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MLBPA Drops Proposed Bonus Pool Allotment From $105MM To $100MM

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FEBRUARY 2: While the parties are meeting on non-core economics issues today, both Ben Nicholson-Smith of Sportsnet and Michael Silverman of The Boston Globe write that core economics discussion could pick back up by the end of this week. Whenever those discussions resume, the owners are likely to put forth their response to the MLBPA’s Tuesday proposal.

FEBRUARY 1: There was another round of collective bargaining negotiations this afternoon, at which the Major League Baseball Players Association made its latest proposal. According to various reports, the union put forth only small changes relative to its past offers.

The most meaningful alterations are twofold, hears Evan Drellich of the Athletic (Twitter thread). First, the union tweaked the bonus pool system that would award exceptional pre-arbitration performers. While the MLBPA had pushed for a $105MM pool in previous offers, they reduced that number to $100MM in today’s proposal. That’s still far above the $10MM that MLB has envisioned for those bonus allotments, leaving a massive gap yet to be bridged. As Drellich and Ken Rosenthal explained yesterday, that’s even before accounting for the fact that the MLBPA is hoping to spread that money to a smaller group of players than MLB would like, given the union’s push for players reaching arbitration earlier in their careers.

The other known modification to the union’s offer, per Drellich, involves efforts to disincentivize service time gaming. The MLBPA is seeking to allow players to “earn” a full year of service based upon their finishes in various awards voting and placements on Wins Above Replacement leaderboards. The union’s most recent offer would grant a full year of service to catchers and infielders who finish among the top seven in each league in their position’s WAR rankings; outfielders, starting pitchers and relief pitchers who land among the top 20 in their league by WAR at each position would also pick up a bonus year. That’s less comprehensive than previous union proposals, which would’ve granted a full year of service to catchers and infielders among the top 10 at their position and outfielders and pitchers among their league’s top 30. (Presumably, the union’s previous efforts to reward service time based on awards voting remains in place).

Basing service time off positional WAR rankings has its challenges. Teams have become increasingly flexible in deploying players all around the diamond, perhaps making it difficult to identify certain players’ “true” positions. That’s also the case in drawing a distinction between starters and relievers, particularly as teams have expanded their use of openers and true bullpen games to manage pitcher workloads and mitigate the times-through-the-order effect (where hitters tend to perform better after seeing the same pitcher multiple times in an outing). The league and union would also need to agree upon some form of WAR metric — whether by pulling directly from one website like FanGraphs or Baseball Reference, blending multiple public WAR figures together to create a composite number, or by fashioning one from scratch.

Finally, the union acquiesced (at least in concept) to a league initiative on service time manipulation. MLB’s most recent proposal included the possibility of teams receiving draft pick compensation as a reward for keeping top prospects on their roster for an entire season, if those players go on to hit certain thresholds in awards voting. Drellich tweets that the union is on board with the possibility of awarding extra draft selections to incentivize teams to put talented young players on their active roster, although the union’s proposal contained unspecified modifications to MLB’s vision.

Much about the MLBPA’s proposal this afternoon remains unchanged relative to past discussions. Bob Nightengale of USA Today writes that the parties remain significantly divided on issues like the lowest league minimum salary — the union is seeking $775K; MLB has offered $615K — and the next base luxury tax threshold, which the MLBPA is hoping to set at $245MM while MLB has proposed $214MM.

Given the relativity minor changes in the union proposal, it’s little surprise that general sentiment about the state of negotiations remains overwhelmingly negative. Chelsea Janes of the Washington Post tweets that today’s talks were “heated.” Jeff Passan of ESPN suggests the prospect of starting Spring Training on time is now “in grave danger,” while Jon Heyman of the MLB Network calls it remote. Nightengale tweets that the parties are expected to meet again tomorrow but will limit those talks to issues outside of core economics.

Quick Hits: Mullins, Farm Rankings, Mariners, Universal DH

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Cedric Mullins of the Baltimore Orioles, baseball’s top power-speed threat in 2021, opened up in a video (Twitter link) that dropped today about some previously private health struggles with Crohn’s disease. The 27-year-old details how teammate Trey Mancini’s abrupt colon cancer diagnosis before the 2020 season helped him pay more attention to his own health woes.

