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The Opener: Yamamoto, Dodgers, Last-Minute Deals

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With Christmas just around the corner, here are three things we’ll be keeping an eye on around the baseball world headed into the weekend:

1. What’s next for the teams that missed out on Yamamoto?

Right-hander Yoshinobu Yamamoto exceeded all expectations by signing a whopping 12-year, $325MM deal with the Dodgers last night that includes two opt-out clauses. Including the posting fee L.A. owes to the Orix Buffaloes as compensation for Yamamoto’s services brings the total financial outlay to more than $375MM. While the megadeal likely takes the likes of the Mets, Blue Jays, and Phillies out of the running at the top of the pitching market, plenty of other suitors for Yamamoto figure to attempt to pivot elsewhere as they attempt to find front-end starting pitching. The Yankees, Giants, and Red Sox all appear likely to continue exploring the top of the pitching market as the offseason continues, with lefties Blake Snell, Jordan Montgomery, and Shota Imanaga among the best remaining arms available in free agency. Meanwhile, the trade market offers righties Shane Bieber, Dylan Cease, and potentially Corbin Burnes as front-of-the-rotation options.

2. Will the Dodgers keep going?

Between the additions of Yamamoto, Shohei Ohtani, and Tyler Glasnow the Dodgers have now spent over $1 billion this winter, at least before accounting for the deferrals in Ohtani’s contract. That massive outlay leaves the club with a projected payroll of just over $282MM in 2024 for luxury tax purposes according to RosterResource, which puts the club around $15MM under the highest threshold of luxury penalization. What’s next as they look to improve their roster this offseason? Rumors have indicated that the club could look to upgrade at shortstop, where Gavin Lux and Miguel Rojas currently figure to split time. Beyond that, an outfield bat who can push Chris Taylor into a utility role or an additional starting pitcher to round out the club’s rotation alongside Yamamoto, Glasnow, Walker Buehler and Bobby Miller could make some sense for the club.

3. Will any last-minute deals come together before Christmas?

During the offseason, major holidays are occasionally used by teams and players as soft deadlines for deals to get done. Some free agents like to know where they’re going to live next year before a holiday, and GMs at the one-yard line on a trade may have a little extra incentive to get it over the line before they go home to celebrate. For example, Yamamoto’s market was discussed throughout much of the offseason as regarding Christmas as something of a soft deadline; considering his posting window was set to close on January 4, little time would have been left after the new year for the righty to land a contract.  Although the day before Thanksgiving was rather quiet this year, could things be different on the Friday before Christmas weekend?

Tigers Not Pursuing Trades From Rotation

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The Tigers added a pair of right-handers to the middle of the rotation early in the offseason. Detroit signed Kenta Maeda to a two-year pact and took a one-year rebound flier on Jack Flaherty. That duo helps compensate for the loss of Eduardo Rodriguez, who opted out and signed a four-year pact with the Diamondbacks.

Detroit president of baseball operations Scott Harris spoke with reporters yesterday at the press conference to announce the Flaherty signing. Most notably, the front office leader downplayed the odds of another significant rotation move — either via an acquisition or trading away someone bumped from the staff by the Maeda and Flaherty pickups.

“We did not add Jack intending to trade one of our starters,” Harris told reporters (link via Evan Petzold of the Detroit Free-Press). “We’re always going to listen to opportunities to make trades to make the organization better, but that was not the goal of adding Jack.” At the same time, Harris acknowledged that while the organization is broadly open to stockpiling pitching depth as a matter of due course, he “(doesn’t) know that we’re going to be in the starting pitching market anymore after this signing.”

Maeda and Flaherty step in as veteran additions to a fairly young rotation. Tarik Skubal is the staff ace. The left-hander’s 2022 breakout was cut short by an unfortunate forearm injury that required flexor surgery. Upon returning from a nearly year-long rehab process in early July, he was even better than he’d been before the procedure. Over 15 starts, Skubal turned in a 2.80 ERA while striking out almost a third of batters faced. The 27-year-old kept his walk rate below 5% while averaging 95.8 MPH on his fastball, nearly two ticks higher than he’d shown the preceding season.

Barring an injury in Spring Training, Skubal, Maeda and Flaherty are locks for the Opening Day starting five. The last two spots will likely go to some combination of Reese Olson, Matt Manning, Casey Mize and Sawyer Gipson-Long.

