Headlines

Go To Pro Hockey Rumors
Go To Hoops Rumors

ESPN Agrees To KBO Broadcast Deal

By | at

10:05am: ESPN has formally announced the deal. They’ll broadcast six KBO games per week — one game every Tuesday through Sunday — in addition to covering the KBO postseason. Broadcast details of the postseason remain to be determined. Game selections will be made on a week-to-week basis and feature English commentary from remote ESPN broadcasters, with tonight’s game being called by Karl Ravech and Eduardo Perez and aired on ESPN 2. ESPN is also acquiring highlights rights throughout the league, and their press release notes that the telecast schedule is “subject to change pending future live event considerations.”

9:30am: After several weeks of negotiation, ESPN has reached an agreement with Korean media counterpart Eclat Media Group to broadcast Korea Baseball Organization games. The KBO announced that ESPN will be airing one game per day, beginning with tomorrow’s Opening Day contest between the Samsung Lions and the NC Dinos (Twitter link via Jee-ho Yoo of South Korea’s Yonhap News Agency). The games will be broadcast live, per the Wall Street Journal’s Jared Diamond, which isn’t ideal for U.S. fans given the time difference between the two countries, but access to any live baseball will obviously a welcome addition to many sports fans. The Lions/Dinos will air tonight at 1am EST. Here’s the remaining schedule:

  • Wed. May 6: Doosan Bears vs. LG Twins (5:30am EST)
  • Thurs. May 7: NC Dinos vs. Samsung Lions (5:30am EST)
  • Fri. May 8: KIA Tigers vs. Samsung Lions (5:30am EST)
  • Sat. May 9: LG Twins vs. NC Dinos (4am EST)
  • Sun. May 10: LG Twins vs. NC Dinos (1am EST)

[Related: Former MLB Players in the KBO]

Games in the KBO are beginning without fans in attendance and with ample health regulations in place. Players will be tested prior to every game and (along with team personnel) will wear masks throughout the arena outside of the field and the dugout. High fives and spitting have been banned. Any player who shows coronavirus symptoms will be quarantined immediately, while a positive test will result in a shutdown of that player’s stadium for a 48-hour cleaning process. A positive test won’t necessarily lead to a leaguewide shutdown, although the league will meet with health experts and government officials to discuss next steps following a positive test.

MLB fans tuning in may recognize some familiar faces; as we covered here two weeks back, there are more than 30 former big league players slated to play in the KBO this season. The Dinos (Aaron Altherr, Mike Wright, Drew Rucinski) and Lions (Seunghwan Oh, Tyler Saladino, Ben Lively, David Buchanan) have seven such players. There are some well-known names in the coaching ranks, too — Matt Williams will manage the KIA Tigers this year, and Julio Franco is the hitting coach for the Lotte Giants. More than 83 percent of the 11,000 respondents in our poll last week said they’d watch some KBO coverage should ESPN (or another media outlet) acquire broadcast rights.

Quick Hits: Snell, Draft, Torkelson, Molina, Jefry

By | at

It’s not quite a Cy Young Award, but Rays southpaw Blake Snell captured another unique honor by winning the MLB The Show Players League championship today.  (MLB.com’s Mandy Bell, Adam Berry, Do-Hyoung Park and Juan Toribio have the details.)  The tournament featured one player from each team competing in a round-robin regular season of games of MLB The Show, with the top performers advancing to the postseason.  Snell dominated play in both the regular season and playoffs, including a three-game sweep of Lucas Giolito in the best-of-five World Series.

Snell’s victory clinched an extra donation to the Boys & Girls Clubs of the Suncoast.  Each of the 30 players represented a different local Boys & Girls Club, with every Club receiving charitable donations from the league, the players’ union, and Sony Interactive Entertainment.  Full details on the tournament are available here.

