Giants Sign Andres Blanco To Minor League Contract
The Giants have signed infielder Andres Blanco to a minor league contract, Jon Heyman of FanRag tweets. Blanco’s deal includes an invitation to big league camp. He’ll receive a $1.1MM salary and $400K-plus in incentives if he makes the Giants’ roster. Otherwise, the contract will allow Blanco to pursue opportunities in Asia should they arise.
This is the second straight day in which the Giants have added a Blanco, as they reunited with outfielder Gregor Blanco on a minors pact Monday. While Andres Blanco has also played some outfield in the majors, nearly all of his work has come in the infield since he debuted with the Royals in 2004. The soon-to-be 34-year-old brings at least 95 games’ experience at second base, shortstop and third. The hot corner was Blanco’s primary spot with his previous team, the Phillies, from 2014-17, though he hasn’t graded out particularly well there during his career (minus-10 DRS, minus-6.1 UZR).
Offensively, the switch-hitting Blanco has been a below-average producer across 1,321 plate appearances (.256/.310/.378), and he’s coming off a miserable year in which he hit .192/.257/.292 in 144 PAs. He wasn’t able to find a major league deal as a result, but it was a different story a year ago. Then fresh off parts of three consecutive solid seasons at the plate (.274/.337/.457 in 523 PAs), Blanco tested free agency before ultimately re-signing with the Phillies for $3MM.
As he did in Philly, Blanco will attempt to fill a utility role in San Francisco, which has established starters across the infield in first baseman Brandon Belt, second baseman Joe Panik, shortstop Brandon Crawford and third baseman Evan Longoria. Pablo Sandoval and Kelby Tomlinson are the current backup infielders on the Giants’ projected 25-man roster.
Rangers Sign Jon Niese To Minor League Deal
4:04pm: Niese’s deal comes with a $1MM major league salary and up to $450K in incentives, Chris Cotillo of SB Nation tweets. There’s a June 1 opt-out date, Jon Heyman of Fan Rag tweets.
3:08pm: The Rangers have signed left-hander Jon Niese to a minor league contract, Ken Davidoff of the New York Post reports (via Twitter). The deal comes with an invitation to big league camp.
Since debuting in the majors in 2008, the 31-year-old Niese has mostly served as a capable starter. However, he’s essentially joining the Rangers off back-to-back lost seasons. As a starter and reliever in 2016, Niese combined for 121 innings of 5.50 ERA ball with the Mets and Pirates before undergoing season-ending knee surgery that August. He hasn’t been able to find a guaranteed contract since, as he inked a minor league deal with the Yankees last February and then another with the club shortly after it released him in March. Niese ended up going all of last season without pitching competitively for either the Yankees or any other organization.
With his new club, Niese will reunite with assistant pitching coach Dan Warthen, who was the Mets’ pitching coach during Niese’s two tenures with the team, as Jeff Wilson of the Star-Telegram notes on Twitter. The soft-tossing Niese generally fared well under Warthen’s tutelage in New York, where he logged a 3.99 ERA/3.88 FIP with 7.0 K/9 against 2.7 BB/9 across 188 appearances, 179 starts and 1,079 1/3 innings.
Given the uncertainty in Texas’ rotation beyond the unspectacular-looking quintet of Cole Hamels, Matt Moore, Mike Minor, Doug Fister and Martin Perez, who’s recovering from surgery to his non-throwing elbow, Niese could find himself back on a major league mound sometime in 2018. First, though, he’ll have to stick with the organization through the spring.
Dodgers Sign Mark Lowe To Minors Pact
The Dodgers have invited 22 non-roster players to spring training, including veteran reliever Mark Lowe, whom they signed to a minor league deal (names here via J.P. Hoornstra of the Southern California News Group, on Twitter). Left-hander Manny Banuelos, who was in serious talks with the Dodgers back in November, is also among those on the list.
The right-handed Lowe failed to crack the majors a year ago, instead dividing the season between the Triple-A affiliates of the Mariners and White Sox. The 34-year-old struggled across 48 2/3 innings at the minors’ highest level, with a 6.66 ERA and 8.0 K/9 against 4.3 BB/9. It was the second straight rough year for Lowe, whom the Tigers released last March after a 2016 campaign in which his velocity dropped and he recorded a 7.11 ERA, 8.94 K/9, 3.83 BB/9 and a 36.6 percent groundball rate over 49 1/3 frames. Even though they cut Lowe, the Tigers still had to pay his $5.5MM salary to close out the two-year, $11MM pact they awarded him in December 2015.
Lowe was excellent as recently as ’15 with Seattle and Toronto, which led to his sizable payday during the ensuing offseason, as he combined for career bests in ERA (1.96) and K/9 (9.98) across 55 innings. Lowe hasn’t been particularly consistent since debuting in the majors in 2006, however, as he has posted subpar production in several campaigns. All told, though, Lowe’s output has been passable – despite a below-average grounder rate (39.8 percent), he has registered a 4.22 ERA, 8.21 K/9 and 3.8 BB/9 in 385 2/3 innings with six MLB teams.
