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Pirates Remove David Bednar From Closer Role

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The Pirates are pulling star closer David Bednar out of the ninth inning, manager Derek Shelton told the Pittsburgh beat before tonight’s loss to Cleveland. The team will go with a committee approach for now (X link via Alex Stumpf of MLB.com).

Bednar was one of the best relievers in the majors each season between 2021-23. He posted a sub-3.00 ERA with plus strikeout rates in all three years. Bednar worked as a setup option in 2021 before assuming the closing role in ’22. He made the All-Star Game in both 2022 and ’23 and topped the National League with 39 saves just last season. That’s particularly impressive on a team that finished 10 games below .500.

This year has been far less consistent. Bednar was torched for more than 11 earned runs per nine through the end of April. He turned in an excellent 2.01 earned run average in 23 appearances from the start of May through the All-Star Break, though his modest 20.7% strikeout rate suggested he still wasn’t back to peak form.

The wheels have come back off since the Midsummer Classic. Bednar has given up 16 runs (15 earned) in his last 14 2/3 innings. Opponents have teed off at a .328/.434/.531 slash in 77 plate appearances. Bednar’s strikeouts are still down (20.8%) while his walk rate has spiked to an untenable 14.3% clip. His season hit its nadir on Wednesday. Shelton called upon Bednar to protect a two-run lead against the Cubs. He allowed three hits and two walks (one of which was intentional) while recording two outs. Chicago tagged Bednar for five runs — two of which were inherited runners who scored after he was replaced by Jalen Beeks — and went on to a 14-10 win.

For the season, Bednar now carries a 6.32 ERA through 47 innings. His 22.9% strikeout percentage is six points lower than last season’s mark, which had been the lowest of his career. He’s giving up home runs at an elevated rate of 1.53 per nine innings. Bednar’s 97.2 MPH average fastball velocity is still as strong as ever. Opponents have nevertheless feasted on the pitch, connecting for six homers with a .286 average and .527 slugging mark.

Aside from Bednar, Aroldis Chapman and Colin Holderman have been Pittsburgh’s primary high-leverage arms. Holderman has been out for a few weeks with a sprained wrist, leaving Chapman as the favorite for most of the closing work. Dennis Santana and Carmen Mlodzinski are potential options to pick up save chances if Shelton wants to turn to a right-hander.

How the Pirates handle the ninth inning for the next few weeks isn’t as significant as determining whether Bednar can recapture his lockdown form. A disastrous August has tanked their playoff hopes. As the focus turns toward the offseason, the front office could face questions about Bednar’s future with the organization. Pittsburgh rebuffed trade interest when the big righty was at his peak form. They had an extended control window and probably had some designs on agreeing to an extension with the Pittsburgh native. That’s a tougher call to make coming off the worst season of Bednar’s career.

The 29-year-old is playing on a $4.15MM arbitration salary. The process is designed to escalate salaries even amidst down years, so Bednar’s price tag next year should top $5MM. His track record makes a non-tender difficult to envision, but the Pirates could entertain trading his final two seasons of arbitration eligibility.

Derek Shelton Expects Pirates To Keep Aroldis Chapman

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Pirates manager Derek Shelton made his weekly radio appearance on 93.7 FM the Fan in Pittsburgh this morning. The Bucs skipper said he “expects” the team will hang onto Aroldis Chapman beyond this evening’s trade deadline (relayed on X by The Fan’s Andrew Fillipponi).

Chapman is playing on a $10.5MM contract. Shelton has called upon him 45 times, usually in high-leverage spots. The hard-throwing lefty carries a 3.63 ERA over 39 2/3 innings. He’s running his typical blend of huge strikeout totals (35.2%) and massive walk rates (19.3%). Chapman isn’t sitting above 100 MPH the way he did at his peak, but his 97.6 MPH average fastball velocity still makes him one of the hardest throwing southpaws in the sport.

The Bucs go into deadline day with a 54-52 record that has them within two games of the National League’s last Wild Card spot. They’re more likely to add MLB talent than subtract, but there’s also been some talk that Pittsburgh could contemplate dealing from its big league pitching staff to acquire offensive help. They made a variation of that move with yesterday’s swap of Quinn Priester for second base prospect Nick Yorke, even if Yorke won’t immediately step onto the MLB roster.

Pittsburgh has looked to bolster their lefty relief depth behind Chapman. They acquired Jalen Beeks from the Rockies last night and are bringing in Josh Walker in a DFA trade with the Mets. Walker still has options and can be stashed at Triple-A Indianapolis.

