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Yankees Outright Chi Chi Gonzalez

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Oct. 6: Gonzalez cleared outright waivers and was assigned to the roster in Triple-A Scranton/Wilkes-Barre, per a team announcement. He can reject the assignment to become a free agent right now or can otherwise wait and become a free agent at season’s end (as is the right of any outrighted player with three-plus years of service).

Oct. 3: The Yankees announced Monday that they’ve reinstated right-hander Miguel Castro from the 60-day injured list and designated fellow righty Chi Chi Gonzalez for assignment in order to open space on the roster.

The Yanks were the third team of the season for the 30-year-old Gonzalez, who allowed one run through 4 2/3 innings in a spot start against the Orioles just yesterday. He’s also spent time with the Twins and Brewers in 2022, combining for 23 innings of 5.87 ERA ball with a 15-to-7 K/BB ratio.

Selected by the Rangers with the No. 23 overall pick back in 2013, Gonzalez ranked as one of Texas’ top minor league arms for a few years but never cemented himself as a regular contributor in either the rotation or the bullpen there. His 3.90 ERA through 67 innings as a rookie in 2015 looked promising on the surface, but Gonzalez walked more hitters (32) than he struck out (30) that season. He’s tossed 217 1/3 frames for five teams since that time, pitching to a collective 6.20 ERA along the way.

Struggles in the Majors notwithstanding, Gonzalez has a decent Triple-A track record and has been solid or better there in three of four seasons pitching at that level. That includes the current campaign, where he’s totaled 80 1/3 innings with a 4.03 ERA, a 20.8% strikeout rate and a 7.9% walk rate. The Yankees will place him on outright waivers or release waivers in the next couple days, and assuming he clears, Gonzalez will be able to become a free agent either upon clearing waivers or at season’s end.

Castro, 27, has been on the injured list twice this season due to a shoulder strain. In 27 innings when healthy, he’s posted a 4.00 ERA with a 24.8% strikeout rate, 10.7% walk rate and 46.6% ground-ball rate. Despite the shoulder troubles, Castro’s sinker remains just as lively as it was with the crosstown Mets in 2021, averaging a blistering 97.9 mph this season.

If he’s healthy, Castro will give the Yanks an experienced option to consider for the postseason as he looks to showcase himself in advance of his first trip to free agency this winter. Command has long been an issue for the hard-throwing righty, but he has a 3.93 ERA over his past 348 big league innings, has considerably upped his strikeout rate since 2020 (26.9%) and typically keeps nearly half the batted balls against him on the ground (career 48.9%).

Royals Fire Manager Mike Matheny

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The Royals’ organizational shake-up continues. Shortly after wrapping up a 69-93 season, Kansas City announced that manager Mike Matheny and pitching coach Cal Eldred will not return in 2023. The Royals had exercised a 2023 club option on Matheny’s services in Spring Training, but he’ll be relieved of his duties a season early.

The news comes a few weeks after the Royals made a change atop the front office. President of baseball operations Dayton Moore was dismissed in late September, with general manager J.J. Picollo tasked to lead baseball operations. Picollo’s first major decision is to make a leadership change in the clubhouse, and the Royals will now turn their attention towards finding a new skipper.

Matheny’s dismissal closes the books on his three-year managerial tenure. Originally brought to the K.C. organization over the 2018-19 offseason as a special assistant, Matheny was almost immediately rumored as a likely successor to then-manager Ned Yost. When Yost stepped aside at the end of the 2019 season, the Royals indeed tabbed Matheny to return to the top of the dugout steps. The former big league catcher had spent six-plus years managing the Cardinals between 2012-18, and he obviously impressed the Royals front office during his season as a special assistant.

It wasn’t a particularly imposing roster, with Matheny taking over as the team was firmly amidst a rebuild. Kansas City had lost over 100 games in each of the preceding two years, so it wasn’t especially surprising they stumbled to a 26-34 mark during the abbreviated 2020 campaign. The following offseason, the Royals added Carlos Santana, Andrew Benintendi and Mike Minor in an effort to be more competitive. They were, to some extent, finishing with a 74-88 record that came with their highest win percentage (45.7%) since 2017.

