Headlines

Go To Pro Hockey Rumors
Go To Hoops Rumors

Renato Nunez Signs With Mexican League’s Toros De Tijuana

By | at

The Toros de Tijuana of the Mexican League announced this afternoon they’ve signed corner infielder Renato Núñez for the 2023 season. It’ll be the first stint in Mexico for the 28-year-old, who played in the majors from 2016-21.

Núñez suited up for four different MLB teams. He’s best known for his time with the Orioles, where he logged over 1000 plate appearances between 2018-20. Núñez popped 31 home runs in 2019 and another 12 longballs during the abbreviated 2020 season, bringing some right-handed power to the organization. That came with fairly modest on-base numbers and a spotty defensive profile, however, and Baltimore cut him loose over the 2020-21 offseason.

The Venezuela native signed with the Tigers for 2021. He only managed a .189/.218/.472 line through 14 contests with Detroit and was twice outrighted off their 40-man roster. A subsequent minor league contract with the Brewers didn’t result in a big league opportunity. Núñez concluded the campaign with a .245/.308/.452 line across 307 career MLB games.

Last offseason, he made the jump to Japan’s Nippon Professional Baseball. Núñez signed on with the Nippon-Ham Fighters and split the 2022 season between the top level and their minor league affiliate. He hit well over 31 minor league games but mustered only a .174/.228/.299 line through 63 NPB contests. That proved to be his lone season with the Fighters.

Núñez is now a couple seasons removed from offensive productivity. He’s still relatively young and has some power upside. He’ll try to get back on track in a hitter-friendly environment in the Mexican League.

Phillies Sign Jake Jewell To Minor League Deal

By | at

The Phillies have signed right-hander Jake Jewell to a minor league deal, according to his transactions tracker at MLB.com. He will presumably receive an invitation to major league Spring Training.

Jewell, 30 in May, has 31 games of MLB experience, scattered over the 2018, 2019 and 2021 seasons with the Angels and Cubs. He’s posted an unsightly 7.75 ERA in that time, with his 13 home runs allowed in just 38 1/3 innings surely playing a role in that inflated figure.

In 2022, he signed a minor league deal with the Guardians. He was throwing well for their Triple-A team for most of the year, logging 43 1/3 innings with a 2.49 ERA, striking out 27% of batters faced, walking 8.4% of them and getting grounders on 63.3% of balls in play. The Guards selected him to the big league roster in August but optioned him back down to the minors and designated him for assignment before he got into a big league game. He was claimed by the Twins and made nine appearances for their Triple-A team, but saw his ERA spike to 5.68. He was outrighted off their roster in September.

Between the two clubs, Jewell finished 2022 with a 3.21 ERA in 56 Triple-A innings, striking out 27.7% of batters faced against an 8.9% walk rate. He’ll give the Phillies’ bullpen some depth without taking up a roster spot for the time being. If he can earn his way onto the roster, he will be able to be cheaply retained for the foreseeable future, as he has just over a year of MLB service time.

Looking At White Sox’s Second Base Options

By | at

The White Sox have made a couple notable free agent moves this offseason. Andrew Benintendi was brought in on a five-year, $75MM pact to solidify the corner outfield and ensure Andrew Vaughn heads to his natural first base position. Mike Clevinger inked a bounceback deal to add some depth to the back of the starting staff.

One position the White Sox haven’t addressed thus far is second base. The keystone was a question mark last year, with five players logging at least five appearances there. Josh Harrison and Danny Mendick are gone, with Chicago declining a club option on the former and non-tendering the latter. That leaves a trio of last year’s options who stand as the top in-house candidates for reps.

