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International Notes: Huff, Kim

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While it’s been slow on the free-agent front in the North America, plenty of recognizable names have been landing deals overseas in Japan and Korea. A couple of notes on the international market as the holiday season is in full swing…

  • Lefty David Huff has agreed to a one-year, $1.3MM deal with the Yakult Swallows in Japan’s Nippon Professional Baseball, according to the Japan Times. The 33-year-old last suited up in the Majors for the 2016 Angels but spent parts of eight seasons in the bigs, posting a 5.17 ERA with 5.4 K/9, 3.0 BB/9 and a 38.8 percent ground-ball rate in 393 1/3 innings, spending time as both a starter and a reliever. Since his last big league appearance, Huff has been thriving with the LG Twins of the Korea Baseball Organization, pitching to a 2.66 ERA with 6.5 K/9 against 1.0 BB/9 in 199 1/3 innings in an extremely hitter-friendly setting.
  • Though Hyun Soo Kim recently signed a four-year contract to return to the KBO (worth a total of $10.7MM), the 29-year-old said at his introductory press conference with the LG Twins that he’s not totally closed off to taking another shot at the Majors if the opportunity presents itself (link via Jee-ho Yoo of the Yonhap News Agency). Kim also spoke highly of his time in the Majors and the amount that he learned playing in parts of two seasons with the Orioles and Phillies. “[T]he biggest lesson is that I realized the importance of routines,” said Kim. “I thought I had built a solid routine myself, but it was nothing compared to what the big leaguers were doing. I thought players who stuck to their routines were always able to get out of their slumps quickly.” Yoo also “marveled” at the manner in which big league players took care of their bodies, Yoo writes, and offered a candid assessment of his time in the Majors. While he attributes many of his struggles to a lack of regular playing time, he takes responsibility for his lack of at-bats. “I didn’t play well when I did have my opportunity,” said Kim. “So it’s on me.”

Hyun Soo Kim Signs With KBO’s LG Twins

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Korean outfielder Hyun Soo Kim is heading home, according to Jeeho Yoo of Yonhap News, who tweets that Kim has struck a four-year deal with the Korea Baseball Organization’s LG Twins. Kim will reportedly earn 11.5 billion won, which equates to about $10.6MM, in the contract.

Kim, who’ll turn thirty years of age in January, had a strong first MLB season after joining the Orioles on a two-year, $7MM pact. While he functioned mostly as a lefty platoon bat, Kim ran up a strong .302/.382/.420 slash with six home runs over 346 plate appearances. He drew 36 walks against just 51 strikeouts in that span.

Things turned south in 2017, however, as Kim stumbled out of the gates in Baltimore and did not pick up the pace after landing with the Phillies in the middle of the season. Over his 239 total trips to the plate, Kim managed only a .231/.307/.292 slash with a single home run.

While Kim no doubt could at least have landed a minors deal with a decent shot at cracking a MLB roster at some point in 2017, he’ll instead head back to his native Korea. Long a fixture with the Doosan Bears, Kim will look to pick up where he left off before crossing the Pacific. Kim owns a lifetime .318/.406/.488 batting line over ten KBO campaigns.

Hyun Soo Kim On MLB Future

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Outfielder Hyun Soo Kim returned to his native South Korea upon conclusion of the regular season and met with the media to discuss what was, in his own words, a “disappointing” second season in the Majors (link via Jee-ho Yoo of the Yonhap News Agency). Despite a rough campaign split between the Orioles and the Phillies, the 29-year-old Kim made it clear that his hope is to secure another opportunity to prove himself in the Major Leagues.

“It’s not something I can control,” Kim told reporters. “Obviously, I’d love to stay in the majors. But I felt my determination alone can’t do the trick. I’ll just try to do the best I can.”

Kim signed a two-year, $7MM contract with the Orioles in the 2015-16 offseason on the heels of an amazing nine-year career in the Korea Baseball Organization. In 4768 plate appearances with the KBO’s Doosan Bears, Kim batted .318/.406/.488 with 142 home runs, earning the nickname “The Hitting Machine” along the way. That nickname looked rather appropriate after Kim’s first season in Baltimore; he slashed a hearty .302/.382/.420 with six homers, 16 doubles and a triple in 346 plate appearance with the Orioles.

