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MLBTR Podcast: Brent Rooker’s Extension, Gavin Lux, And Catching Up On The Holiday Transactions

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The latest episode of the MLB Trade Rumors Podcast is now live on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and wherever you get your podcasts! Make sure you subscribe as well! You can also use the player at this link to listen, if you don’t use Spotify or Apple for podcasts.

This week, host Darragh McDonald is joined by Tim Dierkes of MLB Trade Rumors to discuss…

Check out our past episodes!

The podcast intro and outro song “So Long” is provided courtesy of the band Showoff.  Check out their Facebook page here!

Nationals Sign Josh Bell

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Josh Bell is heading back to Washington, as the New York Post’s Jon Heyman reports that the first baseman has signed a one-year, $6MM deal with the Nationals.  The 32-year-old Bell is represented by the Boras Corporation.

Since Nathaniel Lowe was just acquired last week to be the Nats’ new everyday first baseman, Bell likely now slots in as the first-choice designated hitter.  Both the left-handed hitting Lowe and the switch-hitting Bell have pretty even career splits, but Bell could step in at first base every once in a while when Washington faces a left-handed pitcher, even though Lowe is a much better fielder.  As the DH, Bell’s switch-hitting bat also brings a bit more balance to a Nationals lineup that is heavy on lefty swingers.

In a career defined by major hot and cold streaks, Bell’s previous stint in D.C. stands out as perhaps the most consistent stretch of his nine MLB seasons.  The Nationals acquired Bell from the Pirates during the 2020-21 offseason, and Bell proceeded to hit .278/.363/.483 with 41 homers over 1005 plate appearances from Opening Day 2021 until he was dealt to the Padres as part of the Juan Soto blockbuster at the 2022 trade deadline.

Unfortunately for Bell and the Padres, his bat went cold after the deal, though his overall offensive output was enough for him to earn NL Silver Slugger honors for the DH position.  It also led to a two-year, $33MM contract with the Guardians that winter, but Bell didn’t hit particularly well in his first four months in Cleveland before he was again dealt at the deadline, which sparked another hot streak as he helped lead the Marlins to a playoff berth.

The pattern continued at last July’s deadline, as Bell again found himself on the move from the Marlins to the Diamondbacks.  Bell had hit only .239/.305/.394 in 441 PA for Miami last year, but his bat again came to life post-trade, as he hit .279/.361/.436 in 162 PA for an Arizona team that had temporarily lost starting first baseman Christian Walker to the injured list.

The short-term nature of this latest contract leaves open the possibility that Bell could be dealt at his fourth consecutive trade deadline if the Nationals aren’t in contention.  While Lowe is under arbitration control through the 2026 season, Bell and fellow free agent Michael Soroka were both inked to one-year deals, as the Nationals seem to be somewhat hedging their bets on their readiness to compete in 2025.  The Nats have struggled through five straight losing seasons since their World Series victory in 2019, yet with many members of their young core now in the big leagues, there was speculation Washington might be a little more aggressive this winter in firmly announcing the end of its rebuild.

This being said, Bell’s signing is certainly a boost for a Nationals club that had trouble producing offense last year, particularly in the power department.  The Nats’ 135 home runs ranked 29th of 30 teams, and CJ Abrams (with 20 homers) was the only D.C. player who went yard more often than Bell (19 homers) did in 2024.

With Bell and Lowe in the fold, expected improvement from Abrams and Luis Garcia Jr., and a full season from top prospects James Wood and Dylan Crews, there is plenty of reason to think the Nats can be a much more productive lineup.  If everything clicks and the team’s young pitching also takes a step forward, the Nationals might well get back to winning baseball next year, and then perhaps start spending on bigger-name talent next offseason.

Bell’s career walk and strikeout rates have consistently been above average, while his barrel rates have been more spotty.  His hard-hit ball rate dropped to 40.1% last season, slightly below the league average and his lowest mark since the 2018 season.  While there isn’t much sign of decline at age 32, per se, the big question about Bell is simply which version of the slugger is going to show up, given how his production has swung back and forth so sharply over the last few seasons.

Now that Bell is signed, third base remains a target area for Washington, as the team’s attempt to get Gleyber Torres to change positions from second base fell on deaf ears.  The bullpen remains a clear area of need, and there’s still plenty of time in the offseason for the Nationals to add a bigger name than Soroka as more of a clear-cut upgrade to the rotation.

Diamondbacks Acquire Josh Bell

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4:21PM: The trade has been officially announced, with the return to the Marlins being specified as cash considerations or a player to be named later.

1:23PM: The Diamondbacks have acquired first baseman Josh Bell from the Marlins, as per Craig Mish of the Miami Herald (links to X).  Miami placed Bell on waivers two days ago, and Mish reports that Arizona will send cash to the Marlins to cover some of the roughly $5.9MM still owed to Bell for the remainder of the 2024 season.  Nick Piecoro of the Arizona Republic (via X) writes that the D’Backs will cover $2.25MM of Bell’s remaining salary.

The move seems like an instant reaction to the oblique injury that forced Christian Walker out of last night’s game.  Deemed as left oblique tightness at the time, the fact that the D’Backs have quickly pivoted to adding a new first baseman indicates that Walker has some type of a strain that will require a trip to the injured list.  The Diamondbacks figure to give an update on Walker’s condition later today, and Piecoro adds that the MRI revealed “relatively good news” about his status.  Walker will still need to hit the IL, and given how oblique issues can tend to linger, it could be difficult to project a recovery timeline.

