Chris Young

Free Agent Notes: Leake, Yankees, Young, Iwakuma

By Jeff Todd | November 3, 2015 at 12:57pm CDT

The Giants have yet to talk contract with free agent righty Mike Leake, Henry Schulman of the San Francisco Chronicle reports (Twitter links). That doesn’t mean that he won’t be a target, of course, but Schulman explains that it does suggest he’ll be fully testing the market before making a decision. Generally, says Schulman, San Francisco has indicated it will be more tight-lipped about its pursuit of pitching than it was last offseason, when the club openly chased Jon Lester.

Here are some more notes as the free agent market begins to take shape:

While the Yankees might not go after the biggest free agent names, the club could be active in the second base market, MLB.com’s Bryan Hoch writes. New York has a variety of in-house options to be considered there, of course, but will also look at players such as Daniel Murphy, Ben Zobrist, and Howie Kendrick, per the report.
It remains to be seen how active the Yankees will be, but adding to the rotation figures to be one area of focus. Jon Heyman of CBSSports.com writes (in a broader notes column) that Jeff Samardzija and Wei-Yin Chen are two names that have come up in internal discussions.
The Royals have interest in a reunion with righty Chris Young, Heyman adds. The 36-year-old delivered plenty of value to the club after signing late in the offseason last year, of course, though he’ll figure to draw wider interest after contributing 123 1/3 frames of 3.06 ERA pitching in a swingman capacity.
New Mariners GM Jerry Dipoto has made clear that bringing back Hisashi Iwakuma is a priority for the club, and Bob Dutton of the Seattle Times explains that his status will be important for determining the rest of the club’s winter. Re-signing the veteran would allow the team to approach the rest of the rotation market with patience while focusing elsewhere. If not, Seattle may be forced to spend more in adding another starter.

Quick Hits: Mattingly, Royals, Mets, Murphy, Sveum

By | November 1, 2015 at 9:03pm CDT

The Marlins have announced a press conference for tomorrow morning in which they’re expected to introduce manager Don Mattingly, reports Joe Frisaro of MLB.com. Mattingly, 54, has agreed to a four-year deal with Miami. The financial terms remain unknown. We profiled the hire more fully last week.

Here’s more from around the league:

The Royals and Mets could look different when they meet to open the 2016 season, writes Bob Nightengale of USA Today. Both clubs are expected to lose several key contributors to free agency including Alex Gordon, Ben Zobrist, Johnny Cueto, Greg Holland, Chris Young, Daniel Murphy, and Yoenis Cespedes. Three of those seven players were midseason mercenary acquisitions, but the Royals organization will certainly feel the loss of Gordon if he signs elsewhere. Meanwhile, the Mets are more likely to extend Murphy a qualifying offer after his huge NLCS performance.
Much has been written about the Royals offensive approach, but more credit belongs to hitting coach Dale Sveum, writes David Laurila of FanGraphs. Sveum took over the role last May and transformed the team’s offensive profile. As you might expect, he’s a proponent of aggressive hitting with an emphasis on balls in play. When the Cubs fired Sveum in 2013, Royals manager Ned Yost “waited like two minutes” before offering him a job.
The Padres have re-signed pitching coach Darren Balsley, reports MLB.com’s Corey Brock. Balsley was originally hired under Bruce Bochy’s regime and has been with the franchise for 13 seasons. He considered following Bud Black to the Nationals, but he opted to remain in San Diego. “There were a lot of opportunities to go elsewhere, but I let it be known to [general manager A.J. Preller] that this is where I wanted to stay,” Balsley told Brock. The longtime Padres coach explained that while he wasn’t born in San Diego, he was raised in the city and grew up rooting for the team. “I can’t personally think of a better job. My alliance is to the team,” said Balsley. New Padres skipper Andy Green met with Balsley over the weekend, and Balsley explained to Brock that the two meshed quickly.

