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Angels To Sign Jesse Chavez

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The Angels have agreed to a minor league contract with free-agent right-hander Jesse Chavez, reports Jon Heyman of MLB Network (Twitter links). He’ll join their Major League camp once the deal is official and once he goes through intake protocols.

It’s the second Angels stint for Chavez, who struggled as a member of the Halos back in 2017 (138 innings, 5.35 ERA). He went on to rebound with the Rangers and Cubs the following season, parlaying that strong showing into a two-year pact to return to Texas.

The 37-year-old Chavez is a well-traveled and experienced arm who has pitched both as a starting pitcher, a long reliever and a late-inning/high-leverage reliever. After bouncing between the Pirates, Royals, Braves and Blue Jays early in his career, Chavez found himself with the 2013 A’s and has been a steady presence on MLB rosters since that time.

Dating back to that 2013 season, the righty has piled up 755 2/3 frames of 4.18 ERA ball with a matching 4.18 FIP and a 3.87 SIERA. Along the way, he’s started 77 games and made 248 relief appearances while posting a solid 21.4 percent strikeout rate and a strong 7.1 percent walk rate. The 2020 season was a rough one, as Chavez yielded 13 runs in 17 innings of work, but his overall track record is that of a versatile arm who’ll help deepen the Angels’ rotation and bullpen mixes.

Kelvin Herrera Announces Retirement

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Two-time All-Star and 2015 World Series champion Kelvin Herrera announced today, via Twitter, that he is retiring after spending parts of 10 seasons in the Major Leagues.

Kelvin Herrera | Denny Medley-USA TODAY Sports

“I want to thank everyone who has been a part of my career, starting with the Kansas City Royals organization who believed in this kid from Tenares, Dominican Republic and gave him a chance to do something meaningful with his life,” Herrera wrote in his announcement. “From ownership, to the Front Office, the staff, my teammates and last but not least, the fans, I owe you guys everything.”

Herrera goes on to thank both the Nationals and White Sox organizations for welcoming him as well. For the time being, Herrera says he plans to focus on his family and the next chapter of his life.

It’ll no doubt surprise some readers to see that Herrera is still just 31 years old. He’s been around the Majors for a decade due to the Royals calling on him for his Major League debut at just 21 years of age.

Herrera pitched in just two games late in that 2011 season, but the right-hander was an immediate success in 2012 — his first full season at the MLB level. In 84 1/3 innings, he worked to a pristine 2.35 ERA with 19 holds, three saves and a heater that averaged a blistering 98.5 mph. In a normal year, that overwhelming success would’ve no doubt garnered Rookie of the Year consideration, but 2012 happened to also be the rookie season for Mike Trout, Yoenis Cespedes and Yu Darvish, who commanded nearly every top-three vote on the ballot that year.

Even without any Rookie of the Year love, Herrera had established himself as a dominant late-inning arm in short order, and that’s the exact role he’d over the next half decade as a steady presence at the back of some elite Kansas City bullpens. From 2012-16, Herrera pitched 354 1/3 regular-season innings with the Royals and notched a collective 2.57 ERA with 106 holds and 17 saves.

The bullpen was in many ways the backbone of the Royals’ back-to-back World Series runs in 2014-15, and Herrera joined teammates Wade Davis, Greg Holland and (in 2015) Ryan Madson in forming a juggernaut late-inning group that gave opposing lineups absolute fits. Each of Herrera, Davis and Holland posted ERAs south of 1.50 and appeared in at least 65 games during the 2014 season. Herrera was as untouchable during the postseason as he was in the regular season, combining for 28 2/3 innings of 1.26 ERA ball in his playoff career.

With the Royals out of contention during Herrera’s final year of club control in 2018, they made the decision to trade him to the Nationals for a package of young players including Kelvin Gutierrez, Blake Perkins and Yohanse Morel. Herrera was injured for part of his time with the Nats, going down with a Lisfranc tear in his foot, but he gave them 18 1/3 innings of 4.34 ERA ball before reaching free agency and signing a two-year pact with the White Sox. Things didn’t pan out in Chicago, as Herrera was tagged for 39 runs in just 53 2/3 innings across his two seasons there.

