Twins Outright Ian Gibaut
The Twins announced Friday that right-hander Ian Gibaut went unclaimed on waivers and has been assigned outright to Triple-A St. Paul. His spot on the 40-man roster goes to righty Matt Shoemaker, whose previously reported one-year, $2MM deal is now official. Gibaut will be in Major League camp as a non-roster invitee for Spring Training.
Minnesota claimed Gibaut, 27, off waivers from the Rangers back on Oct. 30 and held onto him throughout the winter before utilizing his roster spot for a late-offseason addition to the 40-man. He’s spent time in the big leagues both with Texas and Tampa Bay over the past two years, pitching to an ugly 6.08 ERA in 26 2/3 frames. However, Gibaut has also fanned nearly a quarter of the batters he’s faced while showing a heater that averages 95.3 mph. He’s also pitched to a combined 2.53 ERA with a 30.7 percent strikeout rate in 124 2/3 innings between Double-A and Triple-A.
Gibaut is the third offseason waiver claim the Twins have now managed to pass through waivers in the past week, joining righty Ian Hamilton and lefty Brandon Waddell. That’ll help keep the Twins’ upper minors stocked with some depth that has experience at the big league level to call upon as needed throughout the season. If he ends up being added back to the 40-man roster, he does have a minor league option remaining, which will allow the Twins to shuttle him from Target Field to their new Triple-A affiliate in St. Paul without being required to place him back on waivers.
Tigers, Rick Porcello Have Discussed Reunion
The Tigers have discussed a potential reunion with right-hander Rick Porcello, Jason Beck and Jon Morosi of MLB.com report (Twitter link), although the two sides are still “a ways apart.” Tigers general manager Al Avila said earlier this week that he was still looking for arms and that adding “at least one more starter would be ideal.”
It’s been a rough couple years for the now-32-year-old Porcello, who turned in an ERA north of 5.00 during his final year in Boston and again in 2020 after signing a deal with the Mets. Over his past 233 1/3 frames in the big leagues, Porcello carries an ugly 5.55 ERA.
That said, there’s also reason to think he should’ve fared better in 2020 than he did in 2019. Porcello halved his 2019 home run rate as a member of the Mets last year and also improved upon both his strikeout and walk percentages while allowing less hard contact than in 2019.
A woeful Mets defense didn’t do him any favors, however, as reflected in his opponents’ .373 average on balls in play. That’s nearly 70 points higher than his career mark, and while some of it is attributable to allowing more line drives, the porous defense undoubtedly played at least some role. Fielding-independent metrics like SIERA (4.45) and xFIP (4.38) pegged Porcello’s 2020 campaign more in the mid-4.00s range that he’s lived throughout the bulk of his career.
Porcello also remained durable in Queens, making a dozen starts and soaking up 59 innings even as he struggled through those poor results. He hasn’t been on the injured list since missing three weeks with a triceps strain late in the 2015 season, so at the very least he could be expected to give the Tigers some bulk innings during a season in which they’ll likely be extra-cautious with the workloads of vaunted young arms like Casey Mize, Tarik Skubal and Matt Manning.
At the moment, the Tigers have lefty Matthew Boyd and right-handers Spencer Turnbull, Michael Fulmer and Jose Urena locked into spots in the 2021 rotation. Skubal, Mize, Manning, Daniel Norris and non-roster arms like Derek Holland and Erasmo Ramirez will all be vying for opportunities in the rotation. Avila noted this week that the club could roll out with a six-man rotation in 2021 (link via Evan Petzold of the Detroit Free Press), so there could be multiple starting jobs up for grabs.
It’s an important year for the Tigers’ lengthy rebuilding effort, as they’ll want to get a chance to evaluate Mize, Skubal, Manning and others from their improved farm system at the MLB level. At the same time, there’s a fine line to walk; the Tigers surely don’t want to get to a point where injuries elsewhere on the roster force them to be overly reliant on that group to turn over the rotation, thus potentially inflating their workloads. Adding Porcello, who spent six seasons as a Tiger and won a Cy Young Award with the Red Sox in 2016, to help manage workloads and mentor younger starters has some appeal to the club.
