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Robbie Erlin To Sign With Nippon Ham Fighters

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Left-hander Robbie Erlin has agreed to a one-year contract with the Nippon Ham Fighters of Japan’s Pacific League, Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic reports.

This will be the first overseas baseball experience for the 30-year-old Erlin, a third-round pick in 2009 and a well-regarded prospect in the past. Unfortunately, though, Erlin hasn’t been able to establish himself in the majors, where he owns a 4.85 ERA (and a much more respectable 3.79 FIP) across 339 2/3 innings with three different teams.

At his best, Erlin gave the Padres 109 innings and 39 appearances (12 starts) of 4.21 ERA/3.31 FIP pitching with 7.27 K/9 and a minuscule 0.99 BB/9 in 2018. His numbers went downhill during the previous two seasons, though, especially this past year. Between Pittsburgh and Atlanta, the soft-tossing Erlin recorded a dismal 8.10 ERA/6.23 FIP across 26 2/3 innings, though he did post 8.44 strikeouts per nine against 2.36 walks. The Braves released him in the middle of September.

Hensley Meulens Out As Mets’ Bench Coach

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The Mets will have a new bench coach in 2021, as the club informed Hensley Meulens that he will not return to their staff, according to Bob Nightengale of USA Today.

It was a short stint with the Mets for Meulens, a longtime San Francisco assistant who spent just one year with his new club. Before his hiring as a bench coach last offseason, the Mets and the Red Sox interviewed Meulens for their managerial positions. The Mets ultimately chose Carlos Beltran before quickly replacing him with Luis Rojas, though, while the Red Sox went with Ron Roenicke.

While Meulens’ time on Rojas’ staff didn’t work out, it shouldn’t be too long before the 53-year-old finds another job. Meulens, after all, is a well-respected, three-time World Series-winning assistant who speaks five languages. It’s unclear whom the Mets will tap to replace him.

Marlins Acquire Adam Cimber, Designate Jose Urena

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The Marlins have acquired right-hander Adam Cimber from the Indians for cash considerations, per an announcement from Cleveland. The Indians will receive $100K, according to Tom Withers of the Associated Press. Miami designated righty Jose Urena for assignment in a corresponding move, Bob Nightengale of USA Today reports.

Also a former Padre, the 30-year-old Cimber will now join his third team since he debuted in the majors in 2018. Although he only averages around 86 mph on his fastball, Cimber has generated decent results in the bigs, including during a 2020 campaign in which he logged a 3.97 ERA/3.99 FIP with a 52.4 percent groundball rate and a 1.59 BB/9. Cimber averaged a paltry 3.97 strikeouts per nine during his 11 1/3 innings of work (down from 6.51 the previous year), though, and the Indians then deemed him expendable when they designated him last week.

Cimber will go down as the first trade acquisition for new Marlins general manager Kim Ng, and he’ll try to help a bullpen that ranked fifth from the bottom in ERA and second to last in FIP in 2020. He’ll be an inexpensive part of their relief corps next year, as he’s projected to earn between $800K and $1MM in arbitration. Cimber isn’t due to reach free agency until after 2024, so he could be a multiyear piece for Miami.

Urena is the Marlins’ longest-tenured player, Craig Mish of Sports Grid notes, but it appears the two sides are going to part ways. The 2020 season, which could go down as Urena’s last as a Marlin, ended in ugly fashion when he suffered a right forearm fracture at the end of September. He concluded his season with 23 1/3 innings of 5.40 ERA/6.06 FIP ball and 5.79 K/9 against 5.01 BB/9. It was the second straight rough season for the 29-year-old Urena, who enjoyed a solid run as a viable innings-eater from 2017-18. But considering his performance since 2019 and his $3.8MM to $4.2MM arbitration projection for next year, Urena entered this offseason as an obvious non-tender candidate.

Padres Release Luis Perdomo

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Right-hander Luis Perdomo has cleared release waivers and is now a free agent, the Padres announced this afternoon. He was designated for assignment when the team set its roster in advance of the upcoming Rule 5 Draft.

Perdomo, 27, is a former Rule 5 pickup himself. The Padres gave him 146 2/3 frames of work that Rule 5 season even as he was clobbered for a 5.71 ERA, as the team didn’t want to let go of a power sinker with such strong ground-ball tendencies. Things took a turn for the better in 2017 when Perdomo pitched a career-high 163 2/3 innings with a 4.67 ERA, a 4.40 FIP and a whopping 61.9 percent grounder rate out of the San Diego rotation. The Padres moved Perdomo to the bullpen in 2019 and saw him turn in 72 frames of 4.00 ERA/3.60 FIP ball with a diminished but still-strong 52.5 percent ground-ball rate.

