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Orioles Willing To Entertain Offers On Zach Britton

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The Orioles are willing to listen to trade scenarios involving closer Zach Britton, according to Jon Heyman of Fan Rag. While prior signals were that the organization would hold on to the southpaw this winter, it seems there’s now at least some possibility of a swap coming together.

Baltimore engaged in chatter involving Britton last summer and nearly dealt him to the Astros. But talks sputtered at the last minute and he ended up remaining on hand. MLBTR projects that Britton will earn a hefty $12.2MM in arbitration.

As Heyman notes, the O’s could find it advantageous to reallocate that payroll space to a rotation that’s badly in need of attention. Plus, with Britton slated for free agency after the season, this would be an opportune time to cash him in for young talent.

Houston is not presently among the organizations engaged on Britton, per the report. But the Dodgers and Cubs have already engaged in some chatter surrounding the 29-year-old hurler.

It remains unclear just how strong the market will be for Britton. Prior to the 2017 season, he had established himself as one of the game’s most dominant relievers. But the campaign didn’t quite go as hoped, as he fell short of his own lofty standards while dealing with elbow issues.

Britton ended the year with 37 1/3 innings of 2.89 ERA ball, posting 7.0 K/9 and 4.3 BB/9 while inducing grounders on more than 70% of the balls put in play against him for the fourth-straight season. While his swinging-strike rate dropped off to 11.5% after topping out at 17.2% in 2016, Britton kept his monster sinker at over 96 mph and was obviously still able to use it to draw quite a few worm-burners.

Phillies To Re-Sign Pedro Florimon

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The Phillies have agreed to a minors deal with utilityman Pedro Florimon, according to Matt Gelb of the Philadelphia Inquirer (via Twitter). Florimon may well have the “inside track on a bench job,” Gelb adds.

Philadelphia evidently liked what it saw from Florimon, who’ll turn 31 in December. He only took 49 plate appearances at the MLB level, but recorded 16 hits — as well as 16 strikeouts. In 353 trips to the plate at Triple-A, Florimon slashed a palatable .265/.347/.410.

There’s a broader history to consider here, of course. Florimon has seen some action in each of the past seven major-league campaigns, posting a cumulative .209/.269/.308 batting line in 791 plate appearances. That said, he’s valued mostly for his glove. Long considered a quality defender at short, Florimon has also shown more recently that he can be a plus fielder in the outfield.

Next Winter’s Free Agent Starting Pitchers Aren’t Worth Waiting For

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As the 2017-18 offseason gets underway, we’ve heard a lot about teams anticipating the 2018-19 class.  Some clubs could even curb current spending to prepare for that group.  That’s reasonable enough, given potential franchise-altering free agents like Bryce Harper and Manny Machado.  In addition to those two abnormally young superstars, the position players include many excellent players who will be 30 or older in 2019: Charlie Blackmon, Josh Donaldson, Brian Dozier, Daniel Murphy, Elvis Andrus, Marwin Gonzalez, Andrew McCutchen, and A.J. Pollock, for example.  While it would be risky for a team to let this group of potential free agents affect their 2017-18 offseason spending, you can at least make a case.  However, the list of starting pitchers who project to be eligible for free agency after the 2018 season is less impressive.

Clayton Kershaw is the best pitcher in baseball, and after the 2018 season he has the ability to opt out of the two years and $65MM left on his contract with the Dodgers.  Kershaw will turn 31 in March of 2019.  One way or another, he’s going to get a new monster contract between now and then.  It might just be another record-setting extension, as the Dodgers have almost a year to attempt to lock him up.  Given that very real possibility, the only team that should take Kershaw into account this winter is the Dodgers.

After Kershaw, the 2018-19 free agent class for starting pitchers doesn’t look all that special.  David Price could opt out of his remaining four years and $127MM, but that looks unlikely at present.  The lefty will turn 33 next August and was limited to 11 starts this year due to an elbow injury.  Aside from Kershaw, the biggest 2018-19 free agent starting pitcher contracts may go to Dallas Keuchel and Drew Pomeranz.  They will 31 and 30 years old, respectively, and posted solid 2017 seasons.  Still, these aren’t pitchers you plan for a year in advance.