This introspection ultimately led Mullins down a path that included intestinal surgery in November 2020, severe weight loss, and a Crohn’s disease diagnosis that very well could have been career-derailing. That Mullins broke out last season— earning an All-Star nod, Silver Slugger, and the distinction as baseball’s only 30-30 player— is made all the more remarkable by the presence of a condition that so often proves debilitating. We at MLBTR tip our collective caps to Mullins for sharing his story and raising awareness for a condition that is growing in prevalence.

Some more uplifting news from around the league…

  • Baseball America unveiled their 2022 Organization Talent Rankings today, with the Seattle Mariners claiming the top spot on this offseason’s installment. With talented youngsters like Julio Rodriguez, George Kirby, and Noelvi Marte forcing their way up the minor leagues and the Mariners fresh off a 90-win season, the time may be right to buy stock in the Mariners franchise. BA’s Kyle Glaser notes that 16 of the last 17 teams to claim the top farm system have reached the playoffs within two years of earning that distinction. The one team who bucked that trend, the 2011 Royals, took three years, reaching the World Series in 2014 and winning it in 2015. This history may prove to be of huge import for Seattle fans, who are now 20 years removed from their last playoff appearance.
  • Jon Heyman of MLB Network lent more credence to the idea that a universal DH will be included in the next CBA, stating (via Twitter) “Barring something totally unexpected, it can be assumed at this point that the universal DH will be in place in 2022”. Heyman adds that both the player’s union and league are in favor of implementing the rule, though there is some disagreement about which party will benefit more from having a DH in the National League. We polled readers back in December to gauge how a universal DH would be received, with 62% of readers expressing enthusiasm, 26% expressing disdain, and another 12% expressing indifference to the change.

15 Hitters Who Quieted Injury Concerns In 2021

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One of the most inescapable realities in any professional sport is that athletes are going to get hurt. For baseball, a 162-game schedule combined with limited chances in each game for a player to make an impact leads to a high frequency of all-out plays. Sprinting to first base, diving for flyballs, and standing firm in the face of 100mph fastballs are commonplace— as are the injuries that can result from each of those actions. 

The effects of injuries on a player’s career are, naturally, high variance. This winter’s top two free agents, for example, have been dogged by injuries throughout their careers to the general indifference of bidders. More often, however, it appears that injuries turn All-Stars into afterthoughts or dash a player’s shot at a breakout year altogether. No matter the severity of an injury, fans, players, and front offices can all generally agree on one thing: injuries are annoying.

With few players ever immune from the injury bug, a number of stars entered the 2021 season looking to correct some health trends from previous seasons. The sheer number of stars looking to prove their health at the beginning of 2021 may be larger than many remember, as 2020’s pandemic-shortened season did little to showcase player health. After all, even if a player played in all 60 games that season, would it be enough to shed the “injury prone” label if they were hurt often in 2018 and 2019? Another issue with the 2020 season was how it disrupted player conditioning, leading to a higher rate of injuries than the average season (per research compiled by Chet Gutwein of FanGraphs).

Determining which players were worthy of the “injury prone” label coming into the season (and accordingly, who shirked that distinction after a mostly healthy 2021 campaign) is a subjective activity. Still, we can put some parameters on our search to narrow the list of players who actually needed to prove they can stay on the field and produce.

For starters, we can look at players who dealt with injuries over the past three seasons prior to 2021; out of a possible 384 games we’ll say any player who missed more than 100 of those games carried noteworthy injury questions in recent years. That pool can then be whittled down further to include players who ultimately proved healthy in 2021— we’ll set the bar there at 2/3 of games played, or 108 games, to indicate a player was twice as healthy as not. Lastly, a player had to be good in 2021 in order to quiet doubters, so the following list of players will only include players who produced at an above average level in 2021, with a wRC+ north of 100. 

To recap, this list of players missed at least 100 games between 2018-2020, but played in 2/3 of their team’s regular season games at an above average level in 2021. Players like Yordan Alvarez, who technically meet the above criteria but did not debut until 2019, will be excluded on the basis of having too small a sample size to draw health trends from. Likewise, players like Ian Happ who only meet the above criteria due to minor league demotions or some other non-injury related reason will not be included on the list.

