Mike Fiers Signs With Mexican League’s Leones De Yucatan
Free-agent righty Mike Fiers has signed on with los Leones de Yucatan of the Mexican League, per an announcement from the team.
Fiers, 36, made just two starts in the big leagues last season, both coming with the A’s. A hip injury in Spring Training delayed his 2021 debut until late April, and Fiers returned for just two appearances before going back to the injured list with an elbow sprain that eventually proved to be a season-ender. During his 9 1/3 innings, he was tagged for eight runs on 15 hits and four walks with five strikeouts.
It wasn’t a good showing for the right-hander, clearly, but Fiers isn’t far removed from a sharp three-year run with the Tigers and A’s (2018-20) that saw him pitch to a combined 3.85 ERA through 415 2/3 innings. Fiers’ strikeout rate and velocity have continued to dip as he’s progressed toward his late 30s, but he’s maintained walk rates that are considerably better than league average and also induced plenty of harmless infield flies during that Detroit/Oakland run.
With a decent showing in Mexico, it’s possible Fiers will get another look with a big league team at some point in the 2022 season. The need for pitching is constant over the course of a given season, and in 1151 career innings at the big league level, Fiers has a 4.07 ERA with a 20.7% strikeout rate and a 7.0% walk rate.
Andrew Miller Announces Retirement
Veteran reliever Andrew Miller is retiring after 16 Major League seasons, Derrick Goold of The St. Louis Post-Dispatch reports. In a text to Goold, Miller looked back on his career and gave to those who helped him along the way:
“The list of people who took me aside, put their arm around me, made me laugh when I needed to, or taught me something is endless. It’s safe to say I would have been faced with the next chapter much earlier on if it weren’t for them. As someone who thought their career was practically over in 2010, to be able to experience everything I did along the way is incredible. You shouldn’t ever hear complaints from me. It was a heck of a run.”
After being selected as the sixth overall pick of the 2006 draft, Miller was initially seen as a cornerstone piece of the Tigers’ future before he became part of one of the biggest trades in Detroit’s franchise history. Miller was one of six players dealt from the Tigers to the Marlins in exchange for Miguel Cabrera and Dontrelle Willis in December 2007, though after three injury-plagued seasons in South Beach, the Marlins also parted ways with the left-hander.
Miller was dealt to the Red Sox in the 2010-11 offseason, and after more struggles in 2011, Miller became a full-time reliever in 2012 and essentially never looked back. The southpaw became one of baseball’s top relief pitchers, working in a variety of different roles depending on his team’s needs. Whether as a closer, set-up man, multi-inning workhorse, or lefty specialist, Miller became a valuable bullpen weapon in any capacity.
As flexible bullpens have become more and more prominent in recent years, it is also very easy to point to Miller as a trailblazer. As Cardinals teammate Adam Wainwright simply put it, Miller “changed the game and he kind of took that relief role back to when it first started, guys who could do two, three innings – and he was the guy who did it in the postseason.”
From 2013-17, Miller was next to unhittable, posting a 1.82 ERA, 41.1% strikeout rate, and 7.4% walk rate over 291 2/3 innings with the Red Sox, Orioles, Yankees, and Indians. That tremendous stretch saw Miller named to two AL All-Star teams, and receive top-10 Cy Young placements in both the 2015 and 2016 seasons.
Miller received a World Series ring for his contributions to Boston’s 2013 championship team, even if injuries kept him participating in the postseason. However, as Wainwright noted, Miller was at his best in baseball’s biggest spotlight. Miller retires with a tiny 0.93 ERA over 38 2/3 innings in the playoffs, even winning 2016 ALCS MVP honors with Cleveland in 2016. That particular season saw Miller help carry an injury-riddled Cleveland pitching staff to within an inch of a World Series, falling to the Cubs in extra innings in Game Seven.
“He kind of revolutionized all of it – your best pitcher doesn’t have to be your starter or your closer,” Cardinals pitching coach Mike Maddux said. “And he was the best pitcher on multiple staffs. What he did in the postseason to help his team was groundbreaking. I don’t think anybody really duplicated what he’s done – as far as throwing multiple innings in the hairy innings, whenever they are.”