  • Romy González (26): González made his MLB debut in 2021 with 10 appearances, and he got into 32 more games last season. Between those two years, he’s mustered just a .241/.261/.350 line through his first 142 MLB plate appearances. The right-handed hitter has connected on two home runs with well worse than average strikeout and walk numbers. He’s walked in just 2.1% of his trips against a 35.2% strikeout percentage. It was a fairly similar story with Triple-A Charlotte last year, where González punched out a third of the time en route to a .198/.281/.339 line over 33 games. He’d hit better in Double-A the year before, connecting on 20 homers in 78 contests in a pitcher-friendly environment — albeit with a 28.2% strikeout rate. González has some power upside but serious contact concerns against upper level pitching.
  • Leury García (32): García is an organizational favorite who’s headed into his tenth season with the club. He’s defensively versatile and has clearly endeared himself to multiple coaching staffs and the front office, culminating in a surprising three-year free agent deal last offseason. The switch-hitter has just a .253/.293/.350 career line at the big league level, though. Things were even worse in 2022, as he hit .210/.233/.267 over 315 trips to the plate. It’s hard to envision a win-now club counting on him as an everyday player, although he figures to play a multi-positional role off the bench.
  • Lenyn Sosa (23): Sosa has almost no MLB experience. He earned his first big league promotion in June and wound up appearing in 11 games the rest of the way. The Venezuela native is coming off an excellent season in the high minors. He hit well at both Double-A and Triple-A, combining for a .315/.369/.511 line with 22 home runs through 536 plate appearances. While Sosa only walked at a modest 7.3% clip, he kept his strikeout rate under 16%. One can’t be certain he’ll continue at that pace against MLB arms until he proves it at the highest level, of course. Sosa ranks 10th among White Sox prospects at Baseball America and may have the most upside of this trio, though there’d be plenty of risk for a team hoping to compete for a division title in turning the keystone over to him immediately.

The Sox have a few other infield options on the 40-man roster but none seems likely to step into the second base void. Chicago has toyed with the idea of playing Jake Burger at the keystone. He’s a better fit for the corner infield and only saw five innings of MLB action at second base last season. Jose Rodriguez and Bryan Ramos were each added to the 40-man after the 2022 season to keep them out of the Rule 5 draft; neither has any MLB experience to date. Yoán Moncada has played second base in the past, but the White Sox have deployed him exclusively at third base for the past four seasons. It doesn’t seem they’re considering moving him back to the middle infield.

Given the lack of an obvious internal solution, it’s unsurprising the club is open to bringing in help from outside the organization. General manager Rick Hahn told reporters yesterday the club could add at second base, though he indicated they were confident enough in González and Sosa they don’t consider that a necessity (via Daryl Van Schouwen of the Chicago Sun-Times). Their early-offseason activity has seemed to align with that expressed confidence, since they’ve watched the free agent middle infield market mostly dry up.

The remaining options on the open market are headlined by Elvis Andrus, who closed out the 2022 campaign with the White Sox after being released by the A’s. The veteran has only ever played shortstop in his MLB career, as he filled in there with Tim Anderson injured late last season. Perhaps Andrus is uninterested in moving to second base, though it stands to reason he’d be able to handle the position if willing to kick to the other side of the bag. Harrison is probably the next-best unsigned middle infielder. The Sox presumably don’t view him as a notable upgrade over their in-house options considering they declined to retain him on what amounted to a $4MM decision at the start of the offseason.

If not Andrus, that’d probably leave Hahn and his staff looking to the trade market. Any specific trade targets for the Chicago front office aren’t publicly known, although a few players stand out as speculative possibilities. The Blue Jays have a number of second base options and might be amenable to parting with Cavan Biggio or Santiago Espinal. The Marlins have relegated Joey Wendle and Jon Berti to utility duty after signing Jean Segura. If the Mets indeed finalize their deal with Carlos Correa, maybe they’d deal old friend Eduardo Escobar somewhere with a clearer path to playing time.

The A’s would presumably consider offers on Tony Kemp. That’s likely also the case for the Cubs and former White Sox Nick Madrigal, who lost his starting job after they signed Dansby Swanson to push Nico Hoerner to the keystone. Longer-shot trade candidates include Ha-Seong Kim and Gleyber Torres, although the White Sox might have to dip further than they feel comfortable into a shallow farm system to land either of those players. The same is true of Nolan Gorman, who debuted for the Cardinals last season but could be available in a deal that lands St. Louis immediate MLB help in another area. That’s not an exhaustive list but highlights a few players the Chicago front office could check in on.

