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34 Players Become Free Agents

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The Wild Card round of the 2022 postseason begins today, but for the majority of teams and players, the offseason is now underway. With that will come plenty of roster formalities, including veteran players who’ve been outrighted off their respective teams’ rosters reaching minor league free agency. This week, there have been 34 such instances throughout the league, per the transactions log at MiLB.com.

None of these are a surprise, to be clear. Any player who is not on his team’s 40-man roster at season’s end but has three-plus years of Major League service time, multiple career outright assignments and/or seven-plus seasons in the minors has the right to elect free agency. Everyone in today’s group of players falls under that umbrella. The majority of the group will likely find minor league deals over the winter, although a few of the players in question could potentially find a big league deal as a bench piece or middle-inning reliever.

There will be several more waves of players of this ilk, and we’ll make note of them in bunches over the coming weeks as we await the launch of Major League free agency, when all unsigned players with at least six years of Major League service time will reach the open market. For now, here’s the first of what will likely be several waves of newly minted minor league free agents:

Catchers

Infielders

Outfielders

Pitchers

Royals Outright Daniel Mengden

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Sep. 4: The Royals announced that Mengden has cleared waivers and been outrighted to Omaha. Although he has the ability to reject that outright and elect free agency, it seems he will accept, per Lynn Worthy of the Kansas City Star.

Sep. 2: The Royals announced Friday that they’ve recalled right-hander Wyatt Mills from Triple-A Omaha and designated fellow righty Daniel Mengden for assignment in order to create roster space. Mengden was selected to the big league roster just yesterday and started last night’s game for Kansas City, but it appears that’ll go down as a spot start.

Mengden, 29, tossed just 2 2/3 innings in last night’s start against the White Sox, yielding three runs on five hits and a walk with a pair of strikeouts. It was his second stint with the Royals this year, as he’d previously made four bullpen appearances back in June. Overall, Mengden has pitched seven innings with the Royals and allowed four earned runs on ten hits and a walk with eight punchouts.

A fourth-round pick of the A’s back in 2014, Mengden was a regular on the Oakland pitching staff from 2016-20, working primarily as a starter but never quite securing a long-term spot in the rotation. The mustachioed righty appeared in 60 games with Oakland — 48 of them starts — and totaled 302 2/3 innings with a 4.64 ERA, a 17.3% strikeout rate, a solid 7.8% walk rate and 39% ground-ball rate.

Mengden then spent the 2021 season with the Korea Baseball Organization’s Kia Tigers, for whom he notched a 3.60 ERA over the life of 21 starts. He’s spent the bulk of the current season with the Royals’ Triple-A club in Omaha, pitching to a 4.55 ERA in 91 innings. He’s ineligible to be traded because he’s been on a big league roster this year and the trade deadline has passed, so Mengden will hit outright waivers or release waivers within the next seven days. All 29 other clubs will have the opportunity to claim him.

Mills, 27, came to the Royals by way of the June trade that sent Carlos Santana to Seattle. He’s appeared in 18 games out of the Kansas City bullpen already this year but struggled to a 5.30 ERA with a 17-to-10 K/BB ratio in 18 2/3 innings. He’s been sharp in Triple-A for the second straight season, however, and now carries a career 2.53 ERA, a 36.7% strikeout rate and an 8.1% walk rate at that level.

Royals Planning To Select Daniel Mengden

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The Royals have listed right-hander Daniel Mengden as the probable starter for tomorrow’s game against the White Sox (h/t to Anne Rogers of MLB.com). They’ll have to formally select his contract to add him to the roster, but they won’t need to make any corresponding moves to do so. Active rosters expand from 26 to 28 players with the calendar flipping to September, and Kansas City already has an opening on the 40-man roster.

Mengden will be up for the second time this season, although he’ll be making his first start of the campaign. Signed to a minor league deal over the winter, he was promoted to the majors in the middle of June. He worked out of manager Mike Matheny’s bullpen during his first stint, making four appearances and tossing 4 1/3 innings of two-run ball, striking out six without walking a batter. Despite that quality showing, the Royals nevertheless ran Mengden through waivers and outrighted him back to Triple-A Omaha.