Miller’s success was reflected in his free agent value, as he landed a four-year, $36MM deal from the Yankees in the 2014-15 offseason. Hitting the open market again following the 2018 campaign, Miller signed a two-year, $25MM contract with the Cardinals that became a three-year, $37MM pact when he pitched enough innings in 2020 to trigger a vesting option.
Injuries began to hamper Miller later in his career, and both his velocity and his overall performance took a step back over his three years in St. Louis. Miller had only a 4.34 ERA over 103 2/3 regular-season innings in a Cards uniform, but again remained effective come October. Over seven postseason games and 5 2/3 innings with the Cardinals, Miller didn’t allow a single run.
If anything, Miller drew even more respect from teammates and peers off the field, due to his work with the MLB Players Association. A longtime team union rep and a member of the MLBPA executive board, Miller was one of the most prominent and outspoken voices representing the players’ causes both during his career, and particularly this offseason during the lockout. While Miller will never himself play under the terms of the 2022-26 Collective Bargaining Agreement, it will stand as something of a legacy for his contributions to players both present and future.
“I have an appreciation for what he did for the entire game of baseball,” Wainwright said of Miller’s MLBPA work. “As many hours as that guy put in for the union over these past few years is kind of staggering. He may retire and that means this whole offseason he still spent 16 hours on the phone a day, for us, for who’s next – that means a lot.”
The 36-year-old Miller will retire with a career 4.03 ERA, 27.1% strikeout rate, 979 strikeouts, 10.6% walk rate, 63 saves, and 141 holds over his 829 innings with seven different Major League teams. We at MLB Trade Rumors congratulate Miller on a great career, and we wish him all the best in retirement.
For the last word on Miller’s career, the lefty himself sums things up as part of his text message….
“I feel very fortunate that my career worked out the way that it did. Of course there were tough stretches, injuries, and times of doubt. I also won’t deny that I can find myself in moments of wondering what if this or that had happened differently, could it have somehow been better? I’m usually pretty quick to be able to step back though and see how lucky I have been. The hard times were necessary for me to grow and to be able to appreciate the highs along the way. Ultimately, I was able to play for many great franchises, wear historic uniforms, and play in some amazing ballparks. I made some of the best friends I will ever have in life through the game. I was able to work with the union and see the good it can do for players while learning so much about the game.”
Braves Sign R.J. Alaniz, Brandon Brennan To Minor League Deals
The Braves have signed relievers R.J. Alaniz and Brandon Brennan to minor league contracts, according to Chris Hilburn-Trenkle of Baseball America. Both right-handers picked up brief MLB action last season.
Alaniz made three appearances with the Reds during the final couple weeks of the year. That marked his first action at the highest level since 2019, when he combined for 12 appearances between Seattle and Cincinnati. Alaniz has allowed 18 runs in 18 1/3 career innings, but he’s coming off a nice season in Triple-A.
The 30-year-old made 33 appearances with the Reds’ top affiliate in Louisville. He tossed 39 innings of 3.46 ERA ball, punching out an impressive 26.9% of opposing hitters. He issued walks at a slightly elevated 10.2% clip, but he missed enough bats in the minors to get a late-season cameo in Cincinnati. The Reds outrighted him off their roster at the end of the year, at which point he elected minor league free agency.
Brennan, 30, was briefly a teammate of Alaniz with the Mariners in 2019. Seattle selected him out of the White Sox’s farm system in the Rule 5 draft the year prior, and he stuck on the active roster all year for a rebuilding M’s club. Brennan made 44 appearances, pitching to a 4.56 ERA with a decent 24% strikeout percentage but a 12.2% walk rate. Carrying him on the roster all season entitled the Mariners to his long-term contractual rights, but an oblique strain limited him to five appearances in 2020.
Seattle designated Brennan for assignment last April, and he landed with the Red Sox via waivers. He only made one appearance in Boston, tossing three scoreless innings but getting DFA the next day as the Sox needed fresh arms for the bullpen. He cleared outright waivers but was released in September after posting just a 5.97 ERA in 37 2/3 frames with Triple-A Worcester.
