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Injury Notes: Hill, Ethier, AGon, Bailey, Melancon, Mariners, Kluber, Gray

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Here’s the latest on some notable health situations from around the game:

  • The Dodgers have updates on a number of players. Lefty Rich Hill is going to return as a starter, but if his blister issue recurs then the team will consider moving him into some kind of relief role, manager Dave Roberts tells MLB Network Radio on Sirius XM (Twitter link). The timeline remains a ways off for outfielder Andre Ethier, meanwhile. He’s still not able to run without feeling pain in his back, Andy McCullough of the Los Angeles Times reports, making it seem unlikely he’d be able to return early July. Finally, first baseman Adrian Gonzalez is expected to begin a rehab assignment next week, Alanna Rizzo of Sportsnet LA tweets. He may only require two or three games before returning.
  • On the other side of the city, the Angels are sending righty Andrew Bailey for a visit with Dr. David Altchek, as Pedro Moura of the Los Angeles Times tweets. The reliever “felt something” in his shoulder during a recent throwing session. Shoulder issues have kept him on the DL all year.
  • Further north, the Giants have cause for hope that closer Mark Melancon will require only the brief DL timeline the club had charted when he was taken off the active roster. As Henry Schulman of the San Francisco Chronicle reports on Twitter, Melancon is reporting reduced symptoms in his forearm. The righty will test things out by playing catch tomorrow.
  • Continuing up the coast, the Mariners also have a smattering of health updates of note, as Bob Dutton of the Tacoma News Tribune reports. Key young talents James Paxton and Mitch Haniger are moving in the right direction, with the hope still being that they’ll return before the month is out. Reliever Steve Cishek is also close. But Felix Hernandez is going to rest his ailing shoulder a bit more, leaving his timeline somewhat cloudy, and it’s still not clear what to expect from Hisashi Iwakuma.
  • Indians righty Corey Kluber is moving slowly in his rehab, Ryan Lewis of the Akron Beacon Journal reports. Out with lower back issues, Kluber has begun throwing from flat ground but still hasn’t taken the hill. Manager Terry Francona did say that the team is seeing progress, though perhaps the biggest test is yet to come.
  • Rockies staff ace Jon Gray is also taking longer than had been hoped, as Nick Groke of the Denver Post writes. Gray is still in a walking boot while his broken left foot heals, though the hope seems to be he’ll be ready to shed that soon. While Gray has been able to continue throwing, he’ll obviously need to boost his conditioning and ensure his foot is at full health before undertaking at least some kind of rehab assignment.

2018 Vesting Options Update

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Each year, the free-agent class is impacted by the performance of players with vesting options (as is the financial future of players with said provisions in their contract). For those unfamiliar with the option, a vesting option is typically (though not always) a club option that can automatically trigger based on the player’s health and/or performance. Meeting pre-determined criteria for games played, innings pitched and plate appearances are the most common ways of triggering a vesting option. Some also require that a player avoid the DL at the end of the season and/or for a certain number of games over the course of the year.

Here’s a look at all of the 2018 player options that can automatically trigger based on the players’ 2017 performance…