Kim, though, was shielded almost entirely from left-handed pitching in the Majors, and a slow start to the 2017 season (plus Trey Mancini’s early breakout) led to even more inconsistent playing time. He hit just .232/.305/.288 in 141 PAs with the O’s before being traded to the Phillies in late July — largely as a means of offsetting some of the salary of Jeremy Hellickson, who went from Philadelphia to Baltimore in that deal.

Playing time was even more scarce for Kim in Philadelphia, as the Phillies were evaluating younger options such as Nick Williams, Aaron Altherr and Rhys Hoskins in the outfield corners throughout the season’s second half. Ultimately, Kim’s sophomore campaign in the Majors produced a paltry .231/.307/.292 triple slash.

Kim took ownership of his struggles when speaking to the Korean media, though he did indicate that his part-time/platoon usage was a role to which he had a difficult time adjusting. “It was frustrating when I’d get three hits one day and sit on the bench the next day,” Kim admitted. “But it’s all on me. I just didn’t have it.”

Kim didn’t dismiss the notion of accepting a minor league contract when asked about a possible return to the Majors, but he noted that it would depend on the composition of the interested team’s roster. His time in Philadelphia made clear to him that at-bats will be difficult to come by on an up-and-coming team that is rife with outfield prospects ready for big league evaluation. A clearer path to playing time than the one he had in Philadelphia sounds as if it’ll be important to Kim when weighing offers this winter.

If there are ultimately no offers to his liking, it stands to reason that he would draw widespread interest from KBO clubs in free agency. But, Kim is still relatively young — he’ll play all of next season at the age of 30 — and is just a year removed from a 116 OPS+ and 120 wRC+ in nearly 350 MLB plate appearances. He’s demonstrated solid plate discipline and contact skills in the Majors as well, walking in 9.9 percent of his plate appearances while striking out at a 16.6 percent clip. While his defense didn’t grade out well in left field, there’s still reason to believe he could be a productive bat — at least in the same platoon capacity he had with the O’s in 2016.

East News & Rumors: Hellickson, Kim, Yanks, Rays

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Right-hander Jeremy Hellickson changed clubs when the Phillies traded him to the Orioles on Friday, but a car crash has delayed his arrival to meet his new teammates, reports Brittany Ghiroli of MLB.com (on Twitter). Hellickson was rear-ended on his way to the airport to fly to Texas, where the Orioles are playing, and he and his girlfriend had to go to the emergency room as a result. Fortunately, it seems the two avoided major injuries. “I think Jeremy is OK, but his girlfriend had to go to the emergency room,” manager Buck Showalter said Saturday (via Steve Melewski of MASNsports.com). “I know Roger (McDowell) has talked to him a couple of times. If everything stays…if she gets cleared, they’ll be in Baltimore tomorrow. No reason to come here (to Texas) now. We’ve got a catcher set up tomorrow in Baltimore.”

The Phillies received little-used outfielder Hyun Soo Kim in the package for Hellickson, and the 29-year-old’s playing time won’t increase with his new team, writes Matt Breen of Philly.com. “I don’t know how much time I’ll be able to get for Kim,” admitted manager Pete Mackanin. “It’s a conundrum.” With Aaron Altherr and Nick Williams flanking center fielder Odubel Herrera, the Phillies have younger options entrenched in starting roles. That’s unfortunate for Kim, who hit .302/.382/.420 in 346 plate appearances as a rookie last year. The free agent-to-be took massive steps backward this season before the trade (.232/.305/.288 in 142 tries), and he won’t have an opportunity to improve his stock in the next couple months. As MLBTR’s Steve Adams suggested Friday, including Kim and his $4.2MM salary in the trade was a money-driven decision by the teams.

