the Jays a fallback if the Brewers end up plucking Mattingly away.
Royals Avoid Arbitration With Taylor Clarke
November 13: Clarke will make $1.25MM in 2024, per Anne Rogers of MLB.com, a slight bump over the $1.15MM he made in 2023.
November 11: The Royals and right-hander Taylor Clarke have agreed to a contract for the 2024 season, the team announced, and thus the two sides will be able to avoid an arbitration hearing. Terms of the deal weren’t revealed, but MLBTR’s Matt Swartz projected Clarke would earn $2.2MM in the second of three trips through the arb process.
The Diamondbacks non-tendered Clarke during the 2021-22 offseason, and he caught on with the Royals on a guaranteed deal for the 2022 campaign worth $975K. After delivering a solid 4.04 ERA over 49 relief innings for Kansas City in 2022, Clarke took a step backwards this past season, posting a 5.95 ERA over 59 frames. Clarke saw both his walk and home run rates increase substantially from 2022 to 2023, though his BABIP also shot upwards from .314 in 2022 to .364 last season.
With this dropoff in mind, Clarke was seen as a possible non-tender candidate again this winter, but K.C. has opted to keep him in the fold. Despite Clarke’s struggles, he isn’t terribly expensive, and the Royals could be betting on improved batted-ball luck, if nothing else. Clarke also had one of baseball’s best chase rates, even if his 24.4% strikeout rate was only slightly above the league average.
November 17 is the deadline for teams to tender contracts to arbitration-eligible players, so the Royals now have six remaining arb-eligible players to consider over the next six days. The list was initially eight players, but Clarke has now signed, and Taylor Hearn was outrighted off the 40-man roster in October, and Hearn then elected free agency.
Enter The MLBTR Free Agent Prediction Contest
UPDATE: The contest is now closed. Stay tuned for the leaderboard.
The MLB Trade Rumors Free Agent Prediction Contest is currently open! Click here to enter your picks for the destinations for our top 50 free agents. The deadline for entry is TONIGHT at 11pm central time! You can edit your picks until then. Further contest info:
- After the window to make picks has closed, we’ll post a public leaderboard page so you can see who’s winning the contest as players sign with teams. We’re going to use entrants’ full names on it. So, if that concerns you, please do not enter the contest. Entries with inappropriate names will be deleted.
- We are also collecting email addresses, which I will use to notify winners.
- If a player signs between now and the close of the contest, that player will be excluded from the contest.
- After you submit your picks, you’ll receive an email from Google Forms. In that email, you’ll see a button that allows you to edit your picks.
- We will announce the winners on MLBTR once all 50 free agents have signed. We will award $500 to first place, $300 to second place, and $100 to third place. We will also be giving one-year memberships to Trade Rumors Front Office for everyone who finishes in the top 15. Winners must respond to an email within one week.
- The winners of this contest will be declared on Opening Day 2024, and any unsigned players will be excluded from the competition.
- Ties in the correct number of picks will be broken by summing up the rankings of the free agents of the correct picks and taking the lower total. For example: Tim and Steve each get two picks correct. Tim gets Shohei Ohtani (#1 ranking) and Jordan Hicks (#21 ranking) for a total of 22 points. Steve gets Jordan Montgomery (#6) and Lourdes Gurriel Jr. (#14) for a total of 20 points. Steve’s total is lower and he’s ahead of Tim for tiebreaker purposes.
If you have any further questions, ask us in the comment section of this post! Otherwise, make your picks now!
Reds Sign P.J. Higgins To Minor League Deal
The Reds announced Monday that they’ve signed catcher/infielder P.J. Higgins to a minor league contract. The Bledsoe Agency client will receive an invitation to big league camp in spring training.
Higgins, 30, logged Major League time with the Cubs in 2021-22, batting a combined .210/.291/.348 with six home runs, 11 doubles and a triple in 254 trips to the plate. Modest as that production may be, Higgins has spent parts of four seasons at the Triple-A level and clobbered opposing pitchers at that level, posting a .318/.401/.499 slash in 672 overall plate appearances.