Pirates Could Add To Offense By Dealing From Pitching Depth

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The Pirates are scouring the trade market for ways to improve their lineup, and given the lack of pure sellers with available bats, one potential avenue the team has explored is trading from another area of its major league roster to augment the offense. General manager Ben Cherington discussed such a possibility on Sunday (link via Noah Hiles of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette), and he mentioned just today that the team has an abundance of pitching that could appeal to other clubs (also via Hiles).

Pittsburgh indeed has a deceptively deep collection of arms, as MLBTR’s Darragh McDonald explored last Wednesday in a piece for MLBTR Front Office subscribers. ESPN’s Jeff Passan suggests that a back-end starter such as Bailey Falter or perhaps a late-inning relievers like Aroldis Chapman or even Colin Holderman and David Bednar could be in play if the Bucs indeed want to use their collection of arms to add a bat. Alex Stumpf of MLB.com tweets that the Pirates have been willing to deal from the bullpen to improve the lineup but also adds that some of the team’s pitching prospects could come into play.

It goes without saying that Paul Skenes, Jared Jones and Mitch Keller don’t factor into this thinking. That excellent trio is the very foundation on which the Pirates’ staff will be built for the next several years. But the Buccos have plenty of affordable back-of-the-rotation options.

The Braves are covering all but $3MM of Marco Gonzales’ salary this season. He’s pitched to a 2.70 ERA with a 17.3% strikeout rate and 5.5% walk rate in 26 1/3 innings and has looked sharp since returning from a two-month IL stint owing to a muscle strain in his forearm. A team looking for an affordable fourth or fifth starter (e.g. Twins, Astros, Guardians) could be intrigued. Falter is currently on the injured list due to tendinitis in his triceps but should be back before long. He’s posted a 4.08 ERA in 17 starts (90 1/3 innings) while fanning 16.7% of his opponents against a 7.7% walk rate. He’s out of minor league options but controlled another four seasons beyond the 2024 campaign. Martin Perez tossed six shutout innings today but did so while issuing five walks and only lowered his ERA to 5.20 in the process. He’s earning $8MM, which makes it hard to see him bringing back a bat of note.

In terms of less-established options, the Pirates have names like Quinn Priester, Mike Burrows and Braxton Ashcraft to peddle. Priester has gotten some MLB experience, but the former top prospect has yet to establish himself as a core rotation piece. Burrows and Ashcraft haven’t yet debuted. The former only just returned from Tommy John surgery performed last April. He’s slowly moving up the minor league ladder on a rehab assignment. The latter has had a breakout season between Double-A and Triple-A.

The Pirates surely don’t want to deplete their stock of arms too greatly, but in an ideal world, top prospect Bubba Chandler will claim a rotation spot by 2025. At that point, there’s a notable glut of arms with only one rotation spot truly open. Even if Chandler needs more time or gets hurt, Pittsburgh would still have him, Priester, Falter, Ashcraft, Burrows, Luis Ortiz and Johan Oviedo (recovering from offseason Tommy John surgery) as long-term rotation options behind Skenes, Jones and Keller.

In the bullpen, Chapman is back to his excessively wild ways. He’s fanned a mammoth 36.6% of his opponents but also issued walks at a woeful 19.5% clip. To Chapman’s credit, he’s been better in that regard after a shaky April/May showing. Over the past two months, he’s sitting on a 3.43 ERA, 35.6% strikeout rate and 13.3% walk rate. That’s still too many free passes, but it’s more in line with some past marks from Chapman, who has frequently been able to overcome poor command because of his blistering velocity and knack for missing bats. Overall, Chapman sports a 3.93 ERA on the season. He’s being paid $10.5MM, and the Pirates still owe him about $3.72MM as of this writing. He’s a free agent at season’s end.

Both Bednar and especially Holderman would come with greater appeal. Bednar has long frequented the pages of MLBTR in past trade deadlines and offseasons. Clubs throughout the league have targeted the Pittsburgh-area native since he established himself with his hometown club, but a deal has never come together. Now, Bednar is struggling through a career-worst season, with a 4.98 ERA in 34 1/3 innings. The shaky ERA seems tied largely to a spike in homer-to-flyball rate; from 2021-23, only 6.6% of Bednar’s fly balls became homers. This year, he’s nearly doubled that, sitting at 12.2%. Bednar is also allowing more fly balls than ever (50%), making the timing of that spike most unwelcome.

Still, there’s plenty of track record with Bednar, who from ’21-’23 posted a 2.25 ERA with 61 saves and elite strikeout and walk rates. He’s earning $4.51MM this season and is controllable through the 2026 campaign.

