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The Winding Journey Of An All-Star Slugger

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Twins designated hitter Nelson Cruz has carved out a fantastic career with a few different teams since he debuted in the majors a decade and a half ago. As you’ll see below, it has been quite an eventful journey for a player who has gone from relatively unheralded prospect to 401-home run hitter with six All-Star nods on his resume…

Professional Entry

  • The Dominican Republic native entered the pros with the Mets, who signed him as an 18-year-old amateur free agent in 1998, but he never took a professional at-bat with the franchise.

Prospect Status

  • Cruz was not a leaguewide elite prospect as he climbed his way to the majors. At his best, he ranked as Baseball America’s No. 8 Brewers prospect in 2006. BA rightly wrote then that Cruz, the Brewers’ minor league player of the year, possessed “well above average raw power,” though it also expressed concern over “holes in his swing.”

Early Career Trades

  • In the first of multiple trades Cruz has been involved in as a pro, the Mets sent him to the Athletics in August 2000 for infielder Jorge Velandia. However, Velandia was a nonentity in the majors for the Mets. He amassed 92 plate appearances with New York across three years and stumbled to a .149/.281/.216 line.
  • Like the Mets before them, the A’s gave up on a young Cruz, but only after he spent a few years in their system. In December 2004, Oakland dealt Cruz and right-hander Justin Lehr to the Brewers for infielder Keith Ginter. Unfortunately for the A’s, Ginter mustered a weak .161/.234/.263 line over 156 PA in 2005 – his lone season with the club. As mentioned earlier, Cruz was a productive Brewers minor leaguer, though he didn’t get much of a chance in the majors as a member of Milwaukee. Cruz made eight appearances and totaled seven PA in 2005.

Headed To The Site Of His Breakout

  • The Brewers traded Cruz and former slugger Carlos Lee to the Rangers for righty Francisco Cordero, lefty Julian Cordero, and outfielders Kevin Mench and Laynce Nix in July 2006. Let’s first address the non-Cruz pieces in that swap: Lee was a short-term success as a member of the Rangers, with whom he batted .322/.369/.525 with nine home runs in 260 PA. The Rangers didn’t make the playoffs, though, and Lee bolted for the Astros’ six-year, $100MM contract during the ensuing offseason. Francisco Cordero had a very nice run in Milwaukee, where he pitched to a 2.60 ERA with 11.6 K/9 and 60 saves in 90 innings from 2006-07. He left the Brewers for the Reds’ four-year, $46MM offer, which was then a record for a reliever. Julian Cordero never got past Single-A ball. Mench put up an unimpressive .256/.288/.403 line with nine HRs in 441 PA as a Brewer from 2006-07, while Nix collected a meager 61 PA with the club in parts of three seasons.

Overcoming Adversity

  • In hindsight, as effective as Lee and Francisco Cordero were after this trade, Cruz emerged as the most valuable piece for either team. It just took a few more years to finally happen. Cruz got off to a brutal start as a Ranger from 2006-07, when he combined to hit a dismal .231/.279/.384 with 15 HRs in 471 trips to the plate. Discouraged, the Rangers designated Cruz for assignment at the beginning of 2008, but they retained him after he cleared waivers. Cruz went on to mash 37 home runs in the minors that year, and he chipped in a tremendous .330/.421/.609 line and seven homers in 133 major league PA. That was truly the start of a fruitful run in Texas and in the majors as a whole. From 2009-13 as a Rangers regular, Cruz piled up 135 homers, batted .272/.331/.511 and won an ALCS MVP in 2011. To be clear, though, not everything went swimmingly for Cruz in the Lone Star State. The former outfielder’s defensive limitations helped lead to a catastrophic World Series loss to the Cardinals in 2011. Two years later, Cruz was hit with a 50-game suspension stemming from the Biogenesis scandal. However, Cruz contended he only took the substance to combat helicobacter pylori, a bacterial infection that caused a 40-pound weight loss.

