Jack Flaherty

AL Central Notes: Crochet, Jones, Allen, Meadows, Flaherty

By Mark Polishuk | July 7, 2024 at 4:45pm CDT

Since half the league has reportedly shown interest in White Sox left-hander Garrett Crochet, it isn’t surprising that a contender like the Yankees are on that list, as the New York Post’s Jon Heyman writes that the Bombers “very much like Crochet.” However, the Yankees still aren’t keen to part with top prospect Spencer Jones, who was known to be a chief White Sox target when Chicago and New York discussed a possible Dylan Cease trade last offseason before Cease was dealt to the Padres.

While Heyman isn’t sure if Jones is necessarily still a priority get for the White Sox, the 2022 first-rounder’s stock is likely still quite high despite only okay numbers at Double-A Somerset. After a very slow start to the season, Jones’ bat has started to cook over the last six weeks, bringing his season slash line to .241/.322/.408 over 320 plate appearances. Baseball America (73rd) and MLB Pipeline (74th) still have Jones within their top-75 prospect lists, and both outlets rank him behind only Jasson Dominguez as the top minor leaguer in the New York farm system.

Tigers Skipping Jack Flaherty’s Start Due To Back Discomfort

By Anthony Franco | July 3, 2024 at 12:04am CDT

The Tigers scratched Jack Flaherty from tomorrow’s scheduled start against the Twins. The right-hander remained in Los Angeles after his start against the Angels last Thursday to receive an injection to treat back soreness, writes Chris McCosky of the Detroit News.

For the moment, it doesn’t seem the situation is concerning. Manager A.J. Hinch told the Detroit beat on Tuesday afternoon that the team remains confident he’ll avoid the injured list (relayed on X by Cody Stavenhagen of the Athletic). McCosky reports that the Tigers are targeting next week’s home series against the Guardians for Flaherty to take the ball.

A team skipping a pitcher’s start to treat a minor back issue wouldn’t ordinarily be noteworthy. Yet Flaherty’s health is of utmost importance with less than a month before the trade deadline. Detroit lost on Tuesday to fall nine games below .500. They’re all but assured of going into deadline season as at least soft sellers. It stands to reason they’ll be reluctant to move players whom they have under control for multiple years. They should deal their most appealing impending free agents. Flaherty tops the list.

Detroit’s decision to sign Flaherty to a one-year, $14MM pillow contract was one of the best moves of the 2023-24 offseason. Despite a rocky outing in his most recent appearance, he carries a 3.24 ERA over 15 starts. Flaherty has punched out 33% of batters faced behind an excellent 14.2% swinging strike rate. He has walked a career-low 4% of opposing hitters. He should get his first All-Star nod this summer.

Assuming he’s healthy, Flaherty figures to find himself in plenty of trade rumors coming out of the Midsummer Classic. He’ll almost certainly be the best rental starting pitcher on the market. MLBTR slotted Flaherty as the #3 pitcher on our ranking of the upcoming free agent class last week. The players above him, Corbin Burnes and Max Fried, aren’t getting traded.

Beyond Flaherty, the rental rotation market could include the likes of Yusei Kikuchi, Michael Lorenzen, Jose Quintana and Frankie Montas. As the best impending free agent starter available, Flaherty could net the Tigers a prospect package headlined by a borderline Top 100 caliber talent. If they don’t trade him, Detroit could make him a qualifying offer at the end of the season. Assuming Flaherty signed elsewhere for at least $50MM, the Tigers would get a pick after the first round in the 2025 draft. Detroit should nevertheless find a prospect package within the next few weeks that they consider more valuable than the draft choice.

Keider Montero will get the ball tomorrow in Flaherty’s absence. As first reported by Jason Beck of MLB.com (on X), Detroit is recalling the rookie righty less than a week after optioning him. That’s only permissible if Montero is replacing a player on the roster who is headed to the injured list. That won’t be Flaherty but right-hander Casey Mize, who is ticketed for the 15-day IL after suffering a left hamstring strain in his start on Sunday. The former first overall pick owns a 4.23 ERA despite a modest 16.8% strikeout rate over 16 starts in his return from Tommy John surgery.

Tigers Notes: Flaherty, Brieske, Baez

By Nick Deeds | June 29, 2024 at 10:33pm CDT

The Tigers’ signing of right-hander Jack Flaherty has proved to be one of the best moves of the 2023-24 offseason through the first half of play this year. The 28-year-old has looked nothing short of fantastic since signing with Detroit on a one-year deal over the offseason. In 89 innings of work across 15 starts, Flaherty has posted a solid 3.24 ERA (129 ERA+) with a 3.04 FIP.

That’s a quality performance that virtually any club would like to have at the front to middle of their rotation, but his underlying metrics have been even more elite. Flaherty has struck out an eye-popping 33% of batters faced while walking just 4% this year, giving him the league’s second-highest K-BB% behind only White Sox lefty Garrett Crochet. While home runs- which have been an issue that has plagued Flaherty throughout his career- have remained an issue as 18.3% of his fly balls have left the yard this year, the right-hander has also generated grounders at a full-season career best clip of 44.2%. All of that has combined to give Flaherty an MLB-best xFIP of 2.29 and a SIERA of 2.45 that trails only Crochet.