NL Notes: Young, Honeycutt, Green, Phillies

By charliewilmoth | October 31, 2015 at 12:13pm CDT

The Dodgers nearly signed pitcher Chris Young to a minor league deal last offseason, but he signed a $675K big-league deal with the Royals instead and is now set to start Game 4 of the World Series, Jon Morosi of FOX Sports notes. Young had an effective regular season and has been even better thus far in the playoffs. The extremely cheap signing has been a boon for the Royals and might have been one for the Dodgers as well, Morosi says, arguing that it’s strange the Royals were able to get him so cheaply after he pitched 165 innings with a 3.65 ERA in 2014. As Morosi notes, Young’s 86-MPH fastball likely had something to do with that. I’d add that Young’s unimpressive 2014 peripherals (5.9 K/9, 3.3 BB/9, 22.3% ground ball rate) were also likely a factor. Here’s more from the National League.

The Dodgers are negotiating with pitching coach Rick Honeycutt on a multi-year contract to keep him with the team, MLB.com’s Ken Gurnick writes. There’s a possibility Honeycutt could join departing Dodgers manager Don Mattingly with the Marlins, but Honeycutt has been with the Dodgers through several managerial changes, and keeping him would help the organization maintain “continuity” for the team as it chooses Mattingly’s successor.
The process of interviewing for a big-league managerial position is a grueling one, new Padres manager Andy Green tells Dennis Lin of the San Diego Union-Tribune. “The first interview, I spent about 2 1/2 hours with one group, then about 2 1/2 hours with another group. They flew me back in, and I spent 14 hours, from 9 a.m. to 11 p.m. It was a relentless barrage of people,” says Green. “Then they flew in a couple days ago, A.J. [Preller] and Josh Stein, met my family. After my wife and kids went to bed, they fired off three more hours of questions. So they did their due diligence.” Green also shares his thoughts regarding dealing with expectations as a big-league manager, noting that building a winning team requires putting a process in place, and that having expectations in and of itself does little to help a team reach its goals.
The Mets’ rise is bad news for the Phillies, in that the Mets’ strong core of starting pitching is set to be around for awhile, Mike Sielski of the Inquirer writes. But the Phillies won’t have the same payroll restrictions the Mets have had, Sielski notes, so it shouldn’t take the Phillies as long as it took the Mets to turn what’s already a good Phillies collection of young talent into a winning team.

AL East Notes: Sox, Young, Hunter, O’s, Pentland

By Mark Polishuk | October 18, 2015 at 9:16pm CDT

Dave Dombrowski traded several prospects for established stars when he was running the Tigers, but will he do the same in Boston? One rival executive believes so, telling Jason Mastrodonato of the Boston Herald (Twitter link) that “Dave is going to make some moves. He’ll be busy.” The Red Sox have one of baseball’s most well-regarded minor league systems, so if Dombrowski and GM Mike Hazen did decide to shift some prospects, there would be no shortage of interest from around the league. Here’s the latest AL East news…

Right-hander Chris Young could be an Orioles target this winter, MASNsports.com’s Roch Kubatko writes. Manager Buck Showalter likes Young, w free agent who has a 3.40 ERA over 288 1/3 innings with the Mariners and Royals over the last two seasons. Advanced metrics (4.80 FIP, 5.25 xFIP, 5.20 SIERA) haven’t favored Young’s low-strikeout, flyball-inducing numbers, however, and it’s possible he might not be as effective pitching in a more hitter-friendly ballpark like Camden Yards.
Also from Kubatko, free agent Tommy Hunter is interested in returning to the Orioles and Kubatko figures the club “will at least discuss” bringing the right-hander back. Baltimore, however, may not want to spend too much on a reliever who isn’t a closer or setup man, Kubatko warns. Hunter was dealt to the Cubs in a trade deadline swap for Junior Lake in July.
The Yankees will not be bringing hitting coach Jeff Pentland or bullpen coach Gary Tuck back in 2016, George A. King III of the New York Post reports. Pentland — also a former hitting coach for the Marlins, Cubs, Royals, Mariners and Dodgers — only served on New York’s staff for the 2015 campaign. Assistant hitting coach Alan Cockrell, minor league coaches James Rowsen and Marcus Thames, and former slugger Raul Ibanez are all cited as King as possible candidates to replace Pentland. For the bullpen coach job, King suggests that former Yankees bullpen coach Mike Harkey (recently fired as the Diamondbacks pitching coach) could return.
For more division news, MLBTR’s Zach Links compiled another edition of AL East Notes earlier today.