Some more notes from around the non-virtual baseball world…

  • There seems to be an increasing expectation that the Tigers will take Arizona State first baseman Spencer Torkelson with the first overall pick in the amateur draft, according to both Lynn Henning of the Detroit News and Anthony Fenech of the Detroit Free Press.  While nothing will be certain until Torkelson’s name is called, the slugger is considered the top prospect available by many pundits, and is perhaps something of a safer pick.  Perfect Game national director Brian Sakowski tells Fenech that the lack of spring baseball created less opportunity for any prospect to showcase new skills or have a breakout performance, so while Vanderbilt’s Austin Martin may not necessarily be behind Torkelson on Detroit’s draft board, the lack of clarity about Martin’s future defensive position might inspire the Tigers to just go with Torkelson’s more obvious power potential.  Henning is even more straight-forward in his assessment, writing “the Tigers are all but certain to take Torkelson,” as he would immediate become the headline bat in a Detroit farm system that is rich in quality young arms but short on blue chip hitting prospects.
  • Yadier Molina raised some eyebrows by recently saying that he was open to play for another team besides the Cardinals when he reaches free agency, though Ben Frederickson of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch still feels Molina will ultimately remain with the Redbirds.  “The Cardinals need Molina more than any other team needs him, and no other team would appreciate him like the Cardinals do,” Frederickson writes, and a reunion should eventually happen “as long as sanity and reason remain at the heart of the conversation.”  That said, if another team could emerge as a potential suitor for the veteran catcher, Frederickson speculates the Angels could be a possibility, given Molina’s ties to Albert Pujols and Tony La Russa (who was hired in November as a special advisor to the Halos’ baseball operations department).
  • Jefry Rodriguez started eight of his 10 games with the Indians last season, though Cleveland.com’s Joe Noga feels the right-hander could be a swingman option for the Tribe if the 2020 season gets underway.  It was an open question as to whether or not Rodriguez would have made Cleveland’s Opening Day roster under normal circumstances, but his ability to work in multiple roles and pitch multiple innings could be helpful in a shortened season, given a compressed schedule and the likelihood that regular starters would be on a reduced workload.  The 26-year-old Rodriguez came to Cleveland from Washington as part of the Yan Gomes trade in November 2018, and he posted a 4.63 ERA, 6.4 K/9, and 1.57 K/BB rate over 46 2/3 innings last season.

How Nomar Mazara Can Reach His Potential With The White Sox

By | at

One of the wild cards of the 2020 season will be the development of 25-year-old outfielder Nomar Mazara, who will look to finally break out, this time in a new environment. By now, Mazara has had four whole seasons to prove himself at the Major League level, and in 2019 he was largely the same player as he was when he debuted with the Rangers in 2016. Last year was critical for the marriage between Mazara and the Rangers; if Mazara were to establish himself as a building block for Texas, he needed to take the leap that the club has been expecting since it signed him in 2011 as an amateur. Unfortunately, that progress didn’t really come, and the Rangers dealt Mazara to the outfield-needy White Sox in December.

At 6’4″ and 215 lbs., Mazara looks the part of an MLB slugger: his frame alone is enough to convince spectators that he’s got superstar potential. He’s almost in the Giancarlo Stanton/Joey Gallo class of physicality, and his mammoth home runs lend credence to that comparison—Mazara hit the longest homer in MLB last year with a Statcast-measured 505-foot blast. When Mazara gets into one, your eyes light up at the thought of him mashing with regularity.

But the fact of the matter is that Mazara has yet to hit more than 20 homers in a season, and has in fact never put up a season of even 1.0 WAR by FanGraphs’ measure (Baseball-Reference agrees). It’s been frustrating for Rangers fans to follow his development, not because he’s been a bad player, but simply because they recognize he could be so much more.

While his average exit velocity of 89.1 mph only ranked in the 51st percentile last year, his hardest-hit balls tell a different story: his maximum exit velo, 114.6 mph, ranked number 41 among all MLB hitters. That’s something you might expect from a perennial 30-homer guy, not someone who’s plateaued at the 20-home run threshold. So what’s holding him back?