The 28-year-old Holderman would be difficult to trade. He’s not yet arbitration-eligible, though he will be this season as a Super Two player. Holderman is controlled four more years, all the way through 2028, and has delivered 36 2/3 innings of 1.72 ERA ball this season, fanning 28.8% of his opponents against a 10.9% walk rate. Moving on from a controllable leverage reliever of that ilk isn’t easy, though the Bucs could consider it a nifty piece of business to acquire Holderman from the Mets in exchange for Daniel Vogelbach (back in 2022) and then trade him for a more impactful bat just two years later. And with so many arms in the system behind Skenes, Keller and Jones, some of those in-house options are going to wind up in the bullpen.

Trades of Holderman and Bednar seem like a long shot, particularly since the latter would be selling low on a popular hometown All-Star. That said, the Bucs do have a large stock of arms from which to deal. Moving an established reliever/starter for a bat could open the door for any number of young, promising in-house replacements, while a more conventional swap might simply see them trade some of those prospects for immediate offensive help — ideally a bat controlled for multiple years beyond the current season.

MLBTR Podcast: The Broadcasting Landscape, Josh Hader and the Relief Market

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The latest episode of the MLB Trade Rumors Podcast is now live on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and wherever you get your podcasts! Make sure you subscribe as well! You can also use the player at this link to listen, if you don’t use Spotify or Apple for podcasts.

This week, host Darragh McDonald is joined by Anthony Franco of MLB Trade Rumors to discuss…

Plus, we answer your questions, including…

  • Does J.D. Martinez make sense for the Angels? (24:30)
  • With the Mets in rebuild/retooling mode and the Mariners in need of another infield bat (and a surplus of controllable young arms), is there a trade there? (27:55)
  • How odd is it that we are this late in January and have several players likely to get multi-year deals? (31:55)

Check out our past episodes!

The podcast intro and outro song “So Long” is provided courtesy of the band Showoff.  Check out their Facebook page here!

Pirates To Sign Aroldis Chapman

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The Pirates are in agreement with Aroldis Chapman, as first reported by Francys Romero (X link). It’s a one-year, $10.5MM guarantee, reports Joel Sherman of the New York Post (on X). Chapman is a Wasserman client. The deal is pending a physical; Pittsburgh will need to make a corresponding 40-man roster move once the contract is finalized.

Chapman, who turns 36 next month, lands a one-year free agent deal for the second straight offseason. Limited to a fairly modest $3.75MM guarantee from the Royals a year ago, he lands a raise on the heels of an impressive season that culminated in his second World Series win. Chapman turned in a 3.09 ERA over 58 1/3 innings, striking out a laughable 41.4% of opposing hitters. Among relievers with 50+ innings, only Orioles star closer Félix Bautista punched hitters out more frequently.

The lefty split his year between two teams. He turned in dominant results for three months in Kansas City. Over 29 2/3 frames with the Royals, he pitched to a 2.45 ERA with a 43.4% strikeout rate. That production and his affordable salary made Chapman arguably the top rental reliever on the trade market. K.C. moved early, sending him to the Rangers in a one-for-one deal for former first-round pick Cole Ragans at the end of June.

It’s the kind of result that rebuilding teams envision when signing a veteran to a one-year deal. Ragans had an excellent 12-start run to close the year and looks like a potential mid-rotation or better pitcher whom Kansas City controls for five more seasons. Texas knew they were getting a short-term acquisition, but Chapman provided them a much needed high-leverage bullpen arm.

Over 29 regular season innings in Arlington, he posted a 3.72 ERA while fanning nearly 40% of batters faced. Chapman saved four games and picked up six holds in front of nominal closer José Leclerc. He continued to pitch in meaningful games during the Rangers’ run to the first title in franchise history. He picked up six more holds in nine playoff appearances, totaling eight innings of two-run ball. That came with only six strikeouts and five walks, but Chapman wiggled out of trouble more often than not in October.

It was frequently an adventure when Chapman took the mound. While he has never had great command, his control has reached particularly worrisome levels over the last three years. He walked 14.5% of batters faced last year, the fifth-highest rate among pitchers to log at least 50 innings. That was nevertheless the southpaw’s lowest walk percentage since 2020.

While Chapman is going to hand out his share of free baserunners, he remains one of the sport’s toughest pitchers to hit when he’s around the strike zone. His four-seam fastball averaged 99 MPH last year, while his sinker sat above 101 MPH. That’s above the 97.5 MPH he averaged on the four-seam during his final season with the Yankees. His slider, which had averaged between 85-86 MPH for the previous few years, jumped to 88.1 MPH. That high-octane arsenal translated to plenty of whiffs. Only Robert Stephenson and Bautista had a lower opponents’ contact rate. Hitters put the bat on the ball on only three-fifths of their swings against Chapman.