Still, the improvements weren’t enough to make the Royals full-fledged contenders. After a 15-7 showing in April, they finished .500 or below in every ensuing month. Kansas City was surprisingly quiet last winter. The Royals reunited with Zack Greinke on a $13MM contract and shipped out the underperforming Minor for reliever Amir Garrett. Otherwise, Kansas City was counting on internal improvements paired with the fruits of a burgeoning farm system to get back above .500 for the first time since winning the World Series in 2015.

The Royals carried top prospect Bobby Witt Jr. on the Opening Day roster. Within a couple months, MJ Melendez and Vinnie Pasquantino would join him. All three have gotten off to solid starts, with Witt and Pasquantino looking like above-average regulars from the outset. The team’s overall performance, though, went in the wrong direction. They won nine fewer games than they had in 2021, finishing with the fifth-worst record in the majors. Benintendi and longtime franchise cornerstone Whit Merrifield were traded away midseason.

Among the biggest reasons for the lack of progress was a starting rotation that ranked 26th in the majors with a 4.72 ERA. Of the seven K.C. starters to top 20 innings, five had an ERA of 4.93 or higher. That’s particularly disheartening considering the volume of talented young arms the Royals have seen reach the majors in recent seasons. Kansas City invested plenty of draft capital in bolstering their pitching pipeline, including using four of the top 40 overall selections in 2018 on college arms. Brady Singer, Jackson Kowar, Daniel Lynch and Kris Bubic were all brought in that year, but only Singer has taken the developmental strides the club had envisioned.

After surprisingly beginning the year in the bullpen, Singer was quickly sent to Triple-A to stretch back out as a starter. After reassuming a rotation role in mid-May, the righty emerged as the Royals most productive arm. He made 24 starts and worked to a 3.11 ERA with an above-average 24.2% strikeout rate and a quality 48.5% ground-ball mark. Singer still struggled to turn over lineups three times, but he dominated opponents his first two times through an order. While it may not have been a perfect campaign, Singer’s 2022 season undoubtedly qualified as a success.

Unfortunately for the Royals, none of his peers took a similar step forward. None of Bubic, Lynch or Jon Heasley posted an ERA below 5.00, and all three had well below-average strikeout rates. Carlos Hernández was one of the league’s worst pitchers in a season-opening rotation look and eventually found himself in the bullpen. Kowar has been hit hard during his limited MLB stints over the past two seasons and had a 6.16 ERA through 20 Triple-A starts this year. Grounder specialist Brad Keller has taken a massive step back over the past couple years and could be non-tendered this offseason. It’s to the Royals’ credit that Keller, selected out of the Diamondbacks organization in the 2017-18 Rule 5 draft, ever emerged as a productive starter in the first place. Still, his regression paired with the lack of progress from many of Kansas City’s most promising arms will have to be an area of focus for Picollo and his front office group.

The first move in that arena comes on the coaching staff. In addition to Matheny, the Royals move on from Eldred after five seasons as pitching coach. First hired to join Yost’s staff going into 2018, the former MLB right-hander remained in the role once Matheny took over two years later. Kansas City will now look for a new voice to work with the big league arms, and Andy McCullough of the Athletic reports the organization is likely to follow with changes to its pitching infrastructure in the player development department.

It’ll obviously be a significant winter for the Royals, who now have the American League’s second-longest active postseason drought. The team’s collection of high-upside rookie position players bolsters an increasingly promising lineup. Kansas City could look for upgrades in the corner outfield and at third base, but the bigger area of concern seems likely to be the pitching staff. The Royals will have to go outside the organization to add at least one or two starters (particularly if Greinke doesn’t return in free agency), and they’ll obviously hope for better results from the likes of Lynch and Bubic in 2023 and beyond.