  • Matt Cain: The 2017 campaign is the final season of a six-year, $127.5MM extension that Cain signed with the Giants on April 2, 2012. Prior to that point, Cain had been one of the most durable and efficient starters in the NL, but injuries have completely derailed Cain’s career since that 2012 season. Cain hasn’t thrown more than 90 1/3 innings since 2013, and so far he’s delivered just a 4.64 ERA in 455 1/3 innings over the five extra years of control the Giants bought out. If he can reach 200 innings this season and is not on the disabled list due to elbow or shoulder troubles to end the year, his $21.5MM club option would become guaranteed. However, he’s averaging fewer than 5 1/3 innings per start in 2017, and his previous health woes make that decidedly unlikely. His option comes with a $7.5MM buyout, which seems like an inevitable outcome.
  • Andre Ethier: Ethier batted .273/.351/.429 through the first three seasons of his five-year, $85MM extension (including particularly strong efforts in 2013 and 2015), but he played in just 16 games last season and has been on the disabled list for the entire 2017 season (herniated disk in his lower back). His $17.5MM club option would automatically vest with 550 plate appearances this season, but that’s obviously not going to happen, so he’ll receive a $2.5MM buyout instead.
  • Matt Garza: Garza’s four-year, $50MM contract with the Brewers contained one of the more convoluted vesting options in recent memory. Injury concerns surrounding Garza allowed the club to land a team option valued at a base of just $5MM. However, had Garza made 110 starts over the contract’s four years, pitched 115 innings in 2017 and avoided the DL at the end of the 2017 season, the option would’ve become guaranteed at $13MM. On the other side of the coin, the Brewers would’ve been able to pick it up at just $1MM had Garza missed 130 or more days during any single season of the contract. Neither of those scenarios will play out at this point, though. All of that is a long-winded way of saying that Garza’s option won’t be vesting at $13MM and will come at a potentially reasonable rate of $5MM.
  • Gio Gonzalez: Gonzalez’s five-year, $42MM extension came with a $12MM club option for the 2017 season (which was exercised) and a $12MM club/vesting option for the 2018 campaign. If the left-hander reaches 180 innings this season, he’ll be locked in at $12MM next season. For a player as durable as Gonzalez, who averaged 31 starts per year from 2010-16, that seems simple enough. But, Gonzalez has had difficulty working deep into games and has not crossed the 180-inning threshold since 2013. This season, though, he’s already racked up 44 1/3 innings through seven starts — an average of about 6 1/3 frames per outing. He’d need only 29 starts at that pace to trigger the option. And even if he doesn’t sustain that innings pace, if he can avoid the DL and average even 5 1/3 to 5 2/3 innings per start for the rest of the year, he’d accrue enough innings to guarantee that option. Of course, if Gonzalez delivers anything close to the 3.57 ERA he’s turned in through parts of six seasons as a National, the team will likely pick up the option even if it doesn’t vest.
  • J.J. Hardy: Hardy decided to forgo the open market at the end of the 2014 season, instead re-upping with Orioles in early October on a three-year, $40MM deal. His contract comes with a $14MM club option ($2MM buyout) that could automatically vest in the event that Hardy reaches 600 plate appearances this season. Hardy, however, has reached that total just twice in six previous seasons with the Orioles, and he’s hitting a mere .196/.232/.252 through his first 113 plate appearances in 2017. Based on his recent health track record, it could be considered unlikely that he stays healthy enough to trigger the option. But if he does remain healthy and doesn’t turn things around at the plate, the O’s won’t have a hard time justifying a reduction in playing time to prevent the option from vesting.
  • Greg Holland: Holland signed a one-year, $7MM deal with a mutual option for the 2018 season, though so long as he remains healthy it’s effectively a two-year, $22MM contract with a player option/opt-out provision. Holland’s $10MM mutual option becomes a $15MM player option if he appears in 50 total games or finishes 30 games in 2017. He’s come out of the gate roaring as a dominant closer in Colorado, just as he was in Kansas City. Holland has already finished 14 games, meaning he needs just 16 more to trigger that player option and secure the right to re-enter the open market. An injury seems like the only thing that will stand in Holland’s way, as he’s currently sporting a 1.29 ERA with a 17-to-5 K/BB ratio, a career-best 51.6 percent ground-ball rate and a 93.9 mph average fastball through his first 14 innings.
  • Hisashi Iwakuma: After injury concerns stemming from Iwakuma’s physical caused the Dodgers to back out of a reported three-year, $45MM agreement in the 2015-16 offseason, Iwakuma instead returned to the Mariners on a one-year deal with a pair of vesting options. Iwakuma needed 162 innings to trigger his 2017 option, and he needed either 162 innings in 2017 or 324 innings between 2016-17 to trigger his $10MM option for the 2018 season. The 36-year-old racked up 199 innings last year, meaning he now needs just 125 innings in 2017, though he must also avoid the disabled list at season’s end as well. Iwakuma has barely averaged five innings per outing (31 through six starts), but he also needs just 94 more innings this year for that option to kick in.
  • Ricky Nolasco: Nolasco’s option isn’t a standard vesting option, but his $13MM club option would become a player option with 400 innings pitched between 2016-17. The 34-year-old logged 197 2/3 innings last year, meaning he’d need 202 1/3 innings in 2017 in order to convert his option. That’s a total that Nolasco has reached only twice in his career, and he’s not on pace to approach that number through his first seven starts of the season. If Nolasco were to make the same number of starts as last season (32), he’d need to average nearly 6 2/3 innings per outing for the rest of the season to reach that level. If he ties his career-high with 33 starts, he’d need to average 6 1/3 frames through season’s end. It’s technically possible that Nolasco does end up with a $13MM player option, but the likelier scenario is that the Halos will choose between a $13MM club option and a $1MM buyout. (Thanks to MLBTR commenters paytoplay and jdobson1822 for pointing out Nolasco’s option.)

