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Adam Conley Clears Waivers, Elects Free Agency

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Left-handed pitcher Adam Conley, who was recently designated for assignment by the Rays, has cleared waivers and elected free agency per Marc Topkin of the Tampa Bay Times.

The 31-year-old Conley pitched effectively for a dominant Rays team after signing a surprise minor league deal in May. The jarring nature of Conley’s contract with the Rays came after he backed out of a deal with NPB’s Tohoku Rakuten Golden Eagles, citing pandemic-related concerns.

For all the tumult of the reliever’s offseason though, the effects weren’t particular pronounced on his bottom-line results. Conley pitched to a 2.29 ERA across 19+ innings for Tampa Bay, albeit with less shiny peripherals and minor league numbers (4.35 ERA in 31 Triple-A innings). Some good BABIP fortune largely explains the hurler’s pristine ERA, but even when factoring that in his ability to limit walks and avoid hard contact were definite pluses. Another team will likely sign Conley to a low-risk deal to serve as depth in the coming months, perhaps eyeing a bit of upside if his effectiveness in this year’s small sample size proves sustainable.

Injury/Health Notes: Britton, Oberg, Wieck

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Yankees GM Brian Cashman confirmed what most fans had already expected, telling reporters that “it’s probable you won’t see” Zack Britton in 2022 (link via Ken Davidoff of the New York Post). Cashman didn’t fully rule out the possibility that the lefty could return for a playoff push. The long-time Orioles closer and Yankees set-up man underwent reconstructive elbow surgery in September — something of a surprise at the time, as both club and player had only planned on a procedure to remove bone chips from his left elbow, but that procedure evidently revealed significant damage to Britton’s UCL.

The southpaw arrived in the Bronx from Baltimore in a July 2018 trade and had no problems shifting from closer to a set-up role, logging 25 innings of 2.88 ERA ball before posting a combined 1.90 ERA (and an elite 232 ERA+) across 80 1/3 innings between 2019 and ’20. His 2021 came off the rails, however, as his ERA ballooned to 5.89 behind a BB% spike to 17.1% (his career mark was 9.5% entering the season). Britton’s $14MM salary — which became guaranteed when the Yankees picked up his 2022 option in October 2020 — essentially becomes dead money. The news may mean a bigger role for 2021 deadline acquisition Joely Rodriguez, who re-signed with the Yankees for one-year, $2MM on Wednesday.

Some other notes on injury situations around the game:

  • Per The Athletic’s Nick Groke (Twitter link), righty Scott Oberg has undergone another procedure to further address issues arising from repeated blood clots in his arm. Though the righty reliever hasn’t seen a mound since 2019, Groke reports that the Colorado front office wants him in a Rockies uniform next year “even if he’s not able to pitch,” and Oberg has confirmed his desire to return. Oberg scouted and coached while on the IL in 2021, serving as something of a “bullpen Yoda,” per Groke. The Rockies may ask him to shift to that role more formally in 2022. Oberg has a solid 3.85 ERA (3.98 FIP) across 257 1/3 big-league innings spanning five seasons. The 31-year-old had planned to pitch in 2021 after undergoing thoracic surgery in September 2020 that doctors thought would keep the issue from recurring, but the issue returned following a March 2021 Spring Training appearance. As Danielle Allentuck of the Denver Gazette explained last month, Oberg spent a night in the ICU earlier this year ahead of an emergency surgery after his hand went numb and trainers couldn’t find a pulse in his wrist. This more recent procedure was planned, Groke notes.
  • The Cubs announced to reporters that left-handed reliever Brad Wieck has been cleared for all baseball activities following a heart ablation procedure to address a irregular heartbeat — the second such procedure he’s undergone in two years (Twitter link via Meghan Montemurro of the Chicago Tribune). The importance of Wieck’s numbers pale in comparison to his health, of course, but he was a stellar bullpen option for the Cubs through early July, when he didn’t allow a single earned run while striking out 28 (albeit alongside 10 walks) in 17 innings. For his career, the 30-year-old Wieck has a 3.77 ERA and high-end 35.9 K% in 59 2/3 innings across parts of four seasons with the Cubs and Padres.

