Poll: What Path Should The Mets Pick With Pete Alonso?
The outlook for the Mets has completely changed in recent months. They spent heavily this winter, running up the highest payroll in major league history, and came into the season as World Series contenders. Unfortunately, they struggled to get into a groove in the early parts of the season and decided to sell at the deadline. Not only did they flip rental pieces like Tommy Pham and David Robertson, but also guys who could have helped the 2024 club like Max Scherzer, Justin Verlander and Mark Canha.
After being traded to the Rangers, Scherzer spoke publicly about how he was given the sense that next year “is now looking to be more of a kind of transitory year,” with the aggression dialed back a bit. Owner Steve Cohen addressed that situation the next day, essentially confirming Scherzer’s framing by saying that the 2024 club “won’t be as star-studded” as this year’s team. He did say that he hopes the team will still be “very competitive” and that this “doesn’t mean we’re not going to bring in free agents,” but it seems the plan is to step back.
Now that the deadline has passed, the club can’t make any more trades for the next few months, but it’s possible they could resume their selling in the offseason. Starling Marte will still have two years remaining on his contract after this one, with salaries of $19.5MM in each season. José Quintana will have one year and $13MM left on his contract. Omar Narváez is a lock to trigger his $7MM player option and Adam Ottavino seems like he’ll exercise his at $6.75MM as well. The club has a $6.5MM option for the services of Brooks Raley in 2024. Trevor Gott has one year of control and will be due an arbitration raise on this year’s $1.2MM salary.
If the Mets are looking to continue down the path they picked at the deadline, trading veterans for prospects and eating money to get a better return, any of those players could be a candidate for such an approach. Some of those cases will present the club with difficult decisions, but the most challenging will be their choice of how to handle Pete Alonso. He is making $14.5MM this year and is eligible for one more arbitration raise in 2024, before he’s slated for free agency.
Alonso, 28, is obviously an incredibly talented hitter. From his 2019 debut to the present, he’s hit 180 home runs, including 34 this year. His career batting line of .255/.343/.533 is 37% better than league average, according to wRC+. His home run tally in that stretch is the highest in the majors and that wRC+ places him just outside the top 10 among qualified hitters.
With the Mets looking to ease off the gas pedal in 2024 and Alonso slated for the open market after that campaign, the club will have to pick a lane. They could pursue trades in the offseason, though doing so would come with the negative public relations hit of moving on from a homegrown star player, as Alonso was drafted by the Mets in 2016. They could also try to sign Alonso to a long-term extension, though he would have to agree to any such pact.
The Mets could also kick the decision down the road and see how things go in 2024. It doesn’t seem like they will be giving up all hopes of contention. As Cohen said, it seems they will likely still bring in some free agents and see how things go next year. The club could hang onto Alonso until next year’s deadline, see if the baseball gods are any kinder to them and pick a lane at that point. Even if they held onto to him all the way through 2024 and took a shot at contending, they could recoup a draft pick by extending him a qualifying offer at that point. That path would come with some risk, as Alonso could always suffer an injury or a downturn in performance, causing his trade value to drop.
The path of pursuing a trade this offseason would certainly lead to the club finding many suitors. They will only be marketing one year of his services but the free agent crop of position players in incredibly weak this winter, with the class far heavier on the pitching side. Alonso will be making a hefty salary which could eliminate some suitors, but the Mets haven’t been shy about swallowing money in order to facilitate deals, sending more than $35MM to the Rangers in the Scherzer deal.
The Mets certainly have the resources to get an extension done, though it’s unclear how much appetite they would have to get one done with Alonso. Cohen recently called him “an integral part of the Mets” and hoped they can “work things out” on a long-term deal, but their plan to dial back their spending might clash with that. They already have significant long-term deals on the books for Francisco Lindor, Brandon Nimmo, Edwin Díaz, Kodai Senga and Jeff McNeil, which means they already have over $100MM on the books as far out as 2026.