Unfortunately for the organization and for Perdomo himself, he wasn’t able to sustain that output in 2020. The righty went down with a forearm injury in September after 17 1/3 ugly innings, and a month later the Padres announced that Perdomo had undergone Tommy John surgery. He’ll miss the entire 2021 season as a result. It’s possible that the Padres bring Perdomo back on a minor league pact with an eye toward getting some value out of him in 2022, but he’ll have the opportunity to see if other clubs have similar interest.

Perdomo’s career 5.19 ERA isn’t much to look at, but he has a 4.44 FIP, 4.20 xFIP and a 57.3 percent ground-ball rate in 444 1/3 innings as Major Leaguer.

Royals Sign Michael A. Taylor

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The Royals announced Monday that they’ve signed outfielder Michael A. Taylor to a one-year, Major League contract. A client of the newly formed ALIGND Sports, Taylor will receive a $1.75MM base salary and another $1MM worth of available incentives, reports Tim Brown of Yahoo Sports (via Twitter). In a corresponding move, the Royals have designated left-hander Foster Griffin for assignment.

Michael A. Taylor | Steve Mitchell-USA TODAY Sports

Taylor, 29, was outrighted off the Nationals’ 40-man roster at season’s end and elected free agency. He would’ve been arbitration-eligible for the final time this winter, and the Nats opted to cut him loose early rather than pay him a raise on last year’s $3.325MM salary following a rough 2020 season.

Once ranked as one of the game’s premier outfield prospects, Taylor has struggled to find his footing as a consistent contributor in the big leagues. He looked to have broken out with a very solid age-26 campaign back in 2017, when he slashed .271/.320/.486 with 19 homers, 23 doubles, three triples, 17 steals and brilliant center-field defense. Taylor played in 118 games that season and was still worth about three wins above replacement per both Baseball-Reference and FanGraphs.

Unfortunately, Taylor wasn’t able to replicate his success in 2018 or at any point thereafter. He’s logged 581 plate appearances in the three years since that time — often being shuttled between Triple-A and the Majors — while posting a tepid .225/.284/.370 output at the plate. His blend of power and speed is plain to see, but Taylor’s overall offense is limited by a sky-high 31.7 percent strikeout rate to this point in his career.

Taylor has continued to post strong defensive marks, with a superlative 26 Defensive Runs Saved and a 12.1 UZR/150 in 1984 innings as a center fielder from 2017-20. Even if his bat doesn’t recover, he should give the Royals a high-quality defender capable of playing all three outfield positions. Per Statcast, Taylor ranked in the 91st percentile of all big leaguers in terms of outfield jumps, and his 82nd percentile sprint speed speaks to the value he can add on the bases.

Taylor joins a Royals roster that was already deep in outfield-capable players, though several of them are surely to be used in the infield at times (or even regularly) in 2021. Whit Merrifield and Hunter Dozier, for instance, can each be used on the right side of the diamond or in the outfield. Dozier could be the club’s long-term first baseman, though that’s probably somewhat dependent on any decisions the club makes with Ryan O’Hearn and/or Ryan McBroom this winter. Merrifield, meanwhile, can play all across the outfield and is a strong defender at second base as well.

Beyond that versatile pairing, the Royals have Franchy Cordero, Edward Olivares, Bubba Starling, Nick Heath and top prospect Khalil Lee all on the 40-man roster. Taylor could function as a simple platoon partner for the left-handed-hitting Cordero, or if he’s able to again approach his 2017 level of play, he could earn a bigger role in an outfield mix that is still largely undefined.

Griffin, 25, was the No. 28 overall pick by the Royals back in 2014. He made his MLB debut this past season and tossed 1 2/3 shutout innings, but Griffin underwent Tommy John surgery in August and will miss the 2021 season as a result.

Beyond that, Griffin has never developed into the pitching prospect the club had hoped at the time of that lofty selection. He posted solid ERAs through the lower minors even while walking more than 3.5 hitters per nine frames, but Griffin’s results bottomed out as he further climbed the organizational ladder. He pitched to an ERA north of 5.00 in 152 2/3 frames of Double-A ball in 2018 and saw that mark increase during his 2019 stint in Triple-A Omaha.

The Royals will have a week to trade Griffin, release him or attempt to pass him through outright waivers. Because he’s a former first-round lefty with multiple minor league options remaining, another club could place a speculative claim, but it’d be tough to carry him on the roster for the remainder of the offseason knowing he won’t be able to contribute at all next season while he rehabs.