Cot’s Contracts was used in the creation of this post.

Hisashi Iwakuma’s 2017 Option Likely To Vest

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Mariners right-hander Hisashi Iwakuma quietly surpassed 162 innings last week in a start against the Yankees, meaning he has now crossed the minimum innings threshold for his 2017 club option to vest at $14MM. However, MLBTR has learned that Iwakuma’s contract also stipulates that he must finish the season without incurring a specific injury, so while he’s now likely to see his option vest, the 2017 salary is not quite guaranteed just yet.

The specific nature of the injury that Iwakuma must avoid remains unknown, though concerns about his health submarined what would’ve been a three-year, $45MM contract with the Dodgers this past offseason. (He instead re-signed in Seattle on a one-year, $12MM deal with a pair of options for the 2017 and 2018 seasons.) The 35-year-old has avoided the disabled list entirely this season, however, so he’s certainly in the clear at the moment. In fact, not only has Iwakuma avoided the disabled list, he’s been far and away the healthiest member of the Seattle rotation. No other Mariners starter is within 40 innings of Iwakuma’s 163 frames, as each of Felix Hernandez, Taijuan Walker, James Paxton and Nate Karns has spent time on the disabled list. In his 163 innings, Iwakuma has pitched to a solid 3.81 ERA, though a number of his secondary statistics have trended in the wrong direction, including his strikeout rate (6.5 K/9), walk rate (2.0 BB/9), ground-ball rate (39.8 percent) and average fastball velocity (87.8 mph).

Iwakuma’s innings count for the remainder of the season is worth keeping an eye on as well, as his volume of innings in 2016 could impact his contract status for 2018. Assuming his 2017 option ends up vesting, Iwakuma’s 2018 option will vest at $15MM if he is able to throw a combined 324 innings between 2016-17. As it stands, he needs 161 innings next year to lock in that $15MM payday in 2018, though every inning he tosses in the final stages of the 2016 season will bring him a small step closer to that goal.

Iwakuma’s contract also contains plenty of incentives for the 2016 season, and he’s already begun reaching them. He took home $500K for reaching the 150-inning mark and is owed an additional $500K for every 10th inning he pitches after that mark, up to 190 innings. In other words, he’s already earned $1MM worth of incentives and could push that up to a total of $2.5MM if he throws another 27 innings, which looks quite likely. Those incentives will not be a part of his contract in 2017-18 if those options vest (though they would be in the event that his options fail to vest, and the club exercises the option anyway).

AL Notes: Tanaka, Iwakuma, Darvish, Hanley

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Sunday’s showdown between the Yankees’ Masahiro Tanaka and the Mariners’ Hisashi Iwakuma will be the first-ever matchup in the majors between two former Japanese league teammates, writes Ryan Hatch of NJ.com. The two ex-Tohoku Rakuten Golden Eagles were supposed to face one another in 2014, but rain prevented that from happening. Regarding Iwakuma, Tanaka said, “There’s a little cultural difference. He’s older than [I am], so, I look up to him…He was the ace of the staff [in Japan]. I learned a lot from him…you know, strategies, and facing batters. Stuff like that.” Interestingly, the 35-year-old Iwakuma and Tanaka, 27, have posted nearly identical ERAs (3.18 to 3.17) since emigrating from Japan. Iwakuma debuted in the majors two years earlier (2012 versus 2014), so his success has come over 363 2/3 more innings than Tanaka’s total.