Brett Cecil Announces Retirement

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Left-handed reliever Brett Cecil took to Instagram this week to announce his retirement from baseball. In a lengthy statement, Cecil thanked his family, his representatives at ACES and both Major League teams for which he pitched: the Blue Jays and the Cardinals.

Brett Cecil

Cecil, 35, hasn’t pitched in the Majors since the 2018 season, although that’s not for lack of effort. The southpaw signed a four-year contract with the Cardinals in the 2016-17 offseason and turned in a solid first year in St. Louis before injuries completely derailed his time with the organization. A shoulder strain landed Cecil on the injured list after his first appearance of the 2018 season. He missed more than a month with that injury and spent another month on the shelf due to a foot strain later that year.

The 2019 season was a complete wash for Cecil, who underwent surgery to alleviate carpal tunnel syndrome in his pitching hand early in the year. He wasn’t able to make it back to the mound in ’19, and his 2020 season never got off the ground. Cecil suffered what the team termed a “significant” hamstring strain in Spring Training, not long before the league shutdown due to the Covid-19 pandemic. He’d made it back to the mound and was reportedly exploring a new sidearm delivery when MLB clubs began their “Summer Camp” in advance of the shortened season. The Cardinals cut him loose prior to the new Opening Day in what would have been the final season of that four-year, $30.5MM contract, however. He did not sign with a team for the 2021 season.

Cecil’s run in St. Louis clearly didn’t go as hoped, but the injury-plagued nature of that contract tends to overshadow the quality results he’d enjoyed in Toronto prior to signing that deal. Cecil had a bit of success as a starter with the Jays in 2010-11, pitching to a 4.43 ERA in 296 1/3 innings over the life of 48 starts. That two-year period even included a pair of complete games — one of them his lone MLB shutout. The left-hander’s career truly took off with a full-time move to the bullpen, however.

From 2013-16, Cecil pitched to a 2.90 ERA with a sizable 51.2% ground-ball rate, a massive 30.5% strikeout rate and a solid 8.3% walk rate. He was more effective against lefties than righties, as one would expect, but he more than held righties in check during that four-year run. Cecil posted a 3.88 ERA in his first season with the Cardinals, as his strikeout rate dipped a bit, but he remained a strong ground-ball pitcher with a terrific walk rate.

Cecil will retire from baseball with parts of 10 seasons in the Major Leagues, during which time he went 44-47 with a 4.29 ERA, 12 saves and 67 holds in 756 innings. A series of injuries cut short what looked to be a burgeoning run as one of the game’s better left-handed relievers, but two solid seasons as a starting pitcher and a five-year bullpen peak that saw him post a combined 3.14 ERA and fan 29% of his opponents from 2013-17 nevertheless makes for a fine big league career.

MLB Proposes Replacing Arbitration With Salaries Based Off Player WAR Totals

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In August, Major League Baseball made its first core economics proposal to the MLB Players Association. That would’ve involved a radical restructuring of the game’s economic system, first granting players free agency at age 29 1/2 (as opposed to after six years of MLB service) and replacing the current arbitration structure with a pool-based system attached to revenues.

This week, the league proposed an unexpected wrinkle in CBA talks. While the new proposal contains the same age threshold for free agency qualification, Evan Drellich, Ken Rosenthal and Eno Sarris of the Athletic report that this offer would tie pre-free agency pay directly to a player’s Wins Above Replacement tally. Under this structure, a player’s service time and career WAR marks (weighted to emphasize the most recent seasons more heavily) would set the player’s salary. While multiple websites calculate WAR totals in different ways, MLB’s proposal would base salaries on FanGraphs’ WAR tabulations.

Earlier this afternoon, Ben Nicholson-Smith of Sportsnet reported (on Twitter) that MLB had offered to replace the arbitration system with salaries based on an algorithm. Nicholson-Smith added that the MLBPA was not enamored with that idea, and the Athletic trio quotes one player representative as saying that such an offer has “zero chance” of being approved.

