Mets Claim Yoan Lopez Off Waivers From Marlins
The Mets have claimed reliever Yoan López off waivers from the Marlins, according to announcements from both teams. To clear space on the 40-man roster, New York placed left-hander Joey Lucchesi on the 60-day injured list.
López continues to bounce around the league — and more specifically, the NL East — via waivers. Designated for assignment by the Braves early in the offseason, he was claimed by the Phillies just before the lockout. Since the work stoppage, he’s gone from Philadelphia to Miami and now to Queens on the waiver wire.
Despite having been a member of four NL East teams within the past six months, the only big league club for which López has ever suited up is the Diamondbacks. A high-profile signee by Arizona out of Cuba, he was one of the better pitching prospects in the D-Backs system for the next couple years. López reached the big leagues briefly in 2018 and found a bit of success early in his career. He pitched to a 3.41 ERA over 60 2/3 innings during his second MLB campaign, but an underwhelming 17.1% strikeout rate indicated he might have trouble continuing to keep runs off the board.
That proved to be the case, as he’s posted a 6.19 mark in 32 innings over the past two years. His 19.6% strikeout percentage and 10.1% walk rate in that time are both worse than average. That said, the 29-year-old has actually had some success missing bats on a pitch-by-pitch basis. He’s generated swinging strikes on nearly 13% of his offerings in each of the past two years, about a point above the 11.7% league average for bullpen arms. López has also averaged north of 95 MPH on his fastball and has posted slightly better than average ground-ball marks.
Traded from Arizona to Atlanta in May, López spent the majority of last season with the Braves’ top affiliate in Gwinnett. He had much better results there than he’s had in the big leagues, posting a 3.03 ERA with a 26.7% strikeout rate in 32 appearances. Between his Triple-A performance and pair of remaining minor league option years, López has clearly piqued the interest of a handful of teams. None have yet been willing to devote him a permanent spot on the 40-man roster, but the Mets can stash him at Triple-A Syracuse as a depth option for the next couple years were they to keep him on the 40-man.
Lucchesi’s 60-day IL placement was an inevitability whenever New York needed a roster spot. The southpaw underwent Tommy John surgery last June and will miss most or all of the upcoming season recovering.
Pirates Option Oneil Cruz
The Pirates announced this afternoon they’ve optioned top shortstop prospect Oneil Cruz to Triple-A Indianapolis. The 23-year-old will not break camp with the big league club.
Pittsburgh selected Cruz to the MLB roster during the final weekend of last season. That came on the heels of a fantastic .292/.346/.536 line in a pitcher-friendly Double-A setting. The Bucs rewarded the big left-handed hitter with a two-game big league cameo to close out the year, during which time he picked up his first MLB home run.
Despite that brief look, it comes as little surprise the Bucs weren’t planning to carry him in the majors out of the gate this year. He only has six career games at the Triple-A level, and one could argue he’d benefit from a more extended run there before getting a look long at big league pitching. Cruz has performed very well in parts of two seasons at Double-A but has just 38 career plate appearances above that level.
Pittsburgh figures to point to that lack of Triple-A experience as their motivation behind sending Cruz back down, but it’s impossible to ignore the potential service time implications of the decision. Both FanGraphs and Baseball America slotted Cruz as the most talented prospect in the Pittsburgh farm system this winter, with each outlet placing him among the top 15 farmhands in the game. Between his massive raw power and exit velocities, athleticism, and arm strength, both publications suggested he has the potential to be a superstar.
If Cruz reaches that upside, getting a seventh year of club control would be incredibly valuable for the Pirates. Despite the aforementioned two days of MLB service he picked up at the end of last season, he would fall short of an automatic full year of service in 2022 if he stays in the minors for around two and a half weeks.
Service time manipulation was a talking point of the Players Association during the last round of collective bargaining negotiations. The new CBA didn’t overhaul the system, although it did introduce the opportunity for a handful of players to earn “bonus service” each year. The top two finishers in each league’s Rookie of the Year voting are now annually awarded a full year of service regardless of their call-up date.
