Organizational Notes: Brewers, Dodgers, Padres
The Brewers added a pair of new coaches to their major league staff, reports Will Sammon of The Athletic. The club named Jim Henderson its new bullpen coach and Matt Erickson as its infield and assistant hitting coach. Henderson replaces Steve Karsay, who stepped down last week citing a desire to spend more time with his family, while Erickson assumes a newly created role in manager Craig Counsell’s dugout.
Henderson’s playing career spanned parts of four major league seasons, including three with Milwaukee. He served as the Brewers’ primary closer in 2013, notching 28 saves alongside a 2.70 ERA in 60 innings across 61 appearances. After a rocky start to the 2014 season, the righty underwent shoulder surgery and never quite regained his form. He appeared in 44 games for the Mets in 2016, posting a 4.11 ERA in 45 innings, but never made it back to the bigs thereafter. He’s been a coach in the Milwaukee system since 2018, serving most recently as the pitching coach at Triple-A Nashville. Erickson, who notched one hit in six big-league plate appearances (all with the Brewers in 2004), had been the manager of the Low-A Wisconsin Timber Rattlers since 2011.
Other organizational notes from around the game:
- The Dodgers have hired Damon Jones, previously general counsel for the Washington Football Team, for a multi-titled role that includes vice president, assistant GM, and baseball legal counsel. Prior to joining the Washington Football Team, Jones had worked in the Nationals front office for 13 years following the end of his college baseball career at UC Santa Barbara. The team also announced the promotions of Alex Slater (from director of baseball operations to vice president and assistant GM), Brandon McDaniel (from director of player performance to vice president of player performance), and Thomas Albert (from assistant athletic trainer to head athletic trainer).
- The Padres announced their 2022 minor league affiliate coaching staffs today. Jared Sandberg, previously the Mariners’ bench coach, will manage the Triple-A El Paso Chihuahuas; Phillip Wellman, perpetrator of perhaps the most legendary minor league manager temper tantrum ever caught on film, returns as manager of the Double-A San Antonio Missions; Brian Esposito, who’d managed the Triple-A Indianapolis Indians in the Pirates’ organization since 2018, will manage the High-A Fort Wayne TinCaps; and Eric Junge, who’d served as the El Paso pitching coach in 2021 before managing the team from mid-August, will manage the L0w-A Lake Elsinore Storm. A full list of the club’s minor league coaches can be found in the team’s official announcement.
Padres Re-Sign Jose Castillo, Webster Rivas
The Padres have re-signed reliever José Castillo and catcher Webster Rivas to minor league contracts, according to Chris Hilburn-Trenkle of Baseball America. Both players were cut from San Diego’s 40-man roster at the end of the season.
Castillo tossed 38 1/3 innings across 37 relief appearances for the Friars in 2018. He averaged 94.9 MPH on his fastball that year and posted excellent numbers, looking to be a high-leverage reliever in the making. Castillo worked to a 3.29 ERA with a huge 34.7% strikeout rate and a fine 8% walk percentage in his age-22 campaign.
Unfortunately, Castillo has barely pitched since then on account of a brutal run of injuries. The southpaw missed the first four months of the 2019 season due to a flexor tendon strain. He returned to make one MLB appearance, then suffered a season-ending hand ligament tear. Castillo missed the entire 2020 season dealing with a teres major strain, and ran into perhaps his greatest setback of all last March. Early in Spring Training, the Venezuela native went down with a forearm issue that necessitated Tommy John surgery.
Despite only making one big league appearance over the past three years, Castillo accrued enough service time while on the injured list to qualify for arbitration this offseason. The Friars non-tendered him rather than carry him on the 40-man roster all winter, but they apparently quickly worked to bring him back on a minor league deal. Given that he’s only ten months removed from the Tommy John procedure, the 26-year-old is probably targeting a midseason return to the mound.
