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Red Sox Extend Christian Vazquez

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The Red Sox have signed catcher Christian Vazquez to a three-year contract extension that’ll run through the 2021 season, as Pete Abraham of the Boston Globe was first to tweet (Vazquez was already set to receive $1.425MM this season after his first trip through the arbitration process). According to Jason Mastrodonato of the Boston Herald, he’s set to receive $2.85MM in 2019, $4.2MM in 2020, and $6.25MM in 2021. The extension also comes with a club option for 2022, valued at $7MM; that option comes with a $250K buyout, and can increase to $8MM if he manages to accrue at least 502 plate appearances in each of 2020 and 2021. Mastrodonato also tweets that Vazquez has offered to make an annual donation to the Red Sox foundation as part of the agreement. He’s represented by MDR Sports Management.

Over the course of his career, Vazquez hadn’t received much attention for anything other than his defensive prowess behind the plate. That changed a bit, however, when the now-27-year-old hit .290/.330/.404 across 345 plate appearances for the Red Sox in 2017. While a .348 BABIP suggests that those numbers could regress significantly, the combination of an offensive breakout and a stellar defensive reputation apparently convinced the team that he’s worth keeping in the fold through his age-30 season (and possibly his age-31 season as well).

Vazquez will receive $13.55MM in new guarantees from the pact, including the buyout of his option. As for the Red Sox, they’ll receive cost certainty across the catcher’s final two arbitration seasons in addition to delaying his free agency by a year, and possibly two. The pact is somewhat similar to the extension given to Indians catcher Roberto Perez just last season, who’s also a client of MDR Sports Management.

While Vazquez spent last season in a nearly-equal time share with fellow backstop Sandy Leon, the terms of the option (and indeed the extension itself) seem to hint that they’d like to give the lion’s share of at-bats and defensive innings to the former. Considering he’s been worth 31 defensive runs saved in just 1,668 innings behind the dish over the course of his career, more playing time for Vazquez would likely end up paying dividends for Boston.

A largely unheralded ninth-round pick by the Red Sox back in 2008, Vazquez has never known another major league organization. It took him six years to crack the MLB club, and even then he didn’t seem to be a core piece of the team right away. Vazquez owned a .309 career slugging percentage prior to last season, and missed all of 2015 after undergoing Tommy John surgery. However, the Red Sox will hope that last year’s 1.6 fWAR showing is more indicative of his talent moving forward.

Photo courtesy of USA Today Sports Images

Tigers Release Alexi Amarista

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The Tigers have granted infielder Alexi Amarista his unconditional release, the team’s PR account has tweeted. According to MLB.com’s Jason Beck, Amarista had said just yesterday that he’d wait until the end of camp before “weighing his options”, but something seems to have changed in the past 24 hours or so. The 28-year-old had signed a minors deal with Detroit late in January.

Amarista finished the 2017 season on the Rockies’ roster, with whom he hit just .238/.269/.351 across 176 plate appearances. While he filled in at many different positions around the diamond, defensive metrics rated him poorly at each one of them. Overall, fWAR, bWAR and WARP agree that he played about a win below replacement level, which is notable considering he accrued under a third of a season’s worth of plate appearances. As such, the club decided to pay him a $150K buyout rather than pick up his $2.5MM option.

The decision for a rebuilding Detroit club to release Amarista doesn’t come as much of a surprise. It’s likely that said decision was influenced by the desire to keep number one overall Rule 5 pick Victor Reyes on the 25-man roster. The club would also probably like to give Niko Goodrum and JaCoby Jones a chance to prove themselves at the major league level.

Amarista owns just a .231/.275/.323 slash line across career 1,901 plate appearances with the Angels, Padres and Rockies. While his bat obviously doesn’t provide any value, his ability to play both middle infield positions (in addition to third base and the outfield) has kept him working at the MLB level since his 2011 debut.

