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Quick Hits: Mets, Rangers, Escobar, Trumbo

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Some stray items from around the league…

  • It isn’t yet known if assistant GM John Ricco or special assistant J.P. Ricciardi will remain with the Mets in the front office of new GM Brodie Van Wagenen, though MLB.com’s Anthony DiComo (Twitter link) reports that both Ricco and Ricciardi are expected to join Van Wagenen and Omar Minaya at the GM Meetings this week.  The Mets reportedly want to retain both Ricco and Riccardi, though club COO Jeff Wilpon did say prior to Van Wagenen’s appointment that the new general manager would have hiring authority.
  • Are Nomar Mazara and Jurickson Profar extension candidates or trade candidates for the Rangers?  Evan Grant of the Dallas Morning News feels the team should hold off on a Mazara deal at least for now, as Texas would be selling low on a former top prospect who has yet to really display that ability at the big league level (.258/.320/.425 with 60 homers over 1720 career PA, with just 1.5 fWAR over three seasons), plus Mazara is only entering his age-24 season and could still break out as a Rangers cornerstone.  Profar was once seen as the best prospect in baseball, yet injuries have stalled his career, making it unlikely that the Rangers would invest in an extension for a player they still don’t know if they can count on as a long-term piece.  By that same token, Profar probably doesn’t have a ton of trade value if Texas shops him around to rival teams.
  • From that same piece, Grant argues that the Rangers should try to acquire a quality starting pitcher this winter as “seed money” towards a future contender.  Grant feels Texas probably won’t be ready to contend until 2021, though since the Rangers have a huge need for pitching right now, the club could acquire a notable starter as something of a “relevancy tax” to help keep fan interest up, and then conceivably trade this pitcher for future assets later.
  • With free agency upon us, Eduardo Escobar chose to sidestep the open market entirely by re-signing with the Diamondbacks on a three-year, $21MM contract.  Multiple rival executives felt the deal was a good one for the D’Backs, The Athletic’s Ken Rosenthal writes (subscription required), with one exec speculating that Escobar’s price tag could’ve reached as high as four years and $40MM.  As Rosenthal noted, however, the market is crowded with several other infield options, and Escobar could have found himself forced to take the sort of below-market contract that many other free agents had to settle for last offseason.  Since Escobar enjoyed his time in Arizona, Rosenthal wonders if other players could prioritize a good situation rather than take the risk of a protracted free agent stint.
  • The Orioles will be open to moving any and all veterans as they rebuild, but it doesn’t seem likely that they’ll be able to deal Mark Trumbo this winter, MASNsports.com’s Roch Kubatko writes.  Owed a hefty $13.5MM in 2019, Trumbo was already going to be a tough sell in trade talks, but his season-ending knee surgery at the end of August almost surely ruined his stock for any potential suitors.  Trumbo’s surgery isn’t expected to limit him for the start of Spring Training, and the O’s will have to hope that he performs well in the first half of the 2019 season to potentially become a trade candidate by the deadline.  Trumbo rebounded from a sub-replacement level season in 2017 to hit a solid .261/.313/.452 with 17 homers over 358 PA in 2018, though he’ll need to significantly top those solid numbers to increase his trade value, given his salary and defensive limitations.

Harper/Machado Notes: Braves, Mets, Cardinals, Giants

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Bryce Harper and Manny Machado will drive the action of the 2018-19 free agent market, as the two 26-year-old stars are in line to land the two biggest contracts in baseball history.  Here’s the latest buzz on what teams may or may not be preparing to pursue either of the duo…