Olson and Gipson-Long debuted last season with solid results. The former built a lengthier résumé, pitching 103 2/3 innings over 21 appearances. He allowed just under four earned runs per nine with better than average strikeout and walk rates (24.4% and 7.8%, respectively). Gipson-Long was a September call-up in his age-25 season. He had excellent numbers over his first four starts, allowing a 2.70 ERA with a 31.7% strikeout rate across 20 innings. That came against a very weak group of opposing lineups — the Angels, White Sox, Royals and A’s — but aligns with his minor league track record of running big strikeout tallies.

Mize and Manning are former top 10 picks who have posted back-of-the-rotation results in their MLB time. Both pitchers have battled injury issues, with Mize missing all of 2023 after undergoing Tommy John surgery. He’s at full strength going into Spring Training, although it’s likely he’ll be limited from an innings perspective. The Auburn product only made two starts in 2022 before the injury, so he has 10 innings over the last two years.

Manning has started between 12 and 18 MLB games since making his debut midway through the ’21 season. Shoulder issues sidelined him for a good portion of the 2022 campaign. His injuries last year were more fluky, as he fractured his foot upon being struck by a comebacker on two separate occasions.

That’s seven viable starters. Joey Wentz and Alex Faedo are still on the roster after making 12+ starts apiece last year, although neither pitched well enough that they’re likely in the Opening Day rotation mix. Teams almost never get through a 162-game schedule with only five starters, so it’s not surprising the front office is content to hold everyone in the group. Petzold writes that the Tigers aren’t considering a six-man rotation, though, so there could be camp battles between Mize, Manning, Olson and Gipson-Long for season-opening jobs.

Giants Out Of Bidding For Yoshinobu Yamamoto

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9:06pm: Yamamoto could make his decision within the next 48 hours, tweets Mark Feinsand of MLB.com.

7:55pm: MLB.com’s Jon Morosi tweets that Yamamoto has at least one offer of $300MM or more in hand.

6:59pm: The Giants have been informed they’re out of the running for Yoshinobu Yamamoto, reports Alex Pavlovic of NBC Sports Bay Area (X link). While there’s no indication that Yamamoto has made his final decision, Pavlovic adds the Giants expect he’ll sign with the Dodgers or one of the New York clubs.

Andy Martino of SNY tweets that the Mets have not received any indication they’re out of the running. That’s also true of the Yankees, according to Jon Heyman of the New York Post (X link). Heyman indicates the Yankees have put a “significant bid” on the table.

Crossing San Francisco off the list technically leaves six known finalists. In addition to the Dodgers, Mets and Yankees, the Blue Jays, Phillies and Red Sox have been involved. Philadelphia has made an offer this week. That said, reports have cast the Phils, Jays, and (to a lesser extent) the Sox as longer shots.

Yamamoto has been weighing offers throughout the week. While he technically has until the evening of January 4 to sign, the expectation is that he won’t take things to the wire. That his camp is now in the process of whittling the field lends credence to the idea that a decision might not be far off.

The bidding seems as if it’ll surpass $250MM, before accounting for a posting fee owed to the Orix Buffaloes that could tack on another $45-50MM. That fee is in proportion to the contract size, calculated as 20% of the deal’s first $25MM, 17.5% of the next $25MM, and 15% of additional spending. That reflects Yamamoto’s atypical youth for a free agent pitcher (25) and his sheer dominance in Japan. Named NPB’s best pitcher three years running, he’s coming off a 1.21 ERA while striking out nearly 27% of opponents in 164 innings.

It’s a tough blow for the Giants, who come up short on another top-tier free agent. The Giants have missed on pursuits of Aaron Judge, Trea Turner and Shohei Ohtani within the past two offseasons alone, while their deal with Carlos Correa fell through because of the physical. Yamamoto will join that list. San Francisco did land KBO star Jung Hoo Lee on a six-year, $113MM pact — the largest deal of Farhan Zaidi’s tenure as baseball operations president — but they haven’t gotten a truly elite free agent in some time.

San Francisco still has plenty of spending capacity as they decide on their next steps. Roster Resource projects their 2024 spending around $158MM. That’s about $30MM below this year’s Opening Day figure. From a luxury tax perspective, they’re almost $45MM south of the base threshold. That opens the possibility for a run at any of the top remaining free agent talents. Blake Snell and Jordan Montgomery headline the rotation class, while Matt Chapman was on the radar earlier in the offseason. So was the top available hitter, Cody Bellinger, although the Lee signing seems to rule out a pursuit of another lefty-swinging center fielder.

Pirates Designate Andre Jackson For Assignment

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The Pirates are designating right-hander Andre Jackson for assignment, as first reported by Alex Stumpf of DK Pittsburgh Sports. Pittsburgh needed to create a 40-man roster spot after re-signing Andrew McCutchen yesterday. Jason Mackey of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reports (on X) that Jackson sought his release to pursue a deal with a team in Japan.