  • Kris Bryant (Missed 101 games between 2018-2020; Played 144 games, posted 123 wRC+ in 2021)
    Bryant may seem like an odd entrant on this list, but questions existed after he sported a .644 OPS in 34 games during the shortened season. A shoulder injury limited Bryant to 102 games and just 13 home runs in 2018.
  • Justin Turner (Missed 104 games between 2018-2020; Played 151 games, posted 127 wRC+ in 2021)
    Turner matched a career high in games played last season, a welcome sight after a myriad of maladies in recent years allowed him to land on this list. Entering his age-37 season, Turner seems like a prime candidate to stay fresh at the DH position if/when it becomes universal.
  • C.J. Cron (Missed 106 games between 2018-2020; Played 142 games, posted 127 wRC+ in 2021)
    Knee surgery and a 13-game showing in 2020 are the driving reason for Cron’s inclusion here. This layoff made Cron’s career year in Colorado all the more surprising, as his jump to the NL saw him blow most of his previous bests out of the water.
  • Joey Gallo (Missed 109 games between 2018-2020; Played 153 games, posted 123 wRC+ in 2021)
    Another oddball entrant on the list, Gallo missed the bulk of his time during his 2019 All-Star campaign owing to a second half wrist injury. A .679 OPS showing across 57 games in 2020 did little to quell concerns that Gallo was back to his 40-homer days, but a 38-homer campaign with the Rangers and Yankees in 2021 may have done the trick.
  • Andrew McCutchen (Missed 113 games between 2018-2020; Played 144 games, posted 107 wRC+ in 2021)
    The former-MVP has largely been the pinnacle of health, but a torn ACL in 2019 led to over 100 lost games in that season alone. McCutchen has seen better days on both sides of the ball, but entering his age-35 season he again seems as solid a bet as anyone to provide durability and solid production.
  • Kevin Kiermaier (Missed 118 games between 2018-2020; Played 122 games, posted 101 wRC+ in 2021)
    Kiermaier is one of those players who seems like a walking injury-risk, a stigma perhaps upheld by the fact that Tampa Bay has yet to trade him. To his credit however, Kiermaier just had one of the better offensive campaigns of his career, showing solid health and sterling-as-always defense as well.
  • AJ Pollock (Missed 130 games between 2018-2020; Played 117 games, posted 137 wRC+ in 2021)
    On a star-studded Dodgers roster Pollock quietly played in 117 games last season, a number he hadn’t eclipsed since his otherworldly 2015 campaign. The Dodgers have weened Pollock off of center field duty in recent years, which may again help him stay healthy entering his age-34 season.
  • Carlos Correa (Missed 141 games between 2018-2020; Played 148 games, posted 134 wRC+ in 2021)
    Baseball’s top remaining free agent found an optimal time to stick on the field and produce. Correa’s elite 2021 season came on the heels of three seasons that were each plagued with underperformance or IL time.
  • Aaron Judge (Missed 144 games between 2018-2020; Played 148 games, posted 148 wRC+ in 2021)
    Wrist, oblique, and calf injuries sapped Judge of playing time from 2018-2020, but there wasn’t any rust last season. Judge played in 148 games last year, a total he hasn’t reached since his Rookie of the Year-winning 2017 campaign, and remains as fearsome an at-bat for opposing teams as ever.
  • Josh Donaldson (Missed 149 games between 2018-2020; Played 135 games, posted 124 wRC+ in 2021)
    Donaldson has alternated healthy seasons with injury-riddled ones as of late, though he’s made his presence felt in recent odd-year seasons.
  • Miguel Sano (Missed 155 games between 2018-2020; Played 135 games, posted 110 wRC+ in 2021)
    A few minor league demotions contributed to that missed game total, though injuries have still kept Sano out of 100+ Major League games, making him eligible for this list. Sano’s 135 games played represent a career-high, even if the rest of his 2021 rate stats seem modest compared to years past.
  • Mitch Haniger (Missed 164 games between 2018-2020; Played 157 games, posted 120 wRC+ in 2021)
    Surgeries kept Haniger from taking the field at all in 2020, a year after missing most of 2019’s season to injury. Haniger filled up the stat sheet in 2021 though, matching his personal best of 157 games played while hitting 39 home runs and reaching the century mark in both runs scored and RBIs.
  • Giancarlo Stanton (Missed 184 games between 2018-2020; Played 139 games, posted 137 wRC+ in 2021)
    It had been a few years since Stanton was regularly healthy in pinstripes, as he played in just 41 regular season games from 2019-2020. Stanton was in such good form last season however, that he was able to stay healthy even with irregular outfield reps.
  • Tyler Naquin (Missed 194 games between 2018-2020; Played 127 games, posted 110 wRC+ in 2021)
    Injuries took the shine off what had the potential to be a strong Cleveland tenure, thanks to a solid rookie season in 2016. While he was probably miscast as a centerfielder, Naquin offered solid production across a career-high 127 games for the Reds last season.
  • Salvador Perez (Missed 218 games between 2018-2020; Played 161 games, posted 127 wRC+ in 2021)
    An elbow injury wiped out all of Perez’s 2019 campaign, while eye issues limited his follow-up season. That Perez was able to bop 48 home runs and play 161 games— 124 of which came from behind the dish— was remarkable, and may spell a return to form for a catcher who logged huge games played totals up to 2018.