Even if the Bucs keep him down past the threshold for accruing a full year of service based on the number of days Cruz spends in the majors, he could play his way into the full year by performing as one of the top rookies in the National League whenever he does get called up. Of course, one could argue that possibility incentivizes a rebuilding Pirates team to keep Cruz in the minors even longer. The fewer number of games he plays in the big leagues, the lower his chances are of earning that service year by putting up a Rookie of the Year-caliber season.
How long Cruz spends in the minors remains to be seen, but he clearly won’t get the Opening Day nod at shortstop. Kevin Newman has taken that spot in each of the past two seasons, and it seems likely he’ll get the call there for a third straight year. The 28-year-old Newman is a plus defender but one of the game’s lightest-hitting everyday players; he’s coming off a .226/.265/.309 showing in 554 plate appearances.
MLBTR Chat Transcript
Click here to read a transcript of Tuesday’s chat with MLBTR’s Steve Adams.
LaMonte Wade Jr. Will Begin Season On Injured List
Giants manager Gabe Kapler announced to reporters Tuesday that outfielder LaMonte Wade Jr. will open the 2022 season on the injured list (Twitter links via Alex Pavlovic of NBC Sports Bay Area and Andrew Baggarly of The Athletic). Wade recently exited a Giants Cactus League game and underwent an MRI after experiencing discomfort in his left knee. The imaging revealed inflammation and a bone bruise, and doctors recommended 10 days of downtime before being reevaluated. That shutdown alone will take Wade beyond Opening Day, and it remains to be seen whether he’ll need additional rest or treatment at that point. Even if he’s cleared for baseball activity, he’d likely need at least a quick ramp-up period before jumping back into games.
It’s the second injury of note for the Giants in as many days. The team announced yesterday that third baseman Evan Longoria will undergo surgery to repair a damaged ligament in his throwing hand. He’ll need to have his finger immobilized for a minimum of 10 days following that operation, and with any surgery, there’s the potential for an absence of some note. The Giants didn’t provide an immediate timeline but will surely have updates once Longoria’s surgery has been completed.
With Wade now sidelined to begin the season, San Francisco will likely turn to an Opening Day outfield alignment featuring Joc Pederson in left field, Steven Duggar in center and Mike Yastrzemski in right. The Giants are deep in infield/outfield types, with Austin Slater, Darin Ruf and Mauricio Dubon all having experience both on the dirt and in the grass. Thairo Estrada and Jason Vosler, too, have a bit of outfield experience, though their play there has been more sparse than Slater, Ruf and Dubon. Outfielders Heliot Ramos and Jaylin Davis are both on the 40-man roster as well, though they’ve both been optioned to minor league camp already.
San Francisco will obviously hope for a fairly minimal absence for Wade, who proved to be their latest diamond-in-the-rough find this past season. Acquired in a minor trade with the Twins, the 28-year-old Wade eventually seized a semi-regular role at Oracle Park and slashed .253/.326/.482 with 18 home runs, 17 doubles and a trio of triples in 361 plate appearances. He was platooned heavily, logging just 42 plate appearances against southpaws and turning in a woeful .135/.200/.189 slash in that small sample. Wade is on track to be arbitration-eligible next winter and can be controlled through the 2025 season
Angels’ AJ Ramos Diagnosed With Torn Shoulder Capsule
Veteran right-hander AJ Ramos, who’s in camp with the Angels as a non-roster invitee, has been diagnosed with a torn capsule in his right shoulder and will likely be out for the entire 2022 season, the team announced to reporters (Twitter link via Rhett Bollinger of MLB.com).
It’s a disheartening setback for the clearly talented but oft-injured Ramos, who has managed just 27 innings total over the past four seasons — due primarily to troubles in that same shoulder. Ramos hit the injured list around Memorial Day 2018 while pitching for the Mets, and just three weeks later it was announced that he was headed for surgery to repair a torn labrum. The right-hander went more than two years between big league appearances while rehabbing that injury, and he’s only made it back to the mound for sparse looks with the Rockies (2020) and Angels (2021) in that time.