The Braves have quite a bit of their season-opening bullpen already locked in. They’ve added Kenley Jansen, Collin McHugh and Tyler Thornburg to a unit that already included Will Smith, Luke Jackson, Tyler Matzek and A.J. Minter, with Sean Newcomb and Dylan Lee perhaps factoring into the mix. There’s unlikely to be room for either Alaniz or Brennan in the early going, but they both figure to serve as experienced depth options with Triple-A Gwinnett.
Guardians Sign Jake Jewell To Minor League Contract
The Guardians have signed reliever Jake Jewell to a minor league contract, according to Chris Hilburn-Trenkle of Baseball America. The righty had qualified for minor league free agency after being outrighted off the Giants’ 40-man roster late last season.
Jewell split the 2021 campaign between three organizations, although he only suited up at the big league level with one. The 28-year-old began the year with the Cubs after signing a minors pact the prior offseason. He was selected to the MLB roster right around the trade deadline and went on to make ten appearances with Chicago. He allowed 12 runs, including a staggering five home runs, in just ten innings for the North Siders before they designated him for assignment.
That obviously wasn’t a productive MLB run, but Jewell had pitched to a sterling 2.78 ERA in 32 1/3 innings with Triple-A Iowa to earn the call-up. That minor league showing caught the interest of a pair of NL West rivals, as he landed with the Dodgers and Giants on successive waiver claims. Both Los Angeles and San Francisco stashed him at Triple-A without getting him into a big league game, however, and he cleared waivers once the Giants bumped him from their 40-man in September.
In addition to his time with the Cubs, Jewell pitched in the big leagues with the Angels from 2018-19. He posted a 6.99 ERA in 21 outings with Anaheim, striking out a below-average 19.2% of batters faced. He boasts a fastball that typically sits in the 95-96 MPH range, though, and his career 12.4% swinging strike rate is solid. Cleveland relievers ranked sixth last season in both ERA (3.64) and strikeout/walk rate differential (15.9 percentage points), so Jewell might have a hard time getting a look early in the season. He’ll add a fairly live depth arm to Triple-A Columbus.
Angels Sign Max Stassi To Extension
The Angels announced this evening they’ve signed catcher Max Stassi to a three-year, $17.5MM extension. The veteran backstop will earn $3MM in 2022, and $7MM apiece in 2023-24. The deal also contains a $7.5MM club option for the 2025 campaign that comes with a $500K buyout. Stassi is a Wasserman client.
The deal buys out up to three free agent years, as Stassi had been set to hit the open market after this season. He and the team had already agreed to a $3MM salary for the upcoming season. That figure remains in place, with the club tacking on $14.5MM in new money to keep him under club control through 2025.
Stassi has appeared in each of the last nine big league seasons, but he didn’t play in more than 15 games in any of the first five years. The righty-hitting backstop had never even tallied 300 plate appearances in a season until last year, as he’d spent his early days as a depth catcher with the division-rival Astros.
The Angels picked up Stassi in a seemingly minor deadline deal with Houston in 2019. He didn’t do much in 20 games with the Halos down the stretch that season, but he’s enjoyed a late-career breakout over the past two years. Stassi mashed at a .278/.352/.533 clip during the shortened 2020 schedule, rapping nine extra-base hits in 105 plate appearances. There’s little doubt the limited sample inflated his numbers that year, but Stassi continued to perform well over his largest body of work last season.
In 2021, Stassi appeared in 87 games and picked up 319 trips to the plate. He hit .241/.326/.426 with 13 homers, showing solid power and drawing a fair number of walks. Stassi struck out in an alarming 31.7% of his plate appearances, but the combination of pop and patience were more than adequate for a catcher. By measure of wRC+, Stassi’s production lined up exactly with that of a league average hitter. League average offense isn’t easy to find at the most demanding position at the diamond, with catchers overall posting a .229/.305/.391 mark last season.
