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Pirates Sign J.B. Shuck To Minor League Deal

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The Pirates announced Thursday evening that they’ve signed outfielder J.B. Shuck to a minor league contract with an invite to Major League Spring Training. Pittsburgh also announced its previously reported minor league deal with righty Brandon Maurer.

Shuck, 31, has bounced all over the league since being a sixth-round pick of the Astros back in 2008, spending time at the MLB level with the ’Stros, Angels, White Sox, Indians and, most recently, the Marlins. The journeyman is a lifetime .244/.294/.316 hitter with eight homers, 39 doubles, nine triples and 24 steals in 1232 Major League plate appearances. He spent the 2018 campaign in the Marlins organization and tallied 142 plate appearances at the big league level, hitting .192/.255/.231.

While he’s never found much in the way of big league success, Shuck has a solid track record in Triple-A and figures to head there if he doesn’t break camp with the Bucs. He’s a .294/.367/.388 hitter in parts of eight Triple-A campaigns (2244 PAs) and has ample experience at all three outfield positions, though he’s spent much more time in center (3097 innings) and in left (4083 innings) than in right (1580 innings).

Twins Designate Chase De Jong For Assignment

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The Twins announced Wednesday that they’ve designated right-hander Chase De Jong for assignment. The move clears a spot on the 40-man roster for left-hander Martin Perez, whose signing is now official.

Minnesota originally acquired De Jong, 25, in the trade that sent left-handed reliever Zach Duke to the Mariners last summer. De Jong made four starts for the Twins down the stretch, pitching to a 3.57 ERA with a 13-to-6 K/BB ratio in that time. While that performance was respectable, though, De Jong has a shakier track record in the upper minors (4.97 ERA, 7.2 K/9, 2.8 BB/9, 1.4 HR/9 in 128 2/3 Triple-A innings) and was hit hard in a slightly larger sample with the Mariners a year prior. The Twins, surely, will hope to sneak him through outright waivers and retain him as a non-40-man-roster depth option if there’s no interest in him on the trade front now that he’s been designated.

Rockies Sign Mark Reynolds

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5:20pm: The deal comes with a $1MM base salary and another $1MM worth of incentives, MLB Network’s Jon Heyman tweets.

4:53pm: The Rockies and first baseman Mark Reynolds are in agreement on a minor league contract with an invitation to Major League Spring Training, Reynolds himself tells Thomas Harding of MLB.com (Twitter link). The Ballengee Group client previously spent the 2016-17 seasons with the Rox.

Reynolds, 35, has turned in three straight solid efforts at the plate but has not found much in the way of rewards in free agency as teams continue to put less emphasis on bat-first players with limited defensive value. Most recently, he turned in a .248/.328/.476 line with 13 home runs and eight doubles over the life of 235 players in a reserve role with the Nationals in 2018. Overall, he’s batted .269/.349/.472 with 57 home runs in 1269 PAs dating back to 2016.

While he’ll obviously have to earn his way onto the roster, Reynolds will head to camp as a potential right-handed bat off a bench that currently is lacking in terms of established big league pop. Players like Raimel Tapia, Noel Cuevas, Ryan McMahon, Pat Valaika and Mike Tauchman are all on the 40-man roster and will be in the mix for bench gigs.

At least one of Tapia, Cuevas or Tauchman seems likely to make the club as an outfield reserve option behind Charlie Blackmon, David Dahl and Ian Desmond. Either McMahon or Valaika could well factor into the mix at multiple infield spots (assuming Garrett Hampson claims the second base job to begin the season), and the Rox will of course need to roster a backup to catcher Chris Iannetta (either Tony Wolters or the out-of-options Tom Murphy). Reynolds doesn’t offer much in the way of defensive versatility but has more pop than the rest of the bunch and is a known commodity to organizational decision-makers following his previous two-year run in Denver, so it wouldn’t be much of a surprise to see him win a spot on the Opening Day roster.

