Marlins Extend Miguel Rojas Through 2023
TODAY: The Marlins officially announced Rojas’ extension.
OCTOBER 27: The Marlins are keeping their shortstop around for an extra season, agreeing to an extension with Miguel Rojas that’ll keep him under contract through 2023. Rojas, who had already locked in a $5.5MM salary for the 2022 season when he triggered a vesting option in September, is reportedly signing a two-year, $10MM deal.
It effectively amounts to the Marlins tacking on an additional year and $4.5MM for what will be Rojas’ age-34 season. The deal does not contain any option years. Rojas, who is represented by the Beverly Hills Sports Council, recently indicated in an appearance on Chris Rose’s podcast that an extension was in the works. He has previously voiced a desire to spend his entire career with the Marlins, and the front office has similarly expressed interest in keeping the clubhouse leader in Miami.
The 32-year-old Rojas saw his bat come back down closer to his career levels after a monster showing at the dish during the 2020 season. Typically a bit below-average with the bat but exceptional with the glove, Rojas erupted with a .304/.392/.496 showing last summer — albeit in a sample of just 143 plate appearances. That said, this year’s .265/.322/.392 showing in 539 trips to the plate was still a solid mark (97 wRC+), and if you take the last three seasons in the aggregate, Rojas has effectively been a league-average hitter.
League-average offense for a player of Rojas’ defensive aptitude is hardly anything to scoff at. Defensive Runs Saved pegged Rojas at plus-4 for the 2021 season and as a plus-20 defender in 4445 career innings at the position, while Rojas notched a 4.8 Ultimate Zone Rating in 2021 and carries a lifetime 28.5 mark in that regard. Statcast’s Outs Above Average is less bullish on his glovework but pegs him as at least an average defender over the past several seasons. Rojas also has ample experience at second base and third base in his career, so he could eventually slide into a utility role — although all current indications are that he’ll reprise his role as starting shortstop in 2022.
A Rojas extension gets some offseason business out of the way early for the Marlins and locks in a bargain source of cost certainty for the 2023 campaign. That’s likely quite notable for the Fish, who are angling to spend some money in free agency this winter but will surely be operating with some degree of financial constraints. CEO Derek Jeter has voiced an expectation that the Marlins will be “pretty active” for the first time under this ownership group.
Time will tell how that vague description from Jeter is defined relative to other “active” teams in free agency. The Marlins are expected to seek long-term options at catcher and in center field, and they could certainly be in the mix for a corner outfielder to pair with promising young Jesus Sanchez. At the moment, Rojas and right-hander Anthony Bass ($3MM) are the only players on guaranteed contracts in 2022. MLBTR contributor Matt Swartz projects an arbitration class in the vicinity of $34.5MM, and Miami will still owe $3MM to the Yankees under the terms of the Giancarlo Stanton trade.
With a projected payroll in the $55-56MM range, there does appear to be room to add — the question is just how high the Jeter/Bruce Sherman ownership group is willing to push payroll. Presumably, they’ll look for a gradual year-over-year increase rather than soaring to their max budget right out of the gates. However they proceed, they can now do so with the certainty that their ostensible team captain is under control for an extra season.
Craig Mish of SportsGrid and the Miami Herald first reported the Marlins and Rojas were in agreement on an extension. Jon Heyman of the MLB Network reported it was a two-year, $10MM deal. Joel Sherman of the New York Post added that the contract did not contain any options.
Image courtesy of USA Today Sports.
Scott Kazmir Intends To Pitch In 2022
Scott Kazmir completed an incredible comeback effort in May, reaching the big leagues for the first time in five years. The veteran bounced on and off the Giants’ roster a couple times, ultimately making five MLB appearances and starting twelve times with Triple-A Sacramento.
Kazmir finished the season on the injured list after straining his right hamstring during the final week of the regular season. The 37-year-old (38 in January) tells Susan Slusser of the San Francisco Chronicle that he’s returned to full health a little less than a month later. Kazmir adds that he intends to continue pitching next season, assuming he receives interest from teams.