Stassi pretty clearly wielded an above-average bat for a backstop, and he also rated well in the eyes of Statcast’s pitch framing metrics. Baseball Savant pegged him as six runs above average as a framer last season, his fourth straight year garnering positive marks in that regard. He didn’t do well to control the running game, throwing out only 15.4% of attempted base-stealers (against a 24.3% league average). Stassi had fared a bit better in that regard in years past, however, and the Angels are clearly comfortable in both his receiving ability and ability to handle a pitching staff over the coming seasons.
Because he didn’t establish himself as a regular until nearly a decade into his big league career, Stassi wasn’t going to hit free agency until after his age-31 season. That always figured to cap his long-term market upside, but the two years and $14.5MM in guarantees for his first couple free agent seasons is in line with the recent going rate for capable but not elite #1 catchers. The Braves signed Travis d’Arnaud to a two-year, $16MM extension last August; the Cubs added Yan Gomes for two years and $13MM just before the lockout.
d’Arnaud and Gomes were the top options in a free agent catching class that was short on #1 options this winter. Next year’s crop looks stronger, with Mike Zunino, Willson Contreras, Gary Sánchez and Omar Narváez among a handful of players set to hit the market. Rather than stick in that fairly deep class, Stassi will stick around in Orange County for at least the next couple years.
The Angels re-signed Kurt Suzuki this winter, and he’ll serve as Stassi’s back-up for the upcoming campaign. The extension won’t affect the Angels’ books for the upcoming season, given that it doesn’t change his price tag from the previously agreed upon $3MM arbitration settlement. Los Angeles is still set to open this season with a franchise-record payroll in the $188MM range. The extension brings their 2023 estimated player commitments up to around $119MM, in the estimation of Jason Martinez of Roster Resource.
Image courtesy of USA Today Sports.
Rays Sign Robert Dugger To Minor League Deal
The Rays have signed right-hander Robert Dugger to a minor league contract, Baseball America’s Chris Hilburn-Trenkle notes as part of his latest transactions round-up. The 26-year-old has appeared in the majors in each of the past three seasons, suiting up with the Marlins and Mariners.
Dugger’s 12 appearances with Seattle last season marked a career-high. He started four of those games but never worked more than 3 1/3 innings, serving as more of a long relief type. Dugger posted a 7.36 ERA in 25 2/3 innings, striking out only 15.7% of opposing hitters. The Texas Tech product also had a rough season with Triple-A Tacoma, where he was tagged for a 6.10 ERA in 69 1/3 frames.
The M’s outrighted Dugger off their 40-man roster in August. He elected minor league free agency at the end of the season and will join the third organization of his career. Originally a Mariners draftee, Dugger was traded to Miami as part of the Dee Strange-Gordon deal. He debuted in the big leagues with the Marlins in 2019 but ended up back in Seattle last winter when they nabbed him off waivers from the Fish.
Dugger has made 23 big league appearances, including 12 starts. Owner of a 7.39 career ERA, he’s yet to find success at the major league level. Dugger has pitched pretty well up through Double-A, though, and he appeared among Baseball America’s Top 30 Marlins’ prospects each offseason from 2018-20. He’ll offer some swing depth to a Tampa Bay organization that is among the league’s most flexible with regards to pitcher usage.
A’s Sign Stephen Vogt
MARCH 24: Oakland has officially announced the signing of Vogt to a one-year deal. The team already had a pair of vacancies on the 40-man roster, so no additional move was necessary. Vogt will earn $850K guaranteed, plus a $100K bonus for 60 days on the active roster and a $150K assignment bonus if traded, tweets MLB Network’s Jon Heyman.
MARCH 23: The A’s and catcher Stephen Vogt are in agreement on a major league contract, pending a physical, reports Matt Kawahara of the San Francisco Chronicle (Twitter link). Vogt is a client of All Bases Covered Sports Management.
It’s a return to the organization for Vogt, who had his best seasons with the A’s. The lefty-hitting backstop played in Oakland between 2013-17, hitting .255/.316/.416 over that stretch. That’s exactly league average offense, by measure of wRC+, but Vogt had a couple above-average seasons during that run. He combined to hit 27 homers with a .268/.333/.438 line in 798 plate appearances from 2014-15.
