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Quick Hits: Dodgers, Astros, Royals, Gagne

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Two weeks ago, the Dodgers were leaning toward having left-hander Julio Urias open the season in their rotation. It now appears he’ll begin in the minors as they attempt to tamp down his workload, according to Joel Sherman of the New York Post. The 20-year-old phenom threw a career-high 122 innings between the majors and minors in 2016, and LA wants to keep him fresh this season for a potential playoff run. Should the Dodgers send down Urias, they’d choose among Brandon McCarthy, Alex Wood and “wild card” Hyun-Jin Ryu to fill their final two rotation spots, adds Sherman (Twitter links here).

Elsewhere around the majors…

  • Houston’s acquisition of catcher Brian McCann from the Yankees in November played a key role in their December signing of designated hitter Carlos Beltran, Astros general manager Jeff Luhnow informed Mark Feinsand of MLB.com. “As we recruited Beltran, bringing McCann over was a big part of getting Beltran to accept coming over here,” said Luhnow. Teammates in New York from 2014-16, McCann and Beltran have already been quite valuable behind the scenes for the Astros, per Luhnow. “These two guys have been a tremendous boost to the environment in our clubhouse,” he stated. “I’m so glad they’re here.”
  • When he accepted the Royals’ two-year, $12MM guarantee as a free agent last month, southpaw Travis Wood seemed like a decent bet to start 2017 in their rotation. But another offseason acquisition, trade pickup Nate Karns, has emerged over Wood and Chris Young as the clear favorite for Kansas City’s last starting spot, tweets Sherman. The right-handed Karns, 29, made 46 starts with the Nationals, Rays and Mariners from 2013-16 and logged a 4.19 ERA, 9.0 K/9 and 3.69 BB/9 over 249 innings. The 30-year-old Wood worked solely as a reliever with the World Series champion Cubs last season, which came after he racked up 133 starts in Cincinnati and Chicago from 2010-15. He recorded the same ERA as Karns (4.19) to go with 7.11 K/9 against 3.15 BB/9 during that 776-inning span.
  • Free agent reliever Eric Gagne, 41, is making a case for a contract in the World Baseball Classic, though the Team Canada righty and 2003 NL Cy Young winner realizes he’d first have to succeed in the minors to have any chance at returning to the majors. “I know the game, I know how it happens, I know they need spots on the 40-man roster and don’t want to release a young guy for a 41 year old, so of course I’d be willing to do anything,” the former closer told Shi Davidi of Sportsnet. Gagne, who hasn’t pitched in the bigs since 2008, worked out for five teams before the WBC, writes Davidi, and has since fared well in the tournament. “Words are irrelevant at this point. Clubs are seeing it with their own eyes,” Gagne’s agent, Scott Leventhal, told FanRag’s Jon Heyman (Twitter link).

West Notes: Athletics, Gray, Padres, Weaver, Dodgers

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Athletics right-hander Sonny Gray endured an injury-plagued 2016 in which his production declined sharply, thereby hurting his trade value. Gray isn’t far removed from an ace-like stretch from 2013-15, though, and a rebound this year would increase the likelihood of the A’s trading him during the season, writes Susan Slusser of the San Francisco Chronicle. While general manager David Forst would like Gray to spend the next decade in an A’s uniform, the two sides haven’t engaged in any extension talks, reports Slusser (Twitter links). Gray, 28, is controllable via arbitration through the 2019 campaign and will make $3.58MM this season.