Rivas, a 12-year minor league veteran, was rewarded for his persistence with a long-awaited MLB debut last May. The right-handed hitter got into 24 games, tallying 77 plate appearances in a reserve capacity behind the dish. Rivas spent more time with the Padres’ top affiliate in El Paso, where he hit .252/.339/.393 with five home runs across 186 plate appearances.
San Diego outrighted Rivas off the 40-man roster at the end of the year. Presumably, he’ll get a chance to partake in big league Spring Training, although it seems likely he’ll open the season with El Paso. The Padres already have quite a bit of catching depth on the 40-man roster. Austin Nola looks like the #1 option if healthy, with Víctor Caratini, the recently-acquired Jorge Alfaro and top prospect Luis Campusano all competing for playing time.
Seiya Suzuki Still Planning To Wait Out Lockout To Sign With MLB Club
As it has for all major league free agents, the lockout has frozen the signing process for Seiya Suzuki. The Japanese star was posted by his NPB club, the Hiroshima Carp, in late November. That opened a 30-day window for Suzuki to come to an agreement with a big league team, but MLB instituted a lockout just ten days into the posting process.
MLB and NPB agreed to freeze Suzuki’s posting window for the duration of the lockout. Now six weeks into the work stoppage with essentially no progress on key issues, questions had begun to emerge about Suzuki’s future. NPB preseason camps open February 1, and there’d been some thought that he may choose to return to the Carp if MLB and the Players Association don’t make rapid progress over the coming weeks.
Suzuki’s apparently not considering that course of action, however. In an interview with Andrew Baggarly of the Athletic, Suzuki suggested he’s content to wait out an extended work stoppage. “I’m just going to wait until both sides agree,” the outfielder told Baggarly via an interpreter. “There’s no date I set on myself. In Japan, you don’t experience a lockout so it’s a first for me. At first, I was a little worried about it. But when you think about it, it’s going to end sometime soon. Just having that positive mindset that it will end sometime has allowed me to keep my head up.”
With ten days of the posting process already elapsed, Suzuki and his representatives at Wasserman will have 20 days after the finalization of a new collective bargaining agreement to hammer out a deal with a big league club. There’ll be no shortage of interest. Baggarly writes that between ten and twelve teams had reached out to Suzuki prior to the lockout. The Giants, Mariners, Rangers, Red Sox, Blue Jays and Yankees have all been linked to the right-handed hitter in past reports. Baggarly adds the Rays, Padres and Dodgers as teams expected to be in the mix.
Entering the offseason, MLBTR forecast Suzuki for a $55MM guarantee over five seasons. Evaluators with whom MLBTR spoke expressed varying opinions on his upside, but broad consensus was that he could be a well-rounded everyday right fielder in the big leagues. He’s coming off a monster showing at Japan’s top level, hitting .317/.433/.639 with 38 home runs across 533 plate appearances. That huge power production didn’t come with much swing-and-miss. He fanned in only 16.5% of his trips to the dish while walking at a robust 16.3% clip. (R.J. Anderson of CBS Sports provides some batted ball and plate discipline metrics from Suzuki’s last season in NPB).
Suzuki didn’t tip his hand regarding geographical or league preferences for his next destination. Yet he does offer some insight into his motivation for playing in the majors and on which players he models his game. Baggarly’s piece, which also includes tidbits from a few of Suzuki’s former teammates, is worth checking out in full.
Padres Deny Mets’ Request To Interview Ryan Flaherty
The Mets have been one of the busiest teams this offseason, as they hired Billy Eppler as general manager in mid-November, then quickly signed Max Scherzer, Starling Marte, Eduardo Escobar and Mark Canha before the lockout began in early December. Since major league transactions are not allowed during the lockout, their attention has shifted to their coaching staff, with Buck Showalter being named their new manager just before the holiday break.
In recent days, details about who would be filling out Showalter’s staff have started to emerge, with Wayne Kirby, Joey Cora and Eric Chavez reportedly lined up to be the first base coach, third base coach and hitting coach, respectively. One position yet to be filled is the bench coach, but one name that can apparently be crossed off the list of contenders is Ryan Flaherty. According to a report from Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic, the Padres have denied the Mets’ request to interview their quality control coach for the position.
