Juan Lagares Still Drawing Trade Interest
5:32pm: The A’s don’t have interest in Lagares at this time, tweets the Post’s Joel Sherman, removing one speculative partner from consideration.
4:20pm: The Mets have received recent trade interest in Juan Lagares and “haven’t ruled out” a trade of the defensively gifted center fielder, reports Mike Puma of the New York Post. Per Puma, at least one AL club has maintained interest in Lagares into the middle portion of Spring Training.
Lagares, who turns 29 on Saturday, is guaranteed $6.5MM in 2018 and $9MM in 2019, plus a $500K buyout of a $9.5MM option for the 2020 season. While his bat has been a negative asset since he signed his $23.5MM extension prior to the 2015 season, his glove remains superlative; over the past three seasons, Lagares has amassed 1914 2/3 innings in the outfield (nearly all in center field) and delivered 25 Defensive Runs Saved and 22.1 Ultimate Zone Rating. Statcast’s OOA metric pegged him at seven outs better than an average defender in 2017.
Moving Lagares would obviously thin out New York’s outfield mix, though Puma notes that Brandon Nimmo could be leapfrogging Lagares on the depth chart with a strong spring showing while Lagares struggles at the dish. Michael Conforto is expected to man center field upon his return — which Puma notes could come by early May — with Yoenis Cespedes and Jay Bruce lining up in the corners. Conforto’s return would push Nimmo and Lagares further down the depth chart. Cespedes, it should be noted, is being slowed by a sore wrist, though MLB.com’s Anthony DiComo tweets that X-rays on the wrist came back negative.
The Mets are currently set to open the 2018 season with a club-record payroll of more than $152MM, and the fact that they already have $95MM+ on the payroll for the 2019 season creates some further impetus for moving Lagares if he’s been pushed to fifth on the outfield depth chart. The Mets figure to get some of those projected Opening Day figures back in the form of an insurance policy on David Wright’s salary — he’s expected to be shut down from baseball activity for eight weeks — but it obviously stands to reason that no team would relish the notion of paying a fifth outfielder at that relatively lofty rate.
Speculatively looking around the American League, the A’s, Tigers, White Sox and Rangers were among the clubs that received questionable defensive ratings from their center field contingents in 2017, and the Royals lost Lorenzo Cain to free agency (though they’ve since added Jon Jay on an affordable one-year deal). The Mariners, meanwhile, are dealing with a thin outfield mix that is being slowed by injuries and have placed a premium on defensive value under GM Jerry Dipoto, who is never shy about making trades.
Minor MLB Transactions: 3/13/18
We’ll track the day’s minor moves with this post:
- Backstop Brett Nicholas is back in camp with the Rangers after clearing waivers and being outrighted, Evan Grant of the Dallas Morning News tweets. He’ll still have a shot at earning the organization’s back-up catching job, though obviously it seems he is behind others in the competition. Nicholas, 29, has been a strong offensive performer at Triple-A, where he owns a .283/.333/.427 slash in 1,669 lifetime plate appearances, and helpfully hits from the left side. But his defensive abilities are not generally considered as polished, reducing his appeal as a reserve receiver.
MLBTR Chat Transcript
Click here to read a transcript of Tuesday’s chat with MLBTR’s Steve Adams.
Braves To Sign Ezequiel Carrera
The Braves have agreed to terms with outfielder Ezequiel Carrera, per Jon Heyman of Fan Rag (via Twitter). It’s a minor-league deal, per MLB.com’s Mark Bowman (Twitter link). Carrera can earn $650K in the majors, Bob Nightengle of USA Today tweets.
Carrera was recently released by the Blue Jays, sending him onto the open market in the middle of Spring Training. That move allowed the organization to avoid most of the $1.9MM arbitration salary it had agreed to with Carrera at the outset of the offseason.
As Ben Nicholson-Smith of Sportsnet.ca reminds us on Twitter, current Braves GM Alex Anthopoulos was responsible for bringing Carrera to Toronto back when he ran the Jays’ baseball operations. Clearly, Anthopoulos is a believer, though it’s not clear whether Carrera will have a real shot at earning a roster spot over the final weeks of Spring Training.
Carrera, 30, did have a strong 2017 season in which he posted a .282/.356/.408 batting line with eight home runs and ten steals over 325 plate appearances. Whether now or at some point during the campaign to come, he could be an option as a reserve/platoon outfielder in Atlanta. Currently, the team appears to be slated to utilize fellow left-handed hitter Preston Tucker in a similar role.
Reds Outright Dilson Herrera
Reds infielder Dilson Herrera has been outrighted to Triple-A after clearing waivers, per C. Trent Rosecrans of The Athletic (via Twitter). The Reds have since announced the move. Herrera will remain in MLB camp for the time being but obviously will not be expected to make the active roster out of Spring Training.