The three-time All-Star will be a free agent this winter, but it indeed seems likely he’ll field some minor league offers. There’s no harm for clubs in giving the respected veteran a chance to compete for a job in Spring Training, and Kazmir is coming off an alright showing in the minors.
Over 52 2/3 frames with the River Cats, Kazmir posted a 4.61 ERA in the hitter-friendly Triple-A West. His strikeout and walk rates (22.1% and 8.3%, respectively) were right around the league average. Kazmir’s brief major league time didn’t go well, as he was tagged for nine runs (including three homers) in 11 1/3 frames. But his passable showing in Triple-A combined with a wealth of big league experience should get him another look next spring.
That could again be with the Giants, where president of baseball operations Farhan Zaidi has a relationship with Kazmir that dates back to their time with the Dodgers from 2015-17. The left-hander tells Slusser he’d welcome a return to San Francisco.
Blue Jays Deny Mets’ Request To Interview Mark Shapiro
Blue Jays ownership recently denied the Mets’ request to interview Toronto president/CEO Mark Shapiro as part of New York’s ongoing front office search, report Ken Davidoff, Joel Sherman and Mike Puma of the New York Post. Shapiro becomes the third known Mets’ target of the day to be ruled out as a possibility, joining Brewers GM Matt Arnold and Cardinals GM Michael Girsch.
A Shapiro pursuit would’ve always been a longshot, not too dissimilar from New York’s earlier unsuccessful runs at A’s executive vice president Billy Beane and Brewers president of baseball operations David Stearns. Shapiro has paired with general manager Ross Atkins to run baseball operations for the Jays since 2015, and he inked a five-year contract extension this January. The Post scribes suggest it’s unlikely Shapiro would’ve given much thought to making the jump to Queens even if Jays ownership had given him the opportunity to do so.
New York has also had reported interest in Giants GM Scott Harris and Dodgers assistant GM Brandon Gomes, but both took themselves out of consideration in favor of remaining with their current clubs. Los Angeles senior vice president of baseball ops Josh Byrnes is among the publicly-known candidates who haven’t since been ruled out; the Mets are also reportedly considering a couple of internal options, and there are surely potential targets with other organizations whose names have yet to be reported.
Braves Release Edgar Santana
The Braves announced this afternoon that they’ve released reliever Edgar Santana. The move clears space on the 40-man roster for southpaw Tucker Davidson, who was added to the World Series roster in place of the injured Charlie Morton. Davidson had been on the 60-day injured list since late June. Players on the 60-day IL don’t count against a team’s 40-man roster, so Atlanta needed to open a 40-man spot to formally activate Davidson before tonight’s contest.
Santana has been on the injured list himself, landing on the 10-day IL with an intercostal strain during the final week of the regular season. Injured players can’t be placed on outright waivers, so the Braves had to release Santana to remove him from the 40-man roster.
The Braves acquired Santana from the Pirates in early April. He was optioned on and off the active roster a few times but ultimately logged 42 2/3 innings over 41 outings. The righty pitched to a solid 3.59 ERA, actually the highest mark he’s posted in three big league seasons. That came without many punch-outs, as Santana only fanned 18.9% of opponents and benefited from batters’ .244 batting average on balls in play against him. The 30-year-old did avoid walks and induce grounders at an above-average clip, though, and his 12.4% swinging strike rate checked in a touch above the league average for relievers.
Santana now finds himself on release waivers. MLBTR contributor Matt Swartz projected him to receive a salary around $1MM if tendered an arbitration contract. That’s not an onerous figure, so it’s at least possible someone puts in a claim with an eye towards keeping him around for 2022. Should Santana pass waivers through unclaimed, he’d be a free agent.
Padres To Hire Ruben Niebla As Pitching Coach
OCTOBER 27: The Friars have finalized an agreement with Niebla, reports Dennis Lin of the Athletic (Twitter link). As expected, he’ll be the club’s pitching coach in 2022.
OCTOBER 24: The Padres “are locking in on” Indians assistant pitching coach Ruben Niebla as their next pitching coach, ESPN.com’s Buster Olney tweets. The hiring isn’t yet official, though Kevin Acee of The San Diego Union-Tribune reports (via Twitter) that Niebla “is considered all but a done deal” to change teams.
