Blue Jays Sign Domonic Brown To Minors Deal
The Blue Jays have agreed to a minor league deal with former Phillies top prospect Domonic Brown, tweets Ben Nicholson-Smith of Sportsnet.ca. The Scott Boras client will receive an invitation to Spring Training.
Brown, 28, was an All Star in 2013 when he hit 12 home runs during the month of May as part of a .272/.324/.494 campaign with 27 home runs. Aside from that one fantastic month, Brown has generally offered below average offensive production. Injuries limited him to a .228/.284/.349 line in just 204 plate appearances last season. The outfielder has also graded poorly defensively.
The Blue Jays have a strong reputation for getting the most out of their hitters. Their biggest successes include Jose Bautista and Edwin Encarnacion, although they’ve also received value from lesser players like Danny Valencia and Justin Smoak. Brown is a potential platoon option with Chris Colabello if Michael Saunders fails to stay healthy and Dalton Pompey is deemed unready. He may also serve as minor league inventory with the likes of Junior Lake, Darrell Ceciliani, and others.
MLBTR Seeking Agency Data
We do our best here at MLBTR to keep an updated agency database. However, there are always a few gaps. Currently, I’m working on a project to determine how much 2015 WAR is represented by each agency, basically an update of this post. However, we are lacking agency information for the 23 players listed below. If you know who represents any of these players, please email us at mlbtrdatabase@gmail.com. Also, if your agency has inaccurate info in our database, please let us know and we’ll correct it. Thanks!
Analytics Notes: Red Sox, Phillies
Red Sox owner John Henry spent two months “under the hood” of the team’s analytics process late last season, writes Brian MacPherson of the Providence Journal. What he found led to the hiring of Dave Dombrowski who is well regarded as a talent evaluator. Now the Red Sox are poised to pivot away from their past role as Moneyball with money.
Per Henry, “A lot of our advantage was purely financial. We were never as far toward analytics as people thought we were.” The club has spent the second most on payroll since 2002 which helped to mask a multitude of mistakes. In particular, Henry noted an overemphasis on using past performance to project future ability. That could be why the Sox were more bullish about Hanley Ramirez and Pablo Sandoval than other clubs. While those are just two of the most glaring examples, Henry says the same evaluative techniques failed up and down the roster. While it’s popular to quip that Boston should have signed Jon Lester or traded for Cole Hamels prior to 2015, there were too many problems with the roster.
During the Theo Epstein era, the Red Sox had a blend of scouting and analytics, but that balance may have been lost upon his departure, writes Yahoo’s Jeff Passan. However, the shift in strategy could be an overcorrection. In particular, Dombrowski is known for using trades of minor leaguers to bolster the major league club. He’s already executed one high profile move in acquiring Craig Kimbrel. The previous front office seemed to emphasize developing talent, with players like Mookie Betts, Xander Bogaerts, and Blake Swihart representing the first wave of talent.
In an interesting reversal, the Phillies are now making strides to become more analytically proficient. If the Red Sox were the team most synonymous with sabermetrics, the Phillies were usually identified as the most traditionalist club. Now the two franchises are moving in opposite directions.
Director of baseball research and development Andy Galdi will drive the analytics process in Philadelphia, writes Todd Zolecki of MLB.com. The 30-year-old former Google and YouTube employee praised the Phillies’ recent efforts in building their PHIL computer system. Galdi also mentioned the important marriage between scouting and analytics, emphasizing that the two need to work hand and hand.
Galdi believes uncertainty is the missing piece in baseball analysis. Statistics shouldn’t be used to say a player will do X. Rather a range of possibilities should be identified with scouts helping to narrow the focus. It’s important to note that all statistics come with a margin of error. For what it’s worth, sabermetricians have emphasized the importance of error margins for years.
NL Central Notes: Epstein, Holliday, McCutchen, Hamilton
The Cubs had the best offseason according to FanGraphs’ David Cameron. The additions of Jason Heyward, Ben Zobrist, John Lackey, and Adam Warren to the talented ball club will help even out the performances of younger boom or bust talents. Cameron had only one critique – signing a true center fielder would have let the Cubs put Heyward in a more comfortable spot while taking pressure off Kyle Schwarber and Jorge Soler. Cameron graded the offseason of all 30 teams in his post so go ahead and see what he has to say about your favorite. The Brewers rebuild ranked second.