Pittsburgh acquired Jackson from the Dodgers in a minor trade in June. He’d been designated for assignment by Los Angeles leading up to that deal, which saw the Bucs send cash the other way. The 27-year-old started seven of 12 appearances down the stretch, his first rotation work at the major league level. Jackson turned in decent results, pitching to a 4.33 ERA across 43 2/3 innings. He struck hitters out at a solid 23% clip, although his 10.7% walk rate hinted at the control questions that have persisted for his entire career.

Jackson has long shown a combination of intriguing stuff and wobbly strike-throwing ability. He has pitched parts of three seasons at the MLB level, working to a 4.25 ERA through 82 2/3 frames. The Houston product has a less imposing 5.07 mark in 140 1/3 innings of work at the Triple-A level, where he has walked almost 15% of batters faced.

The control inconsistency meant that Jackson could have found himself on the roster bubble in 2024. This was his final minor league option season, so he’d have had to remain on Pittsburgh’s MLB team, be placed on waivers or traded. Given the chance that he’d have landed on the waiver wire, he apparently preferred to head to NPB and lock in some guaranteed money. He’ll technically land on waivers in the next few days but figures to go unclaimed and be released.

Rockies, Ty Blach Agree To Minor League Contract

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The Rockies are re-signing lefty Ty Blach to a minor league contract with a Spring Training invitation, reports MLBTR’s Steve Adams (on X). Blach turned down an opportunity in the Korea Baseball Organization to return for a third year with Colorado.

Geography surely plays a role in that decision, as Blach is a Denver native. He’s clearly comfortable with the Rox, as this marks a third straight offseason in which he has inked a minor league deal. Blach reached the majors early in each of the last two seasons. He logged 44 1/3 innings of 5.89 ERA ball in 2022 before tallying 78 frames — the third-highest workload of his career — last season. Blach allowed 5.54 earned runs per nine at the MLB level, leading Colorado to outright him from the 40-man roster at the beginning of the offseason.

The Rox will keep him around as a non-roster depth option. Blach doesn’t throw hard, averaging 89.3 MPH on his sinker this year. He has never missed many bats as a result, but the Creighton product has strong control. Blach has walked a little over 7% of opponents in his MLB career. He kept that to a 6.8% rate in the majors last season and handed out free passes to just 6% of batters faced at Triple-A Albuquerque. Blach posted a 4.40 ERA over 30 2/3 Triple-A innings, deceptively solid results in one of the toughest environments for pitchers in affiliated ball.

Now 33, Blach will look to earn a long relief or back-end rotation spot. Colorado only has three pitchers — Kyle Freeland, Cal Quantrill and Austin Gomber — who seem to have an inside track at a rotation spot. The front office will surely add more starting pitching options this offseason, but Blach’s ability to work multiple innings has gotten him extended run on Bud Black’s pitching staff two years running.

Reds, Hernan Perez Agree To Minor League Contract

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The Reds have signed infielder Hernán Pérez to a minor league deal, according to the transaction log at MLB.com. It isn’t clear whether the veteran utility player will get a look in Spring Training.

Pérez, 33 in March, spent part of the 2023 season in the Minnesota organization. He got into 32 games with Triple-A St. Paul, hitting .279/.351/.485 through 231 trips to the plate. That solid production in limited time — he also lost around two months to an undisclosed injury — wasn’t enough to crack a deep Twins infield. He returned to minor league free agency at season’s end.

The last time Pérez donned a big league uniform was in 2021. He appeared in 10 early-season contests with the Nationals before being outrighted off the roster. Pérez played the second half of that year in South Korea and has spent most of the last two seasons in Triple-A.

The Venezuela native reached the big leagues every season from 2012-21. The bulk of his MLB time came in Milwaukee between 2016-19, highlighted by 34 stolen bases with a .272/.302/.428 slash for the Brew Crew in 2016. While Pérez has been a strong baserunner and shown plenty of defensive flexibility throughout his MLB time, a very aggressive approach has resulted in middling offensive production. He’s a .250/.280/.382 hitter in a little more than 1800 big league plate appearances.

Cincinnati has plenty of infield depth, so it’s hard to see a path to an Opening Day roster spot. He’s likely to begin next season at Triple-A Louisville as experienced non-roster injury insurance.

Yankees, Nick Burdi Agree To Minor League Deal

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The Yankees have agreed to a minor league pact with hard-throwing right-hander Nick Burdi, reports Jack Curry of the YES Network. The Apex Baseball client will be in big league camp this spring.

