Padres Avoid Arbitration With Andrew Cashner, Tyson Ross
12:13pm: The Padres also announced that they’ve avoided arbitration with Ross, who, according to MLB.com’s Corey Brock, will earn $9.625MM in 2016 (Twitter link). That comes in a bit shy of Ross’ $10MM projection, although as Swartz outlined in an Arbitration Breakdown post specifically examining Ross’ case, there was reason to believe that the projection model could be a bit aggressive, and something between $9.15MM and $9.7MM might be more appropriate, based on historical comparables.
Ross, 28, recorded a strong 3.26 ERA with 9.7 K/9 and 3.9 BB/9 in 196 innings for the Padres last season. The Wasserman Media Group client will be arbitration eligible one more time next winter before reaching the open market following the 2017 season.
11:23am: The Padres and right-hander Andrew Cashner have avoided arbitration, according to a club announcement. Dennis Lin of the San Diego Union-Tribune reports (via Twitter) that Cashner, a client of CAA Sports, will earn $7.15MM in 2016 — his final trip through the arbitration cycle before qualifying for free agency. MLBTR contributor Matt Swartz had pegged Cashner for a $7MM salary in 2016, so he’ll top that projection by about two percent.
Cashner, 29, recorded a 4.34 ERA with 8.0 K/9, 3.2 BB/9 and a 47.4 percent ground-ball rate across 184 2/3 innings with the Padres last season. Cashner was a fairly well-regarded pitching prospect when rising through the Cubs’ ranks and has emerged as a solid starter with the Friars, even if injuries have limited his value somewhat. This past season’s relatively high ERA notwithstanding, Cashner has been effective over the past three years, totaling a 3.43 ERA in 483 innings with the Padres. If he can replicate that ERA and remain healthy over the course of a full season, he’ll enter next season’s thin market of starting pitching as one of the more desirable arms available.
With Cashner’s agreement in place, the Padres have just one case remaining — that of staff ace Tyson Ross — as shown in MLBTR’s Arbitration Tracker. Ross is projected to earn $10MM next season.
Padres Closing In On Deal With Fernando Rodney
The Padres and right-hander Fernando Rodney are closing in on a contract, according to Jon Heyman (links to Twitter). Rodney, who turns 39 this spring, is expected to enter camp as the favorite to close games in San Diego, per Heyman. Recently, Dennis Lin of the San Diego Union-Tribune reported that the Padres were still in the mix for Rodney and could offer ninth-inning time as a means of enticing him. Rodney is represented by Octagon.
Rodney spent most of the past two seasons in Seattle, although his second season as the Mariners’ closer didn’t go nearly as well as the first. After recording a 2.85 ERA with 10.3 K/9, 3.8 BB/9 and a 48.6 percent ground-ball rate in 2014, the “Fernando Rodney Experience” turned sour in Seattle when he struggled to a 5.68 ERA and lost the grip on the closer’s role in 2015. Rodney would go on to rebound following a DFA and a trade to the Cubs, however, as he surrendered just one earned run with a 15-to-4 K/BB ratio in 12 innings with the Cubs and made the team’s postseason roster.
While Rodney’s career has been somewhat of a roller coaster, the veteran has posted a cumulative 2.80 ERA over the past four seasons and still averaged a very healthy 94.7 mph on his fastball between time with Seattle and Chicago last season. If a deal is finalized and Rodney does indeed land ninth-inning duties for the Friars. he’ll be supported by a cast of setup men including Kevin Quackenbush, Drew Pomeranz and Nick Vincent, as right-hander Brandon Maurer is slated to re-enter the rotation in Spring Training.
Players Avoiding Arbitration: Thursday
Here are the day’s lower-value arbitration deals, with all projections coming via MLBTR contributor Matt Swartz:
- The Padres and southpaw Drew Pomeranz have avoided arb by agreeing to a one-year, $1.35MM deal, tweets Ken Rosenthal of FOX Sports. That’s a near-match with Swartz’s projection of $1.3MM. Acquired in an offseason trade with the A’s, Pomeranz will slot into the San Diego ‘pen this season and look to build on last season’s 86 innings of 3.66 ERA, during which he averaged 8.6 K.9 and 3.2 BB/9 to complement a 42.2 percent ground-ball rate.