For one thing, his ceiling has thus far been limited by just average on-base skills: Mazara has never walked at a rate higher than 9% in a single season, meaning that his yearly on-base percentage has consistently hovered around .320, which is just about MLB-average. Even when he does tap into his prodigious power, that leaves him a step below the likes of Gallo or Stanton, who command enough respect from pitchers—and are disciplined enough—to generate above-average walk rates.

Last year, Mazara was at his most aggressive since entering the big leagues: he swung the bat more often at pitches both inside and outside the zone, and that change yielded mixed results. As you might expect, more swings means that he also missed more often than ever, though that didn’t adversely affect his strikeout rate. His walk rate was the lowest of his career, but the more assertive Mazara was able to post his best hard-hit and slugging numbers yet, though not by a huge margin.

But none of that looks to be the driving force behind Mazara’s stagnation; we’ve seen plenty of players put up big power numbers with subpar plate discipline. To this point in his career, the most frustrating part of Mazara’s game is the frequency with which he does damage. Mazara just hasn’t been able to get to that power as often as we’d like to see. And whether he reaches his ceiling in Chicago seems to hinge on one particularly troubling facet of his game, and that’s his inability to pull the ball in the air.

To preface: generally, pulling fly balls is an undeniably good thing, at least for players with the strength to swing for the fences: in 2019, MLB hitters posted a cumulative wRC+ on pulled grounders of -5. That’s really bad. 100 denotes average, so we’re talking about 105% below average. On the other hand, that number for pulled fly balls was an astronomical 403. So pulling the ball tends to be a profitable endeavor for MLB sluggers. That’s no surprise, and it’s the reason baseball has experienced a “fly ball revolution” in the last half-decade.

But Mazara has thus far been unable to take advantage of that revolution. When he pulls the ball, the results just haven’t been there simply because he hits the ball on the ground too often: in 2019, 66% of the balls Mazara hit to right field were grounders, by the far the least favorable outcome for a player of his stature. In essence, the best way to get extra-base hits—fly balls to the pull field—just haven’t been a significant weapon in Mazara’s arsenal. When he does pull the ball, he simply isn’t doing as much damage as he could be by elevating the ball. That’s been the case for his entire career, and frankly I think it’s the single biggest thing preventing Mazara from becoming an All-Star.

Interestingly, the same trend isn’t true of his hits to the opposite field: in fact, he hit the ball in the air much more often when going to left field (54.1 FB%, compared to just 23.9 GB%), and that translated to better results: Mazara posted a 139 wRC+ when going the other way, which is well above league average. His production on opposite field swings gives us a glimpse of what could be if he’s able to generate a similar batted-ball distribution to his pull field. And one figures those numbers would only get better when he pulls the ball, where it’s easier for hitters to get to their strength. He’s capable of elevating the ball, and good things happen when he does, but to this point he’s failed to do so when it’s most advantageous.

He’ll get the starting right field gig with the White Sox this summer, and while Chicagoans might have preferred their team to go after someone with a more solid track record, the fruits of acquiring Mazara might be sweeter than any other outfielder on the market. The South Siders have had success developing young players in recent years, and Mazara could fit right in with their burgeoning young core. So whatever the mechanical or mental source of the trend we described above, they’ll hope the player development staff can unlock what Texas couldn’t and tap into Mazara’s electric talent. That could make the difference between whether he merely tantalizes with his potential, or actualizes it.

The One Who Got Away From Cleveland

By | at

Tomorrow marks the two-year anniversary of a seemingly innocuous decision that ultimately backfired. On May 4, 2018, the Indians designated third baseman Gio Urshela for assignment. Five days later, they traded him to the Blue Jays for cash considerations, ending his decade-long tenure in the organization.

The decision to move on from Urshela made perfect sense at the time. He had never been a top prospect, instead profiling as a glove-first depth infielder. His offensive numbers in the high minors were fine but unspectacular. That wasn’t the case in MLB, though, as he’d hit just .225/.273/.314 (56 wRC+) in parts of three seasons. Most pressing, he’d exhausted all his minor-league options by 2018. Rather than carrying Urshela on an active roster already featuring Francisco Lindor, José Ramírez, Jason Kipnis and Erik González (himself out of options and capable of playing shortstop), the front office elected to move on.