Bell has now been traded at the deadline in each of the last three seasons.  The first baseman was dealt along with Juan Soto as part of the blockbuster swap between the Nationals and Padres two years ago, and in 2023, Bell was sent from the Guardians to the Marlins for Kahlil Watson and Jean Segura.

In keeping with the rather streaky nature of Bell’s career, those two trades yielded very different results for his new teams.  Bell was enjoying a nice season with Washington in 2022 but struggled badly after the deal to the Padres; last season saw Bell post middling numbers for the Guardians but he then caught fire after joining the Marlins, helping carry the Fish to a wild card berth.

Arizona can only hope for the repeat of Bell’s 2023 turn-around, and in fact the veteran first baseman has ended his Miami tenure on a high note.  Bell has a 1.515 OPS and five homers over his last 33 plate appearances, after hitting a much more underwhelming .224/.288/.349 with nine homers in his first 408 PA of the season.  While the Diamondbacks’ hand may have been somewhat forced by Walker’s injury, this recent production from Bell provides some evidence that he might be in another of his turns from ice-cold at the plate to red hot.

The switch-hitting Bell figures to step right into regular first base duty in Arizona.  Though his splits are pretty even this season, Bell has performed better against lefties than against righties in recent years, so the D’Backs might look to use him in something of a platoon with a left-handed hitter like Pavin Smith, whose seems like a good candidate to be called back up to the majors when Walker is officially placed on the IL.  Smith, Kevin Newman, and Lourdes Gurriel Jr. have combined for 28 innings of work at first base this season, as Walker’s dominance at the position has left the D’Backs rarely in need of a backup plan.

Today’s deal is the second trade between the Marlins and Diamondbacks this week, as Arizona also picked up A.J. Puk in a separate swap.  The Snakes were primarily known to be looking at pitching help even after Puk was acquired, though Walker’s injury naturally led to this unexpected need at first base.

From Miami’s perspective, the team has now dealt Puk, Bell, Trevor Rogers, and Jazz Chisholm Jr. as part of their deadline selloff, not to mention the Luis Arraez trade earlier in the season that signaled the Marlins’ intention to rebuild.  Getting a bit of cash off the books for Bell is a decent return considering how he was struggling for much of the year, and the Fish will surely continue to be busy in swinging more deals before today’s 5pm CT deadline.

Marlins To Place Josh Bell On Waivers

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The Marlins are placing first baseman Josh Bell on waivers, reports Robert Murray of FanSided on X. At this point, there’s been nothing to suggest Bell has been removed from the roster. In fact, he’s in the lineup for Miami’s game against the Brewers that is taking place as of this writing. It’s possible he stays in Miami if he clears waivers, similar to what happened with Kevin Kiermaier and the Blue Jays earlier this month.

When a player is placed on waivers without being removed from the roster, the club is hoping that some other team will put in a claim and take the contract off their hands. If the player clears, they can send them outright to a minor league affiliate. But Bell has more than enough service time to reject an outright assignment and elect free agency while retaining all of his salary, so the club can also decide to simply hang onto the player. That’s what transpired with Kiermaier, as he went unclaimed but the Jays kept him around.

Bell, 31, has had some really good seasons in his career but has been trending down of late. He slashed .266/.362/.422 for a wRC+ of 123 in 2022 and then headed into free agency. The Guardians signed him to a two-year, $33MM deal, with Bell making $16.5MM in each year and having the ability to opt out after the first season.

His tenure in Cleveland didn’t go especially well. He slashed .233/.318/.383 in 97 games for a wRC+ of 96. Since Bell isn’t especially fast nor considered a strong defender at first base, he needs to hit to provide value.

He was flipped to Miami at last year’s trade deadline in a swap of bad contracts, with Jean Segura and prospect Kahlil Watson going the other way. Bell’s results improved after the deal, as he hit .270/.338/.480 for a wRC+ of 119 and helped the Marlins get into the playoffs. Despite the hot start, he decided to trigger his player option and stick with the Fish for one more year.

But he hasn’t been able to carry over his strong finish from 2023, as he’s hitting .239/.303/.396 this year for a wRC+ of 96. With his lack of contributions on defense or the basepaths, he’s been below replacement level.

There’s just a bit under $6MM left on Bell’s deal, so the odds of him being claimed are pretty slim. The Marlins are clearly in sell mode, as they have traded controllable players like Luis Arráez and Jazz Chisholm Jr., so a rental player like Bell will undoubtedly be available. Though assuming he goes unclaimed in the coming days, the Fish will likely have to eat some of that money to facilitate a deal. Clubs like the Yankees, Astros, Mariners and others are looking for first base help and could perhaps look into buying low on Bell.

Possible Left-Handed Power Targets For Nationals

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The Nationals haven’t made many notable acquisitions this offseason. They signed middle reliever Dylan Floro and former top prospect Nick Senzel to affordable one-year pacts and plucked infielder Nasim Nuñez from the Marlins in the Rule 5 draft. It’s not all that surprising that a still-rebuilding Washington team coming off a 71-91 showing hasn’t been aggressive, but GM Mike Rizzo had suggested at the Winter Meetings the team was open to a multi-year free agent pickup “in the right situation” (link via Mark Zuckerman of MASNsports.com).

