Braves Sign Cuban Reliever Carlos Portuondo
The Braves have signed Cuban right-hander Carlos Portuondo to a contract with a $990K bonus, MLB.com’s Jesse Sanchez reports (Twitter link). Portuondo is 28 and thus old enough to be exempt from international bonus pools. He’s likely to start the year with Atlanta’s Double-A affiliate, MLB.com’s Mark Bowman tweets.
As per Baseball America’s Ben Badler, scouts say the 6″2, 220-pound Portuondo has a fastball in the 90-93mph range and a slider as his secondary pitch. He’ll be used out of the bullpen by the Braves, though he split time as both a starter and reliever in his native country. Portuondo posted pretty unremarkable numbers for Santiago De Cuba from 2005-14, with a 5.75 ERA, 194 strikeouts and 188 walks in 355 1/3 innings pitching in the top Cuban league.
AL Central Notes: Moore, Holland, Avila, Twins
As you might expect, Royals GM Dayton Moore doesn’t accept the conventional wisdom that his club is primed to contend only over the next two seasons. “Sure, it’s important that we maximize our current situation,” Moore tells MLB.com’s Jeffrey Flanagan. “People ask me about [the two-year window] and I say, ‘Our window is right now.’ But we feel that way every year now. And that will mean trying to keep our internal players.” Such key stars as Lorenzo Cain, Eric Hosmer, Mike Moustakas and Wade Davis will all hit free agency after the 2017 season, though Moore said it’s wrong to assume there will be a mass exodus. The Royals will make an effort to re-sign as many of those free agents as they can, Moore said, pointing out that the Royals stepped up to re-sign Alex Gordon this offseason. Even if some players do leave, K.C. hopes to replace them via a strong minor league pipeline to keep the team in perpetual contention. Here’s more from around the AL Central…
- The Royals are still interested in re-signing Greg Holland, Moore tells Rustin Dodd of the Kansas City Star. There hasn’t been much buzz around Holland this offseason, which isn’t surprising given how the former All-Star closer underwent Tommy John surgery in September. The Royals non-tendered Holland in the wake of that surgery but had interest in bringing him back on a multi-year deal so he’d be ready to pitch for them when he’s healthy in 2017.
- Letting catcher Alex Avila go to the White Sox in free agency made sense from a baseball standpoint for Tigers general manager Al Avila, though it was obviously a tougher personal decision for the elder Avila to part ways with his son, Jorge L. Ortiz of USA Today writes. “I miss my son. I wish he was here because I’d get to see him every day,” the GM said. “In fact, last spring training we roomed together. This year I’m by myself. You would think my wife would be here with me today, but she’s actually in Arizona with him and the grandkids. And now I have family members wearing Chicago White Sox gear.”
- The Twins have interest in “several” Cuban free agents, 1500ESPN.com’s Darren Wolfson hears from a source (Twitter link), though high asking prices are an obstacle.
- Fernando Abad‘s minor league deal with the Twins will pay him $1.25MM if he makes the Major League roster and he has another $100K available in incentives, as per Wolfson and Mike Berardino of the St. Paul Pioneer Press (Twitter links).
Angels Notes: Smith, Santiago, Left Field, Saunders
Albert Pujols tops the list of the 25 biggest payroll albatrosses in baseball, as compiled by ESPN’s Dan Szymborski (Insider subscription required). The Angels still have six seasons and $165MM remaining on their ten-year, $240MM contract with the slugger. Szymborski figures the Halos needed at least five years of Pujols matching his 2011 production “for this contract to not be a disaster” before the inevitable decline in his last 30’s, but Pujols has hit a comparatively underwhelming .266/.326/.478 and 115 homers over his first four years in Anaheim. Injuries have played a role in Pujols’ performance, though it’s hard to see him suddenly revisiting his Cardinals-era prime as he enters his age-36 season. Here’s more about the Halos…
- Joe Smith tells MLB.com’s Alden Gonzalez that the Angels have yet to approach him about a contract extension, which the veteran reliever understands given how the club is busy with other needs. Smith is a free agent after the season and he’s encouraged about finding another nice contract given how several non-closers (i.e. Darren O’Day, Tony Sipp, Ryan Madson, Joakim Soria) all received healthy multi-year deals this winter.
- In another piece from Gonzalez, Hector Santiago relates how he spent most of the offseason figuring he would be traded. The speculation added to what was already a busy winter for the left-hander, who got married in November. The Angels reportedly received lots of trade interest in Santiago, and his agent even called him in November to say that a trade to the Orioles was imminent.