Ben Fritz had been serving as the Padres’ interim pitching coach since Larry Rothschild was fired in late August. According to Acee, the Padres are hoping Fritz remains with the team — Fritz had been working as the bullpen coach before his in-season promotion. It remains to be seen how the rest of the coaching staff will shake out, as bench coach/third base coach Bobby Dickerson has already left the team to join the Phillies, and there could be a wider coaching shakeup once the new San Diego manager is hired (as presumably that new skipper would get some say in assembling the staff).
Niebla will already be in place, however, as the SoCal native will now be moving closer to home for his first official gig as a Major League pitching coach. Niebla briefly served as Cleveland’s interim pitching coach in 2012, his highest rank in 21 seasons with the organization. Much of that first decade was spent as a minor league coach before Niebla joined the MLB staff as a coaching assistant in 2010, and then following his interim gig in 2012, he worked seven seasons as a minor league pitching coordinator. Niebla has been in his current role on the Major League coaching staff for the last two seasons.
At least one familiar face will already be there in San Diego to welcome Niebla, as former Indians hurler Mike Clevinger is expected to be back next season after missing 2021 due to Tommy John surgery. On paper, San Diego has plenty of solid rotation options in place with Joe Musgrove, Yu Darvish, Blake Snell, Chris Paddack, Clevinger, Ryan Weathers, and (around midseason) Adrian Morejon, except injuries and general under-performance ravaged this group last year.
In the bigger picture, the Padres will also surely be looking to pick Niebla’s brain about some of the secrets of Cleveland’s success at drafting and developing pitchers in recent years. While the Padres have had no shortage of promising young pitching prospects, they’ve had issues in converting that potential into success at the big league level. (To wit, all of Musgrove, Darvish, Snell, Paddack, and Clevinger were acquired in trades.)
Cardinals’ GM Michael Girsch Declines To Pursue Opportunity With Mets
The Mets have already been turned down by a handful of targets in their search for a new baseball operations head. Each of Theo Epstein, Billy Beane, David Stearns, Matt Arnold, Scott Harris and Brandon Gomes had been raised as potential candidates only to later be ruled out of consideration.
Cardinals general manager Michael Girsch can be added to that list, as Derrick Goold of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reports (Twitter link) that New York reached out to the Cards for permission to speak with him last week. Girsch, however, declined to pursue the opportunity, electing to remain in St. Louis instead.
It’s not especially surprising Girsch would choose to stay with the Cards, where he’s worked since 2006. He broke in as the club’s coordinator of amateur scouting and earned himself a larger responsibility within the front office over the course of his tenure. Girsch was named an assistant GM by 2011 and bumped up to general manager in June 2017. For the past four-plus seasons, he’s served as the top lieutenant for Cardinals president of baseball operations John Mozeliak. Girsch signed a contract extension in November 2019 that takes him through the end of next season.
The Mets will continue their search for a baseball ops leader over the coming days and weeks. New York set their initial sights on the high-profile trio of Epstein, Beane and Stearns, but they’ve been primarily tied to other teams’ second-in-command types after missing out on their early targets. Dodgers senior vice president Josh Byrnes — a former GM with the Diamondbacks and Padres — has previously been mentioned as one candidate the Mets were discussing internally.
Mariners Outright Jake Bauers
The Mariners announced Wednesday that first baseman/outfielder Jake Bauers has cleared waivers and been assigned outright to Triple-A Tacoma. He’ll be able to become a minor league free agent following the completion of the postseason, though Ryan Divish of the Seattle Times reports that the Mariners hope to re-sign him to a minor league contract (Twitter link).
Bauers, 26, is a former seventh-round pick of the Padres who eventually hit his way into top-100 prospect territory in 2017-18. San Diego flipped him to the Rays as one of several players in the three-team Trea Turner blockbuster that sent Turner to D.C. back in 2014.’
