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Nationals Pick Up Gio Gonzalez’s 2017 Option, Decline Yusmeiro Petit’s

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The Nationals have exercised left-hander Gio Gonzalez’s club option for 2017 and declined right-hander Yusmeiro Petit’s, the team announced. Gonzalez will earn $12MM next season, while Petit will hit the open market after receiving a $500K buyout from the Nats.

After logging ERAs ranging from 2.89 ERA to 3.79 in each season from 2010-15, Gonzalez allowed runs at a 4.57 clip per nine innings this year. Picking up Gonzalez’s option was a no-brainer in spite of that, though, especially given that the Nats could take advantage of a weak free agent market and use the 31-year-old as trade bait. Despite his bloated ERA, he still posted solid strikeout and walk rates of 8.68 and 2.99, and generated ground balls at a 47.6 percent clip. Gonzalez threw 177 1/3 innings, his highest total since 2013, and his $12MM club option for 2018 will vest if he manages to rack up 180 frames next season.

Like Gonzalez, Petit took a step back this year, but his was damaging enough for Washington to pass on him at an inexpensive cost for 2017. Petit’s 7.11 K/9 and 2.18 BB/9 aren’t far from his career averages, and he set a career high with a 41.5 percent grounder rate, but his 4.50 ERA across 62 innings is the worst figure he has put up since 2009. Left-handed hitters caused most of the damage this year, teeing off on Petit with a .269/.336/.588 line. He was far more effective against right-handers (.267/.295/.403) and will now try to catch on elsewhere as a bullpen option.

Phillies Decline 2017 Options For Ryan Howard, Charlie Morton

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The Phillies have declined their 2017 club options for first baseman Ryan Howard and right-hander Charlie Morton, per a team announcement. Philadelphia will now pay Howard a $10MM buyout in lieu of the $23MM that it would have owed the slugger had it picked up the option. Morton would have made $9.5MM next season, but he will receive a far more modest $1MM buyout instead.

The club’s decision to move on from Howard comes as no surprise, but it’s the end of a long era that was quite fruitful at times. A fifth-round pick in 2001, Howard debuted in earnest in 2005 and served as one of the majors’ preeminent home run threats from then until 2011. Howard clubbed at least 45 home runs in four seasons during that span, including a majors-best 58 in 2006 en route to National League MVP honors. Two years later, Howard once again paced the league with 48 long balls in a season that ended with the Phillies’ first World Series championship since 1980.

On the strength of his early success, the three-time All-Star signed a five-year, $125MM extension with the Phillies in April 2010, but the deal was mostly disastrous for the team. From that point forward, Howard batted an underwhelming .240/.314/.452 in 3,386 plate appearances, though he did add 160 more homers to give him 382 as a Phillie – second in club history to Mike Schmidt’s 548. Between his declining offense and inability to contribute as a baserunner or defender, Howard combined for a microscopic 0.4 fWAR during his final seven years with the franchise. The soon-to-be 37-year-old indicated in September that he wants to continue his career, but it’s likely his only hope will be to catch on as a designated hitter with an American League team. Even that might be a stretch, though, as Howard slashed just .196/.257/.453 in 362 PAs this year while ceding at-bats to Tommy Joseph.

Morton should fare better than Howard on the open market, but injuries have beset the 32-year-old throughout his career and that continued in 2016. After making just four starts, Morton underwent season-ending surgery on a torn left hamstring. The Phillies hoped Morton would serve as a veteran anchor to their young pitching staff upon acquiring him from the Pirates last December, but the injury prevented that from happening. When healthy, Morton has been a usable back-end option, having pitched to a 4.54 ERA while inducing grounders at a 55.4 percent clip in 893 career innings. From 2013-14, his best two-year stretch, Morton logged a 3.52 ERA and 58.9 percent ground-ball rate in 273 1/3 frames.

