Royals Exercise Options On Davis, Escobar; Gomes’ Option Declined
The Royals announced on Thursday that they’ve exercised their $8MM club option over Wade Davis and their $5.25MM club option on Alcides Escobar. Veteran outfielder Jonny Gomes had his $3MM club option declined.
It’s a stretch to even say that the Royals faced a decision on either Davis or Escobar, as both of those contract options boiled down to little more than a formality. Each is an extremely affordable and reasonable rate for the value that player brings to the table, and there was never a doubt that either would return. Gomes’ option perhaps required a bit more thought, as $3MM for a platoon outfielder that posted a .371 OBP and a .185 isolated power (slugging minus batting average) against lefties seems at least somewhat reasonable, but Kansas City opted for greater roster and payroll flexibility.
Alex Gordon Declines Player Option, Will Receive Qualifying Offer
NOV. 5: The Royals announced on Thursday that Gordon, unsurprisingly, will receive a $15.8MM qualifying offer. Gordon is a virtual lock to reject that one-year offer in favor of a multi-year deal on the open market, but the QO ensures that the Royals will receive a compensatory pick at the end of the first round in next year’s draft, should Gordon sign elsewhere. Any team that signs Gordon will have to forfeit its top unprotected draft pick. (The first 10 picks of next year’s draft are protected.)
NOV. 4: Royals left fielder Alex Gordon has declined his $14MM player option and is now officially a free agent, the team announced today. The 31-year-old Gordon, a client of Excel Sports Management, will now be able to test the open market for the first time in his career.
For now, the Royals have a couple of days of exclusive negotiation rights with Gordon, as teams are granted those exclusive rights for five days following the World Series. It’d be surprising if a contract of this magnitude were able to be hammered out in such a small window, and it’d also be unusual for Gordon to accept an offer without at least gauging his value on the open market, so he seems likely to solicit interest from other clubs beginning Saturday. That means the Royals will at least be able to extend Gordon a one-year, $15.8MM qualifying offer, which would net the team a compensatory draft pick at the end of the first round in next year’s draft, should Gordon ultimately sign with another club.
Gordon missed nearly two months with a strained groin this season but enjoyed a characteristically strong overall campaign both at the plate and in the field. The lifetime Royal hit .271/.377.432 with 13 home runs and was seven runs above average in left field despite the layoff, according to both Defensive Runs Saved and Ultimate Zone Rating.
The former No. 3 overall draft pick arrived on the scene with big expectations in 2007, with many hoping Gordon to become the team’s third baseman of the future. His infield work didn’t pan out, and for awhile, his swing didn’t, either. Gordon hit just .229/.319/.365 in 470 plate appearances from 2009-10, leading many to apply the dreaded “bust” label when referencing him. However, Gordon moved to the outfield full-time in 2011 and broke out with an outstanding .303/.376/.502 batting line and 23 homers.
Since that time, Gordon has batted .281/.359/.450 despite his spacious home environs, leading park-adjusted metrics like OPS+ and wRC+ to peg his offense at about 20 percent better than a league-average hitter. Over that incredible stretch, Andrelton Simmons and Jason Heyward are the only players in baseball who have carried more defensive value, according to both Ultimate Zone Rating and Defensive Runs Saved.
With a strong track record at the plate, in the field and on the basepaths, Gordon will be one of the most in-demand free agents this offseason and could command a five-year deal worth roughly $20MM annually. That would shatter the Royals’ franchise record for largest contract, which currently stands at five years and $55MM. While that type of spending is far beyond Kansas City’s typical capacity, one has to wonder if the team would make an exception for Gordon, who has become the face of the Royals franchise and whom fans would undoubtedly like to see in Royals blue for the entirety of his career.
Photo courtesy of USA Today Sports Images.