If the Mets are focused on building up their pipeline of young talent and assessing the future before charting their next big moves, will they want to add a massive deal for Alonso to the pile when that will surely require a nine-figure outlay of some kind? There’s also the question of how his defense will age, since he’s not a star in that department as it is. Defensive Runs Saved has given him a passable +3 grade for his career, but Ultimate Zone Rating pegs him at -2.9 with Outs Above Average at -16. A long-term deal would come with the risk of him sliding into DH-only status over time.
Perhaps another factor will be the development of the prospects they have recently added to the system. Ryan Clifford, acquired from the Astros in the Verlander deal, can play the outfield corners but has spent more time at first base this year. He has yet to reach Double-A but the Mets surely acquired him in the hopes that he would be a part of a future championship core at some point down the line. Perhaps they would prefer to track his development before deciding on how to proceed with Alonso.
Until the Mets either trade Alonso or get an extension done, his in-between status is likely to be one of the biggest storylines this offseason. What do you think is the path they should take? Put him on the trading block and continue loading the farm system for future success? Lock him up so that he can be a part of the next competitive window? Or wait until the 2024 deadline, when they will have more information about their own competitive chances and the development of their prospects?
Have you say in the poll below. (Link to poll for app users)
What Path Should The Mets Pick With Pete Alonso?
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Extension 51% (5,037)
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Trade 29% (2,817)
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Wait and see how 2024 goes 20% (1,927)
Total votes: 9,781
Tigers Outright Zach Logue
The Tigers announced that left-hander Zach Logue, who was designated for assignment earlier this week, cleared waivers and was outrighted to Triple-A Toledo. He has the right to reject that assignment and elect free agency, though it’s not yet clear if he’s chosen to do so or not.
Logue, 27, first came to the Tigers in the offseason when they claimed him off waivers from the A’s. Detroit then put him back on waivers in the following days, with Logue passing through, thus sticking in the organization without occupying a roster spot.
He got his roster spot back in late June and made three long relief appearances for the big league club, tossing a combined 11 innings in those with nine earned runs allowed. The results haven’t been much better in Triple-A, as he’s tossed 63 2/3 innings at that level this year with a 6.22 ERA. There might be a bit of bad luck in there when looking at his .344 batting average on balls in play and 69% strand rate, but his 20.7% strikeout rate, 11.2% walk rate and 39.1% ground ball rate are all subpar.
Since this is his second outright, he’ll have the ability to reject this assignment and elect free agency. All 29 teams just passed on the chance to grab him for free, so it’s possible his market is limited and he might just stay with the Tigers. Though if he were to opt for the open market, he could have some agency in choosing his employer and the organization he thinks is the best fit. Even if he were to accept, he would reach minor league free agency at the end of the season if not added back onto the roster.
Rangers Expected To Select J.P. Martínez
The Rangers are expected to add outfielder J.P. Martínez to their 40-man roster ahead of Friday’s game, per reporter Francys Romero as well as Evan Grant of the Dallas Morning News. Martínez isn’t currently on the club’s 40-man roster, which is full, meaning he will require a corresponding move to be added. The club has an off-day tomorrow.
Martínez, now 27, left Cuba in November of 2017 in the hopes of signing with a major league club. Despite being just 21 years old at that time, he already had five seasons of experience under his belt in the Cuban National Series, hitting .333/.470/.498 in the last of those five years. Once he was given clearance to sign, he was frequently connected to the Rangers, who officially announced his signing in April of 2018. The club had saved some international bonus pool space to make a run at Shohei Ohtani, but used some of it on Martínez when Ohtani signed with the Angels.
The Cuban outfielder was a prospect of note in his first few years in the affiliated ranks, though his stock dipped as his results in the minors were more solid than outstanding and he was generally older than those he was playing with. But he seems to have put himself back on the map with a strong showing in this year. In 67 Triple-A games, he’s hit 12 home runs and walked in 15.3% of his plate appearances. Even in the hitter-friendly Pacific Coast League, his .312/.427/.565 batting line amounts to a 139 wRC+, or 39% above average. He’s also stolen 33 bases in in 37 attempts at that level.