That’s not at all surprising. MLB’s proposal to set free agency at 29 1/2 years has always looked to be a non-starter for the players. The league’s top prospects typically reach the majors in their early-mid 20’s. Those who live up to their promise will often pass six years of service and hit free agency in advance of their age-28 or age-29 seasons. Marketing as many prime-aged seasons as possible is what often allows players to land contracts that push free agency forward, and the league’s proposal could tether that elite group to their original teams for longer than the current system does. (For example, neither of this offseason’s top two free agents — Carlos Correa and Corey Seager — would be eligible for free agency were the age set at 29 1/2).

Certainly, the age threshold would impact some players positively as well. Players like Aaron Judge and Willson Contreras would’ve reached free agency this winter as opposed to going into their final year of arbitration. A late bloomer like Cubs third baseman Patrick Wisdom would’ve been on the open market instead of making the league minimum salary, and he’d have likely made a few million dollars in 2022 coming off a 28-homer showing over just 375 plate appearances. Overall, though, the union likely sees the 29 1/2 year age threshold as too old to be more desirable than the current service structure.

Fixing player salaries to a statistical formula comes with its own challenges. Past performance will, of course, always be relevant to player pay. The existing arbitration system awards players salaries based on their combination of service time and prior salaries of statistically-comparable players. There’s a case to be made that MLB’s proposal would modernize that process.

Arbitration can lean a little more heavily than most modern teams do on traditional box score statistics like pitcher wins, saves, and hitters’ home runs and RBI totals. While arbitrators will also consider newer, WAR-like metrics, their comparative reliance on old-school stats has led to arb salaries for closers and defensively-limited sluggers tending to skew higher than teams have been willing to pay. On the other hand, arbitrators haven’t generally placed as much value as clubs have on glove-first players and high-leverage setup relievers. Basing pre-free agency salaries off WAR would probably help to close that gap.

That said, the MLBPA seems likely to take issue with tying salaries to WAR directly. As the Athletic scribes write, using that metric is particularly challenging with regards to relievers. Both the free agent and arbitration markets have valued bullpen arms more highly than WAR totals typically do. Advanced defensive metrics — a key component in WAR calculations — can be unstable on a yearly basis. Over the long run, those metrics tend to align with general evaluations of a player’s defensive acumen. Fixing salaries weighted heavily on single-season defensive metrics, though, seems suboptimal.

WAR naturally involves making imprecise adjustments for different parks, which could pose problems when teams adjust playing field dimensions. And WAR metrics differ on how to separate a pitcher’s contributions from those of his defense; FanGraphs, upon which MLB’s proposal would be based, evaluates pitchers essentially off their strikeout, walk and home run rates. That strips out ball in play luck but also creates some seemingly odd results. For instance, Aaron Nola — who threw 180 2/3 innings of 4.63 ERA/3.37 FIP ball — had a higher 2021 fWAR than Robbie Ray, who tossed 193 1/3 frames of 2.84 ERA/3.69 FIP pitching.

None of this is meant as an indictment of WAR models generally or of FanGraphs’ choices specifically. Most or all MLB teams rely on similar calculations in making player evaluations. That’s with good reason, since advanced metrics of that nature can offer insights into players not found by typical box score stats. Still, these limitations highlight the potential pitfalls of tying player salaries directly to this one statistic.

MLB’s proposal looks unlikely to make much headway ultimately, and both sides will continue negotiations as we near the expiration of the current CBA on December 1. Nicholson-Smith reports that the two sides are scheduled to meet next on Monday.

Coaching Notes: Royals, Cubs, D-Backs

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The Royals announced two additions to their coaching staff last night. Keoni DeRenne is being hired as assistant hitting coach, while Damon Hollins will join the staff as first base coach. DeRenne, who previously spent time in the Pirates and Cubs organizations, has spent the past two seasons as Kansas City’s assistant hitting coordinator. Hollins, who appeared in parts of four big league seasons between 1998-2006, has been in the organization for more than a decade. He served as interim first base coach in 2020.