AL West Notes: Iwakuma, Mariners, Freese, Gallardo
The Mariners are leaning toward a qualifying offer for right-hander Hisashi Iwakuma, writes MLB.com’s Greg Johns, but no final decision has been made. There’s mutual interest between the Mariners and the 34-year-old Iwakuma, but Johns notes that Seattle must decide if it wants to risk Iwakuma accepting the $15.8MM one-year offer, which would add a significant commitment to a payroll that has already guaranteed $77MM worth of 2015 salary to five players. From my vantage point, Iwakuma can easily double the amount of the qualifying offer on the open market this winter and could max out on a three-year deal in the $39-45MM range, making a QO a reasonable decision. Even if Iwakuma’s market collapses a bit and he has to take a two-year pact, I’d imagine annual salaries in the $13-15MM range would still be in play.
Here’s more from the AL West…
- ESPN’s Buster Olney hears that Mariners‘ early offseason focus is on improving the club’s on-base percentage (Twitter link). Most of general manager Jerry Dipoto’s activity to address that deficiency will come via trade as opposed to free agency, Olney adds. That lines up with an Inbox column from Johns, in which he says he doesn’t foresee Dipoto making a big free agent splash. Rather, his expectation is that Dipoto will seek to add a veteran catcher, bullpen help, a center fielder and a rotation option primarily by being creative on the trade market.
- Regarding the Mariners and whether or not they’ll dive into free agency, I’ll add this: Seattle has the top unprotected pick in next year’s draft at No. 11, so it’d be pretty surprising to see them sign any player who rejects a qualifying offer. One free agent target that strikes me as a nice fit in Seattle would be Denard Span, assuming he doesn’t receive a QO.
- Jeff Fletcher of the Orange County Register examines whether or not the Angels will make a qualifying offer to David Freese. As Fletcher notes, Freese looks to be the lone regular on the free agent market at this time — unless some teams consider Daniel Murphy an option there — which could line him up for something like $30MM over three years. Offering Freese about $16MM is risky for the Halos, who are only about $26MM under the luxury tax threshold by Fletcher’s calculations. If the Angels make the offer, they’ll do so with the hope that Freese rejects. According to Fletcher, the front office is currently mulling the possibility, which is one that MLBTR’s Jeff Todd and I discussed at length on last week’s QO-themed edition of the MLBTR Podcast.
- Sticking with the qualifying offer theme that has been largely present throughout this post, Jeff Wilsont of the Forst Worth Star-Telegram spoke to Yovani Gallardo‘s agent, Bobby Witt, about the possibility of the Rangers extending a qualifying offer to his client. “Deep down, I think they’re going to do it,” said Witt. “That’s the smart play by the Rangers.” Wilson examines the possibility of Gallardo being the first player to accept a qualifying offer, which, as Wilson points out, would mean that Gallardo receives a nice one-year deal to pitch in his home town and hit the open market in a move favorable position on next year’s thin crop of pitchers.
Aramis Ramirez Announces Retirement From MLB
Veteran third baseman Aramis Ramirez has formally announced his retirement from baseball today, as was expected (Ramirez announced prior to the season that this year would be his final in the Majors). Ramirez told Dominican media outlet Grandes en los Deportes (Twitter links 1; 2; 3; 4; 5; 6; 7 all in Spanish) that his career will come to an end beginning in Spring Training, but he’s going to try to remain in good enough shape to take one more tour through the Dominican Winter League with los Tigres del Licey.
Ramirez also said that his plan is to remain involved in baseball, but he’s not sure entirely in which capacity. He doesn’t see himself as a coach or manager but is open to the idea of doing some front office work, specifically referencing the role Moises Alou recently occupied with the Padres, serving as a special assistant to the team’s player development staff. It’s also unclear as to when Ramirez would have his sights set on that type of work, as one of the key reasons he cited behind his decision to retire was a desire to spend more time with his family after an 18-year Major League career.