Circumstances have combined to change Herrera’s once-promising outlook in the Cincinnati organization. He struggled to a .264/.312/.397 slash in 264 Triple-A plate appearances last year before shoulder surgery ended his season. In the meantime, the club not only oversaw the surprising emergence of Scooter Gennett but has also seen the development of other infield talent.
That said, Herrera is still just 24 years of age and should have every opportunity of regaining his trajectory. He has mostly produced quality offensive numbers in the upper minors, including a .289/.345/.460 slash in over a thousand total trips to the plate at Triple-A.
Herrera, who was acquired in the 2016 deal that sent Jay Bruce to the Mets, will now have too earn his way back onto the MLB roster. The Reds will no doubt be glad to have held onto Herrera, who is out of options, after deciding not to keep him in the majors to open the year.
Follow @pfrumors On Twitter For The Latest NFL Free Agency News
NFL free agency doesn’t officially begin until Wednesday, but the league’s top free agents are already negotiating with teams and lining up new deals. Our sister site Pro Football Rumors has all the latest breaking news and rumors to keep you up to date.
Already, some of this year’s marquee free agents are primed to change teams. Prized quarterback Kirk Cousins is reportedly on the verge of an unprecedented fully guaranteed three-year contract with the Vikings, leaving the Jets and Cardinals to scramble for other options. Minnesota’s own standout quarterback, Case Keenum, has agreed to join the Broncos. The Bears, meanwhile, are adding this year’s top wide receiver in Allen Robinson, as well as No. 1 free agent tight end Trey Burton. Sammy Watkins, an accomplished receiver in his own right, is headed to the Chiefs.
And that’s not all. Tons of names on PFR’s list of 2018’s top 50 free agents remain on the market! To keeps tabs on all the latest NFL offseason news and rumors, be sure to visit Pro Football Rumors and follow along on Twitter @PFRumors.
NL East Notes: Phillies, Conforto, AGon, Robles
As the Phillies introduce Jake Arrieta today, the organization is now much more clearly in a competitive posture than it was at the outset of the winter. But the pedal won’t be fully pressed down, it seems, despite the presence of a few other notable free agents who’d improve the near-term outlook in Philadelphia. GM Matt Klentak says that he does not anticipate any further additions before the start of the season, as MLB.com’s Todd Zolecki tweets.
More from the NL East:
- The Mets continue to have cause for optimism on outfielder Michael Conforto, whose scary shoulder injury made for quite an offseason concern. He’s now nearing game readiness, Mike Puma of the New York Post tweets, and anticipates getting into a spring game next week. That doesn’t mean that Conforto will be on the Opening Day roster, but certainly suggests he’s on track to return relatively early in the season. In other injury news, via MLB.com’s Anthony DiComo (Twitter links), the Mets say that outfielder Yoenis Cespedes has a sore wrist. Though there’s no indication at present that it’s a worrying injury, he has undergone an x-ray and is waiting for the results. Meanwhile, veteran third baseman David Wright is no closer to a return; rather, he’ll hold off on baseball activities for at least eight weeks after being examined recently.
- New Mets first baseman Adrian Gonzalez discussed his fresh start and unusual offseason with Mike Puma of the New York Post. Notably, Gonzalez says he was initially resistant to the Dodgers‘ request that he waive his no-trade protection to go to the Braves in a contract-swapping move that ultimately left him landing in New York. But Los Angeles “sweetened the deal every single time” he met with the team, says the veteran, who acknowledged there was compensation involved.
- Pete Kerzel of MASNsports.com examines the Nationals‘ decision-making process with top prospect Victor Robles, who is impressing in camp despite a middling stat line in Grapefruit League action. The 20-year-old is ready for the majors, by all accounts, though the organization certainly has plenty of good reasons not to carry him out of camp. First and foremost, the organization has a solid center field combo already lined up in Michael Taylor and the out-of-options Brian Goodwin; in that sense, then, promoting Robles would mean parting with depth. Service-time considerations are also a factor; since Robles picked up 25 days of service last year, he’s just 147 days away from a full year of service. If the Nats wish to delay Robles’s eventual entry onto the open market, they’ll need to keep him down until early May; keeping him from potential Super Two status would likely mean waiting to bring him back up until the middle of the summer.
Orioles Sign Hunter Cervenka
The Orioles have signed lefty Hunter Cervenka to a minor-league deal, per a club announcement. He’ll join the minor-league side of camp.
Cervenka, 28, lost his 40-man spot with the Marlins late last year and was released a few days ago. Things just never worked out in Miami after the team picked him up from the Braves via trade in the summer of 2016.