Figuring out second base is presumably the top priority for Hahn and his group. Even if the front office genuinely is confident in González and/or Sosa to step up, adding a veteran complement as insurance for that unproven duo makes sense. The organization might not have much more spending capacity after the Benintendi signing. None of the remaining free agent options should break the bank, though, while a player like Espinal or Berti projected for a fairly modest arbitration salary shouldn’t be difficult to fit onto the books.

Free Agent Profile: Brian Anderson

By | at

Brian Anderson had a really solid run for the Marlins from 2018 through 2020. In that three-year period, he hit 42 home runs while walking in nine percent of his trips to the plate and striking out in 21.8 percent of them. His batting line in that stretch was .266/.350/.436, good enough for a wRC+ of 115, indicating that he was 15 percent better than the league average hitter.

Defensively, Anderson had very brief appearances at first and second base but split most of his time between third base and right field. His work at the hot corner was graded well by advanced defensive metrics, as he posted five Outs Above Average and Defensive Runs Saved in that time, along with a 2.8 mark from Ultimate Zone Rating. In right field, OAA gave him a -4 mark, but he posted 6 DRS and a 7.2 UZR.

When his above-average offense was paired with that quality defense, he was worth 7.2 wins above replacement, according to the calculations of FanGraphs. That mark was in the top 60 among position players. For the Marlins, who were trading away their star players at this time, Anderson’s 7.2 fWAR from 2018-20 was easily the best on the squad. In a distant second was J.T. Realmuto, who posted 4.8 fWAR in 2018 alone before getting traded to the Phillies prior to the 2019 campaign.

The last couple of years, however, have been a struggle for Anderson. Health has played a significant factor, as he’s made multiple trips to the injured list in each of the two most recent seasons. In 2021, he only played 67 games while heading to the IL due to a left oblique strain and twice due to a left shoulder subluxation. His batting line slipped to .249/.337/.378 and a wRC+ of 98. Last year, he played 98 games, missing time due to a stint on the COVID-IL as well as going to the traditional IL for lower back spasms and a left shoulder sprain. His offense dipped even further, finishing the year at .222/.311/.346 (90 wRC+).

The Marlins could have retained Anderson for one more season via arbitration, with MLBTR contributor Matt Swartz projecting a salary of $5.2MM. But based on Anderson’s diminished performance in the past couple of years, they non-tendered him instead. Presumably, the Marlins contacted the other 29 clubs before this move to see if anyone else was interested in acquiring Anderson at that price point. The fact that a deal didn’t come together suggests that no club was willing to both pay Anderson a salary in that range and also give Miami something of value on top of that.

Even though he’s been injured the past couple of seasons, there are still some good signs under the hood. Anderson’s maximum exit velocity was 112 mph in 2022. That’s a couple of ticks below 2018-19, when he was able to get into the 113-115 range, but it was still enough to get him into the 81st percentile among qualified hitters last year. He was also in the 65th percentile in terms of barrel rate and 61st in terms of hard-hit rate.

His strikeout rate has been on the high side over the past few years but his walk rate has stayed fairly steady. He has a 9.3% walk rate for his career and has been at 9.7% over the past couple of seasons even while struggling in other areas. While not a huge stolen base threat, his sprint speed was in the 53rd percentile in 2022, so he’s at least an average runner. On Statcast’s new arm strength leaderboard, Anderson is in the 99th percentile, with only five qualified players ahead of him. Even while banged up this year, he still demonstrated that there are some tools in his skill set.

That makes Anderson an interesting buy-low candidate at this late point of the offseason, with many of the top free agents having already signed. Yesterday, the Nats agreed to a deal with Dominic Smith, who was projected for a $4MM salary before being non-tendered by the Mets. Instead, he’ll get $2MM from Washington with a further $2MM available in incentives. Like Anderson, Smith struggled over the past two years but showed plenty of potential in the prior seasons. Perhaps Anderson could find himself a similar type of deal in the coming weeks.

The Tigers stand out as a particularly strong fit, since they non-tendered Jeimer Candelario and haven’t done anything to replace him at the hot corner thus far. They have some young players who could potentially take that spot, such as Ryan Kreidler, Kody Clemens or Zack Short. However, none of those players have really cemented themselves as surefire big leaguers yet, and Anderson could move to the outfield if they took a step forward this year. With Akil Baddoo and Austin Meadows looking to bounce back from frustrating seasons, Anderson could give them some cover in case either of those in-house options continue to struggle.

