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Athletics Sign Nick Hundley To Minor League Deal

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10:29am: Hundley would earn a $1.25MM base salary in the Majors, tweets Susan Slusser of the San Francisco Chronicle.

9:02am: The Athletics announced Monday morning that they’ve signed veteran catcher Nick Hundley to a minor league contract and invited him to Major League Spring Training, where he’ll compete for a roster spot. Hundley is a client of Athletes First.

While much of Oakland’s focus this winter has been on the pitching staff, catching help is still a clear area of need for the A’s. Top prospect Sean Murphy may not be far from MLB readiness after a strong showing in Double-A in 2018, but the only two catchers on the 40-man roster at the moment are Josh Phegley and Chris Herrmann. Phegley hit just .204/.255/.344 last season, and while Herrmann was fairly productive in a small sample of work, he’s a career .205/.282/.351 hitter in the Majors.

Suffice it to say, Hundley has a very legitimate chance to crack the Opening Day roster with the A’s — perhaps with expectations for a decent workload if there’s no other catching addition made. The 35-year-old hit .241/.298/.408 with 10 homers in 305 plate appearances across the bay for the Giants in 2018 and posted a combined .243/.285/.413 slash with San Francisco in the two seasons he spent there. Clearly, Hundley comes with some on-base deficiencies, but he has a bit of pop in his bat and will bring plenty of experience to an Oakland staff consisting of numerous young arms.

Defensively speaking, Hundley is more of a mixed bag. His framing work last year graded out near the bottom of the league, but he was roughly average a year prior. Similarly, Hundley’s caught-stealing rate dipped to a below-average 21 percent in 2018, but he was a bit above the league mean at 29 percent in 2017. He’s generally drawn average or better marks in terms of blocking pitches in the dirt.

Free Special Report: The Truth About Projections, ADPs And Winning

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POP QUIZ: Name the player who belongs to this 2019 projection:

AB      R      HR      RBI      SB      Avg
550     85      25          75         5        .260

Is it Rafael Devers? Could it be Matt Chapman, or maybe Stephen Piscotty? How about Asdrubal Cabrera or Jed Lowrie? Actually, there are 49 players who could reasonably post this stat line. However, they are currently being drafted anywhere from Round 3 to Round 32!

Mining the gaps between the projections and draft behavior is the secret to a fantasy baseball title. Here’s how to uncover dozens of profit opportunities for Draft Day 2019!

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This is a sponsored post from Ron Shandler.

Quick Hits: Arenado, Int’l Prospects, Jones, CarGo, Bauer, Storen, Marlins

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Nolan Arenado’s extension talks with the Rockies could create a big impact around baseball, MLB.com’s Mark Feinsand writes in an exploration of both the short-term and long-term effects of an Arenado deal.  Most obviously, an extension would remove arguably the biggest name from the 2019-20 free agent class, which would be a boon to other stars who will be hitting the open market — in particular, Anthony Rendon would see his biggest competition in the third base market disappear.  (Of course, Rendon could also ink his own long-term deal to stay with the Nationals.)  More immediately, an Arenado extension could also set a new benchmark for Bryce Harper and Manny Machado, should Arenado and the Rockies come to an agreement before Harper or Machado land contracts this winter.