  • In other news regarding Japanese starters, Rangers ace Yu Darvish threw a live batting practice session Sunday and will engage in another Thursday before beginning a rehab assignment with Double-A Frisco on or near April 26, T.R. Sullivan of MLB.com reports (via Twitter). Darvish is recovering from Tommy John surgery, which caused him to miss all of last season. His 50-pitch BP session Sunday drew raves from pitching coach Doug Brocail, tweets the Dallas Morning News’ Evan Grant. “The breaking ball was crisp. The slider was unbelievable,” Brocail said. “The fastball was good and hard with both two- and four-seamers. He threw strikes in a lot of good areas. As we measured it, there were a lot of 0-2 and 1-2 counts.” A May 11 return to the Rangers could be within reach for Darvish if all goes well during his rehab stint, per Grant.
  • Thanks in part to a disastrous showing as a left fielder last season, the Red Sox’s Hanley Ramirez was among the league’s least valuable players during his first year in Boston. But the Red Sox like what they’ve seen this year from Ramirez, who is now their first baseman. “We have a different player,” manager John Farrell told Peter Abraham of the Boston Globe (Twitter link). “He’s in a good place,” second baseman Dustin Pedroia said (link via Evan Drellich of the Boston Herald). In addition to finding a more suitable position, Ramirez has shown signs of life offensively, slashing .293/.318/.463 in 44 plate appearances. A shoulder injury helped lead to an uncharacteristically poor season at the plate in 2015 for Ramirez, who hit .249/.291/.426 in 430 PAs.
  • Blue Jays second baseman Devon Travis – who underwent left shoulder surgery in November – will take the field for live batting practice off a coach for the first time this year Monday, tweets Shi Davidi of Sportsnet. Meanwhile, lefty Franklin Morales is better after feeling “weakness” in his shoulder earlier this month and will begin a throwing program Monday, Davidi reports (on Twitter).
  • The Indians are expected to activate right fielder Lonnie Chisenhall on Wednesday after he plays a pair of rehab games with Double-A Akron on Monday and Tuesday, Jordan Bastian of MLB.com was among those to report (Twitter link). Upon returning, Chisenhall – who has been on the disabled list since March with a left wrist injury – will vie for playing time in an Indians outfield that has mostly used Rajai Davis, Marlon Byrd and Jose Ramirez so far this year.

Quick Hits: Cespedes, Iwakuma, Payrolls, Gordon, Orioles

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We at MLB Trade Rumors tip our caps to Dan Connolly of the Baltimore Sun, who announced today that he is leaving the newspaper after a decade of fine work covering the Orioles.  Connolly’s name is a familiar one to MLBTR readers, as he has been a long-time source for Orioles information — just last week, in fact, Connolly broke the news that the O’s had agreed to sign Hyun-soo Kim.  We wish Dan all the best in his post-Sun endeavors and selfishly hope he keeps writing about baseball in some capacity in the future.

Onto some stocking-stuffer news items as we head into the birthday of Hall-of-Famers Rickey Henderson, Nellie Fox and Pud Galvin, a.k.a. Christmas Day…

  • Yoenis Cespedes’ market has been somewhat slow to develop, though “the Tigers appear to be sitting back waiting for” the free agent outfielder, USA Today’s Bob Nightengale tweets.  Cespedes’ asking price may also be dropping as the offseason rolls along.  Detroit, Cespedes’ former team, has been linked to the slugger on the rumor mill but Tigers GM Al Avila said during the Winter Meetings that his team was out on both Cespedes and Alex Gordon.  That stance could change, of course, if Cespedes could be had at a lower price, though that feeling undoubtedly applies to more teams than just the Tigers.  The Angels, Orioles, Royals and Giants have also been rumored to have some level of interest in Cespedes this offseason.  Tim Dierkes predicted Cespedes for a six-year, $140MM contract while ranking him sixth on MLBTR’s Top 50 Free Agents list.
  • The Mariners’ somewhat unique re-signing of Hisashi Iwakuma and his first contact with the M’s is chronicled by Fangraphs’ Tony Blengino, who was working as a special assistant to the GM in Seattle when Iwakuma was first signed by the club.  Injury concerns have plagued Iwakuma throughout his career — in Japan, possibly scuttling an agreement to join the A’s in 2011, during his stint as a Mariner and a red-flag physical that caused the Dodgers to back away from a three-year agreement.  Blengino also provides some interesting background into how teams approach physicals, as “there’s a fine line between being ’hurt’ and ’injured,’ and an MRI can find damage in just about any shoulder or elbow….It all comes down to the injury risk, in conjunction with the anticipated player production and dollar investment.”
  • A club’s payroll figures consists of far more than just the salaries of the 25-man roster, as Ryan Divish of the Seattle Times illustrates using the Mariners as an example.
  • Alex Gordon checks the boxes of everything the Royals would want in a franchise player, yet as Sam Mellinger of the Kansas City Star writes, the financial realities of a mid-market franchise make it unrealistic or even unwise for the Royals to splurge and re-sign the outfielder.  As was reported yesterday, there may be “no chance” of a reunion between the two sides if the Royals’ best offer is only four years and between $48MM-$52MM, a dollar figure Gordon may end up doubling on the open market.
  • Hyun-soo Kim had a “follow up” to his first physical with the Orioles that caused a delay in the club’s official announcement of their contract with the Korean outfielder, MASNsports.com’s Roch Kubatko reports.  Despite the delay, “Kim never was in real danger of failing his physical,” so it appears the O’s were just being cautious.
  • In a separate item from Kubatko, he provides “non-update updates” on several bits of Orioles offseason business, noting that there haven’t been any new developments in the team’s talks with free agents like Chris Davis, Wei-Yin Chen, Yovani Gallardo or Scott Kazmir.