  • The Braves have been mentioned as speculative suitors for Harper and Machado, and Atlanta even had some interest in Machado at the trade deadline.  A pursuit of either player this winter, however, might not be in the cards, as per GM Alex Anthopoulos’ comments in an interview with Jim Bowden and Jim Duquette of MLB Network Radio on Siriux XM (audio link).  “We can be in on any player, we certainly have the dollars to do that.  I don’t know that it makes a lot of sense….to do deals that are ten years in length and longer at significant dollars with the payroll that we have,” Anthopoulos said.  “It’s not a rule for us, but I tend to not see a ton of value from our club that that would make sense for us….That doesn’t mean we won’t at least explore some things and see if we could line up on the right deal and the right term, but I am reluctant to go extremely long in terms of length.”  Freddie Freeman’s eight-year, $135MM deal (signed in February 2014, long before Anthopoulos was with the franchise) is the biggest contract in Braves history, though that extension was signed while Freeman was still 24 and in his first arbitration-eligible year.
  • Could the Mets take a run at Machado?  Recent history would seem to indicate against it, though the New York Post’s Joel Sherman lays out the case why pursuing Machado wouldn’t be so far-fetched an idea, starting with new GM Brodie Van Wagenen’s statement about how the team is planning to contend in 2019.  Signing Machado would obviously be a big help on that front, and Sherman also notes that keeping Machado away from the Yankees would also be of interest to the PR-conscious Wilpon family.  In terms of payroll, the Mets don’t have any salaries whatsoever on the books beyond the 2020 season, plus even Machado’s 2019 salary could be covered via injury insurance payouts from David Wright and Yoenis Cespedes’ contracts.  Sherman also speculates that adding Machado would turn young shortstop Amed Rosario into a very valuable trade chip the Mets could use to address other needs, or the team could try a scenario where Machado plays shortstop in 2019 and Rosario moves to second base, with Machado potentially moving back to third base in 2020 once Todd Frazier’s contract is up.
  • The Cardinals will check in on Harper as part of what could be a busy offseason for the team, Derrick Goold of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reports.  As one industry source puts it, the Cards are “sending signals they are out to be a player” as a response to their three-year postseason drought, and also because they’ve missed out on other some major winter targets (i.e. Giancarlo Stanton, David Price) in recent years.  While the Cardinals still have some hesitations about extended long-term commitments to players, they could agree to such a contract in unique cases — as Goold notes, the team’s willingness to take on Stanton’s contract could hint that they are open to the record-setting deal it would take to land Harper.  Installing Harper as the everyday right fielder would make Dexter Fowler expendable, though St. Louis could also give Harper some time in center field while platooning Fowler and Harrison Bader between the two outfield spots.
  • The Giants also made a run at Stanton last winter, and San Francisco makes a lot of sense as a landing spot for Harper, as ESPN.com’s Buster Olney writes in a subscription-only piece.  Beyond the major upgrade Harper would bring to the Giants’ shaky outfield, Harper could find the Bay Area as much of a fit as another often-controversial star (Barry Bonds) did years ago, though obviously Bonds had the hometown factor in his favor. Olney notes that Giants owner Charles Johnson “was all-in on the idea of adding Stanton,” and the club’s traditional willingness to spend big on free agents could be more indicative of future plans than what the Giants’ yet-to-be-named new general manager has in mind.

MLBTR Originals

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Here is the original content from the MLB Trade Rumors writing staff over the past week…

  • Bryce Harper topped MLBTR’s annual ranking of the offseason’s Top 50 Free Agents, as Tim Dierkes, Jeff Todd, and Steve Adams analyze the top 50 names on the market and try to forecast where each could end up by Opening Day.  The ranking also contains predictions on contract sizes, with Harper (14 years, $420MM) and Manny Machado (13 years, $390MM) each projected to surpass Giancarlo Stanton as the most expensive contract in baseball history.
  • This winter’s edition of the MLBTR Free Agent Tracker was also launched, to help keep track of the status of every single free agent on the open market.
  • Veteran reliever David Robertson will test the free agent market for the second time in his career, though Robertson will this time represent himself in negotiations, rather than deploy an agent.  In exclusive comments to MLBTR, Robertson explained his reasoning behind the unique choice.
  • Over two-thirds of readers polled (67.37%) by Connor Byrne predicted that Clayton Kershaw would be in a Dodgers uniform in 2019.  That prediction ended up being accurate, as while Kershaw could’ve opted out of the remaining two years of his contract and become a free agent, he instead signed a new three-year, $93MM deal that will commit him to Los Angeles for an extra year.
  • MLBTR’s Offseason Outlook series continued, as we break down what each of the 30 teams has in store for the winter months.  The latest entries focused on the AL Central, as Steve covered the Twins, while Mark Polishuk looked at the Tigers.

