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Pedro Severino

Padres, Pedro Severino Agree To Minor League Deal

By Anthony Franco | December 19, 2022 at 9:17pm CDT

The Padres are in agreement on a split contract with catcher Pedro Severino, reports Robert Murray of FanSided (Twitter link). The deal will pay him $1.95MM if he’s in the majors and contains an additional $550K in performance bonuses, according to Murray. Severino will not secure an immediate spot on the 40-man roster, according to Jeff Sanders of the San Diego Union-Tribune.

Severino, 29, has appeared in the majors in each of the past eight seasons. He broke in as a depth player with the Nationals, suiting up in 35 combined games between 2015-17. The backstop got a fair amount of action over the next four seasons, which he split between the Nats and Orioles. While he struggled mightily during his final season in Washington, he posted respectable offensive numbers for a catcher during his three years in Baltimore.

From 2019-21, Severino hit .249/.315/.397 through 938 plate appearances. He connected on 29 home runs with roughly league average strikeout and walk numbers. Nevertheless, the Orioles non-tendered him in lieu of a projected $3.1MM arbitration salary last offseason.

While partially motivated by the forthcoming arrival of Adley Rutschman, the O’s decision also reflected Severino’s defensive shortcomings. Public metrics have pegged him as a well below-average defender behind the dish. He routinely rates as a worse than average pitch framer, per Statcast, which pegged him as 10 runs below par in that regard in 2021. Severino was behind the plate for 10 passed balls and 66 wild pitches in 883 innings during his final season with the Orioles. That was the second-highest total in MLB in both categories, and while the pitching staff surely shoulders some of the responsibility, it didn’t reflect especially well on his work as a receiver.

After being cut loose by Baltimore, he caught on with the Brewers on a $1.9MM free agent deal. Before the season started, Severino tested positive for the performance-enhancing drug Clomiphene. He attributed the result to an unintentional byproduct of fertility treatments he’d undergone in the Dominican Republic.

Severino was suspended 80 games. In the immediate aftermath of that ban, Milwaukee acquired Víctor Caratini from the Padres to pair with  Omar Narváez. The Brewers reinstated Severino in July, but he appeared in just eight games as the team’s #3 catcher before being designated him for assignment. He went unclaimed on waivers and played out the season at Triple-A Nashville, where he hit .308/.349/.496 with four homers over 126 plate appearances.

The right-handed hitter qualified for minor league free agency at year’s end. He finds a new landing spot in San Diego, the fourth organization of his career. The Friars presently have Austin Nola, Luis Campusano and Brett Sullivan (coincidentally part of the trade package for Caratini) as backstops on the 40-man roster. Severino slides in behind that group as a depth option.

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San Diego Padres Transactions Pedro Severino

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34 Players Become Free Agents

By Steve Adams | October 7, 2022 at 8:51am CDT

The Wild Card round of the 2022 postseason begins today, but for the majority of teams and players, the offseason is now underway. With that will come plenty of roster formalities, including veteran players who’ve been outrighted off their respective teams’ rosters reaching minor league free agency. This week, there have been 34 such instances throughout the league, per the transactions log at MiLB.com.

None of these are a surprise, to be clear. Any player who is not on his team’s 40-man roster at season’s end but has three-plus years of Major League service time, multiple career outright assignments and/or seven-plus seasons in the minors has the right to elect free agency. Everyone in today’s group of players falls under that umbrella. The majority of the group will likely find minor league deals over the winter, although a few of the players in question could potentially find a big league deal as a bench piece or middle-inning reliever.