The above players still carry some level of risk heading into the eventually-going-to-happen 2022 season, as all athletes do. With largely healthy and productive 2021 seasons in the books though it’s hard to argue this group didn’t elevate their stocks, providing at least some extra cause for optimism that they can stay on the field when baseball resumes.

But what do you think, did any other hitter inspire enough confidence in 2021 for you to feel good about healthier days ahead? Let us know in the comments!

Tyler Glasnow: “Would Much Prefer” To Stay With Rays

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Tyler Glasnow is among the higher-profile trade candidates around the league. The right-hander underwent Tommy John surgery last August and will miss at least the bulk of the 2022 campaign. Projected by MLBTR contributor Matt Swartz for a $5.8MM arbitration salary in his second-to-last year of club control, Glasnow could find himself on the move after the lockout. It’s possible the low-payroll Rays would prefer to reallocate those funds to more immediate help as they try for a third straight division title.

If Glasnow had his way, though, he’d stick in Tampa Bay. The 28-year-old chatted with Chris Rose of Jomboy Media during a recent episode of The Chris Rose Rotation (video link on YouTube). Asked whether he’d remain a member of the Rays, Glasnow noted some uncertainty but flatly stated that’d be his preference.

“Your guess is as good as mine,” he replied.”I hope. I really, really hope. I didn’t get traded before the lockout, so that’s a good sign. … I think if somebody were to call the Rays and give them a really awesome deal or something, (president of baseball operations Erik Neander) is not going to be like ’no.’ He has to listen to everything. That’s just how being a GM is.

But we have a really good relationship. Time will tell, but I would much prefer to stay a Ray. It would be nice to watch everyone in the beginning of the season and how good the team is and how young everyone is and then try to weave my back in and contribute.”

As Glasnow implied, it seems there’s a chance he’ll make it back to the mound late during the upcoming season. The Southern California native suggested he’s soon to begin throwing from 45 feet, the first time since going under the knife that he’ll pick up a ball. Glasnow noted there’s sure to be some variability in recovering from such a significant procedure and pointed to the many hurdles still in front of him, adding that he’s taking his rehab “day-by-day, week-by-week.” Yet he also suggested he has progressed as planned to this point and didn’t rule out the possibility of returning in August or September.

If the Rays do hold onto Glasnow, it’d be a huge boon for the club if he could make a late-season return. Over 14 starts last year, he worked 88 innings of 2.66 ERA/2.92 SIERA ball. The 6’8″ hurler punched out a massive 36.2% of batters faced against a solid 7.9% walk percentage. Glasnow has still yet to exceed 111 2/3 frames during an MLB season, but his rate production since the start of 2019 has been elite. Over the past three years, 156 hurlers have worked at least 150 innings as a starting pitcher. Glasnow ranks fifth among that group in ERA (2.80) and FIP (2.87) and sixth in strikeout/walk rate differential (28.1 percentage points).

If Glasnow can hit the ground running late in the season — even if he’s forced to work in shorter stints — that’d be an impact boost for the Rays (or a potential acquiring team) if they remain in the thick of the playoff race. Even if the club has fallen out of contention by that point, getting Glasnow some innings so he can enter the 2023 season with fewer question marks would be welcome. It remains to be seen whether a late-season comeback will be viable, but it’s encouraging to hear it currently remains a possibility.