Selected 46th overall out of Louisville by the Twins back in 2014, Burdi joined the professional ranks as a power-armed closer who could potentially have a fast track to the big leagues. He’d obliterated the opposition in college, posting a 1.79 ERA while fanning a comical 47% of his opponents during his NCAA career. He looked the part of a big league reliever following the draft, too, climbing to Double-A less than a year after being drafted and posting gaudy strikeout totals along the way.

As is the case with so many flamethrowing young arms, however, injuries intervened. A bone bruise in his upper arm wiped out most of Burdi’s 2016 season, and his 2017 campaign was cut short by Tommy John surgery. The Twins lost Burdi in the 2017 Rule 5 Draft — the Phillies selected him and immediately traded him to the Pirates — and he made his MLB debut with Pittsburgh late in the 2018 season.

Because he spent the bulk of the year on the injured list, Burdi’s Rule 5 designation carried over from the 2018 season into the 2019 season. He pitched just 8 2/3 innings before undergoing thoracic outlet surgery and missing the rest of the year. Burdi returned in 2020 but pitched just 2 1/3 MLB frames before hitting the injured list with an elbow issue that eventually resulted in his second career Tommy John surgery. Burdi finally returned to the mound with the Cubs organization in 2023, but as if the slate of arm injuries hadn’t been difficult enough, he also missed a substantial portion of the ’23 campaign after requiring an emergency appendectomy in late May.

Although we’re coming up on nearly a decade since Burdi was drafted, he’s pitched just 15 1/3 innings in the Majors due to that stunning slate of injuries. The results haven’t been good, as he’s allowed 16 runs in that time. Burdi, however, has a 3.51 ERA in parts of six minor league seasons and has whiffed just shy of 33% of opponents in his professional career (big leagues and minors combined). His durability is an enormous question, of course, but his arm strength is not; in the tiny sample of three MLB innings with Chicago last year, Burdi averaged 98 mph on his heater and reached triple digits at times.

If he can remain healthy enough to emerge as an option for the Yankees, he still has all three minor league option years remaining, which would give New York plenty of flexibility in the ’pen. He has to be viewed as a long shot to remain healthy, given his track record of injuries, but Burdi still looks to have plenty of fire in his right arm and deserves credit for grinding through a grueling slate of injuries that would surely have been enough for many pitchers to call it quits.

MLB Announces Modifications To Pitch Clock, Other Rule Changes

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1:27pm: In a statement, Major League Baseball Players Association executive director Tony Clark announced that the players on the Competition Committee voted against today’s slate of changes.

“This afternoon, Player Representatives voted against the 2024 rule changes proposed by the Commissioner’s Office,” the statement reads. “As they made clear in the Competition Committee, Players strongly feel that, following last season’s profound changes to the fundamental rules of the game, immediate additional changes are unnecessary and offer no meaningful benefits to fans, Players, or the competition on the field. This season should be used to gather additional data and fully examine the health, safety and injury impacts of reduced recovery time; that is where our focus will be.”

1:15pm: Major League Baseball announced a slate of modifications to the game’s official rules, which have been approved by the MLB Competition Committee (comprised of six owners, four players and one umpire). Per the league’s press release, the changes are as follows:

  • Runner’s Lane: The Runner’s Lane will be widened to include the dirt area between the foul line and the infield grass. Widening the lane allows batters to take a more direct path to first base while retaining protection from interference.  The distance between the foul line and the infield grass will be between 18 and 24 inches in all parks, with some limited grace periods granted by MLB due to difficulty in modifying the field (e.g., synthetic turf field).
  • Pace of Game: MLB proposed minor changes to the Pace of Game Regulations to address an increase in game time as the season progressed – the average nine-inning game time increased seven minutes from April to September (five minutes after controlling for the number pitches, breaks, and runs scored).
    • Timing Between Pitches: Reduce time from 20 seconds to 18 seconds with runners on base. Pitchers began their deliveries with an average of 7.3 seconds remaining on the 20-second timer in 2023. Pitchers retain the ability to step off and re-set the Clock up to two times without penalty. Violations with runners on base were the least frequent (14% of all violations vs 32% of all pitches) in 2023. A universal 17-second Clock used for the final month of the Triple-A season did not increase violations with runners on base.
    • Batter Timeouts: Based on player feedback, MLB withdrew a proposal that would have required the home plate umpire to immediately reset the Pitch Clock after a batter called timeout.
    • Pitching Changes: If a new pitcher steps onto the warning track with less than 2:00 remaining on the inning break Clock, the Clock will reset to 2:00 rather than 2:15 as was the case in 2023. Inning breaks that contained a pitching change averaged 2 minutes and 35 seconds in 2023 (broadcasters are only guaranteed two minutes of commercial time).
    • Mound Visits: Mound visits will be reduced from five per game to four, and an extra mound visit will still be awarded for the ninth inning if the defensive team has zero remaining at the end of the eighth inning. Mound visits rank among fans’ least favorite events in baseball. Clubs averaged only 2.3 mound visits per game in 2023. Last season, 98% of games would not have exceeded a limit of four mound visits.  Umpires will also permit defensive players to signal for a mound visit without actually visiting the mound to further help improve pace of game.
    • Circumvention: The FTC (field timing coordinator) will now restart the timer after a dead ball (e.g., foul ball) when the pitcher has the ball and play is ready to resume. There will no longer be a requirement for the pitcher to be on the mound, removing the pitcher’s ability to delay the start of the timer by walking around the edge of the mound.
    • Pitcher Who Warms Up Must Face At Least One Hitter: A pitcher who is sent out to warm up for an inning must face at least one batter (in addition to any requirements under the Three-Batter Minimum rule). There were 24 instances this season where the pitcher that warmed up between innings was replaced before throwing a pitch (adding approximately three minutes of dead time per event). There were two such instances during the 2023 World Series.