There will be several more waves of players of this ilk, and we’ll make note of them in bunches over the coming weeks as we await the launch of Major League free agency, when all unsigned players with at least six years of Major League service time will reach the open market. For now, here’s the first of what will likely be several waves of newly minted minor league free agents:

Catchers

  • Taylor Davis (Pirates)
  • Dustin Garneau (Tigers)
  • Andrew Knapp (Giants)
  • Pedro Severino (Brewers)

Infielders

  • Willians Astudillo (Marlins)
  • Johan Camargo (Phillies)
  • Michael Chavis (Pirates)
  • Matt Davidson (Athletics)
  • Dixon Machado (Giants)
  • Richie Martin (Orioles)
  • Josh VanMeter (Pirates)
  • Tyler Wade (Yankees)

Outfielders

  • Greg Allen (Pirates)
  • Lewis Brinson (Giants)
  • Jaylin Davis (Red Sox)
  • Jonathan Davis (Brewers)
  • Jackson Frazier (Cubs)
  • Brett Phillips (Orioles)

Pitchers

  • Tyler Beede (Pirates)
  • Austin Brice (Pirates)
  • Miguel Del Pozo (Tigers)
  • Jerad Eickhoff (Pirates)
  • Luke Farrell (Reds)
  • Paul Fry (Diamondbacks)
  • Eric Hanhold (Pirates)
  • Travis Lakins Sr. (Orioles)
  • Mike Mayers (Angels)
  • Daniel Mengden (Royals)
  • Juan Minaya (Nationals)
  • Sean Newcomb (Cubs)
  • Dillon Peters (Pirates)
  • Dereck Rodriguez (Twins)
  • Cesar Valdez (Angels)
  • Aneurys Zabala (Marlins)
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2022-23 MLB Free Agents Arizona Diamondbacks Baltimore Orioles Boston Red Sox Chicago Cubs Cincinnati Reds Detroit Tigers Kansas City Royals Los Angeles Angels Miami Marlins Milwaukee Brewers Minnesota Twins New York Yankees Oakland Athletics Philadelphia Phillies Pittsburgh Pirates San Francisco Giants Transactions Washington Nationals Andrew Knapp Aneurys Zabala Austin Brice Brett Phillips Cesar Valdez Clint Frazier Daniel Mengden Dereck Rodriguez Dillon Peters Dixon Machado Dustin Garneau Eric Hanhold Greg Allen Jaylin Davis Jerad Eickhoff Johan Camargo Jonathan Davis Josh VanMeter Juan Minaya Lewis Brinson Luke Farrell Matt Davidson Michael Chavis Miguel Del Pozo Mike Mayers Paul Fry Pedro Severino Red Sox Richie Martin Sean Newcomb Taylor Davis Travis Lakins Tyler Beede Tyler Wade Willians Astudillo

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Brewers Designate Dinelson Lamet, Pedro Severino For Assignment

By Darragh McDonald | August 3, 2022 at 11:59pm CDT

The Brewers have announced to reporters, including Curt Hogg of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, a series of roster moves prior to today’s game. Righty Freddy Peralta has been reinstated from the 60-day injured list, while deadline acquisition Matt Bush has been added to the roster. Infielder Keston Hiura was also recalled. In corresponding moves, the club optioned righty Peter Strzelecki and designated righty Dinelson Lamet and catcher Pedro Severino for assignment.

Lamet getting cut from the roster comes as a surprise, since he was just acquired from the Padres a couple of days ago as part of the Josh Hader trade. Adam McCalvy of MLB.com relayed a quote from Brewers’ president of baseball operations David Stearns, attempting to explain. “Dinelson has a good arm and was included in the trade to help balance out the deal,” Stearns says. “As subsequent transactions played out, the roster fit became a little tougher. We are hopeful we will be able to keep him in our system.”

The reference to “subsequent transactions” seems to imply that the Brewers ended up making other trades that squeezed Lamet out of their plans. Lamet, and the other players in the Hader deal, were acquired on Monday, the day before the trade deadline. As the deadline played out yesterday, the club also added Bush and Trevor Rosenthal in separate deals. Perhaps the Brewers value those hurlers higher than they view Lamet, which led to Lamet losing his roster spot today.

Although Lamet technically has options remaining, Hogg points out that he recently surpassed five years of MLB service time. Players beyond that threshold cannot be optioned without their consent, meaning Lamet had to be DFA’d to be removed from the roster. That also means that, should Lamet clear waivers, he would have the right to refuse an outright assignment and elect free agency without forfeiting his salary, as all players beyond five years of MLB service can.