- Fernando Salas and the Angels are in agreement on a one-year, $2.4MM deal, thereby avoiding a hearing, per Rosenthal. The 30-year-old Salas, who will be a free agent next winter, posted a 4.24 ERA in 63 2/3 innings this past season but had more encouraging peripherals; Salas averaged 10.5 K/9 against 1.7 BB/9 with a 35.1 percent ground-ball rate, prompting FIP (3.15) xFIP (3.23) and SIERA (2.65) to forecast markedly better results.
- Right-hander Jeanmar Gomez and the Phillies have avoided arb with a one-year, $1.4MM agreement, Rosenthal tweets. The soon-to-be 28-year-old posted a strong 3.01 ERA with 6.0 K/9 against 2.1 BB/9 and also recorded a sound 48.8 percent ground-ball rate in 74 1/3 innings of relief across 65 appearances. He’ll again provide some valuable innings for the rebuilding Phillies.
Padres Notes: Rodney, Free Agents, Maurer
The Padres haven’t yet shut the door on free agent right-hander Fernando Rodney, according to Dennis Lin of the San Diego Union-Tribune (Twitter link). The Friars may, in fact, try to lure Rodney to San Diego by offering him the opportunity to close games. San Diego has been connected to Rodney on and off for the past couple of weeks. While the 38-year-old Rodney had disastrous results in Seattle last season — he logged a 5.68 ERA with 7.6 K/9 against 4.4 BB/9 and lost the closer’s role before being designated for assignment — he had a nice turnaround following a trade to the Cubs. While it was only a sample of a dozen innings, Rodney yielded just one earned run and recorded a 15-to-4 K/BB ratio in that time. Although the “Fernando Rodney Experience” certainly wore out its welcome in Seattle, the right-hander has drawn interest from the Blue Jays and Cubs as of late (though the Toronto connections pre-dated their acquisition of Drew Storen).
A couple more notes on the Padres…
- Specifics of Alexei Ramirez‘s reported one-year deal with the Padres have yet to emerge, but Lin reports that the contract allows San Diego to at least consider making further free-agent upgrades. While the Padres are reluctant to pursue players with draft pick compensation attached, according to Lin, the club could look for upgrades in the bullpen or in the outfield. Lin also notes that GM A.J. Preller has long been a fan of Ramirez and was dispatching scouts to keep an eye on him as early as April of this past season.
- Right-hander Brandon Maurer will report to Spring Training with the opportunity to win a job in the starting rotation, Preller told MLB.com’s Corey Brock earlier this week. “One of the things is he wants to do it,” Preller explained. “You put a lot of stock in that.” Maurer, of course, came up through the Mariners’ system as a starting pitcher but struggled in multiple big league auditions before dominating upon a transition to the bullpen. While Maurer is striving for a starting role, offseason pickup Drew Pomeranz will probably work in relief, according to Brock.
Padres Close To Signing Shortstop; Alexei Ramirez Believed Favorite
12:24pm: San Diego is indeed “focused” on Ramirez and is “getting closer” to reaching agreement with him, Jon Heyman adds on Twitter.
11:46am: The Padres are close to locking up a free agent shortstop, Ken Rosenthal of FOX Sports tweets. While the report does not make clear who’ll be added, it provides that Ian Desmond is not heading to San Diego.
As Rosenthal says, then, it appears Alexei Ramirez will be joining the Friars “barring a surprise.” A recent report from Dennis Lin of the San Diego Union-Tribune had suggested that the club was about to strike a deal and had seemingly whittled its options down to Desmond and Ramirez.
San Diego has long seemed in need of a full-time option up the middle. Last year’s pairing of Clint Barmes and Alexi Amarista was serviceable at best. While the organization added a promising young talent in Javier Guerra to a system that already featured up-the-middle defenders in Jose Rondon and Ruddy Giron, none of those players appears likely to break into the majors in the immediate future.
With some possible future pieces moving up, perhaps, a lengthier deal with Desmond held less appeal for San Diego. Ramirez doesn’t present the same upside, but also has long been expected to command far less on the open market — both in dollars and years.
Padres To Sign Carlos Villanueva
The Padres have reached agreement on a one-year, $1.5MM deal with righty Carlos Villanueva, Jeff Passan of Yahoo Sports reports on Twitter. Villanueva is represented by Relativity Sports.