Further down the list, question marks pile up.  Garrett Richards could be interesting, but only if his partially torn UCL holds up in 2018.  Similarly, perhaps Matt Harvey and Nathan Eovaldi can re-establish themselves next season.  Gio Gonzalez and Charlie Morton are quality pitchers who will be 33 and 35 years old, respectively, in 2019, though Morton has indicated that he may retire once his current contract expires.  Patrick Corbin, J.A. Happ, and Cole Hamels may remain useful pieces a year from now.

While the position players potentially available could make the 2018-19 offseason one for the ages, the starting pitching in this class does not measure up.  We actually saw a group far more impressive in the 2015-16 offseason, when Price, Zack Greinke, Johnny Cueto, Jordan Zimmermann, Jeff Samardzija, Mike Leake, Ian Kennedy, and Scott Kazmir signed for over a billion dollars combined.  It’s unclear whether Yu Darvish and Jake Arrieta will incite bidding wars this winter, but if they don’t, it won’t be because of the 2018-19 free agent starting pitchers.

Braves Name Alex Anthopoulos General Manager

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NOV. 13: The Braves have issued a press release confirming the hire of Anthopoulos as their new executive vice president and general manager. Anthopoulos signed a four-year contract and will report directly to Braves CEO Terry McGuirk, per the release.

“The past few months have been the toughest in our storied history,” said McGuirk in a statement. “We are excited to have Alex lead our baseball operations team and begin a bright, new chapter for our organization. We chose Alex because he is of the highest character and has a wealth of MLB leadership experience.  He is one of the elite baseball executives in our industry and is the perfect person to lead us to a World Series.”

Notably, too, the McGuirk’s statement offers some clarity on Hart’s role. The veteran executive “will relinquish his active involvement in baseball operations and will move into the role of senior advisor to the Atlanta Braves, effective immediately,” per the announcement.

NOV. 12: The Braves will hire Alex Anthopoulos as their new general manager, Joel Sherman of the New York Post reports (Twitter links).  The official announcement could come this week during the GM Meetings.  Anthopoulos will be the team’s final decision-maker in baseball-related matters, with John Hart remaining as the team’s president of baseball operations for now but in more of a “counsel/figurehead” type of capacity.

Alex Anthopoulos | Nick Turchiaro-USA TODAY Sports

It was less than six weeks ago that Atlanta’s front office was thrown into disarray with the shocking resignations of former GM John Coppolella and international scouting director Gordon Blakely due to accusations that the team had violated international signing rules.  Major League Baseball is still conducting an investigation into the matter, which has now expanded to exploring possible misdeeds involving the signings of domestic amateurs in the draft.  It isn’t yet known how or when the league will issue its punishments towards the Braves, though the ruling is expected to be severe, given the reported scope of the charges.  Hart apparently won’t face any punishment from the league, though he has seemingly lost his previous role atop Atlanta’s baseball operations department.  Hart’s contract expired after the season and it remains to be seen if he’ll continue in this apparently reduced role or if he could depart for another job elsewhere.

Royals GM Dayton Moore (who spent more than 11 years working in the Braves front office) was considered to be the team’s first choice for the job, though Royals owner David Glass denied the Braves permission to speak to his general manager, and it wasn’t clear how interested Moore actually was in a return to Atlanta.  The Braves were clearly focused on adding an experienced GM to help lead the team through the uncertainty of the MLB investigation, as Nationals assistant GM Doug Harris was the only reported candidate who hadn’t previously run a Major League front office.  Beyond Anthopoulos and Moore, other names under consideration included Jim Hendry, Ben Cherington, Dan O’Dowd, Josh Byrnes, and Dan Jennings.

Still just 40 years old, Anthopoulos brings a wealth of front office experience to Atlanta.  The Montreal native spent almost a decade in scouting roles with the Expos and Blue Jays and then served as the Jays’ assistant GM before being named Toronto’s general manager in October 2009.  Thought to be taking over a rebuilding team (his first major move was trading Roy Halladay to the Phillies), Anthopoulos shifted direction once Jose Bautista unexpectedly emerged as a top slugger in 2010, and his tenure was marked by bold and often surprising transactions.

Anthopoulos’ successes included the team-friendly extensions for Bautista and Edwin Encarnacion, trading Vernon Wells’ seemingly immovable contract to the Angels, the acquisition of Josh Donaldson from the Athletics, and the twin blockbuster deals at the 2015 July non-waiver trade deadline that brought David Price and Troy Tulowitzki to Toronto.  The 2015 team ended up as Anthopoulos’ crowning achievement, as the Jays ended a 22-year postseason drought by winning the AL East and then advancing to the ALCS.