Frankly, it would be very surprising if Lamet cleared waivers, given his track record and modest salary. He was one of the best pitchers in baseball during the shortened 2020 season, logging a 2.09 ERA over 12 starts with a 34.8% strikeout rate and 7.5% walk rate. He has dealt with injury woes in subsequent seasons, being relegated to bullpen duty and occasionally getting optioned to the minors. Still, he’s making a modest $4.775MM salary this year and can be retained for another season via arbitration. Due to his injuries, underperformance and time spent in the minors, he likely wouldn’t earn a huge raise for 2023.

Now that the trade deadline has come and gone, it complicates Lamet’s status. For one thing, the Brewers won’t be able to work out a deal to send Lamet elsewhere, as they would have been able to do prior to the deadline. For another thing, for clubs that are looking for bullpen upgrades from outside their organization, waiver claims are now effectively the only way to do so. It seems highly likely that some club will give Lamet a shot, either a contender looking for a boost down the stretch or a rebuilding team that will give him some time to regain his previous form and perhaps trade him in the offseason or next year.

Beyond Lamet’s status, this will immediately change the calculus for evaluating the Hader trade. “The players we are receiving in this trade help ensure that the future of the Milwaukee Brewers remains bright while not compromising our desire and expectation to win today,” is how Stearns phrased the trade at the time. “This mix of present Major League talent and high-level prospects furthers our aim to get as many bites of the apple as possible and, ultimately, to bring a World Series to Milwaukee. Trading good players on good teams is difficult, and that is certainly the case with Josh. We also recognize that to give our organization the best chance for sustained competitiveness, to avoid the extended down periods that so many organizations experience, we must make decisions that are not easy.” Two of the four acquired players, Robert Gasser and Esteury Ruiz, have already been assigned to minor league clubs. Though they could be called up later in the year, this currently leaves Taylor Rogers as the lone player from the trade on the big league roster. While Rogers is certainly a fine player, few would argue that he’s been capable of pitching at the elite level of Hader.

As for Severino, he recently returned from an 80-game suspension after a positive PED test. That gave the Brewers a surplus of catchers, as Omar Narvaez and Victor Caratini were both playing well in Severino’s absence. It was reported in recent days that Narvaez was drawing trade interest, though nothing came together before the deadline. Instead, the club has merely decided to move on from Severino and stick with the Narvaez-Caratini tandem.

As for Peralta, he landed on the IL in May due to shoulder soreness and now returns after an absence of over two months. He had a tremendous breakout last year, pitching to a 2.81 ERA and 33.6% strikeout rate. This year, his performance dipped a bit, perhaps due to the shoulder issues. He had a 4.42 ERA and 30.3% strikeout rate, still high but not quite as dominant, before landing on the shelf. If his health issues are behind him and he can return to his 2021 form, he will help the Brewers form one of the most fearsome rotations in the sport, lining up next to Corbin Burnes, Brandon Woodruff, Eric Lauer and Aaron Ashby.

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Milwaukee Brewers Transactions Dinelson Lamet Freddy Peralta Pedro Severino

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Brewers Reinstate Pedro Severino

By Darragh McDonald | July 3, 2022 at 10:13am CDT

The Brewers announced that they have reinstated catcher Pedro Severino from the restricted list. To create space on the active roster. Outfielder Tyrone Taylor has been placed on the seven-day concussion IL, retroactive to July 2. The club already had a vacancy on the 40-man roster, meaning no corresponding move was required in that regard.

Severino spent the past three years with the Orioles but was non-tendered at the end of last season. The Brewers signed him in November to a one-year, $1.9MM deal, hoping that the right-handed-hitting Severino could form a platoon with the left-handed-hitting Omar Narvaez. However, in early April, Severino was given an 80-game suspension after failing a PED test. Severino didn’t challenge the results, admitting that the presence of Clomiphene in his system was due to fertility treatments he was undergoing in the Dominican Republic.

Knowing that they would be without Severino for an extended stretch, the club bolstered the catching position by trading for Victor Caratini and Alex Jackson. Jackson has been on the shelf for about a month with a sprained finger, but the Brewers still have a three-catcher situation now, with Severino, Caratini and Narvaez. Caratini has stepped up admirably and is hitting .248/.375/.448 this year for a wRC+ of 132. That might make it hard for Severino to force his way back into the mix.