The latest on some other coaching situations around the game:

  • The Cubs are expected to hire Johnny Washington as assistant hitting coach, reports Sahadev Sharma of the Athletic. He’ll replace Chris Valaika, who was hired as Guardians’ hitting coach last week. Washington spent a few seasons coaching with the Padres when current Cubs’ bench coach Andy Green was San Diego’s manager. Sharma notes that he spent the 2021 campaign as the hitting coach with the Hanwha Eagles of the Korea Baseball Organization. Washington also garnered some consideration during the Angels’ 2019-20 managerial search, a job that eventually went to former Cubs’ skipper Joe Maddon.
  • Former big league outfielder Peter Bourjos has moved into coaching, as Nick Piecoro of the Arizona Republic reports that the Diamondbacks have hired the 34-year-old as a minor league outfield and baserunning coordinator. Bourjos appeared in parts of ten major league seasons as a player, suiting up for the Angels, Cardinals, Phillies, Rays and Braves between 2010-19. He has spent the past two years doing advance scouting work with the Rockies.

Cardinals Notes: Reyes, Hicks, Scherzer, Matz

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The Cardinals’ rotation for 2022 is 80% set, with Adam Wainwright, Jack Flaherty, Miles Mikolas and Dakota Hudson pencilled into four out of the five slots. However, that last spot could still seemingly go in many different ways, either with internal or external options. Derrick S. Goold of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch spoke to the team’s president of baseball operations John Mozeliak about the various paths they’re choosing between.

The club is apparently giving consideration to Alex Reyes and Jordan Hicks, both of whom having been primarily working as relievers in recent years and are questionable fits for rotation jobs. Reyes had an excellent year out of the bullpen in 2021, eventually becoming the team’s closer. In 72 1/3 innings, he had an ERA of 3.24 with a strikeout rate of 30% and notched 29 saves. However, that also came with a walk rate of 16.4%, around twice the league average. He also comes with a lengthy injury history that has limited his contributions in his career thus far. Those 72 1/3 innings from this year are the most he’s thrown since 2016, when he threw 111 1/3 between Triple-A and the big leagues, which is the most he’s logged in a single season. That was followed by a completely lost season in 2017 and three straight years of just a few dozen each.

The situation with Hicks is somewhat comparable, as he had an excellent season in 2018, throwing 77 2/3 innings out of the bullpen with a 3.59 ERA. However, he was limited to 28 2/3 innings in 2019 before having to undergo Tommy John surgery, opted out of 2020 and then was limited by injuries to just 13 innings in 2021, between Triple-A and the big leagues. Expecting him to jump into a rotation job at this point seems like a tall ask, and Mozeliak admitted as much. “My guess is no better than yours or anybody else’s,” he said, in regards to what Hicks could provide in the future. “For him to go out and pitch north of 100 innings would be maybe putting him in a difficult spot.”

In addition to those two, Goold also lists Jake Woodford, Johan Oviedo and Genesis Cabrera as those who are in the mix. Despite all of those candidates, the club is still looking into external options, which is understandable based on how 2021 went. Multiple injuries caused the club the struggle in the first half, leading them to make the mid-summer additions of Jon Lester, J.A. Happ and Wade LeBlanc. Although that helped stabilize the staff and get the club into the playoffs, they’re all now free agents. As Mozeliak puts it, “Last year, we thought we had nine or 10. I think you’ve got to have some protection going in regardless of what we say we’re going to get them to do… Having some additional arms is healthy.”

Goold’s report says that free agent Max Scherzer “would entertain an offer from the Cardinals”, which is notable because Scherzer was apparently unwilling to waive his no-trade clause to join them this past summer, preferring to become a member of a West Coast club. However, now that he is trying to maximize his earning potential, it makes sense that he would try to keep as many buyers at the table as possible, in order to ensure healthy bidding. Even if Scherzer is genuinely open to working in Missouri, where he was born and raised, the club may have trouble fitting him into the budget, as their 2022 payroll is currently over $142MM, according to Jason Martinez of Roster Resource. That’s around $20MM shy of 2021’s opening day payroll, which was a franchise record, per Cot’s Baseball Contracts. Scherzer is likely to command much more than that for an annual salary, with MLBTR recently predicting he garners a contract of $120MM over three years, an annual average value of $40MM.