From a payroll vantage point, the Tigers can clearly afford just about anyone they want. Their offseason investments to date have been a two-year, $10MM deal for Robbie Grossman and one-year deals for Jonathan Schoop ($4.5MM), Urena ($3.25MM), Wilson Ramos ($2MM) and Nomar Mazara ($1.75MM). Their current payroll sits at about $82MM — more than $110MM shy of its peak levels in 2016-17. That’s not likely to go up much in 2021, but they could still spend on a couple more veterans in the Porcello mode as they await a return to more prominently playing in the free-agent market next winter and beyond.
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No Extension Talks Yet Between Angels, Dylan Bundy
The Angels could lose top starter Dylan Bundy to free agency next offseason, and the right-hander said Thursday (via Rhett Bollinger of MLB.com) that they have not engaged in discussions regarding an extension. Bundy is due to earn $8.325MM in 2021.
While the Angels haven’t had much luck in their rotation over the past few years, Bundy offered a rare outstanding performance for the team last season – his first campaign with the club. Bundy was the fourth overall pick of the Orioles in 2011 and someone who was regarded as a can’t-miss prospect in his younger days, but he couldn’t quite put it together in parts of five seasons as a member of the O’s, with whom he registered a 4.67 ERA/4.28 SIERA across 614 1/3 innings. Baltimore traded Bundy to the Angels in December 2019 for a handful of prospects.
The Angels’ playoff drought reached six years in Bundy’s first season with the club, but it certainly wasn’t his fault. The 28-year-old provided much-needed front-of-the-rotation production to the Halos with a 3.29 ERA/3.80 SIERA and above-average strikeout and walk rates of 27.0 percent and 6.4 percent, respectively, in 65 2/3 innings. If the Angels don’t extend Bundy before next winter, and if he comes close to last year’s numbers during the upcoming season, he should be one of the most coveted free agents on the market.
Padres Sign Keone Kela
FEB. 18: The Padres have announced the signing of Kela to a one-year deal. MLB Network’s Jon Heyman tweets that he’ll be guaranteed $1.2MM with another $2.3MM available via incentives.
To make room for Kela on their 40-man roster, they placed righty Trey Wingenter on the 60-day injured list. Wingenter underwent Tommy John surgery last July, so he’s unlikely to pitch much — if at all — in 2021.
FEB. 15: The Padres have signed right-hander Keone Kela, per Jon Heyman of the MLB Network (via Twitter). The deal is pending a physical. Perhaps accidentally, Kela broke the news himself in an updated bio on his Instagram page last night, though his bio was soon deleted.
Kela is the latest acquisition in a very busy offseason for the Padres, particularly on the pitching side. The addition of Yu Darvish, Blake Snell, and Joe Musgrove to the rotation has pushed some of the younger arms who might have been in contention for starting jobs down into the mix for bullpen time, and San Diego has further augmented its pen by signing Mark Melancon. Kela now joins Melancon and Emilio Pagan as pitchers with past closing experience, should the team prefer to mix and match save opportunities based on situations rather than fully entrust the ninth inning to Drew Pomeranz.
Of course, Kela is far from a lock for such a key role himself considering that he barely pitched in 2020. Between a positive COVID-19 test and then an injured-list stint due to forearm tightness, Kela appeared in only three games for the Pirates last season. This lack of playing time might well have kept him in a Pirates uniform, as he would surely have been a prime trade candidate for the Bucs so close to his entrance into the free agent market.
The 27-year-old Kela has been a source of controversy during his time in Pittsburgh, primarily during a 2019 season that saw him suspended twice. One was a 10-game, league-mandated punishment for throwing at Derek Dietrich and sparking a huge brawl between the Pirates and Reds, and the other was a team-mandated two-game absence for an altercation with a member of the coaching staff.
A change of scenery certainly seemed necessary, and Kela will now join a familiar face in Padres general manager A.J. Preller. The Rangers made Kela a 12th-round pick in the 2012 draft when Preller was still working in the Texas front office, and Kela joins Darvish and Jurickson Profar as prominent ex-Rangers who have made their way to San Diego during Preller’s tenure as GM.