AL Notes: Young, Aro, Smyly, Jaso

By charliewilmoth | June 27, 2015 at 4:25pm CDT

The Royals had little obvious need for veteran righty Chris Young heading into the season, but GM Dayton Moore had the team sign him anyway, Andy McCullough of the Kansas City Star writes. The Royals offered a big-league deal just as Young was strongly considering a minor-league offer from the Dodgers, even though the Royals didn’t have a clear spot for Young in either their rotation or their bullpen. “The analytical guys can’t understand me, either,” says Moore. Moore’s “impulse,” as McCullough puts it, has paid off so far — Young has performed better than anyone else in the Royals rotation, except perhaps Edinson Volquez. Young’s contract calls for a base salary of just $675K, but he’s already reached some roster benchmarks, and he looks likely to collect incentives that should get him close to a maximum $6MM. Here’s more from the American League.

Red Sox righty Jonathan Aro’s path to the big leagues was an unlikely one, Alex Speier of the Boston Globe writes. As a teenager, Aro twice contracted Dengue fever. He was already contemplating his life after baseball before finally signing at 20, a late age for a Dominican player, and for just $10K. “First of all, I signed as a 20-year-old. Secondly, I signed as a $10,000 guy. Thirdly, all the guys who signed in my class were high-dollar guys. I thought I was at the low end of the priority list,” says Aro through a translator. “So, in short, no — I didn’t think this was attainable.” Aro gradually made his way through the minors, though, and excelled for Double-A Portland and Triple-A Pawtucket this year, posting a combined 2.22 ERA with 9.9 K/9 and 2.2 BB/9 in 44 2/3 innings. He made his big-league debut Thursday.
Rays lefty Drew Smyly will pitch from a mound for the first time on Saturday since heading to the disabled list in May with a torn labrum, Marc Topkin of the Tampa Bay Times tweets. In early May, it looked like Smyly was headed for season-ending surgery, but he currently appears set to rejoin the Rays at some point late this season.
In other Rays injury news, DH John Jaso will start a rehab assignment Saturday with the Class A+ Charlotte Stone Crabs, Topkin tweets. Jaso has missed much of the season with a wrist injury. Jaso should provide the Rays with another reliable bat, although they’ve done well at DH this season, with Joey Butler and David DeJesus taking most the available plate appearances.

AL Central Notes: Buxton, Sox, V-Mart, Tigers, Young

By Steve Adams | June 17, 2015 at 9:03pm CDT

Speaking about the team’s recent promotion of top prospect Byron Buxton, Twins GM Terry Ryan told Kris Atteberry of Twins Radio (audio link): “We brought up Buxton because he’s the best one we had available at the time. We have a few guys down there that we considered, but they aren’t as good as Buxton, so we brought up Byron to give him a shot. … I’m hoping that things go well enough that we don’t have to worry about it.” Based on Ryan’s comments, it seems that Buxton will have the opportunity to play his way into a regular role moving forward. A productive Buxton would certainly increase Minnesota’s chances of remaining in the hunt for the division and could also eliminate a potential area of need in trades — an upgrade in the outfield.

AL East Notes: Cuba, Clevenger, Ellsbury

By Jeff Todd | May 27, 2015 at 9:51am CDT

Major League Baseball denied statements of a Cuban official indicating that the Orioles were set to play the Cuban national team in Havana this year, as Eduardo Encina of the Baltimore Sun reports. The league is clearly interested in forging ties with the neighboring country, but is also proceeding quite cautiously given the still-uncertain political situation.