Some stray items from around baseball as we head into the new week…

  • Ten of the top names available in the 2019-20 international signing market are profiled by Baseball America’s Ben Badler, all of whom have teams already unofficially attached to their services even though the market doesn’t properly open until July 2.  Dominican outfielder Jasson Dominguez and Dominican shortstop Robert Puason are projected for the highest bonuses, each expected to land something around $5MM, with Dominguez linked to the Yankees and Puason connected to the Athletics.
  • While the Indians are still looking for outfield help, the team isn’t currently “aggressively pursuing” Adam Jones or Carlos Gonzalez, MLB.com’s Jon Paul Morosi reports.  Both veterans were only moderately productive in 2018, both with below-average offensive numbers (as per wRC+) and Jones with some of the worst defensive metrics (minus-18 Defensive Runs Saved, -14.8 UZR/150) of any center fielder in baseball.  That said, both players could still represent an upgrade for Cleveland’s shaky outfield, though it appears the Tribe is checking other options for now.
  • Trevor Bauer’s arbitration hearing took place on Friday, Cleveland.com’s Paul Hoynes reports, so details should soon emerge about the outcome.  There was a $2MM gap between Bauer and the Indians in exchanged figures, as Bauer’s camp is looking for a $13MM salary in 2019 and the team is aiming for an $11MM salary.  This will be the second arb hearing in as many years between the two sides, as Bauer defeated the Tribe in the hearing last winter to land his desired $6.525MM salary for the 2018 season.  Like Kluber, Bauer has also been a major figure in trade rumors this offseason.  He has one less year of team control than Kluber and a less-extensive track record, though Bauer is also almost five years younger than his rotation mate.
  • The Royals have interest in veteran righty Drew Storen, The Athletic’s Jayson Stark reports (Twitter link).  Storen didn’t pitch last season after undergoing Tommy John surgery in September 2017.  The 31-year-old was a key figure in the Nationals’ bullpen from 2010-15, though he suffered through a disastrous half-season stint with the Blue Jays in 2016 before righting the ship after a July trade to the Mariners.  Prior to his injury, Storen had a 4.45 ERA, 7.9 K/9, and 2.09 K/BB rate over 54 2/3 innings out of the Reds’ bullpen in 2017.  Storen won’t carry a heavy price tag as he makes his return from TJ surgery, making him a target for payroll-conscious Kansas City.
  • “Every trade, we’re trying to get back international money,” Marlins president of baseball operations Michael Hill told reporters, including Barry Jackson and Jordan McPherson of the Miami Herald.  It’s clear that the international market is a cornerstone of Miami’s rebuilding process, and the club has been successful in landing extra money for their int’l draft pool in recent trades with the Astros, Reds, Nationals, and (as part of the J.T. Realmuto trade package) Phillies.  These extra funds have already paid dividends, as the Marlins signed highly-touted Cuban brothers Victor Victor Mesa and Victor Mesa Jr. last October.

Indians Increasingly Unlikely To Trade Corey Kluber

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“There is almost no chance” the Indians deal ace right-hander Corey Kluber before pitchers and catchers report to Cleveland’s Spring Training camp on Thursday, MLB.com’s Jon Paul Morosi reports.  This would seemingly close on the door entirely on a Kluber trade, as Morosi notes that “it’s believed that the team won’t be receptive to active trade conversations during Spring Training,” and talks also wouldn’t take place during the season unless the Tribe fell out of contention by the July trade deadline.

Rumors have swirled around Kluber for months, since news broke in early November that the Indians were open to discussing any of their veteran players in an effort to cut payroll.  Beyond Kluber, names such as Trevor Bauer, Carlos Carrasco, Jason Kipnis, Edwin Encarnacion, Yonder Alonso, and Yan Gomes were also floated as potential trade chips.  As the offseason progressed, the Tribe ended up dealing Alonso, Encarnacion and Gomes (while solidifying Carrasco as a long-term piece by signing him to an extension).

With some financial breathing room established, there seemed to be less chance that Kluber or Bauer would also be dealt.  Cleveland’s high asking price also surely played a role, as the Tribe reportedly would only move either pitcher for a prospect package akin to what the White Sox received from the Red Sox for Chris Sale.  The Reds, Yankees, Mets, Padres, Phillies, Brewers, and Dodgers were all rumored to be discussing Kluber at one point or another this winter, though barring a late-breaking change of heart, it doesn’t seem like the two-time Cy Young Award winner is going anywhere.

Kluber’s third-place finish in the 2018 AL Cy Young race unlocked up to $12MM worth of extra bonus money in his contract, as his 2019 salary is now $17MM, and his 2020 club option is raised to $17.5MM, and his 2021 club option to $18MM (both option years come with a $1MM buyout).  Even at the $52.5MM maximum over those three seasons, that’s still a very reasonable price for a pitcher who has been one of the game’s best hurlers over the last five years, even for a smaller-market team like Cleveland.  Whereas the first base/DH power of Encarnacion and Alonso could be more readily replaced (by Carlos Santana and Jake Bauers) by the Indians, it would’ve been much harder to fill Kluber’s void atop the rotation, even considering the Tribe’s enviable rotation depth.