The Reds probably want to give Spencer Steer a chance to take over their third base job, but he has only 28 MLB games under his belt at this point. Anderson could provide a veteran alternative and also factor into their outfield mix if Steer takes off. It’s a similar situation in Texas, where the Rangers have Josh Jung penciled in at the hot corner despite the fact he’s played just 26 major league games. They also need help in left field and are about $12MM away from the lowest luxury tax threshold, making a low-cost addition like Anderson an intriguing solution. The Phillies have Alec Bohm at third, but he’s generally considered a poor defender. With Bryce Harper recovering from Tommy John surgery and no longer taking up the designated hitter slot, perhaps Bohm could move to first and bump Rhys Hoskins into the DH role.

Anderson could also fit on most teams in a part-time role off the bench, though platooning might not be a perfect plan. Anderson hits from the right side and was better against lefties in 2022, posting a 111 wRC+ against them compared to an 85 versus righties. However, he has reverse splits for his career, with a 93 wRC+ against southpaws and a 112 otherwise.

Health will likely be a big factor in Anderson’s market, since that has seemingly been hampering him over the past couple of years. But if he’s able to overcome his ailments and get back to the kind of player he was in 2018-20, there could be great value for a team paying him $5MM or less. Anderson was essentially on a three-WAR annual pace in that period, since he accrued 7.2 fWAR over two full seasons and the shortened 2020 campaign.

Image courtesy of USA Today Sports.

Nationals Sign Anthony Banda, Francisco Perez To Minor League Deals

By | at

The Nationals announced three minor league deals today, one of which was the previously-reported deal with infielder Michael Chavis. The other two were for left-handers Anthony Banda and Francisco Pérez. All three players will receive invitations to major league Spring Training.

Banda, 29, has seen sporadic major league time in each of the past six seasons, suiting up for the Diamondbacks, Rays, Mets, Pirates, Blue Jays and Yankees. Over the past two seasons, he’s thrown 60 1/3 innings with a 5.37 ERA while striking out 21.5% of batters faced and walking 9% of them. Those peripherals are fairly close to league average and it’s possible he wasn’t quite as bad as that unsightly ERA might suggest. A .387 batting average on balls in play in that stretch probably hurt him, as his 4.74 FIP and 4.11 SIERA suggested he deserved better.

Banda is out of options and has bounced around to various teams via small transactions in recent years. He began 2022 with the Pirates before getting designated for assignment and traded to the Jays for cash. The Jays also gave him the DFA treatment shortly thereafter, which was followed by a minor league deal with the Mariners, a major league deal with the Yankees and an outright. If he can make his way onto Washington’s roster and have some good results, he has just over two years of service time and can be retained via arbitration for the foreseeable future.

Pérez, 25, has spent most of his career in Cleveland’s system, with that club selecting him onto their 40-man roster in 2021. He only made four big league appearances that year but tossed 53 innings between Double-A and Triple-A with a 1.86 ERA and 38.1% strikeout rate. His walks were certainly high at 13.5% but it was an encouraging season nonetheless. He was claimed off waivers by the Nationals after that campaign, but things didn’t go as smooth in 2022. He posted a 7.27 ERA over 10 big league appearances and a 4.82 ERA over 45 Triple-A appearances. He still got strikeouts on 29.9% of Triple-A batters faced, but he walked 15.7% of them and also 18.8% of those he faced in the majors.

Pérez was outrighted at season’s end and elected free agency but has now returned to the Nats without taking up a roster spot. He still has an option year remaining and can be shuffled between the majors and minors if he earns his way back onto the 40-man. He also has less than a year of service time and could be controlled for years to come if the Nats so choose.

The Nationals currently have four left-handers on their 40-man roster, with Patrick Corbin and MacKenzie Gore both likely ticketed for rotation jobs. That leaves Jose Ferrer and Matt Cronin as the two lefty options for the bullpen. Both of them were just added to the club’s roster in November to protect against selection in the Rule 5 draft, meaning neither has any MLB experience. Banda and Pérez give the club some more-experienced options for southpaws to plug into their bullpen for the upcoming campaign.