Unfortunately for the Tigers, they aren’t particularly well-positioned to make the most out of Flaherty’s time in the organization. While fans in Detroit are surely dreaming on the right-hander pairing with Tarik Skubal at the front of a playoff rotation, the Tigers are sitting at a record of just 37-45 headed into the second half. The AL Central division already appears more or less out of reach for the club as they’ve fallen 15.5 games behind the Guardians, and even an AL Wild Card berth would take a herculean climb up the standings as the club currently sits 7.5 games behind the Royals for the third Wild Card spot.

Between that reality and the fact that Flaherty would surely be the most attractive rental pitcher moved at the deadline if the Tigers were to deal him, it may seem like a forgone conclusion that the right-hander will be changing teams next month. That might not be the case, however, as Chris McCosky of The Detroit News reported earlier this week that president of baseball operations Scott Harris and his front office are preparing not just for a potential sell-off, but also for a hypothetical scenario where the Tigers look to add at the deadline.

While the club’s weak position in the standings makes that possibility appear extremely unlikely at first blush, McCosky notes that the club figures to have plenty of control over its own destiny between now and the trade deadline on July 30. Prior to that date, Detroit will square off against the Guardians ten times and the Twins six times. That could give Detroit plenty of opportunities to not only cut into their massive deficit in the AL Central, but also make up ground in the AL Wild Card race; Minnesota holds the second of three spots and currently sits eight games ahead of the Tigers in the standings.

Even as the Tigers have an interesting opportunity to play their way into contention over the final month before the deadline, however, it still appears more likely than not that Flaherty is pitching in another uniform when the calendar flips to August. If that comes to pass, the Tigers will need another arm to step into the rotation alongside Skubal, Reese Olson, Casey Mize, and Kenta Maeda. According to McCosky, that next man up was once thought to be right-hander Matt Manning, but the club’s first-round pick from the 2016 draft has struggled to a 6.00 ERA at the Triple-A level since last being optioned to the minors and has pitched to below-average numbers across five spot starts in the big leagues this year.

That, per McCosky, could lead the club to consider right-hander Beau Brieske for a rotation spot at some point. While the Tigers haven’t formally broached the possibility of swinging between the bullpen and the rotation with Brieske, the right-hander would reportedly be the top option for the role should the club decide to utilize a pitcher in that role. Looking at the righty’s work during his time with the club, it’s easy to see why that would be the case.

Brieske, 26, was a 27th-round pick by the Tigers in the 2019 draft but made it to the big leagues fairly quickly, starting 15 games in the majors during the 2022 season to roughly league average results. He’s been used almost exclusively out of the bullpen since then and has taken to the role particularly well this year as he’s posted a 2.35 ERA (180 ERA+) and a 2.24 FIP with a 24.4% strikeout rate in 13 multi-inning relief appearances totaling 23 innings of work. Those strong multi-inning performances have seen Brieske throw as many as 53 pitches in relief over three innings of work, making him a prime candidate to move into the rotation from a workload perspective.

In other Tigers news, Hinch told reporters (including McCosky) this evening that veteran shortstop Javier Baez, who has been shelved since early this month due to lumbar spine inflammation, is not only improving but has reached point of feeling “the best he’s felt with his back in some time.” Hinch noted that the Tigers are hoping to get the 31-year-old out on a rehab assignment next week with an eye toward a return prior to the All Star break, which begins on July 15. The veteran has struggled to a .183/.209/.247 slash line in 53 games with the Tigers this year, but despite that meager offensive contribution the Tigers still figure to look forward to his return because even that offense is still an improvement over the bat of Ryan Kreidler, who has replaced Baez in the lineup and is currently slashing just .148/.258/.148 in 13 games with the club while filling in for the veteran.

Tigers Notes: Baez, Kreidler, McKinstry, Flaherty

By Anthony Franco | June 11, 2024 at 6:24pm CDT

Javier Báez’s rough season continues, as the Tigers placed the veteran shortstop on the 10-day injured list before tonight’s game against the Nationals. The placement, which is retroactive to June 9, is due to lumbar spine inflammation. Ryan Kreidler is up from Triple-A Toledo to take the open active roster spot.

Báez told the Detroit beat that he was headed to Florida for additional testing (link via Cody Stavenhagen of the Athletic). The Tigers haven’t provided a timeline for his return, though he’s expected to be out beyond the minimal stint. Báez has battled back discomfort dating to Spring Training, which could be a contributing factor to the worst performance of his career.

The two-time All-Star has only hit one home run over 196 plate appearances. He’s hitting .183/.209/.247 across 53 games. Among hitters with 150+ trips to the plate, only Mickey Moniak has a lower on-base percentage. Tim Anderson and Moniak are the only such hitters who have made less of a power impact. Báez has rated as a slightly below-average defender over 451 2/3 innings at shortstop. The overall production is well below replacement level.

Báez now carries a .223/.264/.344 slash line in 333 games since signing a six-year, $140MM free agent contract with Detroit. Tigers president of baseball operations Scott Harris downplayed the chances of moving on from Báez entirely in an appearance on MLB Network late last month. That won’t need to be a consideration while he’s on the injured list, but the Tigers clearly need much better production out of the position. Detroit is last in all three triple slash stats from their shortstops on the year.