The Bucs will live with the free passes to add that kind of swing-and-miss potential to the back of their bullpen. David Bednar is entrenched in the ninth inning. Chapman will work in a setup capacity with the ability to step into the ninth should Bednar suffer an injury. He joins Ryan Borucki as left-handed bullpen options for skipper Derek Shelton. Colin Holderman projects as Pittsburgh’s top righty setup arm.

MLBTR predicted Chapman to receive a two-year, $24MM pact. He’ll instead settle for one season. The $10.5MM salary makes him the highest-paid player on the Pittsburgh roster this year (after accounting for cash considerations from the Mariners and Braves paying down Marco Gonzales’ $12MM deal). He’s the fourth player to ink a one-year free agent deal with the Pirates this winter, joining Martín Pérez, Andrew McCutchen and Rowdy Tellez.

The deal brings Pittsburgh’s projected player payroll around $79MM, as calculated by Roster Resource. The low-payroll club opened last season with roughly $73MM in commitments, per Cot’s Baseball Contracts. They’re now set to raise spending this year, as GM Ben Cherington suggested at the beginning of the offseason, although it remains to be seen if the front office has any more room at its disposal. Pittsburgh could still seek rotation help and potentially a veteran option at second base, where they have a handful of young players (e.g. Liover Peguero, Nick Gonzales, Ji Hwan Bae) set to compete for at-bats.

Owner Bob Nutting suggested over the weekend he anticipated the team staying in the playoff mix for the entire season. Pittsburgh hasn’t reached the postseason since 2015 and hasn’t advanced to the Division Series in a decade. If that doesn’t materialize, Chapman could find himself on the rental trade market for a second straight summer.

Image courtesy of USA Today Sports.

Free Agent Faceoff: Aroldis Chapman/Matt Moore

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The market for pure relievers has been deathly slow this winter. Since free agency opened in early November, just four full-time relievers have signed multi-year contracts this winter: right-handers Chris Stratton and Emilio Pagan signed on with the Royals and Reds, respectively, while both NPB lefty Yuki Matsui and KBO righty Woo Suk Go recently agreed to deals with the Padres. While the likes of Nick Martinez, Reynaldo Lopez, and (most recently) Sean Manaea have all signed multi-year pacts this offseason as well, each of that trio has started games in the past and figures to have at least a chance of earning a rotation spot entering Spring Training.

There’s little question who the top dog available in free agency this offseason is in terms of relief pitching. Southpaw Josh Hader has been in the conversation for best reliever in baseball practically since his debut back in 2017 and is coming off an incredible platform season where he posted a 1.28 ERA in 56 1/3 innings of work while collecting 33 saves and striking out 36.8% of batters faced. Behind him, the best available bullpen arms largely appear to be right-handed. MLBTR’s Anthony Franco recently discussed the pros and cons of two of the winter’s best righty relievers, Robert Stephenson and Jordan Hicks. What of the left-handed relief market? With Hader in a league of his own, the next tier of southpaw free agent arms features two dominant back-end veterans in their mid-thirties: Aroldis Chapman and Matt Moore.

The two could hardly have had more different career paths leading them to this point. Chapman may be the most well-recognized reliever in the game today, as the veteran fireballer made seven All Star appearances between 2012 and 2021, pitching to an incredible 2.25 ERA and 2.13 FIP in 540 1/3 innings of work and racking up 305 saves across that ten-year span while pitching for the Reds, Yankees, and Cubs. During that time, Chapman’s fastball routinely topped 100 mph and averaged 99.5 mph while maxing out at over 105 mph. That velocity made him one of the hardest-throwing pitchers in the game, particularly at the time of his debut back in 2010.

Over time, however, signs of decline became evident in Chapman’s profile. After pitching just 11 2/3 innings during the shortened 2020 season, 2021 saw the flamethrower post a career-worst 3.99 FIP thanks to a 15.6% strikeout rate that was his highest since his first full season in the majors back in 2011. While Chapman managed to pitch through those red flags to rack up 30 saves and post a solid 3.36 ERA, the wheels came off more noticeably for the left-hander during 2022, his final season in New York. Chapman posted the worst average fastball velocity of his career that season, averaging “just” 97.5 mph on his heater. His already elevated walk rate also continued to climb, reaching 17.5%. Meanwhile, his strikeout rate plummeted to just 26.9%, by far the worst of his career. Chapman’s 4.46 ERA and 4.57 FIP were also career worsts, and his career with the Yankees ended inauspiciously as he was left off the club’s ALDS roster after skipping a team workout.