More from California:

  • The Padres are maintaining interest in free agent righty Jered Weaver, tweets Dennis Lin of the San Diego Union-Tribune. San Diego has been targeting Weaver for over a month, and the team reportedly offered him more than the $1.75MM in guarantees it gave to each of Jhoulys Chacin, Trevor Cahill and Clayton Richard earlier this offseason. The 34-year-old Weaver, a careerlong Angel who’s coming off his worst season, would presumably join Chacin, Cahill and Richard to comprise four-fifths of a rotation if he were to sign with the rebuilding Padres. The Friars have also shown interest in fellow veteran righty Jake Peavy, their former ace, but talks between the two haven’t “heated up,” per Lin.
  • The Dodgers are prioritizing their bullpen as spring training approaches, team president Andrew Friedman informed Doug Padilla of ESPN.com. “I don’t think you ever get to a place with the bullpen where you’re done,” said Friedman. “It’s something that every year, heading into the season, it scares you.” The Dodgers have added Brandon Morrow as a potential bullpen piece this week, and they’re reportedly in on free agents Joe Blanton, Craig Breslow and Jerry Blevins. Blanton was a prominent member of the Dodgers’ relief corps last season, as was J.P Howell, but they haven’t been able to land deals with February nearing.
  • After beginning last season as a starter, Dodgers southpaw Alex Wood underwent an elbow procedure in July and returned as a reliever toward the end of the campaign. He could be a factor in their bullpen this year, then, but Wood said Saturday that he’ll work as a starter in spring training and expects to crack the Dodgers’ season-opening rotation (Twitter link via Ken Gurnick of MLB.com). Wood might have a legitimate shot to land a starting job to begin the year, as phenom Julio Urias could head to extended spring training in the early going. It appears Wood will face competition from Hyun-Jin Ryu, however.
  • The Athletics are unlikely to make any further roster alterations leading up spring training, according to Forst (Twitter link via John Hickey of the Bay Area News Group). If the A’s are indeed done for the offseason, outfielders Matt Joyce and Rajai Davis, reliever Santiago Casilla and third baseman Trevor Plouffe will go down as their winter haul.

Players Avoiding Arbitration: National League

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Quite frankly, there were too many arbitration agreements today to reasonably stuff into one post. So here’s a rundown of the National League players that have avoided arbitration on smaller deals (American League deals here). You can see all of the arbitration “action” thus far in a sortable, filterable format by checking out MLBTR’s 2017 Arbitration Tracker. All projections referenced in this post are courtesy of MLBTR contributor Matt Swartz:

  • Wily Peralta and Carlos Torres have agreed to one-year deals, according to the team’s Twitter account. Peralta will earn $4.275MM (compared to $4.4MM projection), per Heyman. Torres was projected to make $2MM, but will get slightly more at $2.175MM, per Chris Cotillo of SB Nation (via Twitter).
  • Reliever George Kontos gets $1.75MM from the Giants, Heyman tweets. He had projected at $1.7MM.
  • The Diamondbacks also reached agreement with lefty Patrick Corbin, righty Randall Delgado, and catcher Chris Herrmann, per Jack Magruder of Fan Rag (links to Twitter). Delgado gets $1.775MM and Herrmann receives $937,500. As for Corbin, he’ll take home $3.95MM, per Nick Piecoro of the Arizona Republic (via Twitter), which falls a bit shy of his $4.2MM projection.
  • Infielder Eduardo Nunez will receive $4.2MM from the Giants, per Jon Heyman of Fan Rag (via Twitter). San Francisco has also reached agreement with lefty Will Smith, per Henry Schulman of the San Francisco Chronicle (via Twitter). He’ll receive $2.5MM, just over his $2.3MM projection, Heyman tweets.
  • The Phillies settled at $4.2MM with righty Jeanmar Gomez, per Matt Gelb of the Philadelphia Inquirer (via Twitter). He falls just a big shy of his $4.6MM projection.
  • The Cardinals have announced arb deals with Trevor Rosenthal and Kevin Siegrist. Rosenthal receives $6.4MM, per Heyman (via Twitter), which is just $100K over his projection. Siegrist projected at $1.9MM, but his salary has yet to be reported.
  • Matt Harvey and Jacob deGrom have each avoided arbitration with the Mets. Harvey gets $5.125MM in his second arb year, per James Wagner of the New York Times (via Twitter). Meanwhile, deGrom will receive $4.05MM in his first trip through the arb process, per ESPNNewYork.com’s Adam Rubin (via Twitter). New York has also agreed with lefty Josh Edgin, Rubin tweets, though terms remain unreported.