Recently-recalled Orioles catcher Steve Clevenger says that he primarily focused on improving his defense during his minor league stint to open the year, as Roch Kubatko of MASNsports.com reports. Of course, he also put up some impressive numbers at the plate. Discussing the move manager Buck Showalter made clear that Clevenger is playing as much for next year — when the team will see Matt Wieters reach free agency — as for this one, when Wieters will likely force him back to Triple-A. “I try to be blunt to a fault about what they need to do when they’re there,” Showalter said. “I talked about continue to be engaged with the pitcher and catching and throwing. I said, ’You’re going to be out of options next year, you’re going to control all this.’ I said, ’Try to present yourself for us and everybody else in the game as good as possible. Go down there and lead the league in hitting.'”
Yankees center fielder Jacoby Ellsbury could miss a month or more with his knee injury, skipper Joe Girardi told reporters, including NJ.com’s Ryan Hatch. While the club has received excellent production from Chris Young and can also use Slade Heathcott in center to spot him and take the platoon advantage, a prolonged absence from Ellsbury is a major hit to New York. On the plus side, the Yankees ought to have a handle on Ellsbury’s progress well in advance of the trade deadline.

AL Notes: Chris Young, Price, Rodon, Red Sox

By edcreech and charliewilmoth | May 10, 2015 at 4:45pm CDT

Chris Young’s career turned on a 1,168-word email the Royals right-hander wrote to a St. Louis surgeon in 2013 where he diagnosed himself as suffering from thoracic outlet syndrome, writes Andy McCullough of The Kansas City Star. Dr. Robert Thompson, director of the Washington University Center for Thoracic Outlet Syndrome concurred, and performed a decompression procedure to free the nerves in Young’s shoulder. “I feel better now at 35 than I did when I was in my late 20s, early 30s, because I was dealing with so much pain,” Young said. “I forgot what it was like to be healthy. Now I try to make up for lost time.” And that he has. Nearly two years after undergoing the career-saving operation, Young, the reigning AL Comeback Player of the Year, has been a relevation for the Royals pitching to a 1.06 ERA in seven games (including one start) with a 8.5 K/9 and 2.6 BB/9 over 17 innings of work.

Elsewhere in the American League:

The next start for Tigers ace David Price will be pushed back from Thursday to Saturday to give his mild hamstring strain extra time to heal, reports Anthony Fenech of the Detroit Free Press (Twitter links). Price says he could have pitched on normal rest, so the move is simply precautionary.
The Tigers have a need for a left-handed power bat off the bench, but risk losing out-of-options infielder Hernan Perez to waivers if they attempt such an move, according to MLive.com’s Chris Iott.
After throwing 108 pitches in winning his MLB debut as a starter, the White Sox remain coy on whether Carlos Rodon will remain in the rotation or return to the bullpen, writes MLB.com’s Scott Merkin. “You’re also somewhat protecting the amount of usage you’re going to get out of him over the course of the year, so there’s some factors that go into it for him and his learning curve and things like that,” said manager Robin Ventura. “There’s more to it than he’s just ready to go.” If Rodon remains in the rotation for the rest of the season, Merkin calculates the left-hander will approach the team’s unofficial innings limit of 160.
The Red Sox’s July 2014 trade of John Lackey for Allen Craig and Joe Kelly is looking worse and worse, Nick Cafardo of the Boston Globe opines. Craig performed poorly down the stretch in 2014 for the Red Sox and has been just as bad this year, and while Kelly’s radar gun readings have been impressive, his performance hasn’t (although his peripherals this season have been much better than his 5.72 ERA). Meanwhile, Lackey has pitched well for the Cardinals while making the league minimum salary.