Twins Hire Rangers’ Thad Levine As GM

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The Twins have announced the hiring of former Rangers assistant general manager Thad Levine as their new senior vice president and GM. Though he’ll receive a promotion in terms of title, Levine will still serve as second-in-command to newly tabbed executive vice president/chief baseball officer Derek Falvey in the Twins’ baseball operations hierarchy.

“I couldn’t envision a better partner to help return championship-caliber baseball to Minnesota,” said Falvey. “Thad’s leadership and management experiences across all facets of baseball operations make him the perfect fit for the role, and I’m looking forward to executing our vision together.”

Levine, who will turn 45 on Nov. 12, had been with the Rangers since the 2005 season. His responsibilities in Texas included assisting GM Jon Daniels with player acquisition, roster composition, contract negotiations and statistical/financial analysis. He also oversaw the team’s international scouting operations. The veteran baseball executive also previously served as the senior director of baseball operations with the Rockies. He’ll bring to the Twins an executive with a long background in player development but also one who is quite familiar with more modern trends in statistical analysis.

According to La Velle E. Neal III of the Minnapolis Star Tribune, the Twins had interest in now-former Red Sox vice president of international scouting Amiel Sawdaye before he followed colleague Mike Hazen to Arizona. Mike Berardino of the St. Paul Pioneer Press reported that the Twins’ offer to Sawdaye was an assistant GM position, so he apparently was never in the running for the No. 2 spot that ultimately went to Levine. The fact that Minnesota was offering additional AGM slots to outside hires, though, does suggest that there could be further changes to the Twins’ front office even after adding Falvey and Levine.

Neal and Evan Grant of the Dallas Morning News first reported that the Twins would hire Levine. FanRag’s Jon Heyman reported Thursday that Levine’s hiring was imminent.

Cardinals Extend Mike Matheny Through 2020

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The Cardinals and manager Mike Matheny have agreed to a three-year contract extension that runs through the 2020 season, the team announced.

Matheny was previously in danger of entering the 2017 campaign as a lame duck, though owner Bill DeWitt Jr. gave the 46-year-old a vote of confidence in late September.

“Mike’s done a really good job for us,” said DeWitt. “There’s no thought that we’re going to go in any different direction.”

In terms of wins and losses, the five-year Matheny era has been a productive one for the Cardinals, who have finished with no fewer than 86 victories in any individual season and have made the playoffs four times. Overall, the club has gone 461-349 in the regular season under Matheny, whose crowning playoff achievement is a National League pennant in 2013. St. Louis missed the postseason this year, but general manager John Mozeliak doesn’t blame Matheny for that.

“Mike takes a lot of heat, and I’ve defended him and I will continue to,” Mozeliak said late in the regular season. “I really feel like some of the things that we’re dealing with aren’t fair to put on the manager.”

While Matheny has indeed taken heat from outside the Cardinals organization, it’s clear the team’s front office values the job he has done as the manager. If Matheny sees his extension through, it’ll give him 14 combined years with the franchise as a player and manager. The longtime major league catcher was the Cardinals’ primary backstop from 2000-2004.

Diamondbacks, Rockies Close To Hiring Managers

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9:08am: The D-backs are choosing between Lovullo and their Triple-A manager, Phil Nevin, according to Bob Nightengale of USA Today (Twitter link). They and the Rockies are likely to hire managers within the next 24 to 48 hours, per Nightengale. Wakamatsu, Marlins bench coach Tim Wallach, Cubs bench coach Dave Martinez and Indians first base coach Sandy Alomar Jr. are among several candidates who have come up as possible successors to Walt Weiss in Colorado.

7:52am: The Diamondbacks have already taken executives Mike Hazen (general manager) and Amiel Sawdaye (senior vice president/assistant GM) from the Red Sox in recent weeks. Next to emigrate from Boston to Arizona could be Red Sox bench coach Torey Lovullo, who interviewed for the Diamondbacks’ vacant managerial position Sunday, reports Evan Drellich of the Boston Herald.