As noted by Rosenthal, teams usually allow their employees to interview with other clubs if the open position represents a promotion for the individual. Although the Mets’ bench coach job is considered a promotion for Flaherty, the Padres apparently decided to deny the request for timing reasons. Although the lockout could push everything back, spring training is still tentatively scheduled to begin in about a month. If Flaherty were allowed to interview for the position and ultimately landed the job, it would leave the Padres in the awkward position of having to scramble and make another hire in a narrow window of time.
This is a fairly logical decision from the Padres’ perspective, as they lined up their coaching staff early in the offseason and seemingly didn’t want to get dragged back into another search. However, whenever a team blocks one of their employees from seeking greater opportunities elsewhere, there is risk of creating resentment in said employee, reducing their ability to be retained. Flaherty isn’t quoted in the report, making his feelings on the matter unknown. But Rosenthal reports that he was involved in the process of filling out the coaching staff after Bob Melvin was hired, which included his former Vanderbilt teammate David Macias being brought aboard as first base and outfield coach.
After a playing career that spanned 547 games in eight seasons, Flaherty was hired by the Padres to be a quality control coach prior to the 2020 season, the same offseason that saw Jayce Tingler brought aboard as manager. Tingler was recently fired and replaced with Melvin, with several other positions on the staff seeing turnover as well. Flaherty, 35, seems to have survived the cull, however, and will stick with the club for 2022 and beyond, as Rosenthal reports that he received a three-year deal at the start of the offseason.
Coaching/Organzational Notes: Beltran, Mets, Chavez, Manno
When the Padres were putting together their new coaching staff this winter, the club had some talks with Carlos Beltran about a possible job, The New York Post’s Ken Davidoff reports. “The talks never advanced to anything serious,” either on the coaching front, or towards Beltran’s preference for an advisory position within the front office (similar to the role Beltran held with the Yankees in 2019). Beltran has yet to work in any official baseball capacity since the Mets abruptly fired him as manager in January 2020, following the revelations of Beltran’s involvement in the Astros’ sign-stealing scandal.
San Diego is the first team known to explore hiring Beltran for any position, which does perhaps present a bit of a icebreaker towards his possible return with some team, though Davidoff opines that it doesn’t seem Beltran has interest in coaching. That could be an obstacle if Beltran eventually wants to get back into managing, considering that Beltran has still never officially managed or coached at any level of pro ball; the Mets fired him before he ever led the dugout for a single game. It remains to be seen exactly what Beltran’s next step might be, as Davidoff notes that the longtime star outfielder has moved his family back to Puerto Rico, and Beltran has the financial security “to be selective in his return — or to simply never return” if he so chooses.
More notes from the coaching and organizational ranks…
- Earlier this week, Deesha Thosar of The New York Daily News reported that the Mets were lining up “an exciting, headline-grabbing hire” as their next bench coach. In her latest update, Thosar reports that Eric Chavez was that planned major name, as the Mets talked with the longtime A’s star about the bench coaching role before eventually settling on Chavez as the team’s new hitting coach. As one might expect, hiring Chavez involved “a tricky negotiation process with the Yankees,” considering the Yankees only just hired Chavez as their assistant hitting coach in December.
- In regards to the bench coach role, the Mets are now aiming towards hiring “a younger, analytics-driven individual,” Thosar reports. It will make for an interesting complement to veteran manager Buck Showalter, providing something of an old school/new school approach between Showalter and his next chief lieutenant. Reds game planning/outfield coach Jeff Pickler is one of the names under consideration for the Mets’ bench coach job, according to The Athletic’s Ken Rosenthal (Twitter link).