Now 35 years old, Ramos was an All-Star with the Marlins back in 2016 and, for a few years, was one of the more effective relievers in the National League. From 2013-16, he tallied 278 1/3 innings of 2.62 ERA ball while racking up 72 saves and punching out 27.4% of the opponents he faced. Walks were an issue even at that point (12.6%), but Ramos’ ability to miss bats and limit hard contact helped him to offset that penchant for free passes.
Back in 2020, Ramos told reporters: “[Earlier in my career], I was motivated to show everybody that I was good enough. Now, I’m motivated just to play — to have the max amount of fun doing it.”
There should be no doubt that Ramos, who has a 3.04 earned run average, 99 saves, 46 holds and a 27.2% strikeout rate in 373 1/3 career innings, is “good enough,” to use his own words. The question at this point is simply one of whether he’ll embark on yet another comeback attempt next year in what would be his age-36 season.
Dodgers Trade Matt Beaty To Padres
The Padres have acquired first baseman/outfielder Matt Beaty from the Dodgers in exchange for minor league right-hander/infielder River Ryan, per a team announcement. The Padres announced Ryan, a two-way player in college, as a pitcher in their press release. The Dodgers initially announced him as an infielder, but Bill Plunkett of the Orange County Register tweets that they still plan to give Ryan opportunities on the mound.
To open space on the 40-man roster, San Diego placed left-hander Drew Pomeranz, who underwent forearm surgery last August, on the 60-day injured list. Beaty was designated for assignment by Los Angeles last week.
Beaty, 28, was a somewhat surprising DFA by the Dodgers, as he was fresh off a .270/.363/.402 showing in 234 plate appearances last season. While Beaty didn’t show substantial power (seven homers, four doubles, one triple, .132 ISO), he walked at a league-average clip, was plunked 10 times (thus driving up his OBP a bit) and made contact at an above-average rate. Beaty fanned in 18.8% of his plate appearances last year and has a career mark of 16.4% — well south of last year’s 22.6% league average (excluding pitchers).
The Padres have been on the hunt for outfield upgrades for much of the offseason but have also reportedly been hamstrung a bit by payroll concerns — a driving factor behind their reported efforts to trade Eric Hosmer and/or Wil Myers. It’s been a generally quiet winter for the Friars, who’ve added a bit to their bullpen (Robert Suarez, Luis Garcia) and signed Nick Martinez to a four-year deal that is laden with opt-out opportunities. Offensively, the lone addition of note thus far has been Luke Voit, whom the Padres acquired from the Yankees last week.
Beaty will give San Diego an option in left field, where utilityman Jurickson Profar had been among the leading candidates for playing time. Beaty can also spell Hosmer at first base or mix in at designated hitter if Voit is unavailable. In addition to his work at first and in the outfield corners, he’s spent a bit of time at third base, but defensive metrics aren’t especially bullish on him at any of the positions he’s played thus far in a small sample of innings. He also has a minor league option remaining, so the Padres don’t necessarily need to commit to keeping him on the big league roster all season.
Ryan, 23, was an 11th-round pick out UNC Pembroke just last season. Though he pitched to a 2.32 ERA with a 29.7% strikeout rate and a 7.8% walk rate in 93 innings of bullpen work during his NCAA career, the Friars didn’t actually put him on the mound during last year’s pro debut. He spent a dozen games with the Padres’ Rookie-level affiliate in the Arizona Complex League and batted .308/.349/.436 with a homer, two doubles and four stolen bases in 43 plate appearances.
A’s Notes: Honeywell, Guerra, Kaprielian
A’s right-hander Brent Honeywell Jr. has an olecranon stress reaction in his throwing elbow, the team informed reporters (including Matt Kawahara of the San Francisco Chronicle). He is being shut down indefinitely as the club determines next steps.
It’s the latest in a brutal series of injuries for the 26-year-old, whom Oakland acquired from the Rays over the winter. A former fourth-round pick, Honeywell dominated at the lower levels of the Tampa Bay system and quickly emerged as one of the sport’s most promising pitching prospects. Baseball America slotted him among their Top 100 overall farmhands heading into the 2016 campaign, the first of five straight years in which he’d hold a place on that list.