The 51-year-old Lovullo has been regarded as the favorite for the Arizona job since Hazen took over the club’s baseball operations Oct. 16. Lovullo’s experience as a manager includes several minor league stints and interim work with the Red Sox in 2015, when skipper John Farrell was undergoing treatment for lymphoma. If Lovullo does join the Diamondbacks, he won’t be able to pilfer anyone from Farrell’s coaching staff to join him in Arizona, according to Drellich.

Lovullo is the third known managerial candidate who either has interviewed or will meet with the D-backs, joining Royals bench coach Don Wakamatsu and broadcaster/former major league player Alex Cora. There could be more names, too, as Hazen has expressed a desire to interview five to seven candidates.

Cubs Claim Conor Mullee From Yankees

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The Cubs were busy winning their first World Series since 1908 on Wednesday, but that didn’t stop them from adding to their 40-man roster. The club claimed right-hander Conor Mullee off waivers from the Yankees.

Mullee, 28, had been a member of the Yankees organization since going in the 24th round of the 2010 draft. Injuries have been highly problematic during his professional career, unfortunately, as he missed nearly all of the 2011-13 campaigns because of various surgeries – including a Tommy John procedure. Remarkably, Mullee persevered through those issues to make his major league debut in 2016, tossing three innings of one-run ball with the Yankees. However, he once again underwent surgery – this time to repair a nerve issue in his elbow – thus ending his season in August.

Over 162 career minor league frames, including 40 at the Triple-A level, Mullee has pitched to a stingy 2.00 ERA with impressive strikeout and walk rates of 9.1 and 2.6 per nine innings. That terrific body of work has helped earn Mullee a place on the World Series champions’ 40-man roster, at least for now.

Indians “Desire” To Re-Sign Mike Napoli

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If the Indians have it their way, there will be more parties at Napoli’s in Cleveland next season. General manager Mike Chernoff indicated before the team’s Game 7 World Series loss to the Cubs on Wednesday that the Indians would like to retain impending free agent first baseman/designated hitter Mike Napoli.

“We have a desire to have him here, and my sense is that he has a desire to be here,” Chernoff told Jerry Crasnick of ESPN.com.“That’s something we’ll have to address once the World Series is over.”

With the season now in the books, the Indians have a five-day window to exclusively negotiate with Napoli, who will become eligible to sign someplace else Nov. 8 if he and the Indians don’t reach a deal by then. Reeling in Napoli won’t be as easy as it was for Cleveland last offseason, when it inked him to a one-year, $7MM contract in January. Napoli was coming off one of the worst seasons of his career then, having hit a below-average .224/.324/.410 with 18 home runs in 469 plate appearances divided between Boston and Texas. The 35-year-old slugger rebounded during the regular season for the American League Central-winning Indians, with whom he slashed .239/.335/.465 with 34 homers in 645 PAs and became a fan favorite and important clubhouse presence. Napoli then collected just nine hits and a single HR in 51 postseason trips to the plate for the AL pennant winners, but that small sample of poor production shouldn’t have much of an effect on his stock.

In the event Cleveland and Napoli aren’t able to reach a new agreement in the coming days, the team will have the right to issue him a qualifying offer by the Nov. 7 deadline, though that could be an agonizing decision. If Napoli accepts, it would force the Indians to allocate a lofty chunk of payroll ($17.2MM) to him in 2017. Although Napoli was a key member of the Indians’ lineup and clubhouse this year, his limitations as a defender and baserunner significantly weaken his value. Not receiving a QO could work out better for Napoli, who would hit the open market without draft pick compensation scaring away potential suitors.

The MLB Offseason Begins

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The 2016 Major League Baseball season ended Wednesday at Progressive Field in Cleveland with one of the most memorable Game 7s in the history of the sport. It took four-plus hours, 10 innings and a rain delay, but the Cubs defeated the Indians, 8-7, to overcome a 3-1 series deficit and break their 108-year World Series drought.

