Mutual Interest Between Alex Avila, Diamondbacks
The Diamondbacks and catcher Alex Avila “appear” to have mutual interest in working out a new contract, Zach Buchanan of The Athletic reports within an excellently laid out look at the team’s upcoming 40-man roster decisions and Rule 5 protection candidates (subscription required). The veteran catcher is slated to become a free agent this winter.
Avila, 33 in January, has spent the past two seasons in Arizona after signing a two-year, $8.25MM deal in the 2017-18 offseason. He’s been surpassed on the depth chart by standout young catcher Carson Kelly, but Avila’s patient eye and left-handed bat would make him a reasonable complement and veteran mentor to the up-and-coming 25-year-old.
Avila’s first season with the D-backs was a disaster, as he posted a miserable .165/.299/.304 batting line with an eye-popping 38.5 percent strikeout rate in 234 plate appearances. However, while he still posted an ugly batting average in 2019, he put the ball in play more often, drew more walks and showed more power. The resulting .207/.353/.421 slash (in 204 plate appearances) was one of the game’s more unusual lines but came out to roughly league-average overall output, per both OPS+ (100) and wRC+ (97).
Among the 360 players with at least 200 plate appearances in 2019, Avila’s gaudy 17.9 percent walk rate ranked third, trailing only Mike Trout and Brandon Nimmo. Strikeouts were still an issue, as Avila’s 33.4 percent rate was the 12th-highest in that same subset of hitters. Lack of balls in play notwithstanding, it seems that his power, on-base skills and defensive abilities are traits the Arizona front office hopes to retain. Avila has posted average or better framing marks in both seasons with the D-backs, and after throwing out a solid 30 percent of would-be base thieves in 2018, he nabbed 11 of the 21 men who tried to steal against him in 2019 (52 percent). Baseball Prospectus also rates his ability to block pitches quite favorably.
The Diamondbacks do have Caleb Joseph currently on the 40-man roster as a potential backup to Kelly, should a new deal with Avila ultimately fail to reach fruition for one reason or another. With a projected arbitration salary of $1.2MM (per MLBTR contributor Matt Swartz), though, Joseph isn’t certain to be tendered a contract. Cutting ties with Joseph would only further create a need to bring in a veteran backstop — be it Avila or someone else — but Joseph batted just .211/.250/.263 in 41 plate appearances with the Snakes while batting .265/.324/.481 with Triple-A Reno. It’s also possible that the D-backs try to keep all three players, as Arizona has frequently carried three catchers under GM Mike Hazen. The addition of a 26th Major League roster spot for all 30 MLB teams next winter will only make it easier to do so, should the Diamondbacks wish to continue with that approach.
Pirates Interview Matt Quatraro, George Lombard
10:40am: Pittsburgh has also interviewed Dodgers first base, outfield and baserunning coach George Lombard, per SiriusXM’s Craig Mish (Twitter link). Lombard, 44, played parts of six seasons as an outfielder in the Majors and has been in his current role since 2015. He was briefly named the Braves’ minor league field coordinator before accepting his current post with the Dodgers and has also served as a minor league outfield coordinator, hitting coach and manager in the Red Sox organization.
10:04am: The Pirates have interviewed Rays bench coach Matt Quatraro as part of their search for a new manager, Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic tweets. Quatraro has also reportedly interviewed with the Giants organization.
Quatraro, who’ll turn 46 next month, served as a minor league hitting coach, manager and hitting coordinator in the Rays’ system before being hired as the Indians’ assistant hitting coach in 2014. Tampa Bay hired him back and installed him as their third base coach a year later, and he ascended to his current position of bench coach once the Blue Jays hired Charlie Montoyo away from the Rays last winter. A former catcher who played parts of seven minor league seasons in the Rays organization, Quatraro has also worked as a catching instructor in the minors with Tampa Bay.
If Quatraro does land with the Pirates (or with the Giants), it’ll mark the third consecutive offseason in which the Rays have had at least one member of their coaching staff hired away by another organization. Manager Kevin Cash enjoyed three years of continuity from 2015-17 but has since seen Rocco Baldelli hired as the Twins’ new skipper in addition to Montoyo’s hiring in Toronto.
Quatraro joins a list of Pirates interviewees that includes Twins bench coach Derek Shelton (also a former Rays coach), Athletics bench coach Ryan Christenson and Cardinals first base coach Stubby Clapp (as can be seen in MLBTR’s 2020 managerial search tracker). Others rumored to be in consideration include Astros bench coach Joe Espada, D-backs director of player development Mike Bell, Athletics quality control coach Mark Kotsay and former Pirates bench coach/former Rangers manager Jeff Banister, who is currently a special assistant in the Pittsburgh front office.