A pitcher who will come much cheaper is Steven Matz, who was at the GM Meetings yesterday, according to Tim Healey of Newsday. Healey lists the Cardinals as being interested in his services, along with the Red Sox, Angels and Dodgers. MLBTR predicted Matz to land a deal of $27MM over three years, an AAV of $9MM which would certainly fit into the Cards’ payroll much more neatly than Scherzer’s. Matz had a solid year for the Blue Jays in 2021, throwing 150 2/3 innings with an ERA of 3.82. He figures to be popular among teams hesitant to surrender draft picks, as he didn’t receive a qualifying offer from the Jays.

David Bote Expected To Miss Six Months After Undergoing Shoulder Surgery

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NOVEMBER 11: Bote seems unlikely to be ready for the start of next season. His surgery comes with a six-month recovery timeline, Gordon Wittenmyer of NBC Sports Chicago was among those to relay (Twitter link). Depending upon when he went under the knife, that’d seemingly keep him out until late April or early May if his recovery goes as planned.

NOVEMBER 9: Cubs utilityman David Bote recently underwent surgery on his left shoulder, president of baseball operations Jed Hoyer told reporters (including Jordan Bastian of MLB.com) this evening. The extent of the procedure and a timetable for his recovery aren’t yet clear.

Bote separated that shoulder during a game in late May, an injury that cost him nearly two months of action. Largely because of that injury, Bote was limited to 327 plate appearances, slumping to a career-worst .199/.276/.330 line with eight home runs. He’d gotten off to a tough start even before the shoulder issue, but his .197/.273/.320 mark in 165 trips to the plate after returning from that IL stint marked a bit of a downturn even relative to his poor early-season numbers.

If he’s healthy heading into Spring Training, Bote figures to assume a utility role off the bench for manager David Ross. As things stand, the Cubs look likely to enter 2022 with a starting infield of Frank Schwindel, Nick Madrigal, Nico Hoerner and Patrick Wisdom. All those players hit right-handed, as does Bote, who’s likely to back up at multiple positions around the dirt. The 28-year-old is under contract through at least 2024 under the terms of the extension he signed in April 2019.

Offseason Outlook: Los Angeles Angels

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It was another disappointing season for the Angels, who missed the playoffs for the seventh consecutive year. Shohei Ohtani took an MVP-caliber step forward, while Jared Walsh became the newest member of the team’s enviable position player core. Yet again, the Angels are tasked with trying to build a passable roster to complement a few of the sport’s brightest stars. The issue, as is seemingly the case every winter: improving the pitching staff.

Guaranteed Contracts

Total 2022 commitments: $111.24MM

Projected Salaries for Arbitration-Eligible Players (projections via MLBTR contributor Matt Swartz)

Non-tender candidates: Gosselin, Guerra

Free Agents

The first few days of the offseason has made the Angels’ top priority apparent. They’re looking to upgrade the starting rotation, and they’re setting their sights high. Los Angeles general manager Perry Minasian has gone on record a few times about his desire to land external pitching help, telling reporters at this week’s GM Meetings the goal is “to significantly improve our rotation.”

All things considered, this is a pretty good offseason to be on the hunt for high-end pitching. The free agent class offers a handful of hurlers who have top-of-the-rotation numbers in their recent past, and the Angels have already been linked to a few members of that group. They’ve expressed some early interest in a couple of aces coming off injury-wrecked seasons in Justin Verlander and Noah Syndergaard. The Angels haven’t been publicly linked to Carlos Rodón, but the former White Sox southpaw was one of the best pitchers in the league on an inning for inning basis before a late-season IL stint due to shoulder discomfort threw his market into flux.