Earlier Updates

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Alex Wood To Undergo Elbow Procedure

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The Dodgers have announced that lefty Alex Wood will “undergo an arthroscopic debridement” of his pitching elbow. The southpaw is expected to miss eight weeks after the surgery is complete, per the announcement.

Doing the math, things don’t look terribly promising for a return in 2016. The team’s estimate would put Wood back in action in mid-to-late September, and that’s before considering a full rehab build-up and factoring in contingencies. A post-season return may be hypothetically possible, but that might be an aggressive assignment.

Wood had been building back after being diagnosed with an elbow impingement, with some optimism being expressed recently, but evidently some recent development led to the change in plans. It comes at an inopportune time for a Dodgers team that also lost another starter returning from injury — fellow southpaw Hyun-jin Ryu — to another malady. And that’s before considering the most important lefty of all, Clayton Kershaw, who doesn’t have a timetable to return from his back issues after a recent throwing session didn’t go well.

Wood, 25, had worked to a 3.99 ERA in 56 1/3 innings on the year, but showed promise for more with a rising strikeout rate (9.9 K/9). With a healthy 53.0% groundball rate mixed in, Wood checked in with rather excellent ratings from ERA estimators. He was carrying a 3.27 FIP, 3.31 xFIP, and 3.52 SIERA.

There’s been plenty of discussion about what Los Angeles might do at the trade deadline, though we’ve heard relatively little in terms of clear connections to specific targets. The organization already added righty Bud Norris to shore up the rotation, but the loss of Wood, the continued uncertainty surrounding Ryu, and an increasingly concerning situation with Kershaw may heighten the Dodgers’ desire to add a major starter.

At present, the Dodgers sit 4.5 games back of the Giants in the NL West and lead the Wild Card race. That’s not a bad spot to be in at all, but the club will need to be firing with all cylinders to keep pace in the division — or, if that fails, to hold off some strong pursuers to qualify for the play-in game.

For Wood, the continued absence comes at a particularly unfortunate time. He is set to qualify for arbitration for the first time after the 2016 campaign, but now is destined to have only a partial-season platform. Though his success and prior innings tallies will help boost his earnings, he’ll surely receive far less than he would have with a healthy year.

NL Notes: Wong, Cubs’ Pen, Miller, Wood

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The Cardinals have recalled second baseman Kolten Wong from Triple-A Memphis after optioning him to the minors just 10 days ago. In his place, center fielder Jeremy Hazelbaker has been optioned to Memphis. Wong’s demotion was the culmination of a marked decline and came just three months after he’d signed a five-year, $25.5MM contract extension. After hitting just .222/.306/.286 through his first 144 plate appearances and losing the second base job — Matt Carpenter is manning that position with Jhonny Peralta handling third and rookie Aledmys Diaz playing shortstop — Wong went on an absolute tear in Triple-A; in 34 plate appearances there, he batted .429/.529/.929 with four homers while seeing quite a bit of action in center field. Hazelbaker was one of the most talked-about players in the Majors in April when he batted .317/.357/.683, but the 28-year-old has come back to earth and seen his playing time dwindle since.