Here’s more from the NL Central:
- Cubs chairman Tom Ricketts plans to once again make Theo Epstein the highest paid executive in baseball, writes Bruce Levine of CBS Chicago. When Epstein originally joined the franchise on a five-year, $18.5MM contract, it was the largest ever signed by an executive. Since then, others have surpassed him – most notably Andrew Friedman of the Dodgers. Ricketts emphasized that Epstein has delivered on his promises to build a perennial contender and therefore deserves to be compensated as the best. He also noted that it’s a low stress conversation because of their good working relationship.
- The Cardinals won’t be making any decisions on Matt Holliday‘s 2017 club option until after the season, writes Derrick Gould of the St. Louis Dispatch. Holliday is in the final guaranteed year of a seven-year, $120MM contract. Notably, his $17MM option for 2017 comes with just a $1MM buy out making it a $16MM decision for the club. Holliday has also approached the club in the past about deferring money in his contract.
- Pirates chairman Bob Nutting spoke to reporters about the next CBA, writes Bill Brink of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. As a low revenue club, access to talent is the team’s top concern. In the past, they used large amateur budgets to build their current contending roster. The most recent CBA closed off these avenues of spending. Further, the club’s recent success has compounded the issue since they receive lower draft picks and budgets for winning. Nutting declined to comment on specifics. Nutting also reiterated that the club will “try to find an opportunity” to extend Andrew McCutchen.
- Reds manager Bryan Price hopes speedy outfielder Billy Hamilton can grow into a leadoff role, writes Mark Sheldon of MLB.com. Hamilton is just a career .242/.287/.324 hitter. Despite excellent base running, including 126 stolen bases in 1,087 plate appearances, few players could earn regular reps with that triple slash. With Hamilton, his elite defense guarantees him a regular role, per Price. Now it’s just a matter of finding where his bat plays. FanGraphs’ WAR metric agrees with Price. Hamilton has compiled 6.1 WAR putting him on a 3-4 WAR pace per full season.
Orioles, Yovani Gallardo Agree To Restructured Deal
7:54am: The Orioles have announced the deal. A press conference is scheduled for 1:45pm. In a related move, Baltimore has designated Efren Navarro for assignment.
FEB 24, 6:24pm: Ken Rosenthal of FOX Sports tweets that the option would bring the deal’s total value to $33MM, if exercised. Eduardo A. Encina of the Baltimore Sun reports that Gallardo will earn $9MM in 2016 and $11MM in 2017 (Twitter link). The option is a $13MM club option with a $2MM buyout.
6:14pm: Jon Heyman reports that the new contract will guarantee Gallardo $22MM over two years (Twitter link).
5:52pm: The Orioles and right-hander Yovani Gallardo have agreed to a restructured contract, reports MASNsports.com’s Roch Kubatko (links to Twitter). The new contract is a two-year deal that contains a club option for a third year, per Kubatko, who adds that the contract “is done.” The Octagon client had originally agreed to a three-year, $35MM pact, but his physical exam revealed a shoulder issue that reportedly gave the Orioles trepidation about those terms.
Gallardo, 30 on Saturday, will slot into an Orioles rotation that was in desperate need of some stability. While he won’t give Baltimore the front-end starter that many feel it requires (and that Gallardo looked to be earlier in his career), he’ll provide manager Buck Showalter with a durable arm to deploy alongside fellow right-handers Chris Tillman, Kevin Gausman, Miguel Gonzalez and Ubaldo Jimenez. The addition of Gallardo likely pushes right-hander Vance Worley out of the rotation, creating somewhat of a crunch in the bullpen, where T.J. McFarland had been poised to be the team’s long man.
The 2015 campaign marked Gallardo’s first season in the American League after having spent his entire career with the Brewers. The Mexican-born righty worked to a strong 3.42 ERA in 184 1/3 innings of work, though his strikeout rate (5.9 K/9) and walk rate (3.3 BB/9) each took notable steps back from his final season with Milwuakee. That decline in strikeout rate marked the third consecutive season in which Gallardo’s K/9 rate had dipped, having fallen all the way from 9.0 back in 2012 to last year’s rate; on a perhaps related note, the 90.4 mph which Gallardo averaged on his fastball in 2015 was a career-low and a considerable departure from the 92.4 mph he averaged from 2009-12.
