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Cardinals Notes: Additional Moves, Martinez, Wainwright

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There may not be another significant move on the horizon for the Cardinals this offseason, president of baseball operations John Mozeliak suggested over the weekend (link via Jenifer Langosch of MLB.com). “We don’t feel like there’s that one player out there that if we could target we’d go after if we’re patient enough,” Mozeliak said. The team surely wouldn’t broadcast its intentions even if one specific target of interest remained on the market, but it’s nonetheless notable to hear the Cards’ top decision-maker plainly state that he doesn’t “see anything that makes us want to change direction” when looking at the market of available talent. As Langosch notes, the Cards can still add some veterans on minor league contracts in hopes that someone forces his way onto the active roster this spring, but Mozeliak spoke like an exec who has completed most of his offseason shopping.

More from St. Louis…

  • If the Cardinals do make a move, writes Mark Saxon of The Athletic (subscription required), they’d likely be zeroed in on versatile position players and bullpen help. “Theorizing that relievers and guys who play multiple positions are what we’re looking at is probably not the worst theory in the world,” said general manager Mike Girsch late last week. If anything, though, it seems that the Cardinals will be more opportunistic rather than setting their sights on one specific player to pursue him at all costs. Saxon does run through some remaining free agents who could hold interest, noting that Oliver Perez could make some sense “if the Cardinals don’t want to pay the asking price in trade talks with the San Francisco Giants for Will Smith.”
  • Girsch also spoke to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch’s Ben Frederickson about the decision to hang onto Jose Martinez rather than trade him. “Other teams looked at it as a guy who was not a fit for us, and that maybe they could get him on the cheap,” said Girsch of the team’s exploration of the market for Martinez. The Cardinals, it seems, had little interest in weakening their 2019 roster by moving Martinez solely for prospects, knowing his bat holds significant value even in a more limited role. Martinez hit .305/.364/.457 in a career-high 590 plate appearances last year and is a career .309/.372/.478 hitter in 915 MLB plate appearances. Frederickson also offers up some quotes from skipper Mike Shildt about the manner in whcih Martinez will be used in 2019, with Shildt believing he’ll be more involved than a typical bench bat and specifically touting Martinez’s proficiency against left-handed pitching (.332/.408/.560). However, it’s clear that heading into the season, Dexter Fowler will be given a chance to reestablish himself as a viable option in right field.
  • Righty Adam Wainwright spoke at this weekend’s Winter Warm-Up event about his decision to return for the 2019 season (link via Langosch). The three-time All-Star was candid in discussing the pain he’s pitched through in recent seasons and also in talking about the unexpected rebound his arm felt late in the season. “I stopped feeling like my arm was going to break every time I threw the ball,”  said Wainwright, who also touched on the possibility of pitching in relief if he can’t secure a rotation spot in Spring Training. However, Langosch notes that the Cardinals’ plan is to give the 37-year-old a real chance to do so. If Wainwright is indeed on a “whole different level health-wise” than he’s been in recent years, as he says, then perhaps it’d be unwise to bet against him. Wainwright has a combined 4.77 ERA in 362 1/3 innings across the past three seasons but was, of course, one of the game’s premier arms for quite some time before that; he returned from Tommy John surgery in 2012 and tossed 695 innings of 2.99 ERA ball from 2012-15.

Padres Sign Carlos Torres To Minors Deal

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The Padres have signed right-hander Carlos Torres to a minor league contract, Jeff Sanders of the San Diego Union-Tribune reports.  The deal includes an invitation to the Padres’ big league Spring Training camp.

Torres, 36, posted a 6.52 ERA over just 9 2/3 innings out of the Nationals’ bullpen in 2018, his lowest innings total in any of his nine Major League seasons.  It was a far cry from Torres’ usual workhorse performances of recent years, which included an average of 68 appearances and 77 innings per season from 2014-17 with the Mets and Brewers.

Torres’ walk rate and strikeout rate both took negative turns in 2017, however, and he was only able to land a minors deal from Washington last offseason.  (The Nats picked Torres up after he was released from another minor league contract with the Indians during Spring Training.)  Torres did have some good Triple-A numbers last year, however, so there’s some reason to believe that he could bounce back in 2019.  At worst, he’ll provide some additional veteran depth in what should still be a strong Padres bullpen next season.