- Reds scout Bruce Manno is retiring after close to 45 years in pro baseball, MLB Network’s Jon Heyman reports (Twitter link). Manno has been a familiar face in many front offices over the years, working with the Blue Jays, Brewers, Orioles, Cardinals, Braves, and Reds in various capacities, including working as the Cards’ director of player development during the club’s 2006 World Series season. Manno worked as an assistant GM with both the Brewers (1987-94) and Braves (2007-14), and his time in Atlanta helped pave the way towards their 2021 title. Freddie Freeman was drafted, developed, and extended during Manno’s tenure, and Ronald Acuna and Ozzie Albies joined the organization on their initial amateur contracts. (Manno discussed the Acuna/Albies deals with David O’Brien of The Atlanta Journal-Constitution back in 2018, with Manno praising the work of then-director of international scouting Johnny Almarez). We at MLB Trade Rumors congratulate Manno on a fine career, and we wish him the best in his retirement.
Read The Transcript From Our Chat With Former MLB Outfielder Jody Gerut
Drafted in the second round in 1998 by the Rockies out of Stanford, Jody Gerut joined the Indians in a 2001 trade. He’d finish fourth in the AL Rookie of the Year voting in 2003, popping 22 home runs in 127 games. Injuries sidetracked Gerut’s career, and he missed all of the 2006-07 seasons. Gerut stayed resilient and bounced back with a strong ’08 season for the Padres, putting up 2.9 WAR in only 100 games.
In total, Gerut played in 574 games for the Indians, Cubs, Pirates, Padres, and Brewers, smacking 59 home runs along the way while playing all three outfield positions. Jody homered off many of the era’s great pitchers, including Pedro Martinez, Jake Peavy, and Bartolo Colon. He also hit the first home run in the history of Citi Field when it opened in 2009 and hit for the cycle against the Diamondbacks in 2010.
Jody serves as a youth hitting coach in the Chicago suburbs in his spare time, and I’ve had the pleasure of meeting him when my son took lessons. Jody now works as a mortgage consultant, and you can find his website here. I’ve found him friendly and insightful about hitting as well as MLB. He was already an MLBTR reader and I was thrilled to have him for a live chat with our readers today. Click here to read the transcript!
We’ve got another fun MLB player chat lined up for tomorrow. All the players who have participated have enjoyed the experience. If you’re a former or current MLB player and you’d like to join in for an hour, drop us a line!
Cameron Maybin Announces Retirement
Longtime major league outfielder Cameron Maybin announced his retirement this evening. The 34-year-old appeared in fifteen major league seasons, suiting up with ten different clubs between 2007-21. He spent the bulk of that time — four seasons apiece — with the Padres and Marlins.
“I’ve played this game since I was 4 years old,” Maybin wrote as part of his announcement, the full text of which is available on Twitter. “Three decades later, my love for baseball is only matched by the love I have for the family that’s supported me every step of the way. … Although my journey as a professional baseball player ends here with the announcement of my retirement, my work in this game is just getting started. I’m excited for what lies ahead, including my work with the Players Alliance in our effort to provide access and opportunity for the next generation of Black ballplayers.”
Maybin was a first-round pick back in 2005, selected tenth overall by the Detroit Tigers. At just 19 years old, Maybin made quick work of his minor league competition and drew praise from a number of publications. Baseball America regularly ranked the speedy outfielder among the top ten prospects in the game, doing so from 2007 until he exhausted prospect eligibility in 2009.
Though he made his Major League debut for the Tigers in 2007, a franchise-altering trade sent Maybin, along with a young Andrew Miller and others, to the Marlins for Miguel Cabrera and Dontrelle Willis. Irregular playing time but continued minor league dominance made Maybin a target of another trade just a few years later, when the Padres acquired him to be their starting center fielder for relievers Ryan Webb and Edward Mujica.