Stephen Vogt Hosting Workout

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Free agent backstop Stephen Vogt has scheduled a workout this week, according to ESPN.com’s Jeff Passan (via Twitter). Back in December, MassLive.com’s Chris Cotillo reported (Twitter link) that Vogt was planning to play in 2019.

Uncertainty had arisen in the wake of major shoulder surgery that cost the 34-year-old the entirety of the 2018 season. With at least seven clubs reportedly showing some level of interest, and Vogt’s recovery evidently going well, he obviously decided to proceed with a comeback attempt.

The outlook remains unclear for Vogt, a late-blooming performer who was for a brief stretch among the game’s best-hitting catchers. Though he was never considered a standout defender, and generally struggled against left-handed pitching, Vogt thrived against righties (in 2014 and 2015, particularly) with the A’s. He landed with the Brewers after a rough opening to the 2017 season, ultimately turning in a solid run — .254/.281/.508 with eight home runs in 129 plate appearances — to end the year.

The Milwaukee organization thought enough of Vogt’s prospects to agree to a $3.065MM salary with him for the 2018 campaign, though that did fall well shy of his projected arbitration earning capacity. It seems likely that Vogt will have to settle for a minor-league deal after his long layoff, particularly since it’s still not clear whether he’ll be ready to be a full participant in camp, though his workout will assuredly go a long way toward determining the offers he receives. Vogt will presumably hold the most appeal to teams that like the idea of bolstering their bench with a powerful, lefty hitter who is capable of suiting up behind the dish.

Minor MLB Transactions: 1/30/19

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We’ll use this post to track the day’s minor moves …

  • Joining the Pirates on a minor-league contract is right-hander Vicente Campos, according to John Dreker of Pirates Prospects. The contract includes an invitation to MLB camp. Once a rather well-regarded pitching prospect, Campos ran into injury and performance issues just as he was reaching MLB readiness. As things stand, he has just one appearance at the game’s highest level and has thrown only 46 total frames over the past two seasons. Dreker writes, though, that Campos has been clocked in the mid-nineties and found some success this winter in his native Venezuela.
  • The Dodgers added outfielder Ezequiel Carrera on a minors deal, per reports. Now 31 years of age, Carrera has seen action in seven MLB seasons and was a frequently-utilized reserve with the Blue Jays from 2016-17. Last year, though, he struggled quite a bit at the Triple-A level with the Braves and Mets organizations and failed to get a look at the majors.
  • Outfielder Mike Gerber was outrighted after clearing waivers, per the Giants. He’ll remain under control of the San Francisco organization after being claimed and then designated for assignment earlier in the offseason. The 26-year-old Gerber is only a .224/.286/.428 hitter in 334 Triple-A plate appearances but had posted strong numbers at every other level in the Tigers’ farm system.

Reds Sign Ian Krol

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The Reds announced today that they have signed lefty reliever Ian Krol to a minors pact. He’ll receive an invitation to participate in MLB Spring Training as a non-roster player.

Krol, 27, had thrown 188 MLB innings over five seasons heading into the 2018 campaign, pitching to a 4.50 ERA with 8.4 K/9 and 3.5 BB/9. He didn’t receive much of a shot last year, however, ultimately making just one appearance in the majors with the Angels. Krol did work to a 2.72 ERA with 9.4 K/9 and 4.2 BB/9 in 56 1/3 Triple-A frames, split between the Halos and Mets organizations.

Needless to say, Krol will not enter camp as a favorite to secure a big league job this spring, but he will have a chance to show what he can do. Amir Garrett is locked in, but there’s otherwise a fair bit of uncertainty on the left-handed side of the Cincinnati relief corps. Wandy Peralta and Brandon Finnegan each struggled badly last year. Cody Reed showed some promise in a brief stretch as a reliever but could be stretched out as a starter, perhaps leaving the door open for Krol or fellow minor-league signee Buddy Boshers to snag an opportunity with an impressive effort in camp.