Hiroshima Carp Sign DJ Johnson
Oct. 25: The Rockies have formally announced Johnson’s release, and the Hiroshima Carp have correspondingly announced the signing of Johnson to a one-year contract.
Oct. 23: The Rockies have released right-hander DJ Johnson to allow him to pursue an opportunity in Japan’s Nippon Professional Baseball, MLB.com’s Thomas Harding reports (Twitter links). It’s not yet known with which NPB club Johnson will sign.
A native of Beaverton, Oregon, Johnson ground his way through parts of eight minor league seasons before ultimately earning a call to the Colorado pen in 2018. A September cup of coffee in ’18 preceded a longer look in 2019, during which the 6’4″ righty logged a 5.04 ERA (4.45 FIP) across 25 innings of relief for the Rockies. Johnson struggled to prevent runs on the whole, and free passes were something of a bugaboo (6.84 BB/9), but he did notch 24 strikeouts in his 25 innings of work (all while featuring one of the 2019 season’s best beards, it should be noted).
In a minor league career that stretched 313 games in the Rays, Diamondbacks, Twins, Angels, and Rockies organizations, Johnson has compiled a 3.81 ERA with 442 strikeouts in 406 innings of work.
Shin-Soo Choo Undergoes Shoulder Surgery
Rangers designated hitter Shin-Soo Choo revealed in an appearance on a talk show in his native South Korea that he underwent a minor surgery on his left shoulder (hat tip: Evan Grant of the Dallas Morning News). Choo was wearing a sling during the appearance but said the procedure came with a rough recovery timeline of six to eight weeks. That should put him on track for a normal Spring Training, barring any setbacks.
Now 37 years old, Choo has spent the past six seasons with the Rangers after signing a seven-year, $130MM deal as a free agent in the 2013-14 offseason. He’s had three solid years and three forgettable ones thus far into that lengthy pact, with each of his two most recent seasons standing out as a productive efforts. Dating back to Opening Day 2018, Choo has batted a combined .264/.374/.444 with 45 home runs, 61 doubles and three triples. He’s played in 297 games and tallied 1325 plate appearances across those two seasons while serving as the club’s primary designated hitter.
Choo is owed $21MM in 2020 — the final season of his current contract. Texas has explored trading him in the past and could look to trade a left-handed-hitting outfielder this winter, though Choo’s contract, lack of defensive value and this surgery won’t make him easy to move. Choo did log 668 innings in the outfield this year but was rated poorly by Defensive Runs Saved (-16), Ultimate Zone Rating (-9.0) and Outs Above Average (-12). Meanwhile, most American League clubs already have a set DH or multiple players they plan to rotate through that DH slot and other positions, making it even more difficult to see Choo being moved. Nomar Mazara, on the other hand, could be a more plausible candidate to change hands with Texas likely to commit two outfield spots to fellow lefty hitters Willie Calhoun and Joey Gallo.
Indians’ Nolan Jones Undergoes Thumb Surgery
Indians top prospect Nolan Jones underwent surgery to repair the ulnar collateral ligament in his right thumb this week, per MLB.com’s Mandy Bell (Twitter link). The organization is hopeful that he’ll be ready for Spring Training 2020 without any restrictions, though no firm timeline was placed on his recovery.
Jones, 21, missed some time this season with a thumb injury and reinjured the digit while playing in the Arizona Fall League. The setback preempted his AFL run at just 15 games with a lackluster .200/.294/.422 slash, but 2019 season, as a whole, was a positive one for the 2016 second-round pick. Jones opened the season at Class-A Advanced and fared well against older competition before being elevated to Double-A and turning in similarly strong results. He finished the regular season with a combined .272/.409/.442 batting line to go along with 15 home runs, 22 doubles, three triples and seven stolen bases (in 10 attempts). Jones certainly had some strikeout issues (27.7 percent), but he also drew a walk in a ridiculous 17.9 percent of his plate appearances.
By most accounts, Jones’ strong 2019 showing catapulted him into the top 50 minor leaguers in the game. MLB.com currently tabs him 37th overall, while Baseball America ranks him 44th and Fangraphs lists him 46th in the game. There are some questions about his glovework and concerns about a potential move to first base or right field (as laid out in his scouting report at Fangraphs), but his huge walk rates and considerable raw power should help him punch his ticket to the big leagues sooner rather than later — perhaps even midway through the 2020 season.
Jones’ proximity to the big leagues is of particular importance for the Indians, who have a pressing need at either third base or second base — whichever position isn’t ultimately occupied by Jose Ramirez next season. (Ramirez has said he’s open to playing either.) Given the recent payroll concerns from Indians ownership, a near-term emergence from Jones would be a boon for the organization. It’s possible that Cleveland will simply look for a one-year veteran stopgap to keep a seat warm for Jones at the MLB level, thus allowing the team to allocate what looks to be a limited slate of financial resources to other areas of need.