San Diego took well to their new center fielder, as Maybin broke out with a 40-steal, 103 OPS+ showing in his first year on the West Coast. That performance, combined with Maybin’s stellar glove up the middle, resulted in a 5-year $25MM extension before the 2012 season. Before the contract’s expiration, Maybin was dealt in yet another high-profile trade. In this deal, new Padres general manager A.J. Preller made his presence felt by acquiring closer Craig Kimbrel in an Opening Day-beating deal with the Braves.
After a year in Atlanta, Maybin bounced around between eight teams, providing clubs with speed and modest offense in the outfield and off the bench. During this stretch, Maybin had a resurgent year when he reunited with the Tigers in 2016, sporting a 118 OPS+ in 94 games. He pushed his offense to new heights in 2019, with a strong .285/.364/.494 (127 OPS+) showing in 82 games for an injury-ravaged Yankees team.
Maybin was set to look for 2022 opportunities as a veteran depth option for clubs. Instead, he’ll eschew a complicated free agent market and retire a career .254/.323/.374 hitter with 187 steals.
MLBTR congratulates Maybin on an excellent career, and wishes him the best of luck with his Players Alliance endeavors and elsewhere.
Padres Hiring Mark Loretta As Special Assistant
The Padres are hiring longtime big leaguer and former Cubs bench coach Mark Loretta as a special assistant to CEO Erik Greupner, reports Jon Heyman of MLB Network. This is a homecoming for Loretta, as he had previously spent a decade working for the Padres, from his retirement from playing in 2010 until joining the Cubs in 2019.
Loretta, 50, played in the majors for 15 seasons from 1995 to 2009. He made his debut with the Brewers and played parts of eight seasons with Milwaukee, before also spending some time with the Astros, Padres, Red Sox and Dodgers. Overall, he played 1,726 MLB games, hitting .295/.360/.395 with a paltry strikeout rate of just 9.2%. He was worth 18.9 wins above replacement in his career, according to FanGraphs. He was selected to participate in the All-Star Game in both 2004 and 2006.
He retired from playing after the 2009 season and joined the Padres as a special assistant to the baseball operations staff, staying in that role until taking the bench coach job with the Cubs in 2019. After that season, Joe Maddon departed as manager of the Cubs, with Loretta rumored to be in the running to be Maddon’s replacement, as well as being a candidate for the Padres’ managerial opening. Those jobs eventually went to David Ross and Jayce Tingler, respectively. As Ross was a first-time manager, Andy Green was brought on as the bench coach to give Ross an experienced bench boss by his side, leaving Loretta as an odd man out.
Loretta will now return to the Padres, an organization that he spent time with both as a player and a special assistant. Erik Greupner was the team’s president of business operations until general manager A.J. Preller was extended and promoted to be president of baseball operations almost a year ago, with Greupner also getting bumped up the ladder from president to CEO.
Padres Sign Domingo Leyba To Minor League Deal
The Padres have signed infielder Domingo Leyba to a minor league contract, according to the transactions tracker at MLB.com. As is the case with other players who have signed minors deals during the lockout, Leyba opened the offseason as a minor league free agent after being outrighted off the Orioles’ 40-man roster in August.
Leyba, 26, has suited up in a pair of MLB seasons. He broke in with the Diamondbacks in 2019 and appeared in 21 games that year. He missed the abbreviated 2020 campaign on the restricted list but returned with Arizona in 2021. He was designated for assignment in early June and claimed off waivers by the Orioles, but Baltimore waived him themselves and released him not too long after. While he hooked on with the Rangers on a minors pact for the stretch run, Leyba didn’t get to the big leagues in Texas.
Between the D-Backs and O’s, the switch-hitting Leyba has played in 55 big league games. Over 126 plate appearances, he’s managed just a .152/.238/.222 line with one home run. Yet the Dominican Republic native has a far better track record in the minors. He’s a .304/.346/.537 hitter in two Triple-A seasons and owner of a .279/.352/.404 mark across three years at Double-A.