That Honeywell was a top prospect for half a decade spoke both to his talent and to the injuries that kept him from exhausting his rookie eligibility. He didn’t throw a single pitch in an affiliated game from 2018-20, undergoing a staggering four elbow surgeries in that time. He required Tommy John surgery in February 2018; during his rehab, he fractured his elbow the following June. Honeywell then underwent an ulnar nerve decompression procedure in May 2020 before requiring an arthroscopic procedure at the end of that season.
Honeywell returned to make 31 appearances with the Rays’ top affiliate in Durham last season, and he saw action in his first three big league outings. His strikeout rate was way down, though, and the Rays moved him to the A’s for cash to clear a roster spot in advance of Rule 5 protection day. When Honeywell will next take the ball isn’t clear, but it’s a virtual lock he’ll begin the year on the injured list and it wouldn’t be surprising if he’s in for another lengthy absence.
In another bit of ominous injury news for the A’s, reliever Deolis Guerra paused his throwing program after feeling some tightness in his forearm (Kawahara link). Forearm tightness is a fairly common precursor to UCL injuries, although it won’t be known whether he’s dealing with a notable structural issue until he goes for further testing tomorrow. Guerra, 33 next month, threw a career-high 65 2/3 innings over 53 appearances last year. He posted a 4.11 ERA with decent strikeout and walk rates (23% and 7.4%, respectively).
In a positive development, righty James Kaprielian responded well to a weekend bullpen session (via Kawahara). He has been dealing with irritation in the AC joint in his throwing shoulder this spring. With a little more than a week until Opening Day, Kaprielian still seems likely to begin the season on the IL, but the former first-rounder should have a key role on the starting staff whenever he’s ready to go. He made 24 appearances (including 21 starts) in 2021, pitching to a 4.07 ERA with a 24.2% strikeout percentage.
Guardians, Jose Ramirez Have Reportedly Had Informal Extension Discussions
Since the end of the lockout, the Guardians have had “on and off” discussions with the representatives for star third baseman José Ramírez, reports Paul Hoynes of Cleveland.com. Hoynes characterizes the talks as exchanging ideas about players who could be considered comparable to Ramírez as opposed to floating actual frameworks for a deal.
It’s not surprising to hear the Cleveland front office has gotten in touch with Ramírez’s reps. The three-time All-Star is controllable for two more seasons, but it stands to reason the Guardians would want some idea about the kind of money it’d take to keep him around for the long haul. Ramírez is, after all, one of the game’s best players. The switch-hitting third baseman broke out as a superstar in 2017, and he’s been among the most valuable players in the sport over the past half-decade.
Going back to the beginning of the 2017 campaign, only Mike Trout and Mookie Betts edge out Ramírez among position players by FanGraphs’ measure of Wins Above Replacement. Ramírez owns a .280/.365/.547 line in that time, offensive production that checks in checks in 39 percentage points above average by measure of wRC+. That’s the 15th-highest mark among qualifiers, and Ramírez pairs that offensive damage with excellent marks for both his baserunning and defense at the hot corner.
Cleveland signed Ramírez to an incredibly team-friendly deal just before he took his game to new heights. In March 2017, they inked him to a $26MM guarantee that extended their window of team control by three seasons. He’ll play this season on an $11MM salary and is controllable in 2023 via a $13MM club option that’s a lock to be exercised barring catastrophic injury.
That extension delayed Ramírez’s path to the open market, and he’s not slated to hit free agency (assuming next year’s option is picked up) until the advance of his age-31 campaign. Accordingly, he won’t command a decade-long commitment in the Corey Seager mold, but teams have still paid a fair amount for slightly older star position players in recent offseasons. George Springer landed a six-year, $150MM deal from the Blue Jays heading into his age-31 season last winter; Marcus Semien picked up $175MM over seven years from the Rangers this offseason at the same age.
If he keeps playing at his current form over the next couple years, Ramírez would quite likely beat those deals in free agency. His camp could justifiably argue he’s a better player than either Springer or Semien, and the overall market could be more robust as teams move further away from the lost revenues in 2020. Draft pick compensation for free agents, which applied to both Springer and Semien, could also be pulled from the collective bargaining agreement depending on the status of an international draft.