Outrighted: Rondon, Monell, Cunniff, Robertson

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In addition  to the large number of minor signings and waiver claims today, there have been quite a few outrights from around the league. Righty A.J. Achter has already been outrighted by the Angels, but here are the rest of the day’s outright assignments…

  • The Pirates have outrighted right-hander Jorge Rondon to Triple-A Indianapolis. While Rondon hadn’t been previously designated for assignment, the Buccos needed to clear a roster spot to make way for John Jaso and his new two-year contract, and Rondon was the 40-man casualty. Rondon carried a 2.23 ERA over 60 2/3 innings at Triple-A last year, with 7.4 K/9 against 2.8 BB/9. He was once rated among the top thirty prospects of the Cardinals, and has a track record of solid, if unspectacular, numbers in the minors.
  • The Mets have outrighted catcher Johnny Monell to Triple-A Las Vegas, according to ESPN New York’s Adam Rubin (Twitter link). Monell was designated for assignment last week when the team needed a roster spot for the recently re-signed Bartolo Colon. Monell, 30 next March, received his second taste of Major League action last season, collecting a career-high 52 plate appearances with New York. Prior to that, his lone experience in the big leagues was a brief eight-game stint with the 2013 Giants (nine plate appearances). In the Majors, Monell is a .161/230/.196 hitter across his small sample of 61 PAs, but he has a sound track record in the minors, where he’s put together a .279/.356/.455 batting line with 31 homers across 1012 PAs in Triple-A.
  • Right-hander Brandon Cunniff has been outrighted to Triple-A Gwinnett by the Braves after clearing waivers, according to a tweet from the team. A former 27th-round draft pick by the Marlins, Cunniff spent three seasons in the independent Frontier League following his brief minor league career with the Marlins. The Braves plucked him from the indy circuit in June of 2013, and he rather quickly rose through their ranks over the past two years. Cunniff posted a brilliant 2.02 ERA in Double-A and jumped directly to the Majors, where he posted a 4.63 ERA with a 37-to-22 K/BB ratio in 35 innings.
  • MLB.com’s Greg Johns tweets that outfielder Daniel Robertson has cleared waivers and been outrighted to Triple-A by the Mariners after being designated for assignment last week. Robertson lost his roster spot to the re-signed Hisashi Iwakuma but is clearly a player valued by GM Jerry Dipoto, who acquired him from Texas while serving as GM of the Angels and again picked him up from the Halos this winter after taking over the Mariners’ GM job. In 277 career plate appearances, Robertson is a .274/.324/.325 hitter. He also boasts a solid minor league track record and is capable of playing all three outfield positions, making him a valuable depth option for a big league team.

AL West Notes: Mariners, Rangers, Angels

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After re-signing Hisashi Iwakuma, GM Jerry Dipoto is satisfied with the Mariners’ rotation, MLB.com’s Greg Johns reports. The Mariners had already added Wade Miley and Nate Karns in trades this offseason. “Now if you line up a rotation with Felix (Hernandez) and Wade Miley and James Paxton and Taijuan Walker and Nathan Karns and add Hisashi Iwakuma, that gives us the kind of depth and innings we want to get out of our starting rotation,” says Dipoto. “We’re very happy with that group.” Dipoto notes it’s crucial to have more than five pitchers capable of making solid starts. He adds that, even though it had looked like the Mariners were already at their budget limit prior to the Iwakuma signing, it took “less than five minutes” to get the Mariners’ ownership to approve spending once Iwakuma’s deal with the Dodgers fell apart and it became clear he was available. Here’s more from the AL West.

