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Dodgers To Exercise Club Option On Logan Forsythe

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The Dodgers will exercise their $8.5MM club option over second baseman/third baseman Logan Forsythe, tweets SB Nation’s Chris Cotillo. Los Angeles had until 5pm ET today to decided between that sum and a $1MM buyout for the 30-year-old Forsythe.

Forsythe didn’t have the season that the Dodgers envisioned when acquiring him from the Rays in exchange for touted pitching prospect Jose De Leon (though De Leon himself missed most of the season due to injury). In 439 plate appearances, Forsythe batted just .239/.351/.327 with six homers and 19 doubles — a far cry from the .273/.347/.444 slash he posted with the 2015-16 Rays. He did, however, hit left-handed pitching at a robust .290/.418/.452 clip in 153 plate appearances and turn in strong defensive work.

Though he was primarily a second baseman with the Rays, Forsythe was used in a larger variety of roles with the Dodgers. In addition to 587 frames at second base (where he graded out at +5 Defensive Runs Saved and a +3.2 Ultimate Zone Rating), Forsythe saw 301 innings at third base (+4 DRS, +3.4 UZR)  and also made brief appearances at shortstop, first base and in the outfield corners. At the very least, he can serve as a versatile multi-position asset for the Dodgers in 2018, though his lack of a defined starting role could lead the Dodgers to also explore trades this offseason.

Welington Castillo To Decline Player Option

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Orioles catcher Welington Castillo will decline a one-year, $7MM player option and re-enter the free-agent market in search of a larger multi-year contract, tweets FanRag’s Jon Heyman. The decision has seemed likely for quite some time now given the strength of Castillo’s 2017 season in Baltimore. He’ll hit the open market as one of the top catchers available, along with Alex Avila and Jonathan Lucroy.

Castillo, 31 next April, had a career year at the plate in what looks like it will be his only season in Baltimore. Through 365 plate appearances, the slugger batted .282/.323/.490 with a career-best 20 homers. He was limited to 96 games in large part due to a testicular injury that was suffered when a ball was fouled into his groin. Castillo was sidelined for about three weeks and got off to a slow start upon returning before he closed out the year with a blistering finish. (He also missed 10 days early in the season with a minor bout of shoulder tendinitis.)

Defense has long been a knock on Castillo, but his 2017 work behind the plate showed legitimate signs of improvement as well. Castillo caught a whopping 49 percent of runners that attempted to steal against the Orioles’ pitching staff, and his oft-panned pitch-framing skills finished at a roughly league-average level, per Baseball Prospectus.

While it’s certainly possible that the O’s could kick the tires on a reunion with Castillo, the team has top prospect Chance Sisco all but ready to take over a prominent big league role in 2018. He’ll presumably pair with backup Caleb Joseph to form the Orioles’ primary catching duo in 2018 and beyond, though 26-year-old Austin Wynns is also an option to see some time behind the dish of Sisco proves to be in need of additional development.

Moving on from Castillo and going with an affordable combination of Sisco, Joseph and/or Wynns will allow the Orioles to dedicate more of their offseason resources to the starting rotation, which is clearly the organization’s top overall need.

Reds Will Not Make Qualifying Offer To Zack Cozart

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The Reds have “officially” decided against issuing a qualifying offer to shortstop Zack Cozart, tweets Zach Buchanan of the Cincinnati Enquirer. FanRag’s Jon Heyman and others have recently painted the chances of such an offer for Cozart as unlikely. The lack of a QO should boost Cozart’s free-agent stock as he heads into the open market on the heels of a career year.

Cozart, 32, batted .297/.385/.548 with a career-high 24 home runs, 24 doubles and seven triples (also a career-high) in 2017. Though hamstring and quadriceps injuries limited him to 122 games, Cozart’s explosive bat and typically strong glovework at shortstop led to a five-WAR season in the eyes of both Fangraphs and Baseball-Reference.

The rebuilding Reds, however, ultimately opted not to extend a $17.4MM one-year offer to Cozart due to a lack of a clear market for shortstops in free agency. Cincinnati apparently did not wish to risk Cozart accepting that offer and potentially bringing the team’s payroll north of $100MM before the offseason even began. Of course, the decision not to extent the QO also means that they’ll see one of the team’s best players walk without any form of compensation for his services.