“We’re going to have to be creative a little bit,” manager Craig Counsell told Adam McCalvy of MLB.com about the logjam. “Look, the two guys we’ve got are playing really well. That’s going to factor into it as well.” Severino played a few games at first base during his rehab, but it doesn’t seem like Plan A will involve a lot of time there for him. “I don’t think initially he will be a big option,” Counsell said. “We’ll continue to have him do some work there, and if we get to a situation where we need it, he’ll be a guy with some experience there.”

Due to his suspension, Severino is ineligible to play in the postseason. However, if he plays well for the remainder of the season, he can be retained for next year via arbitration.

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Milwaukee Brewers Transactions Pedro Severino Tyrone Taylor

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NL Notes: Bryant, Marte, Severino

By TC Zencka | June 19, 2022 at 7:57am CDT

Kris Bryant is set to begin his rehab assignment on Tuesday, per Danielle Allentuck of the Denver Gazette (via Twitter). The club hopes he’ll be ready to rejoin the team when they head to Minnesota, per MLB.com’s Thomas Harding (via Twitter). Bryant’s first season with the Rockies certainly hasn’t gone as planned. The 30-year-old left fielder has slashed .270/.342/.333 in a mere 73 plate appearances. Needless to say, the former MVP has yet to really make his impact felt on the last-place Rockies.

  • Ketel Marte suffered a grade 1 lateral hamstring strain, per MLB.com’s Steve Gilbert (via Twitter). Marte is day-t0-day for now. The Diamondbacks’ second baseman is hitting .269/.341/.435 over249 plate appearances this season. Unlike in years past, Marte has really been able to settle in at second base this season.
  • Pedro Severino began his rehab assignment playing first base, per The Athletic’s Will Sammon (via Twitter). The Brewers will have a bit of a logjam at catcher when Severino is ready. Victor Caratini and Omar Narvaez have both posted 0.9 rWAR while splitting time behind the dish for the Brewers. It’s not inconceivable that the team could carry three catchers, but doing so wouldn’t necessarily maximize their offense, even if Severino or Caratini spent time at first base.
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Arizona Diamondbacks Colorado Rockies Milwaukee Brewers Notes Ketel Marte Kris Bryant Pedro Severino

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Brewers’ Pedro Severino Suspended 80 Games After Failing PED Test

By Anthony Franco | April 5, 2022 at 9:53am CDT

Brewers catcher Pedro Severino has been suspended for 80 games after testing positive for the performance-enhancing substance Clomiphene, tweets Adam McCalvy of MLB.com. He’ll go on the club’s restricted list.

Severino released a statement via the MLB Players Association (Twitter link), attributing the positive test to an unintentional byproduct of fertility treatments he’d undergone in the Dominican Republic. “I accept responsibility for this mistake and have decided not to challenge my suspension,” he said as part of the statement. “I have been a professional baseball player since I was 16 years old, and I have also been in the big leagues for part of 7 seasons. I have been tested over 100 times in my career and I had never had an issue. In my attempt to start a family, I made a mistake.”

Regardless, Severino will miss the first half of the season. Milwaukee signed the righty-hitting backstop to a one-year deal before the lockout, setting him up to serve as the #2 option behind Omar Narváez. The Brewers allowed Manny Piña to depart in free agency, and the backup catcher spot now becomes a real question.

Milwaukee has Brett Sullivan and Mario Feliciano on the 40-man roster. Between them, that duo has one game of MLB experience. Feliciano is coming off a rough .210/.246/.314 showing in 32 Triple-A games. Sullivan, whom the Brewers signed to a big league deal this winter despite his lack of MLB experience, is coming off a better but hardly overwhelming .223/.302/.375 mark with the Rays top affiliate in Durham.

That’d seem to make Sullivan the favorite for the season-opening gig. Milwaukee also has Jakson Reetz — owner of two big league appearances — in camp as a non-roster invitee. They could look for a veteran option who might shake loose in the coming days as well. Sandy León just opted out of a minor league deal with the Guardians, to name one speculative possibility.