It was in Arlington that Kela emerged as a hard-throwing future closing candidate, finally taking over the ninth inning for Texas during the 2018 season, and the Pirates were planning to use him as a closer prior to the 2020 season. Over six seasons and 216 2/3 innings with the Rangers and Pirates, Kela has a 3.24 ERA and a very strong 30.1% strikeout rate, though he has had some issues with walks (9.4% walk rate) and his spin rates range from average (his fastball) to mediocre (his curve).
Quick Hits: JBJ, Mets, Ohtani, Yankees
The Mets were connected to free-agent center fielder Jackie Bradley Jr. earlier in the offseason, but the two sides did not come close to an agreement, Andy Martino of SNY.tv writes. The club has agreed to sign fellow center fielders Kevin Pillar and Albert Almora Jr. in recent days, and now the chances of it adding Bradley are “practically nonexistent,” according to Martino. If true, that eliminates one logical suitor for Bradley, a longtime member of the Red Sox and one of the top free agents remaining on the market.
- Angels right-hander/designated hitter Shohei Ohtani threw a 27-pitch bullpen session Thursday, and his velocity topped out at 90 mph, Jeff Fletcher of the Orange County Register tweets. Ohtani, who’s coming off a season limited by a right flexor strain, averaged a little over 93 mph on his heater from 2018-20, but he’s not concerned about his early camp velocity drop. “It was my first bullpen, so I’m not too worried about the velo,” Ohtani said (via Fletcher). Ohtani’s arm problems (including September 2019 Tommy John surgery) limited him to just 1 2/3 innings of pitching over the previous two seasons, but the hope is that he’ll re-emerge this year as an important member of the Angels’ rotation.
- Yankees righty Luis Severino is throwing from 120 feet and could return to the mound in the next few weeks, per Bryan Hoch of MLB.com. Severino was one of the elite pitchers in the game from 2017-18, but injuries have cut him down since then. He threw only 12 innings in 2019 because of shoulder issues and then didn’t pitch at all last season after undergoing Tommy John surgery. But if he bounces back this year, Severino and Yankees ace Gerrit Cole could comprise one of the best one-two punches of any rotation in baseball.
- More on the Yankees, who do have interest in re-signing free-agent outfielder Brett Gardner, according to Jon Heyman of MLB Network. It’s “likely” the Yankees would keep him in the vicinity of $3MM, Heyman relays. As of last week, though, the career-long Yankee, 37, and the club reportedly hadn’t engaged in any contract negotiations.
Pitching Notes: Paxton, Jays, Thor, McGee, Bass
The Blue Jays were among the teams in on southpaw James Paxton before he agreed to a contract with the Mariners over the weekend. However, Toronto never made a pitch to Paxton (via Gregory Balloch of Sportsnet 650). “They showed a lot of interest, and I had interest too, but they never came forward with an offer,” Paxton said. Paxton was a first-round pick of the Jays in the 2009 draft, but after the two sides couldn’t reach an agreement, he joined the M’s as a fourth-rounder in 2010. The now-32-year-old, who’s known as the Big Maple because of his Canadian roots, will earn a guaranteed $8.5MM in his return to Seattle in 2021.
- Mets right-hander Noah Syndergaard remains on track in his recovery from March 2020 Tommy John surgery, per Tim Healey of Newsday. Barring any setbacks, Thor should rejoin the Mets’ rotation sometime in June or July. Without Syndergaard, they’re slated to open 2021 with Jacob deGrom, Carlos Carrasco, Marcus Stroman and David Peterson as the top four in their starting staff. There isn’t a set fifth member of the group yet, but the team does have interest in free-agent righty Taijuan Walker.