For now, that task will fall on Kreidler and Zach McKinstry. Manager A.J. Hinch indicated that duo will split the shortstop reps while Báez is on the shelf. The lefty-hitting McKinstry and righty-swinging Kreidler will form something of a platoon, although Hinch indicated Kreidler won’t be completely shielded from right-handed pitching. With the Nats starting lefty Mitchell Parker this evening, Kreidler is in the lineup for his first MLB work of the season.

The UCLA product appeared in 37 big league contests between 2022-23. Kreidler didn’t hit much in that limited look, turning in a .165/.220/.209 slash over 102 plate appearances. He owns a .242/.362/.448 mark with a lofty 27.1% strikeout rate in parts of four seasons with Toledo. McKinstry has hit .225/.296/.341 in 624 MLB plate appearances since the Tigers acquired him from the Cubs just before the start of last season. He’s a career .219/.284/.365 hitter versus right-handed pitching.

While the Tigers are patching things together on the infield, they seem to have dodged a bullet in the rotation. Jack Flaherty exited last week’s start against the Rangers after experiencing back tightness. He hasn’t pitched since then but seems on track to avoid the injured list. As noted by Evan Petzold of the Detroit Free-Press, Flaherty received an injection yesterday and is lined up to take the ball during this weekend’s series against the Astros. Signed to a one-year pillow contract over the winter, Flaherty is pitching at an All-Star level. He owns a 3.22 ERA while striking out more than a third of his opponents over his first 12 starts.

Jack Flaherty’s Strong Start To A Hopeful Rebound Year

By Anthony Franco | May 3, 2024 at 5:55pm CDT

Jack Flaherty was one of the more interesting mid-level starting pitchers in last year’s free agent class. The righty was arguably the best pitcher in MLB in the second half of 2019, but he didn’t cement himself as an ace in the following few seasons. He struggled in nine starts during the shortened season. Oblique and shoulder injuries cost him good chunks of the 2021 and ’22 campaigns, respectively. Flaherty stayed healthy for his walk year but allowed nearly five earned runs per nine between the Cardinals and Orioles.

That left both his camp and interested teams with questions once he hit the market. Was Flaherty still an upside play who had a realistic chance to turn in top-of-the-rotation results? If he felt that way, would he be best served taking a one-year deal and retesting the market next year? At 28, Flaherty was one of the youngest free agents of note. He ultimately chose the one-year route, signing a $14MM guarantee with the Tigers that contained another $1MM in performance bonuses.

It’s far too early to definitively declare the move a success, but his first month in Detroit has gone better than expected. Flaherty’s even 4.00 earned run average through 36 innings isn’t especially noteworthy. Yet he leads the American League with 50 strikeouts and has only issued five walks. His 16.4% swinging strike percentage would easily be a career high. It’s nearly six points up from last season.

Among pitchers with 30+ innings, only Freddy Peralta has a higher strikeout rate than Flaherty’s 34%. Jared Jones is the only pitcher getting more whiffs on a per-pitch basis. Flaherty is coming off a career-high 14 strikeouts in Tuesday’s matchup against his old teammates with St. Louis.

There’s only so much a player can prove in a six-game sample, but Flaherty hasn’t missed bats at anything close to this level in five years. Using the Baseball Reference Span Finder, we see that Flaherty hadn’t recorded more than 40 strikeouts in a six-game stretch at any point since his dazzling finish in 2019. While the ERA hasn’t caught up, Flaherty is dominating the strike zone in a way that he hasn’t for some time.

Flaherty’s stuff has ticked up slightly in the early going. His fastball is averaging 93.8 MPH, around half a mile per hour above where it sat in the previous two seasons. Perhaps more impactful has been the increased effectiveness of his breaking stuff. Flaherty’s best pitch, his slider, is missing bats at a high level after it waned in 2022-23. Opponents have come up empty half the time they’ve offered at his curveball. Flaherty is attacking hitters, particularly left-handers, with the breaking pitches a little more frequently than he has in previous seasons.

There’s a long way to go before he puts the questions about his 2021-23 performance behind him completely. As the season progresses, he’ll face tougher opposition than he has gotten thus far. Of his six starts, four have come against teams (the White Sox, A’s, Rays and Cardinals) that have been subpar offensively. Only his two starts against the Twins have been against a club with an above-average team batting line. While Minnesota has been solid overall, they’re a high-strikeout offense.

Yet if Flaherty stays healthy and continues to overpower opponents at anything close to this level, he’ll be in line for a much more lucrative free agent trip. He’ll play all of next season at 29, which is still atypically young for a free agent starter. He’d be a clear qualifying offer candidate (assuming the Tigers stay in the postseason mix and don’t trade him at the deadline), but he shouldn’t have much issue turning that down and landing a better multi-year pact.

Next winter’s class has a lot of high-variance but intriguing starters who could dramatically improve their stock in the next five months (i.e. Luis Severino, Walker Buehler, Frankie Montas, Blake Snell). Flaherty has a legitimate path to the top of that group, which could make him the #3 pitcher available behind Corbin Burnes and Max Fried.

Image courtesy of USA Today Sports.

Latest Details On MLBPA Leadership

By Darragh McDonald | March 25, 2024 at 7:08pm CDT

It was reported last week that there was something of a split in the MLB Players Association, with one contingent looking to replace deputy director Bruce Meyer with 33-year-old Harry Marino. Those efforts seem to be losing momentum, with Evan Drellich and Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic providing a rundown of the latest developments, which seem to point towards executive director Tony Clark and Meyer surviving in their current positions.