Marlins Designate Charles Leblanc For Assignment

By | at

The Marlins announced Wednesday evening that infielder Charles Leblanc has been designated for assignment. The move creates a 40-man roster vacancy for Jean Segura, who has officially signed his two-year free agent deal.

Leblanc earned his first MLB call last July. Signed to a minor league contract last offseason after seven years in the Texas farm system, he earned a look with Miami by hitting .302/.381/.503 line Triple-A Jacksonville. Leblanc held his MLB roster spot the rest of the way and hit .263/.320/.404 with four home runs through his first 169 plate appearances. That production checked in seven percentage points above league average, by measure of wRC+.

Considering Leblanc’s solid bottom line numbers, it’s a moderate surprise he lost his 40-man roster spot this winter. It’s clear the Miami front office wasn’t bullish on his ability to continue to hit at an above-average level. Leblanc benefitted from an unsustainable .374 batting average on balls in play, masking an alarming 31.4% strikeout percentage. He’d also struck out at a notable 27.2% clip in Jacksonville.

That’s surely a concern, although Leblanc actually made contact at a decent clip on a per-pitch basis. He put the bat on the ball on 76.4% of his swings, a figure that’s almost exactly league average. Leblanc took plenty of called strikes and put himself in some unfavorable counts, but he fared reasonably well at making contact when deciding to swing.

The 26-year-old has some defensive flexibility. He suited up at each of first, second and third base in the majors and logged a decent amount of left field run in Triple-A. Leblanc had some early-career work at shortstop in the minors but isn’t more than an emergency stopgap there. Nevertheless, the ability to bounce around the diamond and his solid 2022 campaign at the upper levels seemingly give him a good shot at landing elsewhere in the coming days.

Miami will have a week to trade Leblanc or try to run him through waivers. He still has all three minor league option years remaining, meaning any team willing to carry him on the 40-man can freely move him between the majors and Triple-A for the extended future.

Brewers Acquire Bryse Wilson From Pirates

By | at

3:55pm: In a corresponding move, the Brewers have designated right-hander Trevor Kelly for assignment, per Curt Hogg of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. Kelley, 30, was signed to a minor league deal prior to the 2022 season and was selected to the roster in May. He tossed 34 1/3 Triple-A innings with a 2.36 ERA but posted a 6.08 ERA in 23 2/3 big league innings.

3:10pm: The Brewers announced that they have acquired right-hander Bryse Wilson from the Pirates. Wilson had been designated for assignment last week by the Bucs, who will receive cash considerations from Milwaukee in this deal.

Wilson, 25, was selected by Atlanta in the fourth round of the 2016 draft. He shot up prospect rankings in 2018, as he went from High-A to Double-A to Triple-A and the majors at the age of 20. After that surge, he was ranked the #80 prospect in the league by Baseball America going into the 2019 season.

Unfortunately, Wilson hasn’t been able to deliver on that excitement in the subsequent seasons. Atlanta frequently optioned him to the minors over the 2019-2021 seasons, only allowing him to make 20 big league appearances in that time. They then flipped him to Pittsburgh at the deadline in 2021 as part of the Richard Rodríguez trade.

With the Bucs in 2022, he got his most extended stretch of MLB action thus far in his career, tossing 115 2/3 innings over 20 starts and six relief appearances. He posted a 5.52 ERA in that time with solid a 6.3% walk rate and 43.3% ground ball rate but a meager 15.5% strikeout rate.

Now out of options, it seems Wilson’s rotation opportunities dried up in Pittsburgh, but the Brewers are willing to take a shot. The front of the Milwaukee rotation is spoken for with Corbin Burnes, Brandon Woodruff, Freddy Peralta and Eric Lauer taking the first four spots. Wilson could be in competition for the final spot with the likes of Aaron Ashby and Adrian Houser. An injury to anyone in the rotation could open things up a bit, but it’s also possible that a couple of the guys in that trio end up in the bullpen as long relief options.