Rosenthal’s Latest: Santana, Marlins, Happ, Gray, Reds, Perez, Boras

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Carlos Santana in a Marlins uniform?  Surprising at it may seem, The Athletic’s Ken Rosenthal (subscription required) reports that Miami was in talks with the Mariners about the veteran first baseman before Seattle flipped Santana to the Indians as part of a three-team deal with the Rays.  It’s been a quiet offseason for the Marlins as they continue their rebuild and weigh J.T. Realmuto trade offers, though since their past fire-sale moves have cleared a lot of future payroll space, there have been indications that the Fish could use this room to potentially to add future trade chips.  The Marlins had interest in free agent D.J. LeMahieu, and Santana is owed $35MM over the next two seasons.

Between the Marlins’ flexibility and Mariners GM Jerry Dipoto’s creativity in swinging deals, any number of scenarios could have been floated.  The most obvious offer could have been a “buying a prospect” type of trade, where the Marlins absorb a big chunk of Santana’s salary if the Mariners added some minor leaguers along in the deal.  If not a prospect, perhaps the M’s could have included a Major League player along with Santana in a package to Miami, potentially a needed reliever or a left-handed bat.  Whatever was discussed, Seattle ended up preferring the return from the three-team deal (a Competitive Balance Round draft pick and $10MM in salary relief), though the Marlins are certainly emerging as a possible trade partner for teams trying to unload an ill-fitting contract.

Here’s more from Rosenthal’s latest set of notes from around baseball…

  • The Reds were willing to offer J.A. Happ a three-year contract and give him more in guaranteed money than the $34MM he received from the Yankees in a two-year deal (with a $17MM vesting option for 2021).  New York’s offer, however, included a higher average annual value than Cincinnati’s offer.  Rosenthal speculates that Happ could have based on his decision on a desire to return to a contender, or perhaps the fact that pitchers are generally wary of the hitter-friendly Great American Ballpark.
  • The Happ situation could be a reason the Reds are looking to work out an extension with Sonny Gray before acquiring him from the Yankees, a tactic that Rosenthal says has surprised some rival agents and executives.  While Gray’s success outside of Yankee Stadium has made him a popular bounce-back candidate on another team, Rosenthal wonders if the right-hander might want to lock in a multi-year payday now in the wake of his 2018 struggles.  Gray might welcome a chance to avoid a free agent market that has become less friendly to veterans, and Cincinnati offers him a familiar face in pitching coach Derek Johnson (Gray’s former coach at Vanderbilt).
  • Rosenthal’s piece also offers a broader overview of the Reds’ offseason, which has seen the club try to make significant upgrades even while still looking like postseason longshots in the competitive NL Central.  Cincinnati has been willing to trade some second-tier prospects to add established Major League players, while resisting moving any of its top minor league talents (such as Nick Senzel or Taylor Trammell).
  • The Astros and Mariners both had interest in left-hander Martin Perez before Perez agreed to join the Twins yesterday.  Perez picked Minnesota since he wanted to be a starting pitcher next season, which likely gave the Twins the edge over the Mets, though the other suitors might have had more room in their rotation.  The Astros are thin on pitching, though since Houston plans to contend next season, it might have been a taller order to assign a starting spot to a pitcher who struggled as Perez did in 2018.  The Mariners have a full rotation plus Justus Sheffield waiting in the wings at Triple-A, though more room could have made for Perez — Felix Hernandez’s health and future as a starting pitcher is questionable, and Mike Leake has been the subject of trade rumors this winter.
  • Scott Boras has been vocal about what he sees as a lack of competitiveness around baseball, and has made several suggestions (though not yet officially to the league or players’ union) about ways to better motivate teams to win games — and, of course, have more incentive to spend money on Boras clients in free agency.  The list includes such concepts as extra playoff teams, cash bonuses to teams that reach the postseason, and draft pick compensation for teams that sign a veteran free agent or win a draft lottery for passing various wins thresholds.  Boras also proposes an anti-tanking rule that would prevent teams from receiving a top-five draft pick if they win 68 or fewer games.  “Our system is like a restaurant saying, ’If I can’t be an elite, fine-dining restaurant, I am no longer going to make a good hamburger. I’m just going to give poor meat to my clientele,’ ” Boras said.  “Which results in fewer patrons, a downturn in (overall major-league) attendance three years running.”