Indians Reportedly Decline Option On Boone Logan

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The Indians have declined their $7MM club option on left-handed reliever Boone Logan, tweets Tom Withers of the Associated Press. The 33-year-old Logan will receive a $1MM buyout, bringing his total earnings with Cleveland to $6.5MM.

Logan spent much of the 2016-17 offseason in search of a multi-year deal before ultimately signing a one-year pact with a club option in early February. The contract, at the time, was viewed as a coup for a Cleveland organization that lacked another established lefty reliever to pair with Andrew Miller in the ’pen. Logan’s 2016 season with the Rockies featured 46 1/3 innings of 3.69 ERA ball, 11.1 K/9, 3.9 BB/9 and a 49.5 percent ground-ball rate. Lefties batted just .139/.222/.255 against him in ’16.

His 2017 season in Cleveland, however, was considerably less successful. Logan’s season was cut in half by a strained lat muscle in mid-July, and in the end his lone year with the Indians resulted in a 4.71 earned run average in just 21 innings of work. On the plus side for Logan, his strikeout, walk, home-run and ground-ball rates all remained virtually identical. Logan actually allowed hard contact at a lower rate in 2017 and didn’t see any appreciable decline in his velocity. Rather, he was plagued by a massive spike in his BABIP (.353), which can be more reasonably expected to take a step back in 2018 and beyond.

Cleveland, though, has a tight payroll that now has even less wiggle room after the club elected to exercise its $12MM option over outfielder Michael Brantley. That Tyler Olson has emerged as an excellent left-handed complement to Miller in manager Terry Francona’s bullpen only makes the decision to walk away from Logan an easier one.

As for Logan, he’ll likely draw plenty of interest and could yet land a Major League deal with a lower base salary than last winter’s $6.5MM mark. Some clubs may wish to hold out hope that he’ll take a minor league contract in light of his season-ending injury, but Logan’s solid across-the-board peripheral numbers create hope that he’ll be able to bounce back nicely in coming seasons.

Qualifying Offer Rumors: Monday

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Teams have until 5pm ET tonight to issue one-year, $17.4MM qualifying offers to their impending free agents if they wish to recoup draft pick compensation in the event that their free agent(s) depart and sign elsewhere. Those unfamiliar with the process can refer back to a lengthy exploration of the QO system (penned by MLBTR’s Mark Polishuk), which was revamped last winter in the 2017-21 collective bargaining agreement.

For those looking for a Cliff’s Notes-esque refresher, here’s the QO system in a few sentences. MLB teams can issue a one-year offer worth the mean salary of the league’s 125 highest-paid players to an impending free agent in order to receive compensation in the next year’s draft. A player can receive a qualifying offer only once in his career and is eligible to receive a QO if and only if he spent the entire season with his club. Players that accept a QO are considered signed and cannot be traded until June 15 of the upcoming season. Players have 10 days to decide whether to accept or reject.

The new CBA places the standard compensatory pick after Competitive Balance Round B — meaning it should fall somewhere between picks 70 to 80. Elements like revenue sharing, luxury tax penalization and size of the player’s new contract can all impact the placement of the comp pick, however. Teams that sign a player who rejected a QO will be required to forfeit at least one pick in the next year’s draft. Each team’s top pick is protected, but the placement of forfeited pick(s) is dependent on the luxury tax and revenue sharing. International pool money may also need to be forfeited. (Again, I’d highly recommend checking out Mark’s piece, in full, for more details.)

Here are today’s rumors…

  • MLB.com’s Jordan Bastian calls it a “safe bet” that the Indians will issue a qualifying offer to first baseman Carlos Santana (Twitter link). The 31-year-old switch-hitter batted .259/.363/.455 with 23 home runs and career-best work at first base in 2017. While the market for corner bats hasn’t been great in recent years, Santana’s defensive improvements, power and longstanding reputation as one of baseball’s most patient hitters (career 15.2 percent walk rate) should serve him well on the open market even with draft-pick compensation attached to his name.