Major League Baseball Announces Formation Of MLB Draft League

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Major League Baseball on Monday announced that it has teamed with Prep Baseball Report to form the MLB Draft League — a new summer league that will allow the nation’s top draft-eligible players to compete in a 68-game season beginning next year. The league will be headed up by former MLB scout Kerrick Jackson, who resigned from his post as the head coach at Southern University to take this newly created position.

Five teams, all of them former minor league affiliates, have been brought aboard as the founding five clubs in the league: the Mahoning Valley Scrappers, the State College Spikes, the Trenton Thunder, the West Virginia Black Bears and the Williamsport Crosscutters. Talks with a sixth team are in the works, per the league’s press release, with an announcement hopefully coming in the near future.

The Draft League is made possible by MLB’s previous decision to push the annual amateur draft back from early June to instead coincide with the MLB All-Star break in mid-July. Per today’s announcement, the 68-game schedule will include an annual All-Star break centered around the MLB draft, so it seems as though the idea is for play to continue once these players have been drafted. That, conceivably, could help to offset some the elimination of short-season Class-A leagues. Big league scouts will be able to watch the league in person, and the MLB adds that they’ll also be able to evaluate participants via “state-of-the-art scouting technology.”

Jackson appeared on MLB Network this morning to discuss the league and clarify some of the timing and scheduling aspects (video link). The league will commence in early June and run into August. MLB’s goal will be to attract as much top draft-eligible talent as possible, though Jackson acknowledged that some programs which qualify for postseason play will push back against sending their players to participate in the Draft League.

There are some murky areas that have yet to be defined in full. It’s not clear, for instance, whether every MLB team will want its draft signees to continue playing in the league, although that ostensibly could help to offset the loss of some Short-Season Class-A leagues. Jackson alludes to the fact that the league expects some players to pull out of the league after being drafted, noting that “after the draft, we’ll be able to take some kids — some of the seniors and some other guys looking to get those free-agent opportunities and put them in that mix.”

The initial hope is for a six-team league with 30-man rosters, per Jackson, creating 180 roster spots in the league’s first iteration. Depending on how things progress down the line, MLB may look to eventually install additional teams in the league. For the time being, it doesn’t appear as though there will be separation of college and high school talent.

Suffice it to say there are some logistics that need to be sorted out or at least clarified, but the broader takeaway is that the inception of the Draft League will ideally give teams and fans a new level of access to prospects in the days and weeks leading up to the draft. Doing so should create greater marketing opportunities and, hopefully for MLB, draw some extra eyes and attention for the draft itself. The Major League Baseball Draft has never been seen as an event on par with the NBA or NFL drafts, after all. However, there’s no getting around the fundamental difference that prospects selected in those other sports’ drafts will frequently jump directly onto the active roster of their new clubs, while virtually every player selected in the MLB draft is at least a couple of years from MLB readiness.

Chris Young Withdraws From Mets’ GM Search

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Former big league pitcher Chris Young, who interviewed last week for the Mets’ GM vacancy, has now withdrawn his name from consideration, Joel Sherman of the New York Post reports. Sherman suggests that Young was indeed intrigued by the position but prefers not to move his family from Dallas to New York at this time.

Young, 41, called it quits in 2017 after a 13-year career on the mound and quickly went to work for Major League Baseball. He was first appointed as the league’s vice president of on-field operations, initiatives and strategy, wherein he oversaw “the application of playing rules and regulations, on-field standards and discipline, pace of play and other special projects.” When MLB chief baseball officer Joe Torre moved into an advisory role in early 2020, Young added “senior” to his title and took on a larger slate of responsibilities within the same realm.

There’s little clarity about the Mets’ ongoing front office search at this point. Young and former Marlins president of baseball operations Michael Hill were the two known candidates to have interviewed prior to today’s report. However, it’s not clear whether Hill was interviewing for the GM post or for the president of baseball operations vacancy that will now not be filled. Incoming president Sandy Alderson, who is returning after two years away from the team, indicated last week that he’d shifted gears and would now focus on hiring only a GM, rather than a president of baseball ops. New owner Steve Cohen acknowledged last week that he’s had some difficulty getting candidates in the door, as other clubs have denied permission to interview candidates from within their organizational ranks.

Cubs Promote Craig Breslow To Assistant General Manager

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The Cubs announced a series of promotions in their baseball operations department Monday, with former big leaguer reliever Craig Breslow being elevated to assistant general manager. He joins Randy Bush (another former big leaguer) and Jeff Greenberg, who was promoted to AGM status earlier this season, in that role. Breslow has also been named the organization’s vice president of pitching.