All three of those players have the impact potential to which Minasian alluded, but health and/or age questions figure to limit the length of any commitment. That might be particularly appealing for the Angels, a team that — despite showing an overall willingness to spend on players — has concentrated their recent long-term investments on position players. Whether that’s happenstance, the preference of owner Arte Moreno or risk aversion on the part of erstwhile GM Billy Eppler isn’t clear. Minasian, a first-time GM hired last November, doesn’t yet have a large body of work to offer much insight into his team-building approach. He was hired out of a Braves’ front office that has generally preferred to offer high annual salaries over shorter terms, though. It remains to be seen if he’ll take a similar approach as his former employer in Anaheim.

If the Angels are willing to make a longer-term investment in a starting pitcher, there are plenty of options beyond Verlander, Syndergaard and Rodón. Robbie Ray, Kevin Gausman and Marcus Stroman are all top-of-the-rotation caliber arms at their best, and all three might top $100MM over a five-plus year term. Eduardo Rodríguez is a tier below those three but could land a significant four or five year deal of his own. And there’s almost nothing a team could do to more significantly upgrade their starting staff in 2022 than sign Max Scherzer, even if that’d probably cost them an all-time record average annual investment.

Free agency offers plenty of potential high-impact options, and the Angels will surely also work the trade market. The Reds might make Luis Castillo and Sonny Gray available; the Marlins are considering whether to trade away someone like Sandy Alcantara or Pablo López; the division-rival A’s are soon to slash payroll, so Frankie Montas, Chris Bassitt and/or Sean Manaea could wind up on the move. Between the healthy supply of starters available in either free agency or trade and the Angels’ obvious desire to upgrade, it’d register as a major surprise if they didn’t come away with at least one marquee pickup this winter.

One high-end starter might be all the Angels need, since they actually have one of their better collection of internal options in recent memory. They’ll obviously want to be careful with Shohei Ohtani’s workload, but he’s a top-of-the-rotation type starter on an inning for inning basis. Patrick Sandoval broke out in 2021, working to a 3.62 ERA over 87 innings with one of the game’s highest swinging strike rates. His year ended early because of a back injury, but Sandoval has a 2022 rotation spot secured if healthy. That’s also true of lefty José Suárez, a ground-ball specialist who looks like a solid back-end type.

Add an impact external pickup to the mix, and four spots in Joe Maddon’s season-opening rotation are already accounted for. Top prospect Reid Detmers got his feet wet at the big league level this past season, and Jaime Barría and Griffin Canning could still compete for spots as well. Every team needs more than five or six starters to navigate a full season, and that’s especially true for an Angels club that needs to be careful in handling Ohtani. They’ve already been linked to mid-tier free agent starters like Steven Matz and Alex Wood, and those players would certainly add some stability. It makes sense to cast a wide net in the early stages of the offseason, but this isn’t a team that needs to build an entire rotation from scratch.

Of course, making multiple rotation additions could be a way to indirectly bolster one of the weaker areas of the roster — the bullpen. Angels’ relievers ranked 24th this past season in ERA (4.57), also finishing in the bottom half of the league in SIERA (4.10) and strikeout/walk rate differential (13.2 percentage points). That’s in spite of an excellent season from closer Raisel Iglesias, whom they could lose to free agency. The Angels made Iglesias a one-year, $18.4MM qualifying offer, but he seems likelier to decline that in search of a multi-year deal as the top reliever in this year’s class.

The Angels could certainly pursue an Iglesias reunion even if he rejects the QO, but it remains to be seen whether they’d want to pay a top-of-the-market price to address the relief corps. They should have the payroll flexibility to be in that mix. Jason Martinez of Roster Resource projects their current 2022 commitments around $130MM (non-tendering Phil Gosselin and Junior Guerra could knock that mark down a few million). That’s more than $50MM shy of the $182MM figure they carried into 2021 (per Cot’s Baseball Contracts), a franchise-record outlay. If Moreno’s willing to repeat this year’s level of spending, then the potential is there for a couple big free agent splashes.

Adding an impact free agent starter would probably account for at least half that available payroll space, though, and re-signing Iglesias on top of that might inhibit their ability to address the position player group. If Iglesias departs, the Angels would stand to recoup a compensatory draft pick after Competitive Balance Round B (around 70-75 overall) and could turn their attention to making one or two lower-cost bullpen pickups.