Earlier Updates

  • Reds shortstop Zack Cozart is still unlikely to receive a qualifying offer, per FanRag’s Jon Heyman (Twitter links). That’s been the direction in which Cincinnati has reportedly been leaning for the past couple of weeks, though MLB.com’s Mark Sheldon hears that the Reds are still debating the QO for Cozart. Despite the Reds’ rebuilding status, it still seems surprising that they could let him walk for no compensation. Cozart had a breakout .297/.385/.548 season at the plate in 2017 and even in the two years prior was a roughly league-average bat with well-above average defense at shortstop. He should be able to top $17.4MM by a wide margin in free agency, and even if he accepts, he’d be a bargain at that rate. The Reds do already have $86MM worth of payroll commitments and arbitration projections for next season, but there are other areas (non-tenders, trades) that they could trim from the payroll if need be..
  • Some players — Eric Hosmer, Mike Moustakas, Lorenzo Cain, Jake Arrieta, Wade Davis, Greg Holland and Lance Lynn — have long seemed like locks to receive a QO. Alex Cobb, too, has stood out as a logical recipient, though the Rays’ payroll limitations at least cast some doubt on that possibility. Heyman reported last night that Cobb would receive a QO, and it’s been reported by multiple outlets that each member of that Royals trio will receive a QO as well.

Twins Name Derek Shelton Bench Coach

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The Twins announced that they’ve hired veteran coach Derek Shelton as the new bench coach to manager Paul Molitor. Minnesota’s bench coach position became vacant when Joe Vavra joined Ron Gardenhire’s coaching staff in Detroit.

Shelton, 47, has a long track record as a big league coach and a minor league manager. The former catcher coached and managed in the Yankees’ minor league ranks in the late 1990s and early 2000s. Since that time, he’s spent a half decade as the Indians’ hitting coach (2005-09) and seven seasons as the Rays’ hitting coach (2010-16) before joining the Blue Jays as a quality control coach in 2017. Shelton’s time with the Indians briefly overlapped with that of current Twins chief baseball officer Derek Falvey, though Falvey had not yet climbed the organizational ranks with the Indians by the time Shelton left.

The 2018 season will be Shelton’s 14th season as a coach at the Major League level and his first as a bench coach. He’ll join first-year pitching coach Garvin Alston on a slightly revamped Twins coaching staff that will once again be guided by Molitor, who inked a three-year extension with the club last month.

Matt Wieters Exercises Player Option

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NOV. 6: The Nationals have now formally announced that Wieters has exercised his player option.

4:44pm: Wieters will indeed exercise his player option to remain with the Nationals, the Washington Post’s Chelsea Janes reports (Twitter link).

NOV. 4, 8:19am: It “is not at all a done deal” that Wieters exercises his option, Chelsea Janes of the Washington Post tweets.  The catcher has yet to make a decision in either direction.

NOV. 3, 1:05pm: Agent Scott Boras tells Feinsand that Wieters is still mulling the decision (Twitter link). “What he does for a pitching staff is off the charts & in great demand,” Boras tells Feinsand.

12:20pm: Matt Wieters intends to exercise his $10.5MM player option and remain with the Nationals in 2018, reports MLB.com’s Mark Feinsand (on Twitter). It’s not a surprising move for Wieters, considering the poor season he had in his first year as the Nationals’ primary backstop.

Matt Wieters | Aaron Doster-USA TODAY Sports

The 31-year-old Wieters inked a two-year, $21MM guarantee with the Nats last offseason, with the latter year of that contract coming in the form of a player option. However, Wieters posted career-worst marks in batting average, on-base percentage, slugging percentage and caught-stealing rate with the Nats this season, so it’s seemed all but certain that he’d forgo another chance at free agency for quite some time now.

Overall, Wieters batted just .225/.288/.344 with 10 homers through 465 plate appearances. He halted 25 percent of opposing stolen-base attempts, which is only slightly below the league average but is also well south of the career 33 percent mark he carried into the 2017 season. He also rated as one of the game’s bottom pitch-framing catcher, per Baseball Prospectus.

Even with Wieters back in the fold, it’d be a surprise if the Nationals didn’t pursue help behind the plate this offseason. Young Pedro Severino is the team’s top internal alternative, but the 24-year-old Severino batted just .241/.292/.332 in 59 Triple-A games last season.