Kluber does turn 33 in April, and he did experience both a significant spike in his hard-hit ball rate and a slight velocity drop in 2018, so the argument could be made that the Indians would’ve been prudent in selling high.  Still, Kluber hardly looked like a pitcher in decline last year, and there’s relatively little long-term risk involved for the Tribe since 2019 is the right-hander’s last guaranteed year.  For a Cleveland team that intends on another playoff run this season, trading Kluber seems like it only would’ve been a consideration if another club had been willing to overpay.  At worst, the Tribe has collected some intel on a potential Kluber market should they indeed end up exploring their options at the trade deadline.

Minor MLB Transactions: 2/10/19

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The latest minor moves from around baseball…

Latest Moves

  • The Giants outrighted right-hander Derek Law and outfielder John Andreoli to Triple-A after both players cleared waivers, as per a team announcement (hat tip to NBC Sports Bay Area’s Alex Pavlovic).  Law and Andreoli were both recently designated for assignment; in fact, Law was DFA’ed to clear roster space for Andreoli’s signing on February 1.  The two will remain in San Francisco’s farm system as depth options, though Andreoli might have a clearer path to winning a big league job given the Giants’ lack of everyday outfielders.

Earlier Today

  • The Marlins have outrighted outfielder Isaac Galloway to Triple-A New Orleans after he cleared waivers, Wells Dusenbury of the Sun Sentinel tweets. Galloway will attend major league spring training as a non-roster invitee, the team announced. The Marlins designated Galloway for assignment this past Monday to make room for the addition of right-hander Austin Brice, whom they claimed off waivers from the Orioles. A member of the Marlins since they selected him in the eighth round of the 2008 draft, the 29-year-old Galloway finally debuted in the majors last season, when he totaled 74 plate appearances and slashed .203/.301/.391 with three home runs. Galloway has posted nearly identical numbers at the Triple-A level, where he has hit .256/.304/.393 in 1,395 PAs, though he is coming off a 20-stolen base season in the minors.

AL East Notes: Steinbrenner, Jays, Romo, Rays, Orioles

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After the Yankees worked to get under the luxury tax limit last offseason, many New York fans expected a classic Bronx Bombers spending spree this winter, particularly with Bryce Harper and Manny Machado in the free agent market.  While that type of splurge hasn’t happened, Yankees owner Hal Steinbrenner rejected criticism that his team hasn’t been willing to spend.  “I mean, we’re well above $200 million [in payroll] — we’re at $220 [million] right now — and we’re well above where we were last year,” Steinbrenner told ESPN News Services and other outlets.  (Roster Resource projects the Yankees’ at a little under $203MM in dollars, though at just over $217MM in terms of luxury tax value.)

“I think we’ve definitely got a better club Opening Day than we did opening day last year, particularly in pitching, which is my biggest area of concern,” Steinbrenner said.  In regards to the argument that the Yankees’ enormous revenues should necessitate a league-high payroll, Steinbrenner also pointed to the team’s high costs, as well as future money that is being earmarked to retain members of its young core.  That said, Steinbrenner also didn’t rule out the possibility of more notable additions: “I’m never done until I’m done, and that’s usually not until Opening Day.  Proposals come to me every day with these guys, between the analytics guys and the pro scouting guys, and I’m going to consider every single one of them.”