The latest on a couple of Baltimore’s AL East rivals:

  • The Yankees made Double-A right-hander Zack Littell a healthy scratch from his start on Saturday, reports Joel Sherman of the New York Post (via Twitter). Sherman believes the move has something to do with Monday’s trade deadline, and it’s worth noting that the Yankees and A’s are deep in talks regarding Oakland right-hander Sonny Gray. Speculatively, Littell could end up in the package going to Oakland if the Yankees acquire Gray (or as part of another deal). MLB.com ranks the 21-year-old Littell as New York’s 22nd-best prospect.
  • More from Sherman, who writes that the Yankees may trade hot-hitting Triple-A outfield prospects Billy McKinney and Jake Cave by the end of August as a way to alleviate the 40-man roster crunch they’re slated to face in the offseason. Neither player is on the Yankees’ 40-man right now, and the team is already well off in the outfield. In lieu of protecting the McKinney-Cave tandem over the winter, then, the Yankees could do what they did with outfielder Ben Gamel last year and deal one or both of them. Gamel wasn’t on the 40-man for New York when it traded him to the Mariners last Aug. 31 for a pair of pitching prospects. While Gamel’s now enjoying an excellent rookie season in Seattle, odds are that he wouldn’t have gotten the chance to shine as a major leaguer this year had he stayed in the Yankees organization.
  • In regards to the low-payroll Rays’ trading spree this season, owner Stuart Sternberg told Marc Topkin of the Tampa Bay Times: “The impetus? This is a special group of guys who have the talent and are hungry.” Sternberg has picked up $7MM in salary via trades this year – though Colby Rasmus’ departure did save the team $2.5MM, as Topkin points out – and is looking to make more additions to the Rays’ playoff-contending roster. “The money and the talent we no longer have hurts, and makes us a bit weaker in the future,” continued Sternberg. “In a perfect world there will be more to do to improve the club. It’s hard to see how that presents itself, though I have confidence (we) will explore any and every opportunity.”

Reactions To The Jeremy Hellickson Trade

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Here’s a roundup of reactions to the Orioles’ somewhat puzzling weekend acquisition of Jeremy Hellickson and cash from the Phillies for Hyun Soo Kim, minor-league pitcher Garrett Cleavinger and the rights to international bonus spending.

  • From the Orioles’ perspective, the Hellickson deal feels like part of a broader plan the team hasn’t yet made clear, Jon Meoli of the Baltimore Sun writes. The move signals that the Orioles could be ready to part ways with someone from their struggling current starting rotation (Chris Tillman, Kevin Gausman, Dylan Bundy, Wade Miley and Ubaldo Jimenez), but Hellickson’s own numbers (he has a 4.73 ERA, and his 5.21 K/9, 2.4 BB/9 and 35.1% ground-ball rate are even less encouraging) don’t suggest he can be much better.
  • Orioles exec Dan Duquette says the team made the deal because it sought a reliable starting pitcher, MASNsports.com’s Roch Kubatko writes. “We’d like to be competitive,” says Duquette. “Nobody’s running away with the American League. We’ve got our bullpen back. If we can get some stability to our starting pitching, the rest of our team is intact. Hellickson has been a consistent performer and very competitive.” Duquette further explains that Trey Mancini’s emergence made Kim expendable. Mancini is batting .297/.343/.516 in a surprising rookie season. “The on-base capability that (Kim) showed last year and the ability to hit velocity, he probably didn’t have enough at-bats to sustain that with the way Mancini played as an everyday player,” he says.
  • The Phillies had little leverage in trading Hellickson, who was performing poorly and would have been a free agent at the end of the season, Corey Seidman of CSN Philly writes. Kim is also a free agent at the end of the season, and Garrett Cleavinger, the minor-leaguer the Phillies received, has unimpressive statistics as a Double-A reliever and might end up being “just a guy.”

Orioles Acquire Jeremy Hellickson

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The Phillies have agreed to a trade that will send right-hander Jeremy Hellickson and cash considerations to the Orioles in exchange for outfielder Hyun Soo Kim, Double-A left-hander Garrett Cleavinger and international bonus money, the teams announced on Friday night.