Clark released a statement from the eight-player subcommittee which stated: ““We still have issues to discuss, but one thing clear among the MLB executive subcommittee members is that this is no longer a Harry Marino discussion, in any respect.”

Clark also released his own statement on the matter: “For decades, the bedrock of the MLBPA has been an engaged membership that does not bend to outside agendas. It therefore comes as no surprise that a coordinated and covert effort to challenge this foundation has troubled players at all levels of professional baseball. These concerns are being discussed where they should be, in clubhouses around the league. In due time, they will be resolved consistent with the traditions of this great organization.”

Marino also released a statement, expressing displeasure with the way things have proceeded. “It has been shocking and disappointing to hear that several major-league and minor-league players are being threatened, bullied, and retaliated against for having come forward with their honest opinions,” Marino wrote. “It is important to remember that federal law protects every union member’s right ‘to express any views, arguments, or opinions’ and ‘to meet and assemble freely with other members.’ Players should never apologize for exercising these rights.” Marino didn’t provide specifics of these accusations but former player Josh Thole named director of player services Kevin Slowey. “I have received a number of calls from minor-league player reps this week saying that Kevin Slowey called them to bully and intimidate them into changing their opinions on their union’s current direction,” Thole said in a statement.

It has obviously been a frustrating offseason for the players, with the market having greatly underperformed expectations. At the top of the market, players like Blake Snell, Cody Bellinger and Matt Chapman were predicted for nine-figure deals at the start of the winter but each remained unsigned into the start of Spring Training and eventually pivoted to a short-term, opt-out laden deal. Lower on the market, players like Gio Urshela, Amed Rosario, Adam Duvall and many others settled for contracts barely above the league minimum salary.

This frustration seems to have boiled over in the form of this discord within the union. Marino previously suggested players sought him out while looking to make a change, though no such change has happened. As the executive director, Clark has say over hiring and firing decisions and did now bow to pressure to move on from Meyer during a call with Marino and several players last week. A 72-person executive board, which includes the eight-person subcommittee, has the power to vote out Clark but it doesn’t seem like anything of that nature is being considered. In November of 2022, the MLBPA voted to extend Clark’s contract through 2027.

As pointed out by Drellich, the end of Marino’s statement seemed to suggest his efforts to push change are no longer on the table. “At this point, what will happen next remains to be seen,” Marino said. “How hard the players are willing to fight for the changes they want is a decision for the players. … I will never turn down a request for assistance from any group of major-league or minor-league players. My sole aim is to serve the players and I will continue to make myself available to do so in whatever way I am asked.”

Marino had previously been the head of Advocates For Minor Leaguers, the group that unionized minor leaguers. Those minor leaguers were folded into the MLBPA, with Marino and Meyer then negotiating the first ever collective bargaining agreement for minor leaguers. It was recently reported that the involvement of minors leaguers has now led to them holding 34 of the 72 seats on the executive board. Marino and Meyer reportedly did not get along during the negotiation process and Marino then left the union. As Drellich points out, both Marino and Thole worked for the union for less than a year in the 2022-23 period.

That the efforts to replace Meyer have fizzled out seems to align with statements from Jack Flaherty, who gave an interview to Rosenthal on the weekend. Flaherty is on the eight-person subcommittee was reportedly one of the Marino backers last week but he expressed remorse in the interview about how things played out, sharing his admiration for Clark in the process. “There was one phone call that went on that I put Tony in a bad position in, where Harry tried to push his way through,” Flaherty said. “He tried to pressure Tony, and Tony stood strong, said this is not going to happen. Tony has done nothing but stand strong in all of this. That was something I would love to take back. I never wanted Harry to be in Bruce’s position.”

Flaherty repeated that he was not trying to replace Meyer with Marino. “I said he’s not somebody to replace Bruce, but if you guys want to listen to him, we can continue this conversation. Things got way out of hand after that.” When asked if Meyer was going to be replaced, Flaherty said that he had “absolutely no idea” and conversations of that nature would “stay internal.” He added that “Bruce is somebody who has done a really good job as part of the union. He has helped us through the last CBA and through COVID and has done a really good job stabilizing everything and moving us in the right direction.” As for those internal discussions, he added that “Our job is to have these conversations with each other and eventually come to an agreement, which is where we are now, which is Harry is not a part of any type of conversation.”

Meyer, 62, was hired by the MLBPA in 2018, having previously worked for the player unions for the NFL, NBA and NHL in a career of over 30 years. Late last week, he released a statement defending his recent performance, which Drellich relayed at The Athletic. He spoke of the union navigating the COVID shutdown as well as the MLBPA negotiating the latest CBA throughout a lockdown of more than three months initiated by the league. He highlighted that the CBA featured increased minimum salaries, a bonus pool for pre-arbitration players, increases of the luxury tax thresholds, measures to disincentive both tanking and service time manipulation, and many other elements.

How the union proceeds after this tumultuous period remains to be seen. The current CBA expires December 1, 2026.

Scott Boras, Harry Marino Discuss MLBPA Dispute

By Darragh McDonald | March 19, 2024 at 11:59pm CDT

Recent reporting has painted a picture of a divided MLBPA, where some players are pushing for deputy director Bruce Meyer to be replaced by Harry Marino. One of the charges coming from the pro-Marino camp are that Meyer and executive director Tony Clark are too aligned with agent Scott Boras. Evan Drellich of The Athletic spoke to Boras and Marino while also reporting on various other factors of the feud.