The 37-year-old Ramirez signed as an amateur free agent with the Pirates back in 1994 at the age of 16 and quickly earned a reputation as one of the top prospects in the game. Baseball America rated him as the No. 5 prospect in all of the minors prior to the 1998 season when he debuted with the Buccos as a 20-year-old. It took three years of back-and-forth trips between the Majors and minors for Ramirez to break out, but he did so in a huge way in 2001 when he hit .300/.350/.536 with 34 home runs as the Pirates’ everyday third baseman.
From that point forth, Ramirez was a regular player in the Majors. Though he struggled quite a bitin the 2002 season that followed, he rebounded to some extent in 2003 and found himself traded, alongside Kenny Lofton, to the division-rival Cubs, where he would spend nine years of his Major League career. Ramirez was a two-time All-Star with the Cubs and received MVP votes in four of his nine seasons with Chicago. His overall batting line of .294/.356/.531 and average of 27 homers per season with the Cubs set the stage for a free-agent deal with the Brewers that would carry on through this past summer, when Milwaukee traded him back to where it all began — Pittsburgh — in exchange for minor league righty Yhonathan Barrios.
All told, Ramirez will retire from the Major Leagues as a .283/.341/.492 hitter with 386 home runs, 495 doubles, 1098 runs scored and 1417 RBIs. While he was never a great defender at third base, he managed to play the position through his final season and enjoyed some nice years there, often outperforming his reputation as a sub-par defensive player. Fangraphs values Ramirez’s career at 38.3 wins above replacement, while Baseball-Reference has him at 32.1 WAR. Ramirez’s significant power and ability to handle the hot corner adequately earned him just shy of $148MM over the life of a very strong career that spanned parts of 18 years in the Majors and saw him accumulate 16 years, 111 days of Major League service time.
Whatever is next for Ramirez in his post-playing days, we at MLBTR wish happiness for both him and his family.
Photo courtesy of USA Today Sports Images.
Pirates Decline Option On Radhames Liz
The Pirates announced on Thursday that they’ve declined a club option on right-hander Radhames Liz, who is now a free agent.
Liz, 32, returned to the Major Leagues in 2015 with Pittsburgh, making his first appearance since 2009. He’s bounced around the minor leagues and enjoyed a nice three-year run in Korea in the interim, which led to Liz receiving a Major League deal and a $1MM guarantee with the Bucs last winter despite a five-year absence from the Majors.
In 23 1/3 innings with the Pirates this year, Liz worked to a 4.24 ERA with a 27-to-12 K/BB ratio, averaging an excellent 94.7 mph on his fastball. Liz dominated the Triple-A level this season over the course of 64 1/3 innings, logging a terrific 1.40 ERA with 10.4 K/9 against 3.4 BB/9. While Liz may not have had the big league success that he or the Pirates hoped for in 2015, his high velocity and penchant for missing bats figures to garner some interest around the Majors this offseason.
AL East Notes: Bradley, Sox, Gardner, Park, O’Day
Red Sox president of baseball operations Dave Dombrowski was a recent guest on WEEI’s Hot Stove Show, and WEEI’s John Tomase has transcribed some of the highlights from his talk (while also providing a link to the full audio). Regarding Jackie Bradley and Rusney Castillo, Dombrowski said that as it stands right now, “there’s no question” that the duo will enter next season as starters in the Boston outfield. “Jackie’s one of the best defensive outfielders I’ve ever seen,” said Dombrowski. “So that’s a plus, and Castillo’s got the all-around game.” Dombrowski noted that each has strides to make to reach his potential, however, and I’ll point out that we, of course, cannot rule out the fact that one of the two is traded this winter. (Boston has, after all, recently been linked to free agent Alex Gordon.) Speaking about Mookie Betts and Xander Bogaerts, Dombrowski stopped short of putting the “untouchable” label on either, though he did so as a means of saying he doesn’t consider any player untouchable. “If you have Miguel Cabrera, somebody may offer you two Miguel Cabreras,” said Dombrowski. “Probably not going to happen, probably never will happen, but unless you listen, you don’t know.” He went on to say he’d be “very surprised” if Bogaerts and Betts aren’t in the team’s lineup next season. Dombrowski also discussed exercising Clay Buchholz‘s option, the perils of signing an ace in free agency and revealed that Matt Barnes will head to camp as a reliever next year. His full comments are well worth a read for Boston fans.