The move is a surprising one from an Orioles club that is currently seven games out of first place in the AL East and six games back from a Wild Card spot in the American League. Most talk on the Orioles recently has been about the possibility of trading short-term pieces such as Zach Britton, Brad Brach and Seth Smith.

Jeremy Hellickson | Eric Hartline-USA TODAY Sports

MLB Network’s Ken Rosenthal tweets that that may still be the case, which makes the move all the more head-scratching on the surface. However, Rosenthal suggests that Baltimore simply feels it needs rotation additions to get through the season, and GM Dan Duquette indeed indicates that he simply needed to add some innings to a starting staff that has entered Friday with the fourth-fewest innings and second-highest ERA in baseball.

“Jeremy Hellickson is a solid, dependable, veteran Major League starter who knows how to win in the American League,” Duquette told reporters (Twitter links via PressBoxOnline.com’s Rich Dubroff). “He should provide some quality innings for the Orioles.”

Hellickson, 30, accepted a qualifying offer from the Phillies this past offseason, locking him in at a $17.2MM salary for the 2017 season. He’s still owed about $6.1MM of that sum through the end of the year, though the Phillies have reportedly been willing to include cash in a deal to help enhance their return.

Hellickson struggled greatly to open the season, limping to a 4.91 ERA with a league-worst 3.97 K/9 rate through his first 14 starts. Since June 20, however, he’s averaged 7.9 K/8 against just 1.8 BB/9 en route to a 4.33 ERA that is supported by more favorable xFIP (3.81) and SIERA (3.99) marks. Even if he maintains the uptick in strikeouts and to complement his typical brand of excellent control, Hellickson won’t be confused for a front-of-the-rotation arm. But, he’s been a durable mid- or back-of-the-rotation starter for much of his career. Outside of a 2014 season that was cut short by an elbow injury, Hellickson has averaged 30 starts per season and is on pace to equal or exceed last year’s career-best mark of 32 starts.

That may well be all the Orioles are focused on, as Dylan Bundy is the only Orioles starter with an ERA even south of 5.00 (currently 4.53), and Bundy has struggled mightily over the past month and a half. Each of Kevin Gausman, Wade Miley, Chris Tillman and Ubaldo Jimenez has an ERA of 5.69 or higher, and the Orioles have little in the way of upper-level depth that inspires confidence as a starting option. Alec Asher has been hit hard in the Majors, while Gabriel Ynoa has a 6.54 ERA in Triple-A. Righties Tyler Wilson and Mike Wright have also struggled in multiple MLB looks over the past couple of seasons.

Kim’s inclusion in the trade may be nothing more than a financial mechanism. The 29-year-old has been scarcely used in 2017 and is in the second season of a two-year, $7MM contract. Once a star in the Korea Baseball Organization, Kim had a nice MLB rookie season at the plate in 2016 when he hit .302/.382/.420 in 346 plate appearances. This year, though, he’s struggled to a .232/.305/.288 slash while earning $4.2MM.

Kim can temporarily step into the spot once held by the now-also-traded Howie Kendrick, but the Phils may not give him all that long a leash as their young outfielders inch increasingly closer to Major League readiness. Kim can become a free agent at season’s end anyhow, so he’s a short-term addition even in the seemingly unlikely event that the Phils hang onto him for the remainder of the year.

Cleavinger, 23, is currently ranked 27th in a weak Orioles’ farm system at MLB.com, so he probably won’t rank nearly as high in a deeper Phillies farm system. His fastball reaches 96 at times but sits 89-92, per MLB.com’s free scouting report, and he pairs that with an average curveball. Cleavinger’s control has been a problem in each of the past two seasons, though, and he’s limped to a 6.28 ERA with 9.8 K/9, 5.4 BB/9 and a 46.8 percent ground-ball rate in 38 1/3 innings at Double-A this year.

With all that said, this trade may be largely about the Phillies using their considerable payroll capacity and lack of near-term commitments to take advantage of the Orioles’ willingness to eschew spending on the international market. Adding Cleavinger gives them a fairly advanced MLB player, though one with a fairly limited ceiling. But, the new collective bargaining agreement has placed a hard cap on international spending, giving teams starting bonus pool ranging from $4.75MM to $5.75MM and allowing teams to acquire up to 75 percent of their original pool.

