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NL Notes: Cobb, Cubs, Marlins, Mets, Reds

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In an appearance on MLB Network Radio on Friday, free agent right-hander Alex Cobb spoke highly of Cubs manager Joe Maddon and pitching coach Jim Hickey, as Patrick Mooney of NBC Sports Chicago details. Cobb spent the first seven years of his career in Tampa Bay, where he played under Maddon (2011-14) and Hickey (through 2017), which has led to speculation that the Cubs will pursue him in free agency. On the possibility of joining the Cubs and reuniting with Maddon and Hickey, Cobb said, “Obviously, if we move down the line and we’re able to have some discussions with them, I’d be very honored to be able to talk with them and hopefully come to a deal.”

Before Cobb’s eligible to sign with the Cubs or another team, he’ll have to reject the Rays’ $17.4MM qualifying offer, which he hinted he’ll do when he said, “You’re talking about, hopefully, a decision that’s going to impact the next five years of your life. Based on that comment, it seems Cobb is seeking a five-year deal (MLBTR is projecting he’ll land a four-year arrangement), though he insisted that he’ll prioritize team success over money. “I’ve been through both. I’ve been through losing seasons and I’ve been through winning seasons,” he stated. “And the amount of joy that winning brings to us – it can’t be replaced by a dollar figure.”

More from the National League:

  • Joe Frisaro of MLB.com breaks down offseason trade possibilities for the Marlins, who are reportedly shopping right fielder Giancarlo Stanton, second baseman Dee Gordon and third baseman Martin Prado. To get a haul for Stanton, who’s owed $295MM through 2028 (or $77MM if he opts out after 2020), Frisaro suggests the Fish should pick up one-third of the tab over the next three years. Gordon’s contract is far less complicated – he’s due a manageable $37.9MM through 2020 – which should lead to widespread interest in him, Frisaro observes. The same isn’t true of Prado, who’s coming off a below-average, injury-plagued year and will rake in $28.5MM through 2019. The Marlins’ best hope to move Prado would be to package him with a real asset – center fielder Christian Yelich, for example – Frisaro opines. Otherwise, they’re going to be stuck with the 34-year-old heading into next season.
  • While the Mets could be on the hunt for a second baseman, odds are they won’t be the team that acquires Gordon, Anthony DiComo of MLB.com writes. The Mets have neither the prospect capital nor payroll flexibility necessary to put together a deal for Gordon, reasons DiComo, who estimates that the club has around $30MM to spend this offseason with needs at second or third base, the corner outfield/first base, the rotation and the bullpen.
  • The Reds plan to use star third base prospect Nick Senzel all over the diamond in 2018, general manager Dick Williams tells Mark Sheldon of MLB.com. “This is a guy that played shortstop in college [at Tennessee], played third base in college, played second base as an amateur,” Williams said. “We think he’s clearly athletic enough to go to left field or right field. He’s got the bat to do it.” The 22-year-old Senzel showed off his prowess at the plate in 2017, hitting a robust .321/.391/.514 in 507 plate appearances between Single-A and Double-A, and figures to open next season at the minors’ highest level.

Reds’ GM On Cozart, Young Players, Rebuild

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Reds president of baseball operations and general manager Dick Williams sat down with C. Trent Rosecrans and Zach Buchanan of the Cincinnati Enquirer for an excellent, lengthy Q&A covering a number of topics pertaining to the Reds’ upcoming offseason and ongoing rebuild.

Of most interest, perhaps, was the fact that Williams was straightforward in stating that he planned to “continue to talk” to Zack Cozart about the possibility of re-signing the shortstop. The 32-year-old Cozart is up for free agency for the first time in his career, and while his age might not necessarily align with the rebuilding Reds’ timeline to contend, he’s one of the team’s longest-tenured players and is fresh off a career year at the plate. In 507 plate appearances, he hit .297/.385/.548 with a career-high 24 homers and a dramatically improved walk rate (to say nothing of his typically excellent glovework at shortstop).

The Reds will face a tough decision on Cozart, who seems to at the very least be a candidate for a $17.4MM qualifying offer. (MLBTR readers were split about 55-45 in favor of the Reds giving him a QO in early September.) If Cozart isn’t retained, though, it doesn’t sound as if the Reds’ top priority would be to delve into the free-agent or trade markets to attempt to replace him.

“[T]he primary candidate would be (Jose) Peraza,” said Williams when discussing a replacement for Cozart, if needed. “We believe that he showed at the end of ’16 with an extended look that this is a young, athletic, talented player. He’s still one of the youngest guys on our roster. … This year, we really asked him to move around a decent amount. I think that made it a little tougher on him than if he settled in at one spot.”

Peraza is, as Williams suggests, still somewhat of a work in progress. Although he’s spent the bulk of the past two seasons in the Major Leagues, Peraza won’t even turn 24 until April 30 of next year. The former top 100 prospect demonstrated a good deal of promise with an impressive .324/.352/.411 batting line and 21 steals in 72 games last year, but he struggled for the majority of the 2017 campaign before turning things around in the season’s last couple of months. In Peraza’s final 48 games (31 starts), he batted .293/.361/.338 with just 18 strikeouts in 149 plate appearances.