Here’s more from the division…
- Scott Lauber of the Boston Herald writes that while there’s been speculation that the Red Sox could trade Clay Buchholz now that they’ve exercised his $13MM option, the team might be wise to hold off on that front. Lauber notes that many in the industry believe Dombrowski will make a run at David Price, and while dealing Buchholz would free up some 2016 money for Price or another ace, the uncertainty throughout the rest of the rotation should give Boston pause when listening to offers on Buchholz. While Buchholz can’t be relied upon for 30+ starts and 200+ innings, it’s reasonable enough pencil him in for 100+ innings as a high-quality No. 2 starter based on his 2013 and 2015 performances.
- Brett Gardner‘s woeful second half of the season was caused in part by a wrist injury suffered early in the year, Yankees hitting coach Alan Cockrell believes (via the Journal News’ Chad Jennings). Cockrell said that Gardner was hit on the wrist early in the season, and the pain bothered him on and off throughout the season. While it might seem odd to blame an April HBP for Gardner’s struggles in August and September, Cockrell explained that players are only allowed to receive three cortisone injections over the course of a given season. Gardner received his three cortisone shots, which alleviated the pain considerably, at unspecified intervals prior to Aug. 1. When he could no longer receive that treatment, Jennings notes that his production plummeted to .203/.288/.290 over the season’s final two months.
- The Orioles have scouted Korean first baseman Byung-ho Park and are believed to hold interest in signing him, reports MASNsports.com’s Roch Kubatko. Park was posted by Korea’s Nexen Heroes on Monday, and teams have until Friday to submit blind bids on the 29-year-old, who has bashed 105 home runs over the past two seasons in the Korea Baseball Organization. Unlike the posting agreement with Japan’s Nippon Professional Baseball where multiple teams can negotiate with a player, though (assuming there are multiple winning bids of the maximum $20MM), only the winning team can negotiate with Park. That might make it difficult for Baltimore to bid heavily on Park at this time, as the team may still have hopes of being able to work out a deal with Chris Davis. Of course, Park could still be slotted at DH if the Orioles were to somehow win the bidding and still re-sign Davis, though that level of spending seems highly unlikely. I’d imagine that if the O’s win the bidding on Park, it’s a clear signal that Davis will sign elsewhere (though that’s the wide expectation regardless of the Park outcome).
- Kubatko also reports that there’s been little in the way of traction between the Orioles and Darren O’Day in talks of a new contract. Baltimore has exclusive negotiation rights with O’Day through Friday, after which he, like all other free agents, will be free to sign with any club. Kubatko was told that “all is quiet” right now after talks have failed to progress much, and he speculates that O’Day could possibly receive four-year offers in free agency.
Kyle Kendrick Changes Agents
Right-hander Kyle Kendrick has changed representation and is now a client of agent John Boggs, reports ESPN’s Jerry Crasnick (via Twitter).
Kendrick, 31, is coming off a poor season with the Rockies after signing a one-year, $5.5MM contract last winter. As a fifth starter that doesn’t miss many bats, Kendrick and Coors Field always seemed like a poor fit, but he presumably went with the largest guarantee offered to him last winter.
In 142 1/3 innings with the Rockies, Kendrick limped to a 6.32 ERA. His K/9, BB/9 and ground-ball rates each trended in the wrong direction in his lone season in Denver, and he finished the year with respective marks of 5.1, 2.9 and 38.8 percent in those regards. While Kendrick’s season was easily the worst of his career and will hamper his 2015-16 market, he did have a track record as a serviceable source of 25 to 30 starts per year in a different hitter-friendly environment: Philadelphia’s Citizens Bank Park.