- While the three-team deal that would’ve brought Michael Saunders to the Halos is apparently off, Pedro Moura of the L.A. Times notes that the attempted trade revealed that the club is still focused on left field upgrades. The platoon of Craig Gentry and Daniel Nava is tentatively set to share the left field duties, and while the Halos at least checked in on big-name free agent left fielders (i.e. Justin Upton, Yoenis Cespedes) this winter, payroll constraints have led them to explore cheaper options. GM Billy Eppler didn’t specifically state that the Angels were focusing on left field, just saying “I’m looking for any reinforcement at any single position we can find, wherever we can improve this club.”
AL East Links: Teixeira, Orioles, Bautista
Though Mark Teixeira has been plagued by injuries in recent years, the first baseman told reporters (including MLB.com’s Bryan Hoch) that he’s hoping to play for five more seasons. “My body feels so good, why not play until I’m 40? Being the kind of hitter I am, I can be a DH the last few years of my career, which could really prolong it. I would love to play that long,” Teixeira said, also noting that he wants to remain with the Yankees after his contract expires this winter. That could be somewhat of a tricky prospect given that New York has Greg Bird as its first baseman of the future and Alex Rodriguez in the DH role through the 2017 season. Still, Teixeira hit .255/.357/.548 with 31 homers in a fine bounce-back campaign last year, so he can shown that he can still produce if he can remain healthy. Here’s some more from around the AL East…
- The holdup in Yovani Gallardo‘s agreement has delivered a fresh round of criticism towards the Orioles and their high (perhaps overly high) standards in player physicals. As MASNsports.com’s Roch Kubatko observes, however, avoiding some of these contracts has often been to the club’s benefit. Many of the players the O’s opted not to sign due to health reasons proceeded to decline, either due to injury or simply subpar performance.
- An Orioles staff member also defended the team’s stance on physicals to Peter Gammons, noting that after the O’s backed out of an agreement with Grant Balfour two years ago, Balfour has since badly struggled. Despite the criticism, the Orioles “were right. Dan [Duquette] didn’t deserve the grief he took,” the staff member said. “And if this is what the doctor thinks, why would we pay Gallardo half the amount? If he’s hurt, Peter [Angelos] and Dan don’t owe him anything.” Gammons also hears from two Orioles pitchers that Gallardo’s issue is “really unfortunate” and “apparently pretty serious.”
- By setting a high and seemingly inflexible price on a contract extension, Jose Bautista has made it easy for the Blue Jays to part ways with the slugger after the season, Bruce Arthur of the Toronto Star opines.
- Dave Dombrowski has shown a willingness to cut ties with underperforming players regardless of contract status, as the Boston Globe’s Alex Speier recalls the Tigers’ 2003 release of Damion Easley when Dombrowski was Detroit’s general manager. Now that Dombrowski is in charge of the Red Sox, his presence could put added pressure on 2015 struggles such as Hanley Ramirez, Pablo Sandoval, Rick Porcello and Rusney Castillo to improve. (Though with the obvious caveat that eating any of those contracts would cost Boston much more than it cost Detroit to part ways with Easley.)
Braves Sign Jeff Francoeur To Minor League Deal
WEDNESDAY: Francoeur will earn $1MM if he makes the Braves’ roster, MLB Network’s Jon Heyman tweets. Another $1MM is available in incentives, and Francoeur can ask for a release if he isn’t on the Major League roster by March 31.
MONDAY: The Braves have announced that they’ve signed former star outfielder Jeff Francoeur on a minor league deal with a Spring Training invite. Francoeur is a client of CSE.
Francoeur, of course, finished third in NL Rookie of the Year balloting as a 21-year-old with the Braves in 2005 and played parts of five seasons in Atlanta before being shipped to the Mets for Ryan Church in 2009. Since then, he’s also appeared with the Rangers, Royals, Giants and Padres. He hit .258/.286/.433 in 343 plate appearances for the rebuilding Phillies in 2015, demonstrating good power but characteristically poor control of the strike zone (with just 13 walks).
Francoeur has a reputation as a good player to have in the clubhouse, however, so perhaps if he makes the Braves as a bench player he can help mentor their young roster. The Braves do already have a large contingent of veteran outfielders, with Nick Markakis, Michael Bourn, Nick Swisher and now Francoeur joining Ender Inciarte and Hector Olivera.