Trips To Free Agency

  • The PED ban came at an especially inopportune time for Cruz, then a soon-to-be free agent; after rejecting the Rangers’ $14.1MM qualifying offer, he had to settle for a one-year, $8MM guarantee with the Orioles in February 2014. The move wound up as a positive for both sides, though, as Cruz rebuilt his stock as a member of a playoff team by slashing .271/.333/.525 and establishing a new career high with 40 homers.
  • Cruz returned to the open market the next offseason, but he did far better that time. In what looked like a questionable move by the Mariners, they handed Cruz a four-year, $57MM guarantee. As it turned out, Cruz more than lived up to his payday in Seattle, where he truly cemented himself as an all-world offensive player. He appeared in at least 144 games in each season from 2015-18 – a 1,967-PA stretch in which he racked up 163 homers, hit .284/.362/.546 and recorded an eye-popping 147 wRC+.
  • After his superb Seattle stint, Cruz reached free agency yet again prior to the 2019 campaign. And once again, the team that signed him came away happy. Cruz inked a one-year, $14.3MM guarantee with the Twins, though the pact also included a $12MM club option for 2020. Unsurprisingly, the Twins picked up that option after Cruz helped the team set an all-time single-season HR record (307) en route to 101 wins and a division title. Despite only appearing in 120 games, Cruz contributed 41 of those dingers. Pound for pound, it may have been his greatest season at the plate thus far – he registered a .311/.392/.639 line with a personal-high 163 wRC+.

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It’s not exactly common to see a player thrive under three consecutive free-agent contracts, but Cruz has managed to accomplish the feat. He’ll have an opportunity to go 4 for 4 if he becomes a free agent again next winter. Although Cruz will turn 40 on July 1, his bat’s aging like fine wine, so it would seem unwise to doubt him.

Latest On MLB, MLBPA

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It’s well known that Major League Baseball owners and players have been at loggerheads over several important issues during the sport’s shutdown. One of the key disagreements centers on the length of a potential season. The union side proposed a 114-game campaign with full prorated salaries over the weekend, but the owners clearly have other ideas.

While they have already proposed a sliding pay scale based on an 82-game schedule, they’ve at least kicked around the idea of something in the vicinity of 50 games. Even as few as 42 contests is a possibility, according to Bill Shaikin and Jorge Castillo of the Los Angeles Times. At least to the owners, that would offer some sort of season while mitigating teams’ monetary losses during a year in which there may not be any fans in the stands. MLB claims it would lose $4 billion if there’s an 82-game, spectator-less season in which the players would receive full prorated salaries.

As of now, however, a 50-game season doesn’t look like something the players are going to accept. Commissioner Rob Manfred is allowed to implement as long or short a schedule as he wants; however, as Ken Rosenthal and Evan Drellich of The Athletic reported earlier, the players may be able to object based on the agreement the sides made in March. That deal says the commissioner’s office must make “best efforts to play as many games as possible.”

The players, like the owners, have finances near the forefront of their minds during this standoff. The league’s potential proposal would entitle the players to prorated salaries, but it wouldn’t move the needle enough for them during a severely truncated campaign. As Travis Sawchik of FiveThirtyEight tweets, 50 games is “not acceptable” to the union side. Furthermore, Sawchik points out this potential proposal wouldn’t make nearly enough of a financial difference in the players’ minds. They’d earn roughly 31 percent of their pay – about the same total as owners offered in their first proposal – per Sawchik.

Beyond the money factor, there’s concern on the players’ side over whether a 50-game season would be worthwhile, Jesse Rogers of ESPN.com explains. For instance, would it behoove the players to put themselves at greater risk for injury or contraction of the coronavirus during what would essentially be one-third of a typical season, wherein they’d earn far less money than expected? Rogers also wonders how such a shortened season could affect salaries down the line, as teams and players would have to weigh such a small sample of statistics in future contract talks.

This continues to look like a dire situation for the game, especially with time running out toward actually starting any kind of season (remember, the players would still have to go through another few weeks of spring training beforehand). Now, if the owners don’t offer another counter-proposal, the players will be “done” talking, Sawchik reports.

Latest On Carlos Carrasco

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Right-hander Carlos Carrasco has been an eminently successful part of the Indians’ pitching staff since he broke out six years ago, but serious health problems knocked his life and career off course in 2019. It has been almost a full year since Carrasco was diagnosed with leukemia in July, but he made so much progress in his recovery that he was able to make a late-season return as part of Cleveland’s bullpen and earn AL Comeback Player of the Year honors.