Brewers Designate Andrew Susac For Assignment
The Brewers announced that they’ve designated catcher Andrew Susac for assignment today in order to clear a spot on the roster for righty Matt Albers, whose previously reported two-year deal with the team is now official.
Susac, 27, was once one of baseball’s very best overall prospects, ranking in the Top 100 on multiple lists prior to the 2015 campaign and frequently appearing on the Giants’ organizational rankings. He went to Milwaukee in a 2016 swap that sent lefty Will Smith to San Francisco, though, and has struggled in both organizations over the past couple of seasons.
In 274 MLB plate appearances, Susac has batted just .232/.299/.396 with an alarming 82 strikeouts against 23 walks. He’s been more effective in his Triple-A career, hitting at a .247/.338/.425 clip, and strikeouts haven’t been nearly as much of an issue for him there. Durability, on the other hand, has been a major factor for the former second-rounder (Giants, 2011); Susac has appeared in more than 100 games just twice in a season, and he’s totaled just 142 games over the past two seasons combined. In his young career, Susac has already dealt with wrist, trapezius, finger and shoulder injuries on separate occasions.
With Manny Pina, Stephen Vogt and Jett Bandy all on the 40-man roster, the Brewers seemingly feel set on catching depth. It’s possible that Susac clears waivers and remains in the organization, though he does have a minor league option remaining, so he could hold appeal to another organization that is thin at the position.
MLBTR Chat Transcript: Darvish, Jays, Cobb, Harrison, LoMo, More
Click here to read a transcript of Tuesday’s chat with MLBTR’s Steve Adams.
Giants To Sign Gregor Blanco To Minor-League Deal
Jan. 30: FanRag’s Jon Heyman tweets that Blanco would earn $1MM upon making the MLB roster and can pocket another $500K based on plate-appearance incentives.
Jan. 29: The Giants and Gregor Blanco have agreed to terms on a contract that will bring the outfielder back to San Francisco. Blanco himself announced the reunion on his Instagram account. Chris Cotillo of SB Nation tweets that it’s a minor-league deal.
Blanco, 34, will return to a Giants team with whom he played from 2012-2016 and won two World Series rings. During his years in San Francisco, he was a roughly league-average hitter, slashing .259/.338/.360 (99 wRC+) across 2,054 plate appearances. A good portion of Blanco’s value came from his outfield defense and base-stealing ability. Though he never hit well during the postseason, he managed to walk 11.9% of the time during October of 2012 and 2014 combined, and crossed the plate a total of 20 times in 33 games.
Blanco’s tenure with the Giants game to an end following a 2016 season that saw him hit the DL in August with a right shoulder injury. The Diamondbacks elected to scoop him up on a minor-league deal last offseason, and the team ended up selecting his contract on May 5th following the transfer of the injured Shelby Miller to the 60-day DL. Blanco went on to hit .246/.337/.357 across 256 plate appearances while playing a reserve outfielder role.
Though Blanco is now 34 and his speed isn’t what it once was, he still has a shot to split playing time with the newly-signed Austin Jackson in center field. Indeed; a platoon combination of the two makes a lot of sense; the left-handed-hitting Blanco is a 98 wRC+ hitter against righties for his career, while his mark against lefties is 13 points beneath that. Meanwhile the right-handed-hitting Jackson absolutely demolished lefites last year, to the tune of a .357/.440/.574 batting line.
Reds Sign David Hernandez
1:30pm: Buchanan also reports that the contract contains up to $2MM worth of incentives — $1MM in each year (Twitter links). Hernandez would earn $50K for making his 40th appearance in each year of the deal, and he’d earn an additional $100K for his 45th, 50th, 55th and 60th appearances each season. He’ll also earn $150K for making his 65th and 70th appearances, and he can earn $125K for finishing 30 and 35 games in each year of the deal.
1:00pm: The Reds announced on Tuesday that they’ve signed free-agent right-hander David Hernandez to a two-year contract. Cincinnati’s 40-man roster is now full with the addition of the veteran reliever. Hernandez, a client of agent Jason Hoffman, will earn $2.5MM in both years of the contract, Zach Buchanan of the Cincinnati Enquirer reports (via Twitter).
Hernandez, 33, took a winding route to the Majors with the Angels last season, signing a minor league deal with the Giants before being granted his release, signing with the Braves, and ultimately being flipped to Anaheim in exchange for cash in late April. When he finally did arrive back in the Majors, the former closer enjoyed one of his most productive seasons and emerged as one of the Halos’ most dependable relievers.