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Milwaukee Brewers Pedro Severino

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Brewers To Sign Pedro Severino

By Mark Polishuk | November 21, 2021 at 4:05pm CDT

The Brewers have signed catcher Pedro Severino to a one-year, $1.9MM deal, ESPN.com’s Jeff Passan reports (via Twitter).  Another $400K in incentives are available to the 28-year-old backstop, who is represented by Republik Sports.  The contract will become official when Severino passes a physical.

After Manny Pina signed with the Braves earlier this week, Severino will now step directly into Pina’s role as the right-handed hitting complement to the lefty-swinging Omar Narvaez behind the plate in Milwaukee.  Narvaez struggles badly against left-handed pitching and he struggled in general in the second half of the 2021 season, so there should be a fair amount of playing time available to Severino with his new club.

Severino, for his part, has a very solid .262/.324/.441 career slash line against left-handed pitching, with particularly good numbers in both 2019 (.812 OPS in 155 PA) and 2021 (.818 OPS in 161 PA).  Severino didn’t do much against righties, however, and between his projected $3.1MM arbitration salary and Adley Rutschman looming as the Orioles’ catcher of the future, Baltimore chose to outright Severino off its 40-man roster earlier this month.  Severino then opted to become a free agent for the first time in his career.

Severino has a third and final year of arbitration eligibility next winter, so this extra year of control gives the Brewers some flexibility in future catching decisions since Narvaez is himself a free agent after the 2022 campaign.  Prospect Mario Feliciano made his MLB debut last year, so if the Brew Crew is optimistic about his future, Milwaukee could potentially roll with a Feliciano/Severino combination in 2023 if the club decided to let Narvaez walk.

Defensively, Severino has been a below-average framer and he has -19 Defensive Runs Saved over his career.  As noted by Tom Haudricourt of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, however, there is some cause for optimism that the Brewers can get Severino turned around in the same way that Narvaez went from being a subpar defender to a very strong pitch-framer in his two seasons with the Brew Crew.

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Milwaukee Brewers Transactions Pedro Severino

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Orioles Announce Series Of Outrights

By Mark Polishuk | November 5, 2021 at 5:24pm CDT

NOVEMBER 5: The O’s formally announced the outrights of Severino, Diplan and Greene on Friday evening. Additionally, Baltimore announced that right-handers Chris Ellis and Spenser Watkins and catcher Nick Ciuffo have cleared waivers. Ellis has already elected minor league free agency, and Watkins and Ciuffo will also have that right.

Ellis made six starts for the O’s after being claimed off waivers from the Rays. He worked to a 2.49 ERA in 25 1/3 innings but did so with underwhelming peripherals after struggling in Triple-A. Watkins posted an 8.07 ERA over 54 2/3 frames during his first major league action. Ciuffo appeared in just two big league games at the very tail end of the season.

NOVEMBER 3: The Orioles have outrighted catcher Pedro Severino and right-handers Marcos Diplan and Conner Greene to Triple-A Norfolk.  According to MASNsports.com’s Roch Kubatko, all three players will elect free agency rather than accept the outright assignment.

Severino is the most experienced name of the trio, with parts of seven MLB seasons under his belt (the last three in Baltimore).  Severino was projected to earn $3.1MM in arbitration this winter, but was seen as a non-tender candidate following a season that saw him hit .248/.303/.383 with 11 home runs over 419 plate appearances.

The 28-year-old shouldn’t have much trouble catching on somewhere as a platoon partner or backup catcher.  As for the Orioles, Nick Ciuffo is the only catcher in the organization with Major League experience, but the O’s are expected to add another low-cost veteran backstop this winter, and star prospect Adley Rutschman is expected to make his MLB debut at some point in 2022.

Diplan made his Major League debut in 2021, with a 4.50 ERA over 30 innings out of the Orioles bullpen.  A veteran of seven minor league seasons with the Orioles, Twins, Brewers, and Rangers, 2021 was Diplan’s first season as a full-time reliever, though he had gotten an increasingly large share of bullpen work by 2019.  He showed some solid improvements to his strikeout and walk rates with Norfolk this season and even pitched in the Futures Game during All-Star week.