With all of $4.25MM in free agent spending committed to Floro and Senzel, there should still be financial room at Rizzo’s disposal. That doesn’t guarantee they’ll hand out any kind of significant deal, particularly with a lack of great options in the middle tiers of free agency. Yet it’d be a surprise if the Nationals were finished with their offseason activity. One area where some kind of addition seems likely: a left-handed bat.

Both the Talk Nats blog and MLB.com’s Jessica Camerato suggested in late December that Washington was looking to bring in left-handed power. The Nats’ best lefty or switch-hitting bats — CJ Abrams, Keibert Ruiz, Luis García and Jake Alu — all have middling pop. Only the Guardians had a lower ISO (slugging minus batting average) against right-handed pitching in 2023. Acquiring a lefty power source makes plenty of sense.

It’s hard to see Washington spending at the level it’d take to land Cody Bellinger. Even though he’s young enough to be a veteran cornerstone for a team that could more realistically seek to compete by 2025, the Nationals have a pair of top center field prospects in James Wood and Dylan Crews. They’re also still faced with the MASN rights uncertainty and on the hook for significant money to Patrick Corbin, Stephen Strasburg and Max Scherzer’s deferrals in the short term. It’s probably not the right time for a top-of-the-market splash.

We’ll look a few tiers down. Where might that search lead Rizzo and company?

Free Agency

  • Brandon Belt: Belt, even going into his age-36 season, should command the loftiest guarantee of the players in this group. He’s coming off a very strong offensive showing for the Blue Jays. He hit 19 homers and walked more than 15% of the time he stepped to the plate, leading to a .254/.369/.490 line through 404 plate appearances. Favorable matchups played a role in that strong rate production; Toronto limited him to 39 PA’s against left-handed pitching. Washington could deploy him similarly at designated hitter and/or first base, where only Joey Meneses (coming off a league average offensive showing) stands in the way.
  • Joc Pederson: The Blue Jays are the only club publicly tied to Pederson this winter. He’s coming off a middling season in which he hit .235/.348/.416 with 15 homers through 425 plate appearances for the Giants. That’s not huge power production at first glance, but Pederson has five 20+ homer seasons on his résumé (four with at least 25 longballs). He made hard contact — an exit velocity of at least 95 MPH — on more than half his batted balls last season, a top 15 rate in the majors. Pederson is a limited player. He’s best served as a DH and is mostly limited to facing right-handed pitching. He still has life in the bat, though, even if last year’s results were underwhelming.
  • Eddie Rosario: There hasn’t been any public chatter on Rosario since the Braves declined a $9MM option at the start of the offseason. He should command a one-year deal at a salary that’s not too far below that rate. Rosario is coming off a reasonably effective year. He hit 21 homers with a .255/.305/.450 line in 516 trips to the plate. That was the fourth time in his career that he surpassed 20 longballs. Rosario is mostly limited to left field but rated reasonably well with the glove last year. His performance varies wildly within seasons, but he tends to produce roughly league average numbers by the end.
  • Joey Gallo: Gallo hit 21 homers in just 332 plate appearances a season ago. The flaw in his game, huge swing-and-miss rates, has only magnified in recent seasons. Gallo hasn’t hit above the Mendoza line since 2019. He’s hitting .168 with a .290 on-base percentage in 742 plate appearances over the last two campaigns. There are a lot of uncompetitive at-bats. Few players fit the profile of a “left-handed power bat” quite like Gallo, though.

Trade Possibilities

It’s tougher to identify great fits on the trade market in the absence of many clear rebuilding teams. The Nationals could theoretically take a bigger swing at a player with an extended control window (e.g. Alec Burleson, Jesús Sánchez). That’s not an easy task to pull off, particularly since Washington is probably reluctant to part with significant prospect talent. There are a few veteran bats who’d make some sense as speculative trade candidates for a lesser return.

  • Josh Bell: Bell had a productive stint over his year and a half in Washington from 2021-22. He hit .278/.363/.483 in just over 1000 plate appearances before being included in the Juan Soto trade. Bell has changed uniforms twice more since that deadline blockbuster, signing with the Guardians before being flipped to the Marlins last summer. The switch-hitting first baseman struggled in Cleveland (.233/.318/.383) but generally turned things around in South Florida (.270/.338/.480). That reasonably strong finish wasn’t enough for Bell to forego a $16.5MM player option for the upcoming season. It stands to reason the Fish would be happy to get out from under the bulk of that deal if the Nationals were interested in a reunion.
  • Seth Brown: A’s GM David Forst indicated at the beginning of the offseason that he didn’t expect to trade Brown. That’s presumably more about Oakland feeling that other teams won’t meet their ask than an indication they wouldn’t consider offers on a 31-year-old platoon player. Brown is a career .237/.305/.471 hitter against right-handed pitching. He can play first base or the corner outfield and is under arbitration control for three seasons. MLBTR contributor Matt Swartz forecasts him for a $2.4MM salary.
  • Mike Yastrzemski: Yastrzemski is projected for a $7.3MM salary in his second-to-last arbitration season. He hit 15 homers in 381 plate appearances a year ago, running a .233/.330/.445 line overall. The Giants aren’t likely to urgently shop Yastrzemski, but the singing of Jung Hoo Lee pushes him from center field to the corner opposite Michael Conforto. Trading Mitch Haniger paved the way for a Lee, Conforto, Yastrzemski outfield supplemented by righty-hitting Austin Slater, but the Giants also have Luis Matos, Wade Meckler and Heliot Ramos as options on the grass.