[Related: Cincinnati Reds depth chart and payroll outlook]

Williams did go on to state that while he believes Eugenio Suarez to be capable of playing shortstop, he likes Suarez at third base and would like to have two additional players on the roster that can handle shortstop regularly. Conceivably, that could mean a re-signed Cozart and Peraza, or Peraza and a veteran bench option with experience at the shortstop position as well.

More broadly, Williams didn’t reject the notion that top prospect and former No. 2 overall pick Nick Senzel could play in the Majors next season, though it doesn’t sound as if the team will rush him out of Spring Training. Senzel, according to Williams, is capable of playing second, third, shortstop and perhaps even the outfield corners, but the team is reluctant to bounce him around the diamond too much. Second base seems to be a position at which he’ll get a look, as the Reds have Suarez thriving at the hot corner presently.

Senzel raked at a .321/.391/.514 clip in 507 PAs between Class-A Advanced and Double-A last year, mashing his way through the Southern League to the point that many expect him to begin the 2018 season in Triple-A. Scooter Gennett, of course, gives the team another option at second base, though with just two years of club control remaining, I’d imagine that the Reds wouldn’t have many qualms about ultimately moving him if and when Senzel proves ready (though that’s just my own speculation).

Williams also spoke at length about the struggles of several of the Reds’ young pitchers in 2017, noting the lack of innings most of the team’s young starters were able to log in Triple-A. Injuries to Anthony DeSclafani, Brandon Finnegan and Homer Bailey forced Cincinnati to tap into its reservoir of young pitchers more often than the team would’ve liked. Jesse Winker is also discussed quite a bit, with Williams hinting that he’s intrigued by Winker’s high-OBP skill set as a potential top-of-the-order option. Just 24 years old, Winker hit .298/.375/.529 with seven homers, a 10.9 percent walk rate and a 17.5 percent strikeout rate in 137 big league plate appearances.

While no one should expect the Reds to shell out top dollar in free agency this winter, the GM does suggest that he’ll have some money to spend and that the team’s list of targets is a broad one, including some players looking to move from Japan over to the Major League (and more than just the highly publicized Shohei Otani). The entire Q&A is (obviously) stuffed with quotes from Cincinnati’s top baseball ops executive and is well worth a full read for Reds fans and non-Reds fans alike. Williams gives plenty of insight into where he feels the team is at in its rebuild, his own thoughts on his first year as a general manager and the team’s approach in the upcoming offseason.

Prospect Notes: Rosario, Torres, Happ, Senzel, Gonsalves

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Keith Law of ESPN.com provides an updated ranking of his top fifty prospects (subscription required and recommended). He places a pair of New York shortstops — Amed Rosario of the Mets and Gleyber Torres of the Yankees — as the top prospects leaguewide. Young Phillies shortstop J.P. Crawford also cracks the top five, sandwiched between Dodgers first baseman Cody Bellinger and White Sox righty Michael Kopech, who takes honors as the top pre-MLB pitcher on the list.

More on some other potential stars:

  • With Jake Arrieta and John Lackey scheduled to become free agents after the season, the Cubs could dangle second base/outfield prospect Ian Happ for pitching help, says FOX Sports’ Ken Rosenthal (video link). On the other hand, Rosenthal notes that Happ’s versatility likely means he isn’t as expendable to the Cubs as now-Royal Jorge Soler was. Happ, Law’s 46th-best prospect, has begun the year with a red-hot .293/.356/.683 line and five home runs in 45 plate appearances at Triple-A.
  • Reds third base prospect Nick Senzel, the second pick in last year’s draft, could be primed to reach the majors quickly, writes Ben Badler of Baseball America. By spending limited time in the minors, Senzel would follow in the footsteps of recently drafted hitters such as Dansby Swanson, Alex Bregman, Andrew Benintendi, Kyle Schwarber and Michael Conforto, all of whom reached the majors the year after they became professionals. Senzel, a top 10-caliber prospect, is only in High-A ball right now, though Badler scouted his season-opening series and came away impressed. The 21-year-old “showed a lot of positive hitting traits” and “looked comfortable at third base,” per Badler.
  • Twins left-hander Stephen Gonsalves will meet with team doctors in Minnesota for a shoulder exam during the upcoming week, tweets Phil Miller of the Star Tribune. Gonsalves, Baseball America’s 99th-ranked prospect, has been on Double-A Chattanooga’s disabled list since the first week of April. The 22-year-old laid waste to hitters at both the High-A and Double-A levels last season, but he also dealt with a shoulder strain in the fall. With Chattanooga, he logged a 1.82 ERA in 74 1/3 innings, helping to offset control problems (4.48 BB/9) with a high strikeout rate (10.78 per nine). BA’s Michael Lananna placed Gonsalves second among Twins prospect in November. (Update: Gonsalves already met with team doctors, and he checked out fine, general manager Thad Levine announced; Twitter link via Rhett Bollinger of MLB.com).