Glasnow and Rose go on to speak about the Rays’ stadium situation, including the organization’s since-killed plans to split seasons between Tampa Bay and Montreal. They also address the ongoing lockout and the pitcher’s day-to-day routine during his rehab process among a wide-ranging conversation. Rays fans, in particular, will want to check out the interview in full.

Giants Agree To Minor League Deals With Luis Ortiz, Wei-Chieh Huang

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The Giants have agreed to minor league contracts with free-agent right-handers Luis Ortiz and Wei-Chieh Huang, as indicated on the team’s official transactions log at MLB.com.

Both righties have a bit of big league experience, with Ortiz’s 2019 showing in Baltimore standing as the most recent. He’s tallied just 5 2/3 innings in the big leagues, all with the Orioles, and yielded eight runs on 11 hits and eight walks in that time. It’s not an especially impressive showing, but it’s a tiny sample of work for Ortiz, who notably ranked among the game’s top 100 prospects from 2016-17 in the estimation of Baseball America, Baseball Prospectus and MLB.com. He’s the second former top prospect added by the Giants in recent weeks, joining righty Jorge Guzman in that regard.

A former Rangers farmhand, Ortiz has been involved in a pair of notable trades — going from Texas to Milwaukee in the Jonathan Lucroy/Jeremy Jeffress deal before being flipped from Milwaukee to Baltimore as part of the return for Jonathan Schoop. At his prospect peak, Ortiz was praised for a mid-90s fastball, a plus slider and strong command, all of which gave him the upside of a mid-rotation starter.

Ortiz dealt with elbow and forearm troubles early in his pro career, however, and he’s only reached 100 innings in a single season (when he threw 102 between Double-A, Triple-A and Baltimore). He returned to the Rangers on a minor league deal for the 2021 season and worked primarily out of the bullpen in Triple-A Round Rock, where he posted a 4.60 ERA, a 23.4% strikeout rate and a 9.0% walk rate in 43 innings. Ortiz is still just 26 and has had solid results up through the Double-A level, but it’s been a rough go of it for him both in Triple-A and in the Majors.

Huang, 28, reached the bigs with Texas back in 2018 — albeit only for a brief 5 2/3-inning look. He held opponents to a pair of earned runs but also surrendered eight hits and five walks during that short-lived stint. Wang wasn’t with a Major League player pool in 2020, when there was no minor league season, and he didn’t pitch in affiliated ball last year either. However, he’s rattled off three perfect innings in the Dominican Winter League this year, fanning five hitters along the way. He’ll join the Giants org with a career 3.37 minor league ERA in addition to a strong 28.2% strikeout rate and an 8.7% walk rate.

White Sox Hire Nicky Delmonico As Minor League Hitting Coach

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Former White Sox outfielder/designated hitter Nicky Delmonico has rejoined the organization — but not as a player. The ChiSox announced this morning that the 29-year-old Delmonico will be the new hitting coach for their Class-A Advanced affiliate. Delmonico hadn’t made a formal announcement of his retirement, but it seems as though at least for now, he’s moving to another phase of the game.

A sixth-round pick by the Orioles back in 2011, Delmonico was traded to the Brewers in a 2013 swap that sent Francisco Rodriguez to Baltimore. After that K-Rod trade, Delmonico spent a couple seasons in the Brewers organization but never advanced beyond Class-A Advanced before being cut loose. He latched on as a minor league free agent with the White Sox the following offseason and righted the ship with solid showings at Double-A and Triple-A in 2015-16.

By 2017, Delmonico had been called up for his big league debut, turning some heads with a .262/.373/.482 showing through 166 plate appearances as a 25-year-old rookie. He’d spend parts of the next three seasons with the South Siders but was never able to recapture that rookie form. On the whole, Delmonico logged 574 plate appearances in the Majors and batted .224/.312/.384 with 18 home runs, 17 doubles and five triples. Delmonico was a better hitter in the upper minors, slashing .274/.342/.487 in parts of three Double-A seasons and .259/.342/.421 in parts of five Triple-A seasons.