Minor League Deal Candidates

Each of these players has turned in above-average offense from the left side in their careers. None hit free agency under great circumstances. Choi had an injury-plagued 2023 campaign that kept him to 39 games without much production. The other four players were either non-tendered or elected free agency after an outright.

Meadows has missed most of the past two seasons attending to anxiety; it is unclear if he’ll be in position to return next year. Ford and Vogelbach are largely limited to DH, while Walsh hasn’t been the same since he was diagnosed with thoracic outlet syndrome in 2022. None of these players are likely to be Washington’s top acquisition, but they’d be viable depth targets if the Nats wanted a second lefty bat on a minor league or low-cost MLB pact.

Josh Bell Exercises Player Option With Marlins

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Switch-hitting slugger Josh Bell has exercised his player option for the 2024 season, as noted by Jordan McPherson of the Miami Herald. In doing so, Bell has opted to remain with the Marlins, where he figures to be the club’s primary first baseman in 2024, rather than return to the open market this offseason. The Marlins have since announced the news.

Bell’s opt-out was among the more borderline cases this option season, particularly among positional players. Bell, 31, struggled a bit in the first half of the season with the Guardians, slashing just .233/.318/.383 with a below-average wRC+ of just 96 in 393 trips to the plate with Cleveland this season. Bell was then dealt to Miami at the trade deadline, however, and quickly caught fire with the Marlins. In 224 trips to the plate throughout the remainder of the season, Bell slashed .270/.338/.480 (119 wRC+) while doubling his season home run total, from 11 to 22.

While his run in Miami did little to salvage his overall season numbers, leaving him with a 105 wRC+ that was 17th among 24 qualified first basemen this year, the hot 53-game stretch was essentially in line with what Bell had produced in both 2021 and 2022 with the Nationals and Padres. In a relatively weak free-agent class for hitters, that made it at least conceivable that Bell would decline the option and test the open market, where he’d be one of the better first base/DH bats available alongside Brandon Belt. That said, Bell’s final decision wasn’t much of a surprise; a poll of MLBTR readers just before the postseason began indicated that a whopping 72% of respondents believed Bell was better off exercising his 2023 option in pursuit of a stronger platform year in 2024.

For the Marlins, the return of Bell is surely a relief to the club that parted with 2021 first-round pick Kahlil Watson in order to acquire him from the Guardians at the deadline this year. Bell and fellow deadline addition Jake Burger both helped to spark the club’s offense down the stretch in 2023, and with the club’s primary DH in Jorge Soler headed for free agency the duo figures to help anchor the lineup alongside second baseman Luis Arraez.

Of course, more will be needed to help the club reach the postseason for a second consecutive season. The club’s offense ranked 20th in the majors last year with a 94 wRC+, and the loss of Soler’s 126 wRC+ bat will further limit the club’s offensive potential without external additions. While the return of Bell on a one-year, $16.5MM pact leaves the club with less payroll space to facilitate those additions, they still have $20MM in budget space available even if they plan on just matching their 2023 payroll of $110MM, per RosterResource.

MLBTR Poll: Josh Bell’s Player Option

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If one were to look simply at first baseman Josh Bell’s production since joining the Marlins back in August, it would appear to be a foregone conclusion that Bell will decline his $16.5MM player option for the 2024 season and test free agency. After all, Bell has posted strong numbers since being traded to Miami at the deadline: he’s slashed .266/.338/.474 with 11 home runs in just 51 games as a Marlin. Given the weak upcoming free agent class on the positional side, that sort of production would place him as one of the better hitters in the class, below top-of-the-class stars Shohei Ohtani and Cody Bellinger but in the same conversation as the likes of Jeimer Candelario, Matt Chapman, and Jorge Soler.

Unfortunately for Bell, the decision isn’t that simple. The 30-year-old slugger has long been regarded among the streakiest hitters in the majors. Back in 2019, the switch-hitter appeared to be in the midst of a breakout season as he tore the cover off the ball for the Pirates in the first half, slashing an incredible .302/.376/.648 with 27 home runs en route to his first career All Star appearance. He returned in the second half having fallen back to Earth, however, and hit just .233/.351/.429 the rest of the way.

It was a similar story in 2022. Bell posted strong numbers with the Nationals for most of the season, slashing .301/.384/.493 in 437 trips to the plate. After being shipped to the Padres in a blockbuster deal alongside superstar Juan Soto, however, Bell struggled badly, posting a meager .192/.316/.271 slash line the rest of the way with a whopping 57.4% groundball rate. Those struggles prompted Bell to take a two-year, $33MM deal with the Guardians this past offseason with an opt-out after the 2023 campaign.

In 2023, Bell’s struggles came at the beginning of the season, as he hit .224/.330/.350 over the first two months of the season. While his final results in Cleveland were roughly league average (96 wRC+), they weren’t particularly close to the production Bell would have needed to show to justify leaving $16.5MM on the table this offseason to test the open market again. That said, his aforementioned hot stretch with the Marlins could have changed things for the 30-year-old, as it’s lifted his overall season slash line to an above-average .245/.325/.416. That figure improves to .256/.322/.449 in 96 games since the start of June, putting him in the same ballpark as his .259/.347/.453 career batting line.