It’s unclear how the Rangers will deploy Martínez, but he’s capable of playing any of the three outfield slots. The recent injury of Josh Jung likely means Ezequiel Durán will be spending more time there and less in the outfield. That leaves the club with Adolis García, Leody Taveras, Travis Jankowski and Robbie Grossman in their outfield mix.
García is having an outstanding season but the other three have less of a firm grip on playing time. Taveras had a strong first half but has hit just .231/.252/.368 since the start of July. Jankowski is having a nice season overall but has a long track record of subpar offense and has slumped to a line of .045/.250/.091 in his last 28 plate appearances. Grossman’s hitting .228/.312/.386 for the season.
If Martínez can carry any of his strong results up to the majors with him, it should provide a boost to the Rangers as they look to fend off the Astros and hold onto their lead in the American League West.
The Marlins’ Quartet Of Lefty Relievers
Heading into the 2023 season, most fans would’ve expected the NL East to contain at least three legitimate playoff contenders. Few, however, pegged that trio to include the Braves, Phillies and … the Marlins. Conventional wisdom said that the Mets’ $350MM+ payroll, the Braves’ perennial excellence and the Phillies’ 2022 World Series appearance made them the teams to watch in the division. But, here are the Marlins, sitting 60-56 on Aug. 9 and tied with the Cubs for a share of the final Wild Card spot in the National League.
Much of that success has been attributable to Miami’s strong showing in one-run games. At 26-10 in such contests, the Marlins have been baseball’s best team by a wide margin. Their .722 winning percentage in one-run contests leads the Brewers (21-10, .677) and Orioles (20-11, .645) and is rather comfortably the best in the game. Heck, as I was writing this, the Marlins won another one-run game, thanks to some late heroics from deadline acquisition Josh Bell and the underrated Bryan De La Cruz.
There are certain traits that make a team likely to compete and succeed in large number of closely contested games. A lineup that struggles to score runs in bulk and is heavily reliant on station-to-station baseball — as if the case in Miami — is bound to play in a lot of close games. That’s been an apt description of the Marlins so far in 2023; they entered play Wednesday 26th in MLB with 465 runs scored and 27th with 106 home runs.
A strong bullpen that’s capable of holding the too-often narrow leads afforded to the pitching staff is also a key factor in mastering one-run victories. Again, that’s been the case in Miami for much of the season. While the Marlins shook up their bullpen prior to the deadline, swapping out Dylan Floro for Jorge Lopez (an exchange of struggling change-of-scenery candidates) and trading a pair of prospects for David Robertson, the Marlins have generally had a solid relief corps in 2023. Or rather, they’ve had a strong top half of a top-heavy bullpen. Adding Robertson to help deepen the group makes the team better, to be sure, but Miami was already had a strong bullpen group thanks in large part to a quartet of left-handers whom they acquired at virtually no cost.
Chief among that group is hard-throwing 29-year-old Tanner Scott. Long one of the most touted arms in the Orioles’ farm system, Scott was traded to Miami alongside righty Cole Sulser just before Opening Day 2022. The O’s deserve plenty of credit for the team they’ve put together, but this swap is probably one that Baltimore GM Mike Elias would like back. The Fish landed Scott and Sulser in a trade that sent a trio of low-level minor leaguers — Kevin Guerrero, Antonio Velez and Yaqui Rivera — to the Orioles. None of that trio ranks among the Orioles’ top 30 prospects at Baseball America, MLB.com or FanGraphs.
Sulser has already departed the Marlins organization — the D-backs claimed him on waivers last November — but Scott has emerged as one of the best lefties in the game. His power arsenal was always tantalizing, but Scott’s lack of command continually proved frustrating for the O’s. That continued into the 2022 season, his first in Miami, but the 2023 campaign has been another story. After logging a 4.31 ERA, 31.1% strikeout rate and ghastly 15.9% walk rate last year, Scott is now touting a 2.80 ERA, a 36.4% strikeout rate and a vastly improved 10% walk rate. Yes, it’s still too many free passes, but he’s improved it as the season has gone on. Over his past 32 frames, Scott has walked only 7% of his opponents.