The amiable Vogt became a fan favorite during his four-plus seasons in Oakland, which included back-to-back All-Star appearances in 2015-16. His production tailed off at the end of his run there, though, as he was off to just a .217/.287/.357 start through 54 games in 2017. The A’s placed him on waivers, where he was scooped up by the Brewers. He popped eight homers in a reserve capacity with Milwaukee that year, but he missed basically all of the following season due to a shoulder strain.
Vogt rebounded from the injury in 2019. He returned to the Bay Area with the Giants and hit .263/.314/.490 in 280 trips to the plate. The past two years, on the other hand, have been a significant struggle. Vogt hit .188/.274/.319 in 102 games split between the D-Backs and Braves. He finished last season on the injured list with hip inflammation, preventing him from partaking in Atlanta’s run to a World Series title.
At 37 and coming off back-to-back down seasons, Vogt fell towards the back of this winter’s free agent catching class. He’ll return to a familiar environment where he’s beloved by a sizable portion of the fanbase, providing skipper Mark Kotsay both a valuable clubhouse presence and a bat-first depth option at catcher. Sean Murphy is obviously in line for the bulk of the playing time behind the dish, with the out-of-options Austin Allen the only other backstop on the 40-man roster. Oakland will have to break camp with the 28-year-old Allen or designate him for assignment, but the arrival of Vogt could put his time in the organization in jeopardy.
It’s not entirely out of the question Murphy changes uniforms in the coming weeks. The A’s have kicked off an organizational reboot this winter, flipping Chris Bassitt, Matt Olson and Matt Chapman in an effort to cut costs. Signing Vogt to what’s assuredly a low-cost deal won’t have any impact on the front office’s thinking on Murphy, who is controllable through 2025 and not yet arbitration-eligible. That makes Murphy a long shot to be dealt, but if the A’s did flip him before Opening Day, Vogt and Allen would figure to pick up the lion’s share of playing time. Oakland did acquire top catching prospect Shea Langeliers from the Braves in the Olson deal, giving them another promising long-term option at the position.
The A’s payroll-cutting efforts have trickled over into free agency, where the club has done essentially nothing this winter. Once finalized, Vogt’s deal will be the A’s first (and quite possibly only) major league contract of the offseason. They’d been the only team not to have signed a player to a big league deal. Vogt will get them on the board, but that’s probably only a minor consolation for a fanbase that has seen a few highly-regarded players shipped off since the lockout ended.
White Sox Offered Lucas Giolito Four-Year/$50MM Extension Prior To 2021 Season
The White Sox were known to be discussing a contract extension with Lucas Giolito last spring, and The Athletic’s James Fegan shares some details about the talks between the two sides. The Sox offered Giolito a four-year, $50MM deal covering the 2021-24 seasons (Giolito’s three remaining arbitration-eligible years and his first free agent year), and there was also a club option for the 2025 campaign.
As Fegan put it, the “offer was declined without a counter made by Giolito’s camp, as it was not viewed as being suitable enough to drive further discussion.” As a result, Giolito earned $4.14MM in 2021, as per the arbitration-avoiding deal he made with the Sox before extension talks began in earnest. His salary for 2022 has yet to be determined, as the two sides now appear to be heading for an arbitration hearing after failing to reach an agreement before Tuesday’s filing deadline.
Giolito is looking for a $7.5MM salary and the White Sox countered with a $7.3MM figure. Of the 31 players who didn’t agree to contracts prior to Tuesday’s deadline, Giolito’s case represents the smallest financial gap between player and team. Furthermore, Giolito told The Chicago Sun-Times’ Daryl Van Schouwen and other reporters that negotiations got as close as a $50K difference.
“For it to come down to a 50K difference prior to the filing, it’s like, ‘Come on.’ It’s an upsetting part of the process. It’s why a lot of us don’t enjoy the business side of the process,” Giolito said.
Between the lack of progress in last year’s extension talks or this year’s arbitration talks, it remains to be seen whether or not these disputes could impact Giolito’s future in Chicago. GM Rick Hahn told Van Schouwen and other reporters that the arbitration impasse was “a function of the arbitration process” and “not a reflection of anything to do with [Giolito].” As for the right-hander himself, Giolito noted “Like I’ve always said about extensions, I absolutely love this team. The more I play the more I understand my value as a player. And I just want fair. It’s always fair for me, that’s where I’m at.”