Kansas City becomes the sixth MLB team without a permanent manager in place. The Blue Jays and Phillies have interim skippers in John Schneider and Rob Thomson, respectively. Those teams qualified for the postseason. The Rangers turned to Tony Beasley in an interim capacity after dismissing Chris Woodward, while the White Sox went with Miguel Cairo once Tony La Russa stepped aside due to health concerns. The Marlins, meanwhile, have already announced Don Mattingly won’t return as skipper next season. There’ll be a fair bit of turnover on the managerial front around the league, although the Angels solidified their situation this afternoon by signing Phil Nevin to a one-year deal and removing the interim tag from his title.

Image courtesy of USA Today Sports.

Tommy Boggs Passes Away

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Former major league pitcher Tommy Boggs passed away today after a battle with cancer, according to an announcement from Concordia University. Boggs, who’d been the head baseball coach at Concordia since 2009, was 66 years old.

The second overall pick of the 1974 draft, the right-hander joined the Rangers organization out of an Austin high school. Two years later, he was in the big leagues, debuting in July 1976 a few months shy of his 21st birthday. He made 13 starts for Texas as a rookie, pitching to a 3.49 ERA over 90 1/3 frames. He made just six MLB starts the following year, spending most of the season in Triple-A. Boggs was dealt to the Braves at the end of that year, part of a four-team blockbuster that sent Bert Blyleven from Texas to the Pirates.

Boggs would spend the next six seasons in Atlanta. After bouncing between the majors and Triple-A for the first two years, he carved out a permanent rotation role between 1980-81. Boggs had the best year of his career in 1980, making 32 appearances and working to a 3.42 ERA through 192 1/3 frames. He posted a 4.10 mark over 25 outings the following season before transitioning back into a depth role. Boggs stayed in Atlanta until 1983, then returned to the Rangers organization. After a year in the minors, he closed out his playing career with four relief appearances for Texas in ’85.

Altogether, Boggs played parts of nine MLB seasons. He posted a 4.22 ERA over 584 innings, winning 20 games and striking out 278 batters. He started 94 of his 114 big league outings.

MLBTR sends our condolences to Boggs’ family, friends, loved ones, former teammates and the number of players he coached at Concordia.

2023 Draft Lottery Odds Finalized

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The 2022 regular season is officially wrapped up, with the Mets beating the Nationals in the second game of a doubleheader to close out the year. 18 teams now formally turn their attention to 2023, while the postseason will get underway on Friday.

With the standings set for the league’s non-playoff teams, there’s some more clarity about next year’s amateur draft order. Unlike in previous seasons, where the draft order was fixed in the inverse of the prior year’s standings, the 2023 draft will be subject to a lottery. As part of the Players Association’s efforts to reduce the incentive for non-competitive teams to lose games, the latest collective bargaining agreement introduced a lottery to determine the top six overall selections. A team’s odds of landing a higher pick are still weighted in favor of the clubs with the worst records, although the three worst teams all have identical chances of landing the top selections. All 18 non-playoff teams are technically in the running for any of the top six picks, albeit with increasingly diminished odds for the clubs with better records. If two teams have the same record, the club with the worse record in the preceding season gets the higher odds.

The lottery only comes into play for the first round of the draft. From the second round onwards, pick order is determined in inverse order of the prior season’s standings (aside from compensatory and competitive balance selections).

Jonathan Mayo of MLB Pipeline and Carlos Collazo of Baseball America each relayed the odds for the first overall pick in next season’s draft.

  1. Nationals (55-107): 16.5%
  2. Athletics (60-102): 16.5%
  3. Pirates (62-100, 61-101 in ’21): 16.5%
  4. Reds (62-100, 83-79 in ’21): 13.25%
  5. Royals (65-97): 10%
  6. Tigers (66-96): 7.5%
  7. Rangers (68-94, 60-102 in ’21): 5.5%
  8. Rockies (68-94, 74-87 in ’21): 3.9%
  9. Marlins (69-93): 2.7%
  10. Angels (73-89): 1.8%
  11. Diamondbacks (74-88, 52-110 in ’21): 1.4%
  12. Cubs (74-88, 71-91 in ’21): 1.1%
  13. Twins (78-84, 73-89 in ’21): 0.9%
  14. Red Sox (78-84, 92-70 in ’21): 0.76%
  15. White Sox (81-81, 93-69 in ’21): 0.62%
  16. Giants (81-81, 107-55 in ’21): 0.48%
  17. Orioles (83-79): 0.36%
  18. Brewers (86-76): 0.23%