Red Sox Likely To Hire Chaim Bloom
Oct. 25: Bloom is “likely” to be hired by the Red Sox, per Marc Topkin of the Tampa Bay Times. MLB Network’s Jon Heyman adds, via Twitter, that the Red Sox are “close” to appointing him as the new head of their baseball operations department.
Oct.24: Rays VP of baseball operations Chaim Bloom is among those to have interviewed for the Red Sox GM opening, according to reporting from Chad Jennings and Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic (Twitter link). The club’s hiring search has been notably quiet since the dismissal of president of baseball operations Dave Dombrowski, but Jennings says the process “seems to be coming to an end.” ESPN’s Jeff Passan adds that “multiple sources” believe Bloom will ultimately get the job (Twitter link).
Bloom, 36, has been in the mix for several high-profile executive jobs in recent years. The Yale graduate was reported as the runner-up to Brodie Van Wagenen in the Mets search for a new GM last year, while San Francisco also considered him for the leadership position that ultimately went to Farhan Zaidi. The Twins and Phillies were also said to have considered Bloom for a GM role in recent seasons.
Though youthful by most standards, Bloom is a front office veteran with over 15 seasons of experience in the Tampa Bay front office. After beginning as an intern with the organization in 2005, Bloom worked in minor league operations for several years before being named as director of baseball operations in 2011. The Philadelphia native was promoted to the role of vice president of baseball operations in 2014, with a “senior” title being attached to that role in 2016 when the club also promoted Erik Neander to GM.
The Red Sox parted ways with Dombrowski on Sept 8 — less than 12 months after the club captured the 2018 World Series title. The organization has since entrusted operations to assistant GMs Eddie Romero, Zack Scott, and Brian O’Halloran, as well as senior vice president of major and minor league operations Raquel Ferreira.
Marlins To Hire James Rowson To Coaching Staff
The Marlins are hiring James Rowson as their new bench coach and offensive coordinator, according to a tweet from ESPN’s Jeff Passan (link). His role as “offensive coordinator,” a term typically associated with the NFL, will see him implement hitting philosophies throughout various levels of the organization, per the report.
Rowson most recently served as hitting coach for the “Bomba Squad” Twins, who collected a record 307 home runs in 2019. Before his hire in Minnesota in 2017, Rowson worked with as a minor league hitting coordinator with the Cubs and Yankees, logging a few months of MLB hitting coach experience when he took over for Rudy Jaramillo in Chicago in 2012.
Rowson, a former ninth-round pick of the Mariners in the ’90s, will look to ignite a Miami offense that struggled mightily in 2019. The club’s collective .241/.298/.375 line indicated that the rebuilding Marlins failed to get on base or drive the ball with consistency, as a collection of veterans (Curtis Granderson, Martin Prado) and underperforming youngsters (Lewis Brinson, Isan Diaz) contributed to a cumulative club 79 wRC+. The Bronx-bred Rowson will, however, have above-average performers in Brian Anderson and Garrett Cooper at his disposal, while young players like Jorge Alfaro and rising prospects such as Jazz Chisholm and Jesus Sanchez all offer the potential for breakout.
Angels Owner Moreno Anticipates 2020 Payroll Increase
Angels owner Arte Moreno is leaving little uncertainty as to his club’s offseason intentions, judging by comments made to reporters on Thursday. “Payroll will go up next year,” Moreno declared today, according to a tweet from Bill Shaikin of The Los Angeles Times (link).
After signing manager Joe Maddon to a fairly lucrative three-year, $12MM managerial contract, it appears that Moreno and executive Billy Eppler may have their eyes on a few of free agency’s big game targets. In fact, Moreno’s historical willingness to spend may have been a key benefit to the managing job that Maddon accepted: “Obviously, Arte’s never been worried about spending money,” Maddon told reporters last week when asked if the club’s past openness to big-dollar deals was a selling point in the skipper’s decision to come on board in Anaheim (hat tip to The Athletic’s Fabian Ardaya for that quote).
It remains to be seen how, exactly, the Angels will go about expanding a payroll that checked in at roughly $160MM in 2019. The name of Gerrit Cole has already been tied frequently to the Angels in recent weeks, as the pitcher’s Southern California roots and the club’s longstanding lack of pitching depth appear to make the two parties a logical fit. Trevor Cahill‘s $9MM 2019 salary will come off the books this winter, and the club could also save $13MM in declining their club option on Kole Calhoun. If payroll will indeed exceed the $160MM, then the club should have some financial breathing room even after accounting for modest arbitration raises for players like Tommy La Stella and Andrew Heaney.