The Phillies, as a team that isn’t the Competitive Balance lottery, began with a $4.75MM pool but can add up to an extra $3.56MM. While the exact amount acquired from the O’s isn’t yet known, GM Matt Klentak tells reporters that he’s already acquired north of $1MM to add to his bonus pool via the trade market (Twitter link via MLB.com’s Todd Zolecki).

Zolecki reported that a trade was in the works after Hellickson was scratched, and Rosenthal first said that the Orioles were in the mix. FanRag’s Jon Heyman reported the agreement (on Twitter). Dan Connolly of BaltimoreBaseball.com reported details on the return (all Twitter links). Heyman tweeted that Kim was in the deal.

Photo courtesy of USA Today Sports Images.

Orioles Rumors: Trumbo, Carter, Alvarez, Gausman, Outfielders

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The latest on the Orioles, courtesy of Roch Kubatko of MASNsports.com:

  • At last check, Baltimore and free agent outfielder/first baseman Mark Trumbo had agreed to a four-year framework, but the sides remained far apart on the slugger’s worth. Despite that, the Orioles likely have the best offer on the table for Trumbo, according to Kubatko. If they’re unable to re-sign Trumbo, the O’s could bring back free agent designated hitter Pedro Alvarez, but he’ll probably end up elsewhere if Trumbo returns to Baltimore. And contrary to an earlier report, the Orioles are not in on free agent first baseman/DH Chris Carter, per Kubatko.
  • While the Rockies could trade one of their outfielders this offseason, they’re unlikely to reach a deal with the Orioles. No matter which Rockie the Orioles have shown interest in, Colorado has consistently pressed for right-hander Kevin Gausman in trade talks. The Orioles aren’t going to move Gausman, though, as he’s arguably their top starter and has four years of club control remaining. Gausman, 25, led all Orioles starters in innings pitched (179 2/3), ERA (3.61) and K/BB ratio (3.7) last season.
  • The Orioles are in the lead for free agent catcher Welington Castillo’s services, writes Kubatko. Baltimore is willing to give a two-year deal to Castillo, who has been seeking a three-year pact since the Diamondbacks non-tendered him Dec. 2.
  • Moving to the outfield, the O’s haven’t closed the door on re-signing free agent Michael Bourn. The club acquired the fleet-footed Bourn from the Diamondbacks at the end of August, and he then proceeded to hit .283/.358/.435 with two home runs and a pair of steals over 55 plate appearances. Meanwhile, the Orioles haven’t discussed a contract extension with fellow outfielder Hyun Soo Kim, who’s entering the final season of the two-year, $7MM deal he signed as a free agent from Korea last winter. The lefty-swinging Kim accrued 346 PAs – 323 against righties – as a major league rookie in 2016 and held his own with a .302/.382/.420 line.

AL East Notes: Kim, Bautista, A-Rod, Arcia

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Let’s check in with some news from around the AL East…