Chapman’s struggles left him to sign a modest one-year deal with the Royals in free agency last winter in hopes of recouping his value. The lefty did well for himself in that regard as his average fastball velocity climbed back up to 99.1 mph, the highest it had been since his age-29 season back in 2017. With the improved velocity came renewed success, as Chapman struck out a whopping 41.4% of batters faced while posting a 3.09 ERA and 2.52 FIP in 58 1/3 innings of work for the Royals and Rangers. While Chapman’s 14.5% walk rate will surely raise some eyebrows, if he can continue striking out batters at elite rates he should be able to pitch around the additional traffic on the basepaths.

Moore, by contrast, was once considered the very top prospect in all of baseball and in the early years of his career with the Rays appeared to be a burgeoning star. Tommy John surgery in 2014 got in the way of Moore’s ascension, however, and the left-hander was never the same pitcher upon returning to the mound. He scuffled as a fringe rotation option for years, bouncing between the Rays, Giants, Rangers, and Tigers before heading to Japan during the 2020 campaign to try and revitalize his career overseas. Moore excelled with a 2.65 ERA in 85 innings for Nippon Professional Baseball’s Fukoka Softbanks Hawks in 2020 and returned stateside as a swingman for the Phillies in 2021, though he had another difficult season as he struggled to a 6.29 ERA in 73 innings of work.

That rough performance lead Moore to take a minor league contract with the Rangers, but upon converting to relief full time the lefty quickly made his way not only into the big league bullpen, but into a late-inning role with the club. In 74 innings of work across 63 relief appearances for the Rangers in 2022, Moore dominated to a 1.95 ERA with a 2.98 FIP and a 27.3% strikeout rate paired with a strong 43.9% groundball rate. Despite that dominance, Moore’s long track record of struggles prior to the 2022 campaign, his elevated 12.5% walk rate, and a minuscule 4.2% home run rate on fly balls likely caused concern among potential suitors in free agency, leaving him to settle for a one-year deal with the Angels last winter.

Fortunately for Moore, his performance in 2023 largely backed up his newfound role as a quality back-end relief arm and answered those questions regarding sustainability. Though time on the injured list limited the left-hander to just 50 appearances last year, he posted a strong 2.56 ERA and saw his strikeout rate tick up to 27.5% while his walk rate plummeted to a greatly-improved 6.9%. He found that success in spite of the fact that his groundball rate dipped to a career-low 35% and a whopping 11.3% of his fly balls left the yard for home runs last season.

Perhaps even more impressive is the fact that Moore found this success while being shuffled between three teams late in the season. The Angels placed him on waivers in August, where he was claimed by the Guardians, who then promptly waived him for a second time before he was claimed by the Marlins to contribute to their playoff push in the season’s final week. Taken together, Moore sports a sterling 2.20 ERA and 3.29 FIP in 126 2/3 innings dating back to the start of the 2022 season. That ERA is good for ninth among all relievers with at least 100 innings of work across the past two seasons, ahead of elite closers like David Bednar and Emmanuel Clase and just behind the likes of Jhoan Duran and Brusdar Graterol.

Relievers always come with risk involved, and that’s especially so for this pair of southpaws. Both players have had significant ups and downs over the past three seasons, and while each figures to fill the same late-inning bullpen role they vastly different pros and cons. Chapman has the name recognition and track record as a longtime closer, and is still capable of elite velocity as shown by his dominant performance in 2023. With that being said, 2022 showed just how far things can go off the rails for the lefty if he loses even a tick or two of that elite velocity, and his 15.6% walk rate since the start of the 2021 campaign seems unlikely to go down much at this stage of his career.

By contrast, Moore is anything but a known commodity given his rollercoaster history as a former top prospect and longtime journeyman starting pitcher who has only recently broken out as a dominant reliever. He lacks the premium velocity Chapman offers, having average 94 mph on his heater in each of the past two seasons, but has been among the very best relievers in baseball the past two seasons and has shown the ability to improve around the margins of his profile by cutting his walk rate nearly in half this past season. Also of note is that Moore, who will celebrate his 35th birthday in June, is nearly a year and a half younger than Chapman, who turns 36 next month.

Which southpaw would MLBTR readers rather have on their team in 2024? Do you feel Chapman’s lengthy track record and high-end velocity is too valuable to pass up, or do you prefer Moore’s recent dominance and stronger command?

Orioles Have Shown Interest In Josh Hader, Jordan Hicks

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At the GM Meetings earlier this month, Baltimore general manager Mike Elias told reporters the team was seeking a late-game reliever. They’re considering plugging that vacancy in free agency.