The Guardians wouldn’t pay an open market price for Ramírez two years in advance, but it’d still register as a surprise if they went to the level it’d take to keep him in Cleveland long-term. The franchise has never gone above $60MM in guarantees on any individual player. A Ramírez extension would probably cost more than double that amount. Cleveland has had a bottom five player payroll in each of the past two years, and they’re currently slated to head into 2022 with around a $56MM mark, in the calculation of Jason Martinez of Roster Resource.
Owner Paul Dolan would probably have to greenlight more spending in the future to keep Ramírez around. The post-2023 payroll slate is wide open, but it’s tough to imagine the Guardians allocating 40-50% of their annual payroll to a single player. Hoynes writes that the front office is conferring with Dolan about the long-term spending plans and that no further negotiations with Ramírez have presently been scheduled. It stands to reason the front office will reengage with their star player once they have a better understanding about the kind of resources that’ll be at their disposal.
With their two years of club control, the Guardians don’t have to hammer out a deal with Ramírez in the coming weeks or months. So long as no extension is in place, however, chatter figures to mount about his future. That’s particularly true if the Guardians struggle early in the season.
Ramírez’s name was floated briefly in trade rumors this winter, with the Blue Jays among the teams to inquire about his availability, but it never seemed likely Cleveland would ship him out over the offseason. A rough first half for the team would probably result in increased speculation about a Ramírez trade as the deadline gets closer. Cleveland would surely prefer to avoid that situation — either by keeping him for the long haul or playing well enough in the season’s first couple months there’s no question about their direction come July.
Evan Longoria To Undergo Finger Surgery
The Giants announced this evening that third baseman Evan Longoria will undergo surgery to repair a ligament in his right index finger (via Alex Pavlovic of NBC Sports Bay Area). His timetable is unclear, but the team noted that his finger is expected to be immobilized for at least ten days.
More will be known about how long the Giants will be without Longoria in the next few days, but he’s at least slated to open the year on the injured list. Opening Day is eight days away, meaning his finger is likely to remain immobilized by the time games get underway. He’ll assuredly need some time between then and his return to MLB action to partake in some baseball activities and perhaps embark on a minor league rehab assignment.
It’ll be the fifth consecutive season with an injured list stint for Longoria, who hasn’t reached 600 plate appearances in a year since 2017. He missed a couple months last year due to a shoulder issue, but the three-time All-Star enjoyed something of an offensive resurgence when he was healthy. Last season’s .261/.351/.482 line was his best showing on a rate basis since 2016, although he only appeared in half of San Francisco’s games.
With Longoria out of action to open the season, the Giants figure to mix and match at the hot corner. Wilmer Flores will probably see a good bit of action there, while San Francisco has a pair of out-of-options utilitymen in Thairo Estrada and Mauricio Dubón vying for bench roles. All three of those players hit right-handed, as does the recently-acquired Luke Williams. The Giants have lefty-hitting corner infielder Jason Vosler on the 40-man roster as well, but the 28-year-old has a limited MLB track record and a pair of minor league option years remaining.
Twins Sign Chris Archer
The Twins are adding to the rotation via free agency, announcing agreement with Chris Archer on a one-year deal. The VC Sports Group client reportedly receives a $3.5MM guarantee, consisting of a $2.75MM base salary and a $750K buyout on a $10MM mutual option for the 2023 season. Archer’s 2022 salary can max out at $9.5MM based on starts and/or games with at least three innings pitched, presumably to give him credit for “relief” outings following an opener. To create 40-man roster space, Minnesota sent left-hander Lewis Thorpe outright to Triple-A St. Paul.
Archer has barely pitched over the past couple seasons due to injury. He missed all of the shortened 2020 campaign after undergoing surgery to correct thoracic outlet syndrome. Bought out by the Pirates after that season, he signed a one-year deal with the Rays but was limited to 19 1/3 innings during his second stint in Tampa Bay. The righty hit the injured list after just two appearances on account of forearm tightness. While it was initially hoped that’d be a brief stint, it kept him out of action until late August. He made four appearances late in the year upon returning, but issues with his left hip sent him back to the IL for a season-ending stay.