  • Hyun Soo Kim suffered a hamstring strain while running out a grounder and had to leave Sunday’s game after just an inning of play.  The Orioles outfielder will undergo some tests on Monday and manager Buck Showalter told reporters (including Dan Connolly of Baltimore Baseball) that he hopes Kim can heal during the All-Star break and not require any DL time.  Kim entered today with a very impressive .331/.413/.457 slash line over his first 172 plate appearances in the big leagues.
  • Jose Bautista has begun to hit off a tee and the Blue Jays are hopeful the slugger can return before the end of July, Sportsnet’s Ben Nicholson-Smith writes.  Bautista has been sidelined since mid-June due to turf toe, already missing a bit more time than expected with the injury.  The outfielder was hitting .230/.360/.455 with 12 homers in 286 PA — a down year by Bautista’s standards, though he’ll still have at least two months to position himself for a big contract in free agency this winter.
  • Alex Rodriguez will take grounders at first base over the All-Star break and continue to work at the position once the season resumes, Mark Feinsand of the New York Daily News reports.  Rodriguez made the first two appearances of his long career at first base last season, though those were two of just six total games A-Rod played in the field in 2015.  This season, Rodriguez has appeared only as a DH and pinch-hitter, and his playing time has been cut due to both his season-long slump and the Yankees’ desire to use Carlos Beltran as a DH (for both injury reasons and to improve their outfield defense).  With Mark Teixeira also a health question mark, A-Rod could get some limited action at first, particularly against left-handed pitching.
  • Oswaldo Arcia is happy to be with the Rays but is still disappointed the Twins traded him, the outfielder tells Fangraphs’ David Laurila.  “I don’t think I got the opportunity to show what I could really do,” Arcia said.  “I know the class of player that I am. I don’t know that I got the time to show that.  You’re going to struggle — there are ups and downs in this game — and you’re going to make adjustments. Everybody in this room is making adjustments every day.”  Arcia also said he pressed too hard after being demoted to Triple-A last season, which didn’t help his path back to the bigs: “If you try to do too much, you’ll end up doing less.”
  • In other AL East news from earlier today, we covered some Red Sox and Yankees items in the latest edition of AL Notes, and the Boston Globe’s Nick Cafardo shared several interesting trade buzz items from around the division (and all of baseball).

AL East Notes: Yankees, Sanchez, Sox, Kim

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There’s been plenty of ink dedicated to the idea of the Yankees parting with one of their left-handed bullpen aces, Aroldis Chapman or Andrew Miller, but the club’s top execs aren’t planning on trading anyone in the near future, reports Jon Heyman of FanRag Sports. Heyman cites “senior Yankees executives” in conveying that the team’s top decision-makers held a conference call last night and determined that there won’t be any action in the near term, though the club could reevaluate that line of thinking closer to the end of July. Many have speculated that the Yankees, in need of rotation depth as well as some help at the infield corners, could deal Chapman or Miller to add a younger big league piece elsewhere on the roster. Carlos Beltran’s name also crept up in speculation last month, but it would appear that the Yankees, currently 26-30 and 6.5 games back in the division, will stay the course for the time being.

Here’s more from the AL East…

  • Aaron Sanchez’s breakout season will leave the Blue Jays with some tough decisions in a couple of months, writes Ben Nicholson-Smith of Sportsnet. The Jays clearly made the right call by entrusting Sanchez with a spot in the rotation this spring, Nicholson-Smith points out, but the team also said back in March that he’d eventually transition to the bullpen later this season as a means of managing his innings total. Sanchez has been dominant in 2016, posting a 2.99 ERA with 8.0 K/9, 3.1 BB/9 and a lofty 58.5 percent ground-ball rate across 72 1/3 innings. Pitching coach Pete Walker tells Nicholson-Smith that the Jays typically map out their plans for the pitching staff a month in advance, so he’s taking the Sanchez debate on a month-to-month basis. The 23-year-old Sanchez totaled just 102 innings between the Majors and minors last season, so it’s understandable that Toronto isn’t thrilled with the notion of seeing one of its most valuable long-term pieces double his 2015 innings total with a full season of starts.
  • The struggles of Eduardo Rodriguez in yesterday’s loss underscores the Red Sox’ need to trade for rotation help, opines Michael Silverman of the Boston Herald. Silverman notes that the club has watched Rick Porcello slow down considerably since an explosive start to the season, while David Price has yet to hit the stride that most expect of the former Cy Young winner. Beyond that, Clay Buchholz and Joe Kelly have pitched themselves out of rotation jobs. Steven Wright has been a pleasant surprise, but his breakout alone won’t sustain a four-man rotation that already needs a fifth option. Boston has already seen one trade option come off the market, as the White Sox picked up James Shields from the Padres with a rare early-June trade of fairly significant magnitude.
  • Hyun Soo Kim’s turnaround since Spring Training has been remarkable, writes Roch Kubatko of MASNsports.com, who spoke to a scout from outside the Orioles organization that said he’s had to tear up the March scouting report he’d compiled on Kim. Baltimore signed Kim to a two-year, $7MM contract this winter on the heels of an impressive run in the Korea Baseball Organization, but the man nicknamed the “Hitting Machine” in Korea looked overmatched (or “scared,” as the scout put it to Kubatko) at the plate in Spring Training. To say Kim, who is hitting .377/.449/.493 through an admittedly small sample of 78 plate appearances, has adjusted nicely would appear to be an understatement. Manager Buck Showalter praised Kim for his adjustments to harder velocity and said he routinely checks in with Kim and his interpreter to see if there’s anything the club can do to continue to ease the transition from Korea to America. Kim, however, tells Showalter that he’s “having the time of his life” now that he is getting a chance to contribute in the Majors.