Bruce Bochy Interested In Managing After 2020
Former Giants and Padres skipper Bruce Bochy is taking the year off, but it seems increasingly likely that he’ll eventually return to the dugout. Bochy had previously left the door open to a managerial comeback, but his recent chat with MLB Network Radio on Sirius XM (as passed along by Henry Schulman of the San Francisco Chronicle) represented a much clearer indication of his future intentions.
“I’m just hitting the pause button,” Bochy said, at Russo’s suggestion that the three-time World Series winner would manage again in the near future. “That’s all, you know, and taking a sabbatical here for a year and then, you know, I’ll see where I’m at. I don’t know how I’m gonna feel but I’d love to have one more shot.”
As Schulman points out, Bochy often struck a coy pose with reporters in the 2019 retirement tour that saw him receive numerous “sendoff” gifts in pregame ceremonies planned by rival teams. The 64-year-old event went so far as to remark on Feb 19 that “Never is a long time” when asked if he was truly retiring in the strictest sense of the word, but he never went so far as to say that he would “love” another opportunity.
This previously indefinite stance, coupled with the fact that Bochy’s February retirement announcement coincided with the installment of Farhan Zaidi as San Francisco’s president of baseball operations, led many to speculate that Bochy’s retirement from the Giants dugout was as much about retaining goodwill as it was about marking the end of a career. This is personal speculation, but considering Zaidi took over an organization that had seen two consecutive losing seasons under the veteran skipper’s command, it’s possible that the two sides came to the conclusion this Spring that a pause for Bochy and a change in leadership would be mutually beneficial. This latest chapter would seem to mesh with such a scenario.
Nationals Notes: Morton, Anibal, Suzuki, Trades
After two huge road wins over the Astros in the first two games of the World Series, the Nationals are headed back to Washington in command of the Fall Classic. Here’s the latest on the NL champs….
- Charlie Morton in a Nationals jersey? It could’ve happened last winter, as Joel Sherman of the New York Post reports that Washington pursued the veteran righty, and the Nats “believe they were the runners-up” to the Rays for Morton’s services. The Nationals made a offer similar to the Rays’ two-year, $30MM deal with Morton, though the turning point may have been Tampa’s closer proximity to Morton’s offseason home in Bradenton, Florida. On paper, it would seem like Morton’s decision paved the way for the Nats to ink Anibal Sanchez to a two-year, $19MM deal, though Sherman writes that the Nationals considered signing both Morton and Sanchez, not to mention their blockbuster signing of Patrick Corbin earlier in the offseason.
- Speaking of Sanchez, the idea of him starting Game 3 of the World Series would’ve seemed far-fetched two years ago, when the veteran righty’s career seemed to be on thin ice after struggling during the last three seasons of his five-year, $80MM contract with the Tigers. Since then, however, Sanchez has gotten back on track in a major way, as MLB.com’s Mike Petriello notes that no pitcher has a lower percentage of hard-hit balls over the last two seasons than Sanchez. Reasons for the turn-around could include Sanchez’s increased prep work between starts, or a change in pitch usage, as the veteran hurler has greatly increased the use of his cutter and mostly abandoned his slider, formerly one of his primary offerings.
- Sanchez also cited his relationship with catcher Kurt Suzuki as a big factor in his improved performance with both the Braves and Nationals, another example of how Suzuki has himself enjoyed something of a late-career renaissance. As The Athletic’s Ken Rosenthal (subscription required) writes, Suzuki considered retiring following the 2016 season, and was hesitant about leaving his family in California to sign a one-year contract and play across the country with the Braves. His wife convinced him to take the deal, however, and achieve Suzuki’s goal of ten full seasons of MLB service. That clock is now running at well over 12 seasons and counting, as Suzuki has enjoyed three of his best seasons at the plate in 2017-19, and is now perhaps closing in on his first World Series ring.
- Finally winning a championship would be the ultimate payoff to years of aggressive moves from GM Mike Rizzo and the Nationals’ front office, Jesse Dougherty of the Washington Post writes. Prospects such as Lucas Giolito, Jesus Luzardo, and Sheldon Neuse were dealt to the White Sox and Athletics in trades that brought the likes of Adam Eaton and Sean Doolittle to Washington, and the Nationals are comfortable seeing their former prospects go on to MLB stardom for other teams. “It’s difficult to win consistently and have a good farm system because you use your prospect capital to acquire major league players. But that’s been our plan the whole time,” Rizzo said. It helps that the Nats have been hung onto some prospects (i.e. Anthony Rendon, Juan Soto, Stephen Strasburg) who have turned into major homegrown stars, while also scoring in other trades that brought other big names like Trea Turner into the organization as youngsters.