Scott entered play Wednesday with a mammoth 17.2% swinging-strike rate and 36.2% chase rate — and that’s before he struck out the side against the Reds in this afternoon’s inning of work. There are only three pitchers in baseball who’ve thrown 50-plus innings and have a higher swinging-strike rate. Scott isn’t working in low-leverage mop-up settings, either. He’s piled up 22 holds and a pair of saves, and only four qualified relievers top him in terms of win probability added (WPA). The Fish are paying him a bargain $2.825MM this season and control him through the 2024 season.
Many clubs would be thrilled to simply have one quality southpaw of this caliber, but the Marlins are deeper than any club in MLB when it comes to lefty relievers. Scott might be the biggest name of the bunch, but the Fish are swimming (sorry, sorry) in quality southpaws. Andrew Nardi might be the most anonymous member of the group, but he’s been nothing short of outstanding this season.
A former 16th-round pick by Miami, Nardi had an inauspicious MLB debut in 2022, pitching 14 2/3 innings but allowing 16 runs in that time. Few fans looked at him and saw a breakout candidate, but in 39 2/3 innings this year, he’s sporting a 2.95 ERA, 33.1% strikeout rate and 6.9% walk rate. He’s been limited by a triceps injury this summer but was reinstated from the IL earlier this month and is back working in a high-leverage capacity. Since picking up his first big league save back on May 7, he’s pitched to a 1.80 ERA with a 36-to-6 K/BB ratio in 25 innings. He’s grabbed eight holds and a pair of saves along the way — and both numbers would be higher had he not spent a month on the injured list in that span.
Nardi’s 14.3% swinging-strike rate is excellent, and his 35% chase rate is even better. Virtually no one can square up the ball against the 24-year-old; he sits in the 99th percentile of big league pitchers in terms of average exit velocity and the 98th percentile in overall hard-hit rate. Nardi doesn’t even have a year of Major League service yet, so the Marlins can control him all the way through the 2028 season, and he won’t even reach arbitration until after the 2025 campaign.
There’s also 32-year-old Steven Okert to consider — a gem unearthed in minor league free agency. The left-hander came to Miami on a minor league deal in the 2020-21 offseason and, at the time, had just 48 1/3 innings of 4.28 ERA ball under his belt — all coming from 2016-18 with the Giants. In three seasons with Miami, Okert has graduated from a generic depth signing to a stalwart member of a talented relief corps. He’s logged 129 1/3 innings with a 2.85 ERA since relocating to South Florida, punching out 30% of his opponents against a 10.6% walk rate.
Again, the walks are a bit too high, but it should be noted that Okert has boosted his strikeout rate to a career-high 33.5% in 2023 while dropping his walk rate to 9% — his lowest mark in three years with the Fish. His velocity has ticked up each season, and the Marlins have scrapped three of his five pitches, turning him solely into a four-seam/slider reliever. Okert pitches more in the middle innings than Scott and Nardi, but he’s still picked up 10 holds. The results are outstanding, and he can be controlled cheaply for three years beyond the current season. Not too shabby for someone signed to a minor league deal three offseasons ago.
Left-hander A.J. Puk might be the most recognizable name of the bunch, thanks to both his lofty draft status (No. 6 overall in 2016) and his inclusion in a reasonably high-profile trade this offseason (sending former No. 4 overall pick JJ Bleday back to Oakland). Puk’s 4.62 ERA is by far the least impressive of the group, but the underlying numbers are far more impressive. He’s fanned 30.9% of his opponents against just a 4.9% walk rate while recording a swinging-strike rate just shy of 15%. Puk had a sub-3.00 ERA himself in early June before a rough patch that saw him allow runs in six of nine appearances. He’s since rebounded with four straight scoreless outings, whiffing five hitters without issuing a walk in 3 1/3 innings.