Heading into spring training this year, Carrasco looked like a shoo-in to reclaim a spot in the Indians’ rotation. However, before the coronavirus shut down camp, the 33-year-old dealt with a hip flexor strain and inflammation in his pitching elbow. The latter problem threatened to sideline Carrasco for a normal Opening Day, but with the season having been delayed by more than two months so far, he may have a better chance of partaking in a “full” 2020 campaign.

Per Paul Hoynes of cleveland.com, Carrasco has continued to throw bullpen sessions and send videos of them to manager Terry Francona and Carl Willis. Carrasco has been a regular attendee of Indians workouts at Progressive Field. Those actions show Carrasco plans to pitch this year, as Hoynes writes, though he adds that the team’s “prioritized the health of their players and staff members above all else so that decision is still on hold.”

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, cancer survivors are among those who are at the highest risk of contracting the coronavirus, which puts people like Carrasco in especially dangerous territory. But if he is able to take the mound this season, it should be a welcome sight for the club from both morale and on-field standpoints. Carrasco understandably saw his numbers dip in 2019, but he was a front-line starter over the previous five seasons – an 856-inning stretch in which he logged a 3.27 ERA with 10.13 K/9 and 2.05 BB/9.

Quick Hits: Bitsko, AFL, Minor League Pay, Boras

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With the draft fast approaching, Kiley McDaniel of ESPN.com profiles Pennsylvania high school right-hander Nick Bitsko, who ranks among the highest-upside pitchers in this year’s class. Bitsko could go anywhere from the top 10 to the late 30s, per McDaniel, who reports that he has recently helped his stock with Zoom interviews and social media videos showcasing his enticing repertoire. While teams haven’t gotten an extensive look at Bitsko in person, McDaniel explains that the 17-year-old features a fastball that reached 98.5 mph last week and has so much spin that it could be near the top of the majors in that category already. Bitsko also has a pair of breaking balls that have the potential to turn into “above-average” offerings in the bigs, according to McDaniel, who goes into greater detail on those pitches in his piece. It’s worth a read for those interested in learning about an intriguing draft prospect.

More from around the game…

  • There may not be any minor league season in 2020, but that could be made up for to an extent with an extended Arizona Fall League campaign. The AFL season usually runs from September to October, but a 2020 version could begin “within weeks” of a potential Opening Day in the majors, Josh Norris and J.J. Cooper of Baseball America report. The MLB and MLBPA would first have to agree to a season, and Norris and Cooper highlight other roadblocks (including financial issues). But if a longer AFL season does come to fruition, all 30 teams would send a roster of prospects to their spring training sites to play games. It’s possible each of those clubs would also have “a second lower level” prospect team, Norris and Cooper write.
  • A few more teams have committed to paying their minor leaguers for at least the next handful of weeks. The Tigers’ farmhands will continue to earn $400 per week, and there’s “no end in sight,” Chris McCosky of the Detroit News tweets. The club’s also not planning to cut any minor leaguers as of now, McCosky adds. The Rockies, meanwhile will pay their minor leaguers through at least June, according to Thomas Harding of MLB.com. The Yankees are taking the same approach as Colorado, James Wagner of the New York Times relays.
  • Super-agent Scott Boras is taking action to make sure his released minor league clients still receive compensation, per Jon Heyman of MLB Network. Boras, who called those releases “completely unanticipated,” will personally pay all of those players their expected salaries for 2020.

MLB Could Propose Shorter Schedule With Prorated Salaries

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JUNE 2: While the league may implement a 50- or 60-game schedule, the union could object to it based on March’s agreement, which says the commissioner’s office must put forth its “best efforts to play as many games as possible,” per Ken Rosenthal and Evan Drellich of The Athletic (subscription required). Regardless, the two sides aren’t making much progress, nor have they scheduled further negotiations. As Rosenthal and Drellich point out, if MLB and the MLBPA are going to meet in the middle for an 82-game season that starts July 4, time’s running out. For that to happen, the players would have to be back in spring training by the middle of this month.