After a half season of games in Tampa Bay, Bauers went to Cleveland in another three-team deal — this time the one that sent Yandy Diaz to Tampa Bay, Carlos Santana to Cleveland and Edwin Encarnacion to Seattle. Bauers appeared in parts of two seasons with Cleveland across three calendar years before being traded to the Mariners exchange for a player to be named later (righty Damon Casetta-Stubbs) earlier this season.
The Mariners were the fourth organization of Bauers’ career and the third for which he’s played at the MLB level. He posted just a .220/.297/.275 slash with Seattle, however, continuing the struggles he’s displayed throughout his big league tenure. Through 1126 plate appearances spread across three Major League seasons, Bauers is a .213/.307/.348 hitter with 27 home runs and an impressive 11.5 percent walk rate — but also a sub-part 26.4 percent strikeout rate. He’s posted better numbers in the minors, with similar slash lines at virtually every stop and a career .275/.361/.414 output in parts of seven seasons.
Tucker Davidson Replaces Charlie Morton On Braves’ World Series Roster
After ace Charlie Morton sustained a fractured fibula during Game 1 of the World Series last night, the Braves have replaced him on their World Series roster with left-hander Tucker Davidson, per a league announcement.
Morton, 37, took a 102 mph Yuli Gurriel comebacker off the leg in last night’s game. The ball caromed over to first baseman Freddie Freeman, and Morton retired the next two hitters without issue. As Jeff Schultz of The Athletic writes, the Braves conducted X-rays between innings, which did not reveal a fracture, so Morton returned for the third inning. While the right-hander managed to strike out Jose Altuve, he was immediately visited by trainers after the following pitch and soon departed. A second set of X-rays then revealed a fracture.
Whether Morton had a fracture that was initially concealed by swelling or sustained the fracture during the Altuve at-bat, the end result is the same. Atlanta will be without its top starter and one of the best performers in recent postseason memory. It’s a tough loss to take, but the Braves hung on for a 6-2 victory in Game 1 and now find themselves just three wins from their first World Series title since 1995. The 25-year-old Davidson, who has just 21 2/3 innings of MLB experience, will be tasked with helping to realize that ultimate goal.
A 19th-round pick by Atlanta in 2016, Davidson has steadily improved his stock throughout his career and now ranks as one of the club’s more promising young arms. He tossed 20 innings over the life of four regular-season starts in 2021, notching a 4.15 ERA while striking out 18 of his 83 opponents (21.7%) against eight walks (9.6%). He was terrific in limited Triple-A action as well, logging a 1.17 ERA and a 28-to-5 K/BB ratio in 23 innings out of the Gwinnett rotation.
A forearm injury interrupted Davidson’s season and limited him to just those eight starts during the regular season. He’s pitched in just one game since mid-June, a three-inning effort with Gwinnett back on Oct. 3. It’s unlikely he’ll be counted upon for lengthy relief stints, then, but he’ll still give the Braves a fresh arm should the need arise. Of course, the Astros represent a tough task for any southpaw, as Houston batted .270/.339/.449 against lefties as a team this season — good for an MLB-best 117 wRC+.
With Morton now finished for the season, it remains to be seen how the Braves will shape their rotation moving forward. Max Fried was announced as the Game 2 starter yesterday, but Atlanta has yet to announce starters for Game 3 or Game 4. Ian Anderson will likely draw the ball in Game 3.
Huascar Ynoa might’ve been an option but was removed from their NLCS roster due to a shoulder injury. As such, he’s ruled out for World Series work. Drew Smyly spent much of the season in Atlanta’s rotation but worked in a bullpen capacity down the stretch. He worked 3 1/3 innings in his lone postseason appearance to date (and, again, would have a tough draw against the ‘Stros as a lefty). Kyle Wright is on the postseason roster and threw seven innings in his final Triple-A start — but that was back on Oct. 2. He hasn’t pitched since. With only two clear rotation options remaining, it’s possible the Braves will simply turn to a series of all-hands-on-deck bullpen games when Fried and Anderson don’t draw the start.