Central Notes: Brewers, Napoli, Merritt, Twins, Buxton, Mercer

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Brewers GM David Stearns spoke today about his team’s much-discussed offseason pitching decisions, as Tom Haudricourt of the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel writes. Explaining that the organization believes it has ample rotation depth on hand, Stearns explained that his focus was on evaluating “the extent of the upgrade” that could be achieved in any particular transactions. Clearly, the team felt it could do more by adding two high-quality outfielders than by putting veteran hurlers in front of a group of youngsters that, in Stearns’s view, “have the ability to make an impact on the major-league level” in the near future. That said, Stearns acknowledges that his front office was involved with several free agents and also “were close a couple of times” to trades for pitching.

Here’s more from the central divisions:

  • Mike Napoli is expected to decide shortly whether he’ll return to the Indians on another minor league contract, ESPN’s Jerry Crasnick reports (Twitter link). The presumption seemingly remains that he’ll return and open the year at Triple-A, as manager Terry Francona tells reporters including MLB.com’s Jordan Bastian (Twitter link). But nothing has been formalized at this point, with Napoli evidently still holding out hope of finding a big league opportunity elsewhere. The veteran first baseman, who was released yesterday from a minors deal with Cleveland, has struggled to generate interest at the MLB level all winter long after a middling 2017 season.
  • Meanwhile, the Indians got a bit more clarity in their pitching plans with the decision to place Ryan Merritt on the DL to open the season, as Bastian reports. A combination of knee problems to open camp and a “tired arm” as it draws to a close have conspired to hold him back. The news also prevents the Cleveland organization from making a tough call on Merritt, an out-of-options hurler that the team would prefer not to expose to waivers.
  • The Twins are likely to look for a right-handed hitter with some pop, Phil Miller of the Minneapolis Star Tribune writes, as teams make their final Spring Training cuts and veteran players can opt out of minor league contracts. Robbie Grossman, Zack Granite, and Ryan LaMarre are competing for two of Minnesota’s remaining bench spots, though none of that trio has much power. The Minnesota organization was connected previously with Napoli, though after signing Logan Morrison as the primary DH it seems reasonable to anticipate that the club would prefer any new addition be capable of spending time in the outfield.
  • In other news out of Minnesota, the Twins have renewed young center fielder Byron Buxton at a $570K rate, Mike Berardino of the St. Paul Pioneer-Press reports on Twitter. The 24-year-old entered the winter as a 2+ service-class player who was under consideration for an extension, but the sides have thus far failed to see eye to eye on both a near-term and long-term arrangement. From the outside, at least, it still seems possible that the Twins could strike a deal with a player who finally showed the output to match the hype in an outstanding second half of the 2017 season. Of course, his less-than-smooth transition to the majors could also create divergent opinions on value.
  • Long-time Pirates shortstop Jordy Mercer acknowledges that this could be his last campaign in Pittsburgh, as Rob Biertempfel of The Athletic writes (subscription link). He also says he’s content to allow the situation to “play out” as it will. As Biertempfel explains, the 31-year-old does not appear likely to be in the team’s long-term plans with a variety of interesting middle-infield prospects moving up the ranks behind him.

Rule 5 Decisions: 3/23/18

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We’re starting to learn about the initial fates of Rule 5 players, whose teams are weighing Opening Day assignments. While cracking the roster out of camp is no assurance that a player will stay there all year, only those that have impressed a fair bit to this point are typically given a chance.

Here’s are a few who’ll get their first shot at the majors:

  • Outfielder Carlos Tocci has been told he’ll be on the Rangers’ active roster to open the year, he tells reporters including Evan Grant of the Dallas Morning News (Twitter link). The 22-year-old, who was taken from the Phillies, has only reached base ten times in his 54 plate appearances this spring. But he has swiped seven bags and reputedly brings a plus glove in center, so the Texas organization has decided to look past that initial showing with the bat. Tocci struggled upon reaching Triple-A for a brief stretch at the end of the 2017 season, but did produce at a useful .307/.362/.398 rate in his 474 Double-A plate appearances.
  • The Orioles will carry righty Pedro Araujo to begin the season, Roch Kubatko of MASNsports.com was among those to tweet. He only has made one appearance north of the High-A level in the Cubs organization, but was awfully impressive there in 2017. In 64 2/3 innings over 44 apperances, he allowed just 13 earned runs on 42 hits while racking up 83 strikeouts against 17 walks. Araujo kept that output going in the Arizona Fall League and into the Grapefruit League, so the O’s — who frequently utilize the Rule 5 process — will see if he can take it another big step forward in the majors.