Going back to the 2021 extension talks, it is clear that Giolito and his representatives didn’t think the four-year/$50MM offer fit their version of “fair,” considering that Giolito was coming off his second season of front-of-the-rotation performance. While the shortened 2020 campaign limited Giolito to 72 1/3 innings, he posted a 3.48 ERA and a 33.7% strikeout rate that ranked among the league’s best.
Back in March 2020, MLBTR’s Jeff Todd speculated that a Giolito extension could be worth around $45MM. With another good performance in the books that season and Giolito getting a year closer to free agency, clearly a $5MM bump from Todd’s projection wasn’t enough to get Giolito’s attention. While Chicago’s $50MM offer did top the amount of guaranteed money the Phillies gave Aaron Nola (another quality pitcher who had between three and four years of service time), Fegan writes that the Nola extension was “widely assessed as a team-friendly deal,” and also that Nola had recently had an injury scare in the form of a forearm strain.
Giolito, meanwhile, has no such injury issues, apart from a few brief IL stints due to muscle strains. And, with Giolito again pitching well in 2021, the CAA Sports client is surely looking for an even bigger payday in any multi-year extension. For teams like the White Sox who take a “file and trial” stance when it comes to negotiating one-year arbitration deals, more talks continue when it comes to discussing longer-term extensions, so it isn’t out of the question that the two sides can revisit the subject before things actually reach a hearing.
Blue Jays, Rockies Swap Randal Grichuk For Raimel Tapia
3:32PM: Toronto will send Colorado $9,716,333, according to Rob Gillies of The Associated Press. Those payments are split up as $5,383,333 this season and $4,333,333 for the 2023 season.
1:57PM: Both clubs have officially announced the trade.
12:01PM: The Blue Jays and Rockies have agreed to a trade sending outfielder Randal Grichuk from Toronto to Colorado in exchange for outfielder Raimel Tapia, reports Mark Feinsand of MLB.com (via Twitter). The Jays will acquire infield prospect Adrian Pinto from the Rockies, and they’ll also send cash to Colorado to help cover Grichuk’s contract, Feinsand adds.
Grichuk, 30, has been viewed as a trade candidate for more than a year now as the Rockies have deepened their outfield mix and Grichuk’s performance has slipped. Signed to a five-year contract covering the 2019-23 seasons, Grichuk is still owed $9.33MM both this season and next, while Tapia and the Rox settled on a $3.95MM salary earlier this week. He’s arbitration-eligible and controlled through the 2023 season himself. The difference in salary between the two players clocks in at about $14.7MM.
Grichuk signed a five-year, $52MM contract back on April 2, 2019 — fresh off a 2018 season in which he’d batted .245/.301/.502 with what was then a career-high 25 home runs in 462 plate appearances. It was something of a head-scratching deal even at the time, as Grichuk’s perennial OBP struggles worked to offset his power and solid glovework in the outfield. That’s not to say he wasn’t a useful player, but the Jays already controlled Grichuk for two seasons and were effectively committing about $39-40MM on top of what he might’ve earned in arbitration to buy out his first three free-agent seasons.
Since putting pen to paper, Grichuk has posted a .242/.286/.448 batting line with 65 home runs in 1414 plate appearances. Among the 159 players with at least 1000 plate appearances in that three-year stretch, he ranks 158th in on-base percentage. To his credit, Grichuk curbed his strikeout rate from 26.4% in 2018 all the way down to 20.9% in 2021, but the gains in contact didn’t result in a better average and his walk rate dipped to a career-low 5.0%. It’s clear that there’s above-average pop in his bat, but defensive metrics have also soured on Grichuk’s work in center over the past couple seasons. Meanwhile, the Jays have signed George Springer and received breakouts from Lourdes Gurriel Jr. and Teoscar Hernandez since signing Grichuk to that long-term pact.