Greene also got his first taste of MLB action this year, posting a 7.11 ERA over 25 1/3 combined innings with the Orioles and Dodgers.  Beginning the season with the O’s, Greene was claimed on waivers by Los Angeles and then claimed back by Baltimore, all within the span of less than three weeks in August.  Greene has a live fastball, but he has yet to translate that heater into big strikeout numbers or even consistent results in the minors, with a 4.34 ERA over 729 2/3 career innings on the farm.

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Baltimore Orioles Transactions Chris Ellis Conner Greene Marcos Diplan Nick Ciuffo Pedro Severino Spenser Watkins

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Orioles Notes: Rutschman, Severino, Mateo

By Steve Adams | August 9, 2021 at 9:11am CDT

The Orioles have promoted catcher Adley Rutschman from Double-A to Triple-A Norfolk, the team announced last night. (MASNsports.com’s Roch Kubtako first reported he’d be moving up a level.) Rutschman, who now ranks as the No. 1 prospect in all of baseball at Baseball America and MLB.com following Wander Franco’s graduation from the list, opened the year at the Double-A level and posted a .271/.392/.508 batting line with 18 home runs, 16 doubles and nearly as many walks (15.4 percent) as strikeouts (15.9 percent). That slash was good for a whopping 144 wRC+ in the a very pitcher-friendly Double-A setting — the tenth-best mark of any qualified hitter in Double-A this season.

While he’s now technically just one step from the big leagues, it’s hard to imagine Rutschman would be summoned to the Majors before season’s end. The Orioles have just a 38-72 record on the season, and they’d gain another year of control over Rutschman by waiting until the third week of the 2022 season to promote him to the big leagues, barring any changes to service time structure in collective bargaining talks between MLB and the MLB Players Association. The current CBA expires on Dec. 1, and service time issues such as this are widely expected to be a talking point.

Some more notes out of Baltimore…

  • While Rutschman is the hopeful future at catcher for the Orioles, it’s been Pedro Severino there more often than anyone else over the past couple of seasons. The 28-year-old has batted .245/.316/.400 over the past three seasons in Baltimore (94 wRC+), but his bat has dipped slightly in 2021. Kubatko suggests that Severino, who’ll be a due a raise on this year’s $1.825MM salary in arbitration over the winter, is likely to instead be non-tendered by the O’s. Severino has been a solid bat relative to other catchers around the league, but defensively, he’s had his share of struggles. He’s been roughly average in terms of caught-stealing rate over the past few years, but Severino draws poor pitch-blocking ratings at Baseball Prospectus, sub-par framing marks and checked in at -19 Defensive Runs Saved since coming to the O’s in 2019.
  • The Orioles are open to eventually playing Jorge Mateo in the outfield, writes Nathan Ruiz of the Baltimore Sun, but manager Brandon Hyde also added that the team’s hope is to get the recently claimed speedster comfortable playing in the middle infield. Baltimore claimed the 26-year-old Mateo off waivers from the Padres just four days ago — a move that could finally give the former top prospect a path to regular playing time in the big leagues. Mateo originally signed with the Yankees but was traded to Oakland in the Sonny Gray swap and then to the Padres for a player to be named later. Mateo is 3-for-11 with a double, a triple and a pair of steals to begin his Orioles tenure. The Padres acquired Mateo on June 30, 2020, but on a win-now club with a crowded roster, he never had much of an avenue to playing time. He appeared in 79 games with San Diego from 2020-21 but only recorded a combined 121 plate appearances in that time.
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Baltimore Orioles Adley Rutschman Jorge Mateo Pedro Severino

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Players Avoiding Arbitration: 12/1/20

By Steve Adams | December 1, 2020 at 7:14pm CDT

With the non-tender deadline on the horizon tomorrow, expect quite a few players to agree to contracts for the 2021 season, avoiding arbitration in advance. In many (but not all) cases, these deals — referred to as “pre-tender” deals because they fall prior to the deadline — will fall shy of expectations and projections. Teams will sometimes present borderline non-tender candidates with a “take it or leave it” style offer which will be accepted for fear of being non-tendered and sent out into an uncertain market. Speculatively, such deals could increase in 2020 due to the economic uncertainty sweeping through the game, although there are also widespread expectations of record non-tender numbers.