While Mengden hasn’t started an MLB game in two seasons, he does have a fair bit of rotation experience. He worked primarily as a starter during his early-career run with the A’s, opening 48 of his 60 appearances with Oakland between 2016-20. Mengden’s pitch-to-contact approach led to some decent results in a spacious Oakland ballpark early in his tenure, but he ran into more trouble from 2019 onward as his walk tallies escalated.

Mengden has worked primarily from the rotation with the Storm Chasers. He’s started 17 of 21 outings, working to a 4.55 ERA across 91 innings. The Texas A&M product has struck out 19.5% of opponents against a heightened 12.8% walk percentage in the minors this season.

Royals Activate Joel Payamps, Outright Daniel Mengden

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The Royals activated right-hander Joel Payamps from the COVID-related injury list today.  In the corresponding move, Kansas City outrighted right-hander Daniel Mengden off the 40-man roster and assigned him to Triple-A.

Payamps was placed on the COVID list on June 13, and he returned to the field last week to make a trio of Triple-A outings as part of a rehab assignment.  Despite below-average strikeout and walk rates, Payamps has a 2.42 ERA over 26 relief innings for K.C. this season, relying on a 53.7% grounder rate, a lack of hard contact, and zero homers allowed. The righty used a pretty similar recipe for success in 2021, as Payamps posted a 3.40 ERA over 50 1/3 innings with the Blue Jays and Royals in his first full MLB season.

Payamps is only 28 years old but he has 11 years of pro experience, including time in the majors in each of the last four seasons.  While not a premium bullpen arm, his numbers could get him some looks from other teams heading into the trade deadline, as the Royals are already known to be open to offers on veteran players.

Mengden signed a minor league deal with Kansas City in March, and in fact got his contract selected to the Show when Payamps was first placed on the COVID-IL.  Mengden appeared in four games with the Royals, posting a 2.08 ERA over 4 1/3 innings — this marked his first MLB action since 2020, as Mengden pitched in South Korea last season.

Though the Royals have only deployed Mengden as a reliever to date, he has started 11 of his 12 games for Triple-A Omaha, and has worked as a starter for the bulk of his career in the majors, minors, and the KBO League.  Mengden had some solid numbers pitching for the A’s in 2017-18 before control problems hampered him in 2019.

Royals Select Daniel Mengden

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The Royals announced they’ve selected right-hander Daniel Mengden onto the major league roster. In a corresponding move, reliever Joel Payamps has been placed on the COVID-19 injured list.

Mengden is now in position to make his first MLB appearance in two years. The Texas A&M product pitched in the majors with the A’s each season from 2016-20, starting 48 of his 60 outings. Not a particularly hard thrower, Mengden rarely missed many bats but looked like a viable back-of-the-rotation arm at times based on the strength of his control. He posted a 3.80 ERA through 158 2/3 innings from 2017-18, and while the A’s pitcher-friendly home ballpark and excellent team defenses no doubt aided him, Mengden walked a meager 5.4% of batters faced during that stretch.

By 2019, however, Mengden began to struggle with his control. Oakland outrighted him off the roster in 2020, and he signed on with the Kia Tigers of the Korea Baseball Organization last winter. He proved a solid pickup, tossing 120 frames of 3.60 ERA ball with a 20.7% strikeout rate and a 7% walk percentage for the Gwangju-based club. Mengden returned to the United States this past offseason, inking a minors pact with Kansas City in March.

The 29-year-old has spent the entirety of the 2022 campaign with Triple-A Omaha. He’s worked almost exclusively as a starter, opening 11 of his 12 outings. Mengden has a 5.47 ERA across 52 2/3 frames for the Storm Chasers, posting worse than average strikeout and walk numbers (21.3% and 12.6%, respectively) while struggling with home runs. Nevertheless, Kansas City will give him another crack in the majors, presumably as a multi-inning relief option for skipper Mike Matheny.

Royals Sign Daniel Mengden To Minor League Deal

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The Royals announced this afternoon they’ve signed right-hander Daniel Mengden to a minor league contract. He’s the second veteran hurler to join the organization on a non-roster deal in as many days, as they also added former Astros and Red Sox righty Brad Peacock.