The date of the draft lottery has not been formally announced, but Mayo notes it’s expected to take place during the Winter Meetings. Joe Doyle of Prospects Live first reported last month that it’ll be run at the Winter Meetings on December 6.

After the first six selections are drawn, the remainder of the first round will run in inverse order of the standings among the teams not awarded a lottery pick. The Nationals will therefore pick no later than 7th, the A’s will pick no later than 8th, and so on. A team with a record outside the bottom six would only move up if drawn into the top six. The Brewers, for instance, will either win a pick between 1st and 6th or pick 18th; there is no scenario in which Milwaukee picks between 7th and 17th. If the Orioles don’t win a lottery pick, they’ll either pick 17th or 18th (only moving to 18th if Milwaukee is drawn into the top six).

While the process for the non-playoff teams is relatively straightforward, the ordering for the teams that qualify for the postseason is more complex, Mayo and Collazo report. The playoff teams will first be arranged by the round in which they’re eliminated — teams that lose in the Wild Card Round awarded higher picks than those that lose in the Division Series, teams that lose in the DS before clubs eliminated in the Championship Series, etc.

Within each group of eliminated clubs, teams are first sorted by revenue sharing status. Collazo reports that revenue sharing recipients will receive higher priority over non revenue sharing-recipients. Thus, the loser of the Rays – Guardians Wild Card series (both teams are revenue sharing recipients) would receive a higher selection than the loser of the Cardinals – Phillies series (neither team receives revenue sharing). Teams eliminated in the same round with the same revenue sharing status are then ordered by their reverse regular season win percentage.

While it won’t affect the order of the 2023 draft, the new CBA also introduced restrictions on teams qualifying for the lottery in consecutive seasons. Clubs that don’t receive revenue sharing are ineligible to earn a lottery pick in consecutive years. Teams that do receive revenue sharing aren’t permitted to receive a lottery pick for more than two straight years.

It looks as if the draft order will be settled two months from now, but there’s obviously plenty of uncertainty as to which players will be at the top of the class. Baseball America updated its preliminary top 100 draft prospects last month, slotting LSU right fielder Dylan Crews, Tennessee right-hander Chase Dollander and Ole Miss shortstop Jacob Gonzalez among the most talented prospects. There’ll obviously be plenty of movement once the amateur baseball circuit kicks back off next winter and spring.

Nelson Cruz To Undergo Eye Surgery

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Nationals slugger Nelson Cruz tells Jessica Camerato of MLB.com that he will undergo surgery on his left eye at the end of October due to some inflammation that is blocking his vision (Twitter links). He expects to resume baseball activities in 6-8 weeks, which should give him plenty of time to be ready for Spring Training.

“Vision is everything for hitters,” Cruz says. “But the good thing is, it can be fixed.” Going into more detail, he says: “You can only see clearly with the right eye. When I close this one, it’s not clear. I need my eyes to be sharp, to be able to see the ball, especially see spins.” Cruz then adds that he estimates the issue has been affecting him for the past year and a half, though it got worse recently.

The estimated timeline that Cruz provides is an interesting one, as that aligns with his downturn at the plate. He was an above-average hitter for 14 straight years from 2008 to 2021, though he tailed off in the second half of last year. He began the year with the Twins and hit .294/.370/.537 for a wRC+ of 142. In July, he was traded to the Rays for Joe Ryan, Drew Strotman and Calvin Faucher. Unfortunately for Tampa, Cruz’s production fell off almost immediately and he ended up hitting .226/.283/.442 as a Ray for a wRC+ of 95.