Herrera’s peak was brief but absolutely dominant, and he’ll go down in Royals lore as an absolutely vital member of a bullpen that fueled a baseball renaissance in Kansas City and brought home the club’s first title in three decades. He’ll hang up the spikes with a career 3.21 ERA, 119 holds, 61 saves and 510 strikeouts in 513 2/3 innings of regular-season work — plus the aforementioned sterling postseason track record. Best wishes to Herrera and his family in whatever the future holds.

Braves Sign Terrance Gore To Minor League Deal

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The Braves have agreed to a minor league deal with outfielder Terrance Gore, as first indicated on the Triple-A transactions log at MLB.com. Gore is represented by the L. Warner Companies.

Gore, 29, appeared in two games with the Dodgers in 2020 and played in 37 games with the Royals a year prior. He’s best known for the blistering speed that has made him such a valuable weapon off the bench for the Royals, Cubs and Dodgers during playoff drives and in the postseason itself.

Gore has appeared in 102 Major League games but has only 77 plate appearances due to his heavy use as a pinch-runner and defensive replacement. In that brief sample of work at the plate, he’s a .224/.325/.284 hitter. Despite the lack of plate appearances, he’s racked up 40 stolen bases in the big leagues and another five in postseason play (despite only having two actual playoff plate appearances to his name).

Gore won’t be in big league camp with the Braves, but he’ll give them some elite speed to stash in Triple-A, where he’s a career .213/.307/.269 hitter in 492 plate appearances. During that 2019 season, Statcast measured Gore’s average sprint speed at a whopping 29.9 feet per second, tying him for ninth-best among 568 Major Leaguers.

Diamondbacks Designate Travis Bergen, Keury Mella For Assignment

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The Diamondbacks have designated left-hander Travis Bergen and right-hander Keury Mella for assignment, per a club announcement. Their roster spots will go to right-hander Tyler Clippard, whose previously reported one-year deal is now official, and to right-hander Luis Frias, who has been reinstated from the Covid-19 list.

Bergen, 27, was acquired from the Blue Jays last summer in the trade that sent Robbie Ray to Toronto. He tossed 6 2/3 innings with the Snakes and yielded just three runs, though he also issued eight walks in that brief time. Bergen, a former Rule 5 pick, has pitched 28 innings in the Majors with three different clubs, logging a combined 4.82 ERA with a 24 percent strikeout rate and an unsightly 14.9 percent walk rate.

It’s surely a disappointing outcome for the D-backs to ultimately receive little in the way of a return for one of the organization’s better arms in recent years. But Ray struggled immensely with Arizona in 2020, and his $9.43MM salary (prorated to about $3.4MM in 2020) only further weighed down his trade value. The Blue Jays did take on the majority of the $1.42MM that remained on Ray’s contract at the time of the trade.

Mella, also 27, signed a minor league deal with the D-backs last offseason and was called up for 10 innings of relief. He allowed just two runs in that time and struck out 10 of the 42 hitters he faced (23.8 percent) while walking just three (7.1 percent). Mella doesn’t have much of a track record at the MLB level otherwise, however. His only other big league work came with the Reds from 2017-19, during which time he allowed 15 runs in 17 innings of work.

Mella was at one point considered to be one of the better prospects in both the Giants and the Reds organizations. He and Adam Duvall were packaged together by the Giants in the trade that brought Mike Leake to San Francisco at the 2015 trade deadline.

The Diamondbacks will have a week to trade both pitchers or attempt to pass them through outright waivers. Mella is out of minor league options, while Bergen has multiple option years remaining. If either passes through waivers unclaimed, they can be retained by the D-backs and returned to Major League camp as non-roster invitees.

Cubs To Re-Sign Ryan Tepera

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10:15am: Tepera can earn an additional $800K via performance incentives and $150K via active roster bonuses, MLBTR has learned. The deal can max out at $1.75MM.

9:45am: Tepera is guaranteed $800K on the deal, tweets NBC Sports Chicago’s Gordon Wittenmyer. The deal is still pending a physical.

9:25am: The Cubs have reached an agreement to re-sign free agent right-hander Ryan Tepera, reports MLB Network’s Jon Heyman (via Twitter). It’s a Major League deal, per the report. Chicago non-tendered Tepera earlier in the winter rather than pay him a raise via arbitration, but he’ll now return for a second season on a new deal. Tepera is represented by All Bases Covered Sports Management.