Given the Nationals’ status as clear-cut contenders — especially in their final season of control over Bryce Harper — GM Mike Rizzo seems unlikely to head in the year with such a glaring question mark on his roster. Myriad trade opportunities could present themselves, and it’s also possible (speculatively speaking) that the Nats could make a run at either Alex Avila or Welington Castillo — the top two catchers on the open market. Avila, in particular, strikes me as a logical candidate; he can play some first base in the event of an injury to Ryan Zimmerman, and his left-handed bat would pair well with Wieters, who has consistently been a more dangerous right-handed hitter than left-handed hitter throughout his Major League career.

Photo courtesy of USA Today Sports Images.

Rockies Decline Club Option Over Alexi Amarista

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The Rockies have declined their $2.5MM club option over utility infielder Alexi Amarista, reports MLB.com’s Thomas Harding. Amarista will receive a $150K buyout and head back into the free-agent market this winter. Harding also notes that Greg Holland’s player option has now been formally declined — an outcome that had been previously reported upon.

Amarista inked a one-year pact with the Rox last winter after spending the majority of his career with the division-rival Padres. Amarista’s role in Colorado was a limited one, as he appeared in just 96 games and totaled 176 plate appearances. While he gave first-year Rox skipper Bud Black some versatility on the defensive end of the spectrum — Amarista saw time at second base, shortstop, third base and in all three outfield spots — the 28-year-old wasn’t able to provide any value at the plate.

In his 176 PAs, Amarista batted just .238/.269/.351 with three homers and 10 doubles. Defensive versatility with questionable offensive output has been the norm for Amarista throughout his career, however. In parts of seven big league seasons, he’s a career .231/.275/.323 hitter in 1901 plate appearances. He’ll likely draw interest from clubs looking to add veteran depth options that can compete for a bench spot next spring, but his struggles at the plate in one of the game’s premier offensive environments make it likely that Amarista will have to settle for a minor league deal this time around.

Greg Holland Declines Player Option

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NOV. 6: Holland has formally declined his option, reports MLB.com’s Thomas Harding. The Rockies are expected to attempt to re-sign him to a multi-year pact, per Harding, and a $17.4MM qualifying offer is a virtual certainty. (Holland already rejected a one-year deal at $15MM by declining his option, after all.)

OCT. 12: Rockies closer Greg Holland will decline his $15MM player option and re-enter the free agent market in search of a more lucrative multi-year deal, reports FanRag’s Jon Heyman.

Once the option is formally declined, the Rockies will have the opportunity to make Holland a qualifying offer of a $17.4MM. Presumably, Holland will again reject that figure, thus setting up the Rox to recoup some draft pick compensation if he ultimately signs elsewhere.

Greg Holland | Isaiah J. Downing-USA TODAY Sports

This decision from Holland was largely expected, though his shaky second half at least created a marginal sense of doubt after an opt-out looked to be a virtual lock as late into the season as the non-waiver trade deadline. Set to turn 32 this offseason, Holland posted a brilliant 1.56 ERA through 40 1/3 innings from Opening Day to Aug. 4, but he limped to the finish line with a ghastly 8.47 ERA in his final 17 regular-season innings before serving up another pair of runs in the NL Wild Card game. In his defense, he did pitch quite well in September; the damage was primarily confined to one abysmal eight-game stretch in August.

Holland was legitimately dominant for the season’s first couple of months, although as Fangraphs’ Dave Cameron pointed out during his August swoon, there were red flags about his performance long before his ERA eventually reflected a decline. Holland’s velocity dipped partway through the season (though it did bounce back even in the midst of his ugly finish), and he began to struggle with his control as early on as June. Not only was Holland struggling with walks, but he was also unable to command his fastball within the strike zone, Cameron observed, throwing an abnormal number of middle-middle fastballs.

That said, it’s perhaps not entirely surprising that Holland would fade a bit down the stretch. The 2017 season was his first effort back after missing the entire 2016 campaign while recovering from Tommy John surgery. Agent Scott Boras will undoubtedly chalk some of Holland’s late dip in performance up to that fact, staking the claim that he’ll hold up better now that he’s had a full year to rebuild some arm strength. There’s likely some truth to the argument, though it’s of course nearly impossible to determine how much of Holland’s late struggles are attributable to the surgery.