Statistical red flags aside, Gallardo maintained the improved ground-ball rate that he’s displayed over the past three seasons and he once again avoided the disabled list. Gallardo has never been on the DL due to an arm injury — his most notable injury was a torn ACL suffered in 2008, though he recovered and pitched excellently in the four seasons to follow — and he’s made 30 or more starts in each season since 2009. Critics will note that Gallardo, while durable, doesn’t necessarily profile as an innings eater due to the fact that he doesn’t go particularly deep into games (indeed, he averaged just under 5 2/3 innings per start last year), the Orioles do possess a rather solid bullpen that can help to mask any per-start innings questions that arise with Gallardo.
Once official, the Gallardo signing and the reported agreement with outfielder Dexter Fowler will mean that the Orioles are forfeiting their top two picks in the 2016 Rule 4 Draft this June. (The Rangers, in turn, will receive a compensatory pick between the first and second round of the draft.) For a club that recently rated among the worst farm systems in the game according to ESPN and Baseball America, that’s a significant blow, but the Orioles’ clear offseason message is that present-day winning takes precedence over the club’s minor league system at time. Baltimore has re-signed Chris Davis to a seven-year, $161MM contract, re-signed Darren O’Day to a four-year, $31MM contract, agreed to a three-year, $33MM deal with Fowler, seen Matt Wieters accept a $15.8MM qualifying offer and signed Korean outfielder Hyun Soo Kim to a two-year, $7MM pact. Add in Gallardo’s $22MM, and that creates a total free-agent spend of $269.8MM, which doesn’t even include the $9.15MM in payroll that Baltimore absorbed in trading for presumptive designated hitter Mark Trumbo.
Much has been and will continue to be made of the Orioles’ stringent standards when it comes to the requisite physical exams that come along with free-agent signings, but their physical being tough to pass is nothing new. As recently as the 2013-14 offseason, the O’s scrapped a two-year deal for reliever Grant Balfour and a one-year deal for Tyler Colvin due to concerns that arose with the duo’s medical evaluations, and their history of either restructuring contracts or backing out of them entirely based on physicals dates all the way back to their 1998 pursuit of right-hander Xavier Hernandez. Kubatko took a lengthy look at the club’s history of controversial physical exams this morning.
Indians Unlikely To Add Further Free Agents
The Indians have been somewhat loosely connected to outfielder Austin Jackson in the past week, but Paul Hoynes of the Cleveland Plain Dealer writes that Cleveland is “pretty much tapped out as far as payroll goes,” and specifically calls out Jackson as an unlikely target for the team.
The Indians have spent a combined $12.25MM on Mike Napoli and Rajai Davis this winter, and they recently agreed to terms with infielder Juan Uribe to add a further option at the hot corner. ESPN’s Buster Olney reported tonight that Uribe’s guarantee is $4MM, bringing Cleveland’s free-agent expenditures to a fairly modest $16.25MM. The entirety of that $16.25MM will be added to the club’s 2016 payroll, however, which currently sits at about $93.435MM by my rough estimate (h/t: Cot’s Contracts) after factoring in money owed to Chris Johnson and the $15MM Cleveland included in the trade to acquire Johnson while shedding Michael Bourn and Nick Swisher. That figure eclipses last season’s Opening Day mark of just under $88MM.
Even if the match between Cleveland and Jackson is unlikely or impossible, it’s easy to see how the connection would’ve made sense. Michael Brantley is among the game’s best outfielders, but he’s recovering from shoulder surgery and isn’t expected to be ready come Opening Day. Beyond Brantley, the veteran Davis can see time all over the outfield, but the rest of the mix features Abraham Almonte, Collin Cowgill and Lonnie Chisenhall — none of whom comes with much of a track record in the Majors.