Jon Heyman of the New York Post reports that the O’s have been in contact with each of Josh Hader, Jordan Hicks, Craig Kimbrel and Aroldis Chapman. All four hurlers fit the general profile of a late-inning arm, although they’re clearly in different tiers of free agency.

Hader is the best reliever in the class (and arguably the top bullpen arm in the majors). He worked to a 1.28 ERA over 56 1/3 innings during his platform season. The lanky southpaw punched out 36.8% of batters faced. That’s actually Hader’s lowest strikeout percentage since his rookie year, yet it still ranked fifth in MLB among relievers with 50+ innings. Only Chris Martin and Brusdar Graterol had a lower earned run average.

After frequently working multiple innings earlier in his career, Hader has expressed a preference for a traditional one-inning role over the past couple years. The Padres deployed him as a closer. He picked up 33 saves in 38 attempts.

The year marked an emphatic bounce back from a 2022 season in which he’d posted an uncharacteristic 5.22 ERA. Hader has posted an ERA under 1.30 in two of the last three years and has five sub-3.00 showings over his seven MLB seasons. While he’s a year older than Edwin Díaz was last offseason, Hader figures to take aim at topping Diaz’s $102MM guarantee with the Mets — the largest relief contract in MLB history.

Committing a nine-figure deal would be far bolder than any free agent decision that the Elias front office has made. The O’s have remarkably yet to sign a single multi-year free agent deal in his five years as GM. Much of that came during a rebuild, of course, but the O’s remained cautious even as they’d begun to turn a corner last winter. Baltimore signed a trio of veterans (Kyle Gibson, Adam Frazier and Mychal Givens) for a combined $23MM on one-year guarantees.

After a breakout season that saw the O’s win 101 games to take the top seed in the American League, the front office should be more aggressive than ever. Bringing in Hader would represent a very significant shift in operating procedure. In addition to the huge financial commitment, Baltimore would have to relinquish their third-highest pick in next summer’s draft. Hader declined a qualifying offer from the Padres, so he’s attached to signing compensation.

If the O’s are willing to meet those costs, Hader is a sensible target. He’s one of the few relievers who can approach the kind of production the O’s lost when Félix Bautista underwent Tommy John surgery that’ll cost him the entire 2024 season. Hader is also a Maryland native who began his professional career as a 19th-round pick by the Orioles in 2012. While that selection was made by a previous front office, Elias was a high-ranking scouting official with the Astros when Houston acquired Hader as a prospect at the 2013 deadline.

Hader is in his own tier as a free agent relief target. Hicks finds himself in the next group, arguably the #2 option on the open market. One of the hardest throwers in the sport, he averages around 100 MPH on his sinker. Hicks has wobbly control but consistently runs huge ground-ball numbers. He’s coming off arguably the best season of his career, turning in 65 2/3 innings of 3.29 ERA ball between the Cardinals and Blue Jays. The righty struck out a solid 28.4% of batters faced, the highest rate of his career.

Injuries (most notably a June ’19 Tommy John procedure) dogged Hicks between 2019-21. He has mostly stayed healthy over the past two seasons, topping 60 frames in each. He’s also the youngest free agent reliever of note, having turned 27 in September. Hicks should secure at least three years and has a solid case for a four-year pact at an average annual value in the $8-10MM range.

Chapman and Kimbrel would be shorter-term plays. Two of the best closers of their generation, they’re each entering their age-36 campaign. Both pitchers have battled some inconsistency in recent seasons, but they’re coming off solid 2023 performances. Chapman worked to a 3.09 ERA with an eye-popping 41.4% strikeout percentage over 58 1/3 frames between the Royals and Rangers. Kimbrel posted a 3.26 ERA while fanning a little over a third of his opponents in 69 regular season innings with Philadelphia, although he struggled over six innings in the playoffs.

MLB Trade Rumors Podcast: Free Agent Power Rankings and Aroldis Chapman to the Rangers

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The latest episode of the MLB Trade Rumors Podcast is now live on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and wherever you get your podcasts! Make sure you subscribe as well! You can also use the player at this link to listen, if you don’t use Spotify or Apple for podcasts.

This week, host Darragh McDonald is joined by Anthony Franco of MLB Trade Rumors to discuss:

Check out our past episodes!

  • The Angels Trade for Infielders, Indecisive NL Central Teams and Aaron Judge’s Toe – listen here
  • Exciting Youth Movements in Cincinnati and Pittsburgh, Bad Central Divisions and the Dodgers Want Pitching – listen here
  • Marcus Stroman Lobbies for Extension, Mets’ Woes and Astros Seeking Bats – listen here

Rangers Acquire Aroldis Chapman

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The Rangers made a significant bullpen addition Friday evening, announcing the acquisition of Aroldis Chapman from the Royals. Left-hander Cole Ragans and rookie ball outfielder Roni Cabrera are going to Kansas City.