You can track all of the arbitration and non-tender activity here, and we’ll also run through today’s smaller-scale pre-tender deals in this post.  You can also check out Matt Swartz’s arbitration salary projections here.

Latest Agreements

  • Athletics second baseman Tony Kemp will get $1.05MM over one year, Susan Slusser of the San Francisco Chronicle relays.
  • The Rockies announced that they have re-signed righty Jairo Diaz to a one-year pact. It’s worth $1.1MM, Feinsand tweets.
  • The Phillies and righty reliever Seranthony Dominguez have a one-year, $727,500 deal, according to Feinsand. Dominguez underwent Tommy John surgery at the end of June, so he might not pitch at all in 2021.
  • The Athletics and utility player Chad Pinder reached a one-year, $2.275MM deal, per Nightengale. Pinder has two seasons of team control left.
  • The Orioles and catcher Pedro Severino agreed to a one-year deal worth $1.825MM, MLB.com’s Mark Feinsand reports (Twitter link).  There was some speculation that Severino could be a non-tender candidate, though he has posted pretty decent numbers over two seasons as Baltimore’s primary catcher.  Severino is controllable through the 2023 season.
  • The Nationals and right-hander Joe Ross agreed to a one-year, $1.5MM contract, USA Today’s Bob Nightengale tweets.  This is a match of the salary Ross and the Nats had agreed on for the 2020 season, but Ross decided to opt out back in June.  This was Ross’ third year of arbitration eligibility, and is now expected to return and compete for a job in Washington’s rotation in 2021.
  • The Royals agreed to one-year deals with righties Jesse Hahn and Jakob Junis and outfielder Franchy Cordero, according to Feinsand and USA Today’s Bob Nightengale (Twitter links).  Hahn signed for $1.75MM in guaranteed money with another $350K available in incentives.  Junis will rake in $1.7MM. Cordero will earn $800K in his first arbitration-eligible year.

Earlier Agreements

  • The Athletics and righty Burch Smith agreed to a one-year deal worth $705K, USA Today’s Bob Nightengale tweets.  The 30-year-old Smith allowed three runs on seven hits and a walk with 13 strikeouts in 12 2/3 frames with the A’s in 2020. That was a solid showing for Smith to carry into his first trip through the arb process, though he carried a career 6.57 ERA in 135 1/3 frames into the 2020 season. The A’s can control Smith through 2023.
  • The Rockies agreed to a one-year, $1.2MM deal with catcher Elias Diaz, per Nightengale (Twitter link). The contract contains another $300K in available incentives.  The 30-year-old looked like a clear non-tender candidate after posting an ugly .235/.288/.353 slash with lackluster framing marks and just a 1-for-8 effort in throwing out base thieves, but the Rockies must remain hopeful he can return to his 2018 level of performance. Diaz is controllable through the 2022 season via arbitration.
  • Right-hander Jacob Barnes and the Mets agreed to a one-year deal worth $750K, Nightengale tweets. Barnes, claimed off waivers back in October, was a quality reliever in Milwaukee from 2016-18 but has seen his results crater over the past two seasons. From 2019-20, he’s posted a 6.75 ERA over 50 2/3 innings. Barnes has averaged 10 strikeouts per nine frames in that time but also averaged 4.6 walks and 1.42 homers as well. Barnes is controllable through 2022.
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Baltimore Orioles Colorado Rockies Kansas City Royals New York Mets Notes Oakland Athletics Philadelphia Phillies Transactions Washington Nationals Burch Smith Chad Pinder Elias Diaz Franchy Cordero Jacob Barnes Jakob Junis Jesse Hahn Joe Ross Pedro Severino Seranthony Dominguez Tony Kemp

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