As far as Jackson goes, the apparent removal of Cleveland as a suitor for his services further clouds an uncertain situation for the former Rookie of the Year runner up. While Jackson’s production at the plate has taken somewhat of a dip in the past two seasons (about 10 percent below average, per park-adjusted metrics OPS+ and wRC+), he’s rated as an average center fielder in that time per UZR and DRS. In addition to the Indians, Jackson been thinly connected to the White Sox, Rangers, Cubs, Brewers and Angels over the past five weeks. Texas, though, is said to be in a similar boat to the Indians in terms of payroll (or, at least, reportedly does not want to spend additional funds). The Brewers, meanwhile, haven’t given any indication that they’re pursuing outfield help, and the Angels are perilously close to the luxury tax barrier that they’re reportedly loath to exceed.
Lazarito Changes Representation
FEB. 24: Lazarito and his family refute the notion that they’re in any danger, Rosenthal writes in a new column. Lazaro Sr. tells Rosenthal that his family is in “absolute control” of its travel documentation and elected not to travel to the U.S. to meet with the Braves because only Lazarito, and not his parents, were invited. (Rosenthal notes that a second source confirmed the accuracy of that statement.)
Lazarito has already hired Octagon as his new representation, though the timing of the entire agency shuffle is rather bizarre, as Lazarito’s family claimed that Hairston’s comments were the impetus for the change in representation, but Hairston was claiming to no longer be representing Lazarito at the time he made his comments. Additionally, securing new representation in a matter of one day seems unlikely. Hairston followed up with Rosenthal and maintained that buscon is driving the thought process of the family in an effort to steer them toward signing with a particular team.
FEB. 23: Agent Charles Hairston and the Culture39 agency will no longer be representing Cuban outfielder Lazaro Armenteros after Hairston tells Ken Rosenthal and Jon Paul Morosi of FOX Sports that his life was threatened by a trainer/agent out of the Dominican Republic who also represents Armenteros. At least for the time being, Hairston will no longer be representing the Cuban phenom known as “Lazarito,” and there is now great uncertainty about when or how Armenteros will sign.
Many young players from Latin America are represented by trainers/agents known as “buscones,” who take these players under their wing as children and train, feed and house them in makeshift training camps. In exchange for helping develop the skills of these promising talents, a buscon will then receive roughly 20-25 percent of a player’s future salary if he should go on to sign a pro contract, Hairston explains. The rather unregulated nature of the buscon/player business relationship has led to other issues in the past — for instance, when multiple buscones lay claim to the same player, or when Leonys Martin was sued by a Mexican baseball academy for allegedly not paying the full share of what the academy felt was owed.
This situation with Lazarito’s buscon and Hairston is of an even more chilling nature, with Hairston declining to name the buscon out of concerns for the safety of Culture39 employees. According to Hairston, the buscon withheld travel documents from Lazarito and his parents, making them unable to travel from the Dominican Republic to the United States for a meeting Hairston had arranged with a team’s GM and ownership group.
“I feel for the kid. He is truly special. We are still looking forward to working with him when he comes to the United States once his situation is resolved….But when his safety and ours is put in jeopardy, we had to think about what is most important in life,” Hairston said.
The dispute allegedly centered around the buscon’s desire that Armenteros sign a contract as soon as possible, as opposed to waiting until the new international signing period opens on July 2. (When Hairston last discussed his ex-client’s situation two weeks ago, he noted that their camp was still uncertain as to when Armenteros would sign.) Signing in the current international class or the next would greatly shuffle the list of teams eligible to sign the 16-year-old, as his likely bonus would instantly put a team over its spending pool limit and subject it to a virtual two-year ban on blue chip international prospects. Such teams as the Dodgers, Cubs, Giants and Royals have already exceeded their cap in the current spending period and could add to their bounty by signing Lazarito now, while waiting past July 2 would freeze those teams out (as their penalties would begin) and clear the path for other clubs known to be planning a big splurge in the next international period, such as the Braves, Phillies and Padres. Rosenthal and Morosi list the Dodgers, Padres and Braves as three teams with interest in Armenteros.