This will be the 40-year-old Breslow’s third full season in the Cubs’ front office. He retired after the 2017 season and joined the Cubs as their director of strategic initiatives prior to the 2019 season. He spent the 2020 season as the Cubs’ director of pitching and as a special assistant to president of baseball ops Theo Epstein and GM Jed Hoyer. Greenberg has been with the Cubs since 2012, with prior titles including director of baseball operations and, more recently, director of pro scouting. With Epstein stepping away and Hoyer ascending to president of baseball ops, Breslow and Greenberg will take on a larger role in the front office.

Notably, none of today’s promotions include an appointment to general manager. Hoyer said at last week’s press conference that he expected to hire a new GM from outside the organization, emphasizing the importance of allowing for new voices, ideas and perspectives to complement the continuity elsewhere in the front office.

Some notables from the Cubs’ many other front-office promotions: Chris Moore was named vice president of research and development; Matt Dorey was named vice president of player development; Louie Eljaua was named vice president of international scouting; and Alex Suarez was named senior director of international player development and operations.

At Least Six Teams Showing Interest In James McCann

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Yadier Molina has drawn the most headlines among catchers early in free agency, in part due to the willingness of both him and his agent to go on-record to discuss the veteran’s market. However, James McCann is drawing interest from a similar collection of teams, per MLB Network’s Jon Heyman (Twitter link), with the Yankees, Mets, Cardinals, Angels and incumbent White Sox among the clubs to express some interest in the free-agent backstop. The Phillies would have interest in the event that J.T. Realmuto signs elsewhere, Heyman adds.

Given that each of these clubs, with the exception of the White Sox and Phillies, has already expressed interest in Molina, it’s not much of a surprise that they’d also at least gauge McCann’s asking price. There’s been speculation about the Yankees moving on from Gary Sanchez for months, while the Mets currently lack a starting-caliber backstop on their roster. The Angels got a big year out of Max Stassi in 2020, but that was obviously a rather limited sample and Stassi’s prior track record is less impressive.

The Cardinals may raise some eyebrows, given their interest in retaining Molina, but it’s only logical that with Molina exploring other options they’d do the same. Should Molina get the two-year deal he’s seeking from another club, the Cards could pivot to McCann or simply remain in-house and turn the keys over to 26-year-old Andrew Knizner.

As for the White Sox, their interest in keeping McCann is well known, but it’s unlikely to result in a deal. The ChiSox signed Yasmani Grandal to a franchise-record four-year, $73MM contract last winter, and with three years remaining on that arrangement there’s simply no room for McCann to get everyday at-bats. McCann spoke earlier this offseason about his free agency, telling NBC Sports Chicago’s Chuck Garfien that he feels he’s earned the opportunity to be a team’s starting catcher. The White Sox can’t offer that with Grandal under contract.

It’s hard to dispute McCann’s feelings after a pair of terrific seasons with the South Siders. While he was non-tendered by the Tigers after a dismal 2018 campaign, McCann has more than bounced back in Chicago; he’s taken his game to new heights. McCann was a bit shy of a league-average bat as Detroit’s primary catcher in 2017, but he’s broken out with a .276/.334/.474 batting line in 587 plate appearances with the White Sox (116 wRC+).

He’s made strides in terms of hard-hit rate and exit velocity, supporting that offensive breakout, and McCann also improved defensively quite a bit this past season. He’s always been adept at controlling runners (career 35.8 percent caught-stealing rate), but McCann prioritized improving his pitch-framing this past offseason, and the results were strong. Statcast reflects that McCann went from one of the worst catchers in the game at framing pitches on the bottom of the zone to one of the game’s best. It’s a small sample, to be sure, but it’d be a reach to suggest that McCann simply lucked his way from getting 44.8 percent of such pitches called all the way up to 61.8 percent.

The Phillies probably aren’t the only club who view McCann as a “Plan B” to Realmuto, but there also figure to be teams that know they cannot afford Realmuto and are thus willing to act more quickly. McCann and his agents will have to determine whether they’re better served taking one of those early offers or holding out until Realmuto is off the market. The latter route could lead to increased interest, but it’s also possible some teams that are willing to act now will have already filled their need at catcher or spent the majority of their offseason budget by that point.

2020-21 Offseason Outlook Series

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MLB Trade Rumors is deep into our annual Offseason Outlook series, breaking down what each of the 30 teams may or may not have planned on the transactions front this winter.  Here is the list of completed entries thus far, and keep checking this post as more teams are added…

NL West

NL Central

NL East

AL East

AL Central

AL West

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