NL Central Notes: Bell, Peraza, Senzel, Capuano, Nolin

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The Pirates recalled top first base prospect Josh Bell over the weekend, and he’ll have a larger role than he had in his brief initial call-up earlier this season (three brilliant pinch-hit plate appearances), GM Neal Huntington tells Bill Brink of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. “We brought Josh up to play a decent amount,” said Huntington of the 24-year-old Bell, who has batted a .295/.382/.468 with 14 homers in 114 Triple-A games this season. Bell’s prospect pedigree and strong minor league production, paired with a .167/.306/.250 second half from John Jaso, could well pave the way to everyday at-bats (or something close to it) down the stretch. If he can prove himself to be a consistent hitter in the Majors and one capable of playing a passable first base — Huntington tells Brink that Bell’s defense will “continue to be a work in progress” — Bell could unseat Jaso and lead the team to shop the veteran (and his two-year, $8MM contract) over the winter.

A bit more from the NL Central…

  • Reds manager Bryan Price tells MLB.com’s Mark Sheldon that Jose Peraza could remain with the team for the rest of the year even if Zack Cozart returns quickly from a minor Achilles injury, but he stopped short of committing to the notion of Peraza sticking in the Majors through the end of the Triple-A season on Sept. 5. As Sheldon notes, Peraza was scarcely used when he spent a month and a half in the Majors earlier this summer, but he’s had a pair of multi-hit games since being recalled to fill in for Cozart at shortstop and could get looks at second base, in left field and in center field over the course of September in an effort to see what he can do with consistent playing time against MLB pitching. It would be somewhat strange for the Reds not to work him into the lineup as much as possible in order to get a better evaluation of Peraza, especially considering the fact that he can be deployed at a number of positions.
  • Having watched Dansby Swanson, Alex Bregman and Andrew Benintendi go from the 2015 draft to the Majors less than a year later, Reds third base prospect Nick Senzel said on the MLBPipeline.com podcast that he hopes for a similarly quick ascent (also via Sheldon). Senzel, the No. 2 overall pick in this season’s draft, is hitting .309/.400/.545 with seven homers in 46 games with Class-A Dayton. He hasn’t been moved quite as aggressively as Bregman, who played at Class-A Advanced during his debut season, but neither Swanson nor Benintendi topped Class-A last season and both still made it to the bigs this year. “You look at those guys … get there their first full year, as a player and a college hitter that makes you hungry to get up there,” said Senzel.
  • Brewers left-hander Chris Capuano isn’t likely to return to the team in 2016, GM David Stearns tells Tom Haudricourt of the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel. The 38-year-old has been sidelined by an elbow injury since late May, and a platelet-rich plasma treatment hasn’t sped along his recovery as much as had been hoped. Stearns notes that Capuano “is still very motivated to make it back and continue his career,” so it sounds as if there’s a good chance he’ll aim to return in 2017 if he can’t do so at the tail end of the present season.
  • Another Brewers southpaw, Sean Nolin, recently underwent Tommy John surgery after trying to stave off the procedure, Haudricourt further reports. He, too, tried a PRP treatment but did not improve enough to avoid a UCL replacement. Milwaukee outfielder Rymer Liriano, meanwhile, has faced slow going after being struck by a pitch in the face this spring. Though he has now begun baseball activities, Liriano won’t be able to make it to the majors this year. Instead, says Stearns, he may be able to participate in fall instructional league action.

Reds To Sign No. 2 Overall Pick Nick Senzel

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The Reds have reached an agreement with No. 2 overall draft pick Nick Senzel and will sign the Tennessee third baseman for a $6.2MM bonus later today, reports MLB.com’s Jim Callis (on Twitter). The second pick came with a value of $7,762,900 this season, meaning that Cincinnati will save $1,562,900 on the pick. That money can be reallocated to other picks further down the team’s draft board.

Callis refers to Senzel as the best college hitter in this year’s draft class, and he’s not alone in that thought. as ESPN’s Keith Law called him the “most advanced college hitter in the draft” while ranking him eighth among draft prospects. Callis and his colleague Jonathan Mayo ranked Senzel seventh in the draft, while Baseball America had him ranked sixth on their Top 500 list. All of the scouting reports agree that Senzel quieted defensive concerns in 2016 and turned himself into a solid enough defender at the hot corner that scouts now believe he can stick their as a professional. Callis and Mayo rate his hit tool, power, speed, arm and glove all average or better, though both Law and BA note that his power, to this point, is more apparent in batting practice than in game settings. Senzel’s penchant for hard contact and his improved work at third base seemingly give him something of a high floor, even if his power never comes around to allow him to turn into a star.

Cincinnati entered the 2016 draft with the largest pool of any Major League team due to the size of that No. 2 overall slot and because they won the top pick in Competitive Balance Round A (No. 35 overall) in last summer’s lottery. That slot came with a $1,837,200 value and was used on outfielder Taylor Trammell — a two-sport star (football) in high school that some had projected to go in the first round and as such may require an over-slot deal to break his commitment to Georgia Tech. Overall, Cincinnati carried a pool of $13,923,700, meaning they now have $7,723,700 remaining to spend on Trammell and their picks in rounds two through 10. (Players selected after the 10th round do not count against a team’s pool unless the bonus exceeds $100K, in which case only the overage is subtracted from the pool.)

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