Did The Astros Fix Will Smith?

By | at

Back on Aug. 1, when the Astros and Braves agreed to a swap of veteran pitchers Jake Odorizzi and Will Smith, the move was met with some confusion by Astros fans. Odorizzi hadn’t endeared himself with a rocky start to his tenure in Houston, nor his public gripes about the team’s usage of him (specifically, a quick hook even on effective days), but he’d vastly outperformed Smith to that point in the season.

At the time of the trade, Odorizzi had a 3.60 ERA in 60 innings, and while it was accompanied by a lackluster strikeout rate, that was partially offset by a strong walk rate. Odorizzi wasn’t a star by any means but had been a serviceable back-of-the-rotation starter. Houston, however, had six options ahead of him on the depth chart and felt a need for some left-handed help in the ’pen. Some ’Stros fans took issue with the return of Smith, in particular, though — and understandably so. He’d posted a tepid 4.38 ERA to that point in the season, and the under-the-hood numbers were actually worse. Smith’s 24% strikeout rate was his lowest since moving the to the bullpen, and his 12.3% walk rate was a career-worst. He was averaging 1.70 homers per nine innings pitched, and metrics like FIP (5.22) and xFIP (4.76) didn’t view him favorably.

Part of the swap was surely the similarities in their 2022 contracts. Smith was owed the balance of a $13MM salary and had a $1MM buyout on a 2023 option. Odorizzi was earning just $5MM but had another $2.5MM of easily attainable incentives, plus a weighty $3.25MM buyout on a 2023 option. More at the heart of the issue, however, it seems the Astros viewed Smith as someone they could revitalize with some tweaks.

That’s indeed how things played out, though the changes were more subtle than glaring. Smith largely scrapped his curveball in Houston, dropping from an 11.9% usage rate to just 3.6%. He threw slightly fewer fastballs (41.8% in Atlanta, 39.1% with Houston) and upped the usage on his slider, throwing it at a career-high 52.1% of the time. With the ’Stros, Smith also dropped both his vertical and horizontal release points, although not dramatically.

There was no major spike in spin rate — the spin on his four-seamer actually dipped slightly following the trade — and Smith didn’t begin throwing harder or unveil a new pitch that changed his fortunes. Rather, the subtle tweaks to his mechanics and a more acute focus on two pitches seemed to turn his fortunes. He located his slider more effectively (pre-trade, post-trade) and, crucially, avoided the heart of the plate far more often with his four-seamer (pre-trade, post-trade). Smith operated far more regularly and more effectively in the top-third of the strike zone — and just above it.

Unsurprisingly, his swinging-strike rate jumped from an already-sharp 13.6% in Atlanta to a massive 17.3% with Houston. He was able to spot both pitches more effectively both on the fringes of the zone and within the zone; his first-pitch strike rate spiked from 63.2% with the Braves to 72.2% with the Astros. His walk rate plummeted from 12.3% to 4.4%.

Smith’s time with the Astros proved brief, but in two months with Houston he tossed 22 innings of 3.27 ERA ball with a 26.7% strikeout rate and a 4.4% walk rate. After averaging 1.7 homers per nine frames with Atlanta, he allowed just two in 22 innings with Houston (0.82 HR/9). If anything, Smith was bizarrely unlucky on balls in play as an Astro; he yielded a sky-high .350 average on balls in play. Smith wasn’t on the Astros’ ALDS or ALCS roster — perhaps in part due to a heavily right-handed Yankees lineup — but was added to the World Series roster. He did not, however, pitch in a game. Houston declined his option at season’s end, favoring a $1MM buyout over a $13MM salary next season.

That outcome seemed obvious, but it’s hard to ignore the high note on which Smith ended the regular season. The lefty overwhelming improved his command, missed more bats, issued fewer walks and yielded fewer home runs. He still wasn’t used in many high-leverage spots by the Astros, but that’s in part due to their generally strong bullpen. Over his final 17 outings of the season, Smith pitched to a 2.35 ERA with an 18-to-2 K/BB ratio in 15 1/3 innings.