Giants Still Looking For Veteran Outfielders

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The Giants are still looking for two or even three new outfield additions to their roster, according to ESPN.com’s Buster Olney (Twitter link). At the same time, indications are that the organization isn’t going to be driving the market, in part due to the club’s anticipated position in relation to the luxury tax line.

As things stand, the San Francisco roster is largely devoid of established MLB outfielders. Among the assets on hand, youngster Steven Duggar seems primed for a full chance, Mac Williamson could still get another shot, and Chris Shaw is a potentially interesting prospect, but it’d be tough to enter the season planning to rely on existing options.

With veterans still populating most of the rest of the roster, there’s an argument to be made that the Giants ought to go ahead and spend some coin. The outlook may not be all that promising, but the club already paid for two starters (Derek Holland and Drew Pomeranz) and figures to be stuck in a middle ground of sorts regardless — unless, that is, it starts swinging trades over the next few weeks.

Veterans such as Madison Bumgarner, Brandon Belt, Brandon Crawford, Sam Dyson, Tony Watson, Mark Melancon, and especially Will Smith would all be of varying levels of interest to other teams. Of course, if the plan was to strip down the roster, the process likely would have been kick-started earlier in the still-fresh tenure of president of baseball operations Farhan Zaidi.

Even if a trade or two ends up going down, it seems to make sense for the Giants at least to fill out the outfield unit with some plausible names. Just what kind of players they’ll target, and how much they’ll spend, really isn’t clear. If Holland and Pomeranz are a guide, then perhaps they’ll target some blend of stability and upside, with a willingness to spend a bit to put a solid product on the field. Olney suggests, though, that the club may not have much financial room to work with if it hopes to remain beneath the collective bargaining tax line of $206MM. It seems the organization is still well shy of that line, even after accounting for some of the factors noted yesterday by Henry Schulman of the San Francisco Chronicle (via Twitter), though it could be that the public assessments are missing something.

Regardless of the math, it appears that the club is mostly inclined to wait out the market for appealing value propositions. Fortunately for Zaidi and company, there’s still an extensive slate of players available via free agency. And while the outfield segment of the trade market has never appeared to be particularly robust, it’s not hard to envision some reasonably interesting younger players becoming available as teams scurry to make their final roster arrangements in advance of camp and then the regular season.

MLBTR Poll: The Reds’ Rebuilt Rotation

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The Reds entered this winter determined to boost their club’s performance at the MLB level, even if an anticipated new core hasn’t quite fully come together. On the heels of four-straight campaigns with less than seventy wins and last-place division finishes, it was and is an understandable goal — albeit one that called for careful handling to avoid denting the long-term outlook.

At the top of the docket, without question, was the improvement of a rotation that has been the game’s worst over that approximate span. While the team has ended up adding two outfielders with major name recognition — Matt Kemp and Yasiel Puig — they don’t really change the overall complexion of the position-player unit. The Reds had a middle-of-the-pack lineup and bullpen in 2018. Perhaps there’s some hope that either or both of those groups (the former, particularly) will improve in the season to come. But the rotation was the major impediment, and there’s little doubting that the quality of the newly rebuilt pitching staff will have a huge say in the club’s outlook in a division that promises to feature quite a bit of competition.

When GM Nick Krall said recently that this’ll be the “best rotation we’ve had in five years,” he wasn’t exactly staking out a bold position. The standard isn’t terribly lofty. If the Cincy outfit wishes to compete, though, it’ll need to do more than just top its abysmal recent starting rotation work.

