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Yuki Matsui To Explore Signing With MLB Teams

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Star closer Yuki Matsui looks to be interested in a potential move to Major League Baseball, as a Yahoo Japan report (Japanese language link) indicates that Matsui has exercised his international free agent rights, as well as his rights to freely negotiate with other Nippon Professional Baseball clubs.

Matsui doesn’t turn 28 until later this month, but he has already accumulated 10 seasons with the Tohoku Rakuten Golden Eagles.  As a result, the left-hander is a full free agent, and can be signed by MLB teams without an additional posting fee to the Eagles.  His age and experience also make him exempt from MLB’s international bonus pool structure.

It isn’t necessarily a sure thing that Matsui is headed to North America, as the Eagles are reportedly set to offer him a four-year contract worth $1.6 billion yen (roughly $10.7MM in USD) to remain in the fold.  However, Matsui has hired WME’s Bryan Minniti as an agent, which could hint that the southpaw is more interested in seeing what Major League teams have to offer.  Minniti has recently moved into the representation arena after a long front office career that included stints as an assistant GM with the Phillies, Diamondbacks, and Nationals.

At least nine Major League clubs have already scouted Matsui, including the Padres, Red Sox, Cubs, and Yankees.  It isn’t surprising that there is significant interest in a pitcher who is hitting the market at such a relatively young age, and who has already amassed such an impressive resume in Nippon Professional Baseball and on the international stage.  Matsui was a member of Japan’s championship team at the 2023 World Baseball Classic, though he only made one appearance during the tournament, throwing a scoreless inning.

Over 501 career games with the Eagles, Matsui has a 2.40 ERA and 236 saves, and the five-time NPB All-Star is the youngest player in league history to reach the 200-save threshold.  He has worked out of the bullpen for almost his entire career, except for his 2014 rookie season and during a brief return to rotation work during the pandemic-affected 2020 NPB season.  Matsui’s usage has also been somewhat impacted by the Eagles’ struggles, as the team has mostly posted mostly losing records during the southpaw’s tenure.  With a 10.9% walk rate over his career in Japan, control has occasionally been an issue for Matsui, though his 31.85% strikeout rate indicates that his ability to miss bats isn’t in question.

Readers of MLBTR’s NPB Players To Watch feature are quite familiar with Matsui’s name, as Dai Takegami Podziewski had frequently highlighted the closer throughout the 2023 season.  Matsui had a dominant 1.57 ERA over 57 1/3 innings for the Eagles this season, and Dai noted that Matsui made the splitter a much heavier part of his pitching arsenal, perhaps as a bit of a showcase for MLB evaluators.

However, Matsui’s small role in the WBC could have been due to reported difficulty he had throwing the WBC ball, which was larger than the standard ball used in NPB play and closer to the type of baseball used in the majors.  More broadly, Matsui has a relatively small frame (5’8″ and 167 pounds), so scouts may have concerns over how he might hold up over the long term, even if he has been pretty durable during his time with the Eagles.

This winter’s market for left-handed relievers has some interesting names, headlined by ace closer Josh Hader.  Matsui immediately becomes an intriguing new name in this group, as at least a candidate for high-leverage innings if perhaps not strictly a saves specialist.

Phillies Announce Series Of Front Office Changes

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The Phillies announced a shakeup in the front office this afternoon. Assistant general managers Bryan Minniti and Scott Proefrock will no longer hold those positions, although both will remain consultants to the organization in 2022. Josh Bonifay is also out as director of player development. He has been offered a position on the pro scouting staff in 2022. Jorge Velandia will take over the player development department on an interim basis.

Philadelphia hired Minniti away from the Diamondbacks organization in 2016. The Phils noted in their press release that he has been in charge of the amateur scouting department over the past few seasons. Proefrock had been in the organization since 2008, serving as interim general manager after the club parted ways with Ruben Amaro Jr. late in the 2015 season. Bonifay was a more recent addition to the staff, signing on in 2018.

The Phillies have had plenty of success in free agency in recent years, but they’ve struggled to pair that with homegrown talent. Selecting Aaron Nola in the first round in 2014 was a huge success, but none of their following few top picks (Cornelius Randolph in 2015, Mickey Moniak in 2016, Adam Haseley in 2017) has yet lived up to expectations. 2018 #3 overall pick Alec Bohm had a fantastic rookie year in 2020, but he’s slumped badly enough in his sophomore season he was optioned back to Triple-A last weekend.

Even independent of those results, it’s not especially surprising to see the Phils making some changes within the front office. All three of the departing executives predated current president of baseball operations Dave Dombrowski, who was hired as baseball ops head this past winter. Dombrowski and general manager Sam Fuld always looked likely to reshape the front office a bit relative to where it stood under previous GM Matt Klentak. Velandia and Ned Rice — who served as interim GM between Klentak’s departure and Dombrowski’s hiring last offseason — remain as assistant GM’s.

Phillies Hire Bryan Minniti From Diamondbacks; Arizona Hires Jared Porter From Cubs

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7:43pm: Minniti had a two-year offer to stay in Arizona, per Jon Heyman of Fan Rag (via Twitter), but elected to seek a new opportunity elsewhere.