Puk has been hampered by a .337 average on balls in play and an abnormally low 63.1% strand rate, prompting metric like FIP (3.41) and SIERA (2.66) to cast a far more favorable light on the lefty than his earned run average does. Puk certainly wasn’t flawless in serving as the Marlins’ primary closer — 15-for-21 in save opportunities — and that, coupled with his rough stretch last month, might have nudged Miami to acquire Robertson. That said, lefties who average 96 mph don’t grow on trees, and Puk’s blend of elite strikeout and walk rates signals better days ahead.
In fact, Marlins relievers as a whole are among the best in baseball when it comes to both piling up strikeouts and limiting free passes. Each of the four lefties profiled here rank in the top 10 of all qualified relievers in terms of differential between strikeout rate and walk rate (i.e. K-BB%). The Marlins are sixth in all of baseball as a collective group in that category, and adding Robertson for the final two months of the season should help them out.
There are plenty of reasons for the Marlins’ success this season. Luis Arraez‘s surefire batting title, big steps forward from Jesus Luzardo and Braxton Garrett, a dominant debut season from Eury Perez and a rebound effort from Jorge Soler have all helped drive this unlikely playoff push. But heading into the season, few would’ve pegged the Marlins to receive this type of output from their left-handed bullpen corps. Add in the fact that they came to the organization via a minor league deal, a 16th-round pick, and trades sending out three marginal prospects and a former first-rounder who’s still struggling in Oakland — and the core of this bullpen is even more impressive. They’ll all return for the 2024 season at least, and with Robertson helping lead the charge down the stretch in ’23, the Marlins will continue to be dangerous in tightly contested games.
Red Sox Release Richard Bleier
The Red Sox announced that left-hander Richard Bleier, who was designated for assignment on Monday, has been released.
Bleier, 36, came over to the Sox in the offseason deal that sent Matt Barnes to the Marlins. That transaction hasn’t worked out especially well for either side, as Barnes allowed 5.48 earned runs per nine innings before undergoing hip surgery in July that he seems unlikely to return from this season. Bleier, meanwhile, made 27 appearances for Boston this year with a 5.28 ERA and has now been cut from the roster.
The southpaw had signed a contract extension while with the Marlins prior to the 2022 season, a pact that followed his 2.95 ERA over 68 appearances the year prior. The two-year, $6MM deal covered 2022, which was supposed to be his final arbitration season, as well as 2023 and came with a club option for 2024. He was paid $2.25MM last year, is earning $3.5MM this year with the 2024 option valued at $3.75MM with a $250K buyout.
Bleier went on to have a solid 3.55 ERA last year before this year’s disappointing results. There’s still over $1MM left to be paid out on that deal, as well as the buyout on the option. The combination of that money and his struggles this year meant that no club was going to claim him on waivers and take on that contract. But he has more than enough service time to reject an outright assignment while retaining the money, so the Sox have simply skipped the formalities and sent him to the open market. They will still be on the hook for the remainder of the contract.
He’ll now be free to sign with any club, who would only be responsible for paying him the prorated league minimum, with that amount subtracted from what the Sox pay. Despite his 2023 numbers, he will likely still garner interest. He had a 3.09 ERA over 144 appearances in the 2020-2022 period and his peripherals this year aren’t drastically different. His 55.2% ground ball rate in this season is shy of his 60.5% rate in the previous three years, but not by much. His 3.8% walk rate is right in line with the 3.9% mark from the preceding seasons. His 12.1% strikeout rate is certainly low, but even in the more successful 2020-2022 period he was only at 16.9%.
Bleier’s inflated ERA this year is likely due to a couple of factors. His 65.8% strand rate is shy of his own career rate and league average, pushing some more runs across. On a related note, his 17.9% rate of fly balls leaving the yard is a career high. He has a 4.25 SIERA on the year that’s over a full run better than his ERA and closer to his career marks.
Now that the trade deadline has passed, teams have few options for adding talent and depth to their systems. Since Bleier has a track record of success and comes with virtually no financial cost, he’s likely to latch on somewhere.
Mariners Claim Ryan Jensen, Release Matt Festa
August 9: The Mariners announced that Festa has indeed cleared waivers and become a free agent.