Let’s take a quick snapshot of where things stand now in the starting five, beginning with the newly hired guns:

  • Sonny Gray: The most recently-acquired of the team’s three new hurlers is also the one who received the biggest commitment. In addition to his preexisting $7.5MM salary for 2019, the Reds are taking on $30.5MM in new money over three years (while also gaining another season of control via option). Though his upside is perhaps easy to exaggerate, as he handily overperformed his peripherals in his best campaigns with the Athletics, Gray seems largely to have the physical skills intact that made him a high-quality, 200+-inning starter in 2014 and 2015.
  • Alex Wood: Long known as a talented but injury-prone pitcher, Wood has mostly provided a good quantity of innings. He showed quite a bit of ceiling upon landing with the Dodgers, but wasn’t quite as sharp last year and exhibited a 2 mph year-over-year velocity decline. Though his salary isn’t yet decided, Wood will check in with a salary between $8.7MM (the team’s filing figure) and $9.65MM (his own) in his final season of arbitration eligibility.
  • Tanner Roark: As with Wood, the former Nationals hurler arrived via trade in advance of his last season of control. Slated to earn an even $10MM, Roark has been longer on innings than results over the past two seasons. But he did spin two outstanding campaigns before that, even if those results weren’t fully supported by the peripherals, and has been an exceptionally durable pitcher since emerging in D.C. Roark seems a good bet to provide a steady volume of at-least good-enough frames for the Cincinnati organization.

The trio joins the following holdovers:

  • Luis Castillo: The sophomore slump  that Castillo experienced didn’t turn out to be all that bad, as he finished with a 4.30 ERA and 8.8 K/9 against 2.6 BB/9 over 169 2/3 innings after turning on the afterburners down the stretch. In his final 11 starts, Castillo spun 66 1/3 frames of 2.44 ERA ball with a 69:14 K/BB ratio. He’s still just 26 years of age and still thrws gas. There’s certainly an argument to be made that Castillo is the likeliest member of the new-look Reds outfit to turn in top-of-the-rotation numbers, and his track record to date suggests he ought to be good at least for a nice volume of solid frmes.
  • Anthony DeSclafani: Maybe we’ll look back at the end of the 2019 season and wonder why we had questions. After all, DeSclafani did show some signs of returning to his prior form in 2018 — it’s just that they were obfuscated by a barrage of long balls (1.88 per nine; 19.8% HR/FB rate) that left him with a 4.93 ERA. Still, he managed to tally 115 innings after missing all of the prior season, sported a career-high 94+ average fastball, and matched his career average with a 9.4% swinging-strike rate. True, DeSclafani did surrender loads of hard contact (41.9%), but it seems he has regained much of his physical ability.
  • Tyler Mahle: Long considered a talented hurler, the 24-year-old sputtered in his first full effort at the game’s highest level. With 22 balls leaving the yard in his 112 frames, and a less-than-trim tally of 4.3 BB/9, it’s hardly surprising to see a 4.98 ERA on the final-season ledger. That said, Mahle also ran up 8.8 K/9 on the basis of a 9.9% swinging-strike rate. If any of the above-listed pitchers falters in camp or during the year, whether due to performance or injury issues, Mahle looks to be a nice piece to have on hand.
  • Other depth arms: The remaining potential rotation candidates seem to have little hope of competing for a starting job in camp — barring injury, of course. Still, there are some plausible pieces to work with in Sal Romano, Cody Reed, Matt Wisler, Lucas Sims, Keury Mella, and non-roster veteran Odrisamer Despaigne.

Looking at the overall picture, if you focus on established MLB ceiling, there’s a clear path to a quality unit. True, none of the five most accomplished pitchers — Gray, Wood, Roark, Castillo, and DeSclafani — has really ever been a dominant ace. But at their best, every one of these hurlers has had an extended run as at least a high-quality, mid-rotation starter. On the other hand, all five (to say nothing of the other players listed above) have shown their warts in the not-so-distant past. Only Wood finished the 2018 season with a sub-4.00 ERA.

So, how do you view the offseason efforts of the Cincinnati baseball operations unit to cobble together a pitching staff?