Infield Notes: Desmond, Rox, Mariners, Yanks, Uribe, Alvarez, Freese
The Washington Post’s Barry Svrluga spoke to a number of GMs to get their takes on how draft pick compensation for his latest piece on Ian Desmond and other players that have been burdened by the qualifying offer. As Svrluga notes, former National Denard Span was able to secure a three-year deal despite playing in just 61 games last season and undergoing hip surgery late in the year. “Whether that pick is there or not is huge,” said Giants GM Bobby Evans, who signed Span to the aforementioned three-year, $31MM contract. “It just comes down to cost vs. benefit: How will that free agent benefit your club in the coming year and years ahead vs. the cost — which is not only financial now. It’s also a prospect. In that way, you have to think of it like a trade.” Svrluga also spoke to Padres GM A.J. Preller, White Sox GM Rick Hahn and Angels GM Billy Eppler, the latter of whom explained that while each club values draft picks slightly differently, every team assigns a monetary value to draft selections and stressed the importance of draft picks.
Some more notes on the infield market…
- With the possibility of a Jose Reyes suspension looming, Rockies prospect Trevor Story has put himself in a position to potentially break camp with the club, writes Patrick Saunders of the Denver Post. While service time considerations are often a factor when determining the timing of a player’s promotion to the Majors, GM Jeff Bridich tells Saunders that won’t factor into the team’s decision with Story. “That’s not really a consideration,” said Bridich. “I haven’t thought about that one second. I hope he, and every player, makes all of these decisions difficult.” As Saunders notes, with Story, Daniel Descalso, Christian Adames and Rafael Ynoa all serving as options, the Rox are content with their internal options.
- MLB.com’s Thomas Harding further pumps the brakes on any Desmond/Rockies connection, tweeting that the Rockies haven’t really discussed pursuing a veteran option as an alternative to Reyes, and contact with Desmond’s camp has been minimal, despite prior reports.
- The Mariners are checking in with veteran infielders that could potentially make the club and see some time at shortstop as a backup to Ketel Marte, reports Bob Dutton of the Tacoma News Tribune. Seattle briefly reached out to Jimmy Rollins prior to his deal with the White Sox, Dutton adds. While the Mariners have Luis Sardinas and Chris Taylor as backup options to Marte, neither has much Major League experience, nor does Marte himself, although Marte was somewhat quietly excellent in his rookie season last year.
- Joel Sherman of the New York Post feels that the Yankees are making a mistake by relying on Starlin Castro and Rob Refsnyder as backup options to Chase Headley at third base. Neither player has much in the way of experience at the position, he notes, and while Chase Headley played in 156 games last season, he’s played through a herniated disk in his back and would probably be better-suited to play something closer to 130 games per year, in Sherman’s opinion. Sherman lists some options that the Yankees could keep an eye on in Spring Training as teams evaluate players on the fringe of their 25-man rosters. Interestingly, he notes that New York made a minor league offer to Juan Uribe as well before Uribe took a big league offer to serve as Cleveland’s primary third baseman.
- Pedro Alvarez will seemingly wait to if any additional opportunities present themselves during Spring Training before signing, as ESPN’s Buster Olney wrote in yesterday’s blog post (Insider required). Olney texted agent Scott Boras about his client and was met with the following reply: “Waiting for the best situation. As with all valued players the demand increases as spring training begins.” Interest in the defensively challenged Alvarez has been tepid thus far, but spring injuries often do create opportunities for players seeking a home. An injury to a club’s designated hitter or first baseman could create a suitor for Alvarez that doesn’t presently exist.
- The Angels never presented David Freese with a formal offer when the two sides were discussing a potential reunion earlier this winter, reports MLB.com’s Alden Gonzalez. Rather, the Angels shifted focus on picked up Yunel Escobar, whose fairly modest $7MM salary was a key to his acquisition, writes Gonzalez. Angels right fielder Kole Calhoun expressed some bewilderment that his former teammate hasn’t hooked on with a club yet, praising Freese as a positive not only on the field but in the clubhouse as well. “I don’t really know what’s going on,” Calhoun told Gonzalez. “It’s kind of crazy. … Good player, great in the clubhouse. It’s as surprising to me as it is to anyone around baseball.”
Brewers Sign Blaine Boyer To Minor League Deal
FEB. 24: Boyer would earn $950K in the Majors and has another $250K worth of incentives built into his contract, reports Mike Berardino of the St. Paul Pioneer Press (via Twitter).