“If you have great ideas, and you want those ideas to be promulgated in a manner that is beneficial to the union and the players they represent, you go to Tony Clark with your plan,” Boras said. “You discuss it with him first, and the many lawyers in the union. If you have issues with the union and you want to be involved with the union, you take your ideas to them. You do not take them publicly, you do not create this coup d’etat and create really a disruption inside the union. If your goal is to help players, it should never be done this way.”

Marino also provided comment: “The players who sought me out want a union that represents the will of the majority. Scott Boras is rich because he makes — or used to make — the richest players in the game richer. That he is running to the defense of Tony Clark and Bruce Meyer this morning is genuinely alarming.”

It’s understandable why there is frustration among the players right now, as the offseason has clearly not been kind to them. Many notable free agents remained unsigned into Spring Training and some are even languishing on the open market right now. Various teams are claiming to be at their respective spending limits, often due to uncertainty around TV revenue or competitive balance tax concerns.

Players like Jordan Montgomery, J.D. Martinez, Michael Lorenzen, Brandon Belt, Donovan Solano, Tommy Pham, Robbie Grossman and many others are currently unattached. In recent weeks, players like Michael A. Taylor, Adam Duvall, Tim Anderson, Gio Urshela, Amed Rosario, Randal Grichuk and others have signed for $5MM or less. Players like Blake Snell, Cody Bellinger and Matt Chapman were predicted for nine-figure deals at the start of the offseason but had to recently pivot to short-term, opt-out laden pacts.

On top of that, the players seem to have been rankled by the peculiar situation involving J.D. Davis and the Giants. He and the club went to an arbitration hearing, which he won, as the arbiters awarded him a $6.9MM salary for this year instead of the $6.5MM figure the club sought. Arbitration salaries are guaranteed if the sides avoid a hearing but not if they go to one. After the Giants signed Chapman and no longer needed Davis as their third baseman, they released him, only owing him 30 days’ termination pay of $1.11MM. He later signed with the Athletics for a $2.5MM guarantee and $1MM of incentives. Even if he unlocks all those bonuses, he’s still wind up losing more than $2MM by this series of events.

Casey Mize, the Tigers’ MLBPA player rep, spoke to Drellich about the various issues causing the upset. “I think if you went around the room and asked, I think everybody would give you a different answer,” Mize said. “Coming off the heels of this free agency is a pretty glaring one. But there’s tons of details. You could look at the J.D. Davis situation. You could look at free agency. I think you could look at the taxes of the CBT (competitive balance tax) stuff. So many guys are going to give you different answers, whether it’s service time or whatever. I don’t want to get into details of what frustrates me or what I heard last night, but in general, we’re just looking for ways to get better. Those are discussions we have all the time, and yeah, we had one last night.”

Drellich reports that this winter’s frustration has “banded together some agents and players” who have had past dissatisfaction with the union but without being spurred into action until now. The earlier reporting had suggested there was a “strained” relationship between Marino and Meyer, and Drellich depicts a split in the MLBPA between a Marino camp and a Meyer camp. The report adds that the fates of Clark and Meyer are tied, so that both would depart the MLBPA if Marino has enough support to be put into a leadership position. A scenario where Marino effectively replaces Meyer and works alongside Clark is seen as unlikely at this point.

Though it’s plain to see why the players may not be thrilled with the developments of this offseason, it’s surprising from a distance to see such animosity bubbling out into the public, as this isn’t the first time the players have faced difficulties with the economics of baseball. The executive director of the MLBPA has historically been a lawyer or labor leader, but Clark became the first former player to hold the position in 2013. The 2016-21 collective bargaining agreement, this first of his tenure, was widely panned for being a poor result for the players. Meyer was brought aboard in 2018 to help negotiate the next CBA, bringing with him his three decades of experience working with the player unions of the NBA, NHL and NFL.

It was generally perceived that the players made some gains with the current CBA that came out of the 2021-22 lockout. The minimum salary went up from $570K to $700K in 2022, and would continue to have annual increases, set to be $740K in the upcoming season. A pre-arbitration bonus pool was created to get more money to younger players. Salaries for arbitration-eligible players, which were previously not guaranteed for any of them, became guaranteed for those that avoided a hearing. A draft lottery was implemented with the hope of disincentivizing tanking.

The competitive balance tax lines also moved up noticeably, with the base threshold going from $210MM in 2021 to $230MM in 2022, further increasing annually with that threshold at $237MM this year. The other two thresholds holds moved up by comparable amounts. Though the current CBA did feature the addition of the fourth line, whereas there had previously only been three.

Harry Marino, meanwhile, led the effort to unionize minor leaguers. The MLBPA eventually became the collective bargaining arm of minor league players, which led to the first ever CBA for minor leaguers. Marino left the MLBPA after that, with Drellich reporting that his relationship with Meyer “soured significantly” during their time working together on that, but Marino appears to have resurfaced as the attempts to push out Meyer and/or Clark have gained momentum.

The exact nature of those disagreements isn’t clear but it seems that the frustrating offseason has brought them back to the surface and divided the players corps. It appears Marino and those in his camp are accusing Clark and Meyer of being too aligned with Boras. This is a charge that has arisen before, with Meyer calling it “absurd” back in 2021.