2:13pm: A pair of notable front office changes took place today, as the Phillies announced that they’ve hired D-backs assistant GM Bryan Minniti as a special assistant to general manager Matt Klentak. The Diamondbacks clearly already had a replacement for Minniti lined up, however, as they announced this afternoon that they’ve hired Cubs director of professional scouting Jared Porter and named him senior vice president and assistant general manager.

The moves come as just one in a flurry of promotions and hires for each team. Philadelphia has promoted Jorge Velendia to the same title as Minniti, hired a “Mental Skills” coach and made yet another add to its ever-growing analytics department, as PhillyVoice.com’s Ryan Lawrence explores in greater detail. The D-backs, meanwhile, announced that they’ve promoted director of player personnel Mike Bell to vice president of player development and named former Major League infielder Josh Barfield their new assistant director of pro scouting.

Minniti will bring the Phillies an executive with seven seasons as an assistant general manager under his belt. He comes from an analytical background, having double-majored in mathematics and statistics at the University of Pittsburgh and has been working in front offices since being hired as an intern by the Pirates back in 2001. The 36-year-old worked with the D-backs for the past two seasons and spent the previous five years with the Nationals, working on matters such as statistical analysis, budgeting and contract negotiations, per Arizona’s media guide.

The addition of Porter to the D-backs’ front office, meanwhile, gives the team another big-name executive with Red Sox roots to add to its leadership group. Porter was the Cubs’ scouting director this past season but is quite familiar with newly minted Diamondbacks GM Mike Hazen and newly hired assistant GM Amiel Sawdaye from the time the trio spent together with the Red Sox. Porter spent a dozen years working in the Red Sox organization and was the team’s director of pro scouting from 2012-15.

Kim Ng, Four Others Among D-Backs GM Candidates

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The Diamondbacks appear to have compiled at least a preliminary list of potential general manager candidates to take over for the departing Dave Stewart, according to Nick Cafardo of the Boston Globe (Twitter link). In addition to a quartet of men with ties to the organization, MLB senior VP Kim Ng is under consideration, per the report.

Ng has long been discussed as a front office target for organizations, and has interviewed for top baseball ops positions on several occasions. A former assistant GM with the Dodgers, Ng would become the game’s first-ever female general manager if she is hired for this or another open job.

Additionally, Arizona is looking at current AGM Bryan Minniti and farm director Mike Bell — as has previously been reported. Minniti just completed his second season in that role for the D-Backs after previously serving in a similar capacity with the Nationals. Bell has held his post with Arizona for six seasons.

Former D-Backs’ scouting guru and current Brewers vice president of scouting Ray Montgomery is also under consideration, as is former Arizona AGM Peter Woodfork, who currently works with Ng in the league office. Montgomery went to Milwaukee before the team brought in David Stearns as its GM, a post for which he was also considered. And Woodfork, who has also spent time with the Red Sox, was a part of the Diamondbacks for five years before returning to MLB in March of 2011. MLBTR highlighted his GM candidacy back in 2011.

It is not immediately apparent how complete this list of candidates is, and certainly it wouldn’t be surprising to see it grow. After all, the team only parted ways with Stewart on Monday.

Latest On Diamondbacks’ Front Office Situation

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Change is afoot in Arizona, as the Diamondbacks have already parted ways with GM Dave Stewart, VP DeJon Watson, and manager Chip Hale. Chief baseball officer Tony La Russa, who oversaw all of the baseball operations department, will no longer carry that mantle moving forward.

Assistant GM Bryan Minniti will seemingly take the reins on an interim basis, MLB.com’s Steve Gilbert reports, though he has not been given any official nod — even temporarily — as of yet. Though his own role remains unsettled, La Russa may also be involved in handling the early offseason decisionmaking while the front office search ramps up.

Minniti, who joined the Arizona front office after a stint with the Nationals, is also likely to receive consideration for the full-time job, per the report. (He has long been considered a potential GM, as former MLBTR scribe Ben Nicholson-Smith explored way back in 2011.) Likewise, farm director Mike Bell may be viewed as a candidate as the D-Backs’ upper management group assesses its options.

In terms of external possibilities, we haven’t heard any names as of yet, and the organization has suggested it intends to remain quiet on the matter. But many around the game are wondering whether the Diamondbacks will struggle to attract some candidates owing to their frequent front office turnover and recent turmoil, as Nick Piecoro of the Arizona Republic reports.

While various executives with rival teams gave Piecoro different indications about how big a concern they’d have with joining the Arizona organization, some were clear that its reputation is not strong. One unnamed exec who has been considered as a GM target told Piecoro that, while running the D-Backs’ baseball ops would hold “surface” appeal, “from everything I hear about some of the dysfunction up there, to be quite candid, I would have zero interest.” Another wondered whether the club would need to give out a lengthy guarantee to entice a quality candidate to “mov[e] your family for that level of insecurity, juxtaposed to the security that some of us have” in current positions with rival teams.

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