FEB. 12: The Brewers announced on Friday that they have signed right-hander Blaine Boyer to a minor league contract with an invitation to Major League Spring Training.
Boyer, 34, spent the 2015 season in the Twins’ bullpen and put up outstanding bottom-line results in spite of a notable lack of strikeouts. The Aegis Sports Management client appeared in 65 games with Minnesota, tallying 68 innings with a sparkling 2.49 ERA. He averaged 2.6 walks per nine innings and recorded a strong 47.6 percent ground-ball rate, but Boyer also averaged just 4.6 strikeouts per nine with the Twins. The lack of missed bats led metrics like FIP, xFIP and SIERA to peg him in the 4.00 to 4.40 range.
Those numbers aside, Boyer was an effective member of the Twins’ bullpen last season, marking his second straight year of quality contributions in a big league ‘pen after a long layoff from the game. As Boyer explained to MLBTR’s Zach Links in Spring Training with the Twins last season, he actually retired from baseball following the 2011 season, but his love for the game brought him back to the Majors in 2014. Since resurfacing in the Majors, Boyer has a 2.91 ERA in 105 1/3 innings between the Padres and Twins. Considering the large number of open spots in the bullpen behind Jeremy Jeffress, Will Smith, Corey Knebel and Michael Blazek, Boyer seems to have a solid chance at cracking the big league roster if he enjoys a strong Spring Training.
Ruben Tejada Awarded Extra Service Time, Will Be Free Agent Next Winter
As part of his arbitration settlement this offseason, the Mets awarded shortstop Ruben Tejada with an extra day of service time, reports Ken Davidoff of the New York Post (via Twitter). As such, Tejada, who had previously had four years, 171 days of service time and would’ve missed free agency by a single day at season’s end, will now be eligible for free agency next winter.
The decision almost certainly stems from a potential grievance that was being mulled by Tejada’s representatives at the Legacy Agency back in 2013. It’s not clear whether a grievance was ever formally filed, but the Mets waited three days between the end of the Triple-A season on Sept. 7 and Tejada’s Sept. 10 callup to the Majors, leaving him with two years, 171 days of service time that season. Had the club called him up on Sept. 8 or Sept. 9, he’d have reached three full years of service time and qualified as a free agent following the 2016 season. Instead, the delay left him eligible for free agency post-2017.
The extra day of service time awarded in this offseason’s arbitration settlement renders that situation moot, as Tejada will now be granted free agency upon completion of the 2016 campaign after earning $3MM this year. While Tejada’s presence doesn’t add a star-caliber player to the upcoming 2016-17 free agent market, he does serve as another experienced middle infield option for clubs seeking help at shortstop and/or second base next offseason. The coming winter’s class of shortstops looks to be particularly thin, as it’ll be highlighted Erick Aybar at present. Resurgent seasons for Alexei Ramirez or Jimmy Rollins could add some appeal to that class, and the possibility of a one-year deal for Ian Desmond looms, so he could ultimately be a factor on next year’s shortstop market as well.
Tejada will be an exceptionally young free agent, hitting the market in advance of his age-27 season, which should play in his favor. However, he’s left without a path to everyday at-bats in New York this season with Asdrubal Cabrera and Neil Walker slated to handle up-the-middle duties and Wilmer Flores serving as competition for middle infield time as well. Tejada has batted .249/.340/.330 with eight homers and three steals in a total of 826 plate appearances over the past two seasons. Defensive metrics like Ultimate Zone Rating and Defensive Runs Saved feel that Tejada has been about average at second base in just under 1000 career innings at the position and felt similarly about his shortstop work until a significant drop-off this past season (a year that ended in some controversy, as Tejada’s leg was fractured on an aggressive takeout slide by Chase Utley).
It’s worth noting that the Mets debated non-tendering Tejada earlier this offseason, and he could’ve faced similar considerations this coming offseason, making the entire scenario more or less a moot point. Cabrera is, after all, under control for one more season, whereas Flores can be controlled by the Mets through 2019. And while Walker is slated to hit the open market upon conclusion of the 2016 campaign, that won’t necessarily create an opportunity for more playing time, as highly touted second base prospect Dilson Herrera remains in the wings at Triple-A and figures to be under consideration for an everyday role in 2017.