Even with Holland’s end-of-season woes, though, his overall numbers on the year look solid. He wrapped up the 2017 season with a 3.61 ERA and an impressive 11.0 K/9 mark through 57 1/3 innings. While he averaged 4.1 BB/9, Holland averaged 1.1 HR/9 despite the league-wide uptick in homers and despite playing half his games at Coors Field. Of the seven homers he allowed, five came in that dreadful August slump.

Holland will be hitting the open market at roughly the same age that Mark Melancon did before scoring a then-record-setting four-year, $62MM contract with the Giants. Holland’s late slide and relative proximity to Tommy John surgery could put that contract out of reach, but it’s sure to be a talking point for Boras this offseason when negotiating with interested parties. And even if Holland comes up shy of that sum, it still stands to reason that he’s all but certain to considerably out-earn the one year and $15MM he’s leaving on the table to again test free agency.

[Related: Colorado Rockies depth chart and payroll outlook]

For the Rockies, Holland will be just one of multiple relievers departing for the open market. He’ll be joined by two of the team’s top setup men: lefty Jake McGee and righty Pat Neshek. Beyond that, the Rox also stand to lose right-handed starter Tyler Chatwood to free agency, leaving GM Jeff Bridich no shortage of work to do when it comes to rounding out his team’s pitching staff.

Photo courtesy of USA Today Sports Images.

Seibu Lions Reliever Kazuhisa Makita Could Become Available To MLB Teams

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The posting system between Major League Baseball and Japan’s Nippon Professional Baseball remains in flux, creating some question as to whether vaunted right-hander/slugger Shohei Otani will ultimately be made available to big league clubs this offseason. Otani isn’t the only person whose shot at a Major League opportunity is in question, however; as the Japan Times reports, submarine righty Kazuhisa Makita could also be posted for MLB clubs if a new agreement between MLB and NPB can be reached.

“We plan to give him the green light,” said Lions executive Haruhiko Suzuki when asked about honoring Makita’s request to be posted for MLB clubs. “We are moving in that direction. He has a strong desire (to move to the majors through the posting system). We haven’t heard the outcome (of the negotiations). We will wait for that, then submit paperwork.”

Unlike Otani, the 32-year-old Makita is not a young star headed into his prime. Rather, he’s long been a successful starter and reliever. Makita is still subject to the posting system, though, because he did not begin his pro career in Japan until the age of 26, thus leaving him shy of the requisite nine years of service time to be considered a free agent under Japan’s rules. However, under MLB’s collective bargaining agreement, Makita would be considered a professional. In other words: he’s subject to the posting system but not to international bonus pools. If he is indeed posted, he’ll be able to sign for any amount with whichever teams meet his posting amount.

It’s far from clear what type of posting figure/release fee would’ve been placed on Makita by the Lions anyhow. The 32-year-old was the Pacific League Rookie of the Year back in 2011, the report notes, and he owns an excellent 2.83 ERA in 921 1/3 career innings. After moving to the bullpen full time in 2016, he’s posted a minuscule 1.91 ERA in nearly 150 innings. Makita’s submarine delivery could well hold appeal to a wide swath of clubs looking to give opponents a different look in the middle and late innings of a game.

However, Makita also generates an abnormally low number of strikeouts for a pitcher with his success, and some big league clubs will likely harbor trepidation as a result. Makita has averaged just five punchouts per nine innings over the course of his pro career in Japan, though to his credit he’s averaged just two walks per nine innings. In 147 1/3 innings over the past two seasons, Makita has issued just 19 unintentional walks, but he’s also hit 13 batters in that time.

Batted-ball data for NPB isn’t readily available, but a delivery as extreme as that of Makita figures to lend itself to weak contact — especially from right-handed opponents. His blend of a low strikeout rate with strong walk rates and plenty of weak contact isn’t all that dissimilar from free-agent righty Brandon Kintzler or from Marlins sidearm righty Brad Ziegler, so there’s certainly precedent for that skill set playing well in the Majors in today’s game. Whether he’s ultimately made available to big league clubs is entirely dependent on negotiations between MLB and NPB, but he’d be another name to watch for bullpen-hungry teams in free agency this winter.

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