Drellich points out that Boras was upset when the players accepted the current CBA, believing they should have held out for more, particularly in terms of pushing the CBT. Though he also adds that many other players and agents viewed things from the opposite side. Based on the wording of Marino’s statement above, it appears his argument stems from the accusation that the union focuses too much on the “richest” players to the harm of others.

The MLBPA has an executive board that consists of 72 members and it was reported earlier today that 38 of those are major leaguers and 34 are minor leaguers. This report from Drellich specially mentions Jack Flaherty, Lucas Giolito and Ian Happ as players that are both on the board and also Marino supporters.

How Marino would do things differently to the Clark/Meyer leadership is unclear. Per Drellich, Marino’s supporters have been circulating a PowerPoint presentation consisting of eight slides. The full details of this aren’t clear but it apparently questions some of the MLBPA’s own spending decisions, in addition to the recent CBA negotiations.

Supporters of the Clark/Meyer camp, on the other hand, are pointing to track record. Meyer, as mentioned, has three decades of experience working with player unions in other sports. He has only been with the MLBPA since 2018 but has already gone toe-to-toe with MLB commissioner Rob Manfred and deputy commissioner Dan Halem, enduring a lockout that lasted more than three months and saw the players make some of the aforementioned gains. The Davis situation, though understandably frustrating, was possible with all arbitration-eligible players until this current CBA. While the new deal didn’t close that loop completely, it at least made arbitration salaries guaranteed for those who avoid a hearing. The CBT impacting league spending is also understandably annoying, but those thresholds moved up considerably with this CBA.

Marino, meanwhile, is just 33 years old and has far less on his résumé. Drellich relays that MLB found Meyer difficult to deal with and would be happy to see him go, something his defenders point to as a positive. As Drellich also points out, the league is naturally happy with any discord between the players as it will only help them in negotiating future CBAs.

Per today’s reporting, it seems the outcome is a binary, where the union will either stay the course with Clark/Meyer or make a significant pivot by going with a largely unknown quantity in Marino, a decision that could have ramifications for the players for years to come. The current CBA runs through the 2026 season.

Tigers Sign Jack Flaherty To One-Year Deal

By Steve Adams | December 20, 2023 at 1:05pm CDT

The Tigers announced that they have signed right-hander Jack Flaherty to a one-year, $14MM deal. He can also earn an extra $1MM in bonuses based on games started: $250K for 26 and 28 starts, then another $500K for 30. Flaherty is a client of CAA Sports.

Just 28 years old, Flaherty isn’t all that far removed from looking like one of the National League’s budding young aces. The former first-rounder was one of the sport’s top all-around prospects prior to making his big league debut, which came in 2017.

The following year saw the California native pitch to a sharp 3.34 earned run average through 151 big league innings, but Flaherty’s best work came, of all times, during the juiced-ball season in 2019. That year’s 2.75 ERA, 29.9% strikeout rate, 7.1% walk rate and 1.15 HR/9 would be strong marks in any season but were especially impressive during the highest run-scoring environment since the steroid era. Two teams broke MLB’s single-season home run record that year, and yet while many pitchers throughout the league posted career-worst marks, Flaherty shined at his absolute brightest.

Unfortunately for both Flaherty and the Cardinals, that brilliant start to his career didn’t hold up. Injuries, primarily shoulder issues, conspired to limit Flaherty to just 154 1/3 innings over the next three seasons combined. During that time, he worked with slightly lesser velocity (93.9 mph) than his 94.5 mph peak, and his walk and home-run rates trended in the wrong direction. Overall, he posted a 3.90 earned run average but was limited to 32 starts (and another three bullpen outings).

The 2023 season for Flaherty was split between the Cardinals and the Orioles, who acquired him in a trade deadline deal sending lefty Drew Rom and prospects Cesar Prieto and Zack Showalter from Baltimore back to St. Louis. It was a mixed bag of a season for the righty. On the one hand, Flaherty’s 27 starts and 144 1/3 innings clearly made for his healthiest season since that brilliant ’19 effort. On the other, his 4.99 ERA was a career-worst (outside of a 21-inning sample as a rookie in 2017). His 22.8% strikeout rate was about average, but Flaherty’s 10.6% walk rate was elevated and his 93.2 mph average heater was down even further.

Despite the poor 2023 showing, Flaherty drew interest from at least the Pirates, Royals and Tigers — though his market surely included other suitors. There’s good sense in taking a flier on Flaherty, given his age, former prospect pedigree and the heights he reached earlier in his career.

As we noted on our Top 50 Free Agent Rankings, while we predicted a three-year pact for the righty — presuming a team would extend a multi-year pact in hopes of acquiring a below-market bargain — a straight one-year pillow deal always figured to be on the table. With strong results this year Flaherty can return to the market as a 29-year-old in position for a much more lucrative deal. The downside, of course, is that with another lackluster performance, Flaherty could well hit the market with considerably less earning power and no interest on multi-year contracts. Despite that potential, he’ll bet on himself with the more traditional approach and hope to cash in a year from now.

Should things play out that way, it’ll be to the benefit of the Tigers, who’ll not only have the opportunity to help Flaherty return to something resembling his peak levels but — if things play out that way — extend a qualifying offer to the righty. There’s a long way to go before that scenario is in play, but Flaherty’s early-career performance shows that he clearly has the talent to merit that type of offer when he’s at his best.