Beyond the production at the plate in the upper minors, Higgins has some quiet versatility that could help him eventually win a spot on Cincinnati’s bench. He’s primarily been a catcher in his professional career, but the Cubs have also given him 867 career innings at first base, 584 innings at third base, 93 innings at second base and even 37 frames at shortstop. If he can ultimately deliver anything within a stone’s throw of league-average production at the plate, he could make for an interesting bench player — particularly for a Reds club that carried three catchers for much of the 2023 season (Tyler Stephenson, Luke Maile, Curt Casali).
As things stand, Stephenson and the recently re-signed Maile figure to handle considerable work behind the plate. That said, Stephenson was more productive at the plate when he was playing first base or serving as a designated hitter than when he was catching — and his glovework behind the dish also graded out quite poorly. It wouldn’t be all that surprising if the Reds again opt for three catchers, with Stephenson spending ample time at first and DH. Higgins could potentially factor into that equation if he impresses next spring. He hasn’t drawn particularly strong defensive grades in limited action in the majors, though Baseball America touted him as at least an average defender at catcher before his MLB debut.
Latest On Astros, Alex Bregman
The Astros and general manager Dana Brown have been open about their interest in signing extensions with infielders Jose Altuve and Alex Bregman, but the former may be more likely than the latter. Per Bob Nightengale of USA Today, a high-ranking executive with the club said they want Altuve for the rest of his career but are highly skeptical of getting something done with Bregman as well.
Bregman, 30 in March, already signed one extension with the Astros. Going into the 2019 season, he and the club agreed to a five-year pact with a $100MM guarantee. He already had a 2019 salary in place, with that deal covering the 2020-2024 seasons. That leaves just one year and $28.5MM left on the contract.
When pen was put to paper that time, Bregman was in between his two best seasons. In 2018, he launched 31 home runs and stole 10 bases, leading to a batting line of .286/.394/.532 and wRC+ of 157. He got strong grades for his defense at third and even played a passable shortstop for part of the year, leading to 8.0 wins above replacement per FanGraphs and a fifth-place finish in the voting for American League Most Valuable Player. The next year, he only stole five bases but his homer tally jumped to 41 and his on-base percentage was almost 30 points higher. That was the “juiced ball” season so his wRC+ only increased slightly to 167, but he finished second to Mike Trout in MVP voting that year.
Since then, Bregman has settled in a bit below that level, still a very good player but not quite MVP caliber. The past two seasons have seen him combine for 48 home runs and a .261/.364/.447 batting line, which translates to a wRC+ of 131. He produced 9.8 fWAR over the two years combined.
Though that technically qualifies as diminished production relative to his 2018-2019 peak, it’s still excellent work overall. Only 21 position players had a higher fWAR tally in 2022-2023, with Bregman fourth among regular third basemen behind just José Ramírez, Manny Machado and Austin Riley.
As of right now, Bregman is set to hit free agency in advance of his age-31 season, which still lines him up for a solid payday. Marcus Semien was also an above-average infielder who generally produced a bit below MVP levels when he got $175MM from the Rangers two years ago. Bregman’s former teammate George Springer was able to get $150MM going into his age-31 season. Freddie Freeman nabbed an MVP award in 2020 but was a bit limited as a free agent since he only played first base and was going into his age-32 season, though he nonetheless got himself $162MM.
Something in that range should be attainable for Bregman but it may not be from the Astros. The club has generally avoided long-term deals that run deep into a player’s career, letting guys like Springer, Carlos Correa and others walk away and get paid elsewhere. That strategy has continued to work out for them so far, as they just made the ALCS for a seventh straight season, but there are some pivot points coming up. Altuve and Bregman are both set to become free agents after 2024, with Justin Verlander perhaps joining them depending on his vesting option. One year later, it will be Kyle Tucker, Framber Valdez, José Abreu and others.
With such a significant chunk of their core nearing free agency, it’s not surprising that they want to pivot from their standard playbook in order to try to keep that mass exodus from coming to fruition. Things can always change but it seems the current feeling is that Altuve will get done but Bregman won’t. The club already has some significant deals for younger players on the books going forward, with Yordan Alvarez signed through 2028, Cristian Javier through 2027 and Lance McCullers Jr. 2026. Perhaps those deals, and a theoretical Altuve contract, don’t leave much room for Bregman. Or perhaps Bregman simply wants to test the open market after having already signed one significant extension and banking nine figures.