NL Notes: Cubs, Reds, Pederson, Bourgeois

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The Cubs have struggled to develop homegrown pitchers during Theo Epstein’s regime, though senior VP of player development and amateur scouting Jason McLeod told Gordon Wittenmyer of the Chicago Sun-Times that “this is probably the first year I can confidently sit here and feel like we have the guys that can help this team in the major leagues this year, if needed.”  The Cubs are already overloaded with veteran rotation options on the 25-man roster, with Jon Lester, Cole Hamels, Kyle Hendricks, Jose Quintana, Yu Darvish, swingman Mike Montgomery, and Tyler Chatwood all on hand to make starts.  Of course, those seven account for over $100MM in salary next season, as the Cubs have been forced to spend big on starting pitching to account for a lack of help from the farm.

Jen-Ho Tseng and Duane Underwood Jr. are Triple-A arms who cracked the big leagues in 2018, plus a variety of 2016 draft picks (Thomas Hatch, Michael Rucker, Duncan Robinson) could potentially make the MLB level this season, possibly in the bullpen if not the rotation.  The 2016 class is noteworthy, as McLeod said the player development staff has been “more aggressive” with how it brings along its pitchers given the lack of results in earlier years.  “We tried to fit everyone neatly into a box,” McLeod said. “Do these mechanics lead to what we think is going to be long-term health? And has he thrown enough strikes that we think prior performance is going to equal this type of performance going forward? We put so many checks on guys…that probably hamstrung us a little bit.”

More from around the National League…

  • The Reds have been linked to the center field market since parting ways with Billy Hamilton, though Bobby Nightengale of the Cincinnati Enquirer (Twitter link) suggests the team could like its internal options enough that “a late-inning defensive specialist” could be acquired.  None of Scott Schebler, Yasiel Puig, or Nick Senzel profile as anything more than an average defender in center, so it makes sense that the Reds could aim for a glove-first bench player that would allow the team to keep those bigger bats in the lineup for the bulk of a game.  A defensive specialist, additionally, would also come at a much lower cost than an everyday-type of center fielder.
  • Reports from earlier today suggested the White Sox had interest in Dodgers outfielder Joc Pederson, and The Athletic’s David O’Brien (Twitter link) opines that the Braves also make sense as a Pederson suitor.  Atlanta is in need of an outfielder to line up next to Ronald Acuna and Ender Inciarte, and Pederson offers some power and two years of team control.  The Braves also have right-handed hitting bench options (Charlie Culberson, Adam Duvall, Johan Camargo) to platoon with Pederson, who struggles against left-handed pitching.
  • The Dodgers announced their minor league coaching staffs earlier this week, including the item that former outfielder Jason Bourgeois was joining the staff of the team’s A-ball level Great Lakes Loons.  This would seem to indicate that Bourgeois is calling it a career after 19 professional seasons.  A second-round pick for the Rangers in the 2000 draft, Bourgeois appeared in 317 MLB games with the White Sox, Brewers, Astros, Royals, Rays, and Reds from 2008-15, hitting .253/.300/.326 over 761 career plate appearances.  Since last appearing in the Show, Bourgeois played for the White Sox and Diamondbacks at the Triple-A level, and he spent last season in the Mexican League.  We at MLBTR wish Bourgeois all the best in this next stage of his baseball career.

Austin Bibens-Dirkx Signs With Taiwan’s Uni-President Lions

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The Uni-President Lions of the Taiwan-based Chinese Professional Baseball League have signed right-hander Austin Bibens-Dirkx to a contract for the 2019 season.  NOWnews reported the signing last week (hat tip to CPBLStats.com) and Bibens-Dirkx confirmed the deal himself on his Instagram page (while also announcing that he and his wife Leah are expecting a baby in June — congratulations to the Bibens-Dirkx family!)

This will be the most far-flung destination yet for Bibens-Dirkx over a 13-year professional career that has seen him pitch for six different MLB organizations, as well as a couple of stints in independent baseball.  The 33-year-old spent the last three seasons with the Rangers, which led to his first taste of Major League action.  Bibens-Dirkx posted a 5.27 ERA, 5.6 K/9, and 2.09 K/BB rate over 114 1/3 innings for Texas in 2017-18, starting 12 of his 37 games played.

Bibens-Dirkx underwent knee surgery at the end of last season, though it doesn’t appear to have been too major a setback.  (His Instagram page also has multiple posts chronicling Bibens-Dirkx’s offseason throwing sessions.)  The Rangers outrighted Bibens-Dirkx off their 40-man roster in November and he elected to become a free agent.