JUNE 1, 10:09pm: The two sides remain far apart in talks, Joel Sherman of the New York Post reports in a piece that’s worth reading in full. In regards to the counter-proposal the union made over the weekend, deputy commissioner Dan Halem told Sherman via text: “The one piece of good news out of [Sunday’s] meeting is that Tony Clark acknowledged that the March Agreement contemplated another negotiation over player salaries if the 2020 season could not be played in front of fans. We were concerned based on media reports if players knew that. Tony told us the players were aware that the March Agreement did not resolve the issue of player salaries in a season without fans. And he said the players‘ decision to accept nothing less than 100 percent of their prorated salaries was due to the risks of playing the season, not because they were promised it in the March 26 agreement.” Clark fired back in an email to Sherman, though, calling Halem’s quote “purposefully misleading and inaccurate.” Clark added that MLB is trying to “negotiate through the media instead of focusing on how to bring baseball back to its fans.”

6:58pm: A season with roughly 50 games would be “a last resort” for the league, Passan writes. The hope remains that MLB and the MLBPA will reach an agreement to avoid that outcome.

4:48pm: The MLBPA and MLB haven’t been able to see eye to eye on a potential 2020 season as they negotiate during this pandemic. In the latest developments, the union proposed a 114-game season this past weekend, though it seems the league is open to a much shorter campaign. MLB plans to propose a smaller schedule – perhaps one with as few as 50 to 60 games – per Jeff Passan of ESPN, but the league would give players a full portion of their prorated salaries.

Whether this plan will appeal to the players remains to be seen, as they wouldn’t come close to their normal salaries in such an abbreviated season. However, as Jon Heyman of MLB Network notes, commissioner Rob Manfred has the right to implement a schedule that’s as long or short as he wants based on the agreement the owners and players made back in March. As of now, Manfred and the league are still hoping to reach some sort of compromise that works out for both sides, Heyman suggests, but Passan adds that MLB is prepared to go with a schedule length of its choosing if it’s unable to find common ground with the players.

Season length aside, it’s notable that the league’s willing to give players their prorated salaries without further reductions in pay. The league presented its latest economic proposal last week – one that didn’t go over well with players, including Nationals ace and influential union member Max Scherzer, who noted the players had already agreed to take lower salaries in the form of prorated salaries and weren’t open to accepting even less money. A 50- to 60-game schedule obviously would not be ideal for the players from a financial standpoint, but if they’re not on board with this plan, perhaps they and the owners will be able to meet in the middle on schedule length in the coming weeks and get a 2020 campaign underway.

Angels Release Luiz Gohara

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The Angels released 39 minor leaguers last week, Fabian Ardaya of The Athletic relays (click here for the full list). Left-hander Luiz Gohara may be the most notable player the Angels subtracted.

Now 23 years old, the Brazil-born Gohara was once a premium prospect as a member of the Braves, who acquired him from the Mariners in a January 2017 trade that saw outfielder Mallex Smith go to Seattle (though the M’s quickly flipped Smith to Tampa Bay). Gohara mowed down minor league hitters that year, combining for a 2.62 ERA with 10.7 K/9 and 3.2 BB/9 in 123 2/3 innings, and ended up making his major league debut. That was the first of two straight seasons in which Gohara appeared in the majors, and though has only amassed 49 frames of 5.33 ERA pitching at the game’s highest level so far, he has managed nine strikeouts per nine against 2.94 walks.

It’s now anyone’s guess whether Gohara will make it back to the bigs. Shoulder problems prevented Gohara from pitching professionally last season, when the Braves released him in early August. Gohara caught on with the Angels a few weeks later, but his Halos tenure is now over before he ever threw a meaningful pitch as part of their organization.

Rangers Release 37 Minor Leaguers

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The Rangers have released 37 minor league players, per reports from TR Sullivan of MLB.com and Evan Grant of the Dallas Morning News. Grant’s tweet contains the full list, which includes right-handers Austin Bibens-Dirkx and Taylor Jungmann and outfielder Eric Jenkins, to name a few.

The well-traveled Bibens-Dirkx, who has had several North American stops and has played in China, is a familiar name to Rangers fans. Originally a 16th-round pick of the Mariners in 2006, he made his major league debut with Texas in 2017 and also pitched for the club the next season. To this point, the 35-year-old is the owner of a 5.27 ERA/5.63 FIP with 5.59 K/9 and 2.68 BB/9 in 114 1/3 major league innings. Bibens-Dirkx spent some of 2019 as part of the Rangers’ Triple-A team, with which he struggled to 7.98 ERA over 38 1/3 frames.