Tepera, 33, was a regular in the Blue Jays’ bullpen from 2015-19 before being non-tendered and latching on with the Cubs last offseason. Many have had fun with the fact that Tepera received a lone tenth-place MVP vote, and while that was surely unexpected, the righty did give Chicago a fairly strong season. Through 20 2/3 innings of relief, Tepera turned in a 3.92 ERA (3.51 SIERA, 3.34 FIP) with a career-high 34.8 percent strikeout rate and a 13.5 percent walk rate that he’ll want to curb in 2021.

This makes three Major League additions to for the Cubs’ bullpen this month, as the club has also signed righty Brandon Workman and lefty Andrew Chafin to help fortify the relief corps. It’s still a shaky looking group that lacks proven depth, but Tepera unequivocally gives them another solid option. He’s tallied 236 innings as a Major Leaguer and logged a combined 3.66 ERA with a 24 percent strikeout rate and a 9.1 percent walk rate. That alone makes him a nice add for the Cubs, but if he can maintain last year’s huge boost in strikeouts while returning closer to that career walk rate, he’d be a substantial upgrade.

Tepera has five-plus years of Major League service time, so unlike last year when the Cubs signed him, they won’t have the option to keep him through arbitration this coming offseason. He’ll be a free agent at season’s end and return to the open market. That’s also true of Workman, Chafin, Dan Winkler and Craig Kimbrel — Chafin and Kimbrel have options that aren’t likely to come into play — so the Cubs will once again have some work to do to fill out their bullpen next winter.

Braves Extend Brian Snitker

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The Braves announced this morning that they’ve signed manager Brian Snitker to a two-year contract extension through the 2023 season. The deal contains a club option for the 2024 season as well.

Brian Snitker | Charles LeClaire-USA TODAY Sports

“I am thrilled that Brian will continue to lead our club on the field and in the clubhouse,” Braves general manager Alex Anthopoulos said in a statement accompanying the announcement. “Three consecutive division titles speak to the impact of Brian and his staff, and we are pleased that he will continue to guide our club through 2023.”

It’s the second straight spring with an extension for Snitker, although today’s additional two years (and a club option for a third) makes for a stronger vote of confidence than last year’s one-year extension. That deal would’ve expired at season’s end. Snitker now not only sheds dreaded lame-duck status but picks up job security for multiple years.

Snitker, 65, is a Braves lifer who has spent more than four decades in the organization, including the past five as the big league skipper. Originally taking over midway through the 2016 season after the dismissal of Fredi Gonzalez, Snitker managed the club to a 72-90 showing in his first full season (2017) but has captured three consecutive division titles at the helm of a team that has played .578 ball during the regular season since 2018. The Braves are 222-162 during that time, and Snitker’s overall managerial record (in the Majors) stands at 353-317.

In his 40-plus years with the organization, Snitker has managed seven different minor league affiliates, had two different stints as the Major league bullpen coach (both in the 1980s) and served as the third base coach for both Gonzalez and Bobby Cox. He was voted National League Manager of the Year in 2018 and has since finished third and fourth, respectively, in subsequent Manager of the Year balloting.

Snitker’s Braves were bounced from the postseason in the first round both in 2018 and 2019, but he found postseason success in his third opportunity in 2020. The Braves swept both the Reds and the Marlins during the first two rounds of last year’s expanded postseason format before taking the eventual World Series Champion Dodgers to their limit in a seven-game National League Championship Series showdown.

Central Notes: Bryant, Cruz, Alberto, White Sox

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Despite myriad trade rumors that have centered on him over the past several months, Cubs third baseman Kris Bryant told reporters (including Meghan Montemurro of the Chicago Tribune) that he’s still open to a contract extension with the team. “I’ve always said I’ve been open and willing to hear what (the Cubs) say and take it with open arms and consider everything that’s thrown my way,” Bryant said. “I think I’ve communicated that to them.” Bryant is scheduled to become a free agent next winter, but in the meantime, he’ll make $19.5MM this season. It doesn’t seem any team has jumped at the chance of taking on that type of money for Bryant – even though he’s a former MVP who has typically held his own, he had a difficult 2020 campaign. Cubs president of baseball operations Jed Hoyer suggested earlier this month that he expects Bryant to open 2021 with the club.