  • In an offseason in which salaries for setup men have skyrocketed, the Rangers’ bullpen is talented and cheap, Jeff Wilson of the Fort Worth Star-Telegram writes. That means they could potentially use a reliever to upgrade elsewhere, or they could keep all their current talent to provide the team with a variety of strong relief options. Wilson notes that GM Jon Daniels said at the Winter Meetings that other teams asked him about ten different relievers. And even beyond closer Shawn Tolleson, the Rangers have plenty of other bullpen options with at least some closing experience, including newcomer Tony Barnette, who registered 41 saves for Yakult in Japan last season.
  • It might be in the Angels’ interest not to exceed the $189MM luxury tax threshold for next season, if only because of the headache it could cause this time next year, Jeff Fletcher of the Orange County Register writes. Fans might argue that if the Angels exceeded that threshold for 2016, they could get back under it when Jered Weaver and C.J. Wilson’s contracts expire after the season, meaning that they would avoid the escalating penalties for repeat luxury tax offenders. The problem is that they’re already committed to spend a significant amount in 2017 (and will have non-mandatory, but necessary, expenditures for arbitration-eligible players like Garrett Richards, Hector Santiago and Kole Calhoun). They’ll also likely have to spend to bolster their rotation, infield and bullpen.

Mariners Designate Dan Robertson, Trade Tyler Olson To Dodgers

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The Mariners have announced that the club designated outfielder Dan Robertson for assignment to clear space for the signing of Hisashi Iwakuma. And the team further announced that previously-designated lefty Tyler Olson has been dealt to the Dodgers for a player to be named later or cash.

The 30-year-old Robertson spent the 2015 season with the Angels, where former Anaheim GM and current Seattle GM Jerry Dipoto had acquired him from the Rangers. He logged 80 plate appearances with the Halos, upping his big league total to 277. In that time, Robertson is a .274/.324/.325 hitter. He also boasts a solid minor league track record and is capable of playing all three outfield positions, making him a valuable depth option for a big league team.

Olson, 26, made his big league debut with the Mariners last season, pitching 13 1/3 innings out of the bullpen. The results weren’t particularly encouraging, as he surrendered eight runs on 18 hits and 10 walks, although in one of the more bizarre stats you’ll come across, seven of those 10 walks were intentional in nature. In 54 1/3 Triple-A innings, Olson managed a more palatable 4.47 ERA with 8.8 K/9 against 2.8 BB/9. However, after holding lefties to a .206/.280/.279 batting line in 2014, the Gonzaga product yielded a .253/.340/.448 slash to lefties between the Majors and minors in 2015.

Mariners Re-Sign Hisashi Iwakuma

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TODAY, 1:50pm: Iwakuma ended up taking quite a hit on his guaranteed money, it appears. Per Jon Heyman of CBSSports.com (Twitter links), the veteran will receive only a $12MM guarantee. That includes a $1MM signing bonus, $10MM salary for 2016, and a $1MM buyout on the vesting/club options that follow.

The options are priced at $10MM apiece, but they can vest at higher levels. If Iwakuma reaches 162 innings, his 2017 option would be guaranteed at $14MM. If he can tally 162 frames in the following season, or 324 total over 2016-17, then he’d earn $15MM.

There are some other important benefits in the contract. Iwakuma gets a full no-trade clause, Heyman adds (Twitter links). And he can earn up to $2.5MM annually via incentives for innings pitched ($500K at 150 innings and every ten frames thereafter, with 190 innings to maximize the clause).

1:13pm: The guarantee is likely near to the value of the qualifying offer ($15.8MM), Ken Rosenthal of FOX Sports reports (Twitter links). Iwakuma can earn nearly all of the $45MM he would have been promised by the Dodgers through the vesting clauses, Rosenthal adds.

YESTERDAY: The Mariners have re-signed right-hander Hisashi Iwakuma to a one-year contract with vesting options for the 2017 and 2018 seasons, according to a club announcement. General manager Jerry Dipoto initially broke the news to the rest of his staff at the front office holiday party (video link, on Twitter), but the club kept the news under wraps until a formal announcement could be drafted.

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Clearly, this is a drastic shift in Iwakuma’s market. The 34-year-old (35 in April) Wasserman Media Group client was said to have agreed to a three-year, $45MM pact with the Dodgers, but reported concerns over the veteran’s physical caused the Dodgers to attempt to re-work the contract. J.P. Hoornstra of the Los Angeles News Group tweeted recently that the Dodgers’ offer of a guaranteed third year is what pushed the Dodgers to the front of the line in the Iwakuma sweepstakes, so it would seem that with that third season no longer on the table, Iwakuma’s preference was to return to Seattle on a contract that will allow him to reach that third year if he is able to remain healthy over the course of the next two seasons (although exactly what type of innings-pitched or starts-made marks will trigger the additional years on the contract remains an unknown).