Here’s more from the National League:

  • Cubs president of baseball operations Theo Epstein says that he “would love” to add a high-quality bullpen arm, MLB.com’s Cody Stavenhagen tweets. But the veteran executive also made clear that he won’t rush to the phones just because the bullpen has had some hiccups of late. Chicago looks to be set most everywhere else, so it makes sense that the club would look for ways to add impact in its relief corps, but there’s really no sense of urgency given the team’s excellent start.
  • Shelby Miller will return to the major league hill for the Diamondbacks on Monday, Steve Gilbert of MLB.com tweets. Miller had been on the DL for a finger injury, though he was also looking to right the ship after an abysmal start to his career in Arizona. If the club has any hope of clawing back into the postseason picture, it’ll need Miller to turn things around.
  • Dodgers lefty Alex Wood will begin throwing next week, a bit ahead of schedule, as JP Hoornstra of the Los Angeles News Group reports. The inflammation in his elbow has responded as hoped, it seems, though the real test will come as he ramps back up. Wood emphasized that he doesn’t have any structural issues. Still, he might not return to competitive action until mid-July, per the report, and that’s assuming he stays on a positive course. Presumably, it’ll be at least a bit longer before he’d be ready for the majors. Los Angeles has several key arms at various stages of the rehab pipeline.

Alex Wood Has Elbow Impingement, Won’t Throw For Four Weeks

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The Dodgers announced tonight that an MRI on the left arm of starter Alex Wood has revealed a posterior elbow impingement, which will require four weeks of rest (Twitter link). Per their announcement, he’ll be reevaluated at that time. With a layoff of nearly a month from throwing, Wood seems like a lock to require a minor league rehab assignment before returning, so an absence of at least six weeks (through the All-Star break) seems like a reasonable floor, and the potential for him to miss more time than that certainly exists.

Wood, 25, had rounded into form after a slow start with the Dodgers to open the year. Over his past six outings, a span of 35 1/3 innings, he’d worked to a 2.80 ERA with a scintillating 50-to-8 K/BB ratio and a 43.2 percent ground-ball rate. Wood’s unorthodox delivery has led some to tab him as an injury risk in the past, though this is the first time he’s landed on the Major League disabled list with an arm injury (or with any injury, for that matter). Last season, he totaled 189 2/3 of 3.84 ERA ball between the Braves and Dodgers, who acquired him from Atlanta in the much-maligned Hector Olivera trade.

The Dodgers had already placed Wood on the disabled list and brought Julio Urias back from Triple-A prior to the MRI, and it’ll be Urias who starts in Wood’s place for tomorrow’s matchup against the Cubs. Wood joins left-handers Brett Anderson and Hyun-jin Ryu as well as right-handers Brandon McCarthy and Frankie Montas as injured rotation options on the Dodgers’ disabled list. With him on the shelf, Los Angeles will lean on Clayton Kershaw, Scott Kazmir, Kenta Maeda, Mike Bolsinger and, presumably, Urias in the rotation for the foreseeable future. Other alternatives at the Triple-A level include Ross Stripling, Carlos Frias and Zach Lee.

The Dodgers’ rotation entered play today with the third-best ERA of any team in the Majors, though that mark is skewed to some extent by Kershaw’s dominance. As a collective unit they’ve posted a strong 3.41 ERA, but non-Kershaw starters have provided skipper Dave Roberts and his staff with a more pedestrian 4.14 ERA. The Dodgers clearly have a number of starters that could return from the disabled list to bolster the middle and back-end of the rotation, though given the uncertainties permeating the staff, the top-heavy nature of the rotation and the front office’s active nature, it shouldn’t come as a shock if the Dodgers are connected to potential rotation upgrades on the trade market this summer.

Injury Notes: Dodgers, Joseph, Romo, Perkins, Minor

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The Dodgers will place left-hander Alex Wood on the 15-day disabled list with soreness in his left elbow and will recall fellow lefty Julio Urias from Triple-A just a few days after optioning him back to the minors, reports Andy McCullough of the Los Angeles Times (via Twitter). McCullough tweets that Wood’s injury is not structural, though he informed the team earlier in the day that he’s has some lingering soreness in his triceps. It’s not entirely certain that Urias will step into the rotation for Wood, McCullough notes. That decision will be impacted by righty Kenta Maeda, who has some swelling in his right hand after being hit by a comeback line drive over the weekend.