Quick Hits: Arenado, White Sox, Moncada, Rangers

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Speaking Friday with reporters – including Kyle Newman of the Denver Post – general manager Jeff Bridich revealed that the Rockies and Nolan Arenado have had “honest” discussions about a contract extension over the past couple years. Bridich added that he expects the two sides to continue talking in the coming months, and suggested the team’s unlikely to trade the superstar third baseman this offseason. “There’s not a perfect timeline or a specific timeline, but we’d love to have him here, and he knows that,” Bridich said. “We’ll see what happens … We expect him to be on our team next year.” Arenado has been a speculative trade candidate because he’s facing his last year of team control in 2019, when he’s projected to rake in a whopping $26.1MM via arbitration. But the 27-year-old is integral to the Rockies, who have earned two straight playoff berths and, with Arenado’s help in 2019, figure to aim for another postseason trip in what could be his last hurrah with the club.

Here’s more from around the majors:

  • Yoan Moncada has called second base home since the White Sox acquired him from the Red Sox in 2016, but it’s possible he’ll head to a new position next season. General manager Rick Hahn said Friday (via Daryl Van Schouwen of the Chicag Sun-Times) that Moncada’s open to switching spots, “but we’re going to wait to see how this offseason plays out before we fully commit to any reconfiguring of the infield. It’s a possibility and if it were to happen we’d likely firm that up before we head to spring training.” Shortstop, third base and even center field have come up in the past as potential long-term landing spots for Moncada, whose athleticism has been a key selling point since his days as a star prospect. Now, if Chicago’s truly considering moving the 23-year-old Moncada off second, it could help inform its offseason plans.
  • In addition to discussing Moncada’s status, Hahn highlighted which areas the White Sox will try to upgrade this winter. “We need to augment both the starting rotation and the bullpen,” he said (per Van Schouwen), though he cautioned that the White Sox must keep their “long-term focus” in mind. At the moment, Chicago has the payroll room to make substantial upgrades, but it’s also coming off a 62-win season – its sixth straight sub-.500 campaign. As such, it’s unclear just how aggressive the White Sox will be this winter, but Hahn noted that he hasn’t ruled out pushing for contention in 2019. “It’s not unintentional having the flexibility we enjoy going forward,’’ Hahn said. “That was a secondary goal of the rebuild, to make sure we had flexibility and economic strength when the time was right to spend and add on to what we’ve accumulated. Whether we use it this offseason or next we’ll see.’’
  • The Rangers addressed their rotation Friday by acquiring left-hander Drew Smyly from the Cubs, though Texas still has plenty of work remaining to bolster its starting staff for 2019 and beyond. With that in mind, Evan Grant of the Dallas Morning News examines a dozen free-agent pitchers the Rangers could target this offseason. Among the candidates, longtime Angels right-hander Garrett Richards stands out as a “perfect fit,” opines Grant, who argues the Rangers should offer him a two- or three-year contract with incentives. Given that Richards underwent Tommy John surgery in July, he might not be able to contribute at all in 2019. However, that’s not necessarily a problem for the Rangers because they’re unlikely to win next season, Grant notes, adding that Richards may be able to help them in 2020 – when they could be closer to contention.

NL Notes: Reds, Braves, Teheran, Markakis

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Reds minor league right-hander Jairo Capellan died in a car crash in the Dominican Republic on Saturday, the team announced. He was 19 years old. Two other Reds minor leaguers – righty Raul Hernandez and outfielder Emilio Garcia (both of whom are 19) – were also in the car, and each player suffered injuries. Hernandez is currently in critical condition, while Garcia is in stable condition. “We received this terrible news and send our condolences and support to the families, friends and teammates of Jaro, Raul and Emilio,” said Reds CEO Bob Castellini. “Our Dominican operations are an integral part of the Reds organization, and this tragedy affects us all. We will remain closely involved to help everyone through this difficult time.” MLBTR joins the Reds in extending our condolences to the families, friends and teammates of all three players.