Yankees Release Wade LeBlanc

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The Yankees announced today that they have released southpaw Wade LeBlanc. He had signed a minors pact in mid-January.

The 33-year-old hurler has thrown 130 innings over the past two seasons in the majors, working to a 4.15 ERA with 7.3 K/9 and 1.9 BB/9. He threw 13 2/3 innings over seven appearances in camp this year, allowing eight earned runs on 16 hits while posting a 10:1 K/BB ratio.

LeBlanc has long posted significant reverse platoon splits, so he’s not really a lefty matchup option, but he has 79 MLB starts under his belt and made plenty of multi-inning appearances last year. Teams weighing a signing will likely view him more as a long man or swingman option.

Madison Bumgarner Diagnosed With Fractured Finger

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6:33pm: Bumgarner has a displaced fracture in his fifth metacarpal (that is, his pinky), Baggarly reports (Twitter links). He’ll have surgery tomorow to place pins that will remain in place for four to six weeks. Once his finger is back in working order, of course, Bumgarner will need to build back up to a starter’s workload.

The hope at this point is that Bumgarner will be be able to return before the All-Star break, per Baggarly, who notes that there is a worthwhile comp to consider. Former Giants righty Ryan Volgelsong missed about 11 weeks with a similar injury back in 2013.

6:10pm: Giants ace Madison Bumgarner has been diagnosed with a fractured left hand after being struck on the hand by a batted ball today, the club announced and Andrew Baggarly of The Athletic was among those to report on Twitter. Details on his anticipated absence are not known, but this is clearly a devastating injury for a player and team that were hoping for a major rebound from a disappointing 2018 season.

The 28-year-old Bumgarner has been one of the game’s preeminent workhorses ever since he took to the big league mound. Between 2011 and 2016, he never made less than 31 starts, threw fewer than 201 1/3 innings, or finished a season with an earned run average above 3.37. Over the past three seasons of that run, he took the ball 99 times and racked up 662 1/3 frames of 2.88 ERA ball. And that’s all before taking into account his legendary postseason efforts.

That all changed early last year, when Bumgarner was injured in a dirt bike accident. But he still made it back in time to finish the year with 111 innings of 3.32 ERA pitching on his ledger. And it seems fair to say that he has looked himself this spring. In his first five Cactus League starts, Bumgarner racked up 27 strikeouts against just three walks while allowing six earned over 19 frames.

In the aggregate, it seemed that the lost first half of the 2017 campaign might end up as little more than a blip on the radar for MadBum, a burly lefty who has long been a paragon of strength on the mound. While his shoulder does not appear to be a significant cause of concern moving forward, though, he’ll now have to work back from another injury.

As noted above, it’s impossible to say at this point how long the Giants will go without Bumgarner. The specifics of the injury, along with the course of treatment, could presumably result in a variety of scenarios. And he’ll clearly need to rebuild his pitch count before going full-bore at the game’s highest level. Position players frequently are able to return from this general sort of injury without terribly lengthy absences — less than six weeks in some cases — but perhaps it could take somewhat longer than usual for a hurler who suffered a fracture to his pitching hand. Regardless, we’ll need to await further word before any kind of timeline is available.

The news comes on the heels of the loss of another key starter, Jeff Samardzija, to open the season. Skipper Bruce Bochy said today that Samardzija is likely to miss something on the order of three to four weeks, as Henry Schulman of the San Francisco Chronicle tweets. That knocks out two of the team’s top three starters on the cusp of Opening Day.

As things stand, San Francisco is going to trot out a roster that features Johnny Cueto at the top of the rotation, followed by non-roster invitee Derek Holland and relatively unproven hurlers Chris Stratton and Ty Blach. There are some intriguing young talents that could conceivably take the fifth starter’s spot, once it’s needed, but the club will no doubt be on the look for outside additions. Of course, the luxury tax tightrope walk that the Giants have attempted this winter — which is why they shipped out a notable depth piece in Matt Moore — is going to make it hard to find any kind of impactful arm.