There were reports even while the lockout was still ongoing that Tapia could be on the move when transactions resumed. Adding Kris Bryant as the new primary left fielder surely only hastened the Rockies’ efforts to move Tapia, who’d previously occupied that position. Grichuk can serve as a primary center fielder or right fielder in Colorado, and he’ll bring the Rox quite a bit more power than Tapia ever offered — albeit at the expense of some speed, on-base percentage and (arguably) defensive value.
In Tapia, the Jays will get a much-needed lefty bat to help balance out an entirely right-handed outfield mix (and a generally right-leaning lineup overall). The 28-year-old has served as Colorado’s primary left fielder since 2019, logging a .282/.327/.394 slash line that appears solid on the surface but falls well shy of average after weighting for home park and league (79 wRC+). Tapia has strong bat-to-ball skills but an extreme ground-ball approach that has resulted in just 16 home runs through 1186 plate appearances since 2019. He can swipe a base when needed (37 steals with a 77.1% success rate across the past three seasons. Like Grichuk, he’s not one to take many walks (6.3% since ’19), but he’s also a tough strikeout, evidenced by last year’s career-best 13.1% mark.
Tapia has received solid marks in left field from metrics like Defensive Runs Saved (4), Ultimate Zone Rating (6.0) and Outs Above Average (7) since emerging as a regular in the lineup at Coors Field. He’s at least capable of playing center in a pinch, having logged 189 innings there in his career (15 this past season, none in 2020, 83 in 2019). Those ratings, plus his left-handed bat, make him a better fit for Toronto’s roster than the right-handed-hitting Grichuk was.
While Tapia may not be the star the Rockies envisioned when he ranked among the sport’s 50 best prospects in the 2016-17 offseason, he’s emerged as a solid defensive outfielder with better-than-average speed and bat-to-ball skills. The Jays will likely hope to coax some more fly-balls out of Tapia, thus generating some extra power, but even if his batted-ball profile remains unchanged, he can be a useful fourth outfielder for a club that is deep in slugging right-handed options.
As for the 19-year-old Pinto, he’ll give the Jays something of a prospect wild card to plug into the low levels of their farm system. Baseball America rated Pinto 19th in a fairly thin Rockies system this spring, labeling the 5’6″ second baseman as a “breakout candidate” who could take substantial steps forward as he moves from the Dominican Summer League to a full-season affiliate.
Pinto hit .360/.486/.543 in 224 DSL plate appearances last season, walking at a massive 17% clip against just an 8% strikeout rate while leading the league with 41 stolen bases. BA’s scouting report lauds his “outstanding” hand-eye coordination, advanced pitch recognition skills and plus-plus speed. Players of his size and stature will always have their share of skeptics, but the Jays probably feel better about paying Grichuk to play elsewhere if they’re viewing part of the transaction as an effective purchase of Pinto from the Rockies.
31 Players On Track For Arbitration Hearings
201 arbitration eligible players have reached agreements with their teams on a 2022 salary, most of which occurred just prior to Tuesday’s filing deadline.
According to Jake Seiner of The Associated Press, 31 arbitration eligible players remain unsigned and are on track for hearings. Due to the lockout, the hearings are expected to take place during the season if agreements are not reached. The full list of unsigned players, which includes Aaron Judge, Willson Contreras, and Dansby Swanson, can be found in our tracker. Judge, having submitted a $21MM figure against the Yankees’ $17MM submission, represents the largest gap at $4MM.
All the other gaps are less than $2MM, and the smallest is the $200K separating Lucas Giolito and the White Sox. Yesterday, Giolito told reporters that the sides were only $50K apart prior to filing, which the righty described as “very unfortunate, disheartening.”
The Braves have five of the 31 cases, with Swanson, Adam Duvall, Luke Jackson, Max Fried, and Austin Riley. Six of the 31 players were traded this offseason: Jesse Winker, Adam Frazier, Gary Sanchez, Chris Bassitt, and Jacob Stallings.
A look at the number of hearings by year in the last decade:
- 2021: 8
- 2020: 12
- 2019: 10
- 2018: 22
2017: 15 - 2016: 4
- 2015: 14
- 2014: 3
- 2013: 0
- 2012: 7
Multiyear deals are always an option, and we record those in our extension tracker.