AL Central Notes: Young, Salcedo, Hu, Indians

By Steve Adams | May 1, 2015 at 10:30am CDT

A conversation with Minor League teammate Shawn Hill and an email to a St. Louis-based surgeon Robert Thompson in 2013 saved the career of Royals right-hander Chris Young, writes Andy McCullough of the Kansas City Star. Young was unknowingly suffering from thoracic outlet syndrome — a difficult-to-detect shoulder condition in which nerves are pinched between the collarbone and top rib. Young described his symptoms to Hill, who first suggested thoracic outlet syndrome as a possibility, having suffered through the condition himself a year prior. Young had difficulty even turning his head side to side and often felt numbness in his fingers and hands. The surgery to alleviate the pain led to a 2014 AL Comeback Player of the Year Award for Young, but the 6’10” righty found little interest on the free agent market this winter. He expressed confusion to McCullough that just three teams showed significant interest, though fatigue at the end of the season and a subsequent 8.35 ERA over his final five starts may have had something to do with that, he acknowledged. Young notes that he eventually vowed to prove himself to big league teams this year. “…I had to remind myself to step back and say, ’You know what? If I don’t like it, go perform better than I did last year.'”

Here’s more from the AL Central…

Twins Double-A right-hander Adrian Salcedo was suspended 80 games after testing positive for a PED and a stimulant (which USA Today’s Bob Nightengale identifies as Tamoxifen and Heptaminol, respectively), and GM Terry Ryan expressed disappointment and frustration in the situation to the St. Paul Pioneer Press’ Mike Berardino: “We met about it all spring. This is one where I guess it doesn’t matter how much you try to educate players. It happened, and it will happen again, unfortunately. No matter how much we preach and no matter how much the penalty, there are going to be people that are going to try to take advantage of the situation.” Salcedo is the second 80-game suspension in the Twins organization over the past month, though the first was far more detrimental to the organization, as it was issued to right-hander Ervin Santana, who signed a four-year, $55MM contract this winter.
Taiwanese right-hander Chih-Wei Hu, signed by the Twins for $220K in 2012, is seeing his prospect stock rise dramatically early in the year, writes Baseball America’s Josh Norris. Perhaps the most interesting note on Hu is his usage of a palmball — a pitch not often seen in today’s game. Norris notes that the pitch acts more like a splitter than a changeup but has changeup-like velocity, sitting in the mid-90s.
Though Terry Francona wouldn’t say he is questioning T.J. House’s slot in the rotation, the Indians skipper did note that House’s pronounced struggles this season are troublesome, writes Cleveland.com’s Zack Meisel. House’s five earned runs in three innings last night further ballooned an already concerning ERA to 13.15, and the lefty has walked nearly a batter per inning in four starts this season. Meisel wonders who might step into the rotation, noting that Zach McAllister looks more at home in the bullpen. He speculatively lists Triple-A veterans Bruce Chen and Shaun Marcum as options, noting that each his pitched well in the upper Minors this far.

Latest From Rosenthal: Papelbon, Braun, Young, Redmond

By | April 25, 2015 at 5:49pm CDT

Some within the industry believe the Nationals should trade for Jonathan Papelbon and install Drew Storen as the setup man, says Ken Rosenthal with FOX Sports (video link). While there is some concern over Papelbon’s velocity, he’s off to a great start and “never misses his spots.” His $13MM vesting option for 2016 remains an obstacle. Rosenthal notes that the Tigers and Blue Jays are other possible destinations. I agree that these three clubs could all use relief help. To me, it makes more sense for the Nationals to address their bullpen at the trade deadline. The Blue Jays have a tougher path to the postseason, so they could really use the reinforcements now. Here’s more from Rosenthal.

The Brewers may shift to a rebuilding stance, and teams are in constant contact about Carlos Gomez and Jean Segura. Another star, Ryan Braun, will be difficult to trade. He’s slumped to start the season. He’s owed $105MM through 2020, and his no trade clause includes every team by the Angels, Dodgers, Nationals, Rays, and Marlins.
Yankees GM Brian Cashman credits his analytics department for recommending Chris Young. The outfielder is off to a blazing start with four home runs and a .357/.426/.762 line in 48 plate appearances. The Yankees have become familiar with buying low. They also acquired Chris Capuano, Martin Prado, and Brandon McCarthy at discount prices.
The Marlins are en route to their fourth consecutive victory, but manager Mike Redmond may remain on the hot seat. As one insider told Rosenthal, once owner Jeffrey Loria gets an idea in his head, “he can’t let it go.” If that’s the case, Redmond will need his team to go on an impressive streak.

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