Despite that sluggish finish to the season, the rebuilding Nationals gave Cruz a one-year, $15MM deal plus a mutual option. The Nats didn’t really have designs on competing but likely hoped for Cruz to act as a mentor to younger players and then play well enough to be flipped for prospects midseason. Leading up to the trade deadline, there were some rumors that the Mets were interested, but a deal for Cruz never came together, likely due to his subpar performance this year. His batting line for the season is .234/.313/.337 for a wRC+ of 85.

Going into the offseason, Cruz is destined for the open market since mutual options are almost never picked up by both sides. This news about his eye will make his free agency an interesting case to watch. On the one hand, he is now 42 years old and has been below-average at the plate for over a year. He’s strictly a designated hitter at this point, meaning that he holds no value for teams if he can’t produce at the plate. However, if it’s true that the eye issue was holding him back, it’s possible that he could return to being a feared slugger like he was in the first few months of last season. He’ll have the next few months to find out which clubs are willing to take a chance on him.

Padres Place Mike Clevinger On IL Due To Illness

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The Padres announced that they have placed right-hander Mike Clevinger on the injured list due to illness. Fellow righty Nabil Crismatt was recalled in a corresponding move.

Clevinger, 31, was set to start the final game of the season but was scratched due to this illness. Jeff Sanders of the San Diego Union-Tribune reports that the team is still awaiting the results of a COVID test and also relays that Clevinger has been dealing with some knee soreness lately. He missed time earlier this year due to a knee sprain.

The timing of the ailment is significant, as the Padres have clinched a playoff spot and will begin a best-of-three Wild Card series against the Mets on Friday. Clevinger likely wouldn’t have earned a start in that series, with Yu Darvish, Blake Snell and Joe Musgrove the probables for those three contests. However, if the Friars can survive into the NLDS and beyond, they will likely need a fourth starter at some point. If Clevinger is not 100%, it’s possible that Sean Manaea might get the gig instead.

Clevinger missed all of 2021 while recovering from Tommy John surgery and has returned to throw 114 1/3 innings here in 2022. He has a 4.33 ERA, 18.8% strikeout rate, 7.2% walk rate and 35.2% ground ball rate. He’ll be a free agent at season’s end.

Red Sox Claim Easton McGee From Rays

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The Red Sox have claimed right-hander Easton McGee off waivers from the Rays, according to Chris Cotillo of MassLive. McGee had been designated for assignment on Monday.

McGee, 24, will join just the second organization of his career. He was drafted by the Rays in 2016 and has been with them until today. He’s never been a huge strikeout guy, but has always limited walks and gotten lots of ground balls, though he’s gotten less grounders this year. In 107 2/3 Triple-A innings this season, he registered a 5.43 ERA with a 17.4% strikeout rate, 4.3% walk rate and 39.6% ground ball rate. He was especially vulnerable to the long ball, surrendering 24 home runs this year.

The Rays selected him to the big league roster a week ago and put him into Sunday’s game. McGee threw three innings in his MLB debut without allowing an earned run, though one unearned run did cross the plate. He was designated for assignment the next day as part of the standard Tampa Bay roster churn.

The Red Sox are evidently intrigued by the 6’6″ righty, nabbing him off waivers on the final day of the regular season. McGee comes with a full slate of options and just a few days of service time, meaning he can be part of Boston’s pitching staff for the foreseeable future, so long as he hangs onto a 40-man roster spot. The club is facing a great deal of turnover in its rotation, with Nathan Eovaldi, Rich Hill and Michael Wacha all slated to reach free agency in a month’s time, making it fairly sensible to reach out and grab another depth option.

Mariners Place Jesse Winker On Injured List

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The Mariners have placed outfielder Jesse Winker on the 10-day injured list due to a neck issue, reports Ryan Divish of the Seattle Times (Twitter links). Fellow outfielder Taylor Trammell was recalled in a corresponding move. Shannon Drayer relays that Winker is likely done for the season but that Dylan Moore and Jarred Kelenic, both hit by pitches yesterday, should be okay. The Mariners subsequently announced the moves, describing Winker’s injury as a cervical disc bulge. His placement is retroactive to October 3.