It’s unclear if there are any strict timelines on negotiations, with Spring Training being the most common time for extensions to be hammered out. At this time of year, clubs usually prefer to focus on bringing in new players from free agency and trades, before pivoting back to talks with their incumbent players in February and March. However, the Astros don’t seem to have a massive to-do list this winter, with Brown recently listing backup catcher and the bullpen as priorities. Perhaps that gives them a bit of breathing room this winter to have some detailed talks with Scott Boras, who represents both Altuve and Bregman, to see if anything can get done. Boras will certainly be busy though, as he is representing a pile of this winter’s free agents, including Cody Bellinger, Matt Chapman, Blake Snell, Jordan Montgomery and many more.
Yankees Name James Rowson Hitting Coach
The Yankees announced Monday that they’ve hired James Rowson as their new hitting coach. He’d reportedly been offered the position last week.
Rowson, 47, is no stranger to the Yankees organization, having spent nine years as a minor league hitting coach and minor league hitting coordinator. He’s spent the past nine seasons on Major League coaching staffs, most recently working with the 2023 Tigers as their assistant hitting coach. Rowson has also served as a bench coach and “offensive coordinator” with the Marlins and the hitting coach with the Twins.
The 2024 season will be Rowson’s tenth on a Major League staff. Perhaps most notable on his resume was his third and final season in Minnesota, when he was the hitting coach for a Twins roster that set a Major League record with 307 home runs on the season. The year of the Twins’ “Bomba Squad,” as they were nicknamed, coincided with MLB’s juiced ball season, but it was nonetheless an impressive season for the lineup and one for which Rowson drew plenty of credit. The Marlins offered him a promotion and hired him away from Minnesota that offseason.
Rowson will replace outgoing hitting coach Sean Casey, who took the role midseason after the Yankees fired Dillon Lawson. Casey seemed to make an immediate impression on Yankees hitters, but after spending half a year on the job, he came to the conclusion that the time away from his family over the course of a full season would simply be too much. Casey said on October 25 that he planned to return home to spend more time with his two young daughters, stating that time for him simply isn’t “perfect” at this juncture. He did leave the door open for a possible return to coaching “in the next few years.”
With this hire, the Yankees are trotting out their fourth hitting coach in as many seasons and surely hoping that Rowson will have some staying power. The Yanks opted not to retain Marcus Thames following the 2021 season, and they’ve since quickly moved on from Lawson and seen Casey cite family reasons for his own departure. There’s always the possibility, of course, that another club will pry Rowson away with for a more prominent role. In addition to his three seasons as a bench coach in Miami, he’s also previously interviewed for the Twins’ managerial vacancy that went to Rocco Baldelli and was reportedly one of three finalists in the Red Sox’ most recent managerial search. That only speaks to how well regarded Rowson is throughout the industry, however.
Rays Rumors: Glasnow, Ramirez, Margot
The Rays head into the 2024 season with a projected franchise-record payroll north of $125MM — a stark increase from previous highwater marks in the $80MM range. President of baseball operations Erik Neander said a month ago that the team is capable of and open to trotting out a new record mark, although there’s a stark difference between broadcasting the ability to increase payroll to some unspecified extent and projecting for about a 50% increase over their previous record.
Unsurprisingly, that’s thrust several notable Rays players into the rumor mill. Chief among them is ace Tyler Glasnow, who’s set to earn $25MM in 2024 before reaching free agency. Both Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic and Marc Topkin of the Tampa Bay Times have written in the past 24 hours on the potential of a Glasnow trade at some point this offseason. As Rosenthal points out, the Rays figure to extend a qualifying offer to Glasnow following the ’24 season if he’s not traded, and the potentially recouped draft pick will factor into what already figures to be a lofty asking price.