Here’s lighter news on another National League club:

  • Although Julio Teheran has long been a workhorse in Atlanta, where he has totaled 30-plus starts in six straight seasons, his status with the team is “in limbo,” per Mark Bowman of MLB.com. Even if the Braves are unable to find a trade partner for Teheran this offseason, they may not guarantee him a rotation spot in 2019, when he’s due $11MM, Bowman adds. Next season’s the last guaranteed year of the $32.4MM extension Teheran signed in 2014. At that point, the Braves were hoping Teheran would emerge as a front-line starter for the long haul. That hasn’t really happened, but Teheran has nonetheless been a competent major league starter. The right-hander is also still relatively youthful, as he’s coming off an age-27 season in which he logged 175 2/3 innings of 3.94 ERA ball. Teheran’s peripherals were less impressive than his run prevention (as has been the case throughout his career), however, and his already unimposing velocity trended downward.
  • More on the Braves, who haven’t officially closed the door on the Nick Markakis era, Bowman relays. Markakis is currently a free agent, though, and Bowman reports that the Braves will see if they can acquire a more powerful outfielder before potentially circling back to him. Set to turn 35 on Nov. 17, Markakis just wrapped up a four-year, $44MM contract, over which he offered slightly above-average offensive production (103 wRC+) in 2,745 plate appearances. Markakis, to his credit, was exceptionally durable as a Brave, as he missed just 12 games over the span of his just-expired deal. He took the field for all 162 games this past season and put up his best numbers as a Brave, hitting .297/.366/.440 (114 wRC+) with 14 home runs and 2.6 fWAR.

AL East Notes: Rays, Cron, O’s, Beckham

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Rumblings on a pair of American League East clubs…

  • It seems the Rays’ main offseason objective is to acquire a right-handed power hitter they can pencil into the middle of their order, suggests the Tampa Bay Times’ Marc Topkin, who names Nelson Cruz, Andrew McCutchen, Josh Donaldson and ex-Ray Wilson Ramos as free agents who would qualify. Topkin adds that it continues to appear as if Tampa Bay will move on without righty-swinging first baseman C.J. Cron, who belted 30 home runs in 2018. The Rays could trade Cron prior to the Nov. 30 non-tender deadline, Topkin observes. Even though Cron performed well this past season and will be affordable in 2019 (MLBTR contributor Matt Swartz projects a $5.2MM salary), the Rays want a more “feared” hitter, according to Topkin.
  • More from Topkin, who also lists a righty-hitting catcher, a reliever to replace free agent Sergio Romo and “possibly a starter” on the Rays’ offseason wish list. Topkin wonders if the Rays will pursue free-agent catcher Robinson Chirinos, whom the Rangers surprisingly cut ties with Friday. The 34-year-old already has one stint with the Rays under his belt, as they acquired him from the Cubs in a 2011 blockbuster which saw Matt Garza and Chris Archer, among others, change teams. Chirinos ultimately racked up just 60 PAs with the Rays, who dealt him to Texas in 2013. It was an unheralded move at the time, but Chirinos turned into a quality offensive backstop as a Ranger, posting a .768 OPS in 1,546 PAs with the club.
  • Orioles infielder Tim Beckham and catcher Caleb Joseph are “at risk” of being non-tendered before the deadline, Roch Kubatko of MASNsports.com writes. Swartz projects Beckham to rake in $4.3MM via arbitration, and that would’ve been a reasonable sum had the 28-year-old looked something like his 2017 self this past season. Beckham instead took several steps backward, hitting .230/.287/.374 (79 wRC+) with minus-0.5 fWAR in 402 plate appearances. Joseph, who’s projected to earn $1.7MM, was also ineffective, evidenced by a meager .219/.254/.321 line (54 wRC+) in 280 trips to the plate. Moreover, the 32-year-old was among the majors’ worst defensive catchers in 2018, per Baseball Prospectus.