However, because Smith was generally used in lower-leverage spots and because he didn’t pitch in the postseason, his turnaround in Houston flew largely under the radar. On the one hand, it’s arguably a damning reality that he was passed over in leverage situations and omitted from two of the Astros’ three postseason rosters. On the other hand, the results when he did pitch were excellent, and Houston had four other relievers with a sub-3.00 ERA (and five others with a FIP of 3.02 or better). Smith was a luxury but not someone they necessarily needed to acquire to plug into those leverage positions for lack of better options.

As was the case in the Houston bullpen, Smith is again somewhat lost in the shuffle of the offseason’s free-agent class. MLBTR ranked Taylor Rogers as the top lefty in this year’s class, and he indeed secured a three-year deal. Smith was never going to get another contract along those lines, but he’s perhaps closer to the next tier of lefties than one might expect when looking at his season-long numbers. Andrew Chafin and Matt Moore both had better seasons, and Chafin in particular seems like he should command a strong contract after his past couple years of performance. Smith’s end to the season, however, was quite strong, and if his next team gets more of the Houston version than the Atlanta version, he’ll likely be a bargain.

Diamondbacks Re-Sign Zach Davies

By | at

The Diamondbacks are in agreement to bring Zach Davies back to the club on a one-year guarantee with a mutual option for the 2024 season, the team announced. Davies will reportedly be guaranteed $5MM with another $3MM in incentives available. The right-hander is represented by the Boras Corporation.

Davies, 30, has pitched in each of the past eight MLB seasons. Though he’s never been able to perform at the dominant level of an ace, he has been able to provide solid work over that stretch. In 182 career starts, he’s thrown 966 innings with a 4.14 ERA. Outside of the shortened 2020 season, he’s never been able to post a strikeout rate above 20% and has a 17.4% rate for his career overall. That’s a few ticks shy of typical league averages, with MLB starters striking out 21.6% of batters faced in 2022.

What Davies has been able to do, however, is limit hard contact in order to keep runs off the board. 45% of balls in play he’s allowed in his career have been on the ground. In 2022, Statcast put his average exit velocity allowed in the 75th percentile of qualified pitchers, along with a hard hit rate that’s in the 76th percentile.

The Diamondbacks signed Davies for the 2022 season on a one-year deal. He made 27 starts for the Snakes, logging 134 1/3 innings with a 4.09 ERA. Similar to his career overall, he paired a modest 17.9% strikeout rate with a solid 9.1% walk rate and 42.9% ground ball rate but kept runs off the board with the aforementioned weak contact. His fastball only averaged 89.6 mph but he also mixed in a changeup, cutter, curveball and slider in order to keep hitters off balance.

It may not be an exceptionally exciting move for fans of the Diamondbacks, but it’s one that has some sense to it. Zac Gallen figures to be the club’s ace with Merrill Kelly a pretty reliable bet for a mid-rotation role. Madison Bumgarner has struggled in recent year but will likely be serving as an innings-eating veteran at the back end.

Outside of those three, there’s a group of youngsters who showed promise in 2022 but haven’t cemented themselves at the big league level. Ryne Nelson and Drey Jameson both showed encouraging signs late last year, but Nelson only has three big league starts and Jameson just four. They will both be 25 in the upcoming season and still have options. Tommy Henry is also going into his age-25 season, though his nine-start debut was less impressive and he’s probably ticketed for more minor league development. The Diamondbacks also have a highly-touted pitching prospect in Brandon Pfaadt, who has yet to crack the 40-man roster. However, he did reach Triple-A last year and is generally considered one of the top 100 prospects in the league.

The Diamondbacks started to integrate that young talent into their rotation in 2022 and will surely be looking to continue down that path in 2023. However, prospect development rarely occurs in a strict linear fashion, especially when it comes to pitchers. As they try to figure out what they have in their young arms, Davies gives them a reliable veteran presence who can likely be counted on to provide some steady work when they need it.

Jon Heyman of the New York Post was first to report the agreement and contract terms.

Image courtesy of USA Today Sports.

MLB Trade Rumors is not affiliated with Major League Baseball, MLB or MLB.com

Do not Sell or Share My Personal Information

hide arrows scroll to top