It’s been a somewhat disappointing season for Winker, given that his results have fallen off from last year’s. However, he’s still been an above-average hitter for the season as a whole. With the Reds in 2021, Winker hit 24 home runs and produced a batting line of .305/.394/.556. That production was 47% better than league average by measure of wRC+. After coming to Seattle in an offseason trade, he’s hit 14 long balls and slashed .219/.344/.344. That’s obviously a big drop from last year but still good enough for a wRC+ of 109, or 9% above league average.

This IL placement is significant for a couple of reasons, including the timing. The M’s are about to begin the Wild Card series against the Blue Jays on Friday, the club’s first postseason appearance since 2001. Winker will now be officially unavailable for that series as well as a portion of the ALDS, should the Mariners survive that long.

There’s also the fact that the club’s outfield mix is banged up in a few other ways right now. The club also put Sam Haggerty on the IL yesterday, subtracting another useful member of the group. Julio Rodriguez just returned from his own IL stint due to back issues. As mentioned above, Kelenic and Moore were both hit by pitches last night and are sticking around, though it’s possible they may have some lingering soreness. That group, and Mitch Haniger, will now be joined by Trammell when the Mariners head to Toronto.

Angels Sign Phil Nevin To One-Year Deal As Manager

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The Angels announced that they have agreed to a one-year contract with Phil Nevin to manage the club in 2023. Nevin had taken over on an interim basis this year when Joe Maddon was fired but will stick around for another season in the dugout.

Nevin, 51, will get his first proper stint as a manager next year. After playing in 12 seasons from 1995 to 2006, he transitioned into coaching. He began in independent ball before getting some work in the minors. He got up to the major league level in 2017, joining the Giants as a third base coach before taking on the same job with the Yankees and then the Angels.

2022 got off to a roaring start for the Angels, with the club going 14-8 in April. For a moment, there was hope that the club could finally put it all together after years of not being able to capitalize on all the talent on their roster. However, the club slumped after that, eventually undergoing a 12-game losing streak across the end of May and early June, leading to Maddon getting fired as bench boss.

Nevin was promoted to interim manager at that point, losing his first two games to extend that losing streak to a 14-gamer. Overall, since the switch, the club has gone 46-59. Those aren’t exactly inspiring numbers, but it’s hard to know how much of that to pin on Nevin given the deficiencies of the roster.

Despite Nevin’s lack of experience and tepid results so far, there’s some logic to maintaining the continuity of the staff by keeping him around. There’s a great deal of uncertainty hovering over the club right now for a few reasons, one of which is that owner Arte Moreno is exploring selling the team. It’s possible that the club has a new owner in place or at least lined up by this time next year. At that time, they may have their own plans about how they want to run the club, whether they want to try to compete immediately or embark on a rebuild. Given that uncertain future, it makes sense to keep Nevin in there as a sort of placeholder until the future becomes clearer. The alternative would be conducting a lengthy search to find a new manager, but candidates might not be enthused about stepping into a situation that is still very much in flux.

There’s also the uncertainty around the on-field product. Despite having tremendously talented players like Mike Trout, Shohei Ohtani and Anthony Rendon on the roster, the team has continued to disappoint. They haven’t made the playoffs since 2014 and haven’t had a winning record since 2015. Ohtani is currently slated to reach free agency after the 2023 campaign, at which point Trout will be 32 and Rendon will be 33. It’s entirely possible that next season is the one that they finally put it all together, but it’s also possible that they disappoint yet again. The roster has obvious holes right now and it’s hard to guess how much Moreno would be interested in spending on a team he’s actively trying to sell.

There’s a wide variety of potential outcomes for the next year with a vast number of unknowns beyond that. The club will eventually have to decide what kind of manager they want, depending on which path they go down. However, today’s decision to keep Nevin around effectively kicks that can down the road for another year.

Image courtesy of USA Today Sports.

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