Urshela played in just 19 games in Toronto before they too cut him loose. He cleared waivers, was traded to the Yankees, and didn’t return to the majors in 2018. He became a minor-league free agent after the season. Presumably finding no MLB interest, he returned to the Yankees on a minor-league deal last November.

That under-the-radar series of events proved massively important in 2019. With Miguel Andújar injured, the Yankees turned third base over to Urshela. He responded with an out-of-nowhere breakout, hitting .314/.355/.534 (132 wRC+) in 476 plate appearances. It’s an open question whether he can sustain anything approaching that production moving forward, but his underlying batted ball metrics were fantastic. In February, 68% of MLBTR readers opined the hot corner in the Bronx was Urshela’s to lose, even with Andújar returning. The 28-year-old is under team control through 2024, making him a potential long-term asset for the New York organization.

For the Indians (and to a lesser extent, the Jays), seeing Urshela’s success with an AL rival has to be a bitter pill to swallow. Obviously, they couldn’t have seen his 2019 season coming. No one around the league did, seeing as Urshela was available for little more than an MLB roster spot an offseason ago. Every team has players they wish they hadn’t let get away in retrospect (some significantly more painful than losing Urshela). Perhaps the 28-year-old simply needed a change of scenery and/or a new voice on the player development side to unlock another gear. Regardless of how and why it happened, there’s no doubt Urshela washing out in Cleveland proved to be a huge gain for the Yankees.

MLB Hoping To Stage Regular Season Games At Home Parks In 2020

By | at

We’ve heard of a handful of ideas about ways in which MLB could look to bring back games in 2020. Many have involved centralizing teams in a few states, perhaps with temporary league and divisional realignment. MLB’s “preferred plan,” however, is to stage as many games as possible in teams’ current home parks, reports Marc Topkin of the Tampa Bay Times. Those games would still be without fans, of course, at least at the beginning of the season.

Should play in home stadiums prove feasible, the schedule would be designed to limit travel, Topkin adds. Teams would primarily be pitted against opponents from within one’s division and the other league’s corresponding division. (So, AL East teams would predominantly face division rivals as well as NL East opponents, NL Central teams would see a heavy dose of the AL Central, etc.). Previously considered ideas, including centralizing all thirty teams in Arizona or arranging groups in Arizona, Florida and Texas, are now “less likely” and “being downplayed or dismissed,” Topkin notes.

MLB was already considering staging spring training games at home parks, but orchestrating the regular season from teams’ home bases would be a more significant undertaking. If possible, it would offer some stability the other proposals would not have. Players and their families would be able to live in their teams’ home cities, rather than moving to a central location for a few months. Players would still have to abide by social distancing requirements, but they wouldn’t be quarantined. MLB wouldn’t necessarily have to consider drastic structural realignment, although an expanded postseason would be a possibility, Topkin adds. And even without fans in attendance, there could be some comfort for TV viewers in seeing teams at familiar confines.

Regardless of where and when MLB attempts to return to action, there’d be myriad challenges. Coronavirus testing needs to be available to players and staff. The league needs to have contingency plans in place in case someone involved tests positive. Players would no doubt have to ramp up quickly in an abbreviated spring training 2.0. There remains massive uncertainty.

Optimism is building around the league that some portion of the season can be salvaged, though. It seems the hope is that’ll be possible without needing to gather teams at a few central locations.

How Worried Should The Cardinals Be About Paul Goldschmidt?

By | at

The Cardinals reached the 2019 NLCS on the strength of their pitching and defense, as the team’s offensive efforts could best be described as middle of the pack.  After letting Marcell Ozuna leave in free agency and trading Jose Martinez to the Rays, St. Louis did more to subtract than add from the lineup during the offseason, as Brad Miller and the re-signed Matt Wieters were the only position players inked to Major League contracts.