Cardinals, Miles Mikolas Interested in Extension

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Right-hander Miles Mikolas is scheduled for free agency after the 2019 season, though both he and the Cardinals have interest in negotiating a contract extension.  Derrick Goold of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reports that the team has already been in touch with Mikolas’ agent “about what the framework would look like for an extension,” while Mikolas told Goold and other reporters that he would be open to a longer-term stint in St. Louis.

“It’s something that the Cardinals and my agency have to work out – if the numbers work out and everything turns out to be it’s absolutely something that could happen,” Mikolas said.

Talks may not begin in earnest until the Cards open their Spring Training camp, which conveniently takes place in Mikolas’ hometown of Jupiter, Florida.  While most players prefer to have contract negotiations wrapped up before Opening Day in order to avoid distractions, Mikolas doesn’t mind if talks stretch into the season.  This could give the Cardinals some time to address other extension candidates, though GM Michael Girsch recently indicated that the team may take something of a wait-and-see attitude towards Marcell Ozuna, Michael Wacha, and Paul Goldschmidt — the latter because he has yet to play a game in a Cardinals uniform, and Ozuna and Wacha because of some injury concerns in 2018.

Mikolas signed a two-year, $15.5MM deal with the Cardinals last winter in the wake of a dominant three-year run in Japan with the Yomiuri Giants, following an undistinguished 91 1/3 innings with the Padres and Rangers from 2012-14.  Mikolas’ second stint in the big leagues was, needless to say, a vast improvement over his first — the righty posted a 2.83 ERA, 5.03 K/BB rate, and 49.3% grounder rate for St. Louis, while his 200 2/3 innings pitched ranked tenth among all MLB starters.

ERA predictors (3.28 FIP, 3.67 xFIP, 3.93 SIERA) weren’t quite as bullish on Mikolas’ performance, and he didn’t miss many bats, with only a 6.55 K/9 rate.  Still, Mikolas exhibited excellent control (a league-low 1.3 BB/9) and limited his hard contact, with a .271 wOBA and an only-slightly higher .283 xWOBA.  Mikolas turns 31 in August, though his arm hasn’t faced too much of a workload over 10 pro seasons, after Mikolas spent his first five seasons as a reliever.  Indeed, Mikolas has looked quite durable over the last two years, with just 200+ inning performance for the Cardinals and a 188-inning performance for the Yomiuri Giants in 2017.

That first Mikolas contract has already proven to be a bargain for the Cardinals, yet Mikolas has also benefited since he has quickly lined himself up for an even larger payday, whether as a free agent next winter or in an extension.  Mikolas’ contract came without any allowance for his lack of Major League service time, so the Cardinals don’t retain any arbitration control over Mikolas even though he’ll only have slightly more than three years of MLB service time by the end of the 2019 season.

The Cards haven’t been shy about locking up key players during John Mozeliak’s reign atop the baseball operations department, and Goold estimates that a Mikolas extension could fall somewhere between Kyle Lohse’s extension in 2008 (four years, $41MM) and the five-year, $80MM free agent pact Mike Leake signed with St. Louis in the 2015-16 offseason.  The Cardinals face losing Wacha in free agency and Adam Wainwright is year-to-year at this point, and while the team has a number of intriguing young arms in the fold, there’s certainly value in keeping a durable veteran like Mikolas amidst these more unproven rotation options.

Mikolas’ unique career history makes him something of difficult player to find a comp for, extension-wise.  Mikolas might also feel a desire to lock in another big salary while his value is at its highest, rather than test what is becoming an increasingly hard-to-predict free agent market next winter.  Even if Mikolas pitches well for the Cardinals this season, it would be interesting to see what teams would offer a 31-year-old who doesn’t generate a ton of strikeouts, especially if the Cards were to issue Mikolas a qualifying offer in the fall.

Angels Designate Miguel Almonte For Assignment

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The Angels have designated right-hander Miguel Almonte for assignment, the club announced.  The move creates a 40-man roster space for reliever Cody Allen, whose signing is now official.

Almonte tossed seven relief innings for the Halos last season, posting a 10.29 ERA with seven strikeouts and three walks.  The 25-year-old joined the organization after an April trade with the Royals.  Originally signed as a teenager out of the Dominican Republic by the Royals in 2010, Almonte has a 3.99 ERA, 8.7 K/9, and 2.75 K/BB rate over 577 2/3 innings in the minors, appearing most frequently as a reliever over the last three seasons.  Over 17 2/3 total MLB frames with the Royals and Angels, Almonte has an 8.66 ERA.