Brewers To Extend GM Matt Arnold
1:02pm: MLB Network’s Jon Heyman reports that Arnold is not only staying with the Brewers organization but signing a contract extension (Twitter link). With Stearns signed through at least 2022 and reportedly having an option for the 2023 season, it seems as though the Arnold extension will maintain some continuity for at least the next couple of seasons.
10:36am: Brewers general manager Matt Arnold has withdrawn his name from the Mets’ search for a new president of baseball operations, tweets Adam McCalvy of MLB.com. Arnold will remain with the Brewers.
Reports yesterday began connecting the Mets and Arnold, albeit in somewhat conflicting fashion. While the New York Post’s Mike Puma indicated the two sides had been in contact, SNY’s Andy Martino reported that the Brewers had yet to grant permission to interview Arnold. Whatever the case, it seems largely moot at this point, with Arnold now set to remain in Milwaukee for the foreseeable future.
The Mets have been prominently tied to at least six different executives as they search for a new baseball operations leader, but to this point it appears as though they’ve been spurned across the board. The initial trio of Theo Epstein, Brewers president David Stearns and A’s executive vice president Billy Beane somewhat predictably did not bear fruit; all three had good reason to be viewed as long shots at best. Epstein noted last year when stepping down from the Cubs that he wanted to spend time away from a baseball ops role, while both Stearns and Beane were under contract with their current teams. The Brewers had also denied the Mets permission to speak to Stearns a year ago.
Moving past that trio, the Mets have since been tied to Arnold, Giants GM Scott Harris and Dodgers assistant general manager Brandon Gomes, but they’ll need to further broaden their search. Harris, like Arnold, withdrew his name from the mix, whereas Gomes is reportedly set for a promotion within his current organization. The Mets have also been tied Dodgers senior vice president Josh Byrnes — the former GM of the Padres and D-backs — and other candidates figure to emerge as the search wears on for a second consecutive offseason.
Diamondbacks Claim Edwin Uceta
The Diamondbacks have claimed right-hander Edwin Uceta off waivers from the division-rival Dodgers. While neither club has formally announced the move just yet, the claim is noted on the transaction log at MLB.com, and Uceta himself thanked the Dodgers org and expressed gratitude to the D-backs in an Instagram post last night. Uceta was designated for assignment by the Dodgers during the NLCS, when L.A. needed to create a roster spot for infielder Andy Burns in the wake of Justin Turner‘s injury.
The 23-year-old Uceta made his big league debut with the Dodgers in 2021 but pitched just 20 1/3 frames throughout multiple stints at the MLB level. The results in that scattered cup of coffee weren’t great, as Uceta yielded 15 earned runs on 19 hits and a dozen walks — albeit with an impressive 25 punchouts.
Uceta pitched in just 25 total games (five starts, 20 relief outings) between the big leagues and the minors this season, missing time due to a pair of lumbar strains. He fanned 27.2 percent of his opponents in the big leagues and 29.5 percent in Triple-A, but Uceta also walked 10.1 percent of his Triple-A opponents and logged a 13 percent mark in the Majors.
Baseball America has ranked Uceta among the Dodgers’ top 30 prospects in each of the past three seasons, including a No. 18 placement on their midseason rankings in 2021. FanGraphs’ Eric Longenhagen had him at No. 33 in the Dodgers’ system on his own midseason rankings, while Uceta was omitted from L.A.’s top 30 over at MLB.com. Both BA and FanGraphs call him a potential back-of-the-rotation starter who’ll likely need to add some bulk to his 6’0″, 155-pound frame. Uceta carries a career 3.79 ERA in 360 2/3 minor league frames and averaged 92.8 mph on his heater during this year’s brief MLB debut.
It’s hardly a surprise to see the D-backs quickly scoop up some potential rotation depth — particularly since Uceta has minor league options remaining beyond the 2021 season. The Snakes will have Madison Bumgarner, Zac Gallen, Luke Weaver, Tyler Gilbert and (assuming his eminently reasonable $5.25MM option is exercised) Merrill Kelly as the rotation favorites heading into 2022. They’ll need depth beyond that quintet, however, and it’s plausible that some of their incumbent arms — Kelly in particular, given that he’s a free agent after the ’22 season — could draw offseason trade interest.