Delmonico is the latest recent big leaguer to join the ChiSox’ minor league coaching ranks. The Sox hired Danny Farquhar as their Class-A Advanced pitching coach for the 2021 season and named former big league corner infielder Chris Johnson their Triple-A hitting coach in Dec. 2020. Former ChiSox infielder Chris Getz, meanwhile, heads up the team’s player development department and was elevated to assistant GM a year ago.

MLB Names Omar Minaya Consultant For Amateur Scouting Initiatives

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Major League Baseball announced this morning that former Expos and Mets general manager Omar Minaya has been named a league consultant who’ll focus on amateur scouting initiatives. According to the press release, Minaya will “advise MLB’s Baseball Operations Department regarding both domestic and international scouting initiatives” and “represent MLB with key stakeholders across amateur baseball and at industry events.”

“Omar is a highly respected figure across our sport who will help shape our future initiatives in the amateur space,” commissioner Rob Manfred said in a statement within today’s press release. “We are pleased that he will provide his scouting expertise and experience as a senior executive with multiple MLB Clubs. We welcome Omar and look forward to his contributions.”

Minaya, 63, broke into baseball operations as a scout with the Rangers in the mid-1980s. Most notably, he served as GM in Montreal from 2002-04 before rejoining the Mets (where he’d been an assistant GM) as their general manager from 2004-10. From there, he’d go on to work as a senior vice president of baseball operations with the Padres and eventually as a senior advisor to MLBPA executive director Tony Clark. Most recently, Minaya has again been working with the Mets — first as a special assistant to Sandy Alderson and then in an ambassadorship role.

“For four decades, scouting has been a true passion of mine,” Minaya said in a statement of his own. “It is an honor for me to assist Major League Baseball to ensure the scouting industry remains the lifeblood of this game. As baseball evolves, scouting has changed, and I’m excited to be part of how the industry moves forward in scouting players.”

Kumar Rocker Could Pitch In Independent League Before Re-Entering MLB Draft

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Right-hander Kumar Rocker, whom the Mets selected with the No. 10 overall pick last summer but ultimately did not sign, is now mulling the idea of pitching with an independent team before re-entering the 2022 draft, Vanderbilt coach Tim Corbin tells Aria Gerson of The Tennessean.

Prior to the 2021 college season, Rocker and teammate Jack Leiter were both among the many names rumored to be in consideration for the No. 1 overall selection in the draft. He instead “fell” to the tenth overall selection — Louisville catcher Henry Davis went first overall to the Pirates; Leiter went second to the Rangers — and within hours of the draft was expected finalize an over-slot agreement with the Mets. Rocker’s No. 10 slot came with a value of more than $4.7MM, but the Mets were said to be preparing to sign the righty for a $6MM bonus that was more commensurate with his potential top-of-the-draft status.

However, as the signing deadline approached weeks later, the reports emerged that the Mets had elbow concerns following Rocker’s physical. A contract was never finalized, and Rocker went unsigned. Then-general manager Zack Scott stated after the fact that failing to reach a deal was “clearly not the outcome we had hoped for,” adding that the team “wish[ed] Kumar nothing but success moving forward.” Rocker’s advisor, Scott Boras, issued his own statement at the time, wherein he declared that “independent medical review by multiple prominent baseball orthopedic surgeons” had proven Rocker to be healthy. The Mets received the No. 11 pick in the 2022 draft as compensation for not signing Rocker.

Whatever triggered the Mets’ concern, it hasn’t resulted in any major physical setbacks for Rocker since the draft. There’s no indication that surgery was ever required, and Corbin tells Gerson that Rocker, who did not return to pitch for the Commodores in his senior season, “looks as good as he’s ever looked” and appears to be in good health.

Rocker’s path to reentering the draft would be uncommon but not unheard of. Back in 2005, after right-hander Luke Hochevar controversially chose not sign with the Dodgers following his No. 40 selection, he went on to pitch for the Fort Worth Cats of the independent American Association in the spring of 2006. The Royals selected Hochevar with the No. 1 overall pick in 2006.

A similar scenario unfolded with right-hander Aaron Crow, who did not sign with the Nationals after being selected ninth overall in 2008. Crow signed with the Fort Worth Cats and was selected 12th overall by Kansas City in 2009. Back in 1997, outfielder J.D. Drew followed the indie ball path after choosing not to sign with the Phillies. More recently, righty Carter Stewart signed a six-year contract worth more than $7MM with the SoftBank Hawks in Japan after failing to come to an agreement with the Braves, who’d selected him at No. 8 overall in 2018. As with Rocker, medical concerns following the player’s physical derailed talks between Atlanta and Stewart.