In 36 1/3 innings with the Angels, Hernandez worked to a pristine 2.23 ERA with 9.2 K/9, 2.0 BB/9 and a 47.3 percent ground-ball rate. Hernandez benefited from his fair share of good fortune, namely in the sense that not a single fly-ball he allowed cleared the fence for a home run. Outside of that, however, his resurgence looked largely legitimate, and his former club, the Diamondbacks, saw fit to swing a trade to acquire him as they pushed for an NL Wild Card berth.
Things didn’t go quite as well for Hernandez in Arizona, as he logged a dismal 4.82 ERA, albeit with a terrific 15-to-1 K/BB ratio in 18 2/3 innings. Hernandez’s evasion of the long ball ran out in the desert, though, as he was tagged for four homers, helping to bloat his ERA despite generally more promising secondary metrics (4.09 xFIP, 3.62 SIERA).
[Related: Updated Cincinnati Reds depth chart & Cincinnati Reds payroll]
Overall, since returning from 2014 Tommy John surgery, Hernandez has been generally successful. An early stint as the Phillies’ closer in 2016 proved disastrous, but he rebounded with a strong finish to the season. Dating back to Opening Day 2015, he’s turned in a solid 3.68 ERA with 9.2 K/9, 2.9 BB/9 and 1.2 HR/9 in 161 1/3 innings while playing most of his home games in hitter-friendly settings (Arizona’s Chase Field, Philadelphia’s Citizens Bank Park).
Cincinnati’s closer role is locked down by emerging star Raisel Iglesias, but Hernandez will give manager Bryan Price an experienced arm to add to a setup corps that features Michael Lorenzen and fellow offseason signee Jared Hughes (who also inked a two-year pact in Cincinnati), as well as sophomore southpaw Wandy Peralta.
The two-year, $5MM term is an exact match (in terms of guaranteed money) with the contract to which fellow veteran Matt Albers agreed with the division-rival Brewers just yesterday. While the price is modest in nature, the contract does project the Reds to push slightly north of the $100MM threshold for what would be the fourth time in franchise history.
Photo courtesy of USA Today Sports Images.
Nori Aoki Reportedly Agrees To Three-Year Deal With NPB’s Yakult Swallows
After spending the past six seasons in Major League Baseball, outfielder Nori Aoki is reportedly headed back to Japan. Both the Kyodo News and Japan Times report that the 36-year-old Aoki has agreed to a three-year contract with the Yakult Swallows of Japan’s Nippon Professional Baseball. The CAA client’s deal is reported to be worth one billion Yen — or $9.19MM in total over that three-year term.
Aoki split the 2017 season between the Astros, Blue Jays and Mets, hitting a combined .277/.335/.393 with five homers and 10 steals over the course of 374 plate appearances. That marked the lowest total of plate appearances he’d received in a season since coming over from NPB with the Brewers in 2012, though his overall output at the plate was still only slightly below the league average in the estimation of metrics like OPS+ (98) and wRC+ (97).
That said, Aoki was one of many options for MLB teams on a crowded free-agent market for outfielders (MLBTR Free Agent Tracker link), and heading into his age-36 campaign, he was also one of the older players on that market. As the game increasingly gravitates away from guaranteeing significant commitments to players in their late 30s, it seems likely that Aoki would’ve had to settle for a minor league pact or a low-salary, one-year commitment from a big league team if he wished to continue playing in North America.
Instead, he’ll head back to the organization where he starred from from 2005-11 prior to making the move to Major League Baseball. In parts of eight seasons with Yakult, Aoki posted a hefty .329/.402/.454 batting line with 84 homers and 164 stolen bases. He’ll return as a well-traveled elder statesman on the tail end of his career, hoping to benefit the team both on the field as well as off the field as he shares his experiences with the organization’s younger talent.
Given that the reported contract will run through Aoki’s age-38 season, it seems quite likely that his days in the Majors could be over. If that indeed proves to be the case, then he more than held his own in the big leagues. The remarkably consistent Aoki hit between .277 and .288 in each of his six seasons here, and his on-base percentage never dipped below this past season’s mark of .335. In all, he batted .285/.350/.387 as a Major Leaguer, spending time with the Brewers, Royals (with whom he appeared in the 2014 World Series), Giants, Mariners, Astros, Blue Jays and Mets.
Photo courtesy of USA Today Sports Images.
Kevin Towers Passes Away
In a sudden piece of heartbreaking news, Bob Nightengale of USA Today Sports reports that former Padres and Diamondbacks general manager Kevin Towers has passed away at the age of 56. Towers had been diagnosed with anaplastic thyroid cancer back in December 2016.
Prior to his days as one of the game’s most prominent and recognizable executives, Towers broke into professional baseball as a player when he was selected by the Padres in the first round of the 1982 draft. A right-hander who starred at Brigham Young University, Towers would pitch in parts of eight minor league seasons that were slowed by injury before ultimately transitioning to the operations side of the game.