Chapman had a strong few months in Royal blue. Kansas City signed the seven-time All-Star to a $3.75MM free agent guarantee, buying low after a rough final season in the Bronx. Chapman had posted a 4.46 ERA in his final year with the Yankees and was left off their playoff roster after missing a team workout. He returned to quality high-leverage work after the change of scenery.

The hard-throwing southpaw owns a 2.45 ERA over 29 1/3 innings in 31 appearances. He’s striking out an eye-popping 43.4% of opponents, his highest rate since 2020. Among relievers with 20+ frames, only Orioles closer Félix Bautista is fanning hitters at a better clip. Chapman ranks eighth among that group in whiffs, picking up swinging strikes on 17.8% of his offerings.

Chapman doesn’t throw quite as hard as he had during his days with the Reds, but he’s still the hardest-throwing southpaw in the sport. He’s averaging 99.4 MPH on his four-seam fastball and throwing his slider at an 88.2 MPH clip. Both are up a couple ticks relative to last season’s level, explaining his bounceback in whiffs. Chapman has overpowered hitters from both sides of the plate, holding lefties to a .211 batting average without an extra-base hit and right-handers to a .146 average and .183 slugging mark.

The sole concern with Chapman’s production this season is inconsistent strike-throwing. He has walked 16.4% of opponents, a rate topped by only five relievers with at least 20 innings. It has been a boom-or-bust profile, with nearly three-fifths of hitters going down on strikes or taking a free pass.

Texas rolls the dice on the scattershot control to inject some needed swing-and-miss to the relief corps. Rangers relievers enter play Friday ranked 19th in MLB with a 23.1% strikeout percentage. They’re 24th with a 4.37 ERA. Texas ranks second in rotation ERA and leads the majors in run-scoring. The bullpen stood out as the obvious priority for GM Chris Young and his staff entering trade season, and they’ve started by landing one of the best relievers available.

Chapman joins Will Smith, Josh Sborz and Brock Burke in the high-leverage mix. Sborz and Smith have been excellent, while rookie Grant Anderson is off to a nice start to his MLB career. There’s still room for another addition at the back end, particularly a right-hander.

Texas will certainly further add to the roster over the coming weeks. As an impending free agent reliever, Chapman was never going to require them to dip deep into the farm system. He’s also an affordable pickup; the Rangers assume just under $2MM in remaining salary.

They’ll add a little more in incentives, as Chapman will receive $312,500 for every fifth appearance between 35 and 55 outings. Triggering all those bonuses, as he’s on pace to do, would tack on another $1.563MM. He’d land a matching $312,500 for every fourth game finished between 12 and 40; he has finished nine games thus far.

Those are relatively small margins for an aggressive Texas club. The Rangers are spending just under $201MM on player payroll, as calculated by Roster Resource. They’re up to around $224MM in luxury tax obligations, placing them roughly $9MM south of the $233MM base threshold. The Rangers have never paid the competitive balance tax, but owner Ray Davis has signed off on aggressive spending sprees in each of the past two winters to quickly push the club to the top of the AL West.

The Royals are at the opposite end of the spectrum, one of a handful of teams that are certain to miss the postseason. Kansas City has shown a willingness to sell off pieces early if they’re out of contention. They dealt Carlos Santana to the Mariners around this time last season. Chapman was rumored to be available by early June.

In Ragans, Kansas City got a pitcher they like enough to jump on a Chapman deal a few weeks early. The 25-year-old is an upper level arm who could factor into the rotation this year. The 30th overall pick in the 2016 draft, he has appeared in the big leagues in each of the past two seasons.

Ragans made nine starts last year, working to a 4.95 ERA in 40 innings. He has pitched in relief this season, tallying 24 1/3 frames of 5.92 ERA ball out of the bullpen. Anne Rogers of MLB.com tweets that K.C. will send Ragans to Triple-A to build back up as a starter with an eye towards a second-half return to the big leagues.

The 6’4″ southpaw has yet to find MLB success. Alongside the mediocre ERA, he has a below-average 18.2% strikeout rate and slightly elevated 10.7% walk percentage. He owns a solid 3.64 ERA in five minor league seasons, though, striking out 29.6% of opponents along the way. His fastball has averaged a little north of 96 MPH in short stints — well above last year’s 92.1 MPH average speed out of the rotation — and prospect evaluators have long credited him with a potential plus changeup.