It’s anyone’s guess how the entire gambit will work out for Rocker — if he even pitches on the independent circuit at all this season. That will largely depend on his performance and even more so on his health. So long as Rocker’s stuff looks similar to his Vandy days, he should still be viewed as a first-round talent. The 6’5″, 245-pound righty was dominant with the Commodores in 2021, after all, pitching to a 2.73 ERA with 179 strikeouts and 39 walks through 122 innings (36.5% strikeout rate, 7.9% walk rate). Scouting reports on Rocker credit him with a plus fastball that can reach the upper-90s, a plus-plus slider (70 on the 20-80 scale) and an average or better changeup.

Trade Candidate: Carlos Santana

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Carlos Santana was an above average hitter in every season of the first decade of his career. In his first taste of the big leagues, 2010, he only played 46 games but knocked six homers and walked more than he struck out, slashing .260/.401/.467 for a wRC+ of 141. In each of the next nine seasons, he played at least 143 games, hit at least 19 home runs and never had a walk rate lower than 13.2% or a wRC+ lower than 108.

In 2020, his age-34 season, things didn’t go so smooth, as he hit just .199/.349/.350, wRC+ of 99. However, there were still reasons for optimism. Firstly, it was a small sample of just 60 games, due to the pandemic. Secondly, the walk rate was still excellent, coming in at 18.4%. Thirdly, his .212 batting average on balls in play was well below his previous seasons, suggesting that perhaps bad luck was dragging him down somewhat.

The Royals seemingly favored that optimistic view, as they beat the market and signed Santana to a two-year contract with a $17.5MM guarantee prior to the 2021 season. At the time, the club had posted a losing record in four straight seasons, but believed the time was right to act aggressive in trying to bolster a young core and attempt to open a competitive window.

Unfortunately, things didn’t go according to plan for Santana or the team. Although the walks were still there, as evidenced by his 13.1% rate, his line of .214/.319/.342 only amounted to a wRC+ of 83. The BABIP rebounded, but only slightly, to .227. As for the team, they finished well out of contention with a record of 74-88.

The Royals now have a bit of a crowded infield mix for a few reasons. While Adalberto Mondesi was on the shelf last year, Nicky Lopez took over the shortstop job, pushing Mondesi to third base upon his return. That pushed Hunter Dozier into spending some time at first base and the corner outfield spots. Then there’s the looming presence of top prospects Bobby Witt Jr. and Nick Pratto. Witt should eventually be playing regularly at shortstop or third base, which could push Mondesi into some time at DH, or push Lopez to second, pushing Whit Merrifield into the outfield, which bumps someone else into DH time.

Pratto, however, is a more direct source of pressure on Santana, as he is almost exclusively a first baseman, playing just three games in the outfield last year. Between Double-A and Triple-A last year, Pratto hit 36 home runs with a line of .265/.385/.602, wRC+ of 156.

That crowded position player mix makes Santana a clear trade candidate, given that he has just one year and $10.5MM remaining on his contract. The trouble for the Royals lies both in that they would be trading low on Santana and also that there are other first base options available to those teams looking for one. The free agent market features Freddie Freeman, Kyle Schwarber, Anthony Rizzo as the high profile names, along with other options such as Daniel Vogelbach, Brad Miller, Albert Pujols and many more. On the trade front, Matt Olson is widely expected to be traded after the lockout. Luke Voit could be on the move if the Yankees find another option. Even if the Royals want to go the route of including a prospect to help stimulate a Santana trade, they’d be competing with the Padres who are known to be trying to take the same approach with Eric Hosmer.

It might be a challenge to hastily work out a deal during the transaction frenzy that will surely take place between whenever the lockout ends and the season gets underway. Perhaps the best path forward for the Royals is to hold onto Santana and hope that he can get things back on track, either to help the team compete or to rebuild trade value. He was dealing with a quad issue at times last year, which he has now recovered from, but he will turn 36 in April, making it harder to expect perfect health and ideal production going forward. Though late career bounceback campaigns are certainly possible, as Joey Votto just showed in his age-37 season.

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