August 8, 9:56pm: Festa’s transaction log at MLB.com indicates he has been placed on release waivers, as required. If he goes unclaimed, he’ll be a free agent later in the week.
3:20pm: The Mariners announced a series of transactions today, claiming right-hander Ryan Jensen off waivers from the Cubs and recalling righty Ryder Ryan from Triple-A. Jensen will report to Triple-A Tacoma. Righty Bryan Woo was placed on the 15-day injured list with right forearm inflammation, retroactive to August 5, while righty Matt Festa was designated for assignment in corresponding moves.
Jensen, 25, was a first-round pick of the Cubs, getting selected 27th overall in 2019. He quickly became considered one of the top 10 prospects in the club’s system though his stock has fallen since then thanks to some mediocre results.
After the pandemic wiped out the minor leagues in 2020, Jensen split 2021 between High-A and Double-A with a 4.16 ERA. Last year, he made 17 Double-A starts with a 4.25 ERA, striking out 23.2% of batters faced while walking 15.1% of them. Nonetheless, the Cubs still had enough belief in him to give him a 40-man roster spot in November, to protect him from being selected in the Rule 5 draft.
Here in 2023, things haven’t gone much better. He made six Double-A starts at the beginning of the year but had a 5.31 ERA in those. In early May, he was moved to the bullpen and has since been promoted to Triple-A, but he has a combined 6.06 ERA in 32 2/3 innings since that time. He has struck out 26.2% of opponents since that bullpen move but given free passes at a 17.7% rate.
It had not been publicly reported that the Cubs removed Jensen from their roster, but they evidently tried to quietly sneak him through waivers with the M’s swooping in to snap him up. They will presumably try to get him to rein in his recent control issues and get him back on a good track.
In order to grab Jensen, the M’s are risking losing Festa, who has now been removed from the roster. He has 89 major league appearances from 2019 to the present season, posting a 4.32 ERA in those. He struck out 29.2% of batters faced last year but also allowed 10 home runs and finished the year with a 4.17 ERA.
Here in 2023, he’s spent most of the season in Triple-A, with a 0.53 ERA in 34 innings. That’s come with a .114 batting average on balls in play and 91.9% strand rate, both of which are unsustainable. His 21.9% strikeout rate and 12.5% walk rate are both subpar, leading to a 4.81 FIP at that level.
According to his transactions tracker at MLB.com, he was placed on the minor league injured list last week. Since injured players can’t be placed on outright waivers and the trade deadline has passed, Festa should be released in the coming days. He’ll be out of options next year but has less than two years of service time, meaning he could be controlled for five future seasons by a club that gives him a roster spot.
Ryan, 28, was just added to the club’s 40-man roster last week. Despite getting that roster spot, they kept him in the minors initially though he will now get a chance to make his major league debut. He’s thrown 40 2/3 innings in Triple-A this year with a 3.54 ERA, 23.3% strikeout rate, 8.7% walk rate and 46% ground ball rate.
As for Woo, the severity of his injury isn’t known, but this sheds some light on the earlier report that the M’s are promoting pitching prospect Emerson Hancock. It had been speculated by some that the club could potentially use a six-man rotation for a while, but now it seems a more straightforward situation where Hancock will step in for Woo.
Red Sox Designate Dinelson Lamet For Assignment
1:30pm: The Red Sox have now officially announced these moves.
10:08am: The Red Sox are planning to designate right-hander Dinelson Lamet for assignment as part of a series of roster moves, reports MassLive.com’s Christopher Smith. His spot on the roster will go to veteran righty Kyle Barraclough, whose contract is being selected from Triple-A Worcester. Boston is also set to recall lefty Brandon Walter from Worcester, with righty Nick Robertson being optioned there in his place.
Lamet’s stay on Boston’s big league roster will prove extremely brief. The former Padres and Rockies hurler was only just selected to the Majors two days ago. He appeared in one game, serving up three runs on three hits and a walk with one strikeout and a wild pitch in two innings of work.