The 32-year-old Villanueva spent the 2015 campaign with St. Louis, where he worked in a multi-inning relief role, logging 61 innings across 35 appearances. With the Cardinals, he worked to a very strong 2.95 ERA with 8.1 K/9, 3.1 BB/9 and a 42.4 percent ground-ball rate. Villanueva stranded an inordinate amount of baserunners, prompting sabermetric ERA estimators like FIP, xFIP and SIERA to peg him more for an ERA in the mid- to upper-3.00 range, so a repeat of that sub-3.00 ERA might not be something Padres fans should count on. He’ll also most likely be moving to an inferior defensive club, although on the flip side, he’ll be moving to a more pitcher-friendly home park.
Villanueva could compete for a rotation spot or a reprise his bullpen role with the Padres, as he has experience in both capacities. However, if he’s to assume the role of long reliever/swingman, that would seem to make Odrisamer Despaigne a somewhat redundant piece. Despaigne soaked up 125 1/3 innings for the Padres in that capacity last season, although he also posted a sky-high 5.80 ERA and saw his strikeout rate drop considerably in his second season of Major League action.
Padres’ Shortstop Search Nearing Conclusion; Desmond, Ramirez Considered Frontrunners
The Padres’ search for a shortstop is nearing the finish line, general manager A.J. Preller confirmed to Dennis Lin of the San Diego Union-Tribune. “We’ve gotten to a spot where we’ve looked at a lot of options,” Preller told Lin. “Things could come to a head in the next few days to a week.” While Preller didn’t specify any names, sources tell Lin that free agents Alexei Ramirez and Ian Desmond can be considered the favorites to fill San Diego’s shortstop vacancy.
The Padres have been connected to both free agents quite a bit of late, though the two would represent very different types of options. The 30-year-old Desmond figures to command a lengthier multi-year deal, whereas Ramirez could potentially be looked at as more of a stopgap to top prospect Javier Guerra, who was acquired from the Red Sox alongside three other minor leaguers in exchange for Craig Kimbrel. Because Desmond turned down a qualifying offer, he’d cost the Padres their top unprotected draft pick, while the veteran Ramirez could be had for only money.
Lin reported last week why the 30-year-old Desmond is appealing to Preller for reasons beyond just his strong track record from 2012-14 (his 2015 season, of course, was a difficult one). The GM also explained to Lin at that time why the presence of Guerra wouldn’t stop him from adding a shortstop on a multi-year deal, noting that a team can’t have too much up-the-middle talent. It’s also worth noting, of course, that there’s been speculation about Desmond changing positions this offseason. If and when Guerra emerges as a potential everyday option (which probably won’t happen until at least 2017), Desmond could conceivably more to another spot on the diamond.
A dismal first half in 2015 left Desmond with an unsightly .223/.290/.384 batting line last year, but the powerful infielder still hit 19 homers and chipped in 13 stolen bases. Additionally, he looked more like himself after the All-Star break, hitting .262/.331/.446 with a dozen homers and eight stolen bases in the season’s second half. And, while Desmond’s defensive lapses drew a lot of headlines early on when he made eight errors in the first 12 games of the season, he settled down and played considerably better defense for the remainder of the year. Of course, Desmond’s rapidly escalating strikeout rate (29 percent in 2015) is a cause for concern, and even his solid second half was buoyed to some extent by a BABIP spike, as he continued to whiff at a prolific rate (30.3 percent in the second half).
Ramirez has his own positive and negative attributes, of course. While he’s been a largely durable asset for the White Sox over the life of his big league career, showing both power and speed at times, he, too, fell victim to a woeful first half in 2015 when he batted just .224/.249/.292. Given the fact that he’s 34 years of age, the Padres probably have to be more wary of a potential decline for Ramirez. However, he batted a much more characteristic .277/.325/.432 with eight homers and seven steals following the All-Star break, and as previously noted, will presumably come at a cheaper cost not only in terms of overall dollars, but also in length of commitment and by the virtue of being unencumbered by draft pick compensation.
Whichever route the Padres go, it figures to be an upgrade over a 2015 campaign that saw Clint Barmes, Alexi Amarista, Will Middlebrooks and Jedd Gyorko combine to log a .228/.279/.365 while providing, on the whole, sub-par defense.
Minor MLB Transactions: 1/12/16
Here are the day’s minor moves:
- The Padres added lefty Ryan Buchter to the 40-man roster yesterday, as Dennis Lin of the San Diego Union-Tribune reports. Buchter, a minor league signee, had drawn interest from an international club, which precipitated the move. As Lin notes, it appears that San Diego is committed to bringing a variety of unproven arms to camp to compete for bullpen jobs, with Buchter representing one such option.