From 2010-14, Kendrick worked to a 4.33 ERA with 5.3 K/9, 2.5 BB/9 and a ground-ball rate near 46 percent in 835 2/3 innings. He missed some time this past year with inflammation in his right shoulder and has previously spent time on the DL (2013) for the same injury. Still, a rebuilding club in need of some back-of-the-rotation innings could conceivably plug Kendrick into its starting staff as an affordable option, perhaps serving as a bridge to younger arms that need a bit more development time. He may have to settle for a minor league deal and win a rotation spot in Spring Training, though a one-year deal with a lower base salary and some innings pitched/games started incentives is plausible.
Kendrick’s change in representation will be reflected in the MLBTR Agency Database, which contains information on more than 2,000 Major League and Minor League players. If you see any omissions or inaccuracies within the database, please let us know: mlbtrdatabase@gmail.com.
Coaching Notes: Maddux, Yankees, Gardenhire, Angels
The Nationals announced yesterday that they’ve hired recently departed Rangers pitching coach Mike Maddux to fill the same role in their organization under new manager Dusty Baker. (MLB.com’s Bill Ladson first tweeted that the hire was likely.) In luring Maddux to D.C., the Nationals landed one of the game’s more respected coaches of any discipline, and they paid accordingly. Bob Nightengale of USA Today reports that Maddux will become the highest-paid pitching coach in baseball with the Nationals, adding that the team’s pursuit of Maddux began as soon as the Rangers provided him the opportunity to listen to offers from other teams. Washington’s pursuit lasted more than two weeks, and Nightengale hears that the Nationals’ plan was to hire Maddux as pitching coach regardless of who was eventually named manager.
A few more coaching notes from around the league…
- The Yankees announced this week that 2015 assistant hitting coach Alan Cockrell has been promoted to hitting coach. Cockrell has previously served as Mariners’ hitting coach and was also the Rockies’ hitting coach during their 2007 World Series run. Meanwhile, recently retired Marcus Thames, who had a productive 2010 season as a part-time outfielder for the Yankees, has been named assistant hitting coach. Thames, still just 38, has spent the past three seasons as a hitting coach with three different Yankees’ minor league affiliates (Tampa, Trenton and Scranton/Wilkes-Barre).
- Dennis Lin of the San Diego Union-Tribune reports that the Padres have offered the bench coach position to former Twins manager Ron Gardenhire, who finished runner up to Andy Green in the team’s managerial search. Multiple sources told Lin of the offer, he notes, while another source said the Padres also offered the position to Dodgers bench coach Tim Wallach. All of this seems to indicate that current bench coach Dave Roberts could indeed depart in 2016, though Lin hears that the organization isn’t shutting the door on keeping Roberts. Rather, they’d assign him a new coaching position if he were to return. Roberts has been interviewing for managerial gigs and is believed to be the favorite to land the Dodgers’ managerial position at this time. Gardenhire, for his part, was diplomatic and wouldn’t confirm the offer in a recent MLB Network Radio appearance, but he spoke highly of GM A.J. Preller (links to Twitter). “A.J. is a brilliant young man,” said Gardenhire. “He’s pretty cool, a baseball junkie, loves to go out and scout. I like those things.” Gardenhire called the San Diego group as a whole “unbelievable.”
- The Rangers will hire the Astros‘ Doug Brocail as their new pitching coach, reports Evan Grant of the Dallas Morning News. Brocail, a former big league right-hander, has served as Houston’s pitching coach previously and more recently been working in the team’s front office. As Grant notes, he’ll bring an analytic point of view to Texas, which will mesh with second-year manager Jeff Banister’s philosophies. Grant also reports that Triple-A pitching coach Brad Holman will be the Rangers’ bullpen coach in 2016.
- The Angels announced this week that former D-Backs pitching coach Charles Nagy has been hired as the club’s new pitching coach. The 48-year-old Nagy enjoyed a 14-year Major League career spent almost entirely in Cleveland, and he served as a special assistant in the Cleveland front office this past season. He was Arizona’s pitching coach from 2011-13.