Mets Name John Ricco Senior Vice President & Strategy Officer

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The Mets announced Tuesday evening that senior vice president of baseball operations/assistant general manager John Ricco will be changing roles and now holds the newly created title of senior vice president and senior strategy officer. The North Jersey Bergen Record’s Matt Ehalt first reported that Ricco was taking on a new role within the organization (Twitter links).

“John has been invaluable to this organization for many years,” Wilpon said in the press release announcing the change. “I’m extremely grateful that he’s remaining with us. He brings a wealth of knowledge on a variety of topics and we know he will have a lot of success in his new role.”

It’s a hybrid role for Ricco, who’ll continue to have a hand in baseball operations matters but will also report directly to chief operating officer Fred Wilpon and play a larger role in some key financial prospects for the club (e.g. construction projects at the team’s Spring Training and minor league facilities). On the baseball side of the coin, the Mets’ release specifies that Ricco will continue to work with general manager Brodie Van Wagenen in “salary arbitration and oversight of the Baseball Operations budget and Major League payroll.”

This past summer, Ricco was one of three veteran executives tasked with overseeing the baseball operations department after Sandy Alderson stepped down from the position due to a recurrence of the cancer he’d battled for several years. (Alderson, for those who missed it, accepted a role as a senior advisor in the Athletics front office earlier today.) Ricco, J.P. Ricciardi and Omar Minaya split Alderson’s duties among them, but Ricciardi is no longer in the organization and it seems now that Ricco will have a more limited role in baseball operations after it was long believed that he was being groomed as a possible successor to Alderson.

Marlins Sign Neil Walker

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7:12pm: Walker will receive a $2MM salary on the contract, tweets Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic. Walker’s primary role will be platooning with Peter O’Brien at first base, president of baseball ops Mike Hill told reporters (Twitter link via Wells Dusenbery of the South Florida Sun Sentinel, but he’ll also see action at second base and third base from time to time.

5:02pm: The Marlins announced Tuesday that they’ve signed free-agent infielder Neil Walker to a one-year contract. Miami has reportedly been seeking a left-handed bat, and the switch-hitting Walker can offer additional flexibility both at the plate and in the field. It stands to reason that Walker, 33, could be slotted in at multiple infield positions or even in the corner outfield after seeing time all over the diamond in a utility role with the Yankees in 2018. He’s represented by Excel Sports Management.

Neil Walker | Ken Blaze-USA TODAY Sports

Walker’s overall .219/.309/.354 slash from last season certainly doesn’t look appealing, though the veteran posted a more palatable .235/.335/.403 slash from May 1 through season’s and enjoyed a generally solid second half (.247/.346/.442). Much of his 2018 struggles were confined to a disastrous showing through the end of April (.402 OPS), and while there’s no direct evidence of causation, it’s worth noting that Walker didn’t sign with the Yankees until March 12 last year.

Walker was one of many free agents to sign after Spring Training was well underway, and it’s perhaps telling that a number of those players struggled through awful starts to the 2018 season. Lance Lynn, Logan Morrison, Alex Cobb, Greg Holland and Jonathan Lucroy were among the March signees who had underwhelming 2018 seasons — particularly early in the year.

This time around, Walker will look to rebound with the benefit of a full spring workload to ramp up for what will be his 11th Major League season. Last year’s struggles aside, Walker was one of the game’s more consistent hitters from 2010-17, as I outlined in depth at the time. If he’s able to get back to those previous levels, the Marlins will find themselves with a bargain on their hands and, quite likely, a summer trade chip.

While adding Walker makes plenty of sense for Miami, it’s nevertheless confounding that the organization elected to move on from Derek Dietrich only to sign a 33-year-old player with a similar skill set. Granted, Walker is a switch-hitter, but he’s not a massive defensive upgrade over Dietrich and for all his past success, is still four years older. The financial savings figure to be minimal, as well, as Dietrich had been projected to earn a rather modest $4.8MM salary. It’s likely that Walker’s salary will check in lower than that, of course, but going from Dietrich to Walker still seems like somewhat of a lateral move.

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