It was just after that season, however, that Anthopoulos left the Jays’ GM job, finishing out his contract after rejecting a pair of extension offers.  Mark Shapiro had been hired as the Blue Jays’ new team president and CEO midway through the 2015 season, and Anthopoulos had no interest continuing in what essentially would have been a lesser role in the team’s baseball ops department, with Shapiro now calling the shots.  Anthopoulos has spent the last two seasons working as the Dodgers’ VP of baseball operations.

Anthopoulos will now again take the reins of a rebuilding team, though the Braves may also be somewhat close to respectability given the amount of proven (Freddie Freeman, Ender Inciarte, Julio Teheran, Arodys Vizcaino) and on-the-cusp of a breakout (Ozzie Albies, Dansby Swanson) talent on the big league roster.  The Braves also boast arguably the best farm system in baseball, including ready-to-debut outfielder Ronald Acuna and top prospect Kevin Maitan (though Maitan’s own signing as an international amateur has been scrutinized by MLB’s investigation).

Photo courtesy of USA Today Sports Images.

Royals Notes: Yost, Front Office, Maybin

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MLB.com’s Jeffrey Flanagan spoke to Royals manager Ned Yost following emergency surgery to repair a “shattered” pelvis that he sustained when falling an estimated 20 feet out of a hunting stand nine days ago. Yost, who just returned home from the hospital yesterday and is expected to be confined to a wheelchair for the next two months, tells Flanagan in a lengthy interview that he feels lucky to be alive. “There’s no doubt I would have bled out if I didn’t have my cellphone with me,” says Yost, who was helicoptered to a nearby hospital after his fall.

Surgeons told Yost after he had awoken that this type of injury comes with a “25 to 30 percent mortality rate” and that the doctors had grown genuinely concerned as they were initially unable to stop his internal bleeding. Thankfully, however, Yost is now hopeful that he can be on his feet again by the time Spring Training begins. It’s an enormous relief to learn that the 63-year-old Yost, who is entering his ninth season as the manager in Kansas City, is seemingly out of danger and on the road back to full health. Best wishes to him on what will hopefully be as quick a recovery as possible, under the circumstances.

A couple more notes pertaining to the 2015 World Series champions…

  • Royals director of analytics Mike Groopman is leaving the club to take a new role with the Brewers in their international scouting department, reports Rustin Dodd of the Kansas City Star. Groopman had been with the Royals since joining the team as an intern in 2008, and he played an integral role in expanding the club’s implementation of data and analytics prior to the team’s consecutive World Series appearances. Kansas City also made a front office addition, though, welcoming Albert Gonzalez back to the organization as an assistant GM specializing in international operations. Gonzalez, a Miami native, worked for the Royals for 13 years before accepting a job with the Marlins back in 2006, according to Dodd. He’ll now be tasked with overseeing the day-to-day operations of the Royals’ international department.
  • MLB.com’s Jon Morosi tweets that outfielder Cameron Maybin is among the Royals’ potential targets as they search for a new center fielder. The Royals are set to lose Lorenzo Cain as a free agent, and it was reported over the weekend that they see little chance of a reunion. Maybin brings plenty of baserunning value and reasonable contact skills to the table (19.2 percent strikeout rate over the past six seasons), both of which are areas the Royals have emphasized with great success in the past. Defensive metrics soured on his glovework in 2015-16, but he graded out as average or better in 450 center field innings per Defensive Runs Saved (neutral), Ultimate Zone Rating (+3.1) and Outs Above Average (+2). Maybin hit .228/.318/.365 with 10 homers and finished second in the American League with 33 stolen bases in 2017. (Kansas City’s Whit Merrifield led the AL with 34 swipes.)

Latest On Cardinals’ Pitching Pursuits

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The Cardinals are known to be looking for a significant bat to insert into the middle of their lineup this offseason, but FanRag’s Jon Heyman writes that they’re also exploring various means of landing a top-notch starter as well. President of baseball operations John Mozeliak met with agents Joel Wolfe and Adam Katz of the Wasserman agency last night, per Heyman. Wasserman represents slugger Giancarlo Stanton (another reported Cardinals target), but Yu Darvish is the agency’s top free agent this winter, and Heyman reports that the meeting between the two sides was about pitching.