- Additionally, the Angels announced that they’ve promoted Dave Hansen from assistant hitting coach to hitting coach and named Paul Sorrento assistant hitting coach. Each hitting instructor spent more than 10 years in the Majors. Hansen has previously been hitting coach for the Mariners and Dodgers, and he’s held his assistant role in Anaheim since 2014. Sorrento has been working in the Angels’ minor league system.
- The Brewers this week formally announced the previously reported hires of Derek Johnson as pitching coach and Pat Murphy as bench coach. Murphy, of course, was the Padres’ interim manager from June through season’s end and has a close relationship with Milwaukee skipper Craig Counsell, whom he coached in college.
Giants Decline Options On Nori Aoki, Marlon Byrd
The Giants have declined their club options over outfielders Nori Aoki and Marlon Byrd, according to tweets from Andrew Baggarly of the San Jose Mercury News (link) and CSN Bay Area’s Alex Pavlovic (link). Aoki’s $5.5MM option will be bought out for $700K, while Byrd’s option did not come with a buyout.
San Francisco is open to re-signing Aoki, Baggarly notes, also adding in a second tweet that Aoki was completely cleared of the concussion symptoms that cut his 2015 season short. Pavlovic quotes Giants GM Bobby Evans as saying that right now, the club’s focus is on “keeping our options open in a number of areas.”
While the Giants can maintain interest in bringing Aoki back into the fold, that strikes me as an unlikely scenario, as it’s difficult to envision Aoki receiving a smaller guarantee than the $5.5MM base rejected by the team. Though the concussion symptoms are cause for concern, Aoki enjoyed a productive season with the Giants, batting .287/.353/.380 with five homers and 14 stolen bases in 93 games (392 plate appearances). Defensive Runs Saved pegged Aoki’s work in left field as roughly average, whereas Ultimate Zone Rating felt he saved between three and four runs with his glove. While that adds up to more of a useful regular than a star outfielder, Aoki certainly produced a good deal of value and would figure to be a candidate for either a multi-year deal or a one-year pact with a bigger guarantee, health permitting.
Admittedly, we saw last winter that the market didn’t necessarily place full value on Aoki’s low-power, high-contact skill set (hence the $4.7MM guarantee with the Giants), and perhaps that will be the case again this year. Even if that’s true to some extent, I’d imagine that the five homers hit by Aoki quieted at least some of the concerns over his dip in power after he homered just once in 132 games with the Royals in 2014.
Plus, the large amounts of success the Royals have experienced by deploying a contact-oriented lineup — of which Aoki was a part in 2014 — would seem to help the 33-year-old’s case. Among players with at least 350 plate appearances, Aoki’s 6.4 strikeout rate was easily the lowest in baseball, with Daniel Murphy checking in second-lowest at 7.1 percent. It’s probably not surprising, in light of that stat, to see that Aoki ranked third in contact percentage, connecting in some regard on 91.6 percent of his swings this past season.
In the end, though, Baggarly writes that the Giants simply weren’t comfortable committing to Aoki as their regular left fielder this early in the offseason. Evans explained to Baggarly: “The timing is bad because we have a lot of things to address this winter and a lot of things we want to look at, and it’s about keeping our options open. To predetermine left field today is just premature.” That’s a valid stance. Aoki is a nice player, but it’s not as if he cannot be upgraded upon, and with the team expected to pursue pitching upgrades, all the payroll space they can get is important. I can’t help but wonder if the option could’ve been exercised with the intention of trading Aoki, but the team didn’t have much time to explore that market before making the final call on the option, and Aoki’s concussion probably did make that more difficult.
Byrd, meanwhile, began the year in a huge slump with the Reds and found himself hitting just .169/.188/.273 at the end of April. The 38-year-old turned things around from that point on, however, batting .261/.308/.485 with 21 homers over his final 114 games. Byrd suffered a minor fracture in his wrist early this summer but returned quicker than expected and without a stint on the disabled list. To the surprise of many (myself included), Byrd showed little to no ill effect from the injury and continued producing at a solid clip.