Jungmann, 30, was a 2011 first-round pick (No. 12, Brewers) who cracked top 100 prospect lists in his younger days, but he only managed a 4.54 ERA in 146 2/3 innings as a Brewer from 2015-17. He spent the previous two seasons pitching in Japan.

Jenkins was also a high selection (a second-rounder in 2015), but the speedster didn’t hit enough in the minors for the Rangers to keep him in the fold. The 23-year-old hasn’t gotten past High-A ball, where he batted .176/.270/.278 with a 32.2 percent strikeout rate and 21 steals in 295 plate appearances in 2019.

Mariners Release Manny Banuelos

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The Mariners recently released left-hander Manny Banuelos, according to the Pacific Coast League transactions page. Banuelos only spent a few months with the Mariners, who signed him to a minors pact near the beginning of February.

Now 29 years old, Banuelos ranked as one of the sport’s premier pitching prospects while part of the Yankees’ farm system. Banuelos topped out as Baseball America’s 29th-best farmhand in 2012, though injuries – including Tommy John surgery – have played a part in preventing him from realizing his potential.

Although his career hasn’t turned out as hoped so far, Banuelos is at least coming off a year in which he racked up a solid amount of innings as a member of the White Sox. He totaled 50 2/3 frames over 16 appearances (eight starts), though Banuelos could only notch a 6.93 ERA/6.57 FIP with 7.82 K/9 and 5.86 BB/9. It was his first major league action since a 26 1/3-inning run with the Braves in 2015, when he pitched to a 5.13 ERA. But Banuelos has been far better in Triple-A, as his 3.98 ERA with 8.4 K/9 against 4.4 BB/9 over 396 frames demonstrates.

Nationals Reverse Decision To Cut Minor League Pay

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The Nationals drew pointed criticism yesterday after cutting the weekly stipend for their minor leaguers from $400 to $300 and even evoked a prompt response from their active roster. Left-hander Sean Doolittle and several other Nats veterans met “within hours” of the news, Doolittle tweets, quickly agreeing to cover the difference and ensure that minor leaguers would be paid their full stipend.

“All of us were minor leaguers at one point in our careers and we know how important the weekly stipends are for them and their families during these uncertain times,” Doolittle wrote. “Minor leaguers are an essential part of our organization and they are bearing the heaviest burden of this situation as their season is likely to be cancelled. We recognize that and want to stand with them and show our support.”

The wave of negative backlash has clearly altered ownership’s thinking, as Grant Paulsen of 106.7 The Fan now reports that the Lerner family today sent a memo to minor leaguers informing them that they will continue to receive the full weekly stipend (Twitter link).

It’s a rather embarrassing about-face for the Lerner family. The decision to slash the weekly stipend, after all, would likely have saved in the vicinity of $80-90K in the first place. As Britt Ghiroli and Emily Waldon of The Athletic pointed out, no other team in the league has opted to reduce that weekly amount. (The Athletics, though, opted to halt the stipend entirely.) It’s not clear how the organization plans to continue beyond the month of June, although it’s easy to imagine ownership being particularly wary of bad P.R. following this situation — particularly given how poorly it was received even among their own big leaguers.

Nats lefty Patrick Corbin retweeted The Athletic’s original story on the decision and also retweeted Keith Law’s observation that owner Mark Lerner’s net worth is estimated at $5.3 billion. Yan Gomes retweeted Doolittle’s speech and added the message: “Stand together!” Max Scherzer, Trea Turner and others also retweeted Doolittle’s message — one that resonated with other young players throughout the league. Rays minor leaguer Shane McClanahan (link) and young Indians southpaw Logan Allen (link) both tweeted that they hoped to someday be in position to make similar gestures. Of course, most would argue that players should never be in the position to have to step in like this in the first place.

While the Nats’ current minor leaguers are surely breathing a sigh of some relief, the organization also cut several minor leaguers over the past week — as has been the case with most other teams. (The Royals and Twins stand as notable exceptions.) Ghiroli and Waldon have the full list of 40 minor leaguers who were cut loose by the Nats (subscription required) — a group that includes former big leaguers Mac Williamson, JB Shuck, Allen Webster and Luis Sardinas.

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