Lamet was a legitimate Cy Young contender during the shortened 2020 season, but injuries have been a major issue for the 31-year-old righty in the seasons since. He’s encountered a biceps strain, a UCL sprain, forearm inflammation and a hip injury that required a “cleanup” procedure in the years since that scintillating 2020 effort (wherein he posted a 2.09 ERA and 34.8% strikeout rate in a dozen starts).
Including this brief, unsightly stop with the BoSox, Lamet has a 6.81 ERA in his past 107 big league innings. While he had pitched decently over in Worcester prior to his call to the big leagues, Lamet will make a quick exit in favor of a fresh arm — fellow veteran hurler Barraclough.
The 33-year-old Barraclough has appeared in 288 big league games, all coming out of the bullpen, and posted a 3.61 ERA with a very strong 28.9% strikeout rate but also a woeful 14% walk rate. The bulk of his Major League success came early in his career with the Marlins, from 2015-18. Since that time, he’s logged just 55 2/3 innings while pitching to a 5.17 ERA.
Interestingly, the Red Sox have been using Barraclough as a starter in Worcester, and the experiment has gone quite well. Seven of his eight appearances since signing out of the independent Atlantic League have been starts, and Barraclough has recorded a sharp 2.57 ERA in 42 innings. Granted, his strikeout rate is down considerably (17.8%), and walks remain an issue (11.9%). The Sox either see more to like in Barraclough than Lamet or simply need another fresh arm after Kutter Crawford was knocked out of the game in the fourth inning yesterday, leading to three relievers covering 5 2/3 innings. Lamet and Robertson combined to cover five of those frames.
Now that the trade deadline has come and gone, the Sox’ only options with Lamet are to place him on outright waivers or release waivers. He has more than five years of big league service, so he’ll be able to reject a minor league assignment and become a free agent even if he goes unclaimed. Because of that service time, he’d have been a free agent at season’s end even if he’d stuck on Boston’s roster and performed well for the remainder of the year.
Barraclough, meanwhile, entered the season with 4.089 years of Major League service. The most he’ll be able to accrue from here on out is 54 days, which would leave him shy of five years of service, thus making him eligible to be retained another two seasons via arbitration. There’s quite a ways to go before that’s even a consideration, and it’s likelier that Barraclough will have a brief stay on the roster himself, but that remaining club control is at least worth noting in the event that he sustains his Triple-A pace in the big leagues.
Dodgers To Sign Top Korean Pitching Prospect Hyun-Seok Jang
The Dodgers have agreed to terms with South Korean right-hander Hyun-seok Jang, his agency in South Korea announced (link via Jee-ho Yoo of the Yonhap News Agency). It’s a $900K signing bonus for the 19-year-old Jang, who is forgoing the KBO amateur draft to pursue MLB opportunities. Yoo notes that Jang was widely expected to be the top pick in this year’s KBO draft. Daniel Kim first reported that the two parties were nearing an agreement.
The signing of Jang likely would not have been possible were it not for last week’s trade with the White Sox, which saw the Dodgers ship a pair of minor leaguers — Aldrin Batista and Maximo Martinez — to Chicago in exchange for additional space in their international bonus pool. The Dodgers’ $4,144,000 pool for the 2023 signing period tied the Rangers for the smallest league-allotted pool. And, as Baseball America’s Ben Badler outlined in detail this past spring, Los Angeles used the overwhelming majority of that pool (all but $1500 of it) on shortstop Joendry Vargas, outfielder Arnaldo Lantigua, right-hander Jesus Tillero, shortstop Daniel Mielcarek, catcher/outfielder Eduardo Quintero, shortstop Elias Medina and right-hander Samuel Sanchez.
The collective bargaining agreement, however, allows teams to trade international bonus pool space. Any team can acquire additional space totaling up to 60% of its initial league-allotted pool size. After their initial signing spree when the period opened, Badler noted that the White Sox still had more than $1MM remaining in pool space. That set the stage for them to either sign additional talents down the line or, as they ultimately wound up doing, trade some of that remaining pool space.