- Lefty Jake McGee could close games for the Giants this year, manager Gabe Kapler told Susan Slusser of the San Francisco Chronicle and other reporters Wednesday. The 34-year-old McGee, whom the Giants signed to a two-year, $7MM contract last week, has saved 45 games since his career started in 2010, though the former Ray, Rockie and Dodger hasn’t picked up a save since 2018. The Giants went to a closer-by-committee approach last season with five hurlers totaling at least one save, so it wouldn’t be a surprise to see McGee join others in finishing games for the team this year.
- Righty Anthony Bass is the favorite to close for the Marlins, Craig Mish of SportsGrid suggests. Bass signed a two-year, $5MM guarantee with the Marlins last month after a productive season in Toronto, where he notched a 3.51 ERA/4.09 SIERA with a 62.3 percent groundball rate in 25 2/3 innings. He could now be in line to succeed Brandon Kintzler, who closed for the Marlins in 2020 but signed with the division-rival Phillies last week.
Giants Win Arbitration Case Against Donovan Solano
The Giants have won their arbitration case against infielder Donovan Solano, Mark Feinsand of MLB.com tweets. Solano will earn $3.25MM in 2021 after filing for $3.9MM.
Solano, who previously appeared in the majors with the Marlins and Yankees, has turned into an unexpected success story since the Giants signed him to a minor league before the 2019 season. Since then, Solano has batted .328/.362/.459 in 431 plate appearances, and though he hasn’t shown much power (.131 ISO, seven home runs), his overall output has still been 20 percent than the league-average mark, according to FanGraphs. Defensively, Solano has mostly lined up at second for the Giants, with whom he has managed one Defensive Run Saved and a minus-3.0 Ultimate Zone Rating in almost 600 innings.
Solano should again earn plenty of playing time in San Francisco in 2021. It could be the 33-year-old’s last season in San Francisco, though, as he’s slated to become a free agent next winter.
Tigers Sign Wily Peralta To Minors Deal
The Tigers have signed right-hander Wily Peralta to a minor league contract with an invitation to big league camp, Jon Heyman of MLB Network tweets. The deal comes with a $1.5MM base salary and up to $300K in incentives.
This is the first we’ve heard about Peralta in quite some time, as he didn’t surface in any rumors after the Royals released him in July 2019. He has not been part of any major league organization since then, though he’ll now get a chance to compete for a spot in the Tigers’ bullpen, Jason Beck of MLB.com tweets.
Peralta, who will turn 32 in May, has spent the majority of his career as a starter between Milwaukee and Kansas City, but all of his outings as a Royal came as a reliever. From 2012-19, Peralta amassed 120 starts and 779 1/3 innings across 211 appearances and pitched to a 4.52 ERA/4.39 SIERA with underwhelming strikeout and walk percentages (16.9 and 8.8), though he did put up an impressive 50.7 percent groundball rate.
Mariners Sign Ken Giles
FEB. 18: It’s a two-year, $7MM guarantee, Jon Heyman of MLB Network reports. Giles will earn a $1MM salary in 2021 and a $5MM salary in 2022. There’s also a $9.5MM option or a $500K buyout for 2023. Additionally, the contract features a $500K signing bonus.
FEB. 11: The Mariners are in agreement on a two-year contract with free-agent reliever Ken Giles, per Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic. Shannon Drayer of ESPN 710 first reported the news. Giles is a client of Rowley Sports Management.
Because he underwent Tommy John surgery as a member of the Blue Jays on Oct. 1, Giles will not be able to help the Mariners in 2021. However, if his recovery goes well, Giles’ history suggests he will emerge as a valuable part of the Mariners’ bullpen the next season. Giles, after all, has logged a 2.74 ERA/2.57 SIERA with well-above-average strikeout and walk rates (33.3 and 7.7 percent, respectively) across a combined 351 innings with the Phillies, Astros and Jays. The 30-year-old right-hander has also converted 115 of 130 save attempts and averaged better than 97 mph on his fastball.
Giles’ elbow issues limited him to 3 2/3 frames last year, but it would be difficult to find many relievers who were harder to face in 2019. That season, Giles threw 53 innings of 1.87 ERA/2.49 SIERA ball and ended up sixth among bullpen arms in K-BB percentage (31.7).