While it’s unlikely that Bell would top his $16.5MM option by measure of AAV, nineteen hitters (including Bell himself) received a guarantee of $17MM or more last offseason. It’s not difficult to imagine Bell receiving more in free agency that Brandon Drury (two years, $17MM) or Justin Turner (two years, $21.7MM) did from the Angels and Red Sox last year. The aforementioned scarcity of quality hitters on the free agent market this coming offseason could also help Bell, should he decide to test the open market.

While first base is one of the better-populated positions this offseason, with players like Turner, Brandon Belt, and Garrett Cooper set to hit the open market after posting solid season, Bell has youth on his side relative to those veterans. He’ll play next season at age-31; only Ohtani, Bellinger, Candelario and Lourdes Gurriel Jr. have posted above average offensive seasons among free agents younger than Bell, though Chapman, Rhys Hoskins and Teoscar Hernandez will also have their age-31 campaigns in 2024.

Of course, things aren’t completely set in stone yet, even as the regular season wraps this weekend. With the Marlins favored to make the postseason, it’s possible Bell finds himself at the center of a surprise push deep into the postseason for Miami and posts big enough postseason numbers to impact his impending decision, which will come shortly after the World Series.

What do MLBTR readers think? If you were in Bell’s shoes, would you exercise your player option for next season and hope for a stronger platform season in 2024, or would you decline the option in search of a higher total guarantee on the open market?

(poll link for app users)

Josh Bell’s Turnaround Started Before His Trade To Marlins

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The deadline swap that saw the Marlins and Guardians exchange Jean Segura and Josh Bell was generally viewed as an exchange of bad contracts. The Marlins were getting the more productive hitter of the two, though that wasn’t saying much. Bell hit .233/.318/.383 as a member of the Guardians after signing a two-year, $33MM deal in the offseason. Segura hit just .219/.277/.279 with Miami after signing his own two-year deal (worth $17MM) and was immediately released by Cleveland. The Guards used the trade to effectively purchase former first-round pick Kahlil Watson from Miami, who sold low on the former top prospect and took on some cash as a means of adding some life to the lineup.

Bell has absolutely exploded in South Florida, however. He turned in below-average offense during his time with Cleveland but has mashed at a .271/.351/.586 pace in a still-small sample of 97 Marlins plate appearances. The eight dingers he’s swatted with the Marlins is already nearly as many as the 11 he totaled in more than quadruple the plate appearances with the Guardians. It’s not as though Bell simply moved to a bandbox either; Miami’s loanDepot Park has been the fourth-worst for home runs over the past three seasons, per Statcast.

The switch-hitting Bell looked wholly unremarkable in more than three months with the Guardians but has not only been one of the National League’s best hitters since the trade — he’s had one of the best months of his entire career. So, what gives? This is perhaps an oversimplification, but the Marlins have succeeded where basically no other club has to date: Bell is finally hitting the ball in the air. A lot. The 45.2% fly-ball rate he’s posted this month is the first month in his entire career that he’s posted a fly-ball rate that high.

The change, however, began well before Bell was traded to Miami. Whether the Marlins keyed in on this or merely jumped at the opportunity to purge Segura’s contract isn’t clear, but the numbers are pretty easy to see. Bell entered the current season with a 50% ground-ball rate in his career and just a 31.9% fly-ball rate — a ridiculous number for a 6’4″, 261-pound first baseman. Bell has never had good speed, and the idea that half of his career batted balls have been beaten into the ground is counterintuitive. He’s far from the only should-be slugger with this type of problem — Eric Hosmer is also a member of this club, for instance — but Bell’s penchant for grounders has regularly undercut his well above-average bat-to-ball skills and what’s clearly above-average or even plus raw power. This is a player who bashed 37 home runs in 2019, after all. Juiced ball or not — that’s a big number.

A look at Bell’s month-to-month splits this year reveals some familiar trends. In April he put a ridiculous 62.3% of his batted balls on the ground, against a 28.6% fly-ball rate. In May, it was 51.6% and 26.6% (with a noted uptick in line drives). If you look in late May, Bell had a stretch of five games where he didn’t hit a single fly-ball. He hit three line drives, and the other 81.8% of his balls in play were grounders. Whether this was a wakeup call or the beginning of Bell trying to make a conscious adjustment, things began to change.

In June, Bell’s fly-ball rate jumped to 37%. In July, it climbed a notch higher, to 38.4%. It’s up to 45.2% in August, and Bell is absolutely mashing. Those might sound like arbitrary numbers, and to some extent they are. However, using that arbitrary 37% cutoff point (his June 2023 fly-ball rate), I scanned back through Bell’s monthly splits for his entire career. He’s only had a monthly fly-ball rate of 37% four times in his career … all coming in 2019, when he hit 37 home runs and posted his career-best .277/.367/.569 batting line.

The results weren’t necessarily there as Bell began elevating the ball more regularly. From May 28 (the first day after that stretch of five games with no fly balls), Bell hit .251/.309/.440. That’s only about seven percent better than league average, by measure of wRC+, but it’s a massive improvement over the .215/.327/.326 slash he produced while pounding an incredible (not in a good way) 59.7% of his batted balls into the ground. At the very least, Bell looked like a hitter on the upswing due to a tangible change in his approach. The Marlins might’ve hoped they were acquiring that somewhat above-average hitter, but Bell has been much, much more than that in Miami. He’s been 50% better than the league-average hitter since being traded.