A few more notes on some injury situations from around the league…

  • The Orioles have placed backup catcher Caleb Joseph on the 15-day disabled list after he underwent surgery for a testicular injury sustained over the weekend when he took an unfortunately placed foul ball, tweets Eduardo A. Encina of the Baltimore Sun. Encina wrote earlier in the day that the injury was sustained on a foul tip in the eighth inning of yesterday’s contest. As MASNsports.com’s Roch Kubatko writes, the O’s have recalled Francisco Pena from Triple-A, and he’ll receive an equal workload to the one that had been shouldered by Joseph. In other words, Matt Wieters’ workload will not increase in light of Joseph’s absence. “We’re not going to start pushing up his load and jeopardize something down the road,” said manager Buck Showalter of Wieters. “He may feel differently, but we’ll take it day to day. Shouldn’t change anything about that, but we’ll see.”
  • Giants right-hander Sergio Romo has had a setback in his rehab from a flexor strain in his right elbow, manager Bruce Bochy told reporters (Twitter links via Henry Schulman of the San Francisco Chronicle). Romo has been experiencing tenderness in his right elbow, which prompted the Giants to order an MRI on their longtime late-inning reliever. On the positive side, Schulman notes that the MRI didn’t reveal any structural damage. However, he’ll still be backed off for four to five days, making it unlikely that he’ll be back with the team anytime soon.
  • Twins closer Glen Perkins suffered a setback in his return from a shoulder injury earlier this month, but assistant GM Rob Antony told reporters, including Phil Miller of the Minneapolis Star Tribune (Twitter link), that Perkins’ throwing program since that time has been going well. The Minnesota native and career-long Twin will throw his first mound session since hitting the DL back on April 13 this coming Saturday. He’s pitched in just two games this season — a significant factor the Twins’ season-long bullpen woes.
  • Rustin Dodd of the Kansas City Star writes that Royals left-hander Mike Minor returned to Kansas City today to have his surgically repaired left shoulder checked out by the Major League training staff. Minor, who signed a two-year deal this winter on the heels of the aforementioned surgery, has been dealing with some fatigue in that shoulder. Manager Ned Yost said the team doesn’t consider the injury to be serious at this time and isn’t calling the fatigue a setback, though as Dodd notes, he’s just over a week away from the end of his 30-day rehab window, which comes to a close on June 9.

Pitcher Notes: S. Miller, Dodgers, Storen, Boxberger

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The Diamondbacks made one of the offseason’s most criticized moves when they sent a significant haul of young talent to Atlanta for right-hander Shelby Miller. One month into the season, the deal looks even worse for the Diamondbacks than its detractors thought it did at the time. Two of the players they gave up, righty Aaron Blair and shortstop prospect Dansby Swanson, have gotten off to impressive starts in the Braves organization. Miller, meanwhile, threw 19 2/3 innings in April and yielded 19 earned runs while walking one fewer hitter (15) than he struck out (16). Regarding Miller’s early difficulties, D-backs general manager Dave Stewart told MLB Network Radio (Twitter link) that expectations are weighing down the 25-year-old. “Shelby Miller is really just feeling some pressure of the trade,” Stewart said.

Here’s the latest on a few more pitchers from around baseball:

  • Blue Jays reliever Drew Storen’s horrid April (eight innings, 14 hits, nine earned runs) won’t deter John Gibbons from continuing to rely on him, the manager told Ben Nicholson-Smith of Sportsnet. “I plan on just throwing him out there. You’ve got to. Otherwise you’re not very good if he’s not a key guy. The good ones, they all learn how to survive and make adjustments,” Gibbons said. As Nicholson-Smith notes, Storen’s average fastball velocity fell from 94 mph last year to 91.9 in April. On the bright side, he struck out seven batters against just one walk during the season’s first month.
  • Cuban right-hander and offseason Dodgers signing Yaisel Sierra made his U.S. debut Saturday in a Single-A start and struck out seven hitters in four innings, though he allowed eight base runners (six hits, two walks) and three runs, according to Pete Marshall of the San Bernardino Sun. Sierra’s fastball sat in the low 90s and topped out at 94, which is the normal range for the 24-year-old. “I wasn’t good, I wasn’t bad,” he said of his performance.
  • Dodgers left-hander Alex Wood had his best start of the year in a 5-1 loss to the Padres on Friday, throwing seven innings of five-hit, one-run ball while striking out nine and walking one. Wood’s encouraging outing came after a few days of working on a mechanical adjustment, writes Jack Baer of MLB.com. Wood’s delivery became easier to repeat, leading to better command, as a result of lowering his foot during his stride. “When I stride out, my foot off the ground has been fairly higher than it has been in the past,” he said. “It’s something that I thought was the last piece of the puzzle, in terms of my timing and getting my consistency back.” Wood’s performance against the Padres dropped his season ERA from 6.00 to 4.82 and increased his K/9 from a paltry 5.1 to 6.75.
  • Rays closer Brad Boxberger continues making progress in his recovery from core muscle repair surgery on March 17 and should return to the majors later this month after a rehab assignment, per Marc Topkin of the Tampa Bay Times. Boxberger went 41 of 47 on save opportunities last season and put up a 3.71 ERA, 10.57 K/9 and 4.57 BB/9 in 63 innings.

West Notes: Dodgers, Wood, Wolters, Bush

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After a Spring Training in which they’ve beset by injuries, the Dodgers’ thrifty offseason looms large, USA Today’s Bob Nightengale writes. The Dodgers’ lengthy injury list (including players who were hurt before the spring started) currently features Andre Ethier, Brett Anderson, Hyun-jin Ryu, Brandon McCarthy and Frankie Montas, who all figure to miss significant time, along with Howie Kendrick, Yasmani Grandal, Mike Bolsinger and others, whose maladies currently appear to be somewhat less serious. “It’s one of those freak things, that everything is happening at once,” says Kendrick. “Better it happen here than later, and then hopefully we get on with our season.” The Dodgers’ core issue, as Nightengale sees it, is that despite being a financial powerhouse, they want to succeed by accumulating depth and staying patient, rather than by paying the prices (either in money or in top prospects, of which they have many) necessary to acquire star players. That means they won’t be willing to trade their best young talent for upgrades now, even when they’ve been bitten by the injury bug. Here’s more from the West divisions.

  • Dodgers starter Alex Wood looks like a rebound candidate, FanGraphs’ Jeff Sullivan writes. That would be a bit of good news for the team’s beleaguered rotation. Wood has raised his release point, which had fallen during his uneven 2015 season. He might also be in the process of regaining some of the velocity he’s lost as well — it fell from an average of 91.7 MPH in 2013 to 89.3 last season, and his pitches this spring have been closer to his 2013 levels.
  • Catcher Tony Wolters was an unlikely choice to make the Rockies’ roster, but he’ll head north with the big-league team thanks in part to his ability to play at the middle infield positions as well as behind the plate, Nick Groke of the Denver Post writes. When the Rockies claimed Wolters in February, he had never played above the Double-A level. He initially played shortstop in the Indians organization before switching to catching in 2013. That versatility could make him more useful in extra-inning games — and, I’d think, in long games in general, of which Coors Field has many. “We didn’t know the kid until spring training started,” says manager Walt Weiss. “Over the course of six weeks, he won a lot of people over. That’s hard to do in this game.”
  • The Rangers believe Matt Bush could pitch in the Major Leagues in 2016, Joel Sherman of the New York Post writes. Bush, of course, was the first overall pick by the Padres in the 2004 draft, but the path he’s taken since then has been rocky, to say the least. He flamed out as a shortstop, and more troublingly, had a number of run-ins with the law, including a drunk-driving incident that resulted in him hitting a motorcyclist and spending more than three years in jail. But one member of the Rangers’ minor-league staff, Roy Silver, was in contact with Bush during his incarceration and had experience working with Josh Hamilton and other addicts. Bush, now a pitcher, is currently hitting 100 MPH from the mound.