Here’s more from around the AL East…

  • The Blue Jays have shown interest in veteran reliever Sergio Romo, Fancred Sports’ Jon Heyman tweeted earlier this week.  Romo is close to signing a new contract, as per Heyman’s earlier reports, though the mystery team may not necessarily be Toronto, as multiple clubs have been engaged in pursuit of the right-hander.  Romo, who turns 36 next month, posted a 4.14 ERA, 3.75 K/BB rate, and 10.0 K/9 over 67 1/3 innings for Tampa Bay last season, which included 25 saves and five “starts” as the Rays’ opener.  It isn’t out of the question that the Jays could also look to deploy Romo as an opener, given the number of young arms in Toronto’s starting mix as well as the veterans (Aaron Sanchez, Marcus Stroman, Clayton Richard, Matt Shoemaker) who carry some injury-related question marks.  It’s probably more likely, however, that the Jays see Romo as an experienced bullpen addition, in the same vein as their signings of Seunghwan Oh, J.P. Howell, and Joe Smith in the last two offseasons.  By that same ilk, Romo could also become a trade chip for Toronto by midseason.
  • The Rays are on the verge of a new TV contract that should be finalized sometime during the 2019 season, Marc Topkin of the Tampa Bay Times reports.  The team’s last deal with Fox Sports Sun expired at the end of last season, and the two sides have agreed to “basically…a placeholder deal” for the coming year while the new contract is completed.  Some notable obstacles remain, however, such as the exact length of the deal, as well as bigger-picture issues as the sale of Fox Sports Sun and other regional Fox cable networks, plus how the threat of the Rays leaving the Tampa/St. Petersburg area could impact the contract.  “There still things in flux,” Rays principal owner Stuart Sternberg said, though “It’s going to happen. There’s a structure of a deal.”  Exact figures of the new contract aren’t likely to be revealed, though Sternberg estimates the Rays will rank around 20th of the 30 teams in terms of TV revenue — the previous contract paid the Rays around $30MM per season, ranking them near the bottom of the league.  Previous reports indicated that the Rays would earn $82MM per year on the next contract, though Sternberg says the actual total is “well, well, well under” that figure, and some of the expected increase has already gone into player payroll.  “Much of the reason we’ve spent all that we have is because we knew we had some more revenue (coming) off of TV. Unfortunately [the contract is] going to fall reasonably short of what we anticipated four years ago,” Sternberg said.
  • Under GM Mike Elias, the revamped Orioles’ front office has taken a big step towards modern statistical analysis, though some seeds towards this direction were planted last summer before Elias was hired.  As Jon Meoli of the Baltimore Sun notes, several young pitchers acquired by the O’s last summer were obtained from teams (such as the Dodgers, Braves, and Yankees) that have already embraced analytics, leaving the prospects already well-versed in modern data and eager to learn more.  “I’m big into the new analytics and stuff like that, so I like to see the data that I produce, I guess, with how my pitches play off each other,” said right-hander Dean Kremer, one of the youngsters Baltimore acquired from Los Angeles in the Manny Machado trade in July.

AL West Notes: Angels, Eppler, Chapman, Lewis

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Some rumblings from around the AL West…

  • “We are a point where we feel complete with our club,” Angels GM Billy Eppler tells MLB.com’s Rhett Bollinger, as the Halos feels they made enough short-term additions to be able to compete in 2019.  The club was cautious about not dealing any of its top prospects from a farm system that has undergone a major rebuild in recent years, and Los Angeles didn’t splurge on any long-term free agent commitments.  That said, the Angels’ focus on short-term signings “wasn’t scripted,” as Eppler put it.  “There were some players that we engaged on and made offers to that would’ve been multi-year commitments.  Those didn’t work out for a couple different reasons.  But shorter-term deals work in a variety of ways — they keep you flexible, and they keep you open to doing things both during the season and in succeeding seasons.”  Some type of a reload was necessary for the team, given both the sorry state of the Angels’ minor league pipeline just a few years ago and the number of ill-fated big contracts that didn’t pan out.  Still, the Angels are on something of a clock to get back into contention, given that Mike Trout is only under contract for two more seasons.
  • Matt Chapman provided an update on his health status in the wake of offseason thumb and shoulder surgery, telling reporters (including the San Francisco Chronicle’s Susan Slusser) that he’ll be in the lineup when the Athletics begin their season on March 20 in Tokyo.  The third baseman could miss a few early Spring Training games as he recovers, however, noting “it’s hard to say when everything will be a full go.”  Chapman expressed some regret at waiting until December to undergo his shoulder procedure, as he said the joint was giving him some discomfort during the season but he thought some downtime would correct the issue.  While the A’s will certainly be cautious about their star during the spring, it doesn’t yet seem Chapman is in any danger of missing any regular season action.
  • Outfield prospect Kyle Lewis was invited to the Mariners’ big league Spring Training camp, a positive development for Lewis after an injury-plagued start to his pro career, TJ Cotterill writes for Baseball America.  The 11th overall pick of the 2016 draft, Lewis has already undergone two knee surgeries, limiting him to just 711 plate appearances and 165 games over two-plus seasons.  These injuries and a not-unrelated relative lack of production (.258/.328/.430 slash line in the minors) have caused Lewis’ prospect stock to drop, though the 23-year-old is entering a season healthy for the first time.  “He’s missed so much time, but we feel better today than we’ve ever felt with his work and his progress.  Most of us who have been around Kyle, we really don’t have a lot of concern about the ability. It’s the health,” Mariners farm director Andy McKay said.