Runner’s lane photo courtesy of Major League Baseball communications department.

Yankees, Luis Gonzalez Agree To Minor League Deal

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The Yankees and free agent outfielder Luis Gonzalez have agreed to a minor league contract, reports Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic. He’ll be in Major League camp this spring.

The 28-year-old Gonzalez has played in parts of three big league seasons between the White Sox and Giants, compiling a .253/.328/.368 batting line in 363 plate appearances. The 2017 third-round pick once rated as one of the better prospects in the ChiSox’ system, but he hasn’t yet found sustained success in the big leagues.

Gonzalez got out to a hot start in 2022, his first season with the Giants, after coming over from the Sox via waivers late in the 2021 season. Through June 21 of the 2022 season, Gonzalez was hitting .302/.361/.447 in 180 plate appearances, but a lower back strain shelved him for the next two and a half weeks. He was activated on July 9 but returned to the injured list with another back strain about six weeks later — this time missing the remainder of the season. Gonzalez may never have been fully healthy upon returning, as he batted only .204/.282/.270 in 170 trips to the plate between those two IL stints.

The back troubles persisted into the 2023 season, and Gonzalez eventually underwent surgery to repair a herniated disc. That procedure kept him out from mid-March through early July. He didn’t make it back to San Francisco’s big league roster but did suit up for 31 minor league games following the operation, during which he posted a .248/.350/.352 batting line in 123 trips to the plate.

The Yankees obviously have no room in the big league outfield after acquiring Juan Soto, Trent Grisham and Alex Verdugo in trades this offseason. Soto and Verdugo will flank Aaron Judge, who’ll be the team’s primary center fielder, while Grisham will give them a lefty-swinging fourth outfielder with a plus glove to come off the bench late in games. Like Grisham, Gonzalez is a lefty bat with experience at all three outfield slots. The Yankees have a trio of depth outfielders — Everson Pereira, Estevan Florial and recent waiver claim Oscar Gonzalez — all on the 40-man roster ahead of their new signing. Gonzalez seems likely to open the year in Triple-A Scranton Wilkes-Barre.

Jesus Aguilar To Sign With NPB’s Seibu Lions

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Veteran first baseman Jesus Aguilar is set to sign with the Seibu Lions of Japan’s Nippon Professional Baseball, reports Robert Murray of FanSided. The MVP Sports client has appeared in the Majors in each of the past ten seasons but will head overseas for the first time in his career.

Aguilar, 33, signed a one-year, $3MM deal with the A’s last offseason but struggled greatly through 36 games. In 115 plate appearances with Oakland, the burly slugger managed a tepid .221/.281/.385 slash with a 27% strikeout rate. It was a second consecutive lackluster campaign at the plate for Aguilar, and although he turned around a bit after signing with the Braves on a minor league deal, he never got a look in the big leagues with Atlanta. In 241 plate appearances with Triple-A Gwinnett, he hit .271/.373/.379 with a hefty 14.1% walk rate.

With the exception of a down season in 2019, Aguilar was a well above-average hitter from 2017-21. Even with a rough showing in ’19, his batting line over that five-year stretch checked in at .262/.338/.478, and he slugged 93 round-trippers along the way. Aguilar’s best year came with the Brewers in 2018, when he swatted a career-best 35 home runs and turned in a stout .274/.352/.539 batting line. The Lions will be hoping for that type of production, or something close to it, in signing the veteran slugger for the upcoming season.

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