The lack of recent volume has been a new issue for Archer, who was a durable and highly productive arm early in his career. He exceeded 115 innings every year between 2013-19, including three consecutive 200-inning seasons with the Rays from 2015-17. Archer earned All-Star selections in two of those campaigns and picked up a fifth-place finish in AL Cy Young Award voting during a 2015 season in which he posted a 3.23 ERA and a 3.08 SIERA.
Archer was a top-of-the-rotation arm during his best days in Tampa, combining for a 3.66 ERA with a strong 26.7% strikeout rate between 2014-17. The Rays flipped him to the Pirates in advance of the 2018 trade deadline, a now-infamous deal that saw Pittsburgh part with Austin Meadows, Tyler Glasnow and Shane Baz to pick up three and a half years of club control over Archer. Unfortunately for the Bucs, that deal looked regrettable almost from the get-go. Archer’s production went backwards early in his Pittsburgh tenure, and the team didn’t get a single inning from him during the affordable 2020-21 club options that had made him such an appealing target at the time of the trade.
It has been three years since Archer was a productive rotation member. He’s now 33 years old, and the mid-90s velocity he sported during his best days didn’t reappear in his brief return from TOS last year. Archer averaged only 92 MPH on his four-seam fastball after sitting in the 94-96 MPH range throughout his entire career previously.
The low-base, incentive-laden structure of the deal reflects both Archer’s decent upside and his three consecutive down seasons. If he stays healthy and cements himself in the rotation, he’ll have a chance to earn comparable salaries as back-end starters like Tyler Anderson and Andrew Heaney were guaranteed this winter. If he again struggles with injury, the club’s financial investment will be more minimal.
Archer figures to open the year at the back half of the Minnesota rotation. The Twins have made some major shakeups on the position player side, shipping out Mitch Garver and Josh Donaldson and bringing in Gary Sánchez and Gio Urshela via trade before shockingly landing the market’s top free agent, Carlos Correa. That reaffirmed the Twins were all-in on rebounding from last season’s 73-89 finish.
The rotation has arguably been the team’s biggest weakness all winter, though. Minnesota landed Sonny Gray in a deal with the Reds and picked up Dylan Bundy on a reclamation free agent deal not all that dissimilar from today’s pact with Archer. After trading José Berríos last summer and losing Kenta Maeda to Tommy John surgery, they came into the offseason arguably needing three new arms to join Bailey Ober and rookie Joe Ryan in the season-opening starting staff.
Archer becomes the third such outside addition, although neither he nor Bundy is anything near a sure bet to provide reliable production. Pitching alternatives have gotten limited this late in the offseason, however, particularly with the Reds taking Luis Castillo and Tyler Mahle off the trade block. A’s starters Sean Manaea and Frankie Montas looked like prime trade candidates, but the most recent reports suggest Oakland could carry both into the season. The free agent market had mostly thinned out as well, with Archer and Johnny Cueto representing the best remaining options.
The Twins move forward with Archer, who’ll presumably step into a season-opening starting five with Gray, Bundy, Ryan and Ober. Minnesota also has a trio of highly-regarded pitching prospects — Josh Winder, Jhoan Duran and Jordan Balazovic — who could factor into the mix as well. Aaron Gleeman of the Athletic wrote last week that Winder looked to be the first line of rotation reinforcements for the Twins, with Duran likelier to break into the bigs as a reliever. Given the recent injury histories of Bundy and Archer and the uncertainty of young arms like Ober and Ryan, it stands to reason Winder will get a look at some point early in the year.
Thorpe was a decently-regarded pitching prospect himself, but he hasn’t found a ton of big league success. The southpaw has tossed 59 1/3 innings in 24 outings as a swingman over the past three seasons, posting a 5.76 ERA. He was out of minor league option years, and the Twins have chosen to bump him from the 40-man roster rather than carry him on the big league club all year. Having already cleared outright waivers, the Australia native will remain in the organization without occupying a spot on the 40-man.
Jeff Passan of ESPN first reported the Twins and Archer had agreed to a $3.5MM deal that could max out at $9.5MM based on starts and/or three-inning appearances. Do-Hyoung Park of MLB.com reported the $10MM mutual option, which Passan reported contained a $750K buyout.
Image courtesy of USA Today Sports.