Cubs To Release Peter Bourjos

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The Cubs will release outfielder Peter Bourjos, according to Patrick Mooney of The Athletic (via Twitter). Chicago decided not to add him to the active roster in order to keep an additional reliever.

Soon to turn 31, the fleet-footed Bourjos could still hold appeal to other organizations as a reserve outfielder — particularly those looking for a player capable of lining up in center. He posted a .317/.356/.366 slash in his 45 plate appearances this spring.

Bourjos has enjoyed some high-quality MLB campaigns in the past, but has functioned more as a light-hitting reserve in recent seasons. In his best season, a 2011 effort with the Angels, Bourjos posted a 114 wRC+ and graded as a high-end fielder and baserunner.

The output has generally declined in all areas of late. Metrics have viewed Bourjos more as a solid than a great defender in recent seasons. While he still gets high marks for his overall baserunning, Bourjos hasn’t really been a major threat to steal of late. And he owns only a .231/.288/.366 batting line over the past four campaigns.

Rangers Release Trevor Plouffe

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The Rangers have released third baseman Trevor Plouffe, MLB.com’s TR Sullivan was among those to report via Twitter. He had been in camp with the team on a minor-league deal.

It’s still possible the 31-year-old will end up re-joining the organization to play at Triple-A, Sullivan notes. First, though, he’ll look into other opportunities with other teams.

Plouffe turned in a middling performance in camp, with just six base hits in his 34 trips to the plate. With the Rangers deciding to keep Jurickson Profar in the infield and otherwise carrying a full slate of healthy starters, there was no room for the veteran Plouffe.

During his seven seasons with the Twins, Plouffe was generally a solid regular at the hot corner. But he failed to make good on a one-year pact with the Athletics in 2017 and continued to struggle upon landing with the Rays in the middle of the season. He ended with a .198/.272/.318 batting line in 313 MLB plate appearances last year.

Miguel Sano Will Not Receive Suspension Relating To Assault Allegations

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Twins third baseman Miguel Sano will not be suspended by the league in relation to a recent allegation of assault, according to Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic (links to Twitter). A league statement indicates that “insufficient evidence” was uncovered during an investigation.

Late last year, as detailed in full in the above link, the claims of assault led to the league to begin an investigation under the MLB-MLBPA Joint Domestic Violence, Sexual Assault and Child Abuse Policy. Per the league, the efforts including a series of interviews — including of both Sano and the alleged victim — as well as a review of certain “available documents.”

Upon review of the evidence, the commissioner determined that the evidence was lacking to apply any discipline, citing “conflicting and inconsistent witness accounts and the absence of contemporaneous substantiation.” While details are understandably not available, it is perhaps also fair to note that there was some potential question — based upon the allegations as stated — as to whether the sexual assault prong of the policy would be deemed to apply to this situation.

Here’s the full definition from the policy itself:

“Sexual assault refers to a range of behaviors, including a completed nonconsensual sex act, an attempted nonconsensual sex act, and/or nonconsensual sexual contact. Lack of consent is inferred when a person uses force, harassment, threat of force, threat of adverse personnel or disciplinary action, or other coercion, or when the victim is asleep, incapacitated, unconscious or legally incapable of consent.”

Barring any new evidence that might come to the league’s attention, it would appear that Sano will be able to open the 2018 season with the Minnesota organization and play without limitation.

Giants Release Andres Blanco

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The Giants have released infielder Andres Blanco, as Henry Schulman of the San Francisco Chronicle reports (Twitter links). He had been in camp on a minor-league deal.

With that decision, it seems the Giants have narrowed their utility infield competition down to two finalists among the in-house options. Kelby Tomlinson, who can still be optioned, is still under consideration along with non-roster invitee Josh Rutledge.

Blanco, a 33-year-old switch-hitter, only ended up taking 22 plate appearances this spring owing to injury. While he sported a .409 OBP in his limited action, he never really got into the competition.

Though he’s not likely to find a team willing to open an active roster spot for the start of the season, Blanco certainly ought to draw interest on minor-league arrangements. He has experience all over the infield and has had his moments at the plate. Though he had a poor season with the stick last year, Blanco posted a .274/.337/.457 slash over 523 plate appearances between 2014 and 2016.

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