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Jose Bautista Reportedly Seeking More Than Five Years/$150MM
Yesterday, Jose Bautista denied a report from TSN’s Rick Westhead that his apparently non-negotiable asking price was an extension of five years and $150MM. What that figure raised eyebrows around the baseball world, it may actually have been too modest, as both the Toronto Star’s Richard Griffin and MLB Network’s Jon Heyman have reported that Bautista’s contract demand was actually higher. Griffin suggested that the number could be higher if Bautista’s $14MM salary for the coming season was included as well, though Heyman says that Bautista is looking for both more years and more money. FOX Sports’ Ken Rosenthal puts the dollar figure at less than $180MM, however, as the average annual value of a six-year deal wouldn’t have cracked the $30MM threshold.
Needless to say, this is high demand for any player and a stunning one coming from a player entering his age-35 season. When I looked at Bautista as an extension candidate last November, I reasoned that he would certainly land at least a $20MM average annual value in a new contract, perhaps even something in the range of a four-year/$100MM deal for his age 36-39 seasons (2017-2020). Only seven players in history have ever received an AAV north of $25MM per season, and six of those contracts began when the players were much younger than 36 years old. (The exception was Roger Clemens‘ one-year, $28MM deal with the Yankees when he was 44, an altogether unique situation.)
Given the size and unprecedented nature of this contract, it’s hard to see the Blue Jays meeting Bautista’s demand. The Jays already have expensive commitments to Troy Tulowitzki and Russell Martin on the books, Edwin Encarnacion is also a free agent this winter and the club will certainly at least explore extending Josh Donaldson before he hits free agency after the 2018 season. Bautista pointedly mentioned on Monday that Rogers Communications, the Jays’ parent company, has derived huge financial boosts from the team’s recent success, so he doesn’t seem willing to accept an argument that ownership couldn’t put more resources into re-signing him or into the club in general.
Payroll commitments aside, it could be argued that it would be unwise to sign any 36-year-old to such a massive deal. While Bautista is universally considered to be an excellent athlete who keeps himself in prime shape, he’s also had some injury issues in his career and his defensive metrics in right field took a sharp decline in 2015. If Bautista is already becoming the type of player who only provides value with his bat, then he’d have to keep his elite hitting numbers through his age-41 season to live up to the value of such a big contract.
Would Bautista land such a deal on the open market as a free agent? At first glance it would seem unlikely that any team would make such a huge commitment to a 36-year-old, and yet the 2016-17 free agent class is notably thin. Bautista’s performance in 2016 will obviously play a major factor in his next deal, and another superstar-level season would help boost his case. Bautista told reporters on Monday that he wasn’t going to budge from his asking price, though it’s possible that this was a negotiating tactic and that he’d be willing to go lower if the Blue Jays or another suitor countered with something at least in the ballpark of the initial demand.
Josh Hamilton To Begin Season On Disabled List
Josh Hamilton will miss the first month of the regular season after receiving stem cell and PRP injections in his troublesome left knee, the Rangers announced today. (Evan Grant of the Dallas Morning News has the details from the team’s briefing with media.) The Rangers’ plan, as outlined by assistant GM Thad Levine, is for Hamilton to play some minor league rehab games in late April and then be activated off the DL in early May.
“We are giving him an eight-week program because we don’t want to cut any corners,” Levine said. “Last year, we may have accelerated things and he suffered the hamstring injury early and it was an issue all year. This way he will get the benefit of a full spring training.”
It’s been an open question as to how much Hamilton will be able to contribute to the Ranger this season, as the 34-year-old has battled continued pain in his left knee despite two operations in the last six months. The former AL MVP has played in just 139 games over the last two seasons due to a variety of injuries and Texas was already planning to use Hamilton in a semi-platoon role in left field to try and keep him healthy.
As Jeff Wilson of the Fort Worth Star-Telegram puts it on Twitter, the Rangers are “taking [a] guarded approach” to Hamilton’s injuries. While the team is still talking to free agent outfielders, Texas could also use internal options like Ryan Rua, Joey Gallo, Justin Ruggiano or perhaps prospects Nomar Mazara or Lewis Brinson. Levine said that Hamilton’s DL status doesn’t greatly change the club’s plans for left field since the Rangers weren’t expecting Hamilton as a full-time option anyway.