It’s not clear how much of a focus Darvish was in their meeting, of course. Wasserman has a large portfolio of clients, and the Cardinals also plan to use the GM Meetings to discuss bullpen upgrades, writes Derrick Goold of the St. Louis Post Dispatch. Wasserman represents both Brandon Morrow and Addison Reed, for instance (as can be seen in MLBTR’s Agency Database), both of whom stand out as on-paper targets for the Cardinals.

Heyman writes that St. Louis could well emerge as a serious player for either Darvish or fellow righty Jake Arrieta, but the team’s front office prefers to explore the trade market before aggressively diving into the free-agent waters. Of course, there won’t exactly be an abundance of top-level arms available on the market. There aren’t many (if any) available trade candidates that could pitch at the front of a contender’s rotation. Chris Archer is an oft-speculated candidate, but there’s never been any real indication that the Rays are open to moving him and Heyman suggests Tampa Bay has no interest in doing so at this time. (With four years at a total of $33.75MM remaining on his deal, that’s hardly a surprise.)

With the Cardinals looking to make a splash both on the offensive side of the spectrum and potentially in the rotation, there are any number of routes the team can pursue. If the lack of available arms causes the club to circle back to free-agent rotation options, Mozeliak and his staff could look to use a sizable crop of young outfielders and young-but-inexperienced starters to then acquire a bat (e.g. Stanton, Jose Abreu) on the trade market. Magneuris Sierra, Harrison Bader, Randal Grichuk and Stephen Piscotty all figure to have varying levels of appeal to other teams, as would young righties Alex Reyes, Jack Flaherty and Luke Weaver (though Weaver’s strong 2017 performance may take him off the table).

Alternatively, St. Louis could utilize that stockpile of young talent to pry a less obvious rotation piece away from another club and devote some of its available resources to a free agent such as J.D. Martinez or Eric Hosmer.

The Cardinals, it seems, are largely focused on making a significant addition or two, but it’s common for clubs to use this time of year to explore many different paths as they look to construct a contending roster. The Cardinals’ $1 billion television contract is about to start, which could make it easier for the team to stomach the addition of a large contract (via free agency or trade), and the aforementioned group of young talents only represents a portion of the names they could utilize to pique the interest of other clubs. Given the myriad decisions with which they’re faced, the Cards figure to be one of the most influential teams in determining the overall landscape of the 2017-18 offseason for all 30 MLB clubs.

Carlos Beltran Announces Retirement

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Carlos Beltran will retire after spending parts of 20 seasons in the Majors, he announced today via The Players’ Tribune. The former AL Rookie of the Year and nine-time All-Star won his first World Series championship with the Astros in 2017 and will end a likely Hall of Fame career on that high note.

Carlos Beltran | Thomas B. Shea-USA TODAY Sports

Beltran made his Major League debut at the age of 21 with the Royals in 1998 and made a strong first impression in a small sample of 14 games. He burst onto the scene a year later with a .293/.337/454 batting line, 22 homers, 108 RBIs and 112 runs scored en route to American League Rookie of the Year honors. A knee injury limited Beltran to just 98 games in 2000, but he cemented himself as one of the game’s top young stars with a brilliant, healthy campaign in 2001.

Beltran remained in Kansas City until the 2004 season when the Royals sent him to the Astros in a three-team trade that netted them Mark Teahen and John Buck. Beltran, who had earned his first career All-Star nod that season, starred for the ’Stros down the stretch before delivering one of the most incredible postseason performances in MLB history that year. Houston topped Atlanta in the NLDS and took the Cardinals to Game 7 of the NLCS, and in those 12 games Beltran put the Astros’ offense on his back; in 56 trips to the plate, he batted a ridiculous .435/.526/1.022 with eight home runs, three doubles, 21 runs scored and 14 RBIs.

That offseason, Beltran inked a seven-year, $119MM contract with the Mets — the largest in franchise history at the time — where he continued to build on his Cooperstown resume. Beltran made the All-Star team in each of his first three seasons with the Mets (and five of his seven overall), and he turned in yet another memorable playoff performance  in 2006. While many remember Beltran being frozen at the hands of an Adam Wainwright curveball to close out Game 7 of that NLCS, Beltran’s greater contributions to that outstanding series came in the the form of a 1.054 OPS and three homers in just 31 plate appearances. Overall, he batted .280/.369/.500 in six and a half seasons with the Mets before being traded to the Giants in exchange for Zack Wheeler.