Mengden has spent parts of five seasons in the majors, with the entirety of that time coming in an A’s uniform. The Texas A&M product broke into the big leagues in 2016, starting fourteen games down the stretch. He was tagged for a 6.50 ERA as a rookie, but Mengden found more success keeping runs off the board over the following seasons. He combined for 218 1/3 innings of 4.08 ERA ball over 42 outings (including 33 starts) from 2017-19.

Despite that run of decent results, Mengden annually posted below-average strikeout and ground-ball rates. He excelled at avoiding walks between 2017-18 but saw the free passes spike to a 10.4% mark over 59 2/3 frames in 2019. Mengden’s ERA sat at 4.83 that season, which has marked his last real look at the big league level. He worked just 12 1/3 innings over four outings in the shortened 2020 campaign before Oakland outrighted him off their 40-man roster that September.

Mengden elected minor league free agency and signed with the Kia Tigers of the Korea Baseball Organization last offseason. He proved a solid pickup, tossing 120 frames of 3.60 ERA ball with a 20.7% strikeout rate and a 7% walk percentage for the Gwangju-based club. The 29-year-old returns to affiliated ball in hopes of pitching his way back to the bigs with a Kansas City team that has a fair amount of talented young starters but not a whole lot of rotation certainty.

A .350 opponents’ batting average on balls in play was a big culprit behind Brady Singer posting a 4.91 ERA last season, but estimators (4.04 FIP, 4.30 SIERA) were more favorable. Daniel Lynch and Kris Bubic are former top prospects, but both struggled in 2021. That was also the case for veterans Brad Keller and (to a lesser extent) Mike Minor, although both seem likely to get season-opening rotation roles based on their career resumes. Hard-throwing righty Carlos Hernández and another former top prospect, Jackson Kowar, also started games last season, while Angel Zerpa made his big league debut during the final week of the year. Kansas City no doubt plans to get most of those hurlers continued work, although the lack of big league track record for the majority of those arms could give Mengden a chance to pitch his way onto the big league roster with a solid Spring Training and/or start at Triple-A Omaha.

KBO’s Kia Tigers Sign Daniel Mengden

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Right-hander Daniel Mengden has signed with the Kia Tigers of the Korea Baseball Organization, the team announced (hat tip to MyKBO.net’s Dan Kurtz).  The one-year contract will pay Mengden $425K in salary, a $300K signing bonus, and up to $275K in incentives.

The 27-year-old elected to become a free agent after he was outrighted off the Athletics’ 40-man roster following the season.  Mengden only threw 12 1/3 innings in 2020 after recovering from elbow surgery in February, two offseason surgeries to address an intestinal problem, and then a positive COVID-19 diagnosis in early September.

Originally a fourth-round pick for the Astros in the 2014 draft, Mengden was dealt to the A’s as part of the Scott Kazmir trade in July 2015 and he has gone on to spend his entire MLB career in an Oakland uniform.  After a pretty rough 2016 rookie season, Mengden has a 4.06 ERA, 2.22 K/BB rate, and 6.0 K/9 over 230 2/3 innings for the A’s since the start of the 2017 campaign, starting 34 of 46 games.  Neither a big strikeout pitcher or a grounder specialist, Mengden relies on a lot of soft contact, which has led to decent bottom-line results even if advanced metrics aren’t fond of his work.

Mengden becomes the latest experienced big leaguer to head to the KBO League for a better guarantee of both money and playing time, rather than test a very uncertain North American market.  He’ll join former A’s teammate Aaron Brooks on the Tigers roster, as Brooks recently re-signed for a second season with the Gwangju-based team.

NPB/KBO Notes: Dice-K, Mengden, Almonte, Yoon

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Daisuke Matsuzaka is still going. The 40-year-old righty signed a one-year deal with the Seibu Lions in Japan’s Nippon Professional Baseball earlier this week, according to the Japan Times, rejoining the club for which he starred from 1999-2006. Matsuzaka was with the Lions in 2020 as well, although he spent the year rehabbing from back surgery that prevented him from pitching. The former Red Sox right-hander returned to NPB in 2015 and has since pitched with the SoftBank Hawks and Chunichi Dragons. He’s thrown just 5 1/3 innings since the conclusion of the 2018 season due to injuries, but he’ll hope for a healthier go of it as his career comes full circle with the Lions in 2021.