Blue Jays Fire Hitting Coach Jacoby, First-Base Coach Leiper

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The Blue Jays have fired hitting coach Brook Jacoby and first-base coach Tim Leiper, according to a report from John Lott of The Athletic, later confirmed by GM Ross Atkins. Both coaches had a year remaining on three-year contracts signed prior to the 2017 season.

The firings are the first in what could be wholesale changes for the staff under new manager Charlie Montoyo, per the report. Montoyo, formerly the bench coach in Tampa, has deemed the assembly of a quality staff “very important” as he enters his first season as manager in the bigs.

Jacoby, 58, had manned the post since the start of the 2015 season.  Prior to his tenure with Toronto, the 12-year big league veteran held the same position in Cincinnati for seven seasons.

His dismissal is a bit of a surprise for a Toronto team that received encouraging 2018 production from several first-year players in the wake of serious injuries to Josh Donaldson and Troy Tulowitzki.  Rookies Billy McKinney, Lourdes Gurriel Jr., Danny Jansen, Rowdy Tellez, and Dwight Smith Jr. all performed at an above-league-average rate this season, albeit in limited samples, and reclamation projects Aledmys Diaz and Randal Grichuk, stalled Cardinals both, again flashed the ability that had catapulted each to regular status in St. Louis.  As a team, the Blue Jays’ 101 wRC+ tied for 8th in the major leagues, a marked improvement over last year’s paltry output.  Still, it’s a lineup that, under Jacoby’s watch, failed to produce a single breakout star, and witnessed the rapid diminishment of once-promising second baseman Devon Travis, plus the total collapse of former regular Yangervis Solarte.

Leiper, 52, was a longtime manager in the minor leagues before being appointed to John Gibbons’ staff prior to the 2014 season.

Brewers Hire Andy Haines As Hitting Coach

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The Brewers have hired Andy Haines as the team’s hitting coach, reports Jon Heyman of Fancred on Twitter.  Haines, 41, will replace Darnell Coles, who stepped down from the post late last week.

Formerly of the Cubs organization, where he served as the team’s assistant hitting coach in 2018 after two seasons spent as the club’s coordinator of minor league hitting, Haines has a wide and varied in the background in the game.  He’s previously managed at multiple stops in the Miami system, where from 2010-2012 his posts overlapped with the low-level development of current Brewer Christian Yelich.  In all, Haines skippered at five spots across the Marlins’ farm, culminating with his 2014-15 post at the helm of the AAA New Orleans affiliate.  Baseball America has twice named Haines as a top managerial prospect, per his bio at mlb.com.

Haines will work to stabilize an uneven Brewers offense last season, whose massive breakouts – Yelich, to an MVP-caliber .326/.402/.598 (166 wRC+), and Jesus Aguilar (35 HR, 134 wRC+) – were offset by cataclysmic decline (Orlando Arcia’s NL-worst 54 wRC+, Jonathan Schoop’s .202/.246/.331 crater after joining the team, major regression from Eric Thames and Domingo Santana).  With Steamer forecasting a 27 percent drop in Yelich’s production in the upcoming season and pegging Aguilar to return to near league-average (104 wRC+), the 2019 Brewers will almost certainly need rebounds from ’18 underperformers to stay afloat in a difficult NL Central.

In all, Milwaukee posted a respectable .252/.323/.424 as a team last season, numbers slightly inflated by the generous dimensions of the team’s home park.  Still, in addition to the aforementioned regulars, the Brewers return veteran performers Ryan Braun, Lorenzo Cain, and Travis Shaw, and figure to benefit from the sizzling bat of top prospect Keston Hiura, should the club sputter in the season’s first half.

Pirates Hire Rick Eckstein As Hitting Coach

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The Pittsburgh Pirates have filled their hitting coach vacancy with former Nationals coach Rick Eckstein, per Bill Brink of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette (via tweet).