Well-respected for his scouting acumen, Towers parlayed his keen eye for player talent into a position as the Padres’ scouting director before ascending to their GM chair in 1996 — a position he’d occupy all the way through the 2009 season. That remarkable run is one of lengthier stints that any GM has enjoyed atop his organization in recent history.
San Diego won its division in two of Towers’ first three seasons at the helm and advanced to the World Series in 1998 under his watch. The Friars would go on to win the West on two more occasions under Towers’ guidance, taking home consecutive division crowns in the 2005-06 seasons. Never afraid to make a bold trade, Towers was affectionately referred to as the “gunslinger” for much of his career as a general manager.
Upon being dismissed after that 2009 season, Towers spent a year as a special assignment scout with the Yankees before being tabbed as the new general manager of the Diamondbacks. From 2010-14, Towers would hold that role, and it was during his tenure that the D-backs signed face of the franchise Paul Goldschmidt to one of the game’s best contracts.
Following his dismissal and replacement by the Dave Stewart/Tony La Russa regime, Towers joined the Reds as a special assistant to GM Dick Williams, specializing in player personnel — a role that he continued to hold even into his battle with cancer.
The immediate outpouring from the media, former players and others in the industry serves as a testament to Towers’ reputation as a venerable ambassador to the game of baseball, as well as to the love and respect that he fostered in more than three decades as a member of the MLB family. Yahoo’s Tim Brown has penned an especially poignant tribute to Towers, encapsulating the magnetic vigor that drew so many to him.
Our deepest condolences to his family, loved ones and the countless men and women both in the industry and the media whose lives he impacted over the course of a 35-year career in professional baseball.
Photo courtesy of Getty Images.
Royals Rumors: Hosmer, Hahn, Escobar, Mondesi
The Royals took a second cost-cutting step last night and added a pair of controllable right-handers, acquiring Jesse Hahn and minor leaguer Heath Fillmyer from the Athletics in a trade that sent lefty Ryan Buchter, first baseman/outfielder Brandon Moss and a reported $3.25MM in salary relief to help cover some of Moss’ contract. It’s the second cost-cutting measure of the winter for the rebuilding Royals, who’ve also traded Joakim Soria and controllable lefty Scott Alexander in a three-team deal with the White Sox and Dodgers.
Here’s the latest out of Kansas City in the wake of last night’s deal…
- “The economic part of it is very real to us,” GM Dayton Moore tells Rustin Dodd of the Kansas City Star. Dodd notes that the cost savings could be put toward a contract to bring Eric Hosmer back to Kansas City — a notion to which the Royals are reportedly very open in spite of their rebuilding initiatives. The Royals, according to Dodd, hope to open the season with a payroll in the $105-110MM range. That’s a tall order, considering they’re still still projected for a $113.7MM payroll even after shedding some of the Moss contract. Dodd notes that further salary-cutting trades could be on the horizon, though Moore stressed that no such move was close. (Nor, the GM said, is a free-agent signing.) The Royals could still jettison Jason Hammel‘s remaining $9MM salary (plus a $2MM option buyout) or market Kelvin Herrera and his $7.9375MM contract for the 2018 season.
- Dennis Lin of the San Diego Union Tribune reports that the Royals’ offer to Hosmer is believed to already be larger than the one made by the Padres, and freeing up some cash in the Moss trade only further benefits the Royals’ chances. The Padres would consider “tweaking” their offer if negotiations came down to a slim margin, he adds, but to date the Friars haven’t shown much of a willingness to substantially increase their bid.
- With Hahn out of minor league options, he’ll compete for a rotation job this coming spring, Moore told Dodd (in the previously-linked column). The righty has been plagued by injuries throughout his career, but he showed plenty of promise in 2014-15 with the Padres and A’s. He’ll vie for a rotation spot alongside Wily Peralta and Nate Karns (returning from TOS surgery). Danny Duffy and Ian Kennedy are locked into spots, of course, while Hammel (if he’s not traded) and Jake Junis figure to lock down spots as well. Fillmyer and Oaks are also on the 40-man roster, with other 40-man options including Sam Gaviglio, Eric Skoglund, Scott Barlow and Miguel Almonte.
- Alcides Escobar said yesterday after his one-year deal was announced that he had offers from other clubs but jumped at the chance to return to the Royals (link via MLB.com’s Jeffrey Flanagan). “I’ve been here for seven years, and I feel like I belong here in Kansas City,” said Escobar. “I got some offers outside. For me, I came back because I think it’s better here, that’s why I’m coming back.” Moore was noncommittal when it came to what the Escobar signing meant for young Raul Mondesi Jr., though he suggested that it might be tough for Mondesi to get everyday at-bats in the Majors. Mondesi is still in the team’s plans, though, the GM added, noting that he could play second base and is “good enough to play center field” as well.