Young players like Tommy Edman, Harrison Bader, Lane Thomas, Tyler O’Neill, and (eventually) top prospect Dylan Carlson are expected to make up some of this offensive slack as they grow into being big league regulars.  If and when the 2020 season gets underway, however, the Cards are also counting on several underachieving veteran bats — i.e. Dexter Fowler, Matt Carpenter, Yadier Molina — to get back to form.

At the very least, Paul Goldschmidt performed markedly better than that group.  The six-time All Star’s first season in St. Louis saw him hit .260/.346/.476 with 34 homers over 682 plate appearances.  This worked out to a 113 OPS+ and 116 wRC+, both of which ranked second on the team (behind Edman) among Cards batters with at least 349 PA.  Goldschmidt also came up big in the Cardinals’ five-game triumph over the Braves in the NLDS, posting a 1.383 OPS over 23 plate appearances to help lead St. Louis to its first postseason series victory since 2014.

All in all, it was a very solid showing for a veteran hitter in his age-31 season.  However, “very solid” is not what the Cardinals were expecting from Goldschmidt, especially given their major investment in his future during the 2018-19 offseason.

The Cards paid a hefty price to acquire Goldschmidt from the Diamondbacks in December 2018, sending Luke Weaver, Carson Kelly, minor league infielder Andy Young, and a Competitive Balance Round B pick in the 2020 draft (that 75th overall pick was used on Dominic Fletcher, a strong defensive outfielder ranked by MLB Pipeline as the 20th-best prospect in Arizona’s farm system).  It was a lot to give up for just one year of Goldschmidt’s services, though the Cardinals kept the slugger away from free agency by signing him to a five-year, $130MM extension last spring, locking Goldschmidt up for the 2020-24 seasons.

It was the priciest contract in Cardinals history, topping the seven-year, $120MM deal given to Matt Holliday in the 2009-10 offseason.  The Holliday contract, incidentally, is widely considered to be one of the best nine-figure free agent deals in baseball history — entering his age-30 season at the time of the agreement, Holliday remained a very productive player until almost the very end of the seven-year pact, as injuries began to take their toll.  He was limited to 703 PA over the last two seasons (2015-16) of his Cardinals contract, though Holliday still managed a 113 OPS+ and 115 wRC+ during that stretch.

Some might call this a “very solid showing” for an injury-plagued Holliday in his age 35-36 seasons….especially considering that it essentially matched what the 31-year-old Goldschmidt did over only slightly fewer plate appearances in 2019.

Granted, that observation is probably better served to illustrate that Holliday was a very underrated player moreso than it was to hint that Goldschmidt is already in a decline phase.  Still, considering how sharply Goldschmidt’s 2019 numbers dropped off from his superstar-level production in Arizona, the Cardinals can’t be happy about already having to consider if he has already peaked.

From 2013-18, Goldschmidt batted .301/.406/.541 over 3944 PA for the Diamondbacks, hitting 181 homers and posting a 149 wRC+/150 OPS+.  His 2019 campaign, therefore, marked easily the worst season of seven-year span, and Goldschmidt also posted the lowest batting average, OBP, slugging percentage, walk rate (11.4%), and BABIP (.302) of those seven years in 2019, while generating his second-highest strikeout rate (24.3%).

As per Statcast numbers that date back to 2015, Goldschmidt also posted his lowest hard-hit ball rate (42.4%), exit velocity (90.1 mph) and xwOBA (.361) of the Statcast era.  His xwOBA is higher than his .346 wOBA, however, and since Goldschmidt had never previously enjoyed less than a .340 BABIP in any of his full Major League seasons, there is some element of bad luck to his 2019 results.  As MLBTR’s Connor Byrne pointed out last July, however, Goldschmidt’s sprint speed has been in decline as he has gotten older, which has been borne out in his dwindling stolen base totals and, by extension, his ability to beat out grounders and keep up those inflated BABIP numbers.