Quick Hits: Keuchel, Marwin, Padres, Tribe, Wilson, Athletics

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Free-agent left-hander Dallas Keuchel asked for a six- to seven-year contract worth $25MM to $30MM per annum at the beginning of the offseason, while fellow ex-Astros teammate and Scott Boras client Marwin Gonzalez sought a deal in the $60MM neighborhood, according to Buster Olney of ESPN. Both Keuchel and Gonzalez remain on the unemployment line, meaning they haven’t landed offers in those ranges, and it’s not surprising in either case if those asking prices are accurate. Entering the offseason, MLBTR predicted an $82MM guarantee for the 32-year-old Keuchel and $36MM for the soon-to-be 30-year-old Gonzalez, who wants a pact similar to the four-year, $56MM accord fellow utilityman Ben Zobrist signed with the Cubs going into the 2016 campaign. Zobrist, however, reached the market as a far more accomplished player than Gonzalez has been to this point.

More from around the game…

  • With Wil Myers, Manuel Margot, Hunter Renfroe, Franchy Cordero, Franmil Reyes and Travis Jankowski in the mix, the Padres have a surplus of major league outfielders. However, “it’s looking less likely by the day” they’ll trade any of those players before the season, AJ Cassavell of MLB.com writes. In the event a deal doesn’t come together in the next couple months, the Padres could demote anyone from the group expect for Myers, who’s the only one without a  minor league option remaining.
  • Before the Indians signed him to a minor league deal this past Thursday, reliever Alex Wilson “had interest from 10 or 11 different clubs, different minor league options,” he tells Paul Hoynes of cleveland.com. The presences of now-injured shortstop Francisco Lindor and catcher Roberto Perez helped influence Wilson’s decision to sign with the Tribe, the right-hander added. The 32-year-old Wilson spent the past few years with the AL Central rival Tigers, with whom he logged a terrific 3.20 ERA and posted 5.85 K/9 against 2.11 BB/9 over 264 2/3 innings.
  • Athletics righty James Kaprielian suffered a setback in his shoulder and will undergo an MRI, manager Bob Melvin told Jane Lee of MLB.com, Susan Slusser of the San Francisco Chronicle and other reporters Sunday. The severity is unknown, but it’s still a disappointing development for the A’s and the 24-year-old Kaprielian, who hasn’t pitched professionally since 2016 because of shoulder problems. Kaprielian, a first-round pick in 2016, was a key part of the A’s return from the Yankees for Sonny Gray in 2017.
  • Regardless of what happens with Kaprielian, Oakland “would love” to pick up one or two more starters prior to the season, Slusser writes. The low-budget Athletics aren’t looking to spend a lot, per Slusser, but there are a few pitchers on the market who could appeal to them. Free agents Brett Anderson and Edwin Jackson were key members of last year’s playoff-bound A’s starting-staff, for instance, and they have shown interest in the unsigned Gio Gonzalez, an Athletic from 2008-11.

Baseball Blogs Weigh In: Trout, Realmuto, Marwin, Brewers, Robinson, Prospects

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This week in baseball blogs…

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