Baltimore will hope that Cervenka can finally learn to tamp down on the free passes that have long plagued him. He’ll presumably spend the rest of camp fighting for a placement with one of the club’s top affiliates and, eventually, a chance to earn a call-up if a need arises at the MLB level.
Market Notes: Jay, Moustakas, Cobb
Several reporters have turned their gazes back on the more confounding free-agent market in recent memory, chronicling some of the more incongruous results and providing additional reporting on how it all unfolded. We’ll run through some of the key points here:
- It’s always worth remembering that free agency is a game that features plenty of variability and would never (theoretically) be played the same way twice. Buster Olney of ESPN.com reports on what might have been for some players. Logan Morrison and Greg Holland both asked for more than was being offered and ended up being bypassed when teams checked down to other targets. The Mariners, says Olney, dangled three years to veteran outfielder Jon Jay before they struck a trade for Dee Gordon. (That rather surprising offer could have had quite a domino effect on the outfield and second base markets had it been accepted.) On the other hand, Olney cites Angels sources that reject the notion the club offered Mike Moustakas a $45MM contract, as had been reported. Of course, had any of those situations developed differently, it’s possible we’d just be talking about different players whose markets collapsed.
- As part of his lengthy examination of the brutal winter for free agency, Jeff Passan of Yahoo Sports has an interesting note on one of the few top players yet to have signed. Veteran starter Alex Cobb, he says, was in position to secure a four-year, $48MM offer at one point earlier in the winter (from an unknown team) and “easily” could have landed a three-year guarantee. We’re obviously still waiting to see just what Cobb will ultimately earn, but needless to say, it seems unlikely he’ll reach the levels he might have had previously. In the meantime, several lesser pitchers have gone on to sign fairly solid, multi-year deals, perhaps absorbing some of the demand that might have led to a better payout for Cobb.
- Every period of free agency produces highs and lows, of course, but they seem particularly pronounced this time around with such an array of outcomes. Bob Nightengale of USA Today and Jon Heyman of Fan Rag have each run through the winners and losers on this shocker of a market.
West Notes: Bush, Athletics, Greinke
The Rangers are set to move right-hander Matt Bush back to the bullpen role in which he thrived for much of the 2016-17 seasons, writes Evan Grant of the Dallas Morning News. The 32-year-old righty had been in the mix for a rotation spot to this point, but he expressed peace of mind with the decision to return to the ‘pen, indicating that he’s “very happy” to have clarity over his role and that he feels the team made the right decision. As Grant notes, the decision likely means Texas’ rotation will consist of Cole Hamels, Matt Moore, Doug Fister and Mike Minor early in the year, with Martin Perez able to join that quartet as early as his health permits. Jesse Chavez is on hand as a long relief option, and Bartolo Colon could have an easy path to cracking the big league roster if Perez needs some DL time early in the year.
Elsewhere in the western divisions …
- The Athletics‘ offseason moves and budding farm system have made them into a more interesting club than many are giving them credit for, opines ESPN’s Jerry Crasnick. The pairing of Matt Chapman and Matt Olson at the team’s infield corners gives them one of the game’s great young defensive players — one AL evaluator from another club likened Chapman’s glove to that of Nolan Arenado and Manny Machado — and an impressive young slugger whose fast rise in the big leagues mirrored that of Phillies slugger Rhys Hoskins. (Olson hit .259/.352/.651 with 24 homers in 216 plate appearances.) Paired with one of the game’s most under-the-radar sluggers (Khris Davis) and interesting upper-level prospects like left-hander A.J. Puk, the A’s could surprise some in 2018, even if they’re not likely to vault up into to division contention just yet. Crasnick spoke to GM David Forst, manager Bob Melvin and scouts from other clubs about the improving young A’s club.
- While there’s still plenty of time left in camp, there’s some rising unease within the Diamondbacks organization surrounding Zack Greinke, as Nick Piecoro of the Arizona Republic reports. Greinke himself noted that he’s somewhat “nervous” that he won’t be working in his typical low-nineties range by the start of the season given that he’s still sitting in the mid-eighties with his fastball. Picking up on those comments, in the context of the team’s plans for an Opening Day starter, skipper Torey Lovullo acknowledged being “concerned about where [Greinke is] at” and said he plans to “let everything kind of settle down” before the club decides who’ll take the ball to open the season. Of course, it doesn’t matter as much whether Greinke throws the first pitch as it does that he’s at full strength. As to that matter, Lovullo suggested he’s nowhere near panicking over the veteran hurler. Instead, he stressed, his “concern is minimal” that Greinke will ultimately get up to speed and be prepared to attempt a repeat of a strong 2017 effort.