Connor’s piece (titled “The Surprisingly Disappointing Paul Goldschmidt”) was published on July 2….which, in classic reverse-jinx form, ended up being just about the nadir of Goldschmidt’s season.  After posting a .742 OPS from Opening Day through July 2, Goldschmidt proceeded to hit .274/.354/.554 over his final 326 PA.  It marked the second straight year that Goldschmidt rebounded from tough beginning to a season, as he had only a .721 OPS through his first 243 plate appearances of the 2018 campaign before crushing it to the tune of a whopping 1.040 OPS over his 447 remaining PA.

It’s possible St. Louis could look at those 2018 numbers and think that Goldschmidt might just be evolving into a slow-start type of player.  And again, it should be noted that Goldschmidt in no way was a bad player in 2019, with a 2.9 fWAR.  The issue is that the Cardinals were certainly counting on Goldschmidt’s prime to last at least a couple of years into his extension, not see it potentially already end before his extension even begins.

As a what-if, let’s imagine Goldschmidt hadn’t inked that new deal with the Cards and instead tested free agency.  On the heels of his 2019 performance and going into his age-32 season, he wouldn’t have come anywhere close to five years and $130MM on the open market.  Jose Abreu was the only other major name in the first base market, and the unusual nature of Abreu’s relationship with the White Sox makes him something of an outlier rather than as a Goldschmidt comp.  Abreu openly wanted to remain in Chicago, to the point that he accepted the team’s one-year, $17.8MM qualifying offer and then signed a further extension through the 2022 season (an extra two years and $32.2MM).

Abreu is a year older than Goldschmidt and doesn’t have such a long track record of elite performance.  Yet, considering how many felt the White Sox were generous in their extension with Abreu, could something in the neighborhood of a three-year guarantee for $50MM-$60MM have been Goldschmidt’s ceiling in free agency?  Teams are less willing than ever to pay a premium for anything below top-level offense from a first base-only player, and it’s likely multiple clubs would have been worried by Goldschmidt’s 2019.

Plus, a qualifying offer would have also been attached to Goldschmidt’s services, and it’s not out of the question that he could have himself accepted the $17.8MM QO as a form of a pillow contract.  On the other hand, he also might have been wary about leaving any further potential long-term money on the table since his early-career extension with the Diamondbacks ended up being a bargain for the club.  Goldschmidt and his representatives might have looked for a multi-year deal that, ideally, contained an opt-out after the first year, allowing Goldschmidt to re-enter the market if he did indeed prove that 2019 was an aberration.

In any case, the qualifying offer could have potentially helped the Cardinals in re-signing Goldschmidt at a much lower price than $130MM.  Or, while walking away from Goldschmidt entirely would have been bold given how much they sent to the D’Backs, the Cards could have looked elsewhere and, in this scenario, had $130MM in future funds to allocate to another offensive player.  Perhaps St. Louis could have made a big push for Anthony Rendon, or maybe outbid the Twins for Josh Donaldson (a longtime Cardinals target).

It’s all total speculation, of course, as Goldschmidt is on the Cards’ books through the 2024 season.  Of all the veterans St. Louis is relying on once baseball eventually gets underway, the length and cost of Goldschmidt’s contract make him the player the Cardinals most strongly hope can get back on track.

Anthopoulos Discusses Acquiring Troy Tulowitzki In 2015

By | at

In a recent radio appearance on Sportsnet 590 The Fan’s Lead Off show (audio link available, with geographic restrictions), current Braves GM Alex Anthopoulos discussed one of the signature moves from his tenure as the Blue Jays’ general manager — namely, the blockbuster trade that brought Troy Tulowitzki and LaTroy Hawkins from the Rockies to the Jays in July 2015, with Jose Reyes and three well-regarded pitching prospects going to Colorado.

Anthopoulos said initial talks with the Rockies began during the 2014-15 offseason, as “we had concerns with Jose Reyes’ defense at the end of 2014.”  Reyes was coming off a rough year of glovework, posting a minus -3.3 UZR/150 and minus-14 Defensive Runs Saved over 1243 2/3 innings as Toronto’s shortstop.  As per those two metrics, Reyes had been a subpar defender for multiple seasons, though Anthopoulos said the decline in the shortstop’s range was becoming a particular issue for the Jays.