Some more notes on former big leaguers, the KBO and NPB…

  • Former Athletics right-hander Daniel Mengden has held negotiations with a club in the Korea Baseball Organization, per a report from South Korea’s Naver Sports (Korean language link). There’s no indication a deal has been completed yet. Mengden spent his first five professional seasons in Oakland, where he pitched to a 4.64 ERA/4.58 FIP and posted 6.66 K/9 against 3.03 BB/9 over 302 2/3 innings. He only threw 12 1/3 frames last year after undergoing three offseason surgeries (two to repair an intestinal issue, another on his elbow). The A’s outrighted the 27-year-old in September.
  • The KBO’s KT Wiz have signed outfielder Zoilo Almonte to a one-year, $525K guarantee with up to $250K in incentives, Jee-ho Yoo of South Korea’s Yonhap News Agency relays. The ex-Yankees farmhand, 31, spent the previous three seasons with Chunichi, with which he slashed .316/.375/.484 and hit 31 home runs in 967 plate appearances. As Yoo notes, Almonte will replace 2020 KBO MVP Mel Rojas Jr., who left KT for the NPB’s Hanshin Tigers earlier this month.
  • Retired righty Suk-min Yoon is attempting to become a professional golfer in Korea, Yoo reports. Yoon was a highly successful starter with the KBO’s Kia Tigers, which led the Orioles to sign him to a contract worth a guaranteed $5.75MM over three years entering the 2014 campaign. He never threw a pitch for the Orioles, though, instead spending the year at Triple-A, and the O’s released him in 2015. Yoon returned to the Tigers and pitched in 2015, ’16 and ’18, but he hung up his cleats after a shoulder injury derailed his career.

Athletics Outright Daniel Mengden

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The Athletics have outrighted hurler Daniel Mengden after he cleared waivers, Martin Gallegos of MLB.com was among those to report.

The A’s previously designated the right-handed Mengden for assignment Sept. 20, which came a little over a month after his most recent appearance on Aug. 18. Mengden threw 12 1/3 innings of five-run ball earlier this year, but he spent time on the COVID-19 injured list before the A’s designated him.

Now 27, Mengden debuted in 2016 and emerged as a respectable piece of the A’s staff the next season. In fact, from 2017-18, Mengden combined for a 3.80 ERA/4.57 FIP with 5.73 K/9 and 1.99 BB/9 over 158 2/3 innings and 29 appearances (24 starts). Mengden’s output has dropped since that two-year stretch, though, largely because of a major increase in walk rate. He has issued 4.25 free passes per nine, logged 6.5 K/9 and posted a 4.63 ERA/4.85 FIP over 72 innings since 2019.

A’s Designate Daniel Mengden For Assignment

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The Athletics have activated Daniel Mengden off the COVID-19 injured list and designated the right-hander for assignment, the team announced.

It has been an altogether tough year for Mengden, who underwent two intestinal surgeries and an arthroscopic elbow surgery during the offseason before testing positive for the coronavirus (with no symptoms, thankfully) in early September.  On the field, Mengden has posted a 3.65 ERA over 12 1/3 innings for Oakland, starting one game and working as a long man out of the pen in his other three appearances.

Mengden’s skillset would seemingly make him a useful bullpen piece for the A’s during the playoffs, making the DFA placement a bit of a surprise.  But, with a relief corps that is arguably already the best in baseball, the Athletics simply might have decided that they didn’t have room for Mengden.  Opening up a roster spot could also hint at a future move to come in the season’s final days.

Mengden has a 4.64 ERA, 2.20 K/BB rate, and 6.7 K/9 over 302 2/3 career innings (starting 48 of 60 games), all with the A’s since making his Major League debut in 2016.  Though there is only a week left in the regular season, it wouldn’t be a shock to see a team claim Mengden to get a quick look at him and gain a controllable arm.  Mengden will be arbitration eligible for the first time this winter.

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