Flaherty becomes the second free-agent addition to what will be a dramatically different Tigers rotation than the one we saw in 2023. Gone is veteran lefty Eduardo Rodriguez, who opted out of the three years and $49MM on his contract and scored a four-year, $80MM deal with the NL champion D-backs. Flaherty and righty Kenta Maeda, fresh off an excellent finish to his ’23 campaign with the division-rival Twins, will take up the mantle of veteran rotation leaders for skipper AJ Hinch.

Not only will the Tigers have that newly signed pair of arms, they’ll also welcome 2018 No. 1 overall pick Casey Mize back into the fold after a season lost to Tommy John surgery. Standout lefty Tarik Skubal returns as the team’s top starter, and the quartet of Skubal, Flaherty, Maeda and Mize will be joined by some combination of Reese Olson, Matt Manning and Sawyer Gipson-Long. Olson, in particular, had a solid rookie campaign. Manning, meanwhile, is a former first-round pick and top prospect himself — one who’ll be looking for better luck in 2024. In astonishing fashion, Manning suffered a broken left foot on two different occasions, both upon being struck by a comeback liner (once in April and again in September).

With Flaherty’s $14MM salary added to the books, the Tigers’ payroll projection climbs north of $104MM. That’s still quite a ways down from last year’s $135MM Opening Day mark — due in no small part to Miguel Cabrera’s retirement — and nowhere close to the franchise-record $200MM mark. The Tigers will surely want to leave ample playing time for young, potential core pieces like Mize, Skubal, Manning, Olson, Riley Greene, Spencer Torkelson, Kerry Carpenter and prospects Colt Keith and Justyn-Henry Malloy. But there’s still enough payroll space for the team to make some further additions, perhaps in the bullpen or on the bench.

Trevor Plouffe of Jomboy first connected the two sides. Jeff Passan of ESPN first relayed the contract specifics.

Royals Have Had Discussions With Michael Wacha, Jack Flaherty

By Steve Adams | December 11, 2023 at 12:57pm CDT

The Royals’ wide-ranging search for rotation help has led to discussions with free agents Michael Wacha and Jack Flaherty, tweets Mark Feinsand of MLB.com. Kansas City has also been linked to free agents Marcus Stroman, Lucas Giolito and Seth Lugo within the past week.

Royals general manager J.J. Picollo has said on multiple occasions this winter that he’s hoping to bolster his starting rotation, and he recently acknowledged that his club has at least $30MM to spend this offseason. The Royals aren’t likely to be serious players for top-of-the-market arms like Yoshinobu Yamamoto and Blake Snell, but the list of names to which they’ve already been tied suggests they’re quite active in the second and third tiers of the market for starting pitching help.

Both Wacha and Flaherty figure to be in the Royals’ price range, landing annual values that fall well shy of that rough $30MM annual rate. Wacha’s two-year, $32MM club option was bought out by the Padres at season’s end, but after posting consecutive seasons with 125-plus innings and ERAs of 3.32 and 3.22, he has a case for a three-year pact — albeit perhaps at a lesser rate than the $16MM which San Diego declined to pay (or pick up and attempt to trade him at).

Over the past two seasons, between the Red Sox and Padres, Wacha has posted a combined 3.27 ERA with a 21.3% strikeout rate, 6.9% walk rate and 37.7% ground-ball rate. Despite being more of a fly-ball pitcher, he’s allowed a manageable 1.14 homers per nine frames. His 88.1 mph average exit velocity and 35.4% hard-hit rate are both a bit lower than this past season’s leaguewide averages (89 mph, 39.2%), which helps to mitigate the impact of a below-average strikeout rate. Wacha has dramatically reduced his reliance on a four-seam fastball over the past two seasons. He’s steadily increased his usage of a sinker and changeup in that time, posting new career-high usage rates for each pitch in both 2022 and 2023.

The broader question with Wacha is one of durability. He’s been placed on the injured list nine times in his MLB career — five of them due to right shoulder issues. Wacha landed on the IL with a stress reaction in his shoulder back in 2014, and he’s since had shoulder-related IL trips in 2016, 2020, 2022 and 2023. He’s also missed time with one-off oblique, hamstring, knee and intercostal injuries. Most recently, he missed six weeks of the 2023 summer with shoulder inflammation. However, he also posted a 3.88 ERA in 48 2/3 innings after returning and closed out the year with consecutive seven-inning gems (two total runs allowed on nine hits and two walks with 13 strikeouts).

Turning to Wacha’s former Cardinals teammate, Flaherty isn’t that far removed from looking the part of a blossoming ace. A first-round pick and top prospect before his big league debut, the right-hander logged a 3.34 ERA through 151 innings during his first full MLB campaign back in 2018. He was even better in 2019, tossing a career-best 196 1/3 innings with a brilliant 2.75 earned run average, excellent 29.9% strikeout rate and lower-than-average 7.1% walk rate. Unfortunately, he battled shoulder troubles of his own while pitching just 154 1/3 innings combined from 2020-2022.