The Rays will be able to hold out for a larger return, knowing they’d have another opportunity to shop Glasnow at the trade deadline if their season goes south. Even if they hold onto Glasnow for the whole year, the draft pick they pick up would likely come at the end of the first round of the ’25 draft. They’d need a trade package to outweigh not only a full season of Glasnow but also a draft pick around No. 30. Similarly, any team acquiring Glasnow in the offseason would be acquiring the right to make that QO themselves. The compensatory pick another club would receive for qualifying Glasnow would be dependent on that team’s revenue-sharing and luxury-tax statuses, but it’ll clearly factor into valuing a Glasnow package for both the Rays and potential trade partners.
At the time Glasnow signed his extension in 2022, it was genuinely surprising to see him ink a deal that bought out just one free-agent year — even as he was recovering from Tommy John surgery. Glasnow spoke candidly about how Tampa Bay was where he wanted to be. Any player signing a long-term deal with the Rays likely does so knowing that an eventual trade is a possibility, however.
Glasnow’s first full season back from Tommy John surgery was hampered by an oblique injury, although he still posted 120 good innings: 3.53 ERA, 33.4% strikeout rate, 7.6% walk rate, 51.2% ground-ball rate. Fielding-independent metrics like FIP (2.91) and SIERA (3.08) felt he pitched quite a bit better than his earned run average would otherwise indicate. With 120 innings under his belt and more than two years elapsed since his surgery, it stands to reason that there won’t be many (if any) innings restrictions on Glasnow in 2024.
There’s no indication a Glasnow trade is close or even necessarily likely. Interest in him will persist so long as he remains with the Rays, as their payroll situation is obvious and demand for high-end rotation help is always strong. For the time being, however, a far more pressing trade candidate could be right-handed slugger Harold Ramirez, whom Topkin suggests is a candidate to change hands with this week’s deadlines to set 40-man rosters prior to the Rule 5 Draft (Tuesday) and to tender contracts to arbitration-eligible players (Friday).
The 29-year-old Ramirez doesn’t bring much defensive value to the table, having operated primarily as a designated hitter this past season. He’s logged time at first base and in both outfield corners in the past, though he hasn’t graded out all that well. However, Ramirez also slashed a robust .313/.353/.460 this season and is projected by MLBTR contributor Matt Swartz to earn a reasonable $4.4MM salary in 2024.
The Rays control Ramirez for another two seasons, but they’re already a heavily right-handed team and might want to open some more flexibility at the designated hitter spot. There’s also the question of whether Ramirez can be expected to repeat this past season’s career-best production. The bulk of his damage came against lefties, whom he tattooed at a ridiculous .387/.411/.555 clip — but that was with the benefit of a sky-high .447 average on balls in play. That’ll be tough to repeat, though Ramirez’s knack for putting the ball in play (career 17.8% strikeout rate) has helped him maintain a lifetime .289 average in the big leagues. He doesn’t supplement that with many walks or all that much power, but he’s a clearly a talented hitter who could pique the interest of any club looking for a righty bat to plug into its first base/corner outfield/DH mix.
Along those same lines, Topkin lists Manuel Margot as a possible trade candidate. The fleet-footed outfielder has previously graded as a plus defender across all three spots, though last year’s defensive grades took a dip after he missed most of the 2022 season due to patellar tendon strain in his right knee. The righty-swinging Margot turned in a .264/.310/.376 slash in 2023 and is slated to earn $10MM in 2024 — the final season of his contract.
Margot could draw interest from clubs looking for a right-handed bat to play across the outfield — particularly if an interested party believes that his defensive ratings will tick back up the further removed he is from that significant knee injury. To be clear, Margot didn’t necessarily grade as a poor outfielder, but last year’s -3 Defensive Runs Saved and +3 Outs Above Average were well shy of the respective marks of 13 and 16 that he posted in his last full, healthy season (2021).
Margot’s production at the plate last year aligned almost perfectly with his broader marks in four seasons with the Rays, for whom he’s been a .264/.317/.375 hitter. In particular, Margot has been a thorn in the side of left-handers, posting a career .281/.341/.420 line when holding the platoon advantage. The Rays have several other outfield options (e.g. Randy Arozarena, Jose Siri, Josh Lowe, Ramirez, Greg Jones) and a knack for finding undervalued bats on the trade market, which could make them all the more willing to move Margot for future pieces while simultaneously paring back payroll in a meaningful way.