Baseball Blogs Weigh In: Realmuto, Manny, Bucs, Zaidi, Angels, Keuchel

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This week in baseball blogs…

Submissions: ZachBBWI @gmail.com

Cubs Have Considered Trading Ben Zobrist

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With the bullpen-needy Cubs facing a budget crunch, acquiring even a mid-tier reliever would require removing payroll from elsewhere on their roster, per Sahadev Sharma of The Athletic (subscription required). Thus, as the Cubs look for ways to improve this offseason with little to no spending space, the club has “bandied about the idea of trading” second baseman/outfielder Ben Zobrist, Sharma writes. In jettisoning some or all of Zobrist’s $12.5MM salary, the Cubs would give themselves some room to upgrade their bullpen – a unit that has lost Jesse Chavez and Justin Wilson to free agency while gaining no one this offseason – and hopefully not experience much an offensive drop-off, Sharma notes.

“I don’t have a no-trade clause at this point, so I could be traded,” Zobrist acknowledged Saturday.

Although Zobrist realizes he’s vulnerable to a deal, it may be unrealistic for the Cubs to better their roster while subtracting him. Set to turn 38 in May, Zobrist is the Cubs’ oldest player, but he’s also one of their best. Aside from a poor 2017, Zobrist has more than delivered on the four-year, $56MM investment Chicago made in him entering 2016 – a season in which he helped lead them to a World Series title. Zobrist is now coming off a year that saw him finish second among Cubs position players in fWAR (3.6), trailing only NL MVP candidate Javier Baez, and bat an outstanding .305/.378/.440 (123 wRC+) with nearly as many unintentional walks (55) as strikeouts (60). He also posted an 86.6 percent contact rate, the game’s 15th best, making him something of an outlier for a team that ended up just 22nd in the majors in that category.

Between Zobrist’s offensive adeptness and defensive versatility (he was a plus player at second and in the corner outfield over fairly large sample sizes last year), it’s clear losing him would be a major blow for the Cubs. That’s especially true given that the Cubs’ middle infield is already down a regular, as Addison Russell will sit out the first month of 2019 because of a domestic violence suspension. To its credit, Chicago does have multiple other second base/outfield possibilities in Ian Happ and the recently signed Daniel Descalso, and those two could help fill Zobrist’s void.

If the Cubs are confident in a Zobrist-less middle infield/outfield mix which would include Baez, Russell, Happ, Descalso, Kyle Schwarber, Jason Heyward and Albert Almora for most of the season, perhaps we’ve seen the last of him in their uniform. But for a team whose offense “broke” in 2018, when the switch-hitting Zobrist put up above-average production from both sides of the plate and logged quality numbers in each of the season’s two halves, replacing his output would be no easy task.

Latest On Josh Harrison’s Market

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The Dodgers, Giants, Angels, Phillies and Rays are all in on free agent Josh Harrison at the moment, according to Jon Heyman of Fancred.

Reported interest from the Giants and Angels isn’t anything new for Harrison, but this is the first time the Dodgers, Phillies and Rays have been connected to him in any major way this offseason. The 31-year-old Harrison is available on the heels of a below-average season with the Pirates, who declined his $10.5MM club option in favor of a $1MM buyout afterward, but has typically been a decent offensive player and a solid, versatile defender during his career. Consequently, Harrison has drawn widespread interest on the open market.

A .277/.317/.408 hitter in 3,012 plate appearances, Harrison has posted a 98 wRC+ and a 97 OPS+, falling just shy of the league-average mark of 100. He has also accrued significant reps at second, third and in the corner outfield, though the vast majority of his 2018 playing time came at the keystone.

Harrison would provide the Dodgers yet another multi-position defender, and as a right-handed hitter, he’d give the lefty-heavy team some variety in its lineup. For Philly, Harrison may be a fallback option at third base in the event the club doesn’t sign free agent Manny Machado, though it’s debatable at best whether the former is superior to current starter Maikel Franco. The Phillies already have a quality starter at second in Cesar Hernandez, so it’s doubtful Harrison would see much action there. Unlike both the big-spending Dodgers and Phillies, the Rays operate with a bottom-of-the-barrel payroll. Still, they should be able to afford Harrison, who’d offer them further protection behind second baseman Joey Wendle, third baseman Matt Duffy and corner outfielders Tommy Pham and Austin Meadows.

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