Beltran went on to sign a two-year, $26MM contract with the Cardinals that offseason, making two more All-Star teams and two more excellent postseason appearances. He parlayed his .282/.343/.493 triple slash in two St. Louis seasons into a three-year, $45MM contract with the Yankees. With the Yankees, he received one final All-Star nod (in 2016) and appeared in the 2015 Wild Card game before being flipped to the Rangers a 2016 trade that sent former first-rounder Dillon Tate to New York. Beltran remained an above-average hitter all the way through that run in Texas, hitting a combined .271/.327/.468 over the life of that three-year deal.

The 2017 season was Beltran’s least-productive offensive campaign since that injury-shortened 2000 season, but he still clocked 14 home runs in 509 plate appearances and served as a leader and mentor for much of Houston’s impressive young core. While Beltran served as the postseason engine on many of his teams during his peak years, he played the role of a vocal leader and wise elder statesman in his final postseason run. An emotional Beltran dedicated his team’s World Series victory to his hurricane-ravaged home island of Puerto Rico and to the city of Houston, which was also devastated by Hurricane Harvey earlier this year

Beltran and his wife, Jessica, started a fund to aid in Puerto Rico’s recovery and made an initial donation of $1MM, and he also founded the Carlos Beltran Baseball Academy in Puerto Rico back in 2011 — a bilingual high school emphasizing education in addition to athletics.

All told, Beltran’s remarkable career will come to a close with a lifetime .279/.350/.486 batting line, 435 home runs, 1582 runs scored, 1587 RBIs, 312 stolen bases, nine All-Star appearances, three Gold Gloves, two Silver Sluggers, a Rookie of the Year trophy and a World Series ring. In addition to a superlative body of work in the regular season, he batted .307/.412/.609 with 16 home runs in 65 playoff games (256 plate appearances), making him one of the most decorated postseason batters of all time. He should have one more accolade let to add to the ledger when his name is immortalized among the all-time greats in Cooperstown.

Beltran earned roughly $222MM, per Baseball-Reference, over the life of a career that both B-Ref (69.8 WAR) and Fangraphs (67.2 WAR) consider to be among the absolute best of the past of the past two generations (before even attempting to value his considerable postseason accomplishments). Congratulations to Beltran — one of the best we’ll have the privilege of watching in our lifetimes — on an exceptional career.

Photo courtesy of USA Today Sports Images.

Keyvius Sampson Signs With KBO’s Hanwha Eagles

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The Hanwha Eagles of the Korea Baseball Organization have signed right-hander Keyvius Sampson to a one-year deal worth $700K, the team announced over the weekend (h/t: Dan Kurtz of MyKBO.net, on Twitter).

Sampson, 27 in January, long rated as one of the more promising prospects in the Padres’ farm system but never made it to the Majors in San Diego. Cincinnati picked him up off waivers prior to the 2015 season and went on to give Sampson 31 appearances (14 starts) over the next two seasons. Sampson logged a 4.35 ERA with 9.6 K/9 through 39 1/3 innings in his second campaign in Cincinnati, but his overall numbers with the Reds were unsightly. In 91 2/3 innings, he turned in a 5.60 ERA with 8.3 K/9, 5.2 BB/9, 1.57 HR/9 and a 38.8 percent ground-ball rate.

Sampson split the 2017 season between the Triple-A affiliates for the D-backs and the Marlins, continuing his trend of strong strikeout marks (9.6 K/9) but troubling control (6.8 BB/9) en route to a 5.92 earned run average. He dominated Triple-A Louisville with the Reds as recently as 2016, however, and he has a strong track record pitching at the Double-A level as well.

Crasnick’s Latest: Stanton, Ohtani, JDM, Darvish, Royals, McCutchen

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In this year’s edition of his annual Hot Stove survey (an always-excellent read), ESPN’s Jerry Crasnick surveyed 40 front office execs and scouts from around the league on nine offseason issues as this week’s GM Meetings kick off. Among the topics discussed, at length, are the possibility of a Giancarlo Stanton trade (and his likeliest destination), where Japanese star Shohei Ohtani will land, how much J.D. Martinez can command in free agency, and whether Yu Darvish’s poor World Series showing hampered his free-agent stock. Crasnick also polled the 40 baseball ops/scouting minds on multiple groups of free agents and trade candidates, asking which will provide the most value and which are likeliest to be dealt.