By comparison, Tulowitzki was a much more accomplished defender, in the eyes of both the advanced metrics and in terms of hardware (two Gold Gloves and three Fielding Bible Awards between 2007-11).  The +4.2 UZR/150 and +2 DRS that Tulowitzki posted in 2015 made him a major upgrade over Reyes — as Anthopoulos noted, Tulowitzki didn’t make a single error as a Blue Jay during the 2015 regular season and postseason.

After a loss to the Phillies on July 28, 2015, the day of the Tulowitzki deal, Toronto had only a 50-51 record and sat eight games out of first place in the AL East.  Anthopoulos still felt confident that his club could break out, however: “We lost a ton of games just because we were not playing good defense, and all the pieces were there to have a great team.”

Anthopoulos cited Tulowitzki and Ben Revere (picked up in a less-heralded deadline day deal with the Phillies) as major elements to the defensive turnaround, and of course the Jays’ other headline-grabbing trade to land David Price from the Tigers also helped on the run-prevention front.  The rest was history — after that July 28 loss to Philadelphia, the Blue Jays went on a 43-18 tear over the rest of the regular season to clinch the team’s first AL East title and playoff berth since 1993.

“For me, the key was just shoring up the defense across the board,” Anthopoulos said.  “From Tulo, to getting Ben Revere in left and not having Chris Colabello and [Danny] Valencia on the corners in the outfield when [Jose] Bautista was out DHing.  Just becoming a better defensive club, that really made the whole team get to where we should have been the entire year, when you’re looking at runs scored [and] runs against.”

While things obviously worked out for Toronto, losing Reyes was no small issue to his former teammates.  “It’s not like the clubhouse was elated…we knew they would be jarred” Anthopoulos said, adding that Reyes’ “work ethic was fantastic” and that the shortstop was “so well-liked without our clubhouse.”

Still, some version of Reyes-for-Tulowitzki was a constant within the Jays’ talks with the Rockies, as Anthopoulos said “we were adamant that Reyes had to be part of the deal going back.”  Beyond the practical element of filling each team’s need at shortstop, including Reyes in the trade helped offset some of the added financial costs Toronto faced in taking on Tulowitzki’s contract.  Tulowitzki was owed a minimum of $98MM from 2016-20, while Reyes earned $48MM through the 2017 season — two seasons of salary and then a $4MM buyout of his $22MM club option for 2018.  As it happened, Reyes forfeited roughly $7.09MM of that salary due to a suspension under the domestic violence, sexual assault, and child abuse policy, and he was released by Colorado in June 2016.

For more on the Tulowitzki trade, Jeff Todd recently took a longer-term view of the transaction as part of MLBTR’s YouTube video series, making the case that it was something of a win-win deal for both the Blue Jays and Rockies, even though “both were left a little bit shy of what they really expected to get.”

Albert Pujols Hasn’t Ruled Out Playing Beyond 2021 Season

By | at

Albert Pujols’ ten-year, $240MM deal with the Angels is set to expire after the 2021 season, and it has been widely assumed that the slugger would retire once that contract is up.  However, while 2021 is “my last year under contract…that doesn’t mean I can’t keep playing,” Pujols told ESPN.com’s Alden Gonzalez.  “I haven’t closed that door.”

It should be observed that Pujols isn’t making a statement about his future in either direction, merely that he isn’t yet ready to make a decision that is still well over a year away.  “I’m taking it day by day, year by year, but you haven’t heard from my mouth that I’m going to retire next year, or that it’s going to be my last year, or that I’m going to keep playing,” Pujols said.  “I haven’t said any of that.  When that time comes, we’ll see.  Just because you have one year left on your contract doesn’t mean it’s your last year.  It could be, but it could not be.  God hasn’t put that in my heart yet.”