Cincinnati traded Byrd to the Giants in an August waiver deal, receiving minor league right-hander Stephen Johnson in return. While the thought at the time of the acquisition was that Byrd would hold down the fort until Aoki and/or Hunter Pence were healthy enough to step into more regular roles, their injuries kept them on shelf longer than expected, leading to regular playing time for Byrd until the season’s final week.
That led to some drama surrounding the veteran Byrd, whose contract had an $8MM vesting option that came extraordinarily close to triggering. Byrd needed to reach 550 plate appearances in the 2015 season to lock in that $8MM payday, but he ultimately fell six plate appearances shy after the Giants decided not to start him in the final few games of the year. Evans was up-front with both Byrd and the media, explaining that as long as the team had a theoretical shot at the postseason, Byrd would continue to play. However, once the Dodgers eliminated the Giants from playoff contention, the Giants turned to younger options such as Jarrett Parker and Mac Williamson in order to get a look at the pair of prospects in game action.
San Francisco was said at the time to be open to bringing Byrd back next season, but I’d imagine that the rather uncomfortable end to the season will lead Byrd to explore his options on the open market, where he should draw plenty of interest as a platoon outfield bat, albeit probably at a guarantee that falls shy of the $8MM value of his option. Byrd fared quite well against left-handed pitching in 2015, as he typically does, posting a strong .271/.324/.476 line against southpaws.
J.P. Howell To Exercise Player Option
Left-hander J.P. Howell will exercise his $6.25MM player option with the Dodgers, reports ESPN’s Buster Olney (via Twitter). The 32-year-old Legacy Agency client will forgo free agency this offseason in order to return to the L.A. bullpen for a fourth consecutive season.
Howell is coming off an excellent season in the Dodgers’ bullpen, having logged a 1.43 ERA with 8.0 K/9, 2.9 BB/9 and a 60.3 percent ground-ball rate in 44 innings of work. His strong production continued what has been a dominant run since joining the Dodgers prior to the 2013 season, as Howell has compiled a brilliant 1.97 ERA in his 155 innings with Los Angeles.
That strong track track record makes it at least worth wondering if Howell could’ve landed a multi-year deal in a market that is thin on left-handed relievers with lengthy track records of success — Antonio Bastardo and Tony Sipp were likely his top competition — but it’s also probably fair to assume that he wouldn’t have received as large of an annual salary. And, there’s something to be said for returning to a familiar situation that has led to personal success and three consecutive division titles for the team.
Howell did have his struggles in 2015, specifically when it came to facing right-handed hitters. While he hadn’t dealt with platoon issues in his two prior years with the Dodgers, right-handed hitters knocked Howell around to the tune of a .318/.368/.455 batting line. Perhaps that split played a role in his decision to accept the option, although there’s certainly a case to be made that it was more a function of poor luck than anything skill-related. Right-handed hitters posted a sky-high .368 BABIP against Howell in 2015 that was worlds higher than his career mark of .293.
Howell’s return to Los Angeles means that he’ll again help serve as a bridge to one of the game’s best closers in the form of Kenley Jansen. Exactly which other names will constitute the back end of the Dodger bullpen is unclear, as the team has myriad options in the late innings. Luis Avilan and Ian Thomas serve as left-handed options to potentially complement Howell, while right-handers such as Chris Hatcher, Pedro Baez, Juan Nicasio and Yimi Garcia, among others, could constitute the right-handed setup crew. Of course, given the active nature of president of baseball operations Andrew Friedman and GM Farhan Zaidi, it certainly won’t be surprising to see the Dodgers shuffle their relief corps, to some extent, by dealing some of those arms and possibly bringing in external help in order to solidify a bullpen that is deep in options but lacking in proven arms.
Photo courtesy of USA Today Sports Images.