Leyba will presumably get an opportunity in big league Spring Training to compete for a utility role. He’s got minor league experience at both middle infield spots, although he’s primarily functioned as a second baseman or third baseman in the big leagues. The Padres already have ample talent around the dirt, with Ha-Seong Kim and Jurickson Profar on hand to back up Jake Cronenworth, Fernando Tatís Jr. and Manny Machado. They’ve recently subtracted from that group by moving Adam Frazier to Seattle, though, and there’s no downside in adding to the organizational depth by bringing Leyba in on a non-roster deal.
Details On Luxury Tax Payments For Dodgers/Padres
As expected, the Dodgers and Padres are the two teams that exceeded the luxury tax threshold this past season. The Associated Press reports that Los Angeles will pay $32.65MM in fees, while the Padres’ tax penalty lands at a more modest $1.29MM. No other teams exceeded the threshold in 2021.
Neither the Dodgers nor the Padres exceeded the threshold in 2020. Under the terms of the 2016-21 collective bargaining agreement, teams were only subject to escalating penalties for exceeding in consecutive years. Thus, both teams will be treated as first-time payors this offseason.
Teams are only subject to penalties on the dollars they spend above the threshold. The 2021 penalties for first-time payors checked in at 20% on every dollar between $210MM and $230MM, 32% on overages between $230MM and $250MM and 62.5% on each dollar spent above $250MM. CBT figures are calculated by summing the average annual values of all of a team’s player contracts (plus benefits), not by looking at a team’s actual payrolls in a given season.
As their hefty tax suggests, the Dodgers were by far the game’s biggest spender in 2021. Los Angeles’ final luxury tax number checked in at $285.6MM. (Their tax payment is calculated as the sum of $4MM on their overages between $210MM – $230MM, $6.4MM on their overages between $230MM – $250MM and $22.25MM on their overages above $250MM). The Dodgers flexed that financial might to build a star-studded roster that went to the NL Championship Series.
By exceeding $250MM, the Dodgers also accepted a minor hit in next year’s amateur draft. Teams that exceeded the highest tax threshold in the previous CBA saw their top choice moved back ten spots in the ensuing Rule 4 draft. Instead of picking 30th overall next season as originally scheduled, they’ll first select at pick No. 40.
While the Dodgers shattered the luxury mark, the Padres very narrowly exceeded the first threshold. Their final ledger checked in at $216.5MM, the highest mark in franchise history. San Diego’s financial cost for doing so is minuscule, but surpassing the threshold would be of more import were they to sign a free agent who has been tagged with a qualifying offer. Teams that pay any CBT penalties are subject to the highest levels of draft pick and international signing bonus forfeiture for signing qualified free agents. Exceeding the tax also reduces the compensation teams receive when one of their own qualified free agents signs elsewhere; this winter, the Dodgers received the lowest possible compensation (a pick after the fourth round) for watching Corey Seager depart.
As mentioned, the previous CBA contained escalating penalties for teams that exceeded the threshold in multiple consecutive years. It’s not clear whether that process will continue with the next CBA (or where the thresholds will land in the next CBA) but most high-revenue teams have occasionally determined to dip back under the threshold to “reset” their tax bracket and dodge escalating penalties.
That makes the Padres’ decision to narrowly exceed the threshold and potentially shoulder escalating penalties in future years a bit atypical. A handful of teams settled their spending limits just below the $210MM mark. According to the AP, each of the Phillies, Yankees, Mets, Red Sox and Astros ended with payrolls less than $5MM below the first tax threshold. They’ll each be first-time payors if they exceed that mark in 2022, with the Yankees and Astros resetting after exceeding the threshold in 2020. (The Cubs also exceeded the threshold in 2020 but didn’t come especially close to $210MM in 2021).
The AP also reports that overall spending on players took a step back. The combined tally of all thirty teams’ luxury tax payrolls this past season tallied $4.52 billion, down from the $4.71 billion teams spent in 2019. That’s not entirely surprising on the heels of a 2020 campaign with essentially no gate revenues, although it’s the lowest overall expenditures on players since 2016’s $4.51 billion.