2022 will be Pujols’ age-42 season, and he has been beset by both injuries and an overall decline in performance over the last few years.  While surgeries on both his right elbow and left knee in 2018 allowed for Pujols to have his cleanest bill of health in some time last season, it didn’t translate to a resurgence at the plate, as he hit .244/.305/.430 with 23 home runs over 545 plate appearances.  Both Fangraphs (-2.6 fWAR) and Baseball Reference (-0.6 bWAR) rate Pujols as a sub-replacement level player from 2017-19, with Fangraphs giving him a negative fWAR in each of the last three seasons.

Barring a major late-career revival, it is hard to see how there could be much of a market for Pujols if he does wish to keep playing in 2022.  There isn’t much roster value in a 42-year-old who can only play first base — and who will still require regular DH days — and doesn’t offer much with the bat, and one would imagine Pujols might not have much interest in signing with a non-contender just for the sake of continuing to play.

As Gonzalez notes, there are some big statistical milestones still within reach for Pujols, who has 656 career homers (sixth all-time), 2075 RBI (fifth all-time), and 3202 hits (15th all-time).  Since the 2020 season will be greatly abbreviated and possibly canceled altogether, Pujols would surely have to play into 2022 to have a shot at joining Henry Aaron as the only players in the 700-homer/3500-hit club, and potentially break Aaron’s all-time record of 2297 career RBI.

While Pujols would surely love to make an even further impact on baseball’s record book, it remains to be seen if he would actually try to stick around long enough to achieve these benchmarks, especially since it is a foregone conclusion that he’ll be a first-ballot Hall Of Famer.  Of note, Pujols is also in line for a ten-year, $10MM personal services contract with the Angels organization that will kick in as soon as he retires; this deal was arranged when Pujols initially signed with the club.

Quick Hits: Bloom, Draft, Krause, White Sox, Rangers

By | at

Red Sox chief baseball officer Chaim Bloom described some of the challenges that will come out of the unique circumstances surrounding this year’s MLB Draft in a discussion with the Jason Mastrodonato of the Boston Herald. Bloom’s organization is particularly aware of the value of an additional year of scouting, which allowed the team to select Andrew Benintendi in the first round in 2015—something that probably wouldn’t happen if teams’ exposure was limited to his nondescript freshman season the year before. But that’s precisely the scenario teams find themselves in now: they won’t have the same feel for which draft-eligible players would have taken an additional leap this season and might have to base those judgments on just a few weeks of play. In addition, the shortened format of the draft (no more than 10 rounds) could influence teams’ strategy, especially in the later rounds, where clubs might look to take risks on players who will command more than $20K (the maximum amount for which teams can sign undrafted players). All this means that more high school players might opt to forego pro ball in favor of a collegiate scholarship.

  • Former Chicago Bulls front office executive Jerry Krause has received plenty of scrutiny recently, thanks to ESPN’s Michael Jordan docuseries, “The Last Dance.” But Krause’s tenure as the Bulls’ GM was bookended by a career as a baseball scout, where he worked most prominently with the White Sox. The Chicago Tribune’s Mark Gonzales reflects on Krause’s astute eye and resolution as a scout; he was instrumental in swaying White Sox higher-ups to make a play for shortstop Ozzie Guillen (then a Padres minor-leaguer), who would of course go on to play 13 years and rack up 19.5 WAR with the South Siders—not to mention his role in managing the 2005 World Series team.
  • Beginning May 15, the Rangers will institute pay cuts for some of their full-time employees, according to Evan Grant of the Dallas Morning News. Per Grant, employees above a certain salary threshold will have their pay reduced by roughly 10-20%, which will affect approximately half of the team’s full-time staffers. That said, there won’t be any layoffs or furloughs at this time. A number of high-rankings Rangers execs, including GM Jon Daniels, had already begun taking pay cuts in April, but this round will expand the scope of those measures. They’re one of just a few teams that won’t be paying teams in full through May, with a handful of teams implementing similar pay cuts, while the Rays have furloughed some of their employees.

 

MLB Trade Rumors is not affiliated with Major League Baseball, MLB or MLB.com

hide arrows scroll to top