“Obviously, the developments from the last few days allowed us to get back in the game,” said Dipoto in the press release announcing the move. “It’s a credit to our ownership; to Howard Lincoln, to Kevin Mather, to our entire ownership group that we were able to get aggressive and find a way to bring Kuma back to the Mariners. We’re all thrilled. This is a big move for us. We feel like this really puts a finishing touch on what we think has been a very productive off-season.”

Iwakuma will slot into the rotation behind ace Felix Hernandez. His return gives the Mariners a surplus in the rotation, as the club still has newcomers Wade Miley and Nate Karns in addition to returning high-upside youngsters Taijuan Walker and James Paxton. While there are plenty of health-related question marks among that group — Walker and Paxton both have notable injury histories at a young age — it’s an imposing group, on paper, and should make for a formidable rotation when healthy, regardless of which arms round out the mix. (I’d imagine that Miley is a given for the rotation, leaving Karns, Walker and Paxton to compete for the final two spots.)

A lat injury cost Iwakuma more than two months of his 2015 campaign and limited him to 129 2/3 innings. A torn tendon in his right middle finger limited him to 179 innings a year prior. The nature of the concerns that derailed his contract with the Dodgers aren’t known, but the Mariners were comfortable enough to guarantee him a 2016 contract, and the Dodgers themselves were said to be attempting to re-work the deal, which should suggest that there’s no dire injury at play.

Over the course of 653 2/3 Major League innings, the Japanese righty has posted a 3.17 ERA with 7.6 K/9, 1.8 BB/9 and a 50.1 percent ground-ball rate. Considering the fact that the additions of Leonys Martin and Nori Aoki should only enhance the Mariners’ outfield defense, there’s reason to believe that Iwakuma could improve upon his 2014-15 performance, so long as his health permits him to do so.

On the Dodgers’ end of the equation, the loss of Iwakuma marks a disappointing outcome for a club that has seen Zack Greinke sign with the division-rival Diamondbacks and also had a trade for Aroldis Chapman fall through due to previously unreported domestic violence allegations. While there’s still plenty of time for president of baseball operations Andrew Friedman and his staff to plot new courses of action, one has to assume that this is nonetheless a discouraging outcome. As it stands right now, the Dodgers have little certainty in their rotation beyond Clayton Kershaw and Alex Wood, as Brett Anderson has a significant injury history of his own while Brandon McCarthy and Hyun-jin Ryu missed most and all of the 2015 season due to injuries, respectively.

Photo courtesy of USA Today Sports Images.

Mariners Again Pursuing Hisashi Iwakuma

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Now that his three-year deal with the Dodgers is in jeopardy due to issues with his physical, Hisashi Iwakuma is back on the market, and Jim Bowden of ESPN and MLB Network Radio on SiriusXM reports that the Mariners have resumed their pursuit of Iwakuma (Twitter link).

Iwakuma, of course, has spent his entire Major League career with the Mariners, who earlier this winter were said to consider him their “top priority.” As J.P. Hoornstra of the Los Angeles News Group tweets, the Dodgers “surged” past the Mariners in the Iwakuma bidding after they were willing to guarantee a third year on his contract (pending a physical). If the Dodgers’ third year is off the table, then, it would make sense that the Mariners could potentially re-enter the picture. However, at this time, we don’t know whether the Dodgers have pulled the third year entirely or are simply hoping for a reduced annual rate given the reported medical concerns.

Iwakuma, who will pitch next season at 35 years of age, posted a 3.54 ERA with 7.7 K/9, 1.5 BB/9 and a 50.4 percent ground-ball rate in 129 2/3 innings with Seattle last season, though a lat injury kept him on the shelf for more than two months and limited his innings total. That marked the second straight season in which he was limited by injuries, as his 2014 campaign was truncated by a torn tendon in his right middle finger.

The specific issue with Iwakuma’s physical remains unknown, but that the Dodgers are reportedly still trying to come to an agreement and the Mariners are now back in the mix suggests that there’s nothing dire in his medical results. However, without knowing the nature of the red flags, it’s nearly impossible to gauge what sort of reduction will need to be made from the previously reported three-year, $45MM price tag that the Dodgers had place on Iwakuma.

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