One of many heroes for Chicago was left fielder Ben Zobrist, who delivered a tie-breaking double off Indians reliever Bryan Shaw in the top of the 10th. That was the 10th hit of the Fall Classic for Zobrist, who took home World Series MVP honors. After winning a title with the Royals last November, Zobrist joined the Cubs in free agency on a four-year, $56MM deal during the offseason. The Zobrist acquisition will go down as one of seemingly countless great moves by the Cubs’ front office, led by president and chief architect Theo Epstein. Having now put so-called curses in Boston and Chicago to rest, Epstein has cemented his place in Cooperstown.

While Epstein, general manager Jed Hoyer and the rest of the Cubs’ executives will savor this triumph, their work won’t stop. With the major league offseason already starting Thursday, the Cubs will spend the next several months trying to put their roster in position to repeat in 2017. Meanwhile, the majors’ other 29 franchises will attempt to make the moves necessary to overtake the Cubs. Maybe one of those teams will even sign next fall’s version of Zobrist during the upcoming winter.

With that preamble out of the way, here are some of the offseason’s key dates:

  • Nov. 3: Beginning at 9 a.m. ET, teams will have an exclusive five-day negotiation window with their impending free agents.
  • Nov. 7: By 5 p.m. ET, teams must submit qualifying offers to their upcoming free agents. The QO is worth $17.2MM, up from $15.8MM last year. This is also the deadline for clubs to exercise their 2017 options over players whose contracts include them.
  • Nov. 8-10: General managers’ meetings in Scottsdale, Ariz. While not as active as December’s Winter Meetings, the groundwork for many trades and signings will take place here, and a few moves figure to be completed.
  • Nov. 8: Free agents become eligible to sign with any team.
  • Nov. 14: Players must choose to accept or reject qualifying offers by 5 p.m. ET. Those who decline will become free agents.
  • Dec. 1: The collective bargaining agreement between the league and the players’ union expires. Click here for the latest on CBA negotiations.
  • Dec. 2: Deadline for teams to decide whether to tender contracts to their arbitration-eligible players. The free agent market should expand to some degree on this day, albeit with relatively minor names.
  • Dec. 4-8: Winter Meetings in National Harbor, Md. This period is among the most chaotic of the year for those who follow trades and free agency — often even more so than the days leading up to the non-waiver trade deadline. MLBTR will provide extensive coverage while the Winter Meetings are in effect. The meetings with conclude with the Rule 5 draft on Dec. 8.

If you’d like to prepare for the madness ahead, check out the free agent list Steve Adams and Tim Dierkes have been updating since March 2015 (please let us know via the contact form if there are any omissions). MLBTR contributor Matt Swartz’s arbitration projections are a must-read every year, as is the writing staff’s Offseason Outlook series. We’ll also check in on some soon-to-be available players with our Free Agent Profile series, and Tim will rank the 50 best free agents of this year’s class by potential earning power and predict where each will sign. Although the open market won’t be rife with appealing free agents this offseason, the next few months will still feature plenty of excitement. We’re looking forward to covering the action.

NL East Notes: WBC, Nats, Gonzalez, Blevins, Braves

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For those of you looking for some rain delay reading during one of the craziest games in World Series history, here are a few notes from the NL East…