Of course, it’s an open question whether Bell can sustain this pace. He had four months of fly-ball production in 2019 and then quickly reverted back to the grounder-happy plodder who has often looked on the cusp of stardom but never sustained his pace. It’s encouraging, however, that he’s reeled off three straight months of this fly-ball approach. Even in his career year in 2019, he still posted a 46% grounder rate from July through August. This year, in that same span, he’s at 39.7%. This current stretch is the least grounder-driven span of Bell’s career.

Bell spoke to Craig Mish and Barry Jackson of the Miami Herald about his surge at the plate in Miami, attributing plenty of the success to the manner in which hitting coach Brant Brown preps for games with hitters.

“We watch video together and decide there how the attack plan is going to go and I can work on that in batting practice and it tends to show up in the games,” said Bell, who called Brown’s prep work with Marlins hitters “advanced.” Bell also spoke favorably of loanDepot Park, noting that while the dimensions are pitcher-friendly, the consistency from playing in a stadium with a roof can be advantageous. “With the turf, and with the consistency of the dome, you’ve got the same lighting every inning, every at-bat, and it’s easy to get hits.”

Bell noted to the Herald that his focus has been simply on hitting line drives, but it seems those efforts have translated more into fly balls than the intended liners. His 12.9% line-drive rate with the Fish is actually lower than it was in Cleveland (19%) by a wide margin. Bell is simply elevating the ball at a strong, albeit not elite rate. His 45.2% fly rate since the trade ranks 35th of 173 hitters (80th percentile). But Bell is a big man with plenty of power; when he elevates the ball, good things happen.

Bell’s surge has been a boon for the Marlins and also creates a fascinating scenario to watch down the stretch. If he can continue putting the ball in the air close to this frequently and continue to produce at well above-average levels, the player option he once looked like a lock to exercise could become a borderline call — or, with a strong enough finish, a relatively easy one to decline. The upcoming free agent class is light on hitters, and Bell is flat out raking thanks to a noticeable change in his batted-ball profile. This version of Bell would fetch far more than $16.5MM in free agency, particularly since he can’t be saddled with a qualifying offer and thus won’t be tied to draft pick compensation.

If Bell does decline his player option, it’d wind up looking like a rather deft swap of contracts for the Marlins; at the time of the swap, Miami was effectively surrendering Watson and paying about $9.25MM ($3.25MM in ’23, $6MM in ’24) to upgrade from Segura to Bell. That sum would drop to just $3.25MM in added salary if Bell opts out — all of it coming in 2023 — and a hefty $10.5MM of savings beyond the current season. The Marlins would be off the hook entirely next year, while the Guards would remain on the hook for Segura’s $8.5MM salary and $2MM buyout on a $10MM club option for 2025. It’s doubtful even Marlins GM Kim Ng and her staff expected Bell to perform this well early on, but their ostensible bet on Bell’s change in approach is already a boost to the team’s playoff hopes and now has the possibility to provide substantial payroll benefit in the future.

Marlins Acquire Josh Bell; Guardians Receive Kahlil Watson, Will Release Jean Segura

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The Marlins announced the acquisition of first baseman Josh Bell from the Guardians. Cleveland agreed to take on the contract of infielder Jean Segura — whom they intend to release — while acquiring infield prospect Kahlil Watson.

It’s an out-of-the-blue swap that continues a surprisingly active day for the Marlins. Miami shipped out pitching prospect Jake Eder to install Jake Burger at the hot corner. That apparently set the stage for them to move on from Segura, whose two-year free agent contract didn’t work at all as the club had envisioned.

That was a means of adding offense at one corner infield spot. They’ll hope for the same across the diamond, as they swapped in Bell for Garrett Cooper. Miami dealt their incumbent first baseman to the Padres for starting pitcher Ryan Weathers.

The series of moves results in a buy-low flier on Bell. As with Segura, he signed an ill-fated two-year free agent deal last offseason. The Guardians guaranteed the switch-hitter a two-year, $33MM pact. He can opt out of the deal at the end of the first season. It’s all but a given he’ll elect to play out the contract given the way in which his time in Cleveland transpired.

Bell is hitting .233/.318/.383 over 393 trips to the plate. His 10.9% walk percentage and 20.6% strikeout rate are both solid, but his batted ball results are middling. Bell has managed just 11 home runs and a .272 batting average on balls in play. As has been an issue throughout his career, he’s had a tough time elevating the ball. Bell is putting the ball on the ground at a lofty 48.5% clip, an obviously suboptimal number for a player whose game is built around power.

Still, the high grounder tallies are nothing new. He’s had plenty of success in spite of a propensity for low-angle contact. He combined for a .264/.355/.448 line in more than 1200 plate appearances between 2021-22. At his best, he’s a middle-of-the-order caliber bat. Miami will obviously hope for a return to form in a new environment.

Miami general manager Kim Ng and her staff clearly believe there’s more untapped potential remaining for Bell than with Segura. The Fish had signed the longtime second baseman to a two-year, $17MM pact with a plan to bump him to third base. It was a risk defensively that hasn’t paid off, as the veteran received well below-average marks for his 720 1/3 innings at the hot corner.

More concerning, Segura didn’t bring anything approaching his previous offensive form. He’s long been a slightly above-average hitter, combining double-digit homer power with excellent contact skills. This was his worst offensive season, however, as he managed only a .219/.277/.279 showing through 326 plate appearances as a Marlin.

Segura’s underlying offensive marks aren’t that far off those of previous seasons. His 38.8% hard contact rate is a near match for last year’s mark. That’s also true of his 6.7% walk percentage and 14.4% strikeout rate. Segura’s results simply weren’t up to par and the Fish elected to move on.