Whether Ragans will stick as a starter remains to be seen. Kansas City can give him some runway. The Royals’ rotation ranks 27th with a 5.43 ERA. Ragans is in his first of three minor league option seasons and won’t be eligible for arbitration until the 2025-26 offseason at the earliest. If he develops as hoped, he could work as an affordable back-end starter at Kauffman Stadium in the near future.

Cabrera is much further off. A native of the Dominican Republic, he’s a right-handed hitting outfielder who has spent the past two seasons in the Dominican Summer League. He turns 18 next month and won’t be eligible for the Rule 5 draft until after the 2026 season. Keith Law of the Athletic writes that Cabrera has some power potential and projects as a corner outfielder.

This evening’s swap is the start of what’ll likely be multiple moves of this ilk from both teams. Texas could add more bullpen help and perhaps augment the corner outfield or rotation depth. Kansas City figures to listen to offers on closer Scott Barlow and could take calls on rentals like Zack Greinke and Matt Duffy.

Images courtesy of USA Today Sports.

Royals Exploring Varying Trade Scenarios Involving Aroldis Chapman

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Few players are more obvious trade candidates than Aroldis Chapman. The star reliever is on a one-year contract for a Royals club that dropped to 18-44 after being swept by the Marlins this week. Barring injury, it’s a virtual lock Chapman won’t finish the season in Kansas City.

Clubs were expressing trade interest in the resurgent southpaw as early as the second week of May. Now that the calendar has flipped to June, a deal figures to come together at some point within the next seven weeks. Ken Rosenthal of the Athletic reports that K.C. is open to a few different possibilities in a potential trade.

According to Rosenthal, the Royals are letting interested teams know they’re willing to move Chapman early in trade season if another club meets a higher ask on the prospect return. That’s an understandable tack considering the Royals’ playoff hopes have already evaporated, even in an AL Central that doesn’t have a single club with a winning record.

An openness to dealing Chapman in June a) reduces the odds of an intervening injury that torpedoes the Royals’ ability to get a deal done and b) ostensibly makes him a more appealing target for other teams. Getting three-plus months of Chapman’s services as opposed to just two months after the deadline would be an added boost for a contender.

That’s not to say a deal will actually come together imminently. Even teams that are locks to sell tend to wait to move their most notable trade candidates until the deadline is nigh. The Royals know the direction they’ll take, but many other clubs toward the middle of the standings don’t have that kind of clarity. They might not be eager to jump into the market for a rental reliever right now but could be viable suitors closer to the deadline.

Kansas City has made some early seller trades in past summers — they dealt Carlos Santana to the Mariners in late June last season and reportedly began shopping Andrew Benintendi around the same time, for instance — but they’ll have to be quite impressed with another club’s offer to move Chapman soon. The seven-time All-Star can veto any trade until June 15, an automatic CBA right afforded to all major league free agents who sign an MLB deal the preceding offseason.

Rosenthal also writes that K.C. has expressed an openness to including Chapman in a package deal with other players from the major league roster. The most straightforward candidate for such a move would be closer Scott Barlow, who’s perhaps the organization’s most valuable plausible trade chip. Barlow posted a sub-2.50 ERA over 70+ innings in both 2021 and ’22. He’s carrying a 3.52 mark through 23 frames this year but striking out a personal-high 35.1% of opposing hitters. Barlow is making $5.3MM this season and controllable via arbitration for one more year.

That extra control year affords K.C. more flexibility to hold onto Barlow than they have with Chapman. The latter signed a one-year, $3.75MM guarantee. He’s trending towards unlocking an additional $2.5MM in appearance incentives but a price tag a little north of $6MM is still eminently reasonable given his return to form.

Chapman carries a 2.95 ERA over 21 1/3 frames. His 38.5% strikeout percentage ranks sixth among relievers with 20+ innings. He’s in the top 15 in missing bats on a pitch-for-pitch basis. Chapman’s average fastball velocity is back above 99 MPH after dipping to the 97 MPH range during his final season with the Yankees. He’s doling out plenty of free passes (15.4% walk rate) but holding opponents to a .197/.319/.237 overall slash thanks to the whiffs and a complete lack of hard contact.

As is the case every summer, contending clubs will be active in ways to upgrade their bullpens. The Nationals and Tigers are reportedly getting calls on some of their relief arms, while K.C. general manager J.J. Picollo will find no shortage of interest in Chapman and Barlow. Keynan Middleton, Reynaldo López, Brad Hand, Mark Leiter Jr. and Chris Stratton are among the other relievers who might be available this summer.

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