- The Orioles have reached agreement on a minor league deal with infielder/outfielder Alex Liddi, Roch Kubatko of MASNsports.com reports on Twitter. Liddi, 27, has taken 188 plate appearances in the big leagues, but none since 2013. He played last year at the Double-A level for the Royals, slashing .287/.324/.474 over 514 plate appearances.
Quick Hits: Mets, Epstein, Giants, Padres
The Mets want a reliever, but they’ll patiently wait for one to fall into their lap, writes Mike Puma of the New York Post. Antonio Bastardo and Tyler Clippard are both options, but GM Sandy Alderson doesn’t want to go beyond a one-year contract for either. Bastardo is asking for three-years while Clippard’s demands are unknown. Alderson has a history of finding relievers during Spring Training, and the club does possess decent, if unproven, depth at the position.
Here’s more from around the league:
- Preliminary contract extension talks have occurred between the Cubs and President Theo Epstein, tweets 670 The Score. Cubs owner Tom Ricketts says the two sides are “generally on the same page,” with regards to the talks. Epstein is entering the final season of a five-year, $18.5MM deal signed in 2011.
- Using Wins Above Replacement (WAR), Grant Brisbee of SB Nation analyzed the Giants‘ offseason to date. He figures the additions of Johnny Cueto, Jeff Samardzija, and Denard Span over Tim Hudson, Tim Lincecum, Chris Heston, and Nori Aoki add up to eight wins on paper. Brisbee uses 2016 projections for the newly added Giants and compares them to the actual 2015 performance of the outgoing players. The upgrades cost a bundle of money, putting to rest complaints that the front office is stingy.
- There is a feeling the Padres may be nearing an end to their shortstop search, writes Corey Brock of MLB.com. The club has used 18 shortstops since 2009, and their best prospects at the position are at least two years away. Free agents Ian Desmond and Alexei Ramirez have been most closely tied to the Padres. Desmond is coming off an ill-timed down season, and he has a history of suspect defense. When asked about what he wants from a shortstop, GM A.J. Preller said “I think in an ideal world, you want someone who is an intelligent player, a leader and captain of your infield, the ability to make the plays on the move, on the run, up the middle, in the hole. Someone, when the ball is hit to him late in the game, it’s an out.” While that may not sound like a taut fit for Desmond, Ramirez also had a choppy defensive season in 2015. While Brock doesn’t mention him, I wonder if the Padres might not be looking at Jimmy Rollins. He’s arguably the most sure-handed of the bunch.
Free Agent Notes: Rodney, Fowler, Davis
Here are the latest free agent rumors:
- The Diamondbacks have not been in contact with free agent reliever Fernando Rodney, writes Jack Magruder of Fanragsports.com. A previous report had tied Rodney to the DBacks, Padres, Blue Jays, and Cubs. Since then, we’ve also learned the Padres are out. Presumably, Toronto’s interest ceased when they acquired Drew Storen from the Nationals. After a late-season renaissance with the Cubs, Rodney should still garner plenty of interest as teams nail down the final components of their bullpen. Meanwhile, Arizona may opt to rely on their wealth of internal options headlined by Brad Ziegler and Daniel Hudson.
- Dexter Fowler‘s market has been slow to develop, writes Bruce Levine of CBS Chicago. The center fielder is coming off his best season to date, although his OBP declined below his career average. Among contenders, Levine figures that only the Rangers, Mariners, Indians, White Sox, and Cubs are a fit (he also lists the Nationals, but the Ben Revere trade likely nullifies that pick). Both Chicago clubs could benefit from installing Fowler in center field. A reunion with the Cubs would require a trade of right fielder Jorge Soler – probably for high quality pitching – and it would allow Jason Heyward to return to his natural position of right field. Levine also figures that White Sox outfielder Adam Eaton is better suited for a corner outfield role.
- The Orioles have not made any progress in talks with free agent Chris Davis, writes Eduardo A. Encina of the Baltimore Sun. Baltimore made a seven-year, $150MM offer earlier in the offseason and has seen no reason to submit a higher bid. While agent Scott Boras is selling Davis as an outfield option, Encina views him purely as a first baseman. To this point, no other serious suitors have emerged for Davis. Encina also cites reports that the Orioles are in on pitcher Yovani Gallardo, but those talks may depend on Davis.