Given that Cleveland is immediately releasing Segura, his inclusion in the trade is strictly a financial measure. Bell is making $16.5MM this season and next. Segura is making $6.5MM this year and $8.5MM next season, as well as a $2MM buyout on a 2025 option. Bell is owed roughly $5.41MM through season’s end; Segura will make $2.13MM down the stretch. Miami takes on roughly $3.28MM this year and $6MM beyond this season to upgrade from Segura to Bell.

Segura will go unclaimed on release waivers in the next couple days. The Guardians will pay out almost all of his remaining contract. Once he clears waivers and becomes a free agent, Segura will be free to choose his next employer. That signing team would only pay him the prorated portion of the league minimum for whatever time he spends on a big league roster over the next season and a half.

In addition to the financial relief, the Guardians are buying low on a one-time top prospect. Watson, a 20-year-old infielder, was the 16th overall pick in the 2021 draft. The high school product was widely regarded as a top five to ten player in the class on talent, only dropping to the middle of the first round because of a lofty bonus demand.

His first two full seasons in pro ball haven’t gone as anticipated. Watson struck out in nearly 36% of his plate appearances in Low-A a year ago, hitting .231/.296/.395 over 83 games. He also missed some time last season on a team-imposed disciplinary absence after a confrontation with an umpire, as Eric Longenhagen of FanGraphs wrote in his write-up of Miami’s farm system.

Watson still ranked in the upper third of the Marlins’ top 30 prospects at both FanGraphs and Baseball America, though he’s no longer seen as a top 100 talent around the league. He’s hitting .206/.337/.362 over 243 trips to the plate in High-A this year. He’s connected on seven homers, walked at an elite 14.4% clip and stolen 14 bases. Yet he’s still striking out an alarming rate — 28% of the time. There’s clearly plenty of variability in Watson’s profile, but he has huge bat speed and the chance to stick at a middle infield position. It’s an upside play for Cleveland at a much lower cost than would’ve been required to pry him away 12 to 18 months ago.

Craig Mish of SportsGrid first reported the Marlins were acquiring Bell. Jeff Passan of ESPN reported the Guardians were receiving Segura and Watson.  Zack Meisel of the Athletic reported the Guardians planned to release Segura.

Images courtesy of USA Today Sports.

The Guardians’ Lineup Needs An Overhaul

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The 2022 Guardians skated to a division title in the American League Central and did so with a lineup unlike any other in MLB. Cleveland’s offense was a triumph for fans of small ball and the older-school game that relied far less on the long ball than today’s brand of three-true-outcomes offenses. The ’22 Guardians put the ball in play more than any other team in baseball, and it wasn’t close. Their 18.2% strikeout rate was the lowest in MLB and made them one of just four teams shy of 20%. The others — the Astros (19.5%), Mets (19.7%) and Cardinals (19.9%) — weren’t particularly close. Cleveland ranked 15th in the Majors in runs scored despite ranking 29th in home runs. Their 119 steals (a number that seems pedestrian in light of this year’s rule changes) ranked third in MLB.

Fast forward a season, and the lineup has a similar complexion but staggeringly different outcome. The 2023 Guardians are MLB’s most punchless team, ranking dead last with 24 home runs — just eight more than Pete Alonso has by himself. Cleveland’s 150 runs scored entering play Friday led only the Tigers (143), and the Guards had played two more games than Detroit. Cleveland enters play ranking 28th in the Majors with a .228 batting average and .302 on-base percentage, and 30th out of 30 teams with a .341 slugging percentage.

As The Athletic’s Zack Meisel pointed out Wednesday (Twitter link), Cleveland catchers have been astonishingly anemic at the plate. Prior to Cam Gallagher’s single yesterday, the Guardians hadn’t received a hit from their catcher since the calendar flipped to May; Gallagher was hitless in 32 at-bats entering play yesterday, while Zunino is currently 0-for-27 with 21 strikeouts this month.

The Guards opened the season surprisingly carrying three catchers: Mike Zunino, Gallagher and Meibrys Viloria. Even after designating Viloria for assignment, they added another catching option in 27-year-old David Fry. The Guardians have gotten less production from behind the dish than any team in the American League. Zunino, Gallagher, Viloria and Fry have combined for a .127/.225/.231 slash (29 wRC+) while serving as catcher, striking out in 38.4% of their plate appearances.

All of this comes at a time when Cleveland has one of baseball’s top catching prospects thrashing Triple-A pitching. Bo Naylor has appeared in 39 games with Columbus, taken 180 turns at the plate and batted .264/.400/.521 with nine home runs, eight doubles, a triple, a sky-high 18.3% walk rate and a 22.6% strikeout rate. The bar he’d need to clear in order to be an upgrade could scarcely be lower, yet he’s still in the minors while Cleveland backstops endure a nearly three-week-long hitless streak.

The problem isn’t confined to the team’s catching corps, although that’s the most glaring weak point in the lineup. Still, here are the Guardians’ position-by-position rankings, in terms of wRC+, at the other positions on the diamond: first base (90, 21st in MLB), second base (86, 19th in MLB), shortstop (79, 23rd in MLB), third base (116, sixth in MLB), left field (97, tied for 13th in MLB), center field (74, 28th in MLB), right field (37, 30th in MLB), designated hitter (80, 26th in MLB).