  • It may have taken longer than expected for the Twins to re-sign designated hitter Nelson Cruz, whom they inked to a one-year, $13MM guarantee earlier this month. The Twins believed they’d keep Cruz throughout the process, though, as president of baseball operations Derek Falvey told MLB Network Radio on Thursday that “we passed on some other players” who could have prevented them from bringing back Cruz. The identities of those players aren’t known, but the Twins would have been hard-pressed to upgrade at DH over Cruz, who slashed an incredible .308/.394/.626 with 57 home runs in 735 plate appearances with the team from 2019-20.
  • The Royals’ Hanser Alberto only received a minor league deal during the winter, though it sounds as if he has a good chance to earn a spot on their season-opening roster. Manager Mike Matheny called the addition of Alberto a “sneaky good signing” earlier this week, Lynn Worthy of the Kansas City Star writes. Alberto spent the previous two seasons with the Orioles before joining the Royals. Alberto didn’t hit for much power or draw many walks in Baltimore, but he did see quite a bit of time at two infield positions (second and third) and make life difficult on left-handed pitchers, against whom he slashed .394/.411/.532 in 280 trips to the plate.
  • The White Sox have hired Todd Steverson as a special assistant to executive vice president Ken Williams, James Fegan of The Athletic tweets. Steverson spent 2014-19 as the team’s hitting coach – a role he held with the Athletics’ Triple-A affiliate last season. He’ll focus on scouting in his new job with the White Sox, per Fegan.

MLBTR Poll: Grading The Fernando Tatis Jr. Extension

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The Padres and 22-year-old shortstop Fernando Tatis Jr. officially came to terms on a whopper of an extension earlier this week. Tatis, already a franchise cornerstone at such a young age, landed a 14-year contract worth $340MM. His deal also includes full no-trade rights, so if the Padres try to bail any point, Tatis will be able to prevent it from happening if he chooses.

Tatis earned his deal after an amazing year-plus run as a member of the Padres, with whom he debuted in 2019. They acquired him from the White Sox in June 2016 in a deal centering on right-hander James Shields, and though the swap now looks like one of the most lopsided moves in recent memory, it’s worth noting Tatis was not a can’t-miss prospect then. He developed into a stud in the Padres’ system, though, and has continued to live up to the hype in the majors.

Tatis has only played 143 games so far, but he has already racked up 6.5 fWAR and batted .301/.374/.582 with 39 home runs and 27 stolen bases in 629 plate appearances. That’s superstar production at any spot, but it’s particularly valuable at shortstop, where Tatis will continue to partner with third baseman Manny Machado to form an elite left side of the infield in San Diego for the foreseeable future.

Tatis, who wasn’t even eligible for arbitration at the time of his extension, now owns the record for a pre-arb pact. He wasn’t due to reach arbitration until the end of 2022 or free agency until after 2024, so the Padres are clearly betting that Tatis will continue to thrive over the long haul.

The Padres and Tatis are tied together until well into the 2030s. How do you like the extension for the two sides?

(Poll links for app users: 1, 2)

Grade the extension for Tatis
A 56.58% (10,605 votes)
B 23.35% (4,376 votes)
C 11.96% (2,242 votes)
D 4.32% (810 votes)
F 3.79% (710 votes)
Total Votes: 18,743
Grade the extension for the Padres
A 38.48% (6,323 votes)
B 25.30% (4,158 votes)
C 19.99% (3,285 votes)
D 9.38% (1,541 votes)
F 6.85% (1,126 votes)
Total Votes: 16,433

Blue Jays, Tommy Milone Agree To Minors Deal

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The Blue Jays have agreed to a minor league contract with free-agent left-hander Tommy Milone, Mark Feinsand of MLB.com tweets. The deal includes an invitation to major league spring training.

Milone has garnered a significant amount of big league experience with several teams since he first came into MLB in 2011 as a National. Although he has only averaged 87 mph-plus on his fastball, Milone has hung around to make 183 appearances (145 starts) and total 913 2/3 innings of 4.56 ERA/4.28 pitching.

The 34-year-old divided last season between the Orioles and Braves, and though he put up some of the finest strikeout and walk percentages of his career (22.1 and 3.3, respectively), opposing offenses victimized him. Milone ultimately surrendered 29 earned runs and 55 hits (including nine homers) across 39 innings. That amounted to an unsightly 6.69 ERA, though Milone did notch a much more respectable 4.12 SIERA.

All nine of Milone’s appearances last year came as a starter, and he could now at least push for a depth role in Toronto’s rotation. The team’s slated to enter the season with Nate Pearson, Robbie Ray, Tanner Roark and Steven Matz complementing Hyun Jin Ryu in its starting five.

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