Quick Hits: D’Backs, Kim, Surkamp, Loney, Hunter

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Eric Hosmer’s game-tying run in Game Five of the World Series was captured in a memorable photo by Chang W. Lee of the New York Times, though the picture’s most notable aspect was the array of horrified reactions from Mets fans in the background.  The Times tracked down 11 of the people immortalized in the photo to get their take on the moment months later.  The group consisted of nine Mets fans bemoaning their team’s fate and two people who had an opposite reaction — Royals legend George Brett and his wife Leslie.

As we’re just hours away from the first games of the 2016 season, let’s look around baseball…

  • Speaking to reporters today (including Nick Piecoro of the Arizona Republic and MLB.com’s Steve Gilbert), Diamondbacks GM Dave Stewart and manager Chip Hale addressed the team’s next steps in the wake of A.J. Pollock’s elbow fracture.  For now, Stewart said, the D’Backs will give internal candidates a chance before looking at players outside the organization to take Pollock’s place.  Hale suggested the D’Backs are looking at players who might not make their current teams’ Opening Day rosters, so Arizona could wait at least a couple of days to fully assess the market.
  • An unknown Korean team has reportedly made a “substantial” offer to the Orioles for Hyun Soo Kim, MASNsports.com’s Roch Kubatko reports, though Kubatko notes that this item has yet to be confirmed by a second source.  The offer could be a moot point if true, though, since Kim has firmly stated that he wishes to play in North America.  The Orioles, meanwhile, have no intention of releasing Kim and eating his entire $7MM contract.  The unusual situation between Kim and the O’s has left both sides in a “state of suspended animation,” one source tells Kubatko.
  • Athletics lefty Eric Surkamp is drawing interest from teams in Asia, Susan Slusser of the San Francisco Chronicle reports.  Surkamp’s minor league deal with the A’s allows him to opt out in June and look for opportunities elsewhere.  Surkamp isn’t expected to make Oakland’s Opening Day roster.
  • With James Loney entering perhaps his final day with the Rays, Marc Topkin of the Tampa Bay Times looks back on the team’s decision to re-sign the first baseman in the 2013-14 offseason.  The Rays outbid other suitors like the Pirates and Brewers to re-sign Loney on a three-year, $21MM deal, which still stands as the most expensive free agent deal of Stuart Sternberg’s ownership tenure.  Needless to say, the deal has not worked out, as Loney was a sub-replacement level player in 2015 (-1.3 fWAR) and he’s already been told he won’t make Tampa’s Opening Day roster.
  • Cedric Hunter is one of the more unlikely players to be suiting up on Opening Day, MLB.com’s Paul Hagen writes, as the longtime minor leaguer unexpectedly earned himself a regular outfield job with the Phillies.  A third-round pick for the Padres in the 2006 draft, Hunter has hit .288/.348/.413 with 76 homers over 4727 career plate appearances in the minors, playing for four different organizations’ farm systems.  His MLB career consisted of just six games for San Diego in 2011, yet Hunter is now back in the bigs and still looking to stick around.  “To be realistic, it’s just beginning.  I haven’t proved myself at all on this level yet,” Hunter said.  “So everybody’s giving me congrats and I’m happy about that, but in the back of my mind, I’m like, ’Look, this is just the beginning. I’ve really got to go out and prove myself and show that I’m ready to be here.’ “
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