This past season, Flaherty split the year between the Cardinals and Orioles, enjoying his healthiest year since 2019 but also displaying rather pedestrian results. Flaherty’s 4.99 ERA stands as an obvious eyesore, and his 22.8% strikeout rate was more or less in line with the league average. His 10.6% walk rate was a good bit worse than average. His fastball, which averaged 94.5 mph in that brilliant 2019 season, sat at 93.2 mph in 2023.

It obviously wasn’t Flaherty’s best work, but even with the downturn in results and durability concerns, there’s reason to believe he could yet command a multi-year deal. Flaherty only turned 28 in October, and a team might view him as a prime-aged rebound candidate who could pitch near the top of a rotation in a best-case scenario. He’d be an upside play based more on his prior heights than his 2023 output, but even if things don’t pan out, a two- or three-year deal likely wouldn’t break the bank.

Recent three-year deals for pitchers in this tier have generally landed around $12-13MM per season (e.g. Anthony DeSclafani, Yusei Kikuchi, Zach Eflin). It’s similarly feasible that Flaherty might just prefer a one-year deal that’d allow him to return to market next winter — although he could also get there via an opt-out. There are various contractual forms he can and likely is considering, but he’s unlikely to be prohibitively expensive in any of those scenarios, given Picollo’s prior comments regarding the team’s payroll flexibility.

Kansas City’s rotation currently projects to include Cole Ragans, Brady Singer and veteran innings eater Jordan Lyles. Candidates for the final two spots include Daniel Lynch, Jonathan Heasley, Angel Zerpa, Alec Marsh and Max Castillo, among others, but the Royals are hoping to add at least one, if not two veteran arms to supplement the bunch.

Pirates Showing Interest In Jack Flaherty

By Steve Adams | December 4, 2023 at 12:45pm CDT

The Pirates are among the teams with some interest in free agent righty Jack Flaherty, reports Jeff Jones of the Belleville News-Democrat. The Bucs are interested in a short-term pact with their former division-rival, per Jones.

Interest on a short-term deal, of course, is contingent on how the remainder of the market views Flaherty. At 28 years of age, he’s the youngest starting pitcher with ample big league experience available this winter. However, Flaherty is also coming off a down season that saw him pitch to a 4.99 ERA in 144 1/3 innings between the Cardinals and the Orioles, who acquired him prior to the trade deadline.

Not long ago, Flaherty looked like a burgeoning ace. The former first-round pick and top prospect turned in a 3.34 ERA over 151 innings back in 2018, his first full big league season, and followed it up with even better numbers. At a time when most pitchers in the league were falling victim to what we now know was a juiced ball in 2019, Flaherty was delivering the best season of his still-young career: 196 1/3 innings, 2.75 ERA, 29.9% strikeout rate, 7.1% walk rate. Unfortunately for both him and the Cardinals, injuries (primarily shoulder troubles) limited him to 154 1/3 innings from 2020-22 combined. Last year marked a return to better health but also lesser results.

Flaherty figures to have multiple scenarios he could pursue. A straight one-year deal or perhaps a two- or three-year pact with an opt-out would allow him the opportunity to reenter free agency not far down the road — ideally on the heels of a better platform season. In the past, a straight one-year deal was often the norm for a player in this situation. Increasingly, however, we’ve seen free agents coax two-year deals out of teams, with the second season being a player option.

There’s also the possibility of pursuing a more conventional, longer-term deal that’d still allow Flaherty to return to market at a reasonably young age. In the past, we’ve seen some free agents around the same age (e.g. Phil Hughes, Tyler Chatwood) take three-year deals that provided some financial security while also affording an opportunity to get back to the market in time for another chance at a contract of note. A three-year deal for Flaherty would cover his age-28, age-29 and age-30 seasons. If the market bears it, that arrangement could effectively set Flaherty for life financially and still create the chance to hit the market in search of a more elusive five- or six-year commitment.

As for the specific fit with the Pirates — it’s a strong one, regardless of which type of contractual structure Flaherty prefers. While Pirates ownership might balk at a multi-year commitment of note, Pittsburgh is in dire need of rotation help. Mitch Keller is the only established starter on the roster now that righty Johan Oviedo will miss the 2024 season due to Tommy John surgery. Flaherty would slot comfortably into the starting staff and do so knowing that he’d have a long leash regardless of how he starts the season. Other options on the Pittsburgh staff currently include Bailey Falter, Roansy Contreras, Quinn Priester and Luis Ortiz. This past season’s No. 1 overall pick, right-hander Paul Skenes, will likely debut at some point in 2024 as well.

With regard to the team’s payroll, the Pirates only have three players under contract for the 2024 season (Ke’Bryan Hayes, Bryan Reynolds, Ryan Borucki) and another four arbitration-eligible players (Keller, David Bednar, Connor Joe, JT Brubaker). Roster Resource projects just a $53MM payroll for the upcoming season. Even by the Buccos’ standards, that’s at the bottom of the scale. Pittsburgh opened the 2023 season at $73MM and operated under a franchise-record $100MM back in 2016. There ought to be plenty of room to add multiple starters — even if some money is perhaps earmarked for another reunion with Pirates icon Andrew McCutchen.

Whether Flaherty is a part of the solution or not, the Pirates simply need to bring in multiple arms this winter. Flaherty’s youth and track record (particularly that 2018-19 run) give him more upside than most free agents in the second and third tiers of free agency, but that might also make him a popular target and push the bidding beyond the comfort zone of the perennially low-spending Pirates.

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