Other multi-year deal candidates who’d probably cost less than Iglesias include Kendall Graveman, Kenley Jansen, Corey Knebel, Héctor Neris, Mark Melancon and Ryan Tepera from the right side, with Aaron Loup, Andrew Chafin and Brooks Raley among the left-handed options. It seems likely they’ll add multiple arms to the ’pen in some capacity, with Mike Mayers, Andrew Wantz, Austin Warren and José Quijada the only in-house options coming off seasons with 20-plus frames of sub-4.00 SIERA ball.

Much of the position player group is already set. Ohtani will be a middle-of-the-order presence at DH, leaving first base to Jared Walsh. They’ll have to hope for better health from Anthony Rendon at third base, and that’s obviously true of Mike Trout as well. Max Stassi had a breakout season behind the plate and probably earned the lion’s share of playing time at catcher, although the front office could look around for a low-cost complement, preferably one who hits left-handed. The non-tender market could shake out an affordable player who comes with multiple remaining seasons of team control, which could be particularly appealing since Stassi is slated to hit free agency after next season.

The most glaring need is in the middle infield. The Angels are committed to David Fletcher at one spot, although that’s more of a question mark than it’d have seemed a few months ago. By measure of wRC+, Fletcher was the majors’ second-worst qualified hitter after the All-Star Break. That dreadful few months left him barely above replacement level for the season, but he’d combined average or better offense with excellent defense from 2019-20. His track record will earn him another chance, and Minasian said after the season the club was open to him playing either of second base or shortstop in 2022.

The Angels can’t do much but hope Fletcher rebounds at one of those positions, but they’ll probably have to upgrade the other middle spot. Luis Rengifo and Jack Mayfield, the top in-house candidates, are better suited in utility roles. This winter offers  an incredible collection of free agent middle infielders, although a run at any of Marcus Semien, Trevor Story or Javier Báez (to say nothing of top-of-the-market superstars Carlos Correa and Corey Seager) would add another huge multi-year investment to the books.

That shouldn’t be out of the question given the Angels’ previous levels of spending. They’re finally off the hook on the Albert Pujols contract, and the Justin Upton deal ends after next season. Trout, Rendon and Fletcher are already accounting for more than $81MM in 2023 and beyond, though, and a splash at the top of the free agent pitching market this winter would probably push their long-term commitments north of $100MM. Would they want to add another huge deal on top of that? That remains to be seen, particularly since they’ll probably earmark some funds for a hopeful Ohtani extension (more on that in a minute).

That could mean another year with a stopgap middle infield pickup. Last year’s José Iglesias addition didn’t pan out, but they could take a similar tack with Freddy Galvis at shortstop or Jonathan Villar, César Hernández or Josh Harrison at second base (with Fletcher sliding over to short). Perhaps the Cardinals and D-Backs would be willing to kick in some money to facilitate a trade involving Paul DeJong or Nick Ahmed, respectively. Neither would be the most exciting addition for Angels’ fans, but they’d at least meaningfully upgrade a defense that was among the league’s worst in 2021, as MLBTR’s Mark Polishuk explored in August.

It’d be a bit surprising if the Angels made a big addition in the outfield, since they have a promising group internally. Trout hasn’t played an inning outside center field since 2013, but there’s a case to be made for transitioning him into a corner spot moving forward. Public defensive metrics have pegged the three-time MVP as average or worse in center over the past couple seasons, and he’s now 30 years old coming off a major calf injury. Trout hasn’t rated disastrously in center field, and the Angels may not want to risk disrupting the future Hall of Famer for the sake of marginally improving the team’s defense. But rookie Brandon Marsh is probably a better defensive player than Trout is at this stage of their respective careers.

Regardless of the specific alignment, Trout and Marsh are probably going to play regularly in some capacity. That’s also true of former top prospect Jo Adell, who’s better suited in a corner. Upton fits best as a role player, although he still offers some power, particularly against left-handed pitching. That doesn’t leave a ton of room for outside help, but it’s not out of the question the Angels move one of Marsh or Adell for pitching. (Speculatively speaking, the Marlins are known to be targeting controllable outfielders and might have interest in either player as part of a deal for one of their starters). If a Marsh or Adell trade comes to fruition, then perhaps the Angels poke around the free agent outfield market.