Eckstein’s career can be traced back to 2004 when he served in the Montreal Expos’ organization as a minor league hitting coach for two seasons. From there he spent the next three years as the hitting coach for the Nationals’ and Cardinals’ Triple-A affiliates.

David Eckstein’s older brother joins manager Clint Hurdle’s staff with four years of previous major league hitting coach experience with the Washington Nationals from 2009 to 2013. After being released mid-season from manager Davey Johnson’s staff, Eckstein spent the year after in the Angels organization where he served as a front office liasion, a role that merged the responsibilities of an assistant hitting coach with those of an advanced scout.

For both 2015 and 2016, Eckstein moved to the college ranks as an assistant hitting coach for the University of Kentucky before spending the last two seasons as the minor league hitting coordinator for the Minnesota Twins.

He’ll work to improve a Pirates’ offense that scored 692 runs in 2018 – 20th overall in the MLB. They were 25th in home runs and 16th in slugging percentage. They did display some decent contact skills, striking out at the fifth lowest rate in the majors (20.3%) while tying for 8th league-wide in batting average (.254).

At his disposal, Eckstein will have an offensive core that should be entering their prime. Starling Marte is the oldest of the group at thirty, and Gregory Polanco is somehow still just 27-years-old – but they also boast a trio of 26-year-old regulars – Josh Bell, Adam Frazier, and Colin Moran – that will need to excel for the Pirates to contend in a crowded NL Central.

The 45-year-old Eckstein takes over for Jeff Branson, whom the Pirates let go along with assistant hitting coach Jeff Livesey in early October. Both Branson and Livesey had served in their posts since 2014.

Rangers Hire Chris Woodward As Manager

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The Rangers officially announced the hiring of Chris Woodward as their  manager for the 2019 season. He signs a three-year deal with a club option for 2022 to become the 19th full-time manager in club history.

He will be introduced by the team at a press conference on Monday, November 5th at 10am CT at Globe Life Park in Arlington.

Woodward’s hiring brings an end to an exhaustive process to identify a successor to recently dismissed skipper Jeff Banister. He was replaced late in the season on an interim basis by Don Wakamatsu, who was considered a candidate for the full-time gig but evidently has not landed it. The hiring was initially reported last night by Bob Nightengale of USA Today (Twitter link). Woodward, who has most recently served as the Dodgers third base coach, was called a “frontrunner” earlier in the day by Jon Morosi of MLB.com (via Twitter).

The Rangers undertook an extensive search, but the initial effort failed to yield a clear candidate. Woodward, who just finished up his duties with the Dodgers in the World Series, was part of a second wave of names under consideration. Evidently, he aced the interview.

Woodward, 42, built a 12-year MLB career after originally being taken in the 54th round of the 1994 draft. He last saw major-league action in 2011 and hung up his spikes for good after the 2012 campaign, so he isn’t that far removed from his playing days.

Since that time, Woodward has worked in both the Mariners and Dodgers organizations. With Seattle, he served as minor league infield coordinator before moving up to the MLB staff for two campaigns. He ended up joining the staff of Dodgers skipper Dave Roberts. Over the past three seasons, he has high-fived many a homer-trotting Dodger and helped guide the organization to consecutive World Series appearances.

Said the Rangers, via a press release:

“We are excited to welcome Chris Woodward and his family to the Texas Rangers,” said Rangers President of Baseball Operations and General Manager Jon Daniels. “Chris brings high energy, outstanding leadership and communication skills, a strong knowledge of the game and its evolving strategies, and great integrity—attributes that we feel are vital for our next manager. We believe these traits will resonate with our players, our staff, and our fans.  He has also been a big part of a very successful stretch in Los Angeles.

“We interviewed a number of strong candidates during an extensive interview process for our managerial role and believe we have found the right fit in Chris Woodward. We look forward to working with him and everyone on the baseball staff to develop and grow a culture that will lead to success for many years to come.”   

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