  • Nationals right fielder Bryce Harper isn’t likely to participate in the upcoming World Baseball Classic, but ace Max Scherzer is open to the idea, writes Chelsea Janes of the Washington Post. The WBC provides players with an opportunity to represent their country on a global stage but can be a source of scrutiny as well due to the enhanced risk of injury and, in pitchers’ cases, the increased workload they face when voluntarily adding some intense innings to their schedule before the regular season even gets underway.
  • Janes also writes that the Nationals are likely to exercise their $12MM club option on lefty Gio Gonzalez. That doesn’t come as a significant surprise, as the free-agent market is devoid of starting pitching talent and, as she notes, Gonzalez would figure to command multi-year offers if he reached the open market. Furthermore, his contract contains a vesting option for the 2018 season, so he has two years of club control remaining, so long as he reaches 180 innings pitched in 2017. That’s no sure thing for Gonzalez, who is prone to abbreviated outings and high pitch counts. Those factors and the Nats’ bevy of young arms could prompt the team to explore the trade market for Gonzalez if they decide they’d like to move on, Janes notes, but I’d have to agree that simply declining his option makes little sense even if the team’s preference is to get younger.
  • The Mets would like to have Jerry Blevins back in 2017 and covet a veteran lefty specialist to complement southpaws Josh Smoker and Josh Edgin, per ESPN New York’s Adam Rubin, but team officials expect that the 33-year-old Blevins will find a fairly lucrative multi-year deal in free agency this winter. Blevins was effective in 2016, tossing 42 innings of 2.79 ERA ball with 11.1 K/9, 3.2 BB/9 and a 45.8 percent ground-ball rate while earning a $4MM salary. A multi-year pact does indeed seem possible for the lefty in spite of some curious reverse platoon splits. The .258/.313/.324 line that Blevins yielded to lefties appears to be largely driven by a .368 BABIP from same-handed opponents, and the .637 OPS that he surrendered is hardly a robust mark anyhow.
  • The Braves have hired Orioles bullpen coach Dom Chiti as their new senior director of pitching, according to MASNsports.com’s Roch Kubatko (Twitter links). Atlanta is also adding former O’s pitching coach Dave Wallace, per Kubatko. Wallace will function as a roving instructor throughout the team’s minor league system. Eduardo A. Encina of the Baltimore Sun writes that Wallace signed a two-year deal with the Braves and adds that the loss is notable for the Orioles organization, pointing out that Zach Britton credits the duo with his development into the dominant closer he has become.

Aaron Nola Completes Throwing Program, Expects To Be Ready For 2017

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Right-hander Aaron Nola gave Phillies fans a scare when his season ended due to “low-grade” damage to the ulnar collateral ligament and the flexor tendon his right elbow and forearm, but his agent, Joe Longo of Paragon Sports, tells Matt Gelb of the Philadelphia Inquirer that the promising young righty completed a throwing program and has been declared healthy. Dr. James Andrews recommended a cautious approach to Nola’s rehab and didn’t consider surgery, per Gelb, and the team and Nola both came away from his October throwing program feeling healthy.

Certainly, that’s a sigh of relief for the Phillies, who are banking on the former No. 7 overall pick (2014) to pitch near the front of, if not at the front of their rotation for the foreseeable future. Nola had an encouraging debut in 2015, tossing 77 2/3 innings of 3.59 ERA ball as a rookie. His 2016 season looked to be a significant step forward before a rapid decline in performance that culminated in a season-ending trip to the DL. The LSU product was sporting a 2.65 ERA with 85 strikeouts against 15 walks to go along with a 53.9 percent ground-ball rate through his first 78 innings this season (12 starts). ERA estimators like FIP, xFIP and SIERA all agreed with that bottom-line result, pegging Nola for a sub-3.00 mark.

A healthy Nola would give the Phillies an impressive young trio atop their rotation, as he’d join fellow righties Vince Velasquez and Jerad Eickhoff (acquired from the Astros and Rangers, respectively) in the starting mix. All three pitchers have demonstrated the ability to miss bats (Nola and Velasquez more than Eickhoff) with at least average control. Durability remains a question mark for both Nola and Velasquez, but that’s a terrific start to a rotation that can be controlled through the 2021 season. Looking elsewhere in the rotation, the final two spots are unsettled, though Philadelphia has myriad options from which to choose. Young right-handers Zach Eflin, Jake Thompson and Alec Asher all pitched in the Majors this season and will all get looks in Spring Training (that is, if Eflin is able to fully recover from surgery on each of his knees by that point). Young righty Ben Lively, too, could find himself in the mix next spring as well.

Additionally, the Phillies have been linked to veteran rotation help this winter, suggesting that they’re perhaps interested in bringing someone in to fill a similar role to the one occupied by Jeremy Hellickson in 2016. While there’s an outside chance that Hellickson himself could return to reclaim that role, he’s widely expected to reject a qualifying offer (valued at $17.2MM) in search of a more lucrative multi-year deal in free agency this winter.

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