Jang, listed at 6’2″ and 198 pounds, has allowed one run with a 42-to-14 K/BB ratio in 27 1/3 innings during his final high school season and was recently the only amateur named to the South Korean National Team, per Yoo. He’s already reached 97 mph on his fastball and will add a power arm — albeit one that is likely years from realistically making an MLB impact — to the lower levels of the Dodgers’ perennially strong farm system.
Diamondbacks Re-Sign Nabil Crismatt To Minor League Deal
The D-backs have re-signed right-handed reliever Nabil Crismatt to a minor league pact, per their team transaction log. Crismatt, who opted out of a minor league deal earlier this month, will return on a new arrangement after just six days on the open market.
Crismatt, 28, was released by the D-backs last week but quickly re-upped on a new minor league pact and already returned to their Triple-A club last night, tossing four innings and yielding four runs in his third start of the season. He’d spent the bulk of the year pitching in the bullpen — frequently in two-inning stints — but has made his past three appearances as a starting pitcher. The transition hasn’t been a smooth one, as after a sharp first outing (five innings, one run against the Rangers’ Triple-A affiliate) he’s since been tagged for 13 runs in 7 1/3 frames.
That rough patch out of the rotation has sent his ERA ballooning north of 7.00, although Crismatt has a much better track record than that — particularly in the big leagues. From 2020-22, the right-hander logged 157 innings of 3.38 ERA ball between the Cardinals and Padres, fanning 21.8% of his opponents against a strong 7.1% walk rate. Crismatt also excelled at keeping the ball in the yard (0.97 HR/9) and on the ground (50.5%) during that stretch.
The 2023 season has been a nightmare both in the big leagues and in the minors, however. Crismatt was rocked for a 9.82 ERA in 11 innings with San Diego prior to being released this year. His 7.76 ERA in 31 1/3 Triple-A frames is only marginally better, but he’ll get another chance to get back on track with the D-backs’ top affiliate as he looks to rediscover that solid 2020-22 form.
Pirates, Dom Nunez Agree To Minor League Deal
The Pirates have agreed to terms on a minor league deal with catcher Dom Nunez, per their transaction log at MLB.com. The ALIGND Sports client will be assigned to Triple-A Indianapolis.
Nunez, 28, was released by the Cubs over the weekend but quickly found a new home with the Pirates organization. The former Rockies backstop hit .216/.367/.366 in 147 plate appearances with the Cubs’ top affiliate in Des Moines, drawing a walk in a whopping 17.4% of his plate appearances but also striking out at an untenable 27.5% clip.
A sixth-round pick back in 2013, Nunez has a career .229/.346/.433 batting line in parts of three Triple-A seasons but has managed only a .180/.280/.373 output in 347 Major League plate appearances. He’s belted a dozen homers, 16 doubles and three triples in that time, showing above-average power, but Nunez’s 34% strikeout rate as a big leaguer has been too large an obstacle to overcome thus far.
Nunez’s career 29% caught-stealing rate (minors and majors combined) is better than average, although like many catchers, he’s seen a dip following rule changes that have emboldened baserunners. He’s sitting at 23% in Triple-A this year. He regularly graded as a plus framer earlier in his minor league career, per Baseball Prospectus, although his marks have dipped closer to average this season. Statcast credits him as slightly above-average in terms of both framing and blocking throughout the 826 innings he’s caught at the MLB level.
The Pirates traded catcher Austin Hedges to the Rangers prior to the deadline, paving the way for top prospects Endy Rodriguez and Henry Davis to get more playing time behind the plate. (Davis has played almost exclusively in right field in the Majors.) That trade and the pair of promotions thinned out Pittsburgh’s depth in the upper minors, so it’s not all that surprising to see the Bucs scoop up an experienced catcher to provide some depth. Between Rodriguez, Davis and Jason Delay, the Pirates have three catching options on the current big league roster. That jams up Nunez’s path to the big leagues, but he should get playing time in Indianapolis alongside 2018 fifth-rounder Grant Koch — and he’ll be an option if the Bucs wind up needing to tap into their catching depth for any reason.