Hanging over all of the Angels’ potential offseason upgrades is the hope for a long-term deal with Ohtani. The 27-year-old had been a highly valuable, extremely entertaining player in years past, but he’d never put everything together quite like he did in 2021. An AL MVP finalist, Ohtani is coming off a season unlike any we’ve seen in nearly a century. In addition to top-of-the-rotation numbers as a pitcher, he was the game’s fifth-best qualified hitter by wRC+. His 46 homers ranked third leaguewide, while his .592 slugging percentage checked in fourth.

Ohtani’s an unprecedented player, at least in recent history, so there’s of course no contractual precedent for a player like this. He’s already controllable for the next two seasons, guaranteed $5.5MM next year and scheduled for a similarly-unusual trip through arbitration next winter. The Angels would no doubt love to keep him beyond 2023, and Ohtani has expressed some openness to that possibility. As of late September, the two-way star told reporters that no extension talks were ongoing. Neither Minasian nor Ohtani’s representatives at CAA Sports were willing to divulge anything during this week’s GM Meetings about whether negotiations had taken place since (link via Rhett Bollinger of MLB.com).

Whether or not they’ve begun any sort of negotiations, it stands to reason Moreno and Minasian will map out how far the organization is willing to go to keep Ohtani in the fold. Even if nothing gets done this winter, the possibility of future discussions could limit how much payroll the Angels are willing to commit to other areas of the roster for 2023 and beyond.

As is typically the case, it’s shaping up to be an interesting winter in Orange County. The Angels should be among the top suitors for any number of top-of-the-rotation options, and they’re strong candidates to come away with at least one marquee starting pitcher. Add some bullpen and middle infield pursuits and a potential one-of-a-kind extension negotiation, and Minasian should be in for a busy first full offseason leading baseball operations.

Brewers Hire Ozzie Timmons, Connor Dawson As Hitting Coaches

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The Brewers announced this afternoon that they’ve hired Ozzie Timmons and Connor Dawson as co-hitting coaches. They’re also planning to hire an assistant hitting coach to work underneath Timmons and Dawson, tweets Tom Haudricourt of the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel. They’ll replace Andy Haines, whose contract was not renewed last month.

Timmons has spent the past four seasons on the Rays’ coaching staff. He’d split his time between base coaching and serving as Tampa Bay’s assistant hitting coach before getting a bump to full-time assistant hitting coach last month. Just a few weeks later, he’ll land a more significant role in Milwaukee. An outfielder in his playing days, the 51-year-old Timmons appeared in parts of five big league seasons from 1995-2000.

Dawson comes over from the Mariners, where he’d been Seattle’s minor league hitting coordinator. The 28-year-old had previously spent a couple seasons coaching in the M’s system and now gets his first job on a big league staff.

Orioles Re-Sign Spenser Watkins

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The Orioles have re-signed right-hander Spenser Watkins to a new minor league deal, MASNsports.com’s Melanie Newman reports (Twitter link).  The contract contains an invitation to Baltimore’s spring camp.

Watkins elected free agency four days ago, shortly after the Orioles outrighted him off their 40-man roster.  The 2021 season saw Watkins made his MLB debut, and the righty posted an 8.07 ERA over 54 2/3 innings for the O’s.  Watkins started 10 of his 16 appearances, and pitched well over his first three starts before batters started adjusting in a big way.  Watkins allowed 14 homers over his 54 2/3 frames, and had only a 13.7% strikeout rate.

Never a big strikeout pitcher even in the minors, Watkins has an 3.86 ERA over 625 1/3 innings of minor league work, mostly in the Tigers’ farm system before Detroit released him in 2020.  Baltimore signed Watkins to a minors deal last offseason and he performed well enough at Triple-A Norfolk to finally get the call to the Show.  The 29-year-old Watkins will likely continue to serve as rotation depth in the minors, though he’ll get a chance to compete for a roster spot at Spring Training.

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