Reds Notes: Bruce, Trades, Rebuilding
We published one set of Reds Notes last night, and now here’s some more news out of Cincinnati…
- The Reds would like to trade Jay Bruce within the next week, ESPN’s Jerry Crasnick reports (Twitter link). If a deal can’t be completed within that timeframe, the “odds increase that he’ll start [the] season in Cincinnati.”
- The proposed and apparently abandoned three-team trade from Monday that would’ve sent Bruce to the Blue Jays and Michael Saunders to the Angels reportedly fell apart due to a medical issue with a prospect Toronto had ticketed to the Reds. The prospect’s health, however, was just one of many issues that caused the trade to be scuttled, ESPN’s Buster Olney tweets. In his subscriber-only column today, Olney also noted that the prospects involved in the trade weren’t top-tier names and not major components in the deal, so injury concerns alone wouldn’t have been a big problem.
- Also from Olney in his column from yesterday, the Reds are having some concerns that they won’t be able to trade Bruce at all. The club has been shopping the outfielder for months, coming close on the Toronto trade and in a deadline deal that would’ve sent Bruce to the Mets, so there’s at least some interest in Bruce’s services. Still, it has to be something of a tough sell given Bruce’s struggles over the last two seasons and the minimum $13.5MM ($12.5MM salary, $1MM buyout of his 2017 option) owed to him for 2016.
- As Reds fans prepare for what could be a long year, Yahoo Sports’ Tim Brown looks at how the team could approach its rebuild.
International Notes: Gurriels, Lazarito, Manfred, Dodgers
The Gurriel brothers’ defection from Cuba surprised many pundits, though as Baseball America’s Ben Badler writes, there had been hints over the last year that something was afoot with the duo, particularly Yulieski Gurriel. The elder brother hasn’t always been known for playing hard, but Yulieski had been noticeably hustling more over the past year, perhaps in a deliberate effort to correct this perception in the eyes of MLB scouts. Yulieski also passed on a lucrative offer to play in Japan for the rather curious reason of wanting to rehab a hamstring injury, which raised some eyebrows. Badler notes that in the wake of the Gurriels’ departure, the Dominican government is cracking down on Cuban players in the country, with a couple of prospects already sent back to Cuba and others leaving the Dominican to establish residency in the Bahamas. Cubans still remaining in the Dominican Republic are now playing on well-maintained but secretive baseball diamonds, just adding to the overall clandestine atmosphere.
Here’s more recent news from around the international market…
- The shocking circumstances behind Charles Hairston and Agency39 dropping their representation of Lazaro “Lazarito” Armenteros is still the talk of the international scouting world, and Hairston shared more details with MLB.com’s Jesse Sanchez. The mysterious “buscon” (or “investor” as he’s known in Sanchez’s piece) allegedly threatened Hairston ten days ago, and had also been working behind Agency39’s back to negotiate with teams and other agencies to arrange new representation for Armenteros. Agency39 was still working on Lazarito’s behalf as late as noon yesterday.
- Commissioner Rob Manfred reiterated his support for an international talent draft when speaking to reporters (including Jesse Sanchez) on Monday, indicating that changes to the international system will be a significant topic in upcoming collective bargaining negotiations with the players’ union. These talks will be particularly interesting since the desire for altering international signing rules may vary greatly from team to team. “If you ask the teams that have been able to spend internationally, they would be happy with how [the system] is,” Athletics GM David Forst said. “There are also some teams that feel you lose some of the scouting side of it if you have the [international draft]. You lose the ability to unearth players. But with the information that is out there, I’m not sure that happens.”
- Twenty-five teams attended a showcase yesterday for Cuban outfielder Yadiel Hernandez and infielders Yanio Perez and Alejandro Rivero, MLB.com’s Jesse Sanchez tweets. Hernandez, who defected last summer, is the most highly-regarded of the trio and is old enough (28) to not be subject to the international pool limits.
- The Dodgers have spent over $200MM on nine Cuban players over the last four years, a major investment that Bill Plunkett of the Orange County Register notes that thus far yielded relatively little return. Yasiel Puig has delivered both all-world talent and controversy in his time with the team and Hector Olivera was flipped to the Braves, while Erisbel Arruebarrena and Alex Guerrero are now afterthoughts. “I think like any part of the talent universe there’s going to be mixed results,” said senior baseball operations VP Josh Byrnes, who also noted that the Dodgers’ big investment is still less than it would’ve cost for a similar outlay on free agent talent. The club obviously still expects much from highly-regarded prospects still in the system, including the recently-signed Yaisel Sierra.