If you follow the offseason even loosely, you’ll want to be sure to read through the entire column, which is packed with quotes and insight from general managers, scouts and other front-office executives on the players in question and their potential landing spots. Some abbreviated highlights…

  • Three quarters of the respondents indicated that they expect Stanton to be traded this offseason, with nearly a third listing the Cardinals as the likeliest landing spot. The Giants were the second-most popular spot, though one scout tells Crasnick he has a difficult time envisioning that match, calling the Giants a “bottom-five farm system.” One respondent who felt Stanton would stay in Miami suggests to Crasnick that the Marlins may be underestimating just how much of the contract they’ll need to pay down.
  • The Yankees and Dodgers split the vote on the surveyed group’s likeliest destinations for Ohtani, with the Rangers not far behind. Several other clubs received a few votes, and four of the 40 respondents suggested that they believed Ohtani would remain with the Nippon Ham Fighters in 2018. There’s still some work to be done with the league, the players’ union and Nippon Professional Baseball before the posting process can begin in earnest. The agreement between MLB and NPB on the current iteration of the posting system expired this offseason.
  • The Red Sox were the overwhelming favorite when it came to the question of Martinez’s next team, though expectations for his contract varied in size. One GM pegged Martinez at around six years and $140MM, Crasnick notes. Some execs felt he’d fall closer to Justin Upton’s $106MM guarantee.
  • Only three of the 40 respondents thought that Darvish’s pair of World Series meltdowns would have a substantial impact on his offseason earning capacity. Crasnick’s piece has plenty of insightful quotes on Darvish — more than any other player — from the scouts that were polled. An AL scout tells Crasnick that 15 years ago, the World Series might’ve hurt Darvish, but in a largely sabermetric environment, his late struggles are a “void blip in the radar.”
  • Crasnick also asked respondents which of the Royals’ big three free agents (Eric Hosmer, Mike Moustakas, Lorenzo Cain) would provide the best value on his next deal, which of Carlos Gomez or Carlos Gonzalez had a better chance of reestablishing himself as a star, and which major 2018-19 free agent among Andrew McCutchen, Josh Donaldson and Manny Machado is likeliest to be traded this winter. I found it somewhat of a surprise to see Hosmer as the decisive favorite in that Royals question, though many scouts praised his glovework despite poor reviews from defensive metrics. McCutchen, less surprisingly, was deemed likeliest of his trio to go, while Gonzalez topped Gomez handily in their own respective face-off.

Minor MLB Transactions: 11/12/17

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Here are the latest minor moves from around the game, all from Baseball America’s Matt Eddy unless otherwise credited…

  • Leonys Martin is now a free agent, as he elected to hit the open market after being outrighted off the Cubs’ roster last week.  The veteran outfielder is looking to rebound from a rough 2017 that saw him post just a .513 OPS over 138 PA with the Cubs and Mariners, though Martin was still an above-average defender in the outfield.
  • The Royals re-signed right-hander Seth Maness to a new minor league deal.  Maness elected to become a free agent last month after K.C. outrighted him off its 40-man roster.  A workhorse out of the Cardinals’ bullpen in his first three seasons, Maness has been limited to just 41 1/3 IP over the last two seasons thanks to a torn UCL, though he opted for an innovative “primary repair” procedure that allowed him a much quicker return to action than the usual 12-15 month timeline for Tommy John surgery.
  • Catcher Tim Federowicz chose to become a free agent after being outrighted off the Giants’ 40-man roster.  Federowicz hasn’t hit much (a .558 OPS) over 318 career MLB plate appearances, though he has a very impressive .304/.374/.503 slash line over 1654 PA at the Triple-A level.
  • The Braves released right-hander Armando Rivero.  Atlanta chose Rivero in last year’s Rule 5 Draft but Rivero missed the entire season due to shoulder problems.  The Braves outrighted Rivero off their 40-man roster last month, so the Cubs officially declined the opportunity to take the righty back.  Rivero has a 2.70 ERA, 12.4 K/9 and 2.83 K/BB rate over 220 career innings in the minors, all as a reliever in Chicago’s system.
  • Catcher Erik Kratz elected to become a free agent rather than accept an outright assignment to Triple-A, the Yankees announced earlier this week (via Twitter).  Kratz spent much of 2017 at Cleveland’s Triple-A affiliate before being acquired by New York on August 31 to add some catching depth to the expanded September rosters.  Kratz only appeared in four games as a Yankee, but it officially made him a veteran of six different teams over parts of eight MLB seasons.  The 37-year-old has a .203/.250/.366 slash line over 649 career plate appearances in the bigs.

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