NL West Notes: Upton, Wood, Pederson, Dodgers, D-Backs

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Padres outfielder Melvin Upton Jr. says he’s “tired of trying to live up to other people’s expectations” and intends to “work hard” and “have fun” in San Diego, Jeff Sanders of the San Diego Union-Tribune reports. As Sanders writes, the elder Upton brother has long been looked upon to deliver results befitting his talent, draft status, and contracts, and he’s obviously endured some rough years along the way. But he’s still only 31 years old and turned things around last year, posting a .259/.327/.429 slash in 228 plate appearances while profiling as a solid defender in center. While the $31.9MM left on his contract over the next two years, which the Friars took on in the Craig Kimbrel swap, still looks rather expensive, it’s certainly possible that Upton will continue that momentum and function as a valuable member of the roster.

Here are a few more notes from the NL West:

  • Dodgers lefty Alex Wood missed his scheduled start today after experiencing forearm tightness, as Ken Gurnick of MLB.com reports. As things stand, though, the team is “optimistic” that the current issue is a minor one, Bill Shaikin of the Los Angeles Times reports (Twitter links), and Wood himself says the soreness is “extremely mild.” Acquired last summer, Wood figures to be an important component of the club’s rotation depth as it deals with the extended absences of pitchers such as Brandon McCarthy and Brett Anderson, as well as the continued uncertainty surrounding Hyun-jin Ryu. It’s certainly too soon to know whether there’s cause for real concern regarding Wood, but he’s always been a player who has faced questions about his durability due to his unorthodox delivery and prior Tommy John surgery. Indeed, the statistical research of MLBTR contributor Bradley Woodrum suggested that Wood is at a heightened risk of a TJ procedure this year, as he checked in at 72% above the league average risk. While that shouldn’t be read to indicate that Wood is particularly likely to require a UCL replacement in the coming season, it does perhaps point towards cautious handling, and the club seems to be proceeding accordingly.
  • The Dodgers intend to utilize Joc Pederson as the team’s regular center fielder, Bill Plunkett of the Orange County Register reports. While the team is giving an extended look to Trayce Thompson this spring, skipper Dave Roberts explains that the much-hyped Pederson “looks good, much more comfortable at the plate” now than he did down the stretch and remains  “a plus defender in center field.”
  • J.P. Hoornstra of the Los Angeles News Group examines the Dodgers’ extensive recent history on the Cuban market in an interesting piece. The demand for Cuban talent jumped with Yasiel Puig’s success, Hoornstra explains, but has begun to stabilize — in player assessment, if not overall spending levels — as more and more players from the island have made their way north. While Los Angeles has continued to invest in Cuban ballplayers, GM Farhan Zaidi also explains that the organization has done more to “create a stronger assimilation program” to help ensure they’ll succeed. “I think you sort of gain information from not just players you’ve signed from that market in the past, but who other teams have signed, what kind of players have succeeded. Why they’ve succeeded,” says Zaidi. “Not just their inherent talent level, but were they given the support system that I think these guys need to succeed?”
  • Speaking at the SABR analytics conference, Diamondbacks CEO Derrick Hall explained the reasoning behind the organization’s decision to part with young talent in recent months, as Nick Piecoro of the Arizona Republic reports. Arizona was prepared to deal with some criticism, and acknowledges that it hurt to give up some strong prospects to build for the present. He explained that the D-Backs will always focus on “building from within,” but nevertheless felt the time was right “to somewhat abandon that with a couple of moves that we made so that we can create that flexibility because we think we can win now.” That doesn’t mean the team will always operated that way going forward, though, he stressed. “It is a unique model and it’s not something we’re going to practice forever,” says Hall. “It’s not going to define us. We’re not always going to look that way.”
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