Jose Ramirez (.285/.364/.457) remains excellent and is the one still decidedly above-average hitter on the roster, although even he’s having a down year by his MVP-caliber standards. Steven Kwan has been solid in left field (.269/.356/.353) but not as good as during last year’s sensational rookie campaign. No other player who’s taken 20 plate appearances for Cleveland this season has been better than league-average at the plate.

Some of this was to be expected. The Guardians surely weren’t hoping to get much offensive production from catcher — though they hoped for more than this — and knew Myles Straw’s contributions would come more from his elite center field defense and baserunning. But every hitter on the roster has taken a step back from last season’s performance.

The offseason signing of Josh Bell to a two-year, $33MM deal looks regrettable with the Guardians getting closer to the Padres version of Bell from 2022 than the Nationals version. In 177 plate appearances, Bell is walking at a huge 14.7% clip but has batted only .227/.339/.3535 with three home runs. His 19.8% strikeout rate would be the second-highest of his career, and his .127 ISO (slugging percentage minus batting average) is 33 points south of the league average and 67 points below his own career mark. Bell is hitting the ball on the ground at a staggering 58.6% rate. He can opt out of his contract at season’s end, but it would take a drastic turnaround for that to seem realistic.

Meanwhile, Cleveland has optioned last year’s primary right fielder, Oscar Gonzalez, to Triple-A after he followed up last year’s .296/.327/.461 debut with a .192/.213/.288 start to his sophomore season. MLBTR’s Anthony Franco has already outlined shortstop Amed Rosario’s struggles, and Josh Naylor hasn’t been any better at first base. Will Brennan, called up to replace the demoted Gonzalez, has barely been an improvement.

The Guardians’ commitments to defense-, contact- and/or speed-oriented players at multiple positions isn’t inherently flawed, but it only works if the rest of the lineup is capable of supporting players like Straw and Zunino (or, in last year’s case, Austin Hedges). That hasn’t been the case in 2023. The Guardians’ team strikeout rate is up nearly two percentage points (from 18.2% to 19.8%), while their team BABIP is down 20 points (from .294 to .274).

That might not seem like much — perhaps an extra strikeout and one extra ball in play turned into an out per game — but the margin for error is thin when there’s practically no one on the team with even average power. The Guardians are completely reliant on balls in play to manufacture runs, which leaves them at the mercy of sequencing and hitting when it counts. Entering play Thursday, they’d batted .228/.296/.325 as a team with men on base. Last year, they hit .258/.319/.394 in such situations.

These struggles all come in spite of remarkably good health among the team’s collection of position players. The Guardians don’t have a position player on the injured list at the moment and in fact haven’t placed a hitter on the Major League injured list all season. They’ve still had injury troubles — Triston McKenzie, Aaron Civale and Sam Hentges have most notably been sidelined — but they’ve come exclusively on the pitching side of the roster.

As for how they can turn things around, the avenues to doing so aren’t plentiful in mid-May. The trade market simply isn’t active this time of season — and that was true even before an expansion to a 12-team playoff field likely further emboldened fringe contenders to take a wait-and-see approach to trade deadline season.

Over the past half decade, there have been just two mostly regular position players who were traded in May and had not first been designated for assignment. The Rays shipped Willy Adames and righty Trevor Richards to the Brewers for right-handers Drew Rasmussen and J.P. Feyereisen back in 2021. Tampa Bay was also involved in a 2018 swap with the Mariners, centering around Denard Span and Alex Colome. That’s not to say a deal can’t and won’t happen, but history tells us it’s overwhelmingly unlikely. Cleveland can certainly monitor the DFA and waiver market, but with a 20-23 record they’re not close to top waiver priority right now.

If the Guardians are going to right the ship, they’ll need to promote from within. Bo Naylor is an obvious candidate to join the big league roster and quite arguably should already be there. Tyler Freeman hit .329/.468/.482 in 109 Triple-A plate appearances before being called up to the roster but is being used in a bench role. He’s not a home run threat himself and the team isn’t going to bench Andres Gimenez seven weeks into a seven-year extension, but there are still ways to get Freeman into the lineup more regularly. Top outfield prospect George Valera only just made his season debut in Triple-A a week ago, as he missed the first several weeks of the year recovering from hamate surgery. If he’s able to approximate the .264/.367/.470 output he showed in Double-A last year over even a small sample, there’s good reason to give him a look in right field over both Brennan and Gonzalez sooner rather than later.

The Guardians are rather fortunate that they’ve managed to remain as close to .500 as they have. They’re sitting on a -31 run differential, while the Pythagorean win-loss system and BaseRuns both put their expected record at 18-25. Their sub-par run differential and sub-.500 record come despite the fact that Baseball-Reference grades their strength of schedule to date as the third-easiest in MLB.

Cleveland has already gone full speed ahead with a youth movement in the rotation, giving prospects Tanner Bibee, Logan T. Allen and Peyton Battenfield prominent rotation spots. Some of that’s been necessitated by injury, but the Guardians weren’t shy about optioning one of their most experienced starters, Zach Plesac, to Columbus when he wasn’t performing up to expectations. Given the state of their lineup, it shouldn’t be long before they take a similar approach on the position-player side of the roster. And, if some of those young bats don’t break through, the Guardians ought to be on the lookout for controllable bats heading into the trade deadline — particularly with so much young pitching at their disposal. The schedule is only going to become more difficult from here on out, and the current group of hitters gives little reason for optimism.

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